Читать книгу The Challenge of Love - Victorian Romance Novel - Страница 6

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When a man marries Sincerity he marries a strong-willed young woman whose strenuousness may drive him into many complicated situations.

John Wolfe was one of those detestably sincere people who cannot stand by and see a fellow man lie down to doze on a muck heap. It has been said that we create our own problems in life, and that the more sensitive we are the more we react to the imagined wrongs of others. Nor had John Wolfe been ten days in Navestock before he was faced with a problem that lay in the very path of his career. Most men who go out into the world of action meet this first crisis that rises like a bullying giant to try their strength. As a rule, all the advantages are on the giant’s side. He has the big club, the furious arrogance of a great beast, and—above all—a friendly grin for those who prefer to surrender rather than fight. Life is much smoother for those who learn to adopt a habit of genial cynicism. Such men learn to shut one eye, to bend their heads, and to squeeze through narrow places.

Often after the day’s work, Wolfe would sit on the edge of his bed and stare hard at the pink crimped paper in the Georgian grate. Someone had refixed the text in its proper position over his bed, and Wolfe had smiled when he had first noticed the readjustment. “My God, Thou seest me.” And it is an echo of this cry that sounds in the hearts of the most unorthodox of men whose aim is to grasp life honestly, and to tolerate no excuses. We struggle on towards something even in the teeth of our desires. We may not argue it out, or even reason the question. The choice is there. We take the rougher road, grumbling perhaps, calling ourselves fools, but taking it none the less. Always in the best man there is the sense of uplift against odds, that driving instinct that forces him forward towards something better. He is like a tired man digging a garden plot. Another weed! Why not bury it, leave it, pull it up in the spring? But the instinct of thoroughness is too strong for him. He stoops and pulls up the weed, swearing perhaps that it shall be the last.

Wolfe went about his work with a quiet thoroughness that soon began to accumulate facts. South London was not one of the cleanest corners of the earth, but the things that John Wolfe found in Navestock were more astonishing and far more scandalous. As for the people, they appeared surprised that he troubled to stay more than five minutes in each cottage, and the more servile among them tried to flatter him by contrasting his keenness with the hustling methods of his predecessors. Wolfe felt a peculiar interest in the men who had preceded him. He wondered how much they had troubled to discover; whether they had been true men or mere lick-spittles running a daily round. From what he heard, Wolfe judged that Dr. Threadgold’s former assistants had been very easy-going young men, rushing through the day’s work in order to play billiards at the “White Hart” or run after a petticoat. They had not dug under the surface of things to vex themselves with problems.

Wolfe bought some sheets of cartridge paper at Mr. Galpin’s shop in Queen Street, and began to draw maps of Navestock, working at night by candlelight in his bedroom, with his portmanteau and the top of a box for a table. He kept a notebook, and jotted down his observations day by day, pushing his investigations into all manner of queer corners, hunting odours to their lairs, peering down surface wells, and scrutinising ditches. He was unostentatious in his methods, and the people of the lanes and river alleys were too ignorant to trouble their heads about such eccentricities. They thought the new doctor a quiet, masterful, and rather rough young man. Malingerers grew afraid of him. The people who were really ill felt better when he had seen them.

On the mantelpiece in Dr. Threadgold’s consulting-room, covered by a glass case, stood a very fine high-powered microscope. It was a “show piece,” like the chef d’œuvre displayed in the window of a craftsman’s shop, suggesting what the expert could produce on great occasions. Dr. Threadgold had not touched the microscope for years, and though he possessed a fine collection of instruments he did not know how to use half of them. They were part of the general impressiveness of Prospect House, with the carpets, the plate, and the neat pair-horsed brougham.

Wolfe had had an eye on the microscope, and one day after lunch Threadgold found him cleaning the lenses and the mirror.

“You don’t mind my using this, sir?”

Threadgold showed benignant condescension.

“By all means use it, Mr. Wolfe. What is it to be? A little botanising—a little physiology?”

“I have a few things I want to study. Pond-water and protozoa.”

“A most interesting recreation. I often wish that I had the leisure for such scientific relaxations. Cultivate your enthusiasms, sir, when you are young.”

Dr. Threadgold might have shown less complaisance had he guessed the aim of Wolfe’s investigations. He imagined that he had reduced this young man to a proper sense of his position, for Wolfe had seemed quiet and tactful and ready to accept any quantity of work. Wolfe’s thoroughness made him cautious. He was not one who shouted upon impulse, but observed things and reobserved them before he uttered a word. He had said nothing to Threadgold of the many carelessnesses he had discovered, but had quietly altered the treatment without making any remark. Dr. Montague had in some measure forgotten the incident of Sir George Griggs and the dislocated shoulder. He had always had to deal with cheerfully compliant young men, men who had had the instincts of boys and who had done just as little as was required of them, and then run off to play. Threadgold told his wife that Wolfe was giving every satisfaction, and since Wolfe did not smoke in the house, kept out of the drawing-room, and did not show such a gluttonous hunger as he had shown on the first night, Mrs. Threadgold was inclined to consider him a very passable person.

