Dr. Wainwright's Patient: A Novel

by Edmund Yates

It was very short; only one line:

"At the usual place, at three to-day.--DAISY."

[CHAPTER IV.]

AFTER OFFICE-HOURS.

Paul Derinzy was left alone in the Principal Registrar's Room, and silence reigned in H.M. Stannaries Office. Snow does not melt away more speedily under the influence of the bright spring sun than do the clerks of that admirable department under the sound of one o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. Within ten minutes the place was deserted, the gentlemen had all cleared out, the messengers had closed up desks and lockers, despatched papers, and bolted, and the place was left to Mr. Derinzy and the office-keeper. The latter went to the door with the last departing messenger, looked up the street and down the street, and with something of the soreness of a man who knew he was imprisoned for at least thirty-six hours, said he thought they were going to have some rain; an idea which the messenger--who had an engagement to take the young lady with whom he was keeping company to Gravesend on the Sunday--indignantly pooh-poohed. Not to be put down by this sort of thing, the office-keeper declared that rain was wanted by the country, to which the messenger replied that he thought of himself more than the country; and as the country had done without it for three weeks, it might hold over without much bother till Monday, he should think; and nodded, and went his way. The office-messenger kicked the door viciously to, and proceeded to make his round of the various rooms to see that everything was in order, and to turn the key in each door after his inspection. When he came to the Principal Registrar's Room he went in as usual, but finding Mr. Derinzy there performing on his head with two hairbrushes, he begged pardon and retreated, wondering what the deuce possessed anyone to stop in the Office of H.M. Stannaries when he had the chance of leaving it and going anywhere else. A cynical fellow this office-keeper, only to be humanised by his release on Monday morning.

Mr. Paul Derinzy was in no special hurry, he had plenty of time before him, and he had his toilette to attend to; a business which, though he was no set dandy, he never scamped. He was very particular about the exact parting of his hair, the polish of his nails, and the set of his necktie; and between each act of dressing he went back to his writing-table, and re-read the little note lying upon, it. Once or twice he took the little note up, and whispered "darling!" to it, and kissed it before he put it down again. Poor Paul! he was evidently very hard hit, and just at the time of life, too, when these wounds fester and rankle so confoundedly. Your ci-devant jeune homme, your middle-aged gallant, viveur, coureur des dames, takes a love-affair as easily as his dinner: if it goes well, all right; if it comes to grief, equally all right; the sooner it is over the better he likes it. The great cynical philosopher of the age, whose cynicism it is now the fashion to deny--as though he could help it, or would have been in the least ashamed of it--in one of his ballads calls upon all his coevals of forty to declare:

Did not the fairest of the fair Common grow, and wearisome, ere /Ever a month had passed away?

Middle-aged man has other aims, other resources, other objects. The "court, camp, grove, the vessel and the mart," fame, business, ambition--all of these have claims upon his time, claims which he is compelled to recognise in their proper season; and, worst of all, he has recovered from the attacks of the "cruel madness of love," a youthful disorder, seldom or never taken in middle life; the glamour which steeped all surrounding objects in roseate hues no longer exists, and it is impossible to get up any spurious imitations of it. Time has taught him common sense; he has made friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; and instead of wandering about the grounds begging Maud to come out to him, and singing rapturous nonsense to the flowers, he is indoors dining with the Tory squires. But the young have but one idea in the world. They are entirely of opinion, with Mr. Coleridge's hero, that all thoughts, "all passions, all delights that stir this mortal frame," are "ministers of love," and "feed his sacred flame." Perpetually to play at that sweet game of lips, to alternate between the heights of hope and the depths of despair, to pine for a glance and to be made happy by a word, to have no care for anything else, to ignore the friends in whose society you have hitherto found such delight, to shut your eyes knowingly, wilfully, and resolutely to the sight of everything but one object, and to fall down and persistently adore that object in the face of censure, contempt, and obloquy, is granted to but few men over thirty years of age. Let them not be ashamed of the weakness, rather let them congratulate themselves on its possession: it will give a zest and flavour to their middle life which but few enjoy.

Paul Derinzy, however, was just at that period of his life when everything is rose-coloured. He was even young enough to enjoy looking at himself in the glass, which is indeed a proof of youth; for there is no face or no company a man so soon gets sick of as his own. But Paul stood before the little glass behind the washing-screen settling his hat, and gazing at himself very complacently, even going so far as to fetch another little glass from his drawer, and by aid of the two ascertaining that his back parting was perfectly straight. As he replaced the glass, he took out a yellow rosebud, carefully wrapped in wool, cleared it from its envelope, and sticking it in his buttonhole, took his departure.

Paul looked up at the Horse-Guards clock as he passed by, and finding that he had plenty of time to spare, walked slowly up Whitehall. The muslin-cravated, fresh-coloured, country gentlemen at the Union Club, and the dyed and grizzled veterans at the Senior United, looked out of the window at the young man as he passed, and envied him his youth and his health and his good looks. He strolled up Waterloo Place just as the insurance-offices with which that district abounds were being closed for the half-holiday, and the insurance-clerks, young gentlemen who, for the most part, mould themselves in dress and manners upon Government officials, took mental notes of Paul's clothes, and determined to have them closely imitated so soon as the state of their salaries permitted. Quite unconscious of this sincerest flattery, Paul continued his walk, striking across into Piccadilly, and lounging leisurely along until he came to the Green Park, which he entered, and sat down for a few minutes. It was the dull time of the day--when the lower half of society was at dinner, and the upper half at luncheon--and there was scarcely anyone about. After a short rest, Paul looked at his watch, and muttering to himself, "She can't have started yet; I may just as well have the satisfaction of letting my eyes rest on her as she walks to the Gardens," he rose, and turned his steps back again. He turned up Bond Street, and off through Conduit Street into George Street, Hanover Square, and there, just by St. George's Church, he stopped.