Spice Box (9 page)

He looked at her thoughtfully.

“I’m glad that you feel that way,” he said soberly. “My mother used to believe that. She tried to teach it to me. But life came along and taught me the opposite. I saw so many good people suffering.”

“It isn’t being good that puts you under God’s special care,” said Janice. “It’s whether you accept what Christ did for you in taking your sins on Himself. Haven’t you ever done that?”

He looked at her curiously a moment and then said, “Well, I joined the church when I was a kid. Is that what you mean? Perhaps that was the old-fashioned way of saying it then.”

“No,” said the girl decidedly. “Joining the church is only an outward act to show what you have done in your heart. It hasn’t really anything to do with actually being saved. I don’t know a whole lot about it, but I can remember that was one of the things they emphasized. It was not being good that saved you. You did that as much as you could because of what Christ had done for you, and you wanted to please Him. It wasn’t joining the church nor being baptized, because they were outward witnesses for others to see. It was believing what Christ had done, in making atonement for our sin. Not just head belief that He once lived on earth and died, but the actual heart belief that accepts what He did as yours, when He took our sin on Himself and bore the shame of it as well as paid the penalty of death for it, that we might go free. If He did all that for us, He wouldn’t let us wander after that and get lost, would He? Not if He ever loved us enough to die for us. I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately, and it has been a great comfort.”

Then she suddenly grew shy at the look of wonder and tenderness in his eyes.

“I should think it would be,” he said gravely. “I never heard it explained just that way. I’ll have to think about that. In the meantime, I’m glad you have that to help you out. I’d like to talk about it again sometime. But now”—glancing at his wristwatch—“I guess it’s time we are due to go back and get to work. Thank you for this little talk. Perhaps it has helped me, too.”

As they drove in, one of the nurses came hurrying out with a message for the doctor, and he had to hasten in. But somehow that talk stayed with Janice and came back to her again when she was by herself, wishing that Sterling knew more about these things and could tell her instead of her having to tell him, for she felt as if she knew so little about it all, and she knew it was important to tell it right. She felt that she had been paying too much attention of late to this world, and how one could have everything desirable and all the loved ones safe and happy, and she had been getting away from her first faith. She must pray that God would put her right with His truth.

Then she went to work in the ward and put those thoughts away to be checked over another time.

But Sterling, as he quickly rushed to see the emergency case that had just been brought in, kept thinking about what the girl had said. Sweet Mary Whitmore—if her name was really Mary—he didn’t much believe it was. But how sweet and earnest she had been as she talked, and how well she expressed her thoughts! She certainly must have had unusual training in her young life.

J
anice had been a probationer in the Enderby Hospital for just four months and three days when she became aware that some of the other nurses were talking about her. She had been on duty overtime and had been sent by the head nurse to get some rest. How long she had slept she did not know, but she was awakened by a whispered conversation just outside her room door, carried on under her transom so that every word was distinctly audible. It was two nurses talking, and otherwise the large dormitory was very silent.

“Did you know that Sarah Brandt has come back from that Martin case up in the country where Dr. Sterling took the patient home?”

“No, when did she come?”

“About an hour ago. I’ve been up helping her unpack, and was she mad! Oh boy!”

“What was the matter? I thought she was so happy that she got the chance to go.”

“Well, I guess she was, but she is fed up with it now. She says she simply couldn’t stand the old lady Martin, she was particular, and she asked to be relieved. Of course she didn’t give that reason though. It seems that she wrote a letter to Dr. Sterling saying that she thought Mr. Martin ought to have a man nurse; he was very violent. So Sterling sent up Armstrong this morning, and now Sarah’s back.”

“My word! She has her nerve, hasn’t she? How did she dare do that?”

“Oh, she’d dare anything. If you ask me, the real truth is she is bored to death up there in the country, and then you know she’s got a crush on Dr. Sterling and can’t bear to have him out of her sight.”

