Tales of the Wonder Club Volume I Part 7

We discoursed upon various other topics, and I took my leave of Charles, leaving instructions with his parents concerning the treatment of their son, as I should not be able to call again for some days. I had to attend a young lady in the country, the adopted daughter of a very old friend of mine. I could not refuse to go, so I started next day by the mail.

Charles' conversation had impressed me deeply, and I meditated upon it as I sat perched up outside the stage-coach. I was sorry to leave him, for I had already felt quite an affection for him, independently of the interest I took in his case.

And who was this young lady that I was called upon to visit in such a hurry? I had never seen her, but for the sake of my friend who had benefited me in so many ways in the commencement of my career, I could not do otherwise than leave town for a short time.

I tried to picture to myself my new patient--some bread-and-b.u.t.ter girl with the mumps, hysteria, whooping-cough, or chicken-pox. The picture I mentally drew of my lady patient was not sentimental; but, the fact was, I was irritated at being obliged to leave such an interesting case as that in which I was engaged. During the course of my drive I entered into conversation with the driver. I asked him if he knew Squire L----.

He replied in the affirmative.

"Let me see," said I, pretending not to know the squire over well, in order to draw him out, "the squire has no family, I think?"

"None of his own, sir. He has one adopted daughter, a foundling, found somewhere near Stratford-on-Avon. The squire has adopted her ever since, and----"

"What age is the young lady?"

"Well, sir, she must now be hard upon four-and-twenty, though she did not look it last time I saw her."

"As old as that!" I exclaimed. "Then she will be getting married soon, I suppose?"

"Not she, sir."

"Why not?" I asked. "Isn't she personally attractive?"

"Oh, I believe you, sir," said the coachman, enthusiastically, and turning up his eyes. "There is not a face in the whole place for miles round that can hold a candle to her."

"Indeed!" I exclaimed. "The squire is rich, too, as I hear, and I suppose she will be his heiress. What is your reason for believing that she will not marry?"

"Why, sir, she has such ill health; she never leaves the house. Folks say as how she will never recover."

"Indeed, and how long has she been thus?"

"About a year ago she was first seized; since then I have not seen her.

When I last saw her wasn't she a beauty, neither!"

"I suppose this illness will have pulled her down a little. By the by, what is the nature of her complaint?"

"Well, I hardly know, sir, and that's the truth, what it is that do ail her. Some folks call it consumption, others call it something else."

"Who is her medical attendant?" I asked.

"Doctor W----, sir; lives down yonder."

"What does he say it is?"

"'Pon my word, sir, I don't think he knows more about it than other folks. Them doctors, when they once gets into a house, there's no getting them out again; and as for the good they do, they dose you, they bleed you--ay, bleed you in both senses of the word! Ha! ha! You know what I mean, sir."

I was disgusted at the vulgar contempt of this man for the n.o.ble profession of which I myself was a member, and was determined not to laugh at his low wit. I pa.s.sed over his execrable joke with gravity, so as not to appear to see it.

"If the doctor knows so little about it," I said, at length, "what do the people say it is? What is the popular opinion of the young lady's malady? What are the symptoms?"

I saw by the coachman's countenance that he was rather surprised at the interest I took in the health of the young lady, and I fancy he suspected that I was a doctor.

"Symptoms, sir!" he cried. "Oh, sir, very strange ones, they say."

"How strange?" I asked.

"Well, sir, there be a good many strange reports about the squire's adopted daughter. I b'ain't a-goin' to give credit to everything I hear, but folks _do_ say----" here he lowered his voice almost to a whisper and looked mysteriously, first over one shoulder, then over the other.

"Well," said I, "Folks say----"

"Yes, sir, folks _do_ say that the young lady, leastways, the squire's adopted daughter, is--is----" (here he put his finger to his lips and looked still more mysterious).

"Well?" said I, impatiently.

"That the poor young lady is under some evil spell--that she is _bewitched_."

"Dear me! you don't say so," I exclaimed, with well-feigned astonishment.

"Yes, sir," he replied; "leastways, so folks say about here."

"How very dreadful! Poor young lady! Perhaps she is in love. Love is the only witchcraft that ever came in the way of my experience," I remarked.

"And sure, sir, you're not far out there neither; for if there's one thing more like witchcraft than another, it is that same _love_. Lor', bless yer, sir, don't I remember when I was courtin' my Poll, how I'd stand under her winder of a rainy night for hours, just to get a peep at her shadow on the winder blind, and how I'd go for days without my beer, till folks didn't know what to make of me? Ah! but I got over it, though, in time. I got cured, but" (here he gave me a knowing look) "it wasn't by a _doctor_. No, sir, it wasn't by a _doctor_," he said, with a contemptuous emphasis on the last word.

"Now, who do you think it was by, sir, that I got cured?" he asked.

"I haven't the slightest idea," I replied, dryly, disgusted at the man's manner.

"Why, the _Parson_! to be sure," he exclaimed. "Ha, ha!" giving me a dig in the ribs with his undeveloped thumb. "Yes, sir, the parson beat the doctor out and out in that ere business. He, he!"

I dare say the joke was very witty, but I was in no humour for laughing just then; yet, after all, he did not know I was a doctor, so I condescended to give a grin, a spasmodic grin like that a corpse may be supposed to give when the risible muscles are set in motion by the wires of a galvanic battery.

He then began to relate to me some of the many superst.i.tions afloat concerning the above-mentioned lady, till I grew curious to make the acquaintance of my new patient. In the middle of one of his long stories, he pointed out to me the house of my friend Squire L----, so I descended and walked up the hill leading to his house.

Arrived there, I rang, and was shown into the parlour, and upon giving my name, was soon cordially received by my old friend. We had not met for years. He had much to tell me, and seemed very much concerned about the health of his adopted daughter, whom he loved as if she had been his own flesh and blood.

His wife soon entered, and having expressed much pleasure at seeing me after so long, began giving me the peculiar symptoms of the lady's case.

"I do not know what to make of her, my dear doctor," she said; "for a whole year past she has not been the same girl. She will not eat, nor see anyone; seems quite estranged towards us, gets nervous and irritable if anyone approaches her; sleeps much and talks much during her sleep, and frequently imagines in her dream that she is holding conversation with a young man whom she addresses as Charles."

I started. The lady and her husband both noticed my emotion, and inquired into its cause. I told them that the case of their adopted daughter so nearly resembled the case of a young man in London whom I was still in the habit of attending, that the similarity of the symptoms struck me with no little surprise.

"Indeed, doctor," said the lady. "Is it possible that there can be two such extraordinary cases in the world?"

I mused a little, and then observed, "You do not think, do you, that the first cause of this strange malady was some little affair of the heart?"

"Oh, dear no, doctor," she replied. "I am certain of it. The girl has never had the opportunity of forming the acquaintance of any young men.

She has never left this village in her life, though she has often begged me to take her to London; but somehow I----"