‘Wait till Jackson Lemon passes again, and you can stop him and make him let you take a turn.’ This was the jocular suggestion of Dexter Freer.
‘Why, is he here? I have been looking out for him; I should like to see him.’
‘Doesn’t he go to your medical congress?’ asked Mrs Freer.
‘Well, yes, he attends; but he isn’t very regular. I guess he goes out a good deal.’
‘I guess he does,’ said Mr Freer; ‘and if he isn’t very regular, I guess he has a good reason. A beautiful reason, a charming reason,’ he went on, bending forward to look down toward the beginning of the Row. ‘Dear me, what a lovely reason!’
Doctor Feeder followed the direction of his eyes, and after a moment understood his allusion. Little Jackson Lemon, on his big horse, passed along the avenue again, riding beside one of the young girls who had come that way shortly before in the company of Lord Canterville. His lordship followed, in conversation with the other, his younger daughter. As they advanced, Jackson Lemon turned his eyes toward the multitude under the trees, and it so happened that they rested upon the Dexter Freers. He smiled, and raised his hat with all possible friendliness; and his three companions turned to see to whom he was bowing with so much cordiality. As he settled his hat on his head he espied the young man from Cincinnati, whom he had at first overlooked; whereupon he smiled still more brightly and waved Sidney Feeder an airy salutation with his hand, reining in a little at the same time just for an instant, as if he half expected the Doctor to come and speak to him. Seeing him with strangers, however, Sidney Feeder hung back, staring a little as he rode away.
It is open to us to know that at this moment the young lady by whose side he was riding said to him, familiarly enough: ‘Who are those people you bowed to?’
‘Some old friends of mine – Americans,’ Jackson Lemon answered.
‘Of course they are Americans; there is nothing but Americans nowadays.’
‘Oh yes, our turn’s coming round!’ laughed the young man.
‘But that doesn’t say who they are,’ his companion continued. ‘It’s so difficult to say who Americans are,’ she added, before he had time to answer her.
‘Dexter Freer and his wife – there is nothing difficult about that; every one knows them.’
‘I never heard of them,’ said the English girl.
‘Ah, that’s your fault. I assure you everybody knows them.’
‘And does everybody know the little man with the fat face whom you kissed your hand to?’
‘I didn’t kiss my hand, but I would if I had thought of it. He is a great chum of mine, – a fellow-student at Vienna.’
‘And what’s his name?’
‘Doctor Feeder.’
Jackson Lemon’s companion was silent a moment. ‘Are all your friends doctors?’ she presently inquired.
‘No; some of them are in other businesses.’
‘Are they all in some business?’
‘Most of them; save two or three, like Dexter Freer.’
‘Dexter Freer? I thought you said Doctor Freer.’
The young man gave a laugh. ‘You heard me wrong. You have got doctors on the brain, Lady Barb.’
‘I am rather glad,’ said Lady Barb, giving the rein to her horse, who bounded away.
‘Well, yes, she’s very handsome, the reason,’ Doctor Feeder remarked, as he sat under the trees.
‘Is he going to marry her?’ Mrs Freer inquired.
‘Marry her? I hope not.’
‘Why do you hope not?’
‘Because I know nothing about her. I want to know something about the woman that man marries.’
‘I suppose you would like him to marry in Cincinnati,’ Mrs Freer rejoined lightly.
‘Well, I am not particular where it is; but I want to know her first.’ Doctor Feeder was very sturdy.
‘We were in hopes you would know all about it,’ said Mr Freer.
‘No; I haven’t kept up with him there.’
‘We have heard from a dozen people that he has been always with her for the last month; and that kind of thing, in England, is supposed to mean something. Hasn’t he spoken of her when you have seen him?’
‘No, he has only talked about the new treatment of spinal meningitis. He is very much interested in spinal meningitis.’
‘I wonder if he talks about it to Lady Barb,’ said Mrs Freer.
‘Who is she, any way?’ the young man inquired.
‘Lady Barberina Clement.’
‘And who is Lady Barberina Clement?’
‘The daughter of Lord Canterville.’
‘And who is Lord Canterville?’
‘Dexter must tell you that,’ said Mrs Freer.
