by Ellen Wood
“To my profession I am. In no other way. My thoughts and hopes have been wholly given to it since — since I fully entered upon it.”
“Will the child do well?” she inquired.
“Oh yes. It is but a slight affair. I was prepared for something worse, by the account of Mr. Maskell’s clerk. A little blood, especially’ on the head and face, frightens those not accustomed to it. These accidents will happen where there are children. He is your eldest?”
“Yes. I have but two.”
“I will send up the medicine I spoke of, and call again in the morning,” said Mr. Janson, rising. “Make my compliments to Mr. Yorke.”
Mr. Janson departed, and Mrs. Yorke looked after him. As he turned to close the iron gate, he saw her standing at the window and politely raised his hat, and Mrs. Yorke politely bowed in return. Politely: the word is put advisedly: it best expresses the feeling each wished to shew to the other. Whatever there may have been of love or romance between them a few years ago, it was over now. Whatever sentimental reminiscence each had hitherto retained of the other, whether any or none, they knew that from that afternoon henceforth, they subsided into their proper and respective positions, — Mrs. Yorke as another’s wife, and Mr. Janson but as a friend of hers and her husband’s; as honourable, right-minded persons, in similar cases, ought, and would, and do subside.
Mr. Yorke, after exploring as far as he thought necessary that day, turned back to his new home. His thoughts ran not on the features of the village, or on the lovely scenery around, or on the fishing or the shooting; they dwelt exclusively on the few words of Mr. Maskell which had reference to the surgeon. Mr. Yorke hated that surgeon with a deep and nourished hate; and he would infinitely have preferred to find he had visited a locality where poison grew rank in the fields, like weeds, than one containing Edward Janson.
He was drawing pretty near to his own gate when he saw a gentleman emerge from it. A shudder, strange and cold, passed through Mr. Yorke’s veins. Was it sent as a warning — the precursor of what was to come? Surely that was the man of his thoughts? It was! Janson, and no other! What! had he already found out the way to his home? to his wife? Mr. Yorke’s lips opened in their usual ugly fashion, when displeased. —
Mr. Janson did not observe him. He walked straight across the road, got over a stile, and was lost behind the hedge. “He may well try to avoid my observation,” thought Mr. Yorke, in his prejudice. Had he been told the real facts — that Mr. Janson did not see him, and being in a hurry, was taking the short way through the fields to his home — he would have refused his belief.
Matters were not mended when Mr. Yorke turned in at his gate. There stood his wife at the window, her eyes unmistakably fixed on the path taken by Mr. Janson. She looked flushed and excited, which indeed was the effect of her late fright about the child. But Mr. Yorke set it down to a different cause.
“I am glad you have come home,” she exclaimed, when he entered. “An unfortunate thing has happened?”
“I know,” burst forth Mr. Yorke. “No need to tell me.”
Maria supposed he had seen the lawyer’s clerk. What else could she suppose?
“It will not end badly,” she continued, fearing he was angry at its having happened— “Mr. Janson says so. Only think! he is the doctor here. You must have seen him leaving the house?”
“Yes, I did see him,” retorted Mr. Yorke, nearly choking with his efforts to keep down his anger. “What brought him here?”
“I sent for him. At least, I sent” —
“And how dared you send for him, or admit him to my house? How could you seize the moment my back was turned, to fetch him to your side? Was the meeting, may I ask, a repetition of the parting?”
“What can you be talking of?” uttered Mrs. Yorke, petrified at the outburst “What do you mean?”
“I mean Janson,” hissed Mr. Yorke— “Janson, your former favoured lover. Have I been so distasteful a husband to you, that you must haste indecently to fetch him here in the first hour of your arrival? Who told you that he lived at Offord? How did you ferret it out? Or have you known it all along, and concealed the knowledge from me?”
Maria sank back in her chair, awed and bewildered. “I do think you are out of your mind,” she gasped.
“No; I leave that to you: you are far more out of your mind than I am. Listen: I have a warning to give you,” he added, nearly unconscious what he said in his passion. “Get Janson to visit you clandestinely again, and I will shoot him.”
