Lord Canterville looked at him from head to foot, exhaling with great prompt.i.tude an air of cheerful resignation to a form of grossness threatening to become common. Then he said with a touch of that inconsequence of which he had already given a glimpse: "What the deuce in that case possessed you to turn doctor?"
Jackson Lemon coloured a little and demurred, but bethought himself of his best of reasons. "Why, my having simply the talent for it."
"Of course I don"t for a moment doubt your ability. But don"t you," his lordship candidly asked, "find it rather a bore?"
"I don"t practise much. I"m rather ashamed to say that."
"Ah well, of course in your country it"s different. I daresay you"ve got a door-plate, eh?"
"Oh yes, and a tin sign tied to the balcony!" Jackson laughed.
Here the joke was beyond his friend, who but went on: "What on earth did your father say to it?"
"To my going into medicine? He said he"d be hanged if he"d take any of my doses. He didn"t think I should succeed; he wanted me to go into the house."
"Into the House-a-?" Lord Canterville just wondered. "That would be into your Congress?"
"Ah no, not so bad as that. Into the store," Jackson returned with that refinement of the ingenuous which he reserved for extreme cases.
His host stared, not venturing even for the moment to hazard an interpretation; and before a solution had presented itself Lady Canterville was on the scene.
"My dear, I thought we had better see you. Do you know he wants to marry our second girl?" It was in these simple and lucid terms that her husband acquainted her with the question.
She expressed neither surprise nor elation; she simply stood there smiling, her head a little inclined to the side and her beautiful benevolence well to the front. Her charming eyes rested on Doctor Lemon"s; and, though they showed a shade of anxiety for a matter of such importance, his own discovered in them none of the coldness of calculation. "Are you talking about dear Barb?" she asked in a moment and as if her thoughts had been far away.
Of course they were talking about dear Barb, and Jackson repeated to her what he had said to her n.o.ble spouse. He had thought it all over and his mind was quite made up. Moreover, he had spoken to the young woman.
"Did she tell you that, my dear?" his lordship asked while he lighted another cigar.
She gave no heed to this inquiry, which had been vague and accidental on the speaker"s part; she simply remarked to their visitor that the thing was very serious and that they had better sit down a moment. In an instant he was near her on the sofa on which she had placed herself and whence she still smiled up at her husband with her air of luxurious patience.
"Barb has told me nothing," she dropped, however, after a little.
"That proves how much she cares for me!" Jackson declared with instant lucidity.
Lady Canterville looked as if she thought this really too ingenious, almost as professional as if their talk were a consultation; but her husband went, all gaily, straighter to the point. "Ah well, if she cares for you I don"t object."
This was a little ambiguous; but before the young man had time to look into it his hostess put a bland question. "Should you expect her to live in America?"
"Oh yes. That"s my home, you know."
"Shouldn"t you be living sometimes in England?"
"Oh yes-we"ll come over and see you." He was in love, he wanted to marry, he wanted to be genial and to commend himself to the family; yet it was in his nature not to accept conditions save in so far as they met his taste, not to tie himself or, as they said in New York, give himself away. He preferred in any transaction his own terms to those of any one else, so that the moment Lady Canterville gave signs of wishing to extract a promise he was on his guard.
"She"ll find it very different; perhaps she won"t like it," her ladyship suggested.
"If she likes me she"ll like my country," Jackson Lemon returned with decision.
"He tells me he has a plate on his door," Lord Canterville put in for the right pleasant tone.
"We must talk to her of course; we must understand how she feels"-and his wife looked, though still gracious, more n.o.bly responsible.
"Please don"t discourage her, Lady Canterville," Jackson firmly said; "and give me a chance to talk to her a little more myself. You haven"t given me much chance, you know."
"We don"t offer our daughters to people, however amiable, Mr. Lemon."
Her charming grand manner rather quickened.
"She isn"t like some women in London, you know," Lord Canterville helpfully explained; "you see we rather stave off the evil day: we like to be together." And Jackson certainly, if the idea had been presented to him, would have said that No, decidedly, Lady Barb hadn"t been thrown at him.
"Of course not," he declared in answer to her mother"s remark. "But you know you mustn"t decline overtures too much either; you mustn"t make a poor fellow wait too long. I admire her, I love her, more than I can say; I give you my word of honour for that."
"He seems to think that settles it," said Lord Canterville, shining richly down at the young American from his place before the cold chimney-piece.
"Certainly that"s what we desire, Philip," her ladyship returned with an equal grace.
"Lady Barb believes it; I"m sure she does!" Jackson exclaimed with spirit. "Why should I pretend to be in love with her if I"m not?"
Lady Canterville received this appeal in silence, and her husband, with just the least air in the world of repressed impatience, began to walk up and down the room. He was a man of many engagements, and he had been closeted for more than a quarter of an hour with the young American doctor. "Do you imagine you should come often to England?" Lady Canterville asked as if to think of everything.
"I"m afraid I can"t tell you that; of course we shall do whatever seems best." He was prepared to suppose they should cross the Atlantic every summer-that prospect was by no means displeasing to him; but he wasn"t prepared to tie himself, as he would have said, up to it, nor up to anything in particular. It was in his mind not as an overt pretension but as a tacit implication that he should treat with the parents of his presumed bride on a footing of perfect equality; and there would somehow be nothing equal if he should begin to enter into engagements that didn"t belong to the essence of the matter. They were to give their daughter and he was to take her: in this arrangement there would be as much on one side as on the other. But beyond it he had nothing to ask of them; there was nothing he was calling on them to promise, and his own pledges therefore would have no equivalent. Whenever his wife should wish it she should come over and see her people. Her home was to be in New York; but he was tacitly conscious that on the question of absences he should be very liberal, and there was meanwhile something in the very grain of his character that forbade he should be eagerly yielding about times and dates.
Lady Canterville looked at her spouse, but he was now not attentive; he was taking a peep at his watch. In a moment, however, he threw out a remark to the effect that he thought it a capital thing the two countries should become more united, and there was nothing that would bring it about better than a few of the best people on both sides pairing-off together. The English indeed had begun it; a lot of fellows had brought over a lot of pretty girls, and it was quite fair play that the Americans should take their pick. They were all one race, after all; and why shouldn"t they make one society-the best of both sides, of course?
Jackson Lemon smiled as he recognised Lady Marmaduke"s great doctrine, and he was pleased to think Lady Beauchemin had some influence with her father; for he was sure the great old boy, as he mentally designated his host, had got all this from her, though he expressed himself less happily than the cleverest of his daughters. Our hero had no objection to make to it, especially if there were aught in it that would really help his case. But it was not in the least on these high grounds he had sought the hand of Lady Barb. He wanted her not in order that her people and his-the best on both sides!-should make one society; he wanted her simply because he wanted her. Lady Canterville smiled, but she seemed to have another thought.
"I quite appreciate what my husband says, but I don"t see why poor Barb should be the one to begin."
"I daresay she"ll like it," said his lordship as if he were attempting a short cut. "They say you spoil your women awfully."
"She"s not one of their women yet," Lady Canterville remarked in the sweetest tone in the world; and then she added without Jackson Lemon"s knowing exactly what she meant: "It seems so strange."
He was slightly irritated, and these vague words perhaps added to the feeling. There had been no positive opposition to his suit, and both his entertainers were most kind; but he felt them hold back a little, and though he hadn"t expected them to throw themselves on his neck he was rather disappointed-his pride was touched. Why should they hesitate? He knew himself such a good _parti_. It was not so much his n.o.ble host-it was Lady Canterville. As he saw her lord and master look covertly and a second time at his watch he could have believed him glad to settle the matter on the spot. Lady Canterville seemed to wish their aspirant to come forward more, to give certain a.s.surances and pledges. He felt he was ready to say or do anything that was a matter of proper form, but he couldn"t take the tone of trying to purchase her ladyship"s a.s.sent, penetrated as he was with the conviction that such a man as he could be trusted to care for his wife rather more than an impecunious British peer and _his_ wife could be supposed-with the lights he had acquired on English society-to care even for the handsomest of a dozen children. It was a mistake on the old lady"s part not to recognise that. He humoured this to the extent of saying just a little dryly: "My wife shall certainly have everything she wants."
"He tells me he"s disgustingly rich," Lord Canterville added, pausing before their companion with his hands in his pockets.
"I"m glad to hear it; but it isn"t so much that," she made answer, sinking back a little on her sofa. If it wasn"t that she didn"t say what it was, though she had looked for a moment as if she were going to. She only raised her eyes to her husband"s face, she asked for inspiration. I know not whether she found it, but in a moment she said to Jackson Lemon, seeming to imply that it was quite another point: "Do you expect to continue your profession?"
He had no such intention, so far as his profession meant getting up at three o"clock in the morning to a.s.suage the ills of humanity; but here, as before, the touch of such a question instantly stiffened him. "Oh, my profession! I rather wince at that grand old name. I"ve neglected my work so scandalously that I scarce know on what terms with it I shall be-though hoping for the best when once I"m right there again."
Lady Canterville received these remarks in silence, fixing her eyes once more upon her husband"s. But his countenance really rather failed her; still with his hands in his pockets, save when he needed to remove his cigar from his lips, he went and looked out of the window. "Of course we know you don"t practise, and when you"re a married man you"ll have less time even than now. But I should really like to know if they call you Doctor over there."
"Oh yes, universally. We"re almost as fond of t.i.tles as your people."
"I don"t call that a t.i.tle," her ladyship smiled.
"It"s not so good as duke or marquis, I admit; but we have to take what we"ve got."
"Oh bother, what does it signify?" his lordship demanded from his place at the window. "I used to have a horse named Doctor, and a jolly good one too."