Run to Earth - Mary Elizabeth Braddon (classic reads .TXT) 📗

/> "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 things as men of the world. It is your duty to ascertain by whom this poison has been administered, in order to protect yourself from the attacks of your insidious destroyer. If you will follow my advice, you will do this; if, on the other hand, you elect to shut your eyes to the danger that assails you, I can only tell you that you will most assuredly pay for your folly by the forfeit of your life."

"What am I to do?" asked Douglas.

"You say that your habits of life are almost rigid in their regularity. You always breakfast in your own chambers; you always dine and take your after-dinner coffee in the house of one particular friend. With the exception of a biscuit and a glass of sherry taken sometimes at your club, these two meals are all you take during the day. It is, therefore, an indisputable fact, that poison has bee a administered at