K

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER XVII

  By Christmas Day Sidney was back in the hospital, a little wan, butvaliantly determined to keep her life to its mark of service. She had atalk with K. the night before she left.

  Katie was out, and Sidney had put the dining-room in order. K. sat bythe table and watched her as she moved about the room.

  The past few weeks had been very wonderful to him: to help her up anddown the stairs, to read to her in the evenings as she lay on the couchin the sewing-room; later, as she improved, to bring small dainties homefor her tray, and, having stood over Katie while she cooked them, tobear them in triumph to that upper room--he had not been so happy inyears.

  And now it was over. He drew a long breath.

  "I hope you don't feel as if you must stay on," she said anxiously. "Notthat we don't want you--you know better than that."

  "There is no place else in the whole world that I want to go to," hesaid simply.

  "I seem to be always relying on somebody's kindness to--to keep thingstogether. First, for years and years, it was Aunt Harriet; now it isyou."

  "Don't you realize that, instead of your being grateful to me, it isI who am undeniably grateful to you? This is home now. I have livedaround--in different places and in different ways. I would rather behere than anywhere else in the world."

  But he did not look at her. There was so much that was hopeless in hiseyes that he did not want her to see. She would be quite capable, hetold himself savagely, of marrying him out of sheer pity if she everguessed. And he was afraid--afraid, since he wanted her so much--that hewould be fool and weakling enough to take her even on those terms. So helooked away.

  Everything was ready for her return to the hospital. She had been outthat day to put flowers on the quiet grave where Anna lay with foldedhands; she had made her round of little visits on the Street; and nowher suit-case, packed, was in the hall.

  "In one way, it will be a little better for you than if Christine andPalmer were not in the house. You like Christine, don't you?"

  "Very much."

  "She likes you, K. She depends on you, too, especially since that nightwhen you took care of Palmer's arm before we got Dr. Max. I often think,K., what a good doctor you would have been. You knew so well what to dofor mother."

  She broke off. She still could not trust her voice about her mother.

  "Palmer's arm is going to be quite straight. Dr. Ed is so proud of Maxover it. It was a bad fracture."

  He had been waiting for that. Once at least, whenever they weretogether, she brought Max into the conversation. She was quiteunconscious of it.

  "You and Max are great friends. I knew you would like him. He isinteresting, don't you think?"

  "Very," said K.

  To save his life, he could not put any warmth into his voice. He wouldbe fair. It was not in human nature to expect more of him.

  "Those long talks you have, shut in your room--what in the world do youtalk about? Politics?"

  "Occasionally."

  She was a little jealous of those evenings, when she sat alone, orwhen Harriet, sitting with her, made sketches under the lamp to theaccompaniment of a steady hum of masculine voices from across the hall.Not that she was ignored, of course. Max came in always, before he went,and, leaning over the back of a chair, would inform her of the absoluteblankness of life in the hospital without her.

  "I go every day because I must," he would assure her gayly; "but, I tellyou, the snap is gone out of it. When there was a chance that every capwas YOUR cap, the mere progress along a corridor became thrilling." Hehad a foreign trick of throwing out his hands, with a little shrug ofthe shoulders. "Cui bono?" he said--which, being translated, means:"What the devil's the use!"

  And K. would stand in the doorway, quietly smoking, or go back to hisroom and lock away in his trunk the great German books on surgery withwhich he and Max had been working out a case.

  So K. sat by the dining-room table and listened to her talk of Max thatlast evening together.

  "I told Mrs. Rosenfeld to-day not to be too much discouraged aboutJohnny. I had seen Dr. Max do such wonderful things. Now that you aresuch friends,"--she eyed him wistfully,--"perhaps some day you will cometo one of his operations. Even if you didn't understand exactly, I knowit would thrill you. And--I'd like you to see me in my uniform, K. Younever have."

  She grew a little sad as the evening went on. She was going to miss K.very much. While she was ill she had watched the clock for the time tolisten for him. She knew the way he slammed the front door. Palmer neverslammed the door. She knew too that, just after a bang that threatenedthe very glass in the transom, K. would come to the foot of the stairsand call:--

  "Ahoy, there!"

  "Aye, aye," she would answer--which was, he assured her, the properresponse.

  Whether he came up the stairs at once or took his way back to Katie haddepended on whether his tribute for the day was fruit or sweetbreads.

  Now that was all over. They were such good friends. He would miss her,too; but he would have Harriet and Christine and--Max. Back in a circleto Max, of course.

  She insisted, that last evening, on sitting up with him until midnightushered in Christmas Day. Christine and Palmer were out; Harriet, havingpresented Sidney with a blouse that had been left over in the shop fromthe autumn's business, had yawned herself to bed.

  When the bells announced midnight, Sidney roused with a start. Sherealized that neither of them had spoken, and that K.'s eyes werefixed on her. The little clock on the shelf took up the burden of thechurches, and struck the hour in quick staccato notes.

  Sidney rose and went over to K., her black dress in soft folds abouther.

  "He is born, K."

  "He is born, dear."

  She stooped and kissed his cheek lightly.

  Christmas Day dawned thick and white. Sidney left the little house atsix, with the street light still burning through a mist of falling snow.

  The hospital wards and corridors were still lighted when she went onduty at seven o'clock. She had been assigned to the men's surgical ward,and went there at once. She had not seen Carlotta Harrison since hermother's death; but she found her on duty in the surgical ward. For thesecond time in four months, the two girls were working side by side.

  Sidney's recollection of her previous service under Carlotta made hernervous. But the older girl greeted her pleasantly.

  "We were all sorry to hear of your trouble," she said. "I hope we shallget on nicely."

  Sidney surveyed the ward, full to overflowing. At the far end two cotshad been placed.

  "The ward is heavy, isn't it?"

  "Very. I've been almost mad at dressing hour. There are three ofus--you, myself, and a probationer."

  The first light of the Christmas morning was coming through the windows.Carlotta put out the lights and turned in a business-like way to herrecords.

  "The probationer's name is Wardwell," she said. "Perhaps you'd betterhelp her with the breakfasts. If there's any way to make a mistake, shemakes it."

  It was after eight when Sidney found Johnny Rosenfeld.

  "You here in the ward, Johnny!" she said.

  Suffering had refined the boy's features. His dark, heavily fringed eyeslooked at her from a pale face. But he smiled up at her cheerfully.

  "I was in a private room; but it cost thirty plunks a week, so I moved.Why pay rent?"

  Sidney had not seen him since his accident. She had wished to go, but K.had urged against it. She was not strong, and she had already sufferedmuch. And now the work of the ward pressed hard. She had only a moment.She stood beside him and stroked his hand.

  "I'm sorry, Johnny."

  He pretended to think that her sympathy was for his fall from the estateof a private patient to the free ward.

  "Oh, I'm all right, Miss Sidney," he said. "Mr. Howe is paying sixdollars a week for me. The difference between me and the other fellowsaround here is that I get a napkin on my tray and they don't."

  Before his determi
ned cheerfulness Sidney choked.

  "Six dollars a week for a napkin is going some. I wish you'd tell Mr.Howe to give ma the six dollars. She'll be needing it. I'm no bloatedaristocrat; I don't have to have a napkin."

  "Have they told you what the trouble is?"

  "Back's broke. But don't let that worry you. Dr. Max Wilson is going tooperate on me. I'll be doing the tango yet."

  Sidney's eyes shone. Of course, Max could do it. What a thing it wasto be able to take this life-in-death of Johnny Rosenfeld's and make itlife again!

  All sorts of men made up Sidney's world: the derelicts who wanderedthrough the ward in flapping slippers, listlessly carrying trays; theunshaven men in the beds, looking forward to another day of boredom, ifnot of pain; Palmer Howe with his broken arm; K., tender and strong, butfilling no especial place in the world. Towering over them all was theyounger Wilson. He meant for her, that Christmas morning, all that theother men were not--to their weakness strength, courage, daring, power.

  Johnny Rosenfeld lay back on the pillows and watched her face.

  "When I was a kid," he said, "and ran along the Street, calling Dr. Maxa dude, I never thought I'd lie here watching that door to see him comein. You have had trouble, too. Ain't it the hell of a world, anyhow? Itain't much of a Christmas to you, either."

  Sidney fed him his morning beef tea, and, because her eyes filled upwith tears now and then at his helplessness, she was not so skillful asshe might have been. When one spoonful had gone down his neck, he smiledup at her whimsically.

  "Run for your life. The dam's burst!" he said.

  As much as was possible, the hospital rested on that Christmas Day. Theinternes went about in fresh white ducks with sprays of mistletoe intheir buttonholes, doing few dressings. Over the upper floors, where thekitchens were located, spread toward noon the insidious odor of roastingturkeys. Every ward had its vase of holly. In the afternoon, serviceswere held in the chapel downstairs.

  Wheel-chairs made their slow progress along corridors and downelevators. Convalescents who were able to walk flapped along in carpetslippers.

  Gradually the chapel filled up. Outside the wide doors of the corridorthe wheel-chairs were arranged in a semicircle. Behind them, dressed forthe occasion, were the elevator-men, the orderlies, and Big John, whodrove the ambulance.

  On one side of the aisle, near the front, sat the nurses in rows, incrisp caps and fresh uniforms. On the other side had been reserved aplace for the staff. The internes stood back against the wall, ready torun out between rejoicings, as it were--for a cigarette or an ambulancecall, as the case might be.

  Over everything brooded the after-dinner peace of Christmas afternoon.

  The nurses sang, and Sidney sang with them, her fresh young voice risingabove the rest. Yellow winter sunlight came through the stained-glasswindows and shone on her lovely flushed face, her smooth kerchief, hercap, always just a little awry.

  Dr. Max, lounging against the wall, across the chapel, found his eyesstraying toward her constantly. How she stood out from the others! Whata zest for living and for happiness she had!

  The Episcopal clergyman read the Epistle:

  "Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, eventhy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."

  That was Sidney. She was good, and she had been anointed with the oil ofgladness. And he--

  His brother was singing. His deep bass voice, not always true, boomedout above the sound of the small organ. Ed had been a good brother tohim; he had been a good son.

  Max's vagrant mind wandered away from the service to the picture of hismother over his brother's littered desk, to the Street, to K., to thegirl who had refused to marry him because she did not trust him, toCarlotta last of all. He turned a little and ran his eyes along the lineof nurses.

  Ah, there she was. As if she were conscious of his scrutiny, she liftedher head and glanced toward him. Swift color flooded her face.

  The nurses sang:--

  "O holy Child of Bethlehem! Descend to us, we pray; Cast out our sin, and enter in, Be born in us to-day."

  The wheel-chairs and convalescents quavered the familiar words. Dr. Ed'sheavy throat shook with earnestness.

  The Head, sitting a little apart with her hands folded in her lap andweary with the suffering of the world, closed her eyes and listened.

  The Christmas morning had brought Sidney half a dozen gifts. K. sent hera silver thermometer case with her monogram, Christine a toilet mirror.But the gift of gifts, over which Sidney's eyes had glowed, was agreat box of roses marked in Dr. Max's copper-plate writing, "From aneighbor."

  Tucked in the soft folds of her kerchief was one of the roses thatafternoon.

  Services over, the nurses filed out. Max was waiting for Sidney in thecorridor.

  "Merry Christmas!" he said, and held out his hand.

  "Merry Christmas!" she said. "You see!"--she glanced down to the roseshe wore. "The others make the most splendid bit of color in the ward."

  "But they were for you!"

  "They are not any the less mine because I am letting other people have achance to enjoy them."

  Under all his gayety he was curiously diffident with her. All the prettyspeeches he would have made to Carlotta under the circumstances diedbefore her frank glance.

  There were many things he wanted to say to her. He wanted to tell herthat he was sorry her mother had died; that the Street was empty withouther; that he looked forward to these daily meetings with her as a holyman to his hour before his saint. What he really said was to inquirepolitely whether she had had her Christmas dinner.

  Sidney eyed him, half amused, half hurt.

  "What have I done, Max? Is it bad for discipline for us to be goodfriends?"

  "Damn discipline!" said the pride of the staff.

  Carlotta was watching them from the chapel. Something in her eyes rousedthe devil of mischief that always slumbered in him.

  "My car's been stalled in a snowdrift downtown since early this morning,and I have Ed's Peggy in a sleigh. Put on your things and come for aride."

  He hoped Carlotta could hear what he said; to be certain of it, hemaliciously raised his voice a trifle.

  "Just a little run," he urged. "Put on your warmest things."

  Sidney protested. She was to be free that afternoon until six o'clock;but she had promised to go home.

  "K. is alone."

  "K. can sit with Christine. Ten to one, he's with her now."

  The temptation was very strong. She had been working hard all day. Theheavy odor of the hospital, mingled with the scent of pine and evergreenin the chapel; made her dizzy. The fresh outdoors called her. And,besides, if K. were with Christine--

  "It's forbidden, isn't it?"

  "I believe it is." He smiled at her.

  "And yet, you continue to tempt me and expect me to yield!"

  "One of the most delightful things about temptation is yielding now andthen."

  After all, the situation seemed absurd. Here was her old friend andneighbor asking to take her out for a daylight ride. The swift rebellionof youth against authority surged up in Sidney.

  "Very well; I'll go."

  Carlotta had gone by that time--gone with hate in her heart and blackdespair. She knew very well what the issue would be. Sidney would drivewith him, and he would tell her how lovely she looked with the air onher face and the snow about her. The jerky motion of the little sleighwould throw them close together. How well she knew it all! He wouldtouch Sidney's hand daringly and smile in her eyes. That was his method:to play at love-making like an audacious boy, until quite suddenly thecloak dropped and the danger was there.

  The Christmas excitement had not died out in the ward when Carlotta wentback to it. On each bedside table was an orange, and beside it a pairof woolen gloves and a folded white handkerchief. There were sprays ofholly scattered about, too, and the after-dinner content of roast turkeyand ice-cream.

 
The lame girl who played the violin limped down the corridor into theward. She was greeted with silence, that truest tribute, and with theinstant composing of the restless ward to peace.

  She was pretty in a young, pathetic way, and because to her Christmaswas a festival and meant hope and the promise of the young Lord, sheplayed cheerful things.

  The ward sat up, remembered that it was not the Sabbath, smiled acrossfrom bed to bed.

  The probationer, whose name was Wardwell, was a tall, lean girl with along, pointed nose. She kept up a running accompaniment of small talk tothe music.

  "Last Christmas," she said plaintively, "we went out into the countryin a hay-wagon and had a real time. I don't know what I am here for,anyhow. I am a fool."

  "Undoubtedly," said Carlotta.

  "Turkey and goose, mince pie and pumpkin pie, four kinds of cake; that'sthe sort of spread we have up in our part of the world. When I think ofwhat I sat down to to-day--!"

  She had a profound respect for Carlotta, and her motto in the hospitaldiffered from Sidney's in that it was to placate her superiors, whileSidney's had been to care for her patients.

  Seeing Carlotta bored, she ventured a little gossip. She had idlyglued the label of a medicine bottle on the back of her hand, and wasscratching a skull and cross-bones on it.

  "I wonder if you have noticed something," she said, eyes on the label.

  "I have noticed that the three-o'clock medicines are not given," saidCarlotta sharply; and Miss Wardwell, still labeled and adorned, made therounds of the ward.

  When she came back she was sulky.

  "I'm no gossip," she said, putting the tray on the table. "If you won'tsee, you won't. That Rosenfeld boy is crying."

  As it was not required that tears be recorded on the record, Carlottapaid no attention to this.

  "What won't I see?"

  It required a little urging now. Miss Wardwell swelled with importanceand let her superior ask her twice. Then:--

  "Dr. Wilson's crazy about Miss Page."

  A hand seemed to catch Carlotta's heart and hold it.

  "They're old friends."

  "Piffle! Being an old friend doesn't make you look at a girl as if youwanted to take a bite out of her. Mark my word, Miss Harrison, she'llnever finish her training; she'll marry him. I wish," concluded theprobationer plaintively, "that some good-looking fellow like that wouldtake a fancy to me. I'd do him credit. I am as ugly as a mud fence, butI've got style."

  She was right, probably. She was long and sinuous, but she wore herlanky, ill-fitting clothes with a certain distinction. Harriet Kennedywould have dressed her in jade green to match her eyes, and with longjade earrings, and made her a fashion.

  Carlotta's lips were dry. The violinist had seen the tears on JohnnyRosenfeld's white cheeks, and had rushed into rollicking, joyous music.The ward echoed with it. "I'm twenty-one and she's eighteen," hummed theward under its breath. Miss Wardwell's thin body swayed.

  "Lord, how I'd like to dance! If I ever get out of this charnel-house!"

  The medicine-tray lay at Carlotta's elbow; beside it the box of labels.This crude girl was right--right. Carlotta knew it down to the depths ofher tortured brain. As inevitably as the night followed the day, she waslosing her game. She had lost already, unless--

  If she could get Sidney out of the hospital, it would simplify things.She surmised shrewdly that on the Street their interests were wideapart. It was here that they met on common ground.

  The lame violin-player limped out of the ward; the shadows of theearly winter twilight settled down. At five o'clock Carlotta sent MissWardwell to first supper, to the surprise of that seldom surprisedperson. The ward lay still or shuffled abut quietly. Christmas was over,and there were no evening papers to look forward to.

  Carlotta gave the five-o'clock medicines. Then she sat down at the tablenear the door, with the tray in front of her. There are certain thoughtsthat are at first functions of the brain; after a long time the spinalcord takes them up and converts them into acts almost automatically.Perhaps because for the last month she had done the thing so often inher mind, its actual performance was almost without conscious thought.

  Carlotta took a bottle from her medicine cupboard, and, writing a newlabel for it, pasted it over the old one. Then she exchanged it for oneof the same size on the medicine tray.

  In the dining-room, at the probationers' table, Miss Wardwell wastalking.

  "Believe me," she said, "me for the country and the simple life afterthis. They think I'm only a probationer and don't see anything, but I'vegot eyes in my head. Harrison is stark crazy over Dr. Wilson, and shethinks I don't see it. But never mind; I paid, her up to-day for a fewof the jolts she has given me."

  Throughout the dining-room busy and competent young women came and ate,hastily or leisurely as their opportunity was, and went on their wayagain. In their hands they held the keys, not always of life and deathperhaps, but of ease from pain, of tenderness, of smooth pillows, andcups of water to thirsty lips. In their eyes, as in Sidney's, burned thelight of service.

  But here and there one found women, like Carlotta and Miss Wardwell,who had mistaken their vocation, who railed against the monotony of thelife, its limitations, its endless sacrifices. They showed it in theireyes.

  Fifty or so against two--fifty who looked out on the world with thefearless glance of those who have seen life to its depths, and, with thebroad understanding of actual contact, still found it good. Fifty whowere learning or had learned not to draw aside their clean starchedskirts from the drab of the streets. And the fifty, who found the veryscum of the gutters not too filthy for tenderness and care, let Carlottaand, in lesser measure, the new probationer alone. They could not havevoiced their reasons.

  The supper-room was filled with their soft voices, the rustle of theirskirts, the gleam of their stiff white caps.

  When Carlotta came in, she greeted none of them. They did not like her,and she knew it.

  Before her, instead of the tidy supper-table, she was seeing themedicine-tray as she had left it.

  "I guess I've fixed her," she said to herself.

  Her very soul was sick with fear of what she had done.