Mrs. Dorriman Volume Ii Part 24

Nothing during the interview transpired to give the slightest colour to the wife's dread; and the doctor left, perfectly convinced in his own mind that Mrs. Drayton was quite in the wrong, in more ways than one.

Just as he reached the front door and was full of his own good sense, he heard a sound that startled him, a loud soul-less meaningless laugh, and as the front door shut upon him, pulled by his own hand, a quick, sharp misgiving crossed his mind, and he wished he had seen the man-servant.

He had not thought it necessary. But his own convictions soon banished that sudden thought, and the result of his visit was to confirm his views and to give rise to many moral reflections on the way in which glaring faults may be marked by unusual personal advantages.

His wife, who was shrewd and kind-hearted, but who had not that deep estimation for his talents which goes far to make the conjugal relations.h.i.+p happy, was interested in the poor wife and mother living in such a singularly secluded manner. She had only seen her, no one ever being allowed an entrance to the Limes, by Margaret's own wish and consent, when she had found that her husband had a terrible tendency, and which she had no wish to alter had she been able to do so, now the dread had changed.

Mrs. Jones was not a great admirer of her husband's abilities--indeed she had lived to find him peculiarly dull in a great many things; but he was very kind to her, and admired her quickness immensely, so that though the balance was on the wrong side still it was there.

Everything pa.s.sing in his mind she could generally read pretty clearly, and he did not object to her doing so. He was always rather relieved when she brought her mind to bear upon some perplexity; and, though as far as medical cases went, he was very discreet, there were occasions, of which the present was one, when it was a substantial comfort to have his mode of action approved of by her.

Mrs. Jones was one of the women who have no inclination for prolonged meals, and it was always a trial to her the deliberation and great enjoyment evinced by her husband on these occasions. Some people have no talent for eating, and except for his sake Mrs. Jones would never have gone through that ceremony--to which so many cling--of having a succession of dishes presented one after another, as though you could not have one thing and finish with it, she herself would say; and her luncheon as often as not, consisted of an apple or two which she crunched between her fine white teeth, and a biscuit, the hardness of which tested their capability.

But she was wise enough to understand that a good dinner was really an essential to Mr. Jones, and, without caring about it herself, she threw herself into the subject, and the result was eminently satisfactory.

She bore the prolonged meals, in which her rapid demolition was a standing grievance, with some work on her lap, work which employed her active fingers and left her mind free to apply to any of her husband's interests at the moment.

He had at one time considered this to be "not quite the thing," and had questioned its propriety.

"But it is much better for you, if you could only see it," she had answered. "The work does not prevent my talking, and my dinner does,"

which argument was una.s.sailable.

Mr. Jones had even come to consider there was great merit in the arrangement, as his wife never hurried him now, or showed by any little feminine indications that the time seemed long.

"I am glad, my dear," he said, when he had arrived at that pleasant stage of affairs when his appet.i.te was partially satisfied, and had yet to be satiated, "I am very glad your acquaintance with Mrs. Drayton went no further."

"Why?"

"I am afraid, my dear (speaking of course in strictest confidence), that she is not quite a straightforward person."

"I hardly know any one I consider quite straightforward, myself,"

answered Mrs. Jones calmly. "What has she done?"

"I think you are making rather a sweeping a.s.sertion, my dear," he said, eyeing with a momentary misgiving a roast duck; it looked overdone.

"Never mind my a.s.sertions, but tell me what that poor thing has done?"

"Why do you say that _poor_ thing? I really do not see why she is to be pitied."

"Don't you? well I do. Do you call the life she leads a proper life for a young creature accustomed probably to all the freedom of a country life in Scotland? I often think of her, and I declare sometimes I should like to force my way into that dismal house, and take her and her child out of it." Mrs. Jones spoke with a vehemence quite surprising to her husband.

"Really, my dear," he said, "the rapid conclusions you arrive at are ...

bewildering to my slower mode of thought. You have seen Mrs. Drayton once, and you are ready immediately to credit her with weariness, and the house is a substantial house and very well furnished, and...."

"Do you suppose curtains and carpets can make a woman happy?" asked Mrs.

Jones, severely.

"They do something towards it, I think, judging from your own great anxiety upon the subject."

Mr. Jones had some reason for this statement.

"All I have to say is that that poor young creature's heart is broken--yes, broken. I never saw any one so thoroughly and utterly miserable as she is."

Mr. Jones was startled but not convinced.

"I saw her the other day, though not to speak to," Mr. Jones went on.

"She went to Skidd's, and I was going in also, but as _you_ objected to my being mixed up with her I drew back. A friend of hers happened to go there on business, and she welcomed him, and I saw her face, and its expression has haunted me ever since."

"As you saw her out with your own eyes, you can understand that when she talks of never going out that is not a perfectly true statement," and Mr. Jones, who was longing to have his own slight misgivings set at rest by his wife, took off his spectacles, rubbed imaginary specs off their polished surface, and replaced them.

"One swallow does not make a summer," said Mrs. Jones, with as much contempt in her meaning as she thought befitting. "It is a fact known to every one here that she has only been seen once, and that she is kept exactly as though the Limes was a prison and her husband a jailer."

"Really, my dear, in these days such expressions are quite absurd."

"Their being absurd does not make them false, and I trust that if you can in any way help that poor thing you will."

"If she went out once she can do so again."

"Not at all a certainty; she may have managed it once, and yet because she did so it may be made impossible for her."

"It strikes me, my dear, that you know more about it all than I imagined," said Dr. Jones, with a sudden perception which for him was really acute.

"I know this, that Mr. Drayton refused her sister shelter on the worst night we have had; that the sisters are orphans devotedly attached to each other; that one sister is ill, and that the other is a prisoner, therefore they cannot meet. They have one or two friends, and the only thing that puzzles me is why the friends do not interfere."

"My dear," and Dr. Jones spoke with great irritation, "how can any one interfere? There is nothing wrong about the man. I saw him to-day. I am not going to proclaim him mad to please his wife or any one else."

"Then she appealed to you?"

"She told me a long story. She wanted more liberty. How can I interfere?"

"And she asked you if her husband was--_that_?"

"Was what?"

"Mad."

"She said something, but as I had seen her out, and she said she could not go out, I did not feel very much inclined to take her view of the question," said the doctor, obstinately.

"Why are you prejudiced against her?"

"Because I saw her meet the _friend_ you speak of, and I drew my own conclusions."

"Well, you ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Mrs. Jones, very warmly, "thoroughly ashamed of yourself. As it happens the meeting was a pure accident. Mr. Skidd has been publis.h.i.+ng some poetry; he told me about it at first; in fact he showed the first poem to me, and asked me what I thought," said Mrs. Jones, not without a pardonable little glow of satisfaction. "I thought it beautiful. Then the editor of some magazine in London came down and arranged to have all she wrote. He called by accident and met Mrs. Drayton, and they talked business. How you can put such an ill-natured construction on so simple a thing I cannot make out."

"My dear, I really--putting two and two together--I thought----"

"I shall be afraid of speaking to any one now for fear of your seeing evil in it--Mr. Paul Lyons, for instance--I shall refuse to shake hands with him."

"My dear, I wish you would not go off at a tangent like that. It is a very different thing. You are not in her position; you are not young and beautiful, and.... What in the world is the matter now?"