第77章

"Who cares?" said Miss Gale, turning her head sharply on him in the way Ihave tried to describe.

"I care," said Vizard. "I find wrath interfere with my digestion. Please go on, and tell us what your mother says. She has more common sense than somebody else I won't name--politeness forbids.""Well, who doubts that?" said the lady, with frank good humor. "Of course she has more sense than any of us. Well, my mother says--oh, Miss Vizard!""No, she doesn't now. She never heard the name of Vizard."Miss Gale was in no humor for feeble jokes. She turned half angrily away from him to Zoe. "She says I have been well educated, and know languages;and we are both under a cloud, and I had better give up all thought of medicine, and take to teaching.""Well, Miss Gale," said Zoe, "if you ask _me,_ I must say I think it is good advice. With all your gifts, how can you fight the world? We are all interested in you here; and it is a curious thing, but do you know we agreed the other day you would have to give up medicine, and fall into some occupation in which there are many ladies already to keep you in countenance. Teaching was mentioned, I think; was it not, Harrington?"Rhoda Gale sighed deeply.

"I am not surprised," said she. "Most women of the world think with you.

But oh, Miss Vizard, please take into account all that I have done and suffered for medicine! Is all that to go for _nothing?_ Think what a bitter thing it must be to do, and then to undo; to labor and study, and then knock it all down--to cut a slice out of one's life, out of the very heart of it--and throw it clean away. I know it is hard for you to enter into the feelings of any one who loves science, and is told to desert it.

But suppose you had loved a _man_ you were proud of--loved him for five years--and then they came to you and said, 'There are difficulties in the way; he is as worthy as ever, and he will never desert _you;_ but you must give _him_ up, and try and get a taste for human rubbish: it will only be five years of wasted life, wasted youth, wasted seed-time, wasted affection, and then a long vegetable life of unavailing regrets.' I love science as other women love men. If I am to give up science, why not die?

Then I shall not feel my loss; and I know how to die without pain. Oh, the world is cruel! Ah! I am too unfortunate! Everybody else is rewarded for patience, prudence, temperance, industry, and a life with high and almost holy aims; but I am punished, afflicted, crushed under the injustice of the day. Do not make me a nurse-maid. I _won't_ be a governess; and I must not die, because that would grieve my mother. Have pity on me! have pity!"She trembled all over, and stretched out her hands to Zoe with truly touching supplication.

Zoe forgot her part, or lost the power to play it well. She turned her head away and would not assent; but two large tears rolled out of her beautiful eyes. Miss Gale, who had risen in the ardor of her appeal, saw that, and it set her off. She leaned her brow against the mantel-piece, not like a woman, but a brave boy, that does not want to be seen crying, and she faltered out, "In France I am a learned physician; and here to be a house-maid! For I won't live on borrowed money. I am very unfortunate."Severne, who had lost patience, came swiftly in, and found them in this position, and Vizard walking impatiently about the room in a state of emotion which he was pleased to call anger.

Zoe, in a tearful voice, said, "I am unable to advise you. It is very hard that any one so deserving should be degraded."Vizard burst out, "It is harder the world should be so full of conventional sneaks; and that I was near making one of them. The last thing we ever think of, in this paltry world, is justice, and it ought to be the first. Well, for once I've got the power to be just, and just I'll be, by God! Come, leave off sniveling, you two, and take a lesson in justice--from a beginner: converts are always the hottest, you know. Miss Gale, you shall not be driven out of science, and your life and labor wasted. You shall doctor Barfordshire, and teach it English, too, if any woman can. This is the programme. I farm two hundred acres--_vicariously,_ of course. Nobody in England has brains to do anything _himself._ That weakness is confined to your late father's country, and they suffer for it by outfighting, outlying, outmaneuvering, outbullying, and outwitting us whenever we encounter them. Well, the farmhouse is large. The bailiff has no children. There is a wing furnished, and not occupied. You shall live there, with the right of cutting vegetables, roasting chickens, sucking eggs, and riding a couple of horses off their legs.""But what am I to do for all that?"

"Oh, only the work of two men. You must keep my house in perfect health.