Red Pepper Burns Part 23

The dark braids of hair swung violently as the bride's head was emphatically shaken. "Martha! Take it back! Let somebody die because I was afraid to wait two hours?"

"I don't believe anybody would die," insisted Martha. "Somebody could be found. It's just Red's ridiculous craze for surgery. I always said he'd rather operate than eat. Now, it seems he'd rather operate than be--"

But at this moment a large, determined hand came over her mouth from behind, as James Macauley, junior, arriving upon the scene, a.s.serted his authority. He was in bathrobe and slippers, having been excitedly interviewed by Chester through the bathroom door.

"Quit fussing, Marty. The thing can't be helped, and if Ellen doesn't mind I don't know why we should. If we were having a houseful it would be fierce, but with only ourselves and the Chesters and the minister's family and Red's people--I'll go telephone Mr. Harding now."

As Martha freed herself from the silencing hand the front door opened again. This time it was Mrs. Richard Warburton--Burns's young sister Anne--also in somewhat informal attire, over which she had thrown an evening coat. She surveyed the group with laughing eyes. She herself had been married within the year.

"It's absurd, isn't it?" she cried. "But it's just like Red. Ellen knows that, don't you, dear? Ellen'll not only take him for better and for worse, but for present and for absent--mostly absent! But we're rather proud of him over at the house. Father's walking up and down and saying no other fellow would have done it, and Mother's all tearful and smiling. d.i.c.k wanted to go in with him, but of course Miss Mathewson had to go: he seldom operates without her."

"It's so uncertain when he'll get back," mourned Martha, still unreconciled.

"I made Miss Mathewson promise to telephone, the moment she should know.

It's lucky the wedding guests are all in the family, isn't it? Ellen, dear"--pretty Anne ran up the stairs to the landing--"I really don't see how, after he caught sight of you in that fascinating garb, with your hair down, he could ever tear himself away! You're positively the loveliest thing I ever saw in all my life, and I'm almost out of my senses with joy that you're to be my sister, even though I never saw you in the world till yesterday! I always said when Red did care for anybody for keeps, she'd be a jewel!"

Red Pepper came back at precisely twenty minutes of three. His patient had given him a bad hour of anxiety immediately after leaving the table, and he could not desert her until she had rallied. But he felt easy about her now, and he had arranged to leave her in Buller's hands--Buller, who did not do major surgery himself, but was a most competent man when it came to the care of surgical patients after operation. Burns brought Amy Mathewson back with him, though she had begged to be allowed to stay with the case.

"And not be at my wedding?" cried Red Pepper, in exuberant spirits.

"Why, I couldn't be properly married without you to see me through!"

Upon which she had smiled and obeyed him, and taken a tighter grip upon herself as he put her into the Green Imp for the last ride together.

That was what it was to her, though she might yet go with him a thousand times to help him in his work. To him it was a quick and joyful journey back to his marriage.

"All right, Mother and Dad!" he exulted, coming in upon them in their festal array. He shook hands with his father and his brother-in-law; he kissed his mother. Then he ran for his own room where Bobby Burns, just being finished off by Anne, herself superbly dressed, shrieked with rapture at the sight of him.

"Red! At last! I've laid everything ready; you've only to jump into your bath; I turned on the water when d.i.c.k saw the Imp down the road. Don't you dare have a vestige of a surgical odour about you when you come out!"

In precisely seventeen minutes and three-quarters the bridegroom was ready to the last coppery affair on his head.

"Have I a 'surgical odour,' Anne?" he asked as he came up to her.

She buried her face on his shoulder, both arms about him, regardless of her finery. "You're the dearest, sweetest old trump of a brother that ever lived, and you smell like suns.h.i.+ne and fresh air!" she cried.

Whereat he shook with laughter and patted her back as she clung to him.

"Promise me, Red," she begged, lifting her head, "that you won't let anything--anything--keep you from going off with Ellen in the Imp. She's been so lovely about this horrid delay, but I'm always suspicious of you. Promise!"

"I promise you this," agreed her brother: "Wherever the Imp and I go, after the minister has said the words, for this two weeks Ellen shall go with me."

"Chester," said d.i.c.k Warburton as he stood in that gentleman's company, looking over a stupendous a.s.sortment of wedding gifts, which, in spite of the fact that n.o.body outside the family had been asked to see Redfield Pepper Burns married, overflowed two large rooms into the upper hall and almost over the railing, "will you tell me who in the name of time sent that rat-trap? This is the most extraordinary display of gold, silver, and tinware that I ever saw, and I'm at the end of my astonishment. But that rat-trap, is it a joke?"

"No joke whatever--," declared Chester. "It comes from one of R, Red's--devoted friends--his own invention. And the point of the thing is that the making of that rat-trap is going to be the making of the worst dead-beat of a patient Red ever stood by. I really believe Joe Tressler's going to get a patent on it, which also will be Red's doing.

But this is a special, particular rat-trap made of extra fine materials, suitable for a wedding gift!"

