II
She opened her eyes and looked at the white walls, white beds, white screens, white sunlight through the windows, and women in white caps and dresses moving silently about with white vessels in their hands.
“Why, this must be a hospital,” she thought. “How on earth did I come here?”
Her arm, lying outside the sheet, looked blue and cold and felt as if it did not belong to her. She could not turn her head because it was bandaged, and when, after an eternity of effort, she succeeded in lifting her hand, she discovered that her hair had been cut away on one side. Closing her eyes again, she lay without thinking, without stirring, without feeling, while she let life cover her slowly in a warm flood. The blessed relief was that nothing mattered; nothing that had happened or could ever happen mattered at all. After the months when she had cared so intensely, it was like the peace of the Sabbath not to care any longer, neither to worry nor to wonder about the future.
“I must have hurt myself when I fell,” she said.
To her surprise a voice close by the bed answered, “Yes, you fainted in the street and a cab struck you. You have been ill, but you’re getting all right now.”
A man was standing beside her, a large, ruddy, genial-looking man, with a brown beard and the kindest eyes she had ever seen. He wore a red and black tie and there was a square gold medal hanging from his watch chain.
“Have I been here long?” she asked, and her voice sounded so queer that she couldn’t believe it had come out of her lips.
“A week to-day. It will be another week at least before you’re strong enough to be out.”
“Was I very ill?”
“At first. We had to operate. That’s why your head is shaved on one side. But you came through splendidly,” he added in his hearty manner. “You have a superb constitution.”
For an instant she pondered this. “Are you the doctor?” she inquired presently.
“I am Doctor Faraday.” His hand was on her wrist and he was smiling at her as if he hadn’t a care or a qualm.
She wondered if he knew anything about her. He appeared so big and wise and strong that he might have known all there was to know about everybody.
“Is there anything that worries you?” he asked gently, with his air of taking the world and all it contained as an inexhaustible joke. She shook her head as well as she could for the bandages, which made all her movements seem clumsy and unnatural. “I was just thinking——”
“Do you remember where you were going when you were knocked down?”
She met his eyes candidly, yielding her will to the genial strength of his personality. “I was looking for work. There was a dressmaker in West Twenty-third Street. She will have filled the place by now.”
“You mustn’t worry about that.” She liked the way the wrinkles gathered about his merry grey eyes. “Don’t worry about anything. We’ll see that you have something to do as soon as you’re strong enough. Meanwhile, just lie still and get well. Keep a stiff upper lip,” he concluded, with a subdued laugh which would have boomed out if he hadn’t suppressed it. “That’s the only way to meet life. Keep a stiff upper lip,” he concluded with a subdued laugh which would have boomed out if he hadn’t suppressed it. “That’s the only way to meet life. Keep a stiff upper lip.”
“I can’t help thinking,”—she glanced weakly about the room, where the white iron beds—they were the smallest beds she had ever seen—stood in a row. “Is this a charity place?”
“Now, I told you not to worry. No, we don’t call it charity, but there is no charge for those who need treatment and cannot afford to pay for it. We don’t expect you to be one of the rich patients. Is there anything else?”
She tried again to shake her head. All at once she had forgotten what she wanted to know. She was too weak to remember things, even important things. There was a pain at the back of her head, and this pain was shooting in wires down her neck and through her shoulders to her spine. Nothing made any difference.
“Don’t make an effort. Don’t try to talk,” he said, and turned away to one of the beds by the door.
Hours later, when one of the nurses brought her a cup of broth, she struggled to speak collectedly. “What did the doctor tell me his name is? I don’t seem to remember things.”
“That’s because you’re still weak. His name is Faraday. He is a celebrated surgeon, and he operated on you because he brought you to the hospital. He was driving by when you were struck. The operation saved your life.”
“Does he come often?”
“Not as a rule. He hasn’t time to visit the patients. But he is interested in your case. It is an unusual one, and he is very much interested.”
“Does he know who I am?”
“Yes, the woman you rented a room from read about the accident in the papers, and came to identify you. Can you remember anything of this last week?”
“Only that my head hurt me. Yes, and figures passing to and fro against white walls.”
“It was a wonder you weren’t killed. But you’re all right now. You’ll be as well as you ever were in a little while.”
“I feel so queer with my head shaved. I can feel it even with the bandages.”
“That will soon be well, and the scar won’t show at all under your hair. You’ve everything to be thankful for,” the nurse concluded in a brisk professional tone.
Dorinda was gazing up at her with a strange, groping expression. Her eyes, large, blue, and wistful in the pallor of her face, appeared to have drained all the vitality from her body. “There was something I wanted to ask the doctor,” she began. “I don’t seem to be able to remember what it was....”
“Don’t remember,” replied the nurse with authority. She hesitated an instant, and stared down into the empty cup. Then, after reflection, she continued clearly and firmly, “It won’t hurt you to know that you have been very ill, now that you are getting well again?”
Dorinda’s features, except for her appealing eyes, were without expression. Yes, she remembered now; she knew what she had wished to ask, “Oh, no, it won’t hurt me,” she answered.
“Well, I thought you’d take it sensibly.” After waiting a moment to watch the effect of her words, the nurse turned away and walked briskly out of the ward.
Lying there in her narrow bed, Dorinda repeated slowly, “I thought you would feel that way about it.” Words, like ideas, were dribbling back into her mind; but she seemed to be learning them all over again. Relief, in which there was a shade of inexplicable regret, tinged her thoughts. She would have liked a child if it had been all hers, with nothing to remind her of Jason. For a second she had a vision of it, round, fair and rosy. Then, “it might have had red hair,” she reminded herself, “and I should have hated it.”
Relief and regret faded together. She closed her eyes and lay helpless, while the stream of memory, now muddy, now clear, flowed through her into darkness. At first this stream was mere swirling blackness, swift, deep, torrential as a river in flood. Then gradually the rushing noise passed away, and the stream became lighter and clearer, and bore fragmentary, rapidly moving images on its surface. Some of these images floated through her in obscurity; others shone out brightly and steadily as long as they remained within range of her vision; but one and all, they came in fragments and floated on before she could grasp the complete outline. Nothing was whole. Nothing lasted. Nothing was related to anything else.
Thirst. Would they soon bring her something to drink? The old well bucket at home. The mossy brim; the cool slippery feeling of the sides; the turning of the rope as it went down; the dark greenish depths, when one looked over, with the gleaming ripple, like a drowned star, at the bottom. Cool places. Violets growing in hollows. A hollow at Whistling Spring, where she had stepped on a snake in the tall weeds. What was it she couldn’t remember about snakes? Something important, but she had forgotten it. “I’ve always funked things.” Who said that? Why was that woman moaning so behind the screen in the corner?... The snake had come back now. Jason had put his hand on a snake, and that was why everything else had happened. If Jason hadn’t put his hand on a snake when he was a child, he would never have deserted her, she would never have been picked up in the street, she would not be lying now in a hospital with half of her hair shaved away. How ridiculous that sounded when one thought of it; yet it was true. What was it her mother said so often? The ways of Providence are past finding out.... The nurse again. Oh, yes, water....
The morning when she sat up for the first time, Doctor Faraday stayed longer than usual and asked her a number of questions. She felt quite at home with him. “When any one has saved your life, I suppose he feels that you have a claim on him,” she thought; and she replied as accurately as she could to whatever he asked. Naturally reticent, she found now that she suffered from a nervous inability to express any emotion. She could talk freely of external objects, of the hospital, the nurses, the other patients in the ward; but constraint sealed her lips when she endeavoured to put feeling into words.
“When you are discharged, I think we can find a place for you,” said Doctor Faraday. “My wife is coming to talk to you. We’ve been looking for a girl to stay in my office in the morning and help with the children in the afternoon. Not a nurse, you know. The office nurse has other duties; but some one to receive the patients and make appointments.”
She looked at him incredulously. “You aren’t just making it up?” With a laugh he ignored the question. “You haven’t any plans?”
“Oh, no. It will be too late to go to the dressmaker, and besides she might not have wanted me.”
“You are sure you don’t wish to go home?”
She gazed at his firm fleshy face, over which the clean shining skin was drawn so smoothly that it looked as if it were stretched; the thick brown hair, just going grey and divided by a pink part in the centre; the crisp beard, clipped close on the cheeks and rounding to a point at the chin. Yes, she liked his face. It was a comfortable face to watch, and she had never seen hands like his before, large, strong, mysteriously beneficent hands.
“No,” she answered in her reserved voice, “I can’t go back yet.”
If she went back, she should be obliged to face the red chimneys of Five Oaks, the burned cabin, and the place where she had sat and waited for Jason’s return. These things were still there, perpetual and unchanged.
“I’ve talked to my wife about you,” Doctor Faraday said. “I believe you are a good girl, and we both wish to help you to lead a good life.”
“You’ve been so kind,” she responded. “I can’t tell you what I feel, but I do feel that. I want you to know.”
“My dear girl.” He bent over and touched her hand. “I know it. If you’d had as much experience with emotional women as I’ve had, you’d understand the blessedness of reserve. Wait till you see my wife. You’ll find her easy to talk to. Every one does.”
A few mornings afterwards, as she was preparing to get up, Mrs. Faraday came and sat by the little bed. She was a plump, maternal-looking woman, with an ample figure, which did not conform to the wasp waist of the period, and a round pink face, to which her tightly crimped hair and small fashionable hat lent an air of astonishment, as if she were thinking continually, “I didn’t know I looked like this.” Her mantle was of claret-coloured broadcloth heavily garnished with passementerie, and she wore very short white kid gloves, above which her plump wrists bulged in infantile creases. While she sat there, panting a little from her tight stays and her unnatural elegance, Dorinda gazed at her sympathetically and thought it was a pity that she did her hair in a way that made her temples look skinned.
“Doctor Faraday is very much interested in your case,” she began in a voice that was as fresh and sweet as her complexion. “He has been so kind to me.”
“We both wish to help you, and we think it might be good for you to take the place in his office for a little while—a few weeks,” she added cautiously, “until you are able to find something else. In that way the doctor can keep an eye on you until you are well again. Of course the work will be light. He has a nurse and a secretary. However, you could help with the children after the office hours are over. The nurse and Miss Murray, the governess, take them to the Park every afternoon; but there are six of them, and we can’t have too much help. That’s a large family for New York,” she finished gaily.
“We have much larger ones at Pedlar’s Mill. The Garlicks were twelve until one died last year, and old Mrs. Flower, the Mother of the auctioneer, had thirteen children.”
“You like children?”
“Oh, yes, I like children.” She couldn’t put any enthusiasm into her voice, and she hated herself for the lack of it. She was dead, turned into stone or wood, and she didn’t really care about anything. Did she or did she not like children? She couldn’t have answered the question truthfully if her life had depended upon it. In her other existence she had liked them; but that was so long ago and far away that it had no connection with her now.
“Then that is settled.” What a happy manner Mrs. Faraday had! “The nurse tells me you are leaving to-morrow. Will you come straight to us or would you like a day to yourself?”
“A day to myself, if you don’t mind. I ought to get a dress, oughtn’t I?”
“Oh, any plain simple dress will do. Navy blue poplin with white linen collar and cuffs would be nice. But don’t tire yourself or spend any money you can’t afford. Well arrange all that later.”
Mrs. Faraday had risen and was holding out one firmly gloved hand. As she grasped it, Dorinda could feel the soft flesh beneath the deeply embedded buttons. “Then I’ll look for you day after to-morrow,” said the older woman in her sprightly tone. “Navy blue will look well on you with your hair and eyes,” she added encouragingly. “I always liked blue eyes and black hair.”
Dorinda smiled up at her. “And now half my hair is gone. I must look a fright, and the scar isn’t even hidden. I’ll be marked all my life.”
“Oh, but your hair will come back thicker than ever. Even now your scalp is covered, and in a little while no one will know that there is a scar.” She beamed down on the bed. “Here is the address. Have you a place you can put the card, so it won’t slip away?”
“I’ve got my purse under my pillow.” As Dorinda drew out the little leather bag, and slipped the card into it, she thought wearily, “How funny it is that this should have happened to me.”
Since her illness, the whole of life, all she had gone through, all she saw around her, all feeling everywhere, appeared less tragic than ludicrous. Though her capacity for emotion was dead, some diabolical sense of humour had sprung up like, fireweed from the ruins. She could laugh at everything now, but it was ironic laughter.