Royal Highness Part 16

Klaus Heinrich did not see him for ten or twelve days. He asked him to lunch once, but Doctor Ueberbein begged to be excused, his work at the moment was too pressing. At last he came spontaneously. He was in high spirits and looked greener than ever. He bl.u.s.tered about this and that, and at last came to the subject of the Spoelmanns, looking at the ceiling and pulling at his throat when he did so. To be quite fair, he said, there was a striking amount of sympathy felt with Samuel Spoelmann, one could see all over the town how much beloved he was.

Chiefly of course as an object of taxation, but in other respects too.

There was simply a penchant for him, in every cla.s.s, for his organ-playing and his faded coat and his kidney-colic. Every errand boy was proud of him, and if he were not so unapproachable and morose he would already have been made to feel it.

The ten-thousand marks donation for the Dorothea Hospital had naturally made an excellent impression. His friend Sammet had told him (Ueberbein) that with the help of this donation far-reaching improvements had been undertaken in the Hospital. And for the rest, it had just occurred to him! Little Imma was going to inspect the improvements to-morrow morning, Sammet had told him. She had sent one of her swan's-down flunkeys and asked whether she would be welcome to-morrow. She and sick children were a devilish funny mixture, opined Ueberbein, but perhaps she might learn something. To-morrow morning at eleven, if his memory did not mislead him.

Then he talked about other things. On leaving he added: "The Grand Duke ought to take some interest in the Dorothea Hospital, Klaus Heinrich, it's expected of him. It's a blessed inst.i.tution. In short, somebody ought to show the way, give signs of an interest in high quarters. No wish to intrude.... And so good-bye."

But he came back once more, and in his green face a flush had appeared under the eyes which looked entirely out of place there. "If," he said deliberately, "I ever caught you again with a soup tureen on your head, Klaus Heinrich, I should leave it there." Then he pressed his lips together and went out.

Next morning shortly before eleven Klaus Heinrich walked with Herr von Braunbart-Sch.e.l.lendorf, his aide-de-camp, from Schloss "Hermitage"

through the snow-covered birch avenue over rough suburban streets between humble cottages, and stopped before the neat white house over whose entrance "Dorothea Children's Hospital" was painted in broad black letters. His visit had been announced. The senior surgeon of the inst.i.tution, in a frock-coat with the Albrechts Cross of the Third Cla.s.s, was awaiting him with two younger surgeons and the nursing staff in the hall. The Prince and his companion were wearing helmets and fur coats. Klaus Heinrich said: "This is the renewal of an old acquaintance, my dear doctor. You were present when I came into the world. You are also a friend of my tutor Ueberbein's. I am delighted to meet you."

Doctor Sammet, who had grown grey in his life of active philanthropy, bowed to one side, with one hand on his watch-chain and his elbows close to his ribs. He presented the two junior surgeons and the sister to the Prince, and then said: "I must explain to your Royal Highness that your Royal Highness's gracious visit coincides with another visit. Yes. We are expecting Miss Spoelmann. Her father has done such a lot for our inst.i.tution.... We could not very well upset the arrangements. The sister will take Miss Spoelmann round."

Klaus Heinrich received the news of this rencontre without displeasure.

He first expressed his opinion of the nurses' uniform, which he called becoming, and then his curiosity to inspect the philanthropic inst.i.tution. The tour began. The sister and three nurses waited behind in the hall.

All the walls in the building were whitewashed and washable. Yes. The water taps were huge, they were meant to be worked with the elbows for reasons of cleanliness. And rinsing apparatus had been installed for washing the milk-bottles. One pa.s.sed first through the reception room, which was empty save for a couple of disused beds and the surgeons'

bicycles. In the adjoining preparation room there were, besides the writing-table and the stand with the students' white coats, a kind of folding table with oil-cloth cushions, an operating-table, a cupboard of provisions, and a trough-shaped perambulator. Klaus Heinrich paused at the provisions and asked for the recipes for the preparations to be explained to him. Doctor Sammet thought to himself that if the whole tour was going to be made with such attention to details, a terrible lot of time would be wasted.

