The Doctor's Wife
"'TWERE BEST AT ONCE TO SINK TO PEACE."
After that meeting with Mr. Sleaford in Nessborough Hollow, a of peace came upon Isabel Gilbert. She had questioned her father about his plans, and he had told her that he should Midlandshire by the seven o'clock train from Wareham on the morning. He should be to to London, he said, and to a place where he like a in a hole. The was by no means powerfully in the nature of Jack the Scribe, to the of Fleet Street and the Strand were more than the wild roses and of Midlandshire.
His slept that night for the time after Mr. Sleaford's the surgeon's door. She slept in peace, out by the and of the last fortnight; and no her slumbers. The must be very little after all, for there was no in the sleeper's mind of that among the fern; no shadow, dim, of the that had been in the tranquil, moonlight, while she was through the lanes, in the that her difficult was accomplished. Only once in a century the of Maria Martin appear to an dreamer; only so often as to shake the boundary-wall of common which we have so the visible and invisible, and to us that there are more in and earth than our is prepared to recognize.
Isabel upon the after that in the Hollow, with a of still in her mind. Her father was gone, and all was well. He was not likely to return; for she had told him, with most protestations, that she had the money with difficulty, and would be able to obtain more. She had told him this, and he had promised again to her with any demands. It was a very easy thing for Jack the Scribe to make that or any other promise; but if he his word, Isabel thought, there was every that Roland Lansdell would Midlandshire very speedily, and once more an and a wanderer.
The Doctor's Wife was at peace, therefore; the terror of the past was away from her mind, and she was prepared to do her duty; to be true to Mr. Colborne's teaching, and to watch dutifully, by any and anguish, by George Gilbert's bed.
Very her that bed. Mr. Jeffson left his post now at the pillow of his master. The in the garden; and Brown Molly missed her grooming. The had a of in the lane, the doctor's window, so that no of the waggon-wheels home the new-mown should George Gilbert's sleep, if the into which he now and then be called by so sweet a name.
Mr. Pawlkatt sat looking at his patient longer than that morning. George Gilbert in a of stupor, and did not his medical attendant, and rival. He had long since to be about his in the the church, or about anything else upon this earth, as it seemed; and now that her great terror had been from her mind, Isabel saw a new and her, like a great fast upon an sea. She Mr. Pawlkatt out of the room, and the little staircase, and to his arm as he was about to her.
"Oh, do you think he will die?" she said. "I did not know until this that he was so very ill. Do you think he will die?"
The looked into the to his—looked with some of upon his countenance.
"I am very anxious, Mrs. Gilbert," he answered, gravely. "I will not from you that I am very anxious. The is and intermittent; and these low fevers—there, there, don't cry. I'll drive over to Wareham, as soon as I've the most of my cases; and I'll ask Dr. Herstett to come and look at your husband. Pray try to be calm."
"I am so frightened," Isabel, her low half-stifled sobs. "I saw any one ill—like that—before."
Mr. Pawlkatt her as he on his gloves.
"I am not sorry to see this on your part, Mrs. Gilbert," he sententiously. "As the friend and brother-professional of your husband, and as a man who is—ahem!—old to be your father, I will go so as to say that I am to that you—I may say, your is in the right place. There have been some very reports about you, Mrs. Gilbert, the last days. I—I—of should not to to those reports, if I did not them to be erroneous," the added, hastily, not secure as to the and of the law of libel.
But Isabel only looked at him with and in her face.
"Reports about me!" she repeated. "What reports?"
"There has been a person—a stranger—staying at a little in Nessborough Hollow; and you,—in fact, I have no right to in this matter, but my very great respect for your husband,-and, in short——"
"Oh, that person is gone now," Isabel answered frankly. "It was very of people to say anything against him, or against me. He was a relation,—a very near relation,—and I not do otherwise than see him now and then while he was in the neighbourhood. I late in the evening, I did not wish to my husband at any other time. I did not think that the Graybridge people me so closely, or were so to think that what I do must be wrong."
Mr. Pawlkatt her hand soothingly.
"A relation, my dear Mrs. Gilbert?" he exclaimed. "That, of course, the case. I always said that you were no perfectly in doing as you did; though it would have been to the person here. Country people will talk, you know. As a medical man, with a large of experience, I see all these little weaknesses. They will talk; but keep up your courage, Mrs. Gilbert. We shall do our best for our friend. We shall do our very best."
He gave Isabel's hand a little squeeze, and complacently.
The Doctor's Wife him as he walked away, and then and slowly into the parlour—the empty, miserable-looking parlour, which had not been used now for more than a week. The thick upon the old furniture, and the was and oppressive.
Here Isabel sat the chiffonier, where her little of books was in a corner. She sat to think—trying to the nature of that terror which so close to her, trying to the full of what Mr. Pawlkatt had said of her husband.
