Mr. Mannering’s illness ran on and on. Week after week the anxious watchers waited for the crisis which did not come. It was evident now that the patient, who had no violence in his illness any more than in his life, was yet not to be spared a day of its furthest length. But it was allowed that he had no bad symptoms, and that the whole matter turned on the question whether his strength could be sustained. Dr. Roland, not allowed to do anything else for his friend, regulated furtively the quality and quantity of the milk, enough to sustain a large nursery, which was sent upstairs. He tested it in every scientific way, and went himself from dairy to dairy to get what was best; and Mrs. Simcox complained bitterly that he was constantly making inroads into “my kitchen” to interfere in the manufacture of the beef tea. He even did, which was against every rule of medical etiquette, stop the great Dr. Vereker on the stairs and almost insist upon a medical consultation, and to give his own opinion about the patient to this great authority, who looked him over from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot with undisguised yet bewildered contempt. Who was this man who discoursed to the great physician about the tendencies and the idiosyncrasies of the sick man, whom it was a matter of something like condescension on Dr. Vereker’s part to attend at all, and whom this little person evidently believed himself to understand better?
“If Mr. Mannering’s friends wish me to meet you in consultation, I can have, of course, no objection to satisfy them, or even to leave the further conduct of the case in your hands,” he said stiffly.
“Nothing of the kind—nothing of the kind!” cried poor Dr. Roland. “It’s only that I’ve watched the man for years. You perhaps don’t know——”
“I think,” said Dr. Vereker, “you will allow that after nearly six weeks’ attendance I ought, unless I am an ignoramus, to know all there is to know.”
“I don’t deny it for a moment. There is no practitioner in London certainly who would doubt Dr. Vereker’s knowledge. I mean his past—what he has had to bear—the things that have led up——”
“Moral causes?” said the great physician blandly, raising his eyebrows. “My dear sir, depend upon it, a bad drain is more to be reckoned with than all the tragedies of the world.”
“I shall not depend on anything of the kind!” cried Dr. Roland, almost dancing with impatience.
“Then you will permit me to say good-morning, for my time is precious,” answered his distinguished brother—“unless,” he added sarcastically, pausing to look round upon the poor doctor’s sitting-room, then arrayed in its morning guise as waiting-room, with all the old Graphics, and picture books laid out upon the table—“Mr. Mannering’s friends are dissatisfied and wish to put the case in your hands?”
“Do you know who Mr. Mannering’s friends are?” cried Dr. Roland. “Little Dora, his only child! I know no others. Just about as little influential as are those moral causes you scorn, but I don’t.”
“Indeed!” said Dr. Vereker, with more consideration of this last statement. Little Dora was not much of a person to look to for the rapidly accumulating fees of a celebrated doctor during a long illness. But though he was a prudent man, he was not mercenary; perhaps he would have hesitated about taking up the case had he known at first, but he was not the man to retire now out of any fear of being paid. “Mr. Mannering is a person of distinction,” he said, in a self-reassuring tone; “he has been my patient at long intervals for many years. I don’t think we require to go into the question further at this moment.” He withdrew with great dignity to the carriage that awaited him, crossing one or two of Dr. Roland’s patients, whose appearance somewhat changed his idea of the little practitioner who had thus ventured to assail him; while, on the other hand, Roland for his part was mollified by the other’s magnanimous reception of a statement which seemed to make his fees uncertain. Dr. Vereker was not in the least a mercenary man, he would never have overwhelmed an orphan girl with a great bill: at the same time, it did float across his mind that if the crisis were once over which professional spirit and honour compelled him to conduct to a good end if possible, a little carelessness about his visits after could have no bad result, considering the constant vicinity of that very keen-eyed practitioner downstairs.