The Golden Calf by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (types of ebook readers txt) 📕

cool and deliberate, his expression moody, but in nowise irrational.

'You have no right to say that; but people who say such things seldom mean what they say,' replied Ida, quietly. 'Had you not better go to your room at once and change your clothes, or take a warm bath. It is a kind of suicide to wander about all day in wet clothes as you have done.'

'Who told you I was wandering about all day?'

'Vernon told us.'

'Vernon!' He started, as if suddenly remembering the boy's existence; and then in an agitated manner asked, 'Did he come home? Is he all right?'

'He came home, thank God; at least, he was brought home. I doubt if he could have found his way back alone. I am afraid he is going to be ill.'

'Nonsense! a little cold, perhaps; nothing more. It was a diabolical day. I never saw such rain--a regular tropical down-pour. But what is a shower of rain for a healthy boy?'

'Not much, perhaps, if he is able to change his clothes directly afterwards. But to be wandering about for hours in wet clothes, without food,--that is enough to kill a stronger boy than my brother.'

'It won't kill him, you may depend,' said Brian, with a cynical laugh; 'I should profit too much by his death: and I'm not one of fortune's favourites. He's tough enough.'

'Brian, you have no more heart than a stone.'

'Perhaps not. All the heart I had I gave to you, and you made a football of it; but "Why should a heart have been there, in the way of a fair woman's foot?" as the poet asks.'

'Had you not better go to your room and take off your wet clothes?' repeated Ida.

She had no inclination to argue or remonstrate with a man whose mind was so evidently askew, who had long ago passed the boundary line of principle and noble thought, and had become a mere creature of impulse, blown this way or that way by every gust of passion,--so weak a sinner that her scornful anger was tempered by pity.

'If you are anxious I should escape a severe cold, perhaps you will be liberal enough to allow me a little brandy,' said Brian.

Ida was doubtful how to reply. She had been told to withhold all stimulants, and yet this was an exceptional case. Happily at this very moment the door was opened, and Mr. Fosbroke, the family doctor, was announced.

She ran to meet him. 'Vernon has had a severe wetting, and we are afraid he is going to be ill,' she said. 'I'll take you upstairs at once. Mamma is with him.'

As soon as they were outside in the hall she told him about Brian's request, and asked his advice.

'I think I would give him a small tumbler of grog after his wetting. To refuse would seem too severe. But take care he hasn't the control of the bottle.'

She ran back to her husband, told him she would take some randy and water to his room for him by the time he had hanged his clothes, and then she went with Mr. Fosbroke to in Vernon's room, that bright airy room overlooking the rose garden, which maternal and sisterly love had decorated with all possible prettinesses, and furnished with every appliance of comfort.

Mr. Fosbroke examined the boy carefully, and seemed hardly to like the aspect of the case, though he maintained the customary professional cheeriness.

The boy was feverish, very feverish, he admitted;--pulse a good deal too rapid; temperature high. One could never tell how these cases were going to turn. The boy had suffered unusual fatigue and deprivation, and for a child so reared the strain was severe; but in all probability a gentle febrifuge, which would throw him into a perspiration, and a good night's rest, would be all that was needed, and he would be as well as ever to-morrow morning.

'These small things get out of order so easily,' said Mr. Fosbroke, smiling down at the flushed cheek on the pillow. 'They are like those foolish little Geneva watches ladies are so fond of wearing. My old turnip never goes wrong. You must make haste and grow big, Vernon, and then mamma will not be so easily frightened about you.'

Vernon smiled faintly, without opening his eyes.

'You see, you have contrived between you to make him an exotic,' said the doctor; 'and you mustn't be surprised if he gives you a little trouble now and then. Orchids are beautiful flowers, but they are difficult to rear.'

'Oh, Mr. Fosbroke,' said Lady Palliser, 'how can you say so! Vernie is so hardy--riding his pony in all weathers.'

'Yes, but always provided with a mackintosh--always told to hurry home at the first drop of rain. Well, I dare say he will be ready for his pony to-morrow, if he takes my draught.'

To-morrow came, but Vernon was not in a condition to ride his pony. The fever and prostration were worse than they had been over night, and while Brian seemed to have taken no harm from his exposure to the storm, the boy had evidently suffered a shock to the system, from which he would be slow to recover.

Tortured with anxiety about this idolised brother, Ida did not forget her duty to her husband. She did what she had resolved to do during the long watches of that agonising night, in which she had seen Brian the victim of his own weak self-indulgence, to all intents and purposes a madman, yet unworthy of the compassion which lunacy inspires, since this madness was self-induced,--she telegraphed to the London physician whose advice her husband affected to value; and at five o'clock in the afternoon she had the satisfaction of seeing a soberly-clad gray-haired gentleman alight from a Petersfield fly in front of the portico. This was Dr. Mallison, of Harley Street, a great authority in all nervous disorders--as thorough and as real a man as Dr. Rylance was artificial and shallow, yet a, man whom some of Dr. Rylance's most profitable patients denounced as a brute.

Dr. Mallison's plain and straightforward manner invited confidence, and Ida confided her fears and anxieties to him without scruple, telling him faithfully all that she had observed in her husband's conduct before and after that one dreadful night, which she described shudderingly.

'Yes, I remember his case. This seems to have been rather a sharp attack. He had one early in the spring, just before he came to me.'

'An attack--like this one--an attack of--'

'Delirium tremens. Not quite so bad as this last, from his own account; but then one can never quite trust a patient's account. And you say he is better now?'

'Yes; he has been in his room all to-day, writing or reading. He seems dull and low-spirited, that is all.'

'No delusions to-day?'

'Not that I have discovered; but I have only seen him now and then. My little brother is ill, and I have been in his room most of my time.'

'Poor soul! that is a bad job,' said Dr. Mallison, kindly. 'Well, you must have an attendant for your husband. Can you get anybody here, do you think? Or shall I send you a man from town?'

'I shall be very grateful if you will send some one. It would be difficult to get any one here.'

'I dare say it would. I'll get a person despatched to you by the mail train, if I am back in time. Your husband must not be left to himself. That is a vital point. Still so long as he is reasonable, and shows no sign of violence, it will not do to let him suppose that he is watched. That would aggravate matters. You must be diplomatic. Let the man pass as an extra servant, not a professional nurse. All invalids detest professional nurses.'

'Is this dreadful malady likely to pass away?' asked Ida, falteringly.

It was unspeakably painful to her to discuss her husband's failing; and yet she wanted to learn all that could be known about it.

'Undoubtedly. Remove the cause, and the effect will cease. But you have to do more than that. You have to restore the constitution to its normal state--to renew the tissues which intemperance has destroyed--in a word, to eliminate the poison and then the craving for drink will cease, and your husband may begin life again, like Naaman after his seventh dip in Jordan. At Mr. Wendover's age, such a habit ought not to be fatal. There is ample time for reform; but I give you fair warning that it is not an easy disease to cure. I'm not talking of delirium tremens, which is a symptom rather than a disease, but of alcoholic poisoning. The craving for alcohol once established is an ugly weed to root out.'

'If patience and care can cure him, he shall be cured,' said Ida, with a steadfast look, which gave new nobility to her beautiful face in the observant eyes of the physician--a man keen to appreciate every gradation of the physical and the mental, and to tell to the nicest shade where sense left off and soul began. Here was a woman assuredly in whom soul predominated over sense.

'I believe that, madam,' he said, kindly; 'and you shall have my best assistance, depend upon it.'

'Why should a young man bring upon himself such an affliction as this?' Ida asked, wonderingly. 'Ours is counted a sober era.'

'Why, indeed? After-dinner boozing and three-bottle men are a tradition of the dark ages; and yet there are dozens of young men in London--gifted young men some of them--who are doing this thing every year. Half the untimely deaths you hear of might be traced home to the brandy bottle, if a man had only the curiosity to look into first causes. One man dies of congestion of the lungs. Yes, but he had burnt up his lungs first with perpetual alcohol. Another is a victim to liver. Why, madam, a temperate man may work thirty years under an Indian sun, and hardly know that he has a liver. Another is said to have died of too much brain work. Yes, work done by a brain steeped in alcohol--not a brain, but a preparation in spirits. They all do the same thing--pegging--pegging--pegging--from breakfast to bed-time; and most of them would deny that they are drunkards.'

'Do you think that if my husband drank it was because he was not happy--because he had something on his mind?'

'Much more likely that it was because he had nothing on his mind, my dear madam. These briefless barristers in the Temple--men with private means, not obliged to hunt for work, with a little fancy for literature, and a little taste for the drama--these idle youths, whose only idea of social intercourse is to be gossiping and drinking in one another's rooms all day long, living an undomestic life in chambers, without the public interests or athletic sports of a university--these are the chosen victims of alcohol. Of course, I don't pretend for a moment that they all drink; but where the tendency to drink exists this is the kind of life to foster it.'

'My husband was not obliged to live in chambers--he had a home here.'

'Yea; but young men, unless they are sportsmen, hate the country; and then, once in the London vortex, a man can't easily escape. And now, I suppose, I had better go and see the patient Does he know I have been sent for?'

'No.'