Brandon did not much like the signs either, to judge by the way he stared at him.
"Have you been well lately, Roger?"
"Oh yes, thank you, Uncle John."
"Well, your looks don"t say much for you."
"I am rather hard-worked," said Roger. "London is not a place to grow rosy in."
"Do you like your new work?" continued Mr. Brandon. For Roger had done with St. Bartholomew"s Hospital, and was outdoor a.s.sistant to a surgeon in private practice, a Mr. Anderson.
"I like it better than the hospital work, Uncle John."
"Ah! A fine idea that was of yours--wanting to set up in practice for yourself the minute you had pa.s.sed. Your mother did well to send the letter to me and ask my advice. Some of you boys--boys, and no better--fresh from your hospital studies, screw a bra.s.s-plate on your door, announcing yourselves to the world as qualified surgeons. A few of you go a step further and add M.D."
"Many of us take our degree as physician at once, Uncle John," said Roger. "It is becoming quite the custom."
"Just so: the custom!" retorted Mr. Brandon, cynically. "Why didn"t _you_ do it, and modestly call yourself Dr. Bevere? In my former days, young man, when some ultra-grave ailment necessitated application to a physician, we went to him in all confidence, knowing that he was a man of steady years, of long-tried experience, whose advice was to be relied upon. Now, if you are dying and call in some Dr. So-and-so, you may find him a young fellow of three or four and twenty. As likely as not only an M.B. in reality, who has arrogated to himself the t.i.tle of Doctor. For I hear some of them do it."
"But they think they have a right to be called so, Uncle John. The question----"
"What right?" sharply demanded Mr. Brandon. "What gives it them?"
"Well--courtesy, I suppose," hesitated Roger.
"Oh," said Mr. Brandon.
I laughed. His tone was so quaint.
"Yes, you may laugh, Johnny Ludlow--showing your thoughtlessness!
There"ll soon be no modesty left in the world," he continued; "there"ll soon be no hard, plodding work. Formerly, men were content to labour on patiently for years, to attain success, whether in fame, fortune, or for a moderate competency. Now they must take a leap into it.
Tradespeople retire before middle-age, merchants make colossal fortunes in a decade, and (to leave other anomalies alone) you random young hospital students spring into practice full-fledged M.D."s."
"The world is changing, Uncle John."
"It is," a.s.sented Mr. Brandon. "I"m not sure that we shall know it by-and-by."
From Brighton terminus we had a drive of two or three miles across country to get to Prior"s Glebe--as Lady Bevere"s house was named. It was old-fashioned and commodious, and stood in a large square garden that was encircled by a thick belt of towering shrubs. Nothing was to be seen around it but a huge stretch of waste land; half a-mile-off, rose a little church and a few scattered cottages. "The girls must find this lively!" exclaimed Roger, taking a comprehensive look about him as we drove up in the twilight.
Lady Bevere, kind, gentle, simple-mannered as ever, received us lovingly. Mr. Brandon kissed her, and she kissed me and Roger. It was the first Christmas Roger had spent at home since rushing into that mad act of his; he had always invented some excuse for declining. The eldest son, Edmund, was in the navy; the second, George, was in the Church; Roger was the third; and the youngest, John, had a post in a merchant"s house in Calcutta. Of the four girls, only the eldest, Mary, and the youngest were at home. The little one was named Susan, but they called her Tottams. The other two were on a visit to their aunt, the late Sir Edmund Bevere"s sister.
Dinner was waiting when we got in, and I could not s.n.a.t.c.h half a word with Roger while making ready for it. He and I had two little rooms opening to each other. But when we went upstairs for the night we could talk at will; and I put my candle down on his chest of drawers.
"How are things going with you, Roger?"
"Don"t talk of it," he cried, with quite a burst of emotion. "Things cannot be worse than they are."
"I fancy you have not pulled up much, as Pitt used to call it, have you, old friend? Your hands and your face tell tales."
"How can I pull up?" he retorted.
"You promised that you would."
"Ay. Promised! When all the world"s against a fellow, he may not be able to keep his promises. Perhaps may not care to."
"How is Lizzie?" I said then, dropping my voice.
"Don"t talk of her," repeated Bevere, in a tone of despair; despair if I ever heard it. It shut me up.
"Johnny, I"m nearly done over; sick of it all," he went on. "You don"t know what I have to bear."
"Still--as regards yourself, you might pull up," I persisted, for to give in to him, and his mood and his ways, would never do. "You might if you chose, Bevere."
"I suppose I might, if I had any hope. But there"s none; none. People tell us that as we make our bed so we must lie upon it. I made mine in an awful fashion years ago, and I must pay the penalty."
"I gather from this--forgive me, Bevere--that you and your wife don"t get along together."
"Get along! Things with her are worse than you may think for.
She--she--well, _she_ has not done her best to turn out well. Heaven knows I"d have tried _my_ best; the thing was done, and nothing else was left for us: but she has not let me. We are something like cat-and-dog now, and I am not living with her."
"No!"
"That is, I inhabit other lodgings. She is at the old place. I am with a medical man in Bloomsbury, you know. It was necessary for me to be near him, and six months ago I went. Lizzie acquiesced in that; the matter was obvious. I sometimes go to see her; staying, perhaps, from Sat.u.r.day to Monday, and come away cursing myself."
"Don"t. _Don"t_, Bevere."
"She has taken to drink," he whispered, biting his agitated lips. "For pretty near two years now she has not been a day sober. As Heaven hears me, I believe _not one day_. You may judge what I"ve had to bear."
"Could nothing be done?"
"I tried to do it, Johnny. I coaxed, persuaded, threatened her by turns, but she would not leave it off. For four months in the autumn of last year, I did not let a drop of anything come into the house; drinking water myself all the while--for her sake. It was of no use: she"d go out and get it: every public-house in the place knows her. I"d come home from the hospital in the evening and find her raving and rushing about the rooms like a mad woman, or else lying incapable on the bed. Believe me, I tried all I could to keep her straight; and Mrs. d.y.k.e, a good, motherly woman, you remember, did her best to help me; but she was too much for both of us, the demon of drink had laid too fast hold of her."
"Does she come bothering you at your new lodgings?"
"She doesn"t know where to come," replied Bevere; "I should not dare to tell her. She thinks I am in the doctor"s house, and she does not know where that is. I have told her, and her Aunt d.y.k.e has told her, that if ever she attempts to come after me there, I shall stop her allowance.
Scott--you remember Richard Scott!"
"Of course."
"Well, Scott lives now near the Bell-and-Clapper: he is with a surgeon there. Scott goes to see her for me once a-week, or so, and brings me news of her. I declare to you, Johnny Ludlow, that when I first catch sight of his face I turn to a cold shiver, dreading what he may have to say. And you talk about pulling up! With such a wife as that, one is thankful to drown care once in a way."
"I--I suppose, Roger, nothing about her has ever come out _here_?"
He started up, his face on fire. "Johnny, lad, if it came out here--to my mother--to all of them--I should die. Say no more. The case is hopeless, and I am hopeless with it."
Any way, it seemed hopeless to talk further then, and I took up my candle. "Just one more word, Roger: Does Lizzie know you have come down here? She might follow you."
His face took a look of terror. The bare idea scared him. "I say, don"t you invent impossible horrors," gasped he. "She _couldn"t_ come; she has never heard of the place in connection with me. She has never heard anything about my people, or where they live, or don"t live, or whether I have any. Good-night."