CHAPTER IV.
INTERRUPTION.
But it was Adela herself who failed next time. I had seen her during the
reading draw her shawl about her as if she were cold. She seemed quite
well when the friends left, but she had caught a chill; and before the
morning she was quite feverish, and unable to leave her bed.
"You see, Colonel," said Mrs. Cathcart at breakfast, "that this doctor of
yours is doing the child harm instead of good. He has been suppressing
instead of curing the complaint; and now she is worse than ever."
"When the devil--" I began to remark in reply.
"Mr. Smith!" exclaimed Mrs. Cathcart.
"Allow me, madam, to finish my sentence before you make up your mind to be
shocked.--When the devil goes out of a man, or a woman either, he gives a
terrible wrench by way of farewell. Now, as the prophet Job teaches us,
all disease is from the devil; and--"
"The prophet Job!--Mr. Smith?"
"Well, the old Arab Scheik, if you like that epithet better."
"Really, Mr. Smith!"
"Well, I don't mind what you call him. I only mean to say that a disease
sometimes goes out with a kind of flare, like a candle--or like the poor
life itself. I believe, if this is an intermittent fever--as, from your
description, I expect it will prove to be--it will be the best thing for
her."
"Well, we shall see what Dr. Wade will say."
"Dr. Wade?" I exclaimed.
"Of course, my brother will not think of trusting such a serious case to
an inexperienced young man like Mr. Armstrong."
"It seems to me," I replied, "that for some time the case has ceased to be
a serious one. You must allow that Adela is better."
"Seemed to be better, Mr. Smith. But it was all excitement, and here is
the consequence. I, as far as I have any influence, decidedly object to
Mr. Armstrong having anything more to do with the case."
"Perhaps you are right, Jane," said the colonel. "I fear you are. But how
can I ask Dr. Wade to resume his attendance?"
Always nervous about Adela, his sister-in-law had at length succeeded in
frightening him.
"Leave that to me," she said; "I will manage him."
"Pooh!" said I, rudely. "He will jump at it. It will be a grand triumph
for him. I only want you to mind what you are about. You know Adela does
not like Dr. Wade."
"And she does like _Doctor_ Armstrong?" said Mrs. Cathcart, stuffing each
word with significance.
"Yes," I answered, boldly. "Who would not prefer the one to the other?"
But her arrow had struck. The colonel rose, and saying only, "Well, Jane,
I leave the affair in your hands," walked out of the room. I was coward
enough to follow him. Had it been of any use, coward as I was, I would
have remained.
But Mrs. Cathcart, if she had not reckoned without her host, had, at
least, reckoned without her hostess. She wrote instantly to Dr. Wade, in
terms of which it is enough to say that they were successful, for they
brought the doctor at once. I saw him pass through the hall, looking
awfully stiff, important, and condescending. Beeves, who had opened
the door to him, gave me a very queer look as he showed him into the
drawing-room, ringing, at the same time, for Adela's maid.
Now Mrs. Cathcart had not expected that the doctor would arrive so soon,
and had, as yet, been unable to make up her mind how to communicate to the
patient the news of the change in the physical ministry. So when the maid
brought the message, all that her cunning could provide her with at the
moment was the pretence, that he had called so opportunely by chance.
"Ask him to walk up," she said, after just one moment's hesitation.
Adela heard the direction her aunt gave, through the cold shiver which was
then obliterating rather than engrossing her attention, and concluded that
they had sent for Mr. Armstrong. But Mrs. Cathcart, turning towards her,
said--
"Adela, my love, Dr. Wade had just called; and I have asked him to step up
stairs."
The patient started up.
"Aunt, what do you mean? If that old wife comes into this room, I will
make him glad to go out of it!"
You see she was feverish, poor child, else I am sure she could not have
been so rude to her aunt. But before Mrs. Cathcart could reply, in came
Dr. Wade. He walked right up to the bed, after a stately obeisance to the
lady attendant.
"I am sorry to find you so ill, Miss Cathcart."
"I am perfectly well, Dr. Wade. I am sorry you have had the trouble of
walking up stairs."
As she said this, she rang the bell at the head of her bed. Her maid, who
had been listening at the door, entered at once.--I had all this from
Adela herself afterwards.
"Emma, bring me my desk. Dr. Wade, there must be some mistake. It was my
aunt, Mrs. Cathcart, who sent for you. Had she given me the opportunity, I
would have begged that the interview might take place in her room instead
of mine."
Dr. Wade retreated towards the fireplace, where Mrs. Cathcart stood, quite
aware that she had got herself into a mess of no ordinary complication.
Yet she persisted in her cunning. She lifted her finger to her forehead.
"Ah?" said Dr. Wade.
"Yes," said Mrs. Cathcart.
"Wandering?"
"Dreadfully."
After some more whispering, the doctor sat down to write a prescription.
But meantime, Adela was busy writing another. What she wrote was precisely
to this effect--
"Dear Mr. Armstrong,
"I have caught a bad cold, and my aunt has let loose Dr. Wade upon me.
Please come directly, if you will save me from ever so much nasty
medicine, at the least. My aunt is not my mother, thank heaven! though she
would gladly usurp that relationship.
"Yours most truly,
"Adela Cathcart."
She folded and sealed the note--sealed it carefully--and gave it to Emma,
who vanished with it, followed instantly by Mrs. Cathcart. As to what took
place outside the door--shall I confess it?--Beeves is my informant.
"Where are you going, Emma? Emma, come here directly," said Mrs. Cathcart.
Emma obeyed.
"I am going a message for mis'ess."
"Who is that note for?"
"I didn't ask. John can read well enough."
"Show it me."
Emma, I presume, closed both lips and hand very tight. "I command you."
"Miss Cathcart pays me my wages, ma'am," said Emma, and turning, sped
down-stairs like a carrier-pigeon.
In the hall she met Beeves, and told him the story.
"There she comes!" cried he. "Give me the letter. I'll take it myself."
"You're not going without your hat, surely, Mr. Beeves," said Emma.
"Bless me! It's down-stairs. There's master's old one! He'll never want it
again. And if he does, it'll be none the worse."
And he was out of the door in a moment. Beeves's alarm, however, as to
Mrs. Cathcart's approach, was a false one. She returned into the sick
chamber, with a face fiery red, and found Dr. Wade just finishing an
elaborate prescription.
"There!" said he, rising. "Send for that at once, and let it be taken
directly. Good morning."
He left the room instantly, making signs that he was afraid of exciting
his patient, as she did not appear to approve of his presence.
"What is the prescription?" said Adela, quite quietly, as Mrs. Cathcart
approached the bed, apparently trying to decipher it.
"I am glad to see you so much calmer, my dear. You must not excite
yourself. The prescription?--I cannot make it out. Doctors do write so
badly. I suppose they consider it professional."
"They consider a good many things professional which are only stupid. Let
me see it."
Mrs. Cathcart, thrown off her guard, gave it to her. Adela tore it in
fragments, and threw it in a little storm on the floor.
"Adela!" screamed Mrs. Cathcart. "What is to be done?"
"Pay Dr. Wade his fee, and tell him I shall never be too ill to refuse his
medicines. Now, aunt! You find I am determined.--I declare you make me
behave so ill that I am ashamed of myself."
Here the poor impertinent child crept under the clothes, and fell
a-weeping bitterly. Mrs. Cathcart had sense enough to see that nothing
could be done, and retired to her room. Getting weary of her own society
after a few moments of solitude, she proceeded to go down-stairs. But
half-way down, she was met full in the face by Harry Armstrong ascending
two steps at a time. He had already met Dr. Wade, as he came out of the
dining-room, where he had been having an interview with the colonel. Harry
had turned, and held out his hand with a "How do you do, Dr. Wade?" But
that gentleman had bowed with the utmost stiffness, and kept his hand at
home.
"So it is to be open war and mutual slander, is it, Dr. Wade?" said Harry.
"In that case, I want to know how you come to interfere with my patient. I
have had no dismissal, which punctilio I took care to know was observed in
your case."
"Sir, I was sent for," said Dr. Wade, haughtily.
