The Making of Mary
J >> Jean Forsyth >> The Making of MaryThere was the German fiddler in the next bed to mine, who could not keep
his eyes off Mary whenever she came into the ward, and once when Nurse
Dean was off duty, and she brought out her silver-plated cornet to
"toot" a little for him, he declared it was the most ravishing music he
had ever heard in his life!
I strongly suspected that the limp young artisan on the other side of me
was perfectly well enough to be discharged, but he could not brace
himself up to part from Mary. Then there was a young doctor whose face I
dimly recognized, but it tired my poor head too much to try to think who
he was. He and Mary had many a talk at my bedside about their own
affairs. One evening I heard the unmistakable sound of a banjo, and
managed to twist myself round far enough to see that this same doctor
was playing an accompaniment to Mary's very fair imitation of a skirt
dance out in the passage.
The sight revived me so much that I laughed aloud, and Mary came hastily
forward, blushing, with finger on her lip. The pink and white uniform
did indeed become her wonderfully well, and I was not surprised to
notice hearty admiration in the sleepy blue eyes of the young house
surgeon. Where had I seen that "Burne Jones' head" before?
"You don't seem to remember me, Mr. Gemmell," said the owner of it,
holding out his hand. "My name's Flaker. I was at Interlaken summer
before last."
"You're a full-fledged M. D. now?"
"Oh, yes, but I'm taking a year's practice in here, before I set up for
myself."
Shades of the hotel matrons! They would probably say, if they heard
this, that Mary had been sent here on purpose to catch him.
Poor Mary! She had her own row to hoe. She came to me in tears one
evening because Nurse Dean had been after her that whole day about one
thing or another.
"I am never particular 'nough to please her. If it wasn't for Dr. Flaker
I wouldn't stay here another day."
"You like him pretty well, eh?"
"Well enough, an' he's all broke up on me; says he was at Interlaken
too, on'y he couldn't say anythin', 'cause he wasn't of age. His folks
are awful high-toned."
"They'll have their discipline," thought I.
"By the way, Mary, how long is it since I was brought here?"
"Two weeks to-day."
I sprang almost out of bed in my surprise. "Why didn't you tell me? Has
no word been sent to Lake City?"
"None since that first telegram. I don't write very often now to your
wife, but when I did, I never said nothin' 'tall about your bein' here,
'cause you told me not to."
"And haven't you had an answer?"
"There's a letter lyin' there from Mis' Gemmell to you. I don't know how
she could have found out your address. Nurse Dean said I wasn't to give
it to you if you was a bit feverish."
"Fetch it this minute, Mary, or I'll get up and walk the floor," and the
girl brought me this remarkable document. It had neither beginning nor
end, but rushed to the point at once.
"I know all! You have laughed at my occult tendencies, sneered at my
Theosophy, but I can now, alas! give you convincing proof of the
penetrative power of the one, the sustaining power of the other. I
became so nervous at your continued silence and absence that I did what
I had promised you not to do--went out in my astral to hunt for you--and
I found you! Would to God I had never tried! It is not my health that
is ruined, but my heart and my happiness. To make assurance doubly sure,
I psychometrized the only letter I have received from Mary in weeks. She
was cunning enough not to mention your name, but the unspoken testimony
was the same. To think that you of all men--but I do not blame you! I
have gone down to the _Echo_ office, my heart bursting with despair, and
have told lies to account for your absence, to keep things moving until
you see fit to send your own explanation. I have thrown dust too in the
eyes of the family, till you tell me your will concerning them. No, I
dare not blame you! Did not I myself thrust the girl into your life--and
the best of us are but human. It is Karma! I have deserved this blow for
some previous sin of my own, and I bow my head to the stroke. Your own
harvest will be just as certain, however long delayed. O David, David!
I can look back now and see the very beginning of your interest in
Mary--but that it should end in this--that you should fly from me to
her----'"
Having read so far, I burst into hysterical laughter, and it took Mary
and her lover and Nurse Dean, and how many more I know not, to hold me
in bed. Of course I had a relapse, and my life was despaired of, but I
would not, in my sensible moments, allow Mary to write to, or send for
Isabel. I pictured the streets still full of rioting strikers, and the
mails and trains still disorganized. In waking and in delirium alike,
"Keep her out of harm's way!" I cried, "I'll go home to-morrow, sure,"
but it was a long to-morrow that saw me on the boat bound for Lake City.