"Well, well," mused Burns's brother-in-law. "And what millionaire sent the diamond pendant? By Jove, I haven't seen finer jewels than those this side of the water."

"That came from the Walworths, I believe. Take it all together, it's a great collection, isn't it? It shows up the odder because Ellen wouldn't have the freak grateful-patient gifts put to one side--or even thrown into a sort of refining shadow. Fix your eye on that rainbow quilt, will you, d.i.c.ky, alongside of the Florentine tapestry? That quilt would put out your eye if you gazed upon it steadily, so let up on it by regarding this match-safe. Wouldn't that--"

"That came from Johnny Caruthers," said a richly modulated low voice behind him. "Please set it down carefully, Mr. Arthur Chester."

The two men wheeled to see the bride come to the defense of her wedding gifts. Behind her loomed her husband, laughing over her head, his eyes none the less tender, like hers, for the queer presents which meant no less of love and grat.i.tude than the costlier gifts, of which there was no mean array.

"I see you've married him, patients and all, Ellen Burns," declared Richard Warburton. "On the whole, it's your wisest course. The less he knows you mind their devotion to him--"

"Mind it!" She gave him the flash of which the soft black eyes were brilliantly capable. "d.i.c.k, I have no gift I like so well as that rat-trap. You don't know the story, but I do, and it means to me--fidelity to duty. And if there's one great big thing in the world I think it's that!"

Over her head, d.i.c.k Warburton nodded at his brother-in-law. "I'm glad we've got her into the family, Red," said he. "It's a mighty rare thing to find a beautiful woman who knows how to dress like a picture, with that ideal at the back of her head! 'Cherish her, Red. If you don't I'll come around and knock you down!"

"I'll let you do it," agreed Burns soberly. All his marriage vows were in his face.

It was quite dusk when the Green Imp got away. Johnny Caruthers had the satisfaction of lighting up the car's lamps--always a joy to him, and particularly so to-night, for even the oil taillight bore witness to his tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and polis.h.i.+ng till its red eye could gleam no brighter. As for the front lamps and the searchlight the Imp's progress would be as down an avenue of brilliance if its driver allowed them all full play upon the road.

"She's in great trim, Johnny," said Burns's voice in his ear. "I like her looks immensely. I shall hate to get a speck of mud on her."

"Meaning the lady, Doc?" asked Johnny anxiously. "There's a wet bit there under the elms, Doc, remember. It would be a pity to splash any mud on her!"

He glanced toward the porch, his freckled face eloquent of his admiration for the figure which was the centre of the group gathered there.

Burns's eyes followed his. Bob, a picturesque, small person in his wedding attire of white linen, was attempting to tie Ellen's motor-veil for her, as she stooped, smiling, to the level of his eager little arms.

It occurred to both master and man, as they watched the child's efforts to adjust the floating chiffon, that veils, however useful, were to be regretted when they were allowed even partially to obscure faces like those of Red Pepper's wife.

"I meant the car, lad," explained Burns, laughing. "You've done a great piece of work an her since I brought her home this afternoon. I'm afraid you've done some last polis.h.i.+ng with your wedding clothes on, Johnny.

Here's some, thing to take the spots out."

"Oh, Doc!" breathed the boy. "Not to-night, Let me do it--for you--and her."

The money went back into Burns's pocket, and his hand met Johnny's in a hearty grasp. "That's better yet," said he, "and thank you, John. If anybody but you were sending me off I'd ask if everything was surely in the car But I'll not even ask you."

"You don't need to," vowed the boy proudly. "And there's some things in you don't need to know about, just extrys in case of breakdown."

"Now, that," said his employer, "is what call proving one's self a friend."

The Imp went cautiously through the "wet bit," for it lay under the corner arc-light, and Johnny Caruthers would be watching. But, once on the open road outside the village, the pace quickened. For late April the roads were not bad, and if they had been sloughs the Imp Could have pulled through them. She had a great power hidden away in those six cylinders of hers, had the Imp.

"You'll not mind if I stop at the hospital as we go through?" questioned Burns. "Then we'll be off, out the old west road, out of reach of telephones and summonses of any sort. But I shall be just that much easier."

"Do stop, please. I'm sure you'll be more satisfied and so shall I."

She sat quietly in the car while he was gone looking up at the lighted windows and thinking all sorts of sympathetic thoughts concerning those inside--yet with a tiny fear in her heart that he would find some new and unavoidable duty to detain him. If he should--

But he was back, and as the Imp's searchlight fell upon his face, returning, she read there that he was free.

"Doing well, everything satisfactory, and I've not a care in the world,"

he exulted as he leaped in. "Now we're off, and never a stop till we've put a wide s.p.a.ce between us and the rest of them."

The Green Imp ran at its quietest along the city streets, then through the thinning suburbs, and finally, with the lights all behind them, the open country ahead, the long, low car came out upon the straight highway which leads a hundred miles before it comes again to any but insignificant hamlets and small, rustic inns.