The dinner at the Rosery was all that was pleasant and desirable, saving
that Doctor Scales felt rather disappointed in having to take in Aunt
Sophia. He was not a ladies' man, he said, when talking of such
matters, and would have been better content to have gone in alone. He
was not much pleased either at being very near Mr Arthur Prayle, to
whom he at once took a more decided dislike, being, as he acknowledged
to himself, exceedingly ready to form antipathies, and prejudiced in the
extreme.
"Ah," he said to himself, "one ought to be satisfied;" and he glanced
round the prettily decorated table, and uttered a sigh of satisfaction
as the sweet scents of the garden floated in through the open window.
Then he uttered another similar sigh, for there were scents in the room
more satisfying to a hungry man.
"Perhaps you'd like the window shut, auntie?" said Sir James.
"No, my dear; it would be a shame: the weather is so fine.--You don't
think it will give me rheumatism in the shoulder, do you, doctor?"
"No, madam, certainly not," said Scales. "You are not over-heated."
"Then we will have it open," said Aunt Sophia decisively.
"Do you consider that rheumatism always comes from colds, Doctor
Scales?" said Arthur Prayle, bending forward from his seat beside his
hostess, and speaking in a bland smooth tone.
"That fellow's mouth seems to me as if it must be lined with black
velvet," thought the doctor. "Bother him! if I believed in
metempsychosis, I should say he would turn into a black Tom-cat. He
purrs and sets up his back, and seems as if he must have a tail hidden
away under his coat.--No, decidedly not," he said aloud. "I think
people often suffer from a kind of rheumatic affection due to errors of
diet."
"Dear me! how strange."
"Then we shall have Aunt Sophia laid up," said Sir James, "for she is
always committing errors in diet."
"Now, James!" began the lady in protestation.
"Now, auntie, you know you'd eat a whole cucumber on the sly, if you had
the chance."
"No, no, my dear; that is too bad. I confess that I do like cucumber,
but not to that extent."
"Well, Naomi, I hope you are ready for plenty of boating, now you have
come down," said Scarlett. "We must brown you a bit; you are too
fair.--Isn't she, Jack?"
"Not a bit," said the doctor, who was enjoying his salmon. "A lady
can't be too fair."
Aunt Sophia looked at him sharply; but Jack Scales's eyes had not
travelled in the direction of Naomi, and when he raised them to meet
Aunt Sophia's, there was a frank ingenuous look in them that disarmed a
disposition on the lady's part to set up her feathers and defend her
niece.
"I think young ladies ought to be fair and pretty; don't you, ma'am?"
"Ye-es; in reason," said Aunt Sophia, bridling slightly.
"I side with you, Jack," said their host, with a tender look at his
wife.
"Yes," said Prayle slowly; "one naturally expects a lady to be
beautiful; but, alas! how soon does beauty fade."
"Yes, if you don't take care of it," said Aunt Sophia sharply.
"Unkindness is like a blight to a flower, and so is the misery of this
world."
"So," said Scarlett, "the best thing is never to be unkind, auntie, and
have nothing to do with misery--"
"If you can help it," said the doctor.
"--Or the doctors," said Scarlett, laughing--"always excepting Doctor
Scales."
About this time, Aunt Sophia, who had been very stiff and distant, began
to soften a little towards the doctor, and listened attentively, as the
host seemed to be trying to draw him out.
"What are you doing now, Jack?" he said, after a glance round the table
to see that all was going satisfactorily and well; while Lady Scarlett
sat, flushed and timid, troubled with the cares of the house, and
wondering whether her husband was satisfied with the preparations that
had been made.
"Eating," said the doctor drily, "and to such an extent, that I am
blushing inwardly for having such a dreadful appetite."
"I suppose," said Prayle, "that a good appetite is a sign of good
health?"
"Sometimes," said the doctor. "There are morbid forms of desire for
food.--What say?"
"I repeated my question," said Scarlett, laughing. "What are you doing
now?"
"Well, I am devoting myself for the most part to the study of nervous
diseases," said the doctor. "There seems to be more opening there than
in any other branch of my profession, and unless a man goes in for a
speciality, he has no chance."
"Come, Aunt Sophia," said Scarlett, merrily; "here's your opportunity.
You are always complaining of your nerves."
"Of course I am," said the old lady sharply; "and no wonder."
"Well, then, why not engage Doctor Scales as your private physician,
before he is snatched up?"
"All, before I'm snatched up, Miss Raleigh. Don't you have anything to
do with me, madam. Follow your nephew's lead, and take to gardening--
There is medicine in the scent of the newly turned earth, in the air you
breathe, and in the exercise, that will do you more good than any drugs
I can prescribe."
"There you are, aunt; pay up."
"Pay up? Bless the boy! what do you mean?" said Aunt Sophia.
"A guinea. Physician's fee."
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Aunt Sophia.--"But I don't want to be rude to
you, Doctor Scales, and I think it's worth the guinea far more than many
a fee I've paid for what has done me no good."
