by A. J. Cronin
His gross complacency drove her frantic; a swelling fury rose up through the frightful shock of his disclosure.
‘And now that you are satisfied,’ she said in a hard, lucid voice, ‘what about me?’
‘Eh, what?’
‘Does my son know you have come here?’
‘No, indeed and he doesn’t. That was Tully’s idea – meaning my own.’
That he could be facetious broke the last straw of her endurance.
‘And so it’s all settled?’ she sneered.
‘Good Gord, no, ma’am. There’s lots of things to be gone into.’
‘Indeed!’ Her sarcasm was devilish.
He gazed at her. ‘I know what you feel about it. But you wouldn’t come out the loser by it. I’d see to that.’ He looked significantly around the sparse furnishings of the room. ‘ I’d send you up some sticks for your house and some carpets and what not. See, now! I’ll send you up –’
‘Be quiet!’ she cried out fiercely. ‘Do you think I want your wretched charity – I or my boy?’
His jaw dropped. ‘Charity? Ah, you don’t know me yet,’ he jerked out, ‘ and you don’t know my Rosie!’
‘And I’ll never know her,’ she retorted bitterly.
‘What – what –?’ Touched upon his most tender point, his red face became a vivid beetroot. ‘By Gord, ma’am,’ he retorted heatedly, ‘he’ll be a lucky man that gets my Rose.’
She stared him out of countenance.
‘My son will not be that man,’ she returned in a low, concentrated voice. Then she rose and looked at him fixedly.
‘Good Gord, you are mad!’ he gasped; the assurance of his manner was gone. ‘It’s the chance of a lifetime for him. And me doing what I’ve offered to do for him.’ He threw out his hand protestingly. ‘Let’s get the business straight ma’am. I love my daughter and I want her to be happy. That’s what brings me here. Now, will you meet me half-way?’
‘No!’ she said violently.
‘Why not?’ he expostulated.
‘I refuse – that’s all you need to know.’ Would she bandy words with this wretched usurer?
He stared amazedly; at last got up to his feet.
‘You’re not reasonable. No, no, you’re not reasonable. But they told me – yes, they told me.’
More calumnies behind her back!
‘If that’s what I am,’ she bit out, ‘you need have nothing to do with me.’
He looked at her again, blowing out his red cheeks. ‘By Gord, you’re a queer one,’ he said finally. ‘And I promise you I will have nothing to do with you’; then slowly he pulled on his ridiculous hat, shook his head, and went out.
Immediately her stiff attitude relaxed; she sat down weakly. Her eyes filled once again with that first look – that pitiful bewilderment occasioned by the shock. Yes; the shock was frightful, the coincidence so savagely unjust! The daughter of this Tully, of all people! Eva, it was, who had occasioned that friendship – her lips came together at the thought – Eva, with her tennis-parties, her social affectations, and her languishing pretence of friendship. That indeed was a further hurt – salt rubbed into a wound already rankling.
And Peter – why had he not told her? Now her lips quivered. A pang of jealousy shot through her – a lancinating pang. But quickly came the answer: He was young, popular, infatuated, susceptible. Everything else was impossible. No; his intentions could not be serious – again jealously she repudiated the thought. But she must act at once – she must speak to him this very afternoon. She must do it! Not for her to sit in silence whilst her son was entrapped into some foolish entanglement which might mar the wonder of the future. With an intent expression she glanced towards the clock. Quarter past three! It was beyond his usual time; perhaps today he was again too occupied to come. Yet if he did not come to her she was resolved that she would go to him. She moved into the front room and let her look strain toward the hospital.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
By a conscious effort of her will she forced herself to wait for half an hour, standing immobile at that window, with eyes fixed under her contracted brows. Then, with that forward thrust of her chin, decisively she moved. She put on her hat, took up her gloves, and went abruptly out of the house.
The day was quick with an impatient wind; but her mind was more, impetuous than that wind. Yet, as she walked swiftly down the road, she resolved above everything to be calm. That, she knew, was the only way. Calmness for this unexpected crisis! This time no wild and desperate rush: calmness.
As she crossed the dusty park and drew near to the hospital her eyes attached themselves fixedly upon its wide grey sweep. To enter without permit or knowledge these unknown and mysterious walls was, in itself, a strange adventure. But she would do it. She could not delay. Determinedly she crossed the broad paved courtyard, between the outflung balconies of the wards, where patients in scarlet jackets were reclining in the sunshine.
At the main entrance she approached the porter within his sentry-box.
‘Dr Moore,’ she threw out briefly.
The porter laid down his paper and looked up; he was an old man, and now he regarded her over his glasses with all the pessimism of a wide experience.
‘Dr Moore will be out,’ he said, with a doubtful shake of his bald head.
‘I don’t think so,’ she countered, and went on shortly to explain herself.
‘Of course,’ said the old man finally, ‘if it’s important and you like to try – it’s the first floor right.’ His gesture indicated to her without optimism the stairs which she might ascend.
Following his directions, she went up to a flight of stone steps and along a white-tiled passage; the pungent odours of chloroform and carbolic came strangely to her; through a glass swing door she had a quick vision of a row of beds.
At the end of the corridor indicated by the porter she paused, confronted by three doors, then suddenly she heard a burst of laughter, the middle door swung open, and a sister appeared abruptly before her. The sister was a tall, middle-aged woman with a flowing headdress; her cuffs and wide starched belt shone with a high glitter. The smile which still lingered on her face faded as she looked at Lucy.
‘Yes?’ she enquired briskly.
‘I wish to see Dr Moore,’ said Lucy with equal curtness.
‘About a patient?’
‘No!’
‘An admission?’
‘No!’
They faced each other. The sister paused, recognising a spirit that matched her own.
‘I’m afraid you can’t see him,’ she returned, and her manner held an important impatience. ‘The doctor’s off duty, and in any case he’s engaged at present.’
‘He’ll see me – he’s my son.’
‘Your son?’
The sister’s face altered slowly through astonishment to a restrained amiability. ‘Well,’ said she at length, ‘in that case you’d better come in. I’m Sister Cooper – the sister of the floor.’ She paused. ‘ He’s giving a little tea-party – or, rather, I’m giving it for him.’ Her features relaxed further, and her professional air slipped from her. ‘ Just to keep things fit and proper – you know.’
Lucy said nothing. She had no idea what this stiffly laundered sister meant; nor was she in the mood to seek that meaning. But when she followed her into the house surgeon’s sitting-room she saw instantly the full implication of the words. Her face, which had softened to meet her son, paled suddenly, and hardened into a bitter mould. A small table covered with a white cloth was set for tea. Peter was there, a cup balanced in his hand; yes, he was there, seated upon the sofa; and beside him, seated upon the same sofa, balancing another cup, was Rose Tully.
A perfectly polite and banal situation – a nice young man, nicely contented with the universe, entertaining to tea a seemly young woman apparently equally content, under the matronly eye of the sister of his wards.
But to Lucy it was not ordinary. It was dreadful, desperate, utterly shattering. An
other shock, ghastly in its unexpectedness. She was staggered by the intimacy of those two upon the sofa. There was a rushing in her ears, a sudden pain in her side. Her eyes, still startled, could not withdraw themselves from the generous, youthful figure of the red-haired girl sitting so near her son. Beautiful she now saw her to be – again that same heavy ache of jealousy! – fair-skinned, with a dust of freckles, brown-eyed, with fine white hands and a soft and faintly pouting lip. How could the inexpressible Tully have produced so sweet a slip as this! How could this pink and whiteness have risen from beneath the glitter of the three brass balls! Her own lips paled and drew down; her own hands, worn in the service of her son, clenched themselves tightly.
‘Here’s your mother come to see you, doctor,’ said the sister, with a sort of bustling heartiness, through which her sharp eye gleamed observantly. Peter’s cup jerked. He looked round, and instantly his face changed, dropped into a startled embarrassment.
‘Oh, yes,’ he exclaimed foolishly. There was a strained pause – a dreadful pause – during which Miss Tully coloured slowly, painfully.
