Tales and Novels Volume VII Part 29

"My letter was forgotten yesterday, and I am glad of it. Blessings on Farmer Grimwood of Pegginton! Little did I think that he and his quarrel about t.i.the peaches would have such happy influence on my destiny.

Blessings on Farmer Grimwood of Pegginton! I repeat: he has been the cause of my seeing such a--of my receiving such a look of approbation--such a smile! She is niece to our good rector--come to spend a few days with him. Grimwood went to the vicarage to make up his quarrel with Dr. Leicester--I do not know what he said of me, but I find it has left a very favourable impression in the good doctor's mind. He came here yesterday, and brought with him his charming niece. My dear Erasmus, you know that I have often prayed that I might never fall in love _seriously_, till I had some reasonable prospect of being able to marry; but I begin to retract my prayer for indifference, and to be of opinion that the most prudent thing a professional man can do is to fall in love--to fall in love with such a woman as Sophia Leicester. What a new motive for exertion! Animated by delightful hope, perseverance, even in the most stupid drudgery, will be pleasure. Hope!--but I am far from hope--far at this instant from knowing distinctly what I hope--or wish--or mean. I will write again soon and explain."

CHAPTER XX.

In several successive letters of Alfred to his brother, the progress of his attachment to Miss Leicester is described. Instead of paying a visit of a few days to her uncle, it appears that she stayed at the vicarage during the whole of Alfred's vacation. Her mother died, and, contrary to the expectation I of some of her admirers, Miss Leicester was left in possession of only a moderate fortune. She showed much dignity under these adverse circ.u.mstances, with a charming mixture of spirit and gentleness of disposition. The change in her expectations, which deprived her of some of her fas.h.i.+onable admirers, showed I her the superior sincerity and steadiness of Alfred's sentiments. No promises were given on either side; but it appears, that Alfred was permitted to live and labour upon hope. He returned to London more eager than ever to pursue his profession.

We trust that our readers will be fully satisfied with this abridgment of the affair, and will be more inclined to sympathize with Alfred, and to wish well to his attachment, than if they had been fatigued with a volume of his love-letters, and with those endless repet.i.tions of the same sentiments with which most lovers' letters abound.

Let us now go on to the affairs of Erasmus Percy.

Mr. Panton, provoked by his daughter's coldness towards Lord Roadster, had begun shrewdly to suspect that the lady must be in love with some other person. His young physician was the only man on whom he could fix his suspicions. Constance seemed to be on a more confidential footing with him than with any of the visitors who frequented his house; she had spoken of him in terms of high approbation, and had not contradicted her father when he had, purposely to try her, p.r.o.nounced Dr. Percy to be the handsomest young fellow he knew. While these suspicions were secretly gaining strength in the father's mind, a circ.u.mstance occurred which confirmed them at once, and caused them to burst forth with uncontrolled violence of expression.

Dr. Percy was called in to prescribe for a sick lawyer, and from this lawyer's conversation he learnt that Lord Runnymede was a ruined man, and that his son Lord Roadster's extravagance had been the cause of his ruin. Erasmus determined to put Mr. Panton upon his guard, and thus, if possible, to prevent the amiable Constance from becoming a victim to her father's absurd ambition. With this view he went to Mr. Panton's.

The old gentleman was gone to dine with his club. Mrs. Panton, in her elegant language, desired he would leave his business with her. When he had explained the purport of his visit, after a variety of vulgar exclamations denoting surprise and horror, and after paying many compliments to her own sagacity, all which appeared incompatible with her astonishment, Mrs. Panton expressed much grat.i.tude to Erasmus, mixed with suppressed satisfaction, and significant nods which he could not quite comprehend. Her grat.i.tude was interrupted, and the whole train of her ideas changed, by the entrance of a milliner with new caps and artificial flowers. She, however, retained sufficient recollection of what had pa.s.sed, to call after Erasmus when he had taken his leave, and to insist upon his coming to her party that evening. This he declined.

Then she said he _must_ dine with her next day, for let him be never so busy, he must dine somewhere, and as good dine with somebody as with n.o.body--in short, she would take no denial. The next day Erasmus was received with ungracious oddity of manner by old Panton--the only person in the drawing-room when he arrived. Erasmus was so much struck with the gloom of his countenance, that he asked whether Mr. Panton felt himself ill. Panton bared his wrist, and held out his hand to Erasmus to feel his pulse--then withdrawing his hand, he exclaimed, "Nonsense! I'm as well as any man in England. Pray, now, Doctor Percy, why don't you get a wig?"--"Why should I, sir, when I have hair?" said Erasmus, laughing.--"Pshaw! doctor, what signifies laughing when I am serious!--Why, sir, in my youth every decent physician wore a wig, and I have no notion of a good physician without a wig--particularly a young one. Sir, many people have a great objection to a young physician for many reasons. And take my advice in time, Doctor Percy--a wig, a proper wig, not one of your modern natural scratches, but a decent powdered doctor's bob, would make you look ten years older at one slap, and trust me you'd get into practice fast enough then, and be sent for by many a sober family, that would never think of letting you within their doors without the wig; for, sir, you are too young and too handsome for a physician--Hey! what say you to the wig?" concluded Panton, in a tone of such serious, yet comical impatience, that Erasmus found it difficult to restrain a smile, whilst he answered that he really did not think his charms were so dangerous that it was necessary to disguise them by a wig; that as to his youth, it was an objection which every day would tend to lessen; and that he trusted he might obtain the credit of being a good physician if he could cure people of their diseases; and they would feel it to be a matter of indifference whether they were restored to health by a doctor in a wig or without one.

"Indifference!" cried Panton, starting upright in his chair with pa.s.sion. "I don't know what you call a matter of indifference, sir; I can tell you its no matter of indifference to me--If you mean me; for say that with G.o.d's mercy you carried me through, what then, if you are doing your best to break my heart after all--"

Mr. Panton stopped short, for at this instant Constance came into the room, and her father's look of angry suspicion, and her blush, immediately explained to Erasmus what had the moment before appeared to him unintelligible. He felt provoked with himself for colouring in his turn, and being embarra.s.sed without any reason, but he recovered his presence of mind directly, when Constance, with a dignified ingenuous modesty of manner, advanced towards him, notwithstanding her father's forbidding look, and with a sweet, yet firm voice, thanked him for his yesterday's friendly visit to her mother.

"I wonder you a'n't ashamed of yourself, girl!" cried old Panton, choking with pa.s.sion.

"And I'm sure I wonder you a'n't ashamed of yourself, Mr. Panton, if you come to that," cried Mrs. Panton, "exposing of your family affairs this way by your unseasonable pa.s.sions, when one has asked people to dinner too."

"Dinner or no dinner," cried old Panton, and he must have been strangely transported beyond himself when he made that exclamation, "dinner or no dinner, Mrs. Panton, I will speak my mind, and be master in my own house! So, Doctor Percy, if you please, we'll leave the ladies, and talk over our matters our own way, in my own room here within."

Dr. Percy willingly acceded to this proposal. Old Panton waddled as fast as he could to show the way through the antechamber, whilst Mrs. Panton called after him, "Don't expose yourself no more than you can help, my dear!" And as Erasmus pa.s.sed her, she whispered, "Never mind him, doctor--stand by yourself--I'll stand by you, and _we'll_ stand by you--won't we, Constance?--see her colour!"--"We have reason to be grateful to Dr. Percy," said Constance, gravely, with an air of offended modesty; "and I hope," added she, with softened sweetness of tone, as she looked at him, and saw his feelings in his countenance, "I hope Doctor Percy is a.s.sured of my grat.i.tude, and of my perfect esteem."

"Come! what the devil?" cried old Panton, "I thought you were close behind me."

"Now, doctor," cried he, as soon as he had fairly got Erasmus into his closet, and shut the door, "now, doctor, I suppose you see I am not a man to be imposed upon?"

"Nor, if you were, am I a man to impose upon you, sir," said Erasmus.

"If I understand you rightly, Mr. Panton, you suspect me of some designs upon your daughter? I have none."

"And you won't have the a.s.surance to deny that you are in love with her?"

