Mary of Marion Isle

«Indeed! Oh! do tell me about it. Will you be well paid?»

«Very well, much more than I am worth, five hundred pounds a year to begin with, which means a lot to me,» and he glanced at her with meaning.

«Five hundred pounds a year!» she exclaimed, opening her big blue eyes, while Sister Angelica, in a thin voice like that of a far echo, repeated, «Five hundred pounds a year!» from the shadows at the end of the long Elizabethan table, and even Dr. Watson, awaking from his reveries, looked extremely interested. «Who offered you that?» and again Sister Angelica echoed, «Who offered you that?»

«You would never guess though. It was a friend of yours, Doctor Somerville Black.»

Rose’s face fell.

«Really,» she said in a voice so quiet that it was almost stern, «and what are you to do? Go somewhere to look after the patients whom he sends away to that watering-place of which he is so fond?»

«No,» answered Andrew, «I am to stop here to help him in London.»

«Oh! that will be delightful for you,» she said, smiling mechanically. «And now I must try on my new dress before Emma comes to fetch me, so good-bye, An – I mean Mr. West – I do congratulate you. I do indeed.» Then for one moment she let her beautiful blue eyes rest on his, and turning, glided away.

As it happened, doubtless by the merest accident, Dr. Somerville Black found himself for a little while in the box that was occupied by Rose and her cousin Emma at the Haymarket that night. Being busy he did not stop long, which in a sense did not trouble him as he was no playgoer, and in fact had not been inside a theatre for years. Arriving in the middle of an act, he waited until its end and then asked what it was all about. Rose, with the very same sweet smile and the very same glance of the perfect eyes that had entranced Andrew in the afternoon, explained to the best of her ability, which was not very well, since she had no natural gift towards synopsis.

«Ah!» said the doctor with a yawn, «most thrilling, I have no doubt, but I find real life quite interesting enough for me. You see, I have just come here from a death-bed, that of a lady who was rather great in her quiet way and who has suffered from cancer for three years without a murmur. So the sham sufferings of that painted minx at so much a night don’t move me very deeply, but I am glad that you young people like them, having none of your own. By the way, I know the lady; she’s consulted me several times and never paid my bill, and I who have seen more of her than you have, can tell you that she is uncommonly plain and has an execrable figure which goes out wherever it ought to come in and goes in wherever it ought to come out.»

«Oh! Doctor,» said Rose, «how can you say such things of the beautiful Elfrida Verney?»

«Perhaps because she hasn’t paid my bill, or perhaps because they happen to be true. It isn’t easy to disentangle human motives even if they chance to be one’s own. By the way, did you see young West before you left home? And if so, had he any more news of that case in Hozier’s Lane?»

«I saw him,» answered Rose, «but he said nothing to me about Hozier’s Lane.»

«No, of course he wouldn’t. When a man sees you, young lady, he thinks of things different to Hozier’s Lanes, and people hovering on the edge of death. I admit I do myself who am nearly forty years his senior,» and he looked at her and sighed.

«He told me,» went on Rose, hurriedly, blushing beneath those admiring eyes, «that you had asked him to come to help you in your work.»

«Yes, I did. I have a high opinion of that young man, although he has weaknesses like the rest of us. Have you anything to say against it? By your voice I gather you don’t approve.»

«Oh! no, though of course my father will miss him, and I should have thought that more experience among the poor would have been useful to him before he went into a fashionable practice.»

«Would you, indeed. Well, my dear, now that we have come to professional matters, perhaps you will allow me to form my own judgment. I’ll listen to yours on actresses or fur coats, or china, or anything that is pretty and useless, but not upon whom I should choose to be my assistant in my work, which is ugly but I hope on the whole useful, even if well paid. Now I must be off if I want to catch that lady in time, for, you see, I promised to be with her when she died and I don’t give her more than another hour or two. Here, young woman, bring a couple of boxes of those chocolates, the best you’ve got. Now good night to both of you. I hope you will enjoy the rest of the play. You’ll find my small brougham waiting outside to take you home; I’ve told the door-porter about it. I’ll come and see you soon at Red Hall; indeed, I may be down there to- morrow about that case of West’s.»

Then with a smile and a nod he was gone.

«What an interesting man the Doctor is,» said Cousin Emma, a neutral-tinted person who had been observing everything from the corner of the box.

«Yes, very,» answered Rose in the intervals of crunching up one of the chocolates with her pearl-like teeth. «But I wish he wouldn’t come here and talk about death-beds; it spoils the play.» Then taking another chocolate, she added, «Hush! the curtain is going up and we mustn’t miss anything.»

Having triumphantly pulled his case in Hozier’s Lane out of the very jaws of death and generally wound up his medical affairs with Brother Watson by inducting another young man into his honourable but unpaid share in that extensive practice, Andrew departed from Red Hall and proceeded to Harley Street. To be accurate, he did not altogether proceed since he continued to reside at Justice Street. Dr. Somerville Black had suggested that he should take rooms in his neighbourhood and even half-offered to put him up on the top floor of the great Harley Street mansion, while at the same time suggesting that he might find himself more independent elsewhere. But when Andrew brought the subject to the notice of Mrs. Josky, there was such an explosion that he never even dared to allude to it again. Growing frigid, Mrs. Josky began by asking whether he thought that he had been cheated in her house, because, if so, she was willing to produce the accounts – if she could find them, though she rather believed that she had used the most of them for Laurie’s curl-papers. However, doubtless the tradesmen would «come forward» to corroborate her statements.

When Andrew disclaimed any such idea with an almost agonized emphasis, she took another tack, or rather tacks. Was the cooking not to his taste? She knew that sometimes in Whitechapel one did not get quite the freshest fish. Herself, recently, she had been made very ill by a bad herring, but she thanked both her own God and that of the deceased Josky, who was of another sort though which she had never really understood, that the said herring, although she had bought it for him, inspired her with doubts, so that she determined to eat it herself.

Again Andrew waved his hands wildly and began to explain, till she cut him short.

Perhaps, she suggested, it was the distance that troubled him. If so she had a friend, a connection indeed, for he was a relative of Josky’s, who happened to be under certain obligations to her and owned a really tip-top hansom cab. For a very moderate sum this person, his horses and his cab would be at Andrew’s disposal day and night, «for,» added Mrs. Josky darkly, «I’ll see he don’t cheat you. He’d know better than to try it on with me, would Amos, unless he wants to see them hosses and that cab at his uncle’s, I mean, up the spout.»

Andrew murmured something about trams and buses, but again she cut him short.

«I know what it is,» she said. «It’s the neighbourhood which you think low, having as it were gone up in the world. Well, I have been considering a move myself. Give me a fortnight and I’ll see what I can do over Harley Street way. I’m told there’s a good opening for my kind of trade round about Marylebone Road.»

«But it isn’t the neighbourhood,» gasped Andrew.

«Then it must be that there dratted girl, what they call the Whitechapel Rose,» ejaculated Mrs. Josky, «and Abraham and all the prophets, as Josky used to say, only know what I am to do against her. I’ll make bold to say one thing, though, Mr. Andrew, and that is, you look out that you don’t find her in Harley Street before you.»

«Whatever do you mean?» asked Andrew amazed.

Mrs. Josky pulled herself up, fearing that she might have gone too far, and Andrew, recovering strength, gathered himself for another charge, when the Fates intervened in the shape of stifled sobs followed by a piercing howl, proceeding from the landing outside. Mrs. Josky heard and inspiration took her.

«Listen to that poor child, Mr. Andrew,» she said, «what you dragged up from the bottom of the grave. She’s been eavesdropping, having guessed what was in your heart, for which I’ll smack her head afterwards, and that’s why she’s howling outside there, like a cat on the tiles, because she can’t bear to think that you’re so cruel as to go and leave her, which she never would have believed of you, nor for the matter of that, wouldn’t I unless I had heard it with my own ears and on the right side of the door.»

Then with frightful suddenness Mrs. Josky also burst into tears.

«Stop! Stop!» cried Andrew, «and I’ll stop too – for all my life, if you like.»

Instantly, Mrs. Josky’s tears dried up, and at the same moment the howls from the landing died away.

«That’s all right, Sir,» she said in a matter-of-fact voice, «and I’m glad, since there won’t be any need for me, who hate changes, to look for a new lodger. When one knows the weaknesses of a gentleman, however bad they may be to put up with, one doesn’t wish to try those of another that might be worse. Now I’ve got a beautiful crab for you for supper, and a bottle of white wine to drink with it, that a friend of mine in the trade gave me. Shatter Squirm, I think he called it, which I hope it won’t make you do, and a toasted cheese to follow. So I’ll be off to dress it and to smack the head of that Laurie if I can catch her, to teach her not to listen at doors.»

So she went with triumph in her eye, metaphorically flapping her wings, and leaving Andrew so prostrate that it took the best part of the bottle of Château Yquem to restore his equilibrium. Until circumstances separated them, never again did he venture to suggest that he should depart from the shelter of Mrs. Josky’s hospitable roof.

While he was digesting the crab and toasted cheese with Château Yquem sauce, which did not prove altogether an easy process, Andrew reflected on many things. Amongst others his mind dwelt upon a single sentence he recalled, standing up like a rock above the foaming flood of Mrs. Josky’s eloquence, that in which she had so rudely spoken of Rose as «a dratted girl,» and requested him to beware lest he should find her «in Harley Street before him.» What on earth did she mean by that? It suggested that affection for him might take Rose to Harley Street, which, though flattering, was absurd, seeing that there was no one there of whom she could be jealous and she could always meet him at her own home if she wished. Could she then be suffering from some illness of which Mrs. Josky was aware, that would cause her to consult Dr. Somerville Black? No, that, too, was absurd, for never had he known anyone so entirely healthy.

And, now that he came to think of it, why had Rose herself received the news of his appointment in the way she did? He would have expected her to be delighted, seeing that it meant that within less than the appointed year he ought, with ordinary fortune, to be in a position to support her comfortably as his wife. And yet, although she had of course congratulated him, there was something in her tone which did not suggest delight, but rather a hidden reserve of disapproval. Perhaps she thought that he should not have left her father, even to better his fortune for her sake, being the unselfish creature that she was. He could not say; all he knew was that Dr. Watson himself took an entirely different view. There was no doubt about his pleasure at such a chance having come in the way of his unpaid assistant. At length Andrew gave it up and went to bed where, in his uneasy slumbers, the crab and the toasted cheese seemed to take up the problem and argue it out in a fashion as grotesque as it was unpleasant.

Next morning he presented himself at Harley Street and began his career as a fashionable physician.

«Glad to see you,» said Somerville Black in his jolly tones. «That will be your kennel,» and he showed him a kind of ante- chamber to the consulting-room. «All the books here, you see» – with a sweep of his arm he indicated shelves of medical works – «I don’t read them much myself, prefer to study the living subject. But you may get something out of them. The other kind of books are in those drawers, and it will be your job to keep them in future. By the way, would you like a cheque on account? No. Well, so much the better. They think me liberal, but if you only knew how I hate parting with money! Comes from associating so much with Jews, I suppose. Talking of Jews, there’s an old woman of that ancient race coming to see me presently, but she must see you instead as I have to go off to something really important, a little girl who is supposed to have swallowed a latch-key. She – the old woman I mean – has nothing the matter with her, except stinginess which has congested her liver. Listen to what she has got to say and prescribe Epsom Salts morning and evening in double doses. Good-bye, the door doesn’t fit very well, but that don’t matter as you will be able to listen to all that goes on in here and pick up some wrinkles. I dare say a lot of people will turn up and I mayn’t be back till lunch. There’s a list of their names and appointments on that desk; I’ve put their most probable diseases underneath. Do the best you can with them, and take the fees if they offer any, which I don’t suppose they will.»

Then he swept off like a hurricane, leaving Andrew terrified and bewildered.

Three minutes later the butler, Tompkins, a venerable, white-whiskered individual who looked like a cross between a stage peer and a mute, ushered in the old Jewess, Mrs. Solomon Isaacs by name, who stared at him amazed.

At first their interview was tumultuous, as she began by telling him that she had come to see the doctor, not the under-footman. Andrew laughed and replied with some repartee which made the other laugh also. Then she set out her symptoms, glad of a new listener, and ended by saying that if he prescribed Epsom Salts for her, she would throw them at his head. He replied that he would never dream of doing such a thing, as her case was far too serious, and wrote out a prescription in which the despised Epsom Salts appeared under an enormous Latin name. This pleased her so much that she departed, saying that she hoped she would see him again next time she called and not the doctor, and actually left her two guineas on the table, an event which Somerville Black afterwards declared partook of the miraculous.

Others came also. Some of them refused to see him, while others consented, and with these on the whole he got on fairly well. Still, it was a tired young man who received Dr. Black upon his return and, retiring to his own compartment, joyfully left him to deal with the remaining appointments.

At length they were all worked through, and as they washed their hands together in the lavatory, Black congratulated Andrew on his modicum of success.

«You’ll do all right,» he said, «or would if you didn’t look as if you had just come from school. I think a pair of glasses would help you, just window-glass in a frame, you know, and if you didn’t mind, a little doctoring of your hair to give it a pepper-and-salt appearance; they would soon put up with the rest. But most of these old women can’t stick a fellow who looks as though he has been sucking lollypops won in a bet on leap-frog.»

Andrew, who felt nettled at these pointed allusions to the juvenility of his appearance, ignored the subject and asked what happened to the child who had swallowed the latch-key.

«Nothing at all,» answered the doctor, «thanks to me. When I got there they had three of the big surgeons, to say nothing of an anæsthetist and two hospital nurses, and were just going to operate. ’Hold on a bit,’ I said, ‘for I am the family physician to this household.’ Then I made a few investigations and, to cut the story short, I found the latch-key in the child’s bed, where she had hidden it to tease the nurse who made use of it for her own purposes. After that she went to sleep and dreamed that she had swallowed it, and waking up of course simulated the symptoms, or they thought she did. My word! you never saw a crowd look sillier than did those learned members of our profession when I produced that key. One of them wanted to operate all the same, thinking that I had played a trick on them, but the patient has now gone for a walk in the park, while her parent is signing cheques for half-fees. But let us go to lunch, for I expect Arabella is waiting and nothing upsets her temper more than my being late for lunch. She’s my daughter, you know, and I hope for your sake that she may take a liking for you, which is more than she has ever done to me. Or if she has, she conceals it very well. You be advised by me, and if she speaks of her health, shake your head and look sad. Above everything, don’t tell her that she looks quite well, or is only suffering from too much money and nothing to do.»

Then he led the way to the dining-room, Andrew following with some trepidation, for this description of Arabella frightened him.