Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  Dicky came tearing up. Something had happened to the whip.

  “Look at it, Arnold,” he said, throwing his arms and the whip on the doctor’s knees. “The lash won’t stay on.”

  “And you want me to mend it, I suppose.”

  “Yes. Do it now.”

  “Is that the way to ask?”

  “Please do it now, Arnold.”

  “If I can. But I fear I can’t, Dicky.”

  “No! You can mend arms and legs.”

  “Sometimes. Have you a strip of leather? Or some twine?”

  Dicky pulled a piece of string out of some unfathomable pocket. He was not promoted to trousers yet, but wore white drawers reaching to the knee and a purple velvet tunic. Dr. Knox took out his penknife.

  “What’s the matter with that young Tamlyn again?” asked Mrs. Knox in a fretful tone.

  “With Bertie?” returned Dr. Knox, rather carelessly, for he was intent on the whip. “It is one of the old attacks.”

  “Of course! I knew it was nothing more,” spoke Mrs Knox in resentment. “There was to have been a party at Mrs. Green’s this evening. Just as I was ready to start for it, her footman came to say it was put off on account of Miss Tamlyn, who could not come because Master Albert was ill.”

  “Miss Tamlyn would not leave Bertie when he is ill for all the parties in Christendom, mother.”

  “Miss Tamlyn is welcome to stay with him. But that’s no reason why Mrs. Green should have put the rest of us off. Who’s Bessy Tamlyn, that she should be considered before every one? — stupid old maid!”

  Mrs. Knox pushed up her lace sleeves in wrath, and jingled her bracelets. Evening parties made the solace of her life.

  The wheels of the returning chaise were heard, and the children went rushing round to the front of the house to look at the new governess. They brought Janet Carey back to the lawn. Mrs. Knox saw a small, slight young girl with a quiet, nice face and very simple manners. Dr. Knox rose. Mrs. Knox did not rise. Expecting to see a kind of dark strong giantess, she was struck with astonishment and remained sitting.

  “You are surely not Matthew Carey’s daughter?”

  “Yes, madam, I am,” was the young lady’s answer, as a blush stole into the clear, meek face.

  “Dear me! I should never have thought it. Mat Carey was as tall and big as a lamp-post. And — why! — you told me you were twenty-three!”

  “I was twenty-three last March.”

  “Well, I trust you will be found competent to manage my children. I had no idea you were so young-looking.”

  The tone expressed a huge doubt of it. The ill-trained youngsters stood staring rudely into Miss Carey’s face. Dr. Knox, pushing some of them aside, held out his hand with a smile of welcome.

  “I hope you will be able to feel at home here, Miss Carey,” he said: “the children must not be allowed to give you too much trouble. Have you had a pleasant journey?”

  “Take Miss Carey to her room, Mina,” sharply struck in Mrs. Knox, not at all pleased that her step-son should presume to say so much: as if the house were his. And Mina, followed by the shy and shrinking young governess, went indoors and up to the roof, and showed her a little comfortless chamber there.

  (But the reader must understand that in writing this paper, I, Johnny Ludlow, am at a disadvantage. Not having been present myself at Lefford, I can only relate at second hand what happened at Mrs. Knox’s.)

  The time went on. Janet Carey proved herself equal to her work: although Mrs. Knox, judging by her young look and gentle manners, had been struck by a doubt of her capacity, and politely expressed it aloud. Janet’s duties were something like the labours of Hercules: at least, as varied. Teaching was only one of them. She helped to dress and undress the children, or did it entirely if Sally the housemaid forgot to attend; she kept all the wardrobes and mended the clothes and the socks. She had to be in all places at once. Helping Mrs. Knox in the parlour, taking messages to the kitchen, hearing the girls’ lessons, and rushing out to the field to see that Dicky was not worrying the pony or milking the cow on his own account. It was not an orderly household; two maids were kept and James. Mrs. Knox had no talent for management, and was frightfully lazy besides; and Janet, little foreseeing what additional labour she would bring on herself, took to remedy as far as she could the shortcomings and confusion. Mrs. Knox saw her value, and actually thanked her. As a reward, she made Janet her own attendant, her secretary, and partly her housekeeper. Mrs. Knox’s hair, coarse and stiff, was rather difficult hair to manage; in the morning it was let go anyhow, and Janet dressed it in the afternoon. Janet wrote Mrs. Knox’s letters; kept her accounts; paid the bills — paid them, that is, when she could get the money. Janet, you perceive, was made Jack-of-all-trades at Rose Villa. She was conscious that it was hardly fair, but she did it cheerfully; and, as Mrs. Knox would say, it was all in the day’s work.

  The only one who showed consideration for Miss Carey was Dr. Knox. He lectured the children about giving her so much unnecessary trouble: he bribed Dicky with lozenges and liquorice from the surgery drawers not to kick or spit at her; and he was, himself, ever kind and considerate to her. They only met at dinner and tea, for Dr. Knox snatched a scrambling breakfast (the servants never got it ready for him in time), and went off betimes to Lefford. Now and then he would come home tolerably early in the evening, but he had a great deal to do, and it did not happen often. Mr. Tamlyn was the parish doctor, and it gave Dr. Knox an incessant round of tramping: for the less pleasant division of the daily professional work was turned over to him.

  They got to have a fellow-feeling for one another — Janet and Dr. Knox — a kind of mutual, inward sympathy. Both of them were overworked; in the lot of each was less of comfort than might have been. Dr. Knox compassionated Janet’s hard place and the want of poetry in her life. Janet felt hurt to see him made so little of at home, and she knew about the house being his property, and the seventy-five pounds a-year he paid for the liberty of living in it, — and she knew that most of the income enjoyed by Mrs. Knox ought to have been Arnold’s income. His breakfast was scanty; a cup of coffee, taken standing, and some bread-and-butter, hurriedly eaten. Or he would be off by cockcrow without chance of breakfast, unless he cut a slice of bread in the pantry: or perhaps would have to be out all night. Sometimes he would get home to dinner; one o’clock; more often it was two o-clock, or half-past, or three. In that case, Sally would bring in a plate of half-cold scraps for him — anything that happened to be left. Once, when Janet was carving a leg of mutton, she asked leave to cut off a slice or two that they might be kept warm for the doctor; but Mrs. Knox blew her up — a fine trouble that would be! As to tea, the chances were, if he came in to it at all, that the teapot would be drained: upon which, some lukewarm water would be dashed in, and the loaf and butter put before him. Dr. Knox took it all quietly: perhaps he saw how useless complaint would be.

  Mr. Tamlyn’s was a large, handsome, red-brick house, standing in a beautiful garden, in the best and widest street of Lefford. The surgery, built on the side of the house, consisted of two rooms: one containing the drugs and the scales, and so on; the other where the better class of patients waited. Mr. Tamlyn’s wife was dead, and he had one son, who was a cripple. Poor Bertie was thrown down by his nurse when he was a child; he had hardly ever been out of pain since; sometimes the attacks were very bad. It made him more cross and fractious than a stranger would believe; rude, in fact, and self-willed. Mr. Tamlyn just worshipped Bertie. He only lived to one end — that of making money for Bertie, after he, himself, should be gone. Miss Bessy, Mr. Tamlyn’s half-sister, kept his house, and she was the only one who tried to keep down Bertie’s temper. Lefford thought it odd that Mr. Tamlyn did not raise Dr. Knox’s salary: but it was known he wanted to put by what he could for Bertie.

  The afternoon sun streamed full on the surgery-window, and Dr. Knox, who had just pelted back from dinner, stood behind the counter, making up bottles of physic. Mr. Tamlyn had an appren
tice, a young fellow named Dockett, but he could not be trusted with the physic department yet, as he was apt to serve out calomel powder for camomile flowers. Of the three poor parish patients, waiting for their medicine, two sat and one stood, as there was not a third chair. The doctor spoke very kindly to them about their ailments; he always did that; but he did not seem well himself, and often put his hand to his throat and chest.

  The physic and the parish patients done with, he went into the other room, and threw himself into the easy-chair. “I wonder what’s the matter with me?” he said to himself: and then he got up again, for Mr. Tamlyn was coming in. He was a short man with a grey face, and iron grey hair.

  “Arnold,” said he, “I wish you’d take my round this afternoon. There are only three or four people who need be seen, and the carriage is at the door.”

  “Is Bertie worse than usual?” asked Arnold; who knew that every impediment in Mr. Tamlyn’s way was caused by Bertie.

  “He is in a great deal of pain. I really don’t care to leave him.”

  “Oh, I’ll go with pleasure,” replied Arnold, passing into the surgery to get his hat.

  Mr. Tamlyn walked with him across the flagged court to the gate, talking of the sick people he was going to see. Arnold got into the brougham and was driven away. When he returned, Mr. Tamlyn was upstairs in Bertie’s sitting-room. Arnold went there.

  “Anything more come in?” he asked. “Or can the brougham be put up?”

  “Dear me, yes; here’s a note from Mrs. Stephenson,” said Mr. Tamlyn, replying to the first question. And he spoke testily: for Mrs. Stephenson was a lady of seventy, who always insisted on his own attendance, objecting to Dr. Knox on the score of his youth. “Well, you must go for once, Arnold. If she grumbles, tell her I was out.”

  On a sofa in the room lay Albert Tamlyn; a lad of sixteen with a fretful countenance and rumpled hair. Miss Tamlyn, a pleasant-looking lady of thirty-five, sat by the sofa at work. Arnold Knox went up to the boy, speaking with the utmost gentleness.

  “Bertie, my boy, I am sorry you are in pain to-day.”

  “Who said I was in pain?” retorted Bertie, ungraciously, his voice as squeaky as a penny trumpet.

  “Why, Bertie, you know you are in great pain: it was I who told Dr. Knox so,” interposed the father.

  “Then you had no business to tell him so,” shrieked Bertie, with a hideous grin of resentment. “What is it to him? — or to you? — or to anybody?”

  “Oh, Bertie, Bertie!” whispered Miss Tamlyn. “Oh, my boy, you should not give way like this.”

  “You just give your tongue a holiday, Aunt Bessy,” fired Bertie. “I can’t be bothered by you all in this way.”

  Dr. Knox, looking down at him, saw something wrong in the position he was lying in. He stooped, lifted him quietly in his strong arms, and altered it.

  “There, Bertie, you will be better now.”

  “No, I’m not better, and why d’you interfere?” retorted Bertie in his temper, and burst out crying. It was weary work, waiting on that lad; the house had a daily benefit of it. He had always been given way to: his whims were studied, his tempers went unreproved, and no patience was taught him.

  Dr. Knox drove to Mrs. Stephenson’s. He dismissed the carriage when he came out; for he had some patients to see on his own score amongst the poor, and went on to them. They were at tea at Mr. Tamlyn’s when he got back. He looked very ill, and sat down at once.

  “Are you tired, Arnold?” asked the surgeon.

  “Not very; but I feel out of sorts. My throat is rather painful.”

  “What’s the matter with it?”

  “Not much, I dare say. A little ulcerated perhaps.”

  “I’ll have a look at it presently. Bessy, give Dr. Knox a cup of tea.”

  “Thank you, I shall be glad of it,” interposed the doctor. It was not often he took a meal in the house, not liking to intrude on them. When he went up this evening he had thought tea was over.

  “We are later than usual,” said Miss Tamlyn, in answer to some remark he made. “Bertie dropped asleep.”

  Bertie was awake, and eating relays of bread-and-butter as he lay, speaking to no one. The handsome sitting-rooms downstairs were nearly deserted: Mr. Tamlyn could not bear even to take his meals away from Bertie.

  It was growing dusk when Dr. Knox went home. Mr. Tamlyn told him to take a cooling draught and to go to bed early. Mrs. Knox was out for the evening. Janet Carey sat at the old piano in the schoolroom, singing songs to the children to keep them quiet. They were crowding round her, and no one saw him enter the room.

  Janet happened to be singing the very song she sang later to us that night at Miss Deveen’s— “Blow, blow, thou wintry wind.” Although she had now been at Rose Villa nearly a twelvemonth, for early summer had come round again, Dr. Knox had never heard her sing. Mrs. Knox hated singing altogether, and especially despised Janet’s: it was only when Janet was alone with the children that she ventured on it, hoping to keep them still. Arnold Knox sat in utter silence; entranced; just as we were at Miss Deveen’s.

  “You sing ‘I’ve been roaming,’ now,” called out Dicky, before the song was well over.

  “No, not that thing,” dissented Mina. “Sing ‘Pray, Goody,’ Janet.” They had long since called her by her Christian name.

  The whole five (the other three taking sides), not being able to agree, plunged at once into a hot dispute. Janet in vain tried to make peace by saying she would sing both songs, one after the other: they did not listen to her. In the midst of the noise, Sally looked in to say James had caught a magpie; and the lot scampered off.

  Janet Carey heaved a sad sigh, and passed her hand over her weary brow. She had had a tiring day: there were times when she thought her duties would get beyond her. Rising to follow the rebellious flock, she caught sight of Dr. Knox, seated back in the wide old cane chair.

  “Oh! I — I beg your pardon. I had no idea any one was here.”

  He came forward smiling; Janet had sat down again in her surprise.

  “And though I am here? Why should you beg my pardon, Miss Carey?”

  “For singing before you. I did not know — I am very sorry.”

  “Perhaps you fancy I don’t like singing?”

  “Mine is such poor singing, sir. And the songs are so old. I can’t play: I often only play to them with one hand.”

  “The singing is so poor — and the songs are so old, that I was going to ask of you — to beg of you — to sing one of them again for me.”

  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. Dicky had tried to pull the magpie’s feathers out, so Ja
mes 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 soirées: 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 assisted 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 glasses. 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 soirées 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 glass-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.