"The Battlefield Hotel," Marshall Pendleton said, when the question of
luncheon was brought up, "is a wonderful place, Benny; better take us
there. Stopped there with the Willings last summer, and had eleven
kinds of jam and about a hundred kinds of cake on the table at the same
time. Great!"
"Heavens, Marshall!" Mrs. Maxwell exclaimed. "You know I can't eat
sweets! I'd put on half a pound after such a meal as that!"
Pendleton grinned. "That was not all, Cecilia," he said. "I'd meant
to keep it a secret, and surprise Benny with it. He's always out for
gastronomic rarities. They give you cold cucumbers, cut thick, with
warmish cream poured over them--real cream, lumpy, kind you used to
have on grandfather's farm, and all that, you know! You feel green
when you first see it. Then you wonder what it's like, but remember
that your cousin somebody-or-other, the one you're not on speaking
terms with, would inherit all you'd leave if you died. Then you begin
to reason that other people must have dared and survived, and then you
taste it and--consume! It's truly wonderful, Benny; better take us
there!"
"Are you inviting us to a suicide pact, Marshall?" Flood asked.
The others laughed, and Flood and Mrs. Maxwell exchanged memories of
queer dishes while Pendleton pointed out to the chauffeur the intricate
way through the narrow streets. Only Rosamund was silent, leaning back
in the cushioned corner, looking abstractedly at the quaint doorways
and gardens they passed. During the preceding fortnight, with Oakleigh
crowded with guests, it had been easy enough to avoid Flood's
companionship, which was beginning to make her more and more uneasy, in
spite of his earnest effort to keep it for the present on the level of
the commonplace. But, now that they were alone there, a party of four,
and with Cecilia and Marshall in one of their intervals of mutual
absorption, there was nothing to do but submit to the situation. She
had welcomed Flood's suggestion of the day before that they should
motor up to Bluemont; with Eleanor at the Summit, and with the others
in the motor car, Flood's company could be endured for the day. So
they had left Oakleigh early, and in Flood's big shining car swung down
through the mountains, out upon the plain, and into the quaint little
town of Battlesburg. Rosamund's imagination peopled again the streets
and fields with soldiers in blue and gray. She knew where her father
had fought and lain wounded. As they passed swiftly between the
innumerable monuments her heart throbbed. From the vast field of
graves the spirit of the past arose and spoke to her--spoke of the men
who had fought and died there, spoke of the greater man who had led and
forgiven.
But during all the journey she had been intensely bored; more, she was
deeply provoked, and in that state of mind where everything jars and
trifles loom as mountains. Pendleton's silly chatter seemed
unendurable; she resented his nonsense almost as if it were an insult
thrown at the sacredness of the battlefield. She hated his story of
the cucumbers and cream. When the landlord told them they would have
half an hour to wait before luncheon, she walked to the farthest end of
the veranda, and stood, looking down the little narrow street. Mrs.
Maxwell threw herself into a large yellow rocking chair, and Flood
leaned against the veranda railing, facing her. Pendleton was entering
their names in the office, and wonderingly inspecting the landlord's
showcase of battlefield relics. Flood lighted a cigarette, and as he
blew out the smoke, turned towards the end of the veranda where
Rosamund stood. Cecilia watched his face for a moment or two; then she
said:
"You must not be offended with Rosamund's ways, you know! She is not
like anybody else."
Flood turned his head and smiled into her eyes. He waited a full
half-minute before he replied. "No," he said, slowly. "No, she is not
like anyone else!" He took several deep breaths of his cigarette, then
spoke with little pauses between each phrase, as if he were thinking
out what he had to say. "She's--she's a dream-woman come true! She's
the lady of one's imagination!"
"Dear me!" Mrs. Maxwell remarked, with sisterly lack of enthusiasm.
Flood threw back his head with a little laugh.
"I wonder which surprises you most," he said, "to hear that said of
your sister, or to find out that I have an imagination?"
Mrs. Maxwell had had time to become an adept at begging the question.
"Well," she said, "one doesn't usually associate imagination
and--dream-women, you know, with your type. I mean, with business men!"
"Oh, pray don't mind saying 'my type'! It's good for me to hear it,
because it is just there that I lose. I _am_ of a different type--or
class--from you and your sister; even from our friend Pendleton. Miss
Randall sees that, and she will not try to look beyond it. She will
not let herself know me better, because she doesn't want to; and she
doesn't want to because I am not--I suppose she'd call it her 'sort.'"
He spoke without a trace of bitterness, and smiled again at Mrs.
Maxwell's well-executed manner of protest.
"Why, no one knows that better than I do," he went on. "She's five or
six generations ahead of me in civilization, you know; her grandmother
left off where my grand-daughter would have to begin. That's why I
want her. I'm naturally impatient, and I want to see my wife doing and
feeling and thinking a lot of things that are quite beyond my
apprehension. She's just what I've always imagined a woman ought to
be, and I want her."
"I don't think she'd credit you with any such imagination," Mrs.
Maxwell said, adding, somewhat dryly, "with any imagination at all!"
"That is just my difficulty," Flood replied. "She will not give
herself a chance to find me out." He smiled as he met her puzzled
look. "You know--I am only stating the fact--I have--er--accumulated a
great deal of money--a great deal, more than I know myself!"
Mrs. Maxwell's fingers curled a little more closely about the arms of
her chair, and she nodded.
"Well, there are only two ways of doing that. There used to be three.
There was a time when a man could accumulate a fortune by saving; but
in this day and generation no accumulation of savings amounts to what
we call a fortune. Nowadays a man can dig up a fortune; or he can so
follow the daring of his imagination as to make a reality of what only
existed, before, in his own ambitious dreams. I think it is safe to
say that all but one per cent. of the great fortunes that are got
together nowadays are done so by the exercising and ordering of a man's
imagination. Well, I've made such use of mine that I'm a rich man, as
far as money goes, at forty-three. Now my imagination is busy along
new lines. Money is only the key: I want to enter the garden. I
believe she'd realize every ideal I have! You are quite right.
There's nobody like her!"
His face flushed deeply as he spoke, but Mrs. Maxwell was not looking
at him. "Oh, dear," she sighed, "I do wish she were not quite so--odd!"
"Not odd," Flood contradicted, though pleasantly enough, "but supreme!"
Mrs. Maxwell's eyebrows went up. Ordinarily she was too conscious of
what might be expected of her breeding to be disloyal to her sister;
but Cecilia was not an angel.
"She is supremely full of notions," she remarked. "How any girl with
her money can prefer--actually prefer--to dress as she does, and to
live as she does, and to go about with one maid between us--I cannot
understand it! She doesn't spend a thousand a year on her clothes, and
she doesn't own so much as one motor car! You may call that sort of
thing supreme; I call it odd!"
Pendleton had come out and joined Rosamund. They were obviously
unaware of Flood's gaze, but Mrs. Maxwell rather disdainfully noticed
that his look had softened as she spoke.
"Yes," he said, "that is unusual, as far as my experience goes; but I
rather think she is quite capable of doing the unexpected. That's
another part of her charm for me. I can only guess at what she would
do or think, you know. And she's so far beyond me that while money is
almost the whole show to me, it doesn't count at all, with her! Jove!
I wish she might have the spending of mine!"
Mrs. Maxwell fairly shivered at the thought of Flood's millions going
to waste, as she expressed it to herself; but fortunately for her peace
of mind luncheon was announced, and they went into the little Dutch
dining-room to investigate the cucumbers and cream.
At the table Rosamund lost some of her pensiveness; and when they came
out again to the sight of the fields where the armies had fought and
died, and were once more in the car, she bent towards Flood with eyes
burning with excitement, lips parted and hands clasped.
