Love Stories Part 29

So the Nurse went back to the ward, and sat down, palpitating, in the throne-chair by the table, and spread her crisp skirts, and found where the page had been torn out of the order-book.

And as the smiles of sovereigns are hailed with delight by their courts, so the ward brightened until it seemed to gleam that Easter afternoon. And a sort of miracle happened: none of the babies had colic, and the mothers mostly slept. Also, one of the ladies of the House Committee looked in at the door and said:

"How beautiful you are here, and how peaceful! Your ward is always a sort of benediction."

The lady of the House Committee looked across and saw the new mother, with the sunshine on her yellow braids, and her face refined from the furnace of pain.

"What a sweet young mother!" she said, and rustled out, leaving an odor of peau d'Espagne.

The girl lay much as Liz had left her. Except her eyes, there was nothing in her face to show that despair had given place to wild mutiny. But Liz knew; Liz had gone through it all when "the first one" came; and so, from the end of the ward, she rocked and watched.

The odor of peau d'Espagne was still in the air, eclipsing the Easter lilies, when Liz got up and sauntered down to the girl's bed.

"How are you now, dearie?" she asked, and, reaching under the blankets, brought out the tiny pearl-handled knife with which the girl had been wont to clean her finger-nails. The girl eyed her savagely, but said nothing; nor did she resist when Liz brought out her hands and examined the wrists. The left had a small cut on it.

"Now listen to me," said Liz. "None of that, do you hear? You ain't the only one that's laid here and wanted to end it all. And what happened? Inside of a month they're well and strong again, and they put the kid somewhere, and the folks that know what's happened get used to it, and the ones that don't know don't need to know. Don't be a fool!"

She carried the knife off, but the girl made no protest. There were other ways.

The Nurse was very tired, for she had been up almost all night. She sat at the record-table with her Bible open, and, in the intervals of taking temperatures, she read it. But mostly she read about Annie Petowski being allowed to sit up, and the Goldstein baby having bran baths, and the other thing written below!

At two o'clock came the Junior Medical, in a frock-coat and grey trousers. He expected to sing "The Palms" at the Easter service downstairs in the chapel that afternoon, and, according to precedent, the one who sings "The Palms" on Easter in the chapel must always wear a frock-coat.

Very conscious, because all the ward was staring at his gorgeousness, he went over to the bed where the new mother lay. Then he came back and stood by the table, looking at a record.

"Have you taken her temperature?" he said, businesslike and erect.

"Ninety-eight."

"Her pulse is strong?"

"Yes; she's resting quietly."

"Good.--And--did you get my note?"

This, much as if he had said, "Did you find my scarf-pin?" or anything merely casual; for Liz was hovering near.

"Yes." The nurse's red lips were trembling, but she smiled up at him. Liz came nearer. She was only wishing him G.o.dspeed with his wooing, but it made him uncomfortable.

"Watch her closely," he said, "she's pretty weak and despondent."

And he looked at Liz.

"Elizabeth," said the Nurse, "won't you sit by Claribel and fan her?"

Claribel was the new mother. Claribel is, of course, no name for a mother, but she had been named when she was very small.

Liz went away and sat by the girl's bed, and said a little prayer to the effect that they were both so d.a.m.ned good to everybody, she hoped they'd hit it off. But perhaps the prayer of the wicked availeth nothing.

"You know I meant that," he said, from behind a record. "I--I love you with all my heart--and if only you----"

The nurse shook down a thermometer and examined it closely. "I love you, too!" she said. And, walking shakily to one of the beds, she put the thermometer upside down in Maggie McNamara's mouth.

The Junior Medical went away with his shoulders erect in his frock-coat, and his heavy brown hair, which would never part properly and had to be persuaded with brilliantine, bristling with happiness.

And the Nurse-Queen, looking over her kingdom for somebody to lavish her new joy on, saw Claribel lying in bed, looking at the ceiling and reading there all the tragedy of her broken life, all her despair.

So she rustled out to the baby-room, where the new baby had never batted an eye since her bath and was lying on her back with both fists clenched on her breast, and she did something that no trained nurse is ever supposed to do.

She lifted the baby, asleep and all, and carried her to her mother.

But Claribel's face only darkened when she saw her.

"Take the brat away," she said, and went on reading tragedies on the ceiling.

Liz came and proffered her the little mite with every art she knew.

She showed her the wrinkled bits of feet, the tiny, ridiculous hands, and how long the hair grew on the back of her head. But when Liz put the baby on her arm, she shuddered and turned her head away.

So finally Liz took it back to the other room, and left it there, still sleeping.

The fine edge of the Nurse's joy was dulled. It is a characteristic of great happiness to wish all to be well with the world; and here before her was dry-eyed despair. It was Liz who finally decided her.

"I guess I'll sit up with her to-night," she said, approaching the table with the peculiar gait engendered of heel-less hospital carpet-slippers and Mother Hubbard wrappers. "I don't like the way she watches the ceiling."

"What do you mean, Elizabeth?" asked the Nurse.

"Time I had the twins--that's before your time," said Liz--"we had one like that. She went out the window head first the night after the baby came, and took the kid with her."

The Nurse rose with quick decision.

"We must watch her," she said. "Perhaps if I could find--I think I'll go to the telephone. Watch the ward carefully, Elizabeth, and if Annie Petowski tries to feed her baby before three o'clock, take it from her. The child's stuffed like a sausage every time I'm out for five minutes."

Nurses know many strange things: they know how to rub an aching back until the ache is changed to a restful thrill, and how to change the bedding and the patient's night-dress without rolling the patient over more than once, which is a high and desirable form of knowledge. But also they get to know many strange people; their clean starchiness has a way of rubbing up against the filth of the world and coming away unsoiled. And so the Nurse went downstairs to the telephone, leaving Liz to watch for nefarious feeding.

The Nurse called up Rose Davis; and Rosie, who was lying in bed with the Sunday papers scattered around her and a cigarette in her manicured fingers, reached out with a yawn and, taking the telephone, rested it on her laced and ribboned bosom.

"Yes," she said indolently.

The nurse told her who she was, and Rosie's voice took on a warmer tinge.

"Oh, yes," she said. "How are you?... Claribel? Yes; what about her?... What!"

"Yes," said the Nurse. "A girl--seven pounds."

"My Gawd! Well, what do you think of that! Excuse me a moment; my cigarette's set fire to the sheet. All right--go ahead."

"She's taking it pretty hard, and I--I thought you might help her.

She--she----"

"How much do you want?" said Rose, a trifle coldly. She turned in the bed and eyed the black leather bag on the stand at her elbow.