into the large bedroom on the corner of the house. It was an unusually
spacious room, with a high ceiling and four tall windows.
There was a dull-red fire, which seemed insufficient to warm even the
elaborate marble mantel. Almost in one corner stood a large bed, with
thick curtains draped back from a canopy.
The doctor was sitting by the side of the bed as the nurse came into the
room.
[Illustration: "SHE ALMOST SHIVERED, THE PLACE SEEMED TO HER SO
CHEERLESS"]
"This is Miss Clement, Mr. Swank," he said, in a cheerful voice, to the
old man, who lay in the bed motionless. "She will look after you during
the night."
Mr. Swank made no answer, but he opened his eyes and looked at the woman
who had come to nurse him. She used to say afterwards that she had never
felt before so penetrating a gaze.
The doctor turned to her, and in the same professionally cheery tones he
said: "I sent for you, nurse, because Mrs. Swank has an important dinner
to-night, and it might therefore be difficult for her to give Mr. Swank
the attention he may require."
The physician was addressing the nurse, but it seemed to her that his
words were really intended for the patient, whose eyes were still fixed
on her.
All at once the sick man sat up in bed and began to cough violently.
When the paroxysm had passed he sank back on the pillow again and closed
his eyes wearily.
"I think that was not as severe as the last one," the doctor remarked;
"I can leave you in Miss Clement's hands now. Perhaps, if I happen to be
up this way about midnight, I may drop in again just to see that you are
getting on all right. In the mean time, nurse, you will see that he
takes these capsules every two hours--he had the last at half-past five.
And you will take his temperature every hour if he is awake."
He said good-night to Mr. Swank in the same cheering tone, and then he
went to the door. The nurse knew that she was to follow him.
When they stood alone in the hall, the doctor said to her: "If there is
any change in the pulse or the temperature, send for me at once. Ring
for the butler, and tell him I am to be sent for; he will know what to
do. Mr. Swank has influenza only, but his heart is weak, and he needs
careful attention. I shall be here again the last thing to-night."
When the nurse returned to the corner room the patient had fallen into a
heavy doze, and she took advantage of this to prepare for the long
vigil. She arranged her own belongings ready to her hand in the
dressing-room set aside for her use. In that room she did not lower the
shade, and she even stood at the window for a minute, trying to look out
over Central Park, hidden from her by a swaying veil of swirling snow.
The workmen had completed the canvas tunnel down the stoop to the edge
of the sidewalk, and the lanterns hung inside the frame-work revealed
grotesquely its striped contortions. As the nurse gazed down on it an
old man without any overcoat sought a temporary shelter from the storm
in the mouth of the awning, only to be ordered away almost immediately
by the servant in charge.
The nurse went back into the larger room. She looked at her patient
asleep in the warm bed. She wondered why life was so unequal; why the
one man should spend the night in the snowy street, while the other had
all that money could buy--shelter, warmth, food, attendance. She
recalled how her father used to declare that the inequalities we see all
around us are superficial only, and that there are compensations, did we
but know them, for all deprivations, and that all apparent advantages
are to be paid for, somehow, sooner or later. More than ever to-night
she doubted the wisdom of her father's saying. How could there be
anything but inequality between the old man in the street there below
and the old man here in the bed? The thing seemed to her impossible.
As she became accustomed to the dim light of the room she was able to
note that the furniture was heavy and black, that the carpet was
unusually thick, that the walls had large paintings hanging on them,
that the ceiling was frescoed in sombre tints. On all sides of her she
saw the evidences of wealth and of the willingness to spend it; and yet
the room and the house seemed to her strangely uninviting, and almost
repellent. She asked herself why the sick man lying there asleep in the
huge bed had not used his money to better advantage, and had not at
least made cheerful his own sick-room. Then she smiled at her own
foolishness. Of course the owner of the room had not expected to be
stricken down; of course he had no thought of illness when he had
furnished.
She moved gently about the room and tried to look at the pictures, but
the illumination was insufficient. All that she could make out clearly
were the names of the artists carved on tiny tablets attached to the
broad frames; and although she knew little about painting, she had read
the newspapers enough to be aware that pictures by these artists must
have cost a great deal of money--thousands of dollars each, very likely.
If she had thousands to spend, she believed that she could lay them out
to better advantage than the owner of the house had done here. It struck
her again as though the sick man had more than his share of the good
things of life. She had not yet heard him speak, and she had not really
had a good look at him; but she could not help thinking that a man who
had so much, who had the means of doing so much, who was absolutely his
own master, and who could spend a large fortune just as he pleased--she
could not help thinking that he ought to be happy. It was true that he
was ill now, but the influenza wears itself out at last; and when he was
well he had so much money that he must be happier than other men--far
happier than poor men, certainly.
When she came to this conclusion she was standing near the foot of the
bed, looking at the man lying there asleep. It was on the stroke of
half-past seven, and she had come to let him have his medicine again.
Then she noticed that his eyelids were parted, and that he was looking
at her.
"It is time to take one of these capsules now," she said, gently moving
to his side and offering it to him.
He took it without a word, and gulped it down with a swallow of water.
Then he sank back on the pillow, only to raise himself at once, as he
was again shaken by a severe fit of coughing.
At last he lay back on the bed once more, still breathing heavily.
A fresh, young voice was heard at the door leading to the hall, saying,
"May I come in, John?" and then a graceful young figure floated into the
room with a birdlike motion.
The sick man opened his eyes wide as his wife came near him, and a smile
illumined his face.
"How beautiful you are!" he said, faintly, but proudly.
"Am I?" she answered, laughing a little. "I _tried_ to be to-night,
because there will be the smartest women in New York at Mrs. Jimmy
Suydam's dance, and I wanted to be as good as any of them."
The nurse had withdrawn towards the window as the wife came forward, and
she did not believe that any woman at Mrs. Jimmy Suydam's, wherever that
might be, could well look more beautiful than the one who now stood
smiling by the side of the sick husband.
She was a blonde, this young wife of an old man, a mere girl, and the
vaporous blue dress was cut low on a slender neck girt about by a single
strand of large pearls, while a diamond tiara high on her shapely head
flashed light into every corner of the darkened sick-room.
"I thought I'd just run in and see how you were before anybody came,"
she said, lightly. "Dinner is at quarter to eight, you know. I do _wish_
you could be down. We shall miss you _dreadfully_. Of course I sent out
at the last minute and got a man to fill your place, so we shall sit
down with twenty-four all right; but then--"
Here she broke off, having caught sight of the third person in the room.
"So this is the nurse Dr. Cheever sent for?" she went on. "I'm sure
she'll take good care of you, John--the doctor is always so careful. And
if you hadn't had somebody with you I shouldn't have liked to leave you
all alone--really I shouldn't!"
With that she circled about the bed again, turning towards the door.
"I must be off now," she explained. "I can't be _wasting_ my time on you
in this way. I really ought to be down in the drawing-room _now_; and
first, I've got to see if the flowers are all right on the table."
Her husband's eyes had followed her wistfully about the room, watching
every one of her easy and graceful movements; and when at last she
slipped out of the door, it was a moment before he turned an inquiring
glance on the nurse, as though to discover what she thought of the
brilliant vision.
The nurse came to the side of the bed with her clinical thermometer in
her hand.
"You are awake now," she said, with a pleasant smile. "May I take your
temperature?"
Five minutes later, when she was entering in her note-book the high
degree shown by the thermometer, and when the patient had again dropped
off to sleep, the first guests began to arrive for the wife's dinner
party.
The thick snow made the wheels inaudible, but the nurse heard the doors
of the carriages slam as those who had been invited passed through the
canvas tunnel one after another. In the room next to the dressing-room
assigned to her for her own use there was a rustling of silken stuffs,
and there were fragments of conversation now and again so loudly pitched
as to reach the ear of the young woman who sat silent in the
sick-chamber. Then, when all the guests were come, the house sank again
into silence, and a tall clock in a corner of the stairs chimed forth
the hour of eight.
So long as her patient slept the nurse had little or nothing to do; but
though her body was motionless, her thoughts were busy. She was
country-bred herself; she had left her home in a little New England
village by the sea to make her way in the world. She had now been a
trained nurse for nearly two years; and yet, as it happened, her work
had been either in hotels or in families of only moderate means. This
was the first time she had been in so handsome a house or with people of
so much wealth. She could not help being conscious of her surroundings,
and she caught herself wishing that she too were rich. She confessed
that she would like to be a guest at the dinner below. She wondered what
a dinner-table for twenty-four must be. To be able to entertain as
lavishly as that, and not to have to worry about the arrangement, or the
cost, or anything--well, that would be an existence any woman must
delight in. She felt herself capable of expanding, and of being equal to
the enjoyment of any degree of luxury. She liked her occupation, for she
had chosen her own calling. She had been successful in it too; and yet
she was beginning to be a little afraid that she had miscalculated her
strength. The work was very laborious and confining, and more than once
of late she had felt overtaxed. It might be that in a year or two her
reserve force would be exhausted, and she would have to give up the
struggle and go back home, where she would be welcome, of course, but
where she would add to the burdens her mother was already laden with.
There was an alternative, and never before had it seemed to her so
tempting as when she was sitting there alone with the sick man in the
darkened corner room of his great house. She might marry. More than
once she had been asked in marriage; and one man had asked her more than
once. He was persistent, and he still declined to accept her refusal as
final. He was not an old man yet, although he was twice her age. He was
a rich man, even if he was not as wealthy as the owner of the splendid
but depressing home where she now sat silently musing. She did not love
him, that was true, and there was no doubt about it; but she did respect
him, and she had heard that sometimes love comes after marriage. He
could let her have all she longed for, and he was ready to give her
everything he had. If she married him she too could have dinners of
twenty-four, and wear a rope of pearls and a diamond tiara; and then,
too, she could do so much good with money if she had it.
In the course of her services in the hospital, and afterwards among the
poor, she had seen many a case of sore distress which she had been
unable to relieve. If she had riches she could accomplish much that was
now impossible; she could do good in many ways; she could relieve
suffering and aid the impoverished and help the feeble far more adroitly
and skilfully than could any woman who had always been wealthy, and who
had not had her experience of life and of its misfortunes and its
miseries. She thought that she knew her own character, and she believed
that she had strength to withstand the temptations which beset the
rich. Thinking herself unselfish, she held herself incapable of keeping
for herself alone any good fortune that might come to her. And she made
a solemn resolve that if she should marry the man who stood ready to
take her to wife she would devote to good works the greater part of her
money and of her time. She would dress as became her station, of course,
and she would entertain sumptuously too; but no old man should ever be
turned shivering from her door when she was giving a dinner of
twenty-four.
Her revery was interrupted half a dozen times by the fits of coughing
which shook her patient, and which seemed to her to become more and more
frequent and more violent. At half-past nine she gave him his medicine
again, and took his temperature once more. Then she made up the fire,
which burned badly; and she straightened the sheets on his bed, and
turned the pillows.
He soon sank to slumber again, breathing heavily and turning uneasily in
his sleep. The house was singularly still, and no sound of the dinner
party below reached the nurse in the corner room above. When she
happened to go into the dressing-room she found there awaiting her a
tray with several dishes from the dinner table. She was glad to have
something to eat, and she sat down by the window to enjoy it. The thick,
soft snow had silenced nearly all the usual street sounds. The
carriages that went up and down the avenue were as inaudible as though
they were rolling on felt. But sleighing parties became more frequent,
and she found a suggestion of pleasant companionship and of human
activity in the jingle of the bells. Once a fire-engine sped swiftly
past the house, its usual roar deadened by the heavy snow, and its
whistle shrilling forth as it neared the side streets, one after
another; ten minutes later it came slowly back. The nurse was glad that
there was only a false alarm, for she knew how terrible a fire would be
in a crowded tenement-house on such a night.
She finished her belated dinner a few minutes after the deep tones of
the clock in the hall had told her that it was ten, and that there were
left of the old year but two hours more. Except when the sick man waked
with a cough, the next hour was wholly eventless.
And yet, when it had drawn to an end, the nurse thought that it would
count in her life as important beyond most others, for it was between
ten and eleven that she made up her mind to marry the rich man who
wanted her for his wife, and whom she did not love. The resolution once
determined, she let her mind play about the possibilities of the future.
She would not be married till the spring, of course, and they would go
to Europe for their wedding-trip. Then, in the fall, she would persuade
him to move to New York. He was fond of his own town, but he would get
used to the city in time; and they could buy a new house, overlooking
Central Park--perhaps in the same neighborhood as the one where she was
sitting in the hazy light of the sick-room. She smiled unconsciously as
she found herself wondering whether her patient's beautiful young wife
would call on her if she purchased the house next door.
It was a little after eleven o'clock when she again heard a rustling of
silken stuffs in the room by the side of hers, followed shortly by the
voice of the servant in the street below calling the carriages of the
departing guests. But some of the diners still lingered, for it was
nearly half an hour later before the door of the sick-room opened and
the sick man's wife came gliding in again with her languorous grace.
He fixed his eyes upon her at once, and smiled with contentment as she
came towards him.
"You've been asleep, haven't you?" she began. "I'm so glad, for of
course that's so good for you. We all missed you down-stairs, and
everybody asked about you and said they were _so_ sorry you were not
there. You must hurry up and get well; and I'll give another dinner like
this, for it was a _great_ success. The flowers were superb--and I don't
think any of the women had a handsomer gown than I did. And I know all
of them together hadn't as elegant diamonds. I don't believe _anybody_
at the dance will have as many either."
"Sit down by me here and tell me all about the dinner," said the sick
husband.
"Oh, I can't wait now," the young wife answered. "I _must_ be off at
once. I've simply _got_ to be there in time to see the old year out and
the new year in. They say Mrs. Jimmy has a surprise for us, and nobody
at dinner had the slightest idea what it _could_ possibly be!"
"Are you going to the dance to-night?" asked the man in the bed; and the
nurse saw the pleading look in his eyes, even if his wife failed to
perceive it.
"Of course I am," was the wife's reply. "I wouldn't miss it for
_anything_. I think it's a lovely idea to have a dance on New-Year's
Eve, don't you? I _do_ wish you were well enough to go, and I'm certain
sure Mrs. Jimmy will ask about you--she's always _so_ polite. You won't
miss me--you will be asleep again in five minutes, won't you?"
"Perhaps," he answered, still clinging to her fingers. "I'll try to
sleep."
"That's right," she responded, withdrawing her hand and going towards
the door. "I'll trust you to the nurse. She'll take better care of you
than I should, I'm afraid. I never was _any_ good when people were sick.
Now good-bye. I _do_ hope you'll be better when I get back. I'll come in
and say good-night, of course. I sha'n't be late, either--I'll be home
by three--or before four, _anyway_."
And with that she glided away, smiling back at her husband as she left
the room. He followed her with his eyes, and he gazed at the door
fixedly after she had gone. There was a hungry look in his face, so it
seemed to the nurse, as of one starving in the midst of plenty. With the
vain hope that the vision of beauty might yet return, he lay silent, but
listening intently, until he heard the sharp slam of the carriage doors.
Then he relaxed and turned restlessly in bed.
It was then half-past eleven, and the nurse took his temperature and
administered another capsule, as the doctor had ordered. It seemed to
her that he was more feverish and that he was coughing more frequently;
and even as she saw the patient sink into a broken sleep, she wished
that the physician would come soon.
The arrival of the doctor was delayed till a few minutes before
midnight, and the nurse had time to reconsider, once and forever, her
decision to marry for money and without love. Her mind had been made up
slowly and with great deliberation; it was unmade suddenly and
unhesitatingly and irrevocably. It was the sight of the mute pleading in
the sick man's eyes which made her change her mind. After seeing that
look she felt that it would be impossible for her to make a loveless
marriage--not for her own sake only, but also for the sake of the man
she should marry. If he loved her and she did not love him, there would
be no fair exchange; she would be cheating him. When she beheld clearly
the meaning of the transaction her honesty revolted. She had refused to
marry him more than once, and now her refusal was final.
She stood for a moment at the window and looked out. The snow had ceased
falling, and there was already a clearing of the clouds, which let the
moonlight pierce them fitfully. The wind blew steadily across the broad
meadows of the Park, bending the whitened skeletons of the trees.
Three immense sleighs filled with a joyous and laughing party went down
the avenue, bandying songs from one sleigh to the other. A horn was
tooted repeatedly in one of the side streets, and there were louder and
more frequent whistles from the river craft on both sides of the city. A
pistol-shot rang out now and again. It was almost midnight on the last
day of the old year; and the new year was to be greeted with the
customary chorus of wild noises.
As the nurse turned from the window the doctor entered the room. She
made her report briefly, and she told him that the old man's cough was
worse, and that he seemed weaker.
While they were standing at the foot of the bed, the patient was seized
with another paroxysm. He sat up, shaken by the violent effort--far more
violent than any that had preceded it. He seemed to struggle vainly for
relief, and then he dropped back limply on the pillows. The physician
was at his side instantly, and laid a hand on his heart. There was a
moment of silence, and the clock on the stairs began to strike twelve,
its chimes mingling with the uproar made by the pistols and the horns
and the steam-whistles out-doors.
"That's what I was afraid of," said the doctor at last. "I suspected
that he had fatty degeneration of the heart."
"Is he--is he dead?" asked the nurse.
"Yes, he is dead."
But it was not for five or ten minutes that the shrill noises outside
ceased.
* * * * *
The following typographical errors were corrected by the etext
transcriber:
perfume of geniune=> perfume of genuine
he griped the leader=> he gripped the leader
There where cheers=> There were cheers