TAKING ROOT.
Whosoever enjoys the sight of an honest man doing his work well,
would have enjoyed the sight of Tom Thurnall for the next two months.
In-doors all the morning, and out of doors all the afternoon, was that
shrewd and good-natured visage, calling up an answering smile on every
face, and leaving every heart a little lighter than he found it.
Puzzling enough it was, alike to Heale and to Headley, how Tom
contrived, as if by magic, to gain every one's good word--their own
included. For Frank, in spite of Tom's questionable opinions, had
already made all but a confidant of the Doctor; and Heale, in spite
of envy and suspicion, could not deny that the young man was a very
valuable young man, if he wasn't given so much to those new-fangled
notions of the profession.
By which term Heale indicated the, to him, astounding fact, that Tom
charged the patients as little, instead of as much as possible, and
applying to medicine the principles of an enlightened political
economy, tried to increase the demand by cheapening the supply.
"Which is revolutionary doctrine, sir," said Heale to Lieutenant
Jones, over the brandy-and-water, "and just like what the Cobden
and Bright lot used to talk, and have been the ruin of British
agriculture, though don't say I said so, because of my Lord
Minchampstead. But, conceive my feelings, sir, as the father of a
family, who have my bread to earn, this very morning.--In comes old
Dame Penaluna (which is good pay I know, and has two hundred and more
out on a merchant brig) for something; and what was my feelings, sir,
to hear this young party deliver himself--'Well, ma'am,' says he, as I
am a living man, 'I can cure you, if you like, with a dozen bottles of
lotion, at eighteenpence a-piece; but if you'll take my advice, you'll
buy two pennyworth of alum down street, do what I tell you with it,
and cure yourself.' It's robbery, sir, I say, all these out-of-the-way
cheap dodges, which arn't in the pharmacopoeia, half of them; it's
unprofessional, sir--quackery."
"Tell you what, Doctor, robbery or none, I'll go to him to-morrow,
d'ye see, if I live as long, for this old ailment of mine. I never
told you of it, old pill and potion, for fear of a swinging bill: but
just grinned and bore it, d'ye see."
"There it is again," cries Heale in despair. "He'll ruin me."
"No, he won't, and you know it."
"What d'ye think he served me last week? A young chap comes in,
consumptive, he said, and I dare say he's right--he is uncommonly
'cute about what he calls diagnosis. Says he, 'You ought to try
Carrageen moss. It's an old drug, but it's a good one.' There was a
drawer full of it to his hand; had been lying there any time this ten
years: I go to open it; but what was my feelings when he goes on, as
cool as a cucumber--'And there's bushels of it here,' says he, 'on
every rock; so if you'll come down with me at low tide this afternoon,
I'll show you the trade, and tell you how to boil it.' I thought I
should have knocked him down."
"But you didn't," said Jones, laughing in every muscle of his body.
"Tell you what, Doctor, you've got a treasure; he's just getting back
your custom, d'ye see, and when he's done that, he'll lay on the bills
sharp enough. Why, I hear he's up at Mrs. Vavasour's every day."
"And not ten shillings' worth of medicine sent up to the house any
week."
"He charges for his visits, I suppose."
"Not he! If you'll believe me, when I asked him if he wasn't going
to, he says, says he, that Mrs. Vavasour's company was quite payment
enough for him."
"Shows his good taste. Why, what now, Mary?" as the maid opens the
door.
"Mr. Thurnall wants Mr. Heale."
"Always wanting me," groans Heale, hugging his glass, "driving me
about like any negro slave. Tell him to come in."
"Here, Doctor," says the Lieutenant, "I want you to prescribe for me,
if you'll do it gratis, d'ye see. Take some brandy and water."
"Good advice costs nothing," says Tom, filling; "Mr. Heale, read that
letter."
And the Lieutenant details his ailments, and their supposed cause,
till Heale has the pleasure of hearing Tom answer--
"Fiddlesticks! That's not what's the matter with you. I'll cure you
for half-a-crown, and toss you up double or quits.
"Oh!" groans Heale, as he spells away over the letter,--
"Lord Minchampstead having been informed by Mr. Armsworth that Mr.
