The Essential Booth Tarkington Collection. Booth Tarkington
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got to his feet, and stepped down from the stairs for them to pass him. He leaned heavily against the wall.
"You think she's going to be all right, Sloane?" he asked with an effort.
"No cause to worry," returned the physician. "You can let her stay in bed to-day if she wants to but----" He broke off, looking keenly at Madison's face, which was the colour of poppies. "Hello! what's up with _you_?"
"I'm all--right."
"Oh, you are?" retorted Sloane with sarcasm. "Sit down," he commanded. "Sit right where you are--on the stairs, here," and, having enforced the order, took a stethoscope from his pocket. "Get him a glass of water," he said to Hedrick, who was at his elbow.
"Doctor!" exclaimed Mrs. Madison. "_He_ isn't going to be sick, is he? You don't think he's sick _now_?"
"I shouldn't call him very well," answered the physician rather grimly, placing his stethoscope upon Madison's breast. "Get his room ready for him." She gave him a piteous look, struck with fear; then obeyed a gesture and ran flutteringly up the stairs.
"I'm all right now," panted Madison, drinking the water Hedrick brought him.
"You're not so darned all right," said Sloane coolly, as he pocketed his stethoscope. "Come, let me help you up. We're going to get you to bed."
There was an effort at protest, but the physician had his way, and the two ascended the stairs slowly, Sloane's arm round his new patient. At Cora's door, the latter paused.
"What's the matter?"
"I want," said Madison thickly--"I want--to speak to Cora."
"We'll pass that up just now," returned the other brusquely, and led him on. Madison was almost helpless: he murmured in a husky, uncertain voice, and suffered himself to be put to bed. There, the doctor "worked" with him; cold "applications" were ordered; Laura was summoned from the other sick-bed; Hedrick sent flying with prescriptions, then to telephone for a nurse. The two women attempted questions at intervals, but Sloane replied with orders, and kept them busy.
"Do you--think I'm a---a pretty sick man, Sloane?" asked Madison after a long silence, speaking with difficulty.
"Oh, you're sick, all right," the doctor conceded.
"I--I want to speak to Jennie."
His wife rushed to the bed, and knelt beside it.
"Don't you go to confessing your sins," said Doctor Sloane crossly. "You're coming out of the woods all right, and you'll be sorry if you tell her too, much. I'll begin a little flirtation with you, Miss Laura, if you please." And he motioned to her to follow him into the hall.
"Your father _is_ pretty sick," he told her, "and he may be sicker before we get him into shape again. But you needn't be worried right now; I think he's not in immediate danger." He turned at the sound of Mrs. Madison's step, behind him, and repeated to her what he had just said to Laura. "I hope your husband didn't give himself away enough to be punished when we get him on his feet again," he concluded cheerfully.
She shook her head, tried to smile through tears, and, crossing the hall, entered Cora's room. She came back after a moment, and, rejoining the other two at her husband's bedside, found the sick man in a stertorous sleep. Presently the nurse arrived, and upon the physician's pointed intimation that there were "too many people around," Laura went to Cora's room. She halted on the threshold in surprise. Cora was dressing.
"Mamma says the doctor says he's all right," said Cora lightly, "and I'm feeling so much better myself I thought I'd put on something loose and go downstairs. I think there's more air down there."
"Papa isn't all right, dear," said Laura, staring perplexedly at Cora's idea of "something loose," an equipment inclusive of something particularly close. "The doctor says he is very sick."
"I don't believe it," returned Cora promptly. "Old Sloane never did know anything. Besides, mamma told me he said papa isn't in any danger."
"No `immediate' danger," corrected Laura. "And besides, Doctor Sloane said you were to stay in bed until to-morrow."
"I can't help that." Cora went on with her lacing impatiently. "I'm not going to lie and stifle in this heat when I feel perfectly well again--not for an old idiot like Sloane! He didn't even have sense enough to give me any medicine." She laughed. "Lucky thing he didn't: I'd have thrown it out of the window. Kick that slipper to me, will you, dear?"
Laura knelt and put the slipper on her sister's foot. "Cora, dear," she said, "you're just going to put on a negligee and go down and sit in the library, aren't you?"
"Laura!" The tone was more than impatient. "I wish I could be let alone for five whole minutes some time in my life! Don't you think I've stood enough for one day? I can't bear to be questioned, questioned, questioned! What do you do it for? Don't you see I can't stand anything more? If you can't let me alone I do wish you'd keep out of my room."
Laura rose and went out; but as she left the door, Cora called after her with a rueful laugh: "Laura, I know I'm a little devil!"
Half an hour later, Laura, suffering because she had made no reply to this peace-offering, and wishing to atone, sought Cora downstairs and found no one. She decided that Cora must still be in her own room; she would go to her there. But as she passed the open front door, she saw Cora upon the sidewalk in front of the house. She wore a new and elaborate motoring costume, charmingly becoming, and was in the act of mounting to a seat beside Valentine Corliss in a long, powerful-looking, white "roadster" automobile. The engine burst into staccato thunder, sobered down; the wheels began to move both Cora and Corliss were laughing and there was an air of triumph about them--Cora's veil streamed and fluttered: and in a flash they were gone.
Laura stared at the suddenly vacated space where they had been. At a thought she started. Then she rushed upstairs to her mother, who was sitting in the hall near her husband's door.
"Mamma," whispered Laura, flinging herself upon her knees beside her, "when papa wanted to speak to you, was it a message to Cora?"
"Yes, dear. He told me to tell her he was sorry he'd made her sick, and that if he got well he'd try to do what she asked him to."
Laura nodded cheerfully. "And he _will_ get well, darling mother," she said, as she rose. "I'll come back in a minute and sit with you."
Her return was not so quick as she promised, for she lay a long time weeping upon her pillow, whispering over and over:
"Oh, poor, poor papa! Oh, poor, poor Richard!"
CHAPTER TWELVE
Within a week Mr. Madison's illness was a settled institution in the household; the presence of the nurse lost novelty, even to Hedrick, and became a part of life; the day was measured by the three regular visits of the doctor. To the younger members of the family it seemed already that their father had always been sick, and that he always would be; indeed, to Cora and Hedrick he had become only a weak and querulous voice beyond a closed door. Doctor Sloane was serious but reassuring, his daily announcement being that his patient was in "no immediate danger."
Mrs. Madison did not share her children's sanguine adaptability; and, of the three, Cora was the greatest solace to the mother's troubled heart, though Mrs. Madison never recognized this without a sense of injustice to Laura, for Laura now was housewife and housekeeper--that is, she did all the work except the cooking, and on "wash-day" she did that. But Cora's help was to the very spirit itself, for she was sprightly in these hours of trial: with indomitable gayety she cheered her mother, inspiring in her a firmer confidence, and, most stimulating of all, Cora steadfastly refused to consider her father's condition as serious, or its outcome as doubtful.
Old Sloane exaggerated, she said; and she made fun of his gravity, his clothes and his walk, which she mimicked till