CHAPTER XL

The month was August, and August at its worst, a month of glare and dust, and an atmosphere more trying to the temper than all the insolent bluster of a bragging March.

Mr. Carrington, in his shirt sleeves, and white linen sun-hat crammed down over his eyes, stood under the acacia-tree at his garden gate, chatting to the Reverend Peter Burt, Curate of Cossington, who had tramped three miles to visit some of the sick people on the farm. Mr. Burt was rather a shy little man, very much in earnest, and very much convinced of the responsibility of his position.

“All this must have been a great worry to you,” said the clergyman, with a comprehensive sweep of an oak stick.

“Worry—don’t talk of it, sir. What with the heat, and the Medical Officer of Health, and the Sanitary Inspector, I’ve been pretty near crazy. I don’t know what I should have done, Mr. Burt, but for Murchison and his good lady.”

“Mrs. Murchison seems to have been a local Florence Nightingale.”

Mr. Carrington stared.

“I don’t happen to know the woman’s name,” he said; “but she must have been a good ’un, Mr. Burt, to be showed in the same class as the doctor’s lady. Why—” and the farmer withdrew his hands from his pockets and tapped his left palm with his right forefinger—“why, d’you know what she did when she’d been over here and seen how we were fixed?”

Mr. Carrington paused expressively, and looked the young clergyman in the face, as though defying him to conceive the nature of this unique woman’s genius.

“No, I have not heard.”

“Well, Mr. Burt, there’s religion and there’s religion; some of us wear black coats on a Sunday and put silver in the plate; some of us aren’t so regular and respectable, but we play the game, and that’s more than many of your sitting pew-hens do. Excuse me, sir, I’m rather rough in the tongue. Well, Mrs. Murchison, she doesn’t strike you as a district visiting sort of lady to look at; she’s got a fine face and a head of hair, like the Countess of Camber, who gave the prizes away at our Agricultural Show last season. Well, Mr. Burt, she came over here, and saw what sort of a fix we were in, two grumbling nurses, and not much more than straw and sacking. Well, what does she do but take one of my wagons and my men and go off to Roxton all on her own.”

Mr. Carrington paused for breath, took off his sun-hat and wiped his forehead with it, his eyes remaining fixed emphatically on the Curate’s face.

“And what d’you think, sir? Back came that wagon of mine loaded up with linen, and basins, and crockery, a bed or two, and God knows what. She’d ransacked her own house, sir, and gone round to all the neighbors begging like a papist. Get the stuff? She did that. Not easy to say no to a woman with a face and a voice like hers. Carmagee joined in, and Canon Stensly, and a good score more. And dang my soul, Mr. Burt, she’d been working with her husband here, day in, day out; and that’s the sort of thing, sir, that I call religion.”

The Curate began to look vaguely uncomfortable under the farmer’s concentrated methods of address. It took much to move Mr. Carrington to words, but when once moved, the result resembled the eruption of a long quiescent volcano, the vigor of the eruption corresponding roughly to the length of the period of quiescence.

“I quite agree with you, Mr. Carrington,” he said, with a certain boyish stiffness, as though he considered it superfluous for the farmer to condemn his soul to perdition.

“You must excuse my language, Mr. Burt; when I get worked up over a subject I must let fly. And it’s these dirty lies that have been flying abroad about this good lady’s husband that have made me hot, sir, to see justice done.”

Mr. Burt appeared interested by the windows of the house that glimmered from amid a mass of creepers like water shining through the foliage of trees.

“One hears very curious rumors,” he acknowledged, with a discreet frown.

“I suppose you’ve heard them over at Cossington?”

“Well, I have heard reports.”

“About our doctor here and the drink?”

Mr. Burt nodded.

“But I don’t think anyone believed them,” he confessed.

The farmer’s right forefinger began to tap his left palm again.

“Look here, sir, I ought to know something about Dr. Murchison’s character, I imagine. The man’s been here nearly a month, living in my house, and working like a Trojan. We’ve had nearly sixty cases, what with the pickers and our own people. You haven’t seen what the doctor’s been through in this little epidemic of ours, Mr. Burt, and I have. You get to the bottom of a man’s nature when he’s working eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, doing the nurse’s jobs as well as his own, and feeding some of the kids with his own hands. I’ve seen him come into my parlor, sir, at night, and go slap off to sleep on the sofa, he was that done. And never, not on one single blessed occasion, have I seen that man show the white feather or touch a drop of drink!”

Mr. Burt appeared to become more and more embarrassed by being stared at vehemently in the face, as the farmer’s right fist smacked the points of his argument into his left palm. He had to return Mr. Carrington’s stare, eye to eye, as a pledge of sincerity. He began to fidget, to scan the horizon, and to fumble with his watch-chain.

“Your evidence sounds conclusive,” he said; “I think it is time I—”

Mr. Carrington ignored the little man’s restiveness, and came and stood outside the gate.

“Now, I make it a rule in life, Mr. Burt, to take people just as I find ’em, and not to listen to what all the old women say. The rule of a practical man, you understand. Now—”

The Curate cast a flurried glance up the road, and pulled out his watch.

“You must really excuse me, Mr. Carrington.”

“In a hurry, are you? Well, I was only going to say that some of us people have come by a shrewd notion how all this chaff got chucked about in these parts. Murchison was a first-class man, and some people got jealous of him, and played a low-down game to get him out of the town. You take my meaning, Mr. Burt?”

“Yes, certainly. Good Heavens, it is nearly twelve. I must really say good-bye, Mr. Carrington; I hope—”

“One moment, sir. I won’t mention any name, but perhaps you are just as wise as I am. And what’s more, Mr. Burt, from what I’ve heard, that gentleman that we know of has just been treated as he tried to treat a better man than himself. It was his wife, they say—”

“Excuse me, Mr. Carrington, but some one is calling you, I think.”

“They can wait. Now—”

“To be frank with you, Mr. Carrington, I can’t.”

“Oh, well, sir, if you are in such a hurry, I’ll postpone my remarks. I was only going to say—”

But Mr. Burt gave him a wave of the hand, and fled.

A girl of seventeen came down the path from the house, between the standard roses, her black hair already gathered up tentatively at the back of a brown neck, and the smartness of her blouse and collar betraying the fact that she considered herself a mature and very eligible woman.

“Dad, are you deaf?”

Mr. Carrington turned with the leisurely composure of a father.

“What’s all this noise about, Nan?”

“I’ve been calling you for five minutes. They’re all there—in the fourteen-acre.”

“Who?”

“Why, Mrs. Murchison and the Canon, and old Lady Gillingham, and half a dozen more. Dr. Murchison sent one of the boys over for you.”

Mr. Carrington began to hustle.

“Dang it, I expected them to-morrow!”

“What a man you are, dad!” and she stood like an armed angel of scorn in the middle of the path; “you can’t go and see them in your shirt-sleeves.”

“Bless my soul, Nan, where’s my coat?”

“On the fence. You were talking to Mr. Burt long enough to forget it. Why didn’t you bring him in?”

Mr. Carrington was struggling into his alpaca coat, his daughter watching his contortions with the superior serenity of seventeen.

“Bring who in?”

“Mr. Burt.”

“The little man’s as shy as a calf.”

“Perhaps you talked him silly.”

“Look here, my dear, it’s too hot to argue. Is my tie proper?”

His daughter regarded him with critical candor.

“It will do,” she answered, resignedly, as though her father’s ties were beyond all promise of salvation.

The camp of the fruit-pickers in Mr. Carrington’s fourteen-acre stood out like a field-hospital under the August sun. There were half a dozen white tents pitched near the two sheds, and on an ingenious frame-work of poles an awning had been spread so that convalescents could be brought out to lie in the shade, and gain the maximum amount of air. The whole place looked trim and clean, and a faint perfume of some coal-tar disinfectant permeated the air.

Mr. Carrington, as he emerged from the orchard gate, saw quite a representative gathering moving through the camp. Several of the Roxton celebrities who had subscribed to the relief fund, had been invited by Porteus Carmagee, the treasurer, to drive over and see how the money had been spent. The farmer recognized Lady Gillingham’s carriage and pair waiting in the roadway beyond the white field-gate. The Canon’s landau had drawn up deferentially behind it, while Mrs. Murchison’s pony, that drew her governess car, was being held by one of the pickers who had lost two children but a week ago.

Lady Sophia appeared to be holding quite a state inspection, for she had Murchison in his white linen jacket at one elbow, and the Canon in his black coat at the other. She was making considerable use of her lorgnette—a very affable, commonplace, and well-meaning great lady, who felt it to be a most Christian condescension on her part to drive out and examine this temporary hospital and its London poor. Catherine Murchison and Mrs. Stensly were talking to one of the women lying under the awning. The treasurer had remained judiciously in the background, and was snapping away to three Roxton ladies who appeared to be fascinated by some subject foreign to enteric fever and pickers of fruit.

Porteus Carmagee looked very much amused. A thin little lady in a hat far too big for her, giving her an indistinct resemblance to a mushroom, was attempting to draw more definite information from the lawyer by the feminine pretence of unbelief.

