ODDS AND ENDS

Margaret MacLean walked the length of the first corridor; once out of sight and hearing, she tore up the stairs, her cheeks crimson and her eyes suspiciously moist.  Before she had reached the second flight the House Surgeon overtook her.

“I wish,” he panted behind her, trying his best to look the big-brother way of old “I wish you’d wait a moment.  This habit of yours of always walking up is a beastly one.”

“Don’t worry about it.”  There was a sharp, metallic ring in her voice that made it unnatural.  “That’s one habit that will soon be broken.”

The House Surgeon smiled rather helplessly; inside he was making one of the few prayers of his life a prayer to keep Margaret MacLean free of bitterness.  “There is something I want to say to you,” he began.

She broke in feverishly:  “No, there isn’t!  And I don’t want to hear it.  I don’t want to hear you’re sorry.  I don’t want to hear they’ll be taken care of somewhere somehow.  I think I should scream if you told me it was bound to happen or will all turn out for the best.”

“I had no intention of saying any of those things in fact, they hadn’t even entered my mind.  What I was going to

“Oh, I know.  You were going to remind me of what you said this morning.  Almost prophetic, wasn’t it?” And there was a strong touch of irony in her laugh.  She turned on him crushingly.  “Perhaps you knew it all along.  Perhaps it was your way of letting me down gently.”

“See here,” said the House Surgeon, bluntly, “that’s the second disagreeable thing you’ve said to-day.  I don’t think it’s quite square.  Do you?”

“No!” Her lips quivered; her hands reached out toward his impulsively.  “I don’t know why I keep saying things I know are not true.  I’m perfectly unforgivably horrid.”

As impulsively he took both hands, turned them palm uppermost, and kissed them.

She snatched them away; the crimson in her cheeks deepened.  “Don’t, please.  Your pity only makes it harder.  Oh, I don’t know what has happened here ” And she struck her breast fiercely.  “If if they send the children away I shall never believe in anything again; the part of me that has believed and trusted and been glad will stop it will break all to pieces.”  With a hard, dry sob she left him, running up the remaining stairs to Ward C. She did not see his arms reach hungrily after her or the great longing in his face.

The House Surgeon turned and went downstairs again.

In the lower corridor he ran across the President, who was looking for him.  With much courtesy and circumlocution he was told the thing he had been waiting to hear:  the board, likewise, had discovered that Saint Margaret’s had suddenly grown too small to hold both the Senior Surgeon and himself.  Strangely enough, this troubled him little; there are times in a man’s life when even the most momentous of happenings shrink into nothing beside the simple process of telling the girl he loves that he loves her.

The President was somewhat startled by the House Surgeon’s commonplace acceptance of the board’s decision; and he returned to the board-room distinctly puzzled.

Meanwhile Margaret MacLean, having waited outside of Ward C for her cheeks to cool and her eyes to dry, opened the door and went in.

Ward C had been fed by the assistant nurse and put to bed; that is, all who could limp or wheel themselves about the room were back in their cribs, and the others were no longer braced or bolstered up.  As she had expected, gloom canopied every crib and cot; beneath, eight small figures, covered to their noses, shook with held-back sobs or wailed softly.  According to the custom that had unwittingly established itself, Ward C was crying itself to sleep.  Not that it knew what it was crying about, it being merely a matter of atmosphere and unstrung nerves; but that is cause enough to turn the mind of a sick child all awry, twisting out happiness and twisting in peevish, fretful feelings.

She stood by the door, unnoticed, looking down the ward.  Pancho lay wound up in his blanket like a giant chrysalis, rolling in silent misery.  Sandy was stretched as straight and stiff as if he had been “laid out”; his eyes were closed, and there was a stolid, expressionless set to his features.  Margaret MacLean knew that it betokened much internal disturbance.  Susan, ex-philosopher, was sobbing aloud, pulling with rebellious fingers at the pieces of iron that kept her head where nature had planned it.  The Apostles gripped hands and moaned in unison, while Peter hugged his blanket, seeking thereby some consolation for the dispelled Toby.  Toby persistently refused to be conjured up on Trustee Days.

Only Bridget was alert and watchful.  One hand was slipped through the bars of Rosita’s crib, administering comforting pats to the rhythmic croon of an Irish reel.  Every once in a while her eyes would wander to the neighboring cots with the disquiet of an over-troubled mother; the only moments of real unhappiness or worry Bridget ever knew were those which brought sorrow to the ward past her power of mending.

To Margaret MacLean, standing there, it seemed unbearable as if life had suddenly become too sinister and cruel to strike at souls so little and helpless as these.  There were things one could never explain in terms of God.  She found herself wondering if that was why the Senior Surgeon worshiped science; and she shivered.

The room had become repellent; it was a sepulchral place entombing all she had lost.  In the midst of the dusk and gloom her mind groped about after its habit for something cheerful, something that would break the colorless monotone of the room and change the atmosphere.  In a flash she remembered the primroses; and the remembrance brought a smile.

“They’re nothing but charlatans,” she thought, “but the children will never find that out, and they’ll be something bright for them to wake up to in the morning.”

