ABOUT SIX MONTHS, AND HOW A CABMAN SAW A GHOST. OF SALLY'S AND THE
DOCTOR'S "MODUS VIVENDI," AND THE SHOOSMITH FAMILY. HOW SALLY MADE TEA
FOR BUDDHA, AND HOW BUDDHA FORESAW A STEPDAUGHTER. DELIRIUM TREMENS
It may make this story easier to read at this point if we tell our
reader that this twenty-fifth chapter contains little of vital
import--is, in fact, only a passing reference to one or two
by-incidents that came about in the half-year that followed. He
cannot complain that they are superfluous if we give him fair warning
of their triviality, and enable him to skip them without remorse.
But they register, to our thinking, what little progress events made
in six very nice months--a period Time may be said to have skipped.
And whoso will may follow his example, and lose but little in the
doing of it.
Very nice months they were--only one cloud worth mention in the blue;
only one phrase in a minor key. The old familiar figure of "the
Major"--intermittent, certainly, but none the less invariable; making
the house his own, or letting it appropriate him, hard to say
which--was no longer to be seen; but the old sword had been hung in
a place of honour near a portrait of Paul Nightingale, Mrs. Fenwick's
stepfather--its old owner's school-friend of seventy years ago. At her
death it was to be offered to the school; no surviving relative was
named in the will, if any existed. Everything was left unconditionally
"to my dear daughter by adoption, Rosalind Nightingale."
Some redistributions of furniture were involved in the importation of
the movables from the two rooms in Ball Street. The black cabinet, or
cellaret, with the eagle-talons, found a place in the dining-room in
the basement into which Fenwick--only it seems so odd to go back to
it now--was brought on the afternoon of his electrocution. Sally always
thought of this cabinet as "Major Roper's cabinet," because she got
the whiskey from it for him before he went off in the fog. If only
she had made him drunk that evening! Who knows but it might have
enabled him to fight against that terrible heart-failure that was not
the result of atmospheric conditions. She never looked at this cabinet
but the thought passed through her mind.
Her mother certainly told her nothing at this time about her last
conversation with the Colonel, or almost nothing. Certainly she
mentioned more than once what she thought a curious circumstance--that
the invalid, who was utterly ignorant of Old Jack's death, had
persisted so strongly that he was present in the room when he must
have been dead some hours. Every one of us has his little bit of
Psychical Research, which he demands respect for from others, whose
own cherished private instances he dismisses without investigation.
This example became Mrs. Fenwick's; who, to be just, had not set
herself up with one previously, in spite of the temptation the
Anglo-Indian is always under to espouse Mahatmas and buried Faquirs
and the like. There seemed a good prospect that it would become
an article of faith with her; her first verdict--that it was an
hallucination--having been undermined by a certain contradictiousness,
produced in her by an undeserved discredit poured on it by pretenders
to a superior ghost-insight; who, after all, tried to utilise it
afterward as a peg to hang their own particular ghosts on. Which
wasn't researching fair.
Sally was no better than the rest of them; if anything, she was a
little worse. And Rosalind was far from sure that her husband wouldn't
have been much more reasonable if he hadn't had Sally there to
encourage him. As it was, the league became, _pro hac vice_, a league
of Incredulity, a syndicate of Materialists. Rosalind got no quarter
for the half-belief she had in what the old Colonel had said
on his death-bed. Her report of his evident earnestness and the
self-possession of his voice carried no weight; failing powers,
delirium, effects of opiates, and ten degrees above normal had it all
their own way. Besides, her superstition was weak-kneed. It only went
the length of suggesting that it really was very curious when you came
to think of it, and she couldn't make it out.
That the incident received such very superficial recognition must be
accounted for by the fact that Krakatoa Villa was not a villa of the
speculative-thinker class. We have known such villas elsewhere, but
we are bound to say we have known none where speculative thought has
tackled the troublesome questions of death-bed appearances, haunted
houses, _et id genus omne_, with the result of coming to any but very
speculative conclusions. The male head of this household may have
felt that he himself, as a problem for the Psychical Researcher, was
ill-fitted to discuss the subject. He certainly shied off expressing
any decided opinions.
"What do you really think about ghosts?" said his wife to him one day,
when Sally wasn't there to come in with her chaff.
"Ghosts belong in titled families. Middle-class ghosts are a poor lot.
Those in the army and navy cut the best figure, on the whole--Junior
United Service ghosts...."
"Gerry, be serious, or I'll have a divorce!" This was a powerful grip
on a stinging-nettle. Rosalind felt braced by the effort. "Did you
ever see a ghost, old man?"
"Not in the present era, sweetheart. I can't say about B.C." He used
to speak of his life in this way, but his wife always felt sorry when
he alluded to it. It seldom happened. "No, I have never seen one to
my knowledge. I've been seen as a ghost, though, which is very
unpleasant, I assure you."
Rosalind's mind went back to the fat Baron at Sonnenberg. She supposed
this to be another case of the same sort. "When was that?" she said.
"Monday. I took a hansom from Cornhill to our bonded warehouse. It's
under a mile, and I asked the driver to change half-a-crown; I hadn't
a shilling. He got out a handful of silver, and when he had picked out
the two shillings and sixpence he looked at me for the first time, and
started and stared as if I was a ghost in good earnest."
"Oh, Gerry, he must have seen you before--before it happened!"
Remember that this was, in the spirit of it, a fib, seeing that the
tone of voice was that of welcome to a possible revelation. To our
thinking, the more honour to her who spoke it, considering the
motives. Gerry continued:
"So I thought at first. But listen to what followed. As soon as his
surprise, whatever caused it, had toned down to mere recognition
point, he spoke with equanimity. 'I've driven you afore now, mister,'
said he. 'You won't call me to mind. Parties don't, not when fares;
when drivers, quite otherwise. I'm by way of taking notice myself.
You'll excuse _me_?' Then he said, 'War-r-r-p,' to the horse, who was
trying to eat himself and dig the road up. When they were friends
again, I asked, Where had he seen me? Might I happen to call to mind
Livermore's Rents, and that turn-up?--that was his reply. I said I
mightn't; or didn't, at any rate. I had never been near Livermore's
Rents, nor any one else's rents, that I could recall the name of. 'Try
again, guv'nor,' said he. 'You'll recall if you try hard enough. _He_
recollects it, _I'll_ go bail. My Goard! you _did_ let him have it!'
Was it a fight? I asked. Well, do you know, darling, that cabby
addressed me seriously; took me to task for want of candour.
'That ain't worthy of a guv'nor like you,' he said. 'Why make any
concealments? Why not treat me open?' I gave him my most solemn honour
that I was utterly at a loss to guess what he was talking about, on
which he put me through a sort of retrospective catechism, broken by
reminders to the horse. '_You_ don't rec'lect goin' easy over the
bridge for to see the shipping? Nor yet the little narrer court
right-hand side of the road, with an iron post under an arch and
parties hollerin' murder at the far end? Nor yet the way you held him
in hand and played him? Nor yet what you sampled him out at the
finish? My Goard!' He slapped the top of the cab in a sort of ecstasy.
'Never saw a neater thing in my life. _No_ unnecessary violence, _no_
agitation! And him carried off the ground as good as dead! Ah! I made
inquiry after, and that was _so_.' I then said it must have been some
one else very like me, and held out my half-crown. He slipped back
his change into his own pocket, and when he had buttoned it over
ostentatiously addressed me again with what seemed a last appeal.
'I take it, guv'nor,' said he, 'you may have such a powerful list of
fighting fixtures in the week that you don't easy recollect one out
from the other. But _now_, _do_, _you_, _mean_ to say your memory
don't serve you in this?--I drove you over to Bishopsgate, 'cross
London Bridge. Very well! Then you bought a hat--white Panama--and
took change, seein' your own was lost. And you was going to pay me,
and I drove off, refusin' to accept a farden under the circumstances.
Don't you rec'lect that?' I said I didn't. 'Well, I _did_,' said he.
'And, with your leave, I'll do the same thing now. I'll drive you most
anywhere you'd like to name in reason, but I won't take a farden.'
