Mignon Eberhart - Wolf in Man’s Clothing

Alexia said sharply, “Naturally. For your own good I’m telling you you’d better leave. Craig doesn’t want you. Conrad won’t have you here.”

Up to that point the interview had been candid to an embarrassing degree. But just then there was a kind of secret shifting of the emotions which had been hurtling around my defenseless (but I must say heartily listening) ears. Drue said slowly and thoughtfully, “I came here, Alexia, because they said Craig might die. But now that I’m here, if I can, I-I’m going to find out what really happened.”

Alexia’s eyes sharpened.

“What do you mean?”

“I believe you know what I mean,” said Drue rather slowly, watching Alexia.

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” said Alexia swiftly, too swiftly.

There was a moment’s silence. Then Drue said, still very quietly, “Perhaps not. But I’m going to talk to Craig.”

“He’s-he’s too sick,” said Alexia quickly. “You can’t. Besides, Conrad won’t let you.”

“Conrad can’t stop me,” said Drue.

“Oh, can’t he!” cried Alexia. “You’ll see.”

Again Drue seemed to consider for a moment. Then she said with something very honest and appealing in her voice and face, “Alexia, you are Conrad’s wife. It’s nothing to you-what happened in the past. I don’t suppose we can be friends…”

“Friends!” said Alexia with a sharp little laugh.

Drue went on steadily, “… but there is no reason why you should object to my nursing Craig, and to my having an understanding with him.”

“You’ve had your understanding,” said Alexia, “via the divorce courts.”

“But that,” began Drue, very white now and firm, “was because he wanted it and…”

“Certainly, he wanted it,” cut in Alexia. “Did he ever come back to you later? You don’t need to answer that. I know he didn’t. It’s no good arguing with me, Drue. Besides, even if I used my influence with Conrad in your favor-and I have influence, don’t mistake that-he would still not listen. You wrecked all his plans for Craig. He won’t have you in the house. And Craig doesn’t want you. There’s no mystery about the thing; if you’ve come here with that in your mind, you may as well leave voluntarily. You left Craig; you went to Reno; you sued for divorce. You were offered a settlement which you, rather unwisely, I thought, refused. The divorce went through without a hitch. That’s all there was to it.” Alexia paused, caught her breath and added quickly, “If that’s why you’ve come back-to get some money, I mean-Conrad won’t give it to you. He would have given it to you at the time of the divorce. He offered what must have seemed to you, in your circumstances”-her glance swept Drue up and down quite as if Drue’s skirt were threadbare and her shoes patched (as a matter of fact, Drue has all the American woman’s clothes sense and always looks soignée and smart, and did that day)-“what must have seemed a fortune to you,” said Alexia, and smiled. At that Drue went dead white and so rigid that only her eyes were alive, and they were blazing. Alexia stopped smiling and became perfectly still, too, and tense. So I knew it was time to do something. I’ve dealt with too many hysterical patients and even occasionally a hysterical student nurse not to know that when a woman stops talking and looks like that one must act-but quickly.

I put my arm through Drue’s and said with some haste and firmness, “I’m going to change my uniform. Come with me, Drue.”

I drew her along with me toward the rooms at the end of the hall where our bags had been taken. Alexia called after us, lifting her voice, “There is a six-thirty train. The station wagon will be at the door at six.” She stood there, I was sure, watching our progress down the hall. The little terrier had quietly emerged from the bedroom close to Drue. I wasn’t aware of him until we reached my room and I saw that Drue went inside first and the terrier came, too.

Again I closed the door. I said, “Well…” a little forcefully and put down my handbag and gloves, and took off my hat.

It was a pleasant room, plainly furnished, but bright with chintz and plenty of windows. It was obviously intended for just such use-a trained nurse, an extra guest. Along one wall was a door into a bathroom which connected on the other side with the room Drue was to have, and her bags were stacked there, for I went and looked.

When I came back, Drue was standing by the window, holding the dog tight in her arms, looking down through the streaming rain. I took out my keys, knelt to open the suitcase that held a supply of uniforms and said, “All right. What’s all this about?”

She turned from the window. “I had to do it this way, Sarah. I had to come and I had to have you with me. I didn’t dare tell you he’d been shot. I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

“You knew good and well I wouldn’t have come.”

“They telephoned to me, you see, from the Registry office. As soon as I heard it was-was Craig, it was like-well, fate. As if…” Her voice stopped and, after a moment, she said in a kind of choked way, “As if that was why I had learned to be a nurse. So I could nurse him. They said he might not live, and”-she finished in an unsteady whisper-“there is so much I haven’t said to him.”

The room was very quiet for a moment. That’s the gnawing heartache of death, of course; the thought of the things you didn’t say and now cannot ever say. The permanent severance of communication.

It did no good to think of that. I rustled out a starchy uniform and said briskly, “Well, you’re here now and so am I.” I got up from my knees-not too easily, for I’m well past the age of springing lightly from cliff to cliff like a gazelle, or perhaps I mean a mountain goat-well, at any rate I got up and put the uniform on the bed. “He looks pretty tough. That’s why you telephoned to me yourself?”

“I made the girl at the Registry office let me telephone to you and make the arrangements. I was afraid if she talked to you she’d tell you the truth…”

I said tritely, “Honest confession is good for the soul,” and got out my nursing watch with the second hand on it and strapped it to my wrist.

“Oh, Sarah, you are a darling.”

“Fiddlesticks. You mean, I’m a good nurse.” But I let myself look at her then and she smiled faintly.

“You’d better take off your jacket and get on with the story,” I said practically. Obediently she slipped off her suit coat. She looked very young in her plain white blouse and short green skirt; she pushed her shining curls upward with one hand, absently, and said bleakly, “You heard Alexia. They’ll try to make me leave. But I’m not going.”

Well, certainly the interview with Alexia had left little to the imagination in that respect. But I didn’t think Drue had stolen the family silver or murdered Grandpa during what must have been a fairly brief sojourn under the Brent roof. For I had known her when she was in training, a thin, hard-working child of eighteen or thereabouts, with a gay smile and intelligent eyes. I had then been a Supervisor (which I understand the student nurses spell with an n and two o’s) but had liked her nursing and remembered her later when we met again, both doing private duty. We knew each other well, in spite of the constant coming and going-the interruptions, the weeks and sometimes months of dropping out of sight while on a long or troublesome case-that make up a private nurse’s life. Yet she had never mentioned nor hinted at this particular interstice, so to speak. Unless the sudden dropping away of a very smitten and attentive young interne, a few months ago, was such a hint.

I got out studs. “I’ve got to hurry. You and this Craig Brent met and married. It must have been very quiet-I usually know about these things. Well, then you were divorced. Conrad must be Craig’s father and he must have money. Alexia, who does not appear to be exactly a friend…”