Nicky-Nan, Reservist Part 20

"I believe," remarked Miss Oliver pensively, on the return journey, "I could take quite a liking to that woman if I got to know her."

"She won't give you the chance, then," said Mrs Polsue; "so you needn't fret."

"No, I suppose not . . . in a fashion. Still"--Miss Oliver brightened--"she proposed me on the Needlework Committee, and we're to meet at the Vicarage every Wednesday. She looked up at me a moment before mentioning my name, and smiled as nice as possible; you might almost say she read what was in my mind."

"'Twould account for her smiling, no doubt."

"I don't know what you mean by that. 'Twas in my mind that I'd rather be on that committee than on any other. She's a proper lady, whatever you may say, Mary-Martha. And the spoons were real silver-- I took occasion to turn mine over, and there was the lion on the back of it, sure enough."

"I saw you in the very act, and meant to tell you of it later; but other things drove it out of my head. You should have more command over yourself, Charity Oliver."

"But I _can't_," Miss Oliver protested. "When I see pretty things like that, my fingers won't stop twiddlin' till I make sure."

"By the same argiment I wonder you didn't pocket the spoon.

Which was old Lord Some-thing-or-Other's complaint; though I doubt you wouldn't get off so light as he did."

"There was the tea-pot, too. . . . I couldn't get nigh enough to see the mark on that, though I tried. Next time, perhaps--though I doubt she won't have the silver out for ordinary workin' parties--"

"Tut--the tea-pot was silver right enough. I ought to know, havin'

one of my own and a heavier by ounces. No, I don't use it except on special occasions: because you can't make so good tea in silver as in china ware; and clome is better again. But though you lock it away, a silver tea-pot is a thing to be conscious of. I don't hold," Mrs Polsue fell back on her favourite formula, "with folks puttin' all their best in the shop window."

"Well, you _must_ be strong-minded! For my part," Miss Oliver confessed, "little luxuries always get the better o' me. I declare that if a rich man was to come along an' promise to load me with diamonds and silver tea-pots and little knick-knacks of that sort, I shouldn' care who he was, nor how ugly, but I'd just shut my eyes and fling myself at his head."

"You'd better advertise in the papers, then. It's time," said Mrs Polsue sardonically. She wheeled about. "Charity Oliver, you needn't use no more silly speech to prove what I could see with my own eyes, back yonder, even if I hadn't known it already. You're a weak fool--that's what you are! Those folks, with their pretty manners and their 'how-dee-do's,' and 'I hope I see you well's,' and their talk about all cla.s.ses bein' at one in those times of national trial and standin' shoulder to shoulder till it makes a body sick--do you reckon they _mean_ a word of it? Do you reckon that if 'twas Judgment Day itself, and you given to eatin' peas with a knife, they'd really want you to luncheon?"

"But I _don't_."

"I'm puttin' it for the sake of argument--"

"Then I wish you wouldn't," Miss Oliver interrupted with some spirit.

"--And old Hambly kow-towing like a Puss-in-Boots till I could have wrung his neck for him--and you weakenin' and playin' gentility as you picked it up, like another cat after a mouse--and myself the only one left to show 'em plain that we weren't to be put upon--yes, and after you'd hoped, up to the very door, that whatever happened, I'd take a proper stand!"

"Well, and so I did," Miss Oliver admitted defiantly. "But I didn't ask you to make yourself _conspicuous_."

CHAPTER XIV.

POLSUE V. PENHALIGON, NANJIVELL INTERVENING.

At breakfast, two days later, Dr Mant received a summons to visit Polpier and p.r.o.nounce upon the symptoms of Boatbuilder Jago's five-year-old son Josey (Josiah), who had been feverish ever since Tuesday evening. The Doctor's practice ranged over a wide district, and as a rule (good easy man) he let the ailments of Polpier acc.u.mulate for a while before dealing with them. Then he would descend on the town and work through it from door to door--as Un'

Benny Rowett put it, "like a cross between a ferret an' a Pa.s.sover Angel." Thus the child and his temperature might have waited for thirty-six hours--the mothers of Polpier being skilled in febrifuges, from quinine to rum-and-honey, treacle posset, elder tea--to be dealt with as preliminaries to the ambulance lecture, had it not been that (1) the Doctor had recently replaced his old trap with a two-seater car, which lifted him above old economies of time, and (2) he wished to ascertain if the valley schoolhouse, in which he was to lecture, possessed a wall-chart or diagram of the human frame; for it is a useful rule to start an ambulance cla.s.s with some brief information on the body and its organs, their position and functions. Also he remembered casually an official letter received from Troy, a couple of days ago, concerning one Nicholas Nanjivell, a reservist.

The man, if he remembered rightly, had an epithelioma somewhere in his leg, and was quite unfit for service. Nevertheless he must be visited: for the letter was official.

First of all, then, the Doctor hied him to Boatbuilder Jago's: and it was lucky he did so, for the child had developed measles--a notifiable complaint. "Any other cases about?" he asked. Mrs Jago did not know of another child sick or sorry in the whole of Polpier.

"Which," she went on to argue in an aggrieved tone, "it therefore pa.s.ses my understandin' why our Josey should be took, poor mite!

'Tisn't as if he was a naughty child, either."

"Everything must have a beginning, Mrs Jago," said the doctor in his cheerful matter-of-fact way.

"You reckon as it will spread, then?"

"I don't know. I hope not. . . . It's a mercy that the schools are closed for the holidays. When did they close, by the way?"

"Just a week ago."

"H'm. . . . I must step up and ask the Schoolmaster a few questions."

"I called you in to cure my Josey, not to talk about other folk's children." (Mrs Jago was a resentful woman.)

"And I am doing my best for him. . . . Tut! in a week or so he'll be running about as well as ever. But I'm the Medical Officer of Health, ma'am."

"Well I know it; seein' that, four months back, as you happened to be pa.s.sin', I called you in an' asked you to look at the poor dear's eyes an' give me a certificate that he was sufferin' from something chronic. An' you flatly declined."

"If my memory serves me, I said he had a small stye in his eye, and I was willing to certify that for what it was worth, if you didn't mind paying me half-a-crown."

"If edication's free, as they call it, I don't see why a body should pay half-a-crown to get off what can be had for nothing. That's how I reasoned then, and always shall. In consikence o' which that la-di-da of an Attendance Officer, that thinks all the maids be after him an' looks sideways into every shop window he pa.s.ses for a sight of his own image--and if it rids us of a fella like that, I'm all for Conscription--got me summonsed before the Tregarrick bench an'

fined another half-crown, with five shillin' costs. An' now, when the mischief's done an' the tender dear one rash from head to foot"-- Mrs Jago mopped her eyes with the edge of her ap.r.o.n--"what better can 'ee say than thank G.o.d the schools be closed! For my part, I wish He'd close an' roll the great stone o' Daniel agenst 'em for ever and ever!"

Doctor Mant sought up the valley to the Schoolmaster, Mr Rounsell, whose quarters formed a part of the school buildings, and ended the block on its southern or seaward side. One roof, indeed, covered him in and out of school: and the Vicar, as one of the Managers, had been heard to lament this convenient provision. "It never allows the fellow to forget his chain: he talks to me as if I were a cla.s.s of forty."

Mr Rounsell himself answered the door. He had been gardening, and was in his shirt-sleeves. At sight of his visitor he became exceedingly prim and scholastic, with a touch of defiance. He was short in stature, and, aware of this, often paused in the middle of a sentence to raise himself on his toes. He made a special study of what he called "Voice-Production," and regulated his most ordinary conversation by the laws (as he understood them) of that agreeable science.

"Doctor Mant?"

"Ah, it's yourself, is it?" chimed Dr Mant, whom the Schoolmaster's accent always sent back, and instantly, to a native brogue.

"Well, and it's a fine row of sweet peas you have, Mr Rounsell, at the edge of the garden by the stream. I note them every time I drive by: and how in the world you contrive it, year after year, in the same soil--"

"You take me at some disadvantage, sir," said Mr Rounsell stiffly.

"My daughter being from home on a holiday, and few people coming to this door at any time, unless it be to ask a small favour."

"Well, and you've hit it: for myself's one of that same," Dr Mant a.s.sured him cheerily. "But business first! Jago's child has the measles. Had you any reason to suspect measles, or anything of the sort, in your school before you closed it a week ago?"

Mr Rounsell, who had seemed to be arming himself against a very different approach, sensibly relaxed his guard. He was punctilious by habit in all official responsibilities. He considered for a moment before answering.

"Had I done so, I should have reported my--er--suspicions. I cannot tax my memory, Dr Mant, with having observed a symptom in any child which pointed--er--in that direction. With regard to the child Jago, I was the less likely to be forewarned of such an--er--shall we say?--eventuality, seeing that he is the most irregular attendant of my infant cla.s.s, and, so far as my recollection serves me, his attendances during the past quarter amount to but twenty-three point four. I leave you to judge."

"Right--O! What about his attendance the week before breaking up?"

"I can look up the Register if you wish, sir. But, speaking at off-hand, I should compute the child Josiah Jago's attendances during the last week of July at _nil_, or thereabouts. You will understand, Dr Mant, that at the very close of the school year many parents take advantage, reasoning that they will not be prosecuted during the holidays. I may say that I have drawn the attention of the School Attendance Committee to this--er--propensity on the part of parents, and have asked them to grapple with it: but, so far, without result."

"Hallelujah!" exclaimed Dr Mant. "Then there's hope we may isolate the little devil. . . . Well, so far so good. But that wasn't my only reason for calling. I have to give an ambulance lecture in your schoolroom to-morrow evening: and I came to ask if you had a wall-map or chart of the human body to help me along. Otherwise I shall have to lug over a lot of medical books with plates and pa.s.s 'em around: and the plates are mixed up with others. . . . Well, you understand, they're not everybody's picture-gallery. That's to say, you can't pa.s.s a lot of books around and say 'Don't turn the page, or maybe you'll get more than you bargain for. '"

Mr Rounsell had stiffened visibly. "I will not conceal from you, Dr Mant, that the matter on which you now approach me is--er--the subject on which I--er--privately antic.i.p.ated that you had called.

I have no _official_ knowledge of your lecturing here to-morrow-- instructive as I am sure it will be. The Managers have not consulted me; they have not even troubled to give me official notice. But come inside, sir."