A Life's Secret: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

'You can leave it for a quarter of an hour. I wish you to go round to Dr. Bevary. I was to have been at his house now—half-past eleven—to accompany him on a visit to a sick friend. Tell him that Sir Michael has come, and I have to go out with him, therefore it is impossible for me to keep my engagement. I am very sorry, tell Bevary: these things always happen crossly. Go right into his consulting-room, Clay; never mind patients; or else he will be chafing at my delay, and grumble the ceiling off.'

Austin departed. Dr. Bevary occupied a good house in the main street, to the left of the yard, to gain which he had to pass the turning to Daffodil's Delight. Had Dr. Bevary lived to the right of the yard, his practice might have been more exclusive; but doctors cannot always choose their localities, circumstances more frequently doing that for them. He had a large connexion, and was often pressed for time.

Down went Austin, and gained the house. Just inside the open door, before which a close carriage was standing, was the doctor's servant.

'Dr. Bevary is engaged, sir, with a lady patient,' said the man. 'He is very particularly engaged for the moment, but I don't think he'll be long.'

'I'll wait,' said Austin, not deeming it well strictly to follow Mr. Henry Hunter's directions; and he turned, without ceremony, to the little box of a study on the left of the hall.

'Not there, sir,' interposed the man hastily, and he showed him into the drawing-room on the right; Dr. Bevary and his patient being in the consulting-room.

Ten minutes of impatience to Austin. What could any lady mean by keeping him so long, in his own house? Then they came forth. The lady, a very red and portly one, rather old, was pushed into her carriage by the help of her footman, Austin watching the process from the window. The carriage then drove off.

The doctor did not come in. Austin concluded the servant must have forgotten to tell him he was there. He crossed the hall to the little study, the doctor's private room, knocked and entered.

'I am not to care for patients,' called out he gaily, believing the doctor was alone; 'Mr. Henry Hunter says so.' But to his surprise, a patient was sitting there—at least, a lady; sitting, nose and knees together, with Dr. Bevary, and talking hurriedly and earnestly, as if they had the whole weight of the nation's affairs on their shoulders.