Caught in a Trap Part 6

One of the most hopeless forms of insanity, according to eminent authorities on the subject, is melancholia, but even this gives way under proper treatment. In cases of this kind, patients are but too often neglected, and the cure is left, ignorantly, to work out itself, which generally ends unsuccessfully; whereas, if the patient under treatment were led out of themselves as it were, their affliction ignored, and treated to just the company and influences which appear to affect them most, I believe in nine cases out of ten of so called settled melancholia, the unfortunate sufferer would be turned out cured after a time.

Susan Hartshorne was suffering from this species of mental infliction.

Her case certainly was not a very extreme one; and if she had been removed from her home at the time she first lost her wits, and been under gentle treatment and care (as Doctor Jolly recommended) instead of being kept at the place where all her surroundings, and especially her mother's presence, kept the great fright she had undergone continually before her, she would have been cured long since. Even as it was, she was every month gaining fresh mental stamina from the outside influences at work upon her: now that Markworth specially devoted himself to her, as he did, and gradually caused her budding intellect and intelligence to expand instead of warping them, she changed more and more for the better every day. Markworth told Tom that he was interested in the case--as indeed he was on more accounts than one--and if left to himself he would cure her completely. The mother, too, seemed interested, as she could not but perceive the change in Susan, and thanked Markworth in her way, by dropping some of her brusquerie, and also by avoiding her daughter so as not to frighten her, and make her shrink back within herself by her presence and appearance--Markworth had drawn her attention to the point. As for Miss Kingscott, of course in fulfilment of her compact, she did not interfere with him at all, and allowed him to mould her charge as he pleased, although she watched him narrowly, and bided her time.

Allynne Markworth had now become domesticated to a certain extent at The Poplars. The first week flew away rapidly, even with him, he had so much to plan, and to take such pains to get his plot _en train_; while with Tom the time had disappeared since he knew Lizzie as one day. Mrs Hartshorne, too, was so glad to have her son at home, although she seemed rather unsympathetic mother, that she tolerated Markworth at first for his sake; and he had played his cards so well, and studied her little weaknesses so fully, and kept himself so much out of the way, that she at length looked upon it as a matter of course that he should remain when Tom hinted at stopping. "It is such nice weather,"

explained that young deceiver, "and so jolly down here, Markworth, and the Inskips are coming down this week, that I wish you would stay on-- that is, if you are not fearfully bored with us all." It was very strange, was it not, that Tom had not remembered the fact of the Inskips coming down before?

"Not at all, my dear fellow," answered Markworth; "I like this place very much; and your mother and I get on very well now, although she did not certainly like me at first;" he could not help laughing over the recollection of his first meeting and introduction to the dowager, Tom sharing in his merriment.

"Well, I am glad you will stop. It is much better here than being in town, and I begin to like a country life," observed Tom, thinking of violet eyes and pastoral rusticity.

"So do I, Tom; it is far better than all the racket we could have up in London. I am very glad I came down, but we'll, no doubt, have lots of gaiety when the Inskips come--not that I care about it, for I am really interested in the case of your sister."

"Thank you, old fellow; I am sure you are very kind to take all that trouble about Susan. Well, it's agreed that we stay on now that we are here, at least for a week or two. My leave won't be up until September, and even then I daresay I could get an extension, for the colonel's an old trump."

"Agreed," responded Markworth; "when you are tired of me you can turn me out, you know, but I daresay the old lady would take that trouble off your hands." And they both laughed again at such a possibility, which without joking the dowager was fully capable of doing by herself. And so their stay at The Poplars was decided upon, and Markworth had plenty of time in which to perfect his plans.

Susan's love of music had done much, probably, to preserve her mind from altogether closing up within itself: and her fondness for gardening and flowers was also beneficial to her case.

The first, Markworth had perceived at once; and he quickly set to work upon that foundation to gain a hold upon her, and draw her out of herself.

He used to go up-stairs to the old room where the organ was, and play some of those wonderful fugues of Beethoven, and saddening chords from the "Lieder ohne Worte," that would nearly make angels weep; and the affected girl used to follow him, and draw near, as if spell-bound, whilst he was playing, and try and imitate him after he had left his seat before the keys.

Then he began to speak gently to her, only, perhaps, a sentence now and then, for she was fearfully timid and frightened of strangers, but after a time she learned to know him, and would reply. No sort of conversation, of course, could be carried on with her, for her intellect was just like that of a young child's, although she had learned things by wrote, like a parrot, and could imitate whatever she saw another do.

After a time she would voluntarily seek Markworth, and ask him to play the organ in her pleading way; and she would sit quietly for hours to hear him. If he smiled on her she looked happy: if he frowned, or raised his voice, her face would wear a tearful and frightened aspect.

The garden used to be one of her favourite resorts. Here she would wander up and down before Markworth came, speaking to herself, as if she were carrying on a conversation with someone else. Here she had flowers of which she was pa.s.sionately fond, treating them as if they were living things, and crying over them should a leaf be broken off, or a branch blown down. Old George used to take especial pains over "Missy's"

garden, and she always used to go out and watch him at work, and be continually inciting him to dig up the earth around her plants. When Markworth began his care, however, Susan changed a great deal in her habits. She at first gave up the garden, and only would go to the organ-room; but when he brought a flute out and used to play an air of which she was especially fond, in and about her favourite haunts in the shrubbery, she got to come out again, ceased her imaginary dialogues, and grew more expressive and brighter. Insane people always seem affected by wind instruments.

Markworth took care, however, never to play the flute when the dowager was about the premises, as she "hated that odious tooting thing even worse than the jacka.s.s that played it"--she said.

Miss Kingscott used to accompany Susan, and consequently the three were very much together, for Tom was nearly always out now by himself, as he could not get Markworth to accompany him to the Pringles; and when he was at home he used to flirt with the governess under his mother's very nose, and leave Susan even more in Markworth's hands.

The devil, they say, is never so black as he is painted, and, perhaps, Markworth was not altogether so selfish or so wicked in his motives as one might suppose. He was really interested, deeply so, in the peculiar case of Susan Hartshorne; and having read a great deal on insanity and its cure, he had certain theories of his own on the subject which made him glad of the opportunity for reducing them to practice. If he had not known that the poor girl was the heiress to twenty thousand pounds, and had not circ.u.mstances so strangely placed Clara Joyce--he could not think of her even by her new name--in the house to a.s.sist him, he would never have dreamt of his plot, nor have attempted to carry it out after he saw the subject, or rather object, of it; and yet, perhaps, he would still have tried to put her in the way of recovering her reason without a thought of recompense. As it was, he was now working with a double object, and the success which he met with startled him, while it emboldened him to persevere in his design.

In a short time there was such a perceptible change in Susan that anyone not in the habit of seeing her frequently would have noticed it at once; and soon she was altogether different from what she had been. Her eyes began to have some expression in them; how different they looked from their former dull appearance; and she would now look anyone in the face instead of hanging down her head as she formerly did. Dr Jolly was one of the first to perceive the alteration, and complimented Miss Kingscott on the change one day.

"Bless my soul, ma'am! why, n.o.body would recognise her again. It's positively wonderful. By Gad! madam, you deserve a medal for it. I would not have believed such a change could have taken place unless I had seen it myself."

Whereupon Miss Kingscott half declined the credit of the cure, but in such a way as to make the doctor repeat his compliments.

"Bless my soul, ma'am! it's no use telling me that, I know better. It's wonderful, and you deserve every credit--yes, ma'am, by Gad! ma'am, you do. Good-bye, Miss Kingscott; I shall call soon again to see your patient, for she is yours now, you know, ma'am. Go-o-od-morning."

And the doctor took himself off, with an elaborate farewell adieu. He would have kissed his hand, it is believed, only that the old dowager was standing looking out at the window, and might have called him an old fool as likely as not.

Volume 1, Chapter VIII.

DAMON AND PYTHIAS.

He is not a very romantic Damon is Doctor Jolly, nor is he at the present time to be seen under favourable circ.u.mstances, or in the most picturesque of situations.

