Kitabı oku: «Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles», sayfa 4

Little difficulty did there appear to be in the plan to Mr. Halliburton. His boys should enter the University, although he had not done so: the future of our children appears hopeful and easy to most of us. William and Frank were in the school attached to King's College: of which you hear Mr. Halliburton was now a professor. Edgar—never called anything but "Gar"—went to a private school, but he would soon be entered at King's College. Remarkably well-educated boys for their years, were the young Halliburtons. Mr. Halliburton and Jane had taken care of that. Home teaching was more efficient than school: both combined had rendered them unusually intelligent and advanced. Naturally intellectual, gifted with excellent qualities of mind and heart, Mrs. Halliburton had not failed to do her duty by them. She spared no pains; she knew how children ought to be brought up, and she did her duty well. Ah, my friends! only lay a good foundation in their earlier years, and your children will grow up to bless you.

"Jane, I wonder which office will be the best to insure in?"

Jane began to recall the names of some that were familiar to her.

"The Phœnix?" suggested she.

Mr. Halliburton laughed. "I think that's only for fire, Jane. I am not sure, though." In truth, he knew little about insurance offices himself.

"There's the Sun; and the Atlas; and the Argus—oh, and ever so many more," continued Jane.

"I'll inquire all about it to-day," said he.

"I wonder if the premium will take a hundred a year, Edgar?"

He could not tell. He feared it might. "I wish Jane," he observed, "that I had insured my life when I first married. The premium would have been small then, and we might have managed to spare it."

"Ay," she answered. "Sometimes I look back to things that I might have done in the past years: and I did not do them. Now, the time has gone by!"

"Well, it has not gone by for insuring," said Mr. Halliburton, rising from the breakfast-table and speaking in gay tones. "Half-past eight!" he cried, looking at his watch. "Good-bye, Jane," said he, bending to kiss her. "Wish me luck."

"A weighty insurance and a small premium," she said, laughing. "But you are not going about it now?"

"Of course not. The offices would not be open. I shall take an opportunity of doing so in the course of the day."

Mr. Halliburton departed on his usual duties. It was a warm day in April. His first attendance was King's College, and there he remained for the morning. Then he proceeded to gain information about the various offices and their respective merits: finally fixed upon the one he should apply to, and bent his steps towards it.

It was situated in the heart of the City, in a very busy part of it. The office also appeared to be busy, for several people were in it when Mr. Halliburton entered. A young man came forward to know his business.

"I wish to insure my life," said Mr. Halliburton. "How must I proceed about it?"

"Oh yes, sir. Mr. Procter, will you attend to this gentleman?"

Mr. Halliburton was marshalled to an inner room, where a gentlemanly man received him. He explained his business in detail, stated his age, and the sum he wished to insure for. Every information was politely afforded him; and a paper, with certain printed questions, was given him to fill up at his leisure, and then to be returned.

Mr. Halliburton glanced over it. "You require a certificate of my birth from the parish register where I was baptized, I perceive," he remarked. "Why so? In stating my age, I have stated it correctly."

The gentleman smiled. "Of that I make no doubt," he said, "for you look younger than the age you have given me. Our office makes it a rule in most cases to require the certificate from the register. All applicants are not scrupulous about telling the truth, and we have been obliged to adopt it in self-defence. We have had cases, we have indeed, sir, where we have insured a life, and then found—though perhaps not until the actual death has taken place—that the insurer was ten years older than he asserted. Therefore we demand a certificate. It does occasionally happen that applicants can bring well-known men to testify to their age, and then we do not mind dispensing with it."

Mr. Halliburton sent his thoughts round in a circle. There was no one in London who knew his age of their own positive knowledge; so it was useless to think of that. "There will be no difficulty in the matter," he said aloud. "I can get the certificate up from Devonshire in the course of two or three days by writing for it. My father was rector of the church where I was christened. This will be all, then? To fill up this paper and bring you the certificate."

"All; with the exception of being examined by our physician."

"What! is it necessary to be examined by a physician?" exclaimed Mr. Halliburton. "The paper states that I must hand in a report from my ordinary medical attendant. He will not give you a bad report of me," he added, smiling, "for it is little enough I have troubled him. I believe the worst thing he has attended me for has been a bad cold."

"So much the better," remarked the gentleman. "You do not look very strong."

"Very strong I don't think I am. I am too hard worked; get too little rest and recreation. It was suspecting that I am not so strong as I might be that set me thinking it might be well to insure my life for the sake of my wife and children," he ingenuously added, in his straightforward manner. "If I could count upon living and working on until I am an old man, I should not do so."

Again the gentleman smiled. "Looks are deceitful," he observed. "Nothing more so. Sometimes those who look the most delicate live the longest."

"You cannot say I look delicate," returned Mr. Halliburton.

"I did not say it. I consider that you do not look robust; but that is not saying that you look delicate. You may be a perfectly healthy man for all I can say to the contrary."

He ran his eyes over Mr. Halliburton as he spoke; over his tall, fine form, his dark hair, amidst which not a streak of grey mingled, his clearly-cut features, and his complexion, bright as a woman's. Was there suspicion in that complexion? "A handsome man, at any rate," thought the gazer, "if not a robust one."

"It will be necessary, then, that I see your physician?" asked Mr. Halliburton.

"Yes. It cannot be dispensed with. We would not insure without it. He attends here twice a week. In the intervening days, he may be seen in Savile-row, from three to five. It is Dr. Carrington. His days for coming here are Mondays and Thursdays."

"And this is Friday," remarked Mr. Halliburton. "I shall probably go up to him."

Mr. Halliburton said good morning, and came away with his paper. "It's great nonsense, my seeing this doctor!" he said to himself as he hastened home to dinner, which he knew he must have kept waiting. "But I suppose it is necessary as a general rule; and of course they won't make me an exception."

Hurrying over his dinner, in a manner that prevented its doing him any good—as Jane assured him—he sat down to his desk when it was over and wrote for the certificate of his birth. Folding and sealing the letter, he put on his hat to go out again.

"Shall you go to Savile-row this afternoon?" Jane inquired.

"If I can by any possibility get my teaching over in time," he answered. "Young Finchley's hour is four o'clock, but I can put him off until the evening. I dare say I shall get up there."

By dint of hurrying, Mr. Halliburton contrived to reach Savile-row, and arrived there in much heat at half-past four. There was no necessity for hurrying there on this particular day, but he felt impatient to get the business over; as if speed now could atone for past neglect. Dr. Carrington was at home but engaged, and Mr. Halliburton was shown into a room. Three or four others were waiting there; whether ordinary patients, or whether mere applicants of form like himself, he could not tell; and it was their turn to go in before it was his.

But his turn came at last, and he was ushered into the presence of the doctor—a little man, fair and reserved, with powder on his head.

Reserved in ordinary intercourse, but certainly not reserved in asking questions. Mr. Halliburton had never been so rigidly questioned before. What disorders had he had, and what had he not had? What were his habits, past and present? One question came at last: "Do you feel thoroughly strong?—healthy, elastic?"

"I feel languid in hot weather," replied Mr. Halliburton.

"Um! Appetite sound and good?"

"Generally speaking. It has not been so good of late."

"Breathing all right?"

"Yes; it is a little tight sometimes."

"Um! Subject to a cough?"

"I have no settled cough. A sort of hacking cough comes on at night occasionally. I attribute it to fatigue."

"Um! Will you open your shirt? Just unbutton it here"—touching the front—"and your flannel waistcoat, if you wear one."

Mr. Halliburton bared his chest in obedience and the doctor sounded it, and then put down his ear. Apparently his ear did not serve him sufficiently, for he took a small instrument out of a drawer, placed it on the chest, and then put his ear to that, changing the position of the instrument three or four times.

"That will do," he said at length.

He turned to put up his stethoscope again, and Mr. Halliburton drew the edges of his shirt together and buttoned them.

"Why don't you wear flannel waistcoats?" asked the doctor, with quite a sharp accent, his head down in the drawer.

"I do wear them in winter; but in warm weather I leave them off. It was only last week that I discarded them."

"Was ever such folly known!" ejaculated Dr. Carrington. "One would think people were born without common sense. Half the patients who come to me say they leave off their flannels in summer! Why, it is in summer they are most needed! And this warm weather won't last either. Go home, sir, and put one on at once."

"Certainly, if you think it right," said Mr. Halliburton with a smile. "I thank you for telling me."

He took up his hat and waited. The doctor appeared to wait for him to go. "I understood at the office that you would give me a paper testifying that you had examined me," explained Mr. Halliburton.

"Ah—but I can't give it," said the doctor.

"Why not, sir?"

"Because I am not satisfied with you. I cannot recommend you as a healthy life."

Mr. Halliburton's pulses quickened a little. "Sir!" he repeated. "Not a healthy life?"

"Not sufficiently healthy for insurance."

"Why! what is the matter with me?" he rejoined.

Dr. Carrington looked him full in the face for the space of a minute before replying. "I have had that question asked me before by parties whom I have felt obliged to decline as I am now declining you," he said, "and my answer has not always been palatable to them."

"It will be palatable to me, sir; in so far as that I desire to be made acquainted with the truth. What do you find amiss with me?"

"The lungs are diseased."

A chill fell over Mr. Halliburton. "Not extensively, I trust? Not beyond hope of recovery?"

"Were I to say not extensively, I should be deceiving you; and you tell me that you wish for the truth. They are extensively diseased–"

A mortal pallor overspread Mr. Halliburton's face, and he sank into a chair. "Not for myself," he gasped, as Dr. Carrington drew nearer to him. "I have a wife and children. If I die, they will want bread to eat."

"But you did not hear me out," returned the doctor, proceeding with equanimity, as if he had not been interrupted. "They are extensively diseased, but not beyond a hope of recovery. I do not say it is a strong hope; but a hope there is, as I judge, provided you use the right means and take care of yourself."

"What am I to do? What are the means?"

"You live, I presume, in this stifling, foggy, smoky London."

"Yes."

"Then got away from it. Go where you can have pure air and a clear atmosphere. That's the first and chief thing; and that's most essential. Not for a few weeks or months, you understand me—going out for a change of air, as people call it—you must leave London entirely; go away altogether."

"But it will be impossible," urged Mr. Halliburton. "My work lies in London."

"Ah!" said the doctor; "too many have been with me with whom it was the same case. But, I assure you that you must leave it; or it will be London versus life. You appear to me to be one who never ought to have come to London–You were not born in it?" he abruptly added.

"I never saw it until I was eighteen. I was born and reared in Devonshire."

"Just so. I knew it. Those born and reared in London become acclimatized to it, generally speaking, and it does not hurt them. It does not hurt numbers who are strangers: they find London as healthy a spot for them as any on the face of the globe. But there are a few who cannot and ought not to live in London; and I judge you to be one of them."

"Has this state of health been coming on long?"

"Yes, for some years. Had you remained in Devonshire, you might have been a sound man all your life. My only advice to you is—get away from London. You cannot live long if you remain in it."

Mr. Halliburton thanked Dr. Carrington and went out. How things had changed for him! What had gone with the day's beauty?—with the blue sky, the bright sun? The sky was blue still, and the sun shining; but darkness seemed to intervene between his eyes and outward things. Dying? A shiver went through him as he thought of Jane and the children, and a sick feeling of despair settled on his spirit.

CHAPTER VII.
LATER IN THE DAY

The man was utterly prostrated. He felt that the fiat of death had gone forth, and there settled an undercurrent of conviction in his mind that for him there would be no recovery, take what precaution he would. He could not shake it off. There lay the fact and the fear, as a leaden weight.

He bent his steps towards home, walking the whole way; he moved along the streets mechanically. The crowds passed and repassed him, but he seemed far away. Once or twice he lifted his head to them with a yearning gesture. "Oh! that I were like you! bent on business, on pleasure, on social intercourse!" passed through his mind. "I am not as you; and for me you can do nothing. You cannot give me health; you cannot give me life."

He entered his home, and was conscious of merry voices and flitting footsteps. A little scene of gaiety was going on: he knew of this, but had forgotten it until that instant. It was the birthday of his little girl, and a few young friends had been invited to make merry. Jane, looking almost as young, quite as pretty, as when she married him, sat at the far end of their largest room before a well-spread tea-table. She wore festival attire. A dress of pearl-grey silk, and a thin gold chain round her neck. The little girls were chiefly in white, and the boys were on their best behaviour. Jane was telling them that tea was ready, and her two servants were helping to place the little people, and to wait upon them.

