by Ellen Wood
Mr. Carlton took his seat between the bed and the fire, facing Captain Chesney: and he waited until that gentleman’s anger should be over, before he proceeded to question his patient professionally.
“I could not help myself, Captain Chesney,” he quietly said, when there was a lull in the storm; and it may be remarked that in the presence of the captain, Mr. Carlton retained his own suavity unruffled, however provoking the captain’s tongue might be. “I received a telegraphic message from my father, desiring me to go to town without a moment’s delay, if I wished to see him alive. The hasty note I sent to you explained this.”
“And I might have died!” growled the captain.
“Pardon me, sir. Far from dying, I knew you were not in the least danger. Had you been so in ever so slight a degree, I should have requested one of the Messrs. Grey to attend you for me.”
“Had you not come in to-night, I should have sent for them myself,” retorted the captain. “It’s monstrous to suppose I am to lie here in this pain with no doctor to come near me.”
“But, Captain Chesney, I feel sure the pain is nothing like what it has been. Have you not been up to-day?”
“No, I have not been up. And I don’t choose to get up,” added the irritable captain.
“Well, we will have you up to-morrow, and you will be all the better for it,” said the surgeon soothingly.
“Ugh!” grunted the captain. “Did you find your father dead?”
“No. I am glad to say I found him a trifle better than he had been when they telegraphed for me. But his life, I think, cannot be much prolonged. The obligation to attend his summons promptly, to see him, if possible, before death, lay urgently upon me, Captain Chesney; for he and I had been at variance,” continued Mr. Carlton, vouchsafing a piece of confidence into which he was rarely betrayed.
It was nothing to Captain Chesney. His medical attendant was his medical attendant, and nothing else; none less likely than the haughty old man to make of him even a temporary friend.
“He has not been a good father to me,” resumed the surgeon, looking dreamily into the fire. “Anything but that. And I lost my mother when I was an infant. But for that loss I might be different from what I am.”
“Men in this life are mostly what their own actions make them, sir; without reference to their father and mother,” returned the captain in a hard tone.
“Ah,” said Mr. Carlton. “But I meant with regard to happiness. You don’t know what my childhood and youth were, without my mother. Had she lived, it would have been so different.”
“Is your father a poor man?” asked the captain, taking a momentary interest in the question.
“Oh dear no. He is a rich one. And I” — Mr. Carlton suddenly laid pointed emphasis on the words— “am his only son, his only child.”
“I think that physic ought to be changed.”
The remark recalled Mr. Carlton to the present. He stood up, reached the medicine-bottle pointed to by Captain Chesney, and was the composed professional attendant again. A very few minutes, and the visit ceased.
As Mr. Carlton left the chamber, the captain caught hold of the silken ribbon tied to his bedstead, that communicated with the bell-rope, and rang a peal loud enough to awaken the seven sleepers. It was for Pompey to show the doctor out; and Pompey generally was favoured with this sort of peal.
Mr. Carlton closed the bedroom door, stepped along the corridor, and met a girl, young and beautiful, who appeared at the door of another room. It was Laura Chesney, and her luminous dark eyes were raised to Mr. Carlton as he took her hand, and then were dropped behind the dark lashes which closed on her hot cheek.
A hot cheek then; a cheek like a red, red rose. That his presence called those blushes up, none could doubt; and in Mr. Carlton’s low tones, as he addressed her, there was a tenderness which told its own tale. Never man loved woman more passionately than he, the surgeon, had learned to love Laura Chesney.
“Oh, Laura! I did not expect this. I thought you were out.”
“No. Jane and Lucy went to church, but I stayed with papa. When did you return?” she softly whispered.
“To-night only. Laura!” he continued, his tone one of wild fervour, “to meet you thus, unlooked-for, seems like a sudden glimpse of heaven.”
One lingering pressure of the hands, and then Mr. Carlton was on his way down again, for Pompey had appeared on the scene. Laura listened for the closing of the hall-door; for the last echoes of the footfalls on the gravel-path, footfalls that for her ear were as the very sweetest music; and when they had died away to silence, she gave a sigh, born of intense emotion, and stepped on to her father’s room.
