But the treatment failed. Despite the fact that in her distress Roberta returned to the factory in order to weary herself, until all the girls in the department assured her that she must be ill—that she should not be working when she looked and plainly felt so bad—still nothing came of it. And the fact that Clyde could dream of falling back on the assurance of the druggist that a first month’s lapse was of no import only aggravated and frightened her the more.
The truth was that in this crisis he was as interesting an illustration of the enormous handicaps imposed by ignorance, youth, poverty and fear as one could have found. Technically he did not even know the meaning of the word “midwife,” or the nature of the services performed by her. (And there were three here in Lycurgus at this time in the foreign family section.) Again, he had been in Lycurgus so short a time, and apart from the young society men and Dillard whom he had cut, and the various department heads at the factory, he knew no one—an occasional barber, haberdasher, cigar dealer and the like, the majority of whom, as he saw them, were either too dull or too ignorant for his purpose.
One thing, however, which caused him to pause before ever he decided to look up a physician was the problem of who was to approach him and how. To go himself was simply out of the question. In the first place, he looked too much like Gilbert Griffiths, who was decidedly too well-known here and for whom he might be mistaken. Next, it was unquestionable that, being as well-dressed as he was, the physician would want to charge him more, maybe, than he could afford and ask him all sorts of embarrassing questions, whereas if it could be arranged through some one else—the details explained before ever Roberta was sent—Why not Roberta herself! Why not? She looked so simple and innocent and unassuming and appealing at all times. And in such a situation as this, as depressed and downcast as she was, well . . . For after all, as he now casuistically argued with himself, it was she and not he who was facing the immediate problem which had to be solved.
And again, as it now came to him, would she not be able to get it done cheaper? For looking as she did now, so distrait—If only he could get her to say that she had been deserted by some young man, whose name she would refuse to divulge, of course, well, what physician seeing a girl like her alone and in such a state—no one to look after her—would refuse her? It might even be that he would help her out for nothing. Who could tell? And that would leave him clear of it all.
And in consequence he now approached Roberta, intending to prepare her for the suggestion that, assuming that he could provide a physician and the nature of his position being what it was, she must speak for herself. But before he had spoken she at once inquired of him as to what, if anything, more he had heard or done. Wasn’t some other remedy sold somewhere? And this giving him the opportunity he desired, he explained: “Well, I’ve asked around and looked into most of the drug-stores and they tell me if this one won’t work that none will. That leaves me sorta stumped now, unless you’re willing to go and see a doctor. But the trouble with that is they’re hard to find—the ones who’ll do anything and keep their mouths shut. I’ve talked with several fellows without saying who it’s for, of course, but it ain’t so easy to get one around here, because they are all too much afraid. It’s against the law, you see. But what I want to know now is, supposing I find a doctor who would do it, will you have the nerve to go and see him and tell him what the trouble is? That’s what I want to know.”
She looked at him dazedly, not quite grasping that he was hinting that she was to go entirely alone, but rather assuming that of course he meant to go with her. Then, her mind concentrating nervously upon the necessity of facing a doctor in his company, she first exclaimed: “Oh, dear, isn’t it terrible to think of us having to go to a doctor in this way? Then he’ll know all about us, won’t he? And besides it’s dangerous, isn’t it, although I don’t suppose it could be much worse than those old pills.” She went off into more intimate inquiries as to what was done and how, but Clyde could not enlighten her.
“Oh, don’t be getting nervous over that now,” he said. “It isn’t anything that’s going to hurt you, I know. Besides we’ll be lucky if we find some one to do it. What I want to know is if I do find a doctor, will you be wiling to go to him alone?” She started as if struck, but unabashed now he went on, “As things stand with me here, I can’t go with you, that’s sure. I’m too well known around here, and besides I look too much like Gilbert and he’s known to everybody. If I should be mistaken for him, or be taken for his cousin or relative, well, then the jig’s up.”
