MR. GIBSON'S NEIGHBOURS.
[Illustration (untitled)]
Molly grew up among these quiet people in calm monotony of life,
without any greater event than that which has been recorded--the
being left behind at the Towers--until she was nearly seventeen. She
had become a visitor at the school, but she had never gone again to
the annual festival at the great house; it was easy to find some
excuse for keeping away, and the recollection of that day was not
a pleasant one on the whole, though she often thought how much she
should like to see the gardens again.
Lady Agnes was married; there was only Lady Harriet remaining at
home; Lord Hollingford, the eldest son, had lost his wife, and was
a good deal more at the Towers since he had become a widower. He
was a tall ungainly man, considered to be as proud as his mother,
the countess; but, in fact, he was only shy, and slow at making
commonplace speeches. He did not know what to say to people whose
daily habits and interests were not the same as his; he would have
been very thankful for a handbook of small-talk, and would have
learnt off his sentences with good-humoured diligence. He often
envied the fluency of his garrulous father, who delighted in talking
to everybody, and was perfectly unconscious of the incoherence of his
conversation. But, owing to his constitutional reserve and shyness,
Lord Hollingford was not a popular man although his kindness of
heart was very great, his simplicity of character extreme, and his
scientific acquirements considerable enough to entitle him to much
reputation in the European republic of learned men. In this respect
Hollingford was proud of him. The inhabitants knew that the great,
grave, clumsy heir to its fealty was highly esteemed for his wisdom;
and that he had made one or two discoveries, though in what direction
they were not quite sure. But it was safe to point him out to
strangers visiting the little town, as "That's Lord Hollingford--the
famous Lord Hollingford, you know; you must have heard of him, he is
so scientific." If the strangers knew his name, they also knew his
claims to fame; if they did not, ten to one but they would make as
if they did, and so conceal not only their own ignorance, but that
of their companions, as to the exact nature of the sources of his
reputation.
He was left a widower with two or three boys. They were at a public
school; so that their companionship could make the house in which
he had passed his married life but little of a home to him, and he
consequently spent much of his time at the Towers; where his mother
was proud of him, and his father very fond, but ever so little afraid
of him. His friends were always welcomed by Lord and Lady Cumnor; the
former, indeed, was in the habit of welcoming everybody everywhere;
but it was a proof of Lady Cumnor's real affection for her
distinguished son, that she allowed him to ask what she called "all
sorts of people" to the Towers. "All sorts of people" meant really
those who were distinguished for science and learning, without regard
to rank: and it must be confessed, without much regard to polished
manners likewise.
Mr. Hall, Mr. Gibson's predecessor, had always been received with
friendly condescension by my lady, who had found him established as
the family medical man, when first she came to the Towers on her
marriage; but she never thought of interfering with his custom of
taking his meals, if he needed refreshment, in the housekeeper's
room, not _with_ the housekeeper, _bien entendu_. The comfortable,
clever, stout, and red-faced doctor would very much have preferred
this, even if he had had the choice given him (which he never had) of
taking his "snack," as he called it, with my lord and my lady, in the
grand dining-room. Of course, if some great surgical gun (like Sir
Astley) was brought down from London to bear on the family's health,
it was due to him, as well as to the local medical attendant, to ask
Mr. Hall to dinner, in a formal and ceremonious manner, on which
occasions Mr. Hall buried his chin in voluminous folds of white
muslin, put on his black knee-breeches, with bunches of ribbon at
the sides, his silk stockings and buckled shoes, and otherwise made
himself excessively uncomfortable in his attire, and went forth in
state in a post-chaise from the "George," consoling himself in the
private corner of his heart for the discomfort he was enduring with
the idea of how well it would sound the next day in the ears of the
squires whom he was in the habit of attending: "Yesterday at dinner
the earl said," or "the countess remarked," or "I was surprised to
hear when I was dining at the Towers yesterday." But somehow things
had changed since Mr. Gibson had become "the doctor" _par excellence_
at Hollingford. Miss Brownings thought that it was because he had
such an elegant figure, and "such a distinguished manner;" Mrs.
