“Of course,” said Aunt Patty shortly, trying not to cry. “But what are you going to do about my little girl? She can’t sleep in that great house all alone tonight.”
“That’s true, too,” said Evan, looking serious. “Well, I’ll get to work on that right away. Now, you’ll have to hurry, Aunt Pat, if you want the express. It leaves the downtown station at six. Phone for Chris to come right up. He’ll look after everything for you and at the same time do some things for me. And then you pack! Don’t bother about anything you don’t need at once. I’ll have the rest sent after you. Just take things easy, and don’t worry about Aunt Martha. She’s been pretty sick before. She’ll pull up out of this as soon as you get there. I know her.”
“Yes,” sighed Aunt Patty. “Poor little Aunt Martha! I ought not to have left her.”
Then Aunt Patty flew to her packing.
She did not stop for many details. She folded things and stuffed them in, and in a few minutes had her belongings marshaled into her suitcase, her hair brushed, and everything ready for her journey. Then she sat down to write a note to Romayne.
Chris, meanwhile, had arrived and done efficient service with the telephone. In half an hour a man from the League office came up with Aunt Patty’s ticket and reservation, and shortly after that a taxi arrived to take her to the station. Chris escorted her, put her on her sleeper, and gave the porter a special care over her. On his way back to the house he stopped at the hospital and brought back a night nurse that the doctor whom he had called up had grudgingly recommended. The doctor did not like Evan Sherwood to have any but the best, and why couldn’t Nurse Bronson stay with him now that the Ransom patient was dead? He couldn’t understand.
Chris didn’t explain. He simply said she couldn’t be there that night. Chris had learned early to keep his mouth shut.
In the meantime, Evan Sherwood’s supper tray was brought up, and while Nurse Bronson was feeding him, for they wouldn’t let him move enough yet to feed himself, he told her, between mouthfuls, “You’re going away to leave me tonight, Nurse, did you know it?”
“Well, indeed then, Mr. Evan, you’re mistaken,” said Nurse Bronson crisply. “I’ll not leave you again till yer able to be out and tend to yerself. Not till that wound has all healed! It’s a nasty place, and it needs careful looking after. I’ll not trust anybody else to dress it. Didn’t I promise your mother—”
“Yes, but you promised me, Nurse. You promised me you would stay with Miss Ransom as long as she needed you.”
“Well, didn’t I? Isn’t the patient dead and buried? What more do you want?”
“I want you to go and stay with her tonight. Bronson, she’s all alone in that great house with all those memories.”
“Memories can’t bite, can they?” snapped Nurse Bronson. “I’m going to stay here!”
“Look here, Nurse, do you want me to get well?”
“Sure I do. That’s why I’m staying.”
“Don’t you think I need to sleep tonight?”
“Yes, and you’re going to.”
“Bronson, I can’t sleep unless I know that little girl is being taken care of.”
“But where’s that wonderful aunt of yours?”
“She’s on her way to New Hampshire. She had a telegram. Aunt Martha was taken worse.”
“Well, this is a pretty kettle of fish! So you want me to go off and leave you alone all night, do you? Well I won’t, and that’s that!”
“No, Bronson, I don’t want you to leave me alone. There’s another nurse downstairs waiting to come on duty while you go and have a good night’s sleep over in the Ransom house, and I want you to keep your promise to me and go.”
“Another nurse!” said Bronson, her chin in the air. “Well, of course, in that case I leave!”
“But Bronson, I want you to fix me for the night before she comes up here,” smiled Evan with a twinkle.
“Aw, get out with ye, Mr. Evan. Yer the self-willed child, so ye are! What time do I have to be over to the Ransoms?”
“Oh, about half-past eight.”
“Well then! Get to work, and eat yer supper before it’s cold.”
“I knew you’d be reasonable, Bronson. You always are. And you’ll only be away at night, you know, and have a chance for a good sound sleep.”
“How long does this keep up?”
“Why, as long as she needs you, I said. It’s a part of the League’s work, you know, and I feel responsible.”
“Aw, you and yer League! You make me tired! Will you never think of yerself and getting well? Now eat them squabs. Mrs. Sam Pace sent ’em. I cooked ’em the way yer mother used to like ’em.”
“They’re wonderful, Bronson. And is that currant jelly? Who made that? And ice cream! I shall stay sick! Say, Bronson, you’ll be sure to come back in the morning?”
“Oh, Mr. Evan, quit yer kidding. You know we’ll all do just what you say, yer that spoiled!”
Tenderly, as if he were a baby, she fixed him for the night and never went near the waiting nurse till she was ready to leave for the night. She was most explicit in her directions, too, and left with a wistful look back.
“All right, Bronson,” smiled Evan. “See you in the morning. Hope you have a good night’s rest.”
Bronson carried the letter from Aunt Patty and walked in on a forlorn little belated supper with Romayne in the dining room all alone. She had just woken up. She didn’t want to eat—it choked her—but she knew the maid had tried to please her, and she was doing her brave best.
So Bronson sat down and made a second supper with her and brought some of her good cheer to the sad dining room.
“Why, Nurse,” said Romayne, looking up with relief. “I thought you were on a case. I thought you went to that Mr. Sherwood!”
“And so I did,” said Nurse Bronson. “But nothing would do but I must come over and get a night’s sleep. I was wondering, could you spare me a bed? It isn’t so far as going to my lodging, and I thought you might be alone.”
“Oh, I’ll be so glad to have you!” said Romayne eagerly. “This house seems so big and terrible!”
“Oh yes, and I brought a note from Miss Patty! She got a telegram from her sister in New Hampshire, and she had to go right off.”
Romayne opened it eagerly. It was good to know this new friend had not forgotten her after the stress was over.
Dear little girl (it read),
I’m in a great distress to leave you this way, but there’s nothing else to do. My sister, who is a good deal older than
I and very feeble, has been taken seriously ill, and they have telegraphed for me. I’ve only a minute to write, but I’ll think of you and pray for you, and remember the God who forgives also loves and comforts and goes with us through the hard times. I’ll write you as soon as I get a chance.
Lovingly,
Aunt Patty
Romayne looked up with a sad little smile.
Just then the telephone rang sharply, and Nurse Bronson waved her hand commandingly.
“Sit still. I’ll answer it!”
A man’s voice came over the wire.
“Is Miss Ransom at home yet?”
“Yes.”
“Well, tell her I’m coming to see her. I’ve just got back from Virginia. I’ll be there in ten minutes. This is Kearney Krupper, and I’ve got something important to tell her.”
Chapter 17
Every word that Kearney Krupper spoke over the telephone was audible to Romayne across the room, and when there came that quick click of the instrument, showing that he had hung up in the midst of Nurse Bronson’s protest that Miss Ransom was too tired to see anyone that night, Romayne looked at her aghast.
“Oh, I can’t talk to him tonight!” she cried. “I simply can’t! He’s a terrible man! I wish I didn’t have to see him ever! I can’t bear the way he looks at me!”
“Well, you don’t have to!” declared the woman. “Just you go up the stairs quick and get to bed! I’ll teach him t
o hang up on me that way! I’ll go down and see him!”
“He’ll only put it off until tomorrow,” wailed Romayne, her eyes filling with tears. “Oh, I wish I could run away! It seems as though I couldn’t stand anymore!”
The nurse’s answer was to lift the girl gently from her chair and lead her toward the stairs.
“There, child!” she said. “I’ll help you to run away if you want to.”
The nurse’s lips were set in a grim line.
“We might lock the door and turn out the lights,” suggested Romayne wearily.
“But that would be all to do over again, as you say,” answered the nurse. “You leave him to me!”
“He said it was about my brother,” said the troubled voice hesitatingly. “He won’t tell it to you.”
“Do you want to talk to him?” asked the nurse sharply. “Do you think you have to?”
“I don’t know,” said Romayne with a frightened tone in her voice.
“Well, then, I’ll tell him you said he was to say his say to me! If he don’t want to, he can keep it to himself. But I want you to know that whatever he says will go no farther. And when I tell it to you, that’s the end of it. I forget. It’s my business to forget what people say that’s none of my business, so you needn’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” said the worn-out child. “And I’m very grateful to you!”
The nurse answered by a little pat on her hand, a sign of deep emotion for Nurse Bronson, who was nothing if not adamant.
Romayne was soon in bed with the light out, and the nurse took care there should be only a dim light down in the hall when the caller arrived.
Grimly, in an old red cotton crêpe bathrobe and night slippers, with her hair in crimping pins—which, by the way, were an addition for the occasion—Nurse Bronson never was known to crimp her hair—she descended the stairs with a thump on each step.
Grudgingly she opened the door an inch or two and told the visitor that Miss Ransom was gone to bed.
“Well, just tell her I’m here. She’ll get up,” he announced. “She wants to see me.”
“No, she doesn’t want to see anybody tonight!” said the nurse firmly. “And she won’t get up if she does, for I’m her nurse, and I’m here to take care of her. She’s all beat out, and she’ll have a fit of sickness if she don’t get some sleep.”
“Sorry, but this is important. It’s about her brother. She’ll want to know. He’s in trouble.”
“I guess that’s no news to her,” said the nurse sarcastically. “If all I hear’s true, he’s been there a good many times. He’ll probably live through it.”
“Look here, my good woman,” said the arrogant Krupper, inserting a fashionable toe inside the door. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. This is serious business—a matter of life and death, as it were—and Miss Ransom has got to know this tonight.”
“Very well, you’ll have to send a message by me then,” said Nurse Bronson. “I’ll see if she’s awake yet.”
By this time young Krupper had inserted the most of himself into the hall.
“That’s quite impossible!” said the young man. “This is private business.”
“There’s nothing too private to tell me if you want her to hear it tonight. She said I was to tell you you could say anything you liked to me. She doesn’t have secrets from me.”
“My dear lady, as I said before, you don’t know what you are talking about!” said Kearney condescendingly, perceiving he could not sweep this stout lady aside quite so easily as he had expected. “I will write her a note, and when she finds out what I have to say, you will see she will get up and come downstairs.”
“Write yer note,” said Nurse Bronson, waving toward the desk in the office.
Kearney got out a fountain pen and wrote forcefully a few lines. The nurse took the folded paper in a contemptuous thumb and finger and went plunk, plunk, on her expressive rubber heels upstairs.
She opened a door—it happened to be the door of Mr. Ransom’s room—closed it softly, snapped on the light, and read the note without guilt. Nurses learn to take responsibilities sometimes when the life of a patient is at stake. She had no respect whatever for the young man downstairs. He was of a class whom she despised.
The note was blunt and written in a bold scrawl:
Your brother needs a thousand dollars before he can get to safety. If you can let me have five hundred of it tonight, he can go on his way, and I can forward the rest by telegraph.
“H’m!” sniffed the nurse, folding the paper thoughtfully and putting it into her pocket. Then she opened the door noiselessly, went with her silent sickroom tread to Romayne’s room, and, entering, closed the door before she spoke in a whisper: “Do you want me to follow my own idea in dealing with this young man?”
“Oh yes,” said Romayne, shrinking from the thought of him. “I don’t like him.”
“Well then, answer me this. Have you got much money? Because I need to know.”
“Oh no,” said Romayne anxiously. “I’ve got less than five hundred dollars, and I owe a good deal more than that for the funeral and everything—”
“That’s all right,” said the nurse. “Of course you do. Now, is there any reason why you should have to give money to that scapegrace of a brother of yours?”