‘Take this chair, Mrs Moore,’ broke in the sister, with greater heartiness. ‘I promised to pour out the tea. Let me give you a cup too.’
Lucy sat down stiffly, her back a ramrod, her eyes never leaving the figure of the girl upon the sofa. It was, alas! no longer a contented ether in which the sofa’s universe revolved.
‘One lump?’ The tongs were poised lightly, enquiringly. ‘That’s right.’ Lucy had said nothing. ‘And cream, too, I suppose.’ The sister, sniffing the tenseness of the chilly air, like a charger the distant battle, prepared to enjoy with greater gusto this new and unexpected turn of the party. ‘I do hope that’s to your taste,’ she said with great solicitude as she passed over the cup. Again there was a pause: Rosie still red as any rose; the Cooper ‘full of spirits’ and capably intent; Peter desperately reaching for his composure.
‘This – this is an unexpected honour, mother,’ he stammered at length. Weak and ineffectual attempt at jocularity!
‘Yes. You could have knocked me over with a feather,’ advanced Cooper. ‘I would never have taken you for the doctor’s mother. Never!’ She paused, leaving the inference open, then, smiling round at the others, she returned her gaze to Lucy. ‘But you couldn’t have come at a nicer time, could you?’
‘Apparently not,’ said Lucy, with an effort; she felt the hand which held the cup tremble: not with agitation, but with anger. Calmness, though, she thought. Calmness. Once, in a crisis such as this, into what awful consequences had her precipitation led her.
Sister Cooper laughed appreciatively: she was not ill-natured – but what a situation! What a story she would have to tell in the common-room tonight!
‘You live in the country, don’t you?’ she enquired progressively. ‘Ardfillan, I think your son said.’
‘I live quite near,’ said Lucy flatly.
‘Indeed!’ answered Cooper, surprised. ‘I understood it was the country.’
‘Quite near, I said.’ The words were uttered with a dangerous brevity.
‘Another piece of cake, mother,’ blurted out Peter with frightful embarrassment.
‘Why, she hasn’t touched her first piece yet,’ said the sister airily.
There was a silence. And that silence continued till Rose, at length plucking up her courage, turned to Lucy.
‘It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?’ said she with little originality but great good feeling; her blush had faded, leaving only her lips red in the appealing softness of her face. Peter looked quickly at his mother; so, too, did Sister Cooper; hanging upon the response to this mild invitation to amity. But Lucy, studying the carpet with a set face, made no reply. She had the measure of that soft creature upon the sofa. The intensity of the bitterness which filled her swept over her like a sudden hatred. Her jealousy – a queer unnatural jealousy – was like a burning in her breast.
‘It’s nice,’ said the sister, with a little vivacious sigh, ‘outside.’ She smiled pleasantly, and added: ‘Another cup of tea, Miss Tully?’
‘No, I couldn’t really.’ She looked, indeed, at this moment as if another mouthful must choke her.
‘You then, doctor?’ – this a little playfully.
‘No – no.’ He pulled his collar away from his neck. ‘ No more, thanks.’ He looked sulky and uncomfortable; his inability to tope with the situation gave him a sense of humiliation which expressed itself in a swelling resentment against his mother. Why couldn’t she leave him alone? Why did she sit there with a face like ice – saying nothing, fixed obstinately on making trouble? He looked gloomily at Sister Cooper, now complacently pouring out her second cup of tea.
‘I’m afraid I’m a great tea-drinker,’ she now explained at large. Only her presence maintained the dismal situation at the bare level of artificial civility, and in this knowledge she became more than ever conscious of her office. ‘Yes, I find it suits me. You see, I’ve a responsible position. Two wards, with fifteen beds in each. A staff nurse and three probationers to look after – and, of course’ – here she smiled with a starched waggishness – ‘there’s always an eye to be kept on the young doctor I get here.’
Lucy looked at her with a grim and silent coldness.
