A few weeks ago, if her father had died, leaving her penniless, she would have had a brother to lean upon, or if he, too, had been taken from her, she still would have felt that there was a host of friends who would stand by her and help her to get a position. Where she could earn her way in the world.
Tonight she was brought up short and sharp with realization that there was not a person in the world to whom she was willing to be indebted.
Before all this had happened, she would have gone naturally to Judge Freeman, next to her father, for advice and assistance, but now she knew that never again could she respect or trust him or any of his family. The telegrams and flowers and elaborate notes of sympathy seemed like hypocrisy. She was not just sure why she felt this way, but while she had been listening above the stairs to Kearney Krupper’s hateful hints, she had had a revelation, and their friendship had seemed to drop away from her life and leave her standing alone.
But it was better to know where one stood.
Now, how was she to go about getting something to do? She must start tomorrow, as soon as she got moved, and she must settle it all in her mind tonight what to do.
Long she lay tossing and thinking, framing advertisements to put in the paper, thinking out things that she knew she could do, until, as the night began to wane, she fell asleep at last.
It was late in the morning when Nurse Bronson awoke her with a tray of poached eggs and toast and a glass of milk.
Nurse Bronson had a cheerful philosophy of life, that if you gave folks plenty to eat and plenty of sleep and plenty to do, they would get along a great deal better than if they lay around and moped when they were in trouble.
So now as she propped Romayne up with pillows and threw a robe around her shoulders, she began to talk cheerily.
“I phoned my sister this morning, and she’s real glad you’re coming,” she said. “And Chris happened in to see if all was right, and I made him bring the trunks down from the third story so we could lay things in. You know it isn’t as if you had been keeping house here a long time. There really isn’t an awful lot of stuff to sort out and pack or throw away like there is in most houses.”
“No,” said Romayne sadly. “We hadn’t much when we came here, and Father hadn’t bought all the furniture we needed yet. He wanted to furnish this house entirely with old valuable pieces. It was a sort of hobby of his.”
“Well, I’ve been looking around, and I see you’ve got some real nice things that ought to bring you in quite a sum. I called up the antique man I told you about, and he said he’d run in today or tomorrow and take a look around to see what you had. So when you get your breakfast, you better get dressed, and we’ll put away some of your things before he gets here. We can lay your clothes right in the trunks if you like. I had them put out in the hall, where they’d be handy. I think it’s best to do it now while you’re rested. Then you can get away before night with a clear conscience. You won’t be troubled with that Krupper fellow. He’s been detained at the station house on his own business today, Chris says.”
“You have been so kind,” said Romayne, trying to eat the delicate toast and egg that had been so nicely prepared, though her throat somehow would not swallow much.
The nurse talked on of practical affairs till Romayne was able to put aside her tragic thoughts and get down to the need of the day. It was terribly soon to rush into action after her father’s funeral, but oh, it would be good to get away from the house, and from any possibility of meeting that terrible man who came last night! The thought of Kearney Krupper gave her control to finish her breakfast and hasten with her dressing, and very soon she was ready to consider matters of the household.
It is marvelous what can be accomplished with a practical woman at the helm like Nurse Bronson. She marched from room to room helping Romayne to classify the various articles. She made the girl pick out in each room the little personal things she wanted to keep, first. It was surprising how quickly this was done, and how it simplified the whole matter of moving out.
“We’re going upstairs now and put all your brother’s things in a trunk!” said Nurse Bronson firmly. “I think it’s best you should do it now. You can’t tell later who will be here when you get to selling off your things, and those things ought to be safely put away.”
“Yes,” said Romayne with a little catch in her breath. “But oughtn’t you to go on your case? I thought you said the substitute nurse only came for the night. It’s almost eleven o’clock now.”
“I phoned her, and she said she just as soon I came at eight this evening. She was willing to stay all day, and Mr. Sherwood sent word he wanted me to help you get things straightened out here if I could, that the authorities would be taking possession of the place in a few days now, but they would give you time to get your things together before they bothered you. He said there would be an officer ready to help us if we needed anyone and not to hesitate to call for one.”
The color crept quickly into Romayne’s white cheek. Even from his sickbed he was directing her affairs, thinking of all the kind little things to do for her! It was beautiful! But it was galling, too. She could not remain so in his debt! She must write that note and send that check this very night before she slept!
“He is—most kind,” she said in a cool little voice that made the nurse eye her curiously, and wonder if she had been just wise to say so much. Evan Sherwood had especially warned her not to talk about him. This girl was odd! Now almost any girl in the world would be proud to know that that young man was taking thought for her. Why did this one seem to cringe when she mentioned him? Well, she would get back to work; that was safest.
So they spent two good hours in Lawrence’s room.
Nurse Bronson had all his coats and woolen clothing out on a line in the sunshine, brushing it with a whisk while Romayne was standing dazed and wondering where to begin.
“You clear out the bureau and chiffonnier drawers, child, and lay things in whichever trunk is his. Don’t stop to moon over things. That won’t help you any, and it isn’t necessary. If you’ve any doubt about throwing a thing away, don’t throw it; pack it. That’ll simplify things. Then someday they can be gone over again if it’s necessary. Stow everything in somehow. Yes, the pictures and trinkets around the walls, too, though whatever anyone wants woolen flags around in hot weather for is more than I can understand.” She waved a hand indignantly at the college pennants decorating the room. “Now, come on! I’ll take the things off the wall and dust ’em, and you do the clean clothes. Lay ’em in the trunk trays all nice and smooth!”
Romayne went at her task swiftly, her mind busy with sad thoughts as she worked. How happy she had been the day Lawrence came home and fixed up his room. How he told her jokes and bits of stories about the college days and the different pictures. It was too bitter to linger over now. She gathered the things and laid them away, Drawer after drawer was emptied, and the trunk filled up fast. It was necessary to put the pictures and books in a big box, and that, too, was at hand, ready. Nurse Bronson never forgot things and never did things by halves.
It was not till the trunk was locked, labeled, the keys with their labeled tags put carefully in Romayne’s handbag, and the box nailed up and labelled, that they halted in their work. Then Nurse Bronson brought a glass brimful of iced orange juice to Romayne and told her to drink it.
“You’ve got something else hard before you,” she said, “and it’s got to be done. The sooner the quicker. We’ve got to do the same to your father’s things. I know it’s hard, but you’ll just be thinking about it if you put it off, and you wouldn’t want anybody else doing it.”
“Oh no!” said Romayne with a sharp intake of her breath as if she were girding herself to the task.
“Well, I put his things down on the line and whisk-brushed ’em, and they’ve been hanging in the sunshine a long time. We can pack ’em away in camphor in a trunk, unless you want to give some of ’em away.”
“Yes,” said Romayne wit
h sudden lightening of the trouble in her eyes. “Yes, I would like to give them away where they will do some good. Wouldn’t the Salvation Army like them?”
“I guess they would. It would be a good haul to them. Why, some of those coats are wonderful! You better go through all the pockets. I wouldn’t presume to do that!”
So Romayne, with tears blurring her eyes, went through every pocket, laid away a few little things she wanted to keep in remembrance of her father and the days when everything was right and beautiful, and packed the rest in a box for the Salvation Army. Then Nurse Bronson locked the door on that room and drew a long breath.
“Mr. Evan said I was to tell you that they had to take charge of all your father’s papers and everything outta the desk and them cupboards in the front room downstairs, and they would go over ’em carefully, and any that didn’t have to do with the business and was just personal he would give back to you when they got through with their investigating.”
The color mounted painfully into Romayne’s face, and the tears stood in her eyes. She looked as if she had had a blow, and the nurse felt guilty, but it had to be done. It was the one thing Evan Sherwood had asked her to say, so of course it must be said.
“Now,” she said briskly, not seeming to notice Romayne, “you and I are going down to have a bite of lunch. I’ve got two cantaloupes on a bit of ice in the refrigerator and two lamb chops frying on the range and two potatoes roasting in the oven. There’s all the rest of a quart of milk besides a cup of coffee. Can you make a meal out of that, or shall I run out and get something more?”
And actually a smile dawned behind the tears in Romayne’s eyes.
They had a nice little lunch in the dining room, and incidentally Nurse Bronson gathered up an armful of table linen and laid it on a chair ready to pack.
“You know, you’re really pretty well cleared up!” announced that good woman, looking around with satisfaction. “After you’ve packed your clothes, anyone could come right in and buy up the whole lot that’s left without your bothering at all.”
In amazement Romayne looked around her, and turn whichever way she chose, she could not see anything that she felt she could not leave behind. All were recently bought or valueless to her.