"Oh," she cried, "I am glad, so glad I came, Mr. Flood! It is going to
be a wonderful afternoon! I am thrilling even now! The suffering and
the sacrifice and the glory! They have left their marks everywhere,
haven't they?"
Flood looked at her with admiration so engrossing as to make him
scarcely aware of what she said; Pendleton was discussing roads with
the chauffeur, but Mrs. Maxwell turned in her seat.
"What on earth are you talking about, Rosamund?" she demanded.
"The battlefield!" the girl explained. "The field and the marking
stones, the orchard where Father was wounded--all, all of it! I am
going over it bit by bit, every inch of it, and I'm going to thrill,
thrill, thrill! Probably cry, too!" she added. "I hope you brought
your vanity-box along, Cecilia!"
"But, my dear child, we are going to the Summit! We are going to see
Eleanor!"
For once Cecilia welcomed the thought of Eleanor, but Rosamund only
laughed.
"Mr. Flood will bring us another day to see Eleanor," she said, "won't
you, Mr. Flood? To-day, Cissy darling, I am going to see
Battlesburg--just as if I were a tourist!"
Mrs. Maxwell looked at her in amazement. "Rosamund!" she cried. "Mr.
Flood! Marshall! Marshall! Please! Mr. Flood, you certainly did not
bring us on this trip to go sight-seeing, did you? Marshall, did you
ever hear anything so absurd? Rosamund wants to go paddling about in
this--this graveyard!"
Rosamund was unabashed. "Yes, of course I do!" she said. "So do you,
don't you, Mr. Flood? And, Marshall, you know you've wanted to fight a
battle over again ever since the last one we had at my ninth birthday
party, when I pulled your hair and you were too polite to smack me!"
"I never wanted to fight in all my life, Rosamund," Pendleton drawled.
"Certainly not on a day like this, and after a Dutch midday dinner."
Flood was embarrassed, and looked it; but Mrs. Maxwell gave him no
chance to reply. "Rosamund, I hate to speak so plainly," she said,
"but there are times when you go too far with your absurdities. Nobody
goes sight-seeing; we are Mr. Flood's guests, and we have miles of
steep road to get over this afternoon; you cannot upset his plans in
this way. Besides, it's altogether too warm for exertion--and emotion.
You'll have to get your thrills in some less strenuous way. I simply
refuse to be dragged over any battlefield in existence."
Mrs. Maxwell sank back in her corner, and resolutely looked away;
Rosamund, still smiling, turned towards Flood.
"We'll leave her in the car to amuse Marshall, and we'll take one of
those funny little carriages, won't we, Mr. Flood?"
Her smile and little air of confidence brought color to Flood's face;
he opened and closed his hands nervously. His boasted imagination
failed him. The lady of his dreams was doing the unexpected. His
voice showed his perplexity.
"My dear Miss Randall, I'd do anything in the world to please you!
There are some miles of mountain roads to be gone over, if we are to
get back to-night, but"--he leaned towards her--"when you ask me, you
know I could not refuse you anything in the world, even at the risk of
Mrs. Maxwell's displeasure!"
His words and manner instantly accomplished all that Cecilia's
insistence had failed to do. Immediately Rosamund's face lost its
bright eagerness for the same indifferent coldness that she usually
showed him.
"Oh, by all means, let us remember the mountain roads, Mr. Flood," she
said, leaning back upon the yielding cushion, turning her head to look
listlessly out of the car.
"Oh, please!" poor Flood exclaimed.
Cecilia began to chatter gaily, and Marshall bent over his road maps.
The car flew out of the town, noiselessly except for the faint humming
of its swift onrush, the modern song of the road. But, to Rosamund,
there was no melody in the song; she was out of tune with the day, with
her companions, with the ride itself.
