Part 12

"Well--I'll go with you--" said Aunt Jane. "It won't take long--going in a car."

And Herman Medfield smiled, looking out across the roofs to his home.

XL

At last Herman Medfield was ready to leave the Berkeley House of Mercy. He stood on the top step, looking contentedly down at the car that waited for him.

The chauffeur glanced up and caught sight of him and sprang up the steps.

"Can I help you, sir?" He offered a helpful arm. But Medfield motioned it aside.

"I'm all right, Buckman.... I'm quite myself, thank you. I am waiting for some one----"

He glanced toward the door. "Some one is coming--with me."

The chauffeur returned to his car, standing immovable, and the master of the car waited on the steps.... There had been a dozen things to do. Aunt Jane had insisted on his seeing Mrs. Pelton, and there had been delays. And at the last minute, Aunt Jane had disappeared in her office for something. He turned toward the door.

She was coming.

The door opened and Aunt Jane stood in it, smiling and competent--in her cap.

He flashed a look at it. "You're not coming?" It was disappointed and vexed.

"Yes, I'm coming." Her face was pleased.

"You've forgotten your bonnet," he laughed.

"Oh--I don't need a bonnet." She went slowly down the steps. "I never wear a bonnet when I go with a patient." She looked back to him. "You want me to help you?"

He came quickly down with a laugh and placed her in the car. "I don't want anything--except to get home!" he said exultantly.

The chauffeur slammed the door.

Aunt Jane beamed on her patient. "I thought you'd be ready to go--when the time came," she said philosophically.

"I'm happy. I don't want anything but what I've got--right here!" He was looking at the face in its cap.

Aunt Jane transferred her gaze to the window, watching the houses slide by, and the long, smooth roll of streets. "I do like a car!" she declared with a sigh. "I always feel as if I owned the whole earth when I go in a car--kind of on top, you know!"

And the car bore her onward without a jolt or jar, as she sat competently erect; and Herman Medfield, leaning back against the cushions, relaxed to the motion, and watched her pleasure, happily.... There were many things he could give her. He was glad he was a rich man.

The car flashed them through the maze of streets and in through the great gate that formed the entrance to the Medfield estate; and Aunt Jane looked out, with pleased eyes, on trees and shrubs and on a wide soft greenness of turf, and little open vistas shining out as they passed them. "I always heard it was a nice place!" she said contentedly.

"I knew you would like it!" replied Medfield.

Aunt Jane turned her glance on him. "Anybody would be pretty hard to please that didn't like this," she said simply and returned to her window.

He smiled a contented, thoughtful smile.

"Here we are! Home at last--!" He held up a hand to her as she stepped out. "It has been a long time!" He was looking toward the entrance.

"Yes-- You've been away a good while." She moved tranquilly beside him, up the low steps into the hall. "Now, I'll make you comfortable." She was looking about her. "And then I must go back. We'd better tell the man to wait--" she turned toward the door.

"We'll call him up," said Medfield quickly. "He's gone-- And I want to give you tea and show you my rose-garden--we'll have tea out there----"

"If it isn't too damp," said Aunt Jane.

"What do I care!" He was impatient.

"Dr. Carmon said you'd have to be careful." She spoke the name with authority and a look of vexation crossed Medfield's face.

"Bother! Well--I shall be careful! You won't let me do anything rash!"

"No, I'll try not to--you don't think you'd better go to bed, do you?"

"I do not!"

And he took the situation into his own hands and showed Aunt Jane through the house; and she admired it all, and liked the flowers growing in little pots in the drawing-room windows.

"This would be a good place to have your tea," she remarked.

"We are going outdoors," he said obstinately--and there was a long, low rumble somewhere-- "What's that?" He had started.

"Sounds like thunder," said Aunt Jane. She moved over to the window. "Yes--looks as if we were going to have a shower--a hard one. I thought I felt like it." She sat down placidly.

Lightning played through the room, with fantastic touches on the chairs and tables and on the little growing plants in the windows.

"I guess we'll have tea indoors." She beamed on him.

He laughed out with vexation and rang the bell and ordered tea and had a fire made on the great open hearth. He drew up a chair before it for Aunt Jane and made her comfortable.

There was nothing of the invalid in the slim, quick-moving, aristocratic figure. He was playing the host with happy face.

"I declare--you look real well!" said Aunt Jane, watching him.

"Oh, I'm well--I'm happy!" he replied.

Something in the voice arrested her, and she turned away.

"I wouldn't be too happy--not the first day or so," she said softly.

"Do you mean to spoil it?" He came and stood by the fire and looked down at her sternly.

"No--I shan't spoil anything--" A crash of thunder filled the air, and the room grew dark. Little sulphurous lights played in it--and withdrew, dancing across the potted plants.

"Here's your tea!" said Aunt Jane out of the subsiding din.

"Put it here, Henry." Medfield rolled a little table in front of Aunt Jane and watched the man as he set it down. He ran an eye over the tray----

"That's all right. I'll set it out. You draw the curtains and light the candles."

He motioned the man aside and arranged the dishes himself, setting the toast in front of the fire and placing the cups and plates with swift touch.

"There you are!" He had taken the chair opposite her and he looked across with happy eyes. "This is all right!" he said.

The man had left the room; the crashing thunder was shut behind the heavy curtains, the candles shone down on them, and the firelight played across the table. It shone on Aunt Jane's face.

"You have a nice home," she said safely. She lifted a napkin from her plate.

"Mercy--what's this!" She peered at the thin blue strip of paper that fluttered from under the napkin. She took it up and read it--and laid it down hastily. "It's for the wing!" she said.

He nodded quietly, watching her. "You guessed right--the first time!"

Her face looking down at the check was thoughtful and sweet.

"Are you going to pour my tea?" said Medfield.

XLI

"Ah!--This is comfortable!"

He had taken his tea from her and was sipping it slowly. He looked about the great room, lighted with high candles in the massive silver sticks, and at the soft folds of curtains that shut out the storm.

"You don't know what a lonely place it is!-- With no one here!" He shivered, and then looked contentedly at Aunt Jane drinking her tea.

"Places generally _are_ lonely," she responded. "It takes folks--not to be lonely.... Most of us _need_ folks, I guess."

"_I_ need them!" said Medfield emphatically. "And I didn't know it--how lonely I was.... I knew I was beastly unhappy!" He leaned forward and seemed to be looking at his unhappiness in the fire that glowed on the hearth and danced in the flames and flew away up the chimney.

"That's over!" he said. He leaned back happily in his chair, watching the flames.

"Yes. You're going to have a family now----"

He turned on her with a little amused stare.

She nodded. "You'll have Julian here, and Mary Canfield----"

"Oh--Romeo and Juliet!" The tone dismissed the youthful lovers, and laughed at her.

Aunt Jane received it. "They're only two--I know--and two isn't a family--exactly--but there'll be little ones--you see! They'll be all over the place, I expect."

Her eyes seemed to be watching the children playing in the great room. "They'll look nice, won't they!"

He shook his head. "I wasn't thinking of Julian and Mary--nor of children-- Never mind!" He put it aside. "I'll tell you sometime."

Aunt Jane had taken up the check from beside her plate, and was folding it in slow fingers.

"You don't know what that is going to do," she said slowly. "But I can see it--plain as if I was right there now--the folks that will get well with this, and be like folks again!... It's hard to be poor!" She opened the bag that hung at her side, and put in the check, and closed it softly.

He sat up and leaned an elbow on the table, resting his head on it and looking across to her under the shading hand. "There's one thing I wanted to ask you."

"Yes?" Aunt Jane's response was veiled. But the good-will in her face shone through. "I'll tell you anything I can. There's a good many things I don't know." Her cap was whimsical.

"You know this!" He laughed. "It's about your old hospital!" He motioned toward the little bag with its check.

"Oh--I know the hospital-- It's 'most all I do know!"

"You feel as if you owned it, don't you!" His tone teased her gently. Then he left it--and leaned forward----

"What I was thinking was this: Isn't there something that you would like for the hospital--not just contagion--not a whole wingful!" He twinkled at it. "But something you have seen that is needed. Isn't there something?" He folded his arms on the table, and looked across the teacups at the thoughtful little lines that came and went in her face.

"Is there?" he said.

The lines took it in--and held it wistfully. "You don't mean tea-strainers and such things--you mean something worth while?"

He nodded. "Something worth while, yes. I mean anything.... Think of it--not for yourself, perhaps--" His face grew intent. "Think of it as if some other woman were there."

Aunt Jane sat up. "I can't hardly think of any other woman running my hospital!" she said dryly.

He waved it off. "But if there were?"

She accepted it. "Well--if there was--there's one thing she could make a good deal of use of--if she had it. I've thought about it----"

"Yes-- That's what I want!"

"It's expensive," said Aunt Jane.

"We can talk about that later."

She sighed. "It seems kind of ridiculous!... I don't suppose you'll understand, maybe?" She looked up at him.

"I'll try--I don't think there are many things you could say that I should not understand," he said softly.

Aunt Jane's glance hastily sought the teacups. "It's a kind of little home for me." She looked at him as if begging him not to make fun of her.

"You don't mean you want to leave your hospital!" It was half amused and wholly alert, and the question darted at her.

She caught it with a quick shake of the muslin cap. "I don't ever want to live anywhere except in the House of Mercy," she said.

"Oh!" The crestfallen word slipped across to her, and Aunt Jane's face relaxed.

"It's kind of a wing I was thinking of----"

"But I gave you your wing!"

"This is a little one--a kind of place of my own--where I could have them--when they were dismissed, you know--well enough to go home but not quite ready--in their minds, maybe.... I don't know as you ever thought--that it takes courage to start?" She regarded him mildly.

"I can imagine it--yes." His tone was dry.

She nodded. "I'd like to have a little home--not belonging to the hospital, but just to me, close by--where I could take 'em in, for a visit-like, till their courage had time to grow."

"I see--a cucumber frame for courage."

She looked up to see if he were making fun. But he was gazing thoughtfully into a teacup.

"Poor folks have to get their courage somehow--and it's hard work--wastes a good deal," she said practically.... "And then sometimes, there's rich folks that don't want to go--when the time comes--" Her eyes twinkled with it. "I'd like to ask them to visit me sometimes."

He was silent, looking into his teacup.

"Have you finished?" he asked. "Is that all?" The little irony of the words danced across to her kindly.

She sighed, and leaned back in her chair. "You made me tell you! I've never told anybody, before. I know it sounds foolish--having a home of my own!"

He got up from his chair, and went toward a big desk. Then he paused and came back and stood by her chair, with one hand on it, looking down at her.

"I never think anything you do is foolish! You know that!"

Aunt Jane jumped a little. "Well--I think I'm foolish--a good many times!"

He smiled and went over to the desk and drew out his check-book. "How much will it cost, do you suppose?" He looked over his shoulder to her.

"I could get along with a little one," she said meekly.

He smiled again, and filled in the check. "Make it ten thousand for a start." He blotted it carefully. "If it isn't enough, there's more where it came from." He patted the check-book with just a little happy touch of pride, and came across and laid the blue slip in her lap.

"It is for another woman, you know," said Medfield.

He moved across and stood by the fireplace, looking at her with frankly happy eyes.

"What do you mean--by that?" said Aunt Jane. Her fingers seemed a little afraid of the blue slip in her lap.

"Just that!" His face was quiet with the happiness shining in it--ready to break through at a word. "Just that. If some other woman comes to the House of Mercy, she is to have it--otherwise I take it back."

Aunt Jane's fingers abandoned the check. It slipped to the floor.

He came over and picked it up and placed it on the table beside her, and bent a little to her. "I want to give you a larger home, Jane. I want to give you all I have.... Won't you come and live with me?"

"Oh--dear!" said Aunt Jane.

"That's what I meant." He was smiling, but the shadow crossed his face.

"I can't!" said Aunt Jane. She pushed the check from her, and opened the little bag, searching--with half-blinded fingers for the other.

"I can't take 'em!" she said.... "And we do need the wing for contagion--" Her fingers had found the slip and she took it out longingly, and laid it beside the other on the table and glanced up at him with a little, tremulous shake. "I can't take it--if you were offering it to me just because you thought you were--in love with me!"

She looked at it regretfully. "I did hope it wasn't that!" she said softly.

"But it is!" The tone was grave, with a little line of hope running through. "Take it, Jane!" he said gently. "I am not asking anything. It's yours, you know!"

She shook her head. "It seems as if it wouldn't be quite--fair-- And we do need the new wing for contagion--the worst way!"