Just as Mr. Carlton had gone through the gate, two ladies came up to it — or, rather, a lady and a little girl. He was passing them with merely a word of salutation, a lift of the hat, when the lady stopped, and addressed him in low and gentle tones.
“You are back then, Mr. Carlton. Have you seen papa?”
“I have been paying him a visit now, Miss Chesney. He is considerably better. The pain has not gone, but I am sure it is nothing to what it was, even when I left. A day or two, and he will, I hope, be downstairs again.”
The little girl came round to him with a dancing step. “Mr. Carlton, I want you to get papa well soon. He has promised to take me out for a whole day’s holiday as soon as he is well.”
“Very well, Miss Lucy,” answered the surgeon in a merry tone. “I’ll get him well with all speed, for the sake of your whole day’s holiday. Good night, young lady; good night, Miss Chesney.”
He held the gate open for them to pass through, lifted his hat again, closed the gate after them, and went on down the road. The moon had grown brilliant, and he glanced up at it. Not in reality to look at it, for he had plunged into deep thought. The few words he had spoken to Captain Chesney had brought vividly before him his past life; its good and ill doings, its discomforts, its recklessness, its sins. His father, who was in the same profession as himself, a surgeon, in large practice in a populous but not desirable quarter of London, lying eastward, had been rather given to sins and recklessness himself, and no good example had ever been placed before the boy, Lewis. Had his mother lived, as he remarked to Captain Chesney, things would have been widely different. Allowed to have his own way in childhood, allowed to have it in youth and in early manhood, insomuch as that no control or supervision was exercised over him, no fatherly guidance extended to him, it was little wonder that he fell into various dangers and difficulties; and, as a sequence, into displeasure with his father. When an array of debts was brought home to stare old Mr. Carlton in the face, he flew into a terrible passion, and swore that he would not pay them. A halfpeace was patched up after a while; the debts were settled, and Mr. Carlton the younger established himself at South Wennock: but the father and son still continued much at variance, no cordiality existing between them. Now the thing was altered, Mr. Carlton senior on a bed of sickness was quite a different man from Mr. Carlton in rude health, and he had allowed himself to be fully reconciled to his son. He had shown him his will, in which he, Lewis, was named sole heir; and he had hinted at the good round sum laid by in bank securities. And Mr. Carlton stepped on now, dreaming a glowing dream; a dream that had become the one wild hope of his life — a marriage with Laura Chesney.
His supper was laid ready when he reached home. Before sitting down to it, he drew three or four letters from his pocket, took them from the envelopes, and began to look over them as if for the purpose of sorting.
“I must keep that one,” he said to himself, as he glanced down the writing, and replaced it in its envelope; “these I suppose may be burnt. Stay, though — I’ll have my supper first.”
He sat down before the tray and cut himself some meat. Barely had he begun to eat it, when Ben came in with a face of contrition, holding a note in his hand.
“What now, boy?” asked Mr. Carlton.
“I am sorry I forgot it, sir, when you asked me. I put it in th
e letter-rack in the surgery, and it slipped my memory. It was brought here, sir, the night that you went away.”
Mr. Carlton, putting down his knife and fork, opened the note and ran his eyes over its contents. Ben, who had gone away, heard his master shouting to him.
“Come back, sir! Who brought this?”
Ben could not tell who brought it: except that it was a woman with a big bonnet on; a bonnet as big as a house.
Mr. Carlton read the note again, read it attentively. Then he rose, hastily sorted the letters on the table, putting aside the one which he wished to preserve, and throwing the rest indiscriminately into the fire. “I’ll take this down at once and then it will be safe,” he said to himself, alluding to the letter he had preserved. “If I don’t keep it as a proof, the old man, when he gets well, may be for saying that he never wrote it.”
