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<h1 id="id00009" style="margin-top: 6em">A BACHELOR'S DREAM</h1>
<h3 id="id00010" style="margin-top: 3em">BY</h3>
<h5 id="id00011">THE DUCHESS</h5>
<h3 id="id00016" style="margin-top: 3em">CHAPTER I.</h3>
<p id="id00017" style="margin-top: 3em">"Now what can be done?" said the Doctor. "That's the question. What on
earth can I do about it?"</p>
<p id="id00018">He put this question emphatically, with an energetic blow of his gloved
hand upon his knee, and seemed very desirous of receiving an answer,
although he was jogging along alone in his comfortable brougham. But
the Doctor was perplexed, and wanted some one to help him out of his
difficulty. He was a bachelor, and knew therefore that it was of no use
letting Patrick drive him home in search of a confidant, for at home
the ruling genius of his household was his housekeeper, Mrs. Jessop.
She was a most excellent creature, an invaluable manager of the house,
the tradespeople, and the maid-servants, and a splendid cook; the
Doctor appreciated her highly, but he was not disposed to ask her
advice or to invite her consolation.</p>
<p id="id00019">He beat his knee a little harder, frowned more severely; finally let
down the window, put out his head, and called smartly:</p>
<p id="id00020">"Patrick!"</p>
<p id="id00021">"Sir." Patrick pulled up the slim, clean-limbed brown horse as quickly
as he could in the midst of the hurrying vehicles and hucksters' stalls
which are usually to be found in the Essex Road at about seven o'clock
on Saturday evening, and looked questioningly down at his master.</p>
<p id="id00022">"Don't go home. Drive me to Petersham Villa," said Dr. Brudenell.</p>
<p id="id00023">Patrick obeyed rather sulkily. He did not know what his master could
possibly want at Petersham Villa—where he had already been once that
day—and he did know that he himself was exceedingly hungry, and
desirous of getting home. He gave the brown horse an undeserved cut
over the ears with his whip; and when he pulled up he did so with a
jerk which he might easily have avoided.</p>
<p id="id00024">"I sha'n't be many minutes," said the Doctor, alighting in front of a
comfortable-looking well-kept house, with red gleams of firelight
shining from its parlor windows. "Walk the horse up and down to keep
the cold off, but don't go far."</p>
<p id="id00025">"It's cowld enough we'll both be, I'm thinkin'," muttered Patrick,
gathering up the reins with a shiver; for it was really a very cold
evening indeed, damp and gray, with a biting east wind.</p>
<p id="id00026">If the Doctor heard this complaint, he did not heed it, his policy
being, when his henchman was attacked with a fit of grumbling, to let
him recover his good-temper at his leisure. He had hurried up the
snow-white flight of steps, given a vigorous knock at the door, and,
being admitted by a neat maid-servant, was asking if Mrs. Leslie were
at home. Hearing that she was, he crossed the hall with an air of being
perfectly at home, and, after tapping at the door, entered the parlor,
causing a lady who was making tea to utter an exclamation of surprise,
and a young lady who was making toast before the glowing fire to drop a
deliciously-browned slice of bread into the cinders.</p>
<p id="id00027">"Why, Doctor"—the tea-maker extended a plump hand good-naturedly—"you
again? You are just in time for a cup of tea. I believe you came on
purpose."</p>
<p id="id00028">"Hardly that; but I shall be glad of one, if I may have it, Mrs.