Thurnall is now in the neighbourhood of his estates of Pentremochyn,
would feel obliged to him at his earliest convenience to examine into
the sanitary state of the cottages thereon, which are said to be much
haunted by typhus and other epidemics, and to send him a detailed
report, indicating what he thinks necessary for making them thoroughly
healthy. Mr. Thurnall will be so good as to make his own charge."
"Well, Mr. Thurnall, you ought to turn a good penny by this," said
Heale, half envious of Tom's connection, half contemptuous at his
supposed indifference to gain.
"I'll charge what it's worth," said Tom. "Meanwhile, I hope you're
going to see Miss Beer to-night."
"Couldn't you just go yourself, my dear sir? It is so late."
"No; I never go near young women. I told you so at first, and I stick
to my rule. You'd better go, sir, on my word, or if she's dead before
morning, don't say it's my fault."
"Did you ever hear a poor old man so tyrannised over?" said Heale, as
Tom coolly went into the passage, brought in the old man's great coat
and hat, arrayed him and marched him out, civilly, but firmly.
"Now, Lieutenant, I've half an hour to spare; let's have a jolly chat
about the West Indies."
And Tom began with anecdote and joke, and the old seaman laughed till
he cried, and went to bed vowing that there never was such a pleasant
fellow on earth, and he ought to be physician to Queen Victoria.
Up at five the next morning, the indefatigable Tom had all his work
done by ten; and was preparing to start for Pentremochyn, ere Heale
was out of bed, when a customer came in who kept him half an hour.
He was a tall broad-shouldered young man, with a red face, protruding
bull's eyes, and a moustachio. He was dressed in a complete suit of
pink and white plaid, cut jauntily enough. A bright blue cap, a thick
gold watch-chain, three or four large rings, a dog-whistle from his
button-hole, a fancy cane in his hand, and a little Oxford meerschaum
in his mouth, completed his equipment. He lounged in, with an air of
careless superiority, while Tom, who was behind the counter, cutting
up his day's provision of honey-dew, eyed him curiously.
"Who are you, now? A gentleman? Not quite, I guess. Some squireen of
the parts adjacent, and look in somewhat of a crapulocomatose state
moreover. I wonder if you are the great Trebooze of Trebooze."
"I say," yawned the young gentleman, "where's old Heale?" and an oath
followed the speech, as it did every other one herein recorded.
"The playing half of old Heale is in bed, and I'm his working half.
Can I do anything for you?"
"Cool fish," thought the customer. "I say--what have you got there?"
"Australian honey-dew. Did you ever smoke it?"
"I've heard of it; let's see:" and Mr. Trebooze--for it was he--put
his hand across the counter unceremoniously, and clawed up some.
"Didn't know you sold tobacco here. Prime stuff. Too strong for me,
though, this morning, somehow."
"Ah? A little too much claret last night? I thought so. We'll set that
right in five minutes."
"Eh? How did you guess that?" asked Trebooze, with a larger oath than
usual.
"Oh, we doctors are men of the world," said Tom, in a cheerful and
insinuating tone, as he mixed his man a draught.
"You doctors? You're a cock of a different hackle from old Heale,
then."
"I trust so," said Tom.
"By George, I feel better already. I say, you're a trump; I suppose
you're Heale's new partner, the man who was washed ashore!"
Tom nodded assent;
"I say--How do you sell that honey-dew?"
"I don't sell it; I'll give you as much as you like, only you shan't
smoke it till after dinner."
"Shan't?" said Trebooze, testy and proud.
"Not with my leave, or you'll be complaining two hours hence that I am
a humbug, and have done you no good. Get on your horse, and have four
hours' gallop on the downs, and you'll feel like a buffalo bull by two
o'clock."
