The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  "I've fixed it, I think," he said, meeting her in a hallway where he had no business to be, and trying to look as if he had not known she was coming. "Father Feeny was in this morning and I tackled him. He's got a lot of students—fellows studying for the priesthood—and he says any daughter of the church shall have skin if he has to flay 'em alive."

  "But—is she a daughter of the church?" asked the Probationer. "And even if she were, under the circumstances——"

  "What circumstances?" demanded the interne. "Here's a poor girl burned and suffering. The father is not going to ask whether she's of the anointed."

  The Probationer was not sure. She liked doing things in the open and with nothing to happen later to make one uncomfortable; but she spoke to the Senior and the Senior was willing. Her chief trouble, after all, was with the Avenue Girl herself.

  "I don't want to get well," she said wearily when the thing was put up to her. "What's the use? I'd just go back to the same old thing; and when it got too strong for me I'd end up here again or in the morgue."

  "Tell me where your people live, then, and let me send for them."

  "Why? To have them read in my face what I've been, and go back home to die of shame?"

  The Probationer looked at the Avenue Girl's face.

  "There—there is nothing in your face to hurt them," she said, flushing—because there were some things the Probationer had never discussed, even with herself. "You—look sad. Honestly, that's all."

  The Avenue Girl held up her thin right hand. The forefinger was still yellow from cigarettes.

  "What about that?" she sneered.

  "If I bleach it will you let me send for your people?"

  "I'll—perhaps," was the most the Probationer could get.

  Many people would have been discouraged. Even the Senior was a bit cynical. It took a Probationer still heartsick for home to read in the Avenue Girl's eyes the terrible longing for the things she had given up—for home and home folks; for a clean slate again. The Probationer bleached and scrubbed the finger, and gradually a little of her hopeful spirit touched the other girl.

  "What day is it?" the Avenue Girl asked once.

  "Friday."

  "That's baking day at home. We bake in an out-oven. Did you ever smell bread as it comes from an out-oven?" Or: "That's a pretty shade of blue you nurses wear. It would be nice for working in the dairy, wouldn't it?"

  "Fine!" said the Probationer, and scrubbed away to hide the triumph in her eyes.

  III

  That was the day the Dummy stole the parrot. The parrot belonged to the Girl; but how did he know it? So many things he should have known the Dummy never learned; so many things he knew that he seemed never to have learned! He did not know, for instance, of Father Feeny and the Holy Name students; but he knew of the Avenue Girl's loneliness and heartache, and of the cabal against her. It is one of the black marks on record against him that he refused to polish the plate on Old Maggie's bed, and that he shook his fist at her more than once when the Senior was out of the ward.

  And he knew of the parrot. That day, then, a short, stout woman with a hard face appeared in the superintendent's office and demanded a parrot.

  "Parrot?" said the superintendent blandly.

  "Parrot! That crazy man you keep here walked into my house to-day and stole a parrot—and I want it."

  "The Dummy! But what on earth——"

  "It was my parrot," said the woman. "It belonged to one of my boarders. She's a burned case up in one of the wards—and she owed me money. I took it for a debt. You call that man and let him look me in the eye while I say parrot to him."

  "He cannot speak or hear."

  "You call him. He'll understand me!"

  They found the Dummy coming stealthily down from the top of the stable and haled him into the office. He was very calm—quite impassive. Apparently he had never seen the woman before; as she raged he smiled cheerfully and shook his head.

  "As a matter of fact," said the superintendent, "I don't believe he ever saw the bird; but if he has it we shall find it out and you'll get it again."

  They let him go then; and he went to the chapel and looked at a dove above the young John's head. Then he went up to the kitchen and filled his pockets with lettuce leaves. He knew nothing at all of parrots or how to care for them.

  Things, you see, were moving right for the Avenue Girl. The stain was coming off—she had been fond of the parrot and now it was close at hand; and Father Feeny's lusty crowd stood ready to come into a hospital ward and shed skin that they generally sacrificed on the football field. But the Avenue Girl had two years to account for—and there was the matter of an alibi.

