Blind Love

Chapter 9

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THERE was no unsteadiness in the doctor's walk, and no flush on his

face. He certainly did strut when he entered the room; and he held up

his head with dignity, when he discovered Mountjoy. But he seemed to

preserve his self-control. Was the man sober again already?

His wife approached him with her set smile; the appearance of her lord

and master filled Mrs. Vimpany with perfectly-assumed emotions of

agreeable surprise.

"This is an unexpected pleasure," she said. "You seldom favour us with

your company, my dear, so early in the evening! Are there fewer

patients in want of your advice than usual?"

The doctor's language, and the doctor's manner, presented him to Iris

in a character that was new to her. What effect had he produced on Mrs.

Vimpany? That excellent friend to travellers in distress lowered her

eyes to the floor, and modestly preserved silence. Mr. Vimpany

proceeded to the performance of his duty; his painful responsibility

seemed to strike him at first from a medical point of view.

"If there is a poison which undermines the sources of life," he

remarked, "it is alcohol. If there is a vice that degrades humanity, it

is intoxication. Mr. Mountjoy, are you aware that I am looking at you?"

"Impossible not to be aware of that," Hugh answered. "May I ask why you

are looking at me?" It was not easy to listen gravely to Mr. Vimpany's

denunciation of intemperance, after what had taken place at the dinner

of that day. Hugh smiled. The moral majesty of the doctor entered its

protest.

Mr. Vimpany's reply was, to say the least of it, indirect. If such an

expression may be permitted, it smelt of the stage. Viewed in

connection with Mrs. Vimpany's persistent assumption of silent

humility, it suggested to Mountjoy a secret understanding, of some

kind, between husband and wife.

"What has become of your conscience, sir?" Mr. Vimpany demanded. "Is

that silent monitor dead within you? After giving me a bad dinner, do

you demand an explanation? Ha! you shall have it."

Having delivered himself to this effect, he added action to words.

Walking grandly to the door, he threw it open, and saluted Mountjoy

with an ironical bow. Iris observed that act of insolence; her colour

rose, her eyes glittered. "Do you see what he has just done?" she said

to Mrs. Vimpany.

The doctor's wife answered softly: "I don't understand it." After a

glance at her husband, she took Iris by the hand: "Dear Miss Henley,

shall we retire to my room?"

"Certainly not!" Hugh declared. "Pray remain here; your presence will

help me to keep my temper." He stepped up to Mr. Vimpany. "Have you any

particular reason for opening that door?" he asked.

"Aha, my boy, you have got it at last!" he cried. "It's pleasant to

understand each other, isn't it? You see, I'm a plain-spoken fellow; I

don't wish to give offence. If there's one thing more than another I

pride myself on, it's my indulgence for human frailty. But, in my

position here, I'm obliged to be careful. Upon my soul, I can't

continue my acquaintance with a man who--oh, come! come! don't look as

if you didn't understand me. The circumstances are against you, sir.

You have treated me infamously."

His wife signed to him to be silent. He took no notice of her. She

insisted on being understood. "Say no more!" she warned him, in a tone

of command.

The brute side of his nature, roused by Mountjoy's contemptuous

composure, was forcing its way outwards; he set his wife at defiance.

"Then don't let him look at me as if he thought I was in a state of

intoxication!" cried the furious doctor. "There's the man, Miss, who

tried to make me tipsy," he went on, actually addressing himself to

Iris. "Thanks to my habits of sobriety, he has been caught in his own

trap. _He's_ intoxicated. Ha, friend Mountjoy, have you got the right

explanation at last? There's the door, sir!"

Mrs. Vimpany felt that this outrage was beyond endurance. If something

was not done to atone for it, Miss Henley would be capable--her face,

at that moment, answered for her--of leaving the house with Mr.

Mountjoy. Mrs. Vimpany seized her husband indignantly by the arm.

"Gone to London to be valued. Beg Mr. Mountjoy's pardon, or I will put

the money in the bank--and not one shilling of it do you get."

In the meanwhile, Iris had justified Mrs. Vimpany's apprehensions. Her

indignation noticed nothing but the insult offered to Hugh. She was too

seriously agitated to be able to speak to him. Still admirably calm,

his one anxiety was to compose her.

"Don't be afraid," he said; "it is impossible that I can degrade myself

by quarrelling with Mr. Vimpany. I only wait here to know what you

propose to do. You have Mrs. Vimpany to think of."

"I have nobody to think of but You," Iris replied. "But for me, you

would never have been in this house. After the insult that has been

offered to you--oh, Hugh, I feel it too!--let us return to London

together. I have only to tell Rhoda we are going away, and to make my

preparations for travelling. Send for me from the inn, and I will be

ready in time for the next train."

His servility was less endurable than his insolence. Telling him that

he need say no more, Mountjoy bowed to Mrs. Vimpany, and left the room.

She returned his bow mechanically, in silence. Mr. Vimpany followed

Hugh out--thinking of the diamond pin, and eager to open the house

door, as another act of submission which might satisfy his wife.

Even a clever woman will occasionally make mistakes; especially when

her temper happens to have been roused. Mrs. Vimpany found herself in a

false position, due entirely to her own imprudence.

She had been guilty of three serious errors. In the first place she had

taken it for granted that Mr. Vimpany's restorative mixture would

completely revive the sober state of his brains. In the second place,

she had trusted him with her vengeance on the man who had found his way

to her secrets through her husband's intemperance. In the third place,

she had rashly assumed that the doctor, in carrying out her

instructions for insulting Mountjoy, would keep within the limits which

she had prescribed to him, when she hit on the audacious idea of

attributing his disgraceful conduct to the temptation offered by his

host's example. As a consequence of these acts of imprudence, she had

exposed herself to a misfortune that she honestly dreaded--the loss of

the place which she had carefully maintained in Miss Henley's

estimation. In the contradictory confusion of feelings, so often found

in women, this deceitful and dangerous creature had been

conquered--little by little, as she had herself described it--by that

charm of sweetness and simplicity in Iris, of which her own depraved

nature presented no trace. She now spoke with hesitation, almost with

timidity, in addressing the woman whom she had so cleverly deceived, at

the time when they first met.

"Pray do not humiliate me by speaking of my husband! I only want to

know if there is a harder trial of my fortitude still to come. Must I

lose the privilege of being your friend?"

"I hope I am not capable of such injustice as that," Iris declared. "It

would be hard indeed to lay the blame of Mr. Vimpany's shameful

behaviour on you. I don't forget that you made him offer an apology.

Some women, married to such a man as that, might have been afraid of

him. No, no; you have been a good friend to me--and I mean to remember

it."

Mrs. Vimpany's gratitude was too sincerely felt to be expressed with

her customary readiness. She only said what the stupidest woman in

existence could have said: "Thank you."

In the silence that followed, the rapid movement of carriage wheels

became audible in the street. The sound stopped at the door of the

doctor's house.

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