He took up the two checks and folded them in his thin, quiet fingers and lifted the little bag.

"You will take them," he said. He slipped them into the bag and closed it. "Money is only good for what it will buy-- Mine does not seem able to buy anything better worth while at present.... Besides"--he dropped the little bag and crossed the hearth--"I shall not spoil your life--or mine! You're going to ask me to visit you, you know, in your little home!"

He was smiling at her.

"You're tired!" she said with quick remorse.

But he lifted a hand. "I'm all right. I'm not going to play on your sympathies that way!" He sat down. "I'm all right!"

"You're going to bed!" said Aunt Jane. She got up and rang the bell.

Then she came and stood by his chair and looked at him and hesitated....

And he smiled at her. "It's all right, Jane."

"I'm old enough to be your mother," she said ruefully.

"Nonsense!"

"Well, I _feel_ old enough! I feel like a mother to everybody, I guess!" She bent to him.... "And I'm sorry!" she said swiftly. She kissed him on the cheek--a full, loving, motherly kiss--and drew back from the detaining hand.

"Now you are going to bed," she said practically. "Here's Henry!" She crossed to the man and gave directions for Herman Medfield's comfort; she looked regretfully at the figure sitting in the big chair before the fire as she gave them. She crossed to it again.

"Good-by," she said.

He took the cool, firm fingers in his, and held them close and lifted them to his lips.

"Good-by," he said.

Aunt Jane went quietly from the room.

Henry, with discreet face, was removing the tea-things. He lifted the tray and then set it down and went to the window, pushing back the heavy curtains. "The storm is over, sir," he said.

The fresh, full light flooded in. Henry put out the candles one by one and took up his tray. "Mr. Julian sent word as he'll be home to dinner, sir--with a young lady--" He paused. "Shall I lay the table for her?"

"Yes--she will stay to dinner. She will be here often now," said Herman Medfield.

"Very good, sir. Thank you, sir." Henry took up his tray and went out.

Herman Medfield sat alone by his fire, with the memory of a white-capped face across the hearth and a little thought stirring in him of children playing in the great room, among his art treasures--with the light coming in softly, as it was coming now, across the little potted plants in the windows.

XLII

"Where have you been, all the afternoon!" Dr. Carmon was fuming in the office. He got up as Aunt Jane came in.

"Where have you been?" he demanded. "I've needed you! They looked everywhere for you!"

She came calmly in. "I went home with Mr. Medfield." She took up the little tablet slate on her desk and consulted it absently. "He needed me--he thought he needed me."

"What for?" The tone was brusque. "He was well enough when _I_ saw him. Couldn't he go home without upsetting the whole hospital!"

"He didn't like to go without me," said Aunt Jane. "In fact, he wouldn't go," she added. She put down the little tablet. "I'm sorry you needed me.... I don't very often go out."

"Well"--his tone was mollified--"we managed to pull through without you. But I like to feel you're around--when I need you."

"I generally mean to be," she said placidly.

He glanced at her suspiciously. She was unusually meek.

"What have you been doing all the afternoon? It didn't take four hours to go out to Medfield's place and back!"

"We had tea--and we talked some."

"Umph! Well, we've got _him_ off our hands!"

"Yes--we've got him off our hands," assented Aunt Jane. "He's a good man," she added.

"He's got money," said Dr. Carmon, without enthusiasm. "I never heard of his doing much good with it."

She opened her little bag and took out the two blue slips and looked at them. Then she returned one of them to the bag and handed the other to him, without comment.

He received it blankly and read it--and readjusted his glasses and read it again. He took off the glasses and held them in the tight clutch of one hand, resting on his knee, and surveyed her keenly.

"I suppose you know what it is!"

"Fifty thousand," she said meekly.

"He's given you fifty thousand dollars!" He shook the little blue slip scornfully.

"It isn't for me-- It's for us!"

"What!" he said sharply. He put on his glasses again. "For the hospital, is it?" He took it up.

She nodded. "For the new contagion wing."

"We need it badly enough!" He fingered the check absently. "I didn't suppose we should ever have it, though!"

"I told him we needed it," she said casually.

"You begged it of him, I suppose!" A little trace of annoyance ran in the words.

