XVI
Dick's decision to cut himself off from Elizabeth was born of hiscertainty that he could not see her and keep his head. He was resolutelydetermined to keep his head, until he knew what he had to offer her. Buthe was very unhappy. He worked sturdily all day and slept at night outof sheer fatigue, only to rouse in the early morning to a convictionof something wrong before he was fully awake. Then would come theuncertainty and pain of full consciousness, and he would lie with hisarms under his head, gazing unblinkingly at the ceiling and preparing toface another day.
There was no prospect of early relief, although David had not againreferred to his going away. David was very feeble. The look of himsometimes sent an almost physical pain through Dick's heart. But therewere times when he roused to something like his old spirit, shouted fortobacco, frowned over his diet tray, and fought Harrison Miller when hecame in to play cribbage in much his old tumultuous manner.
Then, one afternoon late in May, when for four days Dick had not seenElizabeth, suddenly he found the decision as to their relation taken outof his hands, and by Elizabeth herself.
He opened the door one afternoon to find her sitting alone in thewaiting-room, clearly very frightened and almost inarticulate. He couldnot speak at all at first, and when he did his voice, to his dismay, wasdistinctly husky.
"Is anything wrong?" he asked, in a tone which was fairly sepulchral.
"That's what I want to know, Dick."
Suddenly he found himself violently angry. Not at her, of course. Ateverything.
"Wrong?" he said, savagely. "Yes. Everything is wrong!"
Then he was angry! She went rather pale.
"What have I done, Dick?"
As suddenly as he had been fierce he was abject and ashamed. Startled,too.
"You?" he said. "What have you done? You're the only thing that's rightin a wrong world. You--"
He checked himself, put down his bag--he had just come in--and closedthe door into the hall. Then he stood at a safe distance from her, andfolded his arms in order to be able to keep his head-which shows howstrange the English language is.
"Elizabeth," he said gravely. "I've been a self-centered fool. I stayedaway because I've been in trouble. I'm still in trouble, for thatmatter. But it hasn't anything to do with you. Not directly, anyhow."
"Don't you think it's possible that I know what it is?"
"You do know."
He was too absorbed to notice the new maturity in her face, the broodingmaternity born of a profound passion. To Elizabeth just then he was nota man, her man, daily deciding matters of life and death, but a worriedboy, magnifying a trifle into importance.
"There is always gossip," she said, "and the only thing one can do is toforget it at once. You ought to be too big for that sort of thing."
"But--suppose it is true?"
"What difference would it make?"
He made a quick movement toward her.
"There may be more than that. I don't know, Elizabeth," he said, hiseyes on hers. "I have always thought--I can't go to David now."
He was moved to go on. To tell her of his lost youth, of that strangetrick by which his mind had shut off those hidden years. But he couldnot. He had a perfectly human fear of being abnormal in her eyes,precisely but greatly magnified the same instinct which had made himinspect his new tie in daylight for fear it was too brilliant. Butgreater than that was his new fear that something neither happy norright lay behind him under lock and key in his memory.
"I want you to know this, Dick," she said. "That nothing, no gossip oranything, can make any difference to me. And I've been terribly hurt.We've been such friends. You--I've been lying awake at night, worrying."
That went to his heart first, and then to his head. This might be all,all he was ever to have. This hour, and this precious and tender child,so brave in her declaration, so simple and direct; all his world in thatimitation mahogany chair.
"You're all I've got," he said. "The one real thing in a world that'sgoing to smash. I think I love you more than God."
The same mood, of accepting what he had without question and of refusingto look ahead, actuated him for the next few days. He was incrediblyhappy.
He went about his work with his customary care and thoroughness, forlong practice had made it possible for him to go on as though nothinghad happened, to listen to querulous complaints and long lists ofsymptoms, and to write without error those scrawled prescriptions whichwere, so hopefully, to cure. Not that Dick himself believed greatly inthose empirical doses, but he considered that the expectation of reliefwas half the battle. But that was the mind of him, which went aboutclothed in flesh, of course, and did its daily and nightly work, and putup a very fair imitation of Doctor Richard Livingstone. But hidden awaywas a heart that behaved in a highly unprofessional manner, and sangand dreamed, and jumped at the sight of a certain small figure on thestreet, and generally played hob with systole and diastole, and thevagus and accelerator nerves. Which are all any doctor really knowsabout the heart, until he falls in love.
