The Making of Mary Part 14

The Press abuses the police on principle, but, seeing that heroic encounter, I wavered in the keeping of my promise to Belle not to run into danger. Even as I hesitated, "hurry-up wagons" arrived with re-enforcements from neighboring police stations, and then the crowd could not disperse quickly enough. It was a desperate sight--men knocking each other down in their haste to get away, and the women who had been spurring them on, now shrieking and groaning like maniacs. One of the poor creatures was. .h.i.t on the ankle by a bullet, and her falling over into the gutter was too much for my virtuous resolution. Even if she is a dirty, howling Polack, a man does not enjoy seeing a woman knocked down, so I left my doorstep and went to help the lady up.

Const.i.tutionally I am not a brave man, but I forgot all about the flying bullets till one took me in the knee, and I toppled over, hitting my head against the curbstone as I did so. I must have been stunned, for when I opened my eyes again the street was empty, except for a thundering vehicle that was bearing straight down upon me.

At first I thought it was a runaway, for the horse was foaming of mouth and bloodshot of eyeball; but no, there was a man, or fiend, with a similar wild gleam in his eye, urging the brute upon me, while he sounded a gong to keep everything out of his way. All this I saw in a flash, and in a flash too went through my mind the advice given by President Cleveland in his proclamation to non-combatants to keep out of harm's way.

I rolled over on my side with the sickening certainty that the next instant the hoofs and the wheels would be upon me, but the horse pulled up on his haunches at my very feet, the rattle and clanging ceased, and a doctor in his shirt sleeves appeared as if by magic.

It was an ambulance, of course.

I fainted when they lifted me, and only came to myself in the hospital--Mary's hospital, and her ward. Every one in Chicago was crowded that week and the next, but--the ruling principle strong in death--I declined to be put away out of eyeshot and earshot into a private room.

"D'ye want me to send word to Mis' Gemmell to come?" asked Mary, and I replied drowsily:

"No, don't. She's better to keep out of harm's way. She would be sure to sympathize with the strikers."

"But she'll wonder where you are."

"She can't get here safely, as things are now, and the mails are all upset. Don't write. Send a telegram in my name. Date it Chicago, and tell her I'm detained, but that I'll go home Monday, sure."

That same night I was off in a high fever. It was days and days before I came to myself, and then I was too weak to ask or to care how everything was going on at home. My whole interest in life was concentrated upon that hospital ward, and with half-closed eyes I lay there and took notes unconsciously.

An ideal life it may seem to outsiders, but there is as much wire-pulling, as much jealousy and scandal within the walls of one of those big inst.i.tutions, as anywhere else on this planet. It is an epitome of the world battle, and the strugglers meet in hand-to-hand conflict.

Nurse Dean, the head of our ward, tall and angular in form, stern and cold in feature, was the dragon Belle had told me about, but she knew her business, and I, for one, preferred that she should regard me simply as a machine laid up for repairs. I did not even think her unduly severe upon Mary, after I heard her giving that damsel "Hail Columbia" for her carelessness in having administered the wrong medicine one whole forenoon to Number Nine--which was myself.

If I had not made a feeble protest in her favor, "Nurse Gemmell" would have been discharged on the spot.

I do not wish to leave the impression that Mary had not in her the making of a fairly good nurse. She was light of foot, as well as quick of hand, and I liked to have her do things for me; found her _aura_ agreeable, as Belle would have expressed it. Like many half-educated people, she was very observant, but, so far as I could judge, she had one eye on her work and the other on the lookout for flirtations. I became quite interested in some of them.

There was the German fiddler in the next bed to mine, who could not keep his eyes off Mary whenever she came into the ward, and once when Nurse Dean was off duty, and she brought out her silver-plated cornet to "toot" a little for him, he declared it was the most ravishing music he had ever heard in his life!

I strongly suspected that the limp young artisan on the other side of me was perfectly well enough to be discharged, but he could not brace himself up to part from Mary. Then there was a young doctor whose face I dimly recognized, but it tired my poor head too much to try to think who he was. He and Mary had many a talk at my bedside about their own affairs. One evening I heard the unmistakable sound of a banjo, and managed to twist myself round far enough to see that this same doctor was playing an accompaniment to Mary's very fair imitation of a skirt dance out in the pa.s.sage.

The sight revived me so much that I laughed aloud, and Mary came hastily forward, blushing, with finger on her lip. The pink and white uniform did indeed become her wonderfully well, and I was not surprised to notice hearty admiration in the sleepy blue eyes of the young house surgeon. Where had I seen that "Burne Jones' head" before?

"You don't seem to remember me, Mr. Gemmell," said the owner of it, holding out his hand. "My name's Flaker. I was at Interlaken summer before last."

"You're a full-fledged M. D. now?"

"Oh, yes, but I'm taking a year's practice in here, before I set up for myself."

Shades of the hotel matrons! They would probably say, if they heard this, that Mary had been sent here on purpose to catch him.

Poor Mary! She had her own row to hoe. She came to me in tears one evening because Nurse Dean had been after her that whole day about one thing or another.

"I am never particular 'nough to please her. If it wasn't for Dr. Flaker I wouldn't stay here another day."

"You like him pretty well, eh?"

