That very evening, Mrs. Dodd sent a servant into the town with a note
like a cocked-hat for Mr. Osmond, a consulting surgeon, who bore a
high reputation in Barkington. He came, and proved too plump for that
complete elegance she would have desired in a medical attendant; but
had a soft hand, a gentle touch, and a subdued manner. He spoke to the
patient with a kindness which won the mother directly; had every hope
of setting her right without any violent or disagreeable remedies; but,
when she had retired, altered his tone; and told Mrs. Dodd seriously she
had done well to send for him in time: it was a case of “Hyperaesthesia”
(Mrs. Dodd clasped her hands in alarm), “or as unprofessional persons
would say, 'excessive sensibility.'”
Mrs. Dodd was somewhat relieved. Translation blunts thunderbolts. She
told him she had always feared for her child on that score. But was
sensibility curable? Could a nature be changed?
He replied that the Idiosyncrasy could not; but its morbid excess could,
especially when taken in time. Advice was generally called in too late.
However, here the only serious symptom was the Insomnia. “We must treat
her for that,” said he, writing a prescription; “but for the rest,
active employment, long walks or rides, and a change of scene and
associations, will be all that will be required. In these cases,”
resumed Mr. Osmond, “connected as they are with Hyperaemia, some medical
men considered moderate venesection to be indicated.” He then put on his
gloves saying, “The diet, of course, must be Antiphlogistic. Let us say
then, for breakfast, dry toast with very little butter--no coffee--cocoa
(from the nibs), or weak tea: for luncheon, beef-tea or mutton-broth:
for dinner, a slice of roast chicken, and tapioca or semolina pudding.
I would give her one glass of sherry, but no more, and barley-water; it
would be as well to avoid brown meats, at all events for the present.
With these precautions, my dear madam, I think your anxiety will soon be
happily removed.”
Julia took her long walks and light diet; and became a little pale
at times, and had fewer bursts of high spirits in the intervals of
depression. Her mother went with her case to a female friend. The lady
said she would not trust to surgeons and apothecaries; she would have
a downright physician. “Why not go to the top of the tree at once, and
call in Dr. Short? You have heard of him?”
“Oh, yes; I have even met him in society; a most refined person: I
will certainly follow your advice and consult him. Oh, thank you, Mrs.
Bosanquet! _A propos,_ do you consider him skilful?
“Oh, immensely; he is a particular friend of my husband's.”
This was so convincing, that off went another three-cocked note, and
next day a dark-green carriage and pair dashed up to Mrs. Dodd's door,
and Dr. Short bent himself in an arc, got out, and slowly mounted
the stairs. He was six feet two, wonderfully thin, livid, and
gentleman-like. Fine homing head, keen eye, lantern jaws. At sight
of him Mrs. Dodd rose and smiled. Julia started and sat trembling.
He stepped across the room inaudibly, and after the usual civilities,
glanced at the patient's tongue, and touched her wrist delicately.
“Pulse is rapid,” said he.
Mrs. Dodd detailed the symptoms. Dr. Short listened within the patient
politeness of a gentleman, to whom all this was superfluous. He asked
for a sheet of note-paper, and divided it so gently, he seemed to be
persuading one thing to be two. He wrote a pair of prescriptions, and
whilst thus employed looked up every now and then and conversed with the
ladies.
“You have a slight subscapular affection, Miss Dodd: I mean, a little
pain under the shoulder-blade.”
“No, sir,” said Julia quietly.
Dr. Short looked a little surprised; his female patients rarely
contradicted him. Was it for them to disown things he was so a good as
to assign them?
“Ah!” said he, “you are not conscious of it: all the better; it must be
slight; a mere uneasiness: no more.” He then numbered the prescriptions,
1, 2, and advised Mrs. Dodd to drop No. 1 after the eighth day, and
substitute No. 2, to be continued until convalescence. He put on his
gloves to leave. Mrs. Dodd then, with some hesitation, asked him humbly
whether she might ask him what the disorder was. “Certainly, madam,”
said he graciously; “your daughter is labouring under a slight torpidity
of the liver. The first prescription is active, and is to clear the
gland itself, and the biliary ducts, of the excretory accumulation;
and the second is exhibited to promote a healthy normal habit in that
important part of the vascular system.”
“What, then, it is not Hyperaemia?”
“Hyperaemia? There is no such disorder in the books.”
“You surprise me,” said Mrs. Dodd. “Dr. Osmond certainly thought it was
Hyperaemia.” And she consulted her little ivory tablets, whereon she had
written the word.
But meantime, Dr. Short's mind, to judge by his countenance, was away
roaming distant space in search of Osmond.
“Osmond? Osmond? I do not know that name in medicine.”
“Oh, oh, oh!” cried Julia, “and they both live in the same street!” Mrs.
Dodd held up her finger to this outspoken patient.
But a light seemed to break in on Dr. Short. “Ah! you mean Mr. Osmond: a
surgeon. A very respectable man, a most respectable man. I do not know
a more estimable person--in his grade of the profession--than my good
friend Mr. Osmond. And so he gives opinions in medical cases, does he?”
Dr. Short paused, apparently to realise this phenomenon in the world of
Mind. He resumed in a different tone: “You may have misunderstood him.
Hyperaemia exists, of course; since he says so. But Hyperaemia is not
a complaint; it is a symptom. Of biliary derangement. My worthy friend
looks at disorders from a mental point; very natural: his interest lies
that way, perhaps you are aware: but profounder experience proves that
mental sanity is merely one of the results of bodily health: and I
am happy to assure you that, the biliary canal once cleared, and the
secretions restored to the healthy habit by these prescriptions,
the Hyperaemia, and other concomitants of hepatic derangement, will
disperse, and leave our interesting patient in the enjoyment of her
natural intelligence, her friends' affectionate admiration, and above
all, of a sound constitution. Ladies, I have the honour” and the Doctor
eked out this sentence by rising.
“Oh, thank you, Dr. Short,” said Mrs. Dodd, rising within him; “you
inspire me with confidence and gratitude.” As if under the influence of
these feelings only, she took Dr. Short's palm and pressed it. Of the
two hands, which met for a moment then, one was soft and melting, the
other a bunch of bones; but both were very white, and so equally
adroit, that a double fee passed without the possibility of a bystander
suspecting it.
For the benefit of all young virgins afflicted like Julia Dodd, here are
the Doctor's prescriptions:--
FOR MISS DODD.
Rx Pil: Hydrarg: Chlor: Co:
singuml: nocte sumend:
Decoc: Aloes Co: 3j
omni mane
viii. Sept. J. S.
-------
FOR MISS DODD.
Rx Conf: Sennae.
Potass: Bitartrat.
Extr: Tarax: a a 3ss
Misft: Elect:
Cujus sum: 3j omni mane.
xviii. Sept. J. S.
-------
Id: Anglie reddit: per me Carol: Arundin:
The same done into English by me. C. R.
FOR MISS DODD.
1. O Jupiter aid us!! Plummer's pill to be taken every night, 1 oz.
compound decoction of Aloes every morning.
8th Sept. J. S.
FOR MISS DODD.
2. O Jupiter aid us!! with Confection of Senna, Bitartrate of Potash,
extract of Dandelion, of each half an ounce, let an electuary be mixed;
of which let her take 1 drachm every morning.
18th Sept. J. S.
-------
“Quite the courtier,” said Mrs. Dodd, delighted. Julia assented: she
even added, with a listless yawn, “I had no idea that a skeleton was
such a gentlemanlike thing; I never saw one before.”
Mrs. Dodd admitted he was very thin.
“Oh no, mamma; 'thin' implies some little flesh. When he felt my pulse,
a chill struck to my heart. Death in a black suit seemed to steal up to
me, and lay a finger on my wrist: and mark me for his own.”
Mrs. Dodd forbade her to give way to such gloomy ideas; and expostulated
firmly with her for judging learned men by their bodies. “However,” said
she, “if the good, kind doctor's remedies do not answer his expectations
and mine, I shall take you to London directly. I do hope papa will soon
be at home.”
Poor Mrs. Dodd was herself slipping into a morbid state. A mother
collecting Doctors! It is a most fascinating kind of connoisseurship,
grows on one like Drink; like Polemics; like Melodrama; like the
Millennium; like any Thing.
Sure enough, the very next week she and Julia sat patiently at the
morning levee of an eminent and titled London surgeon. Full forty
patients were before them: so they had to wait and wait. At last they
were ushered into the presence-chamber, and Mrs. Dodd entered on the
beaten ground of her daughter's symptoms. The noble surgeon stopped her
civilly but promptly. “Auscultation will give us the clue,” said he,
and drew his stethoscope. Julia shrank and cast an appealing look at
her mother; but the impassive chevalier reported on each organ in turn
without moving his ear from the key-hole: “Lungs pretty sound,” said he,
a little plaintively: “so is the liver. Now for the----Hum? There is no
kardiac insufficiency, I think, neither mitral nor tricuspid. If we find
no tendency to hypertrophy we shall do very well. Ah! I have succeeded
in diagnosing a slight diastolic murmur; very slight.” He deposited the
instrument, and said, not without a certain shade of satisfaction that
his research had not been fruitless, “The heart is the peccant organ.”