Suddenly a noise was heard in the street. An automobile drove up tooting and stopped in front of the building. Cheers were heard distinctly in the preparation room, for all that it was only children that were shouting. Klaus Heinrich did not pay any particular attention to the incident. He was looking at a box of sugar of milk, which, by the way, had nothing striking about it. "A visitor apparently," he said. "Oh, of course, you said somebody was coming. Let's go on."

The party proceeded to the kitchen, the milk-kitchen, the big boiler-fitted room for the preparing of milk, the place where full milk, boiled milk, and b.u.t.termilk were kept. The daily rations were set on clean white tables in little bottles side by side. The place smelt sourish and sickly.

Klaus Heinrich gave his undivided attention to this room also. He went so far as to taste the b.u.t.termilk, and p.r.o.nounced it excellent. How the children must thrive, he considered, on b.u.t.termilk like that. During this inspection the door opened and Miss Spoelmann entered between the sister and Countess Lowenjoul, followed by the three nurses.

The coat, toque, and m.u.f.f which she was wearing to-day were made of the costliest sable, and her m.u.f.f was suspended on a golden chain set with coloured stones. Her black hair showed a tendency to fall in smooth locks over her forehead. She took in the room at a glance; her eyes were really almost unbecomingly big for her little face, they dominated it like a cat's, save that they were black as anthracite and spoke a pleading language of their own.... Countess Lowenjoul, with a feather hat and dressed neatly and not without distinction, as usual, smiled in a detached sort of way.

"The milk-kitchen," said the sister; "this is where the milk is cooked for the children."

"So one would have supposed," answered Miss Spoelmann. She said it quickly and lightly, with a pout of her lips and a little haughty wag of her head. Her voice was a double one; it consisted of a lower and a higher register, with a break in the middle.

The sister was quite disconcerted. "Yes," she said, "it's obvious." And a little pained look of bewilderment was visible in her face.

The position was a complicated one. Doctor Sammet looked in Klaus Heinrich's face for orders, but as Klaus Heinrich was accustomed to do what was put before him according to prescribed forms, but not to grapple with novel and complex situations, no solution of the difficulty was forthcoming. Herr von Braunbart was on the point of intervening, and Miss Spoelmann on the other side was making ready to leave the milk-kitchen, when the Prince made a gesture with his right hand which established a connexion between himself and the young girl. This was the signal for Doctor Sammet to advance towards Imma Spoelmann.

"Doctor Sammet. Yes." He desired the honour of presenting Miss Spoelmann to his Royal Highness.... "Miss Spoelmann, Royal Highness, the daughter of Mr. Spoelmann to whom this hospital is so much indebted."

Klaus Heinrich clapped his heels together and held out his hand in its white gauntlet, and, laying her small brown-gloved hand in it, she gave him a horizontal hand-shake, English fashion, at the same time making a sort of shy curtsey, without taking her big eyes off Klaus Heinrich's face. He could think of nothing more original to say than: "So you too are paying a visit to the hospital, Miss Spoelmann?"

And she answered as quickly as before, with a pout and the little haughty wag of her head. "n.o.body can deny that everything points in that direction."

Herr Braunbart involuntarily raised his hand, Doctor Sammet looked down at his watch-chain in silence, and a short sn.i.g.g.e.r escaped through the nose of one of the young surgeons, which was hardly opportune. The little pained look of bewilderment now showed on Klaus Heinrich's face.

He said: "Of course.... As you are here.... So I shall be able to visit the inst.i.tution in your company, Miss Spoelmann.... Captain von Braunbart, my aide-de-camp ..." he added quickly, recognizing that his remark laid him open to a similar answer to the last. She responded by: "Countess Lowenjoul."

The Countess made a dignified bow--with an enigmatic smile, a side glance into the unknown, which had something seductive about it. When, however, she let her strangely evasive gaze again dwell on Klaus Heinrich, who stood before her in a composed and military att.i.tude, the laugh vanished from her face, an expression of sadness settled on her features, and for a second a look of something like hatred for Klaus Heinrich shone in her slightly swollen grey eyes. It was only a pa.s.sing look. Klaus Heinrich had no time to notice it, and forgot it immediately. The two young surgeons were presented to Imma Spoelmann, and then Klaus Heinrich suggested that they should continue the tour all together.

They went upstairs to the first story; Klaus Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann in front, conducted by Doctor Sammet, then Countess Lowenjoul with Herr von Braunbart, and the young surgeons in the rear. Yes, the older children were here, up to fourteen years of age. An ante-room with wash-basins divided the girls' and the boys' rooms. In white bedsteads, with a name-plate at the head and a frame at the foot enclosing the temperature- and weight-charts--tended by nurses in white caps, and surrounded by cleanliness and tidiness--lay the sick children, and coughs filled the room while Klaus Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann walked down between the rows.

He walked at her left hand, out of courtesy, with the same smile as when he visited exhibitions or inspected veterans, gymnastic a.s.sociations, or guards of honour. But every time he turned his head to the right he found that Imma Spoelmann was watching him--he met her great black eyes, which were directed at him in a searching, questioning way. It was so peculiar, he never remembered experiencing anything so peculiar before, her way of looking at him with her great eyes, without any respect for him or anyone else, absolutely unembarra.s.sed and free, quite unconcerned whether anybody noticed it or not.

When Doctor Sammet stopped at a bed to describe the case--the little girl's, for instance, whose broken white-bandaged leg stuck straight out along the bed--Miss Spoelmann listened attentively to him, that was quite clear; but while she listened she did not look at the speaker, but her eyes rested in turn on Klaus Heinrich and the pinched, quiet child who, her hands folded on her breast, gazed up at them from her back-rest--rested in turn on the Prince and the little victim, the history of whose case she shared with the Prince, as if she were watching Klaus Heinrich's sympathy, or were trying to read in his face the effect of Dr. Sammet's words; or maybe for some other reason.

Yes, this was especially noticeable in the case of the boy with the bullet through his arm and the boy who had been picked out of the water--two sad cases, as Dr. Sammet remarked. "A severed artery, sister," he said, and showed them the double wound in the boy's upper arm, the entry and exit of the revolver bullet. "The wound," said Doctor Sammet in an undertone to his guests, turning his back to the bed, "the wound was caused by his own father. This one was the lucky one. The man shot his wife, three of his children, and himself with a revolver. He made a bad shot at this boy."

Klaus Heinrich looked at the double wound. "What did the man do it for?"

he asked hesitatingly, and Doctor Sammet answered: "In desperation, Royal Highness. It was shame and want which brought him to it. Yes." He said no more, just this commonplace--just as in the case of the boy, a ten-year-old, who had been picked out of the water. "He's wheezing,"

said Doctor Sammet, "he's still got some water in his lung. He was picked out of the river early this morning--yes. I may say that it is improbable that he _fell_ into the water. There are many indications to the contrary. He had run away from home. Yes." He stopped.

And Klaus Heinrich again felt Miss Spoelmann looking at him with her big, black, serious eyes--with her glance which sought his own and seemed to challenge him insistently to ponder with her the "sad cases,"

to grasp the essential meaning of Doctor Sammet's remarks, to penetrate to the hideous truths which were incorporated and crystallized in these two little invalid frames.... A little girl wept bitterly when the steaming and hissing inhaler, together with a sc.r.a.pbook full of brightly coloured pictures, was planted at her bedside.

Miss Spoelmann bent over the little one. "It doesn't hurt," she said, "not a tiny bit. Don't cry." And as she straightened herself again she added quickly, pursing up her lips, "I guess it's not so much the apparatus as the pictures she's crying at." Everybody laughed. One of the young a.s.sistants picked up the sc.r.a.pbook and laughed still louder when he looked at the pictures. The party pa.s.sed on into the laboratory.

Klaus Heinrich thought, as he went, how dry Miss Spoelmann's humour was.

"I guess," she had said, and "not so much." She had seemed to find amus.e.m.e.nt not only in the pictures, but also in the neat and incisive mode of expression she had used. And that was indeed the very refinement of humour....

