GI Brides (48 page)

“Oh my mother, my
mother
! I just know she’ll
die,
and what shall we
do
? We shouldn’t have come to Grandma’s funeral. I knew it was bad luck when we started, and now Mother’s going to die, and what’ll become of
us
? Oh, they say there are always three deaths in a family after one has come, so one of
us
will have to die, and it
can’t
be
me,
for I’m
scared
!”

Wildly Corliss was carrying on, screaming so that the sound could be heard all up and down the street. Dale reached over to her aunt’s place where a clean napkin was set by the plate, and unfolding it, she quietly dipped it into the glass of ice water and then went over and knelt beside the frantic Corliss. Talking gently, she put the cold, wet napkin on the girl’s hot forehead and eyes. Quickly she washed her face till the girl gasped and finally ceased to scream so wildly.

“There, there, dear,” she was saying, “quiet down, little girl. We’ll call up and find out just how your mother is. Maybe it isn’t as bad as you think. It’s always hard to understand anything over the phone, especially when you’re excited. But you’ll have to stop crying before I try to call, or I can’t hear what they say.”

“Aw, shut up, Corrie,” said Powelton, suddenly rousing to the fact that he was the man of the family and ought to do something about it. “Shut up, Corrie. Shut up till we find out!”

And at last the screaming ceased entirely, and Dale went to retrieve the receiver and discover if she could what nurse had been talking to Corliss. But by that time, of course, the hospital had hung up and the operator was calling: “Won’t you please hang up your receiver?”

But at last Dale got the right nurse and a small amount of information, enough to know that they could not tell yet how badly Aunt Blanche had been injured. They had just taken her to the operating room and wouldn’t be able to give more definite information until the doctor came back from the operation. And, anyway, the woman’s relatives had better come to the hospital as soon as possible, as they might be needed. If she rallied, she might want to talk to them.

At the word about their mother having gone to the operating room Corliss went into another fit of terrible weeping, and Dale had to put more ice water on her face and soothe her like a child to bring her back to normal again.

“Aw, shut up, can’t ya!” wailed the boy, almost as overwrought as his sister.

“Come on,” said Dale. “We’ll have to go right down to the hospital and see if she wants us for anything, and you two mustn’t be weeping when you go in or they’ll put you right out of the place. And you know your mother might need you very badly for some reason. Come, grow up and be a man and a woman for this emergency.”

So she coaxed them along until she got them to go upstairs and prepare for going to the hospital.

“Corliss,” she said, “I’ve got a pretty pink bed jacket. Come over to my room and see if you think your mother would like you to bring it over for her. And wouldn’t she want some pretty nightgowns? Go to her bureau and pick out a couple. I know she won’t like wearing those hospital gowns they have, not after she begins to get better.”

So she distracted the child from her horror and fear over her mother’s possible fate and got her interested in preparing to please her mother, a thing she had hardly ever gotten her interest off herself long enough to even think of. Then again she talked in a soothing way. “Come, cheer up. You don’t want to go weepy when you get there. Your part will be to act cheerful. That will help her to get well quicker.”

“Oh, do you think she’ll ever get well?” It was Corliss who cried out again.

“Why yes, of course,” said Dale with more hope in her voice than she actually felt sure of herself. And in her heart she began to pray that the Lord would intervene and help them all. Then finally, with the aid of Hattie, who appeared helpfully at the right minute, they finally got started to the hospital.

Out in the street, Corliss seemed to put aside her fears and became interested in the people she was passing, but the boy walked gravely along, scarcely speaking at all. Dale wondered if he really was touched by his mother’s condition. And what kind of a scene would they make when they reached the hospital? Corliss, who was used to letting her feelings govern her actions. Would she realize that they wouldn’t stand for her tantrums in a hospital? Once she tried to explain to them that they must remember they would have to be very quiet when they got there, because there were a great many sick people there, some of whom were in a most critical condition.

“Well, I guess my mother’s as sick as anybody, and why should I think about other people when I’m feeling bad about my mother?” put in Corliss.

