‘I hope I’m not overdoing it,’ Nora thought to herself. ‘But the poor fellow really has so much to put up with, that one can’t help behaving a little kindly to him, when one happens to get the opportunity.’
When Dr Whitaker rose to leave, he shook hands with Nora very warmly, and said as he did so: ‘Good-bye, Miss Dupuy. I shan’t forget next time that the dedication is to be fairly printed in good earnest.’
‘Mind you don’t, Dr Whitaker,’ Nora responded gaily. ‘Good-bye. I suppose I shan’t see you again, as usual, for another week of Sundays!’
The mulatto smiled once more, a satisfied smile, as he answered quickly: ‘O yes, Miss Dupuy. We shall meet on Monday next. Of course, you’re going to the governor’s ball at Banana Garden!’
Nora started. ‘The governor’s ball!’ she repeated—‘the governor’s ball! O yes, of course I’m going there, Dr Whitaker.—But are you invited?’
She said it thoughtlessly, on the spur of the moment, for it had never occurred to her that the brown doctor would have an invitation also; but the tone of surprise in which she spoke cut the poor young mulatto to the very quick in that moment of triumph. He drew himself up proudly as he answered in a hasty tone: ‘O yes; even I am invited to Banana Garden, Miss Dupuy. The governor of the colony at least can recognise no distinction of class or colour in his official capacity.’
Nora’s face flushed crimson. ‘I shall hope to see you there,’ she answered quickly. ‘I’m glad you’re going.—Marian, dear, we shall be quite a party. I only wish I was going with you, instead of being trotted off in that odiously correct style by old Mrs Pereira.’
Dr Whitaker said no more, but raised his hat upon the piazza steps, jumped upon his horse, and took his way along the dusty road that led from the Hawthorns’ cottage to the residence of the Honourable Robert Whitaker. As he reached the house, Miss Euphemia was laughing loudly in the drawing-room with her bosom friend, Miss Seraphina M‘Culloch. ‘Wilberforce!’ Miss Euphemia cried, the moment her brother made his appearance on the outer piazza, ‘jest you come straight in here, I tellin’ you. Here’s Pheenie come around to hab a talk wit you. You is too unsocial altogedder. You always want to go an’ bury yourself in your own study. O my, O my! Young men dat come from England, dey hasn’t got no conversation at all for to talk wit de ladies.’
Dr Whitaker was not in the humour just that moment to indulge in pleasantries with Miss Seraphina M‘Culloch, a brown young lady of buxom figure and remarkably free-and-easy conversation; so he sighed impatiently as he answered with a hasty wave of his hand: ‘No, Euphemia; I can’t come in and see your friend just this minute. I must go into my own room to make up some medicines—some very urgent medicines—wanted immediately—for some of my poor sick patients.’ Heaven help his soul for that transparent little prevarication, for all the medicine had been sent out in charge of a ragged negro boy more than two hours ago; and it was Dr Whitaker’s own heart that was sick and ill at ease, beyond the power of any medicine ever to remedy.
Miss Euphemia pouted her already sufficiently protruding lips. ‘Always dem stoopid niggers,’ she answered contemptuously. ‘How on eart a man like you, Wilberforce, dat has always been brought up respectable an’ proper, in a decent fam’ly, can bear to go an’ trow away his time in attendin’ to a parcel of low nigger people, is more dan I can ever understan’.—Can you, Seraphina?’