The Dark Mill Stream

CHAPTER I.—THE TRADER FROM HOICHOW.-2

He had decided what he would do and was determining to consult the best authority upon tropical diseases in London. He would not tell him he was terrified he had got leprosy, but would approach him in the ordinary way, as a man who had just returned from the tropics and was feeling very much off colour. He would let the doctor find out for himself what was the matter with him, giving no help to diagnose any possible complaint.

Arriving in London with just over £1,400 and intending to husband his resources as much as possible, he put up at a cheap coffee tavern in Theobald’s Road. The neighbourhood was poor, but the coffee tavern had been recommended to him as being cheap and clean by one of the stewards on the boat. It was called “Benson’s Hall” and, ashamed to be staying at such a place, he registered under the name of George Hunter. Chester Hardacre, he prided himself, was a high-sounding name and, he thought, it would be ridiculous in such surroundings.

From a London directory he learnt that a Dr. Humphrey Monk was the chief consulting physician of the School of Tropical Medicine in the East End, and he decided he would be a good man to go to, arguing that the doctor must be of high standing to be occupying such a position.

Accordingly, after having had to wait a couple of days for an appointment because the doctor was out of Town, one morning he was ushered into a beautifully-appointed consulting room in a big old-world home in Cavendish Square.

Dr. Monk was a smallish man of slight build, but for all that he looked brimful of dynamic energy. About sixty years of age, he had a high forehead and big, very shrewd grey eyes set deeply under big bushy brows. Waving Hardacre to a chair, he seated himself at a desk and, taking an index card from a pigeon-hole, at once asked him for his name and address. Hardacre gave his name as Charles Henson and, somewhat awed by his surroundings and surmising from them that the doctor’s charges would be very high for all who could pay them, flushing slightly as he did so, said he was staying at the Theobald’s Road coffee tavern. He was hoping a smaller fee would then be expected of him. The preliminaries over, the doctor asked what the trouble was which had brought Hardacre to him.

The trader had many times rehearsed the story he was intending to tell and he told it straightforwardly and with no hesitation.

He said he had but recently returned from equatorial Africa where he had been living for a few years. He had been feeling seedy for a long time, generally run-down and suffering a lot of headaches. His body also ached a bit, chiefly in his bones.

The doctor listened attentively and asked him several questions. Then he told him to strip to the waist to allow of his examining his heart and lungs carefully. Afterwards he made him take off the rest of his clothes, and minutely went over every inch of his body.

At length, pointing to a small spot on one of his shins, he asked him how long it had been there, and Hardacre replied he had not noticed it before, adding it was probably a bite from an insect. There had been plenty about in the boat and they had annoyed him a lot.

Making no comment, the doctor took a bottle out of a cupboard and proceeded to drop a minute quantity of the liquid it contained first upon the spot itself, and then upon the adjoining skin an inch and more away.

“I shan’t hurt you,” he said. “You won’t feel anything,” and with a needle he made two little pricks where he had dropped the liquid. He wiped drops of liquid away, and for a long minute stood intently regarding the skin. He motioned to Hardacre to resume his clothes.

A couple of minutes or so of silence followed, before the trader, fully dressed again, was back in his chair. The doctor spoke very quietly. “I don’t want to distress you unnecessarily,” he said, “but I want to know if, within the past few years”—he spoke very slowly—“you happen to have been brought into contact with anyone known to have been suffering from leprosy?”

Hardacre’s heart almost stood still. A dreadful mist arose before his eyes and his mouth went dry. So his awful fears were confirmed. This doctor was diagnosing leprosy when he had not been given the slightest pointer in that direction. It was many seconds before he found his voice, and then he whispered hoarsely: “Yes.”

The doctor frowned. “Then you had that trouble in your mind when you decided to consult me,” he said. He nodded. “Still it was a good thing I had the opportunity of making an independent diagnosis without any help from you.”

“But have I leprosy?” faltered Hardacre through his dry lips. “Do you think I am infected?”

“Oh, I can’t say that for certain yet,” replied the doctor quickly. “There will be nothing definite until I find the actual leprae bacilli in you. I shall have to see if there are any in that little spot you’ve got there on your shin.”

“But I thought,” said Hardacre tremblingly, “that leprosy began with a white patch somewhere on the skin.”

The doctor shook his head. “Not always. It can first show itself in a brown spot or pimple such as that one you have.” He spoke impressively. “Now, tell me when you were actually in contact with this leprous person, and how close was the contact.”

“It began as long as nearly five years ago,” said the trader, “and it lasted for not quite two years. I have not been near the person for getting on for three years.”

“But three years does not make you safe,” commented the doctor, shaking his head. “We have no certain knowledge as to how many years may elapse between acquiring the disease and it beginning to show itself, but there are well-authenticated cases where the time has been over ten years. Who was this person you may have got it from—a native, of course?”

“Yes, a native woman,” replied Hardacre huskily.

“A servant?” queried the doctor.

