Vigil in the Night (19 page)

 
So apparent was the other man’s anguish that a wave of compunction swept over Prescott. But he fought it coldly. “There are other doctors who will be prepared to see her.”

 
“We don’t want other doctors.” Bowley’s tone was abjectly beseeching. “It’s you we want. I know what you can do. I trust you. I wouldn’t have another surgeon lay a finger on my Rose. For God’s sake, Prescott, help us. Forget the dirty trick I did you, and remember that I love Rose. She’s all I care about in the world, and if anything happens to her, I’ll go mad.”

 
Despite himself, Prescott was moved. If Bowley had tried any other argument, offered him money, a magnificent fee, he would have icily refused. Yet now, almost against his will, he found himself hesitating. Then, all at once, he made up his mind. He said curtly: “Very well, I’ll take the night train up. Ask Dr. Sinclair to meet me at the station tomorrow.”

CHAPTER 63

 
It was very early in the morning when Prescott reached Manchester, but Sinclair, like a good friend, was already waiting at the station with his car. Sinclair, after their greetings, plunged directly into an account of Rose Bowley’s case.

 
In my opinion,” he concluded, “the lesion is almost certainly an intracranial tumor pressing on the optic tract. Her sight is steadily deteriorating. At this rate, if nothing is done, she will be stone blind. Speaking as a physician, I can only say that medical treatment is hopeless. As for any surgical interference—an operation on the base of the brain—that rests with you, of course.” Sinclair shrugged his shoulders expressively. “But it seems to me there isn’t one chance in a thousand of success.”

 
“You don’t sound exactly hopeful,” Prescott said.

 
“I’m not. Quite frankly, it seems to me a horrible choice. Do nothing, and it’s certain blindness. Operate, and it’s almost certain death. I haven’t told Bowley the worst yet. He’s half-crazy as it is.”

 
“He deserves to be,” answered Prescott darkly, and would say no more.

 
By this time they were at the Bowley mansion, the gateway now arched by a replica of the city arms. It was a strange experience for Prescott to reenter this home, which he had once known so well. But he gave no sign. The moment they were inside, he asked to see the patient.

 
Rose Bowley, a tall girl of fourteen, was awake in her darkened bedroom, her eyes covered by a protective bandage. Though she tried not to show it, she was desperately frightened, keyed to a pitch of nervous foreboding. Prescott judged that she had spent a sleepless night, anticipating his visit and the verdict that must follow it. Immediately he softened toward her. His touch was gentle as he removed the bandage, his voice even gentler as he began to question her.

 
As he proceeded with the examination, it became plain to him that Dr. Sinclair’s diagnosis was correct. The pressure symptoms—from the peculiar headache to the persistent sickness—were typical, and his examination by electric ophthalmoscope of the retina bore out the location of the lesion. And so far as the prognosis went, he could not but agree with his colleague. To operate in such a section of the brain would be courting almost certain disaster. And yet, if he did not operate, blindness, complete and absolute, would be the result. As Sinclair had said, it was one of the most terrible decisions that any surgeon could be called upon to make.

CHAPTER 64

 
Nothing of this showed in Prescott’s expression as he concluded his investigation and spoke a few reassuring words to the patient. But she, with an instinct that struck directly to the heart of the dilemma, gripped his hand as he was about to leave.

 
“Don’t let me go blind, doctor,” she pleaded in a strained and urgent whisper. “I think—I think I’d rather die.”

 
Again he soothed her, stroking her hand till she relaxed. Then he went with Sinclair from the room.

 
Outside, waiting for them on the upper landing, was Matthew Bowley. He came slowly toward the two doctors, a dressing gown pulled over his shirt and trousers, his hair disordered, his gaze, both haggard and distraught, fixed burningly upon Prescott. He gave no greeting, made no preliminary remark.

 
“Well,” he said in an almost extinguished voice, “what have you to say to me?”

 
Prescott had been prepared for strong evidence of anxiety on Bowley’s part. But this haggard agony caused him hurriedly to avert his eyes. The man, consumed by dread, was a shell of the plump and hearty Matt he had once known.

 
“It is difficult to tell you,” Prescott answered gravely. “What Dr. Sinclair has already explained is in all respects correct. Your poor niece is rapidly losing her sight. Nothing can be done for her—if we exclude an operation, so dangerous it ought not to be attempted.”

 
Bowley’s eyes never once left Prescott’s face. “An operation!” he repeated. “That’s why we sent for you.”

 
Prescott made a gesture of annoyance. “I am not omnipotent,” he said sternly. “And I am not disposed to undertake an operation so likely to prove fatal.”

 
“Do you want me to go down on my knees to you, Robert?” Bowley pleaded. “I don’t want my lass to go through life sightless. And she don’t want it either. We’re both prepared to take a chance, Robert. All I’m asking of you is to give us that chance.”

 
Prescott darted a glance at Bowley, then as quickly glanced away. Matt’s brokenhearted simplicity was undermining his resentment, driving him, despite his better judgment, to gamble with Rose’s life against incalculable odds. And yet, was there not truth in Matt’s words? Was it not better that she should be given this one slender chance rather than be condemned to long years of painful darkness? “No doubt,” Prescott thought grimly. But that would not salve his conscience, or save his reputation, if Rose died.

 
With bent head he walked to the embrasure on the landing, gazed grimly through the leaded window to the green stretch of lawn beyond, the shrubbery glistening with the morning dew, the lovely russet tints amidst the line of beeches beyond. All this beauty Rose would miss unless, by some miracle, he could give it back to her. The thought filled him with sudden resolution. He was a fool, an utter and presumptuous fool; but he would take the chance. He turned quickly to Bowley.

 
“I will attempt the operation, though I cannot promise its success. It must be done soon, preferably this evening after I have had a rest. It cannot be performed here. She must be taken to a nursing home or, if you choose, to the side room of my old ward in the Hepperton. And now, if you will excuse me, I’ll go to the hotel.”

 
Bowley’s eyes still remained on Prescott’s face, like the eyes of a pleading, beaten dog. He made no protestation of gratitude; his expression did not change. “I knew ye’d do it for me, Robert.” He pressed a bell beside him. “But you’re not going to no hotel. If only you’ll take it, there’s a room all ready for ye here.”

CHAPTER 65

 
Again Prescott yielded, conquered by Bowley’s new humility. Yet when he found himself in the luxurious bedroom, inside this house he had sworn never again to enter, doubts about his own quixotic folly began to reassail him. His reputation was already in jeopardy. Failure in a case such as this would put it inextricably beneath a cloud. Angrily he tried to drive these demons from his mind, to address himself with concentrated thought to the preparation he had still to make. Dr. Sinclair could be trusted to make all local arrangements. After reflection, he drafted a wire instructing his London theatre sister to take the next train north. It was then that a queer shaft of light struck across his gloom.

 
He thought deeply, his features oddly illuminated. And the longer he reflected, the stronger his strange impulse grew. It was here in this house that Anne had suffered such humiliation and injustice. Why should not she witness Bowley’s abasement, figure also in this final drama of appeasement? It was no more than her right. With sudden determination he took up the receiver of his bedside telephone and sent a telegram to Anne, asking her to leave everything to take duty for him in a special operation in Manchester.

 
A slight smile touched his lips as he pulled off his coat and shoes and lay down for a few hours’ necessary sleep.

 
At four o’clock in the afternoon Prescott awakened. The minute he opened his eyes, he felt alert and vigorous, conscious of what lay before him, yet wholly refreshed by his six hours’ sleep. He felt hungry, too, and rang for the butler. When the food arrived, he found on the tray a note from Sinclair: “Sister Lee arrived. Operation 6 p.m. The Hepperton.”

 
Lately Prescott had known few moments of elation. But now he experienced that subtle and thrilling emotion to the full. He did not realize that his love for Anne made a pretext of the occasion. He knew only that she would be there, working with him again, helping him by her very presence.

 
At half-past five word was brought to him that the car was at the door. He smoked a final cigarette, descended, and was driven to the hospital. At five minutes to six he entered the operating theatre.

 
She was there. Though he did not directly look at her, though his expression did not alter, he was instantly aware of her.

 
When she handed him his gown after he had washed up, he said formally, in an undertone, “Thank you for coming.” No more than that.

 
She did not reply. No words were needed. And she had been trained to use them sparsely in this arena where deeds alone mattered.

 
And now the theatre was ready, the last gauze mask was adjusted. At a sign from Prescott the patient, already anesthetized, was wheeled in. Three well-drilled movements and Rose lay upon the table, on that shining mechanism of steel and chromium, her body swathed in white, her head, now shaved of all its lovely hair, a shining iodined sphere beneath the cowled arc lights.

 
Prescott took a last look around, his glance encompassing the gowned Sinclair opposite him, the stooping figure of the anesthetist, the four nurses, and Anne, all muffled in their white. He poised himself like a strange conductor about to lead this strange, white company into a symphony of life and death. Then he placed his gloved fingers upon the shining ball that was a living human head, drew the skin tense, and slit it to the bone. Without his asking, a swab was in his hand, artery forceps, another swab. Then the trephine. And he began to drill.

 
How strange was the pinkish, pulsing brain beneath its translucent membranes—this delicate, thinking, human brain, the brain of Rose Bowley, doomed to blindness. Now the membranes had yielded to the lancet, and Anne, bending at her work, could see the convolutions of the cortex, intricate and smooth.

 
Into this center of the human life it was necessary to thrust the knife, to pierce, dissect, enucleate the lesion, separate the vagrant tissues from the good. All this Prescott had to do.

 
No one who did not realize the frightful complications and dangers involved could have fully comprehended the staggering difficulty of the task. But Anne realized. She saw in her mind’s eye the hundreds of brain cells coupled in their insulated sheaths like electric circuits. She knew that Prescott had only to cut or cross one complex circuit and the fatal thing was done. To operate elsewhere is serious enough; but at least some latitude is permitted to the surgeon, who can ligature a ruptured artery and repair a false incision. Here there was no room for error, no latitude to effect repairs, no second chance.

 
Anne’s heart went out to Prescott as he bent, sure and unhurried, over his work. He had been operating for close upon an hour, and he had not yet penetrated to the deepest point of the growth. Nothing could expedite the separation of the obstructing fibers. The operation might take at least three hours. It demanded infinite patience as well as infinite skill. Signs of strain were visible to Anne upon Prescott’s face; a fine dew of perspiration was showing on his brow. The theatre was unendurably hot.

 
The minutes moved slowly. And slowly, too, Prescott’s fingers moved within the living skull of Rose Bowley. Suddenly, on Dr. Sinclair’s face, Anne observed a swift expression of dismay. He leaned forward, peered through the wound into the tissues of the brain. With a shrinking of her heart Anne knew there was unexpected trouble. Momentarily Prescott stopped working and raised his head to meet his colleague’s gaze. The eyes of the two men, shining in their mask-enshrouded faces, met above the operating table. Sinclair’s eyes were filled with apprehension and silent warning. Instinctively Anne read their message. They said: “Stop! The growth is far more extensive than we thought. It presses on vital nuclei. Retrace your steps; close the wound. Go farther, and the patient will die.”

 
Prescott’s eyes did not waver. And Anne found their message even easier to read: “If I go back, she will still be blind. Come what may, I am going forward.”