Читать книгу Lady Ann - Donald Henderson Clarke - Страница 4

Two months after Naomi had died and been buried in the Steele plot in Old Cemetery, Dr. Benham entered his combined office and residence in the Pease Block in Eastham, meeting George Miller at the door. The doctor said in his dictatorial manner:

“Come on in, George, and I’ll take care of you.”

George, who was in the roofing business, was about five feet six and weighed about one hundred and forty pounds. He was thin and nervous, with a white forehead, pale gray eyes, a beak of a nose twisted to the left, gold-filled teeth showing under a scraggly, tan-colored mustache, and not much chin. George scratched his nose, which was a habit with him. He was a morphine addict.

The doctor led the way into his private office. George took off his hat and fingered it nervously. He said:

“But, Doctor.”

“Tut! Tut!” Dr. Benham exclaimed, lighting an alcohol lamp and resting a teaspoonful of water over the flame. George stared at the doctor, as if fascinated, while the doctor got out morphine tablets and a hypodermic. George cleared his throat, and said:

“I just . . .”

The doctor said:

“Come on. Get your coat off, if you want this. I haven’t all day.”

George dazedly removed his coat and rolled up his sleeve. The doctor dabbed a bit of alcohol on the flesh, jabbed the needle home, pressed the plunger, removed the needle, mopped up with alcohol-saturated cotton, and said:

“That should make you feel different, George.”

George rolled down his sleeve and put on his coat, and said:

“I guess it will, Doc.”

Then he went out. A moment later young Alonzo West, who drove Dr. Benham and helped around the office, and studied medicine in his spare time, arrived. Dr. Benham looked up from the sink where he was washing his hands in surgeons’ soap, a green, liquid mixture, and said:

“Hello, Alonzo. I just gave old George Miller his five grains of morphine.”

The doctor shook his hands over the sink and reached for a towel, while Alonzo, who was eighteen, tall, raw-boned, with an unruly thatch of dark hair, almost black-brown eyes, a big nose and a solid chin, looked blank. He exclaimed:

“But I just gave him five grains myself, not five minutes ago. You were late, and he was so jumpy.”

Dr. Benham turned from the sink, still wiping his hands. His head, which always trembled the slightest bit when he was excited, began to shake rapidly. Alonzo said:

“Will anything happen to him, Doctor?”

Dr. Benham chuckled and said:

“Ten grains. Something certainly ought to happen.”

“Is there anything we can do?”

Dr. Benham replaced the towel on a rack, and reached with familiar gesture for a cigar in his waistcoat pocket. He bit off the end and spat it on the floor. He lighted it with a sulphur match, and then said, after throwing the burnt match on the floor:

“I wonder where he went.”

He looked at Alonzo an instant, and then grinned, showing strong yellow teeth. Alonzo said:

“Perhaps I could find him.”

The doctor drew in a mouthful of smoke and blew it out again. He said:

“Just sit still, Alonzo. I wouldn’t be surprised if old George found himself for us.”

Twenty minutes later the telephone rang. Dr. Benham lifted the receiver and said:

“Hello.”

He listened for a minute, nodding his head and scowling. He rumbled:

“On the roof of the church, eh? Well! Well! All right. Thank you, Will.”

He hung up the receiver and wheeled his swivel chair to face Alonzo.

“What was it?” Alonzo asked.

“That was Will Prescott,” Dr. Benham replied. “Will says old George is doing a Highland fling on the roof of the First Church and that everybody is scared he’s going to fall off. He thinks a doctor should be handy.”

Dr. Benham and Alonzo, in the doctor’s buggy, drawn by Sam, a bay gelding, twenty-three years old, stopped in the town square, on the east side of which was the white clapboard church building. A throng was gathered on the walk and the lawn in front of the church. The doctor gazed at the roof of the church and said:

“He’s pretty lively, ain’t he?”

George Miller was running backward and forward on the roof. He dashed to the north end, as if he were going to jump. Feminine shrieks and masculine shouts ceased as if cut with a knife when he checked himself on the edge and began to dance. Voices exclaimed:

“He’s crazy.”

“He’ll be killed.”

“I can’t look.”

“Come down, George.”

“Must be drunk.”

“He’s like a cat.”

“You’d never think the old feller had it in him.”

“Go it, Gawge.”

“Whee-ee!”

Alonzo groaned and said:

“This is awful, Doctor. I feel it’s my fault. Can’t we do something?”

Dr. Benham’s head was nodding, but he was grinning happily and sucking his long, strong cigar. He said:

“Don’t have to, boy. Here come the firemen to get him.”

Members of Puritan Engine Company raised a ladder against the eaves of the church and a half-dozen of them began to climb the rungs.

From the middle of the ridge pole George looked at them quietly for a moment, and then suddenly dashed down the slope of the roof toward the ladder. The watchers from below shouted and shrieked. George put on the brakes by sticking his feet into the eaves trough, and sitting down. He crowed like a rooster, flapped his arms, and galloped along the roof next to the eaves.

The volunteer firemen, sweat dripping from red faces, grunts issuing from hairy chests, crawled gingerly after George. The scene suggested a mountain goat being stalked by six nervous delicatessen-shop proprietors.

The constantly increasing throng on the green and in the road in front of the church shouted, cheered, shrieked, gasped, shuddered and giggled in turn. Bits of personal advice rose on the air:

“Head him off, Al.”

“Now you got him.”

“You’d think he was greased.”

“Put some salt on his tail.”

“Grab his foot.”

“Aw, you missed.”

“Quick, up the other side.”

“Better get a butterfly net, Bill.”

“Want a lasso, Al?”

“Why don’t you tackle him, Joe?”

“Attaboy, Al, grab his coat. Missed!”

“What you boys need is more practise.”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!”

“Looka that!”

Elihu Steele, with Ann beside him, drove up in his buckboard. Elihu was not connected in what might be termed a strictly official capacity with the church, but he looked after repairs on it and generally saw to it that it was in ship-shape condition. Elihu was dressed in his usual blue suit. Ann was wearing a plaid cloak of yellow and green squares and a green turban. Elihu said:

“Howdy, Doctor.”

“Hello, Elihu. Hello, Ann. How are you today? I guess you know Alonzo, don’t you?”

“Hello,” Elihu said, shaking hands with Alonzo.

Alonzo withdrew his hand from Elihu’s, and held it out to Ann. Her naturally high color became more brilliant as she put her small hand in Alonzo’s big one. He said:

“I’ve seen you around a lot. Seems as if we should know each other.”

“I’ve seen you, too,” Ann said.

Elihu looked up at the roof.

“What’s all the excitement?” he asked. “Has George Miller gone crazy?”

“Looks so,” Dr. Benham nodded, grinning.

“Why don’t you call old George?” Alonzo suggested, looking up at the doctor. “He’d mind you.”

“Somebody is liable to get hurt,” Elihu said, gaze on the roof.

Dr. Benham raised his voice, which was strong and resonant. He called:

“Hey! You! George!”

The firemen stopped crawling and looked down from their flattened-out positions on the roof. Old George poised nonchalantly on a gable, put his right hand to the corresponding ear and bent his head in the classic attitude for listening. Dr. Benham roared:

“You come down out of that, George.”

George’s figure lost its elasticity. The fire went out of his pose. He called back in a thin, meek tone:

“All right, Doctor.”

Accompanied by grumbling firemen, George descended to earth, where he was greeted by his wife, Miriam, a tall, square-shouldered, gaunt woman, with wispy light brown hair, gray eyes, and sharp features. She greeted him by slapping his face.

At the same time she slapped George, Clarence Smith, the constable, took him firmly by the arm. Clarence said:

“You’ve been disturbin’ the peace, George. Much as I hate to do it, I’ve got to lock you up.”

Miriam turned from her husband to Clarence, who was a tall, burly man with thick black hair, brown eyes, weather-beaten cheeks, a black mustache, a black soft hat, and blue suit. She clutched Clarence and shook him. She said shrilly:

“And you, Clarence Smith. You better leave my husband alone if you know what’s good for yourself. He’s sick. That’s what’s the matter.”

She shook him again, and laughter arose. Clarence half-grinned and half-scowled, his good-natured face becoming even more red than nature normally provided. He said:

“I never arrested a lady, but I would if it was my duty.”

“You just try and arrest me then,” she snapped. “Anyway, I’m no lady. I’m a woman, a wife and a mother. That’s what I am.”

Dr. Benham, sucking one of his long, yellow cigars, poked his head into the group, onlookers making room for him. He said:

“Hello, Clarence.”

Clarence glanced around and said:

“Howdy, Doc.”

“I’d let George go along home if I were you,” Dr. Benham suggested. “You see, there is something in what Miriam says about his being a sick man. If he wasn’t sick he wouldn’t have been cutting up didoes on the roof. You can take my word for that.”

“Oh, in that case, Doc,” Clarence exclaimed, stepping back. “I was just going to look after him, anyway.”

“Now you come home,” Miriam said to George, taking his arm. “You’ve caused trouble enough for one day.”

Dr. Benham and Clarence returned to where Alonzo was holding the reins on old Sam and talking with Ann who was holding the reins on Nellie. Clarence, who was childless, was an uncle by courtesy to half the children in town. He said:

“Hello, Annie. Hello, Alonzo. Where’s Elihu?”

Alonzo said:

“Mr. Steele went into the church for something.”

“The gas was leaking, Uncle Clarence,” Ann explained, “and they called papa to see about it.”

“How has your father been feeling, Ann?” Dr. Benham asked. “He looks a mite thin. Mebbe he needs a little tonic.”

“Papa has been different since mother died,” Ann said.

A muffled sound came from the direction of the church, followed by stifled shouts. The doctor, Clarence, Alonzo and Ann looked toward the church. A man issued from the side door, stopped, glanced around, saw the doctor, and hurried toward him.

“Peter looks excited,” Dr. Benham said, stepping forward to meet the short, stout figure—black hair combed in long greasy strands over a bald spot, brown eyes, the left one looking straight ahead and the right one looking to the right, bulbous, large-pored, red nose, luxuriant black mustache, blue denim overalls over bowed legs, and heavy boots, caked with dust. Peter carried with him an aroma of sweat, onions and cheap tobacco. He said to the doctor in a wheezing breath:

“Hurry up, Doctor. Come on.”

The doctor took his shoulder, and said:

“Quiet, Peter. Something happened to Elihu Steele?”

Peter glanced at Ann and replied in a hoarse rumble:

“Dead, I guess, Doctor. He was looking for a gas leak, and he lighted a match.”

“Wait a minute, Peter,” Dr. Benham said. “Stop those men from saying anything yet.”

He nodded toward two men who hurried from the basement of the church. Peter went to intercept them and Dr. Benham turned back to the two buggies. He said casually:

“There has been a little accident.”

“What happened, Doctor?” Ann asked.

They both spoke simultaneously. She said:

“Is papa . . . ?”

He said:

“Your father has been hurt, Peter says.”

Ann sat still, cheeks drained of blood, lips quivering. The doctor said to Alonzo:

“You hitch Sam, Alonzo, and drive Ann home. We’ll be along in a few minutes.”

Ann said:

“I don’t want to go home, Doctor. I want to stay here. Is he hurt bad?”

Dr. Benham’s was a powerful personality. His patients regarded him with a love that was almost worship. They said of him:

“I begin to feel better the minute Doctor Benham comes in the door.”

His position for years as the sole judge of life and death in Eastham had made him a monarch with unlimited powers. He supervised births, promoted marriages, advised investments, settled family quarrels, lent money at no interest, and battled death with patience, skill, cunning, hate, love, devilish ingenuity, and infinite patience. They used to say of Dr. Benham:

“He ain’t much interested in pin pricks, or a little fever, but you get something serious, and he takes off his coat and goes to work.”

Dr. Benham was accustomed to being obeyed, and residents of Eastham were in the habit of obeying him. Ann made one more protest, and then drove off with Alonzo.

Ann sat gazing straight in front of her, a silent and pathetic figure. Alonzo glanced at her and opened his lips, but said no word. He merely chirruped to Nellie, who moved her iron-shod feet steadily through the dust, bearing them rattling past rows of trees painted with savage beauty by the magic brush of autumn, trees in vivid reds and yellows, oranges and burnt siennas, crimson, scarlet and gold, blazing in the last rays of the setting sun.

Alonzo helped Ann out at her home, and went up the walk and around to the side door with her. She tried the door, which was locked. She looked up at Alonzo and said:

“Vina always locks all the doors. She keeps her money in her stockings or under the mattress in her room.”

Vina opened the door. Her homely, kindly, angular face was flushed from kitchen heat. Her light hair was in confusion, as usual. Her white cotton shirt-waist was open at the throat, revealing reddened skin over bones. Her gingham apron was damp and stained. Her once black boots had been cut at the sides to make room for corns and bunions. She glanced at Alonzo, stood aside awkwardly, and said:

“Is Mr. Steele with you, Annie?”

“There was an accident at the First Church,” Alonzo said.

Vina’s mouth opened, and she clapped two work-stained hands to her face, staring from horrified eyes at Alonzo. She groaned, and dropped to her knees, putting her arms around Ann.

“Was he hurt bad?” she whispered, petting Ann’s back.

“We don’t know,” Alonzo said, shutting the door, with himself inside. “Doctor Benham is with him and should be here soon. I thought I’d stay. I might be of some help.”

Vina kissed Ann’s cheek and arose to her feet. Vina said:

“My cake’ll be burnt.”

She hurried back toward the kitchen, putting her apron to her eyes. Alonzo helped Ann remove her cloak. Then he took her hands and petted them, looking down at her. She made a very sweet, very brave, and very sad little figure. He was sure her father was dead, and he was sure she knew her father was dead. It was a numbing fact, he knew. It was like the bite of one of the flesh-eating animals. The shock was so great you couldn’t really feel it or estimate it.

He petted her hands again and looked down at her head, her hair tied in back in two pigtails with a yellow ribband. She said:

“I wish they would come.”

“They’ll be here as soon as possible,” he assured her. “They won’t want to keep you waiting.”

They walked toward the sitting room. She stood, dazed. He said:

“Won’t you sit down?”

She sat down on the sofa and he arranged two eiderdown pillows, one covered with green silk, shot with gold, and the other covered with yellow silk, behind her. But instead of leaning back against them, she sat up straight. She said:

“Listen.”

A horse and buggy stopped outside. She went to the window and looked. Dr. Benham was just getting out of his buggy. He reached in and got the hitching strap, snapped it on Sam’s bridle and knotted it deftly to the ring in the iron hitching post. Nobody was in the buggy with him. Ann didn’t have to be told any more. She knew her father was dead.

Alonzo drove Dr. Benham home. The doctor puffed his cigar, spat into the dust, and said:

“Pretty tough, wasn’t it?”

“Gee! It was rotten,” Alonzo said.

The doctor nibbled at a loose bit of leaf on the end of his cigar, bit it through, and got it stuck on the hair on his lower lip. He brushed it off with his gloved hand and said:

“Elihu always struck me as a man with a pretty good head.”

“Always seemed so to me,” Alonzo agreed.

“Never struck me as the kind that would go looking for a gas leak with a lighted match,” Dr. Benham said. “I always thought nobody but a first-class idiot would do that.”

“I’d think so,” Alonzo said.

The doctor shook his head, sighed, and said:

“But I knew Elihu Steele ever since he was a boy. He was one of the finest men you’d ever hope to meet, Alonzo. He wasn’t the kind that would kill himself and leave a little girl all alone in the world.”

“He didn’t strike me as that kind either,” Alonzo murmured.

Dr. Benham, whose head was just beginning to show the tremor incident to age, made the trembling emphatic and conscious again. He said:

“It’s a funny thing. I can’t figure it out unless it was this way. Elihu was pretty miserable but he wouldn’t commit suicide. On the other hand he was so depressed that he wasn’t thinking normally. He wasn’t alert. The policeman in his brain was asleep. The policeman let him light that match. It was something mysterious that we don’t know about, inside of Elihu, that killed him.”

“I don’t just understand,” Alonzo said.

Dr. Benham shook his head, and said:

“And the older you get, son, the less you will understand.”

Sam stopped in front of the entrance to the offices in the Pease Block. The doctor grunted and half arose, gripping the iron guard rail of the seat firmly in his right hand as he turned his back to the horse and groped with his left foot for the buggy step. On the sidewalk he stopped a moment, drew a fresh cigar from his pocket, and lighted it on the stub of the old one. He threw the old stub away and straightened his shoulders and said:

“Well, this has been quite a day. Good night, Alonzo.”

“Good night, Doctor.”

Dr. Benham’s face looked tired when he went to bed in the little room off his private office. He had slept in this room for thirty years. When he grew tired of the carpet, or it became worn, he merely had a new carpet tacked down over the old one. According to Mrs. Aaron Bentley, who knew most that was going on in Eastham, there were eight layers of carpet in the bedroom. The single window never had been opened, winter or summer, during the doctor’s occupancy. He believed that night air was conducive neither to health nor longevity.

He stripped off his light woolen union suit and pulled his flannelette nightgown, gray with pink stripes, over his head. He went to a medicine cabinet and took down a can of chloroform. He poured some of the contents over a handkerchief, carefully restoppered the can, and replaced it on the shelf. Then he lay down on the bed, pulled sheet and double blanket up to his chin and draped the chloroform-drenched bit of linen over his face.

That was the way Dr. Benham always went to sleep.