Trebooze looked at him with a stupid curiosity and a little awe. He
saw that Tom's cool self-possession was not meant for impudence; and
something in his tone and manner told him that the boast of being "a
man of the world" was not untrue. And of all kinds of men, a man of
the world was the man of whom Trebooze stood most in awe. A small
squireen, cursed with six or seven hundreds a year of his own, never
sent to school, college, or into the army, he had grown up in a narrow
circle of squireens like himself, without an object save that of
gratifying his animal passions; and had about six years before, being
then just of age, settled in life by marrying his housemaid--the only
wise thing, perhaps, he ever did. For she, a clever and determined
woman, kept him, though not from drunkenness and debt, at least from
delirium tremens and ruin, and was, in her rough, vulgar way, his
guardian angel--such a one at least, as he was worthy of. More than
once has one seen the same seeming folly turn out in practice as wise
a step as could well have been taken; and the coarse nature of the
man, which would have crushed and ill-used a delicate and high-minded
wife, subdued to something like decency by a help literally meet for
it.
There was a pause. Trebooze fancied, and wisely, that the Doctor was a
cleverer man than he, and of course would want to show it. So, after
the fashion of a country squireen, he felt a longing to "set him
down." "He's been a traveller, they say," thought he in that
pugnacious, sceptical spirit which is bred, not, as twaddlers fancy,
by too extended knowledge, but by the sense of ignorance, and a narrow
sphere of thought, which makes a man angry and envious of any one who
has seen more than he.
"Buffalo bulls?" said he, half contemptuously; "what do you know about
buffalo bulls?"
"I was one once myself," said Tom, "where I lived before."
Trebooze swore. "Don't you put your traveller's lies on me, sir."
"Well, perhaps I dreamt it," said Tom, placidly; "I remember I dreamt
at the same time that you were a grizzly bear, fourteen feet long, and
wanted to eat me up: but you found me too tough about the hump ribs."
Trebooze stared at his audacity.
"You're a rum hand."
To which Tom made answer in the same elegant strain; and then began a
regular word-battle of slang, in which Tom showed himself so
really witty a proficient, that Mr. Trebooze laughed himself into
good-humour, and ended by--
"I say, you're a good fellow, and I think you and I shall suit."
Tom had his doubts, but did not express them.
"Come up this afternoon and see my child; Mrs. Trebooze thinks it's
got swelled glands, or some such woman's nonsense. Bother them, why
can't they let the child alone, fussing and doctoring; and she will
have you. Heard of you from Mrs. Vavasour, I believe. Our doctor and I
have quarrelled, and she said, if I could get you, she'd sooner have
you than that old rum-puncheon Heale. And then, you'd better stop and
take pot-luck, and we'll make a night of it."
"I have to go round Lord Minchampstead's estates, and will take you on
my way: but I'm afraid I shall be too dirty to have the pleasure of
dining with Mrs. Trebooze coming back."
"Mrs. Trebooze! She must take what I like; and what's good enough for
me is good enough for her, I hope. Come as you are--Liberty Hall at
Trebooze;" and out he swaggered.
"Does he bully her?" thought Tom, "or is he hen-pecked, and wants to
hide it? I'll see to-night, and play my cards accordingly."
All which Miss Heale had heard. She had been peeping and listening
at the glass-door, and her mother also; for no sooner had Trebooze
entered the shop, than she had run off to tell her mother the
surprising fact, Trebooze's custom having been, for some years past,
courted in vain by Heale. So Miss Heale peeped and peeped at a man
whom she regarded with delighted curiosity, because he bore the
reputation of being "such a naughty wicked man!" and "so very handsome
too, and so distinguished as he looks!" said the poor little fool, to
whose novel-fed imagination Mr. Trebooze was an ideal Lothario.
But the surprise of the two dames grew rapidly as they heard Tom's
audacity towards the country aristocrat.
"Impudent wretch!" moaned Mrs. Heale to herself. "He'd drive away an
angel if he came into the shop."
"Oh, ma! hear how they are going on now."
"I can't bear it, my dear. This man will be the ruin of us. His
manners are those of the pot-house, when the cloven foot is shown,
which it's his nature as a child of wrath, and we can't expect
otherwise."
"Oh, ma! do you hear that Mr. Trebooze has asked him to dinner?"
"Nonsense!"
But it was true.
"Well! if there ain't the signs of the end of the world, which is? All
the years your poor father has been here, and never so much as send
him a hare, and now this young penniless interloper; and he to dine at
Trebooze off purple and fine linen."
