The Silent Harp

by Gilbert, Morris

  Maurice moved forward and put his arms around the young woman. “He loved you very much. He talked about you constantly in his letters.”

  “But he won’t come home now. He can never come home. . . .” Sharon tried to think, but all she could hear in her mind was the pounding of the old refrain: I should have married him, I should have married him. . . .

  ****

  Sharon was walking along the sidewalk in front of the house on a blustery November day when a cab pulled into the drive. The weeks that had passed since she’d received the news of Robert’s death had been a blur to her. She and her parents had traveled to Buffalo to attend the funeral, though Robert’s body remained buried in France, a simple white cross marking his grave among thousands of others. The only way she could endure the pain was to follow a daily routine, which she did mechanically, trying not to think and not to feel. When she got up each morning, Lorraine dressed her almost as if she were a child. She ate without tasting her food and tried to smile from time to time, but she was like a ghost, and her parents were worried sick about her.

  She had been walking now for over an hour, up and down the street, when the cab pulled up in front of the house and a tall man in an officer’s uniform got out. He said something to the driver, then, leaning heavily on a cane, moved slowly toward the house.

  Sharon knew this had something to do with Robert. When she stepped toward him, he saw her and paused.

  “May I help you? I’m Sharon Winslow.”

  “My name is Jesse Stanton.”

  “Captain Stanton. Come inside. Robert wrote about you often.”

  Sharon adjusted her pace to his slow gait. It took some effort for him to climb the steps, and when they reached the parlor, he sat down with relief. “I’m still a bit unsteady on my pins.”

  “When were you wounded?”

  “In September at St. Mihiel.”

  Sharon knew this was where Robert had lost his life. She sat down and studied the face of the soldier. It looked strong, full of character, with direct gray eyes and a determined chin. He looked like the sort of man that other men would follow. “Robert wrote of you so often, Captain. He had such respect and admiration for you.”

  “The feeling was mutual,” Stanton said. “He was the finest young officer I ever met. I can’t tell you what his loss meant to me.”

  “You were in the action where he . . . was lost?” She could not bring herself to say the word killed.

  “Yes, I was. I came because we were such good friends, and I wanted to tell you about him.”

  Sharon listened as Stanton told her about his friendship with Robert. He went into detail about what a fine soldier he had become, how he always put the safety of his men over his own. He spoke of how the men admired him and trusted him, and he could not say enough about his courage.

  “He was not foolhardy, but he was very, very courageous. Just before the attack he was writing a letter,” he said as he reached into his pocket. “I asked him who it was for, and he said it was for you. So I came to bring it.”

  He handed an envelope to her, and with trembling hands she opened it. It contained a letter, crumpled and stained, and a small oblong box. She would save the letter for later, when she was alone. She opened the box and saw it contained a medal.

  “That’s the Croix de Guerre, the highest honor that the French can designate.”

  “What did he do, Captain?”

  “He crawled out under fire and pulled back three wounded men, one after another. The air was full of sniper fire, and shells were bursting everywhere. I don’t see how he survived it, but he came through without a scratch. A French general was in our lines, and he saw it. The award ceremony was quite a scene, with the French all lined up and saluting Robert as he went forward. The general pinned the medal on his uniform and then kissed him on both cheeks.” Stanton smiled. “Robert told me he didn’t care much for the kissing part. That he’d rather have one from you than the medal itself.”

  Stanton stayed for over an hour and then finally got to his feet. “Thank you so much for coming, Captain Stanton. It means so very much to me.”

  Stanton said heavily, “This is what makes war so bad. Your fiancé had a fine career. He always entertained the men by singing popular songs. Not opera so much. They loved him for it. I’ll miss him and so will the world. Good-bye, my dear Miss Winslow.”

  Sharon waited until he had left; then she went to her room and sat down on her bed with the letter. It was very brief, speaking not of the danger that lay ahead but of his love for her.

  Some men go all their lives and never find the right woman. I am so fortunate to have found the one woman who is in my sight a jewel of great price. You remember what I said at the station. If something should happen to me, my dear, do not grieve any more than you can help. I wouldn’t want you to miss out on life. Think of me sometimes, but let God bless you with a good life.

  The letter broke off there abruptly, and she had the feeling it was unfinished.

  Sitting there holding the wrinkled letter, Sharon knew she would never find another man like Robert. A flood of emotion overwhelmed her, a grinding bitterness at what the war had done. She had been so happy until she had been struck down mercilessly by the hateful gods of war.

  She rose and went over to the window, staring out blindly. For a time she stood perfectly still; then she slumped to the floor, crying out, “I should have married him! I loved him so, and I should have married him!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Reluctant Doctor

  Dr. Franz Steiner wore a troubled expression as he looked across the desk at Leland. “I’m afraid, Mr. Winslow,” he said with his thick German accent, “that we have a very troubled young woman on our hands.” Leaning back in his chair, he clasped his hands together, apparently finished with his diagnosis. The tall, stooped man wore a Vandyke beard and gold-rimmed glasses, which he fingered nervously from time to time. His austere attire—a white lab coat and black trousers—matched his office. The bare room was furnished with one desk, empty save for a pen and note pad on top, and two wooden chairs. The walls, however, were much busier, covered with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves packed with books, papers, and periodicals stuffed wherever possible in between volumes. One window provided the only break from the cluttered walls.

  Dr. Steiner took his glasses off, exhaled on them, and polished them slowly with a handkerchief from his lab-coat pocket. “Yes,” he said slowly, “a very troubled young woman.”

  Leland was somewhat intimidated by the office and by the tall man who sat in front of him. He was accustomed to being in control of situations, but there was no way he could control this one. Steiner was not the first doctor he had come to see on Sharon’s behalf. There had been others with whom he felt he could be direct, demanding to know the root of his daughter’s problem. As months, and then years, had passed with no diagnosis and no improvement, he had grown less secure in his hope of finding a solution to Sharon’s problems. She had grown progressively more withdrawn and silent. In the business world he was master of every situation, but sitting across from Steiner he felt weak and ineffectual, and his voice had an abnormally uncertain tone to it.

  “Dr. Steiner, my daughter’s been in trouble for over three years. At first we thought it was just the result of her fiancé going to war and then, of course, his death—and perhaps it is. But other women lost their men in the war and have managed to come out of it. Sharon has just been getting steadily worse.”

  Steiner nodded. “Yes, I understand. It is unusual, perhaps, but not at all unique.”

  “She simply doesn’t care about anything!” Winslow complained, his voice growing intense. “Sometimes she just sits for hours and stares out the window, or she goes on long walks. She doesn’t seem to hear what people are saying. Look,” he said, a shade of his authority returning to his voice, “you’ve been seeing Sharon for weeks now, and her mother and I can’t see any difference. We need to know something, Doctor.”

>   “Some cases are more difficult than others,” Steiner said gently. He was accustomed to dealing with shocked relatives and had learned to build up an emotional wall so he did not become personally involved with their predicament. It was the patient who mattered, not her family, and Sharon Winslow was the patient.

  “What’s wrong with her, Doctor? Can’t you tell us anything?”

  “Her trouble is not physical, of course. She’s troubled in her mind.”

  “Yes, we know that!” Frustrated, Winslow rose and walked to the window and stared out at a sparrow defending his crumbs from several other more aggressive sparrows. As Leland watched the miniature warfare, he began to feel like that one sparrow battling against an unbeatable force. Sharon’s problem had defeated him, and he was beside himself with anxiety. He turned back to the doctor, his face creased with worry lines. “We expected you could help her, Dr. Steiner.”

  “And I wish I could, but I’ve obviously had no success so far. And you’re right. Her trouble has its roots in the loss of her fiancé.”

  “Why is it so hard for her? One of my business associates had a niece who lost her fiancé in the war. She grieved for six months, but she slowly came back. Why is Sharon so different? Why has she just tuned out the whole world?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out, Mr. Winslow.”

  “We’re . . . we’re afraid she’s going to lose her mind.”

  Dr. Steiner was familiar with Leland Winslow’s dark fear. Many parents and relatives of his patients experienced the same misgivings.

  “It’s a possibility we must consider.”

  Winslow slammed his large fist into his palm and exclaimed, “We’ve got to do something! You’re supposed to be the best psychiatrist in New York City! Maybe we should take her to Europe. Those fellows over there are supposed to know something about this sort of problem.”

  Steiner nodded slowly. “I have thought of that, and I can recommend some fine physicians. But . . .”

  Winslow caught the hesitation in Steiner’s voice and saw the doubt in his eyes. “But what?”

  “But I am not sure that any of my colleagues over there would be of any more help than I. Without being immodest, I might say that I use the same methods as they do, and I’ve had as much success as any one I know of. Of course, I can recommend some fine men over there.”

  A silence fell over the room, and Leland’s frustration plainly showed. The corners of his mouth drooped, and he ground his teeth together. “I’ve never experienced anything like this, Doctor. I had a hard time growing up as a young man, but fighting the world of business is one thing. Hard as that was, it’s nothing like this.”

  “I know. This is the most difficult thing any parent ever has to face.” Steiner spread his hands apart in an unexpectedly eloquent gesture and shook his head vehemently. “I have been troubled about your daughter. Sharon is . . . she is in danger.” He hesitated before continuing. “I had thought once that—”

  He broke off. “You thought what, Doctor? You’ve got something on your mind you’re not telling me.”

  “I’m not certain I should tell you.”

  “Go ahead. Let’s have it with the bark on it. Lucille and I are desperate, Dr. Steiner. We’ve got to do something.”

  “Well, there is a doctor in Canada who has had considerable success with patients where others like myself have failed.”

  Quickly Leland asked, “What’s his name?”

  “Dr. Philip Chardoney. I have not mentioned him before this because I was confident that my methods would work. And I hesitate to mention him now.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” Winslow demanded bluntly. “Is he a quack or what?”

  “Indeed, I’m afraid some of my colleagues might say so.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “I have been following his work, but I have recommended him only rarely.”

  “Why?”

  “His methods are . . . unusual, to say the least.”

