Lud-in-the-Mist (6 page)

He did not confine his interests to medicine. Though not himself by birth a Dorimarite, there was little concerning the ancient customs of his adopted country that he did not know; and some years ago he had been asked by the Senate to write the official history of the Guild Hall, which, before the revolution, had been the palace of the Dukes, and was the finest monument in Lud-in-the-Mist. To this task he had for some time devoted his scanty leisure.

The Senators had no severer critic than Endymion Leer, and he was the originator of most of the jokes at their expense that circulated in Lud-in-the-Mist. But to Master Nathaniel Chanticleer he seemed to have a personal antipathy; and on the rare occasions when they met his manner was almost insolent.

It was possible that this dislike was due to the fact that Ranulph when he was a tiny boy had seriously offended him; for pointing his fat little finger at him he had shouted in his shrill baby voice:

When his mother had scolded him for his rudeness, he said that he had been taught the rhyme by a funny old man he had seen in his dreams. Endymion Leer had gone deadly white — with rage, Dame Marigold supposed; and during several years he never referred to Ranulph except in a voice of suppressed spite.

But that was years ago, and it was to be presumed that he had at last forgotten what had, after all, been nothing but a piece of childish impudence.

The idea of confiding to this upstart the disgraceful thing that had happened to a Chanticleer was very painful to Master Nathaniel. But if anyone could cure Ranulph it was Endymion Leer, so Master Nathaniel pocketed his pride and asked him to come and see him.

As Master Nathaniel paced up and down his pipe-room (as his private den was called) waiting for the doctor, the full horror of what had happened swept over him. Ranulph had committed the unmentionable crime — he had eaten fairy fruit. If it ever became known — and these sort of things always did become known — the boy would be ruined socially forever. And, in any case, his health would probably be seriously affected for years to come. Up and down like a see-saw went the two aspects of the case in his anxious mind … a Chanticleer had eaten fairy fruit; little Ranulph was in danger.

Then the page announced Endymion Leer.

He was a little rotund man of about sixty, with a snub nose, a freckled face, and with one eye blue and the other brown.

As Master Nathaniel met his shrewd, slightly contemptuous glance he had an uncomfortable feeling which he had often before experienced in his presence, namely that the little man could read his thoughts. So he did not beat about the bush, but told him straight away why he had called him in.

Endymion Leer gave a low whistle. Then he shot at Master Nathaniel a look that was almost menacing and said sharply, “Who gave him the stuff?”

Master Nathaniel told him it was a lad who had once been in his service called Willy Wisp.

“Willy Wisp?” cried the doctor hoarsely. “Willy Wisp?”

“Yes, Willy Wisp … confound him for a double-dyed villain,” said Master Nathaniel fiercely. And then added in some surprise, “Do you know him?”

“Know him? Yes, I know him. Who doesn’t know Willy Wisp?” said the doctor. “You see not being a merchant or a Senator,” he added with a sneer, “I can mix with whom I choose. Willy Wisp with his pranks was the plague of the town while he was in it, and his Worship the Mayor wasn’t altogether blessed by the townsfolk for keeping such a rascally servant.”

“Well, anyway, when I next meet him I’ll thrash him within an inch of his life,” cried Master Nathaniel violently; and Endymion Leer looked at him with a queer little smile.

“And now you’d better take me to see your son and heir,” he said, after a pause.

“Do you … do you think you’ll be able to cure him?” Master Nathaniel asked hoarsely, as he led the way to the parlor.

“I never answer that kind of question before I’ve seen the patient, and not always then,” answered Endymion Leer.

Ranulph was lying on a couch in the parlor, and Dame Marigold was sitting embroidering, her face pale and a little defiant. She was still feeling every inch a Vigil and full of resentment against the two Chanticleers, father and son, for having involved her in this horrible business.

Poor Master Nathaniel stood by, faint with apprehension, while Endymion Leer examined Ranulph’s tongue, felt his pulse and, at the same time, asked him minute questions as to his symptoms.

Finally he turned to Master Nathaniel and said, “I want to be left alone with him. He will talk to me more easily without you and your dame. Doctors should always see their patients alone.”

