by Ellen Wood
“No, I would rather go myself. I should not like to take rooms without seeing them. Should these you speak of be engaged, I may see bills in other windows. Thank you, I cannot eat any more: I still seem to feel the jolting of that omnibus; and the fright it put me into has taken away my appetite. You will take care of my trunk for the present.”
“Certainly, ma’am. What name?”
“Mrs. Crane.”
The landlady stepped outside to direct the stranger on her way. Widow Gould’s house was situated in the first terrace in Palace Street, and a walk of six or seven minutes brought Mrs. Crane to it. It had a card in the window, indicating that its rooms were to let. Widow Gould herself, a shrinking little woman, with a pinched, red face, came to the door. The lady wanted a sitting-room and bedroom: could she be accommodated with them? Mrs. Gould replied that she could, mentioned a very moderate charge, and invited her in to see the rooms. They were on the first floor; not large, but clean and sufficiently nice, the one room opening into the other. Mrs. Crane liked them very much.
“You perceive that I am expecting to be ill,” she said. “Would that be an objection?”
“N — o, I don’t see that it need,” replied the widow after some consideration. “Of course you would have proper attendance, ma’am? I could not undertake that.”
“Of course I should,” said Mrs. Crane.
So the bargain was made. Mrs. Crane taking the rooms for a month, intimating that she preferred engaging them only from month to month, and the Widow Gould undertaking to supply all ordinary attendance. Mrs. Crane went back to the inn, to pay for the refreshment she had taken, and to desire her trunk to be sent to her, having ordered tea to be ready by her return to Palace Street.
She found everything prepared for her; a good fire burning in the sitting-room grate, the tea on the table, and Mrs. Gould in the adjoining room putting sheets on the bed. The widow was in spirits at the prospect of her rooms being wanted for some months, as she believed they would be, and had placed the last weekly South Wennock newspaper on the table beside the tea-tray, a little mark of extra attention to her new lodger.
In obedience to the ring when tea was over, Mrs. Gould came up to remove the things. Mrs. Crane was seated before them. A fair young girl she looked with her bonnet off, in her silk dress and her golden-brown hair. The widow kept no servant, but waited on her lodgers herself. Her parlours were let to a permanent lodger, who was at that time absent from South Wennock.
“Be so good as take a seat,” said Mrs. Crane to her, laying down the newspaper, which she appeared to have been reading. But Mrs. Gould preferred to stand, and began rubbing one shrivelled hand over the other, her habit when in waiting. “I have some information to ask of you. Never mind the tray; it can wait. First of all, what medical men have you at South Wennock?”
“There’s the Greys,” was Widow Gould’s response.
A pause ensued, Mrs. Crane probably waiting to hear the list augmented. “The Greys?” she repeated, finding her informant did not continue.
“Mr. John and Mr. Stephen Grey, ma’am. There was another brother, Mr. Robert, but he died last year. Nice pleasant gentlemen all three, and they have had the whole of the practice here. Their father and their uncle had it before them.”
“Do you mean to say there are no other medical men?” exclaimed the stranger, in some surprise. “I never heard of such a thing in a place as large as this appears to be.”
“South Wennock has only got large lately, ma’am. The Greys were very much liked and respected in the place; and being three of them, they could get through the work, with an assistant. They always keep one. But there is another doctor here now, a gentleman of the name of Carlton.”
“Who is he?”
“Well, I forget where it was said he came from; London, I think. A fine dashing gentleman as ever you saw, ma’am; not above thirty, at the most. He came suddenly among us a few months ago, took a house at the other end of the town, and set up against the Greys. He is getting on, I believe, especially with people that live on the Rise, mostly fresh comers, and he keeps his cabrioily.”
“Keeps his what?
“His cabrioily — a dashing one-horse carriage with a head to it. It is more than the Greys have ever done, ma’am; they have had their plain gig, and nothing else. Some think that Mr. Carlton has private property, and some think he is making a show to get into practice.”
“Is he clever — Mr. Carlton?”
“There are those here who’ll tell you he is cleverer than the two Greys put together; but, ma’am, I don’t forget the old saying, New brooms sweep clean. Mr. Carlton, being new in the place, and having a practice to make, naturally puts out his best skill to make it.” The remark drew a laugh from Mrs. Crane. “But unless a doctor has the skill within him, he cannot put it forth,” she said. “Well, of course there’s something in that,” returned the widow, reflectively. “Any way, Mr. Carlton is getting into practice, and it’s said he is liked. There’s a family on the Rise where he attends constantly, and I’ve heard they think a great deal of him. It’s a Captain Chesney, an old gentleman, who has the gout perpetual. They came strangers to the place from a distance, and settled here; very proud, exclusive people, it’s said. There’s three Miss Chesneys; one of them beautiful; the other one’s older; and the little one is but a child. Mr. Carlton attends there a great deal, for the old gentleman — Good heart alive! what’s the matter?”
Mrs. Gould might well cry out. The invalid — an invalid she evidently was — had turned of a ghastly whiteness, and was sinking back motionless in her chair.
Mrs. Gould was timid by nature, nervous by habit. Very much frightened, she raised the lady’s head, but it fell back unconscious. In the excitement induced by the moment’s terror, she flew down the stairs, shrieking out in the empty house, rushed out at her own backdoor, ran through the yard, and burst into the back-door of the adjoining house. Two young women were in the kitchen; the one ironing, the other sitting by the fire and not doing anything.
“For the love of Heaven, come back with me, one of you!” called out the widow, in a tremor. “The new lady lodger I told you of this afternoon has gone and died right off in her chair.”
Without waiting for assent or response, she flew back again. The young woman at the fire started from her seat, alarm depicted on her countenance. The other calmly continued her ironing.
“Don’t be frightened, Judith,” said she. “You are not so well used to Dame Gould as I am. If a blackbeetle falls on the floor, she’ll cry out for aid. I used to think it was put on, but I have come at last to the belief that she can’t help it. You may as well go in, however, and see what it is.”
Judith hastened away. She was a sensible-looking young woman, pale, with black hair and eyes, and was dressed in new and good mourning. Mrs. Gould was already in her lodger’s sitting-room. She had torn a feather from a small feather-duster hanging by the mantel-piece, had scorched the end, and was holding it to the unhappy lady’s nose. Judith dashed the feather to the ground.
“Don’t be so stupid, Mrs. Gould! What good do you suppose that will do? Get some water.”
The water was procured, and Judith applied it to the face and hands, the widow looking timidly on. As the lady revived, Mrs. Gould burst into tears.
“It’s my feelings that overcomes me, Judith,” said she. “I can’t abear the sight of illness.”
“You need not have been alarmed,” the invalid faintly said, as soon as she could speak. “For the last few months, since my health has been delicate, I have been subject to these attacks of faintness; they come on at any moment. I ought to have warned you.”
When fully restored, they left her to herself, Mrs. Gould carrying away the tea-things; having first of all unlocked the lady’s trunk by her desire, and brought to her from it a small writing-case.
“Don’t go away, Judith,” the widow implored, when they reached the kitchen. “She may have another of those fits, for what we can tell �
�� you heard her say she was subject to them — and you know what a one I am to be left with illness. It would be a charity to stop with me; and you are a lady at large just now.”
“I’ll go and get my work, then, and tell Margaret. But where’s the sense of your calling it a fit, as if you were speaking of apoplexy?” added Judith.
When the girl came back — though, indeed, she was not much of a girl, being past thirty — Mrs. Gould had lighted a candle, for it was growing dark, and was washing the tea-things. Judith sat down to her sewing, her thoughts intent upon the lady upstairs.
“Who is she, I wonder?” she said aloud.
“Some stranger. Mrs. Fitch sent her down to me — I told Margaret about it this afternoon when you were out. I say, isn’t she young?’ Judith nodded. “I wonder if she is married?”
“Married!” angrily retorted Mrs. Gould. “If the wedding ring upon her finger had been a bear, it would have bit you. Where were your eyes?”
“All wedding-rings have not been put on in church,” was the composed answer of the girl. “Not but that I dare say she is married, for she seems a modest, good lady; it was her being so young, and coming here in this sudden manner, all unprotected, that set me on the other thought. Where is her husband?”
“Gone abroad,” she said. “I made free to ask her.”
“Why does she come here?”
“I can’t tell. It does seem strange. She never was near the place in her life before this afternoon, she told me, and had no friends in it. She has been inquiring about the doctors—”
“That’s her bell,” interrupted Judith, as the bell hanging over Mrs. Gould’s head began to sound. “Make haste. I dare say she wants lights.”
“She has got them. The candles were on the mantel-piece, and she said she’d light them herself.”
A sealed note lay on the table when Mrs. Gould entered the drawing-room. The lady laid her hand upon it.
“Mrs. Gould, I must trouble you to send this note for me. I did not intend to see about a medical man until to-morrow; but I feel fatigued and ill, and I think I had better see one to-night. He may be able to give me something to calm me.”
“Yes, ma’am. They live almost close by, the Greys. But, dear lady, I hope you don’t feel as if you were going to be ill!”
Mrs. Crane smiled. Her nervous landlady was rubbing her hands together in an access of trembling.
“Not ill in the sense I conclude you mean it. I do not expect that for these two months. But I don’t want to alarm you with a second fainting-fit. I am in the habit of taking drops, which do me a great deal of good, and I unfortunately left them behind me, so I had better see a doctor. Was that your daughter who came up just now? She seemed a nice young woman.”
The question offended Mrs. Gould’s vanity beyond everything. She believed herself to be remarkably young-looking, and Judith was two and thirty if she was a day.
“No, indeed, ma’am, she’s not; and I’ve neither chick nor child,” was the resentful answer. “She’s nothing but Judith Ford, sister to the servant at the next door; and being out of place, her sister’s mistress said she might come there for a few days while she looked out. I’ll get her to carry the note for me.”
Mrs. Gould took the note from the table, and was carrying it away without looking at it, when the lady called her back.
“You see to whom it is addressed, Mrs. Gould?”
Mrs. Gould stopped, and brought the note close to her eyes. She had not her spectacles upstairs, and it was as much as she could do to see anything without them.
“Why — ma’am! It — it — it’s to Mr. Carlton.”
The lady looked surprised in her turn. “Why should it not be to Mr. Carlton?” she demanded.
“But the Greys are sure and safe, ma’am. Such a thing has never been known as for them to lose one of their lady patients.”
Mrs. Crane paused, apparently in indecision. “Has Mr. Carlton lost them?”
“Well — no; I can’t remember that he has. But, ma’am, he attends one where the Greys attend ten.”
“When you were speaking this evening of the doctors, I almost made up my mind to engage Mr, Carlton,” observed Mrs. Crane. “I think men of skill struggling into practice should be encouraged. If you have anything really serious to urge against him, that is quite a different thing, and you should speak out.”
“No, ma’am, no,” was the widow’s reply; “and I am sure it has been rude of me to object to him, if your opinion lies that way. I don’t know a thing against Mr. Carlton; people call him clever. I am naturally prejudiced in favour of the Greys, for Mr. John has attended me ever since he grew up, as his father did before him. I’ll send this down to Mr. Carlton’s.”
“Let it go at once, if you please. I should like, if possible, to see him to-night.”
Mrs. Gould descended to the kitchen. On the dresser, staring her in the face when she entered, lay her spectacles. She put them on, and looked at the superscription on the note.
“Well, now, that’s a curious thing, if ever there was one! ‘Lewis Carlton, Esq.!’ How did she know his name was Lewis? I never mentioned it. I couldn’t mention it, for I did not know it myself. Is his name Lewis?”
“For all I can tell,” responded Judith. “Yes,” she added, more decisively, “of course it is Lewis; it is on his door-plate. Perhaps Mrs. Fitch told her.”
“There! that’s it!” exclaimed the widow, struck with sudden conviction. “Mrs. Fitch has been speaking up for him, and that’s what has put her on to Mr. Carlton, and off the Greys. There was a traveller ill at the Red Lion in the winter, and he had Mr. Carlton. It’s a shame of Mrs. Fitch to turn round on old friends.”
