THE DOUGLAS IN HIS HALL
As is frequently the case when I have gone to bed late and in a
perturbed state of mind, I awake early, with a heavy feeling between
my eyes and a marked distaste to getting up. It was so this morning,
except I had an indistinct impression that, instead of waking
normally, I had been awakened by some unusual noise.
I turned over in bed and looked around the room for a few minutes
before I began to think of the effort of getting up. I had by no means
forgotten that Richard was coming--might already be here, as the
spasmodic bursts of sunshine indicated that it was at least seven
o'clock--but he would not expect me to do anything so unusual as to
dress this early and meet him down-stairs for a few minutes' stolen
happiness before we should meet and shake hands formally at the
breakfast table. The bliss of such a secret little reunion might,
doubtless would, appeal to most lovers, but not to Coeur de Lion.
He would see in it only the impropriety of a young woman meeting a man
in a deserted library in the early hours of the morning. Richard has
this way of throwing--well, not exactly cold water, but _iced
lemonade_, over the exuberance of my youthful feelings! I wish this
were not so, but--
I looked around the beautiful, befrilled bedroom, with its handsome
furniture of Circassian walnut and its dainty blue silk hangings--and
I thought, with a quick little pang of longing, of my severely plain
sleeping apartment at home. This Spartan bareness is in imitation of
Alfred's cell-like bedroom, which Ann Lisbeth had once shown me, and
which had attracted me by the air of wholesomeness the immaculate
cleanliness gave it. Alfred and I have often planned a house so plain
and sanitary that we could turn the hose all through it. Housekeeping
would be a delightfully simple affair with him, for he and I agree so
perfectly in our dislike of complicated things. Dear me! I wonder what
kind of house Richard and I will keep? It will be--expensive, but will
it be harmonious?
The events of last night came crowding before me and I remembered with
a most disagreeable little chill that Mrs. Chalmers' eye had held a
look of terror as she thought of Richard's commands being disobeyed.
Was Richard a monster then? Did he _eat_ people when they dared to go
contrary to his wishes? I also recalled the day he and I had had our
first actual quarrel--about the volume of Byron which Alfred had given
me. His eyes grow very cold and glittering when he is angry, and--yes,
I can understand that a certain class of women might be very much
afraid of him. Especially if they had him to live with! And I wondered
if, at last, after months of struggling, I, too, might not find it
more restful and peaceable to become a groveling sort of hypocrite to
my lord and master?
"Never, never!" I cried aloud, jumping out of bed as I heard again the
same sounds which had awakened me--hurrying footsteps down-stairs
through the halls, and the sound of many doors being hastily opened
and closed. "I'll give him up if I find him as they say he is."
Just then I recognized the heavy, dignified slam of the massive front
door, a kind of muffled protest against the impertinence of using
haste with such an august portion of that house; then, a moment after,
there was the sound of an automobile starting.
"Evelyn must be much worse," I thought uneasily, as I hurried through
with my bath and slipped into my clothes. If this were so I knew that
I should not have to meet Mrs. Chalmers at the breakfast table, and I
should be relieved of the ordeal of coming in contact with her bland
smile. I instinctively felt that she would meet us all exactly as if
nothing had happened the night before. She is entirely too well-bred
to bear malice.
Now, for my part, I have a nervous distaste to whited sepulchers,
aside from any question of morality, and I always have a sense of
being brought face to face with the rottenness and dead men's bones
whenever I am forced to _smooth_ over a situation which has not been
thoroughly explained and threshed out. When I have a grievance against
any one, my first desire is to "have it out" with the offender, and I
always want any one whom I have offended to offer me the same
privilege of setting myself straight.
But Mrs. Chalmers would, I know, sit for ever at the mouth of such
whited sepulcher with a bottle of vera-violet held to her nose before
she would face anybody in helping to rid the place of its pestilence.
These thoughts were running through my mind as I was dressing, and I
will say that I had the grace to feel ashamed of them as I ran down
the steps and met her in the hall, her face looking old and drawn with
anxiety, her hair in disarray, and her figure enveloped in a fantastic
kimono.
