Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles. Ellen WoodЧитать онлайн книгу.
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"Jane, I wonder which office will be the best to insure in?"
Jane began to recall the names of some that were familiar to her.
"The Phœnix?" suggested she.
Mr. Halliburton laughed. "I think that's only for fire, Jane. I am not sure, though." In truth, he knew little about insurance offices himself.
"There's the Sun; and the Atlas; and the Argus—oh, and ever so many more," continued Jane.
"I'll inquire all about it to-day," said he.
"I wonder if the premium will take a hundred a year, Edgar?"
He could not tell. He feared it might. "I wish Jane," he observed, "that I had insured my life when I first married. The premium would have been small then, and we might have managed to spare it."
"Ay," she answered. "Sometimes I look back to things that I might have done in the past years: and I did not do them. Now, the time has gone by!"
"Well, it has not gone by for insuring," said Mr. Halliburton, rising from the breakfast-table and speaking in gay tones. "Half-past eight!" he cried, looking at his watch. "Good-bye, Jane," said he, bending to kiss her. "Wish me luck."
"A weighty insurance and a small premium," she said, laughing. "But you are not going about it now?"
"Of course not. The offices would not be open. I shall take an opportunity of doing so in the course of the day."
Mr. Halliburton departed on his usual duties. It was a warm day in April. His first attendance was King's College, and there he remained for the morning. Then he proceeded to gain information about the various offices and their respective merits: finally fixed upon the one he should apply to, and bent his steps towards it.
It was situated in the heart of the City, in a very busy part of it. The office also appeared to be busy, for several people were in it when Mr. Halliburton entered. A young man came forward to know his business.
"I wish to insure my life," said Mr. Halliburton. "How must I proceed about it?"
"Oh yes, sir. Mr. Procter, will you attend to this gentleman?"
Mr. Halliburton was marshalled to an inner room, where a gentlemanly man received him. He explained his business in detail, stated his age, and the sum he wished to insure for. Every information was politely afforded him; and a paper, with certain printed questions, was given him to fill up at his leisure, and then to be returned.
Mr. Halliburton glanced over it. "You require a certificate of my birth from the parish register where I was baptized, I perceive," he remarked. "Why so? In stating my age, I have stated it correctly."
The gentleman smiled. "Of that I make no doubt," he said, "for you look younger than the age you have given me. Our office makes it a rule in most cases to require the certificate from the register. All applicants are not scrupulous about telling the truth, and we have been obliged to adopt it in self-defence. We have had cases, we have indeed, sir, where we have insured a life, and then found—though perhaps not until the actual death has taken place—that the insurer was ten years older than he asserted. Therefore we demand a certificate. It does occasionally happen that applicants can bring well-known men to testify to their age, and then we do not mind dispensing with it."
Mr. Halliburton sent his thoughts round in a circle. There was no one in London who knew his age of their own positive knowledge; so it was useless to think of that. "There will be no difficulty in the matter," he said aloud. "I can get the certificate up from Devonshire in the course of two or three days by writing for it. My father was rector of the church where I was christened. This will be all, then? To fill up this paper and bring you the certificate."
"All; with the exception of being examined by our physician."
"What! is it necessary to be examined by a physician?" exclaimed Mr. Halliburton. "The paper states that I must hand in a report from my ordinary medical attendant. He will not give you a bad report of me," he added, smiling, "for it is little enough I have troubled him. I believe the worst thing he has attended me for has been a bad cold."
"So much the better," remarked the gentleman. "You do not look very strong."
"Very strong I don't think I am. I am too hard worked; get too little rest and recreation. It was suspecting that I am not so strong as I might be that set me thinking it might be well to insure my life for the sake of my wife and children," he ingenuously added, in his straightforward manner. "If I could count upon living and working on until I am an old man, I should not do so."
Again the gentleman smiled. "Looks are deceitful," he observed. "Nothing more so. Sometimes those who look the most delicate live the longest."
"You cannot say I look delicate," returned Mr. Halliburton.
"I did not say it. I consider that you do not look robust; but that is not saying that you look delicate. You may be a perfectly healthy man for all I can say to the contrary."
He ran his eyes over Mr. Halliburton as he spoke; over his tall, fine form, his dark hair, amidst which not a streak of grey mingled, his clearly-cut features, and his complexion, bright as a woman's. Was there suspicion in that complexion? "A handsome man, at any rate," thought the gazer, "if not a robust one."
"It will be necessary, then, that I see your physician?" asked Mr. Halliburton.
"Yes. It cannot be dispensed with. We would not insure without it. He attends here twice a week. In the intervening days, he may be seen in Savile-row, from three to five. It is Dr. Carrington. His days for coming here are Mondays and Thursdays."
"And this is Friday," remarked Mr. Halliburton. "I shall probably go up to him."
Mr. Halliburton said good morning, and came away with his paper. "It's great nonsense, my seeing this doctor!" he said to himself as he hastened home to dinner, which he knew he must have kept waiting. "But I suppose it is necessary as a general rule; and of course they won't make me an exception."
Hurrying over his dinner, in a manner that prevented its doing him any good—as Jane assured him—he sat down to his desk when it was over and wrote for the certificate of his birth. Folding and sealing the letter, he put on his hat to go out again.
"Shall you go to Savile-row this afternoon?" Jane inquired.
"If I can by any possibility get my teaching over in time," he answered. "Young Finchley's hour is four o'clock, but I can put him off until the evening. I dare say I shall get up there."
By dint of hurrying, Mr. Halliburton contrived to reach Savile-row, and arrived there in much heat at half-past four. There was no necessity for hurrying there on this particular day, but he felt impatient to get the business over; as if speed now could atone for past neglect. Dr. Carrington was at home but engaged, and Mr. Halliburton was shown into a room. Three or four others were waiting there; whether ordinary patients, or whether mere applicants of form like himself, he could not tell; and it was their turn to go in before it was his.
But his turn came at last, and he was ushered into the presence of the doctor—a little man, fair and reserved, with powder on his head.
Reserved in ordinary intercourse, but certainly not reserved in asking questions. Mr. Halliburton had never been so rigidly questioned before. What disorders had he had, and what had he not had? What were his habits, past and present? One question came at last: "Do you feel thoroughly strong?—healthy, elastic?"
"I feel languid in hot weather," replied Mr. Halliburton.
"Um! Appetite sound and good?"
"Generally speaking. It has not been so good of late."
"Breathing all right?"
"Yes; it is a little tight sometimes."
"Um! Subject to a cough?"
"I have no settled cough. A sort of hacking cough comes on at night occasionally. I attribute it to fatigue."
"Um! Will you open your shirt? Just