"She won't go—she won't go," she said, crying, "not even for Nannie!"
Well, I talked to her and read to her and stroked her head, and by two o'clock or so she was off for an hour, and I got a nap myself. But from three till nearly five she was awake again, and I had to light up the room; she said she hardly saw her then—only felt her, and that wasn't so bad.
I don't know that anything different took place for a week after that. We went through the same business every night, and I took a nap every afternoon when she did. She told me, what I wasn't much surprised to hear, that she and Mr. Ferrau were engaged—or just about—when this precious Janet died, and that now she wouldn't hear of it and had refused to marry him till she was well again. And I must say I think she was right. Of course the old gentleman didn't see it that way, and we had many a discussion about it, he and I.
"God Almighty, Miss Jessop, my dear," he used to say to me, "you know as well as I do—I'm speaking, of course, to a woman of practical sense and experience, and therefore I speak plainly—you know as well as I do that the day after the wedding all this will be done for! We'll never hear of that damned Janet nonsense again. Now, would we?"
"Well, Commodore, maybe not, but you can't tell," I'd say. "It's a good bet, but—it's a bet, after all. It would be awkward if it didn't work out, you know."
"Oh, bosh, bosh!" he'd burst out, and roll off to the Yacht Club. People that live in big houses like that, I've noticed, always have to go out to get a little peace, they say, and privacy. It's funny.
The weather was bad, so we didn't go on the motor trip at all, and that was just as well, for if we had, I should never have gone up to the hospital that day and never seen old Margaret. She was an old darky woman that used to come in to clean the wards when they were short of help, and all the nurses knew her, because she used to tell fortunes with cards and a glass ball she looked into—pretty fair fortunes, too. I've known of some awfully queer things she told different nurses that were only too true. She always liked me because I used to jolly her up, and I stopped to speak to her, and she asked me where I was working.
"Oh, a grand place on the Avenue, Margaret," I told her, "marble stairs and a fountain in the hall."
"What's the sickness, honey?" she asked, for those darkies are always curious.
"The patient's got a ghost, Margaret," I said, just to see what she'd say, "and I'm sorry to say we can't seem to cure her."