  “Unusual how?”

  “Well,” Steiner went on reluctantly, “he feels that patients should be taken away from all their normal surroundings, so he has established what he simply calls ‘the Camp’ in Canada. It’s about fifty miles northeast of Montreal. He will treat only those who agree to stay there until they are either healed or he feels he cannot help them any longer.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad to me. It might be exactly what she needs.”

  “Yes, it might, but he has other strange ways. All the patients there must work—I mean do physical labor. They hire very few people at the camp. The patients all wash dishes, cook, cut firewood, mop the floors. Everything that must be done.”

  “How is that supposed to help a person who has mental problems?”

  “That I cannot say, but it’s part of his program. He has other methods. I understand that he does not counsel patients in an office, as is customary. He doesn’t even have a couch like many of my colleagues use.”

  “How and where does he talk to them, then?”

  “He goes to them wherever they are. Sometimes when they’re reading a book outside or perhaps just sitting in their room listening to a gramophone record. He just drops by. Very, very informal.”

  Steiner went on for some time explaining Chardoney’s unusual methods, and finally he said, “Although I can’t say I condone this man’s approach, as I said, he has met with some success where others haven’t. Several years ago a patient of mine, a young man, was in terrible condition, on the brink of insanity. I had failed with him completely—absolutely. I was embarrassed by my failure. His father heard of Chardoney and sent him away to this camp. A decision, I might add, that I completely disagreed with.”

  Steiner hesitated and ran his eyes over the books lining the wall. He seemed to have forgotten what he was saying, so Leland prompted, “What happened?”

  “This young patient of mine came back six months later. The change in him was indescribable. He was a different person. His eyes were bright. He was filled with hope. He had all the signs of normalcy—he was totally functional. It was a miracle to me. I can put no other name on it.”

  Leland was accustomed to making quick decisions in the world of business, and now he had heard all he needed to hear. “Let me have his phone number.”

  “Please, Mr. Winslow, I urge you to think this over. It’s a very serious matter.” Steiner now apparently regretted that he had mentioned the man’s name. “You may do your daughter harm. While this man certainly has his successes, it doesn’t always turn out that way.”

  “Do you have any other recommendations?” Winslow demanded.

  “Well, no, except you may choose to send your daughter to Europe as you suggested.”

  “But you don’t believe that’s hopeful.”

  “No, I do not.”

  “Then give me the number.”

  Steiner opened the top drawer of his desk and took out a small book. He riffled through the pages, then took out a blank card and slowly wrote out a name and number. He handed the card to Leland with a final warning. “You need to understand that I do not recommend this.”

  “Would you do it if she were your daughter and everything else had failed?”

  “Yes, Mr. Winslow,” he said slowly, “that is exactly what I would do.”

  ****

  Lucille twined her fingers together nervously as Leland reported on his interview with Dr. Steiner. She waited until he hesitated and then said, “What is it, Leland? You’re not telling me something.” Fear swept over her, and with tightly pressed lips she whispered, “He didn’t say it was hopeless, did he?”

  “No, dear, he didn’t say that. As a matter of fact, he recommended a doctor who has had rather spectacular results in cases like this.”

  Hope leaped into Lucille’s eyes, and she impulsively grasped Leland’s hand. “Who is he? We must go to him at once.”

  “His name is Philip Chardoney, but, well, there’s a slight problem. This doctor is in Canada.
He has a clinic in Quebec that he calls the Camp. One of the conditions he insists on is that his patients must come and live there. Quite different from other psychiatrists.”

  “Did Dr. Steiner feel this man would be able to help?”

  “Yes. Steiner told me about one instance of a cure that was nothing short of miraculous.”

  Lucille asked question after question, and Leland concealed his own doubts about Chardoney’s methods. He was worried about Lucille, for she was with Sharon constantly and was much more exposed to the behavior that brought such distress to both of them.

  “I believe this is the right thing to do,” he said cheerfully. “I think we should get her there immediately.”

  “Have you talked to the doctor?”

  “Yes, I called Dr. Chardoney the minute I got home, and he has agreed to take her as a patient. I think I’ll go up right now and tell Sharon about this.”

  Rising from the couch, Leland went straight upstairs and knocked on Sharon’s door. As usual, she was sitting in a chair staring vacantly out the window at the frigid February scene. She turned and said tonelessly, “Good morning, Dad.”

  “Good morning, Sharon.”

  As he moved across the room to stand over her, Leland saw a pile of letters on Sharon’s lap and knew they were the ones Robert had written her. He saw grief on her face and the trace of tears on her cheeks.

  I wish she wouldn’t read those letters over and over. I think maybe Chardoney has the right idea. Get the patients away from home and keep their hands and their minds occupied. Aloud he said, “I’ve come to tell you about a new doctor I think is going to be a great deal of help to you, Sharon.”

  Leland spoke quickly, not going into great detail, making Chardoney sound as attractive as possible.

  “ . . . he has this place he calls the Camp, and you must go and stay with him for a time. I think it will be good for you to get away,” he said as cheerfully as he could. “I’ve made all the arrangements.”