HER FIRST CASE
October hovered over Kentucky that year in a golden halo of enchantment.
The beech-trees ran the gamut of glory, and every shrub and weed had its
hour of transient splendor. A soft haze from burning brush lent the world
a sense of mystery and immensity. Day after day on the south porch at
Hillcrest Mac Clarke lay propped with cushions on a wicker couch, while
Nance Molloy sat beside him, and all about them was a stir of whispering,
dancing, falling leaves. The hillside was carpeted with them, the brook
below the pergola was strewn with bits of color, while overhead the warm
sunshine filtered through canopies of russet and crimson and green.
"I tell you the boy is infatuated with that girl," Mr. Clarke warned his
wife from time to time.
"What nonsense!" Mrs. Clarke answered. "He is just amusing himself a bit.
He will forget her as soon as he gets out and about."
"But the girl?"
"Oh, she's too sensible to have any hopes of that kind. She really is
an exceptionally nice girl. Rather too frank in her speech, and
frequently ungrammatical and slangy, but I don't know what we should do
without her."
But even Mrs. Clarke's complacence was a bit shaken as the weeks slipped
away, and Mac's obsession became the gossip of the household. To be sure,
so long as Nance continued to regard the whole matter as a joke and
refused to take Mac seriously, no harm would be done. But that very
indifference that assured his adoring mother, at the same time piqued her
pride. That an ordinary trained nurse, born and brought up, Heaven knew
where, should be insensible to Mac's even transient attention almost
amounted to an impertinence. Quite unconsciously she began to break down
Nance's defenses.
"You must be very good to my boy, dear," she said one day in her gentle,
coaxing way. "I know he's a bit capricious and exacting at times. But we
can't afford to cross him now when he is just beginning to improve. He
was terribly upset last night when you teased him about leaving."
"But I ought to go, Mrs. Clarke. He'd get along just as well now with
another nurse. Besides I only promised--"
"Not another word!" implored Mrs. Clarke in instant alarm. "I wouldn't
answer for the consequences if you left us now. Mac goes all to pieces
when it is suggested. He has always been so used to having his own way,
you know."
Yes, Nance knew. Between her unceasing efforts to get him well, and her
grim determination to keep the situation well in hand, she had unlimited
opportunity of finding out. The physicians agreed that his chances for
recovery were one to three. It was only by the most persistent observance
of certain regulations pertaining to rest, diet, and fresh air, that they
held out any hope of arresting the malady that had already made such
alarming headway. Nance realized from the first that it was to be a fight
against heavy odds, and she gallantly rose to the emergency. Aside from
the keen personal interest she took in Mac, and the sympathy she felt for
his stricken parents, she had an immense pride in her first private case,
on which she was determined to win her spurs.
For three months now she had controlled the situation. With undaunted
perseverance she had made Mac submit to authority and succeeded in
successfully combatting his mother's inclination to yield to his every
whim. The gratifying result was that Mac was gradually putting on flesh
and, with the exception of a continued low fever, was showing decided
improvement. Already talk of a western flight was in the air.
The whole matter hinged at present on Mac's refusal to go unless Nance
could be induced to accompany them. The question had been argued from
every conceivable angle, and gradually a conspiracy had been formed
between Mac and his mother to overcome her apparently absurd resistance.
"It isn't as if she had any good reason," Mrs. Clarke complained to her
husband, with tears in her eyes. "She has no immediate family, and she
might just as well be on duty in California as in Kentucky. I don't see
how she can refuse to go when she sees how weak Mac is, and how he
depends on her."
"The girl's got more sense than all the rest of you put together!" said
Mr. Clarke. "She sees the way things are going."
"Well, what if Mac is in love with her?" asked Mrs. Clarke, for the first
time frankly facing the situation. "Of course it's just his sick fancy,
but he is in no condition to be argued with. The one absolutely necessary
thing is to get her to go with us. Suppose you ask her. Perhaps that's
what she is waiting for."
"And you are willing to take the consequences?"
"I am willing for anything on earth that will help me keep my boy,"
sobbed Mrs. Clarke, resorting to a woman's surest weapon.
So Mr. Clarke turned his ponderous batteries upon the situation, using
money as the ammunition with which he was most familiar.
The climax was reached one night toward the end of October when the
first heavy hoar-frost of the season gave premonitory threat of coming
winter. The family was still at dinner, and Mac was having his from a
tray before the library fire. The heavy curtains had been drawn against
the chill world without, and the long room was a soft harmony of dull
reds and browns, lit up here and there by rose-shaded lamps.
It was a luxurious room, full of trophies of foreign travel. The long
walls were hung with excellent pictures; the floors were covered with
rare rugs; the furniture was selected with perfect taste. Every detail
had been elaborately and skilfully worked out by an eminent decorator.
Only one insignificant item had been omitted. In the length and breadth
of the library, not a book was to be seen.
Mac, letting his soup cool while he read the letter Nance had just
brought him, gave an exclamation of surprise.
"By George! Monte Pearce is going to get married!"
Nance laughed.
"I've got a tintype of Mr. Monte settling down. Who's the girl?"
"A cousin of his in Honolulu. Her father is a sugar king; no end of cash.
Think of old Monte landing a big fish like that!"
"That's what you'll be doing when you get out to your ranch."
"I intend to take my girl along."
"You'll have to get her first."
Mac turned on her with an invalid's fretfulness. "See here, Nance,"
he cried, "cut that out, will you? Either you go, or I stay, do you
see? I know I'm a fool about you, but I can't help it. Nance, why
don't you love me?"
Nance looked down at him helplessly. She had been refusing him on an
average of twice a day for the past week, and her powers of resistance
were weakening. The hardest granite yields in the end to the persistent
dropping of water. However much the clear-headed, independent side of her
might refuse him, to another side of her he was strangely appealing.
Often when she was near him, the swift remembrance of other days filled
her with sudden desire to yield, if only for a moment, to his insatiable
demands. Despite her most heroic resolution, she sometimes relaxed her
vigilance as she did to-night, and allowed her hand to rest in his.
Mac made the most of the moment.
"I don't ask you to promise me anything, Nance. I just ask you to come
with me!" he pleaded, with eloquent eyes, "we can get a couple of ponies
and scour the trails all over those old mountains. At Coronada there's
bully sea bathing. And the motoring--why you can go for a hundred miles
straight along the coast!"
Nance's eyes kindled, but she shook her head. "You can do all that
without me. All I do is to jack you up and make you take care of
yourself. I should think you 'd hate me, Mr. Mac."
"Well, I don't. Sometimes I wish I did. I love you even when you come
down on me hardest. A chap gets sick of being mollycoddled. When you fire
up and put your saucy little chin in the air, and tell me I sha'n't have
a cocktail, and call me a fool for stealing a smoke, it bucks me up more
than anything. By George, I believe I'd amount to something if you'd take
me permanently in hand."
Nance laughed, and he pulled her down on the arm of his chair.
"Say you'll marry me, Nance," he implored. "You'll learn to care for me
all right. You want to get out and see the world. I'll take you. We'll go
out to Honolulu and see Monte. Mother will talk the governor over; she's
promised. They'll give me anything I want, and I want you. Oh, Nance
darling, don't leave me to fight through this beastly business alone!"
There was a haunted look of fear in his eyes as he clung to her that
appealed to her more than his former demands had ever done. Instinctively
her strong, tender hands closed over his thin, weak ones.
"Nobody expects you to fight it through alone," she reassured him, "but
you come on down off this high horse! We'll be having another bad night
the first thing you know."
"They'll all be bad if you don't come with me, Nance. I won't ask you to
say yes to-night, but for God's sake don't say no!"
Nance observed the brilliancy of his eyes and the flush on his thin
cheeks, and knew that his fever was rising.
"All right," she promised lightly. "I won't say no to-night, if you'll
stop worrying. I'm going to fix you nice and comfy on the couch and not
let you say another word."
But when she had got him down on the couch, nothing would do but she must
sit on the hassock beside him and soothe his aching head. Sometimes he
stopped her stroking hand to kiss it, but for the most part he lay with
eyes half-closed and elaborated his latest whim.
"We could stay awhile in Honolulu and then go on to Japan and China. I
want to see India, too, and Mandalay,
... somewhere east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
And there aren't no Ten Commandments
--you remember Kipling's Mandalay?"
Nance couldn't remember what she had never known, but she did not say
so. Since her advent at Hillcrest she had learned to observe and listen
without comment. This was not her world, and her shrewd common-sense told
her so again and again. Even the servants who moved with such easy
familiarity about their talks were more at home than she. It had kept her
wits busy to meet the situation. But now that she had got over her first
awkwardness, she found the new order of things greatly to her liking. For
the first time in her life she was moving in a world of beautiful
objects, agreeable sounds, untroubled relations, and that starved side of
her that from the first had cried out for order and beauty and harmony
fed ravenously upon the luxury around her.
And this was what Mac was offering her,--her, Nance Molloy of Calvary
Alley,--who up to four years ago had never known anything but bare
floors, flickering gas-jets, noise, dirt, confusion. He wanted her to
marry him; he needed her.
She ceased to listen to his rambling talk, her eyes rested dreamily on
the glowing back-log. After all didn't every woman want to marry and have
a home of her own, and later perhaps--Twenty-four at Christmas! Almost an
old maid! And to think Mr. Mac had gone on caring for her all these
years, that he still wanted her when he had all those girls in his own
world to choose from. Not many men were constant like that, she thought,
as an old memory stabbed her.
Then she was aware that her hand was held fast to a hot cheek, and that a
pair of burning eyes were watching her.
"Nance!" Mac whispered eagerly, "you're giving in! You're going with me!"
A step in the hall made Nance scramble to her feet just before Mrs.
Clarke came in from the dining-room.
"I thought we should never get through dinner!" said that lady, with an
impatient sigh. "The bishop can talk of nothing else but his new hobby,
and do you know he's actually persuaded your father to give one of the
tenements back of the cathedral for the free clinic!"
Nance who was starting out with the tray, put it down suddenly.
"How splendid!" she cried. "Which house is it?"
"I don't know, I am sure. But they are going to put a lot of money into
doing it over, and Dr. Adair has offered to take entire charge of it. For
my part I think it is a great mistake. Just think what that money would
mean to our poor mission out in Mukden! These shiftless people here at
home have every chance to live decently. It's not our fault if they
refuse to take advantage of their opportunities."
"But they don't know how, Mrs. Clarke! If Dr. Adair could teach the
mothers--"
Mrs. Clarke lifted her hands in laughing protest.
"My dear girl, don't you know that mothers can't be taught? The most
ignorant mother alive has more instinctive knowledge of what is good for
her child than any man that ever lived! Mac, dearest, why didn't you eat
your grapes?"
"Because I loathe grapes. Nance is going to work them off on an old sick
man she knows."
"Some one at the hospital?" Mrs. Clarke asked idly.
"No," said Nance, "it's an old gentleman who lives down in the very
place we're talking about. He's been sick for weeks. It's all right
about the grapes?"
"Why, of course. Take some oranges, too, and tell the gardener to give
you some flowers. The dahlias are going to waste this year. Mac, you
look tired!"
He shook off her hand impatiently.
"No, I'm not. I feel like a two-year old. Nance thinks perhaps she may go
with us after all."
"Of course she will!" said Mrs. Clarke, with a confident smile at the
girl. "We are going to be so good to her that she will not have the
heart to refuse."
Mrs. Clarke with her talent for self-deception had almost convinced
herself that Nance was a fairy princess who had languished in a nether
world of obscurity until Mac's magic smile had restored her to her own.
Nance evaded an answer by fleeing to the white and red breakfast-room
where the butler was laying the cloth for her dinner. As a rule she
enjoyed these tête-à-têtes with the butler. He was a solemn and
pretentious Englishman whom she delighted in shocking by acting and
talking in a manner that was all too natural to her. But to-night she
submitted quite meekly to his lordly condescension.
She ate her dinner in dreamy abstraction, her thoughts on Mac and the
enticing prospects he had held out. After all what was the use in
fighting against all the kindness and affection? If they were willing to
take the risk of her going with them, why should she hesitate? They knew
she was poor and uneducated and not of their world, and they couldn't
help seeing that Mac was in love with her. And still they wanted her.
California! Honolulu! Queer far-off lands full of queer people! Big ships
that would carry her out of the sight and sound of Calvary Alley forever!
And Mac, well and happy, making a man of himself, giving her everything
in the world she wanted.
Across her soaring thoughts struck the voices from the adjoining
dining-room, Mr. Clarke's sharp and incisive, the bishop's suave and
unctious. Suddenly a stray sentence arrested her attention and she
listened with her glass half-way to her lips.
"It is the labor question that concerns us more than the war," Mr.
Clarke was saying. "I have just succeeded in signing up with a man I
have been after for four years. He is a chap named Lewis, the only man
in this part of the country who seems to be able to cope with the
problem of union labor."
"A son of General Lewis?"
"No, no. Just a common workman who got his training at our factory. He
left me five or six years ago without rhyme or reason, and went over to
the Ohio Glass Works, where he has made quite a name for himself. I had a
tussle to get him back, but he comes to take charge next month. He is one
of those rare men you read about, but seldom find, a practical idealist."
Nance left her ice untouched, and slipped through the back entry and up
to the dainty blue bedroom that had been hers now for three months. All
the delicious languor of the past hour was gone, and in its place was a
turmoil of hope and fear and doubt. Dan was coming back. The words beat
on her brain. He cared nothing for her, and he was married, and she would
never see him, but he was coming back.
She opened the drawer of her dressing table and took out a small faded
photograph which she held to the silk-shaded lamp. It was a cheap
likeness of an awkward-looking working-boy in his Sunday clothes, a stiff
lock of unruly hair across his temple, and a pair of fine earnest eyes
looking out from slightly scowling brows.
Nance looked at it long and earnestly; then she flung it back in the
drawer with a sigh and, putting out the light, went down again to
her patient.