THE MAGAZINE.
“We must have satire, pungent, biting satire;
Such is the vile condition of our nature.
Such our depraved and vicious appetites,
No other food will suit our palsied taste.”
CAMOENS, BY H. S. G. TUCKER.
At the corner of the street a baker’s boy and a gentleman’s page were
standing together, laughing at something which the latter held in his
hand, and which his companion was perusing over his shoulder.
“Now, ain’t that good?” exclaimed he of the bread-basket, showing his
teeth from ear to ear.
Bardon caught a glimpse of what they were reading. “My lads,” he cried,
“I’ll pay you for that; give the magazine to me,” and he held out the
price for the Number.
“It’s my master’s,” said the page, as if awakened to a sudden sense of
the responsibility connected with green cloth and gilt buttons; and
rolling up the coveted Number, he hurried on his way to make up for the
time which he had lost.
The doctor stopped and reflected. “Mrs. Clayton, the major’s blind widow,
she is likely to take in the —— Magazine. I have not called on the old
dame for years, but shell not take a visit amiss. I think that the house
with green blinds is hers, and I am certain to find her at home.”
Dr. Bardon was not disappointed this time. The blind old lady, who lived
a dull and solitary life, was charmed to welcome an old acquaintance, and
her visitor was yet more pleased to behold the desired periodical on the
table half covered by the supplement of yesterday’s _Times_.
After the first greetings were over, and inquiries after his “sweet child
Caroline,” (for the lady’s memory was not particularly clear as to the
name or age of Cecilia,) the doctor seated himself by the blind lady,
laughing loud to cover the rustle as he drew the Magazine from under the
paper, and then impatiently turned over the leaves. His object was to
read the article; Mrs. Clayton’s was to obtain a medical opinion gratis
upon the maladies with which she was, or fancied herself to be troubled.
She proceeded, therefore, quite uninterrupted by her supposed auditor,
with a long story of rheumatism and relaxed throat, the various remedies
which she had tried for these evils, and the dubious success of each
application; the eager reader giving an occasional grunt of assent, to
save appearances, until the invalid paused in her narration.
“Indeed, doctor, I’m beginning to think that the air of Pelton don’t
agree with me; I begin to feel myself—
“Hanging between earth and sky, like the fabled coffin of Mahomet!”
muttered the doctor, who in his interest in what he was perusing, had
almost forgotten the presence of her whose faint, complaining voice
sounded like a trickling rill in his ear.
“What is he saying about coffins and hanging?” thought the poor invalid.
“It is very shocking to suggest such horrible ideas to a nervous creature
like me!”
As the doctor did not seem disposed to add to his incomprehensible
communication, Mrs. Clayton proceeded on with her melancholy story.
“Last winter my cough was so bad, that Mrs. Graham (you know Mrs. Graham,
her daughter married a Bagot), she recommended me to take cochlico
lozenges. I sent up all the way to London, there’s only one shop there
that sells them, in one particular street, and I got a parcel of them
down by the post. But I assure you, doctor, that they did me no good.
I think that I must have caught a chill by venturing out in March; you
know what the east winds are, doctor; I really had not a wink of sleep at
night,—I actually thought my cough would have torn me to pieces.”
At this point the reader burst into an irrepressible chuckle of delight,
and as he closed the Magazine exclaimed, “Capital! capital!” to the no
small amazement of the sufferer. Her lengthened silence of surprise made
Bardon,—whose hand was now on the supplement of the _Times_, aware that
it was necessary to say something; and as he had a vague idea that her
talk had been a series of complaints, he cried, hap-hazard, as his eye
ran on the list of deaths, “Very bad! very bad! I’m certain that you
indulge in green tea!”—
“Oh! well, I sometimes—”
“Can it be!” muttered Bardon, gazing with stern interest at one of the
names which appeared in the gloomy column.
“Do you think, doctor, that there is much harm?”
“Death!” exclaimed Timon Bardon to himself.
“Surely you don’t mean it,”—cried the old lady, and the doctor was again
recalled by her voice to what was passing around him.
“If you drink green tea,” he cried, starting from his seat and pushing
the paper to the other end of the table, “I won’t answer for your living
out the year!” and with a very brief good-bye, Timon hurried away,
leaving the poor lady to complain to her next visitor, that Dr. Bardon
was so brusque and so odd that he was just like an east wind in March,
and that she was not in the least surprised that his practice was not
extensive, as if he did not kill his patients with his medicine, he was
likely to do so with his manner!
What was it that Bardon had seen in the _Times_ that interested him as
strongly as even the article written by Annabella at his own suggestion?
He had seen the announcement of the death of “Mr. Auger, of —— Street
and Nettleby Tower,” of the man who had ruined his prospects—who had
wrested from the disinherited son the estate which his ancestors for
centuries had held. Death should still the emotion of hatred, hush the
voice of revenge; but it is to be feared that in this instance the
advertisement, casually seen, rather increased than diminished the stern
satisfaction felt by the vindictive old man. It seemed to Bardon as if
he were triumphing at once over a dead and a living foe. As he proceeded
on his long walk homewards, he certainly never questioned himself as to
his lack of the charity which _rejoiceth not in iniquity_, or he would
not have revelled as he did in the idea that it was he who had incited
the countess to take such petty revenge on her husband. Nor did Bardon,
as he reflected on the death of his hated supplanter, recall to mind the
warning of the royal Preacher, _Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and
let not thy heart be glad when he stumbleth_, or he would scarcely have
muttered to himself with a gloomy smile, that six feet of earth would be
now estate large enough for the late owner of Nettleby Tower.
Notwithstanding the engrossing nature of his thoughts, the doctor on his
return to his home could not avoid feeling the way long and the weather
oppressive. He could scarcely drag on his weary limbs when at length he
reached the little gate of the garden which surrounded Mill Cottage.
Cecilia ran out to meet him in a flutter of excitement and joy.
“O! Papa! only guess who has come here while you were away!”
“How can I tell!” said the tired man sharply.
“The countess! the dear delightful countess herself, and she says—” but
Doctor Bardon waited to hear no more, and forgetful of fatigue, hurried
into the cottage.
Annabella came forward to meet him, and in a few brief sentences
explained to him her situation, and her wish to remain no longer under
the roof of her uncle the vicar. As she had expected, the doctor gave
her a cordial welcome, and pressed her to remain at his home for as
long a period as might suit her convenience. He was proud to be able to
exercise hospitality, and though he would never have pleaded guilty to
the charge, was by no means insensible to the honour of entertaining a
woman distinguished both by her rank and her talents. Would it not also
be an additional mortification to the detested earl, to know that the
Countess of Dashleigh was the guest at a cottage scarcely larger than his
gamekeeper’s lodge!
As for Cecilia, she was in ecstasies. The presence of a real countess
seemed to her actually to glorify the little abode, and her only misery
was the difficulty of providing suitable accommodation for such an
illustrious visitor. The cottage she had often termed “nothing but a
bandbox,” and though poor Miss Bardon was willing to put herself into
any straits, empty out all her drawers, squeeze herself and her wardrobe
into any corner, it required a wonderful amount of ingenuity to make the
titled guest and her maid tolerably comfortable in the tiny tenement.
Cecilia not only used every effort to stimulate to exertion her old deaf
domestic, but herself worked hard in secret to prepare her own room for
the countess. She ruthlessly sacrificed a white muslin robe for the
adornment of the toilette table, cut up her best bow to loop it up with
ribbon, and even ventured to invade her father’s garden to ornament the
apartment with flowers.
Annabella had little idea of the amount of trouble and excitement which
she was causing, nor how heavily the expense of hospitality would press
on her proud but poor entertainers. While the countess was conversing
in the sitting room with the doctor, Bates arrived with her lady’s
boxes, and was ordered to carry them up to her apartment. The maid
surprised poor Cecilia on her knees, industriously stitching up a hole
in a worn-out drugget, her face flushed and heated with the unwonted
occupation. Miss Bardon started up in some confusion, her pride deeply
mortified at being found in a position, and engaged in an employment so
unbefitting a fine lady, which it was her ambition always to appear.
[Illustration: An Unwelcome Surprise.
_Page 168._]
Bates looked round with wondering contempt on the miserable hovel, as
she deemed it, which her young mistress had chosen in preference to the
luxurious apartments of Dashleigh Hall. The lady’s maid had serious
doubts as to whether she could so compromise her own dignity as to remain
in a house where no “footman was kept.” To share a pigeon-hole seven feet
square with a deaf and stupid maid-of-all-work, who could not even listen
to her gossip,—did ever devoted lady’s maid submit to such hardship
before! Annabella, on her part, found fault with nothing, never appeared
to notice any difficulties, and accommodated herself to cottage life as
if she had been accustomed to it from her childhood.
“There is not a particle of pride in her!” exclaimed the admiring
Cecilia, as she had done upon a previous occasion.