"Evelyn is very much worse," she said in a trembling voice as I came
up with her and inquired after the patient. "It is an acute attack of
appendicitis and Doctor Cooley has just telephoned to the city for
Doctor Gordon to come out on the first train. He says--she
can't--_live_ without an operation; and, even so, he is very much
afraid that it--the appendix--has ruptured."
She broke down here and sobbed miserably, burying her face in her
hands and wiping away the tears upon one long silken sleeve of her
flowered kimono.
"Evelyn is all I have in this world," she moaned, and I suddenly felt
infinitely sorry for her--and forgiving. "She is all I have to comfort
me in my miserable life, and now Richard has come home and blames this
trouble on me."
"Blames you?" I questioned, looking down upon her disordered hair in
amazement at the thought.
"He says that I ought to have known better than to let her dance so
much the other night," she explained, lifting a tear-stained face to
me for a moment, as if to acknowledge the sympathy in my voice.
Clearly she was not accustomed to sympathy.
"Dance!" I said again in surprise. "Why, people have appendicitis who
have never seen inside a ball-room! That is a most absurd idea."
"Not nearly so absurd as some things he hatches up against us two,"
she broke out, her anger toward Richard making her forget, for a
moment, her anxiety for Evelyn. "Oh, Ann, he leads us _such_ a life!
He is exactly like his father--and he was a _despot_!"
We were interrupted by the quick footsteps of Sophie, as she came
hurrying through the hall. She had an ice-cap in her hand, and there
was a thermometer-case thrust through her belt. There was no trained
nurse in Charlotteville, so she had quietly explained to Doctor Cooley
her qualifications to act in that capacity. Mrs. Chalmers whispered
this to me, as Sophie passed by; also that Mr. Maxwell had left on the
same train that brought Richard, but not before he and Sophie had
spent a long hour together in the quiet library.
"She was up nearly all night," Mrs. Chalmers said, "so they came face
to face here in the hall at daybreak. She is a good girl, and he will
make her happy. I am glad they have come to an understanding."
"But I thought--" I began, then stopped, not knowing how to express my
idea about her plans for Mr. Maxwell and Evelyn; but she read my mind.
"You thought I wanted to catch him for Evelyn?" she asked without
embarrassment. "Well, I did, but I shouldn't have gone to such
lengths, except for the sake of keeping Richard in a good humor."
"Then he'll be in a very bad humor with me when he hears that I was
the one who told about Sophie," I suggested, but she cut me short.
"Oh, he's in such a fiendish humor about something that happened to
him on this trip of his that he will forget all about these things
here at home."
"Is there some sort of political trouble?" I asked anxiously, but she
shook her head.
"Richard never mentions his business affairs to us," she said, as she
smoothed down her kimono and followed Sophie up the stairs.
Half an hour later Richard met me at the door of the breakfast-room,
looking very tired and morose. We sat down and ate breakfast in
unchaperoned gloom. He asked me a few perfunctory questions about the
happenings here since he left, but he volunteered no information as
to what kind of business it was which had taken him away, nor where he
had been.
After breakfast we established ourselves in the library, he with a
batch of newspapers which he had brought with him from the city and I
had a new magazine, but he seemed to care little for reading, and he
sat and smoked in moody silence for a while. The day was warm, but the
sunshine of the early morning grew fainter, and by noon there were
signs of a thunder-shower, the clouds seeming to gather from all
directions; and the air became oppressively heavy.
Richard finally threw away the end of his cigar, yawned a time or two
in an abstracted sort of fashion, then got up and walked over to the
window. He pulled aside the curtains and looked out at the threatening
sky.
"Get your hat and let's go out for a little fresh air before it
rains," he suggested as he came back and threw himself into his chair
again, stretching out his long legs to the fire.
I got up obediently and started toward the door, but he reached out,
caught my hand and stopped me.
"Isn't it a devilish old day?" he said lazily, as he drew me down
toward him. "You haven't kissed me once since I came home. Don't you
love me any more?"
"Love you? Of course I love you!" I answered, kissing him on the
forehead and smoothing back his fair hair. I had entirely forgotten
the traitorous thoughts of the early morning. "But you have been in
_such_ a mood! Who wants to kiss something that looks about as
lover-like as Rameses II?"
He smiled a little and took my face between his hands.
"I _am_ a savage," he admitted, though not at all bearing the
appearance of one at that moment; "but I've had a lot to try me
lately--and then I was so disgusted when I came home and found that
mother had let Evelyn dance herself into another of these attacks."
"Oh, Richard! Surely you don't really think it was the dance that
brought it on? It might have been the dinner--but I shouldn't even
suggest that to your mother. She is miserable enough already. You
ought to try to comfort her."
"That's very charitable of you," he said, a sarcastic little flicker
around the corners of his mouth, "but, all the same, I find that I can
manage my womenkind better to use a little frankness with them
occasionally."
I drew back from him somewhat.
"Frankness?" I cried in genuine surprise at his cold sarcasm. "Even if
frankness were the right name for--this, do you consider that now is
the time for it? When she is so wretched?"
He turned from me and threw down the paper he had picked up a moment
before as I stood talking to him.
"Let's don't quarrel," he said finally, in a low tone; and,
impulsively reaching out both hands to me, he added: "And, Ann, for
God's sake, don't ever act as if you were afraid of me!"
"Afraid of you!"
He smiled. I think he has the most adorable smile of any man on earth.
"Go and get your hat," he said.
As I came down-stairs again with my hat on I found Sophie standing at
the front door talking with Richard. She was dressed entirely in the
garb of a nurse by this time, and I looked admiringly at the becoming
white uniform, but Richard made no reference to the change nor
anything that it entailed.
"Sophie thinks that we would better not go very far," he said to me
as he stepped outside into the vestibule and looked up again at the
clouds. "She says Evelyn is not resting so well--and mother, of
course, has entirely lost her grip."
"Do you think that there is any new danger in Evelyn's case?" I asked
anxiously.
"Well, we are eager for the surgeon to get here as quickly as
possible," she answered.
"He'll be here on the noon train, and, of course, he can operate
immediately. And it hasn't been nearly twenty-four hours since the
onset of the acute attack. The mortality is less than one per cent, if
taken within--"
I had been looking into Sophie's eyes as I spoke and had not observed
that Richard was listening intently to what I was saying, but as I
made use of this last bit of medical jargon a contemptuous little
half-laugh broke from him and I looked up quickly. He was smiling
sardonically.
"Of course your friend, Doctor Morgan, is your authority," he said,
his brows elevated and a disagreeable expression around his mouth.
"He is--and I couldn't ask a better," I flashed back at him.
We stood thus a moment, our eyes meeting in fiery challenge, and in
that brief moment I realized that such a scene repeated a few times
would cause us to hate each other. I felt suddenly as if the earth
were receding from me and leaving me in a very uncertain stratum of
air. I was violently angry with Richard--and he was infuriated.
"It's a pity the public continues to display such a lamentable
ignorance in regard to this wonderful Hippocrates of yours," he
sneered, though in an even voice.
"That ignorance is growing less every day," I responded easily, so
easily, in fact, that I am sure Sophie never suspected that we were
both at white heat.
But she was embarrassed at the bad taste we were both exhibiting, so
she made some excuse and quickly left us. We walked slowly down toward
the gate, not that there was any joy left in the prospect of a quiet
walk together, but because there seemed nothing better to do right
then. Out through the gate and quite a distance up the street we
passed before either of us spoke, and I noticed once that his right
hand, which clasped his slender silk umbrella, was trembling.
"Ann," he said finally, speaking in a remarkably low, gentle voice,
"why does it seem to give you such pleasure to torture me that way?"
"Torture you?" I answered. "Oh, Richard! Why should you torture
yourself into a passion if I but mention anything even remotely
connected with the medical profession?"
"Medical profession!" His voice was still very quiet. "You would imply
then that I am--that I am jealous of this yearling doctor?"
There was infinite contempt in the word "yearling."
"I don't _imply_!" I responded warmly. "I have good, clear English for
what I wish to say."
"You certainly have for all that you wish to say about this paragon of
yours."
"He _is_ a paragon; but he isn't mine."
"No? I wonder why? You certainly might have won him!"
Was this a lovers' quarrel? I had always heard them spoken of as being
frivolous, make-believe disagreements, whose sting was light as
thistle-down and whose shadows were quick to disappear at the dawn of
a beloved smile. But if this were true, then my altercation with
Richard was a much more serious affair, for I found my patience
strained to the breaking point when I finally burst out: "Richard,
hush! This is disgraceful! I will not quarrel with you any longer. You
make me wish that I had never seen your face!"
My vehemence seemed to startle him out of his own wrath, or, at all
events, it acted as a signal to him that he was to go no further, for
he began to retract; not humbly, not penitently, as if he had found
himself in the wrong, but with a sudden sparkling brilliance, his eyes
and his smile dazzling my senses as they did the sunny afternoon we
spent together, sitting on the orchard fence.
"Well, I'm glad I have seen your face," he said fondly, as he looked
down upon me with that same air of possession, "for you are the
prettiest little spitfire I ever saw."
He suggested that we walk up to the river side, not a great distance
away, but it is as secluded a spot as if it were miles away from human
habitation. There are thickets of undergrowth just beyond a skirt of
woods, and a stone wall where we might sit down for a quiet little
talk.
We made for this spot in silence, and, as he placed a strong, lithe
hand on either side of my waist to lift me bodily up on the wall he
said, with that same directness of manner which I found characterized
his speech: "Ann, I beg your pardon--ten thousand times, sweetheart!
Will you forgive me--and--and kiss me?"
His lips were already upon mine, and I knew then that there was
nothing in this life so beautiful and sweet and intoxicating as their
touch. I gave myself up to the exquisite madness with an abandon which
shuts out all knowledge that Richard and I are not comrades, not even
friends--that we have no ideals in common, no similar tastes! What
does all this matter when he has his arms about me and I am so close
to him that I can hear the quick thump, thump of his heart-beats, and
I know how they quicken for me! Nothing matters! I love him!
"That's my own little girl," he said radiantly, as he lifted his face
from mine and saw my entire surrender. "This is the first moment
to-day that I have felt as if you really love me."
He dusted off a space on the wall then sprang lightly up to a seat by
my side.
"I've been waiting for you to brighten up a bit and look like
yourself," he continued after a few minutes of happy silence. "I have
something to show you."
"Something to show me?" I looked at him wonderingly.
"Something I brought you from--from the city."
"But I told you not to bring me anything."
"I know. But I had already bought it then, and I couldn't take it back
to the jeweler and tell him that my lady had turned it down, could I?"
He drew a little case from his pocket, a long, slender one this time,
and as I found my eyes fixed with an eager fascination upon his hands
as they worked for a moment with the catch, I seemed to see stretching
before me a long vista of years, each one punctuated with quarrels
like the one we had just endured, and the rough places left by these
ruptures filled in and smoothed over by myriads of these small, dainty
jewel-boxes. But Richard's deft fingers had opened the case, and he
passed it over to me. I gave a little gasp of astonished delight as I
saw lying upon its bed of velvet a string of pearls--white,
softly-glistening, beautiful things.
"Let's see how they look on you," he suggested, unfastening the dull
gold clasp and slipping the lovely chain around my neck. He fastened
them securely, then smiled approval as he leaned back and viewed the
effect.
"I've wanted you to have something like this ever since I've known
you," he said with the air of a connoisseur as he still held back and
looked at the pearls lying close around the neck of my collarless
blouse. "So when I happened to see these the other day in--the city, I
decided that they were exactly what I wanted for my little girl."
I was opening and shutting the box as he talked, and when he mentioned
seeing them in the city I idly glanced at the name on the lining, and
saw that the case bore the name of a well-known firm in St. Louis.
"Why, Richard," I cried, "did you go all the way to St. Louis to find
them?"
I laughed, but there were two tiny lines between his eyes.
"Don't say anything about it to mother, but the truth is I did have to
go to St. Louis while I was away from home this time."
"Your mother thinks you were down in some little country town--away
from a telephone!"
"Well, it was a--business trip. She wouldn't be interested, and I
never have believed in a man boring his family with his business
affairs."
"I shouldn't be bored, Richard," I began, hoping so fervently that he
was going to confide in me that half the joy I should have been
feeling over my beautiful new possession was turned into pain when I
saw that he was not.
He changed the subject quietly and we discussed various minor matters,
until I remembered, with a start, that it was time for us to be going
home. It must be long past noon. I mentioned this to Richard and he
jumped down immediately.
"I haven't heard the train whistle, have you?"
"No, but we haven't been listening for it. Look at your watch."
He did so, and we were both surprised and not a little ashamed when we
saw that it was half-past one.
"We'll have to hurry," he said briefly, and we walked home faster, I
dare say, than ever lovers walked away from that delightful spot
before.
When we reached the house we found that the doctor from the city had
indeed arrived; the preparations for the operation being well under
way. There was not to be an hour's delay, Sophie told us, as she
paused on her way up the steps. Her hands were full of glistening
instruments, and a negro servant followed with kettles of boiled
water.
"What does Gordon think of her condition?" Richard asked, as he eyed
Sophie's burden with a little shrinking.
"Doctor Gordon couldn't come," she answered abstractedly as she looked
around and gave the servant some directions about keeping a bountiful
supply of water that had been boiled, "there was a wreck on the road
that he is surgeon for--it didn't amount to much, but still he had to
be there, so he telephoned Doctor Cooley that this young colleague of
his whom he sent to do the operation is thoroughly competent--it seems
that they operate together a great deal. I didn't catch the young
doctor's name when he was introduced--and I've been too busy since to
ask."
"Doctor Morgan," I said, feeling sure that Doctor Gordon would send no
one but Alfred on a case like this.
"Doctor Morgan--the _devil_ it is!" Richard's voice burst out so
suddenly and so fiercely that I turned and looked at him in amazement.
Then, for the first time, I realized how easy it might be to be afraid
of him. Fierce and sudden as the words were, they were spoken in his
deep, even voice, and not a muscle of his face showed the intense fury
which I felt that he was laboring under. It was a cold, cruel anger,
and it showed only in his eyes. They were glittering like two
sharp-pointed steel blades. "Doctor Morgan here--and you knew all the
time that he was coming!"
He looked at me so accusingly that Sophie sensed the point of the
situation at once, although she had never heard Alfred's name
mentioned before; and she broke in with a light laugh.
"Why, he didn't know himself that he was coming until ten minutes
before train time. It was too late even to find a nurse to bring with
him, so I am going to help in the operation."
Her words had the effect of quieting, in a measure, this insane
suspicion of Richard's; and he and I followed her up the broad
staircase. She led the way into the room which had been hastily
divested of its rich furnishings and transformed into a semblance of
an operating-room; and we two followed automatically. Sophie passed in
and began busying herself about the preparations, but just inside the
doorway we stopped.
Standing in the middle of the floor, near the end of a long table upon
which had been placed several bowls of water, some clear, others light
blue, his top shirt off and his arms up to his elbows thickly coated
over with a soft lather, was Alfred. Another young fellow, whom I
afterward learned was a local physician, stood near the table; and he
too was busily "scrubbing up." As we came into the room Alfred bade
Sophie hurry up with her own preparations.
"Would you object to hearing a word from me before your manipulations
go further?" Richard's voice broke in, after the briefest and most
perfunctory of greetings, which fortunately were divested of any
hypocritical handshaking on account of Alfred's green soapiness. "I
understand that our family physician, Doctor Cooley, telephoned to the
city for Doctor _Gordon_ to come down here and operate upon my
sister."
"Doctor Gordon received the message, but was detained by a small wreck
on the Eastern," Alfred said quietly, rinsing the soap-suds from his
hands and motioning Sophie to drop another bichloride tablet into the
next bowl of water. "He sent me to do the work."
"So I have been informed," Richard said, his eyes looking far colder
and more cutting than the steel instruments which Sophie was now
rattling about in a big pan, "but--as it happens--I don't want you to
do the work."
The insult was so barefaced and so ugly that Sophie suddenly turned
scarlet and the young doctor bending over the bowl of water busied
himself unnecessarily with a bottle of green soap. Richard himself
began nervously tampering with his watch-fob, while I afterward
recalled that my fingers were playing convulsively with the pearls
which were still around my neck. It was an _electrical_ moment and we
all showed signs of weakening before the current--all except Alfred.
He stood in the same spot at the end of the table, directing straight
at Richard his level, steady glance, and looking the personification
of simple dignity--in an undershirt.
"That might put a different aspect upon the matter," he said slowly
after a moment's deliberation. Not a muscle of his face changed, and
no one less well acquainted with him than I am could have detected the
hardness in his voice.
"_Might_ put a different aspect?" Richard looked incredulous.
"Yes, it might--if the patient were a minor, and you her sole
guardian."
"Ah! Then you mean to ignore my rights?"
"I do--if you wish to put it that way. Your sister's condition is
critical; and there is no one else to operate."
"Then there is no appeal to be made to your pride?" I do not know what
Richard meant, nor do I believe that he knew himself, for he surely
would not have run the risk of trying to get another surgeon when it
had been made so clear to him that the delay would be fatal. Alfred
seemed to realize that there was no more occasion for argument than if
he had been talking to an unreasonable child--or a dangerous lunatic.
"No; my pride lies dormant in a case like this," he answered simply.
"I acknowledge only Duty."
Then, at Alfred's words, it seemed that the magic change which I have
before noticed comes over Richard when he sees that he has gone far
enough, began to make itself felt. It appeared that he was not going
to have the courage to turn about and apologize, as he had done with
me earlier in the day; but he began to do what he considered all that
was ever necessary from _him_ to ordinary mortals. He began to back,
sullenly.
"Of course, if it is only an ordinary case of appendicitis _you_
might do," he admitted grudgingly, "but--suppose there are
complications?"
I give Richard credit for not intending this worst insult of all. He
was so entirely absorbed in gaining his own end, and that end was
proving to Alfred that he was incompetent to operate, that he failed
to consider the words he used. To him this was only a simple argument
in favor of his theory. Alfred met the thrust as he had met the minor
ones.
"If there are complications, I shall grapple with them," he answered
quietly. "That's what I studied surgery for."
Sophie came across the room then and told us in a low voice that they
were about ready. Would we please wait outside? Without another word
Richard took me by the arm and we walked out together. He held my arm
tightly as we made our way cautiously down the steps; cautiously
because it had suddenly grown very dark and there were threatening
rumbles in the distance, following vivid flashes of lightning. The
fumes of the anesthetic were filling the house, while outside the big
drops of rain were beginning to pelt down, making little comet-shaped
streaks of wetness against the window-panes.
We heard the shuffling steps as they moved Evelyn into the room and
placed her upon the table; then we heard Alfred call from the head of
the steps, his voice calm and unruffled as it would be in the case of
any gentleman making a request of another.
"Mr. Chalmers, will you call the power-house and have them turn on the
lights?"
Hours after, when it was all safely over and Sophie earnestly
supplemented the local doctor's praise of Alfred's skill and
technique, Richard sought me out as I stood alone in the dining-room
locking up the silver. I had seen Mrs. Chalmers do this and knew that
it was a habit of hers; and to-night there was no one else to do it.
"Ann," he said, coming close and looking around to make sure that
there was no one else near, "Ann, I'm really sorry about what I said
to that fellow, Morgan, this afternoon. Of course I didn't intend any
aspersions upon his ability, but I suppose, according to their
infernal ethics, it was--discourteous."
I picked up a soft flannel case and wrapped a handful of heavy forks
in it. "Yes, I dare say he considered it so," I agreed.
"I've wondered what I can do to make amends," he continued. "Do you
think I might double the amount of his fee?"
"No, no," I begged earnestly, a sudden sense of disgust at the thought
of such a thing. "No, don't try to offer Alfred _money_."
Poor Richard! Was there nothing in the world he could do except
trample upon people's feelings then offer to pay them to get in a good
humor again? He had insulted Alfred, who was a hero, then suggested
offering him money to wipe out the stain. He had neglected and
offended me this miserable day--but he had given me a string of
pearls!