"My Novel" — Complete

CHAPTER XI

Mr. Digby entered the room of the inn in which he had left Helen. She was seated by the window, and looking out wistfully on the narrow street, perhaps at the children at play. There had never been a playtime for Helen Digby.

She sprang forward as her father came in. His coming was her holiday.

“We must go back to London,” said Mr. Digby, sinking helplessly on the chair. Then with his sort of sickly smile,—for he was bland even to his child,—“Will you kindly inquire when the first coach leaves?”

All the active cares of their careful life devolved upon that quiet child. She kissed her father, placed before him a cough mixture which he had brought from London, and went out silently to make the necessary inquiries, and prepare for the journey back.

At eight o’clock the father and child were seated in the night-coach, with one other passenger,—a man muffled up to the chin. After the first mile the man let down one of the windows. Though it was summer the air was chill and raw. Digby shivered and coughed.

Helen placed her hand on the window, and, leaning towards the passenger, whispered softly.

“Eh!” said the passenger, “draw up the window? You have got your own window; this is mine. Oxygen, young lady,” he added solemnly, “oxygen is the breath of life. Cott, child!” he continued with suppressed choler, and a Welsh pronunciation, “Cott! let us breathe and live.”

Helen was frightened, and recoiled.

Her father, who had not heard, or had not heeded, this colloquy, retreated into the corner, put up the collar of his coat, and coughed again.

“It is cold, my dear,” said he, languidly, to Helen.

The passenger caught the word, and replied indignantly, but as if soliloquizing,—

“Cold-ugh! I do believe the English are the stuffiest people! Look at their four-post beds—all the curtains drawn, shutters closed, board before the chimney—not a house with a ventilator! Cold-ugh!”

The window next Mr. Digby did not fit well into its frame. “There is a sad draught,” said the invalid.

Helen instantly occupied herself in stopping up the chinks of the window with her handkerchief. Mr. Digby glanced ruefully at the other window. The look, which was very eloquent, aroused yet more the traveller’s spleen.

“Pleasant!” said he. “Cott! I suppose you will ask me to go outside next! But people who travel in a coach should know the law of a coach. I don’t interfere with your window; you have no business to interfere with mine.”

“Sir, I did not speak,” said Mr. Digby, meekly.

“But Miss here did.”

“Ah, sir!” said Helen, plaintively, “if you knew how Papa suffers!” And her hand again moved towards the obnoxious window.

“No, my dear; the gentleman is in his right,” said Mr. Digby; and, bowing with his wonted suavity, he added, “Excuse her, sir. She thinks a great deal too much of me.”

The passenger said nothing, and Helen nestled closer to her father, and strove to screen him from the air.

The passenger moved uneasily. “Well,” said he, with a sort of snort, “air is air, and right is right: but here goes—” and he hastily drew up the window.

Helen turned her face full towards the passenger with a grateful expression, visible even in the dim light.

“You are very kind, sir,” said poor Mr. Digby; “I am ashamed to—” his cough choked the rest of the sentence. The passenger, who was a plethoric, sanguineous man, felt as if he were stifling. But he took off his wrappers, and resigned the oxygen like a hero.

Presently he drew nearer to the sufferer, and laid hand on his wrist.

“You are feverish, I fear. I am a medical man. St!—one—two. Cott! you should not travel; you are not fit for it!”

Mr. Digby shook his head; he was too feeble to reply.

The passenger thrust his hand into his coat-pocket, and drew out what seemed a cigar-case, but what, in fact, was a leathern repertory, containing a variety of minute phials.

From one of these phials he extracted two tiny globules. “There,” said he, “open your mouth, put those on the tip of your tongue. They will lower the pulse, check the fever. Be better presently, but should not travel, want rest; you should be in bed. Aconite! Henbane! hum! Your papa is of fair complexion,—a timid character, I should say;—a horror of work, perhaps. Eh, child?”

“Sir!” faltered Helen, astonished and alarmed. Was the man a conjuror?

“A case for phosphor!” cried the passenger: “that fool Browne would have said arsenic. Don’t be persuaded to take arsenic!”

“Arsenic, sir!” echoed the mild Digby. “No: however unfortunate a man may be, I think, sir, that suicide is—tempting, perhaps, but highly criminal.”

“Suicide,” said the passenger, tranquilly,—“suicide is my hobby! You have no symptom of that kind, you say?”