V
Perhaps, if the events of the next few hours had come to pass at any
other time, they would not have left the same mark upon her life. As
it was, Rosamund had come to that state of moral restlessness which is
bound either to open the windows of the soul to fresher air and wider
fields of vision, or else to induce the peevish discontent which so
often falls to the lot of the idle woman. Although she consciously
longed for happiness, she knew that she was not sentimentally unhappy;
neither was she fatuously so, like her sister. Cecilia was only one of
many women of her age and class, who imagine that possession brings
enjoyment. She often declared that if she had as much as her
acquaintances she could make herself content, but that if she had more
than they she could be supremely happy. Rosamund had no such
illusions; her clear mind had never been perverted to the futility of
such ambitions, although there was nothing in her environment to
suggest a satisfying substitute for them. If she was restless, it was
not for something she might not have. It pleased her pride to think
that she valued neither wealth nor social eminence, but accepted them
only as her birthright; but, as in the case of the infatuated Flood,
she resented any sign of invasion upon the sacred precincts which for
generations had respected their Berkleys and their Stanfields and
Randalls. It was her pride which had induced her to neglect, as
unimportant, the things Cecilia yearned for; Rosamund Randall was to be
above manifestations of wealth--although Rosamund Randall was not above
occasional haughty stubbornness.
The charitable pastimes in which some of her friends indulged held no
appeal for her; she was too impatient for immediate results to be
successful in them. She vaguely felt that some fault must lie with the
unfortunate, and she could not imagine that the individual might be
interesting. Even Eleanor's experience, although it had stirred her
heart to pity, brought her no closer to the mass of suffering. She had
no particular talents, no pet enthusiasms; yet her intelligence was too
keen to be satisfied with the round of days that constituted life for
Cecilia, as well as for most of their friends. Nothing suggested
itself as a substitute for them, and to-day not even the charms of
nature satisfied her, however beautiful the country through which the
big car carried them. But insensibly it made its effect upon her.
Away from the scars of battle, through orchard and grass-land, between
fields of ripening corn and pastures where drowsy cattle were
ruminating in shady fence-corners; past little white farmhouses with
red barns at their backs, and tangled gardens where bees feasted in
front of them; up towards the hills, through stretches of cool
woodland, where little spring-fed brooklets crossed the road, and where
the turns were so narrow that the call of the horn had often to pierce
the stillness; out again upon cleared spaces, and at last far up on the
mountain-tops--so they traveled, Rosamund alone seeming to notice the
beauties they passed so swiftly.
Cecilia kept up an easy chatter with the two men. Flood seemingly had
eyes for the older woman only, yet he was keenly aware of the girl
beside him. All the way he was inwardly cursing himself for the
ill-timed compliment which had silenced her, and he was too good a
judge of human nature to follow his first mistake with a second. If
Rosamund wished to be silent, no interruption to her revery should come
from him, at least. As there was only the one way across the
mountains, Pendleton had put away his road map and was leaning sideways
over the back of the seat, facing Cecilia and Flood; the three found
plenty to talk about, and ignored Rosamund's pensive withdrawal.
For miles they had passed no living thing; even the birds and woodland
creatures seemed to have gone to sleep; and the chauffeur, taking them
along at second speed, believed it unnecessary to sound his horn at
every winding of the road.
Then, so suddenly that no one knew just what had happened, there was a
shriek from somewhere, a wild cry from the man at the wheel, a stopping
of the car so quickly as to throw the women forward and Flood to his
knees. Pendleton, facing back, was the only one who could see the road
behind them; with a cry that was either oath or prayer, he leaped from
the car and ran back, the chauffeur scarcely four yards behind him.
Flood scrambled up and Rosamund sprang to her feet. Cecilia covered
her ears with her hands, and was the only one who could voice her
horror.
"We have killed someone!" she cried wildly, crouching down to shut out
sight as well as sound. "We have killed someone! Oh, what shall we
do? What shall we do? I cannot see it--I cannot stand the sight of
it!"
But no one heeded her outcry. Flood had opened the door and was
speeding after the others; and Rosamund, too, as quickly as her
trembling would allow her, ran towards the little group at the roadside.
When she reached them, they were bending over two forms--a boy and a
young girl. The boy had been struck by the step of the car, and lay
huddled where its force had thrown him; the girl lay beside him, her
face down in the weeds and grass. Pendleton and the chauffeur, with
ghastly faces, were feeling for her heart. As Rosamund came up they
turned her upon her back. Rosamund tore off her gloves, and pressed
her hand against the girl's throat.
"I think she has only fainted," she said. "Get a cold thermos bottle,
someone!"
The chauffeur ran to do her bidding, but before he got back the girl
had opened her eyes. Rosamund bent closer.
"Are you hurt?" she asked. "Did we hit you? Can you speak to me?"
But the girl could not answer at first; then the iced water and
something from Flood's pocket flask revived her, and she sat up,
leaning against Rosamund.
"Gee!" she said. "I was scared! What d'yer think of an automobile up
here! Where's Tim?"
The men had left the girl to Rosamund, and were kneeling by the child;
Rosamund glanced over her shoulder at them. "I'm afraid he is hurt,"
she said. "Do you think you can take care of yourself for a moment
while I see? I wouldn't try to stand up quite yet, if I were you."
"Oh, sure," the girl replied. "They ain't anything the matter with me.
You go right on."
But all of Rosamund's ministrations failed of any response from the
boy. Flood's varied experience had given him a passing acquaintance
with broken bones, but he could find none in the little limbs that were
thin to emaciation; his search revealed only a few scratches on the
child's face, and a cut on his head. At last he looked across the
little form at Rosamund.
"I'm afraid there's concussion," he said. "We shall have to take him
to a doctor."
The girl had risen, and was standing, with arms akimbo, looking down at
them. "Doctor Ogilvie," she said at once. "He's the one. He's right
over at the Summit."
Flood looked quickly at Rosamund. "Ogilvie! I had no idea his
territory extended this far!" Then he turned to the girl. "So you
know Doctor Ogilvie? How far are we from the Summit?"
"Gee! I dunno! It's awful far to walk it, I know that!"
Rosamund looked up with troubled eyes. "There must be some house near
by," she said, "where we could take him. I don't believe he ought to
be carried very far. Do you live near here?" she asked the girl.
"Laws, no! We live in the city, him an' me. We ain't any kin,
y'understand; he's a tubercler, an' my eyes give out, and we're just
visitin' Mother Cary."
Flood was becoming impatient. "Well, where does the Cary woman live?"
he demanded. "We don't need your family history, my girl."
Instantly the girl's black eyes flashed, and her chin went up. "Well,
an' you ain't goin' to get it, my man!" she returned. "I know the
likes of you; seen you by the million!"
She glared up at him belligerently, but Rosamund laid her hand on her
shoulder. "Don't," she said quietly. "Where is this place where
you're staying?"
"It's just back of the woods there. The road's on up a piece, about
two squares; yer can't miss it, 'cause it's the only one there is."
So they lifted the child, and laid him carefully, on the broad back
seat. They decided that Mrs. Maxwell and Pendleton should wait beside
the road, while Rosamund and Flood saw to the boy's safety, and the
girl rode with the chauffeur to point the way. She seemed but little
impressed by the accident, and greatly pleased at the motor ride.
"Laws, but I wish the girls at the factory could see Yetta Weise
settin' up here," she remarked as she took her place.
As she had told them, the house was not far; and notwithstanding her
anxiety for the injured boy, Rosamund looked at it in amazement, so
unlike was it to anything she had ever seen, so quaintly pretty, so
tidy, so homelike.
