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Glory of Youth, a novel by Temple Bailey |
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Chapter 21. Broken Wings |
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_ CHAPTER XXI. BROKEN WINGS It was Sophie who found Bettina. She came in quietly, wondering at the silence, then growing suddenly afraid she passed swiftly to the inner room to discover Miss Matthews still asleep and Bettina in a huddled heap on the floor. She picked the girl up in her strong arms, and carried her back to the big room and brought water and bathed her face, murmuring anxiously, "My dear, what is it? What has happened?" And, after a little while, Bettina whispered, "Justin," and then, a little louder, "Justin," and coming to the surface through the darkness for a third time, she clutched Sophie's arm, and cried, "Oh, is he killed? Is Justin killed?" Holding the shuddering little creature close, Sophie protested: "My dear, what is it? What have you dreamed?" "I didn't dream. Oh, Sophie, I didn't dream. I saw him up in the air, and I saw him--fall----" So it had come. So it came to all men who flew. Every bit of blood was drained from Sophie's face. But, fighting for composure, she held out such hope as she could. "My dear, are you sure? How did you know?" "I was standing by the window when he--came down----" "But there may have been some one to help him--and he was over the water--and he can--swim----" Footsteps were ascending the stairs lightly but hurriedly. The two women turned their white faces to the door. Captain Stubbs stood on the threshold. "He's hurt," he said. "Justin's hurt. He's at Harbor Light--and he's asked for Betty--and Anthony says that she must come." In a big room that overlooked the sea lay the bird man with broken wings. After that first murmured plea for "Betty" he had showed no sign of returning consciousness. On the floor above him they were getting ready for the operation. Nurses and doctors, in ghostly white, had set themselves to various preparatory tasks. And presently everything was in readiness for the great Dr. Anthony. He was delayed by a white-faced slip of a thing, whom he led at once into his private office, leaving Captain Stubbs outside as a proud and patient sentinel. When he had closed the door, Anthony took the little cold hands in his. "He is going to get well, Betty, if my skill can make him. I've got to operate at once--and there's a big chance--the other way----" He hesitated, then said, gently, "You love him, child?" "Yes--oh, yes." "And he loves you--how blind I've been! How much trouble might have been saved if I had known." There was no bitterness in his voice, only a great regret. "And now," he went on, "I'm going to save him for you, if I can. And I've sent a nurse to take care of Letty Matthews so that you can have Sophie with you." He had thought of everything. It came to Bettina then what he meant to the world--this great Dr. Anthony--she had hated his mission of healing--and the skill which might now mean to her a lifetime of happiness instead of unutterable woe. She tried, faltering, to tell him something of what she was feeling. "Hush, dear child. You could not know. And now you must be very brave, and pray your little white prayers for Justin, and, please God, we shall bring him through." Then he had gone away and Sophie had come, and the dreadful time of waiting had begun. Sophie, who had walked in the Valley of the Shadow with her own beloved, knew the right things to say to the child who clung to her. "Dearest, think of all you will mean to him when he gets well. Why, there's never an opportunity for a woman like that of having the man she loves dependent upon her--you can do all of the lovely little things for him." "But if he should not--get well?" "You are not to think of that." "I must think of it." "Hush, dear, _don't_. You can't help him or yourself by crying--I know how you feel--but think of this. If you should lose him, you will still have known love at its best. And you will never be content with a lesser thing. Oh, Betty, child, it is the shallow people who ask, 'Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved?' How _can_ there be any doubt? The woman who has not loved is only a half creature." "I know. Oh, Sophie, it seems such an awful thing to say, but if this hadn't happened I should never have been sure that for me there could never be any one else but Justin." Tactfully, the older woman led her on to talk of her doubts and fears, and of her terror lest she might deal with love lightly, as her father had done. And then Sophie spoke reverently of her own perfect marriage. "It was during his illness," she said, "that I learned to know my husband. I think I had always been a bit selfish. He had seemed so strong that I had heaped my burdens upon him. He wanted me to be happy, so he withheld all cares from me. But the time came when he knew it was not right to withhold such cares. He knew that I was to face separation and loneliness, and so he helped me to get ready. Oh, Betty, dear, I can't tell you how