The Indifference of Juliet Part 23

"Had we better go up?" he whispered.

"Heavens--no!" Judith clutched his arm. "We couldn't do any good. The doctor's there. Such things make me ill. They ought not to have let him have the toy to take to bed with him. How could it get into his throat?

Perhaps they are making it crow to divert him. Perhaps he's hurt himself somehow."

"He's got the crow part of that thing in his throat," Carey persisted in an anxious whisper. "The manufacturers ought to be prosecuted for making a toy that will come apart like that."

"Don't stand there," protested his wife. "Maybe it's nothing. Come here and sit down."

But Carey stood still. Presently Anthony came to the head of the stairs.

"Wayne," said he rapidly, "telephone Roger's office. Ask the trained nurse, Miss Hughes, to send a messenger with the doctor's emergency surgical case by the first train--he can catch the 9:40 if he's quick.

Tell Miss Hughes to follow as soon as she can get ready, prepared to stay all night."

Then he disappeared. His voice had been steady and quiet, but his eyes had showed his friend that the order was given under tension. Carey sprang to the telephone, and his hand shook as he took down the receiver.

Upstairs Roger Barnes, in command, was giving cool, concise orders, his eyes on his little patient. When he had despatched Juliet for various things, including boiling water which she must get downstairs, he said to Anthony in a conversational tone:

"It will probably not be safe to wait till my instruments get here, and there's no surgeon near enough to call. I'm not going to take any chances on this boy. If I see the necessity I'm going to get into that throat and give him air. I shall want you and Carey to hold him. Juliet must be downstairs."

Anthony nodded. He did not quite understand; but a few minutes later, when Juliet had brought the boiling water, he suddenly perceived what his friend meant.

"Alcohol, now, please," said the doctor. When Juliet had disappeared again Barnes drew from his pocket a pearl-handled pocket-knife and tried its blades. "It's a fortunate thing somebody made me a present of such a good one to-day," he observed, "but it needs sharpening a bit. Have you an oil-stone handy?"

With tightly shut lips Anthony watched the doctor put a bright edge on his smallest blade, then, satisfied, drop the open knife into the water bubbling over a spirit-lamp. Anthony turned his head away for an instant from the struggling little figure on the bed. Barnes eyed him keenly.

"You're game, of course?" he said.

Anthony's eyes met his and flashed fire. "Don't you know me better than that?"

"All right," and the young surgeon smiled. "But I've seen a medical man himself go to pieces over his own child. This is a simple matter," he went on lightly. "Luckily, boiling water is a more potent antiseptic than all the drugs on the market--and alcohol's another. I shall want a new hairpin or two--if Juliet has a wire one.--That the alcohol? Thank you. Now if you've the hairpins, Juliet--ah--a silver one--all the better."

This also he dropped into the boiling water. Then he spoke very quietly to Tony's mother, as she bent over her child, fighting for his breath.

"It's a bit tough to watch," he said, "but we'll have him all right presently. Suppose you go and get his crib ready for him. You might fill some hot-water bags and bottles and have things warm and comfortable."

The telephone-bell rang below. After a minute Carey dashed upstairs. He looked into the room and spoke anxiously. "The messenger just missed the 9:40. He and the nurse will come on the 10:15."

"All right," said the doctor, as if the delay were of small consequence.

"We're going to want your help presently, Carey, I think. Just ask Mrs.

Carey to keep Mrs. Robeson with her for a few minutes, if she can."

Carey went down and gave his wife the message, then he hurried back and stood waiting just outside the door. And all at once the summons came. In a breath the doctor had changed his role. He spoke sharply:

"_Now, Robeson--now, Carey--we've waited up to the limit. Keep cool--hold him like a rock--_"

Wayne Carey came down to his wife, ten minutes later, smiled tremulously, sank into a chair, and fell to crying like a baby--softly, so that he could not be heard.

"But Juliet says he'll be all right," murmured Judith unsteadily.

