K

  CHAPTER IX

  Sidney never forgot her early impressions of the hospital, although theywere chaotic enough at first. There were uniformed young womencoming and going, efficient, cool-eyed, low of voice. There weremedicine-closets with orderly rows of labeled bottles, linen-rooms withgreat stacks of sheets and towels, long vistas of shining floors andlines of beds. There were brisk internes with duck clothes and brassbuttons, who eyed her with friendly, patronizing glances. There werebandages and dressings, and great white screens behind which were playedlittle or big dramas, baths or deaths, as the case might be. And overall brooded the mysterious authority of the superintendent of thetraining-school, dubbed the Head, for short.

  Twelve hours a day, from seven to seven, with the off-duty intermission,Sidney labored at tasks which revolted her soul. She swept anddusted the wards, cleaned closets, folded sheets and towels, rolledbandages--did everything but nurse the sick, which was what she had cometo do.

  At night she did not go home. She sat on the edge of her narrow whitebed and soaked her aching feet in hot water and witch hazel, andpracticed taking pulses on her own slender wrist, with K.'s littlewatch.

  Out of all the long, hot days, two periods stood out clearly, to bewaited for and cherished. One was when, early in the afternoon, withthe ward in spotless order, the shades drawn against the August sun, thetables covered with their red covers, and the only sound the drone ofthe bandage-machine as Sidney steadily turned it, Dr. Max passed thedoor on his way to the surgical ward beyond, and gave her a cheerygreeting. At these times Sidney's heart beat almost in time with theticking of the little watch.

  The other hour was at twilight, when, work over for the day, the nightnurse, with her rubber-soled shoes and tired eyes and jangling keys,having reported and received the night orders, the nurses gathered intheir small parlor for prayers. It was months before Sidney got over theexaltation of that twilight hour, and never did it cease to bring herhealing and peace. In a way, it crystallized for her what the day's workmeant: charity and its sister, service, the promise of rest and peace.Into the little parlor filed the nurses, and knelt, folding their tiredhands.

  "The Lord is my shepherd," read the Head out of her worn Bible; "I shallnot want."

  And the nurses: "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadethme beside the still waters."

  And so on through the psalm to the assurance at the end, "And I willdwell in the house of the Lord forever." Now and then there was a deathbehind one of the white screens. It caused little change in the routineof the ward. A nurse stayed behind the screen, and her work was done bythe others. When everything was over, the time was recorded exactly onthe record, and the body was taken away.

  At first it seemed to Sidney that she could not stand this nearness todeath. She thought the nurses hard because they took it quietly. Thenshe found that it was only stoicism, resignation, that they had learned.These things must be, and the work must go on. Their philosophy madethem no less tender. Some such patient detachment must be that of theangels who keep the Great Record.

  On her first Sunday half-holiday she was free in the morning, and wentto church with her mother, going back to the hospital after the service.So it was two weeks before she saw Le Moyne again. Even then, it wasonly for a short time. Christine and Palmer Howe came in to see her, andto inspect the balcony, now finished.

  But Sidney and Le Moyne had a few words together first.

  There was a change in Sidney. Le Moyne was quick to see it. She wasa trifle subdued, with a puzzled look in her blue eyes. Her mouth wastender, as always, but he thought it drooped. There was a new atmosphereof wistfulness about the girl that made his heart ache.

  They were alone in the little parlor with its brown lamp and blue silkshade, and its small nude Eve--which Anna kept because it had been agift from her husband, but retired behind a photograph of the minister,so that only the head and a bare arm holding the apple appeared abovethe reverend gentleman.

  K. never smoked in the parlor, but by sheer force of habit he held thepipe in his teeth.

  "And how have things been going?" asked Sidney practically.

  "Your steward has little to report. Aunt Harriet, who left you her love,has had the complete order for the Lorenz trousseau. She and I havepicked out a stunning design for the wedding dress. I thought I'd askyou about the veil. We're rather in a quandary. Do you like this newfashion of draping the veil from behind the coiffure in the back--"

  Sidney had been sitting on the edge of her chair, staring.

  "There," she said--"I knew it! This house is fatal! They're making anold woman of you already." Her tone was tragic.

  "Miss Lorenz likes the new method, but my personal preference is for theold way, with the bride's face covered."

  He sucked calmly at his dead pipe.

  "Katie has a new prescription--recipe--for bread. It has more bread andfewer air-holes. One cake of yeast--"

  Sidney sprang to her feet.

  "It's perfectly terrible!" she cried. "Because you rent a room inthis house is no reason why you should give up your personality andyour--intelligence. Not but that it's good for you. But Katie hasmade bread without masculine assistance for a good many years, and ifChristine can't decide about her own veil she'd better not get married.Mother says you water the flowers every evening, and lock up the housebefore you go to bed. I--I never meant you to adopt the family!"

  K. removed his pipe and gazed earnestly into the bowl.

  "Bill Taft has had kittens under the porch," he said. "And thegroceryman has been sending short weight. We've bought scales now, andweigh everything."

  "You are evading the question."

  "Dear child, I am doing these things because I like to do them. For--forsome time I've been floating, and now I've got a home. Every time Ilock up the windows at night, or cut a picture out of a magazine as asuggestion to your Aunt Harriet, it's an anchor to windward."

  Sidney gazed helplessly at his imperturbable face. He seemed older thanshe had recalled him: the hair over his ears was almost white. And yet,he was just thirty. That was Palmer Howe's age, and Palmer seemed like aboy. But he held himself more erect than he had in the first days of hisoccupancy of the second-floor front.

  "And now," he said cheerfully, "what about yourself? You've lost a lotof illusions, of course, but perhaps you've gained ideals. That's astep."

  "Life," observed Sidney, with the wisdom of two weeks out in the world,"life is a terrible thing, K. We think we've got it, and--it's got us."

  "Undoubtedly."

  "When I think of how simple I used to think it all was! One grew up andgot married, and--and perhaps had children. And when one got veryold, one died. Lately, I've been seeing that life really consists ofexceptions--children who don't grow up, and grown-ups who die beforethey are old. And"--this took an effort, but she looked at himsquarely--"and people who have children, but are not married. It allrather hurts."

  "All knowledge that is worth while hurts in the getting."

  Sidney got up and wandered around the room, touching its little familiarobjects with tender hands. K. watched her. There was this curiouselement in his love for her, that when he was with her it took on theguise of friendship and deceived even himself. It was only in the lonelyhours that it took on truth, became a hopeless yearning for the touch ofher hand or a glance from her clear eyes.

  Sidney, having picked up the minister's picture, replaced it absently,so that Eve stood revealed in all her pre-apple innocence.

  "There is something else," she said absently. "I cannot talk it overwith mother. There is a girl in the ward--"

  "A patient?"

  "Yes. She is quite pretty. She has had typhoid, but she is a littlebetter. She's--not a good person."

  "I see."

  "At first I couldn't bear to go near her. I shivered when I had tostraighten her bed. I--I'm being very frank, but I've got to talk thisout with someone. I worried a lot about it, because, although at first Ihated her, now I don't. I r
ather like her."

  She looked at K. defiantly, but there was no disapproval in his eyes.

  "Yes."

  "Well, this is the question. She's getting better. She'll be able togo out soon. Don't you think something ought to be done to keep herfrom--going back?"

  There was a shadow in K.'s eyes now. She was so young to face all this;and yet, since face it she must, how much better to have her do itsquarely.

  "Does she want to change her mode of life?"

  "I don't know, of course. There are some things one doesn't discuss. Shecares a great deal for some man. The other day I propped her up in bedand gave her a newspaper, and after a while I found the paper on thefloor, and she was crying. The other patients avoid her, and it wassome time before I noticed it. The next day she told me that the manwas going to marry some one else. 'He wouldn't marry me, of course,' shesaid; 'but he might have told me.'"

  Le Moyne did his best, that afternoon in the little parlor, to provideSidney with a philosophy to carry her through her training. He told herthat certain responsibilities were hers, but that she could not reformthe world. Broad charity, tenderness, and healing were her province.

  "Help them all you can," he finished, feeling inadequate and hopelesslydidactic. "Cure them; send them out with a smile; and--leave the rest tothe Almighty."

