HILDA SHAKES A TREE
When Dr. McKenzie and Jim Connolly arrived, Derry said apologetically
as he shook hands with the Doctor, "You see, you can't get rid of
me--but I have such a lot of things to talk over with you."
It was after Jean had gone to bed, however, that they had their talk,
and before that Derry and Jean had walked in the moonlight and had
listened to the chimes.
There had, perhaps, never been such a moon. It hung in a sky that
shimmered from horizon to horizon. Against this shimmering background
the college buildings were etched in black--there was a glint of gold
as the light caught the icicles and made candles of them.
In the months to come that same moon was to sail over the cantonment
where Derry slept heavily after hard days. It was to sail over the
trenches of France, where, perhaps, he slept not at all, or slept
uneasily in the midst of mud and vermin. But always when he looked up
at it, he was to see the Cross on the top of the College, and to hear
the chimes.
They talked that night of the things that were deep in their hearts.
She wanted him to go--yes, she wanted him to go, but she was afraid.
"If something should happen to you, Derry."
"Sometimes I wonder," he said, in his grave, young voice, "why we are
so--afraid. I think we have the wrong focus. We want life, even if it
brings unhappiness, even if it brings suffering, even if it brings
disgrace. Anything seems better than to--die--"
"But to have things stop, Derry." She shuddered. "When there's so
much ahead."
"Perhaps they don't stop, dear."
"If I could only believe that--"
"Why not? Do you remember 'Sherwood,' where Blondin rides through the
forest singing:
'"Death, what is death?" he cried,
"I must ride on--"'"
His face was lifted to the golden sky. She was never to forget the
look upon it. And with a great ache and throb of passionate
renunciation, she told herself that it was for this that the men of her
generation had been born, that they might fight against the powers of
darkness for the things of the spirit.
She lay awake a long time that night, thinking it out. Of how she had
laughed at other women, scolded, said awful things to them of how their
cowardice was holding the world back. She had thought she understood,
but she had not understood. It was giving your own--your own, which
was the test. _Oh, let those who had none of their own to give keep
silent_.
With her breath almost stopping she thought of those glorious young
souls riding on and on through infinite space, the banner of victory
floating above them. No matter what might come to the world of defeat
or of disaster, these souls would never know it, they had given
themselves in the cause of humanity--for them there would always be the
sound of silver trumpets, the clash of cymbals, the song of triumph!
Downstairs, Dr. McKenzie was listening with a frowning face to what
Derry had to tell him.
"Do you mean to say that Hilda was giving him--wine?"
"Yes. Bronson told me. But he didn't want you to depend upon his
unsupported testimony. So we fixed up a scheme, and I stayed outside
until he flashed a light for me; and then I went in and caught her."
"It is incredible. Why should she do such a thing? She has always
been a perfect nurse--a perfect nurse, Drake." He rose and walked the
floor. "But deliberately to disobey my orders--what could have been
her object?"
Derry hesitated.
"I haven't told you the worst."
Doctor McKenzie stopped in front of him. "The worst?"
"Dad is going to marry her."
"What?"
Derry repeated what he had said.
The Doctor dropped into a chair. "Who told you?"
"Dad."
"And she admitted that it was--true?"
"Yes."
Derry gave the facts. "He wasn't himself, of course, but that doesn't
change things for me."
The Doctor in the practice of his profession had learned to conceal his
emotions. He concealed now what he was feeling, but a close observer
might have seen in the fading of the color in his cheeks, the beating
of his clenched fist on the arm of his chair, something of that which
was stirring within him.
"And this has been going on ever since she went there. She has had it
in mind to wear your mother's jewels--" Derry had graphically described
Bronson's watch on the stairs--"to get your father's money. I knew she
was cold-blooded, but I had always thought it a rather admirable
quality in a woman of her attractive type."
Before his eye came the vision of Hilda's attractiveness by his
fireside, at his table. And now she would sit by the General's fire,
at his table.
"She didn't say a word," Derry's young voice went on, "when he told me
that I was no longer--his son. I can't tell you how I felt about her.
I've never felt that way about anyone before. I've always liked
people--but it was as if some evil thing had swooped down on the old
house."