He even began to wonder if he had read into the situation somethingthat was not there, and in this his consciousness of David's essentialrectitude helped him. David could not do a wrong thing, or an unworthyone. He wished he were more like David.
The new humility extended to his love for Elizabeth. Sometimes, in hisroom or shaving before the bathroom mirror, he wondered what she couldsee in him to care about. He shaved twice a day now, and his face was sosore that he had to put cream on it at night, to his secret humiliation.When he was dressed in the morning he found himself once or twicetaking a final survey of the ensemble, and at those times he wished veryearnestly that he had some outstanding quality of appearance that shemight admire.
He refused to think. He was content for a time simply to feel, to besupremely happy, to live each day as it came and not to look ahead. Andthe old house seemed to brighten with him. Never had Lucy's window boxesbeen so bright, or Minnie's bread so light; the sun poured into David'ssick room and turned the nurse so dazzling white in her uniform thatDavid declared he was suffering from snow-blindness.
And David himself was improving rapidly. With the passage of each dayhe felt more secure. The reporter from the Times-Republican--if he werereally on the trail of Dick he would have come to see him, would havetold him the story. No. That bridge was safely crossed. And Dick washappy. David, lying in his bed, would listen and smile faintly when Dickcame whistling into the house or leaped up the stairs two at a time;when he sang in his shower, or tormented the nurse with high-spiritednonsense. The boy was very happy. He would marry Elizabeth Wheeler, andthings would be as they should be; there would be the fullness of life,young voices in the house, toys on the lawn. He himself would pass on,in the fullness of time, but Dick--
On Decoration Day they got him out of bed, making a great ceremonyof it, and when he was settled by the window in his big chair with ablanket over his knees, Dick came in with a great box. Unwrapping ithe disclosed a mass of paper and a small box, and within that stillanother.
"What fol-de-rol is all this?" David demanded fiercely, with a childishlook of expectation in his eyes. "Give me that box. Some more slippers,probably!"
He worked eagerly, and at last he came to the small core of the mass. Itwas a cigar!
It was somewhat later, when the peace of good tobacco had relaxed himinto a sort of benignant drowsiness, and when Dick had started for hislate afternoon calls, that Lucy came into the room.
"Elizabeth Wheeler's downstairs," she said. "I told her you wanted tosee her. She's brought some chicken jelly, too."
She gathered up the tissue paper that surrounded him, and gave the rooma critical survey. She often felt that the nurse was not as tidy as shemight be. Then she went over to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
"I don't want to worry you, David. Not now. But if he's going to marryher--"
"Well, why shouldn't he?" he demanded truculently. "A good woman wouldbe one more anchor to windwa
rd."
She found that she could not go on. David was always incomprehensible toher when it came to Dick. Had been incomprehensible from the first.But she could not proceed without telling him that the village knewsomething, and what that something was; that already she felt a changein the local attitude toward Dick. He was, for one thing, not quite sobusy as he had been.
She went out of the room, and sent Elizabeth to David.
In her love for Dick, Elizabeth now included everything that pertainedto him, his shabby coats, his rattling car, and his people. She hadan inarticulate desire for their endorsement, to be liked by them andwanted by them. Not that there could be any words, because both she andDick were content just then with love, and were holding it very secretbetween them.
"Well, well!" said David. "And here we are reversed and I'm the patientand you're the doctor! And good medicine you are, my dear."
He looked her over with approval, and with speculation, too. She was asmall and fragile vessel on which to embark all the hopes that, out ofhis own celibate and unfulfilled life, he had dreamed for Dick. She waseven more than that. If Lucy was right, from now on she was a partof that experiment in a human soul which he had begun with only aprofessional interest, but which had ended by becoming a vital part ofhis own life.
She was a little shy with him, he saw; rather fluttered and nervous, yetradiantly happy. The combination of these mixed emotions, plus her bestsick-room manner, made her slightly prim at first. But soon she wastelling him the small news of the village, although David rathersuspected her of listening for Dick's car all the while. When she got upto go and held out her hand he kept it, between both of his.
"I haven't been studying symptoms for all these years for nothing, mydear," he said. "And it seems to me somebody is very happy."
"I am, Doctor David."
He patted her hand.
"Mind you," he said, "I don't know anything and I'm not asking anyquestions. But if the Board of Trade, or the Chief of Police, had cometo me and said, 'Who is the best wife for--well, for a young man whois an important part of this community?' I'd have said in reply,'Gentlemen, there is a Miss Elizabeth Wheeler who--'"
Suddenly she bent down and kissed him.
"Oh, do you think so?" she asked, breathlessly. "I love him so much,Doctor David. And I feel so unworthy."
"So you are," he said. "So's he. So are all of us, when it comes to agreat love, child. That is, we are never quite what the other fellowthinks we are. It's when we don't allow for what the scientist folk calla margin of error that we come our croppers. I wonder"--he watched herclosely--"if you young people ever allow for a margin of error?"
"I only know this," she said steadily. "I can't imagine ever caring anyless. I've never thought about myself very much, but I do know that. Yousee, I think I've cared for a long time."
When she had gone he sat in his chair staring ahead of him and thinking.Yes. She would stick. She had loyalty, loyalty and patience and a rarehumility. It was up to Dick then. And again he faced the possibility ofan opening door into the past, of crowding memories, of confusion anddespair and even actual danger. And out of that, what?
Habit. That was all he had to depend on. The brain was a thing ofhabits, like the body; right could be a habit, and so could evil. As aman thought, so he was. For all of his childhood, and for the last tenyears, Dick's mental habits had been right; his environment had beenlove, his teaching responsibility. Even if the door opened, then, therewas only the evil thinking of two or three reckless years to combat,and the door might never open. Happiness, Lauler had said, would keep itclosed, and Dick was happy.
When at five o'clock the nurse came in with a thermometer he was asleepin his chair, his mouth slightly open, and snoring valiantly. HearingDick in the lower hall, she went to the head of the stairs, her fingerto her lips.
Dick nodded and went into the office. The afternoon mail was lyingthere, and he began mechanically to open it. His thoughts wereelsewhere.
Now that he had taken the step he had so firmly determined not to take,certain things, such as Clare Rossiter's story, David's uneasiness, hisown doubts, no longer involved himself alone, nor even Elizabeth andhimself. They had become of vital importance to her family.
There was no evading the issue. What had once been only his ownmisfortune, mischance, whatever it was, had now become of vitalimportance to an entire group of hitherto disinterested people. He wouldhave to put his situation clearly before them and let them judge. And hewould have to clarify that situation for them and for himself.
He had had a weak moment or two. He knew that some men, many men, wentto marriage with certain reticences, meaning to wipe the slate clean andbegin again. He had a man's understanding of such concealments. But hedid not for a moment compare his situation with theirs, even when thetemptation to seize his happiness was strongest. No mere misconduct,but something hidden and perhaps terrible lay behind David's strangenew attitude. Lay, too, behind the break in his memory which he tried toanalyze with professional detachment. The mind in such cases set upits defensive machinery of forgetfulness, not against the trivial butagainst the unbearable.
For the last day or two he had faced the fact that, not only must he useevery endeavor to revive his past, but that such revival threatened withcruelty and finality to separate him from the present.
With an open and unread letter in his hand he stared about the office.This place was his; he had fought for it, worked for it. He had analmost physical sense of unseen hands reaching out to drag him awayfrom it; from David and Lucy, and from Elizabeth. And of himself holdingdesperately to them all, and to the believed commonplaceness of hissurroundings.
He shook himself and began to read the letter.
"Dear Doctor: I have tried to see you, but understand you are laidup. Burn this as soon as you've read it. Louis Bassett has started forNorada, and I advise your getting the person we discussed out of town assoon as possible. Bassett is up to mischief. I'm not signing this fully,for obvious reasons. G."