"I am not in love with Miss Panton, sir: she has charms and virtues which might create the strongest attachment in the heart of any man of feeling and discernment who could permit himself to think of her; but I am not in a situation in which I could, with honour, seek to win her affections, and, fortunately for me, this reflection has probably preserved my heart from danger. If I felt any thing like love for your daughter, sir, you may be a.s.sured that I should not, at this instant, be in your house."

"A mighty fine speech, sir! and well delivered, for aught I know. You are a scholar, and can speak sentences; but that won't impose on me, a plain man that has eyes. Why--tell me!--didn't I see you within these two minutes blus.h.i.+ng up to the eyes, both of you, at one another?

Don't I know when I see men and women in love--tell me! Mrs.

Panton--fudge!--And did not I see behind my back, just now, the women conjuring with you?--And aren't you colouring over head and ears with conscience this very instant?--Tell me!"

Erasmus in vain a.s.serted his own and the young lady's innocence, and maintained that blus.h.i.+ng was no proof of guilt--he even adverted to the possibility of a man's blus.h.i.+ng for others instead of himself.

"Blush for me as much as you please, if it's me you allude to," cried the coa.r.s.e father; "but when my daughter's at stake, I make no bones of speaking plain, and cutting the matter short in the beginning--for we all know what love is when it comes to a head. Marrow-bones! don't I know that there must be some reason why that headstrong girl won't think of my Lord Runnymede's son and heir, and such a looking youth, t.i.tle and all, as my Lord Roadster! And you are the cause, sir; and I thank you for opening my eyes to it, as you did by your information to Mrs. Panton yesterday, in my absence."

Erasmus protested with such an air of truth as would have convinced any person capable of being convinced, that, in giving that information, he had been actuated solely by a desire to save Miss Panton from a ruinous match, by honest regard for her and all her family.

"Ruinous!--You are wrong, sir--I know better--I know best--I saw my Lord Runnymede himself this very morning--a little temporary want of cash only from the estate's being tied up, as they sometimes tie estates, which all n.o.ble families is subject to--Tell me! don't I know the bottom of these things? for though I haven't been used to land, I know all about it. And at worst, my Lord Roadster, my son-in-law that is to be, is not chargeable with a penny of his father's debts. So your informer is wrong, sir, every way, and no lawyer, sir, for I have an attorney at my back--and your information's all wrong, and you had no need to interfere."

Erasmus felt and acknowledged the imprudence of his interference, but hoped it might be forgiven in favour of the motive--and he looked so honestly glad to hear that his information was all wrong, that old Panton at the moment believed in his integrity, and said, stretching out his hand towards him, "Well, well, no harm done--then it's all as it should be, and we may ring for dinner--But," recurring again to his favourite idea, "you'll get the wig, doctor?"

"Excuse me," said Erasmus, laughing, "your confidence in me cannot depend upon a wig."

"It can, sir, and it does," cried Panton, turning again with all his anger revived. "Excuse you! No, sir, I won't; for the wig's my test, and I told Mrs. Panton so last night--the wig's my test of your uprightness in this matter, sir; and I fairly tell you, that if you refuse this, all the words you can string don't signify a b.u.t.ton with me."

"And by what right, sir, do you speak to me in this manner?" cried Erasmus, proudly, for he lost all sense of the ludicrous in indignation at the insolent doubt of his integrity, which, after all the a.s.surances he had given, these last words from Mr. Panton implied: "By what right, sir, do you speak to me in this manner?--And what reason can you have to expect that I should submit to any tests to convince you of the truth of my a.s.sertions?"

"Right! Reason!" cried Panton. "Why, doctor, don't you know that I'm your patron?"

"My patron!" repeated Erasmus, in a tone which would have expressed much to the mind of any man of sense or feeling, but which conveyed no idea to the gross apprehension of old Panton except that Dr. Percy was ignorant of the fact.

"Your patron--yes, doctor--why, don't you know, that ever since you set me upon my legs I have been going up and down the city puffing--that is, I mean, recommending you to all my friends? and you see you're of consequence--getting into fine practice for so young a man. And it stands to reason that when one takes a young man by the hand, one has a right to expect one's advice should be followed; and as to the wig, I don't make it a test--you've an objection to a test--but, as I've mentioned it to Mrs. Panton, I must make it a point, and you know I am not a man to go back. And you'll consider that if you disoblige me, you can't expect that I should continue my friends.h.i.+p, and protection, and patronage, and all that."

"Be a.s.sured, sir, I expect nothing from you," said Erasmus, "and desire nothing: I have the happiness and honour to belong to a profession, in which, if a man merits confidence, he will succeed, without requiring any man's patronage."--Much less the patronage of such a one as you!

Erasmus would have said, but that he commanded his indignation, or, perhaps, it was extinguished by contempt.

A servant now came to announce that the company was arrived, and dinner was waiting. In very bad humour, Mr. Panton, nevertheless, ate an excellent dinner, growling over every thing as he devoured it. Constance seemed much grieved by her father's unseasonable fit of rudeness and obstinacy; with sweetness of temper and filial duty she bore with his humour, and concealed it as far as she could from observation. Mrs.

Panton was displeased with this, and once went so far as to whisper to Erasmus that her step-daughter wanted spirit sadly, but that he ought never to mind that, but to take a broad hint, and keep his ground.

Erasmus, who, with great simplicity and an upright character, had quick observation and tact, perceived pretty nearly what was going on in the family. He saw that the step-mother, under an air of frank and coa.r.s.e good-nature, was cunning and interested; that she wished to encourage the daughter to open war with the father, knowing that nothing could incense him so much as Constance's thinking of a poor physician instead of accepting of an earl's son; Mrs. Panton wished then to fan to a flame the spark which she was confident existed in his daughter's heart.

Erasmus, who was not apt to fancy that ladies liked him, endeavoured to relieve Constance from the agonizing apprehension which he saw she felt of his being misled by her mother's hints: he appeared sometimes not to hear, and at other times not to understand, what Mrs. Panton whispered; and at last talked so loud across the table to Mr. Henry, about letters from G.o.dfrey, and the officers of all the regiments in or out of England, that no other subject could be introduced, and no other voice could be heard. As soon as he decently could, after dinner, Dr. Percy took his leave, heartily glad to escape from his awkward situation, and from the patronage of Mr. Panton. Erasmus was mistaken, however, in supposing that Mr. Panton could do him no harm. It is true that he could not deny that Dr. Percy had restored him to health, and the opinion, which had spread in the city, of Dr. Percy's skill, was not, and could not, be diminished by Mr. Panton's railing against him; but when he hinted that the young physician had practised upon his daughter's heart, all the rich citizens who had daughters to watch began to consider him as a dangerous person, and resolved never to call him in, except in some desperate case. Mrs. Panton's gossiping confidences did more harm than her husband's loud complaints; and the very eagerness which poor Constance showed to vindicate Dr. Percy, and to declare the truth, served only to confirm the sagaciously-nodding mothers and overwise fathers in their own opinions. Mr. Henry said and did what he could for Erasmus; but what could be done by a young man shut up all day in a counting-house? or who would listen to any thing that was said by a youth without station or name? Mr. Gresham unluckily was at this time at his country-seat. Poor Erasmus found his practice in the city decline as rapidly as it had risen, and he began a little to doubt the truth of that n.o.ble sentiment which he had so proudly expressed. He was comforted, however, by letters from his father, who strongly approved his conduct, and who maintained that truth would at last prevail, and that the prejudice which had been raised against him would, in time, be turned to his advantage.

