I was sure he was dead. He did not move, and when I caught his hands and
called him frantically, he did not hear me. And so, with the horror over
me, I half fell down the stairs and roused Jim in the studio.
They all came with lights and blankets, and they carried him into the
tent and put him on the couch and tried to put whisky in his mouth. But
he could not swallow. And the silence became more and more ominous until
finally Anne got hysterical and cried, “He is dead! Dead!” and collapsed
on the roof.
But he was not. Just as the lights in the tent began to have red rings
around them and Jim’s voice came from away across the river, somebody
said, “There, he swallowed that,” and soon after, he opened his eyes. He
muttered something that sounded like “Andean pinnacle” and lapsed into
unconsciousness again. But he was not dead! He was not dead!
When the doctor came they made a stretcher out of one of Jim’s six-foot
canvases--it had a picture on it, and Jim was angry enough the next
day--and took him down to the studio. We made it as much like a
sick-room as we could, and we tried to make him comfortable. But he lay
without opening his eyes, and at dawn the doctor brought a consultant
and a trained nurse.
The nurse was an offensively capable person. She put us all out, and
scolded Anne for lighting Japanese incense in the room--although Anne
explained that it is very reviving. And she said that it was unnecessary
to have a dozen people breathing up all the oxygen and asphyxiating
the patient. She was good-looking, too. I disliked her at once. Any
one could see by the way she took his pulse--just letting his poor hand
hang, without any support--that she was a purely mechanical creature,
without heart.
Well, as I said before, she put us all out, and shut the door, and asked
us not to whisper outside. Then, too, she refused to allow any flowers
in the room, although Betty had got a florist out of bed to order some.
The consultant came, stayed an hour, and left. Aunt Selina, who proved
herself a trump in that trying time, waylaid him in the hall, and
he said it might be a fractured skull, although it was possibly only
concussion.
The men spent most of the morning together in the den, with the door
shut. Now and then one of them would tiptoe upstairs, ask the nurse how
her patient was doing, and creak down again. Just before noon they all
went to the roof and examined again the place where he had been found.
I know, for I was in the upper hall outside the studio. I stayed there
almost all day, and after a while the nurse let me bring her things as
she needed them. I don’t know why mother didn’t let me study nursing--I
always wanted to do it. And I felt helpless and childish now, when there
were things to be done.
Max came down from the roof alone, and I cornered him in the upper hall.
“I’m going crazy, Max,” I said. “Nobody will tell me anything, and I
can’t stand it. How was he hurt? Who hurt him?”
Max looked at me quite a long time.
“I’m darned if I understand you, Kit,” he said gravely. “You said you
disliked Harbison.”
“So I do--I did,” I supplemented. “But whether I like him or not has
nothing to do with it. He has been injured--perhaps murdered”--I choked
a little. “Which--which of you did it?”
Max took my hand and held it, looking down at me.
“I wish you could have cared for me like that,” he said gently. “Dear
little girl, we don’t know who hurt him. I didn’t, if that’s what you
mean. Perhaps a flower pot--”
I began to cry then, and he drew me to him and let me cry on his arm. He
stood very quietly, patting my head in a brotherly way and behaving very
well, save that once he said:
“Don’t cry too long, Kit; I can stand only a certain amount.”
And just then the nurse opened the door to the studio, and with Max’s
arm still around me, I raised my head and looked in.
Mr. Harbison was conscious. His eyes were open, and he was staring at us
both as we stood framed by the doorway.
He lay back at once and closed his eyes, and the nurse shut the door.
There was no use, even if I had been allowed in, in trying to explain
to him. To attempt such a thing would have been to presume that he was
interested in an explanation. I thought bitterly to myself as I brought
the nurse cracked ice and struggled to make beef tea in the kitchen,
that lives had been wrecked on less.
Dal was allowed ten minutes in the sick room during the afternoon, and
he came out looking puzzled and excited. He refused to tell us what he
had learned, however, and the rest of the afternoon he and Jim spent in
the cellar.
The day dragged on. Downstairs people ate and read and wrote letters,
and outside newspaper men talked together and gazed over at the house
and photographed the doctors coming in and the doctors going out. As for
me, in the intervals of bringing things, I sat in Bella’s chair in the
upper hall, and listened to the crackle of the nurse’s starched skirts.
At midnight that night the doctors made a thorough examination. When
they came out they were smiling.
“He is doing very well,” the younger one said--he was hairy and dark,
but he was beautiful to me. “He is entirely conscious now, and in about
an hour you can send the nurse off for a little sleep. Don’t let him
talk.”
And so at last I went through the familiar door into an unfamiliar room,
with basins and towels and bottles around, and a screen made of Jim’s
largest canvases. And someone on the improvised bed turned and looked
at me. He did not speak, and I sat down beside him. After a while he put
his hand over mine as it lay on the bed.
“You are much better to me than I deserve,” he said softly. And because
his eyes were disconcerting, I put an ice cloth over them.
“Much better than you deserve,” I said, and patted the ice cloth to
place gently. He fumbled around until he found my hand again, and we
were quiet for a long time. I think he dozed, for he roused suddenly and
pulled the cloth from his eyes.
“The--the day is all confused,” he said, turning to look at me,
“but--one thing seems to stand out from everything else. Perhaps it
was delirium, but I seemed to see that door over there open, and you,
outside, with--with Max. His arms were around you.”
“It was delirium,” I said softly. It was my final lie in that house of
mendacity.
He drew a satisfied breath, and lifting my hand, held it to his lips and
kissed it.
“I can hardly believe it is you,” he said. “I have to hold firmly to
your hand or you will disappear. Can’t you move your chair closer? You
are miles away.” So I did it, for he was not to be excited.
After a little--
“It’s awfully good of you to do this. I have been desperately sorry,
Kit, about the other night. It was a ruffianly thing to do--to kiss you,
when I thought--”
“You are to keep very still,” I reminded him. He kissed my hand again,
but he persisted.
“I was mad--crazy.” I tried to give him some medicine, but he pushed the
spoon aside. “You will have to listen,” he said. “I am in the depths of
self-disgust. I--I can’t think of anything else. You see, you seemed
so convinced that I was the blackguard that somehow nothing seemed to
matter.”
“I have forgotten it all,” I declared generously, “and I would be quite
willing to be friends, only, you remember you said--”
“Friends!” his voice was suddenly reckless, and he raised on his elbow.
“Friends! Who wants to be friends? Kit, I was almost delirious that
night. The instant I held you in my arms--It was all over. I loved you
the first time I saw you. I--I suppose I’m a fool to talk like this.”
And, of course, just then Dallas had to open the door and step into the
room. He was covered with dirt and he had a hatchet in his hand.
“A rope!” he demanded, without paying any attention to us and diving
into corners of the room. “Good heavens, isn’t there a rope in this
confounded house!”
He turned and rushed out, without any explanation, and left us staring
at the door.
“Bother the rope!” I found myself forced to look into two earnest eyes.
“Kit, were you VERY angry when I kissed you that night on the roof?”
“Very,” I maintained stoutly.
“Then prepare yourself for another attack of rage!” he said. And Betty
opened the door.
She had on a fetching pale blue dressing gown, and one braid of her
yellow hair was pulled carelessly over her shoulder. When she saw me
on my knees beside the bed (oh, yes, I forgot to say that, quite
unconsciously, I had slid into that position) she stopped short, just
inside the door, and put her hand to her throat. She stood for quite a
perceptible time looking at us, and I tried to rise. But Tom shamelessly
put his arm around my shoulders and held me beside him. Then Betty
took a step back and steadied herself by the door frame. She had really
cared, I knew then, but I was too excited to be sorry for her.
“I--I beg your pardon for coming in,” she said nervously. “But--they
want you downstairs, Kit. At least, I thought you would want to go,
but--perhaps--”
Just then from the lower part of the house came a pandemonium of noises;
women screaming, men shouting, and the sound of hatchet strokes and
splintering wood. I seized Betty by the arm, and together we rushed down
the stairs.