“Oh, sir! is it serious?” said poor Mrs. Dodd.
“By no means. Try this” (he scratched a prescription which would not
have misbecome the tomb of Cheops), “and come again in a month.” Ting!
He struck a bell. That “ting” said, “Go, live, Guinea; and let another
come.”
“Heart-disease now!” said Mrs. Dodd, sinking back in her hired
carriage, and the tears were in her patient eyes.
“My own, own mamma,” said Julia earnestly, “do not distress yourself.
I have no disease in the world, but my old, old, old one, of being a
naughty, wayward girl. As for you, mamma, you have resigned your own
judgment to your inferiors, and that is both our misfortunes. Dear, dear
mamma, do take me to a doctress next time, if you have not had enough.”
“To a what, love?”
“A she-doctor, then.”
“A female physician, child? There is no such thing. No; assurance is
becoming a characteristic of our sex; but we have not yet intruded
ourselves into the learned professions, thank Heaven.”
“Excuse me, mamma, there are one or two; for the newspapers say so.”
“'Well, dear, there are none in this country, happily.”
“'What, not in London?”
“No.”
“Then what _is_ the use of such a great overgrown place, all smoke, if
there is nothing in it you cannot find in the country? Let us go back to
Barkington this very day, this minute, this instant; oh, pray, pray.”
“And so you shall--to-morrow. But you must pity your poor mother's
anxiety, and see Dr. Chalmers first.”
“Oh, mamma, not another surgeon! He frightened me; he hurt me. I never
heard of such a thing; oh, please not another surgeon.”
“It is not a surgeon, dear; it is the Court Physician.”
The Court Physician detected “a somewhat morbid condition of the great
nervous centres.” To an inquiry whether there was heart-disease, he
replied, “Pooh!” On being told Sir William had announced heart-disease,
he said, “Ah! _that alters the case entirely._” He maintained, however,
that it must be trifling, and would go no further, the nervous system
once restored to its healthy tone. “O Jupiter, aid us! Blue pill and
Seidhitz powder.”
Dr. Kenyon found the mucous membrane was irritated and required
soothing. “O Jupiter, &c.”
Mrs. Dodd returned home consoled and confused; Julia listless and
apathetic. Tea was ordered, with two or three kinds of bread, thinnest
slices of meat, and a little blane mange, &c., their favourite repast
after a journey; and whilst the tea was drawing, Mrs. Dodd looked over
the card-tray and enumerated the visitors that had called during
their absence. “Dr. Short-- Mr. Osmond--Mrs. Hetherington--Mr. Alfred
Hardie--Lady Dewry--Mrs. and Miss Bosanquet. What a pity Edward was not
at home, dear; Mr. Alfred Hardie's visit must have been to him.”
“Oh, of course, mamma.”
“A very manly young gentleman.”
“'Oh, yes. No. He is so rude.”
“Is he? Ah! he was ill just then, and pain irritates gentlemen; they are
not accustomed to it, poor Things.”
“That is like you, dear mamma; making excuses for one.” Julia added
faintly, “But he is so impetuous.”
“I have a daughter who reconciles me to impetuosity. And he _must_ have
a good heart, he was so kind to my boy.”
Julia looked down smiling; but presently seemed to be seized with a
spirit of contradiction: she began to pick poor Alfred to pieces; he was
this, that, and the other; and then so bold, she might say impudent.
Mrs. Dodd replied calmly that he was very kind to her boy.
“Oh, mamma, you cannot approve all the words he spoke.”
“It is not worth while to remember all the words young gentlemen speak
now-a-days. He was very kind to my boy, I remember that.”
The tea was now ready, and Mrs. Dodd sat down, and patted a chair, with
a smile of invitation for Julia to come and sit beside her. But Julia
said, “In one minute, dear,” and left the room.
When she came back, she fluttered up to her mother and kissed her
vehemently, then sat down radiant. “Ah!” said Mrs. Dodd, “why, you are
looking yourself once more. How do you feel now? Better?”
“How do I feel? Let me see: The world seems one e-nor-mous
flower-garden, and Me the butterfly it all belongs to.” She spake,
and to confirm her words the airy thing went waltzing, sailing, and
fluttering round the room, and sipping mamma every now and then on the
wing.
In this buoyancy she remained some twenty-four hours; and then came
clouds and chills, which, in their turn, gave way to exultation, duly
followed by depression. Her spirits were so uncertain, that things too
minute to justify narration turned the scale either way: a word from
Mrs. Dodd--a new face at St. Anne's Church looking devoutly her way--a
piece of town gossip distilled in her ear by Mrs. Maxley--and she was
sprightly or languid, and both more than reason.
One drizzly afternoon they were sitting silent and saddish in the
drawing-room, Mrs. Dodd correcting the mechanical errors in a drawing
of Julia's, and admiring the rare dash and figure, and Julia doggedly
studying Dr. Whately's Logic, with now and then a sigh, when suddenly a
trumpet seemed to articulate in the little hall: “Mestress Doedd at home?”
The lady rose from her seat, and said with a smile of pleasure, “I hear
a voice.”
The door opened, and in darted a grey-headed man, with handsome but
strongly marked features, laughing and shouting like a schoolboy broke
loose. He cried out, “Ah! I've found y' out at last.” Mrs. Dodd glided
to meet him, and put out both her hands, the palms downwards, with
the prettiest air of ladylike cordiality; he shook them heartily. “The
vagabins said y' had left the town; but y' had only flitted from the
quay to the subbubs; 'twas a pashint put me on the scint of ye. And how
are y' all these years? an' how's Sawmill?”
“Sawmill! What is that?”
“It's just your husband. Isn't his name Sawmill?”
“Dear no! Have you forgotten?--David.”
“Ou, ay. I knew it was some Scripcher Petrarch or another, Daavid, or
Naathan, or Sawmill. And how is he, and where is he?”
Mrs. Dodd replied that he was on the seas, but expect----
“Then I wish him well off 'em, confound 'em oncannall! Halloa! why, this
will be the little girl grown up int' a wumman while ye look round.”
“Yes, my good friend; and her mother's darling.”
“And she's a bonny lass, I can tell ye. But no freend to the Dockers, I
see.”
“Ah!” said Mrs. Dodd sadly, “looks are deceitful; she is under medical
advice at this very----”
“Well, that won't hurt her, unless she takes it.” And he burst into a
ringing laugh: but in the middle of it, stopped dead short, and his face
elongated. “Lord sake, mad'm,” said he impressively, “mind what y' are
at, though; Barkton's just a trap for fanciful femuls: there's a n'oily
ass called Osmond, and a canting cut-throat called Stephenson and a
genteel, cadaveris old assassin called Short, as long as a maypole;
they'd soon take the rose out of Miss Floree's cheek here. Why, they'd
starve Cupid, an' veneseck Venus, an' blister Pomonee, the vagabins.”
Mrs. Dodd looked a little confused, and exchanged speaking glances with
Julia. “However,” she said calmly, “I _have_ consulted Mr. Osmond and
Dr. Short; but have not relied on them alone. I have taken her to Sir
William Best. And to Dr. Chalmers. And to Dr. Kenyon.” And she felt
invulnerable behind her phalanx of learning and reputation.
“Good Hivens!” roared the visitor, “what a gauntlet o' gabies for one
girl to run; and come out alive! And the picter of health. My faith,
Miss Floree, y' are tougher than ye look.”
“My daughter's name is Julia,” observed Mrs. Dodd, a little haughtily;
but instantly recovering herself, she said, “This is Dr. Sampson,
love--an old friend of your mother's.”
“And th' Author an' Invintor of th' great Chronothairmal Therey o'
Midicine, th' Unity Perriodicity an' Remittency of all disease,” put in
the visitor, with such prodigious swiftness of elocution that the words
went tumbling over one another like railway carriages out on pleasure,
and the sentence was a pile of loud, indistinct syllables.
Julia's lovely eyes dilated at this clishmaclaver, and she bowed
coldly. Dr. Sampson had revealed in this short interview nearly all the
characteristics of voice, speech, and manner, she had been taught from
infancy to shun: boisterous, gesticulatory, idiomatic; and had taken
the discourse out of her mamma's mouth twice. Now Albion Villa was a Red
Indian hut in one respect: here nobody interrupted.
Mrs. Dodd had little personal egotism, but she had a mother's, and could
not spare this opportunity of adding another Doctor to her collection:
so she said hurriedly, “Will you permit me to show you what your learned
confreres have prescribed her?” Julia sighed aloud, and deprecated the
subject with earnest furtive signs; Mrs. Dodd would not see them. Now,
Dr. Sampson was himself afflicted with what I shall venture to call a
mental ailment; to wit, a furious intolerance of other men's opinions;
he had not even patience to hear them. “Mai--dear--mad'm,” said he
hastily, “when you've told me their names, that's enough. Short treats
her for liver, Sir William goes in for lung disease or heart, Chalmers
sis it's the nairves, and Kinyon the mookis membrin; and _I_ say they
are fools and lyres all four.”
“Julia!” ejaculated Mrs. Dodd, “this is very extraordinary.”
“No, it is not extraordinary,” cried Dr. Sampson defiantly; “nothing is
extraordinary. D'ye think I've known these shallow men thirty years, and
not plumbed 'um?”
