Doctor Therne Part 14

"Because to do it would be to declare my father a quack and a liar, and to show that I, his daughter, from whom if from anybody he has a right to expect faith and support, have no belief in him and the doctrine that he has taught for twenty years. That is the truth, and it is cruel of you to make me say it."

Ernest Merchison ground his teeth, understanding that in face of this woman's blind fidelity all argument and appeal were helpless. Then in his love and despair he formed a desperate resolve. Yes, he was very strong, and he thought that he could do it.

Catching her suddenly round the waist he thrust her into a cottage armchair which stood by, and, despite her struggles, began to cut at the sleeve of her dress with the lancet in his hand. But soon he realised that the task was hopeless.

"Ernest Merchison," she said, as she escaped from him with blazing eyes and catching breath, "you have done what I will never forgive. Go your own way in life and I will go mine."

"----To _death_, Jane."

Then she walked out of the house and through the garden gate. When she had gone ten or fifteen yards she looked back to see her lover standing by the gate, his face buried in his hands, and his strong frame shaking with sobs. For a moment Jane relented; it was terrible to see this reserved and self-reliant man thus weeping openly, and she knew that the pa.s.sion must be mighty which would bring him to this pa.s.s. In her heart, indeed, she had never loved him better than at this moment; she loved him even for his brutal attempt to vaccinate her by force, because she understood what instigated the brutality. But then she remembered the insult--she to be seized like a naughty child who will not take its dose, and in the presence of another woman. And, so remembering, she hardened her heart and pa.s.sed out of his sight towards the gateways of the grave.

At that time Jane said nothing of her adventure to me, though afterwards I learned every detail of it from her and Mrs. Smith. She did not even tell me that she had visited the Smiths' cottage until one morning, about eight days afterwards, when some blundering servant informed us at breakfast that the baby Smith was dead of the smallpox in the hospital, and that the other child was dangerously ill. I was shocked beyond measure, for this brought the thing home, the people lived almost at my gates. Now I remembered that I had seen the red-headed tramp catch the child Tottie in his arms. Doubtless she introduced the infection, though, strangely enough, her little sister developed the disease before her.

"Jane," I said when the servant had left, "did you hear about the Smith baby?"

"Yes, father," she answered languidly, "I knew that it had smallpox a week ago."

"Then why did you not tell me, and how did you know?"

"I didn't tell you, dear, because the mere mention of smallpox always upsets you so much, especially just now with all this election worry going on; and I knew it because I was at the Smiths' cottage and nursing the baby when the doctor came in and said it was smallpox."

"You were nursing the baby!" I almost screamed as I sprang from my seat.

"Great heavens, girl; why, you will infect the whole place."

"That was what Ernest--Dr. Merchison--seemed to think. He wanted to vaccinate me."

"Oh, and did you let him?"

"How can you ask me such a question, father, remembering what you have always taught me? I said----" and with omissions she told me the gist of what had pa.s.sed between them.

"I didn't mean that," I answered when she had done. "I thought that perhaps under the influence of shock----Well, as usual, you showed your wisdom, for how can one poison kill another poison?" and, unable to bear it any longer, making some excuse, I rose and left the room.

Her wisdom! Great heavens, her wisdom! Why did not that fool, Merchison, insist? He should have authority over her if any man had. And now it was too late--now no vaccination on earth could save her, unless by chance she had escaped infection, which was scarcely to be hoped. Indeed, such a thing was hardly known as that an unvaccinated person coming into immediate contact with a smallpox patient after the eruption had appeared, should escape infection.

What did this mean? It meant that within a few days Jane, my only and darling child, the very hope and centre of my life, would be in the fangs of one of the most dreadful and dangerous diseases known to humanity. More, having never been vaccinated, that disease was sure to strike her with its full force, and the type of it which had appeared in the city was such that certainly not more than one-half of the unprotected persons attacked came alive out of the struggle.

This was bad enough, but there were other things behind. I had never been vaccinated since infancy, over fifty years ago, and was therefore practically unprotected with the enemy that all my lifetime I had dreaded, as I dreaded no other thing or imagination, actually standing at my door. I could not go away because of the election; I dared not show fear, because they would cry: "Look at the hangman when he sees the rope." Here, since compulsory vaccination had been abandoned, we fought smallpox by a system of isolation so rigorous that under its cruel provisions every one of whatever age, rank or s.e.x in whom the disease declared itself was instantly removed to a hospital, while the inhabitants of the house whence the patient came were kept practically in prison, not being allowed to mix with their fellows. We had returned to the preventive measures of centuries ago, much as they were practised in the time of the Great Plague.

But how could I send my daughter to one of those dreadful pest-pits, there at the moment of struggle to be a standing advertis.e.m.e.nt of the utter failure and falsity of the system I had preached, backing my statements with the wager of her life? Moreover, to do so would be to doom myself to defeat at the poll, since under our byelaws, which were almost ferocious in their severity, I could no longer appear in public to prosecute my canva.s.s, and, if my personal influence was withdrawn, then most certainly my adversary would win.

Oh, truly I who had sown bounteously was reaping bounteously. Truly the birds which I had sent out on their mission of evil had come home to roost upon my roof-tree.

CHAPTER XIII

HARVEST

Another five days went by--to me they were days of most unspeakable doubt and anguish. Each morning at breakfast I waited for the coming of Jane with an anxiety which was all the more dreadful because I forced myself to conceal it. There had been no further conversation between us about the matter that haunted both our minds, and so fearful was I lest she should divine my suspense that except in the most casual way I did not even dare to look at her as she entered the room.

On the fifth morning she was late for breakfast, not a common thing, for as a rule she rose early. I sent one of the parlour-maids to her room to ask if she was coming down, and stood awaiting the answer with much the same feeling as a criminal on his trial awaits the verdict of the jury.

Presently the girl returned with the message that Miss Therne would be down in a few minutes, whereat I breathed again and swallowed a little food, which till then I had been unable to touch.

Soon she came, and I saw that she was rather pale and languid, owing to the heat, perhaps, but that otherwise she looked much as usual.

"You are late, dear," I said unconcernedly.

"Yes, father," she answered; "I woke up with a little headache and went to sleep again. It has gone now; I suppose that it is the heat."

As she spoke she kissed me, and I thought--but this may have been fancy--that her breath felt cold upon my cheek.

"I daresay," I said, and we sat down to table. By my plate lay a great pile of correspondence, which I opened while making pretence to eat, but all the time I was watching Jane over the top of those wearisome letters, most of them from beggars or const.i.tuents who "wanted to know."

One, however, was anonymous, from a person who signed herself "Mother."

It ran:--

"Sir,--After hearing your speeches some years ago, and being told that you were such a clever man, I became a Conscientious Objector, and would not let them vaccinate any more of my children. The three who were not vaccinated have all been taken to the hospital with the smallpox, and they tell me (for I am not allowed to see them) that one of them is dead; but the two who were vaccinated are quite well. Sir, I thought that you would like to know this, so that if you have made any mistake you may tell others. Sir, forgive me for troubling you, but it is a terrible thing to have one's child die of smallpox, and, as I acted on your advice, I take the liberty of writing the above."

Again I looked at Jane, and saw that although she was sipping her tea and had some bacon upon her plate she had eaten nothing at all. Like the catch of a song echoed through my brain that fearsome sentence: "It is a terrible thing to have one's child die of the smallpox." Terrible, indeed, for now I had little doubt but that Jane was infected, and if she should chance to die, then what should I be? I should be her murderer!

After breakfast I started upon my rounds of canva.s.sing and speech-making. Oh, what a dreadful day was that, and how I loathed the work. How I cursed the hour in which I had taken up politics, and sold my honour to win a seat in Parliament and a little cheap notoriety among my fellow-men. If Stephen Strong had not tempted me Jane would have been vaccinated in due course, and therefore, good friend though he had been to me, and though his wealth was mine to-day, I cursed the memory of Stephen Strong. Everywhere I went that afternoon I heard ominous whispers. People did not talk openly; they shrugged their shoulders and nodded and hinted, and all their hints had to do with the smallpox.

"I say, Therne," said an old friend, the chairman of my committee, with a sudden outburst of candour, "what a dreadful thing it would be if after all we A.V.'s were mistaken. You know there are a good many cases of it about, for it's no use disguising the truth. But I haven't heard of any yet among the Calf-wors.h.i.+ppers" (that was our cant term for those who believed in vaccination).

"Oh, let be!" I answered angrily, "it is too late to talk of mistakes, we've got to see this thing through."

