“Then he is a great baby,” said Fanny, coming down the steps. “No, no; we are both too poor.” And she vented a little sigh.
“Not you. The vicar has written to vacate. Now, I don't like you much, because you never make me laugh; but I'm awfully fond of Denison; and, if you will marry my dear Denison, you shall have the vicarage; it is a fat one.”
“Oh, cousin!”
“And,” said Mrs. Vizard, “he permits me to furnish it for you. You and I will make it 'a bijou.'”
Fanny kissed them both, impetuously: then said she would have a little
cry. No sooner said than done. In due course she was Mrs. Denison, and
broke a solemn vow that she never would teach girls St. Matthew.
Like coquettes in general, who have had their fling at the proper time,
she makes a pretty good wife; but she has one fault—she is too hard upon
girls who flirt.
Mr. Ashmead flourishes. Besides his agency she sometimes treats for a
new piece, collects a little company, and tours the provincial theaters.
He always plays them a week at Taddington, and with perfect gravity loses
six pounds per night. Then he has a “bespeak,” Vizard or Uxmoor turn
about. There is a line of carriages; the snobs crowd in to see the
gentry. Vizard pays twenty pounds for his box, and takes twenty pounds'
worth of tickets, and Joseph is in his glory, and stays behind the
company to go to Islip Church next day, and spend a happy night at the
Court. After that he says he feels good for three or four days.
Mrs. Gale now leases the Hillstoke farm of Vizard, and does pretty well. She breeds a great many sheep and cattle. The high ground and sheltering woods suit them. She makes a little money every year, and gets a very good house for nothing. Doctress Gale is still all eyes, and notices everything. She studies hard, and practices a little. They tried to keep her out of the Taddington infirmary; but she went, almost crying, to Vizard, and he exploded with wrath. He consulted Lord Uxmoor, and between them the infirmary was threatened with the withdrawal of eighty annual subscriptions if they persisted. The managers caved directly, and Doctress Gale is a steady visitor.
A few mothers are coming to their senses and sending for her to their unmarried daughters. This is the main source of her professional income. She has, however, taken one enormous fee from a bon vivant, whose life she saved by esculents. She told him at once he was beyond the reach of medicine, and she could do nothing for him unless he chose to live in her house, and eat and drink only what she should give him. He had a horror of dying, though he had lived so well; so he submitted, and she did actually cure that one glutton. But she says she will never do it again. “After forty years of made dishes they ought to be content to die; it is bare justice,” quoth Rhoda Gale, M.D.
An apothecary in Barford threatened to indict this Gallic physician. But the other medical men dissuaded him, partly from liberality, partly from discretion: the fine would have been paid by public subscription twenty times over and nothing gained but obloquy. The doctress would never have yielded.
She visits, and prescribes, and laughs at the law, as love is said to laugh at locksmiths.
To be sure, in this country, a law is no law, when it has no foundation in justice, morality, or public policy.