Dawes, grunting with pain like a beast, was kicking the prostratebody of his rival. Suddenly the whistle of the train shriekedtwo fields away. He turned round and glared suspiciously. What was coming? He saw the lights of the train draw across his vision. It seemed to him people were approaching. He made off across thefield into Nottingham, and dimly in his consciousness as he went,he felt on his foot the place where his boot had knocked againstone of the lad's bones. The knock seemed to re-echo inside him;he hurried to get away from it.
Morel gradually came to himself. He knew where he was andwhat had happened, but he did not want to move. He lay still,with tiny bits of snow tickling his face. It was pleasantto lie quite, quite still. The time passed. It was the bitsof snow that kept rousing him when he did not want to be roused. At last his will clicked into action.
"I mustn't lie here," he said; "it's silly."
But still he did not move.
"I said I was going to get up," he repeated. "Why don't I?"
And still it was some time before he had sufficiently pulledhimself together to stir; then gradually he got up. Pain made himsick and dazed, but his brain was clear. Reeling, he groped forhis coats and got them on, buttoning his overcoat up to his ears. It was some time before he found his cap. He did not know whether hisface was still bleeding. Walking blindly, every step making him sickwith pain, he went back to the pond and washed his face and hands. The icy water hurt, but helped to bring him back to himself. He crawled back up the hill to the tram. He wanted to get to hismother--he must get to his mother--that was his blind intention. He covered his face as much as he could, and struggled sickly along. Continually the ground seemed to fall away from him as he walked,and he felt himself dropping with a sickening feeling into space; so,like a nightmare, he got through with the journey home.
Everybody was in bed. He looked at himself. His face wasdiscoloured and smeared with blood, almost like a dead man's face. He washed it, and went to bed. The night went by in delirium. In the morning he found his mother looking at him. Her blue eyes--theywere all he wanted to see. She was there; he was in her hands.
"It's not much, mother," he said. "It was Baxter Dawes."
"Tell me where it hurts you," she said quietly.
"I don't know--my shoulder. Say it was a bicycle accident, mother."
He could not move his arm. Presently Minnie, the little servant,came upstairs with some tea.
"Your mother's nearly frightened me out of my wits--fainted away,"she said.
He felt he could not bear it. His mother nursed him; he toldher about it.
"And now I should have done with them all," she said quietly.
"I will, mother."
She covered him up.
"And don't think about it," she said--"only try to go to sleep. The doctor won't be here till eleven."
He had a dislocated shoulder, and the second day acute bronchitisset in. His mother was pale as death now, and very thin. She wouldsit and look at him, then away into space. There was somethingbetween them that neither dared mention. Clara came to see him. Afterwards he said to his mother:
"She makes me tired, mother."
"Yes; I wish she wouldn't come," Mrs. Morel replied.
Another day Miriam came, but she seemed almost like a strangerto him.
"You know, I don't care about them, mother," he said.
"I'm afraid you don't, my son," she replied sadly.
It was given out everywhere that it was a bicycle accident. Soon he was able to go to work again, but now there was a constantsickness and gnawing at his heart. He went to Clara, but there seemed,as it were, nobody there. He could not work. He and his motherseemed almost to avoid each other. There was some secret betweenthem which they could not bear. He was not aware of it. He onlyknew that his life seemed unbalanced, as if it were going to smashinto pieces.
Clara did not know what was the matter with him. She realised that he seemed unaware of her. Even when he cameto her he seemed unaware of her; always he was somewhere else. She felt she was clutching for him, and he was somewhere else. It tortured her, and so she tortured him. For a month at a timeshe kept him at arm's length. He almost hated her, and was drivento her in spite of himself. He went mostly into the company of men,was always at the George or the White Horse. His mother was ill,distant, quiet, shadowy. He was terrified of something; he darednot look at her. Her eyes seemed to grow darker, her face more waxen;still she dragged about at her work.
