THE CHRISTMAS BRIDE (4 page)

Greg was still for a minute considering.

“I didn’t come for her suitcase,” he said. “I was just trying to look up some of her friends, but it doesn’t sound as if you were one. I had thought it might interest you to know that she had an accident this afternoon and she’s in the hospital unconscious now. She won’t need your room tonight, and perhaps not for a good many nights. I don’t know that she ever will.”

There was silence behind the chained door for an instant, and then the sharp voice struck again.

“Accident! Humph! Well they needn’t try to bring her here. I don’t intend to take care of any sick people. I got enough to do to look after my roomers. I’m sick and old. All I’ve got ta say is she deserves what she gets. Anybody that ud give up a perfectly good position just because she couldn’t stomach the man that employs her deserves to get down and out. These aren’t any times to be so squeamish about jobs. She had no business to leave her perfectly good place. He paid her, didn’t he? What I wantta know is what she did with all her money. She didn’t buy cloes, an’ there ain’t scarcely a thing worth holding for my rent. What’d you come here for anyway? Because you aren’t likely to get it.”

“No, so I see,” said Greg indignantly. “Well, suppose I happened to come to pay her rent?”

The woman brought her face closer to the opening.

“Who are you anyway?” she hissed. “I never saw you with her. Why should you pay her rent?”

“I’m only a friend, and you never did see me with her, but I might pay her rent just to save her having to listen to you when she is able to come back again. How much is her rent anyway?”

“It’s fifteen dollars!” said the woman belligerently, “and I won’t come down a cent for cash either!”

“Is that all?” said Greg, amusedly. “Well, I’ll pay it if you’ll make out a receipt in full to date.”

“She’ll have to pay in advance if she wants to keep the room,” added the woman.

“Well, that’s entirely up to her,” laughed Greg, “I hope she doesn’t want the room again. I certainly shall use my influence against it. I wouldn’t enjoy staying under such an unfriendly roof myself.”

“I’m not unfriendly,” said the woman, “but we have to look out for ourselves. We have to live!”

“Do we?” said Greg. “Well, I don’t know about that. Sometimes one can die, you know. Your little friend almost died tonight. However, bring on your receipt, and here’s your money. Are you going to let me come in while you sign it, or do I stay in the street?”

“I suppose you can come in,” said the woman grudgingly. “If you’re really going to pay.” She eyed the roll of bills in Greg’s hand greedily.

She sat down at an old, rickety table in the hall, wrote the receipt painstakingly, and handed it over. Greg folded it carefully and put it in his pocket, meanwhile glancing up the dismal staircase.

“Where is this room I’m paying for?” asked Greg. “Third story back?”

“Yes,” admitted the woman, “and cheap at that. My neighbor next door gets seven and a half for hers.”

As he walked out the door and down the street, Greg was thinking of his clean little shack on the hillside with the whispering pines all around. Somehow there was something terribly desolate and dreary in this rooming house. And was this the place where the little, white-faced girl had lived? For how long? he wondered.

But then, of course, the pocketbook might not have belonged to her. Or even if it had, the letter might not have been hers. He couldn’t tell a thing until he found out if Margaret was really her name. He had been a fool, of course, to pay for that room till he found out. Likely he was a fool anyway. But it was his money, wasn’t it? He had a right to spend it as he liked.

He found himself recalling the landlady’s words about the girl giving up her job because she didn’t like her employer. How much was there to that? Had any rotten bounder dared to be unpleasant to a girl like that?

H
e walked around by the hospital again, as if just to see if the building would satisfy that vague anxiety that was in him.

Here he was the first night in his hometown, all mixed up in a strange girl’s troubles, all anxious for her life. That little, white face against his shoulder! He wanted her to get well. Poor kid! She must have been up against it somehow. He wished he knew more about it. Maybe he’d better read that letter after all, just glance at it. There might be an address. Maybe her folks ought to be notified if she was off here in a great city alone.

