Geoffrey Strong

Chapter II. The Young Doctor

"And he certainly is a remarkable young man!" said Miss Phoebe Blyth. "Is he not, Sister Vesta?"

Miss Vesta came out of her reverie; not with a start,--she never started,--but with the quiet awakening, like that of a baby in the morning, that was peculiar to her.

"Yes! oh, yes!" she said. "I consider him so. I think his coming providential."

"How so?" asked the visitor. There was a slight acidity in her tone, for Mrs. Weight was one of the motherly persons mentioned by the minister's wife, and had looked forward to caring for the young doctor herself. With her four children, all croupy, it would have been convenient to have a physician in the house, and as the wife of the senior deacon, what could be more proper?

"I must say he doesn't look remarkable," she added; "but the light-complected seldom do, to my mind."

"It is years," said Miss Vesta, "since Sister Phoebe has suffered so little with her rheumatism. Doctor Strong understands her constitution as no one else ever has done, not even dear Doctor Stedman. Sister Phoebe can stoop down now like a girl; can't you, Sister Phoebe? It is a long time since she has been able to stoop down."

Miss Vesta's soft white face glowed with pleasure; it was a gentle glow, like that at the heart of certain white roses.

Mrs. Weight showed little enthusiasm.

"I never have rheumatism!" she said, briefly. "I've always wore gold beads. If you'd have tried gold beads, Phoebe, or a few raisins in your pocket, it's my belief you'd never have had all this trouble."

It was now Miss Phoebe's turn to colour, but hers was the hard red of a winter pear.

"I am not superstitious, Anna Maria," she said. "Doctor Strong considers gold beads for rheumatism absurd, and I fully agree with him. As for raisins in the pocket, that is nonsense, of course."

"It's best to be sure of your facts before reflecting upon other folks' statements!" said Mrs. Weight, with dignity. "I know whereof I speak, Phoebe. Father Weight is ninety years old this very month, and he has carried raisins for forty years, and never had a twinge of rheumatism in all that time. The same raisins, too; they have hardened into stone, as you may say, with what they have absorbed. I don't need to see things clearer than that."

"H'm!" said Miss Phoebe, with the suspicion of a sniff. "Did he ever have it before?"

"I wasn't acquainted with him before," said Mrs. Weight, stiffly.

There was a pause; then the visitor went on, dropping her voice with a certain mystery. "You may talk of superstition, Phoebe, but I must say I'd sooner be what some folks call superstitious than have no belief at all. I don't wish to reflect upon any person, but I must say that, in my opinion, Doctor Strong is little better than an infidel. To see a perishing human creature set himself up against the Ordering of Providence is a thing I am sorry to meet with in this parish."

"Has Doctor Strong set himself against Providence?" asked Miss Phoebe, her back very rigid, her knitting-needles pointed in stern interrogation.

"You shall judge for yourselves, girls!" Mrs. Weight spoke with unction. "At the same time, I wish it to be understood that what I say is for this room only; I am not one to spread abroad. Well! it has never been doubted, to my knowledge, that the lower animals are permitted to absorb diseases from children, who have immortal souls to save. Even Doctor Stedman, who is advanced enough in all conscience, never denied that in my hearing. Well! Mrs. Ezra Sloper-- I don't know whether you are acquainted with her, girls; I have my butter of her. She lives out on the Saugo Road; a most respectable woman. She has a child with a hump back; fell when it was a baby, and never got over it. I found she wasn't doing anything for the child,--nice little boy, four years old; hump growing right out of his shoulders. I said to her, 'Susan,' I said, 'you want to get a little dog, and let it sleep with that child, and let the child play with it all he can, and get real attached to it. If anything will cure the child, that will.'

"She said, 'Mis' Weight,' she said, 'I'll do it!' and she did. She thanked me, too, as grateful as ever I was thanked. Well, girls,"-- Mrs. Weight leaned forward, her hands on her knees, and spoke slowly and impressively,--"as true as I sit here, in three months' time that dog was humpbacked, and growing more so every day."

She paused, drawing a long breath of triumph, and looked from one to the other of her hearers.

"Well!" said Miss Phoebe, dryly. "Did the child get well? And where does Doctor Strong's infidelity come in?"

"The child would have got well," said Mrs. Weight, with tragic emphasis. "The child might be well, or near it, this living day of time, if the Ordering of Providence had not been interfered with. The child had a spell of stomach trouble, and Doctor Strong was sent for. He ordered the dog out of the house; said it had fleas, and sore eyes, and I don't know what. Susan Sloper is a weak woman, and she gave in, and that child goes humpbacked to its grave. I hope Doctor Strong is prepared to answer for it at the Last Day."

Miss Phoebe laid down her knitting-needles; but before she could reply, Doctor Strong himself came in, bringing the breeze with him.

"How do you do, Mrs. Weight?" he said, heartily. "How is Billy? croupy again? Does he go out every day? Do you keep his window open at night, and give him a cold bath every morning? Fresh air and bathing are absolutely necessary, you know, with that tendency. Have you taken off all that load of flannel?"

Mrs. Weight muttered something about supper-time, and fled before the questioner. The young doctor turned to his hostess, with the quick, merry smile he had. "I had to send her away!" he said. "You are flushed, Miss Blyth, and Miss Vesta is tired. Yes, you are, Miss Vesta; what is the use of denying it?"

He placed a cushion behind Miss Vesta, and she nestled against it with a little comfortable sigh. She looked at the young doctor kindly, and he returned the look with one of frank affection.

"Your mother must have had a sight of comfort with you," said Miss Vesta. "You are a home boy, any one can see that."

"I know when I am well off!" said the young doctor.

Geoffrey Strong certainly was well off. In some singular way, which no one professed wholly to understand, he had won the confidence of both the "Blyth girls," who were usually considered the most exclusive and "stand-offish" people in Elmerton. He made no secret of being in love with Miss Vesta. He declared that no one could see her without being in love with her. "Because you are so lovely, you know!" he said to her half a dozen times a day. The remark never failed to call up a soft blush, and a gentle "Don't, I pray you, my dear young friend; you shock me!"

"But I like to shock you," the young doctor would reply. "You look prettiest when you are shocked." And then Miss Vesta would shake her pretty white curls (she was not more than sixty, but her hair had been gray since her youth), and say that if he went on so she must really call Sister Phoebe; and Master Geoffrey would go off laughing.

He did not make love to Miss Phoebe, but was none the less intimate with her in frank comradeship. Rheumatism was their first bond. Doctor Strong meant to make rather a specialty of rheumatism and kindred complaints, and studied Miss Phoebe's case with ardour. Every new symptom was received with kindling eye and eager questionings. It was worst in her back this morning? So! now how would she describe the pain? Was it acute, darting, piercing? No? Dull, then! Would she call it grinding, boring, pressing? Ah! that was most interesting. And for other symptoms--yes! yes! that naturally followed; he should have expected that.

"In fact, Miss Blyth, you really are a magnificent case!" and the young doctor glowed with enthusiasm. (This was when he first came to live in the Temple of Vesta.) "I mean to relieve your suffering; I'll put every inch there is of me into it. But, meantime, there ought to be some consolation in the knowledge that you are a most beautiful and interesting case."

What woman,--I will go farther,--what human being could withstand this? Miss Phoebe was a firm woman, but she was clay in the hands of the young doctor,--the more so that he certainly did help her rheumatism wonderfully.

More than this, their views ran together in other directions. Both disapproved of matrimony, not in the abstract, but in the concrete and personal view. They had long talks together on the subject, after Miss Vesta had gone to bed, sitting in the quaint parlour, which both considered the pleasantest room in the world. The young doctor, tongs in hand (he was allowed to pick up the brands and to poke the fire, a fire only less sacred than that of Miss Vesta's lamp), would hold forth at length, to the great edification of Miss Phoebe, as she sat by her little work-table knitting complacently.

"It's all right for most men," he would say. "It steadies them, and does them good in a hundred ways. Oh, yes, I approve highly of marriage, as I am sure you do, Miss Blyth; but not for a physician, at least a young physician. A young physician must be able to give his whole thought, his whole being, so to speak, to his profession. There's too much of it for him to divide himself up. Why, take a single specialty; take rheumatism. If I gave my lifetime, or twenty lifetimes, to the study of that one malady, I should not begin to learn the A B C of it."

"One learns a good deal when one has it!" said poor Miss Phoebe.

"Yes, of course, and I am speaking the simple truth when I say that I wish I could have it for you, Miss Blyth. I should have--it would be most instructive, most illuminating. Some day we shall have all that regulated, and medical students will go through courses of disease as well as of study. I look forward to that, though it will hardly come in my time. Rheumatism and kindred diseases, say two terms; fever, two terms--no, three, for you would want to take in yellow and typhus, as well as ordinary typhoid. Cholera--well, of course there would be difficulties, but you see the principle. Well, but we were talking about marriage. Now, you see, with all these new worlds opening before him, the physician cannot possibly be thinking of falling in love--"

Miss Phoebe blinked, and coloured slightly. She sometimes wished Doctor Strong would not use such forcible language.

