•X I E> R.ARY 
 
 OF THE 
 U N IVE.RS ITY 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 525 
 
 Y27J 
 
 v|
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/drwainwrightspat01yate
 
 DK. WAINWBIGHT'S PATIENT.
 
 LONDON: 
 ROBSON AND SOXS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.
 
 DR WAIWMGHT'S PATIENT, 
 
 % Intel. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDMUND YATES, 
 
 AUTHOR OP 
 BLACK SHEEP," " WRECKED IN PORT," " BROKEN TO HARNESS," ETC. 
 
 1 Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 
 Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
 Baze out the written troubles of the brain, 
 And with some sweet oblivious antidote 
 Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff 
 Which weighs upon the heart ?" 
 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY. 
 
 1871. 
 
 ~ L AU rvjlds reserved,]
 
 "5 
 
 8£5 
 
 V. 1 
 
 TO 
 
 JOHN STRANGE BAKER, 
 
 IX REMEMBRANCE 
 
 OF 
 TWENTY YEARS' FRIENDSHIP.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 — "mt" 
 CHAP. 
 
 i. Captain Derinzy's Eetreat 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 
 
 ii. A Visitor expected 
 
 
 20 
 
 hi. During Office-hours 
 
 
 
 3i 
 
 iv. After Office-hours 
 
 
 
 58 
 
 v. Family Politics 
 
 
 
 86 
 
 vi. Mrs. Stothard 
 
 
 
 117 
 
 vii. Friexds in Council 
 
 
 
 151 
 
 viii. Corridor No. 4 
 
 
 
 182 
 
 ix. Dear Annette 
 
 
 
 212 
 
 x. Madame Clarisse . 
 
 
 
 245
 
 DR. WAINWKIGHT'S PATIENT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ( ATTAIN DERINZY'S RETREAT. 
 
 Beachborough, where, in obedience to the strident 
 voice of the railway porter — voice combining the 
 hardness of the Dorset with the drawl of the 
 Devon dialect — you, if you be so disposed, 
 " Change for Sandington Cove and Waverley," is 
 a very different place from what it was even ten 
 years ago. To be sure the sea is there, and the 
 beach, and the fishing-luggers with the red sails; 
 but in everything else what changes ! Now there 
 is, as has been said, a railway-station, a forlorn 
 little oasis of white planking in a desert of sandy 
 heathy inhabited by a clerk — a London young 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 A DR. WAINWPJGHT S PATIENT. 
 
 man, who "went too fast" in the metropolis, and 
 has been relegated to Beachborough as a good 
 healthy place where there is no chance of temp- 
 tation — and a porter, a native of the place, a 
 muscular person great at wrestling, who is always 
 inviting the male passers-by of his acquaintance 
 to "come on," and supplying them on their doing 
 so, with a very ugly throw known as a "back- 
 fall." There are not many passers-by, for the 
 newly-formed road leads to nowhere in particular, 
 and those who tramp through its winter slush, or 
 struggle through its summer dust, are generally 
 either tradesmen of the place anxious about over- 
 due parcels, or servants, sent to make inquiries 
 about the trains, from some of the houses on the 
 Esplanade. 
 
 The Esplanade ! Heavens, if old Miss Gollop, 
 who lived at the Baths, and who used to supply 
 very hot water and very damp towels, and the 
 greatest number of draughts ever known to be 
 got together into one small room, to the half- 
 dozen county families to whom Beachborough 
 was then known as a watering-place — if old Miss
 
 CAPTAIN DERIXZY S RETREAT. 6 
 
 Gollop could revisit the glimpses of the moon 
 and by its light look upon the Esplanade, it 
 would, I am certain, be impossible for that worthy 
 old lady to recognise it as Mussared's Meadow, 
 where she picked cowslips and sucked sorrel when 
 she was a girl, and which was utterly untainted 
 i >y the merest suspicion of brick and mortar when 
 she died twenty years ago. She would not recog- 
 nise it any more than in the Dingo Arms — that 
 great white -faced establishment, with its suites 
 of apartments, its coffee-room, wine-office, private 
 bar, and great range of stabling, patronised by, 
 and in its sanction .sanctorum bearing an heraldic 
 emblazonment of the arms of, Sir Hercules Dingo 
 Dingo, Bart., bloody hand, four-quartered shield 
 and all — she would have recognised the Hoy, a 
 tiny "public" where they used to sell the hardest 
 beer and the most stomach-ache-provoking cider, 
 and which in her day was the best tavern in the 
 village. The white-faced terrace has sprung up 
 in Mussared's Meadow ; the Esplanade in front 
 of it is a sea-wall and a delightful promenade for 
 the Misses Gimp's young ladies, who are the
 
 4 DR. WAIN WRIGHT s patient. 
 
 admiration of Dingo-terrace, and who have deadly 
 rivals in Madame de Flahault's demoiselles, whose 
 piano-playing is at once the delight and the curse 
 of Powler - square ; the cliffs, once so gaunt and 
 barren and forlorn, are dotted over with cottages 
 and villakins, all green porch and plate-glass win- 
 dows ; the old barn-like church has had a fresh 
 tower put on to him, and a fresh minister — one 
 with his ecclesiastical millinery of the newest cut, 
 and up to the latest thing in genuflexions — put 
 into him ; there is a Roman-catholic chapel close 
 to the old Wesleyan meeting-house ; and they 
 have modernised and spoiled the picturesque 
 tower where Captain Derinzy wore away a portion 
 of his days. Great improvements, no doubt. 
 Pavement and gas, and two policemen, and a 
 railway, and a ritualistic incumbent, and shops 
 with plate-glass windows, where you can get Hol- 
 loway's pills and Horniman's teas, and all the 
 things without which no gentleman's table is 
 complete. But the events of my story happened 
 ten years ago, when the inhabitants of Beach- 
 borough — shopkeepers, fisher - people, villagers,
 
 CAPTAIN DERIXZY S RETREAT. 5 
 
 and lace-makers — were like one family, and loved 
 and hated and reviled and back-bit each other as 
 the members of one family only can. 
 
 We shall get a little insight into the village 
 politics if we drop in for a few minutes at Mrs. 
 Powler's long one-storied, thatched-roofed cottage, 
 standing by itself in the middle of the little High- 
 street. Mrs. Powler is a rich and childless old 
 widow, Powler deceased having done a little in 
 the vending of home-manufactured lace, and a 
 great deal in the importing, duty-free, of French 
 lace and brandy. It was Powler's run when Bill 
 Gollop, the black sheep of the Gollop family, was 
 shot by the revenue-officer down by Wastewater 
 Hole, a matter which Powler is scarcely thought 
 to have compromised by giving a new organ to 
 Bedminster church. However, he has been dead 
 some years, and his widow is very rich and toler- 
 ably hospitable ; and her little thatched cottage — 
 she never lived in any other house — is the centre 
 and focus of Beachborough gossip. 
 
 It is just about Mrs. Powler's supper-time, 
 which is very early in the summer, and she has
 
 6 Ml. WAINWRIGHT S PATIENT. 
 
 guests to supper. There is no linen in all Beach- 
 borough so white as Mrs. Powler's, no such real 
 silver plate, no such good china or glass. The 
 Beachborough glass generally consists of fat thick 
 goblets on one stump-leg, or dumpy heavy wine- 
 glasses with a pattern known as " the pretty" 
 half-way up their middle, which, like the de- 
 canters, are heavy and squat, and require a strong 
 wrist to lift them. But Mrs. Powler had thin, 
 blown delicate glasses, and elegant goblets with 
 curling snakes for their handles, and drinking- 
 cups in amber and green colours, all of which 
 were understood to have come from " abroad," 
 and were prized by her and respected by her 
 neighbours accordingly. There never was a bad 
 lobster known in Beachborough ; and it is pro- 
 bable that Mrs. Powler's were no better than her 
 neighbour's, but she certainly had a wondrous 
 knack of showing them off to the best advantage, 
 setting-off the milk-white of the inside and the 
 deep -red of the shell with layers of crisp curling 
 parsley, as a modern belle sets off her complexion 
 with artfully-arranged bits of tulle and blonde.
 
 CAPTAIN DEPJXZY 6 RETREAT. 7 
 
 Nor was her boiled beef to be matched within ten 
 miles round. "I du 'low that other passons' 
 biled beef to Mrs. Powler's is sallt as brine and 
 soft as butter," Mrs. Jupp would confess; and 
 Mrs. Jupp was a notable housewife, and what the 
 vulgar call "nuts" on her own cooking. There 
 is a splendid proof of it on the table now, cold 
 and firm and solid. Mr. Jupp has just helped 
 himself to a slice, and it is his muttered praise 
 that has called forth the tribute of general admi- 
 ration from his better : half. Mr. Hallibut, the 
 fish-factor and lace-dealer from Bedminster, is 
 still occupied with the lobster ; for he has a ten- 
 mile drive home before him, and any fear of indi- 
 gestion he laughs to scorn, knowing how he can 
 " settle" that demon with two or three raw " nips" 
 and one or two steaming tumblers of some of that 
 famous brandy which the deceased Powler im- 
 ported duty-free from abroad, and a bottle of 
 which is always to be found for special friends 
 in the old oak ar moire, which stands under the 
 Lord's-Prayer sampler which Mrs. Powler worked 
 when she was a little girl.
 
 8 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 Mrs. Powler is in the place of honour opposite 
 the window. A little woman, with a dark-skinned, 
 deeply-lined face, and small sparkling black eyes, 
 the fire in which remains undimmed by the 
 seventy years through which they have looked 
 upon the world, though their sight is somewhat 
 failing. She wears a fierce black front, and a 
 closely-fitting white-lace cap over it, and an open 
 raspberry-tart-like miniature of her deceased lord 
 — a rather black and steelly-looking daguerreo- 
 type — gleams on her chest. Mrs. Powler likes 
 her drinks, as she does not scruple to confess, 
 and has been sipping from a small silver tankard 
 of cider. 9 
 
 " Who was that just went passt the winder, 
 Jupp ?" she said, after a short period of tankard 
 abstraction. " My eyes isn't what they was, and 
 I du 'low I couldn't see, though I'm settin' right 
 oppo-site like." 
 
 "Heart alive!" struck in Mrs. Jupp, after a 
 moment's silence, and seeing it was perfectly im- 
 possible her better-half could sufficiently masti- 
 cate the piece of cold beef on which he was en-
 
 CAPTAIN DERINZY'S RETREAT. 9 
 
 gaged in anything like time for a reply — "heart 
 alive, to hear you talk of your eyes, Mrs. Powler ! 
 Why, there's many a young gal would give any- 
 thin' for such a pair in her head, either for show 
 or for use, either !" 
 
 " I should think so," said Mr. Jupp, who had 
 by this time cleared his mouth and moistened his 
 palate with the contents of the cider-tankard — "I 
 should think so !" and Mr. Jupp, who was of a 
 convivial turn, began to troll, "Eyes black — as 
 sloes, and — bo-o-oo-som rounded — " 
 
 "Mr. Jupp," interrupted Mrs. Jupp, a tall, 
 thin, horse-faced woman, with projecting buck- 
 teeth, and three little sausage curls of iron-gray 
 hair flattened down on either side her forehead, 
 " reck'lect where you are, if you please, and keep 
 your ditties to yourself." 
 
 "Well, niver mind my eyes," said Mrs. Pow- 
 ler; she desired to make peace, but she was a 
 rich woman and in her own house, and conse- 
 quently spoke in a dictatorial way — "niver mind 
 my eyes, nor anything else for the matter of that, 
 but tell who it was that went passt."
 
 10 dr. waixweight's patient. 
 
 " It was the Captain, my dear madam, the 
 Captain," replied Mr. Jupp, freshly attacking the 
 cold beef, and consoling himself for his snubbing 
 with his supper. "You had no great loss in not 
 seeing him, ma'am : it was only the Captain." 
 
 "What! Prinsy, Drinsy, what's his name'?" 
 said Mr. Hallibut, taking a clean plate, and deli- 
 cately clearing his lips and fingers from lobster- 
 remains on the corner of the tablecloth. " I'll 
 trouble you, Jupp ! — Is he still here ?" 
 
 " His name's Derinzy, Mr. Hollybut," said 
 Mrs. Jupp. "De-rin-zy; it's a French name." 
 Mrs. Jupp had been a lady's-maid once on a 
 time, and prided herself on her manners and 
 education. 
 
 "And mine's Hallibut, and not Hollybut, 
 Mrs. Jupp," said the fish-factor jocosely; "and 
 I'll trouble J-u double p — which I take it is an 
 English name — for some of the inside fat — next 
 the marrer-bone there!" 
 
 " Dear heart !" interrupted Mrs. Powler, feel- 
 ing her position as hostess and richest of the 
 company was being made scarcely sufficient of;
 
 CAPTAIN DERIXZY's RETREAT. 11 
 
 " how you do jangle, all of you ! Not but what," 
 added the old lady with singular inconsequence 
 — " not but what I'm no scholarcl, and don't see 
 the use of French names, while English is good 
 enough for me." • 
 
 "Ah, but some things is better French, as 
 you and I, and one or two more of us could tell," 
 said jocose Mr. Hallibut, feeling it was time for 
 a "nip," and availing himself of the turn in the 
 conversation to point with his elbow to the cel- 
 laret, where the special brandy was kept. 
 
 " Well, help yourself, and put the bottle on 
 the table," said the old lady, somewhat mollified. 
 "Ah, that was among the spoils of the brave, in 
 the good old times when men was men !" she 
 added in a half-melancholy tone. She was accus- 
 tomed to think and speak of her deceased hus- 
 band as though he had been the boldest of buc- 
 caneers, the Captain Kyd of the Dorsetshire 
 coast ; whereas he, in his lifetime, was a worthy 
 man in a Welsh wig, who never went to sea, or 
 was present at the " running" of a keg. 
 
 "And so the Captain's still here," pursued
 
 12 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 Hallibut; "living in the same house, and doing 
 much the same as usual, I suppose ?" 
 
 "Jist exactly the same," replied Mr. Jupp. 
 "Wandering about the village, molloncholly-like, 
 and cussin' all creation." 
 
 "Mr. Jupp," broke in his better-half, " reck'- 
 lect where you are if you please, and keep your 
 profane swearin' to yourself." 
 
 " I wonder he don't go away," suggested Hal- 
 libut. 
 
 " He can't," said Mrs. Jupp solemnly. 
 
 "What! do you mean to say he's been run- 
 ning in debt here in Beaeuborougk, or over in 
 Bedminster ?" 
 
 "He don't owe a brass farthing in either 
 place," asserted Mrs. Powler; "if anybody ought 
 to know, I ought;" and to do her justice she 
 ought, for no one heard scandal sooner, or dis- 
 seminated it more readily. 
 
 "Perhaps he hadn't the chance," said Mr. 
 Jupp, stretching out his hand towards the tum- 
 bler. 
 
 "Mr. Jupp," said his wife, "what cause have
 
 CAPTAIN DERTNZY'S RETREAT. 13 
 
 you to say that ? Was you ever kept waiting for 
 the money for the meal or malt account ? Is the 
 rent paid regular for the bit of pasture-land for 
 Miss Annette's cow? "Well, then, reck'lect where 
 you are, if you please, and who you're speaking of." 
 
 " Well, but if he hates the place and cusses — 
 I mean, does what Jupp said he did just now — 
 what does he stop here for"? Why don't he go 
 away? He must have some reason." 
 
 " Of course he has, Mr. Hallibut," said Mrs. 
 Jupp with an air of dignity. 
 
 "Got the name all right this time, Mrs. 
 Jupp; — here's your health," said the jolly man, 
 sipping his tumbler. " Well, what's the rea- 
 son ?" 
 
 "It's because of Miss Annette — she that we 
 was speaking of just now." 
 
 "0, ah!" said Mr. Hallibut ;— " she's his 
 daughter, isn't she ?" 
 
 "Niece," said Mrs. Jupp. 
 
 "0," said Mr. Hallibut doubtfully. 
 
 " You and I have seen the world, Hallibut," 
 broke in Mr. Jupp, who had been paying his at-
 
 1-i DR. WABTWRIGHT'S PATIENT. 
 
 tentions to the French brandy. "We've heard 
 of nieces before — priests' nieces and such-like, 
 who—" 
 
 "Mr. Jupp, irill you reck'lect where you are, 
 if you please ? — What I was goin' to say when 
 thus interrupted, Mr. Hallibut, was, that it's on 
 account of his niece Miss Annette that Captain 
 Derinzy remains in this place. She's a dreadful 
 in-val-lid, is Miss Annette, and this Dorsetsheer 
 air suits her better than any other part of Eng- 
 land. As to her not bein' his niece — " 
 
 "La, la, du be quiet, Harriet!" interrupted 
 Mrs. Powler, who saw that unless she asserted 
 herself with a dash she would be quite forgotten ; 
 "this everlastin' click-clackin', I du 'low it goes 
 threw my head like a hot knife threw a pat of 
 fresh butter. Av' course Miss Netty's the 
 Captain's niece ; 0, I don't mind you men — spe- 
 cial you, Jupp, sittin' grinnin' there like the Mis- 
 chief ! I've lived long in the world, and in dif- 
 ferent sort of society from this ; and I know what 
 you mean fast enough, and I'm not one to pre- 
 tend I don't, or to be squeamish about it."
 
 CAPTAIN DEPJNZY'S RETREAT. 15 
 
 This was a hard hit at Mrs. Jupp, who took 
 it accordingly, and said, 
 
 " Well, hut, Mrs. Powler, if Jupp were not 
 h rough t up sudden, as it were — " 
 
 "Like enough, my dear, like enough; but 
 when you're as old as I am, you'll find it's very 
 hard to have to give up chat for fear of these kind 
 of things, unless indeed there's young girls pre- 
 sent, and then — well, of course !" said Mrs. Powler 
 with a sigh. "But, Lord, you're all wrong about 
 why Captain Derinzy stops at Beachborough." 
 
 "Do you know why it is, Mrs. Powler?" 
 asked Mr. Hallibut, feigning intense interest, 
 under cover of which he mixed himself a second 
 tumbler of brandy-and-water. 
 
 " Well, I think I do," said the old lady. 
 
 " Tell us, by all means," said the fish-factor, 
 looking at his hostess very hard, and dropping 
 two lumps of sugar into his tumbler. 
 
 " Well, Harriet's right so far — there's no 
 doubt about Miss Annette being the Captain's 
 niece, at least, there's no question of her being 
 his daughter, as you two owdacious men — and,
 
 1G dr. waixwright's patient. 
 
 Jupp, you ought to know better, having been 
 churchwarden, and your name in gold letters in 
 front of the organ-loft, on account of the church 
 being warmed by the hot pipes, which only made 
 a steam and a smell, and no heat at all — as you 
 two owdacious men hinted at. Lor' bless you, 
 you don't know Mrs. Derinzy." 
 
 "That's what I tell 'em, Mrs. Powler," cho- 
 russed Mrs. Jupp; "they don't know the Cap- 
 tain's wife. Why, she's as proud as proud ; and 
 he daren't say his soul's his own, let alone intro- 
 ducin' anyone into the house that she didn't know 
 all about or wish to have there." 
 
 "But still you don't know what makes them 
 stay here," said Mrs. Powler, not at all influenced 
 b}< her friend's partisanship, and determined to 
 press her point home upon her audience. 
 
 "Well, if it isn't Miss Netty's illness, I 
 don't," said Mrs. Jupp slowly, and with manifest 
 reluctance at having to acknowledge herself 
 beaten. 
 
 " Then I'll tell you," said the old lady trium- 
 phantly, smoothing her dress, looking slowly
 
 CAPTAIN DEEINZY'S RETREAT. 17 
 
 round, and pausing before she spoke. "You 
 know Mrs. Stothard ?" 
 
 "Miss Annette's servant — yes," said Mrs. 
 Jupp. 
 
 " Servant — pouf !" said Mrs. Powler, snapping 
 her fingers, and thereby awaking Mr. Jupp, 
 who had just dropped asleep, and was dreaming 
 that he was in his mill, and dared not stretch out 
 his legs for fear of getting them entangled in the 
 machinery. "Who ever saw her do any servant's 
 work; did you?" 
 
 "N-no; I can't say I ever did," replied Mrs. 
 Jupp ; " but then I have never been to the 
 house." 
 
 "What does that matter?" asked the old 
 lady rather illogically ; "no one ever did. No one 
 ever saw her do a stroke of servant's work in the 
 house : mend clothes, wash linen, darn stockings, 
 make beds — Dear heart alive! she's no servant." 
 
 "What is she then?" asked Mrs. Jupp 
 eagerly. 
 
 " A poor relation !" hissed Mrs. Powler, bend- 
 ing over the table ; "a poor relation, my dear, of 
 
 vol. i. c
 
 18 de. wainwright's patient. 
 
 either his or hers, with something about her that 
 prevents them shaking her off, and obliges them 
 to keep her quiet." 
 
 " Do you think so — really think so ?" 
 "I'm sure of it, my dear — certain sure." 
 "Lord, I remember," said Mrs. Jupp, with a 
 sudden affectation of a mincing manner, and a 
 lofty carriage of her head ; "I remember once 
 seeing something of the sort at the playhouse ; 
 but then the poor relation was a man, a man who 
 always went about in a large cloak, and appeared 
 in places where he was least expected and most 
 unwelcome. It was in Covent Garden Theatre." 
 
 " Covent Garden Theatre," said Jupp, sud- 
 denly waking up. " I remember in the . sa- 
 loon — " 
 
 " Mr. Jupp, reck'lect where you are, if you 
 please, and spare the company your reminis- 
 cences." 
 
 Here Mr. Hallibut, who, finding himself bored 
 by the conversation about people of whom he 
 knew nothing, had quietly betaken himself to 
 drink, and had got through three tumblers of
 
 captain demnzy's retreat. 19 
 
 brandy-and-water unobserved, remarked that as 
 he had a long drive before him, he thought it was 
 time for him to go, and after making his adieux 
 departed to find the ostler at the Hoy, who had 
 his rough old pony in charge. Mrs. Jupp put 
 on her bonnet, and, after a word of promise to 
 look in next morning and hear the remainder of 
 her hostess's suspicions about Mrs. Stothard, 
 roused up Mr. Jupp, who, balancing himself on 
 frail and trembling legs, which he still believed to 
 be endangered by the proximity of his mill's 
 machinery, staggered out into the open air, where 
 he was bid to reck'lect himself if he pleased, and 
 to walk steadily, so that the coastguard then pass- 
 ing might not see he was drunk.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A VISITOR EXPECTED. 
 
 It was indeed Captain Derinzy who had passed 
 up the village street. It is needless to say that 
 he had not heard anything of the comments 
 which his appearance had evoked ; but had he 
 heard them, they would not have made the 
 smallest difference to him. He was essentially 
 a man of the world, and on persons of his class 
 these things have very little effect. A is irre- 
 trievably involved; B has outwritten himself; C 
 is much too intimate with Mrs. D ; while D is 
 ruining that wretched young E at ecarte, so at 
 least say Y and Z ; but the earlier letters of the 
 alphabet do not care much about it. They know 
 that the world must be always full of shaves and 
 cancans, and, like men versed in the great art of 
 living, they know they must have their share of 
 them, and know how to take them. Captain De-
 
 A VISITOR EXPECTED. 21 
 
 rinzy passed up the village street without bestow- 
 ing one single thought upon that street's inhabi- 
 tants, or indeed upon anything or anybody within 
 a hundred miles of Beachborough. He looked 
 utterly incongruous to the place, and he felt ut- 
 terly incongruous to it, and if he were recalled to 
 the fact of its existence, or of his existence in it, 
 by his accidentally slipping over one of the round 
 knobbly stones which supplied the place of a foot- 
 way, or having to step across one of the wide, self- 
 made sluices which, coming from the cottages, dis- 
 charged themselves into the common kennel, all he 
 did was to wish it heartily at the devil ; an aspi- 
 ration which he uttered in good round rich tones, 
 and without any heed to the feelings of such lookers- 
 on as might be present. 
 
 See him now, as he steps off the knobbly 
 pavement and strikes across the road, making 
 for the greensward of the cliff, and unconsciously 
 becoming bathed in a halo of sunset glory in his 
 progress. A thin man, of fifty years of age, of 
 middle height, with a neat, trim figure, and one 
 of his legs rather lame, with a spare, sallow,
 
 22 dk. waikweight's patient. 
 
 fleshless face, high cheek-boned, lantern-jawed, 
 bright black eyes, straight nose, thin lips, not 
 overshadowed, but outlined rather, by a very 
 small crisp black moustache. His hair is bine- 
 black in tint and wiry in substance, so much at 
 least of it as can be seen under a rather heavy 
 brown sombrero hat which he wears perched on 
 one side of his head in rather a jaunty manner. 
 His dress, a suit of some light-gray material, is 
 well cut, and perfectly adapted for the man and 
 the place ; and his boots are excellently made, 
 and fit his small natty feet to perfection. His 
 ungloved hands are lithe and brown ; in one of 
 them he 'carries a crook-headed cane, with which — 
 a noticeable peculiarity — he fences and makes 
 passes at such posts and palings as he encounters 
 on his way. That he was a gentleman born and 
 bred you could have little doubt; little doubt 
 from his carriage of himself, and an indescribable, 
 unmistakable something, that he was, or had been, 
 a military man ; no doubt at all that he was en- 
 tirely out of place in Beachborough, and that he 
 was bored out of his existence.
 
 A VISITOR EXPECTED. 23 
 
 Captain Derinzy passed the little road, which 
 Wft8 ankle-deep in white sandy dust, save where 
 the overflowings of the kennel had worked it into 
 thick flaky mud, hopped nimbly, albeit lamely, 
 over the objectionable parts, and when he reached 
 the other side, and stood upon the short crisp turf 
 leading up to the cliff, looked at the soles of his 
 boots, shook his head, and swore aloud. Con- 
 siderably relieved by this proceeding, he made his 
 way slowly and gently up the ascent, pausing here 
 and there, less from want of breath than from 
 sheer absolute boredom. Rambling quietly on in 
 his own easy-going fashion, now fencing at a 
 handrail, now making a one, two, three sword-exer- 
 cise cut, and finally demolishing a sprouting field- 
 flower, he took some time to reach the top of the 
 cliff. When there he looked carefully about him 
 for a clean dry spot, and, having found one, dropped 
 gently down at full length, and comfortably reclin- 
 ing his head on his arm, looked round him. 
 
 It was high tide below, and the calmest and 
 softest of silver summer seas was breaking in the 
 gentlest ripple on the beach, and against the base
 
 24 de. wainwright's patient. 
 
 of the high chalk cliff whereon he lay. The en- 
 trance to the little bay was marked by a light 
 line of foam-crested breakers, beyond which lay 
 a broad stretch of heaving ocean; but the bay 
 itself was " oily calm," its breast dotted here and 
 there with fishing-luggers outward-bound for the 
 night's service, their big tan sails gleaming 
 lightly and picturesquely in the red beams of the 
 setting sun. Faintly, very faintly, from below 
 rose the cries of the boatmen — hoarse monoto- 
 nous calls, which had accompanied such and such 
 acts of labour for centuries, and had been taught 
 by sire to son, and practised from time imme- 
 morial. But the silence around the man out- 
 stretched on the cliff's top was unbroken save 
 by the occasional cry of the sea-fowl, wheeling 
 round and round above his head, and swooping 
 down into their habitation-holes, with which the 
 chalk-face was honeycombed. As he lay there 
 idly watching, the sun, a great blood-red globe 
 of fire, sank into the sea, leaving behind it a halo 
 of light, in which the strips of puff-cloud hover- 
 ing over the horizon — here light, thin, and va-
 
 A VISITOR EXPECTED. 25 
 
 porous, there heavy, dense, and opaque — as- 
 sumed eccentric outlines, and deadened to one 
 gorgeous depth of purple. There were very few 
 men who would have been insensible to the love- 
 liness of the surroundings — very few but would 
 have been impressed under such circumstances 
 with a sense of the beauty of Nature and the 
 beneficence of Providence. Captain Derinzy was 
 one of these few. He saw it all, marked it all, 
 looked at it leisurely and critically through half- 
 shut eyes, as though scanning some clever picture 
 or some scene at the theatre.* Then, quietly 
 dropping his head back upon his hand, he gave 
 a prolonged yawn, and said quietly to himself, 
 " 0, dam' !" 
 
 " 0, dam' !" Sun and sea and sky, purple 
 clouds, foam-crested breakwaters, tan sails sunset- 
 gilded, yohoing boatmen, nest-seeking curlews, 
 hoary cliff. " 0, dam' !" But that was not all. 
 Lazily lying at full length, lazily picking blades 
 of grass, lazily nibbling them, and lazily spitting 
 them from his mouth, he said in a quaintly queru- 
 lous tone,
 
 26 dr. wainweight's patient. 
 
 "Beastly place! How I hate it! Beastly 
 sea, and all that kind of thing ; and those fellows 
 going away in their beastly boats, smelling of fish 
 and oil and grease, and beastliness, and wearing 
 greasy woollen nightcaps, and smoking beastly 
 strong tobacco in their foul pipes ; and then 
 people draw them, and write about them, and 
 call them romantic, and all such cussed twaddle ! 
 Why the deuce ain't they clean and neat, and 
 why don't they dance about, and sing like those 
 fellows in Masaniellot And — Lord ! Masani- 
 ello ! I didn't think I should even have remem- 
 bered the name of anything decent in this infernal 
 place! What's the time now?" looking at his 
 watch. "Nearly eight. Gad! fancy haying had 
 a little dinner at the Windham, or, better still, 
 at the Coventry, where they say that fellow — 
 what's his name — Francatelli is so good, and 
 then dropping down to the Opera to hear Cruvelli 
 and Lablache, or the new house which Poyntz 
 wrote me about — Covent Garden — where Grisi 
 and Mario and the lot have gone ! Fancy my 
 never having seen the new house ! Dammy, I
 
 A VISITOR EXPECTED. 27 
 
 shall become a regular fogey if I stop in this 
 infernal hole much longer. And not if I were 
 stopping for myself either ! If I'd been shaking 
 a loose leg, and had outrun the constable, or 
 anything of that sort, I can understand a fellow 
 being compelled to pull up and live quiet for a 
 bit, though there's Boulogne, which is much 
 handier to town, and much jollier with the etab- 
 Ussement, and plenty of ecarte, said all that sort 
 of thing, to go on with. But this/ Pooh! that's 
 the dam' folly of a man's marrying what they 
 call a superior woman ! I suppose Gertrude's all 
 right ; I suppose it will come off all straight ; 
 but I don't see the particular pull for me when 
 it does come off. Here am I wastin' the best 
 years of my life, — and just at a time when I 
 haven't got too many of 'em to waste, by Jove, — 
 just that another fellow may stand in for a good 
 thing. To be sure, he's my son, and there's 
 fatherly feelings, and all that sort of thing ; but 
 he's never done anything for me, and I think it's 
 rather hard he don't come and take a little of 
 this infernal dreariness on his own shoulders. I
 
 28 de. wainwbight's patient. 
 
 shall have to cut away — I know I shall ; I can't 
 stand it much longer. I shall have to tell Ger- 
 trude — and I never can do that, and I haven't got 
 the pluck to cut away without telling her, and I 
 know she won't even let me go to old Dingo's for 
 the shooting in the autumn. What an ass I was 
 ever to let myself he swindled into coming into 
 this heastly place ! and how confoundedly I hate 
 it ! 0, dam' ! 0, dam' !" 
 
 As he concluded he raised himself lightly to 
 his feet, and commenced his descent of the hill 
 as easily and jauntily as he had ascended it. His 
 lame leg troubled him a little, and once when he 
 trod on a rolling stone and nearly fell, he stopped 
 and smiled pleasantly at the erring foot, and 
 shook his cane facetiously over it. As he entered 
 the village, he muttered to himself, " Good hea- 
 vens, du monde, how very interesting!" For the 
 hours of toil were over, and the shopkeepers and 
 the wives of the fishermen, and such of the fisher- 
 boys as had not gone to sea that evening, were 
 standing at their doors and gossiping, or playing 
 in the street. The lace-making girls were there
 
 A VISITOR EXPECTED. 29 
 
 too, very pretty girls for the most part, with big- 
 black eyes and swarthy complexions and thick 
 blue-black hair; their birthright these advan- 
 tages, for in the old days one of the home-flying 
 ships of the Spanish Armada had been wrecked 
 on the Beachborough coast, and the saved ma- 
 riners had intermarried with the village women, 
 and transmitted their swarthy comeliness to their 
 posterity. As the Captain passed by, hats were 
 lifted and curtsies dropped, courtesy which he 
 duly returned by touching his sombrero with his 
 forefinger in the military style to the men, and 
 by God-blessing the women and chin-chucking 
 the girls with great heartiness. 
 
 So on till he arrived at his own house, where 
 he opened the door from the outside, and entering 
 the handsome old dining-room, was surprised to 
 see the table laid for four persons. 
 
 "Hallo! what's this?" he said to a woman 
 at the other end of the room with her back to- 
 wards him. " Who is coming to dinner, Mrs. 
 Stothard?" 
 
 "Have you forgotten?" said the woman
 
 dU DR. WAINWRIGHT S PATIENT. 
 
 addressed, without turning her head. "Dr. 
 Wain wright." 
 
 " 0, ah 1" growled Captain Derinzy in a sub- 
 dued key. " Where's Annette ?" 
 
 " In her own room." 
 
 " Why don't she come down ?" 
 
 "Because she's heard Dr. Wain wright is ex- 
 pected, and has turned sulky, and won't move." 
 
 " 0, dam' !" said Captain Derinzy.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DURING OFFICE-HOURS. 
 
 The "Office of H.M. Stannaries" is in a small 
 back-street in the neighbourhood of Whitehall. 
 What H.M. Stannaries were was known to but 
 very few of the initiated, and to no " externs" at 
 all. Old Mr. Bult, who, from time immemorial 
 had been the chief-clerk of the office, would, on 
 being interrogated as to the meaning of the word 
 or the duties of his position, take a large pinch 
 of snuff, blow the scattered grains off his beauti- 
 fully-got-up shirt-frill, stare his querist straight 
 in the face, and tell him that " there were certain 
 matters of a departmental character, concerning 
 which it was not considered advisable to involve 
 oneself in communication with the public at 
 large." The younger men were equally reticent. 
 To those who tried to pump them, they replied
 
 32 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 that they "wrote things, you know; letters, and 
 those kind of things," and " kept accounts." 
 What of? Why, of the Stannaries, of course. 
 But what were the Stannaries? Ah, that was 
 going into a matter of detail which they did not 
 feel themselves justified in explaining. Their 
 ribald friends used to say that the men in the 
 Stannaries Office could not tell you what they had 
 to do, because they did nothing at all, or that 
 they did so little that they were sworn to secrecy 
 on receiving their appointments, lest any inquisi- 
 tive Radical member, burning to distinguish him- 
 self before his constituents in the cause of Civil- 
 Service reform — a bray with which the dullest 
 donkey can make himself heard — should rise in 
 the House, and demand an inquiry, or a Parlia- 
 mentary Commission, or some of those other dread- 
 ful inquisitions so loathsome to the official mind. 
 
 However, no matter what work was or was not 
 done there, the Stannaries Office was a fact, and 
 a fact for which the nation paid, and, according 
 to the entries in the Civil-Service estimates, paid 
 pretty handsomely. For there was a Lord Com-
 
 DURING OFFICE-HOURS. 33 
 
 raissioner of Stannaries, at two thousand a-year, 
 and a secretary at one thousand, and a private 
 secretary at three hundred, and four-and-twenty 
 clerks at salaries ranging from one to eight hun- 
 dred, besides messengers and office -keepers. It 
 was a well-thought-of office too ; the men engaged 
 in it went into good society, and were recognised 
 as brother officials by the lofty bureaucrats of the 
 Treasury and the Foreign Office — great creatures, 
 who looked upon Somerset House and the Post 
 Office as tenanted by the sons of peers' butlers, 
 and who regarded the Custom House as a damp 
 place somewhere on the Thames, where amphi- 
 bious persons known as "tide-waiters" searched 
 passengers' baggage. But it was by no means 
 infra dig. to know men in the Stannaries ; and 
 that department of the public service annually 
 contributed a by no means small share of the best 
 dancers and amateur performers of the day. 
 " Only give us gentlemen," Mr. Bran white, the 
 secretary, would say in his first official interview 
 with a newly-appointed Lord Commissioner — for 
 the patronage of his office was vested in the Lord 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 dr. wainwkight's patient. 
 
