Peter Ramsay put down the letter with a low whistle and stood staring
at his half-packed portmanteau. Then he took up the letter again and
re-read it.
There was no doubt about it! The governing body of St. Helena's
Hospital for Children offered him the appointment of resident
physician at a salary of L600 a year.
But where the deuce was the hospital?
Egworth. That was one of the suburbs of Blackborough; the most
desirable suburb, for it stood on a hill, and so above the smoke-pall
of the factory city. But he remembered no hospital there. Once upon a
time some speculator had built a huge framework of a place that was to
have been a hotel, or a hydropathic, or something of the sort, on the
site of the old manor house at the very top of the rise. He remembered
Phipp's Folly, as it was called, with its cold deserted look-out of
roughly-glazed windows; but of hospitals--nothing.
It must be some small place. Yet still L600 a year was liberal.
"If you would prefer to see the hospital before making a decision the
authorities will be happy to show you over, and I may mention that the
governing body will be in committee on the 18th of this month, and
could give you an interview."
Thus wrote the secretary.
The 18th? That was to-day. The letter had been delayed, partly because
he had changed his lodgings, partly because he had run out of town
from Saturday to Monday to see a friend before leaving for Vienna. Of
course he could put off his journey for a day or two and still arrive
easily before the date he had originally fixed.
On the other hand, as it was but a two hours' run to Blackborough, why
should he not go down by the 12 o'clock luncheon train, and be back in
time to start, if need be, by the Oriental express in the evening? No
reason at all. He would do this, and he might find time, even if St.
Helena's proved to be a fraud, to look in at St. Peter's into the
bargain.
"St. Helena's Hospital," said the cabman at the station
confidentially, "that'll be the no'o one as the Syndicate 'as bin
makin' out o' Phipp's Folly."
Out of Phipp's Folly! So that was it; quaint certainly. "I suppose
so," he replied; "they must have been pretty nippy about it."
Cabby's face fell. "Nippy," he echoed, "Nippy ain't in it. They've 'ad
workmen over from the States and fitters from Germany, an' a regular
cordon round the place to prevent union men havin' a look in. One
thing is, it must have cost 'em a pot of money--but--but they done it!
And they do say as it is fust class, and the old gardens a sight. So
pop in, sir. I'll have you there in twenty minutes, if you'll give me
three shillin'."
The three shillings were promised and Peter Ramsay spent those twenty
minutes in pleasurable excitement. This was something out of the
common. If it had been well done Phipp's Folly might be an ideal
hospital, and there was something stimulating, something which stirred
the imagination in this sudden development. Of course money could do
everything, but how seldom money was spent in this way; for money in
_esse_ always had that postulate of more money in _posse_ behind it.
There was only one man he knew----
A quick wonder was checked by the swift turn of the cab through the
wide open iron gates, while the new gravel of a broad semicircular
sweep crisped under the wheels. But there was nothing to tell of
recent work in the green lawns with their old spreading cedars, which
lay between the two gates. And the facade itself! What an enormous
improvement those wide balconies were, and how useful they might be.
The whole place had an air of having been in use for years, and as the
cab stopped a hall porter in livery came alertly down the porch steps,
followed by a hall boy. That was a trifle too much for a good thing!
No! there was another cab driving in by the other gate which explained
the boy.
Peter Ramsay paused to give a general look round. Certainly so far as
the outside went, nothing could be more perfect. What a splendid
playground for the children the garden would be sloping away in
varying degrees of wildness to a real dingle at the further foot of
the hill. And that glass palace attached to the left must be a winter
garden. On this warm day the doors were open and Dr. Ramsay could see
swings, see-saws, rocking-horses, tall flowering shrubs, and--yes!
birds, actually birds feeding on the floor or flying about, apparently
content.
Close to the porch against the half-basement story, he could see
through the glazed doors rows of perambulators, invalid carriages, and
advancing to meet him with welcoming wave of the tail was a
magnificent Newfoundland dog, evidently intended to be an important
factor in the establishment.
