THE CHRISTMAS BRIDE Read online

  And Greg sank into his comfortable seat and mused on the ways of the world to which he had come back. He could sense that the porter was still troubled in spite of the tip, and he realized that his appearance was against him. Even money didn’t count if one didn’t dress the part. Well, he could do it now, but would it pay? Would it get him the kind of friends he wanted? Of course he meant to buy some new clothes when he got to a city. Perhaps he would stop off in Chicago and shop. He didn’t want to go home looking like a wild man. But he registered a resolve never to dress conspicuously and never to judge a man merely by his clothes.

  Presently, one came through the train announcing the last call for dinner, and Greg, with a furtive glance around, noting that most of his car companions were in their seats and had probably had their dinners, decided that it was late enough for him to venture into the diner. He found he was hungry enough to thoroughly enjoy the first well-cooked meal that he had eaten for several years.

  Ten days later, Gregory Sterling stood at the front window of the luxurious room that had been assigned him in the great new apartment hotel in his hometown, looking out at the street that had been a meadow when he went away.

  He had chosen the Whittall House from the list the taxicab driver had suggested, because it seemed to be located out on the edge of town, and his soul was weary for the quietness and peace of his wilderness lodge. He had spent several days in Chicago shopping, having acquired what seemed to him a ridiculously large supply of clothing and several quite correct pieces of baggage. Porters and hotel clerks no longer looked at him askance. He was as well turned out as any modern young man could be. The hometown had no need to be ashamed of him.

  And now he stood at the window of his room looking out on the amazing changes that had come during his absence, identifying the bit of a park across the street as the very spot where his mother and he used to pick violets years ago on the rare occasions when she had time to take a walk with him. His eyes suddenly filmed over with tears at the memory.

  The street was wide, and the little park ran down the center, making a boulevard of it. Traffic was whirling on either side, but the little park in the middle made a haven, a wide, nice pleasant place to rest between the crossings. There were paths of cement wandering across the park, curving this way and that among the trees, and there were flower beds with late fall flowers in blossom, little button chrysanthemums, white and yellow, pompon chrysanthemums flaring red, orange, yellow, russet brown, and flame color, growing rankly with bright, ragged heads in spite of the touch of frost there had been the night before.

  There were trees, too. Tall pines and oaks and maples, still clinging to their brilliant foliage, for the street there was sheltered by tall buildings, apartments houses, and hotels. And was that an old, gnarled apple tree? It looked like the very tree he used to climb to get a spray of apple blossoms for his mother. There were no leaves left on it, but high in the top there was a small red apple or two that no one had spied. There was a bench under the tree, and the walk curved to it and away to a fountain a little farther on, a fountain whose bright spray caught the late afternoon sun and reflected it into many faceted jewels.

  A girl was sitting on the bench, droopingly, as if she was tired and discouraged. It was good to have a bit of green in the midst of the whirl, a quiet place where the traffic could not come, for tired people to rest in. But better still if the meadow were there the way it used to be!

  Across the road beyond the little park and the other road there were tall, beautiful buildings, but they did not look natural. He was almost sorry he had come out here to stay. It did not seem as if it was his hometown at all. It hadn’t ever occurred to him that the town would grow out into the country this way in just ten years!

  His eyes wandered back again to the fountain where little brown birds were drenching themselves and shaking fluffy, wet feathers, splashing like children in the marble basin and sitting chirping on the marble rim to dry.

  The girl on the bench was not far from them, but she did not seem to be watching the birds. She had put her head down now on her arm across the back of the bench, as if she were too tired to watch birds or enjoy bits of parks.

  Then suddenly as he gazed, the girl slumped in a little crumpled heap and slid off the bench, as if she no longer had the power to help herself. So slowly, almost unobtrusively, the slender figure slipped down from the bench, it almost seemed like an empty garment sliding from a chair where it had been carelessly thrown. Could it be that her spirit had fled?

  Startled, he looked at the still form lying there on the ground, one arm thrown up and back the way it had slipped when she fell, the white face turned upward. Was he seeing aright? Or was this some illusion?

  He passed his hand over his eyes hastily and looked again. Something must be wrong with his vision. It could not be that a thing like that had happened before his eyes in broad daylight with traffic passing either way continually.

  But there she lay, still as death, her hat tipped away from her face. And now he saw there were bushes all about which might have obstructed the vision of those on the road. He could see because he was looking down from above. She was lying there as she had fallen on the ground beside the bench, and no one seemed to be doing anything about it. He was perhaps the only one who knew, and she might be dying if she were not dead already!

  Greg sprang toward his door and started down the stairs, thankful that he was only three stories up, forgetting that an elevator could travel faster than his feet.

  Chapter 2

  The doorman was startled as Greg burst hatless into the street.

  “A woman fallen off the bench over there!” Greg called breathlessly as the doorman rushed alongside. “I saw her fall. Better call a doctor!”

  “Better call the police!” advised the doorman prudently. “You better wait till the police comes! You might get mixed up in some murder or something.” The doorman put a detaining hand on Greg’s arm, holding him back from an oncoming automobile.

  “And let her die meantime?” shouted Greg, shaking off the detaining hand and dashing madly in among traffic.

  The doorman looked uncertainly after him then turned back to send a gaping bellboy to telephone for an ambulance.

  Meantime, a crowd had suddenly gathered and were staring. The clerk of the hotel came out and looked across to the park.

  Greg had reached the side of the girl now and was kneeling, looking at her intently, stooping to listen for her heart.

  On the way down the stairs, he had thought of possibilities. He hailed from a land where stray bullets were not uncommon, and of course that was the first thing he thought of. Someone had shot the girl, or someone was shooting at birds and sent a wild bullet into the air.

  But there was no sign of a wound, no blood on the ground or trickling down the white face. Just a pinched, tired look that went to his heart, just long dark lashes lying over deathly white, thin cheeks.

  Greg gave one wild look around and gathered her up into his arms.

  “Better leave her lay, buddie,” advised a bystander with his hands in his pockets and his pipe between his teeth. “Always better ta leave ‘em lay till the p’lice gets here, buddie. You don’t get no thanks fer meddling.”

  Greg flashed him a look from his steady gray eyes.

  “Get me a taxi!” he ordered. “She’s not dead! Only fainted!”

  “Ya can’t tell, buddie! She might pass out on ya!” said the bystander.

  “Where is the nearest hospital?” demanded Greg, ignoring the man with the advice.

  A boy dashed out into the road and stopped a taxi. A shabby man hurried to the fountain and filled his hat full of water from the basin. A woman walking through the park produced a bottle of smelling salts.

  Greg wet his handkerchief in the hat and wiped the girl’s forehead and lips. He let the woman hold the bottle of smelling salts under her nostrils, and they were rewarded by a long, slow, trembling breath from the girl, and then a lifting of t
he fringes of the eyelids just for a fleeting instant that showed great, dark, troubled eyes. The fringes fell almost instantly, but the crowd had seen that she was alive, and a murmur of sympathy went through them like the sighing of the wind.

  But Greg saw the taxi draw up at the curb, and he swept them all aside and carried his burden over. He got in with her in his arms.

  “The nearest hospital, quick!” he ordered, and they whirled away, leaving the gaping crowd to discuss the incident.

  Greg sat holding the girl in his arms, looking down at the white face against his shoulder, the long curling lashes, the disheveled brown hair. Her hat had fallen off, and one of the bystanders had laid it in her arms, a little soft, black felt with a tiny bright feather stuck cockily through the brim, a brave attempt to be like the world. But the rest of her attire was undeniably shabby. Little, stubbed-out shoes, worn down at the heel but bravely polished. Shabby gloves carefully mended. He felt a sudden mistiness in his eyes, a sudden estimate of the preciousness of his burden. Perhaps she was very dear to somebody. There must be people who loved her, many perhaps, but for the time being she was his to protect, until someone else should claim her. He perhaps was all that stood between her and death.

  He drew his breath in sharply. If she was living yet!

  He looked down with fear. How white her lips were! Perhaps that look she had given had been her last one on earth! Oh, would they never reach the hospital? How light and frail her body seemed! There was something pitiful in the droop of her lips. Something that made him think with a pang of his mother in her last days. Was this death? He held her lightly and felt the wonder of her delicate face against his shoulder.

  There! They were stopping! Yes, this was a hospital building. A white-clad doctor appeared! A nurse! They tried to take her from him, but he bore her swiftly up the steps.

  “Hurry!” he said. “She may not be gone yet!”

  “The emergency ward is full!” he heard a nurse’s voice say sharply. “That fire! They kept bringing them in! Two have died already, but the beds are full.”

  “Take her to a private room!” he commanded.

  “A private?” another nurse asked. “Who is she? We can’t put her in a private room unless we know she can pay.”

  “I will pay. Get her somewhere quick!” said Greg.

  Magic money! How it oiled the wheels and hastened matters. No, they were not hardhearted. They were used to emergencies. But there had been so many that night. And the head nurse was off on her vacation. It was only a substitute who was trying to be conscientious.

  She was on a bed at last with a doctor and nurse working over her. Finally, the doctor straightened up and looked around.

  “Who brought her here? What happened?”

  “I did,” said Greg. “Don’t know what happened.”

  “Is she your wife?” the doctor asked, looking at him intently.

  Greg looked at him with startled eyes.

  “Oh no. I never saw her before. She was sitting on a bench in the park across from my hotel. I happened to be looking out the window and saw her fall; that was all.”

  “H’m,” said the doctor, touching her pulse again. “A clear case of starvation, I guess. That’s all!”

  “Starvation!” said Greg aghast. “You don’t mean it! Not in a city full of people!”

  “Oh yeah?” said the doctor brusquely. “You don’t pick food off trees in parks. Does she look like a girl who would go to your back door and beg?”

  He turned to the nurse and gave low-voiced directions, and Greg stood looking down at the pathetic little white face on the pillow. Starving! How could that come about?

  They were pressing a spoonful of something between the white lips now, and the girl on the bed drew a slow quivering breath again and opened her eyes for an instant.

  “That’s it, sister,” said the doctor cheerfully. “You’re going to feel better now in a minute.”

  He watched the patient closely.

  “A cup of that broth as soon as you can get it, Nurse,” he said in a low tone, keeping his finger on the pulse. Then to Greg who was standing anxiously by: “Yes sir, you find ‘em like this every day. Proud as Lucifer, lost their job, nowhere to turn. All the worse for them if they happen to be good.”

  Greg looked at the delicate high-born features of the girl and understood what the doctor meant. He looked at her slender, patrician, well-cared-for hands and read a tragedy. How had a girl like this one come so near to starvation?

  When the broth was brought, the patient swallowed obediently but did not open her eyes again. Greg watched from the doorway with misgiving in his heart. Was this little shadow of a girl going to slip away from them out of life after all, without giving a clue as to her identity? Was there perhaps a mother or some other loved one who was waiting anxiously, pondering on such a tragedy for the friends of this girl? Was there nothing he could do?

  “Will this nurse stay by her all night?” he asked the doctor while the nurse was feeding her the soup.

  “Oh, she’ll be in and out all night,” said the doctor. “You know she has this whole hall to look out for.”

  “I’d like her to have someone with her all night,” said Greg. “I’d feel better that way. I feel sort of responsible because I found her, at least till her folks get here.”

  “Of course you could have a special nurse if you’re willing to pay for it,” said the doctor thoughtfully, “but it isn’t necessary. She’ll probably pull through all right.”

  “I’d like to have a special nurse,” said Greg decidedly.

  “Well, of course it’s always safer in a case like this,” said the doctor. “You can’t always be sure about the condition of the heart.”

  So presently a pleasant-faced capable young woman appeared and took charge. Greg motioned her out in the hall and talked to her in low tones.

  “This girl was sitting on a park bench when I first saw her from my hotel window,” he told her, “and while I was watching, she fell off the bench. I brought her here, and I’m arranging for her to have this room as long as she needs it till she is able to go away. But she doesn’t know me, and I don’t know her. Maybe she might not like it to have me meddling in her affairs, but you don’t need to say anything about it, do you? Just let on the hospital put her in here, can’t you? I don’t want to put her under any obligation.”

  “I see,” said the nurse. “We’ll fix that up all right. It’s awfully fine of you to do all this for a stranger, and you can count on me.”

  He looked at her wistfully.

  “If there is anything else I could do, I’d be glad,” he said. “It seems a pity we don’t know where to find her friends. I don’t suppose she’ll be able to tell us anything tonight.”

  “No,” said the nurse, thoughtfully. “Maybe not even tomorrow. It might be best just to let her alone and let her rest. You can’t always tell about these cases.”

  “I wonder, said Greg almost shyly, “if I should leave you my telephone number, would you call me in case you found out, or there was anything at all that I could do to help? In the night or anytime. There’s a telephone in my room. It wouldn’t bother me a bit.”

  “Sure, I’ll let you know if there is any change or anything you can do. But I guess you needn’t worry. The doctor seemed to think her heart was pretty good. And I’ll be right here all night.”

  “That’s good!” he said and gave her a relieved smile.

  So Greg went down and arranged for the private room, paying a week in advance.

  “If she doesn’t need it that long, you can put some other little stranger in there after she is gone,” he said happily, and swung off down the street to his hotel, thinking about the little, white-faced girl lying in the hospital bed.

  It seemed a strange homecoming, almost the first thing to find this girl sitting over there just where he and his mother had picked violets. And now it seemed as though he could not do anything for himself until he knew the fate of this poor li
ttle stranger.

  He went into the dining room and ate a good dinner, surprised to find that it was well on toward eight o’clock. Why, it had been still daylight when he took that girl to the hospital!

  While he ate, he was thinking about the hospital. He remembered various bronze tablets he had seen about on the walls as he waited for his receipt to be signed at the office.

  Wouldn’t it be a nice thing for him to endow one of those rooms so it could be used for strangers? He could put up a tablet on the door with his mother’s name, a memorial to her. Call it the Mary Sterling Memorial Room for Strangers. He would enjoy doing that with some of his new money. It would somehow give his mother a part in it. And she would have liked that. She was always doing beautiful things for lonely people. Perhaps he could get that very room the little girl was in tonight! That would be nice. The girl who had been sitting alone in the very spot where his mother used to pick violets would be the first one to lie in the room endowed to her memory. He would do it! The first thing tomorrow morning, he would go over to the hospital and arrange it! He would get the bronze tablet made and put on the door right away. Then if the girl was worried about his paying for her room, there wouldn’t be any trouble. It would just be a free room for strangers.

  The idea made him quite happy, and after he had finished his dinner, he went out and walked beside the fountain in the little park, strolling past the bench where the girl had sat, even sitting down upon it a moment to wonder why she had sat there and what had happened that had brought her into such a sorrowful situation.

  As he got up, his foot struck against something in the grass, something soft and yielding that slid across the pavement as he hit it.

  He stooped and picked it up wonderingly. It was a flat purse with a strap across the back, one of the kind that most girls carried. It had a look of thinness about it that betokened nothing inside. He took it over and stood thoughtfully. Could that belong to the girl he had picked up, and could she possibly have dropped it as she fell?