Two crones hovered over gently simmering liquids in a kettle above a slow fire. About them hummed the night life of Poverty’s Pinch. Their heads, one gray-patched, the other bald with age, drew together.
“Has she been to see you again?” asked the gray one.
“Yes. This very day.”
“For the same?”
The aged one nodded.
“Is it what you suspicioned?”
“Who’s to say? She tells little and admits naught.”
“What have you to complain of? Her money’s good.”
The bald head nodded sagaciously. A clawed hand reached into the oven to pluck out a brand for the pipe which dangled from a mouth with but a single tooth. Rancid smoke, a blend of dock, cheap twist and the dried fiber of bitter-willow tainted the air. The crone spat.
“She’s a kittle bitch to handle,” she croaked.
Quaila Crego leaned closer. “Suppose it’s that. Who’s the spark that lit her?”
“Wasn’t there a Southern gallant here a few months back?”
“Seek further. She could marry him tomorrow.”
The smoker took several meditative puffs. “Would it be the canaller?”
“Silverhorn?”
Satch Fammie smirked. “They’ve been seen together. But not in church.”
“She’ll get no good by him.”
“What she could get by him is already well gotten, for my guess.”
“There’ll be blue hell and red murder when her father finds out.”
“Don’t talk of that man to me.” Satch Fammie shivered. “I had his black look once and I want no more of him.”
“For all her fix, you’ll see young Miss Uppity queening it, come Independence Day, with all the young blades at her feet,” said Quaila.
Her prophecy was wrong. Gala plans had to be altered because Wealthia Latham, who was to have worn Liberty’s coronet in the pageant, had taken to her bed. All that her distressed father could get from her was that she was tired out and not feeling well. No, she didn’t want a doctor. She would be all right. Pa mustn’t fret himself over her.
Genter Latham did fret. Over her protests he summoned Dr. Amlie. Wealthia received the physician, sitting up in bed. Languor had touched her darkly sensuous beauty with fragility. She looked quite saintly. Her temper did not support the appearance.
“Why must you fuss over me?” she demanded with asperity. “There’s nothing the matter.”
“Your father thinks there is. Why are you in bed?”
“I’m tired.”
“Bristol Sulphur Springs is well thought of as a recuperative resort. The waters have a salutary effect …”
“I don’t want to go to Bristol Springs. I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to be let alone.”
Nevertheless Horace recommended to Mr. Latham a change of scene. The father shook his head.
“She’s better at home. Do you know what I think, Amlie? I think it’s this marriage.”
“Is anything amiss between Wealthia and Hayne?”
“I think she doesn’t really want to marry him.”
“That might account for her low spirits,” answered Horace cautiously. The explanation did not satisfy him. If Wealthia had changed her mind about her betrothed, she would have little hesitancy in jilting him. She always did as she pleased. The reluctance, he guessed, was Genter Latham’s.
“She can’t abide the thought of leaving her home and me,” pursued the father. “Make no doubt of it; that is what is grieving her.”
“Has she told you so?”
“Not in so many words. But I know my daughter. She hasn’t a thought that I don’t share. I can read her like a book.”
“What’s your objection to Hayne?” inquired Horace bluntly.
“Mine? No objection except that he lives so far away.”
“But you’d rather this marriage didn’t take place.”
“No, no! I don’t say that. I’ve offered the young man an advantageous position in my bank if he will settle here, but he doesn’t seem disposed to accept. A pigheaded young sprig,” he concluded gloomily. Anyone who did not fall in with the Latham pattern of life was, by that mark, a pighead.
“See here, Mr. Latham,” said Horace. “I think you’re making a mistake.”
“I never make mistakes, sir.”
“You are trying to break off this match. That, in my opinion, is a mistake.”
Genter Latham stiffened. “I pay you for medical opinion, not family advice.”
“Take it for medical opinion, then.” Horace declined to be intimidated on his own ground. “Something is making your daughter unhappy and unsettling her state of health.”
“As you’re taking so much on yourself,” glowered the father, “suppose you ask her whether she still wants to marry Hayne.”
“Have I your authorization to do so?”
“You have.”
Horace remounted the stairs and put the question to her straitly. The result discomfited him. She hunched down beneath the sheet and sobbed convulsively. Only one response could he get out of her.
“Go away! Please go away.”
After preparing a soothing potion, he set the glass by the bedside and left.
At home he found Dinty, her hands stained as with murder, going through the final process of making pokeberry ink for marking the linen.
“Do you know anything about Kin Hayne?” he asked.
She looked up from her skimming. “He’ll be in New York soon again.”
“Did Wealthia tell you?”
“No. I had a letter from him.”
“Again?” For a second the treacherous thought flashed into his brain that Kinsey had fallen in love with Dinty and jilted his fiancée. “You didn’t mention it.”
“It came last week. You weren’t being nice to me then,” said she blandly.
