CHAPTER XVIII.DORA IS THE NEXT MESSENGER WITH BAD TIDINGS.Thereis a curious feeling abroad in the world, that no two things happen alike on two days, or in two weeks, or months, running. If there has been a railway accident on Monday, there will certainly not be another of the same kind at the same place on Tuesday. Apart from the fresh precautions sure to be taken, it is not at all likely, in the chapter of accidents, that a facsimile will occur where the original has preceded it so recently. On a similar principle, if a man has been killed or badly injured by a fall from a horse, it goes against public opinion that his son or his brother should also be thus injured. If the singular repetition does take place, people will speak of it with bated breath, as of a fate or doom hanging over the family, and therefore bound to repeat itself again and again on the old lines. All this is in spite of the fact that there is such a word as "coincidence" in the language,and that there is hardly one of us who cannot remember several startling coincidences in the course of his or her history.Annie Millar had an experience of the kind at this time. It was on the 20th of June that May arrived unannounced at St. Ebbe's to recount her lost battle. On the 21st Dora appeared, in a like unlooked-for manner, to divulge her sorrowful news.Annie was much more troubled by the spectacle of Dora standing alone in the middle of the hospital drawing-room, pale and agitated, than she had been by the discovery of May in that very condition the day before. Annie's own colour died away while she ran forward and caught Dora's hand. "What is it, Dora? Has anything happened to father or mother?—yet if there had, you would not have left them and come up to town by yourself. Why are you here? Tell me quickly, for it is killing me to keep me in suspense.""Don't be alarmed," entreated Dora's soft voice. "Father sent me up for the express purpose that you might not be alarmed when you heard. I must have managed badly to frighten you. I assure you nothing has happened, at least nothing very particular, only,—well, father is very rheumatic, and the warm weather has done him no good. He has not been out of the house for a month, thoughwe did not mention it in our letters, always hoping that by the next time we wrote he would be better. But he has not left his room till he contrived to go in the cab yesterday. Oh! Annie, he has sold his business to Dr. Capes. He—father—said it was no use to protract the struggle, it was only doing more mischief; he would never be able, at his age, to go about again so as to act fairly by his patients. He has given up everything to the bank's creditors, and will pass through the bankruptcy court. He bade me tell you that he could see no other way, and he was afraid Rose or you might read his name in theGazettewithout being prepared for it.""Father ill, old, and a bankrupt!" Annie's cry was bitter. "It is hard after his long life of honourable industry. I can never forgive Mr. Carey.""Hush! hush! Annie, you must not say that. Nothing would grieve father more. Nobody has suffered like the Careys. Besides, father always says that he alone was to blame for buying the bank shares. He did it of his own free-will, just that he might grow richer in the idlest manner possible for him to do so. Dr. Capes has taken our house, the Old Doctor's House too, and father and mother went into apartments—those over Robarts the book-seller's—yesterday, till they could look about them." Dora was crying quietly all the time she was speaking, and at the same time she was breaking off tosay with pathetic resigned trust like her mother's, "But only think, Annie dear, how much worse it might have been! What a great deal we have to be thankful for. Look at poor Mr. Carey sitting paralyzed, and quite childish; and do you know the sad news arrived last night that poor poor Colonel Russell is dead? He had a sun-stroke, and died within twelve hours; he has not been three months at his new post. Dear father has all his senses, and he says himself he may live for years and years.""I hope so," said Annie fervently; but it is doubtful whether she fully appreciated the blessings of her lot at that moment. She busied herself for a few minutes with Dora, her nurse's instinct as well as her affection telling her that Dora must be seen to first. Annie took off Dora's hat and jacket, seated her in the easiest chair, would hear nothing more till she—Annie—had learnt when Dora had breakfasted, and then rung for a basin of soup and made her swallow it. "Now, Dora," she said, sitting down by her sister, "tell me all there is to tell. What have father and mother to live upon? We must think and act for them now."Dora explained as well as she was able, since, like her mother, she had no great head for business. In addition to the sum given for the good-will of Dr. Millar's practice, and for his house and furniture,which was to be paid over to the liquidators of the bank's debts, (in return for which the debtor would get a discharge from farther obligations,) a small percentage was to be allowed to him from his successor's fees."I am afraid it will be very small," Dora made the despondent remark, "because, though all his former patients are fond of father, they got to see he was breaking up, and did not like to send for him during the night, or at odd hours. Mother and I did what we could, going round for him and inquiring after his patients; but, as he said, such a make-shift could not last. We were always hearing of more families calling in Dr. Capes or Mr. Newton. Father declared he could not blame them; he would have done the same in their place, and that every dog must have his day.""That was like father," said Annie, looking up with a fleeting sparkle in her eyes."Then we thought," went on Dora, "father and mother might have part of mother's money, since you have always said you did not need it, while Rose is getting paid for her work, and there is hardly any doubt" (brightening up,) "but that 'little May' will take the scholarship. She was working so hard to pass her examination when she wrote last, that she was quite out of spirits about her chances, which father says is always the waywith the best men when they are going in for an examination that they are safe to win. He supposes it will be still more so with women. He tells mother that he will not mind taking help from her, where her money is concerned, when he can no longer stir from his chair—not to say to earn a fee, but to save his life. He has taken so much more help from her in other ways during all their married life, that this in addition will not count."CHAPTER XIX.THE UNEMPLOYED—A FAMILIAR FACE.A lodgingwas found near the Hospital for Dora, who was to stay in town and look out for a situation; and for the next week, a week of hot summer weather, Annie, relieved from her hospital work, because it was her first holiday time, went to and fro, spending as little as possible on omnibus fares, with Dora and May in her train, in search of employment for them. People were beginning to leave town, and the time did not seem propitious. When was it ever propitious for such a pursuit where women are concerned? Even under Annie's able guidance, with the spirit which she could summon to her aid in all difficulties, the intentional and unintentional rebuffs which the two girl candidates, particularly Dora, got from agents and principals in connection with ladies in want of useful companions and nursery-governesses were innumerable. The swarms of needy, greedy applicants for similar situations whom the Millarswere perpetually encountering in their rounds, were enough to cause the stoutest heart to quail, and to sink the most sanguine nature into the depths of despondency.Dora Millar was not constitutionally sanguine, and she grew more and more nervous and dispirited as the fruitless efforts went on. Her little figure drooped, her eyes had a dejected expression, her lips quivered pathetically without any provocation. Annie was compelled to use strong language. "The idiots!" she exclaimed,aproposof the last persons who had found Dora too young or too old, not strong enough looking, or not lively enough looking ("not as if she could stand a large amount of bullying and worrying," Annie read between the lines). "What a chance they are letting slip through their fingers of getting the most unexacting, contented creature in the world to minister to their tiresome wants. They will never see her like again; serve them right for their blindness."One particularly glaring, airless afternoon, the three sisters were toiling back to Dora's lodging, with the London pavement like heated iron under the feet of the crowds that trod it, and the cloudless sky, in which the sun blazed a ball of fire, like glowing brass over their heads. Then as the Millars turned a corner and looked longingly at the trees in a square with their leaves alreadyyellowing and shrivelling, May uttered a little shriek of delight and darted forward to greet a familiar figure and face in the stream of strangers. What did it signify that the figure was insignificant by comparison, and the face with nothing distinguished in its pallor, under its red beard and moustache?—"a little foxy-headed fellow," any sharp-tongued bystander might have called him. It was a well-known face where all the others were drearily unknown, a Redcross face in London, the face of a man who might have shown himself an enemy, yet had proved a friend in need; and though there had been presented to the girls the bearing of a Jupiter and the lineaments of an Adonis, they could not have hailed him with greater gladness. If anybody hung back in the general acclamation it was Dora, for Annie did not say a word to rebuke May; she was too anxious to hear the last news of her father.More than one man among the passers-by, glancing at Tom Robinson surrounded by a group of pretty girls, the two prettiest evidently making much of him and hanging on his words, called him in their minds "lucky dog," and speculated on the nature of the attraction."'Prope'ty, prope'ty, prope'ty,'" no doubt. It was disgraceful to see how mercenary even quite young women were getting.Tom received the ovation, at which, by the bye, he was a little taken aback and puzzled, quietly and in a matter-of-fact way, as he received most things. He had had the pleasure of seeing Dr. and Mrs. Millar lately; indeed, he had availed himself of the privileges of an old friend to call on them at once in their new quarters, he told Annie, and he had found them, by their own account, fairly well and comfortable, though the Doctor was still dead lame.Tom did not tell either Annie, or any one else interested in the information, that he had spent the last few days pushing the circulation of a subscription list, which he had headed with the promise of a handsome sum. It was to provide a testimonial not altogether inadequate to mark the esteem in which the townspeople held their old Doctor for his many virtues, and their sympathy with him in his misfortunes. A liberal offering on the town's part might do something to relieve the adversity which had befallen a fellow-townsman. The talk a little time ago had been of presenting Dr. Millar with a new brougham and horse, which, as they would have had to be maintained at the charge of a man who had just put down his old brougham as beyond his diminished income, was rather an illogical method of serving him. However, his complete breakdown, with the sale of his practice,had at once knocked that idea on the head, and had given its motive a much wider application. If the little Doctor were to submit to accept help, it must be commensurate with the dignity of Redcross and the county, and with his own professional status and merit.Tom Robinson looked at the girls as two of them looked at him. "It is tiring weather," he suggested hesitatingly; "is it wise of you to walk out in the heat?""Oh! Mr. Robinson," cried May effusively, "we are so tired—just dead beat—though Annie there does not like me to talk slang—but it is so expressive, don't you think so? It is not to-day only, but yesterday and the day before, we have been hunting for situations, and have not found them yet. Do you know, Dora and I are going to take situations immediately if we can get them?"His face changed, and he knit his brow involuntarily."What a magpie it is!" said Annie, impatiently. "But, of course, you have heard all about the turn father's affairs have taken since this bad rheumatic attack, which he does not believe he can shake off. It need not be any secret that my sisters are looking out for situations."He did not answer; he was prevented by thepainful consciousness that Dora appeared ready to sink into the ground."Won't you avail yourself of my arm, Miss Dora? Won't you let me see you home?" he proposed hurriedly.She could not refuse; indeed, she was only too thankful for the offered support, though she murmured a protest against troubling him and taking him out of his way. And she could not altogether conceal how put out as well as weary she was, so that the little hand, which just touched his coat-sleeve, fluttered on its resting-place like a newly-caught bird.He hailed a cab, and wished to put them all into it."I dare say it would be better," said Annie, glancing at Dora's white face, with the new trick of quivering which the lips had acquired. As the cab was driving up, she gave Tom Robinson their address—"17, Little St. Ebbe's Street," with the amount of the fare, looking at him almost fiercely while she took the money from her purse. "Will you be good enough to direct the man and pay him for us?" she said, and he dared not dispute her will.But when he yielded, she seemed to think his friendliness and power of comprehension deserved something better than they had got. "Will youcome with us?" Annie invited him; and when she softened, it was always in such a bright frank way that it was hard to resist her. "We'll be very pleased to give you a cup of tea at Dora's lodging—at least we can do that for you, and it may be acceptable on such an oppressive afternoon."He, a guest at a lodging of Dora Millar's: it sounded odd enough!"Do come, Mr. Robinson," his friend May was imploring, while Dora, sensible that something was due from her as the ostensible mistress of the lodging, echoed shyly, without raising her eyes to his face, "Yes, come, please."Did she remember the last time she gave him tea in the drawing-room of the Old Doctor's House, where they were not likely to meet again? How awkward they found thetête-à-tête. How they shrank from their hands touching, while he reproached her for aiding and abetting May in trying to shirk going to St. Ambrose's; and she had borne his reproaches and admitted the reasonableness of his arguments, with all the meek candour of Dora, while still making a last stand for May.He went with the girls as if he were in a dream; but he was not left to dream in Dora's very plain lodging, where Annie and not the mistress of the lodging poured out tea, and May insisted on helpinghim to bread and butter. He saw Rose, too, who had been awaiting the return of her sisters. It sent another pang to his brotherly heart to discover that Rose also was subdued and well-nigh careworn. She still wrinkled her forehead and crumpled up her nose, but it was no longer in the old saucy way; it was under her share of the heavy burden of trouble which had fallen on these dauntless girls and might end by crushing them.May was not to be kept from the immense solace of making a clean breast to her former ally of her stupid dawdling and trifling, and the retribution which had at once befallen her. "Did father tell you, Mr. Robinson, that I have failed in my examination?" she began plaintively. "Yes, I have, and it was all my own fault. I was too silly; I would not pull myself together and work hard from the first. Now it will never be in my power to go back to St. Ambrose's. I'll not be able to atone for my folly by showing that everybody was not wrong when it was believed that I might be a fair scholar, win a scholarship, and rise to be classical mistress in a girls' school." At the announcement of the disastrous failure, by her own deed, of all the ambitious plans for her, May threatened to break down, springing up and turning away, her shoulders heaving in a paroxysm of mortification and grief.Tom Robinson used to say, afterwards, that henever witnessed a prettier sight than the manner in which the three other girls rallied round their poor "little May," from Annie downwards. They took off her hat, pulled off her gloves, smoothed her ruffled hair, patted her tear-stained cheeks, seated her in an arm-chair, brought her tea, and made her drink it, bidding her not be too disheartened. They pledged themselves—even Dora pledged herself stoutly—that, if it rested with them, and they were young and strong, they would find work of one kind or another—May should go back to St. Ambrose's some day and vindicate her scholarliness. Father and mother and all of them would be proud of her.It rendered the man doubly indignant from that day when he heard scoffers say that there could be no true friendship between women, and that the relation of sisters existed simply for the growth of rivalry and jealousy.May was still shaking her head disconsolately, and reminding him, "Ah, Mr. Robinson, it would have been better if you had let me stay at home and go into your shop, like Phyllis Carey. I might have done some good there, though you may not believe it, and only feel glad that you got rid of me."Then he took her in hand, and administered his consolation. "Nonsense, Miss May," he said, withsufficient peremptoriness for a man who had been rather accustomed to efface himself in these girls' presence, "you were not to be suffered to hide your light under a bushel. I wonder to hear you—I thought you had more pluck and perseverance. How many times do you think the young fellows at St. Ambrose's are turned back and have to try again? If I passed in my first exam, it was by the merest fluke, as three-fourths of the men will tell you they pass. As for my degree, I had the common sense and modesty to put off taking it to the last moment, and to stay up two different vacations, 'sapping' like a Scotchman, before I ventured to undergo the test. You don't mean to say you are too proud to do at Rome as the Romans do, that your genius will brook no rejection, and declines to grapple with an obstacle? I'll tell you what your father proposes for you, and let me say that I believe it would do him a world of good—now that he has been forced to give up his patients, and is confined to his chair. He has not lost heart and faith in your powers—of course not. He is thinking quite eagerly of brushing up his classics in his enforced leisure, and himself becoming your coach for the next six months. I need not say that any small assistance I can offer is heartily at your service also.""Oh!" said May, with wistful brown eyes anda long-drawn sigh, "you are a great deal too good to me, all of you. I don't deserve it. It would only be too much happiness for me to have father and you to coach me—but I know we could not afford it.""Wait and see," said Tom succinctly."If I got that situation," said Dora timidly, "I might do something to help May: I mean the one where the lady said she would take me into consideration, but we thought it would not do, because I should have to go out to Jamaica. On second thoughts, I am not sure that I'd mind so very much going. The lady seemed to consider I might be able to do what she required, and I should only be away for a year or two, since the family are coming back then. The salary was very good."Dora go out to Jamaica to help May, or any one else! Not though he had to fling cheques in at the windows, and squeeze Bank of England notes through the keyholes, to prevent it."Hester Jennings says she would not be very much surprised if she heard of a buyer for my tulip picture; but I don't know," said Rose doubtfully, glancing at the picture, which was on an adjoining table."May I look at it?" asked Tom Robinson, jumping up with alacrity, probably to make a diversion in the conversation from the obnoxioustopic of Dora's problematical voyage to Jamaica. He had seen Rose's work at Redcross, and he could give it as his honest opinion that she had made a great advance in her art, though he did not profess to be a judge. He said, however, that he had a friend, an old St. Ambrose crony, who was an artist. They had happened to be together in Rome at a later date, had been a good deal thrown on each other's company there, and had continued to keep up a friendly intercourse. He requested permission for his friend to call and look at the little picture. He might be of use to Rose in disposing of it; he was always ready to help a fellow-artist. Tom supposed the Millars had heard his friend's name, it was pretty well known; indeed they might have seen him, for Pemberton and Lady Mary, his wife, had spent a few days with Tom at Redcross, and had been in church on the Sunday during their visit, the summer before last.In spite of the obligations of good breeding, the Millars looked at each other in open-mouthed astonishment. Certainly they had heard of Pemberton the distinguished landscape painter, and they had been told that he had married into the peerage, as Aunt Penny had married into the county. The girls also remembered perfectly the quiet-looking young couple who had been noticed walking about with Tom Robinson the July beforelast. People had wondered languidly who the strangers could be—whether they were cousins far removed on Tom's father's side of the house, since they did not quite answer to the style of his mother's yeomen kindred. But it was an effort to the provincial mind to identify the unobtrusive-looking pair with the Pembertons, to realize that Mr. Pemberton and his Lady Mary had actually come and stayed the better part of a week with Tom Robinson. They could hardly have been ignorant of "Robinson's," whose master was only received into the upper-class houses of the town on a species of sufferance.The peerage must have unique rules by which to frame its standards. There was the Hon. Victoria, Mrs. Carey's niece by marriage, who, when Carey's Bank was in full bloom, would hardly be seen in the streets of Redcross, and scarcely deigned to acknowledge her own aunt-in-law. As to the familiarity of staying a night in the Bank House, she would never have dreamt of it. In this respect she did little credit to the teaching of her old governess, Miss Franklin, who had shown herself a philosopher in her own person. Perhaps, when it came to stooping at all, the peerage felt it might as soon, and with a still more gracious and graceful effect, bend low as bend slightly. Perhaps in the peerage, as in every otherclass, there are all sorts and conditions of mind and heart.A little clue might have been supplied to account for the eccentricity of the Pembertons, and to lessen the shock of their conduct to the Millars, if the latter had been made acquainted with one circumstance. About the time of the stay of the artist and his wife in Rome, where he had been only too glad to run up against a favourite old college chum, when the three had been making a long excursion in company beyond the Campagna, Pemberton had been suddenly attacked in a remote little town with a violent illness.His poor young wife would have been utterly frightened and forlorn had it not been for the moral courage and untiring good offices of the third person in the company—Tom Robinson.Tom did not appear conscious of the sensation he had created by the mention of his friend. He arranged when Mr. Pemberton should come and view Rose's picture to suit Rose's convenience, and not that of the famous and courted artist. Then he explained in all sincerity, before he took his leave, that he, Tom Robinson, was very sorry he could not have the pleasure of bringing Pemberton and introducing him personally, because a business engagement called the master of "Robinson's" back to Redcross early next morning.The party he left were quite silent and still for a moment after he had gone, till what she had heard of Mr. Pemberton went to Rose's head to such a degree that she rose, whirled round on tiptoe, and caused her spread-out frock to perform the feat which children call "making a cheese.""Won't it be delicious to know Mr. Pemberton and get his advice—perhaps one day presume to ask him how he does his hay-fields and orchards? What will Hester Jennings say! I say, we'll have Hester to meet him; she will come for such a painter though the whole peerage would not get her to budge an inch. I wish we could tone her down a little bit, but he must just swallow her whole. She is good and clever enough to be permitted that rugged line of her own. Oh! but isn't Tom Robinson a trump? Iwillbe slangy, Annie—as May says, it is so expressive.""Yes, yes," chimed in May enthusiastically, in reference to the man and not to the slang. "I have known it ever since he came up like a lion—why do you laugh, Rose?