It was on a March day that a message came in from Moor Farm on the northern edge of Tarling Moor. Dr. Threadgold was out, and Wolfe at work in the dispensary making up physic. The maid took Mrs. Mascall’s note to Mrs. Threadgold, who exerted her jurisdiction in such matters when Dr. Montague was absent. Snob though she was, Mrs. Sophia had a shrewd knowledge of the neighbourhood, and had an experienced finger for the pulse of the local pride. To send an understrapper into certain houses would be an act of indecent folly.

Mrs. Threadgold decided that Wolfe could deal with the case in question. Mrs. Mascall was a fat, good-tempered old person. Montague could drive up to-morrow. And the Mascalls were abominably healthy.

“Sykes, take this note to Mr. Wolfe, and tell him to attend to it at once.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

And Wolfe had his orders.

Threadgold kept a spare horse for his assistant’s use, and since the animal had been broken to both saddle and trap, Wolfe, who preferred the saddle to the little old black-and-yellow-wheeled gig, rode out for Tarling Moor. It was a clear, still afternoon, and Navestock lay like a toy town in the valley below. The Lombardy poplars beyond Josiah Crabbe’s house at the end of West Street looked like the stiff wooden trees from a child’s Noah’s ark. Wolfe passed Beech Hill, Turrell the brewer’s pretentious battlemented house. It was a great white building set in the midst of beautifully kept grass and splendid trees, but the house reminded Wolfe of a fat man in a white waistcoat. The windows of Beech Hill overlooked Navestock town, and Wolfe wondered whether Jasper Turrell realised how his tenants lived down by the river. The Turrells were ostentatious people. The brewer made a boast of everything that belonged to Beech Hill, but no one would have mentioned Bung Row at his dinner-table. In all probability very few of the local gentry remembered that such a place as Bung Row existed.

Moor Farm was a group of red-brick, red-tiled buildings set on the first ridge-spur of Tarling Moor. It was a grazing farm, and its grasslands swept in green slopes towards the valley of the Wraith. A white gate opened into the home paddock where geese gaggled and a fat, brown pony nosed the grass. The house faced the south, with orchard and garden ground gathered about it, the byres, barns, and cattle lodges standing towards the north. Two huge cypresses grew in the garden in front of the house, their dusky spires visible for miles above the outlines of the moor.

Moor Farm itself was a long, low house with casement windows, stone mullions, and a great, brick porch. A mellow and homely solidity possessed it. Standing within a stone’s throw of the wild and primitive moor, it threw back the southwest wind from its walls and roof, and glimmered its casements in the sunlight. Holly hedges, eight feet high and a yard thick, stood squarely round the orchard and the garden. A brick terrace ran along the front of the house, with grass below it that was kept sleek and smooth.

Wolfe whistled to a boy, who was carrying a bucket across the paddock, and the youngster ran to hold the doctor’s horse. A path paved with rough stone slabs led to the porch. Moss and grass grew between the stones, and in one place the roots of one of the cypresses had lifted the flags. There were flower borders under the house, full of old-fashioned black velvet and old gold polyanthuses, Lent lilies, and London pride. The date 1678 was carved on a stone let into the brick face of the porch.

Wolfe had his hand on the iron bell-pull when the oak door swung open, and he found himself looking into the eyes of a tall girl whose black hair fell over her shoulders. Lithe, dark, and alert, she had come sailing down the broad oak stairs, hair flying, brown eyes full of a glitter of haste.

The door was hardly open when Wolfe saw the girl’s face change its expression. There was a mobility about her that was quick and free as the sunlight over the moor.

“I thought Dr. Threadgold——Are you a doctor?”

“I am Dr. Threadgold’s assistant.”

The girl had no self-consciousness. She was an intense and rather passionate young person, whose pale face radiated an impetuous sincerity. She looked at Wolfe with unsophisticated displeasure, and kept one hand on the edge of the door.

“We sent for Dr. Threadgold——”

“Dr. Threadgold was out. I came to see if I could be of any use.”

The girl’s eyes looked into Wolfe’s eyes. For the moment she appeared to challenge him, and to stand waiting at the doorway of her intuition. Wolfe looked back at her with a frankness that did not intend to suffer a repulse.

“It is Mrs. Mascall who is ill, is it not?”

The girl still seemed to be waiting for some decisive impression.

“Yes.”

“I have left my horse at the gate. If you prefer to wait three or four hours I can ride back to Navestock and send Dr. Threadgold over.”

She looked at him fixedly. There was the faintest glimmer of amusement in the man’s eyes.

“That sounds silly.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

She began to smile.

“You know—I felt——”

“Of course you did.”

“Dr. Threadgold’s young—his assistants——”

“Young fools—shall we say!”

“I never meant that——”

“Say fools and we will shake hands on it.”

She stepped back with a frank, girlish laugh and let him in. Impetuosity was part of her nature. She was a moor child, bred to galloping ponies and the rush of the wind.

“I’ll run up and tell mother. Oh, I say, what’s your name?”

“Wolfe.”

The quip took them at the same moment.

“Wolf! Well, I did my best!”

“I’m a tame one. People don’t trouble to slam the door.”

She looked him in the eyes, and her frank glance said: “I like you.” Wolfe watched her go running up the oak stairs, her short green skirt dancing about her slim black ankles.

She had left him in a great stone-paved hall, a dim place, full of queer perfumes, old furniture, and old prints. A blunderbuss hung by a strap from a nail. In one corner stood a huge oak cupboard, its scutcheon plates and hinges bright as silver. A stone-paved passage disappeared under a heavy green curtain. Oak doors opened here and there. A red cloak and a whip lay tossed upon a round, pedestal table with claw feet.

The girl came back for Wolfe, and her face looked a little anxious.

“Please come up. Mother seems very ill. She can hardly get her breath—though she never will make a fuss.”

Wolfe climbed the stairs, looking up into the girl’s face. It was a face that had none of the beauty of regularity. The chin was a trifle too strong, the mouth too large, the cheeks not sufficiently rounded. But like many irregular faces it had the fascination of its irregularities, its characteristic and provoking flashes of expression that leaped out with the swiftness of sunlight from behind a cloud.

Wolfe felt the lure of the child’s free, flashing spirit. Her perfect health seemed to live in the black masses of her hair.

“I hope I shall soon put things right. Are you Miss Mascall?”

“Yes, I’m Jess.”

“Jess?”

“Just Jess—as father used to say.”

“Was that because you were—naughty?”

“I won’t say that it wasn’t!”

In one of the big south bedrooms Wolfe found a rosy, middle-aged woman in the thick of a bad attack of asthma. She was propped up in a four-post bedstead, her handsome and good-tempered face suffused and anxious, her black hair braided under a neat muslin cap. She smiled at Wolfe through the labour of her breathing, and nodded Jess out of the room.

“It’s good of you to come so soon, doctor. I do hate making a bother——”

“We live—by being bothered.”

“Well, that’s honest, isn’t it! Sit down, doctor. I haven’t had an attack like this for years. I used to hang on to the mantelpiece, or anything I could get hold of. The fact is——”

“Don’t talk if it bothers you.”

“I’m a terrible talker, you know, doctor.”

She looked it, with her round, handsome, lovable face, her generous, voluble mouth, and her motherly hands. Mary was her name, and a Mary she was.

“You know, doctor, my kitchen girl and I cleaned out the old lumber-room. It must have been the dust that did it.”

“No doubt. Now, don’t worry yourself for a moment.”

Wolfe made his examination, and then sat down on a chair beside the bed.

“I think we can soon make you easy. Has Dr. Threadgold ever given you medicine for this?”

“Not for years, sir.”

“You are careful about your food?”

Mrs. Mascall looked guiltily cheerful.

“I’m afraid I’m a regular girl, doctor. When something good comes——”

“I know. You are too—happy.”

“Now, that’s just the word. I never worry about anything. And I never feel like being ill. But I do hate giving trouble.”

“Nonsense. It’s a pleasure to take care of happy people. Now, I’ll ride back at once and make you up some physic. Can you send anyone over?”

“Bob can go on the pony.”

“Good. Keep to light food, and have the windows open. I’ll ride off at once.”

Mrs. Mascall gave him a grateful hand.

“You’ve made me feel better. I do dislike your undertaker sort of man.”

“So do I. Shall I send your daughter up?”

“Yes, please do.”

Jess Mascall was waiting in the hall. Her brown eyes were anxious, but very friendly. Wolfe reassured her.

“We will soon put your mother at ease.”

“Then it’s not dangerous?”

“No. Bob, the boy, is to ride over at once for medicine. I am going straight back to Navestock. Your mother would like you in her room.”

Jess followed him to the porch.

“I was a silly,” she said, as he turned to give her a lift of the hat.

“I think you were very sensible.”

“Oh, what a word!”

“Don’t you approve of it?”

She laughed.

“It’s mother’s word!”

“Then I’ll leave it alone. Supposing we say—wise?”

She looked at him, smilingly thoughtful.

“If you like.”

Wolfe went down the stone-paved path with a sense of the freshness of spring in the air. His moods for the last few weeks had been intense and grimly practical, and he had been too much with people who needed lifting up out of the mire. Navestock had saddened him, even though it had gripped his intellect. He had felt rather lonely on the road that afternoon, but these people at Moor Farm had touched and warmed his heart.