The Price of Love by Arnold Bennett (best books to read non fiction TXT) 📖

never cut themselves."

Very gently and intently Rachel unfastened two safety-pins that were hidden in Louis' untidy hair. Then she began to unwind a long strip of linen. It stuck to a portion of the cheek close to the ear. Louis winced. The inner folds of the linen were discoloured. Rachel had a glimpse of a wound....

"Go on!" Louis urged. "Get at it, child!"

"No," she said. "I think I shall leave it just as it is for the doctor to deal with. Shall you mind if I leave you for a minute? I must get some warm water and things ready against the doctor comes."

He retorted facetiously: "Oh! Do what you like! Work your will on me.... Doctor! Any one 'ud think I was badly injured. Why, you cuckoo, it's only skin wounds!"

"But doesn't it _hurt_?"

"Depends what you call hurt. It ain't a picnic."

"I think you're awfully brave," she said simply.

At the door she stopped and gazed at him, undecided.

"Louis," she said in a motherly tone, "I should like you to go to bed. I really should. You ought to, I'm sure."

"Well, I shan't," he replied.

"But please! To please me! You can get up again."

"Oh, go to blazes!" he cried resentfully. "What in thunder should I go to bed for, I should like to know? Have a little sense, do!" He shut his eyes.

He had never till then spoken to her so roughly.

"Very well," she agreed, with soothing acquiescence. His outburst had not irritated her in the slightest degree.

In the kitchen, as she bent over the kettle and the fire, each object was surrounded by a sort of halo, like the moon in damp weather. She brushed her hand across her eyes, contemptuous of herself. Then she ran lightly upstairs and searched out an old linen garment and tore the seams of it apart. She crept back to the parlour and peeped in. Louis had not moved on the sofa. His eyes were still closed. After a few seconds, he said, without stirring--

"I've not yet passed away. I can see you."

She responded with a little laugh, somewhat forced.

After an insupportable delay Mrs. Tams reappeared, out of breath. Dr. Yardley had just gone out, but he was expected back very soon and would then be sent down instantly.

Mrs. Tams, quite forgetful of etiquette, followed Rachel, unasked, into the parlour.

"What?" said Louis loudly. "Two of you! Isn't one enough?"

Mrs. Tams vanished.

"Heath took charge of the bikes," Louis murmured, as if to the ceiling.

Over half an hour elapsed before the gate creaked.

"There he is!" Rachel exclaimed happily. After having conceived a hundred different tragic sequels to the accident, she was lifted by the mere creak of the gate into a condition of pure optimism, and she realized what a capacity she had for secretly being a ninny in an unexpected crisis. But she thought with satisfaction: "Anyhow, I don't show it. That's one good thing!" She was now prepared to take oath that she had not for one moment been _really_ anxious about Louis. Her demeanour, as she stated the case to the doctor, was a masterpiece of tranquil unconcern.


III


Dr. Yardley said that he was in a hurry--that, in fact, he ought to have been quite elsewhere at the time. He was preoccupied, and showed no sympathy with the innocent cyclist who had escaped the fatal menace of hoofs. When Rachel offered him the torn linen, he silently disdained it, and, opening a small bag which he had brought with him, produced therefrom a roll of cotton-wool in blue paper, and a considerable quantity of sticking-plaster on a brass reel. He accepted, however, Rachel's warm water.

"You might get me some Condy's Fluid," he said shortly.

She had none! It was a terrible lapse for a capable housewife.

Dr. Yardley raised his eyebrows: "No Condy's Fluid in the house!"

She was condemned.

"I do happen to have a couple of tablets of Chinosol," he said, "but I wanted to keep them in reserve for later in the day."

He threw two yellow tablets into the basin of water.

Then he laid Louis flat on the sofa, asked him a few questions, and sounded him in various parts. And at length he slowly, but firmly, drew off Mrs. Heath's bandages, and displayed Louis' head to the light.

"Hm!" he exclaimed.

Rachel restrained herself from any sound. But the spectacle was ghastly. The one particle of comfort in the dreadful matter was that Louis could not see himself.

Thenceforward Dr. Yardley seemed to forget that he ought to have been elsewhere. Working with extraordinary deliberation, he coaxed out of Louis' flesh sundry tiny stones and many fragments of mud, straightened twisted bits of skin, and he removed other pieces entirely. He murmured, "Hm!" at intervals. He expressed a brief criticism of the performance of Mrs. Heath, as distinguished from her intentions. He also opined that the great Greene might not perhaps have succeeded much better than Mrs. Heath, even if he had not been bilious. When the dressing was finished, the gruesome terror of Louis' appearance seemed to be much increased. The heroic sufferer rose and glanced at himself in the mirror, and gave a faint whistle.

"Oh! So that's what I look like, is it? Well, what price me as a victim of the Inquisition!" he remarked.

