MR. VIMPANY ON INTOXICATION
THERE was no unsteadiness in the doctor's walk, and no flush on his
face. He certainly did strut when he entered the room; and he held up
his head with dignity, when he discovered Mountjoy. But he seemed to
preserve his self-control. Was the man sober again already?
His wife approached him with her set smile; the appearance of her lord
and master filled Mrs. Vimpany with perfectly-assumed emotions of
agreeable surprise.
"This is an unexpected pleasure," she said. "You seldom favour us with
your company, my dear, so early in the evening! Are there fewer
patients in want of your advice than usual?"
"You are mistaken, Arabella. I am here in the performance of a painful
duty."
The doctor's language, and the doctor's manner, presented him to Iris
in a character that was new to her. What effect had he produced on Mrs.
Vimpany? That excellent friend to travellers in distress lowered her
eyes to the floor, and modestly preserved silence. Mr. Vimpany
proceeded to the performance of his duty; his painful responsibility
seemed to strike him at first from a medical point of view.
"If there is a poison which undermines the sources of life," he
remarked, "it is alcohol. If there is a vice that degrades humanity, it
is intoxication. Mr. Mountjoy, are you aware that I am looking at you?"
"Impossible not to be aware of that," Hugh answered. "May I ask why you
are looking at me?" It was not easy to listen gravely to Mr. Vimpany's
denunciation of intemperance, after what had taken place at the dinner
of that day. Hugh smiled. The moral majesty of the doctor entered its
protest.
"This is really shameful," he said. "The least you can do is to take it
seriously."
"What is it?" Mountjoy asked. "And why am I to take it seriously?"
Mr. Vimpany's reply was, to say the least of it, indirect. If such an
expression may be permitted, it smelt of the stage. Viewed in
connection with Mrs. Vimpany's persistent assumption of silent
humility, it suggested to Mountjoy a secret understanding, of some
kind, between husband and wife.
"What has become of your conscience, sir?" Mr. Vimpany demanded. "Is
that silent monitor dead within you? After giving me a bad dinner, do
you demand an explanation? Ha! you shall have it."
Having delivered himself to this effect, he added action to words.
Walking grandly to the door, he threw it open, and saluted Mountjoy
with an ironical bow. Iris observed that act of insolence; her colour
rose, her eyes glittered. "Do you see what he has just done?" she said
to Mrs. Vimpany.
The doctor's wife answered softly: "I don't understand it." After a
glance at her husband, she took Iris by the hand: "Dear Miss Henley,
shall we retire to my room?"
Iris drew her hand away. "Not unless Mr. Mountjoy wishes it," she said.
"Certainly not!" Hugh declared. "Pray remain here; your presence will
help me to keep my temper." He stepped up to Mr. Vimpany. "Have you any
particular reason for opening that door?" he asked.
The doctor was a rascal; but, to do him justice, he was no coward.
"Yes," he said, "I have a reason."
"What is it, if you please?"
"Christian forbearance," Mr. Vimpany answered.
"Forbearance towards me?" Mountjoy continued.
The doctor's dignity suddenly deserted him.
"Aha, my boy, you have got it at last!" he cried. "It's pleasant to
understand each other, isn't it? You see, I'm a plain-spoken fellow; I
don't wish to give offence. If there's one thing more than another I
pride myself on, it's my indulgence for human frailty. But, in my
position here, I'm obliged to be careful. Upon my soul, I can't
continue my acquaintance with a man who--oh, come! come! don't look as
if you didn't understand me. The circumstances are against you, sir.
You have treated me infamously."
"Under what circumstances have I treated you infamously?" Hugh asked.
"Under pretence of giving me a dinner," Mr. Vimpany shouted--"the worst
dinner I ever sat down to!"
His wife signed to him to be silent. He took no notice of her. She
insisted on being understood. "Say no more!" she warned him, in a tone
of command.
The brute side of his nature, roused by Mountjoy's contemptuous
composure, was forcing its way outwards; he set his wife at defiance.
"Then don't let him look at me as if he thought I was in a state of
intoxication!" cried the furious doctor. "There's the man, Miss, who
tried to make me tipsy," he went on, actually addressing himself to
Iris. "Thanks to my habits of sobriety, he has been caught in his own
trap. _He's_ intoxicated. Ha, friend Mountjoy, have you got the right
explanation at last? There's the door, sir!"
Mrs. Vimpany felt that this outrage was beyond endurance. If something
was not done to atone for it, Miss Henley would be capable--her face,
at that moment, answered for her--of leaving the house with Mr.
Mountjoy. Mrs. Vimpany seized her husband indignantly by the arm.
"You brute, you have spoilt everything!" she said to him. "Apologise
directly to Mr. Mountjoy. You won't?"
"I won't!"
Experience had taught his wife how to break him to her will. "Do you
remember my diamond pin?" she whispered.
He looked startled. Perhaps he thought she had lost the pin.
"Where is it?" he asked eagerly.
"Gone to London to be valued. Beg Mr. Mountjoy's pardon, or I will put
the money in the bank--and not one shilling of it do you get."
In the meanwhile, Iris had justified Mrs. Vimpany's apprehensions. Her
indignation noticed nothing but the insult offered to Hugh. She was too
seriously agitated to be able to speak to him. Still admirably calm,
his one anxiety was to compose her.
"Don't be afraid," he said; "it is impossible that I can degrade myself
by quarrelling with Mr. Vimpany. I only wait here to know what you
propose to do. You have Mrs. Vimpany to think of."
"I have nobody to think of but You," Iris replied. "But for me, you
would never have been in this house. After the insult that has been
offered to you--oh, Hugh, I feel it too!--let us return to London
together. I have only to tell Rhoda we are going away, and to make my
preparations for travelling. Send for me from the inn, and I will be
ready in time for the next train."
Mrs. Vimpany approached Mountjoy, leading her husband.
"Sorry I have offended you," the doctor said. "Beg your pardon. It's
only a joke. No offence, I hope?"
His servility was less endurable than his insolence. Telling him that
he need say no more, Mountjoy bowed to Mrs. Vimpany, and left the room.
She returned his bow mechanically, in silence. Mr. Vimpany followed
Hugh out--thinking of the diamond pin, and eager to open the house
door, as another act of submission which might satisfy his wife.
Even a clever woman will occasionally make mistakes; especially when
her temper happens to have been roused. Mrs. Vimpany found herself in a
false position, due entirely to her own imprudence.
She had been guilty of three serious errors. In the first place she had
taken it for granted that Mr. Vimpany's restorative mixture would
completely revive the sober state of his brains. In the second place,
she had trusted him with her vengeance on the man who had found his way
to her secrets through her husband's intemperance. In the third place,
she had rashly assumed that the doctor, in carrying out her
instructions for insulting Mountjoy, would keep within the limits which
she had prescribed to him, when she hit on the audacious idea of
attributing his disgraceful conduct to the temptation offered by his
host's example. As a consequence of these acts of imprudence, she had
exposed herself to a misfortune that she honestly dreaded--the loss of
the place which she had carefully maintained in Miss Henley's
estimation. In the contradictory confusion of feelings, so often found
in women, this deceitful and dangerous creature had been
conquered--little by little, as she had herself described it--by that
charm of sweetness and simplicity in Iris, of which her own depraved
nature presented no trace. She now spoke with hesitation, almost with
timidity, in addressing the woman whom she had so cleverly deceived, at
the time when they first met.
"Must I give up all, Miss Henley, that I most value?" she asked.
"I hardly understand you, Mrs. Vimpany."
"I will try to make it plainer. Do you really mean to leave me this
evening?"
"I do."
"May I own that I am grieved to hear it? Your departure will deprive me
of some happy hours, in your company."
"Your husband's conduct leaves me no alternative," Iris replied.
"Pray do not humiliate me by speaking of my husband! I only want to
know if there is a harder trial of my fortitude still to come. Must I
lose the privilege of being your friend?"
"I hope I am not capable of such injustice as that," Iris declared. "It
would be hard indeed to lay the blame of Mr. Vimpany's shameful
behaviour on you. I don't forget that you made him offer an apology.
Some women, married to such a man as that, might have been afraid of
him. No, no; you have been a good friend to me--and I mean to remember
it."
Mrs. Vimpany's gratitude was too sincerely felt to be expressed with
her customary readiness. She only said what the stupidest woman in
existence could have said: "Thank you."
In the silence that followed, the rapid movement of carriage wheels
became audible in the street. The sound stopped at the door of the
doctor's house.