Olivia"s healthy, robust const.i.tution always needed fresh air and regular exercise. Confinement to the house tried her, and the small rooms and low ceilings at No. 1, Galvaston Terrace, were certainly rather cramping. Half an hour"s brisk walk always refreshed her and acted like a tonic. She would look in at Mayfield Villas for ten minutes and give her report of the invalids, and then come back to tea looking so fresh and invigorated that Alwyn once told her that she was as good as a whiff of moorland air.
Alwyn was slow in recovering from that terrible shock. His nerves had suffered severely, and at times his restlessness and depression were sad to see.
"If he could only be reconciled to his father," Greta would sigh; "but the thought of another interview seems to terrify him. He is so painfully morbid," she went on, "and distrusts himself. He is afraid of saying and doing the wrong thing; somehow he seems to have lost all faith in his father"s love."
""I long for his forgiveness. I know that I have been a bad son," he said, yesterday. "But he will never believe in my penitence." Oh, it is dreadful the way he talks and works himself up."
"Marcus says it is a good deal owing to nervous exhaustion," returned Olivia; "but he is very sorry for him. Mr. Gaythorne has begged more than once to see him; he is evidently craving for a sight of him, but Marcus dare not bring them together yet. Mr. Gaythorne is only just able to sit up, and he is very weak. And then while Mr. Alwyn is in this nervous state he is hardly to be trusted."
"Yes, we must be patient, I suppose. I have perfect faith in Dr.
Luttrell"s opinion," and then her manner changed, and she said, mournfully, "Do you know how badly he thinks of father? He is afraid he will never leave his bed again."
"Yes, I know; and Dr. Bevan agrees with him. Poor Greta, I am so sorry for you," and she laid her hand affectionately on her shoulder.
"Yes, but I dare not murmur," returned the girl, in a low voice. "It would be more merciful to let him die than linger on in suffering, and"--with a little burst of feeling--"the disease that is killing him has not been brought on by his own fault. Oh, the grat.i.tude I felt when Dr. Luttrell said that it has been latent in the system, and that only lately Dr. Bevan suspected it. But, oh, dear Mrs. Luttrell, do not wish him to live. No one who cared for him could wish it."
"Poor child. Yes, I know; Marcus explained things to me."
"He is quite himself," went on Greta, drying her eyes. "And so dear and affectionate, but it hurt me so to hear him asking my pardon for the life he had led me. "I have not deserved such a good daughter," he said over and over again. "Since your poor mother died you have been my one blessing.""
"Dear Greta, you will let these words comfort you?"
"Oh, yes; I was repeating them in my dreams all night. When he was talking to me I felt that I had got the old father back. What do you think, Mrs. Luttrell? he actually asked me if I should go on living at Brunswick Place when he was gone, and then it came into my head to tell him about Ivydene, and he was so interested. I am sure he was pleased when I told him that I should like to go back there. He actually wanted me to write to the lawyer about it. But when he saw how shocked I was at the idea, he said perhaps we had better wait a little."
Olivia thought over this conversation when Greta left her; her heart ached for the lonely girl. When Marcus came in a few minutes later, he seemed struck with her unusual gravity.
"Is there anything wrong, Livy?" he asked. "You seem in the doldrums."
And as she smiled and shook her head, he continued cheerfully, "I am glad to hear it. Do you know I have actually a free evening until ten?
I feel as though I was a schoolboy again, and had an unexpected holiday. In my opinion, only busy people know how to enjoy a holiday properly."
"And I am really to have you to myself for three whole hours," and Olivia"s face beamed with delight. As Marcus drew his chair to the fire and took up the long-neglected book, Greta"s troubles went into the background.
"Oh don"t read just now," she said, imploringly; "let us talk a little first, Marcus, is it very naughty of me? but once or twice during the last few days, when you have been too busy to stay with me, or to play with Dot, I have thought that even prosperity will have its limitations; that being a successful doctor means that I shall see far too little of you."
Then Marcus drew back his head with one of his boyish laughs.
"Oh, Livy, what a child you are! have you just found out that? How delightfully illogical a woman can be! It stands to reason that I cannot be in two places at once."
"Oh, of course your patients will want you, and I am not really grumbling. Do you suppose that I shall not be proud of your success?
I was only trying to tell you that, in spite of all our difficulties and little petty troubles, I have been perfectly happy."
"Especially on Sat.u.r.day evenings, when you totted up your little red book, and the balance was always on the wrong side. I have seen you pull an uncommonly long face on those occasions. I am not quite sure about the perfect happiness then." Then, as Olivia looked reproachfully at him, his teasing manner changed.
