The Familiar by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (book club books .TXT) 📖

it?”

 

“What did he say? — I did not hear it — what was it?” asked

Barton, wholly disregarding the question.

 

“Nonsense,” said –-, greatly surprised, “who cares what

the fellow said ? You are unwell Barton, decidedly unwell;

let me call

a coach.”

 

“Unwell! No — not unwell,” he said, evidently making an

effort to recover his self-possession; “but, to say the

truth, I am fatigued — a little over-worked — and perhaps

over-anxious. You know I have been in Chancery, and the

winding-up of a suit is always a nervous affair. I have

felt uncomfortable all this evening; but I am better now.

Come, come — shall we go on?”

 

“No, no. Take my advice, Barton, and go home; you really

do need rest; you are looking quite ill. I really do insist

on your allowing me to see you home,” replied his friend.

 

I seconded –-‘s advice, the more readily as it was

obvious that Barton was not himself disinclined to be

persuaded. He left us, declining our offered escort. I was

not sufficiently intimate with — to discuss the scene we had

both just witnessed. I was, however, convinced from his

manner in the few common-place comments and regrets we

exchanged, that he was just as little satisfied as I with

the extempore plea of illness with which he had accounted

for the strange exhibition, and that we were both agreed in

suspecting some lurking mystery in the matter.

 

I called next day at Barton’s lodgings to inquire for him,

and learned from the servant that he had not left his room

since his return the night before; but that he was not

seriously indisposed, and hoped to be out in a few days.

That evening he sent for Dr. R–- , then in large and

fashionable practice in Dublin, and their interview was, it

is said, an odd one.

 

He entered into a detail of his own symptoms in an

abstracted and desultory way, which seemed to argue a

strange want of interest in his own cure, and, at all

events, make it manifest that there was some topic engaging

his mind of more engrossing importance than his present

ailment. He complained of occasional palpitations and

headache.

 

Doctor R–- asked him, among other questions, whether

there was any irritating circumstance or anxiety then

occupying his thoughts. This he denied quickly and almost

peevishly; and the physician thereupon declared his opinion

that there was nothing amiss except some slight derangement

of the digestion, for which he accordingly wrote a

prescription, and was about to withdraw when Mr. Barton, with

the air of a man who recollects a topic which had nearly

escaped him, recalled him.

 

“I beg your pardon, Doctor, but I really almost forgot;

will you permit me to ask you two or three medical

questions — rather odd ones, perhaps, but a wager depends

upon their solution; you will, I hope, excuse my

unreasonableness?”

 

The physician readily undertook to satisfy the inquirer.

 

Barton seemed to have some difficulty about opening the

proposed interrogatories, for he was silent for a minute,

then walked to his book-case, and returned as he had gone;

at last he sat down, and said:

 

“You’ll think them very childish questions, but I can’t

recover my wager without a decision; so I must put them. I

want to know first about lockjaw. If a man actually has had

that complaint, and appears to have died of it — so much so,

that a physician of average skill pronounces him actually

dead — may he, after all, recover?”

 

The physician smiled, and shook his head.

 

“But — but a blunder may be made,” resumed Barton.

“Suppose an ignorant pretender to medical skill; may he be

so deceived by any stage of the complaint, as to mistake

what is only a part of the progress of the disease, for

death itself?”

 

“No one who had ever seen death,” answered he, “could

mistake it in a case of lockjaw.”

 

Barton mused for a few minutes. “I am going to ask you a

question, perhaps, still more childish; but first, tell me,

are the regulations of foreign hospitals, such as that of,

let us say, Naples, very lax and bungling. May not all

kinds of blunders and slips occur in their entries of names,

and so forth?”

 

Doctor R–- professed his incompetence to answer that

query.

 

“Well, then, Doctor, here is the last of my questions.

You will, probably, laugh at it; but it must out

nevertheless. Is there any disease, in all the range of

human maladies, which would have the effect of perceptibly

contracting the stature and the whole frame — causing the man

to shrink in all his proportions, and yet to preserve his

exact resemblance to himself in every particular — with the

one exception, his height and bulk; any disease, mark — no

matter how rare — how little believed in, generally — which

could possibly result in producing such an effect?”

 

The physician replied with a smile, and a very decided

negative.

 

“Tell me, then,” said Barton, abruptly, “if a man be in

reasonable fear of assault from a lunatic who is at large,

can he not procure a warrant for his arrest and detention?”

 

“Really, that is more a lawyer’s question than one in my

way,” replied Doctor R–-; “but I believe, on applying to a

magistrate, such a course would be directed.”

 

The physician then took his leave; but, just as he reached

the hall-door, remembered that he had left his cane

upstairs, and returned. His reappearance was awkward, for a

piece of paper, which he recognized as his own prescription,

was slowly burning upon the fire, and Barton sitting close

by with an expression of settled gloom and dismay.

 

Doctor R–- had too much tact to observe what presented

itself; but he had seen quite enough to assure him that the

mind, and not the body, of Captain Barton was in reality the

seat of suffering.

 

A few days afterwards, the following advertisement

appeared in the Dublin newspapers:

 

“If Sylvester Yelland, formerly a foremast man on board His Majesty’s frigate ‘Dolphin,’ or his nearest of kin, will apply to Mr. Hubert Smith, attorney, at his office, Dame Street, he or they may hear of something greatly to his or their advantage. Admission may be had at any hour up to twelve o’clock at night, should parties desire to avoid observation; and the strictest secrecy, as to all communications intended to be confidential, shall be honourably observed.”

 

The “Dolphin,” as I have mentioned, was the vessel which

Captain Barton had commanded; and this circumstance,

connected with the extraordinary exertions made by the

circulation of hand-bills, etc., as well as by repeated

advertisements, to secure for this strange notice the utmost

possible publicity, suggested to Dr. R–- the idea that

Captain Barton’s extreme uneasiness was somehow connected

with the individual to whom the advertisement was addressed,

and he himself the author of it.

 

This, however, it is needless to add, was no more than a

conjecture. No information, whatsoever, as to the real

purpose of the advertisement was divulged by the agent, nor

yet any hint as to who his employer might be.