Holding him high for Peter to admire
“Not legally. When the letter comes, you’ll see.” There was none of the anticipated delight in Sheila’s voice that had been there on that first night when she had laid her plans and sworn Father O’Friel into backing her up. Her voice was as colorless as her eyes were dull; for some miraculous reason the life and inner light that seemed such an inseparable part of her had suddenly gone out. She reached up and removed the atom from Peter’s shoulder.
Hennessy, who had joined the group, was the last to speak. “Sure it’s mortial good of both ye gentlemen to lift the throuble o’ raisin’ the wee one off Miss Leerie, but if any one lifts it, it’s Marm an’ me. We had that settled the next morning after we fetched him over an’ knew ’twas the real one we’d got, after all.”
“The real one? What do you mean by that?” The doctor looked puzzled.
Hennessy winked his only answer.
Through the first days of September Sheila waited with feverish anxiety. The hours spent on the vine-covered porch with theatom, asleep or awake, for steady company, and Peter for occasional, passed all too quickly. For the first time in her life Sheila wished days back; she would have put a checking hand on time had she had the power. Then just as she was making up her mind that her fear was for nothing, that her plans had gloriously failed and Pancho was to be hers for all time, the wretched news came. Peter brought it, hurrying hatless down the street, and Sheila, knowing in her heart what had happened, went down the steps to meet him.
“Is it a letter—or a wire—or what? And where’s the señora?”
“Having hysterics in front of the business office.” Peter stopped to get his breath. “The husband wired from New York—he’ll be down on the morning train. It seems the señora wired him when she first got here that Pancho was dying, so she didn’t see any need of changing it in her letter. She said she wanted the money for a monument and masses—and he could send it in a draft. Guess he thought more of the boy than the mother did, for he’s come up to bring the body home and put up the monument downthere. Now she doesn’t know what to tell him. Can you beat that for straight fiction?”
Sheila picked up the atom and disappeared inside without a word. When she reappeared a few minutes later, the atom was arrayed in his most becoming romper, his black curls were brushed into an encircling halo, his hands clapping over some consciousness of pleasurable excitement. Sheila tucked him into his carriage and faced Peter with a grim look of command. “You’re to play policeman, understand! Walk back of me all the way. If I show any sign of turning back or running away, arrest me on the spot.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What two months ago I thought would be the easiest thing in the world—and what I wouldn’t be doing now for a million dollars if I hadn’t given my word to Father O’Friel and the law wasn’t against me.”
As Peter had rightfully reported, the señora was having hysterics in front of the business office, with the business and hospital staff trying their best to quench her, and as many patients as the lobby would hold watching in varying degrees of curiosity. Only one ofLatin blood could have achieved a scene of such melodramatic abandon and stamped it as genuine, but no one present doubted the grief and despair of the señora as she paced the floor wringing her hands and wailing in her native tongue. Sheila entered by way of the basement and the lift, and she wheeled the atom’s carriage into the inner circle of the crowd, with Peter still in attendance.
For the moment the interest swerved from the weeping figure to the cooing occupant of the carriage. The atom was still clapping his hands, and a pink flush of excitement tinged the olive of the cheeks. “Look at that cunning baby!”... “Isn’t he a darling?”... “Why, isn’t that the South American baby?”... “Sh-h-h—deformed or something.”... “Of course, it can’t be.” Sentences, whole and in fragments, came to Sheila as she pushed her way through the crowd.
Something of this new interest must have penetrated the señora’s consciousness, for her wailing ceased; she cocked her head on one side like a listening parrakeet. “Who say babee? I theenk—I theenk—” Then she saw Sheila. A look of immediate recognition swept over her face, but it was gonethe instant she looked at the atom. “Who that babee?” she demanded.
“Mine.” Sheila pinned her with steady eyes, while her mouth looked as if it could never grow gentle and demure again.
Incredulity, suspicion, amazement, were all registered on the pretty, shallow face. “Your babee? How you get babee?”
Sheila made no answer.
The señora looked again at the atom; she held out a timorous finger to him. He responded cordially by curling a small fist promptly about it. “Madre de Dios, qué bonito! Qué chico y hermoso!” Then, to Sheila: “I give you seeck babee—eet no die? You make thees babee out of seeck babee, yes?”
Sheila still remained silent.
The señora turned to the atom for the confirmation she desired. “Nene, como te llamas?”
It was intensely entertaining to the atom. He wagged the señora’s finger frantically, tossed back his head, and gave forth a low, gurgling laugh. “Jesu!That ees hees papa. He look like that when he laugh.Tu nombre, nene—tu nombre?” With a freshoutburst she sank down beside the carriage and buried her face in the brown legs and pink socks.
But the atom did not approve of this. His lower lip dropped and quivered; he reached out his arm to Sheila. “Ma-ma-ma-ma,” he coaxed.
“You no ma-ma, I ma-ma.” The señora was on her feet, shaking an angry fist at Sheila. But in an instant her anger was gone; she was down on her knees again, clasping Sheila’s skirt, while her voice wailed forth in supplication. “You no keep leetle babee? You ver’ good, ver’ kind, señorita—youmuy simpatica, yes? You give leetle babee. I ma-ma. Yes?”
But Sheila O’Leary stood grim and unyielding. “No. He is mine. When he was sick, dying, you didn’t want him. You did not like to look at him because he was ugly; you did not like to hear him cry—so you abused him. Now, he’s all well; he’s a pretty baby; he does not cry; he does not scratch. I never shake him; he loves me very, very much. Now I keep him!” Thus Sheila delivered her ultimatum.
But the señora still clung. “I no shakebabee now. I love babee now. Please—please—his pa-pa come. You give heem back?”
Sheila unclasped the señora’s hands, turned the atom’s carriage about, and deliberately wheeled him away.
Out of the lobby to the sidewalk she was pursued by pleading cries, expostulating reproofs, as well as actual particles of the crowd itself, the Reverend Mr. Grumble, the wife of one of the trustees, a handful of protesting patients, following to urge the rights of the prostrated mother. But Sheila refused to be held back or argued with; stoically she kept on her way. When she reached the little vine-covered porch only Peter, Father O’Friel, and Doctor Fuller remained as escort.
“You can’t keep him, Leerie. You’ve got to give him up.” The old doctor spoke sorrowfully but firmly.
“It was only a mock adoption, and you promised if she ever wanted him back she should have him,” Father O’Friel reminded her.
“She’s his mother, after all,” Peter put in, lamely.
At that Sheila exploded. “You men make me tired! ‘She’s his mother, after all.’ After all what? Cruelty, neglect, heartlessness, hoping he would die—glad to be rid of him! That’s about all the sense of justice you have. Let a woman weep and call for her baby, and every man within earshot would hand him over without considering for a moment what kind of care she would give him. Oh, you—make—me—sick!” Sheila buried her face in the nape of Pancho’s neck.
Doctor Fuller, who had always known her, who had stood by her in her disgrace when she had been sent away from the sanitarium three years before and had believed in her implicitly in spite of all damning evidence, who had fought for her a dozen times when she had called down upon her head the wrath of the business office, looked now upon her silent, shaking figure with open-mouthed astonishment. In all those years he had never seen Leerie cry, and he couldn’t quite stand it.
“There, there, child! We understand—we’re not quite the duffers you make us out. Of course, by all rights, human and moral,the little shaver belongs to you, but you can’t keep him, just the same.”
“Know it! Needn’t rub it in! Wasn’t going to!” Sheila raised a wet face, with red-rimmed eyes and lips that trembled outrageously. She couldn’t steady them to save her, and so she let them tremble while she stuttered forth her last protest. “Didn’t think for a moment I wouldn’t give him back, d-d-did you? That was my plan—my way. I wanted Father O’Friel to let me try—t-t-t-thought all along he’d grow into such an ad-d-d-dorable mite his m-m-m-mother’d be wanting him back. What I didn’t count on was my wanting to k-k-keep him.” Sheila swallowed hard. She wanted to get rid of that everlasting choke in her throat. When she spoke again her voice was steadier. “But I tell you one thing. She doesn’t get him without fighting for him. She’s going to fight for him as I fought that night in the sanitarium, and you’re going to help me keep her fighting. Understand? Then perhaps when she gets him she’ll have some faint notion of how precious a baby can be.” With a more grim expression than any of the three had ever seen on her usually luminous face,Sheila O’Leary shouldered the atom and disappeared within the house.
The three men stood by her while Hennessy guarded the house. For the rest of the day the señora, backed by the business office and a procession of interested sympathizers, stormed the parish house and demanded to see the paper that she had signed. They stormed Doctor Fuller’s office and demanded his co-operation, or at least what information he had to give. They consulted the one lawyer in the town and three others within car distance, but their advice availed little, inasmuch as Father O’Friel had refused to give up the paper until the baby’s father arrived, and they could get no intelligent idea from the señora of how legal the adoption had been made. By keeping perfectly dumb the three were able to hold the crowd in abeyance, and the señora, looking anything but a bird of paradise, came back to them again and again to weep, to plead, to bribe.
The excitement held until midnight, an unprecedented occurrence for the sanitarium. It was still dark the next morning when Hennessy was roused from the haircloth sofa inthe hall, where he was still keeping guard, by the fumbling of a hand on the door-knob. “Who’s there?” roared Hennessy.
“Please—eet ees me—the Señora Machado y Rodriguez.”
“Go ’way! Shoo-oo!” Hennessy banged the door with his fist as he always banged the bread-platter to scatter the swans.
“I go when I see babee,” came the feeble response to his racket.
“Let her in, Hennessy,” came the voice of Sheila from up-stairs.
Hennessy unbarred the door, and a shaken, pathetic little figure crept in. All the coy prettiness was gone for the moment; the swollen eyes had circles about them, the cheeks were sallow and free of powder as the lips were free of carmine. The mouth quivered like a grief-stricken child’s. “Please—please—I see babee?” came the wail again.
“Yes. Come up softly,” Sheila called from the head of the stairs.
The little figure crept up eagerly. Sheila put out an arm and led her into a room where a single candle burned beside the bed. There lay the atom, rosy and dimpling in his sleep.
It is to be doubted if the señora had everdreamed of such a possession after the appalling reality of the original Francisco Enrique Manuel Machado y Rodriguez. In her ignorance and youth she had accepted ugliness, sickness, and peevish crying as the normal attributes of babyhood, and because of this she had loathed it. Therefore to be suddenly confronted with her awful mistake, to find that she had thrown away something that was beautiful and enchanting, to know she had forfeited what might have been hers, to feel in a small degree the first longing of motherhood and be denied it—all this was born into the slowly awakening consciousness of the señora. It almost transformed her face into homely holiness as she made her one supreme prayer and sacrifice. “You give me my babee—now—you give heem and not keep—and I give you all these. See?” She held out her hands that had been clasped under the heavy mantilla that covered her head and shoulders. Opening them, she thrust them close, that Sheila might look. They were filled with jewels—the jewels she adored, that had contributed a large part to the joy of her existence. Pins, rings, necklaces, bracelets—the señora had not keptback a single ornament. “You—you and the blessed Maria will give heem back to me?”
“Get down and pray to the Maria,” commanded Sheila. “Promise her that if she will give your baby back to you you will take care of him for ever and ever. Never neglect him, never shake nor slap him, never give him bad milk to make him sick. Promise you’ll always love him and keep him laughing and pretty. And remember—break your promise, let anything happen to Pancho again, and Maria will not give him back to you another time.”
The sanitarium never learned in detail how Señor Machado became reconciled to a live son, not being present when the news was conveyed to him. They saw him arrive, however, looking very much shaken with his bereavement, and they saw him depart with his son perched high upon his shoulder, wearing the expression of one who has come unexpectedly into a great possession, while the señora clung to them both. The sanitarium waved them off with gladness and satisfaction—all but four unsmiling outsiders. So great a hole can a departing atom sometimesleave behind that those four who had given him temporary care and guardianship went about for days with sorrow written plainly upon them. Hennessy fed the swans in bitter silence; Peter moped, with a laugh for no one; Doctor Fuller groaned whenever South America was mentioned; while all three knew they could not even fathom the deepness or the bigness of that hole for Sheila.
Peter took her for a twilight ride in his car the first empty night. “Go on and cry it out—I sha’n’t mind,” he urged as he speeded the car along a country road.
Sheila smiled faintly. “Thank you—can’t. Just feel bruised and banged all over—feel as if I needed a plunge in that old pool of Bethesda.”
