She uncorked the vials, filled a gla.s.s with water and stood before the mirror, a tablet between her fingers. Suddenly she bowed graciously to her reflection, and raised the gla.s.s to it.
"Well, here"s mud in your eye," she said.
The tablets were unpleasant to take, dry and powdery and sticking obstinately half-way down her throat. It took her a long time to swallow all twenty of them. She stood watching her reflection with deep, impersonal interest, studying the movements of the gulping throat. Once more she spoke aloud.
"For G.o.d"s sake, try and cheer up by Thursday, will you?" she said. "Well, you know what he can do. He and the whole lot of them."
She had no idea how quickly to expect effect from the veronal. When she had taken the last tablet, she stood uncertainly, wondering, still with a courteous, vicarious interest, if death would strike her down then and there. She felt in no way strange, save for a slight stirring of sickness from the effort of swallowing the tablets, nor did her reflected face look at all different. It would not be immediate, then; it might even take an hour or so.
She stretched her arms high and gave a vast yawn.
"Guess I"ll go to bed," she said. "Gee, I"m nearly dead."
That struck her as comic, and she turned out the bathroom light and went in and laid herself down in her bed, chuckling softly all the time.
"Gee, I"m nearly dead," she quoted. "That"s a hot one!"
III.
Nettie, the colored maid, came in late the next afternoon to clean the apartment, and found Mrs. Morse in her bed. But then, that was not unusual. Usually, though, the sounds of cleaning waked her, and she did not like to wake up. Nettie, an agreeable girl, had learned to move softly about her work.
But when she had done the living-room and stolen in to tidy the little square bedroom, she could not avoid a tiny clatter as she arranged the objects on the dressing-table. Instinctively, she glanced over her shoulder at the sleeper, and without warning a sickly uneasiness crept over her. She came to the bed and stared down at the woman lying there.
Mrs. Morse lay on her back, one flabby, white arm flung up, the wrist against her forehead. Her stiff hair hung untenderly along her face. The bed covers were pushed down, exposing a deep square of soft neck and a pink nightgown, its fabric worn uneven by many launderings; her great b.r.e.a.s.t.s, freed from their tight confiner, sagged beneath her arm-pits. Now and then she made knotted, snoring sounds, and from the corner of her opened mouth to the blurred turn of her jaw ran a lane of crusted spittle.
"Mis" Morse," Nettie called. "Oh, Mis" Morse! It"s terrible late."
Mrs. Morse made no move.
"Mis" Morse," said Nettie. "Look, Mis" Morse. How"m I goin" get this bed made?"
Panic sprang upon the girl. She shook the woman"s hot shoulder.
"Ah, wake up, will yuh?" she whined. "Ah, please wake up."
Suddenly the girl turned and ran out in the hall to the elevator door, keeping her thumb firm on the black, shiny b.u.t.ton until the elderly car and its Negro attendant stood before her. She poured a jumble of words over the boy, and led him back to the apartment. He tiptoed creakingly in to the bedside; first gingerly, then so l.u.s.tily that he left marks in the soft flesh, he prodded the unconscious woman.
"Hey, there!" he cried, and listened intently, as for an echo.
"Jeez. Out like a light," he commented.
At his interest in the spectacle, Nettie"s panic left her. Importance was big in both of them. They talked in quick, unfinished whispers, and it was the boy"s suggestion that he fetch the young doctor who lived on the ground floor. Nettie hurried along with him. They looked forward to the limelit moment of breaking their news of something untoward, something pleasurably unpleasant. Mrs. Morse had become the medium of drama. With no ill wish to her, they hoped that her state was serious, that she would not let them down by being awake and normal on their return. A little fear of this determined them to make the most, to the doctor, of her present condition. "Matter of life and death," returned to Nettie from her thin store of reading. She considered startling the doctor with the phrase.
The doctor was in and none too pleased at interruption. He wore a yellow and blue striped dressing-gown, and he was lying on his sofa, laughing with a dark girl, her face scaly with inexpensive powder, who perched on the arm. Half-emptied highball gla.s.ses stood beside them, and her coat and hat were neatly hung up with the comfortable implication of a long stay.
Always something, the doctor grumbled. Couldn"t let anybody alone after a hard day. But he put some bottles and instruments into a case, changed his dressing-gown for his coat and started out with the Negroes.
"Snap it up there, big boy," the girl called after him. "Don"t be all night."
The doctor strode loudly into Mrs. Morse"s flat and on to the bedroom, Nettie and the boy right behind him. Mrs. Morse had not moved; her sleep was as deep, but soundless, now. The doctor looked sharply at her, then plunged his thumbs into the lidded pits above her eyeb.a.l.l.s and threw his weight upon them. A high, sickened cry broke from Nettie.
"Look like he tryin" to push her right on th"ough the bed," said the boy. He chuckled.