And Dexter accordingly told him that the Marquis of Canterville had been in his day a great sporting nobleman and an ornament to English society, and had held more than once a high post in her Majesty’s household. Dexter Freer knew all these things – how his lordship had married a daughter of Lord Treherne, a very serious, intelligent and beautiful woman, who had redeemed him from the extravagance of his youth and presented him in rapid succession with a dozen little tenants for the nurseries at Pasterns – this being, as Mr Freer also knew, the name of the principal seat of the Cantervilles. The Marquis was a Tory, but very liberal for a Tory, and very popular in society at large; good-natured, good-looking, knowing how to be genial and yet remain a grand seigneur, clever enough to make an occasional speech, and much associated with the fine old English pursuits, as well as with many of the new improvements – the purification of the Turf, the opening of the museums on Sunday, the propagation of coffee-taverns, the latest ideas on sanitary reform. He disapproved of the extension of the suffrage, but he positively had drainage on the brain. It had been said of him at least once (and I think in print) that he was just the man to convey to the popular mind the impression that the British aristocracy is still a living force. He was not very rich, unfortunately (for a man who had to exemplify such truths), and of his twelve children no less than seven were daughters. Lady Barberina, Jackson Lemon’s friend, was the second; the eldest had married Lord Beauchemin. Mr Freer had caught quite the right pronunciation of this name: he called it Bitumen. Lady Louisa had done very well, for her husband was rich, and she had brought him nothing to speak of; but it was hardly to be expected that the others would do so well. Happily the younger girls were still in the schoolroom; and before they had come up, Lady Canterville, who was a woman of resources, would have worked off the two that were out. It was Lady Agatha’s first season; she was not so pretty as her sister, but she was thought to be cleverer. Half a dozen people had spoken to him of Jackson Lemon’s being a great deal at the Cantervilles. He was supposed to be enormously rich.
‘Well, so he is,’ said Sidney Feeder, who had listened to Mr Freer’s little recital with attention, with eagerness even, but with an air of imperfect apprehension.
‘Yes, but not so rich as they probably think.’
‘Do they want his money? Is that what they’re after?’
‘You go straight to the point,’ Mrs Freer murmured.
‘I haven’t the least idea,’ said her husband. ‘He is a very nice fellow in himself.’
‘Yes, but he’s a doctor,’ Mrs Freer remarked.
‘What have they got against that?’ asked Sidney Feeder.
‘Why, over here, you know, they only call them in to prescribe,’ said Dexter Freer; ‘the profession isn’t – a – what you’d call aristocratic.’
‘Well, I don’t know it, and I don’t know that I want to know it. How do you mean, aristocratic? What profession is? It would be rather a curious one. Many of the gentlemen at the congress there are quite charming.’
‘I like doctors very much,’ said Mrs Freer; ‘my father was a doctor. But they don’t marry the daughters of marquises.’
‘I don’t believe Jackson wants to marry that one.’
‘Very possibly not – people are such asses,’ said Dexter Fr
eer. ‘But he will have to decide. I wish you would find out, by the way; you can if you will.’
‘I will ask him – up at the congress; I can do that. I suppose he has got to marry some one,’ Sidney Feeder added, in a moment, ‘and she may be a nice girl.’
‘She is said to be charming.’
‘Very well, then; it won’t hurt him. I must say, however, I am not sure I like all that about her family.’
‘What I told you? It’s all to their honour and glory.’
‘Are they quite on the square? It’s like those people in Thackeray.’
‘Oh, if Thackeray could have done this!’ Mrs Freer exclaimed, with a good deal of expression.
‘You mean all this scene?’ asked the young man.
‘No; the marriage of a British noblewoman and an American doctor. It would have been a subject for Thackeray.’
‘You see you do want it, my dear,’ said Dexter Freer quietly.
‘I want it as a story, but I don’t want it for Doctor Lemon.’
‘Does he call himself “Doctor” still?’ Mr Freer asked of young Feeder.
‘I suppose he does; I call him so. Of course he doesn’t practise. But once a doctor, always a doctor.’
‘That’s doctrine for Lady Barb!’
Sidney Feeder stared. ‘Hasn’t she got a title too? What would she expect him to be? President of the United States? He’s a man of real ability; he might have stood at the head of his profession. When I think of that, I want to swear. What did his father want to go and make all that money for?’
‘It must certainly be odd to them to see a “medical man” with six or eight millions,’ Mr Freer observed.
‘They use the same term as the Choctaws,’ said his wife.
‘Why, some of their own physicians make immense fortunes,’ Sidney Feeder declared.
‘Couldn’t he be made a baronet by the Queen?’ This suggestion came from Mrs Freer.
‘Yes, then he would be aristocratic,’ said the young man.
‘But I don’t see why he should want to marry over here; it seems to me to be going out of his way. However, if he is happy, I don’t care. I like him very much; he has got lots of ability. If it hadn’t been for his father he would have made a splendid doctor. But, as I say, he takes a great interest in medical science, and I guess he means to promote it all he can – with his fortune. He will always be doing something in the way of research. He thinks we do know something, and he is bound we shall know more. I hope she won’t prevent him, the young marchioness – is that her rank? And I hope they are really good people. He ought to be very useful. I should want to know a good deal about the family I was going to marry into.’
‘He looked to me, as he rode there, as if he knew a good deal about the Clements,’ Dexter Freer said, rising, as his wife suggested that they ought to be going; ‘and he looked to me pleased with the knowledge. There they come, down on the other side. Will you walk away with us, or will you stay?’
‘Stop him and ask him, and then come and tell us – in Jermyn Street.’ This was Mrs Freer’s parting injunction to Sidney Feeder.
‘He ought to come himself – tell him that,’ her husband added.
‘Well, I guess I’ll stay,’ said the young man, as his companions merged themselves in the crowd that now was tending toward the gates. He went and stood by the barrier, and saw Doctor Lemon and his friends pull up at the entrance to the Row, where they apparently prepared to separate. The separation took some time, and Sidney Feeder became interested. Lord Canterville and his younger daughter lingered to talk with two gentlemen, also mounted, who looked a good deal at the legs of Lady Agatha’s horse. Jackson Lemon and Lady Barberina were face to face, very near each other; and she, leaning forward a little, stroked the overlapping neck of his glossy bay. At a distance he appeared to be talking, and she to be listening and saying nothing. ‘Oh yes, he’s making love to her,’ thought Sidney Feeder. Suddenly her father turned away, to leave the Park, and she joined him and disappeared, while Doctor Lemon came up on the left again, as if for a final gallop. He had not gone far before he perceived his confrère, who awaited him at the rail; and he repeated the gesture which Lady Barberina had spoken of as a kissing of his hand, though it must be added that, to his friend’s eyes, it had not quite that significance. When he reached the point where Feeder stood he pulled up.
‘If I had known you were coming here I would have given you a mount,’ he said. There was not in his person that irradiation of wealth and distinction which made Lord Canterville glow like a picture; but as he sat there with his little legs stuck out, he looked very bright and sharp and happy, wearing in his degree the aspect of one of Fortune’s favourites. He had a thin, keen, delicate face, a nose very carefully finished, a rapid eye, a trifle hard in expression, and a small moustache, a good deal cultivated. He was not striking, but he was very positive, and it was easy to see that he was full of purpose.
‘How many horses have you got – about forty?’ his compatriot inquired, in response to his greeting.
‘About five hundred,’ said Jackson Lemon.
‘Did you mount your friends – the three you were riding with?’
‘Mount them? They have got the best horses in England.’
‘Did they sell you this one?’ Sidney Feeder continued in the same humorous strain.
‘What do you think of him?’ said his friend, not deigning to answer this question.
‘He’s an awful old screw; I wonder he can carry you.’
‘Where did you get your hat?’ asked Doctor Lemon, in return.
‘I got it in New York. What’s the matter with it?’
‘It’s very beautiful; I wish I had bought one like it.’
‘The head’s the thing – not the hat. I don’t mean yours, but mine. There is something very deep in your question; I must think it over.’
‘Don’t – don’t,’ said Jackson Lemon; ‘you will never get to the bottom of it. Are you having a good time?’
‘A glorious time. Have you been up to-day?’
‘Up among the doctors? No; I have had a lot of things to do.’
‘We had a very interesting discussion. I made a few remarks.’
‘You ought to have told me. What were they about?’
‘About the intermarriage of races, from the point of view—’ And Sidney Feeder paused a moment, occupied with the attempt to scratch the nose of his friend’s horse.
‘From the point of view of the progeny, I suppose?’
‘Not at all; from the point of view of the old friends.’
‘Damn the old friends!’ Doctor Lemon exclaimed, with jocular crudity.
‘Is it true that you are going to marry a young marchioness?’
The face of the young man in the saddle became just a trifle rigid, and his firm eyes fixed themselves on Doctor Feeder.
‘Who has told you that?’
‘Mr and Mrs Freer, whom I met just now.’
‘Mr and Mrs Freer be hanged! And who told them?’
‘Ever so many people; I don’t know who.’
‘Gad, how things are tattled!’ cried Jackson Lemon, with some asperity.
‘I can see it’s true, by the way you say that.’
‘Do Freer and his wife believe it?’ Jackson Lemon went on impatiently.
‘They want you to go and see them: you can judge for yourself.’
‘I will go and see them, and tell them to mind their business.’
‘In Jermyn Street; but I forget the number. I am sorry the marchioness isn’t American,’ Sidney Feeder continued.
‘If I should marry her, she would be,’ said his friend. ‘But I don’t see what difference it can make to you.’
‘Why, she’ll look down on the profession; and I don’t like that from your wife.’
‘That will touch me more than you.’
‘Then it is true?’ cried Feeder, more seriously looking up at his friend.
‘She won’t look down; I will answ
er for that.’
‘You won’t care; you are out of it all now.’
‘No, I am not; I mean to do a great deal of work.’
‘I will believe that when I see it,’ said Sidney Feeder, who was by no means perfectly incredulous, but who thought it salutary to take that tone. ‘I am not sure that you have any right to work – you oughtn’t to have everything; you ought to leave the field to us. You must pay the penalty of being so rich. You would have been celebrated if you had continued to practise – more celebrated than any one. But you won’t be now – you can’t be. Some one else will be, in your place.’
Jackson Lemon listened to this, but without meeting the eyes of the speaker; not, however, as if he were avoiding them, but as if the long stretch of the Ride, now less and less obstructed, invited him and made his companion’s talk a little retarding. Nevertheless, he answered, deliberately and kindly enough: ‘I hope it will be you’; and he bowed to a lady who rode past.
‘Very likely it will. I hope I make you feel badly – that’s what I’m trying to do.’
‘Oh, awfully!’ cried Jackson Lemon; ‘all the more that I am not in the least engaged.’
‘Well, that’s good. Won’t you come up to-morrow?’ Doctor Feeder went on.
‘I’ll try, my dear fellow; I can’t be sure. By-by!’
‘Oh, you’re lost anyway!’ cried Sidney Feeder, as the other started away.
II
IT was Lady Marmaduke, the wife of Sir Henry Marmaduke, who had introduced Jackson Lemon to Lady Beauchemin; after which Lady Beauchemin had made him acquainted with her mother and sisters. Lady Marmaduke was also transatlantic; she had been for her conjugal baronet the most permanent consequence of a tour in the United States. At present, at the end of ten years, she knew her London as she had never known her New York, so that it had been easy for her to be, as she called herself, Jackson Lemon’s social godmother. She had views with regard to his career, and these views fitted into a social scheme which, if our space permitted, I should be glad to lay before the reader in its magnitude. She wished to add an arch or two to the bridge on which she had effected her transit from America, and it was her belief that Jackson Lemon might furnish the materials. This bridge, as yet a somewhat sketchy and rickety structure, she saw (in the future) boldly stretching from one solid pillar to another. It would have to go both ways, for reciprocity was the keynote of Lady Marmaduke’s plan. It was her belief that an ultimate fusion was inevitable, and that those who were the first to understand the situation would gain the most. The first time Jackson Lemon had dined with her, he met Lady Beauchemin, who was her intimate friend. Lady Beauchemin was remarkably gracious; she asked him to come and see her as if she really meant it. He presented himself, and in her drawing-room met her mother, who happened to be calling at the same moment. Lady Canterville, not less friendly than her daughter, invited him down to Pasterns for Easter week; and before a month had passed it seemed to him that, though he was not what he would have called intimate at any house in London, the door of the house of Clement opened to him pretty often. This was a considerable good fortune, for it always opened upon a charming picture. The inmates were a blooming and beautiful race, and their interior had an aspect of the ripest comfort. It was not the splendour of New York (as New York had lately begun to appear to the young man), but a splendour in which there was an unpurchasable ingredient of age. He himself had a great deal of money, and money was good, even when it was new; but old money was the best. Even after he learned that Lord Canterville’s fortune was more ancient than abundant, it was still the mellowness of the golden element that struck him. It was Lady Beauchemin who had told him that her father was not rich; having told him, besides this, many surprising things – things that were surprising in themselves or surprising on her lips. This struck him afresh later that evening – the day he met Sidney Feeder in the Park. He dined out, in the company of Lady Beauchemin, and afterward, as she was alone – her husband had gone down to listen to a debate – she offered to ‘take him on’. She was going to several places, and he must be going to some of them. They compared notes, and it was settled that they should proceed together to the Trumpingtons’, whither, also, it appeared at eleven o’clock that all the world was going, the approach to the house being choked for half a mile with carriages. It was a close, muggy night; Lady Beauchemin’s chariot, in its place in the rank, stood still for long periods. In his corner beside her, through the open window, Jackson Lemon, rather hot, rather oppressed, looked out on the moist, greasy pavement, over which was flung, a considerable distance up and down, the flare of a public-house. Lady Beauchemin, however, was not impatient, for she had a purpose in her mind, and now she could say what she wished.