Chapter XXII The Warning
On the same morning, at breakfast, Miss H. R. Maybury informed Jim that her sister was to be married to Harold Jefferson at the end of January.
Miss Maybury kept a careful watch on Jim’s face while she imparted this piece of news, for she, like her stepmother, had for some time suspected the young doctor of not being entirely indifferent to Dora. Of the latter’s attitude towards Dr Mortimer Miss H. R. Maybury was in a state of aggravating doubt. She had a shrewd idea that Dora, on her part, was not insensible to such charms as Jim might possess, but she was not sure about it. She had quite unsuccessfully endeavoured to “draw” Dora on the subject, but Dora had listened to H. R.’s references to Jim with a blank countenance that told no tales and gave nothing away.
On this occasion Jim was taken quite by surprise, and his face yielded up his secret. H. R., warily observing his expression, saw that she had been correct in her surmise. Dr Mortimer was in love with her sister!
“Indeed!” said Jim confusedly. “Rather soon, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it has been a very short engagement,” returned H. R.—“in fact, I don’t think myself that Dora ought to be married until she’s at least twenty—she is so very young for her age! What do you think?”
“It has never struck me that she was,” replied Jim, beginning to regain his self-possession.
“She is still a child in her thoughts,” Miss Maybury declared.
Jim, framing his opinion on the events of a certain walk Dora and he had taken in the Crescent one night, thought otherwise, but thought it quite to himself.
“However,” continued Miss Maybury, “it appears that Mr Jefferson has been advised by Dr Taplow to go abroad for a few months—until the worst of the winter is over.”
“He looks delicate,” said Jim, grimly.
“Yes, I’m afraid his chest is not too strong. Well, as I was saying, he has got to go abroad, and, as he can’t bear to leave Dora all that time, he thinks that the best plan will be for them to get married at once.”
Jim wondered whether Mr Jefferson’s delicate chest was his sole reason for hurrying on the marriage.
“And so now,” concluded Miss Maybury, “it will be all bustle and milliners until the important day, and I am afraid you poor men will be made rather uncomfortable.”
“Oh, you mustn’t mind us,” said Jim, good-humouredly; “we can have our meals on the stairs, if you like.”
And so, with a laugh, Jim got on to his long legs and departed to his surgery, leaving Miss Maybury wondering more than ever whether Dora had given him any secret encouragement.
Jim whistled in a melancholy, stolid way as he walked along Blackfriars Road to his work. So Dora Maybury was to be married in a month. One month! And that would be the end of the little romance which had started in a tea-shop at mid-summer, when he, Jim, first saw a face which had haunted him ever since.
Dora was to be married in a month’s time, and the face would vanish, and he didn’t suppose he would ever care about another girl all his life long.
“For if I live to a hundred,” thought Jim, still staunch to his lady-love, “I shall never meet such an angel again. Henceforth, J. Mortimer, you’ve got to settle down to a bachelor existence. It’s Dora or nobody, and, as it can’t be Dora, it must be nobody.”
It was lucky for Jim that he found heaps of work awaiting him in the shape of a long queue of humble patients, for he had no time to brood over his sorrows. He had to anoint unsavoury sores and bind up ugly wounds; he had to listen to long tales of neuralgias, sleepless nights, cramps, and the olla podrida of small woes to which our human flesh is heir—and heiress. It was chiefly heiress, as we have before remarked, at the Mount Street surgery. And Jim, of course, had to listen very carefully, for sometimes he found himself face to face with a malignant disease—something that called for prompt and accurate diagnosis. Love and lovers’ thoughts must be driven into the background when a doctor finds himself gazing on a waxen-faced morsel of humanity which, unbeknown to its mother, has the seeds of diphtheria apparent in its wee throat—and such cases were presented to Jim in plenty. The dire complaints which came into Jim’s surgery seemed to be shed upon him by a beneficent Providence, for they brought out the man and the surgeon, and bade the love-sick swain forget his own woes in the bodily ills of his fellow-creatures.
After the visiting patients had been dealt with, Jim went out upon his rounds. He returned to his surgery about tea-time, and had not been long back when the Chinaman adorning the mantelpiece was precipitated on to his face, and a sound of shuffling steps proceeded from the waiting-room.
“Come in!” bawled Jim, who was reading an evening paper by the fire. “Old Harris, I’ll bet a dollar,” he added to himself.
He had guessed aright. Mr Harris it was, but this time his disorder was something more substantial than a feeling as if his hair were being brushed. In point of fact, the face of the junior partner in the firm of Harris & Father was decorated with scratches.
The old man sank into a chair.
“I’ve come over for a box of ointment, doctor. You see these marks on my face?”
“They’re pretty visible,” said Jim.
“Rebecca!” explained the old man, in a hollow voice.
“Miss Nathan?”
“Yes, that was the party vot done it.”
“Showing her affection for her future father-in-law rather early in the day?” ventured Jim.
“Father-in-law?—not me! She’ll never marry that velp Isaac. She’s about finished vith ‘im!”
“That’s good news,” said Jim. “Who’s the new young man?”
“Vy,” said the provision dealer, “I’m thinkin’ she’ll be after you next, doctor!”
“Me!” said Jim, looking so amazed that the old Jew was seized with a most unpleasant spasm of mirth.
“Yes, ever since you chucked Isaac out that night,” he explained, “she’s referred to you in an admirin’ vay vich turns Isaac simply yeller. Yes, I told you she’d marry a gentleman, and you’re ’er choice, my dear sir!”
And again the old man’s throat gave out a croaking wheeze which, by a lurid effort of the imagination, might be described as laughter.
“So you will understand,” added Mr Harris, “that Isaac don’t love yer. In fact, I believe ’e set those ‘Ooligans on yer in Pine Court.”
“You think that?” inquired Jim, sharply.
“It’s a bad thing to say of one’s own flesh an’ blood,” returned Mr Harris, “but I think ’e did. I want to varn yer, doctor; keep yer eye open, for them ruffians ain’t done vith yer yet—nor ’as Isaac.”
“You imagine they’ll have another go at me?” said Jim.
“I do,” said the old man, “and next time they’ll make dead sure of yer. They’re not men—they’re wolves. They never forgive. That’s their natur’—and Isaac’s.”
Jim pulled at his pipe thoughtfully. He felt that the old Jew, despite Isaac’s unfilial conduct, would not have denounced his own son in this way if there had not been serious reasons for his so doing.
“I’ll remember your warning, Mr Harris,” he said at length; “and now,” he added, “let me see what I can do for you. Stand here by the gas, will you?”
The old man obeyed.
“She went for you pretty hard,” remarked Jim, proceeding to mix up some healing ointment for his patient; “how did it happen?”
“Like this,” said Mr Harris. “Last night Isaac and I vos invited to spend the evenin’ at the Nathans. On’y she and ’er brother vos there—the old ‘uns vos out. ’Er brother is a big loud feller, and despises Isaac. Vell, ve set down to cards—‘Uncle Sam’ vos the game——”
“A tricky one, too,” put in Jim.
“So ve found,” added the provision dealer, “for Rebecca, she von nearly ev’ry pool. After a bit I votched ’er close, and found some of the cards vos marked. So I says: ‘Rebecca,’ I says, ‘you ain’t playin’ fair,’ I says. ‘Vot!’ she cries, colourin’ up. ‘Vy,’ I says, ’you’re cheatin’, my dear!’ Yes, I said that—to ’er face—and she up and let me ’ave ’er nails—all ten of ’em—down my face, an’ ’er brother ‘e says if I vosn’t an old man ‘e’d throw me out of the ’ouse. Yes, ‘e said that. And I says, ‘Isaac,’ I says, ‘vill you see your old fader used in this vay, vithout raisin’ a ’and to ’elp ’im?’ But Isaac was turnin’ green an’ pink, and didn’t dare say nothink, so ven I’d got out of Rebecca’s clutches I ups vith my glass of gin-and-vater an’ lets Rebecca’s brother ’ave it full in the face, an’ then I gets ‘old of the poker an’ I says: ‘Touch me,’ I says, ‘an’ I’ll rap you over the skull,’ I says. Yes, like that! And he daren’t put a finger on me, so I gets my ’at an’ off I goes, and if they’ve got my money I’ve got their poker—yes, and I’ll keep it, too—yes, and that’s vot ’appened, doctor dear.”
“Bravo!” said Jim, who had listened to this improving story with all possible interest. “You’re quite a scrapper, Mr Harris.”
But the old man, whose eyes had burnt fiercely during his recital of the incident, sat down with a sigh.
“But it’s vorse than ever at ’ome, now,” he said. “Isaac, ’e’s like a vild beast. ’E sees vot Rebecca is, and yet ’e’s mad after ’er still. Yes, that’s ’is state.”
It was hardly to be supposed that Jim would evince any sympathy for the young Jew, knowing, as he did, that Isaac had put the Hooligans on his track in Pine Court that night. But Jim felt for the old dealer.
“Now, look here, Mr Harris,” he said, “if you pull up and play the man you can get that business back, and be your own master again.”
But the dealer shook his head. A reaction had followed his animated account of the card-party, and he seemed to have shrunk into a smaller and older man than he really was.
He took the ointment Jim handed to him and put on his hat. His grey locks were unkempt, his clothes shabby and unbrushed, his eyes dim. He presented, indeed, a pathetic spectacle. Bidding Jim good evening, the old Jew, with bowed shoulders, crept out of the surgery, and trudged away through the December drizzle to resume his joyless tasks at the provision shop.
For some time Jim sat by his fire thinking over the words of warning Mr Harris had uttered. Next time, the provision dealer had said, the Hooligans would make sure of him.
Of a sudden, a pebble crashed through the waiting-room window. Jim started to his feet, hurried into the passage, and threw open the front door. Mount Street was the picture of desolation; a light, clammy rain was descending steadily, and the pavements were deserted. One figure, however, was plainly visible by the lamp-post on the opposite pavement—that of a man with his head bound up.
In a flash Jim recognised him as one of the gang that had assaulted him in Pine Court—this was the man, indeed, whom he had knocked down early in the proceedings.
Instantly on making this discovery Jim strode across the road. As quickly the man vanished down an alley. Jim, reaching the entrance to the alley, hesitated. Might not this fellow be acting as a decoy?
Jim had learnt prudence. Slowly he turned on his heel and went back to the surgery. Closing the street door, he resumed his chair by the fire, and in a narrow street just off the alley a group of Hooligans, baffled again, uttered curses of disappointment as they slowly dispersed about their bad business.