“The Doctor”

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 26 August 1939, Page 3

“The Doctor”

by MARY ROBERTS RINEHART.

CHAPTER XLXIX Chris was not entirely cut off from his past, of course. Now and then there was a letter from Ted. The gratis business was great. but everybody else was away. "You're not missing anything." ! One clay Teel wrote that he had joined a private clinic. "All the works," he said. ‘‘Our motto is, “If , one of us can't soak you. another will.’ " They had taken a large suite of rooms in the new medical building, but there was still- a vacant room or two, and when Chris came back . . . There were letters from Katie, too. Cheerful letters from ’.ere and there, for she was making the usual summer round. ”1 haven't written for a while. There is so much going on. Everybody seems gay and prosperous these days, which reminds me that I’ll need a little extra money. Chris. The tips at these places are devastating. And do let me know how your arm is. Everybody asks, and I don't know what to say" He sent her money, writing his checks with his left hand and swearing furiously over his clumsiness: but letters were too much for him. Now and then he sent her a night letter, dictating it over the telephone. But she did not reply. Nevertheless he improved during those first few weeks. There was no visible change in his nrm. He still wore his splint, or when he tired of it, the sling which supported it; he still took

a drink or two at night to enable him to sleep. But his walk became sturjdier; there was even some of the old j eagerness in the forward thrust of his | shoulders. And he was using his left hand with greater efficiency. He had ! learned to fill his pipe and to light it. to tie his necktie, and even with great care to fasten his shoes. One day he tok a hoe and, going out into Letitia's garden, viciously attacked the weeds there. Some of the flowers went, too. in that assault of his; he sweated profusely. his back ached, the sun beat down on him mercilessly. But at the end he felt better, as if once more he had attacked and beaten something and that night he slept and did not dream. After that it was a daily chore, and sometimes Noel helped him. “You don't dig them out. You kill them!" “That's because I have a buried desire to murder any number of people.” Noel looked puzzled, but Chris was reading psychiatry now, puzzling over the problem of whether a man and his life were the result of forces he could r. 1 control, or he himself determined it. He had thought always of the human body. Now he began to wonder whether there was som ithinfe'else, and if so, what it was. “Religion calls it God. philosophy calls it the absolute, biology calls it life, psychology calls it mind.” "Do you believe in God, Noel?” “Sure. Don't you?” As simple as that to Noel, hoeing wildly, his fair hair moist and his face red with effort. As simple as that. You got into trouble and asked God to help you; and He bent dbwn from His great white throne and did so. It was some time before the . boy mentioned Chris’s hand, and then he d' so delicately. “I don’t suppose Mrs Miller'is much good with that bandage.” “She’s awful,” said Chris, with an eye on the house. “If you like. I could come oxer and help in the mornings. r d like to. I'm going to be a doctor some day.” “Then come along.” And so it was fixed. After that it came out into the open between them. “How is it to-day?” “Just the same.” “Funny, isn’t it? It looks all right.” “It’s asleep. You look the same when you're asleep, don’t you?” He could talk to the boy about his arm. To him there wei 1 no connotations of tragedy. “I suppose it will get well some-time.” “Maybe. Maybe not. The thing to do is to be a sport about it, old chap.” He was not much of a talker, young Noel. Years with Hiram had made him laconic. But on one subject he was loquacious enough. Th.c was the study of medicine, and Chris, delving deep into his memory, found himself back in the early days at medical college, at the hospital, starting out on his own. There was a certain release in it: the boy perhaps gravely whittling on the step and Chris going back, going back. “You didn’t get much sleep in those days, did you?” “I was young and strong.” “You’re not so old no a . At least you don’t look old.” The boy was good for him. His world was expanding again, he thought with a faint grin. It included a bo; and a dog now. But it was still very small, so small he could reach out and encompass it. Nevertheless he was

better. The tight band around his head ( had relaxed, and it no longer exhausted him to work in the garden. “Next year we’ll put in some vege- i tables," said Noel, mature and practical. "That's a real job." "Now that's an idea!" But his heart sank. Next year! i And the year after that, and so on : to the end of life. Chris found himself staring blankly into the future. Next year, and the next, and the next. j. Katie playing through her days. Beverly God knows where, and he him- 1 self . . . One thing, however, happened that! summer. He definitely abandoned the idea of suicide. He was seeing the thing j through. Noel helped him there, too. He was normal and healthy. He would j wander over, his feet bare, his overails.j faded and patched, to look at Chris j seriously from under his heavy thatch 1 of hair. “Looks as if the fish are rising in I the creek, if you feel like trying it.” j "I'll try anything once, son.” And they would go together, the man , and the boy. Chris, looking down at the . indomitable young figure, would feei J himself strangely stirred. Why hadn’t! he had a boy like this? Why indeed i hadn't he had this boy? Young Noel would leave him settled I somewhere along the stream and then wander off; and Chris would cast with his left hand, jerking the. fish,out on-! to the grass; but sometimes he was unable to relea.se the hook himself, and' Noel would find him quietly sitting on j

