AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL.
Deborah and Amilly West were sitting over the fire In the growing dusk
of a February evening. Their sewing lay on the table; some home dresses
they were making for themselves, for they had never too much superfluous
cash for dressmakers, with fashionable patterns and fashionable prices.
It had grown too dark to work, and they had turned to the fire for a
chat, before the tea came in, and the gas was lighted.
"I tell you, Amilly, it is of no use playing at concealment, or trying
to suppress the truth," Deborah was saying. "She is as surely going as
that the other two went; as sure as sure can be. I have always felt that
she would go. Mr. Lionel was talking to me only yesterday. He was not
satisfied with his brother; at least, he thought it as well to act as
though he were not satisfied with him; and he was about to ask Dr.
Hayes----"
Her voice died away. Master Cheese had come in with a doleful face.
"Miss Deb, I'm sent up to Deerham Hall. There's a bothering note come
from Miss Hautley to Jan, about one of the servants, and he says I am to
go up and see what it is."
"Well?" returned Miss Deb, wondering why Master Cheese should come in to
give the information to her. "You couldn't expect Mr. Jan to go up,
after being out all day, as he has."
"Folks are sure to go and fall ill at the most untoward hour of the
twenty-four," grumbled Master Cheese. "I was just looking for a good
tea. I feel as empty as possible, after my short dinner. I wish----"
"Short dinner!" echoed Miss Deb, in amazement; at least, it would have
been in amazement, but that she was accustomed to these little episodes
from the young gentleman. "We had a beautiful piece of roast beef; and
I'm sure you ate as much as you chose!"
"There was no pudding or pie," resentfully retorted Master Cheese. "I
have felt all the afternoon just as if I should sink; and I couldn't get
out to buy anything for myself, because Jan never came in, and the boy
stopped out. I wish, Miss Deb, you'd give me a thick piece of
bread-and-jam, as I have to go off without my tea."
"The fact is, Master Cheese, you have the jam so often, in one way or
another, that there's very little left. It will not last the season
out."
"The green gooseberries'll be coming on, Miss Deb," was Master Cheese's
insinuating reply. "And there's always apples, you know. With plenty of
lemon and a clove or two, apples make as good a pudding as anything
else."
Miss Deb, always good-natured, went to get him what he had asked for,
and Master Cheese took his seat in front of the fire, and toasted his
toes.
"There was a great mistake made when you were put to a surgeon," said
Miss Amilly, laughing. "You should have gone apprentice to a
pastry-cook."
"She's a regular fidgety old woman, that Miss Hautley," broke out Master
Cheese with temper, passing over Miss Amilly's remark. "It's not two
months yet that she has been at the Hall, and she has had one or the
other of us up six times at least. I wonder what business she had to
come to it? The Hall wouldn't have run away before Sir Edmund could get
home."
Miss Deb came back with the bread-and-jam; a good thick slice, as the
gentleman had requested. To look at him eating, one would think he had
had nothing for a week. It disappeared in no time, and Master Cheese
went out sucking his fingers and his lips. Deborah West folded up the
work, and put things straight generally in the room. Then she sat down
again, drawing her chair to the side of the fire.
"I do think that Cheese has got a wolf inside him," cried Amilly, with a
laugh.
"He is a great gourmand. He said this morning----" began Miss Deb, and
then she stopped.
Finding what she was about to say thus brought to an abrupt conclusion,
Amilly West looked at her sister. Miss Deb's attention was riveted on
the room door. Her mouth was open, her eyes seemed starting from her
head with a fixed stare, and her countenance was growing white. Amilly
turned her eyes hastily to the same direction, and saw a dark, obscure
form filling up the doorway.
Not obscure for long. Amilly, more impulsive than her sister, rose up
with a shriek, and darted forward with outstretched arms of welcome;
Deborah followed, stretching out hers.
"My dear father!"
It was no other than Dr. West. He gave them each a cool kiss, walked to
the fire and sat down, bidding them not smother him. For some little
while they could not get over their surprise or believe their senses.
They knew nothing of his intention to return, and had deemed him
hundreds of miles away. Question after question they showered down upon
him, the result of their amazement. He answered just as much as he
chose. He had only come home for a day or so, he said, and did not care
that it should be known he was there, to be tormented with a shoal of
callers.
"Where's Mr. Jan?" asked he.
"In the surgery," said Deborah.
"Is he by himself?"
"Yes, dear papa. Master Cheese has just gone up to Deerham Hall, and the
boy is out."
Dr. West rose, and made his way to the surgery. The surgery was empty.
But the light of a fire from the half-opened door, led him to Jan's
bedroom. It was a room that would persist in remaining obstinately damp,
and Jan, albeit not over careful of himself, judged it well to have an
occasional fire lighted. The room, seen by this light, looked
comfortable. The small, low, iron bed stood in the far corner; in the
opposite corner the bureau, as in Dr. West's time, the door opening to
the garden (never used now) between them, at the end of the room. The
window was on the side opposite the fire, a table in the middle. Jan was
then occupied in stirring the fire into a blaze, and its cheerful light
flickered on every part of the room.
"Good-evening, Mr. Jan."
Jan turned round, poker in hand, and stared amiably. "Law!" cried he.
"Who'd have thought it?"
The old word; the word he had learned at school--law. It was Jan's
favourite mode of expressing surprise still, and Lady Verner never could
break him of it. He shook hands cordially with Dr. West.
The doctor shut the door, slipping the bolt, and sat down to the fire.
Jan cleared a space on the table, which was covered with jars and glass
vases, cylinders, and other apparatus, seemingly for chemical purposes,
and took his seat there.
The doctor had taken a run home, "making a morning call, as it might be
metaphorically observed," he said to Jan. Just to have a sight of home
faces, and hear a little home news. Would Mr. Jan recite to him somewhat
of the latter?
Jan did so; touching upon all he could recollect. From John
Massingbird's return to Verner's Pride, and the consequent turning out
of Mr. Verner and his wife, down to the death of Sir Rufus Hautley; not
forgetting the pranks played by the "ghost," and the foiled expedition
of Mrs. Peckaby to New Jerusalem. Some of these items of intelligence
the doctor had heard before, for Jan periodically wrote to him. The
doctor looked taller, and stouter, and redder than ever, and as he
leaned thoughtfully forward, and the crimson blaze played upon his face,
Jan thought how like he was growing to his sister, the late Mrs. Verner.
"Mr. Jan," said the doctor, "it is not right that my nephew, John
Massingbird, should enjoy Verner's Pride."
"Of course it's not," answered Jan. "Only things don't go by rights
always, you know. It's but seldom they do."
"He ought to give it up to Mr. Verner."
"So I told him," said Jan. "I should, in his place."
"What did he say?"
"Say? Laughed at me, and called me green."
Dr. West sat thoughtfully pulling his great dark whiskers. Dark as they
were, they had yet a tinge of red in the fire-light. "It was a curious
thing; a very curious thing, that both brothers should die, as was
supposed, in Australia," said he. "Better--as things have turned
out--that Fred should have turned up afterwards, than John."
"I don't know that," spoke Jan with his accustomed truth-telling
freedom. "The pair were not good for much, but John was the best of
them."
"I was thinking of Sibylla," candidly admitted the doctor. "It would
have been better for her."
Jan opened his eyes considerably.
"Better for her!--for it to turn out that she had two husbands living?
That's logic, that is."
"Dear me, to be sure!" cried the doctor. "I was not thinking of that
phase of the affair, Mr. Jan. Is she in spirits?"
"Who? Sibylla? She's fretting herself into her grave."
Dr. West turned his head with a start. "What at? The loss of Verner's
Pride?"
"Well, I don't know," said Jan, ever plain-spoken. "She puzzles me. When
she was at Verner's Pride, she never seemed satisfied. She was
perpetually hankering after excitement--didn't seem to care for Lionel,
or for anybody else, and kept the house full of people from top to
bottom. She has a restless, dissatisfied temper, and it keeps her on the
worry. Folks with such tempers know no peace, and let nobody else know
any that's about them. A nice life she leads Lionel! Not that _he'd_
drop a hint of it. He'd cut out his tongue before he'd speak a word
against his wife; he'd rather make her out to be an angel."
"Are they pretty comfortably off for money?" inquired Dr. West, after a
pause. "I suppose Mr. Verner must have managed to feather his nest a
little, before leaving?"
"Not a bit of it," returned Jan. "He was over head and ears in debt.
