Flash and Filigree (10 page)

“Oh yeah?” challenged another blindly, “like a
fox
!”

“In any event, it is not a point of law,” the Doctor continued. “Our attitudes are quite outside the law.”

“It’s against the law to deliberately race against a red-light, I can tell you that!” said a young woman in a smart print.

“No,” replied the Doctor sympathetically enough, “let me reassure you on that head; it is not. Regardless of how we may agree or disagree as to the wording, one thing is certain: on an un-zoned stretch of road, you could not have a
race
—you see the contradiction we come up against.”

“You’d see the one you’d be up against if a tire blew out at that speed and you ran over and killed a little boy or girl on his way home from school! I think he ought to be locked up!”

“Fournier blues,”
said the Doctor firmly, “do not blow out. This is a matter of record. Moreover, school-children seldom cross un-zoned drives haphazardly. I’m afraid you do their training an injustice.”

“And suppose he was simply walking along the side of the road? On his way home from school? How would
you
feel?” The woman was visibly near tears.

“Madame,” said the Doctor softly, “with all due respect for your feelings on the matter, I must ask Judge Lester to remind you that this is a
court of law.
As a point of information, however, it so happens that the nearest
school
to Drexel and Canyon Drive is Westwood Catholic, five miles distant, and it is, correct me if I am wrong, a boarding school.”

“It is evident,” said Judge Lester, raising his mild voice to intervene, “that this Hearing could be protracted,
ad infinitum
so to speak. And it
may
be that a reconvening will be in order. For the moment, however, I am prepared to suggest that the Jury retire and consider the findings.” The Judge stopped and sorted his papers again. “I would like to put one last question to the principal party,” he continued then, looking directly at the Doctor. “Doctor, you said that you ‘know this stretch of road.’ I assume then it is a customary route with you. Is it a daily route?”

“It is
daily,
” replied the Doctor, “five days a week. It is usually twice daily, both ways; that is to say, I most often take lunch at home.”

“I see. Now. Is it your habit—and by habit, I mean simply the frequency of occurrence—to time your descent on the light at Drexel?”

“On the eastward, or return route, yes. On the west route, no. The west route does not, strictly speaking,
descend
on Drexel, but is an almost level approach, with a decline which begins no more than 75 yards from the light. Before that point, it is a blind approach.”

Judge Lester nodded, one hand resting against his temple. After a moment, he looked at his watch, and addressed the Jury:

“If there are no further questions, the Jury may retire. The issues here are not too well defined, but deliberation at this point may be fruitful in that respect. In any event, we will want to have some lunch now. Will the foreman-designate lead the Jury through this door, please.” The Judge ended, gesturing toward a small door between himself and the Jury, whereupon the businessman on the lower left rose and, with a formal bow in the direction of both the Judge and the Doctor, turned stiffly and began the procession through the small brown door.

“Doctor,” said Judge Lester raising his voice matter-of-factly above the scuffling, “you may wish to have some lunch, in the cafeteria on the second floor: through the door you entered and up the stairs on your right. You will please return to the anteroom before two o’clock.”

Then the two men exchanged little nods, rather curt, and each stepped off his stand and went in different directions, the Judge through a small brown door, identical, though opposite, to the one through which the Jury was passing; while the Doctor himself went back out through the big front door he had come in by.

B
ACK AT THE CLINIC,
just at the moment the Grand Jury was retiring, Babs Mintner was in Nurses’ Rest Room changing from her white habit into street clothes, preparing to take leave, this being Saturday noon.

Near the corner sofa farthest from the window stood a lacquered straw screen, provided for this very purpose: of these young women nurses changing in and out of their habits. This was suitable since all of them—with the exception of the nurses-in-residence, Eleanor Thorne and Beth Jackson—lived out. Now, however, Babs Mintner could only take half advantage of the screen in standing to one side of it, talking with Nurse Thorne who sat bright and clear-eyed, but rather stern, on the sofa close by.

“That’s a charming blouse,” said Nurse Thorne, as the girl drew a light grey shirt-waist over her head. “Where did you find it?” And her look narrowed to scrutiny.

“It
wasn’t
exactly what I wanted,” Babs began, shaking her curls defensively, but smiling as she stepped easily in front of the mirror, tucking the edges into her dark blue skirt.

“Oh, it’s lovely,” insisted Nurse Thorne in genuine admiration.

“But I do like it,” Babs continued matter-of-factly, turning this way and that before the glass, touching her hair and tossing it once, perhaps to free it from any interference it might have received in putting on the blouse. She began humming softly, adjusting the collar of the blouse, then reached behind to fasten snaps there. Nurse Thorne rose to help with the lower ones, whereupon Babs said, “Oh
thank
you,” in a little cry of surprised gratitude, though actually Nurse Thorne very often helped with these snaps, since she was frequently present when Babs was changing.

“I hope I’m not speaking out of turn, Barbara,” Eleanor said, pressing the first snap firmly closed, “. . . that is, I’m sure you won’t take offense, but . . . well, you can understand my position here, I mean, the responsibility, my responsibility to the staff . . .” Her eyes searched the glass, where Babs’ face was now a mask of blushing innocence, and went on at once in a lighter tone: “Beth—Nurse Jackson—was suggesting that there might be some reason to feel that, well, that one of our young men was
bothering
you.” She finished hurriedly, working with the snaps, but immediately raised her eyes again to the glass to fasten them hard and metal-bright in the soft, wide blueness of the girl’s own. And Babs gave a start of indignation:

“
Me?
Well,
I never .
. .
Beth
said that?
I
was bothered? But what did she
say
?”

“Oh, I assured her she was exaggerating,” Nurse Thorne hastened, soothing the girl, a hand on her shoulder, “that if there
had
been some indiscretion—well, you would have come to me.”

Barbara simply flushed crimson at this and lowered her great eyes.

“—that if
he
should,” continued Nurse Thorne, “and I won’t call any names here, or if
any of them
should . . .
say
anything improper to you, or make—
advances.
Well! You ought to tell me about it immediately!”

At this, Babs seemed to recover entirely, or at least enough to look again into the glass, pleasant and surprised.

“I’m referring, of course,” continued Nurse Thorne, a bit irritably, “to that boy in the Pharmacy, Mr. Edwards’ nephew.
Ralph.
” Whereupon Babs resumed her toilet, brushing her hair now, smiling carelessly, and even managing an airy laugh of protest. “No!” she cried gaily, “not
that
—excuse me—not him! Good heavens, how
could
Beth! Oh, really, it’s too funny!” And she brushed her hair merrily, “Really!” She turned brightly to face Nurse Thorne, who regarded the girl now with a disturbed smile.

“Naturally,” said the elder woman, “I wasn’t suggesting that
you
were interested in
him.
What I was getting at is: has
he
made any sort of overtures . . . to
you
?”

“Him?” cried Babs, crossing the room for her purse. “Why, how on earth could he? Oh, I mean, I suppose so! You know how boys are . . . Why, I wouldn’t have noticed it!” she declared finally, as though she had hit upon it; and in the moment of her triumph, she turned again, ingenuous, to face Eleanor Thorne, and looking every inch the American dream-girl, trim almost to masculine in the tapered blue gabardine skirt, and in the web-like pearl of her shirt-waist inviolate.

“Then there
was
something,” said Eleanor, looking away now, keeping her voice casual, though her face was terribly dark the while.

“But, Eleanor,” Babs pleaded, tossing her pretty head merely to insist, “don’t you
see? I wouldn’t have even noticed!
” And she gave her a look then that could only show how much she herself was marveling at her own unsuspecting goodness; whereupon Nurse Thorne, in a gesture of dropping the question entirely, came closer to the girl, very close, and still seemingly serious, but no longer frowning, touched her shoulder, while Babs’ eyes remained so wide with the wonder of it all.

“You look lovely,” said Eleanor, the edge of her voice a tremor. “It’s a wonderful effect,” speaking then as she gently touched the blouse-front, a net of sheen gray fainter than pearl, a dove-down diaphanous gray, fashioned, as it were, to hold in a web of insinuation that treasure nest of lace, the wide-bordered blue nylon slip that itself showed budding through the sheen as a filigree, an impossible perfection of softness, and a promise.

“I do like it,” admitted Babs, as though she were being quite frankly objective, looking toward the mirror, touching her hair. She stepped away from Nurse Thorne then to the mirror, and leaned peering into it as if she might have caught something amiss from the distance; but, at the glass it proved to be nothing, a fleck, or a shadow, and she sighed good-naturedly, and shrugged, perhaps slightly exasperated at her own flawlessness. Then, snapping the purse shut, she started for her coat in a surge of high spirits.

“Good heavens, I’ve got to run!” she cried, looking at her watch with feigned alarm. “That poor man won’t know whether he’s coming or going! I
am
awful!” And she beamed her mischievous-child best at Eleanor Thorne, but the other was still disturbed. “Barbara,” she said evenly, “a girl as attractive as you are should be very careful, where men are concerned,
very
careful.”

“
I’ll
say!” said Babs, knowingly grave at the door, caught up for one moment in the other’s seriousness; but as quickly became quite gay. “Here today, gone tomorrow!” she cried airily. “And good riddance to bad rubbish; they’re such babies, really.”

“Be sweet, dear,” said Nurse Thorne with a trace of grim sadness, and she leaned over to kiss the girl on the cheek, being careful not to muss her, but squeezing her shoulder quite hard.

“Bye now!” said Babs, smiling wholeheartedly and raising her hand, as she pushed open the door and was gone.

Nurse Thorne crossed the room to the sofa, and lay down there, one hand covering her half-closed, glittering eyes.

B
Y THE TIME
Babs reached the Clinic veranda and started down the front steps, it was evident that her excitement had lessened; her appearance no longer expressed the bubbling-over-with-the-sheer-joy-of-living that so marked her presence among others. Walking alongside the wide pebble drive now she seemed, less determinedly, a real part of things, her light coat neatly over her arm, the flat purse clasped firmly against her little rib-case, and one arm swinging free so as not to spoil the line, in case they should be watching from the Clinic. High heels were a bother, but one she accepted graciously, glancing down at the open-toes with interest and, even with a touch of pride, they were so small, as she walked along the drive, taking quick little click-clack steps, and thinking how she was, after all, never quite alone. And justly so perhaps, for as she approached the gate-walk now, her shoulders tremored and straightened slightly in the animal-like awareness of another presence, and, as a car drew near, overtaking her on the drive behind, along the back curve of her legs she seemed to feel each stocking-seam glisten and lie taut and ready as a stringed arrow.

It was Ralph Edwards, in his room-mate’s convertible.

“Hello there,” he said, slowing alongside Babs, then stopping the car a few yards ahead. He pushed the door open toward her. “Come on, I’ll give you a lift.” He had spoken quite casually, with no trace of his usual grin.

The girl’s next step was in the direction of the car-door, but she stopped, as though it had been involuntary, and asked, almost irritably: “Why, which way are you going?”

“Well, I meant to the bus-stop,” said Ralph, frowning. “. . . I’m going over to the school, but if there’s someplace I can drop you . . .” He glanced at his watch, “. . . I probably have time . . .”

“Oh, you needn’t bother about that,” said Babs, looking into the distance. “It’s such a lovely day!” she smiled radiantly at the things around, and for a moment, seemed on the verge of hugging herself; then, she let her smile complete the circle and come to rest on the young man’s face, as if he too must share in this good fortune of life.

“Well, come on,” he said, leaning toward the open door again clearly impatient. “I can drop you somewhere.”

She laughed, as though the court-idiot had thrown some odd-penny pearls at her feet. “No, really,” she touched at her hair, looking vaguely beyond him again. “It’s such a lovely day . . .”

“Please, Barbara,” said the boy earnestly, “I want to
talk
to you.”

Babs looked at him searchingly, perhaps as she would at a small boy whose antics were somewhat amusing, but not understandable. On the seat beside Ralph Edwards, like a lowered arm-rest that would be between them, was a large book. Then, without seeming to acknowledge the heart-felt desperation his tone belied, she got onto the seat, though quite close to the door of her own side. “Well, I wouldn’t mind for a little,” she said, still beaming. “It’s such a nice day for a drive.” And they were off.