He was not to get back, however, without being roused from this beatific condition to a consciousness of his humanity. As he passed through the village, chance drew Edgar’s eye to the house which Lady Mary had noted as that of the doctor, and about which Miss Annetta Baker had discoursed so largely. A cab was at the door, boxes were standing about the steps, and an animated conversation seemed to be going on between two men, one an elderly personage without a hat, who stood on the steps with the air of a man defending his door against an invader, while another and younger figure, standing in front of the cab, seemed to demand admission. “The new doctor has arrived before the old one is ready to go away,” Edgar said to himself, amused by the awkwardness of the situation. He slackened his pace, that the altercation might be over before he passed, and saw the coach man surlily putting back again the boxes upon the cab. The old doctor pointed over Edgar’s head to a cottage in the distance, where, he was aware, there was lodgings to be had; and as Edgar approached, the new doctor, as he supposed the stranger to be, turned reluctantly away, with a word to some one in the cab, which also began to turn slowly round to follow him. The stranger came along the broad sandy road which encircled the Green, towards Edgar, who, on his side, approached slowly. What was there in this slim tall figure which filled him with vague reminiscences? He got interested in spite of himself; was it some one he had known in his better days? who was it? The same fancy, I suppose, rose in the mind of the new-comer. When he turned round for the second time, after various communications with the inmates of the cab, and suddenly perceived Edgar, who was now within speaking distance, he gave a perceptible start. Either his reminiscences were less vague, or he was more prepared for the possibility of such a meeting. He hurried forward, holding out his hand, while Edgar stood still like one stunned. “Dr. Murray?” he said, at last, feeling for the moment as if he had been transported back to Loch Arroch. He was too bewildered to say more.
“You are very much surprised to see me,” said Charles Murray, with his half-frank, half-sidelong aspect; “and it is not wonderful. When we met last I had no thought of making any move. But circumstances changed, and a chance threw this in my way. Is it possible that we are so lucky as to find you a resident here?”
“For the moment,” said Edgar; “but indeed I am very much surprised. You are to be Dr. Frank’s successor? It is very odd that you should hit upon this village of all the world.”
“I hope it is a chance not disagreeable to either of us,” said the young doctor, with a glance of the suspicion which was natural to him; “but circumstances once more seem against us,” he added hurriedly, going back to the annoyance, which was then uppermost. “Here I have to go hunting through a strange place for lodgings at this hour,—my sister tired by a long journey. By the way, you have not seen Margaret; she is behind in the cab; all because the Franks forsooth, cannot go out of their house when they engaged to do so!”
“But the poor lady, I suppose, could not help it,” said Edgar, “according to what I have heard.”
“No, I suppose she couldn’t help it—on the whole,” he allowed, crossly. “Cabman, stop a moment—stop, I tell you! Margaret, here is some one you have often heard of—our cousin, who has been so good to the dear old granny—Edgar Earnshaw.”
Dr. Charles pronounced these last words with a sense of going further than he had ever gone before, in intimacy with Edgar. He had never ventured to call his cousin by his Christian name; and even now it was brought in by a side wind, as it were, and scarcely meant so much as a direct address. Edgar turned with some curiosity to the cab, to see the sister whom he had seen waiting at the station for Dr. Murray some months ago. He expected to see a pretty and graceful young woman; but he was not prepared for the beauty of the face which looked at him from the carriage-window with a soft appealing smile, such as turns men’s heads. She was tall, with a slight stoop (though that he could not see) and wore a hat with a long feather, which drooped with a graceful undulation somewhat similar, he thought, to the little bow she made him. She was pale, with very fine, refined features, a large pair of the softest, most pathetic blue eyes, and that smile which seemed to supplicate and implore for sympathy. There was much in Margaret’s history which seemed to give special meaning to the plaintive affecting character of her face; but her face was so by nature, and looked as if its owner threw herself upon your sympathies, when indeed she had no thought of anything of the sort. A little girl of six or seven hung upon her, standing up in the carriage, and leaning closely against her mother’s shoulder, in that clinging inseparable attitude, which, especially when child and mother are both exceptionally handsome, goes to the heart of the spectator. Edgar was subjugated at once; he took off his hat and went reverently to the carriage-door, as if she had been a saint.
“It is very pleasant that you should be here, and I am very glad to see you,” she said, in soft Scotch accents, in which there was a plaintive, almost a complaining tone. Edgar found himself immediately voluble in his regrets as to the annoyance of their uncomfortable reception, and, ere he knew what he was doing, had volunteered to go with Dr. Charles to the lodgings, to introduce him, and see whether they were satisfactory. He could not quite understand why he had done it, and thus associated himself with a man who did not impress him favourably, as soon as he had turned from the door of the cab, and lost sight of that beautiful face; of course he could not help it, he could not have refused his good offices to any stranger, he said to himself. He went on with his cousin to the cottage, where the landlady curtseyed most deeply to the gentleman from Tottenham’s, and was doubly anxious to serve people who were his friends; and before he left he had seen the beautiful new-comer, her little girl as always standing by her side leaning against her, seated on a sofa by a comfortable fire, and forgetting or seeming to forget, her fatigues. Dr. Charles could not smile so sweetly or look so interesting as his sister; he continued to inveigh against Dr. Franks, and his rashness in maintaining possession of the house.
“But the poor thing could not help it,” said Margaret, in her plaintive voice, but not without a gleam of fun (if that were possible without absolute desecration) in her eyes.
“They should not have stayed till the last moment; they should have made sure that nothing would happen,” the doctor said, hurrying in and out, and filling the little sitting-room with cloaks and wraps, and many small articles. Margaret made no attempt to help him, but she gave Edgar a look which seemed to say, “Forgive him! poor fellow, he is worried, and I am so sorry he has not a good temper.” Edgar did not know what to make of this angelical cousin. He walked away in the darkening, after he had seen them settled, with a curious feeling, which he could not explain to himself. Was he guilty of the meanness of being annoyed by the arrival of these relatives, who were in a position so different from that of his other friends? Was it possible that so paltry, so miserable a feeling could enter his mind—or what was it? Edgar could render no distinct account to himself of the sensation which oppressed him; but as he walked rapidly up the avenue in the quickly falling darkness, he felt that something had happened, which, somehow or other, he could not tell how, was to affect his future life.