Part 5 (1/2)
It seemed that she was the widow of the Richest Trustee. The board had elected her to fill her husband's place lest the annual check of ten thousand--a necessary item on Saint Margaret's books--might not be forthcoming; and this was her first meeting. It was, in fact, her first visit to the hospital. She could never bear to come during her husband's trustees.h.i.+p because, children having been denied her, she had wished to avoid them wherever and whenever she could, and spare herself the pain their suggestion always brought her. She would not have come now, but that her husband's memory seemed to require it of her.
For years gossip had been busy with the wife of the Richest Trustee--as the widow she did not relax her hold. What the trustees said that day they only repeated from gossip: the little gray wisp of a woman was a nonent.i.ty--nothing more--with the spirit of a mouse. She held no position in society, and what she did with her time or her money no one knew. The trustees smiled inwardly and reckoned silently with themselves; at least they would never need to fear opposition from her on any matter of importance.
The last person of all to enter the boardroom was the Senior Surgeon.
The President had evidently waited for him, for he nodded to the House Surgeon to close the doors the moment he came.
Now the Senior Surgeon was a man who used capitals for Surgery, Science, and Self, unconsciously eliminating them elsewhere. He had begun in Saint Margaret's as house surgeon; and he had grown to be considered by many of his own profession the leading man of his day.
The trustees were as proud of him as they were of the hospital, and it has never been recorded in the traditions of Saint Margaret's that the Senior Surgeon had ever asked for anything that went ungranted. He seldom attended a board meeting; consequently when he came in at five-thirty there was an audible rustle of excitement and the raising of antic.i.p.atory eyebrows.
When the President called the meeting to order every trustee was present, as well as the heads of the four wards, the Superintendent, and the two surgeons. The Senior Surgeon sat next to the President; the House Surgeon sat where he could watch equally well the profiles of the Youngest and Prettiest Trustee and Margaret MacLean. His heart had always been inclined to intermit; or--as he put it to himself--he adored them both in quite opposite ways; and which way was the better and more endurable he had never been able to decide.
”In view of the fact,” said the President, rising, ”that the Senior Surgeon can be with us but a short time this afternoon, and that he has a grave and vital issue to present to you, we will postpone the regular reports until the end of the meeting and take up at once the business in hand.” He paused a moment, feeling the dramatic value of his next remark. ”For some time the Senior Surgeon has seriously questioned the--hmm--advisability of continuing the incurable ward. He wishes very much to bring the matter before you, and he is prepared to give you his reasons for so doing. Afterward, I think it would be wise for us to discuss the matter very informally.” He bowed to the Senior Surgeon and sat down.
The Meanest Trustee snapped his teeth together in an expression of grim satisfaction. ”That ward is costing a lot of unnecessary expense, I think,” he barked out, sharply, ”and it's being run with altogether too free a hand.” And he looked meaningly toward Margaret MacLean.
No one paid any particular attention to his remark; they were too deeply engrossed in the Senior Surgeon. And the House Surgeon, watching, saw the profile of the Youngest and Prettiest Trustee become even prettier as it blushed and turned in witching eagerness toward the man who was rising to address the meeting. The other profile had turned rigid and white as a piece of marble.
Now the Senior Surgeon could do a critical major operation in twenty minutes; and he could operate on critical issues quite as rapidly.
Speed was his creed; therefore he characteristically attacked the subject in hand without any prefatory remarks.
”Ladies and gentlemen of the board, the incurable ward is doing nothing. I can see no possible reason or opportunity for further observation or experimentation there. Every case in it at the present time, as well as every Case that is likely to come to us, is as a sealed doc.u.ment as far as science is concerned. They are incurable--they will remain incurable for all time.”
”How do you know?” The question came from the set lips of the nurse in charge of Ward C.
”How do we know anything in science? We prove it by undeniable, irrevocable facts.”
”Even then you are not sure of it. I was proved incurable--but I got well.”
”That proves absolutely nothing!” And the Senior Surgeon growled as he always did when things went against his liking. ”You were a case in a thousand--in a lifetime. Because it happened once--here in this hospital--is no reason for believing that it will ever happen again.”
”Oh yes, it is!” persisted Margaret MacLean. ”There is just as much reason for believing as for not believing. Every one of those children, in the ward now might--yes, they might--be a case in a thousand; and no one has any right to take that thousandth of a chance away from them.”
”You are talking nonsense--stupid, irrational nonsense.” And the Senior Surgeon glared at her.
The truth was that he had never forgiven her for getting well. To have had a slip of a girl juggle with the most reliable of scientific data, as well as with his own undeniable skill as a diagnostician, and grow up normally, healthfully perfect, was insufferable. He had never quite forgiven the Old Senior Surgeon for his share in it. And to have her stand against him and his great desire, now, and actually throw this thing in his face, was more than he could endure. He did not know that Margaret MacLean was fighting for what she loved most on earth, the one thing that seemed to belong to her, the thing that had been given into her keeping by the right of a memory bequeathed to her by the man he could not save. Truth to tell, Margaret MacLean had never quite forgiven the Senior Surgeon for this, blameless as she knew him to be.
And so for the s.p.a.ce of a quick breath the two faced each other, aggressive and accusing.
When the Senior Surgeon turned again to the President and the trustees his face wore a faint smile suggestive of amused toleration.
”I hope the time will soon come,” he said very distinctly, ”when every training-school for nurses will bar out the so-called sentimental, imaginative type; they do a great deal of harm to the profession. As I was saying, the incurable ward is doing nothing, and we need it for surgical cases. Look over the reports for the last few months and you will see how many cases we have had to turn away--twenty in March, sixteen in February; and this month it is over thirty--one a day. Now why waste that room for no purpose?”
”Every one of those cases could get into, some of the other hospitals; but who would take the incurables? What would you do with the children in Ward C, now?” and Margaret MacLean's voice rang out its challenge.
The Senior Surgeon managed to check an angry explosive and turned to the President for succor.
”I think,” said that man of charitable parts, ”that the meeting is getting a trifle too informal for order. After the Senior Surgeon has finished I will call on those whom I feel have something of--hmm--importance to say. In the mean time, my dear young lady, I beg of you not to interrupt again. The children, of course, could all be returned to their homes.”
”Oh no, they couldn't--” There was something hypnotic in the persistence of the nurse in charge of Ward C.
Usually keenly sensitive, abnormally alive to impressions and atmosphere, she shrank from ever intruding herself or her opinions where they were not welcome; but now all personal consciousness was dead. She was wholly unaware that she had worked the Senior Surgeon into a state where he had almost lost his self-control--a condition heretofore unknown in the Senior Surgeon; that she had exasperated the President and reduced the trustees to open-mouthed amazement. The lorgnette shook unsteadily in the hand of the Oldest; and, unmindful of it all, Margaret MacLean went steadily on: