“No, Mannering,” said Dr. Roland, “I can’t say that you may go back to
the Museum in a week. I don’t know when you will be up to going. I
should think you had a good right to a long holiday after working there
for so many years.”
“Not so many years,” said Mr. Mannering, “since the long break which you
know of, Roland.”
“In the interest of science,” cried the doctor.
The patient shook his head with a melancholy smile. “Not in my own at
least,” he said.
“Well, it is unnecessary to discuss that question. Back you cannot go,
my good fellow, till you have recovered your strength to a very
different point from that you are at now. You can’t go till after you’ve
had a change. At present you’re nothing but a bundle of tendencies ready
to develop into anything bad that’s going. That must be stopped in the
first place, and you must have sea air, or mountain air, or country air,
whichever you fancy. I won’t be dogmatic about the kind, but the thing
you must have.”
“Impossible, impossible, impossible!” Mannering had begun to cry out
while the other was speaking. “Why, man, you’re raving,” he said. “I--so
accustomed to the air of Bloomsbury, and that especially fine sort which
is to be had at the Museum, that I couldn’t breathe any other--I to
have mountain air or sea air or country air! Nonsense! Any of them would
stifle me in a couple of days.”
“You will have your say, of course. And you are a great scientific gent,
I’m aware; but you know as little about your own health and what it
wants as this child with her message. Well, Janie, what is it, you
constant bother? Mr. Mannering? Take it to Miss Bethune, or wait till
Miss Dora comes back.”
“Please, sir, the gentleman is waiting, and he says he won’t go till
he’s pyed.”
“You little ass!” said the doctor. “What do you mean by coming with your
ridiculous stories here?”
Mannering stretched out his thin hand and took the paper. “You see,” he
said, with a faint laugh, “how right I was when I said I would have
nothing to do with your changes of air. It is all that my pay will do to
settle my bills, and no overplus for such vanities.”
“Nonsense, Mannering! The money will be forthcoming when it is known to
be necessary.”
“From what quarter, I should be glad to hear? Do you think the Museum
will grant me a premium for staying away, for being of no use? Not very
likely! I shall not be left in the lurch; they will grant me three
months’ holiday, or even six months’ holiday, and my salary as usual.
But we shall have to reduce our expenses, Dora and I, and to live as
quietly as possible, instead of going off like millionaires to revel
upon fresh tipples of fancy air. No, no, nothing of the kind. And,
besides, I don’t believe in them. I have made myself, as the French say,
to the air of Bloomsbury, and in that I shall live or die.”
“You don’t speak at all, my dear fellow, like the man of sense you are,”
said the doctor. “Fortunately, I can carry things with a high hand. When
I open my mouth let no patient venture to contradict. You are going away
to the country now. If you don’t conform to my rules, I am not at all
sure I may not go further, and ordain that there is to be no work for
six months, a winter on the Riviera, and so forth. I have got all these
pains and penalties in my hand.”
“Better and better,” said Mannering, “a palace to live in, and a _chef_
to cook for us, and our dinner off gold plate every day.”
“There is no telling what I may do if you put me to it,” Dr. Roland
said, with a laugh. “But seriously, if it were my last word, you must
get out of London. Nothing that you can do or say will save you from
that.”
“We shall see,” said Mr. Mannering. “The sovereign power of an empty
purse does great wonders. But here is Dora back, and without the big
book, I am glad to see. What did Fiddler say?”
“I will tell you afterwards, father,” said Dora, developing suddenly a
little proper pride.
“Nonsense! You can tell me now--that he had two or three people in his
pocket who would have bought it willingly if he had not reserved it for
me, and that it was a book that nobody wanted, and would be a drug on
his hands.”
“Oh, father, how clever you are! That was exactly what he said: and I
did not point out that he was contradicting himself, for fear it should
make him angry. But he did not mind me. He said he could trust Mr.
Mannering of the Museum; he was quite sure he should get paid; and he is
sending it back by one of the young men, because it was too heavy for
me.”
“My poor little girl! I ought to have known it would be too heavy for
you.”
