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Page 40
She pushed back the door of Ward C. The night light in the hall
outside was shaded; only a glimmer came through the windows from the
street lamps below; consequently things could not be seen very clearly
or distinguishably in the room. Across the threshold her foot slid
over something soft and slippery; stooping, her hand closed upon a
flower, while she brushed another. Puzzled, she felt her way over to
the table in the center of the room, where she had put the green
Devonshire bowl. It was empty.
"That's funny," she murmured, her mind attempting to ferret out an
explanation. She dropped to her knees and scanned the floor closely.
There they were, the primroses, a curving trail of them stretching from
the head of Pancho's bed to the foot of Michael's. She choked back an
exclamation just as a shadow cut off the light from the hall. It was a
man's shadow, and the voice of the House Surgeon came over the
threshold in a whisper:
"What are you doing--burying ghosts?"
"Come and see, and let the light in after you."
The House Surgeon came and stood behind her where she knelt. She
looked so little and childlike there that he wanted to pick her up and
tell her--oh, such a host of things! But he was a wise House Surgeon,
and his experience on the stairs had not counted for nothing; moreover,
he was a great believer in the psychological moment, so he peered over
her shoulder and tried to make out what she was looking at.
"Faded flowers," he volunteered at last, somewhat doubtfully.
"A primrose ring," she contradicted. "But who ever heard of one in a
hospital? Take care--" For the surgeon's shoe was carelessly knocking
some of the blossoms out of place. "Don't you know that no one must
disturb a primrose ring? It's sacred to Fancy; and there is no telling
what is happening inside there to-night."
"What?" The House Surgeon asked it as breathlessly as any little boy
might have. Science had goaded him hard along the road of established
facts, thereby causing him to miss many pleasant things which he still
looked back upon regretfully, and found himself eager for, at times.
Of course, he had scoffed at them aloud and before Margaret MacLean,
but inwardly he adored them.
She did not answer; she was too busy wondering about something to hear
the House Surgeon's question. Her eyes looked very big and round in
the darkness, and her face wore the little-girl scarey look as she
reached up for his hand and clutched it tight, while her other hand
pointed across the primrose ring to the row of beds.
"See, they look empty, quite---quite empty."
"Just nerves." And he patted the hand in his reassuringly; he tried
his best to pat it in the old, big-brother way. "You've had an awfully
trying day--most women would be in their rooms having hysteria or
doldrums."
Still she did not hear. Her eyes were traveling from cot to crib and
on to cot again, as they had once before that night. "Every single bed
looks empty," she repeated. "The clothes tumbled as if the children
had slipped quietly out from under them." She shivered ever so
slightly. "Perhaps they have found out they are not wanted any longer
and have run away."
"Come, come," the House Surgeon spoke in a gruff whisper. "I believe
you're getting feverish." And mechanically his ringers closed over her
pulse. Then he pulled her to her feet. "Go over to those beds this
minute and see for yourself that every child is there, safe and sound
asleep."
But she held back, laughing nervously. "No, no; we mustn't spoil the
magic of the ring." Her voice trailed off into a dreamy, wistful
monotone. "Who knows--Cinderella's godmother came to her when it was
only a matter of ragged clothes and a party; the need here was far
greater. Who knows?" She caught her breath with a sudden in-drawn
cry. "Why, to-night is May Eve!"
"Why, of course it is!" agreed the House Surgeon, as if he had known it
from the beginning.
"And who knows but the faeries may have come and stolen them all away?"
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