Leonore Stubbs Part 20

"Hollo there! Where are you off to?"--Dr. Craig hailed his young a.s.sistant who was just setting forth from the surgery door; "I want you, Tommy."

Tommy stood still. He had thought the doctor out for the day, and had not heard the wheels of the returning gig. Otherwise--well, perhaps otherwise, he would have been busy within doors, not starting out into the suns.h.i.+ne of a brilliant June morning.

"Where are you off to?"--repeated his interrogator, and this time an answer to the question was necessary.

"I was going to the Abbey, sir." An observant person might have noted that the young man would have preferred not to say it, and a very observant person might also have seen that he s.h.i.+fted the parcel in his hand, and moved his feet uneasily.

Dr. Craig however either saw nothing or affected to do so. "To the Abbey? Who's ill there?" he said, quickly. "Anything sudden?"

"No, sir. Mrs. Stubbs----"

"Mrs. Stubbs? What's wrong with her? I saw her on the road yesterday."

"She called here, but you were out. There's nothing much the matter, but she wanted a tonic. I--I forgot to mention it."

"And you forgot something else, mister. No tonics go out from here that I don't prescribe. Here, give me that bottle. What's this? Trash. If Mrs. Stubbs wants a tonic----"

"She merely mentioned that she was not feeling quite the thing, sir; and I--it was my suggestion----"

"A d.a.m.ned impudent suggestion. Now look here, young man, there must be no more of such suggestions, or you and I must part. You taking it upon yourself to prescribe for my patients! Bless my soul!"--but the delinquent was a favourite, and suddenly a humorous twinkle appeared beneath the frowning eyebrows. "You poor devil, what mischief is this?

Hey? You blush like a girl? Come in here," pus.h.i.+ng him gently back through the open door--"come in, and I'll prescribe for _you_, Mr.

Thomas Andrews. I had an inkling something of this sort was going on, and--and I'm not blaming you, my boy. But it's _you_ that needs the tonic, not that little widow-witch up yonder. Aye, you may turn red and white and glower at me--I know what I'm talking about. I've seen what she's after, the artful hussy,--and please G.o.d, I'll circ.u.mvent her."

"Sir--sir!"

"Haud your wheesht, Tommy. Ye're but a bairn and an ignorant fule-bairn at that:"--the broad Scotch accent lent itself readily to a wonderful mingling of compa.s.sion and contempt; "hark to me,--what? You're trembling?"--for the youth's lanky frame quivered beneath the weight of his hand. "Lord, has it gone as far as that?" muttered the speaker, under his breath.

Then he let go the young man's shoulder, and turned and shut the door carefully. "Sit ye down: sit, I tell ye. You are going to hear the truth, and you'll _have_ to hear it. What? You think I've no eyes nor ears nor sense, because _you_ have none--except for her? Tommy,--" he paused and drew a breath, a long, deep breath--"Tommy, my man, I've that to say to you to-day I've never said to mortal man, nor woman before.

Will ye listen--but listen ye must, only--only I would as soon ye heard it kindly, for your own sake. Tommy, I _know what it's like_."

Tommy started, lifted his eyes, and let them fall again.

"Aye, I know;"--the big, s.h.a.ggy head nodded slowly, and the words dropped one by one from the full, protruding lips. "The world's a dream while it lasts.... You walk among shadows, without _she's_ there....

There's no sleep at night,--there's only thinking, and tossing, and sweating--and heugh! the next hour strikes!... And one day it's heaven, and the next h.e.l.l.... And it ends----"

There was a long silence.

"It was twenty years ago," said the doctor, simply. "Tommy lad, would you--would you care to hear about it? You shall." He covered his eyes with his hand and had begun to speak ere he removed it. "I was about your age, but I was still at college; I left late. It was a custom in Edinburgh for the professors to ask us students once a year to an evening party; and although some of us did not care over much for that kind of entertainment, we could not have refused if we would. I remember I was annoyed at having to buy a dress suit, when my invitation came; I thought it waste of money, and money was scarce in those days. Tommy, I've got that suit now....

"You know that I am as happily married as a man can be;" the speaker started afresh. "No husband ever had a better, a dearer, or a fonder wife--but she has never thought of inquiring into the secret of that locked drawer upstairs,--and though I shall tell it her some day, I haven't yet. It sticks in my throat, and I have put off and put off--but, anyhow, you shall hear.... I went to the party I was telling you about, and--and _she_ was there. A colonel's daughter, and no great lady--as I was at the pains to find out afterwards. Her family was not much better than my own, and upon that I built my hopes--for we think much of family in Scotland. But hopes? I don't know that they could be called 'hopes'. I was stunned, bewildered. She was the loveliest creature I had ever seen, and Tommy"--he leaned forward, his hands clasping the chair arms on either side--"many women as I've seen since, I have never yet seen her like.... Such eyes, such a brow, such a dazzling fair skin--the curved oval of her cheek--huts! I maunder....

