The Rosery Folk

“Then my visit will not have been in vain,” cried the doctor merrily. Then he ejaculated, “Hah!” very softly, and closed his eyes as he partook of the sweet rich draught, set down the glass, and after wiping his lips, exclaimed:

“‘Serenely calm, the epicure may say’ – ”

“O yes; I know,” said Sir James, catching him up. “‘Fate cannot harm me – I have dined to-day.’ But you have not dined yet, old fellow; and you shall have such a salad! My own growing; Kitty’s making. Come along now, and let’s look round. Prayle’s here.”

“Is he?” said the doctor, raising his eye-brows slightly, and his tone seemed to say: “I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Yes, poor fellow; he’s working too hard, and I brought him down to stay a bit. Now you’ve come, and we’ll have – ”

“No, no; I must get back. None of your unmanly temptations. I’m going to catch the last up-train to-night.”

“One of your patients in a dangerous state, I suppose?” said Scarlett, with a humorous glance at his wife.

“No: worse luck! I’ve no patients waiting for me. I say, old fellow, you haven’t a rich old countess about here – baroness would do – one who suffers from chronic spleen, as the French call it? Get me called in there, you know, and make me her confidential attendant.”

“Why, there’s Lady Martlett,” said Scarlett, with another glance at his wife which plainly said: “Hold your tongue, dear.”

“Widow lady. Just the body. I dare say she’ll be here before long.”

“Oh, but I’m off back to-night.”

“Are you?” said Scarlett, – “Kitty, my dear, Jack Scales is your prisoner. You are the châtelaine here, and as your superior, I order you to render him up to me safe and sound for transport back to town this day month. Why, Jack, you promised to help me drain the pond. We’ll do it now you’re down.”

“Oh, nonsense; I must go back.”

“Yes; that’s what all prisoners say or think,” said Scarlett, laughing – “Don’t be too hard upon the poor fellow, dear. He may have as much milk as he likes. Soften his confinement as pleasantly us you can. – Excuse me, Jack. There’s Prayle.”

He nodded, and went off down one of the paths, and his departure seemed to have taken with it some of the freedom and ease of the conversation that had been carried on; the doctor’s manner becoming colder, and the bright girlish look fading out of Lady Scarlett’s face.

“This is very, very kind of you both,” said the doctor, turning to her; “but I really ought not to stay.”

“James will be quite hurt, I am sure, if you do not,” she answered. “He thinks so much of you.”

“I’m glad of it,” said the doctor earnestly; and Lady Scarlett’s face brightened a little. “He’s one of the most frank and open-hearted fellows in the world. It’s one of the bright streaks in my career that we have always remained friends. Really I envy him his home here, though I fear that I should be out of place in such a country-life.”

“I do not think you would, Doctor Scales,” said his hostess, “but of course he is busy the greater part of his time in town, and that makes the change so nice.”

“But you?” said the doctor. “Do you not find it dull when he is away?”

“I? I find it dull?” she cried, with a girlish laugh. “Oh dear, no. I did for the first month, but you have no idea how busy I am. James has made me such a gardener; and I superintend. Come and see my poultry and the cows.”

“To be sure I will,” said the doctor more warmly, as they walked on towards a fence which separated them from a meadow running down to the river, where three soft fawn-coloured Jersey cows were grazing, each of which raised its head slowly, and came up, munching the sweet grass, to put its deer-like head over the fence to feel the touch of its mistress’s hand.

“Are they not beauties?” cried Lady Scarlett. “There’s your friend Dolly,” she continued. “She won’t hurt you.”

“I’m not afraid,” said the doctor, smiling; and then a visit was paid to where the poultry came rushing up to be fed, and then follow their mistress; while the pigeons hovered about, and one more venturesome than the others settled upon her head.

They saw no more of Scarlett till just before dinner, when they met him with Prayle; and now it was that, after feeling warmer and more friendly towards his young hostess than he ever had felt before, the unpleasant sense of distance and of chill came back, as the doctor was shown up into his room.

“I’m afraid I’m prejudiced,” he said. “She’s very charming, and the natural girlish manner comes in very nicely at times; but somehow, Kate Scarlett, I never thought you were quite the wife for my old friend. – Let’s play fair,” he said, as he stood contemplatively wiping his hands upon a towel that smelt of the pure fresh air. “What have I to say against her?”

He remained silent for a few moments, and then said aloud: “Nothing; only that she has always seemed to distrust me, and I have distrusted her. Why, I believe we are jealous of each other’s influence with poor old Jem.”

He laughed as he said these words, and then went down-stairs, to find that his stay at the Rosery was to be more lively than he had anticipated, for, upon entering the drawing-room, he was introduced by Lady Scarlett to a stern-looking, grey, elderly lady as “my Aunt Sophia – Miss Raleigh,” and to a rather pretty girl, “Miss Naomi Raleigh,” the former of which two ladies he had to take in to dinner.

Volume One – Chapter Five.

The Doctor on Nerves

The dinner at the Rosery was all that was pleasant and desirable, saving that Doctor Scales felt rather disappointed in having to take in Aunt Sophia. He was not a ladies’ man, he said, when talking of such matters, and would have been better content to have gone in alone. He was not much pleased either at being very near Mr Arthur Prayle, to whom he at once took a more decided dislike, being, as he acknowledged to himself, exceedingly ready to form antipathies, and prejudiced in the extreme.

“Ah,” he said to himself, “one ought to be satisfied;” and he glanced round the prettily decorated table, and uttered a sigh of satisfaction as the sweet scents of the garden floated in through the open window. Then he uttered another similar sigh, for there were scents in the room more satisfying to a hungry man.

“Perhaps you’d like the window shut, auntie?” said Sir James.

“No, my dear; it would be a shame: the weather is so fine. – You don’t think it will give me rheumatism in the shoulder, do you, doctor?”

“No, madam, certainly not,” said Scales. “You are not over-heated.”

“Then we will have it open,” said Aunt Sophia decisively.

“Do you consider that rheumatism always comes from colds, Doctor Scales?” said Arthur Prayle, bending forward from his seat beside his hostess, and speaking in a bland smooth tone.

“That fellow’s mouth seems to me as if it must be lined with black velvet,” thought the doctor. “Bother him! if I believed in metempsychosis, I should say he would turn into a black Tom-cat. He purrs and sets up his back, and seems as if he must have a tail hidden away under his coat. – No, decidedly not,” he said aloud. “I think people often suffer from a kind of rheumatic affection due to errors of diet.”

“Dear me! how strange.”

“Then we shall have Aunt Sophia laid up,” said Sir James, “for she is always committing errors in diet.”

“Now, James!” began the lady in protestation.

“Now, auntie, you know you’d eat a whole cucumber on the sly, if you had the chance.”

“No, no, my dear; that is too bad. I confess that I do like cucumber, but not to that extent.”

“Well, Naomi, I hope you are ready for plenty of boating, now you have come down,” said Scarlett. “We must brown you a bit; you are too fair. – Isn’t she, Jack?”

“Not a bit,” said the doctor, who was enjoying his salmon. “A lady can’t be too fair.”

Aunt Sophia looked at him sharply; but Jack Scales’s eyes had not travelled in the direction of Naomi, and when he raised them to meet Aunt Sophia’s, there was a frank ingenuous look in them that disarmed a disposition on the lady’s part to set up her feathers and defend her niece.

“I think young ladies ought to be fair and pretty; don’t you, ma’am?”

“Ye-es; in reason,” said Aunt Sophia, bridling slightly.

“I side with you, Jack,” said their host, with a tender look at his wife.

“Yes,” said Prayle slowly; “one naturally expects a lady to be beautiful; but, alas! how soon does beauty fade.”