Dr. Carfew came at one o'clock. He was a tall, sinewy man, with light
blue, prominent eyes very piercing, and thick yellow-grey curls that
stuck out below the brim of his hat as though supporting it. He put a
few brief yet searching questions to Sophy, then asked to see the
patient. He did not wish Sophy to be present at the examination. Gaynor
remained with him at his request. After half an hour he came downstairs.
Sophy sat waiting for him, her hands wrung together again. She had put
back her rings.
She paled when she saw him enter, and her eyes darkened. He drew up a
chair without ceremony, and sat down facing her.
"This is a grave case, Mrs. Chesney," he said, in his abrupt
"no-nonsense-now" voice. "I gathered from your husband's valet that you
have not a clear idea of how matters stand."
"No. I have not," she said.
"There is no doubt about it. Your husband is the victim of a most fatal
habit."
She continued looking at him in silence.
"Have you never even suspected the cause of his ailment?" he asked
brusquely.
"Yes--but I did not know enough to be certain."
"It is a clear case--a very clear case, and an aggravated one," said
Carfew. "Mr. Chesney is a morphinomaniac. He is so addicted to the drug
that he varies the effect with cocaine--takes them alternately--both
drugs hypodermically."
Sophy sat as before, gazing at him without a word. It was as if it
paralysed her to hear these long-surmised horrors put into plain words.
Carfew glanced at her with some irritation.
"I hope you are not going to allow yourself to give way to an attack of
nerves because I speak frankly," he said.
She gave a little start, as if waking. "I do not have attacks of
nerves," she then said quietly.
The great man looked mollified.
"Pardon my blunt speech," he said; "but I am so used to ladies
collapsing into hysterics under such circumstances. That--or not
believing a word I say," he added grimly.
"I believe all that you say. What must I do?"
"Ah--there is the difficulty! I must tell you at once that it is out of
the question to think of trying to deal with such a case in the
patient's own home. He should be sent at once to a sanatorium--where he
can be properly treated and restrained."
"He would never consent," said Sophy, in a dull voice.
"Good heavens! my dear lady--are you dreaming of consulting the wishes
of a maniac?"
"He is not always like this, Doctor Carfew. At times he is perfectly
rational."
"Quite so. When he has had neither too much nor too little of either
drug. To be in an apparently normal condition, now that he is saturated
with the poison, his system must daily absorb a certain amount of either
cocaine or morphia. Too little racks his nerves. Too much turns him into
a madman."
Sophy paled even more; then she said apathetically:
"I know positively that he would refuse to go to such a place as that
you mentioned."
Carfew rose, and took a few turns about the room. Then he came and stood
near, looking down at her keenly.
"Mrs. Chesney," he said, "your husband was within an ace of death, last
night. I will not enter into medical detail. Only the prompt
intelligence of his servant saved him. Do you propose allowing him to
destroy himself rather than face his anger?"
"It isn't the question of his anger alone, Doctor Carfew. It is the
question of his family--of his mother. I would not be justified in
acting alone. Lady Wychcote must be consulted."
Carfew looked at her intently. His eyebrows were yellow-grey like his
hair, and curled also. His eyes seemed buried in them as in hairy
nests--like pale, blue eggs, Sophy thought drearily, as she gazed at
their hard convex.
"What is Lady Wychcote like? Is she a reasonable woman?" asked Carfew.
Exhausted and wretched as she was, almost Sophy could have smiled. The
contrast between the actual Lady Wychcote and the "reasonable woman"
surmised by Carfew struck her as so painfully droll.
"Not always, I fear," she said gently.
"Quite so. Just as I thought. A blind alley. Will you tell this ... er
... not always reasonable lady, from me--from Algernon Carfew--that her
son is the same as lost to her if she cannot find sufficient
reasonableness to have him committed to a sanatorium for his own good?"
"Yes--I will tell her."
"But you think it won't have much effect--eh!"
"I'm afraid she won't believe me."
Carfew glared.
"Then send her to _me_!" he said. It was the voice of an Imperator of
Medicine.
"She might not be willing to see you."
"Mh!... This complicates matters. For the present moment, Mr. Chesney is
out of danger. I have given his man--Naylor...!"
"Gaynor."
"I have given Gaynor full instructions. The attack will be over in
twenty-four hours. He has taken a most amazing amount of cocaine within
the last three days--winding up with a huge dose of morphia. Cocaine
excites--morphia soothes--in the end. When was he last violent?"
Sophy felt as though choking.
"Last evening," she managed to articulate.
"Quite so. Very violent, indeed, I presume. Was he abusive?"
"Yes."
"Mh. Well, it rests with you, and--er--Lady Wychfield--Wychcote. Quite
so. I will not undertake the case under the present conditions. By the
way--make no mistake about this man Naylor. He has been very faithful.
If he had not succeeded in persuading his master to moderate the drug at
times--well----" He paused; then said abruptly: "Mr. Chesney would
probably be dead or a hopeless lunatic."
"Yes," said Sophy.
Carfew looked at her earnestly a few moments. Then his hard, acute
visage softened.
"I see you're trying hard to be brave," he said. "You've had a severe
shock. Allow me to prescribe for you at least."
"Thank you," she said faintly.
"Then go to bed, and let your maid rub you with alcohol--a soothing
friction. Then darken your room and try to sleep."
"Thank you very much," said Sophy again, and this time she smiled
faintly.
"Ha!--I know what that smile means. That it's easy for a medical
ignoramus to prescribe sleep when there's no dose of that best of
physics available. But believe me, my dear lady"--here his voice
softened again--"exhaustion is double first-cousin to sleep--you are in
a very exhausted condition. Only lie down as I advise you--even without
the massage, if you shrink from that--and you will be asleep before you
know it."
"I will try," said Sophy patiently.
"Good!" he exclaimed. He went towards the door, then turned again.
"Tell Lady Wych--yes, Wychcote; thanks--tell her if she does not believe
what I say, to ask her son to show her his bare arms. Good afternoon."
He was gone.
Before Sophy followed his advice and went to lie down, she sent a
telegram to Lady Wychcote, who was on a visit to some friends in Paris.
The telegram said:
"_Cecil seriously but not dangerously ill. Must consult you. When
may I expect to see you?_
"SOPHY CHESNEY."
When this was done, she went to her room and let Tilda fuss over her and
make her comfortable on the bed. Carfew was right; scarcely had she lain
down than she dropped into a profound sleep which lasted for several
hours.
As soon as she woke, she sent for Gaynor. She had made up her mind to
speak plainly to him. She felt that her antipathy towards him had come
from her instinct that he was hiding something. Now that she understood
his reasons for secrecy and the difficulty of his position, she no
longer disliked but respected the quiet, dry little man who was so loyal
to his master.
"Gaynor," she began. Her lip trembled in spite of her. She turned her
head and looked out of the window for a second; then she went on firmly:
"I've sent for you to thank you--for what you've tried to do for Mr.
Chesney, Gaynor. And for coming to me--about a--about Doctor Carfew this
morning."
"I am grateful to you, madam. I only did my duty," said Gaynor; but the
impassive expression of his face stirred slightly. "Allow me to thank
you for mentioning it, madam," he added, in a low voice.
"And, Gaynor--I have been thinking deeply over this. I shall not mention
either to Mr. Chesney or her ladyship that you suggested my sending for
a doctor."
A look of faint surprise stole into the man's face; but he kept a
respectful silence.
"The reason I do this," continued Sophy, "is because I want you to
remain with Mr. Chesney--I want you to...." She paused; then she lifted
her eyes to his deferentially expressionless ones, and said with
feeling: "I want you to help me to help him, Gaynor."
For one instant the neutral look which was the livery of his face, as it
were, fell from it, and Sophy saw a deeply moved fellow being gazing at
her.
"I will consider it an honour as well as a duty to be of service to you,
madam," he replied.
"Very well, Gaynor. Then we must keep nothing that concerns Mr. Chesney
from each other. I will be quite frank with you--you must be equally
frank with me. You must keep nothing back."
"It shall be as you wish, madam, in every respect."
"That is all for the moment. Later I shall get you to give me a clear
account of ... of everything. So that I shall ... know how to ... to act
in emergencies if you should not be there."
"Very good, madam."
"Is Mr. Chesney still--asleep?"
"He will sleep probably until to-morrow afternoon, madam."
"Let me know when he recovers--I shall trust to you to tell me when it
is best for me to see him."
"I will, madam."
"Then--good-night, Gaynor."
"Good-night, madam. I hope that you will rest well."
Lady Wychcote arrived next morning and drove straight from the train to
the house in Regent's Park. She was still a beautiful woman; but as
Cecil had told Sophy during their engagement, with that peculiar British
frankness in speaking of the closest relations, she was "as hard as
nails," and her beauty was also adamantine. Though sixty, she did not
look more than forty-five, but her "make-up" was judicious and
wonderfully well done. There were people who said that Cecily Wychcote
had gone to Paris for six months or so, and there, in a mysterious
seclusion, had had the skin peeled from her face by some adept in the
art of flaying, and that this explained the absence of wrinkles "at her
age." True, wrinkles in the ordinary sense of the word she had not; her
well-chiselled face was as smooth and empty of expression in repose as a
Wedgewood plaque, and its patine was as rare a work of art; but her icy
eyes, still as blue as cobalt, could express many things very admirably,
as could her delicate thin lips and nostrils. Lady Wychcote's wig was as
conservative as the politics of her house. It was a fair brown, and here
and there the artist had woven in grey hairs. She dressed well. She was
the modern type of young-old woman in its highest perfection. Only her
language, like her mind, had a taint of early Victorian; but of this she
was totally unaware.