"There now! if I wasn't thinking as a dish of tea would be the nicest thing in the world! and for you to think of it! Ah! you remembers what your mother likes, bless you!"
In that moment he had quickly made up his mind that at any rate it was too late for that night to do anything but just make her comfortable; to-morrow something must be done without delay; but there was ten striking, and she was evidently quite worn out. He must say something to silence those jays of servants and get her off to bed, and then he could sit down and arrange his plans quietly; for the suddenness of the emergency had confused and muddled him.
"I'll tell them to get some tea," he said, "you sit still and rest." And then he rang the bell decidedly and went out into the hall, closing the doors behind him. He had never felt so self-conscious and uncomfortable as when the man-servant came up the kitchen stairs and stood as deferentially as ever before him. He felt as if he had not got entire control of voice, eyes, or hands. His eyes seemed to avoid looking at the man's face in spite of him, and his voice tried hard to be apologetic and entreating of its own accord. That would never do. He thrust his obtrusive hands into his pockets, and drew up his head, and looked sharply at the man straight in the eyes with a "fight you for 2d." expression, or "every bit as if I owed him a quarter's rent," as Hyder said afterwards; and he spoke in a commanding, bullying tone, very unlike his usual courteous behavior to servants, imagining that by this he conveyed to the man's mind that he was quite at his ease, and that nothing unusual had happened.
"Look here," he said, "I want tea at once in the dining-room, and tell cook to send up some cold meat. I suppose it's too late for cutlets or anything like that?"
"Is the lady going to stop the night, sir?"
The words stung Dr. Carter so, that he would have liked to have kicked the man down the kitchen stairs, but he luckily restrained himself.
"Yes, she is. The best bedroom must be got ready, and a fire lighted, and everything made as comfortable as possible. Do you hear?"
"Yes, sir." The man hesitated a second to see if there were any further orders, and Dr. Carter half turned, looking another way, as he added, "She is a very old friend and nurse of mine when I was a child, and I want her to be made comfortable. She will only be here this one night."
He felt as he turned the handle of the consulting-room door that he had really done it rather well on the whole, and carried it off with a high hand, and not told any falsehood after all, for was she not his oldest friend and his most natural nurse? In reality he had never looked less like a gentleman, and Hyder saw it too.
They say a man is never a hero to his own valet. I do not know if this includes men-servants in general; but certain it is that, up to this time, Dr. Carter had kept the respect of his servant. "I know as he ain't a swell," Mr. Hyder would say to the coterie of footmen who met in the bar of the snug little "public" round the corner; "but for all that he ain't a bad master neither; and as far as my experience serves, he's as good a gent as any of them, and better any day than them dandy, half-pay captings as locks up their wine and cigars, and sells their old clothes, and keeps their men on scraps, and cusses and swears as if they was made of nothing else."