Chapter VIII: Not Dead

If there be one thing under heaven for which more than another the lower order of Irish have a passion, it is for offering medical advice; and accordingly, whenever the eager crowd who had hustled and shoved their way after the “body,” as they called Mr. Drewitt, beheld him safely deposited on Doctor Sheen’s bed, they opened fire on that gentleman in a style which set at defiance the knowledge of Apothecaries’ Hall, and might have made the whole College of Surgeons stand aghast.

“Lay him down there,” growled the doctor. “Gently, gently—do you hear?—and not as if he was a sack of potatoes: and now be off, everyone of you; I don’t want you here.”

“But, Doctor dear——”

“Open an artery. Och! see if the blood’ll come. Sweet father, what’ll we do at all—at all? Musha—oh! Wirrastrue.”

“Jist touch him in the arm”—improved another—“a bit above the elbow—where Sergen Brabsen—long life till him—put the lance in me and brought me back after I died of the squinazy.”

“Could ye not put a dhrop o’ spirit down his throat, Docthor darlint?” suggested a fourth; “it might lift his heart again.”

“Do, an’ may the heavens be yer bed: we’ll dhrink ye’re health night and day, an’——”

“Come, be off!” interrupted Doctor Sheen. “I can’t do with you crowding about me, yelling enough to pull the house down.”

“If ye’d put a feather till his nose,” broke forth the first speaker with greater vehemence than ever, “I can catch one of the hens in a minit, or let me hould a bit av a lookin’ glass afore his mouth.”

“An’ fit his arm straight in place: see how it hings.”

“An’ look if the skull’s knocked in entirely, an’ pick out the broken bits afore they get down intil his brains.”

“Pick them up with the pincers, and then join them cleverly.”

“An’ sen’ for ould Peggy Magore; shure she has dhrinks made out o’ herbs that would entice a corpse to speak, if it could only be made to swally them.”

“An’ docthor, wouldn’t ye let his head down a bit?”

“An’ lift his feet on a pillow?”

“And feel if there’s a ticking in either of his heels?”

Which last speech bearing, as it did, on the idea that before death a pulse may be felt in the heel, produced such a wailing and mourning—such laments over the man who had been taken from them—such tributes to his virtues—such regrets for his untimely end—that at length Doctor Sheen fairly lost his patience, and shoving the loudest of the talkers out of the room, and ordering the rest to follow, he locked and double-locked the door, and found himself alone with his patient, Mrs. Drewitt, and his assistant.

Without, there was noise and riot and shouting and fighting: within, there was silence like the grave: without was life; within, the shadow of the angel of death.

No one in the room spoke a word while Doctor Sheen felt Mr. Drewitt’s pulse, opened his coat, waistcoat, and shirt, and placed his hand on his heart; but when at last he looked up doubtfully, Mrs. Drewitt said—

“Doctor, he shall not die?”

“Very well, ma’am,” answered the doctor, and pressed his fingers on Mr. Drewitt’s wrist once more.

Then Doctor Sheen whispered something in the assistant’s ear, to which the assistant replied:

“No, only stunned.”

“Do you think so?”

“I am sure of it,” answered the other; “haven’t I had dozens of them here just as bad?”

“But not with that,” said Doctor Sheen, still speaking in so low a tone that his words could not reach Mrs. Drewitt, and pointing as he spoke to Mr. Drewitt’s head, “but not with that.”

“And what’s that?” inquired the assistant contemptuously; “he’ll be all right again in a week;” and he took the injured arm, and began manipulating it, as though he were playing a tune on a piano.

“There you are,” he said. “Harder, sir, harder; his pulse is not in his skin; give him time, there’s no hurry; he’s coming as fast as he can. Now I’d give five shillings,” added the young man, stepping back and surveying Mr. Drewitt, “I’d give five shillings to know where he has been.”

“Where who has been?” asked Mrs. Drewitt, turning her face, which was wet with tears, towards the speaker.

“Where your husband has been, ma’am; all our anatomy won’t teach us that; it’s a good quarter of an hour since he went away, and he is only coming back again now—here he is,”—and as he said the word Mr. Drewitt opened his eyes.

With a little cry of thanksgiving his wife fell on her knees beside him. She had been afraid to say she feared before; but now the very excess of her joy proved how great had been her previous dread.

“I will be quiet,” she said, as Doctor Sheen tried to draw her from the room; “I will be quiet—you need not be afraid of me again—I won’t say a word you may trust me, indeed—indeed you may.”

“I am going to set his arm,” persisted Doctor Sheen, “and see to this cut in his head, and——”

“And there is no one so fit to stay here as I am,” she interposed eagerly: “you would wish me to remain, you would like me to be near you—would not you, Archy?”—and she looked into the scarcely conscious eyes half hidden by a weight of heavy eyelid while she waited for an answer.

Archibald Drewitt could not answer her; she had not been accustomed to illness, poor soul, or she might have known better than to expect it; but he made a vain effort to turn towards her—a faint attempt to move his uninjured arm and clasp her hand in his.

It was too much; a more ghastly pallor came over his face, the eyelids closed again, and——

“He’s dead! he’s dead!” exclaimed his wife, starting up and endeavouring to throw herself on the body, but Mr. Murphy prevented this.

“Dead, ma’am!” he said, still keeping a firm hand on her shoulder: “dead, ma’am! he’s worth a dozen dead ones yet. Now—now”—and Mr. Murphy patted her back, apparently under the delusion that she was a baby choking—“do be reasonable and just leave him to us. He’s not dead, and isn’t going to die. So far as this goes, he may live to bury you;” and without any more ceremony the young man walked Mrs. Drewitt out of the room, and sat her down in the surgery, where he left her alone, after having procured for her a well-thumbed copy of “Clarissa Harlowe,” which would, he said, “serve to divert her mind.”

“And keep yourself easy, ma’am,” he finished, “for Mr. Drewitt will be about again, in no time.”

“You should be more careful, Murphy,” remarked Doctor Sheen that same night, when he and his assistant were seated together over their respective tumblers of punch. “I did not exactly like your saying to Mrs. Drewitt that her husband might bury her. Some of the English don’t take those kind of things.”

“Well, wasn’t I right?” demanded the other; “mayn’t he bury her? isn’t he going on as well as a man could go on? and won’t he live to have sons of his own, please God, and keep Maxwell out of the estate?”

“He has been here three times this evening to ask after him,” said Doctor Sheen, reflectively.

“And did he seem sorry when he heard it was for Kincorth, and not for the Abbey, his uncle was bound?”

“No, he seemed glad.”

“Did he now?”

“And he says he did not strike the blow.”

“Who ever thought he did? He had not a stick in his hand at all.”

“His aunt did not know that, for she went on at him, and he could not edge in a word till she was tired; but then he began, and told her this, that, and the other, till he got round her completely: she’s as soft as salve, and she begged his pardon, and they are now as thick as thieves. Oh! faith,” added the Doctor, “and it’s Master Maxwell Drewitt that can wile the bird off a bush when he likes. It’s a wonderful tongue he has: to hear him sometimes, you would think butter could not melt in his mouth.”

“And to hear him at others you would know cheese would not choke him,” said Mr. Murphy, who had his own reasons for disliking Maxwell.

“Still it’s a great pity of the young fellow,” said Doctor Sheen, mixing himself another tumbler of punch, “for he ought to have had Kincorth.”

“It would have been a greater pity of other people if he had had it,” remarked Mr. Murphy; in which opinion, however, he chanced to be wrong.

No man could have done worse for other people than Archibald Drewitt, who, spite of Mr. Murphy’s hopeful predictions, lay between life and death for more than a month at Doctor Sheen’s, during which time the house was besieged with visitors and inquiries.

“You must pull him through, Sheen,” said the Earl of Popingham. “We cannot afford to lose Mr. Drewitt.”

“You need never show your face at the Hall again if he is not able to ride to the first meet this season,” chimed in Colonel Vervensoe, while Mr. Pryor, Mr. Waller, and all the Reds were, if possible, more eager in their anxiety, more impatient for good tidings, than the Blues.

“But he will get through it, won’t he, Murphy?” asked Mr. Waller one day when he had met Doctor Sheen’s assistant on the road near Eversbeg, and insisted on taking him up to the house for lunch. “There is no fear now, is there?”

“No; he is out of danger; that is, he is out of danger now, so far as we know. He will do, if he takes care of himself. His arm is the worst; we can’t make a good job of that at all. It was a beautiful case, and a splendid fracture; but it will never be a good arm again.”

“Will it hinder his hunting?” asked young Waller, who thought anything that stopped a man’s course across country the most grievous misfortune possible.

“Hinder his hunting? Is it the like of that would keep Mr. Drewitt back, do you think? If that was all, couldn’t he ride with the bridle in his teeth, like a gentleman I knew down in Tipperary? You may believe me or not, Mr. Waller, just as you like,” proceeded Mr. Murphy; “but he had neither arms nor legs, and yet he hunted as regularly as you do.”

“I’d go from here to there to see him,” was Mr. Waller’s only reply.

“And, indeed, it’s himself would make you welcome,” answered Mr. Murphy; “that is, if he’s alive; there was not a funnier fellow nor a harder drinker in the county.”

“My cousin was round seeing Mr. Drewitt the other day,” remarked Mr. Waller.

“Yes, but he did not see him,” said the assistant. “He had a long talk with Mrs. Drewitt. We’re glad of anybody that will keep her out of the sick room; and Mr. Pryor wanted to get speech with some of them.”

“Yes,” said the other, “he was going back to London, and wished to express his regret and all the rest of it. Upon my conscience, I never was so frightened in my life. He went down—Pryor, I mean—as if he had been shot. Fainted dead away.”

“He ought to take three tumblers of punch every night going to bed,” observed Mr. Murphy; “it would strengthen his nervous system.”

“He was delighted with Mrs. Drewitt—came home here in perfect raptures about her. She did not strike me as being anything remarkable.”

