Grace S. Richmond - Mrs. Red Pepper

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Mrs. Red Pepper

By Grace S. Richmond

Author of "Red Pepper Burns," "The Indifference of Juliet," "With Juliet
in England," "Strawberry Acres," Etc.

1913

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. Wholly Given Over to Sentiment

II. The Way to Attain an End

III. Burns Does His Duty

IV. A Red Head

V. More Than One Opinion

VI. Broken Steel Wires

VII. Points of View

VIII. Under the Apple Tree

IX. A Practical Artist

X. A Runaway Road

XI. After Dinner

XII. A Challenge

XIII. A Crisis

XIV. Before the Lens

XV. Flashlights

XVI. In February

XVII. From the Beginning

XVIII. The Country Surgeon

MRS. RED PEPPER

CHAPTER I

WHOLLY GIVEN OVER TO SENTIMENT

The Green Imp, long, low and powerful, carrying besides its two
passengers a motor trunk, a number of bulky parcels, and a full share
of mud, drew to one side of the road. The fifth April shower of the
afternoon was on, although it was barely three o'clock.

Redfield Pepper Burns, physician and surgeon, descended from the car, a
brawny figure in an enveloping gray motoring coat. He wore no hat upon
his heavy crop of coppery red hair--somewhere under the seat his cap was
abandoned, as usual. His face was brown with tan--a strong, fine face,
with dark-lashed hazel eyes alight under thick, dark eyebrows. From head
to foot he was a rather striking personality.

"This time," said he, firmly, "I'm going to leave the top up. It's
putting temptation in the way of something very weak to keep lowering the
top. We'll leave it up. There'll be one advantage." He looked round the
corner of the top into the face of his companion, as his hands adjusted
the straps.

"When we get to the fifty-miles-from-the-office stone, which we're going
to do in about five minutes, I can take leave of my bride without having
to observe the landscape except from the front."

"So you're going to take leave of her," observed his passenger. She did
not seem at all disturbed. As the car moved on she drew back her veil
from its position over her face, leaving her head covered only by a
close-fitting motoring bonnet of dark green, from within which her face,
vivid with the colouring born of many days driving with and without
veils, met without flinching the spatter of rain the fitful April wind
sent drifting in under the edge of the top. Her black eyelashes caught
the drops and held them.

"Yes, I'm going to say good-bye to her at that stone," repeated Burns.
"She's been the joy of my life for two weeks, and I'll never forget her.
But she couldn't stand for the change of conditions we're going to find
the minute we strike the old place. It's only my wife who can face
those."

"If the bride is to be left behind, I suppose the bridegroom will stay
with her? Together, they'll not be badly off."

Burns laughed. "Ye gods! Is that what I've been--a bridegroom? I'm glad
I didn't realize it; it would have made me act queerer than I have. Well,
it's been a happy time--a gloriously happy time, but--"

He paused and looked down at her for an instant, rather as if he
hesitated to say what was in his mind. He did not know that he had
already said it.

But she knew it, and she smiled at him, understanding--and sympathizing.
"But you are glad you are on your way back to your work," said she. "So
am I."

He drew a relieved breath. "Bless you," said he. "I'm glad you are--if
it's true. It's only that I'm so refreshed by this wonderful fortnight
that I--well--I want to go to work again--work with all my might. I feel
as if I could do the best work of my life. That doesn't mean that I don't
dread to see the first patient, for I do. Whoever he is, I hate the sight
of him! Can you understand?"

She nodded. "It will be like the first plunge into cold water. But once
in--"

"That's it. Of course, if he happened to be lying on my lawn, all mangled
up and calling for me to save his life, I'd welcome the sight of him,
poor chap. But he won't be interesting, like that. He'll be a victim of
chronic dyspepsia. Or worse--she'll be a woman who can't sleep without a
dope. I have to get used to that kind by degrees, after a vacation; I
don't warm up to 'em, on sight."

"Yet they're very miserable, some of those patients who are quite able to
walk to your office, and very grateful to you if you relieve them, aren't
they?"

