George Fenn - The Man with a Shadow

“Nay, you won’t tell the parson, doctor?” said the old man, with a chuckle.

“No, I shall say nothing, Moredock.”

“No, doctor, you can’t. You’re in it. You set me to get that for you.”

“There, stop that confounded laugh of yours, and take this quietly to the Manor House to-night. Shall you be well enough?”

“Have – have you got any more o’ that Hollands gin, doctor?” whispered the old man, with a leer.

“About another glassful, I dare say.”

“Then I shall be well enough to come, doctor. Nobody shall see what it is. And look here: you keep me alive and well, and you shall have anything you want, doctor. Parson’s master in the church, but I’m master outside, and in the tombs, and in the old Candlish morslem. Like to see in it, doctor?”

“Pah! not I. See enough of the miserable breed alive without seeing them dead. Good morning.”

He remounted his horse, and rode out of the village by the main road, to draw rein at a pretty ivy-covered villa, whose well-kept garden and general aspect betokened wealth and some refinement.

“Mrs Berens at home?” he asked, as the drag at a bell sent a silvery tinkle through the house.

The neat maid-servant drew back with a smile, and the doctor entered, and was shown into a pretty drawing-room, where he stood beating his boot with his riding-whip, and looking scornfully at the ornaments, lace, and gimcracks around.

“I always feel like a fly,” the doctor muttered – “a fly alighted upon a spider’s web. The widow wants a husband. I wish some one would snap her up.”

“Ah! doctor – at last,” said a pleasant voice, which sounded as if it had passed through swan’s-down, while a strong odour of violets helped the illusion.

“Yes, at last, Mrs Berens,” said the doctor, taking the extended, soft, white hand of the pleasant, plump lady of eight-and-thirty or forty, whose whole aspect was suggestive of a very pretty, delicate-skinned baby grown large. “Why, how well you look.”

“Oh, doctor!”

“Indeed you do. Why, from your note I was afraid that you were seriously ill.”

“And I have been, doctor. In such a low, nervous state. At one time I felt as if I should sink. But” – with a sigh – “I am better now.”

The lady waved her kerchief towards a chair, and seated herself upon an ottoman, where, in obedience to the suggestion, she once more laid her hand in the doctor’s firm white palm, wherein Jonadab Moredock’s gnarled, yellow, horny paw had so lately lain: and as the strong fingers closed over the delicate white flesh, and a couple glided to the soft round wrist, the patient sighed.

“Oh, doctor, I do feel so safe when you are here. It would be too hard to die so young.”

The doctor looked up quickly. “Now that’s wicked,” said the lady reproachfully, “because I said ‘so young.’ Well, I’m not quite forty, and that is young. Is my pulse very rapid?”

“No, no. A little accelerated, perhaps. You seem to have been fretting.”

“Yes, that’s it, doctor. I have,” said the lady.

“What a fool I am!” he said to himself, as he released the hand. Then aloud: “I see, I see. Little mental anxiety. You want tone, Mrs Berens.”

“Yes, doctor, I do,” she sighed.

“Now what should you say if I prescribed a complete change?”

“A complete change, doctor?” said the lady, whose pulse was now certainly accelerated.

“Yes. That will be better than any of my drugs. A pleasant little two months’ trip to Baden or Homburg, where you can take the waters and enjoy the fresh air.”

“Oh, doctor, I could not go alone.”

“Humph! No. It would be dull. Well, take a companion. Why not one of the parson’s sisters? Mary Salis – or, no,” he added, quickly, as he recalled certain family troubles that had been rumoured. “Why not Leo Salis?”

“Oh, no, doctor,” said the lady, with a decisive shake of the head. “I don’t think Miss Leo Salis and I would get on together long.”

“The other, then,” said the doctor.

“No, no. Prescribe some medicine for me.”

“But you don’t want medicine.”

“Indeed, doctor, but I do. I’ll take anything you like to prescribe.”

“But – ”

“Now, doctor, I am low and nervous, and you must humour me a little. I could not bear to be sent away. I should feel as if I had gone over there to die.”

“When I guarantee that you would come back strong and well?”

“No, doctor, no. You must not send me away. Deal gently with me, and let me stop in my own nest. Ah, if you only knew my sufferings.”

Dr Horace North felt as if he fully knew, and was content to stand off at a distance, for though everything was extremely ladylike and refined, and there was a touch of delicacy mingled with her words, he could not help interpreting the meaning of the widow’s sighs and the satisfied look of pleasure which came over her countenance when he was at hand to feel her pulse.

“I do know your sufferings,” he said gravely, “and you may rely upon me to bring any little skill I can command to bear upon your complaint. Think again over the idea of change.”

“Oh, no, doctor,” said the lady quickly. “I could not go.”

“Ah, well, I will not press you,” he said, rising. “I’ll try and prescribe something that will give you tone.”

“You are not going, doctor,” said the lady, in alarm. “Why, you have only this moment come.”

“Patients to see, my dear madam.”

“No, it is not that. I worry you with my complaints. I am very, very tiresome, I own.”

“Nonsense, nonsense,” said the doctor; “but really I must hurry away.”

“Without seeing my drawings, and the books I have had down from town! Ah! I am sure I bore you with my murmuring. A sick woman is a burden to her friends.”

“If some one would only fetch me away in a hurry, I’d bless him,” thought the doctor.

“There are times, doctor, when a few words of sympathy would make me bear my lot more easily, and – ”

“Wheels, by George!” exclaimed the doctor.

“If you only knew – ”

“There’s something bolted.”

“The dead vacancy in my poor heart.”

“A regular smash if they don’t look out. Woa, Tom! Steady, my lad!” cried the doctor, opening the French window and stepping out on to the lawn.

“Doctor, for pity’s sake,” sobbed Mrs Berens, in anguished tones.

The patient’s voice was so pitiful that the doctor could not resist the appeal, and though called as it were on both sides, he stepped rapidly back into the little drawing-room in time to catch the fainting widow in his arms.

Unfortunately for poor Mrs Berens, who had for long felt touched by the young doctor, a lady in distress, mental or bodily, or both, was always a patient to Dr North, and he only retained her in his arms just long enough to lower her down in a corner of a soft couch, before rushing out of the window and through the gate, where his tied-up horse was snorting and kicking.

The poor brute had cause, for the rapid running of wheels and beat of hoofs were produced by Hartley Salis’s phaeton and the new mare, which came down the road at a frantic gallop, with Mary clinging to the side of the vehicle, pale with dread, and Leo, apparently quite retaining her nerve, seated perfectly upright in her place, but unable to control the mare, one rein having given way at the buckle hole, and a pull at the other being so much madness.

They had come along for quite a mile at a headlong pace, till nearing Mrs Berens’ house, Leo caught sight of the doctor’s cob, which pricked up its ears and began to rear and plunge.