It was not long before the doctor was made aware of the ghost in his
troubled path. Nobody in Carlingford could meet the big Bushman in
those streets, which always looked too narrow for him, without a certain
curiosity about that savage man. Dr Rider had observed him with jealous
interest on his very first appearance, but had hitherto connected no
idea but that of a return to Australia, which he felt sure Nettie would
never consent to, with the big stranger. With such a thought he had seen
him making his way towards the cottage that very evening when he himself
turned back, as long as those crimsoned windows were visible, to look
for Nettie, who did not show herself. The doctor was bound to see a
distant patient, miles on the other side of Carlingford. As he dashed
along over the echoing road he had time to imagine to himself how Nettie
might at that very moment be badgered and persecuted; and when he had
seen his patient and done his duty, and with the lamps lighted in the
drag, and the frosty wind blowing keen on his face, and the lights of
Carlingford cheering him on in the distance, was once more returning, an
impatience, somewhat akin to Nettie's, suddenly came upon the doctor.
Akin, yet different; for in his case it was an impulse of sensation, an
inspiration of the exhilarating speed and energy of motion with which he
flew through the bracing air, master of himself, his horse, and the long
sweep of solitary road before him. Again it occurred to Dr Rider to dash
forward to St Roque's and carry off Nettie, oppose it who would. The
idea pleased him as he swept along in the darkness, its very impossibility
making the vision sweeter. To carry her off at a stroke, in glorious
defiance of circumstances, and win happiness and love, whatever might
ensue. In the flush of the moment the doctor suddenly asked himself
whether this, after all, were not the wisest course? whether, whatever
might come of it, happiness was not worth the encounter of the dark
array of troubles behind? and whether to precipitate everything by
a sudden conclusion might not be the best way of solving all the
intricacies of the matter? He was still in this mood when he arrived at
his own house, where dinner, as usual, was not improved by having been
ready for an hour. The lamp was not lighted when he came in, and only
the cold reflection of the street lights outside, with a particoloured
gleam at the corner window from his own red and blue professional ensign
at the surgery door, lighted the solitary little room, where he looked
in vain even for so much as a note or letter to bring some shadow of
human fellowship to his home; the fire smouldering dully, the big chair
turned with a sullen back against the wall, as if nobody ever sat
there--though Nettie had once and for ever appropriated it to her
use--everything in such inhuman trim and good order disgusted the doctor.
He rang his bell violently for the lights and refreshments which were
so slow of coming, and, throwing himself into that chair, bit his nails
and stared out at the lamplight in the rapid access of thought that
came upon him. The first thing that disturbed him in this was the
apparition of a figure outside peering in with some anxiety at the blank
windows--somebody who was evidently curious to know whether the doctor
had yet come home. The unhappy doctor started, and rang his bell once
more with furious iteration. He knew what was coming. Somebody else,
no doubt, had taken ill, without any consideration for young Rider's
dinner, which, however, a man must manage to swallow even when tormented
with importunate patients, and in love. But the knock of the untimely
visitor sounded at the much-assailed door before Mary, sulky and
resistant, had been able to arrange before the hungry doctor the
half-warm half-cold viands which his impatience would not permit to
be duly "heated up;" and he had just seated himself to dispose of the
unsatisfactory meal when the little groom, who was as tired as his
master, opened the door for Mrs Smith from St Roque's. Mrs Smith was a
familiar periodical visitor at Dr Rider's. She had not ceased to hold
to that hasty and unwise financial arrangement into which the doctor
was persuaded to enter when Fred's pipe had exasperated the landlady
into rebellion. He had supplemented the rent at that exciting moment
rather than have Nettie disturbed; and now that poor Fred's pipe was
extinguished for ever, the doctor still paid the imposition demanded
from him--half because he had no time to contest it, half because
it was, however improper and unnecessary, a kind of pleasure to do
something for Nettie, little as she knew and deeply as she would have
resented it. Dr Rider's brows cleared up at sight of Nettie's landlady.
He expected some little private anecdotes of her and her ways, such as
no one else could give him. He gave Mrs Smith a chair with a benignity
to which she had no personal claim. Her arrival made Dr Rider's beefsteak
palatable, though the cookery and condition of the same were, to say the
least, far from perfect. Mrs Smith evidently was a little embarrassed
with the gracious reception she received. She twisted the corner of her
shawl in her fingers as if it had been that apron with which women
of her class habitually relieve their feelings. She was in a false
position. She came with the worst of news to the melancholy lover, and
he treated her as if she brought some special message or favour from the
lady of his thoughts.
"Well, Mrs Smith, and how are you all at the cottage?" said the doctor,
applying himself leisurely to his beefsteak.
"Well, doctor, nothing to brag of," said Mrs Smith, fixing her eyes upon
the fringe of her shawl. "I haven't nothing to say that's pleasant, more
the pity. I don' know, sir, how you'll take it when you come to hear;
but it's come very hard upon me. Not for the sake of the lodgings, as'll
let again fast enough, now the poor gentleman's sad fate is partly
forgotten; but you know, doctor, a body gets attached-like when one set
of people stays long enough to feel at home; and there ain't many young
ladies like Miss if you were to search the country through. But, now
she's really give in to it herself, there ain't no more to be said. I
never could bring myself to think Miss would give in till to-night when
she told me; though Smith he always said, when the stranger gentleman
took to coming so constant, as he knew how it would be."
"For heaven's sake, what do you mean?" cried Dr Rider, pushing away his
plate, and rising hurriedly from that dinner which was fated never to be
eaten. Mrs Smith shook her head and drew out her handkerchief.
"I know nothing more, doctor, but just they're going off to Australia,"
said the landlady, mournfully; "and Miss has started packing the big
boxes as have been in the hattic since ever they come: they're going off
back where they come from--that's all as I know."
"Impossible!" cried the doctor.
"I'd have said so myself this morning," said Mrs Smith; "but there ain't
nothing impossible, doctor, as Miss takes in her head. Don't you go and
rush out after her, Dr Rider. I beg of you upon my knees, if it was my
last word! I said to Smith I'd come up and tell the doctor, that he
mightn't hear from nobody promiscuous as couldn't explain, and mightn't
come rushing down to the cottage to know the rights of it and find the
gentleman there unexpected. If there's one thing I'm afeard of, it's a
quarrel between gentlemen in my house. So, doctor, for the love of
peace, don't you go anear the cottage. I'll tell you everything if you
listen to me."
The doctor, who had snatched up his hat and made a rapid step towards
the door, came back and seized hold of his visitor's shoulder, all his
benignity having been put to flight by her unlooked-for revelation.
"Look here! I want the truth, and no gossip! What do you mean--what
gentleman? What is it all about?" cried Dr Rider, hoarse with sudden
passion.
"Oh, bless you, doctor, don't blame it upon me, sir," cried Mrs Smith.
"It ain't neither my fault nor my business, but that you've always been
kind, and my heart warms to Miss. It's the gentleman from Australia as
has come and come again; and being an unmarried gentleman, and Miss--you
know what she is, sir--and I ask you, candid, Dr Rider, what was anybody
to suppose?"
The doctor grew wildly red up to his hair. He bit his lips over some
furious words which Carlingford would have been horrified to hear, and
grasped Mrs Smith's shoulder with a closer pressure. "What did she tell
you?" said the doctor. "Let me have it word for word. Did she say she
was going away?--did she speak of this--this--fellow?" exclaimed the
doctor, with an adjective over which charity drops a tear. "Can't you
tell me without any supposes, what did she say?"
"I'm not the woman to stand being shook--let me go this minute, sir,"
cried Mrs Smith. "The Australian gentleman is a very nice-spoken civil
man, as was always very respectful to me. She came into my back-parlour,
doctor, if you will know so particular--all shining and flashing, like
as she does when something's happened. I don't make no doubt they had
been settling matters, them two, and so I told Smith. 'Mrs Smith,' said
Miss, in her hasty way, enough to catch your breath coming all of a
sudden, 'I can't stand this no longer--I shall have to go away--it ain't
no good resisting.' Them were her very words, Dr Rider. 'Get me out the
big boxes, please,' said Miss. 'It's best done quietly. You must take
your week's notice, Mrs Smith, from this day;' and with that she kept
moving about the room all in a flutter like, not able to rest. 'Do go
and get me out those boxes; there's always a ship on the 24th,' she
says, taking up my knitting and falling to work at it to keep her hands
steady. 'The day afore Christmas!' says I; 'and oh, Miss, it's running
in the face of Providence to sail at this time of the year. You'll have
dreadful weather, as sure as life.' You should have seen her, doctor!
She gave a sort of smile up at me, all flashing as if those eyes of her
were the sides of a lantern, and the light bursting out both there and
all over. 'All the better,' she says, as if she'd have liked to fight
the very wind and sea, and have her own way even there. Bless you, she's
dreadful for having her own way. A good easy gentleman now, as didn't
mind much--Dr Rider--Doctor!--you're not agoing, after all I've told
you? Doctor, doctor, I say----"
But what Mrs Smith said was inaudible to Edward Rider. The door rang in
her ears as he dashed it after him, leaving her mistress of the field.
There, where he had once left Nettie, he now, all-forgetful of his usual
fastidious dislike of gossip, left Mrs Smith sole occupant of his most
private territories. At this unlooked-for crisis the doctor had neither
a word nor a moment to spend on any one. He rushed out of the house,
oblivious of all those professional necessities which limit the comings
and goings of a doctor in great practice; he did not even know what he
was going to do. Perhaps it was an anxious husband or father whom he all
but upset as he came out, with sudden impetuosity, into the unfrequented
street; but he did not stop to see. Pale and desperate, he faced the
cold wind which rushed up between the blank garden-walls of Grange Lane.
At Mr Wodehouse's door he stumbled against young Wentworth coming out,
and passed him with a muttered exclamation which startled the curate.
All the floating momentary jealousies of the past rushed back upon the
doctor's mind as he passed that tall figure in the wintry road: how he
had snatched Nettie from the vague kindnesses of the young clergyman--the
words he had addressed to her on this very road--the answer she had
given him once, which had driven him wild with passion and resentment.
Impossible! the Australian, it appeared, had found nothing impossible in
those circumstances in which Nettie had intrenched herself. Had the
doctor's wisdom been monstrous folly, and his prudence the blindest
shortsightedness? He asked himself the question as he rushed on towards
that lighted window shining far along the dark road--the same window
which he had seen Nettie's shadow cross, which had been opened to light
poor Fred upon the way he never could tread again. Within that jealous
blind, shining in that softened domestic light, what drama, murderous to
the doctor's peace, might be going on now?