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It was appropriate to their discussion of St. Cloud's that they attempted to conduct their business in a former ballroom that had seen better days, in a hotel so deeply in the off-season that anyone seeing them there would have suspected they'd been quarantined. In fact, when he got a glimpse of them, that is what Homer Wells thought; he and Candy were the hotel's only other off-season guests. They had taken a room for half the day; they were a long way from Ocean View, but they'd come this far to be sure that no one would recognize them.
It was time for them to leave. They stood outside on the veranda, Candy with her back against Homer's chest, his arms wrapped around her; they both faced out to sea. He appeared to like the way the wind whipped her hair back in his face, and neither of them seemed to mind the rain.
Inside the hotel, Mrs. Goodhall looked through the streaked window, frowning at the weather and at the young couple braving the elements. In her opinion, nothing could ever be normal enough. That was what was wrong with Larch; not everyone who is ninety-something is senile, she would grant you, but Larch wasn't normal. And even if they were a young married couple, public displays of affection were not acceptable to Mrs. Goodhall--and they were calling all the more attention to themselves by their defiance of the rain.
"What's more," she remarked to Dr. Gingrich, who was given no warning and had no map with which he could have followed her thoughts, "I'll bet they're not married."
The young couple, he thought, looked a little sad. Perhaps they needed a psychiatrist; perhaps it was the weather--they'd been planning to sail.
"I've figured out what he is," Mrs. Goodhall told Dr. Gingrich, who thought she was referring to the young man, Homer Wells. "He's a nonpracticing homosexual," Mrs. Goodhall announced. She meant Dr. Larch, who was on her mind night and day.
Dr. Gingrich was rather amazed at what struck him as Mrs. Goodhall's wild guess, but he looked at the young man with renewed interest. True, he was not actually
fondling the young woman; he seemed a trifle distant.
"If we could catch him at it, we'd have him out in a minute," Mrs. Goodhall observed. "Of course we'd still have to find someone willing to replace him."
Dr. Gingrich was lost. He realized that Mrs. Goodhall couldn't be interested in replacing the young man on the veranda, and that therefore she was still thinking about Dr. Larch. But if Dr. Larch were a "nonpracticing homosexual," what could they ever catch him at?
"We would catch him at being a homosexual, just not practicing as such?" Dr. Gingrich asked cautiously; it was not hard to rile Mrs. Goodhall.
"He's obviously queer," she snapped.
Dr. Gingrich, in all his years of psychiatric service to Maine, had never been moved to apply the label of "nonpracticing homosexual" to anyone, although he had often heard of such a thing; usually, someone was complaining about someone else's peculiarity. In Mrs. Goodhall's case, she despised men who lived alone. It wasn't normal. And she despised young couples who displayed their affection, or weren't married, or both; too much of what was normal also enraged her. Although he shared with Mrs. Goodhall the desire to replace Dr. Larch and his staff at St. Cloud's, it occurred to Dr. Gingrich that he should have had Mrs. Goodhall as a patient--she might have kept him out of retirement for a few more years.
When the young couple came inside the hotel, Mrs. Goodhall gave them such a look that the young woman turned away.
"Did you see her turn away in shame?" Mrs. Goodhall would ask Dr. Gingrich, later.
But the young man stared her down. He looked right through her! Dr. Gingrich marveled. It was one of the best looks, in the tradition of "withering," that Dr. Gingrich had ever seen and he found himself smiling at the young couple.
"Did you see that couple?" Candy asked him later, in the long drive back to Ocean View.
"I don't think they were married," said Homer Wells. "Or if they're married, they hate each other."
"Maybe that's why I thought they were married," Candy said.
"He looked a little stupid, and she looked completely crazy," Homer said.
"I know they were married," Candy said.
In the sad, dingy dining room in Ogunquit, while the rain pelted down, Mrs. Goodhall said, "It's just not normal. Doctor Larch, those old nurses--the whole bit. If someone new, in some capacity, isn't hired soon, I say we send a janitor up there--just anyone who can look the place over and tell us how bad it is."
"Maybe it's not as bad as we think," Dr. Gingrich said tiredly. He had seen the young couple leave the hotel, and they had filled him with melancholy.
"Let somebody go there and see," Mrs. Goodhall said, the dark chandelier above her small gray head.
Then, in the nick of time--in everyone's opinion--a new nurse came to St. Cloud's. Remarkably, she appeared to have found out about the place all by herself. Nurse Caroline, they called her; she was constantly of use, and a great help when Melony's present for Mrs. Grogan arrived.
"What is it?" Mrs. Grogan asked. The carton was almost too heavy for her to lift; Nurse Edna and Nurse Angela had brought it over to the girls' division together. It was a sweltering summer afternoon; still, because it had been a perfectly windless day, Nurse Edna had sprayed the apple trees.
Dr. Larch came to the girls' division to see what was in the package.
"Well, go on, open it," he said to Mrs. Grogan. "I haven't got all day."
Mrs. Grogan was not sure how to attack the carton, which was sealed with wire and twine and tape--as if a savage had attempted to contain a wild animal. Nurse Caroline was called for her help.
What would they do without Nurse Caroline? Larch wondered. Before the package for Mrs. Grogan, Nurse Caroline had been the only large gift that anyone sent to St. Cloud's; Homer Wells had sent her from the hospital in Cape Kenneth. Homer Wells knew that Nurse Caroline believed in the Lord's work, and he had persuaded her to go where her devotion would be welcome. But Nurse Caroline had trouble opening Melony's present.