"Well enough, an' he's all broke up on me; says he was at Interlaken too, on'y he couldn't say anythin', 'cause he wasn't of age. His folks are awful high-toned."

"They'll have their discipline," thought I.

"By the way, Mary, how long is it since I was brought here?"

"Two weeks to-day."

I sprang almost out of bed in my surprise. "Why didn't you tell me? Has no word been sent to Lake City?"

"None since that first telegram. I don't write very often now to your wife, but when I did, I never said nothin' 'tall about your bein' here, 'cause you told me not to."

"And haven't you had an answer?"

"There's a letter lyin' there from Mis' Gemmell to you. I don't know how she could have found out your address. Nurse Dean said I wasn't to give it to you if you was a bit feverish."

"Fetch it this minute, Mary, or I'll get up and walk the floor," and the girl brought me this remarkable doc.u.ment. It had neither beginning nor end, but rushed to the point at once.

"I know all! You have laughed at my occult tendencies, sneered at my Theosophy, but I can now, alas! give you convincing proof of the penetrative power of the one, the sustaining power of the other. I became so nervous at your continued silence and absence that I did what I had promised you not to do--went out in my astral to hunt for you--and I found you! Would to G.o.d I had never tried! It is not my health that is ruined, but my heart and my happiness. To make a.s.surance doubly sure, I psychometrized the only letter I have received from Mary in weeks. She was cunning enough not to mention your name, but the unspoken testimony was the same. To think that you of all men--but I do not blame you! I have gone down to the _Echo_ office, my heart bursting with despair, and have told lies to account for your absence, to keep things moving until you see fit to send your own explanation. I have thrown dust too in the eyes of the family, till you tell me your will concerning them. No, I dare not blame you! Did not I myself thrust the girl into your life--and the best of us are but human. It is Karma! I have deserved this blow for some previous sin of my own, and I bow my head to the stroke. Your own harvest will be just as certain, however long delayed. O David, David!

I can look back now and see the very beginning of your interest in Mary--but that it should end in this--that you should fly from me to her----'"

Having read so far, I burst into hysterical laughter, and it took Mary and her lover and Nurse Dean, and how many more I know not, to hold me in bed. Of course I had a relapse, and my life was despaired of, but I would not, in my sensible moments, allow Mary to write to, or send for Isabel. I pictured the streets still full of rioting strikers, and the mails and trains still disorganized. In waking and in delirium alike, "Keep her out of harm's way!" I cried, "I'll go home to-morrow, sure,"

but it was a long to-morrow that saw me on the boat bound for Lake City.

Mary wanted to accompany me, for I was still very weak, and had to walk with a stick on account of my knee, but I said brusquely, "You stay where you are, and keep an eye on Dr. Flaker, or you'll maybe get left again."

"No fear of that!" she said, holding up her left hand to show me a broad gold band with five diamonds in it, adorning her third finger.

"We'll be married as soon as his year is out, for he has plenty of money."

The stones in her ring caught the evening sunlight as she stood on the wharf waving her handkerchief to me, while the boat moved slowly out, and I lay in a steamer chair on the hurricane deck, prepared to enjoy a smoke and a gossip with my old friend, the captain.

I wished her well with all my heart, but I sincerely hoped that I had seen the last of Mary.

Judging the family to be at Interlaken as usual, I took the first train down there, and toiled in the sun from the depot up to the cottages, by way of the hill, which I had never considered steep before, to find my own house deserted, windows and doors boarded up, veranda unswept, hammocks removed. I would not give any of the neighbors the satisfaction of knowing I was surprised and disappointed, so I kept out of sight till they had all been to the hotel for dinner and dispersed. Then I went in for mine, and after it returned to the beach near the station, lay down on the sand, and waited for the next train.

There was not one back to town until late in the afternoon, and the evening being cloudy, it was quite dark by the time I left the electric car at the corner of our street. Even that little bit of a walk exhausted me, and I had to rest on my stick every few minutes, but what a relief it was to see, gleaming cheerfully as ever, the windows of the House of the Seven Gables.

I leaned against our iron railing for a minute or two to collect myself before making my appearance, and highly necessary was it for me to do so, because the att.i.tude of the two ladies upon the veranda struck me dumb with amazement, and their conversation completely floored me. That sandy-haired little woman in the low rocker must be my mother, but could that regal figure on the edge of the veranda, with her head in my mother's lap, possibly be my wife? The light from the nursery window showed them to me distinctly, but I kept back in the shadow and listened to the voices.

"My puir lamb! Ye've grat eneugh! Gang awa' tae yer bed; ye're sair forfoughten."

As she stroked the wavy gray hair of the head on her knee, her tone changed.

"I canna thole to think 'at son o' mine has brocht a' this trouble upon ye."

"Not a word against him, mother! He's the best man that ever lived, and I didn't appreciate him, that's all. I can never think of him but as my dear, old, solid, yours-to-count-on Dave Gemmell. He was the silent partner, unpopular, getting no praise, paying all bills, backing me up in every fad, whether his judgment approved or not. He was just the square foundation I could lean away out on--could dance jigs on if I wanted to. Now that he is dead--or dead to me--I can only hope that he is happy. Oh! if I had but listened to you, mother, had never brought that girl into the house. My own vineyard have I not kept."

"Let by-ganes be by-ganes--but I wad jest like to hae Davvit by the lug."