CHAPTER XIII.
The next day I had just dismissed the last of my visiting patients, and
was about to enter my carriage and commence my round, when I received
a twisted note containing but these words:--
Call on me to-day, as soon as you can.
M. Poyntz.
A few minutes afterwards I was in Mrs. Poyntz's drawing-room.
"Well, Allen Fenwick" said she, "I do not serve friends by halves. No
thanks! I but adhere to a principle I have laid down for myself. I spent
last evening with the Ashleighs. Lilian is certainly much altered,--
very weak, I fear very ill, and I believe very unskilfuly treated by Dr.
Jones. I felt that it was my duty to insist on a change of physician; but
there was something else to consider before deciding who that physician
should be. I was bound, as your confidante, to consult your own scruples
of honour. Of course I could not say point-blank to Mrs. Ashleigh, 'Dr.
Fenwick admires your daughter, would you object to him as a son-in-law?'
Of course I could not touch at all on the secret with which you intrusted
me; but I have not the less arrived at a conclusion, in agreement with my
previous belief, that not being a woman of the world, Annie Ashleigh has
none of the ambition which women of the world would conceive for a
daughter who has a good fortune and considerable beauty; that her
predominant anxiety is forher child's happiness, and her predominant
fear is that her child will die. She would never oppose any attachment
which Lilian might form; and if that attachment were for one who had
preserved her daughter's life, I believe her own heart would gratefully
go with her daughter's. So far, then, as honour is concerned, all
scruples vanish."
I sprang from my seat, radiant with joy. Mrs. Poyntz dryly
continued: "You value yourself on your common-sense, and to that I address
a few words of counsel which may not be welcome to your romance. I said
that I did not think you and Lilian would suit each other in the long run;
reflection confirms me in that supposition. Do not look at me so
incredulously and so sadly. Listen, and take heed. Ask yourself what, as
a man whose days are devoted to a laborious profession, whose ambition is
entwined with its success, whose mind must be absorbed in its
pursuits,--ask yourself what kind of a wife you would have sought to win;
had not this sudden fancy for a charming face rushed over your better
reason, and obliterated all previous plans and resolutions. Surely some
one with whom your heart would have been quite at rest; by whom your
thoughts would have been undistracted from the channels into which your
calling should concentrate their flow; in short, a serene companion in the
quiet holiday of a trustful home! Is it not so?"
"You interpret my own thoughts when they have turned towards marriage.
But what is there in Lilian Ashleigh that should mar the picture you have
drawn?"
"What is there in Lilian Ashleigh which in the least accords with the
picture? In the first place, the wife of a young physician should not be
his perpetual patient. The more he loves her, and the more worthy she may
be of love, the more her case will haunt him wherever he goes. When he
returns home, it is not to a holiday; the patient he most cares for, the
anxiety that most gnaws him, awaits him there."
"But, good heavens! why should Lilian Ashleigh be a perpetual patient?
The sanitary resources of youth are incalculable. And--"
"Let me stop you; I cannot argue against a physician in love! I will
give up that point in dispute, remaining convinced that there is something
in Lilian's constitution which will perplex, torment, and baffle you. It
was so with her father, whom she resembles in face and in character. He
showed no symptoms of any grave malady. His outward form was, like
Lilian's, a model of symmetry, except in this, that, like hers, it was too
exquisitely delicate; but when seemingly in the midst of perfect health,
at any slight jar on the nerves he would become alarmingly ill. I was
sure that he would die young, and he did so."
"Ay, but Mrs. Ashleigh said that his death was from brain-fever, brought
on by over-study. Rarely, indeed, do women so fatigue the brain. No
female patient, in the range of my practice, ever died of purely mental
exertion."
"Of purely mental exertion, no; but of heart emotion, many female
patients, perhaps? Oh, you own that! I know nothing about nerves; but I
suppose that, whether they act on the brain or the heart, the result to
life is much the same if the nerves be too finely strung for life's daily
wear and tear. And this is what I mean, when I say you and Lilian will
not suit. As yet, she is a mere child; her nature undeveloped, and her
affections therefore untried. You might suppose that you had won her
heart; she might believe that she gave it to you, and both be deceived.
If fairies nowadays condescended to exchange their offspring with those
of mortals, and if the popular tradition did not represent a fairy
changeling as an ugly peevish creature, with none of the grace of its
parents, I should be half inclined to suspect that Lilian was one of the
elfin people. She never seems at home on earth; and I do not think she
will ever be contented with a prosaic earthly lot. Now I have told you
why I do not think she will suit you. I must leave it to yourself to
conjecture how far you would suit her. I say this in due season, while
you may set a guard upon your impulse; while you may yet watch, and weigh,
and meditate; and from this moment on that subject I say no more. I lend
advice, but I never throw it away."
She came here to a dead pause, and began putting on her bonnet and
scarf, which lay on the table beside her. I was a little chilled by her
words, and yet more by the blunt, shrewd, hard look and manner which aided
the effect of their delivery; but the chill melted away in the sudden glow
of my heart when she again turned towards me and said,--
"Of course you guess, from these preliminary cautions, that you are
going into danger? Mrs. Ashleigh wishes to consult you about Lilian, and
I propose to take you to her house."
"Oh, my friend, my dear friend, how can I ever repay you?" I caught her
hand, the white firm hand, and lifted it to my lips.
She drew it somewhat hastily away, and laying it gently on my shoulder,
said, in a soft voice, "Poor Allen, how little the world knows either of
us! But how little perhaps we know ourselves! Come, your carriage is
here? That is right; we must put down Dr. Jones publicly and in all our
state."
In the carriage Mrs. Poyntz told me the purport of that conversation
with Mrs. Ashleigh to which I owed my re-introduction to Abbots' House.
It seems that Mr. Vigors had called early the morning after my first
visit! had evinced much discomposure on hearing that I had been summoned!
dwelt much on my injurious treatment of Dr. Lloyd, whom, as distantly
related to himself, and he (Mr. Vigors) being distantly connected with the
late Gilbert Ashleigh, he endeavoured to fasten upon his listener as one
of her husband's family, whose quarrel she was bound in honour to take up.
He spoke of me as an infidel "tainted with French doctrines," and as a
practitioner rash and presumptuous; proving his own freedom from
presumption and rashness by flatly deciding that my opinion must be
wrong. Previously to Mrs. Ashleigh's migration to L----, Mr. Vigors had
interested her in the pretended phenomena of mesmerism. He had consulted
a clairvoyante, much esteemed by poor Dr. Lloyd, as to Lilian's health,
and the clairvoyante had declared her to be constitutionally predisposed
to consumption. Mr. Vigors persuaded Mrs. Ashleigh to come at once with
him and see this clairvoyante herself, armed with a lock of Lilian's hair
and a glove she had worn, as the media of mesmerical rapport.
The clairvoyante, one of those I had publicly denounced as an impostor,
naturally enough denounced me in return. On being asked solemnly by Mr.
Vigors "to look at Dr. Fenwick and see if his influence would be
beneficial to the subject," the sibyl had become violently agitated, and
said that, "when she looked at us together, we were enveloped in a black
cloud; that this portended affliction and sinister consequences; that our
rapport was antagonistic." Mr. Vigors then told her to dismiss my image,
and conjure up that of Dr. Jones. Therewith the somnambule became more
tranquil, and said: "Dr. Jones would do well if he would be guided by
higher lights than his own skill, and consult herself daily as to the
proper remedies. The best remedy of all would be mesmerism. But since
Dr. Lloyd's death, she did not know of a mesmerist, sufficiently gifted,
in affinity with the patient." In fine, she impressed and awed Mrs.
Ashleigh, who returned in haste, summoned Dr. Jones, and dismissed
myself.
"I could not have conceived Mrs. Ashleigh to be so utterly wanting in
common-sense," said I. "She talked rationally enough when I saw her."
"She has common-sense in general, and plenty of the sense most common,"
answered Mrs. Poyntz; "but she is easily led and easily frightened
wherever her affections are concerned, and therefore, just as easily as
she had been persuaded by Mr. Vigors and terrified by the somnambule, I
persuaded her against the one, and terrified her against the other. I had
positive experience on my side, since it was clear that Lilian had been
getting rapidly worse under Dr. Jones's care. The main obstacles I had to
encounter in inducing Mrs. Ashleigh to consult you again were, first, her
reluctance to disoblige Mr. Vigors, as a friend and connection of Lilian's
father; and, secondly, her sentiment of shame in re-inviting your opinion
after having treated you with so little respect. Both these difficulties
I took on myself. I bring you to her house, and, on leaving you, I shall
go on to Mr. Vigors, and tell him what is done is my doing, and not to be
undone by him; so that matter is settled. Indeed, if you were out of the
question, I should not suffer Mr. Vigors to re-introduce all these
mummeries of clairvoyance and mesmerism into the precincts of the Hill. I
did not demolish a man I really liked in Dr. Lloyd, to set up a Dr. Jones,
whom I despise, in his stead. Clairvoyance on Abbey Hill, indeed! I saw
enough of it before."
"True; your strong intellect detected at once the absurdity of the whole
pretence,--the falsity of mesmerism, the impossibility of clairvoyance."
"No, my strong intellect did nothing of the kind. I do not know whether
mesmerism be false or clairvoyance impossible; and I don't wish to know.
All I do know is, that I saw the Hill in great danger,--young ladies
allowing themselves to be put to sleep by gentlemen, and pretending they
had no will of their own against such fascination! Improper and shocking!
And Miss Brabazon beginning to prophesy, and Mrs. Leopold Smythe
questioning her maid (whom Dr. Lloyd declared to be highly gifted) as to
all the secrets of her friends. When I saw this, I said, 'The Hill is
becoming demoralized; the Hill is making itself ridiculous; the Hill must
be saved!' I remonstrated with Dr. Lloyd as a friend; he remained
obdurate. I annihilated him as an enemy, not to me but to the State. I
slew my best lover for the good of Rome. Now you know why I took your
part,--not because I have any opinion, one way or the other, as to the
truth or falsehood of what Dr. Lloyd asserted; but I have a strong opinion
that, whether they be true or false, his notions were those which are not
to be allowed on the Hill. And so, Allen Fenwick, that matter was
settled."
Perhaps at another time I might have felt some little humiliation to learn
that I had been honoured with the influence of this great potentate not as
a champion of truth, but as an instrument of policy; and I might have
owned to some twinge of conscience in having assisted to sacrifice a
fellow-seeker after science--misled, no doubt, but preferring his
independent belief to his worldly interest--and sacrifice him to
those deities with whom science is ever at war,--the Prejudices of a
Clique sanctified into the Proprieties of the World. But at that moment
the words I heard made no perceptible impression on my mind. The gables
of Abbots' House were visible above the evergreens and lilacs; another
moment, and the carriage stopped at the door.