The fact is, Dr Jolly has got an attack of the gout, "his old friend,"

as he calls that hereditary and choleric disease; and here he is, seated in his snug parlour--he knew how to live well and be comfortable did the doctor--with his feet in a pail of cold water, like Patience on a monument smiling at grief; (one can't help quoting the "n.o.ble bard.") He was pursuing a rather violent method for reducing the inflammation in his pedal extremities in order that he might be able to go out and pay his usual pharmaceutical round of visits, and he was writhing and swearing inwardly, most probably, and often aloud, from the pain of the gout and remedy combined.

"Bless my soul! Deb!" he exclaimed, as irascibly as his natural good temper would allow, to his sister Deborah, our Pythias, who was in the room along with him. "Bless my soul! Whew I what a twinge. Confound the gout, Deborah!"

"Confound it with all my heart, Richard, if it will do you any good,"

she replied, calmly, drawing the thread through the heel of a stocking which she was darning; "but you know, Richard, it's your own fault. You _will_ drink that port wine, and you must take the consequences."

"Bosh, Deb; don't preach. Why, I only drank two gla.s.ses yesterday at lunch, and--"

"How about the bottle after dinner?"

"Well, you know, Pringle was here, and hospitality you know, Deb, hospitality you know--"

"Hospitality won't preserve your health, Richard."

"True Deb, quite true; but I couldn't help it, and the gout's getting better now, the pain's nearly gone. Whew! there's another twinge.

Confound the gout, I say!"

Damon was a stout, florid, jolly-looking--there is no other word so expressive--man of forty-five or thereabouts; Pythias--some apology is due for her s.e.x in carrying out the cla.s.sical metaphor, although when you know her better you will acknowledge the propriety of the allusion-- was some five years the elder, as she could look back with complacency or otherwise on her fiftieth birthday. She was tall and ungainly, and her face was so set and deficient of mobility that it looked as if it were carved out of mahogany, to which wood indeed its colour bore some resemblance. She evidently took after her male parent more than her mother, and her brother was right when he called her a "chip of the old block."

Damon was genial and hearty; Pythias cold and formal, as befitted an austere virgin of her years; but both possessed the same kind heart, and you would rarely find such a good-natured pair, who were so fond of each other, and so considerate and charitable in every sense of the word, to those around them.

Doctor Jolly was emphatically one of the jolliest country-pract.i.tioners in the country, and had one of the best practices, and was better liked than any other disciple of Aesculapius in the county. For miles round the farmers and well-to-do, as well as poorer people, knew his pleasant weather-beaten face and hearty voice. He "was so sociable and pleasant-like," as the country folk would say; and his well-known portly form--he rode about sixteen stone--and cheery "How de-do!" used to be eagerly welcomed when he came riding round on his thorough-bred heavy-weight hunter, with his two favourite little black and tan terriers, "Huz, and Buz his brother," scudding at its heels.

He and his sister had lived together at Bigton for many years past. The doctor had succeeded his father, and he his father, as far back as lay within the memory of "the oldest inhabitant"--the practice with its connection having been kept in the family for nearly a century.

Bigton is a very quiet rising little watering place, situated some five or six miles from The Poplars and Hartwood village, at the mouth of the river, wherein Tom Hartshorne was catching his perch under the eyes of Miss Lizzie. Bigton is by no means an ostentatious sort of place: it lacks self-a.s.sertion, and is content to occupy a back seat, as it were, in the a.s.sembly of "Fashionable Resorts," when, if it would but only put itself forward it might be bidden to "come up higher."

It is really a pleasant little place, and has all the requirements to make it an agreeable retreat for the hot summer months, when one longs for the seaside with that intense ardour which only a Londoner knows.

Bigton has a pier--a shabby little pier it must be confessed--a sort of esplanade, which is as long as that of its Brobdignagian rival, where George's Pavilion, that hideous monstrosity, used once to attract admirers--an excellent beach of fine grey sand, and a splendid common, all covered with gorse and furze, whereon juveniles can play "the criquette," as Monsieur Jeune France calls our national game. Beyond that, it has a splendid country around for jaunts and pic-nics; and, as for antiquities, why, is it not within a decent drive of one of the most historic old castles in the kingdom, a castle which has its ancient old keep still in preservation, and which was one of the few Royalist strongholds that held out successfully against the Puritan general and his myrmidon Roundheads?

Yet, with all these advantages, Bigton has not yet become a favourite with the mult.i.tude who annually adjourn to the seaside, and this neglect is not by any means complained of by the quiet few who wish to avoid the racket of a fashionable watering place, and come down here in order to have a quiet enjoyable holiday. The fact is, Bigton reckons for its standing more upon the support of its residents than on stray birds of pa.s.sage; and, of these, it has a larger proportion perhaps than some of its better known and more highly cracked-up rivals. It has nice trim rows of terraces facing the sea, and plenty of comfortable detached houses which are generally let to people who stay for mouths, and even a year or two, instead of hiring for merely a six week's occupation.

Bigton is therefore busy all the year round, instead of having a season of three months, and being a necropolis for the rest of the year: indeed, the annual visitors who come down in summer do not alter the look of the place much: it is too respectable a town to bother itself about casual tourists or London holiday-makers. In the summer the landholders and great people of the surrounding country come from their inland homes, and take lodgings for the bathing: so Bigton is very exclusive and keeps entirely to its own set.

Among not only the residents--returning to our story--but also the regular visitors, Doctor Jolly was a general favourite, and the doctor supreme of the locality; and he was as good a surgeon and physician as he was a favourite. He was not the man to nurse a hypochondriacal patient by giving him various bottles of medicine containing coloured water, or pills "as before," consisting of harmless dough. No, he would tell them to get out and take plenty of exercise and mayhap dip in the sea, and above all to get good food and plenty of it. No gruel and arrowroot from him. "All d.a.m.ned slops and dishwater," he would say; but a mutton chop three times a day, and a gla.s.s or two of really good port wine. "Stop, I'll send you over some of my own, and you may bet your boots that that's prime stuff," he would offer with a knowing wink of his eye, riding off to escape a denial.

He was a jolly, good-natured man, and such a really good minister to the ills of human nature, that he had it all his own way at Bigton, and almost throughout the entire county. His practice was so large, that he had to ride miles every day to do justice to his patients; and yet he would hire no a.s.sistant, except a mild, gentlemanly pupil, whom he kept to do the home business in his surgery.

"Catch me!" he would say, "having a fellow to cut me out with all the pretty girls and old ladies! No, sir, as long as I can cross a horse, no other sawbones shall rule here but myself. I'm hanged if they shall, sir?"

One or two other medical men had tried rashly to set up to him in opposition at Bigton; but never getting anyone who was ill to patronise them, they had to give up at length in disgust. One, indeed, still hung on, as he had bought a house and could not sell it; but he had to take to the coal trade to support his family. Not that Doctor Jolly grudged him a living, for no matter what he said, he would cheerfully have lent his brother pract.i.tioner a helping hand; but then no one would let anyone else visit them in Bigton but our Damon, so the poor-- Oth.e.l.lo's-occupation's-gone-M.D. had to buy and sell chaldrons of the best Wallsend and Seaborne, and fed his family in that way.

Dr Jolly's house was one of the best and nicest kept mansions in Bigton, for the doctor loved to live well, as he could afford it; and his sister Deborah was one of the most valuable housewives that could be cited. It was a long, low, old-fashioned house, with a splendid garden and paddock adjoining, for the doctor's horses, of which he kept three-- he used to follow the harriers in the time of the old squire, Roger Hartshorne--but he was getting too heavy for that now, besides having too much to do. Now he was devoted to poultry and pet deer, pet hares, pet dogs, pet animals of all kinds, even cats, and had all his out-houses, yards, and paddocks filled with his various adopted nurslings.

It was a wonder, considering his disposition, that he had remained a bachelor so long; but then he had his sister Deborah to take care of him, and as he would say, "Bless my soul, man, what more do I want?"

His old friends who had known him for years would hint at a disappointment in early life; but I don't think care sat heavily on the doctor's brow, as it does on some of us, for he lived well, and enjoyed life as he found it, and did not seem inclined to give up his present life for all the unknown sea of troubles into which matrimony might plunge him. Perhaps he saw too much and too many of the gentler s.e.x to hazard a selection, but the probable reason was that he was too comfortable as he was. He and his sister pulled along capitally as Damon and Pythias, as they had in fact done all their lives; both were freely outspoken to each other; and if Deborah had the pre-eminence within, the doctor was master out of doors.