—and rescued Tray—don't you remember, Dora?—from that horrid brute of a collie. Tray bit him—Mr. Robinson, I mean—not knowing that he was his best friend, and he only laughed. He was so kind about my wishing to go into his shop, like Phyllis Carey, though he would not take me. I think it must be a privilege,as Miss Franklin tells Phyllis, to serve him. She says all the nice people in the shop have the greatest regard for him.""I am so sorry and ashamed that I ever drew caricatures of him," said Rose, in pensive penitence. "I think, whenever I am able, I must paint his portrait, as I see him now, to make up for it.""And ask him to have it hung above the oak staircase in the shop," suggested Annie, a little satirically. But she added immediately, "Though it broke no bones to dwell on his lack of height and his foxy complexion, I am rather sorry now that I did it, because I have ceased to think that these objectionable details deserved to be made of any consequence. On the contrary, I own to the infatuation of beginning to see that there is something fine in them. I suppose I shall be calling Tom Robinson's hair golden, or tawny, or chestnut soon, and his inches the proper height for a man. It is true," broke off Annie, with sudden, unaccountable perversity, "I do hate great lumbering flaxen-haired giants." She blushed furiously after she had indulged in the last digression, and hastened to resume the main thread of the conversation. "As for Tom Robinson's having little to say, I declare that my present impression is that he says quite enough, and very much to the purpose too. It was so nice and like a gentleman of him not topropose immediately to buy Rose's picture when she talked rashly of her anxiety that it should find a purchaser.""I don't think Cyril Carey, with all his airs, would have shown so much delicacy in the old days," said Rose."Or that Ned Hewett, though Ned has such a kind heart, would have been able to avoid blundering into some such offer," remarked May.There was one person who remained absolutely silent while the others sang Tom Robinson's praises, and it might be her silence which called her sisters' attention to her."I wonder what you would have, Dora?" said Rose, with several shades of superciliousness in her voice and in her lifted-up nose."I cannot understand how you could be such a cruel, hard-hearted girl," May actually reproached her devoted slave."There is such a thing as being too particular," Annie had the coolness to say. "I am sure I do not go in for indiscriminate marriages or for falling in love," she added with lofty decision. "It has always been a mystery to me what poor Fanny Russell could see to care for, or to do anything save laugh at, in Cyril Carey. I hope the elderly 'competition wallah,' or commissioner, or whatever he is, whom she is going to marry, has more senseas well as more money. For her marriage was arranged, though the news had not reached England, mother writes, before the tidings of Colonel Russell's death came. But when a man who can act as Tom Robinson has acted crosses a woman's path and pays her the compliment of asking her to be his wife, I do think she should be careful what she answers."Dora stared as if she were losing her senses. Were they laughing at her still? Could they be in earnest? If so, how was it possible for them to be so flagrantly inconsistent and unjust? She could only utter a single exclamation. But as the worm will turn, the exclamation was emphatic and indignant enough. "Well!" she cried, in utter amazement and incipient rebellion. "Well!" and she returned the challenging gaze of the circle with a counter-challenge, before which all eyes except Annie's fell.Annie had the audacity to look Dora in the face and echo the "Well!" nay, to say further, "You never heard of anything so disgraceful as for us to turn upon you and find fault with you for refusing Tom Robinson, when all the time it was we who laughed at him, and scouted his shop, keeping you up to the point of dismissing him without delay? Quite true, Dora, dear; but then it was you, and notus, whom he was proposing to marry! and agirl old enough to receive such a proposal should have the wit to judge for herself—should she not? She ought to cultivate the penetration to look beneath the surface in so important a matter, and then fewer lamentable mistakes would be made. However, nobody could expect you to put force on your inclinations, and he does not bear you malice."Annie did not regard her share in the matter so cheerfully and lightly when she was in the privacy of a ward of St. Ebbe's, where she had begged to sit up with an unconscious patient, just to keep her hand in and compose her feelings."What mischievous little wretches we were," she reflected, as she deftly changed the wet cloth on the sick woman's hot forehead. "How happy he might have made Dora, and how happy she might have made him! She is so single-minded and tender-hearted, that she could hardly have failed to see his merits, if we had given him the chance, let her alone, and left the pair to themselves. Then, if the worst were to come to the worst," and Annie frowned with anxiety and grief, as well as with wholesome humiliation, "if poor father and mother cannot get along, and none of us girls can help them effectually, his house might have been their home, where he would never have let them feel other than honoured guests. He would havebeen a son to them. But the mischief is done, and there is no help for it. If Dora and he were an ordinary couple, it might be mended; but now she will not look at him when we none of us have a penny, because she refused him when we were in comfortable circumstances; and he will not renew his suit with the thought in his mind that it would look and feel to her as if any favour he has magnanimously conferred on us, were a mere bribe to compel her to listen to him. So, Annie Millar, this is a pretty kettle of fish, of which you have been chief cook! There is the greater reason for you to make up your mind from this moment to devote yourself wholly to your family, and let nothing—nothing," she protested with suspicious vehemence, "come between you and them.""What is it, you poor soul?" the young nurse responded quickly to a movement of the helpless ailing creature beside her. "Do you know there is somebody here? Will it ease you to have your head raised on my arm, do you think? You cannot hear or answer, but we'll try that, and then it is just possible you may drop asleep." And for the rest of the watch Annie was absorbed in care for her patient.CHAPTER XX.REDCROSS AGAIN.Tom Robinson'ssubscription list attained the respectable sum-total of two thousand pounds. Many of the subscribers were not only patients of Dr. Millar, but creditors of the bank whose claims he had striven with sturdy honesty to satisfy, till the task proved too hard for his years.The little Doctor received the token of how greatly his courage and staunchness in the fulfilment of his obligations had been respected, with half pained, half pleased gratitude, and this was very much the attitude of mind of his daughter Annie. The rest of his womankind, from Mrs. Millar to May, only felt a glad surprise, and a soft, proud thankfulness.The relief from present difficulties was great, but of course the gift did not obviate the necessity for the girls seeking work and wages. Even May, when she ventured to hope that she might stay at home for a month or two and be coached by herfather and Tom Robinson in anticipation of a more successful campaign at St. Ambrose's, was eagerly speculating whether she might not become a coach in her turn. She was fain to earn a little money by helping the very youngest of the Grammar School boys to prepare their Latin grammar in the evenings, supposing she could get them to sit still, and give over wishing her to play with them.Mr. Pemberton had not only himself called on the Miss Millar who was the artist, he had brought Lady Mary with him, and both husband and wife had turned out the refined, thoroughly unassuming, kindly disposed couple they had looked. They spoke warmly of Tom Robinson as their very good friend, and went so far as to express enthusiasm for his beautiful old shop. Mr. Pemberton did better than merely say a few words of languid, indiscriminating praise of Rose's picture, and then bow himself out. He examined the picture closely, and looked at her thoughtfully and attentively out of the dark gray eyes, the only good feature in his face. The next moment, to Hester Jennings's great edification, he addressed Rose seriously as a member of the Guild of St. Luke—not an amateur, "one of ourselves, so that you must not mind what I say to you, Miss Millar." He first displayed a generous capacity for discovering something good, whether it were to be found in the work of a tyro or of aveteran. Next he took the trouble of pointing out the faults, and urging their remedy, telling her the picture was worth the pains of making it as true as possible, until Rose hung her head in blended pride and humility.What was more, he offered to enter into negotiations with a picture-dealer on her behalf, and brought them to a triumphant conclusion, making Rose happy with so fair a price as materially to lighten the millstone of her resigned office at the Misses Stone's hanging round her neck.It was settled that May should go home and profit by the coaching which awaited her at Redcross, taking the chance of finding some little boys whose Latin grammar would be the better of her supervision.Next Mr. Pemberton wrote that Lady Mary had been so charmed with the neighbourhood of Redcross, and had spoken so highly of it to one of her cousins, who had a great liking for English landscape, and was just refurnishing his town house, that he wished to commission a set of water-colour sketches of such and such spots for his morning-room. It was Mr. Pemberton's opinion that Miss Rose Millar could execute the commission to Sir John Neville's satisfaction, if she cared to accept of it."It is to help me," said Rose humbly, "for there are hundreds of good artists who would take thework and be thankful, and do it far better, though I will do my very best. Tom Robinson is at the bottom of it directly or indirectly, but he is like an old friend. I don't know a man to whom I would sooner be obliged."In the third instance, a totally unforeseen application was made to Annie. A fever, in certain respects unfamiliar in its type, broke out at Stokeleigh, one of several suburban villages on the outskirts of Redcross. Some authorities called the fever