Barrington. Volume 1. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ right to be all that his purse and his want of manners can insure him.”

      “Dear lady, I’m, maybe, a bad negotiator.”

      “I trust sincerely, sir, you are a better doctor.”

      “Nothing on earth was further from my mind than offence – ”

      “Very possibly, sir; but, as you are aware, blisters will occasionally act with all the violence of caustics, so an irritating theme may be pressed at a very inauspicious moment. My cares as a hostess are not in very good favor with me just now. Counsel your young charge to a change of air, and I ‘ll think no more of the matter.”

      Had it been a queen who had spoken, the doctor could not more palpably have felt that his audience had terminated, and his only duty was to withdraw.

      And so he did retire, with much bowing and graciously smiling, and indicating, by all imaginable contortions, gratitude for the past and humility forever.

      I rejoice that I am not obliged to record as history the low but fervent mutterings that fell from his lips as he closed the door after him, and by a gesture of menace showed his feelings towards her he had just quitted. “Insolent old woman!” he burst out as he went along, “how can she presume to forget a station that every incident of her daily life recalls? In the rank she once held, and can never return to, such manners would be an outrage; but I ‘ll not endure it again. It is your last triumph, Miss Dinah; make much of it.” Thus sustained by a very Dutch courage, – for this national gift can come of passion as well as drink, – he made his way to his patient’s presence, smoothing his brow, as he went, and recalling the medico-chimrgical serenity of his features.

      “I have not done much, but I have accomplished something,” said he, blandly. “I am at a loss to understand what they mean by introducing all these caprices into their means of life; but, assuredly, it will not attract strangers to the house.”

      “What are the caprices you allude to?”

      “Well, it is not very easy to say; perhaps I have not expressed my meaning quite correctly; but one thing is clear, a stranger likes to feel that his only obligation in an inn is to discharge the bill.”

      “I say, doctor,” broke in Conyers, “I have been thinking the matter over. Why should I not go back to my quarters? There might surely be some means contrived to convey me to the high-road; after that, there will be no difficulty whatever.”

      The doctor actually shuddered at the thought. The sportsman who sees the bird he has just winged flutter away to his neighbor’s preserve may understand something, at least, of Dr. Dill’s discomfiture as he saw his wealthy patient threatening a departure. He quickly, therefore, summoned to his aid all those terrors which had so often done good service on like occasions. He gave a little graphic sketch of every evil consequence that might come of an imprudent journey. The catalogue was a bulky one; it ranged over tetanus, mortification, and disease of the bones. It included every sort and description of pain as classified by science, into “dull, weary, and incessant,” or “sharp lancinating agony.” Now Conyers was as brave as a lion, but had, withal, one of those temperaments which are miserably sensitive under suffering, and to which the mere description of pain is itself an acute pang. When, therefore, the doctor drew the picture of a case very like the present one, where amputation came too late, Conyers burst in with, “For mercy’s sake, will you stop! I can’t sit here to be cut up piece-meal; there’s not a nerve in my body you haven’t set ajar.” The doctor blandly took out his massive watch, and laid his fingers on the young man’s pulse. “Ninety-eight, and slightly intermittent,” said he, as though to himself.

      “What does that mean?” asked Conyers, eagerly.

      “The irregular action of the heart implies abnormal condition of the nervous system, and indicates, imperatively, rest, repose, and tranquillity.”

      “If lethargy itself be required, this is a capital place for it,” sighed Conyers, drearily.

      “You have n’t turned your thoughts to what I said awhile ago, being domesticated, as one might call it, in a nice quiet family, with all the tender attentions of a home, and a little music in the evening.”

      Simple as these words were, Dill gave to each of them an almost honeyed utterance.

      “No; it would bore me excessively. I detest to be looked after; I abhor what are called attentions.”

      “Unobtrusively offered, – tendered with a due delicacy and reserve?”

      “Which means a sort of simpering civility that one has to smirk for in return. No, no; I was bred up in quite a different school, where we clapped our hands twice when we wanted a servant, and the fellow’s head paid for it if he was slow in coming. Don’t tell me any more about your pleasant family, for they ‘d neither endure me, nor I them. Get me well as fast as you can, and out of this confounded place, and I ‘ll give you leave to make a vascular preparation of me if you catch me here again!”

      The doctor smiled, as doctors know how to smile when patients think they have said a smartness, and now each was somewhat on better terms with the other.

      “By the way, doctor,” said Conyers, suddenly, “you have n’t told me what the old woman said. What arrangement did you come to?”

      “Your breakfast will cost one shilling, your dinner two. She made no mention of your rooms, but only hinted that, whenever you took your departure, the charge for the boat was half a crown.”

      “Come, all this is very business-like, and to the purpose; but where, in Heaven’s name, did any man live in this fashion for so little? We have a breakfast-mess, but it’s not to be compared with this, – such a variety of bread, such grilled trout, such a profusion of fruit. After all, doctor, it is very like being a guest, the nominal charge being to escape the sense of a favor. But perhaps one can do here as at one of those ‘hospices’ in the Alps, and make a present at parting to requite the hospitality.”

      “It is a graceful way to record gratitude,” said the doctor, who liked to think that the practice could be extended to other reminiscences.

      “I must have my servant and my books, my pipes and my Spitz terrier. I ‘ll get a target up, besides, on that cherry-tree, and practise pistol-shooting as I sit here. Could you find out some idle fellow who would play chess or écarté with me, – a curate or a priest, – I ‘m not particular; and when my man Holt comes, I ‘ll make him string my grass-mat hammock between those two elms, so that I can fish without the bore of standing up for it. Holt is a rare clever fellow, and you ‘ll see how he’ll get things in order here before he’s a day in the place.”

      The doctor smiled again, for he saw that his patient desired to be deemed a marvel of resources and a mine of original thought. The doctor’s smile was apportioned to his conversation, just as he added syrups in his prescriptions. It was, as he himself called it, the “vehicle,” without special efficacy in itself, but it aided to get down the “active principle.” But he did more than smile. He promised all possible assistance to carry out his patient’s plans. He was almost certain that a friend of his, an old soldier, too, – a Major M’Cormick, – could play écarté, though, perhaps, it might be cribbage; and then Father Cody, he could answer for it, was wonderful at skittles, though, for the present, that game might not be practicable; and as for books, the library at Woodstay was full of them, if the key could only be come at, for the family was abroad; and, in fact, he displayed a most generous willingness to oblige, although, when brought to the rude test of reality, his pictures were only dissolving views of pleasures to come.

      When СКАЧАТЬ