8. Reaction
"Will you have this woman?"
David's clear, low voice sounded over the little church, and the bride lifted confident, trusting eyes to his face. The people in the pews leaned forward. They had glanced approvingly at the slender, dark-eyed girl in her bridal white, but now every eye was centered on the minister. The hand in which he held the Book was white, blue veined, the fingers long and thin. His eyes were nervously bright, with faint circles beneath them.
David looked sick.
So the glowing, sweet faced bride was neglected and the groom received scant attention. The minister cleared his throat slightly, and the service went smoothly on to the end.
But the sigh of relief that went up at its conclusion betokened not so much satisfaction that another young couple were setting forth on the troubled, tempting waters of matrimony, as that David had finished another service and all might yet be well.
Carol, half way back in the church, had heard not one word of the service.
"David is an angel, but I do wish he were a little less heavenly," she thought passionately. "He--makes me nervous."
The carriage was at the door to take the minister and his wife to the Daniels home for the bridal reception, but David said, "Tell him to take us to the manse first, Carol. I've got to rest a minute. I'm tired to-night."
In the living-room of the manse he carefully removed the handsome black coat in which he had been graduated from the Seminary in Chicago, and in which a little later he had been ordained for the ministry and installed in his church in the Heights. Still later he had worn it at his marriage. David hung it over the back of a chair, saying as he did so:
"Wearing pretty well, isn't it? It may be called upon to officiate in other crises for me, so it behooves me to husband it well."
Then he dropped heavily on the davenport before the fireplace, with Carol crouching on a cushion beside him, stroking his hand.
"Let's not go to the reception," she said. "We've congratulated them a dozen times already."
"Oh, we've got to go," he answered. "They would be disappointed. We'll only stay a few minutes. Just as soon as I rest--I am played out to-night--it is only a step."
They slipped among the guests at the reception quietly and unobtrusively, but were instantly surrounded.
"A good service, David," said Mr. Daniels, eying him keenly. "You make such a pretty job of it I'd like to try it over myself."
"Now, Dan," expostulated his anxious little wife. "Don't you pay any attention to him, Mrs. Duke, he's always talking."
"I know it," said Carol appreciatively. "I never pay attention."
"You need a vacation, Mr. Duke," broke in a voice impulsively.
"I know it," assented David. "We'll take one in the spring,--and you can help pay the expenses."
"You'd better take it now," suggested Mrs. Baldwin. "The church can get along without you, you know."
But the laugh that went up was not genuine. Many of them, in their devotion to David, wondered if the church really could get along without him.
David gaily waved aside the enormous plate of refreshments that was passed to him. "I had my dinner, you know," he explained. "Carol isn't neglecting me."
"He had it, but he didn't eat it,--and it was fried chicken," said Carol sadly.
A few minutes later they were at home again, and before Carol had finished the solemn task of rubbing cold cream into her pretty skin, David was sleeping heavily, his face flushed, his hands twitching nervously at times.
Carol stood above him, gazing adoringly down upon him for a while. Then shutting her eyes, she said fervently:
"Oh, God, do make David less like an angel, and more like other men."
Early the next morning she was up and had steaming hot coffee ready for David almost before his eyes were open.
"To crowd out that mean little cough that spoils your breakfast," she said. "I shall keep you in bed to-day."
All morning David lounged around the house, hugging the fireplace, and complained of feeling cold though it was a warm bright day late in April, and although the fire was blazing. In the afternoon he took off his jacket and loosened his collar.
"It certainly is hot enough now," he declared. "Open the windows, Carol,--I am roasting."
"That is fever," she announced ominously. "Do you feel very badly?"
"Well, nothing extra," he assented grudgingly.
"David, if you love me, let's call a doctor. You are going to have the grippe, or pneumonia, or something awful, and--if you love me, David."
The pleading voice arrested his refusal and he gave the desired consent, still laughing at the silly notion.
So Carol sped next door to the home of Mr. Daniels, the fatherly elder.
"Mr. Daniels," she cried, brightly happy because David had consented to a doctor, and a doctor meant health and strength and the end of that hateful little cough. "We are going to have a doctor see David. What is the name of that man down-town--the one you think is so wonderful?"
Mr. Daniels gladly gave her the name, warmly approving the move, but he shook his head a little over David. "I am no pessimist," he said, "but David is not just exactly right."
"The doctor will fix him up," cried Carol joyously. "I am so relieved and comfortable now. Don't try to worry me."
David looked nervous when Carol gave him the name of the physician she had called.
"He is a Catholic,--and some of the members think--"
"Of course they do, but I am the head of this house," declared Carol, standing on tiptoe and assuming her most lordly air. "And Doctor O'Hara is the best in town, and he is coming."
"Oh, all right, if you feel like that about it. I don't suppose he would give me strychnine just because I am a Presbyterian minister."
"Oh, mercy!" ejaculated Carol. "I never thought of that. Do you suppose he would?"
But David only laughed at her, as he so often did.
When Carol met the doctor at the door, she found instant reassurance in the strong, kind, clever face.
