The moment she mentioned the doctor's name, I knew what was coming.
Over and over again in my past experience among my perishing
fellow-creatures, the members of the notoriously infidel profession
of Medicine had stepped between me and my mission of mercy--on
the miserable pretence that the patient wanted quiet, and that the
disturbing influence of all others which they most dreaded, was the
influence of Miss Clack and her Books. Precisely the same blinded
materialism (working treacherously behind my back) now sought to rob me
of the only right of property that my poverty could claim--my right of
spiritual property in my perishing aunt.
"The doctor tells me," my poor misguided relative went on, "that I am
not so well to-day. He forbids me to see any strangers; and he orders
me, if I read at all, only to read the lightest and the most amusing
books. 'Do nothing, Lady Verinder, to weary your head, or to quicken
your pulse'--those were his last words, Drusilla, when he left me
to-day."
There was no help for it but to yield again--for the moment only, as
before. Any open assertion of the infinitely superior importance of such
a ministry as mine, compared with the ministry of the medical man, would
only have provoked the doctor to practise on the human weakness of his
patient, and to threaten to throw up the case. Happily, there are more
ways than one of sowing the good seed, and few persons are better versed
in those ways than myself.
"You might feel stronger, dear, in an hour or two," I said. "Or you
might wake, to-morrow morning, with a sense of something wanting, and
even this unpretending volume might be able to supply it. You will let
me leave the book, aunt? The doctor can hardly object to that!"
I slipped it under the sofa cushions, half in, and half out, close by
her handkerchief, and her smelling-bottle. Every time her hand searched
for either of these, it would touch the book; and, sooner or later
(who knows?) the book might touch HER. After making this arrangement, I
thought it wise to withdraw. "Let me leave you to repose, dear aunt; I
will call again to-morrow." I looked accidentally towards the window as
I said that. It was full of flowers, in boxes and pots. Lady Verinder
was extravagantly fond of these perishable treasures, and had a habit of
rising every now and then, and going to look at them and smell them. A
new idea flashed across my mind. "Oh! may I take a flower?" I said--and
got to the window unsuspected, in that way. Instead of taking away a
flower, I added one, in the shape of another book from my bag, which
I left, to surprise my aunt, among the geraniums and roses. The happy
thought followed, "Why not do the same for her, poor dear, in every
other room that she enters?" I immediately said good-bye; and, crossing
the hall, slipped into the library. Samuel, coming up to let me out,
and supposing I had gone, went down-stairs again. On the library table
I noticed two of the "amusing books" which the infidel doctor had
recommended. I instantly covered them from sight with two of my own
precious publications. In the breakfast-room I found my aunt's favourite
canary singing in his cage. She was always in the habit of feeding
the bird herself. Some groundsel was strewed on a table which stood
immediately under the cage. I put a book among the groundsel. In the
drawing-room I found more cheering opportunities of emptying my bag. My
aunt's favourite musical pieces were on the piano. I slipped in two more
books among the music. I disposed of another in the back drawing-room,
under some unfinished embroidery, which I knew to be of Lady Verinder's
working. A third little room opened out of the back drawing-room, from
which it was shut off by curtains instead of a door. My aunt's plain
old-fashioned fan was on the chimney-piece. I opened my ninth book at a
very special passage, and put the fan in as a marker, to keep the place.
The question then came, whether I should go higher still, and try the
bed-room floor--at the risk, undoubtedly, of being insulted, if the
person with the cap-ribbons happened to be in the upper regions of the
house, and to find me put. But oh, what of that? It is a poor Christian
that is afraid of being insulted. I went upstairs, prepared to bear
anything. All was silent and solitary--it was the servants' tea-time,
I suppose. My aunt's room was in front. The miniature of my late dear
uncle, Sir John, hung on the wall opposite the bed. It seemed to smile
at me; it seemed to say, "Drusilla! deposit a book." There were tables
on either side of my aunt's bed. She was a bad sleeper, and wanted, or
thought she wanted, many things at night. I put a book near the matches
on one side, and a book under the box of chocolate drops on the other.
Whether she wanted a light, or whether she wanted a drop, there was a
precious publication to meet her eye, or to meet her hand, and to say
with silent eloquence, in either case, "Come, try me! try me!" But one
book was now left at the bottom of my bag, and but one apartment was
still unexplored--the bath-room, which opened out of the bed-room. I
peeped in; and the holy inner voice that never deceives, whispered to
me, "You have met her, Drusilla, everywhere else; meet her at the bath,
and the work is done." I observed a dressing-gown thrown across a chair.
It had a pocket in it, and in that pocket I put my last book. Can words
express my exquisite sense of duty done, when I had slipped out of the
house, unsuspected by any of them, and when I found myself in the street
with my empty bag under my arm? Oh, my worldly friends, pursuing the
phantom, Pleasure, through the guilty mazes of Dissipation, how easy it
is to be happy, if you will only be good!