Shadows of Flames Part 16

"A nerve-specialist, I should think, madam."

Sophy continued to look at him curiously. At last she said:

"You know, Gaynor, if Mr. Chesney were to find out that you had proposed this it would probably cost you your place!"

"That must be as it may be, madam."

"You are greatly attached to Mr. Chesney, are you not?"

"I have served Mr. Chesney for ten years, madam."

Gaynor's face was as impa.s.sive as ever. He was evidently not an emotional character. Sophy looked down again at her knitted fingers; then she said:

"Have you thought of any especial doctor?"

"Doctor Algernon Carfew is considered an excellent nerve-specialist, madam. I believe he studied in the States with Doctor Weir Mitch.e.l.l."

So Gaynor had thought very carefully and seriously on this subject, long before the present moment!

Sophy gazed at him keenly again. What important knowledge lay locked in that narrow chest, of which the key would not be given her, she felt sure! And an unwilling conviction seized her: there must be something fundamentally fine in Cecil to make a servant so loyal to him.

She leaned back wearily again on the cushions.

"I must think this over very carefully, Gaynor. It will be a very serious matter to violate Mr. Chesney's wishes in this way."

"Yes, madam."

"How long do you think that we can safely wait before calling in a physician?"

She coupled herself and Gaynor together unconsciously in this "we,"

because there was no one else in all England that she felt she could consult with on this subject.

"There is no immediate danger, madam. I have given Mr. Chesney a hypodermic of nitro-glycerine. Within the next two or three hours will be time enough, I should say."

Somehow this word "hypodermic" frightened Sophy. She started erect again, her hand grasping the back of the couch as before.

"Is that the strong medicine that you always give him? Why did you give it to him that way? Can't he swallow?"

"He is quite unconscious, madam. Nitro-glycerine is a powerful heart-tonic. The heart action was very bad. But it is better now, madam."

These "madams" of the valet were beginning to fret Sophy cruelly. They were like the _toc-toc_ of a sort of irregular metronome, beating out of time to the jangled clamour of her thoughts. They seemed almost like a respectful mockery of her hesitation. But she only hesitated because of the violent hatred with which Chesney always mentioned physicians of any kind. He had said not once, but on many different occasions, words of this description:

"By G.o.d! The unpardonable sin against _me_ would be the foisting on me one of those d.a.m.ned fakirs when I was helpless and couldn't throttle him. The mother that bore me couldn't hand me over to a medical ghoul with impunity. So remember--no doctors! I die or I live--but no doctors!"

Then all at once her mind seemed to open like a book that has been closed, and opens of itself at a certain page. On this page of her suddenly opened mind Sophy read as in a neat, short sentence: "This man thinks it very peculiar that you do not ask to see your husband."

She got to her feet, drawing the folds of her dressing-gown about her.

"I wish to see Mr. Chesney," she said, in measured, stilted tones.

"Very good, madam."

He held the door open for her to pa.s.s through, then closed it noiselessly, and followed her with soundless footsteps along the corridor.

The shutters of Chesney's room were closed, but the curtains were not drawn. A night-light burnt behind a screen. Sophy went to the foot of the bed and stood looking down on her husband. In the moderate light she saw his face, bluish and dusky against the white pillow. He was breathing harshly but regularly. His lips--those lips which she had last seen framing a deadly insult--were parted, and seemed as though pasted against his teeth.

She commanded herself, and moving round to the side of the bed, leaned over and put her hand on his forehead. It was dry, like rough paper, and very hot.

What she felt as she bent over him she could not tell. Perhaps more than anything that though he was so huge and fierce a man, he had now only herself and a valet to help him in his helplessness.

She stood thus a moment, then left the room, beckoning Gaynor to follow her. When they were outside, she said:

"What is this Doctor Carfew's address?"

He gave it to her.

She pondered a moment.

"Very well," she then said. "I shall dress and go to see him. Would you like me to get a nurse to a.s.sist you?"

"If I might venture, madam," said the man discreetly, "it would be better perhaps to hear first what Doctor Carfew says. He may wish a nurse of his own."

"Yes. That is true. Tell Parkson to call me a cab in half an hour."

She put on a dark-blue linen frock and a little toque of black straw.

"Give me my long grey veil, Tilda," she said. As the girl was winding it about her hat, she asked:

"Haven't you a friend who's a Catholic, Tilda?"

"Yes, m'm--Maria Tonks. A very good girl, though a Papist, m'm."

"And what did you say was the name of the priest who converted her?"

"Father Raphael of the Poor, m'm. But he didn't convert her exactly, m'm, if I may say so. She just took such a fancy to 'im, his bein' so kind to her w'en in distress, m'm--as she went and became a Catholic."

"I see. He is very good to the poor, isn't he?"

"So they say, m'm. He gets his name from that. Anybody 'as only to be unfortunate to find welcome with him--so Maria says."

"Yes.... Yes...." said Sophy absently. Then added: "Where does he live?"

Tilda mentioned the address.

Sophy thanked her mechanically and went out.