The doctor pulled on his coat by snatches, ejaculated, and went through many of the evolutions favoured by persons who wish to impress others with the fact that they are in a tempestuous passion; but he had resisted the advances made by his wife when she had thrown off the mask that years of worldliness had fixed there, and now she was ready to engage him with his own weapons. As to his real or simulated anger, she valued it not in the least, holding it in the most profound contempt, while a stranger would hardly have believed her to be the same woman who a few minutes before had kneeled at the doctor’s feet.
“I want some money before you go out,” said Mrs Hardon coldly; and the doctor started with surprise at the change the conversation had taken. “I want some money,” said Mrs Hardon in a louder key.
“How much?” said the doctor, calming down as his wife seemed disposed to take the upper hand.
“Twenty-five – thirty pounds,” said Mrs Hardon.
“What for?” said the doctor.
“What for?” said Mrs Hardon fiercely. “Not to send away – not for that, but for the tradespeople’s bills; since you are so proud of your reputation – your professional reputation – have them cleared off. Richards has sent twice, and threatens proceedings;” and she held out the note the maid had brought in; “and now I insist upon knowing how you stand. I will not be kept here in the dark over these speculations. I know matters are going wrong; and do you suppose that I will sit by like a child and see ruin come upon my home; I who was always trusted to keep your books and purse, until you became a physician? There is something wrong, Thomas Hardon, or there would not always be this pinching and holding back of every sovereign. You drive me from your side – me, the wife of five-and-thirty years – when I would be the loving woman. Now, then, I will be the firm woman of the world, and be satisfied upon these points at issue. You had better write me a cheque at once; for I will not be disgraced by the tradespeople, since we are to stand so upon our dignity.”
Doctor Hardon looked viciously at his wife, spoiling his generally placid countenance to a degree that, had one of his best patients seen him then, it would have been a serious loss to the doctor and a gain to the rival practitioner; but he made no movement towards drawing the cheque for which Mrs Hardon stood waiting, till, seeing that nothing was to be gained, she left the room in anger; but the next minute she had returned, to once more lay her hand gently upon the doctor’s arm:
“Have you a heart, Tom?” she whispered. “Is our old age to be an old age of regret? Think of Octavius and his son; look at his desolate, wretched life, and don’t let ours be quite the same.”
Mrs Hardon had had a hard battle with self, and crushed down the angry feelings that had been fighting for exit; for there was the thought of her child in her heart – maternity asserting itself and thrusting aside in its greatness all that was petty and contemptible; but as she stood there appealing to the doctor the struggle grew harder. Obstinate, bitter, cruel, the doctor masked all beneath his cold, calm, professional aspect, treating the weeping woman with a cutting indifference that roused her indignation thoroughly at last; and to conceal her anger she hurried from the room, but this time not to return.
The doctor may have had a heart, but it was thoroughly unmoved by all that his wife had said; in fact the appeal had come at a wrong time, since the same post which brought the letter he had passed over to Mrs Hardon had given him other letters whose contents he so thoroughly knew that he had not even opened them, but, glancing at their directions, thrust them hastily into his pocket, where they acted as so much fuel to feed the fire of his wrath. There was something so unmistakable in the particularly-distinct handwriting upon the envelopes – something so very blue about the paper – that, expecting unpleasant communications, the doctor detected them at a glance, and mentally he went over the contents.
The fact was the doctor was short of cash, and that through more than one unfortunate speculation in which he had embarked. Like a great many more men of moderate income, he had been bitten with the desire to increase it, though the bite came in the first instance from his wife, who scolded him fiercely when, after the MD honour had been thrust upon him, he gave up the union practice, which entailed the loss of the regular salary of one hundred pounds per annum. The doctor said that it was not becoming for a physician to be the medical attendant of the parish; and Mrs Hardon, who was then in a worldly, everyday phase, declared that it was “all fiddlesticks’ ends,” when there was his cheque regularly at certain times, while the greater part of the work could be done by the assistant, who would do very well for the poor people. It was a sin and a shame, she declared, though how connected with fiddlesticks’ ends was best known to herself. There was, however, something relating to the musical science in the matter, for Mrs Doctor Hardon kept harping upon the same string until the doctor snapped it by furiously threatening her if another word was said about it – threats which Mrs Hardon noticed so much that she certainly held her tongue; and she held her hand too, and tried to annoy the doctor by keeping a bad table, which she said so great a loss every year necessitated. Poor woman! she little knew that the time would come when such economy would be forced upon her. What, she asked the doctor, was honour without money? What was the use of her being a physician’s wife if they had nothing to support it with? And, then, too for him to be such an ass – the doctor started and puffed out his cheeks at this – “Yes, ass,” said Mrs Hardon, “as to play into your adversary’s hand like that, when he was on the verge of ruin, as everybody said, and could not have kept on another six months; for you to throw the union practice and a hundred a-year into his lap, and supply him with the material for carrying on the war!”
Mrs Doctor Hardon spoke of the rival practitioner, a poor, gentlemanly man, who had set up some years before in the dusty town of Somesham, and had been fighting ever since with difficulties; for, as in all small country towns in this land of liberty, every new-comer was looked upon as an intruder – a foreigner – and one who will probably interfere with the fine old conservative notions of the place. They don’t want him, and they won’t have him if they can help it. He is clever, perhaps; but they don’t want clever people, and they would prefer being half-killed by the old practitioner to being cured by the new. Trade or profession, it is just the same; and perhaps the acts of the town are only the acts of the country in miniature. Hospitality we have in plenty, and our share of the virtues, no doubt; but truly we English have most strongly in us the propensity for turning our backs upon those who are trying to fight their way on, until they can manage to do without help, when we turn round, smiling with the features that frowned before, pat the successful man upon the back, and say, “Well done!”
Mr Brande, “the new man,” as he was called, had found all this, and had been ready to despair again and again through the many years he had been trying to make a practice; but now the turning-point had come in the honours of Thomas Hardon, Esq, MD; not that he had reaped much present advantage, and it was doubtful if he would have had the practice at all if Doctor Hardon had not had immediate want for a hundred and fifty pounds, and, trusting to Mr Brande’s honour as a gentleman, offered to throw up the parish work on condition of receiving that sum, which Mr Brande gave him in bills, and, what was more, screwed, economised, and met them as they fell due. But Mrs Doctor Hardon did not know this, nor yet the extent of the liabilities her lord had incurred; while the deeper he sunk in that black, clinging mire of debt, the more reticent he grew.
Volume One – Chapter Eight.
Mr Pawley’s Performance
“Such a beautiful, well-cut letter too!” said old Matt Space, as he stood looking at the empty type-rack from whence the cases had been taken to furnish money for Septimus Hardon’s present expenses. “In such good order too. Puts me in mind of being so low down that I had to sell my own stick. Fellow always seems so badly off when he gets selling his tools.”
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