Read Ebook: Sweetapple Cove by Van Schaick George

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Ebook has 1519 lines and 73511 words, and 31 pages

"Yes, that was the beginning, Dora, and it has continued ever since. During the years I spent abroad we kept on writing. It seemed to me that the whole thing was settled. I've always had your pictures with me; the first was little Dora, and the other one was taken when you first did your hair up and wore long dresses. During all that time St. John's was the garden of the Hesperides, and you were the golden thing I was toiling for. When you wrote that you were coming to New York I took the next boat over. Then you told me I must wait until you graduated. And now, after your commencement, I hoped, indeed I hoped--I'm afraid I'm worrying you, dear."

She smiled at me, very pleasantly, but the little dimple held naught but mystery. I really think her eyes implied a sort of regret, as if she wished she could make the ordeal less hard for me.

The waiter brought the oysters, which Dora consumed appreciatively. I was simply compelled to eat also, lest she should deem me a peevish loser in the great game I had sought to play. Yet I remember that these Cape Cods were distinctly hard to swallow, delicious though they probably were.

Suddenly she looked up, and the little oyster impaled on her fork dropped on the plate.

"There's Taurus!" she exclaimed, with gleaming eyes.

She was looking at a rather tall man, of powerful build, whose abundant hair was splendidly tinged with silver, and who was coming in with a very beautiful woman.

"Is that what you nurses call him?" I asked, recognizing one of the great surgeons of the world.

"Yes," she answered. "Isn't he wonderful? We're all in love with him, the mean thing."

"Kindly explain the adjective," I urged her. "Is it due to the fact that he protected himself against the wiles of a host of pretty women by marrying the sweetest one of the lot--with a single exception--to the utter despair of the remainder?"

"Did you ever hear him blow up his house-staff?" Dora asked me.

"I have heard that he could be rather strenuous at times," I admitted.

"Well, that's how he infringes on our rights," Dora informed me. "I have never heard him say an angry word to a nurse. He just has a way of smiling at one, as if he were beholding an infinitesimal infant totally incapable of understanding. The sarcasm of it is utterly fierce and the nurse goes off, red and shaken, and feels like killing him. Don't you think we've got just as good a right as any whipper-snapper of a new intern to be blown up?"

"Evidently," I assented. "It is an unfair discrimination."

"And yet we're all just crazy for him. You can hardly understand how the personality of the man permeates the wards, how he gives one the impression of some wonderful being who has reached a pinnacle, and remains there, smilingly, without heeding the crowd below that worships and cheers. And how the patients adore him!"

She evidently expected no answer from me, nor did I venture upon one. Her words were very significant, and gave me a rather hopeless feeling. She was under the influence of the glamour of great names and reputations. Her youth demanded hero-worship. Measured by her standards I was but a nice friend, to whom she could even be affectionate.

Presently, in her enjoyment of our modest little dinner, she turned to me, appearing to forget the crowd, and sighed happily.

"This would all be so delightful," she said, "if...."

"I'll tell you, girlie," I said, "let us agree that all this has been a dream of mine. We will say that I have never been in love with you, and regard you now with profound indifference. It has been that which some very amazing practitioners are pleased to call an error. Now you will be able to enjoy happiness. As far as I am concerned I don't suppose it can make me feel any worse."

"You're a dear good boy, John," she answered. "We shall always be awfully good friends, and perhaps, some day ... Now you must tell me all your plans."

"Ladies first," I objected.

"Well, my heart is still in Newfoundland, you know. But I'm going to stay at least a year in New York. I'm going to work among the poorest and most unpleasant, because I want to become self-reliant. Then I shall go back home. Think of a trained nurse let loose in some of those outports! I should just revel in it. I am an heiress worth five hundred dollars a year of my own. That would keep a lot of people up there. You see, I have a theory!"

"Will you be so kind as to share it with me?" I asked.

"Well, ordinary nursing is a humdrum thing" and there are thousands to do it. It is the same thing with you. Just now, having no practice as yet, you are working in laboratories with a lot of others; you run around hospitals--also with a crowd. What do you know about your ability to go right out and do a man's work, by yourself? That is what counts, to my mind."

"I see the point," I informed her, "and you expect surely to return to the land of codfish."

"Yes," she nodded, "and now what about you?"

"Oh, I am going there next week," I replied. She opened her eyes very wide, vaguely scenting some sort of joke, but in this she erred.

"I see no use in remaining here," I said, with a determination as strong as it was recent. "It would take me a long time to put myself on the level of men like Taurus, and I don't want a lot of nurses falling in love with me; I only asked for one. You are going back after a time. Very well, I'm going now, and I'll wait for you. I can easily find some place where a doctor is badly needed. You will answer my letters, won't you?"

"I promise," she said, very gravely, "and it is a very good idea. One can always do a man's work up there."

She ate a Nesselrode pudding while I enjoyed coffee and a cigar, to the extent that I forgot to drink the one and allowed the other to go out after a puff or two.

"Your money came from a good St. John's merchant who made it from the people of the outports," she said. "You might spend a little on them now, gracefully. They need it badly enough."

We remained silent for some time, thinking of the bleak coast of our big island, where the price of our little dinner would have represented a large sum, and then we left the restaurant and took a car up town.

When she finally held out her little hand to me it was warm, and I fancied that from it came a current that was comforting, though it may have been but the affectionate regard of some years of good friendship.

"You will dine again with me, next Thursday?" I asked her. "It will take me a few days to get ready."

"Don't you think that Gordian knot had better be cut at once?" advised Dora. "I won't change my mind, and you know I've always been an obstinate thing. There are important things for both of us to achieve, somewhere. I must grope about to find my share of them, for I feel like the ship that did not find itself till it encountered a storm or two. If I promised to meet you next week you would keep on hoping. Do plunge right in now instead of shivering on the bank."

"Don't trouble about any more metaphors," I told her. "You promise to go home within a year?"

"I firmly intend to," she replied, "but you can't always depend on a woman's plans."

"If I can't depend on you I have very little left to believe in," I declared.

"I'm pretty sure I'll come," she said, "and--and God bless you, John!"

So we separated there, in the silent street, before the nurses' home where she had taken a room a few days after her graduation. I couldn't trust myself to say anything more.

The door closed upon her and I slowly walked back to my quarters, with a head full of dreary thoughts, and several times narrowly escaped speeding taxis and brought down upon myself some picturesque language.

I fear that I was hardly in a mood to appreciate its beauty.

Four weeks ago, this evening, I sat with Dora in that bright dining room at the Rochambeau. My description of that last meeting of ours is a rather flippant one, I fancy, but some feminine faces are improved by powder, and some men's sentiments by a veneer of assumed cheerfulness. That cut of mine has not the slightest intention of healing by first intention; it is gaping as widely as ever, as far as I can judge. Yet I am glad I made no further effort. I suppose a man had better stop before he gets himself disliked.

Yesterday morning I came out of a dilapidated dwelling in which I had spent the whole night, and scrambled away over some rocks. When I sat down my legs were hanging over a chasm at the foot of which grandly rolling waves burst into foam, keeping up the warfare waged during a million years against our sturdy cliffs.

Rays of dulled crimson sought to penetrate, feebly, through the fog, as if the sun knew only too well how often it had been defeated in its contest against the murky vapors of this hazy land.

"I am going to have the steeple finished," he said. "It will take but a few feet of lumber, and we still have half a keg of nails. Some day I expect to have a little reading room, and perhaps a magic lantern. I will try to give them some short lectures. I am ambitious, and hope that I am not expecting too much. We are really doing very nicely at Sweetapple Cove."

"Where is that?" I asked him.

The little parson gave me the desired geographical information and, finding me interested, began to speak of his work.

He was one of the small band of devoted men whose lives are spent on the coast, engaged in serving their fellow-men to the best of their abilities. The extent of his parish was scarcely limited by the ability of a fishing boat to travel a day's journey, and he spoke very modestly of some rather narrow escapes from storm and ice.

"If we only had a doctor!" he sighed. "Mrs. Barnett and I do our best. Things are sometimes just heartrending."

At once I manifested interest, and angled for further information. This was just the sort of place I had in mind. It appeared that the nearest doctor was more than a day's travel away, and that the population was rather too poor to afford the luxury of professional advice.

"We sometimes feel very hopeless," he told me.

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