The White Linen Nurse

by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

"I had a theory," he said, "that possibly a child might bridge the chasm between us. My wife refuted the theory, but submitted herself reluctantly to the fact. And when she—in giving birth to—my theory,—the shock, the remorse, the regret, the merciless self-analysis that I underwent at that time almost convinced me that the whole miserable failure of our marriage lay entirely on my own shoulders." Like the stress of mid-summer the tears of sweat started suddenly on his forehead. "But I am a fair man, I hope,—even to myself, and the cooler, less-tortured judgment of the subsequent years has practically assured me that, for types as diametrically opposed as ours, such a thing as mutual happiness never could have existed."

Mechanically he bent down and smoothed a tickly lock of hair away from the little girl's eyelids.

"And the child is the living physical image of her," he stammered. "The violent hair,—the ghost-white skin,—the facile mouth,—the arrogant eyes,—staring—staring—maddeningly reproachful, persistently accusing. My own stubborn will,—my own hideous temper,—all my own ill-favored mannerisms—mocked back at me eternally in her mother's—unloved features." Mirthless as the grin of a skull, the Senior Surgeon's mouth twisted up a little at one corner. "Maybe I could have borne it better if she'd been a boy," he acknowledged grimly. "But to see all your virile—masculine vices come back at you—so sissified—in skirts!"

"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse.

With an unmistakable gasp of relief the Senior Surgeon expanded his great chest.

"There! That's done!" he said tersely. "So much for the Past! Now for the Present! Look at us pretty keenly and judge for yourself! A man and a very little girl,—not guaranteed,—not even recommended,—offered merely 'As Is' in the honest trade-phrase of the day,—offered frankly in an open package,—accepted frankly,—if at all—'at your own risk.' Not for an instant would I try to deceive you about us! Look at us closely, I ask, and—decide for yourself! I am forty-eight years old. I am inexcusably bad-tempered,—very quick to anger, and not, I fear, of great mercy. I am moody. I am selfish. I am most distinctly unsocial. But I am not, I believe, stingy,—nor ever intentionally unfair. My child is a cripple,—and equally bad-tempered as myself. No one but a mercenary has ever coped with her. And she shows it. We have lived alone for six years. All of our clothes, and most of our ways, need mending. I am not one to mince matters, Miss Malgregor, nor has your training, I trust, made you one from whom truths must be veiled. I am a man with all a man's needs,—mental, moral, physical. My child is a child with all a child's needs,—mental, moral, physical. Our house of life is full of cobwebs. The rooms of affection have long been closed. There will be a great deal of work to do! And it is not my intention, you see, that you should misunderstand in any conceivable way either the exact nature or the exact amount of work and worry involved. I should not want you to come to me afterwards with a whine, as other workers do, and say 'Oh, but I didn't know you would expect me to do this! Oh, but I hadn't any idea you would want me to do that! And I certainly don't see why you should expect me to give up my Thursday afternoon just because you, yourself, happened to fall down stairs in the morning and break your back!'"

Across the Senior Surgeon's face a real smile lightened suddenly.

"Really, Miss Malgregor," he affirmed, "I'm afraid there isn't much of anything that you won't be expected to do! And as to your 'Thursdays out'? Ha! If you have ever yet found a way to temper the wind of your obligations to the shorn lamb of your pleasures, you have discovered something that I myself have never yet succeeded in discovering! And as to 'wages'? Yes! I want to talk everything quite frankly! In addition to my average yearly earnings,—which are by no means small,—I have a reasonably large private fortune. Within normal limits there is no luxury I think that you cannot hope to have. Also, exclusive of the independent income which I would like to settle upon you, I should be very glad to finance for you any reasonable dreams that you may cherish concerning your family in Nova Scotia. Also,—though the offer looks small and unimportant to you now, it is liable to loom pretty large to you later,—also, I will personally guarantee to you—at some time every year, an unfettered, perfectly independent two months' holiday. So the offer stands,—my 'name and fame,'—if those mean anything to you,—financial independence,—an assured 'breathing spell' for at least two months out of twelve,—and at last but not least,—my eternal gratitude! 'General Heartwork for a Family of Two'! There! Have I made the task perfectly clear to you? Not everything to be done all at once, you know. But immediately where necessity urges it,—gradually as confidence inspires it,—ultimately if affection justifies it,—every womanish thing that needs to be done in a man's and a child's neglected lives? Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse.

"Oh, and there's one thing more," confided the Senior Surgeon. "It's something, of course, that I ought to have told you the very first thing of all!" Nervously he glanced down at the sleeping child, and lowered his voice to a mumbling monotone. "As regards my actual morals you have naturally a right to know that I've led a pretty decent sort of life,—though I probably don't deserve any special credit for that. A man who knows enough to be a doctor isn't particularly apt to lead any other kind. Frankly,—as women rate vices I believe I have only one. What—what—I'm trying to tell you—now—is about that one." A little defiantly as to chin, a little appealingly as to eye, he emptied his heart of its last tragic secret. "Through all the male line of my family, Miss Malgregor, dipsomania runs rampant. Two of my brothers, my father, my grandfather, my great grandfather before him, have all gone down as the temperance people would say into 'drunkards' graves.' In my own case, I have chosen to compromise with the evil. Such a choice, believe me, has not been made carelessly or impulsively, but out of the agony and humiliation of—several less successful methods." Hard as a rock, his face grooved into its granite-like furrows again. "Naturally, under these existing conditions," he warned her almost threateningly, "I am not peculiarly susceptible to the mawkishly ignorant and sentimental protests of—people whose strongest passions are an appetite for—chocolate candy! For eleven months of the year," he hurried on a bit huskily, "for eleven months of the year,—eleven months,—each day reeking from dawn to dark with the driving, nerve-wracking, heart-wringing work that falls to my profession, I lead an absolutely abstemious life, touching neither wine nor liquor, nor even indeed tea or coffee. In the twelfth month,—June always,—I go way, way up into Canada,—way, way off in the woods to a little log camp I own there,—with an Indian who has guided me thus for eighteen years. And live like a—wild man for four gorgeous, care-free, trail-tramping, salmon-fighting,—whisky-guzzling weeks. It is what your temperance friends would call a—'spree.' To be quite frank, I suppose it is what—anybody would call a 'spree.' Then the first of July,—three or four days past the first of July perhaps,—I come out of the woods—quite tame again. A little emotionally nervous, perhaps,—a little temperishly irritable,—a little unduly sensitive about being greeted as a returned jail-bird,—but most miraculously purged of all morbid craving for liquor, and with every digital muscle as coolly steady as yours, and every conscious mental process clamoring cleanly for its own work again."