His eyes were not only an epitome of how wretched he would feel were he exposed to all Lycurgus for what he was, but also in them lurked a shadow of the shabby role he was attempting to play in connection with her—in hiding thus completely behind her necessity. And yet so tortured was he by the fear of what was about to befall him in case he did not succeed in so doing, that he was now prepared, whatever Roberta might think or say, to stand his ground. But Roberta, sensing only the fact that he was thinking of sending her alone, now exclaimed incredulously: “Not alone, Clyde! Oh, no, I couldn’t do that! Oh, dear, no! Why, I’d be frightened to death. Oh, dear, no. Why, I’d be so frightened I wouldn’t know what to do. Just think how I’d feel, trying to explain to him alone. I just couldn’t do that. Besides, how would I know what to say—how to begin? You’ll just have to go with me at first, that’s all, and explain, or I never can go—I don’t care what happens.” Her eyes were round and excited and her face, while registering all the depression and fear that had recently been there, was transfigured by definite opposition.
But Clyde was not to be shaken either.
“You know how it is with me here, Bert. I can’t go, and that’s all there is to it. Why, supposing I were seen—supposing some one should recognize me? What then? You know how much I’ve been going around here since I’ve been here. Why, it’s crazy to think that I could go. Besides, it will be a lot easier for you than for me. No doctor’s going to think anything much of your coming to him, especially if you’re alone. He’ll just think you’re some one who’s got in trouble and with no one to help you. But if I go, and it should be any one who knows anything about the Griffiths, there’d be the deuce to pay. Right off he’d think I was stuffed with money. Besides, if I didn’t do just what he wanted me to do afterwards, he could go to my uncle, or my cousin, and then, good night! That would be the end of me. And if I lost my place here now, and with no money and that kind of scandal connected with me, where do you suppose I would be after that, or you either? I certainly couldn’t look after you then. And then what would you do? I should think you’d wake up and see what a tough proposition this is. My name can’t be pulled into this without trouble for both of us. It’s got to be kept out, that’s all, and the only way for me to keep it out is for me to stay away from any doctor. Besides, he’d feel a lot sorrier for you than he would for me. You can’t tell me!”
His eyes were distressed and determined, and, as Roberta could gather from his manner, a certain hardness, or at least defiance, the result of fright, showed in every gesture. He was determined to protect his own name, come what might—a fact which, because of her own acquiescence up to this time, still carried great weight with her.
“Oh, dear! dear!” she exclaimed, nervously and sadly now, the growing and drastic terror of the situation dawning upon her, “I don’t see how we are to do then. I really don’t. For I can’t do that and that’s all there is to it. It’s all so hard—so terrible. I’d feel too much ashamed and frightened to ever go alone.”
But even as she said this she began to feel that she might, and even would, go alone, if must be. For what else was there to do? And how was she to compel him, in the face of his own fears and dangers, to jeopardize his position here? He began once more, in self-defense more than from any other motive:
“Besides, unless this thing isn’t going to cost very much, I don’t see how I’m going to get by with it anyhow, Bert. I really don’t. I don’t make so
very much, you know—only twenty-five dollars up to now.” (Necessity was at last compelling him to speak frankly with Roberta.) “And I haven’t saved anything—not a cent. And you know why as well as I do. We spent the most of it together. Besides if I go and he thought I had money, he might want to charge me more than I could possibly dig up. But if you go and just tell him how things are—and that you haven’t got anything—if you’d only say I’d run away or something, see—”
He paused because, as he said it, he saw a flicker of shame, contempt, despair at being connected with anything so cheap and shabby, pass over Roberta’s face. And yet in spite of this sly and yet muddy tergiversation on his part—so great is the compelling and enlightening power of necessity—she could still see that there was some point to his argument. He might be trying to use her as a foil, a mask, behind which he, and she too for that matter, was attempting to hide. But just the same, shameful as it was, here were the stark, bald headlands of fact, and at their base the thrashing, destroying waves of necessity. She heard him say: “You wouldn’t have to give your right name, you know, or where you came from. I don’t intend to pick out any doctor right around here, see. Then, if you’d tell him you didn’t have much money—just your weekly salary—”
She sat down weakly to think, the while this persuasive trickery proceeded from him—the import of most of his argument going straight home. For as false and morally meretricious as this whole plan was, still, as she could see for herself, her own as well as Clyde’s situation was desperate. And as honest and punctilious as she might ordinarily be in the matter of truth-telling and honest-dealing, plainly this was one of those whirling tempests of fact and reality in which the ordinary charts and compasses of moral measurement were for the time being of small use.
And so, insisting then that they go to some doctor far away, Utica or Albany, maybe—but still admitting by this that she would go—the conversation was dropped. And he having triumphed in the matter of excepting his own personality from this, took heart to the extent, at least, of thinking that at once now, by some hook or crook, he must find a doctor to whom he could send her. Then his terrible troubles in connection with all this would be over. And after that she could go her way, as surely she must; then, seeing that he would have done all that he could for her he would go his way to the glorious dénouement that lay directly before him in case only this were adjusted.
Chapter 36
NEVERTHELESS hours and even days, and finally a week and then ten days, passed without any word from him as to the whereabouts of a doctor to whom she could go. For although having said so much to her he still did not know to whom to apply. And each hour and day as great a menace to him as to her. And her looks as well as her inquiries registering how intense and vital and even clamorous at moments was her own distress. Also he was harried almost to the point of nervous collapse by his own inability to think of any speedy and sure way by which she might be aided. Where did a physician live to whom he might send her with some assurance of relief for her, and how was he to find out about him?
After a time, however, in running over all the names of those he knew, he finally struck upon a forlorn hope in the guise of Orrin Short, the young man conducting the one small “gents’ furnishing store” in Lycurgus which catered more or less exclusively to the rich youths of the city—a youth of about his own years and proclivities, as Clyde had guessed, who ever since he had been here had been useful to him in the matter of tips as to dress and style in general. Indeed, as Clyde had for some time noted, Short was a brisk, inquiring and tactful person, who, in addition to being quite attractive personally to girls, was also always most courteous to his patrons, particularly to those whom he considered above him in the social scale, and among these was Clyde. For having discovered that Clyde was related to the Griffiths, this same Short had sought, as a means for his own general advancement in other directions, to scrape as much of a genial and intimate relationship with him as possible, only, as Clyde saw it, and in view of the general attitude of his very high relatives, it had not, up to this time at least, been possible for him to consider any such intimacy seriously. And yet, finding Short so very affable and helpful in general, he was not above reaching at least an easy and genial surface relationship with him, which Short appeared to accept in good part. Indeed, as at first, his manner remained seeking and not a little sycophantic at times. And so it was that among all those with whom he could be said to be in either intimate or casual contact, Short was about the only one who offered even a chance for an inquiry which might prove productive of some helpful information.
In consequence, in passing Short’s place each evening and morning, once he thought of him in this light, he made it a point to nod and smile in a most friendly manner, until at least three days had gone by. And t hen, feeling that he had paved the way as much as his present predicament would permit, he stopped in, not at all sure that on this first occasion he would be able to broach the dangerous subject. The tale he had fixed upon to tell Short was that he had been approached by a young working-man in the factory, newly-married, who, threatened with an heir and not being able to afford one as yet, had appealed to him for information as to where he might now find a doctor to help him. The only interesting additions which Clyde proposed to make to this were that the young man, being very poor and timid and not so very intelligent, was not able to speak or do much for himself. Also that he, Clyde, being better informed, although so new locally as not to be able to direct him to any physician (an after-thought intended to put the idea into Short’s mind that he himself was never helpless and so not likely ever to want such advice himself), had already advised the young man of a temporary remedy. But unfortunately, so his story was to run, this had already failed to work. Hence something more certain—a physician, no less—was necessary. And Short, having been here longer, and, as he had heard him explain, hailing previously from Gloversville, it was quite certain, as Clyde now argued with himself, that he would know of at least one—or should. But in order to divert suspicion from himself he was going to add that of course he probably could get news of some one in his own set, only, the situation being so unusual (any reference to any such thing in his own world being likely to set his own group talking), he preferred to ask some one like Short, who as a favor would keep it quiet.
As it chanced on this occasion, Short himself, owing to his having done a very fair day’s business, was in an exceedingly jovial frame of mind. And Clyde having entered, to buy a pair of socks, perhaps, he began: “Well, it’s good to see you again,
Mr. Griffiths. How are you? I was just thinking it’s about time you stopped in and let me show you some of the things I got in since you were here before. How are things with the Griffiths Company anyhow?”
Short’s manner, always brisk, was on this occasion doubly reassuring, since he liked Clyde, only now the latter was so intensely keyed up by the daring of his own project that he could scarcely bring himself to carry the thing off with the air he would have liked to have employed.
Nevertheless, being in the store and so, seemingly, committed to the project, he now began: “Oh, pretty fair. Can’t kick a bit. I always have all I can do, you know.” At the same time he began nervously fingering some ties hung upon movable nickeled rods. But before he had wasted a moment on these, Mr. Short, turning and spreading some boxes of very special ties from a shelf behind him on the glass case, remarked: “Never mind looking at those, Mr. Griffiths. Look at these. These are what I want to show you and they won’t cost you any more. Just got ’em from New York this morning.” He picked up several bundles of six each, the very latest, as he explained. “See anything else like this anywhere around here yet? I’ll say you haven’t.” He eyed Clyde smilingly, the while he wished sincerely that such a young man, so well connected, yet not rich like the others, would be friends with him. It would place him here.
Clyde, fingering the offerings and guessing that what Short was saying was true, was now so troubled and
confused in his own mind that he could scarcely think and speak as planned. “Very nice, sure,” he said, turning them over, feeling that at another time he would have been pleased to possess at least two. “I think maybe I’ll take this one, anyhow, and this one, too.” He drew out two and held them up, while he was thinking how to broach the so much more important matter that had brought him here. For why should he be troubling to buy ties, dilly-dallying in this way, when all he wanted to ask Short about was this other matter? Yet how hard it was now—how very hard. And yet he really must, although perhaps not so abruptly. He would look around a little more at first in order to allay suspicion—ask about some socks. Only why should he be doing that, since he did not need anything, Sondra only recently having presented him with a dozen handkerchiefs, some collars, ties and socks. Nevertheless every time he decided to speak he felt a sort of sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach, a fear that he could not or would not carry the thing off with the necessary ease and conviction. It was all so questionable and treacherous—so likely to lead to exposure and disgrace in some way. He would probably not be able to bring himself to speak to Short to-night. And yet, as he argued with himself, how could the occasion ever be more satisfactory?
Short, in the meantime having gone to the rear of the store and now returning, with a most engaging and even sycophantic smile on his face, began with: “Saw you last Tuesday evening about nine o’clock going into the Finchleys’ place, didn’t I? Beautiful house and grounds they have there.”
Clyde saw that Short really was impressed by his social station here. There was a wealth of admiration mingled with a touch of servility. And at once, because of this, he took heart, since he realized that with such an attitude dominating the other, whatever he might say would be colored in part at least by his admirer’s awe and respect. And after examining the socks and deciding that one pair at least would soften the difficulty of his demand, he added: “Oh, by the way, before I forget it. There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you about. Maybe you can tell me what I want to know. One of the boys at the factory—a young fellow who hasn’t been married very long—about four months now, I guess—is in a little trouble on account of his wife.” He paused, because of his uncertainty as to whether he could succeed with this now or not, seeing that Short’s expression changed ever so slightly. And yet, having gone so far, he did not know how to recede. So now he laughed nervously and then added: “I don’t know why they always come to me with their troubles, but I guess they think I ought to know all about these things.” (He laughed again.) “Only I’m about as new and green here as anybody and so I’m kinda stumped. But you’ve been here longer than I have, I guess, and so I thought I might ask you.”
An American Tragedy Page 51
