“Come, this is really very jolly, Mary!”
Thus Mahony, toasting his coat-tails before the fire, while their hosts were absent on the last ceremonies connected with tea. And went on, warmed through now, both in mind and body: “I fear you’ve had a shocking old grizzler at your side of late, love. But I’ve felt like a fish out of water. Idleness doesn’t agree with me, Mary. I must get back to work, my dear. I want a house of my own again too. When I see a snug little place like this, after those unspeakable lodgings, why, upon my word it makes me feel inclined to jump at the first vacancy that offers.”
“Oh, that would never do,” said Mary with a smile. And their hands, which had met, fell apart at the sound of footsteps.
It was also a cheerful evening; one that opened with jest and laughter. For barely were they seated at the tea-table when sister Lisby, who towered head and shoulders above her stout little dot of a mother—Lisby shamelessly betrayed a secret, telling how, while the travellers were upstairs removing their wraps, mother had seized her and danced her round, exclaiming as she did: “Oh, my dear, aren’t we grand?. . . .aren’t we grand? Which I may mention was not intended for you, Polly—I would say Mary. For I feel sure, if you could see inside my mother’s heart, you would find yourself there no more than fourteen—the age you were when last she saw you.”
They all laughed; and Mother covered her old confusion by picking up the sugar-tongs and dropping an extra lump into Mahony’s cup.
“Now give over, miss, will you?” she said affectionately. “Any one but such a pert young thing as you would make allowance for an old woman’s pleasure at getting a son again. Ready-made, too—without any bother. Eight of ’em, Richard my dear, have I brought into this world in my day—a baker’s dozen all told, boys and girls together—and not one is left to their poor old mother but this forward young party here. And she’d be off if she could.”
“My mother,” said Lisby—having filled and handed round the cups, she was now engaged in apportioning a pork pie, performing the task with a nicety that made Mahony think of Shylock and his bond: not a crumb was spilt or wasted—“My mother would have me sit all day at the parlour window, on the watch for some Prince Charming. To him she would gladly resign me. But because I wish to go out into the world and stand on my own feet. . . .”
“Lisby! Not woman’s rights, I hope?” interposed Mary. And reassured: “Then, mother, I should let her try it. Especially now you’ve got me to look after you. Lisby, my dear, if you had been in the colony with us in the early days—” and here Mary dilated on some of the hard and incongruous jobs she had seen women put their hands to.
“Now, did you ever?” ejaculated Lisby—with force, but a divided mind. At present she was carving a cold chicken with the same precision as the pie. (Mahony laughed afterwards when, sunk deep in the feathers, he lay watching the gigantic shadows flung by a single candle on the white ceiling, and Mary braided her hair; laughed and said, Lisby’s carving made him think of a first-year medical performing on a frog.) “Never did I hear tell of such things! I declare, my dear, I am reminded of Miss Delauncey of Dupew. You will remember her, Polly—I would say Mary.” (“I think I do just remember the name,” from Mary.) “Well, my dear, what must she do but leave home—against her father’s will—to go and be a governess in Birmingham.” And now Lisby in her turn held forth on the surprising adventures of Miss Delauncey, who, finding herself in a post that did not suit her, was obliged to take another.
This kind of thing happened more than once during the meal: the ball of talk, glancing aside from the guests’ remoter experiences, was continually coming back to Lisby and the world she knew. Her old mother, it seemed to Mahony, was shyer, more retiring. But though she did not say much, it was she who peeped into cups to see if the bottoms were showing; who put titbits on Mary’s plate when Mary was not looking; pressed Mahony to a dish of cheesecakes with a smile that would have won any heart. He returned the smile, accepted the cakes, but otherwise, finding no point of contact, sat silent. Mary, with an eye to him through all Lisby’s chat, feared her relatives would think him stiff and dull.
But tea over, chairs drawn to the fire, feet planted on the fender, Mother turned her pretty old pink-and-white face framed in lisse cap and bands to Mahony, and seeing him still sit meditative, laid her plump little hand over his long thin one, which rested on the arm of his chair. And as he did not resist, she made it a prisoner, and carried it to her shiny old black silk lap. Sitting in this way, hand in hand with him, she began to put gentle questions about the lives and fates of those dearest to her: John, John’s two families of children, and his wives, neither of whom, not the lovely Emma, nor yet soft, brown-eyed Jinny—to whom, through her letters, she had grown deeply attached—could she now ever hope to know on earth. Next Zara, whom she called Sarah: “For the name I chose for her at her baptism I still think good enough for her,” with a stingless laugh at her eldest daughter’s elegancies. Steady Jerry, who would never set the Thames on fire. Ned, poor dear unfortunate Ned, who had been a source of anxiety to her since his birth—“Ah, but I was troubled when I carried him, Richard!”—from whom she had not heard directly for many a long day. Inquiring thus after her brood, and commenting on what she heard with a rare good sense, she gradually lured Mahony into a talking-fit that subdued even Lisby, and kept them all out of their beds till two o’clock in the morning. Once started, Richard proved regularly in the vein; and Mary no longer needed to fear lest he be thought dull or stand-off. Indeed, she found herself listening with interest. For he told things—gave reasons for throwing up his Ballarat practice, described sensations on the homeward voyage and in London—which were new even to her. At some of them she rather opened her eyes. She didn’t want to insinuate that Richard was inventing them on the spur of the moment; but she did think—and on similar occasions had thought before now—that certain ideas occurred to him only when he got fairly wound up: he was like a fisher who didn’t always know what he was going to catch.—Besides, there was this odd contradiction in Richard: he who was usually so reserved could, she had noticed, sometimes speak out more frankly, unbosom himself more easily, to people he was meeting for the first time, than to those he lived his life with. It was as if he said to himself, once didn’t count.
CHAPTER THREE
The next-door house, the first in the row, stood at right angles to the rest, and faced two diverging streets of shops and stores. Further, the little leaden rain-shield over the front door was supported by a pair of pillars coloured to resemble marble, between which hung a red lamp. This lamp had burned there, night for night, for over half a century: the stone of the doorstep was worn to a hollow by the countless feet that had rubbed and scraped and shuffled, under its ruby glow. For the house belonged to old Mr. Brocklebank the surgeon, who was one of the original landmarks of the neighbourhood. He had, in fact, lived there so long that none was old enough to remember his coming—with the possible exception, said Mother, of old Joe Dorgan, for sixty years past, ostler at the “Saddlers’ Arms.” Joe was now in his dotage, and his word did not count for much; but in earlier life he had been heard to tell of the slim and elegant figure young Brocklebank had once cut, in redingote, choker and flowered gilet; and of how people had thought twice before summoning him, owing to his extreme youth. This defect time had remedied; and so effectually that it soon passed belief to connect youth and slimness with the heavy and corpulent old man. When, for instance, mother came there as a bride, he had seemed to her already elderly; the kind of doctor a young wife could with propriety consult.
The practice had flourished till it was second to none; and he was reported, being a bachelor and very thrifty, not to say close-fisted, to have laid by the thousands which in this town were commonly associated only with leather or hose. But now he had all but reached the eighties; and despite one of those marvellous, country-bred English constitutions—founded on ruddy steaks, and a
le, and golden cheddars—the infirmities of age began to vex him. For some time past his patients had hesitated to call him out by night, or in bad weather, or for what he might consider too trifling a cause; though they remained his faithful adherents, preferring any day a bottle of Mr. B.’s good physic to treatment by a more modish doctor. Recently, however, he had let two comparatively simple cases slip through his fingers; while the habit was growing on him of suddenly nodding off at a bedside; what time the patient had to lie still until the old gentleman came to himself again. A blend, too, of increasing deafness and obstinacy led him to shout people down. So that altogether something like a sigh of relief went up when one fine day a great-nephew appeared, and the rumour ran that Mr. B. was retiring: was being carried off to end his honourable and useful career under another’s tutelage; to be wheeled to the grave-brink in the humiliating bath-chair to which he had condemned many a sufferer. And house and practice were for sale.
Lisby came primed with the news—brought by the milkman on his early round—to the breakfast-table. And Mother, her first shock over and her eyes dried, fell into a reminiscent mood.
“Dear oh deary me! Old Mr. B. laid on the shelf! Why, it seems only like the other day I saw him for the first time. . . .when Johnny was born. Yet it must be nigh on five-and-forty years; Johnny will be forty-five come March. In walks Mr. B.—I’d never needed a doctor till then—and says to me—me, poor young ignorant thing thankful to have escaped with my life—in he comes: ‘Here’s a fine fish we’ve landed to-day, madam! Here’s a new recruit for the Grenadier Guards! Twelve pounds if an ounce, and a leg like a three-year-old!’ I up on my elbow to see, and he quite gruffly: ‘Lie down, you villainous young mother, you! Do you want to make an orphan of the brat?’ He had always to have his joke had Mr. B.; and we were good friends from that day. One after another he brought the whole batch of you into the world.—Deary me, I shall miss him. Many and many’s the time he’s stepped over the railing with his weekly newssheet: ‘Here’s a murder case to make you ladies’ blood run cold,’ he would say. Or: ‘Another great nugget found on the goldfields!’—for he knew the ties I had with the colony. And the last sound I used to hear at night was him knocking out his pipe on the chimney-piece. It was such a comfort to me—after your father went and the boys scattered—to know we’d a man so close. Especially in ’59, when those dreadful burglaries took place.”
“Now, mother, give over trying to make yourself engaging,” was Lisby’s comment. “You know the truth is, no one troubled less about the burglars than you. Before my mother went to bed she would lay out all the silver and plate and her rings and brooches, in neat piles on the table, so as to save the robbers trouble should they come.”
“So as to save my own skin, you saucy girl!—Well, well!. . . .what’s past is past. To be sure it wouldn’t have done for him to go on doctoring till he lost his memory, and perhaps mixed his drugs and poisoned us all.”
“It would not indeed. And for the rest, my dear mother, I tell you what: Mary and I will take up our abode next door and look after you,” said Mahony.
At the moment, the words passed as the jest they were meant for. But they sowed their seed. Mahony ate his toast and drained his cup with an absent air; and as soon as breakfast was over made Mary a private sign to follow him upstairs. There, while she sat on the edge of the bed, he fidgeted about the room, fingering objects and laying them down again in a manner that told of a strong inner excitement.
“I spoke without reflection but, upon my soul, it does look rather like the finger of Providence. An opening to crop up in this way at my very elbow!. . . .one that’s not to be despised either, if report speaks true. Really, wife, I don’t know what to think. It has quite unsettled me. Here have I been expecting to have to travel the country, visiting this place and that, answering advertisements that lead to nothing, or myself advertising and receiving no replies—all so much nerve and shoe wear—and a dreary business at best. You see, my dear, what I need first of all is English experience. I mean”—he made an airy gesture— “I must be able to say, when I find the perfectly suitable position I’m looking for: ‘I’ve been practising in such and such a place for so and so many years, and have had a first-class connection there.’—You notice, I hope, I have no intention—should I take the chance offered me, that is, and pop in here—of making it a permanency. It remains my ambition to live in the country. But if only half what they say of old Brocklebank’s affairs is to be believed, a few years here wouldn’t hurt me. There are pots of money to be made in these manufacturing towns, once a practice is set going—and this has existed for over half a century. Besides, it might even improve under my hands. . . .why not, indeed? Such a Methuselah must have been entirely out of date in medicine. I confess it isn’t exactly the spot I would have chosen, even to start in, were money and time no object. But considering, Mary, what our expenses have been. . . .the lateness of the season, too! Why, it’s virtually winter already, and the worst possible time of year to travel about in.” And so on, with much more in the same strain, and a final bait of: “Another point we mustn’t lose sight of is that here, you, love, would have the company of your mother and sister. And I think I know what a pleasure that would be to you.”
“Why, yes, of course, as far as that’s concerned,” said Mary, who had not interrupted by a word.
“Well, and the rest?” he asked a trifle querulously. “Don’t I convince you?”
“Why, yes,” she said again, but slowly. “In one way. I agree it might be worth considering. But I wouldn’t be in too great a hurry, Richard. Look about you. See some other places first.”
“Yes, and while I hum and haw and think myself too good for it, some one else snaps it up. The profession is in very different case here, my dear, from what it was in the colonies. It’s overcrowded. . . .worked to death. I can’t afford to be too particular. Must just find a modest corner, slip into it and be thankful.—And let me give you a piece of advice, Mary,” he went on more warmly, with the waxing impatience of a man who longs to see his own hesitation overthrown. “It’s no earthly use your comparing everything that turns up on this side of the globe, with Ballarat. A practice like that won’t come my way again; or at least not in the meantime. Try, love, not to let yourself be influenced by the size of a house and the width of a street. I assure you once more, you have no conception what these provincial concerns are worth. If I step into old Brocklebank’s shoes, you may drive in your carriage yet, my dear!”
