The Solitary House (With Bonus Novels Bleak House and the Woman in White)

by Lynn Shepherd

  On the evening of the third day, I noticed a change in Miss Halcombe, which caused me serious apprehension. Mrs. Rubelle noticed it too. We said nothing on the subject to Lady Glyde, who was then lying asleep, completely overpowered by exhaustion, on the sofa in the sitting-room.

  Mr. Dawson did not pay his evening visit till later than usual. As soon as he set eyes on his patient, I saw his face alter. He tried to hide it; but he looked both confused and alarmed. A messenger was sent to his residence for his medicine-chest, disinfecting preparations were used in the room, and a bed was made up for him in the house by his own directions. “Has the fever turned to infection?” I whispered to him. “I am afraid it has,” he answered; “we shall know better to-morrow morning.”

  By Mr. Dawson’s own directions Lady Glyde was kept in ignorance of this change for the worse. He himself absolutely forbade her, on account of her health, to join us in the bedroom that night. She tried to resist—there was a sad scene—but he had his medical authority to support him; and he carried his point.

  The next morning, one of the men servants was sent to London, at eleven o’clock, with a letter to a physician in town, and with orders to bring the new doctor back with him by the earliest possible train. Half an hour after the messenger had gone, the Count returned to Blackwater Park.

  The Countess, on her own responsibility, immediately brought him in to see the patient. There was no impropriety that I could discover in her taking this course. His lordship was a married man; he was old enough to be Miss Halcombe’s father; and he saw her in the presence of a female relative, Lady Glyde’s aunt. Mr. Dawson nevertheless protested against his presence in the room; but, I could plainly remark the doctor was too much alarmed to make any serious resistance on this occasion.

  The poor suffering lady was past knowing any one about her. She seemed to take her friends for enemies. When the Count approached her bedside, her eyes, which had been wandering incessantly round and round the room before, settled on his face, with a dreadful stare of terror, which I shall remember to my dying day. The Count sat down by her; felt her pulse, and her temples; looked at her very attentively; and then turned round upon the doctor with such an expression of indignation and contempt in his face, that the words failed on Mr. Dawson’s lips, and he stood, for a moment, pale with anger and alarm—pale and perfectly speechless.

  His lordship looked next at me.

  “When did the change happen?” he asked.

  I told him the time.

  “Has Lady Glyde been in the room since?”

  I replied that she had not. The doctor had absolutely forbidden her to come into the room, on the evening before, and had repeated the order again in the morning.

  “Have you and Mrs. Rubelle been made aware of the full extent of the mischief?”—was his next question.

  We were aware, I answered, that the malady was considered infectious. He stopped me, before I could add anything more.

  “It is Typhus Fever,” he said.

  In the minute that passed, while these questions and answers were going on, Mr. Dawson recovered himself, and addressed the Count, with his customary firmness.

  “It is not typhus fever,” he said, sharply. “I protest against this intrusion, sir. No one has a right to put questions here, but me. I have done my duty to the best of my ability——”

  The Count interrupted him, not by words, but only by pointing to the bed. Mr. Dawson seemed to feel that silent contradiction to his assertion of his own ability, and to grow only the more angry under it.

  “I say I have done my duty,” he reiterated. “A physician has been sent for from London. I will consult on the nature of the fever with him, and with no one else. I insist on your leaving the room.”

  “I entered this room, sir, in the sacred interests of humanity,” said the Count. “And in the same interests, if the coming of the physician is delayed, I will enter it again. I warn you once more that the fever has turned to Typhus, and that your treatment is responsible for this lamentable change. If that unhappy lady dies, I will give my testimony in a court of justice that your ignorance and obstinacy have been the cause of her death.”

  Before Mr. Dawson could answer, before the Count could leave us, the door was opened from the sitting-room, and we saw Lady Glyde on the threshold.

  “I must, and will come in,” she said, with extraordinary firmness.

