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Fidelity

<h2>CHAPTER THREE</h2> It was in that mood of passionate tenderness for Amy, a glow of gratitude for love, that he sent his car swiftly toward the hospital. His feeling diffused warmth for the town through which he drove, the little city that had so many times tightened him up in bitterness. People were kind, after all; how kind they were being to Amy, he thought, eager to receive her and make her feel at home, anxious that she be happy among them. The picture of Edith as she stood at the head of the steps making plans for Amy warmed his heart to her. Perhaps he had been unfair to Edith; in that one thing, certainly, she had failed as a friend, but perhaps it was impossible for women to go that far in friendship, impossible for them to be themselves on the outer side of the door of their approval. Even Amy.... That showed, of course, how hard it was for women whose experiences had all fallen within the circle of things as they should be to understand a thing that was—disrupting. It was as if their kindly impulses, sympathy, tenderness, were circumscribed by that circle. Little as he liked that, his own mood of the moment, his unrecognized efforts at holding it, kept him within that sphere where good feeling lived. In it were happy anticipations of the life he and Amy would have in Freeport. He had long been out of humor with his town, scornful. He told himself now that that was a wrong attitude. There was a new feeling for the homes he was passing, for the people in those homes. He had a home there, too; it seemed to make him one with all those people. There was warmth in that feeling of being one with others. He told himself that it was absurd to expect Amy to adjust herself all in a minute to a thing he had known about for years, had all the time known from within. He would make Amy understand; if Ruth came, Amy would be good to her. At heart she was not like those others, and happiness would make her want to be kind. He saw her face lifted for that second good-by kiss—and quickened his speed. He hoped he would not have to be long at the hospital, hoped Amy would not be asleep when he got back home. He lingered happily around the thought of there being a home to go back to, of how Amy would be there when he got back. But it was at a slower speed that, an hour later, he traveled those same streets. He had lost his patient. It was no failure of the operator, but one of those cases where the particular human body is not equal to the demand made upon it, where there was no reaction. He got no satisfaction in telling himself that the woman could not have lived long without the operation; she had not lived with it—that was the only side it turned to him. The surgery was all right enough, but life had ebbed away. It brought a sense of who was master. He had been practising for twelve years, but death always cut deep into his spirit. It was more than chagrin, more than the disheartenment of the workman at failure, when he lost a patient. It was a real sense of death, and with that a feeling of man's final powerlessness. That made it a different town through which he drove upon his return; a town where people cut their way ruthlessly through life—and to what end? They might be a little kinder to each other along the way, it would seem, when this was what it came to for them all. They were kind enough about death—not so kind about the mean twists in life. That feeling was all wrapped up with Ruth Holland; it brought Ruth to him. He thought of the many times they had traveled that road together, times when he would take her where she could meet Stuart Williams, then pick her up again and bring her home, her family thinking she had been with him. How would he ever make Amy understand about that? It seemed now that it could not be done, that it would be something they did not share, perhaps something lying hostilely between them. He wondered why it had not seemed to him the shameful thing it would appear to anyone he told of it. Was that something twisted in him, or was it just that utter difference between knowing things from within and judging from without? To himself, it was never in the form of argument he defended Ruth. It was the memory of her face at those times when he had seen what she was feeling. He was about to pass the Hollands'—her old home. He slackened the car to its slowest. It had seemed a gloomy place in recent years. The big square house in the middle of the big yard of oak trees used to be one of the most friendly-looking places of the town. But after Ruth went away and the family drew within themselves, as they did, the hospitable spaciousness seemed to become bleakness, as if the place itself changed with the change of spirit. People began to speak of it as gloomy; now they said it looked forsaken. Certainly it was in need of painting—new sidewalks, general repairs. Mr. Holland had seemed to cease caring how the place looked. There weren't flowers any more. In the upper hall he saw the dim light that burns through the night in a house of sickness. He had been there early in the evening; if he thought the nurse was up he would like to stop again. But he considered that it must be almost one—too late for disturbing them. He hoped Mr. Holland was having a good night; he would not have many more nights to get through. He wished there was some one of them to whom he could talk about sending for Ruth. They had not sent for her when her mother died, but that was sudden, everyone was panic-stricken. And that was only two years after Ruth's going away; time had not worked much then on their feeling against her. He would have to answer her letter and tell her that her father could not live. He wanted to have the authority to tell her to come home. Anything else seemed fairly indecent in its lack of feeling. Eleven years—and Ruth had never been home; and she loved her father—though of course no one in the town would believe that. His car had slowed almost to a stop; there was a low whistle from the porch and someone was coming down the steps. It was Ted Holland—Ruth's younger brother. "Hello, Deane," he said, coming out to him; "thinking of coming in?" "No, I guess not; it's pretty late. I was just passing, and wondering about your father." "He went to sleep; seems quiet, and about the same." "That's good; hope it will keep up through the night." The young fellow did not reply. The doctor was thinking that it must be lonely for him—all alone on the porch after midnight, his father dying upstairs, no member of the immediate family in the house. "Sent for Cy, Ted?" he asked. Cyrus was the older brother, older than both Ted and Ruth. It was he who had been most bitter against Ruth. Deane had always believed that if it had not been for Cyrus the rest of them would not have hardened into their pain and humiliation like that. Ted nodded. "I had written, and today, after you said what you did, I wired. I had an answer tonight. He has to finish up a deal that will take him a few days, but I am to keep him informed—I told him you said it might be a couple of weeks—and he'll come the first minute he can." There was a pause. Deane wanted to say: "And Ruth?" but that was a hard thing to say to one of the Hollands. But Ted himself mentioned her. "Tell you what I'm worrying about, Deane," he blurted out, "and that's Ruth!" Deane nodded appreciatively. He had always liked this young Ted, but there was a new outgoing to him for this. "Father asked for her this afternoon. I don't care whether he was just right in his mind or not—it shows she's on his mind. 'Hasn't Ruth come in yet!' he asked, several times." "You send for her, Ted," commanded the doctor. "You ought to. I'll back you up if Cy's disagreeable." "He'll be disagreeable all right," muttered the younger brother. "Well, what about Harriett?" impatiently demanded Deane. "Doesn't she see that Ruth ought to be here?" Harriett was Ruth's sister and the eldest of the four children. "Harriett would be all right," said Ted, "if it weren't for that bunch of piety she's married to!" Deane laughed. "Not keen for your brother-in-law, Ted?" "Oh, I'll tell you, Deane," the boy burst out, "for a long time I haven't felt just like the rest of the family have about Ruth. It was an awful thing—I know that, but just the same it was pretty tough on Ruth. I'll bet she's been up against it, good and plenty, and all we've seemed to think about is the way it put us in bad. Not mother—Cy never did really get mother, you know, but father would have softened if it hadn't been for Cy's everlasting keeping him nagged up to the fact that he'd been wronged! Even Harriett would have been human if it hadn't been for Cy—and that upright husband she's got!" The boy's face was flushed; he ran his hand back through his hair in an agitated way; it was evident that his heart was hot with feeling about it all. "I don't know whether you know, Deane," he said in a lowered voice, "that mother's last words were for Ruth. They can't deny it, for I was standing nearest her. 'Where's Ruth?' she said; and then at the very last—'Ruth?'" His voice went unsteady as he repeated it. Deane, nodding, was looking straight down the street. "Well," said Ted, after a minute, "I'm not going to have that happen again. I've been thinking about it. I did write Ruth a week ago. Now I shall write to her before I go to bed tonight and tell her to come home." "You do that, Ted," said the doctor with gruff warmth. "You do that. I'll write her too. Ruth wrote to me." "Did she?" Ted quickly replied. "Well"—he hesitated, then threw out in defiant manner and wistful voice, "well, I guess Ruth'll find she's got one friend when she comes back to her old town." "You bet she will," snapped Deane, adding in another voice: "She knows that." "And as for the family," Ted went on, "there are four of us, and I don't know why Ruth and I aren't half of that four. Cy and Harriett haven't got it all to say." He said it so hotly that Deane conciliated: "Try not to have any split up, Ted. That would just make it harder for Ruth, you know." "There'll not be any split up if Cy will just act like a human being," said the boy darkly. "Tell him your father was asking for Ruth and that I told you you must send for her. See Harriett first and get her in line." "Harriett would be all right," muttered Ted, "if let alone. Lots of people would be all right if other people didn't keep nagging at them about what they ought to be." Deane gave him a quick, queer look. "You're right there, my son," he laughed shortly. There was a moment's intimate pause. There seemed not a sound on the whole street save the subdued chug-chug of Deane's waiting machine. The only light in the big house back in the shadowy yard was the dim light that burned because a man was dying. Deane's hand went out to his steering wheel. "Well, so long, Ted," he said in a voice curiously gentle. "'By, Deane," said the boy. He drove on through the silent town in another mood. This boy's feeling had touched something in his heart that was softening. He had always been attracted to Ted Holland—his frank hazel eyes, something that seemed so square and so pleasant in the clear, straight features of his freckled face. He had been only a youngster of about thirteen when Ruth went away. She had adored him; "my good-looking baby brother," was her affectionate way of speaking of him. He was thinking what it would mean to Ruth to come home and find this warmth in Ted. Why, it might make all the difference in the world, he was gratefully considering. When he came into the room where Amy was sleeping she awoke and sat up in bed, rubbing sleepy eyes blinded by the light. "Poor dear," she murmured at sight of his face, "so tired?" He sat down on the bed; now that he was home, too tired to move. "Pretty tired. Woman died." "Oh, Deane!" she cried. "Deane, I'm so sorry." She reached over and put her arms around him. "You couldn't help it, dear," she comforted. "You couldn't help it." Her sympathy was very sweet to him; as said by her, the fact that he couldn't help it did make some difference. "And you had to be there such a long time. Why it must be most morning." "Hardly that. I've been at the Hollands' too—talking to Ted. Poor kid—it's lonesome for him." "Who is he?" asked Amy. "Why—" and then he remembered. "Why, Ruth Holland's brother," he said, trying not to speak consciously. "The father's very sick, you know." "Oh," said Amy. She moved over to the other side of her bed. "They're going to send for Ruth." Amy made no reply. He was too utterly tired to think much about it—too worn for acute sensibilities. He sat there yawning. "I really ought to write to Ruth myself tonight," he said, sleepily thinking out loud, "but I'm too all in." He wanted her to take the letter off his conscience for him. "I think I'd better come to bed, don't you, honey?" "I should think you would need rest," was her answer. She had turned the other way and seemed to be going to sleep again. Somehow he felt newly tired but was too exhausted to think it out. He told himself that Amy had just roused for the minute and was too sleepy to keep awake. People were that way when waked out of a sound sleep. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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