There was imagination everywhere.
"Dr. Ramsay!" came an astonished voice at his elbow. He turned to see
Mrs. Tresillian pausing in the very act of giving two shillings to her
cabman.
"Mrs. Tresillian," he echoed, "how--how very----"
She stepped forward and looked at him--he stepped forward and looked
at her. Then with one voice they both said:
"Ned! I felt it was Ned!"
Helen Tresillian gave a sigh of relief. "I have been wondering, ever
since I got this," she held out a letter, and Dr. Ramsay mechanically
held out his also, "who it could be who was offering me this place of
matron, and now--dear me! How silly of me not to think of Ned before.
But you see I have been away in Scotland--I only came back to-day--and
I had not heard any Blackborough news since I was here before
Christmas--so I could hardly guess, could I?" She cast a glance around
her. "But this is Ned, of course. It is like a fairy tale. Let us go
in and see it. I expect it is--perfect."
They went up the steps, solemnly followed by the Newfoundland, the
hall porter, and the hall boy; but on the threshold Helen paused.
"Isn't it like a fairy tale?" she repeated. "'And in an instant there
appeared a most beautiful hospital all fitted with cots and medicine
bottles and nurses'--Ah! here comes one of them. How quaint--but oh!
how sensible!"
It was rather a buxom little person who came out from a side-door.
Something both in her fair smiling face and her dress recalled an old
Dutch picture. Her neat white stockings and black rubber-soled,
heelless shoes were well seen below a dark-blue cotton dress, full in
the skirt, loose in the body, just fastened round the throat without
any attempt at a collar, and ending short above the elbow. On her
head, almost completely covering her smooth fair hair, she wore a
white linen cap gathered in to tightness with a narrow tape tied at
the back.
Dr. Ramsay gave a big sigh. "By George!" he murmured, "that's
workmanlike if you like."
"I was to give you these," said the newcomer holding out two notes,
one addressed to "Peter Ramsay, Esq., M.D., F.R.C.S., Medical Officer
(designate)," the other to "Mrs. Tresillian, Matron (designate), St.
Helena's Hospital, Egworth."
"It is from Ned," said Helen softly, handing him hers when she had
read it. "I expect he has written you the same--I think he is certain
to have written just the same."
They were in fact the same, word for word, short, and very much to the
point.
"Dear Ramsay (or Helen),--I have built this hospital for you
and No. 36 in the Queen's Ward. You will find him waiting for
you in No. 7 overlooking the garden. He is at present sole occupant
of the hospital. I hope you will accept the responsibility of
killing or curing him. If you don't I must find someone else as St.
Helena's Hospital--which by the way has a permanent endowment of
L200,000--cannot possibly remain without a doctor or a matron. So
don't say 'No,' unless you really dislike the place. Yours,
"Blackborough."
The tears for some reason or other came into Helen's eyes, and even
Peter Ramsay winked. It was a fairy tale indeed.
"These are your rooms sir," said the little Dutch nurse, "The
Governing body desire me to say they would be pleased to alter them in
any reasonable way you might desire."
Peter Ramsay looked round the wide rooms whose walls were almost all
cupboards, which was heated by a self-feeding stove, where the doors
and drawers shut automatically, and the very wash-hand basin tilted
itself empty, with a distinctly annoyed smile. "I don't believe even I
could be untidy in it," he said grudgingly, "But if you will excuse
me, nurse--who are the Governing Body?"
"Oh! there are several gentlemen, I believe; but I only know the one
name--Lord Blackborough. I have not seen him. He is to be here to-day,
however--it is their first Committee meeting, you know."
"It--it was built by a Syndicate, wasn't it?" asked Helen.
"Yes; by a Syndicate. I don't think Lord Blackborough had anything to
do with it. These are your--that is, the matron's rooms."
Helen gave a little cry. They were the replica of her rooms at the
Keep, even to the row of flower-pots on the window-sills and the
little niche for her _prie-dieu_ chair. What a memory he had--and what
an imagination!
"They must have spent any amount of money over it," continued the
buxom little nurse, "for everything is quite perfect--on a small scale
of course--I mean in comparison with the London hospitals; but none of
them, so far as I know, is half so well equipped for children. It will
be a pleasure to work here."
She threw open the door of a ward and introduced Nurse Mary, an
elderly woman also in the quaintly Dutch dress.
"There are only four cots in each ward," said Sister Ann, "and they
have all a wide balcony on to which the cots can be wheeled, and every
ward in thus part of the house is practically self-supporting." She
threw open another side door in the landing. "The bath-room and the
nurses' room are over there and this is the pantry. There is a lift
from the kitchen."
Everything in truth was perfect, and Peter Ramsay gave a great sigh of
content over the marble operating-room with its glass casing, its
endless silver-plated taps, and tubes, and sprays, and levers.
"I believe," he said suddenly, excitedly, "It is a replica of
Pagenheim's--yes! I am certain that is his new adjustor--" He was deep
in the mechanism in a moment.
"There were German or Austrian workmen at it, I know," said Sister Ann
beaming over with content, "But it is absolutely complete, isn't it?"
Truly it was complete in every detail. A very gem amongst hospitals, a
very pearl of places where disease and death could be faced at close
quarters. Yes! even to the little marble mortuary where carven biers
stood waiting under the shadow of a great white cross.
"We must see number 36," said Helen to Dr. Ramsay, "It was built for
him remember, as well as for us."
The plural pronoun gave Dr. Ramsay a little thrill which he shook off
impatiently.
"That is the worst part of it," he said, "I am by no means sure about
No. 36."
But the first sight of the boy who was playing draughts with his nurse
in a great wide play-room with a lift from it to the winter-garden
below, set him wondering if in very truth he could not set those
crooked things straight.
"The Secretary's compliments, please," said the hall porter when they
found themselves back in the vestibule, "and the Governing Body will
be glad to see you, when you are disengaged."
They looked at one another. They had lingered over their inspection;
it was already close on four o'clock, and if the Oriental mail had to
be caught Peter Ramsay must leave at the half hour.
If?...
It did not take him long to decide. He thought of the appeal in those
words "Don't say 'No,' unless you dislike the place." He would not at
any rate go to Vienna that night.
"I am disengaged now," he said, looking at Helen Tresillian, "if you
are."
So they followed their guide down a passage to the right wing of the
house where he knocked at a door labelled Secretary's Office. A small
man sadly humpbacked, but with a quick, intelligent face and a most
determined chin, rose as they entered and bowed.
"If you would kindly step within," he said, opening an inner door,
"Dr. Ramsay and Mrs. Tresillian, sir."
The door closed behind them and--and----
Ned Blackborough jumped up from a comfortable chair by the fire and
came forward with outstretched hands.
"By George! I was nearly asleep. What a time you've been! I thought
you must have gone away disgusted."
"My dear Ned!" gasped Mrs. Tresillian, "you don't surely mean that
you--you only--are the Governing Body?"
"If you will sit down and pour us out some tea," he said coolly,
pointing to a little table laid out by the fire, "I will tell you what
I am--or rather what I am not--for I have been most things this last
month. I had no idea it would have been such a business."
He might have said he had had no idea it would cost so much money, but
he did not, for to him the only use of money was to spend it. So as
they drank their tea, he told them how the idea had come to him before
Christmas, when Helen had first told him of No. 36 and the discussion
concerning the pot of beer had begun. How he had rushed everybody,
bribing everybody to unheard-of haste. Just a month, he said, from
start to finish; but he had had to get bricklayers, plasterers,
painters over, by wire, from the States, and buy all the fittings in
Germany. It was very unpatriotic, of course, but what could one do
when the Trades' Unions would only allow a man to lay one-half the
number of bricks in a day that the Americans laid, and when English
firms talked of Christmas Day, Boxing Day and the general holiday
dislocation of trade? He never could have done it but for Woods, the
little dumpity who had introduced them. The man was an old watchmaker
who had lost employment through the Swiss competition, and who had had
the pluck to spend his last pound or two in going over to Geneva to
see how it was that the foreigner could work cheaper. He, Ned, had
come across him in the park one night and had lent him--only lent him,
of course, with no hope of ever seeing him or it again--a sovereign!
