“Yes?”
“Can I speak to — ?” Her fear broke precipitately through her slight training.”Mr. Hemple, he’s sick! He came into the kitchen a while ago and began throwing all the food out of the ice-box, and now he’s in his room, crying and singing — “Suddenly Luella heard his voice.
III
Charles Hemple had had a nervous collapse. There were twenty years of almost uninterrupted toil upon his shoulders, and the recent pressure at home had been too much for him to bear. His attitude toward his wife was the weak point in what had otherwise been a strong-minded and well-organized career — he was aware of her intense selfishness, but it is one of the many flaws in the scheme of human relationships that selfishness in women has an irresistible appeal to many men. Luella’s selfishness existed side by side with a childish beauty, and, in consequence, Charles Hemple had begun to take the blame upon himself for situations which she had obviously brought about. It was an unhealthy attitude, and his mind had sickened, at length, with his attempts to put himself in the wrong. After the first shock and the momentary flush of pity that followed it, Luella looked at the situation with impatience. She was “a good sport” — she couldn’t take advantage of Charles when he was sick.
The question of her liberties had to be postponed until he was on his feet. Just when she had determined to be a wife no longer, Luella was compelled to be a nurse as well. She sat beside his bed while he talked about her in his delirium — about the days of their engagement, and how some friend had told him then that he was making a mistake, and about his happiness in the early months of their marriage, and his growing disquiet as the gap appeared. Evidently he had been more aware of it than she had thought — more than he ever said.
“Luella!” He would lurch up in bed. “Luella! Where are you?”
“I’m right here, Charles, beside you.” She tried to make her voice cheerful and warm.
“If you want to go, Luella, you’d belter go. I don’t seem to be enough for you any more.”
She denied this soothingly.
“I’ve thought it over, Luella, and I can’t ruin my health on account of you — — “ Then quickly, and passionately: “Don’t go, Luella, for God’s sake, don’t go away and leave me! Promise me you won’t! — I’ll do anything you say if you won’t go.”
His humility annoyed her most; he was a reserved man, and she had never guessed at the extent of his devotion before.
“I’m only going for a minute. It’s Doctor Moon, your friend, Charles. He came to-day to see how you were, don’t you remember? And he wants to talk to me before he goes.”
“You’ll come back?” he persisted.
“In just a little while. There — lie quiet.”
She raised his head and plumped his pillow into freshness. A new trained nurse would arrive to-morrow.
In the living-room Doctor Moon was waiting — his suit more worn and shabby in the afternoon light. She disliked him inordinately, with an illogical conviction that he was in some way to blame for her misfortune, but he was so deeply interested that she couldn’t refuse to see him. She hadn’t asked him to consult with the specialists, though — a doctor who was so down at the heel. . . .
“Mrs. Hemple.” He came forward, holding out his hand, and Luella touched it, lightly and uneasily.
“You seem well,” he said.
“I am well, thank you.”
“I congratulate you on the way you’ve taken hold of things.” “But I haven’t taken hold of things at all,” she said coldly. “I do what I have to — — “
“That’s just it.” Her impatience mounted rapidly. “I do what I have to, and nothing more,” she continued: “and with no particular good-will.”
Suddenly she opened up to him again, as she had the night of the Catastrophe — realizing that she was putting herself on a footing of intimacy with him, yet unable to restrain her words.
“The house isn’t going,” she broke out bitterly. “I had to discharge the servants, and now I’ve got a woman in by the day. And the baby has a cold, and I’ve found out that his nurse doesn’t know her business, and everything’s just as messy and terrible as it can be!”
“Would you mind telling me how you found out the nurse didn’t know her business?”
“You find out various unpleasant things when you’re forced to stay around the house.”
He nodded, his weary face turning here and there about the room.
“I feel somewhat encouraged,” he said slowly. “As I told you, I promise nothing; I only do the best I can.”
Luella looked up at him, startled.
“What do you mean?” she protested. “You’ve done nothing for me — nothing at all!”
“Nothing much — yet,” he said heavily. “It takes time, Mrs. Hemple.”
The words were said in a dry monotone that was somehow without offense, but Luella felt that he had gone too far. She got to her feet.
“I’ve met your type before,” she said coldly. “For some reason you seem to think that you have a standing here as ‘the old friend of the family.’ But I don’t make friends quickly, and I haven’t given you the privilege of being so” — she wanted to say “insolent,” but the word eluded her — “so personal with me.”
When the front door had closed behind him, Luella went into the kitchen to see if the woman understood about the three different dinners — one for Charles, one for the baby, and one for herself. It was hard to do with only a single servant when things were so complicated. She must try another employment agency — this one had begun to sound bored.
To her surprise, she found the cook with hat and coat on, reading a newspaper at the kitchen table.
“Why” — Luella tried to think of the name — “why, what’s the matter, Mrs. — — “
“Mrs. Danski is my name.” “What’s the matter?” “I’m afraid I won’t be able to accommodate you,” said Mrs. Danski. “You see, I’m only a plain cook, and I’m not used to preparing invalid’s food.”
“But I’ve counted on you.”
“I’m very sorry.” She shook her head stubbornly. “I’ve got my own health to think of. I’m sure they didn’t tell me what kind of a job it was when I came. And when you asked me to clean out your husband’s room, I knew it was way beyond my powers.”
“I won’t ask you to clean anything,” said Luella desperately. “If you’ll just stay until to-morrow. I can’t possibly get anybody else to-night.”
Mrs. Danski smiled politely.
“I got my own children to think of, just like you.”
It was on Luella’s tongue to offer her more money, but suddenly her temper gave way.
“I’ve never heard of anything so selfish in my life!” she broke out. “To leave me at a time like this! You’re an old fool!”
“If you’d pay me for my time, I’d go,” said Mrs. Danski calmly.
“I won’t pay you a cent unless you’ll stay!”
She was immediately sorry she had said this, but she was too proud to withdraw the threat.
“You will so pay me!”
“You go out that door!”
“I’ll go when I get my money,” asserted Mrs. Danski indignantly. “I got my children to think of.”
Luella drew in her breath sharply, and took a step forward. Intimidated by her intensity, Mrs. Danski turned and flounced, muttering, out of the door.
Luella went to the phone and, calling up the agency, explained that the woman had left.
“Can you send me some one right away? My husband is sick and the baby’s sick — — “
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Hemple; there’s no one in the office now. It’s after four o’clock.”
Luella argued for a while. Finally she obtained a promise that they would telephone to an emergency: woman they knew. That was the best they could do until to-morrow.
She called several other agencies, but the servant industry had apparently ceased to function for the day. After giving Charles his med
icine, she tiptoed softly into the nursery.
“How’s baby?” she asked abstractedly.
“Ninety-nine one,” whispered the nurse, holding the thermometer to the light. “I just took it.”
“Is that much?” asked Luella, frowning.
“It’s just three-fifths of a degree. That isn’t so much for the afternoon. They often run up a little with a cold.”
Luella went over to the cot and laid her hand on her son’s flushed cheek, thinking, in the midst of her anxiety, how much he resembled the incredible cherub of the “Lux” advertisement in the bus.
She turned to the nurse.
“Do you know how to cook?”
“Why — I’m not a good cook.”
“Well, can you do the baby’s food to-night? That old fool has left, and I can’t get anyone, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Oh, yes, I can do the baby’s food.”
“That’s all right, then. I’ll try to fix something for Mr. Hemple. Please have your door open so you can hear the bell when the doctor comes. And let me know.”
So many doctors! There had scarcely been an hour all day when there wasn’t a doctor in the house. The specialist and their family physician every morning, then the baby doctor — and this afternoon there had been Doctor Moon, placid, persistent, unwelcome, in the parlor. Luella went into the kitchen. She could cook bacon and eggs for herself — she had often done that after the theatre. But the vegetables for Charles were a different matter — they must be left to boil or stew or something, and the stove had so many doors and ovens that she couldn’t decide which to use. She chose a blue pan that looked new, sliced carrots into it, and covered them with a little water. As she put it on the stove and tried to remember what to do next, the phone rang, It was the agency.
“Yes, this is Mrs. Hemple speaking.”
“Why, the woman we sent to you has returned here with the claim that you refused to pay her for her time.”
“I explained to you that she refused to stay,” said Luella hotly.
“She didn’t keep her agreement, and I didn’t fed I was under any obligation — — “
“We have to see that our people are paid,” the agency informed her; “otherwise we wouldn’t be helping them at all, would we? I’m sorry, Mrs. Hemple, but we won’t be able to furnish you with any one else until this little matter is arranged.”
“Oh, I’ll pay, I’ll pay!” she cried.
“Of course we like to keep on good terms with our clients — — “
“Yes — yes!”
“So if you’ll send her money around to-morrow? It’s seventy-five cents an hour.”
“But how about to-night?” she exclaimed. “I’ve got to have some one to-night.”
“Why — it’s pretty late now. I was just going home myself.”
“But I’m Mrs. Charles Hemple! Don’t you understand? I’m perfectly good for what I say I’ll do. I’m the wife of Charles Hemple, of 14 Broadway — — “
Simultaneously she realized that Charles Hemple of 14 Broadway was a helpless invalid — he was neither a reference nor a refuge any more. In despair at the sudden callousness of the world, she hung up the receiver.
After another ten minutes of frantic muddling in the kitchen, she went to the baby’s nurse, whom she disliked, and confessed that she was unable to cook her husband’s dinner. The nurse announced that she had a splitting headache, and that with a sick child her hands were full already, but she consented, without enthusiasm, to show Luella what to do.
Swallowing her humiliation, Luella obeyed orders while the nurse experimented, grumbling, with the unfamiliar stove. Dinner was started after a fashion. Then it was time for the nurse to bathe Chuck, and Luella sat down alone at the kitchen table, and listened to the bubbling perfume that escaped from the pans.
“And women do this every day,” she thought. “Thousands of women. Cook and take care of sick people — and go out to work too.”
But she didn’t think of those women as being like her, except in the superficial aspect of having two feet and two hands. She said it as she might have said “South Sea Islanders wear nose-rings.” She was merely slumming to-day in her own home, and she wasn’t enjoying it. For her, it was merely a ridiculous exception.