She received it equably. "I didn't do any begging, I guess. I just told him we wanted it."

"So he handed it out!"

"Well--not right then. He said he'd think it over-- He gave it to me this afternoon. Put it on my plate--for a kind of surprise." She was looking at something and smiling mistily at it.

He watched her uneasily.

"He's a nice man!" she said, meeting the glance he bent upon her.

"You're tired," he responded abruptly.

"I am--a little mite tired."

He got up and opened his bag and fussed at bottles and shook something into a bit of folded paper and held it out.

"There--take that."

"I don't need it!"

"You take it!"

She accepted it meekly, and he brought a glass of water from behind the screen, and watched her drink it.

"Everybody seems to think you can chase all over town for them!" he grumbled.

"It was quite a nice ride out there," replied Aunt Jane. She wiped the taste of medicine furtively from her lips and set down the glass.

"He's going to give me a little home, too."

"What!" He glared at her fiercely.

She took hold of her bag--as if to protect something. "I knew you wouldn't like it!" she said. "I hated to tell you! I thought maybe I'd put it off ... not tell you for a good while."

"If you will tell me now--and not sit there gibbering and chattering----"

She nodded. "Yes--I'd better do it to-night--right off--and get it done with!" She opened the bag slowly. "Of course, I know you won't want me to have it--" She looked at him doubtfully, holding on to the bit of paper.

"Let me see it!" He held out an imperious hand, and she gave it up. And he sat, with a check in each hand--one hand on either knee--and looked at her severely.

"Any more?" he said bitingly.

"That's all!" She leaned back with a sigh. The worst was probably over.

He read first one check, and then the other, and looked up swiftly--"They're both made out to you!"

"Yes! I saw he'd done it that way--I'm going to make the contagion one over to you."

"They're both contagion, probably!" He smiled grimly.

"No--one is for me--and he said I could build it just the way I want, and furnish it--and have my own way about everything!"

"You'll feel strange, won't you--having your own way!" He almost growled, and tossed the checks at her:

"Take 'em!"

She went over to her desk and looked for her pen and sat down, dipping it in ink, and sat very still--and presently her head nodded--she caught herself, and sat up.

"I declare--I'm sleepy!" she said.

She dipped the pen again and her head nodded as she wrote.... "I don't know when I've been so sleepy." She reached for the blotter. He came over and took it from her and blotted the little paper carefully, looking down at her kindly.

"It's time you went to sleep," he said.

She looked up. "What do you suppose--is the matter--with me?"

He only smiled at her quietly.

"It's the powder!" she exclaimed.

He nodded. "You'll have a good night's rest. You need it!"

"Such foolishness!" She got up, resting one hand on the lid of the desk, and looked about her. "I have to--put out--my lights----"

"I'll put them out," he said impatiently.

She waited. "Isn't there something else--I ought--to do--something I need to--?" She looked at him appealingly, and he took her hand.

"You need some one to take care of you--that's what you need!" He said it almost gently and he led her to the door.

"Sure you can go by yourself?" he said.

It was half mocking and half tender; and he watched until the quiet-moving figure disappeared in the distance of the long corridor.

Then he put out Aunt Jane's lights and went home.

XLIII

It was very quiet in the hospital. The lights were turned low in the corridors; only a subdued glow from Aunt Jane's office shone out into the dimness.

Dr. Carmon, on his round of late visits, glanced at the light as he came and went. He had not seen Aunt Jane to-day. He had been out of town. It had been a hard day for Dr. Carmon.

When the last visit was over, he hesitated a minute. Then he went swiftly down the hall toward the light shining from the door.

At the door he paused. Aunt Jane, over by the shaded lamp, sat in her rocking-chair. She rocked gently; and as she rocked, little thoughts came and went in her face.

He stood silently watching the face. It was smiling now. He stepped in quickly.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked.

She looked up with a start--and brushed a hand across her face.

"I--I was thinking about my--my wings, I guess." She was laughing a little.

"Umph! Just about ready to grow 'em, I expect!"

He put down his bag and came and sat opposite her and placed a hand on either knee, surveying her shrewdly.

"How are you feeling?"

"All right."

"Slept well?" A little smile crossed the words.

"I never had such a sleep!... And I feel all right after it," she added thoughtfully. "But I don't believe in taking things!"