The Doctor Takes a Wife (20 page)

Min
’
s apartment—on the second floor—was a tricky thing of dark brown walls, chartreuse upholstered furniture, and a flickering mobile which danced from a string attached to the ceiling. Phil glanced about and shook his head. He kissed her cheek, told her to get to bed, made a note of her telephone number. He
’
d call her in the morning, or come over. Together, they
’
d work out something.

His eyelids were gritty before he got back to his hotel. He hated his car! Had seen entirely too much of it lately; he was hungry and sleepy, his muscles ached—but he had to talk to Page.

He went to his room long enough to take a quick shower and put on fresh clothes. Feeling better, at least physically, he went upstairs, knocked on Page
’
s door, said, “It
’
s Phil,” then turned the knob and went in.

She rose from the couch, a newspaper sliding to the floor, and he went swiftly across the room, put his arms about her, and kissed her—which was, of course, worth any thousands of words he could have said. She sighed a little in his embrace, and he looked at her ruefully. “Me and my women,” he said dryly. “Want to hear the story?”

She stared at him, almost angrily. “Of course I want to hear it!”

“Yeah,” he said hastily, “I thought you would.” He sat down beside her on the couch and lit a cigarette. “In a way, it isn
’
t much of a story—happens too often—but when a thing happens to
you,
or someone you
love...”
He told the sordid little tale swiftly, trying to indicate the change in Min. He mentioned me, and confessed his own feeling of guilt. “I should have kept an eye on her, for Whit
’
s sake, but I didn
’
t. So now—”

“This man out in Berilo
...”

He looked at her sharply. “Whit? Yeah, sure, he
’
d make an honest woman of her. The hitch there is that Min would jump off Eads Bridge before she
’
d take that way out. You see, Page, it
’
s the personalities behind all this
—
Whit
’
s and Min
’
s—and mine—that make this dreary little story different. I can
’
t just pass this off as another fallen girl about to have a bastard baby. It
’
s
Min,
and to some extent I
’
m to blame for the fix she
’
s in—so I
’
ll have to do something...”

She leaned away from him to look at his face. “Phil,” she said firmly, “you cannot—you must not!—abort.”

He swore at the ashes which his jerking hand spilled from his cigarette-end.

“You talk an awful lot about personalities,” Page reminded him. “Well, I
’
ve made a study of yours—”

He smiled, and she nodded. “I have,” she assured him. “And I am entirely sure of one thing. If you
’
d do a thing like that, it would completely destroy your further usefulness as a doctor. The self-knowledge that you would do such a thing would undermine your self-respect. And I don
’
t mean to stand by and see such deliberate destruction. The Staff here thinks you have a rare gift, and I
’
m sure that they are right.”

Her manner, quite as much as her words, knocked the breath out of Phil. He slumped back against the couch
corner
, and pounded his heels on the mg. “But, Page, Honey—I can
’
t take much pleasure in any ideals that would make me turn my back on a friend. Min—”

“Of course, you have to help her,” Page agreed quickly. “You—” She looked away from him, steadied herself, and said, “You could marry her, Phi
l.
”

“Huh?” said Phil.

“Certainly.” She warmed to her plea for Min. “Remember, Phil
—
I
’
ve been burned in that fire. I thoroughly appreciate Min
’
s situation. I know what she
’
s going through.”

“But, gee gosh, girl...”

“I know. You aren
’
t the father.”

“Well, I
’
m glad you remember that!” he said sourly.

“But she came to you, expecting you to help her.”

Phil sprang to his feet. “I don
’
t care what she expected!” he yelled. “I
’
m not going to marry her!”

“That
’
s the only way you
can
help her.”

“But I love
you
.”

Her lips trembled; she stared up at the angry man, her eyes filling with tears of happiness and perplexity.

He looked at her for a long minute; his eyes touched the soft waves of her pale hair, the fold of gold silk within the opening of her green jacket, the little pins upon the lapel—her wide, innocent gray eyes, her soft lips. He sat down beside her, and took her hand in his. “Doesn
’
t that make a difference?” he asked softly.

Her cheeks flushed with the warm glow of knowing herself to be a woman cherished and wanted above a
ll
other women. “Yes,” she said, “it does make a difference
...”

Of course, then, Phil kissed her
...

Quite a bit later, in a glow of triumphant accomplishment—he
’
d been working on this for six months, after all
—
Phil bade Page comb her hair and put on fresh lipstick; he
’
d take her to dinner.

“Dinner?” she repeated vaguely, dreamily.

“And high time, too. It
’
s nine o
’
clock.”

“Oh, it can
’
t be!”

“Get going!” he cried, “or it
’
ll be ten!”

They went to Garavelli
’
s, Page shyly remembering that it was the scene of their first date.

“You talked about IQ
’
s,” Phil accused her.

“Ye-es. But that was because I knew I could like you if I
’
d let myself go, and I was afraid.”

“That was the night I decided I despised you.”

“Oh
...
”

H laughed. “My decisions aren
’
t worth much. T.G.” He had to explain the letters, happy somehow that he did have to. It was going to be fun warming this girl at the pleasant fires of modern life and experience...

“We still have to decide about Min,” she told him practically. “Of course, the poor thing is in love with you.”

