The Intoxicated Ghost Part 18

His resolution was taken at once.

"See here, Alice," he said, "the truth is that you need to get away from Boston and have an entire change of scene and climate. You used to be a good sailor, and a sea voyage will set you up. I'm going to marry you next week and take you to Italy."

"Why, George, you can't!"

"I shall."

"Even if I were well, I could n't be ready."

"Who cares? As to being well, you are going so you may get well. When I order patients to go away for their health, I expect them to go."

She became serious, and looked at him with eyes of infinite sadness.

"Dear George," she said, "I can't marry you just to be a patient. You must n't go through life enc.u.mbered by an invalid wife."

"I've no notion of doing anything of the kind," he responded brightly.

"It would be too poor an advertis.e.m.e.nt, and that's the reason I insist on taking you abroad. What day do you choose, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday? We sail Sat.u.r.day."

He would listen to no objections, but got Thursday fixed for the wedding, and pushed forward rapidly his preparations for going abroad.

He enlisted the cooperation of a cousin of Alice, an efficient lady accustomed to carry everything before her, and, as Abby warmly approved of his decision, he felt that Alice would be ready. He saw Alice but briefly until Sunday evening, when he found her in a state of much agitation.

"I am really out of my mind," she said. "What do you think I have done?"

"I don't care, if you have n't changed your mind about Thursday."

"I ought to change my mind. Oh, George, I've no right--"

"That is settled," he interrupted decisively. "What have you done that is so dreadful?"

She produced a waist of dove-colored silk.

"Of course I could n't be married in black, you know, and this was to be my dress. See here."

The front of the waist was cut and slashed from top to bottom.

"I must have done it some time to-day. Oh, George, it's dreadful!"

For the first time in all the long, hard trial of their protracted engagement, she broke down and cried bitterly. He took her in his arms and soothed her. He told her he knew all about it, and that she was going to be entirely well; that he asked only that she would not worry, but would trust to him that she would come safely and happily out of all this trouble and mystery. She yielded to his persuasions, and, indeed, it was evident that she had hardly strength to resist him even had she not believed. She rested quietly on his shoulder and let him drift into a description of the route he had laid out, and in her interest she seemed to forget her trouble.

Before he left, she asked him what she could tell the dressmaker, who would suspect if she was given no reason for being called upon to make a new waist. He took the injured garment, went to the writing-table, and splashed ink on the cut portions.

"You showed it to me," he said gayly, "and I was so incredibly clumsy as to spill ink on it. Men are so stupid."

She laughed, and he went away feeling that he could gladly have throttled Jenny, could he but succeed in getting her in some other body than that belonging to his betrothed. If he was irritated by this experience, however, he had one to meet later which tried him still more. Abby, on letting him into the house on Tuesday, once more led him mysteriously into the reception-room.

"Miss Alice's been writing to herself, sir."

She held toward him a sealed and stamped envelope addressed to Alice. He took it half mechanically, and as he wondered how he was to circ.u.mvent this new trick of the maliciously ingenious Jenny, he noted that the handwriting was strangely different from Alice's usual style.

"Did she give you this to post?" he asked.

"It was with the other letters, and I noticed it and did n't mail it."

"I'll take it," he said. "You did perfectly right."

He wondered whether the prescience of Jenny would enable her to discover that he had destroyed her note to Alice; then he smiled to realize how he was coming to think of her as almost a supernatural demon, and reflected that nothing could be easier than for her to leave a paper where Alice must find it. A couple of days later he found his thought verified when Alice said to him:--

"George, who is Jenny?"

As she spoke, she put into his hand an unsigned note which said only, "George loves Jenny." The instant which was necessarily taken for its examination gave him a chance to steady himself.

"You wrote it yourself," he said quietly. "Don't you recognize your paper and your writing? It's a little strange, but sleep-writing always is."

"Then I am a somnambulist!" she exclaimed, with flushing cheek.

"There is nothing dreadful in that," he replied. "You have promised to trust me about your health. I know all about it, and if you write yourself forty notes, you are not to bother."

She sighed, and then bravely smiled.

"I'll try not to worry," she told him; "but I am a coward not to send you away. I wonder why I should have chosen Jenny as the name of your beloved."

"I'm sure I don't know; it's an ugly name enough," he responded, with a quick thought that he hoped Jenny could hear. "At any rate, I tell you with my whole heart that you are the only woman in the world for me."

He did not see Jenny again until the evening before his marriage. He fancied she was avoiding him, especially as once Alice sent down word that she was too busy to see him. He received, however, a note on Wednesday. The hand, so like that of Alice and yet so unmistakably different, affected him most unpleasantly, nor was he made more at ease by the contents.

"You think you got ahead of me by telling Alice she was a sleep-walker, did n't you! Well, I don't care, for I'm going to get rid of her for always when we are married. I did n't mean to be married in that nasty old gray dress, and I won't be, either. You see if I am. You are very unkind to me. You might remember that I'm a great deal fonder of you than she is, because I've got real feeling and she's a kind of graven image. You'll love your little wifie Jenny very dearly."

Dr. Carroll began to feel as if his own brain were whirling. He could not reply to the note, since he could hardly address a letter to Jenny somewhere inside the personality of Alice. He realized that a strain such as this would soon so tell on him that he would be unfit to care for Alice, and he made up his mind that the time had come for the strongest measures. To tell what the strongest measures were, however, was a problem which occupied him for the rest of the day, and about which he consulted the specialist. Even when, that evening, he walked down West Cedar Street, he could hardly be sure that he would carry out his plan. He was told at the door by Abby that Miss Alice had given strict orders against his being admitted.

"When did she do that?" he inquired.

"This forenoon, sir, when she gave me that note to send to you. She was queer, sir. She had a cab and went down town shopping, and came back with a big box. Then she had a nap, and to-night she's all right."

"I'll go up, Abby. It is necessary for me to see her."

As he came into the drawing-room Alice sprang up to meet him.

"I began to be afraid you would n't come," she said. "I've been queer to-day, I know; and there's a dressmaker's box in my room I never saw, and it's marked not to be opened till to-morrow. Oh, George, I am so frightened and miserable! I know I ought to send you away, and not let you marry me."

"Send me away, by all means, if it will make you feel any better. I shan't go. Sit down in this chair; I want to show you something."

She took the seat he indicated. He trimmed the fire and left the poker in the coals. Then from his pocket he took a ball of silvered gla.s.s as large as an orange, and began to toss it in his hands. She stared at it in silence for half a minute. Then the unmistakable laugh of Jenny rang out.

"So you really wanted to see me, did you?" she cried. "I knew you would some time."

"Yes," was his reply. "You may be sure I wanted to see you pretty badly before I'd take the risk of doing something that may be bad for Alice."

"Oh, it's still Alice, is it?" Jenny responded, pouting. "I hoped you'd got more sense by this time. Honest, now," she continued, leaning forward persuasively, "don't you think you'd like me best? The trouble is, you think you're tied to her, and you don't dare do what you want to. I'd hate to be such a coward!"