A Top-Floor Idyl Part 35

At last, she left me in peace and the long night began. Sleep! It was impossible to think of such a thing. The room was kept very dark because Miss Follansbee explained that children's eyes were very sensitive during the measles, and easily inflamed. For many hours, from the sofa on which I sat, I watched this stranger, gradually realizing how capable and attentive she was. Porter came in again at twelve and remained for a long time with me, uttering words of encouragement. Yes, he informed me, children sometimes died of the measles, generally when it became complicated with pneumonia, but, with good care, the great majority recovered. There was nothing alarming, so far. The fever would probably fall a little as soon as the eruption had come out in full force.

He drives a little car now and, I am glad to say, is prospering. I think he cast his bread upon the waters when he was so kind to Frances. At her words of advice, a number of singers have consulted him, and he is doing well. Of course she paid the very moderate fees he asked and told him, as she has told me, that she would ever be his debtor.

So he went away again, after putting a comforting hand on my shoulder, and the hours went slowly by in the dimly lighted room, my thoughts going constantly to the mother who was now speeding towards us. I remember hoping that she would be able to sleep a little on the train.

To me the hours were long, but, at least, I was near and fairly rea.s.sured; to her, in deep anxiety, they must be agonizing.

It is possible that in the wee small hours I dozed a little, though I never reclined on the sofa. At any rate Miss Follansbee a.s.sured me that I had a few catnaps. At last the light began to return; carts and autos began to pa.s.s through the busy street; men and women were going by, hurriedly, seeking the day's work. Eulalie gave me some breakfast, with much strong and delicious coffee, and Miss Follansbee awaited the coming of Dr. Porter before retiring for a few hours of rest. He told me that he was quite satisfied, but I looked at him incredulously, for the baby's face was of an appalling hue. He insisted that it was all in the game and would last but for a few days. He promised to return early in the afternoon and, after he left, Miss Follansbee gave me many directions and strict injunctions, after which she went to the room that had been prepared for her, enjoining me to call her if there was the slightest need.

The shades were lowered and the room kept dark. I sat by the little crib, thinking and watching, and the baby's harsh little cough distressed me badly, for I dearly loved him.

So the morning wore on and I rose often and looked out of the window, as if, by some miracle, the train could have come in ahead of schedule time. Baby Paul began to moan, and I hastened back to him. He stretched his little arms out to me, being, perhaps, weary of the hot bed. At any rate he cried to have me take him up, so that I wrapped him in the little blanket and lifted him out. In my arms he rested quietly again and fell asleep, so that I dared not move.

Then I heard the key in the latch, in the hallway outside, and she rushed in, casting her hat upon the bed. A second later she was kneeling at my side, weeping and yet glad, glad that he was living, glad to be again near him. And I dared only whisper a word of welcome to her, lest he might awaken. But soon he opened his eyes, that were very red, and blinked in the faint light, and wanted her.

So he was taken from my arms into hers, and she sat with him in a rocking chair. For some minutes I stood up before her, in my clumsy way, looking at her. I could do so to my heart's content, for her eyes were only for Baby Paul. She rocked him, gently, and her wonderful voice came, sweet and low like the murmur of brooks, the distant song of birds, the sighing of aspens in a summer night's scented breeze. And so the baby slept again, secure and comforted in her dear arms.

Then she looked at me, and a smile came to her face. It is possible that her quick glance detected some slight rumpling of collar and tie, or some disorder of hair I had last brushed the day before.

"David dear, have you been up all night with him?" she asked.

"Yes, but Miss Follansbee took care of him. I knew I would be perfectly useless, but then, Baby Paul is Baby Paul, you see, and--and any one has the right to love a baby. You don't object to that, I'm sure, you--you like to have me love him, don't you?"

"I just love to see you so fond of him, Dave," she answered.

"Yes, I felt that you did. And that's why I stayed, because I knew you wouldn't mind. And now I'll go away and--and come back early this evening to find out how you both are and--and I won't bother you. You'll tell me if I do, won't you?"

"Of course, Dave, as soon as you grow troublesome, I'll let you know. I will tell you, when I become tired of you. Oh, Dave dear! You're the kindest and most lovable creature in the world, and--and it's a joy and a blessing to have you near!"

"I'm awfully glad," I told her, "because when I can't see you and Baby Paul, life isn't--it isn't much of a pleasure, you know. And so I'll go off now and have a bath and fix up a little and then----"

"Then you ought to lie down and have a good nap, because you need a rest, and don't come back too soon or I'll know you have been disobedient, Dave."

She was smiling at me, and yet there was a tear hanging on her long lashes. Surely, the emotion of that summoning and of the hurried anxious journey had been hard upon her.

So I went out, just as Frieda came bustling in, monstrously alarmed and immediately made happy by the knowledge that there was, as yet, no danger, and I went home where I met Mrs. Milliken on the doorstep.

"How d'ye do, Mr. Cole," she said. "You look a bit played out and your bed ain't been slept in. At your time o' life you want to take more care of your health. I wanted to say something as I ain't told any one yet.

I'm goin' to give up the house soon. My uncle Ambrose he died and has left me a little money, so I'm going to be a lady of leisure now and live with my daughter."

"I wish you joy, Mrs. Milliken. You deserve a rest from your hard toiling."

I left her and climbed up to my room. It seems that I shall have to give it up soon. Yet it is the only little corner of the earth I am attached to. Where shall I go?

The room opposite is vacant still. I have been paying rent for it since Frances left, being unable to bear the idea of its being occupied by--by any one else. Besides, I can go in there when I want to and sit in the armchair and indulge in memories of the days when I saw her so often. I didn't know I was so happy then, but I realize it now, with no feelings of regret, because I know her life is so much fuller and happier now that she is in a world no longer of sadness and anxious care.

And so I saw Frances and Baby Paul every day for another week, and he got along so well that it was a joy to watch his constant improvement.

Mrs. Gobbins, over by the little lake, answered a letter of mine, saying that she would be delighted to have Mrs. Dupont there, and the baby, for as long a time as she cared to stay. Porter had recommended a little country air.

It was heartbreaking to say good-by. I had meant to go with them, at least for a day, but at the last minute Ceballo insisted I must attend the first rehearsal of the "Land o' Love," a play in four acts. So I went to the theatre, but for the life of me could take little interest in what went on. I returned home with a dreadful headache, and the next morning my throat was sore and my limbs ached. When Mrs. Milliken came up to attend to the room, she found me still in bed and insisted on sending for Dr. Porter at once.

"h.e.l.lo! I'm afraid you'll have to go to the babies' ward," he told me, after a glance.

"What the deuce do you mean?" I said. "I'm as sick as a dog."

"I know you are and I beg your pardon, old man."

"What is it?" I asked him.

"Baby Paul has given you the measles," he answered.

"Nonsense, grown people don't get that."

"They sometimes do," he a.s.sured me, after which he prescribed some medicine and spent several hours with me, that day, while I anathematized my luck and felt properly ashamed of my infantile complaint. After this a bad cough came, followed by a pain in my chest, and the medicine put me asleep, I think, for I woke up to find Frieda on one side of me and a nurse on the other. It was Miss Follansbee, who had looked after Baby Paul, and Frieda had gone off and haled her back, bodily. It was only afterwards that I knew my measles were complicated with pneumonia.

There was a week that was a sort of nightmare, I think, because for days I didn't know very much, and tossed about, and felt that pain in my side most of the time, and struggled unavailingly for a decent long breath that wouldn't hurt. One day a strange doctor came in with Dr. Porter.

Later, arrived a morning when I felt ever so well and Miss Follansbee was dozing a little in her chair, looking very weary, and the breathing was no longer painful and Porter came in and capered about the room and Frieda smeared her cheeks with the rubbing in of tears of joy. I suppose I must have been rather badly off during some of those days.

Then came the evening and with it a queer notion that visions and strange dreams were coming back to me, for through the open door there sounded a footfall I had been hearing vaguely and longing for. Suddenly, Frances rushed in and was kneeling by my bed.

"Oh, Dave dearest!" she cried, "You wicked, wicked man! They tell me that you forbade them to let me know for fear I would bring Baby back before he was all well! I'll never forgive you!"

As a proof of her anger, I suppose, she had taken up my thin bony hand and was kissing it.

"Please, please don't," I whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "You--you'll get it too, first thing you know, and it's bad when it gets on one's lungs. You might lose that beautiful dear voice of yours again."

But she rose, shaking her head at me like a mother who feels that her boy is incorrigible, and dragged a chair by the bed and put her finger to her lips when I would have spoken again, and laid her soft hand on mine, whereupon sleep came, dreamless and beautiful.

During the night a hand gave me water, once or twice, and milk, I think, and I slept again and, when I awoke in the morning, I turned my head.

"Miss Follansbee," I said, "I rather think----"

"I told her that she must have a good night's sleep, Dave," came the beloved voice, "and I've been playing nurse, ever so poorly, I'm afraid.

But Dr. Porter said that you would be all right now. And--and I've been so happy to be in the dear old room, and to see the old typewriter, and the calabash, and to know you are getting well again."

"I--I am thrice blessed," I said, "but it is too bad you took so much trouble. You must be dreadfully tired."

"I've been tired so long, Dave," she said, with tears coming to her eyes. "It--it has been such weary waiting."

"The nights are awfully long," I told her.

"The nights and the days, David dearest. I've been waiting such a long, long time."

She threw herself on her knees by the bed, and took up my hand, stroking it, and suddenly an amazing light seemed to flood the room, laden with knowledge, sweeping away fears, bringing a tremulous bliss to my heart.

"Dearest love!" I cried. "Is this true, or is it another dream? How could I speak of my love to you? How could old Dave cry out to the beautiful star that was so high up in the wonderful sky? I feared it would vanish and leave me in utter darkness. Do--do you mean that I may tell you of my heart's desire?"

"Yes, David dearest! Tell me of it. Tell it forever, for years and years to come. I've been so hungry for those words you dared not tell."