“DISTRICT NURSE”

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 81, 6 April 1938, Page 7

“DISTRICT NURSE”

(By FAITH BALDWIN)

Synopsis of Preceding Instalments:

£!len Adams was a visiting nurse iirving the New York poor in the neighbourhood in which she was born. She lived with her semiinvalid widowed mother and her sister Nancy, w*ho worked at night as a telephone operator. Ellen was 24, Nancy 20. Their older sister Coral had disappeared eight years ago. Ellen became acquainted with frank Bartlett, a young lawyer, when his car knocked down little hard-boiled Bill Donnelly's dog. She had stopped to ask Bill why he wasn’t at school. Bill cursed Frank roundly but Frank made Bill his friend by taking him and the pup to a veterinary and getting a license for Old Timer. Ellen refused Bartlett’s invitation to go to a ball game with Bill and him and to dinner later, but invited him to her home. Soon Ellen was going out with him frequently. Frank told her he loved her. She asked him to wait for her answer, as she had her mother to care for and couldn’t give up her work. Frank said he would wait impatiently. Ellen had grown up with Jim O'Connor, now a real estate agent. Jim loved her too and repeated his proposals of marriage at every opportunity. While Ellen was making her calls one day in a povertystricken district, a lodging-house landlady rushed to the street shrieking ‘‘Police!" A young woman lodger had attempted suicide by gas. Ellen was overwhelmed when she recognised the girl as her sister Coral.

Down the street swung the dark ambulance, leaving a trail of sound, sinister sound, the back-wash of an insistent clanger. It stopped. People were standing about. A second policeman had come up. People were whispering, exclaiming "Wisht," said a gaunt individual, “wisht I had the noive—" Pete McGregor swung himself off the ambulance and spoke briefly to his driver. He ran up the steps of the house, carelessly shoving aside the people who had gathered on the peeling stoop. ‘‘Snicide, doc? Is she dead 5" asked some one. ‘‘How the hell do I know?" inquired the interne. He spoke to the policeman who was on the stairs. "Gas," explained the cop, briefly. "What? Another?" asked Pete! "Can’t they do something different for a change? This gets monotonous. ’'

Hard-boiled, you see. Because he had to be. Because his own years had been so strange and difficult. The boyhood of the neighbourhood, this neighbourhood. More to eat, warmer clothes than a lot of fellows. Baseball, spring 'evenings; football; a second-hand bike. School and a girl with dark thick braids, roughened into curls at the ends. A darkness shot through with ruddy lights. Blue eyes, very deep. His girl, Crowing up, growing out of the adolescent braggart attitude toward girls, growing into manhood, very young manhood, loving, planning to work, to be something. For her. Then, disaster, and the drifting downward. Too young, too hurt to pull himself up by the bootstraps and tell himself there were other girls—a pool room brawl, a young man rescued from the quick flash of a knife, out of sheer perversity, perhaps, because Pete didn’t happen to like the knife wielder. Then, interviews, conferences, the big doctor with his shock of grey hair. "I want to do something for you, son. You've done something for me I can’t repay." Well, he'd led his class at high school. The university was not so different —not so difficult nor medical school. And then a gradual growing into an interest which blocked everything else out, which anesthized him, somehow.

Now the interneship at the hospital. Nearly over. They spoke of him there, the men who mattered. "McGregor’s a good man. He’s sound on diagnosis. A worker.’'

But the things he saw, the things he heard! He'd thought himself calloused, thought he knew life pretty well, thought nothing could turn him sick, wound him with pity, clutch at his heart. He was mistaken. Charity wards; an ambulance clanging through the streets.

Hard-boiled. Pete McGregor.

He ran up the stairs. At the head of the landing a girl, in a dark grey uniform. In that curious moment he saw everything with an individual distinctness. Saw the fair hair jinder her unbecoming hat. Saw that she was ashen, that she had been crying. Heard her say as he himself said —"Ellen!" Pete, you must help us, it’s—oh, Pete, it’s Coral.

No, things didn’t happen like that. The emergency crew from the gas company were working over her. One said. "She’s coming around, doc.’' He said to himself, as he mechanically replied, "Oke, good work, boys. I can't look. I mustn't. He was shaking. The hands which held the stethescope were shaking. His mouth shook. God, I can’t look! Ellen's hand was on his arm. She said, low, for his ears only, “Brace up. You've got to. You’ve got to help. ’'

She was thinking—her stage name—on the reports—on the police blotter. Perhaps we can keep it from mother—

He forced himself to look. That wasn’t Coral. Yes, it was Coral. He said to himself. I’ve got to get out of this—

But he took no step. He stayed. He did all that was necessary. The stretcher came up the stairs. He and his driver carried her down, breathing now, moaning a little.

Ellen ran down after them. She said urgently, "Get her into the hospital, do everything you can for her. I'll telephone Nancy. I'll come as soon as I can."

"I'll fix things up," he promised, roughly.

Instalment 12.

The stretcher had been shoved into the waiting car. The cop swung himself aboard. Pete said to Ellen, "It can’t be Coral." He knew it was. She said dully, "I ought to go with her. Nancy will come right away. Pete, be gentle with her, won’t you?" He laughed. He had to laugfli. He couldn’t help it. She said, her eyes blazing, If you dare to —" Her eyes were tragic and accusing. "How do you know—anything —about her? And what right have you to judge her? Or any other man?’

He lifted his hand in a signal to hit driver. The ambulance, clanging, drovt off. Ellen went away slowly. The crowd, some of them, followed, asking their interminable questions. She shook them off.

Presently she went into a 'phone booth and called her home. Nancy, if only Nancy would answer. Waiting, she looked at her wrist watch. No, she’d be asleep. Nancy, please answer, please.

"Ring them again operator," she said sharply, “I know some one’s at home.

Nancy’s voice came to her, thick and petulant with drowsiness. Ellen asked, “Nancy, where’s mother?" "For crying out loud!" said Nancy, "What's happened? She went out for a walk I guess, with Mrs Lenz. I heard ’em go. What’s up?" The drowsiness was clearing from her voice. She listened while Ellen talked, briefly, rapidly. No time to break things gently. Just keep it from mother that was all.

Nancy said, in a dull voice, a voice that was flat and oddly bruised sounding. Leave a note. Mrs Lenz will stay with mother, or Mrs Header. Get home as soon as you can." "No, I'll go to the hospital, "Ellen told her, "at the noon hour. Meet me there, if you can." She hung up and went about her work. Efficient, unsentimental, sympathetic, capable. She couldn't think, but her hands thought for her. She gave a bed bath. She washed hot faces and sticky hands. She telephoned doctors. She did her work because it had to be done.

At the noon hour she telephoned in her reports and went to the hospital. They knew her there. There was no difficulty—about anything. Nancy was there, had been there for some time. Ellen saw Pete in the barren waiting room. Ho had aged, she thought. He said, "She's all right. You can take her home to-morrow." He added, "You are going to take her home, aren’t you?" Ellen said, "What else? Haven’t we been waiting—eight years? Pete, did she know you?"

"She knew me." "What did she say?" "Nothing. She turned her face to the wall," said Pete, "and cried." After a long moment, he said, ‘I ought to hate her."

"You?" asked Ellen. She looked at him gravely, the grey eyes sombre. "You?"

He iemembered some of the things he’d done—after Coral had gone. He thought back, eight years, eight crowded years. He defended himself as a child might—" Her fault." "You believe that?" asked Ellen, scornfully. She left him and went to the ward he had designated. The long ward with the white beds and the little tables, and the charge nurse at the desk. A good friend of hers, the stocky, sturdy Mannering. If Mannering knew anything, if Nancy had told or betrayed herself, Mannering didn’t speak of it. She merely nodded and said, "She’s all right, Adams. Don’t worry." So, she did know something. Not that it mattered. There was a white curtain about the bed. Nancy was sitting on the straight chair. She looked tired to death. Coral was asleep. "She’s been sleeping," said Nancy, "ever since I came, almost. She’s been awfully sick, they told me. You know. ’ ’ Ellen knew. ‘"I'll stay. Go out and get something to eat. I'll stay until my hour’s up. Come back if you can. Can you stick it out? I’ll tell mother to-night. Nancy, did she know you?’’ ‘Nancy’s pretty mouth shook. She put her hands to the curly cap of dark hair. Her head hurt her; it wasn’t just a headache.

"Of course she knew me, she told Ellen. She said "Nancy? Grown up." She began to cry. Pete’s been here a dozen times. She always cries when she sees him—she—’’

"Run along," said Ellen, "and get hold of yourself, somehow." She sat down presently on the chair, wi.ited, her strong finger on the pulse beating in the too thin wrist. A good pulse, rapid perhaps, but good in tone and quality. Presently Coral opened her eyes. Such very blue eyes. The lashes, broken short with mascara, were heavy. She said—" Nancy?" She said, "It isn’t Nancy—it’s Ellen." She tried to sit up. Ellen eased her back on the pillow. Take it easy, Coral," she said, her tone perfectly matter of fact.

"Does mother know—?" whispered Coral.

"No—You’ll come home to-morrow. We’ll say you’ve been ill, in the hospital. I’ll tell her. You’ro not to worry. ’ ’

"Toll Pete, please—stay away—said Coral.

Nothing astonished her. She was going home. She was too weak an'd sickened to ask questions. She’d leave it to Ellen—to Ellen—Once, before she slept again she raised the incredible eyes—she said, and tried to smile, "What you made up for, Ellen?" and indicated the uniform. Then she slept. Nancy came back and Ellen went out to get her calls, to do the rest of her work. The afternoon was light enough. She was able to be back at the hospital quite early. "What about mother?"

she asked Nancy

"I ’phoned Mrs Header to tell her that one of the girls was sick and had no one and I’d gone to the Y.W. to see what I could do." She was drooping with weariness.

“Go home and go to bed, until time to get to work," Ellen ordered her. "I’ll see to all this." They were talking in the corridor. Then Ellen went back to the ward.

"All right, Coral?" "So much better, I "

"Don’t try to talk, rest. You’ll be taken care of here, tonight. To-mor-row, we’ll bring you home." To-morrow, she thought, my vacation starts. A lucky break. It all fits in. "Sleep, Coral—"

She could sleep. She could eat a little, a very little. Pete, his young face set and old under his sandy hair, spoke with the charge nurse. ‘‘ Go easy," said Pete. Half starved. A malnutrition case, if ever I saw one." It had all been fixed up. The paragraph in the papers wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans. People wouldn’t even notice it. So many suicides anyway. Suicides, attempted or otherwise, weren’t news, unless they concerned well known people, brokers jumping out of windows, or men -who took tho leap from bridges and made their going a sensational one. A girl who took a room for the night and turned on the gas—that wasn’t news, was it? Just a commonplace, an everyday commonplace. (To be Continued.)