The Magpies Nest (30 page)

Everson told him it was still on trial in a sense, having come from the shop but the day before, and was the first to leave the hands of the experts.

"Sorry we're not on a speedway," he added. "You could show me a little of your fancy driving. Could you do a hairpin turn around the Arch?" They were just passing it.

"Climb it, if you like," said Nick, looking quite capable of carrying out his threat. "Watch me spurt —no, wait till I get in the clear a minute."

Now they were in lower Fifth Avenue. It was more than usually free from traffic; Nick tailed in behind another motor, let it gain on him for a block or two, and then risked the ire of the traffic policeman, if one were looking, by jumping to about twice the rates the regulations allow. He had calculated to a nicety on that car ahead; that is, on its proceeding soberly at its fixed pace. Which was where he miscalculated. Without even a warning explosion of the engine, it swerved a little towards the curb, skidded, and stopped within its own length.

Something, Nick inferred in the moment's grace allowed him, had gone seriously wrong with that car, and the driver had simply jammed his brakes. Nick tried to turn out and pass, but there was not enough leeway. He yelled to Everson, who jumped, and braced himself, hearing the peculiar grinding crash of collision just before he was aware of himself sitting on the pavement against a lamp-post and looking about curiously for his own hat, which was still on his head. In the impact, and in Nick's final effort to get by, Everson's car had twisted a little sideways, with a bucking motion that just stopped short of overturning, and Nick had been unable to hold on.

Everson, uninjured by some freak kindness of the God of Wheels, came running up. Everybody in the world, in fact, seemed to be charging down on Nick in mad excitement; people fairly sprouted from the paving stones. The owner of the car in front forgot his grievance and was the first to offer a hand. Several distracted bystanders began inquiring loudly for a doctor.

"Thanks, I'm all right," said Nick, and got to his feet to prove it. He felt a little light-headed from the shock—that lamp-post had been very much in the way —and there was a good deal of dust on his clothes, but beyond that nothing. "Glad I didn't kill you," he remarked apologetically to Everson, who swore in a grateful and relieved manner and shook his hand.

Then a policeman interrupted, with heavy authority. Their names, places of residence, who owned the car?

"I do," said Everson hastily, complying with all three requests. He understood instantly Nick's look of frantic appeal; Nick had told him he had a train to catch, to say nothing of that call. Might be a very important call. Everson's heart was not so dry as his manner. "My friend here is from Buffalo; I was driving—you don't need him, do you? My car; I'll answer for the whole thing; here's my card. Grab a taxi," he added to Nick, in a quick aside. "Send me a line from Chi. Sure you're all right? Fine. Good luck."

He engaged the policeman again; Nick vanished, not so much through as around the crowd, and picked up a predatory taxi that had been hovering hungrily near.

It was only five minutes to Grace's, and she was at home.

"Do I look a wreck?" he asked her, refusing to shake hands. "I wonder if Skene could brush me down a bit—of course I'll tell you all about it, but I feel like a tramp now."

Skene, the butler, took instant charge of him, and brought him back shortly, entirely presentable, to Grace's impatient presence.

"I suppose it took an upheaval of nature to bring you here," she said, but smilingly. "How can you tease my curiosity so?"

"Honest, I was on my way here," he assured her. "And I was in such a hurry I smashed Everson's car doing it. There was a lamp-post, too; I believe I broke that with my head. Feels like it. Can you see a goose-egg? Oh, it wasn't anything really; we took the tail-lights off another car for a souvenir, and I came on in a taxi."

"What flattering eagerness. You've really been a very bad friend, Nicko. I haven't seen you for—how long?" She could have answered her own question, almost to an hour.

"You'll think me worse," said Nick cheerfully, getting to the point in his usual style. "I came to say good-bye."

"Good-bye?" Grace echoed vaguely, looking at him with her clear grey eyes dilated. "Why? What have I done?" So near she came to betraying herself.

"You? Why, you haven't done anything. It's me; I'm going away. You know, I told you about it before." He put his hand up to his head, as if unconsciously. "I took that Chicago job. Rising young business man. You ought to be proud of me. Can't lecture me any more for lack of ambition."

"Oh," she said, and then, regulating her voice carefully, "I shall miss you."

"I'll miss you—and the kiddies," he assured her.

"And the..." His voice thickened, a dull flush rose to his face.

"What is it?" She leaned forward, sensitive to every shade of his expression.

"I—don't know," he muttered. "Going away..."

Then he swayed in his chair, and with arms thrown out a little, pitched forward, with his head on her knees.

She did not scream, nor start: Grace had good stuff in her. And her slim body held more strength than one would credit. Putting her arms beneath his, she lowered him to the floor, put a cushion under his head, and rang for Skene and her maid.

"A doctor—yes, Doctor Lempriere, quick," she commanded the terrified girl. "Tell him a surgical case, probably concussion. Life and death. Go—don't stand gaping. Help me lift him, Skene. To my own room; it's the only one on the ground floor."

Between them they managed it, and laid him on her own dainty bed, his boots making a dusty streak on the white lace counterpane.

And there he stayed, unknowing, if not uncaring, while Hope waited and hardened her heart to go on alone.

Dr. Lempriere, entering—they got him without delay—cast a quick look around even while he was examining Nick. He had not stopped to ask what was the matter; as a doctor, he felt it his business to know "Clever girl, Grace," he said at last, his deft fingers still exploring Nick's hair. He had known Grace absolutely all her life, having assisted at her entrance thereto. "Concussion; you guessed it. How did you get him here? You say he had a motor accident?" He was removing Nick's collar now.

"He came—he walked in. Talked to me." She spoke shortly, gripping her hands together, holding on to herself. "How could he?"

"It doesn't always show immediately," he assured her. "I've known a man go four hours with a broken neck and not know it. Same thing with concussion. Now we can't move him..."

"I don't want him moved," she cried passionately. She had him now, by a very miracle, just when he was about to leave her. He was hers, at least so long as he was helpless.

"Well, then, we'll have to spoil your pretty room for awhile," returned Dr. Lempriere calmly, looking about at the muslin curtains, the shining array of silver on the inlaid dressing-table, the rose-flowered chintz chairs. "That nurse ought to be here by now; I told Skene to 'phone. And where's that hot water I asked for?"

He set Grace herself running errands for him, seeing with a keen professional eye her need of some immediate distraction. And before he went away, leaving Nick to the efficient ministrations of a trained nurse whom Grace detested on sight, he drew her outside. the despoiled chamber and soothed her with assurances that convinced her more than himself. With a constitution like that, he said, while there was always danger, Nick had all the odds in his favour. He merely needed quiet, absolute quiet. Grace had better save her strength for his convalescence, when she could really help; which was the doctor's gentle way of bidding her keep away from him now.

Of course they could not keep her out always; not in her own house. Though he could not recognise her— they kept him under opiates for quite a week—she had to look at him sometimes, to watch him wandering in that dim borderland between here and the vast reaches of space the eye cannot pierce. And when his lips moved, she tried not to listen, and did it despite herself. She was afraid of hearing the other woman's name, as she knew she had heard her voice.

To the end of her days Grace never quite forgave herself that lie which uttered itself so spontaneously. It had come to her like a weapon which in a moment of stress is seized unconsciously and discovered in the hand, later, with bewilderment. As a weapon, she used it to guard the door to that quiet room; it was more for him than herself. But later, when she realised everything, she realised that she had wounded her own honour most with it. But even for that she would never have cared, if she could have felt she had served him. She tried to think so; she had to. Whoever that other was, she could have no rights. Nick would have told her, surely—had he come to tell her?

That small consolation was torn from her with his first conscious word. Strangely, it was on the very day Hope stood weaving fancies before Mrs. Sturtevant's door. The butler, when he put his head out into Hope's view, was looking for the doctor, who delayed. Nick was waking; the nurse thought he might be conscious. And he was strong enough now to be permitted to use his faculties. His unconsciousness had been prolonged by narcotics because when at the end of ten hours he first revived he had immediately tried to rise and dress. He wanted to go somewhere, do something—at once. So, each time, they simply gave him more of the drug. And Grace, after seeing him so long in that terrifying stupor, had forgotten every wish she had ever had save to see him look at her again with clear eyes and hear him speak. She thought she could desire nothing more now; the old pain was swallowed up in this oppressing fear.

She had her wish—poor Grace! "Which of us,'' asks the master satirist, "has his desire or, having it, is satisfied?"

The doctor seemed long in coming. She slipped into the sick room quietly. The sound of her light step on the bare polished floor seemed the signal for his awakening; perhaps he knew it was different from the firm purposeful tread of the nurse. In that vague region of the mind where our unformulated thoughts rise and dissolve ere seen, he may have had some wild hope.

Grace went to the bed-side, stooped, and put her hand on his. The nurse, too late to restrain her, held a finger to her lip. And then Nick opened his eyes, looked at her with a sort of surprise, and asked:

"Where is Hope?"

"Where is what?" asked Mrs. Sturtevant, in a soft, tense voice.

The nurse motioned her again for silence, quite unheeded.

"Hope—where is she?"

"She's coming," the nurse interposed quickly, and whispered to Grace, "Agree with him, whatever he says."

"Have you sent for her?" Nick insisted, speaking directly to his cousin, and trying to lift a hand to his bandaged head.

"Yes," she said steadily. "Go to sleep, Nick; she'll come."

"That's—good."

"You mustn't talk any more now," the nurse interposed authoritatively, and poured out a draught for him.

Grace went out. She felt dull, tired, rather old. She had not strength to be glad, in the first reaction.

If she could have found Hope she would have sent for her. Since there was nothing else to do, she did not much mind doing it. After all, what did it matter? She did wish Nick to be happy. Anything to have him well again. She could be jealous, indeed, but not petty or vicious. But she did not know even this strange woman's name. She heard that, too. when he was strong enough.

"What did I say?" he asked her inevitably. A mere human curiosity prompts that question to everyone who has known delirium, or wonders if he has known it; a desire, perhaps, for an unguarded glimpse of one's very self. Then he read in her face that he had said something; and he was also chafing under inaction, burning with anxiety for Hope. The horror of having left her alone, penniless, in the city whose dark depths he knew too well, was goading him. "What did I say?" he insisted, with weak emphasis.

"You asked for someone," said Grace. "I am not sure of the name—Hope?"

"Did I?" He was quiet, and then looked at her imploringly. "Where is she?" he begged.

"But who is she?" asked his cousin gently. "I do not know anything. You never told me." This with faint bitterness.

"She's the woman I'm going to marry," said Nick. "I meant to tell you, Grace, as soon as it was all arranged. And now I don't know where she is." There was anguish in his voice.

"What is her name? Where does she live?" asked Grace calmly. "I will write or telephone her. Certainly she should be here."

"Her name is Mrs. Angell. She was at the Nassau Hotel; but I had the nurse telephone there, and she's gone. I can't find her." Grace could have wept for very shame; for his face betrayed too clearly what she had done to him.

"It won't be hard to find her, surely," she soothed him. "I will send to inquire."

"I know—send Updyke to me—you know his address?"

She knew him slightly; he was a friend of Nick's of long standing. She promised; cheered him with assurances of the ease with which Hope must be found; assurances Updyke, a young man of happy disposition and no cares, reiterated when he came. Surely they would find Hope.

But they did not.

The assurances wore thin even before Nick was able to leave his bed. It was as if she had tried to cover her tracks.

Grace found his proximity gave her little happiness. Perhaps it was this she needed, this daily, hourly sight of his indifference to her, his calm and slightly egotistic friendship—the friendship of cousins—to kill her lingering, patient hopes. At the last she would have given him Hope, she would have given him all the women in the world, to take that cloud from his face, lend the old light to his eye. But "who among us has his heart's desire," or can give another his? It came to this, that, even asking nothing, she could get less.

Hope had not tried to cover her tracks at all. Nothing was more natural than that she should send a porter from the Alhambra to bring her baggage to her, when good fortune enabled her to redeem it—she had gone to Mrs. Merrick with no more than what she walked in—nor than that she should not have been especially noted at the Hotel Nassau. Her things were removed; that was all they knew. Anyone might have taken them; Elijah might have called for them in his chariot of fire for aught they recalled. She did leave a letter for Nick.