Ten North Frederick (20 page)

After a while he became totally dependent upon her without realizing it. Gradually other girls had become, he told her, so frivolous and empty-headed that he was regretting invitations that would involve his having to be paired off with them. His own friends, too, his contemporaries, were beginning to appear in a bad light; they were not taking things seriously enough, not buckling down to work, not thinking things through. It was not exactly their fault, he said. They had no one to help them think things through. With this conversation Edith moved into the first stage of owning him. She began to let him do things for her. She would ask him to stop at a shop to pick up something she had ordered. She had him do little errands for her on his visits to Philadelphia. She asked for and took his advice on investing a small sum of cash. She had him read a letter of sympathy she had composed on the death of a far-off cousin. She sought his help in mapping out a trip to Europe which in truth she never intended to take. Then, so fortuitously that she would not have dared plan it, she was stricken with acute appendicitis and had to undergo emergency surgery.

At that time the appendectomy was years away from the routine operation it was later to become, and a stay in the hospital was likewise a matter for great concern. The newspapers of the day always spoke of a patient as going under the knife, chloroform was the usual anaesthetic, and the word hospital was considered to be suitable evidence of the extremity of the patient's condition. The horses drawing the ambulance proceeded at a walk or a slow trot, and the ambulance bell, pressed by a large pedal button, was more of an announcement than a warning signal. The doctor and the nurse rode inside with the patient and because of the comparatively slow pace of the team of bays, the citizens were able to have a good look at the faces of the professionals. The faces told little more than the seriousness of their mission. Nothing about the trip to the hospital or the hospital itself was likely to dispel fear or create optimism.

It was a social convention that visits to hospital patients were restricted to members of the immediate families. This was no less true for patients in private rooms, and it was especially true where the patient was an unmarried young woman. When Joe Chapin read in the paper that Edith had been taken to the hospital he first paid a call on Dr. English at the doctor's office. The doctor revealed that it had been a nasty operation and that Edith had been on the table almost three hours. In the tradition of his calling the doctor employed words of Greek and Latin origin that Joe Chapin was at a loss to understand, but in reply to the direct question Dr. English cautiously admitted that Edith would live, barring unforeseen complications.

“When do you think I can go to see her, Bill?” said Joe Chapin.

“Had you intended to go see her?”

“Well, I would like to, if possible.”

“Well—not for several days at the earliest,” said Dr. English. “And you understand, of course, you'd have to have permission from her family.”

“Oh, of course.”

“I don't as a rule encourage visiting, Joe. Edith has a day nurse and a night nurse. She's still on the critical list, and I should think it'd be a week before she'd be ready to see anybody except her family.”

“I'll abide by your decision, but I'm really very anxious to see her.”

“Yes. Yes. That hardly comes as a surprise; and very understandable. But for the time being I'm keeping a close watch on her to guard against any post-operative complications, you understand.”

“Of course.”

“And as a man of the world, you understand that a young lady doesn't always look her best in a hospital gown, so there's that to consider.”

“Bill, I have to tell you this. I've never told anyone else, not even Edith herself. But I'm in love with Edith.”

“I'm glad to hear that, Joe. Not altogether surprised, but I'm glad to hear it. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll speak to her family and get their permission, and then I'll ring you up on the telephone, next four or five days. But you must bear in mind, if I do allow you to see her, it will only be for five minutes, and your conversation must be confined to cheerful topics, nothing to upset her or even—well, nothing of a romantic nature, either.”

“I promise you, not a hint.”

“When we have her all well again, time enough then, don't you agree?”

“By all means, Bill. By all means.”

“When the time comes I'll tell her ahead of time so she'll have a chance to have the nurse brush her hair and pretty her up a little, but don't be surprised by her appearance. She's been through quite a siege. And above all, don't show that you are miserable or unhappy at the way she looks.”

On the appointed day Joe Chapin walked to the hospital and stood in the waiting room until a probationer arrived to conduct him to Edith's room. The odors and the darkness of the corridor and the coughing and the walking patients and the grubby visitors to mining-accident cases were all new to Joe Chapin. But Edith's room was not unpleasant, with the bareness relieved by an abundance of flowers.

Edith looked up at him from her pillows and raised her lower arm. “Hello, Joe,” she said.

“Edith, how good to see you again.” He took her hand for a moment, then let it fall back to the bedcovers.

“This is Miss McIlhenny, my day nurse,” said Edith.

“How do you do, Miss McIlhenny.”

“Good afternoon,” said the nurse.

“Your flowers have been lovely. There they are, do you see them? Recognize them?”

“I'm glad you like them,” said Joe.

“It was nice of you to come.”

“Nice of me? Oh, Edith, I've been trying to ever since you've been here. How do you feel?”

“Well, much better, thank you. I've lost track of the days.”

“Bill English told me you're a very good patient.”

“Did he? I don't think Miss McIlhenny will agree on that score.”

“Indeed I will, she's been a darling, and never a whimper,” said the nurse.

“I haven't much news for you, I'm afraid.
I've
been in court most of the time. Everybody's asked for you, but
I've
been asking
them
. Every little scrap of information I could get.”

“Everybody's been so kind, especially here in the hospital. They've done everything for me, everything. I've never had so much attention, kindness. But naturally I'll be glad when it comes time to go home.”

“Do you know when that will be?”

“In another week, I believe. Isn't that so, Miss McIlhenny?”

“That's what we're hoping.”

“Miss McIlhenny is going with me. Shall I tell him about the belt?”

“Sure, go right ahead if it won't embarrass him.”

“Did you know that you have to wear an enormous belt after you've had an operation for appendicitis?” said Edith.

“Yes, I guess I'd forgotten that.”

“It has to be made especially, but even so I won't be able to ride or play tennis for at least a year. Isn't that discouraging?”

“Oh, no. A year isn't long,” said Joe Chapin.

“Oh, I think it is. And I'm not even supposed to laugh very heartily.”

“Very well, then we'll talk about nothing but serious subjects.”

“Oh, Joe. You're a dear.”

“Am I, Edith?”

“Yes, you are.”

“Well,” said Miss McIlhenny, taking her watch out of her pocket. “If Mr. Chapin wants to come again, he can't stay any longer this time.”

“Then I'll go immediately, because I want to come back soon. May I?”

“Oh, I hope you do,” said Edith. She held up her hand and he took it.

“Good-bye, Edith, dear,” he said.

“Come back soon,” she said.

“Thank you, Miss McIlhenny,” he said, and went out. The nurse followed him.

“You done her a world of good,” she said, in the corridor.

“I did?”

“And what's more, I'm going to say so to Dr. English. You gave her a lift in the spirit, and that's as good as medicine any day.”

“Thank you, thank you very much. She's so pitiful, so weak.”

“We almost lost her, you know, and that's a fine young lady. If she's your intended, you're a fortunate man, because I see all kinds and I know. I'll drop the hint to Dr. English. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, and thank you,” said Joe Chapin.

At the first opportunity he went to Philadelphia, to the establishment of Bailey, Banks & Biddle, where he made the purchase of a solitaire. It remained in the drawer of his dresser until he had seen the convalescing Edith half a dozen times after her emergence from the hospital. Her strength returned quickly, in spite of a diet consisting chiefly of junket, and on the evening before his actual proposal she began to feel once again in command.

“When I was in the hospital do you know what I missed most of all?” she said.

“What?”

“Our evenings together.”

“I hoped you would say that,” he said.

“Before you came to see me, about a week before, they sent for my family one night. They were sure I was not going to—not last through the night. I don't know whether I overheard something or what it was, but I knew my condition was serious. And that was the only time I cried. I didn't cry with the pains or anything of that sort, but when I thought you and I would never have these lovely talks together again, I was so unhappy that I shed tears, and that isn't like me.”

“Oh, Edith.”

“And that was when I made up my mind that if I ever got well, I would tell you how much our evenings have meant to me. But then when you came to see me, Miss McIlhenny was there, and I was shy, and weak. But now I can tell you, Joe. Our evenings mean more to me than anything else.”

“They do to me too, Edith. As I told you before, I wandered about in a daze. My life was nothing without you, and I was so
angry
and at the same time felt so futile, not to be able to
do
something. I slept badly and I ate hardly anything, and finally Arthur caught on and told me to ask for a postponement of the case I was trying, which I did. The other lawyers agreed, very kindly. Arthur's really a very understanding friend, you know.”

“I know,” said Edith. “I was sorry I couldn't see him when I was in the hospital, but I wanted to save my strength for your visits.”

“Oh, he understood, Edith.”

“I'm sure he did,” she said. “But now that I'm getting well again, slowly but surely, I don't want you to think that you have to go on seeing me and no one else.”

“I don't want to see anyone else . . . You mean other girls?”

“Yes. Our friendship—”

“It's more than a friendship, Edith. You must know that by this time.”

“Must I, Joe? Remember I'm not going to be able to ride or play tennis or go bathing at The Run for an awfully long time, and I don't want you to think that our friendship, or whatever you wish to call it, gives me the right to monopolize you.”

“Edith, you don't think the horseback riding and tennis are all that's important to me? It's being with you that matters, dear.”

“It matters to me. Oh, Joe, I shouldn't say this, but sometimes in the hospital I longed for you.”

“Edith, my darling,” he said. He kissed her mouth and her eyes, and again her mouth.

“We mustn't now,” she said. “My dearest.”

“No,” he said. “But now you know I love you.”

“Yes,” she said. “And I love you. That's what I was saying when I said I longed for you. With all of me, Joe. You are the only man that could make me happy, just being with you. You must go now. Please, darling.”

“Yes,” he said. “I know, my dearest.”

“I won't see you to the door. Just let me sit here.”

He got up. “Tomorrow evening, my dearest?”

“Yes,” she said.

The next evening they greeted each other with smiles and when he sat beside her he took the solitaire out of its velvet box. “I want to show you something,” he said.

“Oh . . .”

“Oh, it's a ring, of course. But I want to show you the box. Look at it.”

“Bailey, Banks & Biddle,” she said.

“Have you deduced anything?”

“You're going to propose, I hope.”

“But the name of Bailey's, doesn't that tell you anything else?”

“I guess I'm not very deep.”

“My dearest. You know I haven't been to Philadelphia. Now do you deduce?”

“You've had the ring?”

“Exactly, dearest. I bought it weeks ago, hoping.”

“I'm waiting, dearest, and I think you know the answer.”

“Will you marry me, Edith?”

“Oh, my darling, of course I'll marry you.” She held back her head and he kissed her.

“Try it on,” he said.

“It fits perfectly, perfectly, and how lovely, what a beautiful diamond. Exquisite. I have a present for you, too.”

“Did you know I was going to propose?”

“Hoped. I've been hoping. Of course I've been hoping all these months that we would fall in love, and then we did. And when we did—I went out today, shopping.” She got up and went to the spinet desk. She handed him a small package. “Open it.”

He did so, and held up a moonstone stickpin. “Edith, what a beauty!”

“Do you like it?”

“It's—perfect. You've noticed that I needed one.”

“Yes, you lost the one you got at graduation.”

“Will you put it on for me?”

“Of course, dearest. I'm so glad you like it.”

“Like it! I'll treasure it the rest of my life.”

“And I my solitaire. Isn't this a happy evening, Joe?”

“It is, dearest,” he said. She put on the stickpin.

“What are you frowning for?” he asked.