Christopher Staines came back, looking pained and disturbed. “There,”
said he, “I feared it would come to this. I have quarrelled with Uncle
Philip.”
“Oh! how could you?”
“He affronted me.”
“What about?”
“Never you mind. Don't let us say anything more about it, darling. It is
a pity, a sad pity--he was a good friend of mine once.”
He paused, entered what had passed in his diary, and then sat down, with
a gentle expression of sadness on his manly features. Rosa hung about
him, soft and pitying, till it cleared away, at all events for the time.
Next day they went together to clear the goods Rosa had purchased.
Whilst the list was being made out in the office, in came the
fair-haired boy, with a ten-pound note in his very hand. Rosa caught
sight of it, and turned to the auctioneer, with a sweet, pitying face:
“Oh! sir, surely you will not take all that money from him, poor child,
for a rickety old chair.”
The auctioneer stared with amazement at her simplicity, and said, “What
would the vendors say to me?”
She looked distressed, and said, “Well, then, really we ought to raise a
subscription, poor thing!”
“Why, ma'am,” said the auctioneer, “he isn't hurt: the article belonged
to his mother and her sister; the brother-in-law isn't on good terms;
so he demanded a public sale. She will get back four pun ten out of it.”
Here the clerk put in his word. “And there's five pounds paid, I forgot
to tell you.”
“Oh! left a deposit, did he?”
“No, sir. But the laughing hyena gave you five pounds at the end of the
sale.”
“The laughing hyena, Mr. Jones?”
“Oh! beg pardon; that is what we call him in the room. He has got such a
curious laugh.”
“Oh! I know the gent. He is a retired doctor. I wish he'd laugh less
and buy more: and HE gave you five pounds towards the young gentleman's
arm-chair! Well, I should as soon have expected blood from a flint. You
have got five pounds to pay, sir: so now the chair will cost your mamma
ten shillings. Give him the order and the change, Mr. Jones.”
Christopher and Rosa talked this over in the room whilst the men were
looking out their purchases. “Come,” said Rosa; “now I forgive him
sneering at me; his heart is not really hard, you see.” Staines, on the
contrary, was very angry. “What!” he cried, “pity a boy who made one
bad bargain, that, after all, was not a very bad bargain; and he had no
kindness, nor even common humanity, for my beautiful Rosa, inexperienced
as a child, and buying for her husband, like a good, affectionate,
honest creature, amongst a lot of sharpers and hard-hearted cynics--like
himself.”
“It WAS cruel of him,” said Rosa, altering her mind in a moment, and
half inclined to cry.
This made Christopher furious. “The ill-natured, crotchety, old--the
fact is, he is a misogynist.”
“Oh, the wretch!” said Rosa warmly. “And what is that?”
“A woman-hater.”
“Oh! is that all? Why, so do I--after that Florence Cole. Women are
mean, heartless things. Give me men; they are loyal and true.”
“All of them?” inquired Christopher, a little satirically. “Read the
papers.”
“Every soul of them,” said Mrs. Staines, passing loftily over the
proposed test. “That is, all the ones I care about; and that is my own,
own one.”
Disagreeable creatures to have about one--these simpletons!
Mrs. Staines took Christopher to shops to buy the remaining requisites:
and in three days more the house was furnished, two female servants
engaged, and the couple took their luggage over to the Bijou.
Rosa was excited and happy at the novelty of possession and authority,
and that close sense of house proprietorship which belongs to woman. By
dinner-time she could have told you how many shelves there were in every
cupboard, and knew the Bijou by heart in a way that Christopher never
knew it. All this ended, as running about and excitement generally does,
with my lady being exhausted, and lax with fatigue. So then he made her
lie down on a little couch, while he went through his accounts.
When he had examined all the bills carefully he looked very grave, and
said, “Who would believe this? We began with three thousand pounds. It
was to last us several years--till I got a good practice. Rosa, there is
only fourteen hundred and forty pounds left.”
“Oh, impossible!” said Rosa. “Oh, dear! why did I ever enter a
saleroom?”
“No, no, my darling; you were bitten once or twice, but you made some
good bargains too. Remember there was four hundred pounds set apart for
my life policy.”
“What a waste of money!”
“Your father did not think so. Then the lease; the premium; repairs of
the drains that would have poisoned my Rosa; turning the coach-house
into a dispensary; painting, papering, and furnishing; china, and linen,
and everything to buy. We must look at this seriously. Only fourteen
hundred and forty pounds left. A slow profession. No friends. I have
quarrelled with Uncle Philip: you with Mrs. Cole; and her husband would
have launched me.”
“And it was to please her we settled here. Oh, I could kill her: nasty
cat!”
“Never mind; it is not a case for despondency, but it is for prudence.
All we have to do is to look the thing in the face, and be very
economical in everything. I had better give you an allowance for
housekeeping; and I earnestly beg you to buy things yourself whilst you
are a poor man's wife, and pay ready money for everything. My mother was
a great manager, and she always said, 'There is but one way: be your own
market-woman, and pay on the spot; never let the tradesmen get you on
their books, or, what with false weight, double charges, and the things
your servants order that never enter the house, you lose more than a
hundred a year by cheating.'”
Rosa yielded a languid assent to this part of his discourse, and it
hardly seemed to enter her mind; but she raised no objection; and in due
course he made her a special allowance for housekeeping.
It soon transpired that medical advice was to be had, gratis, at the
Bijou, from eight till ten: and there was generally a good attendance.
But a week passed, and not one patient came of the class this couple
must live by. Christopher set this down to what people call “the
transition period:” his Kent patients had lost him; his London patients
not found him. He wrote to all his patients in the country, and many of
his pupils at the university, to let them know where he was settled: and
then he waited.
Not a creature came.
Rosa bore this very well for a time, so long as the house was a novelty;
but when that excitement was worn out, she began to be very dull,
and used to come and entice him out to walk with her: he would look
wistfully at her, but object that, if he left the house, he should be
sure to lose a patient.
“Oh, they won't come any more for our staying in--tiresome things!” said
Rosa.
But Christopher would kiss her, and remain firm. “My love,” said he,
“you do not realize how hard a fight there is before us. How should you?
You are very young. No, for your sake, I must not throw a chance away.
Write to your female friends: that will while away an hour or two.”
“What, after that Florence Cole?”
“Write to those who have not made such violent professions.”
“So I will, dear. Especially to those that are married and come to
London. Oh, and I'll write to that cold-blooded thing, Lady Cicely
Treherne. Why do you shake your head?”
“Did I? I was not aware. Well, dear, if ladies of rank were to come
here, I fear they might make you discontented with your lot.”
“All the women on earth could not do that. However, the chances are she
will not come near me: she left the school quite a big girl, an immense
girl, when I was only twelve. She used to smile at my capriccios; and
once she kissed me--actually. She was an awful Sawny, though, and so
affected: I think I will write to her.”
These letters brought just one lady, a Mrs. Turner, who talked to Rosa
very glibly about herself, and amused Rosa twice: at the third visit,
Rosa tried to change the conversation. Mrs. Turner instantly got up, and
went away. She could not bear the sound of the human voice, unless it
was talking about her and her affairs.
And now Staines began to feel downright uneasy. Income was going
steadily out: not a shilling coming in. The lame, the blind, and the
sick frequented his dispensary, and got his skill out of him gratis, and
sometimes a little physic, a little wine, and other things that cost him
money: but of the patients that pay, not one came to his front door.
He walked round and round his little yard, like a hyena in its cage,
waiting, waiting, waiting: and oh! how he envied the lot of those who
can hunt for work, instead of having to stay at home and wait for others
to come, whose will they cannot influence. His heart began to sicken
with hope deferred, and dim forebodings of the future; and he saw, with
grief, that his wife was getting duller and duller, and that her days
dragged more heavily, far than his own; for he could study.
At last his knocker began to show signs of life: his visitors were
physicians. His lectures on “Diagnosis” were well known to them; and one
after another found him out. They were polite, kind, even friendly; but
here it ended: these gentlemen, of course, did not resign their patients
to him; and the inferior class of practitioners avoided his door like a
pestilence.
Mrs. Staines, who had always lived for amusement, could strike out no
fixed occupation; her time hung like lead; the house was small; and in
small houses the faults of servants run against the mistress, and she
can't help seeing them, and all the worse for her. It is easier to keep
things clean in the country, and Rosa had a high standard, which her two
servants could never quite attain. This annoyed her, and she began to
scold a little. They answered civilly, but in other respects remained
imperfect beings; they laid out every shilling they earned in finery;
and, this, I am ashamed to say, irritated Mrs. Staines, who was wearing
out her wedding garments, and had no excuse for buying, and Staines
had begged her to be economical. The more they dressed, the more she
scolded; they began to answer. She gave the cook warning; the other,
though not on good terms with the cook, had a gush of esprit de corps
directly, and gave Mrs. Staines warning.
Mrs. Staines told her husband all this: he took her part, though without
openly interfering; and they had two new servants, not so good as the
last.
This worried Rosa sadly; but it was a flea-bite to the deeper nature,
and more forecasting mind of her husband, still doomed to pace that
miserable yard, like a hyena, chafing, seeking, longing for the patient
that never came.
Rosa used to look out of his dressing-room window, and see him pace the
yard. At first, tears of pity stood in her eyes. By and by she got angry
with the world; and at last, strange to say, a little irritated with
him. It is hard for a weak woman to keep up all her respect for the man
that fails.
One day, after watching him a long time unseen, she got excited, put on
her shawl and bonnet, and ran down to him: she took him by the arm:
“If you love me, come out of this prison, and walk with me; we are too
miserable. I shall be your first patient if this goes on much longer.”
He looked at her, saw she was very excited, and had better be humored;
so he kissed her and just said, with a melancholy smile, “How poor are
they that have not patience!” Then he put on his hat, and walked in the
Park and Kensington Gardens with her. The season was just beginning.
There were carriages enough, and gay Amazons enough, to make poor Rosa
sigh more than once.
Christopher heard the sigh; and pressed her arm, and said, “Courage,
love, I hope to see you among them yet.”
“The sooner the better,” said she, a little hardly.
“And, meantime, which of them all is as beautiful as you?”
“All I know is, they are more attractive. Who looks at me, walking
tamely by?”
Christopher said nothing: but these words seemed to imply a thirst for
admiration, and made him a little uneasy.
By and by the walk put the swift-changing Rosa in spirits, and she began
to chat gayly, and hung prattling and beaming on her husband's arm,
when they entered Curzon Street. Here, however, occurred an incident,
trifling in itself, but unpleasant. Dr. Staines saw one of his best
Kentish patients get feebly out of his carriage, and call on Dr. Barr.
He started, and stopped. Rosa asked what was the matter. He told her.
She said, “We ARE unfortunate.”
Staines said nothing; he only quickened his pace; but he was greatly
disturbed. She expected him to complain that she had dragged him out,
and lost him that first chance. But he said nothing. When they got home,
he asked the servant had anybody called.
“No, Sir.”
“Surely you are mistaken, Jane. A gentleman in a carriage!”
“Not a creature have been since you went out, sir.”
“Well, then, dearest,” said he sweetly, “we have nothing to reproach
ourselves with.” Then he knit his brow gloomily. “It is worse than I
thought. It seems even one's country patients go to another doctor when
they visit London. It is hard. It is hard.”
Rosa leaned her head on his shoulder, and curled round him, as one she
would shield against the world's injustice; but she said nothing; she
was a little frightened at his eye that lowered, and his noble frame
that trembled a little, with ire suppressed.
Two days after this, a brougham drove up to the door, and a tallish,
fattish, pasty-faced man got out, and inquired for Dr. Staines.
He was shown into the dining-room, and told Jane he had come to consult
the doctor.
Rosa had peeped over the stairs, all curiosity; she glided noiselessly
down, and with love's swift foot got into the yard before Jane. “He is
come! he is come! Kiss me.”
Dr. Staines kissed her first, and then asked who was come.
“Oh, nobody of any consequence. ONLY the first patient. Kiss me again.”
Dr. Staines kissed her again, and then was for going to the first
patient.
“No,” said she; “not yet. I met a doctor's wife at Dr. Mayne's, and she
told me things. You must always keep them waiting; or else they think
nothing of you. Such a funny woman! 'Treat 'em like dogs, my dear,' she
said. But I told her they wouldn't come to be treated like dogs or any
other animal.”
“You had better have kept that to yourself, I think.”
“Oh! if you are going to be disagreeable, good-by. You can go to your
patient, sir. Christie, dear, if he is very--very ill--and I'm sure I
hope he is--oh, how wicked I am; may I have a new bonnet?”
“If you really want one.”
On the patient's card was “Mr. Pettigrew, 47 Manchester Square.”
As soon as Staines entered the room, the first patient told him who and
what he was, a retired civilian from India; but he had got a son there
still, a very rising man; wanted to be a parson; but he would not
stand that; bad profession; don't rise by merit; very hard to rise at
all;--no, India was the place. “As for me, I made my fortune there in
ten years. Obliged to leave it now--invalid this many years; no TONE.
Tried two or three doctors in this neighborhood; heard there was a new
one, had written a book on something. Thought I would try HIM.”
To stop him, Staines requested to feel his pulse, and examine his tongue
and eye.
“You are suffering from indigestion,” said he. “I will write you a
prescription; but if you want to get well, you must simplify your diet
very much.”
While he was writing the prescription, off went this patient's tongue,
and ran through the topics of the day and into his family history again.
Staines listened politely. He could afford it, having only this one.
