“Quite out of the question, my dear Sir Murray,” said the doctor, pleasantly, as he partook of the glass of wine left upon the sideboard.
“But the carriage is waiting, Challen,” said Sir Murray. “I came over in the close carriage on purpose. Surely if she is lifted in and driven slowly it cannot hurt her.”
“Now look here, Gernon,” said the doctor, sturdily, “I brought that child into the world, and saved her life, sir—saved her life, when not half-a-dozen doctors in England could have done it. I’ve been your—Capital glass of port, by Jove! Try one. You won’t? Very good; I will. Let’s see—what was I saying? Ah! I’ve been your family medical attendant ever since I began to practise, and save and except such times as you chose to go abroad and put yourself into the hands of foreign poisoners, I’ve had your welfare at heart. Now, I’m a crotchety old fellow—better try a glass of Norton’s port: I’ll swear it’s ’20 vintage—crotchety old fellow—over professional matters; and if the Queen herself came meddling in a sick-room where I was engaged, I’d order her out as soon as look at her: ergo, I’m not at all afraid of a baronet.”
Sir Murray made a gesture of impatience.
“There, confound you, sir,” cried the doctor, testily, “I don’t care for your fuming—I’m not going to give way. Now, look here, Gernon: you ought to have more confidence in me, and in what I say. I don’t want to boast; but I saved your life; I saved your wife’s life; and, as aforesaid, I saved the life of that child up-stairs when it was a tiny spark that a breath would have destroyed. I’m proud of it, you see. Now you want to kill her, because she is here in the house of the people you most dislike in the world—out-and-out good sort of people, and good friends of mine, all the same. Can’t help it—I must speak plain. This is a case where plain speaking is necessary, so you need not fling about. You must sink all these family quarrels, and thank Heaven that the poor child was brought here, where there was a clever, sensible woman like Mrs Norton to take the first steps towards warding off fever.”
“But, surely, Challen,” exclaimed Sir Murray, deprecatingly now, “with plenty of wrapping, and the carriage!”
“My good man,” cried the doctor, now thoroughly angry, “if you will be obstinate, and want her to have plenty of wrapping, go and fetch a lead coffin, and if she is to go in a carriage, send old McCray over to Marshton for Downing’s hearse. It will be the most sensible thing you can do; for she will be dead before she gets home, or soon after. What the deuce is the use of your talking? Do you think I want her to stay here, or that I take two straws’ worth of interest in your confounded affairs and squabbles? That child’s life is the first consideration. I won’t put up with it, Gernon—I won’t indeed. How dare you interfere and want to meddle with things which you don’t understand? That child’s constitution is not a political matter for you to meddle with. Why, confound you, sir, here we have just got her into as lovely a perspiration as ever I saw upon a human subject! There’s the threatened fever evaporating, as it were, from her system, and she sleeping gloriously, when you must come in with your family pride, and want to destroy all that I have done! I tell you what it is—”
“My dear Challen,” exclaimed Sir Murray, “I don’t want to upset your arrangements. I only thought—”
“Confound you, sir! how dare you to think, here, in a case of life and death? It’s a piece of consequential, confounded, titled presumption—that’s what it is!”
There was no mistaking, either, that Mr Challen was in a professional passion; for, as he said, “in matters of medicine he would give way to none,” while being, certainly, a very clever practitioner, and well knowing that fact, he was somewhat ready to leap upon his own little hill, and to crow loudly. He had just descended, proud and elate with the state in which he had left his patient, when, as he mentally termed it, this impertinent interference on the part of Sir Murray made him erect all his hackles, and give battle most furiously for his rights.