Maud Platten and Leslie Thornton.
IT was on a Sunday evening that Dr. Thornton had that serious talk with
the old china-dealer. John Griffin was the last patient that it was
necessary to see that day, and when the doctor left his house, he was
about to attend the evening service at church. As he walked quickly up
the lane he was pondering the old man's case, and trying to weigh the
probabilities of life and death.
He was anxious about this patient, in whom he felt much interest. He
had before attended him for a slighter ailment; and being somewhat
of a china fancier, had occasionally lingered in the shop to examine
Griffin's curious wares, and listen to his description of their age and
value. He liked the quaint bluntness of the old man's speech. He had
been little prepared, however, to find him in such a state of darkness
in regard to spiritual truth.
The discovery shocked Leslie Thornton; for whilst deeply versed in
medical knowledge, he was not one of those who try to ground everything
upon the verities of their science, and think to prove their high
intelligence by refusing to believe all truth which lies beyond the
range of natural law. Leslie had been trained in childhood by a
Christian mother, whose gentle life had taught him better than her
words the glory of righteousness, purity, and truth. He had a deep
reverence for the Christian faith, although he had not known how to
explain its truth to the ignorant old man whose earthly course seemed
so nearly run.
But Dr. Thornton ceased to muse upon old Griffin's ignorance, as
turning from the lane, he crossed the busy thoroughfare, and made his
way up the hill, which the weary widow and her child had ascended on
that last sad day of her life. He was going to church, but he was not
going alone, and thoughts of one who was waiting for him made him
quicken his footsteps as he heard the church bells begin to ring. He
walked quickly till, almost at the top of the hill, he paused before
the large many-windowed house at which the widow had lingered on that
bitter night. He rang the bell, and when the servant opened the door
to him, entered the house with the air of one who felt himself at home
there.
"At last!" cried a bright young voice, as he opened the door of the
dining-room. "I began to think that some horrid patient was keeping
you, and that I should have to give up church for to-night. Not that I
should have minded very much, for Mr. Wright does get most dreadfully
prosy, and the curate is even worse. Still I am glad you have come."
The speaker was a young girl of most attractive appearance. As she came
forward elegantly dressed, her dark eyes shining with pleasure, and her
face wearing the prettiest blush and smile, the look of pride and joy
which lit up the young man's countenance could be easily explained.
"Thank you, Maud," he said, as he pressed her hand; "you knew I should
come if I could, did you not? Where are the others?"
"Oh, papa would go on. You know what a dreadful fidget he is about
getting to church in time," said the young lady, laughingly; "but my
gloves refused to button, so I thought I would wait for you to do them
for me. You are so clever at such things, you know."
No one seeing Leslie as he bent to button the glove across the tiny
wrist, need have asked in what relation he stood to the fairy-like
little beauty beside him. She was Colonel Platten's daughter, and
from many suitors had chosen the handsome young doctor for her future
husband. Her father, a proud, stately man of the frigid, unbending
temperament which makes few friends, and is often judged more harshly
than it deserves, was of opinion that she might have done better, but
he did not oppose her choice. He liked Leslie Thornton, who was of good
family, and a gentleman in the highest sense of the word, and having
had painful proof in the past of the deplorable consequences that may
ensue from crossing the will of a high-spirited girl, the colonel had
judged it best to allow Maud to gratify the inclination of her heart.
Maud was not the colonel's only daughter, though by many of her
acquaintance she was supposed so to be. There had been another, the
only child of his first marriage; but she had left his home long
since, and marrying in defiance of his will, and under very unhappy
circumstances, had been disowned by her father. It was the old story
of a high-spirited, self-willed girl rebelling against the rule of
an unwise, unloving step-mother. Margaret, or, as she was generally
called, Maggie Platten, was twelve years of age when her father married
his second wife, quite old enough to prove a most intractable charge
to her step-mother. As an only child she had been much indulged and
petted, and having loved her gentle mother with all the warmth of a
passionate, impulsive temperament, she keenly resented her father's
marrying again only a year after the decease of his first wife.
The father and daughter had never learned to understand each other.
He loved his child, and believed that he was consulting her interests
in marrying again. She judged him hard and unfeeling for so doing.
Unhappily, the lady he had chosen for his wife was not of a temper
that could smooth matters in the home. It was soon clear that she and
her step-daughter would never get on together. So Maggie was sent to
a distant boarding-school, and during six long years saw scarcely
anything of her home, for, by the influence of her step-mother, it was
generally arranged that she should spend her holidays with relatives,
or that her father should pay her a visit instead of her returning to
form one of the family circle.
But when Maggie was of an age to leave school, it was impossible to
banish her longer. The young lady came home in no placable mood. She
resented the injustice which for so long had kept her from her place
at home, and was determined to visit it upon the head of the chief
offender.
A little sister and two baby brothers had been added to the home since
she left it. Maggie could have loved them, for she was naturally of a
warm, affectionate nature; but in her anger towards her step-mother,
she tried to steel her heart against her children. There were constant
storms in the house after Maggie's return. It was the common talk of
their acquaintance how ill Mrs. Platten and her step-daughter got on
together. Many sympathized with Maggie, amongst them Mrs. Allen, her
father's widowed sister, who was then residing in the town. Maggie was
a beautiful girl, very popular in society, and Mrs. Platten hoped that
she would soon marry and go to a home of her own.
But Maggie was in no hurry to give up her maiden freedom. The suitors
whom her father approved were not to her taste. At last, however,
Maggie's wayward heart made choice of a lover; but it was a choice
which appalled her father. The young man was only a banker's clerk,
and though of gentlemanly and pleasant appearance, there were rumours
abroad affecting his character, which would have made the colonel deny
him his daughter had he not deemed him so vastly beneath her in social
position. The colonel forbade the match positively and contemptuously,
as something too preposterous to be considered for a moment.
But his wilful, deluded daughter was determined to have her own way.
She was now twenty-one, and in possession of some small property
which she had inherited from her mother. She resolved to assert her
independence of parental control, more especially that exerted by her
step-mother. With this object in view, she hired rooms in the house
in which her aunt was lodging, and taking advantage of her father's
temporary absence from home, removed thither, taking with her all her
possessions, and many things which had belonged to her mother.
The colonel's pride and affection were alike wounded by his daughter's
action. He never forgave his sister for having encouraged Maggie to
take this step, and he held her in a great measure responsible for all
that followed. For after a few months of estrangement had passed, the
foolish girl put the crowning stroke to her defiance by marrying the
young man of whom her father so highly disapproved.
That his disapprobation was not unfounded was soon manifest. A few
weeks after the marriage, strange discoveries were made at a certain
bank. A long course of embezzlement practised by one of the clerks had
suddenly been brought to light in the most surprising manner. The fraud
was traced to Maggie's husband, and he only saved himself from the
hands of justice by absconding in hot haste.
Colonel Platten's proud spirit was tortured by the shame and disgrace
thus brought home to him, and his anger burned fiercely against his
daughter. He had no pity for her sorrow. He vowed that she should be
nothing to him from henceforth. He wished never to see her or hear
of her again; he desired to forget that he had ever had such a bad,
ungrateful child.
And he had his wish. He had never seen her since that day, when in
passionate, bitter words he thus upbraided her.
Denounced and cast off, Maggie fled from the town where she was so
well-known. She could not bear to live on there in disgrace and misery.
What became of her no one knew. Some thought that she had gone to join
her husband in his retreat on the Continent, others whispered that she
had been seen in London. But the mystery was not explained, and soon
people forgot to wonder about her. The excitement of the scandal died
out in a comparatively short time, and those who had once been proud
to boast the acquaintance of the beautiful Miss Platten, no longer
mentioned her or even thought of her.
