A Dram of Poison

Chapter VI

HE WAS trussed up, he was chained, like a dog in a kennel. He could not, even if he had had the ambition to try, get out of this bed and away from the contraptions that imprisoned him.

“Then, she is all right?” he said. “You’ve actually seen her?” He tried to bend his gaze and search this face, but the girl with the clip-board had seated herself and was too low. He could see the top of her head, but not the eyes.

“Well, no,” he heard her voice saying, “I didn’t actually see her. But I was up on her floor—trying to … you know … get information? And she’s all right, Mr. Gibson. Honest. Everybody’s told you.”

“What do you mean by ‘all right’?” he queried irritably. His leg up in this undignified shocking fashion, his torso constricted somehow, his senses obstructed, the whole shock and indignity of injury upon him … yet he himself was “all right” in hospital parlance. What did they mean, except that he wasn’t in mortal danger? (Oh, was she?)

“Told me she was out for a while and shaken up quite a bit,” said the uncultivated voice, “but that’s all. Now please, Mr. Gibson …”

He rolled his head. It seemed to be all the freedom he had. But who, he thought with a flooding woe, is going to make Rosemary smile …?

“Are you in pain?” the girl said not unsympathetically. “Maybe I could come back.”

“I sure am in pain,” he said. “Exactly. Right inside of it. I’m in some kind of cocoon made out of fuzz and fog …” (Fog? His heart winced.) He must have been given drugs. His tongue felt thickened but loosened, too. “I don’t feel the pain, you see, but I know it is there, all around me. And it knows I know. What day is it? What time is it? Where am I?” he jested with his frightened lips.

“It’s Saturday, the twentieth of May,” she told him slowly and patiently. “It’s nine twenty A.M. and you are in Andrews Memorial. You were brought in last night, and honest, Mr. Gibson, I’m sorry but I have to get this information for the office …”

“I know,” he said soberly.

He was afraid, sweating afraid, that they were all lying to him. It wasn’t inconceivable. Battered and broken as he was, they might, in their wisdom, have decided to conspire and keep from him a sorrow. He opened his eyes as wide as he could and strained to lift his head and peer at this girl through the fuzz and the mist. “Sit a little higher. I can’t see you,” he demanded.

The girl elevated herself. She thought, Gee, he’s got nice eyes. On a girl, they’d be gorgeous! Wouldn’t it be, though? It’s like me and my sisters all got the straight hair and the boys got the natural waves.… She lowered her gaze so as not to be caught with such thoughts.

“What are they doing to her?” Mr. Gibson said wildly.

“Why, they got her under sedation, I guess. Least I couldn’t talk to her. Piobably they want to watch her a few days …”

“That’s right,” he said excitedly. “Yes, that’s what they must do. Keep her and watch her. You see, she hasn’t been strong. She’s had quite a time and this could set her back …”

The girl sighed and poised her pen. “I got your name and address. Now, lessee … When were you born, Mr. Gibson? Please, if you’ll just let me get this blank filled out …”

“Sorry,” he said. “January fifth, nineteen hundred. Which makes it entirely too easy to figure out how old I am. You don’t even have to subtract, do you?”

The girl wrote “Yes” after “Married?”…“How long have you been married, Mr. Gibson?” she asked aloud.

“Five weeks.”

“Oh, really?” Her voice became bright and interested. The next question on her blank was “Children?” She started to write a “No” and caught herself. “Is this your first wife?”

“My first … my only … Will you tell me one thing?” He fought to see her plain. “Is she in pain?”

“Look,” the girl said, determined this time. “What can I do, Mr. Gibson? Honest to gosh, nobody’s trying to kid you. They don’t think she’s even got a concussion. I’d know if there was anything bad. Believe me, I’d tell you.”

He could see her face now, and it was kind and shiny and in earnest. “I believe you would,” he said weakly. “Yes, thank you.”

He was in a ward. There was no telephone. He was divided from Rosemary. He was farther from her than if he’d been a thousand miles. He said, whimsical in helplessness, “Could I send her a postcard?”

The girl said, “Now. Probably she’ll be able to come down here and see you … at least by tomorrow.”

“They might let her leave before me?” said Mr. Gibson at once, in alarm.

“Well, I should think so. After all, you got to wait a while …”

“They mustn’t let her.” He couldn’t bear to think of Rosemary alone. Mrs. Violette might be hired to stay, but Mrs. Violette was so remote and cool.… Paul Townsend would be kind, but he couldn’t be with her. There was nobody, he thought in panic—Yes. Yes there was! Rosemary had no people, but he had a person. He had a sister.

“Could you send a telegram?” he asked abruptly.

“I guess I could see to it for you, or the nurse …”

“You do it. To Miss Ethel Gibson.” He gave her the address. “Are you writing it down? Send this. ‘Don’t worry but car accident puts me in hospital. Rosemary O.K. but we need you. Can you possibly come.’”

“Love?” the girl asked, scribbling busily.

“Love, Ken.”

“Twenty words.”

“Never mind. Please send it. Will you do that for me? I don’t know where there is any money …”

“I’ll see about it,” she soothed. “They can charge it on your bill. Now, do you feel better? Now will you tell me the answers to all this stuff?”

So he told her the answers.

“O.K.,” she said at last. “I guess I got the whole story of your life. Now, don’t worry, Mr. Gibson, I’ll surely send the telegram.”

“You’re very good …”

“So long.” She smiled. She liked him. He was kinda cute. Didn’t look to be fifty-five, either. With the kind of skin he had—fair, and stuck to his cheekbones. A woman would have had to have her face lifted already. And him married only five weeks to his first wife. She thought it was cute, and a little bit amusing. “Don’t worry so much about your bride,” she said affectionately.

“I’ll try not,” he promised. But he had received the news of her amusement and thought he would not open himself for the amusement of strangers again.

When she had gone, he thought drunkenly: Story of my life. She hadn’t got any of it.… Then his whole life’s story went by him in a rush, and his heart throbbed hard for the disappointment and the postponement.

But he took hold of himself and called up patience. He would heal, painfully, in time. The pain was nothing. It could be endured. He was not reconciled to the time it would take, but he would endeavor to be.

If only Rosemary had not been set back too much! If only Ethel—good reliable sister Ethel—if she could come and keep … keep his house! He felt sure she would respond as he himself would have responded, of course, to such a telegram. Ethel might even fly. His sister, Ethel, was not as far away from him in time as was Rosemary, upstairs. Ethel would come and take care and, in time, all would be well again.

Meanwhile, Mr. Gibson saw that the man on his right lay stupidly inert with a tube running in a disgusting way through one nostril. The man on his right had his ear upon the pillow, under which was a magic disk that poured out a soap opera. The ward was full of men all waiting as best they could … and most in pain. Some of them might be in love, for all he knew.

Mr. Gibson lay remembering words, for words were good to help keep off the pain—that brute and wordless thing—and to pass the time.

… an ever-fixèd mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark

Whose worth’s

Unknown …

He seemed to sleep.

Later in that shapeless day they brought him a wire: FLYING SOONEST ETHEL.

Mr. Gibson sighed so deeply that it made his chest ache.

“And I almost forgot. Your wife sends love,” the nurse said brightly.

“Does she?”

“She was pretty anxious to know how you were. Let me squinch this pillow over. Is that more comfortable?”

“I am comforted,” he said quaintly. “Can you send her my love?”

“We sure can,” the nurse said merrily. “I’ll put it on the grapevine, right away.”

People are good, thought Mr. Gibson, weak with satisfaction. People are really awfully good. Good nurse. Good sister Ethel. This misery would pass.