‘Yes, indeed. You’d be surprised if you’d seen what I have in my time. The things they can be up to. Climbing in and out of windows – at night – painting each other with methylene blue, drinking the brandy out of the stimulants cupboard. Not that there’s anything like that about Dr Moore – oh, no! He’s the quietest resident I’ve had for months. Of course, I think a serious attachment steadies a young man so much. Don’t you?’ And she threw her archly interrogative glance upon Lucy.
But Lucy was not listening. Her attention, fixed upon that sofa, was riveted by a rustling movement. Suddenly she started. Rosie, unable, it seemed, to sustain the situation – or the stare – stirred, got upon her feet.
‘I’ll go now, I think,’ she said in an undertone to Peter.
He too mumbled under his breath, and, rising, he went to the door.
Rose turned. ‘Thank you for having me up,’ said she to Sister Cooper. Then, fronting Lucy without rancour, with, indeed, a quite modest confusion, she said diffidently:
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Moore.’
‘Good-bye,’ said Lucy, with a terse and freezing finality. With that first and last word she dismissed Rose Tully from her life. As she uttered it, and observed Rose leave the scene of her discomfiture, she had a rushing sense of triumph. Yes, she had been calm: no rashness: a cold, considered finality. Rose, beautiful though she might be, was like chaff before the fierce blast of her purpose. How easily she had routed her! But, then, she had determination, experience, courage – yes, and right upon her side. Abruptly she turned to Sister Cooper.
‘I would like to speak to my son,’ she declared directly. ‘ Would you mind?’
Cooper gazed back at her with elevated eyebrows which deplored the other’s manner.
‘I was going,’ she answered huffily. ‘I’ve got my work to do, you know.’
She rose; behind her the door closed with a scornful snap.
Lucy turned to her son. At last they were alone. For a moment she looked at him in silence, then slowly her face softened – softened at last to the ineffable tenderness of her love for him.
‘I wanted to get rid of those people,’ she said slowly. He stared back at her sulkily, made an impatient movement with his head, answered angrily:
‘And a fine job you’ve made of it. It’s an unheard-of thing – behaviour like that. It’ll be all over the hospital before the evening’s out. Trust that fool Cooper to spread the story.’
‘But I had to come, Peter. Can’t you understand?’
‘No, I don’t understand.’
His tone disturbed her; but she would make him see the logic of her position.
‘I waited on you for an hour,’ she explained, with a forced evenness of tone. ‘I
didn’t know if you would be home. I had to speak to you.’
He gave her a short, sulky laugh.
‘You would think I was a child at your apron-strings to hear you. Can’t I look after myself now? Why do you have to run after me, bursting in on me at every turn – making me look foolish before – before everybody?’
She gazed at him, that betraying flush mounting high upon her cheek.
‘It is because I don’t want you to be foolish that I am here,’ she returned firmly.
‘What have I done?’ he burst out. ‘Tell me that. Do I drink, do I gamble, am I a thief?’ He swelled with a virtuous indignation. ‘What did Sister Cooper say about me? The quietest resident she’s had for months. And yet you talk as if I –’
‘I am thinking of your future,’ she broke in, with a rising inflation to her voice.
‘Well, if you are, don’t you want me to be happy?’ he returned immediately; and, after a triumphant pause, he improved his point. ‘It’s only natural that I should take an interest in – in Miss Tully. I don’t deny it, and I’m not ashamed of it. She’s a splendid girl.’
Immediately her face changed – changed to a greyish tinge. His words lacerated her; she gripped the arm of her chair tightly and leaned forward.
‘Don’t talk like that,’ she said harshly. ‘Am I going to sit still and see you get mixed up with a soft little nobody?’
He looked at her with a sullen resentment.
‘Nobody,’ he repeated. ‘Let me inform you that Miss Tully is a very wealthy girl.’
Could he think of nothing but money – and such tainted money as it was?
‘And don’t start calling names,’ he persisted. ‘You were rude enough when Rose was here. Can’t you be civil?’
‘What!’ she exclaimed in a feverish voice. Who had once asked her to be civil to another woman? She did not pause to think! ‘So that’s what you call her? Rose?’
‘And why not?’ he retorted, kicking at a footstool which lay upon the floor. ‘It’s a name that suits her.’
