The House in the Hedge/Chapter 9

by Ralph Henry Barbour

 

IX

I VISIT THE INVALID

I felt a good deal like the heroine of a popular novel as I made my way around to the House in the Hedge that afternoon, for I was “torn by conflicting emotions.” I was quite excited, somewhat embarrassed, and not a little frightened. Mr. Reed and I had become quite good friends and I felt as though I had known him some time, and yet I had never set eyes on him, and as I turned in at the gate in the hedge, I reflected that, if I were to find the porch covered with invalids in wheel-couches, I wouldn't know which particular couch held my particular invalid! Of course I knew there was only one couch there; that was just a silly thought that came to me; but it made me a little bit panicky, and half-way between the gate and the bamboo screen, which Mr. Tully had placed in the path, I hid behind my parasol, and for a moment meditated retreat. But then I heard steps on the porch and so I took a good deep breath and went on around the screen and there was the wheel-couch and Mr. Tully waiting for me at the step. I think my frock impressed him, for he looked at it very attentively as he came down to meet me, and that helped a lot. He murmured something polite, looking a good deal embarrassed himself, and that helped more, for it always puts a woman at ease to see a man lose his self-possession. So I went up the step and turned toward the wheel-couch quite confidently.

“Miss Pryde,” said Mr. Tully, “this is Mister—Mister——”

“Mister Reed,” said the voice I knew, from the wheel-couch. Mr. Tully looked surprised, but——

“Mr. Reed,” he said with a gulp.

At first there was nothing to see but a crimson steamer rug, but after I had stepped past the pillar and reached the couch, I saw his face. I thought I was prepared, for he had warned me more than once, but I wasn't. He had said that I would find his appearance disgusting, but it wasn't that at all. It was just—oh, so awfully pathetic. The face on the pillow was very good-looking, but illness had taken all the color from it, leaving a strange yellowish pallor that was worse than white. It was very thin and suffering had left deep purple hollows around his eyes and two deep wrinkles above his straight nose. He had perfectly lovely dark brown eyes and brown hair, that was brushed very carefully. He wore no mustache and Mr. Tully had shaved him that morning, as Larry would say, within an inch of his life. It was terribly silly of me, I know, but I just choked right up and was desperately afraid that the tears would come. He looked so big and handsome, and thin and helpless, all at once, you see. He smiled very brightly as I came up.

“This is awfully kind of you, Miss Pryde,” he said. “I don't know how to even begin to thank you.”

His right hand was lying on his breast and he raised it a few inches and the wrinkles deepened on his forehead. I took it and we shook hands. I suppose he saw that I was a little upset, for he went right on talking.

“Tully, have you a chair there for Miss Pryde? That's it, thanks. I'm afraid it isn't a very comfortable one, but we're not over-furnished, you see. If you'll lean back a little you won't have the sun in your eyes.”

“But I don't mind it,” I said. “It—it's a beautiful day, isn't it?”

“Wonderful,” he said earnestly. He turned his head slowly on the pillow and Mr. Tully disappeared into the house.

“I think he's a perfect dear,” said I.

“Tully? Do you? Well, I guess he is.” Then he didn't say any more and I couldn't think of anything and there was a moment of silence. And when I looked at him again, he was smiling quite happily.

“Thanks,” he said softly.

“For coming to see you? But I wanted to. I was only too glad——”

“For that too,” he said earnestly, “but I meant for not finding me utterly painful and disgusting, Miss Pryde.”

“Please!” I cried. “Indeed, I won't stay if you talk that way, Mr. Reed. You're not disgusting at all. I—I'm just miserably sorry, that's all.”

“Really? Oh, but you mustn't let me worry you for a minute. I'm all right, you see, and having you here to talk to—and look at—is simply great. And this is so much more satisfactory than trying to see you through a muslin curtain and a lot of annoying branches.”

“It's certainly more satisfactory to me,” I laughed. “Until to-day you've never been anything but a voice, Mr. Reed.”

“I'm not much more even now,”' he answered lightly. “My voice seems to be the only part of me that holds its own.”

“Oh, but you're going to get well very fast now,” I said cheerfully. “You mustn't forget that I have taken your case; isn't that what they say?”

“I'm not likely to forget it, Miss Pryde,” he answered gravely. “It's the nicest thing that has happened in months. And, of course, I am going to get better, if only out of gratitude.”

He smiled, and when he did that, he was really terribly good-looking in spite of everything, and I felt so sorry for him that it just hurt and I had to turn my head away for fear he would see.

“If you would move your chair a little,” he said quietly, “we could talk just as well and you wouldn't have to look at me all the time.”

“It wasn't that!” I said indignantly.

“Oh! I beg your pardon. I thought——”

“You think very silly, ridiculous things,” I replied severely.

“Pardon me, Miss Pryde. I won't offend again.”

“We-ll,” I answered, relenting, “I'll forgive you this time, but you mustn't think that—that I find anything—unpleasant in your appearance.”

“Certainly not,” he said very soberly, but with a twinkle in his eye, “how could you? I was really only pretending, for I am quite conceited about my fatal beauty.”

“Please!” I begged. He laughed.

“I'll be good, really. Somehow it all seems more of a joke when you're here. Would you mind—won't you please laugh for me?”

“Laugh? Why?”

“I like to hear you. You have such a jolly laugh. I think it's the best medicine you can prescribe.”

“But I'm afraid I can't laugh without anything to laugh at,” I objected. “Wouldn't you like to have me read something to you?”

“Great Scott, no! I have Tully for that. I'd rather have you talk to me. Tell me about yourself, Miss Pryde. Who are you?”

“What an embarrassing question, Mr. Reed! I'm—I'm just—just me!”

“Well, I suppose that seems a simple and ample explanation to you, Miss Pryde, but it doesn't satisfy me. You see, it strikes me as very wonderful that I should have found you here in this out-of-the-way corner, more wonderful than you can realize. Put yourself in my place. Imagine lying in there flat on your back with nothing to do all day and night but just think and think, with nothing to interest you beyond Tully and his book and the morning shave and the three meals a day. Then suppose that some day, when you are particularly down in the mouth and nothing seems worth while, you should glance out of the window and see—well, what I saw.”

“And what was that?”

“You,” he said softly.

“Oh!”

“Wouldn't that seem wonderful?”

“I was never called wonderful before, Mr. Reed. You're very flattering.”

“Well, of course you can't understand what it has been for me to see you every day or so and to have you to talk to. It—it's made a lot of difference. It's cheered me up a whole lot, Miss Pryde. Even old Tully has noticed it and is tickled to death. You see, you are doing a great deal of good by just being alive, Miss Pryde—by being 'just me,' as you say.”

“I wish I could do more,” I said, trying hard not to let him see how pleased I was.

“You're doing a lot, my dear young lady, to make life endurable for two forlorn creatures. Surely, that's enough. Besides, you have taken my case, you know, and are going to have me cured in—how long?”

“Oh, I can't tell you that yet,” I answered lightly. “I have to—to study your case a while.”

“Nothing will please me more.”

“There's one thing, though,” I said severely, “that I don't like. You must be truthful with your physician. I'm sure that's necessary if I am to help you.”

“I shall be,” he answered, looking a little uneasy.

“But you haven't been.”

“Meaning?”

“You told me that there was no—no pain.”

He looked away and frowned.

“I suppose Tully has been telling tales. He talks too da—I beg your pardon!—too much, Miss Pryde.”

“As your physician,” I said, “I have a right to know all the particulars, haven't I?”

“I suppose so.”

“Well?”

“Well?”

“You do suffer pain, don't you?”

He smiled and tried to shrug his shoulders.

“I suffer untold agonies of loneliness, Miss Pryde, on the days when you don't come to the tree.”

“That's very pretty, but I refuse to be put off with compliments.”

“I thought all women preferred compliments to truth,” he laughed.

“You haven't answered me.”

“Well, but—look here, Miss Pryde, what's the use of bothering your head about my pains? There is some pain—at times, along toward evening, usually—but it doesn't amount to much; I always go to sleep.”

“I know,” I said scornfully, “when Mr. Tully gives you things to take.”

“Is there anything that idiot hasn't told you?” he asked with a scowl.

“A great deal, I fancy. But he has told me that much. And I don't want you to treat me as though—as though I were just a kid, Mr. Reed, or a stranger. Of course,” I went on hurriedly, “I am a stranger in a way, but—but——”

“No, you are not, Miss Pryde; or at least you don't seem so to me. You've been a real friend, a friend in need, and and you're right; it isn't fair to lie to you. There is a good deal of pain, and I have to have opium at night. But that's all a part of the game and I don't mind it, and you mustn't.”

“Does—is there any now? Pain, I mean?”

“With you here? What sort of an ungrateful beast do you take me for, my dear young lady?”

“Truth or compliment?”

He dropped his eyes, and after a moment he said gravely:

“There is some uneasiness at this moment, Doctor Pryde, but so little that I scarcely notice it. Will that do?”

“Yes. And will the pain remain until until they operate?”

“I'm afraid so. That's one thing that reconciles me to having them try their experiments. It isn't bad, you know, but it—it sort of gets on my nerves.”

“And the operation will—do away with that?”

“They say so. Yes, I'm sure it will.”

“And you'll be all right afterwards?”

He smiled mockingly.

“Oh, yes, undoubtedly, unless I happen to get through with it.”

“Unless——! What do you mean?” I asked.

“I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have said that. Seriously, if I recover from the operation I shall be all right, except for a limp when I walk. At least, that's what they say. Personally, I have my doubts. Doctors are such liars, you see.”

“But surely they wouldn't tell you a lie about such a thing as that, Mr. Reed!”

“Wouldn't they?” he laughed. “Well, let's hope not. And now don't you think we've talked enough about me? Suppose you tell me something about yourself. Or about that brother of yours.”

“Larry? He's still at Red Top, you know. The race is week after next and he wants me to come up and see it. Some friends of ours are to be there in their yacht and they've invited me to join them.”

“You will go, of course,” he said.

“I don't know yet. Perhaps.”

“How long shall you be away?”

“Oh, two or three days, I suppose.”

“I shall miss you,” he sighed. “Life will be sort of dull for Tully and me.”

“Really?” I laughed. “Do you know, Mr. Reed, you say very nice things, for an invalid?? I'm sure it is a very lucky thing for poor me that I never met you when—when you were well. I'm afraid you'd have quite turned my head.”

He didn't say anything for a moment. Then:

“I wish to Heaven you had!” he muttered.

I thought it was time to go then, and so I got up.

“I've stayed quite long enough for a first visit, haven't I?” I asked. “You'll be so tired of my chatter that you won't want me to come ever again.”

“Please!” he said anxiously. “If I've said anything, Miss Pryde, that you don't like——”

“How silly!” I laughed. “As though you could.”

“Really? You're sure?” he insisted. “You see, invalids are likely to say—foolish things, Miss Pryde——”

And well folks make allowances,” I interrupted. “Here comes Mr. Tully to drive me away.”

“But—you'll come again?” he asked softly.

“Of course, if you want me.”

“Want you!” he sighed. “When? To-morrow?”

I nodded as Mr. Tully came up.

“Good-bye,” I said.

He raised his hand off the couch a few inches and I took it. Afterwards I was afraid that I might have squeezed it a little. But there was no harm in that. I'd have done it no matter who it had been. Mr. Tully beamed at us.

“You have done him good, Miss Pryde,” he said. “I can see that. It is a long time since he has looked so bright.”

Mr. Reed frowned. “For Heaven's sake, Tully, don't talk as though I was an exhibit. Of course, I look better, you idiot. I'd be a pretty ungrateful chap if I didn't, after allowing Miss Pryde to bore herself for the better part of an hour. I think I'll go back in, old man, when you've taken Miss Pryde home.”

“Oh, but you mustn't bother,” I said. “Please don't come a step, Mr. Tully.” He hesitated, but Mr. Reed looked savage and moved his head toward the gate, and Mr. Tully murmured something and went down the steps with me. I glanced back to say good-bye again, but Mr. Reed had closed his eyes and so I went on. As we passed the corner of the hedge, I stopped.

“What was that?” I demanded.

“What?” asked Mr. Tully.

“It sounded like a—a groan.”

“I didn't hear anything,” he answered, glancing in the direction of the porch. But I could see by his expression that he wasn't telling the truth.

“Please go back,” I said. “He may need you. Perhaps I stayed too long and tired him out. Please go.”

“Well, if you'll excuse me,” he said. “Perhaps he will be more comfortable if I get him back in bed. But you needn't think your visit is to blame, Miss Pryde. I'm sure he has had less pain than usual. You see, I know the indications pretty well by this time.”

“Do you mean that he has pain all the time?” I exclaimed in horror.

“More or less, I'm afraid.”

“Then go back at once and don't stay here talking! Why didn't he tell me? Please, please go!”

Mr. Tully hurried back and I stood there a minute, hidden by the hedge. I heard Mr. Tully ask something in a low voice and then Mr. Reed answer:

“Too long? Of course not, you damn fool! Can't a chap groan without your thinking he's dying? Get me to bed and don't be an ass!”

Then I heard the sound of the wheel-couch being pushed along the porch. I went on.

“Anyhow,” I thought, “I'm glad he swore. The pain can't be so very bad!”