Having thus taken him by the eye, he took him by the mind.
"Is it a small thing for the creature to say to her Creator, "I can pack all this egg-china better than you can," and thereupon to jam all those vital organs close, by a powerful, a very powerful and ingenious machine? Is it a small thing for that s.e.x, which, for good reasons, the Omniscient has made larger in the waist than the male, to say to her Creator, "You don"t know your business; women ought to be smaller in the waist than men, and shall be throughout the civilized world"?"
In short, he delivered so many true and pointed things on this trite subject, that the old gentleman was convinced, and begged him to come over that very evening and convince Rosa.
Dr. Staines shook his head dolefully, and all his fire died out of him at having to face the fair. "Reason will be wasted. Authority is the only weapon. My profession and my reading have both taught me that the whole character of her s.e.x undergoes a change the moment a man interferes with their dress. From Chaucer"s day to our own, neither public satire nor private remonstrance has ever shaken any of their monstrous fashions. Easy, obliging, pliable, and weaker of will than men in other things, do but touch their dress, however objectionable, and rock is not harder, iron is not more stubborn, than these soft and yielding creatures. It is no earthly use my coming--I"ll come."
He came that very evening, and saw directly she was worse. "Of course,"
said he, sadly, "you have not taken my advice."
Rosa replied with a toss and an evasion, "I was not worth a prescription!"
"A physician can prescribe without sending his patient to the druggist; and when he does, then it is his words are gold."
Rosa shook her head with an air of lofty incredulity.
He looked ruefully at Mr. Lusignan and was silent. Rosa smiled sarcastically; she thought he was at his wit"s end.
Not quite: he was cudgelling his brains in search of some horribly unscientific argument, that might prevail; for he felt science would fall dead upon so fair an antagonist. At last his eye kindled; he had hit on an argument unscientific enough for anybody, he thought. Said he, ingratiatingly, "You believe the Old Testament?"
"Of course I do, every syllable."
"And the lessons it teaches?"
"Certainly!"
"Then let me tell you a story from that book. A Syrian general had a terrible disease. He consulted Elisha by deputy. Elisha said, "Bathe seven times in a certain river, Jordan, and you will get well." The general did not like this at all; he wanted a prescription; wanted to go to the druggist; didn"t believe in hydropathy to begin, and, in any case, turned up his nose at Jordan. What! bathe in an Israelitish brook, when his own country boasted n.o.ble rivers, with a reputation for sanct.i.ty into the bargain? In short, he preferred his leprosy to such irregular medicine. But it happened, by some immense fortuity, that one of his servants, though an Oriental, was a friend, instead of a flatterer; and this sensible fellow said, "If the prophet told you to do some great and difficult thing, to get rid of this fearful malady, would not you do it, however distasteful? and can you hesitate when he merely says, Wash in the Jordan, and be healed?" The general listened to good sense, and cured himself. Your case is parallel. You would take quant.i.ties of foul medicine; you would submit to some painful operation, if life and health depended on it; then why not do a small thing for a great result? You have only to take off an unnatural machine which cripples your growing frame, and was unknown to every one of the women whose forms in Parian marble the world admires. Off with that monstrosity, and your cure is as certain as the Syrian general"s; though science, and not inspiration, dictates the easy remedy."
Rosa had listened impatiently, and now replied with some warmth, "This is shockingly profane. The idea of comparing yourself to Elisha, and me to a horrid leper! Much obliged! Not that I know what a leper is."
"Come, come! that is not fair," said Mr. Lusignan. "He only compared the situation, not the people."
"But, papa, the Bible is not to be dragged into the common affairs of life."
"Then what on earth is the use of it?"
"Oh, papa! Well, it is not Sunday, but I have had a sermon. This is the clergyman, and you are the commentator--he! he! And so now let us go back from divinity to medicine. I repeat" (this was the first time she had said it) "that my other doctors give me real prescriptions, written in hieroglyphics. You can"t look at them without feeling there MUST be something in them."
An angry spot rose on Christopher"s cheek, but he only said, "And are your other doctors satisfied with the progress your disorder is making under their superintendence?"
"Perfectly! Papa, tell him what they say, and I"ll find him their prescriptions." She went to a drawer, and rummaged, affecting not to listen.
Lusignan complied. "First of all, sir, I must tell you they are confident it is not the lungs, but the liver."
"The what!" shouted Christopher.
"Ah!" screamed Rosa. "Oh, don"t!--bawling!"
