Volume Three—Chapter Four.
Still in the Clouds.
There was no mistaking the figures, no possibility of erring in judgment upon the meaning of the meeting? and Oldroyd could not help admiring the physical beauty of the group as the lovely background of hedgerow and woodland gave effect to the scene.
The group was composed of two. The poacher’s daughter and Rolph, who, with his arms tightly clasping the girl’s tall undulating form, had drawn her, apparently by no means unwillingly to his breast, against which she nestled with her hands resting upon his shoulders. The girl’s face was half hidden, while Rolph was smiling down upon her, whispering something to which she lent a willing ear, and then, raising her face, she was offering her pouting lips to his, when her half-closed eyes suddenly became widely opened, her whole form rigid, and, thrusting Rolph back, she slipped from his arms, bounded through a gap in the woodland hedge like some wild creature, and disappeared amongst the trees.
Rolph caught sight of the on-coming figure almost at the same moment, the spasmodic start given by Judith warning him that there was something wrong. He seemed for a moment as if about to yield to the more easy way out of his difficulty, and leap into the wood, but he stood his ground, and, as Oldroyd came slowly on, said to him,—
“How do, doctor? Perhaps you’ve got a light? I want one for my cigar. Thanks.”
His coolness was staggering.
“Is it a fact about that girl’s father being still at home and out of work?”
“Yes,” replied Oldroyd shortly. “He has been at the point of death.”
“Has he, though?” said Rolph. “I’m glad of that. One don’t like to be imposed upon, and to find that when one has given money in charity that it has been a regular do. Nice day. Good-morning.”
“Knows I can’t tell tales, damn him! I’m no spy,” muttered Oldroyd, as he ambled along on the miller’s pony. “I’ve got quite enough to do to study my own profession, and to try and cure my patients without worrying myself in the slightest degree about other people’s business, but I can’t help it if they will be holding clandestine meetings just under my noble Roman nose—Go on, Peter.”
Peter lifted his head and whisked his tail; then he lowered his head, and kept his end quiescent, as he went on at the old pace, while the young doctor continued musing about the interview that he had been called upon to witness.
“I should not have been out here if old Mother Wattley had not been taken ill once more, for the last time, poor old soul. I believe she’ll live to a hundred. I was obliged to come, though. I don’t suppose anybody passes along this lane above once a month. I’m the only one who has come down this week, and of course I must be there just when the athlete was having an interview with Judith Hayle. Humph! there are other poachers in the world besides those who go after rabbits, hares and pheasants.”
Oldroyd drummed the sides of his little charger as he rode on along a very narrow pathway through the wood that he had to cross to get to old Mrs Wattley’s, and he looked anything but a picturesque object as a cavalier, for either he was too big or his steed too small—the latter, a little shaggy, rarely-groomed creature, being more accustomed to drag loads of corn for his master from the town than to act as hack for the principal medical man of the neighbourhood.
Peter pricked up his ears as soon as they were through the wood, and turned off, unguided, to the right, where, on as lonely and deserted a spot as could have been selected, being built in fact upon a spare corner between the road and the next property, stood the cottage inhabited by old Mrs Wattley. Report said that Timothy Wattley had built himself a shed there many years before, this being a sort of common land. The shed had been contrived by the insertion of four fir-poles at the angles, some others being tied across to form a roof, while sides and top were of freshly cut furze.
Time went on, and the windy side of Tim Wattley’s shed was coated with mud. More time went by, and a thatched roof appeared. Then came a real brick chimney and a proper door, and so on, and so on, till, in the course of years, the shed grew into quite a respectable cottage, with separate rooms—two—and a real iron fireplace.
Then report said that instead of walking over to church on Sunday mornings, Timothy Wattley used to send his wife, while he idled round his little scrap of a garden, pushing the hedge out a bit more and a bit more with his heavy boot, and all so gradually that the process was unnoticed, while when the old man died after forty years’ possession of the place, the patch upon which he had first set up his fir-pole and furze shed had grown into a freehold of an acre and a half, properly hedged in, and of which the widow could not be dispossessed.
It was at the rough little gate of the cottage that Peter the pony stopped short, and began nibbling the most tender shoots of the hedge that he could find. Oldroyd dismounted and secured the reins before going up to the door; tapping, and then going straight in, lowering his head to avoid a blow from the cross-piece that might have been fixed by a dwarf.
“Ah, doctor,” came from the large bed which nearly filled up the little room, and on which lay the comfortable-looking, puckered, apple-faced old woman, “you’ve been a long time coming. If I had been some rich folks up at Brackley or somers-else, you’d have been here long enough ago.”
“My dear Mrs Wattley,” cried Oldroyd; “nothing of the kind. I took the pony and rode over as soon as I had your message, and I could not have done more if you had been the queen.”
“Then it’s that dratted boy went and forgot it yesterday morning. Oh, if ever I grow well and strong again, I’ll let him know!”
“Did you send a message yesterday morning, then?”
“Ay, did I, when that young dog was going over to the town; and he forgot it, then.”
“I only had the message, as I tell you, to-day.”
“An’ me lying in tarmint all yes’day, and all night listening to the poachers out with their guns. Eh, but it’s sorry work wi’ them and the keepers, and not one on ’em man enough to leave a hare or a fezzan with a poor old woman who’s hidden away many a lot of game for them in her time. Eh, but it’s hard work, lying in my aggynies the long night through, and my neighbour coming to set up with me and nuss me, and going off to sleep, and snoring like a bad-ringed hog.”
“Ah, then your neighbour sat up with you last night, did she?” said Oldroyd.
“Sat up with me? Snored up with me, and nearly drove me wild, my aggynies was that bad. Then she goes and sends Judy to tidy me up after braxfas, and a nice tidying up it was, with her all agog to get away and meet someone I’ll be bound. I dunno who it be, but she’s allus courting somers in the wood. Ah, I went courting once, but now it’s all aggynies.”
“And so you’re in great pain, are you, Mrs Wattley?”
“Aggynies I tellee, aggynies.”
“Ah, it’s rheumatism, old lady, rheumatism.”
“There man, as if I didn’t know that. Think I’ve had these aggynies a-coming on at every change of the wind, and not know as it’s rheumatiz, why, as I says to Miss Lucy Alling, there, as comes over from the big house a’side the common yonder, and brought me a few bits o’ chicking, and sits herself down in that very chair, ‘I’ve had ’em too many years now, my dear, not to know as they’re rheumatiz. I’ll ask Doctor Oldroyd,’ I says, ‘to give me some of they old iles as used to be got when I was younger than I am.’ Fine things they was for the rheumatiz, but they don’t seem to be able to get ’em now.”
Oldroyd moved uneasily in his seat, as he learned how lately Lucy had been there, and that she had occupied the very chair he was in. Then he hastily proceeded to cross-examine the poor old woman about her troubles, every answer he received going to prove that, for an old lady over ninety, Mrs Wattley was about as well preserved and healthy a specimen of humanity as it would be possible to find.
“Ah, well,” said Oldroyd at last, “I daresay I shall be able to give you a little comfort. You’ll have to take some medicine, though.”
“Nay, nay, I want the iles, and I want ’em rubbed in,” cried the old lady. “Nothing ever did me so much good as they iles; and I know what it all means—waiting three or four days afore I gets the medson to take.”
“Now, what is this,” said Oldroyd, smiling; “I have brought it with me.”
As he spoke he took a bottle from the breast of his coat.
“Then it’s pyson, and you’re going to give it to get rid of me, just a cause you parish doctors won’t take the trouble to attend poor people. I know; you want to get rid of me, you do.”
“How can you talk like that? Have I ever neglected you?”
“Well, p’r’aps not so much as him as was here afore you did. He neglecket me shameful. But you’ve got tired of me, and you want to see me put under ground.”
“What makes you say that?” said Oldroyd, laughing.
“’Cause you want me to take that physic as isn’t proper for me.”
“Why you comical, prejudiced old woman,” he said, “it is the best thing I can give you.”
“Oh, no, it isn’t. I know better,” cried the old lady. “Don’t tell me. I may be ninety, but I a’n’t lived to ninety without knowing as one physic a’n’t good for everything.”
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” cried Oldroyd, laughing. “You think I haven’t got the right stuff for you.”
“Ah, it’s nothing to laugh at, young man. I’m not a fool. How could you know what was the matter with me before you come, and so bring the stuff? I a’n’t a cow, as only wants one kind of physic all its life.”
“Nay, I did know what was the matter with you,” cried Oldroyd, taking the poor, prejudiced old things hand, to speak kindly and seriously though with a little politic flattery. “The boy came to me and said you were ill, and I immediately, knowing you as I do, said to myself—now with such a constitution as Mrs Wattley has, there can only be one of two things the matter with her; someone has carelessly left a door or window open, and given her cold; or else she has got a touch of rheumatism.”
“And so you brought physic for a cold,” said the old woman sharply.
“No. I knew you would be too careful to let anyone neglect your doors and windows.”
“That I would,” cried the old lady. “I fetched that Judy back with a flea in her ear only the day afore yesterday. I shouted till she came back and shut my door after her—a slut. She thinks of nothing but young men.”
“You see I was right,” continued Oldroyd. “I felt sure it was not cold, and, on looking out, saw that the wind had got round to the east, so I mixed up his prescription, the best thing there is for rheumatism, and came on at once.”
