Coming Through the Rye (27 page)

N
urse Bronson waited only to see her young charge tucked into bed before she sped back to Evan Sherwood's bedside. She had worked with a will while she had it to do, but her heart had been with the boy she loved all the time, and she was jealous as jealous could be of the other nurse who had taken her place by his side.

Here this second time she had had to leave him and let another take her place, and it was only because she was doing his will that she was encouraged at all in being absent from him. She had nursed his mother when he was born, and of all the babies she had held in her arms, he was the dearest, perhaps because as he grew up, he had given her an affectionate return for all her care. She was proud of every hair on his splendid head, of every hairbreadth escape he ever had, and of every brave deed he had done, and though she had been touched by the girl she had been helping this day, and made tender toward her in spite of herself, in her heart she really bore a grudge toward her that she had asked this idol of hers to keep out of her sight. What kind of a girl was it that did not know a gentleman when she saw him?

Nevertheless, jealous as she was for the brain she had nursed from his childhood, the little lonely girl in her desolate situation had somehow crept into her heart, and she was torn between two duties.

“Now, I'll come back sometime tomorrow or call you up,” she said to Romayne in leaving. “The antique man said he'd surely come tomorrow or the next day, and you'll be happier when you know what you've got to depend upon. Now you're to just stay here and rest till I can get off again. Then we'll go back and see if we've missed anything and meet that antique man and go over things with him.”

But Romayne did not sleep late the next morning as she had been bidden to do. Instead, she woke earlier than usual and found that a great sense of burden had rolled from her heart with the realization that the worst of her packing was over, the part that broke her heart.

There was one, duty, however, that still lay heavy on her conscience, and that was her letter to Evan Sherwood. So she rose quietly that she might not disturb the family, hunted out the writing paper and pen she had been careful to put in her handbag the night before, and wrote her letter.

She wrote her first check, for five hundred dollars, enclosed it in the letter, and, slipping out, mailed it in the letter box at the corner.

It happened that the postman who gathered up the mail was on his way then, and in a few minutes it had started toward its destination. It was brought up to Evan Sherwood's apartment that afternoon by the janitor of the building, who wanted an excuse to enquire how “the chief” was getting on.

Nurse Bronson ruffled her brows and lifted her chin arrogantly, as she always did when anyone found fault with her.

“And so you
did
, and so
I
did, sir,” she said as she took the paper stiffly, half-offended.

“Well, she's some kid!” he said pleasantly. “We'll send it back, of course.”

“Well, she's quite right!” said Nurse Bronson hotly. “No self-respecting girl would do otherwise, you know yourself! She wouldn't be worth yer notice if she didn't. She can't let a young man pay her bills!”

“But I told you I am not paying them; it's the League.”

“It's all one and the self-same thing, Mr. Evan, and she knows it, and what's more, you know it, too. She's a right-minded girl, she is. I like her the more I see her. She'll not take much more, I suppose. There'll be little or nothing, perhaps less than nothing, from her father's estate, I imagine. What will she live on?”

“
Much
more, did ya say? She hasn't a
cent
more, I happen to know. But she'll live. Ye needn't fear that. There's more than yerself has that firm chin, Mr. Evan.”

Little by little she told him the whole story of Kearney Krupper's evening visit and its outcome, and although he had heard Chris's version before, he managed to appear surprised and glean a number of details that set him to thinking seriously along new lines the rest of the evening.

“We'll have to do something about that little girl, Bronnie,” he said when she had finished. “I wish she hadn't taken such an aversion to me. You don't suppose she'd get over it enough to come and have a talk with me for a few minutes, do you? Couldn't you manage that?”

Nurse Bronson frowned. She had her views of decorum for these two.

“Best wait till yer well, and I'll try to manage it,” she said. “She's not the kind of girl who goes traipsing after the men. She's had a good mother, and she hasn't got bobbed hair. They have notions when they don't bob their hair. She's old-fashioned.”

“Perhaps you're right,” said Evan, looking disappointed. “Of course you're right. I wouldn't want her to come, on second thought. It might make talk against her. But we must do something. This check will shut the mouths of the rest of the committee, I'm thinking. I must tell them about it tomorrow, and then I'll write her a letter and send it back!”

“Yes, write her a letter!” said Nurse Bronson with satisfaction as she went about getting the dressing ready for Evan Sherwood's shoulder. “She's a bonny little thing, and that'll be far better!”

For somehow the delicacy of Romayne had so impressed Nurse Bronson that she did not want her put in a position where anything slighting could be said about her.

So Evan wrote his letter, slowly, a few lines at a time, flavored perhaps with just a tinge of aloofness from the memory of her stormy brow and scornful lips as she told him she wished never to look on his face again. But by the time he had written a very nice, pleasant letter accepting her apology as if there had never been anything to forgive, he decided not to ask her to come and see him, nor to suggest that he would like to call upon her when he was able. Why should a man force himself upon a lady who had thrice expressed the wish never to see him again? She had apologized, of course, but that was not saying she wanted him for an intimate friend, much as she might feel indebted to him.

