Run to Earth - Mary Elizabeth Braddon (ebook reader .txt) 📗

can only wonder that I

never noticed it before. You have grown so much paler, so much thinner,

within the last few weeks. I am sure you cannot be well.”

 

“My dearest Paulina, pray do not look at me with such alarm,” said

Douglas, gently. “Believe me, there is nothing particular the matter. I

have not been quite myself for the last few weeks, I admit—a touch of

low fever, I think; but there is not the slightest occasion for fear on

your part.”

 

“Oh, Douglas,” exclaimed Paulina, “how can you speak so carelessly of a

subject so vital to me? I implore you to consult a physician

immediately.”

 

“I assure you, my dearest, it is not necessary. There is nothing really

the matter.”

 

“Douglas, I beg and entreat you to see a physician directly. I entreat

it as a favour to me.”

 

“My dear Paulina, I am ready to do anything you wish.”

 

“You will promise me, then, to see a doctor you can trust, without an

hour’s unnecessary delay?”

 

“I promise, with all my heart,” replied Douglas. “Ah, Paulina, what

happiness to think that my life is of some slight value to her I love

so fondly!”

 

No more was said upon the subject; but during dinner, and throughout

the evening, Paulina’s eyes fixed themselves every now and then with an

anxious, scrutinizing gaze upon her lover’s face.

 

When he had left her, she mentioned her fears to her confidante and

shadow, Miss Brewer.

 

“Do you not see a change in Mr. Dale?” she asked.

 

“A change! What kind of change?”

 

“Do you not perceive an alteration in his appearance? In plainer words,

do you not think him looking very ill?”

 

Miss Brewer, generally so impassive, started, and looked at her

patroness with a gaze in which alarm was plainly visible.

 

She had hazarded so much in order to bring about a marriage between

Douglas and her patroness; and what if mortality’s dread enemy, Death,

should forbid the banns?

 

“Ill!” she exclaimed; “do you think Mr. Dale is ill?”

 

“I do, indeed; and he confesses as much himself, though he makes light

of the matter. He talks of low fever. I cannot tell you how much he has

alarmed me.”

 

“There may be nothing serious in it,” answered Miss Brewer, with some

hesitation. “One is so apt to take alarm about trifles which a doctor

would laugh at. I dare say Mr. Dale only requires change of air. A

London life is not calculated to improve any one’s health.”

 

“Perhaps that is the cause of his altered appearance,” replied Paulina,

only too glad to be reassured as to her lover’s safety. “I will beg him

to take change of air. But he has promised to see a doctor to-morrow:

when he comes to me in the afternoon I shall hear what the doctor has

said.”

 

Douglas Dale was very much inclined to make light of the slight

symptoms of ill-health which had oppressed him for some time—a

languor, a sense of thirst and fever, which were very wearing in their

effect, but which he attributed to the alternations of excitement and

agitation that he had undergone of late.

 

He was, however, too much a man of honour to break the promise made to

Paulina.

 

He went early on the following morning to Savile Row, where he called

upon Dr. Harley Westbrook, a physician of some eminence, to whom he

carefully described the symptoms of which he had complained to Paulina.

 

“I do not consider myself really ill,” he said, in conclusion; “but I

have come to you in obedience to the wish of a friend.”

 

“I am very glad that you have come to me,” answered Dr. Westbrook,

gravely.

 

“Indeed! do you, then, consider the symptoms alarming?”

 

“Well, no, not at present; but I may go so far as to say that you have

done very wisely in placing yourself under medical treatment. It is a

most interesting case,” added the doctor with an air of satisfaction

that was almost enjoyment.

 

He then asked his patient a great many questions, some of which Douglas

Dale considered frivolous, or, indeed, absurd; questions about his

diet, his habits: questions even about the people with whom he

associated, the servants who waited upon him.

 

These latter inquiries might have seemed almost impertinent, if Dr.

Westbrook’s elevated position had not precluded such an idea.

 

“You dine at your club, or in your chambers, eh, Mr. Dale?” he asked.

 

“Neither at my club, nor my chambers; I dine every day with a friend.”

 

“Indeed; always with the same friend?”

 

“Always the same.”

 

“And you breakfast?”

 

“At my chambers.”

 

Here followed several questions as to the nature of the breakfast.

 

“These sort of ailments depend so much on diet,” said the physician, as

if to justify the closeness of his questioning. “Your servant prepares

your breakfast, of course—is he a person whom you can trust?”

 

“Yes; he is an old servant of my father’s. I could trust him implicitly

in far more important matters than the preparation of my breakfast.”

 

“Indeed! Will you pardon me if I ask rather a strange question?”

 

“Certainly, if it is a necessary one.”

 

“Answered like a lawyer, Mr. Dale,” replied Dr. Westbrook, with a

smile. “I want to know whether this old and trusted servant of yours

has any beneficial interest in your death?”

 

“Interest in my death—”

 

“In plainer words, has he reason to think that you have put him down in

your will—supposing that you have made a will; which is far from

probable?”

 

“Well, yes,” replied Douglas, thoughtfully; “I have made a will within

the last few months, and Jarvis, my old servant knows that he is

provided for, in the event of surviving me—not a very likely event,

according to the ordinary hazards; but a man is bound to prepare for

every contingency.”

 

“You told your servant that you had provided for him?”

 

“I did. He has been such an excellent creature, that it was only

natural I should leave him comfortably situated in the event of my

death.”

 

“No; to be sure,” answered the physician, with rather an absent manner.

“And now I need trouble you with no further questions this morning.

Come to me in a few days, and in the meantime take the medicine I

prescribe for you.”

 

Dr. Westbrook wrote a prescription, and Mr. Dale departed, very much

perplexed by his interview with the celebrated physician.

 

Douglas went to Fulham that evening as usual, and the first question

Paulina asked related to his interview with the doctor.

 

“You have seen a medical man?” she asked.

 

“I have; and you may set your mind at rest, dearest. He assures me that

there is nothing serious the matter.”

 

Paulina was entirely reassured, and throughout that evening she was

brighter and happier than usual in the society of her lover—more

lovely, more bewitching than ever, as it seemed to Douglas.

 

He waited a week before calling again on the physician; and he might,

perhaps, have delayed his visit even longer, had he not felt that the

fever and languor from which he suffered increased rather than abated.

 

This time Dr. Westbrook’s manner seemed graver and more perplexed than

on the former visit. He asked even more questions, and at last, after a

thoughtful examination of the patient, he said, very seriously—

 

“Mr. Dale, I must tell you frankly that I do not like your symptoms.”

 

“You consider them alarming?”

 

“I consider them perplexing, rather than alarming. And as you are not a

nervous subject I think I may venture to trust you fully.”

 

“You may trust in the strength of my nerve, if that is what you mean.”

 

“I believe I may, and I shall have to test your moral courage and

general force of character.”

 

“Pray be brief, then,” said Douglas with a faint smile. “I can almost

guess what you have to say. You are going to tell me that I carry the

seeds of a mortal disease; that the shadowy hand of death already holds

me in its fatal grip.”

 

“I am going to tell you nothing of the kind,” answered Dr. Westbrook.

“I can find no symptoms of disease. You have a very fair lease of life,

Mr. Dale, and may enjoy a green old age, if other people would allow

you to enjoy it.”

 

“How do you mean?”

 

“I mean that if I can trust my own judgment in a matter which is

sometimes almost beyond the reach of science, the symptoms from which

you suffer are those of slow poisoning.”

 

“Slow poisoning!” replied Douglas, in almost inaudible accents. “It is

impossible!” he exclaimed, after a pause, during which the physician

waited quietly until his patient should have in some manner recovered

his calmness of mind. “It is quite impossible. I have every confidence

in your skill, your science; but in this instance, Dr. Westbrook, I

feel assured that you are mistaken.”

 

“I would gladly think so, Mr. Dale,” replied the doctor, gravely; “but

I cannot. I have given my best thought to your case. I can only form

one conclusion—namely, that you are labouring under the effects of

poison.”

 

“Do you know what the poison is?”

 

“I do not; but I do know that it must have been administered with a

caution that is almost diabolical in its ingenuity—so slowly, by such

imperceptible degrees, that you have scarcely been aware of the change

which it has worked in your system. It was a most providential

circumstance that you came to me when you did, as I have been able to

discover the treachery to which you are subject while there is yet

ample time for you to act against it. Forewarned is forearmed, you

know, Mr. Dale. The hidden hand of the secret poisoner is about its

fatal work; it is for you and me to discover to whom the hand belongs.

Is there any one about you whom you can suspect of such hideous guilt?”

 

“No one—no one. I repeat that such a thing is impossible.”

 

“Who is the person most interested in your death?” asked Dr. Westbrook,

calmly.

 

“My first cousin, Sir Reginald Eversleigh, who would succeed to a very

handsome income in that event. But I have not met him, or, at any rate,

broke bread with him, for the last two months. Nor can I for a moment

believe him capable of such infamy.”

 

“If you have not been in intimate association with him for the last two

months, you may absolve him from all suspicion,” answered Dr.

Westbrook. “You spoke to me the other day of dining very frequently

with one particular friend; forgive me if I ask an unpleasant question.

Is that friend a person whom you can trust?”

 

“That friend I could trust with a hundred lives, if I had them to

lose,” Douglas replied, warmly.

 

The doctor looked at his patient thoughtfully. He was a man of the

world, and the warmth of Mr. Dale’s manner told him that the friend in

question was a woman.

 

“Has the person whom you trust so implicitly any beneficial interest in

your death?” he asked.

 

“To some amount; but that person would gain much more by my continuing

to live.”

 

“Indeed; then we must needs fall back upon my original idea and painful

as it may be to you, the old servant must become the object of your

suspicion.”

 

“I cannot believe him capable—”

 

“Come, come, Mr. Dale,” interrupted the physician. “We must look at