CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIFTH.
THE WIDOWER COMFORTED.
In this manner three months passed slowly away after my mother's death. Dr. Dobrée, who was utterly inconsolable the first few weeks, fell into all his old maundering, philandering ways again, spending hours upon his toilet, and paying devoted attentions to every passable woman who came across his path. My temper grew like touch-wood; the least spark would set it in a blaze. I could not take such things in good part.
We had been at daggers-drawn for a day or two, he and I, when one morning I was astonished by the appearance of Julia in our consulting-room, soon after my father, having dressed himself elaborately, had quitted the house. Julia's face was ominous, the upper lip very straight, and a frown upon her brow. I wondered what could be the matter, but I held my tongue. My knowledge of Julia was intimate enough for me to hit upon the right moment for speech or silence—a rare advantage. It was the time to refrain from speaking. Julia was no termagant—simply a woman who had had her own way all her life, and was so sure it was the best way that she could not understand why other people should wish to have theirs.
"Martin," she began in a low key, but one that might run up to shrillness if advisable, "I am come to tell you something that fills me with shame and anger. I do not know how to contain myself. I could never have believed that I could have been so blind and foolish. But it seems as if I were doomed to be deceived and disappointed on every hand—I who would not deceive or disappoint anybody in the world. I declare it makes me quite ill to think of it. Just look at my hands, how they tremble."
"Your nervous system is out of order," I remarked.
"It is the world that is out of order," she said, petulantly; "I am well enough. Oh, I do not know how ever I am to tell you. There are some things it is a shame to speak of."
"Must you speak of them?" I asked.
"Yes; you must know, you will have to know all, sooner or later. If there was any hope of it coming to nothing, I should try to spare you this; but they are both so bent upon disgracing themselves, so deaf to reason! If my poor, dear aunt knew of it, she could not rest in her grave. Martin, cannot you guess? Are men born so dull that they cannot see what is going on under their own eyes?"
"I have not the least idea of what you are driving at," I answered. "Sit down, my dear Julia, and calm yourself. Shall I give you a glass of wine?"
"No, no," she said, with a gesture of impatience. "How long is it since my poor, dear aunt died?"
"You know as well as I do," I replied, wondering that she should touch the wound so roughly. "Three months next Sunday."
"And Dr. Dobrée," she said, in a bitter accent—then stopped, looking me full in the face. I had never heard her call my father Dr. Dobrée in my life. She was very fond of him, and attracted by him, as most women were, and as few women are attracted by me. Even now, with all the difference in our age, the advantage being on my side, it was seldom I succeeded in pleasing as much as he did. I gazed back in amazement at Julia's dark and moody face.
"What now?" I asked. "What has my unlucky father been doing now?"
"Why," she exclaimed, stamping her foot, while the blood mantled to her forehead, "Dr. Dobrée is in haste to take a second wife! He is indeed, my poor Martin. He wishes to be married immediately to that viper, Kate Daltrey."
"Impossible!" I cried, stung to the quick by these words. I remembered my mother's mild, instinctive dislike to Kate Daltrey, and her harmless hope that I would not go over to her side. Go over to her side! No. If she set her foot into this house as my mother's successor, I would never dwell under the same roof. As soon as my father made her his wife I would cut myself adrift from them both. But he knew that; he would never venture to outrage my mother's memory or my feelings in such a flagrant manner.
"It is possible, for it is true," said Julia. She had not let her voice rise above its low, angry key, and now it sank nearly to a whisper, as she glanced round at the door. "They have understood each other these four weeks. You may call it an engagement, for it is one; and I never suspected them, not for a moment! He came down to my house to be comforted, he said: his house was so dreary now. And I was as blind as a mole. I shall never forgive myself, dear Martin. I knew he was given to all that kind of thing, but then he seemed to mourn for my poor aunt so deeply, and was so heart-broken. He made ten times more show of it than you did. I have heard people say you bore it very well, and were quite unmoved, but I knew better. Everybody said he could never get over it. Couldn't you take out a commission of lunacy against him? He must be mad to think of such a thing."
"How did you find it out?" I inquired.
"Oh, I was so ashamed!" she said. "You see I had not the faintest shadow of a suspicion. I had left them in the drawing-room to go up-stairs, and I thought of something I wanted, and went back suddenly, and there they were—his arm around her waist, and her head on his shoulder—he with his gray hairs too! She says she is the same age as me, but she is forty if she is a day. The simpletons! I did not know what to say, or how to look. I could not get out of the room again as if I had not seen, for I cried 'Oh!' at the first sight of them. Then I stood staring at them; but I think they felt as uncomfortable as I did."
"What did they say?" I asked, sternly.
"Oh, he came up to me quite in his dramatic way, you know, trying to carry it off by looking grand and majestic; and he was going to take my hand and lead me to her, but I would not stir a step. 'My love,' he said, 'I am about to steal your friend from you.' 'She is no friend of mine,' I said, 'if she is going to be what all this intimates, I suppose. I will never speak to her or you again, Dr. Dobrée.' Upon that he began to weep, and protest, and declaim, while she sat still and glared at me. I never thought her eyes could look like that. 'When do you mean to be married?' I asked, for he made no secret of his intention to make her his wife. 'What is the good of waiting?' he said, 'My home is miserable with no woman in it.' 'Uncle,' I said, 'if you will promise me to give up the idea of a second marriage, which is ridiculous at your age, I will come back to you, in spite of all the awkwardness of my position with regard to Martin. For my aunt's sake I will come back.' Even an arrangement like this would be better than his marriage with that woman—don't you think so?"
"A hundred times better," I said, warmly. "It was very good of you, Julia. But he would not agree to that, would he?"
"He wouldn't hear of it. He swore that Kate was as dear to him as ever my poor aunt was. He vowed he could not live without her and her companionship. He maintained that his age did not make it ridiculous. Kate hid her brazen face in her hands, and sobbed aloud.
"That made him ten times worse an idiot. He knelt down before her, and implored her to look at him. I reminded him how all the island would rise against him—worse than it did against you, Martin—and he declared he did not care a fig for the island! I asked him how he would face the Careys, and the Brocks, and the De Saumarez, and all the rest of them, and he snapped his fingers at them all. Oh, he must be going out of his mind."
I shook my head. Knowing him as thoroughly as a long and close study could help me to know any man, I was less surprised than Julia, who had only seen him from a woman's point of view, and had always been lenient to his faults. Unfortunately, I knew my father too well.
"Then I talked to him about the duty he owed to our family name," she resumed, "and I went so far as to remind him of what I had done to shield him and it from disgrace, and he mocked at it—positively mocked at it! He said there was no sort of parallel. It would be no dishonor to our house to receive Kate into it, even if they were married at once. What did it signify to the world that only three months had elapsed? Besides, he did not mean to marry her for a month to come, as the house would need beautifying for her—beautifying for her! Neither had he spoken of it to you; but he had no doubt you would be willing to go on as you have done."
"Never!" I said.
"I was sure not," continued Julia. "I told him I was convinced you would leave Guernsey again, but he pooh-poohed that. I asked him how he was to live without any practice, and he said his old patients might turn him off for a while, but they would be glad to send for him again. I never saw a man so obstinately bent upon his own ruin."
"Julia," I said, "I shall leave Guernsey before this marriage can come off. I would rather break stones on the highway than stay to see that woman in my mother's place. My mother disliked her from the first."
"I know it," she replied, with tears in her eyes, "and I thought it was nothing but prejudice. It was my fault, bringing her to Guernsey. But I could not bear the idea of her coming as mistress here. I said so distinctly. 'Dr. Dobrée,' I said, 'you must let me remind you that the house is mine, though you have paid me no rent for years. If you ever take Kate Daltrey into it, I will put my affairs into a notary's hands. I will, upon my word, and Julia Dobrée never broke her word yet.' That brought him to his senses better than any thing. He turned very pale, and sat down beside Kate, hardly knowing what to say. Then she began. She said if I was cruel, she would be cruel too. Whatever grieved you, Martin, would grieve me, and she would let her brother Richard Foster know where Olivia was."
"Does she know where she is?" I asked, eagerly, in a tumult of surprise and hope.
"Why, in Sark, of course," she replied.
"What! Did you never know that Olivia left Sark before my mother's death?" I said, with a chill of disappointment. "Did I never tell you she was gone, nobody knows where?"
"You have never spoken of her in my hearing, except once—you recollect when, Martin? We have supposed she was still living in Tardif's house. Then there is nothing to prevent me from carrying out my threat. Kate Daltrey shall never enter this house as mistress."
"Would you have given it up for Olivia's sake?" I asked, marvelling at her generosity.
"I should have done it for your sake," she answered, frankly.
"But," I said, reverting to our original topic, "if my father has set his mind upon marrying Kate Daltrey, he will brave any thing."
"He is a dotard," replied Julia. "He positively makes me dread growing old. Who knows what follies one may be guilty of in old age! I never felt afraid of it before. Kate says she has two hundred a year of her own, and they will go and live on that in Jersey, if Guernsey becomes unpleasant to them. Martin, she is a viper—she is indeed. And I have made such a friend of her! Now I shall have no one but you and the Careys. Why wasn't I satisfied with Johanna as my friend?"
She stayed an hour longer, turning over this unwelcome subject till we had thoroughly discussed every point of it. In the evening, after dinner, I spoke to my father briefly but decisively upon the same topic. After a very short and very sharp conversation, there remained no alternative for me but to make up my mind to try my fortune once more out of Guernsey. I wrote by the next mail to Jack Senior, telling him my purpose, and the cause of it, and by return of post I received his reply:
"Dear old boy: Why shouldn't you come, and go halves with me? Dad says so. He is giving up shop, and going to live in the country at Fulham. House and practice are miles too big for me. 'Senior and Dobrée,' or 'Dobrée and Senior,' whichever you please. If you come I can pay dutiful attention to Dad without losing my customers. That is his chief reason. Mine is that I only feel half myself without you at hand. Don't think of saying no.
"JACK."
It was a splendid opening, without question. Dr. Senior had been in good practice for more than thirty years, and he had quietly introduced Jack to the position he was about to resign. Yet I pondered over the proposal for a whole week before agreeing to it. I knew Jack well enough to be sure he would never regret his generosity; but if I went I would go as junior partner, and with a much smaller proportion of the profits than that proffered by Jack. Finally I resolved to accept the offer, and wrote to him as to the terms upon which alone I would join him.