i f6c06dd9cf3fe221 by Unknown (100 books to read in a lifetime .txt) 📗

The other fellows around made no comment; the calling out of names was a stage which most of them reached.

Being a prisoner was a hell at any time. But to lie helpless and to have them chopping away at you, knowing that nothing you could say would make any difference was an indescribable Hell. He did not know why they had not amputated his left arm too; they prepared him for it, and the thought of what it would mean nearly drove him mad. He looked at it now, lying practically useless by his side. Its delayed action irritated him be yond all words; to all intents and purposes it was off, dead. It gave him no pain at all, whereas the foot which was no longer there ached like mad.

The sight of a man striding down the street could fill him with envy; a work-stained drunk, rolling along, brought up the eternal "Why?" He needed his arms and legs; they could accomplish so much that was good; yet he was left practically useless.

Daring these spasms of self-pity he would tell himself it could have been two arms and two feet.

When the terrible necessity of having to amputate both arms or both feet had been thrust upon him his mind had shut down on itself, his pity refusing to form thought. At such times pity could wreck you and those around. You used it only in subtle form; you laughed, you cursed, you swore and badgered; and it kept your hand steady. The German doctor, he remembered, neither cursed nor swore; he was polite, and cold and in a hurry.

What effect -the happenings of the past year would have left on his enfeebled system if Peter and Peggy Davidson had not been at hand to sustain him he dreaded to think. Stella's changed attitude, on his return to England, was disconcerting; her sweetness and solicitude left him embarrassed and at a loss. She pooh-pooh ed the idea of a nurse and insisted on looking after him herself. Her constant attention and anticipation of his every need, far from setting a spark to his dead affection, created an uneasiness in his mind. No correspondence had passed between them until just before he embarked for England, when he received a most charming letter from her.

Thinking along the lines that a leopard doesn't change its spots, he had asked himself the reason for her attitude.

He had been in a fever to see Kate, but being dependent on someone posting his letters he could not even write to her. So he laid the situation before Peter, who showed no surprise nor offered any advice, but said he would go personally to see Kate and fetch him word of her.

The news Peter brought was so alarming to Rodney that against all advice, he was soon making frantic efforts to walk on his artificial foot. Stella did everything in her power to restrict his movements, only falling short of locking him in his room.

When Rodney eventually reached the fifteen streets Mrs. Mullen made dear the reason for Stella's attitude

and also for Kate's disappearance.

"She must have got work right away, doctor," she said, 'for I got this letter yesterday, with the four pounds she borrowed. There's no address, as you can see, but the postmark's London. "

From Mrs. Mullen's he had gone straight to Peter and asked if he could stay with him for a time, knowing that, feeling as he did, he could not cope with Stella. However, Stella showed no reaction to this move until she found that John Swinburn had come to Rodney, asking him to divorce her.

Rodney had not been prepared for Stella's visit. She was like the embodiment of white-hot lava; raging, she denied all Swinburn had said.

Her cool poise was thrown aside and he saw a woman who, even with his knowledge of her, was new to him. She said she would ruin him, that he would never practise again. He had replied that it was doubtful whether he would in any case.

"There are other avenues in the medical line you will want to take up, remember?" she said.

"But I have the power to dose them all to you.

Apart from your illicit amours with a maid, which are the talk of the town, there is this 1' And she showed him what she said was a copy of Lady Cuthbert-Harris's letter.

Rodney was shocked and visibly staggered.

"You know it's a lie I' he said.

"Of course," Stella answered.

"And you'll prove it to be a lie. But only after I have made that mud stick so hard that you'll never be able to scrape it off."

The contents of this letter and the talk it would arouse, should it be made public, had hung over him like a black cloud. When Stella mentioned the other avenues which were open to him she was drawing on her knowledge of the plans on which he had often spoken to her and which, she realised, he would be more likely to take up now that he was disabled. The plans concerned sick children, sick not only of body but of mind. Child psychology, he had recognised for some time, was more important to him than the attending of worn-out bodies held together by acid-encrusted bones. If he could prevent some of the children of today from becoming those dimmed and troubled people of tomorrow then he would achieve something. This was the avenue Stella could block.

Yet, in spite of her threats, he went ahead on the evidence Swinbum supplied and petitioned for a divorce. It was strange that he liked Swinbum at this time better than at any other time during their acquaintance; not because he was supplying the means of freeing him from Stella, but rather because he knew Swinbum to be under great stress