Kitabı oku: «King of the Castle», sayfa 3
Volume One – Chapter Five.
The Doctor is King
“Don’t be flurried, my dear,” said Doctor Asher, as, in a calm, business-like way, he saw to Gartram being laid easily on the floor, where he had fallen in the study.
“But he looks so ghastly. You do not think – ”
“Yes, I do, my child,” said the doctor cheerfully. “Not what you think, because I know. He has another fit precisely the same as the last, and it was evidently a sudden seizure, just as he had risen from his chair, after writing that letter.”
“Then there is no danger?”
“Oh, dear, no. That’s right, you see. We’ll have this mattress on the floor; and he can lie here. Don’t be alarmed.”
“But I am horribly alarmed.”
“Then you must not be, my child. I will not conceal the fact from you that he will probably be subject to more fits, and may have one at any time.”
“But I feel so helpless.”
“So does a doctor, my dear. We try all we can, but time has to perform the greater part of the cure, after we have done all we can to avoid suffocation, and the patient injuring himself in his struggles. There, there; he’s going on all right, and you’ve been a very good, brave girl. I quite admire your behaviour all through; and another time, if I am not here, you will know exactly how to act.”
“Oh, don’t talk of another time, Doctor Asher.”
“Well, I will not,” he said, smiling. “Now, don’t be alarmed, but keep perfectly cool, for I must go back and see to that poor fellow at the quarry.”
“Yes, of course. But, doctor, if my poor father should be taken worse?”
“He will not be taken worse, but gradually mend. I shall not be very long away.”
“No, no; pray don’t be long.”
“No; and mind you are my assistant. So you must be cool and self-possessed. Shall I send Miss Dillon to sit with you?”
“Yes, please, do,” said the agitated girl, as she gazed wildly at her father’s altered face.
Doctor Asher seemed rather to resemble a very smooth, black tom cat, and, as he drew down his cuffs, and passed his white hands over his glossy coat, an imaginative person would not have been much surprised to see him begin to lick himself, to remove a few specks caused by the business in which he had been engaged.
As he left the study and crossed the hall, with its polished granite flooring, his delicate manner of proceeding toward the drawing-room, and stepping from one to another of the oases of Eastern rugs, was still like the progress of the cat who believed the polished granite to be water, and tried to avoid wetting his paws.
When he laid his hand upon the drawing-room door, a murmur of voices came from within, and, as he entered, Mary Dillon jumped up from the low ottoman upon which she had been seated, talking to Glyddyr, and ran quickly to the doctor’s side.
“How is he?” she said excitedly.
“Better, certainly. Miss Gartram wants you to go and stay with her.”
“Yes, of course. Good-bye, Mr Glyddyr, and thank you for being so kind.”
She spoke as she ran to the door, jerked the last words back over her shoulder, and was gone, leaving the doctor face to face with the visitor.
“How is he?” said the latter. “You can speak plainly to me.”
“To be sure I can, my dear sir. Ah, what a world this is. Yesterday we were taking our champagne in the saloon of your charming yacht, to-day – ”
“You are keeping me waiting for an answer,” said Glyddyr, rather stiffly.
“So I am,” said the doctor, smiling. “Well, how is he? Rather bad. Nasty fit of his usual sort.”
“Then he is subject to these fits?”
“Most decidedly.”
“But what caused it?”
“Worry. From what I can gather, he must have some upset when out walking. Our friend has a temper.”
“Ah!” ejaculated Glyddyr.
“Then he has had some quarrel with this poor fellow who is hurt. The terrible accident followed, and, with the customary crass obstinacy of rustic, ignorant workmen, the poor fellow and his comrades lay the blame of a trouble, caused by their own stupidity, upon their employer.”
“Yes, I see. Caused great mental disturbance?”
“Exactly, my dear sir. He being a man who, in the labour of making money, has nearly worried himself to death.”
“Yes.”
“And who now worries himself far more to keep it.”
“Ah, money is hard to keep,” said Glyddyr, with a smile.
“He has found it so, sir. When the old bank broke years ago, it hit him to the tune of many thousands.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes; and that set him building this place for his protection. I shouldn’t wonder if he has quite a bank here.”
