The Rector; and, The Doctor's Family/The Doctor's Family/Chapter 7

the dawn of the morning, however, and the few hours' hurried rest which Edward Rider was able to snatch after his labours, other sentiments arose in his mind. It was quite necessary to see how the unlucky child was at St Roque's Cottage, and perhaps what Nettie thought of all that had occurred during her absence. The doctor bethought himself, too, that there might be very natural explanations of the curate's escort. How else, to be sure, could she have got home on a dark winter night through that lonely road? Perhaps, if he himself had been less impatient and ill-tempered, it might have fallen to his lot to supersede Mr Wentworth. On the whole, Dr Rider decided that it was necessary to make one of his earliest calls this morning at St Roque's.

It was a foggy frosty day, brightened with a red sun, which threw wintry ruddy rays across the mist. Dr Rider drew up somewhat nervously at the little Gothic porch. He was taken up-stairs to the bedroom where little Freddy lay moaning and feverish. A distant hum came from the other children in the parlour, the door of which, however, was fast closed this morning; and Nettie herself sat by the child's bedside—Nettie, all alert and vigorous, in the little room, which, homely as its aspect was, displayed even to the doctor's uninitiated glance a fastidious nicety of arrangement which made it harmonious with that little figure. Nettie was singing childish songs to solace the little invalid's retirement—the "fox that jumped up on a moonlight night," the "frog that would a-wooing go"—classic ditties of which the nursery never tires. The doctor, who was not aware that music was one of Nettie's accomplishments, stopped on the stairs to listen. And indeed she had not a great deal of voice, and still less science, Nettie's life having been too entirely occupied to leave much room for such studies. Yet somehow her song touched the doctor's heart. He forgave her entirely that walk with the curate. He went in softly, less impatient than usual with her crazy Quixotism. A child—a sick child especially—was a bearable adjunct to the picture. A woman could be forgiven for such necessary ministrations—actually, to tell the truth, could be forgiven most follies she might happen to do, when one could have her to one's self, without the intervention of such dreary accessories as Susan and Fred.

"Thank you very much for your care of this child last night, Dr Edward," said the prompt Nettie, laying down the large piece of very plain needlework in her hand. "I always said, though you don't make a fuss about the children, that you were quite to be relied on if anything should happen. He is feverish, but he is not ill; and so long as I tell him stories and keep beside him, Freddy is the best child in the world."

"More people than Freddy might be willing to be ill under such conditions," said the doctor, complimentary, but rueful. He felt his patient's pulse, and prescribed for him with a softened voice. He lingered and looked round the room, which was very bare, yet somehow was not like any of the rooms in his house. How was it?—there were no ornaments about, excepting that tiny little figure with the little head overladen with such a wealth of beautiful hair. The doctor sighed. In this little sacred spot, where she was so clearly at her post—or at least at a post which no other was at hand to take—he could not even resent Nettie's self-sacrifice. He gave in to her here, with a sigh.

"Since you think he is not ill to speak of, will you drive me and the other children into Carlingford, Dr Edward?" said the courageous Nettie. "It will be a pleasure for them, you know, and I shall be able to do my business without losing so much time; besides, I want to talk to you; I can see you will in your eyes. Go down, please, and talk to Mr Smith, who has got a headache or something, and wants to see you. You need not trouble yourself seeing Susan, who is cross, of course. I don't wonder at her being cross; it must be very shocking, you know, to feel one's self of no use, whatever happens. Thank you; I shall be ready in a minute, as soon as you have done talking to Mr Smith."

The doctor went down obediently, and in an unusual flutter of pleasure, to see the master of the cottage—totally indifferent to the ailments of the virtuous Smith, and thinking only of Nettie and that drive to Carlingford, where, indeed, he should not have gone, had he considered the merely abstract matters of business and duty, which led him entirely in a different direction. He was somewhat rudely recalled to himself when he went down-stairs. Smith had no headache, but only wanted to speak to the doctor about his lodgers, whose "ways" were sadly discomposing to himself and his wife.

"You saw how it was yourself last night, sir," said the troubled landlady. "Them hangings—you know the smoke goes through and through them. After leaving all the windows open this frosty morning, and a draught enough to give you your death, the place smells like I don't know what. If it wasn't for Miss I wouldn't put up with it for a day; and the gentleman's own room, doctor; if you was just to go in and see it—just put your head in and say good morning—you'd believe me."

"I know all about it," said the doctor; "but Miss Underwood, Mrs Smith—?"

"There's where it is, sir," said the landlady. "I can't find it in my heart to say a word to Miss. To see how she do manage them all, to be sure! but for all that, doctor, it stands to reason as one can't spoil one's lodgings for a family as may be gone to-morrow—not except it's considered in the rent. It's more natural-like to speak to a gentleman like you as knows the world, than to a young lady as one hasn't a word to say against—the handiest, liveliest, managingest! Ah, doctor, she'd make a deal different a wife from her sister, that young lady would! though it isn't my part to say nothink, considering all things, and that you're relations, like; but Smith and me are both o' one mind about it, Dr Rider—unless it's considered in the rent, or the gentleman drops smoking, or"

"I hear Miss Underwood coming down-stairs," cried young Rider. "Next time I come we'll arrange it all. But not a word to her, remember—not a syllable; and go up-stairs and look after that poor child, there's a good soul—she trusts you while she is gone, and so do I. There, there! another time. I'll take the responsibility of satisfying you, Mrs Smith," said the doctor, in a prodigious hurry, ready to promise anything in this incautious moment, and bolting out of their little dark back-room, which the local architect's mullions had converted into a kind of condemned cell. Nettie stood at the door, all ready for her expedition to Carlingford, with her two children, open-eyed and calmly inquisitive, but no longer noisy. Mrs Fred was standing sulky at the parlour door. The doctor took off his hat to her as he helped Nettie into the front seat of the drag, but took care not to approach nearer. The children were packed in behind, under charge of the little groom, and, with an exhilarating sensation of lawlessness in the present pleasure, Dr Rider turned his back upon his duty and the patient who expected him a mile on the other side of St Roque's, and drove, not too rapidly, into Carlingford.

"Mrs Smith was talking to you of us," said Nettie, flashing her penetrating eyes upon the confused doctor. "I know she was—I could see it in her face this morning, and in yours when you came out of her room. Dreadful little dungeon, is it not? I wonder what the man meant, to build such a place. Do they want to turn us out, Dr Edward, or do they want more rent? I am not surprised, I am sure, after last night. Was it not odious of Fred to go and smoke in the parlour, the only place we can have tidy? But it is no use speaking to him, you know; nor to Susan either, for that matter. Married people do stand up for each other so when you say a word, however they may fight between themselves. But is it more rent they want, Dr Edward? for I can't afford more rent."

"It is an abominable shame—you oughtn't to afford anything. It is too dreadful to think of!" cried the angry doctor, involuntarily touching his horse with his whip in the energy of the moment, though he was indeed in no hurry to reach Carlingford.

"Hush," said Nettie, lifting her tiny hand as though to put it to his incautious mouth, which, indeed, the doctor would not have objected to. "We shall quarrel on that subject if you say anything more, so it is better to stop at once. Nobody has a right to interfere with me; this is my business, and no one else has anything to do with it."

"You mistake," cried the doctor, startled out of all his prudences; "it ought to be my business quite as much as it is yours."

Nettie looked at him with a certain careless scorn of the inferior creature—"Ah, yes, I daresay; but then you are only a man," said Nettie; and the girl elevated that pretty drooping head, and flashed a whole torrent of brilliant reflections over the sombre figure beside her. He felt himself glow under the sudden radiance of the look. To fancy this wilful imperious creature a meek self-sacrificing heroine, was equally absurd and impossible. Was there any virtue at all in that dauntless enterprise of hers? or was it simple determination to have her own way?

"But not to quarrel," said Nettie; "for indeed you are the only person in the world I can say a word to about the way things are going on," she added with a certain momentary softening of voice and twinkling of her eyelid, as if some moisture had gathered there. "I think Fred is in a bad way. I think he is muddling his brains with that dreadful life he leads. To think of a man that could do hundreds of things living like that! A woman, you know, can only do a thing or two here and there. If it were not wicked to say so, one would think almost that Providence forgot sometimes, and put the wrong spirit into a body that did not belong to it. Don't you think so? When I look at Fred I declare sometimes I could take hold of him and give him a good shake, and ask him what he means; and then it all seems so useless the very idea of expecting him to feel anything. I want to know what you said to him last night."

"Not much—not half so much as I meant to have said. To see him polluting your room!" cried the doctor, with a flush growing on his face, and breaking off abruptly, not quite able to conclude the sentence. Nettie gave him a shy upward glance, and grew suddenly crimson too.

"Did you mind?" said Nettie, with a momentary timidity, against the unexpected charm of which the unhappy doctor fell defenceless; then holding out her tiny hand to him with shy frankness, "Thank you for caring so much for me," said the dauntless little girl, resolute not to perceive anything which could not be fully spoken out.

"Caring so much! I must speak to you; we can't go on like this, Nettie," cried the doctor, holding fast the little unfaltering hand.

"Oh, here is the place I am going to. Please don't; people might not understand,—though we are brother and sister in a kind of a way," said the little Australian. "Please, Dr Edward, we must get out here."

For a moment Edward Rider hesitated with a wild intention of urging his horse forward and carrying her off anywhere, out of Carlingford, out of duty and practice and responsibility, and all those galling restraints of life which the noonday light and everyday sounds about brought in with so entire a discord to break up this momentary hallucination. For half a minute only the doctor lingered on the borders of that fairyland where time and duty are not, but only one ineffable moment always passing, never past. Then with a long sigh, the breath of which dispersed a whole gleaming world of visionary delights, he got down doggedly on the commonplace pavement. Ah, what a descent it was! the moment his foot touched these vulgar flags, he was once more the hard-worked doctor at everybody's command, with a fretful patient waiting for him a mile beyond St Roque's; and all these dazzling moments, which had rapt the unfortunate young fellow into another world, were so much time lost to the prose figure that had to help Nettie down and let her go, and betake himself soberly about his own business. Perhaps Nettie felt it a little disenchanting too, when she was dropped upon the bare street, and went into the common shop, and saw the doctor's drag flash off in the red frosty sunshine with a darting movement of exasperation and impatience on the part of its aggravated driver. For once in her life Nettie felt disposed to be impatient with the children, who, unceremoniously ejected from their perch behind, were not in the most obedient frame of mind. The two young people possibly agreed in their mutual sentiment of disgust with other people's society just at that moment. However, there was no help for it. Dr Rider galloped his horse to his patient's door, and took it out of that unlucky individual, who was fortunately strong enough to be able to bear sharp practice. Nettie, when she had made her little purchases, walked home smartly to sing "The fox jumped up on a moonlight night" to little Freddy in his bedroom. This kind of interlude, however, as all young men and maidens ought to be aware, answers much better in the evening, when a natural interval of dreams interposes between it and the common work of existence. Nettie decided, thinking on it, that this would never do. She made up her mind not to have any more drives with the doctor. There was no telling what such proceedings might lead to. They were distinctly incompatible with the more serious business of her life.