Part 39 (2/2)
”What more should there be? You wouldn't have me take you seriously, in what you have just said of Vimpany?”
”Why not?”
”Oh, come, come, my darling! Just consider. With a bedroom empty and waiting, upstairs, is my old Vimpany to be sent to quarters for the night among strangers? I wouldn't speak harshly to you, Iris, for the whole world; and I don't deny that the convivial doctor may be sometimes a little too fond of his drop of grog. You will tell me, maybe, that he hasn't got on nicely with his wife; and I grant it.
There are not many people who set such a pretty example of matrimony as we do. Poor humanity--there's all that's to be said about it. But when you tell me that Vimpany is a bad man, and the worst friend I could possibly have, and so forth--what better can I do than set it down to your imagination? I've a pretty fancy, myself; and I think I see my angel inventing poetical characters, up among congenial clouds. What's the matter? Surely, you haven't done breakfast yet?”
”Yes.”
”Are you going to leave me?”
”I am going to my room.”
”You're in a mighty hurry to get away. I never meant to vex you, Iris.
Ah, well, if you must leave the table, I'll have the honour of opening the door for you, at any rate. I wonder what you're going to do?”
”To cultivate my imagination,” she answered, with the first outbreak of bitterness that had escaped her yet.
His face hardened. ”There seems to be something like bearing malice in this,” he said. ”Are you treating me, for the first time, to an exhibition of enmity? What am I to call it, if it's not that?”
”Call it disappointment,” she suggested quietly, and left him.
Lord Harry went back to his breakfast. His jealousy was up in arms again. ”She's comparing me with her absent friend,” he said to himself, ”and wis.h.i.+ng she had married the amiable Mountjoy instead of me.”
So the first quarrel ended--and Mr. Vimpany had been the cause of it.
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII
ICI ON PARLE FRANCAIS
THE doctor arrived in good time for dinner, and shook hands with the Irish lord in excellent spirits.
He looked round the room, and asked where my lady was. Lord Harry's reply suggested the presence of a cloud on the domestic horizon. He had been taking a long ride, and had only returned a few minutes since; Iris would (as he supposed) join them immediately.
The maid put the soup on the table, and delivered a message. Her mistress was suffering from a headache, and was not well enough to dine with the gentlemen.
As an old married man, Mr. Vimpany knew what this meant; he begged leave to send a comforting message to the suffering lady of the house.
Would f.a.n.n.y be good enough to say that he had made inquiries on the subject of Mr. Mountjoy's health, before he left London. The report was still favourable; there was nothing to complain of but the after-weakness which had followed the fever. On that account only, the attendance of the nurse was still a matter of necessity. ”With my respects to Lady Harry,” he called after f.a.n.n.y, as she went out in dogged silence.
”I have begun by making myself agreeable to your wife,” the doctor remarked with a self-approving grin. ”Perhaps she will dine with us to-morrow. Pa.s.s the sherry.”
The remembrance of what had happened at the breakfast-table, that morning, seemed to be dwelling disagreeably on Lord Harry's mind. He said but little--and that little related to the subject on which he had already written, at full length, to his medical friend.
In an interval, when the service of the table required the attendance of f.a.n.n.y in the kitchen, Mr. Vimpany took the opportunity of saying a few cheering words. He had come (he remarked) prepared with the right sort of remedy for an ailing state of mind, and he would explain himself at a fitter opportunity. Lord Harry impatiently asked why the explanation was deferred. If the presence of the maid was the obstacle which caused delay, it would be easy to tell her that she was not wanted to wait.
The wary doctor positively forbade this.
He had observed f.a.n.n.y, during his previous visit, and had discovered that she seemed to distrust him. The woman was sly and suspicious.
Since they had sat down to dinner, it was easy to see that she was lingering in the room to listen to the conversation, on one pretence or another. If she was told not to wait, there could be no doubt of her next proceeding: she would listen outside the door. ”Take my word for it,” the doctor concluded, ”there are all the materials for a spy in f.a.n.n.y Mere.”
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