Sibylla helped him to a good portion of it. She went the pace. John
Massingbird waives the question of the mesne profits, or Lionel would be
in worse embarrassment than he is."
Dr. West looked crestfallen. "What do they live on?" he asked. "Does
Lady Verner keep them? She can't have too much for herself now."
"Oh! it's managed somehow," said Jan.
Dr. West sat for some time in ruminating silence; pulling his whiskers
as before, running his hands through his hair, the large clear blue
sapphire ring, which he always wore on his finger, conspicuous. Jan
swayed his legs about, and waited to afford any further information.
Presently the doctor turned to him, a charming expression of open
confidence on his countenance.
"Mr. Jan, I am in great hopes that you will do me a little favour. I
have temporary need of a trifle of pecuniary aid--some slight debts
which have grown upon me abroad," he added carelessly, with a short
cough--"and, knowing your good heart, I have resolved to apply to you.
If you can oblige me with a couple of hundred pounds or so, I'll give
you my acknowledgment, and return it punctually as soon as I am able."
"I'd let you have it with all the pleasure in life, if I had got it,"
heartily replied Jan; "but I have not."
"My dear Mr. Jan! Not got it! You must have quite a nice little nest of
savings laid by in the bank! I know you never spend a shilling on
yourself."
"All I had in the bank, and what I have drawn since, has been handed to
my mother. I wanted Lionel and Sibylla to come here: I and Miss Deb
arranged it all; and in that case I should have given the money to Miss
Deb. But Sibylla refused; she would not come here, she would not go
anywhere but to Lady Verner's. So I handed the money to my mother."
The confession appeared to put the doctor out considerably. "How very
imprudent, Mr. Jan! To give away all you possessed, leaving nothing for
yourself! I never heard of such a thing!"
"Lionel and his wife were turned out of everything, and had nobody to
look to. I don't see that I could have put the money to better use,"
stoutly returned Jan. "It was not much, there's such a lot of the Clay
Lane folks always wanting things when they are ill. And Miss Deb, she
had had something. You keep her so short, doctor."
"But you pay her the sum that was agreed upon for housekeeping?" said
Dr. West.
"What should hinder me?" returned Jan. "Of course I do. But she cannot
make both ends meet, she says, and then she has to come to me. _I_'m
willing: only I can't give money away and put it by, you see."
Dr. West probably did see it. He saw beyond doubt, that all hope of
ready money from easy Jan was gone--from the simple fact that Jan's
coffers were just now empty. The fact did not afford him satisfaction.
"I'll tell you what, Mr. Jan," said he, brightening up, "you shall give
me your signature to a little bill--a bill at two months, let us say. It
will be the same as money."
"Can't," said Jan.
"You _can't!_" replied Dr. West.
"No!" said Jan resolutely. "I'd give away all I had in hand to give, and
welcome; but I'd never sign bills. A doctor has no business with 'em.
Don't you remember what they did for Jones at Bartholomew's?"
"I don't remember Jones at Bartholomew's," frigidly returned the doctor.
"No! Why, what's gone with your memory?" innocently asked Jan. "If you
think a bit, you'll recollect about him, and what his end was. Bills
did it; the signing of bills to oblige some friend. I'll never sign a
bill, doctor. I wouldn't do it for my own mother."
Thus the doctor's expectations were put a final end to, so far as Jan
went--and very certain expectations they had, no doubt, been. As to Jan,
a thought may have crossed him that the doctor and his daughter Sibylla
appeared to have the same propensity for getting out of money. Dr. West
recovered his equanimity, and magnanimously waived the affair as a
trifle not worth dwelling on.
"How does Cheese get on?" he asked.
"First rate--in the eating line," replied Jan.
"Have you got him out of his idleness yet?"
"It would take a more clever man than I to do that, doctor. It's
constitutional. When he goes up to London, in the autumn, I shall take
an assistant: unless you should be coming home yourself."
"I have no intention of it at present, Mr. Jan. Am I to understand you
that Sibylla has serious symptoms of disease?"
"There's no doubt of it," said Jan. "You always prophesied it for her,
you know. When she was at Verner's Pride she was continually ailing: not
a week passed but I was called in to attend her. She was so imprudent
too--she _would_ be. Going out and getting her feet wet; sitting up half
the night. We tried to bring her to reason; but it was of no use. She
defied Lionel; she would not listen to me--as well speak to a post."
