Mary of Marion Isle

«How do you do, Brother Andrew?» he said. «Very glad to see you and to congratulate you.»

Dr. Somerville Black, a man of quick perceptions, glanced quickly at all three of them and then said, addressing Rose:

«Ha-ha, young lady, now I see why you refuged where you did, in this young gentleman’s arms, though to tell the truth, unless I had your father’s word for it, and I suppose he ought to know, I should never have believed that you were brother and sister, even when he is so obviously your father’s son.»

Now Rose coloured in her usual fashion. Dr. Watson looked puzzled, and Andrew, with some irritation, for this term of Brother where Rose was concerned annoyed him, explained that there was a slight mistake as he was unconnected with anyone in the room.

«It is our habit,» added Dr. Watson, «to give the fraternal salutation to friends in this house, as is customary among the community of Christian Socialists to which I and my family belong.»

«Oh! is it?» said Black, with one of his loud, jolly laughs. «Personally I was never so fond of my relations as to wish to extend their number, especially in Whitechapel. However, Sister, to adopt the sororal style, as I think the other Sister in the passage has upset the tea all down my back, I shall be grateful if you can lend me a cloth. I have to go on to see a royal lady, and those infernal flunkeys might notice the stain.»

The article was produced from somewhere and snatching it from Rose’s hand, Andrew began to rub his back.

«I think, young gentleman,» exclaimed Somerville Black, «that our joint Sister there could conduct this operation just as effectively with an expenditure of exactly one-fourth of the muscular force. Unless you are careful, you will wear a hole through my new frock-coat. But why is Brother, or Uncle, or Father Watson offering you his congratulations? Have you perhaps just entered upon some contract of a prenuptial character with our Sister? I seem to diagnose symptoms indicative of the complaint called Love.»

If Rose had coloured before, now she turned positively scarlet. Faintly she murmured some denial and fled from the room, while Andrew commenced an involved contradiction.

«Don’t waste words, young man. I think it highly probable that my diagnosis is correct, but that the disease is still in the suppressed form. The rash will appear later, say after fourteen days’ incubation. If it is wrong, however, so much the better for some other fellow.»

At this point Dr. Watson, who had been listening unconcernedly to his eminent colleague’s jovial if unusual jesting, explained that he was congratulating Andrew on having done extremely well in his final examination, as from private sources of information he had just learned was the case. As a matter of fact being, as has been said, very fond of him, it would not have troubled him at all to learn that he and Rose were affianced. Indeed, in an indefinite way he had once or twice hoped that this might happen.

«Oh! that’s it,» said the jolly doctor. «So you are going to become a saw-bones like the rest of us. Well, I wish you luck and a fat practice among the Jews, and if ever you want a helping hand, don’t you forget old Somerville Black, F.R.C.S., M.D., Honorary Physician to exactly twenty-three Royalties, whom he fondly hopes will pay his bill with a baronetcy shortly, since he thinks it probable that they will not do so in any other way. And now here comes our Sister to whom you are not engaged which, as an antique eligible myself who has only buried one wife, I am naturally glad to learn. Young lady, whenever you feel inclined to share a peculiarly hideous house in Harley Street with an old buffer of established income, just drop me a postcard, will you? Good gracious! What’s the matter with the other Sister’s head?» and he pointed to the tow-like chevelure of Angelica of which a considerable portion had been given to the flames.

«It was an accident to the gas stove,» explained Rose, glad to have an opportunity of changing the subject, for Angelica seemed too overcome to speak.

«Ah! then if the scalp is burned I prescribe the application of some fatty ointment to keep away the air. Fee for consultation, two guineas. It would be three in Harley Street. And now for that tea.»

All this while the bewildered Angelica was engaged in setting on the Elizabethan table at more or less irregular intervals, four stout pieces of crockery which looked like porridge-bowls or small slop basins. Then at the end of it she placed a large brown teapot, and in the middle a plate of thick bread and butter, with a handful of knives and another of teaspoons. Rose seized the teapot and began to pour into the porridge-bowls.

«Hullo!» said Somerville Black, «did we smash all the saucers?»

«No,» explained Rose, tears of vexation springing to her eyes. «We have no saucers. Father does not consider them necessary, and I am sorry to say that the best set of bowls was smashed.»

«Oh! I see. The simple life! Well, don’t look vexed, young lady. These things are capital, or would be if only they had a handle. Just show me how you get hold of them, will you? With both hands, I suppose. By George, what a beautiful table this is!»

«Yes,» said Dr. Watson, waking up, for as usual he had been paying no attention. «It is rather fine, isn’t it? Real Elizabethan and, except for those initials cut on it, without blemish.»

«Jolly,» said Somerville Black. «I like oak; there’s something solid about it. When you see another like it, just let me know will you, and Sister, this is the best tea I have tasted for many a day. No, take away that bread and butter, or I shall eat the lot. There, now I must be going. Haven’t enjoyed myself so much for months, so don’t you be surprised if I come back. Good-bye, Sister, what’s your name?»

«Rose,» she murmured.

«Then it is one that suits you very well. Good-bye, Sister Rose, and Brother, what’s your name – oh! West, Brother West, and Father Watson, and Aunt, what do you say? Angelica? Aunt Angelica. I’ll remember you all to the royal ladies.»

So, still shouting chaff over his shoulder, he ran from the house and disappeared into the magnificent carriage and pair that was waiting at the gate.

«Thank heaven he is gone!» said Andrew, who for some time had been sunk in a gloomy silence.

«Why?» asked Rose.

«Because he is vulgar and overpowering and makes bad jokes, and goes on as if the whole place and everybody in it belonged to him.»

«Well, at any rate, he is cheerful and I am sure he meant to be very kind, and there isn’t too much cheerfulness and kindness about here.»

«Good thing too,» muttered Andrew, «if they are of his variety.»

«It is a curious thing about Somerville Black,» broke in Dr. Watson, evidently following the line of his own thoughts, «that being a man quite without real distinction in our profession he is yet in his own way one of the best and most successful doctors whom I ever knew. I suppose it is to be accounted for by his intense humanity, I mean his insight into the hearts of his fellow-creatures which springs from his wide sympathies. Now he had never met any of you before, but if you were taken with an obscure disease I am sure that he would diagnose it correctly before you had been three minutes in his consulting-room, because already he has added you up and weighed your respective strengths and weaknesses. Then, unless the case was very simple, he would leave the doctoring of you to some one else who is an expert in that particular line, for his power is almost purely one of diagnosis and his gift of healing lies in his magnetic personality.»

«Sounds rather like faith-cure,» said Andrew disparagingly. Then, prompted by the sense of justice that was so strong in him, he added, «At any rate, he must know something as well, as he is an F.R.C.S.»

«Oh! when he became that they were not so particular as they are nowadays; also, I dare say he hypnotized the examiners and made them take a great deal for granted. Anyhow, he hasn’t touched a knife for twenty years. Not but that he does know a great deal in his own way.»

«I suppose that he is really very rich, Father?» said Rose.

«I believe about the richest man in the profession, though he did not make it all out of doctoring. They say that the Jews who come to consult him, give him information and opportunities of investing in all their best things on what is called the ‘ground floor.’ He cannot have inherited his wealth, as I believe his origin was quite humble, and he has no one to leave it to except one peevish daughter who suffers from hypochondria and is as unlike him as possible. She bores him so much that he told me some time ago he really thought of marrying again if only to get the comfort of a home.»

Rose looked as though she would like to ask whether the lady had been selected, but if so, thought better of it and asked nothing. Then, glancing at his watch, the doctor rose and went away, leaving the two alone.

Rose murmured something about clearing away the tea things, but Andrew came and stood beside her and said:

«No, don’t go away, I want to speak to you.»

In his voice there was some note of command such as a man uses towards a woman whom he believes to be his, and Rose was of the class that is susceptible to such exercise of authority, whether justified or not. Also, she was curious, for her instinct told her what was coming and she wished to know whether this attractive young man was in love with her, and if so, how much. A proposal, if he meant to propose, had not come her way before, and it was only natural that she should not wish to nip it in the bud. Lastly, life at Whitechapel was dull and here was a new excitement. So she remained seated and looked up at him through the shadows of the gloaming, like an angel out of mist.

For a moment or two Andrew played with the rose in his buttonhole, and looked down at her with a strange fire in his dark eyes. At last he spoke in a broken, uncertain voice:

«Rose, just before that troublesome man came in I told you that I loved you. Then there was the crash, a rather ill-omened crash,» he added with a little laugh as though uttering a thought aloud, and paused.

She made no answer, unless a sigh could be so described.

«Now I repeat it,» he went on, «in case you should have forgotten in the interval.»

Still she made no answer, being one of those women who feel that their greatest strength lies in silence and forget that it is generally taken to mean consent. Her tender beauty, the grace of her form, the scent that rose from her rippling hair, the loveliness of her eyes into which the twilight seemed to have crept, in their sum intoxicated him who for the first time had passed beneath the yoke of passion. He fell to his knees before her; he cast his arms about her slender waist; he kissed her dress, her hands and then, growing reckless or unknowing, drew her down towards him and pressed his lips upon her face, her eyes, her hair; yes, and on her lips also.

She did not resist him, she let him have his way, only she never kissed him back. While she refrained from that, according to her peculiar code, the rest did not matter. Gently she pushed him away from her and rose. He also rose and stood trembling, ashamed of what he had done.

«I love you! I love you!» he repeated. «You are my angel and my star.»

She smiled a little. Somehow it had never occurred to her to think of herself as either an angel or as a star. Nor did she particularly wish to fill those parts however figuratively, who was quite content to remain just a beautiful young woman in the flesh.

«I know,» she murmured indefinitely, then paused.

«Oh! say more than that,» he went on with passion. «Say that you love me also.»

«I don’t know,» she replied still more indefinitely.

«But you must; you must. It is impossible that I can love so much and not be loved back again. You must love me. You must marry me, Rose.»

At these words she looked up quickly. So he was going all the way – he meant marriage.