Part 6 (2/2)
Feeling Ann's imploring gaze, Callandar resorted to diplomacy.
”The fact is, Mrs. Sykes,” he said pleasantly, ”there really isn't very much wrong with Ann. You have been letting your forethought and your natural anxiety run away with you. There is not the slightest occasion for alarm. If there were, I should not dream of hiding it from one so well-prepared as yourself. As it is, you have taken a lot of needless trouble--this beautiful feather-bed, for example! I feel sure that Ann would do very well in her own bed.”
The victim of the feathers gave a relieved gasp which her aunt mistook for a sigh of regret.
”Her own bed's well enough for anything ordinary,” she admitted in a mollified tone. ”Even if it is a store mattress.”
”Quite good enough. Many a little girl would be glad of it.” The doctor's tone was virtuous. ”If you will allow me, I shall carry her in now. You see, she is cooler already. By to-morrow, if she takes her medicine, she ought to be as well as ever.”
Ann's own room turned out to be on the shady side, and though not so grand as the spare-room, it was pleasantly cool. The little bed with the hard mattress and the snowy counterpane was infinitely to be preferred to the ocean of feathers, and the rescued maiden lay back on her smaller pillows with a sigh of grat.i.tude.
”Sure you won't tell?” she whispered as he laid her down.
”Honour bright. Cross my heart! But you must take the medicine. It's nasty, but not too nasty, and you mustn't squeal--or it will be the spare-room again. Red cheeks and p.r.i.c.kly heat are consequences, but feather-beds and medicine are retribution.”
”That's right, Doctor,” said Mrs. Sykes, who had heard the last words.
”There's nothing like a word about retribution when a person's sick. It helps 'em to realise their state. I don't hold with the light-minded that want to get away from retribution. Depend upon it, they're the very folks that's got it coming to them. Yes. No one needs to go around denying that there's a h.e.l.l, if their feet are planted upon a rock and they know they're never going there. It's years now since I've looked h.e.l.l in the face and turned my feet the other way. But I do say that if I'd decided to go straight ahead in the broad and easy path, I wouldn't try to shut my eyes to the end of it, like some folks! Are you putting up at the Imperial, Doctor?”
”'Putting up' exactly expresses my condition.”
”Well, you may as well know at once that a doctor in a hotel will never get any forwarder in Coombe. You'll have to get boarding somewhere. Have you looked around yet?”
”No. I--”
”Then I don't mind telling you that the spare-room is to let and the little room down below that has a door of its own and seems made exactly for a doctor's office. I shouldn't mind letting you have them if you feel sure that the smells wouldn't get loose all through the house and in the cooking. There's a barn where you could keep your horse.”
”I haven't got a horse,” protested Callandar feebly.
”But of course you'll be getting one. A doctor has to have a horse. If you can't pay for it down, Mark knows some one who'd let you have a good one on time. You can trust Mark, if he _is_ mournful. Of course I don't say that these rooms are the only rooms to let in Coombe, but I do think they're about as good as you can get--being so near to Dr. Coombe's old house. People get used to coming for a doctor down this street.”
”But that was, over a year ago.”
”It takes more 'an a year for Coombe folks to change their ways. Only this day week I saw Bill Brooks tearing down this way on account of Mrs.
Brooks' being took kind of unexpected, and Bill losing his head and forgetting all about Dr. Coombe being dead and Dr. Parker living on the other side of the town.”
”And you think that if I'd been here he would have 'tore' in here?”
”If he hadn't I'd just have called out to him as he went by. He was that wild he'd have taken anybody.”
”I see,” with humility. ”I lost a good chance there!”
”Well, if you live here you'll get others. Why, from the spare-room windows you can see the corner window down at the Coombe place. I could make out to let you have your meals, too. Only I'd expect you to be as reg'lar as Providence permitted. I know a doctor is bound to be more aggravating in that way than other folks, but if you'd be as regular as lay in you, I'd put up with it. 'Tisn't as if I wasn't always prepared.
When will you want to move in?”
”Really, I--I don't know--” The bewildered Callandar glanced for help to Ann, but met only clasped hands and an imploring stare. ”I'll--I'll let you know,” he faltered.
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