They spun on in silence for a few miles more before Sheila spoke again. “I learned one wonderful thing from Pancho—something I never felt sure of before.”
“What was that?”
“Sorry—can’t tell. It’s the sort of thing you tell only the man you marry, after you’ve discovered he’s the only man you ever could have married.”
Peter speeded the car ahead and smiledquietly into the gathering darkness. Fortunately he was not an impatient man.
There is one point concerning the atom that Hennessy and Doctor Fuller still wrangle over, neither of them having the slightest conception of the other’s point of view.
“That was a case of good nursing and milk,” the old doctor persists.
While Hennessy beats the air with his fists and shouts: “Nothing of the sort! ’Twas egg-shells that done it.”
Peter Brookspaced the sanitarium grounds like a man possessed. Hands thrust deep into pockets, teeth hard clenched, head bare, the raw October wind ruffling his heavy crop of hair like a cock’s comb. So suggestive was the resemblance that Hennessy, watching him from the willow stump by the pond, was forced to remark to Brian Boru, the gray swan, that Mr. Peter looked like a young rooster, after growing his spurs, looking for his first fight.
“Aye, an’ for one I’m wishin’ he’d be findin’ it,” continued Hennessy. “He’s bided peaceful an’ patient till there is no virtue left in him. Ye can make believe women be civilized if ye like, but I’m knowin’ that a woman’s sure to go to the man that fights the hardest to get her, same as it was in the savage day o’ the world. An’ there’s nothingthat sets a man right quicker with himself than a good fight, tongues or fists.”
At that moment Peter would have gladly chosen either or both if fate could only have furnished him with a legitimate combatant. But a man cannot fight gossipy old ladies or jealous, petty-minded nurses, or a doctor whom he has never met and whose transgressions he cannot swear to. And yet Peter wanted to double up his fists and pitch into the whole community; he felt himself all brute and yearned for wholesale slaughter.
Peter had come to the sanitarium in the beginning to be cured of a temporal malady, only to rise from his bed stricken with an eternal one. He had fallen desperately in love with Sheila O’Leary as only a man of Peter’s sort can fall in love, once and for all time. Moreover, he believed in her as a man believes in the best and purest that is likely to come into his life. On the day of his convalescing, when she had been transferred from his case to another, he had sworn that he would not stir foot from the old San until he had won her. He had kept his word for four months. He would have been content to keep it for four more—or for four years, forthat matter—had everything not turned suddenly topsy-turvy and sent his world of hopes crashing down about him.
For four months he had shared as much of Sheila’s life and work as she would allow. He had let himself drift into the rôle of a comfortable and sympathetic companion whenever her hours for recreation gave him a chance. His love had grown as his admiration and understanding of her had grown, until she had come to seem as necessary a part of his life as the air he breathed. Then he had been able to smile whimsically at those gossipy tales. What if she had been suspended and sent away from the sanitarium? What if she had broken through some of the tight-laced rules with which all institutions of this kind hedge in their nurses? Sheila’s proclivity for breaking rules was a byword among the many who loved her, and the head of the institution, the superintendent of nurses, the entire staff of doctors, down to Hennessy, the keeper of the walks and swans, only smiled and closed their eyes to all of Sheila’s backsliding. For hadn’t they all believed in her? And hadn’t they sent for her to come back to them again? Andwhich one of them had ever allowed a word of scandal to pass his lips? So Peter smiled, too.
In those months he had come to read Sheila—so he thought—like an open book. He had learned by heart all her moods, the good and the bad, the sweet and the bitter. He knew she could be as divinely tender and compassionate as a celestial mother; he also knew that she could be as barren of sympathy and as relentless as fate itself. She could pour forth her whole throbbing soul, impulsive, warm, and radiant, as a true Celt, yet she could be as impersonal, terse, and cryptic as a marconigram. He loved these very extremes in her, her unmitigated hatred for the things she hated, and her unfailing love for the things she loved. She made no pretense or boast for herself; she was what she was for all the world to see. And Peter had found her the stanchest, sweetest, most vital—albeit the most stubborn—piece of womanhood he had ever known. Her very nickname of “Leerie” was her open letter of introduction to every one; her smile and the wonder-light in her eyes were her best credentials. Small wonder it was that herpatients watched for her to come and that Peter felt he could snap his fingers at the scandalmongers.
But Peter wasn’t snapping them now—or smiling. His fists were doubled tight in his pockets, and he clenched his teeth harder as he paced the walk from pond to rest-house. How the accursed tongues of the gossips rang in his head! “Rather odd the sanitarium should have sent for him, wasn’t it? Don’t you know he was the young surgeon who was mixed up in that affair with that popular nurse?”... “Oh yes, they hushed it up and sent them both away.”... “Nothing definite was ever explained, but they were always together, just as they are now, and you can’t get smoke without some burning.”... “Yes, Doctor Brainard and Miss O’Leary. Didn’t you ever hear about what happened three years ago?”
Peter’s stride seemed to measure forth the length of each offending tongue, and when he reached the end of his beaten track he swung about as if to meet and silence them all, for all time. But instead he came face to face with the two who had caused them to wag. So absorbed were the surgeon andnurse in what they had to say to each other that they brushed by Peter without seeing him. He might have been one of the rustic posts of the rest-house or the pine-tree growing close by. As they passed, Peter scanned narrowly the half-averted face of the girl he loved and found it pitifully changed in those few days. The luminous light had gone from her eyes; her lips no longer curved to the gracious, demure smile Peter had always called “cloistered.” They were set to grim determination, as if the girl had gripped fast to a purpose and no amount of shaking or persuasion would induce her to let go. Her eyes were circled and anxious. Peter groaned unconsciously at his glimpse of her, while Hennessy from his vantage-point on the stump shook a vengeful fist at the retreating back of the surgeon.
“A million curses on him!” muttered Hennessy, his lips tight shirred. “Sure, the lass has the look of a soul possessed.” The next instant his fist was descending not over-mercifully on Peter’s back. “First I’m cursin’ him an’ then I’m cursin’ ye. For the love o’ Saint Patrick, are ye goin’ to stand round like a blitherin’ fool an’ see that rascalof a docthor do harm again to our lass? I’ll come mortial close to wringin’ your neck if ye do.”
Peter glared at his erstwhile friend and fellow-philosopher. “You’re the fool, Hennessy. What under heaven can I do? What could any man do in my place?”
“Fight for her. Can’t you see the man has her possessed? What an’ how Hennessy hasn’t the wits to make out, but ye have. Search out her throuble same as she searched out yours, an’ make her whole an’ sweet an’ shinin’ again.” Hennessy laid two gnarled, brown hands on Peter’s shoulder while he peered up at him with eyes full of appeal. “Ye’ve heard naught to shake your faith in the lass? Ye believe in her—aye?”
“Good God! man, of course I believe in her! I’d believe in her if all the tongues in the world wagged till doomsday. But what else can I do? Hang around this old hotbed of gossip and listen and listen, powerless to cram the truth down their throats because I don’t know it?” Peter shot out a sudden hand and gripped Hennessy’s. “For the love of your blessed Saint Patrick, stand uplike a man there, Hennessy, and tell me what was the truth?”
For a moment Hennessy’s eyes shifted; he whistled his breath in and out in staccato jerks; then his gaze came back to Peter and he eyed him steadily. “Son, I’m knowin’ no more than when I first saw ye.”
“You believe in her?”
Hennessy pulled his hand free and shook his fist in Peter’s face. “Bad scran to ye for thinkin’ aught else. ’Tis God’s truth I’m tellin’ ye, Mr. Peter. I’m knowin’ no more than them blitherin’ tongues say, but I’d pray our lass into heaven wi’ my dyin’ breath if I could.”
Peter smiled. “You’d be doing better to pray her out of this miserable little purgatory right here. If she belonged to me, Hennessy—”
“I wish to God she did, sir! But that’s what ye can fight for—make her belong.”
“Easier said than done. Since Doctor Brainard came I can’t get her to see me. Read that!” Peter pulled out of his pocket a tiny folded note and handed it to the swan-keeper. It was deciphered with much labor and read with troubled seriousness.
Dear Mr. Brooks:Thank you for the flowers, and the candy, and the many offers of the car, but I haven’t time to enjoy any of these things just now. So please don’t send me any more, or write, or try to see me. I think it would be better for every one, and far happier in the end for you, if you would go back to your work as soon as possible.Faithfully yours,Sheila O’Leary.
Dear Mr. Brooks:
Thank you for the flowers, and the candy, and the many offers of the car, but I haven’t time to enjoy any of these things just now. So please don’t send me any more, or write, or try to see me. I think it would be better for every one, and far happier in the end for you, if you would go back to your work as soon as possible.
Faithfully yours,Sheila O’Leary.
Hennessy snorted. “So that’s what she thinks, is it? Well, don’t ye do it. ’Twas betther advice I gave ye myself; hold fast here an’ fight for her. Mind that!” And with a farewell pull of his forelock Hennessy left him.
Peter watched him for an instant, then with a new purpose full-born in his mind he turned and walked swiftly back to the sanitarium. He knew why the management had sent for Brainard to come back to the San. The head surgeon had been taken with typhoid; the wards were full of his special operative cases, and Brainard, who had trained under him, was the most skilful man available to take his place. But why had they put Sheila O’Leary on as his surgical nurse? Why had they done this thing thatwas bound to revive the old scandal and set tongues wagging anew? Peter knew that upon the answer to this depended his decision. Would he take Sheila’s advice and go, or Hennessy’s advice and fight?
He went directly to the office of the superintendent of nurses, and, finding the door well ajar, he entered without knocking. Miss Maxwell was seated at her desk. Across the desk, with clasped hands, cheeks aflame, and lips compressed into a look of even greater determination than Peter had seen there a few minutes before, leaned Sheila O’Leary.
Peter colored at his unintentional intrusion. “Excuse me,” he stammered. “Not hearing voices, I thought you were alone. I’ll come again later, Miss Maxwell,” and he turned toward the door.
Leerie’s voice called him back. “Don’t go—want you. Something I was trying to get Miss Max to promise.”
This time Miss Maxwell colored. “It’s against rules, Leerie, to talk over hospital matters before patients, even as discreet a one as Mr. Brooks.”
“I know—can’t help it—need him.Besides, he’s his best friend.” She turned to Peter with a strained eagerness. “This will be news to you. Doctor Dempsy is due here in the morning—taken suddenly—major operation—nurse just wired. I want you and Miss Max to take him on to the Dentons if he can stand the trip. Awfully delicate operation, and it’s Doctor John’s crack piece of work. Will you do it?”
The unexpectedness of the news and the request overwhelmed Peter’s usually agile intelligence. He stared blankly at the girl before him. “I don’t think I understand. If Dempsy is coming here for an operation, why should we take him somewhere else? Why shouldn’t he be operated on here if he wants to be?”
“He thinks Doctor Jefferson is still operating. He doesn’t know—”
The superintendent of nurses interrupted her. “Leerie, you’re overstepping even your privileges. Doctor Brainard was called here to take charge because the management had absolute confidence in his skill and knew he was trustworthy and conscientious. I think there is nothing further that needs to be said. Doctor Dempsy will do what every otherpatient has done, put himself unreservedly into Doctor Brainard’s hands.”
“But he mustn’t.” The crimson had died out of Sheila’s cheeks, and she stood now pale to the very lips, her face working convulsively. “You don’t seem to understand, and it’s hard—hard to put it into words. Doctor Brainard is young—very young for his position and all the responsibility that has been heaped upon him. His work ever since he came has been terrific—eight and ten majors a day, Sundays, too. It’s been a fearful strain, and now to make him responsible for a case like Doctor Dempsy, a case that takes great delicacy and nerve, one that is bound to attack his sympathy and his reputation at the same time, why—why, it isn’t fair. Can’t you see that if he should fail, no matter how blameless he might be, it would stick to him for the rest of his life, a blot on his work and the San?” Sheila’s hands went out in a last appeal. “Send him to the Dentons; they’ve had five years of experience for every year of Doctor Brainard’s. Please, please! Oh, don’t you see?”
“Why should you care so much?” The words were off Peter’s tongue before he knewit. He would have given a good deal if he could have got them back.
The girl looked from him to Miss Maxwell. The question apparently bewildered her. Then a hint of her old-time dignity and assurance returned, coupled with her cryptic mood. “Plenty of reasons: he was Miss Max’s chief—she always worshiped him—your best friend, a most loved and honored man in the profession. Isn’t he? Well, this isn’t the time or the place for a risk.”
The superintendent rose and looked down at the girl. When she spoke there was a touch of annoyance in the tone as well as sadness. “And that’s as much—and as little—as you expect to tell us?”
Sheila nodded.
Miss Maxwell threw up her hands in a little gesture of helplessness. “Leerie, Leerie, what are we going to do with you? It was this way even three years ago.”
In a flash the girl’s arms were about the superintendent’s neck, her face buried on her shoulder; the words were barely audible to Peter, “Love me and believe in me—as you did three years ago.” And then a choking,wet-eyed, and rather disheveled figure flew past him, out of the room.
Miss Maxwell sank back heavily into her chair; her face showed plainly her battling between love for the girl, her sense of outraged discipline, and her anxiety over the decision she must make. Peter watched her with a sort of impersonal sympathy; the major part of his being had been plunged into what seemed a veritable chasm of hopelessness. He tried to pull himself together and realize that there was Dempsy to think about.
“What are you going to do?” he asked, at last.
“Do? You mean—about—?”
Peter nodded.
An almost pathetic smile crept into the superintendent’s face. “As long as you were here, anyway, it’s rather a relief to be able to confess that I don’t know what to do. You see, superintendents are always supposed to have infallible judgment on all matters,” she sighed. “I have never but once known Leerie to break a rule or ask for a special dispensation without a reason—a good reason. But I don’t understand what lies behind all this.”
“I do.” Peter fairly roared it forth. “She loves that man, and she’s afraid this might ruin his career if—if anything happened. Why, it’s as plain as these four walls and the ceiling above us. No woman pleads for a man that way unless she loves him better than anything else on God’s earth.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
“Why?” Peter strode over to the superintendent’s desk like a man after his reprieve. “I’m not just curious. I’ve the biggest excuse in the world for wanting to know why she has asked this. I love Sheila O’Leary. I love her well enough to leave her to-night with the man she loves, provided he loves her. But if he doesn’t—if he’s just playing with her, accepting her as a sop to his vanity, as a lot of near-famous men will with a woman—then, by thunder! I’m going to stay and fight him for her! Understand?” And Peter’s fist pounded the desk.
The superintendent smiled again. This time there was no pathos in it. “I understand—and I’d stay. You ought to know Leerie well enough by this time to know that she can fight for the right of anything, whether she cares personally or not, and morethan that, even if she has to suffer for it herself. She’s the only woman I have ever known who had that particular kind of heroism. If she felt Doctor Brainard needed some one to stand up for him, I believe she could plead better if she didn’t care. And I’ve another, a better reason for thinking she doesn’t love him. She refused at first to be his surgical nurse. She didn’t consent until she knew that he had made that one of the conditions of his coming here; he stipulated that he must be allowed to bring his own anesthetist, operate without an assistant, and choose his own operating nurse.”
“And he choose her?”
“She is the best we have. Not using an assistant throws a tremendous responsibility and strain on the nurse, and Doctor Brainard naturally wanted the most expert one he could get.”
“Then there was nothing personal—”
“I don’t think so. Doctor Brainard has a strong influence over Leerie, but I believe it is only what any surgeon with distinction and power would have. If she really cared for Doctor Brainard, she wouldn’t have saidwhat she did when I asked her to take the appointment.”
“What did she say?” Peter leaned forward eagerly and gripped the edge of the desk.
“She said she would rather be suspended for three more years than do it, but if there was no one else, she guessed she could manage it for the honor of the San.”
“What did she mean?”
“Oh, that’s just a by-phrase among those of us who have worked here a long while and feel a certain loyalty and responsibility for the ideals of this institution. We have tried to stand for honest, humane work as against mere moneygrubbing and popularity.”
“I see. That’s why Dempsy sent me here; that’s why he’s coming himself. Thank you, Miss Maxwell. I hope you’re right.” Peter straightened himself and moved toward the door.
“Wait a minute, Mr. Brooks. How much do you know of what happened three years ago?”
“Just what has dripped from the wagging tongues.” Peter smiled ironically.
“Suppose I tell you the truth of it. Itmight help you to fight this thing through. It certainly couldn’t hurt your love for Leerie if you really love her.”
“Nothing could,” said Peter, simply.
“Doctor Brainard and Leerie were the very best of friends during the years she was training and he was working under Doctor Jefferson. Then I thought it was love; they were always together, and there seemed to be a strong, deep sympathy between the two. Just about the time she graduated things began to go awry. Doctor Brainard was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and Leerie seemed to be laboring under some bad mental strain. Then the nurses began to hint that Leerie had been going to his room. One night, when she was head night nurse in the Surgical and Miss Jacobs was fourth corridor nurse, Miss Jacobs called me up at two in the morning and told me Leerie had been in Doctor Brainard’s room for an hour. I came at once and found her there. She made no explanation, offered no excuses. She even acknowledged that she had been there twice before at the same time.”
“What did Brainard say?” Peter asked it through clenched teeth.
“Nothing then. But later, when he was called before the Board, he laughed and asked what a man could say when a nurse chose to come to his room at two in the morning.”
“The cad!” and Peter swore under his breath.
“I should have believed in Leerie, anyway, but it was that laugh of Doctor Brainard’s that made me determined to fight for her. What motive Doctor Brainard had for not defending her I don’t know, but he acted like a scoundrel.”
“But why?” Peter beat the air. “Oh, the girl must have known she couldn’t run amuck with convention that way and not have it hurt her! Why did she do it?”
The superintendent of nurses looked long and thoughtfully at him. “Do you know, Mr. Brooks, if I happened to be the man who loved Sheila O’Leary, I think I’d find that out as soon as I could. The answer might prove valuable; it might solve the riddle why Sheila doesn’t want Doctor Dempsy operated on here.”
“Well, is he going to be?”
“No, we’ll take him on to the Dentons if he can be moved again after he gets here.”
But fate willed otherwise. When Doctor Dempsy arrived on the early train there were no conflicting opinions as to his condition; it was critical, and there would have to be an operation within twenty-four hours. Miss Maxwell brought the news to Peter along with the doctor’s wish that his friend should be with him as long as the powers allowed.