Mary wanted to accompany me, for I was still very weak, and had to walk
with a stick on account of my knee, but I said brusquely, "You stay
where you are, and keep an eye on Dr. Flaker, or you'll maybe get left
again."
"No fear of that!" she said, holding up her left hand to show me a broad
gold band with five diamonds in it, adorning her third finger.
"We'll be married as soon as his year is out, for he has plenty of
money."
The stones in her ring caught the evening sunlight as she stood on the
wharf waving her handkerchief to me, while the boat moved slowly out,
and I lay in a steamer chair on the hurricane deck, prepared to enjoy a
smoke and a gossip with my old friend, the captain.
I wished her well with all my heart, but I sincerely hoped that I had
seen the last of Mary.
Judging the family to be at Interlaken as usual, I took the first train
down there, and toiled in the sun from the depot up to the cottages, by
way of the hill, which I had never considered steep before, to find my
own house deserted, windows and doors boarded up, veranda unswept,
hammocks removed. I would not give any of the neighbors the satisfaction
of knowing I was surprised and disappointed, so I kept out of sight till
they had all been to the hotel for dinner and dispersed. Then I went in
for mine, and after it returned to the beach near the station, lay down
on the sand, and waited for the next train.
There was not one back to town until late in the afternoon, and the
evening being cloudy, it was quite dark by the time I left the electric
car at the corner of our street. Even that little bit of a walk
exhausted me, and I had to rest on my stick every few minutes, but what
a relief it was to see, gleaming cheerfully as ever, the windows of the
House of the Seven Gables.
I leaned against our iron railing for a minute or two to collect myself
before making my appearance, and highly necessary was it for me to do
so, because the attitude of the two ladies upon the veranda struck me
dumb with amazement, and their conversation completely floored me. That
sandy-haired little woman in the low rocker must be my mother, but could
that regal figure on the edge of the veranda, with her head in my
mother's lap, possibly be my wife? The light from the nursery window
showed them to me distinctly, but I kept back in the shadow and listened
to the voices.
"My puir lamb! Ye've grat eneugh! Gang awa' tae yer bed; ye're sair
forfoughten."
As she stroked the wavy gray hair of the head on her knee, her tone
changed.
"I canna thole to think 'at son o' mine has brocht a' this trouble upon
ye."
"Not a word against him, mother! He's the best man that ever lived, and
I didn't appreciate him, that's all. I can never think of him but as my
dear, old, solid, yours-to-count-on Dave Gemmell. He was the silent
partner, unpopular, getting no praise, paying all bills, backing me up
in every fad, whether his judgment approved or not. He was just the
square foundation I could lean away out on--could dance jigs on if I
wanted to. Now that he is dead--or dead to me--I can only hope that he
is happy. Oh! if I had but listened to you, mother, had never brought
that girl into the house. My own vineyard have I not kept."
"Let by-ganes be by-ganes--but I wad jest like to hae Davvit by the
lug."
"Lug along, mother! Here I am!" I managed to shout, and then I hung
over that fence and laughed till my specs dropped off in the grass, and
my stick fell away from me. I could not move without it, so I had to
wait till the two women took pity on me and released me from my
impalement.
Between them they got me into the house and on to my old sofa, and
listened to what I had to say.
"I was share there must be some mistak'," said my mother, her
self-respect restored, but, when I saw how affectionately her hand
rested on the bowed head of her weeping daughter-in-law, I did not
regret the bullet in my knee.
"We'll put it all down to your Theosophy, Belle--a collection of
half-truths, more dangerous than lies, when you shove them too far."
"Don't let us talk about that now, David. It breaks my heart to see you
so thin. Your clothes are just hanging on you. Oh! if I had only known
the true state of the case and been there to nurse you!"
"Mary has been very good to me, I assure you."
"I don't want to think about that girl any more. I'm glad she's all
right, but I hope never to lay eyes on her again."
"Oh, yes, she's all right, and when she marries Dr. Flaker she won't
want to '_pa_pa' and '_mam_ma' us, though she may condescend to
patronize us a little."
"I'll be gled o' the day she draps the name o' Gemmell!"
* * * * *
My wife is still a theosophist. If it pleases her to think that she has
ascertained the nature and method of existence, I have nothing to say.