Hardacre hesitated. “More than that,” he said. He spoke almost defiantly. “She was living with me in my bungalow.”

“Ah, and if she were infected herself,” nodded the doctor, “that would have given ample opportunity for her to infect you. Did you get rid of her because you found out she was sick?”

“No, for other reasons,” was the reply, “and it was not until two years afterwards that I learnt she had recently been taken ill and put in a leprosorium,” and he went on to explain how he had come to find out what had happened to Winna Mee. “But do you honestly think, sir,” he concluded with his voice shaking, “that I am really a leper?”

“I’ve already told you I can’t tell with any certainty until I’ve dealt with the contents of that spot,” said the doctor a little testily. His voice dropped to a more sympathetic tone. “Still, I can’t hold out much hope that you are not, for undoubtedly you have some of the symptoms of early leprosy. Besides, that little test which I made just now makes things look very ominous.”

“But nothing happened,” frowned Hardacre.

“No, that’s exactly it,” nodded the doctor. “Nothing did happen, and if it were certain you were leprosy free, something should have happened. It was histamine, which comes from ergot, which I put on your skin and, after I had pricked it, within a few seconds I should have seen a pronounced reddening of the skin. But, as you saw, we didn’t get any reddening at all and that’s what makes me suspicious.”

A few minutes later, after he had obtained some of the contents of the spot, he dismissed Hardacre, enjoining him to come back in two days’ time. “Then I shall be able to tell you for certain,” he said, “and we shall have to decide what we must do.”

They were a miserable two days for the trader, and he was white and shaky-looking when he returned two days later to Cavendish Square. Directly he entered the consulting room he saw by the expression upon the doctor’s face what the verdict was going to be.

Grave and unsmiling, the doctor said very quietly: “I am sorry to tell you that we found leprosy bacilli in the specimen and——”

“Then I am a doomed man!” choked Hardacre. “There’s no hope for me!”

“No, no, you mustn’t say that,” protested the doctor quickly. “Indeed, there is a lot of hope for you if you take things in the proper way. I won’t deceive you by saying we know of any specific cure, but I do assure you the disease is distinctly amenable to treatment and only a very small percentage of sufferers actually die of it. It is recognized now that it is a self-healing disease, like small-pox and typhoid fever, but while typhoid burns itself out in, say, twenty-one days, leprosy may take twenty-one years. So, if you never actually get rid of it, if you follow directions implicitly and keep up your general health, you may hold it at bay for the remainder of your life.”

“I’ll do anything,” said Hardacre miserably, “but what is there to do?”

“Lots of things. Firstly, you must hypnotize yourself into the belief that you’re not going to get worse, but, instead, you are going to get better. So you mustn’t brood over it, by no means an impossible attitude of mind when you carry out the routine I am going to lay down for you. You must build up your health and strength in every possible way, and you must live a good out-door life and get plenty of exercise and fresh air. You must take up some hobby or occupation strenuously, to occupy your mind.”

“But aren’t you going to give me any medicine?” asked Hardacre, a little comforted by the doctor’s words.

“Certainly,” replied the doctor. “I’m going to put you on strong doses of potassium iodide. They are getting splendid results from it in India, better than from anything else. I’ll give you a prescription at once.” He regarded the trader curiously. “Now are you pretty well off?”

Hardacre frowned. “If I were should I be staying at the address I gave you?” he asked bitterly. “No one could surely imagine a man of means would be stopping anywhere near Theobald’s Road.” He shook his head. “No, I have not much money and I shall have to earn my living like most other people do. But why do you ask?”

For a few moments the doctor hesitated. Then he said thoughtfully: “I am wondering what can be done in your particular case, for of course segregation will be imperative to prevent you passing on the disease to others.”

“Then am I infectious?” exclaimed Hardacre in a horrified tone. “Can I infect other people?”

The doctor nodded. “Most assuredly you can. In the first instance you probably became infected by that native girl from a spot no bigger than the one you have now on your shin. Apart from any spots, too, the secretions from the mucous membrane of the nose and throat can infect as well.” He nodded again. “Yes, the early stages of the disease are considered the most dangerous of all.”

“Then what am I to do?” asked Hardacre, dreadful possibilities of what might be going to happen to him avalanching into his mind.

“Well, that depends upon what you can pay,” replied the doctor, “but, anyway, things will be arranged for you. You see, in this country leprosy is not usually a notifiable infectious disease but it happens to be so now, as several cases have come to light recently in the Port of London. So, I shall have to report your case at once to the Health Authorities and they will deal with it according to your circumstances. That’s why I asked you if you were a man of any money.” He spoke in business-like tones. “You say you have a little! Well, if you could run to six guineas a week, then there is a very exclusive little colony in Wales which you could join. It is on an isolated part of the coast in most ideal surroundings, and there would be plenty to occupy your mind. You could fish and golf and there is good shooting. At present there are about twenty men and women there, all of a better class, and there’s a good doctor in attendance.”