Doctor Luttrell's First Patient Part 15

"Will you forgive me if I do not return your call just now? I simply dare not leave the house. You understand, do you not, Mrs. Luttrell?

but if you would be so very kind as to come again."

"Most certainly I will come again; did you think that I should not?

but, dear Miss Williams, you must not shut yourself up too closely, or your health will suffer."

But Greta only smiled faintly at this.

"I shall tell Dr. Luttrell that you have done me good," she said, pressing Olivia's hand; "how strange it seems--there is no cure for such a trouble as mine, and yet telling you about it has seemed to make it more bearable. Oh, please come again soon--very soon," and of course Olivia readily promised this.

It was rather a disappointment on her return to find Marcus had been in for tea and had gone out again. Robert Barton, who was reading by the fire, said that he would not be back for an hour or two.

"Have you had a pleasant afternoon, Mrs. Luttrell?" he asked, putting down his book, and trying to stifle a yawn; but, though Olivia replied in the affirmative, she did not vouchsafe any information about her visit.

When Marcus returned two hours later, he found their guest had betaken himself to bed, and Olivia was able to give him a graphic account of her afternoon.

"I am very much interested in Miss Williams," she observed presently; "fancy her turning out to be the very tall girl in brown at St.

Matthew's."

"Did your ears burn just now, Livy," observed Marcus, mischievously.

"I am glad to find someone appreciates my wife properly; you seem to have got on like a house on fire; well, you will be doing good work there."

"She said you were rather alarmed about her father that first night."

"Did she? I never said so," he returned, dryly; "in some cases it is best to reserve one's opinion; but of course at Mr. Williams's age it is a grave matter;" then he drew his chair closer to the fire. "Life's an awful muddle, Livy, as that man said in _Hard Times_; fancy the loneliness of a young creature like that; why, she cannot be more than two- or three-and-twenty, and her lawful protector drinking himself to death."

Olivia shuddered, her own young life had been anxious and hardworking; but compared with Greta Williams it had been strewn with roses. Could any parents have been more honoured than hers had been? And then had she not always had Aunt Madge's wise counsel and sympathy to aid her?

and, lastly, had not the suns.h.i.+ne of a happy love glorified it? But Miss Williams apparently had none of these things.

"Not more than others I deserve, but G.o.d has given me more," she thought, with a swelling heart, as she made her thanksgiving that night.

In spite of outside weather, there was plenty of life and movement in the corner house at Galvaston Terrace. The next day Mr. Barton began his sketch of Dot, and he soon became so absorbed in it that he seemed to forget his weakness and la.s.situde.

Olivia watched the progress of the picture with intense delight, and carried a favourable report of it on her next visit to Galvaston House.

"It is a striking likeness of my little girl," she said. "Even my husband, who is not easy to please in such matters, allows that. He owned yesterday that Mr. Barton is certainly a good artist, and understands his business. I like to watch him? he looks so happy when he is painting, as though he has forgotten all his troubles; he is staying with us a day or two longer on account of the picture, but he will certainly leave us on Thursday."

Mr. Gaythorne did not answer; he seemed to be considering something; at last he said, rather abruptly:

"Yes, Dr. Luttrell has been telling me what a clever fellow he seems, and I think I shall get him to do a little job for me.

"That picture I bought at Stangrove's wants touching up; it has been injured; I knew that when I bought it; but it was so slight that it did not matter, and I meant to get it put to rights. If I send it over to-morrow or the next day, do you think Mr. Barton will undertake the job? it will only take him an hour or two."

"He will gladly do so, I am sure of that. Is it the picture that my husband admired so much?"

"Yes, the Prodigal Son; I bought it that day I sprained my ankle. Very well, Mrs. Luttrell, it shall be sent to your house."

CHAPTER XIII.

FRESH COMPLICATIONS.

"It is best to be cautious and avoid extremes."--_Plutarch_.

Greta Williams's pathetic little speech, "Come soon, very soon, please," rather haunted Olivia, and she very speedily found an excuse for repeating her visit. This time she was welcomed so warmly, and Miss Williams seemed so unfeignedly pleased to see her, that she felt she had done the right thing, and after that she went frequently to Brunswick Place.

Circ.u.mstances certainly favoured the rapid growth of their intimacy.

Greta, who had caught a severe cold, was obliged to remain closely confined to the house, and Dr. Luttrell, who was sincerely sorry for the lonely girl, encouraged his wife to go as often as possible.

"She has not a soul belonging to her, at least in England," he said once, "though she has relations in New Zealand, uncles and aunts and cousins. There is a colony of Williamses in Christ-church. The worst of it is people seemed to have left off calling, her father made himself so disagreeable; it is hard lines for her, poor girl. I believe Mrs. Tolman looks her up occasionally." Then Olivia, at the mention of the vicar's wife, made a naughty little face.

"Miss Williams rather dreads her visits," she replied. "She calls her an east-windy sort of person, and I know what she means. Mrs. Tolman is an excellent woman, but she rubs one up the wrong way. I always feel bristly all over after one of her parochial visits, and I know Aunt Madge feels the same. When the vicar is with her he seems to tone her down somehow, but the very swing of her gown as she enters the room, and the way she sits down, as though she were taking possession of one's chair, irritates my nerves," but though Marcus laughed he did not contradict this.

The new friends.h.i.+p gave Olivia a great deal of pleasure. Since her school-days she had never enjoyed the society of anyone of her own age.

The hard-working young governess had had scant leisure for cementing intimacies.

It had always been a wonder to her how Marcus had managed his courting, and she often told him so. She had met him at the house of one of her pupils, and, it being a wet day, he had offered his umbrella, and walked back with her to her lodgings.

She had a vague idea that he had detained her for such a long time talking on the doorstep that her mother had come down and invited him to wait until the rain was over, but Marcus always repudiated this, and declared that she had talked so fast that he found it impossible to get away; but after this he and her mother had seemed to play into each other's hands.

Perhaps under other circ.u.mstances Olivia would hardly have found Miss Williams so attractive and interesting, for, though amiable and affectionate, she was by no means clever. Her accomplishments consisted in a tolerable knowledge of French and Italian picked up abroad, but she had no decided tastes. She read little, knew nothing of music, and her chief pleasure seemed the care of her flowers and her beautiful needlework, for some French nuns had taught her embroidery and lace-making. Olivia, who was intellectual and well read, and who thought deeply on most subjects, had soon reached the limits of Greta's knowledge, but happily there is culture of the heart as well as of the head.

Greta had plenty of sweet, womanly virtues. She was patient by nature and capable of much long-suffering and endurance. Her affections were warm and deep, but she had hitherto found no fitting scope for them.

The sad grey eyes told their own story: her youthful bloom had been wasted amid sterile surroundings. Greta Williams had one of those strong womanly characters that are meant to be the prop of weaker natures, that are veritable towers of strength in hours of adversity.

It was for this that Olivia grew to love her when she knew her better.

"She is so patient," she said once when she was discussing her with Mrs. Broderick. "She has so much staying power, and then she never quite loses her faith in anyone, however hopeless they seem. Even Marcus has said more than once that her pluck is wonderful, but of course it wears her out."

"You must bring her to see me, Livy," returned Aunt Madge. "We will have a little tea party, and Deb shall distinguish herself," but Greta only smiled faintly when Olivia repeated this.

"Some day, perhaps," she said, quietly, and then her eyes had suddenly filled with tears. "Oh, Mrs. Luttrell, we have had such a dreadful time. Nurse only left him a minute, and he managed to get to the brandy. It must have been Roberts's fault that the cellarette was unlocked, but ever since he has seemed quite mad; we were obliged to send for Dr. Luttrell." And then at the thought of the grim shadows brooding over that unhappy home, Olivia's little plans seemed out of place.

Mr. Gaythorne kept his promise, and before Robert Barton left them, the picture was sent to the corner house.

Mr. Barton, who had just finished his sketch of Dot and the kitten, had that moment invited Olivia to look at it.

"I may touch it up a bit more, but I suppose it will do now," he said, in a tone of complacency.

"Do! it is beautiful--it is perfectly charming. Oh, if we were only rich enough to buy it for ourselves, but," looking at him severely, "you know what my husband said this morning, Mr. Barton, that he would not allow me to accept it as a gift. You are to take it round to that picture dealer's in Harbut Street, and see if they will not give you a fair price for it, and then you must set about something bigger for the Royal Academy." And though Robert Barton shook his head in a melancholy dissenting fas.h.i.+on, he knew that Dr. Luttrell had been right.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "It is beautiful--it is perfectly charming."]

"I should have liked you to have it," he said, with a sigh, "but I suppose beggars ought not to be generous. If I only get on, I will paint Dot again;" and then Martha had come in with the picture.

"There is no light now. I shall have to wait till to-morrow, but of course your old gentleman knows that."