Mrs. Morse gave no sign under the pressure. Abruptly the doctor abandoned it, and with one quick movement swept the covers down to the foot of the bed. With another he flung her nightgown back and lifted the thick, white legs, cross-hatched with blocks of tiny, iris-colored veins. He pinched them repeatedly, with long, cruel nips, back of the knees. She did not awaken.
"What"s she been drinking?" he asked Nettie, over his shoulder.
With the certain celerity of one who knows just where to lay hands on a thing, Nettie went into the bathroom, bound for the cupboard where Mrs. Morse kept her whisky. But she stopped at the sight of the two vials, with their red and white labels, lying before the mirror. She brought them to the doctor.
"Oh, for the Lord Almighty"s sweet sake!" he said. He dropped Mrs.
Morse"s legs, and pushed them impatiently across the bed. "What did she want to go taking that tripe for? Rotten yellow trick, that"s what a thing like that is. Now we"ll have to pump her out, and all that stuff. Nuisance, a thing like that is; that"s what it amounts to. Here, George, take me down in the elevator. You wait here, maid. She won"t do anything."
"She won"t die on me, will she?" cried Nettie.
"No," said the doctor. "G.o.d, no. You couldn"t kill her with an ax."
IV.
After two days, Mrs. Morse came back to consciousness, dazed at first, then with a comprehension that brought with it the slow, saturating wretchedness.
"Oh, Lord, oh, Lord," she moaned, and tears for herself and for life striped her cheeks.
Nettie came in at the sound. For two days she had done the ugly, incessant tasks in the nursing of the unconscious, for two nights she had caught broken bits of sleep on the living-room couch. She looked coldly at the big, blown woman in the bed.
"What you been tryin" to do, Mis" Morse?" she said. "What kine o" work is that, takin" all that stuff?"
"Oh, Lord," moaned Mrs. Morse, again, and she tried to cover her eyes with her arms. But the joints felt stiff and brittle, and she cried out at their ache.
"Tha"s no way to ack, takin" them pills," said Nettie. "You can thank you" stars you heah at all. How you feel now?"
"Oh, I feel great," said Mrs. Morse. "Swell, I feel."
Her hot, painful tears fell as if they would never stop.
"Tha"s no way to take on, cryin" like that," Nettie said. "After what you done. The doctor, he says he could have you arrested, doin" a thing like that. He was fit to be tied, here."
"Why couldn"t he let me alone?" wailed Mrs. Morse. "Why the h.e.l.l couldn"t he have?"
"Tha"s terr"ble, Mis" Morse, swearin" an" talkin" like that," said Nettie, "after what people done for you. Here I ain" had no sleep at all for two nights, an" had to give up goin" out to my other ladies!"
"Oh, I"m sorry, Nettie," she said. "You"re a peach. I"m sorry I"ve given you so much trouble. I couldn"t help it. I just got sunk. Didn"t you ever feel like doing it? When everything looks just lousy to you?"
"I wouldn" think o" no such thing," declared Nettie. "You got to cheer up. Tha"s what you got to do. Everybody"s got their troubles."
"Yeah," said Mrs. Morse. "I know."
"Come a pretty picture card for you," Nettie said. "Maybe that will cheer you up."
She handed Mrs. Morse a post-card. Mrs. Morse had to cover one eye with her hand, in order to read the message; her eyes were not yet focusing correctly.
It was from Art. On the back of a view of the Detroit Athletic Club he had written: "Greeting and salutations. Hope you have lost that gloom. Cheer up and don"t take any rubber nickles. See you on Thursday."
She dropped the card to the floor. Misery crushed her as if she were between great smooth stones. There pa.s.sed before her a slow, slow pageant of days spent lying in her flat, of evenings at Jimmy"s being a good sport, making herself laugh and coo at Art and other Arts; she saw a long parade of weary horses and shivering beggars and all beaten, driven, stumbling things. Her feet throbbed as if she had crammed them into the stubby champagne-colored slippers. Her heart seemed to swell and harden.
"Nettie," she cried, "for heaven"s sake pour me a drink, will you?"
The maid looked doubtful.
"Now you know, Mis" Morse," she said, "you been near daid. I don" know if the doctor he let you drink nothin" yet."
"Oh, never mind him," she said. "You get me one, and bring in the bottle. Take one yourself."
"Well," said Nettie.
She poured them each a drink, deferentially leaving hers in the bathroom to be taken in solitude, and brought Mrs. Morse"s gla.s.s in to her.
Mrs. Morse looked into the liquor and shuddered back from its odor. Maybe it would help. Maybe, when you had been knocked cold for a few days, your very first drink would give you a lift. Maybe whisky would be her friend again. She prayed without addressing a G.o.d, without knowing a G.o.d. Oh, please, please, let her be able to get drunk, please keep her always drunk.
She lifted the gla.s.s.
"Thanks, Nettie," she said. "Here"s mud in your eye."
The maid giggled. "Tha"s the way, Mis" Morse," she said. "You cheer up, now."
"Yeah," said Mrs. Morse. "Sure."
The Bookman, February 1929.
You Were Perfectly Fine.
The pale young man eased himself carefully into the low chair, and rolled his head to the side, so that the cool chintz comforted his cheek and temple.
"Oh, dear," he said. "Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear. Oh."
The clear-eyed girl, sitting light and erect on the couch, smiled brightly at him.
"Not feeling so well today?" she said.
"Oh, I"m great," he said. "Corking, I am. Know what time I got up? Four o"clock this afternoon, sharp. I kept trying to make it, and every time I took my head off the pillow, it would roll under the bed. This isn"t my head I"ve got on now. I think this is something that used to belong to Walt Whitman. Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear."
"Do you think maybe a drink would make you feel better?" she said.
"The hair of the mastiff that bit me?" he said. "Oh, no, thank you. Please never speak of anything like that again. I"m through. I"m all, all through. Look at that hand; steady as a humming-bird. Tell me, was I very terrible last night?"
"Oh, goodness," she said, "everybody was feeling pretty high. You were all right."
"Yeah," he said. "I must have been dandy. Is everybody sore at me?"
"Good heavens, no," she said. "Everyone thought you were terribly funny. Of course, Jim Pierson was a little stuffy, there for a minute at dinner. But people sort of held him back in his chair, and got him calmed down. I don"t think anybody at the other tables noticed it at all. Hardly anybody."
"He was going to sock me?" he said. "Oh, Lord. What did I do to him?"
"Why, you didn"t do a thing," she said. "You were perfectly fine. But you know how silly Jim gets, when he thinks anybody is making too much fuss over Elinor."
"Was I making a pa.s.s at Elinor?" he said. "Did I do that?"
"Of course you didn"t," she said. "You were only fooling, that"s all. She thought you were awfully amusing. She was having a marvelous time. She only got a little tiny bit annoyed just once, when you poured the clam-juice down her back."
"My G.o.d," he said. "Clam-juice down that back. And every vertebra a little Cabot. Dear G.o.d. What"ll I ever do?"
"Oh, she"ll be all right," she said. "Just send her some flowers, or something. Don"t worry about it. It isn"t anything."
"No, I won"t worry," he said. "I haven"t got a care in the world. I"m sitting pretty. Oh, dear, oh, dear. Did I do any other fascinating tricks at dinner?"
"You were fine," she said. "Don"t be so foolish about it. Everybody was crazy about you. The maitre d"hotel was a little worried because you wouldn"t stop singing, but he really didn"t mind. All he said was, he was afraid they"d close the place again, if there was so much noise. But he didn"t care a bit, himself. I think he loved seeing you have such a good time. Oh, you were just singing away, there, for about an hour. It wasn"t so terribly loud, at all."
"So I sang," he said. "That must have been a treat. I sang."
"Don"t you remember?" she said. "You just sang one song after another. Everybody in the place was listening. They loved it. Only you kept insisting that you wanted to sing some song about some kind of fusiliers or other, and everybody kept shushing you, and you"d keep trying to start it again. You were wonderful. We were all trying to make you stop singing for a minute, and eat something, but you wouldn"t hear of it. My, you were funny."
"Didn"t I eat any dinner?" he said.
"Oh, not a thing," she said. "Every time the waiter would offer you something, you"d give it right back to him, because you said that he was your long-lost brother, changed in the cradle by a gypsy band, and that anything you had was his. You had him simply roaring at you."
"I bet I did," he said. "I bet I was comical. Society"s Pet, I must have been. And what happened then, after my overwhelming success with the waiter?"
"Why, nothing much," she said. "You took a sort of dislike to some old man with white hair, sitting across the room, because you didn"t like his necktie and you wanted to tell him about it. But we got you out, before he got really mad."
"Oh, we got out," he said. "Did I walk?"
"Walk! Of course you did," she said. "You were absolutely all right. There was that nasty stretch of ice on the sidewalk, and you did sit down awfully hard, you poor dear. But good heavens, that might have happened to anybody."
"Oh, sure," he said. "Louisa Alcott or anybody. So I fell down on the sidewalk. That would explain what"s the matter with my-Yes. I see. And then what, if you don"t mind?"
"Ah, now, Peter!" she said. "You can"t sit there and say you don"t remember what happened after that! I did think that maybe you were just a little tight at dinner-oh, you were perfectly all right, and all that, but I did know you were feeling pretty gay. But you were so serious, from the time you fell down-I never knew you to be that way. Don"t you know, how you told me I had never seen your real self before? Oh, Peter, I just couldn"t bear it, if you didn"t remember that lovely long ride we took together in the taxi! Please, you do remember that, don"t you? I think it would simply kill me, if you didn"t."
"Oh, yes," he said. "Riding in the taxi. Oh, yes, sure. Pretty long ride, hmm?"
"Round and round and round the park," she said. "Oh, and the trees were shining so in the moonlight. And you said you never knew before that you really had a soul."
"Yes," he said. "I said that. That was me."