“I can tell you where she got the name from, though perhaps Mrs. Fitch did speak for him,” cried Judith suddenly. “There’s his card — as they call it — in that newspaper you lent her, ‘Mr. Lewis Carlton: Consulting Surgeon.’ She couldn’t fail to see it. Is she ill, that she is sending for him? She looks not unlikely to be.”
“I say, Judy, don’t go frightening a body like that,” cried the woman, in tremor. “She won’t be ill for these two months; but that nasty omnibus has shook her, and I suppose the faint finished it up. Oh, it rattles over the road without regard to folk’s bones. You’ll take this for me, won’t you, Judith?”
“I dare say!” returned Judith.
“Come, do; there’s a good woman! I can’t go myself, for fear her bell should ring. It’s a fine night, and the run will do you good.”
Judith, not to be unaccommodating, rose from her seat. “There now!” she exclaimed, in a tone of vexation, as she took the note, “how am I to get my things? Margaret’s gone out, and she is sure to have bolted the back-door. I don’t like to disturb old Mrs. Jenkinson; the night’s coldish, or I’d go without my bonnet rather than do it.”
“Put on mine,” suggested Mrs. Gould. “You are welcome to it, and to my shawl too.”
Judith laughed; and she laughed still more when arrayed in Mrs. Gould’s things. The shawl did very well, but the bonnet was large, one of those called a “poke,” and she looked like an old woman in it. “Nobody will fall in love with me to-night, that’s certain,” said she, as she sped off.
Mr. Carlton’s house was situated at the other end of the town, just before the commencement of the Rise. It stood by itself, on the left; a handsome white house, with iron railings round it, and a pillared portico in front. Judith ascended the steps and rang the bell. —
The door was flung open by a young man in livery. “Can I see Mr. Carlton?” she asked.
The man superciliously threw back his head. Judith’s large old bonnet did not tell in her favour. “Is it on perfessional business?” he questioned.
“Yes, it is.”
“Then perhaps, mem, you’ll have the obleegance to walk round to the perfessional entrance; and that’s on that there side.”
He waved his hand condescendingly to the side of the house. Judith complied, but she gave him a
word at parting.
“Pray, how much wages do you earn?”
“If ever I heered such a question put to a gentleman!” cried the man, in astonishment. “What is it to you?”
“Because I should judge that you get so much paid you for your clothes, and so much for your airs.”
Passing down the steps, and out of reach of sundry compliments he honoured her with in return, she went to the side, and found herself in front of a door with “Surgery” painted on it. It opened to a passage, and thence to a small square room, whose walls were lined with bottles. A boy in buttons was lying at full length on the counter, whistling a shrill note, and kicking his heels in the air. Her entrance startled him, and he tumbled off, feet foremost.
It was still twilight, and not at first did he take in Judith’s appearance; but soon the poke bonnet disclosed itself to view.
“Hulloa!” cried he. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I want Mr. Carlton. Is he at home?”
“No, he isn’t.”
“Then you must go out and find him. This note must be instantly given to him. A lady wants to see him to-night.”
“Then I’m afeared want must be the lady’s master,” returned the impudent boy. “Perhaps we might get this note tied on to the telegraph-wires, and send it to him that fashion; there ain’t no other way of doing it. Mr. Carlton went off to London this morning.”
“To London!” repeated Judith, surprise checking her inclination to box the young gentleman’s ears. “When is he coming home again?”
“When his legs bring him. There! He’ll be home in a couple of days,” added the boy, dodging out of Judith’s reach, and deeming it as well to cease his banter. “His father, Dr. Carlton, was took ill, and sent for him. Now you know.”
“Well,” said Judith, after a pause of consideration, “you had better take charge of this note, and give it to him when he does come home. I don’t know anything else that can be done. And I’d recommend you not to be quite so free with your tongue, unless you want to come to grief,” was her parting salutation, as she quitted the boy and the house.
