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The Faith Doctor: A Story of New York, a novel by Edward Eggleston |
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Chapter 34. Doctors And Lovers |
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_ CHAPTER XXXIV. DOCTORS AND LOVERS Faint from the all-night strain upon her feelings, Phillida returned to her home from the Graydon to find her mother and sister at breakfast. "Philly, you're 'most dead," said Agatha, as Phillida walked wearily into the dining-room by way of the basement door. "You're pale and sick. Here, sit down and take a cup of coffee." Phillida sat down without removing her bonnet or sack, but Agatha took them off while her mother poured her coffee. "Where have you been and what made you go off so early?" went on Agatha. "Or did you run away in the night?" "Let Phillida take her coffee and get rested," said the mother. "All right, she shall," said Agatha, patting her on the back in a baby-cuddling way. "Only tell me how that little boy is; I do want to know, and you can just say 'better,' 'worse,' 'well,' or 'dead,' without waiting for the effect of the coffee, don't you see?" "The child has diphtheria. I don't know whether I ought to come home and expose the rest of you." "Nonsense," said Agatha. "Do you think we're going to send you off to the Island? You take care of the rest of the world, Philly, but mama and I take care of you. When you get up into a private box in heaven as a great saint, we'll hang on to your robe and get good seats." "Sh-sh," said Phillida, halting between a revulsion at Agatha's irreverent speech and a feeling more painful. "I'll never be a great saint, Aggy. Only a poor, foolish girl, mistaking her fancies for her duty." "Oh, that's the way with all the great saints. They just missed being shut up for lunatics. But do you think you'll be able to save that little boy? Don't you think you ought to get them to call a doctor?" "I? Oh, I gave up the case. I'm done with faith-healing once for all, Agatha." This was said with a little gulp, indicating that the confession cost her both effort and pain. "You--" "Don't ask me any questions till I'm better able to answer. I'm awfully tired out and cross." "What have you been doing this morning?" said Agatha, notwithstanding Phillida's injunction against questions. "Getting Miss Bowyer out of the Martin house. Mr. Martin was determined to have her, and he went for her when his wife sent him for a doctor." "Miss Bowyer! I don't see how you ever got her out," said Agatha. "Did you get a policeman to put her into the station-house on the mortal plane?" "No; I did worse. I actually had to go to the Graydon and wake up Charley Millard--" "You did?" "Yes; I couldn't get a messenger, and so I went myself. And I put the case into Charley's hands, and he sent his man Friday scampering after a coupe, and I came home and left him to go over there and fight it out." "Well, I declare!" said Agatha. "What remarkable adventures you have! And I never have anything real nice and dreadful happen to me. But he might have brought you home." "It wasn't his fault that he didn't. But give me a little bit of steak, please; I have got to go back to the Martins'." "No, you mustn't. Mother, don't you let her." "I do wish, Phillida," said the mother, "that you wouldn't go down into the low quarters of the town any more. You're so exposed to disease. And then you're a young woman. You haven't got your father's endurance. It's a dreadful risk." "Well, I'm rather responsible for the child, and then I ought to be there to protect Mrs. Martin from her husband when he comes home at noon, and to share the blame with her when he finds his favorite put out and Charley's doctor in possession." "So you and Charley are in partnership in saving the boy's life," said Agatha, "and you've got a regular doctor. That's something like. I can guess what'll come next." "Hush, Agatha," said the mother. Phillida's appetite for beefsteak failed in a moment, and she pushed her plate back and looked at her sister with vexation. "If you think there's going to be a new engagement, you're mistaken." "Think!" said Agatha, with a provoking laugh, "I don't think anything about it. I know just what's got to happen. You and Charley are just made for each other, though for my part I should prefer a young man something like Cousin Philip." Phillida was silent for a moment, and Mrs. Callender made a protesting gesture at the impulsive Agatha. "I don't think you ought to talk about such things when I'm so tired," said Phillida, struggling to maintain self-control. "Mr. Millard is a man used to great popularity and much flattery in society. He would never stand it in the world; it would hurt him twenty years hence to be reminded that his wife had been a--well--a fanatic." This was uttered with a sharp effort of desperation, Phillida grinding a bit of bread to pieces between thumb and finger the meanwhile. "If he were to offer to renew the engagement I should refuse. It would be too mortifying to think of." Agatha said nothing, and Phillida presently added, "And if you think I went to the Graydon to renew the acquaintance of Charley, it's--very--unkind of you, that's all." Phillida could no longer restrain her tears. "Why, Phillida, dear, Agatha didn't say any such thing," interposed Mrs. Callender. "If you think," said Agatha, angrily, "that I could even imagine such a thing as that, it's just too awfully mean, that's all. But you've worried yourself sick and you're unreasonable. There, now, please don't cry, Philly," she added, going around and stroking her sister's hair. "You're too good for any man that ever lived, and that's a great misfortune. If they could have split the difference between your goodness and my badness, they might have made two fair average women. There, now, if you don't eat something I'll blame myself all day. I'm going to toast you a piece of bread." In spite of remonstrance, the repentant Agatha toasted a piece of bread and boiled the only egg that Sarah had in the house, to tempt her sister's appetite. "Your motto is, 'Hard words and kind acts,'" said Mrs. Callender, as Agatha came in with the toast and the egg. "My motto is, 'Hard words and soft boiled eggs,'" said Agatha, who had by this penance secured her own forgiveness and recovered her gayety. In vain was Phillida entreated to rest. She felt herself drawn to Mrs. Martin, who would, as she concluded, have got rid of Miss Bowyer, and seen the doctor and Charley, and be left alone, by this time. So, promising to be back by one o'clock, if possible, she went out again, indulging her fatigue so far as to take a car in Fourteenth street. Arrived at Mrs. Martin's, she was embarrassed at finding Millard sitting with his aunt. She gave him a look of recognition