Chapter V
THE LAST OF THE SURGICAL
Things have a way of beginning casually, so casually that you think they are bound to spin themselves out into airy nothings. The first inkling you have to the contrary is that headlong plunge into one of the big moments of your life, perhaps the biggest. But you never cease to wonder at the innocent, inconsequential way it began. These are the moments when you can picture Fate, sitting like an omnipotent operator before some giant switchboard, playing with signals and the like. I dare say he grins like a mischievous little boy who delights in turning things topsy-turvy whenever he has a chance.
Fate had been busy at this for some time when the sanitarium, quite oblivious of any signal connection, set itself to the glorious business of getting Sheila O’Leary married. Grief, despair, disappointment came often to the San, death not infrequently, but happiness rarely, and there had never before been such a joyous, personal happiness as this one. Small wonder that the San should gather it close to its heart and gloat over it! Was not Sheila one of its very own, born under its portals, trained in its school, placed above all its nurses, and loved beyond all else? And Peter Brooks. Had not the San given him his life and Sheila? It certainly was a time for rejoicing. As Hennessy had voiced it:
“Sure, half the weddin’s ye go to ye sit miserable, thinkin’ the man isn’t good enough for the lass, or the lass is no mate for the man. But, glory be to Pether! here’s a weddin’ at last that God Almighty might be cryin’ the banns for.”
They were to be married within the month. Every one was agreed to this, from the superintendent down to Flanders, the bus-driver—yes, and even the lovers themselves. The San forgot its aches and sorrows in the excitement of planning an early summer wedding.
“We’ll make the chapel look lovely,” chirped the Reverend Mrs. Grumble, clasping and unclasping her hands in a fidget of anticipation. “There’ll be enough roses and madonna lilies in the gardens to bank every pew and make an arch over the chancel.”
“Well, if Leerie’s married in the chapel, half of us can’t get in.” And Madam Courot shook her head in emphatic disapproval. “She’d better take the Congregational church. That’s the only place large enough to hold everybody who will want to come.”
A mutinous murmur rose and circled the patients on the veranda. Not married at the San! It was unthinkable. So this point and the final date Sheila settled for them.