Sometimes I even look with envy upon her cheerful attitude toward the
approach of old age, her conviction that we are to have another
chance--many more chances--to do and to be that which we have failed in
doing and being, _this time_.
To judge of a tree by its fruits, there is, of course, no doubt that
Isabel, because of, or in spite of her Theosophy, has been
THE MAKING OF MARY.
EPILOGUE.
NURSE DEAN walked through the Pest House, adjoining the great hospital,
with the independent mien of the woman who is confident that her skirt
clears the ground. Her keen, light-colored eyes took in at a glance the
condition of every patient, the occupation of every nurse.
There had been a smallpox epidemic in Chicago, and three of the nurses
in ---- Hospital had taken the disease, two of them lightly, one very
heavily; but all were now convalescent. The two had gone home to their
friends to recruit, but the third lay in an invalid chair in a darkened
room, looking as if the desire of life had left her. Nurse Dean came in
with a cheery smile, put on just outside the door, and proceeded to
bathe the girl's eyes with warm water.
"When are you coming out to help me, Mary? I'm sure the light wouldn't
hurt you now. I'm having too much night work, those other nurses being
gone. I thought you might begin to ease me a little with the smallpox
patients through the day."
"I don't know as I care to go on with the business," replied Mary,
sometime called Mason.
"Nonsense! You're low-spirited just now because you're not quite better,
but wait till you're on your feet and going around the wards again.
There's nothing like work of this sort to make a person forget
herself."
Nurse Dean's strong but gentle hands began to rub with oil the patient's
neck and shoulders.
"I wish I could forget myself and everybody else too. I wish I had died
of the smallpox. There aint anybody that cares whether I live or die."
"Hush! Mary, you forget Dr. Flaker."
"Aint it just him I'm thinkin' about? He came in to see me to-day for
the first time. He hates smallpox, and he smelt so of iodoform he nearly
made me sick. About all he had to say was that it was very foolish of me
to meddle with the clothes of them patients, and he could hardly believe
I was so crazy's not to be vaccinated when the other nurses were. Just
as if it wasn't him that admired my lovely arms. Look at them now!"
"They won't be so bad when all these scales are off. There! Doesn't
that feel better?"
"It feels all right enough, but you know I'll be a sight to be seen the
rest of my days. I was glad the room was dark, so's Flaker couldn't get
a good look at me. He'll know soon enough--and hate the sight of me. He
was always so proud of my 'pearance."
"But I'm sure he likes you for something else too, Mary."
"I don't care whether he does or not, he's got to marry me just the
same. I aint goin' to be left again," and the girl tried to make a
blazing diamond ring keep in place upon her thin finger.
"You love him very much?"
"Don't know as I do--no more than lots of other fellows; but I won't
have any more chances now. I didn't ask to be born into this world, and
somebody in it owes me a living."
"See here, Mary!" said the nurse, in a suddenly energetic tone that
made the girl look up at her with startled eyes. "You know, as well as I
do, that you can't make that man marry you. Why not give him back his
ring of your own free will?"
"Why should I? You think I aint in love?"
"Love? You don't know what the word means in any but its very lowest
sense. Suppose you stop loving men, and take to loving women and
children; you'll find them much more grateful, I can tell you."
Mary closed her eyes, but there were no eyelashes to keep the tears from
trickling out upon the scarred face.
"My dear child!" said Nurse Dean, in a voice hardly recognizable, it was
so sympathetic, "you've been fighting for yourself ever since you can
remember, and you haven't made much of it, have you?"
The girl's lips shaped an inaudible "No."
"Wouldn't it be a good idea, then, to try a little fighting for other
people?"
"I haven't any folks."
"Your 'folks' are whoever you can help in any way. What have you done
yet to deserve a foothold on this earth? Instead of seeing how much you
can get out of everybody, turn round and see how much you can do for
them."
* * * * *
There was a long silence. When Nurse Dean thought her charge was falling
asleep, she placed a shawl carefully over her, but Mary, without opening
her eyes, drew something from her left hand to her right.
"You can give him back his ring," she said.
Nurse Dean closed the door softly behind her, and then paused for a
moment to wipe an impertinent tear from her cold gray eye.
"I shouldn't be at all surprised if the smallpox were just The Making of
Mary."
THE END.
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Transcriber's Note
Two minor changes were made during the transcription of this book:
* "the malone" was changed to "them alone"
* two instances of "Gemmel" were changed to "Gemmell"