Leslie," the Doctor returned, emulating her light tone as well as he
could; and, after shaking hands with the younger lady, who got up from
her knees to greet him, he took a seat near the round table, not in the
well-worn, cozy arm-chair in the snuggest corner of the snug room,
which, with its gorgeous dressing-gown thrown across it and slippers
warming before the fire, wad evidently sacred to somebody else.</p>
<p id="id00029">"Of course—although I fancy you rather despise it as a rule. Not a bit
like my Tom!"</p>
<p id="id00030">"Ah, you see I'm not like Tom in having some one to make it for me!"</p>
<p id="id00031">"Well, that's your fault, I suppose," said the lively woman,
vivaciously, as she deftly handled the shining copper kettle. "I told
Kate it was your knock; but she wouldn't believe that you could honor
us with two visits in one day."</p>
<p id="id00032">"I thought Doctor Brudenell's time was too valuable," observed Kate,
quietly, as she resumed her toasting.</p>
<p id="id00033">She was not nearly so pretty as her sister, although Mrs. Leslie was
the elder of the two by twelve years. Maria Leslie had taken life so
easily, and turned such a bright face to all its ups and downs, that
time had rewarded her at forty by making her look six or seven years
younger. A downright pretty woman she was, bright-eyed, bright-cheeked,
bright-haired, and so plump and merry that it was a pleasure to look at
her. Kate Merritt was smaller, darker, more grave, and less attractive
altogether. Doctor Brudenell liked them both, but he preferred the
elder, as most people did. He enjoyed a visit to Petersham Villa—it
was almost the only house with whose inhabitants he was upon really
easy and familiar terms, for he was by nature a shy and retiring man.
He had got into the habit of confiding in cheerful Mrs. Leslie, but he
seldom talked to Kate, who was too diffident to make him forget that he
also was inclined to be shy. Indeed he thought so little about her that
he had not even a suspicion that in her quiet, cool, self-controlled,
persistent way, she had made up her mind to marry him. Mrs. Leslie did
know it, and often rated her sister soundly on the subject, with even a
touch of contempt sometimes.</p>
<p id="id00034">"You are most absurd to keep that silly notion fixed in your head!" she
would declare, impatiently. "He doesn't care a straw for you, child!
Haven't you wit enough to see that? If he only knew what a goose you
were he'd pay you the compliment of thinking you crazy, I tell you.
He's a good fellow—the best fellow in the world after my Tom—but
there's something odd about him in that way. Can't you see that he
hardly knows one woman from another, you silly child? I don't, for my
part, believe that the man has ever been in love in his life at all."</p>
<p id="id00035">Mrs. Leslie was penetrative, but in this matter she was wrong; for, if
George Brudenell had been asked, he would probably have confessed that
he had been in love twice. True, his first passion had been conceived
at the age of eighteen, its object being the bosom-friend of his only
sister, a young lady who owned to six-and-twenty, and who had laughed
at him mercilessly when the most startling of valentines had made her
aware of the state of things. Then, years after, when he was nearly
thirty, he had become very fond of the daughter of his partner, a
pretty, gentle, winning creature some half a dozen years younger than
himself, who had girlishly adored him. He had been so fond of her and
so used to her, he had grieved so sincerely when, a month before what
was to have been their wedding-day, she died, that he did not realize
in the least that he had reached his present age of forty-three without
having been really in love at all.</p>
<p id="id00036">He was not unhappy. A studious man, cold, taciturn, and self-contained
as a rule, caring little for general society and devoted to his
profession, the want in his life, the blank in his wifeless and
childless home, was not to him what it would have been to a more
impulsive, less self-reliant nature. If sometimes he instituted an
involuntary comparison between his contracted hoped and interests as
contrasted with those of other men, books, his work, his studies, soon
consoled him. He hardly knew there was a yearning in his breast—a
vague, intangible felling, waiting for a mistress-hand to stir it into
activity—the hand of a woman whom he had never seen.</p>
<p id="id00037">"And what brings you here a second time, Doctor?" asked Mrs. Leslie,
brightly, as she poured out a cup of tea and handed it to him. "Are you
going to give us some advice gratis?"</p>
<p id="id00038">"Hardly, Mrs. Leslie; in fact, I want yours."</p>
<p id="id00039">"Mine?" exclaimed the lady, vivaciously. "It is yours, of course—but
upon what subject?"</p>
<p id="id00040">"This. You recollect that I told you my sister was coming home from<br/>
India with her children?"<br/></p>
<p id="id00041">"To be sure—I remember. Well?"</p>
<p id="id00042">"Well, I have a letter from her announcing that, as she has been out of
health for the last month or two, her husband does not wish her to
travel yet. But her children are coming to England—they are on their
way, in fact, and coming to me."</p>
<p id="id00043">Doctor Brudenell, in making this statement, did not feel comical, but
he looked so, in spite of his grave, refined, scholarly face, and Mrs.