She was amused by my adoration, Tommy; I don't know that it even flattered her, she was so accustomed to it--and I fear, I fear she felt no pity.... At any rate I was permitted to come to the house--for I fought and struggled till I obtained an entrance,--and even what I saw there did not open my eyes. I was doing well at college, you see; oh, I had better speak out, I did a deal better than ever _you_ did, my lad, and carried off honours which at that time seemed high enough to promise anything. I saw myself at the head of my profession, with money, position, perhaps a t.i.tle--and thought if she would only wait? Had she shown, were it ever so cruelly, her real sentiments, I might have groaned beneath the knife, but the wound would have healed swiftly, as wounds do at that age--but she kept me dangling on through long months of torture, worn to skin and bone,"--he broke off abruptly, paced the room, and stood for a moment at the window with his back turned, then resumed:--

"When my sick jealousy became too apparent, she applied an opiate. A few kind words or looks, an enchanting smile, and the poor, infatuated fool was as mad as ever. We used to walk in Princes Street Gardens--I can smell the spring flowers there now."

Another pause.

"You can guess the rest, I suppose?" With an effort the speaker heaved himself upright, and a grimmer expression overcast his features. "It was all a delusion--all. There never had been anything on her side--never.

Oh, she was sorry, _so_ sorry, but really she could not blame herself.

My boy, I was made to feel I was the dirt of the earth beneath her feet.... Heigho! I got over it, Tommy--in time. Not for a long, long time; not till years had come and gone." Another pause. "Those years are what I would fain save you from," said Dr. Craig, slowly.

He had been encouraged to proceed by the respectful attention of the motionless form beside him. A deep sigh, or an inarticulate murmur on the young man's part alone showed that he was following what was said, and that it struck home,--but he remained rigid, and there might even have been something of stubbornness in the set of his shoulders. What if after all he refused to learn the lesson thus sternly and withal tenderly taught? "Maybe I've wasted my breath," mentally queried the other, frowning and biting his lip. Already he was repenting himself of the confidence wrung out of him, when all in a moment the scene changed.

"My lad--my lad," he cried, for Tommy had flung himself across the table, sobbing as though his heart would break.

"So, so? I should have spoken before," muttered the doctor, half-aloud.

"It's the old story of shutting the door on the empty stable.--Tommy?"

But Tommy only quivered and shrank, as again a heavy hand was laid upon his shoulder. "Be a man," exhorted a gruff voice overhead. ("To be soft now would be d.a.m.nation. It's the hammer he needs.") "Take it like a man--not like a whimpering bairn,"--and the speaker's grip tightened.

"What? What d'ye say? Let you be? What for then did I bare my soul to you just now--do you think _that_ cost me nothing? Up! Fight with it.

Master it." Then more gently: "Would you have me ashamed of you, Tommy?"

"I--I--I'm ashamed of nothing," gasped the unfortunate youth, suddenly a.s.suming a bravado he was far from feeling. "What have I to be ashamed of? I have never done anything, nor said anything----"

"Nor--_thought_--anything?"

Tommy's head fell upon his breast.

"Where were you going when I stopped you?" proceeded his mentor, sternly. "You know the road, I'm thinking. And it can't be _all_ on one side. She may have led you on, but----"

"Not a word against her." Tommy started up, inflamed. "Say what you will of me; strike at me as you will; sneer and scoff----"

"Hoots!" said the doctor, shortly. This melodramatic att.i.tude annoyed him.

"Aye, it's just 'hoots!'" he repeated, bringing his big, red face close to the pale and frenzied one before him, "and lucky for you it is. I'm not going to take offence, my man--and that's the long and the short of it. I know you've been bamboozled--I _know_ it,"--bearing down interruption; "and you're still--all I've said goes for nothing, I suppose?" he broke off sharply.

Tommy, who had tried to speak, also stopped, and the two glared at each other.

But it was the younger who gave way first. "It does not go for nothing, Dr. Craig, and perhaps I ought to feel grateful to you, sir, and all that, for taking such a--a kind interest----"

"Go on," said the doctor sardonically. "'A kind interest'--aweel?"

"But you don't, you can't know. You judge every case by your own.

Because you were hardly treated, you think every woman deceitful. And yet, Leonore----"

"Leonore?"

"I do not call her that to her face, sir; I do not indeed."

"For which the Lord be praised--though it is but a small mercy. Did not I say it was in _thought_, my lad--but have it out, Tommy--such thoughts are best let out, like ill birds. Keeping them pent, they breed. Loose, they may fly away. How long has this been going on?" Suddenly the speaker's tone changed, becoming peremptory and commonplace.

Tommy murmured inaudibly.

"Speak out," thundered Dr. Craig, losing patience, "speak out, sir, and be d.a.m.ned to you. How long?"

"We met first on the last day of March."

"How? When? Where?"

"Accidentally. In the village. In the post-office. Till that day I had never----"