The strange transfiguration of Hannah Stubbs
day, and all I ’opes is, as the Doctor’s physic will cure me of seein’
’em, so that I may go ’ome to mother and Joe. Good-night, Sir, and
thank ye kindly.”
As the girl disappeared, Ricardo turned to Steinberg and said,
“I have half a mind to give it all up, my friend, at all events with
this medium. I am afraid we are not doing right in deceiving her! She
is so simple she takes our word for everything, and all the while
instead of curing her, we are urging on the development of her
magnificent powers.”
“You may well say ‘magnificent,’” replied the Doctor, “and if you give
them up, I shall call you a fool. Supposing she does not wish to be
developed, what of that, compared to the advancement of Science? She
is like an ignorant person who shrinks from having an operation
performed that will restore him to health and strength. Should I be
justified, because the patient did not understand the value of what I
was doing, in allowing him to have his own way and die? This young
woman has a splendid future. She may be the means of regenerating
mankind. Are we to let the interests of a Joe Brushwood, or her
supposed passion for her bucolic lover stand in her way? Certainly
not! For the sake of the world, you must not let her go. If you do, I
venture to say you will never get such another medium--such an
embodiment of animal health and vigour, combined with the psychic
forces which make such demands upon them. With Hannah Stubbs under our
own eyes, we may be the pioneers of a new Science. Without her we sink
down where we were before, into a slough of uncertainty and disbelief.
My dear friend, whatever you do, do not let your natural goodness of
heart lead you to throw away a grand chance, which may never be
renewed. Besides, do you not depend upon her offices, to restore your
lost wife to you?”
“Yes! yes!” exclaimed Ricardo, “it is what I have been working and
studying for, for the last ten years. I cannot give up that hope,
whoever’s happiness stands in the way. We must raise Hannah Stubbs
above her low tastes, Steinberg! We must give her something better
instead--a love of the Unseen--an ambition to benefit her
fellow-creatures--a sense of the high duties to which she has been
called.”
“True!--if we can,” replied the Doctor, thoughtfully; “but she is
terribly ignorant and gross. Fancy! a maid-of-all-work being called to
undertake a Mission--a creature without an idea beyond her breakfast
and her dinner--without an ambition, higher than to become the wife of
a farm labourer! It is enough to make one laugh, until one thinks with
what it is coupled--the Power, denied to so many, to pierce the
Infinite! She is as good and pure a girl as ever breathed, that I
fully believe--and she seems very docile and good-tempered--but she is
a hopeless clod!”
“No! no! not hopeless,” exclaimed the Professor, quickly, “when once
she is sufficiently developed for good and high spirits to control
her, she must become refined and softened under their influence. If my
Leonora, for example, who came of one of the noblest families in
Italy, should speak through Hannah, the mere contact must intuitively
teach her much that she never knew before.”
“I expect that your Leonora could teach Hannah much in every way,”
thought Doctor Steinberg to himself, but he did not say so to his
friend.
CHAPTER VI.
Two mornings after, Ricardo, whilst on his way to his professional
duties, met Mrs. Battleby on the staircase, with a very stiff lip.
“May I make so bold as to ask, Sig-nor,” she commenced, “’ow long the
Doctor means to be a’curing Hannah Stubbs?”
Ricardo stopped short, looking much like a school boy detected in some
forbidden pleasure.
“_How long?_” he stammered. “Really, Mrs. Battleby, that is a strange
question to put to me! How should I know? I am not a medical man, and
if I were, it is a thing on which I should find it impossible to speak
with certainty. A long time, Doctor Steinberg anticipates, I suppose,
since he offered to pay you for the investigation by the week. Surely,
you are not tired of your agreement already.”
“I didn’t say so, Sig-nor,” replied the landlady, with the same stiff
manner, “but Hannah Stubbs, she is a very young girl, placed under my
charge, as you may say, by ’er mother, and I think it is only proper
as I should know what sort of physic it is, as Doctor Steinberg is
a’treating ’er with!”
The Professor actually trembled. Had this woman obtained any knowledge
of their proceedings, and was she about to draw back from her bargain,
and forbid the girl visiting them any more?
“What a very strange lady you are!” he answered (Mrs. Battleby would
have flown in his face, had he called her a “woman”). “I know nothing
of medicines. How can I say if it be one thing or another? You must
ask the Doctor! But it seems to have done Hannah good already. You
should be satisfied with that!”
“Perhaps I should be, if I were sure of it,” said Mrs. Battleby
oracularly, “but I ain’t sure. I was kep’ up late last night, and she
was sayin’ some very queer things in ’er sleep, as I didn’t quite
like! You gentlemen must be keerful what you do with a young gal like
Hannah, for she ain’t too strong in ’er ’ead, as any one can see.”
“Of course we will be--we are, very careful,” replied Ricardo, as he
shuffled down the stairs as quickly as he could.
This unexpected interview with his landlady kept haunting him all day.
Whilst he was attempting to instil the liquid Italian accents into the
ear of the high-born, but dull Lady Alethea De Ruben, his thoughts
were wandering back to Soho, and he was speculating what Mrs. Battleby
meant by her sudden interest in Hannah Stubbs, and whether she
intended to make a fuss about the girl visiting two men by herself, or
to try and strike a higher bargain for her services.