"And don"t you screech," said her father, with a look of misery and apprehension impartially distributed on the resounding pair.
"You must have misunderstood them," murmured Staines, in a voice that was now barely audible a yard off. "The hemorrhage of a bright red color, and expelled without effort or nausea?"
"From the liver--they have a.s.sured me again and again," said Lusignan.
Christopher"s face still wore a look of blank amazement, till Rosa herself confirmed it positively.
Then he cast a look of agony upon her, and started up in a pa.s.sion, forgetting once more that his host abhorred the sonorous. "Oh, shame!
shame!" he cried, "that the n.o.ble profession of medicine should be disgraced by ignorance such as this." Then he said, sternly, "Sir, do not mistake my motives; but I decline to have anything further to do with this case, until those two gentlemen have been relieved of it; and, as this is very harsh, and on my part unprecedented, I will give you one reason out of many I COULD give you. Sir, there is no road from the liver to the throat by which blood can travel in this way, defying the laws of gravity; and they knew, from the patient, that no strong expellent force has ever been in operation. Their diagnosis, therefore, implies agnosis, or ignorance too great to be forgiven. I will not share my patient with two gentlemen who know so little of medicine, and know nothing of anatomy, which is the A B C of medicine. Can I see their prescriptions?"
These were handed to him. "Good heavens!" said he, "have you taken all these?"
"Most of them."
"Why, then you have drunk about two gallons of unwholesome liquids, and eaten a pound or two of unwholesome solids. These medicines have co-operated with the malady. The disorder lies, not in the hemorrhage, but in the precedent extravasation that is a drain on the system; and how is the loss to be supplied? Why, by taking a little more nourishment than before; there is no other way; and probably Nature, left to herself, might have increased your appet.i.te to meet the occasion. But those two worthies have struck that weapon out of Nature"s hand; they have peppered away at the poor ill-used stomach with drugs and draughts, not very deleterious I grant you, but all more or less indigestible, and all tending, not to whet the appet.i.te, but to clog the stomach, or turn the stomach, or pester the stomach, and so impair the appet.i.te, and so co-operate, indirectly, with the malady."
"This is good sense," said Lusignan. "I declare, I--I wish I knew how to get rid of them."
"Oh, I"ll do that, papa."
"No, no; it is not worth a rumpus."
"I"ll do it too politely for that. Christopher, you are very clever--TERRIBLY clever. Whenever I threw their medicines away, I was always a little better that day. I will sacrifice them to you. It IS a sacrifice. They are both so kind and chatty, and don"t grudge me hieroglyphics; now you do."
She sat down and wrote two sweet letters to Dr. Snell and Mr. Wyman, thanking them for the great attention they had paid her; but finding herself getting steadily worse, in spite of all they had done for her, she proposed to discontinue her medicines for a time, and try change of air.
"And suppose they call to see whether you are changing the air?"
"In that case, papa--"not at home.""
The notes were addressed and despatched.
Then Dr. Staines brightened up, and said to Lusignan, "I am now happy to tell you that I have overrated the malady. The sad change I see in Miss Lusignan is partly due to the great bulk of unwholesome esculents she has been eating and drinking under the head of medicines. These discontinued, she might linger on for years, existing, though not living--the tight-laced cannot be said to live. But if she would be healthy and happy, let her throw that diabolical machine into the fire. It is no use asking her to loosen it; she can"t. Once there, the temptation is too strong. Off with it, and, take my word, you will be one of the healthiest and most vigorous young ladies in Europe."
Rosa looked rueful, and almost sullen. She said she had parted with her doctors for him, but she really could not go about without stays. "They are as loose as they can be. See!"
"That part of the programme is disposed of," said Christopher. "Please go on to No. 2. How about the raw red line where the loose machine has sawed you?"
"What red line? No such thing! Somebody or other has been peeping in at my window. I"ll have the ivy cut down to-morrow."
"Simpleton!" said Mr. Lusignan, angrily. "You have let the cat out of the bag. There is such a mark, then, and this extraordinary young man has discerned it with the eye of science."
"He never discerned it at all," said Rosa, red as fire; "and, what is more, he never will."
"I don"t want to. I should be very sorry to. I hope it will be gone in a week."
"I wish YOU were gone now--exposing me in this cruel way," said Rosa, angry with herself for having said an idiotic thing, and furious with him for having made her say it.
"Oh, Rosa!" said Christopher, in a voice of tenderest reproach.