Romance Classics (148 page)

“The girl’s insane, Bill. Here she’s been running after you for years—” bleated Mrs. Kendall, outraged.

“Be quiet, Aunt Edith,” said Bill shortly, his eyes never leaving Cathy’s white face. “What is it you want, Cathy?”

“Just—just to be quite free again. To be Cathy Layne, of the Army Nurse Corps, answerable to no one but my superior
officers and my own conscience! I’m tired of being nervous and wrought-up and living in the shadows because you were so afraid you might lose your aunt’s money.”

“But, Cathy, all that’s cleared up now.”

“I know—”

“And Aunt Edith wants us to be married.”

“I know—and that makes me out a fool that—that when I am offered something I thought I wanted more than anything else in the world—I find that, after all, I don’t want it any more.” Though her voice shook and she was as white as her gown, her chin was up and her eyes met Bill’s steadily.

Mrs. Kendall was forgotten by both of them, and she stood almost fearfully, looking from one to the other, listening, dreading what she must hear.

Bill moved closer to Cathy and she backed away so that he could not touch her. He grinned a little at that, a grin that was entirely mirthless, that was little more than a contraction of his facial muscles.

“So you’re afraid to let me touch you, Cathy.”

“Why should I be afraid?”

“Because you know that once you’re in my arms, and I have kissed you, you will have forgotten all this idiotic business about not being in love with me any more.”

“I won’t, Bill. Oh, I admit that when you kiss me, I—feel stirred emotionally, but that’s only because the habit of being in love with you is so strong. But what matters, Bill, is not the way I feel when I’m in your arms, but the way I feel when I’m away from you.”

“Oh?” Bill’s eyebrows went up a little. “And how do you feel when you’re away from me, Cathy?”

“Desperately tired and—and quite empty. I just want to go quite away from Cypressville and never come back again—and never see anyone from here again—except Maggie, of course,” said Cathy.

“But—a divorce! Why—why, no Kendall has ever been divorced,” bleated Aunt Edith.

Bill ignored her, his eyes still on Cathy, and said gently:

“Poor darling, it’s been an ordeal, hasn’t it? But it’s all over now. You run along and get a good night’s rest, and tomorrow we’ll take the world into our confidence, and then we’ll go away for a nice long honeymoon. Not a trial honeymoon
this time, but one surrounded by all the openness you want.”

Cathy made a little helpless gesture. “You just can’t believe that a woman could fall out of love with you, can you, Bill?”

Bill flushed with anger at that.

“It’s a little hard to understand just how you could change so much, Cathy—overnight,” he told her curtly.

Cathy’s eyebrows drew together in a frown and she said quite honestly, “That surprises me, too, Bill. I think—well, I think I was just so in the habit of loving you and thinking that all I ever wanted was to be married to you. And I think that while I was away—I—well, we both changed. You’ve been so—so possessive.”

“I think it’s because you are angry with me, and you are kidding yourself, that you’re letting your pride blind you to the truth,” said Bill. “I’ve groveled—if not sufficiently, then I’ll grovel some more. I still think I may have been right to try to guarantee your future, but if you’re willing to take a chance on it, we’ll walk out of here this minute and try it on our own.”

Neither of them had heard the sound of a car in the drive, and now Elaine was in the doorway, saying swiftly, “They need you at the hospital, Cathy, if you feel up to it.”

She looked from one to the other of the three in the room, standing stiff and white and tense.

“Sorry, I seem to be intruding at a very crucial moment—but after all, you said if they needed you—”

“Of course—I’ll be ready in a minute,” said Cathy and, ignoring Bill’s protest, turned from the room and went running up the stairs.

Elaine followed her, and as Cathy went into the room assigned to her, the other girl said casually, “I brought you a uniform from the hospital, knowing your slacks would hardly be proper garb.”

Cathy thanked her and slid out of the white chiffon frock.

“Cathy, are you in love with Mark?” Elaine asked abruptly.

“Certainly not,” Cathy almost snapped, having grown extremely weary of this question in the last hectic hours.

“Sure?”

“Of course I’m sure!”

“Then, Cathy, will you promise me something?”

“Of course.”

