«No, you ain’t, young man,» answered Black with one of his jolly laughs. «You think me a successful Society doctor, a kind of quack, not fit to hold a candle to men like Clinton, or even Watson, and in a way you are right. But I am not altogether a quack, as I think I could prove to you if I were to take the trouble to tell you all that has been passing through your mind during the last few minutes, which I think I can guess pretty well. Learn to control your features, West, it is one of the first duties of a doctor; and don’t let your eyes advertise your thoughts. Just one more thing, don’t think that I am a man to take advantage of my position and money to do another any wrong. Never, never. I have to see my road pretty clear before I set foot on it, and it must be a straight one. Now I am off. This afternoon’s job has cost me more than ten guineas already. Drop me a line to say when you can come and we will settle the details in any way you like. Good-bye, give my love to the Flower-garden at Red Hall, if you are going that way, and tell Sister Rose – oh! well, never mind.»
He bustled off to his carriage, leaving a stream of chaff behind him as was his fashion. At its door, however, he halted and calling Andrew to him, suddenly became professional.
«Look here,» he said, «about that case of yours yonder. You’ve done everything possible, or so Clinton would say, but I tell you there is a great deal more to do. I believe you have saved the woman’s life; now it remains for you to save her mind. The probability is, although Clinton would never think of it, that when she understands what has happened, she will go mad. If you can prevent that, I shall think even better of you than I do.»
I am not certain that he is not a big doctor after all, although he is jealous of Clinton because of his European reputation, thought Andrew, as he watched Somerville Black’s carriage disappear amidst the motley equipages of the squalid street.
Chapter V
Arabella
As it happened, Andrew did visit the «Flower-garden» at Red Hall that afternoon, because Rose, for him the queen of all flowers, had asked him to tea. Owing to circumstances that have been set out, he arrived a little late for which he was reproached by Rose, who opened the front door for him.
«Oh! Andrew,» she said, «I did hope that you would have been in time for once, since then we might have had a few minutes together. Now that can’t be, as Angelica and my father are waiting for their tea, and immediately afterwards my cousin Emma is coming for me and we are going to the theatre where we have a box.»
«What theatre? I didn’t know any of them began before eight o’clock, and who gave you the box?» asked Andrew rather heavily, for something about all these announcements chilled him.
«The Haymarket, which takes a long time to reach by bus; also we must be early because of the crowd, and Emma has the box.»
«I see,» replied Andrew without conviction, whereon she brushed his hand with her own and after a quick glance up the passage, bent her sweet face towards him. Then, when the inevitable had happened, with a little sigh of happiness, she flitted before him into the sitting-room.
Following more slowly, for he had paused to hang up his hat, Andrew met Dr. Watson who was coming from the surgery, and stopped to report to him all that had happened in connection with his remarkable case. Watson listened entranced.
«You did right, quite right,» he said, «though I’m not certain that I should have dared. However, if Clinton has approved, all is well, for I think him the greatest authority in Europe. It was good of him to come, too, but those big men are often like that and will do for nothing what they would charge fifty guineas for if they were called in. Well, my boy, you must be tired, come and have some tea. We will talk about it afterwards.»
So they went in and drank tea out of the porridge-bowls, the best china not being in evidence, and Andrew, who had eaten little that day, devoured sundry slices of the thick bread and butter, also some marrons glacés which Rose presented to him in an elegant and expensive- looking box, after all of which he felt much refreshed.
Presently, in a rather nervous kind of way, like one who feels it incumbent on her to show an active interest in the proceedings of some one else, she asked Andrew what he had been doing.
«Well,» he answered gaily, «if you want to know, subject to your father’s consent, I have been accepting an appointment, or rather a kind of partnership in the making.»
«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!