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The Mark Of Cain, a fiction by Andrew Lang |
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CHAPTER XII. A Patient |
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_ CHAPTER XII. A Patient A doctor, especially a doctor actively practising among the poor and laborious, soon learns to take the incidents of his profession rather calmly. Barton had often been called in when a revel had ended in suicide or death; and if he had never before seen a man caught in a flying-machine, he had been used to heal wounds quite as dreadful caused by engines of a more familiar nature. Though Barton, therefore, could go out to his round of visits on the day after his adventurous vigil without unusual emotion, it may be conceived that the distress and confusion at The Bunhouse were very great. The police and the gloomy attendants on Death were in the place; Mrs. St. John Deloraine had to see many official people, to answer many disagreeable questions, and suffered in every way extremely from the consequences of her beneficent enterprise. But she displayed a coolness and businesslike common sense worthy of a less versatile philanthropist, and found time, amid the temporary ruin of her work, to pay due attention to Margaret. She had scarcely noticed the girl before, taking her very much on trust, and being preoccupied with various schemes of social enjoyment. But now she was struck by her beauty and her educated manner, though that, to be sure, was amply accounted for by the explanations offered by Cranley before her engagement. Already Mrs. St. John Deloraine was conceiving a project of perpetual friendship, and had made up her mind to adopt Margaret as a daughter, or, let us say, niece and companion. The girl was too refined to cope with the rough-and-ready young patronesses of The Bunhouse . If the lady's mind was even more preoccupied by the survivor in the hideous events of the evening than by the tragedy itself and the dead woman, Barton, too, found his thoughts straying to his new patient--not that he was a flirt or a sentimentalist. Even in the spring Barton's fancy did not lightly turn to thoughts of love. He was not one of those "amatorious" young men (as Milton says, perhaps at too great length) who cannot see a pretty girl without losing their hearts to her. Barton was not so prodigal of his affections; yet it were vain to deny that, as he went his rather drowsy round of professional visits, his ideas were more apt to stray to the girl who had been stabbed, than to the man who had been rescued from the machinery. The man was old, yellow, withered, and, in Barton's private opinion, more of a lunatic charlatan than a successful inventor. The girl was young, beautiful, and interesting enough, apart from her wound, to demand and secure a place in any fancy absolutely free. It was no more than Barton's actual duty to call at The Old English Bunhouse in the afternoon. Here he was welcomed by Mrs. St John Deloraine, who was somewhat pale and shaken by the horrors of the night. She had turned all her young customers out, and had stuck up a paper bearing a legend to the effect that The Old English Bunhouse was closed for the present and till further notice. A wistful crowd was drawn up on the opposite side of the street, and was staring at The Bunhouse . Mrs. St John Deloraine welcomed Barton, it might almost be said, with open arms. She had by this time, of course, laid aside the outward guise of Nitouche , and was dressed like other ladies, but better. "My dear Mr. Barton," she exclaimed, "your patient is doing very well indeed. She will be crazy with delight when she hears that you have called." Barton could not help being pleased at this intelligence, even when he had discounted it as freely as even a very brief acquaintance with Mrs. Si John Deloraine taught her friends to do. "Do you think she is able to see me?" he asked. "I'll run to her room and inquire," said Mrs. St John Deloraine, fleeting nimbly up the steep stairs, and leaving, like Astrsea, as described by Charles Lamb's friend, a kind of rosy track or glow behind her from the chastened splendor of her very becoming hose. Barton waited rather impatiently till the lady of The Bunhouse returned with the message that he might accompany her into the presence of the invalid. A very brief interview satisfied him that his patient was going on even better than he had hoped; also that she possessed very beautiful and melancholy eyes. She said little, but that little kindly, and asked whether Mr. Cranley had sent to inquire for her. Mrs. St. John Deloraine answered the question, which puzzled Barton, in the negative; and when they had left Margaret (Miss Burnside, as Mrs. St. John Deloraine called her), he ventured to ask who the Mr. Cranley might be about whom the girl had spoken. "Well," replied Mrs. St. John Deloraine, "it was through Mr. Cranley that I engaged both Miss Burnside and that unhappy woman whom I can't think of without shuddering. The inquest is to be held to-morrow. It is too dreadful when these things, that have been only names, come home to one. Now, I really do not like to think hardly of anybody, but I must admit that Mr. Cranley has quite misled me about the housekeeper. He gave her an excellent character, especially for sobriety, and till yesterday I had no fault to find with her. Then, the girls say, she became quite wild and intoxicated, and it is hard to believe that this is the first time she yielded to that horrid temptation. Don't you think it was odd of Mr. Cranley? And I sent round a messenger with a note to his rooms, but