The Doctor's Wife
MR. LANSDELL RELATES AN ADVENTURE.
The Tuesday was a day. The August sunshine—the harvest-time which was the of all the farmers in Midlandshire—awoke Mrs. Gilbert very early. She was going to Mordred Priory. For once she to notice the of the furniture, the upon which her opened. She was going to Mordred Priory. There are moments in our in which all the great of the past and as nothing with the of the present. It was very early; but not too early for her to up, Mrs. Gilbert thought. She seated herself the little at the open window, and her long black hair; while the and themselves in the sunshine, and the of came like a long from the fields.
The and his wife had with each other as to the hour at which they ought to arrive at Mordred Priory. Luncheon might be at any time from one until three. Mr. Gilbert said; and it was decided, therefore, that they should present themselves at the gates of the Priory a time one o'clock.
How the village of Mordred looked in the August atmosphere, the hazy, Cuyp-like sunshine! How looked just at the entrance to the village, where there was a long with a top-heavy roof, all over with little windows, a dear old red-tiled roof, with and and to themselves in the sunshine, and yellow here and there in of gold! To the right of the a road away the of the Priory to the square-turreted church; and, than the church itself, the gates of Mordred over all.
Isabel almost as Mr. Gilbert got out of the and the iron ring that at the end of a long on one of those gates. It like at the door of the Past, somehow; and the Doctor's Wife to see quaintly-costumed servants, with long points to their shoes and parti-coloured garments, and a with a cap and bells, when those great gates were opened. But the person who opened the gates was only a very old woman, who some on one of the archway. George slowly under that Norman gateway, and Isabel looked with a at the and the great high above her head. If it should some day upon Mr. Lansdell, as he was out of his domain! Her mind was like a picture-book, full of and catastrophes; and she was always such events as these. Brown Molly slowly along the drive,—oh, the shrubberies, and banks of verdure, and dark foliage, and cedars, making on the lawn, and of water in the distance; how beautiful! how beautiful!—and stopped a Gothic porch, a old ivy-covered porch, which there was an open that a with on the walls, and of white marble on black marble pedestals, and skins of upon dark floors. Isabel had only a of the of this interior, when a appeared from a of the house and ran to take George Gilbert's horse; and in the next moment Mr. Lansdell came out of the porch, and his visitors welcome to Mordred.
"I am so to see you! What a morning, is it not? I'm you must have the dusty, though. Take of Mr. Gilbert's horse, Christie; you'd put him into one of the loose-boxes. You see my dogs know you, Mrs. Gilbert." A liver-coloured and a great black were taking notice of Isabel. "Will you come and see my pictures at once? I Gwendoline and her father, and your friend Mr. Raymond, and the children, presently."
There was no special or in all this, but it different from other people's talk, somehow. The languid, were very in of their languor; and then how the looked in his black coat, which so with the Rembrandt of his complexion! There was a waxen-looking flower in his button-hole, and across that of a West-end tailor, his waistcoat, there a of very yellow gold, with and to it,—altogether different from the yellow and fusee-boxes which on the of the officers at Conventford, Isabel had until so in.
Mr. Lansdell the way into a room, which there were other rooms opening one into the other in a long of and sunshine. Isabel had only a very idea of what she saw in those rooms. It was all a of and colour, which was almost too much for her brain. It was all a chaos, in which cabinets, and and marqueterie, and chairs, and filagree-work and ivory, old Chelsea, Battersea, Copenhagen, Vienna, Dresden, Sèvres, Derby, and Salopian china, Majolica and Palissy ware, pictures and painted windows, like the in a her eyes. Mr. Lansdell was very kind, and the nature of some of these as he here and there with his guests. George walked softly, with his in his hand, as if he had been in church, and with equal at everything. He was pleased with a Vandevilde, the sea was so and green, and the so out; and he stopped a minute a Fyt to the of a hare; and he that a plump-shouldered by Greuze, with melting and a gown, was a woman; but he did not particularly the Murillos or the Spagnolettis, and that the models who sat to those two masters would have done had they their and their doing so.
Mr. Gilbert was not about the pictures; but Isabel's here and there in a of admiration, and by-and-by those great dark with the of Mr. Lansdell's collection, a Raffaelle, a picture of the Man of Sorrows under the of His cross, in resignation, and tender; an half-length figure, against a sky. "My father in that picture," said Mr. Lansdell; "but their and tell me that it upon the of Raffaelle d'Urbino."
"But it is so beautiful," Isabel answered in a low, voice. She had been very to the Rector's on the previous Sunday, but her with as she looked at this picture. "Does it much who painted it, if it is only beautiful?"
And then Mr. Lansdell to in what manner the picture from the best-authenticated productions of the of painters; but in the middle of his little lecture Mr. Raymond and the came through the rooms, and the general. Soon after this Lady Gwendoline and her father their appearance, and then a very neatly-dressed the ladies to a dressing-room that had once to Roland's mother, where the window-curtains were sea-green silk, and the looking-glass was in Sèvres-biscuit, and where there were ivory-backed brushes, and bottles of rich yellow-looking perfume in a of gold and enamel.
Isabel took off her bonnet, and her with one of the brushes, and her dressing-table at home, and a black of George's with all the out at the back. She of the in the looking-glass, with a hair-pins, and her husband's with handles, and a empty bottle that had once lavender-water, all one another when the was open. Mrs. Gilbert of these while Lady Gwendoline her bonnet—another bonnet—and off the coffee-with-plenty-of-milk-in-it-coloured gloves, and long white hands, with and diamonds. The Doctor's Wife had time to Lady Gwendoline's dress—that exquisitely-fitting dress, soft was only a little than the lady's hair; and the collar, closely to the long throat, and by one big in a wide of gold, and the just out under rich of hair. Mrs. Gilbert all these things, and she saw that Lady Gwendoline's face, which was so in profile, was just a little and when you had a full view of it.
The took the gold off the bottles one by one, and at the different perfumes, and in as to which was nicest. Lady Gwendoline talked very to Mrs. Gilbert. She did not at all being asked to meet the Doctor's Wife, and she was angry with her for noticing these people; but she was too well to be otherwise than to Roland's visitor.
They all down-stairs presently, and were into an oak-paneled room, where there was an table for luncheon, and where Isabel herself seated presently on Mr. Lansdell's right hand, and opposite to Lady Gwendoline Pomphrey.
This was life. There was a Lance-like group of and peaches, with a pine-apple, in a high Dresden in the centre of the table. Isabel had been in company with a pine-apple until to-day. There were flowers upon the table, and a of orange and the atmosphere. There were white glasses, so fragile-looking that it as if a would have them away; cup-shaped glasses, like water-lily leaves, of the green, and here and there a of in the sunshine. Mrs. Gilbert had a very idea of the nature of the which were to her at that feast. Somebody a of ice into the glass, and it with a yellow wine, which had a of pears, and which some one said was Moselle. Mr. Lansdell put some white on her plate, which might or might not have been chicken: and one of the her an of pastry, with some in which there were little black lumps. She took a of the concoction, that other people had done so; but she was very about the little black lumps, which she to be a mistake of the cook's. And then some one her an ice, a ice,—just as if Mordred Priory had been a pastrycook's shop,—a pink ice in the shape of a pear, which she ate with a pointed gold spoon; and then the pine-apple was cut, and she had a slice of it, and was in it, as the promise of its appearance.
But all the in that were of "such as are of." So may have the dew-berries which Titania's gave to Bottom. To Isabel there was a dream-like in everything. Was not he by her side, talking to her every now and then? The of which he spoke were enough, certainly, and he talked to other people as well as to her. He talked about the plans of the Cabinet and the season to Lord Ruysdale, and he talked of books and pictures with Mr. Raymond and Lady Gwendoline, and of with George Gilbert. He to know all about in the world, Isabel thought. She not say much. How to was all the art she knew. As to the orphans, those ladies sat by side, and each other when the knife was into any fresh viand, and together every now and then in whispers. No part of the came to these persons, from rout-cakes and to lobster-salad or the of a fricandeau.
It was four o'clock by the time the pine-apple had been cut, and the concluded. The oak-painted room was by one window—a great square window—which almost one of the room; a window, out of which you walk into a square garden—an old-fashioned garden—divided from the of the by of box; boundaries, that had taken a century or two to grow. The were in this garden all luncheon-time, and yellow and in the sunshine: tall in the beds, and on the grass.
"Shall we go into the garden?" said Lady Gwendoline, as they rose from the table, and assented: so presently Isabel herself a little group upon the lawn, in the centre of which there was a marble basin, with gold fish, and a little fountain, that a in the still August atmosphere.
Mr. Raymond and Roland Lansdell having to say for themselves, and Lord Ruysdale and Lady Gwendoline being able to upon any possible subject, there had been no of conversation, though neither the doctor his wife had done much to keep the rolling.
Mr. Lansdell and his guests had been talking of all manner of things; off at to all of subjects; till they had come, somehow or other, to discuss the question of length of days.
"I can't say that I long life an blessing," said Roland, who was himself with minute of a to the gold fish. "They're not so as Sterne's donkey, are they, Mrs. Gilbert? No, I do not long life an advantage, unless one can be 'warm and young' for ever, like our dear Raymond. Perhaps I am only the fruit it out of my reach, though; for that the Lansdells live to be old."
Isabel's gave a as Roland said this, and she looked at him with just one glance. Of he would die young; Beings always have so died, and always must. A of pain through her as she of this; yet I if she would have had it otherwise. It would be almost that he should a blood-vessel, or catch a fever, or suicide, than that he should live to have hair, and wear and double-soled boots.
Brief as that look of had been, Roland had it, and paused for a moment he on talking.
"No; we are not a long-lived race. We have been consumptive; and we have had our cut off in the good old days, when to make a to a friend was very often majesty, or high treason; and we have been killed in battle,—at Flodden, to wit, and at Fontenoy, and in the Peninsula; and one of us was through the in an Irish duel, on the open of the 'Phaynix.' In short, I almost some must have been set upon us in the Dark Ages, when one of our progenitors, a of Mordred, who had been a soldier and a he into the of the Church, some of the plate to make a for his daughter, who married Sir Anthony Lansdell, knight, and thus the mother of our race; and we are a race, for very of us have to see a birthday."
"And how is your to be about, Roland?" asked Lady Gwendoline.
"Oh, that's all settled," Mr. Lansdell answered. "I know my destiny."
"It has been to you?"
"Yes."
"How very interesting!" the lady, with a laugh. Isabel's opened and wider, and themselves on Roland Lansdell's face.
"Pray tell us all about it," Lady Gwendoline. "We won't promise to be very much frightened, the are not the thing for a story. If it were midnight now, and we were in the room, with the lights low, and the on the wall, you might do what you liked with our nerves. And yet I don't know that a might not be more in the sunshine—a that would across the grass, and then slowly, till it melted into the water-drops of the fountain. Come, Roland, you must tell us all about the prediction; was it by a girl with a on her wrist, like the that appeared to Lord Lyttleton? Shall we have to put the clock for an hour, in order to the designs of your foe? Or was it a black cat, or a usher, or a skeleton; or all three?"
"I say it was an of the organs of and colour," said Mr. Raymond. "That's the of all stories."
"But it isn't by any means a story," answered Roland Lansdell. "The who my early death was the very of a phantom; and the region of the was a place which has yet been with any horrors. Amongst all the of the Old Bailey, I of any record."
"The Old Bailey!" Lady Gwendoline.
"Yes. The was an adventure, and the only I had in my life."
"Pray tell us the story."
"But it's a long one, and not particularly interesting."
"I upon it," said Mr. Raymond; "you've our organs of wonder, and you're to our to their normal by satisfying our curiosity."
"Most decidedly," Lady Gwendoline, seating herself upon a bench, with the of her dress spread her like the of some bird, and a a little from her head, and all manner of upon her face.
She was very when she was animated; it was only when her was in that you saw how much her had since the picture with the high and the long was to an public. It may be that Lady Gwendoline this, and was on that, account to be about trifles.
"Well, I'll tell you the story, if you like," said Roland, "but I you that there's not much in it. I don't you—any of you—take much in cases; but this one a at the time."
"A case?"
