It so happened that, on the day when the New Doctor was to arrive, I could not compose myself exactly to my usual after-dinner nap, all owing to that fool of a servant, who will never learn to send up a dinner properly; and so I took my stick, and clopped away down to the White Hart, to try whether a glass of gin-and-water would do me good; and it so happened, oddly enough, that I got down there just exactly at the time the omnibus usually arrives. For you must know that the old respectable coach, which lingered with us after it had disappeared from the rest of the world, is gone at length, and its place is usurped by one of those vile innovations, an omnibus—or ’bus, as it is called in the wretched jargon of the present day. I hate those sneaking low-lifed things more than I do the very railways themselves, which they are employed to attend on. And so, instead of the handsome stylish coach, that a gentleman might ride on without shame, with its dashing four-in-hand, we have got this dirty, shabby, yellow thing, with its unicorn team of skin and bone, a driver that old Jack Simons, the coachman, would not have had for a stable-helper, and an urchin for guard, who would be a disgrace to a dung-cart!
As I made my way down the street, it was easy to see, by the unusual number of people out, that something strange was expected. Peters, of course, was at the hotel door; but then he always is there when the ’bus arrives, for he fancies that he is great upon the subject of horses; and every day, like a fool, throws away threepence or fourpence, which I know he can ill afford, in drink for the driver, who knows nearly as little about horse-flesh as he does himself, in order that he may talk to him about the leader’s mouth, and the off wheeler’s shoulder, and Hobb’s colt, and that young mare of Timmins’s. He was there as a matter of course, and so was Paul, who is just as regular an attendant, and waits about every day to see who comes and who goes, and what parcels there are, and whom they are for, and how much there is to pay on them. These two never miss; but that old woman, Gabriel Mullins, was there also, waiting to see the “New Doctor,” that he might go gabble-gabble about him all over the place. And Muggins, whom no man ever saw, except on Sundays, with his coat or without his apron, was standing outside his shop-door, with his hands in his pockets, and that perpetual smirk upon his countenance, looking out for the ’bus. While Cox, the bookseller and stationer, who must, I am sure, live upon the smell of his wares, for nobody in Mudford, as far as I can see, ever reads or writes, was peering out between those eternal prints in his window, making belief that he was too busy, or too much above vulgar curiosity, to come and look out openly and honestly like Muggins. It takes me some time to get down to the White Hart, so that I had leisure to look about me; and I saw the two Miss MacClinkers, the Surveyor’s daughters, walking down the street, and finding an excuse for loitering in each dowdy shop window, every article in which they must know by heart, for they are in the street often enough, and can use their eyes well enough, I’m sure: there they were, with their outrageous crinolines, showing their anatomical-looking legs in a way that could not fail to attract the attention of any stranger coming up the street on the omnibus, whether doctor or not. The Miss Johnsons, you may be sure, were in Mrs Cook’s front parlour discussing the work for the bazaar, as they had been every afternoon for a week past. And I hope—for the sake of Miss Trimlett, the dressmaker opposite, who, though she has been engaged for the last twenty years, and could not want another lover, was looking out from behind the geraniums in the ground-floor window—that those young girls at the window above, her assistants and apprentices, worked by the piece, and not by the day; for it was one stitch and two minutes’ giggle, and another stitch and another two minutes’ giggle with them as long as I looked. And even old Miss Whittaker, who has been confined to her bed for the last three years with laziness and swollen legs, had sent over that extra sharp little girl of hers, to see whether the New Doctor was come.
I went into the White Hart parlour, sat down at my accustomed side of the fire, and had the glass of gin-and-water for which I had come. Wretched spirit they do keep there now, to be sure! and the water is never half boiling! It did not use to be so in old Cook’s time. There is some extraordinary fatality about it; but as I never require the fire-shovel, and am in constant want of the poker, the former is always placed close to my hands, and the latter on the opposite side of the fireplace, so that I cannot reach it without rising from my chair,—a work of time and difficulty to me, and involving the necessity of turning down Mrs Cook’s cat, which always gets upon my knee with my full consent. It is invariably the case, and of course there was no exception to the rule now; so I had to rise as usual to get the poker, and at the very moment when I was on my legs, the ’bus drove up to the door! Of course, I could not help looking out of window to see it then; and to my great joy—for I am delighted when idle curiosity is baffled—there was not a single passenger there, except little Philips, the commercial traveller, and fat Mrs Biggs, of Great Pigton. I am the best-natured man in the world, as a general rule; but I confess I was glad of this, and chuckled to myself, as I ordered another glass of grog on the strength of it.
Next morning, however, as I went down the street as usual, to look at the papers, everybody was all alive with the news, that the New Doctor had arrived, and in a most strange and unaccountable manner. The omnibus had not brought him, as we know; there was no other public conveyance; and no private nor posting carriage had entered the town during the night; for old Mrs Thomas, who was awake all night with the toothache, was ready to swear that no carriage had passed through the street; and the pikeman, who keeps the turnpike gate at the entrance of the village (the inhabitants of the place are so proud of it, that they would lynch me if they knew that I called it a village, but it really is little more), actually did swear—and he was examined and cross-examined enough on the subject—that the gate had been locked from twelve at night until seven the next morning, and he was certain that no carriage had passed through. But that the Doctor had really come there was no doubt, for one or two persons had seen him in the morning; and among the rest Miss Cringle, who lives opposite, and who had stated, in a note written to Mrs Jones, while she was taking her breakfast, that she had positively seen Mr Smith that morning, looking out of his first-floor window.
I ought to have stated before that the New Doctor had taken the house which old Mole had occupied; and that he had also bought his furniture as well as his patients. Very little there was of either of them; and very little bought them. Both purchases were very old and rickety; but though Mr Smith might possibly be able to dine off the tables, it was not likely that he would ever get much to put upon them out of the patients; for they never had anything but the gout, which is said to keep away every other disease; and they had each of them taken in a stock of about a peck of his celebrated gout-pills from old Mole, before he left the place. But Mole himself has told me that the new doctor, in his correspondence, scarcely made any inquiry about the practice or the furniture, but was most particular about the situation of the house, making it a sine qua non that it should be in a quiet, retired situation. Mole’s description of the house appeared to suit him, and it was retired enough and quiet enough in all conscience; indeed, it would have found it difficult to be anything else in Mudford. It is a square detached house, situated in the very outskirts of the place, and not to be overlooked, except from Miss Cringle’s window, which commands a magnificent view of the front door.
The men in Mudford are sociable enough among themselves; but the women are the very deuce! I suppose you would hardly find any two in the place agreeing that they stand on precisely the same social level. Green the surgeon and apothecary, and Ferris the ironmonger and tinman, are as friendly as possible when they meet; and indeed, Ferris is by far better educated and better informed than Green, who is one of the most ignorant men I know. To tell the truth, I am afraid that Ferris is rather too much above his business, and that Potts, that conceited little monkey, who was his apprentice, and has now set up in opposition to him, will make him find it out before long. Well, Green and Ferris are friendly enough, as I said; but catch Mrs Green speaking to Mrs Ferris in the same way! Oh, dear, no! And White and Black, the two lawyers, though they are always on opposite sides, and sometimes make the most tremendous onslaughts on each other at the County Courts and Magistrates’ Meetings, are in reality, I believe, good friends enough all the time, and play into each other’s hands, and help each other to fleece their clients, like honest fellows. But Mrs Black considers herself and family immeasurably superior to little Mrs White; because that near customer, Sir Henry Burton, has them once a year to dinner, when the neighbouring gentry are gone to town, where he never goes himself, and gives them cape and marsala with their dinner, and half a decanter of port after it; and makes use of their house whenever he comes into town, putting his horses into their little stable, and his coachman into their little kitchen, and has his cold chicken and sherry in their little parlour, because he won’t go to the expense of stopping at the hotel. Because he does all this for them, and does not know the Whites, Mrs Black considers herself—and, I verily believe, is really and spitefully considered, in their inmost hearts, by the other ladies, Mrs White included (though they never own it)—to be the leader of fashion and society in Mudford: so she is far above little Mrs White, and speaks to her when she meets her in the street with a sweet condescending smile, for which I wonder that Mrs White does not slap her face then and there. Black and White will both go to Jones’s whist parties, and drink his grog with the utmost heartiness; but catch Mrs Black or Mrs White visiting at that house, or permitting their daughters to do so, even if they felt inclined, which they don’t! And I remember when that spoony thread-paper boy, young White, took it into his head to be sweet upon the eldest Miss Jones—who, I happen to know, was engaged at the same time to her cousin in Devonshire, where she was on a visit some time since; a very much better match for her than young White would be—his parents and sisters were indignant and outrageous about it; and sent him away out of the town with all speed, as if he had been a royal prince about to marry a servant-girl. But they need not have troubled themselves;—Miss Jones, as I have said, had met with a much better match in her cousin.
