But the physic did not answer. Of all obstinate livers, as Darbyshire said, Rymer’s was about the worst he had ever had to do with. Some days he could not go into the shop at all, and Margaret, his daughter, had to serve the customers. She could make up prescriptions just as well as he, and people grew to trust her. They had a good business. It was known that Rymer’s drugs were genuine; had direct from the fountain-head. He had given up the post-office, and the grocer opposite had taken to it—Salmon, who was brother to Salmon of South Crabb. In this uncertain way, a week ill, and a week tolerably well, Rymer continued to go on for about two years.
Margaret Rymer stood behind the counter: a neat little girl in grey merino. Her face was just like her father’s; the same delicate features, the sweet brown eyes, and the look of innate refinement. Margaret belonged to his side of the house; there was not an atom of the Brummagem Bateses in her. The Squire, who remembered her grandfather the clergyman, said Margaret took after him. She was in her nineteenth year now, and for steadiness you might have trusted her alone right across the world and back again.
She stood behind the counter, making up some medicine. A woman in a coarse brown cloak with a showy cotton handkerchief tied on her head was waiting for it. It had been a dull autumn day: evening was coming on, and the air felt chilly.
“How much be it, please, miss?” asked the woman, as Margaret handed her the bottle of mixture, done up in white paper.
“Eighteenpence. Thank you.”
“Be the master better?” the woman turned round from the door to inquire, as if the state of Mr. Rymer’s health had been an afterthought.
“I think he is a little. He has a very bad cold, and is lying in bed to-day. Thank you for asking. Good-night.”
When dusk came on, Margaret shut the street-door and went into the parlour. Mrs. Rymer sat there writing a letter. Margaret just glanced in.
“Mother, can you listen to the shop, please?”
“I can if I choose—what should hinder me?” responded Mrs. Rymer. “Where are you off to, Margaret?”