_The Recluse._
Enforced idleness is, to an active mind, the greatest misery
conceivable. Harold Inglis had in him a vast capacity for work, and
therefore found it doubly bitter to have to spend his days lounging
about, waiting for the patients who never came. He was afraid to go
out lest he should miss a summons, and unable to sit down to read
or write, so continually did he find himself listening for a ring
at the bell and Ann's voice announcing a patient. He could not even
tranquillise himself with tobacco, for he had given up smoking on
account of the expense.
He returned from an errand one afternoon to find an elderly
manservant waiting with the intimation that Sir Edward Vane, of The
Towers, was ill, and would like to see him. He knew Sir Edward by
name as a wealthy and eccentric recluse, who lived alone in a big
house just outside the town, and was liberal in doctors' fees. Not
a little flattered, he promised to come immediately, and was about
to turn in at the lodge gate at The Towers, when he encountered Dr.
Selwyn, another local medical man, with whom he was acquainted.
"Been sent for by Sir Edward, eh?" asked Selwyn, with a broad grin.
"Yes."
"Wish you joy. You may not know it, but he's already tried every
doctor in Beachbourne, and quarrelled with them all in succession. I
wouldn't attend him again for any money. Good-bye, and good luck to
you!"
In some trepidation, Harold knocked, and was admitted through a
handsome hall into a spacious sitting-room, littered with almost
every conceivable object. On a sofa reclined a grey-haired man
about sixty, whose tanned face, speaking of long residence in the
tropics, was disfigured by a look of fretful ill-health. A retired
Anglo-Indian, distinguished in the Civil Service, Sir Edward had
seen more of the world than most men.
"You're not in partnership with anybody here, are you?" he asked,
when Harold had examined him carefully.
"No."
"All the better. A more wretched lot of impostors than the
Beachbourne doctors I never came across. For years they've been
tinkering at me, and, after all, I'm worse, instead of better. What
are doctors for, if they can't cure one?"
Harold was discreetly silent. Sir Edward had a complication of
maladies, beyond any medical skill to remedy.
"My father lived to be ninety," continued the invalid. "And why
can't I?"
"I don't think, for my part, I should wish to be so old as that,"
diffidently returned Harold. "It must be so sad to outlive all one's
friends."
"I have no friends," was the grim reply. "Only some greedy
relations, eager for my money. I've a good deal to leave," he added,
looking keenly at Harold. "And when I take a fancy to people,
I'm liberal----They say here that I'm always quarrelling with my
doctors; but it's the doctors who quarrel with me, and will air
their own particular fads, instead of trying to cure me. Are you
married?" he asked abruptly.
"No."
"A good thing, too; you've more time to attend to your patients.
Hewett used to bore me talking by the hour about that ugly wife of
his. Do you understand fossils, and such things? My room's in an
awful mess, as you see, and I should like to have the specimens
arranged a bit; but I can't trust the servants."
The place was indeed crammed with all sorts of curios, many
exceedingly valuable. By continually asking for one possession after
another, Sir Edward had ended by accumulating all his treasures
in this one room, which he never left, save for his bedchamber
adjoining. A most untidy place it was; the curiosities being heaped
on chairs, shelves, and the floor, without any method.
"I am very fond of fossils; and if you wish them arranged, it would
give me great pleasure to help."
"Hewett wanted me to make a clean sweep of them; interfered with the
flow of his precious fresh air. Like his ignorance! Did he think I
wanted to sit and stare at an ugly wall-paper all day when I was
tired of reading?"
"Do you read much?"
"Yes; chiefly Sanskrit. In _my_ day, Indian officials had to be not
only gentlemen but scholars. Well," as Harold rose to go, "I'll have
your prescription made up, and shall expect you again to-morrow."
"I will come, and hope the pain will be easier then." He detailed
the treatment he desired, and was giving a few final directions when
the manservant opened the door. "Miss Geare has called, sir. Will
you see her?"
