Chapter 20
MRS. JOCELYN'S DINNER-PARTY
Leonora met Polly at the door, slipping ahead of the maid to catch her in an ecstatic embrace, and to let go a joyful whisper in her ear.
"Come right up to my room! I've got something lovely to tell you!"
Leonora's face was so radiant that Polly was all at once reminded of that morning at the hospital when she had first heard of her friend's adoption. What could have happened now to make her look like that?
"Say," began Leonora, bubbling with news, "Colonel Gresham and David and his mother are here!"
Polly's eyes grew big, and her lips puckered into a "Why!" of astonishment.
"And, oh, there's lots more!" went on Leonora mysteriously. "But I'm not to tell! I promised mother I wouldn't--only just that. You'd know it anyway when you go down. Oh, Polly Dudley, I'm so tickled--there! mother told me not to say that word again!--well, happy, I mean, only it doesn't sound so perfectly splendid as I feel. It seems as if I couldn't stand it!"
"I can't imagine what it is," mused Polly wonderingly.
At which Leonora whirled her round and round in a rapturous hug, stopping suddenly to say they must go downstairs.
After Polly had greeted her hostess and the other guests, she found that a conversation was going on about the hospital.
"Yes," the Doctor was saying, "we need more room, especially for children. We had to refuse two little girls yesterday and a boy the day before; there was absolutely no place where we could put them."
"Then you think there is demand for a children's hospital in the city?" asked Mrs. Jocelyn tentatively.
"A big demand," the Doctor smiled.
"I'm glad to hear that," was the quiet reply, "for I wish to build one."
Polly sat up straight and still, her astonished eyes fixed on Mrs. Jocelyn.
"You could hardly put your money to better use," responded Dr. Dudley.
"So I think; but I wanted your opinion before going further. I have the refusal of the Beecher property west of me; that will give me the whole block. My plan is to put up two buildings, one on each side of my house,--a little to the rear, so as not to cut off the sunlight,--and let this be the connecting link. The head physician can live here, and both parts will be easy of access--what do you say?"
"Admirable plan," agreed the Doctor. "But, Mrs. Jocelyn, have you estimated the cost? There'll be practically no end to the expense of keeping up such an establishment."
"I don't care anything about that," was the indifferent reply. "There's plenty to draw from." Her face was suddenly swept by a shadow of sadness. "For a long time I have wanted to do something in memory of Lloyd,--something for children,--and this seems to be the most feasible of any plan I've thought of. I don't want it called a hospital either. There is a prejudice among a certain class against the very name. Some people will let their children die, rather than send them to a hospital. So Leonora and I have been choosing--what do you think of this, 'The Children's House of Joy'?"
"Isn't that perfectly beautiful?" whispered Leonora to Polly, catching her hand with a little squeeze.
And so Polly missed her father's answer; but she knew from the comments of the others that it must have been in favor of the proposed name.
"This brings us to another question," resumed the hostess. "Dr. Dudley, do you know of a suitable man for the head of 'The House of Joy'?"
"I do," was the instant reply. "His name came to me a moment ago,--Dr. Lanier. You probably know him by reputation. He is the man you ought to have; there is no better surgeon in the country, and he has specialized on diseases of children. I think, too, he can be induced to come."
"Have you his address?"
The Doctor drew a package of papers from an inner pocket, and ran them through. Then he dived into a second pocket, finally stopping at a card which he handed his questioner.
"I will call him up," she decided, and disappeared in the hallway.
For a while the low sound of a voice filled up the spaces of desultory talk in the library. Then Mrs. Jocelyn came back, her eyes so sparkling that Polly thought she knew what the answer had been.
"Don't everybody ask the same question!" laughed the lady, pausing mischievously to note the inquiring faces. "If you wish to know whether he is coming, I will tell you. I didn't invite him! I didn't intend to invite him! I only wished to talk over some few little essentials--such as salary and so on. No," she continued impressively, meeting the Doctor's mystified expression with a knowing smile, "I don't want Dr. Lanier for the head of 'The House of Joy,' however suited he may be for the place. I have set my heart on another, a younger man, but one equally well fitted for the position. He is modest of his attainments, yet he is already being sought for outside of his own city. He has made a specialty of children's diseases, and has been wonderfully successful in his field of work. I know he would make the new hospital indeed a House of Joy to thousands of little ones. I am speaking of Dr. Robert Dudley, for he is the man I want, and if I cannot have him I won't build any hospital!"
Everybody had turned towards the Doctor, who sat motionless in the sudden hush, the color brightening in his face, his eyes bent on the arm of his chair. Then he looked up.
"My dear Mrs. Jocelyn," he began,--and Polly afterwards confided to David that his voice sounded so queer and shaky, she was afraid he was going to cry,--"you have paid me the greatest honor that--"
"Didn't I tell you there was something perfectly splendid?" whispered Leonora softly, in Polly's ear, unable to keep still a moment longer. "I knew it all the time! I knew she wanted him! And that isn't all! Oh, my!--no!"
The most of the Doctor's little speech was quite lost to Polly, for when Leonora stopped, everybody seemed to be talking at once. Then, in a flash, Polly connected two things,--the position her father was to have and the "salary" of which Mrs. Jocelyn had talked with the great surgeon. There would be no more "pinch,"--what need would there be of her going to Uncle Maurice? And the letter wasn't mailed! She wanted to jump up and shout it at the top of her voice. But instead she stole across to her father, and slipped her hand in his. Then, suddenly, her throat ached with the joy of it all, and she was close to tears, keeping them back only by a mighty effort.
"Polly! Polly! come here quick!" called Leonora.
And Polly went, just as Mrs. Jocelyn was saying:--
"No, I shall not need my house any longer. Thirty years ago David Gresham and I had a quarrel, and we think thirty years is quite long enough for a quarrel to last,--too long, in fact!--so we have made up, as the children say. I shall be very glad to leave all the worry of housekeeping to Mrs. Collins, for I am tired of it."
At this moment she arose to greet a gentleman who was entering the room. Polly recognized him as the Rector of St. Paul's, and before she realized what was going on, Mrs. Jocelyn and Colonel Gresham were standing together, and the marriage ceremony was in progress.
"What do you think now? Aren't you awfully surprised?" bubbled the irrepressible Leonora, as the first congratulations were spoken. "We're coming to live next to you, right in the house with David, and Colonel Gresham will be my father!"
It was after the informal dinner, when the Colonel had the four around him,--Polly and Leonora on either knee, and David and Chris each on an arm of his chair,--that the "lovely thing," as Leonora called it, happened.
"Polly, I'm going to have some roses on my piazza next summer," declared the Colonel, "and I reckon I'll let my quartette pick them out for me."
"I shall choose Silver Moons," decided Polly at once.
"I will be ready for them, thorns and all," he laughed. "But there are no thorns on these roses," taking from his pocket four small jewel-cases of bright blue leather.
The children opened them eagerly. Polly's and Leonora's contained gold rings exactly alike and of exquisite workmanship, a little rose spray encircling the top, and in the heart of the open flower a tiny spark of dew. The boys' scarf-pins were of similar design, being headed by a miniature full-blown rose.
"I can never thank you enough for all the beautiful things you give me," purred Polly, caressing the ring on her finger.
"But think what you have done for me!" exclaimed the Colonel. "You have let me into the secret of the rose and the thorn."
THE END
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End of Project Gutenberg's Polly of Lady Gay Cottage, by Emma C. Dowd