It stood on the hillside, a few yards back from the road. From a
little red gate set in the middle of the whitest of tiny fences a
narrow brick path led straight to the front door. The upper story of
the house overhung the lower, making a shady space beneath that was
paved with bricks and made cheery and comfortable with wooden benches
piled with crocks and bright tin milk pans set out to air; and all
about the little white farm-buildings wound narrow brick paths bordered
with flowers--geraniums, nasturtiums, pansies, with, here and there,
groups of house plants in tin cans and earthen pots, set outside for
their summer holiday. Unaccustomed though she was to such ingenuous
simplicity of decoration, Rosamund could not but recognize it as a
haven of peace, a little home where love and time had impressed their
indelible marks of beauty.
The big car drew up to the gate very gently; Yetta called, loudly and
shrilly; Flood lifted the boy and carried him towards the house, and
Rosamund followed; but halfway up the path she paused, half in
amazement, half in repulsion.
Yetta's call had brought to the doorway the strangest of small
creatures--a tiny, bent old woman. She braced herself on one side
against the doorway, on the other with a queer little crutch with
padded top, held by a strap across her shoulder; as she came forward to
meet them she moved the crutch, like some strange crab, obliquely,
grotesquely, yet with the adeptness of the life-long cripple. She was
evidently startled, even frightened; but when her eyes met Rosamund's
she smiled. At once the girl's feeling of repulsion vanished, for on
the tiny old face there was none of the suffering and regret that so
often mark the deformed. It was not drawn or heavy; plain and homely
though it was, it was made radiant by a world-embracing mother-love,
transfigured by that quality of tenderness and sweetness that Rosamund
had learned to associate with pictured mediæval saints and martyrs.
With Mother Cary's first smile, something entered the girl's
consciousness which never again left it.
The old woman paid no attention to Yetta's voluble explanations, nor
wasted any time on questions.
"Take him into the room on the left and lay him on the sofy," she
directed, and hobbled along behind the little procession; but when they
had lain the still unconscious child in the shaded best room, she
looked from Flood to Rosamund for explanation, with a dignity which
could not fail to impress them.
"Maybe he's just been knocked senseless," she said, when they had told
her all they could. "But anyways, we ought to have Doctor Ogilvie
here's soon as ever we can. If the young lady'll help me undress the
little feller, you can take Yetta, sir, to show you the way."
Flood hesitated; to undress the child would be a strange task for
Rosamund. "Can't I do that before we go?" he asked.
But the old woman had no such hesitation. "No, you can't," she said,
"an' I wish you'd hurry. Timmy ain't strong, anyway."
So, with a troubled look, Flood followed Yetta, and in a moment
Rosamund heard the purr of the motor as the car sped off towards the
Summit; then, as she afterwards remembered with surprise and wonder,
she found herself obeying the old woman's directions.
"Now, honey, you jest lift the little feller right up in your arms,
bein' careful of his head; he don't weigh no more'n a picked chicken.
We'll get him to bed time the doctor gets here, an' have some water
b'ilin' an' some ice brought in, case he wants either one. Here, right
in here--my house is mostly all on one floor, so's I can manage to
scramble around in it when Pap's in the fields. That's the way--no, he
won't need a piller. I'll take off his little clo'es whilst you lift
him--that's right. My! Think o' that gentleman wantin' to do for
him--as if any woman with a heart in her body could let a man handle
sech a little thing's this! But he didn't know, did he, honey?"
And strangely enough Rosamund was conscious of a wave of tenderness
towards the pathetic little figure, limp and emaciated; long afterwards
she realized that people always did and felt what Mother Cary expected
them to. She even bathed the little dusty feet, while the old woman
hobbled about to bring her different things, talking all the while.
