“So it was,” said he; “I recollect perfectly now. In the bar, and Mrs Cook was present. What do you say to a glass of ale now?”
But I was too much offended for this, and left him with a somewhat haughty salute. Now—will it be believed—I met him again on the very next day, and he positively crossed the street to speak to me!
“Ah, my dear sir,” said he, “I am delighted to meet you! I have been looking out for you ever since we met in the bar of the White Hart, and you told me such amusing stories of our neighbours.”
“So!” I said; “your memory is better to-day, is it? Why, yesterday you had forgotten all about me!”
He burst into a hearty laugh. “What! my dear sir,” he said, “I was in one of my absent fits yesterday, was I? You really must not think anything of it. It is natural to me, and I cannot help it for the life of me.”
But I did think of it a little, nevertheless; for I like to know how to find people, and have no fancy for being treated with that sort of caprice.
I said that the New Doctor was never very popular with the men, but that the verdict of the women was more favourable. Before long, however, he became more unpopular than ever—and with the ladies most of all; and that not only on account of the peculiarities I have described, and of the rumours I have hinted at—which spread more and more every day, and which I shall have to speak of presently—but also for other reasons which I had better mention here, before going to more serious matters.
First, then, Mr Smith, whom almost nobody had called on, and whom scarcely anybody had asked to his house, or introduced to his family, was within a short time after his arrival invited to five pic-nics; one up the river, three down, and one in Twiddleham Park—and to not one of them did he go. Now, not to go to a pic-nic to which you are invited at Mudford, is to give the greatest offence to those who do go, especially if you happen to be a stranger and a bachelor: and that for these reasons.
Of course, if you do not go, there is one gentleman the less to escort the ladies, who, not having so much to attend to at home, or having a greater partiality for the pastime, are always in a great majority over the gentlemen at these parties. And if you should happen to be a marrying man, and a tolerably eligible match, the loss is, of course, so much the greater. This reason evidently affects principally marriageable young ladies, and those who are interested in getting them off their hands; but there is another reason which appeals to the hearts and feelings of everybody. It is this:—In these parties the ladies provide the eatables, and the gentlemen bring the drinkables, and club together to pay the costs of conveyance and other miscellaneous charges. Now, if one gentleman be subtracted from the total number going—a very small number generally, for reasons which will now be thoroughly understood—it follows that the remainder will necessarily have to pay more per head for conveyance, &c., and will also have to provide more each in the way of wine, spirit, bottled ale, and other liquids necessary to the success of pic-nics; or else that each individual will have less to drink. Human nature revolts at such an alternative; and we find it intelligible enough, that to refuse to go to a pic-nic at Mudford, should be considered by those who do go to be adding injury to insult.
But there was a reason greater even than this for the falling off of the New Doctor in the estimation of the young ladies, until even the Miss Johnsons and the Miss MacClinkers, who had thrown themselves at his head in every way which was open to them when he first came, had now nothing too bad to say of him. And that was, that he dared—he actually dared—how shall I tell it!—he dared to fall in love with a young lady who was a stranger and sojourner in the place, while there were so many native virgins ready and willing to be fallen in love with! Need I, after this, describe the bitterness with which he was spoken of by all the female portion of Mudford society! It was really most audacious conduct! To think that neither the Miss Johnsons, nor the Miss MacClinkers, nor the Misses Ferris, nor the Miss Skinners, nor any among the marriageable young ladies of Mudford, would suit his taste, and that he must pitch upon that little Laura Playfair from London, who had now come down on her second visit to her cousins, the Skinners! And yet, highly as I disapprove of the Doctor’s behaviour, I cannot help saying that Miss Playfair was a very nice and very superior girl, and that, had I been a young man myself, I should——. But never mind; I won’t have the bad taste to draw comparisons on such subjects, but will only go on to say that Laura had not been two days in the place before the wretch Smith saw her, and procured an introduction to her and to the three Miss Skinners at the same time. Those three sisters immediately put their innocent heads together, and absolutely prevailed on their mamma, who is as stingy as the grave, to give a party, and invite Mr Smith to it! It is well known that young doctors in country towns must marry, if they wish to get into practice; and those shrewd and benevolent young ladies fondly hoped that one of them might be destined to make Mr Smith’s fortune, and to partake of it. Think of their feelings when it became most manifest that the wretch was paying the greatest attention to Miss Playfair, to whom the same was evidently not unacceptable! The indignation of the other young ladies of the place was scarcely less; but then, to be sure, they had considerable consolation in the thought of what a snubbing those forward girls the Skinners had received. I am afraid, from what I have heard, that the Skinners’s hearts were turned from Laura from that time forth; but they did not dare openly to break with her, for the Playfairs were rather rich people, and kept their carriage (a one-horse phaeton, I believe), and occasionally invited the Miss Skinners to Bayswater; and Laura had one brother a clergyman, and another in the army; and the Skinners had always been fond of talking largely in Mudford about their connections; so, of course, they still kept up appearances as well as they could; but I know that Miss Playfair had intended to stay much longer than she did stay; and I have no doubt that it was owing to this affair of Mr Smith that her visit was brought to an untimely close.