Anne’s voice was sweet and true and she had perfect pitch; and it disturbed me to see her dressed in an old black lace party dress, her red curls pinned to the top of her head with hundreds of old jewels, standing on her little table and spoiling her sweet singing with the corny gestures. I said as much. Anne exploded. She said, “You’ve had tuberculosis and you don’t know anything about singing opera. Ermengarde’s grandmother was an opera singer and she taught Ermengarde how to sing and she said that all opera singers used gestures all the time just like Ermengarde.”
Anne continued to sing exactly like Ermengarde, even adding to her already large operatic repertoire some popular numbers such as “Boo Hoo” and “When I’m Calling You, hoooooohoo, hoo, hoo, hoo” from “Rose Marie,” which required thousands of much cornier gestures.
Kimi said that she thought it would be a good idea to leave the children alone and to brush up on my shorthand. I retaliated by suggesting that she register for the University in the fall as a means of filling her idle time, occupying her mind and meeting new people. Kimi begged me to speak to her mother and father on behalf of the University idea as she feared that they thought her still too frail for such a venture.
So one evening I went over to her house and talked too much, about the University, in the high shrill voice I reserve for foreigners, but was apparently convincing for the next week Kimi obtained the permission of the Medical Director to take ten hours at the University in the fall. I registered at a business college for an evening class in shorthand.
My shorthand teacher, an old lady who wore black patent Mary Jane slippers and a hat with a long black tassel that swung when she dictated like the hand on a metronome, was very excitable and when she dictated over one hundred words a minute she ran all her words together, tore out the pages of her book and dropped her pencils. One evening, when she got up to 150 words per minute, she became so hysterical she dropped her glasses on the floor and crushed them under the heel of one of the large Mary Janes.
She was a dreadful teacher and in temperament almost a twin sister to Miss Gillespie, but I reasoned that if I could take down and transcribe her dictation, “Dissa (dear sir) We are in receipt of yours of the third and we wish to state that we do not have anymore horseshoes in stock but we will ship them to you as soon as we receive them,” I could work anywhere. Also I liked the atmosphere of the shorthand class because all of us students were obvious failures of one kind or another but I was the youngest and the prettiest or, more truthfully, the least old and the least repulsive.
In August I accepted an invitation to a bridge luncheon and had my first experience in being considered an untouchable. A friend was extolling the virtues of her new house and comparatively new baby, and I, merely as a polite gesture, made the untrue statement that I would love to see them both. When friend looked horrified and changed the subject, I thought I had blundered and forgotten that her baby was an idiot. I asked Mary what was wrong. She said, “Oh, Marjorie’s such a dope. She thinks you’re contagious. You didn’t want to see her ugly house and her grubby little baby anyway.” I didn’t, but I was hurt just the same. After that I waited to be invited before going anywhere.
Early in the fall Mary and I drove into the country to buy peaches and stopped at the house of an old school friend. We had forgotten that Old School Friend had ripened into the type of housekeeper who washes off banana skins with lysol before peeling them and we greeted her effusively and demanded food and coffee. She was most unenthusiastic. “Weren’t you in a Tuberculosis Sanatorium?” she asked me through a small crack in the door. “She only got out June twelfth,” Mary said, looking at me proudly. Old School Friend excused herself for a minute, firmly shutting the door in our faces. The day was warm but certainly not warm enough to warrant our being kept out on the porch as long as she kept us. When she did let us in, some time later, she produced coffee and food but we ate it quickly and over such a bedlam of noise that conversation was impossible. It was not hard to determine that while we waited on the front porch Old School Friend had gathered up her children and bolted them in some back room where they kicked and screamed and pounded on the door and demanded to be let out the whole time we were there.
As we drove away Mary said, “Don’t you dare go back and live with her no matter how hard she begs. You just tell her she lives too far out in the country and you must keep in circulation.” I laughed but I was bothered. What if I applied for a job and somebody in the office felt like Old School Friend? I asked Kimi if she had had any such unpleasant experiences. She said, “Oh my, yes. Sometimes they do not wait until I am out of the house before producing the Flit Gun and vigorously spraying everything I have touched.”