“Indeed! The the old man is rich?”
“Rich! I thought every one knew that. Better be poor and happy.”
“As we are, eh, doctor? Well, it’s a terrible worry – money.”
This was accompanied by a peculiar look which the doctor interpreted, and replied to with one as suggestive.
“No danger, I hope, to the old gentleman?”
“No, no. Fits are not favourable to health, though.”
“Well, no danger this time, I hope?”
“Not a bit. He’ll feel the shock for a few days. That’s all.”
“And the other patient?”
“Hah, yes; I’m just going over there.”
“He is very bad, you say?”
“Bad! I expect to find him gone.”
The doctor nodded, and left the room.
“Bah! how I do hate them,” said Glyddyr. “I’d have walked down with him, but I always feel as if I were smelling physic.”
Glyddyr stood tapping the bottom of his watch, which he had just taken from his pocket, as he talked in a low tone, just as if he were conversing with the little round face before him.
“How wild the old boy was – just after he had been talking to me as he had. Pshaw! I don’t mind. Rustic bit of courtship. Half-bumpkin sort of fellow, and poor as Job. Old man wouldn’t have him at any price. The gipsy! Been carrying on with him, then, eh? Well, it’s always the way with your smooth, drooping little violets. Regular flirtation. I don’t mind. I wouldn’t give a dump for a girl without a bit of spirit in her. It’s all right. Friends at court – a big friend at court. But no more fits for friends – at present, I hope. I’ll get him to come on a cruise, and bring her. Tell the old boy it will do him good. Get the doctor on my side, and make him prescribe a trip round the islands, with him to come as medical attendant. Nothing to do, and unlimited champagne. Real diplomacy. By Jupiter, Parry, you are a clever one, though you do get most awfully done on the turf!”
“Yes,” he said, after another look at the watch, for the purpose now of seeing the time, “that’s the plan – a long sea trip round the islands, with sentiment, sighs and sunsets; and, as they said in the old melodramas, ‘Once aboard the lugger, she is mine.’ For, lugger read steam yacht, schooner-rigged Fair Star, of Cowes; Parry Glyddyr, owner.”
He laughed in a low, self-satisfied way, and then moved toward the door.
“Well, it’s of no use to wait here,” he said. “They will not show up again. I can call, though, as often as I like. Come again this evening, and see her then. She can’t refuse. I’ll go now and see how the salmon fisher is getting on.”
Volume One – Chapter Six.
In Charge
“Mary, dear, don’t deceive me for the sake of trying to give me comfort,” said Claude, as she knelt in the study, beside the mattress upon which her father lay breathing stertorously.
“Claude, darling, I tease you and say spiteful things sometimes, but you know you can trust me.”
“Yes, yes, dear, I know; but you don’t answer me.”
“I have told you again and again that your father is just like he was last time, and the best proof of there being no danger is Doctor Asher staying away so long.”
“It’s that which worries me so. He promised to come back soon.”
“Don’t be unreasonable, dear. You know he went to the quarry where that man is dangerously hurt.”
“Yes. Poor Sarah! How she must suffer! It is very terrible. But look now, Mary – that dark mark beneath papa’s eyes.”
“Yes, I can see it,” said Mary, rising quickly, and going to the table, where she changed the position of the lamp, with the result that the dark shadow lay now across the sleeper’s lips. “There, that is not a dangerous symptom, Claudie.”
“Don’t laugh at me, Mary. You can’t think how I alarmed I am. These fits seem to come more frequently than they used. Ought not papa to have more advice?”
“It would be of no use, dear. I could cure him.”
“You?”
“Yes; or he could cure himself.”
“Mary!”
“Yes,” said the little, keen-looking body, kneeling down by her cousin’s side; “uncle has only to leave off worrying about making more money and piling up riches that he will never enjoy, and he would soon be well again.”
Claude sighed.
“See what a life he leads, always in such a hurry that he cannot finish a meal properly; and as to taking a bit of pleasure in any form, he would think it wicked. I haven’t patience with him. Yes, I have, poor old fellow – plenty. He has been very good to miserable little me.”