"Yes. I was in town on a year or two ago. I'd come over from Switzerland to some leases, and look into a whole of matters, which my lawyer upon my to in my own proper person, very much to my annoyance. While I was in London I into the United Joint-Stock Bank, Temple-Bar Branch, to notes and of upon their at Constantinople, and so on. I was not in the office more than five minutes. But while I was talking to one of the at the counter, a man came in, and close at my while he in a cheque for eighty-seven ten, or some such amount—I know it came very close upon the hundred—received the money, and out. He looked like a out of livery. I left the bank almost after him, and as he into a little leading to the Temple. I a him, for I had in Paper Buildings. At the of the my friend the was met by a big black-whiskered man, who to have been waiting for him, for he him by the arm, and said, 'Well, did they do it?' 'Yes,' the other man answered, and in his waistcoat-pocket, making a as he did so. I had him put his money, which he took in notes and gold, into this waistcoat-pocket. 'You needn't have upon me so sharp,' he said, sulkily; 'I wasn't going to with it, was I?' The black-whiskered man had me by this time, and he something to his companion, which meant that he was to his tongue, and then him off without in the opposite direction to that in which I was going. This was all I saw of the or the black-whiskered on that occasion. I their method of a cheque was a one; but I no more about it, until three afterwards, when I into the Temple-Bar Office of the United Joint-Stock again to complete my Continental arrangements, and was told that the cheque for eighty-seven ten, more or less, which had been in my presence, was a forgery; one of a series of most frauds, by a plans had only just come to light, and none of had yet been arrested. 'They've managed to keep themselves dark in the most manner,' the told me; 'the are to have been all by one man, but three or four men have been to of the original of our customers, which they have by a system. No two have been presented by the same person,—that's the point that has the detectives; they don't know what of men to look for.' 'Don't they?' said I; 'then I think I can them in the matter.' Whereupon I told my little of the black-whiskered gentleman."
Mr. Lansdell paused to take breath, and a at Isabel. She was always,—but she was very now, and was him with an expression.
"Silly little thing," he thought, "to be so in my story."
"You're interesting, Roland," said Lady Gwendoline. "Pray, go on."
"The of the was, that at eight o'clock that a little in a pepper-and-salt came to me at Mivart's, and cross-questioned me closely as to what I of the man who had the cheque. 'You think you this man with the black whiskers?' he said. 'Yes; most I could.' 'And you'll to him, if necessary?' 'With pleasure.' On this the departed, and came to me the next day, to tell me that he he was on the of the man he wanted, but he was at a for means of identification. He knew, or that he knew, who the man was; but he didn't know the man himself from Adam. The had taken fright, and it was that they had all started for Liverpool, with the of off to America by a that was to sail at eight o'clock the morning. The had only just got his information, and he came to me for help. The result of the was, that I put on my great-coat, sent for a cab, and started for Euston Square with my friend the detective, with a view to the black-whiskered gentleman. It was the I had had in my life, and I you I most it.
"Well, we by the mail, got into Liverpool in the of the night, and in the early of the next I had the of pointing out my black-whiskered acquaintance, just as he was going to step on the that was to him to the Atalanta screw-steam-ship, for New York. He looked very black at first; but when he that my was en règle, he away with him, enough, that it was all a mistake, and that it would be easily set right in town. I let the two go together, and returned by a later train, very well pleased with my adventure.
"I was not so well pleased, however, when I that I was wanted as a at examinations, and examinations, and on and off through a trial that four days and a half; to say nothing of being and by Old-Bailey practitioners,—who were for the prisoner,—and who asked me if it was my friend's I recognized, or if I had any other like his? if I should know him without his whiskers? I to the colour of his waistcoat? any of my family had been in a asylum? I my time to about with officers? I had been at Oxford? I should be able to an I had only once in twenty years? I was short-sighted? I I was not short-sighted? would I be to read a or so from a diamond of the of Thomas Moore? and so on. But question me as they would, the at the bar,—commonly as Jack the Scribe, Jack the Gentleman, so many other names, which I have forgotten,—was the person I had meet the at the entrance to the Temple. My was only a single link in a long chain; but I it was to my black-whiskered friend; for, when he and two of his had their sentence—ten years' penal servitude—he where I was standing, and said:
"'I don't any against the of the jury, and I don't any against the judge, though his isn't a light one; but when a himself up in that doesn't him, he to it and strong. If I come out of prison alive, I'll kill you!'"
"He his at me as he said it. There wasn't much in the words, but there was a good in the way in which they were spoken. He to say more; but the got of him and him down, and gasping, and with his all of a white. I saw no more of him; but if he live to come out of prison, I most he'll keep his word."
"Izzie," George Gilbert suddenly, "what's the matter?"
All the point of Mr. Lansdell's was lost; for at this moment Isabel and slowly upon the sward, and all the gold fish away in a panic of terror as the doctor his into the marble basin. He the water into his wife's face, and she opened her at last, very slowly, and looked her.
"Did he say that——" she said,—"did he say that he'd kill——!"
