Tales of the Wonder Club Volume I Part 9

"What! to make me well!" she exclaimed. "To imprison my spirit within my body, as you have done Charles'. But stay, if I take your physic, it will not be yet. I will wait to see if Charles is really lost to me for ever. If he does not appear again all this week, then his spirit has no longer power to wander from the body, and if he is lost to me, why should I wander about in the spirit seeking him in vain? I might just as well be cured as not."

"Very well," I said; "then, for the present it is needless to administer any medicine?"

"Not at present, doctor," she said.

I took up my hat to go, and said that I would call again soon and would bring her tidings of Charles; that I was going there straight from her.

"Stay, stay," she said. "You have told me nothing about him as yet."

"Well, my dear young lady," I said, "I really do not know what to tell you about him. Like yourself, he refused to take my medicine, and----"

"What, he refused! Then how is it that he is getting well? That he does not appear to me now? Doctor, you have had something administered on the sly. I know it. I see it in your face;" and the look that she gave me was so penetrating, that I quite quailed under it, and was obliged to admit that I had.

"And you are going to try the same trick with me. Oh! oh!"

Here she groaned, and threw herself forward on the bed in agony.

"My dear Miss Edith," I said, compa.s.sionately, "calm yourself; pray reflect. I can't, I daren't leave you to die. Be persuaded, and take only a little harmless, quieting medicine, not nauseous to the taste, and which may not have the effect of making you cease to dream."

But my fair patient was not to be persuaded, so, with hat in hand, I made another step towards the door.

"Stay, doctor," she said; "whatever you do, keep our conversation secret from the people of the house."

"Certainly," said I. "Has it not been under the 'seal of confession!'"

"True, true," she said; "and, doctor--would you mind--if you are really going to call upon--Charles, to--to--take a relic to him of me?"

"Not at all," I said. "On the contrary, I should be most happy; but--" I said, after a moment's reflection, "but--your parents--would they object, do you think?"

"Oh, don't be afraid, doctor," she replied. "I am very independent, and as for yourself, your name needn't get mixed up in the transaction."

Here she reached a pair of scissors, and severed one of her long ebony tresses, which she handed to me with these words:

"Take this," she said, "to my spirit lover, and tell him Edith sends him this in the flesh, and hopes to see him again in the spirit."

I promised I would do as she desired, and shaking hands with her, I left the apartment.

My friend and his wife awaited me in the parlour, and asked me my opinion of their daughter's case. I gave them hope of her recovery; but told them that she had positively refused to take any of my medicines, and I therefore adopted the same man[oe]uvre that I had adopted with Charles, and was forced to leave the medicine to be administered clandestinely. I wrote out a prescription and left the house, saying I would call again in a day or two. I took the mail that evening, and started for London. Finding myself at length arrived in the great metropolis, my first thought was to call upon Charles.

As I entered his chamber the expression on my patient's countenance was one of deepest melancholy. When he first caught sight of me I thought he looked suspicious, and was going to turn away, but as I approached him his countenance altogether changed, and grew so bright and radiant, that he did not look the same man. He had never welcomed me before in this way, and his manner puzzled me.

"Oh, doctor," he cried, in tones of the greatest joy, "is it possible you have seen her? I know you have; I can't be mistaken."

"Seen who?" I asked, smiling.

"Come, doctor," he said "you know all about it; don't pretend to ignore----"

"Ignore what?" I enquired, with provoking pertinacity.

"Oh, doctor, doctor! you'll drive me mad," exclaimed my patient. "Tell me all about her at once, and keep me no longer in suspense. Oh, Edith!

Edith! I feel your presence. Come, doctor, tell me about _Edith_."

"What Edith?" I exclaimed. "Are there not many of that name? It is true I _do_ come from a young lady patient whose name _happens_ to be Edith.

What then?"

"The same! I knew it, I knew it," he cried. "Tell me all about her, doctor; you have seen her, and spoken to her. Oh! we may yet meet in the flesh, even if she be denied me in the spirit. Did you tell her of my case, doctor?"

I nodded my head.

"I told her," said I, "that I was attending a young man whose symptoms very much resembled her own. Oh! I had a long talk with her, I a.s.sure you; and what do you think she wants of me?" I asked. "Why, she was actually unfeeling enough to ask me not to cure you; she was, indeed."

"My own dear Edith!" he exclaimed. "Of course she doesn't want me cured; and, doctor, if you would do both her and me a kindness, don't--oh, don't--cure her."

"Well, you're an amiable couple, I'm fancying," said I. "I wonder whether there are many more such loving couples in the world as you two."

"Well, doctor," he said, smiling, "have you any more news for me?"

"Perhaps I may have," I answered, mysteriously. "What should you say if she entrusted me with a present to you?"

"A present from _her_! Oh, doctor, don't trifle with me. Is it really so?"

Hereupon I thrust my hand into my pocket, and produced the lock of hair, wrapped up in a piece of tissue paper. He made a s.n.a.t.c.h at it with his long lean fingers, and tearing it open, exclaimed, "_Her_ hair! I could swear to it anywhere. What did she say, doctor, when she gave this into your hands?"

"She said," said I, "'Take this to my spirit lover, and tell him Edith sends him this in the flesh, and hopes to see him again in the spirit.'"

"Bless her! bless her!" he cried, enthusiastically kissing the relic repeatedly and pressing it to his heart.

I allowed this transport to pa.s.s well over before I spoke again. At length I enquired how he had pa.s.sed the night.

"Badly," he replied, sulkily.

"What! have you not felt quieter, more composed?"

"Oh, yes," he answered; "you don't suppose that I am ignorant that you have been drugging me?" he said, casting at me a look of reproach.

"Drugging you?" I exclaimed.

"Yes; did you think I couldn't taste that stuff that you got my parents to give me through all its disguise? Do you think I did not feel its influence?"

"A salutary influence only, I hope," I answered, being forced at length to admit the stratagem that I had felt it my duty to adopt.

"What you would call a salutary influence," he retorted. "But do you know," he added, almost fiercely, "that you have robbed me of those dreams that const.i.tuted the better part of my life? In fact, my _real_, my _only_ life."

"I am sorry for that," I remarked. "Do you then not dream at all now?"

"If I dream, I do _but_ dream--like all ordinary mortals, but my second existence is closed, I fear, for ever. I will tell you what I dreamt last night. I walked towards the entrance of a beautiful garden where I had often been in the habit of meeting Edith, and I found the gate closed. I shook it, and tried to open it by main force, when I noticed something written over the gate. I read these words, 'This is the abode of spirits untrammelled by the flesh.'

"I did not know other than that I was as much in the spirit as on any of the preceding nights, so I tried the gate again, only to meet with the same success; but this time I heard a voice calling out, 'Thy flesh hath grown upon thy spirit--the doors of thy soul are closed--hence! back to earth!' I made one more desperate effort, and called out, 'Edith!