But Ranulph gave a piercing shriek of terror. “No, no, no!” he cried. “Father! Father! Don’t leave me with him.”

And then he fainted.

Master Nathaniel began to lose his head, and to buzz and bang again like a cockchafer. But Endymion Leer remained perfectly calm. And the man who remains calm inevitably takes command of a situation. Master Nathaniel found himself gently but firmly pushed out of his own parlor, and the door locked in his face. Dame Marigold had followed him, and there was nothing for them to do but to await the doctor’s good pleasure in the pipe-room.

“By the Sun, Moon, and Stars, I’m going back!” cried Master Nathaniel wildly. “I don’t trust that fellow, I’m not going to leave Ranulph alone with him, I’m going back.”

“Oh, nonsense, Nat!” cried Dame Marigold wearily. “Do
please
be calm. One really
must
allow a doctor to have his way.”

For about a quarter of an hour Master Nathaniel paced the room with ill-concealed impatience.

The parlor was opposite the pipe-room, with only a narrow passage between them, and as Master Nathaniel had opened the door of the pipe-room, he soon was able to hear a murmur of voices proceeding from the parlor. This was comforting, for it showed that Ranulph must have come to.

Then, suddenly, his whole body seemed to stiffen, the pupils of his eyes dilated, he went ashy white, and in a low terrified voice he cried, “Marigold, do you hear?”

In the parlor somebody was singing. It was a pretty, plaintive air, and if one listened carefully one could distinguish the words.

“Good gracious, Nat!” cried Dame Marigold, with a mocking look of despair. “What on
earth
is the matter now?”

“Marigold! Marigold!” he cried hoarsely, seizing her wrists, “don’t you
hear?”

“I hear a vulgar old song, if that’s what you mean. I’ve known it all my life. It is very kind and domesticated of Endymion Leer to turn nursemaid and rock the cradle like this!”

But what Master Nathaniel had heard was the Note
.

For a few seconds he stood motionless, the sweat breaking out on his forehead. Then blind with rage, he dashed across the corridor. But he had forgotten the parlor was locked, so he dashed out by the front door and came bursting in by the window that opened on to the garden.

The two occupants of the parlor were evidently so absorbed in each other that they had noticed neither Master Nathaniel’s violent assault on the door nor yet his entry by the window.

Ranulph was lying on the couch with a look on his face of extraordinary peace and serenity, and there was Endymion Leer, crouching over him and softly crooning the tune to which he had before been singing words.

Master Nathaniel, roaring like a bull, flung himself on the doctor, and, dragging him to his feet, began to shake him as a terrier does a rat, at the same time belaboring him with every insulting epithet he could remember, including, of course, “Son of a Fairy.”

As for Ranulph, he began to whimper, and complain that his father had spoiled everything, for the doctor had been making him well.

The din caused terrified servants to come battering at the door, and Dame Marigold came hurrying in by the garden window, and, pink with shame, she began to drag at Master Nathaniel’s coat, almost hysterically imploring him to come to his senses.

But it was only to exhaustion that he finally yielded, and relaxed his hold on his victim, who was purple in the face and gasping for breath — so severe had been the shaking.

Dame Marigold cast a look of unutterable disgust at her panting, triumphant husband, and overwhelmed the little doctor with apologies and offers of restoratives. He sank down on a chair, unable for a few seconds to get his breath, while Master Nathaniel stood glaring at him, and poor Ranulph lay whimpering on the couch with a white scared face. Then the victim of Master Nathaniel’s fury got to his feet, gave himself a little shake, took out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead, and with a little chuckle and in a voice in which there was no trace of resentment, remarked, “Well, a good shaking is a fine thing for settling the humors. Your Worship has turned doctor! Thank you … thank you kindly for your physic.”

But Master Nathaniel said in a stern voice, “What were you doing to my son?”

“What was I doing to him? Why, I was giving him medicine. Songs were medicines long before herbs.”

“He was making me well,” moaned Ranulph.

“What was that song?” demanded Master Nathaniel, in the same stern voice.

“A very old song. Nurses sing it to children. You must have known it all your life. What’s it called again? You know it, Dame Marigold, don’t you? ‘Columbine’ — yes, that’s it. ‘Columbine.’”