Maria rose majestically. “I do not understand the word ‘clandestine,’” she haughtily said. “It can never apply to me. When the accident happened to Leopold — and I truly thought he was dead, and so did Finch, and so did the young man who had been going over the inventory — and I begged the young man to run for the nearest surgeon, I no more knew that it was Mr. Janson who would come, than did the senseless child. But it did prove to be Mr. Janson, and he dressed the wound of the child, and he is coming again to him to-morrow morning. He came here professionally, to attend your child, sir; not to see me. Clandestine!”
She swept out of the room, her face flashing with indignation, and Mr. Yorke strode up-stairs to Leopold’s bedroom, and learnt what had happened. It cannot be said that it appeased him in any great degree, for he was blindly prejudiced, and jealousy and suspicion had turned his mind to gangrene. They had been smouldering there for years: perhaps the consciousness had been upon him throughout, that they would sometime burst into a flame. On the whole, his had been a happy wedded life, and his wife had not made him the less good wife because she had once loved Edward Janson.
On the following morning Mr. Janson came, according to his promise. Mr and Mrs. Yorke were at breakfast. He shook hands with Mrs. Yorke, then turned, with his honest, open countenance, and held out his hand to Mr. Yorke. Mr. Yorke did not choose to see it, but he did move his own to indicate a chair.
“Thank you, I am pressed for time,” replied Mr. Janson, laying his hand on the back of the chair, but not taking it. “This is my hour for visiting Lady Rich, who is a great invalid. She lives a little past you, up the road. How is my young patient?’
“He seems much better,” answered Mrs. Yorke. “He is asking to get up.”
“A most disgraceful piece of carelessness, to have suffered it to happen,” interposed Mr. Yorke. “I have told the head nurse that should she ever be guilty of such again, she quits Mrs. Yorke’s service. It might have killed him.”
“Yes, it might,” assented Mr. Janson. “Can I go to his room?”
Mrs. Yorke rose. “The one on the right, on the second floor,” she said. “I will follow you directly. Finch is there.”
Mr. Janson passed from the room and ascended the stairs; Mrs. Yorke stopped to speak to her husband.
“I must hear his opinion of the child, and shall go up. Would you like to accompany me?” she added, not wholly able to conceal the contempt of her tone.
“No.” Mr. Yorke felt angry with himself.
They came down shortly, both Mr. Janson and Mrs. Yorke. “He is so much better that the difficulty will be to keep him quiet,” said the surgeon. “He must be still for a day or two.”
“You are sure there is no danger?” asked Mr. Yorke, who was now standing at the open window.
“Oh, none in the world. I will look in again tomorrow. Good morning, sir; good morning, Mrs. Yorke.”
Mr. Yorke had thawed very much: perhaps the matter-of-fact, straightforward manner of Mr. Janson reassured him. “It is a hot day again,” said he, as Mr. Janson passed the window.
“Very. By the way, Mrs. Yorke,” added the surgeon, halting for a moment, “you must not suffer the boy to stir outside. The sun might affect his head.”
“Of course not,” she answered.
However, Leopold did get outside, he and his white-bandaged forehead, and tore about, boy-like, the sun’s rays streaming full on his uncovered head. In some twenty minutes he was discovered; the bandage off, and he as s
carlet as a red-hot engine boiler. Suddenly he began to scream out, “My head aches! my head aches!” Finch said it was “temper,” at being fetched in, and crossly assured him if his head did ache, which she didn’t believe, for he never had a headache, it had come as a punishment for stealing out in disobedience.
But at night the child was so ill and uneasy that Mr. Yorke himself sent for the surgeon. Leopold’s face had not paled, and he still moaned out the same cry, “My head, my head!”
“He has been out,” exclaimed Mr. Janson. “Why was I disobeyed? This is a sun-stroke.”
The boy’s self-will was alone to blame. Mrs. Yorke had coaxed him into lying on the sofa in the drawing-room “for a nice mid-day sleep,” and went into the nursery, leaving him, as she believed, safe. Up jumped Master Leopold the instant he found himself at liberty, and dropped down from the low window, which stood so temptingly open. That was how it had happened. His heart was set upon getting into the garden, simply because it was denied to him.
CHAPTER X.
Jealous Doubts.