“But are you sure, Mr. Carmagee? It may only be a rumor; one hears so many extraordinary things.”

“I am perfectly sure, madam. There are facts, however, that cannot well be discussed.”

The suggestion of mystery lent a double glamour to Porteus Carmagee’s information.

“Then he has left the town for good?”

“I think I may swear to that as a fact.”

“And alone?”

“Quite alone.”

“But surely his wife—?”

Mr. Carmagee tightened up his mouth and stared reflectively into space.

“Don’t ask me to unravel the complexities of other people’s households, Mrs. Blount.”

“But how extraordinary! Of course everyone knows that she is ill.”

“Every one knows a great deal more of one’s private affairs, madam, than one knows one’s self.”

The three ladies exchanged glances; they formed three spokes of curiosity, with Mr. Carmagee for the hub.

“And no one has seen Betty Steel for some weeks.”

“That is so.”

“And it is rumored—”

“Then you have heard that too?”

“What, my dear?”

“That it is an affection of the skin.”

The lawyer extricated himself from the group, and moved to where Catherine’s golden head shone Madonna-like over the face of a little child.

“Affection of tom-cats,” quoth he, under his breath; “it is curious the way these women play with a piece of scandal like a cat with a mouse. It mustn’t die, or half the zest of the game would be gone. Catherine, my friend, you are different from the rest.”

During these digressions Mr. Carrington had brought himself within the ken of Lady Gillingham’s lorgnette. It appeared to the farmer that the great lady’s eyes were fixed critically upon his tie. His right shoulder blushed as he remembered that there was a three-inch rent there in the seam of his alpaca coat. Such is the judgment that overtakes those who are mistaken as to dates.

“Good-morning, Mr.—Mr. Carrington. We are admiring how beautifully you have managed everything for these poor people. So clean, and so—so airy. I am sure you must have suffered a great deal of inconvenience and worry.”

Mr. Carrington blushed. Porteus Carmagee, who was watching the drama from a distance, felt for Mr. Carrington a species of ironical pity. The farmer’s boots described an angle of ninety degrees with one another, and the vehement smirk upon his face made the redness thereof seem dangerously sultry.

“We have all been so interested, Mr. Carrington—”

“Very good of your ladyship, I’m sure.”

“I sent you an iron bedstead, you may remember. I hope it has been of use.”

“Great use, your ladyship.”

“Ah, that is right; and is your family quite well, Mr. Carrington? I hope none of you have contracted the disease?”

“Only my youngest boy, your ladyship, but Dr. Murchison soon had him in hand.”

“Ah, quite so; good-day, Mr. Carrington,” and she relieved him from the splendor of her notice, and turned to Murchison, who was waiting at her elbow.

“What a noble profession, the physician’s, Dr. Murchison!”

The big, brown-faced man smiled, and his eyes wandered unconsciously in the direction of his wife.

“It has its responsibilities,” he said, “and also its compensations.”

Lady Sophia waved her lorgnette to and fro, and beamed to the extent of the five-guinea check she had contributed to the relief fund. She was wondering whether it was possible that this quiet, clear-eyed man could ever have been the victim of such a thing as drink. If so—then he was to be pitied, and not abused.

“It must be so gratifying, Dr. Murchison, to save the life of a fellow-being.”

“Yes, it is something to be grateful for.”

“How well your wife looks! I hear she has been working here, like any trained nurse.”

Catherine, dancing a doll before the thin little hands of a child of four, was serenely oblivious of the great lady’s praise. Porteus Carmagee was watching her, smiling, and rattling his keys in his pocket.

“Your wife is very fond of children, Dr. Murchison.”

He looked into the distance, and then at the laughing girl of four.

“She lost a child, and that means much to a woman.”

“Ah, of course, undoubtedly. Poor little creature!” and her ladyship tended benignly in the direction of the awning.

Canon Stensly and Murchison were left alone together by one of the tents. A man was delirious within it, and they could hear the meaningless patter of fever flowing in one monotonous tone.

“A doctor’s life is no sinecure,” and he stroked his firm round chin.

“No, perhaps no. We walk daily at the edge of a precipice. And yet it has great compensations.”

They were silent a moment, watching Lady Sophia trying to coquet with a rather overpowered child.

“You have heard about Steel?”

“Yes, my wife told me.”

“One of those strange fatalities we meet with in life. And yet I think there was something of the nature of a judgment in it.”

“Possibly. I am sorry for the woman.”

“Then you are magnanimous.”

“No, I have learned the true values of life. When one has suffered—”

“One loses the meaner impulses?”

“That is so.”

“And remains thankful for what one has?”

“For what one has.”

And Murchison’s eyes were smiling towards his wife.