IX

THE LOVE-TALKER

All through the evening Saint Margaret's had been frankly miserable.

Nurses gathered in groups in the nurses' annex and talked about the closing of the incurable ward and the going of Margaret MacLean. The pa.s.sing of the incurables mattered little to them, one way or another, but they knew what it mattered to the nurse in charge, and they were just beginning to realize what she had meant to them all. The Superintendent felt so much concerned that she dropped her official manner when she chanced upon Margaret MacLean on her way from supper.

"Oh, my dear--my dear"--and the Superintendent's voice had almost broken--"what shall we do without you? You have kept Saint Margaret's human--and wholesome for the rest of us."

The House Surgeon had been miserable unto the third degree. It had forced him into doing all those things he had left undone for months pa.s.sed; and he bustled through the building--from pharmacy to laboratory and from operating-room to supply-closets--giving the impression of a very scientific man, while he was inwardly praying for a half-dozen minutes alone with Margaret MacLean. He had pa.s.sed her more than once in the corridors, but she had eluded him each time, brushing by him with a tightening of the lips and a little shake of the head, half pleading, half commanding. At last, in grim despair, he gave up appearances and patrolled the second-floor hall until the night nurse fixed upon him such a greenly suspicious eye that he fled to his quarters--vowing unspeakable things.

Even old Ca.s.sie, the scrub-woman, shared in the general misery--Ca.s.sie, who had brewed the egg-sh.e.l.l charm against Trustee Days. She had stayed past her hours for a glimpse of "Miss Peggie," with the best intention in the world of cheering her up. When the glimpse came, however, she stood mute--tears channeling the old wrinkled face--while the nurse patted her hands and made her laugh through the tears. In fact, Margaret MacLean had been kept so busy doling out cheer and consolation to others that she had had no time to remember her own trouble--not until Saint Margaret's had gone to bed.

She was on her way for a final visit to her ward--the visit she had told Bridget she would make to see if the promise had been kept--when a line from Hauptman's faery play flashed through her mind: "At dawn we are kings; at night we are only beggars."

How true it was of her--this day. How beggared she felt! The fact that she was very nearly penniless troubled her very little; it was the homelessness--friendlessness--that frightened her. She had never had but two friends: the one who had gone so long ago was past helping her now; the other--

No; she had made up her mind some hours before that she should slip away in the morning without saying anything to the House Surgeon. It would make it so much easier for him. Otherwise--he might--because of his friendship--say or do something he would have to regret all his life. She had been very much in earnest when she had told the Senior Surgeon on the stairs that such as she laid no claim to the every-day happiness that felt to the lot of others. That was why she had kept persistently out of the House Surgeon's way all the evening.

She pushed back the door of Ward C. The night light in the hall outside was shaded; only a glimmer came through the windows from the street lamps below; consequently things could not be seen very clearly or distinguishably in the room. Across the threshold her foot slid over something soft and slippery; stooping, her hand closed upon a flower, while she brushed another. Puzzled, she felt her way over to the table in the center of the room, where she had put the green Devonshire bowl. It was empty.

"That's funny," she murmured, her mind attempting to ferret out an explanation. She dropped to her knees and scanned the floor closely.

There they were, the primroses, a curving trail of them stretching from the head of Pancho's bed to the foot of Michael's. She choked back an exclamation just as a shadow cut off the light from the hall. It was a man's shadow, and the voice of the House Surgeon came over the threshold in a whisper:

"What are you doing--burying ghosts?"

"Come and see, and let the light in after you."

The House Surgeon came and stood behind her where she knelt. She looked so little and childlike there that he wanted to pick her up and tell her--oh, such a host of things! But he was a wise House Surgeon, and his experience on the stairs had not counted for nothing; moreover, he was a great believer in the psychological moment, so he peered over her shoulder and tried to make out what she was looking at.

"Faded flowers," he volunteered at last, somewhat doubtfully.

"A primrose ring," she contradicted. "But who ever heard of one in a hospital? Take care--" For the surgeon's shoe was carelessly knocking some of the blossoms out of place. "Don't you know that no one must disturb a primrose ring? It's sacred to Fancy; and there is no telling what is happening inside there to-night."

"What?" The House Surgeon asked it as breathlessly as any little boy might have. Science had goaded him hard along the road of established facts, thereby causing him to miss many pleasant things which he still looked back upon regretfully, and found himself eager for, at times.

Of course, he had scoffed at them aloud and before Margaret MacLean, but inwardly he adored them.

She did not answer; she was too busy wondering about something to hear the House Surgeon's question. Her eyes looked very big and round in the darkness, and her face wore the little-girl scarey look as she reached up for his hand and clutched it tight, while her other hand pointed across the primrose ring to the row of beds.

"See, they look empty, quite---quite empty."

"Just nerves." And he patted the hand in his rea.s.suringly; he tried his best to pat it in the old, big-brother way. "You've had an awfully trying day--most women would be in their rooms having hysteria or doldrums."

Still she did not hear. Her eyes were traveling from cot to crib and on to cot again, as they had once before that night. "Every single bed looks empty," she repeated. "The clothes tumbled as if the children had slipped quietly out from under them." She shivered ever so slightly. "Perhaps they have found out they are not wanted any longer and have run away."

"Come, come," the House Surgeon spoke in a gruff whisper. "I believe you're getting feverish." And mechanically his ringers closed over her pulse. Then he pulled her to her feet. "Go over to those beds this minute and see for yourself that every child is there, safe and sound asleep."

But she held back, laughing nervously. "No, no; we mustn't spoil the magic of the ring." Her voice trailed off into a dreamy, wistful monotone. "Who knows--Cinderella's G.o.dmother came to her when it was only a matter of ragged clothes and a party; the need here was far greater. Who knows?" She caught her breath with a sudden in-drawn cry. "Why, to-night is May Eve!"

"Why, of course it is!" agreed the House Surgeon, as if he had known it from the beginning.

"And who knows but the faeries may have come and stolen them all away?"

Now the House Surgeon was old in understanding, although he was young in years; and he knew it was wiser sometimes to give in to the whims of a tired, overwrought brain. He knew without being told--for Margaret MacLean would never have told--how tired and hopelessly heart-sick and mind-sick she was to-night. What he did not know, however, was how pitifully lonely and starved her life had always been; and that this was the hour for the full conscious reckoning of it.

She had often said, whimsically, "Those who are born with wooden instead of golden spoons in their mouths had better learn very young to keep them well scoured, or they'll find them getting so rough and splintered that they can't possibly eat with them." She had followed her own advice bravely, and kept happy; but now even the wooden spoon had been taken from her.

The House Surgeon lifted her up and put her gently into the rocker, while he sat down on the corner of the table, neighbor to the green Devonshire bowl.

Perhaps Margaret MacLean was not to find bitterness, after all; perhaps it would be his glad good fortune to keep it from her. It was surprising the way he felt his misery dwindling, and instantly he pulled up his courage--another hole.

"I think you said 'faeries,'" he suggested, seriously. "Why not faeries?"

She nodded in equal seriousness. "Why not? They always come May Eve to the lonely of heart; and even a hospital might have faeries once in a generation. Only--only why couldn't they have taken me with the children? It wasn't exactly fair to leave me behind, was it?"

Her lips managed to keep reasonably steady, but she was wishing all the time that the House Surgeon would go and leave her free to be foolishly childish and weak. She wanted to drop down beside Bridget's bed and sob out her trouble.

But the House Surgeon had a very permanent look as he went on soberly talking.

"Well, you see, they took the children first because they were all ready. Probably, very probably, they are sending for you later--special messenger. It's still some minutes before midnight; and that's the time things like that happen. Isn't it?"

"Perhaps." A little amused smile crept into the corners of her mouth while she rummaged about in some old memories for something she had almost forgotten. "Perhaps"--she began again--"they will send the Love-Talker."

"The what?"

"The Love-Talker. Old Ca.s.sie used to tell us about him, when I was an 'incurable.' He's a faery youth who comes on May Eve in the guise of some well-appearing young man and beguiles a maid back with him into faeryland. He's a very ardent wooer--so Ca.s.sie said--and there's no maid living who can resist him."

"Wish I'd had a course with him," muttered the House Surgeon under his breath. Then he gripped the table hard with both hands while the spirit of mischief leaped, flagrant, into his eyes. "Would you go with him--if he came?" he asked, intensely.

"If he came--if he came--" she repeated, dreamily. "How do I know what I would do? It would all depend upon the way he wooed."

Unexpectedly the House Surgeon jumped to his feet, making a considerable clatter.

"Hush! you'll waken the children."

"But they're not here," he reminded her.

"Yes, I know; but you might waken them, just the same."

Instead of answering, the House Surgeon stepped behind the rocker and lifted her out of it bodily; then his hands closed over hers and he lifted them to her eyes, thereby blind-folding them. "Now," he commanded, "take two steps forward."

She did it obediently; and then stood waiting for further orders.

"You are now inside this magical primrose ring; and you said yourself, a moment ago, there was no telling what might happen inside. Keep very still; don't move, don't speak. Remember you mustn't uncover your eyes, or the spell will be broken. Hark! Can you hear something--some one coming nearer and nearer and nearer?"

For the s.p.a.ce of a dozen breaths nothing could be heard in Ward C; that is--unless one was tactless enough to mention the sound of two throbbing hearts. One fluttered, frightened and hesitating; the other thumped, steady and determined. Then out of the darkness came the striking of the hospital clock on the tower--twelve long, mournful tolls--and one of the House Surgeon's arms slipped gently about the shoulders of Margaret MacLean.

"Dearest, the Love-Talker has turned so completely human that he has to say at the outset he's not half good enough for you, But he wants you--he wants you, just the same, to carry back with him to his faery-land. It will be rather a funny little old faery-land, made up of work and poverty--and love; but, you see, the last is so big and strong it can shoulder the other two and never know it's carrying a thing. If you'll only come, dearest, you can make it the finest, most magical faeryland a man ever set up home-making in."