And, do you know, he was off before my surprise allowed me to say
a word."
"Now, Gerry, was it that made you so glum on Monday when you came
back? I recollect quite well. So would Sally."
"Oh no; it was uncomfortable at first, but I soon forgot all about it.
I recollect what it was put me in the dumps quite well. It was a long
time after the cabby."
"What was it?"
"Well, it was as I walked to the station. I went a little way round,
and passed through an anonymous sort of a churchyard. I saw a box in
a wall with 'Contributions' on it, and remembering that I really had
no right to the cabby's shilling or eighteenpence, I dropped a florin
in. And then, Rosey dear, I had the most horrible recurrence I've had
for a long time--something about the same place and the same box, and
some one else putting three shillings in it. And it was all mixed up
with a bottle of champagne and a bank. I can't explain why these
things are so painful, but they are. _You_ know, Rosey!"
"I know, dear." His wife's knowledge seemed to make her quite silent
and absent. She may have seen that the recovery of this cabman would
supply a clue to her husband's story. Had he taken the number of the
cab? No, he hadn't. Very stupid of him! But he had no pencil, or he
could have written it on his shirt-sleeve. He couldn't trust his
memory. Rosalind didn't feel very sorry the clue was lost. As for him,
did he, we wonder, really exert himself to remember the cab's number?
But when the story was told afterwards to Sally, the moment the
Panama hat came on the tapis, she struck in with, "Jeremiah! you
know quite well you had a Panama hat on the day you were electrocuted.
And, what's more, it was brand new! And, what's more, it's outside in
the hall!"
It was brought in, and produced a spurious sense of being detectives
on the way to a discovery. But nothing came of it.
All through the discussion of this odd cab-incident the fact that
Fenwick "would have written down the cab-driver's number on his
shirt-sleeve," was on the watch for a recollection by one of the three
that a something had been found written on the shirt-cuff Fenwick
was electrocuted in. The ill-starred shrewdness of Scotland Yard, by
detecting a mere date in that something, had quite thrown it out of
gear as an item of evidence. By the way, did no one ever ask why
should any man, being of sound mind, write the current date on his
shirt-sleeve? It really is a thing that can look after its own
interests for twenty-four hours. The fact is that, no sooner do
coincidences come into court, than sane investigation flies out at
the skylight.
There was much discussion of this incident, you may be sure; but
that is all we need to know about it.
* * * * *
Our other chance gleanings of the half-year are in quite another part
of the field. They relate to Sally and Dr. Vereker's relation to
one another. If this relation had anything lover-like in it, they
certainly were not taking Europe into their confidence on the subject.
Whether their attitude was a spontaneous expression of respectful
indifference, or a _parti-pris_ to mislead and hoodwink her, of course
Europe couldn't tell. All that that continent, or the subdivision of
it known as Shepherd's Bush, could see was a parade of callousness
and studied civility on the part of both. The only circumstance that
impaired its integrity or made the bystander doubt the good faith
of its performers was the fact that one of them was a girl, and an
attractive one--so attractive that elderly ladies jumped meanly at
the supposed privileges of their age and sex, and kissed her a great
deal more than was at all fair or honourable.
The ostentatious exclusion of Cupid from the relationship of these two
demanded a certain mechanism. Every meeting had to be accounted for,
or there was no knowing what match-making busybodies wouldn't say; or,
rather, what they would say would be easily guessable by the lowest
human insight. Not that either of them ever mentioned precaution to
the other; all its advantages would have vanished with open
acknowledgment of its necessity. These arrangements were instinctive
on the part of both, and each credited the other with a mole-like
blindness to their existence.
For instance, each was graciously pleased to believe--or, at least, to
believe that the other believed--in a certain institution that called
for a vast amount of checking of totals, comparisons of counterfoils,
inspection of certificates, verification of data--everything, in
short, of which an institute is capable that could make incessant
correspondence necessary and frequent personal interviews advisable.
It could boast of Heaven knows how many titled Patrons and
Patronesses, Committees and Sub-committees, Referees and Auditors.
No doubt the mere mention of such an institution was enough to
render gossip speechless about any single lady and gentleman whom it
accidentally made known one to another. Its firm of Solicitors alone,
with a line all to itself in its prospectuses, was enough to put a
host of Loves to flight.
On which account Ann, at Krakatoa Villa, when she announced, "A person
for you, Miss Sally," was able to add, "from Dr. Vereker, I think,
miss," without the faintest shade of humorous reserve, as of one who
sees, and does not need to be told.
And when Sally had interviewed a hopeless and lopsided female, who
appeared to be precariously held together by pins, and to have an
almost superhuman power of evading practical issues, she (fortified
by this institution) was able to return to the drawing-room and say,
without a particle of shame, that she supposed she should have to go
and see Old Prosy about Mrs. Shoosmith to-morrow afternoon. And when
she called at the doctor's at teatime--because that didn't take him
from his patients, as he made a point of his tea, because of his
mother, if it was only ten minutes--both he and she believed
religiously in Mrs. Shoosmith, and Dr. Vereker filled out her form
(we believe we have the phrase right) with the most business-like
gravity at the little table where he wrote his letters.
Mrs. Shoosmith's form called for filling out in more senses than one.
The doctor's mother's form would not have borne anything further in
that direction; except, indeed, she had been provided with hooks to
go over her chair back, and keep her from rolling along the floor,
as a sphere might if asked to sit down.
A suggestion of the exceptional character of all visits from Sally to
Dr. Vereker, and _vice-versa_, was fostered by the domestics at his
house as well as at Krakatoa Villa. The maid Craddock, who responded
to Sally's knock on this Shoosmith occasion, threw doubt on the
possibility of the doctor ever being visible again, and kept the door
mentally on the jar while she spoke through a moral gap an inch wide.
Of course, that is only our nonsense. Sally was really in the house
when Craddock heroically, as a forlorn hope in a lost cause, offered
to "go and see"; and going, said, "Miss Nightingale; and is Dr.
Vereker expected in to tea?" without varnish of style, or redundance
of wording. But Sally lent herself to this insincere performance, and
remained in the hall until she was called on to decide whether she
would mind coming in and waiting, and Dr. Vereker would perhaps be
back in a few minutes. All this was part of the system of insincerity
we have hinted at.
So was the tenor of Sally's remarks, while she waited the few minutes,
to the effect that it was a burning shame that she should take up
Mrs. Vereker's time, a crying scandal that she should interrupt her
knitting, and a matter of penitential reflection that she hadn't
written instead of coming, which would have done just as well. To
which Mrs. Vereker, with a certain parade of pretended insincerity
(to make the real article underneath seem _bona fides_), replied with
mock-incredible statements about the pleasure she always had in seeing
Sally, and the rare good fortune which had prompted a visit at this
time, when, in addition to being unable to knit, owing to her eyes,
she had been absorbed in longing for news of a current event that
Sally was sure to know about. She particularised it.
"Oh, it isn't _true_, Mrs. Vereker! You don't mean to say you believed
_that_ nonsense? The idea! Tishy--just fancy!" Goody Vereker (the name
Sally thought of her by) couldn't shake her head, the fulness at the
neck forbade it; but she moved it cosily from side to side
continuously, much as a practicable image of Buddha might have done.
"My child, I've quite given up believing and disbelieving things.
I wait to be told, and then I ask if it's true. Now you've told me.
It isn't true, and that settles the matter."
"But whoever could tell you such _nonsense_, Mrs. Vereker?"
"A little bird, my dear." The image of Buddha left off the movement of
incredulity, and began a very gentle, slow nod. "A little bird tells
me these things--all sorts of things. But now I _know_ this one's
untrue I should never _dream_ of believing it. Not for one moment."
Sally felt inclined to pinch, bite, or otherwise maltreat the
speaker, so very worthless did her offer of optional disbelief seem,
and, indeed, so very offensive. But her inclination only went the
length of wondering how she could get at a vulnerable point through
so much fat.
"Tishy quarrels with her mother, I _know_," said she. "But as to her
doing anything like _that_! Besides, she never told me. Besides, I
should have been asked to the wedding. Besides," etcetera.
For, you see, what this elderly lady had asked the truth about was,
had or had not Lætitia Wilson and Julius Bradshaw been privately
married six months ago? Probably, during æons and epochs of knitting,
she had dreamed that some one had told her this. Or, even more
probably, she had invented it on the spot, to see what change she
could get out of Sally. She knew that Sally, prudently exasperated,
would give tongue; whereas conciliatory, cosy inquisition--the right
way to approach the elderly gossip--would only make her reticent. Now
it was only necessary to knit, and Sally would be sure to develop
the subject. The line she appeared to take was that it was a horrible
shame of people to say such things, in view of the fact that it was
only yesterday that Tishy had quite settled that rash matrimony in
defiance of her parents would not only be inexcusable but wrong. Sally
laid a fiery emphasis on the only-ness of yesterday, and seemed to
imply that, had it been a week ago, there would have been much more
plausibility in the story of this secret nuptial of six months back.
"Besides," she went on, accumulating items of refutation, "Julius has
only his salary, and Tishy has nothing--though, of course, she could
teach. Besides, Julius has his mother and sister, and they have only
a hundred and fifty a year. It does as long as they all live together.
But it wouldn't do if Julius married." On which the old Goody (Sally
told her mother after) embarked on a long analysis of how joint
housekeeping could be managed if Tishy would consent to be absorbed
into the Bradshaw household. She made rather a grievance of it that
Sally could not supply data of the sleeping accommodation at Georgiana
Terrace, Bayswater. If she had known that, she could have got them
all billeted on different rooms. As it was, she had to be content
to enlarge on the many economies the family could achieve if they
consented to be guided by a person of experience--_e.g._, herself.
"Of course, dinner would have to be late," she said, "because of Mr.
Bradshaw not getting home till nearly eight. They would have to make
it supper. And it might be cold; it's a great saving, and makes it so
easy where there's one servant." Sally shuddered with horror at this
implied British household. Poor Tishy!
"But they're _not going_ to marry till they see their way," she
exclaimed in despair. She felt that Tishy and Julius were being
involved, entangled, immeshed by an old matrimonial octopus in
gilt-rimmed spectacles--like Professor Wilson's--who could knit
tranquilly all the while, while she herself could do nothing to save
them. "It might be cold!!" Every evening, perhaps--who knows?
"Very proper, my dear." Thus the Octopus. "I felt sure such a nice,
sensible girl as Miss Wilson never would. That is Conrad." It really
was a sound of a latch-key, but speech is no mere slave to fact.
"And I was really quite glad when Dr. Prosy came in--the way the Goody
was going on about Tishy!" So Sally said to her mother when she had
completed her report of the portion of this visit she chose to tell
about. On which her mother said, "What a dear little humbug you
are, kitten," and she replied, as we have heard her reply before,
"We-e-ell, there's nothing in that!" and posed as one who has been
misrepresented. But her mother stuck to her point, which was that
Sally knew she was quite glad when Dr. Vereker came in, Tishy or no.
Whatever the reason was that Sally was quite glad at the appearance
of Dr. Prosy, there could be no doubt about the fact. Her laugh
reached the cook in the kitchen, who denounced Craddock the
parlourmaid for not telling her it was Miss Nightingale, when it
might have been a visitor, seeing no noise come of it. Cook remarked
she knew how it would be--there was the doctor picking up like--and
hadn't she told Craddock so? But Craddock said no!
"Mrs. Shoosmith again--the everlasting Mrs. Shoosmith!" exclaimed the
doctor. It was very unfeeling of them to laugh so over this unhappy
woman, who was the survivor of two husbands and the proprietor of one,
and the mother of seven daughters and five sons, each of whom was
a typical "case," and all of whom sought admission to Institutes on
their merits. The lives of the whole family were passed in applications
for testimonials and certificates, alike bearing witness to their
chronic qualifications for it. Sally was mysteriously hardhearted about
them, while fully admitting their claims on the public.
"That's right, Dr. Conrad"--Sally had inaugurated this name for
herself--"Honoria Purvis Shoosmith. Mind you put in the Purvis right.
Now write down lots of diseases for her to have." Sally is leaning
over the doctor's chair to see him write as she says this. There is
something in the atmosphere of the situation that seems to clash with
the actual business in hand. The doctor endeavours, not seriously
enough, perhaps, to infuse a flavour of responsibility.
"My professional dignity, Miss Nightingale, will not permit of the
scheme of diagnosis you indicate. If any disorders entirely without
symptoms were known to exist, I should be delighted to ascribe the
whole of them to Mrs. Shoosmith...."
"Don't be prosy, Dr. Conrad. Fire away! You told me lots--you know you
did! Rheumatic arthritis--gout--pyæmia...."
"Come, I say, Miss Sally, draw it mild. I never said pyæmia. _An_æmia,
perhaps...."
"Very well, Anne, then! We can let it go at that. Fire away!" The
doctor looks round his own corner at the rows of pearls and the laugh
that frames them, the merry eyebrows and the scintillating eyes they
accentuate. A perilous intoxication, not to be too freely indulged in
by a serious professional man at any time--in business hours certainly
not. But if the doctor were quite in earnest over a sort of Spartan
declaration of policy his heart feels the prudence of, would that
responsive twinkle flutter in his face behind its mock gravity? He is
all but head over ears in love with Sally--so why pretend? Really, we
don't know--and that's the truth.
"Wouldn't it be a good way to consider what it is that is really the
matter, and make out the statement accordingly?" He goes on looking
at Sally, scratches himself under the chin with his pen, and waits
for an answer.
"Good, sensible, general practitioner! See how practical he is! Now,
I should never have thought of that!"
"Well, what shall we put her down as? Chronic arthritis--spinal
curvature--tuberculosis of the cervical vertebræ?"
"Those all sound very nice. But I don't think it matters which you
choose. If she hasn't got it now, she'll develop it if I describe
it. When I told her mother couldn't get rid of her neuritis, she
immediately asked to know the symptoms, and forthwith claimed them
as her own. 'Well, there now, and to think what I was just a-sayin'
to Shoosmith, this very morning! Just in the crick of the thumb-joint,
you can't 'ardly abear yourself!' And then she told how she said to
Shoosmith frequent, where was the use of his getting impatient, and
exclaimin' the worst expressions? Because his language went beyond
a quart, and no reasonable excuse."
"Mr. Shoosmith doesn't seem a very promising sort? He's a tailor,
isn't he?"
"No; he's a messenger. He runs on errands and does odd jobs. But he
can't run--I've seen him!--he can only shamble. And his voice is
hoarse and inaudible. And he has a drawback--two drawbacks, in fact.
He is no sooner giv' coppers on a job than he drinks them."
"What's the other?"
"His susceptibility to intoxicants. His 'ed is that weak that 'most
anythink upsets him. So you see."
"Poor chap! He's handicapped in the race of life. As for his wife,
when I saw her she was suffering with acute rheumatism and bad
feeling--and, I may add, defective reasoning power. However...." The
doctor fills in blanks, adds a signature, says "There we are!" and
Mrs. Shoosmith is disposed of as an applicant to the institution, and
will no doubt reap some benefits we need not know the particulars of.
But she remains as a subject for the student of human life--also,
tea comes--also, which is interesting, Sally proceeds to make it.
Now, if the reserves this young lady had made about this visit, if
her pretence that it was a necessity arising from a charitable
organization, if the colour that was given to that pretence by her
interview with the servant Craddock--if any of these things had been
more or less than the grossest hypocrisy, would it, we ask you, have
been accepted as a matter of course that she should pull off her
gloves and sit down to make tea with a mature knowledge of how to get
the little lynch-pin out of the spirit-lamp, and of how many
spoonfuls? No; the fact is, Sally was a more frequent visitor to the
image of Buddha than she chose to admit; and as for the doctor, he
seized every legitimate opportunity of 'cello practice at Krakatoa
Villa. But G.P.'s cannot call their time their own.
"The funny part of Mrs. Shoosmith," said Sally, when the pot was full
up and the lid shut, "is that the moment she is brought into contact
with warm soapy water and scrubbing-brushes, she seems to renew her
youth. She brings large pins out of her mouth and secures her apron.
And then she scrubs. Now you may blow the methylated out and make
yourself useful, Dr. Conrad."
"Does she put back the pins when she's done scrubbing?" the doctor
asks, when he has made himself useful.
"She puts them back against another time, so I have understood. I
suppose they live in her mouth. That's yours with two lumps. That is
your mother's--no, I won't pour it yet. She's asleep."
For the fact is that the Goody, anxious to invest herself with an
appearance of forbearance towards the frivolities of youth, readiness
to forego (from amiability) any share in the conversation, insight
into the _rapports_ of others (especially male and female _rapports_),
and general superiority to human weakness, had endeavoured to express
all these things by laying down her knitting, folding her hands on
her circumference, and looking as if she knew and could speak if she
chose. But if you do this, even the maintenance of an attentive
hypodermic smile is not enough to keep you awake--and off you go! The
Goody did, and the smile died slowly off into a snore. Never mind! She
was in want of rest, so she said. It was curious, too, for she seldom
got anything else.
It would have been unfeeling to wake her, so Dr. Vereker went and sat
a good deal nearer Sally, not to make more noise than was necessary.
This reacted, an outsider might have inferred, on the subject-matter
of the conversation, making it more serious in tone. And as Sally put
the little Turk's cap over the pot to keep it warm, and the doctor
knew perfectly well that the blacker the tea was the better his mother
liked it, this lasted until that lady woke up with a start a long
time after, and said she must have been asleep. Then, as Cook was
aware in the kitchen, some more noise came of it, and Sally carried
off Mrs. Shoosmith's certificate.
"You know, Dr. Conrad, it makes you look like a real medical man," she
said at the gate, referring to the detention of the doctor's pill-box,
which awaited him, and he replied that it didn't matter. King, the
driver, looked as if he thought it _did_, and appeared morose. Is it
because coachmen always keep their appointments with society and
society never keeps its appointments with coachmen that a settled
melancholy seems to brood over them, and their souls seem cankered
with misanthropy?
The doctor had rather a rough time that evening. For among the
patients he was going to try to see and get back to dinner (thus ran
current speech of those concerned) there was a young man from the West
Indies, who had come into something considerable. But he was afflicted
with a disorder he called the "jumps," and the doctor's diagnosis, if
correct, showed that the _vera causa_ of this aptly-named disease was
alcohol of sp. gr. something, to which the patient was in the habit
of adding very few atoms of water indeed. The doctor was doing all he
could to change the regimen, but only succeeded on making his patient
weak and promise amendment. On this particular evening the latter
quite unexpectedly went for the doctor's throat, shouting, "I see your
plans!" and King had to be summoned from his box to help restrain him.
So Dr. Vereker was tired when he got home late to dinner, and would
have felt miserable, only he could always shut his eyes and think of
Sally's hands that had come over his shoulder to discriminate points
in Mrs. Shoosmith's magna-charta. They had come so near him that he
could smell the fresh sweet dressing of the new kid gloves--six and
a half, we believe.
But although he liked his Goody mother to talk to him about the girl
who had christened her so, he was tired enough this evening to wish
that her talk had flowed in a less pebbly channel. For she chose this
opportunity to enlarge upon the duties of young married women towards
their husbands' parents, their mothers especially. Her conclusion was
a little unexpected:
"I have said nothing throughout, my dear. I should not dream of doing
so. But if I had I trust I should have made it clearly understood how
I regarded Miss Lætitia Wilson's conduct."
"But there wasn't any. Nobody contracted a private marriage."
"My dear Conrad! Have I said that any one has done so? Have I used
the expression 'private marriage'?"
"Why--no. I don't think you have. Not to-day, at least."
"When have I done so? Have I not, on the contrary, from the very
beginning told you I should take the first opportunity of disbelieving
so absurd and mischievous a story? And have I lost a moment? Was it
not the first word I said to Sally Nightingale before you came in, and
without a soul in the room to hear? I only ask for justice. But if my
son misrepresents me, what can I expect from others?" At this point
patient toleration only.
"But, mother dear, I don't _want_ to misrepresent you. Only I'll be
hanged if I see why Tishy Wilson is to be hauled over the coals?"
A suggestion of a proper spirit showed itself. "I am accustomed to
your language, and will say nothing. But, my dear Conrad, for you are
always my son, and will remain so, whatever your language may be, do
you, my dear Conrad, do you really sanction the attitude of a young
lady who refuses to marry--public and private don't come into the
matter--because of a groundless antipathy? For it is admitted on all
hands that Mrs. Julius Bradshaw is a person of rather superior class."
"She's Mrs. Bradshaw--not Mrs. Julius. But what makes you suppose
Tishy Wilson objects to her?"
"My dear Conrad, you know as well as I do that is a mere
prevarication. Why evade the point? But in my opinion you do wisely
not to attempt any defence of Lætitia Wilson. It may be true that
she has not laid herself open to misconstruction in this case, but
the lack of good feeling is to all intents and purposes the same
as if she had; and I must say, my dear Conrad, I am surprised
that a professional man with your qualifications should undertake
to justify her."
"But Miss Wilson hasn't _done_ anything! What are you wigging away
at her for, mother dear?"
"Have I not expressly said that she has done nothing whatever? Of
course she has not, and, I hope, never will. But it is easy for you,
Conrad, to take refuge in a fact which I have been scrupulously
careful to admit from the very beginning. And 'wigging away!' What
language!"
"Never mind the language, mother darling! Tell me what it's all
about." Tired as he is, he gets up from the chair he has not been
smoking in (because this is the drawing-room) to go round and kiss
what is probably the fatty integument of a very selfish old woman,
but which he believes to be that of an affectionate mother. "What's
it all about?" he repeats.
"My dear Conrad! Is it not a little unfeeling to ask me what it is
all about when you know?"
"I _don't_ know, mother dear. I can do any amount of guessing, but
I don't _know_."
"I think, my dear, if you will light my candle and ring for Craddock
to shut up, that I had better go to bed." Which her son does, but
perversely abstains from giving the old lady any assistance to saying
what is in her mind to say.
But she did not intend to be baffled. For when he had piloted her to
her state apartment, carrying her candle, under injunctions on no
account to spill the grease, and a magazine of wraps and wools and
unintelligible sundries, she contrived to invest an elucidation of
her ideas with an appearance of benevolence by working in a readiness
to sacrifice herself to her son's selfish longing for tobacco.
"Only just hear me to the end, my dear, and then you can get away to
your pipe. What I did _not_ say--for you interrupted me--did not
relate so much to Miss Lætitia Wilson as to Sally Nightingale. She,
I am sure, would never come between any man she married and his mother.
I am making no reference to any one whatever, although, however old I
am, I have eyes in my head and can see. But I can read character, and
that is my interpretation of Sally Nightingale's."
"Sally Nightingale and I are not going to make it up, if that's what
you mean, mother. She wouldn't have me, for one thing----"
"My dear, I am not going to argue the point. It is nearly eleven, and
unless I get to bed I shan't sleep. Now go away to your pipe, and
think of what I have said. And don't slam your door and wake me
when you come up." She offered him a selection to kiss, shutting her
eyes tight. And he gave place to Craddock, and went away to his
unwholesome, smelly habit, as his mamma had more than once called it.
His face was perplexed and uncomfortable; however, it got ease after
a few puffs of pale returns and a welcome minute of memory of the
bouquet of those sixes.
But his little happy oasis was a very small one. For a messenger came
with a furious pull at the night-bell and a summons for the doctor.
His delirium-tremens case had very nearly qualified its brain for a
P.M.--at least, if there were any of it left--by getting at a pistol
and taking a bad aim at it. The unhappy dipsomaniac was half-shot,
and prompt medical attendance was necessary to prevent the something
considerable being claimed by his heir-at-law.
Whether this came to pass or not does not concern us. This much is
certain, that at the end of six months which this chapter represents,
and which you have probably skipped, he was as much forgotten by the
doctor as the pipe his patient's suicidal escapade had interrupted, or
the semi-vexation with his mother he was using it as an anodyne for.