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"Dr.
Ansell told me you were here," said Morel, holding out his hand.
Dawes
mechanically shook hands.
"So
I thought I'd come in," continued Paul.
There
was no answer. Dawes lay
staring at the opposite wall.
"Say
'Caw!"' mocked the nurse. "Say
'Caw!' Jim Crow."
"He
is getting on all right?" said Paul to her.
"Oh
yes! He lies and imagines he's
going to die," said the nurse, "and it frightens every word out of
his mouth."
"And
you MUST have somebody to talk to," laughed Morel.
"That's
it!" laughed the nurse. "Only
two old men and a boy who always cries.
It is hard lines! Here
am I dying to hear Jim Crow's voice, and nothing but an odd 'Caw!' will he
give!"
"So
rough on you!" said Morel.
"Isn't
it?" said the nurse.
"I
suppose I am a godsend," he laughed.
"Oh,
dropped straight from heaven!" laughed the nurse.
Presently
she left the two men alone. Dawes
was thinner, and handsome again, but life seemed low in him.
As the doctor said, he was lying sulking, and would not move forward
towards convalescence. He seemed to grudge every beat of his heart.
"Have
you had a bad time?" asked Paul.
Suddenly
again Dawes looked at him.
"What
are you doing in Sheffield?" he asked.
"My
mother was taken ill at my sister's in Thurston Street.
What are you doing here?"
There
was no answer.
"How
long have you been in?" Morel
asked.
"I
couldn't say for sure," Dawes answered grudgingly.
He
lay staring across at the wall opposite, as if trying to believe Morel was
not there. Paul felt his heart
go hard and angry.
"Dr.
Ansell told me you were here," he said coldly.
The
other man did not answer.
"Typhoid's
pretty bad, I know," Morel persisted.
Suddenly
Dawes said:
"What
did you come for?"
"Because
Dr. Ansell said you didn't know anybody here.
Do you?"
"I
know nobody nowhere," said Dawes.
"Well,"
said Paul, "it's because you don't choose to, then."
There
was another silence.
"We
s'll be taking my mother home as soon as we can," said Paul.
"What's
a-matter with her?" asked Dawes, with a sick man's interest in illness.
"She's
got a cancer."
There
was another silence.
"But
we want to get her home," said Paul.
"We s'll have to get a motor-car."
Dawes
lay thinking.
"Why
don't you ask Thomas Jordan to lend you his?" said Dawes.
"It's
not big enough," Morel answered.
Dawes
blinked his dark eyes as he lay thinking.
"Then
ask Jack Pilkington; he'd lend it you.
You know him."
"I
think I s'll hire one," said Paul.
"You're
a fool if you do," said Dawes.
The
sick man was gaunt and handsome again.
Paul was sorry for him because his eyes looked so tired.
"Did
you get a job here?" he asked.
"I
was only here a day or two before I was taken bad," Dawes replied.
"You
want to get in a convalescent home," said Paul.
The
other's face clouded again.
"I'm
goin' in no convalescent home," he said.
"My
father's been in the one at Seathorpe, an' he liked it.
Dr. Ansell would get you a recommend."
Dawes
lay thinking. It was evident he
dared not face the world again.
"The
seaside would be all right just now," Morel said.
"Sun on those sandhills, and the waves not far out."
The
other did not answer.
"By
Gad!" Paul concluded, too
miserable to bother much; "it's all right when you know you're going to
walk again, and swim!"
Dawes
glanced at him quickly. The
man's dark eyes were afraid to meet any other eyes in the world. But the real misery and helplessness in Paul's tone gave him
a feeling of relief.
"Is
she far gone?" he asked.
"She's
going like wax," Paul answered; "but cheerful--lively!"
He
bit his lip. After a minute he
rose.
"Well,
I'll be going," he said. "I'll
leave you this half-crown."
"I
don't want it," Dawes muttered.
Morel
did not answer, but left the coin on the table.
"Well,"
he said, "I'll try and run in when I'm back in Sheffield.
Happen you might like to see my brother-in-law?
He works in Pyecrofts."
"I
don't know him," said Dawes.
"He's
all right. Should I tell him to
come? He might bring you some
papers to look at."
The
other man did not answer. Paul
went. The strong emotion that
Dawes aroused in him, repressed, made him shiver.
He
did not tell his mother, but next day he spoke to Clara about this
interview. It was in the
dinner-hour. The two did not
often go out together now, but this day he asked her to go with him to the
Castle grounds. There they sat
while the scarlet geraniums and the yellow calceolarias blazed in the
sunlight. She was now always
rather protective, and rather resentful towards him.
"Did
you know Baxter was in Sheffield Hospital with typhoid?" he asked.
She looked at him with startled grey eyes, and her face went pale.
"No,"
she said, frightened.
"He's
getting better. I went to see
him yesterday--the doctor told me."
Clara
seemed stricken by the news.
"Is
he very bad?" she asked guiltily.
"He
has been. He's mending
now."
"What
did he say to you?"
"Oh,
nothing! He seems to be
sulking."
There
was a distance between the two of them.
He gave her more information.
She
went about shut up and silent. The
next time they took a walk together, she disengaged herself from his arm,
and walked at a distance from him. He
was wanting her comfort badly.
"Won't
you be nice with me?" he asked.
She
did not answer.
"What's
the matter?" he said, putting his arm across her shoulder.
"Don't!"
she said, disengaging herself.
He
left her alone, and returned to his own brooding.
"Is
it Baxter that upsets you?" he asked at length.
"I
HAVE been VILE to him!" she said.
"I've
said many a time you haven't treated him well," he replied.
And
there was a hostility between them. Each
pursued his own train of thought.
"I've
treated him--no, I've treated him badly," she said.
"And now you treat ME badly.
It serves me right."
"How
do I treat you badly?" he said.
"It
serves me right," she repeated. "I
never considered him worth having, and now you don't consider ME.
But it serves me right.
He loved me a thousand times better than you ever did."
"He
didn't!" protested Paul.
"He
did! At any rate, he did
respect me, and that's what you don't do."
"It
looked as if he respected you!" he said.
"He
did! And I MADE him horrid--I
know I did! You've taught me
that. And he loved me a
thousand times better than ever you do."
"All
right," said Paul.
He
only wanted to be left alone now. He
had his own trouble, which was almost too much to bear.
Clara only tormented him and made him tired.
He was not sorry when he left her.
She
went on the first opportunity to Sheffield to see her husband.
The meeting was not a success. But
she left him roses and fruit and money.
She wanted to make restitution.
It was not that she loved him. As
she looked at him lying there her heart did not warm with love.
Only she wanted to humble herself to him, to kneel before him.
She wanted now to be self-sacrificial.
After all, she had failed to make Morel really love her.
She was morally frightened. She
wanted to do penance. So she
kneeled to Dawes, and it gave him a subtle pleasure.
But the distance between them was still very great--too great.
It frightened the man. It
almost pleased the woman. She
liked to feel she was serving him across an insuperable distance. She was proud now.
Morel
went to see Dawes once or twice. There
was a sort of friendship between the two men, who were all the while deadly
rivals. But they never
mentioned the woman who was between them.
Mrs.
Morel got gradually worse. At
first they used to carry her downstairs, sometimes even into the garden.
She sat propped in her chair, smiling, and so pretty.
The gold wedding-ring shone on her white hand; her hair was carefully
brushed. And she watched the tangled sunflowers dying, the
chrysanthemums coming out, and the dahlias.
Paul
and she were afraid of each other. He
knew, and she knew, that she was dying.
But they kept up a pretence of cheerfulness. Every morning, when he got up, he went into her room in his
pyjamas.
"Did
you sleep, my dear?" he asked.
"Yes,"
she answered.
"Not
very well?"
"Well,
yes! "
Then
he knew she had lain awake. He
saw her hand under the bedclothes, pressing the place on her side where the
pain was.
"Has
it been bad?" he asked.
"No.
It hurt a bit, but nothing to mention."
And
she sniffed in her old scornful way. As
she lay she looked like a girl. And
all the while her blue eyes watched him.
But there were the dark pain-circles beneath that made him ache
again.
"It's
a sunny day," he said.
"It's
a beautiful day."
"Do
you think you'll be carried down?"
"I
shall see."
Then
he went away to get her breakfast. All
day long he was conscious of nothing but her.
It was a long ache that made him feverish. Then, when he got home in the early evening, he glanced
through the kitchen window. She
was not there; she had not got up.
He
ran straight upstairs and kissed her. He
was almost afraid to ask:
"Didn't
you get up, pigeon?"
"No,"
she said. "it was that
morphia; it made me tired."
"I
think he gives you too much," he said.
"I
think he does," she answered.
He
sat down by the bed, miserably. She
had a way of curling and lying on her side, like a child. The grey and brown hair was loose over her ear.
"Doesn't
it tickle you?" he said, gently putting it back.
"It
does," she replied.
His
face was near hers. Her blue
eyes smiled straight into his, like a girl's--warm, laughing with tender
love. It made him pant with
terror, agony, and love.
"You
want your hair doing in a plait," he said. "Lie still."
And
going behind her, he carefully loosened her hair, brushed it out.
It was like fine long silk of brown and grey.
Her head was snuggled between her shoulders.
As he lightly brushed and plaited her hair, he bit his lip and felt
dazed. It all seemed unreal, he
could not understand it.
At
night he often worked in her room, looking up from time to time.
And so often he found her blue eyes fixed on him.
And when their eyes met, she smiled.
He worked away again mechanically, producing good stuff without
knowing what he was doing.
Sometimes
he came in, very pale and still, with watchful, sudden eyes, like a man who
is drunk almost to death. They
were both afraid of the veils that were ripping between them.
Then
she pretended to be better, chattered to him gaily, made a great fuss over
some scraps of news. For they
had both come to the condition when they had to make much of the trifles,
lest they should give in to the big thing, and their human independence
would go smash. They were
afraid, so they made light of things and were gay.
Sometimes
as she lay he knew she was thinking of the past. Her mouth gradually shut hard in a line.
She was holding herself rigid, so that she might die without ever
uttering the great cry that was tearing from her.
He never forgot that hard, utterly lonely and stubborn clenching of
her mouth, which persisted for weeks. Sometimes,
when it was lighter, she talked about her husband.
Now she hated him. She
did not forgive him. She could
not bear him to be in the room. And
a few things, the things that had been most bitter to her, came up again so
strongly that they broke from her, and she told her son.
He
felt as if his life were being destroyed, piece by piece, within him.
Often the tears came suddenly. He
ran to the station, the tear-drops falling on the pavement.
Often he could not go on with his work.
The pen stopped writing. He
sat staring, quite unconscious. And
when he came round again he felt sick, and trembled in his limbs.
He never questioned what it was.
His mind did not try to analyse or understand. He merely submitted, and kept his eyes shut; let the thing go
over him.
His
mother did the same. She
thought of the pain, of the morphia, of the next day; hardly ever of the
death. That was coming, she
knew. She had to submit to it.
But she would never entreat it or make friends with it.
Blind, with her face shut hard and blind, she was pushed towards the
door. The days passed, the weeks, the months.
Sometimes,
in the sunny afternoons, she seemed almost happy.
"I
try to think of the nice times--when we went to Mablethorpe, and Robin
Hood's Bay, and Shanklin," she said.
"After all, not everybody has seen those beautiful places.
And wasn't it beautiful! I
try to think of that, not of the other things."
Then,
again, for a whole evening she spoke not a word; neither did he.
They were together, rigid, stubborn, silent.
He went into his room at last to go to bed, and leaned against the
doorway as if paralysed, unable to go any farther.
His consciousness went. A
furious storm, he knew not what, seemed to ravage inside him.
He stood leaning there, submitting, never questioning.
In
the morning they were both normal again, though her face was grey with the
morphia, and her body felt like ash. But
they were bright again, nevertheless. Often, especially if Annie or Arthur were at home, he
neglected her. He did not see
much of Clara. Usually he was
with men. He was quick and
active and lively; but when his friends saw him go white to the gills, his
eyes dark and glittering, they had a certain mistrust of him.
Sometimes he went to Clara, but she was almost cold to him.
"Take
me!" he said simply.
Occasionally
she would. But she was afraid.
When he had her then, there was something in it that made her shrink
away from him--something unnatural. She
grew to dread him. He was so
quiet, yet so strange. She was
afraid of the man who was not there with her, whom she could feel behind
this make-belief lover; somebody sinister, that filled her with horror.