wonderful he was. He knew that death must come to him, and yet he never whimpered. He was a brave soldier going down to battle, and not once did he flinch. But gradually he came to lean on me; once he cried in my arms--not from fear, but because he must leave me. These things are not easy to speak of--but where at first I had merely loved, I came to worship. I saw how he had shielded me, and when he left me I had the precious memory not only of his care for me--but of my care for him--and his appreciation of it." There was a silence in which not only the "white prayers" of Bettina ascended, but the fervent ones of the woman who had suffered and lost. Then came a nurse with the message, "Dr. Blake wishes me to say that all conditions are favorable," and they permitted themselves to hope. Other people were coming now to Harbor Light--great men from the yachts, people from the big hotels, fellow-aviators of Justin's--the townsfolk and sailors--children who had worshiped the flying man of the smiling countenance. But no one was shown into the inner office except Bobbie and Doris and Sara. It was in that first moment of her meeting with Bettina that Sara blotted out the last vestige of smallness and of jealousy. She went straight up to the girl whom Justin loved, and put her arms about her. "Oh, you poor dear thing," and they wept together. Then Bettina asked, "How did you know?" "Everybody knows," Sara said, hysterically. "Did you think you could hide it?" Doris was weeping, too, in Bobbie's arms, and Bobbie's white, set face showed what he was feeling for his friend. "Oh, what made him go out on such a day--of all the crazy things----" "I told him not to," said Captain Stubbs, who had kept hitherto in the background, "but there's no fool like a young fool, and I said it at the time. But it was God's own providence that we were there when he fell. And if any one can fix him up it's Anthony." Bettina heard, and thought of her former fear of this place, which seemed now a sacred house of healing. Was she the same girl who had railed so bitterly against Anthony's profession? She felt that she wanted to tell him how great he was. Why, he was a wonderful man--and he was going to save Justin as he had saved others. Daily he fought battles with death and conquered. He must conquer now! Up-stairs in the operating room was being played a game of skill which had for its pawns human life and human reason. The worst trouble lay in the wounds about the head. But there were other dreadful complications, and many times in the hours that followed it seemed that the game was lost. All through the tiresome ordeal not once did a muscle of the great surgeon quiver. Not once did he show dismay at that which was most baffling; not once did he show weakness at that which was most pitiful. But when at last his great task was ended, his face was worn and gray. Yet as he went to change his clothes, through the fabric of his weariness and of his anxiety ran a thread of joy in the thought that the barriers were down between himself and Diana, and that he might love her now without reproach. When at last he descended to his little office, he spoke hopefully. "His strength and youth are in his favor--and I'm going to pull him through." Yet he knew in his heart that he was flinging a defiance at destiny. He arranged to keep Bettina at Harbor Light. "Justin might ask for you again," was his explanation. So Bobbie and Doris and Sara and Sophie went away together, and when there was no one else to hear, Anthony said to Bettina, gently, "My dear, why didn't you tell me?" Curled up in a big leather chair, she spoke of her fear of hurting him, of being inconstant--like her father. She seemed such a child in her blue serge suit with its red silk tie, and with the shady hat which had been pinned on hastily when the summons came. But the things she was saying were womanly things, and for the first time since he had known her Anthony perceived the possibilities of which Diana had been so sure--this little Betty child, transformed by love, would one day be an inspiration and a help to the man she would marry. "If I have hurt you," she said, as she finished, "I--I can only ask you to forgive me. If this had not happened, I think I should have--kept my promise. But now you know--and you will not want me to keep it." "No. I do not want you to keep it. Oh, what a tragedy we have made of it all. I might have made it so easy for you." "You, Anthony?" "Yes." He sat silent for a moment, his fingers tapping the arm of his chair, those strong flexible fingers which an hour ago had done such magical feats of surgery. Bettina's eyes were held by them. "I hardly know how to begin; it has to do with--Diana." "Diana?" "I love her, dear----" "Diana?" Bettina spoke, breathlessly. "Oh, and does she love you--Anthony?" "I have always loved her--but I thought I had lost her--then when she came back from Europe I found that she was still free--and that--she cared. But by that time I had engaged myself to a dear child who really didn't love me at all." "But why didn't you tell me, Anthony?" "Because, my