A Thoughtless Yes Part 16

_"Every man has a history worth knowing, if he could tell it, or if we could draw it from him."_--Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I was sitting in my office, with my head in my hands, and with both elbows resting on my desk. I was tired in every nerve of my body; more than that, I was greatly puzzled over the strange conduct of my predecessor in the college, whose a.s.sistant I had been, and whose place I was appointed to fill during the unexpired term for which he had been elected lecturer on anatomy.

That morning he was to introduce me to the cla.s.s formally as his successor, deliver his last lecture, and then retire from active connection with anatomical instruction.

Everything appeared to be perfectly arranged, and, indeed, some of the younger men--under my direction--had taken special pains to provide our outgoing and much admired professor with rather unusual facilities for a brilliant close to his career as our instructor.

I was feeling particularly pleased with the arrangements, when, after a neat little speech on his part, commendatory of me, and when we supposed him to be about to begin his lecture, he suddenly turned to me and said, bluntly: "You will be so good as to take the cla.s.s to-day. Young gentlemen, I bid you good morning," and abruptly took up his hat and left. I sat facing an expectant and surprised cla.s.s of shrewd young fellows, and I was quite unprepared to proceed.

I had intended my first lecture to be a great success. It was ready for the following day; but my notes were at home, and my position can, therefore, be better imagined than described.

I was thinking over this and the strange behavior of my generally punctilious predecessor, when he entered my office, unannounced, and, after the ordinary salutations and apologies for having placed me in so undesirable a position in the morning, he told me the following episode from his history. I will give it in his own words, omitting, as far as possible, all comment made by me at the time, thus endeavoring to leave you alone with him and his story, as I was that night. This will better enable me to impart the effect to you as it was conveyed to me at the time. It greatly interested me then, but the more I think it over, the less am I able to decide, in my own mind, all of the psychological questions which it aroused then and which it has since called up. This is the story.

I.

I am, as you know, not a young man, and in the practice of my profession, which has extended over a period of nearly thirty years, I have learned to diagnose the cases that come under my care very slowly and by degrees. Every year has taught me, what you will undoubtedly learn--for I have great hopes for your future career--that physical symptoms are often the results of mental ailments, and that, while cordials and powders are sometimes very useful aids, the first and all-important thing is to understand fully the _true_ history of my patient.

I have laid stress upon the word true, simply because while _a_ history is easy enough to get, about the most difficult matter in this world to secure is _the_ history of one who comes to a physician ailing in body or in mind. It is easy enough to treat a broken leg, a gunshot wound, or even that ghastliest of physical foes, diphtheria, if it is one of these and nothing more.

But if it is a broken leg as to outward sign, and a broken heart as an inward fact, then the case is quite another matter, and the treatment involves skill of a different kind.

If the bullet that tore its way through the body was poisoned with the bitterness of disappointment, anxiety, terror, or remorse, something more is needed than bandages and beef-tea.

If diphtheria was contracted solely from a defective sewage-pipe, it will, no doubt, yield to remedies and pure air. But if long years of nervous and mental prostration have made ready its reception, the work to be done is of a much more serious nature.

So when I was first called to see Florence Campbell, the message conveyed to me threw no light on the case, beyond what the most ordinary observer would have detected at a glance.

The note read thus:

"Dr. H. Hamilton.

"Dear Sir: Although I have been in your city for several months, it is the first time since I came that I have myself felt that I needed medical attention. I have, therefore, not sent you the enclosed note (the history of which you no doubt know) until now. If you will read it, it will explain that the time has now come when, if you will come to me, I need your care.

"Yours respectfully,

"Florence Campbell."

"Parlor 13, F------ Ave. Hotel."

The note enclosed was from a physician in Chicago whom I had known intimately many years before, but with whom, contrary to the hint given by the lady, I had held no communication for a long time past. It said:

"My Dear Doctor: One of my patients is about to visit your city. The length of her stay is uncertain, and, as she is often ailing, she has asked me to give her a note to one whom I believe to be skilful and to possess the qualities which she requires in a physician. In thinking over the list of those known to me in New York, I have decided to give her this note to you. I need not commend her to you; she will do that for herself. You will see at a glance that she is a charming woman, and you will learn in five minutes' conversation with her, that she is a brilliant one. She is also one of those rare patients to whom you can afford to tell the unvarnished truth--an old hobby of yours, I remember--and from whom you can expect it. She has had no serious illness recently, but is rather subject to slight colds and sick headache. I give her sulph. 12. She always responds to that in time.

"Yours, as ever,

"Thomas C. Griswold."

I folded the note and laid it on my desk and took up a pen. Then, on second thought, I turned to the messenger and said, "Say to Miss Campbell that I will call at four o'clock this afternoon."

Before I had finished the sentence he was gone, and I laid down the pen and sat thinking.

How like Tom Griswold that was--the old Tom of college days--to write such a note as that and give it to a patient! "Sulph. 12"--and then I laughed outright at his interpretation of my desire for veracious relations between patient and pract.i.tioner, and re-read his note from end to end.

Then I read hers again. Neither of them indicated the slightest need of haste on my part.

I pictured a pretty little blonde--I knew Tom's taste. He had been betrothed to three different girls during the old days, and they had all been of that type; small, blue-eyed, Dresden-china sort of girls, who had each pouted--and married someone else in due time, after a "misunderstanding" with Tom.

One of these misunderstandings had been over some roses, I remember.

They did not "match" her dress in color, and she was wretched. She told him he should have known better than to get that shade, when he knew very well that she never wore anything that would "go with" it.

He had naturally felt a little hurt, since he had bought the finest and highest-priced roses to be had, and expected ecstatic praise of his taste and extravagance. The "misunderstanding" was final, and, after a wretched evening and several days of tragic grief, five tinted notes of sorrow, reproach, and pride, they each began to flirt with some one else and to talk of the inconstancy of the other s.e.x. They vowed, of course, that they would never marry anybody on earth, and finally engaged themselves to marry some one else, who perhaps, had just pa.s.sed through a similar harrowing experience and was yearning to be consoled.

I remember that Tom smoked a great deal during this tragic period, that he looked gloomy, wore only black neckties, and allowed a cold to run on until it became thoroughly settled and had to be nursed all the rest of the winter.

He knew that smoking injured him, and he doubtless had an idea that he would end his misery by means of this cold, supplemented by nicotine poison. How near he might have approached to success it would be difficult to tell, if he had not met my sister Nellie at Christmas-time, and, after having told his woes to her, promised her, "as a friend," not to smoke again for three days and then to report to her. The report was satisfactory, and she then confessed that she had forsworn bonbons for the same length of time, as a sort of companions.h.i.+p in sacrifice.

This, of course, impressed Tom as a truly remarkable test of friends.h.i.+p and sympathy, and,--well, what is the use to tell the rest?

You will know it. It had no new features, so far as I can now recall, and I believe that they had been betrothed six months before Nellie met grave old Professor Menlo and began the study of Greek roots and mythology.

I think that, perhaps, Tom would have been all right if it had not been for the mythology. But Nellie was romantic, and the professor was an enthusiast in this branch of knowledge, and so, by and by, Tom, poor devil, took to smoking again--this time it was a pipe--and local papers were filled with notices of the romantic marriage of "Wisdom and Beauty," and poor little Nellie wrote a pathetic note to Tom, and sent it by me, with frantic directions not to allow him to kill himself because she had not understood her own heart; but that she loved him truly--as a friend--still, and he must come to see her and _her_ professor in their new home on the hill. And, dear, dear, what a time I had with Tom! It is funny enough now; but even I felt sorry for him then, and s.h.i.+elded him from the least unnecessary pain by telling the boys that they absolutely must not congratulate me on my sister's marriage, nor mention it in any way whatever, when Tom was present, unless they wanted to have trouble with me personally.

And to think that Tom married Kittie Johnson before he had fairly finished his first year in the hospital service; and had to take her home for his father to support! Since then I had seen him from time to time, and heard of his large practice, his numerous children, and his elegant home; but he never talked of his wife, although I believed him to be perfectly satisfied with her. He seemed content, was prosperous beyond expectation, and had grown fat and gouty, when I last saw him at a medical convention. He attributed his too great flesh and his gout to the climate of his Western home, and was constantly threatening to retire from practice, and said that he should ultimately come to New York to live.

Yes, undoubtedly Florence Campbell is a pet.i.te blonde, with little white teeth and a roseleaf cheek, thought I, and I laughed, and rang for my carriage.

II.

I do not know that I ever entered a more delicately perfumed room--and I am very sensitive to perfumes--than the one in which Florence Campbell sat.

She arose from her deep arm-chair as I entered, and, extending her hand, grasped mine with a vigor unusual in a woman, even when she is well.

"This is Dr. Hamilton?" she said, in a clear voice, which told nothing of pain, and was wholly free from the usually querulous note struck by women who are ill, or who think that they are. "This is Dr. Hamilton? I am very glad to see you, doctor. I am Florence Campbell. You received a note from your friend, Dr. Griswold, of Chicago, and one telling how I came to send it to you--how I came into possession of it." Direct of speech, clear of voice, hand feverish, but firm in grasp, I commented mentally, as she spoke.

This is not what I had expected. This is not the limp little blonde that I had pictured, on a lounge, in tears, with the light fluffy hair in disorder, and a tone of voice which plead for sympathy. This is not the figure I had expected to see.

She stood with her back to the light, very erect and well poised.

"Come to the window," I said. "Does your head ache?" That is always a safe question to ask, you know.

She laughed. "Oh, I don't know that it does--not particularly. I fancy there is not enough inside of it to ache much. Mere bone and vacuity could not do a great deal in that line, could it, doctor?" Then she laughed again. She looked me in the eyes, and I fancied she was diagnosing _me_.