GEORGE GERARD.
John Treverton was out of the doctor’s hands before Christmas was over,
and able to appear on his mare, Black Bess, with his wife, mounted on
the gentlest of gray Arabs, at the lawn meet which was held at the
Manor House on New Year’s Day. It was the first time the hounds had
met there since the death of old John Treverton, Jasper’s father, who
had been a hunting man. Jasper had never cared for field sports, and
had subscribed to the hounds as a duty. But now, John Treverton, the
younger, who loved horses and hounds, as it is natural to an Englishman
to love them, meant that things should be as they had been in the days
of his great-uncle, generally known among the elder section of the
community as ‘the old Squire.’ He had bought a couple of hunters and a
first-rate hack for himself, an Arabian and a smart cob for his wife;
and Laura and he had ridden for many a mile over the moor in the mild
afternoons of early autumn, getting into good form for the work they
were to do in the winter.
Laura took kindly to the cob, and petted the Arab to a distracting
degree. After a month’s experience on the moors, and a good many
standing jumps over furze and water, she began to ride really well, and
her husband looked forward to the delight of piloting her across the
country in pursuit of the red deer before the hunting season was over.
But he meant, if he erred at all, to err on the side of caution, and
on this New Year’s Day he had declared that he should only take Laura
quietly through the lanes, and let her have a peep at the hounds from
a distance. Celia, in the shortest of habits, a mere petticoat, and
the most coquettish of hats, was mounted on her father’s steady-going
roadster, a stalwart animal of prodigious girth, which contemplated the
hounds with unvarying equanimity.
‘What has become of your brother?’ Laura asked, as she and Celia waited
about, side by side, watching the assembling of the field. ‘I haven’t
seen him since my children’s party.’
‘Oh, didn’t I tell you? He is in London, making arrangements about
a play that he is to write for one of the big theatres. Mother had
a letter from him this morning. He is coming home the day after
to-morrow, and he is going to bring a London acquaintance to stay two
or three days at the Vicarage. A young doctor, good-looking, clever, a
bachelor. Now, Laura, don’t you really think the world must be coming
to an end very soon?’
‘No, dear; but I congratulate you on the bachelor. He will be an
acquisition. You must bring him to us.’
‘Oh, but Edward says he can only stay two or three days. He has his
practice to attend to. He is only coming for a breath of country air.’
‘Poor fellow! What is his name?’
‘Edward did not tell us that. Something horrid, I dare say. Smith, or
Jones, or Johnson--a name to dispel all pleasant illusions.’
‘Here comes Mr. Sampson.’
‘Yes, on the horse he drives in his dogcart. Could you believe, Laura,
that a horse could support existence with so much bone and so little
flesh?’
This was all Laura heard about the expected guest at the Vicarage, but
poor Celia was in a flutter of wondering anticipation for the next two
days. She took particular pains to make her brother’s den attractive,
yet sighed as she reflected how much of the stranger’s brief visit
would be spent within the closed doors of that masculine snuggery.
‘I wonder whether he is fond of tea?’ she mused, when she had given the
last heightening touch to the multifarious frivolities of the poet’s
study; ‘and whether I shall be allowed to join them at kettledrum. Very
likely he is one of those dreadfully mannish men who hate to talk to
girls, and look glum whenever they’re forced to endure women’s society.
A doctor? scientific, perhaps, and devoted to dry bones. Edward calls
him handsome; but I dare say that was only said in order to prepossess
us in his favour, and secure a civil reception for him.’
Thus, in maiden meditation, mused the damsel on that January evening
when her brother and her brother’s friend were expected. The omnibus
from the ‘George’ was to bring them from the station, and that omnibus
would be due at a quarter past seven. It was now striking seven by the
deep-toned church clock; a solemn chime that had counted out Celia’s
hours ever since she could remember. She hardly knew time or herself
out of earshot of that grave old clock.
‘Seven,’ she exclaimed, ‘and my hair anyhow.’
She slipped off to her room, lighted her dressing-table candles, and
took up her hand mirror, the better to survey the edifice of frizzy
little curls which crowned her small, neatly-shaped head.