“I see. You disapprove of my actions and take it out in carrying on a clandestine affair with your best friend’s young man. A nice wife! The law permits me to beat you, in case you don’t know it.”
“So do,” said Dinty calmly. “And do you know what then? I’ll mix up your medicaments and all your patients will die instead of only part.”
“What do you mean, ‘only part’?” retorted Horace, outraged in his professional sensibilities. “Except for old Mrs. Dobell who was over eighty, I’ve only lost …”
“Never mind, darling,” she interrupted sweetly. “What did you want to know about Kinsey?”
“When is he coming up?”
“He doesn’t know. He hasn’t heard from Wealthy for the last three posts. I think she’s acting like a little slink.”
“Wealthia is ill.”
Dinty gave her refined rendition of the vulgar gardaloo. “She’s no more ill than I am. She’s after something.”
“What?”
“I’d like to know. I’ll find out. I always do.”
The beauty, however, had turned uncommunicative. The day after Horace’s call she rose, dressed and mooned around the garden for a time, but neither on that day nor for several days following did she visit the Amlie house. When, at length, she appeared late on a misty afternoon, Dinty, lifting an intent face from her rose vines, said,
“Go in. I’ll be through in five minutes.”
“I’ve come to see Horace.”
“He’s busy with patients. Office hours.”
“I’ll wait till they’ve gone.”
She looked tired and depressed and, Dinty thought, as if she had been through a struggle to reach a determination. Instead of going in, she lingered, watching her friend.
“How is Kinsey?” asked the housewife, fishing for clues.
“All right, I guess.”
“You guess! Don’t you know?”
“Of course he’s all right. Why shouldn’t he be?”
“Don’t be uppish with me,” Dinty admonished her. “What ails you lately, anyhow, Wealthy?”
The beauty showed signs of impending tears. “You’ll be sorry when you know,” she faltered. “You’ll be sorry you treated me so brutishly. Maybe I’m going to die.”
“Tara-de-diddle-de-dee!” said the other briskly. Nevertheless she was concerned. “I’m going to fix you a nice, cool raspberry shrub and then you can rest until the doctor is free.” In professional communications Dinty was particular always to refer to her husband as “the doctor.”
It was a white and tremulous girl who was ushered into the private office.
“Well, Wealthia, what is it?” asked Horace.
She struggled for utterance. When the question came, it was barely audible.
“Do you tie people when you cut?”
“I don’t understand.”
“When you cut for the stone. And—and other things. You do it, don’t you?”
Horace had. He hoped he should never again have occasion to. The dreadful contortions, the blood and shrieks and agony, the writhing sinews and tortured nerves made up a memory which he was eager only to hold aloof.
“What leads you to suppose that you have the stone?” he demanded.
“I don’t. It’s worse,” she muttered. Her mind swung back to its original terror. “Tell me whether I must be tied.”
“You are tormenting yourself with needless fears,” he told her.
“I’m not! I’m not! Won’t you answer me?”
To calm her he went into a detailed description of the technic of internal operations, presenting it in as mild and reassuring a form as his conscience would permit. No, he did not believe in binding the patient. It was much safer to have assistants carefully hold the sufferer’s limbs to keep the body steady. Thus was obviated the danger of ruptured muscles or dislocated joints. Liquor could be given to inspire fortitude; opium was employed liberally to deaden the pain; local administration of ether paint did much to assuage the nerves. As he put forth his soothing euphemisms, he observed covertly her effort to keep herself under control. There was a reserve of courage in the spoiled and pampered daughter of fortune which he would hardly have expected. Quite calmly she said,
“I know what I’ve got.”
“Self-diagnosis is seldom reliable,” he returned.
“It’s the cancer,” she breathed.
“What leads you to suppose that?” he demanded, startled.
“I can feel it.”
“Where?”
“Here.” She pressed her hand against her slender body; not so slender as formerly, he now noticed for the first time.
“Why haven’t you spoken of this before?”
“I’ve been afraid to admit it to myself.”
“Take off your clothes.”
“Would you like me to call Dinty?” he asked tactfully.
“Oh, yes, please.”
Dinty entered, very businesslike, very serviceable, very much the physician’s helpmeet. Wealthy mustn’t think of her body, she explained. It meant nothing in that office; nothing more than one of the medical drawings she had studied or a wooden model of an arm or leg. She helped arrange the patient on the table, then withdrew to make up her barter lists.
Horace’s examination was exhaustive. It was also shockingly conclusive. Wealthia kept her eyes tight shut throughout, only gasping now and again. He helped her down to the floor.
“You may put on your clothes now,” he said.
“When will you cut?” she asked in a hard-breathed whisper.
“I shall not cut.”
“Why? Why?” she cried shrilly.
“I think you know very well why.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said she woodenly.
Horace busied himself making up some powders slowly, with the purpose of giving her time to compose her mind. Sifting them into a glass of water, he handed it to her. It was a placebo, the powders being quite inert. After she had swallowed the potion, he said gently,
“Don’t you think you’d better be honest with me, Wealthia?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“How can I help you if you take that attitude?”
“I’m not taking any attitude. I don’t know what …”
“Who is the man?”
She broke. “No! No! No! It isn’t that. It couldn’t be that.” She babbled out certain physiological details.
“I know, I know,” he said. “But these minor manifestations are apt to be misleading.”
Her voice rose hysterically. “It can’t be. I won’t let it be. It’s cancer. It must be cancer. Take it away from me, Horace. Take it away! Take it away!” She beat upon the table with clenched and frantic hands.
“Quiet!” he warned. “Try to control yourself. Now answer me. When were you exposed?”
“Exposed?” she repeated. Then, as his meaning became clear to her, she began to weep, quietly and desperately. “What shall I do? What shall I do?”
“I will see you tomorrow for further consultation,” he promised.
Calling Dinty to help her, he sent Wealthia home. He wanted time to think over this revelation. Was the girl deliberately attempting to deceive him, with her talk of cancer? Or, more probably, had she succeeded in deluding herself with false and forced hopes?
Dinty, who accompanied the caller to the gate, returned to the office.
“Wealthy says she is going to die. She isn’t, is she, darling?”
“No,” said Horace.
Experience had convinced her of the futility of further questioning when opposed by that tone. No direct reference was made to the matter again that day. After dinner Horace asked his wife in a casual tone,
“Do you remember the date of Kinsey Hayne’s visit to us?”
“April sixteenth,” she answered promptly. “Why?”
“Nothing.”
There was a knock at the office door. Unk Zeb brought in a note. It was from Genter Latham. Doctor was to come to the house at once. Horace was not surprised. He wondered what had happened. Had Wealthia confessed to her father? If so, there would be the devil to pay. But he doubted it. For that matter, had she confessed to him? Not categorically.
He found the great man pounding up and down his library, cursing as he strode. Bewilderment always translated itself into wrath in his autocratic soul. Anything beyond his comprehension he resented as a personal slur upon his power.
“I don’t know what’s come to that girl of mine,” he growled without troubling to acknowledge the caller’s good evening. “She’s gone to her bedchamber and won’t come out.”
“Shall I talk to her?”
“If she’ll see you. I doubt that she will.”
The two men climbed the stairs. Wealthia’s door was bolted. Mr. Latham knocked sharply.
“Dr. Amlie is here, daughter.”
“I don’t want him,” returned the petulant voice. “Tell him to go away.”
“Open at once.”
Silence within.
“You see.” The father turned upon Horace a visage dark with wrath and concern. “Never before in her life has she dared disobey me. I’m well-minded to smash in the door.”
“If you do,” threatened Wealthia’s hysterical voice, “I’ll jump out the window.”
“She’s like a crazed person.” The father spread helpless hands.
“Leave this to me,” said Horace.
Mr. Latham clumped sullenly away. Horace approached his mouth to the lintel.
“Wealthia?”
No reply.
“Wealthia, don’t be so foolish. I only want to help you.”
Through the crack beneath the door he could see the flicker of the approaching candle. Wealthia’s low voice asked, “Is my father there?”
“No.”
“You say you want to help me.”
“Believe me, I do.”
“There’s only one way you can help.”
“You must know I can’t do that.”
He heard a sob. Then, “It’s all lies, lies, lies, what you think. And if you tell my father, I’ll kill myself.”
He heard her receding footsteps and the creaking of the bed as she threw herself upon it.
Slowly and thoughtfully he descended to the parlor where Mr. Latham was awaiting him. In the ten seconds of his passage he had come to a decision of which neither Hippocrates, Æsculapius, or the N. Y. State Board of Medical Censors would have approved. He was about to overstep his proper province of medical advice to proceed upon the cloudy assumptions of family friendship.
“Has she come to her senses?” demanded the father.
Horace shook his head. “Mr. Latham, I should like your authorization to go to New York on your daughter’s case.”
“Is it as bad as that?” asked the father, his sanguine face paling.
“It is complicated rather than serious,” replied Horace, choosing his words with reference to effect more than exactitude. “There are eminent medical authorities in the metropolis who are concurrent with the latest developments of science, and always prepared to help a younger practitioner.”
“When can you go?”
“Tomorrow, if you wish.”
“I do. Spare no expense. If you want any of the bigbugs to see her, fetch ’em back. I don’t care what it costs.”
“That will hardly be necessary, I think. Good night, Mr. Latham.”
Dinty received the news of the projected trip with delight.
“Oh, Doc! How grand! I’ve been perishing to go to New York.”
“I’m afraid not this time, Puss.”
Her delight turned to dismay. “You’re going without me?”
“I must. There are special reasons.”
“What kind of a loving husband are you?” she demanded sorrowfully. “Leaving me behind to pine!”
“You won’t have to pine very long, darling. I shall be there only one night, then back by the next packet. Ten days in all.”