Nancy Of Paradise Cottage Part 21

They got Alma to bed, and in a few moments after her head had sunk into the cool pillow, she had dozed off into a heavy sleep. Nancy tried to conceal her uneasiness, but Alma had a fever of a hundred and one, which is not common to a simple headache.

But the visit from Dr. Bevan, cheerful as he was, did anything but set their fears at rest.

Nancy could only stare from him to her mother in speechless consternation, when it developed next day that Alma had the measles beyond a doubt. In the morning Mr. Dixon and the Porterbridges were notified that the Prescotts could not be at their work. The situation was indeed a pretty serious crisis in their career; for their income was reduced at once by something over a hundred dollars a month. This worry, however, was completely dwarfed when, on the third day after Alma had fallen ill, Dr. Bevan announced that he thought it best to send a trained nurse.

Nancy had had about all that she could bear, and without saying another word, rushed off, to bury her face in the sofa cushions, and smother her frantic sobs from her mother's ears. It seemed to her absolutely certain that Alma was going to die, and her mind filled with little forgotten memories, each of which stabbed her with an agonizing pang of misery.

The nurse, a very tall, strong, rosy woman named Miss Tracy, arrived about noon-time and, quickly changing into her stiff white uniform, ordered Mrs. Prescott off to lie down, telling Nancy that there was no need for either of them to worry. Her presence, her brisk, thorough, confident manner, lifted a hundred pounds from their hearts, and for the first time in three days they drew a breath of relief. Mrs.

Prescott, who sadly needed sleep, lay down in her own room, and Nancy, who had not been out of the house since Alma had fallen ill, took a book and went out onto the porch to free her mind of worries that seemed to have dulled her thoughts. Everything had become so complicated, it was so utterly impossible to know what was to be done, that she felt as if it were no use worrying, as if something unforeseen would have to happen to solve difficulties that were absolutely beyond their power to solve. And so she merely wondered idly how the nurse's bills and the doctor's bills were to be paid. And finally, the warm air and the whirr of the lawn-mower, and the sleepy hum in the vines, made her drowsy; her eyelids fell, opened, and then closed again.

"Oh, yes, I'm a very great man. I know the King of England intimately," someone who did not look at all _like_ Mr. Arnold, a fat, pompous-looking man with mutton-chop whiskers, who, however, was Mr.

Arnold, kept repeating to her; and she kept wondering, "Why did I think he was so nice? Why did I think he was good-looking?"

Then all at once she heard someone coming up the wooden steps of the porch. She sat bolt upright, putting hasty hands to her tumbled, curly hair, and with dazed, sleepy eyes stared at the newcomer with a positively unintelligent expression of amazement. At length she articulated, in an almost reproachful tone:

"I thought you were in Europe. You _were_ in Europe."

"Yes. But one doesn't have to stay in Europe, you know, unless they put you in jail over there, and I always try to avoid that," returned Mr. Arnold pleasantly.

"But you've been there for months," said Nancy, quite aware that she wasn't talking perfectly good sense. And then they both burst out laughing.

"Alma is ill," Nancy told him. "She has measles, and we are in quarantine, so you ought to go away."

He looked at her tired face, where the strain of fear and trouble showed in her pale cheeks and heavy eyes, and then he smiled in his warm, understanding way, and said gently:

"You've been worried to death about something, haven't you, Nancy?

Well, I'm not going to ask you any questions now, only, whenever you feel that you want to, remember that you can tell me anything. Would you rather I went away now and came back later on, when you are less troubled? Is there anything I can do?"

"Oh, don't go away--I mean, it's very nice to see you. Alma has a nurse now, and I think she is going to be better soon--and it's so _cheerful_ to see you!"

"Does Mr. Prescott know of Alma's illness?" he asked, after a moment's hesitation. "I don't think my aunt does. She has just come back. I landed the day before yesterday, and came down here last night. I--I asked her about you all, and she said nothing about Alma's being ill."

"No, I don't suppose Uncle Thomas does know," answered Nancy. "He comes over to see us every now and then, but then again he'll shut himself up for quite a long while, and I don't think he knows what we are doing any more than we know what he's doing."

"You know I'm buying a house here in Melbrook," said Mr. Arnold, rather irrelevantly. "A very nice house--do you know that yellow one, with the white columns and the porte-cochere over on Tindale Road?"

"I do know the one you mean," cried Nancy. "It's a beauty. There's the loveliest old-fashioned garden----"

"That's it--that's the one. I--you're sure you like it?"

For some reason or other Nancy turned pink at this simple question, and tried to stammer a casual reply. Then he went on serenely:

"I expect to have it in pretty good shape in a week or two, and when your sister is better, I'd love to have you and your mother and Alma come over and have tea with me. Aunt Eliza is directing the furnishing and all that--she's quite in her element, but I'd love to have your expert advice too. Heavens, _I_ don't know anything about chintz, and scrim, and all that sort of foolishness."

