“Have you mentioned me to him?”
“Well, dear, who should I mention if not you?”
“So I thought the best thing to do would be to come and ask you what would be the best thing to do for her.”
“There’s nothing to be done for her.” He turned away and moved things about on the mantelpiece. Miriam’s heart beat rebelliously in the silence of the consulting-room. She sat waiting stifled with apprehension, her thoughts on Miss Dear’s familiar mysterious figure. In an unendurable impatience she waited for more, her eye smiting the tall averted figure on the hearthrug, following his movements … small framed coloured pictures—very brilliant—photographs?—of dark and fair women, all the same, their shoulders draped like the Soul’s Awakening, their chests bare, all of them with horrible masses of combed out waving hair like the woman in the Harlene shop, only waving naturally. The most awful minxes … his ideals. What a man. What a ghastly world. “If she were to go to the south of France, at once, she might live for years” … this is hearing about death, in a consulting-room … no escape … everything in the room holding you in. The Death Sentence. … People would not die if they did not go to consulting-rooms … doctors make you die … they watch and threaten.
“What is the matter with her?” Out with it, don’t be so important and mysterious.
“Don’t you know, my dear girl?” Dr. Densley wheeled round with searching observant eyes.
“Hasn’t she told you?” he added quietly with his eyes on his nails. “She’s phthisical. She’s in the first stages of pulmonary tuberculosis.”
The things in the dark room darkled with a curious dull flash along all their edges and settled in a stifling dusky gloom. Everything in the room dingy and dirty and decaying, but the long lean upright figure. In time he would die of something. Phthisis … that curious terrible damp mouldering smell, damp warm faint human fungus … in Aunt Henderson’s bedroom. … But she had got better. … But the curate ought to know. But perhaps he too, perhaps she had imagined that. …
“It seems strange she has not told such an old friend.”
“I’m not an old friend. I’ve only known her about two months. I’m hardly a friend at all.”
Dr. Densley was roaming about the room. “You’ve been a friend in need to that poor girl,” he murmured contemplating the window curtains. “I recognised that when I saw you in her room last week.” How superficial. …
“Where did you meet her?” he said, a curious gentle high tone on the where and a low one on the meet as if he were questioning a very delicate patient.
“My sister picked her up at a convalescent home.”
He turned very sharply and came and sat down in a low chair opposite Miriam’s low chair.
“Tell me all about it, my dear girl,” he said sitting forward so that his clasped hands almost touched Miriam’s knees.
“And she told you I was her oldest friend,” he said, getting up and going back to the mantelpiece.
“I first met Miss Dear,” he resumed after a pause, speaking like a witness, “last Christmas. I called in at Baker Street and found the superintendent had four of her disengaged nurses down with influenza. At her request I ran up to see them. Miss Dear was one of the number. Since that date she has summoned me at all hours on any and every pretext. What I can, I have done for her. She knows perfectly well her condition. She has her back against the wall. She’s making a splendid fight. But the one thing that would give her a chance she obstinately refuses to do. Last summer I found for her employment in a nursing home in the South of France. She refused to go, though I told her plainly what would be the result of another winter in England.”
“Ought she to marry?” said Miriam suddenly, closely watching him.
“Is she thinking of marrying, my dear girl?” he answered, looking at his nails.
“Well of course she might—”
“Is there a sweetheart on the horizon?”
“Well, she inspires a great deal of affection. I think she is inspiring affection now.”
Dr. Densley threw back his head with a laugh that caught his breath and gasped in and out on a high tone, leaving his silent mouth wide open when he again faced Miriam with the laughter still in his eyes.
“Tell me, my dear girl,” he said smiting her knee with gentle affection, “is there someone who would like to marry her?”
“What I want to know,” said Miriam very briskly “is whether such a person ought to know about the state of her health.” She found herself cold and trembling as she asked. Miss Dear’s eyes seemed fixed upon her.
“The chance of a tuberculous woman in marriage,” recited Dr. Densley “is a holding up of the disease with the first child; after the second she usually fails.”
Why children? A doctor could see nothing in marriage but children. This man saw women with a sort of admiring pity. He probably estimated all those women on the mantelpiece according to their childbearing capacity.
“Personally, I do not believe in forbidding the marriage of consumptives; provided both parties know what they are doing; and if they are quite sure they cannot do without each other. We know so little about heredity and disease, we do not know always what life is about. Personally I would not divide two people who are thoroughly devoted to each other.”
“No,” said Miriam coldly.
“Is the young man in a position to take her abroad?”
“I can’t tell you more than I know,” said Miriam impatiently getting up.
Dr. Densley laughed again and rose.
“I’m very glad you came, my dear girl. Come again soon and report progress. You’re so near you can run in any time when you’re free.”
“Thank you,” said Miriam politely, scrutinising him calmly as he waved and patted her out into the hall.
Impelled by an uncontrollable urgency she made her way along the Marylebone Road. Miss Dear was not expecting her till late.