She turned to Nurse Bronson in gratitude.
“You know you’re a very wonderful woman!” she said. “It would have taken me weeks to have done this all alone. It is terrible of me to have let you work so hard! You must have begun before daylight.”
“Why, child, I’ve enjoyed it. It’s the first time in my life I ever got away with my own plans from start to finish. I woke up in the night and worked this all out. I thought it would be so nice if you could just get this done and have it over with. If it hadn’t been for that nice policeman, Chris, coming over so early and helping, though, I never could have done it. He lifted all the heavy boxes and trunks for me, you know, and carried armfuls of things down to hang on the line. Now! You’re going to take a nap! You’re worn to a frazzle! No, it’s no use protesting. I know when a person needs sleep. It’s my profession. When you wake up, if you feel like it, we’ll pack your trunk. If you don’t, we’ll just pick up a few duds and run over to my room for the night and do the rest some other time.”
So Romayne was tucked into bed once more, and, much to her own amazement, fell immediately to sleep.
The room was quite dusky when she awoke again, and she thought she heard someone moving softly about. She lay still with dull, cold facts coming, one by one, back to mind as they always do after sorrow. Then the light sprang up, and Nurse Bronson stood over her.
“Ready for some supper?” she asked pleasantly, and looking around, Romayne saw her clothes in neat piles on chairs around the room and the door open wide to an empty closet.
“Oh, I’ve overslept!” exclaimed the girl, springing up. “I’m so sorry! And you’ve been working all this time.”
“Oh no, I rested awhile,” said the nurse. “I sat and folded up dresses. Do you want to pack now, or shall we go home?”
“It’s half-past seven!” said Romayne. “We ought to go at once. You should be at Mr. Sherwood’s—and—that awful man may come!”
“No,” said Nurse Bronson, “I phoned the other nurse I wouldn’t be there till half-past ten or eleven. And the Krupper fox is still in custody, though he’ll likely be out in the morning. It won’t take long to lay these in the trunk.”
So Romayne went to work and in a very short time had her trunk and handbag packed and ready to go. Her suitcase she had not even opened since the day she brought it back from the delayed house party. It seemed too much the symbol of all the joy and hope of that day. Its lovely new brushes with their silver monograms, and all her little new toiletries, its pretty garments and ornaments, she had not had the heart to take them out and hang them up. They were probably badly crushed by this time after their long pack, but she had felt a great reluctance to look at them after all that had come to her, and had continued using her old things. Now she laid the suitcase on the top of the locked trunk ready for the expressman and announced herself ready to leave.
Nurse Bronson went about locking up, and presently a taxi drew up to the door, and Romayne and her baggage, in the company of the nurse, drove away toward Maple Street.
From an alleyway across the street a slinking figure like a dark wraith leered out, presently emerged on a well-oiled bicycle of an ancient brand, and pedaled after the taxi, furtive and shadowlike, darting out of traffic, and back again at a stretch, always keeping the yellow cab in sight, till they came to Maple Street and another convenient alley. The wraith loitered out of sight till the driver was paid, and the Bronson door shut behind the two travelers. Then silently he shot away into the city once more, going like one who has done a long day’s work faithfully, and attained his end.
Chapter 19
Nurse 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 befor
e, and wrote her letter.
Mr. Evan Sherwood.
Dear Sir:
I am afraid I was very rude to you on the night when I found you and your men in our house. I thought I was justified then in treating you as I did, but I found out, of course, that I had been most unjust, and I want to apologize.
Your kindness to me then and since, I know, has been great, and I cannot thank you enough for all you have done to make things easier for me, and also for your unobtrusiveness. Forgive me, please, for being so disagreeable. I could not believe that all that has happened was true.
I must thank you, too, for meeting the bills of doctor and nurse and undertaker, which should have come to me. I have no means of knowing how much they are, but I am sending you my check for five hundred dollars, which is all I have at present. I know you must have paid out more than this, and would send more if I had it. But I expect to have some money soon from the sale of household goods, and if you will let me know how much more I owe you, I will send you another check at once. But for your kindness, I know, I cannot ever pay. I am sorry you have been put to so much trouble and expense for—us.
I hope you will be willing to forgive and forget my rudeness.
Sincerely and gratefully,
ROMAYNE RANSOM
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.