Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1749 page)

Frederick gently lathered his master’s chin, and answered, ‘Just so, sir.’

V

Otto breakfasted in his own room.

His mother’s maid brought word that her ladyship was ill in bed, with a sick headache: she would see Mr Fitzmark towards luncheon time. The valet not being present to draw his own conclusions, Otto privately extracted information from the maid. Miss Doctor Pillico would professionally visit Sir John, at her usual hour — two o’clock. And in what part of the house would Sir John receive her? He looked at himself in the glass when he put that question. The maid began to understand the nature of his interest in the medical young woman. She took the liberty of smiling, and answered, ‘In the library, sir.’

Towards two o’clock, Otto called for his hat and cane, and said he would take a turn in the garden.

Before he went downstairs he once more surveyed himself in the glass. Yes: he could not have been more becomingly dressed — and he looked, in his own delicate way, surprisingly well. His auburn hair and whiskers; his fair complexion; his sensitive mouth, and his long white hands were in perfect order. In the garden he met Young John, sulkily smoking.

‘How is Bess?’ he asked indulgently. Young John answered, ‘I don’t know; I’ve not been on speaking terms with my sister since yesterday.’ ‘And how is your father?’ Young John answered, ‘I don’t care. He told me last week I was a sulky lout, and he has not apologised yet; I don’t speak to
him,
either.’ Otto left his half-brother, cordially agreeing with his half-brother’s father.

The library opened, by means of French windows, on the terrace. He picked a flower for his button-hole, and sauntered that way. The windows being open, he entered the room in a genial impulsive manner. ‘Ha, Sir John, how are you? Oh, I beg your pardon!’

Sir John was seated bolt upright in his chair, looking at vacancy, and drawing in and puffing out his breath in a highly elabourate manner. A finely-developed young woman, with brown hair and eyes, and warm rosy cheeks, dressed to perfection in a style of severe simplicity, was sitting close by him. Her arm was around his neck, and her ear was at his breast. So absorbed was this charming creature in listening that she held up a pretty plump little hand, in mute entreaty for silence. ‘Yes,’ she said, in clear, positive tones, ‘you confirm my diagnosis, Sir John; I persist in saying that your medical attendant has mistaken the case.’ Her bright resolute eyes, turning towards Otto, softened as they rested on his beautiful hair and his sensitive lips: a little increase of colour deepened the delicately ruddy tint of her cheeks. ‘Pray excuse me,’ she resumed, with a captivating smile; ‘I am, in a professional point of view, naturally interested in Sir John. His life is public property: if I make any mistake here, I disgrace myself — and my cause! — in the eyes of the nation.’ Otto’s countenance preserved a gravity worthy of his valet. ‘Permit me to introduce myself,’ he said, ‘before I renew my apologies. I am Sir John’s step-son, Otto Fitzmark.’ The charming Doctor bowed with a look of modest interest. Sir John did what he had done from the first — he sat in solemn silence, looking foolish. It was not everybody who remembered that he had once been Lord Mayor of London, and who attended to him as a famous personage. It was also the first occasion (for at least forty years past) on which he had felt the arm of a handsome young woman round his neck, and the head of a handsome young woman on his breast. Add that the fair physician had said, on the first day of her attendance, ‘It is a rule of mine never to accept fees from public characters’ — and the catalogue of Sir John’s overwhelming emotions will be complete.

‘I can only atone for my intrusion in one way,’ Otto proceeded. ‘Permit me to hope for an early opportunity of improving our acquaintance — and to return to the garden.’

‘Not on
my
account, Mr Fitzmark! In any other case, my visit would be at an end. But I am perhaps morbidly anxious to “make assurance doubly sure” (the words of Shakespeare, I think?) in the case of Sir John. Besides, I have the prejudice of the world against me; always on the look-out for an opportunity of asserting that a woman is not fit to be a doctor.’

This seemed to be the right place for a burst of enthusiasm: Otto did it with perfect tact and dexterity. ‘Miss Pillico, I sincerely sympathise with you in the battle you are fighting against ignorance and stupidity. The Woman-Movement, in all its departments, has my heartfelt admiration and good wishes!’ His heavenly blue eyes became irresistible as this expression of generous feeling escaped him.

Sophia was too proud and too grateful to be able to reply in words. She rewarded the friend of the Women by a look — and turned with a sigh to business and Sir John.

‘May I try once more before I write my prescription?’ she asked. ‘No, my dear sir, your back this time. Lean well forward — so — and now draw a long breath.’ Her pretty hand grasped his shoulder, and her little rosy ear pressed (medically pressed) Sir John’s broad back.

At this interesting moment the library door opened. Lady Dowager appeared — and paused indignantly on the threshold. Otto advanced to salute his mother. Her ladyship waved him back with one hand, and pointed to the Doctor and the patient with the other. Sir John visibly trembled. Sophia kept her ear at his back as composedly as if nothing had happened.

‘Look at her!’ said Lady Dowager, addressing Otto in the muffled monotonous tones peculiar to the deaf. ‘Hugging my husband before my face — and he seventy-four years old, last birthday. You unnatural hussy, let go of him.
You
a doctor indeed? I know what you are. Fie! fie!’

‘My dear mother!’

‘I can’t hear you, Otto.’

‘My dear mother!’

‘Yes, yes; I’ll kiss you directly. Look at that old fool, your step-father!
He
a knight;
he
an alderman? Ha! ha! a nasty, mangy, rusty old Tom-cat. I won’t live with him any longer. You’re a witness, Otto — you see what’s going on in that chair — I’ll have a divorce. Ha! look at her hair,’ said Lady Dowager, as Sir John’s physician quietly lifted her head from Sir John’s back — ’look at her hair, all rumpled with her horrid passions. I blush for my sex. Fie, Miss Pillico — fie!’

Sophia sat down at the desk, and wrote her prescription. ‘Two tablespoonfuls, Sir John, by measure glass, three times in the twenty-four hours. Your lungs are as sound as mine. Suppressed gout — that’s what is the matter with you — suppressed gout.’

She put on her bonnet (laid aside in the interests of auscultation), and held out her hand to Otto, with modest frankness. ‘A friend to my cause, Mr Fitzmark, is
my
friend. Your excellent mother,’ she continued, encountering the furious eyes of Lady Dowager with a little pleasant smile, ‘is naturally prejudiced against me. Early education — on the narrow stand-point of fifty years since — has much to answer for. I am sorry to have made this excellent lady angry; and I heartily forgive the heard words she has said to me. On the day after to-morrow, Sir John, I will look in, and see what my prescription has done for you. Thank you, Mr Fitzmark, I have no carriage to call; I am not rich enough to keep a carriage. Besides, my next visit is only next door. Ah, you know the Skirtons? The daughter is indeed a sweet girl. And the dear old father,’ Miss Pillico added, demurely announcing the medical conquest of another elderly gentleman, ‘is my patient. Neuralgia, ignorantly treated as pure rheumatism. Good morning, my lady.’

She bowed respectfully to the formidable enemy of the Rights of Women — posted at the doorway, and following her with glaring eyes as she glided out.

‘Ha! she’s going to the other old fool now,’ said Lady Dowager. ‘Susannah and the Elders! Do you hear, Miss Pillico? I call you Susannah and the Elders!’ She turned to her guilty husband (rising to retreat), with a look which threw him back into his chair. ‘
Now,
Sir John!’

Otto was too wise to remain in the room. He slipped into the garden.

After taking a turn or two, reflection convinced him that it was his duty to pay a visit next door. He had an opportunity of comparing two different orders of beauty, as represented by Sophia and Salome, which it would be injudicious on his part to neglect. A man of his tastes would be naturally interested in comparing the two girls together. At the same time, he had not ceased to feel the attraction that had lured him back to London: he was true to his young lady. When he entered Mr Skirton’s house, it was with loyal conviction that Salome’s superiority would be proved by comparison.