"It's a cold," she explained, "but it hangs on too long, and he keeps running down-hill."
The doctor looked very searchingly into David's pale bright face. And Carol and David did not know that the extra joke and the extravagant cheeriness of his voice indicated that things looked badly. They took great satisfaction in his easy manner, and when, after a brief examination, he said:
"Now, into bed you go, Mr. Duke, and there you stay a while. Get a substitute for Sunday. You've got to make a baby of a bad cold and pet it a little."
David and Carol laughed, and when the doctor went away, and David was safely in bed, Carol perched up beside him and they had a stirring game of parcheesi. But David soon tired, and lay very quietly all evening, eating no dinner, and talking very little. Telephone messages from "the members" came thick and fast, with offers of all kinds of tempting viands, and callers came streaming to the door. But Father Daniels next door turned them every one away.
"He can't talk any more," he said in his abrupt, yet kindly way. "He's just worn out talking to this bunch,--that's all that ails him."
Next day the doctor came again, gave another examination, and said there was some little congestion in the lungs.
"Just do as I have told you,--keep the windows up, drink a lot of fresh milk, and eat all the raw eggs you can choke down."
"He won't eat anything," said Carol.
"Let him fast then, and he'll soon be begging for raw eggs. I'll see you again to-morrow."
When he returned next day there was a little shadow in the kind eyes. David lay on the cot, smiling, and Carol stood beside him.
"How do you feel to-day?"
"Oh, just fine," came the ready answer.
But the shadow in the doctor's eyes deepened.
"The meanest part of a doctor's work is handing out death blows to hope," he said. "But you two are big enough to take a hard knock without flinching, and I won't need to beat around the bush. Mr. Duke, you have tuberculosis."
David winched a little and Carol clutched his hand spasmodically, yet they smiled quickly, comfortingly into each other's eyes.
"That does not mean that your life is fanning out, by any means," continued the doctor in his easy voice. "We've got a grip on the disease now. You are getting it right at the start and you stand a splendid chance. Your clean life will help. Your laughing wife will help. Your confidence in a Divine Doctor will help. Everything is on your side. If you can, I think I should go out west somewhere,--to New Mexico, or Arizona. It is low here, and damp,--lots of people chase the cure here, and find it, but it is easier out there where the air is light and fine and the temperature is even, and where doctors specialize on lungs."
"Yes, yes, indeed, we shall go right away," declared Carol feverishly. "Yes, indeed."
"Keep on with my treatment while you are here. And get out as soon as you can. Stay in bed all the time, and don't bother with many visitors. I don't need to tell you the minor precautions. You both have brains. Be sure you use them. Now, don't get blue. You've still got plenty to laugh at, Mrs. Duke. And I give you fair warning, when you quit laughing there's the end of the fight. You haven't any other weapon strong enough to beat the germs."
It was hard indeed for Carol to see anything to laugh at just that moment, but she smiled, rather wanly, at the doctor when he went away.
There was silence between them for a moment.
At last, she leaned over him and whispered breathlessly, "Maybe it is really a good thing, David. You did need a vacation, and now you are bound to get it."
David smiled at her persistent philosophy of optimism.
Again there was silence. Finally, with an effort he spoke. "Carol, I--I could have thanked God for letting us know this two years ago. Then you would have escaped."
"David, don't say that. Just this minute I was thanking Him in my heart because we didn't know until we belonged to each other."
She lifted her lips to him, as she always did when deeply moved, and instinctively he lowered his to meet them. But before he touched her he stopped, stricken by a bitter thought, and pushed her face away almost roughly.
"Oh, Carol," he cried, "I can't. I can never kiss you again. I have loved to touch you, always. I have loved your cool, sweet, powdery skin, and your lips,--I have always thought of your lips as a crimson bow in a pale pink cloud,--I--I have loved to touch you. I have always adored your face, the look of it as well as the feel of it. I have
loved to kiss you."
Carol slipped an arm beneath his head and strove to pull his hand away from his face.
"Go on and do it," she whispered passionately. "I am not afraid. You kissed me yesterday and it didn't hurt me. Kiss me, David,--I don't care if I do get it."
He laughed at her then, uncertainly, brokenly, but he laughed. "Oh, no you don't, my lady," he said. "You've got to keep strong and well to take care of me. You want to get sick so you'll get half the petting."
Like a flash came the revelation of what her future was to be. "Oh, of course," she cried, in a changed voice. "Of course we must be careful,--I forgot. I'll have to keep very strong and rugged, won't I? Indeed, I will be careful."
Then they sat silent again.
"Out west," he said at last dreamily. "Out west. I've always wanted to go west. Not just this way, but--maybe it is our chance, Carol."
"Of course it is. We'll just rest and play a couple of months, and then come back better than ever. No, let's get a church out there and stay forever. That will be Safety First. Isn't it grand we have that money in the bank, David? Think how solemn it would be now if we were clear broke, as we were before we decided to economize and start a bank-account."
David nodded, smiling, but the smile was grave. The little bank-account was very fine, but to David, lying there with the wreck of his life about him, the outlook was solemn in spite of it.