MR. NAMBY’S PRESCRIPTION.
IN the dark days of December, Mr. Namby, the family practitioner and
parish doctor of Little Yafford, was agreeably surprised by a summons
to the Water House. His patients there had been inconveniently well
for the greater part of the year, and he had been looking somewhat
dolefully at the blank leaf in his diary which told him that he should
have no account worth speaking of to send in to Mr. Harefield at
Christmas. He was much too benevolent a man to desire the misfortune
of his fellow creatures; but he thought that those favoured ones of
this world, whom Providence has exempted from all the cares of the
impecunious majority, ought at least to be troubled with such small
nervous disorders as would keep the faculty employed. An obscure case
of hysteria, now, was the sort of thing one might look for at the
Water House, and which, without doing vital harm to the patient, would
necessitate a great many attendances from the doctor.
He plucked up his spirits, therefore, and decapitated his breakfast egg
with an unusual air of sprightliness, on hearing that James from the
Water House had just called, to request that Mr. Namby would be so good
as to look in to see Miss Harefield, during his morning round.
‘Poor girl! neuralgic, I daresay,’ he murmured cheerfully. ‘The Water
House must be damp, but of course one cannot say anything to frighten
away patients. She is a sweet girl. I shall try the new treatment.’
‘If it’s the stuff you gave me, William, it made me worse,’ said Mrs.
Namby. ‘Nothing did me so much good as that cask of double stout you
ordered from the brewer at Great Yafford.’
Mr. Namby’s countenance expressed ineffable disgust.
‘Do you think your constitution would have been in a condition to
profit by that stout if I had not prescribed the new treatment for you
first?’ he exclaimed, and Mrs. Namby, being a wise little woman, went
on cutting bread and butter for her children in a sagacious silence.
Mr. Namby was shown straight to the study, where Miss Harefield was
accustomed to read history and other erudite works to her governess.
The histories were all dull old fashioned chronicles, which had been
religiously believed when Miss Scales was a little girl, but whereof
most of the facts had faded into mere phantasmagoria, before the fierce
light of nineteenth century research, and the revelations of the Record
Office.
Beatrix was not reading history on this particular morning. She was
sitting by one of the deep set windows, with her folded arms resting on
the broad oaken ledge, and her heavy eyes watching the drifting clouds
in the windy sky--or the bare black elm-branches tossing against the
gray.
She looked round listlessly when Mr. Namby came in, and gave him her
hand with a mechanical air, which he often saw in small patients who
were told to shake hands with the doctor.
‘Dear, dear, this is very bad,’ he said, in his fatherly way. ‘We are
looking quite sadly this morning.’
Then came the usual ordeal. The doctor held the slight wrist between
his fingers, and consulted a pale faced watch, with a surreptitious air.
‘Quick, and irregular,’ he said, ‘and weak. We must do something to set
you right, my dear young lady. Have you been over exerting yourself
lately?’
‘She has,’ exclaimed Miss Scales, in an aggrieved tone. ‘She’s been
riding and driving far too much--too much even for the horses, Jarvis
told me, so you may imagine it was too much for her.’
‘My dear Miss Scales, you forget that the horse had the greater share
of the labour,’ interposed Beatrix.
‘I repeat, Beatrix,’ protested Miss Scales, severely, ‘that if it was
too much for the horse it must have been infinitely worse for you. You
have not the constitution of a horse, or the endurance of a horse, or
the strength of a horse. Don’t talk nonsense.’
The doctor asked a string of questions. Did she eat well--sleep well?
Beatrix was obliged to confess that she did neither.
‘She eats hardly anything,’ said Miss Scales, ‘and I know by her candle
that she reads half the night.’
‘What can I do but read,’ exclaimed Beatrix. ‘I have no pleasant
thoughts of my own. I am obliged to find them in books.’
‘Oh, dear, dear,’ cried the doctor, ‘why a young lady like you ought to
have her mind full of pleasant thoughts.’
Beatrix sighed.
‘I see what it is--the nervous power over-tasked--a slight tendency
to insomnia. We must not allow this to go on, my dear Miss Harefield.
The riding and driving are all very well, but in moderation. _In medio
tutissimus ibis_, as they used to teach us at school. And a nice
quiet walk with Miss Scales, now, would be a beneficial alternation
with the equestrian exercise. Walk one day, ride the next. If it were
a different time of year I might suggest change of air. Filey--or
Harrogate--but just now of course that is out of the question. Do you
remember what I prescribed for you after the whooping cough?’
‘Yes,’ answered Beatrix. ‘You gave me a playfellow.’
‘To be sure I did. Well, now, I say again you must have youthful
society. A companion of your own age. I thought Miss Scratchell and you
were inseparable.’
‘We used to be--but, since she has gone out as a daily governess, we
have seen much less of each other--and lately she has been particularly
busy. She is very good.’
‘And you are fond of her.’
‘Yes, I like her very much.’
‘Then you must have more of her company. I must talk to papa about it.’
‘Oh, pray do not trouble my father,’ exclaimed Beatrix, anxiously.
‘But he must be troubled. You must have youthful society. I know that
Miss Scales is all kindness, and her conversation most improving.’ Miss
Scales acknowledged the compliment with a stiffish bow. ‘But you must
have a young companion with whom you can unbend, and talk a little
nonsense now and then, not about the Greeks and Romans, you know, but
about your new frocks and your beaux.’
Miss Scales looked an image of disgust.
‘For my own part I believe if Beatrix would employ her mind there would
be none of this repining,’ she remarked severely. ‘Low spirits with
young people generally mean idleness.’
‘My dear Miss Scales, I have not been repining,’ remonstrated Beatrix,
wounded by this accusation. ‘I don’t want any one to be troubled about
me. I only wish to be let alone.’
She turned from them both with a proud movement of head and throat, and
went on looking out of the window; but her fixed gaze saw very little
of the gray landscape under the gray sky, the dark shoulder of the
moor, tinged with a gleam of livid winter light upon its western edge.
Mr. Namby looked at her curiously as she stood there with averted face,
palpably, by her very attitude, refusing all sympathy or solicitude
from him or her governess. He was not a profound psychologist. He had,
indeed, given his attention too completely to the management of other
people’s bodies to have had much leisure for the study of the mind, but
he felt instinctively that here was a case of supreme misery--a proud
young soul at war with life--a girl, capable of all girlhood’s warmest
affections, confined to the dry-as-dust companionship of a human
machine for grinding grammar and geography, histories and ologies. A
reasonable amount of this grinding would have been good for Beatrix,
no doubt, thought the village surgeon, who was no enemy to education;
but there must be something brighter than these things in the life of a
girl, or she will languish like a woodland bird newly caged.
Mr. Namby went down stairs, and asked to see Mr. Harefield--an awful
thing to him always, but duty compelled him to beard the lion in his
den.
He was shown into the library where Christian Harefield sat among his
books, as usual, brown leather-bound folios and quartos piled upon the
floor on each side of his chair, more books on his desk, and a general
appearance of profound study. What he read, or to what end he read,
no one had ever discovered. He filled commonplace books with extracts,
copied in a neat fine hand, almost as close as print, and he wrote a
good deal of original matter. But he had never given a line to the
world, not so much as a paragraph in _Notes and Queries_; nor had he
ever confided the nature of his studies to friend or acquaintance. He
lived among his books, and in his books, and for the last ten years he
had cared for no life outside them.
‘Well, Namby, what’s the matter with my daughter?’ he asked, without
looking up from a volume of Plutarch’s ‘Moralia.’
‘You have been anxious about her.’
‘I have not been anxious. Her governess took it into her head to be
anxious, and wished that you should be sent for. There’s nothing amiss,
I conclude.’
‘There is very much amiss. Your daughter’s lonely life is killing her.
She must have livelier company than Miss Scales--and change of air and
scene directly the weather is milder.’
‘But there is nothing actually wrong, nothing organic?’
‘Nothing that I can discover at present. But there is
sleeplessness--one of the worst foes to life--there is loss of
appetite--there is want of vigour. She must be roused, interested,
amused.’
‘Do you mean that she should be taken to London and carried about to
balls and theatres?’ inquired Mr. Harefield.
‘She is not in a condition for balls and theatres, even if you were
inclined to indulge her so far. No, she wants to be made happier, that
is all.’
‘All!’ exclaimed Mr. Harefield. ‘You are moderate in your demands. Do
you suppose that I have a recipe for making young women happy? It would
be almost as miraculous as the wand with which the wicked fairy used to
transform a contumacious prince into a blue bird or a white poodle. I
have let my daughter have her own way in all the minor details of life,
and I have put no limit upon her pocket-money. I can imagine no other
way of making her happy.’
‘I think you will be obliged to find some other way,’ answered Mr.
Namby, tremulous at his own audacity; but the lion was unusually mild
this morning, and the doctor felt heroic, ‘unless you want to lose her.’
‘Lose her!’ cried Mr. Harefield. ‘Oh, she will last my time, depend
upon it. My lease has not long to run, and then she will be mistress of
her fate, and be happy in her own way.’
‘My dear sir, with your noble constitution----’
‘Length of days does not depend entirely on constitution. A man must
have the inclination to live. But tell me what I am to do for my
daughter.’
‘Let her have her young friend Miss Scratchell to come and stay with
her, and when the spring comes send them both to the sea-side.’
‘I have no objection. I will write to Scratchell immediately. His
daughter has been employed at the Park lately, but, as that can only be
a question of remuneration, I can arrange it with Scratchell.’
‘I do not think you can do any more at present. I shall send Miss
Harefield a tonic. Good morning.’
The village surgeon retired, delighted at getting off so easily. Mr.
Harefield wrote at once to his agent:--
‘Dear Scratchell,
‘My daughter is ill, and wants pleasant company. Please let your
girl come and stay with her. If there is any loss involved in your
daughter being away from home, I shall be happy to send you a cheque
for whatever amount you may consider sufficient.’
‘Yours truly, C. H.’
This happened about a fortnight before Christmas, and at a time when
Miss Scratchell’s duties at the Park were in a considerable degree
suspended. She would not have been wanted there at all, under ordinary
circumstances, for the young Pipers, who had a frank detestation of
all kinds of learning, claimed a holiday at this season, and had their
claim allowed. But Mrs. Piper was ill, so ill as to be confined to her
own room; and in this juncture she found Isabella’s domestic talents of
use to her, and, without any extra remuneration, contrived to occupy a
good deal of Isabella’s time.
A little while ago, when she was living in her fool’s paradise,
believing herself loved by Cyril Culverhouse, this encroachment upon
her leisure would have been aggravating in the extreme to Bella
Scratchell. But just now it was rather a relief than otherwise, for
it gave her an excuse for neglecting her cottagers. She went among
them still, now and then, and was sweet and sympathetic as of old,
reading favourite chapters of St. John to the consumptive dressmaker,
or carrying a bunch of wintry flowers to the wheelwright’s bed-ridden
daughter, a patient victim to spinal complaint; but, so far as
it was possible, she avoided meeting Cyril. There was too keen a
shame, too fierce an agony in the thought of her delusion. In this
innocent seeming Dresden china beauty there existed a capacity for
passionate feeling, unsuspected by her kindred or friends. From love
to vindictiveness was only a step in this intense nature. She hated
Mrs. Dulcimer for having entrapped her--she hated herself for having
fallen so easily into so petty a snare. She hated Cyril for not loving
her--she hated him still more for loving somebody else--and she hated
Beatrix Harefield most of all for being the object of his love.
‘Has she not enough of the good things of this life without taking him
from me?’ she thought savagely, forgetting that as Cyril had never
belonged to her, Beatrix could hardly be charged with robbery.
‘He would have cared for me if he had never seen her,’ argued Bella.
‘She is handsomer than I am--grand and noble looking--while I am small
and mean.’
Vanity and self-esteem were alike crushed by Cyril’s indifference. She
had been vain of her pink and white prettiness hitherto. Now she looked
at herself in the glass, and scorned her trivial beauty--the blue eyes
and light brown lashes--the indefinite eyebrows, the blunt inoffensive
little nose--the rose-bud mouth, and coquettish dimples. A beauty to
catch fools perhaps; but of no value in the eyes of a man of character,
like Cyril Culverhouse.
She bore her burden quietly, being very proud, after her small manner,
and no one in that noisy home circle of Mr. Scratchell’s discovered
that there was anything amiss in the eldest daughter of the house.
Mrs. Dulcimer wrote an affectionate and sympathetic letter to her dear
Bella, and insisted that she should spend a long day at the Vicarage;
as if a long day in Mrs. Dulcimer’s society were a balm that must heal
the sharpest wound. Bella answered the letter in person, being too wise
to commit herself to pen and ink upon so humiliating a subject, and she
received Mrs. Dulcimer’s apologies with an unalterable placidity which
convinced the worthy matchmaker that there was no harm done.
‘Let us think of the whole affair as a good joke, dear Mrs. Dulcimer,’
said Bella; ‘but let us keep it to ourselves. I hope you have not
talked about it to Rebecca.’
Everybody in Little Yafford knew that Rebecca was Mrs. Dulcimer’s
_confidante_, and that she had a vivacious tongue.
The vicar’s wife blushed, and trifled nervously with her lace
rufflings.
‘My love, you cannot suppose that I should say a word about you that
ought not to be said,’ she murmured, affectionately.
And then Bella knew that Rebecca had been told everything.
‘It is so nice of you to take it in such a sweet-tempered way,’ said
Mrs. Dulcimer; ‘and it only confirms my good opinion of you; but I am
more angry with _him_ than I can say. You would have suited each other
exactly.’
‘Ah, but you see he does not think so,’ replied Bella, with inward
bitterness. ‘I am not his style. He has chosen some one quite
different. You have no idea, I suppose, who the lady is?’
‘Some one he met at Oxford, I don’t doubt. He will live to regret his
choice, I daresay. I am almost wicked enough to hope he may. And now,
Bella, when will you come and spend a long quiet day with me?’ demanded
Mrs. Dulcimer, anxious to administer her balsam.
‘I am hardly ever free now, dear Mrs. Dulcimer. Since Mrs. Piper has
been ill she has asked me to help her a little with the housekeeping.
She is so unfortunate in her servants, you know, always changing, and
that makes her distrustful.’
‘My dear, Mrs. Piper doesn’t make her servants happy,’ said Mrs.
Dulcimer. ‘Servants are like other people; they want to be happy, and
nobody can be happy who is being found fault with from morning till
night.’
‘I am afraid it is so,’ assented Bella; ‘poor Mrs. Piper means well,
but she is too particular.’
‘My dear, if I were to find fault with Rebecca three times in a week,
she would give me warning; and yet she’s almost like my own flesh and
blood. Now, mind, I shall expect you to come and spend a long day with
me the first time you find yourself free.’
‘I shall only be too happy,’ murmured Bella.
‘And I’ll take care you don’t meet Cyril.’
‘You are so thoughtful.’
‘Well, dear, I think we were sent into the world to think of other
people as well as of ourselves,’ replied the vicar’s wife, with a
self-satisfied air.