Mary had run through so many considerations in listening, that she had really listened more to herself than to him. Of course, much of what he said was sound. Did he settle here, it would save time and money—and one of her standing fears about the new venture had been that Richard would prove too hard to please. But for him now to rush to the other extreme! Nor was she one to stand out for showiness and style; or rather, she would not be, were Richard a different man. But he, with his pernickitiness! And it was all very well for him to say, don’t draw comparisons; how could one help it? To have flung up a brilliant practice, a big house and garden, a host of congenial friends. . . .for this: a pokey house in a small dull street, in a dull, ugly, dirty town! As for what she stood to gain by it, the living door by door with mother and sister, fond as she was of them she could see, even here, drawbacks that were invisible to his man’s eye.
However, since the one way to deal with Richard was to give him his head, and only by degrees deftly trickle in doubts and scruples, Mary smothered her own feelings for the time being. Perhaps he was right, said she: the place might do for a start; and she was certainly against him going travelling in winter—with the objection he had to flannel. Mr. Brocklebank’s advisers might, of course, ask a stiff price for the goodwill of the practice; still, if he got on well for two or three years, that would soon be covered. Thus Mary, trusting to a certain blind common sense that did exist in Richard for all his flightiness, if he was neith
er badgered nor opposed. (“Just the Irish way of getting at a thing backwards!” was how he himself described it.) One point though she insisted on; and that was, he should take an outside opinion on the practice before entering into negotiations.
Entirely pacified, Mahony kissed her and together they went downstairs. According to Mother, who had now to be drawn into confidence, the person to consult would be Bealby the chemist; he had dispensed for Mr. B. ever since the old man grew too comfortable to do it for himself. So Mahony on with his hat and off to Bealby’s shop, well content to leave Mary to damp the exasperating flutter into which the news had thrown her relatives. Well, no, he wouldn’t say that: in Mother even this was bearable. It was true, declaring you might knock her down with a feather, she had seated herself heavily in her chair by the fire, to think and talk over the plan in detail. But her cheery old mind saw only the bright side of it; while her kindly, humorous smile took the sting from fuss and curiosity. Lisby was harder to repress. She threw up her hands. “No! never did I hear tell of such a thing, Polly—I would say Mary! Going off to buy a practice, my dear, for all the world as if it were a tooth-brush or a cravat!” Richard safely out of the house, Mary felt constrained to come to his defence.
“You must remember, Lisby, it doesn’t seem quite such an important affair to Richard as it does to you. With all his experience. Living in the colony, too, one learnt to make up one’s mind quickly. You had to. Think of shares, for instance. They might be all right when you went to bed, and by the morning have sunk below par; so that you had to decide there and then whether to sell out or risk holding on.” The mild amusement with which Richard’s behaviour provided Lisby was apt to jar on Mary.
From the chemist Mahony got all the information he wanted—and more. The object of his visit grasped, he was led into a dingy little parlour behind the shop, where, amid an overflow of jars and bottles and drawer-cases, Bealby carried on his ex-business life. And both doors noiselessly closed to ensure their privacy, the chemist—a rubicund, paunchy old man, with snow-white hair and whiskers—himself grew so private that he spoke only in a whisper, and accompanied his words with a forefinger laid flat along his nose. This mysterious air gave the impression that he was divulging dark secrets; though he had no secret to tell, nor would his hearer have thanked him for any. Plainly he was a rare old gossip, and as such made the most both of his subject and the occasion. Mahony could neither dam nor escape from his flow of talk. However, his account of the practice was so favourable that the rest had just to be swallowed—even disagreeable tittle-tattle about the old surgeon’s mode of life. At the plum kept to the last—Brocklebank, it appeared, had actually been called in professionally to the great house of the district, Castle Bellevue—Mahony could not repress a smile; Bealby alluding to it with a reverence that would have befitted a religious rite. Of more practical importance was the information that there were already two candidates for the practice in the field; but that to these, he, Mahony, would no doubt be preferred; for both were young men, just about to start. And: “We want no fledglings, no young sawbones in a position such as this, sir! Now with an elderly man like yourself. . . .” Wincing, Mahony contrived soon after to let slip the fact that he was but a couple of years over forty.
The Fortunes of Richard Mahony Page 51
