“A band of medical students determined that for once'a priorireasoning should have fair play, and not be crushed by a thing so illusory as fact. Accordingly, they got the gates closed, and collected round them. We came up, one after another, and were received with hisses, groans, and abusive epithets.
“This mode of reasoning must have been admirably adapted to my weak understanding; for it convinced me at once I had no business there, and I was for private study directly.
“But, sir, you know the ancients said, 'Better is an army of stags with a lion for their leader, than an army of lions with a stag for their leader.' Now, it so happened that we had a lioness for our leader. She pushed manfully through the crowd, and hammered at the door: then we crept quaking after. She ordered those inside to open the gates; and some student took shame, and did. In marched our lioness, crept after by her—her—”
“Her cubs.”
“A thousand thanks, good sir. Her does. On second thoughts, 'her hinds.' Doe is the female of buck. Now, I said stags. Well, the ruffians who had undertaken to teach us modesty swarmed in too. They dragged a sheep into the lecture-room, lighted pipes, produced bottles, drank, smoked, and abused us ladies to our faces, and interrupted the lecturer at intervals with their howls and ribaldry: that was intended to show the professor he should not be listened to any more if he admitted the female students. The affair got wind, and other students, not connected with medicine, came pouring in, with no worse motive, probably, than to see the lark. Some of these, however, thought the introduction of the sheep unfair to so respected a lecturer, and proceeded to remove her; but the professor put up his hand, and said, 'Oh, don't removeher:she is superior in intellect to many persons here present.'
“At the end of the lecture, thinking us in actual danger from these ruffians, he offered to let us out by a side door; but our lioness stood up and said, in a voice that rings in my ear even now, 'Thank you, sir; no. There aregentlemenenough here to escort us safely.'
“The magic of a great word from a great heart, at certain moments when minds are heated! At that word, sir, the scales fell from a hundred eyes; manhood awoke with a start, ay, and chivalry too; fifty manly fellows were round us in a moment, with glowing cheeks and eyes, and they carried us all home to our several lodgings in triumph. The cowardly caitiffs of the trades-union howled outside, and managed to throw a little dirt upon our gowns, and also hurled epithets, most of which were new to me; but it has since been stated by persons more versed in the language of thecanaillethat no fouler terms are known to the dregs of mankind.
“Thus did the immodest sex, in the person of the medical student, outrage seven fair samples of the modest sex—to teach them modesty.
“Next morning the police magistrates dealt with a few of our teachers, inflicted severe rebukes on them, and feeble fines.
“The craftier elders disowned the riot in public, but approved it in private; and continued to act in concert with it, only with cunning, not violence.It caused no honest revulsion of feeling,except in the disgusted public, and they had no power to help us.
“The next incident was a stormy debate by the subscribers to the infirmary; and here we had a little feminine revenge, which, outraged as we had been, I hope you will not grudge us.
“Our lioness subscribed five pounds, and became entitled to vote and speech. As the foulest epithets had been hurled at her by the union, and a certain professor had told her, to her face, no respectable woman would come to him and propose to study medicine, she said, publicly, that she had come to his opinion, and respectable women would avoid him—which caused a laugh.
“She also gave a venerable old physician, our bitter opponent, a slap that was not quite so fair. His attendant had been concerned in that outrage, and she assumed—in which she was not justified—that the old doctor approved. 'To be sure,' said she, 'they say he was intoxicated, and that is the only possible excuse.'
“The old doctor had only to say that he did not control his assistants in the street; and his own mode of conducting the opposition, and his long life of honor, were there to correct this young woman's unworthy surmises, and she would have had to apologize for going too far on mere surmise. But, instead of that, he was so injudicious as to accuse her of foul language, and say, 'My attendant is a perfect gentleman; he would not be my attendant if he were not.'
“Our lioness had him directly. 'Oh,' said she, 'if Dr. So-and-so prefers to say that his attendant committed that outrage on decency when in his sober senses, I am quite content.'
“This was described as violent invective by people with weak memories, who had forgotten the nature of the outrage our lioness was commenting on; but in truth it was only superior skill in debate, with truth to back it.
“For my part, I kept the police report at the time, and have compared it with her speech. The judicial comments on those rioters are far more severe than hers. The truth is it was her facts that hit too hard, not her expressions.
“Well, sir, she obtained a majority; and those managers of the infirmary who objected to female students were dismissed, and others elected. At the same meeting the Court of Contributors passed a statute, making it the law of the infirmary that students should be admitted without regard to sex.
“But as to the mere election of managers, the other party demanded a scrutiny of the votes, and instructive figures came out. There voted with us twenty-eight firms, thirty-one ladies, seven doctors.
“There voted with the union fourteen firms, two ladies,thirty-seven doctors,and threedruggists.
“Thereupon the trades-union, as declared by the figures, alleged that firms ought not to vote.Nota bene,they always had voted unchallenged till they voted for fair play to women.
“The union served the provost with an interdict not to declare the new managers elected.
“We applied for our tickets under the new statute, but were impudently refused, under the plea that the managers must first be consulted: so did the servants of the infirmary defy the masters in order to exclude us.
“By this time the great desire of women to practice medicine had begun to show itself. Numbers came in and matriculated; and the pressure on the authorities to keep faith, and relax the dead-lock they had put us in, was great.
“Thereupon the authorities, instead of saying, 'We have pledged ourselves to a great number of persons, and pocketed their fees,' took fright, and cast about for juggles. They affected to discover all of a sudden that they had acted illegally in matriculating female students. They would, therefore, not give back their fees, and pay them two hundred pounds apiece for breach of contract, but detain their fees and stop their studies until compelled by judicial decision to keep faith. Observe, it was under advice of the lord-justice-general they had matriculated us, and entered into a contract with us,for fulfilling which it was not, and is not, in the power of any mortal man to punish them.
“But these pettifoggers said this:'Wehave acted illegally, and therefore not we, butyou,shall suffer:wewillprofitby our illegal act, for we will cheat you out of your fees to the university and your fees to its professors, as well as the seed-time of your youth that we have wasted.'
“Now, in that country they can get the opinions of the judges by raising what they call an action of declarator.
“One would think it was their business to go to the judges, and meantime give us the benefit of the legal doubt, while it lasted, and of the moral no-doubt, which will last till the day of judgment, and a day after.
“Not a bit of it. They deliberately broke their contract with us, kept our fees, and cheated us out of the article we had bought of them, disowned all sense of morality, yet shifted the burden of law on to our shoulders. Litigation is long. Perfidy was in possession. Possession is nine points. The female students are now sitting with their hands before them, juggled out of their studies, in plain defiance of justice and public faith, waiting till time shall show them whether provincial lawyers can pettifog as well as trades-union doctors.
“As for me, I had retired to civilized climes long before this. I used to write twice a week to my parents, but I withheld all mention of the outrage at Surgeons' Hall. I knew it would give them useless pain. But in three weeks or so came a letter from my father, unlike any other I ever knew him to write. It did not even begin, 'My dear child.' This was what he said (the words are engraved in my memory): 'Out of that nation of cowards and skunks! out of it this moment, once and forever! The States are your home. Draft on London inclosed. Write to me from France next week, or write to me no more. Graduate in France. Then come North, and sail from Havre to New York. You have done with Britain, and so have I, till our next war. Pray God that mayn't be long!'
“It was like a lion's roar of anguish. I saw my dear father's heart was bursting with agony and rage at the insult to his daughter, and I shed tears for him those wretches had never drawn from me.
“I had cried at being insulted by scholars in the Press; but what was it to me that the scum of the medical profession, which is the scum of God's whole creation, called me words I did not know the meaning of, and flung the dirt of their streets, and the filth of their souls, after me? I was frightened a little, that is all. But that these reptiles could wound my darling old lion's heart across the ocean! Sir, he was a man who could be keen and even severe with men, but every virtuous woman was a sacred thing to him. Had he seen one, though a stranger, insulted as we were, he would have died in her defense. He was a true American. And to think the dregs of mankind could wound him for his daughter, and so near the end of his own dear life. Oh!” She turned her head away.
“My poor girl!” said Vizard, and his own voice was broken.
When he said that, she gave him her hand, and seemed to cling to his a little; but she turned her head away from him and cried, and even trembled a little.
But she very soon recovered herself, and said she would try to end her story. It had been long enough.
“Sir, my father had often obeyed me; but now I knew I must obey him. I got testimonials in Edinburgh, and started South directly. In a week I was in the South of France. Oh, what a change in people's minds by mere change of place! The professors received me with winning courtesy; some hats were lifted to me in the street, with marked respect; flowers were sent to my lodgings by gentlemen who never once intruded, on me in person. I was in a civilized land. Yet there was a disappointment for me. I inquired for Cornelia. The wretch had just gone and married a professor. I feared she was up to no good, by her writing so seldom of late.
“I sent her a line that an old friend had returned, and had not forgotten her, nor our mutual vows.
“She came directly, and was for caressing away her crime, and dissolving it in crocodile tears; but I played the injured friend and the tyrant.
“Then she curled round me, and coaxed, and said, 'Sweetheart, I can advance your interests all the better. You shall be famous for us both. I shall be happier in your success than in my own.'
“In short, she made it very hard to hold spite; and it ended in feeble-minded embraces. Indeed, shewasof service to me. I had a favor to ask: I wanted leave to count my Scotch time in France.
“My view was tenable; and Cornelia, by her beauty and her popularity, gained over all the professors to it but one. He stood out.
“Well, sir, an extraordinary occurrence befriended me; no, not extraordinary—unusual.
“I lodged on a second floor. The first floor was very handsome. A young Englishman and his wife took it for a week. She was musical—a real genius. The only woman I ever heard sing without whining; for we are, by nature, the medical and unmusical sex.”
“So you said before.”
“I know I did; and I mean to keep saying it till people see it. Well, the young man was taken violently and mysteriously ill; had syncope after syncope, and at last ceased to breathe.
“The wife was paralyzed, and sat stupefied, and the people about feared for her reason.
“After a time they begged me to come down and talk to her. Of course I went. I found her with her head upon his knees. I sat down quietly, and looked at him. He was young and beautiful, but with a feminine beauty; his head finely shaped, with curly locks that glittered in the sun, and one golden lock lighter than the rest; his eyes and eyelashes, his oval face, his white neck, and his white hand, all beautiful. His left hand rested on the counterpane. There was an emerald ring on one finger. He was like some beautiful flower cut down. I can see him now.
“The woman lifted her head and saw me. She had a noble face, though now distorted and wild.
“She cried, 'Tell me he is not dead! tell me he is not dead!' and when I did not reply, the poor creature gave a wild cry, and her senses left her. We carried her into another room.
“While the women were bringing her to, an official came to insist on the interment taking place. They are terribly expeditious in the South of France.
“This caused an altercation, and the poor lady rushed out; and finding the officer peremptory, flung her arms round the body, and said they should not be parted—she would be buried with him.
“The official was moved, but said the law was strict, and the town must conduct the funeral unless she could find the sad courage to give the necessary instructions. With this he was going out, inexorable, when all of a sudden I observed something that sent my heart into my mouth, and I cried 'Arretez!' so loud that everybody stared.
“I said, 'You must wait till a physician has seen him; he has moved a finger.'
“I stared at the body, and they all stared at me.
“Hehadmoved a finger. When I first saw him, his fingers were all close together; but now the little finger was quite away from the third finger—the one with the ring on.
“I felt his heart, and found a little warmth about it, but no perceptible pulse. I ordered them to take off his sheet and put on blankets, but not to touch him till I came back with a learned physician. The wife embraced me, all trembling, and promised obedience. I got afiacreand drove to Dr. Brasseur, who was my hostile professor, but very able. I burst on him, and told him I had a case of catalepsy for him—it wasn't catalepsy, you know, but physicians are fond of Greek; they prefer the wrong Greek word to the right English. So I called it 'catalepsy,' and said I believed they were going to bury a live man. He shrugged his shoulders, and said that was one of the customs of the country. He would come in an hour. I told him that would not do, the man would be in his coffin; he must come directly. He smiled at my impetuosity, and yielded.
“I got him to the patient. He examined him, and said he might be alive, but feared the last spark was going out. He dared not venture on friction. We must be wary.
“Well, we tried this stimulant and that, till at last we got a sigh out of the patient; and I shall not forget the scream of joy at that sigh, which made the room ring, and thrilled us all.
“By-and-by I was so fortunate as to suggest letting a small stream of water fall from a height on his head and face. We managed that, and by-and-by were rewarded with a sneeze.
“I think a sneeze must revivify the brain wonderfully, for he made rapid progress, and then we tried friction, and he got well very quick. Indeed, as he had nothing the matter with him, except being dead, he got ridiculously well, and began paying us fulsome compliments, the doctor and me.
“So then we handed him to his joyful wife.
“They talk of crying for joy, as if it was done every day. I never saw it but once, and she was the woman. She made a curious gurgle; but it was very pretty. I was glad to have seen it, and very proud to be the cause.”
The next day that pair left. He was English and so many good-natured strangers called on him that he fled swiftly, and did not even bid me good-by. However, I was told they both inquired for me, and were sorry I was out when they went.
“How good of them!” said Vizard, turning red.
“Oh, never mind, sir; I made use ofhim.I scribbled an article that very day, entitled it, 'While there's life there's hope,' and rushed with it to the editor of a journal. He took it with delight. I wrote it'a la Francaise:picture of the dead husband, mourning wife, the impending interment; effaced myself entirely, and said the wife had refused to bury him until Dr. Brasseur, whose fame had reached her ears, had seen the body. To humor her, the doctor was applied to, and, his benevolence being equal to his science, he came: when, lo! a sudden surprise; the swift, unerring eye of science detected some subtle sign that had escaped the lesser luminaries. He doubted the death. He applied remedies; he exhausted the means of his art, with little avail at first, but at last a sigh was elicited, then a sneeze; and, marvelous to relate, in one hour the dead man was sitting up, not convalescent, but well. I concluded with some reflections on thismost important case of suspended animationvery creditable to the profession of medicine, and Dr. Brasseur.”
“There was a fox!”
“Well, look at my hair. What else could you expect? I said that before, too.
“My notice published, I sent it to the doctor, with my respects, but did not call on him. However, one day he met me, and greeted me with a low bow. 'Mademoiselle,' said he, 'you were always a good student; but now you show the spirit of aconfr'ere,and so gracefully, that we are all agreed we must have you for one as soon as possible.'
“I courtesied, and felt my face red, and said I should be the proudest woman in France.
“'Grand Dieu,' said he, 'I hope not; for your modesty is not the least of your charms.'
