“Pray come to him, my dear,” she whispered. “He frightens me.”
“What is that?” said Mr Elthorne sharply. “What is the meaning of that whispering? Am I to lie here without any attention because I have had a bit of a fall? Here, Neil, quick. It is disgraceful. Anne – Isabel – you can go. I want to talk to Neil.” Isabel crept deprecatingly to the speaker’s side and bent down to kiss him.
He responded to her kiss, and then seemed annoyed with himself, as if he considered his conduct weak.
“There, there,” he cried. “Don’t hang about me, my dear. You make me hot. There is nothing much the matter. Go and nurse up your aunt, and try to teach her to be sensible.”
“Oh, papa, dear!”
“Now, don’t you begin to be absurd too. I’m hurt and in pain. Let me ask you one question – Is it likely to do me good to have a foolish woman sitting close to me soaking her pocket handkerchief?”
“Ralph, dear, I was only sympathetic,” cried Aunt Anne.
“I don’t want sympathy,” cried Mr Elthorne. “I want help. I want you to go now. Shut the door after them, Alison. You can stop. Now,” he continued angrily, as soon as they were alone, and he fixed his eyes fiercely upon his elder son’s, “you chose to be a doctor, sir, and I gave way unwillingly. I studied no expense, and you have gone on studying up your profession. But, once for all, if I am to take any of your assistance, I warn you that I will have none of the tricks of your trade played upon me.”
“My dear father, pray be calm,” said Neil anxiously.
“Did you hear what I said, sir? Be calm! Am I not calm? There you are bringing out all your medical stock in trade – medical cant to bear.”
Neil looked at him anxiously, and saw that he was wild in his manner, and that there was a curiously excited glare in his eyes which troubled him a good deal, and affected his words as he replied.
“Now,” cried his father, “tell me at once, what did Sir Denton say?”
“That you must be kept perfectly quiet, sir, and be troubled by nothing exciting.”
“Why?” said Mr Elthorne sharply. “Did he say that my case was hopeless, and that I must die?”
“No; decidedly not. Nothing of the kind, sir. He told me that you only needed proper nursing to recover.”
“To recover my health?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And strength?” said Mr Elthorne, gazing at him searchingly.
Neil was silent.
“Why don’t you speak, boy?” said the old man sternly. “No; you need not speak. A man is a physician or a fool at forty. I am long past forty, and not quite a fool, boys, as you both know. He told you that I should be a hopeless cripple.”
“He told me, I repeat, that you must be kept perfectly quiet, father, and I must insist upon your now trying to help me by following out his wishes.”
“A cripple – a helpless cripple,” said the injured man, without paying the slightest heed to his son’s words, but speaking as if to someone he could see across the room. “I did not want telling that. A man knows. But what does it mean? Wreck? Utter helplessness? Being led about by the hand? No, no, no; not so bad as that. The brain is right. I am strong there. You boys are not going to usurp everything yet. Do you hear? I say you boys are – you boys – I say – the doctor – quick – the doctor – ah!”
His eyes glared wildly as the fit of excitement rapidly increased, till he almost raved like one in a fit of delirium, and every attempt to calm him by word or action on the part of his son only seemed to intensify his excitement, till a sudden spasm made his face twitch, and his head fell back with the angry light dying out of his eyes.
“Quick!” whispered Neil. “Run up to my room and bring down the little case on the drawers.”
He raised his father’s head as he spoke, and, after glancing at him in a frightened manner, Alison hurried out of the room.
An hour later Ralph Elthorne was lying perfectly insensible, with his son watching by his bedside. It was no new, thing to him this tending of a patient in a serious strait consequent upon an accident, but their relative positions robbed him of his customary sang-froid, and again and again he asked himself whether he had not done wrong in accepting so onerous a task, and whether Sir Denton had not placed too much confidence in his knowledge of the treatment such a case demanded. When such thoughts mastered him he was ready over and over again to send a fresh message to the great surgeon, and it was only by a strong effort that he mastered himself and maintained his calmness. For he knew in an ordinary way a doubt of his capacity would never enter his head; all he had to do, he told himself, was to strive as he would have striven for another.
“But he is my father,” he muttered, “and it is so hard to feel confidence when one knows that the patient mistrusts every word and act.”
Chapter Six.
Watching the Sufferer
“What are you going to do about sitting up?” said Alison in a whisper about eleven o’clock that night. “He must not be left.”
“Certainly not,” said Neil, after a glance at the bed where his father lay sleeping uneasily. “I am going to sit with him.”
“That will not do,” said Alison quietly. “You are the doctor, and must be rested and ready when wanted. You had better go to bed and I’ll sit up. Aunt Anne wants to, and so does Isabel, but the old lady is hysterical and fit for nothing, and Isabel is too young.”
“Of course,” said Neil quietly. “But I have settled all that. I shall sit up, and if there is any need I can call you directly.”
Alison looked as if he were going to oppose the plan, but he said nothing for the moment, only sat watching his brother and occasionally turning to the bed as the injured man made an uneasy movement.
They were interrupted by a tap at the door, to which Alison replied, coming back directly to whisper in his brother’s ear.
“You had better go and talk to the old lady yourself,” he said. “She has come prepared to sit up.” Neil went hastily to the door and passed out on the landing, where his aunt was standing, dressed for the occasion, and armed with night lights and other necessary appliances used in an invalid’s chamber.
“No, Aunt, dear,” said Neil quickly. “Not necessary. I am going to sit up.”
“My dear boy, your brother said something of this kind to me,” said the lady querulously; “but pray don’t you be obstinate. I really must sit up with your father. It is my duty, and I will.”
“It is your duty, Aunt, to obey the surgeon in attendance upon the patient,” said Neil firmly, but he winced a little at his aunt’s next words.
“So I would, my dear, if we had one here; but do you really think, Neil, that you are able to deal with such a terrible case? Hadn’t you better have in the Moreby doctor, and hear what he says?”
“We have had Sir Denton Hayle to-day, and I have his instructions. Is not that enough?”
“No, my dear, really I don’t think it is. You see it isn’t as if you were a much older man and more experienced, and had been a surgeon ever so long.”
“There is no need for you to sit up, Aunt,” said Neil quietly. “I can quite understand your anxiety, but, believe me, I am doing my best.”
“Oh, dear,” sighed Aunt Anne. “You boys areas obstinate and as determined as your poor father. Well, there, I cannot help myself,” she continued in a tone full of remonstrance. “No one can blame me, and I am sure that I