by Helen Wells
“Yes, those are all worthwhile reasons.” Cherry sat thinking for a few minutes. “So this is why you’ve transplanted the garden flowers—why you’ve brought them indoors into the conservatory for the coming winter.”
“Certain flowers. The ones the journal mentions as being ingredients of the perfume. By distillation, that is—”
“You really have been studying up on perfume making! Where? And when?”
Lisette said she had been fortunate enough last year to attend a high school which gave a thorough elementary course in chemistry. It was a laboratory course, and she had really learned a great deal. Cherry understood, as she had had extension laboratory studies during her nurse’s training course.
“But ordinary chemistry doesn’t have much to do with perfume scents.”
Lisette grinned. “Remember that big library book I’ve covered with plain paper? Well, its title is The Preparation of Perfumes. It’s practically a textbook, a technical handbook. Fascinating, too. I’ve been checking against it the portions of the formula mentioned in the journal.”
“You have! Does it sound promising?”
The girl nodded.
“What was the basis or secret of your great grandfather’s perfume?”
“Distinctive flowers. What made it so special, as far as I can tell, was certain flowers whose seeds he brought from France. So far, I’m only guessing which flowers, and of course some chemicals are needed, too. But in the journal he named his perfume Fleurs Blanches et Rouges or Flowers White and Red, so I thought of white rose, the silvery spray—”
“The fawn rose sometimes is nearly white, or streaked with white.”
“Yes, and for red flowers, foremost is the big stunning Provence rose. It originally came from France, where it’s used a great deal in making perfume.”
“By the way, what’s the name of the silver spray?” Cherry inquired.
“I believe it’s called silver lace in France. Though, really, the silver spray is more like stalks of lily of the valley or bluebell. We could almost call it silver bells.”
The biggest question was one Cherry felt reluctant to ask. In listening to the story, it had become clear to Cherry that the great grandfather had been interrupted with his perfume before he could either fail or fully succeed. He had thought his perfume to be “lovely and joyful,” but was that true? How could Lisette know this was a delightful fragrance?
In the most tactful words she could find, Cherry hinted at this question. Had Lisette, by some happy chance, ever smelled the perfume? Had some breath of it miraculously clung in the chateau over the years?
“No, I’ve never smelled it. Even if it hadn’t been lost, the perfume wouldn’t have a clear cut scent any longer. But I have faith in Pierre’s formula! It’s only a blind belief—but you know how haunting the garden smells at night! So that using those flowers most surely, surely would yield a lovely perfume. Of course there’s a great difference between the living fragrance of a garden and a bottle of scent—”
Lisette broke off and retired within herself. Cherry reassured her that she was not casting doubts. Although not as convinced as Lisette, still she was willing to give Pierre Gauthier the benefit of the doubt. She was more than willing—eager!—to see what the two of them could rescue from the lost formula.
“First step, of course, is to find the sealed over cupboard,” Cherry thought aloud. “I suppose the key unlocks the wall cupboard?”
“Not sure. Listen to this.” Lisette read from the journal: “The door which protects the cupboard in the wall has been plastered over today … Protects. Does that mean a small door, like the door of a wall niche? Or does it mean a full sized panel with a knob and all?”
“Let’s have another look at the key.”
It was elongated and narrow, but that was no indication of what type of door it opened.
“Well, then, Lisette, where is the cupboard located?”
“In a master bedroom, I think. But there were two upstairs, and one downstairs—old houses like this one had huge rooms. One master bedroom might be what is now the infirmary. Or it might be the faculty sitting room.”
“Yes, but where in these rooms?”
Lisette shrugged. “The diary doesn’t say. Remember when I was sick and you found me sounding out the infirmary walls? I was listening for a hollow sound, to find a place that had been plastered over.”
“I caught you tapping the library wall, too.”
“The library is paneled, and it was his own library. This journal is so awfully cryptic! I s’pose Great-grandfather knew what his own notes meant, even if I don’t!” Lisette sighed. “The only way we’ll find the cupboard is to tap the walls and listen.”
“We may be tapping the chateau all winter,” Cherry murmured. “Have you found anything so far?”
“Not a thing. But we will.”
CHAPTER VIII
Young Dr. Alan
IT WAS ONE OF THOSE PEACEFUL, SUNNY MORNINGS which Cherry thought was almost too peaceful to be true. Not a single patient to be treated in the infirmary, her records brought up to date, all the equipment shining clean. “For once,” she thought, “I could sit and twiddle my thumbs! Not that I want to.”
Cherry wished she could explore the house or at least the three largest rooms, which may once have been the master bedrooms, one of which had been Pierre’s, to look for his cupboard. It had been on her mind ever since hearing of it evening before last. The fragrance of Lisette’s flowers in the sunny conservatory drifted upstairs to her, faint but tantalizing. But a school day, with the staff busy at their tasks all over the house, was not the time to go tapping on walls. Tina or Mrs. Harrison or Mrs. Snyder would think she had lost her mind if they saw her doing such a thing.
The infirmary telephone rang. Cherry reached for it and answered with proper decorum.
“Infirmary, Miss Ames speaking. Good morning.”
“Good morning. This is Alan Wilcox. I called to ask whether you could drive to a farm with me and help out on an emergency baby case.”
“Well, I haven’t a thing to do this morning except a few minor details that can wait. I’ll ask Mrs. Har—”
“This call can’t wait.”
“I’ll get my equipment packed right away,” Cherry said. Mrs. Harrison would almost certainly grant permission.
“Stop by for you in ten minutes,” Dr. Alan said, and hung up.
Cherry moved fast. She reached Mrs. Harrison by telephone and explained the situation. Mrs. Harrison said to go, by all means. She added, “How long has it been since you had a day off, Cherry? With everything under control in the infirmary, I think it would be all right if Mrs. Snyder and I take your place.”
“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Harrison!” She heard the headmistress chuckle. “I’ll be back before dinnertime, though.” Going off with Dr. Alan was important, but her first responsibility was here. She hoped no one at the Jamestown School would break, sprain, bruise, or swallow anything untoward in the next few hours.
In seven minutes flat Cherry packed her nurse’s kit with thermometer, a bottle of antiseptic, paper tissues, sterile cotton, sterile gauze dressings and tape, bandage scissors, forceps, a measuring glass, and hypodermic syringe. She borrowed the infirmary’s rubber sheet. She already wore her nurse’s watch with sweep second hand, and slipped her coat on over her white uniform. She dashed downstairs to the entrance porch just as Dr. Alan, hatless in his old convertible, swung up the driveway. He had the car door already open for her.
“Hop in. How long can you stay?”
“As long as you need me.”
“Oh, fine. Meet Leaping Lena. Watch her, now!”
On the open road he raced the car up to sixty. He seemed relaxed, but started at once describing the case to Cherry.
“I’m in a jam, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered you. This is a ‘premie,’ and we may have a bit of trouble. Have you had any maternity ward experience, Cherry?”
“Certainly. A good deal, Doctor.�
� Did Alan think she was just a youngster?
At the farmhouse they found a distracted young husband awaiting them. It was obvious that, in his anxiety, he would be more hindrance than help, and, as Alan started in to examine the patient, his eyes seemed to give Cherry a message: “First, get this fellow occupied with something so he won’t be in the way.”
Cherry turned immediately to the young man. She smiled at him reassuringly and said, “I’ll need a few things that you can get for me. Please turn on the stove and put a small pan of water on to boil. We’ll probably want to sterilize a few instruments. No, not such a big one,” she added with a smile, as the boy—he was hardly more than that—produced a huge kettle. “We’re not going to boil you, you know—just a few instruments.”
When a smaller pan was substituted, Cherry said briskly, “Now, since this baby is coming a bit sooner than you expected, it’s likely to be small and will need a nice warm nest to sleep in. Get your wife’s clothes-basket, and put several soft blankets in it for a bed. I’ll be helping the doctor, and all the time we’re busy I want you to keep warming the baby’s bed with hot-water bottles. Use fruit jars if you don’t have rubber ones, and be sure they don’t leak. Don’t get the blankets too hot, but keep them nice and warm all the time so that you’ll be ready the minute we are.”
Cherry left him and went in to help Dr. Alan. “It’s all fixed,” she said. “He’ll be busy.”
And so he was, for later, when Cherry carried the tiny but perfect baby out for him to see, the basket bed was warm and cozy.
After the young mother was resting comfortably and Dr. Alan had given Cherry her instructions, he turned to the boy and said, “I’ll leave Miss Ames here for a bit while I take this young fellow in to the hospital. He’s a fine baby and you don’t need to worry at all, but he’s pretty young to go it alone, and he’ll have a better start if he spends the first few hours in an incubator. He’ll be back to keep you awake nights in a few days. Now, who’s going to take care of things until your wife is able to get along by herself?”
“Her mother was coming, but I couldn’t leave Sue,” the boy said, “and she doesn’t even know yet that we need her. She lives only about ten miles from here, and if Miss Ames is going to stay, I’ll go and get her.”
So it was arranged, and when Dr. Alan returned he found the new grandmother in competent charge and Cherry ready to leave. He checked his patient and then hustled Cherry into the car, saying, “You’ve certainly earned a bang up lunch.”
It was late, and they were the only ones being served in the quiet dining room of a country inn. Blazing gold elm branches swung beside the window where they sat.
“Wish it was cool enough for a fire in the fireplace,” Alan said, over his second piece of apple pie. “We’ll come back here some snowy day and I’ll show you how to pop corn over an open fire. This inn always has some on hand.”
Cherry started to say she was an expert corn popper from way back, but decided that would spoil Alan’s fun. They had talked over the baby case backward and forward, so Alan was entitled to change to a nonmedical subject.
“Wish you could come along regularly as my nurse,” Alan said. “We work together very well.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s not exactly a compliment. Just a fact. Just one of those things. Are you sure you can’t hold another piece of this scrumptious pie? I can.”
Cherry kept him company, laughing. “If I were your regular nurse, Doctor, I’d soon get fat.”
“We’re stoking up for an afternoon of hard work, if you can come along. General cases.”
‘“Yes, I can come,” Cherry said, “and you couldn’t afford to have me as your full time nurse, anyway. So there,” she finished.
“No, I couldn’t,” he said with regret. “And my father is devoted to Mrs. Kennedy, who’s been the local practical nurse since the year one, I guess.”
Cherry’s dark eyes danced. “I do have an idea that might turn out to be perfect for both of us, Doctor. I call it nursing à la carte.”
He looked interested and she explained. In a country or small-town neighborhood, why couldn’t an R.N. do hourly nursing, when and where she was needed? Any of the local physicians could call on her services, and of course any of the local patients.
“You’d need a car,” Alan said. “To tell you the truth, I’ve sometimes ordered treatments that an amateur nurse could handle, when a more difficult treatment administered by an R.N. would’ve been better for the patient.”
“Just what I was saying! Still, it’s only an idea.”
That afternoon was a sample of hourly nursing, mostly assisting the doctor. Dr. Alan and Cherry worked hard on routine calls, and again they worked well together. “I’ll have to buy you that ice cream cone for a reward, Cherry. Seriously, thanks for everything.”
He and Leaping Lena delivered Cherry to the school doorstep late in the afternoon. Alan was going back to the farm to see his patient. They parted reluctantly.
“We’re a good team,” Alan said. “So long for now.”
On the following afternoon a terrible accident happened. Cherry heard the crash and from the infirmary window saw the thin trickle of smoke, smelled spilled gasoline. Everybody in the school heard the crash and went rushing down to the road. In the driveway, teachers were persuading the excited girls not to crowd down there, to turn back. Cherry, with the first aid kit in her hand and a blanket thrown over her shoulders, kept on running.
A car in which two men had been driving had careened into a tree, buckled, turned over, and caught fire. One man—a young, big man—was thrown free but appeared to be badly injured. Behind the steering wheel was pinned a heavyset older man, unconscious. Alex North and Mr. Phelps, Perry the houseman, and a passing farmer were already trying to smother the small fire with their coats. They were succeeding. Mlle. Gabriel was looking down at the young man and wringing her hands.
Cherry glanced quickly at both injured men and had to make a hard, instant decision: which one must wait while she treated the other? She knelt beside the young man in the grass. His leg wound, bleeding slightly, looked like a puncture wound and she must prevent infection.
“Mademoiselle!” Cherry handed her a thick gauze pad to use as a pressure dressing and, to use first, a bottle of strong antiseptic. She explained to Mademoiselle what to do. “Saturate the pad and apply it to the wound to close off air bacteria and dirt. Be gentle but be quick. Cover him with this blanket.”
Then Cherry ran to help the older man pinned in the car. The fire was no longer a danger but he might have inhaled carbon monoxide fumes and thus have become unconscious. Or the rim of the steering wheel might have struck him in the solar plexus when the car hit the tree; that would mean invisible, dangerous, possibly hopeless, internal injury. Alex North and Sam Phelps were crawling in to move the unconscious man. Cherry cried, “Please wait!”
They helped her clamber into the tipped up front seat where the man lay, breathing heavily and with difficulty. Cherry hastily checked his pulse and respiration—shallow, irregular breathing—his face was pale and sweaty—was the man suffering from shock or from a heart attack? Considering his advanced years it might be arteriosclerosis. Cherry’s hands shook as she fumbled in his jacket pocket, the right hand pocket first. Yes, there it was! She pulled out the little box of nitroglycerin pills which all cardiacs of this type carry in case of emergency. Hastily she forced the man’s mouth open and placed one of the pills under his tongue, where it would dissolve. She loosened his collar, tie, and belt, and untied his shoelaces. Some color returned to his face and lips, and his eyelids fluttered.
The two men instructors realized what was happening and North said, “Shall we try to get him out into the open air?”
“No. He may have other injuries which we’d make worse by moving him. Can you roll down the car windows to give him more air—and keep him warm with your coats, will you please?”
Cherry knew that someone inside the chateau was su
rely telephoning the Wilcox physicians and probably the hospital, too. Though a small country hospital with only one ambulance might not be able to send aid at once.
“They’re not here but I am—it’s up to me!” Cherry thought.
She ran back to Mademoiselle. She and Mrs. Curtis were on their knees in the grass beside the youth, and had applied the dressing. Cherry was thankful that both women were quick and calm. The young man was conscious and in pain. Shock was the greatest danger.
“Keep him warm. Someone bring a warm drink—” Mrs. Curtis started for the house. Cherry considered giving him a half-grain tablet which Dr. Alan had prescribed for Tina, but she had no authority to do so without a doctor’s instruction. She leaned over the young man and said encouragingly, “We’re going to take you to the school infirmary. The doctor is on his way.”
The young man whispered, “You a nurse? That’s good.”
Five minutes went by. Everybody was eager to help. Some of the girls plucked at Cherry’s white sleeve and one whispered in her ear:
“Do you know who the young fellow is? Francie saw him first—we were out with our horses—and she was so excited she nearly—”
“Honestly, don’t you know, Miss Cherry? Why, he’s Tommy Dexter, and he’s the football star at State U!”
“Fullback! And the other man is his coach!”
So many girls were fluttering around that Cherry was obliged to admonish them with:
“If you want Tommy Dexter to get well, go away!”
Cherry wished one or the other Dr. Wilcox would get here. She hurried back to the man in the car. Alex North was with him. The older man was breathing normally now, and he was being kept warm. But the husky football star, whom she had worried less about at first, seemed to be going into shock.
His ruddy face was turning pallid, his skin was cold and clammy, his pulse rate rapid and thready. Cherry was concerned that she could feel his pulse only with difficulty. She spoke his name—“Tom? Tommy!” but like any person in shock, he did not respond, though he was conscious. Cherry called sharply to Mrs. Snyder to send for more blankets and hot water bottles. She herself ran to the infirmary, rapidly stirred up a shock solution of warm water, salt, and a little baking soda and ran back with it as fast as she could. She gave the young man sips of this through an angled glass straw—it was safe only because he was conscious. She tried to relieve Tommy’s pain by very carefully placing a support of blankets beneath his injured leg.