 Commissioner of the Stannaries, who was a poli- 
 tical functionary, and came in and went out with 
 the Government, — " only give us gentlemen ; 
 that's all I ask. We don't require much brains 
 in this place, and that's the truth ; but we do want 
 birth and breeding." And on these points Mr. 
 Branwhite, who was the son of an auctioneer at 
 Penrith, and who combined the grace of Dr. 
 Johnson with the geniality of Dr. Abernethy, was 
 inexorable. The cry was echoed everywhere 
 throughout the office. "Let's have gentlemen, 
 for God's sake !" little Fitzbinkie, the private se- 
 cretary, would say, adding, with a look of as much 
 horror as he could throw into his eyeglass — you 
 never saw his eyes — " there was a fellow here the 
 other day, came to see my lord. Worthington — 
 you've heard about him — wonderful fellow at the 
 Admiralty, great gun at figures, and organisa- 
 tion, and that kind of thing ; reformed the navy 
 almost, and so on ; and — give you my honour — he 
 had on a brown shooting-jacket, and a black-silk 
 waistcoat — black-silk waistcoat, give you my word ! 
 Frightful, eh? Let's have gentlemen, at any price."
 
 DURING OFFICE -HOURS. 35 
 
 And the prayer of these great creatures was, 
 to a large extent, answered. Most of the men in 
 the Stannaries Office were pleasant, agreeable, 
 sufficiently educated, well-dressed, and gentle- 
 manly-mannered. "Within the previous few years 
 there had been a Scotch and an Irish Lord Com- 
 missioner, and each of them had left traces of 
 his patronage in the office : the first in the im- 
 portation of two or three grave men, who, not 
 finding work enough to do, filled up their leisure 
 by reading statistics, or working out mathematical 
 problems ; the last, by the appointment of half-a- 
 dozen roistering blades, who did very little of the 
 work there was to do, and required the help of a 
 Maunders' Treasury of Knowledge, subscribed for 
 amongst them, to enable them to do what they 
 did ; but who were such good riders and such 
 first-rate convivialists that they were found in 
 mounts and supper-parties for two-thirds of the 
 year. The Irish element was, however, decidedly 
 unpopular with Mr. Branwhite, the secretary, a 
 cold-blooded, fish-like man, dry and tasteless, like 
 a human captain's-biscuit, who had no animal
 
 36 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 spirits himself, and consequently hated them in 
 others. He was a long, thin, melancholy-looking 
 fiddle-faced sort of a man, who tried to hide his 
 want of manner under an assumed brusqueric and 
 bluntness of speech. He had been originally 
 brought up as a barrister, and owed his present 
 appointment to the fact of his having a very pretty 
 wife, who attracted the senile attentions and won 
 the flagging heart of the Earl of Lechmere, who 
 happened to be Lord Commissioner of the Stanna- 
 ries when Sir Francis Pongo died, after forty years' 
 tenure of the secretaryship. Lord Lechmere, hav- 
 ing, when he called at Mrs. Branwhite's pretty 
 villa in the Old-Brompton lanes, been frequently 
 embarrassed by the presence of Mr. Branwhite, 
 that gentleman's barristerial practice being not 
 sufficient to take him often to the single chamber 
 which he rented in Quality-court, Chancery-lane, 
 thought this a favourable opportunity to improve 
 the Branwhite finances, in this instance at least 
 without cost to himself, and of assuring himself 
 of Mr. Branwhite's necessitated absence from the 
 Old - Brompton villa during certain periods of
 
 DURING OFFICE-HOURS. 37 
 
 the day. Hence Mr. Branwhite's appointment 
 as secretary to H.M. Stannaries. There was a 
 row about it, of course. Why did not the pro- 
 motion " go in the office" ? That is what the 
 Stannaries men wanted to know, and what they 
 threatened to get several members of parliament 
 to inquire of the Financial Secretary to the Trea- 
 sury, who replied on Stannaries matters in the 
 Lower House. The Official Chronicle, that eru- 
 dite and uncompromising advocate of the Govern- 
 ment service, came out with a series of letters 
 signed "Eraser," "Half-margin," and "Nunquam 
 Dormio ;" and a leader in which Lord Lechmere 
 was compared to King David, and Mr. Branwhite 
 to Uriah the Hittite, the parallel in the latter 
 case being heightened by the writer's suggestion 
 that each had been selected "for a very warm 
 berth." But the authorities cared neither for 
 official remonstrances nor press sarcasms. They 
 had their answer to the question why the pro- 
 motion did not go in the office. Who was the 
 next in rotation ? Mr. Bult, the chief clerk. 
 Was Mr. Bult competent in any way for the se-
 
 38 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 cretaryship ? Would the gentlemen of the Stan- 
 naries Office like to see their department repre- 
 sented by Mr. Bult ? Certainly not. Very well, 
 then, as it was impossible, after Mr. Bult's leng- 
 thened service, during which his character had 
 been stainless, to pass him by, and place any of his 
 juniors over his head, the only course was to seek 
 for Sir Francis's successor in some gentleman 
 unconnected with the place. This was the way 
 in which Mr. Branwhite obtained his appoint- 
 ment. Lord Lechmere's party went out of office 
 soon after, and Lord Lechmere himself has been 
 dead for years; but Mr. Branwhite held on 
 through the regimes of the Duke of M'Tavish 
 and Viscount Ballyscran, and was all-powerful as 
 ever now while Lord Polhill of Pollington was 
 Lord Commissioner. What was thought of him, 
 and, indeed, what was thought and said pretty 
 plainly about most official persons and topics, we 
 shall learn by looking into a large room on the 
 ground-floor of the office known as the Principal 
 Registrar's Room. 
 
 The Principal Registrar's Room must by no
 
 DURING OFFICE-HOURS. 39 
 
 means be confounded with the Registry, which 
 was a very different, and not a very choice, place, 
 where junior clerks got their hands into Stanna- 
 ries work by stamping papers and covering their 
 fingers with printers '-ink. The Principal Regis- 
 trar's Room was appropriated to the Principal 
 Registrar, #nd three of the best-looking assistants 
 he could get hold of. The gentleman seated at 
 the writing-table in the centre of the room, and 
 reading the Morning Post, is the Principal Regis- 
 trar, Mr. Courtney. He sits habitually with his 
 back to the light, so that you cannot see his 
 features very distinctly, — sufficiently, however, 
 to make out that he is an old — in reality, a very 
 old — man made up for a young one. He must 
 have been of fair complexion and good-looking 
 at one time, for his capitally-made wig is red in 
 colour, and though his perfectly-shaven cheeks 
 are mottled and pulpy, his features are well-cut 
 and aristocratic. His throat, exposed to view 
 through his turn-down collar, is old and wrinkled, 
 reminding one of a fowl's neck ; and his hands 
 are soft and seemingly boneless. So much as
 
 40 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 can be seen of his legs under the table reminds 
 one of Punch's legs, exhibited by that "godless 
 old rebel" in front of his show : the knees knock 
 together, and the feet turn inwards towards each 
 other with helpless imbecility. The only time 
 that Mr. Courtney exhibits any great signs of 
 vitality is in the evening at the Portland Club, 
 where he plays an admirable game of whist, and 
 where his hand is always heavily backed. Though 
 he confesses to being " an old fellow," and quotes 
 '' Me, nee fcemina nee puer" with a deprecating 
 shrug of the shoulders, he likes to hear the ad- 
 ventures of his young companions, and is by no 
 means inconveniently strait-laced in his ideas. 
 He has a comic horror of any "low fellows," or 
 men who do not go into what he calls "sassiety;" 
 he regards the Scotch division of the office as 
 "stoopid," and contemplates the horsiness and 
 loud tone of the Irish with great disfavour. He 
 has, he thinks, a very good set of " boys" under 
 him just now, and is proportionately pleasant 
 and good-tempered. Let us look at his "boys." 
 That good-looking young man at the desk in
 
 DURING OFFICE -HOURS. 41 
 
 the farthest window is Paul Derinzy, only son of 
 our friend the Captain, resident at Beachborough. 
 The likeness to his father is seen in his thin, 
 straight-cut features, small, lithe figure, and blue- 
 black hair. The beard movement had just been 
 instituted in Government offices, and Paul De- 
 rinzy follows it so far as to have grown a thick 
 black moustache and a small, pointed beard, both 
 very becoming to his sallow complexion and 
 Velasquez type of face. He is about five-and- 
 twenty years of age, and has an air of birth and 
 breeding which finds him peculiar favour in his 
 Chief's eyes. In his drooping eyelids, in his 
 pose, in his outstretched arms, and head lying 
 lazily on one side, there was an expression of lan- 
 guor that argued but ill for the amount of work 
 to be gotten out of him in any way, and which 
 proclaimed Mr. Paul Derinzy to be one of that 
 popular regiment, " The Queen's Hard Bargains." 
 But what of that? He certainly did his office 
 credit by his appearance ; there was very seldom 
 much work to be done, and when there was, Paul 
 was so popular that no one would refuse to under-
 
 42 dr. wainweight's patient. 
 
 take his share. That man opposite, for instance, 
 loved Paul as his brother, and would have done 
 anything for him. 
 
 The man opposite is George Wainwright. He 
 is four or five years older than Paul, and of con- 
 siderably longer standing in the office. In per- 
 sonal appearance he differs very much from his 
 friend. George Wainwright stands six feet in 
 height, is squarely and strongly built, has a mass 
 of fair hair curling almost on to his shoulders, 
 and wears a soft, thick, fair beard. His hands 
 are very large and very white, with big blue veins 
 standing out on them, and his broad wrists show 
 immense power. His eyes are large and promi- 
 nent, hazel in colour, and soft in expression ; he 
 has a rather long and thick nose, and a large 
 mouth, with fresh white teeth showing when he 
 smiles. He is smiling now, at some remark made 
 by the third assistant to the Principal Registrar, 
 Mr. Dunlop, commonly called " Billy Dunlop," 
 a pleasant fellow, remarkable for two things, im- 
 perturbable good-humour, and never letting any- 
 one know where he lived.
 
 DURING OFFICE -HOURS. 43 
 
 * What are you two fellows grinning at?" asks 
 Paul Derinzy, lazily lifting his head and looking 
 across at them. 
 
 * I'm grinning at Billy's last night's adven- 
 tures," replies George Wainwright. " He went 
 to the Opera, and supped at Dubourg's." 
 
 " Horrible profligate ! Alone ?" 
 
 " So likely !" says Billy Dunlop. " All right, 
 though ; I mean, quite correct. Only Mick 
 O'Dwyer with me." 
 
 " Mick O'Dwyer at the Opera ?" says Paul in 
 astonishment. "Why, he always swears he has 
 no dress-clothes." 
 
 "No more he has; but I lent him some of 
 mine — a second suit I keep for first nights of 
 Jullien's Concerts, and other places where it is 
 sure to be crammed and stivy. They fitted Mick 
 stunningly, and he looked lovely in them ; but 
 he couldn't get my boots on, and he had to go in 
 his own. There were lots of our fellows there, 
 and they looked astonished to see Mick clothed 
 and in his right mind; and at the back of the pit, 
 just by the meat-screen there, you know, we met
 
 44 de. wainwright's patient. 
 
 Lannigan, the M.P. for some Irish place, who's 
 Mick's cousin. He didn't recognise him at first; 
 then when Mick spoke he looked him carefully 
 all over, and said, ' You're lovely, Mick!' Then 
 his eyes fell on the hoots ; he turned to me with 
 a face of horror, and muttered, 'Ah, Billy, the 
 hrogues spoil the lot.' " 
 
 The two other men laughed so loudly at this 
 story that Mr. Courtney looked up from his news- 
 paper, and requested to know what was the joke. 
 When he heard it he smiled, at the same time 
 shaking his head deprecatingly, and saying, 
 
 "For my part, I confess I cannot stand Mr. 
 O'Dwyer. He is a perfect Goth." 
 
 " Ah, Chief, that's really because you don't 
 know him," said Wainwright. "He's really an 
 excellent fellow ; isn't he, Billy ?" 
 
 " If Mick had only a little money he would 
 he charming," said Dunlop ; " hut he hasn't any. 
 He's of some use to me, however ; I've had no 
 occasion to consult the calendar since Mick's been 
 here. He borrows half-a-crown of me every day, 
 and five shillings on saints'-days, and — "
 
 DURING OFFICE-HOURS. 45 
 
 "Hold on a minute, Billy," said Paul De- 
 rinzy ; "if you lent Mick your clothes, you must 
 have taken him home — to where you live, I mean ; 
 so that somebody has found out your den at last. 
 What did you do ? Swear Mick to secrecy ?" 
 
 " Better than that, sir ; I brought the clothes 
 
 down here, and made Mick put 'em on in his own 
 
 room. No, sir, none of you have yet struck on 
 
 my trail. 
 
 Far in a wild, unknown to public view, 
 
 From youth to age Mr. William Dunlop grew." 
 
 " Haven't you boys solved that mystery yet ?" 
 asked Mr. Courtney, smiling, and showing a set 
 of teeth that did the dentist credit. 
 
 "Not yet, Chief; we very nearly had it out 
 last week," replied Paul. 
 
 " When was that ?" 
 
 "After that jolly little dinner you gave us 
 down at Greenwich. You drove home, you know ; 
 we came up by rail. I suppose Quartermaine's 
 champagne had worked the charm ; but the lord 
 of William's bosom certainly sat very lightly on 
 its throne, and he was, in fact, what the wicked
 
 46 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 call 'tight.' At the London -bridge Station I 
 hailed a hansom, and Billy got in with me, say- 
 ing I could set him down. Knowing that Billy 
 is popularly supposed to reside in a cellar in 
 Short's - gardens, Drury - lane, I told the driver 
 to take us a short cut to that pleasant locality. 
 Billy fell asleep, hut woke up just as we arrived 
 in Drury- lane, looked round him, shouted ' This 
 will do !' stopped the cab, and jumped out. Now, 
 I thought, I'd got him ! I told the cabman to 
 drive slowly on, and I stepped out and dodged 
 behind a lamp. But Billy was too much for me : 
 in the early dawn I saw him looking straight at 
 me, smiting his nose with his forefinger, and 
 muttering defiantly, ' No, you don't !' So even- 
 tually I left him." 
 
 "Of course you did. — No, no, Chief; William 
 is not likely to fall a prey to such small deer. 
 He will dissipate this mystery on one great occa- 
 sion." 
 
 " And that will be— ?" 
 
 "When he gets his promotion. When the 
 edict is promulgated, elevating William to the
 
 DURING OFFICE -HOURS. 47 
 
 senior class, he will bid you all welcome to a most 
 choice, elegant, and, not to put too fine a point 
 on it, classical repast prepared in his own home." 
 
 "Well, if we're to wait till then, you'll enjoy 
 your classic home, or whatever you call it, for a 
 long time unencumbered with our society," said 
 Derinzy. " Who's to have the next vacancy — 
 Barlow's vacancy, I mean ; who's to have it, 
 Chief?" 
 
 " My dear boy," said Mr. Courtney, with a 
 shoulder - shrug, "you are aware that I can 
 scarcely be considered an mieux with the powers 
 that be — meaning Mrs. Branwhite — and conse- 
 quently I am not likely to be taken into confi- 
 dence in such matters. But I understand, I have 
 heard, quite par hasard" and the old gentleman 
 waved his double glasses daintily in the air as he 
 pronounced the French phrase, "that Mr. Dick- 
 son is the selected — person." 
 
 " D— n Mr. Dickson !" said Paul Derinzy. 
 
 " Hear, hear !" said Mr. Dunlop ; "my senti- 
 ments entirely, well and forcibly put. A job, 
 sir, a beastly job. 'John Branwhite, Jobmaster,'
 
 48 dr. wainweight's patient. 
 
 ought to be written on the Secretary's door; ' neat 
 flies' over deserving people's heads, and ' expe- 
 rienced drivers;' those scoundrels that he employs 
 to spy, and sneak, and keep the fellows up to 
 their work. No, sir, no chance for my being 
 put up ; as the party in the Psalms remarks, 
 ' promotion cometh neither from the east nor from 
 the west.' " 
 
 "No, Billy, from the south-west this time," 
 said Paul Derinzy. "Dickson's people have been 
 having Branwhite and his wife to dine in Bel- 
 grave-square ; and our sweet Scratchetary was so 
 delighted with Lady Selina, and so fascinated by 
 the swell surroundings, that he has been grovel- 
 ling ever since : hence Dickson's lift." 
 
 " I have noticed," said Mr. Courtney, stand- 
 ing up and looking round him with that benevo- 
 lent expression which he always assumed when 
 about to give utterance to an intensely-unpleasant 
 remark, "I have noticed that when a — point of 
 fact, a cad — tries to get into sassiety on which 
 he has no claim for admission, he invariably 
 selects the wrong people. What you just said,
 
 DURING OFFICE-HOURS. 49 
 
 my dear Paul, bears out my argument entirely. 
 This man Branwhite — worthy person, official po- 
 sition, and that kind of thing; no more know- 
 ledge of decent people than a Hottentot — strug- 
 gles to get into sassiety, and who does he get to 
 introduce him? Dickson, brewer-man, malt and 
 hops and drugs, and blue boards with * Entire,' 
 and that kind of thing. Worthy person in his 
 way, and married Lady Selina Walkinshaw, sister 
 of Lord Barclay ; but as to sassiety — very third- 
 rate, God bless my soul, very third-rate in- 
 deed!" 
 
 "Well, I don't know any swells," said Billy 
 Dunlop, " and I don't think I want to. From 
 what I've seen of 'em, they're scarcely so convivial 
 as they might be. Not in the drinking-line ; I 
 don't mean that — they're all there ; but in the 
 talking. And talking of talking, Mr. Wainwright, 
 we've not had the pleasure of hearing your charm- 
 ing voice- for the last quarter of an hour. Has it 
 come off at last ?" 
 
 "Has what come off, Billy?" asked George 
 Wainwright. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 "The amputation. Has our father the emi- 
 nent &c. at last performed the operation and cut 
 off our tongue ? and is it then in a choice vial, 
 neatly preserved in spirits - of- wine, covered over 
 with a bit of a kid-glove, tied down with pack- 
 thread, and placed on a shelf between a stetho- 
 scope and a volume of Quain's Anatomy : is that 
 it?" 
 
 " Funny dog !" said George Wainwright, look- 
 ing across at him. " I often wonder why you 
 stop here, Billy, at two-forty, rising to three- 
 eighty by annual increments of ten, when 
 there's such a splendid future awaiting you 
 in the ring. That mug of yours is worth a 
 pound a-week alone ; and then those charming 
 witticisms, so new, so fresh, so eminently hu- 
 morous — " 
 
 " Will you shut up ?" 
 
 " How they would fetch the threepenny gal- 
 lery! Why don't I talk? I do sometimes in 
 your absence ; but when you're here, I feel like 
 one of ' those meaner beauties of the night, which 
 poorly satisfy our eyes ;' and when you begin I
 
 DURING OFFICE-HOURS. 51 
 
 ask myself, ' What are you when the moon shall 
 rise T " 
 
 " Shut up, will you? not merely your mouth, 
 but your inkstand, blotting-hook, and all the rest 
 of the paraphernalia by which you wring an ex- 
 istence out of a too - easily - satisfied Govern- 
 ment. You seem to have forgotten it's Satur- 
 day." 
 
 "By Jove, so it is!" said George Wain- 
 wright. 
 
 " Yes, sir," continued Mr. Dunlop ; " like that 
 party in Shakespeare, who drew a dial from his 
 poke, and said it was just ten, and in an hour it 
 would be eleven, I've just looked at my watch and 
 find that in ten minutes it will be one o'clock, at 
 which hour, by express permission of her Majesty's 
 Ministers, signed and sealed at a Cabinet Council 
 of which Mr. Arthur Helps was clerk, the gentle- 
 men of H.M. Stannaries are permitted on Satur- 
 days to — to cut it. That is the reason, odd as it 
 may seem, why I like Saturday afternoon. Mr. 
 Tennyson, I believe, knew some parties who 
 found out a place where it was always Saturday
 
 52 dr. wainwbight's patient. 
 
 afternoon. Mr. W. Dunlop presents his compli- 
 ments to the Laureate, and would be obliged 
 for an introduction to the said place and par- 
 ties." 
 
 " And what are you going to do with yourself 
 to-day, Billy?" 
 
 "I am going, sir, if I may so express myself 
 without an appearance of undue vanity, where 
 Glory waits me. But I am prepared to promise, 
 if it will afford any gentleman the smallest amount 
 of satisfaction, that when fame elates me, I will 
 at once take the opportunity of thinking of 
 thee !" 
 
 "And where is Glory at the present moment 
 on the look-out for you, William ?" 
 
 "Glory, sir, in the person of Mr. Kemp, the 
 Izaak Walton of the day, will be found awaiting 
 me in a large punt, moored on the silver bosom 
 of the Thames, off the pleasant village of Ted- 
 dington, a vessel containing, item two rods, item 
 groundbait and worms for fishing, item a stone 
 jar of — water ! A most virtuous and modest way 
 of spending the afternoon, isn't it? I wish I
 
 DURING OFFICE-HOURS. 53 
 
 could think it was going to be spent equally pro- 
 fitably by all!" and Billy Dunlop made a comic 
 grimace in the direction of Paul Derinzy, and 
 then assuming a face of intense gravity, took 
 his hat off a peg, nodded, and vanished. 
 
 "Well, good-bye, my dear boys," said Mr. 
 Courtney, coming out from behind the partition 
 where the washing-stand was placed — it was a 
 point of honour among the men to ignore his 
 performance of his toilette — with his wig tightly 
 fixed on and poodled up under his glossy hat, 
 with his close-fitting lavender gloves, and with 
 a flower in the button -hole of his coat; " an 
 revoir on Monday. I'm going down to dear 
 Lord Lumbsden's little place at Harlow to blow 
 this confounded dust out of me, and to get a 
 little ozone into me, to keep me up till I get 
 away to Scotland. An revoir /" and the old boy 
 kissed his finger-tips, and shambled away. 
 
 "What are you going to do this afternoon, 
 old man ?" asked George Wainwright, pulling off 
 his coat preparatory to a wash, of Paul Derinzy, 
 who had been sitting silent for the last ten
 
 54 dr. wainwpjght's patient. 
 
 minutes, now nervously plucking at his mous- 
 tache, now referring to his watch, and evidently 
 in a highly-nervous state. 
 
 " I don't know exactly, George," Paul replied, 
 without looking up at his friend. "I haven't 
 quite made up my mind." 
 
 " Going to play tennis ?" 
 
 "No, I think not," 
 
 " Going down to the Oval, to have an hour or 
 two with the professionals ?T Good day to-day, 
 and the ground's in clipping order." 
 
 "No, I think not." 
 
 "Well, then, look here. Come along with 
 me : we'll go for a spin as far as Hendon ; come 
 back and dine at Jack Straw's Castle at Hamp- 
 stead, where the man has some wonderfully-good 
 dry sherry which he bought the other day at a 
 sale up there ; and then walk quietly in at night. 
 What do you say?" 
 
 "No, I think not to-day, old fellow." 
 
 "0, all right," said George Wainwright, 
 after an instant's pause ; "I'm sorry I spoke." 
 
 " Don't be angry, George, old boy ! You
 
 DURING OFFICE -HOURS. 55 
 
 know I'm never bo jolly as when I'm with you, 
 and that there's no man on earth I care for like 
 you," said Paul earnestly; "but I've half-pro- 
 mised myself for this afternoon, and until I hear 
 — and I expect to hear every moment — I don't 
 know whether I'm free or not." 
 
 "All right, Paul. I daresay I bore you 
 sometimes, old man. I often think I do. But, 
 you know, I'm five or six years older than you, 
 and I was the first fellow you knew when you 
 came into the service, through your people being 
 acquainted with mine, and so I've a natural in- 
 terest in you. Besides, you're a young swell in 
 your way, and it does good to me to hear your talk 
 and mark your freshness, and your — well, your 
 youth. After thirty, a London man hasn't much 
 of either." 
 
 "At it again, are you, George? Why don't 
 you keep a property tub on the premises ? You 
 can't do your old Diogenes business effectively 
 without it. Or do you want no tub so long as 
 you have me for your butt ? Sold you there, I 
 think. You intended to say that yourself."
 
 56 dr. wainwbight's patient. 
 
 " Mr. Derinzy," said George Wainwright 
 gravely, "you must indeed have lost every par- 
 ticle of respect for me when you could imagine 
 that I would have descended to a low verbal jest 
 of that nature. Well, since you won't come, 
 I'll— " 
 
 " I never said I wouldn't yet, though I can't 
 expect you to wait any longer for my decision. 
 I—" 
 
 At that moment a messenger entered the room 
 with a letter in his hand. 
 
 "For you, sir," he said to Mr. Derinzy; 
 " the boy wouldn't wait to know if there was an 
 answer." 
 
 " All right," said Paul, opening it hurriedly 
 with a flushed face. 
 
 It had an outer and an inner envelope, both 
 sealed. 
 
 "And I may be like the boy, I suppose," said 
 George Wainwright, eyeing his friend with a 
 curiously mixed expression of interest and pity ; 
 " I needn't wait to know if there's an answer." 
 
 "No, dear old George; I can't come with
 
 DURING OFFICE-HOURS. 57 
 
 you this afternoon," replied Paul; and then he 
 looked at the letter again. 
 
 It was very short ; only one line. 
 
 "At the usual place, at three to-day. 
 
 "Daisy."
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 AFTER OFFICE-HOURS. 
 
 Paul Derinzy was left alone in the Principal Re- 
 gistrar's Room, and silence reigned in H.M. Stan- 
 naries Office. Snow does not melt away more 
 speedily under the influence of the bright spring 
 sun than do the clerks of that admirable depart- 
 ment under the sound of one o'clock on a Saturday 
 afternoon. Within ten minutes the place was de- 
 serted, the gentlemen had all cleared out, the 
 messengers had closed-up desks and lockers, des- 
 patched papers, and bolted, and the place was left 
 to Mr. Derinzy and the office-keeper. The latter 
 went to the door with the last departing mes- 
 senger, looked up the street and down the 
 street, and with something of the soreness of a 
 man who knew he was imprisoned for at least 
 thirty-six hours, said he thought they were go-
 
 AFTER OFFICE-HOURS. 59 
 
 ing to have some rain ; an idea which the mes- 
 senger — who had an engagement to take the 
 young lady with whom he was keeping company 
 to Gravesend on the Sunday — indignantly pooh- 
 poohed. Not to he put down by this sort of 
 thing, the office -keeper declared that rain was 
 wanted by the country, to which the messenger 
 replied that he thought of himself more than the 
 country ; and as the country had done without it 
 for three weeks, it might hold over without much 
 bother till Monday, he should think ; and nodded, 
 and went his way. The office-messenger kicked 
 the door viciously to, and proceeded to make his 
 round of the various rooms to see that everything 
 was in order, and to turn the key in each door 
 after his inspection. When he came to the 
 Principal Registrar's Room he went in as usual, 
 but finding Mr. Derinzy there performing on his 
 head with two hairbrushes he begged pardon and 
 retreated, wondering what the deuce possessed 
 anyone to stop in the Office of H.M. Stannaries 
 when he had the chance of leaving it and going 
 anywhere else. A cynical fellow this office-keeper,
 
 GO dr. waixwright's patient. 
 
 only to be humanised by his release on Monday 
 morning. 
 
 Mr. Paul Derinzy was in no special hurry, he 
 had plenty of time before him, and he had his 
 toilette to attend to ; a business which, though he 
 was no set dandy, he never scamped. He was 
 very particular about the exact parting of his hair, 
 the polish of his nails, and the set of his neck- 
 tie ; and between each act of dressing he went 
 back to his writing-table, and re-read the little 
 note lying upon it. Once or twice he took the 
 little note up, and whispered " darling !" to it, 
 and kissed it before he put it down again. Poor 
 Paul ! he was evidently very hard hit, and just at 
 the time of life, too, when these wounds fester 
 and rankle so confoundedly. Your ci-devant jeune 
 homme, your middle-aged gallant, vlveur, coureur 
 des dames, takes a love-affair as easily as his din- 
 ner : if it goes well, all right ; if it goes to grief, 
 equally all right ; the sooner it is over the better 
 he likes it. The great cynical philosopher of the 
 age, whose cynicism it is now the fashion to deny 
 — as though he could help it, or would have been
 
 AFTER OFFICE-HOURS. 61 
 
 in the least ashamed of it — in one of his ballads 
 calls upon all his coevals of forty to declare : 
 
 " Did not the fairest of the fair 
 Common grow, and wearisome, ere 
 Ever a month had passed away f 
 
 Middle-aged man has other aims, other resources, 
 other objects. The " court, camp, grove, the 
 vessel and the mart," fame, business, ambition, 
 — all of these have claims upon his time, claims 
 which he is compelled to recognise in their pro- 
 per season ; and, worst of al!, he has recovered 
 from the attacks of the "cruel madness of love," 
 a youthful disorder, seldom or never taken in 
 middle life ; the glamour which steeped all sur- 
 rounding objects in roseate hues no longer exists*, 
 and it is impossible to get up any spurious imita- 
 tions of it. Time has taught him common sense ; 
 he has made friends of the mammon of unrighte- 
 ousness ; and instead of wandering about the 
 grounds begging Maud to come out to him, and 
 singing rapturous nonsense to the flowers, he is 
 indoors dining with the Tory squires. But the 
 young have but one idea in the world. They
 
 62 dr. waixwpjght's patient. 
 
 are entirely of opinion, with Mr. Coleridge's hero, 
 that all thoughts, " all passions, all delights that 
 stir this mortal frame," are "ministers of love," 
 and "feed his sacred flame." Perpetually to play 
 at that sweet game of lips, to alternate between the 
 heights of hope and the depths of despair, to pine 
 for a glance and to be made happy by a word, to 
 have no care for anything else, to ignore the 
 friends in whose society you have hitherto found 
 such delight, to shut your eyes knowingly, wil- 
 fully, and resolutely to the sight of everything 
 but one object, and to fall down and persistently 
 adore that object in the face of censure, contempt, 
 and obloquy, is granted to but few men over 
 thirty years of age. Let them not be ashamed of 
 the weakness, rather let them congratulate them- 
 selves on its possession : it will give a zest and 
 flavour to their middle life which but few enjoy. 
 
 Paul Derinzy, however, was just at that period 
 of his life when everything is rose-coloured. He 
 was even young enough to enjoy looking at him- 
 self in the glass, which is indeed a proof of youth; 
 for there is no face or no company a man so soon
 
 AFTER OFFICE-HOURS. 63 
 
 gets sick of as his own. But Paul stood before 
 the little glass behind the washing-screen settling 
 his hat, and gazing at himself very complacently, 
 even going so far as to fetch another little glass 
 from his drawer, and by aid of the two ascertain- 
 ing that his back parting was perfectly straight. 
 As he replaced the glass, he took out a yellow 
 rosebud, carefully wrapped in wool, cleared it from 
 its envelope, and sticking it in his buttonhole, 
 took his departure. 
 
 Paul looked up at the Horse-Guards clock as 
 he passed by, and finding that he had plenty of 
 time to spare, walked slowly up Whitehall. The 
 muslin-cravated, fresh-coloured, country gentle- 
 men at the Union Club, and the dyed and grizzled 
 veterans at the Senior United, looked out of the 
 window at the young man as he passed, and 
 envied him his youth and his health and his good 
 looks. He strolled up Waterloo -place just as the 
 insurance-offices with which that district abounds 
 were being closed for the half-holiday, and the 
 insurance-clerks, young gentlemen who, for the 
 most part, mould themselves in dress and man-
 
 64 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 ners upon Government officials, took mental notes 
 of Paul's clothes, and determined to have them 
 closely imitated so soon as the state of their sala- 
 ries permitted. Quite unconscious of this sincerest 
 flattery, Paul continued his walk, striking across 
 into Piccadilly, and lounging leisurely along until 
 he came to the Green Park, which he entered, and 
 sat down for a few minutes. It was the dull time 
 of the day — when the lower half of society was at 
 dinner, and the upper half at luncheon — and there 
 was scarcely anyone about. After a short rest, 
 Paul looked at his watch, and muttering to him- 
 self, "She can't have started yet; I may just as 
 well have the satisfaction of letting my eyes rest 
 on her as she walks to the Gardens," he rose, and 
 turned his steps back again. He turned up Bond- 
 street, and off through Conduit-street into George- 
 street, Hanover-square, and there, just by St. 
 George's church, he stopped. 
 
 Not to the church, however, was his attention 
 directed, but to the house immediately opposite 
 to it. A big, reel-faced, old-fashioned house, 
 fresh-painted and pointed, with plate-glass win-
 
 AFTER OFFICE-HOURS. 65 
 
 dows in its lower stories, and bronzed knockers, 
 and shining bell-pulls, looking like a portly 
 dowager endeavouring to assume modern airs and 
 graces. Carriages kept driving up, and depositing 
 old and young ladies, and the door, on which was 
 an enormous brass-plate with "Madame Clarisse," 
 in letters nearly half a foot long, was perpetually 
 being flung open by a page with a very shiny 
 face, produced by a judicious combination of yel- 
 low soap and friction — a page who, in his morn- 
 ing-jacket ruled with red lines, looked like a page 
 of an account-book. Paul Derinzy knew many of 
 these carriage-brought people, — for Madame Cla- 
 risse was the fashionable milliner of London, and 
 had none but the very greatest of fine ladies in her 
 clientele, — and many of them knew him ; but on 
 the present occasion he carefully shrouded himself 
 from observation behind one of the pillars of the 
 church-portico. There he remained in an agony 
 of impatience, fidgeting about, looking at his 
 watch, glaring up at the bright-faced house, and 
 anathematising the customers, until the clock in 
 the church-tower above him chimed the half-hour 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 t)b DR. WAINWRIGHT S PATIENT. 
 
 past two. Then he became more fidgety than 
 ever. Before, he had taken short turns up and 
 down the street, always returning sharply to the 
 same spot, and looking round as though he had 
 expected some remarkable alteration to have taken 
 place during his ten-seconds' absence ; now, he 
 stood behind the pillar, never attempting to move 
 from the spot, but constantly peering across the 
 way at Madame Clarisse's great hall-door. 
 
 Within five minutes of the chiming of the 
 clock, the great hall-door was opened so quietly 
 that it was perfectly apparent the demonstrative 
 page was not behind it. A young w T oman, simply 
 and elegantly dressed, in a tight-fitting black-silk 
 gown, and a small straw bonnet trimmed with 
 green ribbon, with a black-lace shawl thrown 
 loosely across her shoulders and hanging down 
 behind, after a French fashion then in vogue, 
 passed out, closed the door softly behind her, and 
 started off in the direction of the Park. Then 
 Paul Derinzy left his hiding-place, and, at a dis- 
 creet distance, followed in pursuit. 
 
 There must have been something very odd or
 
 AFTER OFFICE-HOURS. 67 
 
 very attractive in the personal appearance of tins 
 young woman, for she undoubtedly attracted a 
 vast deal of attention as she passed through the 
 streets. It would require something special, one 
 would imagine, to intervene between a man and the 
 toothache ; and yet a gentleman seated in a den- 
 tist's anteroom in George-street, with a face 
 swollen to twice its natural size, and all out of 
 drawing, and vainly endeavouring to solace him- 
 self, and to forget the coming wrench, with the 
 pleasant pages of a ten-years' -old Bentley's Mis- 
 cellany, flung the book aside as he saw the girl 
 go by, and crammed himself into a corner of the 
 window to look after her retreating figure. Two 
 sporting gentlemen standing at the freshly-sanded 
 door of Limmer's Hotel, smoking cigars, and 
 muttering to each other in whispers of forthcom- 
 ing "events," suspended their conversation and 
 exchanged a rapid wink as she flitted by them. 
 The old boys sunning themselves in Bond-street, 
 pottering into Ebers' for their stalls, or pricing 
 fish at Groves's, were very much fluttered by the 
 girl's transient appearance among them. The
 
 08 DR. WAIXWPJGHT S PATIENT. 
 
 little head was carried very erect, and there must 
 have been something' in the expression of the face 
 which daunted the veterans, and prevented them 
 from addressing her. One or two gave chase, 
 but soon found out that the gouty feet so neatly 
 incased in varnished boots had no chance with 
 this modern Atalanta, who sailed away without a 
 check, looking neither to the right nor to the left. 
 Xor were men her only admirers ; ladies sitting 
 in their carriages at shop -doors would look at 
 her half in wonderment, half in admiration, and 
 whisper to each other, " What a pretty girl !" 
 and these compliments pleased her immensely, 
 and brought the colour to her face, adding to her 
 beauty. 
 
 She crossed into the Park through Grosvenor 
 Gate, and taking the path that lay immediately 
 in front of her, went straight ahead about half- 
 way between the Serpentine and the Bayswater- 
 road, then through the little iron gate into Ken- 
 sington Gardens, and across the turf for some 
 distance until she came in sight of a little. avenue 
 of trees, through which glimmered the shining
 
 AFTER OFFICE-HOURS. 09 
 
 waters of the Round Pond, backed by the rubi- 
 cund face of stout old Kensington Palace. Then 
 she slackened her pace a little, and began to look 
 around her. There were but few, very few people 
 near : two or three valetudinarians sunning them- 
 selves, on such of the benches as were in sufficient 
 repair ; a few children playing about while their 
 nursemaids joined forces and abused their em- 
 ployers ; a shabby-genteel man eating a sandwich 
 of roll-and-sausage — obviously his dinner — in a 
 shamefaced way, and drinking short gulps out of 
 a tin flask under the shadow of his hat ; and a 
 vagabond dog or two, delighted at having escaped 
 the vigilance of the park-keeper, and snapping, 
 yelping, and performing acrobatic feats of tum- 
 bling, out of what were literally pure animal 
 spirits. Valetudinarians, children, nursemaids, 
 and dogs were evidently not what the girl had 
 come to see, for she stopped, struck the stick- 
 handle of her open parasol against her shoulder, 
 and murmured, " How provoking !" Just at that 
 instant Paul Derinzy, who had been following her 
 tolerably closely, touched her arm. She started,
 
 70 de. wainwright's patient. 
 
 wheeled swiftly round, and her eyes brightened 
 and the flush rose in her cheeks as she cried, 
 
 "0, Mr. Douglas!" 
 
 " 'Mr. Douglas,' Daisy!" said Paul Derinzy, 
 with uplifted eyebrows; " ' and why this courtesy,' 
 as we say in Sir Walter Scott ?" 
 
 "I mean Paul," said the girl; "but you 
 startled me so, I scarcely knew what I said." 
 
 "Ah, ' Paul' is much better. The idea of your 
 calling me anything else !" 
 
 " I don't know, I rather think you're ' Mr. 
 Douglas' just now. You're always 'Mr. Douglas,' 
 recollect, when I'm at all displeased with you, and 
 I've lots of things for you to explain to-day." 
 
 " Fire away, child ! Let's turn out of the path 
 first, in amongst these trees. So — that is better. 
 Now, then, what is the first ? — by Jove, pet, how 
 stunning you look to-day !" 
 
 A vulgar but expressive term, and one in 
 general acceptance ten years ago. One, too, by 
 no means inexpressive of the girl's beauty, for she 
 was beautiful, and in a style that was then un- 
 common. She had red hair. Nowadavs red hair
 
 AFTER OFFICE-HOUES. 71 
 
 is by no means uncommon ; it may be seen hang- 
 ing in bunches in the coiffeurs' shops, and, with 
 black roots, on the heads of most of the Dryads of 
 the Wood. Ten years ago, to have red hair was to 
 be subjected to chaff by the street-boys, to be called 
 " carrots" by the vulgar, and to be pitied silently 
 by the polite. Red hair an naturcl was almost un- 
 known — it was greased, and pomatumed, and 
 cosmetiqued, and flattened into bandeaux, and 
 twisted into ringlets, and deepened and darkened 
 and disguised in every possible shape and way ; it 
 was "auburn," it was "chestnut," it was any- 
 thing but red. This girl had red hair, and hated 
 it, but was too proud to attempt to disguise it. 
 So she wore it in a thick dry mass, heavy and 
 crisp, and low on the forehead, and it suited her 
 dead-white skin, creamy white, showing the ris- 
 ing blood on the smallest provocation, and her 
 thin cheeks, and her pointed chin, and her graj' 
 eyes, and her long, but slightly impertinent, nose. 
 No wonder people, in the street turned round and 
 stared at her; they had been educated up to the 
 raven locks, and the short straight noses, and the
 
 72 dr. waixwright's patient. 
 
 rounded chin style of beauty, formed on the true 
 classical model, and they could not understand 
 this kind of thing except in a picture of Mr. 
 Dante Rossetti, or young Mr. Millais, or some of 
 those other new-fangled artists who, they sup- 
 posed, were clever, but who were decidedly " odd." 
 
 There was no doubt about her beauty, though, 
 and none about her style. So Paul Derinzy thought, 
 as he looked her up and down on saying the last- 
 recorded words, and marked her tall, svelte, lissom 
 figure ; her neatly-shod, neatly-gloved feet and 
 hands ; her light walk, so free and yet so stately ; 
 and the simple elegance of her dress. 
 
 "You are a stunner, pet, and I adore you! 
 There, having delivered myself of those mild 
 observations, I will suffer you to proceed. You 
 had a lot of things to say to me ? Fire away !" 
 
 " In the first place, why were you not here 
 to meet me, Mr. Douglas ?" 
 
 " Again that detestable formality ! Daisy, I 
 swear, if you call me that again, I'll kiss you,—- 
 coram jmbUco, en plein air, here before every- 
 body; and that child, who will not take its eyes
 
 AFTER OFFICE-HOURS. 73 
 
 off us, will swallow the lioopstick it is now suck- 
 ing, and its death will lie at your door." 
 
 "No, hut seriously — where have you heen?" 
 
 " You want to know ? Well, then, I don't 
 mind telling you that I've followed you every step 
 of the way from George-street here. Ah, you 
 may well blush, young woman ! I was the heart- 
 hroken witness of your flirtation with those youths 
 in Bond- street." 
 
 "Horrid old things! Xo, but, Paul, did you 
 really follow me from Madame' s ? Were you there 
 to see me come out ?" 
 
 "My child, I was there for three mortal quar- 
 ters of an hour hefore you came out." 
 
 "That was very nice of you; blen gentU, as 
 Mdlle. Augustine says. I wish you knew Mdlle. 
 Augustine, she's a very great friend of Ma- 
 dame's." 
 
 "I wish I was Mdlle. Augustine. I say, 
 Daisy, doesn't Madame Clarisse want a male 
 hand in the husiness, — something in the light- 
 porter line? I'm sure it would suit me hetter 
 than that beastly office."
 
 74 dr. wainweight's patient. 
 
 ''What office, Paul-?" 
 
 "Why, my office, darling, — where I go every 
 day. Do you mean to say I didn't tell you about 
 that, Daisy?" 
 
 " Certainly not; you've told me nothing about 
 yourself." 
 
 "Well, you see, I've known you so short a 
 time, and seen so little of you. yes, I go to 
 an office." 
 
 " Do you mean to say you're a clerk?" 
 
 1 ' Well, yes — not to put too fine a point upon 
 it, I suppose I am." 
 
 " What ! a lawyer's-clerk ?" 
 
 "No, no! D — n it all, Daisy, not as bad as 
 that, nothing of the kind — Government office, 
 Civil servant of the Crown, and all that kind of 
 thing, don't you understand? Her Majesty's 
 Stannaries — one of the principal departments of 
 the State." 
 
 "And do you go there every day, Mr. — I 
 mean, Paul?" 
 
 "Well, I'm supposed to, my darling; point 
 of fact, I do go there — generally."
 
 AFTER OFFICE-HOURS. 75 
 
 1 ' Why don't you let me write to you 
 there ?" 
 
 " Write to me there ! at the office ! My dear 
 child, there are the most stringent rules of the 
 service against it. Any man in the office receiv- 
 ing a letter from a lady at the office would he — 
 would he had up before the House of Commons, 
 and very probably committed to the Tower !" 
 
 "What a curious thing! I thought you had 
 nothing to do." 
 
 " Nothing to do ! My darling Daisy, no galley- 
 slave who tugs at the what-d'ye-call-em — oar — 
 works harder than I do, as, indeed, Lord Palmer- 
 ston has often acknowledged." 
 
 " And you're well paid for it ? I mean, you get 
 lots of money?" asked the girl, looking straight 
 up into his face. 
 
 "Ye-yes, child. Yes, statecraft is tolerably 
 well remunerated. Besides, men in my position 
 have generally something else to live upon, some 
 private means, some allowances from their 
 people." 
 
 "Their people? 0, you mean their families.
 
 76 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 Yes, that must be very nice. Have you any — 
 any people ?" 
 
 "Yes, Daisy, my father and mother are both 
 alive." 
 
 "They don't live with you in Hanover- 
 street r 
 
 " no ; they live down in the country, a long 
 way off, — down in the west of England." 
 
 " And they're rich, I suppose ?" 
 
 " Yes, they're very fairly off." 
 
 "And how many brothers and sisters have 
 you, Paul ?" 
 
 "None, darling; I am the only child; the 
 entire hopes of the family are centred in this 
 charming creature. Have you finished your ques- 
 tions, you inquisitive puss ?" 
 
 "Quite. Did it sound inquisitive? I dare- 
 say it did ; I daresay my foolish chatter was bor- 
 ing you." 
 
 k k My pet Daisy, I'd sooner hear what you call 
 your foolish chatter than anything in the world, 
 — much sooner than Tamberlik's ut de poitrine, 
 that all the musical people are raving about just
 
 AFTER OFFICE-HOURS. 77 
 
 now. See, darling, let us sit clown here. Take 
 off your glove — this right glove. No ? what non- 
 sense ! I may kiss your hand ; there's no one 
 looking but that fat child in the brown-hollaiul 
 knickerbockers, and if he doesn't turn his eyes 
 away, I'll make a face at him, and frighten him 
 into convulsions. There ; now tell me about 
 3 r ourself." 
 
 "About myself? I've nothing to tell, Paul, 
 except that we're horribly busy, and Madame 
 plagues our lives out." 
 
 "Had you any difficulty in getting out to- 
 day? You thought you would have when last 
 I saw you." 
 
 "'Dreadful difficulty; Madame fussed and 
 fumed, and declared that she could not possibly 
 let me go ; but I insisted ; and as the customers 
 like me, and always ask for me, I suppose I am 
 too valuable for her to say much." 
 
 " By the way, Daisy, do any men ever come 
 to your place — with the women, I mean ?" 
 
 ' ' Sometimes ; the husbands or the brothers of 
 the ladies."
 
 78 dr. tvainwright's patient. 
 
 " Exactly. I suppose tliey don't — I mean, I 
 suppose you don't — what a fool I am ! No matter. 
 Are you going back there this evening ?" 
 
 " Yes, Madame would not let me come until 
 I promised to be back by six to see the parcels 
 off. Madame's going to the Opera to-night, and 
 she'll be dressing at the time, and she must have 
 somebody there she can depend upon." 
 
 ' ' And you are the somebody, Daisy ? How 
 deuced nice to be able to reckon upon finding you 
 anywhere when one wanted you ! No, I say ; no 
 one can see my arm, it's quite covered by your 
 shawl, and it fits so beautifully round your waist, 
 just as if you had been measured for it at Madame 
 Clarisse's. — "Well, and what time will you be 
 free ?" 
 
 "Between eight and nine, I suppose; nearer 
 nine." 
 
 ' ' May I meet you when you come away, 
 Daisy? Will you come with me to the theatre ?" 
 
 " No, Paul, you know perfectly well that I will 
 not. You know it is not of the slightest use 
 proposing such things to me."
 
 AFTER OFFICE-HOURS. 79 
 
 " Yes, I know it's of no use ; I wish it were ; 
 it would be so jolly, and — Then you'll go straight 
 hack to South Molton-street ?" 
 
 " Yes ; to my garret !" and she laughed, rather 
 a hard laugh, as she said these words. 
 
 "Don't say that, Daisy; I hate to hear you 
 say that word.'' 
 
 "It's the right word, Paul, horrid or not. 
 However, I shall get out of it some day, I sup- 
 pose." 
 
 "How?" asked Paul, withdrawing his arm 
 from her waist, and looking fixedly at her. 
 
 "How should I know?" said the girl, with 
 the same hard laugh. "Feet foremost, perhaps, 
 in my coffin. Somehow, at all events." 
 
 " You're in a curious mood to-day, Daisy." 
 
 "Am I? You'll see me in many curious 
 moods, if we continue to know each other long, 
 Paul, — which I very much doubt, by the way." 
 
 "Daisy, what makes you say that? You've 
 not seen anyone — you've not heard — I mean, you 
 don't intend to break with me, Daisy ?" 
 
 " There is nothing to break, my poor Paul !"
 
 80 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 " Whose fault is that ? Whose fault is it that 
 you remain in what you call your garret ? Whose 
 fault is it that you are compelled to obey Madame 
 Clarisse, and to dance attendance on her infernal 
 customers ? Not mine, you must allow that. You 
 know what is the dearest wish of my heart, — you 
 know how often I have proposed that — " 
 
 " Stop, sir," said Daisy, laying her ungloved 
 hand upon his mouth; "you know how often I 
 have forbidden you to touch upon that subject, 
 and now you dare to disobey merely because I 
 was foolish enough to he off my guard for a mo- 
 ment, and to let some grumbling escape my lips. 
 No, no, Paul, let us. be sensible ; it is very well 
 as it is. We enjoy these stolen meetings ; at 
 least, I do — " 
 
 "And you think I don't, I suppose ? 0, no, 
 certainly not !" 
 
 " You very rude bear, why do you interrupt 
 me? I don't think anything of the sort. I know 
 you enjoy them too. Then why should we bother 
 ourselves about the future ?" 
 
 "No; but you don't understand, Daisy. It
 
 AFTER OFFICE-HOURS. 81 
 
 seems so deuced hard for me to have to see you 
 for sucli a short time, and then for you to have to 
 go away, and — " 
 
 "Don't you think it is quite as hard for 
 me?" 
 
 " But then I'm so fond of you, don't you 
 know ! I love you so much, Daisy." 
 
 "And do you imagine I don't care for you? 
 I don't say how much, but I know it must he 
 more than a little." 
 
 " How do you know that, darling?" 
 
 "Because my love for you has conquered my 
 pride, Paul. That shows me at once, without 
 anything else, that I must love you. Do you 
 think if I didn't care for you that I would consent 
 to all this subterfuge and mystery which always 
 surrounds us ? Do you imagine that I have no 
 eyes and no perception ? Do you think I don't 
 notice that you have chosen this place for our 
 meeting because it is quite quiet and secluded ? 
 That when anyone having the least appearance 
 of belonging to your world comes near us, you 
 are in an agony, and turn your head aside, or 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 dr. wjjnwbight's patient. 
 
 cover your face with your hand, lest you should 
 be recognised ? Do you think I haven't no- 
 ticed all this ? And do you think I don't know 
 that all these precautions are taken, and all this 
 fear is undergone, because you are walking with 
 me r 
 
 ''My darling Daisy — " 
 
 "It's my own fault, Paul. Understand, I 
 quite allow that. I am not in your rank of life. 
 I am Madame Clarisse's showwonian; audi ought 
 to look for my lovers amongst Messrs. Lewis 
 and Allenby's young drapers, or the assistants 
 at Godfrey and Cooke's, the chemists. They 
 would be very proud to be seen with me, and 
 would probably take me out on Sundays, along 
 the Hammersmith-road in a four-wheel chaise. 
 However, I hate chemists and drapers and four- 
 wheel chaises, and prefer walking in this gloomy 
 grove with you, Paul." 
 
 " You're a queer child," said Paul, with a sigh 
 of relief at the subject being, as he thought, 
 ended, and with a gratified smile at the pleasant 
 words Daisy had last spoken.
 
 AFTER OFFICE-HOURS. 83 
 
 "Yen," she said; "queer enough, Heaven 
 knows ! I suppose my dislike to those kind of 
 people is because I was decently born and edu- 
 cated ; and I can't forget that even now, when I'm 
 only a milliner's shop-girl. But with all my 
 queerness, I was right in what I said, wasn't I, 
 Paul ?" 
 
 " Why, my darling, it's a question, don't you 
 see. I don't care for myself; I should be only 
 too proud for people to think that I — that a girl 
 like you would be about with me, and that kind 
 of thing ; but it's one's people, don't you know, 
 and all that infernal cant and convention- 
 ality." 
 
 "Exactly. Now let us take a turn up and 
 down the gloomy grove, and talk about something 
 else." 
 
 She rose as she spoke, and passed her arm 
 through his, and they began slowly pacing up and 
 down among the trees. The " something else" 
 which formed the subject of their talk it is not 
 very difficult to divine, and though apparently 
 deeply interesting to them, it would not be worth
 
 84 DR. WAIN WRIGHT'S PATIENT. 
 
 transcription. It was the old, old subject, which 
 retains its glamour in all countries and in ail 
 places, and which was as entrancing in that hit of 
 cockney paradise, with the smoke-discoloured 
 trees waving above them, and the dirty sheep nib- 
 bling near them, as it was to (Enone on Ida, or to 
 Desdemona in Venice. 
 
 So they strolled about, trying endless varia- 
 tions of the same tune, until it became time for 
 Daisy to think of returning to her place of busi- 
 ness. Paul, after a little inward struggle with 
 himself, proposed to walk with her as far as the 
 Marble Arch ; there would be no one in that 
 part of the Park, he thought, of whom he need 
 have the slightest fear; and Daisy appearing to 
 be delighted, they started off. Just before they 
 reached the end of the turf by the Marble Arch 
 they stopped to say adieux. These apparently 
 took a long time to get over, for Daisy's delicate 
 little glove was retained in Paul's grasp, her face 
 was upturned, and he was looking into it with love 
 and passion in his eyes. So that they neither of 
 them observed a tall gentleman who had just en-
 
 AFTER OFFICE-HOURS. 85 
 
 tered the gates, and was striking across the Park 
 when his eyes fell upon them, and who honoured 
 them, not with a mere cursory glance, but with 
 an intense and a prolonged stare. This gentle- 
 man was George Wainwright.
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 FAMILY POLITICS. 
 
 " Was I a-dreamin', or did my Ann really tell me 
 that somebody'd come down late last night in 
 a po'-shay and driven to the Tower?" asked Mrs. 
 Powler, the morning after her little supper-party, 
 of Mrs. Jupp, who, whenever she could find a 
 minute to spare from the troubles of housekeep- 
 ing, was in the habit of " dropping-in" to gossip 
 with her older and less-active neighbour. 
 
 " You weren't dreamin', dear ; at least, I should 
 say not, unless you have dreams like them chief 
 butlers and bakers, and other cur'ous pipple in the 
 Bible one reads of, which had their dreams 'ter- 
 preted. It's quite true — not that it's made more 
 so by your Ann having said it ; for a more shame- 
 ful little liar there don't talk in this parish !" said 
 Mrs. Jupp, getting very red in the face. 
 
 "You never took kindly to that gell, Mrs.
 
 FAMILY POLITICS. 87 
 
 Jupp," said the old lady placidly, — she was far 
 too rich to get in a rage, — "you never took kindly 
 to that gell from the first, when I took her out of 
 charity, owin' to her father's being throwed out 
 of work on account of Jupp's cousin stoppin' pay- 
 ment." 
 
 Though said in Mrs. Powler's calmest tones, 
 and without a change of expression on the 
 speaker's childish old face, this was meant to 
 be a hard hit, and was received as such by Mrs. 
 Jupp. 
 
 " I don't know nothin' 'bout stoppin' payment, 
 nor Jupp's cousins," said that lady, with a redun- 
 dancy of negatives and a very shrill voice ; "my 
 own fam'ly has always paid their way, and Jupp 
 has a 'count at the Devon Bank, where his writin' 
 is as good as gold, and will be so long as I live. 
 But I da know that I've never liked that gell Ann 
 Bradshaw since she told a passill o' lies about my 
 Joey and the hen-roost !" 
 
 " Weil, well, never mind Ann Bradshaw," said 
 Mrs. Powler, who had had vast experience of Mrs. 
 Jupp's powers of boredom in connection with the
 
 88 dr. waixwhight's patient. 
 
 subject of her Joey and the hen-roost ; " never 
 mind about the gell : I allays kip her out o' your 
 way, and I must ha' been main thoughtless when 
 I let her name slip out just now before you. So 
 someone did come in a po'-shay last night, then, 
 and did drive to the Tower ? Do you know who it 
 was ?" 
 
 "Not of my own knowledge," replied Mrs. 
 Jupp in a softened voice — it would never have 
 done to have quarrelled with Mrs. Powler, from 
 whom she derived much present benefit, and from 
 whom she expected a legacy — "but Groper, who 
 was up there this morning wi' the sallt water for 
 the Captain's bath, says it's the Doctor." 
 
 "Lor', now!" said Mrs. Powler, lifting up her 
 hands in astonishment; "I can't fancy why pas- 
 sons go messin' wi' sallt water, and baths, and 
 such-like. They must be main dirty, one would 
 think, to take such a lot o' washin'. I'm sure 
 Powler and I never did such redick'lous nonsense, 
 and we was always well thought of, I believe. 
 Lor', now, I've bin and forgotten who you said 
 it was come down. \Yho was it, Harriet ?"
 
 FAMILY POLITICS. 89 
 
 " The Doctor from London — Wheelwright, or 
 some such name ; he that comes down three or 
 four times a-year just to look at Mrs. Derinzy." 
 
 "He must be a diver doctor, I du 'low, if his 
 lookin' at her is enough to do her good," said 
 Mrs. Powler, who was extremely literal in all 
 things; "not but what she's that bad, poor soul, 
 that anything must be a comfort to her." 
 
 "Did you ever hear tell what was ezackly the 
 matter wi' the Captain's lady, Mrs. Powler ?" 
 asked Mrs. Jupp mysteriously. 
 
 " Innards," said the old lady in a hollow voice, 
 laying her hand on the big mother-o'-pearl buckle 
 by which her broad sash was kept together. 
 
 "Ah, but what sort of innards?" demanded 
 Mrs. Jupp, who was by no means to be put off 
 with a general answer on such an important 
 subject. 
 
 "That I dunno," said Mrs. Powler, unwil- 
 lingly confessing her ignorance. "Dr. Barton 
 attends her in a or'nary way, but I niver heerd 
 him say." 
 
 " It must be one of them obstinit diseases as
 
 00 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 we women lias," said Mrs. Jupp, "as though — 
 not to fly in the face of Providence — hut as though 
 child-bearin' wasn't enough to have us let off all 
 the rest!" 
 
 " She niver takes no med'cine," said Mrs. 
 Powler, who firmly believed in the virtues of the 
 Pharmacopoeia, and whose pride it was that the 
 deceased Powler, in his last illness, had swallowed 
 " quarts and quarts." "I know that from that 
 fair-haired young chap that mixes Barton's drugs, 
 — his mother was a kind o' c'nexion o' Powler's, 
 and I had "im up to tea a Sunday week, and 
 asked him." 
 
 "Well, I'd like very much to know what is 
 the matter wi' Mrs. Derinzy," said Mrs. Jupp, 
 harking back. " I ha' my own idea on the subjick; 
 but I'd like to know for sure." • 
 
 "If you're so cur'ous, you'd better ask Dr. 
 Barton. He's just gone passt the window, and I 
 s'pose he'll look in ;" and almost before Mrs. Pow- 
 ler had finished her sentence there came a soft 
 rap at the room - door, the handle was gently 
 turned, and Dr. Barton presented himself.
 
 FAMILY POLITICS. 91 
 
 He was a short, thickset, strongly-built man 
 of about fifty-five, with close curly gray hair, 
 bright eyes, mottled complexion, large hooked 
 nose. He was dressed in a black cut-away coat, 
 stained buff waistcoat, drab riding-breeches, and 
 top-boots. He had a way of laying his head on 
 one side, and altogether reminded one irresistibly 
 of Punch. 
 
 " Good-morning, ladies," said the doctor in a 
 squeaky, throaty little voice, which tended to 
 heighten the resemblance ; "I seem to ha' dropped 
 in just in the nick o' time, by the looks of ye. May- 
 hap you were talking about me. Mrs. Jupp, you 
 don't mean to say that — " and the little man 
 whispered the conclusion of the sentence behind 
 his hat to Mrs. Jupp, while he privately winked 
 at Mrs. Powler. 
 
 " Get 'long wi' ye, du !" said Mrs. Jupp, her 
 face suffused with crimson. 
 
 " I niver see such a man in all my born 
 days," said old Mrs. Powler, with whom the doc- 
 tor was a special favourite, laughing until the 
 tears made watercourses of her wrinkles, and were
 
 92 dh. waixwright's patient. 
 
 genially irrigating her face. " No; no such luck, 
 I tell her." 
 
 " Well, as to luck, that's all a matter o' taste," 
 said Mrs. Jupp; "we were talking ahout some- 
 thing quite different to that." 
 
 " What was it ?" asked the doctor. 
 
 " 'Bout Mrs. D'rinzy's health Harriet was 
 askin'," explained Mrs. Powler. 
 
 '* A-li !" said the doctor, shaking his head, 
 and looking very solemn. 
 
 " Is she so had as all that ?" asked Mrs. Jupp, 
 who was visibly impressed by the medico's panto- 
 mime. 
 
 " Great sufferer, great sufferer !" said the 
 little man, with a repetition of the head-shake. 
 
 " Well, but she gets about ; comes down into 
 t' village, and such-like," argued Mrs. Powler. 
 
 " 0, yes ; no reason why she shouldn't; more 
 she gets about, indeed, the better," said the doc- 
 tor. 
 
 " It's innards, I suppose ?" asked Mrs. Jupp, 
 whose craving for particulars of Mrs. Derinzy's 
 disorder was vet unsatisfied.
 
 FAMILY POLITICS. 93 
 
 " Well, partially, partially," said the doctor, 
 slowly rubbing the side of his nose with the han- 
 dle of his riding-whip ; " it's a complication, a 
 mixture, which it would be difficult to get an un- 
 professional person to understand.'' 
 
 " Talkin' o' that, Barton," said Mrs. Powler, 
 u I s'pose you know the London doctor came 
 down last night ?" 
 
 " Dr. Wainwright ? 0, yes ; I was up at the 
 Tower just now to meet him. As I'm left in 
 charge of Mrs. Derinzy, we always have a consul- 
 tation whenever he comes down." 
 
 "I s'pose he's a raal diver man, this Wheel- 
 wright, or they wouldn't have him come all this 
 way to see her," said Mrs. Powler. 
 
 " Clever !" echoed the doctor ; " the very first 
 man of the day ; the very first !" 
 
 " Then why wasn't he sent for to see Sir Her- 
 c'les when he was laid up that bad last spring ?" 
 asked Mrs. Jupp ; "there was another one come 
 down from London then." 
 
 " That was quite a different case, my dear 
 madam. Sir Hercules Dingo was laid up with
 
 94 dr. wainweight's patient. 
 
 gout ; Mrs. Derinzy's complaint is not gout ; and 
 Dr. Wainwright is the first man of the day in — 
 v well, in such cases as Mrs. Derinzy's. " 
 
 No more specific information than this could 
 Mrs. Jupp obtain from the doctor, who was "that 
 close when he liked,"' as his friends said of him, 
 that even the blandishments of Mrs. Barton failed 
 to extract any of his professional secrets. So 
 Mrs. Jupp gave it up in despair, and began talk- 
 ing on general topics. Be sure the conversa- 
 tion did not progress far without the Derinzys 
 again cropping up in it. They were staple sub- 
 jects of discussion in Beachborough, and the most 
 preposterous stories regarding them and then- 
 origin, whence and why they came to the remote 
 Devonshire village, and the reason for their en- 
 forced stay there, obtained, if not credence, at 
 least circulation. AVliat their real history was, I 
 now propose to tell. 
 
 Five-and-twenty years before the date of this 
 story, the firm of Derinzy and Sons was well 
 known and highly esteemed in the City of Lon-
 
 FAMILY POLITICS. 95 
 
 don. They were supposed to have been originally 
 of Polish extraction, and their name to have been 
 Derinski ; but it had been painted up as Derinzy 
 for years on the door-posts of their warehouse in 
 Gough-square, Fleet-street, and it was so spelt on 
 all the invoices, hill-heads, and other commercial 
 literature of the firm. Warehouses, invoices, and 
 bill-heads ? Yes, despite their Polish extraction 
 and distinguished name, the Derinzys were nei- 
 ther more nor less than furriers — wholesale, and 
 on a large scale, it was true, but still furriers. 
 Their business was enormous, and their profits 
 immense. The old father, Peter Derinzy, who 
 had founded the firm, and whose business talent 
 and industry were the main causes of its success, 
 had given up active attendance, and was begin- 
 ning to take life leisurely. He came down twice 
 a-week, perhaps, in a handsome carriage-and-pair, 
 to Gough-square, just glanced over the books, and 
 occasionally looked at some samples of skins, on 
 which his opinion — still the most reliable in the 
 whole trade — was requested by his son, and then 
 went back to his mansion at Muswell Hill, where
 
 00 dr. wainwbight's patient. 
 
 his connection with business was unknown or i 
 
 b 
 
 nored, and where he was Squire Derinzy, dwelling 
 in luxury, and passing his time in the superinten- 
 dence of his graperies and pineries, his forcing- 
 houses and his farm. 
 
 The affairs of the house did not suffer by the 
 old gentleman's absence. In his eldest son Paul, 
 on whom the command devolved in his father's 
 absence, the senior partner had a representative 
 possessing all the experience and tact which he 
 had gained, combined with the youth and energy 
 which he had lost. Men of high standing in the 
 City of London, many years his seniors, were 
 glad to know Paul Derinzy, eager to ask his ad- 
 vice, and, what is quite a different matter, fre- 
 quently not unwilling to take it in regard to the 
 great speculations of the day. The merchants 
 from the north of Europe with whom he transacted 
 business — and to all of whom he spoke in their 
 own language, without the slightest betrayal of 
 foreign accent or lack of idiom — looked upon him 
 as an absolute wonder, more especially when con- 
 trasted with his own countrymen, who for the
 
 FAMILY POLITICS. 97 
 
 most part spoke nothing but English, and little 
 of that beyond oaths, and spread his renown for 
 and wide. He was a tall, high-shouldered, big- 
 boned man, prematurely bald, and, being very 
 short-sighted, wore a large pair of spectacles, which 
 impelled his younger brother Alexis, then fresh 
 from school, and just received into the counting- 
 house, to be initiated into the mysteries of trade 
 preparatory to being made a partner, to call him 
 " Gig-lamps." Paul Derinzy was not a good- 
 tempered man, and at any time would have dis- 
 liked this impertinence ; but addressed to him as it 
 was, before the clerks, it nettled him exceedingly. 
 He forbade its repetition under pain of summary 
 punishment, and when it was repeated, being a 
 big strong man, he caught his younger brother by 
 the collar, dragged him out of the counting-house 
 to a secluded part of the warehouse, and then and 
 there thrashed him to his heart's content. It 
 was, perhaps, this summary treatment, combined 
 with a dislike for desk-work and indoor confine- 
 ment, that induced Master Alexis to resign his 
 clerical stool and to suggest to his father the pro- 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 dr. wainwpjght's patient. 
 
 priety of purchasing for him a commission in the 
 army. Old Derinzy was by no means disposed 
 to act upon this idea, but his wife, who wor- 
 shipped and spoiled her youngest son, urged it 
 very strongly; and as Paul, who was of course 
 consulted, recommended it as by far the best 
 thing that could be done for his brother, the old 
 gentleman at last gave way, and in a very short 
 time young Alexis was gazetted as cornet in a 
 hussar regiment then on its way home from India, 
 and joined the depot at Canterbury. 
 
 After that little episode, Paul Derinzy took 
 small heed of his brother's proceedings, or, indeed, 
 of anything save his business, in which he seemed 
 to be entirely absorbed. He was there early and 
 late, taking his dinner at a tavern, and retiring to 
 chambers in Chancery-lane, where he read philo- 
 sophical treatises and abstruse foreign philo- 
 sophical works until bed-time. He had no inti- 
 mate friends, and never went into society. Even 
 after his mother's death, when he spent most of 
 his leisure time, such as it was, at Muswell Hill, 
 with his father, then become very old and feeble,
 
 FAMILY POLITICS. 99 
 
 lie shrank from meeting the neighbours, and was 
 looked upon as an oddity and a recluse. In the 
 fulness of time old Peter Derinzy died, leaving, 
 it was said, upwards of a hundred thousand 
 pounds. By his will he bequeathed twenty thou- 
 sand pounds to his second son, Captain Alexis 
 Derinzy, while the whole of the rest of his fortune 
 went to his son Paul, who was left sole executor. 
 
 Captain Alexis Derinzy made use of very 
 strong language when he learned the exact amount 
 of the legacy bequeathed to him by his father's 
 will. He had been always given to understand, 
 he said, that the governor was a hundred-thou- 
 sand-pound man, and he thought it deuced hard 
 that he shouldn't have had at least a third of 
 what was left, specially considering that he was a 
 married man with a family, whereas that money- 
 grubbing old tradesman, his elder brother, had 
 nobody but himself to look after. The statement 
 of Captain Derinzy' s marriage was so far cor- 
 rect. About ' two years previous to his father's 
 death, the Captain being at the time, like another 
 captain famed in song, " in country quarters,"
 
 100 db. waixwpjght's patient. 
 
 had made the acquaintance of a young lady, the 
 daughter of a clever, ne'er-do-weel, potwallopping 
 artist, who, when sober, did odd bits of portrait- 
 painting, and, among other jobs, had painted cor- 
 rect likenesses of Captain Derinzy's two chargers. 
 Captain Derinzy's courtship of the artist's daugh- 
 ter, unlike that of his prototype in verse, was car- 
 ried on with the strictest decorum, not, one is 
 bound to say, from any fault of the Captain's, who 
 wished and intended to assimilate it to scores of 
 other such affairs which he had had under what he 
 considered similar circumstances. But the truth 
 was that he had never met anyone like Miss Ger- 
 trude Skrymshire before.- A pretty woman, deli- 
 cate-looking, and thoroughly feminine, she was 
 far more of an old soldier than the Captain, with 
 all his barrack training and his country-garrison 
 experience. Years before, when she was a mere 
 child of fourteen, she had made up her mind, 
 after experience of her father's career and pro- 
 spects, that Bohemianism, for a woman at least, 
 was a most undesirable state, and she had deter- 
 mined that she would marry either for wealth or
 
 FAMILY POLITICS. 101 
 
 position ; the latter preferable, she thought, as 
 the former might be afterwards attainable by her 
 own ready wit and cleverness ; while if she married 
 a bon bourgeois, she must be content to remain 
 in Bloomsbury, Bedfordshire, or wherever she 
 might be placed, and must abandon all hope of 
 rising. When Captain Derinzy first came flutter- 
 ing round her, she saw the means to her end, and 
 determined to profit thereby. She was a very 
 pretty young woman of her style, red and white, 
 with black eyes and flattened black hair, alto- 
 gether very like those Dutch dolls fashionable at 
 that period, who were made of shiny composition 
 down to their busts, but then diverged abruptly 
 into calico and sawdust. She had a trim waist 
 and a neat ankle, and what is called nowadays a 
 very "fetching" style, and she made desperate 
 havoc with Captain Derinzy' s heart ; so much so, 
 that when she declined with scorn to listen to any 
 of the eccentric — to say the least of them — pro- 
 positions which he made to her, and forbade him 
 her presence for daring to make them, he, after 
 staying away one day, during which he was in-
 
 102 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 tensely wretched, and would have taken to drink- 
 ing but that he had tried it before without effect, 
 and would have drowned himself but that he did 
 not want to die, came down and made an open 
 declaration of his love to Gertrude, and a formal 
 proposal for her hand to Skrymshire pere. 
 
 Alick Derinzy had had Luck for his friend 
 several times in his life ; he had "pulled off" some 
 good things in sweepstakes, and been fortunate 
 in his speculations on " events;" but he never 
 made such a coup as when he took Gertrude 
 Skrymshire for his wife. She undertook the 
 menage at once, sold off his unnecessary horses, 
 and paid off outstanding ticks ; made him get 
 an invitation for himself and her to Muswell Hill, 
 and spent a week there, during which she ingra- 
 tiated herself with the old gentleman, and specially 
 with Paul ; speedily took the reins of government 
 into her hands, and drove her husband skilfully, 
 without ever letting him feel the bit. When his 
 father died, and Alick was for crying out at the 
 smallness of his legacy, Gertrude stopped his 
 mouth, pointing out that they had a sufficiency
 
 FAMILY POLITICS. 103 
 
 to live on, to which the sale of her husband's 
 commission would add; that they could go and 
 live in a small house in a good suburb of town, 
 where they could make it very comfortable for 
 Paul, who would doubtless see a good deal of 
 them, and who, as he was never likely to marry, 
 would most probably leave his enormous fortune 
 to their Paul, their only son, who, of course 
 without any definite views, had been named after 
 his uncle. 
 
 It was a notable scheme, well-planned and 
 well-executed, but it failed. Alick sold out, and 
 they took a pleasant little house at Brompton, 
 a suburb then not much known, and principally 
 inhabited, as now, by actors and authors; and 
 they furnished it charmingly, and Gertrude her- 
 self went down in her deep mourning into the 
 City, and penetrated to Paul's sanctum in Gough- 
 square, and insisted on his coming to stay a day 
 or two with them, and gained his promise that 
 he would come. On her return she said she had 
 found Paul very much altered, but when her hus- 
 band asked her in what manner, she could not
 
 104 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 explain herself. Alick himself explained it in 
 his own peculiar barrack-room and billiard-table 
 phraseology, after he had seen his brother, ex- 
 pressing his opinion that that worthy was "going 
 off his head, by G— !" 
 
 No doubt Paul Derinzy was a changed man. 
 It was not that he looked much older than his 
 years — that he had always done ; but his skin was 
 discoloured, his eyes lustreless, his head bowed, 
 his spirit gone. He said himself that twenty 
 years' incessant labour without any holiday had 
 told upon him, and that he was determined at 
 last to take some rest. He should start immedi- 
 ately with Herr Schadow, one of their largest 
 customers, for Berlin and St. Petersburg, and 
 should probably be away for some months. Dock- 
 ress, who had been brought up from boyhood in 
 Gough-square, and who knew every trick and turn 
 of the trade, would manage the business during 
 his absence, and he should go away perfectly 
 satisfied that things would go on just as smoothly 
 as if he were there to overlook them. 
 
 Paul Derinzy carried out his intention. He
 
 FAMILY POLITICS. 105 
 
 went away to the Continent with Herr Schadow, 
 and Mr. Dockress took charge of the business in 
 Gough-square. He heard several times from his 
 principal within the next few weeks, letters dated 
 from various places, their contents always relating 
 to business. Mrs. Alick had also several letters 
 from her brother-in-law, but to her he wrote on 
 different topics. He seemed to be in wonderful 
 spirits, wrote long descriptions of the places 
 he had visited, and humorous accounts of people 
 he had met ; said he felt himself quite a different 
 man, that he had just begun to enjoy life, and 
 looked upon all his earlier years as completely 
 lost to him. He loathed the very name of busi- 
 ness, he said, and hated the mere idea of coming 
 back to England. He should certainly go as far 
 as St. Petersburg, and prolong his stay abroad 
 as long as he felt amused by it. He arrived in 
 St. Petersburg. Dockress heard of him from 
 there relative to consignment of some special 
 skins which he had been lucky enough to get 
 hold of, and which his old business instinct, not 
 to be so easily shaken off as he imagined,
 
 106 de. wainwpjght's patient. 
 
 prompted him to buy. Mrs. Alick also heard 
 from him a fortnight later ; he described the 
 place as delightful, the society as charming, said 
 he was "going out a good deal," and was tho- 
 roughly enjoying himself. Then nothing was 
 heard of him for weeks by the family in the 
 pretty little house at Brompton, and Mrs. Alick 
 became full of wonderment as to his movements. 
 Dockress could have given her some information. 
 It is true that he had had no letters from his 
 chief, but a nephew of Schadow's, who was a 
 clerk in the Gough-square house, had had a hint 
 dropped to him by his uncle that it was not im- 
 probable that the head of the house would, on his 
 return, which would be soon, bring with him a 
 wife, as he was supposed to be very much in love 
 with a young French lady, a governess in a dis- 
 tinguished Kussian family where he visited. Scha- 
 dow junior communicated this intelligence to 
 Dockress junior, who sat at the same desk with 
 him, who communicated it to Dockress senior, 
 who whistled, and, as soon as his son was out of 
 hearing, muttered aloud that it was " a rum go."
 
 FAMILY POLITICS. 107 
 
 44 Rum" as it was, though, it was true. A short 
 time afterwards Dockress received official intima- 
 tion of the fact, and the same post brought the 
 news to Mrs. Alick, Paul's note to his sister-in- 
 law was very short. It simply said that she and 
 Alexis would probably be surprised to hear that 
 he was about to be married to Mdlle. Delille, a 
 young French lady, whom he had met in society 
 at St. Petersburg. They were to be married at 
 once, and would shortly after set out for England, 
 not, however, with the intention of remaining 
 there. He infinitely preferred living abroad, so 
 that he should merely return for the purpose of 
 settling his business, and should then retire to 
 the Continent for the rest of his life. 
 
 Alick Derinzy gave a great guffaw as his wife 
 read out this epistle to him, and chaffed her in 
 his ponderous way, referring to the counting of 
 chickens before they were hatched, and the halloo- 
 ing before you were out of the wood, and other 
 apposite proverbs. 
 
 " That's rather a bust-up for your scheme, 
 Gertrude," he said with a loud laugh, "old Paul
 
 108 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 going to marry ; and lie's just one of those fellows 
 that have a large family late in life ; and a neat 
 chance for our Paul's coming in for any of the 
 old boy's money. That game is u-p, Mrs. 
 Derinzy." 
 
 But Mrs. Derinzy, though she looked serious 
 at the news which the letter contained, and shook 
 her head at her husband's speech, said there was 
 no knowing what Time had in store for them, and 
 they must wait and see. 
 
 They waited, and in due course they saw — 
 Paul's wife, Mrs. Derinzy : a pretty, slight, fragile 
 little woman, with large black eyes, olive com- 
 plexion, and odd restless ways. Mrs. Alick set her 
 down as "thoroughly French;" Alick spoke of her 
 as a "rum little party;" but they neither of them 
 saw much of her. Paul brought her to dine two 
 or three times, and the women called upon each 
 other, but the newly-married pair were so tho- 
 roughly occupied with theatre-goings, and opera- 
 visitings, and society - frequenting, that it was 
 with the greatest difficulty they could be induced 
 to find a free night during the month they stayed
 
 FAMILY POLITICS. 109 
 
 in town. London did not seem capable of pro- 
 ducing enough pleasure or excitement for Paul 
 Derinzy. He was like a boy in the ardour of 
 his yearning for fresh amusement, he entered 
 into everything with wild delight, and seemed 
 as though he should never tire of taking his 
 pretty little wife about, and what Alexis called 
 " showing her off." 
 
 During that month the great house of De- 
 rinzy and Sons ceased to exist, and in the next 
 issue of the great red book, the Post -Office 
 Directory, the name which had been so respected 
 and so highly thought of was not to be found. 
 Certainly Paul Derinzy retained a share in its 
 fortunes, but he sold the largest part of the 
 business to Dockress and Schadow, whose friends 
 came forth nobly to help them in the purchase, 
 and it was under their joint names that the house 
 was in future conducted. 
 
 Then Paul and his wife went aw r ay, and were 
 only occasionally heard of. It had been their 
 intention to travel about, and they were appa- 
 rently carrying it out, for Paul's letters to Mrs.
 
 110 DR. WAINWEIGHT's PATIENT. 
 
 Alick, with whom he still corresponded, were 
 dated from various places, and he could only give 
 her vague addresses where to reply. They were 
 passing the winter at Florence, when he wrote 
 to his sister-in-law that a little daughter had been 
 born to them, but that his wife had been in great 
 peril, for some time her life had been despaired 
 of, and even then, at the time of waiting, she was 
 seriously ill. Alick Derinzy guffawed again at 
 this news, remarking that their Paul's nose was 
 out of joint now T , and no mistake. Their Paul, 
 then a stalwart boy of four years old, who was 
 playing about the room at the time, exclaimed, 
 " No, my nose all right !" at the same time grasp- 
 ing that organ with his chubby hand; and Mrs. 
 Derinzy checked her husband's unseemly mirth, 
 and remarked that since his brother had married, 
 it was more to their interest that his child should 
 be a girl than a boy. There w r as an interval of 
 six months before another letter arrived to say 
 that Mrs. Paul remained very ill, that her consti- 
 tution had received a shock which it was doubtful 
 whether it would ever recover, but that the little
 
 FAMILY POLITICS. Ill 
 
 girl was thriving well. Paul added that he was 
 in treaty for a place on the Lake of Geneva of 
 which he had heard, and that if it suited him the 
 family would most probably settle down there. 
 After another six months Mrs. Alick heard from 
 her brother-in-law that they had settled on the 
 Swiss lake, with a repetition of the statement that 
 his wife was helplessly ill, and the little girl 
 thriving apace. During the four succeeding years 
 very nearly the same news reached the Alick 
 Derinzys at the same intervals, — Paul was still 
 located in the Swiss chateau, his wife remained 
 in the same state of illness, and his little girl still 
 throve. 
 
 " No chance for our Paul," said Alexis De- 
 rinzy disconsolately. 
 
 " Our Paul" was growing into a fine boy, and 
 his father gave himself much mental exercitation 
 as to whether he could " stand the racket" of 
 educating him at Eton or Harrow. 
 
 One evening a cab drove up to the door, and 
 a gentleman alighted and asked for Mrs. Derinzy. 
 Alick was, according to his usual practice, at the
 
 112 de. wainwbight's patient. 
 
 club, enjoying that pleasant hour's gossip so dear 
 to married gentlemen who are kept rather tightly 
 in hand at home, and which they relinquish with 
 such looks of envy at the happy bachelors or more 
 courageous Benedicks whom they leave behind. 
 But Mrs. Alick was in her very pretty little bou- 
 doir, into which she desired the stranger might 
 be shown. 
 
 He came in ; a man who had probably been 
 tall, but was now bent double, walking with a 
 stick, and then making but slow progress ; a man 
 with snow-white hair and long beard of the same 
 hue, wrapped from head to foot in a huge fur coat 
 of foreign make. Mrs. Derinzy saw that he was 
 a gentleman, but did not recognise him. It was 
 not until he advanced to her and mentioned his 
 name that she knew him for her brother-in-law, 
 Paul. She received him very warmly, and he 
 seemed touched and gratified, so far as lay in him. 
 "Where were his wife and his little daughter ? 
 she asked. They were — over there, in Switzer- 
 land, he said with an effort. He was alone, then, 
 in London ? He must come and stay with them.
 
 FAMILY POLITICS. 113 
 
 No ; lie had been in London three or four days. 
 He came over on some special business, and he 
 was about to return to the Continent the next day, 
 but he did not like to go without having seen her. 
 He fidgeted about while he stopped, and seemed 
 nervously anxious to be off; but Mrs. Alick, with 
 a woman's tact, began to ask him questions about 
 his child, and he quieted down, and spoke of her 
 with rapture. She was the joy of his soul, he 
 said, the one bright ray in his life, of which, in- 
 deed, he spoke in very melancholy terms. Alick 
 came home from his club in due course, and was 
 as surprised as his wife had been at the alteration 
 in Paul's appearance, and took so little pains to 
 disguise his impressions, that Paul himself made 
 allusion to his white hair and his bowed back, and 
 said he had had trouble enough to have broken a 
 much younger and stronger man. He did not 
 say what the trouble was, and they did not like to 
 ask him. Alick had thought it was pecuniary 
 worry ; that his brother had "dropped his money," 
 as he phrased it. Mrs. Alick saw no reason to 
 ascribe it to any such source. But she noticed 
 VOL. i. i
 
 114 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 that her brother-in-law said very little about his 
 wife, and she felt certain that the marriage which 
 had promised so brilliantly had turned out a dis- 
 appointment, and that the shadow which darkened 
 his life was of home creation. 
 
 Paul Derinzy bade adieu to his brother and 
 his sister-in-law that night, and they never saw 
 him again. About a month afterwards he wrote 
 from Switzerland that his wife was dead, that he 
 should give up the chateau on the lake, and 
 travel for a time, taking the child with him. Ten 
 years passed away, during which news of the tra- 
 vellers came but rarely to the residents in Bromp- 
 ton, who, indeed, thought but little of them. 
 The ex-captain of dragoons had settled down into 
 a quiet, whist-playing, military-club-frequenting 
 fogey ; Mrs. Derinzy managed him with as much 
 tact as usual, and with rather a slacker rein ; and 
 young Paul, now eighteen years old, was just ap- 
 pointed to the Stannaries Office, when an event 
 occurred which entirely changed the aspect of 
 affairs. This was the elder Paul Derinzy' s death, 
 which was communicated to his brother by a tele-
 
 FAMILY POLITICS. 115 
 
 grain from Pau, where it happened. By this 
 telegram Alick was bidden to come to Pau in- 
 stantly to take charge of Miss Derinzy, and to be 
 present at the reading of the will. Alick went to 
 Pau, and his wife went with him. They found 
 Annette Derinzy — a tall girl of fourteen, "a 
 little too foreign, and a good deal too forward, ; ' 
 Mrs. Derinzy pronounced her — prostrated with 
 grief at her recent loss. And they were present 
 at the reading of the will, under which they found 
 themselves constituted guardians of the said An- 
 nette Derinzy, who inherited all her father's pro- 
 perty, with the exception of a thousand a-year, 
 which was to be paid to them for their trouble 
 during their lives, and five thousand pounds 
 legacy to their son Paul at his father's death. 
 Their authority over Annette was to cease when 
 she came of age at twenty-one, but up to that 
 time they had the power of veto on any marriage - 
 engagement she might contract, and any defiance 
 on her part was to be punished by the loss of her 
 fortune, which was to be divided amongst certain 
 charities duly set forth in the will.
 
 116 dr. wain wright's patient. 
 
 " Only five thou, for our poor boy, and that 
 not till we're dead ! and Paul must have left over 
 eighty thousand !" said Captain Derinzy to his 
 wife, when they were in their own room at the 
 hotel after the will had been read. 
 
 " Our Paul shall have the eighty thousand," 
 said Mrs. Derinzy in reply. 
 
 " The devil he shall!" said the Captain. 
 "Who will give it him?" 
 
 The guardians of his wife !" said Mrs. De- 
 
 rinzy.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MRS. ST0THARD. 
 
 Mrs. Powler and Mrs. Jupp were by no means 
 the only persons in Beachborougk to whom Mrs. 
 Stothard's position in the household at the Tower 
 afforded subject-matter for gossip. It may be 
 safely asserted that there neyer was a tea-drink- 
 ing, followed — as was usually the case among 
 the better classes in that hospitable neighbour- 
 hood — by a consumption of alcohol "hot with," 
 at which Mrs. Stothard was not served-up as a 
 toothsome morsel, and forthwith torn into shreds, 
 if not by the teeth, at least by the tongues of the 
 assembled company. To those simple minds, all 
 social standing was fixed and unalterable — one 
 must either be mistress or servant ; the lines of 
 demarcation were strongly defined ; they knew of 
 no softening gradations ; and they could not un-
 
 118 dr. wainweight's patient. 
 
 derstand Mrs. Stothard. " She hev' her dinner 
 by herself, and her own teapot allays brought to 
 her own room — leastways, 'cept when she do fetch 
 it herself, Miss Annette bein' sleepy or out of 
 sorts, and not likin' to be disturbed by the ser- 
 vants." Such was the report which Nancy Wick- 
 stead, who had gone to live as nursemaid up at 
 the Tower soon after the arrival of the family, 
 brought down about this redoubtable woman. 
 The villagers only knew her by report, by crumbs 
 and fragments of rumours dropped by Nancy 
 Wickstead when she came down among her old 
 familiars for an "evening out," or by the trades- 
 men who called at the house, and who drew 
 largely on their own imagination for the stories 
 which they told. They had only caught fleeting 
 glimpses of Mrs. Stothard as she passed along 
 the corridor or crossed from room to room, but 
 even those cursory glances entitled them to 
 swagger before their fellow-villagers who had 
 never seen her at all — never. Many of them 
 tried to think they had, and after renewed de- 
 scriptions of her firmly believed that they had;
 
 MRS. ST0THARD. 119 
 
 but it was all an exercitation of their imagination, 
 for they never went to the Tower, and Mrs. Stot- 
 hard never left it. Never, under any pretence. 
 In the two years during which the family had 
 resided at the Tower, Mrs. Stothard had never 
 passed through the entrance-gate. She took 
 exercise sometimes in the grounds ; even that but 
 rarely ; but she never left them. Young Dobbs, 
 the grocer, a bright spirit, once took it into his 
 head to chaff about her with the servants, to ask 
 who was the " female hermit," and what duties 
 she performed in the house ; a flight of fancy 
 not very humorous in itself, and unfortunate in 
 its result. The next day Mrs. Derinzy called on 
 Dobbs senior, asked him for his bill, paid it, and 
 removed the family custom to Sandwith of Bed- 
 minster. 
 
 Once seen, a woman not easily to be forgotten, 
 from her physical appearance. About eight-and- 
 forty years of age, tall and very strongly built, 
 with broad shoulders and big wrists, knuckles both 
 of wrists and hands very prominent, great frontal 
 development, but low forehead, a penthouse for
 
 120 dr. wmntoight's patient. 
 
 deep-set gray eyes. Light hair, thin, dull, and 
 colourless; thin and colourless cheeks; thin lips, 
 closing tightly over rows of small, gleaming dog's- 
 teeth ; big, square, massive jaw ; cold, taciturn, 
 and watchful, with eyes and ears of wonderful 
 quickness, wits always ready, hands always active 
 and strong. She came to Mrs. Derinzy on Dr. 
 Wain wright's recommendation as "exactly the 
 person to suit her," and she fulfilled her mission 
 most exactly. What that mission was we shall 
 learn ; what her previous career had been we will 
 state. 
 
 She was the only daughter of one Robert 
 Hall, a verger of Canterbury Cathedral, a clever, 
 drunken dog, whose vergership was in constant 
 peril, but who contrived to hoodwink the cathe- 
 dral dignitaries as a general rule, and who on 
 special occasions of outbreak invariably found 
 some influential friend to plead his cause. He 
 was a bookbinder as well as a verger, and in his 
 trade showed not merely skilful manipulation, but 
 rare taste, taste which was apparently inherited 
 by his daughter Martha, who, at seventeen years
 
 MRS. STOTHARD. 121 
 
 of age, had produced some illuminated work which 
 was pronounced by the cognoscenti in such matters 
 to be very superior indeed. The cathedral digni- 
 taries patronised Martha Hall's illuminations, and 
 displayed them in their drawing-rooms at those 
 pleasant evening gatherings, so decorous and so 
 dull, and where the bearers of the sword mingle 
 with the wearers of the gown, yawn away a couple 
 of hours in looking over photograph-albums and 
 listening to sonatas, and after a sandwich and a 
 glass of sherry, lounge away to begin the night 
 with devilled biscuits, billiards, and brandy - 
 and-soda-water. The military, to whom these 
 illuminations were thus introduced, thought it 
 would be the " correct thing" to buy some of 
 them; they would look "deuced well" in their 
 rooms ; so that the front-parlour of the verger's 
 little house in the precincts was speedily reecho- 
 ing to clanking sabres and jingling spurs, the 
 owners of which were none the less ready to come 
 again because the originator and vendor of the 
 wares was " doosid nice girl, don't you know? — 
 not exactly pretty, but something doosid nice
 
 122 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 about her !" Martha Hall's handiwork was seen 
 everywhere in barracks, and "many a holy text 
 around she strewed," and had them hung up in 
 subalterns' rooms between portraits of Mdlle. 
 Joliejambe and the Blisworth Bruiser. 
 
 The sabres clanked so often and the spurs 
 jingled so much in the verger's front-parlour, that 
 the neighbours — instigated, perhaps, less by their 
 friendly feelings and their virtue than their jea- 
 lousy — thought it time to speak to Robert Hall 
 about it, and to ask him if he knew what he was 
 doing, and what seed he was sowing, to be 
 reaped in shame and disgrace. Wybrow, the 
 mourning-jeweller — who made very tasty little 
 designs of yews and willows out of dead people's 
 hair — declared that his shop was never so full as 
 his neighbour's ; but then either the officers had 
 no dead relations, or did not care for such melan- 
 choly souvenirs. Heelball, who had compiled 
 a neat little handbook of the cathedral, and 
 who furnished anyone who wanted them with 
 " rubbings" of the crusaders' tombs, declared that 
 the "milingtary" never patronised him; "per-
 
 MRS. ST0THARD. 123 
 
 haps," he added, " because I ain't young and 
 pretty," therein decidedly speaking the truth, as 
 he was sixty and deformed. Stothard, the tomb- 
 stone sculptor, said nothing. He was supposed to 
 be madly in love with Martha Hall, and it was 
 noticed that when the young officers went clank- 
 ing by his yard he took up his heaviest mallet 
 and punished the stone under treatment fearfully. 
 The hints and remonstrances had but little effect 
 on Robert Hall. Not that he was careless about 
 his daughter. " Happy-go-lucky" in other mat- 
 ters, he would have resented deeply any slight or 
 insult offered to her. But he knew her better 
 than anyone else, knew her passionless, calculat- 
 ing, ambitious nature, and had every confidence 
 in it. 
 
 That confidence was not misplaced. Martha 
 was polite to all who visited her as customers ; 
 talked and joked with them within bounds, dis- 
 played her handiwork, and sold it to the best 
 advantage; taking care always to have ready- 
 money before she parted with it ("Can't think 
 how she does it, 'pon my soul I can't !" was the
 
 124 DT,. waeswpjght's patient. 
 
 cry in barracks. " Screwed two quid out of me 
 for this d — d thing, down on the nail, by Jove ! 
 First thing I've had in the place that hasn't been 
 chalked up, give you my word !") ; but never 
 allowed any approach to undue familiarity. She 
 was declared by her military customers to be 
 "capital fun;" but it was perfectly understood 
 amongst them that she "wouldn't stand any 
 nonsense." So the shop was filled, and her trade 
 throve, and her enemies and neighbours, however 
 much they might hint and whisper in her de- 
 traction, had nothing tangible to narrate against 
 her. 
 
 While Martha Hall's popularity was at its 
 fullest height, there came to the depot of the 
 hussar regiment — to which he had just been 
 gazetted as cornet — a young gentleman of pre- 
 possessing appearance, pleasant manners, good 
 position, and apparently plenty of money. He 
 was well received by his brother-officers, and after 
 being introduced to the various delights which 
 Canterbury affords, he was in due course taken 
 to Martha Hall's shop, and presented to the young
 
 3IRS. ST0THARD. 125 
 
 lady therein presiding. It was evident to his 
 companions that the susceptibilities of their new- 
 comrade were very keenly aroused at the sight of 
 Miss Hall ; and it was no less palpable to Miss 
 Hall herself. She laughingly told her father that 
 night that she had made a fresh conquest; and 
 her father grinned, advised her to set to work on 
 some new texts, with which she could " stick" the 
 new-comer, and repeated his never-failing asser- 
 tion of thorough confidence in her. 
 
 The new-comer, whose name was Derinzy, 
 quickly showed that he was not merely influenced 
 by first impressions. He visited the shop con- 
 stantly, he bought all the illuminations that 
 Martha Hall could produce; and within a very 
 short time he not merely fell violently in love 
 with her, but told her so; and told her that if 
 she would accept him, he would go to her father, 
 and propose to marry her. To such a suggestion 
 from any other of the score of officers in the habit 
 of frequenting the shop, Martha Hall would have 
 replied by a laugh, or, had it been pressed, by 
 a declaration that she was flattered by the com-
 
 126 dr. wain wright's patient. 
 
 pliment, but that she knew the difference between 
 their stations in life was an insuperable barrier, 
 &c. But she said nothing of this kind to Alexis 
 Derinzy. Why? Because she was in love with 
 him. Perhaps her natural keenness of percep- 
 tion had enabled her to judge between the 
 " spooniness" springing from a desire to bridge- 
 over ennui, and to fill up the wearisome hours 
 of a garrison life, which prompted the advances of 
 her other admirers, and the unmistakable pas- 
 sion which this boy betrayed. Perhaps she ad- 
 mired his fair, picturesque face, and well -cut 
 features, and slight form in contradistinction to 
 the more robust and athletic proportions of the 
 other youth then resident in barracks. Perhaps 
 the rumours of the wealth of the Derinzys had 
 reached those calm cloisters, and Martha might 
 have thought that the fact that they were them- 
 selves in trade might induce them to overlook 
 what to the scion of any noble house would be 
 an undoubted mesalliance. No one knew, for 
 Martha, reticent in everything, was scarcely likely 
 to gossip of her love-affairs; but the fact re-
 
 MES. STOTHARD. 127 
 
 niained the same, and she loved him. She told 
 him as much, at the same moment that she sug- 
 gested that the consideration of the marriage 
 question should he deferred for a few months, 
 until he was of age. Mr. Derinzy agreed to this, 
 as he would have agreed to anything his heart's 
 charmer proposed; hut stipulated that Martha 
 should consider herself as engaged to him, and 
 that the flirtations with "the other fellows" 
 should be at once discontinued. Martha con- 
 sented, and acted up both to the spirit and the 
 letter of the agreement ; but flirtation with 
 Martha Hall had become such a habit with the 
 officers quartered at Canterbury that it could not 
 be given up all of a sudden ; no matter how little 
 the maiden might respond, the gallant youths 
 still frequented the shop, and still paid their court 
 in their usual clumsy but unmistakably marked 
 manner. Alexis Derinzy, worried at this, and also 
 feeling it uncommonly hard that he should not 
 be able to boast of having secured the heart and the 
 proximate chance of the hand of the most sought- 
 after girl in Canterbury, mentioned his engage-
 
 128 dr. wainwkeght's patient. 
 
 ment, in the strictest confidence, to three or four 
 of his brother-officers, who, under the same seal, 
 mentioned it to three or four more. Thus it 
 happened that in a few days the story came to 
 the ears of the adjutant of the depot, who was a 
 great friend of the Derinzy family, and at whose 
 instigation it was that Alexis had been placed in 
 the army. 
 
 Captain Branscombe was still a young man, 
 but he had had ripe experience of life, and he knew 
 that it would be as truly useless, under the circum- 
 stances, to reason with the love-stricken cornet, as 
 to make application anywhere but to the highest 
 domestic authorities. To these, therefore, he 
 represented the state of affairs — the result of his 
 representation being that Mr. Paul Derinzy, the 
 elder brother of the cornet, came down to Canter- 
 bury by the coach the next day, and straightway 
 sought an interview with the Dean. Then Eobert 
 Hall was summoned to the diaconal presence, out 
 of which he came swearing strange oaths, and 
 looking very flushed and fierce. Later in the 
 afternoon he was waited upon at his own house
 
 MRS. STOTHARD. 129 
 
 in the precincts by Mi\ Panl Derinzy, who had 
 a very stormy ten minutes with Martha, and then 
 made his way to the barracks. Mr. Paul Derinzy 
 remained in Canterbury for two days, during every 
 hour of which, save those which he passed in bed, 
 he was actively employed. The results of the 
 mission did credit to his diplomatic talents. 
 Alexis Derinzy sent in an application for sick- 
 leave, which being promptly granted, he quitted 
 Canterbury without seeing Martha Hall, though 
 he tried hard to do so ; and did not rejoin until 
 the regiment, safely arrived from India, was 
 quartered at Hounslow. When Mr. Paul Derinzy 
 was staying in Canterbury, it had been noticed 
 by the neighbours that he had called once or twice 
 on Stothard the stonemason, who has already 
 been described as having been madly in love with 
 Martha Hall ; and Stothard had returned the visit 
 at Paul's hotel. In the course of a few weeks 
 aftei the "London gentleman's" departure, Stot- 
 hard announced that he had inherited a legacy of 
 a couple of hundred pounds from an old aunt. 
 No one had ever heard any previous mention of 
 
 VOL. I. k
 
 130 DR. WAIN WEIGHT'S PATIENT. 
 
 this relative, nor did Stothard enter into any par- 
 ticulars whatever ; he did not go to her funeral, 
 and the only mourning he assumed was a crape 
 band to his Sunday heaver. But there was no 
 mistake about the two hundred pounds ; that sum 
 was paid in to his credit at the County Bank by 
 their London agent, and he took the pass-book 
 up with him when he went to Bobert Hall's to 
 propose for Martha. Folks said he was a fool 
 for his pains — the kindest remarked that she 
 would never stoop to him ; the unkindest ex- 
 pressed their contempt for anybody as could take 
 anybody else's leaving. But despite of both, 
 Martha Hall accepted Stothard the stonemason, 
 and they were married. 
 
 You must not think that all this little drama 
 had been enacted without its due effect on one of 
 the principal performers. You must not think 
 that Martha Hall had lost Alexis Derinzy without 
 fierce heartburning and deep regret, and intense 
 hatred for those who robbed her of him. She 
 knew that it was not the boy's own fault, she 
 guessed what kind of pressure had been brought
 
 MBS. STOTHARD. 131 
 
 to bear upon him ;. but she thought he ought to 
 have made a better fight of it. She had loved 
 him, and if he had only been true to her and to 
 their joint cause, they might have been trium- 
 phant. In a few months he would have been of 
 age, and then he could have gone up and seen 
 his mother — he was always her favourite — and she 
 would have persuaded his father, and all would 
 have been straight. He always said he hated his 
 brother Paul — how, then, had he suffered himself 
 to be persuaded by him ? Ah, other influences 
 must have been brought to bear by Paul Derinzy! 
 Paul Derinzy — how she hated him ! She would 
 register that name in her heart ; and if ever she 
 came across his path, let him look to himself. 
 When Stothard came with his proposal, she made 
 her acceptance of him conditional on his leaving 
 Canterbury. The money which he had inherited, 
 and the little sum which she had saved, would 
 enable them to commence business afresh some- 
 where else — say, in London ; but she must leave 
 Canterbury. She could not stand the neighbours* 
 looks and remarks, or, what was worse, their pity,
 
 132 dr. waixwbight's patient. 
 
 any longer. She must go, she said; she was 
 sick of the place. Robert Hall indorsed his 
 daughter's desire; he was becoming more and 
 more confirmed in his selfishness, and wanted to 
 be allowed to drink himself to death without any 
 ridiculous remonstrances. Stothard agreed, — he 
 would have agreed to anything then, — and they 
 were married ; and Stothard bought a business 
 in a London suburb, and for a time — during 
 which time a daughter was born to them — they 
 flourished. 
 
 For a time only ; then Stothard took to drink- 
 ing, and late hours ; his hand lost its cunning ; 
 his customers dropped off one by one; the garnered 
 money had long since been spent, and things 
 looked bad. Stothard drank harder than before, 
 had delirium tremens, and died. His widow could 
 not go back to her old home, for her father had 
 carried out his intention, and drank himself to 
 death very soon after her marriage; and she was 
 too proud to make her appearance among her old 
 acquaintances under her adverse circumstances. 
 As luck would have it, the doctor who had
 
 MRS. STOTHARD. 133 
 
 attended her husband, and had been much 
 struck by the manner in which she had nursed 
 him in his delirium, was physician to a great 
 hospital. He proposed to Mrs. Stothard that she 
 should become a professional nurse, offering her 
 his patronage and recommendation. She agreed, 
 and at once commenced practice in the hospital : 
 but she soon became famous among the physicians 
 and surgeons, and they were anxious to secure 
 her for their private patients, where her services 
 would be well paid. In a few years she had 
 gotten together quite a large connection, and she 
 was in constant demand. The money which she 
 received she applied to giving her daughter a good 
 education. They met but seldom, Mrs. Stothard 
 being so much engaged ; but she perceived in her 
 daughter early signs of worldly wisdom, and a 
 disposition to make use of her fellow-creatures, 
 which gladdened her mother's soured spirit. She 
 should be no weak fool, as her mother liad been ; 
 she should not be made a puppet to be set up and 
 knocked down at a rich man's caprice ; she was 
 sharp, she promised to be pretty, and she should
 
 134 de. wainwkight's patient. 
 
 be well-educated. Then, thoroughly warned as to 
 what men were, she should be placed in some good 
 commercial position, and left to see whether she 
 could not contrive to make a rich and respectable 
 marriage for herself. 
 
 One day when Mrs. Stothard was at St. 
 Vitus's Hospital — where she was now regarded as 
 a great personage, and where, when she paid an 
 occasional visit, she was taken into the stewards' 
 room, and regaled with the best port-wine, — Dr. 
 Wainwright — who, though not attached to St. 
 Vitus's, had. a very great reputation in London, 
 and was considered the leading man in his line — 
 looked into the room. Seeing Mrs. Stothard, he 
 entered, told her he had come expressly, learning 
 she was there, and that he wanted to know if she 
 would undertake a permanent situation. He en- 
 tered into detail as to the case, mentioned the 
 remuneration, which was very large, and stated 
 that he knew no one who would be so satisfactory 
 in the position; and added, " Indeed, ' if we do not 
 get Mrs. Stothard, I don't know what we shall do,' 
 were the last words I uttered to Mrs. Derinzy."
 
 BBtS. STOTHARD. 135 
 
 Mrs. Stothard, albeit a cairn and composed 
 woman in general, literally jumped. A quarter 
 of a century rolled up like a mist, and she saw 
 herself selling illuminated scrolls in the little 
 shop in the precincts at Canterbury, and the slim, 
 handsome little cornet leaning over the counter, 
 and devouring her with his bright black eyes. 
 
 " What name did you say, sir ?" she asked 
 when she recovered herself. 
 
 "Derinzy. Odd name, isn't it? De-rin-zy. 
 The lady's husband is a retired military man, 
 and the family consists of themselves and the 
 young lady I was speaking ol just now," said the 
 Doctor. 
 
 "Is she their daughter?" asked Mrs. Stot- 
 hard. 
 
 "0, no; they have no daughter, only a son, 
 who lives in London. This young lady is their 
 niece, daughter of — why, God bless my soul ! you 
 must have heard of him — Mr. Paul Derinzy, the 
 merchant, the millionaire, who died some time 
 ago. All ! I forgot, though ; millionaires — real 
 ones, I mean — are not much in your line," added
 
 136 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 Dr. Wainwright with a laugli. " You see plenty 
 who fancy that — " 
 
 "0, and so Mr. Paul Derinzy is dead," in- 
 terrupted Mrs. Stothard ; "and this young lady 
 is his daughter? I think, Dr. Wainwright, I 
 must decline the situation." 
 
 Decline the situation ! Dr. Wainwright had 
 never heard of such a thing, never in the whole 
 course of his professional experience. Decline the 
 situation ! Had Mrs. Stothard understood him 
 correctly ahout the terms ? Yes ! And she talked 
 of declining the situation after that ! And for a 
 permanency too. And he had thought it would 
 have been exactly the thing to suit her. Well, if 
 she would not accept, she must not decline — at 
 once, that was to say. She must think over it ; 
 she must indeed. 
 
 She did; and accepted it. Partly out of a 
 desire for revenge. She had a long, long ponder- 
 ing over the past ; and all the bitterness of by- 
 gone years had revived in her heart. She 
 thought that something — luck, she called it ; she 
 was but little given to ascribe things to Provi-
 
 MRS. ST0THARD. 137 
 
 dence — had placed her enemies in her hands, 
 and that she might use her power over the man 
 who had given her up, and over the daughter of 
 the man who had compelled him to do so. 
 Partly for money. The salary proposed was very 
 large, and her daughter's education was expen- 
 sive, and the girl would soon have to he appren- 
 ticed to a house of business where a heavy pre- 
 mium must he paid. So she accepted. There 
 was no doubt about her getting the place ; Dr. 
 Wainwright's recommendation was all-sufficient, 
 and Mrs. Derinzy was only too anxious to secure 
 her services. Captain Derinzy had forgotten all 
 about Stothard the stonemason, and the two 
 hundred pounds which had been paid to him, 
 even if he ever knew of the transaction. He did 
 not recognise the name, and for the first few mi- 
 nutes after he saw her he did not recognise in 
 the hard-featured, cold, impassive, middle-aged 
 woman his bright boyish love of so many years 
 before. When he did recognise her he started, 
 and seemed as though he would have spoken ; but 
 she made him a slight sign, and he waited for an
 
 138 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 opportunity of their being alone. When that 
 came, it was Mrs. Stothard who spoke. She told 
 him there was no necessity for ever referring to 
 the past, it was all forgotten by them both ; they 
 would never be brought in contact ; she knew the 
 position she held in his house, and she should fulfil 
 it; it was better on all accounts that Mrs. De- 
 rinzy should be kept in ignorance of their former 
 acquaintance — did he not think so ? He did ; 
 and as he left her he grinned quietly. 
 
 " What the doose did she think?" he said to 
 himself. " Gad ! not likely that I should want 
 to renew the acquaintance of an old horse-god- 
 mother like that. What a pretty gal she was, 
 too ! and how changed ! by George, so that her 
 own mother wouldn't know her ! Wonder whe- 
 ther I'm as much changed as all that ? Often look 
 in the glass and wonder. Different in a man : he 
 don't wear a cap, and that kind of thing; and 
 my hair's lasted wonderful, considerin'. Martha 
 Hall, eh? and those dam' things — text things — 
 that she used to paint in those colours — got some 
 of 'em still, I think, somewhere in my old bullock-
 
 MRS. ST0THARD. 139 
 
 trunk ; saw 'em the other day. Martha Hall ! — 
 Lord!" 
 
 So Mrs. Stothard accepted office with the 
 Derinzys, and was with them when, shortly after- 
 wards, they gave up the house at Brompton 
 where they had lived so long, and removed to 
 Beachborough. The change affected Mrs. Stot- 
 hard but very little ; it mattered scarcely at all to 
 her where she was ; her time was very much 
 employed in her duties, and what little leisure she 
 found she passed in reading, or in writing to her 
 daughter. She knew perfectly well that she was 
 the subject of an immense amount of curiosity in 
 Beachborough village, and of talk at the village 
 tea-tables; but it did not trouble her one whit. 
 She knew that she was said to be a poor relation 
 of the Derinzy family, and she did not discourage 
 the idea. Thinking over the past, and what 
 might have been, she found a land of grim hu- 
 mour in the combination which suited her tho- 
 roughly. They might say what they liked, she 
 thought, so long as her money was regularly paid, 
 and so long as she found herself able to carry out
 
 140 dr. waixwright's patient. 
 
 the one scheme of her life — that of making a good 
 marriage for her daughter Fanny. 
 
 Fanny then, under the name of Miss Staf- 
 ford, was apprenticed to Madame Clarisse the 
 great court milliner, in London, and lived, when 
 she was at home, — and that was not often, 
 poor child ! for she slaved like a horse, — in one 
 little room in a house in South Molton- street, a 
 lodging-house kept by an old sister-nurse of Mrs. 
 Stothard's at St. Vitus's, a most respectable mo- 
 therly woman, who would look after Fanny, and 
 would at once let her mother know if there was 
 " anything wrong." Not that there was any 
 chance of that. Fanny Stafford acted up too 
 strictly to her mother's teaching, and remembered 
 too well the doctrine which had been inculcated 
 in her girlhood, ever to make that mistake. She 
 had been told that to marry a man considerably 
 above her in pecuniary and social position was 
 her mission in life ; to that end she might use all 
 her charms, all her arts ; but that end must be 
 marriage — nothing less. This she understood, 
 and daily experience made her more and more
 
 MRS. STOTHARD. 141 
 
 impressed with the wisdom of her mother's deter- 
 mination. She had not much heart, she thought; 
 she did not think she had any passion ; and she 
 knew that she had keen discrimination and accu- 
 rate perception of character ; so she thought she 
 ought to succeed. Mrs. Stothard was acquainted 
 with the peculiarities of her daughter's character, 
 and thought so too. 
 
 At the very time when Captain Derinzy was 
 lying stretched out on the headland overlooking 
 Beachborough Bay, and making those cynical 
 remarks on the place and its population, Mrs. 
 Stothard was preparing to read a letter from her 
 daughter Fanny. It had arrived in the morning ; 
 but Mrs. Stothard had been very busy all day, 
 and it was not until the evening that she found 
 time to read it. Her occupation had confined her 
 to the house, so that now, being for a few mi- 
 nutes free, she was glad to escape into the 
 grounds. She chose that portion of the flower- 
 garden which was farthest removed from the 
 side of the house which she principally inhabited ; 
 and as she paced up and down the soft turf path
 
 142 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 between two rows of espaliers, she took the letter 
 from her pocket and commenced to read it. It 
 was written in a small, delicate hand, and Mrs. 
 Stothard had to hold it close to her eyes in the 
 fading light. She read as follows : 
 
 " London, Sunday. 
 
 "My dear Mother, — You will have been 
 expecting to hear from me for some time, and, 
 indeed, you ought to have had a letter, but the 
 truth is I am so tired and sleepy when I get back 
 here that I am glad to go straight to bed. We 
 are just now in the height of the season, and are 
 so busy that I scarcely ever have time to sit down. 
 I told you, I think, that I was likely to be in the 
 showroom this season. I was right. Madame 
 asked me if I should like to be there, and when 
 I said ' Yes,' she seemed pleased ; and I have 
 been there since April. I think I have made my- 
 self even more useful than she expected ; for 
 many of the customers know me now, and ask to 
 see me in preference to Madame herself. I sup- 
 pose she does not quite like that, but it is not my
 
 MRS. STOTHARD. 143 
 
 fault. I know I am neat and handy, and that there 
 is no one in the house with so much education or 
 so much manner, and these are both points which 
 are noticed by customers. Nevertheless, I think I 
 am winning my way into Madame's good graces ; 
 for when she goes out — and she is now out a great 
 deal, at the French plays, at the Opera, and in 
 private society ; you have no notion what an 
 immense amount of reception goes on amongst 
 the French coiffeurs and modistes in London — she 
 invariably leaves me to see the parcels sent off 
 and the business of the day wound up. She 
 has no forewoman, as I have told you, and I think 
 I might aspire to that important post with reason- 
 able hope of success if I wished it, but I don't. 
 
 "No, dear mother; it would give me no plea- 
 sure to have my name on as big a brass-plate as 
 Madame Clarisse's, on as handsome a door in as 
 eligible a situation. I should derive no satisfac- 
 tion even if I could combine her connection with 
 Madame Augustine's, her great rival. (Augus- 
 tine's clientele is richer than ours, I think, but we 
 have by far the best people.) I long sometimes,
 
 144 DR. WAIN WRIGHT'S PATIENT. 
 
 when I see a wretched old creature nodding under a 
 wreath when she ought to be concealing her bald 
 pate or her gray hairs under an honest mob-cap, 
 or when I am helping a stout middle-aged matron 
 to struggle into a gown of a style and pattern 
 suitable for her youngest daughter, to throw all my 
 chances of success in business to the winds, and tell 
 the people then under my hands plainly and openly 
 what I think of them. I cannot stand — or rather 
 I could not, were it for a permanence; I can well 
 enough for a time — this wretched ko-tooing ex- 
 istence, this perpetual grinning and curtseying 
 and false-compliment paying, this utter abnega- 
 tion of one's own opinion, one's own feelings, 
 one's own self! You must not be surprised at 
 these expressions, dear mother, recollecting how 
 you have had me brought up, and how you 
 yourself have always inculcated in me a strong 
 desire to better my position, and by a good 
 marriage to raise myself into a class superior 
 to this. 
 
 "Mother, I think I'm going to do it. I think 
 that I have a chance of freeing myself from this
 
 MBS. STOTHARD. 145 
 
 servitude, which is galling to me, and of winning 
 a station in life such as you yourself would be 
 proud to see me holding. You remember how 
 you used to talk to me about this when I was 
 much younger, and how I used then to laugh at 
 your earnestness, and tell you your hopes and 
 aspirations were but dreams ? I declare now I 
 think there is some chance of their being realised. 
 "Xow you are all impatience, and dying to 
 know all I have to tell ! I can see you — I sup- 
 pose you are not much changed since we last 
 parted ; I often wonder — I can see you skimming 
 over the paper in your eager anxiety to get at the 
 details. I will not keep you in suspense, dear 
 Mother — here they are ! A month ago, I was 
 returning to Mrs. Gillott's late at night. AYe 
 had been hard at work until nearly twelve o'clock 
 getting out a large wedding order, and Madame 
 thought it important enough to superintend the 
 packing and sending out of the various things. 
 I had remained till the last, and the church-clock 
 opposite struck twelve as the door closed behind 
 me. The streets were almost deserted; but I had 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 not gone far before I perceived that a man was 
 following me. I could not make out what kind 
 of a man he was, as he persistently kept in the 
 shade, walking at first on the opposite side of the 
 way, then crossing behind me, but ever constantly 
 following. I knew this from the sound .of his 
 footsteps, which echoed in the stillness of the 
 night. When I crossed Bond-street he came 
 abreast of me, and then I saw that he was a com- 
 mon man, in his working dress. I was fright- 
 ened then, I confess. You don't know what they 
 are sometimes, Mother, these working men. I 
 would sooner meet any gentleman, however loose, 
 any what they call ( gent,' than some of those ! 
 It isn't their conduct, it's what they say ! They 
 seem to delight in using the most awful language, 
 the foulest terms, to unprotected girls ; merely, 
 apparently, for the sake of insulting them. This 
 man was a bad specimen of his class. There was 
 no one near, and he stepped up to my side after 
 we had crossed Bond-street, and said to me things 
 — I don't know what, for I hurried on without 
 looking towards him. I knew well enough what
 
 MRS. ST0THARD. 147 
 
 lie said next, he took care that there should be 
 no mistake about that, for he prefaced his remark 
 with a short laugh of scorn and defiance, and 
 then — he made his speech. I was not surprised ; 
 no girl compelled to walk alone in London, and 
 especially at night, could be surprised at any- 
 thing that might be said to her ; but I was dis- 
 gusted and frightened, and tried to run. The 
 man ran by my side — I saw then that he was 
 drunk — and tried to catch hold of me. I was in 
 a dreadful fright, and I suppose I looked so, for 
 a gentleman who was coming out of the hotel at 
 the corner of South Molton-street stepped hur- 
 riedly out, and said, ' I beg your pardon — is this 
 person annoying you ?' Before I could reply, the 
 man said something — too horrible — about me and 
 himself, and the next moment he was lying in the 
 road ; the gentleman had taken him by the collar 
 and flung him there. He got up, and rushed at 
 the gentleman ; but by this time a policeman 
 who had seen it all crossed the street, and made 
 him go away. Then the gentleman took off his 
 hat, and begged leave to see me to my door. I
 
 148 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 allowed him to do so — it was foolish, I know, 
 Mother, hut I was all unnerved, and scarcely knew 
 what I did ; and when we arrived at Mrs. Gillott's 
 I thanked him, and bade him good-night. He 
 took off his hat again, and left me at once. 
 
 " He found out who I was — how, I don't know 
 — for next day I had a polite note, hoping I 
 had quite recovered from my alarm, expressed in 
 the most gentlemanly manner, and signed ' Paul 
 Douglas.' I have met him several times since, 
 always in the street, and have walked and talked 
 with him. He is always most polite and respect- 
 ful, but of course professes himself to be madly 
 in love. Yesterday, for the first time, I found 
 out who he is. He has an appointment in a 
 Government office, the ' Stannaries' they call it, 
 and his family live somewhere in the West of 
 England. They are evidently well off, and he, 
 Paul, is what they call a ' swell.' Very good- 
 looking, slight and dark, about five-and-twenty, 
 and always beautifully dressed. 
 
 " You don't fear me, Mother'? You have suffi- 
 cient reliance on me to know that I would never
 
 MRS. ST0THARD. 149 
 
 discredit your training. You will want to know 
 whether I am in love with this young man, I 
 think I am — so far. And you need not be afraid. 
 He vows — everything, of course; but he is too 
 much of a gentleman, in the first place, to offer 
 to insult me ; and in the second — well, to speak 
 plainly, he knows it would be of no use. Is this 
 the chance that you taught me to look for? I 
 think it is. But we shall soon know. Meanwhile 
 believe in the thorough discretion of your loving 
 daughter Fanny." 
 
 Up and down the soft turf path paced Mrs. 
 Stothard in the glorious summer evening, with 
 the open letter in her hand, deep in cogitation. 
 Her head was bent upon her breast, and occasion- 
 ally raised as she referred to the paper. Suddenly 
 a light gleamed in her face, she hurriedly re- 
 perused the letter, folding it so as only to make 
 herself thorough mistress of a certain portion of 
 its contents, and then she smiled a hard grim 
 smile, and said to herself in a hard bitter voice, 
 
 " Of course, of course ! What an idiot I was not
 
 150 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 to see it at once ! The mention of the Stannaries 
 Office might have convinced rne, if all my senses 
 had not been blunted by my wretched work in this 
 wretched place ! Douglas, indeed ! Paul Douglas is 
 Paul Derinzy — slight, dark, handsome — none but 
 he ! Family in the West of England too — no doubt 
 of it ! And in love with my Fan ! 0, my dear 
 friends, I'll spoil your game yet ! I'm so blind. 
 Quiet and seclusion for dear Annette's health ; no 
 other reason, no ! Not to keep her out of the 
 way of fortune-hunters, and save her up for our 
 son, dear no ! That shall never be ! Our son 
 shall marry my Fan! What is it? 'The sins of 
 the fathers shall be visited on the children.' I 
 never believed much in that sort of thing ; but in 
 this instance it really looks as though there were 
 something in it."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Those persons to whom London is a home — a 
 place to be lived in all the year round, save on 
 the occasion of the two months' holiday, when one 
 rushes off to the north, or to the sea, or to the 
 Continent, returning with a renewed stock of 
 health and a pleasurable sense of having enjoyed 
 yourself, but with a still more pleasurable sense 
 of being back again in town — are very much 
 amused at a notion prevalent amongst many wor- 
 thy people who arrive at their own or at a hired 
 house in the month of March, stay there till the 
 end of the month of June, and go away fancying 
 that they know London. Know London ! A life- 
 time's earnest devotion does not suffice for that 
 study, and those people who talk thus have not 
 even the merest smattering of its topography. 
 Their London used to be bounded on the wesl bj
 
 152 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 the Knightsbridge Barracks — even now they ac- 
 knowledge nothing beyond Princes-terrace. On 
 the south -west they have penetrated as far as 
 Onslow-square — the territory beyond that might 
 be full of tiger-lairs and hiding-places for dragons, 
 for all they know about it. Of the suburbs, be- 
 yond such knowledge as they derive from an oc- 
 casional visit to the Star and Garter at Eich- 
 mond, they know absolutely nothing. They do 
 not know, and it would not make the smallest 
 difference to them if they did, that if, instead of 
 cantering up and down that ghastly, treeless, sun- 
 scorched mile of gravel, the Eow, they chose to 
 turn their horses' heads north-westward, they 
 could find shade in the green "Willesden lanes and 
 air on the breezy Hendon heights. They do not 
 know, that within a very short distance of Hyde- 
 park there are shady lanes half-hidden in greenery, 
 dotted here and there with quaint old-fashioned 
 houses standing in the midst of large grounds 
 — some with gardens sloping away towards the 
 river ; others with enormous trees overhanging 
 them, blotting-out all view or vista ; and others
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 153 
 
 again with such an expanse of what the auction- 
 eers are pleased to term " park -like grounds" 
 visible from their windows, that you would have 
 no idea of the immediate proximity of London, 
 save for the never-varying presence of the smoke- 
 wreath hanging over the horizon, and the never- 
 ceasing, save on Sundays, dull rumble of distant 
 traffic, which grinds on the ear like the mono- 
 tonous surging of the waves upon the shore. 
 
 In one of these metropolitan suburbs, no mat- 
 ter which, stood and stands the house which at 
 the period of our story was George Wainwright's 
 home, the residence of his father, Dr. Wain- 
 wright. It was a big, long, rambling, red-faced 
 old house, with an enormous number of rooms, 
 some large and some small, standing in the midst 
 of a large garden. Tradition said that it had 
 been a favourite residence of Cromwell's ; but it 
 was generally believed, and the belief was not ill- 
 founded, that it had been given by the Lord Pro- 
 tector to the husband of his favourite daughter, 
 and that he himself had frequently been in the 
 habit of staying there. At the end of the first
 
 154 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 quarter of the present century it had a very differ- 
 ent occupant from the grim old Ironsides leader, 
 being rented by the Countess Delia Crusca, the 
 wittiest, the most beautiful, the most extravagant, 
 the most fascinating woman of her day. Old 
 Knaves of Clubs still raffofont about the Delia 
 Crusca, her eyes and her poems, her bust and her 
 repartees. She had a husband ? — yes ! the 
 Count Delia Crusca, ex-officer of Bersaglieri and 
 one of the first naturalists of his day, correspond- 
 ing member of all the principal European societies, 
 and perfectly devoted to his favourite pursuit ; so 
 devoted, that he was invariably away in some dis- 
 tant foreign country, engaged in hunting for spe- 
 cimens. The Countess was an Englishwoman, 
 daughter of Captain Ramus, half-pay, educated at 
 a convent in Paris, under the guidance of her 
 maternal aunt Miss Coghlan, of Letterkenney in 
 Ireland. Immediately on issuing from the con- 
 vent she eloped with Count Delia Crusca, whose 
 acquaintance she had made in a casual manner in 
 the coupe of one of the diligences belonging to 
 Messrs. Lafitte, Caillard, et Cie. A very short
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 155 
 
 time served to prove to them that they had no 
 tastes in common. Madame la Comtesse did not 
 care for natural history, which the Count loved, and 
 she did care for England, which the Count loathed. 
 So he went his way, in pursuit of specimens, and 
 she went hers to England. She arrived in London, 
 and Marston-moor House heing to let, she took it. 
 Some of us are yet alive who recollect the 
 little saccharine poems, the plaintive little son- 
 nets, the — well, yes, to speak the truth — the 
 washy three-volume novels which were composed 
 in that sturdy old building and dated thence. 
 Sturdy outside, but lovely within. Such furni- 
 ture : white satin and gold, black satin and red 
 trimming ; such pictures, and statues, and busts ; 
 such looking-glasses let into the walls at every 
 conceivable place ; such hanging boskets and or- 
 molu clocks, and Dresden and Sevres china ; such 
 Chinese fans and Indian screens, and Turkish 
 yataghans and Malay creeses; such books — at 
 least, such bindings ; such a satin-wood desk, at 
 which the Countess penned her inspirations ; such 
 a solemn -sounding library clock, which had be-
 
 15G dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 longed to Marie Antoinette ; such lion- skins and 
 leopard-skins for rugs ; such despatch-boxes with 
 the Delia Cruscan coronet and cipher; such 
 waste -paper baskets always littered with proof- 
 sheets ! The garden ! never was anything seen 
 like that ! It was not much more than half an 
 acre, but SmifT, the great landscape gardener, 
 made it look more like a square mile. Delight- 
 fully rustic and English here, quaintly Dutch 
 there, Italian terraced a little lower down, small 
 avenue, vista broken by the fountain ; might be a 
 thousand miles away from London, so every one 
 said. Every one said so, because every one came 
 there. \Yho was every one '? Well, the Grand- 
 Duke of Schweinerei was some one, at all events. 
 Ex-Grand-Duke I should have said, recollecting 
 that some years before, the people of Schweinerei, 
 although by no means a strait-laced people, grew 
 so disgusted at the " goings-on" of their reigning 
 potentate, that they rose in revolt, and incontin- 
 ently kicked him out. Then he came to England, 
 where he has remained ever since, dwelling in a 
 big house, and occupying his spare time with
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 157 
 
 fighting newspapers for libelling him in a very 
 blackguard and un-English manner. His high- 
 ness is an elderly, short, fat man, with admirably- 
 fitting wig and whiskers of the Tyrian purple. 
 He has dull bleary eyes, pendulous cheeks, and 
 a great fat double chin. He is covered all over 
 with diamonds: his studs are diamonds; he wears 
 a butterfly diamond brooch on the knot of his 
 white cravat ; his waistcoat-buttons are diamonds ; 
 his sleeve-links are diamonds ; and he resembles 
 the old woman of Banbury Cross in having (dia- 
 mond) rings on his fingers, and probably, for all 
 the historian knows to the contrary, on his toes. 
 
 Who else came there ? A tall, thin, dark 
 man, with a long face like a sheep's head, a 
 full dull eye, a long nose, a very long upper 
 lip, and a retreating chin. Prince Bernadotte 
 of the Lipari Isles, also an exile, but one who 
 has since been recalled to his kingdom. No- 
 body thought much of Prince Bernadotte in those 
 days'. He lived in cheap chambers in London, 
 and used to play billiards with coiffeurs and 
 agents de change and commis voyageurs from the
 
 158 DR. WAIN WRIGHT'S PATIENT. 
 
 hotels in Leicester-square ; and who went into a 
 very little English society, where he always sat 
 silent and reserved, and where they thought very 
 little of him. He must have been marvellously 
 misunderstood then, or must have grown into 
 quite a different kind of man when he sat 'smoking 
 his cigar with his feet on the fender in the Elysee, 
 and to all inquiries made hut the one reply, 
 " QiCon execute mes ordres /" — those " ordres" 
 being fulfilled in the massacre of the Boulevards. 
 
 Who else? Savans, philosophers, barristers, 
 poets, newspaper-writers, novelists, caricaturists, 
 eminent physicians and surgeons, fiddlers, for- 
 eigners, anybody who had done anything which 
 had given him the merest temporary notoriety 
 was welcome, so long as he came at the time. 
 And they never failed to do that. The society 
 was so delightful, the welcome was so warm, the 
 eating and drinking were so good, that there was 
 never any chance of an invitation to Marston- 
 moor House being refused. Sourkraut, the great 
 cynical philosopher, who sneered himself into fame 
 and fortune, owed a great deal to the Countess
 
 FRIENDS IX COUNCIL. 159 
 
 Delia Crusca ; for her house was the first at which 
 he met titled people whom he could beslaver to 
 their faces and ridicule behind their backs, and 
 thus make capital out of them in two senses. 
 Thither came Fermez, the Opera impresario, 
 driving down a couple of lords in his phaeton ; 
 and Tom Gilks, the scene-painter of Covent-gar- 
 den, who arrived per omnibus ; and Winston, who 
 had just written that tremendous pamphlet on the 
 religious controversy of the day ; and Eupert Rob- 
 inson, who had sat up all the previous night to 
 finish his burlesque, and who was so enchanted 
 with the personal appearance of the Grand- 
 Duke of Schweinerei, that he wanted to carry him 
 off bodily — rings, diamonds, wig, whiskers, and 
 all — to Madame Tussaud's Exhibition. Dinners 
 and balls, conversazioni and fetes — with the garden 
 illuminated with Italian lamps and supper served 
 in extemporised pavilions — two royal dukes, 
 in addition to standard celebrities, and foreign 
 princes in town for the season — without end. 
 
 " Vain transitory splendour ! could not all 
 Retain the tott'ring mansion from its fall ?"
 
 160 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 Apparently not. One morning the servants at 
 Marston-moor House got up, to find their mistress 
 had risen before them, or rather had not been to 
 bed at all, having decamped during the night with 
 the plate and all the portable valuables, and left 
 an enormous army of creditors behind her. There 
 was weeping and wailing round the neighbour- 
 hood for months ; but tears and outcries did not 
 pay the defrauded tradespeople, and they never had 
 any money. Nobody ever knew who received the 
 money realised by the sale of the furniture, &c, 
 though that ought to have been something con- 
 siderable, for there never was a sale so tremend- 
 ously attended, or at which things fetched such 
 high prices. All the ladies of high rank who 
 combined frightful stupidity with rigid virtue, and 
 who would as soon have thought of walking into 
 Tophet as of crossing Madame Delia Crusca's 
 threshold, rushed to. Marston-moor House so soon 
 as its proprietress had fled, and bought eagerly at 
 the sale. The large looking-glass which formed 
 the back of the alcove in which Madame Delia 
 Crusca's bed was placed now figures in the bou-
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 161 
 
 doir, or, as it is generally called, the work-room, 
 of the Countess of Texthorough, and is scarcely 
 so happy in its reflections as in former days. The 
 satin-wood desk fell to the nod of Mrs. Quisby, 
 who used to follow the Queen's hounds in a deep- 
 pink jacket and a short skirt, and who now holds 
 forth on Sunday afternoons at the infant schools 
 in Bodger's-buildings Mayfair, and is especially 
 hard on the Scarlet Woman. Many of the old 
 habitues attended, and bought well-remembered 
 scraps for souvenirs. Old Sourkraut's melancholy 
 mug was seen in the first rank of Mr. Hammer- 
 down's audience ; and the genial old cynic wept 
 real tears over the break-up of the establishment, 
 and then, at a cheap rate, bought a service of 
 dinner-plate, off which he subsequently consumed 
 hecatombs of toads in honour of the great people 
 who patronised his dinners. Finally everything, 
 down to the kitchen pots and pans, the stable- 
 buckets and the gardeners' implements, were 
 cleared off, and a big painted board frowned in 
 the great courtyard, informing the British public 
 that that eligible mansion was to let. 
 
 VOL. i. M
 
 162 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 Not for long did that black-and-white board 
 blossom in that flinty soil. \Vithin three weeks 
 of the sale a rumour ran through London that an 
 al-fresco place of entertainment on a magnificent 
 scale was about to be opened on what had been 
 the Delia- Cruscan property, and that Wuff, the 
 great "Wuff, the most enterprising man of his 
 day, was at the back of it. Straightway the board 
 was pulled down, and an army of painters, and 
 decorators, and plumbers, and builders, and Irish 
 gentlemen in flannel jackets, and Italian gentle- 
 men in slouch wideawakes and paint-stained ga- 
 berdines, took possession of the place. Big rooms 
 were converted into supper- and dining-rooms, 
 and small rooms into cabinets particuliers ; a 
 row of supper-boxes on the old Yauxhall pattern 
 sprang up in the grounds, which moreover w r ere 
 tastefully planted with gas-lamps, with plaster-of- 
 paris statues, with two or three sham fountains, 
 and with grottoes made of slag and shiny-faced 
 bricks. Then, on an Easter Monday, the place 
 was opened with a ballet, with dancing on the 
 circular platform, with Sign or Simioso's perform-
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 163 
 
 ing monkeys, and with a grand display of fire- 
 works. Very good, all this; but somehow it didn't 
 draw. The great Wuff did all he could — sent 
 an enormous power of legs into the ballet ; en- 
 gaged the most excruciatingly funny comic sing- 
 ers ; put silver rosettes into the button-holes and 
 silver-gilt wands into the hands of all the masters 
 of the ceremonies on the circular platform ; and 
 had Gufnno il Diavolo flying from the top of the 
 pasteboard Leaning Tower of Pisa into the canvas 
 Lake of Geneva, down a wire, with a squib in his 
 cap, and one in each of his heels — and yet the 
 public would not come. The great Wuff tried it 
 for two seasons, and then gave it up in despair. 
 
 Up went the black-and-white board again ; to 
 be taken down at the bidding of Mrs. Trimmer, 
 who, having a very good boarding- school for young- 
 ladies at Highgate, thought she might increase 
 her connection by establishing herself in a more 
 eligible neighbourhood. The board had been up 
 so long, that the proprietor of the house was will- 
 ing, not merely to take a reduced rent, but to 
 pull up the gas-lamps, and pull down the supper-
 
 164 DR. wainwbight's patient. 
 
 boxes, and restore the garden, not indeed to its 
 original state of beauty, but to decency and order. 
 The rooms were re-papered (it must be owned 
 that Wuff's taste in decoration had been loud), 
 and the name of the house changed from Mar- 
 ston-moor to Cornelia. Then Mrs. Trimmer took 
 possession, and brought her young friends with 
 her, and they throve and multiplied exceedingly ; 
 and all went well until Mrs. Trimmer died, and 
 there was no one to carry on the business ; and 
 the board went up, and remained up longer than 
 ever. 
 
 No one knew exactly when or how the house 
 was taken again. The proprietor, hoping to get 
 another school-keeper for a tenant, the house be- 
 ing too large for ordinary domestic purposes, had 
 bought Mrs. Trimmer's furniture — the iron bed- 
 steads and school-fittings — for a song, and had 
 placed an old woman in charge. One day this 
 old woman put her luggage, consisting of a blue 
 bundle, and herself into a cab, and went away. 
 A few carpenters had arrived from town in the 
 morning, and had occupied themselves in fitting
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 165 
 
 iron bars to the interior of some of the windows. 
 During the greater portion of that night carriages 
 were heard rolling up the lane in which the back 
 entrance to the house was situated, and the next 
 day smoke was seen issuing from the chimneys ; 
 a big brass plate with the name of " Dr. Bulph" 
 was screwed on to the iron gates of the carriage- 
 drive, and two or three strong-built men were 
 noticed going in and out of the premises. Gra- 
 dually it became known that Dr. Bulph was a 
 physician celebrated for his treatment of the in- 
 sane, a " mad-doctor," as the neighbours called 
 him; and women and children used to skurry 
 past the old red garden -walls as though they 
 thought the inmates were climbing over to get 
 at them. But the house was so thoroughly well- 
 conducted, so quietly and with such excellent dis- 
 cipline, that people soon thought nothing of it, 
 any more than of auy other of the big mansions 
 in the neighbourhood; and when Dr. Bulph re- 
 tired, and Dr. Wainwright succeeded him, the 
 door-plate had actually been changed for some 
 days before the neighbours noticed it.
 
 166 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 Dr. Wain wright made many changes in the 
 establishment. He was a man of great fame for 
 several specialties, and was constantly being called 
 away to patients in the country. He consider- 
 ably enlarged the old house, and brought to it 
 a better and wealthier class of patients, who were 
 attended, under his supervision, by two resident 
 surgeons. Dr. Wainwright did not live in the 
 house. In addition to his practice he worked 
 very hard with his pen, contributing . largely to 
 the principal medical scientific reviews and jour- 
 nals, and corresponding with many continental 
 savons. For all this work he required solitude 
 and silence ; and, as he was a widower, he was 
 able to enjoy both in a set of chambers in the 
 Albany, where he could go in and out as he 
 liked, and where no unwelcome visitor could get 
 at him. He had consulting-rooms in Grosve- 
 nor-square ; and when in town, was to be found 
 there between ten and one ; but after those hours 
 it was impossible to know where to catch him. 
 
 But George Wainwright lived at the old house, 
 or rather in an outbuilding in the grounds, sole
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 167 
 
 remainder of Mr. Wuff's erections ; which had 
 been converted to his use, and which yielded him 
 a large, high-roofed, roomy studio and a capital 
 bedroom, both on the ground floor. The studio 
 was no misnomer for the living-room ; for, in 
 addition to his Civil- Service work, George fol- 
 lowed Art with deep and earnest devotion, and 
 was known and recognised as one of the best 
 amateur painters of the day. Men whose names 
 stood very high in the art-world were his friends ; 
 and on winter nights the studio would be filled 
 with members of that pleasant Bohemian society, 
 discussing their craft and its members and such 
 cognate subjects. George was a great reader also, 
 and had a goodly store of books littering the tables 
 or ranged on common shelves, disputing posses- 
 sion of the walls with choice bits of his friends' 
 painting or half-finished attempts of his own. In 
 the middle of the room stood a quaintly-caned 
 old black-oak desk, ink-blotted and penknife- 
 hacked, with some pages of manuscript and some 
 slips of proof lying on it — for George, who had 
 been educated in Germany, was in the habit of
 
 168 de. wainweight's patient. 
 
 contributing essays on abstruse questions of Ger- 
 man philosophy and metaphysics to a monthly 
 review of very portentous weight — and in the cor- 
 ner was a cabinet piano, covered with loose leaves 
 of music, scraps from oratorios, studenten-lieden, 
 bits of Bach and Gliick, glees of Purcell and Arne, 
 and even ballads by Claribel. Some of George's 
 painter friends had formed themselves into a sing- 
 ing-club and sang very sweetly; and the greatest 
 treat that could be offered to the inmates of the 
 house was these fellows' musical performances. The 
 young swells of the Stannaries Office wondered 
 why George Wainwright never was seen at casino, 
 singing and supper-houses, or other of those 
 resorts which they specially affected. They looked 
 upon him as somewhat of a fogey, and could not 
 understand what a bright, genial, jolly fellow like 
 Paul Derinzy could see to like in him. He was 
 kind and good-natured and all that, they owned, 
 as indeed they had often proved by loans of "sovs" 
 and " fivers," when the end of the quarter had 
 left them dry; but he was an uncomfortable sort 
 of chap, they said, and was always by himself.
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 169 
 
 He was by himself the evening of the day after 
 that on which he had seen Paul Derinzy walking 
 with Daisy in Kensington-gardens. He had had a 
 light dinner at his club, and thence walked straight 
 away home, where, on his arrival at his den, he 
 had lit a big pipe and thrown himself into an 
 easy-chair, and sat watching the blue smoke curl- 
 ing away above his head, and pondering over the 
 present and the future of his friend. George 
 Wainwright had a stronger feeling than mere 
 liking for Paul; there was a touch of romance 
 in the regard which the good-looking, bright, 
 easy-going young man had aroused in his steady, 
 sober, practical senior. George was too much a 
 man of the world to thrill with horror because 
 he had seen his friend in the company of a pretty 
 girl, and come across what was evidently a lovers' 
 meeting. But his knowledge of Paul's character 
 was large and well-founded ; in the mere glance 
 which he had got of the pair as they stood toge- 
 ther in the act of saying adieu, he had caught an 
 expression in his friend's face which intuitively 
 led him to feel that the woman who could call up
 
 170 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 such a look of intense earnest devotion was no 
 mere passing light-o'-love; and as George thought 
 over the scene, and reproduced it, time after time, 
 from the storehouse of his memory, he puffed 
 fiercer Masts from his pipe, and shook his head 
 in an unsettled, not to say desponding, manner. 
 