  Instead of stopping her, the Count moved into the sitting-room, and made way for her to go in. On all other occasions, he was the last man in the world to forget anything; but, in the surprise of the moment, he apparently forgot the danger of infection from typhus, and the urgent necessity of forcing Lady Glyde to take proper care of herself.

  To my surprise, Mr. Dawson showed more presence of mind. He stopped her ladyship at the first step she took towards the bedside.

  “I am sincerely sorry, I am sincerely grieved,” he said. “The fever may, I fear, be infectious. Until I am certain that it is not, I entreat you to keep out of the room.”

  She struggled for a moment; then suddenly dropped her arms, and sank forward. She had fainted. The Countess and I took her from the doctor, and carried her into her own room. The Count preceded us, and waited in the passage, till I came out, and told him that we had recovered her from the swoon.

  I went back to the doctor to tell him, by Lady Glyde’s desire, that she insisted on speaking to him immediately. He withdrew at once to quiet her ladyship’s agitation, and to assure her of the physician’s arrival in the course of a few hours. Those hours passed very slowly. Sir Percival and the Count were together down stairs, and sent up, from time to time, to make their inquiries. At last, between five and six o’clock, to our great relief, the physician came.

  He was a younger man than Mr. Dawson; very serious, and very decided. What he thought of the previous treatment, I cannot say; but it struck me as curious that he put many more questions to myself and to Mrs. Rubelle than he put to the doctor, and that he did not appear to listen with much interest to what Mr. Dawson said, while he was examining Mr. Dawson’s patient. I began to suspect, from what I observed in this way, that the Count had been right about the illness all the way through; and I was naturally confirmed in that idea, when Mr. Dawson, after some little delay, asked the one important question which the London doctor had been sent for to set at rest.

  “What is your opinion of the fever?” he inquired.

  “Typhus,” replied the physician. “Typhus fever beyond all doubt.”

  That quiet foreign person, Mrs. Rubelle, crossed her thin, brown hands in front of her, and looked at me with a very significant smile. The Count himself could hardly have appeared more gratified, if he had been present in the room, and had heard the confirmation of his own opinion.

  After giving us some useful directions about the management of the patient, and mentioning that he would come again in five days’ time, the physician withdrew to consult in private with Mr. Dawson. He would offer no opinion on Miss Halcombe’s chances of recovery: he said it was impossible at that stage of the illness to pronounce, one way or the other.

  The five days passed anxiously.

  Countess Fosco and myself took it by turns to relieve Mrs. Rubelle; Miss Halcombe’s condition growing worse and worse, and requiring our utmost care and attention. It was a terribly trying time. Lady Glyde (supported, as Mr. Dawson said, by the constant strain of her suspense on her sister’s account) rallied in the most extraordinary manner, and showed a firmness and determination for which I should myself never have given her credit. She insisted on coming into the sick-room, two or three times every day, to look at Miss Halcombe with her own eyes; promising not to go too close to the bed, if the doctor would consent to her wishes, so far. Mr. Dawson very unwillingly made the concession required of him: I think he saw that it was hopeless to dispute with her. She came in every day; and she self-denyingly kept her promise. I felt it personally so distressing (as reminding me of my own affliction during my husband’
s last illness) to see how she suffered under these circumstances, that I must beg not to dwell on this part of the subject any longer. It is more agreeable to me to mention that no fresh disputes took place between Mr. Dawson and the Count. His lordship made all his inquiries by deputy; and remained continually in company with Sir Percival, down stairs.

  On the fifth day, the physician came again, and gave us a little hope. He said the tenth day from the first appearance of the typhus would probably decide the result of the illness, and he arranged for his third visit to take place on that date. The interval passed as before—except that the Count went to London again, one morning, and returned at night.

  On the tenth day, it pleased a merciful Providence to relieve our household from all further anxiety and alarm. The physician positively assured us that Miss Halcombe was out of danger. “She wants no doctor, now—all she requires is careful watching and nursing, for some time to come; and that I see she has.” Those were his own words. That evening I read my husband’s touching sermon on Recovery from Sickness, with more happiness and advantage (in a spiritual point of view) than I ever remember to have derived from it before.

  The effect of the good news on poor Lady Glyde was, I grieve to say, quite overpowering. She was too weak to bear the violent reaction; and, in another day or two, she sank into a state of debility and depression, which obliged her to keep her room. Rest and quiet, and change of air afterwards, were the best remedies which Mr. Dawson could suggest for her benefit. It was fortunate that matters were no worse, for, on the very day after she took to her room, the Count and the doctor had another disagreement; and, this time, the dispute between them was of so serious a nature, that Mr. Dawson left the house.

  I was not present at the time; but I understood that the subject of the dispute was the amount of nourishment which it was necessary to give to assist Miss Halcombe’s convalescence, after the exhaustion of the fever. Mr. Dawson, now that his patient was safe, was less inclined than ever to submit to unprofessional interference; and the Count (I cannot imagine why) lost all the self-control which he had so judiciously preserved on former occasions, and taunted the doctor, over and over again, with his mistake about the fever, when it changed to typhus. The unfortunate affair ended in Mr. Dawson’s appealing to Sir Percival, and threatening (now that he could leave without absolute danger to Miss Halcombe) to withdraw from his attendance at Blackwater Park, if the Count’s interference was not peremptorily suppressed from that moment. Sir Percival’s reply (though not designedly uncivil) had only resulted in making matters worse; and Mr. Dawson had thereupon withdrawn from the house, in a state of extreme indignation at Count Fosco’s usage of him, and had sent in his bill the next morning.

  We were now, therefore, left without the attendance of a medical man. Although there was no actual necessity for another doctor—nursing and watching being, as the physician had observed, all that Miss Halcombe required—I should still, if my authority had been consulted, have obtained professional assistance, from some other quarter, for form’s sake.

  The matter did not seem to strike Sir Percival in that light. He said it would be time enough to send for another doctor, if Miss Halcombe showed any signs of a relapse. In the mean while, we had the Count to consult in any minor difficulty; and we need not unnecessarily disturb our patient, in her present weak and nervous condition, by the presence of a stranger at her bedside. There was much that was reasonable, no doubt, in these considerations; but they left me a little anxious, nevertheless. Nor was I quite satisfied, in my own mind, of the propriety of our concealing the doctor’s absence, as we did, from Lady Glyde. It was a merciful deception, I admit—for she was in no state to bear any fresh anxieties. But still it was a deception; and, as such, to a person of my principles, at best a doubtful proceeding.

  A second perplexing circumstance which happened on the same day, and which took me completely by surprise, added greatly to the sense of uneasiness that was now weighing on my mind.

  I was sent for to see Sir Percival in the library. The Count, who was with him when I went in, immediately rose and left us alone together. Sir Percival civilly asked me to take a seat; and then, to my great astonishment, addressed me in these terms:

  “I want to speak to you, Mrs. Michelson, about a matter which I decided on some time ago, and which I should have mentioned before, but for the sickness and trouble in the house. In plain words, I have reasons for wishing to break up my establishment immediately at this place—leaving you in charge, of course, as usual. As soon as Lady Glyde and Miss Halcombe can travel, they must both have change of air. My friends, Count Fosco and the Countess, will leave us, before that time, to live in the neighbourhood of London. And I have reasons for not opening the house to any more company, with a view to economising as carefully as I can. I don’t blame you—but my expenses here are a great deal too heavy. In short, I shall sell the horses and, get rid of all the servants at once. I never do things by halves, as you know; and I mean to have the house clear of a pack of useless people by this time to-morrow.”

  I listened to him, perfectly aghast with astonishment.

  “Do you mean, Sir Percival, that I am to dismiss the indoor servants, under my charge, without the usual month’s warning?” I asked.

  “Certainly, I do. We may all be out of the house before another month; and I am not going to leave the servants here in idleness, with no master to wait on.”

  “Who is to do the cooking, Sir Percival, while you are still staying here?”

  “Margaret Porcher can roast and boil—keep her. What do I want with a cook, if I don’t mean to give any dinner-parties?”

  “The servant you have mentioned is the most unintelligent servant in the house, Sir Percival——”

  “Keep her, I tell you; and have a woman in from the village to do the cleaning, and go away again. My weekly expenses must and shall be lowered immediately. I don’t send for you to make objections, Mrs. Michelson—I send for you to carry out my plans of economy. Dismiss the whole lazy pack of in-door servants to-morrow, except Porcher. She is as strong as a horse—and we’ll make her work like a horse.”

  “You will excuse me for reminding you, Sir Percival, that if the servants go to-morrow, they must have a month’s wages in lieu of a month’s warning.”

  “Let them! A month’s wages saves a month’s waste and gluttony in the servants’-hall.”

  This last remark conveyed an aspersion of the most offensive kind on my management. I had too much self-respect to defend myself under so gross an imputation. Christian consideration for the helpless position of Miss Halcombe and Lady Glyde, and for the serious inconvenience which my sudden absence might inflict on them, alone prevented me from resigning my situation on the spot. I rose immediately. It would have lowered me in my own estimation to have permitted the interview to continue a moment longer.

  “After that last remark, Sir Percival, I have nothing more to say. Your directions shall be attended to.” Pronouncing those words, I bowed my head with the most distant respect, and went out of the room.

  The next day, the servants left in a body. Sir Percival himself dismissed the grooms and stablemen; sending them, with all the horses but one, to London. Of the whole domestic establishment, in-doors and out, there now remained only myself, Margaret Porcher, and the gardener; this last living in his own cottage, and being wanted to take care of the one horse that remained in the stables.

  With the house left in this strange and lonely condition; with the mistress of it ill in her room; with Miss Halcombe still as helpless as a child; and with the doctor’s attendance withdrawn from us in enmity—it was surely not unnatural that my spirits should sink, and my customary composure be very hard to maintain. My mind was ill at ease. I wished the two poor ladies both well again; and I wished myself away from Blackwater Park.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THE HOUSEKEEPER’S NARRATIVE CONTINUED

  The next event that occurred was of so singular a nature,
that it might have caused me a feeling of superstitious surprise, if my mind had not been fortified by principle against any pagan weakness of that sort. The uneasy sense of something wrong in the family which had made me wish myself away from Blackwater Park, was actually followed, strange to say, by my departure from the house. It is true that my absence was for a temporary period only: but the coincidence was, in my opinion, not the less remarkable on that account.

  My departure took place under the following circumstances:

  A day or two after the servants all left, I was again sent for to see Sir Percival. The undeserved slur which he had cast on my management of the household, did not, I am happy to say, prevent me from returning good for evil to the best of my ability, by complying with his request as readily and respectfully as ever. It cost me a struggle with that fallen nature which we all share in common, before I could suppress my feelings. Being accustomed to self-discipline, I accomplished the sacrifice.

  I found Sir Percival and Count Fosco sitting together, again. On this occasion his lordship remained present at the interview, and assisted in the development of Sir Percival’s views.

  The subject to which they now requested my attention, related to the healthy change of air by which we all hoped that Miss Halcombe and Lady Glyde might soon be enabled to profit. Sir Percival mentioned that both the ladies would probably pass the autumn (by invitation of Frederick Fairlie, Esquire) at Limmeridge House, Cumberland. But before they went there, it was his opinion, confirmed by Count Fosco (who here took up the conversation, and continued it to the end), that they would benefit by a short residence first in the genial climate of Torquay. The great object, therefore, was to engage lodgings at that place, affording all the comforts and advantages of which they stood in need; and the great difficulty was to find an experienced person capable of choosing the sort of residence which they wanted. In this emergency, the Count begged to inquire, on Sir Percival’s behalf, whether I would object to give the ladies the benefit of my assistance, by proceeding myself to Torquay in their interests.