Goodenough, "because of his aristocratic connections"--"the son of a
Scotch duke, my dear, never mind on which side of the blanket." But
the fact was certain; although he might frequently ask Mrs. Brown
to give him something to eat in the housekeeper's room--he had no
time for all the fuss and ceremony of luncheon with my lady--he was
always welcome to the grandest circle of visitors in the house. He
might lunch with a duke any day that he chose; given that a duke was
forthcoming at the Towers. His accent was Scotch, not provincial. He
had not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his bones; and leanness goes
a great way to gentility. His complexion was sallow, and his hair
black; in those days, the decade after the conclusion of the great
continental war, to be sallow and black-a-vised was of itself a
distinction; he was not jovial (as my lord remarked with a sigh, but
it was my lady who endorsed the invitations), sparing of his words,
intelligent, and slightly sarcastic. Therefore he was perfectly
presentable.
His Scotch blood (for that he was of Scottish descent there could be
no manner of doubt) gave him just the kind of thistly dignity which
made every one feel that they must treat him with respect; so on that
head he was assured. The grandeur of being an invited guest to dinner
at the Towers from time to time, gave him but little pleasure for
many years, but it was a form to be gone through in the way of his
profession, without any idea of social gratification.
But when Lord Hollingford returned to make the Towers his home,
affairs were altered. Mr. Gibson really heard and learnt things that
interested him seriously, and that gave fresh flavour to his reading.
From time to time he met the leaders of the scientific world;
odd-looking, simple-hearted men, very much in earnest about their
own particular subjects, and not having much to say on any other. Mr.
Gibson found himself capable of appreciating such persons, and also
perceived that they valued his appreciation, as it was honestly
and intelligently given. Indeed, by-and-by, he began to send
contributions of his own to the more scientific of the medical
journals, and thus partly in receiving, partly in giving out
information and accurate thought, a new zest was added to his life.
There was not much intercourse between Lord Hollingford and himself;
the one was too silent and shy, the other too busy, to seek each
other's society with the perseverance required to do away with the
social distinction of rank that prevented their frequent meetings.
But each was thoroughly pleased to come into contact with the other.
Each could rely on the other's respect and sympathy with a security
unknown to many who call themselves friends; and this was a source
of happiness to both; to Mr. Gibson the most so, of course; for
his range of intelligent and cultivated society was the smaller.
Indeed, there was no one equal to himself among the men with whom he
associated, and this he had felt as a depressing influence, although
he never recognized the cause of his depression. There was Mr.
Ashton, the vicar, who had succeeded Mr. Browning, a thoroughly good
and kind-hearted man, but one without an original thought in him;
whose habitual courtesy and indolent mind led him to agree to every
opinion, not palpably heterodox, and to utter platitudes in the most
gentlemanly manner. Mr. Gibson had once or twice amused himself, by
leading the vicar on in his agreeable admissions of arguments "as
perfectly convincing," and of statements as "curious but undoubted,"
till he had planted the poor clergyman in a bog of heretical
bewilderment. But then Mr. Ashton's pain and suffering at suddenly
finding out into what a theological predicament he had been brought,
his real self-reproach at his previous admissions, were so great
that Mr. Gibson lost all sense of fun, and hastened back to the
Thirty-nine Articles with all the good-will in life, as the only
means of soothing the vicar's conscience. On any other subject,
except that of orthodoxy, Mr. Gibson could lead him any lengths; but
then his ignorance on most of them prevented bland acquiescence from
arriving at any results which could startle him. He had some private
fortune, and was not married, and lived the life of an indolent and
refined bachelor; but though he himself was no very active visitor
among his poorer parishioners, he was always willing to relieve their
wants in the most liberal, and, considering his habits, occasionally
in the most self-denying manner, whenever Mr. Gibson, or any one
else, made them clearly known to him. "Use my purse as freely as if
it was your own, Gibson," he was wont to say. "I'm such a bad one at
going about and making talk to poor folk--I daresay I don't do enough
in that way--but I am most willing to give you anything for any one
you may consider in want."
