TWO RED HEADS
Jordan King set his own speed in the powerful roadster, reflecting that
Miss Linton, to judge from her worn black clothes, was probably not
accustomed to motoring and so making the pace a moderate one. Fast or
slow, it would not take long to cover the twelve miles over the
macadamized road to the hospital in the city, and if it was to be her
last bath in the good outdoors for some time, as the doctor had
said--King drew a long breath, filling his own sturdy lungs with the
balmy yet potent April air, feeling very sorry for the unknown little
person by his side.
"Would you rather I didn't talk?" he inquired when a mile or two had
been covered in silence.
She lifted her eyes to his, and for the first time he got a good look
into them. They were very wonderful eyes, and none the less wonderful
because of the fever which made them almost uncannily brilliant between
their dark lashes.
"Oh, I wish you would talk, if you don't mind!" she answered--and he
noted as he had at first how warmly pleasant were the tones of her
voice, which was a bit deeper than one would have expected. "I've heard
nobody talk for days--except to say they didn't care to buy my book."
"Your book? Have you written a book?"
"I'm selling one." This astonished him, but he did not let it show. It
was certainly enough to make any girl ill to have to go about selling
books. He wondered how it happened. She opened her handbag and took out
the small book. "I don't want to sell you one," she said. "You wouldn't
have any use for it. It's a little set of stories for children."
"But I do want to buy one," he protested. "I've a lot of nieces and
nephews always coming at me for stories."
She shook her head. "You can't buy one. I'd like to give you one if you
would take it, to show you how I appreciate this beautiful drive."
"Of course I'll take it," he said quickly, "and delighted at the
chance." He slipped the book into his pocket. "As for the drive, it's
much jollier not to be covering the ground alone. I wish, though--" and
he stopped, feeling that he was probably going to say the wrong thing.
She seemed to know what it would have been. "You're sorry to be taking
me to the hospital?" she suggested. "You needn't be. I didn't want to
go, just at first, but then--I felt I could trust the Doctor. He was so
kind, and his hair was so like mine, he seemed like a sort of big older
brother."
"Red Pepper Burns seems like that to a lot of people, including myself.
I don't look like much of a candidate for illness, but I've had an
accident or two, and he's pulled me through in great shape. You're right
in trusting him and you can keep right on, to the last ditch--" He
stopped short again, with an inward thrust at himself for being so
blundering in his suggestions to this girl, who, for all he knew, might
be on her way to that "last ditch" from which not even Burns could save
her.
But the girl herself seemed to have paused at his first phrase. "What
did you call the Doctor?" she asked, turning her eyes upon him again.
"What did I--oh! 'Red Pepper.' Yes--I've no business to call him that,
of course, and I don't to his face, though his friends who are a bit
older than I usually do, and people speak of him that way. It's his
hair, of course--and--well, he has rather a quick temper. People with
that coloured hair--But you're wrong in saying yours is like his," he
added quickly.
For the first time he saw a smile touch her lips. "So he has a quick
temper," she mused. "I'm glad of that--I have one myself. It goes with
the hair surely enough."
"It goes with some other things," ventured Jordan King, determined, if
he made any more mistakes, to make them on the side of encouragement.
"Pluck, and endurance, and keeping jolly when you don't feel so--if you
don't mind my saying it."
"One has to have a few of those things to start out into the world
with," said Miss Linton slowly, looking straight ahead again.
"One certainly does. Doctor Burns understands that as well as any man I
know. And he likes to find those things in other people." Then with
tales of some of the Doctor's experiences which young King had heard he
beguiled the way; and by the time he had told Miss Linton a story or two
about certain experiences of his own in the Rockies, the car was
approaching the city. Presently they were drawing up before the group of
wide-porched, long buildings, not unattractive in aspect, which formed
the hospital known as the Good Samaritan.
"It's a pretty good place," announced King in a matter-of-fact way,
though inwardly he was suffering a decided pang of sympathy for the
young stranger he was to leave within its walls. "And the Doctor said
he'd have some one meet us who knew all about you, so there'd be no
fuss."