It happened that, while old Panton, in his present ludicrous fit of obstinacy, was caballing against our young physician with all his might in the city, the remote consequences of his absurdities were operating in Dr. Percy's favour at the west end of the town. Our readers may recollect having heard of a footman, whom Mr. Panton turned away for laughing at his perversity. Erasmus had at the time pleaded in the poor fellow's favour, and had, afterwards, when the servant was out of place, in distress, and ill, humanely attended him, and cured a child of his, who had inflamed eyes. This man was now in the service of a rich and very fine lady, who lived in Grosvenor-square--Lady Spilsbury. Her ladys.h.i.+p had several sickly children--children rendered sickly by their mother's overweening and injudicious care. Alarmed successively by every fas.h.i.+onable medical terror of the day, she dosed her children with every specific which was publicly advertised or privately recommended. No creatures of their age had taken such quant.i.ties of Ching's lozenges, G.o.dbold's elixir, or Dixon's antibilious pills. The consequence was, that the dangers, which had at first been imaginary, became real: these little victims of domestic medicine never had a day's health: they looked, and were, more dead than alive. Still the mother, in the midst of hourly alarms, was in admiration of her own medical skill, which she said had actually preserved, in spite of nature, children of such sickly const.i.tutions. In consequence of this conviction, she redoubled her vigilance, and the most trivial accident was magnified into a symptom of the greatest importance.

It happened on the day when the eldest Miss Spilsbury had miraculously attained her seventh year, a slight inflammation was discerned in her right eye, which was attributed by her mother to her having neglected the preceding day to bathe it in elder-flower water; by her governess, to her having sat up the preceding night to supper; by her maid, to her having been found peeping through a windy key-hole; and by the young lady herself, to her having been kept poring for two hours over her French lesson.

Whatever might have been the original cause, the inflammation evidently increased, either in consequence or in spite of the innumerable remedies applied internally and externally--the eye grew redder and redder, and as red as blood, the nose inflamed, and the mother, in great alarm for the beauty as well as health of her child, sent for Sir Amyas Courtney.

He had already won Lady Spilsbury's heart by recommending to her the _honan tcha_, or Tartar tea, which enables the Tartars to digest raw flesh, and tinges water of a red colour.

Sir Amyas p.r.o.nounced that the young lady had hereditary nerves, besought Lady Spilsbury to compose herself, a.s.sured her the inflammation was purely symptomatic, and as soon as he could subdue the continual nervous inclination to shrivel up the nose, which he trusted he could in time master, all would go well. But Sir Amyas attended every day for a month, yet never got the mastery of this nervous inclination. Lady Spilsbury then was persuaded _it could not be nerves, it must be scrofula_; and she called in Dr. Frumpton, _the man for scrofula_. He of course confirmed her ladys.h.i.+p in her opinion; for a week d----d nerves and Sir Amyas; threw in desperate doses of calomel for another month, reduced the poor child to what the maid called an _attomy_, and still the inflammation increased. Lady Spilsbury desired a consultation of physicians, but Dr. Frumpton would not consult with Sir Amyas, nor would Sir Amyas consult with Dr. Frumpton. Lady Spilsbury began to dread that the sight of the eye would be injured, and this idea terrified the mother almost out of her senses. In the suspension of authority which terror produces in a family, the lady's-maid usually usurps considerable power.

Now her ladys.h.i.+p's maid had been offended by Dr. Frumpton's calling her _my good girl_, and by Sir Amyas Courtney's having objected to a green silk bandage which she had recommended; so that she could not _abide_ either of the gentlemen, and she was confident the young lady would never get well while they had the management of affairs: she had heard--but she did not mention from whom, she was too diplomatic to give up her authority--she had heard of a young physician, a Dr. Percy, who had performed wonderful great cures in the city, and had in particular cured a young _lady_ who had an inflamed eye, just for all the world like Miss Spilsbury's. In this last a.s.sertion, there was, perhaps, some little exaggeration; but it produced a salutary effect upon Lady Spilsbury's imagination: the footman was immediately despatched for Dr. Percy, and ordered to make all possible haste. Thus by one of those petty underplots of life, which, often unknown to us, are continually going on, our young physician was brought into a situation where he had an opportunity of showing his abilities. These favourable accidents happen to many men who are not able to make use of them, and thus the general complaint is preferred of want of good fortune, or of opportunity for talents to distinguish themselves.

