IN THE PAVILION
I
Now, had Billy Grant really died there would be no story. The storyis to relate how he nearly died; and how, approaching that bourne towhich no traveller may take with him anything but his sins--and thiswith Billy Grant meant considerable luggage--he cast about for someway to prevent the Lindley Grants from getting possession of hisworldly goods.
Probably it would never have happened at all had not young Grant,having hit on a scheme, clung to it with a tenacity that mightbetter have been devoted to saving his soul, and had he not said tothe Nurse, who was at that moment shaking a thermometer: "Comeon--be a sport! It's only a matter of hours." Not that he said italoud--he whispered it, and fought for the breath to do even that.The Nurse, having shaken down the thermometer, walked to the tableand recorded a temperature of one hundred and six degrees through amost unprofessional mist of tears. Then in the symptom column shewrote: "Delirious."
But Billy Grant was not delirious. A fever of a hundred and four orthereabout may fuse one's mind in a sort of fiery crucible, but whenit gets to a hundred and six all the foreign thoughts, like seeinggreen monkeys on the footboard and wondering why the doctor iswalking on his hands--all these things melt away, and one sees one'spast, as when drowning, and remembers to hate one's relations, andis curious about what is coming when one goes over.
So Billy Grant lay on his bed in the contagious pavilion of thehospital, and remembered to hate the Lindley Grants and to try todevise a way to keep them out of his property. And, having studiedlaw, he knew no will that he might make now would hold against theLindley Grants for a minute, unless he survived its making somethirty days. The Staff Doctor had given him about thirty hours orless.
Perhaps he would have given up in despair and been forced to restcontent with a threat to haunt the Lindley Grants and otherwise marthe enjoyment of their good fortune, had not the Nurse at thatmoment put the thermometer under his arm.
Now, as every one knows, an axillary temperature takes five minutes,during which it is customary for a nurse to kneel beside the bed, oreven to sit very lightly on the edge, holding the patient's armclose to his side and counting his respirations while pretending tobe thinking of something else. It was during these five minutes thatthe idea came into Billy Grant's mind and, having come, remained.The Nurse got up, rustling starchily, and Billy caught her eye.
"Every engine," he said with difficulty, "labours--in a low--gear.No wonder I'm--heated up!"
The Nurse, who was young, put her hand on his forehead.
"Try to sleep," she said.
"Time for--that--later," said Billy Grant. "I'll--I'll be a--longtime--dead. I--I wonder whether you'd--do me a--favour."
"I'll do anything in the world you want."
She tried to smile down at him, but only succeeded in making herchin quiver, which would never do--being unprofessional and likelyto get to the head nurse; so, being obliged to do something, shetook his pulse by the throbbing in his neck.
"One, two, three, four, five, six----"
"Then--marry me," gasped Billy Grant. "Only for an--hour or--two,you know. You--promised. Come on--be a sport!"
It was then that the Nurse walked to the table and recorded"Delirious" in the symptom column. And, though she was a SmithCollege girl and had taken a something or other in mathematics, shespelled it just then with two r's.
Billy Grant was not in love with the Nurse. She was a part of hisillness, like the narrow brass bed and the yellow painted walls,and the thermometer under his arm, and the medicines. There wereeven times--when his fever subsided for a degree or two, after acold sponge, and the muddled condition of mind returned--when sheseemed to have more heads than even a nurse requires. So sentimentdid not enter into the matter at all; it was revenge.
"You--promised," he said again; but the Nurse only smiledindulgently and rearranged the bottles on the stand in neat rows.
Jenks, the orderly, carried her supper to the isolation pavilion atsix o'clock--cold ham, potato salad, egg custard and tea. Also, hebrought her an evening paper. But the Nurse was not hungry. She wentinto the bathroom, washed her eyes with cold water, put on a cleancollar, against the impending visit of the Staff Doctor, and thenstood at the window, looking across at the hospital and feeling verylonely and responsible. It was not a great hospital, but it loomedlarge and terrible that night. The ambulance came out into thecourtyard, and an interne, in white ducks, came out to it, carryinga surgical bag. He looked over at her and waved his hand. "Bigrailroad wreck!" he called cheerfully. "Got 'em coming in bunches."He crawled into the ambulance, where the driver, trained to manyinternes, gave him time to light a cigarette; then out into thedusk, with the gong beating madly. Billy Grant, who had lapsed intoa doze, opened his eyes.
"What--about it?" he asked. "You're not--married already--are you?"
"Please try to rest. Perhaps if I get your beef juice----"
"Oh, damn--the beef juice!" whispered Billy Grant, and shut his eyesagain--but not to sleep. He was planning how to get his way, andfinally, out of a curious and fantastic medley of thoughts, heevolved something. The doctor, of course! These women had to do whatthe doctor ordered. He would see the doctor!--upon which, with aprecision quite amazing, all the green monkeys on the footboard ofthe bed put their thumbs to their noses at him.
The situation was unusual; for here was young Grant, far enough fromany one who knew he was one of the Van Kleek Grants--and, as such,entitled to all the nurses and doctors that money couldprocure--shut away in the isolation pavilion of a hospital, and noteven putting up a good fight! Even the Nurse felt this, and when theStaff Man came across the courtyard that night she met him on thedoorstep and told him.
"He doesn't care whether he gets well or not," she saiddispiritedly. "All he seems to think about is to die and to leaveeverything he owns so his relatives won't get it. It's horrible!"
The Staff Man, who had finished up a hard day with a hospital supperof steak and fried potatoes, sat down on the doorstep and fished outa digestive tablet from his surgical bag.
"It's pretty sad, little girl," he said, over the pill. He had knownthe Nurse for some time, having, in fact, brought her--according toreport at the time--in a predecessor of the very bag at his feet,and he had the fatherly manner that belongs by right to the man whohas first thumped one between the shoulder-blades to make onebreathe, and who had remarked on this occasion to some one beyondthe door: "A girl, and fat as butter!"
The Nurse tiptoed in and found Billy Grant apparently asleep.Actually he had only closed his eyes, hoping to lure one of themonkeys within clutching distance. So the Nurse came out again, withthe symptom record.
"Delirious, with two r's," said the Staff Doctor, glancing over hisspectacles. "He must have been pretty bad."
"Not wild; he--he wanted me to marry him!"
She smiled, showing a most alluring dimple in one cheek.
"I see! Well, that's not necessarily delirium. H'm--pulse,respiration--look at that temperature! Yes, it's pretty sad--awayfrom home, too, poor lad!"
"You---- Isn't there any hope, doctor?"
"None at all--at least, I've never had 'em get well."
Now the Nurse should, by all the ethics of hospital practice, havewalked behind the Staff Doctor, listening reverentially to what hesaid, not speaking until she was spoken to, and carrying in one handan order blank on which said august personage would presentlyinscribe certain cabalistic characters, to be deciphered later bythe pharmacy clerk with a strong light and much blasphemy, and inthe other hand a clean towel. The clean towel does not enter intothe story, but for the curious be it said that were said personageto desire to listen to the patient's heart, the towel would beunfolded and spread, without creases, over the patient'schest--which reminds me of the Irishman and the weary practitioner;but every one knows that story.
Now that is what the Nurse should have done; instead of which, inthe darkened passageway, being very tired and exhausted and under ahideous strain, she suddenly
slipped her arm through the StaffDoctor's and, putting her head on his shoulder, began to cry softly.
"What's this?" demanded the Staff Doctor sternly and, putting hisarm round her: "Don't you know that Junior Nurses are not supposedto weep over the Staff?" And, getting no answer but a choke: "Wecan't have you used up like this; I'll make them relieve you. Whendid you sleep?"
"I don't want to be relieved," said the Nurse, very muffled."No-nobody else would know wh-what he wanted. I just--I just can'tbear to see him--to see him----"
The Staff Doctor picked up the clean towel, which belonged on theNurse's left arm, and dried her eyes for her; then he sighed.
"None of us likes to see it, girl," he said. "I'm an old man, andI've never got used to it. What do they send you to eat?"
"The food's all right," she said rather drearily. "I'm nothungry--that's all. How long do you think----"
The Staff Doctor, who was putting an antiseptic gauze cap over hiswhite hair, ran a safety pin into his scalp at that moment and didnot reply at once. Then, "Perhaps--until morning," he said.
He held out his arms for the long, white, sterilised coat, and amoment later, with his face clean-washed of emotion, and lookinglike a benevolent Turk, he entered the sick room. The Nurse was justbehind him, with an order book in one hand and a clean towel overher arm.
Billy Grant, from his bed, gave the turban a high sign of greeting.
"Allah--is--great!" he gasped cheerfully. "Well, doctor--I guessit's all--over but--the shouting."
II
Some time after midnight Billy Grant roused out of a stupor. He wasquite rational; in fact, he thought he would get out of bed. But hisfeet would not move. This was absurd! One's feet must move if onewills them to! However, he could not stir either of them. Otherwisehe was beautifully comfortable.
Faint as was the stir he made the Nurse heard him. She was sittingin the dark by the window.
"Water?" she asked softly, coming to him.
"Please." His voice was stronger than it had been.
Some of the water went down his neck, but it did not matter. Nothingmattered except the Lindley Grants. The Nurse took his temperatureand went out into the hall to read the thermometer, so he might notwatch her face. Then, having recorded it under the nightlight, shecame back into the room.
"Why don't you put on something comfortable?" demanded Billy Grantquerulously. He was so comfortable himself and she was so stifflystarched, so relentless of collar and cap.
"I am comfortable."
"Where's that wrapper thing you've been wearing at night?" The Nurserather flushed at this. "Why don't you lie down on the cot and takea nap? I don't need anything."
"Not--not to-night."
He understood, of course, but he refused to be depressed. He was toocomfortable. He was breathing easily, and his voice, though weak,was clear.
"Would you mind sitting beside me? Or are you tired? But of courseyou are. Perhaps in a night or so you'll be over there again,sleeping in a nice white gown in a nice fresh bed, with no querulousdevil----"
"Please!"
"You'll have to be sterilised or formaldehyded?"
"Yes." This very low.
"Will you put your hand over mine? Thanks. It's--company, you know."He was apologetic; under her hand his own burned fire. "I--I spoketo the Staff about that while you were out of the room."
"About what?"
"About your marrying me."
"What did he say?" She humoured him.
"He said he was willing if you were. You're not going to move--areyou?"
"No. But you must not talk."
"It's like this. I've got a little property--not much; a little." Hewas nervously eager about this. If she knew it amounted to anythingshe would refuse, and the Lindley Grants---- "And when I--youknow---- I want to leave it where it will do some good. That littlebrother of yours--it would send him through college, or help to."
Once, weeks ago, before he became so ill, she had told him of thebrother. This in itself was wrong and against the ethics of theprofession. One does not speak of oneself or one's family.
"If you won't try to sleep, shall I read to you?"
"Read what?"
"I thought--the Bible, if you wouldn't mind."
"Certainly," he agreed. "I suppose that's the conventional thing;and if it makes you feel any better---- Will you think over whatI've been saying?"
