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Page 60

Stewart had another reason for not wishing to leave Semmering.
Anita was beautiful, a bit of a coquette, too; as are most pretty
women. And Stewart was not alone in his devotion. A member of the
party, a New Yorker named Adam, was much in love with the girl
and indifferent who knew it. Stewart detested him.

In his despair Stewart wrote to Peter Byrne. It was
characteristic of Peter that, however indifferent people might be
in prosperity, they always turned to him in trouble. Stewart's
letter concluded:--

"I have made out a poor case for myself; but I'm in a hole, as
you can see. I would like to chuck everything here and sail for
home with these people who go in January. But, confound it,
Byrne, what am I to do with Marie? And that brings me to what I
've been wanting to say all along, and haven't had the courage
to. Marie likes you and you rather liked her, didn't you? You
could talk her into reason if anybody could. Now that you know
how things are, can't you come up over Sunday? It's asking a lot,
and I know it; but things are pretty bad."

Peter received the letter on the morning of the day before
Christmas. He read it several times and, recalling the look he
had seen more than once in Marie Jedlicka's eyes, he knew that
things were very bad, indeed.

But Peter was a man of family in those days, and Christmas is a
family festival not to be lightly ignored. He wired to Stewart
that he would come up as soon as possible after Christmas. Then,
because of the look in Marie's eyes and because he feared for her
a sad Christmas, full of heartaches and God knows what
loneliness, he bought her a most hideous brooch, which he thought
admirable in every way and highly ornamental and which he could
not afford at all. This he mailed, with a cheery greeting, and
feeling happier and much poorer made his way homeward.

CHAPTER XV

Christmas-Eve in the saloon of Maria Theresa! Christmas-Eve, with
the great chandelier recklessly ablaze and a pig's head with
cranberry eyes for supper! Christmas-Eve, with a two-foot tree
gleaming with candles on the stand, and beside the stand, in a
huge chair, Jimmy!

It had been a busy day for Harmony. In the morning there had been
shopping and marketing, and such a temptation to be reckless,
with the shops full of ecstasies and the old flower women fairly
overburdened. There had been anxieties, too, such as the pig's
head, which must be done a certain way, and Jimmy, who must be
left with the Portier's wife as nurse while all of them went to
the hospital. The house revolved around Jimmy now, Jimmy, who
seemed the better for the moving, and whose mother as yet had
failed to materialize.

In the afternoon Harmony played at the hospital. Peter took her
as the early twilight was falling in through the gate where the
sentry kept guard and so to the great courtyard. In this grim
playground men wandered about, smoking their daily allowance of
tobacco and moving to keep warm, offscourings of the barracks,
derelicts of the slums, with here and there an honest citizen
lamenting a Christmas away from home. The hospital was always
pathetic to Harmony; on this Christmas-Eve she found it
harrowing. Its very size shocked her, that there should be so
much suffering, so much that was appalling, frightful,
insupportable. Peter felt her quiver under his hand. A hospital
in festivity is very affecting. It smiles through its tears. And
in every assemblage there are sharply defined lines of
difference. There are those who are going home soon, God willing;
there are those who will go home some time after long days and
longer nights. And there are those who will never go home and who
know it. And because of this the ones who are never going home
are most festively clad, as if, by way of compensation, the
nurses mean to give them all future Christmasses in one. They
receive an extra orange, or a pair of gloves, perhaps,--and they
are not the less grateful because they understand. And when
everything is over they lay away in the bedside stand the gloves
they will never wear, and divide the extra orange with a less
fortunate one who is almost recovered. Their last Christmas is
past.

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Wed 24th Dec 2025, 15:16

The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart