by Zane Grey
To move, to get up was not an easy task. It took stern will, and all the strength of muscle he had left, and when he finally achieved it there was a clammy dew of pain upon his face. With slow guarded movements he began to dress himself. Any sudden or violent action might burst the delicate gassed spots in his lungs or throw out of place one of the lower vertebrae of his spine. The former meant death, and the latter bent his body like a letter S and caused such excruciating agony that it was worse than death. These were his two ever-present perils. The other aches and pains he could endure.
He shaved and put on clean things, and his best coat, and surveyed himself in the little mirror. He saw a thin face, white as marble, but he was not ashamed of it. His story was there to read, if any one had kind enough eyes to see. What would Helen think of him—and Margaret Maynard—and Dal—and Mel Iden? Bitter curiosity seemed his strongest feeling concerning his fiancee. He would hold her as engaged to him until she informed him she was not. As for the others, thought of them quickened his interest, especially in Mel. What had happened to her.
It was going to be wonderful to meet them—and to meet everybody he had once known. Wonderful because he would see what the war had done to them and they would see what it had done to him. A peculiar significance lay between his sister and Helen—all these girls, and the fact of his having gone to war.
“They may not think of it, but I know,” he muttered to himself. And he sat down upon his bed to plan how best to meet them, and others. He did not know what he was going to encounter, but he fortified himself against calamity. Strange portent of this had crossed the sea to haunt him. As soon as he was sure of what had happened in Middleville, of the attitude people would have toward a crippled soldier, and of what he could do with the month or year that might be left him to live, then he would know his own mind. All he sensed now was that there had been some monstrous inexplicable alteration in hope, love, life. His ordeal of physical strife, loneliness, longing was now over, for he was back home. But he divined that his greater ordeal lay before him, here in this little house, and out there in Middleville. All the subtlety, intelligence, and bitter vision developed by the war sharpened here to confront him with terrible possibilities. Had his countrymen, his people, his friends, his sweetheart, all failed him? Was there justice in Blair Maynard’s scorn? Lane’s faith cried out in revolt. He augmented all possible catastrophe, and then could not believe that he had sacrificed himself in vain. He knew himself. In him was embodied all the potentiality for hope of the future. And it was with the front and stride of a soldier, facing the mystery, the ingratitude, the ignorance and hell of war, that he left his room and went down stairs to meet the evils in store.
His mother was not in the kitchen. The door stood open. He heard her outside talking to a neighbor woman, over the fence.
“—Daren looks dreadful,” his mother was saying in low voice. “He could hardly walk… It breaks my heart. I’m glad to have him along—but to see him waste away, day by day, like Mary Dean’s boy—” she broke off.
“Too bad! It’s a pity,” replied the neighbor. “Sad—now it comes home to us. My son Ted came in last night and said he’d talked with a boy who’d seen young Maynard and the strange soldier who was with him. They must be worse off than Daren—Blair Maynard with only one leg and—”
“Mother, where are you? I’m hungry,” called Lane, interrupting that conversation.
She came hurriedly in, at once fearful he might have heard, and solicitous for his welfare.
“Daren, you look better in daylight—not so white,” she said. “You sit down now, and let me get your breakfast.”
Lane managed to eat a little this morning, which fact delighted his mother.
“I’m going to see Dr. Bronson,” said Lane, presently. “Then I’ll go to Manton’s, and round town a little. And if I don’t tire out I’ll call on Helen. Of course Lorna has gone to work?”
“Oh yes, she leaves at half after eight.”
“Mother, I was awake last night when she got home,” went on Lane, seriously. “It was one o’clock. She came in a car. I heard girls tittering. And some boy came up on the porch with Lorna and kissed her. Well, that might not mean much—but something about their talk, the way it was done—makes me pretty sick. Did you know this sort of thing was going on?”
“Yes. And I’ve talked with mothers who have girls Lorna’s age. They’ve all run wild the last year or so. Dances and rides! Last summer I was worried half to death. But we mothers don’t think the girls are really bad. They’re just crazy for fun, excitement, boys. Times and pleasures have changed. The girls say the mothers don’t understand. Maybe we don’t. I try to be patient. I trust Lorna. I can’t see through it all.”
