Dr. Wortles School | Page 7

leg had been broken, and
she had nursed him, not only with assiduity, but with great capacity.
The boy was the youngest son of the Marchioness of Altamont; and
when Lady Altamont paid a second visit to Bowick, for the sake of
taking her boy home as soon as he was fit to be moved, her ladyship
made a little mistake. With the sweetest and most caressing smile in the
world, she offered Mrs. Peacocke a ten-pound note. "My dear madam,"
said Mrs. Peacocke, without the slightest reserve or difficulty, "it is so
natural that you should do this, because you cannot of course
understand my position; but it is altogether out of the question." The
Marchioness blushed, and stammered, and begged a hundred pardons.
Being a good-natured woman, she told the whole story to Mrs. Wortle.
"I would just as soon have offered the money to the Marchioness
herself," said Mrs. Wortle, as she told it to her husband. "I would have
done it a deal sooner," said the Doctor. "I am not in the least afraid of
Lady Altamont; but I stand in awful dread of Mrs. Peacocke."

Nevertheless Mrs. Peacocke had done her work by the little lord's
bed-side, just as though she had been a paid nurse.
And so she felt herself to be. Nor was she in the least ashamed of her
position in that respect. If there was aught of shame about her, as some
people said, it certainly did not come from the fact that she was in the
receipt of a salary for the performance of certain prescribed duties.
Such remuneration was, she thought, as honourable as the Doctor's
income; but to her American intelligence, the acceptance of a present of
money from a Marchioness would have been a degradation.
It certainly was said of her by some persons that there must have been
something in her former life of which she was ashamed. The
Honourable Mrs. Stantiloup, to whom all the affairs of Bowick had
been of consequence since her husband had lost his lawsuit, and who
had not only heard much, but had inquired far and near about Mr. and
Mrs. Peacocke, declared diligently among her friends, with many nods
and winks, that there was something "rotten in the state of Denmark."
She did at first somewhat imprudently endeavour to spread a rumour
abroad that the Doctor had become enslaved by the lady's beauty. But
even those hostile to Bowick could not accept this. The Doctor
certainly was not the man to put in jeopardy the respect of the world
and his own standing for the beauty of any woman; and, moreover, the
Doctor, as we have said before, was over fifty years of age. But there
soon came up another ground on which calumny could found a story. It
was certainly the case that Mrs. Peacocke had never accepted any
hospitality from Mrs. Wortle or other ladies in the neighbourhood. It
reached the ears of Mrs. Stantiloup, first, that the ladies had called upon
each other, as ladies are wont to do who intend to cultivate a mutual
personal acquaintance, and then that Mrs. Wortle had asked Mrs.
Peacocke to dinner. But Mrs. Peacocke had refused not only that
invitation, but subsequent invitations to the less ceremonious form of
tea-drinking.
All this had been true, and it had been true also,--though of this Mrs.
Stantiloup had not heard the particulars,--that Mrs. Peacocke had
explained to her neighbour that she did not intend to put herself on a

visiting footing with any one. "But why not, my dear?" Mrs. Wortle
had said, urged to the argument by precepts from her husband. "Why
should you make yourself desolate here, when we shall be so glad to
have you?" "It is part of my life that it must be so," Mrs. Peacocke had
answered. "I am quite sure that the duties I have undertaken are
becoming a lady; but I do not think that they are becoming to one who
either gives or accepts entertainments."
There had been something of the same kind between the Doctor and Mr.
Peacocke. "Why the mischief shouldn't you and your wife come and eat
a bit of mutton, and drink a glass of wine, over at the Rectory, like any
other decent people?" I never believed that accusation against the
Doctor in regard to swearing; but he was no doubt addicted to
expletives in conversation, and might perhaps have indulged in a strong
word or two, had he not been prevented by the sanctity of his orders.
"Perhaps I ought to say," replied Mr. Peacocke, "because we are not
like any other decent people." Then he went on to explain his meaning.
Decent people, he thought, in regard to social intercourse, are those
who are able to give