“H’m! I wonder what she’ll think of the way he carries on with our little probationer? It’s Mary here, and Mary there, and all the time taking her out riding. I suppose Sarah’ll get in on some of those rides now. But it’s a cinch she won’t want that Mary around underfoot all the time. I’m sure I don’t see what he sees in her. Oh, she’s pretty enough, but not a particle of style. Just a baby face, and the most childish ideas, not in the least sophisticated!”

“Well, and what do you think, Ray, Sarah says it’s reported at the Martins’ that Dr. Sterling is engaged to a girl up there somewhere. Really
engaged
! And she’s simply rolling in wealth and stunningly beautiful, so it won’t do Mary any good to go out riding with him, if he’s engaged to a rich girl. I sure was surprised. I never thought Dr. Sterling was like that. He seems so kind and grave and dignified. The girl’s name is Rose Bradford.”

“Oh, all men are that way,” sneered the other girl. “Out of sight, out of mind. You can’t trust one of them! I think women are fools to run after any of them.”

“Well, all I have to say is that I haven’t seen Dr. Sterling rushing back to the Martins’ since this little Mary person came. I don’t think he’s so dead gone on his fiancée as you seem to think, or else he believes in having more than one string to his bow.”

“Of course,” said the girl who was called Brynie, “that’s it. They all do. I wouldn’t trust any man an inch from my nose. But I don’t see what he sees in that Mary person myself. Little milk and water thing!”

“Hush! Maybe she’s back. Her room is along here somewhere. What if she should hear us! My soul! Let’s get out of here!”

There was a sound of swishing starched linen skirts and scuttling rubber-shod feet.

Janice opened her eyes, looked around, and tried to think.

That was Brynie and Ray. Two nurses who had been here a year longer than she had. They had been talking about herself and Dr. Sterling. How horrible! What would Louise have said if she had known? Louise, who was always so anxious for her to guard her good name.

Sudden desolation seemed to engulf her. Why, the creamy walls of her room, instead of being lovely and restful, had grown somber and gray, and the white curtain but a foglike barrier to the sunlight. Where had flown the joy she had felt when she lay down—joy in her work, in the fact that she was getting on, would soon have her debts paid, and be on the way to be self-supporting. And the greatest joy that she had a friend who was wise and kind and always ready to help her. And now, like a stifling blanket of sorrow, a terrible, appalling fact began to settle down upon her.

Doctor Sterling! They had been talking about him. They had been sneering at him. And they had said he belonged to a girl, some rich girl, and was disloyal to her when he asked a nurse to take a ride now and then.

The vision of his handsome face, kindling with friendly interest, came to her. Surely that face could not be untrue. There must be some explanation.

And yet, what had he done? A look now and then, in fact only that morning, a look that held intimacy, tenderness—had she ever dared to think of it as a loving look? Oh, not really bringing such a thought out into the open, even to herself. In fact, she had just been drifting and enjoying the pleasant friendship, without trying to analyze it and name the emotion. Her cheeks grew crimson with the thought, shame for the joy she had dared to feel over the intimacy of that look.

She remembered she was a stranger, alone and friendless, and he knew it. To a certain extent she was dependent upon him. Her position was a strange one. She had not explained her presence on that hillside alone in the storm in flimsy evening garb. He might think almost anything of her. Of course he might like her, admire her, wish to bring her back to health, but at the same time have very little respect for her.

Her life had been an unusually sheltered one. She had known evil through her brother-in-law’s ways. Perhaps the covert sneer in those other girls’ voices had enlightened her more than anything that had come her way, and she lay quite still, trembling from head to foot. It was plain she had been most indiscreet. Perhaps it had been all her fault that these nurses had begun to talk and see evil in what had been a perfectly innocent friendship, but she suddenly saw that it must come to an end. Especially since she now knew that the doctor who had made such a strong impression upon her, and seemed to be so very friendly, belonged to another girl. Well, that ended her right even to think of him, or allow herself to watch and admire him. Had she been letting herself fall in love with him unawares? Had she been taking too great a pleasure in being near him and calling him friend? Well, her eyes were open now. She must somehow bring this intimacy to an end. She must not allow him to be talked about, even so much as a breath. He probably looked on herself as a little girl whom he had saved from death, and therefore he felt he had a right to help her to have a good time. But it was always in the hands of a girl to control those things, to keep them from getting out of hand, and she must see to it from now on that he had no more opportunities to show any particular interest in her. She would miss his friendship, of course, but that had to be. Yet the break must seem so natural and normal so that he would not notice that she was holding off. It was going to be difficult, but she had been a fool to let herself get so interested in him, so she must take the consequences.