dear, I thought you might be made unhappy." To others there might have seemed something humorous in the situation--in its almost farcical complications and misunderstandings. But these two saw none; the issues were too deep, too serious; death was too near in that upper room. "Was that why--she went away----?" Bettina whispered. "Yes." "Oh, write and tell her to come back." "I have written. I wrote yesterday. I saw that you were not happy. I felt that I had no right to permit you to marry me when my heart was bound up in another woman--as it was bound up in her. I felt that in marriage there is something which goes beyond conventional honor. As a physician I have seen much of unhappiness--and I could not sanction in myself that which I would not have sanctioned in another. So I told Diana. I think instinct warned me there was some one else, after your flight with Justin." "And now--if he gets--well." Anthony stood up. "He shall get well," he said, steadily. "I scarcely dare think of the things which are coming to you and to me, dear child. But when I think of them my heart says, 'Thank God.'" If she wept now in his arms, it was as a daughter might weep in the arms of a father--there was love between them at last, but it was the love of tried friendship, of passionate gratitude on her part, of protective affection on his. When he had quite soothed her, she drew off the sparkling rings. "These must go back to you," she said; "some day you must give them to Diana." He shook his head. "I shall give her pearls. She belongs to the sea, Bettina; she's the wife for a man of sailor instincts like myself--we love the harbor, and the great lights that are high above it, and the little lights that are low--and so I shall give her pearls. "But you must keep these," he went on; "not to wear on your third finger--Justin, please God, shall some day look after that--but to wear on your right hand, as my gift to you--for luck and a long and happy life." In the evening they rode over to see Miss Matthews, and found her sitting up. "I feel better," she said, "and there's something in the air. I want to know why I have a nurse, and why Bettina went away while I was asleep?" "And I want to know," said Anthony, sternly, "why you are out of bed?" "Because I am better," said Letty Matthews, "there's nothing in this world that can cure a person like curiosity--and I had to know what was going on." So Anthony told her, and she wept to think of the fate of the bird man with the broken wings. But she was cheered by the coming of Captain Stubbs. He bore on a tray such a supply of delicious viands that Miss Matthews urged that Bettina and Anthony should stay and have supper. Bettina could not eat. "Please, I'm not hungry," she said, and went down the winding stairway, and when she came back her arms were full of roses. "Will you let him have them in his room?" she asked Anthony. "He shall see them first when he opens his eyes," Anthony promised; "they shall carry all of your messages to him." In the hushed room at Harbor Light there was darkness--and there was the fragrance of many flowers. Out of the darkness a faint voice wavered, "Lilacs?" The nurse bent over the high hospital bed. "Roses--lovely ones." A long silence. Then, "Lovely ladies?" said the faint voice. He could see them with his eyes shut--a whole procession of pretty ladies, all floating in the dimness. Just their faces on a broad band of light, over which the gray mists rolled now and then and blurred the outlines. Then the faces would again shine out, smiling--gay and sad, pensive and glad. "Lovely ladies," he said again. They followed him into his dreams, and kept him company until the pain began--that racking, wrenching pain; then they flew from him and left him alone to suffer. After a long time, when the nurse had bared his shoulder and had pricked it with something that felt like a pin, they came back--all those lovely faces; only now they seemed to peep from behind clouds of smoke, heavier than the mists, and more tantalizing in their concealments. So they came and went through the long night, leaving when the pain racked him, returning always when the nurse did things to his shoulder with her little shining instrument. They fled from him, too, when he opened his eyes and saw hazily that there was a light, and a great many flowers, and that Anthony was standing in a sort of bower of them. And Anthony was saying to some unseen person who stood at the head of the bed, "Did he notice the flowers?" "Yes." "Good--you can take them out now--nurse." He had tried to tell Anthony about the pretty ladies. But they had come back and were whirling about him on that band of light--and there was one with dark hair with a crescent moon above the parting--and there was one who came closer than the others, and who had hair that shone like gold, and a little white face. "Betty----" The nurse did not catch the name--but Anthony's quick ear was at once attentive. "She loves you, dear boy; and I'm going to make you well, so you may marry her." _ |
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