CHAPTER V.

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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