The colonel recovered from the wound to his pride. What the wound to
his affections had been, his cold, stern demeanour suffered no one to
judge. He never named his elder daughter, nor permitted any one to
speak to him about her. She was as one dead, nay, worse than dead, for
the memory of the dead is cherished, whilst he desired to forget that
such an one as Margaret had ever existed.
The unhappy affair at the bank was hushed up, the bank managers, out
of consideration for Colonel Platten, refusing to prosecute. Now,
after nine years, the whole sad history was forgotten save by those
intimately concerned, and a few busybodies who kept mental registers
of all events affecting the lives of their acquaintance. Even Leslie
Thornton, in his close connection with the family, was not clearly
informed as to the unhappy circumstances which had severed the elder
Miss Platten from her relatives.
Maud herself could not have given an accurate account of the matter.
She had never troubled herself about the fate of the half-sister
whom she could faintly recollect as a tall and beautiful being who
had attracted her childish admiration. She was content with her own
happy lot as the only daughter of her home. Her father was never
demonstrative in his affection towards her; but he treated her with
kindness and indulgence, and after her mother's death, which happened
when she was about seven, she had things pretty much her own way.
Maud Platten was a lovely, winsome girl, though a few of the colonel's
oldest friends, who remembered the beauty of his elder daughter,
whispered that Maud was not to be compared with her sister. But Leslie,
who had had no opportunity of making such a comparison, thought himself
a happy fellow to have won the love of this brightest and fairest of
girls. He had already taken a house at a very short distance from the
colonel's, to which in a few weeks' time he hoped to take his bride.
His heart beat high with hope of future happiness. He had many things
to say to Maud about the new home and their new life as they walked to
church together on that Sunday evening, and for the time he forgot old
Griffin and his anxiety concerning him.
But the old man's words had made a deep impression on him, and they
returned to haunt his mind during the course of the sermon, which Maud
found so prosy. It was in truth a discourse not calculated to hold the
attention or interest the minds of the congregation; and it was little
wonder that its young and restless members looked about, and let many
thoughts pass through their minds, which the preacher would have judged
unsuited to the time and place.
"Maud!" Leslie startled his betrothed by saying, as he walked home with
her after the service. "I want your advice about one of my patients; I
want you to tell me how I ought to deal with him."
"Leslie! What an idea! What ridiculous thing will you be saying next?"
asked Maud, merrily. "As if I could advise you about your patients! I
know nothing of medicine."
"I was not going to consult you about medicine, dearest," he replied;
"with all due respect for your abilities, I think I can prescribe for
him without your aid. But this is a case of ministering to a mind
diseased, or rather to a mind that is in darkness. What would you say,
Maud, to a poor old fellow stricken with an illness that may end in
death for aught that I can tell, and who knows no more than the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and seems in utter ignorance of the religious
truth that you and I have learned from our childhood?"
"Oh, Leslie! How can I tell? What a strange question to ask me!" said
Maud, in an uneasy tone. "You should send Mr. Wright to talk to him. I
don't see that it is your business to trouble about it."
"But the old fellow refuses to see a clergyman," returned Dr. Thornton;
"he has evidently a strong prejudice against 'parsons,' as he calls
them. I feel as if I were responsible for his state, somehow. I don't
like to leave him to himself, without trying to say a word that may
help him. I wish you would tell me what to say to him, Maud. Women
understand these things so much better than men. If my mother had been
living, she would have been the one to send to him."
He was silent, waiting for her to reply.
But Maud was silent too. Her lover had never before spoken directly
to her about religion, and she felt vexed with him for introducing so
distasteful a subject. Neither did she care to hear any of the details
of his profession. She thought that it showed want of consideration on
his part to speak to one so young and charming as herself of so doleful
a thing as an old man's death-bed.
Moreover, Maud was inclined to feel jealous of Leslie's frequent
allusions to the mother whom he had loved so dearly. She could almost
fancy at times that he deemed his mother to have attained a higher
standard of feminine excellence than herself, and wished to hold his
parent up as an example to the girl whom he had chosen for his wife.
Maud resented the comparison. She felt sure that she could never be
good after the pattern of Leslie's mother, and she had no great wish
to attain to such goodness. Accustomed all her life to be spoiled and
flattered, it would have gratified her vanity to know that Leslie
believed her to be absolute perfection, and to hear him tell her that
there never had been and never could be a woman to be compared with
herself. But, warmly as he loved her, it was not Leslie's way to deal
in extravagant compliments.
"What sort of old man is he?" asked Maud, presently, when the silence
had lasted some minutes, and she felt oppressed by the sense that she
was expected to say something.
Leslie at once began to describe the peculiarities of the old man's
home and circumstances.
Maud listened with amusement to his description of the funny old
curiosity shop, and made no objection when he suggested that he should
like to take her there some day to inspect the old man's store, and
judge if he had any bric-à-brac suitable for their new drawing-room.
But she was dismayed when he said suddenly: "I suppose you would not
like to go and see the old man whilst he is ill, dearest?"
"Certainly not," she replied, hastily; "you frighten me by mentioning
such a thing. I have the greatest horror of seeing sick people. I wish
you were not a doctor, Leslie, to have to go to such horrid places, and
see such horrid sights. I am sure they prey upon your mind, and you are
getting—morbid—is not that the word? Yes, you are getting morbid, or
you would not talk as you did just now."
"Nonsense, I am not morbid," said Leslie, with a smile; "but a doctor
cannot help taking a serious view of life."
"Then don't try to make me take it," said Maud, playfully, though with
meaning in her words; "I hate taking serious views of anything. I do
not mean my life to be serious; I mean it to be bright and gay. So mind
you are not to talk to me about death-beds and sicknesses, or I will
not marry you after all."
Of course it was only a joke. Maud laughed merrily when she had so
spoken; but her words had a sting in them for Leslie.
"I would not sadden you for the world, darling," he protested,
earnestly; "it shall not be my fault if your life is not bright and
happy, but you must not say again that you wish I were not a doctor. I
don't like to hear you say that."
"I am sorry; I will not say it again if you do not remind me too
forcibly of your profession," she promised; "and now I have something
very nice to tell you. Papa has agreed to take tickets for the next
ball at the Assembly Rooms, and of course you must go with us. I am
so delighted, for I want to have another good dance before I become a
sober matron."
"Do you think you will ever attain to that dignity?" asked Leslie,
lightly.
"I am afraid not," she returned, with a silvery laugh; "but about the
ball; you will go with us, will you not?"
"I shall be most happy, if it is possible," he replied; "you do not
think I should like you to go without me?"
By this time they were again at Colonel Platten's house. Dr. Thornton
would have entered and stayed an hour or two, as his habit was on
Sunday evenings, but, unfortunately, a messenger was awaiting him there
with an urgent summons to one of his poor patients.
"How tiresome!" murmured Maud, as he hurried away, having lingered to
the last moment in saying his farewell: "I wish he were not a doctor."
And she went into the house feeling vexed and disappointed.
Leslie, too, as he went on his way, carried a weight of disappointment.
He was pained by the manner in which Maud had received his confidence
regarding old Griffin. He had counted on finding in his betrothed a
friend to whom he could always speak freely about his patients, and
who would sympathize with his anxieties on their behalf, and comfort
him under the many harassing cares and vexations inseparable from the
career of a medical man. He was unprepared to learn that Maud did not
like his profession, and did not care to hear any mention of the work
to which he gave his time and strength. Would it always be thus, he
wondered? Would she always love pleasures and gaieties better than all
else, and try persistently to shut her eyes to the serious side of
life? No, he did not believe it. Love would not long allow him to think
critically of his beautiful Maud. He would not have her other than she
was. She would grow wiser in time. When they were married, he felt sure
that he should find her all that he could possibly desire, and a far
sweeter wife than he should ever deserve.
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