by Frank Norris
All at once she realised that while debating the question she had been sitting on one of the benches under the trees in the square. The sun was setting; evening was coming on. Maybe if she waited until six o’clock she could enter the house while the other nurses were at supper, gain her room unobserved, then lock herself in and deny herself to all callers. But Lloyd made a weary, resigned movement of her shoulders. Sooner or later she must meet them all eye to eye. It would be only putting off the humiliation.
She rose, and, turning to the house, began to walk slowly toward it. Why put it off? It would be as hard at one time as another. But so great was her sense of shame that even as she walked she fancied that the very passers-by, the loungers on the benches around the fountain, must know that here was a disgraced woman. Was it not apparent in her very face, in the very uncertainty of her gait? She told herself she had not done wisely to sit even for a moment upon the bench she had just quitted. She wondered if she had been observed, and furtively glanced about her. There! Was not that nursemaid studying her too narrowly? And the policeman close at hand, was he not watching her quizzically? She quickened her gait, moved with a sudden impulse to get out of sight, to hide within doors — where? In the house? There where, so soon as she set foot in it, her companions, the other nurses, must know her dishonour? Where was she to go? Where to turn? What was to become of her?
But she must go to the house. It was inevitable. She went forward, as it were, step by step. That little journey across the square under the elms and cottonwoods was for her a veritable chemin de la croix. Every step was an agony; every yard covered only brought her nearer the time and place of exposure. It was all the more humiliating because she knew that her impelling motive was not one of duty. There was nothing lofty in the matter — nothing self-sacrificing. She went back because she had to go back. Little material necessities, almost ludicrous in their pettiness, forced her on.
As she came nearer she looked cautiously at the windows of the agency. Who would be the first to note her home-coming? Would it be Miss Douglass, or Esther Thielman, or Miss Bergyn, the superintendent nurse? What would first be said to her? With what words would she respond? Then how the news of the betrayal of her trust would flash from room to room! How it would be discussed, how condemned, how deplored! Not one of the nurses of that little band but would not feel herself hurt by what she had done — by what she had been forced to do. And the news of her failure would spread to all her acquaintances and friends throughout the City. Dr. Street would know it; every physician to whom she had hitherto been so welcome an aid would know it. In all the hospitals it would be a nine days’ gossip. Campbell would hear of it, and Hattie.
All at once, within thirty feet of the house, Lloyd turned about and walked rapidly away from it. The movement was all but involuntary; every instinct in her, every sense of shame, brusquely revolted. It was stronger than she. A power, for the moment irresistible, dragged her back from that doorway. Once entering here, she left all hope behind. Yet the threshold must be crossed, yet the hope must be abandoned.
She felt that if she faced about now a second time she would indeed attract attention. So, while her cheeks flamed hot at the meanness, the miserable ridiculousness of the imposture, she assumed a brisk, determined gait, as though she knew just where she were going, and, turning out of the square down a by-street, walked around the block, even stopping once or twice before a store, pretending an interest in the display. It seemed to her that by now everybody in the streets must have noted that there was something wrong with her. Twice as a passer-by brushed past her she looked back to see if he was watching her. How to live through the next ten minutes? If she were only in her room, bolted in, locked and double-locked in. Why was there not some back way through which she could creep to that seclusion?
And so it was that Lloyd came back to the house she had built, to the little community she had so proudly organised, to the agency she had founded, and with her own money endowed and supported.
At last she found herself at the bottom of the steps, her foot upon the lowest one, her hand clasping the heavy bronze rail. There was no going back now. She went up and pushed the button of the electric bell, and then, the step once taken, the irrevocable once dared, something like the calmness of resignation came to her. There was no help for it. Now for the ordeal. Rownie opened the door for her with a cheery welcome. Lloyd was dimly conscious that the girl said something about her mail, and that she was just in time for supper. But the hall and stairway were deserted and empty, while from the dining-room came a subdued murmur of conversation and the clink of dishes. The nurses were at supper, as Lloyd had hoped. The moment favoured her, and she brushed by Rownie, and almost ran, panic-stricken and trembling, up the stairs.
She gained the hall of the second floor. There was the door of her room standing ajar. With a little gasp of infinite relief, she hurried to it, entered, shut and locked and bolted it behind her, and, casting her satchel and handbag from her, flung herself down upon the great couch, and buried her head deep among the cushions.
At Lloyd’s abrupt entrance Miss Douglass turned about from the book-shelves in an angle of the room and stared a moment in no little surprise. Then she exclaimed:
“Why, Lloyd, why, what is it — what is the matter?”
Lloyd sprang up sharply at the sound of her voice, and then sank down to a sitting posture upon the edge of the couch. Quietly enough she said:
“Oh, is it you? I didn’t know — expect to find any one—”
“You don’t mind, do you? I just ran in to get a book — something to read. I’ve had a headache all day, and didn’t go down to supper.”
Lloyd nodded. “Of course — I don’t mind,” she said, a little wearily.
“But tell me,” continued the fever nurse, “whatever is the matter? When you came in just now — I never saw you so — oh, I understand, your case at Medford—”
Lloyd’s hands closed tight upon the edge of the couch.
“No one could have got a patient through when the fever had got as far as that,” continued the other. “This must have been the fifth or sixth week. The second telegram came just in time to prevent my going. I was just going out of the door when the boy came with it.”
“You? What telegram?” inquired Lloyd.
“Yes, I was on call. The first despatch asking for another extra nurse came about two o’clock. The four-twenty was the first train I could have taken — the two-forty-five express is a through train and don’t stop at Medford — and, as I say, I was just going out of the door when Dr. Pitts’s second despatch came, countermanding the first, and telling us that the patient had died. It seems that it was one of the officers of the Freja expedition. We didn’t know—”
“Died?” interrupted Lloyd, looking fixedly at her.
“But Lloyd, you mustn’t take it so to heart. You couldn’t have got him through. No one could at that time. He was probably dying when you were sent for. We must all lose a case now and then.”
“Died?” repeated Lloyd; “Dr. Pitts wired that Mr. Ferriss died?”
“Yes; it was to prevent my coming out there uselessly. He must have sent the wire quite an hour before you left. It was very thoughtful of him.”
“He’s dead,” said Lloyd in a low, expressionless voice, looking vacantly about the room. “Mr. Ferriss is dead.” Then suddenly she put a fist to either temple, horror-struck and for the moment shaken with hysteria from head to foot, her eyes widening with an expression almost of terror. “Dead!” she cried. “Oh, it’s horrible! Why didn’t I — why couldn’t I—”
“I know just how you feel,” answered Miss Douglass soothingly. “I am that way myself sometimes. It’s not professional, I know, but when you have been successful in two or three bad cases you think you can always win; and then when you lose the next case you believe that somehow it must have been your fault — that if you had been a little more careful at just that moment, or done a little different in that particular po
int, you might have saved your patient. But you, of all people, ought not to feel like that. If you could not have saved your case nobody could.”
“It was just because I had the case that it was lost.”
“Nonsense, Lloyd; don’t talk like that. You’ve not had enough sleep; your nerves have been over-strained. You’re worn out and a little hysterical and morbid. Now lie down and keep quiet, and I’ll bring you your supper. You need a good night’s sleep and bromide of potassium.”
When she had gone Lloyd rose to her feet and drew her hand wearily across her eyes. The situation adjusted itself in her mind. After the first recoil of horror at Ferriss’s death she was able to see the false position in which she stood. She had been so certain already that Ferriss would die, leaving him as she did at so critical a moment, that now the sharpness of Miss Douglass’s news was blunted a little. She had only been unprepared for the suddenness of the shock. But now she understood clearly how Miss Douglass had been deceived by circumstances. The fever nurse had heard of Ferriss’s death early in the afternoon, and supposed, of course, that Lloyd had left the case after, and not before, it had occurred. This was the story the other nurses would believe. Instantly, in the flood of grief and remorse and humiliation that had overwhelmed her, Lloyd caught at this straw of hope. Only Dr. Pitts and Bennett knew the real facts. Bennett, of course, would not speak, and Lloyd knew that the physician would understand the cruelty and injustice of her situation, and because of that would also keep silence. To make sure of this she could write him a letter, or, better still, see him personally. It would be hard to tell him the truth. But that was nothing when compared with the world’s denunciation of her.
If she had really been false to her charge, if she had actually flinched and faltered at the crucial moment, had truly been the coward, this deception which had been thrust upon her at the moment of her return to the house, this part which it was so easy to play, would have been a hideous and unspeakable hypocrisy. But Lloyd had not faltered, had not been false. In her heart of hearts she had been true to herself and to her trust. How would she deceive her companions then by allowing them to continue in the belief of her constancy, fidelity, and courage? What she hid from them, or rather what they could not see, was a state of things that it was impossible for any one but herself to understand. She could not — no woman could — bring herself to confess to another woman what had happened that day at Medford. It would be believed that she could have stayed at her patient’s bedside if she had so desired. No one who did not know Bennett could understand the terrible, vast force of the man.
Try as she would, Lloyd could not but think first of herself at this moment. Bennett was ignored, forgotten. Once she had loved him, but that was all over now. The thought of Ferriss’s death, for which in a manner she had been forced to be responsible, came rushing to her mind from time to time, and filled her with a horror and, at times, even a perverse sense of remorse, almost beyond words. But Lloyd’s pride, her self-confidence, her strength of character and independence had been dearer to her than almost anything in life. So she told herself, and, at that moment, honestly believed. And though she knew that her pride had been humbled, it was not gone, and enough of it remained to make her desire and strive to keep the fact a secret from the world. It seemed very easy. She would only have to remain passive. Circumstances acted for her.
Miss Douglass returned, followed by Rownie carrying a tray. When the mulatto had gone, after arranging Lloyd’s supper on a little table near the couch, the fever nurse drew up a chair.
“Now we can talk,” she said, “unless you are too tired. I’ve been so interested in this case at Medford. Tell me what was the immediate cause of death; was it perforation or just gradual collapse?”
“It was neither,” said Lloyd quickly. “It was a hemorrhage.”
She had uttered the words with as little consciousness as a phonograph, and the lie had escaped her before she was aware. How did she know what had been the immediate cause of death? What right had she to speak? Why was it that all at once a falsehood had come so easy to her, to her whose whole life until then had been so sincere, so genuine?
“A hemorrhage?” repeated the other. “Had there been many before then? Was there coma vigil when the end came? I—”
“Oh,” cried Lloyd with a quick gesture of impatience, “don’t, don’t ask me any more. I am tired — nervous; I am worn out.”
“Yes, of course you must be,” answered the fever nurse. “We won’t talk any more about it.”
That night and the following day were terrible. Lloyd neither ate nor slept. Not once did she set foot out of her room, giving out that she was ill, which was not far from the truth, and keeping to herself and to the companionship of the thoughts and terrors that crowded her mind. Until that day at Medford her life had run easily and happily and in well-ordered channels. She was successful in her chosen profession and work. She imagined herself to be stronger and of finer fibre than most other women, and her love for Bennett had lent a happiness and a sweetness to her life dear to her beyond all words. Suddenly, and within an hour’s time, she had lost everything. Her will had been broken, her spirit crushed; she had been forced to become fearfully instrumental in causing the death of her patient — a man who loved and trusted her — while her love for Bennett, which for years had been her deep and abiding joy, the one great influence of her life, was cold and dead, and could never be revived.
This in the end came to be Lloyd’s greatest grief. She could forget that she herself had been humbled and broken. Horrible, unspeakably horrible, as Ferriss’s death seemed to her, it was upon Bennett, and not upon her, that its responsibility must be laid. She had done what she could. Of that she was assured. But, first and above all things, Lloyd was a woman, and her love for Bennett was a very different matter.