“Good heavens! No, sir.”

“If ever you feel violently impelled to drown yourself, take pulsatilla; but if you feel a preference towards blowing out your brains, accompanied with weight in the limbs, loss of appetite, dry cough, and bad corns, sulphuret of antimony. Don’t forget.”

Though poor Mr. Digby confusedly thought that the gentleman was out of his mind, yet he tried politely to say “that he was much obliged, and would be sure to remember;” but his tongue failed him, and his own ideas grew perplexed. His head fell back heavily, and he sank into a silence which seemed that of sleep.

The traveller looked hard at Helen, as she gently drew her father’s head on her shoulder, and there pillowed it with a tenderness which was more that of a mother than child.

“Moral affections, soft, compassionate!—a good child and would go well with—pulsatilla.”

Helen held up her finger, and glanced from her father to the traveller, and then to her father again.

“Certainly,—pulsatilla!” muttered the homoeopathist, and ensconcing himself in his own corner, he also sought to sleep. But after vain efforts, accompanied by restless gestures and movements, he suddenly started up, and again extracted his phial-book.

“What the deuce are they to me?” he muttered. “Morbid sensibility of character—coffee? No!—accompanied by vivacity and violence—nux!” He brought his book to the window, contrived to read the label on a pigmy bottle. “Nux! that’s it,” he said,—and he swallowed a globule!

“Now,” quoth he, after a pause, “I don’t care a straw for the misfortunes of other people; nay, I have half a mind to let down the window.”

Helen looked up.

“But I’ll not,” he added resolutely; and this time he fell fairly asleep.

CHAPTER XII

The coach stopped at eleven o’clock to allow the passengers to sup. The homoeopathist woke up, got out, gave himself a shake, and inhaled the fresh air into his vigorous lungs with an evident sensation of delight. He then turned and looked into the coach.

“Let your father get out, my dear,” said he, with a tone more gentle than usual. “I should like to see him indoors,—perhaps I can do him good.”

But what was Helen’s terror when she found that her father did not stir! He was in a deep swoon, and still quite insensible when they lifted him from the carriage. When he recovered his senses his cough returned, and the effort brought up blood.

It was impossible for him to proceed farther. The homoeopathist assisted to undress and put him into bed. And having administered another of his mysterious globules, he inquired of the landlady how far it was to the nearest doctor,—for the inn stood by itself in a small hamlet. There was the parish apothecary three miles off. But on hearing that the gentlefolks employed Dr. Dosewell, and it was a good seven miles to his house, the homoeopathist fetched a deep breath. The coach only stopped a quarter of an hour.

“Cott!” said he, angrily, to himself, “the nux was a failure. My sensibility is chronic. I must go through a long course to get rid of it. Hollo, guard! get out my carpet-bag. I sha’n’t go on to-night.”

And the good man after a very slight supper went upstairs again to the sufferer.

“Shall I send for Dr. Dosewell, sir?” asked the landlady, stopping him at the door.

“Hum! At what hour to-morrow does the next coach to London pass?”

“Not before eight, sir.”

“Well, send for the doctor to be here at seven. That leaves us at least some hours free from allopathy and murder,” grunted the disciple of Hahnemann, as he entered the room.

Whether it was the globule that the homoeopathist had administered, or the effect of nature, aided by repose, that checked the effusion of blood, and restored some temporary strength to the poor sufferer, is more than it becomes one not of the Faculty to opine. But certainly Mr. Digby seemed better, and he gradually fell into a profound sleep, but not till the doctor had put his ear to his chest, tapped it with his hand, and asked several questions; after which the homoeopathist retired into a corner of the room, and leaning his face on his hand seemed to meditate. From his thoughts he was disturbed by a gentle touch. Helen was kneeling at his feet. “Is he very ill, very?” said she; and her fond wistful eyes were fixed on the physician’s with all the earnestness of despair.

“Your father is very ill,” replied the doctor, after a short pause. “He cannot move hence for some days at least. I am going to London; shall I call on your relations, and tell some of them to join you?”

“No, thank you, sir,” answered Helen, colouring. “But do not fear; I can nurse Papa. I think he has been worse before,—that is, he has complained more.”

The homeopathist rose, and took two strides across the room; then he paused by the bed, and listened to the breathing of the sleeping man.

He stole back to the child, who was still kneeling, took her in his arms and kissed her. “Tamn it,” said he, angrily, and putting her down, “go to bed now,—you are not wanted any more.”

“Please, sir,” said Helen, “I cannot leave him so. If he wakes he would miss me.”

The doctor’s hand trembled; he had recourse to his globules.

“Anxiety—grief suppressed,” muttered he. “Don’t you want to cry, my dear? Cry,—do!”

“I can’t,” murmured Helen.

“Pulsatilla!” said the doctor, almost with triumph. “I said so from the first. Open your mouth—here! Goodnight. My room is opposite,—No. 6; call me if he wakes.”

CHAPTER XIII

At seven o’clock Dr. Dosewell arrived, and was shown into the room of the homoeopathist, who, already up and dressed, had visited his patient.

“My name is Morgan,” said the homoeopathist; “I am a physician. I leave in your hands a patient whom, I fear, neither I nor you can restore. Come and look at him.”

The two doctors went into the sick-room. Mr. Digby was very feeble, but he had recovered his consciousness, and inclined his head courteously.

“I am sorry to cause so much trouble,” said he. The homoeopathist drew away Helen; the allopathist seated himself by the bedside and put his questions, felt the pulse, sounded the lungs, and looked at the tongue of the patient. Helen’s eye was fixed on the strange doctor, and her colour rose, and her eye sparkled when he got up cheerfully, and said in a pleasant voice, “You may have a little tea.”

“Tea!” growled the homeopathist,—“barbarian!”

“He is better, then, sir?” said Helen, creeping to the allopathist.

“Oh, yes, my dear,—certainly; and we shall do very well, I hope.”

The two doctors then withdrew.

“Last about a week!” said Dr. Dosewell, smiling pleasantly, and showing a very white set of teeth.

“I should have said a month; but our systems are different,” replied Dr. Morgan, dryly.

DR. DOSEWELL (courteously).—“We country doctors bow to our metropolitan superiors; what would you advise? You would venture, perhaps, the experiment of bleeding.”

DR. MORGAN (spluttering and growling Welsh, which he never did but in excitement).—“Pleed! Cott in heaven! do you think I am a putcher,—an executioner? Pleed! Never.”

DR. DOSEWELL.—“I don’t find it answer, myself, when both lungs are gone! But perhaps you are for inhaling?”

DR. MORGAN.—“Fiddledee!”

DR. DOSEWELL (with some displeasure).—“What would you advise, then, in order to prolong our patient’s life for a month?”

DR. MORGAN.—“Give him Rhus!”

DR. DOSEWELL.—“Rhus, sir! Rhus! I don’t know that medicine. Rhus!”

Dr. MORGAN.—“Rhus Toxicodendron.”

The length of the last word excited Dr. Dosewell’s respect. A word of five syllables,—that was something like! He bowed deferentially, but still looked puzzled. At last he said, smiling frankly, “You great London practitioners have so many new medicines: may I ask what Rhus toxico—toxico—”

“Dendron.”

“Is?”

“The juice of the upas,—vulgarly called the poison-tree.” Dr. Dosewell started.

“Upas—poison-tree—little birds that come under the shade fall down dead! You give upas juice in these desperate cases: what’s the dose?”

Dr. Morgan grinned maliciously, and produced a globule the size of a small pin’s head.

Dr. Dosewell recoiled in disgust.

“Oh!” said he, very coldly, and assuming at once an air of superb superiority, “I see, a homoeopathist, sir!”

“A homoeopathist.”

“Um!”

“Um!”

“A strange system, Dr. Morgan,” said Dr. Dosewell, recovering his cheerful smile, but with a curl of contempt in it, “and would soon do for the druggists.”

“Serve ‘em right. The druggists soon do for the patients.”

“Sir!”

“Sir!”

DR. DOSEWELL (with dignity).—“You don’t know, perhaps, Dr. Morgan, that I am an apothecary as well as a surgeon. In fact,” he added, with a certain grand humility, “I have not yet taken a diploma, and am but doctor by courtesy.”

DR. MORGAN.—“All one, sir! Doctor signs the death-warrant, ‘pothecary does the deed!”

DR. DOSEWELL (with a withering sneer).—“Certainly we don’t profess to keep a dying man alive upon the juice of the deadly upas-tree.”

DR. MORGAN (complacently).—“Of course you don’t. There are no poisons with us. That’s just the difference between you and me, Dr. Dosewell.”

DR. DOSEWELL (pointing to the homeopathist’s travelling pharmacopoeia, and with affected candour).—“Indeed, I have always said that if you can do no good, you can do no harm, with your infinitesimals.”

DR. MORGAN, who had been obtuse to the insinuation of poisoning, fires up violently at the charge of doing no harm. “You know nothing about it! I could kill quite as many people as you, if I chose it; but I don’t choose.”

DR. DOSEWELL (shrugging his shoulders).—“Sir Sir! It is no use arguing; the thing’s against common-sense. In short, it is my firm belief that it is—is a complete—”

DR. MORGAN.—“A complete what?”

DR. DOSEWELL (provoked to the utmost).—“Humbug!”

DR. MORGAN.—“Humbug! Cott in heaven! You old—”

DR. DOSEWELL.—“Old what, sir?”

DR. MORGAN (at home in a series of alliteral vowels, which none but a Cymbrian could have uttered without gasping).—“Old allopathical anthropophagite!”

DR. DOSEWELL (starting up, seizing by the back the chair on which he had sat, and bringing it down violently on its four legs).—“Sir!”

DR. MORGAN (imitating the action with his own chair).—“Sir!”

DR. DOSEWELL.—“You’re abusive.”

DR. MORGAN.—“You’re impertinent.”

DR. DOSEWELL.—“Sir!”

DR. MORGAN.—“Sir!”

The two rivals confronted each other.

They were both athletic men, and fiery men. Dr. Dosewell was the taller, but Dr. Morgan was the stouter. Dr. Dosewell on the mother’s side was Irish; but Dr. Morgan on both sides was Welsh. All things considered, I would have backed Dr. Morgan if it had come to blows. But, luckily for the honour of science, here the chambermaid knocked at the door, and said, “The coach is coming, sir.”

Dr. Morgan recovered his temper and his manners at that announcement. “Dr. Dosewell,” said he, “I have been too hot,—I apologize.”

“Dr. Morgan,” answered the allopathist, “I forgot myself. Your hand, sir.”

DR. MORGAN.—“We are both devoted to humanity, though with different opinions. We should respect each other.”

DR. DOSEWELL.—“Where look for liberality, if men of science are illiberal to their brethren?”

DR. MORGAN (aside).—“The old hypocrite! He would pound me in a mortar if the law would let him.”

DR. DOSEWELL (aside).—“The wretched charlatan! I should like to pound him in a mortar.”

DR. MORGAN.—“Good-by, my esteemed and worthy brother.”

DR. DOSEWELL.—“My excellent friend, good-by.”

DR. MORGAN (returning in haste).—“I forgot. I don’t think our poor patient is very rich. I confide him to your disinterested benevolence.” (Hurries away.)

DR. DOSEWELL (in a rage).—“Seven miles at six o’clock in the morning, and perhaps done out of my fee! Quack! Villain!”

Meanwhile, Dr. Morgan had returned to the sick-room.

“I must wish you farewell,” said he to poor Mr. Digby, who was languidly sipping his tea. “But you are in the hands of a—of a—gentleman in the profession.”

“You have been too kind,—I am shocked,” said Mr. Digby. “Helen, where’s my purse?”

Dr. Morgan paused.

He paused, first, because it must be owned that his practice was restricted, and a fee gratified the vanity natural to unappreciated talent, and had the charm of novelty, which is sweet to human nature itself. Secondly, he was a man—

He had resigned a coach fare, stayed a night, and thought he had relieved his patient. He had a right to his fee.

On the other hand, he paused, because, though he had small practice, he was tolerably well off, and did not care for money in itself, and he suspected his patient to be no Croesus.

Meanwhile the purse was in Helen’s hand. He took it from her, and saw but a few sovereigns within the well-worn network. He drew the child a little aside.

“Answer me, my dear, frankly,—is your papa rich?—” And he glanced at the shabby clothes strewed on the chair and Helen’s faded frock.

“Alas, no!” said Helen, hanging her head. “Is that all you have?”

“All.”

“I am ashamed to offer you two guineas,” said Mr. Digby’s hollow voice from the bed.

