Love Stories Part 15

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 bra.s.s 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, d.a.m.n--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, ent.i.tled 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 b.u.t.ter!"

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 pract.i.tioner; but every one knows that story.

Now that is what the Nurse should have done; instead of which, in the darkened pa.s.sageway, 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 m.u.f.fled.

"No-n.o.body 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."

II

Some time after midnight Billy Grant roused out of a stupor. He was quite rational; in fact, he thought he would get out of bed. But his feet would not move. This was absurd! One's feet must move if one wills them to! However, he could not stir either of them. Otherwise he was beautifully comfortable.

Faint as was the stir he made the Nurse heard him. She was sitting in the dark by the window.