[At this point Wilkie Collins' health prevented his finishing the novel.]
CHAPTER XLIX
THE NURSE IS SENT AWAY
"YOU have repented and changed your mind, Vimpany?" said Lord Harry.
"I repented?" the doctor repeated, with a laugh. "You think me capable of that, do you?"
"The man is growing stronger and better every day. You are going to make him recover, after all. I was afraid"—he corrected himself—"I thought"—the word was the truer—"that you were going to poison him."
"You thought I was going—we were going, my lord—to commit a stupid and a useless crime. And, with our clever nurse present, all the time watching with the suspicions of a cat, and noting every change in the symptoms? No—I confess his case has puzzled me because I did not anticipate this favourable change. Well—it is all for the best. Fanny sees him grow stronger every day—whatever happens she can testify to the care with which the man has been treated. So far she thought she would have us in her power, and we have her."
"You are mighty clever, Vimpany; but sometimes you are too clever for me, and, perhaps, too clever for yourself."
"Let me make myself clearer"—conscious of the nurse's suspicions, he leaned forward and whispered: "Fanny must go. Now is the time. The man is recovering. The man must go: the next patient will be your lordship himself. Now do you understand?"
"Partly."
"Enough. If I am to act it is sufficient for you to understand step by step. Our suspicious nurse is to go. That is the next step. Leave me to act."
Lord Harry walked away. He left the thing to the doctor. It hardly seemed to concern him. A dying man; a conspiracy; a fraud:—yet the guilty knowledge of all this gave him small uneasiness. He carried with him his wife's last note: "May I hope to find on my return the man whom I have trusted and honoured?" His conscience, callous as regards the doctor's scheme, filled him with remorse whenever—which was fifty times a day—he took this little rag of a note from his pocket-book and read it again. Yes: she would always find the man, on her return—the man whom she had trusted and honoured—the latter clause he passed over—it would be, of course the same man: whether she would still be able to trust and honour him—that question he did not put to himself. After all, the doctor was acting—not he, himself.
And he remembered Hugh Mountjoy. Iris would be with him—the man whose affection was only brought out in the stronger light by his respect, his devotion, and his delicacy. She would be in his society: she would understand the true meaning of this respect and delicacy: she would appreciate the depth of his devotion: she would contrast Hugh, the man she might have married, with himself, the man she did marry.
And the house was wretched without her; and he hated the sight of the doctor—desperate and reckless.
He resolved to write to Iris: he sat down and poured out his heart, but not his conscience, to her.
"As for our separation," he said, "I, and only I, am to blame. It is my own abominable conduct that has caused it. Give me your pardon, dearest Iris. If I have made it impossible for you to live with me, it is also impossible for me to live without you. So am I punished. The house is dull and lonely; the hours crawl, I know not how to kill the time; my life is a misery and a burden because you are not with me. Yet I have no right to complain; I ought to rejoice in thinking that you are happy in being relieved of my presence. My dear, I do not ask you to come at present"—he remembered, indeed, that her arrival at this juncture might be seriously awkward—"I cannot ask you to come back yet, but let me have a little hope—let me feel that in the sweetness of your nature you will believe in my repentance, and let me look forward to a speedy reunion in the future."
When he had written this letter, which he would have done better to keep in his own hands for awhile, he directed it in a feigned hand to Lady Harry Norland, care of Hugh Mountjoy, at the latter's London hotel. Mountjoy would not know Iris's correspondent, and would certainly forward the letter. He calculated—with the knowledge of her affectionate and impulsive nature—that Iris would meet him half-way, and would return whenever he should be able to call her back. He did not calculate, as will be seen, on the step which she actually took.
The letter despatched, he came back to the cottage happier—he would get his wife again. He looked in at the sick-room. The patient was sitting up, chatting pleasantly; it was the best day he had known; the doctor was sitting in a chair placed beside the bed, and the nurse stood quiet, self-composed, but none the less watchful and suspicious.
"You are going on so well, my man," Doctor Vimpany was saying, "That we shall have you out and about again in a day or two. Not quite yet, though—not quite yet," he pulled out his stethoscope and made an examination with an immense show of professional interest. "My treatment has succeeded, you see"—he made a note or two in his pocket-book—"has succeeded," he repeated. "They will have to acknowledge that."
"Gracious sir, I am grateful. I have given a great deal too much trouble."
"A medical case can never give too much trouble—that is impossible. Remember, Oxbye, it is Science which watches at your bedside. You are not Oxbye; you are a case; it is not a man, it is a piece of machinery that is out of order. Science watches: she sees you through and through. Though you are made of solid flesh and bones, and clothed, to Science you are transparent. Her business is not only to read your symptoms, but to set the machinery right again."
The Dane, overwhelmed, could only renew his thanks.
"Can he stand, do you think, nurse?" the doctor went on. "Let us try—not to walk about much to-day, but to get out of bed, if only to prove to himself that he is so much better; to make him understand that he is really nearly well. Come, nurse, let us give him a hand."
In the most paternal manner possible the doctor assisted his patient, weak, after so long a confinement to his bed, to get out of bed, and supported him while he walked to the open window, and looked out into the garden. "There," he said, "that is enough. Not too much at first. To-morrow he will have to get up by himself. Well, Fanny, you agree at last, I suppose, that I have brought this poor man round? At last, eh?"
His look and his words showed what he meant. "You thought that some devilry was intended." That was what the look meant. "You proposed to nurse this man in order to watch for and to discover this devilry. Very well, what have you got to say?"