|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 66
It was the Dummy who solved that question. No one knew how he knew
the necessity or why he had not come forward sooner; but come he did
and would not be denied. The _interne_ went to a member of the staff
about it.
"The fellow works round the house," he explained; "but he's taken a
great fancy to the girl and I hardly know what to do."
"My dear boy," said the staff, "one of the greatest joys in the
world is to suffer for a woman. Let him go to it."
So the Dummy bared his old-young arm--not once, but many times.
Always as the sharp razor nicked up its bit of skin he looked at the
girl and smiled. In the early evening he perched the parrot on his
bandaged arm and sat on the roof or by the fountain in the
courtyard. When the breeze blew strong enough the water flung over
the rim and made little puddles in the hollows of the cement
pavement. Here belated sparrows drank or splashed their dusty
feathers, and the parrot watched them crookedly.
The Avenue Girl grew better with each day, but remained
wistful-eyed. The ward no longer avoided her, though she was never
one of them. One day the Probationer found a new baby in the
children's ward; and, with the passion of maternity that is the real
reason for every good woman's being, she cuddled the mite in her
arms. She visited the nurses in the different wards.
"Just look!" she would say, opening her arms. "If I could only steal
it!"
The Senior, who had once been beautiful and was now calm and placid,
smiled at her. Old Maggie must peer and cry out over the child.
Irish Delia must call down a blessing on it. And so up the ward to
the Avenue Girl; the Probationer laid the baby in her arms.
"Just a minute," she explained. "I'm idling and I have no business
to. Hold it until I give the three o'clocks." Which means the
three-o'clock medicines.
When she came back the Avenue Girl had a new look in her eyes; and
that day the little gleam of hope, that usually died, lasted and
grew.
At last came the day when the alibi was to be brought forward. The
girl had written home and the home folks were coming. In his strange
way the Dummy knew that a change was near. The kaleidoscope would
shift again and the Avenue Girl would join the changing and
disappearing figures that fringed the inner circle of his heart.
One night he did not go to bed in the ward bed that was his only
home, beside the little stand that held his only possessions. The
watchman missed him and found him asleep in the chapel in one of the
seats, with the parrot drowsing on the altar.
Rose--who was the stout woman--came early. She wore a purple dress,
with a hat to match, and purple gloves. The ward eyed her with scorn
and a certain deference. She greeted the Avenue Girl effusively
behind the screens that surrounded the bed.
"Well, you do look pinched!" she said. "Ain't it a mercy it didn't
get to your face! Pretty well chewed up, aren't you?"
"Do you want to see it?"
"Good land! No! Now look here, you've got to put me wise or I'll
blow the whole thing. What's my little stunt? The purple's all right
for it, isn't it?"
"All you need to do," said the Avenue Girl wearily, "is to say that
I've been sewing for you since I came to the city. And--if you can
say anything good----"
"I'll do that all right," Rose affirmed. She put a heavy silver bag
on the bedside table and lowered herself into a chair. "You leave it
to me, dearie. There ain't anything I won't say."
The ward was watching with intense interest. Old Maggie, working the
creaking bandage machine, was palpitating with excitement. From her
chair by the door she could see the elevator and it was she who
announced the coming of destiny.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|