At last, the first patient, having delivered an octavo volume of
nothing, rose to go; but it seems that speaking an “infinite deal of
nothing” exhausts the body, though it does not affect the mind; for the
first patient sank down in his chair again. “I have excited myself too
much--feel rather faint.”
Staines saw no signs of coming syncope; he rang the bell quietly, and
ordered a decanter of sherry to be brought; the first patient filled
himself a glass; then another; and went off, revived, to chatter
elsewhere. But at the door he said, “I had always a running account with
Dr. Mivar. I suppose you don't object to that system. Double fee the
first visit, single afterwards.”
Dr. Staines bowed a little stiffly; he would have preferred the money.
However, he looked at the Blue Book, and found his visitor lived at 47
Manchester Square; so that removed his anxiety.
The first patient called every other day, chattered nineteen to the
dozen, was exhausted, drank two glasses of sherry, and drove away.
Soon after this a second patient called. This one was a deputy
patient--Collett, a retired butler--kept a lodging-house, and waited at
parties; he lived close by, but had a married daughter in Chelsea. Would
the doctor visit her, and HE would be responsible?
Staines paid the woman a visit or two, and treated her so effectually,
that soon her visits were paid to him. She was cured, and Staines, who
by this time wanted to see money, sent to Collett.
Collett did not answer.
Staines wrote warmly.
Collett dead silent.
Staines employed a solicitor.
Collett said he had recommended the patient, that was all. He had never
said he would pay her debts. That was her husband's business.
Now her husband was the mate of a ship; would not be in England for
eighteen months.
The woman, visited by lawyer's clerk, cried bitterly, and said she and
her children had scarcely enough to eat.
Lawyer advised Staines to abandon the case, and pay him two pounds
fifteen shillings expenses. He did so.
“This is damnable,” said he. “I must get it out of Pettigrew; by-the-by,
he has not been here this two days.”
He waited another day for Pettigrew, and then wrote to him. No answer.
Called. Pettigrew gone abroad. House in Manchester Square to let.
Staines went to the house-agent with his tale. Agent was impenetrable
at first; but, at last, won by the doctor's manner and his unhappiness,
referred him to Pettigrew's solicitor; the solicitor was a respectable
man, and said he would forward the claim to Pettigrew in Paris.
But by this time Pettigrew was chattering and guzzling in Berlin; and
thence he got to St. Petersburg. In that stronghold of gluttony,
he gormandized more than ever, and, being unable to talk it off his
stomach, as in other cities, had apoplexy, and died.
But long before this Staines saw his money was as irrecoverable as his
sherry; and he said to Rosa, “I wonder whether I shall ever live to
curse the human race?”
“Heaven forbid!” said Rosa. “Oh, they use you cruelly, my poor, poor
Christie!”
Thus for months the young doctor's patients bled him, and that was all.
And Rosa got more and more moped at being in the house so much, and
pestered Christopher to take her out, and he declined: and, being a man
hard to beat, took to writing on medical subjects, in hopes of getting
some money from the various medical and scientific publications; but he
found it as hard to get the wedge in there as to get patients.
At last Rosa's remonstrances began to rise into something that
sounded like reproaches. One Sunday she came to him in her bonnet, and
interrupted his studies, to say he might as well lay down the pen, and
talk. Nobody would publish anything he wrote.
Christopher frowned, but contained himself, and laid down the pen.
“I might as well not be married at all as be a doctor's wife. You are
never seen out with me, not even to church. Do behave like a Christian,
and come to church with me now.”
Dr. Staines shook his head.
“Why, I wouldn't miss church for all the world. Any excitement is better
than always moping. Come over the water with me. The time Jane and I
went, the clergyman read a paper that Mr. Brown had fallen down in a
fit. There was such a rush directly, and I'm sure fifty ladies went
out--fancy, all Mrs. Browns! Wasn't that fun?”
“Fun? I don't see it. Well, Rosa, your mind is evidently better adapted
to diversion than mine is. Go you to church, love, and I'll continue my
studies.”
“Then all I can say is, I wish I was back in my father's house. Husband!
friend! companion!--I have none.”
Then she burst out crying violently; and, being shocked at what she had
said, and at the agony it had brought into her husband's face, she went
off into hysterics; and as his heart would not let him bellow at her,
or empty a bucket on her as he would on another patient, she had a good
long bout of them: and got her way, for she broke up his studies for
that day, at all events.
Even after the hysterics were got under, she continued to moan and sigh
very prettily, with her lovely, languid head pillowed on her husband's
arm; in a word, though the hysterics were real, yet this innocent young
person had the presence of mind to postpone entire convalescence, and
lay herself out to be petted all day. But fate willed it otherwise:
while she was sighing and moaning, came to the door a scurrying of feet,
and then a sharp, persistent ringing that meant something. The moaner
cocked eye and ear, and said, in her every-day voice, which, coming so
suddenly, sounded very droll, “What is that, I wonder?”
Jane hurried to the street-door, and Rosa recovered by magic; and,
preferring gossip to hysterics, in an almost gleeful whisper, ordered
Christopher to open the door of the study. The Bijou was so small that
the following dialogue rang in their ears:--
A boy in buttons gasped out, “Oh, if you please, will you ast the doctor
to come round directly; there's a haccident.”
“La, bless me!” said Jane, and never budged.
“Yes, miss. It's our missus's little girl fallen right off an i-chair,
and cut her head dreadful, and smothered in blood.”
“La, to be sure!” And she waited steadily for more.
“Ay, and missus she fainted right off; and I've been to the regler
doctor, which he's out; and Sarah, the housemaid, said I had better come
here; you was only just set up, she said; you wouldn't have so much to
do, says she.”
“That is all SHE knows,” said Jane. “Why, our master--they pulls him in
pieces which is to have him fust.”
“What an awful liar! Oh, you good girl!” whispered Dr. Staines and Rosa
in one breath.
“Ah, well,” said Buttons, “any way, Sarah says she knows you are clever,
'cos her little girl as lives with her mother, and calls Sarah aunt, has
bin to your 'spensary with ringworm, and you cured her right off.”
“Ay, and a good many more,” said Jane, loftily. She was a housemaid of
imagination; and while Staines was putting some lint and an instrument
case into his pocket, she proceeded to relate a number of miraculous
cures. Dr. Staines interrupted them by suddenly emerging, and inviting
Buttons to take him to the house.
Mrs. Staines was so pleased with Jane for cracking up the doctor, that
she gave her five shillings; and, after that, used to talk to her a
great deal more than to the cook, which judicious conduct presently set
all three by the ears.
Buttons took the doctor to a fine house in the same street, and told
him his mistress's name on the way--Mrs. Lucas. He was taken up to the
nursery, and found Mrs. Lucas seated, crying and lamenting, and a woman
holding a little girl of about seven, whose brow had been cut open by
the fender, on which she had fallen from a chair; it looked very ugly,
and was even now bleeding.
