Part 46 (1/2)
Chapter IX
Henry Oc.o.c.k was pressing for a second opinion; his wife had been in poor health since the birth of her last child. Mahony drove to Plevna House one morning between nine and ten o'clock.
A thankless task lay before him. Mrs. Henry's case had been a fruitful source of worry to him; and he now saw nothing for it but a straight talk with Henry himself.
He drove past what had once been the Great Swamp. From a bed of cattle-ploughed mud interspersed with reedy water-holes; in summer a dry and dust-swept hollow: from this, the vast natural depression had been transformed into a graceful lake, some three hundred acres in extent. On its surface pleasure boats lay at their moorings by jetties and boatsheds; groups of stiff-necked swans sailed or ducked and straddled; while shady walks followed the banks, where the whiplike branches of the willows, showing shoots of tenderest green, trailed in the water or swayed like loose harp-strings to the breeze.
All the houses that had sprung up round Lake Wendouree had well-stocked spreading grounds; but Oc.o.c.k's outdid the rest. The groom opening a pair of decorative iron gates which were the showpiece of the neighbourhood, Mahony turned in and drove past exotic firs, Moreton Bay fig-trees and araucarias; past cherished English hollies growing side by side with giant cacti. In one corner stood a rockery, where a fountain played and goldfish swam in a basin. The house itself, of brick and two-storeyed, with ma.s.sive bay-windows, had an ornamental verandah on one side. The drawing-room was a medley of gilt and l.u.s.tres, mirrors and gla.s.s shades; the finest objects from Dandaloo had been brought here, only to be outdone by Henry's own additions. Yes, Oc.o.c.k lived in grand style nowadays, as befitted one of the most important men in the town. His old father once gone--and Mahony alone knew why the latter's existence acted as a drag--he would no doubt stand for Parliament.
Invited to walk into the breakfast-room, Mahony there found the family seated at table. It was a charming scene. Behind the urn Mrs. Henry, in be-ribboned cap and morning wrapper, dandled her infant; while Henry, in oriental gown and Turkish fez, had laid his newspaper by to ride his young son on his foot. Mahony refused tea or coffee; but could not avoid drawing up a chair, touching the peachy cheeks of the children held aloft for his inspection, and meeting a fire of playful sallies and kindly inquiries. As he did so, he was sensitively aware that it fell to him to break up the peace of this household. Only he knew the canker that had begun to eat at its roots.
The children borne off, Mrs. Henry interrogated her husband's pleasure with a pretty: ”May I?” or ”Should I?” lift of the brows; and gathering that he wished her to retire, laid her small, plump hand in Mahony's, sent a graceful message to ”dearest Mary,” and swept the folds of her gown from the room. Henry followed her with a well-pleased eye--his opinion was no secret that, in figure and bearing, his wife bore a marked resemblance to her Majesty the Queen--and admonished her not to fail to partake of some light refreshment during the morning, in the shape of a gla.s.s of sherry and a biscuit. ”Unless, my love, you prefer me to order cook to whip you up an egg-nog.--Mrs. Oc.o.c.k is, I regret to say, entirely without appet.i.te again,” he went on, as the door closed behind his wife. ”What she eats is not enough to keep a sparrow going.
You must prove your skill, doctor, and oblige us by prescribing a still more powerful tonic or appetiser. The last had no effect whatever.” He spoke from the hearthrug, where he had gone to warm his skirts at the wood fire, audibly fingering the while a nest of sovereigns in a waistcoat pocket.
”I feared as much,” said Mahony gravely; and therewith took the plunge.
When some twenty minutes later he emerged from the house, he was unaccompanied, and himself pulled the front door to behind him. He stood frowning heavily as he snapped the catches of his gloves, and fell foul of the groom over a buckle of the harness, in a fas.h.i.+on that left the man open-mouthed. ”Blow me, if I don't believe he's got the sack!” thought the man in driving townwards.
The abrupt stoppage of Richard's visits to Plevna House staggered Mary.
And since she could get nothing out of her husband, she tied on her bonnet and went off hotfoot to question her friend. But Mrs. Henry tearfully declared her ignorance she had listened in fear and trembling to the sound of the two angry voices--and Henry was adamant. They had already called in another doctor.
Mary came home greatly distressed, and, Richard still wearing his obstinate front, she ended by losing her temper. He knew well enough, said she, it was not her way to interfere or to be inquisitive about his patients; but this was different; this had to do with one of her dearest friends; she must know. In her ears rang Agnes's words: ”Henry told me, love, he wouldn't insult me by repeating what your husband said of me. Oh, Mary, isn't it dreadful? And when I liked him so as a doctor!”--She now repeated them aloud.
This was too much for Mahony. He blazed up. ”The confounded mischiefmonger--the backbiter! Well, if you will have it, wife, here you are ... here's the truth. What I said to Oc.o.c.k was: I said, my good man, if you want your wife to get over her next confinement more quickly, keep the sherry-decanter out of her reach.”
Mary gasped and sank on a chair, letting her arms flop to her side.
”Richard!” she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. ”Oh, Richard, you never did!”
”I did indeed, my dear.--Oh well, not in just those words, of course; we doctors must always wrap the truth up in silver paper.--And I should feel it my duty to do the same again to-morrow; though there are pleasanter things in life, Mary, I can a.s.sure you, than informing a low mongrel like Oc.o.c.k that his wife is drinking on the sly. You can have no notion, my dear, of the compliments one calls down on one's head by so doing. The case is beyond my grasp, of course, and I am cloaking my own shortcomings by making scandalous insinuations against a delicate lady, who 'takes no more than her position ent.i.tles her to'--his very words, Mary!--'for the purpose of keeping up her strength.'” And Mahony laughed hotly.
”Yes, but was it--I mean... was it really necessary to say it?”
stammered Mary still at sea. And as her husband only shrugged his shoulders: ”Then I can't pretend to be surprised at what has happened, Richard. Mr. Henry will NEVER forgive you. He thinks so much of everything and every one belonging to him.”
”Pray, can I help that? ... help his infernal pride? And, good G.o.d, Mary, can't you see that, far more terrible than my having had to tell him the truth, is the fact of there being such a truth to tell?”
”Oh yes, indeed I can,” and the warm tears rushed to Mary's eyes.
”Poor, poor little Agnes!--Richard, it comes of her having once been married to that dreadful man. And though she doesn't say so, yet I don't believe she's really happy in her second marriage either. There are so many things she's not allowed to do--and she's afraid of Mr.
Henry, I know she is. You see he's displeased when she's dull or unwell; she must always be bright and look pretty; and I expect the truth is, since her illness she has taken to taking things, just to keep her spirits up.” Here Mary saw a ray of light, and s.n.a.t.c.hed at it.
”But in that case mightn't the need for them pa.s.s, as she grows stronger?”
”I lay no claim to be a prophet, my dear.”
”For it does seem strange that I never noticed anything,” went on Mary, more to herself than to him. ”I've seen Agnes at all hours of the day... when she wasn't in the least expecting visitors.--Yes, Richard, I do know people sometimes eat things to take the smell away. But the idea of Agnes doing anything so ... so low--oh, isn't it JUST possible there might be some mistake?”
”Oh, well, if you're going to imitate Oc.o.c.k and try to teach me my business!” gave back Mahony with an angry gesture, and sitting down at the table, he pulled books and papers to him.
”As if such a thing would ever occur to me! It's only that ... that somehow my brain won't take it in. Agnes has always been such a dear good little soul, all kindness. She's never done anybody any harm or said a hard word about any one, all the years I've known her. I simply CAN'T believe it of her, and that's the truth. As for what people will say when it gets about that you've been shown the door in a house like Mr. Henry's--why, I'm afraid even to think of it!” and powerless any longer to keep back her tears, Mary hastened from the room.
But she also thought it wiser to get away before Richard had time to frame the request that she should break off all intercourse with Plevna House. This, she could never promise to do; and the result might be a quarrel. Whereas if she avoided giving her word, she would be free to slip out now and then to see poor Agnes, when Richard was on his rounds and Mr. Henry at business. But this was the only point clear to her. In standing up for her friend she had been perfectly sincere: to think ill of a person she cared for, cost Mary an inward struggle. Against this, however, she had an antipathy to set that was almost stronger than herself. Of all forms of vice, intemperance was the one she hated most.
She lived in a country where it was, alas! only too common; but she had never learnt to tolerate it, or to look with a lenient eye on those who succ.u.mbed: and whether these were but slaves of the nipping habit; or the eternal dram-drinkers who felt fit for nothing if they had not a peg inside them; or those seasoned topers who drank their companions under the table without themselves turning a hair; or yet again those who, sober for three parts of the year, spent the fourth in secret debauches. Herself she had remained as rigidly abstemious as in the days of her girlhood. And she often mused, with a glow at her heart, on her great good fortune in having found in Richard one whose views on this subject were no less strict than her own. Hence her distress at his disclosure was caused not alone by the threatened loss of a friends.h.i.+p: she wept for the horror with which the knowledge filled her.