Leslie greeted his words with a burst of hearty laughter.</p>
<p id="id00044">"My dear Doctor, don't look so tragic! The poor little creatures won't
eat you. So they are coming to you? Well, what is your difficulty?"</p>
<p id="id00045">"Merely, what am I to do with them?"</p>
<p id="id00046">"Why, take care of them, of course!"</p>
<p id="id00047">The Doctor stirred his tea with an air of helpless bewilderment. He
felt that this was all very well as far as it went, and strictly what
he meant to do, of course; but it did not go far enough—it was no
solution of his difficulty. He felt a distinct sense of injury, too.
His sister had got married, which was all very well. She had had eight
children, only three of whom were now alive; and it occurred to him
that, having the children, it was clearly Laura's duty to look after
them. There was en element of coolness in her sending them to him which
he found rather disconcerting. It opened a prospect of unending
domestic tribulation. Laura herself had been an altogether
irrepressible child, loud in voice, restless of movement, tireless of
tongue, insatiable in curiosity, unceasing in mischief. What would his
quiet house be with three editions of Laura running rampant about it?
They would invade his study, disarrange his books, frolic in the
drawing-room, make quiet and peace things of the past. What could he do
with them? What would Mrs. Jessop say? The Doctor shuddered at the
thought; the prospect appalled him.</p>
<p id="id00048">"You had better get a governess for them," suggested Mrs. Leslie,
briskly.</p>
<p id="id00049">"A governess!" This was a ray of light, but he was not sure that he did
not prefer darkness. "Oh—a governess?" he repeated, interrogatively.</p>
<p id="id00050">"Of course! They will be tiresome, you may be sure—all children are,
and Anglo-Indian ones particularly—at least so I should fancy—and you
certainly will not want them disturbing you, while it will never do to
have them running riot over the house. Get a good, sensible,
responsible person, not too young, and you will find that you need
hardly be troubled at all."</p>
<p id="id00051">The Doctor felt that this counsel was good. It was plain, practical,
feasible. But there remained a difficulty. How was he to become
possessed of the sensible, responsible person who was not too young?</p>
<p id="id00052">"Advertise," suggested his adviser, tersely.</p>
<p id="id00053">Of course! How very foolish of him not to have thought of it! The
plainest possible way out of the dilemma.</p>
<p id="id00054">"Thank you, Mrs. Leslie," said the Doctor, rising and taking up his
hat. "Thank you. I've no doubt that you're perfectly right. I will
advertise."</p>
<p id="id00055">He shook hands with the ladies—gratefully with the one, indifferently
with the other—and bowed himself out, hurrying to the waiting Patrick,
who had fulfilled his own prophecy in so far that he was by this time
"cowld" in every limb, although his temper was exceedingly warm.</p>
<p id="id00056">From the window Kate Merritt watched the brougham roll away and then
turned to her sister angrily, tears in her eyes, a hot flush upon her
face. Although she was by nature really obstinate, resolute, and
persistent, she often exhibited upon the surface a childish pettishness
with which her real self was almost absurdly at variance. She spoke now
as a spoilt child might have done.</p>
<p id="id00057">"How dreadfully disagreeable you are, Maria! It's too bad, I declare! I
believe you do it on purpose—there!"</p>
<p id="id00058">"Do what on purpose? What in the world do you mean?" cried Mrs. Leslie,
pausing, sugar-tongs in hand.</p>
<p id="id00059">"You know what I mean!" exclaimed Kate, scarcely able to suppress a sob.</p>
<p id="id00060">"I declare I do not. This is some fad about Doctor Brudenell, I
suppose," said the elder sister, resignedly. "Do me the favor to be
intelligible, at least, Kate. What is it that you mean?"</p>
<p id="id00061">"Why did you advise him to advertise?" demanded Miss Merritt.</p>
