Mary of Marion Isle

Algernon in the background chuckled hoarsely, a faint and swiftly repressed smile flittered over Clara’s placid features like a shadow over a still lake, and Lord Atterton turned purple.

«What do you mean, young man?» he gasped.

«Oh! nothing personal,» replied the gay Andrew in the intervals of lighting a cigarette, «but I think you will admit, Uncle, that there is a difference between, let us say, the skilful advertisement of patent medicines or alcoholic drinks with the assistance of a large office staff, and the mastering of a science by individual application.»

«All that I am inclined to admit at present,» ejaculated Lord Atterton, «is that you are a most offensive young prig.»

«Do you think so?» answered Andrew with an airy smile. «Well, I dare say from your point of view you are right. Everything depends upon how one looks at things, doesn’t it, Uncle? Now I hate trade and look upon the drink traffic as a crime against the community, at any rate where the manufacture of spirits is concerned, having seen too much of their effects, and I dare say that these convictions make me intolerant, as all young people are apt to be —»

«And I hate impertinent Pill-boxes, like yourself, Sir,» shouted Lord Atterton.

«Which shows,» replied Andrew calmly, «that intolerance is not peculiar to the young. By ‘Pill-boxes’ I suppose you symbolize the Medical Profession in general, of which I am informed you are a great supporter where your own ailments and those of your family are concerned. Now if hate, as it is fair to assume, implies disbelief, why do you employ them?»

Lord Atterton tried to answer, but only succeeded in gurgling.

«Such disparagement,» went on Andrew, «seems peculiarly unjust in your case, Uncle, seeing that one of your grandfathers was an eminent ‘Pill-box’ of the old school whose monographs upon certain subjects are still studied, and, so far as I am able to judge, infinitely the most respectable and useful man that our family has produced.»

Here Algernon, on a sofa in the background, burst into convulsive screams of laughter which he tried vainly to stifle with a cushion, while the infuriated Lord Atterton rushed from the room uttering language which need not be recorded.

«You’ve done it this time,» said Algernon, removing the sofa cushion and sitting up. «If there’s one thing his Lordship hates» (he always called his father his Lordship behind his back), «it is any allusion to his medical ancestor whose mother was a mill-hand and who dropped his h’s.»

«I expect that’s where his vigour came from, and if he dropped h’s, he picked up lives, hundreds of them; indeed, he was a most admirable person.»

«Oh! Andrew,» broke in Clara, «can’t you stop fooling? Don’t you see that you are ruining yourself?»

«Well, if you ask me, Clara, I don’t. Besides, how am I ruining myself? I expect nothing from my uncle who has never given me anything, except an occasional luncheon and many lectures. I know that everybody goes about blacking his boots just because he is so rich, so it can’t hurt him to hear a little of the truth by way of a change.»

«But it may hurt you, Andrew. What are you going to do when you become a doctor?»

«Oh, that’s all arranged. An excellent fellow called Watson, a really clever man though a bit of a Socialist, who might be anything but because of his opinions prefers a practice in Whitechapel, is going to take me as an assistant. He was one of the examiners and suggested it himself only this morning, from which I gather that I have passed all right. It is a splendid opening.»

«Indeed,» remarked Clara doubtfully, «and what is Doctor Watson going to pay you?»

«I don’t know. Something pretty small, I expect, but that doesn’t matter to me, for I’ve a couple of hundred a year of my own, you know, which is riches to most young doctors.»

Clara looked him up and down with an air of genuine if tempered amazement on her face that was not entirely unmixed with admiration. Then she asked:

«Do you really mean to say, Andrew, that it is your intention to become the assistant of an unknown Socialistic practitioner in the East End who will pay you little or nothing?»

«That is my intention and desire, Clara,» he answered in the intervals of lighting another cigarette. «What do you see against it?»

«Oh! nothing,» she answered, shrugging her shoulders, «except the results which commonly follow from madness of any sort. To begin with, you will infuriate our uncle —»

«Strike that out,» interrupted Andrew, «for I have done it already. Nothing can make him hate me more than he does.»

«– who,» went on Clara, taking no notice, «with all his enormous interest would otherwise have been able to help you to a career in almost any walk of life that offers rewards at the end of it – or earlier —»

«To those with relatives whose money gives them direct or indirect means of corruption and thereby of lifting the undeserving over the heads of the deserving,» suggested Andrew.

Again she shrugged her shoulders, and went on:

«Next, you will starve. Your Socialist medical man won’t pay you anything, and such an appointment will lead you nowhere.»

«Don’t alarm yourself, Clare. I haven’t the slightest fear of suffering from the want of proper nutriment. Food is cheap in the East End, and a couple of pints of stout will furnish as much stimulant as is desirable in twenty-four hours. Also, if I pass in Surgery, as I think I shall, I have every hope that my hospital will not entirely cast me off. Perhaps you didn’t know, Clara, that surgery is my only love, that I have a natural instinct that way and, if I may say so, a flair for diagnosis. For instance, there is a gland in your neck that I long to remove, although you may not be aware of the thing. It spoils the proportions and under certain circumstances may be dangerous some day.»

«Please leave my glands alone,» said Clara. «I don’t know what glands are.»

«Then why did you lift your hand and touch that to which I alluded, Clara, not knowing that I cultivate the art of observation? Any competent physician will tell you that it might become the seat of tubercle, to which all our family are prone.»

«You won’t frighten me with your talk of glands,» replied Clara quite calmly, «or because one side of my neck swells when I have a cold. Well, if you give no weight to my arguments, what are yours? What you have to urge in favour of the course of life which you propose to follow?»

Andrew drew himself up and threw his cigarette into the fire. In a moment his whole aspect changed. From that of a somewhat annoying, assertive and egotistical youth, it became one of an earnest young man animated by a great purpose.

«I’ll tell you if you will open your mind and are sufficiently interested to listen,» he said. «I have this to urge: that our time here is short, and that whatever we understand by God Almighty lays upon us the duty of making of it the best use possible, not only for our own sakes, but for that of the world in which we live, according to the opportunities that may be given to us. Now mine, I know, are very humble. I am nobody and nothing, a person without prospects.» (Here Clara opened her innocent-looking eyes and stared at him.) «But I believe that I have some ability in a certain line and I intend to use it to the best of my power in serving my fellow-men. An opportunity of doing so has come to me in a locality where my fellow-men, and women and children, are more numerous and probably more miserable than they are anywhere else upon the earth. In these circumstances I do not intend to allow my person advantage, or what seems to be my advantage as you see it, to weigh with me. That is my answer.»

«And a jolly good one, too,» exclaimed Algernon, suddenly sitting up amidst his sofa-cushions among which he had seemed to be somnolent, and breaking into the conversation.

«You’re a real sport, Andrew, more power to your elbow! I’m no use, I know, and never shall be,» here by accident or design he coughed, «but,» he added with an outburst of genuine felling, «I respect you, old fellow, whatever Clara may think.»

«Please leave my thoughts out of the question, Algernon,» said Clara with severity. «Perhaps I also respect Andrew. But I try to look all round things and not to be carried away by sudden enthusiasms, and I think that in his own interests he is making a mistake. He would do better to fall in with his uncle’s wishes, or prejudices if you choose to call them so.»

«And I think that I shall do better to fall in with what I consider to be my duty, and to leave my interests to look after themselves, Clara. That, however, is no particular virtue on my part, since they do not excite me.»

«Which means that you are going to be a slum doctor, Andrew.»

«Yes, my dear, that’s what it means, also that if you happen to meet me when you are driving in the Atterton carriage and pair, I shall not expect you to recognize your humble relative.»

«Don’t be silly, Andrew. You wouldn’t if you only knew how ridiculous you become when you are on your high horse.»

«High horse! A neat repartee for the carriage and pair, on which I congratulate you, Clara. But don’t let’s wrangle. Our lines are laid in different places, that is all, and I dare say we shan’t see much of each other in the future, so we had best part friends. Good-bye, old girl,» and stretching out his long arm, he took her round the waist, drew her to him and gave her a kiss.

Then he shook Algernon by the hand, bidding him come to a certain address if he wanted any gratis medical advice, and to look after himself in various ways, and departed at a run, nearly knocking over a stately menial who was bringing coffee and liqueurs.

«I think that Andrew is mad,» remarked Clara, smoothing her hair which had been disarranged by the energy of his embrace.

«I dare say,» said Algernon, as he tossed off a glass of cognac, «but I only wish I were half as mad. I tell you, Clara, that he is the best of the family, as you will come to see one day. Though when you do, I shan’t be here.»

«Perhaps,» said Clara, «for no one knows what may happen in the future, and if he should succeed, it may alter my views.»

«Succeed,» ejaculated Algernon with a hoarse chuckle. «Do you mean to the title?»

«You know very well that I meant nothing of the sort, Algernon,» she answered with a look of calm contempt, and left the room.

«All the same she did, although she may not have known it,» reflected Algernon, as, after another half-glass of cognac, he settled himself down to snooze among the sofa cushions. «Clara thinks that no one sees through her, but I do. She’s a deep one, is Clara, and, what’s more, she’ll always get her way. But when she has, what is the good of it?» Then he went off to sleep till tea-time.

Chapter II

Mrs. Josky