Joseph Le Fanu - Willing to Die - A Novel

"And now," said the doctor, "I'm going to look in upon the luckiest man in the kingdom, the one human being who escaped alive out of that ship. He must have been either the best or the worst man on board – either too good to be drowned or too bad, by Jove! He is the gentleman you were so kind as to afford shelter to last night in the steward's house there, round the corner, and he sent for me an hour ago. I daresay he feels queer this morning; and from what Thomas Jones says, I should not be surprised if he had broken a bone somewhere. Nothing of any great consequence, of course; but he must have got a thund'ring fling on those rocks. When I've seen him – if I find you here – I'll tell you what I think of him."

After this promise, you may be sure we did wait where we were, and he kept his word. We were in a fever of curiosity; my first question was, "Who is he?"

"I guessed you'd ask that the first moment you could," said the doctor, a little pettishly.

"Why?" said I.

"Because it is the very question I can't answer," he replied. "But I'll tell you all I do know," he continued, taking up his old position at the window, and leaning forward with his head in the room.

Every word the oracle spoke we devoured. I won't tell his story in his language, nor with our interruptions. I will give its substance, and in part its details, as I received them. The doctor was at least as curious as we were.

His patient was up, sitting by the fire, in dressing-gown and slippers, which he had taken with other articles of dress from the box which stood open on the floor. The window-curtain was partly drawn, the room rather dark. He saw the young man with his feet on the fender, seated by the wood fire. His features, as they struck the doctor, were handsome and spirited; he looked ill, with pale cheek and lips, speaking low and smiling.

"I'm Doctor Mervyn," said the doctor, making his bow, and eyeing the stranger curiously.

"Oh! Thanks, Doctor Mervyn! I hope it is not a long way from your house, I am here very ridiculously circumstanced. I should not have had any clothes, if it had not been for a very lucky accident, and for a day or two I shall be totally without money – a mere Robinson Crusoe."

"Oh, that don't matter; I shall be very happy to see after you in the meantime, if there should be anything in my way," answered the doctor, bluntly.

"You are very kind, thanks. This place, they tell me, is called Malory. What Mr. Ware is that to whom it belongs?"

"The Honourable Mr. Ware, brother of Lord H – . He is travelling on the Continent at present with his wife, a great beauty some fifteen years since; and his daughter, his only child, is at present here with her governess."

"Oh, I thought some one said he had two?"

The doctor re-asserted the fact, and for some seconds the stranger looked on the floor abstractedly.

"You wished a word or two of advice, I understand?" interrupted the doctor at length. "You have had a narrow escape, sir – a tremendous escape! You must have been awfully shaken. I don't know how you escaped being smashed on those nasty rocks."

"I am pretty well smashed, I fancy," said the young man.

"That's just what I wanted to ascertain."

"From head to foot, I'm covered with bruises," continued the stranger; "I got off with very few cuts. I have one over my temple, and half-a-dozen here and there, and one here on my wrist; but you need not take any trouble about them – a cut, when I get one, heals almost of itself. A bit of court-plaster is all I require for them, and Mrs. Something, the housekeeper here, has given me some; but I'm rather seedy. I must have swallowed a lot of salt water, I fancy. I've got off very well, though, if it's true all the other people were drowned. It was a devil of a fluke; you'd say I was the luckiest fellow alive, ha, ha, ha! I wish I could think so."

He laughed, a little bitterly.

"There are very few men glad to meet death when it comes," said Doctor Mervyn. "Some think they are fit to die, and some know they are not. You know best, sir, what reason you have to be thankful."

"I'm nothing but bruises and aches all over my body. I'm by no means well, and I've lost all my luggage, and papers, and money, since one o'clock yesterday, when I was flourishing. Two or three such reasons for thankfulness would inevitably finish me."

"All except you were drowned, sir," said the doctor, who was known in Cardyllion as a serious-minded man, a little severely.

"Like so many rats in a trap, poor devils," acquiesced the stranger. "They were hatched down. I was the only passenger on deck. I must have been drowned if I had been among them."

"All those poor fellow-passengers of yours," said Doctor Mervyn, in disgust, "had souls, sir, to be saved."

"I suppose so; but I never saw such an assemblage of snobs in my life. I really think that, except poor Haworth – he insisted it would be ever so much pleasanter than the railway; I did not find it so; he's drowned of course – I assure you, except ourselves, there was not a gentleman among them. And Sparks, he's drowned too, and I've lost the best servant I ever had in my life. But I beg your pardon, I'm wasting your time. Do you think I'm ill?"

He extended his wrist, languidly, to enable the doctor to feel his pulse. The physician suppressed his rising answer with an effort, and made his examination.

"Well, sir, you have had a shock."

"By Jove! I should not wonder," acquiesced the young man, with a sneer.

"And you are a good deal upset, and your contusions are more serious than you seem to fancy. I'll make up a liniment here, and I'll send you down something else that will prevent any tendency to fever; and I suppose you would like to be supplied from the 'Verney Arms.' You must not take any wine stronger than claret for the present, and a light dinner, and if you give me a line, or tell me what name – "

"Oh, they know me there, thanks. I got these boxes from there this morning, and they are to send me everything I require."

The doctor wanted his name. The town of Cardyllion, which was in a ferment, wanted it. Of course he must have the name; a medical practitioner who kept a ledger and sent out accounts, it was part of his business to know his patients' names. How could he stand before the wags of the news-room, if he did not know the name of his own patients – of this one, of all others.

"Oh! put me down as R. M. simply," said the young man.

"But wouldn't it be more – more usual, if you had no objections – a little more at length?" insinuated the doctor.

"Well, yes; put it down a little more at length – say R. R. M. Three letters instead of two."

The doctor, with his head inclined, laughed patiently, and the stranger, seeing him about to return to the attack, said a little petulantly: "You see, doctor, I'm not going to give my very insignificant name here to any one. If your book-keeper had it, every one in the town would know it; and Cardyllion is a place at which idle people turn up, and I have no wish to have my stray friends come up to this place to bother me for the two or three days I must stay here. You may suppose me an escaped convict, or anything else you please that will amuse the good people; but I'm hanged if I give my name, thank you!"

After this little interruption, the strictly professional conversation was resumed, and the doctor ended by directing him to stay quiet that day, and not to walk out out until he had seen him again next morning.

The doctor then began to mix the ingredients of his liniment. The young man in the silk dressing-gown limped to the window, and leaned his arm upon the sash, looking out, and the doctor observed him, in his ruminations, smiling darkly on the ivy that nodded from the opposite wall, as if he saw a confederate eyeing him from its shadow.