“So a woman is a poor thing if she
...
”

She dimpled under his teasing. “I think I have a plan
...”
she said tentatively.

He was winding spaghetti, but looked up at her with a grin, which was undoubtedly Phil
’
s best asset. His nice mouth spread into an open triangle, his cheeks were deeply bracketed, little smile-wrinkles fanned out from the corners of his twinkly brown eyes, and his left eyebrow quirked up
...

Page studied his face, and sighed a little.

“What was that for?” he demanded.

“Oh, you
’
re so—so clean.”

He snorted. “Well, I should hope so!”

She blushed and went to work on her own tangle of spaghetti. “I meant—more than soap and water,” she said softly.

“The
plan
,”
said Phil. “Let
’
s talk about that.”

“Oh,” said Page. “Yes. Well, it
’
s not an entirely new idea, Phil.”

“My mistake. I thought it concerned Min.”

“It does. I mean, it can be used to her interest.” “How?”

“If you
’
ll let me tell you, you
’
ll see how.”

“Excuse me! I
’
m mute—absolutely mute.”

“You don
’
t sound it.” She acknowledged his laughter
with an emphatic duck of her pretty head. “But listen now. You see, I
’
ve known for some time that you should be going back to your clinic and hospital. I began to think that the day I took you to see our lab—and you talked about that carpenter with multiple sclerosis. I kept on thinking it, especially when I heard all the females gurgle over you on TV—”

Phil chuckled. “I was jealous,” she admitted. “But it made me think about you, and the work you might be doing. Then, down in the hills, what Jennie said to you about hands—she was so right, Phil!” She leaned toward him, her velvet eyes big with earnestness. “You do have wonderful, living hands—and you should be using them
!
Some of us have to be brains pickled in a lab jar—”

“Hey!” cried Phil. “Don
’
t you know better than to throw a man
’
s words back into his own teeth?” He sounded almost angry.

“No,” she said meekly. “I don
’
t know better. I
’
m not very skillful at pleasing men.”

“Oh, I
’
m sorry, Honey,” Phil cried. “That wasn
’
t what I meant. It—well, it
’
s a matter of a chap saying things under certain circumstances that he wouldn
’
t think of saying at another time, or would even believe—”

“I see what you mean,” said Page, seriously. “Just the same, my idea that you ought to go back and do active work seems to wear pretty well. I believe in it more firmly all the time. What
’
s more, I
’
m pretty sure that by this time you agree with me.”

“Well—” Phil looked around the big, bright restaurant There was the usual crowd of that time in the evening
—
mostly University students and their dates—eating sandwiches and drinking beer. Talking loudly to impress the world with what they knew, or had still to learn.

Phil brought his gaze back to Page. “Yes,” he agreed, “although it means acknowledging that I
’
ve failed to do what I set out to accomplish, I
’
m about persuaded that my trip here was a mistake.”

“If you had the idea of wanting to do research, Phil, it was not a mistake to put it to the test.”

“I withdraw
mistake.
I
’
d never have met you had I stayed with my job in Idaho.”

She looked so confused that he took pity on her. “Just blush modestly, Dr.
Arning
, and murmur that you
’
re glad I made my mistake.”

“But I am glad you came to St. Louis!” she assured him seriously, and Phil patted her hand.

The waiter brought their silver bowls of Burgundy cherry ice cream then, and after he had gone away, Phil acknowledged that the trip to the Ozarks—Marsy—and Jennie—and Jared—had had its effect on him, too.

“I couldn
’
t help but imagine what a difference one more doctor would make to those people, Page,” he said absorbedly. “And Jennie
’
s lecture got to me, too. Her sadness about me. Of course, the surface was raw, and maybe she flicked it intentionally—but just the same—

“Now Idaho is in no way comparable to southern Missouri. Our mountains are higher, our distances greater
—
our people are of a more rugged type—better health, education, economic position. But it
’
s still a rural community, if you
’
re right honest about it. Makes no difference, really, if a ranch is a matter of five thousand acres, or if it is a farm of four. Our mountains of lava rock and chaparral can make a sick woman just as inaccessible to city hospitals as Marsy was—and doctors are needed for those people. Good, solid medicine is their right.

“I was giving that sort of medicine to the people around Berilo; I knew it even then, when I walked out. I was needed, and I was busy. I did no research—but let
’
s face it—wherever I am, I probably never will do any research of real value. I did no charity work as such in Berilo
—
and I have at least done that here in the clinics
...”

“Why didn
’
t you do any in Berilo?” asked Page curiously. “Aren
’
t there any poor people there?”

Phil regarded her, his mind back in Idaho. He thought of the people there, the city—the tree-bordered streets of the Valley, the gardened, trim homes on the benches, the farms beyond the town, and the isolated ranches
...

“No,” he said thoughtfully, “not in the sense of those people down in the Ozarks, or the poor neighborhoods here in the city. Some ranch houses are small, and without conveniences. But the people are well-fed and warmly clothed. I can t
hink
of only one short street in Berilo which could be called a
‘
slum,
’
and it isn
’
t too bad. The houses need paint, the yards are cluttered—I remember hearing, too, that Berilo was one city in the United States which never felt the depression of the 30
’
s. It was growing so fast that there was always work for its people
...”

“Why,” she cried, “it must be a wonderful place!”