"Thank you; I come upon you pretty often, I believe, and make very
little scruple about it; but if you'll allow me to suggest, it is,
that you shouldn't try to make talk when you go into the cottages;
but just talk."
"I don't see the difference," said the vicar, a little querulously;
"but I daresay there is a difference, and I have no doubt what you
say is quite true. I shouldn't make talk, but talk; and as both are
equally difficult to me, you must let me purchase the privilege of
silence by this ten-pound note."
"Thank you. It's not so satisfactory to me; and, I should think, not
to yourself. But probably the Joneses and Greens will prefer it."
Mr. Ashton would look with plaintive inquiry into Mr. Gibson's face
after some such speech, as if asking if a sarcasm was intended. On
the whole, they went on in the most amicable way; only beyond the
gregarious feeling common to most men, they had very little actual
pleasure in each other's society. Perhaps the man of all others
to whom Mr. Gibson took the most kindly--at least, until Lord
Hollingford came into the neighbourhood--was a certain Squire Hamley.
He and his ancestors had been called squire as long back as local
tradition extended. But there was many a greater land-owner in the
county, for Squire Hamley's estate was not more than eight hundred
acres or so. But his family had been in possession of it long before
the Earls of Cumnor had been heard of; before the Hely-Harrisons
had bought Coldstone Park; no one in Hollingford knew the time when
the Hamleys had not lived at Hamley. "Ever since the Heptarchy,"
said the vicar. "Nay," said Miss Browning, "I have heard that there
were Hamleys of Hamley before the Romans." The vicar was preparing
a polite assent, when Mrs. Goodenough came in with a still more
startling assertion. "I have always heerd," said she, with all the
slow authority of an oldest inhabitant, "that there was Hamleys of
Hamley afore the time of the pagans." Mr. Ashton could only bow, and
say, "Possibly, very possibly, madam." But he said it in so courteous
a manner that Mrs. Goodenough looked round in a gratified way, as
much as to say, "The Church confirms my words; who now will dare
dispute them?" At any rate, the Hamleys were a very old family, if
not aborigines. They had not increased their estate for centuries;
they had held their own, if even with an effort, and had not sold
a rood of it for the last hundred years or so. But they were not
an adventurous race. They never traded, or speculated, or tried
agricultural improvements of any kind. They had no capital in any
bank; nor what perhaps would have been more in character, hoards of
gold in any stocking. Their mode of life was simple, and more like
that of yeomen than squires. Indeed Squire Hamley, by continuing the
primitive manners and customs of his forefathers, the squires of the
eighteenth century, did live more as a yeoman, when such a class
existed, than as a squire of this generation. There was a dignity in
this quiet conservatism that gained him an immense amount of respect
both from high and low; and he might have visited at every house
in the county had he so chosen. But he was very indifferent to the
charms of society; and perhaps this was owing to the fact that the
squire, Roger Hamley, who at present lived and reigned at Hamley,
had not received so good an education as he ought to have done.
His father, Squire Stephen, had been plucked at Oxford, and, with
stubborn pride, he had refused to go up again. Nay, more! he had
sworn a great oath, as men did in those days, that none of his
children to come should ever know either university by becoming a
member of it. He had only one child, the present Squire, and he was
brought up according to his father's word; he was sent to a petty
provincial school, where he saw much that he hated, and then turned
loose upon the estate as its heir. Such a bringing up did not do him
all the harm that might have been anticipated. He was imperfectly
educated, and ignorant on many points; but he was aware of his
deficiency, and regretted it in theory. He was awkward and ungainly
in society, and so kept out of it as much as possible; and he was
obstinate, violent-tempered, and dictatorial in his own immediate
circle. On the other side, he was generous, and true as steel; the
very soul of honour, in fact. He had so much natural shrewdness, that
his conversation was always worth listening to, although he was apt
to start by assuming entirely false premises, which he considered
as incontrovertible as if they had been mathematically proved; but,
given the correctness of his premises, nobody could bring more
natural wit and sense to bear upon the arguments based upon them.
