“There are other mothers in Rodmoor, aren’t there?” he remarked.
Nance frowned. “You think I don’t look after her properly,” she murmured. “No, I suppose I haven’t. And yet I’ve tried to—I’ve tried my very best.”
“You’re as hopeless as your Adrian with his owl,” cried the Doctor. “He was feeding it with cake the other day. Cake! He’d better not bring his owl and our friend’s rat together. There won’t be much of the rat left. Cake!” And the Doctor put back his head and uttered an immense gargantuan laugh. Nance looked a little disturbed and even a little indignant at his merriment.
“What do you mean by other mothers?” she asked. They had just reached the bridge and Dr. Raughty bade her look over the parapet.
“What exquisite bellies those dace have!” he remarked, snuffing the air as he spoke. “There’ll be rain before night. Do you feel it? I know from the way those fish rise. The sea too, it has a different voice—has that ever caught your attention?—when there’s rain on the wind. Those dace are shrewd fellows. They’re after the bits of garbage the sea-gulls drop on their way up the river. You might think they were after flies, but they’re not. I suppose George Crabbe or George Borrow would switch ’em out with some bait such as was never dreamed of—the droppings of rabbits perhaps or ladybird grubs. I suppose old Doctor Johnson would wade in up to his knees and try and scoop ’em up in his hands. There’s a big one! Do you see? The one waving his tail and turning sideways. I expect he weighs half a pound or more. Fish are beautiful things, especially dace. Isn’t it wonderful to think that if you pulled any of those things backwards through the water they would be drowned, simply by the rush of water through their gills? Look, Nance, at that one! What a silver belly! What a delicate, exquisite tail! A plague on these fellows who philander with owls and rats! Give me fish—if you want to make a cult of something.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, “I should think Lubric de Lauziere must have kept a pet fish in his round pond!”
“Good-bye, Fingal,” said Nance, holding out her hand.
“What! Well! Where! God help us! What’s wrong, Nance? You’re not annoyed with me, are you? Do you think I’m talking through my hat? Not at all! I’m leading up to it. A mother—that’s what she wants. She wants it just as those dace want the water to flow in their faces and not backwards through their gills. She’s being dragged backwards—that’s what’s the matter with her. She wants her natural element and it must flow in the right direction. You won’t do. Traherne won’t do. A mother is the thing! A woman, Nance, who has borne children has certain instincts in dealing with young girls which make the wisest physicians in the world look small!”
Nance smiled helplessly at him.
“But, Fingal, dear,” she said, “what can I do? I can’t appeal to Mrs. Raps, can I—or your friend Mrs. Sodderley? When you come to think, there are very few mothers in Rodmoor!”