“Does Leerie know?” asked Peter.
“She was present at the consultation.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing. But she looked very white and drawn. I’m afraid she hasn’t slept much.”
“Good Lord! you don’t believe she really thinks Brainard will bungle!”
But Miss Maxwell cut him short. “This is no time to bother with futile suppositions. Please, Mr. Brooks! Remember that for all our sakes—Doctor Dempsy’s most of all—this is the time to keep our nerve and think only one way.” With a grave shake of the head she left him at the door of Doctor Dempsy’s room.
To Peter the day crept on at a snail’s pace; to Sheila it galloped. Peter saw her just once, when, at Doctor Dempsy’s urgentwish, she came in for a moment between operations, muffled to the eyes in her gown and mask.
“Come here, child.” The old doctor held out a commanding hand and drew the nurse close to the bed. “I’ve had something on my mind ever since I saw your face this morning. Might as well say it now before I forget it.” He smiled up gently at the great, deep-gray eyes looking down wistfully at him. “I imagine that you two youngsters may be fretting some over to-morrow—sevenA.M.Hey? Mean trick to saddle you with the responsibility of an old, worn-out hulk like mine, with the chances fifty-fifty on patching it up. What I wanted to say was that you mustn’t take it too hard if I don’t patch. ’Pon my soul I sha’n’t mind for myself.”
A voice called from the corridor outside, “Miss O’Leary, Doctor Brainard’s waiting.”
Doctor Dempsy gave the hand inside the rubber glove a tight squeeze. “Remember, Leerie, I know you’ll keep the little old lantern burning for me as long as you can, and here’s good luck, whatever happens.”
She went without a word. Peter had become vastly absorbed at the window inwatching Hennessy sweeping a gathering of leaves from the curb. When he finally came back to his chair by the bedside he flattered himself that his expression was beatifically cheerful and his voice perfectly steady.
As the day waned a storm gathered, and by nightfall the sanitarium and the surrounding country were in the grip of a full-fledged equinoctial. Doctor Dempsy was put to bed early, and Peter went back to his room in the main building to write himself into a state of temporary forgetfulness, if he could. He had tinkered with his pen, sharpened half a dozen pencils, and mussed up as many sheets of paper when a knock brought him to his feet. Sheila O’Leary stood at the door. Her lips were bravely trying to smile away the haggard lines of the face.
Unconsciously Peter’s arms went out to her as he repeated that old cry of his in the days when he was a sufferer in the Surgical, “Why—why, it’s Leerie!” and his love seemed to pound through every syllable.
For the flash of a second the eyes of the girl leaped to his in answer, but in another flash they seemed to have traveled miles away, looking back at him with the sadnessof a lost angel. “Yes, it’s Leerie again—come for help,” she announced, tersely.
“All right.” Peter tried to sound matter-of-fact.
“Don’t ask questions; just do it. Will you?”
Peter nodded.
“You said once if you had to, you could drive through any storm, snow, hail, or rain, that you had ever seen. Yes? Then get your car and take Doctor Brainard out to-night. Take him anywhere, and keep him going till he’s so tired he’s ready to drop. Talk to him, tell him stories, don’t let him talk about himself—or to-morrow. And bring him home when you think he can sleep.”
“Yes. What are you going to do?”
“Sleep, I hope.” She turned to go, but came back again and laid a cold hand in Peter’s. “Thank you. Don’t think I don’t appreciate it.”
“Wait a minute. As it happens, I haven’t met Doctor Brainard, and there’s a perfectly good chance he may not care about joy-riding in a young hurricane—even in my company,” Peter ended ironically.
Leerie gave a little hollow laugh. “Oh, he’ll go—don’t worry. I’ll bring him down and introduce him. Ready in ten minutes?” And this time she was gone.
Peter knew if he lived to the ripe old age of Solomon himself he should never forget the smallest detail of that night—Doctor Brainard’s curt, almost surly greeting, the plunge into the car, and the start. After that Peter felt like a mythological being piloting the elements. He headed for a state road, and for miles, neither of them speaking, the car streaked over what might have been the surface of the river of Lethe, or the strata of mist lying above Niflheim, for all the feeling of reality and substance it gave. He had the eery sensation that he might be forced to keep on and on till the end of the world, like the Flying Dutchman. He wondered what sin of his own or some one’s else he might be expiating. They passed no living or mechanical thing; they had the road, the night, the storm to themselves. They might have gone ten miles or thirty before Doctor Brainard broke the silence.
“Gad! but you can drive!”
“Thank you. Like it?”
“Not exactly. But it’s better than thinking.”
“Works the other way with me; this sets me thinking.” A sudden, heavier gust sent the car skidding across the road, and Peter’s attention went to his wheel. Righting it, he went on, “This is the second time in my life I’ve felt something controlling me that was stronger than my own will.”
“Nasty feeling. Lucky man if you’ve only felt it twice. What was it the first time?”
“Fear. That’s what brought me here.”
Peter felt the eyes of the doctor studying him in the dark. “I heard about your case. It was Leerie brought you through, too, wasn’t it?”
Quick as a flash Peter turned. For the instant he forgot they were speeding at a forbidden rate down slippery macadam in a tempest, with his hand as the only controlling force. He almost dropped his wheel. “Why ‘too’? Is she pulling you through something?”
He could hear a heavy intake of breath beside him. Unconsciously he knew that his companion was no longer sitting limp with relaxed muscles. He seemed to feel everynerve and fiber in the body of the surgeon growing tense, which made his careless, inconsequential tone sound the more strange when he finally spoke:
“That’s an odd question to put to a doctor. I was referring to Leerie’s cases. She’s pulled through hundreds of patients, you know; she’s famous for it.”
“Yes, I know,” answered Peter. His voice sounded just as careless, but the hands that gripped the wheel were as taut as steel.
They swept on for another half-hour, the silence broken by an occasional yawn from the surgeon. At last Peter slowed down and looked at his watch. “Eleven-thirty. If we turn now we’ll make the San about one. How’s that for bedtime?”
“Gad! I’m ready now,” and the doctor yawned again.
Peter timed it to a nicety. It was five minutes past one as he dropped Doctor Brainard at the Surgical, where he roomed. He was just driving off when Miss Jacobs hurried out of the entrance.
“Oh, Mr. Brooks, wait a minute, please. Doctor Dempsy isn’t resting very well, andMiss Maxwell left word that if he called for you, you could sit with him. We can’t get him to sleep, and he does want you.”
“All right. I’ll leave the car and come back.”
As Peter took his chair again by his friend’s bedside his face was set to as strong a purpose as Sheila O’Leary’s had shown that day in the sanitarium grounds. “Want me to talk, old man?” he asked, quietly. “Maybe I can yarn you into forty winks. Shall I try?”
“Wish you would. It’s funny how a man can go through this with a thousand or so patients and it seems like an every-day affair, but when it’s himself—well, there’s the rub.” And the doctor smiled a bit sheepishly at his own ungovernable nerves.
Peter gripped his hand understandingly. “I know. It’s the difference between fiction and autobiography as far as it touches your own sense of reality. Well, to-night shall we try fiction? Ever since they pulled me through here, I’ve had my mind on a yarn with a sanitarium or hospital for a background and a doctor for a hero. All this atmosphere gets into your blood. It keeps youguessing until you have to spin a yarn and use up the material.”
“Anything for copy, hey?” the doctor chuckled.
“That’s about it. Well, my yarn runs about this way.” With the skill of an artist and the sympathy of a humanist—and the suppressed excitement of one who has something at stake—Peter drew his two principal characters, the conscientious, sensitive doctor possessed with the constant fear of that hypothetical case he might lose some day, and the smooth, scheming man a few years his senior who wanted to get his fellow-practitioner out of the way and marry the girl they both loved. Peter made the girl as adorable as a man in love might picture her.
“For a sixpence I’d wager you had fallen in love yourself.” Doctor Dempsy chuckled again. “I never before knew you to be so keen over feminine charms.”
“Just more copy,” and Peter went on with the tale. “Well, the young chap’s horror and fear kept growing with each new case, and the other chap kept sneering and suggesting that his nerves weren’t fit, and his hand wasn’t steady, and he worked too slowly.He kept it up until he got what he wanted; the young chap bungled his operation and lost his case.”
“Poor devil! I know just what kind of torment he lived through.” Doctor Dempsy raised himself on an elbow and shook his head at Peter. “A case like that may be fiction to you, but it’s fact to us in the profession. You have no idea how often a youngster’s nerves fail him.”
“Guess I’m getting the idea. But I need your help to finish the yarn. Of course the hospital couldn’t bounce him for losing one case. They would have to prove first that he wasn’t fit, wouldn’t they?”
“They would have to make him out incompetent.”
Peter nodded. Had there been more light in the room Doctor Dempsy might have been startled at the unprecedented expression of cunning that had crept into his friend’s face. “I’m not up enough in medical matters to know what I could prove against the young chap to put him out. You’ll have to help me. Just how could his rival oust him?”
“Accuse him of drugs,” came the unhesitating answer. “That’s the mostplausible, and it’s what plays havoc with young surgeons quicker than anything else. They feel their nerves going, and they take a hypodermic; it steadies them until—it gets them. If you can make your villain convince the staff that drugs are back of the lost case, you can get your poor devil of a surgeon permanently disposed of.”
Peter let out a long-drawn breath. “Thank you, Doc. You’ve helped me out—considerably.”
It does not in the least matter how Peter finished the tale. Before the inevitable conclusion Doctor Dempsy dropped off to sleep, and no one but Peter himself heard the final, “And they married and lived happy ever after. By Jupiter they did!”
He slipped softly out of the room and stood a moment in the corridor, wondering what he would do next. Sleep seemed unnecessary just then, as well as undesirable. And as he stood there, innocent of all intention of eavesdropping, he had that rare experience of hearing history repeat itself. From around the bend of the corridor, out of sight, came the low but distinct whisper of the night nurse’s voice at the house ’phone.
“Miss Maxwell, Miss Maxwell, can you hear me? This is Miss Jacobs. Leerie went to Doctor Brainard’s room a half-hour ago. She’s still there.... All right.” And then the soft click of the receiver dropping into place.
Peter stiffened; his hands clenched. His first impulse was to creep ’round and quietly choke the tattle-tale breath out of Miss Jacobs. He knew how the little green-eyed nurse was gloating over this second incrimination of Leerie. But there was something more compelling to do first, something that could not wait. He slipped ’round through the supply-room and down the back stairs. He reached the first floor of the Surgical just as the superintendent of nurses appeared in the entrance.
“You!” demanded Miss Maxwell.
“No one else,” agreed Peter. “Suppose we go up together.”
Peter could have almost laughed at the look of dumfounded amazement on the superintendent’s face. “You mean—Why, that’s impossible! It isn’t your place—”
Peter cut her short. “Oh yes, it is. Remember the advice you gave me a few hoursago. I’m here to find out what’s back of it all, and no one is going to stop me.” His jaws snapped with an ominous finality.
Doctor Brainard opened to their knock, but he held the door so that barely a corner of the room was visible, and he blocked the entrance.
“Open it wider!” commanded Peter. “We’ve come to stay a few minutes and ask Miss O’Leary a few questions,” and he thrust the surgeon quickly aside and flung wide the door.
Sheila was sitting by a reading-lamp, an open book on her lap. She looked as Peter had seen her in the early evening, only back of the tiredness and pallor was a strange look of peace. To Peter she seemed a crucified saint who had suddenly discovered that nail wounds were harmless. She smiled faintly at them both. “I’m sorry it’s happened again, Miss Maxwell. If you’ll just go away and try to forget about it until after the morning, I’ll send in my resignation and leave as soon as you can fill my place. And can’t we do it this time without any Board meeting? I’ll promise never to come back.”
“Then there are going to be no explanationsthis time—either?” There was pleading in the superintendent’s voice, as well as infinite sadness.
The girl shook her head. “There’s nothing to explain. I’m just here.” She folded her hands quietly on her lap. “Won’t you please go?”
“No, we won’t!” Peter thundered it forth. Then he turned to the surgeon, and there was no pleading in his voice. “You cur! you cad! What have you got to say?”
Doctor Brainard jumped as if Peter had struck him; for the instant he seemed to find speech difficult. “Why—why, what do you mean? How dare you—”
“I dare you,” and Peter shot out each word with the directness of a hand-grenade, “I dare you to stand up like a man and tell why Miss O’Leary came here to-night. You sneaked behind her silence three years ago; don’t be a cursed coward and do it again.”
The surgeon laughed a dry, unpleasant laugh. “It’s easy to call another man names—but it doesn’t mean anything. And what right have you to ask me to betray Miss O’Leary’s silence?”
“Betray!” Peter fairly howled back theword at him. “Take off your coat. Take it off, or I’ll rip it off. Now roll up your sleeves—no, your left. There, by Jupiter! Look, Miss Maxwell!”
Peter’s demand was unnecessary. The eyes of the superintendent were already fixed on the manifold tiny blue discolorations in the surgeon’s bare arm. “Cocaine.” She almost whispered it under her breath, and then louder, “How long?”
“Four years, about.” The surgeon’s voice was quite toneless; he seemed to shrink and grow old while they watched him.
Miss Maxwell looked across at the girl, who was leaning forward, her face in her hands, crying softly. Her eyes were bitterly accusing, and there was abundant scorn in her voice when she spoke again to the surgeon. “So Leerie has been shielding you all along and helping you to fight it. How did she know?”
“I told her. I thought if some one with a courage and trust like hers knew about it it might pull me together. God! I wish I’d killed myself three years ago.”
“Pity you didn’t!” There was no mercy in Peter’s voice. “But I suppose she wouldn’tlet you; I suppose she held you together then as she’s trying to now. She’s trying to save you for to-morrow—sevenA.M.—and all the to-morrows coming after. I—I think I’m beginning to understand.” His arms dropped dejectedly to his sides. For Peter there could be but one meaning to Sheila’s sacrifice and struggle.
But Miss Maxwell was holding fast to her cross-examination. “And I suppose you promised Leerie three years ago if she’d keep silent you would fight it through and break the habit. And that’s why you’ve let no one but Leerie and Miss Jacobs in the operating-room, so no one else would guess. Did Miss Jacobs find out three years ago?”
Doctor Brainard nodded.
Words failed the superintendent, but her expression boded ill for the little green-eyed nurse. “Well,” she said, at length, “there’s only one thing that matters right now—are you or are you not going to be in a fit condition to operate to-morrow?”
It was Leerie who answered. She was out of her chair at a bound and beside the surgeon, her hand on his arm. “He’s going to operate; he’s got to. There isn’t anotherskilled hand like his nearer than the Dentons, so he’s got to bring Doctor Dempsy through. Please, Miss Maxwell, leave him to me. I can manage. He’s got four hours to sleep, and then I’ll let him have enough cocaine to steady him. Won’t you trust me?”
“It’s about the only way now.”
Peter left unnoticed. He realized, as he had realized in the sanitarium grounds that afternoon, that he counted about as much in this crisis as a part of the inanimate surroundings. Miss Maxwell joined him a moment later, looking outrageously relieved. She flashed Peter an apologetic smile.
“I know it’s shameless of me to look glad when you look so miserable. But I can’t help feeling that we are going to win. Leerie deserves it after what she’s suffered for him. That man couldn’t fail her, and her trust is bound to make good. Don’t you see?”
Peter’s shoulders gave an unconvincing shrug. “I hope so. He ought to—if he’s half-way a man.” He looked at his watch. “Almost morning now. Guess I’ll pack my things and be ready to start as soon as I know Dempsy’s all right.”
Miss Maxwell held him back for aninstant. “I know you’re thinking that all’s wrong with the world, but I know all’s right. Go and pack if you must, but please stay in your room until I send you word. Promise?”
And not caring, Peter promised.
From seven o’clock on Peter paced the room among his packed luggage and counted the minutes. He wondered how long his patience would last and when his misery would stop growing. The burden of both had become unbearable. At eight-thirty a sharp knock sounded and he sprang to the door. On the threshold stood a nurse in surgical wrappings, with eyes that shone like a whole firmament of stars and a mouth that curved to the gentle demureness of a nun. Peter stood and stared at this unexpected apparition of the old Leerie.
“Well,” said the apparition, smiling radiantly as of old, “I’m a messenger of glad tidings. Won’t you ask me to come in?”
Peter flushed and drew her to a chair.
“Oh, it was a wonderful operation. It seemed almost like performing a miracle, and that blessed old doctor is coming out of the ether like a baby.”
“Maybe it was a miracle—the miracle of a woman’s trust.”
A look of rare tenderness swept into the girl’s face. “Thank you. I wonder if you know how often you say the kindest and most comforting thing.” Then she sobered. “He’s made a brave fight, and it wasn’t easy to pull himself together, in the face of what he knew you were all thinking of him, and do such a tremendous piece of work. I want you to understand. He’s a brilliant surgeon; it didn’t seem right that he should be lost to himself and the profession. And the best of it is, he isn’t going to be. The San is going to stand by him; every doctor on the staff is willing to help him. As soon as Doctor Jefferson is back, Doctor Brainard is to stop work until—until he’s fit again. Isn’t that splendid! Oh, I could sing! I keep saying over those great Hebrew words of comfort, ‘Weeping may tarry through the night, but joy cometh in the morning.’”
“Yes,” said Peter, dully. “I’m glad joy has come for you. May I wish you and Doctor Brainard all success and happiness?”
Sheila’s eyes looked into Peter’s with a sudden intensity. “You may—but nottogether. Have you actually been thinking that I loved Doctor Brainard?” A hint of the old bitterness crept into her voice. “I can pity a man like that, but love him—love weakness and selfishness—and the willingness to betray a woman’s honor—no! Three years ago he killed whatever personal feeling I might have had for him, and he made me hate all men.”
“And you’re still hating them?” Peter held fast to his rising hopes while he hung eagerly on her answer.
“No. Ever since a fine, strong, unselfish man came into my life it has set me loving all mankind so scandalously that I’m afraid the only way to make me respectable is—for some man to marry me.” Leerie’s arms went out to Peter in complete surrender. “Oh, Peter—Peter—it’s morning!”
But it was almost noon before Peter began to think intelligently again, and then he remembered something, something that ought to be done. “I think,” he said, “I think we ought to go out and tell Hennessy and the swans; we sort of owe it to them.”
And it all ended even as Peter had prophesied in his yarn by Doctor Dempsy’s bedside.