The Challengers (19 page)

"There, eat that," she said in a whisper, "and don't say anything to anybody. The woman it was meant for had to be hurried down to the operating room. She won't be able to eat it. But it was all ordered, so nobody is any worse off, and you look as if you need it."

Melissa smiled her wan thanks and slipped into the kitchen. But she had little appetite to eat the delicious soup, the nice brown chop and baked potato, and the delicate custard that were on the inviting tray. It seemed as if her heart would always be hearing now the echo of that awful monotone in her brother's voice that sounded so lost and despairing.

The day wore away, and the night came at last, with still no change in Stephen's condition.

When she caught a glimpse of Gene Hollister coming to hunt her, Melissa slid out on the fire escape and stood in the shadow for a long time. She wanted no "large evenings." All she asked was to be let alone until it was time to go home. Later she got a panic lest perhaps he had been summoning her to start at once, but when she ventured out into the hall again, the head nurse beckoned her and said a gentleman had left a message for her. She must be at the front entrance tomorrow morning at half past ten ready to go if she wanted to drive back home with him.

Melissa caught her breath with relief. But half past ten! That was two hours later than he had said at first. That would bring them home later. But surely Mother would understand that one couldn't always be sure just how long it would take to drive anywhere.

The kind nurse on the second floor got her a pillow again that night and gave her a comforting little smile.

"You know, it always seems a lot worse than it sometimes is when a man gets out of his head. Some people get delirious pretty easy. I was asking the nurse up there about your brother. Challenger, you said his name was, didn't you? Well, I remembered it because it was such an unusual name. And she said there wasn't anything to be alarmed about yet. He would likely be this way for several days yet. If I were you, I would get a good sleep tonight and not worry. You're going home tomorrow, aren't you? Well, just rest up. Tell you what I'll do. I'll be up on that floor a couple of times during the night to get milk for my patients because our refrigerator has got something the matter with it and won't work. I'll just look in on him, and if there's any change at all, I'll come down and let you know."

Melissa thanked her with a wan smile and lay down with a feeling that somebody else had taken a little corner of the burden from her heavy heart.

She awoke late, for it was a cloudy morning with a drizzly rain beginning. She felt very shabby to go on a journey in the dress and coat she had slept in, but she had no other choice. And just a little before ten o'clock she stole to the door of the men's ward and told the nurse that she was leaving. Couldn't she come in for just a minute and stand beside her brother?

The nurse let her come in behind the screen, and she laid a trembling cool hand on his hot one. It was the nearest to a caress she could give him, for forehead and cheeks were pretty well swathed in bandages. But he flung it off roughly.

"You let me alone!" he said hoarsely. "Can't you see I've got to drive this car? If you touch my hand again while it's on this wheel, I'll have to stop and tie you up. And I can do it, too, don't you forget it, you little silly fool! For heaven's sake, can this mush!"

Melissa drew away with a little catch of a sob in her throat, and the nurse drew her out into the hall compassionately. "Don't feel bad about that," she said. "He thinks you're someone else. His mind's on that accident, you can see. He felt responsible for that car. If those insurance people want evidence that he was perfectly sober when the accident occurred, I think I can give it. I've heard enough to know pretty well how it happened."

"Oh," said Melissa gratefully, "would you? If there is any trouble, would you tell them about it? He isn't a boy who drinks, I'm sure. He never did."

"No, he isn't. If he had been, he wouldn't be getting as well as he is. His fever doesn't run any higher, that's one good thing. And he looks as if he had a pretty good constitution. But I can tell you one thing, he doesn't think much of that girl that was with him, if you can believe what he says. She must be a coward. I wonder why she hasn't been to see him. They say she wasn't hurt at all. She jumped out and ran away while the car almost stopped just before it went over the cliff. Nice girl to run away. Sylvia! I guess that must be her name. Do you know her?"

The nurse eyed Melissa's delicate face and noted the mounting, sensitive flush with curious glance.

But Melissa only shook her head, and then, summoning her self-control, she thanked the nurse.

"I wonder if you would mind sending me a note tomorrow and the next day, till Mother can get here?" she asked wistfully. "You see, Father is sick, too, and Mother couldn't get away without telling him yet, and we dare not, he's been so sick."

"Isn't that a shame!" said the nurse. "Sure, I'll send you a note every night till he's better. I'll send one this evening when I go off duty."

Melissa wrote down the address and gave her the last quarter in her purse. She wouldn't be needing it now that she was going home, of course.

"I wish I had more to give you," she said deprecatingly. "It won't pay anything but the postage, but I'll be wonderfully grateful."

"That's all right," said the nurse, smiling. "I like you. I like your brother, too. He's a good sport. He'll pull through. Don't you worry."

Melissa was greatly comforted, yet she went away realizing that everyone who knew her brother's case felt that he was in a very serious condition and that it was not at all certain that he was going to get well.

Down in the front hall Melissa waited. She was there at a quarter till ten to make sure she did not keep them waiting. She sat next to a blind man, with two cripples across the hall from her, and watched a crying baby being walked up and down by a frantic mother.

Melissa watched the clock until half past ten. Then she went and stood in the doorway where she could watch both the hall and street, but nowhere could she see the big shiny car that had brought her to this place.

At eleven o'clock she began to think she had somehow missed them. Perhaps they had said half past nine and the nurse had given the message wrong. Oh, she ought to have gone right up there to that horrible Jack's room and found out for herself just what time they were going. If only she hadn't been so afraid of an unpleasant experience again! And now it was even later than they had said they were going to start, and that would make it later at the other end.

Finally, she went to the desk and asked the telephone girl to call up Jack Hollister's room and see if his brother and mother had gone yet, and word came back that they had not but would be downstairs in a little while. She was just to sit there and wait.

When it got to be half past one, Melissa ate the last two crackers left from her cracker box, ate them surreptitiously, breaking off little bits of pieces and slipping them into her mouth without seeming to be eating. The patients had nearly all of them gone at last, and even the visitors waiting to see some doctor or ask about a friend had gone to get lunch. Melissa thought she never had been so tired in her life. Here she had been sitting for three hours doing nothing but waiting! And how she longed to slip upstairs and see if there was any change yet in her brother, only she dared not lest she miss the Hollisters.

It was nearly three o'clock when she saw through the open door a car drive up to the curb, and there at last was Gene Hollister.

He was all alone. Doubtless he was going up after his mother, and she might take the chance and run up again just for a last look at Steve. But no, he walked in exactly as if she had been keeping him waiting.

"Ready?" he asked carelessly. "Well, c'mon!"

She followed him out to the car and was relieved that he put her in the backseat, thinking now she would be safe with his mother, but to her astonishment he got into the front seat himself and slammed the door shut, starting the engine at once.

"Why, where is your mother?" she asked in alarm. "You haven't forgotten her, have you? Or is she at the hotel?"

"No, the Mater decided not to go back today. She phoned and put off her bridge party till next week. Jack put up such a fight at her leaving him alone that she had to stay. I'm taking some other people back with us for the ride. They're great company. You'll like them all right."

Melissa gasped and sat back, trying to think what to do. Would they all be men, these friends of his? Mother wouldn't approve at all of her driving late at night with a lot of men and no woman. Dared she say anything about it? Would it look as if she were being very rude when they were taking her all the way for nothing and had been kind enough to offer? Perhaps she had better wait and see when they stopped to pick up the other people. If they were all men, she might say that if they didn't mind she would get out and go back and stay another day since his mother was staying also. Only, what should she do about money? She would certainly have to call up and ask her mother. Oh, she must somehow stick this thing through. But if she once got home, she would never go away on her own again without advice from someone.

They turned down a mean little street with rows of cheap houses, and Melissa looked anxiously out.

Gene stopped the car at an untidy house and knocked at the door. Melissa was relieved to see a girl come out with her hat on and a suitcase in her hand. So there was to be another girl. Well, that wasn't so bad. Perhaps the girl was the only one. There did not seem to be any other person coming out.

Hollister put the other girl in the front seat with himself, waving an informal introduction: "Meet Miss Challenger, Miss Saltaine!" and took his place beside her.

The girl gave Melissa one quick, startled stare and then turned to her escort.

"Challenger, d'ya say? Gosh, Gene, is that what you're handing out as inducement? What's the little old idea, anyway? Tryin' ta put one over on me?"

"Nothing of the kind, girlie," said the genial Gene, starting up his car with a jerk. "Just taking Miss Challenger back home. I brought her down, you know. She's been down to see her brother. Got any objections? If you have, speak them now or forever after, etc."

Melissa did not quite know what it was all about, only that there was a hostile attitude in the girl. She supposed that probably she was disappointed at not having the ride alone with Hollister. She very likely didn't want to feel that a stranger was watching her.

But it presently developed that the young woman on the front seat had no objections to being watched. She regarded the girl in the backseat as so much nothing. She snuggled herself up to the driver affectionately, looked into his eyes, lit a cigarette for him and one for herself, and taking off her hat with a carefree motion settled her golden head firmly on Hollister's shoulder.

After Melissa got over her surprise and embarrassment at such actions, she was rather glad to be thus utterly left out of the picture. At least it left her free to rest and enjoy the scenery, if there was any capacity to enjoy anything left in her weary, troubled soul.

She studied the new girl with curiosity. She had never met a girl quite like this one. She was startlingly, unnaturally beautiful, with a complexion so brilliant and so brazenly artificial that it seemed to Melissa, who had been brought up in an extremely conservative atmosphere, absolutely a caricature of a human face. And yet she had to own it was lovely, in a flashy way. She was as lovely as the most perfect doll one could think of. Just pretty flesh, but nothing in the expression but vanity. A selfish cupid's bow of a mouth, gold hair that curled, whether natural or artificially, in a most engaging and arresting manner, fluffed out like a dandelion, waving around in the breeze like golden tulle, brushing the face of the young man upon whom she reclined, tossing itself into bright little billows and wavelets. It really was fascinating to watch, and Melissa watched it, unaware that the owner of the hair was all the time watching her in the little mirror up in front.

Melissa, lovely as a drooping flower in the backseat, had no idea that her own face, off its guard because she thought herself unseen, was mirroring forth as water the thoughts that were in her heart; and when the girl in the front seat looked into the little mirror, she saw a pity for herself mingled with contempt in the eyes of the girl in the backseat that galled her to the soul.

Suddenly she raised her head and, deliberately turning round, blew a long breath of smoke straight at Melissa.

"For cat's sake, what are you staring at?" she snapped out at Melissa.

Melissa summoned a faint little smile, trying to answer pleasantly.

"I was looking at your hair and thinking how beautiful it is," she said quietly.

"Oh, blah! I don't believe you!" said the other girl. "Turn your little sissy gaze on the landscape. I don't choose to be looked at and admired by you, nor any of your doggone fool family. I'm done with 'em once and fer all. Get me?"

For answer, Melissa raised her Challenger chin just the least little bit and looked steadily into the other girl's insolent eyes, a grave, sweet disconcerting look that only angered her the more. And then Melissa was aware of another pair of amused eyes watching her in that fatal little mirror that she had not noticed until now.

"Oh, for Pete's sake, Sylvia, cut it! This isn't a battlefield. I brought you girls along to have a good time together. Be a good sport and forget what bothers you! Let's get together on a little friendliness."

"Not me!" said Sylvia, shrugging her shoulders. "You never told me you were bringing along a fancy peacock for company, or I'd have gone with somebody else today."

"Oh, shut up, Sylvia," said Hollister crossly. "You don't need to be a cat!"

"Well, why doesn't she smoke, if she wantsta be one of us?" demanded the golden beauty with a sneer. "Here, take mine and I'll light another," she said, taking her half-smoked cigarette out of her gaudy mouth and handing it to Melissa.