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The Pupil of Aurelius
by
‘God bless me, woman,’ said Douglas, angrily, ‘we must do something instead of standing and looking at the poor lass. Cannot you tell me where the nearest doctor is? Has one been attending her?’
‘Poor Mary Ann,’ the woman said, composedly; ‘she’ll come out of it; but it’s worse this time. A doctor? She couldn’t afford to have a doctor, she couldn’t. A doctor would be bringing physic; she can’t pay for physic, she can’t. She owes me three weeks’ rent, and I ain’t ast for it once, not once. Thirteen hours a day standing behind a counter is too much for a slip of a girl like that. Poor Mary Anne! Is your head bad, my dear?’
Douglas made use of a phrase which is not to be found anywhere in the writings of Marcus Aurelius, and hurriedly left the house. He made for the nearest chemist’s shop, and asked the youth there where he should find a doctor. The youth glanced towards the back room, and said Dr. Sweeney was at hand. Dr. Sweeney was summoned, and appeared: a hard-headed-looking youngish man, whom Douglas immediately bore away with him.
The young Irish doctor did not seem much concerned when he saw his patient. He seemed to be familiar with such cases. He said the girl must be put to bed at once. She was merely suffering from a feverish attack, on a system weakened by exhaustion and fatigue. Then he began to question the landlady.
The usual story. Girl in a draper’s shop; mother and sisters in the country; sends them most of her earnings; probably does not take enough food; long hours; constant standing; drinking tea to stave off hunger; and so forth. Douglas listened in silence.
‘And when she recovers from this attack, slight or severe,’ he said at length, ‘what would restore that young lass to a proper state of health?–can ye say that, doctor?’
‘I can say it easily,’ said the young Irishman, with a sarcastic smile. ‘I can prescribe the remedies; and there are plenty of such cases; unfortunately the patients are not in a position to follow my prescriptions. I should prescribe good food, and fewer hours of work, and an occasional week in the country air. It is easy to talk of such things.’
‘Ay, that is so,’ said Douglas, absently.
He went home. He took from his pocket the biscuit, wrapped in a bit of newspaper, that he had meant for his supper; but he put it on the top of a little chest of drawers, thinking it would do for his breakfast in the morning, and he would save so much. Then he went to the little stock of money in his locked-up bag, and found there eight shillings and sixpence. He took seven shillings of it, and went out again into the cold night, and walked along to the house where the sick girl was.
‘Mistress,’ he said to the landlady, in his slow, staid way, ‘I have brought ye a little money that ye may buy any small things the lass may want; it is all I can spare the now; I will call in the morning and see how she is.’
‘You needn’t do that,’ said the tall woman. ‘Poor Mary Anne–she’ll be at the shop.’
‘She shall not be at the shop!’ he said, with a frown. ‘Are ye a mad woman? The girl is ill.’
‘She’ll have to be at the shop, or lose her place,’ said the landlady, with composure. ‘There’s too many young girls after situations now-a-days, and they won’t be bothered with weakly ones.’
CHAPTER IV.
A RESOLVE.
However, as it turned out, there was to be no shop for Mary Anne the next day or for many a day to come. When John Douglas called in the morning, he was informed that she was ‘delirious-like.’ She was imploring the doctor–who had been there an hour before–not to let her lose her situation. She was talking about her mother and sisters in an incoherent way; also about one Pete, who appeared to have gone away to Australia and never written since. Douglas looked at the girl, lying there with her flushed face, closed eyes, and troubled breathing, unconscious of his presence, only twisting the bed-clothes about with her hot hands.