The trees in the garden twinkled and murmured. The birds were clamorous. From the distance came the chimes of the Guildhall clock, and the parlor smelt of spring-flowers and potpourri.

Something seemed to relax in Master Nathaniel. He passed his hand over his forehead, gave an impatient little shrug, and, laughing awkwardly, said, “I … I really don’t quite know what took me. I’ve been anxious about the boy, and I suppose it had upset me a little. I can only beg your pardon, Leer.”

“No need to apologize … no need at all. No doctor worth his salt takes offence with … sick men,” and the look he shot at Master Nathaniel was both bright and strange.

Again Master Nathaniel frowned, and very stiffly he murmured “Thank you.”

“Well,” went on the doctor in a matter-of-fact voice, “I should like to have a little private talk with you about this young gentleman. May I?”

“Of course, of course, Dr. Leer,” cried Dame Marigold hastily, for she saw that her husband was hesitating. “He will be delighted, I am sure. Though I think you’re a very brave man to trust yourself to such a monster. Nat, take Dr. Leer into the pipe-room.”

And Master Nathaniel did so.

Once there the doctor’s first words made him so happy as instantly to drive away all traces of his recent fright and to make him even forget to be ashamed of his abominable behavior.

What the doctor said was, “Cheer up, your Worship! I don’t for a moment believe that boy of yours has eaten — what one mustn’t mention.”

“What? What?” cried Master Nathaniel joyfully. “By the Golden Apples of the West! It’s been a storm in a tea-cup then? The little rascal, what a fright he gave us!”

Of course, he had known all the time that it could not be true! Facts could never be as stubborn as that, and as cruel.

And this incorrigible optimist about facts was the same man who walked in daily terror of the unknown. But perhaps the one state of mind was the outcome of the other.

Then, as he remembered the poignancy of the scene between himself and Ranulph last night and, as well, the convincingness of Ranulph’s story, his heart once more grew heavy.

“But … but,” he faltered, “what was the good of this cock and bull story, then? What purpose did it serve? There’s no doubt the boy’s ill in both mind and body, and why, in the name of the Milky Way, should he go to the trouble of inventing a story about Willy Wisp’s giving him a tasted of that
damned
stuff?” and he looked at Endymion Leer appealingly, as much as to say, “Here are the facts. I give them to you. Be merciful and give them a less ugly shape.”

This Endymion Leer proceeded to do.

“How do we know it was … that damned stuff?” he asked. “We have only Willy Wisp’s word for it, and from what I know of that gentleman, his word is about as reliable as … as the wind in a frolic. All Lud knows of his practical jokes … he’d say anything to give one a fright. No, no, believe me, he was just playing off one of his pranks on Master Ranulph. I’ve had some experience in the real thing — I’ve an extensive practice, you know, down at the wharf — and your son’s symptoms aren’t the same. No, no, your son is no more likely to have eaten fairy fruit — than you are.”

Master Nathaniel smiled, and stretched his arms in an ecstasy of relief. “Thank you, Leer, thank you,” he said huskily. “The whole thing was appalling that really I believe it almost turned my head. And you are a very kind fellow not to bear me a grudge for my monstrous mishandling of you in the parlor just now.”

For the moment Master Nathaniel felt as if he really loved the queer, sharp-tongued, little upstart.

“And now,” he went on gleefully, “to show me that it is
really
forgotten and forgiven, we must pledge each other in some wild-thyme gin … my cellar is rather noted for it, you know,” and from a corner cupboard he brought out two glasses and a decanter of the fragrant green cordial, left over from the supper party of the previous night.

For a few minutes they sat sipping in silent contentment.

Then Endymion Leer, as if speaking to himself, said dreamily, “Yes, this is perhaps the solution. Why should we look for any other cure when we have the wild-thyme distilled by our ancestors?
Wild
time? No, time isn’t wild … time-gin, sloe-gin. It is very soothing.”

Master Nathaniel grunted. He understood perfectly what Endymion Leer meant, but he did not choose to show that he did. Any remark verging on the poetical or philosophical always embarrassed him. Fortunately, such remarks were rare in Lud-in-the-Mist.