"But, heavens and earth, what good will I be?" I said. "Am I a ghost-catcher? I never knew it."
"No," says he, "but I"m sorry for the ghost that would run up against you, Jessop--honestly, I am!"
"Much obliged, I"m sure," I said, "but why doesn"t she take her sleep in the daytime? That would fool the ghost from her point of view--wouldn"t it?"
I"ll never forget the look he gave me. "Listen to me, my girl," he said, running out his jaw in the way he does when he"s in dead earnest and means you to know it, "listen to me, now. If that young woman ever takes to living by night and sleeping by day, on that account, _she"s a gone goose_!"
"What do you mean?" said I.
"I mean it"s all up with her, and she might as well engage a permanent suite in Jarvyse"s little hotel up the river," he says, very sharp and gruff. "I"ve staved that off for a month now, but they can"t see it and they"re bound to try it: Jarvyse himself half advises it. And I"ll risk my entire reputation on the result. If she can"t fight it out--she"s gone."
He waited a moment and put out his jaw.
"_She"s gone,_" he said again, and I felt creepy when he said it, and I tell you I believed him.
"Well, I"ll try my best," I said, and I went on the case the next morning.
As soon as I saw her I got the idea of her I"ve always had since: that"s me, all over. I went to a palmist"s once with a lot of the other nurses and that"s the first thing he said to me.
"It"s first impressions with you, young woman," he said. "Take care to trust "em and act on "em, and you"ll never need to count on the old ladies" home!"
Well, as soon as I saw Miss Elton she put me in mind of one of Mr.
C----r"s heroines, looks and clothes and ways, and all, and I"ve never changed my mind. Her things were all plain, but they had the loveliest lines, and she always looked as if she"d been born in them, they suited her so! Her hair was that heavy, smooth blond kind that makes a Marcel wave look too vulgar to think about, and her eyes and complexion went with it. And with all her education she was as simple as a child: there were any number of things she didn"t seem to know. She took to me directly, her mother said, and I could see she liked me, though she hardly spoke. She had big rings under her eyes and seemed very tired.
She got a nap after lunch--only two hours, by the doctor"s orders--and it did seem a shame to wake her, she was off so sound, but of course I did, and then we walked for an hour in the park. I didn"t talk much at first, but I saw that she liked it, and so gradually we got on to different subjects, and I think she was entertained. She seemed interested to hear about the nurses at the hospital and some of the funny things that happen there, and I could see that she was trying to keep her end up--oh, she was all right, Anne Elton was, and no mistake!
There was nothing morbid about her: she was trying to help all she could.
When I came down for dinner there was a young man with them, a handsome, dark fellow, and he talked a great deal with me--I could see he was trying to size me up, and it was easy to see that he was pretty far gone as far as Miss Elton was concerned, and didn"t care who knew it. We must have seemed a strange party to any one who didn"t know the ins and outs of the thing--only the five of us in that big dining-room with the conservatory opening into it; the mother, one of those stringy, grey New York women, that always wear diamond dog-collars, worried to death and nervous as a witch; Mr. Elton--he was Commodore of the New York Yacht Club at that time--fat and healthy and reddish-purple in the face; young Mr. Ferrau (he was from an old French family and looked it, though a born New Yorker) and me in my white uniform and cap next to Miss Elton, all in white with a big rope of pearls and pearls on her fingers. She could wear a lower cut gown and look more decent in it than any woman I ever saw. All her evening dresses were like that, perfectly plain, just draped around her, with long trains and no tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs: her skin was like cream-coloured marble, not a mark or line or vein on it, but just one brown mole on the right shoulder blade, and that, as her mother said, was really an addition.
n.o.body talked much but Mr. Ferrau and the old gentleman--there"s no doubt he had been a gay old boy in his day!--for I never do talk when I dine with the family, and the mother was too nervous for anything but complaining of the food. The Lord knows why, for it beat any French restaurant I ever ate in, or Delmonico"s either, and Mr. Ferrau and I got quite jolly over how they put soft-boiled eggs into those round, _soufflee_ sort of things with tomato sauce over them, without spilling the yolks. Then they asked if I"d play bridge a bit, and though I don"t care for games much, I learned to play pretty well with my morphine-fiend and his mother, so of course I did, and the old gentleman and I played the young couple, and Madam Elton crocheted, sitting up straight as a poker on a gold sofa.