"Dear Olive," he said, tenderly, "I am not really laughing at you. I understand quite well what you mean. I am not such an old married man that I cannot appreciate a compliment like that, when my wife tells me with her own lips that my society can sweeten even poverty and hardship.
"You are quite right, love; prosperity will have its limitations; these pleasant evening hours will often have to be sacrificed. But in all professions we must take the rough with the smooth. We must just put our shoulder to the wheel, you and I, and "Doe the nexte thinge," eh, Livy?"
"Oh, yes," she answered, eagerly, "and yours is such a grand work. I have always been so thankful you are a doctor. When I was quite young I used to tell mother that I wanted to marry a clergyman. But I think a doctor comes next. Oh, Marcus, did you ever read Whittier"s verses on this subject? Greta brought me his poems and read them to me. I think I know the last two verses by heart,--
""Beside the unveiled mysteries Of life and death go stand With guarded lips and reverent eyes And pure of heart and hand.
The good physician liveth yet Thy friend and guide to be, The Healer by Gennesaret Shall walk thy rounds with thee.""
And as Olivia repeated the lines in a voice tremulous with deep feeling, Dr. Luttrell"s firm lips unbent with a moved expression.
"That is beautiful," he said. "I think those words ought to be illuminated and hung up in every doctor"s waiting-room."
""The Healer by Gennesaret Shall walk thy rounds with thee.""
CHAPTER XVII.
PRODIGAL SONS.
"But by all thy nature"s weakness, Hidden faults and follies known, Be thou in rebuking evil, Conscious of thy own."--_Whittier_.
It was some few weeks before Mr. Gaythorne was allowed to see any one, and then Olivia was his first visitor. To her great surprise he had asked for her.
"I think I can trust you," Marcus said to her; but there was a trace of anxiety in his manner that did not escape her. "You must talk to him, of course; but you must be very careful not to agitate him; he wants all his strength for to-morrow;" for on the following day father and son were to meet again.
Olivia felt a little nervous. Marcus"s professional gravity frightened her.
"Do you not think it would be better for me to wait a day or two," she asked. "It is very nice of him to want to see me, but it seems to me that Mr. Alwyn ought to be his first visitor;" but although Marcus agreed with her, he said that Mr. Gaythorne had expressed such a strong wish to see her first, that he dared not refuse him.
"He was never fond of contradiction," he returned. "And we should only excite him if we opposed his wish. Although he is quite himself, little things irritate him; don"t make yourself nervous beforehand; you will say the right thing when the time comes for saying it;" and, though Olivia could not be sure of this, she felt that it was sensible advice.
But when the moment came and she saw how shrunken and aged the invalid looked, and heard the slight hesitation in his speech as he held out his hands to her with a pathetic smile, Olivia"s warm womanly nature was not at fault, for she bent over him and kissed his cheek as a daughter might have done.
"Dear Mr. Gaythorne," she said, earnestly, "if you knew how thankful we all are that you are better."
"Thank you, thank you," he said, with a faint flush of pleasure. "You speak kindly and as though you meant it. Sit down, my dear, we must have a little talk together, you and I. If I ever get my boy back, if the breach between us is ever healed, it will be owing to you and Dr.
Luttrell."
"Oh, please do not say that, we were only the means under Providence."
"Yes, yes," with a touch of impatience--"I am not forgetting that. In some ways I am a civilised heathen; but I have never omitted my prayers, thank G.o.d. "He loveth best who prayeth best." Who said that, Mrs. Luttrell? Perhaps I never prayed enough, or my boy would not have wandered so far. Ah, well, do you remember how hard I was on you for sheltering tramps, and now I can only say, G.o.d bless you for your divine charity."
Olivia"s eyes glistened, but she only pressed his hand in acknowledgment of this. "And to-morrow you are to see him," she said, softly.
"Yes, to-morrow," he repeated slowly, "that is why I must not talk much to-day; but I wanted to thank you for bringing Alwyn, and to tell you how grateful I am to you both.
"I am an old man," he continued, "old in sorrows more than in years; for, with Jacob, I can truly say that "few and evil have been my years." Oh, Mrs. Luttrell, my dear, take warning by me; you have a little one of your own, and perhap in future years you may have sons growing up beside you, never for one instant let anything come between you and them."
He paused for a moment and then went on: "When Alwyn was a little child, I simply worshipped him; his own mother begged me with tears in her eyes not to set my heart so much on him. He was delicate, and I knew what she meant, that she feared whether we should rear him; and I remember, as she said this, that I struck my hand pa.s.sionately against his little cot, "if that boy dies I shall never hold up my head again;"
how well I remember that speech. Oh, my dear, the time came when I wished that I had no son, when the sharpness of the serpent"s tooth entered my very vitals. G.o.d grant that you and Dr. Luttrell may never have to blush for a son"s misdoings."