“Then—don’t tell Mark any of the fool things I said at the tea shop. Gosh, was it only yesterday afternoon? I don’t believe it. It must have been a million years ago,” Elaine marveled. “Wasn’t I the fool, shooting off my pretty little mouth about how I didn’t believe in love? I didn’t even have sense enough to know that love is like lightning and that you don’t
have
to believe in it. If it wants to strike you, it does, and the heck with your silly little ‘beliefs.’ “

Cathy, buttoning herself into the crisply starched uniform, looked questioningly at Elaine.

“Are you trying to tell me that you are in love with Mark?” she demanded.

Elaine’s grin was abashed, like a child.

“I’m trying my darnedest not to tell
him
—to give him a chance to tell
me.
Only, Cathy, I’m scared to death he won’t! I’m—I’m so crazy about him, I can just barely endure it.”

Cathy said quietly, “This happened so suddenly, Elaine. Maybe it isn’t real.”

“
That
happened very suddenly in Cypressville, too, Cathy,” Elaine stated. “Can you doubt that was real?”

“No, of course not, only I always felt that love was something that required a lot of—well, cultivation—in order to grow strong and real.”

“Like you and Bill?” Elaine asked quietly. “Well, the danger about that is that sometimes it stops growing and sort of fades, don’t you think? Like—well, like a rose that grows and blooms and reaches its peak of beauty, only if you don’t gather it, the first thing you know, it’s full-blown and then shattered. That sometimes happens, too, Cathy—or did you know?”

Cathy stood quite still, her head up, her eyes closed. And then she nodded and said faintly, “Yes, Elaine. I guess I knew that, too.”

Elaine said after a moment, “Bill’s a good egg, Cathy. I hope you’re not going to overlook that little point.”

Cathy’s mouth tightened as she bent to thrust her stockinged feet into the low-heeled white nurse’s slippers that completed her uniform.

“A very good egg, and I’m not going to overlook the point,” she said grimly, and stood up. “Shall we get started?”

At the door, Elaine put a hand on Cathy’s arm and held her back for a moment, her eyes anxious and pleading.

“Cathy, you aren’t going to tell Mark about what crazy things I said?”

“I’m not going to tell Mark anything at all, Elaine. Mark’s quite able to handle his own affairs without help from me. Furthermore, I think it’s very foolish for any innocent bystander to try to interfere in anybody’s affairs of the heart.”

“You despise me, don’t you?” said Elaine huskily.

“Don’t be a nitwit. I don’t despise anybody—unless it’s Cathy Layne,” answered Cathy, and went out of the room and down the stairs.

Bill was waiting at the foot of the stairs, his hat in his hand, and when Elaine and Cathy looked at his hat, Bill said defensively, “After all, I still have a slight interest in what’s happened at the plant. I might be able to offer some help to the workers in the wreckage.”

The two girls led the way out of the house, and Bill slipped beneath the steering wheel of the station wagon as they got into the seat beside him.

They drove in silence into town. At the hospital, as Cathy got out of the car, Bill whispered, “Remember, Cathy, nothing is settled.”

“I’m afraid it is, Bill.”

“Nothing of the kind—but we’ll postpone more discussion until a better time.” He watched as Cathy went swiftly up the steps, through crowds of anxious relatives, who gave way almost humbly against the eloquent if silent authority of her crisp uniform.

The hospital was filled to more than capacity. There was no longer such a thing as a private room, for beds had been moved into each of them and now three and sometimes four patients occupied every room. The more seriously injured were in these rooms; those in less serious condition filled the
wards and the corridors to overflowing, and doctors and nurses, internes and nurse’s aides worked tirelessly.

It was not far from dawn when Cathy was able, with two other nurses from her floor, to take a few minutes to go down to the dining room for coffee. When three young internes took the table next to hers, she was vaguely conscious of their words. The two nurses with her were too weary to talk, and almost idly, with a professional interest, Cathy listened to one of the internes describing to his friends an emergency operation he had just witnessed. Cathy recognized, from his words, that the patient had been in a desperate condition and that at best could only hope for a fifty-fifty chance of recovery.

And then she caught her breath and grew rigid as one of the internes said, “Well, Kendall’s a right guy. Let’s hope he makes it.”

“Sure, he’s quite a fellow, Bill is,” said one of the others.

Cathy whirled on them so swiftly that some of the coffee in her cup spattered over her uniform, not quite so immaculate and crisp as it had been hours ago when she came into the hospital.

