CHAPTER XXXII
THE DOCTOR HAS HIS WAY
It was in response to the doctor's telephone message that Ernestine went down to his office one afternoon a few days later. Dr. Parkman had been detained at the hospital, they told her, but would be there very soon, and so she sat down in the waiting room, which was already well filled. Were there always people there waiting for him—and did they not sometimes grow impatient and want to find a doctor who would not keep them waiting so long?
The woman sitting near her looked friendly, and so she asked: "Don't you get very tired waiting for Dr. Parkman?"
"Oh, yes," sighed the woman, "very tired."
"Then why don't you go to some doctor who would attend to you more quickly?" she pursued, moved chiefly by the desire to see what would happen.
The woman stared, grew red, and replied frigidly: "Because I do not wish to."
All the other patients were staring at Ernestine, too. "Why don't you do that yourself?" asked a large woman with a sick-looking small boy.
"I guess if there was anything much the matter with you, you'd be willing to wait," said a pale woman with a weary voice.
And then a man—she was sure that man was a victim of cancer—said loftily: "A doctor you never have to wait for isn't the doctor you want."
"The only thing seems queer to me," said a meek looking woman, taking advantage of the outbreak, "is that he don't look at your tongue. Down in Indiana, where I come from, they always look at your tongue. There's a lot of questions he don't ask," she ventured, looking around for either assent or information.
"He asks all there's any need of," the first woman assured her. "I guess you aren't very sick," turning, witheringly, to Ernestine.
And then they went back to their waiting; those who had rocking chairs rocking, those who had magazines reading, or turning leaves at least, some just sitting there and looking into space. It must take away all sense of freedom to feel that people like this, sick people for whom everything was hard, were always waiting for one.
She would tell the doctor how she had been well-nigh mobbed by loyal patients. They were like a great family; she knew well enough they did considerable grumbling, but her remark put her without the fold, and from her as an alien, criticism was not to be brooked. By the glare with which the first woman still regarded her she was sure she was suspected of being an agent sent there by some inferior doctor to try and get Dr. Parkman's patients away from him.
Ernestine was tired, and she believed she would have to admit that she was nervous. She had been working harder, she supposed, than she should, but the further she went the more she saw to do, and something from within was eternally pushing her on.
As she waited, her mind turned to the stories that office must hold. How much of anxiety and suffering and sorrow and tragedy—and occasional joy—it must know. The mothers who brought children whom others had declared incurable—how tense these moments of waiting must be for them! The husband and wife who came together to find out whether she would have to have the operation—how many of the crucial moments of life were lived in such places as this! The power in these doctors vested! The power of their voice, their slightest glance, in holding men from the brink of despair! Who could know the human heart better than they? They did not meet the every day men and women well groomed with restraints and pretence. For it was an hour when the soul was stripped bare that the doctor looked in upon it. Men were various things to various people, but to the doctor they came very close to being themselves. Too much was at stake to dissemble here. When phantoms of fear and death took shape in the shadows one sought the doctor—and told the truth.
She had a fancy which moved her then. She saw the men like Dr. Parkman fighting darkness down in the valley, while from the mountain peak adjacent men like Karl turned on, as with mighty search-lights, more, and ever more, of the light. And what were the search-lights for if not to be turned down into the valley?
"What time did you go to bed last night?" he demanded, after they had shaken hands in the inner office.
"Why—did you see the light?" she faltered;—she had made a promise against late hours.
"The light—no; but I see your face now, and that's enough. Was it two—or worse?"
"Just a mere trifle worse. And truly, doctor—I didn't mean to. But don't you know it's hard to stop when you feel just right for a thing? Why, one can't always do things at the proper time," she expostulated.
"No, and one can't always keep an abused nervous system from going to pieces either. Did you ever stop to think of that?"
"But you'll look after the nervous system," she replied ingenuously.
"Now that's where a lot of you make the mistake. I can't do anything at all without the cooperation of common-sense."
"Well I'm intending to be real good from this on," she laughed. "But it is so important that I know everything!"
He laughed then too. "A very destructive notion."
"Tell me," he said, when he had settled himself in his chair in the particular way of settling himself when he intended having a talk with her, "have you been rewarded in all this by any pleasure in it whatsoever? I don't mean," he made clear, anticipating her, "just the pleasure of doing something for Karl. But has your work given you any enthusiasm for the thing in itself?"
"Doctor—it has. And that was something I was afraid of. But you should have heard me talking to Mr. Ross the other day when he made one of his patronising remarks about mere science. I believe that when you work hard at almost anything you develop some enthusiasm for it."
"Um—a rather doubtful compliment for science."
"It was rather Beasonish," she laughed. "But you see in the beginning my face was turned the other way."
He gave her one of those concentrated glances then. "And how about that?
Never feel any more like heading the other way?"
She smiled, and the smile seemed to be covering a great deal. "Oh sometimes the perverse side of me feels like turning the other way. There are many sides to us—aren't there? But never mind about that," she hastened. "That is just something between me and myself. I can suppress all insurrections."
There was a pause. She leaned back in the big chair and was resting; he had seen from the first that she was very tired. "No desire to back out?"—he threw that out a little doubtfully.
She sat up straight. She looked, first angry, and then as if she were going to cry. "Doctor—tell me! Am I that unconvincing? Hasn't the winter—"
"This winter," he interrupted gently, "has proved that you knew what you were talking about when you came to me last fall. Could I say more than that? I only asked the question," he explained, "because this is the last chance for retreat."
And then he told her, watching the changing expressions of her responsive face. But at the last there was a timidity, a sort of frightened fluttering.
"But doctor—am I ready? Can I really do it? There is so much I don't know!"
"The consciousness of which is excellent proof of your progress. My idea is this. In any case it is going to be hard at the first. You might go on another year, and of course be in better shape, but I don't know just what Karl would be doing in that year; he's in need of a big rousing up, and as for you, after working the year with him, you'll be a long way ahead of where you would be alone. So it argues itself that way from both standpoints. I made up my mind when I was out the other day that Karl needs just what this is going to give."
"You think he looks badly?" she flew at that, relinquishing all else.
"You think Karl's not well?"
"I didn't mean that. But he needs the hope, the enthusiasm, activity, this is going to give."
"Hasn't he been splendid this winter?" she asked softly, those very deep warm lights in her eyes. "Did you ever see anything like it, doctor?"