‘Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,’ she sang gaily,
smiling at herself in the glass, as she put her pet ringlets in their
proper places, and smoothed the corner of an eyebrow with her little
finger.
‘What a blessing not to be obliged to powder, and to have lips that are
naturally red!’ she said to herself. ‘It might almost reconcile one to
be buried alive in a village.’
She put on her prettiest gown in honour of the visitor. It was by no
means an elaborate costume. There were no intricacies of style, no
artistic combinations of material. Celia’s best indoor gown was only a
dark-green French merino, brightened by a good deal of ribbon, artfully
disposed in unexpected bows and knots, and floating sash-ends. Happily,
the colour suited Celia’s complexion, and the soft fabric fell in
graceful folds upon her slender figure. Altogether Celia felt herself
looking nice when she put out her candles and ran downstairs.
A substantial tea-dinner was waiting for the travellers in the
dining-room, to the sore discomfort of the Vicar, who hated a
tea-dinner, and was accustomed to dine at a punctual half-past six.
‘Why must we have a makeshift meal of this kind?’ he asked fretfully.
‘Why couldn’t these young men be here in time for our regular dinner?’
‘Why, because there was no train to bring them, you dear, stupid old
pater,’ retorted the flippant Celia. ‘I’m sure the table looks quite
too lovely.’
A fine piece of cold roast beef at the end opposite the urn and
tea-tray, a pigeon pie, a salad, an apple pasty, a home-made cake or
two, diamond-cut jars of marmalade and jam, and a noble glass bowl of
junket, did not promise badly for two hungry young men; but the Vicar
looked across the board, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, and found it all
barren.
‘I suppose nobody has thought of ordering anything hot for me?’ he
remarked with an injured air.
It was a tradition in the family that the Vicar could not eat a cold
dinner. It was not that he would not, but that he could not. The
consequences were too awful. No one but himself knew the agonies which
he suffered if he was forced to dine on cold beef or mutton. His system
could accommodate lobster, he could even reconcile nature to cold
chicken, but his internal economy would have nothing to do with cold
mutton or beef.
‘Dearest creature,’ said Celia, raising herself on tiptoe in order to
caress her father’s iron-gray beard, ‘there is a particular dish of
cutlets for you, with the mushroom sauce your soul loveth.’
The Vicar gave a sigh of satisfaction, and just at that moment the
wheels of the omnibus sounded on the road outside, the Vicarage gate
fell back with a clang, and Mr. Clare and his daughter went out to
receive the travellers, while Mrs. Clare, who had been indulging
herself with a nap by the drawing-room fire, opened her eyes, and began
to wonder vaguely whether it was night or morning.
What sort of man did Celia behold when she went into the lamp-lit
hall, sheltering herself shyly under her father’s wing, to welcome her
brother and his guest? Not at all the kind of young man she expected to
see, yet his appearance impressed her favourably, notwithstanding. He
was strikingly original, she told Laura afterwards, and that in an age
of humdrum was much. She saw a tall, broad-shouldered man, with marked
features, well shaped yet somewhat rugged, a pale complexion slightly
pitted with small-pox, black hair and beard, dark gray eyes, with a
wonderful power and light in them, under thick black brows.
‘The idea of calling this stern-looking creature handsome!’ thought
Celia, while her father and Mr. Gerard were shaking hands, and then in
the next instant the stern-looking creature smiled, and Celia admitted
to herself that his smile was nice.
‘You must be desperately hungry,’ said the Vicar, ‘unless you’ve dined
on the way.’
‘Dined on the way!’ echoed Edward peevishly. ‘We’ve travelled
third-class, and we’ve had nothing but a split soda and a couple of
Abernethy biscuits since nine this morning.’
‘Poor dear things!’ cried Celia, with intense pity; ‘but I can’t help
being rather glad, for you will so enjoy your tea.’
Edward had introduced his friend to his father and sister, and now
presented him to Mrs. Clare, who came out of the drawing-room smiling
blandly, and trying not to look sleepy.
