NO ANÆSTHETIC
Of course the day came, as it inevitably must, when Black and Red
actually met, face to face, with no way out but to shake hands, look
each other in the eye, and consider their acquaintance made? No,
that day of proper introduction never came. But the day did come on
which they looked each other in the eye without shaking hands--and
another day, a long time after, they did shake hands. As to their
friendship--but that’s what this story is about.
The day on which they looked each other in the eye first was on a
Sunday morning, rather early. Black had done a perfectly foolhardy
thing. It was a late June day, and the cherries in a certain tree just
outside his bathroom window were blood-red ripe and tempting. Fresh
from his cold tub--clad in shirt and trousers, unshaven--his mouth
watering at the thought of eating cherries before breakfast, he climbed
out of the window upon the sloping roof of the side porch, and let
himself down to the edge to reach the cherries. He never knew how the
fool thing happened, really; the only thing he did know was that he
slipped suddenly upon the edge of the roof, wet with an early morning
shower, and fell heavily to the ground below, striking on his right
shoulder. And then, presently, he was sitting at the telephone in his
study, addressing R. P. Burns, M.D., in terms which strove to be
casual, inviting him to make a morning call at the manse.
“I’d come over myself,” he explained, “but I’m ashamed to say I’m a
trifle shaky.”
“Naturally,” replied the crisp voice at the other end of the wire. “Go
and lie down till I get there.”
“Please have your breakfast first,” requested Black, struggling hard to
master a growing faintness. Whatever he had done to his shoulder, it
hurt rather badly, though he didn’t mind that so much as the idea of
disgracing himself in Burns’ eyes by going white and flabby over what
was probably a trivial injury. To be sure he couldn’t use his arm, but
it didn’t occur to him that he had actually dislocated that shoulder by
so trifling a means as a slip from the manse roof. The manse roof, of
all places! It wasn’t built for incumbent ministers to go upon, between
a bath and a shave, and tumble from like a little boy--and on a Sunday
morning, too!
The answer Red gave to Black’s suggestion that he have breakfast before
coming resembled a grunt more than anything else. Black couldn’t
determine whether the red-headed doctor meant to do it or not. The
question was settled within five minutes by the arrival of Red, who
came straight in at the open manse door, followed the call Black gave,
“In here, please--at your left,” and appeared in the study doorway,
surgical bag in his hand, and a somewhat grim expression--with which
Black had already become familiar at a distance--upon his lips. Black
sat in his red-cushioned wooden rocker, that most incongruous piece of
furniture in the midst of the black walnut dignity of the manse study,
and in it his appearance suggested that of a sick boy who has taken
refuge in his mother’s arms. Indeed, it may have been with somewhat
of that feeling that he had chosen it as the place in which to wait
the coming of aid. Anyhow, his face, under its unshaven blur of beard,
looked rather white, though his voice was steady.
“Mighty sorry to bother you at this hour, Doctor Burns,” he began, but
was interrupted.
“Didn’t I tell you to lie down? What’s the use of sitting up and
getting faint?”
“I’m all right.”
“Yes, I see! All alone here? Thought you had a housekeeper.” Red was
opening up his bag and laying out supplies as he spoke.
“I have. She’s gone home for over Sunday.”
“They usually have--when anything happens. Well, come over here on this
couch, if you can walk, and we’ll see what the trouble is.”
Black demonstrated that he could walk, though it was with considerable
effort. Through all his undeniable faintness he was thinking with some
exultation that this was a perfectly good chance to meet Red--and on
his own ground, too. What luck!
Red made a brief examination.
“You’ve fixed that shoulder, all right,” he announced. “No
matter--we’ll have you under a whiff of ether, and reduce it in a
jiffy.”
“Thanks--no ether, please. You mean I’ve dislocated it?” inquired the
patient, speaking with some difficulty.
“Good and proper. Here you are----” And without loss of time a
peculiarly shaped article, made of wire and gauze and smelling
abominably, came over Black’s face. It was instantly removed.
“I believe I said no ether, if you please!” remarked an extraordinarily
obstinate voice.
“Nonsense, man! I’m only going to give you enough to relax you. I see
some good stiff muscles there that may give me trouble.”
“Ether’ll make me sick, and I’ve got to preach this morning.”
“Preach--nothing!”
“It may be nothing,” agreed the patient, “but I’m going to preach it,
just the same. And I won’t have an anæsthetic, thank you just as much,
Doctor.”
Red said no more. No surgeon but is astute enough to tell whether
a patient is bluffing or whether he means it. Unquestionably,
though Black’s face was the colour of ashes, he meant it. Therefore
Red proceeded to reduce the dislocation, without the advantage to
himself--or to the patient--of the relaxing aid of the anæsthetic. It
was a bad dislocation, and it took the doctor’s own sturdy muscles and
all his professional skill to do the trick in a few quick, efficient
moves and one tremendous pull. But it was all over in less time that it
takes to tell it, and only one low groan had escaped Black’s tightly
pressed lips. Nevertheless his forehead was wet and cold when he lay
limp at the end of that bad sixty seconds.
A strong arm came under his shoulders, and a glass was held to his
lips. “Drink this--you’ll be all right in a minute,” said a rather
far-away voice, and Black obediently swallowed something which he
didn’t much like--and which he probably would have refused to take
if he had suspected that it was going to help buck him up the way it
did. He had an absurd idea of not allowing himself to be bucked up by
anything but his own will--not in the presence of Red, anyhow.
“Some nerve--for a preacher,” presently said the voice which sounded
nearer now.
“Why--a preacher?” inquired Black, as belligerently as a man can who
is stretched upon his back with his coat off, his arm being bandaged
to his side, and a twenty-four hours’ growth of beard on his somewhat
aggressive chin.
“Never mind,” Red commanded. “We won’t have it out now. I don’t blame
you--that was hitting a man when he’s down.”
“I’m not down.” Black attempted to sit up. A vigorous arm detained him
where he was.
“Just keep quiet a few minutes, and you’ll be the gainer in the end. By
the way--can you shave with your left hand?”
“I never tried it.” Black’s left hand took account of his cheek and
chin. “I was just going to shave when those--fool--cherries caught my
eye.”
“Where’s your shaving stuff?”
Black looked up, startled. “Oh, I can’t let you----”
“Who’s going to do it? If you must preach, you don’t want to go to it
looking like a pugilist, do you? Though I’m not so sure----” Red left
the sentence unfinished, while a wicked smile played round his lips.
“I’ll do it myself--or send for a barber.”
“Oh, come on, Black! I’m perfectly competent to do the job, and now
I’ve got my hand in on you I’d like to leave you looking the part you
wouldn’t insist on playing if you weren’t pretty game. I’m not so sure
I ought to let you----”
“I’d like to see you help it,” declared Black, and now he was smiling,
too, and feeling distinctly better.
So it ended by Red’s going upstairs after the shaving materials,
and then shaving Black, and doing it with decidedly less finish of
style than might have been expected of a crack surgeon with a large
reputation. He cut his victim once, and Black, putting up a hand
and getting it all blood and lather, grinned up into Red’s face, who
grinned back and expressed his regret at the slip. This does not mean
that they had become friends--not from Red’s standpoint, at least, who
would have befriended a sick dog and then shot him without compunction
because he didn’t want him around. But it does mean that at last the
two had met, on a man-to-man basis, and that Red’s respect for the
man he had been in no hurry to meet had been considerably augmented.
Black was pretty sure of this, and it helped to brace him more than the
stimulant had done.
Two hours later Red cut a call on a rich patient much shorter than was
politic, in order to get to the Stone Church in time to slip into a
back pew. Before going in he gave young Perkins instructions not to
call him out before the sermon ended for anything short of murder on
the church doorstep, surprising that lively usher very much, since
it was the first time such a thing had ever happened. In making this
effort Red had Black in mind as a patient rather than a minister. A
severe dislocation must naturally cause a certain amount of nervous
shock which might prove disastrous to a man attempting to carry
through a long service and spend most of the period upon his feet,
within two hours after the accident occurred. Game though Black might
be--well--Red admitted to himself that he rather wanted to see how
the fellow whom he could no longer call “the Kid” would see the thing
through.
Reactions are curious things. In this case, though it was true that
Black had to steady himself more than once to keep his congregation
from whirling dizzily and disconcertingly before his eyes, had to set
his teeth and summon every ounce of will he possessed to keep on
through the first three quarters of his service, after all it was Red
who got the most of the reaction. For the sermon which Black preached
contained a bomb thrown straight at the heads of a parish which, with
half the world at war, was in its majority distinctly pacifist--as was
many another church during the year of 1916. Black, before his sermon
was done, had taken an out-and-out, unflinching stand for the place
of the Church in times of war, and had declared that it must be on
the side of the sword, when the sword was the only weapon which could
thrust its way to peace.
Red, listening closely, forgetting that the man before him was his
patient, found himself involuntarily admitting that whatever else he
was, Robert McPherson Black was fearless in his speech. And there was
probably no use in denying that the fellow had a way of putting things
that, as James Macauley had asserted, effectually prevented the man in
the pew from becoming absorbed in reveries of his own. It had been by
no means unusual for R. P. Burns, surgeon, expecting to do a critical
operation on Monday morning, to perform that operation in detail on
Sunday morning, while sitting with folded arms and intent expression
before a man who was endeavouring to interest him in spiritual affairs.
On the present occasion, however, though the coming Monday’s clinical
schedule was full to the hatches, Red was unable to detach himself for
a moment from the subject being handled so vigorously by Black. Thus,
listening through to the closing words, he discovered himself to be
aflame with fires which another hand had kindled, and that hand, most
marvellously, a preacher’s.
Young Perkins, hovering close to the rear seat into which Red had
stolen upon coming in just before the sermon, considered the embargo
raised with the closing words of Black, and had his whispered summons
ready precisely as Black began his brief closing prayer. The scowl with
which Red motioned him away surprised Perkins very much, causing him to
retreat to the outer door, where in due season he delivered his message
to the leisurely departing doctor--departing leisurely because he was
eavesdropping.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” he had overheard one man of prominence
saying to another in the vestibule. “Strikes me that’s going pretty
strong. What’s the use of stirring up trouble? That sort of talk’s
going to offend. Pulpit’s not called upon to go into matters of
state--particularly now, when public sentiment’s so divided. Somebody
better put a flea in his ear, eh?”
The other man nodded. “I believe a good deal as he does myself,” he
admitted, cautiously, “but I don’t hold with offending people who have
as good a right to their opinions as he has. I saw Johnstone wriggling
more than once, toward the last--and he’s about the last man we want to
make mad.”
R. P. Burns laid a heavy hand on the speaker’s arm. Turning, the other
man looked into a pair of contemptuous hazel eyes, with whose glance,
both friendly and fiery, he had been long familiar. “Oh, _rot_!” said a
low voice in his ear.
“What do you mean?”
“Just that. Think it out.” And Burns was gone, in the press, with the
quickness now of one accustomed to get where he would go, no matter how
many were in the way.
He marched around to the vestry door, where he found Black standing,
his gown off, his face gone rather white, though it had been full of
colour when Red saw it last.
“Faint?” he asked.
“No--thanks, I’m all right. Just thought I’d like a whiff of fresh air.”
“Take a few deep breaths. I’ll give you a pick-up, if you say so.”
Black shook his head. “I’m all right,” he repeated.
“Shoulder ache?”
“Not much. I’m all right, I tell you, Doctor. Can’t you get over the
idea that a preacher is a man of straw? Why, I--will you try a wrestle
with me, sometime--when my shoulder’s fit again?”
Red laughed. “Down you in two minutes and fifteen seconds,” he
prophesied.
“Try it, and see.” And Black walked back into the church, his cheek
losing its pallor in a hurry.
* * * * *
On that Sunday the Lockharts, his first entertainers, insisted that he
come to dinner. Though he had kept his slung shoulder and arm under
his gown, the facts showed plainly, and the congregation was full of
sympathy. With his housekeeper away, Black could find no way out,
though he would have much preferred remaining quietly in his study,
with four cups of coffee of his own amateur making, and whatever he
could find in his larder left over from Saturday.
So he went to the Lockharts’, and there he met a person who had been
in his congregation that morning, but whom he had not noted. She had
seen that he had not noted her, but she had made up her mind that
such blindness should not long continue. Her appearance was one well
calculated to arrest the eye of man, and Black’s eye, though it was
accustomed to dwell longer upon man than upon woman, was not one
calculated by Nature to be altogether and indefinitely undiscerning.
With Annette Lockhart, daughter of the house, the guest, Miss Frances
Fitch, a former school friend, held a brief consultation just before
Black’s arrival.
“Think he’s the sort to fall for chaste severity, or feminine
frivolity, when it comes to dress, Nanny?”
Miss Lockhart looked her friend over. “You’re just the same old
plotter, aren’t you, Fanny Fitch?” she observed, frankly. “Well, it
will take all you can do, and then some, if you expect to interest Mr.
Black. But--if you want my advice--I should say chaste severity was
your line.”
“There’s where you show your unintelligence,” declared Miss Fitch. “I
shall be as frilly as I can, because you yourself are a model of smooth
and tailored fitness, and he will want a relief for his eyes. He shall
find it in me. Really, wasn’t he awfully game to preach, with that
shoulder?”
“He’s a Scot,” said Nan Lockhart. “Of course he would, if it killed
him.”
The result of this exchange of views was that Miss Fitch appeared
looking like a fascinating young saint in a sheer white frock.
Had she a white heart? Well, anyhow, she looked the embodiment of
ingenuousness, for her masses of fair hair were too curly to be
entirely subdued, no matter how confined, and her deep blue eyes
beneath the blonde locks might have been those of a beautiful child.
“Oh, I say!” ejaculated Tom Lockhart, when she first came downstairs,
the transformation from her dark smoothness of church garb to this
spring-like outburst of whiteness hitting him full in his vulnerable
young heart--as usual.
“Well--like me, Tommy dear?” asked Fanny Fitch, letting her fingers
rest for the fraction of a second on his dark-blue coat-sleeve.
“Like you!” breathed Tom. “I say--why did I bring him home to dinner?
Now you’ll just fascinate him--and forget me!”
“Forget _you_? Why, Tom!” And Miss Fitch gave him an enchanting glance
which made his heart turn over. Then she went on into the big living
room, where Robert McPherson Black, damaged shoulder and arm in a fine
black silk sling, the colour now wholly restored to his interesting
face, rose courteously to be presented to her. Of course he did
not know it, but it was at that moment that he encountered a quite
remarkable combination of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Up to
now he had met each of these tremendous forces separately, but never
before all together in one slim girl’s form. And yet, right here, it
must be definitely asserted and thoroughly assimilated, that Fanny
Fitch was what is known as an entirely “nice” girl, and in her heart
at that hour was nothing which could be called an evil intent. The
worst that could be said of her was that she was ruthless in exacting
tribute--even as Cæsar. And when her eye had fallen upon the minister,
with his right arm out of commission but the rest of him exceedingly
assertive of power, she had coveted him. To her, the rest seemed easy.
As to Black--he was not “easy.” In his very young manhood he had loved
very much the pretty daughter of his Southern employer, but she had
been as far out of his reach as the furthermost star in the bright
constellations which nightly met his eye in the skies above him. When
she had married he had firmly and definitely put the thought of woman
out of his head, and had formulated a code concerning the whole sex
intended to hold throughout his ministry. During his entire first
pastorate he had been a model of discretion--as a young minister in a
country community must be, if he would not have his plans for service
tumbling about his ears. Fortunately for him he was, by temperament and
by training, not over susceptible to any ordinary feminine environment
or approach. He had a hearty and wholesome liking for the comradeship
of men, greatly preferring it to the frequent and unavoidable
association with women necessary in the workings of church affairs.
Even when his eye first rested upon the really enchanting beauty of
Miss Fanny Fitch, if he could have exchanged her, as his companion at
the Lockhart dinner table, for R. P. Burns, M.D., he would have done it
in the twinkling of an eye. For had not Red shaved him that morning,
and wasn’t another barrier most probably well down? It was of that he
was thinking, and not, just then, of her.
But she forced him to think of her--it was an art in which she was a
finished performer. She did it by cutting up for him that portion of a
crown roast of spring lamb which Mr. Samuel Lockhart sent to him upon
his plate. Up to that moment, throughout the earlier courses, he had
been engaged with the rest in a general discussion of the subject of
the war, quite naturally brought up by the sermon of the morning. But
when it came to regarding helplessly the food which now appeared before
him unmanageable by either fork or spoon, he found himself for the
first time talking with Miss Fitch alone, while the conversation of the
others went ahead upon a new tack.
“Oh, but this makes me think of how many poor fellows have to have
their food cut up for them, over there,” she was saying, as her
pretty, ringless fingers expertly prepared the tender meat for his
consumption. “While you were speaking this morning I was wishing, as
I’ve been wishing ever since this terrible war began, that I could be
really helping, on the other side. If it hadn’t been for my mother, who
is quite an invalid, I should have gone long ago. You made it all so
_real_----”
A man may tell himself that he doesn’t like flattery, but if it is
cleverly administered--and if, though he is modest enough, he can’t
help knowing himself that he has done a good thing in a fine way--how
can he quite help being human enough to feel a glow of pleasure? If
it’s not overdone--and Miss Fitch knew much better than that--much can
thus be accomplished in breaking down a masculine wall of reserve.
Black’s wall didn’t break that Sunday--oh, not at all--but it
undeniably did crumble a little bit along the upper edges.
After dinner was over, however, as if he were somehow subtly aware that
the wall was undergoing an attack, Black withdrew with the other men to
the further end of the living room to continue to talk things over. He
was at some pains to seat himself so that he was facing these men, and
had no view down the long room to the other end, where the women were
gathered.
Miss Fitch, looking his way from a corner of a great divan, sent a
smile and a wave toward Tom, who, torn between allegiance to Fanny
and his new and absorbing devotion to Black, had for the time being
followed the men. Then she said negligently to Nan Lockhart:
“Your minister certainly has a stunning profile. Look at it there
against that dark-blue curtain.”
Nan looked for an instant, then back at her guest. “Oh, Fanny!” she
murmured, rebukingly, “don’t you ever get tired of that game?”
“What game, my dear?”
“Oh--playing for every last one of them!” answered Annette Lockhart,
with some impatience. She was a dark-eyed young woman with what might
be called a strong face, by no means unattractive in its clean-cut
lines. She had a personality all her own; she had been a leader
always; people liked Nan Lockhart, and believed in her thoroughly. Her
friendship for Fanny Fitch was a matter of old college ties--Fanny
was nobody’s fool, and she was clever enough to keep a certain hold
upon Nan through the exercise of a rather remarkable dramatic talent.
Nan had written plays, and Fanny had acted them; and now that college
days were over they had plans for the future which meant a continued
partnership in the specialty of each.
“Interested in him yourself, I judge,” Miss Fitch replied teasingly.
“Don’t worry! The chances are all with you. He’s horribly sober
minded--he’ll fall for your sort sooner than for mine.”
But a certain gleam in her eyes said something else--that she was quite
satisfied with the beginning she had made. Another man might have taken
a seat where he could look at her; that Black deliberately looked the
other way this astute young person considered proof positive that he
found her unexpectedly distracting to his thoughts.
When, at the end of an hour, Black turned around, ready to take his
farewell, Miss Fitch was absent from the room. He glanced about for
her, found her not, told himself that he was glad, and went out. As the
door of the living room closed behind him, she came down the stairs,
a white hat on her head, a white parasol in her hand. They passed out
of the house door together. At the street Miss Fitch turned in the
direction of the manse, two blocks away. Black paused and removed his
hat--with his left hand he did it rather awkwardly.
“It’s been very pleasant to meet you,” he said. “Is your stay to be
long?”
“Several weeks, I believe. Are you really going that way, Mr. Black--or
don’t you venture to walk down the street with any members of your
congregation except men?”
He smiled. “I am really going this way, Miss Fitch--thank you! Would
you care to know where?”
“To Doctor Burns--with your arm, I suppose. Is it very painful?”
“It’s doing very well. Isn’t this a magnificent day? I hope you’ll have
a pleasant walk.”
“I can hardly help it, thank you--I’m so fond of walking--which Nan
Lockhart isn’t--hard luck for me! Good-bye--and I shall not soon forget
what I heard this morning.”
Her parting smile was one to remember--not a bit of pique that he
hadn’t responded to her obvious invitation--no coquetry in it either,
just charming friendliness, exceedingly disarming. As he turned away,
striding off in the opposite direction from that which he naturally
would have taken, he was frowning a little and saying to himself that
it was going to be rather more difficult to keep the old guard up in
a place like this than it had been in his country parish. His good
Scottish conscience told him that though in deciding on the instant
to make Doctor Burns a visit he had committed himself to something he
didn’t want to do at all--go and bother the difficult doctor with his
shoulder when it wasn’t necessary--he must do it now just the same, to
square the thing. Heavens and earth--why shouldn’t he walk down the
street with a beautiful young woman in white if she happened to be
going his way, instead of putting himself out to go where he hated to,
just to avoid her? Not that he cared to walk with her--he didn’t--he
preferred not to. And the doctor would think him a weakling, after all,
if he came to him complaining, as was the truth, that his shoulder was
aching abominably, and his head to match, and that his pulse seemed to
be jumping along unpleasantly. Well----
Just then R. P. Burns went by in his car at a terrific and wholly
inexcusable speed, evidently rushing out of town. Black, recognizing
him, breathed a sigh of relief. But he went around seven blocks to get
back to the Manse without a chance of meeting anybody in white. At a
very distant sight of anybody clothed all in white he turned up the
first street, and this naturally lengthened his trip. So that when he
was finally within the Manse’s sheltering walls he was very glad to
give up bluffing for the day, and to stretch himself upon the leather
couch in the study where that morning he had doggedly refused an
anæsthetic. He rather wished he had one now! Confound it--he felt that
he had been a fool more than once that day. Why should ministers have
to act differently from other men, in any situation whatever? He made
up his mind that the next time he climbed out on a slippery roof on a
Sunday morning--well, he would do it if he wanted to! But the next time
he turned up a side street to avoid anybody--or changed his direction
because anybody was going the same way----
When he woke an hour later it was because his shoulder really was
extremely sore and painful. But he wouldn’t have called Burns if he
had known that that skillful surgeon could take away every last twinge.
Anyhow--Burns had shaved him that morning! There was that that was
good to remember about the day. Sometime--he would come closer to the
red-headed doctor than that!