The three stood drooping: the ladies with an attempt to digest his remark; the Rev. Doctor in dejection lest his gallantry should no longer continue to wrestle with his good sense.
He was rescued.
The door opened and a footman announced: —
"Mr. Dale."
Miss Eleanor and Miss Isabel made a sign to one another of raising their hands.
They advanced to him, and welcomed him.
"Pray be seated, Mr. Dale. You have not brought us bad news of our Lætitia?"
"So rare is the pleasure of welcoming you here, Mr. Dale, that we are in some alarm, when, as we trust, it should be matter for unmixed congratulation."
"Has Doctor Corney been doing wonders?"
"I am indebted to him for the drive to your house, ladies," said Mr. Dale, a spare, close-buttoned gentleman, with an Indian complexion deadened in the sick-chamber. "It is unusual for me to stir from my precincts."
"The Rev. Dr. Middleton."
Mr. Dale bowed. He seemed surprised.
"You live in a splendid air, sir," observed the Rev. Doctor.
"I can profit little by it, sir," replied Mr. Dale. He asked the ladies: "Will Sir Willoughby be disengaged?"
They consulted. "He is with Vernon. We will send to him."
The bell was rung.
"I have had the gratification of making the acquaintance of your daughter, Mr. Dale, a most estimable lady," said Dr. Middleton.
Mr. Dale bowed. "She is honoured by your praises, sir. To the best of my belief — I speak as a father — she merits them. Hitherto I have had no doubts."
"Of Lætitia?" exclaimed the ladies; and spoke of her as gentleness and goodness incarnate.
"Hitherto I have devoutly thought so," said Mr. Dale.
"Surely she is the very sweetest nurse, the most devoted of daughters."
"As far as concerns her duty to her father, I can say she is that, ladies."
"In all her relations, Mr. Dale!"
"It is my prayer," he said.
The footman appeared. He announced that Sir Willoughby was in the laboratory with Mr. Whitford, and the door locked.
"Domestic business," the ladies remarked. "You know Willoughby's diligent attention to affairs, Mr. Dale."
"He is well?" Mr. Dale inquired.
"In excellent health."
"Body and mind?"
"But, dear Mr. Dale, he is never ill."
"Ah! for one to hear that who is never well! And Mr. Whitford is quite sound?"
"Sound? The question alarms me for myself," said Dr. Middleton. "Sound as our Constitution, the Credit of the country, the reputation of our Prince of poets. I pray you to have no fears for him."
Mr. Dale gave the mild little sniff of a man thrown deeper into perplexity.
He said: "Mr. Whitford works his head; he is a hard student; he may not be always, if I may so put it, at home on worldly affairs."
"Dismiss that defamatory legend of the student, Mr. Dale; and take my word for it, that he who persistently works his head has the strongest for all affairs."
"Ah! Your daughter, sir, is here?"
"My daughter is here, sir, and will be most happy to present her respects to the father of her friend, Miss Dale."
"They are friends?"
"Very cordial friends."
Mr. Dale administered another feebly pacifying sniff to himself.
"Lætitia!" he sighed, in apostrophe, and swept his forehead with a hand seen to shake.
The ladies asked him anxiously whether he felt the heat of the room; and one offered him a smelling-bottle.
He thanked them. "I can hold out until Sir Willoughby comes."
"We fear to disturb him when his door is locked, Mr. Dale; but, if you wish it, we will venture on a message. You have really no bad news of our Lætitia? She left us hurriedly this morning, without any leave-taking, except a word to one of the maids, that your condition required her immediate presence."
"My condition! And now her door is locked to me! We have spoken through the door, and that is all. I stand sick and stupefied between two locked doors, neither of which will open, it appears, to give me the enlightenment I need more than medicine."
"Dear me!" cried Dr. Middleton, "I am struck by your description of your position, Mr. Dale. It would aptly apply to our humanity of the present generation; and were these the days when I sermonized, I could propose that it should afford me an illustration for the pulpit. For my part, when doors are closed I try not their locks; and I attribute my perfect equanimity, health even, to an uninquiring acceptation of the fact that they are closed to me. I read my page by the light I have. On the contrary, the world of this day, if I may presume to quote you for my purpose, is heard knocking at those two locked doors of the secret of things on each side of us, and is beheld standing sick and stupefied because it has got no response to its knocking. Why, sir, let the world compare the diverse fortunes of the beggar and the postman: knock to give, and it is opened unto you: knock to crave, and it continues shut. I say, carry a letter to your locked door, and you shall have a good reception: but there is none that is handed out. For which reason…"
Mr. Dale swept a perspiring forehead, and extended his hand in supplication. "I am an invalid, Dr. Middleton," he said. "I am unable to cope with analogies. I have but strength for the slow digestion of facts."
"For facts, we are bradypeptics to a man, sir. We know not yet if nature be a fact or an effort to master one. The world has not yet assimilated the first fact it stepped on. We are still in the endeavour to make good blood of the fact of our being." Pressing his hands at his temples, Mr. Dale moaned: "My head twirls; I did unwisely to come out. I came on an impulse; I trust, honourable. I am unfit — I cannot follow you, Dr. Middleton. Pardon me."
"Nay, sir, let me say, from my experience of my countrymen, that if you do not follow me and can abstain from abusing me in consequence, you are magnanimous," the Rev. Doctor replied, hardly consenting to let go the man he had found to indemnify him for his gallant service of acquiescing as a mute to the ladies, though he knew his breathing robustfulness to be as an East wind to weak nerves, and himself an engine of punishment when he had been torn for a day from his books.
Miss Eleanor said: "The enlightenment you need, Mr. Dale? Can we enlighten you?"
"I think not," he answered, faintly. "I think I will wait for Sir Willoughby… or Mr. Whitford. If I can keep my strength. Or could I exchange — I fear to break down — two words with the young lady who is, was…"
"Miss Middleton, my daughter, sir? She shall be at your disposition; I will bring her to you." Dr. Middleton stopped at the window. "She, it is true, may better know the mind of Miss Dale than I. But I flatter myself I know the gentleman better. I think, Mr. Dale, addressing you as the lady's father, you will find me a persuasive, I could be an impassioned, advocate in his interests."
Mr. Dale was confounded; the weakly sapling caught in a gust falls back as he did.
"Advocate?" he said. He had little breath.
"His impassioned advocate, I repeat; for I have the highest opinion of him. You see, sir, I am acquainted with the circumstances. I believe," Dr. Middleton half turned to the ladies, "we must, until your potent inducements, Mr. Dale, have been joined to my instances, and we overcome what feminine scruples there may be, treat the circumstances as not generally public. Our Strephon may be chargeable with shyness. But if for the present it is incumbent on us, in proper consideration for the parties, not to be nominally precise, it is hardly requisite in this household that we should be. He is now for protesting indifference to the state. I fancy we understand that phase of amatory frigidity. Frankly, Mr. Dale, I was once in my life myself refused by a lady, and I was not indignant, merely indifferent to the marriage-tie."
"My daughter has refused him, sir?"