Part 15 (1/2)

”We'll have to wait a long time,” said he.

CHAPTER IX

THE London physician arrived, sat up with Paul most of the night, and went away the next morning saying that he was a dead man. Dr. Fuller, however, advanced the uncontrovertible opinion that a man was not dead till he died; and Paul was not dead yet. As a matter of fact, Paul did not die. If he had done so, there would have been an end of him and this history would never have been written. He lay for many days at the gates of Death, and Miss Winwood, terribly fearful lest they should open and the mysterious, unconscious shape of beauty and youth should pa.s.s through, had all the trouble promised her by the doctor. But the gates remained shut. When Paul took a turn for the better, the London physician came down again and declared that he was living in defiance of all the laws of pathology, and with a graceful compliment left the case in the hands of Dr. Fuller. When his life was out of danger, Dr.

Fuller attributed the miracle to the nurses; Ursula Winwood attributed it to Dr. Fuller; the London physician to Paul's superb const.i.tution; and Paul himself, perhaps the most wisely, to the pleasant-faced, masterful lady who had concentrated on his illness all the resources of womanly tenderness.

But it was a long time before Paul was capable of formulating such an opinion. It was a long time before he could formulate any opinion at all. When not delirious or comatose, he had the devil of pleurisy tearing at the wall of his lung like a wild cat. Only gradually did he begin to observe and to question. That noiseless woman in coot blue and white was a nurse. He knew that. So he must be in hospital. But the room was much smaller than a hospital ward; and where were the other patients? The question worried him for a whole morning. Then there was a pink-faced man in gold spectacles, Obviously the doctor. Then there was a sort of nurse whom he liked very much, but she was not in uniform. Who could she be? He realized that he was ill, as weak as a b.u.t.terfly; and the pain when he coughed was agonizing. It was all very odd. How had he come here? He remembered walking along a dusty road in the blazing sun, his head bursting, every limb a moving ache. He also vaguely remembered being awakened at night by a thunder storm as he lay snugly asleep beneath a hedge. The German Ocean had fallen down upon him. He was quite sure it was the German Ocean, because he had fixed it in his head by repeating ”the North Sea or German Ocean.” Mixing up delirious dream with fact, he clearly remembered the green waves rearing themselves up first, an immeasurable wall, then spreading a translucent canopy beneath the firmament and then descending in awful deluge. He had a confused memory of morning suns.h.i.+ne, of a cottage, of a hard-featured woman, of sitting before a fire with a blanket round his shoulders, of a toddling child smeared to the eyebrows with dirt and treacle whom he had wanted to wash. Over and over again, lately, he had wanted to wash that child, but it had always eluded his efforts.

Once he had thought of sc.r.a.ping it with a bit of hoof-iron, but it had turned into a Stilton cheese. It was all very puzzling. Then he had gone on tramping along the high road. What was that about bacon and eggs? The horrible smell offended his nostrils. It must have been a wayside inn; and a woman twenty feet high with a face like a cauliflower--or was it spinach?--or Brussels sprouts?--silly not to remember--one of the three, certainly--desired to murder him with a thousand eggs bubbling up against rank reefs of bacon. He had escaped from her somehow, and he had been very lucky. His star had saved him.

It had also saved him from a devil on a red-hot bicycle. He had stood quite still, calm and undismayed, in the awful path of the straddling Apollyon whose head was girt around with yellow fire, and had seen him swerve madly and fall off the machine. And when the devil had picked himself up, he had tried to blast him with the Great Curse of the Underworld; but Paul had shown him his cornelian heart, his talisman, and the devil had remounted his glowing vehicle and had ridden away in a spume of flame. The Father of Lies had tried to pa.s.s himself off as a postman. The memory of the shallow pretence tickled Paul so that he laughed; and then he half fainted in pleuritic agony.

After the interlude with the devil he could recollect little. He was going up to London to make his fortune. A princess was waiting for him at the golden gate of London, with a fortune piled up in a coach-and-six. But being very sick and dizzy, he thought he would sit down and rest in a great green cathedral whose doors stood invitingly open ... and now he found himself in the hospital ward. Sometimes he felt a desire to question the blue-and-white nurse, but it seemed too much trouble to move his lips. Then in a flash came the solution of the puzzle, and he chuckled to himself over his cunning. Of course it was a dream. The nurse was a dream-nurse, who wanted to make him believe that she was real. But she was not clever enough. The best way to pay her out for her deception was to take no notice of her whatsoever. So comforted, he would go to sleep.

At last one morning he woke, a miserably weak but perfectly sane man, and he turned his head from side to side and looked wonderingly at the fresh and exquisite room. A bowl of Morning Glow roses stood by his bedside, gracious things for fevered eyes to rest upon. A few large photographs of famous pictures hung on the walls. In front of him was the Santa Barbara of Palma Vecchio, which he recognized with a smile.

He had read about it, and knew that the original was in Venice.

Knowledge of things like that was comforting.

The nurse, noticing the change, came up to him and spoke in a soothing voice. ”Are you feeling better?”

”I think so,” said Paul. ”I suppose I've been very ill.”

”Very ill,” said the nurse.

”This can't be a hospital?”

”Oh, no. It's the house of some very kind, good friends. You don't know them,” she added quickly, seeing him knit a perplexed brow. ”You stumbled into their garden and fainted. And they're very anxious for you to get well and strong.”

”Who are they?” asked Paul.

”Colonel and Miss Winwood. They will be so glad to see you better--at least Miss Winwood will; the Colonel's not at home.”

She lifted his head gently and smoothed his pillows, and ordained silence. Presently the doctor came, and spoke kindly. ”You've had a narrow shave, my friend, and you're not out of the wood yet,” said he.

”And you'll have to go slow and take things for granted for some time.”

Then came Miss Winwood, whom he recognized as the puzzling but pleasant nurse out of uniform.

”I don't know how to thank you for taking me in, a stranger, like this,” said Paul.

She smiled. ”It's Providence, not me, that you must thank. You might have been taken ill by the roadside far away from anybody. Providence guided you here.”

”Providence or Destiny,” murmured Paul, closing his eyes. It was absurd to feel so weak.

”That's a theological question on which we won't enter,” laughed Miss Winwood. ”Anyhow, thank G.o.d, you're better.”

A little later she came to him again. ”I've been so anxious about your people--you see, we've had no means of communicating with them.”

”My people?” asked Paul, surprised.

”Yes. They must be wondering what has become of you.”