"I've got a case in hand," said the doctor, going on with his dinner,
but finding time to talk. "I've a poor creature suffering from nervous
shock. Fine-looking, gentlemanly fellow as you'd wish to see, but
completely off his balance."
"Bless the man! don't talk about mad people," said Aunt Sophia.
"No, ma'am, I will not. He's as sane as you are," said the doctor; "but
his nerve is gone, he dare not trust himself outside the house; he
cannot, do the slightest calculation--write a letter--give a decisive
answer. He would not take the shortest journey, or see any one on
business. In fact, though he could do all these things as well as any
of us, he doesn't, and, paradoxical as it may sound, can't."
"But why not?" said Scarlett.
"Why not? Because his nerve has gone, he dare not sleep without some
one in the next room. He could not bear to be in the dark. He cannot
trust himself to do a single thing for fear he should do it wrong, or go
anywhere lest some terrible accident should befall him."
"What a dreadful man!" cried Aunt Sophia.
"Not at all, my dear madam; he's a splendid fellow."
"It must be terrible for his poor wife, Doctor Scales."
"No, ma'am, it is not, because he has no wife; but it is very trying to
his sweet sister."
"I say, hark at that," said Scarlett, merrily--"`his sweet sister.'
Ahem, Jack! In confidence, eh?"
"What do you mean?" cried the doctor, as the ladies smiled.
"I say--you know--his sweet sister. Is that the immortal she?"
"What? My choice? Ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha?" laughed the doctor,
with enjoyable mirth. "No, no; I'm cut out for a bachelor. No wedding
for me. Bah! what's a poor doctor to do with a wife! No, sir; no, sir.
I'm going to preserve myself free of domestic cares for the benefit of
all who may seek my aid."
"Well, for my part," said Aunt Sophia, "I think it must be a very
terrible case."
"Terrible, my dear madam."
"But you will be able to cure him?"
"I hope so; but indeed that is all I can say. Such cases as this puzzle
the greatest men."
"I suppose," said Arthur Prayle, in a smooth bland voice, "that you
administer tonic medicines--quinine and iron and the like?"
"O yes," said the doctor grimly. "That's exactly what we do, and it
doesn't cure the patient in the least."
"But you give him cold bathing and exercise, doctor?"
"O yes, Mr Prayle; cold bathing and exercise, plenty of them; but they
don't do any good."
"Hah! that is singular," said Prayle thoughtfully. "Would the failure
be from want of perseverance, do you think?"
"Perhaps so. One doesn't know how much to persevere, you see."
"These matters are very strange--very well worthy of consideration and
study, Doctor Scales."
"Very well worthy of consideration indeed, Mr Prayle," said the doctor;
and then to himself: "This fellow gives me a nervous affection in the
toes."
"I trust my remarks do not worry you, Lady Scarlett?" said Prayle, in
his bland way.
"O no, not at all," replied that lady. "Pray do not think we cannot
appreciate a little serious talk."
Prayle smiled as he looked at the speaker--a quiet sad smile, full of
thankfulness; but it seemed to trouble Lady Scarlett, who hastened to
join the conversation on the other side, replying only in monosyllables
afterwards to Prayle's remarks.
The dinner passed off very pleasantly, and at last the ladies rose and
left the table, leaving the gentlemen to their wine, or rather to the
modern substitute for the old custom--their coffee, after which they
smoked their cigarettes in the veranda, and the conversation once more
took a medical turn.
"I can't help thinking about that patient of yours, Jack," said Sir
James. "Poor fellow! What a shocking affair!"
"Yes, it must be a terrible life," said Prayle. "Life, Arthur! it must
be a sort of death," exclaimed Scarlett excitedly. "Poor fellow! What
a state!"
"Well, sympathy's all very well," said the doctor, smiling in rather an
amused way; "but I don't see why you need get excited about it."
"Oh, but it is horrible."
"Dreadful!" echoed Prayle.
"Then I must have been an idiot to introduce it here, where all is so
calm and peaceful," said the doctor. "Fancy what a shock it would give
us all if we were suddenly to hear an omnibus go blundering by. James
Scarlett, you are a lucky man. You have everything a fellow could
desire in this world: money, a delightful home, the best of health--"
"The best of wives," said Prayle softly. "Thank you for that, Arthur,"
said Scarlett, turning and smiling upon the speaker.
"Humph! Perhaps I was going to say that myself," said the doctor
sourly. "Hah! you're a lucky man."
"Well, I don't grumble," said Scarlett, laughing. "You fellows come
down here just when everything's at its best; but there is such a season
as winter, you know."
"Of course there is, stupid!" said the doctor. "If there wasn't, who
would care for fickle spring?"
"May the winter of adversity never come to your home, Cousin James,"
said Prayle softly: and he looked at his frank, manly young host with
something like pathetic interest as he spoke.
"Thank you, old fellow, thank you.--Now, let's join the ladies."
"This fellow wants to borrow fifty pounds," growled Doctor Scales. Then
after a pause--"There's that itching again in my toes."
Volume 1, Chapter VI.