 While he was thus occupied he heard steps 
 on the gravel walk outside, then a tap at the 
 door. Opening it, Paul Derinzy stood before 
 him. 
 
 " Just the man I was thinking about, and 
 come exactly in the nick of time ! Alma qules 
 optator, veni ! Not that you can be called alma 
 quies, you restless bird of the night ! What's 
 the matter ? what are you making signs about ?" 
 asked George. 
 
 " That idiot Billy Dunlop is with me," re- 
 plied Paul, grinning ; " he's doing some of his 
 pantomime nonsense outside ;" and, indeed, 
 George Wainwright, peering out into the dark- 
 ness, could make out a stout figure approaching 
 with cautious gestures, which, when it emerged 
 into the lamplight, proved to be Mr. Dunlop.
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 171 
 
 " Hallo, Billy ! what are you at ? Come in, 
 man ; light a pipe, and be happy." 
 
 But Mr. Dunlop, true to his character of comic 
 man, did not enter the room quietly, but came in 
 with a little rush, and then, his knees knocking 
 together in simulated abject terror, asked, 
 
 " Am I safe ? Can none of them get at me ?" 
 
 "None of whom?" 
 
 " None of the patients. I was in such a 
 fright coming up that garden, I could scarcely 
 speak. I thought I saw eyes behind every laurus- 
 tinus ; and — I suppose the staff of keepers is ade- 
 quate, in case any of 'em should -proxe rampagious?" 
 
 " 0, yes, it's all right. Have you never been 
 here before ?" 
 
 "Never, sir; and I don't think, provided I 
 get safe away this time, that I'm ever likely to 
 come again." 
 
 "You're complimentary; but now you are 
 here, sit down and have a drink. Spirits there 
 in that stand, soda-water here in the window-seat, 
 ice in that refrigerator by the door. Or stay, let 
 me make you the new Yankee drink that has just
 
 172 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 come up — a cobbler. There are plenty of straws 
 somewhere about." 
 
 " I should think so," said Billy in a stage- 
 whisper to Paul. "He gets 'em out of the pa- 
 tients' heads. Lunatics always stick straws in 
 their heads, vide the drama passim. I say, Wain- 
 wright, while you're mixing the grog, may I run 
 out and have a look at t^e night-watch ?" 
 
 " The what ?" asked George, raising his head. 
 
 " The night-watch, you know ;" and Mr.. Dun- 
 lop sat down at the piano, squared his elbows, 
 contorted his face, and with much ludicrous ex- 
 aggeration burst forth : 
 
 DO 
 
 1 Hnsh-sh-sh-sli ! 'tis the night watch ! ! he gy-ards 
 my lonely cell !' 
 
 Now, don't you say that he doesn't, you know, 
 because I've Mr. Henry Russell's authority that 
 he does. So produce your night-watch !" 
 
 " Don't make such a row, Billy !" cried Paul ; 
 " there's no night-watch, or anything else of the 
 sort." 
 
 " What ! do you mean to say that I did not
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 173 
 
 see her dancing in the hall ? that I am not cold, 
 bitter cold? that his glimmering lamp no more 
 I see ? and that no, no, by hav-vens, I am not 
 ma-a-ad !" With these words, uttered in the 
 wildest tones, Mr. Dunlop cast himself at full 
 length on the sofa, whence arising immediately 
 with a placid countenance, he said, u Gentlemen, 
 if you wish thus to uproot and destroy the ten- 
 derest associations of childhood, I shall be happy, 
 when I have finished my drink, to wish you a 
 good-evening, and return home.'^ 
 
 "I can't think what the deuce you came for," 
 said Paul, with a smile. "He looked in at the 
 club where I was dining, hoping to meet you, and 
 where I heard you had been and gone, and asked 
 me whether I wasn't going to evening service. 
 When I told him ' yes,' he said he would come 
 with me ; and all the way along he has done 
 nothing but growl at the pace I was walking, and 
 the length of the way." 
 
 "Don't mind me, Mr. Wainwright," said Billy 
 politely; "pray let the gentleman go on. I am 
 not the Stannaries Stag, sir, and I never laid
 
 174 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 claim to the title; consequently it's no degrada- 
 tion to me to avow that I can't keep on heeling 
 and toeing it at the rate of seven miles an hour 
 for long. As it happens, I have a friend in the 
 neighbourhood, a fisherman, who has managed 
 to combine a snack-bend with a Kirby hook in 
 a manner which he assures me — Pardon me, dear 
 sirs, those imbecile grins remind me that I am 
 speaking to men who don't know a stone-fly from 
 a gentle ; that I have been throwing my — I 
 needn't finish the sentence. I have finished the 
 drink. Mr. Wainwright, have the goodness to 
 see me off the premises, and, in the words of the 
 distraught Ophelia — to whom, by the way, I dare- 
 say your talented father would have been called 
 in, had he happened to live in Denmark at the 
 time — ' let out the maid, who' — Good-night." 
 
 When George Wainwright returned, alone, he 
 found Paul, who had lighted a cigar, walking up 
 and down the room, his hands plunged in his 
 pockets, his chin down upon his chest. George 
 went up to him, and putting his hand affection- 
 ately on his shoulder, said,
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 175 
 
 " What brought you clown here to-night, 
 young un ? The last rats must have deserted the 
 sinking ship of Fashion and Season when you clear 
 out of it to come down to Diogenes in his tub. 
 Not but that I'm delighted to see you ; all I want 
 to know is why ?" 
 
 " I was nervous and restless, George ; a little 
 tired of fools and frippeiy, and — and myself. I 
 wanted you to blow a little of the ozone of com- 
 mon-sense into me, you know !" 
 
 " 0, yes, I know," said George Wainwright; 
 but he uttered the words in such deep solemn 
 tones, that Paul turned upon him suddenly, say- 
 ing* 
 
 " You know ? Well, what do you know ?" 
 
 " I know why you could not play tennis, or 
 come to the Oval, or walk out to Hendon with me 
 yesterday afternoon." 
 
 " The deuce you do ! And why ?" 
 
 " For a very sufficient reason to a young fel- 
 low of five-and-twenty !" said George, with a 
 rather melancholy grin. "Look here, Paul; I 
 don't think you'll imagine I'm a spy, or a med-
 
 176 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 dling impertinent busybody, and I'm sure you'll 
 believe it was by the merest accident tbat I was 
 crossing Kensington -gardens last evening, and 
 there saw a friend of mine in deep conversation 
 with a very handsome young lady." 
 
 " The deuce you did !" cried Paul, turning 
 very red. "What then?" 
 
 "Ah!" said George, filling his pipe, "that's 
 exactly the point — what then !" 
 
 " What a provoking old beggar you are ! Why 
 do you echo me ? Why don't you go on ?" 
 
 "It's for you to go on, my boy ! What are 
 your relations — or what are they to be — with this 
 handsome girl ?" 
 
 " She is handsome, is she not ?" 
 
 "Beautiful!" 
 
 " 'Gad ! she must be to strike fire out of an 
 old flint like you, George!" cried Paul. "What 
 are my relations with her ? Strictly proper, I 
 give you my word." 
 
 " And you intend to marry her ?" 
 
 " How the man jumps at an idea ! Well, no ; 
 I don't know at all that I intend that."
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 177 
 
 "Not the — the other thing, Paul? No; 
 you're, to say the least of it, too much of a gen- 
 tleman. You don't intend that?" 
 
 "I don't intend anything, I tell you. Can't 
 a man talk to a pretty girl without ' intention* ?" 
 
 " I don't know, Paul. I'm quite incompetent 
 to pronounce any opinion on such matters ; only 
 — only see here : I look on you as on a younger 
 brother, and, prompted by my regard for you, I 
 may say many things which you may dislike." 
 
 "Well, say away, old George; you won't of- 
 fend me." 
 
 "Well then, if this is a good honest girl, and 
 you don't intend to marry her, you ought not to 
 be meeting her, and walking with her, and lead- 
 ing her to believe that she will attain to a posi- 
 tion through you which she never would otherwise ; 
 and if she isn't an honest girl, you ought never to 
 have spoken to her." 
 
 Paul Derinzy laughed, the quiet easy chuckle 
 of a man of the world, as he replied to his simple 
 senior : 
 
 " She is a good, honest girl, no doubt of that. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 But suppose the question of marriage had never 
 risen between us, and she still liked to meet me 
 and to walk with me, what then ? In the gravel 
 paths of Kensington-gardens Pamela herself might 
 have strolled with Captain Lovelace himself with- 
 out fear. Why should not I with — with this 
 young lady?" 
 
 " Because, though you don't know it, you're 
 deceiving yourself and deceiving her ; because the 
 whole thing is incongruous and won't fit, how- 
 ever you may try to make it do so ; because it's 
 wrong, however much you may slur it over. Look 
 here, Paul : suppose, just for the sake of argu- 
 ment, that you wanted to marry this girl — you're 
 as weak as water, and there's no accounting for 
 what you might wish — you know your people would 
 oppose it in the very strongest way, and — " 
 
 "0, if I chose it, my 'people,' as you call 
 them, must have it, or leave it alone, which would 
 be quite immaterial to me." 
 
 " Yes, yes, no doubt ; but still — " 
 
 "Look here, George; let's bring this ques- 
 tion to a practical issue. I'm ten times more
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 179 
 
 a man of the world than you, though you are an 
 old fogey, and clever and sensible and all that. 
 What you're aiming at is, that I must give up 
 this girl. Well then, shortly, I won't !" 
 
 " And why won't you ?" 
 
 " For a reason that you can't understand, you 
 old mole, burrowed down here under your paint- 
 ings, and your fugues, and your dreary old Ger- 
 man philosophers — because I love her ; because I 
 think of her from morning till night, and from 
 night till morning again ; because her bright face 
 and her gay creamy skin come between me and 
 those beastly old minutes and memoranda that 
 we have to write at the shop ; and when I'm lying 
 awake in Hanover-street, or even sitting sur- 
 rounded by a lot of gabbling idiots in the smok- 
 ing-room of the club, I can see her gray eyes 
 looking at me, and — " 
 
 "0 Lord!" said George Wainwright with a 
 piteous smile; " I had no idea I'd let myself in 
 for this !" 
 
 "You have, my dear old George, and for a 
 lot more at a future time. Just now I came out
 
 180 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 to you because I was horribly restless, and Billy 
 fastened himself on to me at the club, and I could 
 not shake him off. But I want to talk to you 
 about it seriously, George — seriously, you under- 
 stand?" 
 
 " Whenever you like, Paul ; but I expect 
 you'll only get one scrap of advice out of me, 
 repeated, as I fear, ad nauseam." 
 
 "And that is?" 
 
 "Give her up! give her up! give her up! 
 Cato's powers of iteration in the delenda est Car- 
 thago business will prove weak as compared to 
 mine in this." 
 
 " You'll find me stubborn, George." 
 
 " Buffon gives stubbornness as a character- 
 istic of your class, Paul. Good-night, old man." 
 
 " Good-night, God bless you ! To-morrow as 
 per usual, I suppose ?" and he was gone. 
 
 Alone once more, George Wainwright threw 
 himself again into the easy-chair and renewed 
 his pipe ; but he shook his head more than ever, 
 and when he did speak, it was only to mutter 
 to himself, "Worse than I thought ! Don't see
 
 FKIENDS IN COUNCIL. 181 
 
 the way out of that. Must look into this, and 
 take care that Paul does not make a fool of him- 
 self." 
 
 When the clock struck midnight, he rose, 
 yawned, stretched, and seemed more than half in- 
 clined to turn towards his cosy bedroom, which 
 opened from the studio ; but he shook himself 
 together, and saying, " Poor dear, she would not 
 sleep if I did not say good-night to her, I sup- 
 pose !" lit a lamp, and took his way across the 
 garden to the house.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CORRIDOR NO. 4. 
 
 Across the garden, and through an iron gate which 
 he unlocked, and which itself formed part of a 
 railing shutting off one wing of the house from 
 the rest and from the grounds, George Wain- 
 wright walked ; then up a short flight of steps, 
 topped by a heavy door, which he also unlocked 
 with a master key which he took from his pocket, 
 and which closed behind him with a heavy clang ; 
 through a short stone passage, in a room lead- 
 ing off which, immediately inside the door — a 
 bright snug cheerful little room, with a handful 
 of fire alight in the grate, and the gas burning 
 brightly over the mantelpiece, and a tea-tray and 
 appurtenances brightly shining on the table — was 
 a young woman — handsome, black-eyed, and rosy- 
 cheeked, tall, strongly built, and neatly dressed 
 in a close-fitting dark-gray gown — who started
 
 CORRIDOR NO. 4. 183 
 
 up at the sound of the approaching footsteps, and 
 presented herself at the door. 
 
 "You on duty, Miss Marshall ?" said George, 
 with a smile and a bow. 
 
 "Yes, Mr. George, it's my night-turn again; 
 comes round quicker than one thinks for, or than 
 one hopes for, indeed ! Going to see your sweet- 
 heart as usual, Mr. George ?" 
 
 " Yes ; I don't often miss ; never, indeed, when 
 I'm at home." 
 
 "Ah, if all other men were as thoughtful and 
 as kind and as true to their sweethearts as you 
 are to yours, there would he less need for these 
 sort of houses in the world, Mr. George," said 
 the young woman, with a somewhat scornful toss 
 of her head. 
 
 "Come, come, Miss Marshall," cried George 
 laughingly, " you've no occasion to talk in that 
 manner, I'm sure. Besides, I might retort, and 
 say that if all women were as kind and as loving 
 and as pleased to see their sweethearts as mine 
 is to see me, if they remained true to them for as 
 many years as mine has remained true to me, if
 
 184 de. wainwright's patient. 
 
 they were as patient and as quiet — yes, and I think 
 as silent — as mine is, they would have a greater 
 chance of retaining men's affections. " 
 
 "Poor dear madame!" said Miss Marshall. 
 "Ah, you don't see many like her !" 
 
 "I never saw one," said George. "But she 
 will be keeping awake on the chance of my coming 
 to say good-night to her." 
 
 And with another smile and bow, he passed 
 on. 
 
 First down another and a longer stone pass- 
 age, the doors leading from either side of which 
 were wide open, showing bath-rooms, kitchens, 
 and other domestic penetralia ; then up a flight 
 of stairs to a landing covered with cocoa-nut 
 matting, and giving on to a long corridor, on the 
 stone-coloured wall of which was painted in large 
 black letters, " Corridor No. 4." Closed doors 
 here — doors of dormitories, where the inmates 
 were shut in for the night : some tossing on their 
 dream-haunted pillows ; some haply — God knows — 
 enjoying a mental rest as soft and sweet as the 
 slumber which enchained them, borne away to
 
 CORRIDOR NO. 4. 185 
 
 the bygone days, when they thought and felt 
 and knew, ere the brain was distraught, and the 
 memory snapped, and the mind either warped or 
 Yoid. All was perfectly quiet as George passed 
 along, stopping at length before a door which was 
 closed but not locked, and at which he tapped 
 lightly. Lightly, but with a sound which was 
 quickly heard, for a soft voice cried immediately 
 " Entrez /" and he opened the door, and went in. 
 It was a pretty little room, considerably too 
 lofty for its breadth — a long narrow slip of a place, 
 which some people with pleasant development of 
 mortuary tendencies might have rendered un- 
 pleasantly like a grave. But it was tricked out 
 with a pretty wall-paper, all rosebuds and green 
 leaves ; some good photographs of foreign scenery 
 were framed on the walls ; a wooden Swiss peasant 
 with a clock-face let into the centre of his waist- 
 coat, and its works ticking and running and whir- 
 ring away in the centre of his anatomy, stood on 
 the mantelpiece ; the fire-place was filled up with 
 bright-gilded shavings; and the bed, instead of 
 being the mere ordinary iron stump bedstead to
 
 186 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 be found in other dormitories of the house, was 
 gay with white hangings, and blue bows tastefully- 
 disposed here and there. 
 
 On it lay a woman, who had risen on her 
 elbow at George's knock, and who remained in 
 the same attitude, awaiting his approach. A 
 woman of small stature evidently, and delicately 
 made, with small well-cut features and small 
 bones. Her hair, as snow - white as the cap 
 under which it was looped up, contrasted oddly 
 with the deep ruddy bronze of her complexion ; 
 such bronze as, travelling south, you first begin 
 to notice among the Lyonnaises, and afterwards 
 find so common along the shores of the Medi- 
 terranean. But Time, though he had changed 
 the colour of her locks — and to be so very white 
 now, they must necessarily have been raven black 
 before — had failed in dimming the lustre of her 
 marvellous eyes; they remained large, and dark, 
 and appealing, as they must have been in earliest 
 youth. Full of liquid love and kindliness were 
 they too, as they beamed a welcome to George, 
 a welcome seconded by her outstretched hand,
 
 CORRIDOR NO. 4. 187 
 
 which rested on his head as he hent down "beside 
 her. 
 
 "You are late, George," she said, with the 
 faintest foreign accent; "but I had not given 
 you up." 
 
 "No, maman, you know better than that; 
 you know that whenever I am at home, I never 
 think of going to bed without saying good-night 
 to maman. But I am late, dear ; I have had 
 friends sitting with me, and they have only just 
 gone." 
 
 "Friends, eh? Ah, that must be odd to see 
 friends. And you took them for a promenade on 
 the Lac, and you — Ah, bah/ quelle enfantil- 
 lage ! your friends were men, of course. Some of 
 those who sing so sweetly sometimes ? No ! but 
 still men ? Ah, no one else has ever come here." 
 
 " No one else, maman V 9 
 
 "See, George, come closer. She has not 
 come ?" 
 
 "No, maman" said the young man, rising, 
 and regarding her with a look of genuine affec- 
 tion and pity. " No, maman, not yet."
 
 188 DR. WAIN WRIGHT S PATIENT. 
 
 "Ah, not yet, — always not yet," she said, 
 letting her elbow relax, and falling back in the 
 bed,— "always not yet!" And she covered her 
 face with her hands, removing them after a few 
 minutes to say, "But she will come? she will 
 come?" 
 
 " yes, dear, let us trust so," said George 
 quietly. 
 
 She looked at him, first earnestly, then wist- 
 fully, for several minutes ; then she dried the 
 tears which, unseen by him, almost unknown to 
 her, had been trickling down her face, and said 
 in a trembling voice, " Good-night, my boy !" 
 
 " Good-night, maman. God bless you !" 
 
 And he bent over her, and kissed her fore- 
 head. 
 
 " Dieu me benisse /" she said, with a half- 
 smile. " In time, George, when she comes back ! 
 Meantime, Dieu te benisse, my son !" 
 
 He bent his head again, and she encircled it 
 with her arms, brushed each of his cheeks with 
 her lips, and kissed his hand; then murmuring, 
 " Good-night," sank back on her pillow.
 
 CORRIDOR NO. 4. 189 
 
 George took up his lamp, and crept silently 
 from the room, and down the corridor, down the 
 stairs, and towards the outer door. As he passed 
 Miss Marshall's room he looked in, and saw her, 
 bright, brisk, and cheerful, sitting at her needle- 
 work, an epitome of neatness and propriety. 
 George could not refrain from stopping in his 
 progress, and saying, 
 
 " You don't look much like a ' keeper,' Miss 
 Marshall. I had a friend with me to-night, who 
 laughingly asked me to show him the night-watch 
 of such places as these, of whom he had read in 
 songs and novels. I think he would have been 
 rather astonished if I had brought him across the 
 garden and introduced him to you." 
 
 "0, they're not much 'count, those kind of 
 trash, I think, Mr. George," said Miss Marshall, 
 who was eminently practical. " I read about 'em 
 often enough when I was a nursery - governess, 
 and before I came into the profession. I daresay 
 he expected to see a man with big whiskers, with 
 a sword and a brace of pistols in his belt, and 
 perhaps two big dogs following him up and down
 
 190 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 the passages ! At least, I know that used to be 
 my idea. — You found Madame Vaughan all well 
 and quiet and comfortable, Mr. George? And 
 left her so, no doubt ?" 
 
 " 0, yes. She was just the same as usual, 
 poor dear !" 
 
 "0, poor dear indeed ! If they were all like 
 her, one need not grumble about one's life here. 
 There never was such a sweet creature. I'm 
 sure if one-half of the sane women, the sensible 
 creatures who expect one to possess all the car- 
 dinal virtues and to look after four of their brats 
 for sixteen pounds a-year, were anything like as 
 nice, or as sensible, or as sane, for the matter of 
 that, as Madame Vaughan, the world would be a 
 much nicer place to live in. She expected you, I 
 suppose, sir?" 
 
 George Wainwright knew perfectly that Miss 
 Marshall was, as the phrase is, " making conver- 
 sation ;" that she cared little about the patient 
 whose state she was discussing ; cared probably 
 less about him. But he knew also that in the 
 discharge of her duty she had to sit up all night,
 
 CORRIDOR NO. 4. 191 
 
 until relieved by one of the day -nurses at six 
 o'clock in the morning; that she naturally enough 
 grasped at any chance of making a portion, how- 
 ever small, of this time pass more pleasantly, 
 with somebody to look at and somebody's voice 
 to listen to. And she was a pretty girl and a 
 good girl, and he was not particularly tired and 
 was particularly good-natured; so he thought 
 he would stop and chat with her for a few mi- 
 nutes. 
 
 "0, yes, she expected me," he said; " so I 
 should have been horribly sorry if I had neglected 
 to go to her. One must be selfish indeed to deny 
 any one so much pleasure when it can be afforded 
 by merely stepping across the garden." 
 
 " Did she speak of the usual subject, sir ?" 
 
 " The child? 0, yes; asked if any one had 
 come, as usual; and when I answered her, felt 
 sure that her child would come speedily." 
 
 " I suppose there's no foundation for that idea 
 of hers ?" 
 
 " That the child will come, or, indeed, so far 
 as we know, that she ever had a child, is, I
 
 192 dh. watnwright's patient. 
 
 imagine, the merest hallucination. At all events, 
 from the number of years she has been here, her 
 child, if she ever had one, must be a tolerably 
 well-grown young lady, and not likely to be re- 
 cognisable by, or to recognise, her, poor thing !" 
 
 " Yes, indeed, Mr. George ; and it's odd that 
 of all our ladies, with the exception of poor Mrs. 
 Stoneycroft, who, I imagine, is just kept here out 
 of the Doctor's kindness and charity, Madame is 
 the only one who never has any friends come to 
 see her." 
 
 " She has outlived all her friends ; that is to 
 say, she has outlived their recollection of her. 
 Nothing so easily forgotten as the trace of people 
 we once knew, but who can no longer be of use 
 to us, or administer to our vanity, our pleasure, 
 or our amusement. I was at a cemetery the 
 other day, and saw there an enormous and mag- 
 nificent tombstone which a man had ordered to 
 be erected over his wife; but before the order 
 had been executed, the man had married again, 
 declined to pay for his extravagance in mortuary 
 sculpture, and contented himself with a simple
 
 CORRIDOR NO. 4. 193 
 
 headstone. And the gardener told me that it is 
 very seldom that the floral graves are kept up 
 beyond the first twelve months. So it is not 
 likely that in this, which, to such poor creatures 
 as Madame Vaughan, is not much better than a 
 living tomb, the occupants should be held in any 
 long remembrance." 
 
 " I'm sure it's very kind of the Doctor to take 
 such care of these poor creatures, Mr. George ; 
 more especially when he's not paid for it." 
 
 " That is not the case with Madame Vaughan. 
 I think — in fact, I'm sure — she was one of the 
 patients of my father's predecessor, and was made 
 over to him on the transfer of the business ; but 
 though she has no friends to come and see her, 
 the sum for her maintenance here is regularly 
 discharged by a firm of solicitors who have money 
 in trust for the purpose, and by whom it has been 
 paid from the first." 
 
 " And is there nothing known of her history, 
 Mr. George ; who were her friends, or where she 
 came from ?" 
 
 " Nothing now. Dr. Bulph, I suppose, had 
 
 vol. 1. o
 
 194 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 some sort of information ; but lie was an odd 
 man, and so long as his half-yearly bills were 
 paid, did not trouble himself much further, I 
 fancy." 
 
 "Lord, what a life!" said Miss Marshall, 
 casting a sidelong glance at the little looking- 
 glass over the mantelpiece, and smoothing her 
 hair. "And it will end here, I suppose? The 
 Doctor does not think she will ever be cured, Mr. 
 George ?" 
 
 " No, indeed !" said George, shaking his head. 
 " And if she were, what would become of her ? 
 She has been here for nearly twenty years, and 
 the outer world would be as strange and as im- 
 possible to her as it was to the released prisoner 
 of the Bastille, who prayed to be taken back to 
 his dungeon." 
 
 " Ah, well, I should pray to be taken to my 
 grave," said the practical Miss Marshall, " if I 
 thought no one cared for me — " 
 
 " Ah, now you're talking of an impossibility, 
 Miss Marshall," said George, rising. " If ever I 
 have a necessity to expose the absurdity of that
 
 CORRIDOR NO. 4. 195 
 
 saying which advances the necessity for ' beauty 
 sleep,' I shall bring you forward as my example ; 
 for you're never in bed by midnight, and are often 
 up all night ; and yet I should like to see any one 
 who could rival you in briskness or freshness. 
 Good-night, Miss Marshall." 
 
 " Good-night, Mr. George." 
 
 As he rose, shook hands, and taking up his 
 lamp made his way across the garden, the nurse 
 looked after him with a pleased expression, and 
 said to herself, 
 
 " What a nice young man that is ! — so plea- 
 sant and kind ! Nice-looking too, though a trifle 
 old-fashioned and heavy; not like — ah, well, never 
 mind. But much too good to mope away his life 
 in this wretched old place, anyhow." 
 
 And when George reached his rooms he smiled 
 to himself, and said, 
 
 "Well, if that little talk, and those little 
 
 compliments, have the result of making Miss 
 
 . Marshall show any extra amount of kindness 
 
 to my poor maman, my time will not have been 
 
 ill bestowed."
 
 196 dr. wainweight's patient. 
 
 George Wainwright was tolerably correct in 
 all he liad said regarding Madame Vaughan, 
 tliongli lie had but an imperfect knowledge of her 
 history. At the time when her mental malady 
 first rendered it necessaiy that she should be 
 placed under restraint, the private lunatic asylums 
 of England were in a very different condition from 
 what they are now. They were for the most part 
 held by low-born ignorant men, who derived their 
 entire livelihood from the sums of money paid for 
 the maintenance of the unfortunate wretches con- 
 fided to their charge, and whose gains were con- 
 sequently greater in proportion to the manner in 
 which they ignored or refused the requirements 
 of their inmates. A person calling himself a 
 physician, and perhaps in possession of some pur- 
 chased degree, hired at a small stipend and non- 
 resident, looked in occasionally, asked a few ques- 
 tions, and signed certificates destined to hoodwink 
 official eyes, which in those days never saw too 
 clearly at the best of times. But the staff of 
 keepers, male and female, was always numerous 
 and efficient. Those were the merry days of the
 
 CORRIDOR NO. 4. 197 
 
 iron collar and the broad leather bastinado, of the 
 gag and the cold bath, of the irons and the whip- 
 ping-post. They did not care much about what 
 the Lunacy Commissioners did, or wrote, or ex- 
 acted, in those days, and each man did what he 
 thought best for himself. The date of the Com- 
 missioners' visits, which then were few and far 
 between, were accurately known long beforehand ; 
 the "medical attendant" was on the spot; the 
 patients, such as were visible, were tricked up 
 into a proper state of cleanliness and order; and 
 the others were duly hidden away until the au- 
 thorities had departed. The licensing was a 
 farce, only to be exceeded in absurdity by the 
 other regulations ; and villany, blackguardism, bru- 
 tality, and chicanery reigned supreme. 
 
 For two years after Madame Vaughan was first 
 received into the asylum — God help us ! — as it 
 was called, the outer world was mercifully a blank 
 to her. She arrived in a settled state of stupor, 
 in which she remained, cowering in a corner of 
 the room which she shared with other afflicted 
 creatures, but taking no heed of them, of the
 
 198 dr. waixwright's patient. 
 
 antics which they played, of the yells and shrieks 
 which they uttered, of the fantastic illusions of 
 which they were the victims, of the punishment 
 which their conduct brought upon them. Her 
 face covered by her hands, her poor body ever 
 rocking to and fro, there she remained for ever 
 in the one spot until nightfall, when she crept to 
 the miserable couch allotted to her, and curling 
 herself up as an animal in its slumber, was un- 
 heard, almost unseen, until the next day. The 
 wretched food which they gave her, coarse in 
 quality and meagre in quantity, she ate in silence ; 
 in silence she bore the spoken ribaldry, and the 
 practical jokes which in the first few weeks after 
 her admission the guardians of the establishment, 
 and indeed the great proprietor himself, amused 
 themselves b\ heaping upon her; so that in a little 
 time she was found incapable of administering to 
 their amusement, and was suffered to remain un- 
 molested. 
 
 At the end of the time mentioned, a change 
 took place in the condition of the patient under 
 the following circumstances. One of the nurses
 
 CORRIDOR NO. 4. 199 
 
 had had her married sister and niece to visit her ; 
 and after tea, hy way of a cheerful amusement, the 
 visitors were conducted through the female ward. 
 The child, a little girl of five or six years old, fright- 
 ened out of her life, hung hack as she entered 
 the gloomy room, where women in every stage 
 of mania, some fierce and shrieking, some silent 
 and moody, were collected. But her aunt, the 
 nurse, laughed at the child's fears ; and the 
 mother, who through the hospitality of their 
 entertainer had, after the clearing away of the 
 tea-equipage, been provided with a beverage which 
 both cheered and inebriated, bade the girl not 
 to be a fool ; and on her still hanging back and 
 evincing an intention of bursting into tears, 
 administered to her a severe thump on the back, 
 which had the effect of causing the little one to 
 break forth at once into a howl. 
 
 From the first instant of the Child's entrance 
 into the room, Madame Vaughan had roused her- 
 self from her usual attitude. The sound of the 
 child's pattering feet seemed to act on her with 
 electrical influence. She raised her head from
 
 200 de. wainwbight's patient. 
 
 out her bands; she sat up erect, bright, observant. 
 The corner in which she sat was dark, and no 
 one was in the habit of taking any notice of her. 
 So she sat, watching the shrinking child. She 
 heard the mocking laugh with which the nurse 
 sneered at the little one's terror, she heard the 
 liarsh tones in which the mother chid the child, 
 and saw the blow which followed on the words. 
 Then she made two springs forward, and the 
 next minute had the woman on the ground, and 
 was grappling at her throat. The attendants 
 sprang upon her, released the woman from her 
 grasp, and led her shrieking to her cell. 
 
 " My child, my child ! why did she strike my 
 child?" were the words which she screamed forth; 
 almost the first which those in the asylum had 
 ever heard her utter; so at least the nurse told 
 the proprietor, who with other assistants, male 
 as well as female, was speedily on the spot. 
 
 "She used to sit, as quiet as quiet, never 
 opening her mouth, as you know very well, sir," 
 said the woman, "and was sittin' just as usual, 
 so far as I know, when my sister here, as I was
 
 CORRIDOR NO. 4. 201 
 
 showing round, fetched her little gal a smack on 
 the head because she wouldn't come on ; and then 
 Vaughan springs at her like a wild-beast, and 
 wanted to tear the life out of her, she did, a 
 murderin ' wretch ! ' ' 
 
 " Had she ever said anything about a child 
 before ?" asked the proprietor. 
 
 " Never said nothing about any body, and cer- 
 tingly nothing about a child," replied the nurse. 
 
 "And it was because she saw this child 
 struck that she burst out, and she's hollerin' 
 about the child now — is that it ?" 
 
 "Jest so, sir," replied the nurse, looking at 
 a mark of teeth on her hand, and shaking her 
 head viciously in the direction in which the patient 
 had been led away. 
 
 "That's it, Agar," said the proprietor; "I 
 thought we should get at it some day. Couldn't 
 get anything out of the cove I first saw, and the 
 lawyers were as tight as wax. ' You'll get your 
 money,' they says. 'We're responsible for that,' 
 they says, ' and that ought to be enough for you.' 
 They wouldn't let on, any of 'em, what it was
 
 202 
 
 DR. WAIN WEIGHT S PATIENT. 
 
 that had upset her at first; but I knew it would 
 come out sooner or later, and it's come out now, 
 though. She's gone off her head grievin' after a 
 kid, and no two ways about it." 
 
 "Ah !" said Mr. Agar, who was a man of few 
 words, "shouldn't wonder. Question is, what's 
 to be done with her now ? Mustn't be allowed to 
 kick up these wagaries, jou know ; we shall have 
 the neighbours complainin' again. Screamed and 
 yelled and bit and fisted away like a good un, 
 she did. We ain't had such a rumpus since the 
 Tiger's time." 
 
 " She must be taught manners," said the pro- 
 prietor significantly. " Tell your missus to look 
 after her. This woman," indicating the nurse 
 with his elbow, " ain't any good when it comes 
 to a rough and tumble, and I'm doubtful if 
 Vaughan won't give us some trouble yet." 
 
 So Madame Vaughan was delivered over to 
 the tender mercies of Mrs. Agar, and underwent 
 some of the tortures which she had seen inflicted 
 upon others. She was punished civuelly for her 
 outbreak ; but that done, there was an end of it.
 
 CORRIDOR NO. 4. 203 
 
 The proprietor was wrong in his surmise that 
 she would give them further trouble. She lapsed 
 back into her old silent state, cowering in her old 
 corner, rocking to and fro after her old fashion ; 
 and thus she remained, when the proprietor, hav- 
 ing made sufficient money, and haying had several 
 hints that certain malpractices of his, if further 
 indulged in, would probably bring him to the Old 
 Bailey, handed over his business to Dr. Bulph. 
 
 It was during Dr. Bulph's time that the poor 
 lady had a severe bodily illness, during which she 
 was sedulously attended by Dr. Bulph himself — 
 a clever hard man of the world, not unkind, but 
 probably prompted in his attention to his patient 
 by the feeling that it would be unwise to let a 
 regularly-paid income of 300Z. a-year slip through 
 his fingers if a little trouble on his part could 
 save it. When she became convalescent, her men- 
 tal condition seemed to have altered. Instead of 
 being dull and moping, she was bright and rest- 
 less, ever asking about her child, who, as it seemed 
 to her poor distraught fancy, had been with her just 
 before her illness. Dr. Bulph had had some idea,
 
 204 dk. waixwright's patient. 
 
 that when her bodily ailment left her, there was 
 a chance that her mind might have become at 
 last clearer ; but he shook his head when he saw 
 these new symptoms. Her child, her child ! what 
 had been done with it ? Why had they taken it 
 away ? Why was it kept from her ? That was the 
 constant, incessant burden of her cry, sometimes 
 asked almost calmly, sometimes with piteous wail- 
 ings or fierce denunciations of their cruelty. No- 
 thing satisfied her, nothing appeased her. Madame 
 Taughan's case was evidently a very bad one in- 
 deed ; and when Dr. Bulph took Dr. Wainwright, 
 who was about purchasing his business, the round 
 of his establishment, he pointed Madame Yaughan 
 out to him, and said, " That will be a noisy one, 
 I'm afraid, until the end." 
 
