Sir Brook Fossbrooke Volume I Part 48

"You imagine it, I am aware, sir; but I have met with no such instances of acuteness amongst your co-professionals as would sustain the claim; but why are we wandering from the record? I gave you that letter to read that you might tell me, is this boy's case a dangerous one?"

"It is a very grave case, no doubt; this is the malaria fever of Sardinia,--bad enough with the natives, but worse with strangers. He should be removed to better air at once if he could bear removal."

"So is it ever with your art," said the Judge, in a loud declamatory voice. "You know nothing in your difficulties but a piteous entreaty to the unknown resources of nature to a.s.sist you. No, sir; I will not hear your defence; there is no issue before the Court. What sort of pract.i.tioners have they in this island?"

"Rude enough, I can believe."

"Could a man of eminence be found to go out there and see him?"

"A man in large practice could not spare the time; but there are men of ability who are not yet in high repute: one of these might be possibly induced."

"And what might the expense be?"

"A couple of hundred--say three hundred pounds, would perhaps suffice."

"Go upstairs and see my granddaughter. She is very nervous and feverish; calm her mind so far as you are able; say that we are concerting measures for her brother's benefit; and by the time you shall come down again I will have made up my mind what to do."

Beattie was a valued friend of Lucy's, and she was glad to see him enter her room, but she would not suffer him to speak of herself; it was of poor Tom alone she would talk. She heard with delight the generous intentions of her grandfather, and exclaimed with rapture,--"This is his real nature, and yet it is only by the little foibles of his temper that the world knows him; but we, doctor,--we, who see him as he is, know how n.o.ble-hearted and affectionate he can be!"

"I must hasten back to him," said Beattie, after a short s.p.a.ce; "for should he decide on sending out a doctor, I must lose no time, as I must return to see this young fellow at Killaloe to-morrow."

"Oh, in my greater anxieties I forgot him! How is he,--can he recover?"

"Yes, I regard him as out of danger,--that is, if Lady Trafford can be persuaded not to talk him into a relapse."

"Lady Trafford! who is she?"

"His mother; she arrived last night."

"And his name is Trafford, and his Christian name Lionel?"

"Lionel Wentworth Trafford. I took it from his dressing-case when I prescribed for him."

Lucy had been leaning on her arm as she spoke, but she now sank slowly backward and fainted.

It was a long time before consciousness came back, and even then she lay voiceless and motionless, and, though she heard what Beattie said to her, unable to speak to him, or intimate by a gesture that she heard him.

The doctor needed no confidences,--he read the whole story. There are expressions in the human face which have no reference to physical ills; nor are there any indications of bodily suffering. He who asked, "Canst thou minister to a mind diseased?" knew how hopeless was his question; and this very despair it is--this sense of an affliction beyond the reach of art--gives a character to the expression which the doctor's eye never fails to discriminate from the look worn by mere malady.

As she lay there motionless, her large eyes looking at him with that expression in which eagerness struggles against debility, he saw how he had become her confidant.

"Come, my dear child," said he, taking her hand between both his own, "you have no occasion for fears on this score,--so far I a.s.sure you on my honor."

She gave his hand a slight, a very slight pressure, and tried to say something, but could not. "I will go down now, and see what is to be done about your brother." She nodded, and he continued: "I will pay you another visit to-morrow early, before I leave town, and let me find you strong and hearty; and remember that though I force no confidences, Lucy, I will not refuse them if you offer."

"I have none, sir,--none," said she, in a voice of deep melancholy.

"So that I know all that is to be known?" asked he.

"All, sir," said she, with a trembling lip.

"Well, accept me as a friend whom you may trust, my dear Lucy. If you want me, I will not fail you; and if you have no need of me, there is nothing that has pa.s.sed to-day between us ever to be remembered,--you understand me?"

"I do, sir. You will come to-morrow, won't you?"

He nodded a.s.sent, and left her.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI. AN EXIT

Colonel Sewell stood at the window of a small drawing-room he called "his own," watching the details of loading a very c.u.mbrous travelling-carriage which was drawn up before the door. Though the postilions were in the saddle, and all ready for a start, the process of putting up the luggage went on but slowly,--now a heavy imperial would be carried out, and after a while taken in again; dressing-boxes carefully stowed away would be disinterred to be searched for some missing article; bags, baskets, and boxes of every shape and sort came and went and came again; and although the two footmen who a.s.sisted these operations showed in various ways what length of training had taught them to submit to in the way of worry and caprice, the smart "maid," who now and then appeared to give some order, displayed most unmistakable signs of ill-humor on her face. "Drat those dogs! I wish they were down the river!" cried she, of two yelping, barking Maltese terriers, which, with small bells jingling on their collars, made an uproar that was perfectly deafening.

"Well, Miss Morris, if it would oblige _you_--" said one of the tall footmen, as he caressed his whisker, and gave a very languis.h.i.+ng look, more than enough, he thought, to supply the words wanting to his sentence.

"It would oblige _me_ very much, Mr. George, to get away out of this horrid place. I never did--no, never--in all my life pa.s.s such a ten days."

"We ain't a-going just yet, after all," said footman number two, with a faint yawn.

"It's so like you, Mr. Breggis, to say something disagreeable," said she, with a toss of her head.

"It's because it's true I say it, not because it's onpleasant, Miss Caroline."

"I'm not Miss Caroline, at least from you, Mr. Breggis."

"Ain't she haughty,--ain't she fierce?" But his colleague would not a.s.sent to this judgment, and looked at her with a longing admiration.

"There's her bell again," cried the girl; "as sure as I live, she's rung forty times this morning;" and she hurried back to the house.

"Why do you think we're not off yet?" asked George.

"It's the way I heerd her talking that shows me," replied the other.

"Whenever she 's really about to leave a place she goes into them fits of laughing and crying and screaming one minute, and a-whimpering the next; and then she tells the people--as it were, unknownst to her--how she hated them all,--how stingy they was,--the shameful way they starved the servants, and such-like. There's some as won't let her into their houses by reason of them fits, for she'll plump out everything she knows of a family,--who ran away with the Misses, and why the second daughter went over to France."

"You know her better than me, Breggis."

"I do think I does; it's eight years I 've had of it. Eh, what's that,--was n't that a screech?" and as he spoke a wild shrill scream resounded through the house, followed by a rapid succession of notes that might either have been laughter or crying.

Sewell drew the curtain; and wheeling an arm-chair to the fireside, lit his cigar, and began to smoke.

The house was so small that the noises could be heard easily in every part of it; and for a time the rapid pa.s.sage of persons overhead, and the voices of many speaking together, could be detected, and, above these, a wild shriek would now and then rise above all, and ring through the house. Sewell smoked on undisturbed; it was not easy to say that he so much as heard these sounds. His indolent att.i.tude, and his seeming enjoyment of his cigar, indicated perfect composure; nor even when the door opened, and his wife entered the room, did he turn his head to see who it was.

"Can William have the pony to go into town?" asked she, in a half-submissive voice.

"For what?"

"To tell Dr. Tobin to come out; Lady Trafford is taken ill."