“Did—did you say—Bill Kendall?” she gasped.

The internes were surprised by her obvious agitation.

“Sure—got bashed up under some falling timbers at the plant,” answered the one who had witnessed the operation.

It seemed to Cathy that the walls of the dining room did a crazy, impromptu dance and that the floor beneath her wobbled and vibrated like the deck of an ocean liner caught in the grip of a storm.

“How—how serious?” She forced the words past her shaking lips.

“Pretty bad. Concussion, four busted ribs, undoubtedly internal injuries,” said the interne with professional enthusiasm, until one of the others laid a warning hand on his arm and he grew silent.

“Do you know Kendall, Nurse?” asked the interne who had not spoken until now.

“I—I—yes, of course I know him. Where is he? I have to see him,” stammered Cathy, pulling herself to her feet and clinging to the back of her chair until she dared take a step.

The three young internes looked alarmed.

“Oh, but you can’t see him yet, Nurse. Doctor’s orders. No visitors.”

“But I’m not a visitor,” said Cathy, and her voice was shaking, for all her efforts at control. “I’m—his wife.”

There was a whisper across the room; all of them had heard—hospital personnel and the few townspeople who sat about in white-faced groups.

“So,” breathed one of the internes, and gave her a room number. The next moment Cathy was gone, running blindly, forgetting one of the most binding rules of hospital life—that no doctor or nurse must ever run or behave in an agitated manner.

She was conscious of nothing but the driving need to reach Bill, to be with him, to see for herself what had happened. She found the door with the number the interne had given her. She pushed it open, and a white-coated doctor and a nurse who stood on either side of the bed turned to her sharply.

“Yes, Nurse, what is it?” asked the doctor, looking up from the bed above which he had been bending. His tone was curt with reproof and he looked with distaste and disapproval at Cathy’s uniform, where the spilled coffee had spattered.

“How—how is he?” stammered Cathy faintly.

“Not too good,” admitted the doctor with a frankness he would never have bestowed on the question of someone outside the hospital. “But we are doing everything we can. You’re not needed, Nurse, and I’m sure you are elsewhere.”

“I’m staying here,” said Cathy, in a tone no nurse had ever used to this doctor before. But before he could put into words his disapproval of her manner, she added quietly, “I’m his wife.”

The doctor looked from her down to the bandage-swathed man on the bed, and then gave Cathy a little smile.

“Oh, I see. There’s been some mistake,” he explained quietly. “This is young Bill Kendall here. Your husband is probably in some other room.”

“Bill Kendall is my husband,” Cathy said. She had not taken her eyes from the swathed head and face of the man who lay so still against the pillows.

“Even if what you say is true, Nurse, I must remind you that I am head of the staff here and that it is for me to decide—” the irritated doctor began sternly.

“I’m Bill’s wife, and I’m not an employee of this hospital,” Cathy pointed out quietly. “I’m a volunteer. Also, I’m an army nurse and I’ve had a great deal more experience looking after men who’ve been—broken and—blown to bits than any other nurse here. So I’m looking after him.”

The other nurse was wide-eyed and gasping, That any nurse would so far violate discipline as to dare talk back to a doctor—and especially the head of staff—was to her an unthinkable thing. But after a moment Dr. Rodgers nodded and said quietly, “Of course, Nurse, under such circumstances—”

He dismissed the other nurse and swiftly, concisely, he described to Cathy the injuries she was to treat, the signs she was to watch for; and after a moment he went on his way.

Cathy bent over the still, unconscious form and her tears rained down on Bill’s white face.

“Oh, Bill—oh, darling, darling, forgive me!” she pleaded softly, huskily. “Bill, I’ve been such fool. I had to almost lose you before I knew the truth. Bill, forgive me— Oh, darling!” She slid down on her knees beside the bed, her tear-wet face pressed hard against his immobile hand, and barely above her breath she whispered a little prayer that came straight from her heart.
Dear God—oh, please, dear God—forgive me—and give me another chance!

She rose at long last, realizing the folly, the danger of going to pieces at a moment when Bill needed her desperately. It was her skill, her faith, her devotion that would pull Bill through; it was a battle such as few women ever have to fight, and it was going to take all her courage and her self-control to hold her own.