"Yes, my father is at home, Mr Poynter," said Richmond, speaking
calmly, and drawing back for the visitor to enter.
Then to Janet, in a whisper.
"Can you stay with me a few minutes?"
"I daren't, dear; I am late now, and--Yes, I understand. I will."
It was Richmond's turn to display her firmness, and mastering a nervous
trepidation which she felt, she bent down, kissed her friend, and, with
a meaning pressure of the hand, said "good-bye," and ushered the fresh
visitor, who was busily turning a crimson silk handkerchief round a
painfully glossy hat, into the dining-room.
"Thankye," he said, sitting down, but jumping up again, and placing
another chair, "beg pardon, won't you sit down? I'm in no hurry if the
doctor's engaged."
He nervously seized a very thick gold chain, and dragged a great gold
watch from his pocket to consult.
"Eleven," he said; "thought I'd come and see him as I went into the
City. Nothing the matter, much, but it's as well to see your medical
man."
"I'll tell my father you are here, Mr Poynter."
"No, don't hurry. I'm very busy at my place, but plenty of time. How's
Hendon?"
"My brother is quite well."
"Is he, now? That's right. Fine thing, good health, ain't it?"
"Of course," said Richmond quietly.
"Yes, of course; so it is, Miss Chartley. Hendon always seems to be a
fine strong fellow. I always liked him since I met him at a fellow's
rooms. Not at home now?"
"Oh, no; he has gone on to the hospital."
"Ah, yes. Feel sometimes as if I should go to the hospital."
The visitor appeared to be a florid, strongly-built man, in the most
robust health, save that probably a love of too many of the good things
of this life had made its mark upon him.
"I will tell my father you are here," said Richmond again; and this time
she escaped from the room, to come suddenly upon Bob outside, striking
an attitude indictive of a determination to crush the glossy hat left
upon the table in the hall; and so sudden was Richmond's appearance that
the boy stood fast, as if struck with catalepsy, for a few seconds
before he bethought himself of a way out of his difficulty, when,
pretending to catch a fly which did not exist, he turned upon his heel,
and beat an ignominious retreat to the lower regions.
Dr Chartley's patient was no sooner left alone than he started up, and
began smoothing his short, carefully-parted hair, took off a second
glove to display half a dozen jewelled rings, and wetting fingers and
thumbs, he twirled the begummed points of his moustache, and fell into a
state of agitation about the cut of his ultra-fashionably made clothes.
He looked round in vain, for there was no looking-glass; still, he had
some satisfaction, for he was able to see that his tightly-fitting
patent-leather boots were spotless, and that the drab gaiters with pearl
buttons were exactly in their places; though the largely-checked
trousers he wore did give him trouble as to the exact direction the
outer seams should take, whilst his sealskin vest would look spotty in
certain lights.
He was in the act of re-smoothing his hair when Richmond returned, and,
hard City man as he was, he could not avoid an increase of depth in his
colour as he saw that the handsome woman before him was watching him
intently.
"My father will come to you directly, Mr Poynter," she said quietly.
"Oh, all right; but don't let me drive you away, Miss Chartley. I don't
see much society, and chat's pleasant sometimes, ain't it?"
"Of course," said Richmond quietly; "but I thought my brother said you
were fond of society."
"Fond of it? yes, of course," said Poynter hastily; and he smoothed his
double fringe over his forehead again, where the hairdresser had cut it
into a pattern which he had assured him was in the height of fashion,
but only with the result of making him look like butcher turned
betting-man. "Yes, fond of it," he said again, "and of course I can get
plenty with fellows, but--er--ladies' society is what I like."
James Poynter directed at Richmond a smiling leer, one which had proved
very successful at more than one metropolitan bar, where he had paved
the way for its success with gifts of flowers and a cheap ring or two;
but it was utterly lost here, for its intended recipient was looking
another way, and as it faded from its inventor's face there was a blank,
inane expression left, bordering upon the grotesque.
"You should go more into ladies' society, then, Mr Poynter, as soon as
your health permits," said Richmond, with provoking coolness.
"Oh, I'm not ill," he said hastily; and his forehead grew damp as he
floundered about, looking fishy now about the eyes and mouth, which
opened and shut at intervals, as if to give passage to words which never
came. "Felt I was--er--little out of sorts, you know, and thought I'd
see the doctor. Let's see, I said so before, didn't I?"
"Yes, I think you did, Mr Poynter. Here is my father."
There was a slight cough just then, the door opened, and the doctor
entered, his bland, aristocratic presence contrasting broadly with that
of his patient.
"Ah, Poynter," he said, "good-morning. Don't go, my dear; Mr Poynter
will come into my consulting-room, I daresay."
"Yes, of course," cried the patient, shaking hands, and forgetting to
leave off. "I shall--shall you?--good-morning, Miss Chartley."
He released the doctor's hand, to turn and shake Richmond's which he
pressed desperately, and then followed the bland, calm, stately doctor
out of the room, when he caught up his hat savagely and ground his teeth
in the dark passage.
"I feel just like a fool when I'm with her!" he said to himself. "I
never feel so anywhere else. And I ain't a fool. I should just like to
see the man who would say I was."
The doctor led the way through the glazed door into the dim surgery,
with its rows of bottles, and stoppered glass jars containing unpleasant
looking specimens preserved in spirits, all carefully labelled and
inscribed in the doctor's own neat hand, but grown yellow with time; and
as he closed the door after his patient, the latter's nostrils distended
slightly, and an air of disgust chased the inane look as he breathed the
unpleasant medicinal druggy air.
"I was just busy over my discovery," continued the doctor blandly, "and
I thought as a friend you would not mind coming here--it is the
consulting-room, my dear Poynter; and I could go on, and we could chat
over your ailment the while."
"Oh, it's all the same to me," said Poynter; and, once out of Richmond's
presence, he seemed another being. Instead of carrying his glossy hat
in his hand, he had resumed it, and wore it with a vulgar cock; he
walked with the swagger of the low-class City man; and his face shone as
he whisked out a second crimson silk handkerchief redolent of perfume,
and blew his nose with a loud blast, which sounded defiant.
"Here we are," said the doctor, smiling at his patient, as if after a
long search he had found the ill which troubled him, and pulled it up by
the roots. "Take that chair, my dear Poynter," he continued, pointing
to one by the fire, where a bright copper kettle was on the hob, and
closing the door, while his patient took off his hat, glanced round the
room, and blew the dust off the top of a side table before depositing
thereon his new head-covering.
There was a litter on the table, a chemist's set of weights and scales,
divers papers, a spatula, pestle and mortar of glass, toy-like in size,
and a book with memoranda, and pen and ink.
"Very busy, you see, Poynter; I've nearly completed my task, and in a
few months, perhaps weeks, the medical world will be startled by my
discovery."
"What are you going to do with it when you've done?"
"Do with it?"
"Yes. Now, if I was you, I should say to a friend, `Lend me a thou.,'
and then take a little shop, put it up in bottles, with three-halfpenny
stamps, and advertise it well as the new patent medicine."
"My dear Mr Poynter!"
"Hold hard, doctor, I haven't done," he cried, speaking in a hard,
browbeating manner, as if he were giving orders. "Give it a spanking
name, `Heal-all,' or `Cure all;' won't do to say Kill-all eh? Haw, haw,
haw!"
He burst into a coarse, loud laugh, and the doctor sank back in his
chair, with his brows twitching slightly.
"Hold hard, I have it. Nothing like a good name for the fools who
swallow everything. Get something out of one of your Greek and Latin
physic-books--one of those words like hippocaustus or allegorus, or
something they can't understand."
"I do not quite see the force of your argument, my dear Mr Poynter,"
said the doctor blandly.
"Not see? Why, man, it would be patent medicine then, and no one could
take it from you. Look at Hannodyne--good stuff, too, when you've got a
headache in the morning--Government stamp, to imitate which is forgery!"
"But still, I--"
"Don't see? Nonsense! Make a fortune. You want it. Patients pretty
scarce, eh?"
He laughed again offensively, and the doctor winced, but kept up his
bland smooth smile.
"And suppose I took your advice, my dear Poynter, where is the friend to
lend me a thousand pounds?"
"Ah! where's the friend!" said Poynter, with a meaning look. "P'r'aps I
know the friend, if things went as he wanted."
The doctor's face changed slightly, but his visitor was too obtuse to
see it.
"And would you suggest that I should--er--preside in the little shop and
sell the allegorus?"
"Ah, that ain't a bad name, is it?" said Poynter, giving his head a
shake in the stiff collar in which it rested as an egg does in a cup.
"No, not you; not businesslike enough. Make Hendon do that."
"Ah," said the doctor slowly, as he took up the bottle, removed the
stopper, and smelled the contents before moistening one finger and
tasting it.
"You'll end by poisoning yourself with that stuff, doctor," said
Poynter, chuckling.
"No," he said blandly, "no, my dear James Poynter, no; it is a
life-giver, not a destroyer. Now, if you were to take, say, twenty
drops in water--"
"With sugar?" said Poynter, grinning.
"Yes, with sugar, if you liked. There's no objection to flavouring the
vehicle--water."
"Vehicle--water? Why, I never heard of water being called a vehicle!
Thought vehicle meant a carriage or trap."
"In this case the water would be the vehicle, Poynter, and, as I was
saying, if you were to take twenty drops of this extract, or rather,
compound, you would feel as if a new lease of life were beginning--that
everything looked brighter; that nerve and muscle were being strung up;
your power of thought greater, and--try a little, my dear sir."
"No, thankye, doctor; but if you've got a drop of brandy in the place
and a bottle of soda, you may make it more than twenty drops of that."
"I have some brandy," said the doctor, rising, "but no soda-water. I
can mix you a little soda and tartaric acid, though, in a glass of
water, and it will have all the effect."
James Poynter showed his great white teeth in a broad grin, threw
himself back in the patients' chair, and unhooking his watch-chain,
began to swing round the big seal, pencil-case, and sovereign-purse
which hung at the end.
"No, thankye, doctor," he said. "Let's have the brandy-and-water, and
sugar purissima, as you folks call it now, and you can mix me up a tonic
and send it on."
"Certainly, my dear Poynter, certainly," said the doctor, going to a
closet, and taking out a spirit decanter, tumbler, and sugar, which he
placed upon the stained green-baize table-cover, smilingly looking on
afterwards with a little bright copper kettle in his hand as his visitor
poured out liberally into his glass.
"All right, eh, doctor?" said the young man, looking up in the bland,
smooth face, with a good many wrinkles about his right eye.
"I--er--do not understand you."
"Brandy all right? No pilly-coshy or anything of that sort in it? Fill
right up."
"No," said the doctor, smiling. "It's the best brandy, and I'll take a
little with you."
He filled up his guest's glass, and then smilingly took a second tumbler
from the cupboard, and mixed himself a draught.
"Yes, not bad brandy, doctor, but wants age," said Poynter, rinsing his
mouth with the hot spirit and water, as if he had been cleaning his
teeth. "Now, I have a few dozen of a fine old cognac in my cellar that
would give this fifty in a hundred, and lick it hollow."
Perhaps to be expressive, Mr James Poynter shuffled his shoulders
against the cushion of the chair and licked his lips, ending with a
fish-like smack.
"Let me send you a dozen, doctor."
"No, no, my dear sir. I did not know you were in the wine and spirit
trade."
"Stuff and nonsense!"
"And I could not afford--"
"Yah! Who asked you to? I meant as a present. Wine and spirit trade,
indeed! Hang it! Do I look like a publican?"
Dr Chartley told an abominable lie, for if ever man, from the crown of
his pomatumed head, down over his prominent nubbey forehead, small eyes,
prominent cheekbones, unpleasant nose, and heavy jaw, to the toes of his
boots, looked like a fast, race-attending licenced victualler, it was
James Poynter.