Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1905 — The Doctor's Wife [ARTICLE]

The Doctor's Wife

BY MISS M. E. BRADDON

CHAPTER XX. —(Continued.) There was no omnibus to take Mrs. Gilbert back to Graybridge after the service at Hurstonleigh; but there had been some Graybridge people at church, and she found them lingering m the churchyard talking to some of the model villagers, enthusiastic in their praise of Mr. Colburn's eloquence. Isabel’s friends left her at the gate. She had done nothing to redeem her character in Grjiybridge by her frequent attendance „at Hurstonleigh Church, which was as patent to the gossips as ever hep-visits to Thurston’s oak had been. She had been cured of running after Mr. Lansdell, people said. No doubt George Gilbert had discovered her goings-on. and had found a means of clipping her wings. It was not likely that Graybridge would credit her with such virtue of repentance. Graybridge regarded her as an artful and presuming creature, whose goings-on had been stopped by marital authority. She went into the parlor and found the tea things laid on the table, and Mr. Gilbert lying on the sofa, which was too short for him by a couple of feet, and was eked out by a chair, on which his clumsy boots rested. Isabel had never seen him (give way to any such self-in-dulgence before; but as she bent over he told her that his head ached, and he was tired, very tired; he had been in the lanes all the afternoon—the people about there had been bad —and he had been at work in the surgery since coming in. He put his hand in Isabel’s, and pressed hers affectionately. A very little attention from his pretty young wife gratified and made him happy. ‘'Why, George.” cried Mrs. Gilbert, “your hand is as hot as a burning coal!” Yes, he was very warm, he told her; the weather was hot and oppressive; at least he had found it so that afternoon. Perhaps he had been hurrying too much, walking too fast: he had upset himself somehow or other. “If you'll pour out the tea, Izzie, I’ll take a cup and then go to bed,” he said; “I'm regularly played out.” He took not one cup only, but four cups of tea. pouring the mild beverage down his throat at a draught; and then he went up to the room overhead, walking heavily, as if he were very tired. "I in sure you’re ill, George,” Isabel said as he left the parlor; “do take something—some of that horrid medicine you give me.” “No, my dear; there's nothing the matter with me. What should there be amiss with me, who never had a day’s illness in my life? I must have an assistant, Izzie, my work’s too hard; that's what is the matter.” Mrs. Gilbert sat in the dusk a little while after her husband left her, thinking of that last look which Roland Lansdell had given her in the church. Heaven knows how long she might have sat thinking of him, if Jeffson had not come in. After the lights had been brought Isabel took a book from the top of the little chiffonier by the fire place. It was a religious book. Was she not trying to be good now. and was not goodness incompatible with the perusal of Shelley's poetry on a Sunday? She sat thus, until she was startled by a cautious single knock at the door. She started from her seat at the sound; but she went bold ly enough to answer the summons. There was nothing uncommon in a late knocking at the doctor's door—some one from the lanes wanted medicine, no doubt, the people in the lanes were always wanting medicine. Mrs. Gilbert opened the door, and looked out into the darkness. A man was standing there, a well-clad, rather handsome looking man. with broad shoulders, bold black eyes, and a black beard .that covered all the lower part of his face. He did not wait to be invited to enter, but walked across the threshold like a man who had a right to come into the house, and almost pushed Isabel on one side as he did so. At first she only stared at him with a blank look of wonder, but all at once her face grew ns white as the plaster on the wall behind her. “You!" she gasped in a whisper; “you here!” “Yes, me! You needn't stare as if you saw a ghost. There's' nothing so very queer about me, is there? You're a nice young lady. I don't think, to stand there shivering and staring. Where’s your husband?" "Upstairs. Oh, why. why did you Come here?" cried the doctor's wife, piteously, clasping her hands like a creature in some extremity of fear and trouble; “how could you be so cruel ns to come here? How could you be so cruel as to come?" "How could 1 be so—fiddlesticks!" mattered the stranger, with supreme contempt. "1 came here because I had nowhere else to go, my lassie. You needn’t whimper: for I shan't trouble yon very long—this is not exactly the place I should care to hang out in—if you can give me a bed in this house for to-night, well and good; if not, you enn give me money ami I'll find one elsewhere. While I am here, remember my name's Captain Morgan; and I’m in the merchant service." CHAPTER XXL George Gilbert was something more than “played out.” There had been a great deal of typhoid fever among the poorer inhabitants of Graybridge, mid the neighboring villages lately—a bad infectious fever, which hung over the narrow lanes and little clusters of cottages like a black cloud; and the parish surgeon, working early and late, subject to sudden chills when his work was hottest. exposed to every variety of temperature nt all times, fasting for long ho U.S, and rltogether setting at naught those very first principles of health, in which it was his duty to instruct other people, had paid the common penalty to which all of bis profession are. more or less, subject. George Gilbert bad caught a touch of the fever. Mr. Pawlkatt, senior, called in early on Mopday mornlag, summoned by poor, terrified Isabel.