At Whitsuntide he said he would go to Blackpool for fourdays with his friend Newton. The latter was a big, jolly fellow,with a touch of the bounder about him. Paul said his mother must goto Sheffield to stay a week with Annie, who lived there. Perhaps thechange would do her good. Mrs. Morel was attending a woman's doctorin Nottingham. He said her heart and her digestion were wrong. She consented to go to Sheffield, though she did not want to;but now she would do everything her son wished of her. Paul saidhe would come for her on the fifth day, and stay also in Sheffieldtill the holiday was up. It was agreed.
The two young men set off gaily for Blackpool. Mrs. Morel wasquite lively as Paul kissed her and left her. Once at the station,he forgot everything. Four days were clear--not an anxiety,not a thought. The two young men simply enjoyed themselves. Paul was like another man. None of himself remained--no Clara,no Miriam, no mother that fretted him. He wrote to them all,and long letters to his mother; but they were jolly letters thatmade her laugh. He was having a good time, as young fellows willin a place like Blackpool. And underneath it all was a shadowfor her.
Paul was very gay, excited at the thought of staying with hismother in Sheffield. Newton was to spend the day with them. Their train was late. Joking, laughing, with their pipes betweentheir teeth, the young men swung their bags on to the tram-car. Paulhad bought his mother a little collar of real lace that he wantedto see her wear, so that he could tease her about it.
Annie lived in a nice house, and had a little maid. Paul rangaily up the steps. He expected his mother laughing in the hall,but it was Annie who opened to him. She seemed distant to him. He stood a second in dismay. Annie let him kiss her cheek.
"Is my mother ill?" he said.
"Yes; she's not very well. Don't upset her."
"Is she in bed?"
"Yes."
And then the queer feeling went over him, as if all the sunshinehad gone out of him, and it was all shadow. He dropped the bagand ran upstairs. Hesitating, he opened the door. His mothersat up in bed, wearing a dressing-gown of old-rose colour. She looked at him almost as if she were ashamed of herself,pleading to him, humble. He saw the ashy look about her.
"Mother!" he said.
"I thought you were never coming," she answered gaily.
But he only fell on his knees at the bedside, and buriedhis face in the bedclothes, crying in agony, and saying:
"Mother--mother--mother!"
She stroked his hair slowly with her thin hand.
"Don't cry," she said. "Don't cry--it's nothing."
But he felt as if his blood was melting into tears, and hecried in terror and pain.
"Don't--don't cry," his mother faltered.
Slowly she stroked his hair. Shocked out of himself, he cried,and the tears hurt in every fibre of his body. Suddenly he stopped,but he dared not lift his face out of the bedclothes.
"You ARE late. Where have you been?" his mother asked.
"The train was late," he replied, muffled in the sheet.
"Yes; that miserable Central! Is Newton come?"
"Yes."
"I'm sure you must be hungry, and they've kept dinner waiting."
With a wrench he looked up at her.
"What is it, mother?" he asked brutally.
She averted her eyes as she answered:
"Only a bit of a tumour, my boy. You needn't trouble. It's been there--the lump has--a long time."
Up came the tears again. His mind was clear and hard,but his body was crying.
"Where?" he said.
She put her hand on her side.
"Here. But you know they can sweal a tumour away."
He stood feeling dazed and helpless, like a child. He thoughtperhaps it was as she said. Yes; he reassured himself it was so. But all the while his blood and his body knew definitely what it was. He sat down on the bed, and took her hand. She had never had but theone ring--her wedding-ring.
"When were you poorly?" he asked.
"It was yesterday it began," she answered submissively.
"Pains?"
"Yes; but not more than I've often had at home. I believeDr. Ansell is an alarmist."
"You ought not to have travelled alone," he said, to himselfmore than to her.
"As if that had anything to do with it!" she answered quickly.
They were silent for a while.
"Now go and have your dinner," she said. "You MUST be hungry."
"Have you had yours?"
"Yes; a beautiful sole I had. Annie IS good to me."
They talked a little while, then he went downstairs. He was very white and strained. Newton sat in miserable sympathy.
After dinner he went into the scullery to help Annie to wash up. The little maid had gone on an errand.
"Is it really a tumour?" he asked.
CHAPTER XIII
BAXTER DAWES（IV）
Annie began to cry again.
