I
Now, had Billy Grant really died there would be no story. The story
is to relate how he nearly died; and how, approaching that bourne to
which no traveller may take with him anything but his sins--and this
with Billy Grant meant considerable luggage--he cast about for some
way to prevent the Lindley Grants from getting possession of his
worldly goods.
Probably it would never have happened at all had not young Grant,
having hit on a scheme, clung to it with a tenacity that might
better have been devoted to saving his soul, and had he not said to
the Nurse, who was at that moment shaking a thermometer: "Come
on--be a sport! It's only a matter of hours." Not that he said it
aloud--he whispered it, and fought for the breath to do even that.
The Nurse, having shaken down the thermometer, walked to the table
and recorded a temperature of one hundred and six degrees through a
most unprofessional mist of tears. Then in the symptom column she
wrote: "Delirious."
But Billy Grant was not delirious. A fever of a hundred and four or
thereabout may fuse one's mind in a sort of fiery crucible, but when
it gets to a hundred and six all the foreign thoughts, like seeing
green monkeys on the footboard and wondering why the doctor is
walking on his hands--all these things melt away, and one sees one's
past, as when drowning, and remembers to hate one's relations, and
is curious about what is coming when one goes over.
So Billy Grant lay on his bed in the contagious pavilion of the
hospital, and remembered to hate the Lindley Grants and to try to
devise a way to keep them out of his property. And, having studied
law, he knew no will that he might make now would hold against the
Lindley Grants for a minute, unless he survived its making some
thirty days. The Staff Doctor had given him about thirty hours or
less.
Perhaps he would have given up in despair and been forced to rest
content with a threat to haunt the Lindley Grants and otherwise mar
the enjoyment of their good fortune, had not the Nurse at that
moment put the thermometer under his arm.
Now, as every one knows, an axillary temperature takes five minutes,
during which it is customary for a nurse to kneel beside the bed, or
even to sit very lightly on the edge, holding the patient's arm
close to his side and counting his respirations while pretending to
be thinking of something else. It was during these five minutes that
the idea came into Billy Grant's mind and, having come, remained.
The Nurse got up, rustling starchily, and Billy caught her eye.
"Every engine," he said with difficulty, "labours--in a low--gear.
No wonder I'm--heated up!"
The Nurse, who was young, put her hand on his forehead.
"Try to sleep," she said.
"Time for--that--later," said Billy Grant. "I'll--I'll be a--long
time--dead. I--I wonder whether you'd--do me a--favour."
"I'll do anything in the world you want."
She tried to smile down at him, but only succeeded in making her
chin quiver, which would never do--being unprofessional and likely
to get to the head nurse; so, being obliged to do something, she
took his pulse by the throbbing in his neck.
"One, two, three, four, five, six----"
"Then--marry me," gasped Billy Grant. "Only for an--hour or--two,
you know. You--promised. Come on--be a sport!"
It was then that the Nurse walked to the table and recorded
"Delirious" in the symptom column. And, though she was a Smith
College girl and had taken a something or other in mathematics, she
spelled it just then with two r's.
Billy Grant was not in love with the Nurse. She was a part of his
illness, like the narrow brass bed and the yellow painted walls,
and the thermometer under his arm, and the medicines. There were
even times--when his fever subsided for a degree or two, after a
cold sponge, and the muddled condition of mind returned--when she
seemed to have more heads than even a nurse requires. So sentiment
did not enter into the matter at all; it was revenge.
"You--promised," he said again; but the Nurse only smiled
indulgently and rearranged the bottles on the stand in neat rows.
Jenks, the orderly, carried her supper to the isolation pavilion at
six o'clock--cold ham, potato salad, egg custard and tea. Also, he
brought her an evening paper. But the Nurse was not hungry. She went
into the bathroom, washed her eyes with cold water, put on a clean
collar, against the impending visit of the Staff Doctor, and then
stood at the window, looking across at the hospital and feeling very
lonely and responsible. It was not a great hospital, but it loomed
large and terrible that night. The ambulance came out into the
courtyard, and an interne, in white ducks, came out to it, carrying
a surgical bag. He looked over at her and waved his hand. "Big
railroad wreck!" he called cheerfully. "Got 'em coming in bunches."
He crawled into the ambulance, where the driver, trained to many
internes, gave him time to light a cigarette; then out into the
dusk, with the gong beating madly. Billy Grant, who had lapsed into
a doze, opened his eyes.