"I thought I knew something about courage," he replied shortly, "but Karl makes me think I didn't."
"I don't believe there are many men could turn from big things to smaller ones, and grow bigger instead of smaller," she said, with a very tender pride.
"They say scientists are narrow and bull-headed. Wonder what they would say to this? And there's another thing to remember. We have seen the results of the victories. Only Karl Hubers knows of the fights."
"I know of some of them," said Ernestine, simply.
"Yes," he corrected himself—"you. And before we quite deify Karl we must reckon with you. He could not have done it without you."
"He would not have tried," she said—and the man turned away. That look was not his to see.
When she recalled herself it was with a sense of not having been kind. Why did she say things like that to Dr. Parkman after Karl had told her—? "And you, doctor," she said in rather timid reparation, "I wonder if you know what you have done for us both?"
"Oh, I haven't counted for much," he said almost curtly. "It would have worked itself out without me." But even as he spoke he was wishing with all his heart that there was some way of showing her what they had meant to him. He did not do it, for a soul which has been long apart grows fearful of sending itself out, fearful of making itself absurd.
They talked it all out then, going at practical things in a very matter-of-fact way. "And now," said the doctor, "I have a suggestion. It is more than a suggestion. It is a request. A little more than a request, even; a—"
"Command?" she smiled at him.
"You know," he began, "how it is with the athletes. Sometimes they become overtrained, which is the worst thing could happen to them. A good trainer never puts overtrained men in the game. Now, my dear enthusiastic friend,"—she was looking at him in that intent way of hers—"I've noticed two or three times that you've about jumped out of your chair at some meaningless noise in the other room. Your eyes tell the story;—oh there are various ways of reading it. You're a little overtrained. Before you tell Karl the great secret I want you to go away by yourself for a couple of weeks and rest."
"You mean that I should leave Karl?" she demanded.
"I do. I want you to have change, rest, and for that matter a little lonesomeness won't be a bad thing. You'll be in just the right mood then to put it all to him when you come back. He'll be in just the right mood to take it."
"Oh, but, doctor—you don't understand! I can't leave Karl. There are things I do for him no one else could do. Why you must remember he's blind!" she concluded, passionately.
She was not easy to win, but he stated his case, and one by one met her arguments. Yes—Karl would be lonely. But when she came back he would be so glad to see her that he would be a much better subject for enthusiasm than he was now. She also would be in better mood. "If you tell him now," he said, "and he makes some objections, says it can't be done—ten to one, as you are now, you will begin to cry. A nice termination for your whole winter's work! You must go to him just as you came to me in the beginning—overwhelm him, take him whether or no. And you're not right for that now. It's just because I'm bound this thing shall go through, that I insist you do as I say."
"Couldn't Karl go with me?" she asked, quite humbly, her eyes pleading eloquently.
He showed her, kindly, but very decisively, that that would not make the point at all. There followed then but a few final protestations. Where would Karl think she was? What in the world would he think of her—going away and leaving him like that? Who would look after him? What if he needed some help he didn't get? Suppose he grew so lonesome and depressed he just couldn't stand it?
On all of which points he somewhat banteringly reassured her. Other men had been lonesome now and then, and it had not quite killed them. Beason and Ross were in the house, and there was a good maid, who adored Dr. Hubers. "As to where he thinks you are, I'll tell him half the truth. That you are a little nervous and I have prescribed change and rest."
But she would not agree to that. "Karl would worry," she said. "We'll tell him instead that I have to go to New York to see about my picture. It will be easier for Karl if he thinks it is about my work."
He yielded to her judgment in that, and agreed to the further compromise that if she found she could not possibly stay away two weeks she might come back in one.
It was the change, the going away, the getting lonesome the doctor wanted most of all. He wanted to lift her clear up to her highest self that she might have all that was hers to give when she told her story to Karl.
"And of course, doctor," she asked anxiously, "when the time comes you will talk to him too—tell him you feel I can do it?"
"Trust me for that," he said briefly.
"But where is it I am to go?" she laughed, as she was ready to leave.
He told her then of a place in Michigan. An old nurse of his had married and was living there, and he frequently sent patients to her as boarders. "I have written to her and she wants you to come," he said.
"Well—upon my word! Before I so much as said I would go?"
"Why certainly," he answered, looking a trifle surprised. "For three days, perhaps five, I want you to sleep. You'll find you're very tired—once you let go. Then you can walk in the woods—I think it's going to be warm enough for browsing around. And you can think of Karl," he said with a touch of humour, and a touch of something else, "and of all this is going to mean. I've thought a great many times of what you said about the statue. There's something mighty stirring in that idea of unconquerableness."
"There is!" she responded.
"A great thing, you know, is worth making a few sacrifices for. You've made some pretty big ones for this, now make this one more. Haven't you been laying claim to great faith in my judgment?"
"Oh yes—as a matter of judgment; only—"
"Very well then, be lonesome—if you must be lonesome. I hope you will be—it's part of the treatment. And then you'll come back and in your first bursts of delight tell Karl just what you've done. When he says it's impossible, you'll just laugh. You'll get him to try and then the day is yours."
Out on the street she stopped half a dozen times in the first block, thinking she would go back and tell Dr. Parkman she couldn't possibly leave Karl. "Why, he's a terrible man," she mused, half humorously, half tearfully, "sending wives away from husbands like this—wanting people to be lonesome, just because he thinks it's good for them! I'll not do it—I'll go back and tell him I won't!" But she did not go back. She felt Dr. Parkman might look unpleasant if a patient came back to say: "I won't."—"No one would ever get up courage enough for that," she concluded mournfully, "so I'll just have to go."
CHAPTER XXXIII
LOVE'S OWN HOUR
It was Sunday, and Ernestine was going away next morning. She had told Karl the day before; it alarmed him at first, for he telephoned Dr. Parkman, asking him to come out. When the doctor arrived he demanded the truth as to Ernestine. Had anything happened? Was she not well? He was so relieved at the doctor's assurance that Ernestine was perfectly well, and was going away because of her work, that he accepted the situation more easily than she had anticipated. "Perhaps it will do me good, liebchen," he told her. "I fear I'm getting to be a selfish brute—taking everything for granted and not appreciating you half enough."
But that afternoon it was Ernestine herself who was forced to fight hard for cheerfulness. She did not want to go away. She was curiously depressed about it, and resentful. More than once she was on the point of telephoning to Dr. Parkman that she could not leave Karl.