V
I

In ten day’s time events had made a great advance. Miss Pillico’s patients felt the powerful influence of Miss Pillico treatment. Sir John’s improved health bore witness to the capacity of his new doctor; Mr Skirton was well enough to give a small musical party at his house; Mr Otto Fitzmark, false to Mrs Wholebrook and Hydropathy, was entered triumphantly on Miss Pillico’s sick list. Last, but by no means least, Lady Dowager had anticipated her divorce by retiring to the seaside.

The case of Mr Fitzmark was not sufficiently formidable, in the opinion of his new physician, to seclude him from the pleasures of Society. He was allowed to accept an invitation to Mr and Mrs Skirton’s musical entertainment — and, by a happy combination of circumstances, he and his medical adviser entered the drawing-room together.

The primitive little party began at eight o’clock. By half-past eleven, the guests had retired, the master and mistress of the house has gone to bed — and Mr and Mrs Crossmichael and Salome were left together in an empty room.

Mrs Crossmichael issued her orders to her husband. ‘Go to the club, and return in half-an-hour. You needn’t come in again. Wait for me in the cab.’

The one person in the way having been disposed of, the conference between the sisters began.

‘Now, Salome, we can have a little talk. You have been wretchedly out of spirits all the evening.’

‘You would have been out of spirits, Lois, in my place, if you had seen them come into the room together as if they were man and wife already!’

‘Aggravating,’ Mrs Crossmichael admitted; ‘but you might have controlled yourself when you went to the piano; I never heard you play so badly. Let us get back to Mr Fitzmark. My opinion of him doesn’t matter — I may, and do, think him a poor effeminate creature, quite unworthy of such a girl as you are. The question is, what do
you
think? Are you, or are you not, seriously in love with him?’

‘I know it’s weak of me,’ Salome answered piteously; ‘and I haven’t got any reasons to give. Oh, Lois, I do love him!’

‘Stop!’ said Mrs Crossmichael. ‘If you begin to cry, I leave you to your fate. Stop it! stop it! I won’t have your eyes dim; I won’t have your nose red. I want your eyes, and I want your nose, for my argument.’

This extraordinary announcement effectually controlled the flow of Salome’s tears.

‘Now look at me,’ the resolute lady resumed. ‘Yes, you will do. You see the glass, at the other end of the room. Go, and look at yourself. I mean what I say. Go!’

Salome obeyed, and contemplated the style of beauty, immortalised by Byron in one line: ‘A kind of sleepy Venus was Dudu.’ The glass drew a pretty picture, presenting soft drowsy languishing grey eyes — plentiful hair, bright with the true golden colour, as distinguished from the hideous counterfeit — a pure pale complexion, a mild smile, and a weak little chin, made to be fondled and kissed. A more complete contrast to the brown and brisk beauty of Sophia Pillico could not have been found, through the whole range of female humanity.

‘Well,’ said Mrs Crossmichael, ‘are you quite satisfied that you have no reason to be afraid of Sophia, on personal grounds? Yes! yes! I know it’s
his
opinion that is of importance to us — but I want you to be confident. Sophia is confident; and humility is thrown away upon the molly-coddle who has taken your foolish fancy. Come, and sit by me. There was a fat guest in my way, when Mr Fitzmark said good night. Did he squeeze your hand; and did he look at you — like this?’

Mrs Crossmichael’s eyes assumed an amorous expression.

Salome blushed, and said, ‘Yes, he did.’

‘Now another question. When you got up from the piano (Chopin would have twisted your neck, and you would have deserved it, for murdering his music) Mr Fitzmark followed you into a corner. I saw that he was tender and confidential — did he come to the point? How stupid you are, Salome! Did he make a proposal?’