So when he reached his room in the hotel, he took the letter out of his pocket, half reverently, and opened it.

It was only a torn half sheet of cheap note paper, and just a few lines written on it at that, no name signed either.

Well, there wasn’t any help here. No date except the blurred postmark, and no name of the town or people. Obviously he couldn’t let that grandfather and grandmother know. He couldn’t go all over the state of Vermont asking for Margaret McLaren’s grandparents.

He put the letter slowly back into the envelope, feeling guilty that he had read it at all, even though he had a good motive in doing so. Now he had laid bare some more of her troubles. Poor kid! She certainly was up against it. And to have a heartless old bird of a landlady like that, with all the rest! No sympathy nor help to be had from her! He shut his lips grimly as he thought of her. Probably he ought not to have paid that bill till he knew more about it, but there was a kind of satisfaction at the memory of the greedy astonishment in the old woman’s face as she took the bills in her hand. He really had got fifteen dollars’ worth of pleasure out of the look on her hard, old, selfish face. But poor devil, she probably was hard up, too! What a lot of people seemed to be hard up and to take it so hard! Why he had been hard up all his life, and now that he had plenty, he didn’t quite know what to do with it. Was he going to find a way of happiness with it, or was he only going to waste it all and then have to go back to work again? Well, if he did, work no longer had a terror for him. He knew how to go without. Though he never had been hungry. That poor little, white-faced girl had been hungry!
Starved
, the doctor said. How terrible! Would she ever come out of it all, and would there be a way for him to do something for her? Perhaps she was going to make a terrible row about this hospital room. You couldn’t tell. Well, he would get that fixed the first thing in the morning, so that the room was a genuine free one. He wished he knew how she was.

Early in the morning, his telephone rang, causing him to waken sharply to sudden anxiety.

“Is this Mr. Sterling?” Well, this is Miss Gowen, the nurse. I just wanted to tell you that our patient rested nicely all night, took her medicine and nourishment like a lamb, and is still sleeping. The doctor came in in the night and says she is doing well. He says she may sleep right on through the day—you can’t tell. She seems thoroughly exhausted. Will you be over today? Well, I’ll be here. No, I don’t need to sleep. I rested well during the night, only up with her a couple of times for feedings. I’ll get another nice nap sometime today while she is sleeping. You needn’t worry.”

Greg felt like a child with a holiday after he had hung up. Why was he so glad about an utter stranger? Well, he was. It was something to have somebody to care about, even a stranger about whom he knew nothing. He had saved her life perhaps. Didn’t that give him some right to be glad?

He ate his breakfast joyously, planning what he would do.

He had intended going out to see the old landmarks that morning, his old home, the schoolhouse, the church where his mother and he used to go regularly on Sunday, the house where Alice used to live, all the places with which he had been familiar. But that could wait. He wanted to get this business of the hospital fixed up first.

He found there were formalities. He couldn’t just transform a hospital room into any kind of a free place he wished at will. There were officials, and there was a board. But fortunately, the board had a meeting that morning, and he was informed that he could present his proposition at eleven o’clock.

The board was gracious to this opulent stranger who was willing to pay cash for a room that very often stood idle because it was only available to the wealthy people. When the arrangements were completed, Greg went to see about having the bronze tablet made for the door, and it was late in the afternoon before he got back to the hospital.

He found the nurse just coming out of the room.

“I’ve been trying to telephone you,” she said. “She woke up a few minutes ago and insisted on getting right up and going away. I told her that would be impossible until the doctor came, that we had no right to let her go away until she had been dismissed. Then she said she absolutely must. That she had to go somewhere and apply for a job. She seemed awfully upset that she hadn’t got there by eight o’clock. I’ve had a time keeping her quieted down. I thought perhaps if you could come in and jolly her along a little it might help.”

“I’ll come!” said Greg with a light in his eyes. “You’re sure she won’t mind?”

“Well, I’m not sure of anything,” laughed the nurse, “but I know something’s got to be done. She’s worrying a lot, I can see that, and it isn’t doing her any good. I asked her if she hadn’t some friends I could send for, but she said no, they were all far away and she didn’t want them worried. But I did find out her name. It’s Margaret McLaren. I told her we had to have it for the records.”

Greg drew a breath of relief. Then the purse
was
hers, and he had paid
her
debt and not some other girl’s. That was good.

“All right, I’ll see what I can do,” he said, “but hadn’t you better ask her if she is willing to see me?”

“Well, not exactly,” said the nurse, “she might take it into her head to refuse, and that wouldn’t be well. I’ll just take it for granted. That’s better. We simply must stop her worrying!”

With which last whispered word the nurse swung the door open and said in a clear, cheery tone, “Miss McLaren, I’m bringing a visitor to see you. This is Mr. Sterling who picked you up yesterday and brought you here. He’s been anxious to know how you are, and I knew you would want to thank him.”

The girl on the bed turned quick, troubled eyes toward the young man, and a little color sprang into her white cheeks.

Greg went toward the bed with his cheerful grin in evidence. He wasn’t thinking about himself, or he would have been shy, for he wasn’t used to girls. But this one had come very close to his heart, and he was most anxious to help her.

“But say!” he exclaimed eagerly. “You’re looking better already, aren’t you? I certainly am glad. You had me scared for a few minutes last night. I thought you had passed out!”

The girl managed a wan smile.

“It was very good of you to care for me,” she said. “I’m sorry I had to make so much trouble for everybody. You see, I hadn’t been eating much yesterday. I was worried, and I just sat down there a little while to rest. I had no idea I would collapse like that. I suppose I’m rather run down. I’ve been working hard—”

“Yes,” said Greg sympathetically, “I can see you would. And it’s perhaps a good thing you did collapse just when you did. I’m certainly glad I was on hand to see you fall. You see, you had picked out a place to sit where you were not very visible from the road, and if I hadn’t happened to be up in my room looking out the window, I wouldn’t have seen you either. It was getting dusk, too, and nobody might have found you until it was too late. Not so many people walk through that park. I’m just glad I had the chance to help in time. Say, I certainly am glad you’re looking so much better.”

He was rattling on like an eager boy, just because he didn’t know what was the right thing to say. He was not a young man inclined to many words.

“But say,” he suddenly caught himself and looked at the nurse, “am I talking too much? Are you sure I don’t tire you, Miss McLaren? I wouldn’t want you to have a setback from my coming in.”

“Oh no,” said the invalid quickly, “I’m glad you came. Perhaps you can fix things up for me right away so I can leave. Since you brought me here, you ought to know how to cut some of the red tape that seems to hinder my leaving.”

“Why sure!” he said reassuringly. “I’ll see what can be done, but I don’t believe anybody will be willing you should leave right away. You see, you really need a few days’ rest after such an experience. You don’t want to go until you are strong enough, you know.”

“But I must!” said the girl firmly. “It’s absolutely imperative that I go out and see about a job at once. I was to have met a man early this morning, and it is really necessary that I keep my appointment.

“Well,” said Greg thoughtfully, “how would it be if I go and explain to him that you were taken ill?”

“No!” said the girl quickly. “He doesn’t know me. He would simply take somebody else. And I
must
get this position!”

“But my dear friend,” said Greg earnestly, “don’t you know that it is Saturday afternoon?” He glanced at his watch. “By the time you could get there, almost any office would be likely to be closed, if it didn’t close at noon. You can just as well lie here and rest till Monday at the earliest and get strength to carry you on through the week. You know you wouldn’t be in very good shape just now to take any job, not till you get a little stronger.

“Oh, but I
must
!” said the girl with a gray look of determination in her face. “I’ve got to get some position at once! There will be
some
places open yet.”

Her voice trailed off into a desperate little wail, and his heart ached for her.