Anthony Hope - Double Harness

"Clear of the – ?"

"Yes, thank God – but she came down with an awful – an awful thud. I ran up as quick as I could. She was unconscious. A couple of labourers helped me to take her home, and I got Mumples; and on my way here I stopped at Gardiner's and sent him there, and came on to tell you."

By now they were getting into the dog-cart.

"Do you know at all how bad it is?" asked Grantley.

"Not the least. How should I?"

"Well, we must get home as quick as we can."

Grantley did not speak again the whole way. His mind had been full of plans that morning. His position as a man of land at Milldean was opening new prospects to him. He had agreed to come forward for election as a county alderman; he had been sounded as to contesting the seat for the Division. He had been very full of these notions, and had meant to spend two or three quiet days in reviewing and considering them. This sudden shock was hard to face and realise. It was difficult, too, to conceive of anything being wrong with Sibylla – always so fine an embodiment of physical health and vigour. He felt very helpless and in terrible distress; it turned him sick to think of the "awful thud" that Jeremy described. What would that mean? What was the least it might, the most it could, mean?

"You don't blame me?" Jeremy asked as they came near home.

"You advised her not to ride the beast: what more could you do? You couldn't stop her by force."

He spoke rather bitterly, as though sorrow and fear had not banished anger when he thought of his wife and her wilfulness.

Jeremy turned aside into the garden, begging to have news as soon as there was any. Grantley went into his study, and Mrs. Mumple came to him there. She was pitiably undone and dishevelled. It was impossible not to respect her grief, but no less impossible to get any clear information from her. Lamentations alternated with attempted excuses for Sibylla's obstinacy; she tried to make out that she herself was in some way to blame for having brought on the mood which had in its turn produced the obstinacy. Grantley, striving after outward calm, raged in his heart against the fond foolish old woman.

"I want to know what's happened, not whose fault it'll be held to be at the Day of Judgment, Mrs. Mumple. Since you're incapable of telling me anything, have the goodness to send Dr. Gardiner to me as soon as he can leave Sibylla."

Very soon, yet only just in time to stop Grantley from going upstairs himself, Gardiner came. He was an elderly quiet-going country practitioner; he lived in one of the red villas at the junction with the main road, and plied a not very lucrative practice among the farmhouses and cottages. His knowledge was neither profound nor recent; he had not kept up his reading, and his practical opportunities had been very few. He seemed, when he came, a good deal upset and decidedly nervous, as though he were faced with a sudden responsibility by no means to his liking. He kept wiping his brow with a threadbare red silk handkerchief and pulling his straggling grey whiskers while he talked. In a second Grantley had decided that no confidence could be placed in him. Still he must be able to tell what was the matter.

"Quickly and plainly, please, Dr. Gardiner," he requested, noting with impatience that Mrs. Mumple had come back and stood there listening; but she would cry and think him a monster if he sent her away.

"She's conscious now," the doctor reported, "but she's very prostrate – suffering from severe shock. I think you shouldn't see her for a little while."

"What's the injury, Dr. Gardiner?"

"The shock is severe."

"Will it kill her?"

"No, no! The shock kill her? Oh, no, no! She has a splendid constitution. Kill her? Oh, no, no!"

"And is that all?"

"No, not quite all, Mr. Imason. There is – er – in fact, a lesion, a local injury, a fracture, due to the force of the impact on the ground."

"Is that serious? Pray be quiet, Mrs. Mumple. You really must restrain your feelings."

"Serious? Oh, undoubtedly, undoubtedly! I – I can't say it isn't serious. I should be doing wrong – "

"In one word, is it fatal or likely to be fatal?"

Grantley was nearly at the end of his forced patience. He had looked for a man – he had, it seemed, found another old woman; so he angrily thought within himself as old Gardiner stumbled over his words and worried his whiskers.

"If I were to explain the case in detail – "

"Presently, doctor, presently. Just now I want the result – the position of affairs, you know."

