Next day they ate and swam and snoozed, and when Mildred opened her eyes after one of these naps, she could hardly believe it was late afternoon and time to go home. But still they dawdled, he arguing they should stay another day, and make a weekend of it. The Monday pies, however, were on her mind, and she knew she had to get at them. It was six o'clock when they drove over to the tavern for an early dinner, and seven before they got started. But the big blue Cord went down even faster than it had come up, and it was barely nine as they approached Glendale. He asked where she lived, and she told him, but then she got to thinking. "Want to see something, Monty?"

"What is it?"

"I'll show you."

He kept following Colorado Boulevard, and then at her direction he turned, and presently stopped. "You wait here. I won't be a minute."

She got out her key and ran to the door, her feet crunching on the gravel that had been dumped for the free parking. Inside, she groped her way to the switchbox, and threw on the neon sign. Then she ran out to observe its effect. He was already under it, peering, blinking. It was, indeed, a handsome work of art, made exactly as she had pictured it, except that it had a blazing red arrow through its middle. Monty looked first at the sign, then at Mildred. "Well what the h.e.l.l? Is this yours?"

"Don't you see whose name is on it?"

"Wait a minute. The last I heard, you were slinging hash in that—"

"But not any more. Yesterday was my last day. I quit early to run off with you. From now on, I'm a business woman."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't get any chance, that I noticed."

At this tribute to his prowess as a lover, he grinned, and she pulled him inside, to see the rest of it. She switched on the lights and took him through, lifting the painters' cloths to show him the new maple tables, pointing out the smart linoleum floor covering, explaining it was required by the Department of Health. She took him to the kitchen, opened up the great range. He kept asking questions, and she poured out the whole story, excitedly flattered that a professional loafer could be interested. Yet it was an amended version. There was little in it of Wally, or Bert, or any of the circ.u.mstances that had actually figured in it, a great deal about her ambitions, her determination "to be something before I die." Presently he asked when she was going to open. "Thursday. The cook's night out. I mean everybody's cook."

"Next Thursday?"

"At six o'clock."

"Am I invited?"

"Of course you are."

She switched off the lights, and for a moment they were standing there in the dark, with the smell of paint all about them. Then she caught him in her arms. "Kiss me, Monty. I guess I've fallen for you."

"Why didn't you tell me about all this?"

"I don't know. I was going to, but I was afraid you might just think it was funny."

"I'll be here Thursday. With bells."

"Please. It won't be the same without you."

He took her home, handed her to the door, made sure she had her key. As she was waving good-bye to the disappearing Cord she heard her name called. Automatically she looked toward the Gesslers', but their house was still dark. Then she saw a woman coming across lawns, and saw it was Mrs. Floyd, who lived two doors away.

"Mrs. Pierce?"

There was a sharp note in the voice, and Mildred had a quick prescience that something was wrong. Then, in a tone of virtuous indignation that the whole street could hear, Mrs. Floyd cut loose. "Where in the world have you been? They've been a-trying to reach you ever since last night, and—where have you been?"

Mildred choked back an impulse to tell her it was none of her business where she had been, managed to inquire civilly: "What did they want with me, Mrs. Floyd?"

"It's your daughter."

"My—"

"Your daughter Ray. She's got the flu, and they've taken her to a hospital, and—"

"Which hospital?"

"I don't know which hospital, but—"

Mildred das:hed into the house and back to the den, snapping on lights as she went. As she picked up the phone a horrible feeling came over her that G.o.d had had her number, after all.

CHAPTER VIII.

As MOM MADE her dozenth remark about Mildred's disappearance over the weekend, Mildred's temper flared. It had been, indeed, a trying hour. She had rung a dozen numbers without finding out anything, while Mrs. Floyd sat there and kept up a running harangue about mothers who run off with some man and leave other people to take care of their children. As a last resort she had rung Mrs. Biederhof, and while that lady told her which hospital Ray had been taken to, and one or two other things, her syrupy good wishes hadn't exactly put Mildred in a good humor. Now, after a dash to Los Angeles and a quick look at Ray, she was sitting with Bert, Veda, Mom, and Mr. Pierce at one end of the hospital corridor, waiting for the doctor, listening to Bert rehea.r.s.e exactly what had happened: Ray had been dull Friday night, and then yesterday at the beach, when she seemed to be running a temperature, they had called Dr. Gale, and he had advised taking her to a hospital. Mom interrupted Bert and corrected: The doctor hadn't done no such a thing. He had ordered her home and they had taken her home. But when they got there with her the house was all locked up and they rang him again. It was then that he ordered her to a hospital, because there was no other place to take her. Mildred wanted to ask what was the matter with the Pierces' house, but made herself swallow it back.

Bert took up the story again: There was nothing serious the matter, just a case of grippe, not flu, as Mildred had been told. "That strip of adhesive on her lip don't mean a thing. They opened a little pimple she had, that's all." Mom took the floor again, making more insinuations, until Mildred said: "I don't know that it's any of your business where I was, or anybody else's."

Mom turned white, and sat bolt upright, but Mr. Pierce spoke quickly, and she sank back, her lips compressed. Then Mildred, after trying to keep quiet, went on: "I was at Lake Arrowhead, if you have to know. When some friends invited me up to their cottage by the lake, I didn't see why I was the one person on earth that had to stay home. Of course I should have. That I readily admit. But I didn't know at the time that I had a set of in-laws that couldn't even find a place for a sick child that had been left in their care. I'll certainly know better next time."

"I think Mother's perfectly right."

Up to now, Veda had been coldly neutral, but when she heard about the sw.a.n.k cottage by the lake, she knew exactly where she stood. Bert looked unhappy, and said nothing. Mr. Pierce had a solemn rebuke: "Mildred, everybody did the best they knew, and I don't see any need for personal remarks."

"Who started these personal remarks?"

n.o.body had an answer for this, and for a time there was silence. Mildred had little appet.i.te for the wrangle, for deep down in her heart she had a premonition that Ray was really sick. After an interminable time Dr. Gale arrived. He was a tall, stooped man who had been the family doctor ever since Veda was born. He took Mildred into the sickroom, looked at Ray, listened to the night nurse's whisper. Then he spoke rea.s.suringly: "We get a lot of these cases, especially at this time of year. They shoot up a temperature, start running at the nose, refuse everything you give them to eat, and you'd think they were blowing up something really bad. Then next day they're out running around. Though I don't mind telling you I'm glad we've got her here instead of home. Even in a case of grippe you can't be too careful."

"I'm glad you opened that pimple. I meant to, day before yesterday—and then I forgot it."

"Well I'm glad you didn't open it. Those things, the rule is to let them strictly alone, especially on the upper lip. I didn't open it. I put that little strip over it to keep her fingers off it, that's all."

Mildred took Veda home, improvising a tale about the people who had stopped by Sat.u.r.day and invited her up to the lake. She named no names, but made them quite rich and high-toned. She undressed, with the light out, before she remembered her pies. It was three o'clock before she got to bed, and she was exhausted.

All next day she had an unreasoning, hysterical sense of being deprived of something her whole nature craved: the right to sit with her child, to be near it when it needed her. And yet the best she could manage was a few minutes in the morning, an hour after supper. She had got to the hospital early, and wasn't at all rea.s.sured by the nurse's cheery talk. And her heart had contracted when she saw Ray, all her bubbling animation gone, her face flushed, her breathing labored. But she couldn't stay. She had to go, to deliver pies, to pay off painters, to check on announcements, to contract for chickens, to make more pies. It was dinner time before she got another respite, and then she couldn't eat. She fidgeted while Letty served Veda, then loaded Veda in the car, and took her in for another vigil. Home again, she put Veda to bed, but when she went to bed herself, she couldn't sleep.

She called the hospital at eight the next morning, and after getting a favorable report, stayed on the phone, crowding her business into the next two hours. Around ten, she loaded her pies into the car, made the rounds of delivery, and arrived at the hopsital about eleven. She was surprised to find Dr. Gale already there, whispering in the corridor with a big hairy man in an undershirt, with tattoo marks on his arm. He called Mildred aside. "Now I don't want you to get alarmed. But her temperature's gone up. It's a hundred and four now, and I don't like it. I don't like it, and I don't like that thing on her lip."

"You mean it could be infected?"

"I don't know, and there's no way to tell. I've taken a smear from the pimple, another from the mucus that's coming from her nose, and a couple of CC's of blood. They're on their way to the laboratory now. They'll ring me as soon as they possibly can. But Mildred, here's the point. If we've got trouble there, she can't wait for any lab report. She's got to have a transfusion, right away. Now I've got this man here, he's a professional doner, but it's his means of livelihood, and he won't go in the room till he gets his twenty-five dollars. It's entirely up to you, but—"

Without a thought of what twenty-five dollars would do to her little reserve, Mildred was writing the check before he finished talking. The man demanded an indors.e.m.e.nt. Dr. Gale signed, and Mildred, her hands sweating with fear, went into the sickroom. She had that same terrible feeling in her bowels that she had had that day on the boulevard. The child's eyes were dull, her face hot, her whimpering a constant accompanimeit to her rapid breathing. There was a new strip on her lip, a bigger one, covering a pack of gauze stained with the livid red of mercurochrome. A nurse looked up, but didn't stop spooning ice into the fluttering little mouth. "This happened after I talked to you, Mrs. Pierce. She had a nice night, temperature constant, and we thought she'd be all right in a few hours. Then just like that it went up."

Ray began to fret, and the nurse began talking to her, saying it was her mother, and didn't she know her mother? Mildred spoke to her. "It's Mamma, darling."

"Mamma!"

Ray's voice was a wail, and Mildred wanted to gather her into her arms, but she merely took one of the little hands and patted it. Then Dr. Gale came in, and other doctors, in white smocks, and nurses, and the doner, his sleeves rolled high this time, showing a veritable gallery of tattoo marks. He sat down, and Mildred stood like a woman of stone while a nurse swabbed his arm. Then she went out in the corridor and started walking up and down, quietly, slowly. Somehow, by a supreme effort of will, she made time pa.s.s. Then two nurses came out of the room, then one of the doctors, then the donor, and some orderlies. She went in. The same nurse, the one who had spoken to her before, was at the head of the bed, busy with thermometer and watch. Dr. Gale was bent over, peering intently at Ray. "Her temperature's down, doctor."

"Good."

"A hundred and one."

"That's just great. How's the pulse?"

"Down too. To ninety-six."

"That's wonderful. Mildred, I've probably put you to a lot of expense over nothing. Just the same—"

They walked out to the corridor, came to an angle, went on. He resumed talking in a casual way: "I hated to do it, Mildred, just hated to slap that outlay on you—though I'll see that every charge is as reasonable as they can make it. But if I had it to do over again, I'd tell you just what I told you before. You see, here's what we're up against. Any infection above the mouth drains into the lateral sinus, and that means the brain. Now with that little pip on her lip there was no way to tell. Every symptom she had spelled grippe, but just the same, all of those symptons could could have been caused by strep, and if we had waited until we were sure, it would have been too late. The way she's reacting to that transfusion shows it was all a false alarm—but I'm telling you, if it had been that other, and we hadn't moved fast, I'd never have forgiven myself, and neither would you." have been caused by strep, and if we had waited until we were sure, it would have been too late. The way she's reacting to that transfusion shows it was all a false alarm—but I'm telling you, if it had been that other, and we hadn't moved fast, I'd never have forgiven myself, and neither would you."

"It's all right."

"These things happen, they can't be helped."

Somewhere on the floor a buzzer sounded, then sounded again, sharply, insistently. It seemed to Mildred that Dr. Gale turned rather quickly, that their saunter was no longer a saunter. As they approached the room an orderly hurried past them, carrying hot-water bottles. He entered the room. When they went in, the nurse was jamming them under the covers, which were thick with the extra blankets she had already piled on. "She's having a chill, doctor."

"Orderly, get Dr. Collins."

"Yes sir."

From the ice that was forming around her heart, Mildred knew it was no false alarm this time, She sat down, watched Ray's face turn white, then blue; when the little teeth began to chatter she looked away. An orderly came in with more bottles, which the nurse pushed under the covers without looking up. He was followed by Dr. Collins, a short, heavy man who bent over Ray and studied her as though she were an insect. "It's the pimple, Dr. Gale."

"I can't believe it. She reacted to that transfusion—"

"I know it."

Dr. Collins turned to an orderly and snapped orders in a curt, clipped voice: for oxygen, adrenalin, ice. The orderly went. Both doctors studied Ray in silence, the chattering of her teeth the only sound in the room. After a long time the nurse looked up. "Her pulse is faster, Dr. Collins."

"What is it?"

"A hundred and four."

"Take off the hot-water bottles."

As the nurse pulled out the hot-water bottles and dropped them to the floor the room began to fill. Other nurses appeared, wheeling an oxygen apparatus and a white table full of vials and syringes. They stood around, as though waiting. Ray's teeth stopped chattering and her face lost the blue look. Then red spots appeared on her cheeks, and the nurse felt her forehead. "Her temperature's rising, Dr. Collins."

"Take off the blankets."

Two nurses stripped off the blankets and a third stepped forward with icebags, which she packed around Ray's head. For a long time they were all motionless, and there was no sound except Ray's labored breathing, and the first nurse's report on the pulse: "A hundred and twelve. . . . A hundred and twenty-four. . . . A hundred and thirty-two. . .

Presently Ray was panting like a little dog, and her whimpering had a pitiful note in it that made Mildred want to cry out against the injustice that one so small, so helpless, should have to bear such agony. But she sat perfectly still, not distracting by so much as a movement the attention of those on whom Ray's chance depended. The child's struggle went on and on, and then suddenly Mildred tightened. The breathing stopped for a second, then resumed in three or four short, harrowing gasps, then stopped altogether. Dr. Collins motioned quickly, and two nurses stepped forward. They had scarcely begun their rapid lifting and lowering of Ray's arms before Dr. Gate had the mask of the oxygen apparatus over her face, and Mildred caught the thunderstorm smell of the gas. Dr. Collins filed the neck of a vial, snapped it off. Quickly filling a syringe, he lifted the covers and jabbed it into Ray's rump. The first nurse had Ray's wrist, and Mildred saw her catch Dr. Collins's eye and glumly shake her head. The artificial respiration went steadily on. After a minute or two, Dr. Collins refilled his syringe, again jabbed it into Ray's rump. Another minute went by, and Mildred saw glances exchanged between nurses. As Dr. Collins refilled his syringe, she stood up. She knew the truth, and she also knew that one more jab into the lifeless little bottom would be more than she could stand. She lifted the mask of the oxygen apparatus, bent down, kissed Ray on the mouth, and pulled the sheet over her face.

She was sitting in the alcove again, but here it was Dr. Gale who broke down, not she. The cruel suddenness of it had left her numb, as though she had no capacity to feel, but as he approached, his stoop was a tottering slump. He dropped down beside her, took off his gla.s.ses, ma.s.saged his face to keep it from jerking. "I knew it. I knew it when I saw that orderly, running with the bottles. From then on there was no hope. But—we do everything we can. We can't give up."

Mildred stared straight ahead of her, and he went on: "I loved her like she was mine. And there's only one thing I can say. I did everything I could. If anything could have saved her, that transfusion would—and she had it. And you too, Mildred. We both did everything that could have been done."

They sat for a few minutes, both swallowing, both locking their teeth behind twitching lips. Then, in a different tone, he asked: "You got any choice on an undertaker, Mildred?" - "I don't know any undertaker."

"I generally recommend Mr. Murock, out there in Glendale, just a few blocks from you. He's reasonable, and won't run up charges on you, and he'll attend to everything the way most people want it done."

"If you- recommend him, then it's all right."

"I'll call him."

"Is there a phone around?"

"I'll find you one."

He took her to a little office on the same floor, and she sat down and dialed Mrs. Biederhof. She asked for Bert, but he was out, and she said: "Mrs. Biederhof, this is Mildred Pierce. Will you tell Bert that Ray died a few minutes ago? At the hospital. I wanted him to know, right away."

There was a long, bellowing silence, and then: "Mrs. Pierce, I'll tell him. I'll tell him just as soon as I can find him, but I want to tell you that I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart. Now is there anything I can do?"

"No, thank you."

"Can I take Veda for a little while?"

"No, thanks ever so much."

"I'll tell him."

"Thank you, Mrs. Biederhof."

She drove home mechanically, but after a few blocks she began to dread the stop signals, for sitting there, waiting for the light to change, she would have time to think, and then her throat would clutch and the street begin to blur. When she got home, Bert came out to meet her, and took her into the den, where Letty was trying to quiet Veda. Lefty went back to the kitchen, and Veda broake into loud sobs. Over and over, she kept saying: "I owed her a nickel! Oh, Mother, I cheated her out of it, and I meant to pay it back, but—I owed her a nickel!"

Soothingly, Mildred explained that if she really meant to pay it back, this was the main thing, and presently Veda was quiet. Then she began to fidget. Mildred kissed her and said: "Would you like to go over to your grandfather's, darling? You could practice your piano lessons, or play, or whatever you want to do."