Slowly he disengaged his hand from her now flaccid grasp, repacked his bag, and stood gazing at her dormant form. His face, wiped clean of its protecting film of sanguine assurance, was heavy with a sad knowledge, mingled with a pensive, human sympathy. He remained motionless for a moment, then he covered her more
warmly with the bedclothes, lowered the gas and went out of the room.
At the foot of the stairs Matt was awaiting him, his pale, apprehensive countenance shiny with the blanched pallor of a sickly moon.
'How is she?' he asked in a low tone. 'Is she better?'
'She is out of pain now, and sleeping,' answered Renwick. 'That was the immediate necessity for your mother.' He looked directly at the other, wondering how much he could tell him.
'Where is your father?' he asked finally. 'I feel I ought to see him.'
Matthew's glance wilted, his bruised eyes fell downwards, his body moved uneasily as he whispered:
'He's asleep in bed. I don't want to disturb him. No! We better not wake him. It wouldn't do any good.'
Ren wick's face became stern at the other's abject look. What manner of house was this? he asked himself, and what manner of people?
The mother, the son, yes, even that poor child Mary, all were terrified of the one omnipotent being, the master of the house, this outrageous Brodie.
'I do not know,' he said at length, enunciating his words with cold distinctness, 'whether it will be desirable for me to continue the conduct of this case, but you may tell your father that I shall call to see him to-morrow.'
'Is she going to be bad for long, then?' mumbled Matthew.
'For about six months at the outside.'
'What a long time!' said Matt slowly. 'She does all the work. How will we manage in the house without her?'
'You will have to manage,' said the doctor severely. 'And high time it is that you started to learn.'
'What way?' asked Matthew stupidly.
'Your mother is dying of an incurable, internal cancer. She will never get out of that bed again. In six months she will be in her grave.'
Matt collapsed as if the other had struck him; weakly he sat down upon the stairs. Mamma dying! Only five hours ago she had been running after him, had served him with a delicate meal cooked by her own hands, but now she lay stricken upon a bed from which she would never arise. With his head bowed upon his hands he did not see the doctor go out or hear the sound of the closing door. Prostrated by grief and remorse he looked, not forward, but backward; his mind swayed by memory, roamed through the whole period of his life; his vivid recollection strayed through all the pathways of the past. He felt the tender petting of her hands, the caress of her cheek, the touch of her lips upon his brow. He saw her coming to his room as he lay petulantly on his bed, heard her say soothingly, 'Here's something nice for you, son.' Her features appeared before him in every expression, coaxing, pleading, wheedling, but all bearing the same indefinable stamp of love for him. Then he saw her face finally composed in the calm, complacent rigidity of death, and in its serenity, he still observed upon the pale lips the smiling tenderness which she had always shown to him.
Alone on the stairs he broke down, and whispered to himself, again and again:
'Mamma! Mamma! Ye were aye so good to me!
XI
'WHERE'S my hot water?' shouted Brodie. 'Hot water! My shaving water!' He stood upon the landing outside his room, dressed in his shirt and trousers, bawling to the regions below. For the first time since he could remember, his shaving water was not ready for him at his door at the precise second when he required it; he had, with the established action of habit, bent down to lift the jug and there had been no jug for him to lift. At this unprecedented and atrocious evidence of neglect, amazement had immediately given way to a sense of personal affront which had added to the bitter temper in which he had arisen from bed. This morning he had awakened to a different perception of the incidents of the previous night, and on turning over the matter in his mind, had slowly become infuriated to think that his son had stumbled on his intrigue with Nancy, had discovered the meeting place at the house in College Street. Resentment that such a weakling as Matt should have dared to interfere with the manner of his life made him forget the danger which he had survived; the unusual incident of the shooting faded into the realm of the unreal and it was the interference with his pleasure which now aroused his bitter anger. His head felt stuffed from the heaviness of his sleep; the ever-present worry of his failing business, lying perpetually in the background to greet him when he awoke, added to his bitter moody vexation; and now, when he wanted especially to get shaved and freshened up in order to adjust his tangled thoughts, he could not obtain his hot water. It was always the same, he told himself; a man could never get what he wanted
in this infernal house, and, with the full force of a legitimate grievance, he bellowed out once more, 'Water! Bring it up at once! Damn it all, am I to stand here all day cooling my heels on your pleasure! Water, confound you!'
Nothing happened! To his bewilderment, Mamma did not come panting up the stairs in a paroxysm of abasement and haste, with the familiar steaming jug in her hand and a quivering apology upon her lips. An unusual quiet prevailed below. He sniffed with dilated nostrils like an angry bull scenting the wind, but could discern no appetising smell of cooking ascending from the kitchen. With a snort,
he was about to plunge downstairs to make his wants known more forcibly, when suddenly the door of Matt's room opened and, in response to the muffled sound of a parting injunction, Nessie came out and timidly advanced towards her father.
His anger moderated at the sight of her, the frown faded from his forehead, the bitter twist of his lips softened slightly. The inevitable effect of her presence was to soften the harshness of his nature and it was, indeed, for this reason she had been selected to break the news to him.
'Father,' she said diffidently, 'Mamma's not up this morning.'
'What!' he cried, as though hardly able to believe his ears. 'Not up yet? Still in her bed at this hour?'
Nessie nodded.
'It's not her fault though, Father,' she murmured placatingly. 'Don't blame her she's not well. She tried to get up but she couldn't move.'
Brodie growled. He knew she was lazy, malingering, that the whole affair was a subterfuge to prevent him from getting his shaving water. Then he thought of his breakfast. Who was to get him that? Abruptly he took a step toward's Mamma's room to see if his presence would not make her forget her indisposition, liven her up to a more useful activity.
'Mamma was awful bad through the night,' Nessie interposed. 'Matt had to run out in the middle of the night and get a doctor.'
He stopped dead at this new and startling information and exclaimed, in amazed displeasure:
'The doctor! What way was I not told? Why was I not consulted
about this? Is everything to be done in this house over my head,
without telling me about it? Where is Matt?'
Matthew, who had been listening to the conversation through the half-open door, emerged slowly upon the landing. From his streaked, haggard face he looked as if he had not slept and now he regarded his father uncomfortably in the broad light of day. Still, Nessie had done her part in imparting the petrifying news; it would be easier for him to explain.
'Why did ye not tell me about this this affair, sir?' repeated Brodie fiercely. He refused to refer to it directly as an illness; in his opinion the whole thing was a fabrication against his comfort, a conspiracy to annoy him. 'Why did you not come to me first?'
“I didn't want to disturb you, Father,' mumbled Matt. 'I thought you would be asleep.'
'You're gey considerate o' me all of a sudden,' Brodie sneered. 'You're not always so solicitous about my health, are ye?' He paused significantly and added:
'Ye brought Lawrie into the house well! What did he say about her?'
