Volume Two—Chapter Five.
Although an Old Maid.
“Well, doctor?”
“Well, Miss Raleigh.”
“You do not bring him round.”
“I don’t. He is worried mentally, and I can’t get at his complaint.”
“Why not take him away, and give him a complete change?”
Doctor Scales injured John Monnick’s beautiful turf, that he had been at such trouble to make grow under the big mulberry tree, by suddenly screwing round his garden-seat, to stare in Aunt Sophia’s face. “I say,” he exclaimed, “are you a reader of thoughts or a prophetess?”
“Neither. Why?”
“Because you are proposing what I have planned.”
“Indeed! Well, is it not a good proposal?”
“Excellent; but he will not listen to it. He dare not go outside the place, he says; and I believe that at first he would suffer terribly, for it is quite shocking how weak his nerves have become. He has a horror of the most trivial things; and above all, there is something troubling the brain.”
“What can it be?” said Aunt Sophia.
“Well—I’m speaking very plainly to you, Miss Raleigh.”
“Of course. We trust each other, doctor.”
“Exactly. Well, in a case like this, it is only natural that the poor fellow should feel his position deeply, and be troubling himself about his wife.”
“But she seems to be most attentive to him.”
“O yes; she never neglects him,” replied the doctor, hurriedly going into another branch of his subject. “His money affairs, too, seem to worry him a great deal; and I know it causes him intense agony to be compelled by his weakness to leave so much to other hands.”
“But his cousin—Mr Prayle—seems to be devoting himself heart and soul to their management.”
“O yes; he seems indefatigable; and Lady Scarlett is always watching over his interests; but no man can find an adequate substitute for himself.”
Aunt Sophia watched the doctor anxiously, asking herself what he really thought, and then half bitterly reflecting how very shallow after all their trust was of each other upon this delicate question of Sir James Scarlett’s health. As she looked, she could not help seeing that the doctor’s eyes were fixed upon hers with a close scrutiny; and it was with almost a malicious pleasure that she said quietly a few words, and watched the result: “You know, I suppose, that Lady Martlett is coming here to dinner this evening?”
“Coming here? To dinner? This evening?”
“Yes. Is there anything so wonderful in that?”
“O no; of course not. Only—that is—I am a little surprised.”
“I don’t see why you should be surprised. Lady Martlett always made a great friend of Lady Scarlett, from the time she first came down.”
“Yes; I think I have heard so. Of course, there is nothing surprising, except in their great diversity of tastes.”
“Extremes meet, doctor,” said Aunt Sophia, smiling; “and that will be the case when you take her Ladyship down to dinner.”
“I? Take her down?—No, not I,” said Scales quickly. “In fact, I was thinking of running up to town to-day. There is an old friend of mine, who has studied nervous diseases a great deal in the Paris hospitals; he is over for a few weeks, and I thought I would consult him.”
“At the expense of running away, and making it appear to be because Lady Martlett is coming to dinner.”
“Oh; but that idea would be absurd.”
“I don’t know that, doctor, because, you see, it would be so true. There, there: don’t look cross. I am not an obstinate patient. Why, doctor, are you afraid of her?”
“No; I am more afraid of myself,” he said bitterly; “and I have some pride, Miss Raleigh.”
“Too much—far too much.—Do you know, doctor, I am turning match-maker in my old age?”
“A worthy pursuit, if you could make good matches.”
“Well, would it not be a good one between you and Lady Martlett?”
“Admirable!” he cried, in a bitterly ironical tone. “The union of a wealthy woman, who has a right to make a brilliant contract with some one of her own class, to a beggarly, penniless doctor, whose head is full of absurd crotchets.—Miss Raleigh, Miss Raleigh, where is your discrimination!”
“In my brains, I suppose,” said Aunt Sophia; “though I do not see how that portion of our organisation can make plans and plots.”
“Then you are plotting and planning to marry me to Lady Martlett.”
“It needed neither,” said Aunt Sophia. “You worked out the union yourselves. She is very fond of you.”
“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed the doctor harshly. “And you think her the most attractive woman you ever saw.”
“Granted. But that does not prove that I love her. No; I love my profession. James Scarlett’s health is my idol, until I have cured him—if I ever do. Then I shall look out for another patient, Miss Raleigh.”
“It is my turn now to laugh, doctor. Why, what a transparent man you are!”
“I hope so,” he replied. “But you will stay to dinner this evening?”
“No, madam; I shall go to town.”
“You will not!” said Aunt Sophia, smiling. “It would be too cowardly for you.”
“No, no; I must go,” he said. “She would make me her slave, and trample upon my best instincts. It would not do, Miss Raleigh. As it is, I am free. Poor enough, heaven knows! but independent, and—I hope—a gentleman.”
“Of course,” said Aunt Sophia gravely.
“Granting that I could win her—the idea seems contemptible presumption—what would follow? In her eyes, as well as in those of the whole world, I should have sacrificed my independence. I should have degraded myself; and in place of being spoken of in future as a slightly clever, eccentric doctor, I should sink into a successful fortune-hunter—a man admitted into the society that receives his wife, as her lapdog would be, at the end of a string. I couldn’t do it, my dear madam; I could not bear it; for the galling part would be that I deserved my fate.”
“I hope you do not exaggerate your patients’ cases as you do your own, doctor.”
“No exaggeration, my dear madam. Take another side of the question. Suppose I did sink my pride—suppose my lady did condescend from her high pedestal to put a collar round my neck—how then? What should I be worth, leading such a lapdog existence? What would become of my theories, my efforts to make discoveries in our grand profession? Oh, Miss Raleigh, Miss Raleigh, I did think I had won some little respect from you! What would you say if you saw me lower myself to such an extent as that?”
Aunt Sophia smiled. “There would be something extremely droll to a bystander, if he heard all this. You talking of stooping!”
“Well, would it not be?” he cried. “With some women, yes; but you don’t yet know Lady Martlett.—Oh, most apropos: she has come early, so as to have a pleasant afternoon without form. Doctor Scales, you are too late; you will have to stay.”
“Confound the woman!” cried the doctor, as he saw Lady Martlett, very simply dressed, coming towards the lawn in company with Scarlett and his wife.
“I’ll tell her you said so.”
“I’ll tell her myself.”
“No; you will not,” said Aunt Sophia quietly. “At one time, I thought that you needed a rival to bring you to your senses, but I venture to say that it will not be necessary.” As she spoke, she advanced to meet the visitor, who embraced her cordially, and then bowed coldly to the doctor, as he raised his straw hat and then walked away.
Lady Martlett bit her lip, but took no further notice, devoting herself to her hostess, and talking a great deal to Scarlett, who, however, met her advances only peevishly, and seemed as if he found some under-thought in everything that was said, watching Lady Scarlett suspiciously, and whenever he left the group, hanging about so as to be within hearing and then suddenly rejoining them. This went on for some time, and then they adjourned to the house, where Lady Scarlett was soon after called away, and the visitor was left alone.