“Of course he has, dear,” said Claude, throwing her arms about her cousin’s neck and kissing her, with the result that the sharp-looking, self-contained little body uttered an hysterical cry, clung to her, and burst out sobbing wildly, as if all control was gone.
“Mary, darling, don’t, pray don’t. You distress me. What is the matter?”
“I’m miserable, wretched,” sobbed the poor girl, with her face hidden in her cousin’s breast. “I always seem to be doing something wrong. It’s just as if, when I tried to make people happy, I was a kind of imp of mischief, and caused trouble.”
“No, no, no! What folly.”
“It isn’t folly; it’s quite true. See what I did this morning.”
Claude felt her cheeks begin to burn, and she tried to speak, but the words would not come.
“I knew that Chris Lisle had gone up the east river fishing, and I was sure he longed to see you, and I was quite certain you wanted to see him.”
“Mary, be silent,” cried Claude, in an excited whisper; “it is not true.”
“Yes, it is, dear. You know it is, and I could see that he was miserable, and had been since you went on board Mr Glyddyr’s yacht, so I felt that it would be quite right to take you round there, so that you might meet and make it up. And see what mischief I seem to have made.”
“Yes,” said Claude gravely, as she metaphorically put on her maiden mask of prudery; “and you know now that it was very, very thoughtless of you.”
“Thoughtless!” said Mary, looking up with a quick look, half-troubled, half-amused; “didn’t I think too much?”
“Don’t talk, Mary,” said Claude primly. “You may disturb poor papa. It was very wicked and meddlesome and weak, and you don’t know what harm you have done.”
Mary Dillon’s face was flushed and tear-stained, and her eyes looked red and troubled; but she darted a glance at her cousin so full of mischievous drollery, that Claude’s colour deepened, and she turned away troubled, and totally unable to continue the strain of reproof.
She was spared further trouble by a cough heard in the hall.
“Wipe your eyes quickly, Mary,” she whispered; “here is Doctor Asher at last.”
Mary jumped up, and stepped to the window, where she was half hidden by the curtains, as there was a gentle tap at the door, the handle was turned, and the doctor, looking darker and more stern than ever, entered the room.
He whisperingly asked how his patient had been, as he went down on one knee by the mattress, made a short examination, and turned to Claude, who, with parted lips, was watching him anxiously.
“You think him worse?” she whispered.
“Indeed I do not,” he said quickly. “Nothing could be better. He will sleep heavily for a long time.”
“But did you notice his heavy breathing?”
“Of course I did,” said the doctor rising, “and you have no cause for alarm. Ah, Miss Mary, I did not see you at first.”
“Don’t deceive me, Doctor Asher,” said Claude, in agonised tones; “tell me the worst.”
“There is no worse to tell you, my dear child. I dare say your father will be well enough to sit up to-morrow.”
“Thank heaven!” said Claude to herself. Then, turning to the doctor: “How is poor Isaac Woodham?”
“Don’t ask me.”
“How dreadful!”
“Yes; it was a terrible accident.”
“But is there no hope?”
“You asked me not to deceive you,” said the doctor gravely. “None at all.”
Just then the sick man moaned slightly in his sleep, and made an uneasy movement which took his daughter back to his side.
“Don’t be alarmed, my child,” said the doctor encouragingly; “there is nothing to fear.”
“But I am alarmed,” said Claude; “and I look forward with horror to the long night when I am alone with him.”
“You are going to sit up with him?”
“Of course.”
“Divide the night with your cousin.”
“Yes – but – ”
“Well – what is it?”
“Oh, Doctor Asher, don’t leave him. Pray, pray, stay here.”
“But I have to go and see that poor fellow twice during the night.”
“I had forgotten him,” sighed Claude. “Couldn’t you stop here, and go and see him in the night?”
“Well, I might do that,” said the doctor thoughtfully; “but really, my child, there is no necessity.”
“If you could stop, Doctor Asher,” interposed Mary, “it would be a great relief to poor Claude, who is nervous and hysterical about my uncle’s state.”
“Very well,” was the cheerful reply. “I’ll tell you what; I’ll sit with you till about nine, and then go and see poor Woodham. Then I’ll come back and stay up with Mr Gartram till about three, when you shall be called to relieve me.”
“But I shall not go to bed,” said Claude decidedly.
“I am your medical man, and I prescribe rest,” said the doctor, smiling. “I don’t want any more patients at present. You and your cousin will go and lie down early, and then come and relieve me, so that I can go and see poor Woodham again. After that I shall return here, and you can let me have a sofa ready, to be called if wanted. There, I am the doctor, and a doctor rules in a sick house.”
“Must I do as you say?” asked Claude pleadingly.
“Yes; you must,” he replied; and so matters were settled.
Doctor Asher walked down to the quarry cottage to see his patient there, and did what he could to alleviate the poor fellow’s pain, always avoiding the inquiring look in the wife’s eyes, and then he returned to the Fort.
“How is he now?” asked Claude anxiously.
“Very bad,” was the reply.
“You will find coffee all ready on the side-table, doctor,” said Claude; “and there is a spirit lamp and the stand and glasses. There are cigars on the shelf; but you will let me sit up too?”
“To show that you have no confidence in your medical man.”
“Oh, no, no; but Mary and I might be of some use.”
“And of none at all to-morrow, my dears. You must both go to bed, and be ready to relieve me.”
“But is there anything else I can do to help you?”
“Yes; what I say – go to bed at once.”
Claude hesitated a few moments, and then walked quickly to the side of the mattress, knelt down, kissed her father lovingly, and then rose.
“Come, Mary,” she said. “And you will ring the upstairs bell if there’s the slightest need?”
“Of course, of course. There, good-night; I shall ring punctually at two.”
He shook hands, and the two girls left the room unwillingly, and proceeded slowly upstairs.
“Well lie down in your room, Mary,” said Claude; “it is so much nearer the bell. Do you know, I feel so dreadfully low-spirited? It is as if a terrible shadow had come over the place, and – don’t laugh at me – it seemed to grow darker when Doctor Asher came into the room.”
“What nonsense! Because he is all in black.”
“Do you think he is to be trusted, Mary?”
“I don’t know. I don’t like him, and I never did. He is so sleek and smooth, and I hate him to call us ‘my dear’ in that nasty, patronising, paternal sort of way.”
“Then let’s sit up.”
“No, no. It would be absurd. I daresay we should feel the same about any other doctor.”
“I do hope he will take great care of poor papa,” sighed Claude; and the door closed after them as they entered their room.
If Doctor Asher was not going to take great care of Norman Gartram, it was very evident that he was going to take very great care of himself, for as soon as he was alone he struck a match, lit the spirit lamp, lifted the lid of the coffee pot, and found that it was still very hot, and then, removing a stopper in the spirit stand, he poured out into a cup a goodly portion of pale brandy.
He had just restored the stopper to the spirit decanter, saying to himself, “Nice, thoughtful little girl!” when Gartram moaned and moved uneasily.
The doctor crossed to him directly, went down on one knee, and felt to see that his patient’s neck was well opened.
“Almost a pity not to have had him undressed,” he said to himself. “What’s the matter with you – uncomfortable? Why, poor old boy,” he continued, with a half laugh, as his hands busily felt round the sick man, “how absurd!”
He had passed a hand through the opening in Gartram’s shirt front, and after a little effort succeeded in unbuckling a cash belt which was round his patient’s waist, drawing the whole out, and noting that on one side there was a pocket stuffed full and hard as he threw the belt carelessly on the table.
“Nice wadge that for a man to lie on. There, old fellow, you’ll be more comfortable now.”
As if to endorse his words, Gartram uttered a deep sigh, and seemed to settle off to sleep.
“Breeches pockets full too, I daresay,” muttered the doctor; “and shouldn’t be surprised if there’s a good, hard bunch of keys somewhere in his coat. Doesn’t trouble him, though.”
He rose, and went back to the tray at the side, filled the already primed coffee cup and carried it to the table, wheeled forward an easy chair, selected a cigar, which he lit, and then threw himself back and sipped his coffee and smoked.
“Yes, sweet little girl Claude,” he thought; “make a man a good wife – good rich wife, and if – no, no, not the slightest chance for me, and I’ll go on as I am, and make the best of it.”
He had another sip.
“Delicious coffee, fine cigar. Worse things than being a doctor. We get as much insight of family matters as the parsons, and are trusted with more secrets.”
He laughed to himself as he lay back.
“Yes, nice little heiress, Claude,” he said again. “Wonder who’ll get her – Christopher the salmon fisher, or our new yachting friend? I think I should back Glyddyr.”
He smoked on, and thought seriously for some time about his other patient, and after a time he emitted a cloud of smoke which he had retained in his mouth, as he turned himself with a jerk from one side of his great easy chair to the other.
“No,” he said, “impossible to have done more. The Royal College of Surgeons couldn’t save him.”
He smoked on in silence, sipping his coffee from time to time, gazing the while at Gartram, upon whom the light shone faintly, just sufficient to show his stern-looking, deeply-marked face.
“Yours is a good head, my dear patient,” he mused. “Well-cut features, and a look of firm determination in your aspect, even when your eyes are closed. You miss something there, for you have keen, piercing eyes, but for all that you look like what you are, a stubborn, determined Englishman, who will have his own way over everything so long as his works will make him go. When they run down, he comes to me for help, and I am helping him. Yes, you were sure to get on and heap up money, and build grand houses, and slap your pocket-book and say: ‘I am a rich man,’ and ‘I laugh at and deride the whole world,’ and so you do, my dear sir, all but the doctor, who, once he has you, has you all his life, and can do what he likes with you. I have you hard, Norman Gartram, and I am licenced; I have you completely under me, and so greatly am I in possession of you, that I could this night say to you die, and you would die; or I could bid you live, and you would live. A simple giving or a simple taking. A movement with the tactus eruditus of a physician, and then the flag would be down, the King of the Castle would be gone, and a new king would reign in the stead – or queen,” he added, with a laugh.
“Ah, you people trust us a great deal, and we in return trust you – a very long time often before we can get paid. Not you, my dear Gartram, you always were a hard cash man. But you people trust us a great deal, and our power is great.
“And ought not to be abused,” he said hastily. “No, of course not. No one ought to abuse those who trust. Capital coffee this,” he added, as he partook of more. “Grand thing to keep a man awake.
“Humph! Tired. Ours is weary work,” and he yawned.
“I believe I should have been a clever fellow,” mused the doctor, “if I had not been so confoundedly lazy. There’s something very interesting in these cases. In yours, for instance, my fine old fellow, it sets one thinking whether I could have treated you differently, and whether I could do anything to prevent the recurrence of these fits.”
He smoked on in silence, and then shook his head.
“No,” he said, half aloud; “if there is a fire burning, and that is kept burning, all that we can do is to keep on smothering it for a time. It is sure to keep on eating its way out. He has a fire in his brain which he insists upon keeping burning, so until he quenches it himself, all I can do is to stop the flames by smothering it over by my medical sods. You must cure yourself, Norman Gartram; I cannot cure you. No, and you cannot cure yourself, for you will go on struggling to make more money that you have no use for, till you die. Poor devil!”
He said the last two words aloud, in a voice full of pitying contempt. Then, after another sip of his coffee, he looked round for a book, drew the lamp close to his right shoulder, and picked up one or two volumes, but only to throw them down again; and he was reaching over for another when his eye fell upon the cash belt with its bulging contents.
“Humph,” he ejaculated, as he turned it over and over, and noted that it had been in service a long time. “Stuffed very full. Notes, I suppose. Old boy hates banking. Wonder how much there is in? Very dishonourable,” he muttered; “extremely so, but he has placed himself in my hands.”
He drew out a pocket-book.
“Wants a new elastic band, my dear Gartram. Out of order. I must prescribe a new band. Let me see; what have we here? Notes – fivers – tens – two fifties. Droll thing that these flimsy looking scraps of paper should represent so much money. More here too – tens, all of them.”