"What--about it?" he asked. "You're not--married already--are you?"
"Please try to rest. Perhaps if I get your beef juice----"
"Oh, damn--the beef juice!" whispered Billy Grant, and shut his eyes
again--but not to sleep. He was planning how to get his way, and
finally, out of a curious and fantastic medley of thoughts, he
evolved something. The doctor, of course! These women had to do what
the doctor ordered. He would see the doctor!--upon which, with a
precision quite amazing, all the green monkeys on the footboard of
the bed put their thumbs to their noses at him.
The situation was unusual; for here was young Grant, far enough from
any one who knew he was one of the Van Kleek Grants--and, as such,
entitled to all the nurses and doctors that money could
procure--shut away in the isolation pavilion of a hospital, and not
even putting up a good fight! Even the Nurse felt this, and when the
Staff Man came across the courtyard that night she met him on the
doorstep and told him.
"He doesn't care whether he gets well or not," she said
dispiritedly. "All he seems to think about is to die and to leave
everything he owns so his relatives won't get it. It's horrible!"
The Staff Man, who had finished up a hard day with a hospital supper
of steak and fried potatoes, sat down on the doorstep and fished out
a digestive tablet from his surgical bag.
"It's pretty sad, little girl," he said, over the pill. He had known
the Nurse for some time, having, in fact, brought her--according to
report at the time--in a predecessor of the very bag at his feet,
and he had the fatherly manner that belongs by right to the man who
has first thumped one between the shoulder-blades to make one
breathe, and who had remarked on this occasion to some one beyond
the door: "A girl, and fat as butter!"
The Nurse tiptoed in and found Billy Grant apparently asleep.
Actually he had only closed his eyes, hoping to lure one of the
monkeys within clutching distance. So the Nurse came out again, with
the symptom record.
"Delirious, with two r's," said the Staff Doctor, glancing over his
spectacles. "He must have been pretty bad."
"Not wild; he--he wanted me to marry him!"
She smiled, showing a most alluring dimple in one cheek.
"I see! Well, that's not necessarily delirium. H'm--pulse,
respiration--look at that temperature! Yes, it's pretty sad--away
from home, too, poor lad!"
"You---- Isn't there any hope, doctor?"
"None at all--at least, I've never had 'em get well."
Now the Nurse should, by all the ethics of hospital practice, have
walked behind the Staff Doctor, listening reverentially to what he
said, not speaking until she was spoken to, and carrying in one hand
an order blank on which said august personage would presently
inscribe certain cabalistic characters, to be deciphered later by
the pharmacy clerk with a strong light and much blasphemy, and in
the other hand a clean towel. The clean towel does not enter into
the story, but for the curious be it said that were said personage
to desire to listen to the patient's heart, the towel would be
unfolded and spread, without creases, over the patient's
chest--which reminds me of the Irishman and the weary practitioner;
but every one knows that story.
Now that is what the Nurse should have done; instead of which, in
the darkened passageway, being very tired and exhausted and under a
hideous strain, she suddenly slipped her arm through the Staff
Doctor's and, putting her head on his shoulder, began to cry softly.
"What's this?" demanded the Staff Doctor sternly and, putting his
arm round her: "Don't you know that Junior Nurses are not supposed
to weep over the Staff?" And, getting no answer but a choke: "We
can't have you used up like this; I'll make them relieve you. When
did you sleep?"
"I don't want to be relieved," said the Nurse, very muffled.
"No-nobody else would know wh-what he wanted. I just--I just can't
bear to see him--to see him----"
The Staff Doctor picked up the clean towel, which belonged on the
Nurse's left arm, and dried her eyes for her; then he sighed.
"None of us likes to see it, girl," he said. "I'm an old man, and
I've never got used to it. What do they send you to eat?"
"The food's all right," she said rather drearily. "I'm not
hungry--that's all. How long do you think----"
The Staff Doctor, who was putting an antiseptic gauze cap over his
white hair, ran a safety pin into his scalp at that moment and did
not reply at once. Then, "Perhaps--until morning," he said.
He held out his arms for the long, white, sterilised coat, and a
moment later, with his face clean-washed of emotion, and looking
like a benevolent Turk, he entered the sick room. The Nurse was just
behind him, with an order book in one hand and a clean towel over
her arm.
Billy Grant, from his bed, gave the turban a high sign of greeting.
"Allah--is--great!" he gasped cheerfully. "Well, doctor--I guess
it's all--over but--the shouting."