She began to have a kind of horror of him.
It was almost as if he were a criminal.
He wanted her--he had her--and it made her feel as if death itself
had her in its grip. She lay in
horror. There was no man there
loving her. She almost hated
him. Then came little bouts of
tenderness. But she dared not
pity him.
Dawes
had come to Colonel Seely's Home near Nottingham. There Paul visited him sometimes, Clara very occasionally.
Between the two men the friendship developed peculiarly.
Dawes, who mended very slowly and seemed very feeble,
seemed to leave himself in the hands of Morel.
In
the beginning of November Clara reminded Paul that it was her birthday.
"I'd
nearly forgotten," he said.
"I'd
thought quite," she replied.
"No.
Shall we go to the seaside for the week-end?"
They
went. It was cold and rather
dismal. She waited for him to
be warm and tender with her, instead of which he seemed hardly aware of her.
He sat in the railway-carriage, looking out, and was startled when
she spoke to him. He was not
definitely thinking. Things
seemed as if they did not exist. She
went across to him.
"What
is it dear?" she asked.
"Nothing!"
he said. "Don't those
windmill sails look monotonous?"
He
sat holding her hand. He could
not talk nor think. It was a
comfort, however, to sit holding her hand.
She was dissatisfied and miserable.
He was not with her; she was nothing.
And
in the evening they sat among the sandhills, looking at the black, heavy
sea.
"She
will never give in," he said quietly.
Clara's
heart sank.
"No,"
she replied.
"There
are different ways of dying. My
father's people are frightened, and have to be hauled out of life into death
like cattle into a slaughter-house, pulled by the neck; but my mother's
people are pushed from behind, inch by inch.
They are stubborn people, and won't die."
"Yes,"
said Clara.
"And
she won't die. She can't.
Mr. Renshaw, the parson, was in the other day.
'Think!' he said to her; 'you will have your mother and father, and
your sisters, and your son, in the Other Land.'
And she said: 'I have
done without them for a long time, and CAN do without them now.
It is the living I want, not the dead.'
She wants to live even now."
"Oh,
how horrible!" said Clara, too frightened to speak.
"And
she looks at me, and she wants to stay with me," he went on
monotonously. "She's got
such a will, it seems as if she would never go--never!"
"Don't
think of it!" cried Clara.
"And
she was religious--she is religious now--but it is no good. She simply won't
give in. And do you know, I
said to her on Thursday: 'Mother,
if I had to die, I'd die. I'd
WILL to die.' And she said to
me, sharp: 'Do you think I
haven't? Do you think you can
die when you like?'"
His
voice ceased. He did not cry,
only went on speaking mo-notonously. Clara wanted to run. She looked round. There
was the black, re-echoing shore, the dark sky down on her.
She got up terrified. She
wanted to be where there was light, where there were other people.
She wanted to be away from him.
He sat with his head dropped, not moving a muscle.
"And
I don't want her to eat," he said, "and she knows it.
When I ask her: 'Shall you have anything' she's almost afraid to say 'Yes.'
'I'll have a cup of Benger's,' she says.
'It'll only keep your strength up,' I said to her.
'Yes'--and she almost cried--'but there's such a gnawing when I eat
nothing, I can't bear it.' So I
went and made her the food. It's
the cancer that gnaws like that at her. I
wish she'd die!"
"Come!"
said Clara roughly. "I'm
going."
He
followed her down the darkness of the sands.
He did not come to her. He
seemed scarcely aware of her existence.
And she was afraid of him, and disliked him.
In
the same acute daze they went back to Nottingham. He was always busy, always doing something, always going from
one to the other of his friends.
On
the Monday he went to see Baxter Dawes.
Listless and pale, the man rose to greet the other, clinging to his
chair as he held out his hand.
"You
shouldn't get up," said Paul.
Dawes
sat down heavily, eyeing Morel with a sort of suspicion.
"Don't
you waste your time on me," he said, "if you've owt better to
do."
"I
wanted to come," said Paul. "Here!
I brought you some sweets."
The
invalid put them aside.
"It's
not been much of a week-end," said Morel.
