It was nearly five o’clock before she left the Park. She walked in a fog of depression. For hours she had gone hither and thither in the well-remembered circle, every step becoming more wayward and aimless. The sun had disappeared, and a grey evening bowed down upon the fields; the little wind that whispered along the grass or swung the light branches of the trees had a bleak edge to it. As she left the big gates she was chilled through and through, but the memory of her mother now set her running homewards. For the time she forgot her quest among the trees, and thought only, with shame and fear, of what her mother would say, and of the reproachful, amazed eyes which would be turned on her when she went in. What could she say? She could not imagine anything. How could she justify a neglect which must appear gratuitous, cold-blooded, inexplicable?
When she had brought the food and climbed the resonant stairs she stood outside the door crying softly to herself. She hated to open the door. She could imagine her mother sitting up in the bed dazed and unbelieving, angry and frightened, imagining accidents and terrors, and when she would go in … She had an impulse to open the door gently, leave the food just inside, and run down the stairs out into the world anywhere and never come back again. At last in desperation she turned the handle and stepped inside. Her face flamed; the blood burned her eyes physically so that she could not see through them. She did not look at the bed, but went direct to the fireplace, and with a dogged patience began mending the fire. After a few stubborn moments she twisted violently to face whatever might come, ready to break into angry reproaches and impertinences; but her mother was lying very still. She was fast asleep, and a weight, an absolutely real pressure, was lifted from Mary’s heart. Her fingers flew about the preparation of the beef-tea. She forgot the man whom she had gone to meet. Her arms were tired and hungry to close around her mother. She wanted to whisper little childish words to her, to rock her to and fro on her breast, and croon little songs and kiss her and pat her face.
XVI
Her mother did not get better. Indeed, she got worse. In addition to the lassitude of which she had complained, she suffered also from great heat and great cold, and, furthermore, sharp pains darted so swiftly through her brows that at times she was both dizzy and sightless. A twirling movement in her head prevented her from standing up. Her centre of gravity seemed destroyed, for when she did stand and attempted to walk she had a strange bearing away on one side, so that on striving to walk towards the door she veered irresistibly at least four feet to the left-hand side of that point. Mary Makebelieve helped her back to bed, where she lay for a time watching horizontal lines spinning violently in front of her face, and these lines after a time crossed and recrossed each other in so mazy and intricate a pattern that she became violently sick from the mere looking at them.
All of these things she described to her daughter, tracing the queer patterns which were spinning about her with such fidelity that Mary was almost able to see them. She also theorised about the cause and ultimate effect of these symptoms, and explained the degrees of heat and cold which burned or chilled her, and the growth of a pain to its exquisite startling apex, its subsequent slow recession, and the thud of an india-rubber hammer which ensued when the pain had ebbed to its easiest level. It did not occur to either of them to send for a doctor. