Читать книгу Doctor Luttrell's First Patient - Rosa Nouchette Carey - Страница 15

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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.