“Why, Dr. Craig!” Mrs. Caldwell said. She came up to him almost like Trouble in the corridor.
“Why, Doctor—have my ears mistaken me or did I hear you use that word to those girls—” she faltered on the pronouncement of it. Her very fooling about with it renewed his exasperation, and he hinged his career on his arrogant answer.
“You bet you heard it.”
“And those young innocent girls—and you say that in front of them. I know where my duty lies!”
“Go and do it then.”
“I certainly shall, Dr. Craig. And I prefer that the lecture be called off this morning.”
Bill sat down in the deserted classroom. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been a doctor, he thought again. He had no intention of apologizing or of trying to fix it up in any way. They would fire him. That was almost certain. He would go and say goodbye to Mr. Polk Johnston and Harris; he’d try to keep them from firing Trouble.
… That’s where he stopped thinking, simply stood there looking out the window, his hand sometimes absently touching the rabbit. He was very glad his father was dead—his father had been a doctor.
II
Bill sat across the desk from the superintendent, half an hour later.
“Now, Doctor Craig—exactly what did happen?”
“I lost my temper and swore at them.”
Dr. Haskell arose and took a few steps down the room, and then back to his chair. He was a fair man; Bill had always liked him.
“Go on fire me, sir,” he said. “I know I deserve it.”
“All right. I’m going to fire you. I’m glad you’re going to take it that way. I knew your father—”
“Oh, please skip that. You’re not going to penalize anybody else, are you?”
“Well naturally. Mrs. Caldwell inquired around and Miss Rosalyn’s got to go. Not that that excuses you.”
“She’s as good now as any graduate nurse in the hospital.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Haskell dryly, “it seems too bad.”
“And I want to tell you something about Johnston.”
“Who’s he? How does he come into this case? What department’s he in? Is he an orderly?”
“No, he’s a patient.”
“Oh, you mean Mr. Polk Johnston, the hypertensive. Now you’re making sense. What about him?”
“I’d like to tell you about him.”
Dr. Haskell who had sat down got up again:
“We know about his socks that he won’t take off.” He said, “We know he’s rich as Croesus, and his people control some American hospital. He and his brother are in Shanghai or Canton. Have you anything to add to that?”
“Just this: I know he’s awful scared and he may try to stall off the thing. If he leaves here without an operation something tells me he’s not long for this world—”
The door opening interrupted Bill. It was the private secretary.
“Dr. Haskell, it’s Mrs. Caldwell, and she has that nurse with her. I can’t seem to remember her name—the pretty one they call Trouble.”
“I don’t want to see them now. Anyhow I thought Mrs. Caldwell was taking care of that herself.”
“Let them come in, sir, please,” Bill begged suddenly.
“I don’t see why I should.”
“Please, sir,” Bill repeated.
The secretary looked from one to the other—at the young desperate face, at Dr. Haskell deciding.
“Oh, let them in then.”
“Thanks,” Bill said.
Mrs. Caldwell and Trouble were both rather white; all the lovely color had left Trouble’s face till it was pale as the white fur of the rabbit that had caused the scene this morning.
The older woman spoke.
“Now, Dr. Haskell—”
She was interrupted by Bill’s voice:
“Now Mrs. Caldwell, do you think it’s just to dismiss a girl for one small attack of nerves?”
Dr. Haskell turned to him and said: “Will you be quiet, sir?”
“Thank you, Dr. Haskell,” said Mrs. Caldwell. “Lately, he’s been the most difficult, the most difficult—”
“The most difficult what?”
“Well, I can’t stand swearing. I was brought up on a farm in the Pennsylvania hills and we never learned those tough words. How am I expected to stand them—I—I—”
The younger nurse was at her side now: “Oh, Mrs. Caldwell—don’t worry about it now.”
Dr. Haskell had nodded at the door, and Bill catching the gesture, got up and closed it.
Mrs. Caldwell got control of herself. “This girl is just too pretty, that’s all,” she said.
“What!” Dr. Haskell demanded.
“You know it, everybody knows it. She’s too pretty for this.”
“Since when did that disqualify anyone?” Dr. Haskell said. “It seems to me I’ve seen hundreds of pretty nurses in my time.”
“I should hope so,” said Bill.
“I wasn’t speaking to you, Dr. Craig. I was under the impression you’d resigned.”
Then they all spoke at once:
“Excuse me,” said Bill.
“I guess it was all my fault,” said Trouble.
“No wonder they all call you ‘Trouble’,” said Mrs. Caldwell.
“I thought this was supposed to be a hospital!” thundered Dr. Haskell.
But Bill was not to be subdued. The sweet parting of the young girl’s hair as she had bent over Mrs. Caldwell moved him intolerably, and he knew the long hours, the daily nursing, the hard duty that was the lot of the probationer as they learned their little beginnings of anatomy and chemistry. There was more excuse for her break than for his.
“I’ll apologize to Miss Rosalyn for the language I used, if that’ll help her case,” he said. “She certainly didn’t do enough to provoke what I said.”
“But you didn’t apologize to me,” said Mrs. Caldwell.
“I will if it’ll help her.”
“And I thought at first you were very much of a gentleman,” said Mrs. Caldwell.
“I thought maybe I was, but I guess I was wrong.”
“That’ll do, Dr. Craig,” said the superintendent. “This has been very unfortunate. I bid you goodbye, sir, and wish you the best of luck in the future.”
With a despairing look at Trouble Bill turned quickly and left the room.
And now it was Trouble’s turn. And she knew very well that she was being punished just as much for her flirtations as for her attack of nerves this morning. Well, to these people medicine was an idol, and she had stuck chewing gum around the alabaster pedestal…
“We will refund your tuition,” said Dr. Haskell gently.
She went back to her room and faced herself in the mirror. Throwing herself on her bed she wept for a moment; then she got up and packed her bag, the same bag she had once carried as a hoofer on the four-a-day.
“And here I am,” she said, terribly sorry for herself, “just because I wanted to be something more than just good to look at.”
There was an extra package to be made of left-overs and she had quivered the last string into place when an orderly knocked at the door.
“You’re wanted at 1B on Ward 4.”
“Yes I am. I’m leaving. I’m fired.”
“Well, they told me to tell you.”
“All right.”
She closed the door. Then she realized suddenly that she still had on her nurse’s uniform.
—All right, she thought, “I’ll go down and tell that old Johnston I will marry him. He’s thought of nothing else for a week.”
On the way downstairs she passed a young nurse who grabbed at her arm as she passed.
“We’re all so sorry, Miss Rosalyn.”
She was touched, but the same sort of ill-humor that had possession of Dr. Craig this morning made her say:
“Call me Trouble, please.”
“All right, ‘Trouble’ then, we’re all sorry.”
The ward was deserted. She could see no one at the desk but it didn’t worry her. She didn’t hesitate. She took a deep breath, made an instinctive motion at her sides as if brushing off something and went into the room.
The room was empty.
So was the bed. It had been stripped clean of sheets and blankets—the evidence of what had been done with them was bound about the bureau which had been laid on its side to hold the improvised rope trailing over the window-sill into the dark afternoon. Mr. Johnston had escaped.
She reacted simply and spontaneously.
—The man must have been crazy with fright, she thought. He’ll kill himself trying to get through that gravel pit down there. In his condition!
She hadn’t shinnied since she was a baby but once she was over the sill the knotted cords between sheet and sheet helped her, and when she fell on her face at the end she didn’t feel her nose to see if it wobbled.
“My face never brought me any luck,” she said to herself as she started across country. “I hope it’s ruined.”
For a moment she almost believed herself but she was woman enough to cross her fingers.
Bill Craig came into the room less than two minutes after Trouble had left it. He saw exactly what she had seen but his first instinct was to ring the patient’s bell. When a nurse arrived he said:
“Do you know anything about this?”
“Why, Dr. Craig! He seemed all right this morning and Miss Rosalyn went in to say goodbye so I went for a quick coffee—”
“Miss Rosalyn was here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, notify the ward interne what’s happened, will you?”
“Yes, Dr. Craig.”
He waited till she was gone before climbing out the window.
It had been a red morning, and now it was a rapidly darkening afternoon as Bill turned into the station. The station lights were on and his borrowed whites seemed yellow in the light of half-burned out lamps. Unless a train had already carried the old man away he expected to see them both there: he understood Mr. Polk Johnston’s flight from the operation and he was almost sure that Trouble had cither fled with him or followed him. The station was the natural destination—he left it to the hospital staff to search their own vicinity—for himself
