Still drowsily, still hazily, with little smacking gasps and gulping swallows, the child worried her way back again into consciousness.
"All the birds _were_ there, Father," she droned forth feebly from her sweltering mink-fur nest.
All the birds _were_ there With yellow feathers instead of--hair, And b.u.mble bees--and b.u.mble bees-- And b.u.mble bees?--And b.u.mble bees--?
Frenziedly she began to burrow the back of her head into her Father"s shoulder. "And b.u.mble bees?--And b.u.mble bees--?"
"Oh, for Heaven"s sake--"buzzed" in the trees!" interpolated the Senior Surgeon.
Rigidly from head to foot the little body in his arms stiffened suddenly. As one who saw the supreme achievement of a life-time swept away by some one careless joggle of an infinitesimal part, the Little Girl stared up agonizingly into her father"s face. "Oh, I don"t think--"buzzed" was the word!" she began convulsively. "Oh, I don"t think--!"
Startlingly through the twilight the Senior Surgeon felt the White Linen Nurse"s rose-red lips come smack against his ear.
"Darn you! Can"t you say "crocheted" in the trees?" sobbed the White Linen Nurse.
Grotesquely for an instant the Senior Surgeon"s eyes and the White Linen Nurse"s eyes glared at each other in frank antagonism.
Then suddenly the Senior Surgeon burst out laughing. "Oh, very well!" he surrendered. ""Crocheted in the trees"!"
Precipitously the White Linen Nurse sank back on her heels and began to clap her hands.
"Oh, now I will! Now I will!" she cried exultantly.
"Will what?" frowned the Senior Surgeon.
Abruptly the White Linen Nurse stopped clapping her hands and began to wring them nervously in her lap instead. "Why--will--will!" she confessed demurely.
"Oh!" jumped the Senior Surgeon. "_Oh!"_ Then equally jerkily he began to pucker his eyebrows. "But for Heaven"s sake--what"s the "crocheted in the trees" got to do with it?" he asked perplexedly.
"Nothing much," mused the White Linen Nurse very softly. With sudden alertness she turned her curly blonde head towards the road. "There"s somebody coming!" she said. "I hear a team!"
Overcome by a bashfulness that tried to escape in jocosity, the Senior Surgeon gave an odd little choking chuckle.
"Well, I never thought I should marry a--trained nurse!" he acknowledged with somewhat hectic blitheness.
Impulsively the White Linen Nurse reached for her watch and lifted it close to her twilight-blinded eyes. A sense of ineffable peace crept suddenly over her.
"You won"t, sir!" she said amiably.
"It"s twenty minutes of nine, now. And the graduation was at eight!"
CHAPTER VIII
For any real adventure except dying, June is certainly a most auspicious month.
Indeed it was on the very first rain-green, rose-red morning of June that the White Linen Nurse sallied forth upon her extremely hazardous adventure of marrying the Senior Surgeon and his naughty little crippled daughter.
The wedding was at noon in some kind of a gray granite church. And the Senior Surgeon was there, of course,--and the necessary witnesses. But the Little Crippled Girl never turned up at all, owing--it proved later,--to a more than usually violent wrangle with whomever dressed her, concerning the general advisability of sporting turquoise-colored stockings with her brightest little purple dress.
The Senior Surgeon"s stockings, if you really care to know, were gray.
And the Senior Surgeon"s suit was gray. And he looked altogether very huge and distinguished,--and no more strikingly unhappy than any bridegroom looks in a gray granite church.
And the White Linen Nurse,--no longer now truly a White Linen Nurse but just an ordinary, every-day, silk-and-cloth lady of any color she chose, wore something rather coat-y and grand and bluish, and was distractingly pretty of course but most essentially unfamiliar,--and just a tiny bit awkward and bony-wristed looking,--as even an Admiral is apt to be on his first day out of uniform.
Then as soon as the wedding ceremony was over, the bride and groom went to a wonderful green and gold cafe all built of marble and lined with music, and had a little lunch. What I really mean, of course, is that they had a very large lunch, but didn"t eat any of it!
Then in a taxi-cab, just exactly like any other taxi-cab, the White Linen Nurse drove home alone to the Senior Surgeon"s great, gloomy house to find her brand new step-daughter still screaming over the turquoise colored stockings.
