He wished that Bronson would come back--good old Bronson, to pull up the rug. He wished that Derry might come.
A door below opened and shut. Some one was ascending the stairs. Some one who walked with a light step--some one slim and youthful, in a white gown--!
"Edith--?"
But Edith"s hair had not been crinkled and copper-colored, and Edith would have come straight up to him; she would not have hesitated on the top step as if afraid to advance.
"Who are you?"
"Jean--"
"Jean?"
"Derry"s wife."
"Come here." He tried to reach out his hand to her, but could not.
His tongue felt thick--.
She knelt beside his chair. Her head was bare. She wore no wrap. "We were married this morning. And my own father has gone--to France--and I wanted a father--"
"Did Derry tell you to come?"
"Bronson begged me. He was at the wedding--"
"Old Bronson?" He tried to smile, but the smile was twisted.
She was looking up at him fearfully, but her voice did not falter. "I came to tell you that Derry loves you. He doesn"t want your money, oh, you know that he doesn"t want it. But he is going away to the--war, and he may be killed, so many men are--killed. And he--loves you--"
"Where is he?"
"I wouldn"t let him come. You see, you said things which were hard for him to forgive. I was afraid you might say such things again."
He knew that he would never say them. "Tell him that--I love him." He tried to sit up. "Tell him that he is--my son."
He fell back. He heard her quick cry, "Bronson--"
Bronson came running up the stairs, and the nurse who had watched the scene dazedly from the threshold of the General"s room ran, too.
Weighted down by a sense of increasing numbness he lifted his agonized eyes to Jean. "Stay with me--stay--"
Hilda, waked by the day nurse, raged. "You should have called me at once when he left his room. Why didn"t you call me?"
"Because I felt myself competent to manage the case."
"You see how you have managed it--I will be down in a minute. Get everybody out--"
Her composed manner when she came down showed nothing of that which was seething within her.
She found Jean in bridal-white sitting by the bed and holding the General"s hand. The doctor had been sent for, Derry had been sent for--things were being swept out of her hands. She blamed it, still hiding her anger under a quiet manner, on Jean.
"He has had a stroke. It was probably the excitement of your coming."
The day nurse intervened. "It was before she came, Miss Merritt, that I saw him reach for the rug. I was puzzled and started to investigate, and then I saw her on the stairs--" She smiled at Jean. Never in her limited young life had the day nurse seen such a lovely bride, and she did not in the least like Miss Merritt.
Derry coming a little later held Jean"s hand in his while he faced Hilda. "What does the doctor say?"
The truth came reluctantly. "He may be unconscious for days. He may never wake up--"
"I do not think we shall need your services--. I will send you a check for any amount you may name."
"But--"
"Whatever claim you may have upon him will be settled when he is in a condition to settle anything; until then, my wife and I shall stay--"
Hilda went upstairs and packed her bag. So her house of dreams tumbled about her. So she left behind her the tiara and the pearl collar with the diamond slides, and the velvet cloak with the ermine collar. Poor Hilda, with her head held high, going out of the shadowed house.
And taking Hilda"s place, oh, more than taking her place, was Jean--and this was her wedding day. The little rose-colored drawing room had needed all of its rose to counteract the gray of the world outside, with the snow and Daddy"s car standing ready to take him to the station.
But always there had been the thought of Derry to uphold her, and the wonder of their love. Nothing could rob her of that.
He had held her in his arms the night before, and had said, "Tomorrow we shall be in Woodstock, and shall listen to the chimes--"
And now it was tomorrow, and they were here in this great grim house with Death at the door.
Quite miraculously Emily arrived, and she and Bronson made a boudoir of Derry"s sitting-room. They filled it with flowers, as was fitting for a bridal-bower. Jean"s little trunk had been sent on to Woodstock, but there was her bag, and a supply of things which Emily brought from home.
A new night nurse came, and Miss Martin was retained for the day. The snow still fell, and the old man in the lacquered bed was still unconscious, his stertorous breathing sounding through the house.
And it was her wedding day!
They dined in the great room where Derry"s ancestors gazed down on them. Emily was there, and it was a bridal feast, with things ordered hurriedly. Bronson, too, had seen to that. But they ate little.
Emily talked and Derry ably supplemented her efforts.
But Jean was silent. It was all so different from what one might expect--! She still wore her white dress. It was a rather superlative frock with much cobwebby lace that had been her mother"s, and in the place of her own small string of pearls was the longer string which had been her father"s last gift to her. She had worn no veil, her crinkled copper hair in all its beauty had been uncovered.
"I can"t believe that the lovely, lovely lady at the other end of the table is my wife," Derry told Miss Emily.
Jean smiled at him. She felt as if she were smiling from a great distance--and she had to look at him over a perfect thicket of orchids.
"Shall I always have to sit so far away from you, Derry?" she asked in a very small voice.
"My dearest, no--" and he came and stood behind her, and reached for her little coffee cup and drank where her lips had touched, shamelessly, before the eyes of the sympathetic and romantic Miss Emily.
And now Emily had gone! And at last Jean and Derry were alone in the bridal bower, and Jean was telling Derry again what his father had said. "He begged me to stay--"
Their eyes met. "Dearest, dearest," Derry said, "what is life doing to me?"
"It has given you me, Derry"--such a little, little whisper.
"My beloved--yes."