Radio and television mirror (Nov 1939-Apr 1940)

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If an operation is necessary — and I doubt it — it can be performed by a specialist." Silently Robbie waited, still paying no attention to Cortland. "Robbie — " she faltered, "you're sure?" "Of course I'm sure," he said harshly. "Do you think I'd want to operate if I weren't?" "This boy is my son," Cortland snapped. "You can't operate without my permission." Robbie's eyes looked their question at Bess. "Yes," she said. "Tim's his son." She saw Robbie's hands clench, but the gesture conveyed no meaning to her. Automatically she added: "Tim's mother was my sister." Suddenly Robbie threw back his head and began to laugh. It was laughter of sheer relief — joyous, free. "Why, then," he said to their amazement, "then you're his aunt!" OF course," Bess replied. Laughter? Why did he laugh? . . . And then, dimly, she sensed rather than knew what Robbie must have thought, and a stinging flush crept into her cheeks — the more painful because she knew she could never speak of this to him. It was one of the things that must be forever hidden between them. Robbie took her arm. "Would you like to see Tim a minute? . . . I'm sorry, Mr. Cortland," he added almost cordially, "but he's a pretty sick boy, and as you're practically a stranger to him, I think it would be better if you didn't come in." "If you operate on that boy before I get another opinion," Cortland said in a low voice, "I'll have you arrested." He turned abruptly and walked away. Inside the room, standing over the little bed where Tim lay, Bess held fast to Robbie's arm with one hand while with the other she smoothed the tumbled hair away from Tim's forehead. The little face, drawn with pain, smiled up at her. "Miss Bess — I was hoping you'd come. Miss Bess, they won't make me stay here very long, will they? I don't like it, and my head aches so." "No, Timmy — you won't have to stay long. And you'll feel better soon if you'll only try to sleep." "Yes, but you stay here. . . ." "I'll stay." His eyes closed; in a moment his deep breathing showed that he slept. Bess looked up at Robbie. "Oh Robbie, suppose something should go wrong. Are you so sure an operation is really needed?" She saw that she had hurt him, and hurried on. "No, I didn't mean that — I believe you know what's best — but I'm afraid of Steve. If you operated and weren't successful, he'd ruin you. I know Steve." "I'm not afraid of him." "But — couldn't you wait just a day — until he sent for the doctor he wants? So the other doctor can confirm your opinion?" Robbie considered that. "Why, yes," he said at last. "I suppose we could wait that long." But when the next day came, bringing with it the doctor Cortland had summoned from Chicago, they were no nearer a decision. After seeing Tim, he advised delay. Robbie, in a white-hot fury, brought the news to Bess at Hilltop. "It's utter nonsense to wait!" he raged, pacing up and down in her office. "I shouldn't have waited even this long — and now that fool of a societydoctor, anxious for fatter fees I suppose, mumbles about being careful! I tell you, Bess — " he stopped short and faced her — "I won't be responsible for Tim's life if there is any more delay." Around her Bess felt the force of conflicting desires, hatreds, jealousies. For a moment she thought — Ah, but Robbie is unstable, impulsive, reckless. But, she added, he is brilliant, too. He has more to lose than I. "I want you to operate," she said in a tense voice. "Today. Now." With the words, she freed him of all his agitation, all his nervousness. It was a calm, strong Robbie who took both her hands in his, pressed them to his lips. "Thanks, Bess," he murmured. "Thanks for believing in me. It's more than I — " But he left that sentence unfinished. That afternoon, as she sat in the hospital waiting room, not reading, trying not even to think, someone thrust a folded paper into her hand. For a moment she scarcely realized it was there, for there was space for only one thing in her life just then: the consciousness that Tim was in the operating room, under Robbie's hands. But at last she looked down at it, unfolded it, read it. AT first she couldn't understand the *» ponderous legal phrases. Only slowly she comprehended that Steve Cortland had started suit for the custody of Tim, and that the hearing was set for two days away. Two days . . . why, by that time there might not be any Tim. The next forty-eight hours were the most agonizing of Bess Johnson's life. During them, Tim's life balanced on a slender knife-blade — for Robbie had been right; there had been too much delay, and Tim had become so weak that the operation struck close to the very pulse of his life. While she waited, there were other things to which she should have given her thoughts. They crowded the background of her existence, these disasters that once would have seemed so terrible. The news of Cortland's suit had brought Thelma Gidley and Frank Klabber and their friends down about her like carrion-crows. It was little enough she knew of what they were saying, filtered as the reports were through Paul Hutchinson's sympathetic censoring. He did tell her, though, that there was a movement on foot to prosecute her for allowing Hilltop to support her nephew, and that Klabber was whispering that her sister had never existed — that Tim was her own son. "Of course, I don't believe it," he added hastily, "and naturally neither does anyone that really knows you." She managed to smile her gratitude. "Somehow," she said, "I can't care so very much whether or not anyone believes it — not until Tim . . ." "No, of course not," he nodded. "But — Well, I hate to worry you with these things, but you must know, to be prepared." She turned to him in sudden panic. "Paul — isn't there any way we can 54 RADIO AND TELEVISION MIRROR