 The doctor was wrong in his prophecy. Dr. 
 Wainwright, with as much skill and far more 
 savoir /aire than his predecessor, adopted very 
 different tactics. Although since the departure 
 of the first proprietor of the asylum no cruelty 
 had been inflicted on the patients, all of them 
 who were at all intractable or difficult to govern
 
 CORRIDOR NO. 4. 205 
 
 had been kept in restraint. The first thing that 
 Dr. Wain wright did, when he took possession, 
 was to give them an amount of liberty which 
 they had not previously enjoyed. Poor Madame 
 Vaughan, falling into one of her shrieking-fits 
 of " My child ! where's my child?" was surprised 
 on looking up to see the tall figure of the new 
 doctor in the open doorway of her room ; and 
 her screams died away as she looked at his hand- 
 some smiling face, and heard his voice say in soft 
 tones, " Where is she ? Come, let us look for 
 her." Then he took her gently by the arm and 
 led her into the garden, round which they walked 
 together. The new sense of liberty, the air blow- 
 ing on her cheeks, the fresh smell of the flowers, 
 — these unaccustomed delights had a wonderful 
 influence on the poor sufferer. For a time, at 
 least, she forgot the main burden of her misery in 
 the delight she experienced in dwelling on them; 
 and thenceforward, though she recurred constantly, 
 daily indeed, to her one theme of sorrow, it was 
 never with the poignant bitterness of former times. 
 She grew attached to the Doctor, whose quiet
 
 206 dr. wainwbight's patient. 
 
 interested manner suited her wonderfully, and 
 formed a singular attachment for George, then a 
 young man just entering on his office duties, look- 
 ing forward to his coming with a sweet motherly 
 tenderness, which he seemed to reciprocate in a 
 most filial manner. 
 
 From that time forward Madame Yaughan's 
 lot, as far as her melancholy condition permitted, 
 was a happy one. No acute return of mania ever 
 supervened ; she remained in a state of harmless 
 quiet ; and save for her invariable expectation of 
 the arrival of her child, a hope which she never 
 failed to indulge in, it would have been impossible 
 to think that the quiet, well-dressed, white-haired 
 lady, who tended the flowers, and settled the or- 
 naments of her little room, or paced regularly 
 up and down the garden, sometimes alone, some- 
 times conversing with Dr. \Yainwright, or leaning 
 reliantly on George's arm, was the inmate of a 
 lunatic asylum, and had gone through such tem- 
 pestuous scenes as fell to her lot in the early 
 days of her residence there. The " noisy one" 
 had indeed come to be the gentlest member of
 
 CORRIDOR NO. 4. 207 
 
 that strange household ; and one of the greatest 
 annoyances which Dr. Wainwright ever experienced 
 was when one of the members of the lawyers' firm 
 who paid the annual stipend for the poor lady's 
 care happened to call with the cheque, and on 
 the Doctor's wishing him to witness the com- 
 paratively happy state to which the patient had 
 arrived, said shortly that "he had enough to do 
 in his business with people who were only sane 
 enough to prevent their being shut up, and that 
 he didn't want to have anything to do with those 
 who were a stage further advanced in the disease." 
 
 On the 'morning after the events recorded in 
 the beginning of this chapter, George Wainwright 
 found a small pencil-note placed on the huge 
 can of cold water which was brought to him for 
 his bath. Opening it, he read : 
 
 "Dear Mr. George, — Madame hopes she 
 shall see you before you go into town this morn- 
 ing. ' She has something special to say to you. 
 I have told her I was sure you would not fail her. 
 — Yours, L. Marshall."
 
 208 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 In compliance with this wish, George pre- 
 sented himself immediately after breakfast at 
 Madame Vaughan's room. He found her ready 
 dressed, and anxiously expecting him. 
 
 "Why, maman" he commenced, "already 
 up and doing ! Your bright activity is an actual 
 reproach to a sluggard like myself. But I heard 
 you wanted me, and I'm here." 
 
 " Would you mind taking a turn in the garden, 
 George ?" she asked. " The morning looks very 
 fine, and I've something to say to you that I 
 think should be said in the sunlight and among 
 the flowers." 
 
 " Something pleasant, then, I argue from 
 that," he said. " And you know I'd do a great 
 deal more than give up a few minutes from my 
 dry dull old office to be of any pleasant use to 
 you ; besides, work is slack just now — it always 
 is at this time of the year — and I can easily be 
 spared. Come, let us walk." 
 
 She threw a shawl over her head and shoulders 
 with, as George could not help remarking, all 
 the innate grace and ease of a Frenchwoman,
 
 CORRIDOR NO. 4. 209 
 
 took his arm, and descended the stairs into the 
 garden. It was indeed a lovely morning, just 
 at that time when Summer makes her last deter- 
 mined fight before gracefully surrendering to 
 Autumn. The turf was yet green and soft, though 
 somewhat faded here and there by the sun's long- 
 continued power, and the air was mild; but the 
 paths were already flecked with leaves, and ruddy 
 tints were visible on the extreme outer foliage 
 of the trees. When they arrived in the grounds, 
 they found several of the patients already there ; 
 some chattering to each other, others walking 
 moodily apart. Many of them seemed to treat 
 Madame Yaughan with marked deference, and 
 exhibited that deference in immediately clearing 
 out of the way, and leaving her and her com- 
 panion unmolested in their walk. 
 
 After a few turns up and down, George said, 
 " Well, maman, and the special business?" 
 " Ah yes, George, I had forgotten," said 
 Madame, pressing her hand to her head. " I 
 dreamed about her last night, George — about my 
 child." 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 " Not an uncommon dream for you, surely, 
 maman?" said George kindly. "What you are 
 always thinking of by day will most probably 
 not desert your mind at night." 
 
 "No, not at all uncommon ; but I have never 
 dreamed of her as I dreamed last night. George, 
 she is coming ; you will see her very soon." 
 
 " I ! But you, ma man — you will see her too ?" 
 
 "I am not so sure of that, George. She 
 was all dim and indistinct in my dream. I think 
 I shall be dead, George ; but you will see her ; 
 I shall have the comfort of knowing that, and — 
 and of knowing that you will love her, George." 
 
 "Why, maman, of course I shall love her, for 
 your sake." 
 
 " No, George ; for her own. You will love 
 her for her own sake, and you will marry her, 
 my son." 
 
 "Maman, maman!" said George, taking her 
 hand, and looking up into her face with a loving 
 smile. "But how do you know that she will 
 consent ? You forget I am an old bachelor, 
 and — "
 
 CORRIDOR NO. 4. 211 
 
 " You will marry her, George," said Madame, 
 her face clouding over at once. " And yet — and 
 yet she is but an infant, poor child !" 
 
 " There, there, ma man darling — " 
 
 " No, no ; don't attempt to get out of it. 
 And yet I saw it all — you and she at St. Peter's 
 after Tenebrae, and I — and — " 
 
 " Now this is a question for my father to be 
 consulted on," said George. " He is the only man 
 who could help us in this difficulty, and he's 
 away in the country, you know. "We must wait 
 till he comes back ;" and he drew her quietly 
 towards the house. 
 
 "Poor dear maman!" said George Wain- 
 wright to himself, as he stood waiting for the om- 
 nibus which was to bear him into town. " What 
 a strange idea ! Not so far wrong, though ! A 
 phantom evolved from a diseased brain, a nothing. 
 A creature without existence is the only wife I'm 
 ever likely to have ! I only wish young Paul 
 was as heart-free, and as likely to remain so."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DEAR ANNETTE. 
 
 It was a noticeable fact, that though the Beach- 
 borough folk were, as they would themselves have 
 expressed it, "main curous" about Mrs. Stot- 
 hard and her position in the Derinzy household, 
 none of them devoted much time to speculating 
 about Miss Annette, or Miss Netty as she was 
 generally called by them. That she was a 
 "dreadful in-vallid" all knew; that she was 
 sometimes confined to the house for weeks toge- 
 ther when labouring under a severe attack of her 
 illness — which was ascribed by some to nerves, 
 by some to weakness, and by others to a curious 
 disorder known as "ricketts" — was also well 
 known. It was understood, moreover, that she 
 did not like her indisposition alluded to ; and 
 consequently, when she occasionally appeared in 
 the village, accompanied by her aunt Mrs. De- 
 rinzy, it was a point of politeness on the part
 
 DEAR ANNETTE. 213 
 
 of the villagers to ignore the fact of their not 
 having seen her for weeks past and the cause of 
 her absence, and to entertain her with gossip 
 about Bessie Fairlight's levity, Giles Croggin's 
 drunkenness, Farmer Hawkers' harvest - home, 
 or such kindred topics. No one ever mentioned 
 illness or doctors before Miss Netty; if they had, 
 Mrs. Derinzy, a woman of strong mind and, 
 when necessary, sharp tongue, would speedily 
 have cut in and changed the conversation. 
 
 But although the Beachborough people saw 
 little of Annette Derinzy, that little they liked. 
 Amongst simple folk of this kind, a person la- 
 bouring under illness, more especially chronic 
 illness — not any of your common fevers or any- 
 thing low of that kind, which nearly every one 
 has had in their time, and which are for the 
 most part curable by very simple remedies — but 
 mysterious illness, which " conies on when 3*011 
 don't expect it," as though most disorders were 
 heralded, and the exact time of their arrival 
 announced by infallible symptoms, and which 
 lasts for weeks together — such a person takes
 
 214 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 brevet rank with their acquaintance, and is looked 
 up to with the greatest respect. Moreover, Miss 
 Netty had a very pleasant way with her, being 
 alwa} T s courteous and friendly, sometimes, indeed, 
 a little too friendly ; for she would want to go into 
 the fishermen's cottages, and into the lacemakers' 
 rooms, and would ask questions which were not 
 very pertinent, or indeed very wise ; until she was 
 brought up very short by her aunt, who would take 
 her by the elbow, and haul her away with scant 
 ceremony. And another great thing in her favour 
 was, that she was very pretty. 
 
 Ah, well-meaning, kindly people, who endea- 
 vour to cheer your ugly children by repeating 
 the scores of old adages with which the stupidity 
 of our forefathers has enriched our language, tell- 
 ing them that "beauty is only skin deep," that 
 "it is better to be good than beautiful," that 
 "handsome is that handsome does," and a variety 
 of other maxims of the same kind — when will you 
 be honest, and confess that a pretty face is almost 
 the best dowry a young girl can have ? It gains 
 her admirers always, and very frequently it gains
 
 DEAR ANNETTE. 215 
 
 her friends ; it makes easy and pleasant her path 
 in life, and saves her from the bitterest distress, 
 the deepest laceration which can be inflicted on 
 the female heart, in the feeling that she is de- 
 spised of men, which, being translated, means 
 that she is neglected, while others are appre- 
 ciated. Miss Netty was pretty decidedly, but 
 she was in that almost incredible position of 
 being unaware of the fact. Save her own family 
 and the people in the village, she saw no one; 
 and though the gossips were inclined not to be 
 reticent of their admiration even in the presence 
 of its object, they were always restrained by a 
 wholesome dread of the wrath of Mrs. Derinzy, 
 which on more than one occasion had been evoked 
 by the compliments paid to her niece. 
 
 It was the more extraordinary that such per- 
 sons as Mrs. Powler and Mrs. Jupp should have 
 admired Annette, as her style was by no means 
 such as generally finds favour with persons in 
 their station in life. Great black staring eyes, 
 snub noses, firm round red cheeks, bright red 
 lips, and jet - black hair, well bandolined and
 
 216 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 greased so as to lie flat on the head, or cork- 
 screwed into thin ringlets, generally make up 
 their standard of beauty. Country people have 
 a great opinion of strength of limb and firmness 
 of flesh ; and " she be that hard," was one of the 
 most delicate tributes which a Beachborough 
 swain could pay. In the agricultural districts 
 those womanly qualities of tenderness, softness, 
 and delicacy, which are so prized amongst more 
 refined circles, are rather held at a discount ; 
 they are regarded by the rustic mind as on a 
 level with piano-playing and Berlin-wool working 
 — good enough as extras, but not to be compared 
 with the homely talents of milking and stocking- 
 darning. Personal appearance is regarded in much 
 the same way, elegance of form being less thought 
 of than strength, and a large arm obtaining much 
 more admiration than a small hand. Annette was 
 a tall, but a slight and decidedly delicate-looking 
 girl. 
 
 "It isn't after her uncle she takes," Mrs. 
 Powler would say; "a little giggling, flibberty-gib- 
 bet of a man, that might be blowed away in a pouf !"
 
 DEAR ANNETTE. 217 
 
 "Well, muni," said little Ann Bradshaw, the 
 " gell" who was specially retained for Mrs. Pow- 
 ler's service, and who, as jackal, purveyed all the 
 gossip on which, after due preparation, her mis- 
 tress lived, — "well, mum, I du 'low Miss Netty's 
 well enow to look at, but nothing like the Captain, 
 who sure-/?/ is a main handsome man!" 
 
 "Eh, dear heart, did one ever hear the like !" 
 cried Mrs. Powler. " Here's chits and chicks like 
 this talkin' about main handsome men ! Why, 
 Ann, you was niver in Exeter, or you'd have seen 
 a waxy image just like the Captain, wi' his black 
 hair and his straight nose, and his blue chin, in 
 the barber's shop-window. Handsome, indeed !" 
 said the old lady, with a recollection of the de- 
 ceased Mr. Powler' s rotund face ; " he's but a poor 
 show ; a mere skellinton of a chap !" 
 
 "Well, mum, it can't be said that Miss Netty 
 favours her aunt Mrs. D'rinzy neither," said Ann, 
 who, seeing her mistress was disposed for a chut, 
 saw her way to at least postponing the execution 
 of a very portentous and elaborate job of darning 
 which had sat heavy on her soul for some days
 
 218 de. wainwright's patient. 
 
 past. " Mrs. D'rinzy is that slight and slim and 
 gen-teel in her make, which Miss Netty do not 
 follow after." 
 
 " Slight, and slim, and genteel make !" re- 
 peated Mrs. Powler with much indignation, and 
 a downward glance at her own pursy proportions ; 
 "ah, straight up and down like a thrashin'-floor 
 door, if that's what ye mean ! Lord love us, 
 here's a gal as I took out of charity, and saved 
 from goin' to the workis, a givin' her 'pinions 
 'bout figgers, and shapes, and makes, and the 
 like, as though she was a milliner or a middiff ! 
 Well, well, on'y to think !" 
 
 "I didn't mean no harm, mum, I'm sure," 
 said the worldly-wise handmaiden, " and I don't 
 think much of Mrs. D'rinzy, nor indeed of the 
 Captain neither, since Nancy Bell — as you know 
 is housemaid up at the Tower — told me how she'd 
 found the stick-stuff which he du make his eye- 
 brows of — black, and grease, and muck." 
 
 " No ?" exclaimed the old lady, her good tem- 
 per returning at the chance of hearing some spicy 
 retailable talk. "Du he do that? Do'ee tell, Ann!"
 
 DEAR ANNETTE. 219 
 
 Thus invited, Miss Bradshaw launched out 
 into an elaborate story, rendered more elaborate 
 by her anti-darning proclivities, of the mysteries 
 of Captain Derinzy's toilet, as she had learned 
 them from Miss Bell. Mrs. Powler encouraged 
 her to prattle on this point for a long time; and 
 when she had finished, asked her whether Nancy 
 Bell had mentioned anything about the general 
 way of living at the Tower, more especially as 
 Miss Netty and Mrs. Stothard were concerned. 
 
 " Not that anything she says isn't as full of 
 lies as a sieve's full of holes," said the old lady. 
 " I mind the time" — a terrible old lady this, with 
 an unexampled memory for bad things against 
 people — " I mind the time when she was quite a 
 little gell, and went and told the vicar a passil o' 
 lies about her uncle, Ned Richards the black- 
 smith. And the vicar put Ned into his sermin 
 the next Sunday, and preached at un, and every- 
 body knowed who was meant; and Ned stood up 
 in church, and gev it to the vicar back again ; 
 and Ned was had up for brawlin', as they called 
 it, and there was a fine to-do, and all through
 
 220 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 Nancy Bell. But what does she say of Miss 
 Netty, Ann? Are they kind to her like up there?" 
 
 " 0, yes, mum ; Nancy thinks so, leastwise. 
 But no one sees Miss Netty often, mum." 
 
 " No one sees her ?" 
 
 " Only Mrs. Stothard, mum. She and Mrs. 
 Stothard has their rooms away from the rest, 
 mum, lest they should disturb the Captain when 
 Miss Netty's ill, mum ; and no one sees her but 
 Mrs. Stothard then." 
 
 "Ah," said Mrs. Powler, "David or Solomon, 
 or one of 'em, I don't rightly remember which, 
 were not far off when he said that the bread of 
 dependence was bitter, and these great folk don't 
 bake it no more sweet than others for their poor 
 relations, it seems. So they take the board and 
 lodgin' out of Mrs. Stothard by makin' her a nuss, 
 eh, Ann ?" 
 
 " They du indeed, mum. I du 'low that's 
 why we niver see Mrs. Stothard in the village, 
 being so taken up with Miss Netty, and a nasty 
 temper, not caring to throw a word at a dog, like- 
 wise."
 
 DEAR ANNETTE. 221 
 
 " How does Nancy think they git on betwixt 
 themselves ?" 
 
 " What, the Captain and Mrs. D'rinzy ? 0, 
 they git on all right ; leastwise, she's master, 
 Nance says. The Captain isn't much 'count in 
 his own house ; but Mrs. D. niver let him see 
 it, bless you ; and he du bluster and rave some- 
 times, Nance say, when he's put out, and thinks 
 she can't hear him." 
 
 " What puts 'im out, Ann ? He hev an easy 
 life of it, sure-ly : nothin' to do but to kick up his 
 heels about the place." 
 
 " That's just it, missis. He wants something 
 more to du. He du hate the place like pison, 
 Nance have heerd 'im say, and ask Mrs. D'rinzy, 
 wi' awful language, what they was waitin' and 
 wastin' there lives here for." 
 
 "And what did she say then ?" 
 
 "Allays the same. 'You know,' says she, 
 'you know what we're waitin' for; and it'll come, 
 it'll'come sure as sure.' 'Wouldn't it come just 
 the same, or easier rather, if we was out of this, 
 up in London, or somewheres ?' the Captain says
 
 222 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 once. ' No,' says Mrs. D., ' it wouldn't. When 
 we've got the prize under lock and key,' she 
 says, ' we know where to look for it, and who to 
 send for it; hut when it's open to the world, 
 there's no knowin' who may run off with it,' she 
 
 "A prize!" said the old lady, looking very 
 much astonished, — " got a prize under lock and 
 key ? Why, what could she mean hy that ? You 
 hain't heerd in the village o' anything hevin' heen 
 found up at the Tower, hev you, Ann ?" 
 
 Ann, leaning against the door, withdrew one 
 foot from the floor, and slowly rubbed it up and 
 down her other leg, — a gymnastic performance she 
 was in the habit of going through when she taxed 
 her powers of memory. It failed, however, to 
 have any result in the present instance ; and 
 Ann was compelled to confess that she had never 
 heard of anything in particular being found at the 
 Tower. She did this with more reluctance, as 
 she foresaw the speedy termination of the gossip, 
 and her consequent relegation to her darning 
 duties.
 
 DEAR ANNETTE. 223 
 
 But Mrs. Powler, who had been much struck 
 with the conversation overheard by Nancy Bell, and 
 repeated to her by her own handmaiden, sat pon- 
 dering over the words for some time, allowing 
 Ann to remain in the room, and at last bade her 
 go round, and ask Mrs. Jupp to step in for a 
 few minutes. When Mrs. Jupp arrived, Mrs. 
 Powler made Ann repeat her story; and when 
 she concluded, the old lady bade her stand away 
 out of earshot, and said to Mrs. Jupp in a hol- 
 low whisper, 
 
 " What do you think of that ?" 
 
 "Of what?" asked Mrs. Jupp, in an equally 
 ghostly tone. 
 
 " 'Bout the prize ? Do you think, Harriet, 
 that it can be any of Powler's ' runs' ? They 
 used to hide 'em in the first place as come handy, 
 when the excisers was after 'em ; and I've been 
 wondering whether they might ha' stowed away 
 some kegs, or bales, or things, in the lower 
 garden, or thereabouts, and these D'rinzys ha' 
 found 'em. I wonder whether I could claim 'em, 
 Harriet ?" said the old lady earnestly. " He left
 
 224 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 everything he had in the world to his beloved 
 wife, Powler did." 
 
 Mrs. Jupp, who had been receiving these last 
 words with many sniffs, denoting her contempt for 
 her friend's notions, waited patiently until Mrs. 
 Powler had finished, and then said, 
 
 " I don't think you need trouble yourself about 
 that. It isn't about runs, or kegs, or bales, or 
 anything of that kind, that Mrs. Derinzy meant, 
 if so be she said anything of the kind, which I 
 main doubt ; Nancy Bell and your Ann being- 
 regular Anias and Sapphira for lying, or the man 
 as was turned into a white leopard by the pro- 
 phet for saying he hadn't asked the young man 
 for a change of clothes." 
 
 " Du let alone naggin' and girdin' at my 
 Ann for once, Harriet!" interrupted Mrs. Powler. 
 " Let's s'pose Mrs. D'rinzy said it ; there's no 
 harm in s'posin', you know. What did she mean 
 'bout the prize ?" 
 
 " Mean ? What could she mean but Miss 
 Netty ?" 
 
 "Miss Netty? prize?" cried Mrs. Powler, to
 
 DEAR ANNETTE. 225 
 
 wlioni the combination of these words was hope- 
 lessly embarrassing. " Ah, well, I'm becomin' a 
 moitherecl old 'ooman, I suppose ?" 
 
 "No, no, dear," said Mrs. Jupp, who never 
 liked to see the old lady put out. "I'm sure 
 there's they as are twenty years younger would 
 like to be able to see as far into a milestone as 
 you can. Only you don't know about this, because 
 you don't get out much now, and you don't know 
 what's goin' on up at the Tower, save from Ann 
 and suchlike. Now my ideer is, that Miss Netty 
 have come into a fortin'." 
 
 "No!" cried the old lady. 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Jupp, nodding her head 
 violently. " Yes, I think she have, and that's 
 what her aunt meant about a prize, I take it. 
 For don't you see, we've asked, all of us, often 
 enough, what kept them livin' down here. 'Tain't 
 that they come down for the shootin', or the 
 yachtin', or that, jest at one season, like Sir 
 'Erc'les, though he was bred and born down here, 
 and it's his fam'ly place. But there they stick, 
 summer and winter, spring and autumn, never 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 niovin', though the Captain's a-wearyin' hisself 
 to death; and there's no call for Mrs. Derinzy 
 to stop here neither." 
 
 "Not for her health?" 
 
 " Not a hit of it ! Between you and rae, I 
 think there's a consp — However, I'll tell you 
 more about that when I know more ; meantime, 
 I think Mrs. Derinzy 's all right, and I don't 
 think it's for health Miss Annette is kept here." 
 
 " The Dorsetsheer air — " Mrs. Powler began ; 
 but seeing an incredulous smile on her friend's 
 face, she broke off shortly, and said, "Well, then, 
 what does keep 'em down here ?" 
 
 "The fortin that we was speakin' of; the 
 prize that Nancy Bell heard Mrs. D. tell of. 
 Don't you see, my dear ? Suppose what I think 
 is right — they've got the poor thing down here 
 in their own hands, to do jest what they like wi' ; 
 nobody to say, With your leave, or By your leave ; 
 cooped up there wi' them two old people and that 
 termagant Mrs. Stothard. Now, if she was away 
 in London, or Exeter, or any other large place 
 o' that sort, why o' course there'd be young men
 
 DEAR ANNETTE. 227 
 
 sweetheartin' her — for she's a main pratty gell, 
 though slouchin', and not one to show herself 
 off — and she'd be gettin' married, and her money 
 would go away from them to her husband. That's 
 what Mrs. D. meant about the prize bein' ' open 
 to the world,' and people ' runnin' off with it,' 
 and that like." 
 
 Mrs. Powler sat speechless for a few moments, 
 looking at her friend with her sharp little black 
 eyes, and going over what had just been told her 
 in her mind. Her faculties began to be some- 
 what dimmed by age, and she required time 
 for intellectual digestion. Mrs. Jupp knew her 
 friend's habit, and remained silent likewise, 
 thoughtfully rubbing the side of her nose with 
 a knitting-needle which she had produced from 
 her pocket. At length the old lady said : 
 
 "Tdu 'low you're right, Harriet, though I niver 
 give you credit for so much sharpness before." 
 
 And Mrs. Jupp had many pleasant teas, and 
 many succulent suppers, and much pleasant gos- 
 sip, on the strength of her perspicacity in the 
 matter of the great Derinzy mystery.
 
 228 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 Strange to say, the woman's idea was not 
 very far away from the truth. When Mrs. 
 Derinzy told her husband that their son Paul 
 should have a fortune of eighty thousand pounds, 
 which he should receive from his wife's trustees, 
 she made up her mind from that moment to 
 carry her intention into execution, come what 
 might. The girl was so young, that there was 
 plenty of time for the elaboration of her plans — 
 two or three years hence it would do to work 
 out the scheme in detail ; all that was necessary 
 to see after was, that so soon as the girl arrived 
 at an impressible age, she should be taken to 
 some very quiet place, where she could see very 
 few people, and that at that time Paul should 
 be thrown in her way, and the result left to 
 favouring chance. Mrs. Derinzy was doubtful 
 whether anything ought to be said to Paul about 
 it ; but the Captain spoke up strongly, and de- 
 clared that any attempt to dispose of " the young- 
 man by private contract" would certainly result 
 in prejudicing him against his cousin, and that 
 it would be much better if he were left to " shake
 
 DEAR ANNETTE. 229 
 
 a loose leg" for a time, as it would render him 
 much more docile and biddable when they spoke 
 to him afterwards. Mrs. Derinzy, violently ob- 
 jurgating such language on the part of her hus- 
 band, yet comprehended the soundness of his 
 advice ; and Paul, who saw very little of Annette 
 on the occasion of his holidays from school, and 
 then only thought of her as a little orphan cousin 
 to whom his parents acted as guardians, was left 
 to take up his appointment at the Stannaries 
 Office, without having the least idea that, like 
 Mr. Swiveller, " a young lady, who had not only 
 great personal attractions, but great wealth, was at 
 that moment growing up for him." 
 
 The young lady who furnished forth all this 
 feast of gossip to the good folks of Beachborough 
 — gossip not so completely unlike the sort of 
 thing which goes on in larger places, and is prac- 
 tised by more important communities — had not 
 the least suspicion that she was an object of cu- 
 riosity and discussion to her humble neighbours. 
 She knew little of them — that is to say, of the 
 less-poor class among the poor — for to the lowest
 
 230 dr. wainweight's patient. 
 
 and most suffering part of the community she 
 was generous with the desultory kindness of an 
 untaught girl; and she had no notion that she 
 differed in circumstances or disposition from other 
 people sufficiently to excite curiosity or induce 
 discussion. Few girls of Annette Derinzy's age, 
 in her position in life, are so ignorant of the 
 world, so completely without the means of insti- 
 tuting comparisons in social matters, or unravel- 
 ling social problems, as she was. The conven- 
 tional schoolgirl of real life, though perhaps not 
 the ritualistic innocent of the Daisy-Chain litera- 
 ture, could have beaten Annette Derinzy hollow 
 in comprehension of human aims and motives, 
 and in knowledge of the desirabilities of life. 
 She was passably content with herself and her 
 surroundings, and had not yet been moved by any 
 stronger feeling than irritation caused by her 
 aunt's troublesome over-solicitude for her health 
 and Mrs. Stothard's watchfulness. She was not, 
 she believed, so strong as most girls of her age, 
 who lived in comfort, and had nothing to trouble 
 them ; but she felt sure the care, the restrictions
 
 DEAR ANNETTE. 231 
 
 she had to undergo, were unwarranted by her 
 health ; and she sometimes got so far on the path 
 of worldly wisdom as to suspect that her aunt 
 made a great fuss with her, in order to get the 
 credit of self-sacrifice and superlative duty-doing. 
 Annette's perspicacity did not extend to defining 
 the individuals in the narrow and ultra-quiet so- 
 ciety of Beachborough, among whom, as Captain 
 Derinzy would have said, they " vegetated," who 
 were to be deluded into giving Mrs. Derinzy a 
 better character than she deserved. Like " the 
 ugly duck," who scrambled through the hedge, 
 and found himself in the wide, wide world, the 
 most insignificant change of position would, to 
 Annette Derinzy, have implied infinite possibili- 
 ties of enlightenment ; but at present she was 
 very securely on the near side of the hedge, and 
 almost ignorant that there was a far side. 
 
 The young lady of whom Mrs. Derinzy inva- 
 riably spoke as " dear Annette," even when she 
 was most annoyed with or about her, as though 
 she had set this formula as a rule and a reminder 
 for herself, was a very pretty girl, belonging to a
 
 232 dr. waixwpjght's patient. 
 
 type of beauty which is rather commonly to be 
 found associated with delicate health. She was 
 rather tall, very slight, with slender hands, and a 
 transparently fair complexion. Her features were 
 not very regular, and but for the deep, dark eyes, 
 and the remarkably sweet, though somewhat rare, 
 smile which lighted them up, she would hardly 
 have been pronounced handsome by casual obser- 
 vers. But she was very handsome, as all would 
 have been ready to acknowledge afterwards who 
 had noticed the extreme refinement of her general 
 appearance and the gracefulness of her figure. 
 Her beauty was marred by no trace of ill-health 
 beyond the uncertainty of the colour — which some- 
 times tinted her cheeks brightly enough, but at 
 others faded into a waxen paleness — and the occa- 
 sional restlessness of her movements. Annette 
 was not very striking at first sight ; she was 
 one of those women who do not become less in- 
 teresting by observation, but who rather continue 
 to occupy, to interest, perhaps a little to perplex, 
 the observer. She was graceful, she was even 
 elegant in appearance, but she was not gentle-
 
 DEAR ANNETTE. 233 
 
 looking. The dark eyes had no fiery expression, 
 and the well-shaped mouth, not foolishly small 
 or unpleasantly compressed, had decided sweet- 
 ness in the full fresh lips ; and yet the last thing 
 any accurate noter of physiognomy would have 
 said of Miss Derinzy was, that she looked gentle. 
 Impatience, impulse, whether for good or ill to he 
 determined hy circumstances, — these were plainly 
 to be read in her face. And one more indica- 
 tion was there — not, it may be, legible to indiffer- 
 ent eyes, but which, had there been any to study 
 the girl with the clear-sightedness of affection, 
 would have made itself plain in all its present 
 meaning and future menace — the vacuity of an un- 
 occupied, inactive heart. Annette Derinzy loved 
 no living human being. She knew neither love 
 nor grief, the true civilising influences which 
 need to be exercised in each individual instance, 
 if the human creature is to be elevated above 
 primitive conditions. She had no recollection of 
 her parents, and therefore no standard by which 
 to measure the tenderness which she might covet 
 as a possession, or deplore as a loss — by whose
 
 284 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 depth and endurance she might test the shallow- 
 ness and the insufficiency of the conventional 
 observance shown to her by the interested rela- 
 tives who furnished all her life was destined to 
 know of natural love and care. She had no bro- 
 ther or sister, or familiar girlish friendships, nor 
 had she ever displayed an inclination to contract 
 any of those lesser ties with which genial and 
 sensitive natures endeavour to supplement their 
 deprivation of the greater. Either she was of a 
 reserved, uncommunicative temperament, or she 
 had been so steadily restricted from the society of 
 other young people, that the habit of depending 
 entirely upon herself had been effectually formed ; 
 for Annette never complained of the seclusion in 
 which the family lived, and in some cases received 
 with a sufficiently ill grace intelligence that it was 
 about to be broken in upon. 
 
 Like most ill-tempered persons, Mrs. Derinzy 
 had a keen perception of faults of temper, and 
 no toleration for them. She declared that of all 
 things she hated selfishness and sulk most ; and 
 the recipients of the sentiments were apt to think
 
 DEAR ANNETTE. 235 
 
 she had all the justification of it which an inti- 
 mate knowledge of the vices in question could 
 supply. She accused " dear Annette" at times 
 of both, not altogether unjustly perhaps, but yet 
 not with strict justice. If she was selfish, it was 
 because her life was narrow ; its horizon was close 
 upon her; no large interests occupied it, no ex- 
 ternal responsibility laid its claims upon Annette. 
 There did not exist any one to whom she could 
 feel herself indispensable, or even " a comfort ;" 
 and though she was surrounded with external 
 care and consideration to what she held to be a 
 superfluous and unreasonable extent, her native 
 shrewdness led her to distinguish with unerring 
 accuracy between this perfunctory and organised 
 observance and the spontaneous affectionate guar- 
 dianship, without effort on the one side or con- 
 straint upon the other, which the natural relation- 
 ship of parent and child secures. She did not 
 love her aunt Mrs. Derinzy, and she positively 
 disliked the Captain, who reciprocated the senti- 
 ment ; as was not unnatural, seeing that he was 
 paying the price of success in his schemes against
 
 236 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 lier peace and happiness by the unmitigated ennui 
 produced by his life at Beaehborough. For what 
 there really was of fine and noble, of amiable and 
 elevated, in the character of Annette Derinzy her 
 own nature was accountable, and in no degree 
 her training, associations, and surroundings. She 
 had none of the enthusiasm and fancy of girlhood 
 about her — the atmosphere of calculation, world- 
 liness, and discontent in which she lived was too 
 decidedly and fatally unfavourable to their growth 
 — but she did not substitute for them any evil 
 propensities or unworthy ambitions, and her chief 
 faults were those of temper. She was undeni- 
 ably sulky ; her aunt did not traduce her on 
 that point, though she did not fitly understand 
 the origin of the defect, or make any kind or cha- 
 ritable allowance for its manifestation. Anger 
 rarely took the form of passion with Annette ; but 
 when aroused, it was very difficult to allay, and 
 her resentment was not easy to eradicate. The 
 individual in the family whom she disliked most 
 — her uncle — was that one who least often excited 
 the girl's temper. She kept clear of him, away
 
 DEAR ANNETTE. 237 
 
 from him, as much as she could, and usually re- 
 garded him with a degree of contempt which 
 seemed to act as a safeguard to her anger. But 
 the internal life of the house, as shared hy the 
 three women, Mrs. Derinzy, her niece, and Mrs. 
 Stothard, was sometimes far from peaceful. An- 
 nette was possessed of much hetter feelings than 
 might have been expected, her antecedents and 
 her present circumstances considered; and she was 
 sometimes successfully appealed to to forego her 
 own will and submit to Mrs. Derinzy 's, by a re- 
 presentation of the delicacy of that lady's health, 
 and the ill-effect which opposition and the sullen 
 estrangement of her niece would have upon her. 
 Many quarrels were made up in this way, and not 
 the less readily that Annette was curious about 
 the condition of Mrs. Derinzy's health. She 
 never exactly understood the nature of her illness, 
 — which did not seem to the girl to interfere with 
 her pursuing the ordinary routine of a lady's life 
 in a secluded country place, and admitted of all 
 the moderate and mildly - flavoured diversions 
 which such conditions of existence could bestow, —
 
 238 dr. wadtwbiqht's patient. 
 
 but which was kept in view constantly by the pa- 
 tient herself and Mrs. Stothard, pleaded in sup- 
 port of the impossibility of any change in the 
 mode of life of the Derinzy family, and substan- 
 tiated by the periodic visits of Dr. Wainwright. 
 Annette was wholly unconscious that while her 
 own illness was the subject of village gossip, 
 comment, and speculation, no one outside had 
 any notion that Mrs. Derinzy was a chronic suf- 
 ferer, requiring the expensive and solicitous care 
 of a physician of eminence from London, who was 
 well known in Beachborough to be such, and who 
 was generally supposed to come to see the young 
 lady. She would have been greatly angered had 
 she suspected the existence of such an equivoque ; 
 for among the strongest of her feelings were a 
 repugnance to knowing herself to be discussed, and 
 an intense dislike to Dr. Wainwright. 
 
 Annette's conduct towards the confidential 
 physician, avIio was said to be so clever in the 
 treatment of disease, and especially of disease of 
 the nondescript, or at least not described, kind 
 from which Mrs. Derinzy suffered, had frequently
 
 DEAR ANNETTE. 239 
 
 been such as to justify her aunt's displeasure, and 
 deserve her reprobation as ill-tempered and ill-bred. 
 His appearance at Beachborough was invariably a 
 signal for Annette's exhibiting herself in her least 
 attractive light, and generally for open revolt 
 against Mrs. Derinzy's wishes and authority. 
 The girl would contrive to get out of the house 
 unnoticed, and remain away for hours ; or she 
 would pretend illness and go to bed, and lie there 
 quite silent, and refusing food, until she was con- 
 vinced, by the entrance of Dr. Wainwright into 
 her room, and his accosting her with the calm 
 imperturbable authority of a physician, that the 
 very worst way in which to avoid seeing a doctor 
 was by pretending to be ill. Or she would make 
 her appearance just in time to sit down at dinner, 
 and having returned his greeting with the utmost 
 curtness and reluctance, maintain obstinate si- 
 lence throughout the meal, and retire immediately 
 on its conclusion. All remonstrances had failed 
 to induce her to behave better in this respect, and 
 even Dr. Wainwright's skilful quizzing of her for 
 this peculiarity — which he told her was very un-
 
 240 dr. wainwbight's patient. 
 
 fashionable, because lie was quite a favourite with 
 the ladies — had no effect. She either could not 
 or would not say why she disliked Dr. Wain- 
 wright, but she had no hesitation in acknowledg- 
 ing that she did dislike him. 
 
 Mrs. Stothard's position in the Derinzy house- 
 hold, however anomalous in the sight of outsiders, 
 was such as to make her perfectly aware of the 
 relations of each of its members to the others, 
 while there was something in her own relation 
 to each respectively unknown to, uncomprehen- 
 ded by, them. She ruled them all in a quiet 
 unobtrusive way, whose absolutism was as com- 
 plete as it was unmarked, unmarred by any 
 tyranny of manner. We have seen how Captain 
 Derinzy and she were affected towards each other, 
 and this narrative will have to deal with her 
 manipulation of Mrs. Derinzy' s " scheme." As 
 for Annette, she seemed to be Mrs. Stothard's 
 chief object in life, as she certainly constituted 
 her principal occupation in every day. But not 
 ostentatiously or oppressively so. If Annette had 
 been called upon to say which of her three asso-
 
 DEAR ANNETTE. 241 
 
 ciates was least displeasing to her, which she 
 least frequently wished away, she would have 
 replied, "Mrs. Stothard;" but she did not love 
 even her. With Mrs. Stothard, Annette seldom 
 quarrelled; but a visit from Dr. Wainwright 
 always furnished the occasion for one of their 
 rare disagreements ; so that when the elder wo- 
 man came to tell the girl of his arrival one after- 
 noon, while she was lying down to rest after a 
 long ramble, she knew she was bringing her very 
 unwelcome news. 
 
 Annette had been restless of late. She was 
 not ill, and there were no symptoms of suffering 
 in her appearance ; but she had taken one of her 
 fits of mental weariness, for which her life offered 
 no irrational excuse, and, as her habit was, she 
 had resorted, as a means of wearing it off, to 
 severe bodily exercise, walking such distances as 
 secured her against the danger of a companion, 
 and yet never succeeding in being as tired as she 
 wished to be. 
 
 "I should like to sleep for a week, a month, 
 a year," she would say, " and wake up in some 
 
 vol. i. R
 
 242 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 new world, with nothing and nobody in it I had 
 ever seen before, and everything one thinks and 
 says and does quite different." 
 
 But when Annette was weariest of mind, and 
 tried to be weariest of body, she slept less, and 
 her temper was at its worst. So Mrs. Stothard 
 found her, when she urged her to get up and dress 
 nicely for dinner, because Dr. Wainwright had 
 arrived, more than usually recalcitrant. 
 
 "I sha'n't," said the girl, tossing her hand- 
 some arms over her head as she lay at full length 
 upon a sofa in her dressing-room, and ruffling her 
 dark hair with her wilful hands, — " I sha'n't. I 
 detest him ; you know I detest him. What is he 
 always watching me, and trying to catch my eye, 
 for ? He's a bad cruel man, and he comes here 
 for no good. What's the matter with my aunt ? 
 She was very well on Monday." 
 
 " I don't know indeed, Miss Annette ; the 
 old complaint, I suppose." 
 
 "The old complaint! what old complaint? 
 It's all nonsense, in my belief, and he persuades 
 her she's ill for a purpose of his own. At all
 
 DEAR ANNETTE. 243 
 
 events, let him see her and be done with it ; I 
 ska' n't go down to dinner." 
 
 " yes, you will," said Mrs. Stothard, who 
 had been quietly laying out Annette's dress, pour- 
 ing hot water into a basin, and disposing combs 
 and brushes on the toilet-table, — " yes, you will. 
 You'll never be so foolish as to make a quarrel 
 with your uncle and aunt about such a thing as 
 that, and have the servants talking of it. Come, 
 my dear, get up; you've no time to spare." 
 
 She looked steadily at the girl as she spoke, 
 and put one hand under her shoulder, raising her 
 from the pillow. Annette shrunk from her for 
 a moment with a look partly cowed, partly of 
 avoidance ; the next she let her feet down to 
 the floor, and stood up passively, but with her 
 sullenest expression of face. 
 
 " Where's Mary?" she said. 
 
 " Busy with Mrs. Derinzy. She has been very 
 poorly this afternoon. I'll help you to dress." 
 
 She did so silently; and Annette did not speak, 
 but, like a froward child, twitched herself about, 
 and made her task as troublesome as possible —
 
 244 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 a manoeuvre which Mrs. Stothard quietly ig- 
 nored. 
 
 ''Where is the odious man?" she asked sud- 
 denly, when she stood dressed for dinner before 
 her toilet-glass, into which she did not look. 
 
 " In the drawing-room with the Captain ; jou 
 had better join them." 
 
 " No, I won't, not till the bell rings. I'll keep 
 out of his way as long as I can. I'm neither 
 Dr. Wainwright's friend nor Dr. Wainwright's 
 patient."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MADAME CLARISSE. 
 
 Mrs. Stothard had been lucky in getting her 
 daughter into such an unexceptionable establish- 
 ment as that presided over by Madame Clarisse ; 
 at least, so everybody said who spoke to her on 
 the subject, and, as we well know, what everybody 
 says must be right. It does not detract from the 
 truth of the assertion when it is confessed, that 
 very few people knew anything about Mrs. Stot- 
 hard or her daughter ; but the fact remains the 
 same. Madame Clarisse was decidedly the mil- 
 liner most in vogue during her day with the best 
 — that is to say, the most clothes-wearing and 
 moat cachet-giving — section of London society; and 
 any young woman who had the luck to learn her 
 experience in such a school, and, after a few years,
 
 246 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 the money to set up in business for herself, might 
 consider her fortune as good as made. 
 
 No doubt that Madame Clarisse's position 
 was not ungrudgingly yielded up to her, was not 
 achieved, in fact, without an enormous amount of 
 work, and worry, and industry, and self-negation 
 on her part; without a proportionate quantity of 
 jealousy and heart-burning, and envy, hatred, ma- 
 lice, and all uncharitableness, on the part of those 
 engaged in the same occupation. Even in the 
 very heyday of her success, when her workwomen 
 were sitting up for forty-eight hours at a stretch 
 (Madame Clarisse lived, it must be recollected, 
 before the passing of any ridiculous Acts of Par- 
 liament limiting the hours for women's labour) ; 
 when the carriages were in double rows before 
 her door ; and when, after a Drawing-room or a 
 Court-ball, the columns of the fashionable jour- 
 nals were seething with repetitions of her name, 
 — there were some people who said that they pre- 
 ferred the Misses Block, and roundly asserted 
 that the Misses Block's "cut" was better than 
 Madame Clarisse's. The Misses Block were at-
 
 MADAME CLARISSE. 247 
 
 tenuated old maids, who lived in Edwards-street, 
 Portman-square, in a lionse which was as old- 
 fashioned as, Madame Clarisse used to declare, 
 were its occupiers, and who had suddenly blos- 
 somed from the steady county connection which 
 their mother bequeathed to them into a whirl of 
 fashionable patronage, notwithstanding that they 
 were "betes — Dieu, comme elles sont betes!" ac- 
 cording to their lively rival's account. 
 
 Madame Clarisse was not bete. If she had 
 been, she would never have made the fame or 
 the money which she enjoyed, and which were 
 entirely the result of her own tact and talent 
 and industry. Xo mother had ever left her a 
 snug business with a county connection. All 
 that she recollected of a mother was a snuffy 
 old person with a silk handkerchief tied round 
 her head, who used to live on a fifth floor in 
 a little street debouching from the Cannebiere 
 in Marseilles, and who used to whack her little 
 daughter with a long flat bit of wood when she 
 cried from hunger or other causes. When this 
 mother died, which she was good enough to do
 
 248 
 
 DR. WAINWEIGHT S PATIENT. 
 
 at a sufficiently early period of the girl's life, 
 Clarisse was taken in hand by her uncle, an 
 epicier and ship-chandler, who apprenticed her to 
 a milliner in the town, and was kind to her in 
 his odd way. The girl was sharp and appreciative, 
 ready with her needle, readier with her tongue, 
 she had a knack of conciliating obstreperous cus- 
 tomers whose orders had been unduly delayed 
 in a manner that delighted her mistress, a plain, 
 t>lunt, stupid woman — readiest of all with her 
 eyes. Not as regards oeilladcs, though that was 
 a kind of sharpshooting in which she was not 
 ^unskilled, but in the use of her eyes for busi- 
 ness purposes. Mademoiselle Clarisse looked on 
 and listened, and learned the world. No one 
 came in or went out of the work-room or the 
 show-room without being diligently studied and 
 appraised by those sharp eyes and that quick 
 brain. It was from her appreciation of the Eng- 
 lish character, as learned in the milliner's shop 
 at Marseilles, that Mademoiselle Clarisse deter- 
 mined on seeking her fortune in our favoured 
 land, should the opportunity ever present itself.
 
 MADAME CLARIS SE. 249 
 
 Marseilles has a population of resident English 
 — ship-owners, ship -captains, naval men connected 
 with the great Peninsular and Oriental Company, 
 many of whose vessels ply from that port — and 
 these worthy people have for the most part wives 
 and daughters, whose principal consolation in 
 their banishment from England is that they are 
 enabled to dress themselves in the French fashion 
 and at a much cheaper rate than they could were 
 they at home. There is no gainsaying that the 
 prices charged by the Marseilles milliner, even 
 to the English ladies, was less than those which 
 they would have been liable to in their native 
 land ; but these prices, which were willingly paid, 
 were still so much in excess of those charged to 
 the townspeople, that Mademoiselle Clarisse clearly 
 saw that a country which produced people at once 
 so rich and so simple was the place for her fu- 
 ture action. 
 
 She was a clear-headed young woman, with 
 simple tastes and an innate propensity for saving 
 money; so that when her apprenticeship expired 
 she had a sum laid by — small indeed, but still
 
 250 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 something — with which she determined to try her 
 fortune in England. She had picked up a little 
 of the language, and had obtained a few intro- 
 ductions to compatriots living in London; so that 
 when she arrived, she was not wholly friendless 
 or utterly dependent. Mademoiselle Anatole — 
 born in Lyons, but long resident in London — 
 wanted a partner; and after a very sharp wran- 
 gle, conducted by the ladies on each side with 
 great skill and diplomacy, a portion of Mademoi- 
 selle Clarisse's savings was transferred to her 
 countrywoman, and a limp and ill-printed circular 
 informed Mademoiselle Anatole's patronesses that 
 she had just received into partnership the cele- 
 brated Mademoiselle Clarisse from Paris, and 
 that they hoped henceforth, &c. 
 
 Mademoiselle Anatole lived on the first floor 
 of an old house in the Bloomsbury district, which 
 had once been a fashionable mansion, but which 
 was now let out in lodgings. Under the French 
 milliner, a German importer of tops and pictures 
 and Bohemian glass had his rooms, and his name, 
 "Korb," shone out truculently from the street-
 
 MADAME CLARISSE. 251 
 
 door jamb, towering above the milliner's more 
 modest announcement of her residence. The en- 
 tire neighbourhood had a foreign and Bohemian 
 flavour. In an otherwise modest and British- 
 looking house, Malmedie Freres announced in 
 black-and-gold letters, much too slim and upright, 
 that they kept an hotel " a la Boule d'Or." From 
 the open windows in the summer-time poured 
 forth, mixed with clouds of tobacco-smoke, wail- 
 ings and roarings of the human voice and pound- 
 ings and grindings of pianos. The artists'-colour- 
 men had the street on their books (keeping it there 
 as little as possible), canvases and millboards 
 were perpetually arriving at one or other of the 
 houses where the windows looking northward 
 were run up into the next floor, and bearded men 
 smoking short pipes pervaded the neighbourhood 
 night and day. 
 
 Even the very house in which the milliners 
 lived was not free from the Bohemian taint. On 
 the second floor, immediately above the magasin 
 des modes, and immediately under the private 
 rooms of Mesdames Anatole and Clarisse, lived Mr.
 
 252 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 Rupert Robinson. Shortly after her arrival Made- 
 moiselle Clarisse met on the stairs several times 
 a middle-sized, middle-aged, jolly-looking gentle- 
 man, with bright roguish eyes and a light-brown 
 beard, who bowed as he passed by, and gave her 
 the inside of the staircase with much politeness, 
 and with a "Pardon, ma'amselle," in a very good 
 accent. Asked who this could be, Mademoiselle 
 Anatole responded that it was probably " ce Ro- 
 binson :" asked what was ce Robinson, Made- 
 moiselle Anatole farther replied that he was 
 "feuilletoniste, litterateur — je ne sals quoil" 
 And Mademoiselle Anatole was not far out in 
 her guess, to which she had probably been as- 
 sisted by the constant sight of a grimy-faced 
 printer's-boy peacefully slumbering on a stool 
 specially placed for his accommodation outside 
 Robinson's door. Those were the early days of 
 cheap periodicals, and there were few newspaper- 
 offices or publishers' shops where Mr. Rupert 
 Robinson was unknown or where he was not 
 welcome. He was a bright, genial, jolly fellow, 
 with an inexhaustible stock of animal spirits and
 
 MADAME CLAMSSE. 253 
 
 good-humour, with a keen appreciation of the 
 ludicrous, and a singular power of hunting-out 
 and levelling lance at small social shams and 
 inflated humbugs of the day ; and though he 
 would not have used a bludgeon, and could not 
 have wielded a cutlass, yet he made excellent 
 practice with his foil, and when he chose, as it 
 happened sometimes, to break the button off and 
 set to work in earnest, his adversary always bore 
 the marks of the bout. Generally, however, he 
 kept clear of anything like heavy work, for which 
 his temperament unsuited him, and confined 
 himself to light literature, at which he was 
 one of the smartest hands of the day; and, 
 in addition to his journalistic and periodical 
 work, he was one of the pillars of the Par- 
 thenon Theatre. 
 
 Those who only know the Parthenon in its 
 present days — when it occasionally remains shut 
 for months, to open for a few nights with "Herr 
 Eselkopf's celebrated impersonation of the 'Jew 
 whom Shakespeare drew,' " vide public advertise- 
 ment and published criticism from Berwick-on-
 
 254 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 Tweed Argus; when it alternates between opera 
 and burlesque or tragedy and breakdowns, but 
 is always dirty, and dingy, and mouldy- smelling, 
 and bankrupt-looking — can have little idea of 
 what it was in the days of which we are writing, 
 when Mr. and Mrs. Momus were its lessees, and 
 when there was more fun to be found within its 
 walls than in any other place in London, even of 
 treble its size. The chiefs of that merry company 
 are both dead ; the belles whose bright eyes enthral- 
 led us then are portly matrons now, renewing their 
 former beauty in their daughters ; the walking- 
 gentlemen have walked off entirely or lapsed into 
 heavy fathers ; and the authors, who were con- 
 stantly lounging in the greenroom, and convulsing 
 actors and actresses with their audacious chaff, 
 are some dead, and all who are left sobered and 
 steadied and aged. But all were young, and jolly, 
 and witty, and daring in those days ; and fore- 
 most amongst them was Mr. Kupert Kobinson, 
 who was then just beginning to write burlesques 
 in a style which his successors have spoiled and 
 written out, and was dramatising popular nursery
 
 Mi DAME CLARISSE. 255 
 
 stories, and filling them with the jokes, allusions, 
 and parodies of the day. 
 
 Although Mr. Rupert Robinson had been for 
 some time domiciled under the same roof as Ma- 
 demoiselle Anatoie, he had made no attempt to 
 cultivate the acquaintance of that lady, who was 
 in truth a very long, very thin, very flat, very 
 melancholy person, who had not merely les h/rmes 
 dans sa voix, but seemed to be thoroughly satu- 
 rated with misery. But soon after Mademoiselle 
 Clarisse was added to the firm, the " littery gent," 
 as Mrs. Mogg the landlady was accustomed to 
 call her second-floor lodger, contrived to get up 
 a bowing acquaintance, which soon ripened into 
 speaking, and afterwards into much greater inti- 
 macy. Mademoiselle Anatoie at first disapproved 
 of the camaraderie thus established; but she was 
 mollified by the judicious presentation of unli- 
 mited orders for the theatres and the Opera, and 
 by other kindness which had more satisfactory 
 and more enduring results; for Mr. Rupert 
 Robinson, being of a convivial nature, was in 
 the habit of frequently giving what he called
 
 256 dk. wainwright's patient. 
 
 "jolly little suppers" to certain select ladies of 
 the corps cle ballet of the Parthenon; cheery 
 little meals, where the male portion of the com- 
 pany was contributed by the Household Brigade, 
 the Legislature, the Bar, and the Press, and 
 where the comestibles were the succulent oyster 
 opened in the room and eaten fresh from the 
 operating knife, the creamy lobster, and hot 
 potato handed from the block-tin repository pre- 
 sided over by a peripatetic provider known to 
 the guests as " Tatur Khan." In his early youth 
 Kupert had been a medical student at the Hotel 
 Dieu in Paris, and he strove, not unsuccessfully, 
 to imbue these little parties with a spirit of the 
 vie de Bohhnc which rules the denizens of the 
 Latin Quarter. The viands were very good and 
 very cheap, and though there was plenty of fun 
 and laughter, there was no license. 
 
 Soon after the establishment of his acquaint- 
 ance with Clarisse, Bupert invited her and her 
 partner to one of these banquets, and she soon 
 became popular with the set who were admitted 
 to them. Mademoiselle Anatole th£y did not
 
 MADAME CLARISSE. 257 
 
 think much of; indeed, Miss Bella Montmor- 
 ency, one of the four leading coryphees who at 
 that time were creating such a sensation in the 
 ballet of Mustapha at the T.R.D.L., said all the 
 use that that thin Frenchwoman could be made 
 of was to replace the skeleton, a relic of Rupert's 
 old surgical life, which he sometimes brought out 
 of its box and seated at the table, crowned with 
 flowers. But with Clarisse they were very differ- 
 ent. She was bright and cheery, sang a pretty lit- 
 tle song, and laughed a merry little ringing laugh 
 at all the jokes, whether she understood them or 
 not; and the ballet-girls liked her very much, and 
 invited her to come and see them, and tried to 
 help her in the world. They could not do much 
 in that way themselves, for they made their own 
 dresses of course, and when they had a present 
 of a black-silk gown or a shawl, had no chance 
 of recommending any particular vendor; but when 
 they saw that the Frenchwomen were really ex- 
 cellent in their business, they spoke about them 
 in the theatre so loudly, that the rumours of 
 their proficiency reached the ears of Mrs. Lan- 
 vol. i. s
 
 258 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 nigan and Miss Calveiiey, the two " leading la- 
 dies" of the theatre, and incited their curiosity. 
 The crimson-slashed jackets and the lovely dia- 
 phanous nether garments, the Polish lancer-caps 
 and the red boots with brass heels, which these 
 ladies wore in the burlesques, were provided by 
 the management and prepared by Miss Hirst the 
 wardrobe woman, a crushed creature with a pock- 
 marked face and a wall eye, who always had the 
 bosom of her gown studded with pins, and her 
 hair streaked with fluffy ends of thread. But 
 when phases of modern life were to be represented, 
 the ladies chose to find their own dresses ; and 
 hearing of the excellent "cut" and "fit" of Made- 
 moiselles Anatole and Clarisse, were persuaded to 
 give those young women a trial. The result was 
 favourable, recommendation followed on recom- 
 mendation, and the firm had as much work as it 
 could possibly get through. 
 
 It was about this period of her life that Made- 
 moiselle Clarisse, in her visits to the theatre, 
 made the acquaintance of M. Pierre. It was not 
 to be doubted that M. Pierre, as well as Made-
 
 MADAME CLARISSE. 259 
 
 moiselles Auatole and Clarisse, was in possession 
 of a legitimate surname in addition to the nom 
 de hapteme by which he was commonly known ; 
 but, following the custom of those of his class, 
 he had suffered it to lapse on coming to Eng- 
 land, and though known as " ce cher Lelbng" 
 by his compatriots, called himself to his customers 
 M, Pierre, and was so called by them. M. Pierre 
 was a coiffeur by profession — unfortunately, as 
 he thought ; for he lived at a time when that 
 profession was rather at a discount. In his early 
 youth, when the great ladies wore their own hair 
 dressed in the most elaborate fashion, the eoiffewr 
 was a necessary adjunct to every well-regulated 
 establishment. Had he lived until now, when 
 the great ladies wear other persons' hair dressed 
 in the most preposterous manner, he would have 
 found plenty to do, and would probably have in- 
 vented various washes, which would have ruined 
 the health of thousands of silly women and made 
 the fortune of their concocter. But when M. 
 Pierre was in the prime of his life, elaborate hair- 
 dressing wenjt out of fashion, and the simplicity
 
 260 de. waixwpjght's patient. 
 
 of knots, bands, and ringlets, which could be 
 intrusted to the maid or even executed by the 
 fair fingers of the wearer, came in its stead. This 
 was an awful blow to M. Pierre, whose experience 
 was thus restricted to members of the theatrical 
 profession, or to the occasional preparation of 
 wigs and headdresses for a fancy-ball; but he 
 had saved a little money, and being a long-headed 
 calculating man, he arranged to invest and re- 
 invest it to great advantage. At the time that he 
 was introduced to Mademoiselle Clarisse he was 
 an elderly man, but he had lost none of his 
 shrewdness and savoir /aire. He saw at a glance 
 that his countrywoman was not merely perfect 
 mistress of her art, but generally a clever woman 
 of the world; and after a little time he proposed 
 to her that they should club their means and 
 hunt the rich English in couples. He pointed 
 out to her that his connection formerly lay among 
 the very highest and best classes, many of whom 
 recollected him, and would be glad to give any 
 one a turn on his recommendation ; that he, 
 as a man, had a much greater chance of buying
 
 MADAME CLARISSE. 261 
 
 merchandise good and cheap than any woman ; 
 finally, that he had capital, without which she 
 could never do anything great, which he would 
 put into the business. 
 
 Mademoiselle Clarisse took a week to think 
 over all that Pierre had said to her before coming 
 to any decision. Her ambition had increased 
 with her success, and she had long since ceased 
 to think very highly of the patronage of the thea- 
 trical ladies, to obtain which at one time she 
 would have made any sacrifice. For some time 
 she had been in business on her own account; Ma- 
 demoiselle Anatole, so soon as she realised a 
 sufficiency, having retired to Lyons, there to 
 weep and grizzle and sniff, and make herself as 
 uncomfortable and unpleasant-looking as the vast 
 majority of French old maids. And Clarisse was 
 fully aware of M. Pierre's talent and believed in 
 his fortune ; and verging towards middle age, and 
 having lost sight of Rupert Robinson, and others 
 for whom she had had her caprices after him, 
 and having lost her zest for rollicking suppers 
 and fun of that kind, thought she could not do
 
 262 db. wainwkight's patient. 
 
 better than settle herself in life; and accordingly 
 accepted M. Pierre's proposal. 
 
 She soon found she had done rightly. Many 
 of her husband's old patronesses consented to 
 give her a trial for his sake, and were so pleased, 
 that they recommended her to all their friends. 
 The establishment in George-street was then first 
 opened, and M. Pierre not only did all he pro- 
 mised, but a great deal more. For, being always 
 a man of great taste, he turned his attention to 
 the devising of special articles of millinery, then 
 employed his manual dexterity in carrying out 
 his ideas ; and not suffering in any way from a 
 sense of the ridiculous, he might be seen hour 
 after hour in his sanctum, with his glasses on 
 his nose and an embroidered skull-cap on his 
 head, singing away some pastoral chanson or 
 drinking couplet, while his nimble fingers were 
 busily engaged in stitching at a novel kind of 
 headdress or in sketching out a design for an 
 artistic bonnet. He was proud of his wife's ap- 
 pearance and pleased with her industry and suc- 
 cess, and he enjoyed his married life very much
 
 MADAME CLARISSE. 263 
 
 for a couple of years, making a point of going 
 to St. James's-street on Drawing-room days, and 
 to the Opera on great nights, to admire the results 
 of his handiwork, but otherwise living very domes- 
 tically and quietly ; and then he died, leaving all 
 his worldly possessions to his widow. 
 
 The success which had attended Madame Cla- 
 risse during her husband's lifetime continued 
 after his death, and there was scarcely a house 
 in the millinery business holding a higher repu- 
 tation than hers. It was this reputation which 
 induced Mrs. Stothard, ordinarily so quiet and 
 self-contained, to make a great effort to get her 
 daughter engaged as a member of Madame Cla- 
 risse's staff. Many young women of Daisy's 
 position in life would have eagerly accepted such 
 a chance; " From Madame Clarisse's," figuring on 
 a brass door-plate in the future, being an excel- 
 lent recommendation and an almost certain augury 
 of success. The Frenchwoman was perfectly cog- 
 nisant of this, and required a large premium with 
 her apprentices. That once paid, the girls were 
 turned into the work-room and left to " take it
 
 264 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 out" as best they might ; unless, indeed, one of 
 them showed exceptional talent and skill — quali- 
 ties which were immediately recognised by their 
 employer. 
 
 Daisy's promotion had, however, not been 
 due to her possession of either of these qualities. 
 She had one, a much rarer, which influenced her 
 removal from the work-room to the show-room, 
 and which led Madame Clarisse and all her cus- 
 tomers to take notice of the girl — and that was 
 the exceptional style of her beauty. Ladies, 
 young and old, would call Madame to them, and 
 in under-tones ask her who was the "young per- 
 son" with that wonderful complexion and that 
 excellent manner. Was she not some one who 
 — they meant to say — not born in that class of 
 life, don't you know; so very bred-looking and 
 distingue e, and that sort of thing ? Some women 
 would have been jealous of such compliments 
 paid to their assistant, but Madame was far above 
 anything of that kind. She used to bow and to 
 invent any little nonsense as it occurred to her at 
 the moment, enough to satisfy the querists with-
 
 MADAME CLAPJSSE. 265 
 
 out leading them to pursue their inquiries, and 
 then would dismiss the subject from her thoughts. 
 The girl was asses gentille, neat, and even elegant 
 in her appearance, and of good address ; looked 
 well in the street, wore pretty gloves, Madame 
 had noticed, in contradistinction to most Ang- 
 laises — "qui sont ordinairement ga ntees comme les 
 chats bottes," as she would say with a shrug of 
 horror — and walked well — in Madame' s mind 
 another unusual accomplishment in an English- 
 woman. Altogether she was a credit to the es- 
 tablishment ; and Madame began to take a little 
 more notice of her, talk more confidentially of 
 business matters to her, and leave her in charge 
 of affairs when pleasure engagements, of which 
 she had a great many, summoned her away. 
 Under these different circumstances the girl be- 
 came a different being in her employer's eyes. 
 Hitherto Madame Clarisse had only seen her as 
 a quiet . impassive young woman doing her duty 
 in the show-room ; but when she came to know 
 her, and to sec how every feeling was reflected 
 in her face — how the gray eyes could flash and
 
 266 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 the colour would rush into the pale cheek, height- 
 ened in its brilliancy by the creamy whiteness 
 surrounding it — she allowed to herself that " Fan- 
 fan," as she now called her, was lovely indeed. 
 
 And then Madame Clarisse began to have new 
 notions about Fanfan. The French milliner was 
 not an exceptionally good woman, nor, indeed, 
 ever thought of arrogating to herself the title. In 
 the days of her youth she had not permitted any 
 straitlaced notions of morality to interfere with 
 her pleasures ; and in her comfortable middle 
 age she never neglected an opportunity of grati- 
 fying the two passions by which she was most 
 swayed — money-making and good living. She 
 cared very little as to what her young women 
 might do during the few spare hours of their 
 leisure; but it was a necessity of her business, 
 that the assistants in the show-room should be 
 presentable persons and of a certain staid de- 
 meanour. Fanfan's manners were admirably suited 
 for her place — cold, respectful, and intelligent ; 
 but when Madame had discovered the existence 
 of the volcano beneath the icy exterior, had
 
 MADAME CLARISSE. 267 
 
 learned, as she did quietly and dexterously, that, 
 with all the good schooling she had gone through, 
 and the restraint which she had brought to hear 
 upon herself, the girl was full of feeling and pas- 
 sion and that there was "a great deal of human 
 nature" in her, she took a special and peculiar 
 interest in Fanfan's future. 
 
 " To make herself a modiste here in London 
 without money is impossible," she mused. " To 
 set up in Brighton or Tonbridge, to marry an 
 epicier or an employe — ah, my faith, she is too good 
 for that ! Is it that Madame Lobbia, that little 
 dame, mince, and like to a white rabbit, who flies 
 to and from Saint Jean's Woot at the great trot 
 w r ith her beautiful horses and wears diamonds in 
 full day; is it that Mdlle. Victorine, feu ecuyere 
 at Franconi's, who leads Milor Milliken such a 
 dance, throws his money to the winds, and laughs 
 to his nose ; is it that they are to be mentioned 
 with Fanfan ? And there are other Jews, mer- 
 chants of diamonds, than M. Lobbia, and other 
 milors as rich and as silly as Milor Milliken. 
 Forward, my Fanfan! why this dull life t<> you'?
 
 268 DR. wainwright's patient. 
 
 For me, do you ask, why I give myself so much 
 trouble? Hold, I know nothing! In watching 
 the progress of others one renews one's own youth, 
 and to exploiter so much grace and beauty would 
 be interesting and might be remunerative. Et, 
 (hi reste — " and Madame Clarisse paused for a 
 moment, reflecting ; then shrugged her shoulders 
 slightly, and said, " du reste, a la guerre comme a 
 la guerre!" 
 
 But whatever Madame" s notions on the sub- 
 ject might have been, she kept them strictly to 
 herself, never making any difference in her manner 
 towards Daisy, save, perhaps, in being a little 
 kinder and showing a little increased confidence 
 in her. It was not until the evening after the 
 day on which Fanny Stothard had written to her 
 mother that Madame made any regular approach 
 to familiarity with her assistant. They had had 
 a long and busy and tiring day, for the end of 
 the season was coming on, as it always does, with 
 a rush, and people had neglected ordering their 
 autumn clothes, as they always do, until the 
 last, and the show-rooms had been crammed for
 
 MADAME CLARISSE. 269 
 
 six hours with an impatient crowd, every com- 
 ponent member of which desired to be served at 
 once. Madame had given up any reunions for 
 that evening and had taken her fair share of the 
 work and supervised everything, remaining in the 
 show-room until all the girls except Daisy had 
 gone. Then she walked up to Daisy, and put 
 one hand on the girl's shoulder, tapping her cheek 
 with the other, and saying, 
 
 " Enfin, Mademoiselle Fanfan, this dreadful 
 day has come to an end at last. You look worn 
 and fatigued, my child. It's lucky that the end of 
 the season is close at hand, or you would what 
 you call 'knock-up' without fail." 
 
 " 0, 1 shall do very well, Madame, thank you," 
 replied Daisy, a little coldly ; "a night's rest will 
 quite set me up again." 
 
 "0, but you must have something before your 
 night's rest, Fanfan. You are triste and tired ; 
 I see it in your eyes. You want a — tlens! what 
 is it that little farceur, the advocate Chose, calls 
 it ? — a peg. Ha, ha, that is it ! You want a 
 sherry peg or a glass of champagne. We will
 
 270 dr. wainwright's patient. 
 
 go up to my room, and have some Lyons saucLsson 
 and some champagne." 
 
 At any other time Daisy would have declined 
 this invitation ; but partly because she really felt 
 low and hipped and overwrought, and imagined 
 that the wine would restore her, partly because 
 she was afraid of appearing ungracious to her em- 
 ployer, whose increased kindness to her of late 
 she had noticed, she now said she should be de- 
 lighted, and followed Madame up the stairs. 
 
 Such a cosy little sitting-room was Madame's 
 — low-ceilinged and odd-shaped, like an ordinary 
 entresol carried up a story; with French furni- 
 ture in red velvet, with the walls covered with 
 engravings and nicknacks and Danton's statuettes, 
 and the tables littered ' ' with scrofulous French 
 novels" in their yellow-paper covers. The room 
 was lit by one large window and a half, the other 
 half giving light to Madame's bedroom, which led 
 out by a door, through which, when open, as it 
 usually was, glimpses could be obtained of the 
 end of a brass bedstead apparently dressed-up in 
 blue muslin. There was a cloth on the table,
 
 MADAME CLARISSE. 271 
 
 and Madame bustled about, and, assisted by her 
 little French maid — the page-boy retired home 
 after customers' hours — soon produced some sau- 
 sage and the remains of a Strasbourg pie, bread, 
 butter, said, fromag'e de Brie, and from the cellar 
 (which was a cupboard on the landing with a 
 patent lock, where Madame kept a small stock 
 of remarkably good wine) a bottle of cham- 
 pagne. 
 
 Daisy could not eat very much, she was 
 over-tired for that; but the wine did her good, 
 and she talked much more freely than was her 
 wont. 
 
 Madame Clarisse was delighted with her; a 
 certain bitterness in the girl's tone being specially 
 appreciated by the Frenchwoman. After some 
 little talk she said to her, 
 
 " You still live in the same apartment, Fan- 
 fan ?" 
 
 " Yes, Madame — in the same garret.*' 
 
 "Garret!" echoed Madame Clarisse. "Eh 
 been, what does it matter ? Garret or palace, 
 it makes little difference when one is young.
 
 272 dr. wainwpjght's patient. 
 
 ' Bravant le monde, et les sots et les sages. 
 Sans avenir, riclie de mon print emps, 
 Leste et joyeux je montais six etages — 
 
 Dans nn grenier qu'on est bien a vingt ans.' " 
 
 And as she trolled out the verse in a rich voice, 
 
 Madame's eyes looked very wicked, and she 
 
 chinked her glass against her companion's. 
 
 " Perhaps it is because I only live on the third 
 story — though there's nothing above it — but I 
 certainly never feel leste or joyeuse" said the 
 girl. 
 
 "No?"' said Madame interrogatively. "That's 
 a sad thing to say. And yet you have youth and 
 beauty, Fanfan." 
 
 " Youth and beauty !" cried the girl. " If 
 I have them, what good are they to me"? Can 
 they drag me out of this life of slavery, take me 
 from that wretched garret, give me gowns, and 
 jewels, and horses, and carriages, and a position 
 in lifer 
 
 Daisy was full of excitement : the tones of 
 her voice were thrilling, her eyes sparkled, and 
 her cheeks were flushed. Madame Clarisse eyed 
 her curiously.
 
 MADAME CLARISSE. 273 
 
 "Yes," she said, after a minute's pause; "they 
 can do all this, and" — taking Daisy's hand — 
 " some day, Fanfan, perhaps they may." 
 
 " Perhaps they may," said Daisy. 
 
 She was thinking of the chance of her marry- 
 ing Paul Derinzy, whom she knew as Mr. Doug- 
 las. But Madame Clarisse did not know Mr. 
 Derinzy, so she was not thinking of Daisy's mar- 
 rying him — or anybody else, as it happened. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 BCBSON AND SONS, PIUNTEKS, PANCKAS ROAD, S,W,
 
 V