Chapter 30: Her First Case

October hovered over Kentucky that year in a golden halo of enchantment. The beech-trees ran the gamut of glory, and every shrub and weed had its hour of transient splendor. A soft haze from burning brush lent the world a sense of mystery and immensity. Day after day on the south porch at Hillcrest Mac Clarke lay propped with cushions on a wicker couch, while Nance Molloy sat beside him, and all about them was a stir of whispering, dancing, falling leaves. The hillside was carpeted with them, the brook below the pergola was strewn with bits of color, while overhead the warm sunshine filtered through canopies of russet and crimson and green.

“I tell you the boy is infatuated with that girl,” Mr. Clarke warned his wife from time to time.

“What nonsense!” Mrs. Clarke answered. “He is just amusing himself a bit.
He will forget her as soon as he gets out and about.”
“But the girl?”

“Oh, she’s too sensible to have any hopes of that kind. She really is an exceptionally nice girl. Rather too frank in her speech, and frequently ungrammatical and slangy, but I don’t know what we should do without her.”

But even Mrs. Clarke’s complacence was a bit shaken as the weeks slipped away, and Mac’s obsession became the gossip of the household. To be sure, so long as Nance continued to regard the whole matter as a joke and refused to take Mac seriously, no harm would be done. But that very indifference that assured his adoring mother, at the same time piqued her pride. That an ordinary trained nurse, born and brought up, Heaven knew where, should be insensible to Mac’s even transient attention almost amounted to an impertinence. Quite unconsciously she began to break down Nance’s defenses.

“You must be very good to my boy, dear,” she said one day in her gentle, coaxing way. “I know he’s a bit capricious and exacting at times. But we can’t afford to cross him now when he is just beginning to improve. He was terribly upset last night when you teased him about leaving.”

“But I ought to go, Mrs. Clarke. He’d get along just as well now with another nurse. Besides I only promised—”

“Not another word!” implored Mrs. Clarke in instant alarm. “I wouldn’t answer for the consequences if you left us now. Mac goes all to pieces when it is suggested. He has always been so used to having his own way, you know.”

Yes, Nance knew. Between her unceasing efforts to get him well, and her grim determination to keep the situation well in hand, she had unlimited opportunity of finding out. The physicians agreed that his chances for recovery were one to three. It was only by the most persistent observance of certain regulations pertaining to rest, diet, and fresh air, that they held out any hope of arresting the malady that had already made such alarming headway. Nance realized from the first that it was to be a fight against heavy odds, and she gallantly rose to the emergency. Aside from the keen personal interest she took in Mac, and the sympathy she felt for his stricken parents, she had an immense pride in her first private case, on which she was determined to win her spurs.

For three months now she had controlled the situation. With undaunted perseverance she had made Mac submit to authority and succeeded in successfully combatting his mother’s inclination to yield to his every whim. The gratifying result was that Mac was gradually putting on flesh and, with the exception of a continued low fever, was showing decided improvement. Already talk of a western flight was in the air.

The whole matter hinged at present on Mac’s refusal to go unless Nance could be induced to accompany them. The question had been argued from every conceivable angle, and gradually a conspiracy had been formed between Mac and his mother to overcome her apparently absurd resistance.

“It isn’t as if she had any good reason,” Mrs. Clarke complained to her husband, with tears in her eyes. “She has no immediate family, and she might just as well be on duty in California as in Kentucky. I don’t see how she can refuse to go when she sees how weak Mac is, and how he depends on her.”

“The girl’s got more sense than all the rest of you put together!” said
Mr. Clarke. “She sees the way things are going.”
“Well, what if Mac is in love with her?” asked Mrs. Clarke, for the first time frankly facing the situation. “Of course it’s just his sick fancy, but he is in no condition to be argued with. The one absolutely necessary thing is to get her to go with us. Suppose you ask her. Perhaps that’s what she is waiting for.”