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DOCTOR LUTTRELL'S FIRST PATIENT
by
ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY
Author of "Little Miss Muffet," "Cousin Mona,"
"The Mistress of Brae Farm," "Esther," Etc.
[Frontispiece: "I hope you do not think I was wrong?"]
Philadelphia
J. B. Lippincott Company
1900
Copyright, 1896,
by
J. B. Lippincott Company.
_Contents._
CHAPTER I.
AT THE CORNER HOUSE
CHAPTER II.
THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
CHAPTER III.
AUNT MADGE
CHAPTER IV.
DR. LUTTRELL'S FIRST PATIENT
CHAPTER V.
A VISIT TO GALVASTON HOUSE
CHAPTER VI.
"I REMIND YOU OF SOMEONE?"
CHAPTER VII.
BLOWING BUBBLES
CHAPTER VIII.
"'TIS A LOVE TOKEN, I RECKON"
CHAPTER IX.
THE CHRISTMAS GUEST
CHAPTER X.
A GENTLEMANLY TRAMP
CHAPTER XI.
THE NIGHT-BELL RINGS
CHAPTER XII.
GRETA
CHAPTER XIII.
FRESH COMPLICATIONS
CHAPTER XIV.
AN EVENTFUL DAY
CHAPTER XV.
"THEY WERE BOTH TO BLAME"
CHAPTER XVI.
BUSY DAYS
CHAPTER XVII.
PRODIGAL SONS
CHAPTER XVIII.
AUNT MADGE GIVES HER OPINION
CHAPTER XIX.
DAME FORTUNE SMILES
CHAPTER XX.
"SOMEBODY'S CRUTCH"
CHAPTER XXI.
SUNSHINE AND CLOUDS
CHAPTER XXII.
"YOU MUST NOT LOSE HEART"
CHAPTER XXIII.
"I HAVE COME TO STAY"
CHAPTER XXIV.
"NOT YET"
_Illustrations_
"I hope you do not think I am wrong?" . . . _Frontispiece_
"Oh, Marcus, how happy we are!"
"Olive, look what Mr. Gaythorne has given me"
Mr. Gaythorne sat in his great ebony chair
"It is beautiful--it is perfectly charming!"
"They both looked so comfortable and contented"
Doctor Luttrell's First Patient
CHAPTER I.
AT THE CORNER HOUSE.
"Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you
wish."--_Epictetus_.
There is an old adage, worn almost threadbare with continual use, "When
poverty looks in at the door, love flies out at the window," and,
doubtless, there is an element of truth in the saying; nevertheless,
though there were lines of care on Marcus Luttrell's face, and in the
strong sunlight the seams of his wife's black gown looked a little
shiny, there was still peace, and the patience of a great and enduring
affection in the corner house at Galvaston Terrace.
When the brass plate, glittering with newness, had been first affixed
to the door, Marcus Luttrell's heart had been sanguine with hope, and
he had brought his young _fiancée_ to see it. The small, narrow house,
with its dark, square entry, its double parlours communicating with
folding-doors, and the corner room, that would do for a surgery, had
seemed to them both a most desirable abode.
Olivia, who prided herself on being unusually practical, pointed out
its numerous advantages with great satisfaction. The side entrance in
Harbut Street, for instance, and the front room where patients would be
interviewed, and which had a window in Galvaston Terrace.
"It is so conspicuous, Marcus," she said, with legitimate pride in her
voice. "No one can overlook it, it is worth paying a few pounds more
rent, instead of being jammed in between two terrace houses. Harbut
Street is ever so much nicer than Galvaston Terrace, and the houses are
larger, and it is so convenient having those shops opposite."
Olivia was disposed to see everything in _couleur de rose_, but to most
people Galvaston Terrace would have appeared woefully dingy. Two or
three of the houses had cards in the sitting-room windows, with
"Desirable apartments for a single gentleman" affixed thereon, and at
the farther end a French dressmaker eked out a slender income.
The Terrace had by no means a prosperous look, a little fresh paint and
cleaner blinds would have been improvements. Nevertheless, people
lived out harmless lives there, and on the whole were tolerably
contented with their lot.
When Marcus Luttrell made that fatal mistake of marrying in haste and
repenting at leisure, things had not looked so badly with him. He had
bought his partnership and had a little money in hand, and Olivia had
had sufficient for her modest trousseau. How could either of them have
suspected that the partnership was a deceit and a fraud--that old Dr.
Slade had let Marcus in for a rotten concern--that no paying patients
would crowd the small dining-room--and that two years of professional
profits would be represented in shillings? Now and then when he was
tired and discouraged Dr. Luttrell would accuse himself of rashness and
folly in no measured terms.
"Your Aunt Madge is right, Olive," he would say, "we have been a couple
of fools; but I was the biggest. What business had I to tempt
Providence in this way? I do believe when a man is in love he loses
his judgment; look at the life to which my selfishness has condemned
you. You will be an old woman before your time, with the effort to
make a sixpence go as far as a shilling! And there is Dot----" And
here the young doctor sighed and frowned, but Olivia, who had plenty of
spirit, refused to be depressed.
"You took me from such a luxurious home, did you not, Marcus?" she
would say, with a genial laugh. "A hard-working daily governess leads
such an enjoyable life, and it was so exhilarating and refreshing to
sit in one's lodgings of an evening, with no one to care if one were
tired and dull. Yes, dear old boy, of course I was ever so much
happier without you and Dot to worry me----" And, somehow, at these
cheering words the harassed frown on Marcus's brow relaxed.
Had he been so wrong after all. How could he know that old Slade would
prove a rogue and a humbug; it would have been wiser to wait a little,
but then human nature is liable to make mistakes, and in spite of it
all, they had been so happy. Olive was such a splendid companion, she
had brains as well as heart. Yes, he had been a fool, but he knew that
under like circumstances many a man would have done the same.
He remembered the events that had led to their hasty marriage. Olivia
had not long lost her mother, the widow's annuity had died with her,
and Olivia, who had only her salary as a daily governess in a large
family, had just moved into humbler lodgings.
He had gone round with some flowers and a book that he thought would
interest her, and as she came forward to greet him, he could see her
eyes were red and swollen.
"What is it, dear?" he had asked, kindly, and then the poor girl had
utterly broken down.
"Oh, Marcus, what shall I do?" she said, when her sobs would allow her
to speak. "I cannot bear it; it is all so dull and miserable. I am
missing mother and I am so tired, and the children have been so cross
all day." And Olivia, whose nerves were on edge with the strain of
grief and worry, looked so pallid and woebegone that Marcus had been
filled with consternation. Never had he seen his sweetheart in such
distress, and then it was that the suggestion came to him.
Why should they both be lonely? Olivia could marry him and do her work
as well, and there need be no more dull evenings for either of them.
"You will trust me to make you as happy as I can, dearest," he said,
tenderly, as he pleaded for an early marriage. And as Olivia listened
to him the sad burden seemed lifted from her heart.
"Are you quite sure we ought to do this, Marcus?" she had asked, a
little dubiously, for in spite of her youth she had plenty of good
sense, and then Marcus had been very ready with his arguments.
A doctor ought to be a married man, his house was too large for a
bachelor, and needed a mistress. What was the use of Olivia paying for
lodgings when he wanted a wife to make him comfortable? And if she
liked she could still go on with her teaching.
It was this last proviso that overcame Olivia's objections. If she
could keep her situation she would be no expense to Marcus. Her salary
was good, and until paying patients came she could subscribe towards
the housekeeping.
It was just one of those arrangements that look so promising and
plausible until fairly tried, but before many months had passed there
was a hitch--something out of gear in the daily machinery.
It was a dry summer, and Brompton is not exactly a bracing place.
Olivia began to flag a little, the long hours of teaching, the hurried
walks to and fro, tried her vigorous young frame. The little maids who
followed each other in quick succession were all equally inefficient
and unreliable. Marcus began to complain that such ill-cooked,
tasteless meals would in time impair their digestion. The Marthas and
Annes and Sallies, who clumped heavily about the corner house, with
smudges on their round faces and bare red arms, had never heard of the
School of Cookery at South Kensington. Olivia, fagged and weary,
looked ready to cry when she saw the blackened steak and unwholesome
chips set before Marcus. Not one man in a thousand, she thought, would
have borne it all so patiently.
Then one hot oppressive evening the climax came. Olivia, who had never
fainted in her life, found herself to her great astonishment lying on
the little couch by the open window with her face very wet, and Marcus
looking at her with grave professional eyes.
That night he spoke very plainly. There must be no more teaching.
Olivia was simply killing herself, and he refused to sanction such
madness any longer. In future he must be the only breadwinner. Until
patients were obliging enough to send for him, they must just live on
their little capital. Olivia must stay at home, and see after things
and take care of herself, or he would not answer for the consequences.
"You have your husband to consider," he said, in a masterful tone, but
how absurdly boyish he looked, as he stood on the rug, tossing back a
loose wave of fair hair from his forehead. People always thought Dr.
Luttrell younger than he was in reality. He was eight-and-twenty, and
Olivia was six years younger. She was rather taller than her husband,
and had a slim erect figure. She had no claims to beauty; her features
were too irregular, but her clear, honest eyes and sweet smile and a
certain effective dimple redeemed her from plainness, and the soft
brown hair waving naturally over the temples had a sunny gleam in it.
When baby Dot made her appearance--Dorothy Maud Luttrell, as she was
inscribed in the register--the young parents forgot their anxieties for
a time in their joy in watching their first-born.
Marcus left his books to devote himself to nursing his pale wife back
to health. And as Olivia lay on the couch with her baby near her, and
feasted on the delicacies that Aunt Madge's thoughtfulness had
provided, or listened to Marcus as he read to her, it seemed to her, as
though the cup of her blessing were full.
"Oh, Marcus, how happy we are!" she would whisper, and Marcus would
stifle a sigh bravely.
[Illustration: "Oh, Marcus, how happy we are!"]
Alas! he knew the little capital was dwindling sadly--rent and taxes,
bread and cheese, and even the modest wages of a second Martha were
draining his purse too heavily. He had plenty of poor patients, but no
one but the French dressmaker had yet sent for the late Dr. Slade's
partner. It was then that those careworn lines came to the young
doctor's brow.
It was bitterly hard, for Marcus loved his profession, and had studied
hard. The poor people whom he attended were devoted to him.
"He allus tells a body the truth," said old Widow Bates. "I do hate a
fellow who truckles and minces his words like that Sparks. Do you
suppose Jem Arkwright would have let his leg be cut off in that
lamb-like manner if it had been Benjamin Sparks to do it?
"I was down at their place, and I heard when Dr. Luttrell said, 'Now,
my man, you must just make up your mind, and be quick about it. Will
you be a brave chap and part with this poor useless limb, or will you
leave your poor wife to bring up six fatherless children? I am telling
you the truth, Jem. If you will not consent to part with your leg,
there is no chance for you.' Laws' sakes, you would have thought he
was a grey-headed old fellow to hear him; it kind of made one jump to
see his young, beardless face; but there, he was good to Jem Arkwright,
that he was. Polly can't say enough for him. She fairly cries if one
mentions his name.
"'I should have been Jem's widow but for Dr. Luttrell,' she said one
day. 'Why, before he came in Jem was lying there vowing "that he had
sooner die than part with his leg." It was the thought of the little
uns that broke him. My Jem always had a feeling heart.'"
And other folks, although they had not Widow Bates's garrulous tongue,
were ready enough to sing the doctor's praises.
When Dot was a year old and able to pull herself up by the help of her
mother's hand, things were no better at the corner house. Olivia had
even consulted her Aunt Madge about the advisability of sending Martha
away and doing the work of the house herself.
"Martha is the best girl we have had yet," she said. "Marcus owned
that yesterday. She is rough, but her ways are nicer than Anne's or
Sally's, and she keeps herself clean; but then, Aunt Madge, she has
such a good appetite, and one cannot stint growing girls."
"I should keep her a little longer," was Aunt Madge's reply to this.
"It will only take the heart out of Marcus, knowing that you have to
scrub and black-lead stoves, and he is discouraged enough already.
When Dot is able to run about, you may be able to dispense with
Martha's services," and Olivia returned a reluctant assent to this.
But her conscience was not quite satisfied. Even Aunt Madge, she
thought, hardly knew how bad things really were.
Mrs. Broderick was a chronic invalid, and never went beyond the two
rooms that made her little world. Most people would have considered it
a dull, narrow life, and one hardly worth living; but the invalid would
have contradicted this.
Madge Broderick had learned the secret of contentment; she had lived
through great troubles--the loss of the husband she had idolised, and
her only little child. Since then acute suffering that the doctors had
been unable to relieve had wasted her strength. Nevertheless, there
was a peaceful atmosphere in the sunshiny room, where she lay hour
after hour reading and working with her faithful companion Zoe beside
her.
Zoe was a beautiful brown-and-white spaniel, with eyes that were almost
human in their soft beseechingness, and Mrs. Broderick often lamented
that she could not eulogise his doggish virtues as Mrs. Browning had
immortalised her Flush.
Olivia was devoted to her Aunt Madge; they had a mutual admiration for
each other's character, and her sister's child was dear to Mrs.
Broderick's heart, and perhaps the saddest hours she ever spent now
were passed in thinking over the young couple's future.
"I was wrong," she would say to herself, with a painful contraction of
the brow. "I said too little at the time to discourage their marriage;
if I had been firm and reasoned with the child, she would have listened
to me. Livy is always so manageable, but I was a romantic old goose!
And then she was in love, poor dear! And now--oh, it breaks one's
heart to see their young anxious faces! I know so well what Marcus
feels; he is ready to go out into the roads and break stones if he can
only keep a roof over his wife's head." And there were tears in Madge
Broderick's eyes as she took up her work.