Dr. Staines lost no time; he examined the wound keenly, and then said
kindly to Mrs. Lucas, “I am happy to tell you it is not serious.” He
then asked for a large basin and some tepid water, and bathed it so
softly and soothingly that the child soon became composed; and the
mother discovered the artist at once. He compressed the wound, and
explained to Mrs. Lucas that the principal thing really was to avoid an
ugly scar. “There is no danger,” said he. He then bound the wound
neatly up, and had the girl put to bed. “You will not wake her at any
particular hour, nurse. Let her sleep. Have a little strong beef-tea
ready, and give it her at any hour, night or day, she asks for it. But
do not force it on her, or you will do her more harm than good. She had
better sleep before she eats.”
Mrs. Lucas begged him to come every morning; and, as he was going,
she shook hands with him, and the soft palm deposited a hard substance
wrapped in paper. He took it with professional gravity and seeming
unconsciousness; but, once outside the house, went home on wings. He
ran up to the drawing-room, and found his wife seated, and playing at
reading. He threw himself on his knees, and the fee into her lap; and,
while she unfolded the paper with an ejaculation of pleasure, he said,
“Darling, the first real patient--the first real fee. It is yours to buy
the new bonnet.”
“Oh, I'm so glad!” said she, with her eyes glistening. “But I'm afraid
one can't get a bonnet fit to wear--for a guinea.”
Dr. Staines visited his little patient every day, and received his
guinea. Mrs. Lucas also called him in for her own little ailments, and
they were the best possible kind of ailments: for, being imaginary,
there was no limit to them.
Then did Mrs. Staines turn jealous of her husband. “They never ask me,”
said she; “and I am moped to death.”
“It is hard,” said Christopher, sadly. “But have a little patience.
Society will come to you long before practice comes to me.”
About two o'clock one afternoon a carriage and pair drove up, and a
gorgeous footman delivered a card--“Lady Cicely Treherne.”
Of course Mrs. Staines was at home, and only withheld by propriety
from bounding into the passage to meet her school-fellow. However, she
composed herself in the drawing-room, and presently the door was opened,
and a very tall young woman, richly but not gayly dressed, drifted into
the room, and stood there a statue of composure.
Rosa had risen to fly to her; but the reverence a girl of eighteen
strikes into a child of twelve hung about her still, and she came
timidly forward, blushing and sparkling, a curious contrast in color
and mind to her visitor; for Lady Cicely was Languor in person--her hair
whitey-brown, her face a fine oval, but almost colorless; her eyes
a pale gray, her neck and hands incomparably white and beautiful--a
lymphatic young lady, a live antidote to emotion. However, Rosa's
beauty, timidity, and undisguised affectionateness were something so
different from what she was used to in the world of fashion, that she
actually smiled, and held out both her hands a little way. Rosa seized
them, and pressed them; they left her; and remained passive and limp.
“O Lady Cicely,” said Rosa, “how kind of you to come.”
“How kind of you to send to me,” was the polite, but perfectly cool
reply. “But how you are gwown, and--may I say impwoved?--You la petite
Lusignan! It is incwedible,” lisped her ladyship, very calmly.
“I was only a child,” said Rosa. “You were always so beautiful and tall,
and kind to a little monkey like me. Oh, pray sit down, Lady Cicely, and
talk of old times.”
She drew her gently to the sofa, and they sat down hand in hand; but
Lady Cicely's high-bred reserve made her a very poor gossip about
anything that touched herself and her family; so Rosa, though no
egotist, was drawn into talking about herself more than she would have
done had she deliberately planned the conversation. But here was an old
school-fellow, and a singularly polite listener, and so out came her
love, her genuine happiness, her particular griefs, and especially the
crowning grievance, no society, moped to death, etc.
Lady Cicely could hardly understand the sentiment in a woman who so
evidently loved her husband. “Society!” said she, after due reflection,
“why, it is a boa.” (And here I may as well explain that Lady Cicely
spoke certain words falsely, and others affectedly; and as for the
letter r, she could say it if she made a hearty effort, but was
generally too lazy to throw her leg over it.) “Society! I'm dwenched
to death with it. If I could only catch fiah like other women, and
love somebody, I would much rather have a tete-a-tete with him than
go teawing about all day and all night, from one unintwisting cwowd
to another. To be sure,” said she, puzzling the matter out, “you are a
beauty, and would be more looked at.”
“The idea! and--oh no! no! it is not that. But even in the country we
had always some society.”
“Well, dyar, believe me, with your appeawance, you can have as much
society as you please; but it will boa you to death, as it does me, and
then you will long to be left quiet with a sensible man who loves you.”
Said Rosa, “When shall I have another tete-a-tete with YOU, I wonder?
Oh, it has been such a comfort to me. Bless you for coming. There--I
wrote to Cecilia, and Emily, and Mrs. Bosanquet that is now, and all my
sworn friends, and to think of you being the one to come--you that never
kissed me but once, and an earl's daughter into the bargain.”
“Ha! ha! ha!”--Lady Cicely actually laughed for once in a way, and did
not feel the effort. “As for kissing,” said she, “if I fall shawt,
fawgive me. I was nevaa vewy demonstwative.”
“No; and I have had a lesson. That Florence Cole--Florence Whiting that
was, you know--was always kissing me, and she has turned out a traitor.
I'll tell you all about her.” And she did.
Lady Cicely thought Mrs. Staines a little too unreserved in her
conversation; but was so charmed with her sweetness and freshness that
she kept up the acquaintance, and called on her twice a week during the
season. At first she wondered that her visits were not returned; but
Rosa let out that she was ashamed to call on foot in Grosvenor Square.
Lady Cicely shrugged her beautiful shoulders a little at that; but she
continued to do the visiting, and to enjoy the simple, innocent rapture
with which she was received.
This lady's pronunciation of many words was false or affected. She
said “good murning” for “good morning,” and turned other vowels to
diphthongs, and played two or three pranks with her “r's.” But we cannot
be all imperfection: with her pronunciation her folly came to a full
stop. I really believe she lisped less nonsense and bad taste in a year
than some of us articulate in a day. To be sure, folly is generally
uttered in a hurry, and she was too deplorably lazy to speak fast on any
occasion whatever.
One day Mrs. Staines took her up-stairs, and showed her from the back
window her husband pacing the yard, waiting for patients. Lady Cicely
folded her arms, and contemplated him at first with a sort of zoological
curiosity. Gentleman pacing back yard, like hyena, she had never seen
before.
At last she opened her mouth in a whisper, “What is he doing?”
“Waiting for patients.”
“Oh! Waiting--for--patients?”
“For patients that never come, and never will come.”
“Cuwious! How little I know of life.”
“It is that all day, dear, or else writing.”
Lady Cicely, with her eyes fixed on Staines, made a motion with her hand
that she was attending.
“And they won't publish a word he writes.”
“Poor man!”
“Nice for me; is it not?”
“I begin to understand,” said Lady Cicely quietly; and soon after
retired with her invariable composure.
Meantime, Dr. Staines, like a good husband, had thrown out occasional
hints to Mrs. Lucas that he had a wife, beautiful, accomplished, moped.
More than that, he went so far as to regret to her that Mrs. Staines,
being in a neighborhood new to him, saw so little society; the more so,
as she was formed to shine, and had not been used to seclusion.
All these hints fell dead on Mrs. Lucas. A handsome and skilful doctor
was welcome to her: his wife--that was quite another matter.
But one day Mrs. Lucas saw Lady Cicely Treherne's carriage standing at
the door. The style of the whole turnout impressed her. She wondered
whose it was.
On another occasion she saw it drive up, and the lady get out. She
recognized her; and the very next day this parvenue said adroitly, “Now,
Dr. Staines, really you can't be allowed to hide your wife in this way.
(Staines stared.) Why not introduce her to me next Wednesday? It is my
night. I would give a dinner expressly for her; but I don't like to do
that while my husband is in Naples.”
When Staines carried the invitation to his wife, she was delighted, and
kissed him with childish frankness.
But the very next moment she became thoughtful, uneasy, depressed. “Oh,
dear; I've nothing to wear.”
“Oh, nonsense, Rosa. Your wedding outfit.”
“The idea! I can't go as a bride. It's not a masquerade.”
“But you have other dresses.”
“All gone by, more or less; or not fit for such parties as SHE gives. A
hundred carriages!”
“Bring them down, and let me see them.”
“Oh yes.” And the lady, who had nothing to wear, paraded a very fair
show of dresses.
Staines saw something to admire in all of them. Mrs. Staines found more
to object to in each.
At last he fell upon a silver-gray silk, of superlative quality.
“That! It is as old as the hills,” shrieked Rosa.
“It looks just out of the shop. Come, tell the truth; how often have you
worn it?”
“I wore it before I was married.”
“Ay, but how often?”
“Twice. Three times, I believe.”
“I thought so. It is good as new.”
“But I have had it so long by me. I had it two years before I made it
up.”
“What does that matter? Do you think the people can tell how long a
dress has been lurking in your wardrobe? This is childish, Rosa. There,
with this dress as good as new, and your beauty, you will be as much
admired, and perhaps hated, as your heart can desire.”
“I am afraid not,” said Rosa naively. “Oh, how I wish I had known a week
ago.”
“I am very thankful you did not,” said Staines dryly.
At ten o'clock Mrs. Staines was nearly dressed; at a quarter past ten
she demanded ten minutes; at half-past ten she sought a reprieve; at a
quarter to eleven, being assured that the street was full of carriages,
which had put down at Mrs. Lucas's, she consented to emerge; and in a
minute they were at the house.
They were shown first into a cloak-room, and then into a tea-room, and
then mounted the stairs. One servant took their names, and bawled them
to another four yards off, he to another about as near, and so on; and
they edged themselves into the room, not yet too crowded to move in.
They had not taken many steps, on the chance of finding their hostess,
when a slight buzz arose, and seemed to follow them.
Rosa wondered what that was; but only for a moment; she observed a tall,
stout, aquiline woman fix an eye of bitter, diabolical, malignant hatred
on her; and as she advanced, ugly noses were cocked disdainfully, and
scraggy shoulders elevated at the risk of sending the bones through the
leather, and a titter or two shot after her. A woman's instinct gave her
the key at once; the sexes had complimented her at sight; each in
their way; the men with respectful admiration; the women, with their
inflammable jealousy and ready hatred in another of the quality they
value most in themselves. But the country girl was too many for them:
she would neither see nor bear, but moved sedately on, and calmly
crushed them with her Southern beauty. Their dry, powdered faces could
not live by the side of her glowing skin, with nature's delicate gloss
upon it, and the rich blood mantling below it. The got-up beauties,
i.e., the majority, seemed literally to fade and wither as she passed.
Mrs. Lucas got to her, suppressed a slight maternal pang, having
daughters to marry, and took her line in a moment; here was a decoy
duck. Mrs. Lucas was all graciousness, made acquaintance, and took a
little turn with her, introducing her to one or two persons; among the
rest, to the malignant woman, Mrs. Barr. Mrs. Barr, on this, ceased to
look daggers and substituted icicles; but on the hateful beauty moving
away, dropped the icicles, and resumed the poniards.
The rooms filled; the heat became oppressive, and the mixed odors of
flowers, scents, and perspiring humanity, sickening. Some, unable to
bear it, trickled out of the room, and sat all down the stairs.
Rosa began to feel faint. Up came a tall, sprightly girl, whose pertness
was redeemed by a certain bonhomie, and said, “Mrs. Staines, I
believe? I am to make myself agreeable to you. That is the order from
headquarters.”
“Miss Lucas,” said Staines.
She jerked a little off-hand bow to him, and said, “Will you trust her
to me for five minutes?”
“Certainly.” But he did not much like it.
Miss Lucas carried her off, and told Dr. Staines, over her shoulder, now
he could flirt to his heart's content.
“Thank you,” said he dryly. “I'll await your return.”
“Oh, there are some much greater flirts here than I am,” said the ready
Miss Lucas; and whispering something in Mrs. Staines's ear, suddenly
glided with her behind a curtain, pressed a sort of button fixed to a
looking-glass door. The door opened, and behold they were in a delicious
place, for which I can hardly find a word, since it was a boudoir and
a conservatory in one: a large octagon, the walls lined from floor to
ceiling with looking-glasses of moderate width, at intervals, and with
creepers that covered the intervening spaces of the wall, and were
trained so as to break the outline of the glasses without greatly
clouding the reflection. Ferns, in great variety, were grouped in a
deep crescent, and in the bight of this green bay were a small table
and chairs. As there were no hot-house plants, the temperature was very
cool, compared with the reeking oven they had escaped; and a little
fountain bubbled, and fed a little meandering gutter that trickled away
among the ferns; it ran crystal clear over little bright pebbles and
shells. It did not always run, you understand; but Miss Lucas turned a
secret tap, and started it.
“Oh, how heavenly!” said Rosa, with a sigh of relief; “and how good of
you to bring me here!”
“Yes; by rights I ought to have waited till you fainted. But there is no
making acquaintance among all those people. Mamma will ask such crowds;
one is like a fly in a glue-pot.”
Miss Lucas had good nature, smartness, and animal spirits; hence arose
a vivacity and fluency that were often amusing, and passed for very
clever. Reserve she had none; would talk about strangers, or friends,
herself, her mother, her God, and the last buffoon-singer, in a breath.
At a hint from Rosa, she told her who the lady in the pink dress was,
and the lady in the violet velvet, and so on; for each lady was defined
by her dress, and, more or less, quizzed by this show-woman, not exactly
out of malice, but because it is smarter and more natural to decry than
to praise, and a little medisance is the spice to gossip, belongs to it,
as mint sauce to lamb. So they chatted away, and were pleased with
each other, and made friends, and there, in cool grot, quite forgot
the sufferings of their fellow-creatures in the adjacent Turkish bath,
yclept society. It was Rosa who first recollected herself. “Will not
Mrs. Lucas be angry with me, if I keep you all to myself?”