He leaped out and came around to her side. She began to thank him once
more, but he cut her short. "I'm going in with you, if I may," he said.
"Something might go wrong about their understanding, and I could save
you a bit of bother."
She made no objection, and he helped her out. He kept his hand under her
arm as they went up the steps, and did not let her go until they were in
a small reception room, where they were asked to wait for a minute. He
realized now more than he had done before her weakness and the sense of
loneliness that was upon her. He stood beside her, hat in hand, wishing
he had some right to let her know more definitely than he had ventured
to do how sorry he was for her, and how she could count on his thinking
about her as a brother might while she was within these walls.
But Burns's message evidently had taken effect, as his messages usually
did, for after a very brief wait two figures in uniform appeared, one
showing the commanding presence of a person in authority, the other
wearing the pleasantly efficient aspect of the active nurse. Miss Linton
was to be taken to her room at once, the necessary procedure for
admittance being attended to later.
Miss Linton seemed to know something about hospitals, for she offered
instant remonstrance. "It's a mistake, I think," she said, lifting her
head as if it were very heavy, but speaking firmly. "I prefer not to
have a room. Please put me in your least expensive ward."
The person in authority smiled. "Doctor Burns said room," she returned.
"Nobody here is accustomed to dispute Doctor Burns's orders."
"But I must dispute them," persisted the girl. "I am not--willing--to
take a room."
"Don't concern yourself about that now," said the other. "You can settle
it with the Doctor when he comes by and by."
Jordan King inwardly chuckled. "I wonder if it's going to be a case of
two red heads," he said to himself. "I'll bet on R.P."
The nurse put her arm through Miss Linton's. "Come," she said gently.
"You ought not to be standing."
The girl turned to King, and put out her small hand in its mended glove.
He grasped it and dared to give it a strong pressure, and to say in a
low tone: "It'll be all right, you know. Keep a stiff upper lip. We're
not going to forget you." He very nearly said "I."
"Good-bye," she said. "I shall not forget how kind you've been."
Then she was gone through the big door, the tall nurse beside her
supporting steps which seemed suddenly to falter, and King was staring
after her, feeling his heart contract with sympathy.
* * * * *
Four hours later Anne Linton opened her eyes, after an interval of
unconsciousness which had seemed to the nurse who looked in now and then
less like a sleep than a stupor, to find a pair of broad shoulders
within her immediate horizon, and to feel the same lightly firm pressure
on her wrist that she had felt before that afternoon. She looked up
slowly into Burns's eyes.
"Not so bad, is it?" said his low and reassuring voice. "Bed more
comfortable than doctor's office chairs? Won't mind if you don't ring
any door bells to-morrow? Just let everything go and don't worry--and
you'll be all right."
"This room--" began the weary young voice--she was really much more
weary now that she had stopped trying to keep up than seemed at all
reasonable--"I can't possibly--"
"It's just the place for you. Don't do any thinking on that point. You
know you agreed to take my orders, and this is one of them."
"But I can't possibly--"
"I said they were my orders," repeated Burns. "But that was a
misstatement. They're the orders of some one else, more powerful than I
am under this roof--and that's saying something, I assure you. I think
you'll have to meet my wife. She's come on purpose to see you. She was
away when you were at the office."
He beckoned, and another figure moved quietly into range of the brown
eyes which were smoldering with the first advances of the fever. This
figure came around to the other side of the narrow high bed and sat down
beside it. Miss Linton looked into the face, as it seemed to her, of one
of the most attractive women she had ever seen. It was a face which
looked down at her with the sweetest sympathy in its expression, and yet
with that same high cheer which was in the face of the man on the other
side of the bed.
"My dear little girl," said a low, rich voice, "this is my room, and I
often have the pleasure of seeing my special friends use it. And I come
to see them here. When you are getting well, as you will be by and by, I
can have much nicer talks with you than if you were in a ward. Now that
you understand, you will let me have my way?".
The burning brown eyes looked into the soft black ones for a full
minute, then, with a long-drawn breath, the tense expression in the
stranger's relaxed. "I see," said the weary voice. "You are used to
having your way--just as he is. I'll have to let you because I haven't
any strength left to fight with. You are wonderfully kind. But--I'm not
a little girl."
Ellen Burns smiled. "We'll play you are, for a while," she said. "And--I
want you to know that, little or big, you are my friend. So now you have
both Doctor Burns and me, and you are not alone any more."
The heavy lashes closed over the brown eyes, and the lids were held
tightly shut as if to keep tears back. Seeing this, Ellen rose.
"Red," she said, "are you going to let us have Miss Arden?"
"Won't anybody else do?"
"Do you need her badly somewhere else?"
"If there were ten of her I could use them all!" declared her husband
emphatically.
"Nevertheless--"
Red Pepper Burns got up. He summoned a nurse waiting just outside the
door. "Please send Miss Arden here for a minute," he requested. Then he
turned back. "Are you satisfied with your power?" he asked his wife.
She nodded. "Quite. But I think you feel, as I do, that this is one of
the ten places where she will be better than another."
"She's a wonder, all right."
The patient in the bed presently was bidden to look at her new nurse,
one who was to take care of her much of the time. She lifted her heavy
eyes unwillingly, then she drew another deep breath of relief. "I would
rather have you," she murmured to the serene brow, the kind eyes, the
gently smiling lips of the girl who stood beside her.
"There's a tribute," laughed Burns softly. "They all feel like that when
they look at you, Selina. And what Mrs. Burns wants she usually gets.
You may special this case to-night, if you are ready to begin night duty
again."
"I am quite ready," said Miss Arden.
Burns turned to the bed again. "You are in the best hands we have to
give you," he said. "You are to trust everything to those hands.
Good-night. I'll see you in the morning."
"Good-night, dear," whispered Mrs. Burns, bending for an instant over
the bed.
"Oh you angels!" murmured the girl as they left her, her eyes following
them.
* * * * *
It was ten days later, in the middle of a wonderful night in early May,
that Miss Arden, beginning to be sure that the case which had interested
her so much was going to give her a hard time before it should be
through, listened to words which roused in her deeper wonder than she
had yet felt for the most unusual patient she had had in a long time.
Although there was as yet nothing that could be called real delirium, a
tendency to talk in a light-headed sort of way was becoming noticeable.
Sitting by the window, the one light in the room deeply shaded, she
heard the voice suddenly say:
"This evens things up a little, doesn't it? I know a little
more about it now--you must realize that, if you are keeping
track of me--and I know you are--you would--even from another
world. Things aren't fair--they aren't. That you should have
to suffer all you did, to bring you to that pass--while I--But
I know a good deal about it now--really I do. And I'm going to
know more. I didn't sell a single book to-day. You had lots of
such days, didn't you?
Poor--pale--tired--heartsick--heartbroken girl!"
A little mirthless laugh sounded from the bed. "I wonder how many people
ever let a person who is selling something at the door get into the
house. And if they let her in, do they ever, _ever_ ask her to sit down?
The places where I've stood, telling them about the book, while they
were telling me they didn't want it--stood and stood--and stood--with
great easy chairs in sight! Oh, that chair in my doctor's office--it was
the first chair I'd sat in that whole morning. I went to sleep in it, I
think."
There followed a long silence, as if the thought of sleep had brought
it on. But then the rambling talk began again.
"His hair is red--red, like mine. I think that's why his heart
is so warm. Yet her heart is warm, too, and her hair is almost
black. The other man's hair was pretty dark, too, and his
heart seemed--well, not exactly cold. Did he send me some
daffodils the other day? I can't seem to remember. It seems as
if I had seen some--pretty things--lovely, springy things.
Perhaps Mrs.--the red-headed doctor's wife--queer I can't
think of their names--perhaps she sent them. It would be like
her."
The nurse's glance wandered, in the faint light, to where a great jar of
daffodils stood upon the farther window sill, their heads nodding
faintly in the night breeze. Jordan King's card, which had come with
them, was tucked away in a drawer near by with two other cards, bearing
the same name, which had accompanied other flowers. Miss Arden doubted
if her patient realized who had sent any of them. Afterward--if there
was to be an afterward--she would show the cards to her. Miss Arden,
like many other people, knew Jordan King by reputation, for the family
was an old and established one in the city, and the early success of the
youngest son in a line not often taken up by the sons of such families
was noteworthy. Also he was good to look at, and Miss Arden,
experienced nurse though she was and devoted to her profession, had not
lost her appreciation of youth and health and good looks in those who
were not her patients.
Unexpectedly, at this hour of the night--it was well toward one
o'clock--the door suddenly opened very quietly and a familiar big figure
entered. Springing up to meet Doctor Burns, Miss Arden showed no
surprise. It was a common thing for this man, summoned to the hospital
at unholy hours for some critical case, to take time to look in on
another patient not technically in need of him.
The head on the pillow turned at the slight sound beside it. Two wide
eyes stared up at Burns. "You've made a mistake, I think," said the
patient's voice, politely yet firmly. "My doctor has red hair. I know
him by that. Your hair is black."
"I presume it is, in this light," responded Burns, sitting down by the
bed. "It's pretty red, though, by daylight. In that case will you let me
stay a minute?" His fingers pressed the pulse. Then his hand closed over
hers with a quieting touch. "Since you're awake," he said, "you may as
well have one extra bath to send you back to sleep."
The head on the pillow signified unwillingness. "I'd take one to please
my red-headed doctor, but not you."
"You'd do anything for him, eh?" questioned Burns, his eyes on the chart
which the nurse had brought him and upon which she was throwing the
light of a small flash. "Well, you see he wants you to have this bath;
he told me so."
"Very well, then," she said with a sigh. "But I don't like them. They
make me shiver."
"I know it. But they're good for you. They keep your red-headed doctor
master of the situation. You want him to be that, don't you?"
"He'd be that anyway," said she confidently.
Burns smiled, but the smile faded quickly. He gave a few brief
directions, then slipped away as quietly as he had come.
* * * * *
It was well into the next week when one morning he encountered Jordan
King, who had been out of town for several days. King came up to him
eagerly. Since this meeting occurred just outside the hospital, where
Burns's car had been standing in its accustomed place for the last hour,
it might not have been a wholly accidental encounter.
King made no attempt to maneuver for information. Maneuvering with Red
Pepper Burns, as the young man was well aware, seldom served any
purpose but to subject the artful one to a straight exposure. He asked
his question abruptly.
"I want to hear how Miss Linton is doing. I'm just back from
Washington--haven't heard for a week."
Burns frowned. No physician likes to be questioned about his cases,
particularly if they are not progressing to suit him. But he answered,
in a sort of growl: "She's not doing."
King looked startled. "You mean--not doing well?"
"She's fighting for existence--and--slipping."
"But--you haven't given her up?"
Burns exploded with instant wrath. King might have known that question
would make him explode. "Given her up! Don't you know a red-headed fiend
like me better than that?"
"I know you're a bulldog when you get your teeth in," admitted Jordan
King, looking decidedly unhappy and anxious. "If I'm just sure you've
got 'em in, that's enough."
Burns grunted. The sound was significant.
King ventured one more question, though Red Pepper's foot was on his
starter, and the engine had caught the spark and turned over. "If
there's anything I could do," he offered hurriedly and earnestly.
"Supply a special nurse, or anything--"
Burns shook his head. "Two specials now, and half the staff interested.
It's up to Anne Linton and nobody else. If she can do the trick--she and
Nature--all right. If not--well--Thanks for letting go the car, Jord.
This happens to be my busy day."
Jordan King looked after him, his heart uncomfortably heavy. Then he
stepped into his own car and drove away, taking his course down a side
street from which he could get a view of certain windows. They were wide
open to the May breeze and the sunshine, but no pots of daffodils or
other flowers stood on their empty sills. He knew it was useless to send
them now.
"But if she does pull through," he said to himself between his teeth,
"I'll bring her such an armful of roses she can't see over the top of
'em. God send I get the chance!"