The Door Between (4 page)

“Oh, daddy, I didn’t mean –”

“Forget it,” said Karen a little sharply. “Don’t tell him, Eva.”

Eva sighed. The event had taken place in her childhood, to her a blank prehistoric time. Years later Dr. MacClure had sensibly told her about her adoption, and the vague trouble it had caused her had never entirely disappeared.

“I won’t if you say so,” she said doubtfully, for it seemed to her that silence was wrong; and yet she was glad to be advised to keep silent – afraid of anything, no matter how slight, which might threaten her new-found happiness.

Dr. MacClure lay back on the bench, closing his eyes. “It’s better that way,” he said.

“Have you fixed the date?” asked Karen quickly, glancing at the doctor.

“Not definitely,” said Eva, shaking off her dismal mood. “I suppose I’ve been acting like an idiot – all one grin – but I do wish we were married. I get the queerest feeling sometimes – as if …”

“You’re the strangest child,” murmured Karen. “Almost as if it were never going to happen?”

“Yes,” said Eva with a little shiver. “I – I don’t think I could stand that, after all the … Marrying Dick is the only thing in the world I want.”

“Where is he?” asked Dr. MacClure dryly.

“Oh, at some hospital. There’s a bad case of –”

“Tonsils?” said the doctor.

“Daddy!”

“Aw, now, honey,” he said instantly, opening his eyes, “don’t mind me. But I want to prepare you for the life of a doctor’s wife. I want – ”

“I don’t care,” said Eva defiantly. “It’s Dick I’m interested in, not his work. I’ll attend to
that
when I get around to it.”

“I’ll bet you will,” chuckled Dr. MacClure, but his chuckle died very quickly and he closed his eyes again.

“Sometimes I think,” said Eva desperately, “that we’ll
never
be married. That’s what I meant by a feeling. It’s—it’s really appalling.”

“For heaven’s sake, Eva,” cried Karen, “don’t act like a silly girl! If you want so much to marry him, marry him and have it over with!”

Eva was silent. Then she said: “I’m sorry, Karen, if my thoughts seem silly to you.” She rose.

“Sit down darling,” said Dr. MacClure quietly. “Karen didn’t mean anything by what she said.”

“I’m sorry,” murmured Karen. “I – It’s nerves, Eva.”

Eva sat down. “I – I guess I’m not myself either these last few days. Richard seems to think we ought to wait a while. He’s right, too! There’s no sense in rushing things. A man can’t change his whole life overnight, can he?”

“No,” said Dr. MacClure. “You’re a wise girl to have found that out so soon.”

“Dick’s so – I don’t know,
comfortable
. He makes me feel good all over.” Eva laughed happily. “We’ll go to all the funny little places in Paris and do all the crazy things people do on honeymoons.”

“You’re sure of yourself, aren’t you Eva?” asked Karen, resting her dark head on Dr. MacClure’s shoulder.

Eva wriggled ecstatically. “Sure? If what I feel isn’t sureness … It’s the most blessed thing! I dream about him now. He’s so big and strong, so much of a baby …”

Karen smiled in the darkness, twisting her small head to look up at Dr. MacClure. The doctor sat up and, with a sigh, buried his face in his hands. Karen’s smile faded, her eyes becoming more than usually veiled; there was anxiety in them, and something else on her pretty and ageless face that Eva had seen rather frequently of late.

“Here I am,” said Eva briskly, “talking about myself while you two … Do you know you both look simply awful? Don’t you feel well, either, Karen?”

“Oh, I feel quite as usual. But I think John’s badly in need of a vacation. Maybe you can talk him into one.”

“You
do
look dreadfully peaked, daddy,” scolded Eva. “Why don’t you close up that dungeon of yours and go abroad? Goodness knows I’m not a doctor, but an ocean voyage would do you a world of good.”

“I suppose it would,” said the doctor suddenly. He got up and began to patrol the grass.

“And you ought to go with him, Karen,” said Eva decisively.

Karen shook her head, smiling faintly. “I could never leave this place, dear. I’m made with deep roots. But John ought to go.”

“Will you, daddy?”

Dr. MacClure stopped short. “Look here, honey, you go ahead with your young man and be happy and stop worrying about me. You
are
happy, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” said Eva.

Dr. MacClure kissed her while Karen looked on, still faintly smiling, as if all the time she were thinking of something else.

At the end of June Dr. MacClure yielded to the determined campaign against him and dropped his work for a vacation in Europe. He had lost weight and his suit had begun to hang on him in a despairing sort of way.

“Be sensible, Doctor,” said Eva’s
fiancé
rather brusquely. “You can’t go on this way. You’ll keel over one of these days. You’re not made of iron, you know.”

“I’m finding that out,” said Dr. MacClure with a wry smile. “All right, Dick, you win. I’ll go.”

Richard and Eva saw him off; Karen, whose lassitude kept her chained to her house, did not come, and Dr. MacClure said his good-byes to her privately in the garden in Washington Square.

“Take good care of Eva,” said the big man to Richard, while the gong was clamoring on shipboard.

“Don’t worry about us. You take care of yourself, sir.”

“Daddy! You will?”

“All right, all right,” said Dr. MacClure grumpily. “Lord, you’d think I was eighty! Good-bye, Eva.”

Eva threw her arms about him and he hugged her with some of his old simian strength. Then he shook hands with Richard and they hurried off the boat.

He stood waving at them from the rail until the liner straightened out in the river. Eva suddenly felt funny. It was the first time they had ever been separated by more than a few miles; and somehow it seemed significant. She cried a little on Richard’s shoulder in the taxi.

August came and went. Eva heard from Dr. MacClure sporadically, although she wrote him every day. But the doctor was not a writing man, and the few letters he sent were like himself – precise in detail and strictly impersonal. He wrote from Rome, Vienna, Berlin, Paris.

“He’s visiting all the cancer men in the world,” said Eva indignantly to Richard. “Someone should have gone with him!”

“He’s probably having the time of his life,” grinned Dr. Scott. “It’s the change that’s important. Nothing wrong with him physically – I went over him with a fine comb. Let him alone.”

They were busy days for Eva. She strode about in the smothering summer, cool as a vernal deity, engaged in the fascinating business of gathering her trousseau. There were teas given by friends, and week-end jaunts with Richard to the seashore, and much gracious queening over females who were still a little dazed at the suddenness and thoroughness of her conquest. She saw Karen infrequently and felt a little ashamed of herself.

Dr. Scott was inclined to be gloomy. “Practice fell off this month. I know what’s done it, too.”

“Well, doesn’t it always in the summer?”

“Ye-es, but –”

A horrible suspicion flashed across Eva’s mind. “Richard Scott, don’t tell me it’s because of you and me!”

“Frankly, I think so.”

“You – you gigolo!” cried Eva. “Attracting all those – all those
creatures!
And just because you’re engaged to me they’ve stopped coming.
I
know ’em – cats, all of them! And you’re as bad as they are. Sorry because …”

She started to cry. It was their first quarrel and Eva took it very hard. As for Dr. Scott, he looked as if he had just stepped on something squashy.

“Darling! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean – I’m mad about you! You’ve ruined me! But I love you just the same, and if those damned hypochondriacs won’t come, the devil with ’em.”

“Oh, Dick,” she sobbed in his arms. “I’ll slave with you, I’ll do
anything!
”

And after that Eva was very happy again, because he kissed her in a special place and then took her to the corner drugstore for a chocolate ice-cream soda, which she loved.

In early September Dr. MacClure wrote from Stockholm that he was coming home. Eva went flying to her
fiancé
’s office with the letter.

“Hmm,” said Richard critically, scanning the neat chirography. “About as informative as a mummy about himself.”

“Do you think the trip’s done him good?” asked Eva anxiously, as if Dr. Scott could see across four thousand miles.

“Must have, darling. Now don’t worry. If he’s not all right we’ll fix him up as soon as he lands. He’s at sea now.”

“I wonder if Karen knows,” said Eva excitedly. “I suppose she does. Daddy must have written her.”

“I’d think so. After all, she’s his future wife.”

“And that reminds me, Richard Scott.” Eva plucked at a flower on his desk. “Talking about future wives …”

“Yes?” he said blankly.

“Oh, Dickie, don’t be stupid!” Eva blushed. “Can’t you see … I’m –”

“Oh,” said Richard.

Eva faced him. “Dick, when are we going to be married?”

“Now, angel –” he began, laughing and pulling at her.

“No, Dick,” said Eva quietly. “I’m serious.”

They faced each other over the desk for a long time. Then Dr. Scott sighed and sat limply down in his swivel-chair. “All right,” he said irritably. “I’m licked. I thought – I’ve got to the point where I’m eating you for breakfast and seeing you in every chest I poke at with my ’scope.”

“Dick!”

“I never thought I’d get to saying to a woman, ‘I can’t live without you,’ but I’m there, all right. Damn you, Eva, I’ll marry you the minute old John comes home!”

“Oh, Dick,” whispered Eva, for her throat was too full. She came around the desk and dropped tiredly into his lap, as if after a great struggle …

After a while Eva kissed Richard’s handsome nose on the tip, slapped his hand, wriggled off his lap. “Stop that! I’m going right down to Washington Square and see Karen.”

“Give me a break, will you?” he growled. “You can see Karen any time.”

“No. I’ve been neglecting her dreadfully and besides –”

“Me, too,” he grumbled, pressing a button on his desk. His nurse came in. “No more patients to-day, Miss Harrigan.” As the nurse went out he said: “Now come here.”

“No!”

“Do you want me to make a fool of myself and chase you all around the office?”

“Oh, Dickie darling, please,” said Eva, busily powdering her nose. “I’ve
got
to see Karen.”

“Why all this love for Karen?”

“Let me go! I want to tell her, you fool. I’ve got to tell
somebody
.”

“Then I guess I’ll take a nap,” he said disconsolately. “I know you when your chin sticks out! I was up all night holding Mrs Maarten’s hand and convincing her having a baby was like having a tooth pulled.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” crooned Eva, kissing him again. “She’s very pretty, isn’t she? Have a nice nap.”

“Will I see you to-night? After all, we ought to celebrate –”

“Dick! Don’t! Dick – Yes,” said Eva, and fled.

Eva emerged into the Park Avenue sunshine looking exactly like a girl who has just been well-kissed and the date of her marriage set. She was so full of happiness that the doorman grinned and the taxicab driver threw away his toothpick to open the door for her.

She gave Karen’s address and leaned back in the cab, closing her eyes. So here it was at last. Marriage – just around the corner. Not any old marriage, but marriage to Richard. There would be a lot of gossip, of course – how she had thrown herself at him and practically hogtied him; but let them talk. They were all envious. And the more envious they were, she thought blissfully, the happier she would be. It was awful thinking such a thing, but she wanted every woman in the world to be jealous of her. She felt a little stifled under her jacket. Mrs Richard Barr Scott … It sounded nice. It did sound nice.

When the cab stopped in front of Karen’s Eva got out and paid the man off and paused on the stoop to look over the Square. The park was brilliant in the four o’clock sunshine, brilliant and beautiful with its geometrical grasses and the fountain and the nurses wheeling baby carriages. Watching the carriages, Eva felt herself flush; she
had
been thinking of babies recently rather more than was decent. And then she thought that if she and Richard could not live in Westchester or Long Island after they were married, nothing would be sweeter than to live in a house like Karen’s. It was quite the nicest house she knew in New York. With a really livable series of bedrooms – the drapes –

She rang the bell.

Their own place in the East Sixties was just an apartment. Despite all the fussing Eva had lavished on it, it had never been anything but an apartment. But Dr. MacClure had refused to move farther than a whistle’s blast from his Cancer Foundation, and it was true that a whole house would have been a useless luxury, since Eva was never at home and the doctor, of course, virtually lived in his laboratory. The doctor … For a secret moment Eva was gladder than she had ever been that Karen and Dr. MacClure would some time be married. She felt a little guilty, thinking of going away and leaving him all alone in that awful apartment. Perhaps they could –

A strange maid opened the door.

Eva was surprised. But she went through the vestibule and asked: “Is Miss Leith home?” – a silly question, but one you always asked, somehow.

“Yes, Miss. Who’s calling?” The maid was a sullen young creature, as yet apparently untrained.

“Eva MacClure. Oh, you don’t have to announce me – I’m not company,” said Eva. “What happened to Elsie?”

“Oh,
she
must have got fired,” said the maid with a trace of animation.

“Then you’re new here?”

“Yes’m.” She had empty, stupid eyes. “Three weeks, it is.”

“Heavens!” said Eva in dismay. “Is it that long? Where’s Miss Leith? In the garden?”

“No’m. Upstairs.”

“Then I’ll go right up.” Eva mounted the wide stairway lightly, leaving the new maid to stare after her.

Downstairs and in the basement servants’ quarters Karen Leith’s house was as Western as the interior decorator could make it; but upstairs Karen and the East had had their way. All the bedrooms were Japanese, full of furniture and gewgaws Karen had brought back with her from her father’s house in Tokyo. It was a pity, thought Eva as she went up, that so few people had ever seen Karen’s bedrooms; for they were as quaint and absurd as specimen rooms in a museum.