Читать книгу Sweetapple Cove - George Van Schaick - Страница 3

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From John Grant's Diary

Have I shown wisdom or made an arrant, egregious fool of myself? This, I suppose, is a question every man puts to himself after taking a sudden decision upon which a great deal depends.

I have shaken the dust of the great city by the Hudson and forsaken its rich laboratories, its vast hospitals, the earnest workers who were beginning to show some slight interest in me. It was done not after mature consideration but owing to the whim of a moment, to a sudden desire to change the trend of things I felt I could no longer contend with.

Now I live in a little house, among people who speak with an accent that has become unfamiliar to the great outside world. They have given up their two best rooms to me, at a rental so small that I am somewhat ashamed to tender it, at the end of every week. I also obtain the constant care and the pleasant smiles of a good old housewife who appears to take a certain amount of pride in her lodger. As far as I know I am the only boarder in Sweetapple Cove, as well as the only doctor. For a day or two after my arrival I accompanied the local parson, Mr. Barnett, on visits to people he considered to be in need of my ministrations. Now they are coming in droves, and many scattered dwellers on the bleak coast have heard of me. Little fishing-smacks meeting others from farther outports have spread the amazing news that there is a doctor at the Cove.

With other pomps and vanities I have given up white shirts and collars, and my recent purchases include oilskins and long boots. This is fashionable apparel here, and my wearing them appears to impart confidence in my ability.

My only reason for writing this is that the Barnetts go to bed early. Doubtless I may also acquire the habit, in good time. Moreover, there is always a danger of disturbing some important sermon-writing. In common decency I can't bother these delightful people every evening, although they have begged me to consider their home as my own. Mrs. Barnett is a most charming woman, and never in my life have I known anything like the welcome she impulsively extended, but she works hard and I cannot intrude too much. Hence the hours after nine are exceedingly long, when it chances that there are no sick people to look after. At first, of course, I just mooned around, and called myself all sorts of names, honestly considering myself the most stupendous fool ever permitted to exist in freedom from restraint. I plunged into books and devoured the medical weeklies which the irregular mails of the place brought me, yet this did not entirely suffice, and now I have begun to write. It may help the time to pass away, and prevent the attacks of mold and rust. Later on, if things do not shape themselves according to my hopes, these dangers will be of little import. These sheets may then mildew with the dampness of this land, or fly away to sea with the shrewd breezes that sweep over our coast, for all I shall care. At any rate they will have served their purpose.

Of course I am trying to swallow my medicine like a little man. If there is a being I despise it is the fellow who whimpers. There is little that is admirable in professional pugilism, saving the smile often seen on a fighter's face after he has just received a particularly hard and crushing blow. Indeed, that smile is the bruiser's apology for his life.

Lest it be inferred that I have been fighting, I hasten to declare that it was a rather one-sided contest in which I was defeated, lock, stock and barrel, by a mere slip of a girl towards whom I had only lifted up my hands in supplication.

"We are both very young, John," she explained to me, with an exasperating, if unconscious, imitation of the doctors she had observed as they announced very disagreeable things to their patients. "Our lives are practically only beginning. Until now we have been like the vegetables that are brought up in little wooden boxes. We are to be taken up and planted in a field, where we are to grow up into something useful."

"And we shall enjoy a great advantage over the young cabbages and lettuces," I chimed in. "We shall have the inestimable privilege of being permitted to select the particular farm or enclosure that pleases us best."

"Of course," said Dora Maclennon, cheerfully.

"But I should be ever so glad to have you select for the two of us," I told her. "I guarantee to follow you blindly."

She put her hand on my arm and patted it in the abominably soothing way she has doubtless acquired in the babies' ward. In my case it was about as effectual as the traditional red rag to a bull.

"Don't you dare touch me like that," I resented. "I'm quite through with the mumps and measles. My complaint is one you don't understand at all. You are unable to sympathize with me because love, to you, is a mere theoretical thing. You've heard of it, perhaps you are even ready to admit that some people suffer from such an ailment, but you don't really know anything about it. It has not been a part of your curriculum. I've been trying to inoculate you with this distemper but it won't take."

"I suppose I'm a poor sort of soil for that kind of culture," she replied, rather wistfully.

"There is no finer soil in the world," I protested, doggedly.

Every man in the world and at least half the women would have agreed with me. The grace of her charming figure, her smiles and that one little dimple, the waving abundance of her silken hair, the rich inflections of her voice, each and all contradicted that foolish supposition of hers.

"Well, I thought this was an invitation to dinner," remarked Dora, sweetly, with all the brutal talent of her sex for changing the drift of conversation. "Of course they fed us well at the hospital, when we had time to eat, but. … "

"Is that your last word?" I asked, trying to subdue the eagerness of my voice.

"If you don't really care to go. … "

I rose and sought my hat and overcoat, while Dora wandered about my unpretentious office.

"Your landlady could take lessons from Paddy's pig in cleanliness," she declared, running a finger over my bookcase and contemplating it with horror. "I wonder that you, a surgeon, should be an accomplice to such a mess."

"It's pretty bad," I admitted, "but the poor thing has weak eyes, and she has seen better days."

"She deserves the bad ones, then," Dora exclaimed.

"As in the case of many other maladies, we have as yet been unable to discover the microbe of woman's inhumanity to woman," I observed.

"When doggies meet they commonly growl," said Dora, "and when pussies meet they usually spit and scratch. Each according to his or her nature. And it seems to me that you could afford a new overcoat. That one is positively becoming green."

"I do believe I have another one, somewhere," I admitted.

"Then go and find it," she commanded. "You need some one to look after you."

I turned on her like the proverbial flash, or perhaps like the

Downtrodden worm.

"Isn't that just what I've been gnashing my teeth over?" I asked. "I'm glad you have the grace to admit it."

"I'll admit anything you like," she said. "But, John dear, we can't really be sure yet that I'm the one who ought to do it. And—and maybe there will be no room at the tables unless we hurry a little."

She was buttoning up her gloves again, quite coolly, and cast approving glances at some radiographic prints on my wall.

"That must have been a splendid fracture," she commented.

"You are a few million years old in the ways of Eve," I told her, "but you are still young in the practice of trained nursing. To you broken legs and, perhaps, broken hearts, are as yet but interesting cases."

She turned her shapely head towards me, and for an instant her eyes searched mine.

"Do you really believe that?" she asked, in a very low-sweet voice.

I stood before her, penitently.

"I don't suppose I do," I acknowledged. "Let us say that it was just some of the growling of the dog. He doesn't usually mean anything by it."

"You're an awfully good fellow, John," said the little nurse, pleasantly. "I know I've been hurting you a bit. Please, I'm sorry the medicine tastes so badly."

The only thing I could do was to lift up one of her hands and kiss a white kid glove, faute de mieux. It was stretched over her fingers, however, and hence was part of her.

When we reached the restaurant she selected a table and placed herself so that she might see as many diners as possible. If there had been people outside of Paradise, Eve would certainly have peeped through the palings. I handed her the bill of fare and she begged for Cape Cods.

"You order the rest of it," she commanded. "I'm going to look."

While I discussed dishes with the waiter her eyes wandered over the big room, taking in pretty dresses and becoming coiffures. Then she watched the leader of the little orchestra, who certainly wielded a masterful bow, and gave a little sigh of content.

"We really could afford this at least once or twice a week," I sought to tempt her, "and the theatre besides, and—and—"

She looked at me very gravely, moving a little from side to side, as if my head presented varied and interesting aspects.

"That's one of the troubles with you," she finally said. "You have some money, a nice reasonable amount of money, and you can afford some things, and I can't tell whether you're going to be an amateur or a professional."

"An amateur?" I repeated, dully.

"I mean no reflection upon your abilities," she explained, hurriedly. "I know all that you have done in London and in Edinburgh, and these German places. You can tack more than half the letters of the alphabet after your name if you choose to. But I don't quite see what you are doing in New York."

"You wrote that you were coming to study nursing here," I reminded her. "This is now a great centre of scientific research, thanks to the princely endowments of the universities. Have you the slightest notion of how many years I have loved you, Dora?"

"Not quite so loud," she reproved me. "I believe it began in dear old St. John's. You were about fourteen when you declared your passion, and I wore pigtails and exceedingly short skirts. My legs, also, were the spindliest things."

"Yes, that was the beginning, Dora, and it has continued ever since. During the years I spent abroad we kept on writing. It seemed to me that the whole thing was settled. I've always had your pictures with me; the first was little Dora, and the other one was taken when you first did your hair up and wore long dresses. During all that time St. John's was the garden of the Hesperides, and you were the golden thing I was toiling for. When you wrote that you were coming to New York I took the next boat over. Then you told me I must wait until you graduated. And now, after your commencement, I hoped, indeed I hoped—I'm afraid I'm worrying you, dear."

She smiled at me, very pleasantly, but the little dimple held naught but mystery. I really think her eyes implied a sort of regret, as if she wished she could make the ordeal less hard for me.

The waiter brought the oysters, which Dora consumed appreciatively. I was simply compelled to eat also, lest she should deem me a peevish loser in the great game I had sought to play. Yet I remember that these Cape Cods were distinctly hard to swallow, delicious though they probably were.

Suddenly she looked up, and the little oyster impaled on her fork dropped on the plate.

"There's Taurus!" she exclaimed, with gleaming eyes.

She was looking at a rather tall man, of powerful build, whose abundant hair was splendidly tinged with silver, and who was coming in with a very beautiful woman.

"Is that what you nurses call him?" I asked, recognizing one of the great surgeons of the world.

"Yes," she answered. "Isn't he wonderful? We're all in love with him, the mean thing."

"Kindly explain the adjective," I urged her. "Is it due to the fact that he protected himself against the wiles of a host of pretty women by marrying the sweetest one of the lot—with a single exception—to the utter despair of the remainder?"

"Did you ever hear him blow up his house-staff?" Dora asked me.

"I have heard that he could be rather strenuous at times," I admitted.

"Well, that's how he infringes on our rights," Dora informed me. "I have never heard him say an angry word to a nurse. He just has a way of smiling at one, as if he were beholding an infinitesimal infant totally incapable of understanding. The sarcasm of it is utterly fierce and the nurse goes off, red and shaken, and feels like killing him. Don't you think we've got just as good a right as any whipper-snapper of a new intern to be blown up?"

"Evidently," I assented. "It is an unfair discrimination."

"And yet we're all just crazy for him. You can hardly understand how the personality of the man permeates the wards, how he gives one the impression of some wonderful being who has reached a pinnacle, and remains there, smilingly, without heeding the crowd below that worships and cheers. And how the patients adore him!"

She evidently expected no answer from me, nor did I venture upon one. Her words were very significant, and gave me a rather hopeless feeling. She was under the influence of the glamour of great names and reputations. Her youth demanded hero-worship. Measured by her standards I was but a nice friend, to whom she could even be affectionate.

Presently, in her enjoyment of our modest little dinner, she turned to me, appearing to forget the crowd, and sighed happily.

"This would all be so delightful," she said, "if. … "

"I'll tell you, girlie," I said, "let us agree that all this has been a dream of mine. We will say that I have never been in love with you, and regard you now with profound indifference. It has been that which some very amazing practitioners are pleased to call an error. Now you will be able to enjoy happiness. As far as I am concerned I don't suppose it can make me feel any worse."

"You're a dear good boy, John," she answered. "We shall always be awfully good friends, and perhaps, some day … Now you must tell me all your plans."

"Ladies first," I objected.

"Well, my heart is still in Newfoundland, you know. But I'm going to stay at least a year in New York. I'm going to work among the poorest and most unpleasant, because I want to become self-reliant. Then I shall go back home. Think of a trained nurse let loose in some of those outports! I should just revel in it. I am an heiress worth five hundred dollars a year of my own. That would keep a lot of people up there. You see, I have a theory!"

"Will you be so kind as to share it with me?" I asked.

"Well, ordinary nursing is a humdrum thing" and there are thousands to do it. It is the same thing with you. Just now, having no practice as yet, you are working in laboratories with a lot of others; you run around hospitals—also with a crowd. What do you know about your ability to go right out and do a man's work, by yourself? That is what counts, to my mind."

"I see the point," I informed her, "and you expect surely to return to the land of codfish."

"Yes," she nodded, "and now what about you?"

"Oh, I am going there next week," I replied. She opened her eyes very wide, vaguely scenting some sort of joke, but in this she erred.

"I see no use in remaining here," I said, with a determination as strong as it was recent. "It would take me a long time to put myself on the level of men like Taurus, and I don't want a lot of nurses falling in love with me; I only asked for one. You are going back after a time. Very well, I'm going now, and I'll wait for you. I can easily find some place where a doctor is badly needed. You will answer my letters, won't you?"

"I promise," she said, very gravely, "and it is a very good idea. One can always do a man's work up there."

She ate a Nesselrode pudding while I enjoyed coffee and a cigar, to the extent that I forgot to drink the one and allowed the other to go out after a puff or two.

"Your money came from a good St. John's merchant who made it from the people of the outports," she said. "You might spend a little on them now, gracefully. They need it badly enough."

We remained silent for some time, thinking of the bleak coast of our big island, where the price of our little dinner would have represented a large sum, and then we left the restaurant and took a car up town.

When she finally held out her little hand to me it was warm, and I fancied that from it came a current that was comforting, though it may have been but the affectionate regard of some years of good friendship.

"You will dine again with me, next Thursday?" I asked her. "It will take me a few days to get ready."

"Don't you think that Gordian knot had better be cut at once?" advised Dora. "I won't change my mind, and you know I've always been an obstinate thing. There are important things for both of us to achieve, somewhere. I must grope about to find my share of them, for I feel like the ship that did not find itself till it encountered a storm or two. If I promised to meet you next week you would keep on hoping. Do plunge right in now instead of shivering on the bank."

"Don't trouble about any more metaphors," I told her. "You promise to go home within a year?"

"I firmly intend to," she replied, "but you can't always depend on a woman's plans."

"If I can't depend on you I have very little left to believe in," I declared.

"I'm pretty sure I'll come," she said, "and—and God bless you, John!"

So we separated there, in the silent street, before the nurses' home where she had taken a room a few days after her graduation. I couldn't trust myself to say anything more.

The door closed upon her and I slowly walked back to my quarters, with a head full of dreary thoughts, and several times narrowly escaped speeding taxis and brought down upon myself some picturesque language.

I fear that I was hardly in a mood to appreciate its beauty.