The storm, and the preparations for the wedding, raged on with almost
equal violence, within and without the walls of No. 6, The Mall. From
the moment that daylight began on the fateful Wednesday, the day
before the wedding, and until it ceased, Mrs. Mangan's face recurred
at the window of the dining room, full of protest, primarily against
the arbiter of the weather, who had sent so supreme a hindrance to all
her preparations, secondarily, against the shops of Cluhir, whose
dilatoriness in matters of the highest importance "had her," so she
affirmed frequently, "that much distracted, that it would be a comfort
and a consolation to her if she were stretched cold in her grave."
At intervals during the feverish day, beings would come rushing
through the torrents, like trout in a swirling brook, and would fling
themselves and their parcels in through the door that Mrs. Mangan was
generally ready to open for them. Frantic messages from bridesmaids
about their costumes, belated wedding presents, all the surf and foam
that is flung up by the waves of a wedding, broke upon No. 6. The
bride elect, pale and preoccupied, ("pale," that is to say, "for
Tishy," as one of her compeers observed, "flushed for any one else!")
wrote notes, and exhibited presents, and packed clothes, and rode the
tempest with a fortitude that was worthy of the Big Doctor's daughter.
But even Tishy began to fail as darkness drew in.
"I can't stand this house any more," she said to her mother, "rain or
no rain, I'm going out! I didn't see Mrs. Whelply about Kathleen's"
wreath that she wrote about--"
"You'll be drowned," said Mrs. Mangan, doomfully; "and sure if Larry
comes over, what'll I say to him?"
"_He'll_ not come!" said Tishy, scornfully. "What a fool he is, a
day like this!"
"And they say the river's up in the houses down at the end of the
town," went on Mrs. Mangan. "In the name of pity why wouldn't you be
satisfied to stay at home for this once, and you leaving me for good
to-morrow!"
"Well, I'll die if I stay in this messed-up hole any longer!" said
Tishy. "I don't care how wet I get--"
Presently the front door slammed behind her; her mother said to
herself that of all the headstrong pieces--! And, further, that she
trusted in God Larry Coppinger would be able to make a hand of her;
she then, with the resignation that experience teaches to defeated
mothers, went to the kitchen, and prepared a tray with tea, and
carried it herself up to the Doctor's surgery.
"Francis, may I come in? I have tea for you and meself."
"Come in to be sure," replied Francis, hospitably. "I'll be glad of a
cup. Wait and I'll light the gas."
The Big Doctor was a faithful man, and loved his wife. He treated her
as a slave, but it was thus that she not only expected, but preferred
to be treated, and the position of a favourite slave may not be
without its compensations. He established her in the Patients' chair,
arranging it so that the crude flare of the incandescent gas should
not be in her eyes, and then sat down in his own huge chair, in
comfortable proximity to her and the tea-tray.
"Well, Annie, me girl," he said. "You're looking tired enough, but
there isn't one will touch you in looks to-morrow for all that! Your
own daughter included!"
"Go on out of that, Francis, with your nonsense!" replied Mrs. Mangan,
with a coquettish slap on the Doctor's great round knee, "you ought to
be learning sense for yourself by this time!"
"Maybe I'm not so wanting in sense as you might think, Annie!" he
answered, his watchful, grey-blue eyes under the over-hanging, musical
brows, softening as he looked at her. I think one way and another, I
haven't made altogether such a bad fist of things!"
"Darling lovey!" cried Mrs. Mangan, adoringly. "How would you think I
meant it!"
"Well, I didn't either!" said the Doctor, with a satisfied laugh, "but
I'm inclined to think that I've done better than you're aware of, or
that you might give me credit for either!"
"All _I'm_ aware of," said Mrs. Mangan, sitting erect, with a
look of defiance, "is that there's nothing in this world, no, nor in
Ireland neither, that you couldn't do if you chose to put your mind to
it! So now! You needn't be talking to _me_ like that! Pretending
I don't know you after all those years!"
"Well, listen to me now," said the Doctor, well pleased, 'Tell me what
d'ye think of this marriage of Tishy's?"
"You know well what I think of it, Francis, and what everybody thinks
of it, too! The smartest and the richest--"
"Well, that's all right," interrupted the Doctor, "but for a woman
like yourself, that sets out to be fond of her children, its
surprising that you didn't make a match yet for your son!" He looked
at her with indulgent fondness, laughing at her, and she gazed back at
him with her heart in her eyes, and thought him the king of men.
"Well, what have you got to say to that, Mrs. Mangan? It's well for
the poor boy that his father isn't so neglectful of him!"
"What do you mean, Francis? What are you talking of?"
"I'm talking of poor Barty, my dear!" said the Doctor, enjoying
himself intensely, and watching his wife's handsome face with eyes
that lost no shade of its quick-changing expression. "You've a high
opingen of him, I know! Would you think Miss Christian Talbot-Lowry
was good enough for him?"
Mrs. Mangan's mouth opened, in sheer stupefaction. She opened and shut
it two or three times before speech came to her.
"Barty!" she panted; "Miss Christian Lowry! Sweet and Blessed Mother
of God! Francis, you're raving! Is it my poor Barty! They'd never look
at him!"
The Doctor watched her with triumph in his face. "Don't be too sure of
that! I might have an argument up my sleeve--" he checked himself as
a nervous knock was heard at the door. "Who's there? Come in! Come in,
can't ye?"
A telegram, the orange envelope dark with wet, was handed to him. He
read it.
"No answer," he said, getting up quickly. "Well, bad manners to the
woman! Such a day to choose!"
"What _is_ it, lovey? _Don't_ tell me it's a sick call! You couldn't
_possibly_ go _annywhere_ this evening!" cried Mrs. Mangan,
italicising, in her indignation, every second word, "and for goodness'
sake, go on and tell me what was the argument you said you had?"
"My dear, I couldn't go into it properly now. I'll tell you another
time. I'm bound to go, and as quick as I can too! Run now, like a good
girl, and tell Barty or Mike to get the car ready in a hurry. That
wire was from Hannigan that lives below Riverstown. He says his
wife'll die--she's very bad, I'm afraid--I'm booked for the job this
long time--"
Mrs. Mangan, loudly expostulating, though wise in obedience from
experience, flew from the room with her message, and speedily returned
to find the Big Doctor still hurrying about the surgery, making his
preparations, and talking as he went.
"I mightn't be back till morning, but I'll not miss the wedding, don't
be afraid! I'll come as soon as I can, I promise you that!"
"Oh, Francis, love, I hate to see you go out this awful night," wailed
Mrs. Mangan, following him into the little hall, and dragging his
fur-lined coat off a peg, and holding it for him; "and this scorf, my
darling, put it on you before you ketch your death. Will you take Mike
with you?"
"I will not. He'll be wanting here. Don't delay me now. Good-bye,
girlie!" He kissed her. Then he opened the door, and with a roar, the
wind and the rain hurled in, with a force that staggered him, big as
he was.
"Well, such a night!" lamented Mrs. Mangan, for the twentieth time,
clinging to the door; "I wish to God the telegraph wires were down
before they could send for you! Oh, will you take care of yourself
now, Francis?"
"Of course I will! Go in out of the wet--" he pushed himself in under
the low hood of the car, and glided into the darkness.
A doctor is a dedicated man. He accepts risks with a laugh, and toil
with, perhaps, a grumble, but he does not flinch. Obscure and
inglorious perils are his, and hardships that only himself can gauge.
Be sure that they are not unrecorded. They shine, and their splendour
is hidden, like those lanterns that were hidden under the coats of the
lantern-bearers. But there is, very surely, some screen, sensitive to
its rays, on which that light is thrown, that will some day show us
what we have been too self-centred to realise, and will dazzle us with
the devotion to which we are now too much habituated to admire.