“Don’t you see? Norman told me it would be a great relief to him if I would turn my mind that way—and I can’t go against Norman. I found he thought he must if I did not; and, you know, he is fit for all sorts of things that—Besides, he has a squeamishness about him, that makes him turn white, if one does but cut one’s finger, and how he would ever go through the hospitals—”
Meta suspected that Tom was inclined to launch into horrors. “So you wanted to spare him,” she said.
“Ay! and papa was so pleased by my offering that I can’t say a word of the bore it is. If I were to back out, it would come upon Aubrey, and he is weakly, and so young, that he could not help my father for many years.”
Meta was much struck at the motives that actuated the self-sacrifice, veiled by the sullen manner which she almost began to respect. “What is done for such reasons must make you happy,” she said; “though there may be much that is disagreeable.”
“Not the study,” said Tom. “The science is famous work. I like what I see of it in my father’s books, and there’s a splendid skeleton at the hospital that I long to be at. If it were not for Stoneborough, it would be all very well; but, if I should get on ever so well at the examinations, it all ends there! I must come back, and go racing about this miserable circuit, just like your gold pheasant rampaging in his cage, seeing the same stupid people all my days.”
“I think,” said Meta, in a low, heartfelt voice, “it is a noble, beautiful thing to curb down your ambition for such causes. Tom, I like you for it.”
The glance of those beautiful eyes was worth having. Tom coloured a little, but assumed his usual gruffness. “I can’t bear sick people,” he said.
“It has always seemed to me,” said Meta, “that few lives could come up to Dr. May’s. Think of going about, always watched for with hope, often bringing gladness and relief; if nothing else, comfort and kindness, his whole business doing good.”
“One is paid for it,” said Tom.
“Nothing could ever repay Dr. May,” said Meta. “Can any one feel the fee anything but a mere form? Besides, think of the numbers and numbers that he takes nothing from; and oh! to how many he has brought the most real good, when they would have shut their doors against it in any other form! Oh, Tom, I think none of you guess how every one feels about your father. I recollect one poor woman saying, after he had attended her brother, ‘He could not save his body, but, surely, ma’am, I think he was the saving of his soul.’”