The Doctor Takes a Wife (4 page)

CHAPTER 3

It was
three o
’
clock on Monday afternoon when Phil returned to
full
consciousness. He knew immediately where he was. In room 617 of his own hospital. He was alone, but the sounds out in the hall were familiar, and the smell of the hospital. The flowers along the window sill told him that he
’
d been there long enough to have such offerings ordered and delivered. His exploring fingers discovered the bandage on his head, the strapping about his ribs; the slightest movement betrayed bruises. But he was awake, and he was alive! He had both arms, both legs—and consciousness. He would live.

A touch on that bell cord would tell him the things he needed to know—how he
’
d been found, everything. But for this first, sweet moment it was enough to know, that he was alive, that he had been given a second chance to do all those things which he had surrendered as lost when he lay out on that snow bank. The travel, the fishing, the house—but first and most important, the work he meant to do! The active research, the intent dedication to making his own discoveries, his own medical contribution to the world!

Yes, sir! He
’
d do differently with
this
life! He
’
d spend it wisely, because now he knew how quickly, how easily, the chance of life can be snatched from a man.
He
’
d make no excuses himself. He
’
d listen to none.

He
’
d break off with Marynelle—he
’
d manage that, somehow
...

At that very minute, Marynelle
’
s funeral cortege was winding away from the church door and toward the cemetery. But Phil had no way of knowing that, just as he had no way of knowing how we had found him on Saturday evening. Our lante
rn
-lit search party had discovered them, Phil in bad shape from exposure and loss of blood, and Marynelle, dead for hours. We
’
d brought them up that long, long slope to the Inn; I had done what I could for Phil—mainly first aid for shock—and then had flown with him to town, glad that we were only fifty minutes from blood and oxygen. An ambulance was waiting to take him to the hospital which he had begun to scorn there in the dusky cold of the snow, and which he still despised that sunny afternoon when he found himself safe and warm, and fairly comfortable, on his high white bed.

No doctor makes a good patient, especially in his own hospital. Phil was no exception. He gave his own orders, and was rude to everyone. Doctor, nurse, maid—nothing pleased him, and he said so. If ever a patient of his had acted so, Phil would have walked out on the case. He freely admitted that no one had ever suffered pain equal to his. We all came to regret his return to consciousness, and a couple of us considered ways to return him to that blessed, silent state.

If he had then mentioned his plan to leave us, we would have thought it a fine idea all around. We were good and sick of him and his complaints. He couldn
’
t sleep at night, insisted that people with boots ran up and down the halls for the exact purpose of keeping him awake. He sent for the Technologist and ordered her to disconnect all autoclaves and sterilizers in the lab for the night so that his bedside radio would have no interference. He objected more loudly than any patient to the early stirring of the hospital.

“Well, what difference does it make?” I asked him. “You claim you don
’
t sleep anyway.”

“I made myself sleep last night,” he told me. “I kept taking phenobarb and codeine until I passed out. Then what happens? At five o
’
clock, someone comes in and washes my face in ice water!”

“Phil
...”

“It wasn
’
t six!”

“Who ordered that junk you took?”

“I ordered it! And got it!” He leered at me triumphantly. His right eye was black to his shoulder.
I walked out on him, and issued a blanket order that no medicine was to be given him, however
many
orders he issued. Then I regretted that, because it would have been a help to have him lost in drugged sleep.

He yelled at the porter filling the hopper with crushed ice; he objected to the flowers which crowded his window, and ordered none brought to his room. Then he moped because all of his friends had forgotten him.

Of course, none of the hospital food pleased him; the coffee was slop, the meat tough, hot things were cold, cold things lukewarm. It was bad enough when he said so to the personnel; it was very bad business to say so to his outside visitors.

He decided that we were not taking proper care of his strained back. We must bring the X-rays to him—and he demanded a cast to relieve his pain.

“If you
’
d use that infra-red lamp
...” I
ventured.

He threw the urinal at me.

We put him in a cast. He kept it on for less than two hours. When we tried to make him sit up, to put his feet to the floor, his dizziness frightened him. It would have been funny—only it wasn
’
t
.

“Haven
’
t you ever been sick or hurt before?” I asked him.

“Not this sick, Whit,” he said faintly.

“You
’
re getting well,” I assured him.

“I doubt if I
’
ll ever walk again
...
”

I laughed at him, I swore at him, I patiently tried to argue with the guy—and I vowed I
’
d get a rule passed that no staff member could ever again become a patient
.
But, of course, we all felt sorry for the big lug. He was going to get to the place, and soon, where he must face what had happened to him. He hadn
’
t mentioned Marynelle and it was not going to be nice when he realized that she ... It was a very tragic thing, a man
’
s bride killed a week before their wedding. We hoped to get Phil as strong as possible before that fact hit him.

By the middle of the week we let him have company, to get him out of our hair as much as anything. Phil was a popular guy; all his friends were ready to be kind to him. Especially the women. I
’
ll grant that some came to see him out of curiosity; there
’
d been some speculation about the accident, even among his best friends. Of course, an accident on skis runs a high rate of possibility, but why were those fair-to-experts so far off the trail? What had made them take off in that particularly dangerous place?

