"Dear Aunt Madge, I do love him for this. What do you think, he has sent me the picture of the cornfield that I described to you, and such a hamper of good things!"

"Yes, and a brace of pheasants have come to me. Livy, do you know what that picture means to me? I have just been feasting my eyes on it all the morning. I mean to get an easel and stand it at the foot of my couch, with that Indian scarf of mine just draped over it; won't it cheer me up on one of my bad days when I can't read or work, and even thinking is too hard for my poor head? ''Tis a love token, I reckon,'

I shall just say that to myself."

"Marcus, I shall have to pay that visit," observed Olivia, desperately.

"Oh, dear, if only we could do something in return for him! Don't laugh at me, you tiresome boy; it is all very well for you, you are doing him a good turn every day, that is why it is so grand to be a doctor, but Aunt Madge and I want to have our share too."

"Take off your hat, Livy," interrupted Aunt Madge, "for I hear Deb dishing up the dinner, and Marcus looks blue in the face with cold and hunger." And at this reminder Olivia hurried.

Mrs. Broderick always gave them the same dinner, a roast fowl and a piece of boiled ham, with plum pudding and mince pies to follow, but Deborah's cookery always gave it a different and most delicious flavour.

When dinner was over they sat by the fire and roasted chestnuts, and talked softly to each other, while Aunt Madge dozed. She roused up when Deb brought in the tea-things, and chatted in her old bright way, but Marcus's professional eyes detected la.s.situde, and in spite of her entreaties took his wife away rather earlier than usual.

"Livy," observed Aunt Madge, as her niece stooped over her to kiss her, "I have not been able to write a note of thanks to Mr. Gaythorne yet, but will you tell him that I have not had such a Christmas gift as that since my husband left me, and that I have been praying for him off and on all day, that he may have his heart's desire--there, tell him that----" And then she sank back wearily on her pillows.

CHAPTER IX.

THE CHRISTMAS GUEST.

"This life of ours is a wild Aeolian harp of many a joyous strain; But under them all there runs a loud perpetual wail, as of souls in pain."--_Longfellow_.

Olivia felt a little nervous as she sent in her name by Phoebe; the girl had looked at her dubiously.

"I am not sure whether master will see you, ma'am," she said. "He never sees anyone on Christmas Day; and Mrs. Crampton says he is but poorly;" nevertheless, at Olivia's request, she had taken the message.

After a brief delay she returned. Her master would see Mrs. Luttrell; but Olivia's heart beat a little quickly as she entered the library.

For the first time she was not sure of her welcome.

The grand old room looked unusually gloomy. The tall standard lamps were unlighted, and only the blazing fire and a small green reading-lamp made a spot of brightness. Deep shadows lurked in the corners, and the heavy book-cases and window recesses only seemed to add to the gloom.

Mr. Gaythorne sat in his great ebony chair--with its crimson cushions.

His face looked more cadaverous and sunken than usual; the fine features looked as if they were carved in old ivory, they were so fixed and rigid; as he held out his hand to Olivia there was no smile of welcome on his face--the melancholy deep-set eyes were sombre and piercing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mr. Gaythorne sat in his great ebony chair.]

"This is indeed a surprise, Mrs. Luttrell."

"I hope you will not think it an intrusion," she returned, a little breathlessly. "I wanted so much to see you and give you Aunt Madge's message. Somehow I could not bear to think that we were so happy and that you were sitting alone and feeling sad. Are you vexed with me for coming?" she continued, in her winning way; "I can see you are not a bit pleased to see me."

"My dear Mrs. Luttrell," he said, in his harsh, grating voice, "it is one of my bad days, and nothing on earth would yield me pleasure. I gave you warning, did I not? You are visiting a haunted man! The Christmas ghosts have been holding high revel this evening; one of them has been pointing and gibing at me for ever so long: 'You are reaping what you have sown,' that was what it said. 'Why do you grumble at your harvest--there is no ripening without sunshine? Young hearts must be won by love and not severity; it is your own fault, your own obstinacy, your own blindness'--that is what it has been saying over and over again."

He shivered slightly as he said this, and held out his thin hands to the blaze. He had not asked her to sit down, but Olivia drew a small chair forward and seated herself.

"Do not listen to them any longer," she said, gently. "You are ill and sad, and so everything looks black and hopeless--let me talk to you instead; I want to tell you how we have spent our day."

Olivia had a charming voice. As she went on with her simple narrative the muscles of Mr. Gaythorne's face insensibly relaxed; hesitation, nervousness, a touch of self-consciousness even, would have repelled him; but her gentleness and childlike directness seemed to soothe him in spite of himself. And as she repeated Mrs. Broderick's message, though he shrugged his shoulders and muttered "Pshaw," she could see that he was gratified; and even his remark--"that Mrs. Broderick must be a very emotional person"--did not daunt her.

"If Aunt Madge is emotional, I am too," she said, softly. "Do you know what I said when I saw that picture of the old shepherd looking at the rainbow? 'I love him for this,' and, dear Mr. Gaythorne, I meant it."

"Tut, nonsense!" but as Olivia took his hand and held it in her firm grasp, there was a sudden moisture in the old man's eyes.

"No one has loved me since my two Olives left me," he muttered. "If only one had been spared to me, only one; but I am left here alone with my sorrow and remorse."

"You are not really alone," she returned, soothingly. "Why do you speak as if your wife and daughter had ceased to love you? Do you imagine for one moment that they forget you? It would do you good to talk to Aunt Madge; she has such wonderful ideas about all that. Some people--people like Mrs. Tolman, our vicar's wife--laugh at her and call her fanciful, but to me she is so real. Why should it not be true?" she went on, with gathering excitement, "nothing that is good can die! Love is eternal, and it is only pain and grief and sin that can come to an end. That is what Aunt Madge says, and she does more than say it, she lives it. Of course she misses her husband dreadfully--they were everything to each other--but he never seems dead like other women's husbands, if you know what I mean by that. She seems to keep step with him somehow, and think his thoughts. I have heard her say once that it is just as though a high wall separated them. 'I cannot see him or hear him, but I know he is just the other side of the wall; only he has all the sunshine, and I have to grope alone in the shadows.'"

"Oh, she is right there; I know what it is to grope among shadows. My dear young lady," laying his hand heavily on her arm, "Mrs. Broderick must be a wonderful woman, and I hope to see her some day; and I am not above caring for a good woman's prayers, but our cases are not exactly similar."

"I daresay not," returned Olivia, hesitatingly.

"No, indeed"--and Mr. Gaythorne's heavy eyebrows drew together--"look here, Mrs. Luttrell, what sort of comfort do you suppose a man can have in thinking of his wife, when he knows he has acted contrary to her desires, when he has failed to carry out even the wishes expressed on her deathbed. What would you say to that man?"

"I would say that he must be very unhappy, and that no doubt circ.u.mstances were too hard for him. Perhaps he did his best; but it is not always possible for dying people to judge rightly, they may make mistakes."

"No, it was I who made all the mistakes," and there was such anguish in the old man's eyes as he said this, that Olivia almost started; "but G.o.d help me, if it were to come over again I should do the same. Mrs.

Luttrell, you do not know me; it is my whim to be generous now and then. I like to give and it costs me nothing, but I am a hard, domineering man; when people oppose and anger me, I can be relentless; it is not easy for me to forgive, even when the offender is my own flesh and blood, and I am no hypocrite. I must speak the truth at all costs."

"And yet we expect our Father to forgive us," returned Olivia, almost to herself, but Mr. Gaythorne heard her, and a strange expression crossed his face.

"That is what she always said--my Olive, but it never seemed to make any difference to me. Ah, well, it is no use talking, some spirits refuse to be laid, but this is poor entertainment, my dear, and on your birthday too!"

"Please do not say that. I should love to stay, but I must not; it is late now, and Marcus will be waiting for me," and Olivia rose as she spoke. "And now before I go may I ring for the lamps to be lighted?

there is something uncanny in this darkness, and the fire is getting hollow too."

"Well, well, do as you like," was the abrupt answer. "I am going to have my dinner here tonight, it is warmer," and so Olivia had her way.

As she bade him good-night, he said, a little wistfully, "You can come to-morrow afternoon if you like. I have those views of Venice and Florence to show you. I had an old Florentine palace for six months, the year before my little Olive died; that was our last happy year."

"Of course I will come," she replied, smiling at him. But as she left the room she sighed; had she really exorcised those evil spirits? or would they return again, with tenfold force? "remorse;" that was the word he used, this was the canker-worm that was robbing him of peace.

"It is not easy for me to forgive even if the offender is my own flesh and blood." How sad it was to hear him say that.

"I think, after all, I did him some little good," she thought, as she groped her way cautiously through the dark shrubbery. "That hard, rigid look had quite disappeared before I left. I have a feeling somehow that one day he will open his heart to me and tell me his trouble. Every now and then he drops a word or two; perhaps this evening, if I had not been so hurried, he would have spoken out."

Olivia's warm heart was full of pity for the lonely man sitting beside his desolate hearth, but she was young, and as the heavy gate closed after her, and she hurried across the road, a sudden vision of her own bright little parlour with Marcus waiting for her rose blissfully before her.

Marcus would have returned long ago and would be wondering at her delay. She knew what he was doing--cutting the pages of _Esmond_ for their evening reading. How charmed he had been with her gift, although he had pretended to be angry at her extravagance.

A few particles of snow powdered her as she rang the bell. Marcus answered it himself.

"Livy, my dear child," he said, quickly, "what an age you have been!

Come into the kitchen a moment, I want to speak to you, and Martha is upstairs. No, not there," catching hold of her arm as she absently turned the handle of the parlour door. "I said the kitchen."

"Oh, Marcus, what is it?" in an alarmed voice, as she suddenly perceived his grave, preoccupied look, "there is something wrong--with baby," but his smile rea.s.sured her.

"Nothing is wrong, I am only a little perplexed. Dot's all right, and the house is not on fire, and Martha is enjoying her usual health, but we have got a Christmas guest, that's all."