“I do not think it is anything complicated,” said Mrs Derwent. “If we were at home”—and she sighed just a little—“I should know how to treat it myself. But I have forgotten the names of English medicaments, and, indeed, I doubt if we could get the herbs and simple drugs here at all. No, it is best to have a doctor. Who is the nearest, Miss Halliday?”
“Mr Burgess lives only a few doors off,” the little woman replied. “And he is clever, I believe.”
“But you don’t like him, I see,” said Mrs Derwent. “Is there anything against him?”
“Oh dear, no. But they—Mr Burgess and his wife—are not like Dr Summers and Miss Summers. Mrs Burgess has the name of chattering a great deal, and rather spitefully sometimes,” Miss Halliday admitted.
The Derwents only smiled.
“That really does not matter,” said the mother. “We shall have nothing to do with the wife. I think you had better send round for Mr Burgess and ask him to look in at once.”
The throat was not a quinsy, but still rather troublesome and painful. Mr Burgess doctored it—or Stasy rather—skilfully enough, and being pleasant and good-tempered, a certain amount of friendliness naturally sprang up between himself and his new patient’s family, including Stasy herself.
“He is not his wife, and you can say anything to a doctor,” she replied to Blanche, when, some days later—by which time Stasy was almost quite well again—the elder sister was remonstrating with her for talking too fast to her new friend, considering the warning they had been given. “Besides, there is no secret about who we are, and where we come from, or anything about us.”
“Certainly not,” said her mother, “but we do not want these Blissmore ladies to begin calling upon us simply out of curiosity, and I did hear you saying to the doctor this morning that it was very dull not to have any friends here. I daresay he will have sense enough not to pay any attention to it, otherwise, it almost sounded like asking his wife to call.”
But Stasy was sure she could not have been so misunderstood, and the subject dropped. Only, however, to be revived more disagreeably when, two days later, Mrs Burgess did call. Her husband was really not to blame for it, but he was an easy-going man, and, by a great show of sympathy “with the poor things,” feeling so lonely as they must be doing, she extracted from him a reluctant half-consent to her taking advantage of his professional acquaintance with the ladies, whose doings had so occupied her empty head.