That was the signal that meant the doctors were coming.
And I thought, after all, that I should make a far better case for myself in standing and talking quietly with Dr Christie, than in running at him in a pair of rubber boots. I moved close to my bed, putting my knee to it to keep my leg from trembling; and I felt for my hair, meaning to tidy it— forgetting, for the moment, that they had stitched it to my head. The dark nurse went off, running. The rest of us stood in silence, listening out for the sound of the doctors' footsteps. Nurse Spiller shook her finger at me.
'You watch your filthy tongue, you trollop,' she said.
We waited for about ten minutes, then there was a stir in the passage and Dr Christie and Dr Graves came walking very quickly into the room, their heads bent over Dr Graves's note-book.
'Dear ladies, good morning,' said Dr Christie, looking up. He went first to Betty. 'How are you, Betty? Good girl. You want your medicine, of course.'
He put his hand to his pocket and brought out a piece of sugar. She took it, and curtseyed.
'Good girl,' he said again. Then, moving past her: 'Mrs Price. The nurses tell me you have been giving in to tears. That is not good. What will your husband say? Shall he be pleased to think you melancholy? Hmm? And all your children? What shall they think?'
She answered in a whisper: 'I don't know, sir.'
'Hmm?'
He took her wrist, all the time murmuring to Dr Graves, who finally made some note in his book. Then they walked to the pale old lady.
'Miss Wilson, what complaints have you for us today?' asked Dr Christie.
'None but the usual ones,' she answered.
'Well, we have heard them many times. You need not repeat them.'
'The want of pure air,' she said quickly.
'Yes, yes.' He looked at Dr Graves's book.
'And of wholesome food.'
'You will find the food wholesome enough, Miss Wilson, if you will only sample it.'
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'The frigid water.'
'A tonic, for shattered nerves. You know this, Miss Wilson.'
She moved her lips, and swayed on her feet. Then all at once she cried out: Thieves!'
I jumped at the sound. Dr Christie looked up at her. 'That's enough,' he said.
'Remember your tongue. What have you upon it?'
'Thieves! Devils!'
'Your tongue, Miss Wilson! What do we keep upon it? Hmm?'
She worked her mouth; then said, after a minute:
'A curb.'
'That is right. A curb. Very good. Draw it tight. Nurse Spiller— ' He turned and called the nurse to him, and spoke to her quietly. Miss Wilson put her hands to her mouth, as if to feel for a chain; and again, she caught my eye, and her fingers fluttered, and she seemed ashamed.
I should have been sorry for her, at any other time; but for now, if they had laid her and ten more ladies like her down upon the floor and told me my way out was across their backs, I'd have run it with clogs on. I waited only until Dr Christie had finished giving his instructions to the nurse, and then I licked my mouth and leaned and said,
'Dr Christie, sir!' He turned and came towards me.
'Mrs Rivers.' He took my hand about the wrist, not smiling. 'How are you?'
'Sir,' I said. 'Sir, I— '
'Pulse rather rapid,' he said quietly, to Dr Graves. Dr Graves made a note of it. He turned back to me. 'You have hurt your face, I am sorry to see.'
Nurse Spiller spoke before I could.
'Cast herself to the floor, Dr Christie,' she said, 'while in the grip of her fit'
'Ah, yes. You see, Mrs Rivers, the violence of the condition in which you arrived here.
I hope you slept?'
'Slept? No, I— '
'Dear, dear. We cannot have that. I shall have the nurses give you a draught. You shall never grow well, without slumber.'
He nodded to Nurse Bacon. She nodded back.
'Dr Christie,' I said, more loudly.
'Pulse quickening, now,' he murmured.
I pulled my hand away. 'Will you listen to me? You have got me here, by mistake.'
'Is that so?' He had narrowed his eyes and was looking into my mouth. 'Teeth sound enough, I think. Gums may be putrid, however.— You must tell us, if they start troubling you.'
Tm not staying here,' I said.
'Not staying, Mrs Rivers?'
'Mrs Rivers? For God's sake, how can I be her? I stood and saw her married. You came to me, and heard me speak. I— '
'So I did,' he said slowly. And you told me how you feared for your mistress's health; how you wished she might be kept quiet and free from harm. For sometimes it is easier— is it not?— to ask for assistance in behalf of another, than for ourselves? We understand you, Mrs Rivers, very well.'
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