Part 43 (2/2)
”Poor chap! He's handicapped in the race of life. As for his wife, when I saw her she was suffering with acute rheumatism and bad feeling--and, I may add, defective reasoning power. However....” The doctor fills in blanks, adds a signature, says ”There we are!” and Mrs. Shoosmith is disposed of as an applicant to the inst.i.tution, and will no doubt reap some benefits we need not know the particulars of.
But she remains as a subject for the student of human life--also, tea comes--also, which is interesting, Sally proceeds to make it.
Now, if the reserves this young lady had made about this visit, if her pretence that it was a necessity arising from a charitable organization, if the colour that was given to that pretence by her interview with the servant Craddock--if any of these things had been more or less than the grossest hypocrisy, would it, we ask you, have been accepted as a matter of course that she should pull off her gloves and sit down to make tea with a mature knowledge of how to get the little lynch-pin out of the spirit-lamp, and of how many spoonfuls? No; the fact is, Sally was a more frequent visitor to the image of Buddha than she chose to admit; and as for the doctor, he seized every legitimate opportunity of 'cello practice at Krakatoa Villa. But G.P.'s cannot call their time their own.
”The funny part of Mrs. Shoosmith,” said Sally, when the pot was full up and the lid shut, ”is that the moment she is brought into contact with warm soapy water and scrubbing-brushes, she seems to renew her youth. She brings large pins out of her mouth and secures her ap.r.o.n.
And then she scrubs. Now you may blow the methylated out and make yourself useful, Dr. Conrad.”
”Does she put back the pins when she's done scrubbing?” the doctor asks, when he has made himself useful.
”She puts them back against another time, so I have understood. I suppose they live in her mouth. That's yours with two lumps. That is your mother's--no, I won't pour it yet. She's asleep.”
For the fact is that the Goody, anxious to invest herself with an appearance of forbearance towards the frivolities of youth, readiness to forego (from amiability) any share in the conversation, insight into the _rapports_ of others (especially male and female _rapports_), and general superiority to human weakness, had endeavoured to express all these things by laying down her knitting, folding her hands on her circ.u.mference, and looking as if she knew and could speak if she chose. But if you do this, even the maintenance of an attentive hypodermic smile is not enough to keep you awake--and off you go! The Goody did, and the smile died slowly off into a snore. Never mind! She was in want of rest, so she said. It was curious, too, for she seldom got anything else.
It would have been unfeeling to wake her, so Dr. Vereker went and sat a good deal nearer Sally, not to make more noise than was necessary.
This reacted, an outsider might have inferred, on the subject-matter of the conversation, making it more serious in tone. And as Sally put the little Turk's cap over the pot to keep it warm, and the doctor knew perfectly well that the blacker the tea was the better his mother liked it, this lasted until that lady woke up with a start a long time after, and said she must have been asleep. Then, as Cook was aware in the kitchen, some more noise came of it, and Sally carried off Mrs. Shoosmith's certificate.
”You know, Dr. Conrad, it makes you look like a real medical man,” she said at the gate, referring to the detention of the doctor's pill-box, which awaited him, and he replied that it didn't matter. King, the driver, looked as if he thought it _did_, and appeared morose. Is it because coachmen always keep their appointments with society and society never keeps its appointments with coachmen that a settled melancholy seems to brood over them, and their souls seem cankered with misanthropy?
The doctor had rather a rough time that evening. For among the patients he was going to try to see and get back to dinner (thus ran current speech of those concerned) there was a young man from the West Indies, who had come into something considerable. But he was afflicted with a disorder he called the ”jumps,” and the doctor's diagnosis, if correct, showed that the _vera causa_ of this aptly-named disease was alcohol of sp. gr. something, to which the patient was in the habit of adding very few atoms of water indeed. The doctor was doing all he could to change the regimen, but only succeeded on making his patient weak and promise amendment. On this particular evening the latter quite unexpectedly went for the doctor's throat, shouting, ”I see your plans!” and King had to be summoned from his box to help restrain him.
So Dr. Vereker was tired when he got home late to dinner, and would have felt miserable, only he could always shut his eyes and think of Sally's hands that had come over his shoulder to discriminate points in Mrs. Shoosmith's magna-charta. They had come so near him that he could smell the fresh sweet dressing of the new kid gloves--six and a half, we believe.
But although he liked his Goody mother to talk to him about the girl who had christened her so, he was tired enough this evening to wish that her talk had flowed in a less pebbly channel. For she chose this opportunity to enlarge upon the duties of young married women towards their husbands' parents, their mothers especially. Her conclusion was a little unexpected:
”I have said nothing throughout, my dear. I should not dream of doing so. But if I had I trust I should have made it clearly understood how I regarded Miss Laet.i.tia Wilson's conduct.”
”But there wasn't any. n.o.body contracted a private marriage.”
”My dear Conrad! Have I said that any one has done so? Have I used the expression 'private marriage'?”
”Why--no. I don't think you have. Not to-day, at least.”
”When have I done so? Have I not, on the contrary, from the very beginning told you I should take the first opportunity of disbelieving so absurd and mischievous a story? And have I lost a moment? Was it not the first word I said to Sally Nightingale before you came in, and without a soul in the room to hear? I only ask for justice. But if my son misrepresents me, what can I expect from others?” At this point patient toleration only.
”But, mother dear, I don't _want_ to misrepresent you. Only I'll be hanged if I see why Tishy Wilson is to be hauled over the coals?”
A suggestion of a proper spirit showed itself. ”I am accustomed to your language, and will say nothing. But, my dear Conrad, for you are always my son, and will remain so, whatever your language may be, do you, my dear Conrad, do you really sanction the att.i.tude of a young lady who refuses to marry--public and private don't come into the matter--because of a groundless antipathy? For it is admitted on all hands that Mrs. Julius Bradshaw is a person of rather superior cla.s.s.”
”She's Mrs. Bradshaw--not Mrs. Julius. But what makes you suppose Tishy Wilson objects to her?”
”My dear Conrad, you know as well as I do that is a mere prevarication. Why evade the point? But in my opinion you do wisely not to attempt any defence of Laet.i.tia Wilson. It may be true that she has not laid herself open to misconstruction in this case, but the lack of good feeling is to all intents and purposes the same as if she had; and I must say, my dear Conrad, I am surprised that a professional man with your qualifications should undertake to justify her.”
”But Miss Wilson hasn't _done_ anything! What are you wigging away at her for, mother dear?”
”Have I not expressly said that she has done nothing whatever? Of course she has not, and, I hope, never will. But it is easy for you, Conrad, to take refuge in a fact which I have been scrupulously careful to admit from the very beginning. And 'wigging away!' What language!”
”Never mind the language, mother darling! Tell me what it's all about.” Tired as he is, he gets up from the chair he has not been smoking in (because this is the drawing-room) to go round and kiss what is probably the fatty integument of a very selfish old woman, but which he believes to be that of an affectionate mother. ”What's it all about?” he repeats.
”My dear Conrad! Is it not a little unfeeling to ask me what it is all about when you know?”
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