Georgia and Joe and Mrs. McCormick came in about five and Georgia's spirit seemed to blow through the house like a strong, full current of bracing air. She and Joe had returned from California the night before, and there were many things to tell about their trip. Mrs. McCormick said it was indeed curious how some people always had so many more adventures than other people had. She wondered why it was she never met any of these amusing persons Georgia was always telling about.
Their visit did Ernestine much good. It was impossible to feel blue or have silly forebodings in the presence of so much naturalness and cheer as always emanated from Georgia. Those hearty laughs had cleared the atmosphere for her.
"Look here, liebchen," said Karl, emerging from a brown study, "we must fix up a code."
"A code, dear?"
"For your writing to me. You see Ross will have to read the letters, and how can you say in every other line you love me, with that duffer reading it out loud?"
"Oh, Karl—how stupid of me not to learn writing the other way! You see it never occurred to me I would be away from you. Couldn't I take that manual, and make it out from that?"
"Well—you might, but we'll do both; it will be fun to have a code. Now, when you say—'I am a trifle tired,' you mean—'Oh, sweetheart, I am so lonesome for you that I am never going away again!'"
"But won't Mr. Ross think it strange if I say in each letter that I am a trifle tired?"
"What do we care what he thinks? They're not his letters, are they? And when you say—'New York seems most attractive,'—you mean—'Oh, dearest, I never dreamed I loved you so much! I am finding out in a thousand new ways how much I care, and never, never, shall we be separated again.'"
"And when I say, 'I send you my love'—it will be perfectly proper for Mr. Ross to read that, I mean—'Dear love—I send you a thousand kisses, and I would give the world for one minute now in your arms.'"
And so they arranged it,—revising, enlarging, going over it a great many times to have it all certain—there was such a tender kind of fun in it. As to the other side of it, Karl of course could write to her on his typewriter.
It was a beautiful evening they had sitting there before the fire. She saw pictures for him, and he even saw some pictures for her,—he said a blind man could see certain pictures no one else could possibly see. They spoke of how they had never been separated since their marriage, of how strange it would seem to be apart, but always of how beautiful to be together again. There was such a sweetness, tenderness, in the sadness which hung about their parting. They made the most of their pain, as is the way of lovers, for it drew them together in a new way, and each kiss, each smallest caress, had a new and tender significance.
"You'll be back in time for your birthday, Ernestine?"
"Oh, yes; I'm only going to stay a week."
"I thought you said, perhaps two?"
"Did I? Well I've decided one will be enough."
"Ernestine, what have you been painting? Tell me, dear. That's one thing
I'm a little disappointed in. I do so want to keep close to your work."
"Well, Karl," after a silence, "that picture I have been working on this winter is hard to tell about because it is in a field all new to me. It is a picture which emphasises, or tries to, what love means to the world,—a picture which is the outgrowth of our love. I am not sure that it is good in all its technical features, but I believe there is atmosphere in it, poetic feeling, and, back of that, thought, and soul, and truth. I think there is harmony and richness of colour. Some people will say it is very daring, and no one will call it conventional, but I am hoping,"—Ernestine's voice was so low and full of feeling he could scarcely get the words—"that it is going to be a very great picture—the greatest I have ever done. Some of it has been hard for me, dear. In truth I have been much discouraged at times. But great things are not lightly achieved, Karl, and if this is anything at all, it is one of the great things. As to the subject, detail, I am going to ask you to wait until I come back. I have been keeping it for you as a little surprise. Perhaps it will help some of your lonely hours, dear"—her voice quivered—"to think about the beautiful surprise. And if it seems strange sometimes that I could bring myself to go away from you, will you not bear in mind, Karl dear, that I am doing it simply that the great surprise may be made perfect for you? It is a whim of mine to keep this a great secret; in the end I know you will forgive the secrecy. And when I come back"—her voice was stronger, fuller now—"I am going to make you see it just as plainly as you ever saw anything in all your life!"
"You must! I couldn't bear it to be shut out from your work."
"You are not going to be shut out from my work!"—she said it with an intensity almost stern.
"I want your life to be happy, Ernestine," he said, after a time, and the words seemed to have a new meaning spoken out of this mood of very deep tenderness. "I don't want it to be darkened. I want my love to make you happy—in spite of it all."
"It does," she breathed,—"it does."
"But I want you to be—as you used to be! I haven't been fair in letting this make such a difference with us."
"Karl—how can you talk like that, when you have been so—splendid?"
"But you see I don't want to be splendid," he said whimsically. "I'd rather be a brute than be splendid. And I want you to love me always as you did at first—just because you couldn't help yourself."
"I can not help myself now," she laughed. "I am just as helpless as I ever was."
And then a long and very precious silence. She was filled with many things too deep for utterance, even had she been free to speak. She thought of her birthday night a year before, their happiness then, all that had come to them since, all that love had meant, the great things it was to do for them. She looked at Karl's face—his fine, strong face which seemed the very soul of the mellow fire-light. How would that dear face look when she told him what she had done? Convinced him that great things were before him now? Would it not be that his determination not to fail her would stir fires which, even in his most triumphant days, had slumbered?
But from exultation in all that, she passed to the heart's pain in leaving him. She moved a little closer, took his hand and rested it lovingly against her cheek. She had never been away from Karl. Tears came at the thought of it now.
And he must have been thinking of what Ernestine had meant to him in the last year, for of a sudden he stooped down and with his old abandonment, with all the fullness of the first passion and the tender understanding of these later days, gathered her into his arms. "Oh, Ernestine," he whispered—breathing into her name all that was in his heart—"Ernestine!"
CHAPTER XXXIV
ALMOST DAWN
She found that in the beginning at least it was as Dr. Parkman had said. It was good to sleep. It was good to go to bed at night with the sense of nothing to do in the morning, good to wake at the usual time only to feel she might go back to that comfortable, beautiful sleep. For Ernestine was indeed very tired. Since that day when the great idea had come to her there had been no time when she was free from the sense of all that lay before her. But now she could rest.
Strangely enough she did not worry greatly about Karl. Her first waking thoughts were of him, but fuller consciousness always brought the feeling that it was all right with Karl; he was missing her, of course, but she was going back to him very soon and bring him the things he had believed shut away forever;—bring him the light!—that was the way she had come to think of it. The deliciousness of her rest was in the sense of its being right she should take it; she could best serve Karl by resting until she was her strongest self.
Her room was so quiet and restful, the bed so comfortable, and Mrs. Rolfe, Dr. Parkman's old nurse, so good to her. It was soothing to be told to close her pretty eyes and go to sleep, sustaining to be met with—"Now here is something for our little lady to eat." After many days of responsibility it was good to be "mothered" a little.
But after the first revel in sleep had passed she did a great deal of languid, undisturbed thinking. She seemed detached from her life, and it passed before her, not poignantly, but merely as something to look upon, quietly muse about. Soon she would step back into it, but now she was resting from it, simply viewing it as an interesting thing which kept passing before her.
From the very first it came before her, from those days when she was a little girl at home, and she found much quiet entertainment in trying to connect herself of those days with herself of the now. "Am I all one?" she would want to know, and in thinking that over would quite likely fall asleep again.
She thought a great deal about her father and mother; they were more real to her than they had been for a long time; but it was hard to connect the Ernestine of that home with the Ernestine who belonged to Karl. There was Georgia, to be sure, who extended clear through. Dear Georgia—how well she had looked Sunday in that beautiful black gown. She remembered such a funny thing, and such a dear thing, Georgia had done once. They had become chums as freshmen and when they were sophomores Georgia came to their house to live, and one night she inadvertently said something which started one of those terrible arguments, and ended in the saying of so many bitter things that Ernestine could not bear it—especially before Georgia, and as soon as she could she left the table and went up to her room. She did not cry, her mother cried so much that it seemed enough for the family, but she sat there very still looking straight ahead—denying herself even the luxury of tears. And then, just when that atmosphere of unhappiness and bitterness seemed pressing down upon her—crushing her—there had come a wild shriek from Georgia—"Ernestine—Ernestine—get your things quick—let's go to the fire!"
That was not to be resisted even by a nineteen-year-old girl. She remembered tumbling into her things, running two blocks, and then gasping—"Where is it?" and Georgia replied, gasping too—"Don't know—small boys—said so." And then after running all over town they found there was no fire at all, and that had so overcome them with laughter that she forgot all about those other things which would have given her so miserable an evening. She had had just a little suspicion then, and now she had a firm conviction, that Georgia never heard small boys say anything about fire that night. Bless Georgia's big heart—she loved her for just such things as inventing fires for unhappy people to go to.
As she lay there resting, away from the current of her life, she thought a great deal about a little grave over in France, such a very, very small grave which represented a life which had really never come into the world at all. She could fancy her baby here with her now—patting her face, pulling her hair—so warm and dear and sweet. Her arms ached for that little child which had been hers only in anticipation. And what it would have meant to Karl!—the laughter of a very small voice, the cuddling of a very small head…. Deep thoughts came then, and deeper yearnings, and when Mrs. Rolfe came in at one of those times she was startled at the look in the deep brown eyes of her patient, a look which seemed to be asking for something which no one could give, and when Ernestine smiled at her, as she always did, the woman could scarcely keep back the answering—"Never mind, dearie—never you mind."
And through all of her thoughts there was Karl—his greatness, his work, his love. She would be so happy when she did not have to keep things back from Karl. It seemed it would be the happiest moment of her life when she could throw her soul wide open to him with—"There is never going to be another thing kept back from you!" She could not bear the thought of Karl's believing she was in New York. But soon there would be no more of that, and Karl himself would tell her she had done it because she cared so much.
And most beautiful of all things to think about was the hour when she would tell him! How would he look? What would he say?
On the fifth morning she awakened feeling quite different. Those birds!—What were they singing about? She got up and raised the curtain, and then drew in a long breath of delight. For it was a radiant spring morning, breathing gladness and joy and all beautiful things. Oh how beautiful off there in the trees!—the trees which were just coming back to life after their long sleep. She too had been asleep—but it was time now to wake up and be glad!
She felt very much awake and alive this morning.—Oh, how those birds were singing! She laughed in sheer happiness, and began to sing too. She would dress and go out of doors. To remain in her room one hour longer would be unbearable bondage. For all the world was awake and glad! She could scarcely wait to get out there among the birds and trees.
She had never felt so alive, so well tuned to life, so passionately eager for its every manifestation as when, after a hurried breakfast, she started up the beautiful green hill to the trees where all the birds were singing—the soft breath of the spring enfolding her, her spirit lifting itself up to meet the caress of the spirit of spring. She walked with long, swinging step, smiling to herself, humming a glad little air, now and then tossing her head just to get the breath of spring upon her face in some new way. Mrs. Rolfe watched her from the kitchen door, smiling.
On the hill-top she stopped, standing straight, breathing deep, revelling in the song of the birds—they were fairly intoxicated with joy at this morning—listening to the soft murmur of the spring beneath it all—happy—oh so happy, as she looked off to the far distances. The long winter had gone, and now the spring had come again—the dear spring she had always loved!
It was with her too almost an intoxication—the throwing off of gloom, the taking on of joy. On such a morning nature calls unto her chosen, and they hear her call, and are glad. As she stood there on her hill-top her spirit lifted itself up in lyric utterance; her whole being responded to the songs of the returning birds.
How well Dr. Parkman had planned it! She would go back now and tell Karl what a great thing it was to be alive, how the spirit was everything, and could conquer all else. It seemed very easy now. It was all a matter of getting the spirit right;—how good of Dr. Parkman to think it out like this.
But there was something a little wrong. She stopped for a minute, pondering. Now she knew! Karl!—why could he not be here too? All in an instant she saw it so clearly that she laughed aloud. She was rested now—ready to tell him—and this the place! She would send for him! Mr. Ross—or perhaps the doctor himself—would come with him, and here where it was all so beautiful, where the call of the spring reached them and made them glad—she would tell him! And then, his spirit strong as hers was now strong, he would respond to it, be made ready for the fight.
How simple and how splendid! How stupid not to have thought of this before! And then again she laughed. It would be fun to improve on Dr. Parkman's idea. That was all very well—but this a thousand times better. Karl's spirit too needed lifting up;—what could do it as this? It was true he could not see it with his eyes—but there were so many other ways of being part of it: the singing of the birds, the scent of the budding trees, the rich breath of spring upon one's face. And even the vision should not be lost to him. She would make him see it! She would make him see the sunlight upon the trees, the roll of that farther hillside—one did not need to try to forget the park commissioners here!—and then she would say to him: "See, Karl—even as I can make you see the trees and that little brook there in the hollow, just as plainly as I can make you see the sky and the hill come together off there—so plainly will I make you see the things in the laboratory which belong with your work." She would prove to him by the picture she drew of these green fields in spring-time that she could make plain to him all he must see. How glorious to prove it to him by the spring-time!
And then, both of them uplifted, gladdened, both of them believing it could be done, loving each other more than they had ever done before, newly assured of the power of love, they would go back and with firm faith and deep joy begin the work which lay before them.
She turned to walk back to the house. She would send a telegram to Dr. Parkman that Karl must come. Perhaps he could be here to-night;—to-morrow, surely. Dear Karl—who needed a vacation more than he? Who needed the rejuvenation of the spring as Karl needed it?
She had walked but a little way when she stopped. Someone was coming toward her, walking fast. Had the sun grown a little dim—or was something passing before her eyes? The world seemed to darken. She looked again at Mrs. Rolfe, coming toward her. How strange that she shivered! Was it a little chilly up here on the hill-top where a minute before it had been so soft and warm? She wanted to go to meet Mrs. Rolfe, but she did not; she stood strangely still, waiting. And why was it that the figure of Mrs. Rolfe was such a blur on the beauty of the hillside?
But when at last she saw her face she did run to meet her. "What is the matter?"—her voice was quick and sharp.
The woman hesitated.
"Tell me!" demanded Ernestine. "I will not be treated like that!"
"Dr. Parkman wants you to come home," the woman said, not looking
Ernestine in the face.
"Why?—Karl?"—she caught roughly at the other woman's arm.
She knew then that she could not temporise nor modify. "Dr. Hubers was taken sick yesterday. He was to have an operation. The telegram should have been delivered last night."
She thought Ernestine was going to fall—she swayed so, her face went so colourless, her hands so cold. But she did not fall. "That—is all you know?"—it came in hoarse, broken whisper.
And when the woman answered, yes, Ernestine started, running, for the house.
CHAPTER XXXV
"OH, HURRY—HURRY!"
That train!—She would go mad if it kept stopping like that. She kept leaning forward in her seat, every muscle tense, fairly pushing the train on with every nerve that was in her. Never once did she relax—on—on—it must go on! She would make it go faster! When it stopped she clenched her hands, her nails digging into the flesh—and then when it started again that same feeling that she, from within herself, must push it on. At times she looked from the window. Now this field was past—they were so much nearer. Soon they would be over there where the track curved—that was a long way ahead. They were going faster now. She would lean forward again—pushing on, trying through the straining of her own nerves to make the train go faster.
Mrs. Rolfe had wanted to come with her, but she said no. It seemed she could get there faster by herself. There had been an hour's wait for the train; it made her sick, even now, to think back to that hour. At least this was doing something, getting somewhere. She had telegraphed to every one she could think of, but no reply had come up to the time the train started. She reasoned that out with herself, now for good, now for bad. And then—if he were better, if there were anything good to tell—
Her temples were thumping more loudly than the train thumped. Her heart was choking her. Her throat was so tight she could not breathe. Again and again she went over it to herself. Dr. Parkman had operated on Karl. Of course Dr. Parkman would do it right. He would not dare to operate on him without her being there unless he was absolutely sure it would be all right. And then close upon that—he would have waited for her if—
Appendicitis—that was what those quick operations were. And most of them—especially with Dr. Parkman—came out all right. And Karl was the doctor's best friend! Would not a man save his best friend when he could save every one else? And Karl himself—his will, his power, his love for her—why Karl would know that nothing must happen while she was away! But close upon that came awful visions—Oh why had Dr. Parkman sent her away and then done this thing? She would tell him when she got there—she would tell him—
It would all be right when she got there. If only the train would hurry! There was smoke off there. Was it?—It was the smoke of Chicago! Nothing had ever looked so beautiful before. Very soon now! Why, perhaps within a few hours she and Karl would be laughing at this! "Isn't it great the way I got on, liebchen?" he would say. "Isn't Parkman a dandy?"
They were passing those houses on the outskirts. Oh why was Chicago so big! But she must be calm—very calm; she must not excite Karl in the least. How sorry he would be that she had been frightened like this! They were passing larger buildings, coming closer to the city. She gritted her teeth hard, clenched her hands.
Karl was at the hospital—the telegram told that. She would get off at the stop just this side of the main station—that was a little nearer the hospital, she believed. She would take a cab—if only there were an automobile!—but the cabman would surely go very fast if she told him why she had to hurry like this.
Long before the train came to its stop she was standing at the door. She would not have waited for the standstill if the porter had not held her back. Oh how she must hurry now!
She ran to the nearest cabman. Would he hurry very fast?—faster than he ever had before? It was life and death, it was—"Yes—yes, lady," he said, putting her in. "Yes, I understand. I'll hurry."
"But faster," she kept saying to him—"oh please, faster!"
She saw nothing either to the right or left. She saw only the straight line ahead which they must travel. And still everything from within her was pushing her on—oh if the man would only hurry!
A big building at last—the hospital. Only two blocks now, then one, and then the man had slowed up. She was out before he stopped, running up the steps—somebody in the hospital would pay—and up the stairs. The elevator was there—but her own feet would take her faster.
"Dr. Hubers?—Where is he?" she said in choked voice to a nurse in the hall.
The nurse started to speak, but Ernestine, looking ahead, saw Dr. Parkman standing in the door of a room. She rushed to him with outstretched hand, white, questioning, pleading face. Her lips refused to move.
CHAPTER XXXVI
WITH THE OUTGOING TIDE
He simply took her into the room, and there was Karl—alive. That was all she grasped at first; it filled her so completely she could take in nothing else. He was lying there, seemingly half asleep, looking much as he always did, save that of course it was plain he was very sick. She stooped down and kissed him, and his face lighted up, and he smiled a little. "Ernestine," he murmured, "did they frighten you?"
It was as she had known! His thought was of her. And oh how sorry Karl would be when he was quite well and she told him all!
