Queer Patterns

by Lilyan Brock

  *

  In a few minutes, after a tearful goodbye from Mrs. Mason, they were on their way. Sheila was overjoyed because she was able to leave the house, and talked gaily to Jo and Nicoli during the short journey, her gay words dripping like acid on Jo’s already lacerated heart.

  As they waited for the train, Jo forced herself to hold back the tears which burned behind her eyes—forced herself to fall back on the abruptness in which she had taken refuge for years in her efforts to deny the existence of her burden. She talked mechanically—the voices of her companions sounded very far away.

  Why had God chosen her to bear the heavy cross of such a love as hers? Why, for that matter, had He in His divine wisdom created souls such as her own only to see them suffer untold misery in a world so totally unsuited to their needs for happiness? How often she had been present in her capacity as a nurse and seen His hand take from this earth some person in whom life had been something to which to cling tenaciously, leaving herself to go on—alone—for what? For what? Jo asked grimly. So that now she might know the agony of losing the one human being she had found to love? If so, then she had served her purpose—she was free… yes, that was it—free…

  Somewhere in the near distance the train whistle sounded. To Jo its mournful tone was the expression of all the sadness in her being. Closer and closer it came. A moment later, the train ground noisily to a stop.

  Jo put her arm around Sheila, kissed her lightly on the cheek, and with a quick goodbye to Nicoli, was gone.

  PART FIVE

  Jo Trent

  You entered in my daily scheme of living

  So stealthily I did not know that Life

  Had caught our threads together in weaving.

  And when I knew, I tried too late to stop her.

  Already you were woven in my soul,

  And when I tore you out

  …It raveled… —Author Unknown

  Have you a new case for me, Doctor Harkness—a nice hard case for a change? My last one was deadly dull, as perhaps you know—just a madman for whom I had to have a man assistant, so we could keep him held to the bed; an attempted murder—the wife, poor dear—he decided he didn’t like her; then when they put him away for a rest among the other Napoleons, I had a nerve-shattered woman to care for, for weeks. Then her—her—family stepped in and took her away—and the upshot of it is that I’m all tired out from too much doing nothing.”

  Jo Trent dropped into a chair by the desk with a jarring laugh. Doctor Harkness looked at her searchingly, brought up sharply by her mad flow of words, her unreal laughter, her feverish eyes, her restless uncontrolled body. The matter-of-fact, capable, poised Jo Trent, his pet nurse on whom he had relied for years for cool efficiency in any crisis—that Jo Trent was gone; in her place was a very nearly hysterical woman, babbling, making no attempt to hide her mental and emotional confusion. His thoughts raced: how to question her; how to ease the tension of the taut nerves; how to get to the root of this alarming change in the woman before him. Too well he knew the wall of reserve which she had built between herself and all who might try to pry into the secrets of the woman she really was.

  For the six years during which Jo Trent had worked with him, she had fascinated him, largely because he had never been able to fathom her, to classify her as a type, to feel as though he definitely knew her. Always to be depended upon, yes. Steady as a rock, mechanical as any automaton when precision was indicated; pliant on occasion, sympathetic to just the right degree; warmly friendly, yet at the first suggestion of intimacy, aloof and distant—always that insurmountable wall of reserve baffled him. But at least she had always been master of her own emotions. What had happened to her superb mastery of herself?

  Freeman Harkness thought back to the beginning of the Allison Graham case. Sheila Graham—Sheila Case. “Her—er—family came to take her away.” He recalled now Jo’s hesitation over those words.

  “What a fool I’ve been all these years! And what a dolt I was to send her on that case! She asked for it, and yet I suspected nothing. She wanted to be with that woman—and it has broken her.”

  Harkness had only a cursory interest in homosexual cases, but he had perforce read enough and seen enough to be aware of their existence and their potentialities. Still, it had never occurred to him in connection with Jo Trent. True, he had heard some talk about Sheila Case and Nicoli years before, but he had forgotten it entirely until this moment. He looked at Jo again—at her boyishly cut curls, her trim tailored clothes, her hands—her decisive hands, of which he had never thought before as being masculine. He remembered with a start her deep husky voice and her lack of feminine habits of vanity. Lacking, too, were the petty traits common to women. Forthright she was, and sure of herself, and independent. “Just a beautiful boy,” he groaned to himself, “and she has to play at being a woman. She has kept it hidden behind that wall all these years, and some one has found a chink in that wall. She has found love and lost it, and it has broken her. My poor little Jo.”

  Sparring for time, Doctor Harkness brought a mock professional air into use.

  “My dear Miss Trent, instead of sending you out on a nice hard case, as you so politely demand, I rather think I shall recommend a rest cure for you. I sent you out for a few months on a mental case at your request; you stayed twice the time I wanted to spare you and nursed two patients instead of one. And you have come back as full of energy as a dynamo and want to go rushing off without even stopping to discuss the cases with me.”

  Then, seriously, “Jo, can you tell me about it? What has she done to you, child?”

  For the first time in his knowledge, Jo Trent cried. Dropping her head on the desk, she broke into hopeless, shaking sobs large slow tears rolled off her cheeks. Her hands hung lax at her sides. No storm of emotion racked her. Rather, it was as though the needle-sharp wind of desolation blew keenly across the dying embers of her spirit, fanning into feeble flame only the sparks of doubt. There was nothing left of hope to be kindled into new life; and it was not a fostering wine which blew across the fitful, expiring fire, but an icy, raking current which left only barrenness in its wake.

  Harkness crossed over to Jo and took her gently in his arms. He reached over for his telephone, called the nurse on duty in the outer office and told her he was seeing no more patients that afternoon, and asked her not to disturb him until he called her. Replacing the telephone in its cradle, he carried Jo to the couch and arranged her comfortably on its pillows. He drew up a chair beside the couch, laid the gray silk handkerchief from his coat pocket across her eyes, and said softly, “Tell me about it, Jo.”

  Abashed at his own temerity, he waited for the explosion, but none came. Merely the plaintive voice of a sensitive, deeply hurt and bewildered child:

  “I love her, and I can’t have her. She belongs entirely to some one else. I was only a stop-gap for a few weeks. I thought I could take what she offered me and be happy in the fact that I possessed at least a part of her. And I was… almost happy. But when she was ill, and was delirious, she called constantly for Nicoli, never once for me. Then Nicoli came, and Sheila was transfigured. She could not see that there was another person in her world. I had to see Sheila in Nicoli’s arms; I had to hear her laugh as she had never laughed before—such a beautiful, warm, thrilling, happy laugh, deep down within her, like deep low music; I had to hear her very voice change and vibrate—the voice of a lover to the beloved one—and then they told me they were going away together…” The tired voice faltered for a moment, then went on:

  “Nicoli never once suspected that I loved Sheila and that Sheila had ever talked of love to me—I was denied even that! Then Sheila was sweet to me, as she would be to anyone to whom she was grateful—and I had to leave without even a goodbye to my little love—I had not even one moment alone with her after Nicoli came. I could not even tell her that I would be waiting. And after all, why wait? What is there to wait for? She is happy, for always. If anything ever came between those tw
o, she would never love again as she loves Nicoli; and now that I’ve seen Sheila really in love, I could not bear to have crumbs again. I was starving, and she gave me crumbs. I am starving again, and I no longer want crumbs. I want nothing. What is there to want? Possessions? They mean nothing. They are abstract, cold. Travel? If I were in a ship on the widest ocean, I would see her face on the crest of every wave, see it as it looked at Nicoli. Music? If I were hearing the most beautiful music in the whole world, I’d hear in it Sheila’s voice as she sang to Nicoli—I’d hear her low happy laugh as she said ‘I love you’ to another woman. There is left only work. I have been told that there is no grief that work will not heal. I don’t believe it—but I want to believe it. I am going to try. I am going to work as no woman has ever worked, if I have to dig trenches with my bare hands. I want to go down into the slums to work, where there is poverty—want—deprivation—suffering—grief; and there I want to make somebody smile. I want some one to smile for me because I shall never smile again with my heart.”

