"i suppose i must just do the best i can, sir," said elsie on the landing outside the bedroom. she smiled timidly, cheerfully and benevolently.
the doctor looked at her, startled. it seemed to him that in some magic way she had vanquished the difficulties of a most formidable situation by merely accepting and facing them. she did not argue about them, complain about them, nor expatiate upon their enormity. she was ready to go on living and working without any fuss from one almost impossible moment to the next. during his career in clerkenwell dr. raste had become a connoisseur of choice examples of practical philosophy, and none better than he could appreciate elsie's attitude. that it should have startled him was a genuine tribute to her.
"yes, that's about it," he said nonchalantly, with the cunning of an expert who has seen an undervalued unique piece in an antique shop. "well, good morning, elsie. good morning."
he was in a hurry; he had half a hundred urgent matters on his professional conscience. what could he do but leave elsie alone with her ordeal? he could not help her, and she did not need help in this particular work, which was, after all, part of her job at twenty pounds a year and food given and stolen. she was beginning to see the top of his hat as he descended the stairs. the stupid, plump, practical philosopher wanted to call him back for an affair of the very highest importance, and could not open her mouth, because mr. earlforward's desperate plight somehow inhibited her from doing so.[pg 271]
"doctor!" she exclaimed with a strange shrillness as soon as he had passed from her sight into the shop.
"what now?" demanded dr. raste sharply, afraid that his connoisseurship should have been mistaken and she would stampede.
she ran down after him. his gaze indicated danger. he did not mean to have any nonsense.
"i suppose you couldn't just see joe for a minute?" she stammered, with a blush. this now faltering creature had a moment earlier been calmly ready to do the best she could in circumstances which would scarcely bear looking at.
"joe? what joe?"
"your old joe. he's here, sir. upstairs. came last night, sir. he's very ill. i'm looking after him too. master doesn't know."
"what in god's name are you talking about, my girl?" said the doctor, moved out of his impassibility.
she told him the facts, as though confessing a mortal sin for which she could not expect absolution.
"i really haven't a minute to spare," said he, and went upstairs with her to the second-floor.
by the time they got there elsie had resumed her self-possession.
the doctor, for all his detached and frigid poses, was on occasion capable, like nearly every man, of being as irrational as a woman. on this occasion he was guilty of a perfectly indefensible prejudice against both elsie and joe. he had a prejudice against elsie because he was convinced that had it not been for her affair with joe, joe would still have been in his service. and he was prejudiced against joe because he had suffered much from a whole series of joe's successors. for the moment he was quite without a joe. also he resented elsie having a secret sick man in the house—and that man joe—and demanding so unexpectedly his attention when he was in a hurry and over-fatigued by the ills of the people of clerkenwell. he would have justly contemned such prejudices in another, and especially in, for example, his[pg 272] wife; and it must be admitted he was not the god-like little being he thought he was. fortunately joe was in a state which made all equal before him.
"oh, dear! i do so ache, and i'm thirsty," the second patient groaned desperately, showing no emotion—surprise, awe or shame—at sight of the doctor and employer whom he had so cruelly wronged by leaving him in the lurch for inadequate reasons originating in mere sentiment. he had been solitary for half an hour and could not bear it. he wanted, and wanted ravenously, something from everybody he saw. the world existed solely to succour him. and certainly he looked very ill, forlorn, and wistfully savage in the miserable bed in the miserable bedroom of the ex-charwoman. he looked quite as ill as mr. earlforward, and to elsie even worse.
"it's malaria," said the doctor in a casual tone, after he had gone through the routine of examination. "temperature, of course. he'll be better in a few days. i've no doubt he had it in france first, but he never told me. when they brought back troops to france from the east, malaria came with them. all the north of france is covered with mosquitoes, and they carry the disease. i'll send down some quinine. you must feed him on liquids—milk, barley-water, beef-tea, milk-and-soda. hot water to drink, not cold. and you ought to sponge him down twice a day."
elsie, listening intently to this mixture of advice and information, could not believe that joe's case was not more serious than the doctor's manner implied. well implanted in her lay the not groundless conviction that doctors were apt to be much more summary with the sick poor than with the sick rich. and she was revisited by her old sense of this doctor's harsh indifference. he had not even greeted his former servant, had regarded him simply as he would regard any ordinary number in a panel.
"you won't have a great deal to do downstairs. in fact, scarcely anything," the doctor added, who apparently saw nothing excessive in leaving two patients in charge of[pg 273] one unaided woman, she being also housekeeper, shopkeeper, and domestic servant.
"of course you can send him to the hospital if you care to," said the doctor lightly. "i dare say they'd take him in." he was, in fact, not anxious to insist on joe's removal, thinking that he had already sufficiently worried the hospital authorities about the dwellers in riceyman steps.
to send joe to the hospital would have relieved elsie of the terrific responsibility which she had incurred by bringing him unpermitted into the house. but she did not want to surrender him. she hated to part with him. and privately, when it came to the point, she shared mr. earlforward's objection to hospitals. joe might be neglected, she feared, in the hospital; he might be victimized by some rule. she had no confidence in the nursing of anybody except herself. she was persuaded that if she could watch him she might save him.
"i think i can manage him here, sir," she smiled. but it was a reserved smile, which said: "i have my own ideas about this matter and i don't swallow all i hear."
dr. raste began to put on his gloves; in the servant's room he had not taken off his hat, much less his overcoat. she escorted him downstairs. at the shop-door he suddenly said:
"if he does want another doctor there's mr. adhams—other side of myddelton square." his features relaxed. this remark was his repentance to elsie, induced in him by her cheerful and unshrinking attitude towards destiny.
"you mean for master, sir?"
"yes. he may be able to do something with him. you never know."
"i'm sure i'm very much obliged, sir," said elsie eagerly, her kindliness springing up afresh and rushing out to meet the doctor's spark of feeling. he nodded. he had not said whether or not he would call again to see joe, and she had not dared to suggest it. she shut the door and locked herself in the house with the two men.