“But why would you want to make other people suffer? It won’t hurt your mother any for you to be kind and thoughtful for others.”

“I won’t worry about other people. I’ll feel bad about my mother if I want to. And you can’t stop me. I’ll scream if I like, no matter what you say.” This from Corliss.

“I’m afraid you would have somebody more unpleasant to deal with than myself,” said Dale quietly. “The hospital authorities wouldn’t allow you to stay there if you should make an outcry. They would have the orderly put you out.”

“Put me out! They wouldn’t
dare.
”

“Oh yes they would. It is their business to keep the hospital quiet for the sick people for whom they are responsible. Your mother is one of their parents, and for
her
sake, at least, you would not want to make a disturbance. Your mother might hear it, and it would make her worse.”

“Oh, she knows me. She wouldn’t mind what I did,” said Corliss.

“Well, I don’t believe you would enjoy being put out of the hospital because you wouldn’t keep the rules, and not be allowed to enter it again while your mother was there.”

“They wouldn’t
dare
!” said Corliss indignantly. “I never heard of such a thing. I would certainly tell them where to get off. I would get my mother’s lawyer to go and tell them. I guess they would be afraid of a lawyer, wouldn’t they?”

“I’m afraid not, Corliss,” said Dale sadly. “You see, they have their patients to look out for. You wouldn’t want them to let any harm come to your mother, would you?”

“Oh, there couldn’t any harm come to her that way. She knows me!”

“Aw, shut up, you little fool, you,” said Powelton, “and if you dare put on one of your acts at that hospital I’ll wallop you, and I don’t mean maybe.”

Corliss gave a half-frightened gasp and glanced at him sideways. It was evident she had experienced one of her loving brother’s wallopings in the past and had no desire to have another. Not this time. So they continued on their way in silence, and Dale felt almost sorry for the naughty girl who kept giving her brother speculative glances from time to time. When they reached the hospital, Corliss paused at the steps of the large building.

“I’ll just wait out here,” she said, “while you go in, Dale. I’m scared to go in until you find out how Mother is.”

“No,” said Dale firmly, “you’ll have to go in now with me. You might be needed at once, and there might not be time for me to come out and hunt for you.”

“Whaddaya mean?” she asked with bated breath, a gray look coming over her face. “You don’t think she’s dead, do you?”

“No, no, Corliss,” said Dale quietly. “I trust not. They told us to come at once, so we must go in.”

“Oh-h-h-!” began Corliss with every evidence of a tantrum nearing. Dale cast a hopeless, troubled look at her and wondered desperately what she should do next to prevent an outbreak, but to her astonishment Powelton stepped before his sister and looked into her eyes.

“Now, Corrie, you just pipe down and behave yourself. Understand?”

Corliss dropped her glance and ducked her head and went, beaten, up the steps. She dropped gratefully into the seat where Dale placed her, while Dale went up to the desk and found out where they were to go.

They had to wait a little while to get any information at all about the invalid.

“She’s still in the operating room,” was all the information they could get at first. But after a long, long wait, a white-starched nurse came rattling down the corridor and told them they could come up and look at her for a moment but that she was not yet out of the anesthesia and they could not stay.

They followed the nurse, filled with awe and horror as they passed open doors with glimpses of white beds and white faces on the pillows. And then they arrived at the ward with rows of beds and more white faces on pillows.

As they entered the doorway, Corliss stopped stock-still. “But that is the
ward,
” she said to the nurse. “You can’t put
my mother
in the ward. She would be
furious
at being put in a ward.”

The nurse gave her a sweeping glance of contempt. “Sorry, miss,” she said calmly, “it was the only place we had left in the hospital. We are overcrowded, as you can easily see.”

“Well then, you should have sent her to some other hospital,” said Corliss, sounding so much like her mother that Dale looked at her in astonishment.

“That wouldn’t have been possible if we wanted to save her life,” the nurse said. “She was bleeding and unable to say where she wanted to go even if we had had time to ask her. There was no one with her, of course, to answer for her. But anyway, we had no other room or bed.”

“Well, you must have her moved at once into a private room. No matter what it costs.”

“It isn’t a matter of cost, miss,” said the nurse, with another withering glance at the girl. “There
isn’t
any other room.”

“Then we’ll have her taken to another hospital at once,” said the spoiled child haughtily.

“That would be impossible,” said the nurse stiffly. “She has been operated on, and it would probably be a very serious matter to move her at present. Besides, all the others are full to overflowing. But anyway, you would have to see the doctor. And now, if you want to look in you’ll find your mother in the third bed from the far end.” And then the nurse turned coldly away and left the three standing alone in the doorway.

It was Dale who went forward, and after an instant of hesitation, Powelton followed her solemnly, walking gravely, as if at a church, feeling that the walk he had to take was miles in length, with all those white staring faces from pillows on each side of him.

But his going left Corliss alone, and Corliss, looking around on the unfamiliar scene, was frightened. Her haughty insolence faded suddenly away and left her trembling and ready to cry. Suddenly the tears came down, and she opened her mouth to scream, but the head nurse appeared at her side and, taking firm hold of her arm, steered her out into the hall.

“You mustn’t make a disturbance in there. There are some very sick women in there. One has just been brought from the operating room. If you frighten her, she might die.”

Corliss held her scream in the middle and stared at the nurse defiantly. “I’d like to see anybody stop me!” she gasped desperately. “How could you stop me?”

The nurse put out her hand and touched a button by the door. “I have called the orderly. When he gets here, which will be at once, if you haven’t stopped, he will muffle your mouth and carry you out instantly. We do not permit anybody in the hospital who cannot control themselves. If you make a disturbance now, you will not be admitted to this hospital again.”

“But—my—mother—is here!” quivered Corliss.

“It is for your mother’s sake, and others, that we make these rules,” said the nurse. “You wouldn’t like your mother to die because she heard you scream and couldn’t get up and go to help you, would you?”

Corliss stared at the nurse with frightened eyes, and then suddenly the elevator in the hall arrived and a man in uniform came to the head nurse and saluted. “You sent for me,” he said, and his eyes suddenly looked questioningly at the pretty girl with bleary eyes.

“Yes,” said the nurse crisply, “I sent for you to carry this weeping girl away. But perhaps she has conquered herself. If she has, you won’t be needed.” The head nurse looked questioningly at Corliss, and suddenly Corliss straightened up and lifted her chin bravely.

“Yes, I’ll be all right,” she quavered.

“Well, that sounds better,” said the nurse coldly. “But Jasper, you better stay around and see if she keeps control.”

Corliss put on her haughty air and started down the aisle after her brother. “I’ll be all right,” she said with much the air her mother assumed to master people.

The head nurse watched her with an amused smile. She was a clever student of human nature and had an aptitude for conquering hysterical women who disturbed the peace.

Powelton and Dale were standing beside that third bed from the far end of the room and had for the moment forgotten Corliss, or else it might have been a lesson to them how to stop Corliss’s tantrums another time. But they were not watching and did not see her taking that long solemn walk alone. They were looking down at that stiff figure on the bed, swathed in bandages, her restless hands—wrapped in more bandages—were folded under the sheet; her arrogant face was unrecognizable through the sheltering gauze, only her lips visible and one arrogant eyebrow. It was almost as if she were dead. That was their first impression, for they were so little used to sickness and death. It was a ghastly sight to them to see this woman who had always carried all before her in any situation lying there so silent, so subdued, so almost frozen in a still helplessness.

Dale was startled to think a few short hours could bring about a phenomenon like this.

But Powelton seemed suddenly to have grown up. His face had lost its spoiled baby-boy roundness and seemed to be graven into a new, more dependable maturity. It was as if to him there had been shown a vision of the briefness and solemnity of life and what it was meant for, and a startling revelation of the fact that life wasn’t just meant for fun and one couldn’t get away from it no matter how hard one tried.

Then came Corliss, closely but unobtrusively shadowed by the head nurse, with the orderly openly watching her from the doorway. The question was, how would Corliss react to that white, still, swathed face, that rigid figure?