We didn
’
t especially forbid talk of the accident, or of Marynelle, but I don
’
t think any of the first callers mentioned her. Not even the women. They brought him candy and books, told him how sorry they were, agreed that the pain must be bad
...
T
h
ey gossiped about town affairs, told him funny things their children had done or said—urged him to get well, the crowd missed him
...

It was late on Thursday afternoon when I came to the door of his room and found it crowded with women. Extra chairs had been brought in, and Nancy Pierce sat gingerly upon the radiator. Except for Min, Nancy had placed closest behind Marynelle in the Phil Scoles sweepstakes. I cynically considered her readiness to console him.

A round tin of chocolates was being circulated; I selected a couple and leaned against the door frame, agreed that Phil looked good, agreed too that he
’
d had a narrow escape, but promised that he should make a quick recovery.

“You
’
re more optimistic than I am,” Phil broke in.

“Nobody would blame you,” I said, deliberately misunderstanding him, “for staying an interesting invalid. With every pretty woman in town coming to see you—”

The girls giggled, and Phil scowled. “Natural sympathy for a widower,” he said. So he knew! And obviously he was not going to be dramatic about it. We were all relieved. “Some of my friends haven
’
t been near me,” he added thoughtfully.

I looked at him in surprise. “Name one!”

“Where
’
s Brady?” he demanded. “Min hasn
’
t been near me. No card—no flowers—no Min.”

The stillness in that room was deafening. The women were looking at Phil, wide-eyed. Then they looked at me. And
then
at each other. Phil caught their looks. “You
’
re way ahead of me,” he said crossly. “I just wanted a
‘
hello
’
from an old friend.” But the knowing looks continued.

Nancy and Trish Layne had been up at McCord with us. They
’
d probably seen Min kiss Phil that Friday night; perhaps Marynelle had sounded off to them about her feelings on the subject. I wished Phil had not asked about Min—it was just the thing to start up real talk over the way Marynelle had been killed.

I didn
’
t suppose that anyone would think Phil had pushed her over that rock-ledge; but folks were asking each other if there had been a quarrel.

That night, I asked Phil if there had been, and he told me what had happened on that Saturday afternoon.

I knew Phil, and Min—and Marynelle. I believed what he told me. But I pointed out that the situation, spiced with his inquiry for Min, was the sort that could stir up some extremely nasty talk about him. It wasn
’
t going to help him any as a doctor in the town to have people wondering if he had killed his bride.

“Nonsense,” he said gruffly. “I
’
m sorry I quarreled with her. I
’
m sorry she was—hurt. And that
’
s that.”

“It isn
’
t, though, if people are going to talk, Phil. You know, that sort of story gets worse as it is repeated. Folks who know you—we who were up at McCord—may know it happened just the way you say. But people generally around town—the women in the Supermarket, the ranchers
’
wives out in the valley—they don
’
t know you except that you
’
re a doctor. And if they have the remotest suspicion that you might have killed a woman, they won
’
t want you for their doctor. They won
’
t want to come to the clinic
—
And that
’
s not good, son. That
’
s not good!”

“So what?” He snapped off his bed lamp, and eased himself into a new position.

“Good Godfrey, man!
I
shouldn
’
t have to explain
a
simple thing like that!”

“I know what you have in mind. But don
’
t fret—I won
’
t hurt the clinic. I
’
m not staying here, Whit.”

“Huh?”

He looked at me, his eyes bright. “That
’
s right. I
’
m leaving. Out there in that snow bank—” And he went on to tell me of his dreams that had seemed lost, of his determination to make this second chance at life realize those dreams.

“You
’
re crazy!” I told him.

“I
’
m not crazy,” he assured me.

“But you like it here in Berilo.”

“I like it, and I
’
ll admit that the easiest thing to do would be to stay on here and work. I
’
d get rich and fat—
”

“Agggh! We don
’
t have a fat doctor on our staff.”

We didn
’
t. And Phil grinned in acknowledgment. But
—
“Just the same, Whit, I
’
m leaving. As soon as I
’
m able to be up and around. I
’
ll sell that tricky green house, then I
’
ll take off to some big medical center—Baltimore, or New York, or St. Louis—and study for a year on my own.”

“
Study what?”

“Post-partum blood clots.”

“Because of what Marynelle said to you about the Norber case. That
’
s what triggered you.”

“It might have been. But just the same, it
’
s a subject which will take a bit of study.”

“And I imagine it
’
s getting it!” I said crossly. “By eye
-
glassed, stoop-shouldered guys who are best fitted for that sort of work. But why a God-gifted surgeon should go in for lab research
—
Look, Phil. Remember that
placenta praevia
you had last month? What if you
’
d been in Baltimore
then
?”

“But—”

“It took
you
to argue her husband into letting us operate. Putnam couldn
’
t persuade him—and who was it stayed with her for forty-eight hours? Wasn
’
t it twenty-seven transfusions you did?”