Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/360

 352 continued the landlady, as she stroked her chin in deliberation. “There’s Widow Gould’s. I know her rooms were empty a week ago, for she was up here asking me if I couldn’t hear of anybody wanting such. You’d be comfortable there, ma'am, if she’s not let. She’s a quiet, decent body. Shall I send and inquire?”

“No, I would rather go myself. I should not like to fix upon rooms without seeing them. Should these you speak of be engaged, I may see bills in other windows. Thank you, I cannot eat more: I seem to feel the jolting of the omnibus still; and the fright it put me into has taken away my appetite. You will take care of my trunk for the present.”

“Certainly, ma'am. What name?”

“Mrs. Crane.”

The landlady stepped outside to direct the stranger on her way. Widow Gould’s house was situated in the first terrace in Palace Street, and a walk of six or seven minutes brought Mrs. Crane to it. It had a card in the window, indicating that its rooms were to let. Widow Gould herself, a shrinking little woman, with a pinched, red face, came to the door. The lady wanted a sitting-room and bed-room: could she be accommodated? Mrs. Gould replied that she could, mentioned a very moderate charge, and invited her in to see the rooms. They were on the first floor; not large, but clean and nice and convenient, the one room opening into the other. Mrs. Crane liked them very much.

“You perceive that I am expecting to be laid by,” she said. “Would that be an objection?”

“N—o, I don’t see that it need,” replied the widow, after some consideration. " Of course you would have proper attendance, ma'am? I could not undertake that.”

“Of course I should,” said Mrs. Crane.

So the bargain was made. Mrs. Crane taking the rooms for a month certain, intimating that she preferred engaging them only from month to month, and the Widow Gould undertaking to supply all ordinary attendance. Mrs. Crane went back to the inn, to pay for the refreshment of which she had partaken, and to desire her trunk to be sent to her, having ordered tea to be ready against her return to Palace Street.

She found everthingeverything [sic] prepared for her, a nice fire burning in the sitting-room grate, the tea on the table, and Mrs. Gould in the adjoining room putting sheets upon the bed. The widow was in spirits at the prospect of her rooms being wanted for some months, as she believed they would be, and had placed the last weekly South Wennock newspaper on the table beside the tea-tray, a little mark of extra attention to her new lodger.

In obedience to the ring when tea was over, Mrs. Gould came up to remove the things. Mrs. Crane was seated before them. A fair young girl she looked with her bonnet off, in her silk dress and her golden brown hair. The widow kept no servant, but waited on her lodgers herself. Her parlours were let to a permanent lodger, who was at that time absent from South Wennock.

“Be so good as take a seat,” said Mrs. Crane to her, laying down the newspaper, which she appeared to have been reading. But Mrs. Gould preferred to stand, and began rubbing one shrivelled hand over the other, her habit when in waiting. “I have some information to ask of you. Never mind the tray; it can wait. First of all, what medical men have you at South Wennock?”

“There’s the Greys,” was Widow Gould’s response.

A pause ensued, Mrs. Crane probably waiting to hear the list augmented. “The Greys”? she repeated, finding her informant did not continue.

“Mr. John and Mr. Stephen Grey, ma'am. There was another brother, Mr. Robert, but he died last year. Nice pleasant gentlemen all three, and they have had the whole of the practice here. Their father and their uncle had it before them.”

“Do you mean to say there are no other medical men?” exclaimed the stranger, in some surprise. “I never heard of such a thing in a place as large as this appears be.”

“South Wennock has only got large lately, ma'am. The Greys were very much liked and respected in the place; and being three of them, they could get through the work, with an assistant. They always keep one. But there is another doctor here now, a gentleman of the name of Carlton.”

“Who is he?”

“Well, I forget where it was said he came from; London, I think. A fine dashing gentleman as ever you saw, ma'am; not above thirty, at the most. He came suddenly among us a few months ago, took a house at the other end of the town, and set up against the Greys. He is getting on, I believe, especially with the people that live on the Rise, mostly fresh comers; and he keeps his cabrioly.”

“Keeps his what?”

“His cabrioily—a dashing one-horse carriage with a head to it. It is more than the Greys have ever done, ma'am; they have had their plain gig, and nothing else. Some think that Mr. Carlton has private property, and