Master of His Fate Part 1

Master of His Fate.

by J. Mclaren Cobban.

To Z. Mennell, Esq.

My dear Mennell,

It has been my fortune to see something of the practice of the art of healing under widely different conditions, and I know none who better represents the most humane and most exacting of all professions than yourself. The good doctor of this story--the born surgeon and healer, the ever young and alert, the self-forgetful, the faithful friend, gifted with "that exquisite charity which can forgive all things"--is studied from you.

It is one of the greatest pleasures of my life to inscribe your name on this dedicatory page, and to subscribe myself,

Your sincere friend and grateful patient,

J. Maclaren Cobban.

London, November 1889.

Chapter I.

Julius Courtney.

The Hyacinth Club has the reputation of selecting its members from among the freshest and most active spirits in literature, science, and art.

That is in a sense true, but activity in one or another of those fields is not a condition of membership; for, just as the listening Boswell was the necessary complement of the talking Johnson, so in the Hyacinth Club there is an indispensable contingent of pa.s.sive members who find their liveliest satisfaction in hearing and looking on, rather than in speaking and doing. Something of the home principle of male and female is necessary for the completeness even of a club.

The Hyacinth Club-house looks upon Piccadilly and the Green Park. The favourite place of concourse of its members is the magnificent smoking-room on the first floor, the bow-windows of which command a view up and down the fashionable thoroughfare, and over the trees and the undulating sward of the Park to the gates of Buckingham Palace. On a Monday afternoon in the beginning of May, the bow-windows were open, and several men sat in leather lounges (while one leaned against a window-sash), luxuriously smoking, and noting the warm, palpitating life of the world without. A storm which had been silently and doubtfully glooming and gathering the night before had burst and poured in the morning, and it was such a spring afternoon as thrills the heart with new life and suffuses the soul with expectation--such an afternoon as makes all women appear beautiful and all men handsome. The south-west wind blew soft and balmy, and all nature rejoiced as the bride in the presence of the bridegroom. The trees in the Park were full of sap, and their l.u.s.ty buds were eagerly opening to the air and the light. The robin sang with a note almost as rich and sensuous as that of the thrush; and the shrill and restless sparrows chirped and chattered about the houses and among the horses' feet, and were as full of the joy of life as the men and women who thronged the pavements or reclined in their carriages in the sumptuous ease of wealth and beauty.

Of the men who languidly gazed upon the gay and splendid scene from the windows of the Club, none seemed so interested as the man who leaned against the window-frame. He appeared more than interested--absorbed, indeed--in the world without, and he looked bright and handsome enough, and charged enough with buoyant health, to be the ideal bridegroom of Nature in her springtide.

He was a dark man, tall and well built, with clear brown eyes. His black hair (which was not cropped short, as is the fashion) had a l.u.s.trous softness, and at the same time an elastic bushiness, which nothing but the finest-tempered health can give; and his complexion, though tanned by exposure, had yet much of the smoothness of youth, save where the razor had pa.s.sed upon his beard. Thus seen, a little way off, he appeared a young man in his rosy twenties; on closer view and acquaintance, however, that superficial impression was contradicted by the set expression of his mouth and the calm observation and understanding of his eye, which spoke of ripe experience rather than of green hope. He bore a very good English name--Courtney; and he was believed to be rich. There was no member of whom the Hyacinth Club was prouder than of him: though he had done nothing, it was commonly believed he could do anything he chose. No other was listened to with such attention, and there was nothing on which he could not throw a fresh and fascinating light. He was a constant spring of surprise and interest. While others were striving after income and reputation, he calmly and modestly, without obtrusion or upbraiding, held on his own way, with unsurpa.s.sable curiosity, to the discovery of all which life might have to reveal. It was this, perhaps, as much as the charm of his manner and conversation, that made him so universal a favourite; for how could envy or malice touch a man who competed at no point with his fellows?

His immediate neighbours, as he thus stood by the window, were a pair of journalists, several scientific men, and an artist.

"Have you seen any of the picture-shows, Julius?" asked the painter, Kew.

Courtney slowly abstracted his gaze from without, and turned on his shoulder with the lazy, languid grace of a cat.

"No," said he, in a half-absent tone; "I have just come up, and I've not thought of looking into picture-galleries yet."

"Been in the country?" asked Kew.

"Yes, I've been in the country," said Courtney, still as if his attention was elsewhere.

"It must be looking lovely," said Kew.

