the finding of the codicil, neither of the sisters had cared to seat themselves in state in the drawing-room, ready to receive visitors, should they call. They had no heart for it. They chose, rather, to sit in plain attire, and hide themselves in the humblest and most retired room. They took no pride now in anointing their scanty curls with castor oil, in contriving for their dress, in setting off their persons. Vanity seemed to have departed from Deborah and Amilly West.
Deborah sat there in the dining-room, her hair looking grievously thin, her morning dress of black print with white spots upon it not changed for the old turned black silk of the afternoon. Her elbow rested on the faded and not very clean table cover, and her fingers were running unconsciously through that scanty hair. The prospect before her looked, to her mind, as hopelessly forlorn as she looked.
But it was necessary that she should gaze at the future steadily; should not turn aside from it in carelessness or in apathy; should face it, and make the best of it. If Jan Verner and her father were about to dissolve partnership, and the practice henceforth was to be Jan’s, what was to become of her and Amilly? Taught by past experience, she knew how much dependence was to be placed upon her father’s promise to pay to them an income. Very little reliance indeed could be placed on Dr. West in any way; this very letter in her hand and the tidings it contained, might be true, or might be—pretty little cullings from Dr. West’s imagination. The proposed dissolution of partnership she believed in: she had expected Jan to take the step ever since that night which restored the codicil.
“I had better ask Mr. Jan about it,” she murmured. “It is of no use to remain in this uncertainty.”
Rising from her seat, she proceeded to the side-door, opened it, and glanced cautiously out, through the rain, not caring to be seen by strangers in her present attire. There was nobody about, and she crossed the little path and entered the surgery. Master Cheese, with somewhat of a scorchy look in the eyebrows, but full of strength and appetite as ever, turned round at her entrance.
“Is Mr. Jan in?” she asked.
“No, he is not,” responded Master Cheese, speaking indistinctly, for he had just filled his mouth with Spanish liquorice. “Did you want him, Miss Deb?”
“I wanted to speak to him,” she replied. “Will he be long?”
“He didn’t announce the hour of his return,” replied Master Cheese. “I wish he would come back! If a message comes for one of us, I don’t care to go out in this rain: Jan doesn’t mind it. It’s sure to be my luck! The other day, when it was pouring cats and dogs, a summons came from Lady Hautley’s. Jan was out, and I had to go, and got dripping wet. After all, it was only my lady’s maid, with a sorry whitlow on her finger.”
“Be so kind as tell Mr. Jan, when he does come in, that I should be glad to speak a word to him, if he can step into the parlour.”
Miss Deb turned back as she spoke, ran across through the rain, and sat down in the parlour, as before. She knew that she ought to go up and dress, but she had not spirits for it.
She sat there until Jan entered. Full an hour, it must have been, and she had turned over all points in her mind, what could and what could not be done. It did not appear that much could be. Jan came in, rather wet. On his road from Verner’s Pride he had overtaken one of his poor patients, who was in delicate health, and had lent the woman his huge cotton umbrella, hastening on, himself, without one.
“Cheese says you wish to see me, Miss Deb.”
Miss Deb turned round from her listless attitude, and asked Mr. Jan to take a chair. Mr. Jan responded by partially sitting down on the arm of one.
“What is it?” asked he, rather wondering.
“I have had a letter from Prussia this morning, Mr. Jan, from my father. He says you and he are about to dissolve partnership; that the practice will be carried on by you alone, on your own account; and that—but you had better read it,” she broke off, taking the letter from her pocket, and handing it to Jan.
He ran his eyes over it. Dr. West’s was not a plain handwriting, but Jan was accustomed to it. The letter was soon read.
“It’s true, Miss Deb,” said he. “The doctor thinks he shall not be returning to Deerham, and so I am going to take to the whole of the practice,” continued Jan, who possessed too much innate good feeling to hint to Miss Deb of any other cause.
“Yes. But—it will place me and Amilly in a very embarrassing position, Mr. Jan,” added the poor lady, her thin cheeks flushing painfully;—“we shall have no right to stay in this house then.”
“You are welcome to remain,” said Jan.
Miss Deb shook her head. She felt, as she said, that they should have no “right.”
“I’d rather you did,” pursued Jan, in his good nature. “What do I and Cheese want with all this big house to ourselves? Besides, if you and Amilly go, who’d see to our shirts and the puddings?”
“When papa went away at first, was there not some arrangement made by which the furniture became yours?”
“No,” stoutly answered Jan. “I paid something to him, to give me, as he called it, a half-share in it with himself. It was a stupid sort of arrangement, and one I should never act upon, Miss Deb. The furniture is yours; not mine.”
“Mr. Jan, you would give up your right in everything, I believe. You will never get rich.”
“I shall get as rich as I want to, I daresay,” was Jan’s answer. “Things can go on just the same as usual, you know, Miss Deb, and I can pay the housekeeping bills. Your stopping here will be a saving,” good-naturedly added Jan. “With nobody in the house to manage, except servants, only think the waste there’d be! Cheese would be for getting two dinners a-day served, fish, and fowls, and tarts at each.”
The tears were struggling in Deborah West’s eyes. She did her best to repress them: but it could not be, and she gave way with a burst.
