Testimony Of Two Men (16 page)

He looked helplessly at the priest, and his young face was ghastly. “It must be a mistake,” he said. “Cancer! Martha! It’s unheard of, in children.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Jonathan, and he stood up also and moved nearer the agonized young couple. “Doctors just don’t speak of it, that’s all. You see, it is getting much more common now. I’ve seen eight other cases like Martha’s, Howard. Just eight. And they all—”

“Died,” said Howard and there was no expression in his voice.

“Died,” said Jonathan.

Howard held his wife even more tightly. He looked at Jonathan as one who looks at an executioner, with instinctive hatred and despair.

“How long?” he whispered.

“I don’t know, Howard. I honestly don’t know. Perhaps a few days, perhaps a few weeks or months. But not more than a year, not more than a year, and only that if she has a temporary remission.”

“I don’t believe you!” Howard exclaimed. “Old Louis Hedler would’ve told us! He said it was just anemia! He saw her last night! He’d know if it was—if it was—”

“Howard,” said the priest, and put his hand on the young man’s shoulder. But Howard gave him a blind, impersonal glare and shook off that hand. He was panting. Beth had become stiff and still in his arms, and cringing.

“I’ll call decent doctors, doctors with experience in this thing, doctors who
know!”
Howard shouted. “Not young quacks, not a man who—”

“Howard!” said the priest with authority.

“I don’t care!” shouted the frenzied Howard. “He’s lying!
I
don’t know why, but he’s lying! He wants to—I don’t believe him! We’ll take Martha away—to Philadelphia, to competent —one of those clinics—He lies!” He was out of breath. “He’s a rotten—”

“Howard!” said the priest, but again Howard shook him off. He pressed his cheek against his wife’s. “Don’t cry, darling, don’t cry. It’s all lies. Martha’s all right. She mustn’t see you like this. We’ll take Martha home today. We’ll take her to—” Now his eyes swelled with tears of agony and he looked at Jonathan with the utmost ferocity and loathing.

“How you could say such a thing! To a mother and a father!”

“I wish to God it was I,” said Jonathan. “I’d give my life, Howard. But it’s true. You mustn’t hope. It’s too true. You must prepare yourselves.”

“Oh, no,” said Beth, with her lips against her husband’s neck. “It’s not true. Not Martha. It’s just an infection—a bad cold. Martha was never sick a day in her life.”

Jonathan sighed. For the first time he saw Robert. Then he said to the priest, “Father, you mustn’t let them hope. There’s no hope. Just help them, that’s all, if you can.”

Howard almost screamed, “He’s a murderer, and everybody knows it! That’s why he said that—! He wants other people to die, too! He probably makes them die! He—” He strangled. “I’ll kill him,” he gasped. “I’ll surely kill him!”

The priest said to Jonathan, “Don’t mind, Jon. He doesn’t know what he’s saying, in his pain. Don’t mind. You don’t, do you?”

“Yes, I do,” said Jonathan. “I mind like hell. Did you expect me not to?”

“Poor Jon,” said the priest.

The big pretty room, shining with windows and sun, suddenly appeared horrible to Robert. He heard distant laughter in the corridor and, outside, the crunching of wheels over gravel and the sound of lawn mowers and the call of birds. So beautiful and peaceful, so full of life: He could not bear it. A child was dying, and no one cared out there, and no one knew, and when she was dead, it would all go on.

“There’s nothing?” the priest was saying.

“Nothing,” said Jonathan, and he walked slowly from the room and Robert followed him. Outside in the corridor Jonathan leaned against the wall as if exhausted, and he said in a venomous voice, “Christ.” In the waiting room Howard was incoherently shouting and the priest’s voice was low but persistent, and there was no sound from Beth at all.

Robert said, “I can see now, why you must go away. It’s bad enough, having to tell them, but this.” He stopped eloquently.

“Christ,” said Jonathan again, as if he had not heard. He lifted himself away from the wall and walked away. After a moment Robert followed. “We love him so much,” Beth had said. Robert wanted to hit something with all his strength.

Jonathan said, “That little kid.” He seemed to be speaking only to himself. “And old Witherby. There’s no sense to it, no sense to anything.”

In moments Jonathan’s bitter face had smoothed itself and he was opening another door and saying, “Hello, Mrs. Winters. How are we today?”

An elderly woman, very thin and with scanty white hair, was sitting high on pillows in a room that seemed oddly barren and deserted to Robert—who was still shaken—even if it was filled with sunlight and there were flowers on the dresser. It was as if no one was really here at all and had never been here and the old woman was merely a shadow. And a shadow did she appear, with her pallor and her cyanosed lips and pale strained eyes. But she smiled happily at Jonathan and when he took her dry hand, she pulled him down to her and kissed his cheek like a mother. “My dear boy,” she said. Her voice was low and whispering, and there was a faint pulsing in her throat. But her eyes were shrewd and intelligent. “What’s the matter, dear?” she asked. “Has something hurt you?”

“Nothing more than usual,” he said. “Now, don’t you worry about me. How did you sleep last night?” He took up her chart and studied it closely.

“Wonderful,” she said. She looked with mild but polite curiosity at Robert. She had a fine worn face, aristocratic and controlled, and her nightgown was of embroidered batiste. Jonathan continued to study the chart. “This is young Dr. Morgan, Mrs. Winters. My replacement. Robert, this is Elizabeth Winters, my favorite patient, and a saint.”

“He talks nonsense,” said Mrs. Winters, holding out her hand to Robert. He took the slight old hand; it was very cold, though the room was hot. “We’re not going to let him go, are we, Dr. Morgan?”

Heart failure, thought Robert. The old lady had an indomitable appearance, he saw now, and a strong spirit. There was a small bottle of digitalis on her bedside table. It was very strange, but the room did feel empty, as if she were already dead. What had she said? “We’re not going to let him go, are we?” Jonathan put down the chart and came to the bedside again.

“Breathing better?” he asked.

“Much better, thanks to you, Jon. I’m sure I feel better than you do.”

“I haven’t the slightest doubt. You couldn’t feel worse.” It was an effort for her to laugh, but she did. However, she studied Jon. “If you leave me, I’ll die on somebody’s hands.” After a moment she added, “I hope so. Jon, why do you insist on keeping this old body alive? I keep fighting you.” She paused to get her breath. “You’re just perverse.”

“Of course I am. I like to see people keeping on living. Besides, we don’t have many good people in the world, and when we lose one, we’re that much poorer. That’s why I want you to live.”

“For what?” Now her voice had become a whisper again. Her exhausted eyes looked up at him with unaffected simplicity.

“For me. Let’s say that.” He nodded at Robert, who opened his bag. “Dr. Morgan is going to examine you, Mrs. Winters, so he’ll know, too, how to keep a good soul alive as long as possible.”

“He’s so young,” she said, and with affection. Her breathing was more difficult Robert examined her with his stethoscope and knew almost at once that she was dying. She had tachycardia and arrhythmias, slurred heart sounds, sudden galloping rhythms, and her lungs were full of rales, sibilant and scattered. Acute left heart failure; it would not be long before her right heart failed also. Robert looked at the digitalis thoughtfully. “Well,” said Jonathan, “why do you suppose I prescribed that? Be frank. Mrs. Winters is an intelligent woman and you can’t frighten her.”

“You gave it because of rapid auricular fibrillation,” said Robert, after hesitation. (“Never discuss a patient in his presence, even with another physician,” he had been taught)

“Correct,” said Jonathan.

“Sedatives? Diuretics?” said Robert

“Yes. Opiates. And mercury compounds. Anything else you’d like to suggest Doctor?”

Robert again hesitated. He thought I’d like to give her hope. “No,” he said.

Jonathan smiled. He looked at the flowers. “Thank you for them, Jon,” said Mrs. Winters. She coughed, and put her handkerchief to her mouth, and wheezed for breath. But after the spasm she said, “I know. There wasn’t any card. But who would send them except you, dear?”

“Lots of people. The nurses love you.”

She was so spent that she only moved her head in faintly smiling denial on her pillows. Again Jon bent and kissed her cheek. “Keep alive,” he said. “I need you.” He added, “My mother is coming in to see you this afternoon.”

“Sweet Marjorie,” said Mrs. Winters, and closed her eyes. Jonathan left the room and Robert followed him. They stood near the door in silence for a few moments. Then Jonathan said, “That’s the classic example of how not to treat your children.”

“She doesn’t want to live, does she?”

“No, she doesn’t. And hope, in congestive heart failure, is the most potent drug. She hasn’t any. What was I saying? Mrs. Winters is another of the ‘old settlers.’ She’s a widow. She was attached to her husband, in a way, but her whole life was centered on two daughters and one son. She inherited a fortune from her parents and another from her husband. Now she doesn’t have a cent.”

“What did she do with it?”

“She didn’t spend it on riotous living! She let her daughters and her son persuade her to turn her money over to them. They’d take the most wonderful care of dear Mama; Mama was too unsophisticated to manage by herself; dear Mama’s sweet head mustn’t be bothered by all those nasty financial details; Mama must live and be happy and let lovely Bertha and Grace and Sonny Jim take care of all matters and deal with those old lawyers and banks and other ugly things. Mama Deserved to Enjoy Life now Her Family was Grown.”

Jonathan’s voice had taken on the viciousness Robert had heard so often before.

“Well, dear Mama listened to all those cooing and loving voices, those dear and darling voices of her children. They were married; the daughters live in Philadelphia and Sonny Jim, when he got his dirty hands on all that cash, moved on to New York. Oh, they don’t let her starve! She has a single bedroom in the very hotel where you’re staying just now, and they pay her medical bills and remember her with a little-modest—gift at Christmas and sometimes, when they’re not too busy spending her money, they send her a birthday card. Sometimes. And once a year they all write her a brief note. They’re so busy, you see.

“She let them wheedle and lie her out of her money twenty years ago. They’ve had children since then. Six grandchildren. She’s seen only one, and he was a baby and now he’s at Princeton. She never saw the others. They didn’t encourage her to visit. Mama was too frail, they said. And they never came back to Hambledon. Why should they? They have what they had set out to get. Right from the moment their father died. She hasn’t even a photograph of her grandchildren.

“She knows. She’s not a mawkish fool. She doesn’t save the cards and the infrequent letters they send her—when they remember she’s still alive, which they regret. She did have a photograph of the three greedy and accursed devils. Up to about five years ago. Then she destroyed it. When people ask her if she has children, she says ‘no.’ She really doesn’t. In fact, she never did. She gave them too much of her love, too much of her time, too much of her devotion. She gave them her life. So naturally, they took everything and returned nothing. And she knows. She also knows it is entirely her own fault, and she doesn’t blame them. She did it to herself. She understands that if she had kept her money, they’d be rushing around her all the time and smothering her with affection.

“And she doesn’t want that affection. She doesn’t want bought kisses and bought remembrances and lying, loving letters. If she can’t have the real article, she doesn’t want anything else. In a way, it’s a relief to her that she isn’t fooled any longer. If she blames anyone, it is herself—not for giving them the money, but because she wasted her life and wasted her husband’s life. What she gave him—the remnants left over after she had given most of the cloth to her children— wasn’t enough, and now she mourns for her husband and wants to hurry off to him to beg his forgiveness, for her own blindness and selfishness.”

“Tragic,” said Robert, much depressed. He thought of his mother, who kept a hard closed hand on her purse and he said to himself, Good for you, old girl.

“The most tragic thing in fife is not losing those you care for most, or suffering loss or pain. It’s making a damned fool out of yourself—when it wasn’t necessary. That’s the hardest thing to bear.” He looked at Robert and smiled a little. “That’s what I did. And I’m paying for it.”

“I wonder,” said Robert, the young and now depressed, “if
I
should ask my mother to visit Mrs. Winters. She does love the ‘old settlers,’ you know. And she’s great on what she calls •visiting the sick,’ provided it doesn’t cost more than a few flowers or
a
scented handkerchief or a pot of calves’ foot jelly.”

“No,” said Jonathan. “I haven’t met your mother yet, but I’ve a good idea of what’s she like. She’d probably tell Mrs. Winters that she’s been a fool, and she’d be quite right. But telling
a
person that she’s been a fool only brings the fact closer to home, and it’s not calculated to do the patient any good.”