Rest and Be Thankful (27 page)

He looked a little uncomfortable. “Really, Margaret,” he protested again, “this is all very hard to swallow.”

“And impossible to digest, we found,” Mrs. Peel said sharply.

Grubbock asked, “But why doesn’t André Mercier complain out loud?”

“Probably he isn’t as good as he thinks,” Koffing said, with a smile. “Even if his friends don’t like it he may have got the book reviews that he deserved.”

Mrs. Peel looked at Karl. “I think,” she said slowly, “you gave Earl his answer. If André were to complain few would believe him—until it happened to them. The Communists would just say he was suffering from wounded pride, and the pro-Communists would help to damn him by repeating all kinds of false gossip about him. They are very clever at rumours, you know.”

There was another silence. Jim Brent watched the disbelieving faces. Only Robert O’Farlan was thoughtful, as if he at least was weighing Mrs. Peel’s words. Jim listened to the wind, trying to hear the approach of the doctor’s car. The thunder had died away, but the rain still lashed the windows mercilessly. He waited for someone to speak, but no one did.

“Well, I believe you,” Jim Brent said. “For the simple reason that I don’t believe you’d make up a story like this, Mrs. Peel. I don’t know much about book reviews or writers or any of that world. But I’ve known you this summer, and you’ve never said an unjust thing about anyone.” He looked angrily now at the others.

“I believe you too,” Mimi said unexpectedly, and gave Jim Brent a smile. “And I’m just thankful that I live in a country where the Communists aren’t in any positions of power. Thank heavens, that couldn’t happen here!”

There was a dead silence.

“Not a particularly happy phrase,” Prender Atherton Jones said, with a grimace, and raised a small laugh. “Ah, there are the lights again!” They all blinked at each other, smiling determinedly if a little uneasily, as the room was flooded with bright lamps once more.

“Thanks to Jackson,” Mrs. Peel murmured, rising to blow out the candles.

O’Farlan said, “It seems to me that if we’d all face the fact that there are hidden Communists in this country, then we’d make quite sure it can’t happen here. The trouble is, whenever I say that aloud, there’s always some clever guy ready to yell ‘reactionary’ or ‘witch-hunt.’”

Grubbock looked over at Koffing. Nothing that had been said had moved him, either to worry or pity or anger. It was almost as if Koffing had closed his ears for the last ten minutes. Grubbock stared at his friend. Was he or wasn’t he? Well, if he was a secret Communist, what did it matter? Grubbock frowned and looked at the others. They were all a little upset by the story, even if they didn’t quite believe it. Didn’t
want
to believe it? Hell...was he seeing his own reflection? Only Jim Brent and O’Farlan seemed to accept it as possible. Mimi? She was just out to win a smile from Brent. She was watching Brent now, trying not to let any of the others see she was watching him.

Grubbock smiled wryly. This is one party, he thought, where you didn’t make much of an impression on the pretty girls; you’re losing your grip, Grubbock. But the Drenes and the Mimis would always somehow choose—however much they’d protest money wasn’t everything and love was—someone with money. Brent must be rich, even if he dressed like a cowboy and worked as hard as any of them. For a moment Grubbock felt the old bitterness returning: it was a hell of a life if you had neither money nor prestige.

Norah said suddenly, “There’s the doctor’s car.” She was right. It was pulling up in the yard. She gave Grubbock a smile as she ran out of the room. No, Grubbock decided, it didn’t have to be such a bad life, either. There were girls unlike Drene or Mimi. And you could try for money or prestige, and if you didn’t go desperately grasping after them you might have a good time trying for them. And if you didn’t get them you’d have found other things, perhaps richer and fuller than money or prestige ever were. You might have a good time finding that out too.

Mrs. Peel had followed Norah to welcome Dr. Clark. Jim Brent had gone as far as the door. Then he paused and came back into the room. “Glad he got here,” he said. “I was beginning to think we’d have to send for Ned. He made a good job of Bert’s foot when a horse stepped on it. The only time I’ve known Ned to fail was when he set Chuck’s arm last summer. When it mended it wouldn’t bend. So they had to break it again and reset it. At least, that’s Chuck’s version of the story. I was down in Montana buying horses at the time.”

“Good heavens!” Carla said. “Does that sort of thing happen often?”

“Not if you’re careful. There’s always a time when you begin to take a horse for granted. That’s when the accidents happen.”

Prender Atherton Jones said, “I wondered what you did here when you had an accident. After all, the doctor is twenty-five miles away, and the hospital at Three Springs is another ten.” Personally, he thought, I just concentrate hard on not having appendicitis.

“Oh, if it isn’t too bad, we can patch it up. Ned’s good. He got some medic work in the Army before he was picked out for officer’s training.”

“Was Ned in the Army?” Carla asked. All the women became interested.

“Sure. That’s where I met him. He became my lieutenant. I offered him a job here as soon as he got his discharge. He’s a good wrangler and cowhand, one of the best I’ve had.” When his mind isn’t set on a woman, Jim thought.

“What were you?” Mimi asked. “Captain or major?” Or it might have been a colonel: he would look wonderful as a colonel.

Jim Brent began to laugh. “I was a P.F.C.” He gave Grubbock a mock salute. “Sergeant! Thank you, sir!” he said.

“Same to you!” Then Grubbock was laughing too, and the women looked bewildered. O’Farlan smiled. Atherton Jones poured himself another drink. Koffing became interested in a magazine.

“Were all the boys in the War?” Carla asked.

“All except Chuck. He went down to the recruiting-station in Sweetwater, said he could always be a cook. But he had to come back here. He took charge of this outfit, he and his old buddy Cheesit Bridger, who came out of retirement to help us. Of course, the Government requisitioned the horses, so there wasn’t too much to do—just a matter of holding the place together until the rest of us got back.”

“Did you get wounded?” Esther Park asked. She had been silent for so long that everyone was surprised she was still there.

“You can’t be lucky all the time. But, I must say, you can get just as much cracked up if a horse starts really working on you.”

“Once a horse trampled my foot,” Esther Park said. “And I had an arm broken when I was in Switzerland.” The others looked at her politely.

Mimi said, “When I was a child, I remember...” and that began a whole chapter of amusing little accidents from Carla and Atherton Jones too.

Esther Park looked round angrily. All that fuss over Sally, over Drene. All that fuss over Ned, and Chuck’s arm, and Bert’s foot. And no one even worried about her. I
had
a broken arm, she thought bitterly, and looked at Mimi and Carla, now discussing vaccination marks. I
had.
She went out of the room.

She hesitated at the stairs, looking up towards Sally’s room. Its door was opening. She ran up the stairs, quietly, surprisingly lightly. She reached the landing as Mrs. Gunn came out.

“How is Sally? Is she bad? Does it hurt?” Esther Park asked. “Can I nurse her? I’d love to nurse her. I’m a very good nurse.”

“That’s nice of you to offer, but I think we’ll manage, Miss Park. The doctor says she’ll be up in no time.” Mrs. Gunn bustled downstairs to make a sandwich for Dr. Clark and some fresh coffee: he had to get back to Sweetwater tonight.

Esther waited. Then the doctor came out of Sally’s room, with Mrs. Peel saying goodbye to him at the door. Again Esther was full of anxious inquiries. They were embarrassed—as Mrs. Gunn had been—by her overemphatic anxiety. But Mrs. Peel was going to sleep in Sally’s room, and it was all arranged, and Esther wasn’t to worry. Mrs. Peel said good night, and closed the bedroom door firmly.

The doctor, as he went downstairs, glanced back at the lonely figure on the landing. Wonder if she could nurse? Looked like a neurotic to him—eyes, gestures, tone of voice. Probably just trying to get into the act. Give her a floor to scrub each day and she’d be a happier woman. Occupational therapy, they called it nowadays.

* * *

Downstairs Dr. Clark found it good to rest for half an hour by the fire, enjoying a sandwich and coffee before he started the bleak drive down to Sweetwater. Jim Brent was looking well, he was glad to see, and the rest of the writers were more normal than he had expected from that screwball on the landing. They were a nice crowd, talkative and friendly enough. There was an important-looking man with a noble head and a good pair of hands, who seemed to be the host. He was making a fancy little speech about the fine life of a country doctor on his errands of mercy.

But as Dr. Clark stretched his sodden boots towards the fire, and remembered the child who had died of tetanus that afternoon, he was inclined to be less moved than his host was by the spiritual rewards. They must be very great, he was assured earnestly.

Before he finished the second sandwich the telephone rang. The doctor was on his feet at once, his bag in his hand. “Tell them I’m coming straight over,” he called to Mrs. Gunn, who had hurried into the hall to answer the ’phone. “Good night, all.”

Spiritual rewards, he thought, as he ploughed through the muddy yard with Jim towards his car. That kid with tetanus...

“Good night, Jim. Keep well!” he said, and drove carefully down the black, slick road.

After a week Sally was downstairs suffering mostly from tight bandages. By that time everyone had got accustomed to the idea that accidents do happen, and the household had stepped back into its ordinary routine again.

“An invalid’s only interesting when he’s about to die,” Mrs. Gunn said shrewdly. She had brought Miss Bly a morning cup of broth, and found her alone in the little sun-porch off the sitting-room, reading through a pile of paper sheets, tattered and dog-eared. “But I’m glad to see you sitting still for a change. I’ve brought you the weekly bad news too.” She laid a collection of bills beside the manuscript on the table at Sally’s elbow.

“Mr. O’Farlan’s book,” Sally explained.

“My, and isn’t there a lot of it? And now it will be published!”

“We hope so,” Sally said, with a smile. “It’s good; it’s very good.” She was as delighted as Mrs. Gunn, and a little surprised. Just wait, she thought, until Prender reads this. “But Mr. O’Farlan has a lot of work before him yet.”

Mrs. Gunn looked puzzled, so Sally told her about editing and polishing, about proof-correcting twice over until you got to know every misplaced comma by sight.

“Why, there’s more work to it than I thought,” Mrs. Gunn admitted. “It’s not all just a matter of sitting down and letting your ideas run away with you! Many’s the time I thought I’d like to write a book, but”—she glanced at the pile of manuscript doubtfully—“if I were Mr. O’Farlan, I think I’d have made it a small book. Not so much trouble, I’m thinking. Now drink up the broth before it gets cold, Miss Bly.”

“You’re a strange one to be talking about avoiding trouble.” Sally sipped the cup of broth dutifully, looked at the bills on the table beside her, and frowned. One of the envelopes, long and business-like, was from Lawyer Quick in New York. What words of warning was he giving them this time?

Mrs. Gunn gathered up some petals, fallen from the mariposa lilies in the vase on the table. “Now don’t let these bills go worrying you. And I do try to keep them down. But it is a multitude to feed and provide for, and they do like their food and all their etceteras.”

“I wasn’t thinking of the bills so much. I was thinking of Mr. Quick, our lawyer.” Sally laid down the cup, and picked up his letter. She looked at it with distaste. “He takes such a gloomy view of everything. If only he would write once to say the world wasn’t going to pieces and us along with it!” She looked down at the letter, then at the other envelopes: yes, all bills. She tried not to seem worried.

“It’s the etceteras,” Mrs. Gunn said. “I was the youngest in a family of ten, and all of us alive if it hadn’t been for the War—the first one, that is. We had one dinner a day, plenty of gravy to make the meat spin out, plenty of potatoes to fill up the gaps. But it’s not that way with city folks. Gravy is fattening, potatoes is fattening. So they’ve got to be filled up on other things. And Mr. Atherton Jones leaves all the pie-crust on his plate—just eats the filling—and then thinks he’d like a bit of that Camembert to end with. Never seems to think that if he ate the pie-crust he wouldn’t have room for the Camembert. And isn’t cheese as fattening too?”

“But he’s very fond of it, so he forgets that. I’m glad that they at least enjoy their food here.”

“They certainly do,” Mrs. Gunn said, with some pride. Then she added quickly, “Don’t get me wrong, Miss Bly. If I’m cooking I’m cooking. It takes just as long to make a good dishful of white fluffy potatoes as it takes to cook asparagus or mushrooms. But there’s a heap of difference in the cost. That’s what worries me.”

“We’ll manage. Guests are guests, after all. We can start economising in September.” She smiled up at Mrs. Gunn.

“Well,” Mrs. Gunn said slowly, “a giving hand is always getting, they say.” But she shook her head as she scattered the petals into the cup’s saucer, and gathered it all up to take into the kitchen. “They don’t last long, do they? Mrs. Peel put these lilies in that vase only yesterday. That’s what I always say when I get worried: nothing lasts forever. Not even troubles.”

She glanced over her shoulder as she closed the door. Miss Bly was looking at the letter again. She wanted to tell her, “Open it. It may be good news this time.” But she had said more than enough already. It was strange, when she spoke about city folks, that she kept forgetting Miss Bly and Mrs. Peel were Easterners too. Not that she disliked city folks. When you got to know them they were just like any other folks in most things. But they did take a lot for granted. Perhaps if they had to grow their own food, and kill their meat and dress it and keep it, they might eat anything that was nicely cooked for them.