“Is it as good as the iles, young man?”
“Far better; and I’m sure you will find relief.”
“Well, you are right about the wind, for I felt it in my bones as soon as it got round; so, p’r’aps you’re right about the physic. I dunno, though, you’re only a boy, and not likely to know much. It’s a pity they send such young fellows as you to take charge of a parish. But the guardians don’t care a bit. They’d like to see all the old uns go under, the sooner the better. Not as I’m beholden to ’em for aught but a drop o’ physic. I can do without ’em, I daresay, for a good many years yet.”
“To be sure you can,” said Oldroyd, smiling rather gravely, as he looked at the ancient face before him.
“Ay, I can do without ’em; and now, look here, young man, you set me right again. I’ve got four shillings put aside, and I’ll give you that.”
“I daresay I can set you right again without the four shillings,” said Oldroyd, “but not if you begin by calling me a boy.”
“There’s naught to be ashamed of in being a boy,” cried the old woman sharply. “I wish I was a gal now, and could begin all over again.”
“No, there’s nothing to be ashamed of, old lady, but you must trust me, and take my medicine.”
“I won’t—I won’t swallow a drop, if you don’t take your oath it’s quite right, and will do me good, and won’t pyson me.”
For answer Oldroyd rose from his seat, and took a cup from a shelf, into which he poured a portion of the medicine.
“There, it’s no use, young man, I won’t take a dose.”
“Look here,” cried Oldroyd; and putting the cup to his lips, he swallowed all that was at the bottom.
“You’re going to spit it out again as soon as you get outside.”
“Nonsense!” cried Oldroyd, laughing heartily as he poured out a fresh portion. “There, there, take it, and get well again.”
“You’re sure it’s right, and that it won’t hurt me?”
“I’m sure it will comfort you, and correct what is wrong.”
She watched him with her bright old eyes full of suspicion, and ended by taking the cup very doubtfully and swallowing its contents with a childlike shudder.
“There, give me a bit of sugar out of that basin, young man,” she cried emphatically; and, upon her desire being gratified, she settled herself down again in bed with a satisfied sigh.
“Ah, I feel better now,” she said. “I suppose you are not quite so young as you look, are you?”
“Really, Mrs Wattley, I don’t know,” replied Oldroyd, smiling.
“Perhaps you ar’n’t,” she continued looking at him critically. “I daresay you’re clever enough, or else you wouldn’t be here; but we ladies don’t like to have a single man to see us when we are ill. You ought to be married, you know.”
“Do you think so?” said Oldroyd, looking rather conscious, as he thought of his prospects, matrimonially and financially.
“Yes, I do think so,” said the old lady tartly, and in a very dictatorial manner. “Look here, young man, there’s little Miss Lucy, who comes to see me now and then. Marry her, and if you behave yourself, perhaps I’ll leave you my cottage and ground. I sha’n’t leave ’em to Judy, for she don’t deserve ’em a bit.”
“Leave them to your relatives, old lady; and suppose we turn back to the rheumatism,” said Oldroyd, half-amused and half-annoyed by his patient’s remarks.
“Ay, we’ll talk about that by-and-by. I want to talk about you. My rheumatics is better a’ready—that’s done me a mint o’ good, young man, and I shouldn’t mind seeing you married, for it would be a deal better for you, and I daresay I should call you in a bit more oftener. What, are you going?”
“Yes; I have the pony waiting, and I must get back.”
“Humph! I didn’t know as you could afford to keep a pony, young man. Why don’t you walk?—keep you better and stronger—and save your money. Ah, well! you may go then; and mind what I said to you. You may as well have the bit of land and Miss Lucy, but you won’t get it yet, so don’t think it. My father was a hundred and two when he died, and I’m only just past ninety, so don’t expect too much.”
“I will not,” said Oldroyd, smiling at the helpless old creature, and thinking how contentedly she bore her fate of living quite alone by the roadside, and with the nearest cottage far away.
“You’ll come and see me to-morrow?” said the old lady, as the doctor stood at the door. “You’re not so busy that you can’t spare time, so don’t you try to tell me that.”
“No, I shall not be too busy,” replied Oldroyd; “I’ll come.”
“And mind you recollect about her. She would just suit you; she nusses so nicely, and—”
Philip Oldroyd did not hear the end of the speech, for he closed the door, frowning with annoyance; and, mounting his pony, rode slowly back towards home.
“I shall not meet them again, I suppose,” he said to himself, as he neared the spot where he had seen Rolph and Judith on his way to the cottage; and, quite satisfied upon this point, he was riding softly on along the turf by the side of the road when, as he turned a corner, he came suddenly upon two men—the one ruddy and sun-browned, the other pale, close shaven, and sunken of eye.
“Hayle and Captain Rolph,” said the doctor between his teeth, “what does that mean?”
He rode on to pass close by the pair, both of whom looked up, the one to give him a haughty nod of the head, the other to touch his hat and say,—“How do, doctor?”
“The parson is said to know most about the affairs of people in a parish,” thought Oldroyd; “but that will not do. It’s a mistake. We are the knowing ones. Why, I could give quite a history of what is going on around us—if I liked. Your parson kens, as the north-country folk say, a’ aboot their morals, but we doctors are well up in the mental and bodily state too. Now then, who next? Bound to say, if I take the short cut through the firs and along the grass drives, I shall meet the old major toadstool hunting, and possibly Miss Day with him.”
Oldroyd’s ideas ran upon someone else; but he put the thoughts aside, and went on very moodily for a few minutes before his thoughts reverted to their former channel.
“Safe to meet them,” he muttered, with a bitter laugh. “Well, the captain is otherwise engaged to-day. The young lady with the gentleman as I came, and papa and the gentleman as I return. Well—go on Peter—I have enough to do with my own professional affairs, and giving advice gratis on moral matters is not in my department. No mention of them in the pharmacopoeia.”
Peter responded to his rider’s adjuration to go on in his customary way—to wit, he raised his head and whisked his tail, and went on, but without the slightest increase of speed. Oldroyd turned him out of the lane, through one of the game preserves, and he rode thoughtfully on for a couple of miles, with the peculiar smell of the bracken pervading the air as Peter crushed the stems beneath his hoofs. At times, as he rode through some opening where the sun beat down heavily, there was the pungent, lemony, resinous odour of the pines wafted to his nostrils, and once it was so strong that the doctor pulled up to inhale it.
“What a lunatic I was,” he thought, “to come and settle down in a place like this. Nature wants no doctors here; she does all the work herself—except the accidents,” he added laughingly. “Poor old Hayle yonder; I don’t think she would have made so good a job of him.”
He rode on again through the hot afternoon sunshine, going more and more out of his way; but he did not see the major with his creel, neither did the lady attendant upon some of his walks make his sore heart begin beating.
He had just come to the conclusion that he had ridden all this way round for nothing, when, as he wound round a mossy carpeted drive, he saw in the distance, framed in with green against a background of sky, a couple of figures, of which one, a lady, was holding out something to the other, a gipsy-looking fellow, which he took and thrust into his pocket, becoming conscious at the same moment of the doctor’s approach.
“Looks like my young poaching friend, Caleb Kent,” thought Oldroyd, as the man touched his cap obsequiously and plunged at once in through the thick undergrowth and was gone, while the lady drew herself up and came toward him.
Oldroyd’s acquaintanceship was of the most distant kind, and he merely raised his hat as he passed, noting that the face, which looked haughtily in his, was flushed and hot as his bow was returned.
“Why, that young scoundrel has been begging. Met her alone out here in this wood,” thought Oldroyd, when he had ridden on for a few yards; and, on the impulse of the moment, he dragged the unwilling pony’s head round, and, to the little animal’s astonishment, struck his heels into its ribs and forced it to canter after the lady they had passed.
She did not hear the approach for a few minutes, but was walking on hurriedly with her head bent down, till, the soft beat of the pony’s hoofs close behind rousing her, she turned suddenly a wild and startled face.
“I beg your pardon—Miss Emlin of The Warren, I believe?” said Oldroyd, raising his hat again.
There was a distant bow.
“You will excuse my interference,” he continued; “but these woods are lonely, and I could not help seeing that man had accosted you.”
Marjorie’s face was like wax now in its pallor.
“I thought so,” said Oldroyd to himself. Then aloud,—“He was begging, and frightened you?”
“The man asked me for money, and I gave him some. No; he did not frighten me.”
A flush now came in the girl’s face, and she said eagerly,—
“Did you pass a gentleman—my cousin, Captain Rolph—in the woods?”
“Yes; about a couple of miles away. I beg pardon for my interference,” there was an exchange of bows; and each passed on.
“What a fool I am!” muttered Oldroyd. “Like a man. Jumps at the chance of playing the knight-errant. Only begged a copper or two of her; a loafing scoundrel. Phew!” he whistled, “my cousin! I’m afraid that my cousin is going to be pulled up sharp; and quite right too. Looks like a piece of jealousy there. And the fellow’s engaged. Well, it’s not my business. Go on, Peter, old man.”
Peter wagged his tail, but still there was no increase of speed; for, if ponies can think, Peter was cogitating on the fact that if he made haste home there would be time for him to go with Sinkins, the carpenter, to fetch a piece of oak from the wood; and he felt that he had done enough for one day.