“Shallow, my good friend? Excuse me! they are the ablest men in your own
branch of your own learned profession.”
“Th' ablest! Oh, you mean the money-makingest: now listen me! our
lairned Profession is a rascally one. It is like a barrel of beer. What
rises to the top?” Here he paused for a moment, then answered himself
furiously, “THE SCUM.”
This blast blown, he moderated a little. “Look see!” said he, “up to
three or four thousand a year, a Docker is often an honest man, and
sometimes knows something of midicine; not much, because it is not
taught anywhere. But if he is making over five thousand, he must be
a rogue or else a fool: either he has booed an' booed, an' cript
an' crawled, int' wholesale collusion with th' apothecary an' the
accoucheur--the two jockeys that drive John Bull's faemily coach--and
they are sucking the pashint togither, like a leash o' leeches: or else
he has turned spicialist; has tacked his name to some poplar disorder,
real or imaginary; it needn't exist to be poplar. Now, those four you
have been to are spicialists, and that means monomaniues--their buddies
exspatiate in West-ind squares, but their souls dwell in a n'alley,
ivery man jack of 'em: Aberford's in Stomich Alley, Chalmers's in Nairve
Court, Short's niver stirs out o' Liver Lane, Paul's is stuck fast in
Kidney Close, Kinyon's in Mookis Membrin Mews, and Hibbard's in Lung
Passage. Look see! nixt time y' are out of sorts, stid o' consultin'
three bats an' a n'owl at a guinea the piece, send direct to me, and
I'll give y' all their opinions, and all their prescriptions, _gratis._
And deevilich dear ye'll find 'em at the price, if ye swallow 'm.”
Mrs. Dodd thanked him coldly for the offer, but said she would be more
grateful if he would show his superiority to persons of known ability by
just curing her daughter on the spot.
“Well, I will,” said he carelessly: and all his fire died out of him.
“Put out your tongue!--Now your pulse!”
Mrs. Dodd knew her man (ladies are very apt to fathom their male
acquaintance--too apt, _I_ think); and, to pin him to the only medical
theme which interested her, seized the opportunity while he was in
actual contact with Julia's wrist, and rapidly enumerated her symptoms,
and also told him what Mr. Osmond had said about Hyperaesthesia.
“GOOSE GREECE!” barked Sampson, loud, clear, and sharp as an irritated
watch-dog; but this one bow-wow vented, he was silent as abruptly.
Mrs. Dodd smiled, and proceeded to Hyperaemia, and thence to the
Antiphlogistic Regimen.
At that unhappy adjective, Sampson jumped up, cast away his patient's
hand, forgot her existence--she was but a charming individual--and
galloped into his native region, Generalities.
“Antiphlogistic! Mai--dear--mad'm, that one long fragmint of ass's jaw
has slain a million. Adapted to the weakness of human nature, which
receives with rivirince ideas however childish, that come draped in
long-tailed and exotic words, that aasimine polysyllable has riconciled
the modern mind to the chimeras of th' ancients, and outbutchered the
guillotine, the musket, and the sword: ay, and but for me
Had barred the door
For cinturies more
on the great coming sceince, the sceince of healing diseases, instead
of defining and dividing 'em and lengthening their names and their
durashin, and shortening nothing but the pashint. Th' Antiphlogistic
Therey is this: That disease is fiery, and that any artificial
exhaustion of vital force must cool the system, and reduce the morbid
fire, called, in their donkey Latin 'flamma,' and in their compound
donkey Latin 'inflammation,' and in their Goose Greece, 'phlogosis,'
'phlegmon,' &c. And accordingly th' Antiphlogistic Practice is, to cool
the sick man by bleeding him, and, when blid, either to rebleed him with
a change of instrument, bites and stabs instid of gashes, or else
to rake the blid, and then blister the blid and raked, and then push
mercury till the teeth of the blid, raked, and blistered shake in their
sockets, and to starve the blid, purged, salivated, blistered wretch
from first to last. This is the Antiphlogistic system. It is seldom
carried out entire, because the pashint, at the first or second link
in their rimedial chain, expires; or else gives such plain signs of
sinking, that even these ass-ass-ins take fright, and try t' undo their
own work, not disease's, by tonics an' turtle, and stimulants: which
things given at the right time instead of the wrong, given when the
pashint was merely weakened by his disorder, and not enfeebled by their
didly rinmedies, would have cut th' ailment down in a few hours.”
“Dear me,” said Mrs. Dodd; “and now, my good friend, with respect to _my
daughter_----
“N' list _me!_” clashed Sampson; “ye're goen to fathom th'
antiphlogistics, since they still survive an' slay in holes and corners
like Barkton and d'Itly; I've driven the vamperes out o' the cintres o'
civilisation. Begin with their coolers! Exhaustion is not a cooler, it
is a feverer, and they know it; the way parrots know sentences. Why are
we all more or less feverish at night? Because we are weaker. Starvation
is no cooler, it is an inflamer, and they know it--as parrots know
truths, but can't apply them: for they know that burning fever rages in
ivery town, street, camp, where Famine is. As for blood-letting, their
prime cooler, it is inflammatory; and they know it (parrot-wise), for
the thumping heart and bounding pulse of pashints blid by butchers in
black, and bullocks blid by butchers in blue, prove it; and they have
recorded this in all their books: yet stabbed, and bit, and starved, and
mercuried, and murdered on. But mind ye, all their sham coolers are real
weakeners (I wonder they didn't inventory Satin and his brimstin lake
among their refrijrators), and this is the point whence t' appreciate
their imbecility, and the sairvice I have rendered mankind in been the
first t' attack their banded school, at a time it seemed imprignable.”
“Ah! this promises to be very interesting,” sighed Mrs. Dodd; “and
before you enter on so large a field, perhaps it would be as well to
dispose of a little matter which lies at my heart. Here is _my poor
daughter_----”
“NLISSMEE! A human Bean is in a constant state of flux and reflux; his
component particles move, change, disappear, and are renewed; his life
is a round of exhaustion and repair. Of this repair the brain is
the sovereign ajint by night and day, and the blood the great living
material, and digestible food th' indispensible supply. And this balance
of exhaustion and repair is too nice to tamper with: disn't a single
sleepless night, or dinnerless day, write some pallor on the face,
and tell against the buddy? So does a single excessive perspiration, a
trifling diary, or a cut finger, though it takes but half an ounce of
blood out of the system. And what is the cause of that rare ivint--which
occurs only to pashmints that can't afford docking--Dith from old age?
Think ye the man really succumms under years, or is mowed down by Time?
Nay, yon's just Potry an' Bosh. Nashins have been thinned by the lancet,
but niver by the scythe; and years are not forces, but misures of
events. No, Centenarius decays and dies bekase his bodil' expindituire
goes on, and his bodil' income falls off by failure of the reparative
and reproductive forces. And now suppose bodil' exhaustion and repair
were a mere matter of pecuniary, instead of vital, economy: what would
you say to the steward or housekeeper, who, to balance your accounts and
keep you solvent, should open every known channel of expinse with one
hand, and with the other--stop the supplies? Yet this is how the Dockers
for thirty cinturies have burned th' human candle at both ends, yet
wondered the light of life expired under their hands.”
“It seems irrational. Then in _my daughter's_ case you would----”
“Looksee! A pashint falls sick. What haps directly? Why the balance is
troubled, and exhaustion exceeds repair. For proof obsairve the buddy
when Disease is fresh!
And you will always find a loss of flesh
to put it economikly, and then you must understand it, bein a
housekeeper--
Whativer the Disease, its form or essence,
Expinditure goes on, and income lessens.
But to this sick and therefore weak man, comes a Docker purblind with
cinturies of Cant, Pricidint, Blood, and Goose Greece; imagines him
a fiery pervalid, though the common sense of mankind through its
interpreter common language, pronounces him an 'invalid,' gashes him
with a lancet, spills out the great liquid material of all repair by the
gallon, and fells this weak man, wounded now, and pale, and fainting,
with Dith stamped on his face, to th' earth, like a bayoneted soldier or
a slaughtered ox. If the weak man, wounded thus, and weakened, survives,
then the chartered Thugs who have drained him by the bung-hole, turn to
and drain him by the spigot; they blister him, and then calomel him:
and lest Nature should have the ghost of a chance to conterbalance these
frightful outgoings, they keep strong meat and drink out of his
system emptied by their stabs, bites, purges, mercury, and blisters;
damdijjits! And that, Asia excipted, was profissional Midicine from
Hippocrates to Sampsin. Antiphlogistic is but a modern name for an
ass-ass-inating rouutine which has niver varied a hair since scholastic
midicine, the silliest and didliest of all the hundred forms of
Quackery, first rose--unlike Seeince, Art, Religion, and all true
Suns--in the West; to wound the sick; to weaken the weak; and mutilate
the hurt; and thin mankind.”
The voluble impugner of his own profession delivered these two last
words in thunder so sudden and effective as to strike Julia's work out
of her hands. But here, as in Nature, a moment's pause followed the
thunderclap; so Mrs. Dodd, who had long been patiently watching
her opportunity, smothered a shriek, and edged in a word: “This is
irresistible; you have confuted everybody, to their heart's content; and
now the question is, what course shall we substitute?” She meant, “in
the great case, which occupies me.” But Sampson attached a nobler,
wider, sense to her query. “What course? Why the great Chronothairmal
practice, based on the remittent and febrile character of all disease;
above all, on
The law of Perriodicity, a law
Midicine yet has wells of light to draw.
By Remittency, I mean th' ebb of Disease, by Perriodicity, th' ebb and
also the flow, the paroxysm and the remission. These remit and recur,
and keep tune like the tides, not in ague and remittent fever only, as
the Profission imagines to this day, but in all diseases from a Scirrhus
in the Pylorus t' a toothache. And I discovered this, and the new path
to cure of all diseases it opens. Alone I did it; and what my reward?
Hooted, insulted, belied, and called a quack by the banded school
of profissional assassins, who, in their day hooted Harvey and
Jinner--authors too of great discoveries, but discoveries narrow in
their consequences compared with mine. T' appreciate Chronothairmalism,
ye must begin at the beginning; so just answer me--What is man?”
At this huge inquiry whirring tip all in a moment, like a cock-pheasant
in a wood, Mrs. Dodd sank back in her chair despondent. Seeing her _hors
de combat,_ Sampson turned to Julia and demanded, twice as loud, “WHAT
IS MAN?” Julia opened two violet eyes at him, and then looked at her
mother for a hint how to proceed.
“How can that child answer such a question?” sighed Mrs. Dodd. “Let us
return to the point.”
“I have never strayed an inch from it. It's about 'Young Physic.'”
“No, excuse me, it is about a young lady. Universal Medicine: what have
I to do with that?”
“Now this is the way with them all,” cried Sampson, furious; “there
lowed John Bull. The men and women of this benighted nashin have an
ear for anything, provided it matters nothing: talk Jology, Conchology,
Entomology, Theology, Meteorology, Astronomy, Deuteronomy, Botheronomy,
or Boshology, and one is listened to with rivirence, because these are
all far-off things in fogs; but at a word about the great, near,
useful art of Healing, y'all stop your ears; for why? your life and
dailianhourly happiness depend on it. But 'no,' sis John Bull, the
knowledge of our own buddies, and how to save our own Bakin--Beef I
mean--day by day, from disease and chartered ass-ass-ins, all that may
interest the thinkers in Saturn, but what the deevil is it t' _us?_ Talk
t' _us_ of the hiv'nly buddies, not of our own; babble o' comets an'
meteors an' Ethereal nibulae (never mind the nibulae in our own skulls).
Discourse t' us of Predistinashin, Spitzbairgen seaweed, the last novel,
the siventh vile; of Chrisehinising the Patagonians on condition they
are not to come here and Chrischinise the Whitechapelians; of the
letter to the _Times_ from the tinker wrecked at Timbuctoo; and the dear
Professor's lecture on the probabeelity of snail-shells in the backyard
of the moon: but don't ask us to know ourselves--Ijjits!!”
The eloquent speaker, depressed by the perversity of Englishmen in
giving their minds to every part of creation but their bodies, suffered
a momentary loss of energy; then Mrs. Dodd, who had long been watching
lynx-like, glided in. “Let us compound. You are for curing all the
world, beginning with Nobody. My ambition is to cure _my girl,_ and
leave mankind in peace. Now, if you will begin with _my Julia,_ I will
submit to rectify the universe in its proper turn. Any time will do to
set the human race right; you own it is in no hurry: but _my child's_
case presses; so do pray cure her for me. Or at least tell me what her
Indisposition is.”
“Oh! What! didn't I tell you? Well, there's nothing the matter with
her.”
At receiving this cavalier reply for the reward of all her patience,
Mrs. Dodd was so hurt, and so nearly angry, that she rose with dignity
from her seat, her cheek actually pink, and the water in her eyes.
Sampson saw she was ruffled, and appealed to Julia--of all people.
“There now, Miss Julia,” said he, ruefully; “she is in a rage because I
won't humbug her. Poplus voolt decipee. I tell you, ma'am, it is not a
midical case. Give me disease and I'll cure 't. Stop, I'll tell ye
what do: let her take and swallow the Barkton Docks' prescriptions,
and Butcher Best's, and canting Kinyon's, and after those four tinkers
there'll be plenty holes to mend; then send for me!”
Here was irony. Mrs. Dodd retorted by _finesse._ She turned on him with
a treacherous smile, and said: “Never mind doctors and patients; it is
so long since we met; I do hope you will waive ceremony, and dine with
me _en ami._”
He accepted with pleasure; but must return to his inn first and get rid
of his dirty boots and pashints. And with this he whipped out his watch,
and saw that, dealing with universal medicine, he had disappointed more
than one sick individual; so shot out as hard as he had shot in, and
left the ladies looking at one another after the phenomenon.
“Well?” said Julia, with a world of meaning.
“Yes, dear,” replied Mrs. Dodd, “he _is_ a little eccentric. I think I
will request them to make some addition to the dinner.”
“No, mamma, if you please, not to put me off so transparently. If I had
interrupted, and shouted, and behaved so, you would have packed _me_ off
to bed, or somewhere, directly.”
“Don't say 'packed,' love. Dismissed me to bed.”
“Ah!” cried Julia, “that privileged person is gone, and we must all mind
our P's and Q's once more.”
Mrs. Dodd, with an air of nonchalance, replied to the effect that Dr.
Sampson was not her offspring, and so she was not bound to correct his
eccentricities. “And I suppose,” said she, languidly, “we must accept
these extraordinary people as we find them. But that is no reason why
_you_ should say 'P's and Q's,' darling.”
That day her hospitable board was spread over a trap. Blessed with an
oracle irrelevantly fluent, and dumb to the point, she had asked him to
dinner with maternal address. He could not be on his guard eternally;
sooner or later, through inadvertence, or in a moment of convivial
recklessness, or in a parenthesis of some grand Generality, he would
cure her child: or, perhaps, at his rate of talking, would wear out
all his idle themes, down to the very “well-being of mankind;” and them
Julia's mysterious indisposition would come on the blank tapis. With
these secret hopes she presided at the feast, all grace and gentle
amity. Julia, too, sat down with a little design, but a very different
one, viz., of being chilly company; for she disliked this new
acquaintance, and hated the science of medicine.
The unconscious Object chatted away with both, and cut their replies
very short, and did strange things: sent away Julia's chicken,
regardless of her scorn, and prescribed mutton; called for champagne and
made her drink it and pout; and thus excited Mrs. Dodd's hopes that he
was attending to the case by degrees.
But after dinner, Julia, to escape medicine universal and particular,
turned to her mother, and dilated on treachery of her literary guide,
the _Criticaster._ “It said 'Odds and Ends' was a good novel to read by
the seaside. So I thought then oh! how different it must be from most
books, if you can sit by the glorious sea and even look at it. So I sent
for it directly, and, would you believe, it was an ignoble thing; all
flirtations and curates. The sea indeed! A pond would be fitter to read
it by; and one with a good many geese on.”
“Was ever such simplicity!” said Mrs. Dodd. “Why, my dear, that phrase
about the sea does not _mean_ anything. I shall have you believing that
Mr. So-and-So, a novelist, can _'wither fashionable folly,'_ and that
_'a painful incident'_ to one shopkeeper has _'thrown a gloom'_ over a
whole market-town, and so on. Now-a-days every third phrase is of this
character; a starling's note. Once, it appears, there was an age of
gold, and then came one of iron, and then of brass. All these are gone,
and the age of 'jargon' has succeeded.”
She sighed, and Sampson generalised; he plunged from the seaside novel
into the sea of fiction. He rechristened that joyous art Feckshin, and
lashed its living professors. “You devour their three volumes greedily,”
said he, “but after your meal you feel as empty as a drum; there is
no leading idea in 'um; now there always is--in Moliere; and _he_
comprehended the midicine of his age. But what fundamental truth
d'our novelists iver convey? All they can do is pile incidents. Their
customers dictate th' article: unideaed melodrams for unideaed girls.
The writers and their feckshins belong to one species, and that's 'the
non-vertebrated animals;' and their midicine is Bosh; why, they bleed
still for falls and fevers; and niver mention vital chronometry. Then
they don't look straight at Nature, but see with their ears, and repeat
one another twelve deep. Now, listen me! there are the cracters for an
'ideaed feckshin' in Barkington, and I'd write it, too, only I haven't
time.”
At this, Julia, forgetting her resolution, broke out, “Romantic
characters in Barkington? Who? who?”
“Who _should_ they be, but my pashints? Ay, ye may lauch, Miss Julee,
but wait till ye see them.” He was then seized with a fit of candour,
and admitted that some, even of his pashints, were colourless; indeed,
not to mince the matter, six or seven of that sacred band were nullity
in person. “I can compare the beggars to nothing,” said he, “but the
globules of the Do-Nothings; dee----d insipid, and nothing in 'em. But
the others make up. Man alive, I've got 'a rosy-cheeked miser,' and an
'ill-used attorney,' and an 'honest Screw'--he is a gardener, with a
head like a cart-horse.”
“Mamma! mamma! that is Mr. Maxley,” cried Julia, clapping her hands, and
thawing in her own despite.