He had married a delicate fine London lady; it was one of those
perplexing marriages of which one cannot understand the reasons. Yet
they were very happy, though possibly Mrs. Hamley would not have sunk
into the condition of a chronic invalid, if her husband had cared a
little more for her various tastes, or allowed her the companionship
of those who did. After his marriage he was wont to say he had got
all that was worth having out of the crowd of houses they called
London. It was a compliment to his wife which he repeated until the
year of her death; it charmed her at first, it pleased her up to the
last time of her hearing it; but, for all that, she used sometimes
to wish that he would recognize the fact that there might still be
something worth hearing and seeing in the great city. But he never
went there again, and though he did not prohibit her going, yet he
showed so little sympathy with her when she came back full of what
she had done on her visit that she ceased caring to go. Not but what
he was kind and willing in giving his consent, and in furnishing her
amply with money. "There, there, my little woman, take that! Dress
yourself up as fine as any on 'em, and buy what you like, for the
credit of Hamley of Hamley; and go to the park and the play, and show
off with the best on 'em. I shall be glad to see thee back again, I
know; but have thy fling while thou'rt about it." Then when she came
back it was, "Well, well, it has pleased thee, I suppose, so that's
all right. But the very talking about it tires me, I know, and I
can't think how you have stood it all. Come out and see how pretty
the flowers are looking in the south garden. I've made them sow all
the seeds you like; and I went over to Hollingford nursery to buy the
cuttings of the plants you admired last year. A breath of fresh air
will clear my brain after listening to all this talk about the whirl
of London, which is like to have turned me giddy."
Mrs. Hamley was a great reader, and had considerable literary taste.
She was gentle and sentimental; tender and good. She gave up her
visits to London; she gave up her sociable pleasure in the company
of her fellows in education and position. Her husband, owing to the
deficiencies of his early years, disliked associating with those
to whom he ought to have been an equal; he was too proud to mingle
with his inferiors. He loved his wife all the more dearly for her
sacrifices for him; but, deprived of all her strong interests, she
sank into ill-health; nothing definite; only she never was well.
Perhaps if she had had a daughter it would have been better for her:
but her two children were boys, and their father, anxious to give
them the advantages of which he himself had suffered the deprivation,
sent the lads very early to a preparatory school. They were to go
on to Rugby and Cambridge; the idea of Oxford was hereditarily
distasteful in the Hamley family. Osborne, the eldest--so called
after his mother's maiden name--was full of taste, and had some
talent. His appearance had all the grace and refinement of his
mother's. He was sweet-tempered and affectionate, almost as
demonstrative as a girl. He did well at school, carrying away many
prizes; and was, in a word, the pride and delight of both father and
mother; the confidential friend of the latter, in default of any
other. Roger was two years younger than Osborne; clumsy and heavily
built, like his father; his face was square, and the expression
grave, and rather immobile. He was good, but dull, his schoolmasters
said. He won no prizes, but brought home a favourable report of his
conduct. When he caressed his mother, she used laughingly to allude
to the fable of the lap-dog and the donkey; so thereafter he left
off all personal demonstration of affection. It was a great question
as to whether he was to follow his brother to college after he
left Rugby. Mrs. Hamley thought it would be rather a throwing
away of money, as he was so little likely to distinguish himself
in intellectual pursuits; anything practical--such as a civil
engineer--would be more the kind of life for him. She thought that
it would be too mortifying for him to go to the same college and
university as his brother, who was sure to distinguish himself--and,
to be repeatedly plucked, to come away wooden-spoon at last. But his
father persevered doggedly, as was his wont, in his intention of
giving both his sons the same education; they should both have the
advantages of which he had been deprived. If Roger did not do well at
Cambridge it would be his own fault. If his father did not send him
thither, some day or other he might be regretting the omission, as
the Squire had done himself for many a year. So Roger followed his
brother Osborne to Trinity, and Mrs. Hamley was again left alone,
after the year of indecision as to Roger's destination, which had
been brought on by her urgency. She had not been able for many years
to walk beyond her garden; the greater part of her life was spent on
a sofa, wheeled to the window in summer, to the fireside in winter.
The room which she inhabited was large and pleasant; four tall
windows looked out upon a lawn dotted over with flower-beds, and
melting away into a small wood, in the centre of which there was a
pond, filled with water-lilies. About this unseen pond in the deep
shade Mrs. Hamley had written many a pretty four-versed poem since
she lay on her sofa, alternately reading and composing verse. She had
a small table by her side on which there were the newest works of
poetry and fiction; a pencil and blotting-book, with loose sheets
of blank paper; a vase of flowers always of her husband's gathering;
winter and summer, she had a sweet fresh nosegay every day. Her maid
brought her a draught of medicine every three hours, with a glass of
clear water and a biscuit; her husband came to her as often as his
love for the open air and his labours out-of-doors permitted; but
the event of her day, when her boys were absent, was Mr. Gibson's
frequent professional visits.
He knew there was real secret harm going on all this time that people
spoke of her as a merely fanciful invalid; and that one or two
accused him of humouring her fancies. But he only smiled at such
accusations. He felt that his visits were a real pleasure and
lightening of her growing and indescribable discomfort; he knew that
Squire Hamley would have been only too glad if he had come every day;
and he was conscious that by careful watching of her symptoms he
might mitigate her bodily pain. Besides all these reasons, he took
great pleasure in the Squire's society. Mr. Gibson enjoyed the
other's unreasonableness; his quaintness; his strong conservatism
in religion, politics, and morals. Mrs. Hamley tried sometimes to
apologize for, or to soften away, opinions which she fancied were
offensive to the doctor, or contradictions which she thought too
abrupt; but at such times her husband would lay his great hand almost
caressingly on Mr. Gibson's shoulder, and soothe his wife's anxiety,
by saying, "Let us alone, little woman. We understand each other,
don't we, doctor? Why, bless your life, he gives me better than he
gets many a time; only, you see, he sugars it over, and says a sharp
thing, and pretends it's all civility and humility; but I can tell
when he's giving me a pill."
One of Mrs. Hamley's often-expressed wishes had been, that Molly
might come and pay her a visit. Mr. Gibson always refused this
request of hers, though he could hardly have given his reasons for
these refusals. He did not want to lose the companionship of his
child, in fact; but he put it to himself in quite a different way.
He thought her lessons and her regular course of employment would be
interrupted. The life in Mrs. Hamley's heated and scented room would
not be good for the girl; Osborne and Roger Hamley would be at home,
and he did not wish Molly to be thrown too exclusively upon them for
young society; or they would not be at home, and it would be rather
dull and depressing for his girl to be all the day long with a
nervous invalid.
But at length the day came when Mr. Gibson rode over, and volunteered
a visit from Molly; an offer which Mrs. Hamley received with the
"open arms of her heart," as she expressed it; and of which the
duration was unspecified.
The cause for the change in Mr. Gibson's wishes just referred to
was as follows:--It has been mentioned that he took pupils, rather
against his inclination, it is true; but there they were, a Mr. Wynne
and Mr. Coxe, "the young gentlemen," as they were called in the
household; "Mr. Gibson's young gentlemen," as they were termed in the
town. Mr. Wynne was the elder, the more experienced one, who could
occasionally take his master's place, and who gained experience by
visiting the poor, and the "chronic cases." Mr. Gibson used to talk
over his practice with Mr. Wynne, and try and elicit his opinions in
the vain hope that, some day or another, Mr. Wynne might start an
original thought. The young man was cautious and slow; he would never
do any harm by his rashness, but at the same time he would always be
a little behind his day. Still Mr. Gibson remembered that he had had
far worse "young gentlemen" to deal with; and was content with, if
not thankful for, such an elder pupil as Mr. Wynne. Mr. Coxe was a
boy of nineteen or so, with brilliant red hair, and a tolerably red
face, of both of which he was very conscious and much ashamed. He was
the son of an Indian officer, an old acquaintance of Mr. Gibson's.
Major Coxe was at some unpronounceable station in the Punjaub, at the
present time; but the year before he had been in England, and had
repeatedly expressed his great satisfaction at having placed his only
child as a pupil to his old friend, and had in fact almost charged
Mr. Gibson with the guardianship as well as the instruction of his
boy, giving him many injunctions which he thought were special in
this case; but which Mr. Gibson with a touch of annoyance assured the
major were always attended to in every case, with every pupil. But
when the poor major ventured to beg that his boy might be considered
as one of the family, and that he might spend his evenings in the
drawing-room instead of the surgery, Mr. Gibson turned upon him with
a direct refusal.
"He must live like the others. I can't have the pestle and mortar
carried into the drawing-room, and the place smelling of aloes."
"Must my boy make pills himself, then?" asked the major, ruefully.
"To be sure. The youngest apprentice always does. It's not hard
work. He'll have the comfort of thinking he won't have to swallow
them himself. And he'll have the run of the pomfret cakes, and the
conserve of hips, and on Sundays he shall have a taste of tamarinds
to reward him for his weekly labour at pill-making."
Major Coxe was not quite sure whether Mr. Gibson was not laughing
at him in his sleeve; but things were so far arranged, and the real
advantages were so great, that he thought it was best to take no
notice, but even to submit to the indignity of pill-making. He was
consoled for all these rubs by Mr. Gibson's manner at last when the
supreme moment of final parting arrived. The doctor did not say much;
but there was something of real sympathy in his manner that spoke
straight to the father's heart, and an implied "you have trusted me
with your boy, and I have accepted the trust in full," in each of the
few last words.
Mr. Gibson knew his business and human nature too well to distinguish
young Coxe by any overt marks of favouritism; but he could not help
showing the lad occasionally that he regarded him with especial
interest as the son of a friend. Besides this claim upon his regard,
there was something about the young man himself that pleased Mr.
Gibson. He was rash and impulsive, apt to speak, hitting the nail on
the head sometimes with unconscious cleverness, at other times making
gross and startling blunders. Mr. Gibson used to tell him that his
motto would always be "kill or cure," and to this Mr. Coxe once made
answer that he thought it was the best motto a doctor could have; for
if he could not cure the patient, it was surely best to get him out
of his misery quietly, and at once. Mr. Wynne looked up in surprise,
and observed that he should be afraid that such putting out of misery
might be looked upon as homicide by some people. Mr. Gibson said
in a dry tone, that for his part he should not mind the imputation
of homicide, but that it would not do to make away with profitable
patients in so speedy a manner; and that he thought that as long as
they were willing and able to pay two-and-sixpence for the doctor's
visit, it was his duty to keep them alive; of course, when they
became paupers the case was different. Mr. Wynne pondered over this
speech; Mr. Coxe only laughed. At last Mr. Wynne said,--
"But you go every morning, sir, before breakfast to see old Nancy
Grant, and you've ordered her this medicine, sir, which is about the
most costly in Corbyn's bill?"
"Have you not found out how difficult it is for men to live up to
their precepts? You've a great deal to learn yet, Mr. Wynne!" said
Mr. Gibson, leaving the surgery as he spoke.
"I never can make the governor out," said Mr. Wynne, in a tone of
utter despair. "What are you laughing at, Coxey?"
"Oh! I'm thinking how blest you are in having parents who have
instilled moral principles into your youthful bosom. You'd go and be
poisoning all the paupers off, if you hadn't been told that murder
was a crime by your mother; you'd be thinking you were doing as you
were bid, and quote old Gibson's words when you came to be tried.
'Please, my lord judge, they were not able to pay for my visits, and
so I followed the rules of the profession as taught me by Mr. Gibson,
the great surgeon at Hollingford, and poisoned the paupers.'"
"I can't bear that scoffing way of his."
"And I like it. If it wasn't for the governor's fun, and the
tamarinds, and something else that I know of, I would run off to
India. I hate stifling rooms, and sick people, and the smell of
drugs, and the stink of pills on my hands;--faugh!"