Kitabı oku: «The Faith Doctor: A Story of New York», sayfa 21

XXXV.
PHILLIDA AND HER FRIENDS

The appearance in the Martin apartment of the trained nurse, who was an old friend and hospital associate of Mrs. Beswick's, relieved Phillida of night service; but nothing could relieve her sense of partial responsibility for the delay in calling a doctor, and her resolution to stay by little Tommy as much as possible until the issue should be known. Every day while the nurse rested she took her place with the patient, holding him in her arms for long hours at a time, and every day Millard called to make inquiries. He was not only troubled about the little boy, but there hung over him a dread of imminent calamity to Phillida. On the fifth day the symptoms in Tommy's case became more serious, but at the close of the sixth Dr. Beswick expressed himself as hopeful. The next evening, when Millard called, he learned that Tommy was improving slowly, and that Miss Callender had not come to the Martins' on that day. His aunt thought that she was probably tired out, and that she had taken advantage of Tommy's improvement to rest. But when had Phillida been known to rest when anybody within her range was suffering? Millard felt sure that she would at least have come to learn the condition of the sick boy had she been able.

He hesitated to make inquiry after Phillida's health. Her effort to avoid conversation with him assured him that she preferred not to encourage a new intimacy. But though he debated, he did not delay going straight to the Callenders' and ringing the bell.

Agatha came to the door.

"Good-evening, Miss Agatha," he said, presuming so much on his old friendship as to use her first name.

"Good-evening, Mr. Millard," said Agatha, in an embarrassed but austere voice.

"I called to inquire after your sister. Knowing that she had been exposed to diphtheria, I was afraid – " He paused here, remembering that he no longer had any right to be afraid on her account.

Agatha did not wait for him to re-shape or complete his sentence. She said, "Thank you. She has a sore throat, which makes us very uneasy. Cousin Philip has just gone to see if he can get Dr. Gunstone."

When Millard had gone, Agatha told her mother that Charley had called.

"I am glad of it," said Mrs. Callender. "Did you ask him in?"

"Not I," said Agatha, with a high head. "If he wants to renew his acquaintance with Phillida, he can do it without our asking him. I was just as stiff as I could be with him, and I told him that Cousin Phil had gone for the doctor. That'll be a thorn in his side, for he always was a little jealous of Philip, I believe."

"Why, Agatha, I'm afraid you haven't done right. You oughtn't to be so severe. For my part, I hope the engagement will be renewed. I am sick and tired of having Phillida risk her life in the tenements. It was very kind of Mr. Millard to call and inquire, I am sure."

"He ought to," said Agatha. "She got this dreadful disease taking care of his relations. I don't want him to think we're dying to have him take Phillida off our hands." Agatha's temper was ruffled by her anxiety at Phillida's sickness. "I'm sure his high and mighty tone about Phillida's faith-cures has worried her enough. Now just let him worry awhile."

Certainly, Agatha Callender's bearing toward him did not reassure Millard. He thought she might have called him Charley; or if that was not just the thing to do, she might have made her voice a little less frosty. He could not get rid of a certain self-condemnation regarding Phillida, and he conjectured that her family were disposed to condemn him also. He thought they ought to consider how severely his patience had been tried; but then they could not know how Phillida was talked about. How could they ever imagine Meadows's brutal impertinence?

He was not clear regarding the nature of the change in Phillida's views. Had she wholly renounced her faith-healing, or was she only opposed to the Christian Science imposture? Or did she think that medicine should be called in after an appeal to Heaven had failed? If he had felt that there was any probability of a renewal of his engagement with Phillida, he could have wished that she might not yet have given up her career as a faith-doctor. He would then have a chance to prove to her that he was not too cowardly to endure reproach for her sake. But, from the way Agatha spoke, it must be that Philip Gouverneur was now in favor rather than he. Nothing had been more evident to him than that Philip was in love with his cousin. What was to be expected but that Philip, with the advantage of cousinly intimacy, should urge his suit, once Phillida was free from her engagement?

But all his other anxieties were swallowed up in the one fear that she who had ventured her life for others so bravely might have sacrificed it. Millard was uneasy the night long, and before he went to the bank he called again at the Callender house. He was glad that it was Sarah, and not Agatha, who came to the door. He sent in a card to Mrs. Callender with the words, "Kind inquiries," written on it, and received through Sarah the reply that Mrs. Callender was much obliged to him for inquiring, and that Miss Callender had diphtheria and was not so well as yesterday.

The cashier of the Bank of Manhadoes was not happy that day. He threw himself into his business with an energy that seemed feverish. He did not feel that it would be proper for him to call again before the next morning; it would seem like trying to take advantage of Phillida's illness. But, with such a life in jeopardy, how could his impatience delay till morning?

Just before three o'clock the Hilbrough carriage stopped at the bank. Mrs. Hilbrough had come to take up her husband for a drive. Hilbrough was engaged with some one in the inner office, which he had occupied since Masters had virtually retired from the bank. Millard saw the carriage from his window, and, with more than his usual gallantry, quitted his desk to assist Mrs. Hilbrough to alight. But she declined to come in; she would wait in the carriage for Mr. Hilbrough.

"Did you know of Miss Callender's illness?" he asked.

"No; is it anything serious?" Mrs. Hilbrough showed a sincere solicitude.

"Diphtheria," he said. "I called there this morning. Mrs. Callender sent word that Phillida was not so well as yesterday."

Mrs. Hilbrough was pleased that Millard had gone so far as to inquire. She reflected that an illness, if not a dangerous one, might be a good thing for lovers situated as these two. But diphtheria was another matter.

"I wish I knew how she's getting along this afternoon," said Mrs. Hilbrough.

"I would call again at once," said Millard, "but, you know, my relations are peculiar. To call twice in a day might seem intrusive."

"I would drive there at once," said Mrs. Hilbrough, meditatively, "but Mr. Hilbrough is so wrapped up in his children, and so much afraid of their getting diphtheria, that he will not venture into the street where it is. If I should send the footman, Mr. Hilbrough would not let him return to the house again. I'm afraid he would not even approve of communication by a telegraph-boy."

"A boy would be long enough returning to be disinfected," said Millard; but the pleasantry was all in his words; his face showed solicitude and disappointment. He could think of no one but Mrs. Hilbrough through whom he could inquire.

"Perhaps," he said, "you would not object to my sending an inquiry in your name?"

"Oh, certainly not; that would be a good plan, especially if you will take the trouble to let me know how she is. Use my name at your discretion, Mr. Millard. I give you carte blanche," said she, smiling with pleasure at the very notion of bearing so intimate a relation to a clever scheme which lent a little romance to a love-affair highly interesting to her on all accounts. She took out a visiting-card and penciled the words, "Hoping that Miss Callender is not very ill, and begging Mrs. Callender to let her know." This she handed to Millard.

Mr. Hilbrough came out at that moment, and Millard bowed to Mrs. Hilbrough and went in. Hilbrough had been as deeply grieved as his wife to hear that the much-admired Phillida was ill.

"What are you going to do, my dear?" he said. "You can not go there without risking the children. You can't send James without danger of bringing the infection into the house. But we mustn't leave Phillida without some attentions; I don't see how to manage it."

"I've just made Mr. Millard my deputy," said Mrs. Hilbrough. "You see, he feels delicate about inquiring too often; so I have written inquiries on one of my cards and given it to Mr. Millard."

Hilbrough didn't like to do things in a stinted way, particularly in cases which involved his generous feelings.

"Give me a lot of your cards," he said.

"What for?"

"For Mr. Millard."

"I don't see what use he can make of them," said Mrs. Hilbrough, slowly opening her card-case.

"He'll know," said Hilbrough. "He can work a visiting-card in more ways than any other man in New York." Hilbrough took half a dozen of his wife's cards and carried them into the bank.

"Use these as you see fit," he said to Millard, "and if you need a dozen or two more let me know."

Under other circumstances Millard would have been amused, this liberal overdoing was so characteristic of Hilbrough. But he only took the cards with thanks, reflecting that there might be some opportunity to use them.

As he would be detained at the bank until near four o'clock, his first impulse was to call a district messenger and dispatch Mrs. Hilbrough's card of inquiry at once. But he reflected that the illness might be a long one, and that his measures should be taken with reference to his future conduct. On his way home from the bank he settled the manner of his procedure. The Callender family, outside of Phillida at most, did not know his man Robert. By sending the discreet Robert systematically with messages in Mrs. Hilbrough's name, those who attended the door would come to regard him as the Hilbrough messenger.

It was about five o'clock when Robert, under careful instructions, presented Mrs. Hilbrough's card at the Callender door. Unfortunately for Millard's plan, Mrs. Callender, despite Robert's hint that a verbal message would be sufficient, wrote her reply. When the note came into Millard's hands he did not know what to do. His commission did not extend to opening a missive addressed to Mrs. Hilbrough. The first impulse was to dispatch Robert with the note to Mrs. Hilbrough. Then Millard remembered Mr. Hilbrough's apprehension of diphtheria, and that Robert had come from the infected house. He would send Mrs. Callender's note by a messenger. But, on second thought, the note would be a more deadly missile in Hilbrough's eyes than Robert, who had not gone beyond the vestibule of the Callender house. He therefore sent a note by a messenger, stating the case, and received in return permission to open all letters addressed to Mrs. Hilbrough which his man might bring away from the Callenders'. This scheme, by which Millard personated Mrs. Hilbrough, had so much the air of a romantic intrigue of the harmless variety that it fascinated Mrs. Hilbrough, who dearly loved a manœuver, and who would have given Millard permission to forge her name and seal his notes of inquiry with the recently discovered Hilbrough coat-of-arms, if such extreme measures had been necessary. Mrs. Callender's reply stated that Dr. Gunstone was hopeful, but that Phillida seemed pretty ill.

The next morning Millard's card with "Kind inquiries" was sent in, and the reply was returned that Phillida was no worse. Her mother showed her the card, and Phillida looked at it for half a minute and then wearily put it away. An hour later Robert appeared at the door with a bunch of callas, to which Mrs. Hilbrough's card was attached.

"Oh! see, Philly," said Agatha softly, "Mrs. Hilbrough has sent you some flowers."

Phillida reached her hand and touched them, gazed at them a moment, and then turned her head away, and began to weep.

"What is the matter, Philly? What are you crying about?" said her mother, with solicitation.

"The flowers make me want to die."

"Why, how can the flowers trouble you?"

"They are just like what Charley used to send me. They remind me that there is nothing more for me but to die and have done with the world."

The flowers were put out of her sight; but Phillida's mind had fastened itself on those other callas whose mute appeal for Charley Millard, at the crisis of her history, had so deeply moved her, though her perverse conscience would not let her respond to it.

XXXVI.
MRS. BESWICK

About the time that Phillida got her flowers Mrs. Beswick sat mending her husband's threadbare overcoat. His vigorous thumbs, in frequent fastening and loosening, had worn the cloth quite through in the neighborhood of the buttons. To repair this, his wife had cut little bits of the fabric off the overplus of cloth at the seams, and worked these little pieces through the holes, and then sewed the cloth down upon them so as to underlay the thumb-worn places. The buttonholes had also frayed out, and these had to be reworked.

"I declare, my love," she said, "you ought to have a new overcoat. This one is not decent enough for a man in your position to wear."

"It'll have to do till warm weather," he said; "I couldn't buy another if I wanted to."

"But you see, love, since Dr. Gunstone called you and sent a carriage for you, there's a chance for a better sort of practice, if we were only able to furnish the office a little better, and, above all, to get you a good overcoat. There, try that on and see how it looks."

Dr. Beswick drew the overcoat on, and Mrs. Beswick gave herself the pleasure of buttoning it about his manly form, and of turning the doctor around as a Bowery shopkeeper does a sidewalk dummy, to try the effect, smoothing the coat with her hands the while.

"That looks a good deal better, Mattie," he said.

"Yes; but it's fraying a little at the cuffs, and when it gives away there darning and patching won't save it. There, don't, don't, love, please; I'm in a hurry."

This last appeal was occasioned by the doctor's availing himself of her proximity to put his arm about her.

"Annie Jackson got twenty-five dollars for nursing the Martin child. Now, if I'd only done that."

"But you couldn't, Mattie. You're a doctor's wife, and you owe it to your position not to go out nursing."

"I know. Never mind; your practice'll rise now that Dr. Gunstone has called you, and they sent a carriage with a coachman and a footman after you. That kind of thing makes an impression on the neighbors. I shouldn't wonder if you'd be able to keep your own carriage in a few years. I'm sure you've got as much ability as Dr. Gunstone, though you don't put on his stylish ways. But we must manage to get you a new overcoat before another winter. Take off the coat, quick."

The last words were the result of a ring at the door. The doctor slipped quickly out of his overcoat, laughing, and then instantly assumed his meditative office face, while Mrs. Beswick opened the door. There stood a man in shirt-sleeves who had come to get the doctor to go to the dry dock to see a workman who was suffering from an attack of cart-pin in the hands of a friend with whom he had been discussing municipal politics.

Fifteen minutes later Mrs. Beswick's wifely heart was gladdened by another ring. When she saw that the visitor was a fine-looking gentleman, scrupulously well-dressed, even to his gloves and cane, she felt that renown and wealth must be close at hand.

"Is Dr. Beswick in?" demanded the caller.

"He was called out in haste to see a patient, who – was – taken down very suddenly," she said; "but I expect him back every moment. Will you come in and wait?"

"Can I see Mrs. Beswick?" said the stranger, entering.

"I am Mrs. Beswick."

"I am Mr. Millard. My aunt, Mrs. Martin, referred me to you. The occasion of my coming is this: Miss Callender, while caring for my little cousin, has caught diphtheria."

"I'm so sorry. You mean the one they call the faith-doctor? She's such a sweet, ladylike person! She's been here to see the doctor. And you want Dr. Beswick to attend her?"

"No; the family have called Dr. Gunstone, who has been their physician before."

Mrs. Beswick was visibly disappointed. It seemed so long to wait until Dr. Beswick's transcendent ability should be recognized. She was tired of hearing of Gunstone.

"I would like to send a good nurse to care for Miss Callender," said Millard, "since she got her sickness by attention to my little cousin. My aunt, Mrs. Martin, said that the nurse Dr. Beswick sent to her child was a friend of yours, I believe."

"Yes; I was in the hospital with her. But you couldn't get Miss Jackson, who nursed the little Martin boy. She's going to take charge of a case next week. It's a first-rate case that will last all summer. You could find a good nurse by going to the New York Hospital."

Millard looked hopeless. After a moment he said: "It wouldn't do. You see the family of Miss Callender wouldn't have me pay for a nurse if they knew about it. I thought I might get this Miss Jackson to go in as an acquaintance, having known Miss Callender at the Martins'. They needn't know that I pay her. Don't you think I could put somebody in her place, and get her?"

"No; it's a long case, and it will give her a chance to go to the country, and the people have waited nearly a week to get her."

"I suppose I'll have to give it up. Unless – unless – "

Millard paused a moment. Then he said:

"They say you are a trained nurse. If, now, I could coax you to go in as an acquaintance? You have met her, and you like her?"

"Oh, ever so much! She's so good and friendly. But I don't think I could go. The doctor's only beginning, but his practice is improving fast, and his position, you know, might be affected by my going out to nurse again."

But Mrs. Beswick looked a little excited, and Millard, making a hurried estimate of the Beswick financial condition from the few assets visible, concluded that the project was by no means hopeless.

"I wouldn't ask you to go out as a paid nurse. You would go and tender your services as a friend," he said.

"I'd feel like a wretch to be taking pay and pretending to do it all for kindness," said Mrs. Beswick, with a rueful laugh.

"Indeed, it would be a kindness, Mrs. Beswick, and it might save a valuable life."

"I don't know what to say till I consult the doctor," she said, dreaming of all the things she could do toward increasing the doctor's respectability if she had a little extra money. "I can not see that it would hurt his practice if managed in that way."

"Indeed, it might help it," said Millard, seeing Mrs. Beswick's accessible point. "You'd make the friendship of people who are connected with the first families of the city, and you'd make the acquaintance of Dr. Gunstone, who would recognize you only as a friend of Miss Callender's."

"I'll speak to the doctor. I'm sure I wouldn't do it for any one else. I couldn't stay away all the time, you know."

"Stay whatever time you can, and it will give me pleasure to pay you at the highest rate, for the service is a very delicate one."

"I'll feel like a liar," she said, with her head down, "pretending to do it all for nothing, though, indeed, I wouldn't go for anybody else."

"Oh, do it for nothing. We'll have no bargain. I'll make you a present when you are done."

"That'll be better," she said, though Millard himself could hardly see the difference.

XXXVII.
DR. GUNSTONE'S DIAGNOSIS

Mrs. Beswick, at the cost of a little persistence and a good many caresses, succeeded in getting the doctor to consent that she should go to the Callenders'. The risk of contagion she pooh-poohed. She called at Mrs. Callender's, and, again by a little persistence, succeeded in laying off her hat and sack and ensconcing herself as a volunteer nurse to Phillida. It seemed a case of remarkable disinterestedness to the Callender family, and a case of unparalleled hypocrisy to Mrs. Beswick, but she could not be dissuaded from staying from the early morning to bedtime, assuring Mrs. Callender that she would rather care for her daughter than for any one else. "Except the doctor, of course," she added. She was always pleased when she could contrive to mention the doctor; no topic of conversation brought her so many pleasurable emotions. Phillida became fond of her and whenever she went away longed for her return.

Robert brought flowers every day in Mrs. Hilbrough's name, and Millard called to inquire as often as he thought proper. The tidings secured on the third and fourth days indicated that the attack would prove a lighter one than that which had almost cost the life of Tommy. On the fifth day it was reported that Phillida was convalescent. Dr. Gunstone had announced that he would come no more unless there should appear symptoms of temporary paralysis, such as sometimes follow this disease, or unless other complications should arise. Millard thought it would be more prudent and, so to speak, realistic, to make Mrs. Hilbrough's inquiries and his own less frequent after this. He and Robert, therefore, called on alternate days. On Monday it was Mr. Millard who called, on Tuesday it was a bunch of flowers and inquiries in Mrs. Hilbrough's name. But Phillida's progress was so slow that it seemed doubtful after some days whether she made any advancement at all. The disease had quite disappeared, but strength did not return. At the end of a week from Dr. Gunstone's leave-taking, the family were in great anxiety lest there might be some obscure malady preying on her strength, and there was talk of taking her to some southern place to meet half-way the oncoming spring. But this would have drawn heavily on the family savings, which were likely to dwindle fast enough; the appearance of diphtheria having vacated all the rooms in the house at a time when there was small hope of letting them again before the autumn.

Milder measures than a trip were tried first. The arm-chair in which she sat was removed into the front parlor in hope that a slight change of scene might be an improvement; the cheerful sight of milk-wagons and butcher-carts, the melodious cries of old clothes buyers and sellers of "ba-nan-i-yoes" and the piping treble of girl-peddlers of horse-red-deesh were somehow to have a tonic effect upon her. But the spectacle of the rarely swept paving-stones of a side-street in the last days of March was not inspiriting. Phillida had the additional discomfort of involuntarily catching glimpses of her own pallid and despondent face in the pier-glass between the windows.

As for the life of the street, it seemed to her to belong to a world in which she no longer had any stake. The shock of disillusion regarding faith-healing had destroyed for the time a good deal besides. If mistaken in one thing she might be in many. However wholesome and serviceable a critical skepticism may prove to an enthusiast in the full tide of health and activity, to Phillida broken in heart and hope it was but another weight to sink her to the bottom. For now there was no longer love to look forward to, nor was she even able to interest herself again in the work that had mainly occupied her life, but which also she had marred by her errors. Turn either way she felt that she had spoiled her life.

Looking out of the window listlessly, late one afternoon, her attention was awakened by a man approaching with some cut flowers in his hand. She noticed with a curious interest that he wore a cap like the one she had remarked in the hands of Millard's valet. As he passed beneath the window, she distinctly recognized Robert as the man Millard had sent to hasten the coming of the coupé, and when he mounted the steps she felt her pulses beat more quickly.

Her mother entered presently with the flowers.

"From Mrs. Hilbrough with inquiries," Mrs. Callender read from the card as she arranged the flowers in a vase on the low marble table under the pier-glass.

"Mrs. Hilbrough?" said Phillida with a feeling of disappointment. "But that was Charley Millard's man."

"No, that is the man Mrs. Hilbrough has sent ever since you were taken ill," said the mother. "He speaks in a peculiar English way; did you hear him? You've got a better color this evening, I declare."

"Mama, that is Charley's man," persisted Phillida. "I saw him at the Graydon. And the flowers he has brought all along are in Charley's taste – just what he used to send me, and not anything out of Mrs. Hilbrough's conservatory. Give me a sip of water, please." Phillida's color had all departed now.

Having drunk the water she leaned against her chair-back and closed her eyes. Continuous and assiduous attention from Mrs. Hilbrough was more than she had expected; and now that the messenger was proven to be Millard's own man, she doubted whether there were not some mystery about the matter, the more that the flowers sent were precisely Millard's favorites.

The next day Phillida sat alone looking into the street, as the twilight of a cloudy evening was falling earlier than usual, when Agatha came into the room to light two burners, with a notion that darkness might prove depressing to her sister. Phillida turned to watch the process of touching a match to the gas, as an invalid is prone to seek a languid diversion in the least things. When the gas was lighted she looked out of the window again, and at the same moment the door-bell sounded. To save Sarah's deserting the dinner on the range, Agatha answered it. Phillida, with a notion that she might have a chance to verify her recognition of Millard's valet, kept her eyes upon the portion of the front steps that was visible where she sat. She saw Millard himself descend the steps and pass in front of her window. He chanced to look up, and his agitation was visible even from where she sat as he suddenly lifted his hat and bowed, and then hurried away.

The night that followed was a restless one, and it was evident in the morning that Dr. Gunstone must be called again. Mrs. Callender found Phillida so weak that she hesitated to speak to her of a note she had received in the morning mail. It might do good; it might do harm to let her know its contents. Agatha was consulted and she turned the scale of Mrs. Callender's decision.

"Phillida, dear," said the mother, "I don't know whether I ought to mention it to you or not. You are very weak this morning. But Charley Millard has asked for permission to make a brief call. Could you bear to see him?"

Phillida's face showed her deeply moved. After a pause and a struggle she said: "Charley is sorry for me, that is all. He thinks I may die, and he feels grateful for my attention to his aunt. But if he had to begin over again he would never fall in love with me."

"You don't know that, Phillida. You are depressed; you underestimate yourself."

"With his advantages he could take his choice almost," said Phillida. "It's very manly of him to be so constant to an unfortunate and broken-hearted person like me. But I will not have him marry me out of pity."

"I'm afraid you are depressed by your weakness. I don't think you ought to refuse to see him if you feel able," said the mother.

"I am not able to see him. It is easier to refuse in this way than after I have been made ill by too much feeling. I am not going to subject Charley to the mortification of taking into his circle a wife that will be always remembered as – as a sort of quack-doctor."

Saying this Phillida broke down and wept.

When Agatha heard of her decision she came in and scolded her sister roundly for a goose. This made Phillida weep again, but there was a firmness of will at the base of her character that held her determination unchanged. About an hour later she begged her mother to write the answer at her dictation. It read:

"Miss Callender wishes me to say that she is not able to bear an interview. With the utmost respect for Mr. Millard and with a grateful appreciation of his kind attention during her illness, she feels sure that it is better not to renew their acquaintance."

After this letter was sent off Phillida's strength began to fail, and the mother and sister were thrown into consternation. In the afternoon Dr. Gunstone came again. He listened to the heart, he examined the lungs, he made inquisition for symptoms and paused baffled. The old doctor understood the mind-cure perfectly; balked in his search for physical causes he said to Mrs. Callender:

"Perhaps if I could speak with Miss Callender alone a few moments it might be better."

"I have no secrets from mama," protested Phillida.

"That's right, my child," said Dr. Gunstone gravely, "but you can talk with more freedom to one person than to two. I want to see your mother alone, also, when I have talked with you."

Mrs. Callender retired and the doctor for a minute kept up a simulation of physical examination in order to wear away the restraint which Phillida might feel at being abruptly left for a confidential conversation with her physician.

"I'm afraid you don't try to get well, Miss Callender," he said.

"Does trying make any difference?" demanded Phillida.

"Yes, to be sure; that's the way that the mesmerists and magnetizers, and the new faith-cure people work their cures largely. They enlist the will, and they do some good. They often help chronic invalids whom the doctors have failed to benefit."

Dr. Gunstone had his hand on Phillida's wrist, and he could not conjecture why her pulse increased rapidly at this point in the conversation. But he went on:

"Have you really tried to get well? Have you wanted to get well as soon as possible?"

"On mama's account I ought to wish to get well," she said.

"But you are young and you have much happiness before you. Don't you wish to get well on your own account?"

Phillida shook her head despondently.

"Now, my child, I am an old man and your doctor. May I ask whether you are engaged to be married?"