The Magpies Nest

by Isabel Paterson

  And here was Conroy Edgerton just around the corner, in at the death again, in a sense. She seemed destined to be shipwrecked at his feet. He had been so kind that other time. What would it be like to see him again?

  Not difficult, at least. For all this was New York, and Mrs. Hamilton had naturally credited him with no address; he was no needle in a haystack. By no stretch of the imagination could one consider him a needle! Knowing New York a little, and him a great deal, she would have wagered her new-found luck on her ability to find him. If he hadn't already started home, or if he wasn't stopping with some other tiresome relative. She quickened her pace up the Avenue, as if he might make good his escape before she reached Thirty-fourth Street, and Peacock Alley. Having once thought of seeing him, homesickness, loneliness, swept her towards him with the force of floods breaking bounds. The revolving doors let her into the huge brown stone hostelry with a seeming of added haste, impelled her on past the rows of gorgeous, somnolently watchful women and plump, prosperous men, till she came to the desk. She wrote her name on a card—"H. Angell," as she was wont to sign her drawings, quite forgetting that Edgerton might not recall her by any such cognomen—with a line asking if he could come down—and waited.

  The close, warm, scented air made her sleepy; she leaned on the arm of her great carved and gilded chair, her face shadowed by her hat, studying with an impersonal eye the people who quested past her. So it was she looked on Edgerton first, hardly realising his identity, as he came toward her down the strip of red carpet, looking over her head. Hewas just like all these other solid, comfortable, middle-aged men: there were thousands of him. Until she stood up. directly under his nose, and held out her hand and called him by name; then he was different to her. Because he was kind still: his shrewd eyes, after one moment's amazement, still enshrined her—and were sorry for her! She had never known before that he had always been sorry for her; she had not known that he was so clever as that. Her heart, which had felt as if constricted by invisible hands since Nick's vanishment, seemed to escape and unfold, and her frozen sensibilities melted. He was speaking, enfolding her gloved hands in his warm cushioned clasp.

  "You!" he said. "Did you know I'd been looking for you? And here you are by accident—I just came downstairs to meet a man—no, was that your card? By Jiminy, I didn't recognise it. Come in here where we can talk." He swept her away and commandeered a headwaiter, who bestowed them in an obscure, palm-sheltered alcove and stood at bland attention.

  "But I've only a minute," said Hope. "I don't want to eat. Give me—oh, give me some tea," she said desperately, though it was six-thirty. "I've an engagement with a girl right away. And I must go back to work."

  "What work?"

  She spread her pretty hands, unspoiled by a mere week's labour, on the cloth.

  "I am a maid at the Alhambra Hotel."

  This with an air so demure that a wiser man than he would never have guessed she was taking in, at an eyeful, all the resplendency of his diamonds, the fineness of his linen, the creased newness of his suit, and mischievously pelting this brutal fact of her manual toil at them, his insignia of ease—like a small boy's snowball aimed irresistibly at a silk hat.

  "What?" Now he appraised her in turn, for confirmation. "I don't believe it." But he did; he believed that hat of hers. "Good heavens, why?"

  "Oh, bad luck, bad management. Better than starving."

  "Or..." He stopped.

  She shook her head.

  "Not that. Expensive, but I like to own myself. I suppose you'd think you might have been to blame?" Some such matter, truly. She said cryptically: "How we all flatter ourselves! I think I never had a better friend than you. If I have had no success, it was not for lack of the best counsel. Besides, perhaps I have," A childish pleasure in "saving it up" made her defer her very new news. "Why don't you tell me something about your own self?"

  "Emily's married," he said, with doting regret. "Got a good fellow. They sailed for France this morning; biggest suite on the Mauretania. Now, look here, Hope, we've got to change things a bit for you."

  "What shall we do?" she asked, gravely mischievous. "We failed once, you know. You don't want to try it over again?"

  She studied his face; the complexity of his feelings made it worthwhile, but she could barely restrain a shout of mirth. And then, unexpectedly, she perceived a hint of the old feeling, a tenderness, a baffled reaching for something elusive, for the wraiths of dead dreams. He put his hands in his coat pockets, though the table was between them, and gave her a look of sheer appeal.

  "Do you want to?" he asked slowly.

  "No, no." She felt very small, and remorseful. "I oughtn't to plague you; forgive me, you were always good. It's too late—it was always too late..."

  "It was always too late," he nodded. "But, God, how I used to wish it wasn't. Say, Hope, where's your husband?"

  "I don't know," she replied truthfully. "And you?"

  "My wife got a divorce. It was a kind of a jolt, but I'm glad now. The fact is—But here, now, are you going to let me help you?"

  "You're just the same," she said. How restful, how refreshing, to find someone just the same. "But look, I don't need it. I've got everything already—everything anyone can give me, I mean—read this; look here."

  She thrust the letter into his hands excitedly, poured a torrent of explanation over him while he tried to read it, and finally made the matter reasonably clear to him, more or less in spite of herself.

  "I knew you'd make it sometime," he beamed. "I'm going to order some champagne—sure, you've got to celebrate. Buy a Paris hat, and a trunkful of new dresses."

  "Do I look so passée as that?" she queried. "Very well, I will—to-morrow. Now I have got to go and see the girl who wrote the letter; I looked for you first, Con. Oh, indeed I must; but to-morrow I will do as you say, anything; I know this is mean of me, but good-bye." She pushed away her untasted cup of tea, and rose, drawing on her gloves....

  "Why did you come?" he asked aggrievedly. "Now I've got to eat my dinner alone. Where shall I find you to-morrow?"

  "Still at the Alhambra. Oh, I came because— because I was alone, too. And I wanted to tell someone my news." She pulled down her veil and hurried out, bumping into a gold laced page at the door, because more than her veil obscured her eyes. All this wealth, this soft luxury, was what she had foregone from Edgerton, but she was not thinking of that. "It was Nick I wanted to tell," was her thought.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  BUT if she had spoken it in his ear, he could not have heard.

  At the office, where he made the rounds to say good-bye to the men he knew, their cordial regrets would have touched him if he had been able to bring his head down from the clouds. They noticed that, too; Everson, the manager, a man of dry speech and a quick eye, pricked him neatly.

  "You needn't look so damned glad to be going. What? Yes, you do; you look like a new bridegroom. And you won't even give us a chance to congratulate you."

  "Rats," said Nick, reddening furiously, and laughing. "Want me to burst into tears? Say, I do hate to leave."

  "Well, come and have a drink, anyway," Everson offered. Men liked Nick. "There's a long dry spell ahead, if I know weather signs. Never mind the denials."

  "Don't think I've got time," said Nick dubiously. "I've got to go to the bank, and then a call to make."

  "Take you round in my car," said Everson, putting on his hat. "Drop you wherever you say; I've got to go uptown anyway. Anyone else on?"

  Several of the other men took the invitation, but they left these in a few minutes at the café. Nick got into the motor with Everson.

  "East Nineteenth," Nick requested, after they had left the bank. "This is your new car, ain't it? Got the new motor in it; really! Let's try it."

  Everson had been driving himself; they shifted seats, and Nick took the wheel.

  "Smooth," he said admiringly.

  Everson told him it was still on trial in a sense, having come from the shop but th
e 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 s
o 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: