Charlotte's Inheritance by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (a court of thorns and roses ebook free .TXT) 📕

the effect of fancy," interjected Mr. Sheldon.

"Which are no doubt, in some measure, attributable to a hypochondriacal condition of mind," continued the doctor in his fat voice. "I am sorry to find that this periodical dizziness has been somewhat increased of late. But here again we must look to Dr. Poseidon. Tepid sea-baths, if they can be managed, in the patient's own room; and by-and-by a dip in the waves yonder, may do wonders."

Valentine asked no further questions; and the physician departed in the St. Leonards fly, to turn his excursion to profitable use by calling on two or three dowagers in Warrior Square and Marina, who would doubtless be glad of an unexpected visit from their pet doctor.

"Well, Hawkehurst," said Mr. Sheldon, when the fly had driven away, "I hope you are satisfied now?"

"Satisfied!" cried Valentine; "yes, I am satisfied that your stepdaughter is being murdered!"

"Murdered!" echoed the stockbroker, his voice thick and faint; but Valentine did not heed the change in it.

"Yes, murdered--sacrificed to the utter incompetence of that old idiot who has just left us."

Philip Sheldon drew a long breath.

"What!" he exclaimed; "do you doubt Doddleson's skill?"

"Do you believe in it? Do you? No; I cannot think that a man of your keen perception in all other matters--half a medical man yourself--can be the dupe of so shallow an impostor. And it is to that man's judgment my darling's life has been confided; and it is to that man I have looked, with hope and comfort in the thought of his power to save my treasure! Good God! what a reed on which to rely! And of all the medical men of London, this is the one you have chosen!"

"I must really protest against this rant, Hawkehurst," said Philip Sheldon. "I hold myself responsible for the selection which I made, and will not have that selection questioned in this violent and outrageous manner by you. Your anxiety for Charlotte's recovery may excuse a great deal, but it cannot excuse this kind of thing; and if you cannot command yourself better, I must beg you to absent yourself from my house until my stepdaughter's recovery puts an end to all this fuss."

"Do you believe in Dr. Doddleson's skill?" asked Valentine doggedly. He wanted to have that question answered at any cost.

"Most decidedly I do, with the rest of the medical world. My choice of this gentleman as Charlotte's adviser was governed by his reputation as a safe and conscientious man. His opinions are sound, trustworthy--"

"His opinions!" cried Valentine with a bitter laugh; "what in heaven's name do you call his opinions? The only opinions I could extract from him to-day were solemn echoes of yours. And the man himself! I took the measure of him before I asked him a question; and physiology is a lie if that man is anything better than an impostor."

"His position is the answer to that."

"His position is no answer. He is not the first impostor who has attained position, and is not likely to be the last. You must forgive me, if I speak with some violence, Mr. Sheldon. I feel too deeply to remember the conventionalities of my position. The dear girl yonder, hovering between life and death, is my promised wife. As your stepdaughter she is very dear to you, no doubt, and you are of course anxious to do your duty as her stepfather. But she is all the world to me--my one sweet memory of the past, my sole hope for the future. I will not trust her to the care of Dr. Doddleson; I claim the right to choose another physician--as that man's coadjutor, if you please. I have no wish to offend the doctor of your choice."

"This is all sheer nonsense," said Mr. Sheldon.

"It is nonsense about which you must let me have my own way," replied Valentine, resolutely. "My stake on this hazard is too heavy for careless play. I shall go back to town at once and seek out a physician."

"Do you know any great man?"

"No; but I will find one."

"If you go today, you will inevitably alarm Charlotte."

"True; and disappoint her into the bargain. I suppose in such a case tomorrow will do as well as to-day?"

"Decidedly."

"I can go by the first train, and return with my doctor in the afternoon. Yes, I will go tomorrow."

Mr. Sheldon breathed more freely. There are cases in which to obtain time for thought seems the one essential thing--cases in which a reprieve is as good as a pardon.

"Pray let us consider this business quietly," he said, with a faint sigh of weariness. "There is no necessity for all this excitement. You can go to town to-morrow, by the first train, as you say. If it is any satisfaction to you to bring down a physician, bring one; bring half a dozen, if you please. But, for the last time, I most emphatically assure you that anything that tends to alarm Charlotte is the one thing of all others most sure to hinder her recovery."

"I know that. She shall not be frightened; but she shall have a better adviser than Dr. Doddleson. And now I will go back to the house. She will wonder at my absence."

He went to the bright, airy room where Charlotte was seated, her head lying back upon the pillows, her face paler, her glances and tones more languid than on the previous day as it seemed to Valentine. Diana was near her, solicitous and tender; and on the other side of the window sat Mrs. Sheldon, with her Dissenting minister's biography open on her lap.

All through that day Valentine Hawkehurst played his part bravely: it was a hard and bitter part to play--the part of hope and confidence while unutterable fears were rending his heart. He read the epistle and gospel of the day to his betrothed; and afterwards some chapters of St. John--those profoundly mournful chapters that foreshadow the agonising close. It was Charlotte who selected these chapters, and her lover could find no excuse for disputing her choice.

It was the first time that they had shared any religious exercise, and the hearts of both were deeply touched by the thought of this.

"How frivolous all our talk must have been, Valentine, when it seems so new to us to be reading these beautiful words together?"

Her head was half supported by the pillows, half resting on her lover's shoulder, and her eyes travelled along the lines as he read, in a calm low voice, which was unbroken to the end.

Early in the evening Charlotte retired, worn out by the day's physical weariness, in spite of Valentine's fond companionship. Later, when it was dusk, Diana came downstairs with the news that the invalid was sleeping quietly. Mrs. Sheldon was dozing in her arm-chair, the Dissenting minister having fallen to the ground; and Valentine was leaning, with folded arms, on the broad window-sill looking out into the shadowy garden. Mr. Sheldon had given them very little of his society during that day. He went out immediately after his interview with Valentine, on a sea-coast ramble, which lasted till dinner-time. After dinner he remained in the room where they had dined. He was there now. The light of the candles, by which he read his papers, shone out upon the dusk.

"Will you come for a stroll with me, Diana?" asked Valentine.

Miss Paget assented promptly; and they went out into the garden, beyond the reach of Mr. Sheldon's ears, had that gentleman been disposed to place himself at his open window in the character of a listener.

"I want to tell you my plans about Charlotte," Valentine began. "I am going to London to-morrow to search for a greater physician than Dr. Doddleson. I shall find my man in an hour or so; and, if possible, shall return with him in the evening. There is no apparent reason to anticipate any sudden change for the worse; but if such a change should take place, I rely on you, dear, to give me the earliest tidings of it. I suppose you can get a fly here, if you want one?"

"I can get to St. Leonards, if that is what you mean," Miss Paget answered promptly. "I dare say there is a fly to be had; if not, I can walk there. I am not afraid of a few miles' walk, by day or night. If there should be a change, Valentine--which God forbid--I will telegraph the tidings of it to you."

"You had better address the message to me at Rancy's, Covent Garden; the house where the Ragamuffins have their rooms, you know, dear. That is a more central point than my lodgings, and nearer the terminus. I will call there two or three times in the course of the day."

"You may trust my vigilance, Valentine. I did not think it was in my nature to love any one as I love Charlotte Halliday."

Gustave Lenoble's letters lying unanswered in her desk asserted the all-absorbing nature of Diana's affection for the fading girl. She _was_ fading. The consciousness of this made all other love sacrilege, as it seemed to Diana. She sat up late that night to answer Gustave's last letter of piteous complaint.

"She had forgotten him. Ah, that he had been foolish--insensate--to confide himself in her love! Was he not old and grey in comparison to such youth--such freshness--a venerable dotard of thirty-five? What had he with dreams of love and marriage? Fie, then. He humiliated himself in the dust beneath her _mignon_ feet. He invited her to crush him with those cruel feet. But if she did not answer his letters, he would come to Harold's Hill. He would mock himself of that ferocious Sheldon--of a battalion of Sheldons still more ferocious--of all the world, at last--to be near her."

"Believe me, dear Gustave, I do not forget," wrote Diana, in reply to these serio-comic remonstrances. "I was truly sorry to leave town, on your account and on my father's. But my dear adopted sister is paramount with me now. You will not grudge her my care or my love, for she may not long be with me to claim them. There is nothing but sorrow here in all our hearts; sorrow, and an ever-present dread."



Book the Eighth.


A FIGHT AGAINST TIME.

CHAPTER I.


A DREAD REVELATION.

The early fast train by which Valentine Hawkehurst travelled brought him into town at a quarter past nine o'clock. During the journey he had been meditating on the way in which he should set to work when he arrived in London. No ignorance could be more profound than his on all points relating to the medical profession. Dimly floating in his brain there were the names of doctors whom he had heard of as celebrated men--one for the chest, another for the liver, another for the skin, another for the eyes; but, among all these famous men, who was the man best able to cope with the mysterious wasting away, the gradual, almost imperceptible ebbing of that one dear life which Valentine wanted to save?

This question must be answered by some one; and Valentine was sorely puzzled as to who that some one must be.

The struggling young writer had but few friends. He had, indeed, worked too hard for the possibility of friendship. The cultivation of the severer Muses is rarely compatible with a wide circle of acquaintances; and Valentine, if not a