"I'll think about it," she said, soothing him like a fretful child,and brought her Bible.
The clock on the near-by town hall struck two as she drew up herchair beside him and commenced to read by the shaded light. Acrossthe courtyard the windows were dim yellowish rectangles, with hereand there one brighter than the others that told its own story ofsleepless hours. A taxicab rolled along the street outside, carryinga boisterous night party.
The Nurse had taken off her cap and put it on a stand. The autumnnight was warm, and the light touch of the tulle had pressed herhair in damp, fine curves over her forehead. There were purplehollows of anxiety and sleeplessness under her eyes.
"The perfect nurse," the head of the training school was fond ofsaying, "is more or less of a machine. Too much sympathy is ahandicap to her work and an embarrassment to her patient. A perfect,silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine!"
Poor Junior Nurse!
Now Billy Grant, lying there listening to something out of Isaiah,should have been repenting his hard-living, hard-drinking younglife; should have been forgiving the Lindley Grants--which storydoes not belong here; should have been asking for the consolation ofthe church, and trying to summon from the depths of hisconsciousness faint memories of early teachings as to the lifebeyond, and what he might or might not expect there.
What he actually did while the Nurse read was to try to move hislegs, and, failing this, to plan a way to achieve the final revengeof a not particularly forgiving life.
At a little before three o'clock the Nurse telephoned across for aninterne, who came over in a bathrobe over his pajamas and shot ahypodermic into Billy Grant's left arm. Billy Grant hardly noticed.He was seeing Mrs. Lindley Grant when his surprise was sprung onher. The interne summoned the Nurse into the hall with a jerk of hishead.
"About all in!" he said. "Heart's gone--too much booze probably. I'dstay, but there's nothing to do."
"Would oxygen----"
"Oh, you can try it if you like. It's like blowing up a leakingtire; but if you'll feel better, do it." He yawned and tied the cordof his bathrobe round him more securely. "I guess you'll be glad toget back," he observed, looking round the dingy hall. "This placealways gives me a chill. Well, let me know if you want me. Goodnight."
The Nurse stood in the hallway until the echo of his slippers on theasphalt had died away. Then she turned to Billy Grant.
"Well?" demanded Billy Grant. "How long have I? Until morning?"
"If you would only not talk and excite yourself----"
"Hell!" said Billy Grant, we regret to record. "I've got to do allthe talking I'm going to do right now. I beg your pardon--I didn'tintend to swear."
"Oh, that's all right!" said the Nurse vaguely. This was like nodeathbed she had ever seen, and it was disconcerting.
"Shall I read again?"
"No, thank you."
The Nurse looked at her watch, which had been graduation presentfrom her mother and which said, inside the case: "To my littlegirl!" There is no question but that, when the Nurse's mother gavethat inscription to the jeweller, she was thinking of the day whenthe Staff Doctor had brought the Nurse in his leather bag, and hadslapped her between the shoulders to make her breathe. "To my littlegirl!" said the watch; and across from that--"Three o'clock."
At half-past three Billy Grant, having matured his plans, remarkedthat if it would ease the Nurse any he'd see a preacher. His voicewas weaker again and broken.
"Not"--he said, struggling--"not that I think--he'll pass me.But--if you say so--I'll--take a chance."
All of which was diabolical cunnin
g; for when, as the result of atelephone conversation, the minister came, an unworldly man whocounted the world, an automobile, a vested choir and a silvercommunion service well lost for the sake of a dozen derelicts in aslum mission house, Billy Grant sent the Nurse out to prepare abroth he could no longer swallow, and proceeded to cajole the man ofGod. This he did by urging the need of the Nurse's small brother foran education and by forgetting to mention either the Lindley Grantsor the extent of his property.
From four o'clock until five Billy Grant coaxed the Nurse with whatvoice he had. The idea had become an obsession; and minute byminute, panting breath by panting breath, her resolution wore away.He was not delirious; he was as sane as she was and terribly set.And this thing he wanted was so easy to grant; meant so little toher and, for some strange reason, so much to him. Perhaps, if shedid it, he would think a little of what the preacher was saying.
At five o'clock, utterly worn out with the struggle and finding hispulse a negligible quantity, in response to his pleading eyes theNurse, kneeling and holding a thermometer under her patient's armwith one hand, reached the other one over the bed and was married ina dozen words and a soiled white apron.
Dawn was creeping in at the windows--a grey city dawn, filled withsoot and the rumbling of early wagons. A smell of damp asphalt fromthe courtyard floated in and a dirty sparrow chirped on the sillwhere the Nurse had been in the habit of leaving crumbs. BillyGrant, very sleepy and contented now that he had got his way,dictated a line or two on a blank symptom record, and signed hiswill in a sprawling hand.
"If only," he muttered, "I could see Lin's face when that's--sprungon him!"
The minister picked up the Bible from the tumbled bed and opened it.
"Perhaps," he suggested very softly, "if I read from the Word ofGod----"
Satisfied now that he had fooled the Lindley Grants out of theirvery shoebuttons, Billy Grant was asleep--asleep with thethermometer under his arm and with his chest rising and fallingpeacefully.
The minister looked across at the Nurse, who was still holding thethermometer in place. She had buried her face in the whitecounterpane.
"You are a good woman, sister," he said softly. "The boy is happier,and you are none the worse. Shall I keep the paper for you?"
But the Nurse, worn out with the long night, slept where she knelt.The minister, who had come across the street in a raggedsmoking-coat and no collar, creaked round the bed and threw the edgeof the blanket over her shoulders.