"Oh dear!" pettishly exclaimed Sir Edward. "She'll stay an hour,
prosing about her dogs. For mercy's sake, don't go!" detaining
Harold. "Help me to entertain her, and get her away soon! She was to
have been my sister-in-law, having been engaged to my brother Adrian
years ago; and since in an evil hour I settled at Beachbourne, I've
been fairly persecuted by her."
In another minute the little lady tripped smilingly in.
"Well, Edward dear, how are you now? I heard you were not well, so I
just came to inquire."
"I'm better now, thank you," returned Sir Edward gruffly. "I've
given Hewett the sack, and this is my new doctor--Dr. Inglis. Do you
know him?"
"Oh, yes, he has been attending me. I'm sure he has done me good,
and I hope you'll benefit also, Edward. You can't _think_ how kind
Dr. Inglis was to my darling Bijou when he broke his leg!"
"Having attended Bijou, it, of course, follows that Dr. Inglis will
cure me," sneered Sir Edward. "How is the amiable Miss Pepper?"
"She's waiting outside with the dogs, as you said you wouldn't have
her here. She's a faithful creature; I wish you liked her a little
better, Edward dear."
"I never was fond of vinegar, Catherine."
"Oh, don't be so sarcastic, Edward! I never was clever; but you make
me feel like a little girl again, when my governess scolded me."
There were tears in the watery blue eyes; but they did not seem to
touch Sir Edward. "The remedy, my dear Catherine, is exceedingly
simple," he blandly rejoined. "I know I'm a curmudgeon, unfit to
associate with such an angel as you. Why then should you inflict
upon yourself the unpleasantness of coming here? Why not stay away,
to enjoy the more congenial society of Miss Pepper and the dogs?"
"So you don't want me, Edward? I think you're very unkind," returned
Miss Geare, evidently wounded, but with a patient dignity Harold had
not expected. He noticed that ever since she entered her gaze had
wandered, at intervals, to an oil-painting of a fine-looking young
man in uniform which hung over the mantelpiece. "But I know better
than to take you at your word. You are all I have left--my dear
Adrian's brother--and----" She broke down, and wiped the slow tears
of age from her eyes.
Sir Edward gave an impatient sigh, and Harold interposed. "Allow me
to remind you, Miss Geare, that my patient has had a very severe
attack, and the quieter he is the better. Everything depends on
that. I must go home now; and may I request the pleasure of your
company to the gate, if you are ready?"
"Yes, do go home to Bijou!" fretfully murmured the invalid. And Miss
Geare, after bestowing an affectionate farewell on the unresponsive
Sir Edward, allowed Harold to politely conduct her to the lodge gate.
"Poor Edward!" she began, as they went down the drive, "he allows
illness to sour his temper, and it's such a pity! But I take no
notice--he's my dear Adrian's only brother, and I can't bear
to stay away from the house. Did you see the portrait over the
mantelpiece?--that was my Adrian. I was young, and pretty too, in
those days, though you mayn't believe it----"
"I quite believe it," said Harold kindly, touched by the spectacle
of this forlorn old age.
"Adrian was so proud of Edward. He was so much thought of in India,
and is very, very clever--but not equal to my Adrian--oh, no; nobody
ever could be as handsome and noble as he was! When I heard he was
killed in the Mutiny, I thought I should die too; I think it must
have killed something inside me, for I've never been the same since.
I get confused, and I can't remember things----Yes, I'm coming.
Very sorry to have kept you waiting."
The humble apology was to Miss Pepper, who, with a most unamiable
countenance, was standing just outside the gate. Miss Geare hastily
said farewell, and Harold could hear her companion scolding her
vigorously as they went down the road. But, as he thought of the
faded, antique love story which had ended so tragically, he could
not but feel sorry for poor little eccentric Miss Geare--it was so
evident that the best part of her had been buried in her lover's
grave. Her eyes must have been rather like May's, he thought, before
sorrow had given them that vacant expression; and then he wondered,
for the hundredth time, what Mrs. Burnside was doing in London, and
whether she thought of him as often as he did of her.