Корнелл Вулрич - A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

“You’re the very one should know,” she murmured. “You are a policeman. I understand that now; I didn’t when you first came in— That’s why you wear that little thing — there—” She toppled over on her side, and shielded her eyes with one best forearm. “Please Mr. Policeman. Catch them, make them give tomorrow back.”

And then somebody’s strong arms went around her and gently lifted and held her. The strong arms carried her and placed her on something soft that sank a little under her. And the gray smoke rolled in like a blanket and covered her all up. She could even feel it being tucked in around her chin.

When the haze that had misted her eyes had cleared away again, as at last it did, Papa was there in the room with her; he was the first one she saw. He was standing, back from the bed a little, beside a chair. In the chair sat Mamma, pressed close against him, his arm consolingly about her shoulder. Within her clenched hand, raised to just below her face, she held a tiny balled-up handkerchief, and from time to time would press it to her nose. But she was not crying now, though just previously she evidently had been. This was just the leftover corrective from when she had been crying. Both their faces were haunted with concern, their eyes were fixed troubledly on her, with a steadfastness which indicated they had been gazing at her like this for a long time past. They did not smile at her, seemed too deeply troubled to be able to, even when they saw that she recognized them. Papa’s mustache even seemed to droop, for it was so heavy that it took whatever shape his mouth took under it, and his mouth therefore must have been turned deeply down.

Nearer at hand was someone else. She only noticed him last, for his head had been bent down low, listening to her breathing. She knew him to be a doctor, for she felt the tiny coolness his instrument made, moving here and there about her chest. She wasn’t afraid; she had had doctors do this before with a stethoscope, for a bad cold in the chest, perhaps. This was home, a part of home; a part of being with Papa and Mamma, a part of being safe, of being cared for.

His face was wise and grave as a doctor’s should be, as he righted his head at last. Glasses with a black cord at the side, and a trim, neat beard, not allowed to grow too long, and eyes that sympathized and gave you confidence.

“There, dear,” he said, and patted her shoulder, and made a gesture to reclose the open neck of her gown, which, however, he did not complete. She did it herself, her attention attracted to it by his gesture.

He put away his stethoscope, and turned to them, to Mamma and Papa, and said, “She is sound physically. There is no need for worry on that score. But—” And then he didn’t finish it.

Mamma’s face tightened up even more than it was already. “What is it, Doctor?” she said in a whisper that was almost superstitiously fearful.

“She has suffered great shock,” he said, and he rose now to finally face them in entirety, so that she could see only his back. He crossed the room before speaking further, and then, trickling water into a tumbler, said, “And those things sometimes take long to wear off.” Then bringing the tumbler back to her side, he took from his bag which sat open on the floor a neat little oblong paper packet, and deftly unfolded it to make a little trough of it, and from this allowed a white powder to sift into the water and cloud it to the hue of diluted milk. “And sometimes never,” he said, concluding at last his sentence.

Mamma gave a start and cried, “Oh, Doctor— Oh, no—!”

He stirred the dose by hand-motion alone, without the aid of any spoon, by giving his wrist a rotary motion. Then passed it to her and said, “Drink this, dear. Right down.”

She knew the taste, she’d experienced it before. Calomel.

“Now lie back and rest,” he said, when he’d taken the empty tumbler back from her, and gently placed his hand upon her forehead, again more as a gesture of what he wanted her to do than by exerting any actual pressure upon her.

She lay back and watched and listened, while he gave them his undivided attention at last.

Mamma said pleadingly, “What shall we do, Doctor? Doctor, what shall we do?’’

“There is nothing you can do, except wait and see. Nothing I can do, nothing anyone can do. Except let time go by.”

“Shall we take her back with us now, Doctor?” Mamma asked.

“Is it far?” he said.

She told him where it was, in Indiana. He closed his eyes briefly, as though he would have preferred it to be not that far. Then he said, “Yes, it’s better if you do, even if the trip is a tiring one. The sooner you take her out of this terrible room and what it spells for her, the better off she’ll be.”

Mamma got up at once, and went forthwith to the bureau drawers, almost briskly, as though the mere act of starting preparations cased her distress somewhat.

Papa looked out into the hall and called to someone unseen: “Will you send the porter up?” Then came back and reached into his pocket for his billfold.

The doctor took up his hat, and went to shake hands with Papa. Mamma quickly let the drawer be momentarily, to go and join in the leave-taking.

Someone knocked on the door, and the doctor went to it and looked out. He stood there awhile, just his back showing, while someone spoke to him.

When he had closed the door again, he motioned them to come nearer. “They’ve found him,” he breathed.

“Is he—?” Papa whispered.

“They found his body,” the doctor said. “The pockets were all inside out. He didn’t have his wallet with him. Maybe if he had had it on him, he wouldn’t have been killed.”

Mamma wrung her hands.

Papa looked down at the floor.

“I leave it up to you whether to tell her or not,” the doctor said. He sighed and shook his head. “Keep her to yourselves a lot. All you can. Don’t let people hurt her.”

Mamma said, “Who would want to hurt her, Doctor? Our little girl.”

“Nobody wall want to. But everyone will. Every time she sees a boy holding a girl by the hand. Every time she sees a couple dancing. Every time she sees a baby roll by in its carriage— Keep her to yourselves a lot. All you can, all you can.”

“But after we’re gone, Doctor?”

“Maybe it won’t matter any more by then. That would be the kindest thing. Hope for that, pray for that. Maybe it won’t matter any more by then.”

Then he patted Mamma on the shoulder, as one who tries to give solace where none can be given; then he shook Papa’s hand. Then he was gone.

Mamma returned to her, and kissed her on the forehead, but dry-eyed and calm and wise and strong now, as she had always been when her girl was a little girl; her tears and fears no more to be seen. She helped her from the bed and stood her there before her, and dressed her as she used to when she was small. From the inside to the out, button by button, and hook-and-eye by hook-and-eye. The only difference was — she, Mamma, no longer needed to bend down on the point of her knee as she had when she was six or seven, for she was taller now, a full-grown height, not a child’s height any more.

Papa in the meanwhile moved about in the background, his back to them; all the things were gone from the drawers. But on the top of the bureau his tie for tomorrow still lay, untouched, just where he had put it. She wanted to go over to it and stroke it, but Mamma, with a quick glance to see what drew her, turned her gently, ever so gently, the other way. So gently that she could not be resisted, for there was no force there to resist, only gentleness and that is stronger than force.

A porter came in and took the valises out, but she was only dimly aware of that, for Mamma was standing before her blocking her view.