Ricardo felt as if he were prepared to pay any price within his means,
sooner than part with Hannah Stubbs, before she had fulfilled his
dearest wishes, by bringing his dead wife back to him. Better a crust
of dry bread and a glass of water, he thought, than to lose the
knowledge which seemed just within his grasp. To know Leonora pure and
good, and that after years of purgatory he might be reunited to a
faithful wife--or to have the stain of innocent blood lifted from his
brow--the mark of Cain wiped out for ever! One of these two things it
must be, and he thirsted to ascertain which! He was so self-absorbed
and _distrait_, that even Lady Alethea perceived the difference in her
tutor and asked him kindly if he were ill.
“O! nothing! nothing! only a slight headache, dear Lady Alethea,” he
murmured, as he made a violent effort to collect his wandering
thoughts, and fix them on the Italian grammar.
On his way home that evening, he called for Karl Steinberg, and asked
him to walk back with him, whilst he confided his fears and asked what
steps they should take, to prevent such a calamity as the loss of
Hannah’s services.
“It merely means,” replied the Doctor, “more money. Mrs. Battleby has
perceived the satisfaction we feel in Hannah’s society, and judges
wisely, that it does not all proceed from giving her medicine! My
friend! these women are too sharp for us! Their brains are very light,
but they make up for that deficiency by the cunning of the lower
animals. After all, when you come to consider it, why should we
interest ourselves because a maid-of-all-work is anæmic, hysterical?
Had we not better make a clean breast of it at once, and tell the good
woman what we do with Hannah during her evenings with us?”
“Not for the world,” cried the Professor, hastily, “the more ignorant
the mind, the more opposed it is to anything it cannot understand! We
should not only lose Mrs. Battleby’s patronage (if I may call her
concession by such a name), but Hannah’s also. For she would, of
course, tell the girl everything, and she would refuse to sit with us
any more.”
“I see!” replied Steinberg, thoughtfully, “then my advice is to take
no notice whatever of Mrs. Battleby’s hints, which were probably only
thrown out in order to make you betray yourself. She is curious, my
dear friend--all women are--she fancies there must be something more
going on than the curative process, and thought to bully you into
telling her what it is. Keep your own counsel! She may suspect, but so
long as the door of your inner chamber is kept locked, she cannot find
out!”
“How I wish I was rich enough to hire this girl as my own servant,”
observed Ricardo, “and defy Mrs. Battleby, or leave her lodgings
altogether! Then I would take a little house of my own, and people
might say what they liked!”
“And what they liked would be, to spread a pretty tale of scandal
about you and this country girl. I, too, wish that I were rich enough
to settle her down in rooms of her own, where we could visit her at
stated periods, and hold our séances, but it is impossible! I can
only manage to support myself--much less another person. Attached to
the Hospital as I am, I have my lodgings free, but I fear my salary as
House surgeon would not go very far in an establishment of my own.”
“Never mind, Steinberg! We will not anticipate evil, but do as well as
we can with the means before us! This is our séance evening! From the
progress we have already made, I anticipate great things to-night.”
They hastened their steps as he spoke, and in a short time, they found
themselves once more closeted with Hannah Stubbs.
Mrs. Battleby was evidently very curious on that occasion, and very
unwilling to leave them alone. She brought up the tea-tray herself,
and took it down again, and insisted upon conducting Hannah to their
presence--a thing she had never done before.
“’Ere is Hannah, gentlemen,” she commenced, as she shouldered the
red-cheeked maid into the room, “I’ve bin a’arsking ’er what the
physic as the Doctor gives ’er tastes like, and she can’t remember
nothink about it, but says as ’ow it allays makes ’er go to sleep,
which seems very cur’ous to me.”
Steinberg having been in a measure prepared for an onslaught of this
kind, had primed himself with a list of names, unintelligible to the
landlady.
“Hannah is perfectly right, Mrs. Battleby,” he said, gravely. “In
order to cure the very unusual form of hysteria to which she is
subject, I am compelled to treat her with Ilex aquifolium, Conium
maculatum, and Æthusa cynapium, which drugs, though most valuable in
themselves, always have the effect of producing a quiescent state in
the patient, after which they are unable to recall what has passed.
But I trust--more, I am sure--that my treatment will eventually dispel
her symptoms. But ‘Rome was not built in a day,’ Mrs. Battleby, as
doubtless you know well, and I warn you that to effect a complete cure
in this case, will take some time. That is why I proposed to recoup
you for the loss of her services.”
“O! yes, Sir, I understand perfectly well,” replied Mrs. Battleby,
looking round the room the while, as though she would spy out the
truth of the Doctor’s specious argument. “But in course as I am sure
neither of you gentlemen won’t forget Hannah, she’s but a child as you
may say, and knows nothink of the world, and I ’opes you will be very
careful of ’er!”
“Of course, of course! You could not trust her to better hands than
those of my friend Doctor Steinberg,” said the Professor, as the
landlady was at last persuaded to leave them to themselves.
“By Jove!” exclaimed Steinberg in French, “I do believe the old woman
imagines we intend to seduce this poor child! Heavens! what an idea!
With all the beautiful women you see in Town, to fancy one ever
bestowing a thought in that way upon this ungainly, uncouth girl! Your
landlady is not so cute in this as in most things, Ricardo!”