“Don’t worry, mother,” said Lane, patting her hand. “I’ll see through it for you. And if Lorna is—well, running too much—wild as you said—I’ll stop her.”
His mother shook her head.
“One thing we mothers all agree on. These girls, of this generation, say fourteen to sixteen, can’t be stopped.”
“Then that is a serious matter. It must be a peculiarity of the day. Maybe the war left this condition.”
“The war changed all things, my son,” replied his mother, sadly.
Lane walked thoughtfully down the street toward Doctor Bronson’s office. As long as he walked slowly he managed not to give any hint of his weakness. The sun was shining with steely brightness and the March wind was living up to its fame. He longed for summer and hot days in quiet woods or fields where daisies bloomed. Would he live to see the Indian summer days, the smoky haze, the purple asters?
Lane was admitted at once into the office of Doctor Bronson, a little, gray, slight man with shrewd, kind eyes and a thoughtful brow. For years he had been a friend as well as physician to the Lanes, and he had always liked Daren. His surprise was great and his welcome warm. But a moment later he gazed at Lane with piercing eyes.
“Look here, boy, did you go to the bad over there?” he demanded.
“How do you mean, Doctor?”
“Did you let down—debase yourself morally?”
“No. But I went to the bad physically and spiritually.”
“I see that. I don’t like the color of your face.… Well, well, Daren. It was hell, wasn’t it? Did you kill a couple of Huns for me?”
Questions like this latter one always alienated Lane in some unaccountable way. It must have been revealed in his face.
“Never mind, Daren. I see that you did.… I’m glad you’re back alive. Now what can I do for you?”
“I’ve been discharged from three hospitals in the last two months—not because I was well, but because I was in better shape than some other poor devil. Those doctors in the service grew hard—they had to be hard—but they saw the worst, the agony of the war. I always felt sorry for them. They never seemed to eat or sleep or rest. They had no time to save a man. It was cut him up or tie him up—then on to the next.… Now, Doc, I want you to look me over and—well—tell me what to expect.”
“All right,” replied Doctor Bronson, gruffly.
“And I want you to promise not to tell mother or any one. Will you?”
“Yes, I promise. Now come in here and get off some of your clothes.”
“Doctor, it’s pretty tough on me to get in and out of my clothes.”
“I’ll help you. Now tell me what the Germans did to you.”
Lane laughed grimly. “Doctor, do you remember I was in your Sunday School class?”
“Yes, I remember that. What’s it got to do with Germans?”
“Nothing. It struck me funny, that’s all.… Well, to get it over. I was injured several times at the training camp.”
“Anything serious?”
“No, I guess not. Anyway I forgot about them. Doctor, I was shot four times, once clear through. I’ll show you. Got a bad bayonet jab that doesn’t seem to heal well. Then I had a dose of both gases—chlorine and mustard—and both all but kill
ed me. Last I’ve a weak place in my spine. There’s a vertebra that slips out of place occasionally. The least movement may do it. I can’t guard against it. The last time it slipped out I was washing my teeth. I’m in mortal dread of this. For it twists me out of shape and hurts horribly. I’m afraid it’ll give me paralysis.”
“Humph! It would. But it can be fixed.… So that’s all they did to you?”
Underneath the dry humor of the little doctor, Lane thought he detected something akin to anger.
“Yes, that’s all they did to my body,” replied Lane.
Doctor Bronson, during a careful and thorough examination of Lane’s heart, lungs, blood pressure, and abdominal region, did not speak once. But when he turned him over, to see and feel the hole in Lane’s back, he exclaimed: “My God, boy, what made this—a shell? I can put my fist in it.”
“That’s the bayonet jab.”
Doctor Bronson cursed in a most undignified and unprofessional manner. Then without further comment he went on and completed the examination.
“That’ll do,” he said, and lent a hand while Lane put on his clothes. It was then he noticed Lane’s medal.