"Yes, yes----" Carey wiped his eyes and blew his nose. "I'm just a little unnerved, that's all. Lord--and he's dropped off to sleep as quiet as a lamb--with Barnes holding the gash in his throat open with a hairpin to let the air in. When it comes to emergency surgery I tell you it's a lucky thing to have an expert in the house. Completely worn out--the little chap. When the nurse comes they'll get out the whistle and sew the place up. She ought to be here--I'll go meet that train."

He sprang to his feet and hurried out of the house. Presently he was back, followed by an erect young woman who wore a long coat over the uniform she had not taken time to change. Carey carried the long black bag she had brought with her.

By and by Anthony and Roger Barnes came down. The former was pale, but as quietly composed as ever; the latter nonchalant, yet wearing that gleam of satisfaction in his eye which is ever the badge of the successful surgeon.

"Well, Mrs. Carey," said the doctor, smiling, "why not relax that tension a bit? The youngster is right as a trivet."

"I suppose that's your idea of being right as a trivet," Judith retorted.

"In bed, with a trained nurse watching you, and a doctor staying all night to make sure."

"Bless you--what better would you have? If it were any other boy the doctor would have been home and in bed an hour ago, I a.s.sure you.

Carey--if you don't stop acting like a great fool I'll put you to bed too."

For Carey was wringing Barnes' hand, and the tears were running unashamed down his cheeks. "I gave him that rooster myself," he said, and choked.

Upstairs all was quiet. The little life was safe, rescued at the crucial moment when interference became necessary, by the skill and daring which do not hesitate to use the means at hand when the authorized tools can not be had. Every precaution had been taken against harm from these same unconventional means, and the doctor, when he left his patient in the hands of his nurse, felt small anxiety for the ultimate outcome.

He said this very positively to the boy's father and mother, holding a hand of each and bidding them go peacefully to sleep. He would have slipped away then, but they would not let him go. There were no tears, no fuss; but Juliet said, her eyes with their heavy shadows of past suspense meeting his steadily, "Roger, nothing can ever tell you what I feel about this," and Anthony, gripping his friend's hand with a grip of steel, added: "We shall never thank the Lord enough for having you on hand, Roger Barnes."

But when the young surgeon had gone, warm with pleasure over the service he had done those he loved this night, the ones he had left behind found their self-control had reached the ragged edge. Turning to her husband Juliet flung herself into his arms, and met there the tenderest reception she had ever known. So does a common anxiety knit hearts which had thought they could be no tighter bound.

Judith and Wayne Carey, walking along silent streets in the early dawn of the day after Christmas on their way to take their train home, had little to say. Only once Judith ventured an observation to her heavy-eyed companion:

"Surely, such a scene as you went through last night must diminish a trifle that envy you are always possessed with, when you're at that house."

But Wayne, staring up at the wintry sky, answered, more roughly than his wife had ever heard him speak: "_No_--G.o.d knows I envy them even at a time like this!"

XXIII.--TWO NOT OF A KIND

"Yes, they are very pleasant rooms," Juliet admitted, with the air of one endeavouring to be polite. She sat upon a many-hued divan, and glanced from the blue-and-yellow wall-paper to the green velvet chairs, the dull-red carpet and the stiff "lace" curtains. "You get the afternoon sun, and the view opposite isn't bad. The vestibule seemed to be well kept, and I rang only three times before I made you hear."

"The janitor promised to fix that bell," said Judith hastily. "Oh, I know the colour combinations are dreadful, but one can't help that in rented rooms. Of course our things look badly with the ones that belong here. But as soon as we can we are going to move into a still better place."

"Going to keep house?"

"No-o, not just yet." Judith hesitated. "You seem to think there's nothing in the world to do but to keep house."

"I'm sure of it."

"I can't see why. A girl doesn't need to a.s.sume all the cares of life the minute she marries. Why can't she keep young and fresh for a while?"