Читать книгу Juggernaut - Alice Campbell - Страница 5

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Esther was not mistaken in her surmise that the doctor was by choice at least more of a scientist than a physician. Patients he had to be sure, a respectable number, composed mostly of English and American tourists, well-to-do people. Esther thought that if he had been more keenly interested or a better business man he might have developed his practice into a large and lucrative one. She recognised in him the sure instinct of the natural diagnostician, she knew enough to realise that his methods and knowledge were up to date. Even that manner of his, though a little forbidding, had the merit of inspiring confidence. One felt he was a big man and could afford to dispense with geniality. Yet it was perfectly apparent that his practice never came first with him. Esther had not been in the house with him half a week before she made that discovery. Every free minute of the day found him engrossed in his experiments, to the utter exclusion of all else, so intolerant of interruption that he more than once kept patients waiting a quarter of an hour in the gloomy salon while he finished some piece of work.

The laboratory, with which Esther quickly became familiar, was at the top of the house, up two flights of stairs, a bare, L-shaped room built originally for a studio. A sloping skylight admitted a strong north light, which streamed down on the long table covered with all the paraphernalia of research. There were two glass cabinets containing bottles of many descriptions, and a plain Normandy oak armoire, fitted with shelves upon which were specimens and materials for work. A fibre mat and a couple of kitchen chairs completed the furnishings of the main part, but in a sort of alcove which formed the base of the L, and which was curtained off by thick red hangings, was a camp bed with a table beside it and a chest of drawers. Here, so she was told by Jacques the servant, the doctor not infrequently slept when he had carried on his labours far into the night. He would drop down on the hard bed at perhaps five in the morning, just as he was, in his shirt and trousers, with only an old army blanket over him, and there he would sleep like a dead man till Jacques brought him his tea.

Esther learned a good deal from Jacques who, despite his desperado exterior, proved to be friendly and communicative, glad no doubt of someone to chat with since his master was so particularly reserved. His master, Jacques confided about the third day, was not a man at all but a machine. Work, work, work—day and night, no thought for comfort, no distractions, no voices. Voyons! It was against nature when a man lived like that. And what did he get for it?

"Écoutez, mademoiselle," the little man of the Midi said to her earnestly, laying his finger on her arm, "if the doctor worked only one half so hard—only one half, now I am telling you—he could be a rich man to-day, with a palace, three, four cars, a chauffeur, a valet de chambre. It is only because he spends his time up there in that room that he makes so little money."

Esther knew that he was right, although she understood better than he the unworldly aims of the man.

Jacques had more to tell her. Such was the doctor's complete stupidity, not to be comprehended by rational beings, that whenever he had a little money put aside he would shut up shop and take a holiday, so as to be able to devote all his days to research.

"Mademoiselle knows that is not a way to do," complained Jacques in an aggrieved voice. "People think he not practise any more, they find another doctor. Many, many times he lose patients that way. Quelle bêtise, voyons!"

"He must have been practising pretty steadily now for some time," remarked Esther, "to have as good a practice as he seems to have."

"Ah, yes, it is long now, for him, and I think he gets now what you English call fed-up. I believe he would like to throw it all up to-morrow, but he cannot. It is the season, there are many English here. Later, in the summer, perhaps, he take a rest."

These confidences took place chiefly at déjeuner, which Esther ate alone in the salle à manger, a room more cheerful than the salon, being on the sunny side of the house. The doctor, consecrating the lunch hour to work, had his meal brought to the laboratory on a tray. The food was excellent, in the best French bourgeois style, cooked and served by Jacques, who did all the work of the place with the help of a femme de ménage in the mornings. He was frankly delighted when Esther did justice to his dishes.

"Mademoiselle will have a little more of the blanquette de veau," he would say pleadingly. "It is very good, yes, the champignons I choose myself. The doctor up there will eat whatever I give him. If it is bread and cheese it make no difference, but I, I say to him, 'Il faut que cette demoiselle soit nourié!'"

He was the one human element in the establishment, Jacques, and his familiarity was not offensive.

As for her employer, Esther decided that she could live at close quarters with him for a year and know him no better than she did now. At the end of a week she regarded him as an unknown quantity. A man of one idea, extraordinarily concentrated, methodical, abstracted, without friends, no outside interests whatever. That is all she could gather. Silent, yet hardly secretive, he merely gave her the impression that he had nothing he wished to impart. He was not curious about other people, why should they want to know about him? Not by any stretch of imagination could she connect him with a human emotion. He never asked her a question about herself or her antecedents, and only once did he volunteer any information in regard to himself, and then it seemed as though for a moment he was thinking aloud. He referred absent-mindedly to a time when he lived in Algeria, mentioning the fact that for almost two years he was able to experiment without interruption.

"I had a bit of money," he remarked, "a windfall … "

"I suppose someone died and left you a legacy," suggested Esther, washing test-tubes at the basin in the corner.

He appeared to have forgotten the subject, but presently he roused himself to reply:

"Eh? What was that?" he murmured vaguely, holding a tube up to the light. "There is a sediment here, certainly. … Yes, that was it. A legacy. I lived on it for two years, then I had to go back to the grind again."

