"Well, _gout_, you know--he"s positive; and, poor fellow, he"s got it in his foot, and a very nasty thing it is, I know, even _there_. We all of us have it hereditarily--our family." The apostle and martyr did not want him to suppose he had earned it. "But I am very anxious, sir. Do _you_ know anything of gout? May it be _there_ and somewhere else at the same time? Two members of our family died of it in the stomach, and one in the head. It has been awfully fatal with us."
Varbarriere shook his head. He had never had a declared attack, and had no light to throw on the sombre prospect. The fact is, if that solemn gentleman had known for certain exactly how matters stood, and had not been expecting the arrival of his contumacious nephew, he would have been many miles on his way to London by this time.
"You know--you know, _sinking_ seems very odd as a symptom of common gout in the great toe," said Dives, looking in his companion"s face, and speaking rather like a man seeking than communicating information. "We must not frighten the ladies, you know; but I"m very much afraid of something in the stomach, eh? and possibly the heart."
"After all, sir," said Varbarriere, with a brisk effort, "Doctor--a--what"s his name?--he"s but a rural pract.i.tioner--an apothecary--is not it so?"
"The people here say, however, he"s a very clever fellow, though," said Dives, not much comforted.
"We may hear a different story when the Slowton doctor comes. I venture to think we shall. I always fancied when gout was well out in the toe, the internal organs were safe. Oh! there"s the Bishop."
"Just talking about poor Jekyl, my lord," said Dives, with a sad smile of deference, the best he could command.
"And--and how _is_ my poor friend and pupil, Sir Jekyl?--better, I trust," responded the apostle in gaiters and ap.r.o.n.
"Well, my lord, we hope--I trust everything satisfactory; but the Doctor has been playing the sphinx with us, and I don"t know exactly what to make of him."
"I saw Doctor Pratt for a moment, and expressed my wish to see his patient--my poor pupil--before I go, which must be--yes--within an hour," said the Bishop, consulting his punctual gold watch. "But he preferred my postponing until Doctor--I forget his name--very much concerned, _indeed_, that a second should be thought necessary--from Slowton--should have arrived. It--it gives me--I--I can"t deny, a rather serious idea of it. Has he had many attacks?"
"Yes, my lord, several; never threatened seriously, but once--at Dartbroke, about two years ago--in the stomach."
"Ah! I forgot it was the stomach. I remember his illness though," said the Bishop, graciously.
"Not _actually_ the stomach--only threatened," suggested Dives, deferentially. "I have made acquaintance with it myself, too, slightly; never so sharply as poor Jekyl. I _wish_ that other doctor would come!
But even at best it"s not a pleasant visitor."
"I dare say--I can well suppose it. _I_ have reason to be _very_ thankful. I"ve _never_ suffered. My poor _father_ knew what it was--suffered horribly. I remember him at Buxton for it--horribly."
The Bishop was fond of this recollection, people said, and liked it to be understood that there was gout in the family, though he could not show that aristocratic gules himself.
At this moment Tomlinson approached, respectfully--I might even say religiously--and with such a reverence as High-Churchmen make at the creed, accosted the prelate, in low tones like distant organ-notes, murmuring Sir Jekyl"s compliments to "his lordship, and would be very "appy to see his lordship whenever it might be his convenience." To which his lordship a.s.sented, with a grave "_Now_, certainly, I shall be most happy," and turning to Dives--
"This, I hope, looks well. I fancy he must feel better. Let us hope;"
and with slightly uplifted hand and eyes, the good Bishop followed Tomlinson, feeling so oddly as he threaded the same narrow half-lighted pa.s.sages, whose corners and panelling came sharply on his memory as he pa.s.sed them, and ascended the steep back stair with the narrow stained-gla.s.s slits, by which he had reached, thirty years ago, the sick-chamber of the dying Sir Harry Marlowe.
The Bishop sighed, looking round him, as he stood on the lobby outside the little ante-room. The light fell through the slim coloured orifice opposite on the oak before him, just as it did on the day he last stood there. The banisters, above and below, looked on him like yesterday"s acquaintances; and the thoughtful frown of the heavy oak beams overhead seemed still knit over the same sad problem.
"_Thirty_ years ago!" murmured the Bishop, with a sad smile, nodding his silvery head slightly, as his saddened eyes wandered over these things.
"What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou so regardest him?"
Tomlinson, who had knocked at the Baronet"s door, returned to say he begged his lordship would step in.
So with another sigh, peeping before him, he pa.s.sed through the small room that interposed, and entered Sir Jekyl"s, and took his hand very kindly and gravely, pressing it, and saying in the low tone which becomes a sick-chamber--
"I trust, my dear Sir Jekyl, you feel better."
"Thank you, pretty well; very good of you, my lord, to come. It"s a long way, from the front of the house--a journey. He told me you were in the hall."
"Yes, it is a large house; interesting to me, too, from earlier recollections."
"You were in this room, a great many years ago, with my poor father. He died here, you know."
"I"m afraid you"re distressing yourself speaking. Yes; oddly enough, I recognised the pa.s.sages and back stairs; the windows, too, are peculiar.
The _furniture_, though, that"s changed--is not it?"
"So it is. I hated it," replied Sir Jekyl. "Balloon-hacked blue silk things--faded, you know. It"s curious you should remember, after such a devil of a time--such a great number of years, my lord. I hated it. When I had that fever here in this room--thirteen--fourteen years ago--ay, by Jove, it"s _fifteen_--they were going to write for _you_."
"Excuse me, my dear friend, but it seems to me you _are_ exerting yourself too much," interposed the prelate again.
"Oh dear no! it does me good to talk. I had all sorts of queer visions.
People fancy, you know, they see things; and I used to think I saw him--my poor father, I mean--every night. There were six of those confounded blue-backed chairs in this room, and a nasty idea got into my head. I had a servant--poor Lewis--then a very trustworthy fellow, and liked me, I think; and Lewis told me the doctors said there was to be a crisis on the night week of the first consultation--seven days, you know."
"I really fear, Sir Jekyl, you are distressing yourself," persisted the Bishop, who did not like the voluble eagerness and the apparent fatigue, nevertheless, with which he spoke.
"Oh! it"s only a word more--it doesn"t, I a.s.sure you--and I perceived he sat on a different chair, d"ye see, every night, and on the fourth night he had got on the fourth chair; and I liked his face less and less every night. You know he hated me about Molly--about _nothing_--he always hated me; and as there were only six chairs, it got into my head that he"d get up on my bed on the seventh, and that I should die in the crisis. So I put all the chairs out of the room. They thought I was raving; but I was quite right, for he did not come again, and here I am;" and with these words there came the rudiments of his accustomed chuckle, which died out in a second or two, seeming to give him pain.
"Now, you"ll promise me not to talk so much at a time till you"re better. I am glad, sir--very glad, Sir Jekyl, to have enjoyed your hospitality, and to have even this opportunity of thanking you for it.
It is very delightful to me occasionally to find myself thus beholden to my old pupils. I have had the pleasure of spending a few days with the Marquis at Queen"s d.y.k.ely; in fact, I came direct from him to you. You recollect him--Lord Elstowe he was then? You remember Elstowe at school?"
"To be sure; remember him very well. We did not agree, though--always thought him a cur," acquiesced Sir Jekyl.
The Bishop cleared his voice.
"He was asking for you, I a.s.sure you, very kindly--very kindly indeed, and seems to remember his school-days very affectionately, and--and pleasantly, and quite surprised me with his minute recollections of all the boys."
"They all hated him," murmured Sir Jekyl. "I did, I know."
"And--and I think we shall have a fine day. I drive always with two windows open--a window in front and one at the side," said the Bishop, whose mild and dignified eyes glanced at the windows, and the pleasant evidences of sunshine outside, as he spoke, "I was almost afraid I should have to start without the pleasure of saying good-bye. You remember the graceful farewell in Lucretius? I venture to say your brother does. I made your cla.s.s recite it, do you remember?"
And the Bishop repeated three or four hexameters with a look of expectation at his old pupil, as if looking to him to take up the recitation.
"Yes, I am sure of it. I think I remember; but, egad! I"ve quite forgot my Latin, any I knew," answered the Baronet, who was totally unable to meet the invitation; "I--I don"t know how it is, but I"m sorry you have to go to-day, very sorry;--sorry, of course, any time, but particularly I feel as if I should get well again very soon--that is, if you were to stay. Do you think you can?"
"Thank you, my dear Marlowe, thank you very much for that feeling," said the good Bishop, much gratified, and placing his old hand very kindly in that of the patient, just as Sir Jekyl suddenly remembered his doing once at his bedside in the sick-house in younger days, long ago, when he was a school-boy, and the Bishop master; and both paused for a moment in one of those dreams of the past that make us smile so sadly.
CHAPTER XXIX.
In the Yard of the Marlowe Arms.
The Bishop looked at his watch, and smiled, shaking his head.
"Time flies. I must, I fear, take my leave."
"Before you go," said Sir Jekyl, "I must tell you I"ve been thinking over my promise about that odious green chamber, and I"ll pledge you my honour I"ll fulfil it. I"ll not leave a stone of it standing; I won"t, I a.s.sure you. To the letter I"ll fulfil it."