"The pain she had yesterday--I never saw anybody suffer like it!"she cried. "Leonard ran like a madman for Dr. Ansell, and when she'dgot to bed she said to me: 'Annie, look at this lump on my side. I wonder what it is?' And there I looked, and I thought I shouldhave dropped. Paul, as true as I'm here, it's a lump as big as mydouble fist. I said: 'Good gracious, mother, whenever did that come?' 'Why, child,' she said, 'it's been there a long time.' I thought Ishould have died, our Paul, I did. She's been having these painsfor months at home, and nobody looking after her."
The tears came to his eyes, then dried suddenly.
"But she's been attending the doctor in Nottingham--and shenever told me," he said.
"If I'd have been at home," said Annie, "I should have seenfor myself."
He felt like a man walking in unrealities. In the afternoonhe went to see the doctor. The latter was a shrewd, lovable man.
"But what is it?" he said.
The doctor looked at the young man, then knitted his fingers.
"It may be a large tumour which has formed in the membrane,"he said slowly, "and which we MAY be able to make go away."
"Can't you operate?" asked Paul.
"Not there," replied the doctor.
"Are you sure?"
"QUITE!"
Paul meditated a while.
"Are you sure it's a tumour?" he asked. "Why did Dr. Jamesonin Nottingham never find out anything about it? She's been goingto him for weeks, and he's treated her for heart and indigestion."
"Mrs. Morel never told Dr. Jameson about the lump," said the doctor.
"And do you KNOW it's a tumour?"
"No, I am not sure."
"What else MIGHT it be? You asked my sister if there wascancer in the family. Might it be cancer?"
"I don't know."
"And what shall you do?"
"I should like an examination, with Dr. Jameson."
"Then have one."
"You must arrange about that. His fee wouldn't be less thanten guineas to come here from Nottingham."
"When would you like him to come?"
"I will call in this evening, and we will talk it over."
Paul went away, biting his lip.
His mother could come downstairs for tea, the doctor said. Her son went upstairs to help her. She wore the old-rose dressing-gownthat Leonard had given Annie, and, with a little colour in her face,was quite young again.
"But you look quite pretty in that," he said.
"Yes; they make me so fine, I hardly know myself," she answered.
But when she stood up to walk, the colour went. Paul helped her,half-carrying her. At the top of the stairs she was gone. He liftedher up and carried her quickly downstairs; laid her on the couch. She was light and frail. Her face looked as if she were dead,with blue lips shut tight. Her eyes opened--her blue, unfailing eyes--and she looked at him pleadingly, almost wanting him to forgive her. He held brandy to her lips, but her mouth would not open. All the time she watched him lovingly. She was only sorry for him. The tears ran down his face without ceasing, but not a muscle moved. He was intent on getting a little brandy between her lips.Soon she was able to swallow a teaspoonful. She lay back, so tired. The tears continued to run down his face.
"But," she panted, "it'll go off. Don't cry!"
"I'm not doing," he said.
After a while she was better again. He was kneeling besidethe couch. They looked into each other's eyes.
"I don't want you to make a trouble of it," she said.
"No, mother. You'll have to be quite still, and then you'llget better soon."
But he was white to the lips, and their eyes as they lookedat each other understood. Her eyes were so blue--such a wonderfulforget-me-not blue! He felt if only they had been of a differentcolour he could have borne it better. His heart seemed to beripping slowly in his breast. He kneeled there, holding her hand,and neither said anything. Then Annie came in.
"Are you all right?" she murmured timidly to her mother.
"Of course," said Mrs. Morel.
Paul sat down and told her about Blackpool. She was curious.
A day or two after, he went to see Dr. Jameson in Nottingham,to arrange for a consultation. Paul had practically no money inthe world. But he could borrow.
His mother had been used to go to the public consultation onSaturday morning, when she could see the doctor for only a nominal sum. Her son went on the same day. The waiting-room was full of poor women,who sat patiently on a bench around the wall. Paul thought ofhis mother, in her little black costume, sitting waiting likewise. The doctor was late. The women all looked rather frightened. Paul asked the nurse in attendance if he could see the doctorimmediately he came. It was arranged so. The women sittingpatiently round the walls of the room eyed the young man curiously.
