“Of course not! Nor Doctor Brine nor Doctor Jaquith. I won’t tell a single living soul! I’d sooner die than put you in wrong.” Her eyes flashed. Her tone was fierce.
It became necessary for Charlotte now to lower her eyes. Never before had anyone expressed such loyalty on her behalf. “Tell me about yourself,” she said, changing the subject. “Where do you go to school? What class are you in? And what subjects do you like best? And what do you like to do?” She remembered various details which J.D. had told her about this problem child of his—her love of camping and out-of-doors, her love of animals, her flair for art.
“I don’t like anything at school. Both my sisters always got A’s and B’s. I get C’s and D’s, and sometimes E’s. I used to like to paint, but not any more.”
“Why not?”
“Because they found I did it when I ought to be studying algebra and Latin. I had a little secret studio up under them eaves, with a skylight in it, off my bedroom on the third floor. One of my sisters sneaked and peeked on me, and told my mother I was spending most of my time in one of my closets, afternoons when I was supposed to be studying, and one morning, when I was at school, my mother got into my studio and took away my paintings, and my easel, and all my tubes and brushes, and locked the door.”
“And your father let her?”
“My father was in Italy, on a business trip. When he got home he told Mother to give me back my things and my studio key. But it was too late. I don’t want to be an artist any more. They’re always queer, my sisters say. I want to be like other girls now, and swim and skate and ski, and play tennis and pingpong. But it’s too late for that, too, so—”
“No, it isn’t, Tina. It isn’t too late for anything. Tell me what you’d like most to do.”
“You called me ‘Tina’!”
“Did I? How stupid! But isn’t it a nickname for Christine?”
“Yes, but nobody calls me that except my father.”
“Well, then, I won’t.”
“No! Please. I want you to!”
27
IN PLACE OF A NURSE
Charlotte surreptitiously indulged in a hot bath that night after all the guests’ lights were supposed to be out. She had finished and was ready for bed when she heard the unmistakable sound of muffled sobbing in the adjoining room. She had left Tina smiling only half an hour ago outside her bedroom door. The sobbing was not loud, but the repeated cycles of sound were regular and continuous, and seemed likely to continue.
Charlotte cautiously turned the knob of the door. It was not locked. She opened it. The room was dark. The sobbing came from the direction of the bed. At first glance it appeared empty. Both the pillows were undisturbed, the turned-down bedclothes smooth. But there was a slight mound in the middle of the bed. Tina had crawled down under the blankets, and was lying curled up face down.
Charlotte sat down on the edge of the bed and placed her hand on the jerking mound. Instantly it became motionless, all sound ceased, and the body stiffened. Oh, dear, I’ve frightened her, thought Charlotte.
“It’s I. The tall dark lady, Tina. Don’t be afraid,” she said, leaning over the mound and speaking distinctly. “Tell me what’s the matter.”
Charlotte was unprepared for what happened. Tina wriggled out of her cave, half sat up, and stared at Charlotte in the semidarkness of the moonlit room, and, when convinced of her identity, cast herself upon her, burying her head in her lap, clinging to her with both arms, and began sobbing again.
Charlotte put her arms around the jerking body—terribly thin, like a skeleton covered with skin, and, pushing it over a little, slipped into the bed beside Tina. She held her, firmly and so close to her that her own body jerked a little too with each sob at first. She didn’t say anything—just lay there in the dark, waiting for the sobs to quiet, but she was keenly aware. “This is Jerry’s child in my arms,” she thought. “This is Jerry’s child clinging to me.”
Gradually the convulsive intakes of breath grew farther and farther apart, the outlets of sound less violent. Finally speech was possible.
“Don’t leave me,” were Tina’s first words.
“I won’t till you’re asleep.”
“No, I mean don’t leave me here in this place. Something terrible has happened.”
“What’s happened?”
“After you left me, that awful Miss”—one of the automatic jerks interrupted—“Trask came to my room—”
“And you had to tell her about the telephone call? Never mind. The truth is better. I’ll explain it was my fault.”
“No, no. I didn’t tell her. I told her we just had an ice-cream soda. The terrible thing is what she told me. She told me my new nurse will be here tomorrow night!”
“Well, you may like her.”
“No, I shan’t! I shall hate and loathe and despise her! She’ll club with Miss Trask and the doctors. You know she will. And what will I do next time when I have to speak to my father? Why must I have a nurse? Nobody my age has a nurse. I’ll be so ashamed. It will be worse than playing ping-pong. Oh, must I? Must I, must I?” Another jerk shivered her body, and a few seconds later still another. The sobbing was beginning again.
“Listen, Tina. Listen to me. Hold your breath, if you can, and listen. I know Doctor Jaquith. I’ll talk to him tomorrow. I’ll ask him to give you another trial without a nurse. I don’t think you ought to have a nurse. I’ll tell him so.”
“You will? You dare to?”
“Certainly I will. Certainly I dare to. You leave it to me.”
“All right. Why are you so good to me?”
“Lots of reasons. But one is enough. I’m trying to pay back a debt I owe. There was someone who was good to me once when things were looking black. Did you ever read a book called Sara Crewe?”
“No.”
“Well, if you’ll close your eyes and make your muscles all go limp, I’ll tell it to you. That’s better. Now pretend you’re a little girl, for the story may be too young for you. Once upon a time—” . . .
Charlotte didn’t lose consciousness until after one o’clock. She was afraid she’d wake Tina if she shifted her position, and didn’t want to cut short by even a minute the probably never-to-be-repeated experience of holding Jerry’s sleeping child in her arms.
Finally Tina stirred, lifted her head from Charlotte’s shoulder, sat up, and gazed in silence at her face on the pillow.
“Hello! Know me?” Charlotte asked. Tina nodded emphatically. “You’ve had a fine sleep. If you’ll let me get my arm out from under you, I’ll go to my own room now.”
“Oh, please don’t go yet—” and as Charlotte made no move, “Let’s lie spoon fashion,” Tina suggested and turned over, cuddling her back into Charlotte’s warm curves, drawing Charlotte’s arm beneath hers, across the shaft of her body. “This is the way Daddy and I used to lie when he’d put me to sleep when I was little. I’m too old for it now, Mother says. She says I’m too old to call him Daddy, too.”
Doctor Jaquith’s office over the First National Bank on Main Street had many features in common with his office in the old brownstone-front dwelling house on Fiftieth Street in New York. Both locations had been selected because they were available at the time and convenient, and both had continued to meet his requirements. There were two rooms over the bank. The front one, in which Doctor Jaquith talked with his patients, closely resembled the mid-Victorian front parlor on Fiftieth Street. Its walls had been painted with the same mixture of Paisley shawl and lobster red, the New York house painter having sent on all he had left of it.
At Cascade as in New York there was always a channel-coal fire burning in an open grate, whenever the weather permitted, not beneath a black marble mantel, however, but instead in a Franklin stove, with polished brass balls and trimmings.
This time, when Doctor Jaquith entered the room to shake hands with Charlotte, he came from the room behind as in New York. Again he drew up two chairs on either side of the open grate—a pair of
slender-legged, short-armed Windsors painted black. The temperature outdoors was over eighty in the shade. There were no leaping flames on red walls today. The chairs faced instead a low-humming electric fan placed on the flat top of the stove between two large brass balls. Slowly, rhythmically, it turned its face from left to right, from right to left, dispensing its merciful breezes, like some big fat squat idol with gold decorations sitting there, thought Charlotte.
“Well, how did it go? Any flat tires? Any dented mudguards? Any overturned car? Any companion? And how many stops at hotels for rests en route?”
“None to everything. You’re right. I’m not having a nervous breakdown, I guess, so, if you don’t mind, I want to speak to you first about a matter which has nothing to do with my problem at all.”
“Good! Guess you must have been looking out beyond that fly speck since last we met. Tell me what you’ve been seeing out there on the horizon?”
“It isn’t out on the horizon. It’s right before my nose and it was shoved there. At dinner last night I was seated at the same table with a young girl by the name of Christine Durrance”—and Charlotte described her. “I couldn’t help but notice the child, she was so thin and ate so little, so after dinner—” And Charlotte related briefly the events that led up to Miss Trask’s permission that Christine accompany her to the town. At that point she stopped. “Will you tell me about the child, please?”
“What shall I tell you?”
“All that you can. The child is terribly unhappy here and I don’t think she’s being treated wisely,” she announced flatly.
“Nothing wrong with your courage now, I should say!” Charlotte didn’t even flush. “I suppose I do sound presuming. I’m sorry but the time is so short that I can’t stop to be tactful. I might as well confess, first as last, that I’m even worse than I sound. Last night I deliberately ignored the doctor’s orders for the child.”
“That sounds serious.” But his eyes were twinkling. “What order did you ignore?”
“I let her telephone her father. She hasn’t been here long enough to lay down an ironclad rule like that! And the same applies to forcing her to play ping-pong so soon. A game you can’t play well can simply be torture. I was a child something like that myself once, so I understand her better, perhaps, than doctors and nurses who have only book knowledge.”
“You do, do you?” Doctor Jaquith sat up straight. “Repeat that last sentence, please.” She did so. “There’s a lot in what you say,” he said, his eyes shining, but with earnestness, not merriment now. “We haven’t been very successful so far with Christine, I admit. Cascade isn’t the right place for her at present, but we ought to make it the right place for her, or for any child who needs help in adjusting. We need someone with your experience and courage, to stand up to us and tell us a few things that aren’t in the books. If you’re ever hunting for a job—”
“Well, I’m not today, and my appointment with you this morning is for only a half hour.”
Doctor Jaquith ignored this remark. “Look here, I’ve got an idea! For a long time I’ve wanted to start a special foundation for children here at Cascade. It suddenly occurs to me that one way for you to distribute a little of that fortune of yours, now lying fallow, might be to help a lot of unhappy children out of a slough which you know something about yourself.”
“Possibly,” Charlotte replied, “but just now I’m interested in helping one child out of a slough, and I’ve got to talk fast. I’m here for just one purpose, which I haven’t mentioned yet. Christine doesn’t want a nurse, and I promised her I’d see if you would give her another chance. I’ve talked to Miss Trask and I fully realize your responsibility. I have a proposition to make. As you know, I haven’t anything exactly pressing to take me home immediately. I wondered if I might not do instead of a nurse. I’ll be responsible for her, and I’ll promise not to break any more rules, without getting permission first. Oh, I suppose it’s unusual and sounds impractical, but I thought perhaps you’d give it a trial—” She stopped, aware that her voice sounded far too earnest —almost entreating, in fact. She gave a short laugh as if amused at herself. “You see,” she explained, “I happened to be assigned to the room next to Christine’s,” and in a deprecatory tone she told how she had chanced to hear the child sobbing in the night and had done her best to stop it. “So naturally,” she shrugged, flushing slightly, for Doctor Jaquith was observing her with that piercing expression of his that saw straight through one’s rationalizations, “and so naturally, I have become interested in the child.”
“You don’t have to tell me why you’re interested in her. It’s enough that you are! Go ahead. Try it. I’ll cancel the nurse. Why, this is a wonderful stroke of good luck for Christine! She’s sadly in need of something to make her feel important. One reason she won’t eat is because it makes her an object of interest. You may get enough of it in two days, but even a short period of a friendship of her own with a distinguished ex guest who blows in on her own power for a brief sojourn will do a lot for her positive self-feeling.”
“If I’m to treat her intelligently, shouldn’t I know some facts about her? I realize talking to one patient about another isn’t done, but—”
“But when you cease to be a patient and become a member of my staff, it’s different,” he smiled. “Well, Miss Vale,” he said in a professional tone, “there’s nothing pathologically wrong with your patient. She’s just one of those victims of unfortunate environment and bad habits of thought and action. We can’t change the environment, but we hope to change the habits in time. The child’s environment is controlled by a mother who has a closed mind toward all our theories here: I talked with her once. But she is ready to accept any plan we suggest which relieves her of the child, who has always been a thorn in her flesh, though the lady would strongly protest if she heard me say so.”
“And the father? Should I know his attitude toward Christine?”
“Sympathetic and protective: probably too protective for Christine’s good. But he speaks our language and will cooperate in every way. He’s had some experience with nerves himself. The child is one of three girls. Much younger. Not well as a baby, extremely troublesome. Result, resentment felt not only by the mother, but by the older sisters who had to help take care of her. Result, the father has always defended the child against her sisters and her mother and world generally. Result, the child has developed an abnormal devotion for the father. Result, the mother has developed jealousy of the child. Result, the child’s absence from home becomes desirable for all concerned. Result, I take the child here. It’s not the right place for her, but it’s not so bad as leaving her under the same roof with her mother. That should positively be avoided. Anything you can do to give your patient self-confidence, Miss Vale, is desirable. If you can make her feel the pride of a friendship of her own, it will be of great value. I will make an appointment with Doctor Brine for you this afternoon and he will give you what other facts about the case he thinks necessary, and tell you what he’d like your attitude to be. And, by the way, you tell him a few things too. Pitch into him the way you did into me,” he said, dropping his mock professional attitude and standing up. “Now let’s talk about you. What sort of night did you have after your long journey?”
“I had an excellent night.”
“In spite of being disturbed by Christine?”
“Oh, I didn’t mind that,” she replied, with exaggerated indifference, and stopped abruptly, flushing slightly, for he was observing her with such a quizzical expression. She decided to get down to the root of his suspicions, or knowledge, whichever it was. “There are some questions I’d like to ask you,” she said.
“Fire away.”
“How much do you know about Italy?”
“Not a great deal. I understand Mussolini has done away with the beggars,” he parried.
“You know what I mean. How much do you know about my automobile accident in Italy and the man who was with me?”
; “Not much.”
“In New York you said he helped me out of one difficulty into another.”
“That was just a guess of mine.”
“And you don’t know whether or not we ever met after the accident?”
“I rather thought you had.”
“Why?”
“Well, a patient of mine who has a phobia about high places was arguing with me one day that it was a reasonable fear because cars did sometimes go over the edge, and she cited the example of such an accident happening to a man and woman who were in Ravello when she was there. They were stopping at another hotel nearby, and if I doubted her statement she knew the woman’s name, though not the man’s. In fact she told me the woman’s name before I could stop her.”
“And who told you the man’s name?”
“Nobody. I don’t know his name.”
“You didn’t know that Christine’s father and I had met before?”
“No, I didn’t know it.” Though his brief statement was enough to convince Charlotte of its truth, his expression was added evidence, and the immediate change in his tone and manner proved he was completely taken by surprise, and far from pleasantly so. “If I had known it, I certainly wouldn’t have advised you to come to Cascade at present. I had no idea you had ever met Durrance!” Charlotte had never heard his tone so hostile before. He walked up the room and down again in frowning silence. “Well, this puts a different light on the situation,” he said, coming to a standstill in front of Charlotte.
“You mean you’re not going to cancel the nurse?”
“I mean,” he said in a crisp, clipped tone, “that I have taken on the child as my responsibility. She is my patient at present. Not you. You’re cured. I must consider Christine’s welfare.”
“I’ll do anything in the world for Christine’s welfare,” said Charlotte, standing up now, “and I’ll leave it all to you to decide what is for her welfare.”
Now, Voyager Page 24
