For the better part of two days Pierce Leigh went about like one who had
received some terrible mental shock; and Jenny's pleasant little rounded
cheeks told the tale of the anxiety from which she suffered, while her
eyes followed him wistfully, and she seemed never weary of trying to
perform little offices for him which would distract his attention from
the thoughts which were sapping his vitality.
The life at the quiet little cottage home was entirely changed, for
brother and sister were playing parts for which they were quite unsuited
in a melancholy farce of real life, wearing masks, and trying to hide
their sufferings from each other, with a miserable want of success.
And all the time Leigh was longing to open his heart to the loving,
affectionate little thing who had been his companion from a child, his
confidante over all his hopes, and counsellor in every movement or plan.
She had read and studied with him, helped him to puzzle out abstruse
questions, and for years they had gone on together leading a life full
of happiness, and ready to laugh lightly over money troubles connected
with the disappointment over the purchase of the Northwood practice
through a swindling, or grossly ignorant, agent.
"Don't worry about it, Pierce dear," Jenny had said, "it is only the
loss of some money, and as it's in the country we can live on less, and
wear out our old clothes over again. I do wish I could cut up and turn
your coats and trousers. You men laugh at us and our fashions, but we
women can laugh at you and yours. Granted that our hats and dresses are
flimsy, see how we can re-trim and unpick, and make them look new again,
while your stupid things get worn and shiny, and then they're good for
nothing. They're quite hopeless, for I daren't try to make you a new
coat out of two old ones."
There was many a merry laugh over such matters, Jenny's spirits rising,
as the country life brought back the bloom of health that had been
failing in Westminster; and existence, in spite of the want of patients,
was a very happy one, till the change came. This change to a certain
extent resembled that in the yard of the amateur who was bitten by the
fancy for keeping and showing those great lumbering fowls--the Brahmas,
so popular years ago.
He had a pen of half-a-dozen cockerels, the result of the hatching of a
clutch of eggs laid by a feathered princess of the blood royal; and as
he watched them through their infancy it was with high hopes of winning
prizes--silver cups and vases, at all the crack poultry shows. And how
he tended and pampered his pets, watching them through the various
stages passed by this kind of fowl--one can hardly say feathered fowl in
the earlier stages of their existence, for through their early boyhood,
so to speak, they run about in a raw unclad condition that is pitiful to
see, for they are almost "birds of a feather" in the Dundreary idea of
the singularity of plumage; and it is not until they have arrived pretty
well at full growth that they assume the heavy massive plumage that
makes their skeleton lanky forms look so huge. These six young Brahmas
masculine grew and throve in their pen, innocent, happy, and at peace,
till one morning their owner gazed upon them in pride, for they were all
that a Brahma fancier could wish to see--small of comb, heavy of hackle,
tail slightly developed, broad in the beam, short-legged, and without a
trace of vulture hock. "First prize for one of them," said the owner,
and after feeding them he went to town, and came back to find his hopes
ruined, his cockerels six panting, ragged, bleeding wrecks, squatting
about in the pen, half dead, too much exhausted to spur and peck again.
For there had been battle royal in that pen, the young birds engaging in
a furious melee. For what reason? Because, as good old Doctor Watts
said, "It is their nature to." They did not know it till that morning,
but there was the great passion in each one's breast, waiting to be
evoked, and transform them from pacific pecking and scratching birds
into perfect demons of discord.
There was wire netting spread all over the top of their carefully sanded
pen, and till then they had never seen others of their kind. It was
their world, and as far as they knew there was neither fowl nor chicken
save themselves. The memory of the mother beneath whose plumage they
had nestled had passed away, for the gallinaceous brain cavity is small.
That morning, a stray, pert-looking, elegantly spangled, golden Hambro'
pullet appeared upon the wall, looked down for a moment on the pen of
full-grown, innocent young Brahmas, uttered the monosyllables "Took,
took!" and flew away.
For a brief space, the long necks of the cockerels were strained in the
direction where that vision of loveliness had appeared for a brief
instant; the fire of jealous love blazed out, and they turned and fought
almost to the death. It would have been quite, had there been strength.
The owner of these six cripples did not take a prize.
So at Northwood, women, save as sister or friend, had been non-existent
to Pierce Leigh. Now the desire to rend his human brother was upon him
strong.
Jenny knew it, and for more than one reason she trembled for the time
that must come when Pierce should first meet Claud Wilton, for it had
rapidly dawned upon her that the long-deferred grand passion of her
brother was the stronger for its sudden growth.
In her anxiety, she went out during those two days a great deal for the
benefit of her health, but really on the qui vive for the news that she
felt must soon come of Claud's proceedings with his cousin; and twice
over she had started the subject of their projected leaving, making
Leigh raise his eyebrows slightly in wonder at the sudden change in his
sister's ideas. But it was not till nearly evening that, during her
brother's temporary absence, she heard the news for which she was
waiting.
One of Leigh's poor patients called to see him--one of the class
suffered by most young doctors, who go through life believing they are
very ill, and that it is the duty of a medical man to pay extra
attention to their ailments, and lavish upon them knowledge and medicine
to the fullest extent, without a thought of payment entering their
heads.
Betsy Bray was the lady in question, and as was her custom, Jenny saw
the woman, ready to hear her last grievance, and tell her brother when
he returned.
Betsy was fifty-five, and possessed of the strong constitution which
bears a great deal of ease; but in her own estimation she was very bad.
From frequenting surgeries, she had picked up a few medical terms, and
larded her discourse with them and others of a religious tendency, her
attendance at church dole-giving, and other charitable distributions
being of the most regular description.
"Doctor at home, miss?" she said, plaintively, as she slowly and plumply
subsided upon the little couch in the surgery, the said piece of
furniture groaning in all its springs, for Betsy possessed weight.
"No, Mrs Bray. He has gone to call on the Dudges, at West Gale."
"Ah, he always is calling on somebody when I've managed to drag my weary
bones all this way up from the village."
"I am very sorry. What is the matter now?" said Jenny, soothingly.
"Matter, miss? What's allus the matter with me? It's my chronics. Not
a wink of sleep have I had all the blessed night."
"Well, I must give you something."
"Nay, nay, my dear; you don't understand my troubles. It's the
absorption is all wrong; and you'd be giving me something out of the
wrong bottles. You just give me a taste of sperrits to give me strength
to get home again, and beg and pray o' the doctor to come on and see me
as soon as he comes home, if you don't want me to be laid out stark and
cold afore another day's done."
"But I have no spirits, Mrs Bray."
"Got none? Well, I dessay a glass o' wine might do. Keep me alive
p'raps till I'd crawled home to die."
"But we have no wine."
"Dear, dear, dear, think o' that," said the woman fretfully. "The old
doctor always had some, and a drop o' sperrits, too. Ah, it's a hard
thing to be old and poor and in bad health, carrying your grey hairs in
sorrow to the grave; and all about you rich and well and happy, rolling
in money, and marrying and giving in marriage and wearing their wedding
garments, one and all. You've heard about the doings up at the Manor
House?"
"Yes, yes, something about them, Mrs Bray; but I'll tell my brother,
and he will, I know, come and see you."
"Yes, you tell him; not as I believe in him much, but poor people must
take what they can get--He's come back, you know?"
"My brother? No; he would have come straight in here."
"Your brother? Tchah, no!" cried the woman, forgetting her "chronics"
in the interest she felt in the fresh subject. "You're always thinking
about your brother, and if's time you began to think of a husband. I
meant him at the Manor--young Claud Wilton. He's come back."
"Come back?" cried Jenny excitedly.
"Yes; but I hear he arn't brought his young missus with him. Nice
goings on, running away, them two, to get married. But I arn't
surprised; he fell out with the parson long enough ago about Sally Deal,
down the village, and parson give it him well for not marrying her.
Wouldn't be married here out o' spite, I suppose. Well, I must go.
You're sure you haven't got a drop o' gin in the house?"
"Quite sure," said Jenny quickly; "and I'll be sure and tell my brother
to come."
"Ay, do; and tell him I say it's a shame he lives so far out of the
village. I feel sometimes that I shall die in one of the ditches before
I get here, it's so far. There, don't hurry me so; I don't want to be
took ill here. I know, doctors aren't above helping people out of the
world when they get tired of them."
"Gone!" cried Jenny at last, with a sigh of relief; and then, with the
tears rising to her eyes, "Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do? If
they meet--if he ever gets to know!"
She hurried upstairs, put on her hat and jacket, and came down looking
pale and excited, but without any very definite plans. One idea was
foremost in her mind; but as she reached the door she caught sight of
her brother coming with rapid strides from the direction opposite to
that taken by the old woman who had just gone.
"Too late!" she said, with a piteous sigh; and she ran upstairs
hurriedly, and threw off her things.
She had hardly re-arranged her hair when she heard her brother's voice
calling her.
"Yes, dear," she said, and she ran down, to find him looking ghastly.
"Who was that went away from here?" he said huskily.
She told him, but not of her promise to send him over.
"I'll go to her at once," he said.
"No, no, Pierce, dear; she is not ill. Pray stay at home; there is
really no need."
"Why should I stay at home?" he said, looking at her suspiciously.
"I--I am not very well, dear. You have been so dull, it has upset me.
I wish you would stay in with me this evening; I feel so nervous and
lonely."
"Yes, I will," he said; "but I must go there first."
"No, no, dear; don't, please, don't go," she pleaded, as she caught his
arm. "Please stay. She is not in the least ill, and I want you to
stop. There, I'll make some tea directly, and we'll sit over it and
have a long cosy chat, and it will do us both good, dear."
"Jenny," he cried harshly, "you want to keep me at home."
"Yes, dear, I told you so; but don't speak in that harsh way; you
frighten me."
"I'm not blind," he cried. "Don't deny it. You've heard from that old
woman what I have just found out. He has come back."
"Pierce!" she cried; and she shrank away from him, and covered her face
with her hands.
"Yes," he said wildly, and there was a look in his ghastly face which
she had never seen before. "I knew it; and you are afraid that I shall
meet him and wring his miserable neck."
"Oh, Pierce, Pierce," she cried piteously, as she threw herself at his
feet; "don't, don't, pray don't talk in this mad way."
"Why not?" he said, with a mocking laugh. "It is consistent. There,
get up; don't kneel there praying to a madman."
She sprang up quickly and seized him by the shoulder, and then threw
herself across his knees and her arms about his neck.
"It is not true," she cried passionately. "You are not mad; you are
only horribly angry, and I am frightened to death for fear that you
should meet and be violent."
"Violent! I could kill him!" he muttered, with a hard look in his eyes.
"Good God, what a profanation! He marry her! She must have been mad,
or there has been some cruel act of violence. Jenny, girl, I will see
him and take him by the throat and make him tell me all. I have fought
against it. I have told myself that she is unworthy of a second
thought, but my heart tells me that it is not so. There has been some
horrible trick played upon her; she would not--as you have said--she
could not have gone off of her own will with that miserable little
hound."
"Yes, yes, that is what I think," she said, hysterically. "So wait
patiently, dear, and we shall know the truth some day."
"Wait!" he cried, with a mocking laugh. "Wait! With my brain feeling
as if it were on fire. No, I have waited too long; I ought to have gone
off after him at once, and learned the truth."
"No, no, dear; you two must not meet. Now then, listen to me."
"Some day, little bird," he said, lifting her from his knee, as he rose;
then kissing her tenderly he extricated himself from her clinging hands
as gently as he could, and rushed out.
"O, Pierce, Pierce!" she cried. "Stay, stay!"
But the only answer to her call as she ran to the door was the heavy
beat of his feet in the gloom of the misty evening.
"And if they meet he'll find out all," she wailed piteously. She
paused, waiting for a few moments, and then searched in her pocket and
brought out a tiny silver whistle, which she placed in the bosom of her
dress, after flinging the ribbon which was in its ring over her head.
A minute later, with her cloak thrown on and hood drawn over her head,
she had slipped out of the cottage, and was running down the by-lane in
the direction of the Manor House.