"There is not much of that there, ma; I'm sure they are poor enough,
for all his pride; and as for her--"
"Yes, my dear; and as for her, though we haven't married squires, my
dear, yet we haven't been squires' housemaids, and have adorned our
own station, which was good enough for us, and has no need to rise out
of it, nor ride on Pharaoh's chariot-wheels after filthy lucre--"
Miss Heale hated poor Mrs. Trebooze with a bitter hatred, because
she dreamed insanely that, but for her, she might have secured Mr.
Trebooze for herself. And though her ambition was now transferred to
the unconscious Tom, that need not make any difference in the said
amiable feeling.
But that Tom was a most wonderful person, she had no doubt. He had
conquered her heart--so she informed herself passionately again and
again; as was very necessary, seeing that the passion, having no real
life of its own, required a good deal of blowing to keep it alight.
Yes, he had conquered her heart, and he was conquering all hearts
likewise. There must be some mystery about him--there should be. And
she settled in her novel-bewildered brain, that Tom must be a nobleman
in disguise--probably a foreign prince exiled for political offences.
Bah! perhaps too many lines have been spent on the poor little fool;
but as such fools exist, and people must be as they are, there is no
harm in drawing her; and in asking, too--Who will help those young
girls of the middle class who, like Miss Heale, are often really less
educated than the children of their parents' workmen; sedentary,
luxurious, full of petty vanity, gossip, and intrigue, without work,
without purpose, except that of getting married to any one who will
ask them--bewildering brain and heart with novels, which, after all,
one hardly grudges them; for what other means have they of learning
that there is any fairer, nobler life possible, at least on earth,
than that of the sordid money-getting, often the sordid puffery and
adulteration, which is the atmosphere of their home? Exceptions there
are, in thousands, doubtless; and the families of the great city
tradesmen, stand, of course, on far higher ground, and are often far
better educated, and more high-minded, than the fine ladies, their
parents' customers. But, till some better plan of education than
the boarding-school is devised for them; till our towns shall see
something like in kind to, though sounder and soberer in quality than,
the high schools of America; till in country villages the ladies who
interest themselves about the poor will recollect that the farmers'
and tradesmen's daughters are just as much in want of their influence
as the charity children, and will yield a far richer return for their
labour, though the one need not interfere with the other; so long will
England be full of Miss Heales; fated, when they marry, to bring up
sons and daughters as sordid and unwholesome as their mothers.
Tom worked all that day in and out of the Pentremochyn cottages,
noting down nuisances and dilapidations: but his head was full of
other thoughts; for he had received, the evening before, news which
was to him very important, for more reasons than one.
The longer he stayed at Aberalva, the longer he felt inclined to stay.
The strange attraction of Grace had, as we have seen, something to do
with his purpose: but he saw, too, a good opening for one of those
country practices, in which he seemed more and more likely to end. At
his native Whitbury, he knew, there was no room for a fresh medical
man; and gradually he was making up his mind to settle at Aberalva; to
buy out Heale, either with his own money (if he recovered it), or with
money borrowed from Mark; to bring his father down to live with him,
and in that pleasant wild western place, fold his wings after all his
wanderings. And therefore certain news which he had obtained the night
before was very valuable to him, in that it put a fresh person into
his power, and might, if cunningly used, give him a hold upon the
ruling family of the place, and on Lord Scoutbush himself. He had
found out that Lucia and Elsley were unhappy together; and found out,
too, a little more than was there to find. He could not, of course, be
a month among the gossips of Aberalva, without hearing hints that the
great folks at the court did not always keep their tempers; for, of
family jars, as of everything else on earth, the great and just law
stands true:--"What you do in the closet, shall be proclaimed on the
housetop."
But the gossips of Aberalva, as women are too often wont to do, had
altogether taken the man's side in the quarrel. The reason was, I
suppose, that Lucia, conscious of having fallen somewhat in rank,
"held up her head" to Mrs. Trebooze and Mrs. Heale (as they themselves
expressed it), and to various other little notabilities of the
neighbourhood, rather more than she would have done had she married a
man of her own class. She was afraid that they might boast of being
intimate with her; that they might take to advising and patronising
her as an inexperienced young creature; afraid, even, that she might
be tempted, in some unguarded moment, to gossip with them, confide her
unhappiness to them, in the blind longing to open her heart to some
human being; for there were no resident gentry of her own rank in the
neighbourhood. She was too high-minded to complain much to Clara; and
her sister Valencia was the very last person to whom she would confess
that her run-away-match had not been altogether successful. So she
lived alone and friendless, shrinking into herself more and more,
while the vulgar women round mistook her honour for pride, and
revenged themselves accordingly. She was an uninteresting fine lady,
proud and cross, and Elsley was a martyr. "So handsome and agreeable
as he was--(and to do him justice, he was the former, and he could be
the latter when he chose)--to be tied to that unsociable, stuck-up
woman;" and so forth.
All which Tom had heard, and formed his own opinion thereof; which
was,--
"All very fine: but I flatter myself I know a little what women are
made of; and this I know, that where man and wife quarrel, even if she
ends the battle, it is he who has begun it. I never saw a case yet
where the man was not the most in fault; and I'll lay my life John
Briggs has led her a pretty life: what else could one expect of him?"
However, he held his tongue, and kept his eyes open withal whenever he
went up to Penalva Court, which he had to do very often; for though
he had cured the children of their ailments, yet Mrs. Vavasour was
perpetually, more or less, unwell, and he could not cure her. Her low
spirits, headaches, general want of tone and vitality, puzzled him
at first; and would have puzzled him longer, had he not settled with
himself that their cause was to be sought in the mind, and not in the
body; and at last, gaining courage from certainty, he had hinted as
much to Miss Clara the night before, when she came down (as she was
very fond of doing) to have a gossip with him in his shop, under the
pretence of fetching medicine.
"I don't think I shall send Mrs. Vavasour any more, Miss Clara. There
is no use running up a long bill when I do no good; and, what is more,
suspect that I can do none, poor lady." And he gave the girl a look
which seemed to say, "You had better tell me the truth; for I know
everything already."
To which Clara answered by trying to find out how much he did know:
but Tom was a cunninger diplomatist than she; and in ten minutes,
after having given solemn promises of secresy, and having, by strong
expressions of contempt for Mrs. Heale and the village gossips, made
Clara understand that he did not at all take their view of the case,
he had poured out to him across the counter all Clara's long-pent
indignation and contempt.
"I never said a word of this to a living soul, sir; I was too proud,
for my mistress's sake, to let vulgar people know what we suffered.
We don't want any of their pity indeed; but you, sir, who have the
feelings of a gentleman, and know what the world is, like ourselves--"
"Take care," whispered Tom; "that daughter of Heale's may be
listening."
"I'd pull her hair about her ears if I caught her!" quoth Clara; and
then ran on to tell how Elsley "never kept no hours, nor no accounts
either; so that she has to do everything, poor thing; and no thanks
either. And never knows when he'll dine, or when he'll breakfast, or
when he'll be in, wandering in and out like a madman; and sits up all
night, writing his nonsense. And she'll go down twice and three times
a night in the cold, poor dear, to see if he's fallen asleep; and gets
abused like a pickpocket for her pains (which was an exaggeration);
and lies in bed all the morning, looking at the flies, and calls after
her if his shoes want tying, or his finger aches; as helpless as the
babe unborn; and will never do nothing useful himself, not even to
hang a picture or move a chair, and grumbles at her if he sees her
doing anything, because she ain't listening to his prosodies, and
snaps, and worrits, and won't speak to her sometimes for a whole
morning, the brute."
"But is he not fond of his children?"
"Fond? Yes, his way, and small thanks to him, the little angels! To
play with 'em when they're good, and tell them cock-and-a-bull fairy
tales--wonder why he likes to put such stuff into their heads--and
then send 'em out of the room if they make a noise, because it splits
his poor head, and his nerves are so delicate. Wish he had hers, or
mine either, Doctor Thurnall; then he'd know what nerves was, in a
frail woman, which he uses us both as his negro slaves, or would if I
didn't stand up to him pretty sharp now and then, and give him a piece
of my mind, which I will do, like the faithful servant in the parable,
if he kills me for it, Doctor Thurnall!"
