Mary Gray | Page 5

lunch," she said;
"and I should like to call on your wife."
CHAPTER II
THE WALL BETWEEN
"The child has brought us luck--luck at last, Mildred," Dr. Carruthers

was saying, a few hours later. "When I lifted her in my arms she was as
light as a feather. A poor little shabby, overworked thing, all eyes, and
too big a forehead. Her boots were broken, and I noticed that her
fingers were rough with hard work."
He was walking up and down his wife's drawing-room in a tremendous
state of excitement, while she smiled at him from the sofa.
"It is wonderful, coming just now, too, when I had made up my mind
that we couldn't keep afloat here much longer, and had resolved to give
up this house at the September quarter and retire into a dingier part of
the town. Once it is known that I am Lady Anne Hamilton's medical
man the snobs of the neighbourhood will all be sending for me."
"Poor Dr. Pownall!" said Mrs. Carruthers, laughing softly.
"Oh, Pownall is all right. They say he's immensely wealthy. He can
retire now and enjoy his money. If the public did not go back on him
he'd be a dead man in five or six years. He does the work of twenty
men. I pity the others, the poor devils who are waiting on fortune as I
have waited."
"There is no fear of Lady Anne disappointing you?" she asked, in a
hesitating voice. She did not like to seem to throw cold water on his
joyful mood.
"There is no fear," he answered, standing midway of the room with its
three large windows. "She is coming to see you, Milly. If I have failed
in anything you will succeed. You will see me at the top of the tree yet.
You will have cause to be proud of me."
"I am always proud of you. Kit," she said, in a low, impassioned voice.
Meanwhile, Lady Anne herself had made a pilgrimage to Wistaria
Terrace in the hour preceding the luncheon hour. She had left Mary in a
deep chair in the big drawing-room. Outside were the boughs of trees.
From the windows you could surprise the secrets of the birds if you
would. The room was very spacious, with chairs and sofas round the

walls, a great mirror at either end, a paper on its walls which pretended
to be panels wreathed in roses. The ceiling had a gay picture of gods
and goddesses reclining in a flowery mead. The mantelpiece was
Carrara marble, curiously inlaid with coloured wreaths. There was a
fire in the brass grate, although it was summer weather. The proximity
of the trees and the natural climate of the place meant damp. The fire
sparkled in the brass dogs and the brass jambs of the fireplace. The skin
of a tiger stretched itself along the floor. The terrible teeth grinned
almost at Mary's feet.
The child was sick and faint from the pain of having her arm set. She
lay in the deep sofa, covered with red damask, amid a bewildering
softness of cushions and rugs, and wondered what Lady Anne was
saying to Mamie. Mamie was Mrs. Gray. From the first Mary had not
called her Mother. Her name was Matilda, and Mamie was a sort of
compromise.
Meanwhile, Lady Anne had gone out by her garden, through the stable,
and into the lane at the back. There was a little door open in the
opposite wall; beyond it was a shabby trellis with scarlet-runners
clambering upon it.
Lady Anne peeped within. A disheartened-looking woman was hanging
a child's frock on the line which was stretched from wall to wall. Three
children, ranging in age from two to five, were sitting on the grass plot.
Two were playing with white stones. The third was surveying its own
small feet with great interest, sucking at a fat thumb as though it
conveyed some delicious nourishment.
"Do I speak to Mrs. Gray?" asked Lady Anne, advancing. She had a
sunshade over her head, a deep-fringed thing with a folding handle. She
had bought it in Paris in the days of the Second Empire.
Mrs. Gray stared at the stranger within her gates, whom she knew by
sight. There was some perturbation in her face. She had been worried
about the unusual duration of Mary's absence. Mary had not come back
with the market basket which contained the children's dinner. At one
o'clock the four elder ones would be upon her, ravening. What on earth

had become of Mary? The poor woman had not realised how much she
depended on Mary, since Mary was always present and always willing
to take the burdens off her stepmother's thin, stooped shoulders on to
her own.
Now she caught