"Take me!" he said simply.
Occasionally she would. But she was afraid. When he hadher then, there was something in it that made her shrink away fromhim--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 horrorof him. It was almost as if he were a criminal. He wanted her--hehad 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 almosthated him. Then came little bouts of tenderness. But she dared notpity 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 itwas 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 himto be warm and tender with her, instead of which he seemed hardlyaware of her. He sat in the railway-carriage, looking out, and wasstartled 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 wasdissatisfied and miserable. He was not with her; she was nothing.
And in the evening they sat among the sandhills, looking atthe 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 peopleare frightened, and have to be hauled out of life into deathlike 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 inthe other day. 'Think!' he said to her; 'you will have your motherand father, and your sisters, and your son, in the Other Land.' And she said: 'I have done without them for a long time, and CANdo 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 wenton monotonously. "She's got such a will, it seems as if she wouldnever 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 Ihaven't? Do you think you can die when you like?'"
His voice ceased. He did not cry, only went on speakingmo-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 tosay 'Yes.' 'I'll have a cup of Benger's,' she says. 'It'll only keepyour strength up,' I said to her. 'Yes'--and she almost cried--'butthere'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 likethat at her. I wish she'd die!"
"Come!" said Clara roughly. "I'm going."
He followed her down the darkness of the sands. He didnot 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 oneto 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 heldout 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 owtbetter 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 comeon Sunday."
"I was at Skegness," said Paul. "I wanted a change."
The other looked at him with dark eyes. He seemed to bewaiting, 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 mentionedbetween 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 gameof 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 doinganything--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 passedme--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 havesomething to do. The furnaces flared in a red blotch over Bulwell;the black clouds were like a low ceiling. As he went along the tenmiles 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 endwas only the sick-room. If he walked and walked for ever, there wasonly 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 herbedroom 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 wouldnot 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 willbe better."
And he sat by the bedside, slowly, rhythmically stroking herbrows 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 hisfingers 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 seeClara now. But he wandered restlessly from one person to anotherfor some help, and there was none anywhere. Miriam had writtento him tenderly. He went to see her. Her heart was very sorewhen 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."
Miriam shuddered. She drew him to her; she pressed him to her bosom;she kissed him and kissed him. He submitted, but it was torture. She could not kiss his agony. That remained alone and apart. She kissed his face, and roused his blood, while his soul was apartwrithing with the agony of death. And she kissed him and fingeredhis body, till at last, feeling he would go mad, he got away from her. It was not what he wanted just then--not that. And she thought shehad soothed him and done him good.
December came, and some snow. He stayed at home all the while now. They could not afford a nurse. Annie came to look after her mother;the parish nurse, whom they loved, came in morning and evening. Paul shared the nursing with Annie. Often, in the evenings,when friends were in the kitchen with them, they all laughed togetherand shook with laughter. It was reaction. Paul was so comical,Annie was so quaint. The whole party laughed till they cried,trying to subdue the sound. And Mrs. Morel, lying alone in thedarkness heard them, and among her bitterness was a feelingof relief.
Then Paul would go upstairs gingerly, guiltily, to see if shehad heard.
"Shall I give you some milk?" he asked.
"A little," she replied plaintively.
And he would put some water with it, so that it should notnourish her. Yet he loved her more than his own life.
She had morphia every night, and her heart got fitful. Annie slept beside her. Paul would go in in the early morning,when his sister got up. His mother was wasted and almost ashenin the morning with the morphia. Darker and darker grew her eyes,all pupil, with the torture. In the mornings the weariness and achewere too much to bear. Yet she could not--would not--weep, or evencomplain much.
"You slept a bit later this morning, little one," he wouldsay to her.
"Did I?" she answered, with fretful weariness.
"Yes; it's nearly eight o'clock."
CHAPTER XIV
THE RELEASE （II）
He stood looking out of the window. The whole countrywas bleak and pallid under the snow. Then he felt her pulse. There was a strong stroke and a weak one, like a sound and its echo. That was supposed to betoken the end. She let him feel her wrist,knowing what he wanted.
Sometimes they looked in each other's eyes. Then they almostseemed to make an agreement. It was almost as if he were agreeingto die also. But she did not consent to die; she would not. Her body was wasted to a fragment of ash. Her eyes were dark andfull of torture.
"Can't you give her something to put an end to it?" he askedthe doctor at last.
But the doctor shook his head.
"She can't last many days now, Mr. Morel," he said.
Paul went indoors.
"I can't bear it much longer; we shall all go mad," said Annie.
The two sat down to breakfast.
"Go and sit with her while we have breakfast, Minnie," said Annie. But the girl was frightened.
Paul went through the country, through the woods, over the snow. He saw the marks of rabbits and birds in the white snow. He wandered miles and miles. A smoky red sunset came on slowly,painfully, lingering. He thought she would die that day. There wasa donkey that came up to him over the snow by the wood's edge,and put its head against him, and walked with him alongside.He put his arms round the donkey's neck, and stroked his cheeksagainst his ears.
His mother, silent, was still alive, with her hard mouthgripped grimly, her eyes of dark torture only living.
It was nearing Christmas; there was more snow. Annie andhe felt as if they could go on no more. Still her dark eyeswere alive. Morel, silent and frightened, obliterated himself. Sometimes he would go into the sick-room and look at her. Then he backed out, bewildered.
She kept her hold on life still. The miners had been outon strike, and returned a fortnight or so before Christmas. Minnie went upstairs with the feeding-cup. It was two days afterthe men had been in.
"Have the men been saying their hands are sore, Minnie?"she asked, in the faint, querulous voice that would not give in. Minnie stood surprised.
"Not as I know of, Mrs. Morel," she answered.
"But I'll bet they are sore," said the dying woman, as shemoved her head with a sigh of weariness. "But, at any rate,there'll be something to buy in with this week."