It follows from all this, that, unless we hope to get something out of them, or think that we shall be honoured by their acquaintance, we in Mudford are not very prompt in showing attention to strangers. The men might call perhaps; but they have something else to do, and would rather, when possible, leave that kind of thing to the women; and, before long, they have met the new-comer so often in the Reading-room or at the White Hart, and have become so friendly with him, that a formal call, after all that, appears an absurdity: besides, they feel uncomfortable and out of their element sitting about in people’s drawing-rooms, holding their hats and twiddling their gloves in their hands; having no topic of conversation of common interest with the callees; and feeling that the usual hour for their own dinner is come, and that they are keeping the people of the house in the fidgets, from the thought that theirs is going cold in the little back sitting-room, whence they have been roused by that tremendous flourish of the knocker. The women don’t feel this sort of thing when they are the callers; but they take such a long time in considering whether the new people are eligible people or not (always provided, as before intimated, that it is not immediately evident that anything is to be got out of them in the way of profit or honour), that before they have made up their minds, the affair frequently gets out of date altogether, and the call is never made after all.
Now when I speak of becoming intimate soon with new-comers at the Reading-room or at the White Hart, I am speaking generally, and not of our New Doctor in particular; for, on the contrary, he was scarcely ever seen for the first week or two. And yet people didn’t call the more for this. Miss Cringle told me, indeed, that nobody had been to the house except Simpkins, the before-mentioned indefatigable Secretary of the Rifle Corps; and Timmins, the also-before-mentioned equally indefatigable Secretary of the Literary Institution; Rowe, Driver, and Grindley: no ladies, of course, for it was well known that Mr Smith was a bachelor, and so the ladies could not be expected to go. I believe these gentlemen were all somewhat disappointed; for though the New Doctor gave moderate subscriptions where they were asked for, and became an honorary member of the Rifle Corps, and a first-class member of the Institution, he wouldn’t promise to go to drill, nor to give a lecture, nor to go boating, nor cricketing, and told Grindley that he didn’t know a jig from the old hundredth psalm.
I did not call myself, for these things are out of my line, and nobody expects them from me; and, besides, those who did call did not seem to take much by their motion, for Mr Smith was generally “not at home,” and most of those gentlemen I have mentioned had to lie in wait for him, after all, in the street. Miss Cringle says, nevertheless, that she is sure the Doctor had not gone out when they called, and she is likely to know; for, poor creature! she was confined to the house with a dreadful cold, and sat all day long at the window, whence, as has been said, a very fine view of Mr Smith’s front door could be obtained. It must have been very tiresome for her, poor thing! to sit there so many hours; and I am sure it is an honour to human nature, and speaks volumes for the kindness of woman’s heart, that though there was really nothing entertaining nor agreeable in Miss Cringle, the young ladies of Mudford, knowing that she had nothing to amuse her except her knitting, should have devoted so much time to her during this period of her indisposition. Indeed, those kind creatures, the Miss Johnsons and the Miss MacClinkers—who, I know, at other times were in the habit of calling her a “spiteful old cat,” a name, I own, not altogether undeserved,—now that pain and anguish wrung her brow, were such indefatigable ministering angels that they kept her company from morning till night, until, as Miss Cringle told me herself, she was absolutely obliged to say to them that she would rather have their room than their company; and to throw out a very broad hint that she was perfectly aware that they didn’t come to see her, but to look out for the New Doctor! a hint which, however undeserved, did not fail to keep them away from the house for the future.
As I have said, the New Doctor was not seen out much at first; and as Mole was not there to introduce him to his patients, and there were uncommonly few patients to introduce him to, if he had been; and as scarcely anybody called on him, and he was seldom at home to those who did call, and he rarely came out, it was some time before people in general had an opportunity of making his acquaintance; indeed, I think it must have been quite three weeks before I saw him myself, except from Miss Cringle’s window. But of course I heard plenty about him. The men who had seen him did not, as a general rule, appear to think very highly of him; they said he was close and reserved, and a rum sort of fellow, and that he wouldn’t do for Mudford, and all that sort of thing. The verdict of the ladies was at first more favourable. They said he was certainly not handsome exactly, but was very distingué-looking and gentlemanlike indeed; the two Miss MacClinkers talked a great deal of his gentlemanly manners, because he had lifted his hat to them in passing, when they met him unexpectedly in the narrow passage that leads from the street down to Slocum’s Backs (how he could pass such expansive crinolines at all, in such a narrow way, is a mystery to me): and, to tell the truth, I am pained to confess that it is somewhat unusual to see a man lift his hat to a lady in Mudford; a bob of the head, like that of the nodding china figure of a mandarin, being the usual salutation.