Then, turning his coat collar up over his unshaved neck, he departedfor the mission across the street, where one of his derelicts, inhis shirtsleeves, was sweeping the pavement. There, mindful of thefact that he had come from the contagious pavilion, the ministerbrushed his shabby smoking-coat with a whiskbroom to remove thegerms!
III
Billy Grant, of course, did not die. This was perhaps because onlythe good die young. And Billy Grant's creed had been the honour of agentleman rather than the Mosaic Law. There was, therefore, noparticular violence done to his code when his last thoughts--or whatappeared to be his last thoughts--were revenge instead of salvation.
The fact was, Billy Grant had a real reason for hating the LindleyGrants. When a fellow like that has all the Van Kleek money and ahereditary thirst, he is bound to drink. The Lindley Grants did notunderstand this and made themselves obnoxious by calling him "PoorBilly!" and not having wine when he came to dinner. That, however,was not his reason for hating them.
Billy Grant fell in love. To give the devil his due, he promptly setabout reforming himself. He took about half as many whisky-and-sodasas he had been in the habit of doing, and cut out champagnealtogether. He took up golf to fill in the time, too, but gave it upwhen he found it made him thirstier than ever. And then, withthings so shaping up that he could rise in the morning withouthaving a drink to get up on, the Lindley Grants thought it best towarn the girl's family before it was too late.
"He is a nice boy in some ways," Mrs. Lindley Grant had said on theoccasion of the warning; "but, like all drinking men, he is a brokenreed, eccentric and irresponsible. No daughter of mine could marryhim. I'd rather bury her. And if you want facts Lindley will givethem to you."
So the girl had sent back her ring and a cold little letter, andBilly Grant had got roaring full at a club that night and presentedthe ring to a cabman--all of which is exceedingly sordid, but ratherhuman after all.
The Nurse, having had no sleep for forty-eight hours, slept forquite thirty minutes. She wakened at the end of that time andstarted up with a horrible fear that the thing she was waiting forhad come. But Billy Grant was still alive, sleeping naturally, andthe thermometer, having been in place forty minutes, registered ahundred and three.
At eight o'clock the interne, hurrying over in fresh ducks, with alaudable desire to make the rounds before the Staff began to dropin, found Billy Grant very still and with his eyes closed, and theNurse standing beside the bed, pale and tremulous.
"Why didn't you let me know?" he demanded, aggrieved. "I ought tohave been called. I told you----"
"He isn't dead," said the Nurse breathlessly. "He--I think he isbetter."
Whereon she stumbled out of the room into her own little room acrossthe hall, locking the door behind her, and leaving the interne tohunt the symptom record for himself--a thing not to be lightlyoverlooked; though of course internes are not the Staff.
The interne looked over the record and whistled.
"Wouldn't that paralyse you!" he said under his breath. "'Pulse veryweak.' 'Pulse almost obliterated.' 'Very talkative.' 'Breathing hardat four A.M. Cannot swallow.' And then: 'Sleeping calmly from fiveo'clock.' 'Pulse stronger.' Temperature one hundred and three.' Bygad, that last prescription of mine was a hit!"
So now began a curious drama of convalescence in the littleisolation pavilion across the courtyard. Not for a minute did thetwo people most concerned forget their strange relationship; not forworlds would either have allowed the other to know that he or sheremembered. Now and then the Nurse caught Billy Grant's eyes fixedon her as she moved about the room, with a curious wistfulexpression in them. And sometimes, waking from a doze, he would findher in her chair by the window, with her book dropped into her lapand a frightened look in her eyes, staring at him.
He gained strength rapidly and the day came when, with the orderly'sassistance, he was lifted to a chair. There was one brief moment inwhich he stood tottering on his feet. In that instant he hadrealised what a little thing she was, after all, and what a crueladvantage he had used for his own purpose.
When he was settled in the chair and the orderly had gone shebrought an extra pillow to put behind him, and he dared the firstpersonality of their new relationship.
"What a little girl you are, after all!" he said. "Lying there inthe bed shaking at your frown, you were so formidable."
"I am not small," she said, straightening herself. She had alwayshoped that her cap gave her height. "It is you who are so tall.You--you are a giant!"
"A wicked giant, seeking whom I may devour and carrying off lovelygirls for dinner under pretence of marriage----" He stopped hisnonsense abruptly, having got so far, and both of them coloured.Thrashing about desperately for something to break the wretchedsilence, he seized on the one thing that in those days of hisconvalescence was always pertinent--food. "Speaking of dinner," hesaid hastily, "isn't it time for some buttermilk?"
She was quite calm when she came back--cool, even smiling; butBilly Grant had not had the safety valve of action. As she placedthe glass on the table at his elbow he reached out and took herhand.
"Can you ever forgive me?" he asked. Not an original speech; theusual question of the marauding male, a query after the fact and toolate for anything but forgiveness.
"Forgive you? For not dying?"
She was pale; but no more subterfuge now, no more turning aside fromdangerous subjects. The matter was up before the house.
"For marrying you!" said Billy Grant, and upset the buttermilk. Ittook a lit
tle time to wipe up the floor and to put a clean cover onthe stand, and after that to bring a fresh glass and place it on thetable. But these were merely parliamentary preliminaries while eachside got its forces in line.
"Do you hate me very much?" opened Billy Grant. This was, to changethe figure, a blow below the belt.
"Why should I hate you?" countered the other side.
"I should think you would. I forced the thing on you."
"I need not have done it."
"But being you, and always thinking about making some one else happyand comfortable----"
"Oh, if only they don't find it out over there!" she burst out. "Ifthey do and I have to leave, with Jim----"
Here, realising that she was going to cry and not caring to screw upher face before any one, she put her arms on the stand and buriedher face in them. Her stiff tulle cap almost touched Billy Grant'sarm.
Billy Grant had a shocked second.
"Jim?"
"My little brother," from the table.
Billy Grant drew a long breath of relief. For a moment he hadthought----
"I wonder--whether I dare to say something to you." Silence from thetable and presumably consent. "Isn't he--don't you think that--Imight be allowed to--to help Jim? It would help me to like myselfagain. Just now I'm not standing very high with myself."
"Won't you tell me why you did it?" she said, suddenly sitting up,her arms still out before her on the table. "Why did you coax so?You said it was because of a little property you had, but--thatwasn't it--was it?"
"No."
"Or because you cared a snap for me." This was affirmation, notquestion.
"No, not that, though I----"
She gave a hopeless little gesture of despair.
"Then--why? Why?"
"For one of the meanest reasons I know--to be even with some peoplewho had treated me badly."
The thing was easier now. His flat denial of any sentimental reasonhad helped to make it so.
"A girl that you cared about?"
"Partly that. The girl was a poor thing. She didn't care enough tobe hurt by anything I did. But the people who made the trouble----"
Now a curious thing happened. Billy Grant found at this moment thathe no longer hated the Lindley Grants. The discovery left himspeechless--that he who had taken his hate into the very valley ofdeath with him should now find himself thinking of both Lindley andhis wife with nothing more bitter than contempt shocked him. A stateof affairs existed for which his hatred of the Lindley Grants wasalone responsible; now the hate was gone and the state of affairspersisted.
"I should like," said Billy Grant presently, "to tell you alittle--if it will not bore you--about myself and the things I havedone that I shouldn't, and about the girl. And of course, you know,I'm--I'm not going to hold you to--to the thing I forced you into.There are ways to fix that."
Before she would listen, however, she must take his temperature andgive him his medicine, and see that he drank his buttermilk--thebuttermilk last, so as not to chill his mouth for the thermometer.The tired lines had gone from under her eyes and she was very lovelythat day. She had always been lovely, even when the Staff Doctorhad slapped her between the shoulders long ago--you know aboutthat--only Billy Grant had never noticed it; but to-day, sittingthere with the thermometer in his mouth while she counted hisrespirations, pretending to be looking out the window while she didit, Billy Grant saw how sweet and lovely and in every way adorableshe was, in spite of the sad droop of her lips--and found it hard tosay the thing he felt he must.
"After all," he remarked round the thermometer, "the thing is notirrevocable. I can fix it up so that----"
"Keep your lips closed about the thermometer!" she said sternly, andsnapped her watch shut.
The pulse and so on having been recorded, and "Very hungry" put downunder Symptoms, she came back to her chair by the window, facinghim. She sat down primly and smoothed her white apron in her lap.
"Now!" she said.
"I am to go on?"
"Yes, please."
"If you are going to change the pillows or the screen, or give meany other diabolical truck to swallow," he said somewhat peevishly,"will you get it over now, so we can have five unprofessionalminutes?"
"Certainly," she said; and bringing an extra blanket she spread it,to his disgust, over his knees.
This time, when she sat down, one of her hands lay on the table nearhim and he reached over and covered it with his.
"Please!" he begged. "For company! And it will help me to tell yousome of the things I have to tell."
She left it there, after an uneasy stirring. So, sitting there,looking out into the dusty courtyard with its bandaged figures inwheeled chairs, its cripples sunning on a bench--their crutchesbeside them--its waterless fountain and its dingy birds, he told herabout the girl and the Lindley Grants, and even about the cabman andthe ring. And feeling, perhaps in some current from the small handunder his, that she was knowing and understanding and not turningaway, he told her a great deal he had not meant to tell--uglythings, many of them--for that was his creed.
And, because in a hospital one lives many lives vicariously withmany people, what the girl back home would never have understoodthis girl did and faced unabashed. Life, as she knew it, was not allgood and not all bad; passion and tenderness, violence and peace,joy and wretchedness, birth and death--these she had looked on, allof them, with clear eyes and hands ready to help.
So Billy Grant laid the good and the bad of his life before her,knowing that he was burying it with her. When he finished, her handon the table had turned and was clasping his. He bent over andkissed her fingers softly.
After that she read to him, and their talk, if any, was impersonal.When the orderly had put him back to bed he lay watching her movingabout, rejoicing in her quiet strength, her repose. How well she wastaking it all! If only--but there was no hope of that. She could goto Reno, and in a few months she would be free again and the thingwould be as if it had never been.
At nine o'clock that night the isolation pavilion was ready for thenight. The lights in the sickroom were out. In the hall a nightlightburned low, Billy Grant was not asleep. He tried counting thelighted windows of the hospital and grew only more wakeful.
The Nurse was sleeping now in her own room across, with the doorsopen between. The slightest movement and she was up, tiptoeing in,with her hair in a long braid down her back and her wrapper sleevesfalling away loosely from her white, young arms. So, aching withinaction, Billy Grant lay still until the silence across indicatedthat she was sleeping.
Then he got up. This is a matter of difficulty when one is stillvery weak, and is achieved by rising first into a sitting posture bypulling oneself up by the bars of the bed, and then by slippingfirst one leg, then the other, over the side. Properly done, eventhe weakest thus find themselves in a position that by the aid of achairback may become, however shaky, a standing one.