"Does he drink?" asked Tom, bluntly.
"He!" she answered, in a tone which seemed to imply that even one
masculine vice would have raised him in her eyes. "He's not man
enough, I think; and lives on his slops, and his coffee, and his
tapioca; and how's he ever to have any appetite, always a sitting
about, heaped up together over his books, with his ribs growing into
his backbone?--If he'd only go and take his walk, or get a spade and
dig in the garden, or anything but them everlasting papers, which I
hates the sight of;" and so forth.
From all which Tom gathered a tolerably clear notion of the poor
poet's state of body and mind; as a self-indulgent, unmethodical
person, whose ill-temper was owing partly to perpetual brooding over
his own thoughts, and partly to dyspepsia, brought on by his own
effeminacy--in both cases, not a thing to be pitied or excused by the
hearty and valiant Doctor. And Tom's original contempt for Vavasour
took a darker form, perhaps one too dark to be altogether just.
"I'll tackle him, Miss Clara."
"I wish you would: I'm sure he wants some one to look after him just
now. He's half wild about some review that somebody's been and done of
him in The Times, and has been flinging the paper about the room, and
calling all mankind vipers and adders, and hooting herds--it's as bad
as swearing, I say--and running to my mistress, to make her read it,
and see how the whole world's against him, and then forbidding her to
defile her eyes with a word of it; and so on, till she's been crying
all the morning, poor dear!"
"Why not laughing at him?"
"Poor thing; that's where it all is: she's just as anxious about his
poetry as he is, and would write it just as well as he, I'll warrant,
if she hadn't better things to do; and all her fuss is, that people
should 'appreciate' him. He's always talking about appreciating, till
I hate the sound of the word. How any woman can go on so after a man
that behaves as he does! but we're all soft fools, I'm afraid, Doctor
Thurnall." And Clara began a languishing look or two across the
counter, which made Tom answer to an imaginary Doctor Heale, whom he
heard calling from within.
"Yes, Doctor! coming this moment, Doctor! Good-bye, Miss Clara. I must
hear more next time; you may trust me, you know; secret as the grave,
and always your friend, and your lady's too, if you will allow me to
do myself such an honour. Coming, Doctor!"
And Tom bolted through the glass door, till Miss Clara was safe on her
way up the street.
"Very well," said Tom to himself. "Knowledge is power: but how to use
it? To get into Mrs. Vavasour's confidence, and show an inclination to
take her part against her husband? If she be a true woman, she would
order me out of the house on the spot, as surely as a fish-wife would
fall tooth and nail on me as a base intruder, if I dared to interfere
with her sacred right of being beaten by her husband when she chooses.
No; I must go straight to John Briggs himself, and bind him over to
keep the peace; and I think I know the way to do it."
So Tom pondered over many plans in his head that day; and then went to
Trebooze, and saw the sick child, and sat down to dinner, where his
host talked loud about the Treboozes of Trebooze, who fought in the
Spanish Armada--or against it; and showed an unbounded belief in
the greatness and antiquity of his family, combined with a historic
accuracy about equal to that of a good old dame of those parts, who
used to say "her family comed over the water, that she knew; but
whether it were with the Conqueror, or whether it were wi' Oliver, she
couldn't exactly say!"
Then he became great on the subject of old county families in general,
and poured out all the vials of his wrath on "that confounded upstart
of a Newbroom, Lord Minchampstead," supplanting all the fine old blood
in the country--"Why, sir, that Pentremochyn, and Carcarrow moors too
(--good shooting there, there used to be), they ought to be mine, sir,
if every man had his rights!" And then followed a long story; and a
confused one withal, for by this time Mr. Trebooze had drunk a great
deal too much wine, and as he became aware of the fact, became
proportionately anxious that Tom should drink too much also; out of
which story Tom picked the plain facts, that Trebooze's father had
mortgaged Pentremochyn estate for more than its value, and that Lord
Minchampstead had foreclosed; while some equally respectable uncle, or
cousin, just deceased, had sold the reversion of Carcarrow to the same
mighty Cotton Lord twenty years before. "And this is the way, sir,
the land gets eaten up by a set of tinkers, and cobblers, and
money-lending jobbers, who suck the blood of the aristocracy!"
The oaths we omit, leaving the reader to pepper Mr. Trebooze's
conversation therewith, up to any degree of heat which may suit his
palate.
Tom sympathised with him deeply, of course; and did not tell him, as
he might have done, that he thought the sooner such cumberers of the
ground were cleared off, whether by an encumbered estates' act, such
as we may see yet in England, or by their own suicidal folly, the
better it would be for the universe in general, and perhaps for
themselves in particular. But he only answered with pleasant
effrontery--
"Ah, my dear sir, I am sure there are hundreds of good sportsmen who
can sympathise with you deeply. The wonder is, that you do not unite
and defend yourselves. For not only in the West of England, but in
Ireland, and in Wales, and in the north, too, if one is to believe
those novels of Currer Bell's and her sister, there is a large and
important class of landed proprietors of the same stamp as yourself,
and exposed to the very same dangers. I wonder at times that you do
not all join, and use your combined influence on the Government."
"The Government? All a set of Whig traitors! Call themselves
Conservative, or what they like. Traitors, sir! from that fellow
Peel upwards--all combined to crush the landed gentry--ruin
the Church--betray the country party--D'Israeli--Derby--Free
trade--ruined, sir!--Maynooth--Protection--treason--help yourself, and
pass the--you know, old fellow--"
And Mr. Trebooze's voice died away, and he slumbered, but not softly.
The door opened, and in marched Mrs. Trebooze, tall, tawdry, and
terrible.
"Mr. Trebooze! it's past eleven o'clock!"
"Hush, my dear madam! He is sleeping so sweetly," said Tom, rising,
and gulping down a glass, not of wine, but of strong ammonia and
water. The rogue had put a phial thereof in his pocket that morning,
expecting that, as Trebooze had said, he would be required to make a
night of it,
She was silent; for to rouse her tyrant was more than she dare do.
If awakened, he would crave for brandy and water; and if he got that
sweet poison, he would probably become furious. She stood for half a
minute; and Tom, who knew her story well, watched her curiously.
"She is a fine woman: and with a far finer heart in her than that
brute. Her eyebrow and eye, now, have the true Siddons' stamp;
the great white forehead, and sharp-cut little nostril, breathing
scorn--and what a Siddons-like attitude!--I should like, madam, to see
the child again before I go."
"If you are fit, sir," answered she.
"Brave woman; comes to the point at once, I am a poor doctor, madam,
and not a country gentleman; and have neither money nor health to
spend in drinking too much wine."
"Then why do you encourage him in it, sir? I had expected a very
different sort of conduct from you, sir."
Tom did not tell her what she would not (no woman will) understand;
that it is morally and socially impossible to escape from the table of
a fool, till either he or you are conquered; and she was too shrewd to
be taken in by commonplace excuses; so he looked her very full in
the face, and replied a little haughtily, with a slow and delicate
articulation, using his lips more than usual, and yet compressing
them:--
"I beg your pardon, madam, if I have unintentionally displeased you:
but if you ever do me the honour of knowing more of me, you will be
the first to confess that your words are unjust. Do you wish me to see
your son, or do you not?"
Poor Mrs. Trebooze looked at him, with an eye which showed that
she had been accustomed to study character keenly, perhaps in
self-defence. She saw that Tom was sober; he had taken care to prove
that, by the way in which he spoke; and she saw, too, that he was a
better bred man than her husband, as well as a cleverer. She dropped
her eye before his; heaved something very like a sigh; and then
said, in her curt, fierce tone, which yet implied a sort of sullen
resignation--
"Yes; come up-stairs."
Tom went up, and looked at the boy again, as he lay sleeping. A
beautiful child of four years old, as large and fair a child as man
need see; and yet there was on him the curse of his father's sins; and
Tom knew it, and knew that his mother knew it also.
"What a noble boy!" said he, after looking, not without honest
admiration, upon the sleeping child, who had kicked off his
bed-clothes, and lay in a wild graceful attitude, as children are wont
to lie; just like an old Greek statue of Cupid, "It all depends upon
you, madam, now."
"On me?" she asked, in a startled, suspicious tone.
"Yes. He is a magnificent boy: but--I can only give palliatives. It
depends upon your care now."
"He will have that, at least, I should hope," she said, nettled.
"And on your influence ten years hence," went on Tom.
"My influence?"
"Yes; only keep him steady, and he may grow up a magnificent man. If
not--you will excuse me--but you must not let him live as freely as
his father; the constitutions of the two are very different."
"Don't talk so, sir. Steady? His father makes him drunk now, if he
can; teaches him to swear, because it is manly--God help him and me!"
Tom's cunning and yet kind shaft had sped. He guessed that with a
coarse woman like Mrs. Trebooze his best plan was to come as straight
to the point as he could; and he was right. Ere half an hour was over,
that woman had few secrets on earth which Tom did not know.
"Let me give you one hint before I go," said he at last. "Persuade
your husband to go into a militia regiment."
"Why? He would see so much company, and it would be so expensive."
"The expense would repay itself ten times over. The company which he
would see would be sober company, in which he would be forced to keep
in order. He would have something to do in the world; and he'd do it
well. He is just cut out for a soldier, and might have made a gallant
one by now, if he had had other men's chances. He will find he does
his militia work well; and it will be a new interest, and a new pride,
and a new life to him. And meanwhile, madam, what you have said to me
is sacred. I do not pretend to advise or interfere. Only tell me if I
can be of use--how, when, and where--and command me as your servant."
And Tom departed, having struck another root; and was up at four the
next morning (he never worked at night; for, he said, he never could
trust after-dinner brains), drawing out a detailed report of the
Pentremochyn cottages, which he sent to Lord Minchampstead with--
"And your lordship will excuse my saying, that to put the cottages
into the state in which your lordship, with your known wish for
progress of all kinds, would wish to see them is a responsibility
which I dare not take on myself, as it would involve a present outlay
of not less than £450. This sum would be certainly repaid to your
Lordship and your tenants, in the course of the next three years, by
the saving in poor-rates; an opinion for which I subjoin my grounds
drawn from the books of the medical officer, Mr. Heale: but the
responsibility and possible unpopularity, which employing so great
a sum would involve, is more than I can, in the present dependent
condition of poor-law medical officers, dare to undertake, in justice
to Mr. Heale my employer, save at your special command. I am bound,
however, to inform your lordship, that this outlay would, I think,
perfectly defend the hamlets, not only from that visit of the cholera
which we have every reason to expect next summer, but also from those
zymotic diseases which (as your lordship will see by my returns) make
up more than sixty-five per cent of the aggregate sickness of the
estate."
Which letter the old Cotton Lord put in his pocket, rode into Whitbury
therewith, and showed it to Mark Armsworth.
"Well, Mr. Armsworth, what am I to do?"
"Well, my Lord; I told you what sort of a man you'd have to do
with; one that does his work thoroughly, and, I think, pays you a
compliment, by thinking that you want it done thoroughly."
Lord Minchampstead was of the same opinion; but he did not say so.
Few, indeed, have ever heard Lord Minchampstead give his opinion:
though many a man has seen him act on it.
"I'll send down orders to my agent."
"Don't."
"Why, then, my good friend?"
"Agents are always in league with farmers, or guardians, or builders,
or drain-tile makers, or attorneys, or bankers, or somebody; and
either you'll be told that the work don't need doing; or have a job
brewed out of it, to get off a lot of unsaleable drain-tiles, or
cracked soil-pans; or to get farm ditches dug, and perhaps the highway
rates saved building culverts, and fifty dodges beside. I know their
game; and you ought, too, by now, my lord, begging your pardon."
"Perhaps I do, Mark," said his lordship with a chuckle.
"So, I say, let the man that found the fox, run the fox, and kill the
fox, and take the brush home."
"And so it shall be," quoth my Lord Minchampstead.