Barrington. Volume 1

“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 he took his leave at last, he left Conyers in far better spirits than he found him. The young fellow had begun to castle-build about how he should pass his time, and in such architecture there is no room for ennui. And what a rare organ must constructiveness be, when even in its mockery it can yield such pleasure! We are very prone to envy the rich man, whose wealth sets no limit to his caprices; but is not a rich fancy, that wondrous imaginative power which unweariedly invents new incidents, new personages, new situations, a very covetable possession? And can we not, in the gratification of the very humblest exercise of this quality, rudely approximate to the ecstasy of him who wields it in all its force? Not that Fred Conyers was one of these; he was a mere tyro in the faculty, and could only carry himself into a region where he saw his Spitz terrier jump between the back rails of a chair, and himself sending bullet after bullet through the very centre of the bull’s eye.

Be it so. Perhaps you and I, too, my reader, have our Spitz terrier and bull’s-eye days, and, if so, let us be grateful for them.

CHAPTER VI. THE DOCTOR’S DAUGHTER

Whether it was that Dr. Dill expended all the benevolence of his disposition in the course of his practice, and came home utterly exhausted, but so it was, that his family never saw him in those moods of blandness which he invariably appeared in to his patients. In fact, however loaded he went forth with these wares of a morning, he disposed of every item of his stock before he got back at night; and when poor Mrs. Dill heard, as she from time to time did hear, of the doctor’s gentleness, his kindness in suffering, his beautiful and touching sympathy with sorrow, she listened with the same sort of semi-stupid astonishment she would have felt on hearing some one eulogizing the climate of Ireland, and going rapturous about the blue sky and the glorious sunshine. Unhappy little woman, she only saw him in his dark days of cloud and rain, and she never came into his presence except in a sort of moral mackintosh made for the worst weather.

The doctor’s family consisted of seven children, but our concern is only with the two eldest, – a son and a daughter. Tom was two years younger than his sister, who, at this period of our story, was verging on nineteen. He was an awkward, ungainly youth, large-jointed, but weakly, with a sandy red head and much-freckled face, just such a disparaging counterpart of his sister as a coarse American piracy often presents of one of our well-printed, richly papered English editions. “It was all there,” but all unseemly, ungraceful, undignified; for Polly Dill was pretty. Her hair was auburn, her eyes a deep hazel, and her skin a marvel of transparent whiteness. You would never have hesitated to call her a very pretty girl if you had not seen her brother, but, having seen him, all the traits of her good looks suffered in the same way that Grisi’s “Norma” does from the horrid recollection of Paul Bedford’s.

After all, the resemblance went very little further than this “travestie,” for while he was a slow, heavy-witted, loutish creature, with low tastes and low ambitions, she was a clever, intelligent girl, very eagerly intent on making something of her advantages. Though the doctor was a general practitioner, and had a shop, which he called “Surgery,” in the village, he was received at the great houses in a sort of half-intimate, half-patronizing fashion; as one, in short, with whom it was not necessary to be formal, but it might become very inconvenient to have a coldness. These were very sorry credentials for acceptance, but he made no objection to them.

A few, however, of the “neighbors” – it would be ungenerous to inquire the motive, for in this world of ours it is just as well to regard one’s five-pound note as convertible into five gold sovereigns, and not speculate as to the kind of rags it is made of – were pleased to notice Miss Dill, and occasionally invite her to their larger gatherings, so that she not only gained opportunities of cultivating her social gifts, but, what is often a greater spur to ambition, of comparing them with those of others.

Now this same measuring process, if only conducted without any envy or ungenerous rivalry, is not without its advantage. Polly Dill made it really profitable. I will not presume to say that, in her heart of hearts, she did not envy the social accidents that gave others precedence before her, but into her heart of hearts neither you nor I have any claim to enter. Enough that we know nothing in her outward conduct or bearing revealed such a sentiment. As little did she maintain her position by flattery, which many in her ambiguous station would have relied upon as a stronghold. No; Polly followed a very simple policy, which was all the more successful that it never seemed to be a policy at all. She never in any way attracted towards her the attentions of those men who, in the marriageable market, were looked on as the choice lots; squires in possession, elder sons, and favorite nephews, she regarded as so much forbidden fruit. It was a lottery in which she never took a ticket It is incredible how much kindly notice and favorable recognition accrued to her from this line.

We all know how pleasant it is to be next to the man at a promiscuous dinner who never eats turtle nor cares for “Cliquot;” and in the world at large there are people who represent the calabash and the champagne.

Then Polly played well, but was quite as ready to play as to dance. She sang prettily, too, and had not the slightest objection that one of her simple ballads should be the foil to a grand performance of some young lady, whose artistic agonies rivalled Alboni’s. So cleverly did Polly do all this, that even her father could not discover the secret of her success; and though he saw “his little girl” as he called her, more and more sought after and invited, he continued to be persuaded that all this favoritism was only the reflex of his own popularity. How, then, could mere acquaintances ever suspect what to the eye of those nearer and closer was so inscrutable?

Polly Dill rode very well and very fearlessly, and occasionally was assisted to “a mount” by some country gentleman, who combined gallantry with profit, and knew that the horse he lent could never be seen to greater advantage. Yet, even in this, she avoided display, quite satisfied, as it seemed, to enjoy herself thoroughly, and not attract any notice that could be avoided. Indeed, she never tried for “a place,” but rather attached herself to some of the older and heavier weights, who grew to believe that they were especially in charge of her, and nothing was more common, at the end of a hard run, than to hear such self-gratulations as, “I think I took great care of you, Miss Dill?” “Eh, Miss Polly! you see I’m not such a bad leader!” and so on.

Such was the doctor’s “little girl,” whom I am about to present to my readers under another aspect. She is at home, dressed in a neatly fitting but very simple cotton dress, her hair in two plain bands, and she is seated at a table, at the opposite of which lounges her brother Tom with an air of dogged and sleepy indolence, which extends from his ill-trimmed hair to his ill-buttoned waistcoat.

“Never mind it to-day, Polly,” said he, with a yawn. “I’ve been up all night, and have no head for work. There’s a good girl, let’s have a chat instead.”

“Impossible, Tom,” said she, calmly, but with decision. “To-day is the third. You have only three weeks now and two days before your examination. We have all the bones and ligaments to go over again, and the whole vascular system. You ‘ve forgotten every word of Harrison.”

“It does n’t signify, Polly. They never take a fellow on anything but two arteries for the navy. Grove told me so.”

“Grove is an ass, and got plucked twice. It is a perfect disgrace to quote him.”

“Well, I only wish I may do as well. He’s assistant-surgeon to the ‘Taurus’ gun-brig on the African station; and if I was there, it’s little I ‘d care for the whole lot of bones and balderdash.”

“Come, don’t be silly. Let us go on with the scapula. Describe the glenoid cavity.”

“If you were the girl you might be, I’d not be bored with all this stupid trash, Polly.”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand you.”

“It’s easy enough to understand me. You are as thick as thieves, you and that old Admiral, – that Sir Charles Cobham. I saw you talking to the old fellow at the meet the other morning. You ‘ve only to say, ‘There’s Tom – my brother Tom – wants a navy appointment; he’s not passed yet, but if the fellows at the Board got a hint, just as much as, “Don’t be hard on him – “’”

“I ‘d not do it to make you a post-captain, sir,” said she, severely. “You very much overrate my influence, and very much underrate my integrity, when you ask it.”

“Hoity-toity! ain’t we dignified! So you’d rather see me plucked, eh?”

“Yes, if that should be the only alternative.”

“Thank you, Polly, that’s all! thank you,” said he; and he drew his sleeve across his eyes.

“My dear Tom,” said she, laying her white soft hand on his coarse brown fingers, “can you not see that if I even stooped to anything so unworthy, that it would compromise your whole prospects in life? You’d obtain an assistant-surgeoncy, and never rise above it.”

“And do I ask to rise above it? Do I ask anything beyond getting out of this house, and earning bread that is not grudged me?”

“Nay, nay; if you talk that way, I’ve done.”

“Well, I do talk that way. He sent me off to Kilkenny last week – you saw it yourself – to bring out that trash for the shop, and he would n’t pay the car hire, and made me carry two stone of carbonate of magnesia and a jar of leeches fourteen miles. You were just taking that post and rail out of Nixon’s lawn as I came by. You saw me well enough.”

“I am glad to say I did not,” said she, sighing.

“I saw you, then, and how that gray carried you! You were waving a handkerchief in your hand; what was that for?”

“It was to show Ambrose Bushe that the ground was good; he was afraid of being staked!”

“That’s exactly what I am. I ‘m afraid of being ‘staked up’ at the Hall, and if you ‘d take as much trouble about your brother as you did for Ambrose Bushe – ”

“Tom, Tom, I have taken it for eight weary months. I believe I know Bell on the bones, and Harrison on the arteries, by heart!”

“Who thanks you?” said he, doggedly. “When you read a thing twice, you never forget it; but it’s not so with me.”

“Try what a little work will do, Tom; be assured there is not half as much disparity between people’s brains as there is between their industry.”

“I’d rather have luck than either, I know that. It’s the only thing, after all.”

She gave a very deep sigh, and leaned her head on her hand.

“Work and toil as hard as you may,” continued he, with all the fervor of one on a favorite theme, “if you haven’t luck you ‘ll be beaten. Can you deny that, Polly?”

“If you allow me to call merit what you call luck, I’ll agree with you. But I ‘d much rather go on with our work. What is the insertion of the deltoid? I’m sure you know that!”

“The deltoid! the deltoid!” muttered he. “I forget all about the deltoid, but, of course, it’s like the rest of them. It’s inserted into a ridge or a process, or whatever you call it – ”

“Oh, Tom, this is very hopeless. How can you presume to face your examiners with such ignorance as this?”

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Polly; Grove told me he did it, – if I find my pluck failing me, I ‘ll have a go of brandy before I go in.”

She found it very hard not to laugh at the solemn gravity of this speech, and just as hard not to cry as she looked at him who spoke it At the same moment Dr. Dill opened the door, calling out sharply, “Where’s that fellow, Tom? Who has seen him this morning?”

“He’s here, papa,” said Polly. “We are brushing up the anatomy for the last time.”

“His head must be in capital order for it, after his night’s exploit. I heard of you, sir, and your reputable wager. Noonan was up here this morning with the whole story!”

“I ‘d have won if they ‘d not put snuff in the punch – ”