He got to his feet better than he expected, but not well enough torelinquish the chair. He had made no sound. That was good. He wouldtell her in the morning and rally her on her powers as a sleeper. Hetook a step--if only his knees----
He had advanced into line with the doorway and stood looking throughthe open door of the room across.
The Nurse was on her knees beside the bed, in her nightgown, crying.Her whole young body was shaken with silent sobs; her arms, in theirshort white sleeves, stretched across the bed, her fingers clutchingthe counterpane.
Billy Grant stumbled back to his bed and fell in with a sort ofgroan. Almost instantly she was at the door, her flannel wrapperheld about her, peering into the darkness.
"I thought I heard--are you worse?" she asked anxiously.
"I'm all right," he said, hating himself; "just not sleepy. Howabout you?"
"Not asleep yet, but--resting," she replied.
She stood in the doorway, dimly outlined, with her long braid overher shoulder and her voice still a little strained from crying. Inthe darkness Bill
y Grant half stretched out his arms, then droppedthem, ashamed.
"Would you like another blanket?"
"If there is one near."
She came in a moment later with the blanket and spread it over thebed. He lay very still while she patted and smoothed it into place.He was mustering up his courage to ask for something--a curiousstate of mind for Billy Grant, who had always taken what he wantedwithout asking.
"I wish you would kiss me--just once!" he said wistfully. And then,seeing her draw back, he took an unfair advantage: "I think that'sthe reason I'm not sleeping."
"Don't be absurd!"
"Is it so absurd--under the circumstances?"
"You can sleep quite well if you only try."
She went out into the hall again, her chin well up. Then shehesitated, turned and came swiftly back into the room.
"If I do," she said rather breathlessly, "will you go to sleep? Andwill you promise to hold your arms up over your head?"
"But my arms----"
"Over your head!"
He obeyed at that, and the next moment she had bent over him in thedarkness; and quickly, lightly, deliciously, she kissed--the tip ofhis nose!
IV
She was quite cheerful the next day and entirely composed. Neitherof them referred to the episode of the night before, but Billy Grantthought of little else. Early in the morning he asked her to bringhim a hand mirror and, surveying his face, tortured and disfiguredby the orderly's shaving, suffered an acute wound in his vanity. Hewas glad it had been dark or she probably would not have---- Heborrowed a razor from the interne and proceeded to enjoy himself.
Propped up in his chair, he rioted in lather, sliced a piece out ofhis right ear, and shaved the back of his neck by touch, in lieu ofbetter treatment. This done, and the ragged and unkempt hair overhis ears having been trimmed in scallops, due to the work being donewith curved surgical scissors, he was his own man again.
That afternoon, however, he was nervous and restless. The Nurse wastroubled. He avoided the subject that had so obsessed him the daybefore, was absent and irritable, could not eat, and sat in hischair by the window, nervously clasping and unclasping his hands.
The Nurse was puzzled, but the Staff Doctor, making rounds that day,enlightened her.
"He has pulled through--God and you alone know how," he said. "Butas soon as he begins to get his strength he's going to yell forliquor again. When a man has been soaking up alcohol for years----Drat this hospital cooking anyhow! Have you got any essence ofpepsin?"
The Nurse brought the pepsin and a medicine glass and the StaffDoctor swallowed and grimaced.
"You were saying," said the Nurse timidly--for, the stress beingover, he was Staff again and she was a Junior and not even entitledto a Senior's privileges, such as returning occasional badinage.
"Every atom of him is going to crave it. He's wanting it now. He hasbeen used to it for years." The Nurse was white to the lips, butsteady. "He is not to have it?"
"Not a drop while he is here. When he gets out it is his own affairagain, but while he's here--by-the-way, you'll have to watch theorderly. He'll bribe him."
"I don't think so, doctor. He is a gentleman."
"Pooh! Of course he is. I dare say he's a gentleman when he's drunktoo; but he's a drinker--a habitual drinker."
The Nurse went back into the room and found Billy Grant sitting in achair, with the book he had been reading on the floor and his faceburied in his hands.
"I'm awfuly sorry!" he said, not looking up. "I heard what he said.He's right, you know."
"I'm sorry. And I'm afraid this is a place where I cannot help."
She put her hand on his head, and he brought it down and held itbetween his.
"Two or three times," he said, "when things were very bad with me,you let me hold your hand, and we got past somehow--didn't we?"
She closed her eyes, remembering the dawn when, to soothe a dyingman, in the presence of the mission preacher, she had put her handin his. Billy Grant thought of it too.
"Now you know what you've married," he said bitterly. The bitternesswas at himself of course. "If--if you'll sit tight I have a fightingchance to make a man of myself; and after it's over we'll fix thisthing for you so you will forget it ever happened. And I---- Don'ttake your hand away. Please!"
"I was feeling for my handkerchief," she explained.
"Have I made you cry again?"
"Again?'
"I saw you last night in your room. I didn't intend to; but I wastrying to stand, and----"
She was very dignified at this, with her eyes still wet, and triedunsuccessfully to take her hand away.
"If you are going to get up when it is forbidden I shall ask to berelieved."
"You wouldn't do that!"
"Let go of my hand."
"You wouldn't do that!!"
"Please! The head nurse is coming."
He freed her hand then and she wiped her eyes, remembering the"perfect, silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine."
The head of the training school came to the door of the pavilion,but did not enter. The reason for this was twofold: first, she hadconfidence in the Nurse; second, she was afraid of contagion--thislatter, of course, quite _sub rosa_, in view of the above quotation.
The Head Nurse was a tall woman in white, and was so starchy thatshe rattled like a newspaper when she walked.
