A Woman-Hater Part 57

Then the ladies rose and rustled away, and the rivals would have followed, but Vizard detained them on the pretense of consulting them about the well; but, when the ladies had gone, he owned he had done it out of his hatred to the s.e.x. He said he was sure both girls disliked his virago in their hearts, so he had compelled them to spend an hour together, without any man to soften their asperity.

This malicious experiment was tolerably successful. The three ladies strolled together, dismal as souls in purgatory. One or two little attempts at conversation were made, but died out for want of sympathy.

Then f.a.n.n.y tried personalities, the natural topic of the s.e.x in general.

"Miss Gale, which do you admire most, Lord Uxmoor or Mr. Severne?"

"For their looks?"

"Oh, of course."

"Mr. Severne."

"You don't admire beards, then?"

"That depends. Where the mouth is well shaped and expressive, the beard spoils it. Where it is commonplace, the beard hides its defect, and gives a manly character. As a general rule, I think the male bird looks well with his crest and feathers."

"And so do I," said f.a.n.n.y, warmly; "and yet I should not like Mr. Severne to have a beard. Don't you think he is very handsome?"

"He is something more," said Rhoda. "He is beautiful. If he was dressed as a woman, the gentlemen would all run after him. I think his is the most perfect oval face I ever saw."

"But you must not fall in love with him," said f.a.n.n.y.

"I do not mean to," said Rhoda. "Falling in love is not my business: and if it was, I should not select Mr. Severne."

"Why not, pray?" inquired Zoe haughtily. Her manner was so menacing that Rhoda did not like to say too much just then. She felt her way. "I am a physiognomist," said she, "and I don't think he can be very truthful. He is old of his age, and there are premature marks under his eyes that reveal craft, and perhaps dissipation. These are hardly visible in the room, but they are in the open air, when you get the full light of day.

To be sure, just now his face is marked with care and anxiety; that young man has a good deal on his mind."

Here the observer discovered that even this was a great deal too much.

Zoe was displeased, and felt affronted by her remarks, though she did not condescend to notice them; so Rhoda broke off and said, "It is not fair of you, Miss Dover, to set me giving my opinion of people you must know better than I do. Oh, what a garden!" And she was off directly on a tour of inspection. "Come along," said she, "and I will tell you their names and properties."

They could hardly keep up with her, she was so eager. The fruits did not interest her, but only the simples. She was downright learned in these, and found a surprising number. But the fact is, Mr. Lucas had a respect for his predecessors. What they had planted, he seldom uprooted--at least, he always left a specimen. Miss Gale approved his system highly, until she came to a row of green leaves like small horseradish, which was planted by the side of another row that really was horseradish.

"This is too bad, even for Islip," said Miss Gale. "Here is one of our deadliest poisons planted by the very side of an esculent herb, which it resembles. You don't happen to have hired the devil for gardener at any time, do you? Just fancy! any cook might come out here for horseradish, and gather this plant, and lay you all dead at your own table. It is the Aconitum of medicine, the Monk's-hood or Wolf's-bane' of our ancestors.

Call the gardener, please, and have every bit of it pulled up by the roots. None of your lives are safe while poisons and esculents are planted together like this."

And she would not budge till Zoe directed a gardener to dig up all the Aconite. A couple of them went to work and soon uprooted it. The gardeners then asked if they should burn it.

"Not for all the world," said Miss Gale. "Make a bundle of it for me to take home. It is only poison in the hands of ignoramuses. It is most sovereign medicine. I shall make tinctures, and check many a sharp ill with it. Given in time, it cuts down fever wonderfully; and when you check the fever, you check the disease."

Soon after this Miss Gale said she had not come to stop; she was on her way to Taddington to buy lint and German styptics, and many things useful in domestic surgery. "For," said she, "the people at Hillstoke are relenting; at least, they run to me with their cut fingers and black eyes, though they won't trust me with their sacred rheumatics. I must also supply myself with vermifuges till the well is dug, and so mitigate puerile puttiness and internal torments."

The other ladies were not sorry to get rid of an irrelevant zealot, who talked neither love, nor dress, nor anything that reaches the soul.

So Zoe said, "What, going already?" and having paid that tax to politeness, returned to the house with alacrity.

But the doctress would not go without her Wolf's-bane, Aconite ycleped.

The irrelevant zealot being gone, the true business of the mind was resumed; and that is love-making, or novelists give us false pictures of life, and that is impossible.

As the doctress drove from the front door, Lord Uxmoor emerged from the library--a coincidence that made both girls smile; he hoped Miss Vizard was not too tired to take another turn.

"Oh no!" said Zoe: "are you, f.a.n.n.y?"

At the first step they took, Severne came round an angle of the building and joined them. He had watched from the balcony of his bedroom.

Both men looked black at each other, and made up to Zoe. She felt uncomfortable, and hardly knew what to do. However, she would not seem to observe, and was polite, but a little stiff, to both.

However, at last, Severne, having a.s.serted his rights, as he thought, gave way, but not without a sufficient motive, as may be gathered from his first word to f.a.n.n.y.

"My dear friend, for Heaven's sake, what is the matter? She is angry with me about something. What is it? has she told you?"

"Not a word. But I see she is in a fury with you; and really it is too ridiculous. You told a fib; that is the mighty matter, I do believe. No, it isn't; for you have told her a hundred, no doubt, and she liked you all the better; but this time you have been naughty enough to be found out, and she is romantic, and thinks her lover ought to be the soul of truth."

"Well, and so he ought," said Ned.

"He isn't, then;" and f.a.n.n.y burst out laughing so loud that Zoe turned round and enveloped them both in one haughty glance, as the exaggerating Gaul would say.

"La! there was a look for you!" said f.a.n.n.y, pertly: "as if I cared for her black brows."

"I do, though: pray remember that."

"Then tell no more fibs. Such a fuss about nothing! What is a fib?" and she turned up her little nose very contemptuously at all such trivial souls as minded a little mendacity.

Indeed, she disclaimed the importance of veracity so imperiously that Severne was betrayed into saying, "Well, not much, between you and me; and I'll be bound I can explain it."

"Explain it to me, then."

"Well, but I don't know--"

"Which of your fibs it was."

Another silver burst of laughter. But Zoe only vouchsafed a slightly contemptuous movement of her shoulders.

"Well, no," said Severne, half laughing himself at the sprightly jade's smartness.

"Well, then, that friend of yours that called at luncheon."

Severne turned grave directly. "Yes," said he.

"You said he was your lawyer, and came about a lease."

"So he did."

"And his name was Jackson.

"So it was."

"This won't do. You mustn't fib to _me!_ It was Poikilus, a Secret Inquiry; and they all know it; now tell me, without a fib--if you can--what ever did you want with Poikilus?"