Mike steered her to a comfortable chair, sat her down, and stood ominously before her.
“Now, ma’am,” he said grimly, “if I hear of any more doings like this, you may expect me around to escort you to the station house. I hope you understand!”
Then getting no answer from the frightened woman he turned and went out into the hall, where he addressed the anxious Dale who was coming down the stairs.
“Now, Miss Dale, if this so-called lady pulls any more pranks like this, just you send word to me. You still got Hattie, haven’t you? Well, you can have her call me on the phone if anything like this happens again, and I’ll be here before you can count to ten. I guess maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have your lawyer tell this person that you own the house, and if that doesn’t do the trick, I’ll take her down to the city hall myself and show her who owns this house. And now, is there anything more I can do for you before I go? I just stopped around to get a line on how many folks you had here. We had a report on some very noisy doings around here a couple a nights ago. I thought I better understand what to count on. Grandma never had such doings here, and I couldn’t rightly understand it. Thought I better come and ask you.”
Dale’s cheeks flamed scarlet with embarrassment. “Why—it was just some guests, strangers to me, who came to see my relatives. They brought some liquor with them. But they soon went away.”
“Well, Miss Dale, if anything like that happens again, you better call me up as soon as it begins. We’re tryin’ to put a stop to such doings in this township, you know. Well, thanks for the information, and call me again if you need me. Good morning!” And Mike tramped out the door and down the walk in his rubber soles, making a vague sound of law and order.
Dale did not go into the living room, where she saw Aunt Blanche getting ready for a showdown of words. Instead, she went quickly into the kitchen and almost fell over Hattie who was well placed by the crack of the partly open door in a position to hear all that went on in the front part of the house.
Quietly Dale steadied Hattie to a firm stand, and closing the door softly behind her, she then came near Hattie and whispered, “Hattie, did you telephone the police headquarters for Mike?”
Hattie opened wide innocent eyes. “Oh no, ma’am, Miss Dale. I never telephoned to no police headquarters. I’d be scared to death to do that.”
“Well, I wonder whatever started him here,” she murmured more to herself than to Hattie, but Hattie hurried over to turn the burner down under the stew she was concocting to hide a knowing glint in her innocent eyes. Was this the way Mr. Granniss had taken care of the message she had confided to him?
A few minutes later, Dale heard the front door open and close and footsteps going down the walk to the gate. She hurried over to the door and called, “Are you going far, Aunt Blanche? Because lunch is almost ready, and I know you like it really hot. And are the young people coming soon?”
Aunt Blanche’s voice came back coldly. “I’m sure I don’t know when they will be here. Whenever they please, I suppose. As for me, I’m going down to see my lawyer! I’ll see if this kind of thing can go on any longer.”
Dale closed the door softly and, leaning back against it, drew a deep breath and lifted her heart in thankfulness. Whatever was coming next, Aunt Blanche wouldn’t be likely to be here for lunch, and it would be good to have a little interval for anger to subside before there had to be any more family conversation.
But if Dale had known what was coming next, she might not have felt so relieved.
Chapter 11
Powelton and Corliss came rushing in an hour later, shouting to know if lunch was ready, and Hattie appeared quietly in the kitchen door and said that it was if they would sit down right away. She didn’t know that Dale was coming downstairs. She knew that she must be very much upset by what had gone on that morning, and of course these two young people had not likely heard of it all, unless they had met their mother, which didn’t seem likely. They were talking eagerly about the golf course where they had been playing that morning, and it didn’t sound as if they had been with their mother. They must have all taken whatever breakfast they took at the hotel. Perhaps only coffee. They were like that. And they had been at the party the night before, so they might have felt shy about coming to the house, not quite knowing how they would be received.
But the two youngsters were not shy, not they. They swarmed into the house as if they owned it and shouted out their wants. They chattered and they clattered, and Dale, hurrying downstairs to prevent any new kind of an outbreak, marveled at them, how easily the night before might have embarrassed them if they had any fine feelings at all. Apparently they had none, for they greeted Dale quite hostilely and demanded strong coffee and pie.
Dale had determined to try out a new system with them and see if she could not possibly win them to some kind of friendliness, just because she could not bear to have them go away with a feeling that she was their enemy. So she sat down, smiling, and asked them where they had been that morning, what they had been doing, and did they make good scores in golf? Asked about their hometown, what sports they liked best, where they went to school, and what studies they enjoyed the most, at which last question they hooted. Imagine anybody enjoying anything by the name of studies!
She did not attempt to enter into an argument on the subject, just skated on to other topics until finally she was rewarded by actually making them laugh at a story she told, and they looked at her with surprise that she could possibly be interesting when she talked. The haze of hostility that had up to this time surrounded their personalities began slowly to melt and the brother and sister grew almost voluble in telling their cousin several jokes and funny stories about their pranks in their school, and they laughed excessively.
Dale did her best to laugh with them, though there were a number of somewhat questionable pranks that really deserved a severe rebuke. But this was not the time, and she was not the person to administer it. Her object just now was to gain their friendship and find some congenial point of contact.
The climax was reached when the lemon meringue pie came in—a really dressy pie it was with piles of meringue in fancy forms—and the two young people received it with whoops of joy and almost seemed to be having a good time and to be glad they were there. They did their duty by the pie, each demolishing two more-than-normally large pieces and sighing that they were unable to hold a third. Then they sat back and talked some more on school and the things they were and were not going to do next winter when they went back.
It was while they were laughing and talking and Dale was taking a deep relieved breath that they had gotten through one meal without a single combat that the telephone rang.
It was Corliss who jumped to her feet and demanded to be allowed to answer it. But when the message began to come through she grew panicky. “What? Where are you speaking from? The Mercy Hospital? Where? Who are you, anyway? A nurse? Well, why are you calling us up? What? Yes, I’m Corliss Huntley. What do you want of me? Why should a nurse in a hospital want to speak to me? I guess it’s my cousin Dale Huntley you want, isn’t it? What? You say someone is hurt? Someone who knows me. Who is it? You say she was hit by an automobile? But who was it? My mother? But that can’t be so. She just went out a little while ago. She went down to her lawyer’s, they say. No, I don’t think she was in the neighborhood of that hospital. I don’t think she ever heard of it. You’re haywire. You’ve got your numbers crossed. What? You say it was Mrs. Huntley? Yes, Mrs. Blanche Huntley. Yes, that’s my mother’s name. Won’t you ask her when she is coming home? Tell her we are all through lunch! What? You say she is badly hurt? She isn’t dead, is she? Oh, she couldn’t have been run over by a car. She’s very careful crossing streets. What? You say she wants me? She wants us, both me and my brother? Yes, he’s here. But wouldn’t it be better for her to take a taxi and come back home? Oh Powelton, what shall we do?” And with a shriek that for once wasn’t planned for effect, Corliss flung the telephone f
rom her and threw herself on the floor in a spasm of frenzied tears and screaming.
“Oh my mother, my mother! I just know she’ll die, and what shall we do? We shouldn’t have come to Grandma’s funeral. I knew it was bad luck when we started, and now Mother’s going to die, and what’ll become of us? Oh, they say there are always three deaths in a family after one has come, so one of us will have to die, and it can’t be me, for I’m scared!”
Wildly Corliss was carrying on, screaming so that the sound could be heard all up and down the street. Dale reached over to her aunt’s place where a clean napkin was set by the plate, and unfolding it, she quietly dipped it into the glass of ice water and then went over and knelt beside the frantic Corliss. Talking gently, she put the cold, wet napkin on the girl’s hot forehead and eyes. Quickly she washed her face till the girl gasped and finally ceased to scream so wildly.
“There, there, dear,” she was saying, “quiet down, little girl. We’ll call up and find out just how your mother is. Maybe it isn’t as bad as you think. It’s always hard to understand anything over the phone, especially when you’re excited. But you’ll have to stop crying before I try to call, or I can’t hear what they say.”
“Aw, shut up, Corrie,” said Powelton, suddenly rousing to the fact that he was the man of the family and ought to do something about it. “Shut up, Corrie. Shut up till we find out!”
And at last the screaming ceased entirely, and Dale went to retrieve the receiver and discover if she could what nurse had been talking to Corliss. But by that time, of course, the hospital had hung up and the operator was calling: “Won’t you please hang up your receiver?”
But at last Dale got the right nurse and a small amount of information, enough to know that they could not tell yet how badly Aunt Blanche had been injured. They had just taken her to the operating room and wouldn’t be able to give more definite information until the doctor came back from the operation. And, anyway, the woman’s relatives had better come to the hospital as soon as possible, as they might be needed. If she rallied, she might want to talk to them.
At the word about their mother having gone to the operating room Corliss went into another fit of terrible weeping, and Dale had to put more ice water on her face and soothe her like a child to bring her back to normal again.
“Aw, shut up, can’t ya!” wailed the boy, almost as overwrought as his sister.
“Come on,” said Dale. “We’ll have to go right down to the hospital and see if she wants us for anything, and you two mustn’t be weeping when you go in or they’ll put you right out of the place. And you know your mother might need you very badly for some reason. Come, grow up and be a man and a woman for this emergency.”
So she coaxed them along until she got them to go upstairs and prepare for going to the hospital.
“Corliss,” she said, “I’ve got a pretty pink bed jacket. Come over to my room and see if you think your mother would like you to bring it over for her. And wouldn’t she want some pretty nightgowns? Go to her bureau and pick out a couple. I know she won’t like wearing those hospital gowns they have, not after she begins to get better.”
So she distracted the child from her horror and fear over her mother’s possible fate and got her interested in preparing to please her mother, a thing she had hardly ever gotten her interest off herself long enough to even think of. Then again she talked in a soothing way. “Come, cheer up. You don’t want to go weepy when you get there. Your part will be to act cheerful. That will help her to get well quicker.”
“Oh, do you think she’ll ever get well?” It was Corliss who cried out again.
“Why yes, of course,” said Dale with more hope in her voice than she actually felt sure of herself. And in her heart she began to pray that the Lord would intervene and help them all. Then finally, with the aid of Hattie, who appeared helpfully at the right minute, they finally got started to the hospital.
Out in the street, Corliss seemed to put aside her fears and became interested in the people she was passing, but the boy walked gravely along, scarcely speaking at all. Dale wondered if he really was touched by his mother’s condition. And what kind of a scene would they make when they reached the hospital? Corliss, who was used to letting her feelings govern her actions. Would she realize that they wouldn’t stand for her tantrums in a hospital? Once she tried to explain to them that they must remember they would have to be very quiet when they got there, because there were a great many sick people there, some of whom were in a most critical condition.
“Well, I guess my mother’s as sick as anybody, and why should I think about other people when I’m feeling bad about my mother?” put in Corliss.
“But why would you want to make other people suffer? It won’t hurt your mother any for you to be kind and thoughtful for others.”
“I won’t worry about other people. I’ll feel bad about my mother if I want to. And you can’t stop me. I’ll scream if I like, no matter what you say.” This from Corliss.
“I’m afraid you would have somebody more unpleasant to deal with than myself,” said Dale quietly. “The hospital authorities wouldn’t allow you to stay there if you should make an outcry. They would have the orderly put you out.”
“Put me out! They wouldn’t dare.”
“Oh yes they would. It is their business to keep the hospital quiet for the sick people for whom they are responsible. Your mother is one of their parents, and for her sake, at least, you would not want to make a disturbance. Your mother might hear it, and it would make her worse.”
“Oh, she knows me. She wouldn’t mind what I did,” said Corliss.
“Well, I don’t believe you would enjoy being put out of the hospital because you wouldn’t keep the rules, and not be allowed to enter it again while your mother was there.”
“They wouldn’t dare!” said Corliss indignantly. “I never heard of such a thing. I would certainly tell them where to get off. I would get my mother’s lawyer to go and tell them. I guess they would be afraid of a lawyer, wouldn’t they?”
“I’m afraid not, Corliss,” said Dale sadly. “You see, they have their patients to look out for. You wouldn’t want them to let any harm come to your mother, would you?”
“Oh, there couldn’t any harm come to her that way. She knows me!”
“Aw, shut up, you little fool, you,” said Powelton, “and if you dare put on one of your acts at that hospital I’ll wallop you, and I don’t mean maybe.”
Corliss gave a half-frightened gasp and glanced at him sideways. It was evident she had experienced one of her loving brother’s wallopings in the past and had no desire to have another. Not this time. So they continued on their way in silence, and Dale felt almost sorry for the naughty girl who kept giving her brother speculative glances from time to time. When they reached the hospital, Corliss paused at the steps of the large building.
“I’ll just wait out here,” she said, “while you go in, Dale. I’m scared to go in until you find out how Mother is.”
“No,” said Dale firmly, “you’ll have to go in now with me. You might be needed at once, and there might not be time for me to come out and hunt for you.”
“Whaddaya mean?” she asked with bated breath, a gray look coming over her face. “You don’t think she’s dead, do you?”
“No, no, Corliss,” said Dale quietly. “I trust not. They told us to come at once, so we must go in.”
“Oh-h-h-!” began Corliss with every evidence of a tantrum nearing. Dale cast a hopeless, troubled look at her and wondered desperately what she should do next to prevent an outbreak, but to her astonishment Powelton stepped before his sister and looked into her eyes.
“Now, Corrie, you just pipe down and behave yourself. Understand?”
Corliss dropped her glance and ducked her head and went, beaten, up the steps. She dropped gratefully into the seat where Dale placed her, while Dale went up to the desk and found out where they were to go.
They had to wait a little while t
o get any information at all about the invalid.
“She’s still in the operating room,” was all the information they could get at first. But after a long, long wait, a white-starched nurse came rattling down the corridor and told them they could come up and look at her for a moment but that she was not yet out of the anesthesia and they could not stay.
They followed the nurse, filled with awe and horror as they passed open doors with glimpses of white beds and white faces on the pillows. And then they arrived at the ward with rows of beds and more white faces on pillows.
As they entered the doorway, Corliss stopped stock-still. “But that is the ward,” she said to the nurse. “You can’t put my mother in the ward. She would be furious at being put in a ward.”
The nurse gave her a sweeping glance of contempt. “Sorry, miss,” she said calmly, “it was the only place we had left in the hospital. We are overcrowded, as you can easily see.”
“Well then, you should have sent her to some other hospital,” said Corliss, sounding so much like her mother that Dale looked at her in astonishment.
“That wouldn’t have been possible if we wanted to save her life,” the nurse said. “She was bleeding and unable to say where she wanted to go even if we had had time to ask her. There was no one with her, of course, to answer for her. But anyway, we had no other room or bed.”
“Well, you must have her moved at once into a private room. No matter what it costs.”
“It isn’t a matter of cost, miss,” said the nurse, with another withering glance at the girl. “There isn’t any other room.”
“Then we’ll have her taken to another hospital at once,” said the spoiled child haughtily.
“That would be impossible,” said the nurse stiffly. “She has been operated on, and it would probably be a very serious matter to move her at present. Besides, all the others are full to overflowing. But anyway, you would have to see the doctor. And now, if you want to look in you’ll find your mother in the third bed from the far end.” And then the nurse turned coldly away and left the three standing alone in the doorway.