Russian, and declared it had been imported—they did not pretend to say how—from that remote empire. Others insisted it was a slow fever, of English growth, with curious complications. It appeared doubtful whether it were infectious; but there was one thing which was unmistakable, that, whatever kind of malaria brooding in the summer air was at the root of the complaint, that malaria showed a disposition to spread extensively. It passed from Stokeleigh to the adjoining village of Woodleigh, whence it took a bend in the direction of the town, and proceeded to squat, as malarias can squat, and settle indefinitely on all the low-lying districts of Redcross. Neither did the epidemic improve in character with the change of locality. For, whereas on the higher, less encumbered ground the fever had been rarely fatal, the mortality increased with the transfer of the diseaseto the crowded, damp purlieus of the older part of the town, built more or less on the Dewes, and liable to be invaded by the river in flood.A combined meeting of the Town Council and Vestry, with the Mayor, who happened to be a public-spirited man, and the Rector heading it, determined on taking prompt action to stop the mischief. The town had lately built a Corn Exchange in one of the highest, best-ventilated situations in Redcross. It was to be committed to the care of a town's officer and his wife, who were to have the adjoining rooms rent-free for a domicile, together with certain perquisites, in return for sweeping, scrubbing, and looking after the hall. But the place was just finished, and had not yet been occupied in the manner intended. It was proposed to convert it, in the absence of other accommodation, into a temporary ward for the sufferers from fever. The doctors consulted, pledged themselves that there was every probability of the unwelcome visitor being thus stamped out, while the chances of recovery for the patients would be multiplied. It was also agreed to bring a trained nurse from some nursing institution, to mould the raw nursing materials which Redcross supplied on the emergency. Dr. Millar's successor had a bright idea that it might be a graceful act on his part to mention the old Doctor's daughter, who had gone in fornursing as a profession. She had already served nearly a year in a great London hospital, and was no doubt competent to undertake the duties required. It would be a compliment to her and her father to try and get her for the occasion, and there would be a certainéclatin her coming to the help of her native town in its need. Dr. Capes was right as to the popularity of his motion. It was received with unanimous approval. Annie, the matron, and the directors of St. Ebbe's, were immediately applied to in proper form. Annie burned to go, if such a step were admissible at the present stage of her career. The favour she had won on all sides aided in the fulfilment of her wishes. She was promoted from the ranks of the probationers to those of the nurses while yet her year wanted a fraction of its complete round, and was officially sent down to represent the nurses of St. Ebbe's at Redcross."Of course, Dora, you cannot be left behind to go on by yourself hunting for a situation with three-fourths of the great world out of town. I am afraid you would make a poor job of it at the best, Dora dear, and at the worst it is not to be thought of; it would be a waste of nerve-tissue and muscle, as well as of pounds, shillings, and pence. You will come too; we'll be all together, or nearly together, again, for a holiday, after all."Dora, who had been waiting patiently for Annie's decision, was nothing loth."Rose's expenses and mine are more than paid," calculated the practical Annie, "so that we shall be no drag on father and mother. I don't know if Robarts's accommodation will extend beyond the additional bedroom for Rose and May, but that can be easily managed. Oh! I have it, Dora, you will stay with me at the hospital—the Corn Exchange I mean—and save me from having a housekeeper for the short time one will be wanted. I'll take care that no infection, if there be infection, will come near you. Oh, 'won't it be jolly,' as Rose says, for you and me to keep house by ourselves at dear old Redcross, of all places in the world?"It was arranged so, with only a little demur from Mrs. Millar, over-ruled by her husband.There was another person, without right or power to enter his veto against the existing order of things, who nevertheless decidedly demurred at them. Tom Robinson showed that though he might be a humane man there were bounds to his humanity. "It is all very well for Annie Millar to come down and nurse the fever patients, it is in the way of her business, she does as much every day, she is well acquainted with all the precautions to take. But Dora is not a nurse, she never thinks ofherself, she will forget to take the precautions if she has ever heard of them. She has not strong nerves, and she is used up with this preposterous stumping of London in July in search of a situation. What in the name of common sense and natural affection do they mean by lugging Dora into the risk!" he grumbled and worried. "Oh! yes, of course she would follow Annie or any of the rest of them fast enough if she had the opportunity, though she were to die at the end of it; but she ought never to have had the opportunity, it was preposterous to let her. The whole thing is monstrous. I never heard of such rashness. What can Dr. and Mrs. Millar be thinking of?"It felt queer, to say the least of it, as well as "jolly," to be at Redcross and not at the Old Doctor's House, over which a bride of yesterday was presiding, for Dr. Capes's marriage had taken place simultaneously with his purchase of Dr. Millar's practice.Annie used to look over from the opposite side of the street, as she was walking along, at the alterations which were being made in the garden, and the new arrangement of the window curtains, and try to criticize them impartially. Then she had to call and see Dr. Capes, and wait in the familiar consulting-room till he insisted on taking her to the drawing-room, in order to introduce herto his wife, who had come a stranger to Redcross. Annie felt as if she were a disembodied spirit, or a dreamer in a dream from which she could not awake, while she gazed on the changed yet well-known aspect of everything around her. But she had to think of Dr. and Mrs. Capes, in whose house she was, and talk civilly to them of their improvements(!). She had to emulate the submission of Dora, who had seen the transfer coming and taken part in it. She had to copy the mercurial spirits of Rose and May. They were so pleased to be with their father and mother again, and to take possession of Phyllis Carey's every free moment, that they declared the Robarts's apartments were the very nicest the girls had ever seen. They, the apartments, were delightfully cosy (which meant stuffy in July). They were more cheerful (noisier) than the Old Doctor's House. It was great fun for the pair to stow themselves and their belongings within such narrow compass.A serious vexation to Annie at the commencement of her enterprise was the arrival of Dr. Harry Ironside to diagnose and make what he could of the fever."What is he doing here? His coming at all is most impertinent," cried Annie indignantly, sitting down on one of the still empty beds in the barrack-like hall, and as it were daring Rose and May, whohad brought the news, and Dora who was listening to them, to contradict her."He is come in the pursuit of knowledge," said Rose, with full command of her countenance. "He does not understand Russian fever, or whatever it is, and he thinks he had better make its acquaintance as a wind up to taking his degree. He is still a doctor at large; he has not fixed on where he is to go and what he is to do next, so his sister Kate writes to me.""Then he and his sister Kate had better make up their minds to go away together, somewhere else, and not trouble other people," cried Annie quite illogically."Why, Annie, father thinks it is very praiseworthy of Dr. Ironside to seek to get all the information he can before settling down as a doctor," remonstrated May in the guilelessness of her heart. "He has just been calling on father, who is delighted with him—so is mother; and, formypart," finished the speaker with unconscious emphasis, as if her opinion were of the utmost consequence, "I have thought him very nice since the first time I met him at Mrs. Jennings's. He is so big and handsome, without being stuck up, or a swell, like what Cyril Carey used to be—just frank and pleasant as a man should be. I cannot comprehend why you have such a dislike to him.""Upon my word!" exclaimed Annie, with a gasp. "But I don't care," she added vehemently; "he shall not come and carry on his investigations here. Dr. Capes and I, with father to appeal to, and Mr. Newton to call in and consult, if necessary, are more than sufficient for all the patients we are likely to get. I tell you, if he forces his way into my hospital I'll have nothing more to do with it; I'll throw it all up and go back to St. Ebbe's at once.""But it is not your hospital, Annie," said Rose with provoking matter-of-factness. "It is the town's, or if it is under the control of any private person, it is under Dr. Capes's orders. For the sake of his professional character, medical etiquette, and all that kind of thing, he will not refuse to allow a fellow-doctor to study the fever cases under his care. Dr. Harry was going to stay at the 'Crown,' but he met Tom Robinson, who said he should be his guest, and carried him off to his house.""Just like Tom Robinson!" declared Annie with amazing asperity."Come along, May." Rose hurried away her sister and satellite, and then let loose her glee. "It is too funny, May; too preposterously funny. It is ever so much better than Dora and Tom Robinson. He was so easily rebuffed, and she wasso reluctant to rebuff him. But here is Annie like one of the furies, and Harry Ironside is silly enough to mind her, so that he can hardly open his mouth before her, and looks as if he had lost his wits. Before Annie! What is our Annie, I should like to know, that she should daunt a clever, high-spirited young fellow such as he is? What strange glamour has she thrown over him? But he has plenty of mettle and determination for all that, and she will no more manage by her tirades to stop him from coming after her and laying siege to her ladyship, than she can keep the sun from shining or the rain from falling. For that matter, I believe the poor fellow cannot help himself; it is the case of the moth and the candle.""But what is it all about?" demanded May, in an utter confusion of ideas. "She speaks as if she hated him, and I thought he had come to Redcross to trace the course of the Russian fever.""To trace the course of his own fortunes. I beg your pardon, my dear, but you might have known enough of human nature to guess that there was a private personal motive at the bottom of his philanthropy.""Then it is the worse for him and a great pity," said May, with the sweet seriousness into which one phase of her childishness was passing. "I wonder you can laugh, Rose. I am alwaysaffronted when I remember how we laughed at Tom Robinson and poor Dora, making game of what was no joke to them. And Dora was not half so much opposed to Tom as Annie is to this unfortunate, nice, pleasant young doctor. I could find it in my heart to be very sorry for him.""Oh! you are a simpleton apart from Latin and Greek. Don't you see that Annie's wrath is neither more nor less than fright? She is frightened out of her senses at him, because she wants to keep her independence and share our fortunes. As I do not remember to have seen her in such a scare before, I should say that she is paying him a high compliment.""I think it is rather a queer compliment," objected May in much perplexity.
