Shadows of Flames Part 44

"I am sure you will agree with us, Mrs. Chesney," Bellamy said eagerly.

"Yes--in one way," she answered. "I am sure that to be in a sanatorium under Dr. Carfew's care is the only thing that can cure Cecil. But----"

She hesitated. They all continued to look at her intently. She flushed, then said in a low, firm voice, "But I think it would be useless to put him there by force. He would never forgive it. He would be cured--yes--for the time being. But I know him. The moment that he was free he would begin all over again--unless he went of his own will."

Even Carfew became rather excited.

"But my dear lady! Allow me----" And he began to overwhelm her with scientific refutations of her theory. Bellamy looked aghast and chagrined. Gerald began to fidget with the fixtures on the library table, pressing his moustache between his lips and biting it as was his habit when distressed. Anne Harding gazed at Sophy in blank amazement.

Then her brown little mouth pressed together. She was thinking hard.

"Do you mean to say," Lady Wychcote put in when Carfew had finished and Sophy still sat silent, "that, after urging me to send for Dr. Carfew, you will refuse to follow his advice? Refuse to join with me in this--this--evidently necessary course?"

"I can't advise using force on Cecil, Lady Wychcote. It would only make him hate us. It would do no lasting good. Only if he goes of his own accord will it do good."

Lady Wychcote looked expressively at Carfew, whom she had suddenly accepted as an ally. "You see what I have to contend with!" said this look.

They argued with her quite uselessly. She left the room presently, still resolved not to become a party to the removal of Cecil by force from Dynehurst.

The great man shrugged his shoulders, as who should say, "The ways of G.o.d and woman are past finding out." Then he looked at his watch. He had still to see the "patient" who had so unexpectedly consented to an interview. In accordance with Bellamy's urgent appeal he had consented to put certain facts before Chesney with unvarnished plainness.

Chesney received him with his sketchy smile.

"Salaam," said he. "It is a relief to receive the Caliph himself, after having had to put up for so long with the Chief Eunuch. At least you're a proper male," he concluded, looking with approval at the lean, ma.s.sive form of the physician.

Carfew met this imperturbably. He put a few questions, which Chesney fended with his usual half-droll, half-savage ironies, then he said:

"Has it ever occurred to you to think what the _end_ of your 'pleasant vice' will be, Mr. Chesney?"

Cecil frowned. But the next instant he resumed his callous, mocking expression.

"The 'ends' of things, O Guardian of the Faithful," said he, "are with Allah. _He_ ties them into what bow-knots seemeth best to him."

"Shaitan can tie knots as well as Allah," replied Carfew, who was one of the best read men in England, as well as one of her foremost scientists.

"He dips them in blood sometimes to warp them tighter," he added grimly.

"Speak more plainly to thy slave, O Chosen of Allah."

"I will," said Carfew. "From what you have said, so far--your allusion to my confrere Bellamy in particular--I gather that you look upon lack of virility as a thing to be scoffed at."

"Naturally. Does not Mahomet report Houris in paradise? There will be no guardians of the Harem there I fancy, O great Caliph!"

"The Paradise of Morphia may begin with houris," said Carfew dryly, "but it ends with horrors--s.e.xless horrors. I would not jeer at s.e.xlessness, if I were you. A fellow-feeling should make you kind."

Fury made Cecil natural if not kind.

"What the h.e.l.l are you after, you d.a.m.ned charlatan?" he demanded savagely.

"I? I am after making myself clear, as an Irishman would say. I only mean to warn you that the little instrument you prize so much--the hypodermic syringe when used in connection with morphia--produces, in the end, the unfortunate condition which you so deride. Manhood, in every sense of the word, goes down before morphia, Mr. Chesney. I have promised your mother and Dr. Bellamy to put things plainly to you.

Perhaps a natural curiosity as to the scientific aspect of your habit may induce you to listen."

This was in fact the case. Carfew's words, while enraging Cecil, had given him pause. He thrust out a sullen lip, glowering at the great man, like Minotaur at one who has just given the yearly boat-load of virgins a shove seaward.

"Well, d.a.m.n it-- I admit a 'low curiosity.' Get on, can't you?"

Carfew "got on." Coolly and methodically, as though unrolling a neatly ill.u.s.trated script before the other's eyes, he presented to him a clear, detailed picture of the morphinomaniac's descent of Avernus.

"Little by little, all will go but that one, ever-increasing desire," he concluded; "honour first, then s.e.x, then all human sympathy--then, a small matter perhaps, after these others, but to a well-bred man sufficiently unpleasant to contemplate--personal cleanliness. You will become filthy--you will not care. One thing alone of heaven and earth will be left you--the l.u.s.t for morphia and its parasite--alcohol. So these two were available, you might stink in the nostrils of G.o.d and man--you would be quite indifferent. I remember," he broke off on another tone, seeming not to see the dull, unwilling look of arrestment, as it were, on Chesney's face, "I remember, years ago, reading a clever book by Knatchbull-Hugessen, a little volume of fairy-tales. Among these tales was one called 'Skitzland.' I rather suspect that he was having a fling at us specialists in that sketch; but then there are those who specialise on other things than science--morphia, for instance. To Skitzland were supposed to go those who had sacrificed all senses to one. A man in Skitzland would find himself only a huge ear, or an eye, or a stomach, and so on. Well, Mr. Chesney"--he turned sideways in his chair and fixed his cold, super-intelligent eyes on the sick man's--"your fate in the Skitzland of morphia will be to exist only as one huge, avid, diseased nerve-cell rank with the l.u.s.t of morphia. Just that. Nothing more. And this diseased nerve-cell which will be you would slay Christ if He appeared again, and you thought the last dose of morphia were secreted in the Seamless Garment. Good-morning."

And he was gone before Cecil could moisten his dry lips to reply.

Anne found him sullenly resentful of the doctor's visit.

"I hope you've packed that old prime faker back to the courts of science," he grumbled, as she busied herself tidying his bed which he had rumpled with his ill-humoured tossings. "I'll none of him nor his d.a.m.ned mountebanking, that's flat."

"He'll none of _you_, unless you do as he wishes, and that's flatter,"

rejoined Anne tartly.

Chesney gave a whiff of utter contempt.

"Stick myself in one of his man-traps, I suppose you mean. I'll sign to Mephisto with my blood first!--Just let 'em try it on!" he added ominously.

"Oh you make me tired!--tired and sick," flashed Anne Harding. "You talk and act as if we were all trying to lure you to destruction, instead of wearing ourselves to the bone to save you from worse than death! Look here----" She drew up a chair and sat down squarely on it, her little black eyes like coals in which a red spark lingers. "_I'm_ not going to stay on with you as things are, so I might just as well have my say out-- I don't give a hang whether it's 'unprofessional' or not. So I'll just tell you this: Your mother went back on you this morning. I mean she went over to our side--we, who'd put you in a sanatorium ay or no.

'Twas your wife held out against it. And the more I think of it, the more I believe she's right. Says she, 'No, I won't lend myself to using force on him. Unless he goes of his own will it won't do any good.' I didn't think so then. But I do now. If your own will is bent on perdition, not all the other wills in the world are going to save you.

That's why I'm going to give you up. I'm too useful, thank G.o.d! to waste my time on a man who's h.e.l.l-bent on his own destruction."

She pushed the chair sharply back, and got up.

"Hold on!" cried Chesney as she turned away. He had listened to her without interruption, a most peculiar expression on his face. "Did I understand you to say that Sophy--that Mrs. Chesney, held out against the lot of 'em?"

"You did. I was one of the 'lot of 'em,' so I ought to know," replied Anne.

"She stood by me--in the face of all that pressure?"

"She stood up for what she believed in-- I don't think that's _you_, just at present," said Anne viciously.

"Hold your tongue, spitfire, and let me think," returned Chesney, but without anger. He lay brooding deeply for some moments. Then he said: "Just go and ask Mrs. Chesney to come here a moment, will you?"

Anne consulted the bracelet watch.

"It's almost time for her to leave. Don't make her miss her train if I fetch her."

"I'll thank you to do what I ask!" said Chesney, looking dangerous.

"It's not for you to make conditions when I wish to see my wife."

Anne glanced at him, then went meekly on the errand. She knew exactly when to insert bandelleros and when to apply balm.

Sophy came at once. She looked pale but quiet in her dark brown travelling gown and hat.

"You sent for me, but I was coming anyway to say good-by, Cecil," she said, in her low voice.