She stood glancing up at him with her nice eyes, as shy as could be, uncertain whether he was mocking her.
"Do you know, Miss Carey, that I never ask a young lady for a song now.
I don"t care to hear the new songs, they are so poor and frivolous: the old ones are worth a king"s ransom. _Won"t_ you oblige me?"
"What shall I sing?"
"The one you have just sung. "Blow, blow, thou wintry wind.""
He drew a chair close, and listened; and seemed lost in thought when it was over. Janet could not conveniently get up without pushing the stool against him, and so sat in silence.
"My mother used to sing that song," he said, looking up. "I can recall her every note as well as though I had heard her yesterday. "As friends remembering not"! Ay: it"s a harsh world--and it grows more harsh and selfish day by day. I don"t think it treats _you_ any too well, Miss Carey."
"Me, sir?"
"Who remembers you?"
"Not many people. But I have never had any friends to speak of."
"Will you give me another song? The one I heard Mina ask you for--"Pray, Goody." My mother used to sing that also."
"I don"t know whether I must stay. The children will be getting into mischief."
"Never mind the children. I"ll take the responsibility."
Janet sang the song. Before it was finished the flock came in again.
d.i.c.ky had tried to pull the magpie"s feathers out, so James had let it fly.
After this evening, it somehow happened that Dr. Knox often came home early, although his throat was well again. He liked to make Miss Carey sing; and to talk to her; and to linger in the garden with her and the children in the twilight. Mrs. Knox was rarely at home, and had no idea how sociable her step-son was becoming. Lefford and its neighbourhood followed the unfashionable custom of giving early soirees: tea at six, supper at nine, at home by eleven. James used to go for his mistress; on dark nights he took a lighted lantern. Mrs. Knox would arrive at home, her gown well pinned up, and innocent of any treasonable lingerings out-of-doors or in. It was beyond Janet"s power to get Mina and Lotty to bed one minute before they chose to go: though her orders from Mrs. Knox on the point were strict. As soon as their mother"s step was heard they would make a rush for the stairs. Janet had to follow them, as that formed part of her duty: and by the time Mrs. Knox was indoors, the rooms were free, and Arnold was shut up in his study with his medical books and a skeleton.
For any treason that met the eye or the ear, Mrs. Knox might have a.s.sisted at all the interviews. The children might have repeated every word said to one another by the doctor and Janet, and welcome. The talk was all legitimate: of their own individual, ordinary interests, perhaps; of their lost parents; their past lives; the present daily doings; or, as the Vicar of Wakefield has it, of pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and the musical gla.s.ses. Dr. Knox never said such a thing to her as, miss, I am in love with you; Janet was the essence of respectful shyness, and called him sir.
One evening something or other caused one of the soirees to break up midway, and Mrs. Knox came home by twilight in her pink gauze gown.
Instead of ringing at the front-door, she came round the garden to the lawn, knowing quite well the elder children were not gone to bed, and would probably be in the garden-room. Very softly went she, intending to surprise them. The moon shone full on the gla.s.s-doors.
The doors were shut. And she could see no children. Only Janet Carey sitting at the piano, and Dr. Knox sitting close by her, his eyes resting on her face, and an unmistakable look of--say friendship--in them. Mrs. Knox took in the whole scene by the light of the one candle standing on the table.
She let go the pink skirt and burst open the doors. Imagination is apt to conjure up skeletons of the future; a whole army of skeletons rushed into hers, any one of them ten times more ugly than that real skeleton in the doctor"s study. A vision of his marrying Janet and taking possession of the house, and wanting all his money for himself instead of paying the family bills with it, was the worst.
Before a great and real dread, pa.s.sion has to be silent. Mrs. Knox felt that she should very much like to buffet both of them with hands and tongue: but policy restrained her.
"Where are the children?" she began, as snappish as a fox; but that was only usual.
Janet had turned round on the music-stool; her meek hands dropping on her lap, her face turning all the colours of the rainbow. Dr. Knox just sat back in his chair and carelessly hummed to himself the tune Janet had been singing.
"Mina and Lotty are at Mrs. Hampshire"s, ma"am," answered Janet. "She came to fetch them just after you left, and said I might send in for them at half-past nine. The little ones are in bed."
"Oh," said Mrs. Knox. "It"s rather early for you to be at home; is it not, Arnold?"
"Not particularly, I think. My time for coming home is always uncertain, you know."
He rose, and went to his room as he spoke. Janet got out the basket of stockings; and Mrs. Knox sat buried in a brown study.
After this evening things grew bad for Miss Carey. Mrs. Knox watched.
She noted her step-son"s manner to Janet, and saw that he liked her ever so much more than was expedient. What to do, or how to stop it, she did not know, and was at her wits" end. To begin with, there was nothing to stop. Had she put together a whole week"s looks and words of Arnold"s, directed to Janet, she could not have squeezed one decent iota of complaint out of the whole. Neither dared she risk offending Arnold.
What with the perpetual soirees out, and the general daily improvidence at home, Mrs. Knox was never in funds, and Arnold found oceans of household bills coming in to him. Tradesmen were beginning, as a rule now, to address their accounts to Dr. Knox. Arnold paid them; he was good-natured, and sensitively averse to complaining to his step-mother; but he thought it was hardly fair. What on earth she did with her income he could not imagine: rather than live in this chronic state of begging, she might have laid down the pony-carriage.
Not being able to attack the doctor, Mrs. Knox vented all her venom on Miss Carey. Janet was the dray horse of the family, and therefore could not be turned away: she was too useful to Mrs. Knox to be parted with.
Real venom it was; and hard to be borne. Her work grew harder, and she was snubbed from morning till night. The children"s insolence to her was not reproved; Mina took to ordering her about. Weary and heart-sick grew she: her life was no better than Cinderella"s: the only ray of comfort in it being the rare s.n.a.t.c.hes of intercourse with Dr. Knox. He was like a true friend to her, and ever kind. He might have been kinder had he known what sort of a life she really led. But Mrs. Knox was a diplomatist, and the young fry did not dare to worry people very much, or to call names before their big brother Arnold.
II.
"Has Dr. Knox come in, Mr. Dockett?"
Mr. Dockett, lounging over the counter to tease the dog, brought himself straight with a jerk, and faced his master, Mr. Tamlyn.
"Not yet, sir."
"When he comes in, ask him if he"ll be so kind as step to me in the dining-room."
Mr. Tamlyn shut the surgery-door, and the apprentice whistled to the dog, which had made its escape. Presently Dr. Knox came across the court-yard and received the message.
"Mr. Tamlyn wants you, sir, please. He is in the dining-room."
"Have you nothing to do, Dockett? Just set on and clean those scales."
The dining-room looked out on the garden and on the playing fountain. It was one of the prettiest rooms in Lefford; with white-and-gold papered walls, and mirrors, and a new carpet. Mr. Tamlyn liked to have things nice at home, and screwed the money out of the capital put by for Bertie. He sat at the table before some account-books.
"Sit down, Arnold," he said, taking off his spectacles. "I have some news for you: I hope it won"t put you out too much."
It did put Dr. Knox out very considerably, and it surprised him even more. For some time past now he had been cherishing a private expectation that Mr. Tamlyn would be taking him into partnership, giving him probably a small share only at first. Of all things it seemed the most likely to Dr. Knox: and, wanting in self-a.s.sertion though he was, it seemed to him that it would be a _right_ thing to do. Mr. Tamlyn had no one to succeed him: and all the best part of his practice was formerly Mr. Knox"s. Had Arnold only been a little older when his father died, he should have succeeded to it himself: there would have been little chance of Mr. Tamlyn"s getting any of it. In justice, then, if Mr. Tamlyn now, or later, took a partner at all, it ought to be Arnold.
But for looking forward to this, Dr. Knox had never stayed on all this time at the paltry salary paid him, and worked himself nearly to a skeleton. As old Tamlyn talked, he listened as one in a dream, and he learnt that his own day-dream was over.
Old Tamlyn was about to take a partner: some gentleman from London, a Mr. Shuttleworth. Mr. Shuttleworth was seeking a country practice, and would bring in three thousand pounds. Arnold"s services would only be required to the end of the year, as Mr. Shuttleworth would join on the first of January.
"There won"t be room for three of us, Arnold--and Dockett will be coming on," said Mr. Tamlyn. "Besides, at your age, and with your talents, you ought to be doing something better for yourself. Don"t you see that you ought?"
"I have seen it for some time. But--the truth is," added Arnold, "though I hardly like to own to it now, I have been cherishing a hope of this kind for myself. I thought, Mr. Tamlyn, you might some time offer it to me."
"And so I would, Arnold, and there"s no one I should like to take as partner half so well as yourself, but you have not the necessary funds,"
said the surgeon with eagerness. "I see what you are thinking, Arnold--that I might have taken you without premium: but I must think of my poor boy. Shuttleworth brings in three thousand: I would have taken you with two."
"I could not bring in two hundred, let alone two thousand," said Dr.
Knox.
"There"s where it is. To tell you the truth, Arnold, I am getting tired of work; don"t seem so much up to it as I was. Whoever comes in will have to do more even than you have done, and of course will expect to take at least a half-share of the yearly profits. I should not put by much then: I could not alter my style of living, you know, or put down the carriages and horses, or anything of that sort: and I must save for poor Bertie. A sum of three thousand pounds means three thousand to me."
"Are the arrangements fully made?" asked Dr. Knox.