"For the moment, Mr. Imason, there is no danger to Mrs. Imason – I think I may say that. But the injury creates a condition of things which might, and in my judgment would, prove dangerous to her as time went on. I speak in view of her present condition."

"I see. Could that be obviated?"

Gardiner's nervousness increased.

"By an operation directed to remove the cause which would produce danger. It would be a serious, perhaps a dangerous, operation – "

"Is that the only way?"

"In my judgment the only way consistent with – "

A loud sob from Mrs. Mumple interrupted him. Grantley swore under his breath.

"Go on," he said harshly.

"Consistent with the birth of the child, Mr. Imason."

"Ah!" At last he had got to the light, and the nervous old man had managed to deliver himself of his message. "I understand you now. Setting the birth of the child on one side, the matter would be simpler?"

"Oh, yes, much simpler – not, of course, without its – "

"And more free from danger?"

"Yes, though – "

"Practically free from danger to my wife?"

"Yes; I think I can say practically free in the case of so good a subject as Mrs. Imason."

Grantley thought for a minute.

"You probably wouldn't object to my having another opinion?" he asked.

Relief was obvious on old Gardiner's face.

"I should welcome it," he said. "The responsibility in such a case is so great that – "

"Tell me the best man, and I'll wire for him at once."

Even on this point Gardiner hesitated, till Grantley named a man known to everybody; him Gardiner at once accepted.

"Very well; and I'll see my wife as soon as you think it desirable." He paused a moment, and then went on: "If I understand the case right, I haven't a moment's hesitation in my mind. But I should like to ask you one question: am I right in supposing that your practice is to prefer the mother's life to the child's?"

"That's the British medical practice, Mr. Imason, where the alternative is as you put it. But there are, of course, degrees of danger, and these would influence – "

"You've told me the danger might be serious. That's enough. Dr. Gardiner, pending the arrival of your colleague, the only thing – the only thing – you have to think of is my wife. Those are my definite wishes, please. You'll remain here, of course? Thank you. We'll have another talk later. I want to speak to Jeremy now."

He turned towards the window, meaning to join Jeremy in the garden and report to him. Mrs. Mumple came forward, waving her hands helplessly and weeping profusely.

"Oh, Mr. Imason, imagine the poor, poor little child!" she stammered. "I can't bear to think of it."

Grantley's impatience broke out in savage bluntness.

"Against her I don't care that for the child!" he said, snapping his fingers as he went out.

No doubt the bodily shock, the laceration of her nerves, and the condition she was in had something to do with the way Sibylla looked at the matter and with the attitude which she took up. These accidental circumstances gave added force to what was the natural outcome of her disposition. A further current of feeling, sweeping her in the same direction, lay in the blame which she eagerly fastened on herself. Her wilfulness and heedlessness cried out to her for an atonement; she was eager to make an appeasing sacrifice and caught at the opportunity, embracing readily the worst view of the case, drawing from that view an unhesitating conclusion as to what her duty was. Thus deduced, the duty became a feverish desire, and her only fear was that she might be baulked of its realisation. She had risked her child's life; let her risk her life for her child. That idea was by itself, and by its innate propriety, enough to inspire her mind and to decide her will. It was but to accumulate reasons beyond need when she reminded herself that even before the accident all her weal had hung on the child, every chance that remained of overcoming certain failure, of achieving still the splendid success of which she had dreamed, in her life and marriage. The specialist was to arrive the next morning; she was reluctant to wait even for that. Old Gardiner was for her an all-wise all-sufficient oracle of the facts, because he had declared them to be such as fitted into the demands of her heart and of her mood. Left to herself, she would have constrained his fears, overborne his doubts, and forced him to her will; he would have stammered all in vain about what was the British medical practice. As it was, open-eyed, refusing to seek sleep, strung up by excitement, all through the evening she battled against her husband for her way.