Charlotte's Inheritance, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [dar e dil novel online reading .TXT] 📗

cultivator of these severe ones, had been a hard and honest worker during the later reputable portion of his life. His friendships of the previous portion had been the friendships of the railway-carriage and the smoking room, the _café_ and the gaming-table. He could count upon his fingers the people to whom he could apply for counsel in this crisis of his life. There was George Sheldon, a man for whom he entertained a most profound contempt; Captain Paget, a man who might or might not be able to give him good advice, but who would inevitably sacrifice Charlotte Halliday's welfare to self-interest, if self-interest could be served by the recommendation of an incompetent adviser.

"He would send me to some idiot of the Doddleson class, if he thought he could get a guinea or a dinner by the recommendation," Valentine said to himself, and decided that to Horatio Paget he would not apply. There were his employers, the editors and proprietors of the magazines for which he worked; all busy over-burdened workers in the great mill, spending the sunny hours of their lives between a pile of unanswered letters and a waste-paper basket; men who would tell him to look in the Post-office Directory, without lifting their eyes from the paper over which their restless pens were speeding.

No. Amongst these was not the counsellor whom Valentine Hawkehurst needed in this dire hour of difficulty.

"There are some very good fellows among the Ragamuffins," he said to himself, as he thought of the only literary and artistic club of which he was a member; "fellows who stuck by me when I was down in the world, and who would do anything to serve me now they know me for an honest worker. But, unfortunately, farce writers and burlesque writers, and young meerschaum-smoking painters, are not the sort of men to give good advice: I want the advice of a medical man."

Mr. Hawkehurst almost bounded from his seat as he said this. The advice of a medical man? Yes; and was there not a medical man among the Ragamuffins? and something more than a medical man? That very doctor, who of all other men upon this earth could best give him counsel--the doctor who had stood by the deathbed of Charlotte Halliday's father.

He remembered the conversation that had occurred at Bayswater, on the evening of Christmas day, upon this very subject. He remembered how from the talk about ghosts they had drifted somehow into talking of Tom Halliday; whereupon Mrs. Sheldon had been melted to tears, and had gone on to praise Philip Sheldon's conduct to his dying friend, and to speak of Mr. Burkham, the strange doctor, called in too late to save, or, it might have been, incapable to save.

"Sheldon seems to have a genius for calling in incapable doctors," he thought bitterly.

Incapable as Mr. Burkham might have been for the exigencies of this particular case, he would at least be able to inform Valentine who among the medical celebrities of London would be best adapted to advise in such an illness as Charlotte Halliday's.

"And if, as Diana has sometimes suggested, there is any hereditary disease, this Burkham may be able to throw some light upon the nature of it," thought Valentine.

He went straight from the railway terminus to the quiet tavern upon the first floor of which the Ragamuffins had their place of rendezvous. It was not an hour for the encounter of many Ragamuffins. A meek-looking young man, of clerical aspect, who had adapted a Palais Royal farce, and had awoke in the morning to find himself famous, and eligible for admission amongst the Ragamuffins, was sipping his sherry and soda-water while he skimmed the morning papers. Him Mr. Hawkehurst saluted with an absent nod, and went in search of the steward of the club, from whom he obtained Mr. Burkham's address, with some little trouble in the way of hunting through old and obscure documents.

It was the old address; the old dingy, comfortable, muffin-bell-haunted street in which Mr. Burkham had lived ten years before, when he was summoned to attend the sick Yorkshire farmer.

Mr. Burkham's career had not been brightened by the sunshine of prosperity. He had managed to live somehow, and to find food and raiment for his young wife, who, when she considered the lilies of the field, may have envied their shining robes of pure whiteness, so dingy and dark was her own apparel. When children came, the young surgeon contrived to find food and raiment for them also, but not without daily and hourly struggles with that grim wolf who haunts the thresholds of so many dwellings, and will not be thrust from the door. Sometimes a little glimmering ray of light illumined Mr. Burkham's pathway, and he was humbly grateful to Providence for the brief glimpse of sunshine. But for a meek fair-faced man, with a nervous desire to do well, a very poor opinion of his own merits, and a diffident, not to say depressed manner, the world is apt to be a hard battle-ground.

Mr. Burkham sometimes found himself well-nigh beaten in the cruel strife; and at such times, in the dead silence of the night, with mortal agonies, and writhings as of Pythoness upon tripod, Mr. Burkham gave himself up to the composition of a farce, adapted, not from the French, but from his memories of Wright and Bedford in the jovial old student days, when the pit of the Adelphi Theatre had been the pleasant resort of his evenings. He could no longer afford the luxury of theatrical entertainments, except when provided with a free admission. But from the hazy reminiscences floating in his poor tired brain he concocted little pieces which he fondly hoped might win him money and fame.

