The Egoist
George Meredith
CHAPTER XLII Page 1
SHOWS THE DIVINING ARTS OF A PERCEPTIVE MIND
Sir Willoughby was the fortune-favoured in the little doctor's mind; that high-stepping gentleman having wealth, and public consideration, and the most ravishing young lady in the world for a bride. Still, though he reckoned all these advantages enjoyed by Sir Willoughby at their full value, he could imagine the ultimate balance of good fortune to be in favour of Vernon. But to do so, he had to reduce the whole calculation to the extreme abstract, and feed his lean friend, as it were, on dew and roots; and the happy effect for Vernon lay in a distant future, on the borders of old age, where he was to be blessed with his lady's regretful preference, and rejoice in the fruits of good constitutional habits. The reviewing mind was Irish. Sir Willoughby was a character of man profoundly opposed to Dr. Corney's nature; the latter's instincts bristled with antagonism--not to his race, for Vernon was of the same race, partly of the same blood, and Corney loved him: the type of person was the annoyance. And the circumstance of its prevailing successfulness in the country where he was placed, while it held him silent as if under a law, heaped stores of insurgency in the Celtic bosom. Corney contemplating Sir Willoughby, and a trotting kern governed by Strongbow, have a point of likeness between them; with the point of difference, that Corney was enlightened to know of a friend better adapted for eminent station, and especially better adapted to please a lovely lady--could these high-bred Englishwomen but be taught to conceive another idea of manliness than the formal carved-in-wood idol of their national worship!
Dr Corney breakfasted very early, without seeing Vernon. He was off to a patient while the first lark of the morning carolled above, and the business of the day, not yet fallen upon men in the shape of cloud, was happily intermixed with nature's hues and pipings. Turning off the high-road tip a green lane, an hour later, he beheld a youngster prying into a hedge head and arms, by the peculiar strenuous twist of whose hinder parts, indicative of a frame plunged on the pursuit in hand, he clearly distinguished young Crossjay. Out came eggs. The doctor pulled up.
"What bird?" he bellowed.
"Yellowhammer," Crossjay yelled back.
"Now, sir, you'll drop a couple of those eggs in the nest."
"Don't order me," Crossjay was retorting. "Oh, it's you, Doctor Corney. Good morning. I said that, because I always do drop a couple back. I promised Mr. Whitford I would, and Miss Middleton too."
"Had breakfast?"
"Not yet."
"Not hungry?"
"Jump up."
"I think I'd rather not, Doctor Corney."
"And you'll just do what Doctor Corney tells you; and set your mind on rashers of curly fat bacon and sweetly smoking coffee, toast, hot cakes, marmalade, and damson-jam. Wide go the fellow's nostrils, and there's water at the dimples of his mouth! Up, my man."
Crossjay jumped up beside the doctor, who remarked, as he touched his horse: "I don't want a man this morning, though I'll enlist you in my service if I do. You're fond of Miss Middleton?"
Instead of answering, Crossjay heaved the sigh of love that bears a burden.
"And so am I," pursued the doctor: "You'll have to put up with a rival. It's worse than fond: I'm in love with her. How do you like that?"
"You're worthy of a gratuitous breakfast in the front parlour of the best hotel of the place they call Arcadia. And about your bed last night?"
"Pretty middling."
"I don't care for bed. A couple of hours, and that's enough for me."
"But you're fond of Miss Middleton anyhow, and that's a virtue."
To his great surprise, Dr. Corney beheld two big round tears force their way out of this tough youngster's eyes, and all the while the boy's face was proud.
Crossjay said, when he could trust himself to disjoin his lips:
"Have you got news for him?"
"I've something to ask him. It's about I ought to do."
Crossjay sighed. "I can't speak to anybody but Mr. Whitford."
"And you're hot to speak to him?"
"I want to."
"And I found you running away from him. You're a curiosity, Mr. Crossjay Patterne."
"Ah! so'd anybody be who knew as much as I do," said Crossjay, with a sober sadness that caused the doctor to treat him seriously.
"I'd rather not go to the Hall," Crossjay spoke resolutely.
"You won't see Miss Middleton anywhere but at the Hall."
"I don't want to see Miss Middleton, if I can't be a bit of use to her."
"No danger threatening the lady, is there?"
Crossjay treated the question as if it had not been put.
"Now, tell me," said Dr. Corney, "would there be a chance for me, supposing Miss Middleton were disengaged?"
The answer was easy. "I'm sure she wouldn't."
"And why, sir, are you so cock sure?"
There was no saying; but the doctor pressed for it, and at last Crossjay gave his opinion that she would take Mr. Whitford.
The doctor asked why; and Crossjay said it was because Mr. Whitford was the best man in the world. To which, with a lusty "Amen to that," Dr. Corney remarked: "I should have fancied Colonel De Craye would have had the first chance: he's more of a lady's man."
Crossjay surprised him again by petulantly saying: "Don't."
The boy added: "I don't want to talk, except about birds and things. What a jolly morning it is! I saw the sun rise. No rain to-day. You're right about hungry, Doctor Corney!"
The kindly little man swung his whip. Crossjay informed him of his disgrace at the Hall, and of every incident connected with it, from the tramp to the baronet, save Miss Middleton's adventure and the night scene in the drawing-room. A strong smell of something left out struck Dr. Corney, and he said: "You'll not let Miss Middleton know of my affection. After all, it's only a little bit of love. But, as Patrick said to Kathleen, when she owned to such a little bit, 'that's the best bit of all!' and he was as right as I am about hungry."
Crossjay scorned to talk of loving, he declared. "I never tell Miss Middleton what I feel. Why, there's Miss Dale's cottage!"
"It's nearer to your empty inside than my mansion," said the doctor, "and we'll stop just to inquire whether a bed's to be had for you there to-night, and if not, I'll have you with me, and bottle you, and exhibit you, for you're a rare specimen. Breakfast you may count on from Mr. Dale. I spy a gentleman."
"It's Colonel De Craye."
"Come after news of you."
"Miss Middleton sends him; of course she does."
Crossjay turned his full face to the doctor. "I haven't seen her for such a long time! But he saw me last night, and he might have told her that, if she's anxious.--Good-morning, colonel. I've had a good walk, and a capital drive, and I'm as hungry as the boat's crew of Captain Bligh."
He jumped down.
The colonel and the doctor saluted, smiling.
"I've rung the bell," said De Craye.
A maid came to the gate, and upon her steps appeared Miss Dale, who flung herself at Crossjay, mingling kisses and reproaches. She scarcely raised her face to the colonel more than to reply to his greeting, and excuse the hungry boy for hurrying indoors to breakfast.
"I'll wait," said De Craye. He had seen that she was paler than usual. So had Dr. Corney; and the doctor called to her concerning her father's health. She reported that he had not yet risen, and took Crossjay to herself.
"I recollect that you set me on my legs, doctor."
"Ah! and you'll please to notify that Corney's no quack at sea, by favour of the monks of the Chartreuse, whose elixir has power to still the waves. And we hear that miracles are done with!"
"Roll a physician and a monk together, doctor!"
"True: it'll be a miracle if they combine. Though the cure of the soul is often the entire and total cure of the body: and it's maliciously said that the body given over to our treatment is a signal to set the soul flying. By the way, colonel, that boy has a trifle on his mind."
"Try him. You'll find him tight. He's got Miss Middleton on the brain. There's a bit of a secret; and he's not so cheerful about it."
"We'll see," said the colonel.
Dr Corney nodded. "I have to visit my patient here presently. I'm too early for him: so I'll make a call or two on the lame birds that are up," he remarked, and drove away.
"You won't entrust me with the smallest word?" said he, and set visibly thinking whether she could dispatch a word. She could not; she had no heart for messages.
"I shall see in a day or two, Colonel De Craye."
"She will miss you severely."
"We shall soon meet."
"And poor Willoughby!"
Laetitia coloured and stood silent.
A butterfly of some rarity allured Crossjay.
"I fear he has been doing mischief," she said. "I cannot get him to look at me."
"His appetite is good?"
"Very good indeed."
De Craye nodded. A boy with a noble appetite is never a hopeless lock.
The colonel and Crossjay lounged over the garden.
"And now," said the colonel, "we'll see if we can't arrange a meeting between you and Miss Middleton. You're a lucky fellow, for she's always thinking of you."
"I know I'm always thinking of her," said Crossjay.
"If ever you're in a scrape, she's the person you must go to."
"Yes, I know where she is!"
"Why, generally she'll be at the Hall."
There was no reply: Crossjay's dreadful secret jumped to his throat. He certainly was a weaker lock for being full of breakfast.
"I want to see Mr. Whitford so much," he said.
"Something to tell him?"
"I don't know what to do: I don't understand it!" The secret wriggled to his mouth. He swallowed it down. "Yes, I want to talk to Mr. Whitford."
"He's another of Miss Middleton's friends."
"I know he is. He's true steel."