and spoke of his rival's illness very lightly, as a “touch of the fever.” “I always said it was infectious,” he remarked; “but your husband would have it that it wasn’t.* It was all the effect of dirtj’ habits and low living, he said, and not any special and periodical influence in the air. Well, poor fellow, he knows now who is right. You must keep him very quiet. Give him a little toast-and-water, and the lime draughts I shall send you.” Unhappily for the patient, it was not the easiest matter in the world’ to keep him quiet. “I dare say Pawlkatt likes to see me laid by the heels here, Izzie,” he said to his wife, “while he goes interfering with my patients, and bringing his old-fashoned theories to bear. He’ll shut up the poor wretched little windows of all those cottages in the lanes, I dare say; and make the rooms even more stifling than they have been made by the builder. He’ll frighten the poor women into shutting out every breath of fresh air, and then take every atom of strength away from those poor wasted creatures by his drastic treatment. It’s no use talking, my dear, I’m a little knocked out, but I’ve no more fever about me than you have, and I shall go out this evening. I shall go round and see those people. There’s a woman in the lane behind the church (a widow with three children), lying ill; and she seems to believe in me, poor creature, as if I was Providence itself. I can’t forget the look she gave me yesterday, when she stood on the threshold of her wretched hovel, asking me to save her children, as if she thought it rested with me to save her children. I can’t forget her look, Izzie. It haunted me all last night. And when I think of Pawlkatt pouring his drugs down those children’s throats, I—l tell you it's no use, my dear, I’ll take a cup of tea, and then get up and dress.” It was in vain that Isabel pleaded; in vain that she brought to her aid Mrs. Jeffson, the vigorous and outspoken, who declared that it would be nothing short of self-murder if Mr. Gilbert insisted on going out that evening; equally in vain the threat of summoning- Mr. Pawlkatt. George was resolute; these quiet people always tree resolute, not to say obstinate. He was wanted yonder among his patients, and he must go. Isabel anil Mrs. Jeffson retired in melancholy resignation to prepare the tea, which was to foatify the surgeon for his evening’s work. George came downstairs half an hour afterward, looking, not ill, or even weak, but at once flushed and haggard. “There's nothing whatever the matter with me, my dear Izzie,” he said, as his wife followed him to the door; “I am only done up with very hard work. I feel tired and cramped in my limbs, as if I'd caught cold somehow or other. I was out all day in the wet last week, you know; but there's nothing in that. I shall just look in at those people at Briargate, and come back by the lanes; and then an hour or so in the surgery will finish my wyrk, and I shall have an assistant, my dear. The agricultural population gets very thick about Graybridge, and unless some one takes pity on the poor people, and brings about some improvement in the places they live in, we may look for plenty of fever.” He went out at the little gate, and Isabel watched him going along the lane. He walked a little slower than usual, and that was all. She watched him with a quiet affection ou her face. There was no possible phase of circumstances by which she could have been ever brought to love him; but she knew that he was good, she knew that there was something praiseworthy in what he was doing to-night—this resolute visiting of wretched sick people. It was not the knightly sort of goodness she had adored in the heroes of her choice; but it was good, and she admired her husband a little, in a calm, uneuthusiastic manner—as she might have admired a very estimable grandfather, had she happened to possess such a relative. She was trying to be good.’ and al) the sentimental tenderness of her nature had been aroused by George’s illness. He was a more agreeable person lying faint and languid in a shaded room, and requiring his head constantly bathed with vinegar and water, than when in the full vigor of health and clumsiness. She finally walked out into the lane, watching for her husband's coming. Two or three peqile went slowly by at considerable intervals; nnd at last, when it was growing quite dark, the figure of a slouching country-built lad, loomed out of the obscurity. ‘Be this Muster Gilbert’s the doctor's?” he asked ot Isabel. “Yes; do you want him?” “I don't want him; but I've got a letter for his wife from n man that's staying up at our place. Be you she?" “Yes: give me the letter,” answered Isabel, putting her hand over the gate. She took the missive from the hand of the boy, who resigned it in a slow, unwilling manner, and then slouched away. Mrs. Gilbert put the letter in her pocket, and went into the house. The doctor’s wife seated herself at the little table, and took the letter from her pocket and tore it open. It was a very brief and unceremonious kind of epistle, containing only these words; “I’ve found comfortable quarters, for the nonce, in a little crib down in Nessbroiigh Hollow. I suppose you know the place; and I shall exj>ect to see you in the course of to morrow. Don't forget the sinews of war; and be sure you ask for Captain Morgan." There was no signature. The letter was written in n big. dashing band, which had sprawled recklessly over a sheet of old-fashioued letter paper; it seemed a riotous, improvident kind of writing, that gloried in the wasted space and squandered ink. “How cruel of him to come here!" muttered Isabel, as she tore the letter into a little heap of fragments; “bow cruel of him to come! as if I had not suffered enough already: as if the misery and disgrace bad not been bitter enough and hard enough to bear." She rested her elbows on the table.

and sat quite still for some time, witlj her face hidden in her hands. Hethoughts were very painful; but, so in a way, they* were not entirely devoted to Roland Lansdell; and yet thmaster of Mordred Priory did figure it that long reverie. George came in bj and by, and found her sitting in the atti tude into which she had fallen after de straying the letter. She had been verj anxious about her husband - some timq ago; but for the last half hour het thoughts had been entirely removed front him; and she looked up at him confusedly, almost startled by his coming as if he had been the last person in the world whom she expected to see; Mr. Gilbert dropped heavily into the nearest chair, like a man who feels himself powerless to go one step further. “I’m very ill, Izzie,” he said; “it's no use mincing the matter; lam ill. I suppose Pawlkatt is right, after all, and I’ve got a touch of the fever.” “Shall I send for him?” asked Isabel, starting up; “he said I was to send for him if you grew worse.” “Not on any account. I know what to do as well as he does. If I should happen to get delirious by and by, you can send for him, because I dare say you’d be frightened, poor girl, and would feel more comfortable with a doctor pottering about me. And now listen to me, my dear, while I give you a few directions; for my head feels like a tonweight, and I don’t think I shall be able to sit upright much longer.” x The doctor proceeded to give his wife all necessary instructions for the prevention of infection. She was to have a separate room prepared for herself immediately; she was to fumigate the room in which he was to lie, in such and such a manner. As for any attendance upon himself, that yould be Mrs. Jeffsou’s task. Mr. Pawlkatt was summoned to his rival’s bedside early on the following morning. George’s case was quite out of his own hands by this time; for he had grown much worse in the night, and was fain to submit to whatever people pleased to do with him. He was very ill. Isabel sat in the half-darkened room, sometimes reading, sometimes working in the dim light that crept through the curtain, sometimes sitting very quietly wrapt in thought—painful and perplexing thought. She was very foolish —she had been very wicked—but there was a deep fount of tenderness in that sentimental essentially feminine breast; and I doubt if George Gilbert was not more lovingly watched by his weak young wife than ever he could have been by a strong-minded helpmate, who would have frozen any lurking in Mr. Lansdell’s breast by one glance from her pitiless eyes. The doctor’s wife felt a remorseful compassion for the man who, after his own matteiyof-fact fashion, had been very good to her. Mrs. Gilbert sat all day in her husband's room; but about 5 in the afternoon George fell into a deep slumber, in which Mr. Pawlkatt found him a little after G o’clock. Nothing could be better than that tranquil sleep, the surgeon said; and when he was gone, Mrs. Jeffson. who had been sitting in the room for some time, anxious to be of use to her master, suggested that Isabel should go downstairs, and out into the garden to get a breath of fresh air. “Yes; I should like to go downstairs a little, if you think that George is sure to sleep soundy for a long time; and I know you’ll take good care of him. I want to go out somewhere —not very far; but I must go to-night.” “I should have thought, if you was the greatest gadderabout that ever was, you’d have stayed quietly at home while your husband was lying ill, Mrs. Gilbert,” she said, sharply: “but of course you know your own business best.” (To be continued.)