This was what sent her down the stairs again, just as the board meeting adjourned.

Now the board adjourned with thumbs down signifying that the incurable ward was no more, as far as the future of Saint Margaret’s was concerned.  The trustees stirred in their chairs with a comfortable relaxing of joint and muscle, as if to say, “There, that is a piece of business well despatched; nothing like methods of conservation and efficiency, you know.”  Only the little gray wisp of a woman by the door sat rigid, her hands still folded on her lap.

The Oldest Trustee had just remarked to the Social Trustee that all the things gossip had said of the widow of the Richest Trustee were undoubtedly true she was a nonentity when the Senior Surgeon dropped in.  This was according to the President’s previous request.  That gentleman of charitable parts had implied that there would undoubtedly be good news and congratulations awaiting him.  This did not mean that the board intended to slight its duty and fail to consider the matter of the incurables with due conscientiousness the board was as strong for conscience as for conservation.  It merely went to show that the fate of Ward C had been preordained from the beginning; and that the President felt wholly justified in requesting the presence of the Senior Surgeon at the end of the meeting.

His appearance called forth such a laudatory buzzing of tongues and such a cordial shaking of hands that one might have easily mistaken the meeting for a successful political rally or a religious revival.  The Youngest and Prettiest Trustee fluttered about him, chirping ecstatic expletives, while the Disagreeable Trustee watched her and growled to himself.

“So splendid,” she chirped, “the unanimous indorsement of the board at least, practically unanimous.”  And she eyed the widow of the Richest Trustee accusingly.

“The incurable ward and Margaret MacLean have really been a terrible responsibility, haven’t they?  I can’t help feeling it will mean quite a load off our minds.”  It was the Social Trustee who spoke, and she followed it with a little sigh of relief.

The sigh was echoed twice thrice about the room.  Then the Meanest Trustee barked out: 

“I hope it will mean a load off our purses.  That ward and that nurse have always wanted things, and had them, that they had no business wanting.  I hope we can save a substantial sum now for the endowment fund.”

The Oldest Trustee smiled tolerantly.  “Of course it isn’t as if the cases were not hopeless.  I can see no object, however, in making concessions and sacrifices to keep in the hospital cases that cannot be cured; and, no doubt, we can place them most satisfactorily in state institutions for orphans or deficients.”

At that moment the Youngest and Prettiest Trustee spied the primroses on the President’s desk she had been too engrossed in the surgical profession to observe much apart.  “I believe I’m going to decorate you.”  And she dimpled up at the Senior Surgeon, coquettishly.  Selecting one of the blossoms with great care, she drew it through the buttonhole in his lapel.  “See, I’m decorating you with the Order of the Golden Primrose for brilliancy.”  Whereupon she dropped her eyes becomingly.

“Good Lord!” muttered the Disagreeable Trustee to the President, his eye focused on the two.  “She’ll fetch him this time.  And she’ll have him so hypnotized with all this chirping and dancing business that he’ll be perfectly helpless in a month, or I miss

The Youngest and Prettiest Trustee looked up just in time to intercept that eye, and she attacked it with a saucy little stare.  “I believe you are both jealous,” she flung over her shoulder.  But the very next moment she was dimpling again.  “I believe I am going to decorate everybody including myself.  I’m sure we all deserve it for our loyal support of Science.”  She, likewise, always spelled it with a capital, having acquired the habit from the Senior Surgeon.

She snatched a cluster of primroses from the green Devonshire bowl; and one was fastened securely in the lapel or frill of every trustee, not even omitting the gray wisp of a woman by the door.

And so it came to pass that every member of the board of Saint Margaret’s Free Hospital for Children went home on May Eve with one of the faeries’ own flowers tucked somewhere about his or her person.  Moreover, they went home at precisely three minutes and twenty-two seconds past seven by the clock on the tower the astronomical time for the sun to go down on the 30th of April.  Crack went all the combination locks on all the faery raths, spilling the Little People over all the world; and creak went the gates of Tir-na-n’Og, swinging wide open for wandering mortals to come back.

As the trustees left the hospital the Senior Surgeon turned into the cross-corridor for his case, still gay with his Order of the Golden Primrose; and there, at the foot of the stairs, he ran into Margaret MacLean.  They faced each other for the merest fraction of a breath, both conscious and embarrassed; then she glimpsed the flower in his coat and a cry of surprise escaped her.

He smiled, almost foolishly.  “I thought they it looked rather pretty and spring-like,” he began, by way of explanation.  His teeth ground together angrily; he sounded absurd, and he knew it.  Furthermore, it was inexcusable of her to corner him in this fashion.

Now Margaret MacLean knew well enough that he would never have discovered the prettiness of anything by himself not in a century of springtimes, and she sensed the truth.

“Did she decorate you?” she inquired, with an irritating little curl of her lips.  The Senior Surgeon’s self-confessed blush lent speed to her tongue.  “I think I might be privileged to ask what it was for.  You see, I presented the flowers to the board meeting.  Was it for self-sacrifice?” Her eyes challenged his.

“You are capable of talking more nonsense and being more impertinent than any nurse I have ever known.  May I pass?” His eyes returned her challenge, blazing.

But she never moved; the mind-string once broken, there seemed to be no limit to the thoughts that could come tumbling off the end of her tongue.  Her eyes went back to the flower in his coat.

“Perhaps you would like to know that I bought those this morning because they seemed the very breath of spring itself a bit of promise and gladness.  I thought they would keep the day going right.”

“Well, they have for me.”  And the Senior Surgeon could not resist a look of triumph.

“The trustees” she drew in a quick breath and put out a steadying hand on the banisters “you mean they have given up the incurable ward?”

He nodded.  His voice took on a more genial tone.  He felt he could generously afford to be pleasant and patient toward the one who had not succeeded.  “It was something that was bound to happen sooner or later.  Can’t you see that yourself?  But I am sorry, very sorry for you.”

Suddenly, and for the first time in their long sojourn together in Saint Margaret’s, he became wholly conscious of the girl before him.  He realized that Margaret MacLean had grown into a vital and vitalizing personality a force with which those who came in contact would have to reckon.  She stood before him now, frozen into a gray, accusing figure.

“Are you ill?” he found himself asking.

“No.”

He shifted his weight uneasily to the other foot.  “Is there anything you want?”

Her face softened into the little-girl look.  Her eyes brimmed with a sadness past remedy.  “What a funny question from you you, who have taken from me the only thing I ever let myself want the love and dependence of those children.  Success, and having whatever you want, are such common things with you, that you must count them very cheap; but you can’t judge what they mean to others or what they may cost them.”

“As I said before, I am sorry, very sorry you have lost your position here; but you have no one but yourself to blame for that.  I should have been very glad to have you remain in the new surgical ward; you are one of the best operative nurses I ever had.”  He added this in all justice to her; and to mitigate, if he could, his own feeling of discomfort.

Margaret MacLean smiled grimly.  “Thank you.  I was not referring to the loss of my position, however; that matters very little.”

“It should matter.”  The voice of the Senior Surgeon became instantly professional.  “Every nurse should put her work, satisfactorily and scientifically executed, before everything else.  That is where you are radically weak.  Let me remind you that it is your sole business to look after the physical betterment of your patients nothing else; and the sooner you give up all this sentimental, fanciful nonsense the sooner you will succeed.”

“You are wrong.  I should never succeed that way never.  Some cases may need only the bodily care maybe; but you are a very poor doctor, after all, if you think that is all that children need or half the grown-ups.  There are more people ailing with mind-sickness and heart-sickness, as well as body-sickness, than the world would guess, and you’ve just got to nurse the whole of them.  You will succeed, whether you ever find this out or not; but you will miss a great deal out of your life.”

Anger was rekindling in the eyes of the Senior Surgeon; and Margaret MacLean, seeing, grew gentle all in a minute.

“Oh, I wish I could make you understand.  You have always been so strong and well and sufficient unto yourself, it’s hard, I suppose, to be able to think or see life through the iron slats of a hospital crib.  Just make believe you had been a little crippled boy, with nothing belonging to you, nothing back of you to remember, nothing happy coming to you but what the nurses or the doctors or the trustees thought to bring.  And then make believe you were cured and grew up.  Wouldn’t you remember what life had been in that hospital crib, and wouldn’t you fight to make it happier for the children coming after you?  Why, the incurable ward was my whole life home, family, friends, work; everything wrapped up in nine little crippled bodies.  It was all I asked or expected of life.  Oh, I can tell you that a foundling, with questionable ancestry, with no birth-record or blood-inheritance to boast of, claims very little of the every-day happiness that comes to other people.  And yet I was so glad to be alive and strong and needed by those children that I could have been content all my life with just that.”

The Senior Surgeon cleared his throat, preparatory to making some comment, but the nurse raised a silencing finger.

“Wait! there is one thing more.  What you have taken from me is the smallest part.  The children pay double treble as much.  I pay only with my heart and faith; they pay with their whole lives.  Remember that when you install your new surgical ward and don’t reckon it too cheap.”

She left him still clearing his throat; and when she came out of the board-room a few seconds later with the green Devonshire bowl in her arms he had disappeared.

Margaret MacLean found Ward C as she had left it.  As she was putting down the primroses, on the table in the center of the room she caught Bridget’s white face beckoning to her eagerly.  Softly she went over to her cot.

“What is it, dear?”

“Miss Peggie darlin’, if ye’d only give me leave to talk quiet I’d have the childher cheered up in no time.”

“Would you promise not to make any noise?”

“Promise on m’ heart!  I’ll have ’em all asleep quicker ‘n nothin’.  Ye see, just.”

“Very well.  I’ll be back after supper to see if the promise has been kept.”  She stooped, brushed away the curls, and kissed the little white forehead.  “Oh, Bridget!  Bridget! no matter what happens, always remember to keep happy!”

“Sure an’ I will,” agreed Bridget; and she watched the nurse go out, much puzzled.