She was nothing to him, of course, even if he did feel sorry for her, poor little kid, and of course he could find ways to help her without ever seeing her again. It would be like sending money to a foreign mission. One never expected to travel to Africa or China to personally administer one's collection envelope. As for the check, he would simply return it, telling her that the League, not he, had been responsible for these bills, and that they were a part of the regular work of the League. In a sense their work had been the cause of her father's illness and all that ensued, and it was only right and proper that they should pay all costs. He realized that that was a cold, practical way to put it, but it was the logical fact, and he mentioned it to show her that she need feel no further compunction in keeping the money.

He was careful to show her check to Chris, and to two other members of the League Committee, before he enclosed it in his letter. One of these members was also the one who had suggested the possibility that Romayne might be one of the conspirators.

Chris was deeply stirred by the check, and Evan allowed him to read her letter. But the suspicious member of the committee, while he perfunctorily said it was “very commendable of her,” still suggested that this might be only the gang's way of trying to avert suspicion from her so that they might be able to use her again in new schemes of their own. And at that Evan's jaw set firmly, and he told the little narrow-minded man that he
knew
Miss Ransom had nothing whatever to do with the business in any way and had never been aware of it until the night of the raid.

That night Evan Sherwood set his firm jaw pleasantly and told the doctor it was time for him to get up, that he needed to get up to attend to his business, and that anyhow he was
going
to get up.

That night, too, Chris went away thoughtfully, and the next day being the Sabbath, in the afternoon, he washed and dressed with unusual care, shaved himself till he shone, and was very particular about having the right shirt and collar, and about the crease in his trousers, and getting the right lick to his plastered-back hair. He tried several neckties before he was suited, and at last he took his way to Maple Street, where, with many honest blushes, he asked if he might see Romayne.

The little Maple Street parlor, with its red-plush upholstery, its portraits, its blatant victrola, and its center table bearing a vase of artificial flowers, seemed the wrong setting for the delicacy of the girl he had come to see, and only served to make Chris more uncomfortable. He wished that he had thought of coming before she left her old house. It would have been so much easier to tell her what he had to say in the shadow of the heavy cream silk curtains and the alabaster vases. Somehow Romayne did not seem to belong here. And yet it was from this and worse that he was about to try to rescue her.

“I guess maybe you'll think I'm presuming, Romayne,” he began, fumbling the brim of his hat awkwardly, “but I had to come!”

“How could I think that, Chris?” said the girl kindly. “You have done so much for us all that I can never forget it. I think perhaps I owe you an apology, too, for the way I talked to you those first days. I wrote a note to Mr. Sherwood about it. I want you to know that I appreciate everything you have done—”

“Please don't, Romayne!” he said, putting up a big earnest hand, on which he had spent much unaccustomed grooming. He felt as if she were forestalling all he was about to say.

She stopped and looked at him, puzzled.

“I guess you know how it is with me, Romayne. I've always thought you were the greatest girl on earth. I always will, even if you stamp on me. I know I'm not fit to lie down and let you walk over me. I'm not in your class at all when it comes to that—”

“Oh Chris! Stop talking like that. You're just the finest of the fine! I guess I know after all you've done for me the past weeks, and I sha'n't allow you to talk that way!” broke in Romayne earnestly.

“You don't understand!” said Chris hopelessly. “I'm not just throwing bouquets. I'm trying to tell you how I feel about it. I'm making a proposition to you, and I want you to listen and understand it. But first, I want you to know that I know I'm not really good enough when you come right down to it. I don't want you to think I'm stuck on myself!”

“Oh, I won't ever think that, Chris!” said Romayne, trying to help him out of his evident dilemma, although she could not quite get at what he was trying to say.

“Well, then, it's this way. I know I'm not good enough, but I seem to be all there is, and I want you to let me take care of you! It oughtta have been somebody like Evan Sherwood, but you won't let him do anything, and of course you had a perfect right. And then I don't know as he ever thought of this way out of the trouble, and I couldn't just suggest it, you know, but I thought if Sherwood was out of the question entirely—you see, he let me read your letter last night, and I knew when you sent him that check it was all up with him doing anything more—so I thought the next best thing was me. You're sure you won't be offended or anything?” Chris's face was red as a beet, and he mopped his shining forehead violently.

“What on earth are you trying to tell me, Chris? What is it you want to ask? Don't be afraid to say it right out!” urged Romayne.

“I'm asking you to marry me, Romayne!” broke forth the earnest boy. “I know I ain't good enough. I don't have your class and all that, but you've gotta be taken care of, and that's the only nice way I could do it. I'll love you a lot if that'll make up any way. I've always loved you. You've been like an angel in my life, so pretty and so good, and so little! And I'll learn anything you want, and get to be the best I can—”

“Oh Chris!” said Romayne with sudden tears in her eyes. “You dear Chris! Please don't! It's wonderful of you, but I couldn't! I
couldn't
possibly ever marry you! I'm not going to marry
anybody
! But it's not because you're not good enough! Chris, you're the best thing I know. But I just don't feel I could. I think a lot of you, but there's something more to marrying than that. You have to love people in a different way. And I don't love
anybody
that way! I don't really! It wouldn't be fair to you, you know.”

“Oh, I wouldn't ask you to do that!” Chris said wistfully. “I'd do the loving, and you could have things your own way. I wouldn't mind!”