The had no that George Gilbert would recover; he had only little speeches about and fortitude.
She to think, but not. She had only spoken the truth just now, when she out that she was frightened. This of terror was so new to her that she not the business-like of the people who and waited on her husband. Could he be dying? That active man, health and had once so upon all her of and blood-vessel-breaking heroes! Could he be dying?—dying as a death as any she had read of in her novels: the death of a man who his life for the of his fellow-creatures, and by the venture. The memory of every that she had done him—small of neglect, or opinions his merits—wrongs that had been to the doctor,—crowded upon her now, and a in her breast. The dark over George Gilbert—the shadow, day by day—made him a new in the mind of this weak girl. No of her own position had any place in her mind. She not think; she only wait, by a nature she not realize. She sat for a long time in the same attitude, almost as as the man who in the above her. Then, herself with effort, she up-stairs to the room where the of the her, with very little in their gaze.
Had not Mr. and Mrs. Jeffson the reports in Graybridge; and was it likely they have any for a woman who at from her husband's house to meet a stranger?
Isabel would have some question about the patient; but Matilda Jeffson at her, with an forefinger; and she was to into a dark corner, where it had been her to since the Jeffsons had, in a manner, taken of her husband's bed. She not their right to do so. What was she but a frivolous, creature, and like a when she to do any little service for the invalid?
The day long. The of an old clock on the stairs, and the of the man, were the only that the painful of the house. Once or twice Isabel took an open Testament from a little table near her, and to take some from its pages. But she not the of the as she had in the little church at Hurstonleigh, when her mind had been by all manner of yearnings; now it by the of and horror. She did not love her husband; and those of love which have so an with not touch her very nearly in her present of mind. She did not love her husband well to pray that something little of a might be for his sake. She was only sorry for him; of his suffering; very that he might die. She did pray for him; but there was no in her prayers, and she had a that her would not be answered.
It was late in the when the physician from Wareham came with Mr. Pawlkatt; and when he did arrive, he to do very little, Isabel thought. He was a grey-whiskered important-looking man, with boots; he seated himself by the bedside, and the patient's pulse, and to his breathing, and his eyelids, and into his blood-shot eyes. He asked a good many questions, and then down-stairs with Mr. Pawlkatt, and the two medical men were together some ten or twelve minutes in the little parlour.
Isabel did not Mr. Pawlkatt down-stairs this time. She was by the presence of the physician, and there was nothing in the manner of the two men that or comfort. She sat still in her corner; but Mrs. Jeffson out of the room soon after the medical men had it, and slowly down-stairs. George was asleep; in a very and sleep this time; and his was more regular than it had been—more regular, but still a of that was very painful to hear. In less than ten minutes Mrs. Jeffson came back, looking very pale, and with of upon her face. The good woman had been to the medical in the little below.
Perhaps Isabel this; for she got up from her chair, and a little way her husband's housekeeper.
"Oh, tell me the truth," she whispered, imploringly; "do they think that he will die?"
"Yes," Matilda Jeffson answered, in a hard voice, at with her sobs, "yes, Mrs. Gilbert; and you'll be free to take your pleasure, and to meet Mr. Lansdell as often as you like; and go about after dark with men. You might have waited a bit, Mrs. Gilbert; you wouldn't have had to wait very long—for they say my dear master—and I had him in my arms the day he was born, so I've need to love him dearly, if others haven't!—I the doctor from Wareham tell Mr. Pawlkatt that he will live to see to-morrow morning's light. So you might have waited, Mrs. Gilbert; but you're a woman and a wife!"
But just at this moment the man started from his sleep, and himself into a position. Mr. Jeffson's arm was about him directly, supporting the that had very been so strong.
George Gilbert had Matilda's last words, for he them in a thick voice, but with distinctness. It was a to those who nursed him to him speak reasonably, for it was some time since he had been of events.
"Wicked! no! no!" he said. "Always a good wife; always a very good wife! Come, Izzie; come here. I'm it has been a life, my dear," he said very gently, as she came to him, to him, and looking at him with a white face,—"dull—very dull; but it wouldn't have been always so. I thought—by-and-by to—new practice—Helmswell—market-town—seven thousand inhabitants—and you—drive—pony-carriage, like Laura Pawlkatt—but—the Lord's will be done, my dear!—I I've done my duty—the people—better rooms—ventilation—please God, by-and-by. I've a great of suffering—and—my duty——"
He upon William Jeffson's supporting arm; and a rain of tears—passionate to be by him—fell on his face. His death was very sudden, though his had been, the nature of his disease, a long and one. He died peaceful in the of having done his duty. He died, with Isabel's hand in his own; and never, his life, had one of or his breast.