For the next three days she managed to be very busy whenever the doctor came her way. She gave him brief smiles, as a sister might have done, and he could not guess that she was starting a deliberate plan of keeping away from him.

It was easy to do at first for she had, of her own accord, asked to be allowed to do some extra work that was a bit confining, and when he appeared she was always just running off to get something or go to another part of the building.

At first the doctor took it all in stride, but then he began to notice that it continued, and though her smiles were just as bright and cordial, they were even briefer in their passing. She certainly was taking her training with a vengeance, and it began to worry him, for sometimes he noticed her cheeks were too white and she had a tired look under her eyes. He could not know that it was the alarming discovery that she had fallen in love with a man already engaged to another girl that had wrought this devastation in her young face. The long, wakeful nights that she had mourned over this and tried to work out ways to undo the mischief were to blame for the dark shadows under her eyes.

But she had hurried on through her days, and when things got bad in the night watches, she was learning to take the whole matter to the Lord in prayer and tell Him to please take it over for her because she couldn’t do anything about it herself. She wanted Him to have His way with her, and wouldn’t He please take anything wrong out of her heart and help her to go on?

But one day Dr. Sterling came upon her unawares from an unexpected direction when she was passing through the hall with a tray. He laid his hand quietly on her arm. She started and flushed at the thrill his touch brought, and then with her cool little smile she prepared to go on her pleasant, almost distant way again. But he still detained her.

“Wait!” he said hastily. “I want to speak to you.” And he turned and walked the way she had been going.

She flushed and looked up wistfully.

“Yes?” she said, casting a quick glance about to see if other nurses were observing her.

“I haven’t seen you in a long time. I want to know how you are feeling these days. How about taking a ride with me this afternoon when you have time off? I am afraid you are working too hard.”

“Oh no, I’m fine!” she said determinedly. “And thank you for the invitation, but just now we’re pretty busy in our hall, and I’ve promised to take over for someone else this afternoon. I guess it’s impossible.”

He looked at her, startled.

“Look here,” he said with a puzzled frown. “Just what has been the matter with you lately? I’ve scarcely seen you at all, and I’m your physician, you know. What has happened? Have I offended you?”

“Oh no,” she said in distress. “You couldn’t offend me. I’ve just been busy.” She hesitated, and he looked straight into her clear, honest eyes.

“You might as well tell me,” he said, with his old friendly, compelling smile.

“Well,” she said, looking up, “yes, something has happened. I’ve been overhearing some of the nurses talk, and I feel that they think it is unseemly for me to be going out with you so much. You’re a doctor and I’m only a probationer, and I don’t think I should do it. You’re always so fine and understanding. I knew you would approve. And of course, it isn’t as if I really needed medical attention anymore. You’ve been so very kind to me that I don’t feel I should presume on your attention any longer.”

“Now look here, child! That’s all nonsense! You’ve certainly been discreet in every way, and I’ve taken many patients out to ride. Just yesterday I had a little girl from the ward out, and she enjoyed it a lot. So don’t be silly. I really want you to ride with me.”

Janice wrinkled her brows thoughtfully, gravely.

“Well I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t go today. I do appreciate the invitation though.”

He looked at her in a troubled way.

“Do you like your work? Isn’t it hard for you?”

“I love it,” she said with a glow of enthusiasm in her eyes. “No, it isn’t too hard. I enjoy every bit of it, and I realize that I owe it all to you that I’m able to do it. I’ll never forget that.”