Thereis a curious feeling abroad in the world, that no two things happen alike on two days, or in two weeks, or months, running. If there has been a railway accident on Monday, there will certainly not be another of the same kind at the same place on Tuesday. Apart from the fresh precautions sure to be taken, it is not at all likely, in the chapter of accidents, that a facsimile will occur where the original has preceded it so recently. On a similar principle, if a man has been killed or badly injured by a fall from a horse, it goes against public opinion that his son or his brother should also be thus injured. If the singular repetition does take place, people will speak of it with bated breath, as of a fate or doom hanging over the family, and therefore bound to repeat itself again and again on the old lines. All this is in spite of the fact that there is such a word as "coincidence" in the language,and that there is hardly one of us who cannot remember several startling coincidences in the course of his or her history.
Annie Millar had an experience of the kind at this time. It was on the 20th of June that May arrived unannounced at St. Ebbe's to recount her lost battle. On the 21st Dora appeared, in a like unlooked-for manner, to divulge her sorrowful news.
Annie was much more troubled by the spectacle of Dora standing alone in the middle of the hospital drawing-room, pale and agitated, than she had been by the discovery of May in that very condition the day before. Annie's own colour died away while she ran forward and caught Dora's hand. "What is it, Dora? Has anything happened to father or mother?—yet if there had, you would not have left them and come up to town by yourself. Why are you here? Tell me quickly, for it is killing me to keep me in suspense."
"Don't be alarmed," entreated Dora's soft voice. "Father sent me up for the express purpose that you might not be alarmed when you heard. I must have managed badly to frighten you. I assure you nothing has happened, at least nothing very particular, only,—well, father is very rheumatic, and the warm weather has done him no good. He has not been out of the house for a month, thoughwe did not mention it in our letters, always hoping that by the next time we wrote he would be better. But he has not left his room till he contrived to go in the cab yesterday. Oh! Annie, he has sold his business to Dr. Capes. He—father—said it was no use to protract the struggle, it was only doing more mischief; he would never be able, at his age, to go about again so as to act fairly by his patients. He has given up everything to the bank's creditors, and will pass through the bankruptcy court. He bade me tell you that he could see no other way, and he was afraid Rose or you might read his name in theGazettewithout being prepared for it."
"Father ill, old, and a bankrupt!" Annie's cry was bitter. "It is hard after his long life of honourable industry. I can never forgive Mr. Carey."
"Hush! hush! Annie, you must not say that. Nothing would grieve father more. Nobody has suffered like the Careys. Besides, father always says that he alone was to blame for buying the bank shares. He did it of his own free-will, just that he might grow richer in the idlest manner possible for him to do so. Dr. Capes has taken our house, the Old Doctor's House too, and father and mother went into apartments—those over Robarts the book-seller's—yesterday, till they could look about them." Dora was crying quietly all the time she was speaking, and at the same time she was breaking off tosay with pathetic resigned trust like her mother's, "But only think, Annie dear, how much worse it might have been! What a great deal we have to be thankful for. Look at poor Mr. Carey sitting paralyzed, and quite childish; and do you know the sad news arrived last night that poor poor Colonel Russell is dead? He had a sun-stroke, and died within twelve hours; he has not been three months at his new post. Dear father has all his senses, and he says himself he may live for years and years."
"I hope so," said Annie fervently; but it is doubtful whether she fully appreciated the blessings of her lot at that moment. She busied herself for a few minutes with Dora, her nurse's instinct as well as her affection telling her that Dora must be seen to first. Annie took off Dora's hat and jacket, seated her in the easiest chair, would hear nothing more till she—Annie—had learnt when Dora had breakfasted, and then rung for a basin of soup and made her swallow it. "Now, Dora," she said, sitting down by her sister, "tell me all there is to tell. What have father and mother to live upon? We must think and act for them now."
Dora explained as well as she was able, since, like her mother, she had no great head for business. In addition to the sum given for the good-will of Dr. Millar's practice, and for his house and furniture,which was to be paid over to the liquidators of the bank's debts, (in return for which the debtor would get a discharge from farther obligations,) a small percentage was to be allowed to him from his successor's fees.
"I am afraid it will be very small," Dora made the despondent remark, "because, though all his former patients are fond of father, they got to see he was breaking up, and did not like to send for him during the night, or at odd hours. Mother and I did what we could, going round for him and inquiring after his patients; but, as he said, such a make-shift could not last. We were always hearing of more families calling in Dr. Capes or Mr. Newton. Father declared he could not blame them; he would have done the same in their place, and that every dog must have his day."
"That was like father," said Annie, looking up with a fleeting sparkle in her eyes.
"Then we thought," went on Dora, "father and mother might have part of mother's money, since you have always said you did not need it, while Rose is getting paid for her work, and there is hardly any doubt" (brightening up,) "but that 'little May' will take the scholarship. She was working so hard to pass her examination when she wrote last, that she was quite out of spirits about her chances, which father says is always the waywith the best men when they are going in for an examination that they are safe to win. He supposes it will be still more so with women. He tells mother that he will not mind taking help from her, where her money is concerned, when he can no longer stir from his chair—not to say to earn a fee, but to save his life. He has taken so much more help from her in other ways during all their married life, that this in addition will not count."
A lodgingwas found near the Hospital for Dora, who was to stay in town and look out for a situation; and for the next week, a week of hot summer weather, Annie, relieved from her hospital work, because it was her first holiday time, went to and fro, spending as little as possible on omnibus fares, with Dora and May in her train, in search of employment for them. People were beginning to leave town, and the time did not seem propitious. When was it ever propitious for such a pursuit where women are concerned? Even under Annie's able guidance, with the spirit which she could summon to her aid in all difficulties, the intentional and unintentional rebuffs which the two girl candidates, particularly Dora, got from agents and principals in connection with ladies in want of useful companions and nursery-governesses were innumerable. The swarms of needy, greedy applicants for similar situations whom the Millarswere perpetually encountering in their rounds, were enough to cause the stoutest heart to quail, and to sink the most sanguine nature into the depths of despondency.
Dora Millar was not constitutionally sanguine, and she grew more and more nervous and dispirited as the fruitless efforts went on. Her little figure drooped, her eyes had a dejected expression, her lips quivered pathetically without any provocation. Annie was compelled to use strong language. "The idiots!" she exclaimed,aproposof the last persons who had found Dora too young or too old, not strong enough looking, or not lively enough looking ("not as if she could stand a large amount of bullying and worrying," Annie read between the lines). "What a chance they are letting slip through their fingers of getting the most unexacting, contented creature in the world to minister to their tiresome wants. They will never see her like again; serve them right for their blindness."
One particularly glaring, airless afternoon, the three sisters were toiling back to Dora's lodging, with the London pavement like heated iron under the feet of the crowds that trod it, and the cloudless sky, in which the sun blazed a ball of fire, like glowing brass over their heads. Then as the Millars turned a corner and looked longingly at the trees in a square with their leaves alreadyyellowing and shrivelling, May uttered a little shriek of delight and darted forward to greet a familiar figure and face in the stream of strangers. What did it signify that the figure was insignificant by comparison, and the face with nothing distinguished in its pallor, under its red beard and moustache?—"a little foxy-headed fellow," any sharp-tongued bystander might have called him. It was a well-known face where all the others were drearily unknown, a Redcross face in London, the face of a man who might have shown himself an enemy, yet had proved a friend in need; and though there had been presented to the girls the bearing of a Jupiter and the lineaments of an Adonis, they could not have hailed him with greater gladness. If anybody hung back in the general acclamation it was Dora, for Annie did not say a word to rebuke May; she was too anxious to hear the last news of her father.
More than one man among the passers-by, glancing at Tom Robinson surrounded by a group of pretty girls, the two prettiest evidently making much of him and hanging on his words, called him in their minds "lucky dog," and speculated on the nature of the attraction.
"'Prope'ty, prope'ty, prope'ty,'" no doubt. It was disgraceful to see how mercenary even quite young women were getting.
Tom received the ovation, at which, by the bye, he was a little taken aback and puzzled, quietly and in a matter-of-fact way, as he received most things. He had had the pleasure of seeing Dr. and Mrs. Millar lately; indeed, he had availed himself of the privileges of an old friend to call on them at once in their new quarters, he told Annie, and he had found them, by their own account, fairly well and comfortable, though the Doctor was still dead lame.
Tom did not tell either Annie, or any one else interested in the information, that he had spent the last few days pushing the circulation of a subscription list, which he had headed with the promise of a handsome sum. It was to provide a testimonial not altogether inadequate to mark the esteem in which the townspeople held their old Doctor for his many virtues, and their sympathy with him in his misfortunes. A liberal offering on the town's part might do something to relieve the adversity which had befallen a fellow-townsman. The talk a little time ago had been of presenting Dr. Millar with a new brougham and horse, which, as they would have had to be maintained at the charge of a man who had just put down his old brougham as beyond his diminished income, was rather an illogical method of serving him. However, his complete breakdown, with the sale of his practice,had at once knocked that idea on the head, and had given its motive a much wider application. If the little Doctor were to submit to accept help, it must be commensurate with the dignity of Redcross and the county, and with his own professional status and merit.
Tom Robinson looked at the girls as two of them looked at him. "It is tiring weather," he suggested hesitatingly; "is it wise of you to walk out in the heat?"
"Oh! Mr. Robinson," cried May effusively, "we are so tired—just dead beat—though Annie there does not like me to talk slang—but it is so expressive, don't you think so? It is not to-day only, but yesterday and the day before, we have been hunting for situations, and have not found them yet. Do you know, Dora and I are going to take situations immediately if we can get them?"
His face changed, and he knit his brow involuntarily.
"What a magpie it is!" said Annie, impatiently. "But, of course, you have heard all about the turn father's affairs have taken since this bad rheumatic attack, which he does not believe he can shake off. It need not be any secret that my sisters are looking out for situations."
He did not answer; he was prevented by thepainful consciousness that Dora appeared ready to sink into the ground.
"Won't you avail yourself of my arm, Miss Dora? Won't you let me see you home?" he proposed hurriedly.
She could not refuse; indeed, she was only too thankful for the offered support, though she murmured a protest against troubling him and taking him out of his way. And she could not altogether conceal how put out as well as weary she was, so that the little hand, which just touched his coat-sleeve, fluttered on its resting-place like a newly-caught bird.
He hailed a cab, and wished to put them all into it.
"I dare say it would be better," said Annie, glancing at Dora's white face, with the new trick of quivering which the lips had acquired. As the cab was driving up, she gave Tom Robinson their address—"17, Little St. Ebbe's Street," with the amount of the fare, looking at him almost fiercely while she took the money from her purse. "Will you be good enough to direct the man and pay him for us?" she said, and he dared not dispute her will.
But when he yielded, she seemed to think his friendliness and power of comprehension deserved something better than they had got. "Will youcome with us?" Annie invited him; and when she softened, it was always in such a bright frank way that it was hard to resist her. "We'll be very pleased to give you a cup of tea at Dora's lodging—at least we can do that for you, and it may be acceptable on such an oppressive afternoon."
He, a guest at a lodging of Dora Millar's: it sounded odd enough!
"Do come, Mr. Robinson," his friend May was imploring, while Dora, sensible that something was due from her as the ostensible mistress of the lodging, echoed shyly, without raising her eyes to his face, "Yes, come, please."
Did she remember the last time she gave him tea in the drawing-room of the Old Doctor's House, where they were not likely to meet again? How awkward they found thetête-à-tête. How they shrank from their hands touching, while he reproached her for aiding and abetting May in trying to shirk going to St. Ambrose's; and she had borne his reproaches and admitted the reasonableness of his arguments, with all the meek candour of Dora, while still making a last stand for May.
He went with the girls as if he were in a dream; but he was not left to dream in Dora's very plain lodging, where Annie and not the mistress of the lodging poured out tea, and May insisted on helpinghim to bread and butter. He saw Rose, too, who had been awaiting the return of her sisters. It sent another pang to his brotherly heart to discover that Rose also was subdued and well-nigh careworn. She still wrinkled her forehead and crumpled up her nose, but it was no longer in the old saucy way; it was under her share of the heavy burden of trouble which had fallen on these dauntless girls and might end by crushing them.
May was not to be kept from the immense solace of making a clean breast to her former ally of her stupid dawdling and trifling, and the retribution which had at once befallen her. "Did father tell you, Mr. Robinson, that I have failed in my examination?" she began plaintively. "Yes, I have, and it was all my own fault. I was too silly; I would not pull myself together and work hard from the first. Now it will never be in my power to go back to St. Ambrose's. I'll not be able to atone for my folly by showing that everybody was not wrong when it was believed that I might be a fair scholar, win a scholarship, and rise to be classical mistress in a girls' school." At the announcement of the disastrous failure, by her own deed, of all the ambitious plans for her, May threatened to break down, springing up and turning away, her shoulders heaving in a paroxysm of mortification and grief.
Tom Robinson used to say, afterwards, that henever witnessed a prettier sight than the manner in which the three other girls rallied round their poor "little May," from Annie downwards. They took off her hat, pulled off her gloves, smoothed her ruffled hair, patted her tear-stained cheeks, seated her in an arm-chair, brought her tea, and made her drink it, bidding her not be too disheartened. They pledged themselves—even Dora pledged herself stoutly—that, if it rested with them, and they were young and strong, they would find work of one kind or another—May should go back to St. Ambrose's some day and vindicate her scholarliness. Father and mother and all of them would be proud of her.
It rendered the man doubly indignant from that day when he heard scoffers say that there could be no true friendship between women, and that the relation of sisters existed simply for the growth of rivalry and jealousy.
May was still shaking her head disconsolately, and reminding him, "Ah, Mr. Robinson, it would have been better if you had let me stay at home and go into your shop, like Phyllis Carey. I might have done some good there, though you may not believe it, and only feel glad that you got rid of me."
Then he took her in hand, and administered his consolation. "Nonsense, Miss May," he said, withsufficient peremptoriness for a man who had been rather accustomed to efface himself in these girls' presence, "you were not to be suffered to hide your light under a bushel. I wonder to hear you—I thought you had more pluck and perseverance. How many times do you think the young fellows at St. Ambrose's are turned back and have to try again? If I passed in my first exam, it was by the merest fluke, as three-fourths of the men will tell you they pass. As for my degree, I had the common sense and modesty to put off taking it to the last moment, and to stay up two different vacations, 'sapping' like a Scotchman, before I ventured to undergo the test. You don't mean to say you are too proud to do at Rome as the Romans do, that your genius will brook no rejection, and declines to grapple with an obstacle? I'll tell you what your father proposes for you, and let me say that I believe it would do him a world of good—now that he has been forced to give up his patients, and is confined to his chair. He has not lost heart and faith in your powers—of course not. He is thinking quite eagerly of brushing up his classics in his enforced leisure, and himself becoming your coach for the next six months. I need not say that any small assistance I can offer is heartily at your service also."
"Oh!" said May, with wistful brown eyes anda long-drawn sigh, "you are a great deal too good to me, all of you. I don't deserve it. It would only be too much happiness for me to have father and you to coach me—but I know we could not afford it."
"Wait and see," said Tom succinctly.
"If I got that situation," said Dora timidly, "I might do something to help May: I mean the one where the lady said she would take me into consideration, but we thought it would not do, because I should have to go out to Jamaica. On second thoughts, I am not sure that I'd mind so very much going. The lady seemed to consider I might be able to do what she required, and I should only be away for a year or two, since the family are coming back then. The salary was very good."
Dora go out to Jamaica to help May, or any one else! Not though he had to fling cheques in at the windows, and squeeze Bank of England notes through the keyholes, to prevent it.
"Hester Jennings says she would not be very much surprised if she heard of a buyer for my tulip picture; but I don't know," said Rose doubtfully, glancing at the picture, which was on an adjoining table.
"May I look at it?" asked Tom Robinson, jumping up with alacrity, probably to make a diversion in the conversation from the obnoxioustopic of Dora's problematical voyage to Jamaica. He had seen Rose's work at Redcross, and he could give it as his honest opinion that she had made a great advance in her art, though he did not profess to be a judge. He said, however, that he had a friend, an old St. Ambrose crony, who was an artist. They had happened to be together in Rome at a later date, had been a good deal thrown on each other's company there, and had continued to keep up a friendly intercourse. He requested permission for his friend to call and look at the little picture. He might be of use to Rose in disposing of it; he was always ready to help a fellow-artist. Tom supposed the Millars had heard his friend's name, it was pretty well known; indeed they might have seen him, for Pemberton and Lady Mary, his wife, had spent a few days with Tom at Redcross, and had been in church on the Sunday during their visit, the summer before last.
In spite of the obligations of good breeding, the Millars looked at each other in open-mouthed astonishment. Certainly they had heard of Pemberton the distinguished landscape painter, and they had been told that he had married into the peerage, as Aunt Penny had married into the county. The girls also remembered perfectly the quiet-looking young couple who had been noticed walking about with Tom Robinson the July beforelast. People had wondered languidly who the strangers could be—whether they were cousins far removed on Tom's father's side of the house, since they did not quite answer to the style of his mother's yeomen kindred. But it was an effort to the provincial mind to identify the unobtrusive-looking pair with the Pembertons, to realize that Mr. Pemberton and his Lady Mary had actually come and stayed the better part of a week with Tom Robinson. They could hardly have been ignorant of "Robinson's," whose master was only received into the upper-class houses of the town on a species of sufferance.
The peerage must have unique rules by which to frame its standards. There was the Hon. Victoria, Mrs. Carey's niece by marriage, who, when Carey's Bank was in full bloom, would hardly be seen in the streets of Redcross, and scarcely deigned to acknowledge her own aunt-in-law. As to the familiarity of staying a night in the Bank House, she would never have dreamt of it. In this respect she did little credit to the teaching of her old governess, Miss Franklin, who had shown herself a philosopher in her own person. Perhaps, when it came to stooping at all, the peerage felt it might as soon, and with a still more gracious and graceful effect, bend low as bend slightly. Perhaps in the peerage, as in every otherclass, there are all sorts and conditions of mind and heart.
A little clue might have been supplied to account for the eccentricity of the Pembertons, and to lessen the shock of their conduct to the Millars, if the latter had been made acquainted with one circumstance. About the time of the stay of the artist and his wife in Rome, where he had been only too glad to run up against a favourite old college chum, when the three had been making a long excursion in company beyond the Campagna, Pemberton had been suddenly attacked in a remote little town with a violent illness.
His poor young wife would have been utterly frightened and forlorn had it not been for the moral courage and untiring good offices of the third person in the company—Tom Robinson.
Tom did not appear conscious of the sensation he had created by the mention of his friend. He arranged when Mr. Pemberton should come and view Rose's picture to suit Rose's convenience, and not that of the famous and courted artist. Then he explained in all sincerity, before he took his leave, that he, Tom Robinson, was very sorry he could not have the pleasure of bringing Pemberton and introducing him personally, because a business engagement called the master of "Robinson's" back to Redcross early next morning.
