A Bachelor's Dream. Duchess

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      Doctor Brudenell, in making this statement, did not feel comical, but he looked so, in spite of his grave, refined, scholarly face, and Mrs. Leslie greeted his words with a burst of hearty laughter.

      "My dear Doctor, don't look so tragic! The poor little creatures won't eat you. So they are coming to you? Well, what is your difficulty?"

      "Merely, what am I to do with them?"

      "Why, take care of them, of course!"

      The Doctor stirred his tea with an air of helpless bewilderment. He felt that this was all very well as far as it went, and strictly what he meant to do, of course; but it did not go far enough – it was no solution of his difficulty. He felt a distinct sense of injury, too. His sister had got married, which was all very well. She had had eight children, only three of whom were now alive; and it occurred to him that, having the children, it was clearly Laura's duty to look after them. There was en element of coolness in her sending them to him which he found rather disconcerting. It opened a prospect of unending domestic tribulation. Laura herself had been an altogether irrepressible child, loud in voice, restless of movement, tireless of tongue, insatiable in curiosity, unceasing in mischief. What would his quiet house be with three editions of Laura running rampant about it? They would invade his study, disarrange his books, frolic in the drawing-room, make quiet and peace things of the past. What could he do with them? What would Mrs. Jessop say? The Doctor shuddered at the thought; the prospect appalled him.

      "You had better get a governess for them," suggested Mrs. Leslie, briskly.

      "A governess!" This was a ray of light, but he was not sure that he did not prefer darkness. "Oh – a governess?" he repeated, interrogatively.

      "Of course! They will be tiresome, you may be sure – all children are, and Anglo-Indian ones particularly – at least so I should fancy – and you certainly will not want them disturbing you, while it will never do to have them running riot over the house. Get a good, sensible, responsible person, not too young, and you will find that you need hardly be troubled at all."

      The Doctor felt that this counsel was good. It was plain, practical, feasible. But there remained a difficulty. How was he to become possessed of the sensible, responsible person who was not too young?

      "Advertise," suggested his adviser, tersely.

      Of course! How very foolish of him not to have thought of it! The plainest possible way out of the dilemma.

      "Thank you, Mrs. Leslie," said the Doctor, rising and taking up his hat. "Thank you. I've no doubt that you're perfectly right. I will advertise."

      He shook hands with the ladies – gratefully with the one, indifferently with the other – and bowed himself out, hurrying to the waiting Patrick, who had fulfilled his own prophecy in so far that he was by this time "cowld" in every limb, although his temper was exceedingly warm.

      From the window Kate Merritt watched the brougham roll away and then turned to her sister angrily, tears in her eyes, a hot flush upon her face. Although she was by nature really obstinate, resolute, and persistent, she often exhibited upon the surface a childish pettishness with which her real self was almost absurdly at variance. She spoke now as a spoilt child might have done.

      "How dreadfully disagreeable you are, Maria! It's too bad, I declare! I believe you do it on purpose – there!"

      "Do what on purpose? What in the world do you mean?" cried Mrs. Leslie, pausing, sugar-tongs in hand.

      "You know what I mean!" exclaimed Kate, scarcely able to suppress a sob.

      "I declare I do not. This is some fad about Doctor Brudenell, I suppose," said the elder sister, resignedly. "Do me the favor to be intelligible, at least, Kate. What is it that you mean?"

      "Why did you advise him to advertise?" demanded Miss Merritt.

      "Because it was the most sensible advice I could give him. Is that the grievance? What objection have you to his advertising?"

      "That I know very well what it will come to. He'll take your advice, and advertise, and get some woman into his house who will pet the children and coax and wheedle him until she gets completely round him, and then we know what will happen," cried Kate, with her handkerchief pressed to her eyes.

      Mrs. Leslie looked at her, and had some difficulty in restraining a laugh.

      "Nonsense, child! Doctor Brudenell will no more fall in love with his governess than he will with anybody else. For goodness' sake do try to be more sensible. A nice opinion of you he would have if he could only hear and see you now, I must say! I should be ashamed, if I were you, to spend my time fretting and crying after a man who didn't care a pin about me, like a love-sick school-girl. Dry your eyes and come to the table. Whoever the poor man gets for a governess, I hope she may have more common sense than you, I am sure. And the sooner he advertises for her the better, if that unruly brood is to be here so soon."

      "He would never have thought of advertising but for you," said Kate, resentfully.

      "Probably not!" retorted Mrs. Leslie, tartly. "But now he will do it, and quickly, if he is sensible."

      Mrs. Leslie was wrong. The Doctor did not advertise for a governess, although when he left he was firmly resolved upon doing so. He drove home quickly to his handsome house in Canonbury, and enjoyed an excellent dinner by the bright fire in his comfortable dining-room, with a renewed appreciation of the excellent Mrs. Jessop. Then he summoned that lady in his presence, and with very little circumlocution broke to her the news of the promised invasion and the suggested panacea. Finding that Mrs. Jessop took the matter on the whole amiably, he felt considerably relieved in mind, and began placidly to smoke his pipe over the Times. The leading article was stupid, soporific, the tobacco soothing, the fire hot; he was just hovering in delicious languor upon the very borders of dreamland when a knock at the door roused him abruptly. Of course, he was called out.

      Had the call been from a well-to-do patient who fostered a half-fancied illness, he might have been more put out than he certainly was when, upon turning into the street, he felt the keen east wind nipping his ears; but it was from a poor house lying in the midst of a very labyrinth of squalid back streets and foul courts, and yet but a mere stone's-throw from his own comfortable dwelling.

      The Doctor did all that he could for the patient – a disheveled woman, who had fallen, while drunk, and cut her head. He bound up the wound, gave a prescription; and, leaving directions with the voluble Irish charwoman who filled the place of nurse, left the close, evil-smelling room, glad to breathe even the tainted air outside, and as quickly as he could retraced his steps.

      He had left the last of the wretched narrow streets behind him, and was turning into a wider road which led by a short cut to the adjacent thoroughfare, when he heard a shriek – a terrible cry of agony or fear – perhaps both – and there, not more than a hundred yards before him, standing out black against the surrounding gray, two figures were frantically struggling – a man and a woman.

      George Brudenell, slight and wiry in figure, was active and swift as a boy. He shouted and ran, but, before he could reach the two, the man had violently wrested his arm free and raised it in the air. There was a flash of steel as it descended, a shrill cry that broke off into a moan; and the Doctor, hardly able to check himself, almost stumbled over the woman as she fell at his feet.

      CHAPTER II

      Doctor Brudenell's first rapid glance about him as he recovered his balance assured him that pursuit would be futile. The man had darted off down a narrow turning which had led into a maze of streets. Already СКАЧАТЬ