A Woman's War - Warwick Deeping (best black authors .TXT) 📗
- Author: Warwick Deeping
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the bed in an agony of defeat. Was it for this that her
love had spent itself in all the tender planning of this
little place? How had it happened? Not with deceit!
Even in her blindness she prayed to God that he had not
wounded her with willing hand.
“Oh, God, not that, not that!”
She rose, catching her breath in short, sharp spasms,
shaking back the hair from off her shoulders. The torture was too sharp with her for tears. It was a wringing
of the heart, a dashing of all devotion, a falling away of
happiness from beneath her feet! She stretched out her
arms in the dark like a woman who reaches out to a love
just dead.
Catherine turned, saw the empty bed, and the white
face of the moon. The memories of the evening rushed
back on her, wistful and infinitely tender. “No, no, no!”
Her heart beat out the contradiction like a bell. It was
unbelievable, unimaginable, that he should have played
the hypocrite that night. They had spoken of the children, their children, and would he have lied to her, knowing that this vile devil’s drug was in the house? Her
heart cried out against the thought. Her love came forth
like an angel with a burning sword.
With white hands trembling in the moonlight, Catherine lit her candle, slipped her bare feet into her shoes,
and went down the stairs. The inarticulate and pitiable
mumbling still came from the little room. In the hall
she halted, irresolute, the candle wavering in her hand.
The shame of it, the pity of itl Could she go in and see
the “animal” stammering in triumph over the “man”?
No, no, it would be desecration, ignominy, an unhallowed
wounding of the heart. He would sleep presently. The
madness would flicker down like fire and die. Yes, she
would wait and watch till he had fallen asleep. To see
him in the throes of it, no, she could not suffer that!
With a dry sob in the throat, Catherine set the candle
down on the table, beside the bowl of roses that she had
arranged but yesterday with her own hands. How cold
the house was, even for summerl She returned to her
bedroom, took down her dressing-gown from behind the
door, and wrapped it round her, thanking Heaven in her
heart that she was alone with her husband in the house.
The village woman slept away, and came at seven in the
morning. She had all the night before her to recover her
husband from his shame.
Going down to the hall again, she walked to and fro,
listening from time to time at the closed door. The restless babbling of the voice had ceased. The fumes were
dulling the wine fire in his brain. She prayed fervently
that he would fall asleep.
An hour passed, and she heard no sound save the sighing of her own breath. For a moment the pathos of it
overcame her as she leaned against the wall, the child in
her crying out for comfort, for she felt alone in the emptiness of the night. The weakness lasted but a second. She
grappled herself, opened the door noiselessly and looked in.
The lamp was still burning in the room, its shade of
crocus yellow tempering the light into an atmosphere of
mellow gold. On the gate - legged table stood Porteus
Carmagee’s ill-omened hamper, the lid open, and straw
scattered about the floor. Fragments of broken glass
glittered among the litter, with the twisted stem of the
Venetian goblet. An empty bottle had trackled its lees
in a dark blot on the green of the carpet.
Catherine would not look at her husband for the moment. She was conscious of a shrunken and huddled
figure, a red and gaping face, the reek of the wine, the
heavy sighing of his breath. Her nerve had returned to
her with the opening of the closed door. Her heart knew
but one great yearning, the prayer that the downfall had
not been deliberately cruel.
A sheet of note paper lay crumbled amid the straw.
She stooped and reached for it, and recognized the writing. It was Porteus Carmagee’s half-jesting letter, and
she learned the truth, how the fatal stuff had come.
“I know that you are an abstemious beggar, but take
the stuff for the tonic it is, and drink to an ‘incomparable’
wife’s health… . Gage is smuggling this over for me in
the car.”
She stood holding the letter in her two hands, and looking at the senseless figure on the floor. Love triumphed
in that ordeal of the night. There was nothing but pity
and great tenderness in her eyes.
“Thank God!” and she caught her breath; “thank
God, you did not do this wilfully! Oh, my beloved, if
I had known!”
THE surest test of a man’s efficiency is to leave him
in a responsible post with nothing to trust to save
his own skill and courage. Young doctors, like raw
soldiers, are prone to panic, and your theoretical genius
may bungle over the slitting of a whitlow, though he
be the possessor of numberless degrees.
Mere book lore never instilled virility into a man, and
Frederick Inglis, B.A., A.M., B.Sc., D.Ph., gilded to the
last button with the cleverness of the schools, was an
amiable fellow whose cultured and finnicking exterior
covered unhappy voids of self-distrust. It had been very
well for him so long as he could play with a few new drugs,
look quietly clever, and leave the grimness of the responsibility to Murchison. Dr. Inglis had found private practice a pleasant pastime. He had come from the laboratories full to the brim with the latest scientific sensations,
and a preconceived pity for the average sawbones in the
provinces. He boasted a brilliant air so long as he was
second in command. It was possible to pose behind the
barrier of another man’s strength.
That same Saturday night Murchison’s highly educated
assistant had been dragged out of bed at two in the morning, and taken in a bumping milk-cart to a farm some
five miles north of Roxton. His youth had been flouted
on the very threshold by a stern, keen-eyed woman who
had expressed herself dissatisfied with the offer of a juvenile opinion. Dr. Inglis had blushed, and rallied his dignity. Dr. Murchison had intrusted the practice to him;
what more could a mere farmer’s wife desire?
Above, in a big bed, Dr. Inglis discovered a fat man
writhing with what appeared to be a prosaic and violent
colic. A simple case, perhaps, to the lay understanding,
but abdominal diagnosis may be a nightmare to a surgeon.
It is like feeling for a pea through the thickness of a pillow.
Two straight-backed, hard-faced, and very awesome
ladies stood at the bottom of the bed and watched Dr.
Inglis with sceptical alertness. The assistant fumbled,
stammered, and looked hot. The women exchanged
glances. A man’s personal fitness is soon gauged in a
sick-room.
“Well, doctor, what’s your opinion?”
The challenge was given with a tilt of the nose and a
somewhat suggestive sniff.
“Abdominal colic, madam. The pain is often very
violent.”
“Ah, eh, and what may abdominal colic be due to?”
Dr. Inglis bridled at the tone, and attempted the part
of Zeus.
“Many causes, very many causes. Mr. Baxter has
never had such an attack before, I presume.”
“Never.”
“Yes how are you feeling, sir?”
“Bad, mighty bad,” came the voice from the feather
pillows.
The two austere women seemed to grow taller and
more aggressive.
“Do you think you understand the case, doctor?”
“Madam!”
“I wish Dr. Murchison had come himself; my husband has such faith in him.”
Dr. Inglis grew hot with noble indignation.
“Just as you please,” he said, with hauteur, yet looking
awed by the tall women beside the bed. “My qualifications are as good as any man’s in Roxton.”
The conceit failed before those two hard and Calvinistic faces.
“I believe in experience, sir; no offence to you.”
“Then you wish me to send for Dr. Murchison?”
“I do.”
And the theoretical youth experienced guilty relief despite the insult to his age and dignity.
Sunday morning came with a flood of gold over Marley
Down. The greens and purples were brilliant beyond
belief; a blue haze covered the distant hills; woodland and
pasture glimmered in the valleys. The faint chiming of
the bells of Roxton stirred the air as Kate Murchison
walked the garden before the cottage, looking like one
who had been awake all night beside a sick-bed. Her
face betrayed lines of exhaustion, a dulling of the natural
freshness, streaks of shadow under the eyes. She had
that half-blind expression, the expression of those whose
thoughts are engrossed by sorrow; the trick of seeing
without comprehending the significance of the things
about her.
She turned suddenly by the gate, and stood looking
over the down. The very brilliancy of the summer coloring almost hurt her tired eyes. A familiar sound drowned
the Roxton chiming as she listened, and brought a sharp
twinge of anxiety to her face. Rounding the pine woods
the rakish outline of her husband’s car showed up over
the banks of gorse between the cottage and the high-road.
The machine came panting over the down, leaving a
drifting trail of dust to sully the sunlight. Catherine
caught her breath with impatient dread. This day of all
days, when defeat was heavy on her husband! Could
they not let him rest? If these selfish sick folk only
knew!
Dr. Inglis’s gold-rimmed pincenez glittered nervously over the fence. He was a spare, boyish-looking fellow,
with twine-colored hair, weak eyes, and a mouth that attempted resolute precision. Catherine hated him for the
moment as he lifted his hat, and opened the gate with a
deprecating and colorless smile. Dr. Inglis had the air
of a young man much worried, one whose self-esteem had
been severely ruffled, and who had been forbidden sleep
and a hearty breakfast.
“Goodmorning. A mean thing, I’m sure, to bother
Dr. Murchison, but really—”
Catherine met him, looking straight and stanch in
contrast to the theorist’s faded feebleness.
“What is the matter?”
“Mr. Baxter, of Boland’s Farm, is seriously ill. An
obscure case. His wife wishes—”
Catherine foreshadowed what was to come. The assistant appeared to have suffered at the hands of anxious
and nagging relatives.
“Well?”
“A serious case, I’m afraid. I am sure Dr. Murchison
would not wish me to assume all the responsibility. The
wife, Mrs. Baxter, is rather an excitable woman—”
His apologetics would have been amusing at any other
season. Catherine bit her lip and ignored the limp
youth’s deprecating and sensitive distress.
“They wish to see my husband?”
“Yes; I must suggest, Mrs. Murchison—”
“I understand the matter perfectly. Dr. Murchison
cannot come.”
She was bold, nay, aggressive, and the theorist looked
blank behind his glasses.
“Am I to infer?”
“Dr. Murchison is not well,” and she hesitated, groping fiercely for excuses; “he has had I think some kind
of ptomaine poisoning. Yes, he is better now, and asleep.
I cannot have him disturbed.”
“Indeed! I am excessively sorry. May I?”
She saw the proposal quivering on his lips, and beat
it back ere it was uttered.
“Thank you, no; you had better call in Dr. Hicks; he
will advise you temporarily. Dr. Murchison will be able
to resume work, I hope, tomorrow. If the case is very
urgent—”
Dr. Inglis tugged at his gloves.
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