Esther was curious to know more about the research which so completely absorbed him, but he was not eager to talk about it. Still, by watching him and prodding him occasionally with direct questions, she discovered what she wanted to know. Two of his serums were in general use; she had heard of them. Indeed, she knew enough to be impressed. This was a valuable man of science; why, he might yet be awarded the Nobel prize; his discoveries were quite important enough to merit it. Yet she suspected that the idea of fame had never entered his head, he worked for the love of it. He was engaged now in trying to find anti-toxins for certain deadly diseases, tetanus for one. When she thought of the extent to which his efforts might benefit humanity, she felt inclined to forget the man's repellent personality in the dignity of his accomplishments.

As for what she had to do, she found it neither very difficult nor very tiring—not half so hard as ordinary nursing. While the doctor was out on a round of visits, she put the laboratory to rights, arranging everything neatly and in perfect order, for that was of paramount importance to her employer; then she attended to the small amount of clerical work that fell to her task, answered the telephone, and made appointments. In the afternoon there was a fairly steady stream of patients for consultations, and she was kept moderately busy, yet with frequent moments in which to sit down and read or "have a go" at her French grammar.

The evenings at her hotel threatened to be a little dull; she did not care to go alone to the Casino and, barring the cinema, there was not much in the way of distraction. Still, she was far from regretting her determination to stay in Cannes. She wrote long letters to her sisters in Canada, to Miss Ferriss in Bousaada, to a certain young doctor in New York, who for years had lavished on her an unrewarded devotion. She thought of him dimly as belonging to another life. Already she had slipped into new habits, fresh ways of thinking. She planned excursions for Saturday afternoons and Sundays, meaning to see as much of this country as possible while she had the chance.

"If only Jean were here, what fun we'd have!" she reflected regretfully.

Jean was her favourite sister, now a librarian in Montreal.

At the end of the week something happened. Late one afternoon a patient arrived who had no appointment. Jacques admitted her, went up to tell the doctor, who had thought consultations over for the day, then, returning, spoke to Esther in the salle à manger.

"It is Lady Clifford," he whispered. "It is the second time now she come like this. Always before, the doctor he go to her."

Esther knew the name, her book had told her that the doctor paid regular visits to a Lady Clifford. She turned up the visits for the next day. Yes, there it was, Thursday, Lady Clifford, 11.30.

She heard the doctor's heavy step on the stairs, so she hastily replaced the crisp white coif she had removed a moment ago and repaired to the salon. A slender woman was standing at the window looking out and tapping her foot with nervous impatience. She was smartly dressed in black, with a magnificent silver fox about her shoulders.

"Will you come this way, please," said Esther. "The doctor will see you."

The woman turned suddenly and Esther received a shock of surprise. It was the blonde woman of the Restaurant des Ambassadeurs. As she was French it had never occurred to Esther to connect her with the unknown Lady Clifford. For a moment she felt self-conscious, afraid lest the beautiful patient should recognise her. But no, there was no need for alarm, the Frenchwoman passed her with a brief, incurious glance. Probably on that former occasion she had never noticed Esther at all, or if she had, the nurse's uniform was sufficient to effect a complete alteration. Who was this exquisite creature, French, but with an English name? All Esther's curiosity returned in full force.

Dr. Sartorius stood, heavy and uncompromising, beside the flat mahogany desk. He scarcely took the step forward which courtesy demanded. Surely his manners were the least ingratiating Esther had ever known in a professional man!

"Forgive me, doctor, for coming like this," the patient began impulsively. "But to-morrow morning I find I cannot be at home, and I do hate to miss my piqûre!"

"Very well, you can have it now."

That was his grudging response to an appeal full of winning charm.

Women and their fascination had evidently no part in his life.

"Ah, that is good of you! It puts strength into me—and I have need of all my strength. I"—she paused to moisten her lips—"I wish also to have a word with you again about my husband."

"Oh?"

She had stripped off her gloves and was clasping and unclasping her hands.

"Yes, I—I don't feel quite so satisfied about him as I did. I want to ask you some questions."

While she was speaking, the doctor, having signed to Esther to remain, had opened a drawer and was taking out several small bottles which he examined one after the other.

"Miss Rowe," he said, "all these are empty. On the top shelf in the oak cupboard in the laboratory you will find a full one. Bring it to me, please."

He extended an empty bottle for her to see the label.

"Yes, doctor, I won't be a minute," Esther replied, and hastened out, closing the door behind her.

She ran up the two flights of stairs without stopping to take breath, and looked into the Normandy armoire, but neither on the top shelf nor any of the others could she find what she wanted. She went over the contents of the cupboard a second time to make sure, examining the labels of various drugs, chemicals, serums, cultures. What was this new bottle? Tetanus—horrible! She gave a slight shudder, realising that the stuff in that bottle was enough to give lockjaw to half the inhabitants in Cannes. No, the doctor was mistaken, the mixture she sought was not here.

Rather more slowly than she had come up, she retraced her steps to the bottom floor. At the last landing she stopped, listening acutely.

"Non, non, je ne peux pas, je ne peux pas le faire!"

It was the Frenchwoman's voice, high-pitched, emotional, the protest wrung from her as if in agony. What was she saying? A rapid stream of French followed—Esther could not catch a word of it—then at the end a phrase or two that was intelligible.

"Je vous jure, je mourrais—je mourrais. … "

The doctor's voice cut in upon her, dominating, brutal even, a tone that caused Esther to gasp and clutch the stair-rail.

"Stop that! Stop that nonsense! Are you an utter fool?" It was like bidding a dog to lie down. Silence followed, then a stifled sob.