Upon Dr. Percy's arrival at Lady Spilsbury's, he immediately perceived that parties ran high, and that the partisans were all eager to know whether he would p.r.o.nounce the young lady's case to be nervous or scrofulous. He was a.s.sailed by a mult.i.tude of female voices, and requested particularly to attend to innumerable contradictory symptoms, before he was permitted even to see his patient. He attended carefully to whatever facts he could obtain, pure from opinion and misrepresentation. The young lady was in a darkened room--he begged to have a little more light admitted, though she was in such pain that she could scarcely endure it. Our young physician had the great advantage of possessing the use of his senses and understanding, unbia.s.sed by medical theories, or by the authority of great names: he was not always trying to force symptoms to agree with previous descriptions, but he was actually able to see, hear, and judge of them as they really appeared.

There was a small protuberance on the left side of the nose, which, on his pressing it, gave great pain to the child.

"Dear me! miss, you know," said the maid, "it is not in your nose you feel the great pain--you know you told Sir Amyas Courtney t'other day--that is, Sir Amyas Courtney told you--"

Dr. Percy insisted that the child should be permitted to speak for herself; and, relieved from the apprehension of not saying the thing that she was expected to say, she described her present and past feelings. She said, "that the pain seemed lately to have _changed from where it was before_--that it had changed ever since Dr. Frumpton's opening his snuff-box near her had made her sneeze." This sneeze was thought by all but Dr. Percy to be a circ.u.mstance too trivial to be worth mentioning; but on this hint he determined to repeat the experiment. He had often thought that many of the pains which are supposed to be symptoms of certain diseases, many disorders which baffle the skill of medicine, originate in accidents, by which extraneous substances are taken or forced into different parts of the body. He ordered some cephalic snuff to be administered to the patient. All present looked with contempt at the physician who proposed such a simple remedy. But soon after the child had sneezed violently and repeatedly, Dr. Percy saw a little bit of green silk appear, which was drawn from the nostril, to the patient's great and immediate relief. Her brothers and sisters then recollected having seen her, two months before, stuffing up her nose a bit of green riband, which she said she liked because it smelt of some perfume. The cause of the inflammation removed, it soon subsided; the eye and nose recovered their natural size and colour, and every body said, "Who would have thought it?" all but Dr.

Frumpton and Sir Amyas Courtney, who, in the face of demonstration, maintained each his own opinion; declaring that the green riband had nothing to do with the business. The sudden recovery of the child, Sir Amyas said, proved to him, in the most satisfactory manner, that the disease was, as he at first p.r.o.nounced--nervous. Dr. Frumpton swore that scrofula would soon break out again in another shape; and, denouncing vengeance against generations yet unborn, he left Lady Spilsbury's children to take the consequences of trusting to a youngster, whose impertinent interference he could never forget or forgive. In spite of all that the two angry and unsuccessful physicians could say, the recovery of the child's eye redounded much to Dr. Percy's honour, and introduced him to the notice of several men of science and celebrity, who frequented Lady Spilsbury's excellent dinners. Even the intemperance of Dr. Frumpton's anger was of service; for in consequence of his furious a.s.sertions, inquiry was made into the circ.u.mstances, and the friends of Erasmus had then an opportunity of producing in his defence the Irish porter. His cause could not be in better hands.

With that warmth and eloquence of grat.i.tude characteristic of his country, the poor fellow told his story so as to touch every heart.

Among others it particularly affected an officer just returned from our armies on the continent: and by him it was the next day repeated at the table of a celebrated general, when the conversation turned upon the conduct of certain army surgeons. Lord Oldborough happened to be one of the company; the name of Percy struck his ear; the moment Erasmus was thus brought to his recollection, he attended particularly to what the officer was saying; and, after hearing two circ.u.mstances, which were so marked with humanity and good sense, his lords.h.i.+p determined to give what a.s.sistance he could to the rising credit of the son of his old friend, by calling him in for Lady Oldborough, who was in a declining state of health. But Sir Amyas Courtney, who had long attended her ladys.h.i.+p, endeavoured, with all the address of hatred, to prejudice her against his young rival, and to prevent her complying with her lord's request. Depending on her habitual belief that he was essential to her existence, Sir Amyas went so far as to declare that if Dr. Percy should be sent for, he must discontinue his visits. Lord Oldborough, however, whom the appearance of opposition to his will always confirmed in his purpose, cut short the matter by a few peremptory words.