“Miss Susan Drewitt is a handsome woman,” answered Mr. Murphy; “but Mrs. Drewitt is more of a woman—do you understand me, sir? She has not much spirit, but she has a sweet temper. She is pretty, to my taste; and for a woman, I consider her uncommonly sensible—uncommonly,” and Mr. Murphy drained a bumper to her health, after which he suddenly recollected that Dr. Sheen would be expecting him, and rose to take his departure.

“When do you think of moving him?” asked Mr. Waller.

“In about a week’s time, if he goes on well,” said Mr. Murphy. “We are to have down a mighty easy carriage from Lord Marsden’s, and I think it won’t hurt him. It must be uncomfortable for Mrs. Drewitt staying at Dr. Sheen’s, though we do our best; and this much I’ll say for her,” added Mr. Murphy, “that an easier-pleased or an easier-served lady I would never wish to see. She makes no fuss and she gives no trouble, and, for my own part, I wish she was to live in the house for ever.”

As for Mrs. Drewitt herself, she was Mr. Murphy’s friend for life. What she would have done without him during that illness she never knew. He did not seem to know the meaning of the word despondency.

“It was a doctor’s business to cure, to be sure it was. When a doctor could not cure, send for the nurse, and a coffin, and a lawyer to make the will; but till Mrs. Drewitt saw the lawyer, at any rate, she ought not to give way.”

He went up to Kincorth for her. He did her errands; he posted her letters; he kept watch while she slept; he told her stories; he listened to her while she talked about England.

“That’s the place I’d like to go to,” he said. “What chance has a man in a place like this? a man that is a man, I mean, and has any push in him. What do you see in a place like this, but broken heads and fever, and children being born, and old men and women dying? Except, may be, an odd case of cancer, middle-aged people never die of any out-of-the-way disease. A child could prescribe for them. And as for work, ma’am, nobody in London would credit it! Doctor Sheen is the dispensary doctor, you know. Well, if we were earning ten thousand a year each out of it, there could not be more expected from us. They come in the middle of the night here, and ring—ring—ring, just as if one ought to be standing behind the door waiting to answer it, and then, ‘It’s the misthress is taken ill, and ye’re to come at wanst,’ and then we’ve to go through the rain and the snow and the wind to find the woman. ‘Sorry to have given us the thrubble, but when she sint she was very bad, entirely.’ I’d like well to go to London, I would. Perhaps I might be there before I’d die.”

“But you must remember, Mr. Murphy,” Mrs. Drewitt was wont to say, “that the streets are not paved with gold there, though I know many country people imagine they are.”

“True, ma’am; but they must be full of patients. I have always fancied that there must be some place on the face of God’s earth where, if men are willing to work hard, they may gather abundantly; but let that place be where it will, it is not Duranmore.”

All of which set Mrs. Drewitt thinking, and wondering more and more what Maxwell was to do. Would he come back to Kincorth, she marvelled? Would her entreaties avail now? After what had happened, would he listen to her? Give her the opportunity and she would try. And Maxwell gave her the opportunity by asking if he could assist her in any way when she was removing his uncle to Kincorth.

“Can I help—may I help?” he said eagerly; but Mrs. Drewitt answered—

“I am afraid to let him see you for the present. I do not wish to speak to him about you; about the election, I mean, for a little while. But I should like you to return to Kincorth. I know he will be glad, when he is better, to hear you are under the same roof with him. I can take so much on my own responsibility, Maxwell; and I do take it, and ask you most earnestly to come back to us once more.”

“I have started on my road,” he said, “and I may not retrace my steps; but I thank you all the same. Whenever he is strong enough to see me, tell me to come, and I will come to Kincorth, though not to stay there.”

“I wish there was not any Kincorth standing between us,” answered Mrs. Drewitt, very truthfully, “and that we could all live at peace together.”

“Perhaps we may, some day,” was Maxwell’s reply. He was thinking of the vow he had made to himself, of the time when he was to be rich and his uncle poor.

Would there be peace then? When the tables were turned—when he was the benefactor, could he afford to let bygones be bygones; could he then be generous enough to say, let there be peace between us at last?

That was what he was wondering while Mrs. Drewitt stood silent and looked in his face, and marvelled what made its expression change so swiftly and vary so often.

There came a day when she knew all, when she hated Maxwell more than he had ever hated his uncle; when she spurned his proffered kindnesses, when there was war waged between them, war to the death, which ended but with life.

Had anyone told Mrs. Drewitt then that she could ever learn to prefer strife to peace, she would have declared it was impossible; and yet as time went by the impossible grew possible, and the possible came to pass.

But at that early stage of her married life Mrs. Drewitt had no strong interests blinding her, no feeling in favour of this person or against that, warping her judgment and leading her astray.

She loved her husband, who owned Kincorth; she was sorry for Maxwell, who did not own it; but at the same time Mr. Drewitt, whom she loved, was master for life, while his nephew had not a penny.

Reverse the cases, and how would Mrs. Drewitt have felt? That, my reader, is what we shall find out when the tale of the years is completed—when the story of the years is told.