"This is an unhealthy neighbourhood?"
"No, madam."
"But the sickness. What causes it?"
"The heat of the sun in harvest time and the cold and wet of winter."
One of the guests, affecting great gravity, joined in the conversation.
"So that in this healthy district, sir, people are ill all the year round?"
The doctor raised his little grey eyes to the speaker"s face, looked at him, hesitated, and seemed either to check or to seek a reply. Madame de Moncar kindly came to his relief.
"I know," she said, "that you are here the guardian genius of all who suffer."
"Oh, you are too good," replied the old man, apparently much engrossed with the slice of pasty upon his plate. Then the gay party left Dr Barnaby to himself, and the conversation flowed in its previous channel.
If any notice was taken of the peaceable old man, it was in the form of some slight sarcasm, which, mingled with other discourse, would pa.s.s, it was thought, unperceived by its object. Not that these young men and women were generally otherwise than polite and kind-hearted; but upon that day the journey, the breakfast, the merriment and slight excitement that had attended all the events of the morning, had brought on a sort of heedless gaiety and communicative mockery, which rendered them pitiless to the victim whom chance had thrown in their way. The doctor continued quietly to eat, without looking up, or uttering a word, or seeming to hear one; they voted him deaf and dumb, and he was no restraint upon the conversation.
When the guests rose from table, Dr Barnaby took a step or two backwards, and allowed each man to select the lady he wished to take into the drawing-room. One of Madame de Moncar"s friends remaining without a cavalier, the village doctor timidly advanced, and offered her his hand--not his arm. His fingers scarcely touched hers as he proceeded, his body slightly bent in sign of respect, with measured steps towards the drawing-room. Fresh smiles greeted his entrance, but not a cloud appeared upon the placid countenance of the old man, who was now declared blind, as well as deaf and dumb. Quitting his companion, Dr Barnaby selected the smallest, humblest-looking chair in the room, placed it in a corner, at some distance from everybody else, put his stick between his knees, crossed his hands upon the k.n.o.b, and rested his chin upon his hands. In this meditative att.i.tude he remained silent, and from time to time his eyes closed, as if a gentle slumber, which he neither invoked nor repelled, were stealing over him.
"Madame de Moncar!" cried one of the guests, "I presume it is not your intention to inhabit this ruin in a desert?"
"Certainly I have no such project. But here are lofty trees and wild woods. M. de Moncar may very likely be tempted to pa.s.s a few weeks here in the shooting season."
"In that case you must pull down and rebuild; clear, alter, and improve!"
"Let us make a plan!" cried the young countess. "Let us mark out the future garden of my domains."
It was decreed that this party of pleasure should be unsuccessful. At that moment a heavy cloud burst, and a close fine rain began to fall.
Impossible to leave the house.
"How very vexatious!" cried Madame de Moncar. "What shall we do with ourselves? The horses require several hours" rest. It will evidently be a wet afternoon. For a week to come, the gra.s.s, which overgrows everything, will not be dry enough to walk upon; all the strings of the piano are broken; there is not a book within ten leagues. This room is wretchedly dismal. What can we do with ourselves?"
The party, lately so joyous, was gradually losing its gaiety. The blithe laugh and arch whisper were succeeded by dull silence. The guests sauntered to the windows and examined the sky, but the sky remained dark and cloud-laden. Their hopes of a walk were completely blighted.
They established themselves as comfortably as they could upon the old chairs and settees, and tried to revive the conversation; but there are thoughts which, like flowers, require a little sun, and which will not flourish under a bleak sky. All these young heads appeared to droop, oppressed by the storm, like the poplars in the garden, which bowed their tops at the will of the wind. A tedious hour dragged by.
The lady of the castle, a little disheartened by the failure of her party of pleasure, leaned languidly upon a window-sill, and gazed vaguely at the prospect without.
"There," said she--"yonder, upon the hill, is a white cottage that must come down: it hides the view."
"The white cottage!" cried the doctor. For upwards of an hour Dr Barnaby had been mute and motionless upon his chair. Mirth and weariness, sun and rain, had succeeded each other without eliciting a syllable from his lips. His presence was forgotten by everybody: every eye turned quickly upon him when he uttered these three words--"The white cottage!"
"What interest do you take in it, doctor?" asked the countess.
"_Mon Dieu, madame!_ Pray forget that I spoke. The cottage will come down, undoubtedly, since such is your good pleasure."
"But why should you regret the old shed?"
"I--_Mon Dieu!_ it was inhabited by persons I loved--and--"
"And they think of returning to it, doctor?"
"They are long since dead, madam; they died when I was young!" And the old man gazed mournfully at the white cottage, which rose amongst the trees upon the hill-side, like a daisy in a green field. There was a brief silence.
"Madam," said one of the guests in a low voice to Madame de Moncar, "there is mystery here. Observe the melancholy of our Esculapius. Some pathetic drama has been enacted in yonder house; a tale of love, perhaps. Ask the doctor to tell it us."
"Yes, yes!" was murmured on all sides, "a tale, a story! And should it prove of little interest, at any rate the narrator will divert us."
"Not so, gentlemen," replied Madame de Moncar, in the same suppressed voice. "If I ask Dr Barnaby to tell us the history of the white cottage, it is on the express condition that no one laughs." All having promised to be serious and well-behaved, Madame de Moncar approached the old man. "Doctor," said she, seating herself beside him, "that house, I plainly see, is connected with some reminiscence of former days, stored preciously in your memory. Will you tell it us? I should be grieved to cause you a regret which it is in my power to spare you; the house shall remain, if you tell me why you love it."
Dr Barnaby seemed surprised, and remained silent. The countess drew still nearer to him. "Dear doctor!" said she, "see what wretched weather; how dreary everything looks. You are the senior of us all; tell us a tale. Make us forget rain, and fog, and cold."
Dr Barnaby looked at the countess with great astonishment.
"There is no tale," he said. "What occurred in the cottage is very simple, and has no interest but for me, who loved the young people; strangers would not call it a tale. And I am unaccustomed to speak before many listeners. Besides, what I should tell you is sad, and you came to amuse yourselves." And again the doctor rested his chin upon his stick.
"Dear doctor," resumed the countess, "the white cottage shall stand, if you say why you love it."
The old man appeared somewhat moved; he crossed and uncrossed his legs; took out his snuff-box, returned it to his pocket without opening it; then, looking at the countess--"You will not pull it down?" he said, indicating with his thin and tremulous hand the habitation visible at the horizon.
"I promise you I will not."
"Well, so be it; I will do that much for them; I will save the house in which they were happy."
"Ladies," continued the old man, "I am but a poor speaker; but I believe that even the least eloquent succeed in making themselves understood when they tell what they have seen. This story, I warn you beforehand, is not gay. To dance and to sing, people send for a musician; they call in the physician when they suffer, and are near to death."
A circle was formed round Dr Barnaby, who, his hands still crossed upon his cane, quietly commenced the following narrative, to an audience prepared beforehand to smile at his discourse.
"It was a long time ago, when I was young--for, I, too, have been young!
Youth is a fortune that belongs to all the world--to the poor as well as to the rich--but which abides with none. I had just pa.s.sed my examination; I had taken my physician"s degree, and I returned to my village to exercise my wonderful talents, well convinced that, thanks to me, men would now cease to die.
"My village is not far from here. From the little window of my room, I behold yonder white house upon the opposite side to that you now discern. You certainly would not find my village handsome. In my eyes, it was superb; I was born there, and I loved it. We all see with our own eyes the things we love. G.o.d suffers us to be sometimes a little blind; for He well knows that in this lower world a clear sight is not always profitable. To me, then, this neighbourhood appeared smiling and pleasant, and I lived happily. The white cottage alone, each morning when I opened my shutters, impressed me disagreeably: it was always closed, still and sad like a forsaken thing. Never had I seen its windows open and shut, or its door ajar; never had I known its inhospitable garden-gate give pa.s.sage to human being. Your uncle, madam, who had no occasion for a cottage so near his chateau, sought to let it; but the rent was rather higher than anybody here was rich enough to give. It remained empty, therefore, whilst in the hamlet every window exhibited two or three children"s faces peering through the branches of gillyflower at the first noise in the street. But one morning, on getting up, I was quite astonished to see a long ladder resting against the cottage wall; a painter was painting the window-shutters green, whilst a maid-servant polished the panes, and a gardener hoed the flower-beds.
""All the better," said I to myself; "a good roof like that, which covers no one, is so much lost."
"From day to day the house improved in appearance. Pots of flowers veiled the nudity of the walls; the parterres were planted, the walks weeded and gravelled, and muslin curtains, white as snow, shone in the sun-rays. One day a post-chaise rattled through the village, and drove up to the little house. Who were the strangers? None knew, and all desired to learn. For a long time nothing transpired without of what pa.s.sed within the dwelling. The rose-trees bloomed, and the fresh-laid lawn grew verdant; still nothing was known. Many were the commentaries upon the mystery. They were adventurers concealing themselves--they were a young man and his mistress--in short, everything was guessed except the truth. The truth is so simple, that one does not always think of it; once the mind is in movement, it seeks to the right and to the left, and often forgets to look straight before it. The mystery gave me little concern. No matter who is there, thought I; they are human, therefore they will not be long without suffering, and then they will send for me.
I waited patiently.
"At last one morning a messenger came from Mr William Meredith, to request me to call upon him. I put on my best coat, and, endeavouring to a.s.sume a gravity suitable to my profession, I traversed the village, not without some little pride at my importance. That day many envied me. The villagers stood at their doors to see me pa.s.s. "He is going to the white cottage!" they said; whilst I, avoiding all appearance of haste and vulgar curosity, walked deliberately, nodding to my peasant neighbours.
"Good-day, my friends," I said; "I will see you by-and-by; this morning I am busy." And thus I reached the hill-side.
"On entering the sitting-room of the mysterious house, the scene I beheld rejoiced my eyesight. Everything was so simple and elegant.
Flowers, the chief ornament of the apartment, were so tastefully arranged, that gold would not better have embellished the modest interior. White muslin was at the windows, white calico on the chairs--that was all; but there were roses, and jessamine, and flowers of all kinds, as in a garden. The light was softened by the curtains, the atmosphere was fragrant; and a young girl or woman, fair and fresh as all that surrounded her, reclined upon a sofa, and welcomed me with a smile. A handsome young man, seated near her upon an ottoman, rose when the servant announced Dr Barnaby.
""Sir," said he, with a strong foreign accent, "I have heard so much of your skill that I expected to see an old man."
""I have studied diligently, sir," I replied. "I am deeply impressed with the importance and responsibility of my calling: you may confide in me."