“Oh no; but I'm afraid we must go into the hot-house again. I like the
greenhouse best, with such a nice companion.”
They slipped noiselessly into the throng again, and wriggled about, Miss
Lucas presenting her new friend to several ladies and gentlemen.
Presently Staines found them, and then Miss Lucas wriggled away; and in
due course the room was thinned by many guests driving off home, or to
balls, and other receptions, and Dr. Staines and Mrs. Staines went home
to the Bijou. Here the physician prescribed bed; but the lady would not
hear of such a thing until she had talked it all over. So they compared
notes, and Rosa told him how well she had got on with Miss Lucas, and
made a friendship. “But for that,” said she, “I should be sorry I went
among those people, such a dowdy.”
“Dowdy!” said Staines. “Why, you stormed the town; you were the great
success of the night, and, for all I know, of the season.” The wretch
delivered this with unbecoming indifference.
“It is too bad to mock me, Christie. Where were your eyes?”
“To the best of my recollection, they were one on each side of my nose.”
“Yes, but some people are eyes and no eyes.”
“I scorn the imputation; try me.”
“Very well. Then did you see that lady in sky-blue silk, embroidered
with flowers, and flounced with white velvet, and the corsage point
lace; and oh, such emeralds?”
“I did; a tall, skinny woman, with eyes resembling her jewels in color,
though not in brightness.”
“Never mind her eyes; it is her dress I am speaking of. Exquisite; and
what a coiffure! Well, did you see HER in the black velvet, trimmed so
deep with Chantilly lace, wave on wave, and her head-dress of crimson
flowers, and such a riviere of diamonds; oh, dear! oh, dear!”
“I did, love. The room was an oven, but her rubicund face and
suffocating costume made it seem a furnace.”
“Stuff! Well, did you see the lady in the corn-colored silk, and poppies
in her hair?”
“Of course I did. Ceres in person. She made me feel hot, too; but I
cooled myself a bit at her pale, sickly face.”
“Never mind their faces; that is not the point.”
“Oh, excuse me; it is always a point with us benighted males, all eyes
and no eyes.”
“Well, then, the lady in white, with cherry-velvet bands, and a white
tunic looped with crimson, and headdress of white illusion, a la vierge,
I think they call it.”
“It was very refreshing; and adapted to that awful atmosphere. It was
the nearest approach to nudity I ever saw, even amongst fashionable
people.”
“It was lovely; and then that superb figure in white illusion and gold,
with all those narrow flounces over her slip of white silk glacee, and a
wreath of white flowers, with gold wheat ears amongst them, in her hair;
and oh! oh! oh! her pearls, oriental, and as big as almonds!”
“And oh! oh! oh! her nose! reddish, and as long as a woodcock's.”
“Noses! noses! stupid! That is not what strikes you first in a woman
dressed like an angel.”
“Well, if you were to run up against that one, as I nearly did, her nose
WOULD be the thing that would strike you first. Nose! it was a rostrum!
the spear-head of Goliah.”
“Now, don't, Christopher. This is no laughing matter. Do you mean you
were not ashamed of your wife? I was.”
“No, I was not; you had but one rival; a very young lady, wise
before her age; a blonde, with violet eyes. She was dressed in light
mauve-colored silk, without a single flounce, or any other tomfoolery
to fritter away the sheen and color of an exquisite material; her sunny
hair was another wave of color, wreathed with a thin line of white
jessamine flowers closely woven, that scented the air. This girl was the
moon of that assembly, and you were the sun.”
“I never even saw her.”
“Eyes and no eyes. She saw you, and said, 'Oh, what a beautiful
creature!' for I heard her. As for the old stagers, whom you admire so,
their faces were all clogged with powder, the pores stopped up, the true
texture of the skin abolished. They looked downright nasty, whenever
you or that young girl passed by them. Then it was you saw to what a
frightful extent women are got up in our day, even young women, and
respectable women. No, Rosa, dress can do little for you; you have
beauty--real beauty.”
“Beauty! That passes unnoticed, unless one is well dressed.”
“Then what an obscure pair the Apollo Belvidere and the Venus de Medicis
must be.”
“Oh! they are dressed--in marble.”
Christopher Staines stared first, then smiled.
“Well done,” said he, admiringly. “That IS a knockdown blow. So now you
have silenced your husband, go you to bed directly. I can't afford you
diamonds; so I will take care of that little insignificant trifle, your
beauty.”
Mrs. Staines and Mrs. Lucas exchanged calls, and soon Mrs. Staines could
no longer complain she was out of the world. Mrs. Lucas invited her to
every party, because her beauty was an instrument of attraction she knew
how to use; and Miss Lucas took a downright fancy to her; drove her in
the park, and on Sundays to the Zoological Gardens, just beginning to be
fashionable.
The Lucases rented a box at the opera, and if it was not let at the
library by six o'clock, and if other engagements permitted, word was
sent round to Mrs. Staines, as a matter of course, and she was taken to
the opera. She began almost to live at the Lucases, and to be oftener
fatigued than moped.
The usual order of things was inverted; the maiden lady educated the
matron; for Miss Lucas knew all about everybody in the Park, honorable
or dishonorable; all the scandals, and all the flirtations; and whatever
she knew, she related point-blank. Being as inquisitive as voluble, she
soon learned how Mrs. Staines and her husband were situated. She took
upon her to advise her in many things, and especially impressed upon
her that Dr. Staines must keep a carriage, if he wanted to get on in
medicine. The piece of advice accorded so well with Rosa's wishes, that
she urged it on her husband again and again.
He objected that no money was coming in, and therefore it would be
insane to add to their expenses. Rosa persisted, and at last worried
Staines with her importunity. He began to give rather short answers.
Then she quoted Miss Lucas against him. He treated the authority with
marked contempt; and then Rosa fired up a little. Then Staines held his
peace; but did not buy a carriage to visit his no patients.
So at last Rosa complained to Lady Cicely Treherne, and made her the
judge between her husband and herself. Lady Cicely drawled out a prompt
but polite refusal to play that part. All that could be elicited from
her, and that with difficulty, was, “Why quall with your husband about a
cawwige; he is your best fwiend.”
“Ah, that he is,” said Rosa; “but Miss Lucas is a good friend, and she
knows the world. We don't; neither Christopher nor I.”
So she continued to nag at her husband about it, and to say that he was
throwing his only chance away.
Galled as he was by neglect, this was irritating, and at last he could
not help telling her she was unreasonable. “You live a gay life, and I
a sad one. I consent to this, and let you go about with these Lucases,
because you were so dull; but you should not consult them in our private
affairs. Their interference is indelicate and improper. I will not set
up a carriage till I have patients to visit. I am sick of seeing our
capital dwindle, and no income created. I will never set up a carriage
till I have taken a hundred-guinea fee.”
“Oh! Then we shall go splashing through the mud all our days.”
“Or ride in a cab,” said Christopher, with a quiet doggedness that left
no hope of his yielding.
One afternoon Miss Lucas called for Mrs. Staines to drive in the Park,
but did not come up-stairs; it was an engagement, and she knew Mrs.
Staines would be ready, or nearly. Mrs. Staines, not to keep her
waiting, came down rather hastily, and in the very passage whipped out
of her pocket a little glass, and a little powder puff, and puffed her
face all over in a trice. She was then going out; but her husband called
her into the study. “Rosa, my dear,” said he, “you were going out with a
dirty face.”
“Oh!” cried she, “give me a glass.”
“There is no need of that. All you want is a basin and some nice
rain-water. I keep a little reservoir of it.”
He then handed her the same with great politeness. She looked in his
eye, and saw he was not to be trifled with. She complied like a lamb,
and the heavenly color and velvet gloss that resulted were admirable.
He kissed her and said, “Ah! now you are my Rosa again. Oblige me by
handing over that powder-puff to me.” She looked vexed, but complied.
“When you come back I will tell you why.”
“You are a pest,” said Mrs. Staines, and so joined her friend, rosy with
rain-water and a rub.
“Dear me, how handsome you look to-day!” was Miss Lucas's first remark.
Rosa never dreamed that rain-water and rub could be the cause of her
looking so well.
“It is my tiresome husband,” said she. “He objects to powder, and he has
taken away my puff.”
“And you stood that?”
“Obliged to.”
“Why, you poor-spirited little creature, I should like to see a husband
presume to interfere with me in those things. Here, take mine.”
Rosa hesitated a little. “Well--no--I think not.”
Miss Lucas laughed at her, and quizzed her so on her allowing a man to
interfere in such sacred things as dress and cosmetics, that she came
back irritated with her husband, and gave him a short answer or two.
Then he asked what was the matter.
“You treat me like a child--taking away my very puff.”
“I treat you like a beautiful flower, that no bad gardener shall wither
whilst I am here.”
“What nonsense! How could that wither me? It is only violet powder--what
they put on babies.”
“And who are the Herods that put it on babies?”
“Their own mothers, that love them ten times more than the fathers do.”
“And kill a hundred of them for one a man ever kills. Mothers!--the most
wholesale homicides in the nation. We will examine your violet-powder:
bring it down here.”
While she was gone he sent for a breakfast-cupful of flour, and when she
came back he had his scales out, and begged her to put a teaspoonful of
flour into one scale and of violet powder into another. The flour kicked
the beam, as Homer expresses himself.
“Put another spoonful of flour.”
The one spoonful of violet powder outweighed the two of flour.
“Now,” said Staines, “does not that show you the presence of a mineral
in your vegetable powder? I suppose they tell you it is made of white
violets dried, and triturated in a diamond mill. Let us find out what
metal it is. We need not go very deep into chemistry for that.” He
then applied a simple test, and detected the presence of lead in large
quantities. Then he lectured her: “Invisible perspiration is a process
of nature necessary to health and to life. The skin is made porous for
that purpose. You can kill anybody in an hour or two by closing the
pores. A certain infallible ass, called Pope Leo XII., killed a little
boy in two hours, by gilding him to adorn the pageant of his first
procession as Pope. But what is death to the whole body must be
injurious to a part. What madness, then, to clog the pores of so
large and important a surface as the face, and check the invisible
perspiration: how much more to insert lead into your system every day
of your life; a cumulative poison, and one so deadly and so subtle, that
the Sheffield file-cutters die in their prime, from merely hammering on
a leaden anvil. And what do you gain by this suicidal habit? No plum has
a sweeter bloom or more delicious texture than the skin of your
young face; but this mineral filth hides that delicate texture, and
substitutes a dry, uniform appearance, more like a certain kind of
leprosy than health. Nature made your face the rival of peaches, roses,
lilies; and you say, 'No; I know better than my Creator and my God; my
face shall be like a dusty miller's.' Go into any flour-mill, and there
you shall see men with faces exactly like your friend Miss Lucas's. But
before a miller goes to his sweetheart, he always washes his face. You
ladies would never get a miller down to your level in brains. It is a
miller's DIRTY face our mono-maniacs of woman imitate, not the face a
miller goes a-courting with.”
“La! what a fuss about nothing!”
“About nothing! Is your health nothing? Is your beauty nothing? Well,
then, it will cost you nothing to promise me never to put powder on your
face again.”
“Very well, I promise. Now what will you do for me?”
“Work for you--write for you--suffer for you--be self-denying for
you--and even give myself the pain of disappointing you now and
then--looking forward to the time when I shall be able to say 'Yes' to
everything you ask me. Ah! child, you little know what it costs me to
say 'No' to YOU.”
Rosa put her arms round him and acquiesced. She was one of those who
go with the last speaker; but, for that very reason, the eternal
companionship of so flighty and flirty a girl as Miss Lucas was
injurious to her.
One day Lady Cicely Treherne was sitting with Mrs. Staines, smiling
languidly at her talk, and occasionally drawling out a little plain good
sense, when in came Miss Lucas, with her tongue well hung, as usual, and
dashed into twenty topics in ten minutes.
This young lady in her discourse was like those little oily beetles you
see in small ponds, whose whole life is spent in tacking--confound them
for it!--generally at right angles. What they are in navigation was Miss
Lucas in conversation: tacked so eternally from topic to topic, that no
man on earth, and not every woman, could follow her.
At the sight and sound of her, Lady Cicely congealed and stiffened.
Easy and unpretending with Mrs. Staines, she was all dignity, and even
majesty, in the presence of this chatterbox; and the smoothness with
which the transfiguration was accomplished marked that accomplished
actress the high-bred woman of the world.
Rosa, better able to estimate the change of manner than Miss Lucas was,
who did not know how little this Sawny was afflicted with misplaced
dignity, looked wistfully and distressed at her. Lady Cicely
smiled kindly in reply, rose, without seeming to hurry,--catch her
condescending to be rude to Charlotte Lucas,--and took her departure,
with a profound and most gracious courtesy to the lady who had driven
her away.
Mrs. Staines saw her down-stairs, and said, ruefully, “I am afraid
you do not like my friend Miss Lucas. She is a great rattle, but so
good-natured and clever.”
Lady Cicely shook her head. “Clevaa people don't talk so much nonsense
before strangaas.”
“Oh, dear!” said Rosa. “I was in hopes you would like her.”
“Do YOU like her?”
“Indeed I do; but I shall not, if she drives an older friend away.”
“My dyah, I'm not easily dwiven from those I esteem. But you undastand
that is not a woman for me to mispwonownce my 'ah's befaw--NOR FOR YOU
TO MAKE A BOSOM FWIEND OF--WOSA STAINES.”
She said this with a sudden maternal solemnity and kindness that
contrasted nobly and strangely with her yea-nay style, and Mrs. Staines
remembered the words years after they were spoken.
It so happened that after this Mrs. Staines received no more visits from
Lady Cicely for some time, and that vexed her. She knew her sex enough
to be aware that they are very jealous, and she permitted herself to
think that this high-minded Sawny was jealous of Miss Lucas.
This idea, founded on a general estimate of her sex, was dispelled by a
few lines from Lady Cicely, to say her family and herself were in deep
distress; her brother, Lord Ayscough, lay dying from an accident.
Then Rosa was all remorse, and ran down to Staines to tell him. She
found him with an open letter in his hand. It was from Dr. Barr, and
on the same subject. The doctor, who had always been friendly to him,
invited him to come down at once to Hallowtree Hall, in Huntingdonshire,
to a consultation. There was a friendly intimation to start at once, as
the patient might die any moment.
Husband and wife embraced each other in a tumult of surprised
thankfulness. A few necessaries were thrown into a carpet-bag, and
Dr. Staines was soon whirled into Huntingdonshire. Having telegraphed
beforehand, he was met at the station by the earl's carriage and people,
and driven to the Hall. He was received by an old, silver-haired butler,
looking very sad, who conducted him to a boudoir; and then went and
tapped gently at the door of the patient's room. It was opened and shut
very softly, and Lady Cicely, dressed in black, and looking paler than
ever, came into the room.
“Dr. Staines, I think?”
He bowed.
“Thank you for coming so promptly. Dr. Barr is gone. I fear he
thinks--he thinks--O Dr. Staines--no sign of life but in his poor hands,
that keep moving night and day.”
Staines looked very grave at that. Lady Cicely observed it, and, faint
at heart, could say no more, but led the way to the sick-room.
There in a spacious chamber, lighted by a grand oriel window and two
side windows, lay rank, title, wealth, and youth, stricken down in a
moment by a common accident. The sufferer's face was bloodless, his eyes
fixed, and no signs of life but in his thumbs, and they kept working
with strange regularity.
In the room were a nurse and the surgeon; the neighboring physician, who
had called in Dr. Barr, had just paid his visit and gone away.
Lady Cicely introduced Dr. Staines and Mr. White, and then Dr. Staines
stood and fixed his eyes on the patient in profound silence. Lady
Cicely scanned his countenance searchingly, and was struck with the
extraordinary power and intensity it assumed in examining the patient;
but the result was not encouraging. Dr. Staines looked grave and gloomy.
At last, without removing his eye from the recumbent figure, he said
quietly to Mr. White, “Thrown from his horse, sir.”
“Horse fell on him, Dr. Staines.”
“Any visible injuries?”
“Yes. Severe contusions, and a rib broken and pressed upon the lungs. I
replaced and set it. Will you see?”
“If you please.”
He examined and felt the patient, and said it had been ably done.
Then he was silent and searching.
At last he spoke again. “The motion of the thumbs corresponds exactly
with his pulse.”
“Is that so, sir?”
“It is. The case is without a parallel. How long has he been so?”
“Nearly a week.”
“Impossible!”
“It is so, sir.”
Lady Cicely confirmed this.
“All the better,” said Dr. Staines upon reflection. “Well, sir,” said
he, “the visible injuries having been ably relieved, I shall look
another way for the cause.” Then, after another pause, “I must have his
head shaved.”
Lady Cicely demurred a little to this; but Dr. Staines stood firm, and
his lordship's valet undertook the job.
Staines directed him where to begin; and when he had made a circular
tonsure on the top of the head, had it sponged with tepid water.
“I thought so,” said he. “Here is the mischief;” and he pointed to a
very slight indentation on the left side of the pia mater. “Observe,”
said he, “there is no corresponding indentation on the other side.
Underneath this trifling depression a minute piece of bone is doubtless
pressing on the most sensitive part of the brain. He must be trephined.”
Mr. White's eyes sparkled.
“You are an hospital surgeon, sir?”
“Yes, Dr. Staines. I have no fear of the operation.”
“Then I hand the patient over to you. The case at present is entirely
surgical.”
White was driven home, and soon returned with the requisite instruments.
The operation was neatly performed, and then Lady Cicely was called in.
She came trembling; her brother's fingers were still working, but not so
regularly.
“That is only HABIT,” said Staines; “it will soon leave off, now the
cause is gone.”
And, truly enough, in about five minutes the fingers became quiet. The
eyes became human next; and within half an hour after the operation the
earl gave a little sigh.
Lady Cicely clasped her hands, and uttered a little cry of delight.
“This will not do,” said Staines, “I shall have you screaming when he
speaks.”
“Oh, Dr. Staines! will he ever speak?”
“I think so, and very soon. So be on your guard.”
This strange scene reached its climax soon after, by the earl saying,
quietly,--
“Are her knees broke, Tom?”
Lady Cicely uttered a little scream, but instantly suppressed it.
“No, my lord,” said Staines, smartly; “only rubbed a bit. You can go to
sleep, my lord. I'll take care of the mare.”
“All right,” said his lordship; and composed himself to slumber.
Dr. Staines, at the earnest request of Lady Cicely, stayed all night;
and in course of the day advised her how to nurse the patient, since
both physician and surgeon had done with him.
He said the patient's brain might be irritable for some days, and no
women in silk dresses or crinoline, or creaking shoes, must enter the
room. He told her the nurse was evidently a clumsy woman, and would
be letting things fall. She had better get some old soldier used to
nursing. “And don't whisper in the room,” said he; “nothing irritates
them worse; and don't let anybody play a piano within hearing; but in a
day or two you may try him with slow and continuous music on the flute
or violin if you like. Don't touch his bed suddenly; don't sit on it or
lean on it. Dole sunlight into his room by degrees; and when he can bear
it, drench him with it. Never mind what the old school tell you. About
these things they know a good deal less than nothing.”
Lady Cicely received all this like an oracle.
The cure was telegraphed to Dr. Barr, and he was requested to settle the
fee. He was not the man to undersell the profession, and was jealous
of nobody, having a large practice, and a very wealthy wife. So he
telegraphed back--“Fifty guineas, and a guinea a mile from London.”
So, as Christopher Staines sat at an early breakfast, with the carriage
waiting to take him to the train, two notes were brought him on a
salver.
They were both directed by Lady Cicely Treherne. One of them contained a
few kind and feeling words of gratitude and esteem; the other, a check,
drawn by the earl's steward, for one hundred and thirty guineas.
He bowled up to London, and told it all to Rosa. She sparkled with
pride, affection, and joy.
“Now, who says you are not a genius?” she cried. “A hundred and thirty
guineas for one fee! Now, if you love your wife as she loves you--you
will set up a brougham.”