Part 3 (2/2)
When the door was shut, and Globus was left alone with his patient, a solemn, sagacious expression stole over the worthy doctor's face. He had long been the personal friend of Mrs. Kettering, as well as ”her own medical man”; and although he would probably have felt it more had he not been called in professionally, yet it was with a heavy heart and a desponding brow that he confessed to himself there was little or no hope. He had put in practice all that skill and experience suggested--he had sent for a brother physician of high local repute, and now there was nothing more to be done save to wait for the result; so the kind-hearted man sat himself down in the chair Blanche had so lately occupied, and pondered over the many changing years, now like a dream, during which he had known that life which in yonder bed was dribbling out its few remaining sands. He remembered her the merry, black-eyed girl (once he thought her eyes brighter than those of Mrs.
Globus); he saw her again the sparkling bride, the good-humoured matron, the doting mother, the not inconsolable widow. It was only yesterday he bowed to her on the parade, and thought how young she looked with her grown-up daughter; he was to have dined with them to-morrow; and the uncertainty of life looked him startlingly in the face. But the pride of science soon came to the rescue, and the practised healer forgot his private feelings in his professional reflections. And thus Dr. Globus pa.s.sed his holiday--one afternoon of the precious fourteen, in which he had promised himself the fresh breezes and the out-of-doors liberty of St. Swithin's. Mrs. Globus and the children were picking up sh.e.l.ls on the beach; his brother, whom he had not seen for ten years, was coming to dinner; but the doctor's time is the property of the suffering and the doomed, and still Globus sat and watched and calculated, and saw clearly that Mrs. Kettering must die.
The hours stole on, candles were brought into the drawing-room, and the cousins tried in vain with parched lips and choking throats to have some tea. A ring at the door-bell heralded the arrival of the other doctor, a stout man in a brown greatcoat, smelling of the night-dew. Blanche ran out to meet him--it was a relief to do something--and beckoned him silently up-stairs. She even stole into the sick-room, and caught a glimpse of her mother's figure, rec.u.mbent and covered up; but the curtains were half closed, and she could not see the dear face. Globus kindly drew her away, and shut her out, but not before the frightened girl had glanced at a dark-stained handkerchief on the floor, and sickened with the conviction that it was clotted with blood. Outside, the little housemaid was sitting on the stairs, crying as if her heart would break. Poor Blanche sat down by her in the darkness, and mingled her tears with those of the affectionate servant. She began to get hopeless now. After a while she went down again to Cousin Charlie, and was surprised to find it so late; the clock pointed to five minutes past ten; and with trembling hands she closed the windows, listening for an instant to the dash of the waves outside, with a strange, wild feeling that they never sounded so before. Then she covered up ”Bully,” who had been whistling ever since the lights were brought; but she had not the heart to exchange a syllable with Cousin Charlie; and that poor lad, affecting a composure that his face belied, was pretending to spell over the evening paper, of which he was vacantly staring at the advertis.e.m.e.nt sheet. Again there is a movement above, and the two doctors adjourn to another room to discuss the patient's case. Great is the deference paid by the local Esculapius to the famous London physician. What Dr.
Globus recommended--what Dr. Globus said--what Dr. Globus thought--were quoted by the former ever afterwards; yet could one have witnessed the consultation of these two scientific men, it might have been instructive to observe how professional etiquette never once gave way to the urgency of the moment--how the science of curing, like that of killing, has its forms, its subordination, its ranks, its dignities, and its ”customs of war in like cases.” Gingham was left with the patient, and the weeping housemaid stood ready to a.s.sist, the latter showing an abundance of nerve and decision, when called upon to act, which her behaviour on the staircase would scarcely have promised. Even Gingham was less fl.u.s.tered than usual, now there was really something to be frightened at. Woman is never seen to such advantage as when tending the sick; the eye that quails to see a finger p.r.i.c.ked, the hand that trembles if there is but a mouse in the room, will gaze unflinchingly on the lancet or the cupping-gla.s.s, will apply the leeches without a shudder, or pour the soothing medicament, drop by drop, into the measured wine-gla.s.s, with the steadiness and accuracy of a chemical professor. Where man with all his boasted nerve turns sick and pale, and shows himself worse than useless, woman vindicates the courage of her s.e.x, that unselfish heroism, that pa.s.sive devotion, which is ever ready to bear and be still. They seem to have a positive pleasure in alleviating the pangs of the sufferer, and taking care of the helpless. Look at a bustling matron, blessed with a large family of children, and whatever may be the opinion of the ”paterfamilias,” however much he may grunt and grumble (so like a _man_!) at having the quiver as full as it will hold, she, in her heart of hearts, welcomes every fresh arrival with the hospitable sentiment of ”the more the merrier”; and much as she loves them all, lavishes her warmest affections on the last little uninteresting morsel of underdone humanity, which, on its first appearance, is the most helpless, as it is the least attractive, of Nature's germinating efforts; unless, indeed, she should own a dwarf, a cripple, or an idiot amongst her thriving progeny--then will that poor creature be the mother's chiefest treasure, then will woman's love and woman's tenderness hover with beautiful instinct round the head which Nature itself seems to have scouted, and the mother will press to her heart of hearts the wretched being that all else are p.r.o.ne to ridicule and despise. So in the sick-room, when ”pain and anguish wring the brow,”
woman wipes the foaming lip and props the sinking head. Woman's care speeds the long doubtful recovery, and woman's prayers soothe the dying hour, when hope has spread her wings and fled away. In works like these she vindicates her angel-nature, in scenes like these she perfects that humble piety of which it appears to us she has a greater share than the stronger s.e.x. The proud Moslem boasts there will be no women in his material paradise; let us look to ourselves, that the exclusion for us be not all the other way.
Blanche sits vacantly in the drawing-room, and thinks the doctors'
consultation is to be endless, and that it is cruel to keep her so long from her mamma. Charlie puts down the paper, and drawing kindly towards his cousin, finds courage to whisper some few words of consolation, which neither of them feel to be of the slightest avail.
He has been thinking that Uncle Baldwin ought to be sent for, but he dares not excite more alarm in his companion's mind by such a suggestion, and he meditates a note to his friend Hardingstone to manage it for him. Uncle Baldwin, better known in the world as Major-General Bounce, is Mrs. Kettering's brother, and lives in the midland counties--”he should be sent for immediately,” thinks Charlie, ”if he is to see my aunt alive.” Blanche is getting very restless, and thinks she might soon go up-stairs and see----Hus.h.!.+ the bedroom door opens--a rapid footstep is heard on the stairs--it is Gingham running down for the doctors--Blanche rushes to the door and intercepts her on the landing-place--the woman's face is ashy pale, and her eyes stand strangely out in the dubious light--her voice comes thick and husky.
The young girl is quite composed for the instant, and every syllable thrusts straight to her heart as the maid stammers out, ”O Miss Blanche! Miss Blanche! your mamma----”
The sun rose, and the waters of the Channel glittered in the morning light, but the shutters were closed at No. 9--and honest Hairblower drew his rough hand across his eyes, as he sought to get some news of ”poor Miss Blanche.” He met Hardingstone coming from the house, whither the ”man of action” had repaired on the first intelligence of their calamity, and had made himself as useful as he could to the afflicted family. ”Do she take on, poor dear?” said Hairblower, scarcely restraining the drops that coursed down his weather-beaten cheeks. ”Such a young thing as that, Mr. Hardingstone, to go loose without a mother--and the poor lady, too, gone down like in a calm.
They will not be leaving, sir, just yet, will 'em? I couldn't bear to think of Miss Blanche cruising about among strangers, till she begins to hold up a bit--she should come out and get the sea-air, as soon as she is able for it, and I'll have the boat covered in and ready day and night----O Mr. Hardingstone, what _can_ I do, sir, for the poor young lady in her distress?” Frank shook the honest fellow's hand, and could scarcely command his own feelings enough to reply. He had done everything that was necessary in the house of death, had sent off an express for the General, sealed up Mrs. Kettering's jewel-boxes, writing-cases, etc., and performed all those offices of which the two children, for so we might almost call them, were incapable, and which, even in the presence of the Destroyer, are still hard, cold matters of business, and _must_ be attended to, like the ordering dinner, and the arrangement for the funeral, though the survivors' hearts may ache, and their wounds burst out afresh, till they too wish their bodies were laid at rest beneath the sod, and their spirits were away, free and unmourning, with the loved one in those realms with which, sooner or later, we are all to be acquainted.
On the child's misery it would not become us to dwell. There are feelings over which a veil is drawn too sacred to be disturbed by mortal hand. Well might Margaret Douglas exclaim, in the old ballad--
”True lovers I may have many a one, But a father once slain, I shall never see mair.”
And when a young, affectionate girl is wailing for a parent, the voice of sorrow cannot be hushed, nor the tears dried, till grief has had its course, and time has cured the wounds now so excruciating, which ere long shall be healed over and forgotten. ”Cousin Charlie,”
boy-like, was more easily consoled; and although at intervals his kind aunt's voice would seem to sound in his ears, and the sight of her work, her writing, or any other familiar object a.s.sociated with herself would bring on a fresh accession of grief, yet in the society of Frank Hardingstone, and the antic.i.p.ation of Uncle Baldwin's arrival, he found objects to divert his thoughts, and direct them to that brilliant inheritance of the young, the golden future, which never _shall_ arrive. He was, besides, a lad of a sanguine, imaginative disposition, and these are the spirits over which sorrow has least power. The more elastic the spring, the more easily it regains its position; and a sensitive organisation, after the first recoil, will rise uninjured from a shock that prostrates more material souls to the very dust.
Over the rest of the household came the reaction that invariably follows the first sensations of awe inspired by sudden death. There was an excitement not altogether unpleasing in the total derangement of plans, the uncertainty as to the future created amongst the domestics by the departure of their mistress. The butler knew he should have to account for his plate, and was busied with his spoons and his inventory; the footman speculated on the next place he should get, with ”a family that spent nine months of the year in London”; the very ”boy in b.u.t.tons” thought more of his promotion than of the kind mistress who had housed, clothed, and fed him when a parish orphan.
Gingham herself, that tender damsel, was occupied and excited about Miss Blanche's mourning, and her own ”breadths” of black and ”depths”
of c.r.a.pe usurped the place of unavailing regrets in a mind not calculated to contain many ideas at a time. Besides, the pleasure of ”shopping,” inexplicable as it may appear to man's perverted taste, is one which ravishes the female mind with an intense delight; and what with tradesmen's condolences, the interminable fund of gossip created thereby, the comparing of patterns, the injunctions on all sides ”not to give way,” and the visits to linen-drapers' shops, we cannot but confess that Gingham's spirits were surprisingly buoyant, considering the circ.u.mstance under which she swept those costly wares from their tempting counters. Tom Blacke, too, lost no time in a.s.suring her of his sympathy.
”O, Miss Gingham,” said wily Tom, as he insisted on carrying a huge brown-paper parcel home for her, and led the way by a circuitous route along the beach, ”O, Miss Gingham, what a shock for your affectionate natur' and kindly 'eart! Yet sorrow becomes some people,” added Tom, reflectively, and glancing his dark eyes into Gingham's muddy-looking face, as he offered her an arm.
”Go along with you, Mr. Blacke,” replied the sorrowing damsel, forgetful of her despondency for the moment, which emboldened him to proceed.
”You ought to have a home, Miss Gingham--you ought to have some one to attach yourself to--you that attaches everybody” (he ventured a squeeze, and the maiden did not withdraw the brown thread glove which rested on his arm; so Tom mixed it a little stronger)--”a 'onest man to depend on, and a family and such like.”
Tom flourished his arm along a line of imaginary olive branches, and Gingham represented that ”she couldn't think of such a thing.”
”Service isn't for the likes of you, miss,” proceeded the tempter; ”hindependence is fittest for beauty” (Tom peeped under the bonnet, and ”found it,” as he expressed himself, ”all serene”); ”a cottage and content, and a 'eart that is 'umble may 'ope for it 'ere;” with which concluding words Mr. Blacke, who was an admirer of poetry, and believed with Moore _that_ would be given to song ”which gold could never buy,” imprinted a vigorous kiss on those not very tempting lips, and felt that the day was his own.
Ladies of mature charms are less easily taken aback by such advances than their inexperienced juniors. The position, even if new in practice, is by no means so in theory, and having often antic.i.p.ated the attack, they are the more prepared to receive it when it arrives.
Ere our lovers reached No. 9 he had called her by her Christian name, and ”Rachel” had promised to think of it. As she closed the ”area-gate” Gingham had given her heart away to a scamp. True, she was oldish, uglyish, wore brown thread gloves, and had a yellow skin; yet for all this she had a woman's heart, and, like a very woman, gave it away to Tom Blacke without a return.
In good time General Bounce arrived, and took the command from Frank Hardingstone, with many gracious acknowledgments of his kindness. The General was a man of far too great importance to be introduced at the conclusion of a chapter. It is sufficient to say, that with military prompt.i.tude and decision (which generally means a disagreeable and abrupt method of doing a simple thing) he set the household in order, arranged the sad ceremony, over which he presided with proper gravity, packed Cousin Charlie off to his private tutor's, paid the servants their wages, and settled the departure of himself and niece for his own residence.
Do we think ourselves of account in this our world?--do we think we shall be so missed and so regretted? Drop a stone into a pool, there is a momentary splash, a bubble on the surface, and circle after circle spreads, and widens and weakens, till all is still and smooth as though the water had never been disturbed; so it is with death.
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