Stranger within the Gates (27 page)

It was not that Florimel was in great pain, for all that medical skill could do to relieve her had been done, and there were two nurses, one or the other always in attendance.

After the first few days, as the pain grew less and she began to recover from the shock, she rather enjoyed all this attention from the nurses. None from the family. She would let none of them, not even Rex, lift a hand for her. "No," she would say sharply. "My nurse will attend to that!" As if the nurse were her own providing and she had set up a separate household. She demanded fancy dishes, things out of season that were almost impossible to provide, and when they could not be found, she went into high hysterics, blaming the family bitterly. Telling the nurse in loud tones that could be heard all over the house how they pretended to be such a holy, religious family and yet wouldn't provide just a little something to tempt her appetite. They would let her starve before they would take any trouble to find what she longed for, and probably just because it might be a little expensive this time of year they were too tightfisted to pay for it. One nurse who had long been a friend of the family bore this in patience for a time, till one day when Florimel was really a good deal better and was carrying on with these high strikes in fine shape, she turned upon her and told her to hush.

"You've been treated like a young queen!" she said severely. "And you've behaved like a little savage! I've know the Garlands all my life, and they are wonderful people and highly thought of by everyone in the community. They've turned heaven and earth to try and get you what you want, and it isn't to be had anywhere. As for your appetite, you seem to gobble up everything that's sent, and I can testify that you've had plenty, and far more than necessary. Flowers on the tray, too, which you as often as not tear to pieces and throw on the floor for me to pick up. You're a spoiled child and have evidently had no bringing up, or you would be ashamed of yourself! Now, eat your breakfast and behave yourself, or I'll tell the doctor how you are carrying on. You can't expect to get well soon if you act like that!"

For answer Florimel flung her cup of hot coffee from her tray full in the face of the faithful nurse and screamed out for protection till Mary Garland came to see what was the matter. Then Florimel demanded that the nurse should be dismissed and another supplied who would do as she was told and not try to insult her.

"But, my dear," said Mary Garland gently, "this is the nurse the doctor got for you. We wouldn't have the authority to dismiss her. This is the nurse who understands cases of burns so well and knows how to protect you against scars and future troubles arising from your burns."

But Florimel would listen to no one and demanded to see Rex at once.

Poor Rex was off hunting a job. His haggard face showed what he was going through. Days when he was at home and came in to see Florimel she always spent her time blaming him for the whole affair because he had locked her in her room. His very sleep at night was haunted with her outcries. Once he tried to ask her if there wasn't anybody in the whole world who belonged to her that she would like to see, somebody she loved, who might soothe her and help her to get her self-control. But that only brought on a terrible time of tears and utter exhaustion afterward.

"You don't love me anymore. You want to get rid of me!" she complained in loud tones that could be heard even down the street.

And once he said in utter despair, "Do you think you would love a person who was acting the way you act?"

It was days before she got over that and would consent to see him again.

But on this day when Rex finally got home again, the despair of another failure to get a job looking from his sorrowful eyes, he came to her at once.

"But that's impossible!" he said when he had heard her demand. "We couldn't think of dismissing Miss Taylor. She's the best to be had. There isn't another nurse around here who can touch her. And she's been with you from the beginning and knows exactly what to do. The doctor would never hear of it. And I'm quite sure my mother is not physically strong enough to nurse you. We could not do without a nurse."

"Heavens, no!" snapped Florimel. "I wouldn't want her pawing around me with her smug, sanctimonious ways and her 'my dears.' She makes me sick. How you can stand her, I don't see! She's nothing but a hypocrite!"

Rex turned away from his wife in disgust.

"That'll be about all from you!" he said fiercely and went away and locked himself into his old boyhood room for hours.

The whole time of the holidays was filled with tumult. The young people, including Paul, Sylvia, Rance, and Marcia, with sometimes Natalie Sargent (though never Rex), and always the two children, went skating on the creek, far enough from the house that the echo of their cheerful laughter could not be heard by the petulant invalid. They attended a couple of concerts and a meeting or two. They took long hikes when the weather permitted, and once they had a winter picnic in the snow with a fire to broil their sausages. And they did their best each to make it a pleasant time for the others, but the time sometimes hung heavy on their hands, for there seemed to be only one thing they could do for the unhappy invalid, and that was to keep the house absolutely quiet. So when they came back home again, they sat down and read or conversed in low tones, and sighed a good deal.

And, of course, Rex was entirely aware of all this, though he was never a part of it even when they did their best to make him go for a bit of recreation.

"No," he would say, "I mustn't!"

But in spite of all this tumult and distress, Florimel did get better at last. Not too much better. She still demanded her nurse, much as she had wanted her to leave, and she ordered her about most unmercifully.

That word about her being the best nurse to watch out for scars and the like had brought Florimel around to keep her in spite of her dislike, for Florimel cared a great deal whether her young, supple body was to be scarred. When her hands were healed enough so she could hold a mirror, she spent hours looking at herself in the glass and mourning over the loss of her lovely cloud of red-gold hair, which really had been her only great claim to beauty. Even that the nurse began to suspect had not been wholly natural in color. For it was coming in now where it had been scorched away, a dirty shade of dull yellow and straight as a die. All Florimel's hair except one long heavy lock had been burned away, but she cherished that one lock carefully that she might measure the rest by it.

Amazingly her eyes had not been hurt by the fire.

"I covered them up with my hands," she explained coldly when the nurse wondered about it.

She was allowed to read a little every day if she chose, as soon as she could sit up a little. But she was not fond of reading. The only literature that interested her was movie or fashion magazines. Even those did not hold her long.

The young people of the family stole in to see her now and then, but she did not welcome them. She sneered at their freedom.

"I suppose you folks are gloating over me," she said to Sylvia one day. "I'm shut up here alone with a hateful old nurse and nothing to do, and you are just having the time of your life. You've got your young man, and you've got my husband to yourself. You must be awfully happy. Both your brothers and no wife around to hinder."

Sylvia gave a grave look.

"Rex has not been around with us at all," she said and sighed. "We scarcely see Rex since you were hurt."

"Oh,
really
! You expect me to believe that, I suppose. I don't know where he is, then; he certainly doesn't stay with me, and he hasn't lifted his hand to make me have a pleasant time, me cooped up here with a hateful old nurse."

"I think Rex spends all his time hunting a job. He is really trying very hard to find one. He comes home late every night after we have finished dinner and has to eat his dinner all alone."

"Oh, poor little fellow!" mocked Rex's wife. "Wants a job so much, does he? And your mother is still trying to put that nonsense over on him, when she knows perfectly well that he has money enough to live on in his own right, without any job, if she would just give the word. You can't make me believe that!"

"Please don't speak that way of Mother," said Sylvia, gently trying to control the angry flash that came into her eyes. "If you only knew how Mother tries to find ways of pleasing you and helping you to get well, you wouldn't think such things of our mother!"

"Oh, she does, does she? Well, I'd like it better if she'd just let up on some of these plans of hers that couldn't please me even if they went through, and would just tell that fool lawyer of hers where to get off and hand over Rex's fortune!"

"Well, you're mistaken about all that, of course," said Sylvia with rising color. "Someday, when you are well again, perhaps Mother will take you down to the lawyer's and let you hear our father's will read, and then you will understand. But until then I guess you and I better not talk about it."

"Oh, you don't say so!" mocked Florimel. "Okay! Suit yourself. I'll say what I please, of course, and if you don't like it, you know what you can do. You don't have to stay around me!"

Florimel always ended her interviews in this way; and then Sylvia would go out.

Later that day Rance Nelius came to take her skating.

It was a lovely, clear day; the ice was fine and the sky without a cloud. Just a brisk, cold winter day that brought the color to cheeks and a light to the eyes. The creek was edged with hemlock fringes, tall and graceful, waving in the breeze almost as if they were in tune with the skaters and were trying to keep time for them.

They were skating hand in hand, with long, slow strokes, enjoying every minute of the way. It was getting to be enough for these two just to be together, out in God's day.

"I don't know what to make of Florimel," said Sylvia. "Sometimes I think she is softening and going to be really friendly someday, and then almost in the same breath she flares out and says something perfectly terrible about Mother."

"Your wonderful mother! How
can
she?" commented Rance. "I don't see how anybody can help but love her."

He looked down at her, she looked up into his eyes, and a warm, sweet glance passed between them.

"Oh, I'm glad you've found out how dear Mother is!" said Sylvia with a glow in her eyes. "I couldn't really even just
like
anybody that didn't see how wonderful Mother is."

"I don't blame you," he said warmly, "and," he added significantly, "I want you to do more than just 'like' me." And he held her mittened hand in a warm, close clasp.

"I do," she said with drooping eyes, and then he slid his other arm within hers and drew her closer to him, her hand in a clasp that thrilled her.

"That's good!" he said earnestly, with a light in his face. It seemed to make her heart quiver with a new joy such as she had never felt before. Then after a moment he said, "Do you know, you're the only girl that ever made me think I might fall in love someday?"

Her cheeks were rosy red now and her eyes alight.

"That's nice," she said in a comical imitation of his tone a moment before, and then they both laughed merrily, a sweet, embarrassed laughter that meant a great deal more than just merriment.

Rance cast a quick glance up and down the creek; saw that they were alone; and, putting his arm about her with a sudden tender motion, guided them over to a quiet nook where hemlocks arched the way. There he took her in his arms and laid his lips on hers in a tender kiss that she would never forget. There was something sweet and holy about it, like a solemn ceremony, as if a vow had been sealed.

"There! Now!" he said as he took her hands in his and prepared to go on their way down the creek. "Now, we
belong
!"

"Yes," said Sylvia with a kind of glory in her eyes. "Yes, we belong."

He looked at her tenderly.

"Forever?"

"Yes, forever!" said the girl solemnly as if she were making a vow.

"That means," said Rance, searching her eyes deeply, "that someday we shall be married and always be together. I know you are young yet and not through your studies, and so am I. I've got to take my place in the world and get ready to take care of you, but it's nice to know we belong!"

"Oh, yes!" said Sylvia fervently. And then he bent his head and kissed her again. Hand in hand they pursued their way with joy in their hearts and happiness in their faces.

"We'll talk this over with your mother," said Rance, thoughtfully, as they went on, "as soon as an opportunity offers. We don't want to spring any more worries on her."

"Oh, no!" said Sylvia quickly. "But--" she added shyly, "I don't think it will be a worry. She likes you. She said so! She said you were the right kind!"

"Ah!" said Rance. "That's good to hear! May I always be able to hold her good opinion. I know it's going to be wonderful to have a real mother again, that I can claim at least in part."

Then suddenly there were voices ahead! Sylvia recognized them. Paul and Marcia. Paul was going back to college tomorrow, and they were having a farewell skate together.

Rance smiled understandingly.

"I guess those two have some kind of an understanding, too," he said. "Have they ever been formally engaged?"

"No," said Sylvia, "they've never said anything about it. But they grew up together. As long as I can remember, Paul always wanted Marcia invited when we had any company, and he always paired off with her everywhere. They were chums, even when they were quite young. But they never acted silly even then. They were just like nice brothers and sisters."

Rance's eyes lit up.

"I see! Well, you and I didn't have that advantage, but perhaps we'll have just as much love and joy in each other."

Sylvia's eyes answered his with a blaze of present joy.

"Your mother likes Marcia, doesn't she?"

"She loves her," said Sylvia. "She's very happy over those two. Though I don't know whether they've ever really talked it out with Mother or not. But we've always taken Marcia for granted. Oh, if only Rex had married someone like that!"