But the fellow had come back and had repaid the sovereign! He had
written a pamphlet on his views and sold it in the streets. So?--so
they had joined hands, being of the same way of thinking.
"I was awfully afraid when we were down at Plas Afon, Helen," he said,
"that the thing would get blown upon; what with all the telegrams and
the people who came to see me."
"But you told me," she replied reproachfully, "that it was mostly
about that strike at the works."
"So it was--partly," he answered with a smile. Then he looked grave.
"I'll tell you what, I've been busy this last fortnight, and no
mistake."
"With the strike," she asked quickly.
"Yes! with the strike," he answered after a pause. "I went into the
whole thing from the beginning, and I found that those particular
factories had been working at a loss for the last three years. I
showed the accounts to the men, and pointed out that under the
circumstances no master could be expected to accede to a demand for a
rise in wages. They wouldn't listen--I suppose, really, they couldn't
listen, so I closed the works, gave them each a month's pay in their
pockets, and told them I hoped they'd find a better master. I couldn't
do anything else in common fairness. It comes to that in the end."
He walked to the window moodily and looked out, then turned to them
with one of his sudden brilliant smiles.
"And you, good people? What have you decided; but perhaps I had better
give you a short outline of what St. Helena's Hospital is to be."
"In the first place, Woods is to be the Secretary and Treasurer, and
all that sort of thing, with a staff under him. There is to be no
governing body, but the money will be vested in a trust, and the whole
staff of the hospital shall form a general committee. This will ensure
the appointment of really reliable persons all through. Sister
Ann--you saw her--she has every diploma under the sun, and is as hard
as nuts--is, for the present, head under you, Ramsay, of the nursing
department. You are head, for the present, of the medical and
surgical, with help as required, and Helen here is to boss the whole
lot of you in housekeeping--it is really what you are cut out for, you
know, Helen, though you did fuss over the _chauffeur_ dinners."
"But I don't quite see why," began Peter Ramsay argumentatively, "all
this has to be done. If it was to provide me----"
Ned Blackborough interrupted him. "It was to supply you--and the
world," he said almost sarcastically--"with a place in which there
were no vested interests. It was to provide you--and a few other
working men and women--with a place here they could work without let
or hindrance, where they were responsible for the whole show--yes!
even for those who were to come after them. Don't bring in any one,
Ramsay, because he is a brilliant operator; pay him, if you like, to
come in and operate, but keep your staff good men and true, who will
try to secure an apostolic succession of good men and true. Then--then
no one will quarrel over a pint of beer! Do you accept?"
"I accepted from the very beginning, Ned," said Helen quickly; "the
moment I saw the Newfoundland dog, I----"
Ned laughed. "I thought of bringing your father's retriever; but he
wasn't warranted with children--so I got that bumbler."
Peter Ramsay was taking his turn at the window, looking out with eyes
that had a blur in them. Suddenly he wheeled----
"Yes! I accept, Lord Blackborough, and--and may Heaven do so and to me
and more also if----"
He wrung Ned's hand instead of finishing his sentence.
Lord Blackborough threw himself into the armchair and stretched out
his legs in relief.