“So, the way was made smooth, and I had to work hard, and in about fourteen months I was admitted to my final examination. It was a severe one, but I had some advantages. Each nation has its wisdom, and I had studied in various schools.
“Being a linguist, with a trained memory, I occasionally backed my replies with a string of French, German, English, and Italian authorities that looked imposing.
“In short, I did pass with public applause and cordial felicitation; they quitefe'tedme. The old welcomed me; the young escorted me home and flung flowers over me at my door. I reappeared in the balcony, and said a few words of gratitude to them and their noble nation. They cheered, and dispersed.
“My heart was in a glow. I turned my eyes toward New York: a fortnight more, and my parents should greet me as a European doctress, if not a British.
“The excitement had been too great; I sunk, a little exhausted, on the sofa. They bought me a letter. It was black-edged. I tore it open with a scream. My father was dead.”
“I WAS prostrated, stupefied. I don't know what I did, or how long I sat there. But Cornelia came to congratulate me, and found me there like stone, with the letter in my hand. She packed up my clothes, and took me home with her. I made no resistance. I seemed all broken and limp, soul and body, and not a tear that day.
“Oh, sir, how small everything seems beside bereavement! My troubles, my insults, were nothing now; my triumph nothing; for I had no father left to be proud of it with me.
“I wept with anguish a hundred times a day. Why had I left New York? Why had I not foreseen this every-day calamity, and passed every precious hour by his side I was to lose?
“Terror seized me. My mother would go next. No life of any value was safe a day. Death did not wait for disease. It killed because it chose, and to show its contempt of hearts.
“But just as I was preparing to go to Havre, they brought me a telegram. I screamed at it, and put up my hands. I said 'No, no;' I would not read it, to be told my mother was dead. I would have her a few minutes longer. Cornelia read it, and said it was from her. I fell on it, and kissed it. The blessed telegram told she was coming home. I was to go to London and wait for her.
“I started. Cornelia paid my fees, and put my diploma in my box.Icared for nothing now but my own flesh and blood—what was left of it—my mother.
“I reached London, and telegraphed my address to my mother, and begged her to come at once and ease my fears. I told her my funds were exhausted; but, of course, that was not the thing I poured out my heart about; so I dare say she hardly realized my deplorable condition—listless and bereaved, alone in a great city, with no money.
“In her next letter she begged me to be patient. She had trouble with her husband's executors; she would send me a draft as soon as she could; but she would not leave, and let her child be robbed.
“By-and-by the landlady pressed me for money. I gave her my gowns and shawls to sell for me.”
“Goose!”
“And just now I was a fox.”
“You are both. But so is every woman.”
“She handed me a few shillings, by way of balance. I lived on them till they went. Then I starved a little.”
“With a ring on your finger you could have pawned for ten guineas!”
“Pawn my ring! My father gave it me.” She kissed it tenderly, yet, to Vizard, half defiantly.
“Pawning is not selling, goose!” said he, getting angry.
“But I must have parted with it.”
“And you preferred tostarve?”
“I preferred to starve,” said she, steadily.
He looked at her. Her eyes faced his. He muttered something, and walked away, three steps to hide unreasonable sympathy. He came back with a grand display of cheerfulness. “Your mother will be here next month,” said he, “with money in both pockets. Meantime I wish you would let me have a finger in the pie—or, rather my sister. She is warm-hearted and enthusiastic; she shall call on you, if you will permit it.”
“Is she like you?”
“Not a bit. We are by different mothers. Hers was a Greek, and she is a beautiful, dark girl.”
“I admire beauty; but is she like you—in—in—disposition?”
“Lord! no; very superior. Not abominably clever like you, but absurdly good. You shall judge for yourself. Oblige me with your address.”
The doctress wrote her address with a resigned air, as one who had found somebody she had to obey; and, as soon as he had got it, Vizard gave her a sort of nervous shake of the hand, and seemed almost in a hurry to get away from her. But this was his way.
She would have been amazed if she had seen his change of manner the moment he got among his own people.
He burst in on them, crying, “There—the prayers of this congregation are requested for Harrington Vizard, saddled with a virago.”
“Saddled with a virago!” screamed Fanny.
“Saddled with a—!” sighed Zoe, faintly.
“Saddled with a virago FOR LIFE!” shouted Vizard, with a loud defiance that seemed needless, since nobody was objecting violently to his being saddled.
“Look here!” said he, descending all of a sudden to a meek, injured air, which, however, did not last very long, “I was in the garden of Leicester Square, and a young lady turned faint. I observed it, and, instead of taking the hint and cutting, I offered assistance—off my guard, as usual. She declined. I persisted; proposed a glass of wine, or spirit. She declined, but at last let out she was starving.”
“Oh!” cried Zoe.
“Yes, Zoe—starving. A woman more learned, more scientific, more eloquent, more offensive to a fellow's vanity, than I ever saw, or even read of—a woman ofgenius,starving, like a genius and a ninny, with a ring on her finger worth thirty guineas. But my learned goose would not raise money on that, because it was her father's, and he is dead.”
“Poor thing!” said Zoe, and her eyes glistened directly.
“Itishard, Zoe, isn't it? She is a physician—an able physician; has studied at Zurich and at Edinburgh, and in France, and has a French diploma; but must not practice in England, because we are behind the Continent in laws and civilization—soshesays, confound her impudence, and my folly for becoming a woman's echo! But if I were to tell you her whole story, your blood would boil at the trickery, and dishonesty, and oppression of the trades-union which has driven this gifted creature to a foreign school for education; and, now that a foreign nation admits her ability and crowns her with honor, still she must not practice in this country, because she is a woman, and we are a nation of half-civilized men. That isherchat, you understand, not mine. We are not obliged to swallow all that; but, turn it how you will, here are learning, genius, and virtue starving. We must get her to accept a little money; that means, in her case, a little fire and food. Zoe, shall that woman go to bed hungry to-night?”
“No, never!” said Zoe, warmly. “'Let me think. Offer her aloan.”
“Well done; that is a good idea. Willyouundertake it? She will be far more likely to accept. She is a bit of a prude and all, is my virago.”
“Yes, dear, she will. Order the carriage. She shall not go to bed hungry—nobody shall that you are interested in.”
“Oh, after dinner will do.”
Dinner was ordered immediately, and the brougham an hour after.
At dinner, Vizard gave them all the outline of the Edinburgh struggle, and the pros and cons; during which narrative his female hearers might have been observed to get cooler and cooler, till they reached the zero of perfect apathy. They listened in dead silence; but when Harrington had done, Fanny said aside to Zoe, “It is all her own fault. What business have women to set up for doctors?”
“Of course not,” said Zoe; “only we must not say so. He indulgesusin our whims.”
Warm partisan of immortal justice, when it was lucky enough to be backed by her affections, Miss Vizard rose directly after dinner, and, with a fine imitation of ardor, said she could lose no more time—she must go and put on her bonnet. “You will come with me, Fanny?”
When I was a girl, or a boy—I forget which, it is so long ago—a young lady thus invited by an affectionate friend used to do one of two things; nine times out of ten she sacrificed her inclination, and went; the tenth, she would make sweet, engaging excuses, and beg off. But the girls of this day have invented “silent volition.” When you ask them to do anything they don't quite like, they look you in the face, bland but full, and neither speak nor move. Miss Dover was a proficient in this graceful form of refusal by dead silence, and resistance by placid inertia. She just looked like the full moon in Zoe's face, and never budged. Zoe, being also a girl of the day, needed no interpretation. “Oh, very well,” said she, “disobliging thing!”—with perfect good humor, mind you.
Vizard, however, was not pleased.
“You go with her, Ned,” said he. “Miss Dover prefers to stay and smoke a cigar with me.”
Miss Dover's face reddened, but she never budged. And it ended in Zoe taking Severne with her to call on Rhoda Gale.
Rhoda Gale stayed in the garden till sunset, and then went to her lodgings slowly, for they had no attraction—a dark room; no supper; a hard landlady, half disposed to turn her out.
Dr. Rhoda Gale never reflected much in the streets; they were to her a field of minute observation; but, when she got home she sat down and thought over what she had been saying and doing, and puzzled over the character of the man who had relieved her hunger and elicited her autobiography. She passed him in review; settled in her mind that he was a strong character; a manly man, who did not waste words; wondered a little at the way he had made her do whatever he pleased; blushed a little at the thought of having been so communicative; yet admired the man for having drawn her out so; and wondered whether she should see him again. She hoped she should. But she did not feel sure.
She sat half an hour thus—with one knee raised a little, and her hands interlaced—by a fire-place with a burned-out coal in it; and by-and-by she felt hungry again. But she had no food, and no money.
She looked hard at her ring, and profited a little by contact with the sturdy good sense of Vizard.
She said to herself, “Men understand one another. I believe father would be angry with me for not.”
Then she looked tenderly and wistfully at the ring, and kissed it, and murmured, “Not to-night.” You see she hoped she might have a letter in the morning, and so respite her ring.
Then she made light of it, and said to herself, “No matter; 'qui dort, dine.'”
But as it was early for bed, and she could not be long idle, sipping no knowledge, she took up the last good German work that she had bought when she had money, and proceeded to read. She had no candle, but she had a lucifer-match or two, and an old newspaper. With this she made long spills, and lighted one, and read two pages by that paper torch, and lighted another before it was out, and then another, and so on in succession, fighting for knowledge against poverty, as she had fought for it against perfidy.
While she was thus absorbed, a carriage drew up at the door. She took no notice of that; but presently there was a rustling of silk on the stairs, and two voices, and then a tap at the door. “Come in,” said she; and Zoe entered just as the last spill burned out.
Rhoda Gale rose in a dark room; but a gas-light over the way just showed her figure. “Miss Gale?” said Zoe, timidly.
“I am Miss Gale,” said Rhoda, quietly, but firmly.
“I am Miss Vizard—the gentleman's sister that you met in Leicester Square to-day;” and she took a cautious step toward her.
Rhoda's cheeks burned.
“Miss Vizard,” she said, “excuse my receiving you so; but you may have heard I am very poor. My last candle is gone. But perhaps the landlady would lend me one. I don't know. She is very disobliging, and very cruel.”
“Then she shall not have the honor of lending you a candle,” said Zoe, with one of her gushes. “Now, to tell the truth,” said she, altering to the cheerful, “I'm rather glad. I would rather talk to you in the dark for a little, just at first. May I?” By this time she had gradually crept up to Rhoda.
“I am afraid youmust,”said Rhoda. “But at least I can offer you a seat.”
Zoe sat down, and there was an awkward silence.
“Oh, dear,” said Zoe; “I don't know how to begin. I wish you would give me your hand, as I can't see your face.”
“With all my heart: there.”
(Almost in a whisper) “He has told me.”
Rhoda put the other hand to her face, though it was so dark.
“Oh, Miss Gale, howcouldyou? Only think! Suppose you had killed yourself, or made yourself very ill. Your mother would have come directly and found you so; and only think how unhappy you would have made her.”
“Can I have forgotten my mother?” asked Rhoda of herself, but aloud.
“Not willfully, I am sure. But you know geniuses are not always wise in these little things. They want some good humdrum soul to advise them in the common affairs of life. That want is supplied you now; forIam here—ha-ha!”
“You are no more commonplace than I am; much less now, I'll be bound.”
“We will put that to the test,” said Zoe, adroitly enough.“Myview of all this is—that here is a young lady in want of moneyfor a time,as everybody is now and then, and that the sensible course is to borrow some till your mother comes over with her apronful of dollars. Now, I have twenty pounds to lend, and, if you are so mighty sensible as you say, you won't refuse to borrow it.”
“Oh, Miss Vizard, you are very good; but I am afraid and ashamed to borrow. I never did such a thing.”
“Time you began, then.Ihave—often. But it is no use arguing. Youmust—or you will get poor me finely scolded. Perhaps he was on his good behavior with you, being a stranger; but at home they expect to be obeyed. He will be sure to say it was my stupidity, and thathewould have made you directly.”
“Do tell!” cried Rhoda, surprised into an idiom; “as if I'd have taken money fromhim!”
“Why, of course not; but betweenusit is nothing at all. There:” and she put the money into Rhoda's hand, and then held both hand and money rather tightly imprisoned in her larger palm, and began to chatter, so as to leave the other no opening. “Oh, blessed darkness! how easy it makes things! does it not? I am glad there was no candle; we should have been fencing and blushing ever so long, and made such a fuss about nothing—and—”
This prattle was interrupted by Rhoda Gale putting her right wrist round Zoe's neck, and laying her forehead on her shoulder with a little sob. So then they both distilled the inevitable dew-drops.
But as Rhoda was not much given that way, she started up, and said, “Darkness? No; I must see the face that has come here to help me, and not humiliate me. That is the first use I'll make of the money. I am afraid you are rather plain, or you couldn't be so good as all this.”
“No,” said Zoe. “I'm not reckoned plain; only as black as a coal.”
“All the more to my taste,” said Rhoda, and flew out of the room, and nearly stumbled over a figure seated on a step of the staircase. “Who are you?” said she, sharply.
“My name is Severne.”
“And what are you doing there?”
“Waiting for Miss Vizard.”
“Come in, then.”
“She told me not.”
“Then I tell youto.The idea! Miss Vizard!”
“Yes!”
“Please have Mr. Severne in. Here he is sitting—like Grief—on the steps. I will soon be back.”
She flew to the landlady. “Mrs. Grip, I want a candle.”
“Well, the shops are open,” said the woman, rudely.
“Oh, I have no time. Here is a sovereign. Please give me two candles directly, candlesticks and all.”
The woman's manner changed directly.
“You shall have them this moment, miss, and my own candlesticks, which they are plated.”
She brought them, and advised her only to light one. “They don't carry well, miss,” said she. “They are wax—or summat.”
“Then they are summat,” said Miss Gale, after a single glance at their composition.
“I'll make you a nice hot supper, miss, in half an hour,” said the woman, maternally, as if she were going togiveit her.
“No, thank you. Bring me a two-penny loaf, and a scuttle of coals.”
“La, miss, no more than that—out of a sov'?”
“Yes—THE CHANGE.”
Having shown Mrs. Grip her father was a Yankee, she darted upstairs, with her candles. Zoe came to meet her, and literally dazzled her.
Rhoda stared at her with amazement and growing rapture. “Oh, you beauty!” she cried, and drank her in from head to foot.
“Well,” said she, drawing a long breath, “Nature, you have turned out acom-plete article this time, I reckon.” Then, as Severne laughed merrily at this, she turned her candle and her eyes full on him very briskly. She looked at him for a moment, with a gratified eye at his comeliness; then she started. “Oh!” she cried.
He received the inspection merrily, till she uttered that ejaculation, then he started a little, and stared at her.
“We have met before,” said she, almost tenderly.
“Have we?” said he, putting on a mystified air.
She fixed him, and looked him through and through. “You—don't—remember—me?” asked she. Then, after giving him plenty of time to answer, “Well, then, I must be mistaken;” and her words seemed to freeze themselves and her as they fell.
She turned her back on him, and said to Zoe, with a good deal of sweetness and weight, “I have lived to see goodness and beauty united. I will never despair of human nature.”
This was too pointblank for Zoe; she blushed crimson, and said archly, “I think it is time for me to run. Oh, but I forgot; here is my card. We are all at that hotel. If I am so very attractive, you will come and see me—we leave town very soon—will you?”
“I will,” said Rhoda.
“And since you took me for an old acquaintance, I hope you will treat me as one,” said Severne, with consummate grace and assurance.
“I will,sir,”said she, icily, and with a marvelous curl of the lip that did not escape him.
She lighted them down the stairs, gazed after Zoe, and ignored Severne altogether.
GOING home in the carriage, Zoe was silent, but Severne talked nineteen to the dozen. Had his object been to hinder his companion's mind from dwelling too long on one thing, he could not have rattled the dice of small talk more industriously. His words would fill pages; his topics were, that Miss Gale was an extraordinary woman, but too masculine for his taste, and had made her own troubles setting up doctress, when her true line was governess—for boys. He was also glib and satirical upon that favorite butt, a friend.
“Who but asoi-disantwoman-hater would pick up a strange virago and send his sister to her with twenty pounds? I'll tell you what it is, Miss Vizard—”
Here Miss Vizard, who had sat dead silent under a flow of words, which is merely indicated above, laid her hand on his arm to stop the flux for a moment, and said, quietly,“Doyou know her? tell me.”
“Know her! How should I?”
“I thought you might have met her—abroad.”
“Well, it is possible, of course, but very unlikely. If I did, I never spoke to her, or I should have remembered her.Don't you think so?”
“She seemed very positive; and I think she is an accurate person. She seemed quite surprised and mortified when you said 'No.'”
“Well, you know, of course it is a mortifying thing when a lady claims a gentleman's acquaintance, and the gentleman doesn't admit it. But what could I do? I couldn't tell a lie about it—could I?”
“Of course not.”
“I was off my guard, and rudish; but you were not. What tact! what delicacy! what high breeding and angelic benevolence! And so clever, too!”
“Oh, fie! you listened!”
“You left the door ajar, and I could not bear to lose a word that dropped from those lips so near me. Yes, I listened, and got such a lesson as only a noble, gentle lady could give. I shall never forget your womanly art, and the way you contrived to make the benefaction sound nothing. 'We are all of us at low water in turns, and for a time, especially me, Zoe Vizard; so here's a trifling loan.' A loan! you'll never see a shilling of it again! No matter. What do angels want of money?”
“Oh, pray,” said Zoe, “you make me blush!”
“Then I wish there was more light to see it—yes, an angel. Do you think I can't see you have done all this for a lady you do not really approve? Fancy—a she doctor!”
“My dear friend,” said Zoe, with a little juvenile pomposity, “one ought not to judge one's intellectual superiors hastily, and this lady is ours”—then, gliding back to herself, “and it is my nature to approve what those I love approve—when it is not downright wrong, you know.”
“Oh, of course it is not wrong; but is it wise?”
Zoe did not answer: the question puzzled her.
“Come,” said he, “I'll be frank, and speak out in time. I don't think you know your brother Harrington. He is very inflammable.”
“Inflammable! What! Harrington? Well, yes; for I've seen smoke issue from his mouth—ha! ha!”
“Ha! ha! I'll pass that off for mine, some day when you are not by. But, seriously, your brother is the very man to make a fool of himself with a certain kind of woman. He despises the whole sex—in theory, and he is very hard upon ordinary women, and does not appreciate their good qualities. But, when he meets a remarkable woman, he catches fire like tow. He fell in love with Mademoiselle Klosking.”
“Oh, not in love!”
“I beg your pardon. Now, this is between you and me—he was in love with her, madly in love. He was only saved by our coming away. If those two had met and made acquaintance, he would have been at her mercy. I don't say any harm would have come of it; but I do say that would have depended on the woman, and not on the man.”
Zoe looked very serious, and said nothing. But her long silence showed him his words had told.
“And now,” said he, after a judicious pause, “here is another remarkable woman; the last in the world I should fancy, or Vizard either, perhaps, if he met her in society. But the whole thing occurs in the way to catch him. He finds a lady fainting with hunger; he feeds her; and that softens his heart to her. Then she tells him the old story—victim of the world's injustice—and he is deeply interested in her. She can see that; she is as keen as a razor. If those two meet a few more times, he will be at her mercy; and then won't she throw physic to the dogs, and jump at a husband six feet high, and twelve thousand acres! I don't study women with a microscope, as our woman-hater does, but I notice a few things about them; and one is, that their eccentricities all give way at the first offer of marriage. I believe they are only adopted in desperation, to get married. What beautiful woman is ever eccentric? catch her! she can get a husband without. That doctress will prescribe Harrington a wedding-ring; and, if he swallows it, it will be her last prescription. She will send out for the family doctor after that, like other wives.”
