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Barrington. Volume 1. Lever Charles James
Читать онлайн.Название Barrington. Volume 1
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Автор произведения Lever Charles James
Жанр Зарубежная классика
Издательство Public Domain
When he took his leave at last, he left Conyers in far better spirits than he found him. The young fellow had begun to castle-build about how he should pass his time, and in such architecture there is no room for ennui. And what a rare organ must constructiveness be, when even in its mockery it can yield such pleasure! We are very prone to envy the rich man, whose wealth sets no limit to his caprices; but is not a rich fancy, that wondrous imaginative power which unweariedly invents new incidents, new personages, new situations, a very covetable possession? And can we not, in the gratification of the very humblest exercise of this quality, rudely approximate to the ecstasy of him who wields it in all its force? Not that Fred Conyers was one of these; he was a mere tyro in the faculty, and could only carry himself into a region where he saw his Spitz terrier jump between the back rails of a chair, and himself sending bullet after bullet through the very centre of the bull’s eye.
Be it so. Perhaps you and I, too, my reader, have our Spitz terrier and bull’s-eye days, and, if so, let us be grateful for them.
CHAPTER VI. THE DOCTOR’S DAUGHTER
Whether it was that Dr. Dill expended all the benevolence of his disposition in the course of his practice, and came home utterly exhausted, but so it was, that his family never saw him in those moods of blandness which he invariably appeared in to his patients. In fact, however loaded he went forth with these wares of a morning, he disposed of every item of his stock before he got back at night; and when poor Mrs. Dill heard, as she from time to time did hear, of the doctor’s gentleness, his kindness in suffering, his beautiful and touching sympathy with sorrow, she listened with the same sort of semi-stupid astonishment she would have felt on hearing some one eulogizing the climate of Ireland, and going rapturous about the blue sky and the glorious sunshine. Unhappy little woman, she only saw him in his dark days of cloud and rain, and she never came into his presence except in a sort of moral mackintosh made for the worst weather.
The doctor’s family consisted of seven children, but our concern is only with the two eldest, – a son and a daughter. Tom was two years younger than his sister, who, at this period of our story, was verging on nineteen. He was an awkward, ungainly youth, large-jointed, but weakly, with a sandy red head and much-freckled face, just such a disparaging counterpart of his sister as a coarse American piracy often presents of one of our well-printed, richly papered English editions. “It was all there,” but all unseemly, ungraceful, undignified; for Polly Dill was pretty. Her hair was auburn, her eyes a deep hazel, and her skin a marvel of transparent whiteness. You would never have hesitated to call her a very pretty girl if you had not seen her brother, but, having seen him, all the traits of her good looks suffered in the same way that Grisi’s “Norma” does from the horrid recollection of Paul Bedford’s.
After all, the resemblance went very little further than this “travestie,” for while he was a slow, heavy-witted, loutish creature, with low tastes and low ambitions, she was a clever, intelligent girl, very eagerly intent on making something of her advantages. Though the doctor was a general practitioner, and had a shop, which he called “Surgery,” in the village, he was received at the great houses in a sort of half-intimate, half-patronizing fashion; as one, in short, with whom it was not necessary to be formal, but it might become very inconvenient to have a coldness. These were very sorry credentials for acceptance, but he made no objection to them.
A few, however, of the “neighbors” – it would be ungenerous to inquire the motive, for in this world of ours it is just as well to regard one’s five-pound note as convertible into five gold sovereigns, and not speculate as to the kind of rags it is made of – were pleased to notice Miss Dill, and occasionally invite her to their larger gatherings, so that she not only gained opportunities of cultivating her social gifts, but, what is often a greater spur to ambition, of comparing them with those of others.
Now this same measuring process, if only conducted without any envy or ungenerous rivalry, is not without its advantage. Polly Dill made it really profitable. I will not presume to say that, in her heart of hearts, she did not envy the social accidents that gave others precedence before her, but into her heart of hearts neither you nor I have any claim to enter. Enough that we know nothing in her outward conduct or bearing revealed such a sentiment. As little did she maintain her position by flattery, which many in her ambiguous station would have relied upon as a stronghold. No; Polly followed a very simple policy, which was all the more successful that it never seemed to be a policy at all. She never in any way attracted towards her the attentions of those men who, in the marriageable market, were looked on as the choice lots; squires in possession, elder sons, and favorite nephews, she regarded as so much forbidden fruit. It was a lottery in which she never took a ticket It is incredible how much kindly notice and favorable recognition accrued to her from this line.
We all know how pleasant it is to be next to the man at a promiscuous dinner who never eats turtle nor cares for “Cliquot;” and in the world at large there are people who represent the calabash and the champagne.
Then Polly played well, but was quite as ready to play as to dance. She sang prettily, too, and had not the slightest objection that one of her simple ballads should be the foil to a grand performance of some young lady, whose artistic agonies rivalled Alboni’s. So cleverly did Polly do all this, that even her father could not discover the secret of her success; and though he saw “his little girl” as he called her, more and more sought after and invited, he continued to be persuaded that all this favoritism was only the reflex of his own popularity. How, then, could mere acquaintances ever suspect what to the eye of those nearer and closer was so inscrutable?
Polly Dill rode very well and very fearlessly, and occasionally was assisted to “a mount” by some country gentleman, who combined gallantry with profit, and knew that the horse he lent could never be seen to greater advantage. Yet, even in this, she avoided display, quite satisfied, as it seemed, to enjoy herself thoroughly, and not attract any notice that could be avoided. Indeed, she never tried for “a place,” but rather attached herself to some of the older and heavier weights, who grew to believe that they were especially in charge of her, and nothing was more common, at the end of a hard run, than to hear such self-gratulations as, “I think I took great care of you, Miss Dill?” “Eh, Miss Polly! you see I’m not such a bad leader!” and so on.
Such was the doctor’s “little girl,” whom I am about to present to my readers under another aspect. She is at home, dressed in a neatly fitting but very simple cotton dress, her hair in two plain bands, and she is seated at a table, at the opposite of which lounges her brother Tom with an air of dogged and sleepy indolence, which extends from his ill-trimmed hair to his ill-buttoned waistcoat.
“Never mind it to-day, Polly,” said he, with a yawn. “I’ve been up all night, and have no head for work. There’s a good girl, let’s have a chat instead.”
“Impossible, Tom,” said she, calmly, but with decision. “To-day is the third. You have only three weeks now and two days before your examination. We have all the bones and ligaments to go over again, and the whole vascular system. You ‘ve forgotten every word of Harrison.”
“It does n’t signify, Polly. They never take a fellow on anything but two arteries for the navy. Grove told me so.”
“Grove is an ass, and got plucked twice. It is a perfect disgrace to quote him.”
“Well, I only wish I may do as well. He’s assistant-surgeon to the ‘Taurus’ gun-brig on the African station; and if I was there, it’s little I ‘d care for the whole lot of bones and balderdash.”
“Come, don’t be silly. Let us go on with the scapula. Describe the glenoid cavity.”
“If you were the girl you might be, I’d not be bored with all this stupid trash, Polly.”
“What do you mean? I don’t understand you.”
“It’s easy enough to understand me. You are as thick as thieves, you and that old Admiral, – that Sir Charles Cobham. I saw you talking to the old fellow at the meet the other morning. You ‘ve only to say, ‘There’s Tom – my brother Tom – wants a navy appointment;