It always makes me laugh when I read what some persons" ideas are of how rich people amuse themselves. The nurses are always jollying me about my rich friends and playing the races and champagne suppers and high-flying generally, and I often wish they could have seen us those evenings at the Eltons, playing bridge--no money, mind you, and Apollinaris at ten! The Commodore had to have ginger-ale, the ladies hardly ever drank, and I never take anything but water when I"m on a case, so Mr. Ferrau had all the champagne there was at that dinner. At ten the ma.s.seuse came and rubbed Miss Elton to sleep, and I got into my bed next hers before she went off, not to risk disturbing her. There was a night lamp in her bath and I could just make out her long braid on the pillow--the pillow cases had real lace insertions and the monograms on the sheets were the most beautiful I ever saw.
I went off myself about eleven, for I was determined to act perfectly natural: I knew I"d wake if anything was wrong. And sure enough: all of a sudden I began to dream, a thing I seldom if ever do, and I dreamed that my suicidal case was clambering over me to jump out of the window, and woke with a start.
Miss Elton was sitting up in bed staring at me, breathing short.
"Can I do anything for you?" I asked quietly and she gave a sort of gasp and said,
"No--I think not, thank you. I"m sorry to bother you, but the doctor told me to."
"Why, of course," said I, "that"s what I"m here for. Do you see anybody?"
I didn"t say, "Do you think you see anybody?" for I never put things that way.
"Yes," she said, "she"s there--Janet." I glanced about, and of course there was no one, and I tell you, I felt awfully sorry for her. It was all the worse that she was so pretty and calm and decent about it: I didn"t like that a bit.
"Where is she?" said I.
"Right on the foot of the bed," she answered, in that grim, edgy kind of way they always talk when they"re holding on to themselves. Oh, how that morphine boy of mine used to begin!
"Excuse me, Miss Jessop, but would you mind a.s.suring me that there"s n.o.body crouching under the bed?" he used to say. "Of course I know there"s not, but there appears to be, and I"d be obliged if you"d look!"
If I went under that bed once, I went fifty times.
"Why, to tell you the truth, Miss Elton, I don"t see a thing," I said.
"Shall I turn on the light?"
"No--not yet," she said. "The doctor said to hold out as long as I could. Would you mind putting your hand there?"
"Not a bit," said I, and I pawed all over the foot of her bed. Finally I got up and sat there.
"What happens now?" I asked her.
"She just moves up and sits farther out," said she.
I couldn"t think of much to say to that, she was so quiet and hopeless, so I waited awhile and finally I said,
"Would it help you any to talk about it?"
"Oh, if you didn"t _mind_!" she cried out, and then the poor thing began. It makes me tired, the way people treat a patient like that.
There was that girl just bottled up, you might as well say, because they all thought it would make her worse to talk about it. Her father pooh-poohed it, and her mother cried and asked her to send for their rector, and even Dr. Stanchon slipped up there, it seemed to me, for he advised her not to dwell on it. Not dwell on it! Why, how could she help it, I"d like to know?
"What I can"t understand," she"d say, over and over, "is her coming, when it hurts me so. Why, Janet loved me, Miss Jessop, she loved the ground I walked on, everybody said! And she knows--she must know--that I wouldn"t have hurt her for the world. Why should I? She took care of me since I was six years old--sixteen years! She said to put in those powders in the box and I put them in. How could I know?"
"Of course you couldn"t know," I said, "she knows that."
"Then why does she do this?" she asked me, so pitifully, just like a child. "Why does she, Miss Jessop?"
"Well, you know, Miss Elton," I said, "you wouldn"t believe me if I lied to you, now, would you? And so I must tell you that I don"t think she _does_ do it: none of us do. It"s just your idea. If Janet"s there, why don"t I see her? You"re overstrained and excited and you feel that she might not have died----"
"Ah, but I didn"t feel that the night she came!" she broke out, "truly I didn"t. Dr. Stanchon and all of them said I was very brave and sensible. He talked to me and made me see: if Janet had been sleeping with one of the maids and waked her up and told her not to turn on the light because it hurt her head, but just to give her the powders in the box, that maid would have done it. I can see that."
"Of course," said I.
"I didn"t blame myself--really," she went on, and suddenly she looked straight to the foot of the bed.
"Janet," she said, "the doctor said never to speak to you, and I never will again, but I must, this once. Janet, _do_ you blame me? Are you really there? Why do you come this way? You"re killing me, you know.
I can"t sleep. You shouldn"t have taken that strong medicine, and the doctor told you not to, you know, yourself. Won"t you go, Janet? Not to please Nannie?"
Really, it would have melted a stone to hear her.
She was still a moment and then she began to cry and whimper, and I knew that it had made no difference.
"She won"t go--she won"t go," she said, crying, "not even for Nannie!"
Well, I talked to her and read to her and stroked her head, and by two o"clock or so she was off for an hour, and I got a nap myself. But from three till nearly five she was awake again, and I had to light up the room; she said she hardly saw her then--only felt her, and that wasn"t so bad.
I don"t know that anything different took place for a week after that.