  "I might tell the folks at home anything and they'd believe it because they'd want to believe it," said the Avenue Girl. "But there's the neighbours. I was pretty wild at home. And—there's a fellow who wanted to marry me—he knew how sick I was of the old place and how I wanted my fling. His name was Jerry. We'd have to show Jerry."

  The Probationer worried a great deal about this matter of the alibi. It had to be a clean slate for the folks back home, and especially for Jerry. She took her anxieties out walking several times on her off-duty, but nothing seemed to come of it. She walked on the Avenue mostly, because it was near and she could throw a long coat over her blue dress. And so she happened to think of the woman the girl had lived with.

  "She got her into all this," thought the Probationer. "She's just got to see her out."

  It took three days' off-duty to get her courage up to ringing the doorbell of the house with the bowed shutters, and after she had rung it she wanted very much to run and hide; but she thought of the girl and everything going for nothing for the want of an alibi, and she stuck. The negress opened the door and stared at her.

  "She's dead, is she?" she asked.

  "No. May I come in? I want to see your mistress."

  The negress did not admit her, however. She let her stand in the vestibule and went back to the foot of a staircase.

  "One of these heah nurses from the hospital!" she said. "She wants to come in and speak to you."

  "Let her in, you fool!" replied a voice from above stairs.

  The rest was rather confused. Afterward the Probationer remembered putting the case to the stout woman who had claimed the parrot and finding it difficult to make her understand.

  "Don't you see?" she finished desperately. "I want her to go home—to her own folks. She wants it too. But what are we going to say about these last two years?"

  The stout woman sat turning over her rings. She was most uncomfortable. After all, what had she done? Had she not warned them again and again about having lighted cigarettes lying round.

  "She's in bad shape, is she?"

  "She may recover, but she'll be badly scarred—not her face, but her chest and shoulders."

  That was another way of looking at it. If the girl was scarred——

  "Just what do you want me to do?" she asked. Now that it was down to brass tacks and no talk about home and mother, she was more comfortable.

  "If you could just come over to the hospital while her people are there and—and say she'd lived with you all the time——"

  "That's the truth all right!"

  "And—that she worked for you, sewing—she sews very well, she says. And—oh, you'll know what to say; that she's been—all right, you know; anything to make them comfortable and happy."

  Now the stout woman was softening—not that she was really hard, but she had developed a sort of artificial veneer of hardness, and good impulses had a hard time crawling through.

  "I guess I could do that much," she conceded. "She nursed me when I was down and out with the grippe and that worthless nigger was drunk in the kitchen. But you folks over there have got a parrot that belongs to me. What about that?"

  The Probationer knew about the parrot. The Dummy had slipped it into the ward more than once and its profanity had delighted the patients. The Avenue Girl had been glad to s
ee it too; and as it sat on the bedside table and shrieked defiance and oaths the Dummy had smiled benignly. John and the dove—the girl and the parrot!

  "I am sorry about the parrot. I—perhaps I could buy him from you."

  She got out her shabby little purse, in which she carried her munificent monthly allowance of eight dollars and a little money she had brought from home.

  "Twenty dollars takes him. That's what she owed me."

  The Probationer had seventeen dollars and eleven cents. She spread it out in her lap and counted it twice.

  "I'm afraid that's all," she said. She had hoped the second count would show up better. "I could bring the rest next month."

  The Probationer folded the money together and held it out. The stout woman took it eagerly.

  "He's yours," she said largely. "Don't bother about the balance. When do you want me?"

  "I'll send you word," said the Probationer, and got up. She was almost dizzy with excitement and the feeling of having no money at all in the world and a parrot she did not want. She got out into the air somehow and back to the hospital. She took a bath immediately and put on everything fresh, and felt much better—but very poor. Before she went on duty she said a little prayer about thermometers—that she should not break hers until she had money for a new one.

