Best Short Stories Omnibus - Volume 3

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

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Few things had ever caused more excitement in a neighbourhood than the disappearance of Doctor and Mrs. Jones. Here to-day and gone to-morrow; gone, without beat of drum or sound of fife; gone, without the excitement of furniture moving, or cab laden with luggage, or funeral pomp and ceremony; even a one-horse hearse, without plumes or mutes, or decorous wands, or long black cloaks, or hat-bands, or mourning coaches to follow, would have been better than this silent, mysterious flitting.

If the earth had suddenly opened and swallowed up husband and wife they could not have vanished more utterly. There was the house they had lived in, but where were they?

What secret did that one night hold which all the intelligence of the whole parish failed to elucidate. Where was he? What was more to the point, where was she? Upon this last question public opinion at length became unanimous. She was buried in the cellars. Her husband had murdered her—so it was finally decided—and after killing the “poor dear” had disposed of her remains in the manner indicated. That an industrious course of digging and grubbing brought no body or bones to light proved nothing but that “the doctor was a deep one,” to quote the observations of local wiseacres.

“He used her cruel in her lifetime,” said one.

“Ay, that he did,” capped another. “And he wouldn't give her the chance of Christian burial. She's lying hidden away in some dark corner; no wonder the creature can't rest there. No; I wouldn't sleep a night in that house, not if you counted me down a hundred pounds in golden sovereigns.”

“Neither would I, was it ever so.”

“For there's not a doubt she walks.”

“Of course she does. Didn't my own cousin, when she was coming along the passage one summer's night, feel like an icy wind at the nape of her neck, and as if a cold hand was laid flat on her shoulders? And she always says she knows if she had looked round she'd have seen the old woman with her grey hair—”

“That he used to drag her about by—”

“Streaming down her back, and her eyes, filled with hunger and ill-treatment, staring through the darkness.”

“The house ought to be pulled to the ground—that's what ought to be done with it—”

“And not one stone left on another—”

“And those cellars thoroughly examined.”

“It's my belief there's some secret place in them that hasn't been found out yet.”

“Very likely. You know it is reported there used to be a passage big enough for a man to creep along from there to the Thames.”

“Bless and save us—maybe he has put her in the river.”

“No, no; though he was wicked enough for that or anything else, she's in the house somewhere right enough, and if she could speak she would say so.”

“I wonder where he is?”

“Lord knows. Enjoying himself, most likely, beyond the seas.”

“I suppose he was about the worst man you ever knew.”

“I suppose he was about the worst man anybody ever knew.”

“And the cleverest.”

“Aye, he had brains to do anything, but they all turned to wickedness.” It often happens that a man obtains a reputation for talent in his own immediate circle on very slight and insufficient grounds; but in the case of Dr. Jones, popular rumour did not exaggerate the missing gentleman's abilities.

He was very clever indeed. He was so clever he might have risen to almost any height in his profession, had he not been at once lazy and self-indulgent. His father having lived and practised before, he succeeded to a prosperous business and a wide connection. When he first started on his own account, all the old houses in the Street where he lived, and all the old houses in many other streets and squares and terraces and groves near at hand, were inhabited by well-to-do City people, by widows amply dowered, by men who had made their money in trade and were now living in affluent retirement.

It was a capital parish for a doctor to settle in; none of your new neighbourhoods, tenanted by mere birds of passage; once a medical man got a patient he had a chance of keeping him for many years. There were names on Dr. Jones' books of people and families who had been physicked by the Jones for more than half a century. Never a man began life under more auspicious circumstances.

He had the medical ball at his feet. Old ladies adored him, because he ordered them exactly what he knew they liked in the way of eating; old gentlemen were quite sure he understood their complaints, when he declared “a few glasses of sound wine could hurt no one.” He met the best physicians and surgeons in consultation, and people agreed if any man could put a person on his legs again that man was Dr. Jones.

But as time went on, and Dr. Jones waxed more prosperous and less careful, it was found that, in spite of his many admirable virtues, he had grave faults. In no single respect did his moral character attain to that high standard which a doctor, above all other men, ought to try to reach. Things were whispered about him which mothers felt could not be spoken of before the younger members of the family; things indeed, which were, even among matrons, mentioned with chairs drawn close together, and bated breath and much uplifting of eyes and hands.

Fact is, the decency and restraint of respectable English society had become intolerable to the successful practitioner. For a long time he contented himself with sowing his bad wild oats at a distance from his dwelling—drinking, gambling, and leading the loosest of lives in the many disreputable haunts to be found on the north side of the Thames, instead of frequenting those in his own county of Surrey. But by degrees he began to fall into evil habits near home; then into the midst of that very sanctuary presided over by a maiden sister of uncertain age and rigid morality, he introduced all manner of wickedness.