The “old man” thus somewhat irreverently alluded to, was Mr. Carlton’s father. Mr. Carlton carried the letter downstairs to a private safe and locked it up. When he returned to the sitting-room he put his hand into his pocket for the note just brought to him by his servant-boy, and could not find it. It was not in any of his pockets, it was not on the table: and Mr. Carlton came to the conclusion that he had burnt it with the rest.
“How stupid I am!” he exclaimed. “What was the number, now? Thirteen, I think. Thirteen, Palace Street. Yes, that was it.”
He passed into the hall without further delay, put on his hat, and left the house. Hannah heard him, and went into the parlour to remove the tray.
“I never saw such patients as his!” she exclaimed wrathfully, when she found her master’s supper had been interrupted. “They can’t even let him get his meals in peace.”
CHAPTER V.
MR. CARLTON’S VISIT.
THE moon shone brightly on the long street of South Wennock, as Mr. Carlton the surgeon stepped along it with a fleet foot. He was on his way to the house in Palace Street, number thirteen.
The widow herself came to the door in answer to his ring. She dropped a curtsey when she saw who stood there.
“Is this Mrs. Gould’s?”
“Yes, sir; if you please, sir. I am Mrs. Gould, sir.”
“I have just opened a note, on my return from London; one that was left at my house a day or two ago; requesting me to call here to see a patient,” said Mr. Carlton. “A Mrs. — Mrs.—”
“Mrs. Crane, sir,” said the widow, supplying the name for which Mr. Carlton appeared at fault. “It’s all happily over, sir, and she is doing well.”
Mr. Carlton stared at her as if he were thunderstruck. “‘ Over !” he repeated. “Happily over! Why she — I understood — if I read her note aright — did not expect it for two months to come!”
“No more she didn’t, sir, and it was all that omnibus’s doings. It pretty near shook the life out of her.”
“Omnibus!” he returned, seeming completely at sea. “What omnibus? what are you talking of?”
“Perhaps you don’t know the circumstances yet, sir,” returned the widow. “The lady arrived here from London, sir, a stranger, and was recommended by Mrs. Fitch to my apartments. So young, she looked quite a girl—”
“But about her illness?” interposed Mr. Carlton, whose time was being wasted.
“I was coming to it, sir. Afore she had well done her tea that same evening, she grew ill: the omnibus had shook her frightfully, she said — and you know what that omnibus is yourself, sir. Instead of getting better, she got worse, and early the next morning the baby was born. Such a mite of a baby, sir!” added Mrs. Gould in a confidential tone. “I have seen many a wax-doll bigger. Some person came down from London this morning and took it away.”
A conviction entered the surgeon’s mind that the mite of a baby he had seen at Great Wennock station, that evening, must be the one in question. “Who attended?” he inquired.
“Mr. Stephen Grey. But he only attended for you, sir, I believe, as the lady wished to have you. She had been recommended to you.”
“Recommended to me!”
“Well, yes, sir; we understood her to say so. She’ll explain to you, herself, no doubt. Of course we can’t but think the circumstances altogether are somewhat strange.”
“Is she doing well?”
“Couldn’t be doing better. Will you walk up, sir?”
The colloquy had taken place at the open door; the widow standing inside, Mr. Carlton out. He made a movement to enter, but stopped in hesitation.
“It is late to disturb her to-night. She may be asleep.”
“She is not asleep, sir. Leastways she wasn’t five minutes ago, when I went up to call Pepperfly down to her supper, which she’s now having with me in the kitchen. I dare say she’d like you to go up, sir, and to know that you are back again.”
He went in, and laid his hat on the stand that stood in the passage. Mrs. Gould ran briskly towards the kitchen.
“Just one moment, sir, while I get a light, for there’s none up-stairs,” she said, in a tone of apology for leaving him waiting. “When the nurse came down, Mrs. Crane sent the candle away by her, saying she’d rather be without it.”