Suddenly she became aware of slow approaching steps in the dining-room and then in the butler’s pantry. Half afraid that it was doctor Moon coming to pay another call, she looked up — and saw the nurse coming through the pantry door. It flashed through Luella’s mind that the nurse was going to be sick too. And she was right — the nurse had hardly reached the kitchen door when she lurched and clutched at the handle as a winged bird clings to a branch. Then she receded wordlessly to the floor. Simultaneously the door-bell rang; and Luella, getting to her feet, gasped with relief that the baby doctor had come.
“Fainted, that’s all,” he said, taking the girl’s head into his lap. The eyes fluttered. “Yep, she fainted, that’s all.”
“Everybody’s sick!” cried Luella with a sort of despairing humor. “Everybody’s sick but me, doctor.”
“This one’s not sick,” he said after a moment. “Her heart is normal already. She just fainted.”
When she had helped the doctor raise the quickening body to a chair, Luella hurried into the nursery and bent over the baby’s bed. She let down one of the iron sides quietly. The fever seemed to be gone now — the flush had faded away. She bent over to touch the small cheek.
Suddenly Luella began to scream.
IV
Even after her baby’s funeral, Luella still couldn’t believe that she had lost him. She came back to the apartment and walked around the nursery in a circle, saying his name. Then, frightened by grief, she sat down and stared at his white rocker with the red chicken painted on the side.
“What will become of me now?” she whispered to herself. “Something awful is going to happen to me when I realize that I’ll never see Chuck any more!”
She wasn’t sure yet. If she waited here till twi-light, the nurse might still bring him in from his walk. She remembered a tragic confusion in the midst of which some one had told her that Chuck was dead, but if that was so, then why was his room waiting, with his small brush and comb still on the bureau, and why was she here at all?
“Mrs. Hemple.”
She looked up. The weary, shabby figure of Doctor Moon stood in the door.
“You go away,” Luella said dully. “Your husband needs you.” “I don’t care.” Doctor Moon came a little way into the room. “I don’t think you understand, Mrs. Hemple. He’s been calling for you. You haven’t any one now except him.”
“I hate you,” she said suddenly.
“If you like. I promised nothing, you know. I do the best I can. You’ll be better when you realize that your baby is gone, that you’re not going to see him any more.”
Luella sprang to her feet.
“My baby isn’t dead!” she cried. “You lie! You always lie!” Her flashing eyes looked into his and caught something there, at once brutal and kind, that awed her and made her impotent and acquiescent. She lowered her own eyes in tired despair.
“All right,” she said wearily. “My baby is gone. What shall I do now?”
“Your husband is much better. All he needs is rest and kindness. But you must go to him and tell him what’s happened.”
“I suppose you think you made him better,” said Luella bitterly.
“Perhaps. He’s nearly well.”
Nearly well — then the last link that held her to her home was broken. This part of her life was over — she could cut it off here, with its grief and oppression, and be off now, free as the wind.
“I’ll go to him in a minute,” Luella said in a far-away voice. “Please leave me alone.”
Doctor Moon’s unwelcome shadow melted into the darkness of the hall.
“I can go away,” Luella whispered to herself. “Life has given me back freedom, in place of what it took away from me.�
�
But she mustn’t linger even a minute, or Life would bind her again and make her suffer once more. She called the apartment porter and asked that her trunk be brought up from the storeroom. Then she began taking things from the bureau and wardrobe, trying to approximate as nearly as possible the possessions that she had brought to her married life. She even found two old dresses that had formed part of her trousseau — out of style now, and a little tight in the hip — which she threw in with the rest. A new life. Charles was well again; and her baby, whom she had worshipped, and who had bored her a little, was dead.
When she had packed her trunk, she went into the kitchen automatically, to see about the preparations for dinner. She spoke to the cook about the special things for Charles and said that she herself was dining out. The sight of one of the small pans that had been used to cook Chuck’s food caught her attention for a moment — but she stared at it unmoved. She looked into the ice-box and saw it was clean and fresh inside. Then she went into Charles’s room. He was sitting up in bed, and the nurse was reading to him. His hair was almost white now, silvery white, and underneath it his eyes were huge and dark in his thin young face.
“The baby is sick?” he asked in his own natural voice.
She nodded.
He hesitated, closing his eyes for a moment. Then he asked:
“The baby is dead?”
“Yes.”
For a long time he didn’t speak. The nurse came over and put her hand on his forehead. Two large, strange tears welled from his eyes.
“I knew the baby was dead.”
After another long wait, the nurse spoke:
“The doctor said he could be taken out for a drive to-day while there was still sunshine. He needs a little change.”
“Yes.”
“I thought” — the nurse hesitated — “I thought perhaps it would do you both good, Mrs. Hemple, if you took him instead of me.”
Luella shook her head hastily.
“Oh, no,” she said. “I don’t feel able to, to-day.”
The nurse looked at her oddly. With a sudden feeling of pity for Charles, Luella bent down gently and kissed his cheek. Then, without a word, she went to her own room, put on her hat and coat, and with her suitcase started for the front door.
Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald UK (Illustrated) Page 193