“Then there's my virgin martyr and my puppy. They are brother and
sister; and there's their father, but he is an impenetrable dog--won't
unbosom. Howiver, he sairves to draw chicks for the other two, and so
keep 'em goen. By-the-bye, you know my puppy?”
“We have not that honour. Do we know Dr. Sampson's puppy, love?”
inquired Mrs. Dodd, rather languidly.
“Mamma!--I--I--know no one of that name.”
“Don't tell me! Why it was he sent me here told me where you lived, and
I was to make haste, for Miss Dodd was very ill: it is young Hardie, the
banker's son, ye know.”
Mrs. Dodd said good-humouredly, but with a very slight touch of irony,
that really they were very much flattered by the interest Mr. Alfred
Hardie had shown; especially as her daughter had never exchanged ten
words with him. Julia coloured at this statement, the accuracy of which
she had good reason to doubt; and the poor girl felt as if an icicle
passed swiftly along her back. And then, for the first the in her life,
she thought her mother hardly gracious; and she wanted to say _she_ was
obliged to Mr. Alfred Hardie, but dared not, and despised herself for
not daring. Her composure was further attacked by Mrs. Dodd looking full
at her, and saying interrogatively, “I wonder how that young gentleman
could know about your being ill?”
At this Julia eyed her plate very attentively, and murmured, “I believe
it is all over the town: and seriously too; so Mrs. Maxley says, for she
tells me that in Barkington if more than one doctor is sent for, that
bodes ill for the patient.”
“Deevelich ill,” cried Sampson heartily.
“For two physicians, like a pair of oars,
Conduck him faster to the Styjjin shores.” *
* Garth.
Julia looked him in the face, and coldly ignored this perversion of Mrs.
Maxley's meaning; and Mrs. Dodd returned pertinaciously to the previous
topic. “Mr. Alfred Hardie interests me; he was good to Edward. I am
curious to know why you call him a puppy?”
“Only because he is one, ma'am. And that is no reason at all with 'the
Six.' He is a juveneel pidant and a puppy, and contradicts ivery new
truth, bekase it isn't in Aristotle and th' Eton Grammar; and he's
such a chatterbox, ye can't get in a word idgeways; and he and his
sister--that's my virgin martyr--are a farce. _He_ keeps sneerin' at
her relijjin, and that puts _her_ in such a rage, she threatens 't'
intercede for him at the throne.”
“Jargon,” sighed Mrs. Dodd, and just shrugged her lovely shoulders. “We
breathe it--we float in an atmosphere of it. My love?” And she floated
out of the room, and Julia floated after.
Sampson sat meditating on the gullibility of man in matters medical.
This favourite speculation detained him late, and almost his first word
on entering the drawing-room was, “Good night, little girl.”
Julia coloured at this broad hint, drew herself up, and lighted a
bedcandle. She went to Mrs. Dodd, kissed her, and whispered in her ear,
“I hate him!” and, as she retired, her whole elegant person launched
ladylike defiance; under which brave exterior no little uneasiness was
hidden. “Oh, what will become of me!” thought she, “if _he_ has gone and
told him about Henley?”
“Let's see the prescriptions, ma'am,” said Dr. Sampson.
Delighted at this concession, Mrs. Dodd took them out of her desk and
spread them earnestly. He ran his eye over them, and pointed out that
the mucous-membrane man and the nerve man had prescribed the same
medicine, on irreconcilable grounds; and a medicine, moreover, whose
effect on the nerves was _nil,_ and on the mucous membrane was not
to soothe it, but plough it and harrow it; “and did not that open her
eyes?” He then reminded her that all these doctors in consultation would
have contrived to agree. “But you,” said he, “have baffled the collusive
hoax by which Dox arrived at a sham uniformity--honest uniformity can
never exist till scientific principles obtain. Listme! To begin, is the
pashint in love?”
The doctor put this query in just the same tone in which they inquire
“Any expectoration?” But Mrs. Dodd, in reply, was less dry and
business-like. She started and looked aghast. This possibility had once,
for a moment, occurred to her, but only to be rejected, the evidence
being all against it.
“In love?” said she. “That child, and I not know it!”
He said he had never supposed that. “But I thought I'd just ask ye;
for she has no bodily ailment, and the passions are all counterfeit
diseases; they are connected, like all diseases, with cerebral
instability, have their hearts and chills like all diseases, and their
paroxysms and remissions like all diseases. Nlistme! You have detected
the signs of a slight cerebral instability; I have ascertained th'
absence of all physical cause: then why make this healthy pashint's
buddy a test-tube for poisons? Sovereign drugs (I deal with no other,
I leave the nullities to the noodles) are either counterpoisons or
poisons, and here there is nothing to counterpoison at prisent. So I'm
for caushin, and working on the safe side th' hidge, till we are less in
the dark. Mind ye, young women at her age are kittle cattle; they have
gusts o' this, and gusts o' that, th' unreasonable imps. D'ye see these
two pieces pasteboard? They are tickets for a ball,
In Barkton town-hall.”
“Yes, of course I see them,” said Mrs. Dodd dolefully.
“Well, I prescribe 'em. And when they have been taken,
And the pashint well shaken,
perhaps we shall see whether we are on the right system: and if
so, we'll dose her with youthful society in a more irrashinal form;
conversaziones, cookeyshines, et citera. And if we find ourselves on the
wrong _tack_ why then we'll hark _back._
Stick blindly to 'a course,' the Dockers cry.
But it does me harm: _Then_ 'twill do good _by-and-bye._
Where lairned ye that, Echoes of Echoes, say!
The killer ploughs 'a course,' the healer _'feels his way.'_”
So mysterious are the operations of the human mind, that, when we have
exploded in verse tuneful as the above, we lapse into triumph instead of
penitence. Not that doggrel meets with reverence here below--the statues
to it are few, and not in marble, but in the material itself--But then
an Impromptu! A moment ago our Posy was not: and now is; with the speed,
if not the brilliancy, of lightning, we have added a handful to the
intellectual dust-heap of an oppressed nation. From this bad eminence
Sampson then looked down complacently, and saw Mrs. Dodd's face as long
as his arm. She was one that held current opinions; and the world does
not believe Poetry can sing the Practical. Verse and useful knowledge
pass for incompatibles; and, though Doggrel is not Poetry, yet it has a
lumbering proclivity that way, and so forfeits the confidence of
grave sensible people. This versification, and this impalpable and
unprecedented prescription she had waited for so long, seemed all of
a piece to poor mamma: wild, unpractical, and--“oh, horror!
horror!”--eccentric.
Sampson read her sorrowful face after his fashion. “Oh, I see, ma'am,”
cried he. “Cure is not welcome unless it comes in the form consecrated
by cinturies of slaughter. Well, then, give me a sheet.” He took the
paper and rent it asunder, and wrote this on the larger fragment:
Rx Die Mercur. circa x. hor: vespert:
eat in musca ad Aulam oppid:
Saltet cum xiii canicul:
praesertim meo. Dom: reddita,
6 hora matutin: dormiat at prand:
Repetat stultit: pro re nata.
He handed this with a sort of spiteful twinkle to Mrs. Dodd, and her
countenance lightened again. Her sex will generally compound with
whoever can give as well as take. Now she had extracted a real, grave
prescription, she acquiesced in the ball, though not a county one; “to
satisfy your whim, my good, kind friend, to whom I owe so much.”
Sampson called on his way back to town, and, in course of conversation,
praised nature for her beautiful instincts, one of which, he said,
had inspired Miss Julee, at a credulous age, not to swallow “the didly
drastics of the tinkering dox.”
Mrs. Dodd smiled, and requested permission to contradict him; her
daughter had taken the several prescriptions.
Sampson inquired brusquely if she took him for a fool.
She replied calmly: “No; for a very clever, but _rather_ opinionated
personage.
“Opinionated? So is ivery man who has grounnds for his opinin. D'ye
think, because Dockers Short, an' Bist, an' Kinyon, an' Cuckoo, an'
Jackdaw, an' Starling, an' Co., don't know the dire effecks of calomel
an' drastics on the buddy, I don't know't? Her eye, her tongue, her
skin, her voice, her elastic walk, all tell _me_ she has not been robbed
of her vital resources. 'Why, if she had taken that genteel old thief
Short's rimidies alone, the girl's gums would be sore,
And herself at Dith's door.”
Mrs. Dodd was amused. “Julia, this is so like the gentlemen; they are in
love with argumeunt. They go on till they reason themselves out of their
reason. Why beat about the bush; when there she sits?”
“What, go t' a wumman for the truth, when I can go t' infallible
Inference?”
“You may always go to my David's daughter for the truth,” said Mrs.
Dodd, with dignity. She then looked the inquiry; and Julia replied to
her look as follows: first, she coloured very high; then, she hid her
face in both her hands; then rose, and turning her neck swiftly, darted
a glance of fiery indignation and bitter reproach on Dr. Meddlesome, and
left the apartment mighty stag-like.
“Maircy on us!” cried Sampson. “Did ye see that, ma'am? Yon's just a
bonny basilisk. Another such thunderbolt as she dispinsed, and ye'll be
ringing for your maid to sweep up the good physician's ashes.”
Julia did not return till the good physician was gone back to London.
Then she came in with a rush, and, demonstrative toad, embraced Mrs.
Dodd's knees, and owned she had cultivated her geraniums with all those
medicines, liquid and solid; and only one geranium had died.
There is a fascinating age, when an intelligent girl is said to
fluctuate between childhood and womanhood. Let me add that these seeming
fluctuations depend much on the company she is in: the budding virgin
is princess of chameleons; and, to confine ourselves to her two most
piquant contrasts, by her mother's side she is always more or less
childlike; but, let a nice young fellow engage her apart, and, hey
presto! she shall be every inch a woman: perhaps at no period of her
life are the purely mental characteristics of her sex so supreme in
her; thus her type, the rosebud, excels in essence of rosehood the rose
itself.
My reader has seen Julia Dodd play both parts; but it is her child's
face she has now been turning for several pages; so it may be prudent to
remind him she has shone on Alfred Hardie in but one light; a young but
Juno-like woman. Had she shown “my puppy” her childish qualities,
he would have despised her--he had left that department himself so
recently. But Nature guarded the budding fair from such a disaster.
We left Alfred Hardie standing in the moonlight gazing at her lodging.
This was sudden; but, let slow coaches deny it as loudly as they like,
fast coaches exist; and Love is a Passion, which, like Hate, Envy,
Avarice, &c., has risen to a great height in a single day. Not that
Alfred's was “Love at first sight;” for he had seen her beauty in the
full blaze of day with no deeper feeling than admiration; but in the
moonlight he came under more sovereign spells than a fair face: her
virtues and her voice. The narrative of their meeting has indicated the
first, and as to the latter, Julia was not one of those whose beauty
goes out with the candle; her voice was that rich, mellow, moving organ,
which belongs to no rank nor station; is born, not made; and, flow it
from the lips of dairymaid or countess, touches every heart, gentle
or simple, that is truly male. And this divine contralto, full, yet
penetrating, Dame Nature had inspired her to lower when she was moved
or excited, instead of raising it; and then she was enchanting. All
unconsciously she cast this crowning spell on Alfred, and he adored her.
In a word, he caught a child-woman away from its mother; his fluttering
captive turned, put on composure, and bewitched him.
She left him, and the moonlight night seemed to blacken. But within his
young breast all was light, new light. He leaned opposite her window in
an Elysian reverie, and let the hours go by. He seemed to have vegetated
till then, and lo! true life had dawned. He thought he should love to
die for her; and, when he was calmer, he felt he was to live for her,
and welcomed his destiny with rapture. He passed the rest of the Oxford
term in a soft ecstasy; called often on Edward, and took a sudden and
prodigious interest in him; and counted the days glide by and the happy
time draw near, when he should be four months in the same town with
his enchantress. This one did not trouble the doctors; he glowed with a
steady fire; no heats and chills, and sad misgivings; for one thing, he
was not a woman, a being tied to that stake, Suspense, and compelled to
wait and wait for others' actions. To him, life's path seemed paved
with roses, and himself to march in eternal sunshine, buoyed by perfumed
wings.
He came to Barkington to try for the lovely prize. Then first he had
to come down from love's sky, and realise how hard it is here below to
court a young lady--who is guarded by a mother--without an introduction
in the usual form. The obvious course was to call on Edward. Having
parted from him so lately, he forced himself to wait a few days, and
then set out for Albion Villa.
As he went along, he arranged the coming dialogue for all the parties.
Edward was to introduce him; Mrs. Dodd to recognise his friendship for
her son; he was to say he was the gainer by it; Julia, silent at first,
was to hazard a timid observation, and he to answer gracefully, and
draw her out and find how he stood in her opinion. The sprightly affair
should end by his inviting Edward to dinner. That should lead to their
inviting him in turn, and then he should have a word with Julia,
and find out what houses she visited, and get introduced to their
proprietors. Arrived at this point, his mind went over hedge and ditch
faster than my poor pen can follow; as the crow flies, so flew he, and
had reached the church-porch under a rain of nosegays with Julia--in
imagination--by then he arrived at Albion Villa in the body. Yet he
knocked timidly; his heart beat almost as hard as his hand.
Sarah, the black-eyed housemaid, “answered the door.”
“Mr. Edward Dodd?”
“Not at home, sir. Left last week.”
“For long?”
“I don't rightly know, sir. But he won't be back this week, I don't
think.”
“Perhaps,” stammered Alfred, “the ladies--Mrs. Dodd--might be able to
tell me.”
“Oh yes, sir. But my mistress, she's in London just now.”
Alfred's eyes flashed. “Could I learn from Miss Dodd?”
“La, sir, she is in London along with her ma; why, 'tis for her they are
gone; to insult the great doctors.”
He started. “She is not ill? Nothing serious?”
“Well, sir, we do hope not. She is pinning a bit, as young ladies will.”
Alfred was anything but consoled by this off-hand account; he became
alarmed, and looked wretched. Seeming him so perturbed, Sarah, who was
blunt but good-natured, added, “But cook she says hard work would cure
our Miss of all _she_ ails. But who shall I say was asking? For my work
is a bit behind-hand.”
Alfred took the hint reluctantly, and drew out his card-case, saying,
“For Mr. Edward Dodd.” She gave her clean but wettish hand a hasty wipe
with her apron, and took the card. He retired; she stood on the step and
watched him out of sight, said “Oho!” and took his card to the kitchen
for preliminary inspection and discussion.
Alfred Hardie was resolute, but sensitive. He had come on the wings of
Love and Hope; he went away heavily; a housemaid's tongue had shod his
elastic feet with lead in a moment; of all misfortunes, sickness was
what he had not anticipated, for she looked immortal. Perhaps it was
that fair and treacherous disease, consumption. Well, if it was, he
would love her all the more, would wed her as soon as he was of age, and
carry her to some soft Southern clime, and keep each noxious air at bay,
and prolong her life, perhaps save it.
And now he began to chafe at the social cobwebs that kept him from her.
But, just as his impatience was about to launch him into imprudence,
he was saved by a genuine descendant of Adam. James Maxley kept Mr.
Hardie's little pleasaunce trim as trim could be, by yearly contract.
This entailed short but frequent visits; and Alfred often talked with
him; for the man was really a bit of a character; had a shrewd rustic
wit, and a ready tongue, was rather too fond of law, and much too fond
of money; but scrupulously honest: head as long as Cudworth's, but
broader; and could not read a line. One day he told Alfred that he must
knock off now, and take a look in at Albion Villee. The captain was due:
and on no account would he, Maxley, allow that there ragged box round
the captains quarter-deck: “That is how he do name their little mossel
of a lawn: and there he walks for a wager, athirt and across, across and
athirt, five steps and then about; and I'd a'most bet ye a halfpenny he
thinks hisself on the salt sea ocean, bless his silly old heart.”
All this time Alfred, after the first start of joyful surprise, was
secretly thanking his stars for sending him an instrument. To learn
whether she had returned, he asked Maxley whether the ladies had sent
for him. “Not they,” said Maxley, rather contemptuously; “what do
women-folk care about a border, without 'tis a lace one to their
nightcaps, for none but the father of all vanity to see. Not as I have
ought to say again the pair; they keep their turf tidyish--and pay
ready money--and a few flowers in their pots; but the rest may shift
for itself. Ye see, Master Alfred,” explained Maxley, wagging his head
wisely, “nobody's pride can be everywhere. Now theirs is in-a-doors;
their with-drawing-room it's like the Queen's palace, my missus tells
me; she is wrapped up in 'em, ye know. But the captain for my money.”
The sage shouldered his tools and departed. But he left a good hint
behind him. Alfred hovered about the back-door the next day till he
caught Mrs. Maxley; she supplied the house with eggs and vegetables.
“Could she tell him whether his friend Edward Dodd was likely to come
home soon?” She thought not; he was gone away to study. “He haven't much
head-piece, you know, not like what Miss Julia have. Mrs. and Miss are
to be home to-day; they wrote to cook this morning. I shall be there
to-morrow, sartain, and I'll ask in the kitchen when Master Edward is
a-coming back.” She prattled on. The ladies of Albion Villa were good
kind ladies; the very maid-servants loved them; Miss was more for
religion than her mother, and went to St. Anne's Church Thursday
evenings, and Sundays morning and evening; and visited some poor women
in the parish with food and clothes; Mrs. Dodd could not sleep a wink
when the wind blew hard at night; but never complained, only came down
pale to breakfast. Miss Julia's ailment was nothing to speak of, but
they were in care along of being so wrapped up in her, and no wonder,
for if ever there was a duck----!
Acting on this intelligence, Alfred went early the next Sunday to St.
Anne's Church, and sat down in the side gallery at its east end. While
the congregation flowed quietly in, the organist played the _Agnus Dei_
of Mozart. Those pious tender tones stole over his hot young heart, and
whispered, “Peace, be still!” He sighed wearily, and it passed through
his mind that it might have been better for him, and especially for his
studies, if he had never seen her. Suddenly the aisle seemed to lighten
up; she was gliding along it, beautiful as May, and modesty itself
in dress and carriage. She went into a pew and kneeled a minute, then
seated herself and looked out the lessons for the day. Alfred gazed at
her face: devoured it. But her eyes never roved. She seemed to have put
off feminine curiosity, and the world, at the church door. Indeed
he wished she was not quite so heavenly discreet; her lashes were
delicious, but he longed to see her eyes once more; to catch a glance
from them, and, by it, decipher his fate.
But no; she was there to worship, and did not discern her earthly lover,
whose longing looks were glued to her, and his body rose and sank with
the true worshippers, but with no more spirituality than a piston or a
Jack-in-the-box.
In the last hymn before the sermon, a well-meaning worshipper in the
gallery delivered a leading note, a high one, with great zeal, but
small precision, being about a semitone flat; at this outrage on her
too-sensitive ear, Julia Dodd turned her head swiftly to discover
the offender, and failed; but her two sapphire eyes met Alfred's
point-blank.
She was crimson in a moment, and lowered them on her book again, as if
to look that way was to sin. It was but a flash: but sometimes a flash
fires a mine.
The lovely blush deepened and spread before it melted away, and Alfred's
late cooling heart warmed itself at that sweet glowing cheek. She never
looked his way again, not once: which was a sad disappointment; but she
blushed again and again before the service ended, only not so deeply.
Now there was nothing in the sermon to make her blush: I might add,
there was nothing to redden her cheek with religious excitement. There
was a little candid sourness--oil and vinegar--against sects and
Low Churchmen; but thin generality predominated. Total: “Acetate of
morphia,” for dry souls to sip.
So Alfred took all the credit of causing those sweet irrelevant blushes;
and gloated: the young wretch could not help glorying in his power to
tint that fair statue of devotion with earthly thoughts.
But stay! that dear blush, was it pleasure or pain? What if the sight of
him was intolerable?
He would know how he stood with her, and on the spot. He was one of the
first to leave the church; he made for the churchyard gate, and walked
slowly backwards and forwards by it, with throbbing heart till she came
out.
She was prepared for him now, and bowed slightly to him with the most
perfect composure, and no legible sentiment, except a certain marked
politeness many of our young ladies think wasted upon young gentlemen;
and are mistaken.
Alfred took off his hat in a tremor, and his eyes implored and inquired,
but met with no further response; and she walked swiftly home, though
without apparent effort. He looked longingly after her; but discretion
forbade.
He now crawled by Albion Villa twice every day, wet or dry, and had
the good fortune to see her twice at the drawing-room window. He was
constant at St. Anne's Church, and one Thursday crept into the aisle to
be nearer to her, and he saw her steal one swift look at the gallery,
and look grave; but soon she detected him, and though she looked no more
towards him, she seemed demurely complacent. Alfred had learned to note
these subtleties now, for Love is a microscope. What he did not know
was, that his timid ardour was pursuing a masterly course; that to find
herself furtively followed everywhere, and hovered about for a look,
is apt to soothe womanly pride and stir womanly pity, and to keep the
female heart in a flutter of curiosity and emotions, two porters that
open the heart's great gate to love.
Now the evening before his visit to the Dodds, Dr. Sampson dined with
the Hardies, and happened to mention the “Dodds” among his old patients:
“The Dodds of' Albion Villa?” inquired Miss Hardie, to her brother's
no little surprise. “Albyn fiddlestick!” said the polished doctor. “No!
they live by the water-side; used to; but now they have left the town,
I hear. He is a sea-captain and a fine lad, and Mrs. Dodd is just the
best-bred woman I ever prescribed for, except Mrs. Sampson.”
“It _is_ the Dodds of Albion Villa,” said Miss Hardie. “They have two
children: a son; his name is Edward; and a daughter, Julia; she is
rather good-looking; a Gentleman's Beauty.”
Alfred stared at his sister. Was she blind? with her “rather
good-looking.”
Sampson was quite pleased at the information. “N' listen me! I saved
that girl's life when she was a year old.”
“Then she is ill now, doctor,” said Alfred hastily. “Do go and see her!
Hum! The fact is, her brother is a great favourite of mine.” He then
told him how to find Albion Villa. “Jenny, dear,” said he, when Sampson
was gone, “you never told me you knew her.”
“Knew who, dear?”
“Whom? Why Dodd's sister.”
“Oh, she is a new acquaintance, and not one to interest you. We only
meet in the Lord; I do not visit Albion Villa; her mother is an amiable
worldling.”
“Unpardonable combination!” said Alfred with a slight sneer. “So you and
Miss Dodd meet only at church!”
“At church? Hardly. She goes to St. Anne's: sits under a preacher who
starves his flock with moral discourses, and holds out the sacraments of
the Church as the means of grace.”
Alfred shook his head good-humouredly. “Now, Jenny, that is a challenge;
and you know we both got into a fury the last time we were betrayed into
that miserable waste of time and temper, Theological discussion. No,
no:--
Let sects delight to bark and bite
For 'tis their nature to;
Let gown and surplice growl and fight,
For Satan makes them so.
But let you and I cut High Church and Low Church, and be brother and
sister. Do tell me in English where you meet Julia Dodd; that's a dear;
for young ladies 'meeting in the Lord' conveys no positive idea to my
mind.”
Jane Hardie sighed at this confession. “We meet in the cottages of the
poor and the sick, whom He loved and pitied when on earth; and we, His
unworthy servants, try to soothe their distress, and lead them to Him
who can heal the soul as well as the body, and wipe away all the tears
of all His people.”
“Then it does you infinite credit, Jane,” said Alfred, warmly. “Now,
that is the voice of true religion; and not the whine of this sect,
nor the snarl of that. And so she joins you in this good work? I am not
surprised.”
“We meet in it now and then, dear; but she can hardly be said to have
joined me: I have a district, you know; but poor Mrs. Dodd will not
allow Julia to enlist in the service. She visits independently, and by
fits and starts; and I am afraid she thinks more of comforting their
perishable bodies than of feeding their souls. It was but the other day
she confessed to me her backwardness to speak in the way of instruction
to women as old as her mother. She finds it so much easier to let them
run on about their earthly troubles: and of course it is much _easier._
Ah! the world holds her still in some of its subtle meshes.”
The speaker uttered this sadly; but presently, brightening up, said,
with considerable _bonhomie,_ and almost a sprightly air: “But she is a
dear girl, and the Lord will yet light her candle.”
Alfred pulled a face as of one that drinketh verjuice unawares; but let
it pass: hypercriticism was not his cue just then. “Well, Jenny,” said
he, “I have a favour to ask you. Introduce me to your friend, Miss Dodd.
Will you?”
Miss Hardie coloured faintly. “I would rather not, dear Alfred: the
introduction could not be for her eternal good. Julia's soul is in a
very ticklish state; she wavers as yet between this world and the other
world; and it won't do; it won't do; there is no middle path. You would
very likely turn the scale, and then I should have fought against her
everlasting welfare--my friend's.”
“What, am I an infidel?” inquired Alfred angrily. Jane looked
distressed. “Oh no, Alfred; but you are a worldling.”
Alfred, smothering a strong sense of irritation, besought her to hear
reason; these big words were out of place here. “It is Dodd's sister;
and he will introduce me at a word, worldling as I am.”
“Then why urge me to do it, against my conscience?” asked the young
lady, as sharply as if she had been a woman of the world. “You cannot
be in _love_ with her, as you do not know her.”
Alfred did not reply to this unlucky thrust, but made a last effort
to soften her. “Can you call yourself my sister, and refuse me this
trifling service, which her brother, who loves her and esteems her ten
times more sincerely than you do, would not think of refusing me if he
was at home?”
“Why should he? He is in the flesh himself; let the carnal introduce one
another. I really must decline; but I am very, very sorry that you feel
hurt about it.”
“And I am very sorry I have not an amiable worldling for my sister,
instead of an unamiable and devilish conceited Christian.” And with
these bitter words, Alfred snatched a candle and bounced to bed in a
fury. So apt is one passion to rouse up others.
Jane Hardie let fall a gentle tear: but consoled herself with the
conviction that she had done her duty, and that Alfred's anger was quite
unreasonable, and so he would see as soon as he should cool.
The next day the lover, smarting under this check, and spurred to fresh
efforts, invaded Sampson. That worthy was just going to dine at Albion
Villa, so Alfred postponed pumping him till next day. Well, he called at
the inn next day, and if the doctor was not just gone back to London!
Alfred wandered disconsolate homewards.
In the middle of Buchanan Street, an agitated treble called after him,
“Mr. Halfred! hoh, Mr. Halfred!” He looked back and saw Dick Absalom,
a promising young cricketer, brandishing a document and imploring aid.
“Oh, Master Halfred, dooce please come here. I durstn't leave the shop.”
There is a tie between cricketers far too strong for social distinctions
to divide, and, though Alfred muttered peevishly, “Whose cat is dead
now?” he obeyed the strange summons.
The distress was a singular one. Master Absalom, I must premise, was
the youngest of two lads in the employ of Mr. Jenner, a benevolent old
chemist, a disciple of Malthus. Jenner taught the virtues of drugs and
minerals to tender youths, at the expense of the public. Scarcely ten
minutes had elapsed since a pretty servant girl came into the shop,
and laid a paper on the counter, saying, “Please to make that up, young
man.” Now at fifteen we are gratified by inaccuracies of this kind
from ripe female lips: so Master Absalom took the prescription with
a complacent grin; his eye glanced over it; it fell to shaking in his
hand, chill dismay penetrated his heart; and, to speak with oriental
strictness, his liver turned instantly to water. However, he made a
feeble clutch at Mercantile Mendacity, and stammered out, “Here's a many
ingredients, and the governor's out walking, and he's been and locked
the drawer where we keeps our haulhoppy. You couldn't come again in
half an hour, Miss, could ye?” She acquiesced readily, for she was not
habitually called Miss, and she had a follower, a languid one, living
hard by, and belonged to a class which thinks it consistent to come
after its followers.
Dicky saw her safe off, and groaned at his ease. Here was a prescription
full of new chemicals, sovereign, no doubt, _i.e.,_ deadly when applied
Jennerically; and the very directions for use were in Latin words he
had encountered in no prescription before. A year ago Dicky would have
counted the prescribed ingredients on his fingers, and then taken
down an equal number of little articles, solid or liquid, mixed them,
delivered them, and so to cricket, serene; but now, his mind, to apply
the universal cant, was “in a transition state.” A year's practice had
chilled the youthful valour which used to scatter Epsom salts or oxalic
acid, magnesia or corrosive sublimate. An experiment or two by himself
and his compeers, with comments by the coroner, had enlightened him as
to the final result on the human body of potent chemicals fearlessly
administered, leaving him dark as to their distinctive qualities applied
remedially. What should he do? Run with the prescription to old Taylor
in the next street, a chemist of forty years? Alas! at his tender age he
had not omitted to chaff that reverend rival persistently and publicly.
Humble his establishment before the King Street one? Sooner perish
drugs, and come eternal cricket! And after all, why not? Drummer-boys,
and powder-monkeys, and other imps of his age that dealt destruction,
did not depopulate gratis; Mankind acknowledged their services in cash:
but old Jenner, taught by Philosophy through its organ the newspapers
that “knowledge is riches,” was above diluting with a few shillings a
week the wealth a boy acquired behind his counter; so his apprentices
got no salary. Then why not shut up the old rogue's shutters, and excite
a little sympathy for him, to be followed by a powerful reaction on
his return from walking; and go and offer his own services on the
cricket-ground to field for the gentlemen by the hour, or bowl at a
shilling on their balls?
“Bowling is the lay for me,” said he; “you get money for that, and you
only bruise the gents a bit and break their thumbs: you can't put their
vital sparks out as you can at this work.”
By a striking coincidence the most influential member of the cricket
club passed while Dick was in this quandary.
“Oh, Mr. Halfred, you was always very good to me on the ground--you
couldn't have me hired by the club, could ye? For I am sick of this
trade; I wants to bowl.”
“You little duffer!” said Alfred, “cricket is a recreation, not a
business. Besides, it only lasts five months. Unless you adjourn to the
anitipodes. Stick to the shop like a man, and make your fortune.”
“Oh, Mr. Halfred,” said Dick sorrowfully, “how can I find fortune here?
Jenner don't pay. And the crowner declares he will not have it; and the
Barton _Chronicle_ says us young gents ought all to be given a holiday
to go and see one of us hanged by lot. But this is what have broke this
camel's back at last; here's a dalled thing to come smiling and smirking
in with, and put it across a counter in a poor boy's hand. Oh! oh! oh!”
“Dick,” said Alfred, “if you blubber, I'll give you a hiding. You have
stumbled on a passage you can't construe. Well, who has not? But we
don't shed the briny about it. Here, let me have a go at it.”
“Ah! I've heard you are a scholard,” said Dick, “but you won't make out
this; there's some new preparation of mercury, and there's musk, and
there's horehound, and there's a neutral salt: and dal his old head that
wrote it!”
“Hold your jaw, and listen, while I construe it to you. _'Die Mercurii,_
on Wednesday--_decima hora vespertina,_ at ten o'clock at night--_eat
in Musca:'_ what does that mean? _'Eat in Musca?'_ I see! this is
modern Latin with a vengeance. 'Let him go in a fly to the Towns-hall.
_Saltet,_ let him jump--_cum tredecim caniculis,_ with thirteen little
dogs--_praesertim meo,_ especially with my little dog.' Dicky, this
prescription emanates from Bedlam direct. _'Domum reddita'_--hallo! it
is a woman, then. 'Let _her_ go in a fly to the--Town-hall, eh?' 'Let
_her_ jump, no, dance, with thirteen whelps, especially mine.' Ha! ha!
ha! And who is the woman that is to do all this I wonder?”
“Woman, indeed!” said a treble at the door! “no more than I am; it's for
a young lady. O jiminy!”
This polite ejaculation was drawn out by the speaker's sudden
recognition of Alfred, who had raised his head at her remonstrance, and
now started in his turn; for it was the black-eyed servant of Albion
Villa. They looked at one another in expressive silence.
“Yes, sir, it is for my young lady. Is it ready, young man?”
“No, it ain't: and never will,” squealed Dick angrily “It's a vile 'oax;
and you ought to be ashamed of yourself bringing it into a respectable
shop.”
Alfred silenced him, and told Sarah he thought Miss Dodd ought to know
the nature of this prescription before it went round the chemists.
He borrowed paper of Dick and wrote:
“Mr. Alfred Hardie presents his compliments to Miss Dodd, and begs
leave to inform her that he has, by the merest accident, intercepted
the enclosed prescription. As it seems rather a sorry jest, and tends to
attract attention to Miss Dodd and her movements, he has ventured with
some misgivings to send it back with a literal translation, on reading
which it will be for Miss Dodd to decide whether it is to circulate.
“'On Wednesday, at ten P.M., let her go in a fly to the Town-hall, and
dance with thirteen little {little dogs, puppies, whelps,} especially
with mine: return home at six A.M. and sleep till dinner, and repeat the
folly as occasion serves.'”
“Suppose I could get it into Miss's hands when she's alone?” whispered
Sarah.
“You would earn my warmest gratitude.”
“'Warmest gratitude!' Is that a warm gownd, or a warm clock, I wonder?”
“It is both, when the man is a gentleman, and a pretty, dark-eyed girl
pities him and stands his friend.”
Sarah smiled, and whispered, “Give it me; I'll do my best.”
Alfred enclosed the prescription and his note in one cover, handed
them to her, and slipped a sovereign into her hand. He whispered, “Be
prudent.”
“I'm dark, sir,” said she: and went off briskly homewards, and Alfred
stood rapt in dreamy joy, and so self-elated that, had he been furnished
like a peacock, he would have instantly become a “thing all eyes,”
and choked up Jenner's shop, and swept his counter. He had made a
step towards familiarity, had written her a letter; and then, if this
prescription came, as he suspected, from Dr. Sampson, she would perhaps
be at the ball. This opened a delightful vista. Meantime, Mrs. Dodd
had communicated Sampson's opinion to Julia, adding that there was a
prescription besides, gone to be made up. “However, he insists on your
going to this ball.”
Julia begged hard to be excused: said she was in no humour for balls:
and Mrs. Dodd objecting that the tickets had actually been purchased,
she asked leave to send them to the Dartons. “They will be a treat to
Rose and Alice; they seldom go out: mamma, I do so fear they are poorer
than people think. May I?”
“It would be but kind,” said Mrs. Dodd. “Though really why my child
should always be sacrificed to other people's children----”
“Oh, a mighty sacrifice!” said Julia. She sat down and enclosed the
tickets to Rose Darton, with a little sugared note. Sarah, being out,
Elizabeth took it. Sarah met her at the gate, but did not announce her
return: she lurked in ambush till Julia happened to go to her own room,
then followed her, and handed Alfred's missive, and watched her slily,
and being herself expeditious as the wind in matters of the heart, took
it for granted the enclosure was something very warm indeed; so she
said with feigned simplicity, “I suppose it is all right now, miss?” and
retreated swelling with a secret, and tormented her fellow-servants all
day with innuendoes dark as Erebus.
Julia read the note again and again: her heart beat at those few
ceremonious lines. “He does not like me to be talked of,” she said to
herself. “How good he is! What trouble he takes about me! Ah! _he will
be there!_”
She divined rightly; on Wednesday, at ten, Alfred Hardie was in the
ball-room. It was a magnificent room, well lighted, and at present not
half filled, though dancing had commenced. The figure Alfred sought was
not there; and he wondered he had been so childish as to hope she would
come to a city ball. He played the fine gentleman; would not dance. He
got near the door with another Oxonian, and tried to avenge himself for
her absence on the townspeople who were there by quizzing them.
But in the middle of this amiable occupation, and indeed in the middle
of a sentence, he stopped short, and his heart throbbed, and he thrilled
from head to foot; for two ladies glided in at the door, and passed up
the room with the unpretending composure of well-bred people. They were
equally remarkable; but Alfred saw only the radiant young creature in
flowing muslin, with the narrowest sash in the room, and no ornament but
a necklace of large pearls and her own vivid beauty. She had altered
her mind about coming, with apologies for her vacillating disposition so
penitent and disproportionate that her indulgent and unsuspecting mother
was really quite amused. Alfred was not so happy as to know that she had
changed her mind with his note. Perhaps even this knowledge could have
added little to that exquisite moment, when, unhoped for, she passed
close to him, and the fragrant air from her brushed his cheek, and
seemed to whisper, “Follow me and be my slave.”