"Good morning," she said briskly. "Have you sent over the soiledclothes?" Head nurses are always bothering about soiled clothes;and what becomes of all the nailbrushes, and how can they use somany bandages.
"Yes, Miss Smith."
"Meals come over promptly?"
"Yes, Miss Smith."
"Getting any sleep?"
"Oh, yes, plenty--now."
Miss Smith peered into the hallway, which seemed tidy, looked at theNurse with approval, and then from the doorstep into the patient'sroom, where Billy Grant sat. At the sight of him her eyebrows rose.
"Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "I thought he was older than that!"
"Twenty-nine," said the Nurse; "twenty-nine last Fourth of July."
"H'm!" commented the Head Nurse. "You evidently know! I had no ideayou were taking care of a boy. It won't do. I'll send over MissHart."
The Nurse tried to visualise Billy Grant in his times of stressclutching at Miss Hart's hand, and failed.
"Jenks is here, of course," she said, Jenks being the orderly.
The idea of Jenks as a chaperon, however, did not appeal to the headnurse. She took another glance through the window at Billy Grant,looking uncommonly handsome and quite ten years younger since theshave, and she set her lips.
"I am astonished beyond measure," she said. "Miss Hart will relieveyou at two o'clock. Take your antiseptic bath and you may have theafternoon to yourself. Report in L Ward in the morning."
Miss Smith rattled back across the courtyard and the Nurse stoodwatching her; then turned slowly and went into the house to tellBilly Grant.
Now the stories about what followed differ. They agree on one point:that Billy Grant had a heart-to-heart talk with the substitute attwo o'clock that afternoon and told her politely but firmly that hewould none of her. Here the divergence begins. Some say he got thesuperintendent over the house telephone and said he had intended tomake a large gift to the hospital, but if his comfort was so littleconsidered as to change nurses just when he had got used to one, hewould have to alter his plans. Another and more likely story,because it sounds more like Billy Grant, is that at five o'clock aflorist's boy delivered to Miss Smith a box of orchids such as neverhad been seen before in the house, and a card inside which said:"Please, dear Miss Smith, take back the Hart that thou gavest."
Whatever really happened--and only Billy Grant and the lady inquestion ever really knew--that night at eight o'clock, with BillyGrant sitting glumly in his room and Miss Hart studying typhoidfever in the hall, the Nurse came back again to the pavilion withher soft hair flying from its afternoon washing and her eyesshini
ng. And things went on as before--not quite as before; for withthe nurse question settled the craving got in its work again, andthe next week was a bad one. There were good days, when he taughther double-dummy auction bridge, followed by terrible nights, whenhe walked the floor for hours and she sat by, unable to help. Thenat dawn he would send her to bed remorsefully and take up the fightalone. And there were quiet nights when both slept and when he wouldwaken to the craving again and fight all day.
"I'm afraid I'm about killing her," he said to the Staff Doctor oneday; "but it's my chance to make a man of myself--now or never."
The Staff Doctor was no fool and he had heard about the orchids.
"Fight it out, boy!" he said. "Pretty soon you'll quit peeling andcease being a menace to the public health, and you'd better get itover before you are free again."
So, after a time, it grew a little easier. Grant was pretty muchhimself again--had put on a little flesh and could feel his bicepsrise under his fingers. He took to cold plunges when he felt thecraving coming on, and there were days when the little pavilion wasfull of the sound of running water. He shaved himself daily, too,and sent out for some collars.
Between the two of them, since her return, there had been much ofgood fellowship, nothing of sentiment. He wanted her near, but hedid not put a hand on her. In the strain of those few days thestrange, grey dawn seemed to have faded into its own mists. Onlyonce, when she had brought his breakfast tray and was arranging thedishes for him--against his protest, for he disliked being waitedon--he reached over and touched a plain band ring she wore. Shecoloured.
"My mother's," she said; "her wedding ring."
Their eyes met across the tray, but he only said, after a moment:"Eggs like a rock, of course! Couldn't we get 'em raw and boil themover here?"
It was that morning, also, that he suggested a thing which had beenin his mind for some time.
"Wouldn't it be possible," he asked, "to bring your tray in here andto eat together? It would be more sociable."
She smiled.
"It isn't permitted."
"Do you think--would another box of orchids----"
She shook her head as she poured out his coffee. "I should probablybe expelled."
He was greatly aggrieved.
"That's all foolishness," he said. "How is that any worse--any moreunconventional--than your bringing me your extra blanket on a coldnight? Oh, I heard you last night!"
"Then why didn't you leave it on?"
"And let you freeze?"
"I was quite warm. As it was, it lay in the hallway all night anddid no one any good."
Having got thus far from wedding rings, he did not try to get back.He ate alone, and after breakfast, while she took her half-hour ofexercise outside the window, he sat inside reading--only apparentlyreading, however.
Once she went quite as far as the gate and stood looking out.
"Jenks!" called Billy Grant.
Jenks has not entered into the story much. He was a little man,rather fat, who occupied a tiny room in the pavilion, carried mealsand soiled clothes, had sat on Billy Grant's chest once or twiceduring a delirium, and kept a bottle locked in the dish closet.
"Yes, sir," said Jenks, coming behind a strong odour of _spiritusfrumenti_.
"Jenks," said Billy Grant with an eye on the figure at the gate, "isthat bottle of yours empty?"
"What bottle?"
"The one in the closet."
Jenks eyed Billy Grant, and Billy eyed Jenks--a look of man to man,brother to brother.
"Not quite, sir--a nip or two."
"At," suggested Billy Grant, "say--five dollars a nip?"
Jenks smiled.
"About that," he said. "Filled?"
Billy Grant debated. The Nurse was turning at the gate.
"No," he said. "As it is, Jenks. Bring it here."
Jenks brought the bottle and a glass, but the glass was motionedaway. Billy Grant took the bottle in his hand and looked at it witha curious expression. Then he went over and put it in the upperbureau drawer, under a pile of handkerchiefs. Jenks watched him,bewildered.
"Just a little experiment, Jenks," said Billy Grant.
Jenks understood then and stopped smiling.
"I wouldn't, Mr. Grant," he said; "it will only make you loseconfidence in yourself when it doesn't work out."
"But it's going to work out," said Billy Grant. "Would you mindturning on the cold water?"
Now the next twenty-four hours puzzled the Nurse. When Billy Grant'seyes were not on her with an unfathomable expression in them, theywere fixed on something in the neighbourhood of the dresser, and atthese times they had a curious, fixed look not unmixed with triumph.She tried a new arrangement of combs and brushes and tilted themirror at a different angle, without effect.
That day Billy Grant took only one cold plunge. As the hours wore onhe grew more cheerful; the look of triumph was unmistakable. Hestared less at the dresser and more at the Nurse. At last it grewunendurable. She stopped in front of him and looked down at himseverely. She could only be severe when he was sitting--when he wasstanding she had to look so far up at him, even when she stood onher tiptoes.
"What is wrong with me?" she demanded. "You look so queer! Is my capcrooked?"
"It is a wonderful cap."
"Is my face dirty?"
"It is a won---- No, certainly not."
"Then would you mind not staring so? You--upset me."
"I shall have to shut my eyes," he replied meekly, and worried herinto a state of frenzy by sitting for fifty minutes with his headback and his eyes shut.
So--the evening and the morning were another day, and the bottle layundisturbed under the handkerchiefs, and the cold shower ceasedrunning, and Billy Grant assumed the air of triumph permanently.That morning when the breakfast trays came he walked over into theNurse's room and picked hers up, table and all, carrying it acrossthe hall. In his own room he arranged the two trays side by side,and two chairs opposite each other. When the Nurse, who had beenputting breadcrumbs on the window-sill, turned round Billy Grant waswaiting to draw out one of the chairs, and there was something inhis face she had not seen there before.
"Shall we breakfast?" he said.
"I told you yesterday----"
"Think a minute," he said softly. "Is there any reason why we shouldnot breakfast together?" She pressed her hands close together, butshe did not speak. "Unless--you do not wish to."
"You remember you promised, as soon as you got away, to--fixthat----"
"So I will if you say the word."
"And--to forget all about it."
"That," said Billy Grant solemnly, "I shall never do so long as Ilive. Do you say the word?"
"What else can I do?"
"Then there is somebody else?"
"Oh, no!"
He took a step toward her, but still he did not touch her.
"If there is no one else," he said, "and if I tell you that you havemade me a man again----"
"Gracious! Your eggs will be cold." She made a motion toward theegg-cup, but Billy Grant caught her hand.
"Damn the eggs!" he said. "Why don't you look at me?"
Something sweet and luminous and most unprofessional shone in thelittle Nurse's eyes, and the line of her pulse on a chart would havelooked like a seismic disturbance.
"I--I have to look up so far!" she said, but really she was lookingdown when she said it.
"Oh, my dear--my dear!" exulted Billy Grant. "It is I who must lookup at you!" And with that he dropped on his knees and kissed thestarched hem of her apron.
The Nurse felt very absurd and a little frightened.
"If only," she said, backing off--"if only you wouldn't be such asilly! Jenks is coming!"
But Jenks was not coming. Billy Grant rose to his full height andlooked down at her--a new Billy Grant, the one who had got drunk ata club and given a ring to a cabman having died that grey morningsome weeks before.
"I love you--love you--love you!" he said, and took h
er in his arms.
* * * * *
Now the Head Nurse was interviewing an applicant; and, as the H.N.took a constitutional each morning in the courtyard and believed inlosing no time, she was holding the interview as she walked.
"I think I would make a good nurse," said the applicant, a triflebreathless, the h.n. being a brisk walker. "I am so sympathetic."
The H.N. stopped and raised a reproving forefinger.
"Too much sympathy is a handicap," she orated. "The perfect nurse isa silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine--this littlebuilding here is the isolation pavilion."
"An emotionless machine," repeated the applicant. "I see--an e----"
The words died on her lips. She was looking past a crowd of birds onthe windowsill to where, just inside, Billy Grant and the Nurse in avery mussed cap were breakfasting together. And as she looked BillyGrant bent over across the tray.
"I adore you!" he said distinctly and, lifting the Nurse's hands,kissed first one and then the other.
"It is hard work," said Miss Smith--having made a note that the boysin the children's ward must be restrained from lowering a pasteboardbox on a string from a window--"hard work without sentiment. It isnot a romantic occupation."
She waved an admonitory hand toward the window, and the box went upswiftly. The applicant looked again toward the pavilion, whereBilly Grant, having kissed the Nurse's hands, had buried his face inher two palms.
The mild October sun shone down on the courtyard, with its bandagedfigures in wheel-chairs, its cripples sunning on a bench, theircrutches beside them, its waterless fountain and dingy birds.
The applicant thrilled to it all--joy and suffering, birth anddeath, misery and hope, life and love. Love!
The H.N. turned to her grimly, but her eyes were soft.
"All this," she said, waving her hand vaguely, "for eight dollars amonth!"
"I think," said the applicant shyly, "I should like to come."
Love Stories Page 3