"Oh, and here's papa, too! just in time," she cried, lifting her eyes gladly at her husband. "That is delightful!"

Mr. Halliburton welcomed the children. He kissed some, he talked to others, just as if he had not that terrible vulture, care, within him. They saw nothing amiss; neither did Jane. He took his seat, and drank his tea; all, as it were, mechanically. It did not seem to be himself; he thought it must be some one else. In the last hour, his whole identity appeared to have changed. Bread and butter was handed to him. He took a slice and left it. Jane put some cake on to his plate: he left that also. Eat! with that awful fiat racking his senses! No, it was not possible.

Ho looked round on his children. His. William, a gentle boy, with his mother's calm, good face and her earnest eyes; Jane, a lovely child, with fair curls flowing and a bright colour, consciously vain this evening in her white birthday robes and her white ribbons; Frank, a slim, dark-eyed boy, always in mischief, his features handsome and clearly cut as were his father's; Gar, a delicate little chap, with fair curls like his sister Jane's. Must he leave those children?—abandon them to the mercies of a cold and cruel world?—bequeath them no place in it; no means of support? "Oh, God! Oh, God!" broke from his bitter heart, "if it be Thy will to take me, mayst Thou shelter them!"

"Edgar!"

He started palpably; so far in thought was he away. Yet it was only his wife who spoke to him.

"Edgar, have you been up to Dr. Carrington's?" she whispered, bending towards him.

In his confusion he muttered some unintelligible words, which she interpreted into a denial; there was a great deal of buzzing just then from the young voices around. Two of the gentlemen, Frank being one, were in hot contention touching a third gentleman's rabbits. Mrs. Halliburton called Frank to order, and said no more to her husband for the present.

"We are to dance after tea," said Jane. "I have been learning one quadrille to play. It is very easy, and mamma says I play it very well."

"Oh, we don't want dancing," grumbled one of the boys. "We'd rather have blindman's-buff."

Opinions were divided again. The girls wanted dancing, the boys blindman's-buff. Mrs. Halliburton was appealed to.

"I think it must be dancing first and blindman's-buff afterwards," said she.

Tea over, the furniture was pushed aside to clear a space for the dancers. Mr. Halliburton, his back against the wall, stood looking at them. Looking at them as was supposed; but had they been keen observers, they would have known that his eyes in reality saw not: they, like his thoughts, were far away.

His wife did presently notice that he seemed particularly abstracted. She came up to him; he was standing with his arms folded, his head bent. "Edgar, are you well?"

"Well? Oh yes, dear," he replied, making an effort to rouse himself.

"I hope you have no more teaching to-night?"

"I ought to go to young Finchley. I put him off until seven o'clock."

"Then"—was her quick rejoinder—"if you put off young Finchley, how was it you could not get to Savile-row?"

"I have been occupied all the afternoon, Jane," he said. Wanting the courage to say how the matter really stood, he evaded the question.

But, to go to young Finchley or to any other pupil that night, Mr. Halliburton felt himself physically unequal. Teach! Explain abstruse Greek and Latin rules, with his mind in its present state! It seemed to him that it mattered little—if he was to be taken from them so soon—whether he ever taught again. He was in the very depths of depression.

Suddenly, as he stood looking on, a thought came flashing over him as a ray of light. As a ray of light? Nay, as a whole flood of it. What if Dr. Carrington were wrong?—if it should prove that, in reality, nothing was the matter with him? Doctors—and very clever ones—were, he knew, sometimes mistaken. Perhaps Dr. Carrington had been so!

It was scarcely likely, he went on to reason, that a mortal disease should be upon him, and he have lived in ignorance of it! Why, he seemed to have had very little the matter with him; nothing to talk of, nothing to lie up for; comparatively speaking, he had been a healthy man—was in health then. Yes, the belief did present itself that Dr. Carrington was deceived. He, in the interests of the insurance office, might be unnecessarily cautious.

Mr. Halliburton left the wall, and grew cheerful and gay, and talked freely to the children. One little lady asked if he would dance with her. He laughed, and felt half inclined to do so.

Which was the true mood—that sombre one, or this? Was there nothing false about this one—was there no secret consciousness that it did not accord with his mind's actual belief; that he was only forcing it? Be it as it would, it did not last; in the very middle of a laughing sentence to his own little Janey, the old agony, the fear, returned—returned with terrific violence, as a torrent that has burst its bounds.

"I cannot bear this uncertainty!" he murmured to himself. And he went out of the room and took up his hat. Mrs. Halliburton, who at that moment happened to be crossing from another room, saw him open the hall-door.

"Are you going to young Finchley, Edgar?"

"No. I shall give him holiday for to-night. I shall be in soon, Jane."

He went straight to their own family doctor; a Mr. Allen, who lived close by. They were personal friends.

To the inquiry as to whether Mr. Allen was at home, the servant was about to usher him into the family sitting-room, but Mr. Halliburton stepped into the dusky surgery. He was in no mood for ladies' company. "I will wait here," he said. "Tell your master I wish to say a word to him."

The surgeon came immediately, a lighted candle in his hand. He was a dark man with a thin face. "Why won't you come in?" he asked. "There's only Mrs. Allen and the girls there. Is anything the matter?"

"Yes, Allen, something is the matter," was

Mr. Halliburton's reply. "I want a friend to-night: one who will deal with me candidly and openly: and I have come to you. Sit down."

They both sat down; and Mr. Halliburton gave him the history of the past four and twenty hours: commencing with the fainting-fit, and ending with his racking doubts as to whether Dr. Carrington's opinion was borne out by facts, or whether he might have been deceived. "Allen," he concluded, "you must see what you can make out of my state: and you must report to me without disguise, as you would report to your own soul."

The surgeon looked grave. "Carrington is a clever man," he said. "One whom it would be difficult to deceive."

"I know his reputation. But these clever men are not infallible. Put his opinion out of your mind: examine me yourself, and tell me what you think."

Mr. Allen proceeded to do so. He first of all asked Mr. Halliburton a few general questions as to his present state of health, as he would have done by any other patient, and then he sounded his lungs.

"Now then—the truth," said Mr. Halliburton.

"The truth is—so far as I can judge—that you are in no present danger whatever."

"Neither did Dr. Carrington say I was—in present danger," hastily replied Mr. Halliburton. "Are my lungs sound?"

"They are not sound: but neither do I think they are extensively diseased. You may live for many years, with care."

"Would any insurance office take me?"

"No. I do not think it would."

"It is just my death-knell, Allen."

"If you look at it in that light I shall be very sorry to have given you my opinion," observed the surgeon. "I repeat that, by taking care of yourself, you may stave off disease and live many years. I would not say this unless I thought it."

"And would your opinion be the same as the doctor's—that I must leave London for the country?"

"I think you would have a far better chance of getting well in the country than you have here. You have told me over and over again, you know, that you were sure London air was bad for you."

"Ay, I have," replied Mr. Halliburton. "I never have felt quite well in it, and that's the truth. Well, I must see what can be done. Good evening."

If the edict did not appear to be so irrevocably dark as that of Dr. Carrington, it was yet dark enough; and Mr. Halliburton, striving to look it full in the face, as he was in the habit of doing by troubles less grave, endeavoured to set himself to think "what could be done." There was no possible chance of keeping it from his wife. If it was really necessary that their place of residence should be changed, she must be taken into counsel; and the sooner she was told the better. He went home, resolved to tell her before he slept.

The little troop departed, the children in bed, they sat together over the fire; though the weather had become warm, an evening fire was pleasant still. He sat nervous and fidgety. Now the moment had arrived, he shrunk from his task.

"Edgar, I am sure you are not well!" she exclaimed. "I have observed it all the evening."

"Yes, Jane, I am well. Pretty well, that is. The truth is, my darling, I have some bad news for you, and I don't like to tell it."

Her own family were safe and well under her roof, and her fears flew to Francis, to Margaret, to Robert. Mr. Halliburton stopped her.

"It does not concern any of them, Jane. It is about myself."

"But what can it be, about yourself?"

"They—will—not–Will you listen to the news with a brave heart?" he broke off, with a smile, and the most cheering look he could call up to his face.

"Oh yes." She smiled too. She thought it could be nothing very bad.

"They will not insure my life, Jane."

Her heart stood still. "But why not?"

"They consider it too great a risk. They fancy I am not strong."

A sudden flush to her face; a moment's stillness; and then Jane Halliburton clasped her hands with a faint cry of despair. She saw that more remained behind.