The day came when Miss Jones could endure the drinking and the smoking and the card-playing and the boon-companions no longer. With a certain stately dignity she packed up her belongings and left the house where she had been born. Further, she employed a lawyer to disentangle her pecuniary affairs from those of her brother. Then all their little world knew dreadful things must be going on at Dr. Jones'. His character, or rather lack of character, was discussed both by church and chapel goers. His doings added a fresh zest to parish visiting, for, of course, the poor knew even more about the doctor's sins than their betters. His tastes led him to prefer bold, flaunting women to their more modest, if not less frail, sisters; and the brazen impudence of the “dreadful creatures” he successively selected for housekeepers furnished as constant a theme for comment and gossip as the shortcomings of Doctor Jones himself.

“He wants a wife to steady him,” said one lady, whose daughter had been marriageable for nearly a third part of the time allotted by the Psalmist to man's sojourn on earth.

Alas! poor soul, her wishes blinded her. All the wives of all the patriarchs could not have steadied Dr. Jones. He had started on a muck, and was running it blindly, like one possessed. Had he lived in the former days, one might have said that not one devil merely but a legion had taken for habitation the handsome fleshly temple of his body.

In the way of open sin, unblushing audacious wickedness, no medical man, perhaps, ever vied with Dr. Jones.

His house, after his sister's departure, became a scandal and a reproach, and yet so great was the doctor's skill he still had patients, and good paying patients too, but they were all of his own s*x; the man did not live who could have sent for him to attend wife, or sister, or mother, or daughter.

So his family practice slipped into other and cleaner hands, and another and wiser general practitioner grew rich upon Doctor Jones' leavings.

All at once society was amazed by the rumour that the Doctor was going to be married to a lady possessed of great wealth; so report said, adding that ere long wonderful changes might be looked upon in the old house.

It was swept and garnished at any rate, the drawing-room smartened up, a brougham purchased, the latest and most utterly objectionable housekeeper dispatched about her business, whatever it might be, two respectable servants engaged, a man hired to look after the horse, answer the door, and prove a general credit to the street. Doctor Jones himself left off smoking pipes and took to cigars instead; he eschewed the local public houses, foreswore billiards, all packs of cards were cleared out of the dwelling; he washed, he shaved; he wore a coat instead of a dressing-gown, and he was to be found, by such patients as desired to see him, before twelve o'clock, till which time he had of late been in the habit of taking his rest in bed.

Things were looking up; the Mrs. Jones who was to be had, people felt, already achieved wonders; she was a credit to her s*x; ladies admitted they could not possibly ever have the husband again as a medical man, but they might once more receive him as an acquaintance. Prodigals are always interesting, perhaps because no one ever really believes they will reform, and Doctor Jones was a specially delightful prodigal—so clever, so handsome, so reckless, so wicked, so extravagant.

He had studied at one time at a German University, and it had somehow been ascertained that no wilder spirit ever troubled the peace of the quaint old town that lay under the shadow of the frowning castle.

His world which, a short time previously, failed to find words strong enough to express its reprobation of his conduct, now began to make excuses for him. Perhaps his faults had been exaggerated, possibly there was only a modicum of truth in the reports which had been spread abroad concerning his doings: clever men always make enemies, the tattle of the lower orders could not be exactly depended upon; and in fine, to put the matter in a nutshell, it was at length unanimously decided to call on Mrs. Jones when she returned from the honeymoon.

There was something after these visits for gossips to talk about! What countrywoman could she be?—where had he met her?—what was she?—who was she?—what had she been?

Years seemed to stretch between her and the doctor—on the wrong side, of course. She was little, she was old, she was plain, she was ignorant, and she was most furiously jealous. She could not endure her husband to look at or speak to any other woman. Even the elderly unmarried daughter of her mother, who was a widow, who would have liked Seraphina to undertake the doctor's case, even this innocent ewe lamb seemed unbearable to the bride.

No use now to think of pleasant little parties to which Mrs. Jones and her reformed husband might be bidden. No card-tables, no carpet-dances, no snug dinners, no safe and harmless social i*********e, which it had been hoped might prove to the repentant doctor as refreshing and non-intoxicating as a course of milk, lemonade, and cocoa to the once infuriated drunkard.

On the whole, perhaps, the matrons, in their hearts, thought Mrs. Jones' virtues worse than her husband's vices; tacitly it was agreed not to force acquaintanceship on her. Possibly she had her own set of friends, and it was felt it would be most undesirable to introduce foreigners of no respectable colour into the bosom of British families who had made their money in the City, as everybody knew; and who piqued themselves upon the strictness of their morals, the length of their purses, and the strength of their prejudices.

One gentleman, whose own face was as rosy as a peony, declared, with a mild asseveration, “Jones has married a blackamoor;” but Mrs. Jones was not black, only exceedingly brown, so brown that if she darkened much more, as time went on, she bade fair eventually to outvie the rich splendour of the old Spanish mahogany chairs, which had been recovered and repolished to do her honour.