as she entered, and said to Mrs. Martin, who was holding Tommy: "I thought I should find you alone by this time." This indirect statement that she had not considered it desirable to encounter Millard again cut him, and he said, as though the words had been addressed to him, "I am expecting Dr. Gunstone every moment." "Dr. Gunstone? I am glad he is coming," said Phillida, firing the remark in the air indiscriminately at the aunt or nephew, as either might please to accept it. At that moment Millard's valet, Robert, in the capacity of pioneer and pilot, knocked at the door. When Millard opened it he said, "Dr. Gunstone, sir," and stood aside to let the physician pass. Gunstone made a little hurried bow to Millard, and, without waiting for an introduction, bowed with his usual deference to Mrs. Martin. "Good-morning, madam; is this the little sufferer?" at the same time making a hurried bow of courtesy to Phillida as a stranger; but as he did so, he arrested himself and said in the fatherly tone he habitually used with his young women patients, "How do you do? You came to see me last year with--" "My mother, Mrs. Callender," said Phillida. "Yes, yes; and how is your mother, my dear?" "Quite well, thank you, doctor." The doctor dispatched these courtesies with business-like promptness, and then settled himself to an examination of little Tommy. "This is diphtheria," he said; "you will want a physician in the neighborhood. Let's see, whom have you?" This to Millard. Millard turned to his aunt. She looked at Phillida. "There's Dr. Smith around the corner," said Phillida. Dr. Gunstone said, "Dr. Smith?" inquiringly to himself. But the name did not seem to recall any particular Smith. "And Dr. Beswick in Seventeenth street," said Phillida. "Beswick is a very good young fellow, with ample hospital experience," said Gunstone. "Can you send for him at once?" Robert, who stood alert without the door, was told to bring Dr. Beswick in the carriage, and in a very short space of time Beswick was there, having left Mrs. Beswick sure that success and renown could not be far away when her husband was called on Gunstone's recommendation, and fetched in a coupe under the conduct of what seemed to her a coachman and a footman. Beswick's awkwardness and his abrupt up-and-downness of manner contrasted strangely with Dr. Gunstone's simple but graceful ways. A few rapid directions served to put the case into Beswick's hands, and the old doctor bowed swiftly to all in the room, descended the stairs, and, having picked his way hurriedly through a swarm of children on the sidewalk, entered the carriage again, and was gone. Millard looked at his watch, remembered that he had had no breakfast, and prepared to take his leave. "Thank you, Charley, ever so much," said his aunt. "I don't know what I should have done without you." "Miss Callender is the one to thank," said Millard, scarcely daring to look at her, as he bade her and Dr. Beswick good-morning. When he had reached the bottom of the long flight of stairs, Millard suddenly turned about and climbed upward once more. "Miss Callender," he said, standing in the door, "let me speak to you, please." Phillida went out to him. This confidential conversation could not but excite a rush of associations and emotion in the minds of both of them, so that neither dared to look directly at the other as they stood there in the obscure light which struggled through two dusty panes of glass at the top of the next flight. "You must not stay here," he said. "You're very weary; you will be liable to take the disease. I am going to send a professional nurse." This solicitude for her was so like the Charley of other times that it made Phillida tremble with a grateful emotion she could not quite conceal. "A professional nurse will be better for Tommy. But I can not leave while Mrs. Martin has any great need for me." She could not confess to him the responsibility she felt in the case on account of her having undertaken it the evening before as a faith-doctor. "What is the best way to get a nurse?" asked Millard, regarding her downcast face, and repressing a dreadful impulse to manifest his reviving affection. "Dr. Beswick will know," said Phillida. "I will send him out." She was glad to escape into the room again, for she was afraid to trust her own feelings longer in Millard's company. The arrangement was made that Dr. Beswick should send a nurse, and then Millard and Beswick went down-stairs together. Phillida stayed till Mr. Martin came home, hoping to soften the scene between husband and wife. In his heart Martin revered his wife's good sense, but he thought it due to his sex to assert himself once in a while against a wife whose superiority he could not but recognize. As soon as he had accomplished this feat, thereby proving his masculinity, he always repented it. For so long as his wife approved his course he was sure that he could not be far astray; but whenever his vanity had made him act against her judgment he was a mariner out of reckoning, and he made haste to take account of the pole star of her good sense. He had just now been impelled by certain ugly elements in his nature to give his wife a taste of his power as the head of the family, the more that she had dared to make sport of his new science and of his new oracle, Miss Bowyer. But once he had become individually responsible for Tommy's life without the security of Mrs. Martin's indorsement on the back of the bond, he became extremely miserable. As noontime approached he grew so restless that he got excused from his bench early, and came home. Motives of delicacy had prevented any communication between Phillida and Mrs. Martin regarding the probable attitude of Mr. Martin toward the transactions of the morning. But when his ascending footsteps, steady and solemn as the Dead March in "Saul," were heard upon the stairs, their hearts failed them. "How's little Tommy?" he asked. "I don't think he's any better," said Mrs. Martin. "Come to think," said the husband, "I guess I'd better send word to Miss Bowyer to give it up and not come any more, and then I'd better get a regular doctor. I don't somehow like to take all the responsibility, come to think." "Miss Bowyer's given up the case," said Mrs. Martin. "Charley's been here, scared to death about Tommy. He brought a great doctor from Fifth Avenue, and together they sent for Dr. Beswick. Miss Bowyer gave up the case." "Give up the case, did she?" he said wonderingly. "Yes." "Well, that's better. But I didn't ever hardly believe she'd go and give it up." Mr. Martin did not care to inquire further. He was rid of responsibility, and finding himself once more under the lee of his wife, he could eat his dinner and go back to work a happier man. _ |
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