<p id="id00062">"Because it was the most sensible advice I could give him. Is that the
grievance? What objection have you to his advertising?"</p>
<p id="id00063">"That I know very well what it will come to. He'll take your advice,
and advertise, and get some woman into his house who will pet the
children and coax and wheedle him until she gets completely round him,
and then we know what will happen," cried Kate, with her handkerchief
pressed to her eyes.</p>
<p id="id00064">Mrs. Leslie looked at her, and had some difficulty in restraining a
laugh.</p>
<p id="id00065">"Nonsense, child! Doctor Brudenell will no more fall in love with his
governess than he will with anybody else. For goodness' sake do try to
be more sensible. A nice opinion of you he would have if he could only
hear and see you now, I must say! I should be ashamed, if I were you,
to spend my time fretting and crying after a man who didn't care a pin
about me, like a love-sick school-girl. Dry your eyes and come to the
table. Whoever the poor man gets for a governess, I hope she may have
more common sense than you, I am sure. And the sooner he advertises for
her the better, if that unruly brood is to be here so soon."</p>
<p id="id00066">"He would never have thought of advertising but for you," said Kate,
resentfully.</p>
<p id="id00067">"Probably not!" retorted Mrs. Leslie, tartly. "But now he will do it,
and quickly, if he is sensible."</p>
<p id="id00068">Mrs. Leslie was wrong. The Doctor did not advertise for a governess,
although when he left he was firmly resolved upon doing so. He drove
home quickly to his handsome house in Canonbury, and enjoyed an
excellent dinner by the bright fire in his comfortable dining-room,
with a renewed appreciation of the excellent Mrs. Jessop. Then he
summoned that lady in his presence, and with very little circumlocution
broke to her the news of the promised invasion and the suggested
panacea. Finding that Mrs. Jessop took the matter on the whole amiably,
he felt considerably relieved in mind, and began placidly to smoke his
pipe over the Times. The leading article was stupid, soporific, the
tobacco soothing, the fire hot; he was just hovering in delicious
languor upon the very borders of dreamland when a knock at the door
roused him abruptly. Of course, he was called out.</p>
<p id="id00069">Had the call been from a well-to-do patient who fostered a half-fancied
illness, he might have been more put out than he certainly was when,
upon turning into the street, he felt the keen east wind nipping his
ears; but it was from a poor house lying in the midst of a very
labyrinth of squalid back streets and foul courts, and yet but a mere
stone's-throw from his own comfortable dwelling.</p>
<p id="id00070">The Doctor did all that he could for the patient—a disheveled woman,
who had fallen, while drunk, and cut her head. He bound up the wound,
gave a prescription; and, leaving directions with the voluble Irish
charwoman who filled the place of nurse, left the close, evil-smelling
room, glad to breathe even the tainted air outside, and as quickly as
he could retraced his steps.</p>
<p id="id00071">He had left the last of the wretched narrow streets behind him, and was
turning into a wider road which led by a short cut to the adjacent
thoroughfare, when he heard a shriek—a terrible cry of agony or
fear—perhaps both—and there, not more than a hundred yards before
him, standing out black against the surrounding gray, two figures were
frantically struggling—a man and a woman.</p>
<p id="id00072">George Brudenell, slight and wiry in figure, was active and swift as a
boy. He shouted and ran, but, before he could reach the two, the man
had violently wrested his arm free and raised it in the air. There was
a flash of steel as it descended, a shrill cry that broke off into a
moan; and the Doctor, hardly able to check himself, almost stumbled
over the woman as she fell at his feet.</p>
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