Читать книгу Lola - Owen Davis - Страница 6

Table of Contents

On the following day the papers devoted a few lines to the accidental injury of a young girl, “Lola Barnhelm, daughter of Dr. Martin Barnhelm, a physician in good standing in the neighborhood.” The fact that “the automobile by which the young lady was injured belonged to Richard Fenway, the well-known Wall Street broker, son of old Dick Fenway of Cleveland, and a well-known figure in the life of the ‘Broadway crowd,’” seemed to be of more general interest than the account of her injury, but two of the papers noted the fact that “she was at first pronounced dead and later found to be merely suffering from shock.”

What Dr. Barnhelm and Dr. Crossett said to one another no one besides themselves ever knew. To John, after the moment when Dr. Crossett went to him, white-faced, and awed, and told him that Lola was alive, they said nothing.

John was content. He loved her, and she had come back to him! Had she for those few moments been really dead, or had the young ambulance surgeon been mistaken? What did it matter? Late that night they had allowed him to creep softly to her chamber door, and looking in he had seen her sleeping quietly, and they assured him that, aside from a probable nervous shock, she was quite unharmed.

In the days that followed the nervous shock turned out to be more serious than was at first supposed. Physically, Lola seemed to be in good condition, but for the first time in her life she was unjust, irritable, and jealous. Dr. Crossett claimed this to be a fine symptom of returning health.

“Temper,” he remarked cheerfully, “is the copyright trade-mark of the convalescent,” but to John her sudden, unreasonable fits of anger and a feeling that in anyone but Lola he would have described as selfishness amazed and alarmed him.

Dr. Barnhelm, too, seemed changed, but in his case the change was for the better. He was closeted all day, and often almost all night with his machine, and its low throbbing penetrated the whole building and brought indignant protests from the other tenants, protests that were received by the Doctor with a slow smile of contempt and at once forgotten.

From the moment when he was assured of his daughter’s safety, he buried himself in his work, calm and happy, with little thought for anything but this great discovery of his—this wonderful invention that was to do so much for suffering humanity.

Dr. Crossett left them after the first few days to keep some important engagement in the West, but before he left he had insisted upon advancing Dr. Barnhelm a sum of money sufficient for his needs, enough to allow him freedom to complete his experiments and prepare the elaborate models necessary for a demonstration before the Medical Society.

At first Dr. Barnhelm had refused to accept the favor, but Lola, greatly to his surprise, had sided against him, and more to please her than for any other reason he had taken the money on the understanding that it was to be repaid out of the first profits of his invention. At the time there seemed little reason to doubt his ability to repay his friend. Fame and success mean much to a physician’s income, and after the proof he had so lately had how could he consider anything but success possible? He gave up his practice, excepting only a few of his old charity patients, and turning the borrowed money over to Lola, who had for a long time been in the habit of controlling the family purse, he buried himself in his work.

For over two months Dr. Crossett travelled, first to Chicago, then to Denver, and from there to San Francisco. Everywhere he was received with the honors due to a man of his high standing in the medical world, and allowed full opportunity to compare the treatment of nervous disorders with the methods of the best physicians of his own country. He had come as the representative of the French society, of which he was president, and it was his object to gather enough information to aid him in the writing of a book upon this subject. He heard once from Dr. Barnhelm, notifying him of a change in their address from upper Eighth Avenue to an apartment on Riverside Drive. No explanation for the change was offered, the rest of the letter being a long account of the progress of his work and a few words about Lola, that she had quite recovered her health and seemed to be in unusually high spirits.

For some weeks after this he had been travelling almost constantly, but on his return to Chicago he found a short note waiting for him at his hotel. In this note Dr. Barnhelm simply stated that he was in trouble and anxious to see him. That it was nothing that need cause him to cut short his stay in the West, but that the matter was a delicate one, and that he was anxious to see him immediately upon his return.

Dr. Crossett was rather alarmed by the whole tone of his old friend’s letter. Of Lola there was no mention, but he could not free himself of a vague suspicion that she must be the cause of her father’s evidently deeply troubled mind, and he brought his business affairs to an abrupt end and caught the next fast train to New York.

It had been Spring when Dr. Crossett landed in America; it was now Summer, and, as his taxi ran smoothly up Fifth Avenue to the Park, the boarded-up fronts of the houses suggested to him a plan for forcing a brief extension of his vacation and spending a week or two with Lola and her father at some of the famous American watering-places of which he had often heard. His own splendid health and superb vitality he owed, in part, to his habit of allowing himself frequent intervals of mental rest and outdoor exercise, and as he thought of how Lola would be benefited by a change from the hot, stale air of the city to some beautiful seashore or mountain resort, he smiled to himself happily.

The cab stopped, and as he got out and turned to pay the driver he noticed with surprised approval the unbroken row of stately apartment houses facing the green of Riverside Park and the wide expanse of the Hudson. His old friend was growing wise he thought to himself; here at least were grass, and trees, and fresh air.

Maria admitted him, and showing him through a wide foyer-hall into a pretty and well-furnished parlor, turned to leave him, but he called her back anxiously.

“Miss Lola! Tell me, Maria?”

There was just a trace of hesitation as she answered.

“Very well, I think, sir. I never saw her looking better in my life.”

“Good! Good! Ah! The times, they have changed,” and he looked around the daintily furnished apartment smilingly. “It is not as it was two months ago.”

“No, sir.”

“You also,” as he noticed her neat black dress and white cap and apron; “you are a very pretty girl, Maria.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Do not thank me,” he replied with a chuckle. “I share in the pleasure it causes you. Now, Maria, don’t blush. I am old enough to be your father, and I like you because you are good to those two who are so dear to me. I am happy to see all these signs of prosperity. The Doctor’s practice must have increased?”

“I don’t think so, sir,” said Maria. “No patients ever come here, leastways none but the poor ones who don’t pay nothin’.”

“So? And yet he has not given the news of his discovery to the world. I do not comprehend.”

Maria hesitated for a moment, then faced him anxiously as though to say something, but after a moment’s pause she recovered herself and said respectfully:

“The Doctor is out, sir. Miss Lola is dressing. She will be here in a moment.”

“I am in no hurry,” he replied, “now that you tell me that all is well here. I am content to share in the happiness of my friend. His daughter well; a fine home; one could not hope for this two months ago! Poverty, death! Pish!” and he snapped his fingers contemptuously. “They are gone! It is indeed the age of miracles.”

“Coming back like she did, sir,” retorted Maria, “after everyone thought she was dead, ain’t a thing that does a body any good! You couldn’t expect her to be quite so happy and so sweet as she used to be, could you, Doctor?”

In the girl’s voice was so much of anxious inquiry, such a tone of real sadness and regret, that he turned to her alarmed, but at that moment Lola came into the room. In the few seconds it took her to cross to him, smiling, both hands extended in greeting, his practiced eye assured him that never in all his experience had he seen a young woman in such superb physical health. She was radiant! The simple little housedress in which he had first seen her had been exchanged for an elaborate afternoon costume. Her skin was clear, he had remembered her as being pale, even in the short time he had seen her before the accident; but now she had a high color and an eager, animated manner that spoke of an abundant reserve of vitality.

“There you are, Doctor,” she cried gaily, as he returned the warm pressure of her hands. “I wonder if you know how glad I am to see you?”

“No, my dear,” he answered, “not unless you are reflecting my own pleasure in seeing you like this. I was worrying about you, way off there in the West. Were you well? Were you happy? Now I have but to look at you.”

“You are a flatterer, Doctor.”

As Lola turned from him smiling, her eyes fell on Maria, who stood watching the Doctor’s face with a curious look of eager curiosity, her look changed, and she spoke sharply, almost cruelly.

“What are you doing here, Maria?”

Maria flushed and tears came to her eyes as she stammered, “I—I——”

“You may go.”

“Yes, Miss.”

Maria left the room and Lola turned to find Dr. Crossett looking at her in wonder. He knew of the real affection that there had been between these two, and his own tender heart told him how Lola’s tone must have hurt the girl who had so much reason to think of her with affection and gratitude. He made no effort to keep a look of reproof out of his eyes, but if Lola saw it there she gave no sign of it, but seated herself on a broad couch and motioned to him airily to seat himself beside her.

“Now, Dr. Crossett,” she began, “I want to talk with you before you see father. He is the dearest man in the world, but he knows nothing at all about business. He wrote to you?”

“Yes, that is why I am here.”

“It is about money; he is very poor.”

“Poor?” Dr. Crossett glanced about the expensively furnished room in surprise, but Lola continued without seeming to notice. “He did not want to write, but I made him. You are his friend. You love him. I am sure that you will be glad to help him.”

“What I have is his,” answered Dr. Crossett. “Surely there is no need to repeat that. If he wanted more, why did he not ask for it when I gave him my check before I left New York?”

“Oh, that money he borrowed from you he was going to use for his experiments; to perfect his machines, and to prepare to demonstrate them, but naturally I could not allow him to do that. If he’s to be a famous man he must, at least, live like a gentleman. I selected this apartment, and insisted upon his moving, and now he is so worried, and nervous, and cross, just because he has no more money.”

“He is my friend,” said the Doctor gravely. “I will gladly supply all he needs, but——”

“But——!” repeated Lola impatiently, and to him for a moment it sounded almost rudely. “Surely you are not going to say that I have been extravagant. Father has hinted it, so has John, and it wouldn’t be fair for you to join them against me. You won’t do that, will you?”

LOLA SHOCKS HER FATHER AND HIS FRIEND BY HER HEARTLESSNESS.

As she looked up at him shyly, yet confidently, it seemed to him that the last twenty years had been a dream, and that he was sitting beside that other young woman, so like her, and any trace of disappointment he had felt at her attitude fell away, and there was nothing but tenderness in his voice as he replied:

“It was more years ago than I can count that your mother came to me and looked up as you are looking now, and begged me not to side against her. She wanted to marry your father; and all were saying ‘no.’ I could not refuse her anything any more than I could you, although it hurt me to help bring about that marriage, for I loved her myself. So you see how helpless I am. I must fight your battles. I have no choice.”

“You’re a dear,” laughed Lola happily, “and if I had been mother—but there—I must not make you vain. I was sure that I could depend upon you. Now, let’s not talk about serious things any more. Come! Let me show you the view of the river from the windows. Isn’t it glorious here! Why, do you know, Doctor dear, that after Eighth Avenue this is like another world? Look!” She had dragged him to the window and with one hand on his shoulder, and her pretty, eager face flushed with an almost passionate enthusiasm, she stood pointing out to where the Drive curved majestically, flanked on one side by its stately buildings, on the other by the always beautiful Hudson and the distant Palisades.

“Look!” she repeated. “I was content once in that shabby, horrid flat. Perfectly content, and patient, and happy. Father said that I was content because I was good, but I know better; it was because I was ignorant; because the thing that was mine was the only thing I knew. He talks of going back! Threatens, because he is afraid, because he never spent money in his life, and is too old to learn now, to return to that squalid, shabby, dirty hole. I want you to talk to him,” and she turned him so that he faced her, and as he felt the nervous grasp on his arm he marvelled at her strength. “I want you to tell him what I have already told him, that, if he goes back there, he will go alone. I am out of it now, and there isn’t power enough in the world to drag me back.”

“My dear,” remonstrated the Doctor gravely, “you and John are to be married; he is young; surely while he is making his way in the world you will be willing to share whatever his fortune may be. Love is as sweet in poverty, Lola, as it is in a home like this.”

“That is a platitude, Doctor, a platitude invented by cowards who weren’t strong enough to win the good things of life, and who, because they couldn’t have them, were fools enough to try to blind themselves with stupid words. I am a woman! A woman’s only chance for all the beautiful things of life rests upon some man. When a man comes to me and says, ‘I want the only things you have, your youth, your love, your beauty,’ haven’t I the right to say, ‘What will you give me for them?’”

The Doctor drew back, deeply shocked. Her words, the deep earnestness of her voice, and the hard, selfish look in her eyes, surprised and hurt him. He was a sentimentalist and to him a woman’s whole existence should be in her love, and in the home her lover could provide for her. Modern as he was in his practice of medicine, advanced as he was in his psychological studies, at heart he was an old-fashioned man, with all of the old-fashioned man’s ideas of love and marriage. For a moment he felt a feeling of repulsion, almost of horror, and he looked coldly at this young girl, who seemed to be so greatly changed by a few short weeks of luxury, but as he looked he thought of the day, only so lately passed, when she had been brought to them, white and lifeless, and as he saw her now, defiant, rebellious, in all the vigor of her splendid health, he smiled at her tenderly. He knew, as few men know, the changes that some great nervous shock so often makes in a person’s character, and he resolved to devote himself to this girl until her nervous system fully recovered, to help her with gentle kindness until her old tranquil serenity was fully restored. It came into his mind that of all the many cases of hysteria which he had successfully treated here was one that would challenge his greatest skill, and he was glad of the fortune that had sent him to her, for his experienced eyes saw that she was to need his help, and in the confidence of a man to whom failure seldom came he felt secure in his ability to restore her to her old gentle self. He sat down beside her and talked quietly of her father and of the fame and fortune that was so sure to be his, and as he talked he watched her and saw just a young, happy, innocent girl, serene now, perfectly gentle, perfectly calm, and they laughed and talked merrily together until her father entered the room.