Red Pepper chuckled. "I can foresee," he said, "that you're going to take
the side of the unhappy patient, from the start--worse luck for me! Yes,
they're grateful if I can relieve them, but the trouble is I can't
relieve them--not the particular class I have in mind. They won't do as I
order. And as long as I can't get them comfortably down in bed, where the
nurse and I have the upper hand, they'll continue to carry out half of my
directions--the half they approve, and neglect the other half--the really
important half, and then come round and tell me I haven't helped them
any--and why not? Oh, well--far be it from me to complain of the routine
work, much as I prefer the sort which calls for all the skill and
resource I happen to possess. And the dull part is going to take on a new
interest, now, when I can escape from the office into my wife's quarters,
between times, where no patient can follow me."

She smiled, watching a big cloud, low on the horizon before them, break
into fragments and dissolve into blue sky and sunshine. "I hope," said
she, "to be able to make those quarters attractive. You remember I
haven't seen them yet--not even the bare rooms."

"That's bothered me a good deal, in spite of the assurance you gave me,
when we discussed it by letter. If I hadn't been so horribly busy, and
had had the faintest notion of what to do with them--or if you had wanted
Martha and Winifred to put them in shape for you--"

"But I didn't! It's going to be such fun to work it out, you and I
together."

He shook his head. "Don't count on me, dear. I probably shan't
have time to do more than take you in to town and drop you in the
shopping district. You'll have to do it all. You've married a doctor,
Ellen--that's the whole story. And it's the knowledge of that fact
that makes me realize that I may as well leave my bride at the
fifty-mile-stone. It'll take my wife that fifty miles to prepare herself
for the thing that's going to strike her the minute we are home. And, by
the fates, I believe that's the stone, ahead there, at the curve of the
road!"

He brought the Green Imp's pace down until it was moving very slowly
toward the mile-stone. Then he turned and looked steadily down into the
face beside him. "Shall you be sorry to get there?" he asked.

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to be a bride. They are useless persons. And I
don't care much for bridegrooms, either. I prefer a busy husband. And
I shall enjoy getting those rooms in order, quite by myself. To tell the
truth I'm not at all sure I don't prefer to do them alone. I've had one
enlightening experience, shopping with you, you know."

"So you have." He laughed at the remembrance. "Yet I thought I was pretty
meek, that day. Well, so you don't mind getting to the mile-stone?"

"Not a bit."

They were beside it now. Burns stopped the car. It was a country road,
although it was the main highway between two large cities, and on this
April afternoon it was deserted by motorists. Only in the distance could
be discerned anything in the nature of a vehicle, and that was headed the
other way.

"I suppose I'm a sentimental chap," he observed. "But in one way I've
been rather dreading getting home, for your sake. It's come over me,
since we turned our faces this way, that not a thing has been done to
make my shabby old place fit for you--except to clean it thoroughly.
Cynthia's seen to that. Does it seem as if I hadn't cared to give you
a fit welcome home?"

His eyes were a little troubled, as they searched hers. But they
grew light again as they read in her serene glance that she did not
misunderstand him.

"Red," said she--and her hand slipped into his--"I like best to come into
your house, just as it is. Take me in--that's all I ask--and trust me to
make my own home there--and in your heart. That's all I want."

"You're in my heart," said her husband, "so close and warm there's not
much room for anything else."

"Then don't worry about the house. It will be a dear delight to fill the
empty rooms; I've a genius for that sort of thing. Wait and see. And
meanwhile"--she smiled up into his nearing face--"say good-bye to your
bride. She's quite ready to go--and give place to your wife."

So Redfield Pepper Burns kissed his bride, with the ardour of farewell.
But the next minute, safe in the shelter of the deep-hooded top, he had
welcomed his wife with his heart of hearts upon his lips, and a few
low-spoken words in her ear which would make the fiftieth-from-the-office
mile-stone a place to remember for them both.

Then he drove on, silently, for a while, as if the little roadside
ceremony had left behind it thoughts too deep for expression. And, quite
unconsciously, his hand upon the throttle was giving the Imp more and
more power, so that the car flew past the succeeding mile-stones at such
short intervals that before the pair knew it they were within sight of
the city on the farther side of which lay the suburban village which was
their home.

"I might stop at the hospital and see how things are," said Burns as they
entered the city's outskirts. "But it would be precisely my luck to find
something to detain me, and I think I owe it to you to take you home
before I begin on anything else."

"Stop, if you want to, Red," said Ellen. "I expected you would."

"But I don't want to. I might have to send some one else to drive you out
to the house, and that would break me up. I want to see you walk in at
the door, and know that you belong there. Then, if you like, and not till
then, I'll be content to go on duty at the old job."

So he took her home. As they approached the village the ninth April
shower of the afternoon came blustering up, accompanied by a burst of
wind and considerable thunder and lightning, so that when they caught
sight of the low-lying old brick house, well back from the street, which
was Red Pepper Burns's combined home and office, after the fashion of the
village doctor, it was through a wall of rain.

But the house was not the only thing they saw. In the street before
the house stood a row of vehicles. One electric runabout, hooded and
luxurious; two "buggies," of the village type, drawn by single horses
standing dejectedly with drooping ears and tails; one farmer's wagon,
filled with boxes and barrels, its horses hitched to Burns's post by a
rope: this was the assemblage.

Red Pepper drew one long, low whistle of dismay, then he burst into a
laugh. "Confound that blundering angel, Cynthia," he ejaculated. "She's
let it out that we're coming. And Amy Mathewson--my office nurse--not due
till to-morrow, to protect us! I was prepared, in a way, to pitch into
work, but, by George, I didn't expect to see that familiar sight to-day!
Hang it all!"

"Never mind." Ellen was laughing, too. "Remember you've left the bride
behind. Your wife will soon be used to it."

"We'll run in by the Chesters' driveway, and sneak in at the back door,"
and Burns suited the action to the word by turning in at the gateway of
his next door neighbour. "I rather wonder Win or Martha didn't go over
and drive away my too-eager clientele."

"Possibly they thought it would look more like home to you with an office
full of patients."

"It certainly will, though I could dispense with them to-night without
much sorrow. But--where am I going to put you? You can get to my room,
but you won't want to stay there. The part of the house that will be
the living part for you is either empty or cluttered up with wedding
presents. By all that's crazy, Ellen, I'm just waking up to the fact
that there isn't any place to put you, when there are patients in the
house--which there ever-lastingly are--except the dining-room and
kitchen! Lord Harry! what am I going to do? And what will you think
of me? Dolt that I am!"

He had heard her laugh before. A low and melodious laugh she had, and he
had often listened to it and joined in with it, and rejoiced at the
ability she possessed to laugh where many women would cry. But he had
never heard her laugh as she was laughing now. Her understanding of the
situation which had only just struck him was complete. She knew precisely
how busy he had been in the weeks preceding the wedding, and how
thankfully he had accepted her suggestion that she come to his home just
as it was, and plan for herself what disposal she would make of the empty
rooms in a house of which he had used only the wing. Until he had seen
that row of vehicles before the gate he had not comprehended the fact
that almost the entire furnished portion of the house was the public
property of his patients whenever they chose to come. And they were there
now!

The car stopped behind the house, close by the French window opening upon
a small rear porch. The window led to the large, low-ceiled room which
was Burns's own, leading in turn to his offices, and having only these
two means of entrance. Burns looked down at his wife, her expressive face
rosy with her laughter.

"I'm glad you see it that way," said he. "That sense of humour is going
to help you through a lot, tied up to R.P. Burns, M.D. Will you go into
my room, by this window? Or will you accept Cynthia's hospitality in the
dining-room? Or--maybe that's the best plan--will you just run over to
Martha's? I remember she begged us to come there, and now I see why. Want
to stay there a couple of weeks, till we can get your living-rooms
straightened out?"

She shook her head. "I've come to your home, Red," said she. "I'm not
going to be sent away! Go in and see your patients, and don't bother
about me. Cynthia and I will discover a place for me."

His face very red with chagrin, Burns took her in. The downpour of
rain had covered all sounds of the car's approach, so that neither the
Macauleys on the one side, the Chesters on the other, nor the housekeeper
herself, were aware of the arrival of the pair.

"For mercy's sake, Doctor!" cried Cynthia, and hurried across the neat
and pleasant kitchen to meet them. "I wasn't expecting you yet for an
hour. Mrs. Macauley and Mrs. Chester wasn't either. They was over here
ten minutes ago, planning how to get rid o' the folks in there that's
insisting on setting and waiting for you to come."

"Never mind them, Cynthia," said her new mistress, shaking hands. "The
Doctor will see them and I will stay with you. I've so much to plan
with you. What a pleasant kitchen! And how delicious something smells!
Cynthia, I believe I'm hungry!"

"Well, now, you just come and set right down in the dining-room and I'll
give you something," cried the housekeeper, delighted.

"That's right, Cynthia," approved Burns, much relieved. "Look after her
till I'm free." And he vanished.

"I reckon that'll be a pretty steady job," Cynthia declared, "if I'm to
do it 'till he's free.' He won't be free, Mrs.--Burns, till the next time
you get him out of town."

She led the way into the dining-room.

"Mrs. Macauley wanted to have you come to dinner there, to-night, and
Mrs. Chester wanted you, too. But Mr. Macauley said this was the place
for you to have your first dinner in--your own home, and he made the
women folks give in. So the table's all set, and I can hurry up dinner
so's to have it as soon as the Doctor gets those folks fixed up--if there
ain't a lot more by that time. Since Miss Mathewson went I've been
answering the telephone, and it seems 'sif the town wouldn't let him have
his honeymoon out, they're so crazy to get him back. Now--will you set
down and let me give you a bit o' lunch? It's only five o'clock, and I've
planned dinner for half-past six."

"It would be a pity to spoil this glorious appetite, Cynthia, though I'm
sorely tempted. I think I'll use the time getting freshened up from my
long drive--we've come a hundred and sixty miles to-day, through the mud.
Then I'll find Bob and be ready to have dinner with the Doctor."

"I'll have to take you round by the porch to get to the Doctor's
room--you wouldn't want to go through the office, with such a raft of
folks."

Ellen's bag in hand, Cynthia led the way. In at the long window she
hurried her, out of the rain which was dashing against it.

"I expect you'll think it smells sort o' doctorish," she said,
apologetically. "Opening out of the office, so, it's kind o' hard to keep
it from getting that queer smell, 'specially when he's always running in
to do things to his hands. But, land! his windows are always open, night
and day, so it might be worse."

"I think it's beautifully fresh and pleasant here. Oh, what a bunch of
daffodils on the dressing-table! Did you put them there?"

"I did--but 'twas Mrs. Macauley sent 'em over. You'll find clean towels
in the bathroom. Oh, and--Mrs. Burns,"--Cynthia hesitated,--"the Doctor
forgot to say anything about it, but I've fixed up this little room off
his for Bobby. He used to have the little boy sleep right next him,
in a crib, but I knew--of course,"--her face crimsoned,--"you wouldn't
want--" She paused helplessly.

But Ellen helped her with quick assent. "I'm so glad the little room is
so near. Bob won't be lonely, and I shall love to have him there. I can
hardly wait to see him."

Cynthia went away, rejoicing that her arrangements were approved. She was
devotedly fond of little Bob, Burns's six-year-old protege, by him
rescued, a year before, from an impending orphan asylum, and now the
happy ward of a guardianship as kind as an adoption. She had been
somewhat anxious over the child's future status with her employer's wife,
but was now quite satisfied that he was not to be kept at arm's length.

"Some would have put him off with me," she said to herself, as she
returned to her kitchen, "though I didn't really think it of her that
took so much notice of him before. She's a real lady, Mrs. Burns is--and
prettier than ever since she married the Doctor, as why shouldn't she be,
with him to look pretty for?"

Left alone Ellen looked about her. Yes, this was the room in which he
had lived the sleeping portion of his bachelor's life, so long. It gave
her an odd sense of what a change it was for him, this having a woman
come into his life, share his privacy,--he had so little privacy in his
busy days and nights,--and occupy this room of his, this big, square,
old-fashioned room with its open windows, the one spot which had been his
unassailable place of retreat. She felt almost as if she ought to go and
find some other room at once, ought not to take even temporary possession
of this, or strew about it her feminine belongings.

The room was somewhat sparsely furnished, containing but the necessary
furniture; no draperies at the open windows, few articles on the high old
mahogany bureau, an inadequate number of nearly threadbare rugs on the
waxed floor, and but three pictures on the walls. She studied these
pictures, one after another. One was a little framed photograph of
Burns's father and mother, taken sitting together on their vine-covered
porch. One was a colour drawing of a scene in Edinburgh, showing a view
of Princes Street and the Castle,--one which must have become familiar to
him from a residence of some length during the period of his studies
abroad. The third picture--it surprised and touched her not a little to
find it here--was a fine copy of a famous painting, showing the Christ
bending above the couch of a sick man and extending to him his healing
touch. The face was one of the best modern conceptions of the Divine
personality. She realized that the picture might have meant much to him.

She could hear his voice, as she set about her dressing. He was in his
private office, talking with a patient whose deafness caused him to raise
his own tones considerably; the closed door between could not keep out
all the sound. She felt her invasion of his life more keenly than ever
as she realized afresh how close to him her own life was to be lived.
Marrying a village doctor, whose home contained also his place of
business, was a very different matter from marrying a city physician with
a downtown office and a home into which only the telephone ever brought
the voice of a patient. It was to be a new and strange experience for
them both.

She sat before the dressing-table, having slipped into a little lilac and
white negligee. The half-curling masses of her black hair covered her
shoulders as she brushed them out--slowly, because she was thinking so
busily about it all, and had forgotten to make haste. Suddenly the door
leading into the office flew open--and closed as quickly. Steps behind
her, pausing, made her turn, to meet her husband's eyes.

He came close. An unmistakably "doctorish" odour accompanied him--an
odour not disagreeable but associated with modern means for securing
perfect cleanliness. He wore his white jacket, fresh from Cynthia's
painstaking hands. His eyes were very bright, his lips were smiling.

His arms came about her from behind, his head against hers gently forced
it back to face the mirror. In it the two pairs of eyes met again, hazel
and black.

"To think that I should see _that_ reflected from my old glass!"
whispered Red Pepper Burns.

CHAPTER II

THE WAY TO ATTAIN AN END

Mrs. Redfield Pepper Burns stood in the doorway of her living-room and
studied it with a critical eye. Within the room, on either side, stood
her sister Martha, Mrs. James Macauley, and her friend Winifred, Mrs.
Arthur Chester. In precisely these same relative positions were they
also her neighbours as to their own homes. Their husbands were Red
Pepper's best friends, outside those of his own profession. It was
appropriate that they should have stood by her during the period of
fitting and furnishing that part of the old house which her husband had
termed her "quarters."

"It's the loveliest room in this town," declared Winifred Chester, "and
I'm going to have all I can do not to be envious."

"I doubt if very many people in this little town will think it the
loveliest," said Ellen's sister. "Its browns and blues will be too dull
for them, and Ellen's old Turkey carpet too different from their polished
floors and 'antique' rugs. By the way, Ellen, how old do you suppose that
carpet is, anyhow?"

"It's been on Aunt Lucy's floors since before the Civil War. Isn't it
beautifully faded?--it furnishes the keynote of the whole room. Isn't it
fortunate that the room should be so long and low, instead of high and
square? Is it a restful room, girls? That's what I'm after."

"Restful!" Mrs. Chester clasped her hands in a speaking gesture. "Red
will forget every care, the minute he steps into it. When are you going
to show it to him?"

"To-night, when the fire is lighted and evening office-hours are over. If
he hadn't been so busy it would have been hard to keep him away, but he
hasn't had an hour to spare even for guessing what I've been doing."

"I hope he'll have an hour to spare, to stay in it with you. How you both
will hate the sound of the office-bell and the telephones!"

"I'm going to try hard not to, but I suppose I shall dread them, in spite
of myself," Ellen owned.

"This great couch, facing the fire, with all these lovely blue silk
pillows, is certainly the most comfortable looking thing I ever saw,"
sighed Winifred Chester, casting her plump little figure into the
davenport's roomy depths and clasping her hands under her head in an
attitude of repose.

"If Red doesn't send out word that he's not at home and can't be found,
when a call finds him stretched out here, he's a stronger character than
I think him."

"Now let's go up and look at the guest-rooms." Ellen led the way, an
engaging figure in a fresh white morning dress, her cheeks glowing with
colour like a girl's.

"If you didn't know, would you ever dream she had been wife and widow,
and had lost her little son?" murmured Winifred in Martha's ear.

Martha Macauley shook her head. "She seems to have gone back and begun
all over again. Yet there's a look--"

Winifred nodded. "Of course there is--a look she wouldn't have had if she
hadn't gone through so much. It's given her such a rich sort of bloom."

The guest-rooms were airy, attractive, chintz-hung rooms, one large, one
somewhat smaller, but both wearing a hospitable look of readiness.

"I like the gray-and-rose room best," announced Winifred, after a
critical survey, as if she were inspecting both rooms for the first time
instead of the fortieth. She had made the gray-and-rose chintz hangings
herself, delighting in each exquisite yard of the fine imported material.

"I prefer the green-leaf pattern, it looks so cool and fresh." Martha
eyed details admiringly. "This is your bachelor's room, you say, Ellen?
Oh, you've put a desk in it! The bachelor will want to stay forever. Who
do you suppose he will be?"

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