The Doctor Takes a Wife (2 page)

“It
’
s what everybody in town is saying.”

“Are they?” His lips were white, but he still didn
’
t look at her.

“Yes, and they blame you for not taking care of her.”

“I
’
ve gone over every step of that case with Larry,” he said patiently. “At no point would I have changed his treatment.”

“Oh, of course you
’
d say that!”

He stood erect then, and looked at her. Marynelle was a tall girl and could look at Phil almost on a level. “I think you
’
re going to have to take my word for it, Marynelle,” he said softly. “Larry is a competent doctor and—”

“Ha!”

He frowned. “Now, what does that mean?”

“You should know, if the best even
you
can say of him is that he is
‘
competent.
’
Well, sure, he
’
s
that
!”

Phil was honestly bewildered. “But what more
...”

“Oh, skip it!” she cried. “I
’
d not let you say any more for him. You couldn
’
t. Any more than you could claim he was handsome.”

Phil stamped his foot to be sure that his Bass was comfortable, then turned away from Marynelle and looked across the broad slope of the snowy, blue-shadowed mountain, down, down into the valley where a thread of river ran icy green and the mast-tall trees looked like stubby pencil-ends; then he lifted his chin and looked up along the way they had come to where the sun
’
s glitter melted into the blazing glory of the sky. He sighed.

“In my book,” he said quietly, “a doctor cannot
be better than
‘
competent.
’
That word says it all. But to the lay mind—to a person who
adores
waffles, who thinks a fireside chair is
gorgeous
and—”

“Larry Whitley is competent,” she concluded neatly, “and as attractive as a tumbleweed.”

Phil looked at her then, as intently as he had studied the scenery. He took off his dark glasses to do this. Marynelle was a fine example of
modern
, stereotyped female beauty, the sort to be found on a calendar or in a glossy
-
paged magazine. Eyes set wide apart, nose pert and short, lips full. A small waist, long legs, full bust—not so much “alive” herself as the sort to come alive in a man
’
s mind. About the only time I ever pleased her was when I
’
d said something like this to her.

She was everything a
modern
young woman tries to be. She was slender and she knew how
to stand and sit. That day she wore a dark blue ski suit, with a scarf and mittens of pale yellow wool. Her dark-blond hair was disciplined into smooth waves close against her head. I have an idea that it was her air of correctness that had attracted Phil, and won him. He was an ambitious young man. And Marynelle would always be right, would always do the correct thing. But he was beginning, now, to wonder if that were really so important.

“I know you don
’
t like Whitley,” he said unhappily.

“Why should I?” she asked reasonably. “He doesn
’
t like me, and shows it.”

(I guess she was right. I
’
m not good at concealing my feelings.)

“But that isn
’
t the point,” said Phil. “You have a right to your opinion of him as a man, as my friend. But as a
doctor
—that
’
s something else again, Marynelle.”

“Oh?”

“The hospital hated Mrs. Norber
’
s death
...”

“Well, I should think so!”

Phil snapped his glasses into place. “Now, that
’
s what I mean!” he said roughly. “You are to shut up on all matters concerning the hospital! The best way will be for you to have no opinions at all.”

“Best for whom?” she asked coolly.

“Best for you, my dear,” Phil assured her. “Now, look, Marynelle—I don
’
t want to quarrel with you, ever. And certainly I don
’
t want to now, a week before our marriage. But you should realize—without argument—that you know nothing about Mrs. Norber
’
s death, the reasons for it, the possibilities of its being prevented. All you know is that she had a baby in our hospital, and died afterwards. The basic fact is that you know nothing about the whole complex field of medicine. But there is one thing I think I have a right to expect you to know. And that is, as a doctor
’
s wife, you
’
ll not be able to talk about your husband
’
s hospital, his patients
—anything
touching his profession.”

“Not even to you, Phil?”

“Not in an argumentative sense. I hope you
’
ll
be interested in my work enough to understand its demands. But I
’
m quite sure your best line concerning my profession will be never to say one word about it to outsiders.”

She sighed and straightened her shoulders, looked down the trail, then slid one ski tentatively forward. “Play dumb,” she said thoughtfully.

“Play
smart.
You
’
ll see—it
’
ll be lots easier that way.”

She cast him a cold, flashing smile, and started down the little slope directly before them. “It
’
s only fair to tell you,” she called over her shoulder, “that when I have my baby—I
’
ll go to the city—not be at the mercy of a bunch of country doctors!” She made an impudent, laughing face at him across her shoulder, and soared off and away.

He chuckled, set his skis and followed her, his body perfectly responding to the demands which he put upon it, his muscles working like silk—and his thoughts back in town, with his hospital—the clinic. The brick and stucco building—the “plant”—and the staff, the job they did.

Many newspaper and magazine write-ups had called it the “little Mayo
’
s of the West.” Sometimes it was spoken of as the answer to socialized medicine. In any case, the Berry and Chappell Clinic was a thriving institution, owned by the doctors who operated it, and serving an average of 10,000 patients a year. That
’
s a lot in the mountains—or anywhere.

The hospital offered nine qualified specialists in as many fields. The standards were kept high. Dr. Chappell, still with the hospital, and Dr. Berry—long since dead—had started the hospital in 1905. They had set certain ideals and maintained them. Succeeding members of the staff were selected with those goals in mind.

I came to Berry and Chappell directly after the War as a resident physician, and I am still proud that I was allowed to buy into the place, to qualify in my specialty and to work there. Scoles, I know, felt the same way about the clinic.

The idea behind the institution was a beautifully simple one. People, even those in the mountains, needed medical care. The constant increase of medical knowledge made specialist care the best sort. It was a logical step, therefore, to collect a group of specialists into one organization.

Our staff doctors must be qualified specialists, and they must continue to study in their specialty. Our equipment was of the best that could be bought. We were not alone in this development. There were at least four hundred group-practice units in the United States, ranging from staffs of three to two hundred and fifty doctors. The average group had eight. Ours had nine, with the hope of getting two more. We badly needed an E.E.T. man and an orthopedist.

The one thing that made our set-up out of the ordinary was that such a place should be available in the middle of the Sawtooth Mountains where, without us, medical care would be distant and infrequent, not to say incompetent. But with us there, the people who dwelt in our mountains could come to us for emergency care, or for what we liked much better, regular examination, diagnosis and treatment. Our ideal was preventive medicine, and we went a long way toward realizing it.

The clinic was a money-maker, but I felt—and I think Phil did—that no member of our staff was the sort of medic who had taken up the profession for its remunerative rewards. Medicine, in any form, is a back-breaking, heart-twisting task before it becomes remunerative in any sense. If money is a doctor
’
s total motivation, sincere condolences are due him, and his patients.

Doctors, as a class, run no better, no worse, than other men. But when you are organizing a group, it is always possible to select men of integrity—and I think that idea was pretty well attained at Berry and Chappell. To the point that the occasional misfit did not stay long with us.

Phil realized this, without ever needing to put the matter into concrete thoughts—until Marynelle
’
s attack made him do it. He
’
d not had to explain it to himself, and he should not have had to explain it to his wife.

The run was an easy one right there, and he could watch the slender blue figure before him, and turn his thoughts to the marriage which he was making.
If Marynelle did not understand his work—no, that wasn
’
t what he meant. She
’
d not been entirely joking when she
’
d called his associates “country doctors.” She thought they were. Indeed, she would go to the “city” for her medical care. Just as she went to Denver or San Francisco for her suits and shoes, sent mail orders to Chicago and New York for scarfs and blouses; they might not be any better, or different, from what she could buy at Anderson
’
s in Berilo, but they had the big-city stamp of sophistication upon them. She
’
d gone east to school. She
’
d selected and furnished their home, guided by magazines published in the east.

And she would want her health cared for by hands given the authority of big-city medicine. She lived in the west but she impatiently longed for the day when, in every detail, the west should become as slick and well-mannered as the east

She probably was marrying Phil because he was an “easterner,” and still maintained some of its gloss; he would, she thought, gracefully respond to her guidance back in that direction. Did she perhaps count on their moving east? And soon?

Phil blew his breath out in a cloud of vapor, and looked ever more intently at the back of his bride-to-be.

She was good on skis, as Marynelle was good at everything she did. A clever, handsome,
modern
young woman. Without any intellectual interests or depths. Oh, yes
,
she read. The acknowledged best sellers. And she worked with the Little Theatre Group—worked hard, bringing to it all the vivacity and charm of which she was capable
—
and the ruthless thumbs-down discouragement of any newcomer who might not meet her qualifications as being socially acceptable, slick and attractive in appearance and conversation.

But—was Phil marrying a girl for her vivacity, her interest and abilities in sports, for her social sense of what was right, all the time hoping to find comfort and understanding in that same girl? He wouldn
’
t find it. Marynelle was light-minded. She was technically, and passionately, interested in social gossip; she knew the ins and outs of it—but any deeper discussion of people she passed off as lightly as she discarded last month
’
s records from her player.

That girl in dark blue and gold, who at the moment looked like a December page on a girly calendar, was exactly like the house in which she and Phil were planning to live. She
’
d squashed his suggestion that he
’
d like a small ranch out in the valley, or a house of stone and split logs on the upper bench. The place they
’
d bought was as
modern
as tomorrow. Tricky. Pale green stucco and redwood siding. Closets lined with blazing vermilion. Tea-box papered living room walls. No book shelves. Fireplace set flush with the wall. And their bedroom—brown walls, the ceiling covered with the same ivory and green material as made the curtains which drew across the wide windows. Slick yellow tile on the kitchen floor
...
He didn
’
t know. He just didn
’
t know!

It might be a comfortable house as well as a functional one—but he didn
’
t expect it to be. Just as he didn
’
t count on Marynelle to be restful. The house, everyone said, was amusing. Slick. “It
’
s just like you, darling!” her friends told Marynelle.