Caught in a Trap Part 8

"Oh, don't go on, ma, any more. We know all that! Laura can have the white-choker if she likes: I will cultivate Tom."

"Bless you my child!" said the mother, "you are rash and impetuous, but you have a good heart."

Volume 1, Chapter X.

A CALL AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Doctor Jolly trotted along the road from Bigton to Hartwood, with Huz and Buz his brother, cantering at his horse's heels, and making short predatory excursions every now and then into neighbouring gardens and farmyards on the way, to the apoplectic scaring and bewilderment of sundry unhappy fowls and ducks. In about half an hour, as he always rode at a sharp pace, he had reached The Poplars to make his weekly visit.

"How-de-do!" he shouted to Tom, when he was half a mile off, seeing him at the gate; and presently the stout doctor was dismounting from his quadruped with extreme difficulty, owing to the still painful gout, and limping up the steps of the dowager's mansion.

"So you are here again, are you?" observed that lady with her customary acrimony, from the open window of the dining-room, which faced the entrance gate. "Why, you're always running here, now; you'd better come and live here at once; it would, at all events, save your gouty legs some exertion."

"Bless my soul! Mrs Hartshorne, why you are looking as blooming as a daisy. I wish I could wear like you, madam; why you must be sixty, if you are a day!"

"I'll outlast you at all events, Mister Jolly," said the old lady, as our friend the doctor, who hated being called "Mister" instead of by his medical t.i.tle, walked into the house.

"And how's Susan?" he asked, as he entered the room.

"There she is with her governess, and you can see for yourself,"

snappishly returned the dowager, walking out, and leaving the doctor with Miss Kingscott and her charge.

Susan looked greatly improved, and timidly offered her hand as he went up to her in his hearty way.

"And how are we to-day?" he said kindly.

She, to his great astonishment, not only looked him in the face, but answered him, which she had seldom or ever done before.

"Very well, I thank you," she said, quietly.

It was not much, certainly; not more, perhaps, than a well-trained parrot might have said, but, then, it was a decided improvement to her former apathy. She immediately afterwards, however, left the room, as she heard Markworth playing on the organ up-stairs; and Miss Kingscott and the doctor were alone.

"By Gad, madam!" exclaimed the doctor, as soon as she had gone--he did not mean to give Miss Kingscott "brevet rank," but he always addressed every woman, young or old, as "Madam."

"By Gad, madam! it's positively wonderful. What an improvement; couldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it! But where has she gone to now--who's that thrumming the old organ?"

"That must be Mr Markworth, I believe," she answered, "and you must compliment him on Susan's improvement: she's always with him, and he seems quite devoted to her. It is really quite charming to see them together."

Who would have dreamt of their joint conspiracy from the way she spoke?

"Really?" enquired our Aesculapius. "To tell you the truth, madam, I don't like that fellow at all. I'm never deceived in a face; and, if I do not make a mistake, madam, that man is a scoundrel as certain as G.o.d made little apples."

I do not know why it was, but the doctor always seemed desirous of connecting the name of the deity with miniature specimens of the forbidden fruit whenever he wanted to qualify a strong a.s.sertion.

"Dear me, doctor!" interposed the lady, "your language is very strong."

"Not a bit of it, madam; not a bit more than he deserves. By Gad, madam! he must have some object to gain; he would not take all that trouble for nothing. I know human nature, madam, and he is either going to marry the old lady, or something else. Ho! ho! ho! what a fine pair they would make!"

And the doctor sn.i.g.g.e.red over his own joke, and laughed so contagiously that Miss Kingscott could not but follow suit.

The doctor presently, however, returned to business. He had been thinking of this young lady all the way over from Bigton. He had a.s.serted to himself over and over again that she was "a dooced fine girl," as if some one else had been disputing the point with him; and now that he was in her presence she not only looked finer and more beautiful than ever, but he had one of the best opportunities for speaking to her alone he had ever had before, or could have wished for.

She looked very refined and ladylike as she stood there in the shaded dining-room, clad in a light morning dress. Her regular features and pale complexion gave an air of dignified beauty to her face which her height and figure well carried out. Altogether she was very charming, and looked so loveable on the present occasion, in appearance, that she would have captivated a man even less in love than the doctor, and led him on to the inevitable "pop!"

Aesculapius was a long time beating about the bush. Although he was generally free and easy in his speech, the doctor was now tongue-tied when he most wanted to speak, and his already ruddy face was more "peonified" than ever--if I may be allowed to coin that word--while his heart thumped against his ribs "like a pestle against the sides of a pill mortar," as he expressed it professionally.

"Ha! hum! a fine morning, madam--a fine morning! Don't you think so?"

Miss Kingscott a.s.sented, of course. She saw his embarra.s.sment, and wished to lead him on to an _eclairciss.e.m.e.nt_; but she could scarcely refrain herself from smiling at the ludicrous endeavours of the doctor to hide his nervousness, which was unmistakeably increasing.

"Yes, madam, it's a fine day; but hot, madam. Don't you think so?"

"Certainly, doctor, I think it is warm," answered the lady, confirmatively.

And, indeed, any one looking into his face could not but agree with the remark.

"Warm, madam, is no term for it, it is confoundedly hot! But I beg your pardon, madam, were you ever in love?" he blurted out abruptly, after a great effort, bolting into his subject, as it were.

"Good gracious me, doctor?" said Miss Kingscott, with a charmingly acted surprise, and blushing embarra.s.sment. "What a strange question for you to ask!"

"Not at all, madam--not at all. I said the weather was hot. Don't you see, madam? and it is hot. I asked you about love--and love is hot.

There's my proposition, you see the connection between the two?"

And the doctor's face glowed with perspiration.

"I do not follow your argument," said the governess, calmly. "You seem to arrive very rapidly at your deductions; but what has the result to do with me?" she asked, with ingenuous innocence.

"A good deal, madam--a good deal. How fearfully warm it is! You see, madam, before you an old man."

"Not so very old, doctor, I'm sure," she interrupted, looking bewitchingly into his perspiring countenance.

"Well, well," he continued, in a gratified tone, "perhaps not exactly an old man; but I'm not a young one. Still, if it wasn't for the confounded gout, I daresay I should be as young and skittish as the best of them."

"Oh! I'm so sorry for that horrid gout--and I do pity you so when I see you in pain," condoled Miss Kingscott, thinking of the doctor being "skittish," as if she had heard of an elephant dancing a hornpipe.

"Are you really--do you really?" he asked eagerly, a flush of joy overspreading his already flushed and perspiring face. "Well, I tell you what, madam, I'm in love."

And the doctor heaved a portentous and languishing sigh, which quivered through his colossal frame which shook like a mould of jelly.

"Are you really, doctor? I am sure I hope the young lady is nice, for your sake; and I hope she will make you a good wife," she replied, ignoring the doctor's nervousness until she got him to the point.

"You are very kind, madam, very kind; but you are always kind--you can't help it, for it is in your nature. Infernally hot, is it not, madam?"

"Very warm," said the lady, encouragingly.

"Bless my soul! madam, so it is. But, madam, Miss Kingscott that is--"

"Well?" she encouraged him, her eyes sparkling with ill-concealed fun at the doctor's predicament.