He chatted along, telling her about his trip, recounting amusing little incidents of the things that had happened on the boat, and completely carrying her thoughts away from her own personal affairs. But after a little while she began to notice that he was really not thinking about what he was saying, that he seemed to have something on his mind, which he was always on the point of saying, and then veered off to something else. All at once he got up and remarked abruptly:

"What the d.i.c.kens do I care personally for chintzes and scrim? I don't know which is which." Nancy stared at him, thinking that he had taken leave of his senses. He rammed his long, brown hands fiercely into the pockets of his gray trousers, took them out again, and thrust them into the pockets of his coat; then, as if he had taken a deep breath, and was holding it, he said:

"Will you marry me, Nancy?"

She could not have uttered a word. She simply sat and stared at him.

Then, without being conscious of a single idea in her head, she jumped up and made a dive for the door. He caught her hand and made her turn around and face him. He had begun to smile, slightly, and it was that gentle, wonderfully sweet smile, half-amused and half-tender, that made her blush from the yoke of her gingham dress up to the edge of her hair.

"Well--will you?"

"I--I don't know," stammered Nancy; with that she promptly turned and fled into the house.

Mr. Arnold stood regarding the screen-door with a blank expression; then, after a moment or two, he walked away slowly. It was not until he had reached the gate that he remembered he had left his hat on one of the porch chairs.

Alma was sitting up. Wrapped in a pink blanket, with her yellow curls pinned on top of her head, where they nodded like the heads of daffodils, surrounded by her admiring family, including Hannah and the trained nurse, and a perfect garden of spring flowers, which had been arriving daily since the appearance of Mr. Arnold, she was convalescing visibly.

"I didn't know that Mr. Arnold was back," said Alma, burying her small nose in a huge bouquet of white lilacs. "Isn't it perfectly dear of him to send these things, when I only met him once in my life?" Upon which guileless remark Nancy turned a lively and hopelessly noticeable scarlet. To make her embarra.s.sment quite complete, Alma looked directly into her eyes and grinned deliberately.

"I wonder why he takes such a tremendous interest in us?" she went on, mercilessly. "I feel it in my bones. I feel as if something perfectly scrumptious were going to happen." Mrs. Prescott laughed and kissed her.

"Now, Nancy, come on, and 'fess up," was the bomb which Alma hurled without a word of warning. "I know perfectly well that you've got something on your conscience, and I've got a suspicion already that it's Mr. Arnold."

If she was desirous of creating a sensation, she should have been amply satisfied with the result of her remarks. Mrs. Prescott, as if she had been suddenly aroused from sleep, opened her pretty mouth and stared at her elder daughter for a moment and then exclaimed:

"I must have been dreaming!" Nancy squirmed. She looked reproachfully at Alma, then at her mother, and at length said simply:

"He--he asked me to marry him." And then she followed with the whole story. She told them of her visit to her uncle, where she had seen Mr.

Arnold for the second time, and then went on to give a full account of her memorable trip to the p.a.w.nbrokers' with the ring.

"I--I would have told you everything long ago, but I didn't want you to think that Uncle Thomas was 'relenting' because he asked me to visit him--and about the other time----" Alma stopped her by leaning over and kissing her.

"You were paying for _my_ experience," Alma said bravely. "I learned--I don't know what exactly, except that people like Mildred, whom I always thought as being important to know, weren't worth one teeny little ounce of trouble. I learned to be honest with myself, and that it's a whole lot better to work with your two hands than to be a toady, for the sake of making things easier,--and lots else. And I'm going to work hard, Nancy----"

"Stuff and nonsense!" declared an angry voice from the doorway. From a gargantuan bouquet of hyacinths, lilacs, and daffodils, issued the voice of the "Ogre." Evidently, finding the front door open, and the lower floor deserted, and hearing the sound of voices from above, the old gentleman had borne his offering aloft, without a word of announcement. Snorting with some inward indignation, he testily tossed his head to get rid of an impudent lilac which was tickling his nose, and glared over the bouquet.

"This idea of working is pure foolishness. I never heard of such women's nonsense before in my life. Here, where in the name of common sense can I put these flowers, and why wasn't I informed of my niece's illness?" When Nancy, stifling her unseemly laughter, had relieved him of his offering, he grew calmer.

"Why wasn't I told that you were ill, my dear?" he asked, sitting down and taking Alma's hand in his.

"We--we hardly thought of anything until she began to be better,"

answered Mrs. Prescott. He looked at her sternly a moment, and then his whole face softened, almost to a look of humility and shame-facedness.

"Once you told me that you were a foolish woman, Lallie," he said, "and I must confess that for a very long time I was blind enough, and selfish enough, to think it of you. Now it's only fair that I should be as brave as you and admit that I have been a very foolish man. I have been about the biggest fool that ever escaped the badge of long ears. All I did was to deprive myself of a lot of happiness, and to deprive some other very dear people of happiness that it was my privilege to bestow.

"Now, the truth is, that while my 'principles' were excellent,--they wouldn't work. They didn't do _me_ any good. Hang it all! Here I was trying to make good, thrifty wives out of you two girls, for some young rascal--and depriving myself of the sweetest pleasure in life for that same impudent young husband who shan't have you, anyway!

"They were excellent principles, too, their only fault being that they--wouldn't work.

"And now, ladies, I herewith adopt you. I shall establish my legal right to you all. I--I feel--well, I hope I have made it quite clear, that anything, everything--on this green earth, that I can give you, is yours. And if you want to make me very happy, you'll demand it instantly."

For a little time no one said anything, then, heaving a great sigh, Alma burst out: