More than once during the severe attack of brain-fever from which John
Huish lay prostrate at Highgate, Dr Stonor compressed his lips and
asked himself whether he would save his young friend's life. At such
times, as he sat by the bedside and gazed in his patient's face, the
lineaments brought back the scene by the pit and his father's agony, as
Captain Millet lay apparently dying.
"How time has gone!" the doctor would mutter, "and how like he looks to
his father now!"
But a change for the better came at last, and after a long and weary
convalescence he was once more about, month after month gliding by, and
the brain refusing to accompany the body on its way to health.
He was very quiet and gentle, but he seemed to have no recollection of
what had gone by, neither did he evince any desire, but passed his time
mostly in the doctor's study, where an unrolled mummy had apparently so
great an attraction for him that he would sit near and watch it hour
after hour when no one was by.
"Must get him better first," the doctor would say. "I can't run the
risk of bringing on a relapse."
So John Huish remained in utter ignorance of the fact that his young
wife had been confined to her bed at the gloomy house in Wimpole Street,
so prostrated by all she had had to pass through, that the doctors
called in advised total rest and quiet, combined with careful nursing.
Nothing calculated to excite her was to reach her ears. Hence, when in
his turn Dr Stonor called, his lips were sealed respecting John Huish's
state; and poor Gertrude never mentioned his name.
After leaving Renee by her sister's side, the doctor had a long chat
with his old friend, whose white hand trembled as he thrust it forth to
be taken by the visitor.
"How is she?" said the latter. "Ah, poor girl, she is very ill!"
"But she will get better? Oh, Stonor, don't flatter me: tell me the
truth!"
"Tell you the truth?--of course I shall! Well, she'll be better when
she gets back to her husband."
"And how is John Huish?" and the white hand trembled inside the panel,
like some leaf agitated by the wind.
"He is bad--very bad," said the doctor. "I've had a hard fight with
him, for his brain has had some serious shock. Poor fellow! he has been
a little queer in the head for some time past, and consulted me at
intervals, but I could make nothing of it. It's a very obscure case,
and I would not--I could not believe that there was anything more than
fancy in his symptoms. But he was right, and it seems like a lesson to
me not to be too conceited. His mind has been very impressionable, and
from what I can gather he has not been carrying on as he should."
"No, no, I'm afraid not!"
"There was some sad scene with his young wife, I suppose."
[Text on pages 164 and 165 missing.]
"Well, I always think that it was a very insane, morbid proceeding,
tinged with vanity, to shut yourself up as you have done these thirty
years."
"I took an oath, when I found to what I was reduced, that I would never
look upon the face of man again, and I have kept it."
"I should think that you were more likely to be forgiven for breaking
such an oath than for keeping it," said the doctor drily.
"But I have kept it!" said Robert Millet sternly. "In a few short hours
I found that I had lost all worth living for, and I retired here to
die."
"Yes," said the doctor, in his bluff, dry way; "but when you found that
you were so long dying, I think you might have done something useful."
There was no reply to this, and the doctor loosed the thin white hand,
and began to tap the little ledge by the panel.
"I wrote down to Huish about his son's illness," he said at last.
"Yes: well?" said the recluse eagerly.
"He begged me to do all I could. He never leaves his room now. Gout or
rheumatism has crippled him. Strange how things come about with the
young people."
"Yes: I'm getting old now, and I wanted to feel full of forgiveness
towards Huish, and that is why I took to his boy. It is hard that
matters have turned out as they have."
"Very," said the doctor. "Well, I'm not going to advise, but I should
like to know that you had broken your oath at last, and let light into
your brain as well as into your house. Good-bye; I'll let you know how
John Huish gets on."
Dr Stonor went straight to Highgate and found what seemed an
improvement in his patient, for Huish was sitting up; but he seemed
strangely reticent and thoughtful, and never asked any questions as to
his wife or his relatives, but seemed to be dreaming over something with
which his mind was filled.
Time passed, and with closely cut hair, and a strange sallowness in his
complexion, John Huish was up, and had been out times enough in the
extensive garden, but there was a something in his manner that troubled
the doctor a great deal, and was looked upon by him as a bad symptom.
He was always dreaming over something, and what that was he never said.
Miss Stonor conversed with him, and he was gentle and talked rationally.
He answered the doctor's questions reasonably enough, and yet, as soon
as his attention was released, he was back again, dreaming over the one
thing that seemed to trouble his mind.
"Will he get well?" said Miss Selina to the doctor one morning.
"I'd give something to be able to say," was the reply. "At times I
think not, for I fear the impression upon his mind is that he is insane,
and if a man believes that of himself, how can we get him to act like
one who is sane?"
This was at breakfast-time, and the doctor soon after went out, leaving
an assistant in charge.
It was a glorious afternoon, and Huish and the three patients were out
in the garden, where Captain Lawdor was practising throwing biscuit, as
he called it, at a stone balanced on the end of a stick. Mr Rawlinson
had a table out and was writing a series of minutes on railway
mismanagement; and Mr Roberts was following John Huish about as he
walked up and down beneath the old red-brick wall which separated the
garden from the road.
This went on for a time, and then Mr Roberts crept softly up to Huish,
to whom he had not spoken since the night of the dinner, and said:
"I told you not to look at that Egyptian sorcerer. I knew it would send
you mad."
"Mad!" exclaimed Huish, smiling. "I am not mad."
"Oh yes," said Mr Roberts. "You came here and asked the doctor to cure
you. No man could do that if he were not mad."
"Oh, nonsense!" said Huish, looking at him strangely. "I am quite
well."
Mr Roberts shook his head.
"No, you are not; I know how you feel, just like a man I knew used to
feel. He always felt as if he were two; and sometimes he was one,
sometimes the other. The other was the one the lawyer said was dead.
It was so sad, too, for her. What have you done with your wife?"
At last!
John Huish started as if he had been stung. That was the something he
had, in a strange secretive way, tried to think of for days past--his
wife; and now the mention of her sent a shock like that of electricity
through his brain.
He hurried away, and began to walk up and down, growing more and more
excited. His wife! Where was she? Yes, he remembered now; the mist
that had shrouded his brain was dispelled, and he could think. That
something like him had been and taken her away, and he was doing nothing
here.
With all the cunning of an insane person he became very calm all at
once, for the doctor's assistant strolled out in the garden just then,
walked up to and spoke to him, and not seeing any change, went back to
the house, while, glancing sharply round him, John Huish waited for an
opportunity to put a plan that he had instantly matured into operation.
He had sense enough to know that he should be refused if he asked leave
to go outside, so walking up and down for a few minutes, he suddenly
made a run and a bound, caught the top of the wall and scrambled up, and
dropped into the lane.
The captain raised a shout, and the assistant came running out, but by
the time he reached the gate Huish had disappeared, taking as he did a
short cut across the fields, while the assistant searched the road, and
then, after fruitless efforts, hurried off to the nearest station, and
made his way to Finsbury Circus. Here he broke the news to the doctor,
who left him to finish his cases, and, calling Daniel, set off as fast
as they could go to Westbourne Road, as being the most likely point for
Huish to make for now he was free.
As soon as he had run sharply across the fields, John Huish subsided
into a walk, and going along at a pretty good pace, made straight for
his home.
To all appearances he was perfectly sane and in his right mind; but
there was only one dominant idea there, and to fulfil this he was
hurrying on. Still there was a certain amount of strange caution
developed in his acts. He seemed to know that there was something wrong
with him, and that he must be cautious how he spoke to people; and to
this end he carefully avoided everyone who appeared to take the
slightest notice of him, till he reached Westbourne Road. There he rang
the bell, and the door was answered by his domestic.
The servant looked at him strangely, but said nothing, and he hurried up
to his room to try and remove any traces that might strike a stranger of
his having been lately ill. His mind was clear enough for that, and as
he hastily bathed his face, the cold water refreshed him and he felt
more himself.
He was terribly confused, though, at times, and had to ask himself why
he was there.
That acted as a touchstone--Gertrude--he had come to seek his wife; he
had escaped so that he might find her, for the doctor would not let him
go. He told him--yes, he told him his wife was well, and he should see
her soon; but it was a lie to quiet him. That devil had got her--his
other self. Of course--the servant and the cabman told him so; but he
must be quiet, or they would stop him. Perhaps the doctor had sent
after him now.
He shuddered and gazed about him for a moment as if his mind were going
beyond his control. Then, mastering himself once more, he took up his
hat, opened the door, and passed out into the road.
Volume 3, Chapter XIII.