"How's
your mother?" asked the other.
"Hardly
any different."
"I
thought she was perhaps worse, being as you didn't come on Sunday."
"I
was at Skegness," said Paul. "I
wanted a change."
The
other looked at him with dark eyes. He
seemed to be waiting, not quite daring to ask, trusting to be told.
"I
went with Clara," said Paul.
"I
knew as much," said Dawes quietly.
"It
was an old promise," said Paul.
"You
have it your own way," said Dawes.
This
was the first time Clara had been definitely mentioned between them.
"Nay,"
said Morel slowly; "she's tired of me."
Again
Dawes looked at him.
"Since
August she's been getting tired of me," Morel repeated.
The
two men were very quiet together. Paul
suggested a game of draughts. They
played in silence.
"I
s'll go abroad when my mother's dead," said Paul.
"Abroad!"
repeated Dawes.
"Yes;
I don't care what I do."
They
continued the game. Dawes was
winning.
"I
s'll have to begin a new start of some sort," said Paul; "and you
as well, I suppose."
He
took one of Dawes's pieces.
"I
dunno where," said the other.
"Things
have to happen," Morel said. "It's
no good doing anything--at least--no, I don't know.
Give me some toffee."
The
two men ate sweets, and began another game of draughts.
"What
made that scar on your mouth?" asked Dawes.
Paul
put his hand hastily to his lips, and looked over the garden.
"I
had a bicycle accident," he said.
Dawes's
hand trembled as he moved the piece.
"You
shouldn't ha' laughed at me," he said, very low.
"When?"
"That
night on Woodborough Road, when you and her passed me--you with your hand on
her shoulder."
"I
never laughed at you," said Paul.
Dawes
kept his fingers on the draught-piece.
"I
never knew you were there till the very second when you passed," said
Morel.
"It
was that as did me," Dawes said, very low.
Paul
took another sweet.
"I
never laughed," he said, "except as I'm always laughing."
They
finished the game.
That
night Morel walked home from Nottingham, in order to have something to do.
The furnaces flared in a red blotch over Bulwell; the black clouds
were like a low ceiling. As he went along the ten miles of highroad, he felt as if he
were walking out of life, between the black levels of the sky and the earth.
But at the end was only the sick-room.
If he walked and walked for ever, there was only that place to come
to.
He
was not tired when he got near home, or He did not know it.
Across the field he could see the red firelight leaping in her
bedroom window.
"When
she's dead," he said to himself, "that fire will go out."
He
took off his boots quietly and crept upstairs.
His mothers door was wide open, because she slept alone still.
The red firelight dashed its glow on the landing.
Soft as a shadow, he peeped in her doorway.
"Paul!"
she murmured.
His
heart seemed to break again. He
went in and sat by the bed.
"How
late you are!" she murmured.
"Not
very," he said.
"Why,
what time is it?" The
murmur came plaintive and helpless.
"It's
only just gone eleven."
That
was not true; it was nearly one o'clock.
"Oh!"
she said; "I thought it was later."
And
he knew the unutterable misery of her nights that would not go.
"Can't
you sleep, my pigeon?" he said.
"No,
I can't," she wailed.
"Never
mind, Little!" He said crooning. "Never
mind, my love. I'll stop with
you half an hour, my pigeon; then perhaps it will be better."
And
he sat by the bedside, slowly, rhythmically stroking her brows with his
finger-tips, stroking her eyes shut, soothing her, holding her fingers in
his free hand. They could hear
the sleepers' breathing in the other rooms.
"Now
go to bed," she murmured, lying quite still under his fingers and his
love.
"Will
you sleep?" he asked.
"Yes,
I think so."
"You
feel better, my Little, don't you?"
"Yes,"
she said, like a fretful, half-soothed child.
Still
the days and the weeks went by. He
hardly ever went to see Clara now. But
he wandered restlessly from one person to another for some help, and there
was none anywhere. Miriam had
written to him tenderly. He
went to see her. Her heart was
very sore when she saw him, white, gaunt, with his eyes dark and bewildered.
Her pity came up, hurting her till she could not bear it.
"How
is she?" she asked.
"The
same--the same!" he said. "The
doctor says she can't last, but I know she will.
She'll be here at Christmas."
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