There it was as if Peter’s sensibilities concerning himself had suddenly become acute. The doctor sounded too reassuring even for a combined friend and physician; he protested too much that he had found nothing at all the matter with him—nothing at all. When a doctor seems so superlatively anxious to set a man right with himself, it is time to look out; therefore the casual, just-happened-to-mention-it way that he finally broached the question of a sanitarium came within an inch of knocking the last prop from under Peter’s resolve not to lose his grip. For the first time he fully realized how it felt to be given up, and, characteristically, he thanked the Almighty that there was no one to whom it would really matter.
For a year he had been slowly going to pieces; for a year he had been dropping in for Dempsy to patch him up. There had been a host of miserable puny ailments which in themselves meant nothing, but combined and in a young man meant a great deal. Of late his memory had failed him outrageously; he had had frequent attacks of vertigo, and these of themselves had rendered him unreliable and unfit for newspaper work. Irresponsible! Unfit! Peter snorted the words out honestly to himself. Under these conditions, and with no one to care, he could see no plausible reason for trying to coax a mere existence out of life.
To those who knew him best—to Doctor Dempsy most of all—his condition seemed unexplainable. Here was a man who never drank, who never overfed, who smoked in moderation, whose life stood out conspicuously decent and clean against the possibilities of his environment. What lay back of this going to pieces? Doctor Dempsy had tried for a year to find out and had failed. To Peter, it was not unexplainable at all—he knew. Possessed of a constitution above the average, he had forced it to do the work of a mind far above the average, while he had denied it one of the three necessities of life and sanity. His will and reason had been powerless to help him—and now?
Because he had hated himself for hiding this knowledge from the man who had tried to do so much for him and wanted to make amends in some way—and because it was the easiest thing, after all, to agree—he let Doctor Dempsy pick out a sanitarium, make all arrangements, buy his ticket, and see him off. He drew the line at being personally conducted, however. Whether he went to a sanitarium or not did not matter; what mattered was how long would he stay and where would he go afterward. Or would there be an afterward? These were the questions that mulled through Peter’s mind on the train, and, coupled with the memory of the worried kindliness on Doctor Dempsy’s face, they were the only traveling companions Peter had. It was not to be wondered, therefore, that as he left the car and boarded the sanitarium omnibus he felt indescribably old, weary, and finished with things.
At first he thought he was the only passenger, but as the driver leisurely gathered up his reins and gave a cluck to the horses a girl’s voice rang out from the station, “Flanders—Flanders! Why, I believe you’re forgetting me.” And the next instant the girl herself appeared, suitcase in hand.
The driver grinned down a sheepish apology and Peter turned to hold the door open. She stood framed in the doorway for a moment while she lifted in her case, and for that moment Peter had conflicting impressions. He was conscious of a modest, nun-like appearance of clothes; the traveling-suit was gray, and the small gray hat had an encircling breast of white feathers. The lips had a quiet, demure curve; but the chin was determined, almost aggressive, while the gray eyes positively emitted sparks. The girl was not beautiful, she was luminous—and all the gray clothing in the world could not quench her. Peter found himself instantly wondering how anything so vitally alive and fresh to look at could be headed for a sanitarium with broken-down hulks like himself.
She caught Peter’s eye upon her and smiled. “If Flanders will hurry we’ll be there in time to see Hennessy feeding the swans,” she announced.
There was no response. Peter had suddenly lost the knack of it, along with other things. He could only look bewildered and a trifle more tired. But the girl must have understood it was only a temporary lack, for she did not draw in like a snail and dismiss Peter from her conscious horizon. She smiled again.
“I see. Newcomer?” And, nodding an affirmative to herself, she went sociably on: “Hennessy and the swans are symbolical. Couldn’t tell you why—not in a thousand years—but you’ll feel it for yourself after you’ve been here long enough. Hennessy hasn’t changed in fifteen years—maybe longer for those who can reckon longer. Same old blue jumper, same old tawny corduroys; if he ever had a new pair he’s kept them to himself. And the swans have changed less than Hennessy. If anything gets on your nerves here—treatment, doctors, nurses, anything—go and watch Hennessy. He’s the one sure, universal cure.”
The bus swung round the corner and brought the ivy-covered building into sight. The girl’s face grew lighter and lighter; in the shadow of the bus it seemed to Peter actually to shine. “Dear old San,” she said under her breath. “Heigh-ho! it’s good to get back!”
Before Peter could fathom any reason for this unaccountable rejoicing, the bus had stopped and the girl and suitcase had vanished. Wearily he came back to his own reason for being there, and docilely he allowed the porter to shoulder his luggage and conduct him within.
Three days passed—three days in which Peter thought little and felt much. He had been passed about among the staff of doctors very much like a delectable dish, and sampled by all. Half a dozen had taken him in hand. He had been apportioned a treatment, a diet, a bath hour, and a nurse. Looking back on those three days—and looking forward to a continuous protraction of the same—he could see less reason than ever for coaxing an existence out of life. Life meant to him work—efficient, telling work—and companionship—sharing with a congenial soul recreation, opinions, and meals—and some day, love. Well—what of these was left him? It was then that he remembered the gray girl’s advice in the omnibus and went out to find Hennessy and the swans.
His nurse was at supper, so he was mercifully free; moreover it was the emptiest time of day for out-of-doors. A few straggling patients were knocking prescribed golf-balls about the links, and a scattering of nurses were hurrying in with their wheel-chairs. Half-way between the links and the last building was the pond, shaded by pines and flanked by a miniature rustic rest-house, and thither Peter went. On a willow stump emerging from the pond he found Hennessy, as wrinkled as a butternut, with a thatch of gray hair, a mouth shirred into a small, open ellipse, and eyes full of irrepressible twinkles. He was seated tailor fashion on the stump, a tin platter of bread across his knees and the swans circling about him. He looked every whit as Irish as his name, and he was scolding and blarneying the birds by turn.
“Go-wan, there, ye feathered heathen! Can’t ye be lettin’ them that has good manners get a morsel once in a while? Faith, ye’ll be havin’ old Doc Willum afther ye with his stomach cure if ye don’t watch out.” He looked over his shoulder and caught Peter’s gaze. “Sure, birds or humans, they all have to be coaxed or scolded into keepin’ healthy, I’m thinkin’, and Hennessy’s head nurse to the swans,” he ended, with a chuckle.
But there was something quite different on Peter’s mind. “Has one of the patients—a young person in gray—been here lately? I mean have you seen her about any time?”
Hennessy shook a puzzled head. “A young gray patient, ye say? Sure there might be a hundred—that’s not over-distinguishin’. I leave it to ye, sir, just a gray patient is not over-distinguishin’.”
Peter reflected. “It was a quiet, cloister kind of gray, but her eyes were not—cloistered. They were the shiningest—”
A chuckle from Hennessy brought him to an abrupt finish. “Eyes? Gray? Patient? Ha, ha! Did ye hear that, Brian Boru?” and he flicked his cap at a gray swan.