Out of the Storm

by Grace Livingston Hill

  The old lady had retired to her room upstairs, and the girl hovered in the background, quietly doing any little thing she could see was necessary and keeping out of the way. She prayed for him within her heart. Since there was no one of his own near to pray for him, she would take that place.

  It was an afternoon she would never forget as long as she lived. The smell of ether, the quiet workers, the low voices speaking only now and then like little signs to tell her what was going on, the grave faces, the silent man upon the bed. She was a very young girl with little experience, and she seemed to age during that time of waiting. She stood for a long time at the open hall door looking out toward the desolate sea. It had grown gray with storm again and was tossing and fretting itself into foam off against the sandbar, as if some new victim were struggling hard against its power. Gail's eyes searched the vast gray greenness of turbulent water and wondered if even now some desperate mortal might be in torture and peril off there beyond her sight.

  She realized at last how weary she was and trembling, dropped gratefully into a big steamer chair close at hand, closing her eyes. Why did she care so desperately about this man or boy or whatever he was whom she had helped to save from the sea? He was nothing to her. It was no foolishness of falling in love at first sight. Nothing of the kind. He had scarcely assumed a place and personality enough in her life for that. It was only as if she had seen some great splendid creature lying upon its back, unable to protect itself against powers it might have conquered if it had not been for her. She must see that he had his chance. She must put him back where he was when he first saw her. Why, even now he might be lying comfortably asleep in a room in the Waldorf Astoria, or some other chosen spot, if she had not appeared upon the scene and placed a duty between him and safety. It was she who had been the cause of his stricken condition, and she must put him back again if power of hers could do it.

  Thus her thoughts went back and forth in a steady round for what seemed endless hours. And then at last the doctor came and laid his hand upon her shoulder.

  He had that exalted look tempered with awe that true doctors wear when it has been given to them to struggle with death and come forth conquerors, and his voice had a glad ring as he spoke:

  "Well, child, we took the chance and found it was necessary. He couldn't have lived a day longer without the operation. If he lives now, it will be due to you. We can't tell, of course, for a few days yet what complication may arise, but so far everything is successful and he is doing well. Now, if I were you I would go to bed and rest."

  Gail Desmond looked up quietly, trying to hold back the rush of happy tears that seemed to be breaking her throat and stinging her eyes, and smiled as she handed the doctor some bills she had been holding in her hand. They were nearly rolled together and still damp from the wet clothing from which she had taken them.

  The doctor took it reluctantly.

  "It doesn't seem right," he said, shaking his head. "This isn't all you have?"

  Gail shook her head.

  "Not all. I have a little more, enough for what I need. It's all right, please." The way she said it made him feel that he could say no more.

  "Well, I'll give it to him," he said, looking over to the specialist who was drawing on his gloves, "but I don't believe he'll keep it when he knows."

  "Please do not tell him," said Gail. "It is right he should have his price. I have an idea the man would not care to be treated like a pauper. He does not look like that kind of a man."

  "H'm! What about the way you're treating him? You say you don't even know him. Isn't that the same thing?"

  "That's different," said the girl, drawing herself up with pretty dignity. "We were fellow travelers, and I owe him my life. There is no such obligation upon either of you doctors."

  "H'm!" growled the doctor huskily. "I was brought up to believe that we're all fellow travelers on this earth, no matter how we find one another."

  He hurried off with the others to supper when Corinne called them.

  Chapter 6

  The nurse stayed three days. Then suddenly she was sent for, to take another important case for the great specialist. She told Gail just what to do, and the doctor said he guessed they could get along all right if Gail was willing to undertake the nursing. Gail said she was and paid the nurse, rejoicing that she had not had to diminish the dwindling treasury any further for something she was quite sure she could do herself.

  The patient was doing well, though there was a good deal of fever and all the talking he had as yet done had been to an unseen audience that peopled his own mind. Of the people around him who were doing for him he had as yet taken no cognizance. Not since that one long look he had given Gail on the first day of his arrival had he noticed any of them. Occasionally he uttered clear ringing sentences of decision showing that he was a person of strong opinions and character, but for the most part he talked incoherently in his sleep, moaning and tossing his head from side to side. He was kept under opiates most of the time.

  On the third day, however, the fever began to subside and he slept more quietly. Then did the young girl take heart of hope and she watched every moment, scarcely taking time for the naps upon which the doctor insisted.

  Sunday night he grew restless and began tossing again. Once she noticed that when she spoke to Corinne, he stopped his restless movements and seemed to listen. She sat thoughtfully watching him a few minutes, longing to try an experiment, yet almost afraid to venture without asking the doctor. When he began to move again and utter low sighing sounds, she determined to try.

  There was a worn Testament lying on Mrs. Battin's sewing table, and Gail slipped out and got it.

  Sitting down a little way from the bed by the open window that looked toward the ocean where the reflection of the pink and silver sunset sea was reflected on her sweet face, she opened the book to the fourteenth chapter of John and began to read softly, quietly, as one would read to soothe a child.

  "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."

  On through the beautiful age-old chapter of comfort and love she read, not daring to look up for a long time, not changing her position, nor raising her voice above a sweet low tone. Till she came to the words: "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye ask anything in my name, I will do it."

  Mindful of her frequent prayers, she lifted her eyes in one swift glance to the bed and back to the page again. She seemed hardly to lift her lashes, yet in that flash she found his eyes open upon her.

  She dared not look again. She read on steadily, without a flicker of change in her voice, save now and then a tremble or a quiver as she tried to think what to do next. Should she read straight on until she was sure he was asleep? What had it meant for him to open his eyes and look at her like that? How she wanted to look again and make sure. Perhaps it was only a fantasy of her brain. Perhaps his eyes had not been open at all. Yet on she read, her heart struggling to keep its touch with the words, as if she knew she would lose her self-control if she did not keep her mind on what she was reading.

  She was nearly to the end of the chapter. The pink and gold and purple light was flooding the room now, and there seemed to be a radiant silence all about her, as if the other occupant of the room had ceased his apartness and was keeping still to take part with her in worship. A sense of the nearness of God, of the Comforter about whom she was reading, filled her heart. Her frightened excitement quieted. She seemed to have taken hold of the words in the Book and made them hers. She voiced the last verse clearly, tenderly, with her own ringing trust in its truth:

  "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let
it be afraid."

  Then, as if some power beyond herself were controlling her actions, she lifted her eyes in answer to something that drew her, and there were his open eyes still upon her in silent, intelligent interest! She felt at once that this was the real man in perfect control of his senses for the first time since his accident. At once her sense of protection was on the alert. She must be careful now what she did. She had been warned of this moment and knew she might by some little hasty unconsidered word or action upset all that had been done. He would be very weak. He could not stand a strain of any kind. He must be soothed and made to sleep at once.

  Without a sign upon her face of all that was passing in her mind, she closed the Book quite naturally and met his eyes with an understanding smile, as if they had been together in soul all these days while he walked alone in his darkness and had not known the world about him. She smiled, and immediately the thin white face upon the pillow lighted with an answering smile, and his eyes, large and bright with recent fever, hung upon hers wistfully as a little child might have done.

  She smiled again and nodded, rising softly with a quiet controlled movement so that his thought might not be disturbed, and keeping her eyes upon him moved close to the bed and took up the glass of medicine, stirring it gently with the spoon and putting it to his lips.

  He swallowed the mixture obediently, his eyes still upon her face as if he feared it would vanish from him if he took his eyes away.

  She smiled again and stooped to lay the covers smooth about his shoulder. Then she settled down close beside the bed where he could see her quite easily without effort.

  Because he seemed so wistful, she laid her hand softly on his that was outside the bedspread. He looked down at the two hands strangely as though he understood the comradeship in that touch, that she wanted to make him know she was here to help him through this hard place of weakness and silence. He smiled again when he looked up, as though this little thing that she had done had made him more sure that she was real, not a figment of his imagination like all the others that had haunted him these days.

  They sat so for some minutes, while the light on the sea died from gold and pink to purple, and the stars came out to set the sky for the night. The shadows in the room grew deeper, but still she felt his eyes upon hers, and still she sat with tender smiling lips to help him understand his way back to life. Then slowly, reluctantly, as if he regretted his necessity, his eyelids drooped, and with a smile he dropped away to sleep, while Gail Desmond bowed in happy thanksgiving. She sat without moving for a long time after that, until Corinne came in with a light and tiptoed out again.

  She slept but little that night, merely lying on the cot in a state of alert joy, ready to be on hand if he should stir. She kept the little alcohol lamp going under the chafing dish to heat the broth she gave him at stated intervals. All through the night, whenever she bent over him she fancied she saw still the lingering of that smile about his lips.

  The doctor came early the next morning. The patient was still sleeping when he came, but while he stood looking down at him, the man opened his eyes and looked from one to the other of them, lingering on the girl's face with that smile once more lighting up his own.

  The doctor looked at her keenly.

  "He is better!" he exclaimed. "Has he done that before?"

  "Once. Last evening." Gail told him about it.

  "H'm!" said the doctor, laying a finger on the patient's wrist. "Well, I can see the end of my job if this goes on. Well, old man, cheer up! We'll soon have you on your feet now!" he said to the silent man.

  The patient looked at him curiously, pleasantly, but indifferently, then his eyes followed the girl as she moved to the little table and brought the clinical thermometer and the paper bearing the record of the past night. He watched her as if his very existence were dependent upon keeping her in view, as if his vision of her were the one thing that connected him with earth.

  Gail, as she turned and caught that burning gaze, felt her heart leap up with gladness, as a mother's heart leaps when her baby first recognizes her and singles her out from a roomful of people, honoring her with his smile. Her eyes met his, and something seemed to spring from her soul to his, something of understanding and reassurance again that gave him courage to keep breathing and looking.

