The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume I. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ appear to know best, my dear, how your papa is. Pray answer thai inquiry.”

      “Sir Stafford is not better,” said Sydney to the servant.

      “Who can all these people be, my dear?” said Lady Hester, with more animation of manner than she had yet exhibited. “Jekyl is a name one knows. There are Northamptonshire Jekyls, and, if I mistake not, it was a Jekyl married Lady Olivia Drossmore, was it not? Oh, what a fool I am to ask you, who never know anything of family or connection! And yet I ‘m certain I ‘ve told you over and over the importance the actual necessity of this knowledge. If you only bestowed upon Burke a tithe of the patience and time I have seen you devote to Lyell, you ‘d not commit the shocking mistake you fell into t’ other day of discussing the Duchess of Dartley’s character with Lord Brandford, from whom she was divorced. Now you ‘d never offend quartz and sandstone by miscalling their affinities. But here comes the doctor.”

      If Dr. Grounsell had been intended by nature to outrage all ultra-refined notions regarding personal appearance, he could not possibly have been more cunningly fashioned. Somewhat below the middle size, and squarely formed, his legs did not occupy more than a third of his height; his head was preternaturally large, and seemed even larger from a crop of curly yellowish hair, whose flaring ochre only rescued it from the imputation of being a wig. His hands and feet were enormous, requiring a muscular effort to move them that made all his gestures grotesque and uncouth. In addition to these native graces, his clothes were always made much too large for him, from his avowed dislike to the over-tightening and squeezing of modern fashion.

      As his whole life had been passed in the superintendence of a great military hospital in the East, wherein all his conversations with his brethren were maintained in technicalities, he had never converted the professional jargon into a popular currency, but used the terms of art upon all occasions, regardless of the inability of the unmedical world to understand him.

      “Well, sir, what is your report to-day?” said Lady Onslow, assuming her very stateliest of manners.

      “Better, and worse, madam. The arthritis relieved, the cardiac symptoms more imminent.’

      “Please to bear in mind, sir, that I have not studied at Apothecaries’ Hall.”

      “Nor I, madam; but at Edinburgh and Aberdeen, in the faculties of medicine and surgery,” said Grounsell, drawing down his waistcoat, and arranging himself in what he considered an order of battle.

      “Is papa better, doctor?” said Sydney, mildly.

      “The articular affection is certainly alleviated, but there is mischief here,” said Grounsell, placing his hand over his heart; “fibrous tissues, my dear Miss Onslow, fibrous tissues are ticklish affairs.”

      “Is this advice to be construed in a moral rather than a medical sense?” said Lady Onslow, with a malicious smile.

      “Either or both,” replied the doctor. “The heart will always be highly susceptible of nervous influence.”

      “But papa” broke in Sydney, eagerly.

      “Is suffering under metastasis migratory gout, it may be termed changing from articular to large organic structures.”

      “And, of course, you are giving him the old poisons that were in use fifty years ago?”

      “What do you mean, madam?” said Grounsell, sternly.

      “That shocking thing that drives people mad colocynth, or colchicum, or something like that. You know what I mean?”

      “Happily for me, madam, I can guess it.”

      “And are you still as obstinate as ever about the globules?”

      “The homoeopathic humbug?”

      “If you are polite enough so to designate what I put the most implicit trust in. But I warn you, sir, I mean to exert my just and rightful influence with Sir Stafford; and in case a very great change does not appear to-morrow, I shall insist upon his trying the aconite.”

      “If you do, madam, the insurance offices shall hear of it!” said Grounsell, with a sternness that made the threat most significant.

      “I ‘ll send for that man from Heidelberg at once, Sydney,” said Lady Hester, as, pale with passion, she seated herself at her writing-table.

      “Take care what you do, madam,” said Grounsell, approaching where she sat, and speaking in a low and solemn voice. “Let not any feeling of displeasure with me induce you to an act of rashness or imprudence. My old friend’s state is critical; it may at any moment become dangerous. I am convinced that what I am doing offers the most reasonable hope of serving him. Take care lest you weaken his confidence in me, when he may not be prepared to repose it in another.”

      “Here, Sydney, you write German; and it is possible he may not read French. This is his name, I got it in Paris Graeffnell. Tell him to come at once in fact, let Francois take a carriage for him.”

      Sydney Onslow looked at her mother and then at the doctor. At the latter her glance was almost imploring, but he never noticed it, turning abruptly toward the window without uttering a word.

      “Can you consult with him, doctor?” asked Sydney, timidly.

      “Of course not; he ‘s a mountebank.”

      “Write, as I bade you, Miss Onslow,” said Lady Hester. “Dr. Graeffnell is one of the first men in Germany. Lady Heskisson sent for him when the Earl fell ill at Wiesbaden.”

      “And the Countess was a widow in four days after. Don’t forget the denouement of the story, madam.”

      Sydney dropped the pen, and her hands fell powerless to her side. There was something in the sternness of the doctor that seemed to awe even Lady Onslow, for she made no reply; while Grounsell, seeing his advantage, left the room at once, without further parley.

      Our readers will probably forgive us if we follow his example, and not remain to listen to the eloquent monologue in which Lady Onslow lamented her sad condition in life. Not only did she bewail her destiny, but, like one of those classic personages the Greek Chorus presents us to, she proceeded to speculate upon every possible mischance futurity might have in store for her, ingeniously inventing “situations,” and devising “predicaments” that nothing less gifted than a self-tormenting imagination can conceive. Leaving her to all the pleasure such a pastime can give, we shall quit the house, and, although a cold, raw evening is closing in, wander out into the street.

      CHAPTER V. THE PATIENT

      ALONG the dark and narrow street, over which the coming night cast a dreary shadow, a single lamp was seen to shine at the door of Ludwig Kraus, the apothecary; a beacon, it is but fair to add, lighted less with the hope of attracting custom than in obedience to the requirements of the law, for Herr Kraus was a “state” official, and bound to conform to the dictates of the government. His shop was a small triangular space, in which there was barely room for the learned dispenser and a single client at the same moment, thus giving to all his interviews the secrecy of the confessional itself. Jars, phials, flasks, and drawers rose on every side, not inscribed with the vulgar nomenclature of modern physic, but bearing the enigmatical marks and hieroglyphics known to Galen and Paracelsus. Arabic letters, dragons, strange monsters, and zodiacal signs met the eye everywhere, and did not consort ill with the spare form and high bald head of the proprietor, whose quaint-figured dressing-gown and black velvet cap gave him a kind of resemblance to an СКАЧАТЬ