  Sidney was resigned, but not content. Newly facing the evil of theworld, she was a rampant reformer at once. Only the arrival of Christineand her fiance saved his philosophy from complete rout. He had time fora question between the ring of the bell and Katie's deliberate progressfrom the kitchen to the front door.

  "How about the surgeon, young Wilson? Do you ever see him?" His tone wascarefully casual.

  "Almost every day. He stops at the door of the ward and speaks to me. Itmakes me quite distinguished, for a probationer. Usually, you know, thestaff never even see the probationers."

  "And--the glamour persists?" He smiled down at her.

  "I think he is very wonderful," said Sidney valiantly.

  Christine Lorenz, while not large, seemed to fill the little room. Hervoice, which was frequent and penetrating, her smile, which was wideand showed very white teeth that were a trifle large for beauty, herall-embracing good nature, dominated the entire lower floor. K., who hadmet her before, retired into silence and a corner. Young Howe smoked acigarette in the hall.

  "You poor thing!" said Christine, and put her cheek against Sidney's."Why, you're positively thin! Palmer gives you a month to tire of itall; but I said--"

  "I take that back," Palmer spoke indolently from the corridor. "Thereis the look of willing martyrdom in her face. Where is Reginald? I'vebrought some nuts for him."

  "Reginald is back in the woods again."

  "Now, look here," he said solemnly. "When we arranged about these rooms,there were certain properties that went with them--the lady next doorwho plays Paderewski's 'Minuet' six hours a day, and K. here, andReginald. If you must take something to the woods, why not the minuetperson?"

  Howe was a good-looking man, thin, smooth-shaven, aggressively welldressed. This Sunday afternoon, in a cutaway coat and high hat, withan English malacca stick, he was just a little out of the picture. TheStreet said that he was "wild," and that to get into the Country Clubset Christine was losing more than she was gaining.

  Christine had stepped out on the balcony, and was speaking to K. justinside.

  "It's rather a queer way to live, of course," she said. "But Palmer is apauper, practically. We are going to take our meals at home for a while.You see, certain things that we want we can't have if we take a house--acar, for instance. We'll need one for running out to the Country Club todinner. Of course, unless father gives me one for a wedding present, itwill be a cheap one. And we're getting the Rosenfeld boy to drive it.He's crazy about machinery, and he'll come for practically nothing."

  K. had never known a married couple to take two rooms and go to thebride's mother's for meals in order to keep a car. He looked faintlydazed. Also, certain sophistries of his former world about a cheapchauffeur being costly in the end rose in his mind and were carefullysuppressed.

  "You'll find a car a great comfort, I'm sure," he said politely.

  Christine considered K. rather distinguished. She liked his graying hairand steady eyes, and insisted on considering his shabbiness a pose. Shewas conscious that she made a pretty picture in the French window, andpreened herself like a bright bird.

  "You'll come out with us now and then, I hope."

  "Thank you."

  "Isn't it odd to think that we are going to be practically one family!"

  "Odd, but very pleasant."

  He caught the flash of Christine's smile, and smiled back. Christine wasglad she had decided to take the rooms, glad that K. lived there. Thisthing of marriage being the end of all things was absurd. A marriedwoman should have men friends; they kept her up. She would take him tothe Country Club. The women would be mad to know him. How clean-cut hisprofile was!

  Across the Street, the Rosenfeld boy had stopped by Dr. Wilson's car,and was eyeing it with the cool, appraising glance of the streetboy whose sole knowledge of machinery has been acquired from theclothes-washer at home. Joe Drummond, eyes carefully ahead, went up theStreet. Tillie, at Mrs. McKee's, stood in the doorway and fanned herselfwith her apron. Max Wilson came out of the house and got into his car.For a minute, perhaps, all the actors, save Carlotta and Dr. Ed, were onthe stage. It was that bete noir of the playwright, an ensemble; K. LeMoyne and Sidney, Palmer Howe, Christine, Tillie, the younger Wilson,Joe, even young Rosenfeld, all within speaking distance, almost touchingdistance, gathered within and about the little house on a side streetwhich K. at first grimly and now tenderly called "home."