She nestled her head close to him, her arm thrown about him. The tears were running down her cheeks. Of the blessedness of finding Karl here—breathing, smiling upon her, sorry she had been frightened! She took his hand and it responded to her clasp. That thrilled her through and through. Those awful fears—those never-to-be-forgotten fears—that Karl's hand might never close over hers again! She leaned over him that she might feel his breath upon her face. In all her life there had never been so blessed a joy as this feeling Karl's breath upon her cheek. Nothing mattered now—work, eyes, nothing. She had him back; she asked nothing more of life. What could anything else matter now that those awful fears had drawn away? She was sobbing quietly to herself. Again his hand closed over hers.
Then something made her look up, and at the foot of the bed she saw Dr. Parkman. One look at his face and she grew cold from head to foot; her throat grew painfully tight; strange things came before her eyes. She could not move. She simply remained there upon her knees, looking at Dr. Parkman's face, her own frozen with terror.
The doctor came to her, took her hands, and helped her to rise. Two nurses and another doctor were bending over Karl—doing something. Dr. Parkman led Ernestine into an adjoining room.
She did not take her eyes from his face; the appeal, terror, in them seemed to strike him dumb. It was as though his own throat were closed, for several times he tried vainly to speak.
"Ernestine," he said at last, "Karl is very sick."
"How—sick?" she managed to whisper.
"How—sick?" she repeated as he stood there looking at her helplessly.
And, finally, he said, as if it were killing him to do it—"So sick that—"
"Don't say that!"—she fairly hissed it at him.
"Don't dare say that! You did it—you——" And then, sinking down beside him, catching hold of his hand, she sobbed out, wildly, heartbreakingly—"Oh, Dr. Parkman—oh, please—please tell me you will save Karl!"
Her sobs were becoming uncontrollable. "Ernestine," he said, sharply—"be quiet. Be quiet! You have got to help."
The sobs stopped; she rose to her feet. He pulled up a chair for her, but she did not sit down. A few sobs still came, but her face was becoming stern, set.
"Tell me," she said, holding her two hands tight against her breast, and looking him straight in the face.
And then he jerked it out. Karl had been taken ill—pain, fever, he feared appendicitis. He had two other doctors see him; they agreed that he must be operated on immediately. They brought him here. They found—conditions awful. They did all that surgery could do—every known thing was being done now, but—they did not know. He had rallied a little from the operation; now he seemed to be drooping. He was in bad shape generally,—heart weakened by the shock of his blindness, intestines broken down by lack of exercise, whole system affected by changed conditions—all these things combined against him. He told the short story with his own lips white, swaying a little, seeming fairly to age as he stood there.
Her face had been changing as she listened. He had never seen a human face look as hers did then; he had never heard a human voice sound as hers sounded when she said: "Dr. Parkman, you are mistaken." She looked him straight in the eye—a look which held the whole force of her being. "I say you are mistaken. We will go back in here now to Karl. You and I together are going to save him."
There was the light from higher worlds in her eye as she went back, in her voice a force which men have never named or understood. And something which emanated from her took hold of every one who came into that room. There was more than the resources of medical science at work now.
On her knees beside the bed, her arm about him, passionately shielding him from the dark forces around him, her face often touching his as if reassuring him, Ernestine spoke to Karl, quietly, tenderly, forcefully, love's own intuition telling her how much to say, when to speak. By her warm body which loved him, by her great spirit which claimed him, she would hold him from the outgoing tide. Her voice could rouse him where other stimulants failed; the only effort he made was the tightening of his hand over hers, and sometimes he smiled a little as he felt her close to him.
Two hours went by; the lines in Dr. Parkman's face were deepening. They worked on unfalteringly—hypodermics, heat, rubbing, oxygen, all those things with which man seeks to deceive himself, and for which the foe, with the tolerance of power, is willing to wait. But their faces were changing. The call of the outgoing tide, that tide over which human determination has not learned to prevail, was coming close. They worked on, for they were trained to work on, even through the sense of their own futility.
Looking about her Ernestine saw it all, and held him with a passionate protectiveness. If all else failed, her arms—arms to which he had ever come for help and consolation—could surely hold him! The cold fear crept farther and farther into her heart, and as it crept on her arms about him tightened. Not while she held him like this! Oh not while she held him like this!
And then a frenzy possessed her. That she should sit here powerless—weeping—despairing, surrendering, while Karl slipped from her! She must do something—say something—something to hold him firm—call him back—make him understand that he must fight!
Suddenly a light broke over her face. She looked at Dr. Parkman, who was bending over Karl. "I will tell him," she whispered—"what I did—the secret—about the work."
He hesitated; medically his judgment was against it; and then, white to the lips with the horror of the admission he faced the fact that this had passed beyond things medical. Let her try where he had failed. Through a rush of uncontrollable tears he nodded yes.
And she did tell him,—in words which were not sentences, with sharp flashes of thought—such flashes as alone could penetrate the semi-consciousness into which she must reach; after a moment of pause in which to gather herself together for the great battle of her life, with concentration, illumination, with a piercing eloquence which brought hot tears to every cheek, and deep, deep prayers to hearts which would have said they did not know how to pray—a woman fighting for the man she loved, human love at its whitest heat pitted against destiny—she told him.
"Karl," at the last—"you understand?—That's the great secret!—That's the great picture! I've not painted one stroke this winter! I've been working for you—working in your laboratory every day—studying day and night—getting ready to be your eyes—going to give you back your work—oh, Karl—Karl—won't you—" but the sobs could hold back no longer.
She had reached him. He took it in, just a little at first, but comprehension was growing, and upon his face a great wondering, a softening.
"Old man,"—it was Dr. Parkman now—"you get that? See what you've got ahead? God, man—but it was splendid! She came to me with the idea—her idea—thought it all out herself. Karl was not happy—Karl must have his work. Karl—Karl—it was nothing but Karl. She was closer to him than any one in the world. She could make him see what others could not. Then she would be his eyes. Man—do you know that this woman has fairly made over her soul for love of you? Do you know that she has given up becoming one of the great painters of the world to become your assistant? Do you get it, Karl? So help me God it was the pluckiest fight I've ever seen or heard of. And she's won! I'm no fool—and I say she can do what she says she can. She's ready. She's ready to begin to-morrow. What do you say, old man? What do you think of Ernestine now? Isn't she worth taking a good brace and living for?"
And then he got it all; he was taking it in, rising to it, understanding, glowing. And a look that was very wonderful was growing upon Karl's face.
"Ernestine," he whispered, dwelling long upon the name, his voice a voice of wonder, "you did that—for me?"
"I did it because I love you so!" she whispered, and it seemed that surely death itself could not withstand the tenderness of it.
