The Challengers

by Grace Livingston Hill

  "Why so silent, darling? Not sore are you?" he said suddenly, his bold black eyes staring close into hers to the utter disregard of the wheel he was managing.

  Melissa drew a deep breath and tried to smile with dignity. She was still trying to make it appear that she had not heard some of his ribald jokes, had not understood, trying to pleasantly ignore them. A compromising policy that made her most uncomfortable, yet she reasoned that there was nothing else she could do as long as she had to finish out the ride with him and, furthermore, must return with him after two days. She couldn't spend the butcher's money for her poor mother to repay. She simply must get back again with these people; therefore, she must not anger this young man.

  She tried to wear an air of sophistication, to pretend that she was not bothered with the outrageous things he said. She knew that young people today, many of them, called such talk "frankness" and dubbed anyone who objected to it "Victorian." Well, she had sometimes argued with her mother that she was far too particular, but now she began to change her mind. Her soul revolted at the things that were being said to her in this offhand way, as if it were quite a common way to speak. Yet all the time she had a dread in the back of her mind that this young man saw she was unsophisticated and was trying to see just how much she would stand for. She was divided between a desire to have him understand that she was no prude and a great wish to strike his handsome filthy lips.

  She reflected that if it had been Phyllis in her place, she would have probably told the young man long ago just where she stood and that he could not speak so to her and have her remain in the car with him. Phyllis would have flashed angry eyes at him when he tried to put his arm around her. Phyllis would even have got out and walked if it came to that. And suddenly she understood why her mother would have sent Phyllis instead of herself.

  Melissa had always thought that she herself was far better able to cope with people who were what she called "fresh" than Phyllis. She had always argued that to ignore evil was a better way of handling it than to be so frankly offensive against it. Yet now suddenly Melissa felt that she had failed utterly to create the impression she so much desired, and she began to wonder if after all Phyllis were right in her method.

  They stopped for dinner at a grand hotel, and the Hollisters kindly insisted that Melissa was to be their guest. She felt small and unhappy and choked as she tried to eat. And once again she had to refuse the various drinks they offered, choosing only coffee. They laughed at her good-naturedly; Mrs. Hollister patted her hand as if she had been a child and called her very abstentious, which somehow managed to sound like contempt, and Melissa's discomfort grew. She was thankful to learn that the college town to which they were traveling was only fifty or sixty miles farther on; thankful again when they went out to the car and found it dark that Mrs. Hollister asked her to sit in the backseat with her so she could talk with her a little while.

  The conversation during that last fifty miles was general, mixed with a good deal of laughter about nothing Melissa felt. She sat back, tired and worried, and wondered why she felt like crying. Here she was on her very first long automobile trip in a grand car, saving the family money by going without expense to look after her brother, and yet she somehow felt that every step she went she was displeasing them all and making more trouble for herself. It was just that she was tired and excited. That must be the explanation, for of course she had done perfectly right to come. She had to come.

  So she braced herself, sat up, and tried to laugh and be good company, talking of things about which she knew nothing, just talking to make talk. It seemed a nightmare that would never end, and her weariness was growing almost sickening now. Late in the afternoon young Hollister charged her with being silent, and she had pled that she was sleepy. He had at once tried to make her lay her head on his shoulder and take a nap, and since then she had scarcely dared to wink, lest the offer would be repeated. She felt as if she were fighting a force she did not understand, and it frightened her.

  She had always in a quiet way rather chaffed at the conventionalities with which her family had surrounded her, but now to her amazement she found that she resented any breaking down of the barriers. She wondered with a weary sigh what it all meant. Was she somehow spiritually hampered by her upbringing, so that even if she had the chance she could not unbend and do as the world was doing?

  But she was altogether too tired to think it out and was more glad than she dared to own when she saw the lights of the college town at last coming into view.

  Suddenly she forgot her fears and thrilled to the thought that she was actually here, seeing Steve's college. The other things fell away; she forgot that her brother was lying in bed with a broken leg and a questionable record, forgot that her journey had been strenuous and her companions terrifying at times and that she had to go back again quite soon with them. Forgot even that she was not sure her family would be pleased that she had come at all. She just looked with delight on the twinkling lights that beckoned to her from every charmed window.

  "And which is the hospital?" she asked suddenly, recalling with a pang her strange, unpleasant reason for being there at all.

  "Blamed if I know," responded Gene indifferently. "Seems to me they said something about its being changed. It used to be in the basement of the science building, just behind the dining halls, when I was here, but it might be in that new dorm over there. It won't take long to find out. We'll step into the office and see."

  But when they reached the office, they were told that the accident cases were in a nearby village at the new hospital that had just been built. They were taken there when the accident happened, and it had been impossible to move them. Besides, they have more facilities for caring for serious cases.

  Melissa's heart sank. Then Steve's was considered a serious case. She turned pale and felt in a real panic. She turned for explanation and comfort to young Hollister, but he seemed as chipper as a bird with no idea of anxiety. But then he might perhaps have more information about his brother. They likely had talked over long distance before they started and were not alarmed. He turned to go back to the car.

  "Come on, darling," he addressed her flippantly. "I'll run you over there."

  "But," said Melissa, hesitating, "hadn't I better ask where I am to stay tonight?"

  "Oh, there'll be a hotel in the village somewhere," he answered carelessly. "They wouldn't know anything about it here."

  "A hotel!" said Melissa in dismay. "But I thought--why----wouldn't they expect me to stay here? That's the way families of students always did at my college in case of the sickness of a student."

  "Stay here? Holy mackerel, kid!" said Hollister, facing rudely about and staring at her. "What do you think this institution is? A nursery? No, darling, this is a university! Anyone that visits here looks out for himself. They certainly would howl you down in a hurry if you were to suggest such a thing."

  A wave of deep color swept over Melissa's tired, pretty face, and troubled dignity sat upon her as she still hesitated.

  "But oughtn't I to go first to see the president? Or the dean? He was the one who telegraphed to Mother. Wouldn't he think it strange that I did not come straight to him? Won't he be wondering that he has not heard from my brother's family?"

  "They're both out of town tonight," snapped the desk clerk shortly, but Gene Hollister laughed immoderately.

  "The president! The dean? Sweet Mamma! How do you get that way, kid? Don't you know there are thousands of students here? Do you suppose the president and the dean run around feeding them every two hours and taking their temperature? Come along, kid. I'll show you the ropes. We can go over to the hospital and get wise to conditions, and then we'll find a hotel and get dinner and have a large evening, see a picture, have a dance or something. Come on! The Mater will be sound asleep again and that would be too bad!"

  So in a new dismay Melissa followed him out to the car. He seemed to think he had brought her along to have some kind of celebration or picnic. Wh
at should she do? And a hotel? She must not stay in a hotel. She could never pay for even the cheapest room without using Mr. Brady's money, and she simply must not do that. That was only for an emergency, which she fondly hoped would never arise. As for having these Hollisters pay her board, that was not to be thought of even if she had to sit up all night in some railroad station.

  The hospital was a big pretentious building, and Melissa felt overawed as she entered; but when she went to the desk for information, she was appalled to find that while Jack Hollister was established in a private room, one of the best in the place, her own brother was in the ward! A Challenger lying ill among the poorest of the poor! That hit the Challenger pride hard. She felt indignation that someone in the college had not cared for him better than that. Poor Steve! He knew the family was hard up, and he had likely told them to put him there. Her eyes filled with tears, and she turned away to hide them. But when she turned back to the desk and the starched white-capped person who presided there, she found that the Hollisters had gone off to see Jack and left her to her own fate. And her fate was that it was after hours to visit the ward and she would have to wait until tomorrow!

  She stood aghast, the tears really coming now and rolling down her white tired cheeks.

  "But I must see my brother at once!" she said. "I've traveled all day to get here, and my mother will be frightened to death if I don't telephone her at once how he is."

  The nurse eyed her thoughtfully, asked where she lived, ran over a bunch of record cards, consulted with a ward nurse who was passing and who studied Melissa indifferently, and finally relented.

  "You could go to the door and look in," she said. "Your brother is right next to the door and you could see him, but he won't know you. He's under opiates. It wouldn't do you much good, but you can look in on him if you like."

  Melissa, who had never been in a hospital but once or twice before and then to take flowers to a friend who had had her tonsils out, walked the portentous halls with her heart beating wildly. The whiteness and cleanliness, the odors of disinfectant, the far cry of a baby, the utter stillness in the dim recesses made her feel as if she were walking among tombs.

  Steve unconscious! He must be a great deal worse than they had feared. She held the little overnight bag as it if weighed a ton, and her feet seemed loaded with lead. She could hardly keep up with the nurse who led the way.

  At last she stood in the doorway looking into a room with rows of beds against the wall. She was aware of a battery of eyes watching her, aware of the sheeted screens drawn about certain beds, an air of terrible earnestness everywhere. Instantly aware, too, of one screened bed on the left where three relatives of a sick man stood weeping about him. She knew without being told that the man must be dying. And her brother was here among all this! Steve! Her merry-hearted brother, with his bright smile and his strong body! How could he survive in a place of death like this?

  Then she saw him in the narrow white bed on the right of the door, his unruly brown curls swathed in bandages, plaster on one cheek, his strong, lithe arms flung out helplessly on the coverlet, restlessly picking at the edge of the sheet. A frame was at the foot of the bed to hold the covers from the broken leg, a weight hanging from the foot of the bed to pull the leg straight. Stephen with his merry lips muttering strange words, crying out, from a face so bruised and bandaged that only the muttering lips and the cleft in the fine Challenger chin were recognizable. Stephen, moving his head from side to side in that strange monotonous way, with closed eyes, the motion of a lion or a leopard caged in the zoo padding back and forth in its cell! She stood and watched him, the tears flowing down her face.

  Suddenly as she stood there, he cried out:

  "Don't, Sylvia! Don't touch that wheel! Can't you see we're on the edge of the cliff?" Then he flung his arms wildly out and half raised himself from the bed, falling back again with a moan.

  The ward nurse sprang to hold him down and called to another nurse:

  "This man will have to be strapped down. We can't have him thrashing around like that! He's probably slipped that bone out of place again. You better send for the house doctor to look him over. Where is the head nurse? She'll have to look after this."

  Melissa stood there, shrinking against the wall out of the way as the doctor arrived and they began to work over Stephen, who tried to resist them. Poor Steve! Wild at their interference! He was all too evidently living over again the accident, and Melissa, watching, was getting illuminating sidelights on what had happened. Steve! In a mess like that! Whiskey flasks and the kind of girls that would be spoken to as her brother was speaking now! Steve, mixed up with people like that!

  Her experiences of the day had somewhat prepared her to understand more than she would otherwise have done.

  In the midst of this, a nurse from another ward touched her on the arm and told her that Mrs. Hollister had sent word that they were going to the hotel now and she must come right away.

  Melissa gasped and shook her head.

  "Please tell her that I cannot come now. Tell her I must attend to telephoning my family. I will come to the hotel later if I find it possible," she said, with a quick relief that she had an excuse to get away from the Hollisters for a while at least. She had no desire for the "large evening" that had been suggested by Gene Hollister.

  No one noticed her nor sent her away. She drew back in the corner almost out of sight behind the screen but kept a fearsome watch on her brother. Oh, how was she going to tell her mother all about this? What had Steve to do with that Sylvia person, a girl who drank? "Sylvia, you're silly-drunk!" he cried out once. Had Steve been drinking, too? Was that the cause of the accident?

  She shuddered in her corner behind the screen.

  But, no, Steve's voice rang out again:

  "I'm the only one in this outfit that isn't stewed! No, don't pass me that flask! I wouldn't touch a drop of the vile stuff. Jack, sit down! Don't you see the car is tipping! There she goes!"--and then a moan that was heartrending.

  They had finished strapping Steve to the bed. The doctor had administered some medicine, and only one nurse was left, straightening the bedclothes and putting everything in order again. The nurse that had brought Melissa down the hall had gone. She was apparently forgotten. Standing on the other side of the screen, just at the head of her brother's bed, her back against the wall, she wept silently and watched him till he quieted down.

  Across the aisle on the other side of the hall door, the group around the dying man turned suddenly away weeping, as the nurse drew a sheet up over the head of the bed and hastily pushed the screen around to the foot to make better shelter. The friends were drifting sorrowfully out into the hall now. The ward was very quiet. The patient just behind Melissa had his eyes closed. She gave a swift survey of the room and saw they had averted their faces, those other patients who had to lie, sick and miserable, and know what was going on about them. Oh, what a terrible place was a hospital, thought Melissa, mopping her eyes with her wet handkerchief.

  Steve had quieted down now, only a moan as he turned his head from side to side in that perpetual monotonous motion. A moan every time he faced the wall, keeping perfect rhythm with his turning. Melissa almost groaned aloud and wished she had not come. What good was she doing here? How could she tell her mother how bad things were?

  Then the head nurse came by and discovered her.

  "Oh, my dear!" she said in her calm, matronly voice. "You can't stay here! Whoever let you come in?"

  Melissa tried to stop her tears and steady her voice to answer.

  "Isn't there someplace I can sit down a little while?" she managed to ask between her sobs.

  "Why, certainly, there is a visitors' room, down at the end of the corridor. You can sit there as long as you like. The doors of the hospital are usually closed to visitors at ten thirty except in cases where patients are in very critical condition and the friends have to stay all night. But you could go in there and sit for a while till you feel like g
oing home. Who are you? Is this patient a relative of yours? You're not the girl that was with him in the accident, are you?" And Melissa caught an edge of contempt in her voice.

  "Oh, no indeed!" said Melissa indignantly. "He's my brother! I don't know who was with him when he was hurt. I don't know anything about it. Would you mind telling me? I can't seem to find anybody who knows."

  The head nurse led her out and down the hall to the reception room, but she could give her very little information. He had been brought in last night at about half past two o'clock. It had been a wild drinking party, she surmised, because the other young man who was in the party had been dead drunk.

  "Not my brother?" Melissa gasped out with a terrible question in her voice. "He never drinks!"

  "Perhaps not," said the head nurse dryly, as if she didn't believe that any young man did not drink nowadays, "but at least he was not under the influence of it. I understand there were two girls in the car and one of them jumped out just as the car went over the embankment. The other girl wasn't injured seriously, just some minor bruises, and her family took her home this afternoon. Your brother got the worst of it, for he was driving. They say he might have jumped and saved himself perhaps, but he wouldn't leave his wheel. The other young man jumped, and being drunk of course fell limp and wasn't so badly hurt. Now, here is the room, and you can rest a little while, but if I were you, I would go home pretty soon. It's getting late, you know, and you can't do anybody any good by staying here. Your brother wouldn't know you were here. He may be several days like this."

  "Oh," gasped Melissa forlornly and then suddenly remembering her mother, said, "But I must telephone Mother. Is there a long-distance phone in the building?"

  The nurse gave her directions how to find it.

  "Could you--just tell me--what I ought to tell Mother about Steve?" she asked like a little frightened child. "She will be terribly worried. She couldn't come herself because Father has been very ill and they don't dare tell him about it, and he would miss Mother and want to know why she had gone."