Pages from a Journal with Other Papers Part 15

"Life is so complicated; so few of the consequences of many actions of the greatest moment can be foreseen, that the belief in the lot is not unnatural."

"You have some books, I see--Sir Thomas Browne." He took down the volume.

"Leighton! Leighton! how odd! Was it Richard Leighton?"

"Yes."

"Really; and you knew him?"

"He was a friend of my brother."

"Do you know what has become of him? He was at Cambridge with me, but was younger."

"I have not seen him for some time. Do you mind if I open the window a little?"

"Certainly not."

She stood at the window for a moment, looking out on the garden, with her hand on the top of the sash. The Doctor had turned his chair a little and his eyes were fixed on her there with her uplifted arm. A picture which belonged to his father instantly came back to him. He recollected it so well. It represented a woman watching a young man in a courtyard who is just mounting his horse. We are every now and then reminded of pictures by a group, an att.i.tude, or the arrangement of a landscape which, thereby, acquires a new charm.

Suddenly the shop bell rang again, and Mrs. Fairfax's little girl rushed into the parlour. She had fallen down and cut her wrist terribly with a piece of a bottle containing some harts-horn which she had to buy at the druggist's on her way home from Mr. Cobb's. The blood flowed freely, but Mrs. Fairfax, unbewildered, put her thumb firmly on the wrist just above the wound and instructed the doctor how to use his pocket- handkerchief as a tourniquet. As he was tying it, although such careful attention to the operation was necessary, he noticed Mrs. Fairfax's hands, and he almost forgot himself and the accident.

"There is gla.s.s in the wrist," she said. "Will you kindly fetch the surgeon? I do not like to leave."

He went at once, and fortunately met him in his gig.

On the third day after the mishap Dr. Midleton thought he ought to inquire after the child. The gla.s.s had been extracted and she was doing well. Her mother was at work in the back-parlour. She made no apology for her occupation, but laid down her tools.

"Pray go on, madam."

"Certainly not. I am afraid I might make a mistake with my scissors if I were to listen to you; or, worse, if I were to pay attention to them I should not pay attention to you."

He smiled. "It is an art, I should think, which requires not only much attention but practice."

She evaded the implied question. "It is difficult to fit, but it is more difficult to please."

"That is true in my own profession."

"But you are not obliged to please."

"No, not obliged, I am happy to say. If my parishioners do not hear the truth I have no excuse. It must be rather trying to the temper of a lady like yourself to humour the caprices of the vulgar."

"No; they are my customers, and even if they are unpleasant they are so not to me personally but to their servant, who ceases to be their servant when she ceases to be employed upon their clothes."

"You are a philosopher, madam; that sentiment is worthy of Epictetus."

"I have read Epictetus in Mrs. Carter's translation."

"You have read Epictetus? That is remarkable! I should think no other woman in the county has read him." He leaned forward a little and his face was lighted up. "I have a library, madam, a large library; I should like to show it to you, if--if it can be managed without difficulty."

"It will give me great pleasure to see it some day. It must be a delightful solace to you in a town like this, in which I daresay you have but few friends. I suppose, though, you visit a good deal?"

"No; I do not visit much. I differ from my brother Sinclair in the next parish. He is always visiting. What is the consequence?--gossip and, as I conceive, a loss of dignity and self-respect. I will go wherever there is trouble or wherever I am wanted, but I will not go anywhere for idle talk."

"I think you are right. A priest should not make himself cheap and common. He should be representative of sacred interests superior to the ordinary interests of life."

"I am grateful to you, madam, very grateful to you for these observations. They are as just as they are unusual. I sincerely hope that we--" But there was a knock at the door.

"Come in." It was Mrs. Harrop. "Your bell rang, Mrs. Fairfax, but maybe you didn't hear it as you were engaged in conversation. Good morning, Dr. Midleton. I hope I don't intrude?"

"No, you do not."

He bowed to the ladies, and as he went out, the parlour-door being open, he moved the outer door backwards and forwards.

"It would be as well, Mrs. Fairfax, to have a bell hung there which would act properly."

"I don't know quite what Dr. Midleton means," said Mrs. Harrop when he had gone. "The bell did ring, loud enough for most people to have heard it, and I waited ever so long."

He walked down the street with his customary firm step, and met Mr.

Bingham who stopped him, half smiling and not quite at his ease.

"We are sorry, Doctor, you did not give Hutchings your vote for the almshouse last Thursday; we expected you would have gone with us."

"You expected? Why?"

"Well, you see, sir, Hutchings has always worked hard for our side."

"I am astonished, Mr. Bingham, that you should suppose that I will ever consent to divert the funds of a trust for party purposes."

Mr. Bingham, although he had just determined to give the Doctor a bit of his mind, felt his strength depart from him. His sentences lacked power to stand upright and fell sprawling. "No offence, Doctor, I merely wanted you to know--not so much my own views--difficulty to keep our friends together. Short--you know Tom Short--was saying to me he was afraid--"

"Pay no attention to fools. Good morning."

The Doctor came in that night from a vestry meeting to which he went after dinner. The clock was striking nine, the chimes played their tune, and as the last note sounded the housekeeper and servants filed into the study for prayers. Prayers over they rose and went out, and he sat down. His habits were becoming fixed and for some years he had always read in the evening the friends of his youth. No sermon was composed then; no ecclesiastical literature was studied. Pope and Swift were favourites and, curiously enough, Lord Byron. His case is not uncommon, for it often happens that men who are forced into reserve or opposition preserve a secret, youthful, poetic pa.s.sion and are even kept alive by it. On this particular evening, however, Pope, Byron, and Swift remained on his shelves. He meditated.

"A wedding-ring on her finger; no widow's weeds; he may nevertheless be dead--I believe I heard he was--and she has discontinued that frightful disfigurement. Leighton had the thickest crop of black hair I ever saw on a man: what thick, black hair that child has! A lady; a reader of books; n.o.body to be compared with her here." At this point he rose and walked about the room for a quarter of an hour. He sat down again and took up an important paper about the Trust. He had forgotten it and it was to be discussed the next day. His eyes wandered over it but he paid no attention to it; and somewhat disgusted with himself he went to bed.

Mrs. Fairfax had happened to tell him that she was fond of walking soon after breakfast before she opened her shop, and generally preferred the lane on the west side of the Common. From his house the direct road to the lane lay down the High Street, but about a fortnight after that evening in his study he found himself one morning in Deadman's Rents, a narrow, dirty alley which led to the east side of the Common. Deadman's Rents was inhabited by men who worked in brickyards and coalyards, who did odd jobs, and by washerwomen and charwomen. It contained also three beershops. The dwellers in the Rents were much surprised to see the Doctor amongst them at that early hour, and conjectured he must have come on a professional errand. Every one of the Deadman ladies who was at her door--and they were generally at their doors in the daytime-- vigilantly watched him. He went straight through the Rents to the Common, whereupon Mrs. Wiggins, who supported herself by the sale of firewood, jam, pickles, and peppermints, was particularly disturbed and was obliged to go over to the "Kicking Donkey," partly to communicate what she had seen and partly to ward off by half a quartern of rum the sinking which always threatened her when she was in any way agitated.

When he reached the common it struck him that for the first time in his life he had gone a roundabout way to escape being seen. Some people naturally take to side-streets; he, on the contrary, preferred the High Street; it was his quarter-deck and he paraded it like a captain. "Was he doing wrong?" he said to himself. Certainly not; he desired a little intelligent conversation and there was no need to tell everybody what he wanted. It was unfortunate, nevertheless, that it was necessary to go through Deadman's Rents in order to get it. He soon saw Mrs. Fairfax and her little girl in front of him. He overtook her, and she showed no surprise at seeing him.

"I have been thinking," said he, "about what you told me"--this was a reference to an interview not recorded. "I am annoyed that Mrs. Harrop should have been impertinent to you."

"You need not be annoyed. The import of a word is not fixed. If anything annoying is said to me, I always ask myself what it means--not to me but to the speaker. Besides, as I have told you before, shop insolence is nothing."

"You may be justified in not resenting it, but Mrs. Harrop cannot be excused. I am not surprised to find that she can use such language, but I am astonished that she should use it to you. It shows an utter lack of perception. Your Epictetus has been studied to some purpose."

"I have quite forgotten him. I do not recollect books, but I never forget the lessons taught me by my own trade."

"You have had much trouble?"