“And I should be still more ashamed to take them. Good by, sir. Come here, my child. Keep your money, and don’t waste it on the other doctor more than you can help. His medicines can do your father no good. But I suppose you must have some. He’s no physician, therefore there’s no fee. He’ll send a bill,—it can’t be much. You understand. And now, God bless you.”

Dr. Morgan was off. But, as he paid the landlady his bill, he said considerately, “The poor people upstairs can pay you, but not that doctor,—and he’s of no use. Be kind to the little girl, and get the doctor to tell his patient (quietly of course) to write to his friends—soon—you understand. Somebody must take charge of the poor child. And stop—hold your hand; take care—these globules for the little girl when her father dies,”—here the doctor muttered to himself, “grief,—aconite, and if she cries too much afterwards, these—(don’t mistake). Tears,—caustic!”

“Come, sir,” cried the coachman.

“Coming; tears,—caustic,” repeated the homoeopathist, pulling out his handkerchief and his phial-book together as he got into the coach; and he hastily swallowed his antilachrymal.

CHAPTER XIV

Richard Avenel was in a state of great nervous excitement. He proposed to give an entertainment of a kind wholly new to the experience of Screwstown. Mrs. M’Catchley had described with much eloquence the Dejeunes dansants of her fashionable friends residing in the elegant suburbs of Wimbledon and Fulham. She declared that nothing was so agreeable. She had even said point-blank to Mr. Avenel, “Why don’t you give a Dejeune dansant?” And, therewith, a Dejeune dansant Mr. Avenel resolved to give.

The day was fixed, and Mr. Avenel entered into all the requisite preparations, with the energy of a man and the providence of a woman.

One morning as he stood musing on the lawn, irresolute as to the best site for the tents, Leonard came up to him with an open letter in his hand.

“My dear uncle,” said he, softly.

“Ha!” exclaimed Mr. Avenel, with a start. “Ha-well, what now?”

“I have just received a letter from Mr. Dale. He tells me that my poor mother is very restless and uneasy, because he cannot assure her that he has heard from me; and his letter requires an answer. Indeed I shall seem very ungrateful to him—to all—if I do not write.”

Richard Avenel’s brows met. He uttered an impatient “Pish!” and turned away. Then coming back, he fixed his clear hawk-like eye on Leonard’s ingenuous countenance, linked his arm into his nephew’s, and drew him into the shrubbery.

“Well, Leonard,” said he, after a pause, “it is time that I should give you some idea of my plans with regard to you. You have seen my manner of living—some difference from what you ever saw before, I calculate! Now I have given you, what no one gave me, a lift in the world; and where I place you, there you must help yourself.”

“Such is my duty and my desire,” said Leonard, heartily. “Good. You are a clever lad, and a genteel lad, and will do me credit. I have had doubts of what is best for you. At one time I thought of sending you to college. That, I know; is Mr. Dale’s wish; perhaps it is your own. But I have given up that idea; I have something better for you. You have a clear head for business, and are a capital arithmetician. I think of bringing you up to superintend my business; by and by I will admit you into partnership; and before you are thirty you will be a rich man. Come, does that suit you?”

“My dear uncle,” said Leonard, frankly, but much touched by this generosity, “it is not for me to have a choice. I should have preferred going to college, because there I might gain independence for myself and cease to be a burden on you. Moreover, my heart moves me to studies more congenial with the college than the counting-house. But all this is nothing compared with my wish to be of use to you, and to prove in any way, however feebly, my gratitude for all your kindness.”

“You’re a good, grateful, sensible lad,” exclaimed Richard, heartily; “and believe me, though I’m a rough diamond, I have your true interest at heart. You can be of use to me, and in being so you will best serve yourself. To tell you the truth, I have some idea of changing my condition. There’s a lady of fashion and quality who, I think, may condescend to become Mrs. Avenel; and if so, I shall probably reside a great part of the year in London. I don’t want to give up my business. No other investment will yield the same interest. But you can soon learn to superintend it for me, as some day or other I may retire, and then you can step in. Once a member of our great commercial class, and with your talents you may be anything,—member of parliament, and after that, minister of State, for what I know. And my wife—hem! that is to be—has great connections, and you shall marry well; and—oh, the Avenels will hold their heads with the highest, after all! Damn the aristocracy! we clever fellows will be the aristocrats, eh?” Richard rubbed his hands.