About the first of September, Pixie received her discharge and dropped in one evening at seven-thirty on her way home from the sanatorium. I made a large pot of coffee and we drank it all as we talked. She told me that the Charge Nurse returned from her vacation dripping with sweetness and understanding but that one of the sweet young nurses had contracted miliary tuberculosis and died; that Katy Morris had t.b. and was in bed at Bedrest; that Eileen had had another hemorrhage; that Kate and Evalee had also been discharged and the Medical Director was going to let Evalee leave the children in the Children’s Hospital for a month or two; that Marie was at the Ambulant Hospital and Sylvia had eight hours. I asked about Delores and Pixie said that she didn’t care to defile my living room with discussions of anyone so vulgar. I thought it might be interesting to hear what Delores had to say about Pixie but did not say this out loud.
Pixie looked very pretty and said that the doctor had told her that she could start working immediately. She said that she was going to see about her old job on her way home. We parted with affection and promises of an early reunion and she left.
Her enthusiasm was contagious and when she had gone I started at once to assemble an outfit to go jobhunting.
The next morning, feeling very spiritless and shabbily neat, I boarded a streetcar crowded with the ten-thirty group of smartly dressed, refined-looking female suburban shoppers. I crouched up near the front and kept reassuring myself that it wasn’t printed anywhere on me that I had had t.b. Then the streetcar hit a rather bad district near town and who should get on but Coranell Planter, the Bedrest occupational therapy teacher.
She saw me immediately and screamed, “Well for Gawd’s sake, Betty, you’re lookin’ swell! A lot better than when you left THE SANATORIUM! You’re sure FAT TOO! Ha, ha, ha!” Feeling hundreds of curious eyes on me I cowered into the corner and mumbled, “You look well too.” Coranell yelled, “What did you say, honey? I can’t hear over all this noise.” I said, “You look well too.” She said, “Feelin’ grand. Just grand. Did you hear that Minna had her kidney took out? Just eaten away with t.b. Gracie is having the third stage of a thoro and Bill Williams just had another HEMORRHAGE! Gawd that poor kid has had a tough time. Eileen has had another HEMORRHAGE TOO. You know, kiddo, I don’t think that poor little Eileen is going to pull out of it. Swell little kid, too, but she don’t have any spirit any more. She says that she’s never been happy since they moved her away from you and Kimi. Roommates are awful important when you’re on bedrest and the Charge Nurse is a real good nurse but she don’t realize that the most important thing of all is whom’s with who.”
When I finally got off the streetcar five blocks after Coranell, I decided that I would put off going to the employment office until after lunch. I was to meet Mary for lunch at an Italian food-importing place at one o’clock and though it was then only eleven forty-five and the restaurant was just around the corner, I went bleakly in, sat down at the counter and ordered a cup of coffee.
“Aren’t you Betty Bard?” said a pleasant masculine voice at my elbow. “I used to be,” I said turning around. Bill Wilson, an old friend of Mary’s, was beaming at me. He said, “Well, this is pleasant!” He leaned back in his chair and looked me over with interest. “Weren’t you at The Pines?” he asked. “Yes,” I said, l
ooking down, fumbling with my gloves and wishing that Bill didn’t have such a loud voice. “When did you get out?” he asked in the same carrying voice. I told him. “You look wonderful!” he said enthusiastically. “Are you all well?” “Yes,” I said, “in fact I came downtown today to look for a job.” “You mean you haven’t a job and you want one?” he asked eagerly. “Yes,” I said. “Thank God,” he said. “I’ve been interviewing secretaries for three weeks and I’d given up hope of ever finding one who wrote both shorthand and English. Can you come to work tomorrow?” I said, “I might consider it even if it means walking twenty miles in my bare feet over old Victrola needles every morning.” My new boss laughed and ordered me a roast beef sandwich. He said, “How was it out there at The Pines? I’ve heard it’s a pretty tough deal.” “Oh, not at all,” I heard myself saying. “I actually enjoyed it. The discipline is strict, of course, but it has to be in the cure of tuberculosis. . . .”
From away far off I heard the gates of The Pines clang shut forever. Coranell certainly had something. The most important thing of all is Whom’s with Who.
THE END
Also by Betty MacDonald
THE EGG AND I
Copyright
THE PLAGUE AND I. Copyright © 1948 by Betty MacDonald. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition October 2016 ISBN 9780062672254
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Betty Macdonald, The Plague and I
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