And then his whole face became transfigured. His blind eyes were opened to the light of love. His illumined face reflected it as the supreme moment of his life. In that moment he triumphed over all powers set against him. He rose out of suffering on wings of glory. He transcended sorrow and tragedy, blindness—yes, in that moment, death. He saw behind the veil; he saw into the glory of a soul; he comprehended the wonder of love. Compensation for suffering and loss—understanding, victory, peace; it was the human face lighted with divine light. They did not dare to move or breathe as they looked upon the wonder of his face.
"Ernestine—little one," he whispered, the light not going from his face—"you loved me—like that?"
"You see, Karl,"—it was this must reach him—"what you have to live for now?"
But he did not get that. He was filled with the wonder of that which he was seeing.
"You see, old man," said Parkman, sharply, "what you've got ahead of you?"
But he only murmured, happily, faintly, as one about to fall asleep: "She loved me—like that."
It terrified her; it seemed, not as though the great idea were holding him, but as though he were taking it away with him, even as though well content to go, having this to take with him from life.
"Karl—Karl!" she sobbed—"don't you _see _how I love you?—don't you see you _must _live now—for me?"
But he had far transcended all sense of suffering or loss, even her suffering and loss. Her plea—she herself—could not reach him. He and the great idea were going away together. And that light did not leave his face.
It was so that he sank into a sleep. He did not hear Ernestine's sobs; he knew nothing of her pleading cries. In a frenzy of grief she felt him going out to where she could not reach him. She called to him, and he did not answer. She pressed close to him, and he did not know that she was there.
But the great idea was with him. It lighted his face to the last. It was as if that were what he was taking with him from life. It was as if that, and that alone, he could keep.
"Karl—Karl!" she cried, terrorised—"look at me! Speak to me! I am here! Ernestine is here!"—And then, the strongest word of woman to man—"I'm frightened! Oh take care of me—Karl—take care of me!"
Dr. Parkman tried to take her away, but she resisted fiercely, and they let her stay. And during the few hours which followed she never ceased her pleading—to him to come back to her, to them to help. Crazed with the consciousness of his slipping from her, wild beyond all reason with the thought that her kisses could not move him, her arms could not hold him, her passion lashed to the uttermost in the thought that she must claim him now or lose him forever, she pleaded with all the eloquence of human voice and human tears. She could not believe it—that he was there beside her and would not listen to her pleadings. Again and again she told him that she was frightened and alone; that—surely that—he must hear. It could not be that he was there beside her, breathing, moving a little now and then, and did not hear her call for help.
And when at last she heard some one speak a low word, and saw some one bend over him to close his eyes, she uttered one piercing, heartbreaking cry which they would bear with them so long as they lived. And then, throwing herself upon him, shielding him, keeping him, there came the wild, futile call of life to death—"Karl!—Karl!—Karl!"
PART THREE
CHAPTER XXXVII
BENEATH DEAD LEAVES
The cold March rain drove steadily against the car window. His thoughts were like that,—cold, ugly, driving thoughts. Looking out at the bleak country through which they were passing he saw that dead leaves were hanging forlornly to bare trees. His hopes were like that,—a few dead hopes clinging dismally to the barren tree of experience. So it seemed to Dr. Parkman as he looked from the car window at the country of hills and hollows through which he was passing. The out-lived winter's snow still in the hollows, last summer's leaves blown meaninglessly about, denied even the repose of burial, the cheerless wind and the cheerless rain—it matched his mood.
Almost a year had gone by, and Dr. Parkman was going out to see Ernestine. Every mile which brought him nearer, brought added uncertainty as to what he should say when he reached her. What was there for him to say? The dead leaves of her hopes were all huddled in the hollow. Was he becoming so irrational as to think he could give life to things dead? Was she not right in wishing to cover them up decently and let them be? Was anything to be gained in blowing them about as last summer's leaves were being blown about now by the unsparing, uncaring winds of March?
She was out where she had lived as a girl,—living in the very house which had once been her home. He had understood her going. It was the simple law of living things. The animal wounded beyond all thought of life seeks only a place of seclusion.
But when Georgia returned from her visit to Ernestine the month before, she came to him with:
"Dr. Parkman, you must do something for Ernestine!" And after she had told him many things, and he questioned still further, she said, in desperate desire to make it plain—"She is becoming a great deal like you!"
And from then until the time of starting on this trip he had had no peace.
He understood; understood far more deeply than she who would have him see. Was any one better qualified to understand that thing than he?
Well,—what then? What now? Was there any other thing to expect? Was he, of all men, going to her with platitudes about courage and faith? And even so, would sophistry avail anything? Did he not know Ernestine far too well far that?
His own face bore the deep marks of hard and bitter things. But the loss and the sorrow showed themselves in strange ways, little understood as manifestations of grief. He ran his automobile faster, showed even less caution than before in his business ventures, had less and less to say, was called more and more strange by those associated with him. And the thing which mocked him most of all was that the year had been attended with the greatest professional successes of his life. He never heard his plaudits sounded without a curse in his heart.
"It went mighty hard with Parkman not to be able to save Hubers," medical men said with growing frequency as the year advanced. But there were none of them who dreamed into what deep and vital things the cut had gone. With his own will and his own skill he patched it up on the surface, not the man to leave his wound exposed to other eyes. But he knew its hopelessness too well ever to try and reach the bottom of the wound. It was not a good, clean, straight cut such as time expects to heal. Indeed it was not a cut at all; nothing so wholesome and reachable as that. It was a destroying force, a thing burrowing at the springs of life, a thing which made its way through devious paths to vital sources. Did a patched up surface mean anything to a thing like that?
The evening of the day he had seen Georgia, and she told him of Ernestine, he sat a long time in his office alone. The grey ashes of his own life seemed spread around him. And it was he, who was asked, out of this, to rekindle a great flame? And what flame? What was there left for Ernestine? Ask her to come back—to what? Fight—for what?
He did not know, or at least he said he did not know, and yet he, like
Georgia, saw it as all wrong, unendurable, not to be countenanced, that
Ernestine should shut herself out from life.
Perhaps he was going to her because he knew so well the desolation of ashes. Was it because he had lived so long among them that he hated to see another fire go out? Could it be that a man who had dwelt long among ashes knew most surely the worth of the flame?
He had reached the end of his journey. He had come to the western college town for which he had set out. From the window he could see some of the college buildings. Yes, this was the place.
He rose and put on his coat. A few minutes later he was standing on the station platform, watching the on-going train. Then he turned, with decision, in the direction Georgia had bade him go.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
PATCHWORK QUILTS
And now that the first ten minutes had passed he felt anew the futility of his errand. His first look into her face made him certain he might better have remained in Chicago. The thing which cut off all approach was that she too had done some work on the surface.
It seemed to him as he sat there in utter silence that he had been brutal, not alone to her heart, but to his own, that he asked too much, not only of her command, but of his. He had come to talk of Ernestine and the future; the things about him drew him overmasteringly to Karl and the past.
She had taken him to her little sitting room up stairs, forced to do so because the fire down stairs had gone out. He understood now why it was she had faltered so in asking him to come up here. Here was Karl's big chair—many things from their library at home. It was where she lived with her past. She wanted no one here.
She would make no attempt at helping him. She sat there in silence, her face white, almost stern. In her aloofness it was as though she were trying to hold herself, from the consciousness of his presence.
He too remained silent. For he was filled with the very things against which he had come to protest.
It was Karl who was very close; it was the thoughts of Karl's life which filled him. His heart had never been so warm for his friend, his appreciation had never been so great as now. Karl, and all that Karl meant, had never been so close, and so dear. And the words he finally said to Ernestine, words of passionate tenderness spoken in utter unconsciousness of how far he had gone from his purpose, were: "I do not believe any of us half appreciated Karl!"
Startled, she gave him a long, strange look. "No, Dr. Parkman,"—very low—"neither do I."
"I have been looking into it since. I wanted to throw Karl's results to the right man. He was head and shoulders above them all."
There was a slow closing of her eyes, but she was not shrinking from him now;—this the kind of hurt she was able to bear.
"If he had been left to work out his life—" but he stopped, brought suddenly to a sense of how far he had lost himself.
She too saw it. "Dr. Parkman,"—with a smile which put him far from her—"this is what you came to say? You think I need any incitement? You needn't, Dr. Parkman,"—with rising passion—"you needn't. Every time I leave this room two things are different. I have more love for Karl—more hate for his destroyers. And those two passions will feed upon me to the end of my life!"
Instinctively he put out a protesting hand. It was too plain that it was as she said.
"More love for Karl—more hate for his destroyers,"—she repeated it with a passionate steadfastness as though it comprehended the creed of her life.
"His—destroyers?" he faltered. "What do you mean—by that?"
And she answered, with a directness before which dissembling and evasion crumbled away: "Read the answer in your own heart.
"And if you cannot look into your own heart," she went on, unsparingly, "if your own heart has been shut away so long that it is closed even to yourself, then look into your looking-glass and read the answer there. Let the grey hairs in your own head, the lines in your own face,—yes, the words of your own mouth—tell you what you would know of Karl's destroyers."
He drew in his lips in that way of his; one side of his face twitched uncontrollably. He had come to reach her soul, reach it if must be through channels of suffering. He had not thought of her reaching his like this.
But she could not stop. "And if you want to know what I have gone through, look back to what you have gone through yourself—then make some of those hours just as much stronger as love is stronger than friendship—and perhaps you can get some idea of what it has been to me!"
He was dumb before that. Putting it that way there was not a word to say.
He saw now the real change. It was more than hollowed cheeks and eyes from which the light of other days had gone, more than soft curves surrendered to grief and youth eaten out by bitterness. It was a change at the root of things. A great tide had been turned the other way. But in the days when happiness softened her and love made it all harmonious he had never felt her force as he felt it now. Reach this? Turn this? The moment brought new understanding of the paltriness of words.
It was she who spoke. "Dr. Parkman,"—looking at him with a keenness in which there was almost an affectionate understanding—"you did not say what you intended to say when you came into this room. You intended to speak of me—but the room swept you back to Karl. Oh—I know. And it is just because you were swept back—care like this—that I am going to tell you something.
"Doctor,"—blinded with tears—"we never understood. None of us ever knew what it meant to Karl to be blind. After—after he had gone—I found something. In this book"—reaching over to Karl's copy of Faust—"I found a letter—a very long letter Karl wrote in those last few days, when he was there—alone. I found it the day I went out to the library alone—the day before they—broke it up. Oh doctor—what it told! I want you to know—" but she could not go on.
When she raised her head the fierce light of hate was burning through the tears. "Can you fancy how I hate the light? Can you fancy with what feelings I wake in the morning and see it come—light from which Karl was shut out—which he craved like that—and could not have? Do you see how it symbolises all those other things taken from him and me? He talked of another light—light he must gain for himself—light which the soul must have. And Karl was longing for the very light I was ready to bring! He would have believed in it—turned to it eagerly—the letter shows that. Do you wonder that there is nothing but darkness in my soul—that I want nothing else? Look at Karl's life! Always cut off just this side of achievement! Every battle stopped right in the hour of victory! Made great only to have his greatness buffetted about like—held up for sport!—I will say it! "—in fierce response to his protesting gesture—"It's true!"
He tried to speak, but this was far too big for words which did not come straight from the soul.
"Do you know what I am doing now?" She laughed—and none of it had told as much as that laugh revealed. "I am making patchwork quilts! Can you fancy anything more worthless in this world than a patchwork quilt?—cutting things up and then sewing them together again, and making them uglier in the end than they were in the beginning? Do you know anything more futile to do with life than that? Well that's where my life is now. My aunt had begun some, and I am finishing them up. And once—once—" but the sob in her voice gathered up the words.
He wanted to speak then; that sob brought her nearer. But she went on:
"I sit sewing those little pieces together—a foolish thing to do, but one must be doing something, and as I think how useless it is there comes the thought of whether it is any more useless than all the other things in life. Is it any more useless than surgery? For can a great surgeon save his best friend? Is it any more useless than science—for can science do anything for her own? Is it any more useless than ambition and purpose and hope—for does not fate make sport of them all? Is it any more useless than books—for can books reach the hearts which need them most? Is it any more useless than art—for does art reach realities? Is it any more useless than light—for can light penetrate the real darkness? Is it,"—she wavered, quivered; she had been talking in low, quick voice, her eyes fixed on something straight ahead, as though reading her words out there before her. And now, as she held back, and he saw what she saw and could not say, he asked for her, slowly: "Is it any more useless than love?"