"DISTRICT NURSE"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 January 1939, Page 10

"DISTRICT NURSE"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

BY

FAITH BALDWIN.

CHAPTER VIII. —Continued

Ellen reached the landing where the gas jet flickered. The woman looked up, indifferently. She exclaimed, suddenly. “If it ain't Ellon Adams!" Mrs Markey. Once she’d lived in the flat over Joe's, the cobbler. A shiftless woman. When Markey had lived she had been well enough provided for. But she had never achieved any trimness of attire; she had been born sloppy, Ellen thought, menially and physically.

Ellen stopped to talk to her a moment. “I didn't know you had moved here, "she said.

Mrs Markey shrugged her shapeless shoulders.

“It ain’t what I'm used to. of course," she stated, “but after Markey died, what else was there to do? He'd even let his insurance lapse,” she complained, with an undying rancour. “I go out cleaning.” Her face was swollen, her eyes "reddened. Ellen said quickly, “But Gladys—?”

Mrs Markey’s face darkened. “Gladys?”, she laughed; an unpleasant laugh. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “She’s in there. Come in,” said Mrs Markey. “I —I have some other calls to make,” began Ellen, but Mrs Markey had her; arm, was pulling her to the door, “perhaps,” said Mrs Markey, “you can do something with her. She always liked you.”

The door opened. These were larger rooms than the ones Ellen had left, a little cleaner, with a little more light and air seeping in. There were signs of vanished grandeur, comparatively speaking. Gladys was sitting on a straight chair, her hands folded in her lap. She was about nineteen. Ellen figured, hastily. There was a bruise, a fresh bruise, on one side of her face. Her face was swollen, too, not with tears. The soft young mouth was set and sullen. Blue eyes, under smoky lashes, started listlessly at Ellen. Her voice, husky, broken, said bitterly, “Who’ve you got there, some one from the welfare crowd?” ,

Then she recognised Eileen. “Gee,” said Gladys, and something like a dim smile lightened her disfigured face, “Gee, I haven’t seen you for ages.” * Mrs Markey was talking, talking, in incoherent rushes.

“A good job downtown . . after I’ve worked my fingers to the bone, she pays me out like this . . if her Pa, if Markey was alive, he'd kill her . . and her sitting there like a clam, saying she won’t tell me who the man is . . she won’t tell.”

“Shut up, can’t you?” asked Gladys, colour like flame in her face, her eyes tormented, like an animal’s. Ellen touched the girl’s shoulder and the shoulder’ shook. She said, “If I can help, Gladys . . ? if you’ll come see me, some evening. You know the address. Or come to the sub station . ."

So many things she could do. Practical things. No preaching. They didn’t take kindly to preaching. “Make her tell,” screamed Mrs Markey. “She won’t tell me. She says he’s married. She met him in a cafeteria.” She laughed, dangerously. “That’s something for a mother to hear, ain’t it? Didn’t I let her go to school when she could have been working, didn’t I let her take that business course, and go out scrubbing so she could? How does she pay me for it —?” “Shut up, Ma,” said Gladys again. She looked at Ellen. “If I come to the station they’ll ask questions.” she said. Her mouth hardened. Her soft, weak girl’s mouth. “You come to mo instead. Gladys," said Ellen, sickened, sorry.

Mrs Markey had begun again. Ellen said, “Never mind. Mrs Markey, I’ll —” But Gladys had had enough. She looked at Ellen, a curious fleeting look of despair and stubbornness and flung herself across the room and into the bedroom. The door slammed. Mrs Markey had not finished. “Be quiet,” said Ellen sharply, “what difference does it make now? You’ve got to see her through. Send her to me, when she’ll come.”

Ellen reached home to find Nancy dashing around in the kitchen and her mother talking to Mrs Lenz, who had dropped in with a home-made coffee cake. The talk, snatches of which Ellen heard through the bedroom door as she changed her uniform for a house dress and washed the soil and heat from her face and hands, was mostly of Dot Brown. Where she went and what she did. "Can’t tell me." said Mrs Lenz, "that she’ll go on like this long. It ain’t natural.

Mrs Adams, looking distressed, nodded, with, it seemed, reluctance, and Nancy, drifting in and out, remarked briefly, “what’s it to you. Mrs Lenz, as long as she pays her rent and gives you no trouble?" In the bedroom Ellen smiled to herself. That was like Nancy going to the heart, of the matter, as far as Mrs Lenz was concerned, with her usual terseness.

At dinner, the talk was desultory enough. During a lull. Ellen said, "Jim’s coming tonight: we’re going out somewhere, 1 hope to a picture: one of those refrigerated houses will be the coolest place in town. Golly, Jim’s due now any moment, and we haven’t cleared away." “You haven’t," her mother reproached her, "been very nice to Jim lately.” "Haven't I?" she asked, noncommitally. Nancy said, "You get dolled up. I’ll do the dirty work." As she followed Ellen into the kitchen, she added, “what’s the word from Frank?" "He had to stay over. He’ll be coming home soon.” "Thought lawyers led the life of Reilly after courts closed," said Nancy. “It doesn’t look as if they did.” said Ellen. Her eyes shone and her heart sang. Coming home —soon.

CHAPTER IX. ' Something of Ellen's inner shining happiness was in her voice when Jim called a little later. For the life of her. she couldn't kedp it out. While she was getting ready for the street Jim talked to Nancy and Mrs Adams. As rental agent he knew everybody in the district. Ellen heard him talking of a hundred people and a hundred things; comic stories, he told, and tragic, too. She said, standing at the doorway, polishing her nails on her narrow pink palms, “I met Gilda Esposito again today. She’s crazy about her new job, and she's getting prettier every day.” Jim looked up. His eyes were a little narrow. “Esposito? The fruit stand people?” “Yes. You know them, don’t you, Jim? Remember Mike, the brother? A little wild, but a great youngster in lots of ways.” I don’t remember Gilda." Jim said definitely. Then he changed the subject. Jim's car was outside. A new, shining car, of a very good make. “Guess this tears the boy friend's Buick, doesn’t it?” he asked contentedly, as they left the apartment. But she had the scantest glance for bright paint and shining metal and leather upholstery.. Her thoughts were elsewhere as they drove uptown, and they did not go to the movies, but continued out into the country. “Tired of your job, yet?” he asked after he had led her on to tell of her hard, hot. trying day. “No. I’ll never get tired of it," Ellen said.

“Whenever you want to change it —” he suggested. She said, smiling: “This is a grand car, Jimmy.” you must have robbed a bank."

When she reached home again, Ellen went in, wearily, not very rested from an evening which had consisted mostly of parrying Jim’s attemps to force her to take his thousandth proposal lyBartlett had come home. “Dinner,” he asked her over the telephone, “as early as you can? I’ll get theatre tickets. What have you seen?” “Very little,” she told him, laughing. “I’ll pick you up at the house,”, he said, “and won’t take no for an answer.” “That’s silly of you. I mean,” she told him, “1 haven’t said no.” “But you might,” he replied, not too mysteriously. She found time to telephone Nancy in the afternoon. “Frank’s back," she said, “have you a date tonight?” Nancy was yawning. She said, muffled, “Sure, but it doesn’t matter. Jim was in. Mrs O'Connor is coming around to see mother this evening. She’ll stay till you get back.” That evening Ellen tried on and discarded three dresses before settling on the cool, handkerchief linen dress, with its pert jacket, and a wide-brimmed hat.

She heard the car drive up. kissed her mother and flew out to meet Frank on the stops. It’s good to see you," he said, “and you look cool as an iceberg lettuce in that green outfit.”. “What a comparison," she laughed. She got into the car and wondered why her knees shook. They had exchanged little or no greeting. She’d put her hand in his. of course, and murmured something. “Nice to see you again . .” something banal.

Nice! There were not words, no, not in any language, to tell him how glad she was, how happy. They went to a very quiet place to dinner. Good food. French food, waiters that gave one the proper service, but didn't hover. Lights, not too bright. No music.

“What will it be" he demanded. She shook her head smiling. “You order." she said. He did so. But she did not know what she was eating, if anything. She felt a little physically sick from excitement. Yet, before he had come for her she had been hungry. “I could eat the side of a house,” she had told Nancy.

They talked of Frank's trip, of Bill, of Nancy’s coming vacation, of her own. which would be in September. Bill was leaving for. an upstate farm the following week. "Fix it up?” asked Bartlett, and when she nodded, he smiled. "All right with me," he said. "See that lie stays as long as they will keep him.”

They lingered over the dinner. Finally Bartlett looked at his watch. "We’ll have to hurry," he warned, "if we're going to make the theatre, and find a place to park." She said, yes, without much enthusiasm. She thought, I wonder why I care so much? He isn't, for instance, half so good looking as Jim —but — No. he wasn't so good looking . .And

They went out and got into the ear. The nigh! was breathless, still. They rode uptown avoiding as much as possible the main arteries of traffic. He asked suddenly. “Are you really so anxious to see this show? It's too darned hot to go to the theatre anyway." She laughed a little. "I don’t care anything about it." she said. “What made you think I did?" He took the tickets from his pocket. She said, hastily, putting her, hand on his own as they waited for a light to change, "Frank, how can you be so extravagant?" But he had torn them across, and the Idle white bits of paste-board fluttered to the street, as lie answered, "But it's too late to turn ’em in and if it weren’t it’s too much trouble."

They drove on, up Riverside Drive, and out onto the outskirts of the city. It was cool, the traffic was unusually light. Ellen took off her hat and leaned back against the upholstery, sighing for sheer pleasure. She had not realised she was so tired.

There was a parking place, high on the bluffs overlooking the Hudson, and from it they could see the lights of the

city and the opposite shore. Bartlett said, after a moment, when the throb of the engine had ceased, and night seemed to close in about them with its many stars and its dark silence, “When you had the letter Bill give you, from me . . did you wonder what I meant when 1 said I had something to ask you?" He waited a mo 2 ment. and as she did not answer, went on, "I meant, perhaps. I had something to tell you. Ellen. It’s just that I love you. so much. I've loved you from the moment I first saw you, out there in the street, worried over Bill and his funny little pup —you must have known,” he said, low. (To be Continued.)