j Chris's face turned toward him, would j be smiling but bleak, j “Couldn't make the grade son.” “Sorry. Have you been waiting long?" I “Only a minute or two." j But Noel would find the fish very ! dead indeed, and know that Chris had j been sitting there, silent and alone, for j a long time. ! It came as a blow when the summer was over and the boy had to go back to school. Chris, seeing him young ancl forlorn on the station platform, felt a sharp contraction of the heart. He wanted almost fiercely to catch him to him, to hold him close for one minute. Instead he shook hands gravely, saving the boy's dignity and his own self-con- ! trol. “Good-bye. old pal," he said. “It won't be .long untill you’re back again. Then we'll have some high old times.” “Three months.” said Noel in a flat voice. “And maybe you won't be here then.., “I'll be here don't worry.” Amy was frankly crying as the train moved out. and Hiram was trying to comfort’her. Surely the boy had love enough—if Ursula could look down from some heavenly mountaintop and see him. But in the hard light of the autumn day Chris saw that both of them looked old and tired. Whatever the boy was to be, they would not live to see it, and they knew it. He felt a wave of pity for them, that this young life had come to them too late. When they got into Hiram’s rattling car, Chris put his arm around Amy. "He's a fine boy, my dear. You and Hiram, have' done a good job.” “And some day,” said Amy drearily, “we ll be going on, Chris, and he will be left behind.”

I “Not alone. Amy. Not while I live. That’s a promise." i Chris missed Noel even more than he had expected. The days were growing shorter now, and one night there was a frost, and Letitia's autumn flowers turned brown and dropped on their sapless ! stalks. The evenings became intolerably long, and Chris, lighting his fire in David’s study after Mrs Miller had j gone, would read as long as he could, and then sit for hours staring into his ; fire. Now and then he would rub his Jarm, working .gently. There was very little atrophy, but the hand still hung. ; without its splint, a dea<’ and heavy J thing. He would put every ounce in him into the will to move his fingers, j but they gave, him no response. And | he was doing just that late one night when, he heard a car outside and the | clicking of high heels on the porch. It j was Katie | She came in. rosy with health and | the frosty air. blithe and cheerful. “Well!'’ she said. “Of all the places ,to find! I’ve been all over the county. I And what a place when you do find it.” 1 He stood there, staring down at her, | trying to smile, trying to welcome her. i “You look as if you’ve had a good sum--1 “I can't wait to tell you about it. Can you bring in my bags, Chris? Or is there somebody here to do it?” , “I'm alone, as it happens, but I can bring them," Chris said. He went out into the dark. glad I for a moment of readjustment. When ) he came back. Katie had made a quick j survey of her-surroundings and was ; waiting for him. in the hall. She was an incongruous but attractive figure standing there in her ; smart cloths, her high-heeled pumps. Amazing how young she looked. he thought. A trifle pathetic, too, in those j surroundings. There was a place for her somewhere. She had something to give: her vitality, her gaiety, even her cheerful inconsequence. But she did not belong there, nor to him “You must be tired.” he said. “We can talk to-morrow. Now you'd better get to bed.” She agreed. The cheerfulness had gone out of her face, and she was silent as he led the way up the stairs. “I’m in here,” he told her and showed her that room of David's and Letitia’s with its broad bed. “You can sleep here or—there are other rooms. I’m afraid they re not ready for visitors'.’ But she elected a room of her own, 'and he was aware of a certain relief. “We'd only keep each other awake.” ,she said practically. “And I’d like to sleep in the morning. I've had one strenuous day. I suppose I can have my breakfast in bed.” "I dare say Mrs Miller can manage. It will be a novelty to her, I imagine!” It took two heavy siugs of Scotch to send him to sleep that night, and the next morning he saw, as he shaved, that his eyes were congested. He would have to watch himself, he thought.. It was too easy, that escape ; of his. (To be continued) Copyright by Mary Roberts Rinehart. . Distributed by King Features Syndicate,