“Ha! The Croix de Guerre!… Daren, I was a friend of your father’s. I know how that medal would have made him feel. Tell me what you did to get it?”
“Nothing much,” replied Lane, stirred. “It was in the Argonne, when we took to open fighting. In fact I got most of my hurts there.… I carried a badly wounded French officer back off the field. He was a heavy man. That’s where I injured my spine. I had to run with him. And worse luck, he was dead when I got him back. But I didn’t know that.”
“So the French decorated you, hey?” asked the doctor, leaning back with hands on hips, and keenly eyeing Lane.
“Yes.”
“Why did not the American Army give you equal honor?”
“Well, for one thing it was never reported. And besides, it wasn’t anything any other fellow wouldn’t do.”
Doctor Bronson dropped his head and paced to and fro. Then the door-bell rang in the reception room.
“Daren Lane,” began the doctor, suddenly stopping before Lane, “I’d hesitate to ask most men if they wanted the truth. To many men I’d lie. But I know a few words from me can’t faze you.”
“No, Doctor, one way or another it is all the same to me.”
“Well, boy, I can fix up that vertebra so it won’t slip out again.… But, if there’s anything in the world to save your life, I don’t know what it is.”
“Thank you, Doctor. It’s—something to know—what to expect,” returned Lane, with a smile.
“You might live a year—and you might not.… You might improve. God only knows. Miracles do happen. Anyway, come back to see me.”
Lane shook hands with him and went out, passing another patient in the reception room. Then as Lane opened the door and stepped out upon the porch he almost collided with a girl who evidently had been about to come in.
“I beg your——” he began, and stopped. He knew this girl, but the strained tragic shadow of her eyes was strikingly unfamiliar. The transparent white skin let the blue tracery of veins show. On the instant her lips trembled and parted.
“Oh, Daren—don’t you know me?” she asked.
“Mel Iden!” he burst out. “Know you? I should smile I do. But it—it was so sudden. And you’re older—different somehow. Mel, you’re sweeter—why you’re beautiful.”
He clasped her hands and held on to them, until he felt her rather nervously trying to withdraw them.
“Oh, Daren, I’m glad to see you home—alive—whole,” she said, almost in a whisper. “Are you—well?”
“No, Mel. I’m in pretty bad shape,” he replied. “Lucky to get home alive—to see you all.”
“I’m sorry. You’re so white. You’re wonderfully changed, Daren.”
“So are you. But I’ll say I’m happy it’s not painted face and plucked eyebrows.… Mel, what’s happened to you?”
She suddenly espied the decoration on his coat. The blood rose and stained her clear cheek. With a gesture of exquisite grace and sensibility that thrilled Lane she touched the medal. “Oh! The Croix de Guerre.… Daren, you were a hero.”
“No, Mel, just a soldier.”
She looked up into his face with eyes that fascinated Lane, so beautiful were they—the blue of corn-flowers—and lighted then with strange rapt glow.
“Just a soldier!” she murmured. But Lane heard in that all the sweetness and understanding possible for any woman’s heart. She amazed him—held him spellbound. Here was the sympathy—and something else—a nameless need—for which he yearned. The moment was fraught with incomprehensible forces. Lane’s sore heart responded to her rapt look, to the sudden strange passion of her pale face. Swiftly he divined that Mel Iden gloried in the presence of a maimed and proven soldier.
“Mel, I’ll come to see you,” he said, breaking the spell. “Do you still live out on the Hill road? I remember the four big white oaks.”
“No, Daren, I’ve left home,” she said, with slow change, as if his words recalled something she had forgotten. All the radiance vanished, leaving her singularly white.
“Left home! What for?” he asked, bluntly.
“Father turned me out,” she replied, with face averted. The soft roundness of her throat swelled. Lane saw her full breast heave under her coat.
“What’re you saying, Mel Iden?” he demanded, as quickly as he could find his voice.
Then she turned bravely to meet his gaze, and Lane had never seen as sad eyes as looked into his.
“Daren, haven’t you heard—about me?” she asked, with tremulous lips.
“No. What’s wrong?”
“I—I can’t let you call on me.”
“Why not? Are you married—jealous husband?”
“No, I’m not married—but I—I have a baby,” she whispered.
“Mel!” gasped Lane. “A war baby?”
“Yes.”
Lane was so shocked he could not collect his scattered wits, let alone think of the right thing to say, if there were any right thing. “Mel, this is a—a terrible surprise. Oh, I’m sorry.… How the war played hell with all of us! But for you—Mel Iden—I can’t believe it.”
“Daren, so terribly true,” she said. “Don’t I look it?”
“Mel, you look—oh—heartbroken.”
“Yes, I am broken-hearted,” she replied, and drooped her head.
“Forgive me, Mel. I hardly know what I’m saying.… But listen—I’m coming to see you.”
“No,” she said.
That trenchant word was thought-provoking. A glimmer of understanding began to dawn in Lane. Already an immense pity had flooded his soul, and a profound sense of the mystery and tragedy of Mel Iden. She had always been unusual, aloof, proud, unattainable, a girl with a heart of golden fire. And now she had a nameless child and was an outcast from her father’s house. The fact, the fatality of it, stunned Lane.
“Daren, I must go in to see Dr. Bronson,” she said. “I’m glad you’re home. I’m proud of you. I’m happy for your mother and Lorna. You must watch Lorna—try to restrain her. She’s going wrong. All the young girls are going wrong. Oh, it’s a more dreadful time now than before or during the war. The let-down has been terrible.… Good-bye, Daren.”
In other days Manton’s building on Main Street had appeared a pretentious one to Lane’s untraveled eyes. It was an old three-story red-brick-front edifice, squatted between higher and more modern structures. When he climbed the dirty dark stairway up to the second floor a throng of memories returned with the sensations of creaky steps, musty smell, and dim light. When he pushed open a door on which MANTON & CO. showed in black letters he caught his breath. Long—long past! Was it possible that he had been penned up for three years in this stifling place?
Manton carried on various lines of business, and for Middleville, he was held to be something of a merchant and broker. Lane was wholly familiar
with the halls, the several lettered doors, the large unpartitioned office at the back of the building. Here his slow progress was intercepted by a slip of a girl who asked him what he wanted. Before answering, Lane took stock of the girl. She might have been all of fifteen—no older. She had curly bobbed hair, and a face that would have been comely but for the powder and rouge. She was chewing gum, and she ogled Lane.
“I want to see Mr. Manton,” Lane said.
“What name, please.”
“Daren Lane.”
She tripped off toward the door leading to Manton’s private offices, and Lane’s gaze, curiously following her, found her costume to be startling even to his expectant eyes. Then she disappeared. Lane’s gaze sought the corner and desk that once upon a time had been his. A blond young lady, also with bobbed hair, was operating a typewriter at his desk. She glanced up, and espying Lane, she suddenly stopped her work. She recognized him. But, if she were Hattie Wilson, it was certain that Lane did not recognize her. Then the office girl returned.
“Step this way, please. Mr. Smith will see you.”
How singularly it struck Lane that not once in three years had he thought of Smith. But when he saw him, the intervening months were as nothing. Lean, spare, pallid, with baggy eyes, and the nose of a drinker, Smith had not changed.
“How do, Lane. So you’re back? Welcome to our city,” he said, extending a nerveless hand that felt to Lane like a dead fish.
“Hello, Mr. Smith. Yes, I’m back,” returned Lane, taking the chair Smith indicated. And then he met the inevitable questions as best he could in order not to appear curt or uncivil.
“I’d like to see Mr. Manton to ask for my old job,” interposed Lane, presently.
“He’s busy now, Lane, but maybe he’ll see you. I’ll find out.”
Smith got up and went out. Lane sat there with a vague sense of absurdity in the situation. The click of a typewriter sounded from behind him. He wanted to hurry out. He wanted to think of other things, and twice he drove away memory of the girl he had just left at Doctor Bronson’s office. Presently Smith returned, slipping along in his shiny black suit, flat-footed and slightly bowed, with his set dull expression.