The Doctor's Family - Chapter 13

'The Doctor’s Family' (1861) by Scottish author Margaret Oliphant is a beautifully observed Victorian novella, set in the fictional English town of Carlingford, a little out from London.

In Chapter Thirteen, a rugged Australian stranger arrives in Carlingford: Richard Chatham, the man Susan has endlessly talked about.

His visit pushes old tensions to the surface. Nettie, already worn down by months of caring for Susan and the children, feels her resolve weakening as everyone around her presses for a return to Australia.

Susan plays the victim, the children echo her wishes and even Chatham - well-meaning but oblivious - assumes Nettie will give in.

Nettie realises the painful truth: despite all she has sacrificed, she may be forced once again to uproot her life for a family who will seemingly never stop demanding more...

Transcript

Hello there.

Thank you so much for joining me for this continued reading of The Doctor's Family,

The charming old novel from 1861 from Scottish author Margaret Oliphant.

If you've been listening along already to this Victorian domestic drama,

You'll know we've been hearing about the life and times of a young local doctor,

Dr Edward Ryder,

With various members of his family,

And a brewing romance,

Family obligations,

Themes around duty versus desire,

And so on.

If you haven't heard the preceding parts and you'd like to,

You can certainly look for the playlist for The Doctor's Family.

That's the easiest way to find everything in order.

But for now,

Let's just take a moment here to have a nice deep exhale.

Letting go of the day,

Letting go of whichever baggage we might be bringing along with us into this moment.

For right now,

There's nowhere else we have to go,

Nothing else we have to be doing.

So we can just relax,

Get ourselves comfortable,

And enjoy the ongoing story of The Doctor's Family.

Chapter 13.

It was some months after the time of this conversation when a man,

Unlike the usual aspect of man in Carlingford,

Appeared at the inn with a carpet bag and asked his way to Scent Rock's cottage.

Beards were not common in those days.

Nobody grew one in Carlingford,

Except Mr Lake,

Who,

In his joint capacity of portrait painter and drawing master,

Represented the erratic and lawless followers of art to the imagination of the respectable town.

But the stranger who made his sudden appearance at the Blue Boar wore such a forest of hair on the lower part of his burly countenance as obliterated all ordinary landmarks in that region,

And by comparison,

Made Mr Lake's dainty little moustache and etc.

Sink into utter propriety and respectableness.

The rest of the figure corresponded with this luxuriant feature.

The man was large and burly,

A trifle too stout for a perfect athlete,

But powerful and vigorous almost beyond anything then known in Carlingford.

It was now summer and warm weather,

And the dress of the newcomer was as unusual as the other particulars of his appearance.

In his broad straw hat and linen coat,

He stood cool and large in the shady hall of the Blue Boar,

With glimpses of white English linen appearing under his forest of beard and round his brown sun-scorched wrists.

A very small stretch of imagination was necessary to thrust pistols into his belt and a cutlass into his hand and reveal him as the settler adventurer of a half-savage,

Disturbed country,

Equally ready to work or to fight,

And more at home in the shifts and expedience of the wilderness than among the bonds of civilisation.

Yet always retaining,

As English adventurers will,

Certain dainty personal particulars such,

For instance,

As that prejudice in favour of clean linen,

Which only the highest civilisation can cultivate into perfection.

He went off down Grange Lane with the swing and poise of a Hercules when the admiring waiters directed him to the cottage.

Miss Woodhouse,

Who was standing at the door with Lucy in the long grey cloak and close bonnet lately adopted by the Sisterhood of Mercy,

Which had timidly,

Under the auspices of the perpetual curate,

Set itself a-going at St.

Rock's,

Looked after the savage man with an instinct of gentle curiosity,

Wondering where he was going and where he came from.

To tell the truth,

That tender-hearted soul could,

With more comfort to herself,

Have stepped down a little on the road to St.

Rock's and watched whether that extraordinary figure was in search of Nettie,

A suspicion which immediately occurred to her,

Than she could set out upon the district visiting,

To which Lucy now led her forth.

But Miss Woodhouse had tremulously taken example by the late Rector,

Whose abrupt retirement from the duties for which he did not feel himself qualified,

The good people in Carlingford had scarcely stopped discussing.

Miss Woodhouse,

Deeply impressed in her gentle mind by the incidents of that time,

Had considered it her duty to reclaim,

If possible,

She who had no circle of college dons to retire into,

Her own life from its habits of quiet indolence.

She consented to go with Lucy into all the charitable affairs of Carlingford.

She stood silent,

With a pitying face,

And believed in all the pretenses of beggary which Lucy saw through by natural insight.

But it was no more her natural element than the long grey cloak was a natural garment for that spotless dove-coloured woman.

Her eyes turned wistfully after the stranger,

With suppressed impulses of gentle curiosity and gossip.

She knew very well he did not belong to Carlingford.

She knew nobody in Grange Lane or the neighbourhood to whom he could belong.

She wanted very much to stop and enquire at the stable-boy of the Blue Boar,

Their own gardener's son,

Who and what this newcomer was,

And turned back to look after him before she turned out of George Street,

Following Lucy,

With lively anxiety to know whether he was going to send rocks.

Perhaps the labours of a sisterhood of mercy require a special organisation even of the kind female soul.

Miss Woodhouse,

The most tender-hearted of human creatures,

Did not rise to that development,

And,

With a little pang of unsatisfied wonder,

Saw the unaccustomed Hercules disappear in the distance,

Without being able to make out whether he was bound.

Nobody,

However,

Who had been privileged to share the advantages of Mrs Fred Ryder's conversation for some time back,

Could be at a loss to guess who this messenger from the wilderness was.

It was Richard Chatham come at last,

He with whose name Nettie had been bored and punctured through and through from the first day of his introduction into Susan's talk till now.

Mrs Fred had used largely,

In the interval,

That all-potent torture of the continual dropping,

Used it so perpetually as though without producing any visual effect upon Nettie's resolution,

To introduce often a certain sickness and disgust with everything into that steadfast soul.

Nor did she content herself with her own exertions,

But skilfully managed to introduce the idea into the minds of the children,

Ready,

As all children are,

For change and novelty.

Nettie had led a hard enough life for these three months.

She could not meet Edward Ryder,

Nor he her,

With a calm pretense of friendship,

And Susan,

Always insolent and spiteful and now mistress of the position,

Filled the doctor with an amount of angry irritation which his longings for Nettie's society could not quite subdue.

That perpetual barrier between them dismayed both.

Meetings which always ended in pain were best avoided,

Except at those intervals when longing love could not,

Even under that penalty,

Refuse itself the gratification.

But the dismal life,

Which was lighted up only by those unfrequent,

Agitating,

Exasperating encounters,

And which flowed on through a hundred petty,

Toilsome duties to the fretful accompaniment of Susan's iterations,

And the novel persecution now carried on by the children,

Was naturally irksome to the high-spirited and impatient nature which,

Now no longer heart-whole or fancy-free,

Did not find it so easy to carry its own way triumphantly through those heavy clogs of helplessness and folly.

In the days when Miss Woodhouse pitied and wondered,

Nettie had required no sympathy.

She had carried on her course victorious,

More entirely conscious of the supreme gratification of having her own way than of the utter self-sacrifice which she made to Fred and his family.

But now,

The time predicted by Miss Woodhouse had arrived.

Nettie's own personal happiness had come to be at stake,

And had been,

Unhesitatingly,

Given up.

But the knowledge of that renunciation dwelt with Nettie.

Not all the natural generosity of her mind,

Not that still-stronger argument which she used so often,

The mere necessity and inevitableness of the case,

Could blind her eyes to the fact that she had given up her own happiness.

And bitter flashes of thought would intervene,

Notwithstanding even the self-contempt and reproach with which she became aware of them.

That doubtful,

Complicated matter,

Most hard and difficult of mortal problems,

Pressed hard upon Nettie's mind and heart.

In former days,

When she scornfully denied it to be self-sacrifice and laboured on,

Always indomitable,

Unconscious that what she did was anything more than the simplest duty and necessity,

All was well with the dauntless,

All-enterprising soul.

But growing knowledge of her own heart,

Of other hearts,

Cast dark and perplexing shades upon Nettie,

As upon all other wayfarers in these complex paths.

The effect upon her mind was different from the effect to be expected according to modern sentimental ethics.

Nettie had never doubted of the true duty,

The true necessity of her position,

Till she became conscious of her vast sacrifice.

Then a hundred doubts appalled her.

Was she so entirely right as she had supposed?

Was it best to relieve the helpless hands of Fred and Susan of their natural duties,

And bear these burdens for them,

And disable herself,

When her time came,

From the nobler natural yoke in which her full womanly influence might have told to an extent impossible to it now?

These questions made Nettie's head,

Which knew no fanciful pangs,

Ache with painful thought,

And confused her heart,

And dimmed her lights when she most needed them to burn brightly.

While,

At the very time when these doubts assailed her,

Her sister's repetitions,

And the rising discontent and agitations of the children,

Came in to overcloud the whole business in a mist of sick impatience and disgust.

Return to Australia was never out of Susan's mind,

Never absent from her pertinacious foolish lips.

Little Freddie harped upon it all day long,

And so did his brother and sister.

Nettie said nothing,

But retired with exasperated weariness upon her own thoughts,

Sometimes thinking,

Tired of the conflict,

Why not give in to them?

Why not complete the offering and remove,

Once for all,

Into the region of impossibility that contradictory longing for another life that still stirred by times in her heart?

She had never given expression to this weary inclination to make an end of it,

Which sometimes assailed her fatigued soul,

But this was the condition in which Richard Chatham's visit found her,

When that bushman,

Breathing of the wilds and the winds,

Came down the quiet suburban road to St.

Rocks,

And filling the whole little parlor with his beard and his presents,

Came stumbling into the confined room where Mrs Fred still lay on the work.

Sorry to hear of the poor doctor's accident,

Said the Australian,

To whom Fred bore that title,

But he always was a bit of a rover,

Though it's sad when it comes to that.

And so,

You're thinking of a return to the old colony?

Can't do better,

I should say.

There ain't room in this blessed old country for anything but text-gatherers and gossips.

I can't find enough air to breathe for my part,

And what there is,

Is text.

Leastways,

The light is,

Which is all the same.

Well,

Mrs Ryder,

Say the word,

Ma'am,

And I'm at your disposal.

I'm not particular for a month or two,

So as I get home before next summer,

And if you'll only tell me a time,

I'll make mine suit and do the best I can for you all.

Miss Nettie's afraid of the voyage,

Is she?

That's a new line for her,

I believe.

Something taking her fancy in this horrid old box of a place,

Huh?

But I'll be head nurse and courier to the party,

Miss Nettie,

If you trust yourselves to me.

We don't mean to go back,

Thank you,

Said Nettie.

It is only a fancy of Susan's.

Nobody ever dreamt of going back.

It is much too expensive and troublesome to be done so easily.

Now we are here,

We mean to stay.

The bushman looked a little startled,

And his lips formed into a whistle of astonishment,

Which Nettie's resolute little face kept inaudible.

Taken your fancy very much,

Eh?

Miss Nettie,

Said the jocular savage,

Who fancied railery of one kind or other the proper style of conversation to address to a young lady.

Nettie gave that big hero a flashing,

Sudden glance which silenced him.

Mr Chatham once more formed an inaudible whew with his lips and looked at Mrs Fred.

But your heart inclines to the old colony,

Miss Susan.

I beg your pardon,

Didn't remember what I was saying at that moment.

Somehow you look so much as you used to,

Barring the cap,

Said the Australian.

The one forgets all that has happened.

You incline to cross the seas again,

Mrs Ryder,

Without thinking of the expense.

And very sensible too.

There never was a place like this,

Blessed old country,

For swallowing up a man's money.

You'll save as much in a year in the colony as will take you across.

That is what I always say.

But of course my wish is a little thought of,

Said Mrs Fred with a sigh.

Of course.

It's Nettie we have to look to now.

If she does not choose to be sure,

It does not matter what I wish.

If I don't look different,

I feel different.

Things are changed now.

The Bushman gave a puzzled glance.

First at one sister and then at the other.

It occurred to him that Fred had not been so much of a strength and protection to his family as this speech implied,

And that Nettie had been the person whom Mrs Ryder had to look to even before they left that colony,

For which she now sighed.

But Mrs Fred,

In her sorrow and her white cap,

Was an interesting figure to the eyes which were not much accustomed to look upon womankind.

He had no doubt hers was a hard case.

Nettie sat opposite,

Very busy,

Silent and resolute,

Flashing dangerous sudden glances occasionally at her languid sister and their big visitor.

It was confusing to meet those brilliant,

Impatient,

Wrathful eyes,

Though they were wonderfully bright.

They put out the wild man of the woods and made him feel uncomfortable.

He turned with relief to those milder orbs which Mrs Fred buried in her handkerchief.

Poor little oppressed woman,

Dependent upon that little arbitrary sister.

The sincerest pity awoke in the Bushman's heart.

Well,

He said,

Good-humouredly,

I hope you'll come to be of one mind when Miss Nettie thinks it over again.

And you have only to drop me a line to let me know when your plans are formed,

And it will go hard with me,

But I'll make mine suit them one way or another.

All that I can do for you,

In the way of outfit,

Or securing your passages,

Or even if you would allow me.

Here the good fellow paused,

Afraid to venture any further.

Nettie looked up in a sudden blaze and transfixed him with her eye.

We have enough for everything we want,

Thank you,

Said Nettie,

Looking through and through his guilty,

Benevolent intentions,

And bringing a flush of confusion to his honest cheeks.

When I say I cannot afford anything,

I don't mean to ask anybody's assistance,

Mr Chatham.

We can do very well by ourselves.

If it came to be the best for the children,

Or if Susan keeps on wishing it and gets her own way,

As she generally does,

Said Nettie,

With heightened colour,

Dropping her eyes,

And going on at double speed with her work,

I dare say we shall manage it as we did before,

But that is my concern.

Nobody in the world has anything to do with it but me.

Oh,

Nettie dear,

You're giving in at last.

Do say you'll go,

And Mr Chatham promises he'll take care of us on the way,

Cried Mrs Fred,

Clasping her hands.

They were thin hands,

And looked delicate,

In contrast with her black dress.

She was very interesting,

Pathetic,

And tender to the rough eyes of the bush ranger.

He thought that imperative little creature opposite,

With her brilliant glances,

Her small head drooping under those heavy braids of hair,

Her tiny figure and rapid fingers,

Looked like a little cruel sprite,

Oppressing the melancholy soul.

When Nettie rose from the table,

Goaded into sudden intolerance by that appeal,

The climax of the continual dropping,

And threw her work indignantly on the table,

And called Freddy to come directly and get dressed for his walk,

The impression made by her supposed arbitrary and imperious behaviour was not diminished.

She went out,

Disdainful,

Making no reply,

And left those two to a private conference.

Then Mrs Fred unbosomed her bereaved heart to that sympathetic stranger.

She told him how different everything was now.

How hard it was to be dependent even on one's sister.

How far otherwise things might have been,

If poor dear Fred had been more prudent.

One way or other,

All her life through,

Susan had been an injured woman.

All her desire was to take the children back to the colony before she died.

If Nettie would but yield,

Sighed Mrs Fred,

Clasping her hands.

Nettie must yield,

Cried the bushranger,

Full of emotion,

And Susan cried a little,

And told him how much the poor dear children wished it,

And knew,

In her fool's heart,

That she had driven Nettie to the extremest bounds of patience,

And that a little more persistence and iteration would gain the day.

In the meantime,

Nettie went out with Freddy,

The other two being at school,

And took him across the fields for his afternoon walk.

The little fellow talked of Australia all the way,

With a childish treachery and betrayal of her cause,

Which went to Nettie's heart.

She walked by his side,

Hearing without listening,

Throbbing all over with secret disgust,

Impatience,

And despair.

She too perceived well enough the approaching crisis.

She saw that once more,

All her own resolution,

The purpose of her heart,

Would be overborne by the hopeless pertinacity of the unconvincible,

Unreasoning fool.

She did not call her sister hard names.

She recognised the quality without giving it its appropriate title,

And recognised also,

With a bitterness of resistance,

Yet a sense of the inevitable,

Not to be described,

The certain issue of the unequal contest.

What chance had the generous little heart,

The hasty temper,

The quick and vivacious spirit,

Against that unwearying,

Unreasoning pertinacity?

Once more,

She must arise and go forth to the end of the world,

And the sacrifice must be final now.

Reviews

Ah, let the bushman whisk away Mrs Fred, bye bye! 😅 we shall see here… thank you!