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"Of more use, you mean?" Dr. Larch asked.
"Right," Nurse Angela said, but Dr. Larch didn't appreciate anyone imitating the speech habits of Homer Wells; he gave Nurse Angela such a look that she never said "Right" again. He also didn't appreciate the suggestion that Melony could be taught to replace Homer--not even in usefulness.
Nurse Edna took up Melony's cause. "If she were a boy, Wilbur," Nurse Edna said, "you would already have given her more to do."
"The hospital is connected to the boys' division," Larch said. "It's impossible to keep what's happening here a secret from the boys. But the girls are another matter," he concluded weakly.
"Melony knows what's happening here," Nurse Angela said.
Wilbur Larch knew he was cornered. He was also angry at Homer Wells--he had given the boy permission to extend his time away from St. Cloud's as long as possible, but he hadn't expected he wouldn't hear from Homer (not a word!) in nearly six weeks.
"I don't know that I have the patience to work with a teen-ager, anymore," Larch said peevishly.
"I think Melony is twenty-four or twenty-five," Mrs. Grogan said.
How could someone that old still be in an orphanage? Larch wondered. The same way that I can still be here, he answered himself. Who else would take the job? Who else would take Melony? "All right. Let's ask her if she's interested," Larch said.
He dreaded the meeting with Melony; he couldn't help himself, but he blamed her for whatever sullenness had crept into Homer's personality--and the rebellion Homer had manifested toward him recently. Larch knew he was being unfair, and this made him feel guilty; he began to answer the mail.
There was a long (albeit businesslike) letter from Olive Worthington, and a check--a rather sizable donation to the orphanage. Mrs. Worthington said she was happy her son had been so "taken" by the good work at St. Cloud's that he'd seen fit to bring one of Dr. Larch's "boys" home with him. It was fine with the Worthingtons that Homer stay through the summer. They frequently hired "schoolboy help," and she was frankly grateful that her son Wally had "the opportunity to mingle with someone his own age--but of less fortunate circumstances." Olive Worthington wanted Larch to know that she and her husband thought Homer was a fine boy, polite and a good worker, and that he seemed "altogether a sobering influence on Wally." She concluded that she hoped "Wally might even learn the value of a day's work from his proximity to Homer," and that Homer had "clearly profited from a rigorous education"--she based this judgment on Homer's ability to learn the apple business "as if he were used to more demanding studies."
Olive wanted Dr. Larch to know that Homer had requested to be paid in the form of a monthly donation to St. Cloud's, minus only what she fairly judged were his expenses; since he shared a room with Wally and could fit into Wally's clothes, and since he ate his meals with the Worthington family, Olive said the boy's expenses were minimal. She was delighted that her son had "such manly and honorable company" for the summer, and she was pleased to have the opportunity to contribute what little she could to the well-being of the orphans of St. Cloud's. "The kids," Olive said (it was how she referred to Wally and Candy), ". . . tell me you are doing great things there. They're so happy they stumbled upon you."
Wilbur Larch could tell that Olive Worthington didn't know she had an accomplished obstetrician tending to her apple trees, and he grumbled to himself about the "rigorous education" he felt had been quite wasted on Homer Wells--given his present occupation--but Dr. Larch calmed himself sufficiently to compose a cordial, albeit formal, letter in response to Mrs. Worthington.
Her donation was very gratefully received, and he was glad that Homer Wells was representing his upbringing at St. Cloud's in so positive a manner--he would expect no less of the boy, which Mrs. Worthington might be so kind as to tell him. Also, that it would be nice if Homer would write. Dr. Larch was happy that there was such healthy summer employment for Homer; the boy would be missed at St. Cloud's, where he had always been of use, but Larch emphasized his pleasure at Homer's good fortune. He congratulated Olive Worthington on the good manners and the generosity of her son; he said he would welcome those "kids" back at St. Cloud's--anytime. What luck--for everyone!--that they had "stumbled upon" the orphanage.
Wilbur Larch gritted his teeth and tried to imagine a harder place to stumble upon than St. Cloud's; he managed a supreme effort at concentration and proceeded with the p
art of the letter he had waited more than a month to write.
"There is one thing I must tell you about Homer Wells," Wilbur Larch wrote. "There is a problem with his heart," the doctor wrote; he elaborated. He was more careful than he'd been when he discussed Homer's heart defect with Wally and Candy; he tried to be as precise but as elusive as he knew he'd eventually have to be when he described the ailment to Homer Wells. His letter to Olive Worthington about Homer's heart was a kind of warm-up exercise. He was sowing seeds (an infuriating phrase, but he found himself thinking it--ever since his inheritance of the stationmaster's catalogues); he wanted Homer treated with kid gloves, as they say in Maine.
Olive Worthington had mentioned that Homer was taking driving lessons from Wally and swimming lessons from Candy--the latter in the Haven Club's heated pool. The latter--swimming lessons from that girl!--made Wilbur Larch growl, and he concluded his cautionary advice about Homer's heart with the suggestion that Homer "take it easy with the swimming."
Dr. Larch did not share Olive Worthington's opinion that "every boy should know how to drive and swim"; Dr. Larch could do neither.
"Here in St. Cloud's," he wrote, to himself, "it is imperative to have good obstetrical procedure, and to be able to perform a dilatation and curettage. In other parts of the world, they learn how to drive and swim!"
He showed Olive Worthington's letter to Nurse Angela and Nurse Edna, who both wept over it. They were of the opinion that Mrs. Worthington sounded "charming" and "warm" and "intelligent," but Larch grumbled how it was strange that Mr. Worthington was so little in view; what was the matter with him? "What's his wife running the farm for?" Larch asked his nurses, who both scolded him for his readiness to assume there was something wrong whenever a woman was in charge of anything. They reminded him that he had an appointment with Melony.
Melony had been working herself into a proper state of mind for her meeting with Dr. Larch. She prepared herself by lying in her bed and reading over and over again the inscription she had written in the stolen copy of Little Dorrit:
TO HOMER "SUNSHINE" WELLS
FOR THE PROMISE
YOU MADE ME
LOVE, MELONY
Then she tried, again and again, to begin the book through her angry tears.
The image of the staring, blazing sun in Marseilles--the oppressive glare--was both dazzling and mystifying to Melony. What experience did she have to help her comprehend a sun of that brightness? And the coincidence of so much sunshine (considering her nickname for Homer Wells) was too much for her. She read, got lost, began again, got lost again; she grew angrier and angrier.
Then she looked in her canvas bag of toilet articles and saw that the horn-rim barrette, which Mary Agnes had stolen from Candy--and which Melony had snatched out of Mary Agnes's hair and taken for herself--had been stolen again. She marched to Mary Agnes Cork's bed and retrieved the elegant barrette from under Mary Agnes's pillow. Melony's hair was cropped too short for her to be able to use the barrette, which she was not exactly sure how to use, anyway. She jammed it into her jeans' pocket; this was uncomfortable--her jeans were so tight. She went into the girls' shower room, where Mary Agnes Cork was washing her hair, and she turned the hot water up so hot that Mary Agnes was nearly scalded. Mary Agnes flung herself out of the shower; she lay red and writhing on the floor, where Melony twisted her arm behind her back and then stepped with all her weight on Mary Agnes's shoulder. Melony didn't mean to break anything; she was repelled by the sound of Mary Agnes's collarbone giving way, and she stepped quickly away from the younger girl--whose naked body turned from very red to very white. She lay on the shower room floor, shivering and moaning, not daring to move.
"Get dressed and I'll take you to the hospital," Melony said. "You broke something."
