I Walked in Arden Part 25

I felt her clutch my hand.

"I wonder too, Ted darling," she whispered. "The doctor says your youth and const.i.tution saved you. I wonder if that explains all?"

"Perhaps there _was_ something to help--your love and care," I smiled.

"Even something beyond that, Ted dear. You see, Prospero had no chance, the doctor said, because of his drinking and drug-taking."

"It must have been a shock to 'mother.'" I don't know why I hadn't thought of her before, or why I thought of her now. Helen laughed one of her "questing laughs," the happy kind that only I was privileged to hear.

"Poor mother! She telegraphed for Miss Hershey to come and chaperon me and went herself to Asheville until Christmas. To have a real invalid in the house was the last straw!"

"But Leonidas!" I cried. "The poor hound is shut up in my rooms."

"No, he isn't, Ted. Dad went for him. He is asleep in front of the fire downstairs."

"So you are in Miss Hershey's hands?"

"Yes, but she is wonderfully tame, Ted, now she knows about you."

"What a marvellous forty-eight hours it has been!" I said. "We set forth after the questing beast in the morning--and before two suns, find love and life and death, all very near one another and each of them lurking in the most unlikely places."

"I think, Ted, that that is always the way one finds them--love, and life, and death are very near together--everywhere just as we have read of them in Mallory."

She went to the window and looked out.

"The snow is getting deep, Ted--you wouldn't know Myrtle Boulevard."

"Yes, I should," I answered. "It is the way leading down to Camelot."

She smiled, and the snow-light shone on her face, making her beauty luminous.

"It's Thanksgiving Day, Ted--did you know it?"

"Then I've been here--"

"Ten days." She came back to my side.

"Thanksgiving," I heard her murmur to herself--"dear G.o.d! I'm thankful."

"And you have nursed me all this time?"

"No, dear. You have a trained nurse to look after you--it was too serious to take any chances. I'm only the girl who loves you," and she tucked a violet over my left ear, laughing with the old ring of mischief in her voice. "Now you've talked enough and must go to sleep. I'll come back soon and bring you your Thanksgiving dinner--some delicious jellied bouillion. No--not another word," and she was gone, closing the door after her.

Naturally I could not sleep. In the first place, I argued with myself, my head not only feels queer but it aches abominably; in the second place, enough has happened to give insomnia to all the seven sleepers of Ephesus. The latter thought pleased me, and I laughed all by myself. My mind began to stroll about again in a waking dream, partly caused by my weakness and partly by the delirium which had ceased only a few hours ago. Why had Prospero tried to kill me? It seemed a motiveless thing to do, particularly as he had chosen to involve himself. Must have been insane, I concluded. He was fairly skilful about it, too--how did they know I hadn't killed _him_? There we both were, and no one to say who put the poison in the dish. This worried me. Suppose they ask me awkward questions at the inquest? I must talk to Helen about that. Helen! I hardly dared think about her--her love was the most wonderful thing in the world--why had she given it to me? How had I deserved it? It was a miracle one couldn't a.n.a.lyse....

"Ted, dear, it's time to take your medicine." I almost sat up, I was so surprised. I had slept, after all--most soundly. Furthermore, I felt refreshed and stronger. There stood Helen in the door, with a buxom-looking young woman in nurse's uniform beside her, carrying a gla.s.s on a tray.

"This is your nurse, Miss Conover, Ted."

"How do you do?" I said to this person, who began to bang my pillows about in a most business-like way, as much as to imply she was not in the habit of putting up with any nonsense from her patients.

"Quite well, thank you," and she presented a spoonful of medicine.

"What's in it?" I asked. "I'm a chemist, and I don't like to take unknown compounds."

"You aren't a biological chemist, are you?"

"No."

"Then you'd better follow your doctor's orders."

I felt that curious anger against strangers coming back.

"If you don't tell me what it is--I'll--I'll spill it on the floor," I said.

Helen stepped forward quickly.

"You'll take it from me, Ted, won't you?" and she offered the spoon.

"It's a sedative, dear--we had to give you such quant.i.ties of stimulants to counteract the poison."

Calm returned, and I meekly licked the spoon.

"Take her away!" I whispered to Helen, rolling my head toward the aggressively efficient Miss Conover, who was tidying the room energetically.

"Ted, dear, you are getting well now. You must get used to strangers about you, especially when they have been so kind to you as Dr. Sinclair and Miss Conover," and Helen patted my shoulder.

Miss Conover joined in: "Didn't I tell you, Miss Helen, they was a whole lot easier to get on with delirious than convalescent? You was wis.h.i.+ng for him to come out of it, but you ain't had my experience. I'd rather put a straight jacket on a nut than fetch a pipe and tobacco for a man the day before his hospital discharge."

Helen looked down at me with her eyes dancing, and the black murder that had been swelling up in me, during Miss Conover's disquisition on the care of men, subsided.

"I'll send her away, Ted," she said, kissing me. "I believe this time you are right."

Mr. Claybourne came in, radiating cheerfulness.

"Well, Ted, old man, how's the boy?" he shouted.

"Quietly, dad, quietly," reproved Helen.

"He's that touchy! It's only the effect of the fever. They are nearly always like that afterwards. Why, I've seen 'em pa.s.s away growling at everybody right up to the finish," Miss Conover threw in for good measure.

"I'm very grateful to you, Mr. Claybourne," I stammered, ignoring the nurse.

"Oh, tell all that to Helen," he laughed. "She's responsible, anyway.

Come, little girl, it's two o'clock, and there's a big turkey and fixin's waiting downstairs. You'll have to leave Ted awhile to eat Thanksgiving dinner with your dad."

"There's a dramatic choice for you, Helen--parental love and duty versus self-sacrifice beside the pallid cot of the lowly and sick," I smiled at her.

"Dad, Ted's recovering a sense of humour--it's a little clumsy and conceited still, but it's coming back! Dad,--why can't we have this room cleared and our table set up here? You know Ted hasn't seen a Thanksgiving turkey since he was a little boy. They don't have Thanksgiving in England--and it seems so mean to go downstairs and stuff all by ourselves!"