Sir Hubert's Marriage

Front matter

SIR HUBERT'S MARRIAGE. BT GERTEUDE TOWNSHEND MAYER. "love claims equality." IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1876. {[All rights reserved.) CONTENTS OF VOL. II. CHAPTER PAGE I. "God bless you, Doctor!" 1 II. A Case of Conscience 18 III. Voluntary Exile 35 IV. In Society 48 V. The Growth of a Heart 66 VI. Sir Hubert's Philanthropy 71 VII. " Willing to Wound, and yet Afraid to Strike" 84 VIII. The Bird has Flown 99 IX. An Unprofitable Transaction Ill X. " I Speak not yet of Proof : Look to your Wife" 123 XI. Helen strikes her Cast CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XII. Flowers ajsd Fate 148 XIII. Miss Duroc Meets her Match 161 XIV. Sir Hubert's Ambition 168 XV. " Be my Providence ! " 181 XVI. Philip Learning his Part 195 XVII. The Spray of Clianthus 207 XVIII.

" Surely not Mrs. Gordon ! " 221 XIX. Rose in Fairyland 235 XX. Romeo and Juliet 251 XXI. " It's not a Flirtation ! " 266 XXII. The Meet 284 XXIII. A Run and a Spill 295 XXIV. Edward Lloyd's Prescription SIE HUBERT'S MARRIAGE.

Chapter I

" GOD BLESS TOU, DOCTOR ! " I hope I have not thrust myself upon you," said Edward Lloyd, as he rode with Mr. Buller towards the lodge gates, pursued for some distance down the carriage drive by the shouts and laughter which rang from the dining-room, where the revellers were far too loud and jovial to miss their departing com panions. " I would not force my society on you for a moment ; but I take it you belong to a species rare in these parts — sensible men ; and I want to cultivate you.' tol. n. B " Without accepting your compliment," said Mr. Buller, smiling in spite of his wan dering thoughts, " I must say I think you already possess some good specimens of the genus — Mr. Arundel, for instance." " Mr. Arundel is an old fogy," replied Lloyd, promptly. " You don't suggest him as a companion for me, do you ?

" Wherein Edward Lloyd was unjust. Mr. Arundel, as we have seen, was not by any means an old fogy. But perhaps a private grudge caused the young Doctor to speak so disrespectfully. " There are Sir Hubert Grower, and young Trowers," proceeded his friend. " They are very good fellows — very. But they belong to a different set. And though they are quite civil, and all that, and their mothers and sisters are open to my appeals for my poor patients, they look on me as somewhat of an Ishmaelite, and think that when they approach intimacy with me, they tread dangerous ground. They look askance at my fellowship with poor Gordon and that " GOD BLESS TOU, DOCTOR ! " 3 lot. Now I take it, you — having rowed in the same boat — can't make that objection. Or, to put it more politely, you are too philo sophical to suppose that I must necessarily be of that clique, because you have seen me among them."

" Judging from myself, you mean," said Buller quietly. " You are quite logical. I suspect in your case a little professional curiosity mixes with other motives." " Exactly. It is useful in my business to know ' all sorts and conditions of men.' But I think I like my poor people best, on the whole. They are as stupid as owls and as obstinate as mules, most of them, but they are true to their order. They will deny themselves to help each other — feed a starv ing neighbour from their own almost bare board, or sit up after a hard day's work to nurse a sick stranger. How many of your snug, selfish, well-to-do middle-class would do that ? " " I belonged — or rather, I belong," said Mr. Buller, somewhat stiffly, •' essentially to that much-abused class." " Well, for that matter, so do I. Coming from generations of doctors doesn't constitute a claim to very high descent, though we had some good blood among us ; all Welshmen have, you know.

But I don't love the bour geoisie any the better for belonging to them." " I have not much experience of any other class," said Arthur Buller, with an impatient sigh. Somehow the recollection of his want of family had annoyed him more of late than ever. "That's exactly it," pursued Mr. Lloyd, eager and animated, as usual, when riding a favourite hobby. " Really big people mix freely with the poor. The Queen goes into a cottage at Balmoral or Windsor, and chats or drinks tea with the wife ; while Mrs. Smith, the retired brewer's widow, gathers her aristocratic skirts about her, stands on the threshold, and leaves a tract ! " " We are not entirely to blame for this " GOD BLESS TOU, DOCTOR ! " 5 difference. It springs as much from shyness as from pride," said Mr. Buller. " We have not the habit of associating with people in different positions, nor the ease springing from a consciousness that our dignity stands too high to be shaken."

" Shyness and pride are much the same thing," said Lloyd, " under different names. It only requires a sufficiently strong effort to break them down." " It is an effort beyond my strength, un fortunately. I wish," continued Mr. Buller, with the diffidence with which he always offered help — " I wish you would come to me when your poor patients need assistance. I have money, and I want to create interests in my life. I have literally nothing to do. I dare say I could take pleasure in looking after an estate, if there were any one to share it with me, or succeed me ; but I am literally alone in the world." " Why don't you marry ? " asked Lloyd, looking keenly at his companion. " Excuse the abruptness of the question — I am accus tomed to go straight to the point when I prescribe." " What is the chief requisite to the prescription you have just favoured me with ?

" " Well — I suppose a wife." " You see, I have not found a wife." " So much the better for my poor people, possibly, as we stand at present," said Lloyd, laughing. " It's a world of compensations, however much we may grumble at it. Well, I have the object in life you want, and you have the money I want — a parish doctor is always poor. So we will exchange com modities. But if you work with me you must make up your mind to leave many of your respectable middle-class prejudices behind you." " How so ? " " I often keep people in the world who, according to the world's general opinion, had much better be sent out of it. Sir John Grey, our chairman of quarter sessions, looks on me " GOD BLESS TOU, DOCTOR ! " 7 as belonging to the dangerous classes myself, and wishes he could so interpret a section in some Act that he might indict me under it.

He is not clear now but that it might be done as ' aiding and abetting.' I can't count the arms and legs I've set for poachers, or the rogues and vagabonds I've pulled through fevers and agues — more by feeding than physicking. Are you prepared to enter into such an unholy alliance ? " " I will run the risk." " I may put you to the test sooner than you expect. Hullo ! Mother Gale is back again, is she ? " " What do you mean ? " asked Buller, who looked in vain up and down the bare, deso late, wintry road, imperfectly lighted by a struggling moon, for any sign of the lady in question. Edward Lloyd pointed with his whip to a steep, narrow lane, the mouth of which they had just reached. About half-way down, a thin streak of smoke rose from a break in the leafless hedge. " Where does that smoke come from ?

" repeated Mr. Buller. "I can't see any house." " It comes from a regular Irish mud cabin of two divisions — we can't call them rooms —inhabited by an interesting elderly lady of my acquaintance, who scrapes together a precarious livelihood by weeding in the fields, picking up sticks, and so forth. She has lately been on a pedestrian tour in a fortune-telling capacity, and I did not know she had returned. Her mansion falls back from the lane a little, and I had periodical battles with the man on whose land it stood, and who wanted to pull it down as a nuisance. It was originally occupied by his father's shepherd. At last I settled the question by buying the field at twice its real value (I got the money from Miss Redfern), and my profitable tenant patronizes me as her medical attendant. I turn my horses into the field to graze now and then, together with the donkey of a costermonger who has seen better days and is now in the " GOD BLESS TOU, DOCTOR !

" 9 small coal line, and a few stray pigs and geese that want fattening. It is a settlement that interests me very much. I call it Yan Diemen's Land." " And do you never lose your horses ? " asked Mr. Buller, amused. " ./, my dear fellow ? Those people would, one and all, cut off their hands sooner than steal anything of mine with them. ' Honour among thieves ' is really binding, I assure you." They had walked their horses while talk ing, and Mr. Buller uttered an exclamation of surprise as a figure rose suddenly from the high bank on his left hand, and crossed to Mr. Lloyd's side. It was that of a short, withered-looking old woman, dressed, if we may use the term, in a collection of brown rags, one of which, thrown over the head, had so completely obscured all vestige of a human form that Arthur Buller, looking mechanically at her the moment before she got up, had mistaken her for the stump of a tree.

She now threw back this covering, and fixing on Mr. Lloyd a pair of dark, piercing eyes, which glittered even in that feeble light, whispered eagerly — " I've watched for you ever since dark, Doctor. I went to your house, and they told me you were dining at the Gordons', and I knew you must come back this way." Then she paused, looking with annoyance, and something like anger, at Mr. Buller. " Well, my old friend," said Mr. Lloyd, " what do you want with me ? Have you come back from your tour with an empty pocket and the rheumatics, or what is it ? " " It's not for myself," she answered im patiently. "Whisper, Doctor," — and the young surgeon good-naturedly bent his tall figure till it reached the level of her shaking head, and listened patiently to her eager mut terings. A prolonged whistle was his only reply to them.

Then he turned to Mr. Buller, and said, half-laughingly — " GOD BLESS TOU, DOCTOR ! " 11 " My excellent old friend here has offered me a tough job. I'm afraid I must bid you good-speed on your homeward journey, Mr. Buller, for I can't keep you waiting all the time I am likely to be detained." " But this is the very chance we were talk ing of just now," urged Arthur Buller. " I will hold your horse for you— por rather trot it up and down the lane ; and I shall be at hand if you want help." " /can hold the Doctor's horse," interrupted the old woman, suspiciously ; " and there's nothing to be done that he can't do by himself a deal better than with strangers ferreting about the place." " I think you have your conge, Buller," said Mr. Lloyd. But noticing the vexed expression of his new friend's face, he added, " If you really want to ascertain from experience how agreeable it is to pace up and down a dark lane on a cold winter night, why, by all means have your own way."

Accordingly, when the old woman preceded them through the steep lane, descending which seemed almost like going down a well, both riders walked their horses gently after her. When the Doctor and his guide had disappeared within the hovel, and Arthur Buller was left a solitary sentinel, with only his friend's horse for companion, he began to wonder what had induced him to insist on remaining. It was an impulse, an excite ment of benevolence, fast dying away in the dreary solitude of his watch. " I cannot think what possesses me," he muttered irritably, " to be always mixing my self up in unpleasant affairs — other people's affairs, about whom I do not really care a straw. It is like my taking up the Gordons — and what good shall I do them, after all ? " He took another turn or two up and down the lane, watching the bare boughs, and the chill moonlight, and the low steam-like mist hanging over the shed on the other side of the hedge, where Lloyd's humble four-foote d " GOD BLESS TOU, DOCTOR !

" 13 proteges huddled together in their winter shelter. The sight suddenly softened him, and he resumed his patrol with different feelings. " Who can tell what good I may do ? — who dares to say where his influence begins and ends ? I must take my chance ; I shall certainly do no good if I stand aside and refuse to lay a finger on their burdens." Arthur Buller 's mood had quickly changed. His nature was full of shy kindliness which only wanted a path to work in, and encou ragement to show itself. His sympathies had lost the habit of expansion in years of early isolation and care ; but they existed ; and a strong feeling, as yet scarcely recognisable to himself, was kindling them into life. Up and down the lane he paced — up and down, it seemed to him for hours, — glancing uneasily at the cottage every time he passed it.

A feeble light glimmered through the dirt-encrusted window. Once he thought he heard a half-smothered cry of extreme agony, and was almost tempted to enter. At last, as he again came within sight of the cottage, the old woman appeared at the door beckoning to him. " The Doctor says you're his friend," she said, in a troubled voice ; " and no friend of his must stay out there to be starved with cold. Come indoors awhile." The invitation was not tempting ; even warmth and shelter would be dearly pur chased by entering that hovel. But Arthur Buller's curiosity was roused, and he was weary of his vigil. He hesitated a moment, however, and asked what was to become of the horses. " I will hold them," said Mrs. Gale. " But it will be as cold for you as for me." The woman stared, as though it were quite a novelty to have her feelings consulted.

" I'm a deal more used to bearing it than you are, sir," she said, in a softened tone. " Go you in ; it won't be for long." The room he entered was close and dark, only lighted by a morsel of fire which burnt " GOD BLESS TOU, DOCTOR ! " 15 feebly on the hearth. It was not bare — it would have seemed much more wholesome and hopeful if had been — but crowded with old broken boxes, bits of cracked crockery, and odds and ends of many kinds of lumber. A heap of rags, much resembling Mrs. Gale's attire, lay in one corner, and had probably served her as a bed. A straw-seated chair with a broken back was drawn in front of the fire, and on this, with care and hesitation, Arthur seated himself. From the inner room, the door of which was partly open, Mr. Lloyd's cheerful and vigorous tones reached his ears.

" You are easier now ? " A whining voice, whose accent of habitual insincerity was every now and then forgotten in genuine and unconquerable pain, answered him, in words which could not be distin guished. " Yery well," said the Doctor. " Now, remember, you must keep perfectly quiet, and take whatever Mrs. Gale gives you. I will send what is necessary, and see you again in a few days. Good-night." Then Edward Lloyd returned to the outer room, and stood for a moment in silence by his friend's side. The young Doctor's face was perplexed and grave. He thoughtfully pushed the dying embers together with his foot, frowned medi tatively over his watch, which he consulted as he held it to the momentary blaze, and said suddenly — " Come, let's be off. I want to clear my brains in the fresh air." Mrs. Gale stood patiently outside, holding the two horses.

She looked up sharply as she gave Mr. Lloyd his bridle. " Well," she asked, " will he live ? " "Oh yes, he'll live, never fear. People that are born to be hanged don't die in their beds. But you must look after him. And come to my house as early as you can this morning for some medicine and lotion. There will be full directions on the bottles." " GOD BLESS TOU, DOCTOR ! " 17 " Won't your servants wonder what I want medicine for ? " she asked cunningly. " Well ! What does it matter if they do ? But I suppose it might be awkward — hang it, woman, you're making a regular Guy Fawkes of me. I'll wrap the bottles in some old clothes of mine, and my housekeeper shall put them in a basket with food that will be quite as useful as the physic." " God bless you, Doctor ! " " I hope He will," muttered Edward Lloyd, not profanely, but with genuine perjilexity.

" I don't know whether I have been doine* His work or some one else's, though." " Remember, Doctor," said the old woman, laying her hand for a moment on Mr. Lloyd's rein—" remember, he trusted me, and I trust you." VOL. n. c