Testimony Of Two Men (13 page)

“Now, what the hell did men ever fight for, in all the history of the world, except for markets and new territories? And a right to exploit? Or money? All the high-sounding things don’t mean a damn. Our own Civil War, as Lincoln himself explained it, was not to free slaves but to preserve the Union, and he wanted to preserve the Union because he knew that two weak divided countries where once there was one strong one would be an invitation to European adventurers. Why our own Revolution? The old boys considered themselves ‘loyal subjects of His Majesty,’ almost to the last. They just rightfully resented having their money—their money, you will observe—being taken away from them in taxes for the old country’s benefit. There can be no freedom without private property, and money is private property, and that’s what we fought for—the right to our property, which meant our liberty. That’s why I say now that I was never so alarmed before as when hearing the British Parliament express itself, in its gentlemanly way, as being ‘distressed’ over bustling Germany’s vigorous invasion of British foreign markets. I’m scared to death.”

Robert could not imagine Jonathan Ferrier being “scared to death” over anything. He remembered the accounts in the newspapers of Jonathan’s disdain of both judge and jury, his black impatience, his gloomy contempt. Yet, his fife had been in the hands of those men; he had not feared them at all.

“Here we are. ‘Jewel-like St. Hilda’s,’ as some lady once called it.”

They had arrived at the somewhat elaborate wrought-iron gates of the small hospital. Beyond were wide gravel drives and handsome lawns and elms and neat flower beds and benches for convalescents. The hospital itself was of slurring white brick with red chimneys and blue-shuttered windows and even curtains against the glass of the expensive private rooms. It resembled some great English mansion and not a hospital at all. Some nurses in white were guiding patients over the grass or wheeling them in chairs, and everything sparkled freshly and someone was cutting grass and the fragrance was delicious on the warm air.

“Well, it looks as a hospital should look, and not a barracks,” said Robert. A man came running, as they drove up to the white steps, and caught the horse’s bridle. The two doctors jumped to the ground and they entered the hospital through doors opened wide to the fresh breeze and the odor of growing things. It was cool and light inside, the inlaid linoleum polished on every one of its yellow squares, and the hall was lined with comfortable chairs and tables. A nurse at a desk looked up, saw Jonathan; her face closed. She said, “Good morning, Dr. Ferrier. And Dr. Morgan.”

The hospital was four stories high and very hushed; the corridors, in spite of Jonathan’s protest, richly carpeted, After all, he was told, the patients who could afford St. Hilda’s had delicate sensibilities and they could not endure clacking noise. “And the hell with being sanitary,” Jonathan had told Robert. “It’s a wonder they didn’t carpet the operating rooms, too, and the water closets. A lot of the more costly rooms do have rugs in them; there’re still a lot of pompous quacks who don’t believe in germs, or, if forced to look at them through microscopes, murmur that they’re ‘interesting little creatures.’”

The very few patients whom he had recently accepted— and who had believed in him in the blackest of times—were on the second floor. So the two young men walked up the wide white-painted stairs, which wound up to the top in a graceful spiral. The hospital hummed with a soft busyness; nurses passed them or approached them; doctors with bags stopped to gossip to each other. Jonathan ignored them all, even those who tentatively greeted him. Robert was embarrassed. He knew a few of the doctors now and when they spoke to him pleasantly, glancing furtively at the silent Jonathan, he replied with a little too much effusiveness. His bag felt hot in his hand.

Jonathan swung open a broad door into a big and comfortable room full of sun. His manner changed at once. “Well, how are we this morning, Martha?”

A little girl, not more than ten, was listlessly lying on heaped pillows, her fair hair streaming about her shoulders. Robert had not seen her before. Jonathan took up her chart from the white dresser, glanced over it swiftly, frowned. “This is Martha Best,” he said to Robert. “The daughter of one of my closest friends, Howard Best, a lawyer. In fact, I’m her godfather. Aren’t I, Martha?” His face had become gentle for all its darkness, and he went to the child and bent and kissed her cheek. She caught his hand, her blue eyes fixed anxiously on him.

“I can go home soon, can’t I, Uncle Jon?”

“I hope so,” he said. “Aren’t you going to speak to Dr. Morgan?”

The child eyed him shyly but did not speak. When he said, “Hello, Martha,” she bent her head and the golden hair fell like a curtain over her cheeks.

“Now, Martha, Dr. Morgan is going to help me with you,” said Jonathan. “He looks like a big red bear, doesn’t he, but he doesn’t bite little girls. Honestly.”

The child giggled convulsively and peeped up at Robert. Jonathan gave him the chart. “Acute anemia. Intractable fever of 102°. History of severe infection of throat, now reduced. Present slight infection of lungs and nose. Joint pains. Transient bleeding from mouth, bowels, kidneys and nose. Slight liver enlargement. Spleen perceptibly enlarged. Lymph nodes discernible. Pallor. Lassitude. Diagnosis of admitting physician, Dr. Louis Hedler: Rheumatic fever with few signs of heart involvement. Family physician’s diagnosis:” There was, as yet, no diagnosis recorded from Dr. Jonathan Ferrier.

Robert laid down the chart. He looked searchingly at the little girl, at her ghostly color, at the lack of pinkness in her lips, at the bluish hollows under her eyes. He thought of something. It sickened him. He had never seen a case—

Jonathan was watching him sharply. “Martha has been slightly sick, so her parents told me yesterday, when I sent her here for four weeks. A little cold, they said. Then two days ago she became really sick, and they called me. She came in last night. Well?”

Robert went slowly to the little girl, who was now staring at him inquisitively. He took her hand; it was chill and faintly tremulous. She let him examine her throat. He took out his stethoscope and listened to her heart. It was a little more rapid than in health, but there were no overt heart sounds. Her tongue was very pale, but her gums were congested. A holy medal, of gold, and on a thin gold chain, hung about her neck, and on the bed table beside her was a rosary. Robert gently dropped her hand; he stared at the silver crucifix on the rosary. He was silent.

“Well?” said Jonathan. His voice was curiously muffled.

“You’ve taken blood? There doesn’t seem to be any reference to a blood test on the chart. I—I’d like to see if there are any blast forms—and the leukocyte count.”

Jonathan sighed. “Am I very sick?” said the little girl with anxiety. “Uncle Louis said I had rheumatism. Am I going to be a cripple?”

“Uncle Louis,” Jonathan began, “is an old—” He stopped. “Of course, you aren’t going to be a cripple, Martha. In fact, when this fever goes down a little, you can get out of bed. And a little later, you can go home.” He added, “You can go home.”

A cheerful nurse came in, all rosy dimples and bounce, with a white cap on her high black pompadour. “Good morning, Doctors!” she sang. “We are doing very well this morning! We had a lovely little breakfast, too, and enjoyed it! Didn’t we, Martha?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the child said with politeness.

“And such a pretty nightgown!” said the happy nurse, admiring the white silk, embroidered garment Martha wore. “Such a nice sleep in it.”

“Bob,” said Jonathan, “this is one of Martha’s private nurses, Mrs. Chapman. Mrs. Chapman, Dr. Morgan, my replacement.”

“How nice,” said the pleasant woman vaguely.

“Bring me a glass slide from the laboratory,” said Jonathan. “And quickly, please.”

He sat down on the side of the bed and regarded the child with real tenderness. “Martha, I’m going to prick your ear and take a little blood from you. It won’t hurt much; just a little. You aren’t going to make a fuss, are you?”

The child immediately looked frightened. Jonathan took one of her hands and held it warmly. “I don’t like to bleed, Uncle Jon,” she said. “It makes me sick to look at it.”

“I won’t let you see it, then. You just keep your eyes closed, and when I tell you to open them, you won’t see any blood at all. How’s Tommie?” he asked, referring to her infant brother.

“He has a cold, too,” said Martha. “Not very bad, though, like mine. His knees aren’t swollen either.” She smiled affectionately. “He’s better than all my dolls.”

“Of course he is. Your mother will be in soon, Martha, when Tommie is settled. By that time well know exactly what’s wrong with you—and when you can go home.”

“And I don’t have rheumatism?”

Jonathan looked at Robert, and the child looked at him. “No,” said Robert. “You don’t have rheumatism, Martha.” He tried to hold Jonathan’s eyes, but they shifted away from him. There was a sudden hard silence in the room.

“What do I have, then?” asked Martha with the curiosity of childhood, and the importance.

“We have to look—at things—first,” said Robert, and felt sick.

“You mean, it isn’t bad at all?” she said in her chirping voice. She was a little disappointed.

“Be cheerful and optimistic at all times before the patient,” Robert had been sternly taught “Never indicate by tone or manner that the patient is gravely ill or in a terminal condition.” He thought it nonsense but had not so expressed himself to his teachers.

How did one say to a child, “Darling, you are going to die”?

Please, God, he said in himself, let me be mistaken. After all, I’ve never seen a single case before. I could be wrong. Let me be wrong. He gazed at the child and saw her beauty and the sweetness of her eyes. He turned away and walked slowly to the window and looked outside and saw nothing. It was wrong for the young and lovely to die! They had a celebration to make to life. Life was not a joyous thing in itself—he knew that, for he was a doctor and had seen too much pain and death and had heard too many desolate cries. But it was like spring, in its infrequent periods, and a child had a right to spring. He heard the door open and shut and the bright voice of Mrs. Chapman, bringing the slide.

“Now, Martha,” Jonathan was saying. “Just close your eyes. You’ll feel a little prick. Tell me, how is school?”

“I don’t like it, Uncle— Oh!” she cried.

“There. Just two seconds. Keep those eyes closed. Good girl! Mrs. Chapman, take it to the laboratory and set it up. We’ll join you in a few minutes. Martha? It’s all over. You can open your eyes now. It didn’t really hurt, did it?”

She gave a small dry sob, then smiled. Robert turned at the window; the sun made a halo of the child’s silken hair. “No, it really didn’t hurt. Much. Uncle Jon, Father McNulty called the hospital and he’s coming to see me today. Isn’t that nice?”

“Wonderful,” said Jonathan. “Fine.” Robert saw his face and turned away again. “And now,” said Jonathan, “we’ll leave you for a few moments to count all the nice red things in that blood I took from you.”

He rose and the two doctors left the room. Jonathan closed the door slowly and heavily. He said, “Well, Doctor, what is your on-the-spot diagnosis?”

Robert could not remember when he had last felt so wretched and sad. “I hope I’m wrong,” he said. “After all,
I
know—it—only from textbooks. I never saw a case.”

“Of what?”

Robert hesitated. “Acute leukemia. Extremely rare.” Jonathan was silent. His head was bent. “Tell me I’m wrong,” Robert pleaded. “That’s a beautiful little girl—”

“Let’s look at the slide,” said Jonathan, and they went to the laboratories, not speaking as they walked through the long corridors. In that same silence they soon returned to Martha’s room. They heard her giggling as they opened the door. Dr. Louis Hedler was sitting near the bed in a comfortable chintz wing chair, and he had apparently told the child some agreeable joke. He turned his head when he saw the younger doctors, and nodded pleasantly and held out his soft fat hand. He more than ever resembled an amiable toad, and his head and face were completely bare of hair and his nose was snub and broad.

“Morning, Jon,” he said. “Morning, Dr. Morgan. Hear you are joining us on the staff. Fine. Hope you’ll be happy with us.” He shook Robert’s hand vigorously. “Now, what’s this I hear? You took blood from Martha, with a big knife, she says. Why?” He was still smiling happily, but the huge brown eyes were hard and penetrating,

“Just for fun,” said Jonathan. “We like to hurt little girls, Louis.”

“I did write down that I thought Martha had anemia as well as, ahem, rheumatism. What did your precious slides show?”

“Anemia.”

“Obvious, obvious! At her age. Very common. Nothing to be alarmed about. It’s those joint pains that worry me. And a suspicion about her heart—”

“Never discuss a patient’s condition in his presence,” Robert had been taught. But Dr. Hedler, Jonathan had said, was a “diploma-mill” doctor. Robert had never been taught that a patient was hardly sentient and was always totally ignorant.

“Uncle Jon said I wasn’t very sick,” said the child, with new anxiety at the mention of her heart.

“Of course you’re not sick!” cried Dr. Hedler, with immense joviality. “I—or rather, Jon here will prescribe an iron tonic for you and you’ll soon be as right as rain! I promise you.” He stood up and patted the child’s cheek, but she was looking at Jonathan for confirmation.