Works of Grant Allen

by Grant Allen

  “Do I?” Hilda replied, with forced calm, raising her eyes to his. Their glances met. That moment, I saw each had recognised something; and from that day forth I was instinctively aware that a duel was being waged between Sebastian and Hilda, — a duel between the two ablest and most singular personalities I had ever met; a duel of life and death — though I did not fully understand its purport till much, much later.

  Every day after that, the poor, wasted girl in Number Fourteen grew feebler and fainter. Her temperature rose; her heart throbbed weakly. She seemed to be fading away. Sebastian shook his head. “Lethodyne is a failure,” he said, with a mournful regret. “One cannot trust it. The case might have recovered from the operation, or recovered from the drug; but she could not recover from both together. Yet the operation would have been impossible without the drug, and the drug is useless except for the operation.”

  It was a great disappointment to him. He hid himself in his room, as was his wont when disappointed, and went on with his old work at his beloved microbes.

  “I have one hope still,” Hilda murmured to me by the bedside, when our patient was at her worst. “If one contingency occurs, I believe we may save her.”

  “What is that?” I asked.

  She shook her head waywardly. “You must wait and see,” she answered. “If it comes off, I will tell you. If not, let it swell the limbo of lost inspirations.”

  Next morning early, however, she came up to me with a radiant face, holding a newspaper in her hand. “Well, it HAS happened!” she cried, rejoicing. “We shall save poor Isabel Number Fourteen, I mean; our way is clear, Dr. Cumberledge.”

  I followed her blindly to the bedside, little guessing what she could mean. She knelt down at the head of the cot. The girl’s eyes were closed. I touched her cheek; she was in a high fever. “Temperature?” I asked.

  “A hundred and three.”

  I shook my head. Every symptom of fatal relapse. I could not imagine what card Hilda held in reserve. But I stood there, waiting.

  She whispered in the girl’s ear: “Arthur’s ship is sighted off the Lizard.”

  The patient opened her eyes slowly, and rolled them for a moment as if she did not understand.

  “Too late!” I cried. “Too late! She is delirious — insensible!”

  Hilda repeated the words slowly, but very distinctly. “Do you hear, dear? Arthur’s ship... it is sighted.... Arthur’s ship... at the Lizard.”

  The girl’s lips moved. “Arthur! Arthur!... Arthur’s ship!” A deep sigh. She clenched her hands. “He is coming?” Hilda nodded and smiled, holding her breath with suspense.

  “Up the Channel now. He will be at Southampton tonight. Arthur... at Southampton. It is here, in the papers; I have telegraphed to him to hurry on at once to see you.”

  She struggled up for a second. A smile flitted across the worn face. Then she fell back wearily.

  I thought all was over. Her eyes stared white. But ten minutes later she opened her lids again. “Arthur is coming,” she murmured. “Arthur... coming.”

  “Yes, dear. Now sleep. He is coming.”

  All through that day and the next night she was restless and agitated; but still her pulse improved a little. Next morning she was again a trifle better. Temperature falling — a hundred and one, point three. At ten o’clock Hilda came in to her, radiant.

  “Well, Isabel, dear,” she cried, bending down and touching her cheek (kissing is forbidden by the rules of the house), “Arthur has come. He is here... down below... I have seen him.”

  “Seen him!” the girl gasped.

  “Yes, seen him. Talked with him. Such a nice, manly fellow; and such an honest, good face! He is longing for you to get well. He says he has come home this time to marry you.”

  The wan lips quivered. “He will NEVER marry me!”

  “Yes, yes, he WILL — if you will take this jelly. Look here — he wrote these words to you before my very eyes: ‘Dear love to my Isa!’... If you are good, and will sleep, he may see you — to-morrow.”

  The girl opened her lips and ate the jelly greedily. She ate as much as she was desired. In three minutes more her head had fallen like a child’s upon her pillow and she was sleeping peacefully.

  I went up to Sebastian’s room, quite excited with the news. He was busy among his bacilli. They were his hobby, his pets. “Well, what do you think, Professor?” I cried. “That patient of Nurse Wade’s—”

  He gazed up at me abstractedly, his brow contracting. “Yes, yes; I know,” he interrupted. “The girl in Fourteen. I have discounted her case long ago. She has ceased to interest me.... Dead, of course! Nothing else was possible.”

  I laughed a quick little laugh of triumph. “No, sir; NOT dead. Recovering! She has fallen just now into a normal sleep; her breathing is natural.”

  He wheeled his revolving chair away from the germs and fixed me with his keen eyes. “Recovering?” he echoed. “Impossible! Rallying, you mean. A mere flicker. I know my trade. She MUST die this evening.”

  “Forgive my persistence,” I replied; “but — her temperature has gone down to ninety-nine and a trifle.”

  He pushed away the bacilli in the nearest watch-glass quite angrily. “To ninety-nine!” he exclaimed, knitting his brows. “Cumberledge, this is disgraceful! A most disappointing case! A most provoking patient!”

  “But surely, sir—” I cried.

  “Don’t talk to ME, boy! Don’t attempt to apologise for her. Such conduct is unpardonable. She OUGHT to have died. It was her clear duty. I SAID she would die, and she should have known better than to fly in the face of the faculty. Her recovery is an insult to medical science. What is the staff about? Nurse Wade should have prevented it.”

  “Still, sir,” I exclaimed, trying to touch him on a tender spot, “the anaesthetic, you know! Such a triumph for lethodyne! This case shows clearly that on certain constitutions it may be used with advantage under certain conditions.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Lethodyne! pooh! I have lost interest in it. Impracticable! It is not fitted for the human species.”

  “Why so? Number Fourteen proves—”

  He interrupted me with an impatient wave of his hand; then he rose and paced up and down the room testily. After a pause, he spoke again. “The weak point of lethodyne is this: nobody can be trusted to say WHEN it may be used — except Nurse Wade, — which is NOT science.”

  For the first time in my life, I had a glimmering idea that I distrusted Sebastian. Hilda Wade was right — the man was cruel. But I had never observed his cruelty before — because his devotion to science had blinded me to it.

  CHAPTER II

  THE EPISODE OF THE GENTLEMAN WHO HAD FAILED FOR EVERYTHING

  One day, about those times, I went round to call on my aunt, Lady Tepping. And lest you accuse me of the vulgar desire to flaunt my fine relations in your face, I hasten to add that my poor dear old aunt is a very ordinary specimen of the common Army widow. Her husband, Sir Malcolm, a crusty old gentleman of the ancient school, was knighted in Burma, or thereabouts, for a successful raid upon naked natives, on something that is called the Shan frontier. When he had grown grey in the service of his Queen and country, besides earning himself incidentally a very decent pension, he acquired gout and went to his long rest in Kensal Green Cemetery. He left his wife with one daughter, and the only pretence to a title in our otherwise blameless family.

  My cousin Daphne is a very pretty girl, with those quiet, sedate manners which often develop later in life into genuine self-respect and real depth of character. Fools do not admire her; they accuse her of being “heavy.” But she can do without fools; she has a fine, strongly built figure, an upright carriage, a large and broad forehead, a firm chin, and features which, though well-marked and well-moulded, are yet delicate in outline and sensitive in expression. Very young men seldom take to Daphne: she lacks the desired inanity. But she has mind, repose, and womanly tenderness. Indeed, if she had not been my cousin, I almost think I mi
ght once have been tempted to fall in love with her.

  When I reached Gloucester Terrace, on this particular afternoon, I found Hilda Wade there before me. She had lunched at my aunt’s, in fact. It was her “day out” at St. Nathaniel’s, and she had come round to spend it with Daphne Tepping. I had introduced her to the house some time before, and she and my cousin had struck up a close acquaintance immediately. Their temperaments were sympathetic; Daphne admired Hilda’s depth and reserve, while Hilda admired Daphne’s grave grace and self-control, her perfect freedom from current affectations. She neither giggled nor aped Ibsenism.

  A third person stood back in the room when I entered — a tall and somewhat jerry-built young man, with a rather long and solemn face, like an early stage in the evolution of a Don Quixote. I took a good look at him. There was something about his air that impressed me as both lugubrious and humorous; and in this I was right, for I learned later that he was one of those rare people who can sing a comic song with immense success while preserving a sour countenance, like a Puritan preacher’s. His eyes were a little sunken, his fingers long and nervous; but I fancied he looked a good fellow at heart, for all that, though foolishly impulsive. He was a punctilious gentleman, I felt sure; his face and manner grew upon one rapidly.

  Daphne rose as I entered, and waved the stranger forward with an imperious little wave. I imagined, indeed, that I detected in the gesture a faint touch of half-unconscious proprietorship. “Good-morning, Hubert,” she said, taking my hand, but turning towards the tall young man. “I don’t think you know Mr. Cecil Holsworthy.”

  “I have heard you speak of him,” I answered, drinking him in with my glance. I added internally, “Not half good enough for you.”

  Hilda’s eyes met mine and read my thought. They flashed back word, in the language of eyes, “I do not agree with you.”

  Daphne, meanwhile, was watching me closely. I could see she was anxious to discover what impression her friend Mr. Holsworthy was making on me. Till then, I had no idea she was fond of anyone in particular; but the way her glance wandered from him to me and from me to Hilda showed clearly that she thought much of this gawky visitor.

  We sat and talked together, we four, for some time. I found the young man with the lugubrious countenance improved immensely on closer acquaintance. His talk was clever. He turned out to be the son of a politician high in office in the Canadian Government, and he had been educated at Oxford. The father, I gathered, was rich, but he himself was making an income of nothing a year just then as a briefless barrister, and he was hesitating whether to accept a post of secretary that had been offered him in the colony, or to continue his negative career at the Inner Temple, for the honour and glory of it.

  “Now, which would YOU advise me, Miss Tepping?” he inquired, after we had discussed the matter some minutes.

  Daphne’s face flushed up. “It is so hard to decide,” she answered. “To decide to YOUR best advantage, I mean, of course. For naturally all your English friends would wish to keep you as long as possible in England.”

  “No, do you think so?” the gawky young man jerked out with evident pleasure. “Now, that’s awfully kind of you. Do you know, if YOU tell me I ought to stay in England, I’ve half a mind... I’ll cable over this very day and refuse the appointment.”

  Daphne flushed once more. “Oh, please don’t!” she exclaimed, looking frightened. “I shall be quite distressed if a stray word of mine should debar you from accepting a good offer of a secretaryship.”

  “Why, your least wish—” the young man began — then checked himself hastily— “must be always important,” he went on, in a different voice, “to everyone of your acquaintance.”

  Daphne rose hurriedly. “Look here, Hilda,” she said, a little tremulously, biting her lip, “I have to go out into Westbourne Grove to get those gloves for to-night, and a spray for my hair; will you excuse me for half an hour?”

  Holsworthy rose too. “Mayn’t I go with you?” he asked, eagerly.

  “Oh, if you like. How very kind of you!” Daphne answered, her cheek a blush rose. “Hubert, will you come too? and you, Hilda?”

  It was one of those invitations which are given to be refused. I did not need Hilda’s warning glance to tell me that my company would be quite superfluous. I felt those two were best left together.

  “It’s no use, though, Dr. Cumberledge!” Hilda put in, as soon as they were gone. “He WON’T propose, though he has had every encouragement. I don’t know what’s the matter; but I’ve been watching them both for weeks, and somehow things seem never to get any forwarder.”

  “You think he’s in love with her?” I asked.

  “In love with her! Well, you have eyes in your head, I know; where could they have been looking? He’s madly in love — a very good kind of love, too. He genuinely admires and respects and appreciates all Daphne’s sweet and charming qualities.”

  “Then what do you suppose is the matter?”

  “I have an inkling of the truth: I imagine Mr. Cecil must have let himself in for a prior attachment.”

  “If so, why does he hang about Daphne?”

  “Because — he can’t help himself. He’s a good fellow and a chivalrous fellow. He admires your cousin; but he must have got himself into some foolish entanglement elsewhere which he is too honourable to break off; while at the same time he’s far too much impressed by Daphne’s fine qualities to be able to keep away from her. It’s the ordinary case of love versus duty.”

  “Is he well off? Could he afford to marry Daphne?”

  “Oh, his father’s very rich: he has plenty of money; a Canadian millionaire, they say. That makes it all the likelier that some undesirable young woman somewhere may have managed to get hold of him. Just the sort of romantic, impressionable hobbledehoy such women angle for.”

  I drummed my fingers on the table. Presently Hilda spoke again. “Why don’t you try to get to know him, and find out precisely what’s the matter?”

  “I KNOW what’s the matter — now you’ve told me,” I answered. “It’s as clear as day. Daphne is very much smitten with him, too. I’m sorry for Daphne! Well, I’ll take your advice; I’ll try to have some talk with him.”

  “Do, please; I feel sure I have hit upon it. He has got himself engaged in a hurry to some girl he doesn’t really care about, and he is far too much of a gentleman to break it off, though he’s in love quite another way with Daphne.”

  Just at that moment the door opened and my aunt entered.

  “Why, where’s Daphne?” she cried, looking about her and arranging her black lace shawl.

  “She has just run out into Westbourne Grove to get some gloves and a flower for the fete this evening,” Hilda answered. Then she added, significantly, “Mr. Holsworthy has gone with her.”

  “What? That boy’s been here again?”

  “Yes, Lady Tepping. He called to see Daphne.”

  My aunt turned to me with an aggrieved tone. It is a peculiarity of my aunt’s — I have met it elsewhere — that if she is angry with Jones, and Jones is not present, she assumes a tone of injured asperity on his account towards Brown or Smith, or any other innocent person whom she happens to be addressing. “Now, this is really too bad, Hubert,” she burst out, as if I were the culprit. “Disgraceful! Abominable! I’m sure I can’t make out what the young fellow means by it. Here he comes dangling after Daphne every day and all day long — and never once says whether he means anything by it or not. In MY young days, such conduct as that would not have been considered respectable.”

  I nodded and beamed benignly.

  “Well, why don’t you answer me?” my aunt went on, warming up. “DO you mean to tell me you think his behaviour respectful to a nice girl in Daphne’s position?”

  “My dear aunt,” I answered, “you confound the persons. I am not Mr. Holsworthy. I decline responsibility for him. I meet him here, in YOUR house, for the first time this morning.”

  “Then that shows how often you come to
see your relations, Hubert!” my aunt burst out, obliquely. “The man’s been here, to my certain knowledge, every day this six weeks.”

  “Really, Aunt Fanny,” I said; “you must recollect that a professional man—”

  “Oh, yes. THAT’S the way! Lay it all down to your profession, do, Hubert! Though I KNOW you were at the Thorntons’ on Saturday — saw it in the papers — the Morning Post— ‘among the guests were Sir Edward and Lady Burnes, Professor Sebastian, Dr. Hubert Cumberledge,’ and so forth, and so forth. YOU think you can conceal these things; but you can’t. I get to know them!”

  “Conceal them! My dearest aunt! Why, I danced twice with Daphne.”

  “Daphne! Yes, Daphne. They all run after Daphne,” my aunt exclaimed, altering the venue once more. “But there’s no respect for age left. I expect to be neglected. However, that’s neither here nor there. The point is this: you’re the one man now living in the family. You ought to behave like a brother to Daphne. Why don’t you board this Holsworthy person and ask him his intentions?”

  “Goodness gracious!” I cried; “most excellent of aunts, that epoch has gone past. The late lamented Queen Anne is now dead. It’s no use asking the young man of to-day to explain his intentions. He will refer you to the works of the Scandinavian dramatists.”

  My aunt was speechless. She could only gurgle out the words: “Well, I can safely say that of all the monstrous behaviour—” then language failed her and she relapsed into silence.

  However, when Daphne and young Holsworthy returned, I had as much talk with him as I could, and when he left the house I left also.

  “Which way are you walking?” I asked, as we turned out into the street.

  “Towards my rooms in the Temple.”