"Yes, yes, Therne," he said with a dreary laugh, "unless it should happen to see us through."

I left him, and went home just in time to dress. There were some people to dinner, at which Jane appeared. Her la.s.situde had vanished, and, as was her manner when in good spirits, she was very humorous and amusing.

Also I had never seen her look so beautiful, for her colour was high and her dark eyes shone like the diamond stars in her hair. But again I observed that she ate nothing, although she, who for the most part drank little but water, took several gla.s.ses of champagne and two tumblers of soda. Before I could get rid of my guests she had gone to bed. At length they went, and going to my study I began to smoke and think.

I was now sure that the bright flush upon her cheeks was due to what we doctors call _pyrexia_, the initial fever of smallpox, and that the pest which I had dreaded and fled from all my life was established in my home. The night was hot and I had drunk my fill of wine, but I sat and shook in the ague of my fear. Jane had the disease, but she was young and strong and might survive it. I should take it from her, and in that event a.s.suredly must die, for the mind is master of the body and the thing we dread is the thing that kills us.

Probably, indeed, I had taken it already, and this very moment the seeds of sickness were at their wizard work within me. Well, even if it was so?--I gasped when the thought struck me--as Merchison had recognised in the case of Jane, by immediate vaccination the virus could be destroyed, or if not destroyed at least so much modified and weakened as to become almost harmless. Smallpox takes thirteen or fourteen days to develop; cowpox runs its course in eight. So even supposing that I had been infected for two days there was still time. Yes, but none to lose!

Well, the thing was easy--I was a doctor and I had a supply of glycerinated lymph; I had procured some fresh tubes of it only the other day, to hold it up before my audiences while I dilated on its foulness and explained the evils which resulted from its use. Supposing now that I made a few scratches on my arm and rubbed some of this stuff into them, who would be the wiser? The inflammation which would follow would not be sufficient to incapacitate me, and n.o.body can see through a man's coat sleeve; even if the limb should become swollen or helpless I could pretend that I had strained it. Whatever I had preached to prove my point and forward my ambition, in truth I had never doubted the efficacy of vaccination, although I was well aware of the dangers that might result from the use of impure or contaminated lymph, foul surroundings, and occasionally, perhaps, certain conditions of health in the subject himself. Therefore I had no prejudice to overcome, and certainly I was not a Conscientious Objector.

It came to this then. There were only two reasons why I should not immediately vaccinate myself--first, that I might enjoy in secret a virtuous sense of consistency, which, in the case of a person who had proved himself so remarkably inconsistent in this very matter, would be a mere indulgence of foolish pride; and secondly, because if I did I might be found out. This indeed would be a catastrophe too terrible to think of, but it was not in fact a risk that need be taken into account.

But where was the use of weighing all these pros and cons? Such foolish doubts and idle arguments melted into nothingness before the presence of the spectre that stood upon my threshold, the hideous, spotted Pestilence who had slain my father, who held my daughter by the throat, and who threatened to grip me with his frightful fingers. What were inconsistencies and risks to me compared to my living terror of the Thing that had dominated my whole existence, reappearing at its every crisis, and by some strange fate even when it was far from me, throwing its spell over my mind and fortunes till, because of it, I turned my skill and knowledge to the propagation of a lie, so mischievous in its results that had the world known me as I was it would have done wisely to deal by me as it deals with a dangerous lunatic?

I would do it and at once.

First, although it was unnecessary as all the servants had gone to rest, I locked that door of my study which opened into the hall. The other door I did not think of locking, for beyond it was nothing but the private staircase which led to the wing of the house occupied by Jane and myself. Then I took off my coat and rolled up my s.h.i.+rt sleeve, fastening it with a safety-pin to the linen upon my shoulder. After this I lit a spirit-lamp and sterilised my lancet by heating it in the flame.

Now, having provided myself with an ivory point and unsealed the tiny tube of lymph, I sat down in a chair so that the light from the electric lamp fell full upon my arm, and proceeded to scape the skin with the lancet until blood appeared in four or five separate places. Next I took the ivory point, and, after cleansing it, I charged it with the lymph and applied it to the abrasions, being careful to give each of them a liberal dose. The operation finished, I sat still awhile letting my arm hang over the back of the chair, in order that the blood might dry thoroughly before I drew down my s.h.i.+rt sleeve.