"It is--exquisite!" said Courtney, waking up at length to a full glow of interest. "That's why I don't want to go and stare at pictures. In the spring, to see the fresh, virginal, delicious green of a bush against an old dry brick wall, gives a keener pleasure than the best picture that ever was painted."

"I thought," said Kew, "you had a taste for Art; I thought you enjoyed it."

"So I do, my dear fellow, but not now,--not at this particular present.

When I feel the warm sun on my back and breathe the soft air, I want no more; they are more than Art can give--they are Nature, and, of course, it goes without saying that Art can never compete with Nature in creating human pleasure. I mean no disparagement of your work, Kew, or any artist's work; but I can't endure Art except in winter, when everything (almost) must be artificial to be endurable. A winter may come in one's life--I wonder if it will?--when one would rather look at the picture of a woman than at the woman herself. Meantime I no more need pictures than I need fires; I warm both hands and heart at the fire of life."

"Ah!" said Kew, with a wistful lack of comprehension.

"That's why I believe," said Courtney, with a sudden turn of reflection, "there is in warm countries no Art of our small domestic kind."

"Just so," said Kew; while Dingley Dell, the Art critic, made a note of Courtney's words.

"Look here!" exclaimed Dr. Embro, an old scientific man of Scottish extraction, who, in impatience with such transcendental talk, had taken up 'The St. James's Gazette.' "What do you make of this queer case at the Hotel-Dieu in Paris? I see it's taken from 'The Daily Telegraph;'"

and he began to read it.

"Oh," said Kew, "we all read that this morning."

"Dr. Embro," said Courtney, again looking idly out of window, "is like a French journal: full of the news of the day before yesterday."

"Have you read it yourself, Julius?" asked Embro, amid the laughter of his neighbours.

"No," said Julius carelessly; "and if it's a hospital case I don't want to read it."

"What!" said Embro, with heavy irony. "You say that? You, a pupil of the great Dubois and the greater Charbon! But here comes a greater than Charbon--the celebrated Dr. Lefevre himself. Come now, Lefevre, you tell us what you think of this Paris hospital case."

"Presently, Embro," said Lefevre, who had just perceived his friend Courtney. "Ha, Julius!" said he, crossing to him and taking his hand; "you're looking uncommonly well."

"Yes," said Julius, "I am well."

"And where have you been all this while?" asked the doctor.

"Oh," said Julius, turning his gaze again out of window, "I have been rambling everywhere, between Dan and Beersheba."

"And all is vanity, eh?" said the doctor.

"Well," said Julius, looking at him, "that depends--that very much depends. But can there be any question of vanity or vexation in this sweet, glorious sunshine?" and he stretched out his hands as if he burgeoned forth to welcome it.

"Perhaps not," said Lefevre. "Come and sit down and let us talk."

They were retiring from the window when Embro's voice again sounded at Lefevre's elbow--"Come now, Lefevre; what's the meaning of that Paris case?"

"What Paris case?"

Embro answered by handing him the paper. He took it, and read as follows:--

"About a month ago a strange case of complete mental collapse was received into the Hotel-Dieu. A fresh healthy girl, of the working cla.s.s, about twenty years of age, and comfortably dressed, presented herself at a police-station near the Odeon and asked for shelter. As she did not appear to be in full possession of her mental faculties, she was sent to the Hotel-Dieu, where she remained in a semi-comatose condition. Her memory did not go farther back than the hour of her application at the police-station. She was entirely ignorant of her previous history, and had even forgotten her name. The minds of the medical staff of the Hotel-Dieu were very much exercised with her condition; but it was not till about a week ago that they succeeded in restoring to any extent her mental consciousness and her memory. She then remembered the events immediately preceding her application to the police. It had come on to rain, she said, and she was hurrying along to escape from it, when a gentleman in a cloak came to her side and politely offered to give her the shelter of his umbrella.

She accepted; the gentleman seemed old and ill. He asked her to take his arm. She did so, and very soon she felt as if her strength had gone from her; a cold shiver crept over her; she trembled and tottered; but with all that she did not find her sensations disagreeable exactly or alarming; so little so, indeed, that she never thought of letting go the gentleman's arm. Her head buzzed, and a kind of darkness came over her. Then all seemed to clear, and she found herself alone near the police-station, remembering nothing. Being asked to further describe the gentleman, she said he was tall and dark, with a pleasant voice and wonderful eyes, that made you feel you must do whatever he wished. The police have made inquiries, but after such a lapse of time it is not surprising that no trace of him can be found."

"Well?" asked Embro, when Lefevre had raised his eyes from the paper.