The lad saw straight! That was the thought which suddenly illumined
Dr. McKenzie's troubled mind. Hilda was not beautiful. So beauty of
body could offset the ugliness of her distorted soul.
"And so I am poor," Derry was saying, heavily, "and I must wait to
marry Jean."
The red surged up in the Doctor's face. He jerked himself forward in
his chair. "You shall not wait. After this you are my son, if you are
not your father's."
He laid his hand on Derry's shoulder. "I've money enough, God knows.
And I shan't need it. It isn't a fortune, but it is enough to make all
of us comfortable for the rest of our days--and I want Jean to be
happy. Do you think I am going to let Hilda Merritt stand between my
child and happiness?"
"It's awfully good of you, sir," Derry's voice was husky with feeling,
"but--"
"There are no 'buts.' You must let me have my own way; I shall
consider it a patriotic privilege to support one soldier and his little
wife."
He was riding above the situation splendidly. He even had visions of
straightening things out. "When I go back I shall tell Hilda what I
think of her, I shall tell her that it is preposterous--that her
professional reputation is at stake."
"What will she care for her professional reputation when she is my
father's wife?"
The thought of Hilda with the world, in a sense, at her feet was
maddening. The Doctor paced the floor roaring like an angry lion. "It
may not do any good, but I've got to tell her what I think of her."
Derry had a whimsical sense of the meeting of the white cat and this
leonine gentleman--would she purr or scratch?
"The sooner you and Jean are married the better. If Hilda thinks she
is going to keep you and Jean apart she is mistaken."
"Oh--did she know of the engagement?"
"Yes," the Doctor confessed. "I told her the other day when she came
to fix the books."
"Then that accounts for it."
"For what?"
"Dad's attitude. I thought it was queer he should fly up all in a
moment. She wanted to make trouble, Doctor, and she has made it."
Long after Derry had gone to bed, the Doctor sat there pondering on
Hilda's treachery. He was in some ways a simple man--swayed by the
impulse of the moment. The thought of deliberate plotting was
abhorrent. In his light way he had taken her lightly. He had laughed
at her. He had teased Jean, he had teased Emily, calling their
intuition jealousy. Yet they had known better than he. And why should
not women know women better than men know them? Just as men know men
in a way that women could never know. Sex erected barriers--there was
always the instinct to charm, to don one's gayest plumage; even Hilda's
frankness had been used as a lure; she knew he liked it. Would she
have been so frank if she had not felt its stimulus to a man of his
type? And, after all, had she really been frank?
Such a woman was like a poisonous weed; and he had thought she might
bloom in the same garden with Jean--until Emily had told him.
He turned to the thought of Emily with relief. Thank God he could
leave Jean in her care. If Derry went, there would still be Emily with
her sweet sanity, and her wise counsels.
He felt very old as he went upstairs. He stood for a long time in
front of his wife's picture. How sweet she had been in her
forget-me-not gown--how little and tender! Their love had burned in a
white flame--there would never be anything like that for him again.
He waked in the morning, however, ready for all that was before him.
He was a man who dwelt little on the past. There was always the day's
work, and the work of the day after.
His appetite for the work of the coming day was, it must be confessed,
whetted somewhat by the thought of what he would say to Hilda.
They had an early breakfast, with Jean between her father and Derry and
eating nothing for very happiness.
There was the start in the opal light of the early morning, with a
faint rose sky making a background for the cross on the College, and
the chimes saying "Seven o'clock."
Jim and Mary Connolly came out in the biting air to see them off. Then
Mary went over to the church to pray for Jean and Derry. But first of
all she prayed for her sons.
The Doctor, arriving at his office, at once called up Hilda.
"I must see you as soon as possible."
"What has Derry Drake been telling you?"
"How do you know that he has told me anything?"
"By your voice. And you needn't think that you are going to scold me."
"I shall scold you for disobeying orders. I thought you were to be
trusted, Hilda."
"I am not a saint. You know that. And I am not sure that I want you
to come. I shall send you away if you scold."
She hung up the receiver and left him fuming. Her high-handed
indifference to his authority sent him storming to Derry, "I've half a
mind to stay away."
"I think I would. It won't do any good to go--"
But the Doctor went. He still hoped, optimistically, that Hilda might
be induced to see the error of her ways.
She received him in the blue room, where the General's precious
porcelain was set forth in cabinets. It was a choice little room which
had been used by Mrs. Drake for the reception of special guests. Hilda
was in her uniform, but without her cap. It was as if in doffing her
cap, she struck her first note of independence against the Doctor's
rule.
He began professionally. "Doctor Bryer telephoned this morning that
his attendance of the case had been only during my absence. That he
did not care to keep it unless I definitely intended to withdraw. I
told him to go ahead. I told him also that you were a good nurse. I
had to whitewash my conscience a bit to say it, Hilda--"
Her head went up. "I am a good nurse. But I am more than a nurse, I
am a woman. Oh, I know you are blaming me for what you think I have
done. But if you stood under a tree and a great ripe peach hung just
out of your reach, could you be blamed for shaking the tree? Well, I
shook the tree."
She was very handsome as she gave her defense with flashing eyes.
"The General asked me to marry him, and that's more than you would ever
have done. You liked to think that I was half in love with you. You
liked to pretend that you were half in love with me. But would you
ever have offered me ease and rest from hard work? Would you ever have
thought that I might some day be your daughter's equal in your home?
Oh, I have wanted good times. I used to sit night after night alone in
the office while you and Jean went out and did the things I was dying
to do. I wanted to go to dances and to the theater and to supper with
a gay crowd. But you never seemed to think of it. I am young and I
want pretty clothes--yet you thought I was satisfied to have you come
home and say a few careless pleasant words, and to tease me a little.
That was all you ever did for me--all you ever wanted.
"But the General wants more than that. He wants me here in the big
house, to be his wife, and to meet his friends. He had a man come up
the other day with a lot of rings, and he bought me this." She showed
the great diamonds flashing on her third finger. "I have always wanted
a ring like this, and now I can have as many as I want. Do you blame
me for shaking the tree?"
He sat, listening, spellbound to her sophistry. But was it sophistry?
Wasn't some of it true? He saw her for the first time as a woman
wanting things like other women.
She swept out her hand to include the contents of the little room. "I
have always longed for a place like this. I don't know a thing about
china. But I know that all that stuff in the cabinet cost a fortune.
And it's a pretty room, and some day when I am the General's wife, I'll
ask you here to take tea with me, and I'll wear a silver gown like your
daughter wears, and I think you'll be surprised to see that I can do it
well."
He flung up his hand. "I can't argue it, Hilda. I can't analyze it.
But it is all wrong. In all the years that you worked for me, while I
laughed at you, I respected you. But I don't respect you now."
She shrugged. "Do you think I care? And a man's respect after all is
rather a cold thing, isn't it? But I am sorry you feel as you do about
it. I should have been glad to have you wish me happiness."
"Happiness--" His anger seemed to die suddenly. "You won't find
happiness, Hilda, if you separate a son from his father."
"Did he tell you that? I had nothing to do with it. His father was
angry at his--interference."
He stood up. "We won't discuss it. But you may tell him this. That I
am glad his son is poor, for my daughter will marry now the man and not
his money."
"Then he will marry her?"
"Yes. On Christmas Day."
She wished that she might tell him the date of her own wedding, but she
did not know it. The General seemed in no hurry. He had carefully
observed the conventions; had hired a housekeeper and a maid, and there
was, of course, the day nurse. Having thus surrounded his betrothed
with a sort of feminine bodyguard, he spoke of the wedding as happening
in the spring. And he was hard to move. As has been said, the General
had once commanded a brigade. He was immensely entertained and
fascinated by the lady who was to be his wife. But he was not to be
managed by her. She found herself, as he grew stronger, quite
strangely deferring to his wishes. She found herself, indeed, rather
unexpectedly dominated.
She came back to the Doctor. "Aren't you going to wish me happiness?"
"No. How can I, Hilda?"
After he had left her, she stood very still in the middle of the room.
She could still see him as he had towered above her--his crinkled hair
waving back from his handsome head. She had always liked the youth of
him and his laughter and his boyish fun.
The rich man upstairs was--old--.