The party he left were quite silent and still for a moment after he had gone, till what she had heard of Mr. Pemberton went to Rose's head to such a degree that she rose, whirled round on tiptoe, and caused her spread-out frock to perform the feat which children call "making a cheese."
"Won't it be delicious to know Mr. Pemberton and get his advice—perhaps one day presume to ask him how he does his hay-fields and orchards? What will Hester Jennings say! I say, we'll have Hester to meet him; she will come for such a painter though the whole peerage would not get her to budge an inch. I wish we could tone her down a little bit, but he must just swallow her whole. She is good and clever enough to be permitted that rugged line of her own. Oh! but isn't Tom Robinson a trump? Iwillbe slangy, Annie—as May says, it is so expressive."
"Yes, yes," chimed in May enthusiastically, in reference to the man and not to the slang. "I have known it ever since he came up like a lion—why do you laugh, Rose?—and rescued Tray—don't you remember, Dora?—from that horrid brute of a collie. Tray bit him—Mr. Robinson, I mean—not knowing that he was his best friend, and he only laughed. He was so kind about my wishing to go into his shop, like Phyllis Carey, though he would not take me. I think it must be a privilege,as Miss Franklin tells Phyllis, to serve him. She says all the nice people in the shop have the greatest regard for him."
"I am so sorry and ashamed that I ever drew caricatures of him," said Rose, in pensive penitence. "I think, whenever I am able, I must paint his portrait, as I see him now, to make up for it."
"And ask him to have it hung above the oak staircase in the shop," suggested Annie, a little satirically. But she added immediately, "Though it broke no bones to dwell on his lack of height and his foxy complexion, I am rather sorry now that I did it, because I have ceased to think that these objectionable details deserved to be made of any consequence. On the contrary, I own to the infatuation of beginning to see that there is something fine in them. I suppose I shall be calling Tom Robinson's hair golden, or tawny, or chestnut soon, and his inches the proper height for a man. It is true," broke off Annie, with sudden, unaccountable perversity, "I do hate great lumbering flaxen-haired giants." She blushed furiously after she had indulged in the last digression, and hastened to resume the main thread of the conversation. "As for Tom Robinson's having little to say, I declare that my present impression is that he says quite enough, and very much to the purpose too. It was so nice and like a gentleman of him not topropose immediately to buy Rose's picture when she talked rashly of her anxiety that it should find a purchaser."
"I don't think Cyril Carey, with all his airs, would have shown so much delicacy in the old days," said Rose.
"Or that Ned Hewett, though Ned has such a kind heart, would have been able to avoid blundering into some such offer," remarked May.
There was one person who remained absolutely silent while the others sang Tom Robinson's praises, and it might be her silence which called her sisters' attention to her.
"I wonder what you would have, Dora?" said Rose, with several shades of superciliousness in her voice and in her lifted-up nose.
"I cannot understand how you could be such a cruel, hard-hearted girl," May actually reproached her devoted slave.
"There is such a thing as being too particular," Annie had the coolness to say. "I am sure I do not go in for indiscriminate marriages or for falling in love," she added with lofty decision. "It has always been a mystery to me what poor Fanny Russell could see to care for, or to do anything save laugh at, in Cyril Carey. I hope the elderly 'competition wallah,' or commissioner, or whatever he is, whom she is going to marry, has more senseas well as more money. For her marriage was arranged, though the news had not reached England, mother writes, before the tidings of Colonel Russell's death came. But when a man who can act as Tom Robinson has acted crosses a woman's path and pays her the compliment of asking her to be his wife, I do think she should be careful what she answers."
Dora stared as if she were losing her senses. Were they laughing at her still? Could they be in earnest? If so, how was it possible for them to be so flagrantly inconsistent and unjust? She could only utter a single exclamation. But as the worm will turn, the exclamation was emphatic and indignant enough. "Well!" she cried, in utter amazement and incipient rebellion. "Well!" and she returned the challenging gaze of the circle with a counter-challenge, before which all eyes except Annie's fell.
Annie had the audacity to look Dora in the face and echo the "Well!" nay, to say further, "You never heard of anything so disgraceful as for us to turn upon you and find fault with you for refusing Tom Robinson, when all the time it was we who laughed at him, and scouted his shop, keeping you up to the point of dismissing him without delay? Quite true, Dora, dear; but then it was you, and notus, whom he was proposing to marry! and agirl old enough to receive such a proposal should have the wit to judge for herself—should she not? She ought to cultivate the penetration to look beneath the surface in so important a matter, and then fewer lamentable mistakes would be made. However, nobody could expect you to put force on your inclinations, and he does not bear you malice."
Annie did not regard her share in the matter so cheerfully and lightly when she was in the privacy of a ward of St. Ebbe's, where she had begged to sit up with an unconscious patient, just to keep her hand in and compose her feelings.
"What mischievous little wretches we were," she reflected, as she deftly changed the wet cloth on the sick woman's hot forehead. "How happy he might have made Dora, and how happy she might have made him! She is so single-minded and tender-hearted, that she could hardly have failed to see his merits, if we had given him the chance, let her alone, and left the pair to themselves. Then, if the worst were to come to the worst," and Annie frowned with anxiety and grief, as well as with wholesome humiliation, "if poor father and mother cannot get along, and none of us girls can help them effectually, his house might have been their home, where he would never have let them feel other than honoured guests. He would havebeen a son to them. But the mischief is done, and there is no help for it. If Dora and he were an ordinary couple, it might be mended; but now she will not look at him when we none of us have a penny, because she refused him when we were in comfortable circumstances; and he will not renew his suit with the thought in his mind that it would look and feel to her as if any favour he has magnanimously conferred on us, were a mere bribe to compel her to listen to him. So, Annie Millar, this is a pretty kettle of fish, of which you have been chief cook! There is the greater reason for you to make up your mind from this moment to devote yourself wholly to your family, and let nothing—nothing," she protested with suspicious vehemence, "come between you and them."
"What is it, you poor soul?" the young nurse responded quickly to a movement of the helpless ailing creature beside her. "Do you know there is somebody here? Will it ease you to have your head raised on my arm, do you think? You cannot hear or answer, but we'll try that, and then it is just possible you may drop asleep." And for the rest of the watch Annie was absorbed in care for her patient.
Tom Robinson'ssubscription list attained the respectable sum-total of two thousand pounds. Many of the subscribers were not only patients of Dr. Millar, but creditors of the bank whose claims he had striven with sturdy honesty to satisfy, till the task proved too hard for his years.
The little Doctor received the token of how greatly his courage and staunchness in the fulfilment of his obligations had been respected, with half pained, half pleased gratitude, and this was very much the attitude of mind of his daughter Annie. The rest of his womankind, from Mrs. Millar to May, only felt a glad surprise, and a soft, proud thankfulness.
The relief from present difficulties was great, but of course the gift did not obviate the necessity for the girls seeking work and wages. Even May, when she ventured to hope that she might stay at home for a month or two and be coached by herfather and Tom Robinson in anticipation of a more successful campaign at St. Ambrose's, was eagerly speculating whether she might not become a coach in her turn. She was fain to earn a little money by helping the very youngest of the Grammar School boys to prepare their Latin grammar in the evenings, supposing she could get them to sit still, and give over wishing her to play with them.
Mr. Pemberton had not only himself called on the Miss Millar who was the artist, he had brought Lady Mary with him, and both husband and wife had turned out the refined, thoroughly unassuming, kindly disposed couple they had looked. They spoke warmly of Tom Robinson as their very good friend, and went so far as to express enthusiasm for his beautiful old shop. Mr. Pemberton did better than merely say a few words of languid, indiscriminating praise of Rose's picture, and then bow himself out. He examined the picture closely, and looked at her thoughtfully and attentively out of the dark gray eyes, the only good feature in his face. The next moment, to Hester Jennings's great edification, he addressed Rose seriously as a member of the Guild of St. Luke—not an amateur, "one of ourselves, so that you must not mind what I say to you, Miss Millar." He first displayed a generous capacity for discovering something good, whether it were to be found in the work of a tyro or of aveteran. Next he took the trouble of pointing out the faults, and urging their remedy, telling her the picture was worth the pains of making it as true as possible, until Rose hung her head in blended pride and humility.
What was more, he offered to enter into negotiations with a picture-dealer on her behalf, and brought them to a triumphant conclusion, making Rose happy with so fair a price as materially to lighten the millstone of her resigned office at the Misses Stone's hanging round her neck.
It was settled that May should go home and profit by the coaching which awaited her at Redcross, taking the chance of finding some little boys whose Latin grammar would be the better of her supervision.
Next Mr. Pemberton wrote that Lady Mary had been so charmed with the neighbourhood of Redcross, and had spoken so highly of it to one of her cousins, who had a great liking for English landscape, and was just refurnishing his town house, that he wished to commission a set of water-colour sketches of such and such spots for his morning-room. It was Mr. Pemberton's opinion that Miss Rose Millar could execute the commission to Sir John Neville's satisfaction, if she cared to accept of it.
"It is to help me," said Rose humbly, "for there are hundreds of good artists who would take thework and be thankful, and do it far better, though I will do my very best. Tom Robinson is at the bottom of it directly or indirectly, but he is like an old friend. I don't know a man to whom I would sooner be obliged."
In the third instance, a totally unforeseen application was made to Annie. A fever, in certain respects unfamiliar in its type, broke out at Stokeleigh, one of several suburban villages on the outskirts of Redcross. Some authorities called the fever Russian, and declared it had been imported—they did not pretend to say how—from that remote empire. Others insisted it was a slow fever, of English growth, with curious complications. It appeared doubtful whether it were infectious; but there was one thing which was unmistakable, that, whatever kind of malaria brooding in the summer air was at the root of the complaint, that malaria showed a disposition to spread extensively. It passed from Stokeleigh to the adjoining village of Woodleigh, whence it took a bend in the direction of the town, and proceeded to squat, as malarias can squat, and settle indefinitely on all the low-lying districts of Redcross. Neither did the epidemic improve in character with the change of locality. For, whereas on the higher, less encumbered ground the fever had been rarely fatal, the mortality increased with the transfer of the diseaseto the crowded, damp purlieus of the older part of the town, built more or less on the Dewes, and liable to be invaded by the river in flood.
A combined meeting of the Town Council and Vestry, with the Mayor, who happened to be a public-spirited man, and the Rector heading it, determined on taking prompt action to stop the mischief. The town had lately built a Corn Exchange in one of the highest, best-ventilated situations in Redcross. It was to be committed to the care of a town's officer and his wife, who were to have the adjoining rooms rent-free for a domicile, together with certain perquisites, in return for sweeping, scrubbing, and looking after the hall. But the place was just finished, and had not yet been occupied in the manner intended. It was proposed to convert it, in the absence of other accommodation, into a temporary ward for the sufferers from fever. The doctors consulted, pledged themselves that there was every probability of the unwelcome visitor being thus stamped out, while the chances of recovery for the patients would be multiplied. It was also agreed to bring a trained nurse from some nursing institution, to mould the raw nursing materials which Redcross supplied on the emergency. Dr. Millar's successor had a bright idea that it might be a graceful act on his part to mention the old Doctor's daughter, who had gone in fornursing as a profession. She had already served nearly a year in a great London hospital, and was no doubt competent to undertake the duties required. It would be a compliment to her and her father to try and get her for the occasion, and there would be a certainéclatin her coming to the help of her native town in its need. Dr. Capes was right as to the popularity of his motion. It was received with unanimous approval. Annie, the matron, and the directors of St. Ebbe's, were immediately applied to in proper form. Annie burned to go, if such a step were admissible at the present stage of her career. The favour she had won on all sides aided in the fulfilment of her wishes. She was promoted from the ranks of the probationers to those of the nurses while yet her year wanted a fraction of its complete round, and was officially sent down to represent the nurses of St. Ebbe's at Redcross.
"Of course, Dora, you cannot be left behind to go on by yourself hunting for a situation with three-fourths of the great world out of town. I am afraid you would make a poor job of it at the best, Dora dear, and at the worst it is not to be thought of; it would be a waste of nerve-tissue and muscle, as well as of pounds, shillings, and pence. You will come too; we'll be all together, or nearly together, again, for a holiday, after all."
Dora, who had been waiting patiently for Annie's decision, was nothing loth.
"Rose's expenses and mine are more than paid," calculated the practical Annie, "so that we shall be no drag on father and mother. I don't know if Robarts's accommodation will extend beyond the additional bedroom for Rose and May, but that can be easily managed. Oh! I have it, Dora, you will stay with me at the hospital—the Corn Exchange I mean—and save me from having a housekeeper for the short time one will be wanted. I'll take care that no infection, if there be infection, will come near you. Oh, 'won't it be jolly,' as Rose says, for you and me to keep house by ourselves at dear old Redcross, of all places in the world?"
It was arranged so, with only a little demur from Mrs. Millar, over-ruled by her husband.
There was another person, without right or power to enter his veto against the existing order of things, who nevertheless decidedly demurred at them. Tom Robinson showed that though he might be a humane man there were bounds to his humanity. "It is all very well for Annie Millar to come down and nurse the fever patients, it is in the way of her business, she does as much every day, she is well acquainted with all the precautions to take. But Dora is not a nurse, she never thinks ofherself, she will forget to take the precautions if she has ever heard of them. She has not strong nerves, and she is used up with this preposterous stumping of London in July in search of a situation. What in the name of common sense and natural affection do they mean by lugging Dora into the risk!" he grumbled and worried. "Oh! yes, of course she would follow Annie or any of the rest of them fast enough if she had the opportunity, though she were to die at the end of it; but she ought never to have had the opportunity, it was preposterous to let her. The whole thing is monstrous. I never heard of such rashness. What can Dr. and Mrs. Millar be thinking of?"
It felt queer, to say the least of it, as well as "jolly," to be at Redcross and not at the Old Doctor's House, over which a bride of yesterday was presiding, for Dr. Capes's marriage had taken place simultaneously with his purchase of Dr. Millar's practice.
Annie used to look over from the opposite side of the street, as she was walking along, at the alterations which were being made in the garden, and the new arrangement of the window curtains, and try to criticize them impartially. Then she had to call and see Dr. Capes, and wait in the familiar consulting-room till he insisted on taking her to the drawing-room, in order to introduce herto his wife, who had come a stranger to Redcross. Annie felt as if she were a disembodied spirit, or a dreamer in a dream from which she could not awake, while she gazed on the changed yet well-known aspect of everything around her. But she had to think of Dr. and Mrs. Capes, in whose house she was, and talk civilly to them of their improvements(!). She had to emulate the submission of Dora, who had seen the transfer coming and taken part in it. She had to copy the mercurial spirits of Rose and May. They were so pleased to be with their father and mother again, and to take possession of Phyllis Carey's every free moment, that they declared the Robarts's apartments were the very nicest the girls had ever seen. They, the apartments, were delightfully cosy (which meant stuffy in July). They were more cheerful (noisier) than the Old Doctor's House. It was great fun for the pair to stow themselves and their belongings within such narrow compass.
A serious vexation to Annie at the commencement of her enterprise was the arrival of Dr. Harry Ironside to diagnose and make what he could of the fever.
"What is he doing here? His coming at all is most impertinent," cried Annie indignantly, sitting down on one of the still empty beds in the barrack-like hall, and as it were daring Rose and May, whohad brought the news, and Dora who was listening to them, to contradict her.
"He is come in the pursuit of knowledge," said Rose, with full command of her countenance. "He does not understand Russian fever, or whatever it is, and he thinks he had better make its acquaintance as a wind up to taking his degree. He is still a doctor at large; he has not fixed on where he is to go and what he is to do next, so his sister Kate writes to me."
"Then he and his sister Kate had better make up their minds to go away together, somewhere else, and not trouble other people," cried Annie quite illogically.
"Why, Annie, father thinks it is very praiseworthy of Dr. Ironside to seek to get all the information he can before settling down as a doctor," remonstrated May in the guilelessness of her heart. "He has just been calling on father, who is delighted with him—so is mother; and, formypart," finished the speaker with unconscious emphasis, as if her opinion were of the utmost consequence, "I have thought him very nice since the first time I met him at Mrs. Jennings's. He is so big and handsome, without being stuck up, or a swell, like what Cyril Carey used to be—just frank and pleasant as a man should be. I cannot comprehend why you have such a dislike to him."
"Upon my word!" exclaimed Annie, with a gasp. "But I don't care," she added vehemently; "he shall not come and carry on his investigations here. Dr. Capes and I, with father to appeal to, and Mr. Newton to call in and consult, if necessary, are more than sufficient for all the patients we are likely to get. I tell you, if he forces his way into my hospital I'll have nothing more to do with it; I'll throw it all up and go back to St. Ebbe's at once."
"But it is not your hospital, Annie," said Rose with provoking matter-of-factness. "It is the town's, or if it is under the control of any private person, it is under Dr. Capes's orders. For the sake of his professional character, medical etiquette, and all that kind of thing, he will not refuse to allow a fellow-doctor to study the fever cases under his care. Dr. Harry was going to stay at the 'Crown,' but he met Tom Robinson, who said he should be his guest, and carried him off to his house."
"Just like Tom Robinson!" declared Annie with amazing asperity.
"Come along, May." Rose hurried away her sister and satellite, and then let loose her glee. "It is too funny, May; too preposterously funny. It is ever so much better than Dora and Tom Robinson. He was so easily rebuffed, and she wasso reluctant to rebuff him. But here is Annie like one of the furies, and Harry Ironside is silly enough to mind her, so that he can hardly open his mouth before her, and looks as if he had lost his wits. Before Annie! What is our Annie, I should like to know, that she should daunt a clever, high-spirited young fellow such as he is? What strange glamour has she thrown over him? But he has plenty of mettle and determination for all that, and she will no more manage by her tirades to stop him from coming after her and laying siege to her ladyship, than she can keep the sun from shining or the rain from falling. For that matter, I believe the poor fellow cannot help himself; it is the case of the moth and the candle."
"But what is it all about?" demanded May, in an utter confusion of ideas. "She speaks as if she hated him, and I thought he had come to Redcross to trace the course of the Russian fever."
"To trace the course of his own fortunes. I beg your pardon, my dear, but you might have known enough of human nature to guess that there was a private personal motive at the bottom of his philanthropy."
"Then it is the worse for him and a great pity," said May, with the sweet seriousness into which one phase of her childishness was passing. "I wonder you can laugh, Rose. I am alwaysaffronted when I remember how we laughed at Tom Robinson and poor Dora, making game of what was no joke to them. And Dora was not half so much opposed to Tom as Annie is to this unfortunate, nice, pleasant young doctor. I could find it in my heart to be very sorry for him."
"Oh! you are a simpleton apart from Latin and Greek. Don't you see that Annie's wrath is neither more nor less than fright? She is frightened out of her senses at him, because she wants to keep her independence and share our fortunes. As I do not remember to have seen her in such a scare before, I should say that she is paying him a high compliment."
"I think it is rather a queer compliment," objected May in much perplexity.