The Collected Works of Susan Coolidge: 7 Novels, 35+ Short Stories, Essays & Poems (Illustrated). Susan Coolidge
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said Mrs. Ashe, looking relieved. “I wonder I did not think of it myself, but I am so confused that I can’t think. Write the note at once, please, dear Katy. I will ring your bell for you, and then I must hurry back to Amy.”
Katy made haste with the note. The answer came promptly in half an hour, and by ten o’clock the physician recommended appeared. Dr. Hilary was a dark little Italian to all appearance; but his mother had been a Scotch-woman, and he spoke English very well,—a great comfort to poor Mrs. Ashe, who knew not a word of Italian and not a great deal of French. He felt Amy’s pulse for a long time, and tested her temperature; but he gave no positive opinion, only left a prescription, and said that he would call later in the day and should then be able to judge more clearly what the attack was likely to prove.
Katy augured ill from this reserve. There was no talk of going to the Carnival that afternoon; no one had any heart for it. Instead, Katy spent the time in trying to recollect all she had ever heard about the care of sick people,—what was to be done first and what next,—and in searching the shops for a feather pillow, which luxury Amy was imperiously demanding. The pillows of Roman hotels are, as a general thing, stuffed with wool, and very hard.
“I won’t have this horrid pillow any longer,” poor Amy was screaming. “It’s got bricks in it. It hurts the back of my neck. Take it away, mamma, and give me a nice soft American pillow. I won’t have this a minute longer. Don’t you hear me, mamma! Take it away!”
So, while Mrs. Ashe pacified Amy to the best of her ability, Katy hurried out in quest of the desired pillow. It proved almost an unattainable luxury; but at last, after a long search, she secured an air-cushion, a down cushion about twelve inches square, and one old feather pillow which had come from some auction, and had apparently lain for years in the corner of the shop. When this was encased in a fresh cover of Canton flannel, it did very well, and stilled Amy’s complaints a little; but all night she grew worse, and when Dr. Hilary came next day, he was forced to utter plainly the dreaded words “Roman fever.” Amy was in for an attack,—a light one he hoped it might be,—but they had better know the truth and make ready for it.
Mrs. Ashe was utterly overwhelmed by this verdict, and for the first bewildered moments did not know which way to turn. Katy, happily, kept a steadier head. She had the advantage of a little preparation of thought, and had decided beforehand what it would be necessary to do “in case.” Oh, that fateful “in case”! The doctor and she consulted together, and the result was that Katy sought out the padrona of the establishment, and without hinting at the nature of Amy’s attack, secured some rooms just vacated, which were at the end of a corridor, and a little removed from the rooms of other people. There was a large room with corner windows, a smaller one opening from it, and another, still smaller, close by, which would serve as a storeroom or might do for the use of a nurse.
These rooms, without much consultation with Mrs. Ashe,—who seemed stunned and sat with her eyes fixed on Amy, just answering, “Certainly, dear, anything you say,” when applied to,—Katy had arranged according to her own ideas of comfort and hygienic necessity, as learned from Miss Nightingale’s excellent little book on nursing. From the larger room she had the carpet, curtains, and nearly all the furniture taken away, the floor scrubbed with hot soapsuds, and the bed pulled out from the wall to allow of a free circulation of air all round it. The smaller one she made as comfortable as possible for the use of Mrs. Ashe, choosing for it the softest sofa and the best mattresses that were obtainable; for she knew that her friend’s strength was likely to be severely tried if Amy’s illness proved serious. When all was ready, Amy, well wrapped in her coverings, was carried down the entry and laid in the fresh bed with the soft pillows about her; and Katy, as she went to and fro, conveying clothes and books and filling drawers, felt that they were perhaps making arrangements for a long, hard trial of faith and spirits.
By the next day the necessity of a nurse became apparent, and in the afternoon Katy started out in a little hired carriage in search of one. She had a list of names, and went first to the English nurses; but finding them all engaged, she ordered the coachman to drive to a convent where there was hope that a nursing sister might be procured.
Their route lay across the Corso. So utterly had the Carnival with all its gay follies vanished from her mind, that she was for a moment astonished at finding herself entangled in a motley crowd, so dense that the coachman was obliged to rein in his horses and stand still for some time.
There were the same masks and dominos, the same picturesque peasant costumes which had struck her as so gay and pretty only three days before. The same jests and merry laughter filled the air, but somehow it all seemed out of tune. The sense of cold, lonely fear that had taken possession of her killed all capacity for merriment; the apprehension and solicitude of which her heart was full made the gay chattering and squeaking of the crowd sound harsh and unfeeling. The bright colors affronted her dejection; she did not want to see them. She lay back in the carriage, trying to be patient under the detention, and half shut her eyes.
A shower of lime dust aroused her. It came from a party of burly figures in white cotton dominos, whose carriage had been stayed by the crowd close to her own. She signified by gestures that she had no confetti and no protection, that she “was not playing,” in fact; but her appeal made no difference. The maskers kept on shovelling lime all over her hair and person and the carriage, and never tired of the sport till an opportune break in the procession enabled their vehicle to move on.
Katy was shaking their largesse from her dress and parasol as well as she could, when an odd gibbering sound close to her ear, and the laughter of the crowd attracted her attention to the back of the carriage. A masker attired as a scarlet devil had climbed into the hood, and was now perched close behind her. She shook her head at him; but he only shook his in return, and chattered and grimaced, and bent over till his fiery mask almost grazed her shoulder. There was no hope but in good humor, as she speedily realized; and recollecting that in her shopping-bag one or two of the Carnival bonbons still remained, she took these out and offered them in the hope of propitiating him. The fiend bit one to insure that it was made of sugar and not lime, while the crowd laughed more than ever; then, seeming satisfied, he made Katy a little speech in rapid Italian, of which she did not comprehend a word, kissed her hand, jumped down from the carriage and disappeared in the crowd to her great relief.
Presently after that the driver spied an opening, of which he took advantage. They were across the Corso now, the roar and rush of the Carnival dying into silence as they drove rapidly on; and Katy, as she finished wiping away the last of the lime dust, wiped some tears from her cheeks as well.
“How hateful it all was!” she said to herself. Then she remembered a sentence read somewhere, “How heavily roll the wheels of other people’s joys when your heart is sorrowful!” and she realized that it is true.
The convent was propitious, and promised to send a sister next morning, with the proviso that every second day she was to come back to sleep and rest. Katy was too thankful for any aid to make objections, and drove home with visions of saintly nuns with pure pale faces full of peace and resignation, such as she had read of in books, floating before her eyes.
Sister Ambrogia, when she appeared next day, did not exactly realize these imaginations. She was a plump little person, with rosy cheeks, a pair of demure black eyes, and a very obstinate mouth and chin. It soon appeared that natural inclination combined with the rules of her convent made her theory of a nurse’s duties a very limited one.
If Mrs. Ashe wished her to go down to the office with an order, she was told: “We sisters care for the sick; we are not allowed to converse with porters and hotel people.”
If Katy suggested that on the way home she should leave a prescription at the chemist’s, it was: “We sisters are for nursing only; we do not visit shops.” And when she was asked if she could make beef tea, she replied calmly but decisively, “We sisters are not cooks.”
In fact, all that Sister Ambrogia seemed able or willing to do, beyond the bathing of Amy’s face and brushing her hair, which she accomplished handily, was to sit by the bedside telling her rosary, or plying a little ebony shuttle in the manufacture of a long strip of tatting. Even this amount