The doctor left the sexton's cottage, thinking deeply on the way in
which the brain is affected by the weakness of the body.
"Poor old fellow!" he muttered; "nearly a hundred years old, and
clinging to life more tightly than ever. Believes he saw something, of
course. Not fit to go out alone. But he'll pull round, and perhaps
last for years. Wonderful constitution, but also an exemplification of
my pet theory. Humph! coming out of church. Well, I must meet 'em, I
suppose. Hallo! what's going to happen? Has Salis converted the pair
of reprobates? Morning, Squire; morning, Mr Candlish."
He shook hands--professionally, as he called it--with the young squire
and his brother, who were just out of church, and walked slowly on with
them, discussing the hunt, election matters, and the state of the
country.
"Why don't you hunt more, doctor?" said the squire, a florid,
fine-looking man, singularly like his brother, but more athletic of
build.
"Want of time," said the doctor good-humouredly. "Too many irons in the
fire."
"You work too hard. But look here--don't be offended; I've always a
spare mount or two when you are disposed for a gallop."
"Thanks; I'll ask one of these days--which never come," the doctor added
to himself. "And now, good-day."
"No, no; come on, and have a bit of dinner with us--early dinner
to-day."
"Thanks--no; I've a patient or two to see, and I want a word with the
parson."
"We don't," said the squire; "eh, Tom? We've had ours."
Tom Candlish scowled.
"Well, always glad to see you, doctor--non-professionally," said the
squire; and they went on, while North turned back to meet Salis,
wondering why Tom Candlish had condescended to come to church.
"To stare at Leo, I'll be sworn, and Salis must have felt it. I'll be
bound to say he made a dozen mistakes in the service this morning
through that fellow coming. And, as for the squire--that young man
drinks, and he had better look out, or Moredock will have a grand
funeral to attend."
"Good morning, doctor. Were you coming to see me?"
"Ah, Mrs Berens! I beg your pardon; I didn't see you."
"No, doctor, you never do seem to see me. You forget your most anxious
patients," said the lady pathetically.
"But, really, you did not send me word."
"No, I did not send you word. I lived in hope of your coming."
"Thank goodness!" thought the doctor. "This woman is growing
dangerous."
His pious ejaculation was consequent upon the fact that his friend, the
curate, was approaching in company with Leo.
Mrs Berens became aware of the fact at the same time, and though she
uttered no pious ejaculation, she was equally pleased, for two reasons.
The first was that through the past two hours she had been seated in the
same building with Leo Salis; the pews were high, and Leo could only
have seen the top of her bonnet, whereas the handsome widow did not go
to great expense for the most fashionable _modes et robes_, as the
dressmakers express it, for nothing. The most elegant head-gear, though
it may afford some satisfaction to the wearer, is hardly worth wearing,
unless it be envied by those of the one sex and admired by the other.
This encounter with the doctor would give handsome Leo a good
opportunity for envious glances, and as Mrs Berens could not rival her
neighbour in contour, she would have some chance of standing upon an
equal footing.
The other reason was that she wished the curate to come up and speak to
her at the same time as she was talking to the doctor. For Mrs Berens
was not deeply in love; she only wished to be. The doctor and the
curate were both fine, manly fellows, to either of whom she would have
been willing to give herself and fortune; but somehow they had both been
terribly unimpressionable, and though she had shown as plainly as she
dared, any time during the past year, the tenderness waiting to burst
forth, she was still Mrs Berens, and twelve months older.
Here was an opportunity of playing one-off against the other; for men
could often be stirred, she knew, into learning the value of something
when they saw that it was gliding from their grasp.
The couple from the Rectory came up, and Mrs Berens felt a pang as,
after her warm salutations, in which her hand had rested in that of the
curate for a few moments, to receive nothing more than a frank, friendly
pressure, she saw that of Leo Salis rest in the doctor's longer than she
considered prudent. Leo seemed unusually handsome, too, that morning.
There was a bright flush on her cheeks; her eyes sparkled, and she
looked twenty, while Mrs Berens felt that she looked nearly forty.
Salis was glad of the encounter, for it was true that he had been making
mistakes that morning. The very fact that Tom Candlish was in the
church was disturbing, and when he knew that he must have come--he could
not believe otherwise--expressly to stare at Leo, the presence of the
man whom he had thrashed in so unclerical a way acted on his thoughts as
a pointsman acts over trains at a busy junction--sent them flying in
different directions beyond the drivers' control.
The curate's colour was heightened, for he knew that he had appeared at
a disadvantage before the more thoughtful of his congregation. He was
anxious, too, about Leo, who looked excited, and he dreaded any renewal
of the past trouble; so that the encounter was satisfactory, if only
from the fact that it afforded temporary relief from worrying thoughts
and cares.
Mrs Berens was sweetness itself to all, and Leo seemed to rouse herself
to be pleasant to the doctor, the result being that Mrs Berens was seen
home--to part most affectionately from Leo, and with most tenderly
friendly pressures of the hand to the gentlemen; after which she hurried
into her room, to tear off her new bonnet and indulge in a passionate
burst of sobbing.
"She's as deceitful as she is young," she cried. "She has thrown over
Tom Candlish, and now she is winning over that foolish doctor; while
Hartley Salis is as immovable as a stone.
"I'll be even with her," she cried. "Either Tom Candlish or the squire
would be glad to marry me. I'll have one of them, and I'll make her
half die with envy by asking her to my house, and--yes, there they go,
and Horace North is going into the house with them. Ugh! the monster!
He deserves to have the doorstep sink beneath his feet. But I'll be
revenged. No, no, no! they're too bad," she sobbed; "but I couldn't
stoop to that."
Mrs Berens subsided into an easy-chair, to go on reddening her eyes;
while the doctor accompanied his friends to the Rectory, and stopped
chatting for a few minutes, but refused another invitation to dine even
when Mary Salis and Leo both added their persuasions.
"No," he said, "I've promised old Moredock his dose, and I'm going to
see that he has it." And then, after a few kindly words to Mary
concerning her health--words that were almost tender, but which seemed
to burn and sear the poor girl, as she read them aright--he went away,
to hurry to his surgery in the Manor House.
"I'm very glad, for poor old Hartley's sake, that the affair's all off.
It is, evidently; for Madam Leo seemed as cool as could be, and she's as
handsome and ladylike a girl as a man need wish to call wife. Humph!
I'll give him a little chloral--just a suspicion--to calm him down.
Poor old boy! and he thinks he's going to die. Well, it's my theory,"
he continued, as he compounded the sexton's mixture and carefully corked
it up; "and, think about it from whichever point I may, it seems to be
quite right. There, Master Moredock, there's your dose. That will lay
any ghost in the United Kingdom, given sufficiently strong!"