VERNER’S PRIDE.
BY THE AUTHORESS OF “EAST LYNNE.”
CHAPTER XXXIX. MRS. DUFF’S BILL.
Peal! peal! peal! came the sound of the night-bell at Jan’s window as he lay in bed. For Jan had caused the night-bell to be hung there since he was factotum.
“Where’s the good of waking-up the house?” remarked Jan: and he made the alteration.
Jan got up with the first sound, and put his head out at the window. Upon which, Hook—for he was the applicant—advanced. Jan’s window being, as you may remember, nearly on a level with the ground, presented favourable auspices for holding a face to face colloquy with night visitors.
“She’s mortal bad, sir,” was Hook’s salutation.
“Who is?” asked Jan. “Alice, or the missis?”
“Not the missis, sir. The other. But I shouldn’t ha’ liked to trouble you, if you hadn’t ordered me.”
“I won’t be two minutes,” said Jan.
It seemed to Hook that Jan was only one, so speedily did he come out. A belief was popular in Deerham that Mr. Jan slept with his clothes on: no sooner would a night summons be delivered to Jan, than Jan was out with the summoner, ready for the start. Before he had closed the surgery door, through which he had to pass, there came another peal, and a woman ran up to him. Jan recognised her for the cook of a wealthy lady in the Belvedere Road, a Mrs. Ellis.
“Law, sir! what a provident mercy that you are up and ready!” exclaimed she. “My mistress is attacked again.”
“Well, you know what to do,” returned Jan. “You don’t want me.”
“But she do want you, sir. I have got orders not to go back without you.”
“I suppose she has been eating cucumber again,” remarked Jan.
“Only a bit of it, sir. About the half of a small one, she took for her supper. And now the spasms is on her dreadful.”
“Of course they are,” replied Jan. “She knows how cucumber serves her. Well, I can’t come. I’ll send Mr. Cheese, if you like. But he can do no more good than you can. Give her the drops and get the hot flannels; that’s all.”
“You are going out, sir!” cried the woman, in a tone that sounded as if she would like to be impertinent. “You are come for him, I suppose?” turning a sharp tongue upon Hook.
“Yes, I be,” humbly replied Hook. “Poor Ally—”
The woman set up a scream. “You’d attend her, that miserable castaway, afore you’d attend my mistress!” burst out she to Jan. “Who’s Ally Hook, by the side of folks of standing?”
“If she wants attendance, she must have it,” was the composed return of Jan. “She has got a body and a soul to be saved, as other folks have. She is in danger; your mistress is not.”
“Danger! What has that got to do with it?” angrily answered the woman. “You’ll never get paid there, sir.”
“I don’t expect it,” returned Jan. “If you’d like Cheese, that’s his window,” pointing to one in the house. “Throw a handful of gravel up, and tell him I said he was to attend.”
Jan walked off with Hook. He heard a crash of gravel behind him; so, concluded the cook was flinging at Mr. Cheese’s window in a temper. As she certainly was: giving Mr. Jan some hard words in the process. Just as Lady Verner had never been able to inculcate suavity on Jan, so Dr. West had found it a hopeless task to endeavour to make Jan understand that, in medical care, the rich should be considered before the poor. Take, for example, that bête noire of Deerham just now, Alice Hook, and put her by the side of a born duchess, Jan would have gone to the one who had most need of him, without reference to who they were or what they were. Evidently there was little hope for Jan.
Jan, with his long legs, outstripped the stooping and hard-worked labouring man. In at the door and up the stairs he went, into the sleeping room.
Did you ever pay a visit to a room of this social grade? If not, you will deem the introduction of this one highly coloured. Had Jan been a head and shoulders shorter he might have been able to stand up in the lean-to attic, without touching the lath and plaster of the roof. On a low bedstead, on a flock mattress, lay the mother and two children, about eight and ten. How they made room for Hook also, was a puzzle. Opposite to it, on a straw mattress, slept three sons, grown up, or nearly so; between these beds was another straw mattress where lay Alice and her sister, a year younger: no curtains, no screens, no anything. All were asleep, with the exception of the mother and Alice: the former could not rise from her bed; Alice appeared too ill to rise from hers. Jan stooped his head, and entered.
A few minutes, and he set himself to arouse the sleepers. They might make themselves comfortable in the kitchen, he told them, for the rest of the night: he wanted room in the place to turn himself round, and they must go out of it. And so he bundled them out. Jan was not given to stand upon ceremony. But it is not a pleasant room to linger in, so we will leave Jan to it.
It was pleasanter at Lady Verner’s. Enough of air, and light, and accommodation there. But even in that desirable residence it was not all couleur de rose. Vexations intrude into the most luxurious home, whatever may be the superfluity of room, the admirable style of the architecture: and they were just now agitating Deerham Court.
On the morning which rose on the above night—as lovely a morning as ever September gave us—Lady Verner and Lucy Tempest received each a