With much effort and interest he contrived to get himself elected a Ragamuffin; believing that to be a Ragmuffin was to secure a position as a dramatic writer. But with one or two fortunate exceptions, his pieces were refused. The managers would not have the poor little feeble phantasmagoria of bygone fun, even supported by the whole clan of Ragamuffins. So Mr. Burkham had gradually melted into the dimness of Bloomsbury, and haunted the club-room of the Ragamuffins no more.

A hansom carried Valentine Hawkehurst swiftly to these regions of Bloomsbury. It was no time for the saving of cab-hire. The soldier of fortune thought no longer of his nest-eggs--his Unitas Bank deposit-notes. He was fighting with time and with death; foes dire and dreadful, against whose encroachments the sturdiest of mortal warriors can make but a feeble stand. He found the dingy-looking house in the dingy-looking street; and the humble drudge who opened the door informed him that Mr. Burkham was at home, and ushered him into a darksome and dreary surgery at the back of the house, where a phrenological head, considerably the worse for London smoke, surmounted a dingy bookcase filled with the dingiest of books. A table, upon which were a blotting-book and inkstand, and two shabby horsehair chairs, composed the rest of the furniture. Valentine sent his card to the surgeon, and seated himself on one of the horsehair chairs, to await that gentleman's appearance.

He came after a brief delay, which seemed long to his visitor. He came from regions in the back of the house, rubbing his hands, which seemed to have been newly washed, and the odour of senna and aloes hung about his garments.

"I doubt if you remember my name, Mr. Burkham," said Valentine; "but you and I are members of the same club, and that a club among the members of which considerable good feeling prevails. I come to ask a favour"--Mr. Burkham winced, for this sounded like genteel begging, and for genteel beggars this struggling surgeon had no spare cash--"which it will scarcely cause you a moment's thought to grant. I am in great distress"--Mr. Burkham winced again, for this sounded still more like begging--"mental distress"--Mr. Burkham gave a little sigh of relief--"and I come to you for advice." Mr. Burkham gave a more profound sigh of relief.

"I can assure you that my best advice is at your command," he said, seating himself, and motioning to his visitor to be seated. "I am beginning to remember your face amongst the members of the club, though the name on your card did not strike me as familiar. You see, I have never been able to afford much time for relaxation at the Ragamuffins', though I assure you I found the agreeable conversation there, the literary _on dits_, and so on, a very great relief. But my own little efforts in the dramatic line were not successful, and I found myself compelled to devote myself more to my profession. And now I have said quite enough about myself; let me hear how I can be useful to you."

"In the first place, let me ask you a question. Do you know anything of a certain Dr. Doddleson?"

"Of Plantagenet Square?"

"Yes; of Plantagenet Square."

"Well, not much. I have heard him called Dowager Doddleson; and I believe he is very popular among hypochondriac old ladies who have more money than they know what to do with, and very little common sense to regulate their disposal of it."

"Is Dr. Doddleson a man to whom you would intrust the life of your dearest friend?"

"Most emphatically no!" cried the surgeon, growing red with excitement.

"Very well, Mr. Burkham; my dearest friend, a young lady--well, in plain truth, the woman who was to have been my wife, and whom I love as it is not the lot of every plighted wife to be loved--this dear girl has been wasting away for the last two or three months under the influence of an inscrutable malady, and Dr. Doddleson is the only man called to attend her in all that time."

"A mistake!" said Mr. Burkham, gravely; "a very great mistake! Dr. Doddleson lives in a fine square, and drives a fine carriage, and has a reputation amongst the class I have spoken of; but he is about the last man I would consult as to the health of any one dear to me."

"That is precisely the opinion which I formed after ten minutes' conversation with him. Now, what I want from you, Mr. Burkham, is the name and address of the man to whom I can intrust this dear girl's life."

"Let me see. There are so many men, you know, and great men. Is it a case of consumption?"

"No, thank God!"

"Heart-disease, perhaps?"

"No; there is no organic disease. It is a languor--a wasting away."

Mr. Burkham suggested other diseases whereof the outward sign was languor and wasting.

"No," replied Valentine; "according to Dr. Doddleson there is actually no disease--nothing but this extreme prostration--this gradual vanishing of vital power. And now I come to another point upon which I want your advice. It has been suggested that this constitutional weakness may be inherited; and here I think you can help me."

"How so?"

"You attended the lady's father."

"Indeed!" cried Mr. Burkham, delighted. "This is really interesting. In what year did I attend this gentleman? If you will allow me, I will refer to some of my old case-books."

He drew out a clumsy drawer in the clumsy table, in order to hunt for old memoranda.

"I am not quite certain as to the year," answered Valentine; "but it was more than ten years ago. The gentleman died close by here, in Fitzgeorge Street. His name was Halliday."

Mr. Burkham had drawn out the drawer to its farthest extent. As Valentine pronounced this name, he let it drop