Chapter 23: The Surgeon and the Lawyer

A room in a house not a hundred miles from Newcaster. In it Mr and Mrs Vernon, looking as if they were somewhat in doubt as to what they were doing there; their son, Jim, who was manifestly enjoying himself much more than he had any notion of; their daughter Frances, who, obviously, had no doubt whatever that this was an occasion on which she was a young lady of importance. Also present, Dorothy Gilbert--very white, very anxious, and much prettier than she suspected. Miss Gilbert was Miss Vernon’s especial and particular charge--it was that fact which made her conscious that she was a person of importance. She kept quite close to her, as if desirous of giving her the comfort and assurance of her near neighbourhood; sometimes holding her hand, sometimes with her arm about her waist--and in that position a pleasanter picture than those two girls presented it would not be easy to imagine. There also was the Earl of Strathmoira, in a dark grey suit, which became him; and with that calm air of positively graceful assurance, which became him even better. And Mr Leonard Arnecliffe was there, offering such a complete contrast to the handsome earl--carelessly dressed; with about him such an appearance of having been buffeted by life’s tempests; and with, on his queer face, that humorous, tender something which made it almost beautiful.

These are the persons of our drama, with whom we already are familiar; but there were still two other persons in that room, whose acquaintance we have yet to make. One was Sir Derwent Dewsnap, whose surgical fame, one hardly need remark, was world-wide. Few men have performed more operations than Derwent Dewsnap; few have done more cutting and carving on the outside and inside of the human frame--and, as a cynic once observed, he looked it. But, while his knowledge and experience of general surgery was great, his skill in dealing with the human cranium, and especially that part we call the brain, it has been stated, was almost superhuman. Nowadays every great surgeon is a specialist, and Dewsnap’s speciality was brain. Not, of course, in a mental sense; he was not a mental pathologist at all; but in operations on the brain he was facile princeps.

He was shortly going to perform one of the most delicate operations on the cranium which even he had ever undertaken; and these persons were gathered together to receive from him an expression of opinion as to his probabilities of success.