Brenda's Bargain Part 28

Now it happened that Brenda pa.s.sed through a more severe illness that summer than Arthur. Her physician, in anxious consultation with the family, concluded that she had stayed too long in town. "I think, too,"

he said, "that she has had something to worry her. It would seem," he added apologetically, "that one situated as she is would have no cares; but it is hard sometimes to account for the workings of a young girl's mind. She may have magnified some little anxiety until it played serious injury to her nerves."

"It is this war," responded Mrs. Barlow. "I wonder that more of us do not have nervous prostration."

During those long weeks Brenda herself had little to say, even when she was well enough to sit up. When she spent long hours under the awning on the little balcony on which her windows opened, she seemed to take but a languid interest in the world around her.

In those first two or three days when Brenda's condition was at its worst, when there was even a question whether or not she would get well, no one thought much about Maggie, the newcomer at Rockley, whose grief was greater than she could express. She kept her place in a corner of the piazza, hoping and hoping that some one would ask her to do something for the sick girl. Gladly would she have exchanged places with the trained nurse who went back and forth to the sick-room, had she not known that the nurse could do the things that she in her ignorance was unequal to. At last there came a day when Brenda herself asked for her, and after that Maggie was always in the sick-room, except on those occasions when she was carrying into effect some request of Brenda's.

How thankful she felt for the lessons in invalid cookery, that now enabled her to prepare a tempting luncheon that Brenda would eat after she had petulantly refused the equally good luncheon prepared by the nurse. Then there were hours when no one but Maggie could amuse Brenda, when, after listening to a chapter or two from the book that she had asked Maggie to read, the sick girl would draw the other into conversation. Any one who listened would have found that the subject about which they talked was war and battles--especially the eventful day of the Santiago fight, concerning which Brenda would allow no one else to speak to her.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She seemed to take but a languid interest in the world around her]

Now it happened that one afternoon after Maggie had been reading to her, Brenda remembered the photograph that she had seen in Maggie's room, and again, as on that former day, she asked her about it. So Maggie was drawn to tell all about Tim, even the sad story of his imprisonment.

"But now," she concluded, "everything is going to be all right. His captain is going to have him recommended for promotion for saving life--great bravery," and she p.r.o.nounced the words with extreme pride.

"He saved an officer at the risk of his own life, and when the war's over he's coming to see me."

In fact, Maggie had good reason to be proud of Tim. She had read his name in the newspapers, and though his own letters were modest, she was sure that he had been a real hero.

But the strangest thing of all was a letter from Philip Blair, that Mrs.

Barlow read one day aloud in Maggie's presence.

"After all," he wrote, "sick as Arthur is, we may be thankful that it is fever and a very slight wound that keep him on his back. From all I hear he had the narrowest escape, and but for a private soldier, Tim McSorley, he would probably have lost both legs." Then followed a description of the way in which Tim had rescued him almost from under the bursting sh.e.l.l; for, the newspaper report to the contrary, Arthur had not been badly hurt by the sh.e.l.l, only stunned, with a slight wound also from a grazing bullet. But the hardships of the campaign had so told on him that he was soon on the sick list, and when he reached Fort Monroe on the hospital ship he was in a raging fever.

Now to Philip in this eventful July had come an opportunity for usefulness, really greater than if he had gone to Cuba in the army. As his father could now spare him, he had given invaluable service to the sick. He had made one trip to Cuba and had had the grave of Tom Hearst marked properly, and he had travelled the length of the country from Florida to Boston to report to the Volunteer Aid a.s.sociation the especial needs of the sick soldiers in the camps that he had visited. He was a real ministering angel--for angels are often masculine--to Arthur and other sick friends of his in the hospital at Fort Monroe; and those who knew how much he accomplished in this direction wondered how he found time for the long and cheerful letters that he wrote to the friends of the sick to keep up their spirits.

Lois, too, though belated, had a chance to serve as a nurse in one of the camps, and, while doing her duty there, had the satisfaction of knowing that she was not neglecting home duties; for both her family and Miss Ambrose were at last in such a condition that she felt justified in leaving them. Though few persons would have envied her her hard hospital work, Lois considered herself the most enviable of mortals, and all that she went through only confirmed her in her strong desire to be a doctor.

XXI

AN OCTOBER WEDDING

One fine October morning, almost three months to a day from the victory at Santiago, Julia and Nora, Edith and Ruth, stood on one of the broad piazzas at Rockley talking as rapidly as four intimate friends can talk.

Ruth and Julia were hand and hand, for this was their first day together since Ruth's return from her year's wedding journey, and each was delighted to find the other unchanged. "A little older," Julia had said when Ruth pressed her for her opinion; and then, that her friend might not take her too seriously, "but I'd never know it."

"A little more sedate," Ruth had responded; "but you do not show it."

Then the four fell to talking over the events of this very remarkable year.

"Nothing can surprise me," Ruth said, "since I have heard of the engagement of Pamela to Philip Blair. I did not suppose that he had so much sense. Excuse me," she added hastily, noting Edith's surprised look; "I merely meant that Pamela's good qualities are the kind that the average man would be apt to overlook."

"Philip is not an average man," responded Edith proudly; "we all think that he is most unusual."

"Yes, indeed," interposed Nora; "my father says that he never saw any one develop so wonderfully, and when he was first in college every one thought that he was to be a mere society man, like Jimmy Jeremy.

Wouldn't you hate it, Edith, if he had decided to devote his life to leading cotillions?"

"Oh, he never would have done that," said the literal Edith; "he would have found something else to do daytimes."

Then Nora, to emphasize Philip's development, told several anecdotes of his helpfulness and devotion to the sick soldiers.

But neither Edith nor Nora then told what Ruth learned later, that Mrs.

Blair was far from pleased with the turn of events, as the quiet and almost unknown Pamela was not the type of girl she would have selected to be Philip's wife. Her objection, however, had been made before Philip's engagement was formally announced. When once it was settled, she accepted it with the best possible grace, and even Pamela herself scarcely realized the obstacles that Philip had had to overcome in gaining his mother's consent.

Edith had found it even harder to conceal her disappointment from Philip. Only to Nora did she say, frankly, "I hoped that it would be Julia. They were always such friends, and I am sure that no one ever had so much influence over him."

"We can give Julia the credit of having made Philip look at life in a broader way, and I am sure that they are still the greatest friends.

But I happen to know, Edith, that she never felt the least little bit of sentiment for him, and never would."

More than this Nora could not be persuaded to say, and Edith, though with a slight accent of resignation, added:

"Oh, well, I'm very fond of Pamela already, and if I can't have Julia for a sister-in-law, I'm sure that she and I will get along beautifully.

Only it will seem very strange to have such a learned person in the family."

But to return to the group on the piazza this bright autumn morning.

Seldom have tongues flown faster than theirs. There were so many things to talk about, more absorbing even than Philip's engagement,--Arthur's wonderful escape, for example, of which Ruth had heard only the vaguest account. Now, as she wished to hear details, Nora naturally was ready to give them to her.

"A shot had pa.s.sed through his ankle, and he couldn't drag himself away, so that there seems not the slightest doubt that he would have been struck again, and perhaps killed, for he was just in the line of the enemy's fire."

Nora spoke as if quite familiar with army tactics and military language, and since there was no one present to criticise her or to say whether her description was technically correct, she continued:

"Yes, we are quite sure that he would have been killed if it hadn't been for Tim McSorley, who dragged him away--"

"Ah," interposed Edith, "and isn't it strange this soldier proved to be a cousin or uncle of Maggie McSorley, a girl, you know, who is at the Mansion; and it's all the stranger because it was Brenda who discovered her, and this has made the greatest difference for Maggie. Brenda had got into the habit of snubbing her, but now she can't do enough for her."

"It's all very interesting," said Ruth, smiling slightly; "but Maggie herself hadn't anything to do with rescuing Arthur, had she?"

"Oh, no, indeed; but still it has made a difference, for Brenda naturally feels grateful to every one belonging to Tim McSorley. She is so impulsive. Then I think, too, that she saw that she had always been unfair to Maggie, and so now she can't do enough for her, just to make amends."

"Yes, and besides, although Maggie had nothing to do with rescuing Arthur, it was her uncle's letter to her that gave the first account of what had really happened to Arthur. I was in the room when she came running to Brenda with the letter; it was when Brenda was nearly beside herself, waiting for some real news, and I honestly think that that letter saved her from brain fever," added Julia.

"'All's well that ends well,'" rejoined Ruth, "is too trite a proverb to quote to-day, yet, however it happened, we should be thankful that Brenda escaped brain fever. No day could be more ideally suited for a wedding than this, but if Brenda's illness had been more severe than it was, who knows when the wedding could have taken place. The day might have been postponed to December or some equally disagreeable month, and no tenting on the lawn then."

"I agree with you," said Julia; "and now I must run away, for there are still several things to do for Brenda, and in less than an hour the train will be here bringing Arthur and the rest of the wedding party.

Let me advise you," she concluded, "to be arrayed in your wedding garments by that time, for on an informal occasion like this you will all be needed to help entertain. Many of the guests have never been here before."

When at last the wedding guests arrived, the truth of this statement was evident, for among them were very few of the old friends of the Barlow family.

"We have had one family wedding," Brenda had protested, when her friends expressed surprise at her plans; "and now, if I wish to have mine small and quiet, I think that I ought to be suited, and Arthur, too, for he wishes everything to be just as I wish it."

There was no gainsaying this reasoning, nor would Mr. and Mrs. Barlow have asked Brenda to change her plans. What remonstrances there were came from some of the relatives, and from many of Brenda's young friends not invited to the house, who felt that in some way they were to lose something worth seeing. As Brenda had decreed that it should be a house wedding, they were not even to have the privileges of lookers-on, as might have been the case at a church wedding.

But was ever any family perfectly satisfied with the plans made for the wedding of one of its members? Was there ever a wedding in preparing for which various persons did not think themselves more or less slighted? How, then, could Brenda expect to please all in her large connection? Now, in spite of her impulsiveness, Brenda had been considered rather conventional, and on this account many felt aggrieved that she had insisted on having the affair small and informal.

Yet after all it wasn't a very small wedding, and the drawing-rooms at Rockley were well filled, though with a far less fashionable a.s.semblage than that which had surrounded and greeted Agnes and Ralph Weston six years before. There were naturally a certain number of relatives present, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Blair, Dr. and Mrs. Gostar, and a few other old friends of both Brenda's and Arthur's families.