Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  Mr. Halliburton’s pulses quickened a little. “Sir!” he repeated. “Not a healthy life?”

  “Not sufficiently healthy for insurance.”

  “Why! what is the matter with me?” he rejoined.

  Dr. Carrington looked him full in the face for the space of a minute before replying. “I have had that question asked me before by parties whom I have felt obliged to decline as I am now declining you,” he said, “and my answer has not always been palatable to them.”

  “It will be palatable to me, sir; in so far as that I desire to be made acquainted with the truth. What do you find amiss with me?”

  “The lungs are diseased.”

  A chill fell over Mr. Halliburton. “Not extensively, I trust? Not beyond hope of recovery?”

  “Were I to say not extensively, I should be deceiving you; and you tell me that you wish for the truth. They are extensively diseased — —”

  A mortal pallor overspread Mr. Halliburton’s face, and he sank into a chair. “Not for myself,” he gasped, as Dr. Carrington drew nearer to him. “I have a wife and children. If I die, they will want bread to eat.”

  “But you did not hear me out,” returned the doctor, proceeding with equanimity, as if he had not been interrupted. “They are extensively diseased, but not beyond a hope of recovery. I do not say it is a strong hope; but a hope there is, as I judge, provided you use the right means and take care of yourself.”

  “What am I to do? What are the means?”

  “You live, I presume, in this stifling, foggy, smoky London.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then got away from it. Go where you can have pure air and a clear atmosphere. That’s the first and chief thing; and that’s most essential. Not for a few weeks or months, you understand me — going out for a change of air, as people call it — you must leave London entirely; go away altogether.”

  “But it will be impossible,” urged Mr. Halliburton. “My work lies in London.”

  “Ah!” said the doctor; “too many have been with me with whom it was the same case. But, I assure you that you must leave it; or it will be London versus life. You appear to me to be one who never ought to have come to London —— You were not born in it?” he abruptly added.

  “I never saw it until I was eighteen. I was born and reared in Devonshire.”

  “Just so. I knew it. Those born and reared in London become acclimatized to it, generally speaking, and it does not hurt them. It does not hurt numbers who are strangers: they find London as healthy a spot for them as any on the face of the globe. But there are a few who cannot and ought not to live in London; and I judge you to be one of them.”

  “Has this state of health been coming on long?”

  “Yes, for some years. Had you remained in Devonshire, you might have been a sound man all your life. My only advice to you is — get away from London. You cannot live long if you remain in it.”

  Mr. Halliburton thanked Dr. Carrington and went out. How things had changed for him! What had gone with the day’s beauty? — with the blue sky, the bright sun? The sky was blue still, and the sun shining; but darkness seemed to intervene between his eyes and outward things. Dying? A shiver went through him as he thought of Jane and the children, and a sick feeling of despair settled on his spirit.

  CHAPTER VII.

  LATER IN THE DAY.

  The man was utterly prostrated. He felt that the fiat of death had gone forth, and there settled an undercurrent of conviction in his mind that for him there would be no recovery, take what precaution he would. He could not shake it off. There lay the fact and the fear, as a leaden weight.

  He bent his steps towards home, walking the whole way; he moved along the streets mechanically. The crowds passed and repassed him, but he seemed far away. Once or twice he lifted his head to them with a yearning gesture. “Oh! that I were like you! bent on business, on pleasure, on social intercourse!” passed through his mind. “I am not as you; and for me you can do nothing. You cannot give me health; you cannot give me life.”

  He entered his home, and was conscious of merry voices and flitting footsteps. A little scene of gaiety was going on: he knew of this, but had forgotten it until that instant. It was the birthday of his little girl, and a few young friends had been invited to make merry. Jane, looking almost as young, quite as pretty, as when she married him, sat at the far end of their largest room before a well-spread tea-table. She wore festival attire. A dress of pearl-grey silk, and a thin gold chain round her neck. The little girls were chiefly in white, and the boys were on their best behaviour. Jane was telling them that tea was ready, and her two servants were helping to place the little people, and to wait upon them.

  “Oh, and here’s papa, too! just in time,” she cried, lifting her eyes gladly at her husband. “That is delightful!”

  Mr. Halliburton welcomed the children. He kissed some, he talked to others, just as if he had not that terrible vulture, care, within him. They saw nothing amiss; neither did Jane. He took his seat, and drank his tea; all, as it were, mechanically. It did not seem to be himself; he thought it must be some one else. In the last hour, his whole identity appeared to have changed. Bread and butter was handed to him. He took a slice and left it. Jane put some cake on to his plate: he left that also. Eat! with that awful fiat racking his senses! No, it was not possible.

  Ho looked round on his children. His. William, a gentle boy, with his mother’s calm, good face and her earnest eyes; Jane, a lovely child, with fair curls flowing and a bright colour, consciously vain this evening in her white birthday robes and her white ribbons; Frank, a slim, dark-eyed boy, always in mischief, his features handsome and clearly cut as were his father’s; Gar, a delicate little chap, with fair curls like his sister Jane’s. Must he leave those children? — abandon them to the mercies of a cold and cruel world? — bequeath them no place in it; no means of support? “Oh, God! Oh, God!” broke from his bitter heart, “if it be Thy will to take me, mayst Thou shelter them!”

  “Edgar!”

  He started palpably; so far in thought was he away. Yet it was only his wife who spoke to him.

  “Edgar, have you been up to Dr. Carrington’s?” she whispered, bending towards him.

  In his confusion he muttered some unintelligible words, which she interpreted into a denial; there was a great deal of buzzing just then from the young voices around. Two of the gentlemen, Frank being one, were in hot contention touching a third gentleman’s rabbits. Mrs. Halliburton called Frank to order, and said no more to her husband for the present.

  “We are to dance after tea,” said Jane. “I have been learning one quadrille to play. It is very easy, and mamma says I play it very well.”

  “Oh, we don’t want dancing,” grumbled one of the boys. “We’d rather have blindman’s-buff.”

  Opinions were divided again. The girls wanted dancing, the boys blindman’s-buff. Mrs. Halliburton was appealed to.

  “I think it must be dancing first and blindman’s-buff afterwards,” said she.

  Tea over, the furniture was pushed aside to clear a space for the dancers. Mr. Halliburton, his back against the wall, stood looking at them. Looking at them as was supposed; but had they been keen observers, they would have known that his eyes in reality saw not: they, like his thoughts, were far away.

  His wife did presently notice that he seemed particularly abstracted. She came up to him; he was standing with his arms folded, his head bent. “Edgar, are you well?”

  “Well? Oh yes, dear,” he replied, making an effort to rouse himself.

  “I hope you have no more teaching to-night?”

  “I ought to go to young Finchley. I put him off until seven o’clock.”

  “Then” — was her quick rejoinder— “if you put off young Finchley, how was it you could not get to Savile-row?”

  “I have been occupied all the afternoon, Jane,” he said. Wanting the courage to say how the matter really stood, he evaded the question.

  But, to go
to young Finchley or to any other pupil that night, Mr. Halliburton felt himself physically unequal. Teach! Explain abstruse Greek and Latin rules, with his mind in its present state! It seemed to him that it mattered little — if he was to be taken from them so soon — whether he ever taught again. He was in the very depths of depression.

  Suddenly, as he stood looking on, a thought came flashing over him as a ray of light. As a ray of light? Nay, as a whole flood of it. What if Dr. Carrington were wrong? — if it should prove that, in reality, nothing was the matter with him? Doctors — and very clever ones — were, he knew, sometimes mistaken. Perhaps Dr. Carrington had been so!

  It was scarcely likely, he went on to reason, that a mortal disease should be upon him, and he have lived in ignorance of it! Why, he seemed to have had very little the matter with him; nothing to talk of, nothing to lie up for; comparatively speaking, he had been a healthy man — was in health then. Yes, the belief did present itself that Dr. Carrington was deceived. He, in the interests of the insurance office, might be unnecessarily cautious.

  Mr. Halliburton left the wall, and grew cheerful and gay, and talked freely to the children. One little lady asked if he would dance with her. He laughed, and felt half inclined to do so.

  Which was the true mood — that sombre one, or this? Was there nothing false about this one — was there no secret consciousness that it did not accord with his mind’s actual belief; that he was only forcing it? Be it as it would, it did not last; in the very middle of a laughing sentence to his own little Janey, the old agony, the fear, returned — returned with terrific violence, as a torrent that has burst its bounds.

  “I cannot bear this uncertainty!” he murmured to himself. And he went out of the room and took up his hat. Mrs. Halliburton, who at that moment happened to be crossing from another room, saw him open the hall-door.

  “Are you going to young Finchley, Edgar?”

  “No. I shall give him holiday for to-night. I shall be in soon, Jane.”

  He went straight to their own family doctor; a Mr. Allen, who lived close by. They were personal friends.

  To the inquiry as to whether Mr. Allen was at home, the servant was about to usher him into the family sitting-room, but Mr. Halliburton stepped into the dusky surgery. He was in no mood for ladies’ company. “I will wait here,” he said. “Tell your master I wish to say a word to him.”

  The surgeon came immediately, a lighted candle in his hand. He was a dark man with a thin face. “Why won’t you come in?” he asked. “There’s only Mrs. Allen and the girls there. Is anything the matter?”

  “Yes, Allen, something is the matter,” was

  Mr. Halliburton’s reply. “I want a friend to-night: one who will deal with me candidly and openly: and I have come to you. Sit down.”

  They both sat down; and Mr. Halliburton gave him the history of the past four and twenty hours: commencing with the fainting-fit, and ending with his racking doubts as to whether Dr. Carrington’s opinion was borne out by facts, or whether he might have been deceived. “Allen,” he concluded, “you must see what you can make out of my state: and you must report to me without disguise, as you would report to your own soul.”

  The surgeon looked grave. “Carrington is a clever man,” he said. “One whom it would be difficult to deceive.”

  “I know his reputation. But these clever men are not infallible. Put his opinion out of your mind: examine me yourself, and tell me what you think.”

  Mr. Allen proceeded to do so. He first of all asked Mr. Halliburton a few general questions as to his present state of health, as he would have done by any other patient, and then he sounded his lungs.

  “Now then — the truth,” said Mr. Halliburton.

  “The truth is — so far as I can judge — that you are in no present danger whatever.”

  “Neither did Dr. Carrington say I was — in present danger,” hastily replied Mr. Halliburton. “Are my lungs sound?”

  “They are not sound: but neither do I think they are extensively diseased. You may live for many years, with care.”

  “Would any insurance office take me?”

  “No. I do not think it would.”

  “It is just my death-knell, Allen.”

  “If you look at it in that light I shall be very sorry to have given you my opinion,” observed the surgeon. “I repeat that, by taking care of yourself, you may stave off disease and live many years. I would not say this unless I thought it.”

  “And would your opinion be the same as the doctor’s — that I must leave London for the country?”

  “I think you would have a far better chance of getting well in the country than you have here. You have told me over and over again, you know, that you were sure London air was bad for you.”

  “Ay, I have,” replied Mr. Halliburton. “I never have felt quite well in it, and that’s the truth. Well, I must see what can be done. Good evening.”

  If the edict did not appear to be so irrevocably dark as that of Dr. Carrington, it was yet dark enough; and Mr. Halliburton, striving to look it full in the face, as he was in the habit of doing by troubles less grave, endeavoured to set himself to think “what could be done.” There was no possible chance of keeping it from his wife. If it was really necessary that their place of residence should be changed, she must be taken into counsel; and the sooner she was told the better. He went home, resolved to tell her before he slept.

  The little troop departed, the children in bed, they sat together over the fire; though the weather had become warm, an evening fire was pleasant still. He sat nervous and fidgety. Now the moment had arrived, he shrunk from his task.

  “Edgar, I am sure you are not well!” she exclaimed. “I have observed it all the evening.”

  “Yes, Jane, I am well. Pretty well, that is. The truth is, my darling, I have some bad news for you, and I don’t like to tell it.”

  Her own family were safe and well under her roof, and her fears flew to Francis, to Margaret, to Robert. Mr. Halliburton stopped her.

  “It does not concern any of them, Jane. It is about myself.”

  “But what can it be, about yourself?”

  “They — will — not —— Will you listen to the news with a brave heart?” he broke off, with a smile, and the most cheering look he could call up to his face.

  “Oh yes.” She smiled too. She thought it could be nothing very bad.

  “They will not insure my life, Jane.”

  Her heart stood still. “But why not?”

  “They consider it too great a risk. They fancy I am not strong.”

  A sudden flush to her face; a moment’s stillness; and then Jane Halliburton clasped her hands with a faint cry of despair. She saw that more remained behind.

  CHAPTER VIII.

  SUSPENSE.

  Mrs. Halliburton sat in her chair, still enough except for the wailing cry which had just escaped her lips. Her husband would not look at her in that moment. His gaze was bent on the fire, and his cheek lay in his hand. As she cried out, he stretched forth his other hand and let it fall lightly upon hers.

  “Jane, had I thought you would look at the dark side of the picture, I should have hesitated to tell you. Why, my dear child, the very fact of my telling you at all, should convince you that there’s nothing very serious the matter,” he added, in cheering tones of reasoning. Now that he had spoken, he deemed it well to make the very best he could of it.

  “You say they will not insure your life?”

  “Well, Jane, perhaps that expression was not a correct one. They have not declined as yet to do so; but Dr. Carrington says he cannot give the necessary certificate as to my being a thoroughly sound and healthy man.”

  “Then you did go up to Dr. Carrington?”

  “I did. Forgive me, Jane: I could not enter upon it before all the children.”

  She leaned over and laid her head upon his shoulder. “Tell me all about it, Edgar,” she whispered; “as much as you know yourself.”

&n
bsp; “I have told you nearly all, Jane. I saw Dr. Carrington, and he asked me a great many questions, and examined me here” — touching his chest. “He fancies the organs are not sound, and declined giving the certificate.”

  “That your chest is not sound?” asked Jane.

  “He said the lungs.”

  “Ah!” she uttered. “What else did he say?”

  “Well, he said nothing about heart, or liver, or any other vital part, so I conclude they are all right, and that there was nothing to say,” replied Mr. Halliburton, attempting to be cheerful. “I could have told him my brain was strong enough had he asked about that, for I’m sure it gets its full share of work. I need not have mentioned this to you at all, Jane, but for a perplexing bit of advice the doctor gave me.”

  Jane sat straight in her chair again, and looked at Mr. Halliburton. The colour was beginning to return to her face. He continued:

  “Dr. Carrington earnestly recommends me to remove from London. Indeed — he said — that it was necessary — if I would get well. No wonder that you found my manner absent,” he continued very rapidly after his hesitation, “with that unpalatable counsel to digest.”

  “Did he think you very ill?” she breathed.

  “He did not say I was ‘very ill,’ Jane. I am not very ill, as you may see for yourself. My dear, what he said was that my lungs were — were — —”

  “Diseased?” she put in.

  “Diseased. Yes, that was it,” he truthfully replied. “It is the term that medical men apply when they wish to indicate delicacy. And he strenuously recommended me to leave London.”

  “For how long? Did he say?”

  “He said for good.”

  Jane felt startled. “How could it be done, Edgar?”

  “In truth I do not know. If I leave London I leave my living behind me. Now you see why I was so absorbed at tea-time. When you saw me go out, I was going round to Allen’s.”

  “And what does he say?” she eagerly interrupted.

  “Oh, he seems to think it a mere nothing, compared with Dr. Carrington. He agreed with him on one point — that I ought to live out of London.”