A Double Knot Part 56

"Prophet, no! but why keep it secret then?"

"Secret? Well," said Huish; "but really--I was not justified in telling it then."

"What I not when you had been married?"

"I don't understand you," said Huish, with his countenance changing.

"I mean," said the doctor, "why didn't you tell me when you were here a fortnight ago; and--let me see," he continued, referring to his note-book, "you were due here last Wednesday, and again yesterday."

John Huish drew a long breath, and the pupils of his eyes contracted as he said quietly:

"Why, doctor, I told you that I had been on the Continent, and only returned two days ago."

"Yes; of course. We know--fas.h.i.+onable fibs: Out of town; not at home, etcetera, etcetera."

"My dear doctor," said Huish, fidgeting slightly in his seat, "I have always made it a practice to try and be honest in my statements. I tell you I only came back two days ago."

"That be hanged, John Huis.h.!.+" cried the doctor. "Why, you were here a fortnight ago yesterday."

"Nonsense," cried Huish excitedly. "How absurd!"

"Absurd? Hang it, boy! do you think I'm mad? Here is the entry," he continued, reading. "Seventh, John Huish, Nervous fit-- over-excitement--old bite of dog--bad dreams--dread of hydrophobia.

Prescribed, um--um--um--etcetera, etcetera. Now then, what do you say to that?"

"You were dreaming," said Huish.

"Dreaming?" said the doctor, laughing. "What! that you--here, stop a moment." He rang the bell. "Ask Daniel yourself when you were here last."

"What nonsense!" said Huish, growing agitated. Then as the door opened, "Daniel," he said quietly, "when was I here last?"

"Yesterday fortnight, sir," said the man promptly.

"That will do, Daniel!" and the attendant retired as Huish sank back in his chair, gazing straight before him in a strange, vacant manner.

"What a fool I am!" muttered the doctor. "I've led him on to it again.

Hang it! shall I never understand my profession?"

"I'll go now," said Huish drearily, as he rose; but Dr Stonor pressed him back in his seat.

"No, no; sit still a few minutes," he said quietly.

"I--I thought it was gone," said Huish; "and life seemed so bright and happy on ahead. Doctor, I've never confessed, even to you, what I have suffered from all this. I have felt horrible at times. The devil has tempted me to do the most dreadful things."

"Poor devil!" said the doctor. "What a broad back he must have to bear all that the silly world lays upon it!"

"You laugh. Tell me, what does it mean? How is it? Do I do things in my sleep, or when I am waking, and then do they pa.s.s completely away from my memory? Tell me truly, and let me know the worst. Am I going to lose my reason?"

"No, no, no!" cried the doctor. "Absurd! It is a want of tone in the nerves--a little absence of mind. The liver is sluggish, and from its stoppage the brain gets affected."

"Yes; that is what I feared," cried Huish excitedly.

"Not as you mean, my dear boy," cried the doctor. "When we say the brain is affected, we don't always mean madness. What nonsense! The brain is affected when there are bad headaches--a little congestion, you know. These fits of absence are nothing more."

"Nothing more, doctor?" said Huish dejectedly. "If I could only think so! Oh, my darling! my darling," he whispered to himself, as his head came down upon his hands for a moment when he started up, for Dr Stonor's hand was upon his arm. "Oh, doctor!" he cried in anguished tones, "I am haunted by these acts which I do and forget. I am constantly confronted with something or another that I cannot comprehend, and the dread is always growing on me that I shall some day be a wreck. Oh, I have been mad to link that poor girl's life to such a life as mine! Doctor--doctor--tell me--what shall I do?"

"Be a man," said the doctor quietly, "and don't worry yourself by imagining more than is real. You are a deal better than when I saw you last. You have not worried yourself more about the bite?"

"No, I have hardly thought of it. Dog-bite? But tell me, doctor, would the virus from a dog-bite have any effect upon a man's mental organisation?"

"Oh no, my dear boy; but you are better in health."

"I felt so well and happy to-day," he cried, "that all seemed suns.h.i.+ne.

Now all is cloud."

