The Dop Doctor Part 23

"Saxham." Her eyebrows were knitted. "I thought I knew the names of your Medical Staff men. But I can't recall a Saxham."

"This Saxham is Civilian--and rather a big pot--M.D., F.R.C.S., and lots more. We're lucky to have got him."

She stiffened, scenting the paragraph.

"Can it be that you mean the Dr. Saxham of the Old Bailey Case?"

"The Jury acquitted, let me remind you."

"I believe so," she said; "but--he vanished afterwards. I think an innocent man would have stopped and faced the music, and not beaten a retreat with the Wedding March almost sounding in his ears. But--who knows? You have met his brother, Captain Saxham, of the --th Dragoons? It was he who stepped into the matrimonial breach, and married the young woman."

"The young woman?"

"His brother's fiancee--an heiress of the Dorsetshire Lee-Haileys, and rather a pretty-faced, silly person, with a penchant for French novels and sulphonal tabloids. I always shall believe that she liked the handsome Dragoon best, and took advantage of the Doctor's being--under the cloud of acquittal by a British Jury, to give him what the dear Irish call 'the back of her hand.'"

"The better luck for him!"

"It was mere instinct to let go when the man was dragging them both under water," she a.s.serted.

"A Newfoundland b.i.t.c.h would have risen above it."

"You hit back quick and hard."

"I'm a tennis-player and a polo-player and a cricketer."

"What game is there that you don't play?"

"I could tell you of one or two.... But I must really go and speak to some of these ladies. One of them is an old friend."

"I know whom you mean. If I didn't, her glare of envy would have enlightened me. Did I tell you that _I_ encountered an old friend--or, at least, a friend of old--at the Hospital yesterday?"

"You mean poor Fraithorn?"

"Not at all. I'm only a friend of his mother. I had only heard of the boy, not met him, until I tumbled over him here. But this face--severely framed in a starched white _guimpe_ and floating black veil--belonged to my Past in several ways."

He showed interest.

"Your friend is a nun? At the Convent here? How did you come across her?"

"She called to see the Bishop's son--while I was with him. It seems that, judging by the poor dear boy's religious manuals and medals, and other High Church contraptions, the Matron had got him on the Hospital books as a Roman Catholic. And, consequently, when my friend looked in to visit a day-scholar who was to be operated on for adenoids--I've no idea what they are, but a thing with a name like that would naturally have to be cut out of one--she was told of this poor fellow, and has shed the light of her countenance on him occasionally since. Yesterday was one of the occasions, and Heavens! what a countenance it is even now! What a voice, what eyes, what a manner! I believed I gushed a bit.... She met me as though we'd only parted last week. Nuns are wonderful creatures: _she's_ unique, even as a nun."

He said: "I believe I had the honour of meeting the lady of whom you speak when I called at the Convent yesterday afternoon. A remarkable, n.o.ble, and most interesting personality."

Lady Hannah nodded. "All that. But you ought to have seen her at eighteen.

We were at the High-School, Kensington, together, I a brat of ten in the Juniors' Division, she a Head Girl, cramming for Girton. She carried everything before her there, and emerged with a B.A. Degree Certificate in the days when it was thought hardly proper for a woman to go about with such a thing tacked to her skirts. And all the students idolised her, and the male lecturers worshipped the ground she trod. And when she was presented--what a sensation! They called her the 'Irish Rose,' and 'Deirdre,' for her skin of cream and her grey eyes and billowing clouds of black hair. Society raved of her for three seasons, until the fools went even madder about that little Hawting woman--a stiff starched martinet's frisky half--who bolted with the man my glorious Biddy had given her beautiful hand to. And the result! She--who might have married an Amba.s.sador and queened it in Petersburg with the best of 'em--she's in a whitewashed Convent, superintending the education of Dutch and Afrikander schoolgirls in Greek, Latin, French, Algebra and Mathematics, calisthenics, needlework, the torture of the piano, and the twiddle of the globes. He has something to answer for, that old crony of yours!"

Lady Hannah stopped for breath, giving the listener his opportunity.

"My dear lady, you have told me a great deal without enlightening me in the least. Who is my 'crony,' and who was your friend?"

Lady Hannah opened her round beady eyes in astonishment.

"Haven't I told you? She is--or was--Lady Bridget-Mary Bawne, sister of that high-falutin' little donkey the present Earl of Castleclare, who came into the t.i.tle and married at eighteen. His wife has means, I understand.

The old Dowager d.u.c.h.ess of Strome, a bosom friend of my mother's, was Biddy's aunt, and Cardinal Voisey, handsome being! is an uncle on the distaff side. All the Catholic world and his wife were at her taking of the veil of profession nineteen years ago. The Pope's Nuncio, the Cardinal-Bishop of Mozella, officiated, and the Comtesse de Lutetia was there with the Duc d'O.... They didn't cut off her beautiful black hair, though we outsiders were on tiptoe to see the thing done. I don't think I ever cried so much in my life. Had hysterics--real--when I got home, and mother scolded fearfully. The Duke of C---- came with his equerry, and after the cloister-gates had shut--crash--on beautiful Biddy in her bridal laces, and white satin, and ropes of pearls, and we were all waiting, breathless, for her to come back in the habit, I heard the Duke say, not that the dear old thing ever meant to be profane: 'By G.o.d! General, I'm d.a.m.ned if Captain Mildare hasn't made Heaven an uncommonly handsome present!' And the man he said that to was the husband of the very woman d.i.c.ky had run away with not quite twelve months before. Mercy on us!"

"Good Heavens!" the listener had cried and started to his feet, the dark blood rushing to his forehead. The ivory-pale, mutely-suffering face against the background of whitewashed wall flashed back upon his memory, in a circle of dazzling light. He saw her again, leaning against the door of the chapel as he told her the cruel news. He heard her saying:

"Are you at liberty to tell me the date of Captain Mildare's death? For I know--one who was also his friend--and would take an interest in the particulars."

The particulars! And he had bludgeoned the woman with them--stabbed her to the heart, poor soul, unknowing....

He was blameless, but he could not forgive himself.... He drove his teeth down savagely into his lower lip, and muttered an excuse, and went away abruptly, leaving Lady Hannah staring. He took leave soon after, and went to his own quarters with the D.A.A.G., while her ladyship, with infinite relief, getting rid of her feminine guests, repaired with Captain Bingham Wrynche, familiarly known to a wide circle of friends as "Bingo," and several chosen spirits to the billiard-room, for snooker-pool, and whisky-and-soda.

"The grey wolf is on the prowl to-night," said one of the chosen spirits, as he chalked Lady Hannah's cue with fastidious care. He winked across the table at Bingo, sunset-red with dinner, champagne, and stroke-play.

"S'st!" sibilated the Captain warningly, winking in the direction of his wife. Lady Hannah, her little thumb c.o.c.ked in the air, her round, birdlike eyes scientifically calculating angles, paused before making a rapid stroke, to say:

"Don't be cheaply mysterious, my dear man. Of course, the Colonel visits the defences and outposts and so forth regularly after dark. It's part of the routine, surely?"

"Of course. But you don't suppose he goes alone, do you, old lady?"

queried Captain Bingo.

"I suppose he takes his A.D.C.?"

"Not to mention a detachment of the B.S.A. Also a squad of the Town Guard in red neckties, solar topees and bandoliers; with the Rifles' Band, and D Squadron of the Baraland Irregular Horse. Isn't that the routine, Beauvayse? You're more up in these things than me, and I fancy there was a change in the order for the evenin'."

"Rather!" a.s.sented Beauvayse, continuing, to the rapture of winking Bingo.

"On reaching the earthworks where our obsoletes are mounted, the townies will now fire a salute of blank, without falling down; and the Band have instructions to play 'There's Death in the Old Guns Yet.' Those were the only material changes, except that sentries will for the future wear fly- and fever-belts outside instead of in."

"So that he can see at a glance," Lady Hannah said approvingly, "that all precautions are being taken. Very sensible, I call it."

"Ha, ha, haw!" Bingo's joyous explosion revealed to the outraged woman the fact that she had been "had." "Haw, haw! What a beggar you are to rot, Beauvayse! and that makes five to us."

Lady Hannah, vibrating with womanly indignation, had made her long-delayed stroke, missed the pyramid ball, and sent Pink spinning into the pocket.

She threw aside her cue and rubbed her fingers angrily. She hated losing, and they were playing for shilling lives and half-a-crown on the game.

"You--schoolboys!" She threw them a glance of disdain, as Beauvayse, his seraphic face agrin, screwed in his supererogatory eyegla.s.s, and lounged over the table. "You artless babes! Did you suppose I should be likely to swallow such a _feuille de chou_ without even oil and vinegar? For pity's sake, leave off winking, Bingo! It's a habit that dates back to the era when women wore ringlets and white book-muslin, and men sported s.h.a.ggy white beaver hats and pegtop trousers, and all the world read the novels of Lever and d.i.c.kens."

"Have Lever and Boz gone out?" asked Beauvayse, pocketing his pyramid ball. "I play at Blue." He hit Blue scientifically off the cushion and went on. "Read 'em myself over and over again, and find 'em give points in the way of amus.e.m.e.nt to the piffle Mudie sends out. Not that I pretend to be a judge of literature. Only know when I'm not bored, you know. You to play, Lord Henry."

But the senior officer of the Staff, Lady Hannah's partner, had vanished.

Somebody pa.s.sing the open window of the billiard-room had whistled a bar or so of a particularly pleasant little tune. Another man took Lord Henry's place, and the game went on, but never finished, for one by one, after the same quiet, un.o.btrusive fashion, the male players melted away.... Left alone, Lady Hannah, feeling uncommonly like the idle boy in the nursery-story who asked the beasts and birds and insects to play with him, betook herself to bed.

The arrogance of men! she thought as she hung her transformation Pompadour coiffure on the looking-gla.s.s. How cool, how unshaken in their conviction of superiority, in spite of all deference, courtesy, pretence of consideration for Queen Dolt.... But she would show them all one of these days, what could be achieved by a unit of the despised majority....

"I should like to see him at night-work," she said afterwards, when, very late, her Bingo appeared in the shadow of the conjugal mosquito-curtains.

"You wouldn't," was her martial lord's reply.