it was returned, marked, 'Has left; address not Known.' I don't know what has become of him. Perhaps the housekeeper could have told us, but the unfortunate woman is beyond reach of questions." "Do you mean the Mr. Cranley who is Rector of St. Medard's, in Chelsea?" asked Barton. "No; I mean Mr. Thomas Cranley, the son of the Earl of Birkenhead. He was a great friend of mine." "Mr. Thomas Cranley!" exclaimed Barton, with an expression of face which probably spoke at least three volumes, and these of a highly sensational character. "Now, please," cried Mrs. St. John Deloraine, clasping her hands in a pretty attitude of entreaty, like a recording angel hesitating to enter the peccadillo of a favorite saint; "please don't say you know anything against Mr. Cranley. I am aware that he has many enemies." Barton was silent for a minute. He had that good old school-boy feeling about not telling tales out of school, which is so English and so unknown in France; but, on the other side, he could scarcely think it right to leave a lady of invincible innocence at the mercy of a confirmed scoundrel. "Upon my word, it is a very unpleasant thing to have to say; but really, if you ask me, I should remark that Mr. Cranley's enemies are of his own making. I would not go to him for a girl's character, I'm sure. But I thought he had disappeared from society." "So he had. He told me that there was a conspiracy against him, and that I was one of the few people who, he felt sure, would never desert him. And I never would. I never turn my back on my friends." "If there was a conspiracy," said Barton, "I am the ringleader in it; for, as you ask me, I must assure you, on my honor, that I detected Mr. Cranley in the act of trying to cheat some very young men at cards. I would not have mentioned it for the world," he added, almost alarmed at the expression of pain and terror in Mrs. St John Deloraine's face; "but you wished to be told. And I could not honestly leave you in the belief that he is a man to be trusted. What he did when I saw him was only what all who knew him well would have expected. And his treatment of you, in the matter of that woman's character, was," cried Barton, growing indignant as he thought of it, "one of the very basest things I ever heard of. I had seen that woman before; she was not fit to be entrusted with the care of girls. She was at one time very well known." Mrs. St. John Deloraine's face had passed through every shade of expression--doubt, shame, and indignation; but now it assumed an air of hope. "Margaret has always spoken so well of him," she said, half to herself. "He was always very kind to her, and yet she was only the poor daughter of a humble acquaintance." "Perhaps he deviated into kindness for once," said Barton; "but as to his general character, it is certain that it was on a par with the trap he laid for you. I wish I knew where to find him. You must never let him get the poor girl back into his hands." "Certainly not," said Mrs. Si John Deloraine, with conviction in her voice; "and now I must go back to her, and see whether she wants anything. Do you think I may soon move her to my own house, in Cheyne Walk? It is not far, and she will be so much more comfortable there." "The best thing you can do," said Barton; "and be sure you send for me if you want me, or if you ever hear anything more of Mr. Cranley. I am quite ready to meet him anywhere." "You will call to-morrow?" "Certainly, about this time," said Barton; and he kept his promise assiduously, calling often. A fortnight went by, and Margaret, almost restored to health, and in a black tea-gown, the property of Mrs. St. John Deloraine, was lying indolently on a sofa in the house in Cheyne Walk. She was watching the struggle between the waning daylight and the fire, when the door opened, and the servant announced "Dr. Barton." Margaret held forth a rather languid hand. "I'm so sorry Mrs. St. John Deloraine is out," she said. "She is at a soap-bubble party. I wish I could go. It is so long since I saw any children, or had any fun." So Margaret spoke, and then she sighed, remembering the reason why she should not attend soap-bubble parties. "I'm selfish enough to be glad you could not go," said Barton; "for then I should have missed you. But why do you sigh?" "I have had a good many things to make me unhappy," said Margaret, "in addition to my--to my accident. You must not think I am always bewailing myself. But perhaps you know that I lost my father, just before I entered Mrs. St. John Deloraine's service, and then my whole course of life was altered." "I am very sorry for you," said Barton, simply. He did not know what else to say; but he felt more than his conventional words indicated, and perhaps he looked as if he felt it and more. Margaret was still too weak to bear an expression of sympathy, and tears came into her eyes, followed by a blush on her pale, thin cheeks. She was on the point of breaking down. There is nothing in the world so trying to a young man as to see a girl crying. A wild impulse to kiss and comfort her passed through Barton's mind, before he said, awkwardly again: "I can't tell you how sorry I am; I wish I could do anything for you. Can't I help you in any way? You must not give up so early in the troubles of life; and then, who knows but yours, having begun soon, are nearly over?" Barton would perhaps have liked to ask her to let him see that they were over, as far as one mortal can do as much for another. "They have been going on so long," said Margaret "I have had such a wandering life, and such changes." Barton would have given much to be able to ask for more information; but more was not offered. "Let us think of the future," he said. "Have you any idea about what you mean to do?" "Mrs. St. John Deloraine is very kind. She wishes me to stay with her always. But I am puzzled about Mr. Cranley. I don't know what he would like me to do. He seems to have gone abroad." Barton hated to hear her mention Cranley's name. "Had you known him long?" he asked. "No; for a very short time only. But he was an old friend of my father's, and had promised him to take care of me. He took me away from school, and he gave me a start in life." "But surely he might have found something more worthy of you, of your education," said Barton. "What can a girl do?" answered Margaret. "We know so little. I could hardly even have taught very little children. They thought me dreadfully backward at school--at least, Miss---- I mean, the teachers thought me backward." "I'm sure you know as much as anyone should," said Barton, indignantly. "Were you at a nice school?" he added. He had been puzzling himself for many days over Margaret's history. She seemed to have had at least the ordinary share of education and knowledge of the world; and yet he had found her occupying a menial position at a philanthropic bunhouse. Even now she was a mere dependent of Mrs. St. John Deloraine, though there was a stanchness in that lady's character which made her patronage not precarious. "There were some nice girls at it," answered Margaret, without committing herself. Rochefoucauld declares that there are excellent marriages, but no such thing as a delightful marriage. Perhaps school-girls may admit, as an abstract truth, that good schools exist; but few would allow that any place of education is "nice." "It is really getting quite late," Barton observed, reluctantly. He liked to watch the girl, whose beauty, made wan by illness, received just a touch of becoming red from the glow of the fire. He liked to talk to her; in fact, this was his most interesting patient by far. It would be miserably black and dark in his lodgings, he was aware; and non-paying patients would be importunate in proportion to their poverty. The poor are often the most exacting of hypochondriacs. Margaret noticed his reluctance to go contending with a sense of what he owed to propriety. "I am sure you must want tea; but I don't like to ring. It is so short a time since I wore an apron and a cap and the rest of it myself at The Bunhouse , that I am afraid to ask the servants to do anything for me. They must dislike me; it is very natural." "It is not natural at all," said Barton, with conviction; "perfectly monstrous, on the other hand." This little compliment eclipsed the effect of fire-light on the girl's face. "Suppose I ring," he added, "and then you can say, when Mary says 'Did you ring, miss?' 'No, I didn't ring; but as you are here, Mary, would you mind bringing tea?'" "I don't know if that would be quite honest," said Margaret, doubtfully. "A pious fraud--a drawing-room comedy," said Barton; "have we rehearsed it enough?" Then he touched the bell, and the little piece of private theatricals was played out, though one of the artists had some difficulty (as amateurs often have) in subduing an inclination to giggle. "Now, this is quite perfect," said Barton, when he had been accommodated with a large piece of plum-cake. "This is the very kind of cake which we specially prohibit our patients to touch; and so near dinner-time, too! There should be a new proverb, 'Physician, diet thyself.' You see, we don't all live on a very thin slice of cold bacon and a piece of dry toast." "Mrs. St John Deloraine has never taken up that kind of life," said Margaret. "She tries a good many new things," Barton remarked. "Yes; but she is the best woman in the world!" answered the girl. "Oh, if you knew what a comfort it is to be with a lady again!" And she shuddered as she remembered her late chaperon. "I wonder if some day--you won't think me very rude?" asked Barton--"you would mind telling me a little of your history?" "Mr. Cranley ordered me to say nothing about it," answered Margaret; "and a great deal is very sad and hard to tell. You are all so kind, and everything is so quiet here, and safe and peaceful, that it frightens me to think of things that have happened, or may happen." "They shall never happen, if you will trust me," cried Barton, when a carriage was heard to stop at the gateway of the garden outside. "Here is Mrs. St. John Deloraine at last," cried Margaret, starting to run to the window; but she was so weak that she tripped, and would have fallen had Barton not caught her lightly. "Oh, how stupid you must think me!" she said, blushing. And Barton thought he had never seen anything so pretty. "Once for all, I don't think you stupid, or backward, or anything else that you call yourself." But at that very moment the door opened, and Mrs. St John Deloraine entered, magnificently comfortable in furs, and bringing a fresh air of hospitality and content with existence into the room. "Oh, you are here!" she cried, "and I have almost missed you. Now you must stay to dinner. You need not dress; we are all alone, Margaret and I." So he did stop to dine, and pauper hypochondriacs, eager for his society (which was always cheering), knocked, and rang also, at his door in vain. It was an excellent dinner; and, on the wings of the music Mrs. St John Deloraine was playing in the front drawing-room, two happy hours passed lightly over Barton and Margaret, into the backward, where all hours--good and evil--abide, remembered or forgotten. _ |
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