"I don't hate you."
"Then why haven't you been to see me? If I have done anything--" Her voice was a-tingle with virtue and outraged friendship.
"You haven't done anything but--show me where I get off."
He sat down on the edge of the balcony and stared out blankly.
"If that's the way you feel about it--"
"I'm not blaming you. I was a fool to think you'd ever care about me. I don't know that I feel so bad--about the thing. I've been around seeing some other girls, and I notice they're glad to see me, and treat me right, too." There was boyish bravado in his voice. "But what makes me sick is to have everyone saying you've jilted me."
"Good gracious! Why, Joe, I never promised."
"Well, we look at it in different ways; that's all. I took it for a promise."
Then suddenly all his carefully conserved indifference fled. He bent forward quickly and, catching her hand, held it against his lips.
"I'm crazy about you, Sidney. That's the truth. I wish I could die!"
The cat, finding no active antagonism, sprang up on the balcony and rubbed against the boy's quivering shoulders; a breath of air stroked the morning-glory vine like the touch of a friendly hand. Sidney, facing for the first time the enigma of love and despair sat, rather frightened, in her chair.
"You don't mean that!"
"I mean it, all right. If it wasn't for the folks, I'd jump in the river. I lied when I said I'd been to see other girls. What do I want with other girls? I want you!"
"I'm not worth all that."
"No girl's worth what I've been going through," he retorted bitterly. "But that doesn't help any. I don't eat; I don't sleep--I'm afraid sometimes of the way I feel. When I saw you at the White Springs with that roomer chap--"
"Ah! You were there!"
"If I'd had a gun I'd have killed him. I thought--" So far, out of sheer pity, she had left her hand in his. Now she drew it away.
"This is wild, silly talk. You'll be sorry to-morrow."
"It's the truth," doggedly.
But he made a clutch at his self-respect. He was acting like a crazy boy, and he was a man, all of twenty-two!
"When are you going to the hospital?"
"To-morrow."
"Is that Wilson's hospital?"
"Yes."
Alas for his resolve! The red haze of jealousy came again. "You'll be seeing him every day, I suppose."
"I dare say. I shall also be seeing twenty or thirty other doctors, and a hundred or so men patients, not to mention visitors. Joe, you're not rational."
"No," he said heavily, "I'm not. If it's got to be someone, Sidney, I'd rather have it the roomer upstairs than Wilson. There's a lot of talk about Wilson."
"It isn't necessary to malign my friends." He rose.
"I thought perhaps, since you are going away, you would let me keep Reginald. He'd be something to remember you by."
"One would think I was about to die! I set Reginald free that day in the country. I'm sorry, Joe. You'll come to see me now and then, won't you?"
"If I do, do you think you may change your mind?"
"I'm afraid not."
"I've got to fight this out alone, and the less I see of you the better." But his next words belied his intention. "And Wilson had better lookout. I'll be watching. If I see him playing any of his tricks around you--well, he'd better look out!"
That, as it turned out, was Joe's farewell. He had reached the breaking-point. He gave her a long look, blinked, and walked rapidly out to the Street. Some of the dignity of his retreat was lost by the fact that the cat followed him, close at his heels.
Sidney was hurt, greatly troubled. If this was love, she did not want it--this strange compound of suspicion and despair, injured pride and threats. Lovers in fiction were of two classes--the accepted ones, who loved and trusted, and the rejected ones, who took themselves away in despair, but at least took themselves away. The thought of a future with Joe always around a corner, watching her, obsessed her. She felt aggrieved, insulted. She even shed a tear or two, very surreptitiously; and then, being human and much upset, and the cat startling her by its sudden return and selfish advances, she shooed it off the veranda and set an imaginary dog after it. Whereupon, feeling somewhat better, she went in and locked the balcony window and proceeded upstairs.
Le Moyne's light was still going. The rest of the household slept. She paused outside the door.
"Are you sleepy?"--very softly.
There was a movement inside, the sound of a book put down. Then: "No, indeed."
"I may not see you in the morning. I leave to-morrow."
"Just a minute."
From the sounds, she judged that he was putting on his shabby gray coat. The next moment he had opened the door and stepped out into the corridor.
"I believe you had forgotten!"
"I? Certainly not. I started downstairs a while ago, but you had a visitor."
"Only Joe Drummond."
He gazed down at her quizzically.
"And--is Joe more reasonable?"
"He will be. He knows now that I--that I shall not marry him."
"Poor chap! He'll buck up, of course. But it's a little hard just now."
"I believe you think I should have married him."
"I am only putting myself in his place and realizing--When do you leave?"
"Just after breakfast."
"I am going very early. Perhaps--"
He hesitated. Then, hurriedly:--
"I got a little present for you--nothing much, but your mother was quite willing. In fact, we bought it together."
He went back into his room, and returned with a small box.
"With all sorts of good luck," he said, and placed it in her hands.
"How dear of you! And may I look now?"
"I wish you would. Because, if you would rather have something else--"
She opened the box with excited fingers. Ticking away on its satin bed was a small gold watch.
"You'll need it, you see," he explained nervously, "It wasn't extravagant under the circumstances. Your mother's watch, which you had intended to take, had no second-hand. You'll need a second-hand to take pulses, you know."
"A watch," said Sidney, eyes on it. "A dear little watch, to pin on and not put in a pocket. Why, you're the best person!"
"I was afraid you might think it presumptuous," he said. "I haven't any right, of course. I thought of flowers--but they fade and what have you? You said that, you know, about Joe's roses. And then, your mother said you wouldn't be offended--"
"Don't apologize for making me so happy!" she cried. "It's wonderful, really. And the little hand is for pulses! How many queer things you know!"
After that she must pin it on, and slip in to stand before his mirror and inspect the result. It gave Le Moyne a queer thrill to see her there in the room among his books and his pipes. It make him a little sick, too, in view of to-morrow and the thousand-odd to-morrows when she would not be there.
"I've kept you up shamefully,'" she said at last, "and you get up so early. I shall write you a note from the hospital, delivering a little lecture on extravagance--because how can I now, with this joy shining on me? And about how to keep Katie in order about your socks, and all sorts of things. And--and now, good-night."
She had moved to the door, and he followed her, stooping a little to pass under the low chandelier.
"Good-night," said Sidney.
"Good-bye--and God bless you."
She went out, and he closed the door softly behind her.
CHAPTER IX
Sidney never forgot her early impressions of the hospital, although they were chaotic enough at first. There were uniformed young women coming and going, efficient, cool-eyed, low of voice. There were medicine-closets with orderly rows of labeled bottles, linen-rooms with great stacks of sheets and towels, long vistas of shining floors and lines of beds. There were brisk internes with duck clothes and brass buttons, who eyed her with friendly, patronizing
glances. There were bandages and dressings, and great white screens behind which were played little or big dramas, baths or deaths, as the case might be. And over all brooded the mysterious authority of the superintendent of the training-school, dubbed the Head, for short.
Twelve hours a day, from seven to seven, with the off-duty intermission, Sidney labored at tasks which revolted her soul. She swept and dusted the wards, cleaned closets, folded sheets and towels, rolled bandages--did everything but nurse the sick, which was what she had come to do.
At night she did not go home. She sat on the edge of her narrow white bed and soaked her aching feet in hot water and witch hazel, and practiced taking pulses on her own slender wrist, with K.'s little watch.
Out of all the long, hot days, two periods stood out clearly, to be waited for and cherished. One was when, early in the afternoon, with the ward in spotless order, the shades drawn against the August sun, the tables covered with their red covers, and the only sound the drone of the bandage-machine as Sidney steadily turned it, Dr. Max passed the door on his way to the surgical ward beyond, and gave her a cheery greeting. At these times Sidney's heart beat almost in time with the ticking of the little watch.
The other hour was at twilight, when, work over for the day, the night nurse, with her rubber-soled shoes and tired eyes and jangling keys, having reported and received the night orders, the nurses gathered in their small parlor for prayers. It was months before Sidney got over the exaltation of that twilight hour, and never did it cease to bring her healing and peace. In a way, it crystallized for her what the day's work meant: charity and its sister, service, the promise of rest and peace. Into the little parlor filed the nurses, and knelt, folding their tired hands.
"The Lord is my shepherd," read the Head out of her worn Bible; "I shall not want."
And the nurses: "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters."
And so on through the psalm to the assurance at the end, "And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Now and then there was a death behind one of the white screens. It caused little change in the routine of the ward. A nurse stayed behind the screen, and her work was done by the others. When everything was over, the time was recorded exactly on the record, and the body was taken away.
At first it seemed to Sidney that she could not stand this nearness to death. She thought the nurses hard because they took it quietly. Then she found that it was only stoicism, resignation, that they had learned. These things must be, and the work must go on. Their philosophy made them no less tender. Some such patient detachment must be that of the angels who keep the Great Record.
On her first Sunday half-holiday she was free in the morning, and went to church with her mother, going back to the hospital after the service. So it was two weeks before she saw Le Moyne again. Even then, it was only for a short time. Christine and Palmer Howe came in to see her, and to inspect the balcony, now finished.
But Sidney and Le Moyne had a few words together first.
There was a change in Sidney. Le Moyne was quick to see it. She was a trifle subdued, with a puzzled look in her blue eyes. Her mouth was tender, as always, but he thought it drooped. There was a new atmosphere of wistfulness about the girl that made his heart ache.
They were alone in the little parlor with its brown lamp and blue silk shade, and its small nude Eve--which Anna kept because it had been a gift from her husband, but retired behind a photograph of the minister, so that only the head and a bare arm holding the apple appeared above the reverend gentleman.
K. never smoked in the parlor, but by sheer force of habit he held the pipe in his teeth.
"And how have things been going?" asked Sidney practically.
"Your steward has little to report. Aunt Harriet, who left you her love, has had the complete order for the Lorenz trousseau. She and I have picked out a stunning design for the wedding dress. I thought I'd ask you about the veil. We're rather in a quandary. Do you like this new fashion of draping the veil from behind the coiffure in the back--"
Sidney had been sitting on the edge of her chair, staring.
"There," she said--"I knew it! This house is fatal! They're making an old woman of you already." Her tone was tragic.
"Miss Lorenz likes the new method, but my personal preference is for the old way, with the bride's face covered."
He sucked calmly at his dead pipe.
"Katie has a new prescription--recipe--for bread. It has more bread and fewer air-holes. One cake of yeast--"
Sidney sprang to her feet.
"It's perfectly terrible!" she cried. "Because you rent a room in this house is no reason why you should give up your personality and your--intelligence. Not but that it's good for you. But Katie has made bread without masculine assistance for a good many years, and if Christine can't decide about her own veil she'd better not get married. Mother says you water the flowers every evening, and lock up the house before you go to bed. I--I never meant you to adopt the family!"
K. removed his pipe and gazed earnestly into the bowl.
"Bill Taft has had kittens under the porch," he said. "And the groceryman has been sending short weight. We've bought scales now, and weigh everything."
"You are evading the question."
"Dear child, I am doing these things because I like to do them. For--for some time I've been floating, and now I've got a home. Every time I lock up the windows at night, or cut a picture out of a magazine as a suggestion to your Aunt Harriet, it's an anchor to windward."
Sidney gazed helplessly at his imperturbable face. He seemed older than she had recalled him: the hair over his ears was almost white. And yet, he was just thirty. That was Palmer Howe's age, and Palmer seemed like a boy. But he held himself more erect than he had in the first days of his occupancy of the second-floor front.
"And now," he said cheerfully, "what about yourself? You've lost a lot of illusions, of course, but perhaps you've gained ideals. That's a step."
"Life," observed Sidney, with the wisdom of two weeks out in the world, "life is a terrible thing, K. We think we've got it, and--it's got us."
"Undoubtedly."
"When I think of how simple I used to think it all was! One grew up and got married, and--and perhaps had children. And when one got very old, one died. Lately, I've been seeing that life really consists of exceptions--children who don't grow up, and grown-ups who die before they are old. And"--this took an effort, but she looked at him squarely--"and people who have children, but are not married. It all rather hurts."
"All knowledge that is worth while hurts in the getting."
Sidney got up and wandered around the room, touching its little familiar objects with tender hands. K. watched her. There was this curious element in his love for her, that when he was with her it took on the guise of friendship and deceived even himself. It was only in the lonely hours that it took on truth, became a hopeless yearning for the touch of her hand or a glance from her clear eyes.
Sidney, having picked up the minister's picture, replaced it absently, so that Eve stood revealed in all her pre-apple innocence.
"There is something else," she said absently. "I cannot talk it over with mother. There is a girl in the ward--"
"A patient?"
"Yes. She is quite pretty. She has had typhoid, but she is a little better. She's--not a good person."
"I see."
"At first I couldn't bear to go near her. I shivered when I had to straighten her bed. I--I'm being very frank, but I've got to talk this out with someone. I worried a lot about it, because, although at first I hated her, now I don't. I rather like her."
She looked at K. defiantly, but there was no disapproval in his eyes.
"Yes."
"Well, this is the question. She's getting better. She'll be able to go out soon. Don't you think something ought to be done to keep her from--going back?"
There was a shadow in K.'s eyes now. She was so young to face all this; and yet, since
face it she must, how much better to have her do it squarely.
"Does she want to change her mode of life?"
"I don't know, of course. There are some things one doesn't discuss. She cares a great deal for some man. The other day I propped her up in bed and gave her a newspaper, and after a while I found the paper on the floor, and she was crying. The other patients avoid her, and it was some time before I noticed it. The next day she told me that the man was going to marry some one else. 'He wouldn't marry me, of course,' she said; 'but he might have told me.'"
Le Moyne did his best, that afternoon in the little parlor, to provide Sidney with a philosophy to carry her through her training. He told her that certain responsibilities were hers, but that she could not reform the world. Broad charity, tenderness, and healing were her province.
"Help them all you can," he finished, feeling inadequate and hopelessly didactic. "Cure them; send them out with a smile; and--leave the rest to the Almighty."
Sidney was resigned, but not content. Newly facing the evil of the world, she was a rampant reformer at once. Only the arrival of Christine and her fiance saved his philosophy from complete rout. He had time for a question between the ring of the bell and Katie's deliberate progress from the kitchen to the front door.
"How about the surgeon, young Wilson? Do you ever see him?" His tone was carefully casual.
"Almost every day. He stops at the door of the ward and speaks to me. It makes me quite distinguished, for a probationer. Usually, you know, the staff never even see the probationers."
"And--the glamour persists?" He smiled down at her.
"I think he is very wonderful," said Sidney valiantly.
Christine Lorenz, while not large, seemed to fill the little room. Her voice, which was frequent and penetrating, her smile, which was wide and showed very white teeth that were a trifle large for beauty, her all-embracing good nature, dominated the entire lower floor. K., who had met her before, retired into silence and a corner. Young Howe smoked a cigarette in the hall.
"You poor thing!" said Christine, and put her cheek against Sidney's. "Why, you're positively thin! Palmer gives you a month to tire of it all; but I said--"
The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart Page 130