"_Nunc dimittis_," he said, "and now for a few details. You won't be
able to start, of course, for some time. The place is fairly dry,
having been roofed over, you remember, but some of the partition work
is a bit damp, though we've had it all dried as well as we could, and
your rooms are dog dry. So is Number Seven ward. But for a while you
will have to go slow. Sister Ann, Woods, and the housekeeper--I hope
you will like her, Helen; if you don't give her the sack, for she will
have her vote in the housekeeping committee, though of course the
under servants won't--or, at any rate, only on certain points. You
will find Woods has it all worked out, however, he has a head like an
American roll-top desk. Well! those three can manage, so if you want
any special fit-up Oh! by the way, I've left the instruments to you,
Ramsay, except the ordinary ones. Woods has enough in hand to pay----"
"And what is to become of you, Ned," asked Helen anxiously, noting a
certain jumpiness of insouciance in her cousin's manner, a certain,
almost uncanny, clearness in his eyes. "Are you going back to New
Park?"
"Ye gods and little fishes! No!" he ejaculated. "Do I look, Helen,
like a churchwarden, or any one else who would find comfort in Turkey
carpets? I, my dear child, am going to find rest unto my soul in my
own way. I--I am going to the Grecian Archipelago!"
"My dear Ned!" she laughed, "don't be so ridiculous! What _are_ you
going to do? You look tired!"
"Tired!" he echoed, with a quaint hint of a break in his voice; "I
should think I was tired! So would you be if you had to consort
with--how is it Walt Whitman puts it?--'tinsmiths, locksmiths, and
they who work with the hammer, cabmen and mothers of large families.'
I know now how my uncle must have felt. Excuse me, Helen, but I am a
little bit harassed. You don't know what I've had to do and haven't
had to do over this business; but I've got through it without any one
guessing I was the syndicate. However, since I've started you, I
really am off to Athens to-night. Afraid I shan't have your company on
the Oriental express--ah, Ramsay? Now, as I have to see Ted
Cruttenden--who is just back, I hear, from Paris--before I start, I'll
say good-bye."
"But will you catch the express?" asked Dr. Ramsay incredulously.
"I expect so. I have a special," replied Lord Blackborough carelessly.
They looked at each other after he had left the room.
"I hope he will take a rest," said Helen, still more anxiously. "I've
never seen him look so--so curious--as if he were seeing visions----"
"He is a little fine-drawn," said the doctor shortly; "quiet will set
him all right, I expect."
Meanwhile Ned in his motor was running close up to time-limit on his
way to Ted's office. Even if he missed the express he was not going
away without telling the latter that he had spoken to Aura, that she
had refused him, but that--well! he had some reason for hoping she
might change her mind. He would have written this had he been able to
get Ted's address in Paris, but no one knew it at the office, or at
any rate they professed not to know it. Ted, however, had returned
that morning, and Ned had telephoned down to him warning him to expect
a visit.
So there he was in his private room, looking just a little disturbed,
just a little combative; yet the Paris visit had been successful
beyond his hopes. So successful indeed, that there was a really
magnificent diamond ring in his breast-pocket awaiting leisure for him
to take it down to Cwmfaernog.
"I'm off for six weeks--to be exact, for thirty-nine days--to Athens,"
said Ned, "and I wanted to see you for a moment first, because I have
something to tell you--that, I think, you ought to know. I asked Aura
Graham to marry me--on New Year's Day it was----"
Ted's heart gave a great thump. It made him conscious of the
engagement ring, in its fine blue morocco case, in his breast-pocket.
"Yes----" he said chillily--"and--and----" He could not get his tongue
to say "she accepted you," although, the instant he heard Ned's
confession, he made up his mind that it must not force his hand in any
way. The engagement was not yet made public; they had a perfect right
to keep it secret if they chose.
"She refused me--but----" Here Ned found some little difficulty in
going on, "but I am not so sure if--if she would refuse me again. That
really is all I've come to say."
He looked frankly at his companion.
Ted stooped down and stirred the fire.
"Thanks. Of course that is your opinion--I--I don't agree with it; but
anyhow a man can but take his chance. You take yours and I'll take
mine."
"Done!" said Ned with a laugh, and they parted.