A DOCTOR
Young O’Shea made the journey from Kilbeggan to Kilgobbin Castle in total
unconsciousness. The symptoms had now taken the form which doctors call
concussion; and though to a first brief question he was able to reply
reasonably and well, the effort seemed so exhausting that to all subsequent
queries he appeared utterly indifferent; nor did he even by look
acknowledge that he heard them.
Perfect and unbroken quiet was enjoined as his best, if not his only,
remedy; and Kate gave up her own room for the sick man, as that most remote
from all possible disturbance, and away from all the bustle of the house.
The doctors consulted on his case in the fashion that a country physician
of eminence condescends to consult with a small local practitioner. Dr.
Rogan pronounced his opinion, prophetically declared the patient in danger,
and prescribed his remedies, while Price, agreeing with everything, and
even slavishly abject in his manner of concurrence, went about amongst the
underlings of the household saying, ‘There’s two fractures of the frontal
bone. It’s trepanned he ought to be; and when there’s an inquest on the
body, I’ll declare I said so.’
Though nearly all the care of providing for the sick man’s nursing fell
to Kate Kearney, she fulfilled the duty without attracting any notice
whatever, or appearing to feel as if any extra demand were made upon her
time or her attention; so much so, that a careless observer might have
thought her far more interested in providing for the reception of the aunt
than in cares for the nephew.
Dick Kearney had written to say that Miss Betty was so overwhelmed with
affliction at young Gorman’s mishap that she had taken to bed, and could
not be expected to be able to travel for several days. She insisted,
however, on two telegrams daily to report on the boy’s case, and asked
which of the great Dublin celebrities of physic should be sent down to see
him.
‘They’re all alike to me,’ said Kilgobbin; ‘but if I was to choose, I think
I’d say Dr. Chute.’
This was so far unlucky, since Dr. Chute had then been dead about forty
years; scarcely a junior of the profession having so much as heard his
name.
‘We really want no one,’ said Rogan. ‘We are doing most favourably in every
respect. If one of the young ladies would sit and read to him, but not
converse, it would be a service. He made the request himself this morning,
and I promised to repeat it.’
A telegram, however, announced that Sir St. Xavier Brennan would arrive
the same evening, and as Sir X. was physician-in-chief to the nuns of the
Bleeding Heart, there could be little doubt whose orthodoxy had chosen him.
He came at nightfall--a fat, comely-looking, somewhat unctuous gentleman,
with excellent teeth and snow-white hands, symmetrical and dimpled like a
woman’s. He saw the patient, questioned him slightly, and divined without
waiting for it what the answer should be; he was delighted with Rogan,
pleased with Price, but he grew actually enthusiastic over those charming
nurses, Nina and Kate.
‘With such sisters of charity to tend me, I’d consent to pass my life as an
invalid,’ cried he.
Indeed, to listen to him, it would seem that, whether from the salubrity
of the air, the peaceful quietude of the spot, the watchful kindness
and attention of the surrounders, or a certain general air--an actual
atmosphere of benevolence and contentment around--there was no pleasure of
life could equal the delight of being laid up at Kilgobbin.
‘I have a message for you from my old friend Miss O’Shea,’ said he to Kate
the first moment he had the opportunity of speaking with her alone. ‘It
is not necessary to tell you that I neither know, nor desire to know, its
import. Her words were these: “Tell my godchild to forgive me if she still
has any memory for some very rude words I once spoke. Tell her that I
have been sorely punished for them since, and that till I know I have her
pardon, I have no courage to cross her doors.” This was my message, and I
was to bring back your answer.’
‘Tell her,’ cried Kate warmly, ‘I have no place in my memory but for the
kindnesses she has bestowed on me, and that I ask no better boon from
Fortune than to be allowed to love her, and to be worthy of her love.’
‘I will repeat every word you have told me; and I am proud to be bearer
of such a speech. May I presume, upon the casual confidence I have thus
acquired, to add one word for myself; and it is as the doctor I would
speak.’
‘Speak freely. What is it?’
‘It is this, then: you young ladies keep your watches in turn in the
sick-room. The patient is unfit for much excitement, and as I dare not take
the liberty of imposing a line of conduct on Mademoiselle Kostalergi, I
have resolved to run the hazard with _you_! Let _hers_ be the task of
entertaining him; let _her_ be the reader--and he loves being read to--and
the talker, and the narrator of whatever goes on. To you be the part of
quiet watchfulness and care, to bathe the heated brow, or the burning hand,
to hold the cold cup to the parched lips, to adjust the pillow, to temper
the light, and renew the air of the sick-room, but to speak seldom, if at
all. Do you understand me?’
‘Perfectly; and you are wise and acute in your distribution of labour: each
of us has her fitting station.’
‘I dared not have said this much to _her_: my doctor’s instinct told me I
might be frank with _you_.’
‘You are safe in speaking to me,’ said she calmly.
‘Perhaps I ought to say that I give these suggestions without any concert
with my patient. I have not only abstained from consulting, but--’
‘Forgive my interrupting you, Sir X. It was quite unnecessary to tell me
this.’
‘You are not displeased with me, dear lady?’ said he, in his softest of
accents.
‘No; but do not say anything which might make me so.’
The doctor bowed reverentially, crossed his white hands on his waistcoat,
and looked like a saint ready for martyrdom.
Kate frankly held out her hand in token of perfect cordiality, and her
honest smile suited the action well.
‘Tell Miss Betty that our sick charge shall not be neglected, but that we
want her here herself to help us.’
‘I shall report your message word for word,’ said he, as he withdrew.
As the doctor drove back to Dublin, he went over a variety of things in
his thoughts. There were serious disturbances in the provinces; those
ugly outrages which forerun long winter nights, and make the last days of
October dreary and sad-coloured. Disorder and lawlessness were abroad; and
that want of something remedial to be done which, like the thirst in fever,
is fostered and fed by partial indulgence. Then he had some puzzling cases
in hospital, and one or two in private practice, which harassed him; for
some had reached that critical stage where a false move would be fatal,
and it was far from clear which path should be taken. Then there was that
matter of Miss O’Shea herself, who, if her nephew were to die, would most
likely endow that hospital in connection with the Bleeding Heart, and
of which he was himself the founder; and that this fate was by no means
improbable, Sir X. persuaded himself, as he counted over all the different
stages of peril that stood between him and convalescence. ‘We have now the
concussion, with reasonable prospect of meningitis; and there may come on
erysipelas from the scalp wounds, and high fever, with all its dangers;
next there may be a low typhoid state, with high nervous excitement;
and through all these the passing risks of the wrong food or drink, the
imprudent revelations, or the mistaken stimulants. Heigh-ho!’ said he at
last, ‘we come through storm and shipwreck, forlorn-hopes, and burning
villages, and we succumb to ten drops too much of a dark-brown liquor, or
the improvident rashness that reads out a note to us incautiously!
‘Those young ladies thought to mystify me,’ said he aloud, after a long
reverie. ‘I was not to know which of them was in love with the sick boy. I
could make nothing of the Greek, I own, for, except a half-stealthy
regard for myself, she confessed to nothing, and the other was nearly as
inscrutable. It was only the little warmth at last that betrayed her. I
hurt her pride, and as she winced, I said, “There’s the sore spot--there’s
mischief there!” How the people grope their way through life who have never
studied physic nor learned physiology is a puzzle to _me_! With all its aid
and guidance I find humanity quite hard enough to understand every day I
live.’
Even in his few hours’ visit--in which he remarked everything, from the
dress of the man who waited at dinner, to the sherry decanter with the
smashed stopper, the weak ‘Gladstone’ that did duty as claret, and the
cotton lace which Nina sported as ‘point d’Alençon,’ and numberless other
shifts, such as people make who like to play false money with Fortune--all
these he saw, and he saw that a certain jealous rivalry existed between the
two girls; but whether either of them, or both, cared for young O’Shea, he
could not declare; and, strange as it may seem, his inability to determine
this weighed upon him with all the sense of a defeat.