He drew forth from the pockets of the book dirty doubled-up packets of Bank of England notes, and carelessly examined them, refolding them, and returning them to their places.
“What a capital fee I might pay myself,” he said, with an unpleasant little laugh; “and I don’t suppose, old fellow, that you would miss it. Certainly, my dear Gartram, you would be none the worse. Extremely one-sided sometimes,” he said, “to have had the education of a gentleman and run short. Yes, very.”
He returned the last notes to the pocket, and raised a little flap in the inner part.
“Humph! what’s this? An old love letter. No: man’s handwriting: – ‘instructions to my executors.’”
He gave vent to a low whistle, glanced at the sleeping man, then at the door, and back at his patient before laying down the pocket-book, and turning the soiled little envelope over and over.
“Not fastened down,” he muttered. “I wonder what – Oh, no: one can’t do that.”
He hastily picked up the pocket-book, and thrust the note back into its receptacle, but snatched it out again, opened it quickly, and read half aloud certain of the sentences which caught his attention – “‘Granite closet behind book cases – vault under centre of study – big granite chest’.”
“Good heavens!” he said, after a pause, during which he read through the memorandum again; then refolding it and returning it to the envelope, he hastily placed the writing in its receptacle, and in turn this was put in the pocket-book. Lastly, the book was returned to the pouch in the belt, which latter was thrust hastily into one of the drawers of the writing-table, the key turned and taken out.
“Give it to Mademoiselle Claude,” he said, with a half laugh. “What an awkward thing if I had been tempted to behave as some would have done under the circumstances.”
He took out a delicate lawn handkerchief, unfolded it, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and then proceeded to do the same to his hands, which were cold and damp.
“That coffee is strong,” he said, “or it is my fancy; perhaps the place is too warm.”
He walked up and down the room two or three times, gazing anxiously at the bookshelves, and then at the table, where the floor was covered with a thick Turkey carpet; but he turned away and refilled his cup with coffee and brandy, found that his cigar was out, and threw the stump away before helping himself to a fresh one, and smoking heavily for some time, evidently thinking deeply.
Then, apparently unable to resist the temptation, he rose and walked to the door, opened it and listened, found that all was silent, closed it again, and after glancing at his patient, who was sleeping heavily, he hastily drew out the key, opened the drawer, and, after a momentary hesitation, took out the belt.
In another minute, the yellow looking memorandum was in his hands, being studied carefully before it was restored to its resting-place, and again locked up.
“I did not know I had so much curiosity in my nature,” he said, with a half laugh. “Well, the study of mankind is man, doesn’t some one say, and I’m none the worse for a little extra knowledge of a friend’s affairs. I might be called upon to give advice some day.”
Oddly enough, the knowledge again affected the doctor so that he wiped his brow and hands carefully, and then sat gazing thoughtfully before him as he sipped and smoked and seemed to settle down into a calm, restful state, which at times approached drowsiness.
Upon these occasions he rose and softly paced the room, stopping to listen to his patient’s breathing, and twice over feeling his pulse.
“Could not be going on better,” he muttered.
Finally, during one of his turns up and down, he heard a step outside the door, followed by a light tap, and Claude entered.
The doctor started, and looked at her wildly.
“Why have you come down?” he said.
“Come down? How is he? I overslept myself, and it is half-past two.”
“Is it so late as that?”
“Doctor Asher!” cried Claude excitedly, as she caught him by the arm, “you are keeping something back.”
Her words seemed to smite him, and he tried vainly to speak. It was as if he had suddenly been startled by some terrible shock, and he stared at Claude with his jaw slightly fallen.
“Why don’t you speak?”
“Keeping something back,” he said hoarsely. “No!”
“No? Why do you say that? You seem so confused and changed. Tell me, for heaven’s sake; my father – ”
“Better – better,” he said, recovering himself, and speaking loudly, but in a husky voice. “I – I have been a little drowsy, I suppose, with the long watching. Not correct, but natural.”
She looked at him wonderingly, he seemed so strange, and unable to contain herself, she turned to where her father lay, with her heart throbbing wildly, and something seemed to whisper to her the words, “He is dead.”
