The Red House Mystery. Duchess

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ there before him, embodied in the brougham.

      Darkham flings himself back and covers his eyes with his hand, as if to blot out the too, too lovely apparition. But it would not go. It stayed. The sweet eyes always smiling, the lips a little parted.

      What was it that woman, that human devil, had said about her? That she was thinking of—that she was in love with that young Dillwyn? Pshaw!

      Here the brougham stopped at the gate of a small if pretty entrance, beyond which a gravel path led to a small but perfectly appointed house. Dr. Darkham stepped out of his carriage, and, entering the hall, followed the servant into the drawing-room beyond, and into the presence of the gentle spectre who had possessed his thoughts during his short drive.

      She stood at the end of the room, bending over some flowers she was arranging, and after a slight inclination of her small and charming head, took no further notice of him.

      He passed up the room quickly to his quasi-patient, Mrs. Greatorex, an elderly but still pretty woman who sat lounging in a cosy chair.

      The room was warm and sweet with flowers. It was exquisitely arranged, if not richly furnished. It spoke of refinement, though not of wealth, and was very charming and womanly. A few Persian rugs lay here and there, and jars full of early flowering branches were placed in the corners of the windows and against the tall screens that stood at the end of the room. All the place was sweet with little bowls full of honeysuckle and primroses.

      Mrs. Greatorex held out her hand to him.

      "How good of you to come!" said she, in her low, cultivated voice. "And after your hard day's work, too."

      "I like work. How do you feel this evening—you are better? You look better. You will be out of my hands altogether soon, and I shall be left desolate."

      His eyes wandered to the figure bending over the primroses, but she seemed engrossed with her pretty flowers.

      She was tall, slender, graceful, with dark hair, and a mouth beautiful in its strength and purity. Her eyes were her chief feature, and shone like stars. They were a clear gray—soft and kind by day, dark and even kinder by night; and so full of expression, love and laughter, grief and quick delight, tenderness and anger: all things those perfect eyes could declare in their right season.

      Just now they were lowered, so it was hard to see what lay within their shining depths; but a little line across her forehead showed that her thoughts were not altogether pleasant. She bent even more assiduously over the flowers, and showed no disposition to go forward and add to the pleasant reception her aunt was giving Dr. Darkham.

      The latter had been going through the usual formula with Mrs. Greatorex, feeling her pulse, asking about her appetite, etc., and then had drifted into a light gossip. This pleased his patient, and gave him leisure to gaze on the lovely figure in the window. He hardly cared that she did not speak to him.

      After a time he rose, and bid Mrs. Greatorex good-bye. Then he turned deliberately to the girl.

      "If you can spare me one moment, Miss Nesbitt, there is just a word or two I would say to you about our patient here," with a smile and bow towards Mrs. Greatorex. "She has been making a little too free, I am afraid, and if you will let me write a prescription in the next room—"

      "Certainly," said Agatha, courteously but coldly. She let her flowers fall, and led the way to the little anteroom beyond, hidden by a falling curtain, where a tiny writing-room had been made up.

      She stood silent, whilst he told her to keep her aunt a little warmer, or something as trivial, and then scribbled a line or two on a sheet of paper for the chemist. The he went. But he had gained his end. He had held her small cool hand in his. She had not been able to refuse it when he held out his.

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

      Agatha came back to the drawing-room, and went straight to her flowers. She did not look at her aunt.

      "Well," asked the latter inquisitively. She loved discussing her own ailments.

      "Well, there is nothing new. He evidently thinks you immensely better. So much better that I wonder he comes here at all."

      "It is very kind of him to come," said Mrs. Greatorex calmly.

      "It is too kind. And—for nothing."

      "My dear Agatha, I'm afraid it cannot be for nothing. I expect he will see little symptoms of—"

      "I don't mean that. What"—impatiently—"I want to say is, that he gains nothing by coming here."

      "Nothing in a pecuniary sense, certainly," said Mrs. Greatorex; "but he likes good society—"

      Agatha made a sudden movement.

      "I wonder how you can do it," said she.

      "Do what?" asked Mrs. Greatorex, letting the pretty little pale pink silk sock she was knitting lie upon her lap for a moment.

      "Accept his services gratuitously?"

      Mrs. Greatorex laughed.

      "What have you got into your head now?" asked she. "He has attended me for the past year. Last month I sent him a cheque with a little hint to the effect that as I felt so much better I need not trouble him again. He came the next day. I then told him plainly I could afford no more fees out of my slender income. He said—very gracefully, as I thought—that he could never bear to resign a case until a perfect cure had been accomplished—or something to that effect. Well, why should I not allow him to be happy in his own way?"

      "And I am a burden to you," said the girl in a low voice.

      "My good child, never give yourself over to nonsense!" said Mrs. Greatorex, with a shrug. "You know very well I am delighted to have you."

      She took up her little sock again and turned the heel.

      The needles clicked on, and Agatha thought. Was her aunt delighted to have her? Sometimes things pointed that way. But certainly she was a burden to her, as Mrs. Greatorex's income was not only a small one, but she herself was a of a decidedly miserly disposition. The girl had certainly a miserable twenty pounds a year of her own, but that was too little. She made it suffice for her dress, but it sufficed very badly. It was all, however, her father, Colonel Nesbitt, had been able to leave her. Sometimes the girl felt that she loved her, worldly as she was. When she was sixteen, the colonel died. At sixteen she had found herself an orphan, without a friend, and almost penniless, and but that Mrs. Greatorex had then come forward, the poor child would hardly have known what to do or where to go. Fortune favours the brave, they say; sometimes, however, it favours the beautiful.

      Agatha Nesbitt was beautiful, and suddenly fortune came to her in the shape of Mrs. Greatorex. It was not a great fortune, truly, but it lifted the girl for the moment out of her Slough of Despond.

      But now another terror threatened her. This detestable Dr. Darkham, whose visits to her aunt for the past few months had been so regular—whose visits, now that her aunt had declared herself off his hands, were still СКАЧАТЬ