  "Don't let him talk," ordered the doctor just as he was going. "Keep him perfectly quiet and contented. Take your rest when he sleeps, don't let anything hinder that, and be ready to wake the minute he does so that you can keep him from missing you. He's like a baby now, dependent upon his world, and you are the only thing in that world that he has recognized as yet. He'll cling to you and want you in sight all the time he is awake. You say you read to him last night? Try it again. What did you read?"

  "Just a few verses from the Bible, something sweet and comforting."

  "Well, that's all right. Don't try any exciting stuff. Keep the atmosphere calm, and in a little you'll see him improving wonderfully. It's going to be a great strain on you now for a few days. He may be quite childish, but if you can hold out, you'll be repaid in seeing your patient get well."

  The doctor went away, and Gail settled down to her day of nursing with a heart more elated than it had been for two years. There is something wonderful in having another soul dependent on you, in knowing that the sight of your smile opens life to a living being and that you are missed if you even step over to the table out of range of vision. Gail fairly glowed with joy. Her face bloomed out in soft color, and her eyes shone like stars. She had always been a beautiful girl, but a sort of sadness had settled down over her features since the death of her parents that made her face seem a little cold and haughty. Now, however, she was fairly palpitated with life and gentleness and beauty. The old lady noticed it when she came down in the morning and stood watching her with pleasure. Corinne noticed it and chuckled as she brought her mistress a soft-boiled egg and toast and coffee. "Bress my soul, Mis' Battin, honey chile, dat chile am so glad she's jes' like a summer mawnin' aftah a stawm. An' that sick-abed man's gittin' bettah. I done see him watchin' in de mawnin', Mis' Battin. But I can't he'p thinkin' them two was jes' made fer one 'nudder, him a-gibin' up his place in dat ar boat, an' her a-grabbin' him and hangin' onto him through all that swashin' sea!"

  It mattered no longer in that sickroom whether the sun shone broadly over a smiling ocean of blue with little white harmless lacy fringes of foam that tossed up pearls on a silver beach; or whether the sea was gray and green and angry, swollen, livid copper with a leaden sky that threatened frightened, scudding sails; or gray or bright, alike--the sun shone in that room while those two woke, for always there were smiles and calm content and peace. The days went by with such sure, dear progression, such steady, happy improvement, that the girl dreaded to look forward or back to where this dear set-apartness was not, and where there would perhaps come a time when they might not be near each other as now.

  The first word he spoke--how it startled her--was in a whisper, "You are really here?"

  She smiled and nodded yes, as if she understood how he had feared it was all his foolish fancies playing pranks, and he reached out a strangely clumsy thumb and forefinger and took the frill of her sleeve carefully between them in shy testing of her material reality.

  She laid her warm hand upon his then and sat down beside the bed, and he seemed quite content to go to sleep in that way. More and more he would wake with a start, looking half fearfully about him, as if searching for her, and always met her look with a smile of illumination.

  Every day he grew stronger now and one morning wanted to talk, but she shook her head and laid her hand upon his and told him to wait until the doctor came. So he lay still and did as she told him. It seemed enough for him to rest and watch her, have her near, hear her voice. For now she often read to him, quiet psalms and sweet comforting words of the Lord Jesus. Always he listened as if he enjoyed it. Once at evening when he had seemed restless, she sang softly to him. His hand reached
out to catch her sleeve as it lay along the arm of the chair near the bed, and he pulled her hand over until he could touch her fingers and press them feebly, just to let her know how he liked the singing. After that, when twilight came and the room was quiet he would utter one word: "Sing!" and she would sing the songs she used to love when she was a child, ballads, and hymns, and sweet fantastic things of brightness, simple and quiet and melodious. It seemed as though he was blissfully content to lie back and be sick if he could breathe forever this atmosphere of her presence.

  There came a morning when he would keep quiet no longer; when he must talk, and know everything; when the springs of his being seemed to feel their strength once more; when he awoke. He caught her arm when she came to give him his breakfast and announced that he was not going to keep quiet any longer. There were things that he must say, and he was perfectly able to say them, and she must listen.

  She laid a trembling hand upon his lips and quieted him while she smilingly demanded that he eat his breakfast first and then she would see. But he was rebellious. He would not eat a mouthful even from her hands until she promised to answer his questions immediately after breakfast.

  Though her heart was wildly beating, she kept him calm and promised he should talk by and by. She went on feeding him as usual, all the time talking about how fast he was getting well and how pleased the doctor would be when he came. She thought she had diverted him and told him she had a beautiful poem to read to him when his breakfast was done, but he paid no heed to the poem, and when the last spoonful of gruel was swallowed, he laid his hand on hers and said: ""I thought you were going to leave me when I woke up. I want you to promise you will not go away."

  "I won't go away as long as you need me," she smiled.

  "Then you'll never go," he said and kept his hand on hers, looking into her eyes. "Now, tell me, please. It was you, wasn't it, who came up just as the boat sank? I seem to have known it all along. I can't tell you just when I began to be conscious of it, but I've known it a long time. Now tell me, please, what happened? How did I come to be lying here like a boob and you wearing yourself out waiting on me?"