“You alarm me,” said Zoe. “Pray do not make me unjust. This is a lady with a fine mind, and, not a designing woman.”
“Oh, I don't say she has laid any plans; but these things are always extemporized the moment the chance comes. You can count beforehand on the instinct of every woman who is clever and needy, and on Vizard's peculiar weakness for women out of the common. He is hard upon the whole sex; but he is no match for individuals. He owned as much himself to me one day. You are not angry with me!”
“No, no. Angry withyou?”
“It is you I think of in all this. He is a fine fellow, and you are proud of him. I wouldn't have him marry to mortify you. For myself, while the sister honors me with her regard, I really don't much care who has the brother and the acres. I have the best of the bargain.”
Zoe disputed this—in order to make him say it several times.
He did, and proved it in terms that made her cheeks red with modesty and gratified pride; and by the time they had got home, he had flattered everything but pride, love, and happiness out of her heart, poor girl.
The world is like the Law, full of implied contracts: we give and take, without openly agreeing to. Subtle Severne counted on this, and was not disappointed. Zoe rewarded him for his praises, and her happiness, by falling into his views about Rhoda Gale. Only she did it in her own lady-like way, and not plump.
She came up to Harrington and kissed him, and said, “Thank you, dear, for sending me on a good errand. I found her in a very mean apartment, without fire or candle.”
“I thought as much,” said Vizard.
“Did she take the money?”
“Yes—as a loan.”
“Make any difficulties?”
“A little, dear.”
Severne put in his word. “Now, if you want to know all the tact and delicacy with which it was done, you must come to me; for Miss Vizard is not going to give you any idea of it.”
“Be quiet, sir, or I shall be very angry. I lent her the money, dear, and her troubles are at an end; for her mother will certainly join her before she has spent your twenty pounds. Oh! and she had not parted with her ring; that is a comfort, is it not?”
“You are a good-hearted girl, Zoe,” said Vizard, approvingly; then, recovering himself, “But don't you be blinded by sentiment. She deserves a good hiding for not parting with her ring. Where is the sense of starving, with thirty pounds on your finger?”
Zoe smiled, and said his words were harder than his deeds.
“Because he doesn't mean a word he says,” put in Fanny Dover, uneasy at the long cessation of her tongue, for all conversation with Don Cigar had proved impracticable.
“Are you there still, my Lady Disdain?” said Vizard. “I thought you were gone to bed.”
“You might well think that. I had nothing to keep me up.”
Said Zoe, rather smartly, “Oh, yes, you had—Curiosity;” then, turning to her brother, “In short, you make your mind quite easy. You have lent your money, or given it, to a worthy person, but a little wrong-headed. However”—with a telegraphic glance at Severne—“she is very accomplished; a linguist: she need never be in want; and she will soon have her mother to help her and advise her. Perhaps Mrs. Gale has an income; if not, Miss Gale, with her abilities, will easily find a place in some house of business, or else take to teaching. If I was them, I would set up a school.”
Unanimity is rare in this world; but Zoe's good sense carried every vote. Her prompter, Severne, nodded approval. Fanny said, “Why, of course;” and Vizard, who it was feared might prove refractory, assented even more warmly than the others. “Yes,” said he, “that will be the end of it. You relieve me of a weight. Really, when she told me that fable of learning maltreated, honorable ambition punished, justice baffled by trickery, and virtue vilified, and did not cry like the rest of you, except at her father dying in New York the day she won her diploma at Montpelier, I forgave the poor girl her petticoats; indeed, I lost sight of them. She seemed to me a very brave little fellow, damnably ill used, and I said, 'This is not to be borne. Here is a fight, and justice down under dirty feet.' What, ho!” (roaring at the top of his voice).
Zoe and Fanny(screaming, and pinching Ned Severne right and left). “Ah! ah!”
“Vizard to the rescue!”
“But, with the evening, cool reflection came. A sister, youthful, but suddenly sagacious (with a gleam of suspicion), very suddenly has stilled the waves of romance, and the lips of beauty have uttered common sense. Shall they utter it in vain? Never! It may be years before they do it again. We must not slight rare phenomena. Zoelocuta est—Eccentricity must be suppressed. Doctresses, warned by a little starvation, must take the world as it is, and teach little girls and boys languages, and physic them with arithmetic and the globes: these be drugs that do not kill; they only make life a burden. I don't think we have laid out our twenty pounds badly, Zoe, and there is an end of it. The incident is emptied, as the French say, and (lighting bed-candles) the ladies retire with the honors of war. Zoe has uttered good sense, and Miss Dover has done the next best thing; she has said very little—”
Miss Dover shot in contemptuously, “I had no companion—”
—“For want of a fool to speak her mind to.”