"Of course; yes!" said the doctor. "That shows you how much the imagination has to do with the mental state. The greater part of my patients are ill from anxiety. Now, look here, my dear John, the first thing you have to bear in mind is that every man is a screw. There may be much or little wrong, and it may vary from a tiny discoloration from rust, up to a completely worn-out worm or a broken head. Your little ailment is distressing; but so is every disorder. Keep yourself in good health, take matters coolly, and in place of getting worse you may get better, perhaps lose the absence of mind altogether. If you do not-- bear it like a man. Why trouble about the inevitable? I am getting on in years now, and, my dear fellow, I know that some time or other I shall be lying upon my deathbed gasping for the last breath I shall have to draw. Now, my dear boy, do I sit down and make my life miserable because some day I have got to die? Does anybody do so except a fool, and those weakly-strung idiots who make death horrible when it is nothing but the calm rest and sleep that comes to the worn-out body?

No; we accept the inevitable, enjoy life as it is given us, make the best of our troubles and pains, and thank G.o.d for everything. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, doctor, yes," said the young man sadly. "But this is very dreadful!"

"So is a bad leg," said the doctor sharply. "There, I'll speak frankly to you if you'll sit up and look me full in the face. Come, for your young wife's sake, shake off this weak nervousness, and be ready to fight. Don't lie down and ask disease to conquer you. Why, my dear boy, speaking as an old fisherman, you're as sound as a roach, and as bright as a bleak. Be a man, for your wife's sake, be a man!"

Huish drew a long breath. The doctor had touched the right chord, and he sat up, looking pale but more himself.

"Now then," said the doctor, "I speak to you fairly as one who has had some experience of such matters, but who honestly owns that he finds life too short to master a thousandth part of what he ought to know. I say, then, look here," he continued, thrusting his hands through his crisp hair, "your state puzzles me: pulse, countenance, eye, all say to me that you are quite well; but you every now and then contradict it.

What I tell you, then, is this, and of it I feel sure. It lies in your power to follow either of two roads you please: You can be a healthy, vigorous man, clear of intellect, save a cloud or two now and then which you must treat as rainy days, or you can force yourself by your despondency into so low a mental state that you may become one of my patients. Now, then, which is it to be, my st.u.r.dy young married man?

Answer for Gertrude's sake."

"There is only one answer," cried Huish, springing up. "For Gertrude's sake."

"That's right," cried the doctor, shaking his hand warmly. "Spoken like a man."

"But will you prescribe? Shall I take anything?"

"Bah! Stuff! Doctor's stuff," he added, laughing. "My dear boy, that dearly beloved, credulous creature, the human being, is never happy unless he is taking bottles and bottles of physic, and boxes and boxes of pills. Look at the fortunes made by it. Human nature will not believe that it can be cured without medicine, when in most cases it can. Why, my dear boy, your daily food is your medicine, your mental and bodily food. There, be off, go and enjoy the society of your dear little wife. Go and row her up the river, or drive her in the park; go in the country and pick b.u.t.tercups, and run after b.u.t.terflies, and eat bread-and-b.u.t.ter; sleep well, live well and innocently, and believe in the truest words ever written: 'Care killed the cat!' Don't let it kill you."

"No, I can't afford to let it kill me," said Huish, smiling.

"Never mind your sore finger, my boy; everybody has got a sore place, only they are divided into two cla.s.ses: those who show them, and those who do not so much as wear a stall. Good-bye; G.o.d bless you, my boy! I wish I had your youth and strength, and pretty wife, and then--"

"Then what, doctor?" said Huish, smiling, and looking quite himself.

"Why, like you, you dog, I should not be satisfied. Be off; I shall come and see you soon. Where's your address? Love to my little Gertrude; and John, tell her if--eh?--by-and-by--"

"Nonsense!" cried Huish, flus.h.i.+ng with pleasure. "I shall tell her no such thing."

"You will," said the doctor, grinning. "Oh, that's the address, eh?

Westbourne Road. Good-bye."

"I don't understand him," said the doctor thoughtfully, as soon as he was alone. "He is himself to-day; last time he was almost brutal.

Heaven help him, poor fellow! if--No, no; I will not think that. But he is terribly unhinged at times."