The laboratory was the biggest room in the building. Gla.s.ses, retorts, funnels, and chemicals stood on the tables, as well as specimens in spirits which Doctor Sammet explained to his guests in few quiet words.

A child had choked in a mysterious way: here was his larynx with mushroom-like growths instead of the vocal chords. Yes. This, here in the gla.s.s, was a case of pernicious enlargement of the kidney in a child, and there were dislocated joints. Klaus Heinrich and Miss Spoelmann looked at everything, they looked together into the bottles which Doctor Sammet held up to the window, and their eyes looked thoughtful while the same look of repulsion hovered round their mouths.

They took turns too at the microscope, examined, with one eye placed to the lens, a malignant secretion, a piece of blue-stained tissue stuck on a slide, with tiny spots showing near the big patch. The spots were bacilli. Klaus Heinrich wanted Miss Spoelmann to take the first turn at the microscope, but she declined, knitting her brows and pouting, as much as to say: "On no account whatever." So he took the precedence, for it seemed to him that it really did not matter who got the first look at such serious and fearful things as bacilli. And after this they were conducted up to the second story, to the infants.

They both laughed at the chorus of squalls which reached their ears while they were still on the stairs. And then they went with their party through the ward between the beds, bent, side by side over the bald-headed little creatures, sleeping with closed fists or screaming with all their might and showing their naked gums--they stopped their ears and laughed again. In a kind of oven, warmed to a moderate heat lay a new-born baby.

And Doctor Sammet showed his distinguished guests a pauper baby with the grey look of a corpse and hideous big hands, the sign of a miscarriage.... He lifted a squealing baby out of its cot, and it at once stopped screaming. With the touch of an expert he rested the limp head in the hollow of his hand and showed the little red creature blinking and twitching spasmodically to the two--Klaus Heinrich and Miss Spoelmann, who stood side by side and looked down at the infant. Klaus Heinrich stood watching with his heels together as Doctor Sammet laid the baby back in its cot, and when he turned round he met Miss Spoelmann's searching gaze, as he had expected.

Finally they walked to one of the three windows of the ward and looked out over the squalid suburb, down into the street where, surrounded by children, the brown Court carriage and Imma's smart dark-red motor car stood one behind the other. The Spoelmanns' chauffeur, shapeless in his fur coat, was leaning back in his seat with one hand on the steering-wheel of the powerful car, and watched his companion, the footman in white, trying to start a conversation, by the carriage in front, with Klaus Heinrich's coachman.

"Our neighbours," said Doctor Sammet, holding back the white net curtain with one hand, "are the parents of our patients. Late in the evening the tipsy fathers roll shouting by. Yes."

They stood and listened, but Doctor Sammet said nothing further about the fathers and so they broke off, as they had now seen everything.

The procession, with Klaus Heinrich and Imma at the head, proceeded down the staircase and found the nurses again a.s.sembled in the front hall.

Leave was taken with compliments and clapping together of heels, curtseys, and bows. Klaus Heinrich, standing stiffly in front of Doctor Sammet, who listened to him with his head on one side and his hand on his watch-chain, expressed himself, in his wonted form of words, highly satisfied with what he had seen, while he felt that Imma Spoelmann's great eyes were resting upon him. He, with Herr von Braunbart, accompanied Miss Spoelmann to her car when the leave-taking from the surgeons and nurses was over. Klaus Heinrich and Miss Spoelmann, while they crossed the pavement between children and women with children in their arms, and for a short time by the broad step of the motor car, exchanged the following remarks:

"It has been a great pleasure to meet you," he said.

She answered nothing to this, but pouted and wagged her head a little from side to side.

"It was an absorbing inspection," he went on. "A regular eye-opener."

She looked at him with her big black eyes, then said quickly and lightly in her broken voice: "Yes, to a certain extent...."

He ventured on the question: "I hope you are pleased with Schloss Delphinenort?"

To which she answered with a pout: "Oh, why not? It's quite a convenient house...."

"Do you like being there better than at New York?" he asked. And she answered: