Different Seasons(179)

“But she couldn’t very well pay for a hospital stay now, could she?” I asked—it was a ridiculously small thing to seize on, but it was all I could find at that moment on which to express my pique and half-amused frustration. “After all, none of us knows how long she’ll have to remain there. Or are you reading the crystal now, Ella?”

“I told her that very thing, and she asked what the average stay was following an uncomplicated birth. I told her six days. Wasn’t that right, Dr. McCarron?”

I had to admit it was.

“She said that she would pay for six days, then, and if it was longer, she would pay the difference, and if—”

“—if it was shorter, we could issue her a refund,” I finished wearily. I thought: Damn the woman, anyway!—and then I laughed. She had guts. One couldn’t deny that. All kinds of guts.

Mrs. Davidson allowed herself a smile ... and if I am ever tempted, now that I am in my dotage, to believe I know all there is to know about one of my fellow creatures, I try to remember that smile. Before that day I would have staked my life that I would never see Mrs. Davidson, one of the most “proper” women I have ever known, smile fondly as she thought about a girl who was pregnant out of wedlock.

“Guts? I don’t know, doctor. But she knows her own mind, that one. She certainly does.”

A month passed, and Miss Stansfield showed up promptly for her appointment, simply appearing out of that wide, amazing flow of humanity that was New York then and is New York now. She wore a fresh-looking blue dress to which she managed to communicate a feeling of originality, of one-of-a-kind-ness, despite the fact that it had been quite obviously picked from a rack of dozens just like it. Her pumps did not match it; they were the same brown ones in which I had seen her last time.

I checked her over carefully and found her normal in every way. I told her so and she was pleased. “I found the pre-natal vitamins, Dr. McCarron.”

“Did you? That’s good.”

Her eyes sparkled impishly. “The druggist advised me against them.”

“God save me from pestle-pounders,” I said, and she giggled against the heel of her palm—it was a childlike gesture, winning in its unselfconsciousness. “I never met a druggist that wasn’t a frustrated doctor. And a Republican. Pre-natal vitamins are new, so they’re regarded with suspicion. Did you take his advice?”

“No, I took yours. You’re my doctor.”

“Thank you.”

“Not at all.” She looked at me straightforwardly, not giggling now. “Dr. McCarron, when will I begin to show?”

“Not until August, I should guess. September, if you choose garments which are ... uh, voluminous.”

“Thank you.” She picked up her purse but did not rise immediately to go. I thought that she wanted to talk ... and didn’t know where or how to begin.

“You’re a working woman, I take it?”

She nodded. “Yes. I work.”

“Might I ask where? If you’d rather I didn’t—”

She laughed—a brittle, humorless laugh, as different from a giggle as day is from dark. “In a department store. Where else does an unmarried woman work in the city? I sell perfume to fat ladies who rinse their hair and then have it done up in tiny finger-waves.”

“How long will you continue?”

“Until my delicate condition is noticed. I suppose then I’ll be asked to leave, lest I upset any of the fat ladies. The shock of being waited on by a pregnant woman with no wedding band might cause their hair to straighten.”

Quite suddenly her eyes were bright with tears. Her lips began to tremble, and I groped for a handkerchief. But the tears didn’t fall—not so much as a single one. Her eyes brimmed for a moment and then she blinked them back. Her lips tightened ... and then smoothed out. She simply decided she was not going to lose control of her emotions ... and she did not. It was a remarkable thing to watch.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’ve been very kind to me. I won’t repay your kindness with what would be a very common story.”

She rose to go, and I rose with her.

“I’m not a bad listener,” I said, “and I have some time. My next patient cancelled.”

“No,” she said. “Thank you, but no.”

“All right,” I said. “But there’s something else.”

“Yes?”

“It’s not my policy to make my patients—any of my patients—pay for services in advance of those services’ being rendered. I hope if you ... that is, if you feel you’d like to ... or have to ...” I fumbled my way into silence.

“I’ve been in New York four years, Dr. McCarron, and I’m thrifty by nature. After August—or September—I’ll have to live on what’s in my savings account until I can go back to work again. It’s not a great amount and sometimes, during the nights, mostly, I become frightened.”

She looked at me steadily with those wonderful hazel eyes.

“It seemed better to me—safer—to pay for the baby first. Ahead of everything. Because that is where the baby is in my thoughts, and because, later on, the temptation to spend that money might become very great.”

“All right,” I said. “But please remember that I see it as having been paid before accounts. If you need it, say so.”