Many wondered how it was that Dr. Wrightson did not engage a partner in his business; but that gentleman invariably turned a deaf ear to all hints of this nature. He was strong and well, he said, and able to do his work himself without any help at present. There would be time enough to talk about a partner when he grew to be an old man. The real fact of the matter was, that Dr. Wrightson could not bear to admit “a rival near his throne.” He was fond of his profession, proud of his reputation in it, and very jealous of every other practitioner. A partner would have driven him distracted; and I doubt if he would ever have allowed him to feel a single pulse, or to have sent so much as a black draught out of the dispensary, without his express permission.
Besides this, Dr. Wrightson had another reason for wishing to keep all the practice of Oakhampton in his own hands. The doctor had a daughter—his only child, and the very apple of his eye. To make, or save a fortune for Fanny was the first great object of Dr. Wrightson’s life, his one daily anxiety; and in this task the worthy doctor found an able and willing coadjutor in his sister Penelope, who shared all his hopes and fears, and seconded his endeavours to make a handsome provision for pretty Fanny. A partner would necessarily have been very much in the way of this project. If he did half the work, he would also have divided the profits, and that would by no means have suited Dr. Wrightson’s purposes; and, in short, a partner, or even an assistant above the calibre of the inoffensive Titmas, who had not two ideas in his head, would have caused Dr. Wrightson tortures of jealousy and uneasiness.
Fanny Wrightson had been carefully brought up at a first-class boarding-school; for her mother died when she was a very little child, and Aunt Penny, who then came to take charge of her brother’s establishment, though an excellent housekeeper, was scarcely equal to the responsibility of undertaking the education of her niece. The day she was seventeen, Fanny returned to Oakhampton as a “finished” young lady, with a variety of rather useless accomplishments, and a very slender stock of common sense.
Fanny had, moreover, a fine taste for romance, which seemed to be in some danger of fading away from pure inanition at Oakhampton, when an event occurred which startled the whole Wrightson family from their usual equanimity, and raised a storm of conflicting emotions in the heart of pretty Fanny.
“What do you think? what will you say? what is to be done?” exclaimed Miss Wrightson, as she entered her brother’s room in an excited manner one afternoon just before dinner-time.
“Well, Penelope, what’s the matter now? Is the house on fire, or are there burglars in the cellar, or what?” asked Dr. Wrightson, quietly looking up from a medical journal which he was perusing with deep attention.
“No, no, brother! but something quite as bad. That old house in Church Street is taken, and by whom, do you think? By a medical man! There! His name is Peirce—Montague Peirce—and they are coming in at Lady Day.”
“The deuce they are!” cried Dr. Wrightson, throwing down his journal with a bang. “Much good may it do them! I flatter myself the poor man may go back where he came from without having done me much injury. I have not lived in Oakhampton all these years without being able to hold my own against any impertinent upstart in the kingdom; and so you may tell him, if you see him, with my compliments—my most respectful compliments. Ha, ha, ha! a pretty joke, indeed. Poor Mr. Montague Peirce! I am sorry for him. His prospects are not very lively, poor fellow! Eh? Fanny, my dear, what have you got to say about it?”
“I say it’s a horrid, wicked shame,” replied Fanny, throwing her long curls over her shoulders, “and I quite hate this Mr. Montague Peirce already. What business has he to come poking his nose into Oakhampton, of all places? as if anybody would ever think of sending for him when they could get my dear old darling papa to attend them. The idea of such a thing! But never mind, Aunt Penny, perhaps Mr. Peirce will take some of the poor people who can’t pay, off papa’s hands; and then he will have more time to spare for us at home.”