“Oh, never mind,” said Dora. “I only carried it half the way. It was
getting very heavy indeed, I will not deny, when I met Mr. Gordon, and
he carried it for me to Fiddler’s shop.”
“Who is Mr. Gordon?” said Mr. Mannering, raising his head.
“He is a friend of Miss Bethune’s,” said Dora, with something of
hesitation in her voice which struck her father’s ear.
Dr. Roland looked very straight before him, taking care to make no
comment, and not to meet Dora’s eye. There was a tacit understanding
between them now on several subjects, which the invalid felt vaguely,
but could not explain to himself. Fortunately, however, it had not even
occurred to him that there was anything more remarkable in the fact of a
young man, met at hazard, carrying Dora’s book for her, than if the
civility had been shown to himself.
“You see,” he said, “it is painful to have to make you aware of all my
indiscretions, Roland. What has a man to do with rare editions, who has
a small income and an only child like mine? The only thing is,” he
added, with a short laugh, “they should bring their price when they come
to the hammer,--that has always been my consolation.”
“They are not coming to the hammer just yet,” said the doctor. He
possessed himself furtively, but carelessly, of the piece of paper on
the table--the bill which, as Janie said, was wanted by a gentleman
waiting downstairs. “You just manage to get over this thing, Mannering,”
he said, in an ingratiating tone, “and I’ll promise you a long bill of
health and plenty of time to make up all your lost way. You don’t live
in the same house with a doctor for nothing. I have been waiting for
this for a long time. I could have told Vereker exactly what course it
would take if he hadn’t been an ass, as all these successful men are. He
did take a hint or two in spite of himself; for a profession is too much
for a man, it gives a certain fictitious sense in some cases, even when
he is an ass. Well, Mannering, of course I couldn’t prophesy what the
end would be. You might have succumbed. With your habits, I thought it
not unlikely.”
“You cold-blooded practitioner! And what do you mean by my habits? I’m
not a toper or a reveller by night.”
“You are almost worse. You are a man of the Museum, drinking in bad air
night and day, and never moving from your books when you can help it. It
was ten to one against you; but some of you smoke-dried, gas-scented
fellows have the devil’s own constitution, and you’ve pulled through.”
“Yes,” said Mannering, holding up his thin hand to the light, and
thrusting forth a long spindle-shank of a leg, “I’ve pulled through--as
much as is left of me. It isn’t a great deal to brag of.”
“Having done that, with proper care I don’t see why you shouldn’t have a
long spell of health before you--as much health as a man can expect who
despises all the laws of nature--and attain a very respectable age
before you die.”
“Here’s promises!” said Mannering. He paused and laughed, and then added
in a lower tone: “Do you think that’s so very desirable, after all?”
“Most men like it,” said the doctor; “or, at least, think they do. And
for you, who have Dora to think of----”
“Yes, there’s Dora,” the patient said as if to himself.
“That being the case, you are not your own property, don’t you see? You
have got to take care of yourself, whether you will or not. You have got
to make life livable, now that it’s handed back to you. It’s a
responsibility, like another. Having had it handed back to you, as I
say, and being comparatively a young man--what are you, fifty?”
“Thereabout; not what you would call the flower of youth.”
“But a very practical, not disagreeable age--good for a great deal yet,
if you treat it fairly; but, mind you, capable of giving you a great
deal of annoyance, a great deal of trouble, if you don’t.”
“No more before the child,” said Mannering hastily. “We must cut our
coat according to our cloth, but she need not be in all our secrets.
What! turtle-soup again? Am I to be made an alderman of in spite of
myself? No more of this, Hal, if you love me,” he said, shaking his
gaunt head at the doctor, who was already disappearing downstairs.
Dr. Roland turned back to nod encouragingly to Dora, and to say: “All
right, my dear; keep it up!” But his countenance changed as he turned
away again, and when he had knocked and been admitted at Miss Bethune’s
door, it was with a melancholy face, and a look of the greatest
despondency, that he flung himself into the nearest chair.
“It will be all of no use,” he cried,--“of no use, if we can’t manage
means and possibilities to pack them off somewhere. He will not hear of
it! Wants to go back to the Museum next week--in July!--and to go on in
Bloomsbury all the year, as if he had not been within a straw’s breadth
of his life.”
“I was afraid of that,” said Miss Bethune, shaking her head.
“He ought to go to the country now,” said the doctor, “then to the sea,
and before the coming on of winter go abroad. That’s the only programme
for him. He ought to be a year away. Then he might come back to the
Museum like a giant refreshed, and probably write some book, or make
some discovery, or do some scientific business, that would crown him
with glory, and cover all the expenses; but the obstinate beast will
not see it. Upon my word!” cried Dr. Roland, “I wish there could be made
a decree that only women should have the big illnesses; they have such
faith in a doctor’s word, and such a scorn of possibilities: it always
does them good to order them something that can’t be done, and then do
it in face of everything--that’s what I should like for the good of the
race.”
“I can’t say much for the good of the race,” said Miss Bethune; “but
you’d easily find some poor wretch of a woman that would do it for the
sake of some ungrateful brute of a man.”
“Ah, we haven’t come to that yet,” said the doctor regretfully; “the
vicarious principle has not gone so far. If it had I daresay there would
be plenty of poor wretches ready to bear their neighbours’ woes for a
consideration. The simple rules of supply and demand would be enough to
provide us proxies without any stronger sentiment: but philosophising
won’t do us any good; it won’t coin money, or if it could, would not
drop it into his pocket, which after all is the chief difficulty. He is
not to be taken in any longer by your fictions about friendly offerings
and cheap purchases. Here is a bill which that little anæmic nuisance
Janie brought in, with word that a gentleman was ‘wyaiting’ for the
payment.”
“We’ll send for the gentleman, and settle it,” said Miss Bethune
quietly, “and then it can’t come up to shame us again.”
The gentleman sent for turned up slowly, and came in with reluctance,
keeping his face as much as possible averted. He was, however, too
easily recognisable to make this contrivance available.
“Why, Hesketh, have you taken service with Fortnum and Mason?” the
doctor cried.
“I’m in a trade protection office, sir,” said Hesketh. “I collect bills
for parties.” He spoke with his eyes fixed on a distant corner, avoiding
as much as possible every glance.
“In a trade protection office? And you mean to tell me that Fortnum and
Mason, before even the season is over, collect their bills in this way?”
“They don’t have not to say so many customers in Bloomsbury, sir,” said
the young man, with that quickly-conceived impudence which is so
powerful a weapon, and so congenial to his race.
“Confound their insolence! I have a good mind to go myself and give them
a bit of my mind,” cried Dr. Roland. “Bloomsbury has more sense, it
seems, than I gave it credit for, and your pampered tradesman more
impudence.”
“I would just do that,” said Miss Bethune. “And will it be long since
you took to this trade protection, young man?--for Gilchrist brought me
word you were ill in your bed not a week ago.”
“A man can’t stay in bed, when ’e has a wife to support, and with no
’ealth to speak of,” Hesketh replied, with a little bravado; but he was
very pale, and wiped the unwholesome dews from his forehead.
“Anæmia, body and soul,” said the doctor to the lady, in an undertone.
“You’ll come to his grandfather again in a moment,” said the lady to the
doctor. “Now, my lad, you shall just listen to me. Put down this moment
your trade protections, and all your devices. Did you not hear, by
Gilchrist, that we were meaning to give you a new chance? Not for your
sake, but for your wife’s, though she probably is just tarred with the
same stick. We were meaning to set you up in a little shop in a quiet
suburb.”
Here the young fellow made a grimace, but recollected himself, and said
no word.
“Eh!” cried Miss Bethune, “that wouldn’t serve your purposes, my fine
gentleman?”
“I never said so,” said the young man. “It’s awfully kind of you. Still,
as I’ve got a place on my own hook, as it were--not that we mightn’t
combine the two, my wife and I. She ain’t a bad saleswoman,” he added,
with condescension. “We was in the same house of business before we was
married--not that beastly old shop where they do nothing but take away
the young gentlemen’s and young ladies’ characters. It’s as true as life
what I say. Ask any one that has ever been there.”
“Anæmia,” said Miss Bethune, to the doctor, aside, “would not be proof
enough, if there were facts on the other hand.”
“I always mistrust facts,” the doctor replied.
“Here is your money,” she resumed. “Write me out the receipt, or rather,
put your name to it. Now mind this, I will help you if you’re meaning
to do well; but if I find out anything wrong in this, or hear that
you’re in bed again to-morrow, and not fit to lift your head----”
“No man can answer for his health,” said young Hesketh solemnly. “I may
be bad, I may be dead to-morrow, for anything I can tell.”
“That is true.”
“And my poor wife a widder, and the poor baby not born.”
“In these circumstances,” said Dr. Roland, “we’ll forgive her for what
wasn’t her fault, and look after her. But that’s not likely, unless you
are fool enough to let yourself be run over, or something of that sort,
going out from here.”
“Which I won’t, sir, if I can help it.”
“And no great loss, either,” the doctor said in his undertone. He
watched the payment grimly, and noticed that the young man’s hand shook
in signing the receipt. What was the meaning of it? He sat for a moment
in silence, while Hesketh’s steps, quickening as he went farther off,
were heard going downstairs and towards the door. “I wish I were as sure
that money would find its way to the pockets of Fortnum and Mason, as I
am that yonder down-looking hound had a criminal grandfather,” he said.
“Well, there is the receipt, anyhow. Will you go and inquire?”
“To what good? There would be a great fuss, and the young fool would get
into prison probably; whereas we may still hope that it is all right,
and that he has turned over a new leaf.”
“I should not be content without being at the bottom of it,” said Miss
Bethune; and then, after a pause: “There is another thing. The lady from
South America that was here has been taken ill, Dr. Roland.”
“Ah, so!” cried the doctor. “I should like to go and see her.”
“You are not wanted to go and see her. It is I--which you will be
surprised at--that is wanted, or, rather, Dora with me. I have had an
anxious pleader here, imploring me by all that I hold dear. You will say
that is not much, doctor.”
“I will say nothing of the kind. But I have little confidence in that
lady from South America, or her young man.”
“The young man is just as fine a young fellow! Doubt as you like, there
is no deceit about him; a countenance like the day, and eyes that meet
you fair, look at him as you please. Doctor,” said Miss Bethune,
faltering a little, “I have taken a great notion into my head that he
may turn out to be a near relation of my own.”
“A relation of yours?” cried Dr. Roland, suppressing a whistle of
astonishment. “My thoughts were going a very different way.”
“I know, and your thoughts are justified. The lady did not conceal that
she was Mrs. Mannering’s sister: but the one thing does not hinder the
other.”
“It would be a very curious coincidence--stranger, even, than usual.”
“Everything that’s strange is usual,” cried Miss Bethune vehemently.
“It is we that have no eyes to see.”
“Perhaps,” said the doctor, who loved a paradox. “I tell you what,” he
added briskly, “let me go and see this lady. I am very suspicious about
her. I should like to make her out a little before risking it for Dora,
even with you.”
“You think, perhaps, you would make it out better than I should,” said
Miss Bethune, with some scorn. “Well, there is no saying. You would, no
doubt, make out what is the matter with her, which is always the first
thing that interests you.”
“It explains most things, when you know how to read it,” the doctor
said; but in this point his opponent did not give in to him, it is
hardly necessary to say. She was very much interested about Dora, but
she was still more interested in the question which moved her own heart
so deeply. The lady from South America might be in command of many facts
on that point; and prudence seemed to argue that it was best to see and
understand a little more about her first, before taking Dora, without
her father’s knowledge, to a stranger who made such a claim upon her.
“Though if it is her mother’s sister, I don’t know who could have a
stronger claim upon her,” said Miss Bethune.
“Provided her mother had a sister,” the doctor said.