  Father Feeny came and lined up six budding priests outside the door of the ward. He was a fine specimen of manhood and he had asked no questions at all. The Senior thought she had better tell him something, but he put up a white hand.

  "What does it matter, sister?" he said cheerfully. "Yesterday is gone and to-day is a new day. Also there is to-morrow"—his Irish eyes twinkled—"and a fine day it will be by the sunset."

  Then he turned to his small army.

  "Boys," he said, "it's a poor leader who is afraid to take chances with his men. I'm going first"—he said fir-rst. "It's a small thing, as I've told you—a bit of skin and it's over. Go in smiling and come out smiling! Are you ready, sir?" This to the interne.

  That was a great day in the ward. The inmates watched Father Feeny and the interne go behind the screens, both smiling, and they watched the father come out very soon after, still smiling but a little bleached. And they watched the line patiently waiting outside the door, shortening one by one. After a time the smiles were rather forced, as if waiting was telling on them; but there was no deserter—only one six-foot youth, walking with a swagger to contribute his little half inch or so of cuticle, added a sensation to the general excitement by fainting halfway up the ward; and he remained in blissful unconsciousness until it was all over.

  Though the interne had said there was no way back, the first step had really been taken; and he was greatly pleased with himself and with everybody because it had been his idea. The Probationer tried to find a chance to thank him; and, failing that, she sent a grateful little note to his room:

  Is Mimi the Austrian to have a baked apple?

  [Signed] Ward A.

  P.S.—It went through wonderfully! She is so cheerful since it is over. How can I ever thank you?

  The reply came back very quickly:

  Baked apple, without milk, for Mimi. Ward A.

  [Signed] D. L. S.

  P.S.—Can you come up on the roof for a little air?

  She hesitated over that for some time. A really honest-to-goodness nurse may break a rule now and then and nothing happen; but a probationer is only on trial and has to be exceedingly careful—though any one might go to the roof and watch the sunset. She decided not to go. Then she pulled her soft hair down over her forehead, where it was most becoming, and fastened it with tiny hairpins, and went up after all—not because she intended to, but because as she came out of her room the elevator was going up—not down. She was on the roof almost before she knew it.

  The interne was there in fresh white ducks, smoking. At first they talked of skin grafting and the powder that had not done what was expected of it. After a time, when the autumn twilight had fallen on them like a benediction, she took her courage in her hands and told of her visit to the house on the Avenue, and about the parrot and the plot.

  The interne stood very still. He was young and intolerant. Some day he would mellow and accept life as it is—not as he would have it. When she had finished he seemed to have drawn himself into a shell, turtle fashion, and huddled himself together. The shell was pride and old prejudice and the intolerance of youth. "She had to have an alibi!" said the Probationer.

  "Oh, of course," very stiffly.

  "I cannot see why you disapprove. Something had to be done."

  "I cannot see that you had to do it; but it's your own affair, of course. Only——"

  "Please go on."

  "Well, one cannot touch dirt without being soiled."

  "I think you will be sorry you said that," said the Probationer stiffly. And she went down the staircase, leaving him alone. He was sorry, of course; but he would not say so even to himself. He thought of the Probationer, with her eager eyes and shining hair and her warm little heart, ringing the bell of the Avenue house and making her plea—and his blood ran hot in him. It was just then that the parrot spoke on the other side of the chimney.

  "Gimme a bottle of beer!" it said. "Nice cold beer! Cold beer!"

  The interne walked furiously toward the sound. Must this girl of the streets and her wretched associates follow him everywhere? She had ruined his life already. He felt that it was ruined. Probably the Probationer would never speak to him again.

  The Dummy was sitting on a bench, with the parrot on his knee looking rather queer from being smuggled about under a coat and fed the curious things that the Dummy thought a bird should eat. It had a piece of apple pie in its claw now.

  "Cold beer!" said the parrot, and eyed the interne crookedly.

  The Dummy had not heard him, of course. He sat looking over the parapet toward the river, with one knotted hand smoothing the bird's ruffled plumage and such a look of wretchedness in his eyes that it hurt to see it. God's fools, who cannot reason, can feel. Some instinct of despair had seized him for its own—some conception, perhaps, of what life would never mean to him. Before it, the interne's wrath gave way to impotency.

  "Cold beer!" said the parrot wickedly.

  IV

  The Avenue Girl improved slowly. Morning and evening came the Dummy and smiled down at her, with reverence in his eyes. She could smile back now and sometimes she spoke to him. There was a change in the Avenue Girl. She was less sullen. In the back of her eyes each morning found a glow of hope—that died, it is true, by noontime; but it came again with the new day.

  "How's Polly this morning, Montmorency?" she would say, and give him a bit of toast from her breakfast for the bird. Or: "I wish you could talk, Reginald. I'd like to hear what Rose said when you took the parrot. It must have been a scream!"

  He brought her the first chrysanthemums of the fall and laid them on her pillow. It was after he had gone, while the Probationer was combing out the soft short curls of her hair, that she mentioned the Dummy. She strove to make her voice steady, but there were tears in her eyes.

  "The old goat's been pretty good to me, hasn't he?" she said.

  "I believe it is very unusual. I wonder"—the Probationer poised the comb—"perhaps you remind him of some one he used to know."

  They knew nothing, of course, of the boy John and the window.

  "He's about the first decent man I ever knew," said the Avenue Girl—"and he's a fool!"

  "Either a fool or very, very wise," replied the Probationer.

  The interne and the Probationer were good friends again, but they had never quite got back to the place they had lost on the roof. Over the Avenue Girl's dressing their eyes met sometimes, and there was an appeal in the man's and tenderness; but there was pride too. He would not say he had not meant it. Any man will tell you that he was entirely right, and that she had been most unwise and needed a good scolding—only, of course, it is never the wise people who make life worth
the living.

  And an important thing had happened—the Probationer had been accepted and had got her cap. She looked very stately in it, though it generally had a dent somewhere from her forgetting she had it on and putting her hat on over it. The first day she wore it she knelt at prayers with the others, and said a little Thank You! for getting through when she was so unworthy. She asked to be made clean and pure, and delivered from vanity, and of some use in the world. And, trying to think of the things she had been remiss in, she went out that night in a rain and bought some seed and things for the parrot.

  Prodigal as had been Father Feeny and his battalion, there was more grafting needed before the Avenue Girl could take her scarred body and soul out into the world again. The Probationer offered, but was refused politely.

  "You are a part of the institution now," said the interne, with his eyes on her cap. He was rather afraid of the cap. "I cannot cripple the institution."

  It was the Dummy who solved that question. No one knew how he knew the necessity or why he had not come forward sooner; but come he did and would not be denied. The interne went to a member of the staff about it.

  "The fellow works round the house," he explained; "but he's taken a great fancy to the girl and I hardly know what to do."

  "My dear boy," said the staff, "one of the greatest joys in the world is to suffer for a woman. Let him go to it."

  So the Dummy bared his old-young arm—not once, but many times. Always as the sharp razor nicked up its bit of skin he looked at the girl and smiled. In the early evening he perched the parrot on his bandaged arm and sat on the roof or by the fountain in the courtyard. When the breeze blew strong enough the water flung over the rim and made little puddles in the hollows of the cement pavement. Here belated sparrows drank or splashed their dusty feathers, and the parrot watched them crookedly.

  The Avenue Girl grew better with each day, but remained wistful-eyed. The ward no longer avoided her, though she was never one of them. One day the Probationer found a new baby in the children's ward; and, with the passion of maternity that is the real reason for every good woman's being, she cuddled the mite in her arms. She visited the nurses in the different wards.