They all went into the dining-room, where the table which the Vicar had
despised seemed to the two young men a land of promise. The urn hissed,
and Celia made the tea, while Mrs. Clare sat at the other end of the
board and carved the beef with a liberal, motherly hand. It was quite
a merry party, for George Gerard had plenty to say for himself, and
the Vicar was pleased to get hold of an intelligent young man, fresh
from London, and steeped to the lips in the knowledge of metropolitan
politics, which are about a month ahead of rural politics. They sat at
table for an hour and a half, and the three-quarters of an hour during
which Gerard leaned back in his chair, talking to Celia on one side and
the Vicar on the other, and consuming numerous cups of tea, was in that
young man’s estimation the pleasantest part of the time.
It was long, very long, since Gerard had found himself in so
bright a room, or in such agreeable company. The homelike air of
his surroundings warmed his heart, which had been chilled by long
homelessness. The family history that lay behind his hard career was
not a happy one. A profligate father wasting his opportunities and
squandering his resources, a mother struggling nobly against adversity,
trying against all disadvantages to maintain, by her own efforts in
art and literature, a home for her unworthy husband and her idolised
son. A boyhood at a cheap Scotch university, and, just on the threshold
of manhood, the loss of this patient, dearly loved mother, some years
a widow. And then the young man had found himself face to face with
stern necessity, and in a hard, indifferent world, that knew nothing of
him and cared nothing for him.
He had begun the battle of life with a determination to place himself
amongst those who conquer. His ambition was hard and bitter. He had
none of those incentives to effort that sweeten toil, where a man knows
that he is working for mother, or wife, or children. There was no
creature of his own race to rejoice in his success, or to compassionate
his ill-fortune. If nature had not made him of strong stuff he would
most likely have drifted to the gutter. For a weaker soul the unaided
struggle would have been too dreary.
Happily for George Gerard he loved his profession for its own sake.
That love stood him in the stead of human sympathy and human affection.
A word of commendation from one of the famous men at the hospital, a
word of gratitude from one of his own patients, the knowledge that he
had managed a case well, these things cheered and sustained him, and he
tramped along the difficult road with a bold front and a lofty heart,
sure of success at the end of it, if he but lived to reach the end.
To-night he abandoned himself to the new delight of pleasant society.
A bright room, furnished with that heterogeneous comfort which marks
the gradual growth of a family dwelling; dark crimson curtains drawn
across the broad bay window; family portraits on the walls; lamps on
the table, candles on the mantelpiece and sideboard; a fire heaped high
with wood and coal; the Vicar’s favourite collie stretched luxuriously
on the hearthrug.
‘I don’t think I will go into the drawing-room to-night, said the
Vicar, wheeling his chair round to the fire when the table had been
cleared. ‘I’m sure you haven’t so good a fire as this in there.’
Mrs. Clare admitted that the drawing-room fire was not so good as it
might be.
‘Very well, then, we’ll finish the evening here. If these two young men
want to smoke, they can go to Ted’s room.’
Mr. Gerard declared that he did not want to smoke. He was much too
comfortable where he was. And then the Vicar began to question him
about his profession, what such and such men were doing, and what these
new men were like who had won reputation lately. Gerard talked best
when he talked of his own calling, and Celia, working point lace in
a corner by the fire, thought that he looked really handsome when he
was animated. It was a face so different from all those prosperous,
fresh-coloured, country-bred faces that her daily life had shown her;
a face marked with the strongest determination, vivified by a powerful
intellect. The girl’s observant eye noted every characteristic in that
interesting countenance. She saw, too, that the young man’s black
frock coat had undergone harder wear than any garment she had ever seen
worn by her brother; that his boots were of a thick and useful kind,
and lacked the style of a fashionable maker; that he wore a silver
watch-chain, and exhibited none of the trinkets affected by prosperous
youth.
Now Celia Clare was not fond of poverty. She considered it a necessary
evil, but liked to give it as wide a berth as possible. Any visiting
she did amongst her father’s poor went sorely against the grain; and
she always wondered how it was that Laura got on so well with the
distressed classes. Yet she felt warmly interested in this young
doctor, who was evidently most uninterestingly poor.