Генри Райдер Хаггард: Mary of Marion Isle

«Strike that out,» interrupted Andrew, «for I have done it already. Nothing can make him hate me more than he does.»

«– who,» went on Clara, taking no notice, «with all his enormous interest would otherwise have been able to help you to a career in almost any walk of life that offers rewards at the end of it – or earlier —»

«To those with relatives whose money gives them direct or indirect means of corruption and thereby of lifting the undeserving over the heads of the deserving,» suggested Andrew.

Again she shrugged her shoulders, and went on:

«Next, you will starve. Your Socialist medical man won’t pay you anything, and such an appointment will lead you nowhere.»

«Don’t alarm yourself, Clare. I haven’t the slightest fear of suffering from the want of proper nutriment. Food is cheap in the East End, and a couple of pints of stout will furnish as much stimulant as is desirable in twenty-four hours. Also, if I pass in Surgery, as I think I shall, I have every hope that my hospital will not entirely cast me off. Perhaps you didn’t know, Clara, that surgery is my only love, that I have a natural instinct that way and, if I may say so, a flair for diagnosis. For instance, there is a gland in your neck that I long to remove, although you may not be aware of the thing. It spoils the proportions and under certain circumstances may be dangerous some day.»

«Please leave my glands alone,» said Clara. «I don’t know what glands are.»

«Then why did you lift your hand and touch that to which I alluded, Clara, not knowing that I cultivate the art of observation? Any competent physician will tell you that it might become the seat of tubercle, to which all our family are prone.»

«You won’t frighten me with your talk of glands,» replied Clara quite calmly, «or because one side of my neck swells when I have a cold. Well, if you give no weight to my arguments, what are yours? What you have to urge in favour of the course of life which you propose to follow?»

Andrew drew himself up and threw his cigarette into the fire. In a moment his whole aspect changed. From that of a somewhat annoying, assertive and egotistical youth, it became one of an earnest young man animated by a great purpose.

«I’ll tell you if you will open your mind and are sufficiently interested to listen,» he said. «I have this to urge: that our time here is short, and that whatever we understand by God Almighty lays upon us the duty of making of it the best use possible, not only for our own sakes, but for that of the world in which we live, according to the opportunities that may be given to us. Now mine, I know, are very humble. I am nobody and nothing, a person without prospects.» (Here Clara opened her innocent-looking eyes and stared at him.) «But I believe that I have some ability in a certain line and I intend to use it to the best of my power in serving my fellow-men. An opportunity of doing so has come to me in a locality where my fellow-men, and women and children, are more numerous and probably more miserable than they are anywhere else upon the earth. In these circumstances I do not intend to allow my person advantage, or what seems to be my advantage as you see it, to weigh with me. That is my answer.»

«And a jolly good one, too,» exclaimed Algernon, suddenly sitting up amidst his sofa-cushions among which he had seemed to be somnolent, and breaking into the conversation.

«You’re a real sport, Andrew, more power to your elbow! I’m no use, I know, and never shall be,» here by accident or design he coughed, «but,» he added with an outburst of genuine felling, «I respect you, old fellow, whatever Clara may think.»

«Please leave my thoughts out of the question, Algernon,» said Clara with severity. «Perhaps I also respect Andrew. But I try to look all round things and not to be carried away by sudden enthusiasms, and I think that in his own interests he is making a mistake. He would do better to fall in with his uncle’s wishes, or prejudices if you choose to call them so.»

«And I think that I shall do better to fall in with what I consider to be my duty, and to leave my interests to look after themselves, Clara. That, however, is no particular virtue on my part, since they do not excite me.»

«Which means that you are going to be a slum doctor, Andrew.»

«Yes, my dear, that’s what it means, also that if you happen to meet me when you are driving in the Atterton carriage and pair, I shall not expect you to recognize your humble relative.»

«Don’t be silly, Andrew. You wouldn’t if you only knew how ridiculous you become when you are on your high horse.»

«High horse! A neat repartee for the carriage and pair, on which I congratulate you, Clara. But don’t let’s wrangle. Our lines are laid in different places, that is all, and I dare say we shan’t see much of each other in the future, so we had best part friends. Good-bye, old girl,» and stretching out his long arm, he took her round the waist, drew her to him and gave her a kiss.

Then he shook Algernon by the hand, bidding him come to a certain address if he wanted any gratis medical advice, and to look after himself in various ways, and departed at a run, nearly knocking over a stately menial who was bringing coffee and liqueurs.

«I think that Andrew is mad,» remarked Clara, smoothing her hair which had been disarranged by the energy of his embrace.

«I dare say,» said Algernon, as he tossed off a glass of cognac, «but I only wish I were half as mad. I tell you, Clara, that he is the best of the family, as you will come to see one day. Though when you do, I shan’t be here.»

«Perhaps,» said Clara, «for no one knows what may happen in the future, and if he should succeed, it may alter my views.»

«Succeed,» ejaculated Algernon with a hoarse chuckle. «Do you mean to the title?»

«You know very well that I meant nothing of the sort, Algernon,» she answered with a look of calm contempt, and left the room.

«All the same she did, although she may not have known it,» reflected Algernon, as, after another half-glass of cognac, he settled himself down to snooze among the sofa cushions. «Clara thinks that no one sees through her, but I do. She’s a deep one, is Clara, and, what’s more, she’ll always get her way. But when she has, what is the good of it?» Then he went off to sleep till tea-time.

Lord Atterton, who had been taking a little walk round the square to soothe his nerves, returned when he thought that Andrew had departed. In fact, he chose an unlucky moment, for just as he opened the front door of West House and stepped across the threshold, he came into violent and personal collision with that young gentleman who was rushing out at a great pace, thinking of something else and not looking where he was going.

«Confound you for an awkward fellow!» exclaimed his Lordship. «You’ve smashed my hat.»

Andrew picked up the article which had served as a buffer between their two colliding bodies and now resembled a half-closed concertina.

«Very sorry,» he said, surveying the topper critically. «It does seem rather the worse, doesn’t it? But cheer up, Uncle, you can afford a new one, which will give employment. The hatting trade is rather depressed just now they tell me in Whitechapel.»

«Cheer up!» gasped Lord Atterton. «I may as well tell you outright, Andrew, that your visits to this house are the last things to cheer me up. First you outrage my feelings and then you crush my hat which was new. Oh! hang it all,» he added, hurling the wreck into the corner of the hall, «the less I see of you in the future the better I shall be pleased, and there you have it straight.»

«I rather think your sentiment is reciprocated,» remarked Andrew in a reflective voice. «Somehow we seem to get on each other’s nerves, don’t we?»