"I have in my pocket a note from the lady of this house, requesting my
immediate attendance. If you have received a request to the same purport
from a visitor, you obey it at your own risk. Good morning."
Then Harry walked quietly up the first half of the stair, while Beeves
hastened to open the door to the crest-fallen Dr. Wade; but by the time he
met Mrs. Cathcart, his rate of ascent had considerably increased. As soon
as she saw him, however, without paying any attention to the usual
formality of a greeting, she turned and re-entered her niece's room. Her
eyes were flashing, and her face spotted red and white with helpless rage.
But she would not abandon the field. Harry bowed to her, and passed on to
the bed, where he was greeted with a smile.
"There's not much the matter, I hope?" he said, returning the smile.
"It may suit you to make light of my niece's illness, Mr. Armstrong; but I
beg to inform you that her father thought it serious enough to send for
Dr. Wade. He has been here already, and your attendance is quite
superfluous."
"No doubt; no doubt. But as I am here, I may as well prescribe."
"Dr. Wade has already prescribed."
"And I have taken his prescription, have I not, aunt?--and destroyed it,
Mr. Armstrong, instead of my own chance."
"Of what?" said Mrs. Cathcart, with vulgar significance.
"Of getting rid of two officious old women at once," said Adela--in a
rage, I fear I must confess, as the only excuse for impertinence.
"Come, come," said Harry, "this won't do. I cannot have my patient excited
in this way. Miss Cathcart, may I ring for your maid?"
For answer, Adela rang the bell herself. Her aunt was pretending to look
out of the window.
"Will you go and ask your master," said Harry, when Emma made her
appearance, "to be so kind as come here for a moment?"
The poor colonel--an excellent soldier, a severe master, with the highest
notions of authority and obedience, found himself degraded by his own
conduct, as other autocrats have proved before, into a temporizing
incapable. It was the more humiliating that he was quite aware in his own
honest heart that it was jealousy of Harry that had brought him into this
painful position. But he obeyed the summons at once; for wherever there
was anything unpleasant to be done, there, with him, duty assumed the
sterner command. As soon as he entered the room, Harry, without giving
time for anyone else to determine the course of the conference, said:
"There has been some mistake, Colonel Cathcart, between Dr. Wade and
myself, which has already done Miss Cathcart no good. As I find her very
feverish, though not by any means alarmingly ill, I must, as her medical
attendant, insist that _no_ one come into her room but yourself or her
maid."
Every one present perfectly understood this; and however, in other
circumstances, the colonel might have resented the tone of authority with
which Harry spoke, he was compelled, for his daughter's sake, to yield;
and he afterwards justified Harry entirely. Mrs. Cathcart walked out of
the room with her neck invisible from behind. The colonel sat down by the
fire. Harry wrote his prescription on the half sheet from which Dr. Wade
had torn his; and then saying that he would call in the evening, took his
leave of the colonel, and bowed to his patient, receiving a glance of
acknowledgment which could not fail to generate the feeling that there was
a secret understanding between them, and that he had done just what she
wanted. He mounted his roan horse, called Rhubarb, with a certain elation
of being, which he tried to hide from everyone but himself.
When doctors forget that their patients are more like musical instruments
than machines, they will soon need to be reminded that they are men and
women, and not dogs or horses. Yet, alas for the poor dogs and horses that
fall into the hands of a man without a human sympathy even with them! I,
John Smith, bless you, my doctor-friends, that ye are not doctors merely,
but good and loving men; and, in virtue thereof, so much the more--so
exceedingly the more _Therapeutae_.
I need not follow the course of the fever. Each day the arrival of the
cold fit was longer delayed, and the violence of both diminished, until
they disappeared altogether. But a day or two before this happy result was
completed, Adela had been allowed to go down to the drawing-room, and had
delighted her father with her cheerfulness and hopefulness. It really
seemed as if the ague had carried off the last remnants of the illness
under which she had been so long labouring. But then, you can never put
anything to the _experimentum crucis_; and there were other causes at work
for Adela's cure, which were perhaps more powerful than even the ague.
However this may have been, she got almost quite well in a very short
space of time; and with her father's consent, issued invitations to
another meeting of the story-club. They were at once satisfactorily
responded to.