And the Senior Surgeon in a Canadian-bound train, just exactly like any other Canadian-bound train, started off alone,--as usual, on his annual June "spree."
Please don"t think for a moment that it was the Senior Surgeon who was responsible for the general eccentricities of this amazing wedding day.
No indeed! The Senior Surgeon didn"t _want_ to be married the first day of June! He _said_ he didn"t! He _growled_ he didn"t! He _snarled_ he didn"t! He _swore_ he didn"t! And when he finished saying and growling and snarling and swearing,--and looked up at the White Linen Nurse for a confirmation of his opinion, the White Linen Nurse smiled perfectly amiably and said, "Yes, sir!"
Then the Senior Surgeon gave a great gasp of relief and announced resonantly, "Well, it"s all settled then? We"ll be married some time in July,--after I get home from Canada?" And when the White Linen Nurse kept on smiling perfectly amiably and said, "Oh, no, sir! Oh, no, thank you, sir! It wouldn"t seem exactly legal to me to be married any other month but June!" Then the Senior Surgeon went absolutely dumb with rage that this mere chit of a girl,--and a trained nurse, too,--should dare to thwart his personal and professional convenience. But the White Linen Nurse just drooped her pretty blonde head and blushed and blushed and blushed and said, "I was only marrying you, sir, to--accommodate you--sir,--and if June doesn"t accommodate you--I"d rather go to j.a.pan with that monoideic somnambulism case. It"s very interesting. And it sails June second." Then "Oh, h.e.l.l with the "monoideic somnambulism case"!" the Senior Surgeon would protest.
Really it took the Senior Surgeon quite a long while to work out the three special arguments that should best protect him, he thought, from the horridly embarra.s.sing idea of being married in June.
"But you can"t get ready so soon!" he suggested at last with real triumph. "You"ve no idea how long it takes a girl to get ready to be married! There are so many people she has to tell,--and everything!"
"There"s never but two that she"s got to tell--or bust!" conceded the White Linen Nurse with perfect candor. "Just the woman she loves the most--and the woman she hates the worst. I"ll write my mother to-morrow.
But I told the Superintendent of Nurses yesterday."
"The deuce you did!" snapped the Senior Surgeon.
Almost caressingly the White Linen Nurse lifted her big blue eyes to his. "Yes, sir," she said, "and she looked as sick as a young undertaker. I can"t imagine what ailed her."
"Eh?" choked the Senior Surgeon. "But the house now," he hastened to contend. "The house now needs a lot of fixing over! It"s all run down!
It"s all--everything! We never in the world could get it into shape by the first of June! For Heaven"s sake, now that we"ve got money enough to make it right, let"s go slow and make it perfectly right!"
A little nervously the White Linen Nurse began to fumble through the pages of her memorandum book. "I"ve always had money enough to "go slow and make things perfectly right,"" she confided a bit wistfully. "Never in all my life have I had a pair of boots that weren"t guaranteed, or a dress that wouldn"t wash, or a hat that wasn"t worth at least three re-pressings. What I was hoping for now, sir, was that I was going to have enough money so that I could go fast and make things wrong if I wanted to,--so that I could afford to take chances, I mean. Here"s this wall-paper now,"--tragically she pointed to some figuring in her note-book--"it"s got peac.o.c.ks on it--life size--in a queen"s garden--and I wanted it for the dining-room. Maybe it would fade! Maybe we"d get tired of it! Maybe it would poison us! Slam it on one week--and slash it off the next! I wanted it just because I wanted it, sir! I thought maybe--while you were way off in Canada--"
Eagerly the Senior Surgeon jerked his chair a little nearer to his--fiancee"s.
"Now, my dear girl," he said. "That"s just what I want to explain!
That"s just what I want to explain! Just what I want to explain!
To--er--explain!" he continued a bit falteringly.
"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse.
Very deliberately the Senior Surgeon removed a fleck of dust from one of his cuffs.
"All this talk of yours--about wanting to be married the same day I start off on my--Canadian trip!" he contended. "Why, it"s all d.a.m.ned nonsense!"
"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse.