An heir may be born; and the heir's mother, backed by general opinion, may insist--if there is any hesitation in the matter--on asserting the boy's natural right to succeed his father.
Patience, my reverend colleague! There is no threatening of any such calamity yet. And, even if it happens, don't forget that Romayne has inherited a second fortune. The Vange estate has an estimated value. If the act of restitution represented that value in ready money, do you think the Church would discourage a good convert by refusing his check? You know better than that--and so do I.
----
The next day I called to inquire how Mrs. Eyrecourt was getting on. The report was favorable. Three days later I called again. The report was still more encouraging. I was also informed that Mrs. Romayne had returned to Ten Acres Lodge.
Much of my success in life has been achieved by never being in a hurry. I was not in a hurry now. Time sometimes brings opportunities--and opportunities are worth waiting for.
Let me make this clear by an example.
A man of headlong disposition, in my place, would have probably spoken of Miss Eyrecourt's marriage to Romayne at his first meeting with Winterfield, and would have excited their distrust, and put them respectively on their guard, without obtaining any useful result. I can, at any time, make the disclosure to Romayne which informs him that his wife had been Winterfield's guest in Devonshire, when she affected to meet her former host on the footing of a stranger. In the meanwhile, I give Penrose ample opportunity for innocently widening the breach between husband and wife.
You see, I hope, that if I maintain a passive position, it is not from indolence or discouragement. Now we may get on.
After an interval of a few days more I decided on making further inquiries at Mrs. Eyrecourt's house. This time, when I left my card, I sent a message, asking if the lady could receive me. Shall I own my weakness? She possesses all the information that I want, and she has twice baffled my inquiries. Under these humiliating circumstances, it is part of the priestly pugnacity of my disposition to inquire again.
I was invited to go upstairs.
The front and back drawing-rooms of the house were thrown into one. Mrs. Eyrecourt was being gently moved backward and forward in a chair on wheels, propelled by her maid; two gentlemen being present, visitors like myself. In spite of rouge and loosely folded lace and flowing draperies, she presented a deplorable spectacle. The bodily part of her looked like a dead woman, painted and revived--while the moral part, in the strongest contrast, was just as lively as ever.
"So glad to see you again, Father Benwell, and so much obliged by your kind inquiries. I am quite well, though the doctor won't admit it. Isn't it funny to see me being wheeled about, like a child in a perambulator? Returning to first principles, I call it. You see it's a law of my nature that I must go about. The doctor won't let me go about outside the house, so I go about inside the house. Matilda is the nurse, and I am the baby who will learn to walk some of these days. Are you tired, Matilda? No? Then give me another turn, there's a good creature. Movement, perpetual movement, is a law of Nature. Oh, dear no, doctor; I didn't make that discovery for myself. Some eminent scientific person mentioned it in a lecture. The ugliest man I ever saw. Now back again, Matilda. Let me introduce you to my friends, Father Benwell. Introducing is out of fashion, I know. But I am one of the few women who can resist the tyranny of fashion. I like introducing people. Sir John Drone--Father Benwell. Father Benwell--Doctor Wybrow. Ah, yes, you know the doctor by reputation? Shall I give you his character? Personally charming; professionally detestable. Pardon my impudence, doctor, it is one of the consequences of the overflowing state of my health. Another turn, Matilda--and a little faster this time. Oh, how I wish I was traveling by railway!"
There, her breath failed her. She reclined in her chair, and fanned herself silently--for a while.
I was now able to turn my attention to the two visitors. Sir John Drone, it was easy to see, would be no obstacle to confidential conversation with Mrs. Eyrecourt. An excellent country gentleman, with the bald head, the ruddy complexion, and the inexhaustible capacity for silence, so familiar to us in English society--there you have the true description of Sir John. But the famous physician was quite another sort of man. I had only to look at him, and to feel myself condemned to small talk while he was in the room.
You have always heard of it in my correspondence, whenever I have been in the wrong. I was in the wrong again now--I had forgotten the law of chances. Capricious Fortune, after a long interval, was about to declare herself again in my favor, by means of the very woman who had twice already got the better of me. What a recompense for my kind inquiries after Mrs. Eyrecourt! She recovered breath enough to begin talking again.
"Dear me, how dull you are!" she said to us. "Why don't you amuse a poor prisoner confined to the house? Rest a little, Matilda, or you will be falling ill next. Doctor! is this your last professional visit?"
"Promise to take care of yourself, Mrs. Eyrecourt, and I will confess that the professional visits are over. I come here to-day only as a friend."
"You best of men! Do me another favor. Enliven our dullness. Tell us some interesting story about a patient. These great doctors, Sir John, pass their lives in a perfect atmosphere of romance. Dr. Wybrow's consulting-room is like your confessional, Father Benwell. The most fascinating sins and sorrows are poured into his ears. What is the last romance in real life, doctor, that has asked you to treat it medically? We don't want names and places--we are good children; we only want a story."
Dr. Wybrow looked at me with a smile.
"It is impossible to persuade ladies," he said, "that we, too, are father-confessors in our way. The first duty of a doctor, Mrs. Eyrecourt--"
"Is to cure people, of course," she interposed in her smartest manner.
The doctor answered seriously. "No, indeed. That is only the second duty. Our first duty is invariably to respect the confidence of our patients. However," he resumed in his easier tone, "I happen to have seen a patient to-day, under circumstances which the rules of professional honor do not forbid me to mention. I don't know, Mrs. Eyrecourt, whether you will quite like to be introduced to the scene of the story. The scene is in a madhouse."
Mrs. Eyrecourt burst out with a coquettish little scream, and shook her fan at the doctor. "No horrors!" she cried. "The bare idea of a madhouse distracts me with terror. Oh, fie, fie! I won't listen to you--I won't look at you--I positively refuse to be frightened out of my wits. Matilda! wheel me away to the furthest end of the room. My vivid imagination, Father Benwell, is my rock ahead in life.