A FEW days, and Leopold Yorke was so far recovered, that an intermittent fever alone remained. Mr. Yorke, in spite of his jealous prejudices, had been obliged to submit to Mr. Janson’s frequent visits, for there was no other doctor within miles, and the safety of his son and heir was paramount.
The neighbourhood had hastened to make acquaintance with Mr and Mrs. Yorke, and an early invitation arrived for them to take a quiet dinner at Squire Hipgrave’s. It was accepted by both, for Leopold’s intermittent fever was subsiding, and they were no longer under alarm for him.
On the appointed evening, they found a small party of seven at the squire’s, themselves included. The eighth seat had been meant for Mr. Janson, but he had been called out unexpectedly, and was unable to come. The gentlemen’s conversation turned chiefly upon out-door sports, and after dinner, when coffee was over, they went out, that Mr. Yorke might see a pond on the grounds, where the fish was being preserved, leaving the ladies alone.
Soon after, Mr. Janson came in. But scarcely had he had time to explain the cause of his absence at dinner, when a servant appeared, and told him he was wanted.
“How tiresome!” exclaimed Mrs. Hipgrave.
“A doctor’s time is never his own,” he remarked, good-humouredly. “Is it my surgery boy?” he inquired of the servant “No, sir. It is a footman from Alnwick Cottage. He says your boy sent him on here.”
This excited the alarm of Mrs. Yorke. “Leopold must be worse!” she exclaimed.
As it proved to be. Master Leopold was took worse, the man said, a-talking nonsense, and not knowing a word of it, and hotter than ever. Finch was frightened, and had sent him for Mr. Janson.
Mrs. Yorke grew frightened also, and said she must go home immediately. They tried to keep her, and to soothe her fears. Mr. Janson said he would make haste to the Cottage, and return to report to her. It was of no use: her mother fears were painfully aroused. Neither would she wait until Mr. Yorke came in. She loved her children passionately.
“Then, if you must go, I will be your escort, if you will allow me,” said Mr. Janson.
“Indeed, I shall be much obliged to you,” she answered. And hurriedly putting on her shawl, she departed with him, one of the ladies lending her a black silk hood for her head. She had anticipated returning in the carriage. It was a beautiful night in September, nearly as light as day, for the harvest moon was high, just the night poets are fond of consecrating to lovers; but Mr. Janson and Mrs. Yorke walked along, fast, and in sedate composure, neither remembering — at least, so far as was suffered to appear — that they had ever been more to each other than they were now.
The three gentlemen were strolling along the banks of the fish-pond, smoking their cigars, and talking. Suddenly one of them espied a couple walking arm-in-arm on the path in the higher ground, some distance off.
“It looks like Janson.” said Squire Hipgrave. “That’s just his walk; and that’s the way he flourishes his cane, too. Who is the lady, I wonder! So ho, Master Janson! a good excuse for not joining us: you are more agreeably employed.”
Mr. Yorke smiled grimly; his eye, keen as it was, had failed to recognise his wife, for the hood disguised her. They smoked out their cigars, and returned to the house.
“Have we not got a joke against Janson!” cried Squire Hipgrave. “I’ll rate him for not coming. He’s walking about in the moonlight with some damsel on his arm, as snug as may be.”
“Is he, now?” returned one of the ladies, humouring the joke. “Who can it be?”
“Oh, some of our village beauties. Maybe Lucy Maskell. Master Janson has got an eye for a pretty girl, I know, quiet as he seems. He’s making love to her hard enough, I’ll be bound.”
“Then you had better look out, Mr. Yorke,” said Mrs. Hipgrave, with a laugh. “The lady is your own wife.”
She had spoken innocently, never for a moment dreaming that her words could bear any interpretation but that of a joke to the ear of Mr. Yorke. And happily she did not see the livid look, the strange expression which arose to his face. He had turned it to the window, as if he would look out on the pleasant moonlight.
“How comes it to be Mrs. Yorke?” demanded the squire. And his wife explained: telling of the summons to Mr. Janson, the fever of the child.
Still Mr. Yorke did not speak. One of the party advanced, and stood at his side.
“A fine prospect from this window, is it not?”
“Very.”
“Will you cut in for whist? How unfortunate to have our tables broken up! We cannot make two, now. Janson rarely plays at cards, but I meant to have pressed him into the service to-night.”
“I am going home,” said Mr. Yorke.
“Nonsense!” said Mrs. Hipgrave. “The child will do very well. Mr. Janson did not seem to anticipate danger. He said nurses were easily alarmed.”
“I expect he did not,” drily remarked Mr. Yorke. “Thank you, not to-night,” he added, turning from the cards spread out to him. “Another time.”
“Yorke’s in a fever over that child,” remarked the squire, knowingly, as his guest departed. “I can read it in his queer manner. Did you notice how it altered? What a nuisance children must be! Glad we have got none.”
Mr. Yorke was not in a fever over the child; but Mr. Yorke was in a fever over something else. He was positively believing, in spite of improbabilities, that the story of the illness had been a got-up excuse, got up between his wife and Mr. Janson, to indulge in this night-walk of a mile and a half. And he clenched his hands, and gnashed his teeth, and strode fiercely along in his foaming jealousy. It is a passion which has turned many a sensible man to madness.
He stole in at his own gate and reconnoitered the house. The drawing-room was in darkness, its window open; they were not there. A light shone upstairs in Leopold’s chamber, and one also in his wife’s bedroom.
He stole up-stairs, stealthily still, and entered the bedroom; his own, jointly with hers. The housemaid was turning down the bed.
“Is your mistress come home?” asked he, speaking, perhaps unconsciously to himself, in a whisper.
“Yes, sir; she came in with Mr. Janson. They are with Master Leopold.”
Up higher yet, but quietly still, till he reached Leopold’s room. His wife stood there, at the foot of the bed, her shawl still on, and the hood fallen back from her head, and Mr. Janson was seated on a chair at its side, leaning over Leopold, his watch in one hand, the child’s wrist in the other. He lay on his back, his little face a transparent white, as it had been lately, and his cheeks and lips a most lovely pink crimson. His eyes were wide open, and looked very bright “Papa!” said he, half raising his hand, when Mr. Yorke entered.
“I don’t know why Finch should have been so frightened,” said Mrs. Yorke to her husband. “He is quite rational now, and seems but little worse than he usually does when the fever is upon him.”
“What do you mean by having thus sent to alarm us?” dema
nded Mr. Yorke, in a sharply irritable tone, as Finch entered the room with a night-light, which she had been down to get. “Frightened, indeed! Did you send?”
“I never knew any child change so,” returned she, almost as irritably as her master. “He was burning with fever, as bad as ever he had been days ago, and delirious again. It alarmed me, sir, and I sent off for Mr. Janson: I didn’t send for you and my mistress. No sooner had the man gone than he dropped asleep, and has now woke up calm — almost as much as to insinuate that I am telling stories.”
“This class of fevers will fluctuate,” interposed Mr. Janson. “One hour the patient seems at death’s door, and the next scarcely ill at all. Something has certainly increased it to-night, but he will do well.”
“If ever I saw any human body so changed as the master is, since we came here!” uttered Finch to Charlotte, that same evening. “Formerly he used to be pleasant enough in the house, unless any great thing crossed him, but now he’s as growling and snappish as a bull put up for baiting. I wonder my mistress doesn’t give him a bit of her mind! I wish he’d go off to Scotland, as he did last year.”
Mr. Janson departed. Mrs. Yorke remained in the boy’s chamber, but quitted it for her own at the usual hour for retiring. Before she had begun to undress, her husband followed her to the room, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket. Maria was surprised: they never slept with their door locked.
“Why have you done that?” she asked.
“Because I choose to do it. You can’t sail out of the room now, with your tragedy air, and refuse to hear me. Now, Mrs. Yorke, who concocted this moonlight walk to-night? How far did your love-making go in it? I will know.”
Mrs. Yorke did glance at the door, for it had become a custom with her to leave her husband to himself when the dark, jealous mood was on him, but she knew that she glanced in vain. She was caged.
“I will not bear it,” she said, bursting into tears. “Why do you treat me so? If this is to continue, I will summon Lady Saxonbury here, and have a separation arranged. I have been to you a true and faithful wife; you know I have: what mania has come upon you that you should level these reproaches at me?”