"Of falling in love and marrying. In common justice to his wife, he has no business to marry her; I mean, of course, the person who might be his wife. Up all night, driving about the country all day,-- no woman ought to be asked to share such a life. In fact, the one reason that might justify a physician in marrying--and I admit it might be a powerful one--would be where it afforded special facilities for the study of disease. An obscure and complicated case of neurasthenia, now,--but these things are hardly practicable; besides, a man would have to be a Mormon. No, no, let lawyers marry young; business men, parsons,--especially parsons, because they need filling out as a rule,--but not doctors."

The young doctor paused, and gave his whole vigorous mind to the fire for a moment. It was in a precarious condition, and the brands had to be built up in careful and precise fashion, with red coals tucked in neatly here and there. Then he took the bellows in hand, and blew steadily and critically, with keen eyes bent on the smouldering brands. A few seconds of breathless waiting, and a jet of yellow flame sprang up, faltered, died out, sprang up again, and crept flickering in and out among the brands powdered white with ashes. Now it was a strong, leaping flame, and all the room shone out in its light; the ancient Turkey carpet, with its soft blending of every colour into a harmonious no-colour; the quaint portraits, like court-cards in tarnished gilt frames; the teak-wood chairs and sofas, with their delicate spindle-legs, and backs inlaid with sandalwood; Miss Phoebe's work-table, with its bag of faded crimson damask, and Miss Phoebe herself, pleasant to look upon in her dove-coloured cashmere gown, with her kerchief of soft net.

The young doctor, glancing around, saw all these things in the light of his newly-resuscitated fire; and seeing, gave a little sigh of comfort, and laying down the bellows, leaned back in his chair again.

"You were going to say something, Miss Blyth?" he said, in his eager way. "Please go on! I had to save the fire, don't you know? it was on its last legs--coals, I should say. Please go on, won't you?"

Miss Phoebe coughed. She had been brought up not to use the word "leg" freely; "limb" had been considered more elegant, as well as-- but medical men, no doubt, took a broader view of these matters.

"I was merely about to remark," she said, with dignity, "that in many ways my views on this subject coincide with yours, Doctor Strong. I have the highest respect for--a--matrimony; it is a holy estate, and the daughter of my honoured parents could ill afford to think lightly of it; yet in a great many cases I own it appears to me a sad waste of time and energy. I have noted in my reading, both secular and religious, that though the married state is called holy, the term 'blessed' is reserved for a single life. Women of clinging nature, or those with few interests, doubtless do well to marry, a suitable partner being provided; but for a person with the full use of her faculties, and with rational occupation more than sufficient to fill her time, I admit I am unable to conceive the attraction of it. I speak for myself; my sister Vesta has other views. My sister Vesta had a disappointment in early life. From my point of view, she would have been far better off without the unfortunate attachment which--though to a very worthy person--terminated so sadly. But my sister is not of my opinion. She has a clinging, affectionate nature, my sister Vesta."

"She's an angel!" said Doctor Strong.

"You are right, my friend, you are very right!" said Miss Phoebe; and her cap strings trembled with affection. "There is an angelic quality, surely, in my sister Vesta. She might have been happy--I trust she would have been--if Providence had been pleased to call her to the married estate. But for me, Doctor Strong, no! I have always said, and I shall always say, while I have the use of my faculties--no! I thank you for the honour you do me; I appreciate the sentiments to which you have given utterance; but I can never be yours."

To any third party who had seen Miss Phoebe, drawn up erect in her chair, uttering these words with chiselled majesty, and Doctor Strong, bellows in hand, his bright eyes fixed upon her, receiving them with kindling attention, it might certainly have appeared as if he had been making her an offer of marriage; but the thought would have been momentary, for when the good lady ceased, the young doctor chimed in heartily:

"Quite right! quite right, I'm sure, Miss Blyth. He'd be absurd to think of such a thing, you know; the idea of your wasting your time! That's what I say to fellows; 'How can you waste your time, when you'll be dead before you know it anyhow, and not have had time to look about you, much less learn anything?' No, sir,--I beg your pardon, ma'am! A single life for me. My own time, my own will, and my own way!"

Miss Phoebe looked at him with very kind eyes.

"Doctor Strong," she said, "I think--it is no light thing for me to say, holding the convictions I do--but I think you are worthy of single blessedness!"