"Why, how can she know, my dear?" says the old lady. "Only he a.s.sures her that it will be all right once they"re married, and begs her so not to put it off, that she won"t, though I don"t entirely approve, myself.
Really, you"d scarcely know Louis, Miss Jessop."
It did seem too bad, but then, those things will happen, and I just thought to myself that probably there was more to that southern trip than the old lady knew, and let it go at that. The doctor says that all the nurses have dime-novel imaginations--but where do we get them, I"d like to know, if not from what we see and hear? The Lord knows we don"t have to invent things.
Miss Elton was dreadfully disappointed that I couldn"t be there for the wedding, and promised me they"d stop a minute at the hotel on their wedding journey and see me. They were going on a motor trip, n.o.body knew just where, and Lakewood would only be a few miles out of their way. Wasn"t that nice of them? But it was just like both of them. So I was quite excited, of course, and when it poured rain all day, and got worse and worse, I did feel so sorry for them and never expected they"d leave town. But, lo and behold, about five o"clock didn"t the boy bring up their cards, and for a wonder my patient was decent and said she wouldn"t want me till next morning--she had her own maid with her and really didn"t need me but once a day.
I ran down to one of the little reception rooms--I must say I like those big hotels--and when I saw them I nearly collapsed, for though she was looking perfectly beautiful and well as could be, poor Mr.
Ferrau certainly did give me a shock. He was all tanned, well enough, but as thin as a rail, and dreadful around the eyes. And yet he looked very happy and seemed quite glad to see me.
"Isn"t she looking magnificent?" he asked me, and I said--I just have to say right out what I think--"Yes, she is, but I can"t say the same for you."
"Oh, I shall be all right--after a bit," he said, turning red and not meeting my eyes. "Just let me get away with Anne for a while, and you"ll see."
They insisted on my having tea with them, and I couldn"t help but think that she didn"t realise how bad he looked and acted: his hand shook so that his tea-spoon jingled. And yet he was as straight as a string, I was sure.
It kept on pouring so dreadfully that they gave up the idea of going on anywhere, and he engaged a suite at the hotel for that night, and I said good-bye to them, then, for they were to have their dinner served by themselves and I knew they"d want to get off quietly in the morning.
My patient kept her word and didn"t bother me, and I listened to the music for a while and then went up to my room and wrote some letters.
About ten I put my boots outside the door and happened to notice the boots opposite and saw that they were Mr. Ferrau"s--they were patent leather, with rather queer cloth tops. So I knew that they had the suite opposite ours; there were only those two for the one little hall.
I couldn"t seem to sleep that night at all. I kept dreaming about that suicide of mine, even when I did sleep, and finally I put on my wrapper and decided to take a few turns up and down the corridor. I opened the door softly and stepped out--and ran right into Mr. Ferrau! He was stalking along in a bathrobe, his arms spread out, and tears rolling down his cheeks, and he was chattering to himself like a monkey. His eyes rolled, and I could see he was just on the verge of a regular smash-up.
"Why, Mr. Ferrau, what"s the matter?" I asked.
He stared at me like a crazy man. "You here!" he said. "For G.o.d"s sake! Go up to her--go to Anne--I"m all in," he said. "Oh, Miss Jessop, it didn"t work! It didn"t work!"
He pointed to his door, and I went through the private dining-room and the sitting-room and a dressing-room and a big marble bath, and there she was, crying like a baby in one of the beds.
"Why, Miss Elton--I beg your pardon, Mrs. Ferrau--what _is_ the matter?" I said, running up to her and taking hold of her hand. "Are you ill?"
She only sobbed and held on to me and suddenly something struck me and I said, "You haven"t seen Janet again, have you?"
"No, no--but I wish I had! I wish I"d never stopped!" she gulped at me. "Oh, Miss Jessop, _Louis sees her_! He sees her all the time; that"s what makes him look so ill! Ever since she stopped coming to me, he"s seen her, and he never told."
"For heaven"s sake!" said I.
"She sits on the bed, but she doesn"t look at him--he only sees her profile. He walked twenty miles a day--he did boxing and fencing and riding--it was no use--he thought when we--when--he hoped if we were married--oh, Miss Jessop, she came just the same!"
"For heaven"s sake!" I said again. It wasn"t very helpful, but I simply couldn"t think of anything else. She was so pretty and sweet, and he was so plucky, and who would have supposed it would have got on his nerves so!
Her night gown was solid real lace, and the front of it was sopping wet where she"d cried, and the top of the sheet, too.
"I gave her to him, and he won"t give her back--I can"t make him!" she went on, gasping and sobbing. "I begged him on my knees, but he wouldn"t."
"And don"t you see her?" I asked.
"No, no, I can"t!" she cried. "I try, but I can"t."
"Well, that"s something, anyway," I said. "You wait till I go and speak to him again, and put some cold water on your eyes, why don"t you?"
For it just occurred to me that maybe I could do something with him, after all. He was leaning against the window at the end of the corridor, and I never like to see excited people near windows, after my suicide woman, so I sprinted along till I got to him. But I really don"t believe there was any need for it--he wasn"t that kind.
"See here, Mr. Ferrau," I said, "do you really believe that Miss Elton--I beg your pardon, Mrs. Ferrau--really gave that old Janet ghost to you?"
"Believe it? _believe it_?" he said, staring at me out of his red eyes.
"No, I don"t believe it, Miss Jessop--I know it! I tell you I see the d.a.m.ned thing, in a brown dress, on the edge of my bed every night!"
"Well, then," I said, "do you think you could give it to anybody else?"
And just at that moment, and not before, I remembered old Margaret!
"Why--why, I never thought of that," he said. "I--I wouldn"t put any one else through such a h.e.l.l, though----"
"Oh, come, now," I said. "Maybe they wouldn"t think it was so bad as you do, Mr. Ferrau."
"But who would--oh, it"s too crazy!" he said, half angry, but all broken up, so he didn"t much care how it sounded.
"Oh, lots of people," I told him. "Why, you might easily find some one with an incurable disease, you know, that hadn"t long to live and wanted money----"
Of course, this was all nonsense, but anything to humour people in his condition--it"s the only way. And what do you think? He turned around like a shot and stared at me as if I"d been a ghost, myself.
"That might be possible," he said, very slowly; "it"s just possible I know ... excuse me, I"ll go in and speak to my wife a moment!"
He left me there and in a few minutes he came for me again, and I went into their parlour. She had on a beautiful pale rose negligee all covered with lace and her braids were wound around her head: she"d wiped her eyes.
"Would you perhaps play a little bridge with us, Miss Jessop?" says he, trying to keep calm. "We think we"d better have some one with us."
So there we sat till four in the morning, playing three-handed bridge, and if anybody knows of a funnier wedding-night, I"d like to hear of it!
I suppose anybody would have thought us all crazy if they could have seen us, the next night, sitting, all three of us, by the bed of that queer old man that lived in old Greenwich Village. (My patient let me off, for I told her it was a case of a young bride and groom, and she was delighted to oblige the Eltons. She told me she should call on them after that! She was a climber, if there ever was one, that woman.)
He was an old valet of Mr. Ferrau"s father, and Mr. Ferrau was supporting him till he died in a little cottage there. He had angina and was likely to go off any minute, and the Lord knows what Master Louis paid the old monkey--I"ll bet it was no thirty cents! He only talked French, but I could see he thought Mr. Ferrau was crazy--he looked at me so queerly out of his little wrinkled eyes and nodded his head as if to say, "What a pity all this is! But we must humour him."
Mrs. Ferrau told me afterward that her husband promised him solemnly to take Janet back if he couldn"t stand her--and he would have, too, and don"t forget it! He was a game one. But the old fellow just kept saying:
"_Bon, m"sieu, bon, bon!_" and kept reaching for his envelope. He was only afraid they"d change their mind, you see.
Then Mr. Ferrau lay down on a cot next the old fellow"s--he was kept very clean and neat by the woman that boarded him--and I stayed in the room while Master Louis gave that darned old Janet away. He insisted that I should witness it, and to tell you the truth, when I remembered what black Margaret had said about having a witness, I _did_ feel rather queer, for a moment. But of course they were all crazy--as crazy as loons--so far as that one thing went. You see, it was what Dr. Stanchon calls an _idee fixe_. They had to be humoured.
Mrs. Ferrau and I went out, then, and walked up and down for an hour through the village with the chauffeur behind us, a little way, and I really thought I"d be dippy myself, before long, if I had to pretend to be serious about it much longer. It"s no wonder to me the doctors in asylums get touched themselves, after what I went through with those two.
In just about an hour he came dashing out and pushed us into the car.
We didn"t need to ask him--he looked ashamed, but oh, so different!
"Let"s get back to town," was all he said, and I never mentioned it to him again, any of it. Of course, a sensible fellow like him _would_ feel too ridiculous; knowing he had that silly idea in his head, yet not being able to get over it without such childishness--I felt sorry for him.
I know that they didn"t go back to Lakewood, for her maid packed up there, and a week after that the old lady wrote me from Long Island that they"d gone for a honeymoon tour in the car through Southern France, so I knew that father-in-law"s valet hadn"t gone back on his bargain. I never knew what that old monkey made on it, but Mrs. Ferrau told me he was going to leave it to the Catholic church in Normandy, where he was born. I hope it did some good.
I went up to Greenwich that summer with a little boy who had tuberculosis of the spine (the sweetest little fellow, and so clever!) and on one of my afternoons out with him I stopped at the old cottage where the valet lived, just to ask after him. The woman there told me he had pa.s.sed away about ten days after I was there before.