“Oh, I don’t know.…” said Romayne, bursting into tears. “I—”
“That’s all right, too,” said the nurse. “Let me give you a piece of advice. If you ever do have to, don’t give it through that weak-chinned little monkey downstairs, because I don’t believe your brother would ever get it! Now lie down, and I’ll settle this. When I get rid of him, I’ll come up and tell you what I mean.”
So the nurse swept rubberly down the stairs again with triumph in her wake.
“She says she hasn’t any money,” repeated the nurse arrogantly.
The young man arose and tried to make himself tall and important.
“My good woman, I happen to know that she has five hundred dollars! Her brother told me so, and he wants it at once! In fact he must have it!”
“It cost more than that five hundred dollars to pay expenses here,” said the nurse. “That’s all spent! She hasn’t got a cent for herself. A pretty pair you two are, coming to a girl for money! Let him get his own money! She hasn’t any!”
“My good woman, you don’t understand,” drawled Kearney as if he were being the most patient of mortals. “This is a peculiar situation. Miss Ransom understands, and if she knew the critical need tonight, she would get the money at once without further delay. Every moment is dangerous for one she loves.”
“I tell you she hasn’t got any money! How can she get what she hasn’t got?”
“Miss Ransom knows that she has friends who will give her any amount she needs if she lets them know by telegraph how much she wants. She has only to mention that she is aware her brother has evidence against them, and she will have no trouble—”
“Look here, young man! That sounds like blackmail!”
“That shows how little you understand,” he said sadly. “You see, it is imperative that I see Miss Ransom herself! If you don’t call her down, I shall be obliged to go upstairs and find her.”
He started toward the stairs, but the nurse placed herself in front of him.
“Just you set down,” she said firmly. “I’ve got to telephone for some medicine Miss Ransom needs. I forgot it, and I’ll be too late.…” She stepped to the desk and took up the telephone, calling up a number.
The young man paused, watching her annoyedly. He was in haste to see Romayne. He meditated a bold dash up the stairs while the nurse was occupied, but was held listening to her message.
“Chris there? Well, why don’t he bring that medicine? Yes, we need it right away. Miss Ransom ain’t feeling so good, and she’s got a visitor. Can you hurry it right up? All right.”
She clicked the telephone in place and glanced at the young man.
“
I was just coming down to get a hot-water bag,” she said. “I suppose you won’t mind waiting a little.…”
She whisked into the dining room door but did not go far beyond the door, with an ear alert to the hall, and she whisked back again in a jiffy.
“Just set down and wait, if you must.” She waved her hand toward a chair again. “I’ll see what I can do.”
And Nurse Bronson made a sound of bustling about above stairs.
In about three minutes’ time a hoarse little Ford drew up in front of the door, somebody flung out and up the steps, and a key clicked in the lock, startling the caller into sudden alert attention. He half arose, with a furtive look about him, as the door swung open, and Chris Hollister’s broad shoulders and round ruddy face appeared in full uniform, a heavy frown upon his straight young brows.
To say that he glared at the young man who stood in the office is putting it mildly. He seemed to be piercing the intruder through and through with his gaze. Justice fairly could possibly call him a boy. Manliness spoke in every line of his sturdy figure.
They glared at each other for a full second. Then Chris opened the argument in a voice of authority.
“You—are waiting for—somebody?”
There was deliberation in each syllable.
The caller bowed haughtily.
“I am waiting for Miss Ransom. She will be down presently. You?” There was a nasty snarl in the word, a kind of upward inflection that was intended for a reflection upon the other. “You—seem to be rather—at home here!” There was insult flung with the final word.
“Yes,” said Chris gravely. “This house is under my protection.”
“Oh, I see! And all its inhabitants, I suppose!”
Chris paid no attention to the sneering laugh. He strode over to the dining room door, where he could see a light from the kitchen beyond. He paused with the door half-open, still keeping the front part of the house in view, and held a brief and inaudible conversation with the nurse, who stood within the shadow.
“I see!” said Chris at length in a clear voice. “All right, Mrs. Bronson. Your word is law here!”