"Why should she defy her husband? Are they on bad terms?"
"They are on as good terms as any man and wife could be, Sibylla being
the wife," was Jan's rejoinder. "You know something of her temper and
disposition, doctor--it is of no use to mince matters--you remember how
it had used to be with her here at home. Lionel's a husband in a
thousand. How he can possibly put up with her, and be always patient and
kind, puzzles me more than any problem ever did in Euclid. If Fred had
lived--why, he'd have broken her spirit or her heart long before this."
Dr. West rose and stretched himself. The failings of Sibylla were not a
pleasant topic, thus openly mentioned by Jan; but none knew better than
the doctor how true were the grounds on which he spoke. None knew
better, either, that disease for her was to be feared.
"Her sisters went off about this age, or a little later," he said
musingly. "I could not save them."
"And Sibylla's as surely going after them, doctor, as that I am here,"
returned Jan. "Lionel intends to call in Dr. Hayes to her."
"Since when has she been so ill?"
"Not since any time in particular. There appears to be no real illness
yet--only symptoms. She coughs, and gets as thin as a skeleton.
Sometimes I think, if she could call up a cheerful temper, she'd keep
well. You will see what you think of her."
The doctor walked towards the bureau at the far corner. "Have you ever
opened it, Mr. Jan?"
"It's not likely," said Jan. "Didn't you tell me not to open it? Your
own papers are in it, and you hold the key."
"It's not inconvenient to your room, my retaining it I hope?" asked the
doctor. "I don't know where else I should put my papers."
"Not a bit of it," said Jan. "Have another in here as well, if you like.
It's safe here."
"Do you know, Mr. Jan, I feel as if I'd rather sleep in your little bed
to-night than indoors," said the doctor looking at Jan's bed. "The room
seems like an old friend to me: I feel at home in it."
"Sleep in it, if you like," returned Jan, in his easy good nature. "Miss
Deb can put me into some room or other. I say, doctor, it's past
tea-time. Wouldn't you like some refreshment?"
"I had a good dinner on my road," replied Dr. West; which Jan might have
guessed, for Dr. West was quite sure to take care of himself. "We will
go in, if you like; Deb and Amilly will wonder what has become of me.
How old they begin to look!"
"I don't suppose any of us look younger," answered Jan.
They went into the house. Deborah and Amilly were in a flutter of
hospitality, lading the tea-table with good things that it would have
gladdened Master Cheese's heart to see. They had been upstairs to smooth
out their curls, to put on clean white sleeves and collars, a gold
chain, and suchlike little additions, setting themselves off as they
were now setting off the tea-table, all in their affectionate welcome to
their father. And Dr. West, who liked eating as well as ever did Master
Cheese, surveyed the table with complacency as he sat down to it,
ignoring the dinner he had spoken of to Jan. Amilly sat by him, heaping
his plate with what he liked best, and Deborah made the tea.
"I have been observing to Mr. Jan that you are beginning to look very
old, Deb," remarked the doctor; "Amilly also."
It was a cruel shaft. A bitter return for their loving welcome. Perhaps
they _were_ looking older, but he need not have said it so point blank,
and before Jan. They turned crimson, poor ladies, and bent to sip their
tea, and tried to turn the words off with a laugh, and did not know
where to look. In true innate delicacy of feeling, Dr. West and his
daughter, Sibylla, rivalled each other.
The meal over, the doctor proposed to pay a visit to Deerham Court, and
did so, Jan walking with him, first of all mentioning to Deborah the
wish expressed by Dr. West as to occupying Jan's room for the night,
that she might see the arrangement carried out.
Which she did. And Jan, at the retiring hour--though this is a little
anticipating, for the evening is not yet over--escorted the doctor to
the door of the room, and wished him a good night's rest, never
imagining but that he enjoyed one. But had fire, or any other accident,
burst open the room to public gaze in the lone night hours, Dr. West
would have been seen at work, instead of asleep. Every drawer of the
bureau was out, every paper it contained was misplaced. The doctor was
evidently searching for something, as sedulously as he had once searched
for that lost prescription, which at the time appeared so much to
disturb his peace.