Passing the parlour door and the room behind it — which room was a bed-chamber, and Mrs. Gould took the opportunity of sleeping in it when her permanent lodger was absent — she tripped into the kitchen, a very small apartment built out at the back, seized the candle on the table, by the light of which Mrs. Pepperfly was eating her supper, unceremoniously left that lady in the dark, and was back in an instant to marshal Mr. Carlton up the stairs. Arrived at the door of the sitting-room, he took the light from her hand.
“That will do, thank you, Mrs. Gould,” he said, sinking his voice to a whisper. “I had better go in alone. She may have dropped asleep.”
Mrs. Gould was nothing loth to be dismissed. She had been disturbed at her supper, and was glad to return to it. In consequence of her having gone to church that evening, the meal was being taken later than usual. She closed the door on Mr. Carlton, leaving him alone.
He passed through the sitting-room, softly opened the door of the bed-chamber and entered it, shading the light with his hand. The chamber was quite still, and he believed Mrs. Crane to be alone. In point of fact, however, Judith was sitting at the extreme end of it, behind the bed-curtains, which were drawn round that side of the bed and at the foot. Quiet as his movements were, they awoke Mrs. Crane, who had fallen into a doze, as she looked round with a start, and raised her head — as we are all apt to do when suddenly awakened, especially in illness.
Mr. Carlton put down the light on a table by the door, approached the bed, and addressed her. But ere he had said many words or she had scarcely responded, a sound, as of a rustling movement on the other side of the bed, caught his ear.
“What is that?” he abruptly called out.
“What is what?” repeated the invalid, whose ears had not been as quick as his own.
Mr. Carlton stepped round the bed. “Is any one here?” he asked.
There appeared to be no one, for the question elicited neither sound nor answer. Sufficient light came from the candle to enable him to discern a second door on that side. He drew it open: it was pushed to, but not latched, and the moonlight streamed full upon the landing from the staircase window. But Mr. Carlton could neither see nor hear any one, and he came to the conclusion that he had been mistaken.
“I thought I heard some one in the room,” he said, in a tone of apology, as he returned to the chamber, “Indeed there is no one here,” said the sick lady. “The nurse went down to her supper. It must have been in the next house: we hear the noises there nearly as plainly as though they were in this.”
“That was it then,” said Mr. Carlton.
You will be at no loss, however, to understand that the noise had been caused by Judith. Finding it was Mr. Carlton who had entered, and not deeming it right to make a third at an interview between a doctor and his patient, she had hastened to escape through the half-opened door, nea
r to which she was sitting. Her slippers were entirely of list — for Judith Ford had been furnished with all the requisites for a sick-room in her last place — and the stairs were carpeted, and she ran swiftly and silently down them, unconscious of the commotion she had so innocently caused. Mrs. Crane had not known she was there: in fact, it was only a minute or two before that Judith had entered. She, Judith, made her way to the kitchen, where Mrs. Gould and the nurse were in full enjoyment of cold boiled bacon and pickled onions, by the light of a fresh candle.
“Where on earth did you spring from?” exclaimed the widow.
“From upstairs,” replied Judith.
“I never heard you come in. I thought you were keeping house next door, while your sister had her Sunday evening out.”
“So I was, but Margaret has come home now, and I just stepped in to see if I could do anything. I saw you two were at supper as I passed the window, and didn’t disturb you. Mrs. Crane was asleep, however, when I got upstairs, and Mr. Carlton has come in now.”
“I say, Judith,” cried the widow eagerly, “did Mr. Carlton say anything to you about the accident?”
“Mr. Carlton did not say anything to me at all. He did not see me. As soon as I knew who had come in, I stole away quietly. What accident?”
“There has been a shocking accident to-night, to him and his carriage. They were talking about it in the bar at the Cross Keys, when I went for our supper-beer.”
“An accident to Mr. Carlton?”
Mrs. Gould nodded. She had just taken a large onion in her mouth, and it was not convenient to speak immediately.
“It happened as he was coming from Great Wennock, where his servant had took his carriage to meet him at the train,” she presently resumed. “The carriage was overturned and smashed to pieces, and his horse and servant were both killed.”
“How dreadful!” involuntarily spoke Judith.
