Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/364

 356 all, my visit has been a useless one,” she remarked, “for Mr. Carlton is away. Gone to London, that impudent boy, of his, said.”

“I could have told you so, and saved you the trouble of a walk, had I seen you passing,” said Mrs. Fitch. “His groom drove him to the Great Wennock station this morning, and called here as he came back for a glass of ale. Is the lady ill?”

“She does not seem well; she had a fainting-fit just after tea, and thought she had better see a doctor at once.”

“And Dame Gould could send for Mr. Carlton! What have the Greys done to her?”

“Dame Gould thought you recommended Mr. Carlton to the lady.”

“I!” exclaimed Mrs. Fitch, “Well, that’s good! I never opened my lips to the lady about any doctor at all.”

“It was her own doing to send for Mr. Carlton, and Mrs. Gould thought you must have spoken for him.”

“Not I. If I had spoken for any it would have been for the Greys, who are our old fellow townspeople; not but what Mr. Carlton is a nice pleasant gentleman, skilful too. Look here, Judith, you tell Dame Gould that when the time comes for the young lady to be ill, if there’s currant jelly wanted for her, or any little matter of that sort, she can send to me for it, and welcome. I don’t know when I have seen such a sweet young lady.”

Judith gave a word of thanks, and sped on towards Palace Street. She had barely rung the bell when she heard Mrs. Gould floundering down-stairs in hot haste. She flung open the door, and seized hold of Judith.

“Oh, Judith, thank Heaven you are come!, What on earth’s to he done? She is taken ill!”

“Taken ill!” repeated Judith.

“She is, she is, really ill; it’s as true as that you are alive. Where’s Mr. Carlton?”

Judith made no reply. Shaking off the timorous woman, and the shawl and bonnet at the same time, which she thrust into her hands, she sped up to the sitting-room. Mrs. Crane was clasping the arm of the easy-chair in evident pain; the combs were out of her hair, which now fell in wavy curls on her neck, and she moaned aloud in what looked like terror, as she cast her fair girlish face up to Judith. Never, Judith thought, had she seen eyes so wondrously beautiful; they were large tender brown eyes, soft and mournful, and they and their peculiarly sweet expression became fixed from that hour in Judith’s memory.

“Don’t be cast down, poor child,” she said, forgetting ceremony in her compassion. “Lean on me, it will be all right.”

She laid her head on Judith’s shoulder. “Will Mr. Carlton be long?” she moaned. “Cannot some one go and hurry him?”

“Mr. Carlton can’t come, ma'am,” was Judith’s answer. “He went to London this morning.”

A moment’s lifting of the head, a sharp cry of disappointment, and the poor head fell again and the face was hidden. Judith strove to impart comfort.

“They are all strangers to you, ma'am, so what can it matter? I know you cannot fail to like the Greys as well as you would Mr. Carlton. Nay, dear young lady, don’t take on so. Everybody likes Mr. John and Mr. Stephen Grey. Why should you have set your mind on Mr. Carlton?”

She lifted her eyes, wet with tears, whispering into Judith’s ear.

“I cannot afford to pay both, and it is Mr. Carlton I have written to.”

“Pay both! of course not!” responded Judith in a warm tone. “If Mr. Carlton can’t come because he is away and Mr. Gray attends for him, there’ll be only one of them to pay. Doctors understand all that, ma'am. Mr. Carlton might take Mr. Grey’s place with you as soon as he is back again, if you particularly wish for him.”

“I did wish for him, I do wish for him. Some friends of mine know Mr. Carlton well, and they speak highly of his skill. They recommended him to me.”

That explains it, thought Judith, but she was interrupted by a quaking, quivering voice beside her.

“What in the world will be done?”

It was Widow Gould’s, of course; Judith scarcely condescended to answer: strong in sense herself, she had no sympathy with that sort of weakness.

“The first thing for you to do is to leave off being an idiot; the second, is to go and fetch one of the Mr. Greys.”

“I will not have the Mr. Greys,” spoke the young lady peremptorily, lifting her head from the cushion of the easy-chair, where she had now laid it. “I don’t like the Mr. Greys, and I will not have them.”

“Then, ma'am, you must have been prejudiced against them!” exclaimed Judith.

“True,” said Mrs. Crane; “so far as that I have heard they are not clever.”

Judith could only look her utter astonishment. The Greys not clever! But Mrs. Crane interposed against further discussion.

“I may not want either of them, after all,” she said; “I am feeling easy again now.