  Her flow of words ceased on a trembling note. No apologies; no questions—only the dignity of a genuine grief.

  Freeman Harkness was racked; he was furious at the futility of trying to help Jo. There was no help. There was no compensation. He knew that there was no other love that could compare with the love of woman for woman, especially when there was a woman of Jo Trent’s depth and intense nature to reckon with.

  “Time and work, Jo—they have been known to work wonders. Time will seem long, and work will seem a burden at first—but let’s try. But first, Jo, promise me one thing: rest a week before you work again. You are really unfit for work.”

  Jo drew a shuddering breath. “You have been so understanding, Doctor Harkness—so good to hear me through—but I can’t promise you that. I couldn’t live through a week of idleness now, a week of clamoring thoughts. I couldn’t bear trying to keep up my end with my family for seven long days. I am so utterly incapable of putting up a struggle. I must be doing something every minute, or I shall go mad.”

  Freeman Harkness was too good a judge of humanity to doubt Jo’s assertion, and too convinced of the futility of argument to contradict her. He sighed heavily.

  “Then I’ll send you on a case in the morning. Not to the slums yet, though. Miss Fleming is tired; I’ll have you relieve her for a week. A very fractious crippled child—wealthy parents, disagreeable and snobbish—just everything that goes for an all-round trying case. I’ll talk to Fleming tonight. You go to this address in the morning—” handing her a hastily scribbled card—“and she will tell you the routine. I’ll also talk to the mother, and I’ll drop in during the afternoon to give you your orders. Take these two tablets before you go to bed—you will get some sleep. Run on home now, tell your family what you want them to know, and get to bed as soon after dinner as you can. Remember—this is all between you and me.”

  Jo’s eyes filled with tears again. She took the doctor’s smooth, firm hand between her two palms and pressed it with a sudden depth of feeling.

  “You are the most human soul I have ever known. You are the only person to whom I’ve ever confided my deepest thoughts. If only I could do for some one person what you are trying to do for me, I might feel as though I had not lived altogether in vain. But—” Her voice broke. “Thanks,” huskily.

  And she was gone.

  *

  For three long slow torturous days Jo Trent dragged through the farce of being a cheerful, patient nurse to a very spoiled boy of eight.

  “It’s no go! How did I ever do it before? How can I ever do it again? How can I live day in and day out just counting the hours until I can sleep and try to dream? She won’t come to me even in my dreams. Why should she? She is happy. Why did it have to be I? Why should one person be able to fill another’s life so entirely, to the exclusion of everything and everybody else? Nobody counts but Sheila, and with her I am not even a memory. If only I could hate her! If only I could hurt her! But if I could crush her, I’d just want to pick her sweet body up in my arms and hold her to me, and kiss her—kiss her eyelids, and her lovely soft hair, and her sweet white breast. Oh, damn—why do I torture myself like this?” Jo rapped at herself, pushing her hair frantically back from her face, walking in a nervous frenzy from side to side of the room, feverishly watching her patient, fearful lest he wake, hoping that he would wake so she would have to lose herself in his needs.

  “Three more days of this—then I shall be free!” she told herself. “Free for what? Free to think. Free to give rein to the chaos in this poor befuddled agonized brain. When Friday comes, I’ll go down to the slums and see if I can pay my debt to Doctor Harkness—I’ve at least got that much to do before I call it quits on this sorry game,” she told herself determinedly.

  Friday morning Jo Trent walked into the office, a travesty of the self-sufficient young person on whom Freeman Harkness had once depended so comfortably.

  “What now, Jo?” he asked, springing to his feet and taking her cold hands in his.

  Jo smiled mechanically and answered in abstract fashion: “I am on my way to the East Side in search of an epidemic, perhaps. What does it matter? It gets worse, doctor—steadily worse. I can’t get on top of it. I have tried—honestly tried. But I can’t stop thinking. Perhaps I have not tried hard enough, so I want to try the seamy side. Perhaps I’ll find someone who is suffering as much as I am.”

  “I have found some work for you, Jo, but I don’t like to see you go into it in your frame of mind. However, I’ll let you have your way about it. Maybe you know best. Three weeks of it—report to me on Tuesday. Sit down a minute while I give you orders.”

  *

  One week… two weeks.

  Pitiful sights, reeking smells, hideous noises, the visible mechanics of living among the dregs of humanity ground into Jo’s nerves.

  “I ought to fight this… but there’s nothing to make fighting worth while. Not even the good doctor. I rather think I am going to let him down. I’d like not to do that to him, but after all, what difference would it make to him? He’d soon forget—they all forget! Sheila forgot—and I can’t. I have to remember.”

  Jo struck out in the foggy evening to walk uptown, heedless of the long, cold, dreary walk—long apart from all things material.

  She came to a busy street intersection. The lights were against her: she looked triumphantly up at the forbidding light, and plunged into the speeding traffic.

  A shrill whistle from the traffic officer, a sudden grinding of brakes…

  The dazed young foreigner who was driving the heavily loaded van stepped down to face the shouting officers, his faulty acquaintance with the new language deserting him as realization of the enormity of what he had done reached his sluggish brain. He moved toward the crushed body of the young woman whom he had struck down—the officers waved him back as the ambulance came shrieking to a stop.

  The crippled news vendor from the corner came hobbling up.

  “Please, sir,” he addressed the officer. “Don’t blame the poor lad. I saw it all. He didn’t have a chance. The young woman must’ve meant to do it. She saw the lights against her. She threw up her head as if to say ‘What’s the difference?’ then she rushed into the street, and right into the path of this van. When she saw it was right on her, she dashed her hand across her eyes and sort of crumpled up as though she wanted to fall in front of it—and I’ll swear she smiled as she went down—a sad, queer sort of smile.”

  *

  When Freeman Harkness heard the news, he was scarcely surprised.

  “Death is the only relief from certain hopeless maladies,” he mused—“and for Jo it was the only possible release…”

  PART SIX

  Always

  “When I am dying, lean over me tenderly, softly,

  Stoop, as the yellow roses droop in the wind from the South.

  So I may, when I wake, if there be an awakening,

  Keep, what lulled me to sleep, the touch of your
lips on my mouth.” —India’s Love Lyrics—Hope.

  Nicoli drove slowly back to the house with Sheila close beside her. It was good to be alone with their love in the house that Sheila had grown to call home. It would be perfect if they might forever forget Broadway and remain always amid these quiet surroundings, away from people and the misery they caused.

  How heavenly it would be to live their lives free from the thought that they were being criticised, pointed out—their love for each other discussed as though it were some low vulgar thing. Here, years would pass away and they would in time forget the world and its lack of comprehension, and the only memories of New York which would remain would be those of the happy days and nights. What a tragedy it was that they might not start their journey now along the path that led to that forgetfulness.

  Nicoli sighed deeply, Some day… somehow… she would make that dream come true. Time would be her friend. He would help her.

  *

  Sheila, a trifle fatigued from her first drive, lay resting, her gaze fastened on Nicoli who sat close at hand apparently reading.

  Nicoli, sensing her eyes upon her, looked up. “What’s the matter, dear? Can’t you sleep?” she questioned.

  Sheila raised herself upon her elbow. “No, I can’t. I’ve been thinking of something I want to do.”

  Nicoli laid aside her book and walked over to the bed and seated herself. “What is it, Sheila? What do you want to do?”

  “Before I tell you, I want to know when we have to get back to New York.”

  Nicoli noted Sheila’s anxious expression. “In about a week, I suppose. I think I really should be back in the office by then. Why?”

  “That’s all I wanted to hear. I’ve been wondering if we couldn’t spend a few days here together. The woods are so beautiful now, Nicoli, and I want to walk through them with you. The snow is so pretty and white.”

  Nicoli laughed, relieved. “If that’s all you want, that’s easy. Of course we’ll do it! Are you sure you’re strong enough yet?”