When, during that never-to-be-forgotten scene in the breakfast-room of the doctor’s house, she had warned Bennett that if he persisted in his insane resolution he would stamp out her affection for him, Lloyd had only half believed what she said. But when at last it dawned upon her that she had spoken wiser than she knew, that this was actually true, and that now, no matter how she might desire it, she could not love him any longer, it seemed as though her heart must break. It was precisely as though Bennett himself, the Bennett she had known, had been blotted out of existence. It was much worse than if Bennett had merely died. Even then he would have still existed for her, somewhere. As it was, the man she had known simply ceased to be, irrevocably, finally, and the warmth of her love dwindled and grew cold, because now there was nothing left for it to feed upon.
Never until then had Lloyd realised how much he had been to her; how he had not only played so large a part in her life, but how he had become a very part of her life itself. Her love for him had been like the air, like the sunlight; was delicately knitted and intertwined into all the innumerable intricacies of her life and character. Literally, not an hour had ever passed that, directly or indirectly, he had not occupied her thoughts. He had been her inspiration; he had made her want to be brave and strong and determined, and it was because of him that the greater things of the world interested her. She had chosen a work to be done because he had set her an example. So only that she preserved her womanliness, she, too, wanted to count, to help on, to have her place in the world’s progress. In reality all her ambitions and hopes had been looking toward one end only, that she might be his equal; that he might find in her a companion and a confidante; one who could share his enthusiasms and understand his vast projects and great aims.
And how had he treated her when at last opportunity had been given her to play her part, to be courageous and strong, to prevail against great odds, while he stood by to see? He had ignored and misunderstood, and tossed aside as childish and absurd that which she had been building up for years. Instead of appreciating her heroism he had forced her to become a coward in the eyes of the world. She had hoped to be his equal, and he had treated her as a sch
ool-girl. It had all been a mistake. She was not and could not be the woman she had hoped. He was not and never had been the man she had imagined. They had nothing in common.
But it was not easy to give Bennett up, to let him pass out of her life. She wanted to love him yet. With all her heart and strength, in spite of everything — woman that she was, she had come to that — in spite of everything she wanted to love him. Though he had broken her will, thwarted her ambitions, ignored her cherished hopes, misunderstood and mistaken her, yet, if she could, Lloyd would yet have loved him, loved him even for the very fact that he had been stronger than she.
Again and again she tried to awaken this dead affection, to call back this vanished love. She tried to remember the Bennett she had known; she told herself that he loved her; that he had said that the great things he had done had been done only with an eye to her approval; that she had been his inspiration no less than he had been hers; that he had fought his way back, not only to life, but to her. She thought of all he had suffered, of the hardships and privations beyond her imagination to conceive, that he had undergone. She tried to recall the infinite joy of that night when the news of his safe return had come to her; she thought of him at his very best — how he had always seemed to her the type of the perfect man, masterful, aggressive, accomplishing great projects with an energy and determination almost superhuman, one of the world’s great men, whose name the world still shouted. She called to mind how the very ruggedness of his face; with its massive lines and harsh angles, had attracted her; how she had been proud of his giant’s strength, the vast span of his shoulders, the bull-like depth of his chest, the sense of enormous physical power suggested by his every movement.
But it was all of no effect. That Bennett was worse than dead to her. The Bennett that now came to her mind and imagination was the brutal, perverse man of the breakfast-room at Medford, coarse, insolent, intractable, stamping out all that was finest in her, breaking and flinging away the very gifts he had inspired her to offer him. It was nothing to him that she should stand degraded in the eyes of the world. He did not want her to be brave and strong. She had been wrong; it was not that kind of woman he desired. He had not acknowledged that she, too, as well as he — a woman as well as a man might have her principles, her standards of honour, her ideas of duty. It was not her character, then, that he prized; the nobility of her nature was nothing to him; he took no thought of the fine-wrought texture of her mind. How, then, did she appeal to him? It was not her mind; it was not her soul. What, then, was left? Nothing but the physical. The shame of it; the degradation of it! To be so cruelly mistaken in the man she loved, to be able to appeal to him only on his lower side! Lloyd clasped her hands over her eyes, shutting her teeth hard against a cry of grief and pain and impotent anger. No, no, now it was irrevocable; now her eyes were opened. The Bennett she had known and loved had been merely a creature of her own imagining; the real man had suddenly discovered himself; and this man, in spite of herself, she hated as a victim hates its tyrant.