"Pore little soul, seems like he had enough without this--not but what
I reckon he'll come out o' this a heap sight easier than he will the
other. Not a soul on the top o' the yearth to belong to, he hasn't;
sent here to fatten up an' live out o' doors, 'count o' being a
tubercler. No, honey, he ain't nothin' to Pap an' me 'ceptin' jest one
o' the pore little lambs that have a right to any spare love an'
shelter an' cuddlin' that's layin' around the world waitin' for sech as
him. I used to wonder why the Lord let sech pore little things stay in
the world, until I found out how much good they do to folks that look
after 'em. Land! I wouldn't be without one of 'em on my hands now,
not for more'n I can say. What? Oh, yes, dearie, I take one or more
of 'em and build 'em up an' get 'em well, with Doctor Ogilvie's tellin'
me how; an' when they go back to the city all well again, I jest take
one or two more. Pap an' me wouldn't know what to do now, ef we didn't
have some pore little thing to look after. I'm jest that selfish, I
begrudge everybody else that has a bigger house the room they got for
more of 'em."
When the child had been made clean and cool, and the old woman had
shown Rosamund how to draw in the blinds and leave the room in pleasant
shadow, she led the way out to the paved place in front of the house.
"You look all tuckered out, honey," she said, when Rosamund had sunk
wearily into a rush-seated armchair, "an' I'm goin' to get you some
fresh milk."
So for a few minutes the girl was alone, with time to think over the
crowding events of the past half hour, which seemed almost like a day.
One emotion had come closely upon another, and now she was in this
strange little harbor where, apparently, only kind winds blew, the
storms of the world outside, a harbor where weak vessels found repair,
where passers-by were welcomed and supplied with strength to go on.
Subconsciously she wondered whether it might not be the harbor of a
new, fair land, herself the storm-buffeted traveler about to find
shelter. Then, more in weariness of spirit than in bodily fatigue, she
drew the long hatpin from her hat and tossed it aside, leaning her head
back against the stone of the house, and closed her eyes.
When Mother Cary returned with a glass of creamy milk, she noted the
girl's pallor, the shadows her long lashes cast on her white cheeks.
"I wouldn't feel too bad about it," she said. "The little feller can't
be hurt very bad, and I reckon it was jest bein' so scared an' so weak,
anyway, that made him go off in his head like that."
Rosamund could not confess that her thoughts had been of herself rather
than upon the injured child. "Do you think he will recover?" she asked.
"Well, what Doctor Ogilvie can't do ain't to be done, I know that
much," Mother Cary replied. "Folks do say it's an ill wind blows
nobody any good, an' it cert'n'y was his ill wind blew us good; 'cause
if he hadn't been that sick he couldn't live in the city, he never
would 'a' come to the mountings, an' I'm sure I don't see how we ever
did get along without him. Why, he's that good a doctor folks still
come up here from the city to see him; and many's the one stays at the
Summit just to be where he can look after them; and Widder Speers that
he lives with told me that doctors from 'way off send for him to talk
over sick people with them--jest to ask him what to do, like. Oh,
Doctor Ogilvie can do anything anybody can!"
Rosamund was amused, in spite of herself, at the old woman's naïveté.
"He was sick, then, when he came?" she asked, idly.
"Yes, but you'd never 'a' known it," Mother Cary told her. "Land! How
he did get about from place to place, huntin' out other folks that was
ailin'! He hadn't been up here more'n a month before he knew every
soul in these mountings, which is more'n I do, though I've lived here
forty year an' more. He jest took right a holt, as you might say.
That's how come I begun to take care of these pore little helpless city
things.
"First time he come here, he looked all about the place when he was
leavin', an' he says to Pap, 'Plenty o' good room an' good air you got
here, an' I guess there's plenty o' good food, too, ain't there?' Pap,
he says, 'Well, we manage to make out, when the ol' lady feels like
cookin'!' An' the doctor laughs an' says to me, 'Ain't got quite as
much to do as ye had when that son an' daughter o' yours were home
here, have ye? Don't ye miss 'em?' At that the tears jest come to my
eyes, like they always do whenever I think o' my own child'en bein' two
or three miles away from me on farms o' their own; an' the doctor he
smiles an' says, 'Well, I'm goin' to supply your want,' he says.
"Pap an' me never thought 'ny more about it tell a week or so later
when we see him drive up behind that old white horse o' his with the
puniest little boy alongside o' him ever I set my two eyes on. 'Here's
something to keep you from bein' lonesome, Mis' Cary,' he says; an'
ever since then, it bein' goin' on five year, I've had one or another
o' them pore little--land! There he comes now, without a sign of a hat
on his red head! Ef he ain't that forgetful!"
Flood's big car had whirled rapidly into sight along the woodland road,
and before it stopped the doctor was out and into the house. When
Mother Cary hobbled in, Rosamund remaining to say a word or two to
Flood, the doctor was already bending over the injured child.
Cecilia was waving a frantic hand from the car, and Rosamund and Flood
walked down the little path to the red gate.
"Where is your hat?" was the first thing Mrs. Maxwell asked Rosamund.
"Do get in! We've miles and miles to go, and we've wasted hours! I'm
sure I don't see why they couldn't have sent for the doctor in the
ordinary way; why, the road back there was something terrible!"
Rosamund was conscious of an absurd longing to slap or pinch Cecilia;
she was really too vapid for polite endurance.
"We can't possibly leave until we know how badly hurt the child is,"
she said, and deliberately turned and walked back into the cottage.
After a moment or two Flood followed her, leaving Cecilia to pour out
her indignation upon Pendleton.
The doctor was just coming out of the little bedroom, and nodded to
them both in a general way. Rosamund looked at him curiously. She
noted with some amusement that his hair was, as Mother Cary had
somewhat more than suggested, frankly red; not even the
best-intentioned politeness could have called it sandy. He was of
average height, with keen eyes which looked black, although she
afterwards knew them to be gray; his breadth of shoulder made him seem
less tall than he was, and his frame was rather lightly covered,
although his very evident restless energy seemed more responsible for
it than any evidence of ill-health.
"Must have jabbed his ribs," he said, looking at Flood with a half
smile, and seemingly ignoring the presence of this girl from his old
familiar world. "Cracked a couple of them, but they're soon mended in
a kiddie. Only thing now is this slight concussion; needs careful
nursing for a few days."
Then he turned, looked squarely into Rosamund's face, and issued his
orders in precisely the manner of a doctor to a nurse, without a trace
of hesitation, apparently without a shadow of doubt that she would obey.
"Keep ice on his head, you know, and watch him every minute through the
night. He's not likely to move; but if he should become conscious----"
He continued his directions carefully, explicitly, all the while
looking at Rosamund intently, as if to impress them upon her.
While he was speaking, Flood's face flushed darkly. With the doctor's
last phrase, "Only be sure to watch him every minute," he spoke
sharply. "You are making a mistake, Doctor Ogilvie," he said. "Miss
Randall is not a nurse."
The doctor instantly replied, "I know she isn't, but we'll have to do
the best we can with her!"
Flood's face grew redder still; Rosamund smiled a little. "Miss
Randall cannot possibly stay here," Flood said. "That is entirely out
of the question. I am willing to do all I can for the child, and I am
very glad he is not seriously hurt, although the accident was, I think,
unavoidable. I will send a nurse to-morrow--two, if you want them.
But you will have to get along with the help here for to-night."
"Haven't any," said the doctor, briefly. "Yetta's a child, and Mother
Cary goes down to her daughter's where there's a new baby."
For a moment no one spoke. Mother Cary was smiling at Rosamund, and
her look drew the girl's from the two men. Then her smile answered the
old woman's.
In a flash of inspiration she knew that she had found an answer to her
questions of the earlier hours; something in her heart drew her
symbolically toward the little silent, helpless child in the darkened
room behind her, some mother-feeling as new and wonderful as the dawn
of life. Both Flood and the doctor remembered, through all their
lives, the look of exaltation on her face when she spoke.
"I will stay," she said, quietly, and walked into the darkened room.