"I should advise you not to take exercise just now, young man," said the doctor. "D'you feel pretty well?"

"Pretty well," answered Louis, and sat down.

In the lobby the doctor, once more in a hurry, said to Rachel--

"Better get him quietly to bed. The wounds are not serious, but he's had a very severe shock."

"He's not marked for life, is he?" Rachel asked anxiously.

"I shouldn't think so," said the doctor, as if the point was a minor one. "Let him have some nourishment. You can begin with hot milk--but put some water to it," he added when he was half-way down the steps.

As Rachel re-entered the parlour she said to herself: "I shall just have to get him to bed somehow, whatever he says! If he's unpleasant he must _be_ unpleasant, that's all."

And she hardened her heart. But immediately she saw him again, sitting forlornly in the chair, with the whole of the left side of his face criss-crossed in whitish-grey plaster, she was ready to cry over him and flatter his foolishest whim. She wanted to take him in her arms, if he would but have allowed her. She felt that she could have borne his weight for hours without moving, had he fallen asleep against her bosom.... Still, he must be got to bed. How negligent of the doctor not to have given the order himself!

Then Louis said: "I say! I think I may as well lie down!"

She was about to cry out, "Oh, you must!"

But she forbore. She became as wily as old Batchgrew.

"Do you think so?" she answered, doubtfully.

"I've nothing else particular on hand," he said.

She knew that he wanted to surrender without appearing to surrender.

"Well," she suggested, "will you lie down on the bed for a bit?"

"I think I will."

"And then I'll give you some hot milk."

She dared not help him to mount the stairs, but she walked close behind him.

"I was thinking," he said on the landing, "I'd stroll down and take stock of those bicycles later in the day. But perhaps I'm not fit to be seen."

She thought: "You won't stroll down later in the day--I shall see to that."

"By the way," he said, "you might send Mrs. Tams down to Horrocleave's to explain that I shan't give them my valuable assistance to-day.... Oh! Mrs. Tams"--the woman was just bustling out of the bedroom, duster in hand--"will you toddle down to the works and tell them I'm not coming?"

"Eh, mester!" breathed Mrs. Tams, looking at him. "It's a mercy it's no worse."

"Yes," Louis teased her, "but you go and look at the basin downstairs, Mrs. Tams. That'll give you food for thought."

Shaking her head, she smiled at Rachel, because the master had spirit enough to be humorous with her.

In the bedroom, Louis said, "I might be more comfortable if I took some of my clothes off."

Thereupon he abandoned himself to Rachel. She did as she pleased with him, and he never opposed. Seven bruises could be counted on his left side. He permitted himself to be formally and completely put to bed. He drank half a glass of hot milk, and then said that he could not possibly swallow any more. Everything had been done that ought to be done and that could be done. And Rachel kept assuring herself that there was not the least cause for anxiety. She also told herself that she had been a ninny once that morning, and that once was enough. Nevertheless, she remained apprehensive, and her apprehensions increased. It was Louis' unnatural manageableness that disturbed her.

And when, about three hours later, he murmured, "Old girl, I feel pretty bad."

"I knew it," she said to herself.

His complaint was like a sudden thunderclap in her ears, after long faint rumblings of a storm.

Towards tea-time she decided that she must send for the doctor again. Louis indeed demanded the doctor. He said that he was very ill. His bruised limbs and his damaged face caused him a certain amount of pain. It was not, however, the pain that frightened him, but a general and profound sensation of illness. He could describe no symptoms. There were indeed no symptoms save the ebbing of vitality. He said he had never in his life felt as he felt then. His appearance confirmed the statement. The look of his eyes was tragic. His hands were pale. His agonized voice was extremely distressing to listen to. The bandages heightened the whole sinister effect. Dusk shadowed the room. Rachel lit the gas and drew the blinds. But in a few moments Louis complained of the light, and she had to lower the jet.

The sounds of the return of Mrs. Tams could be heard below. Mrs. Tams had received instructions to bring the doctor back with her, but Rachel's ear caught no sign of the doctor. She went out to the head of the stairs. The doctor simply must be there. It was not conceivable that when summoned he should be "out" twice in one day, but so it was. Mrs. Tams, whispering darkly from the dim foot of the stairs, said that Mrs. Yardley hoped that he would be in shortly, but could not be sure.

"What am I to do?" thought Rachel. "This is a crisis. Everything depends on me. What shall I do? Shall I send for another doctor?" She decided to risk the chances and wait. It would be too absurd to have two doctors in the house. What would people say of her and of Louis, if the rumour ran that she had lost her head and filled the house with doctors when the case had no real gravity? People would say that she was very young and inexperienced, and a freshly married wife, and so on. And Rachel hated to be thought young or freshly married. Besides, another doctor might be "out" too. And further, the case could not be truly serious. Of course, if afterwards it did prove to be serious,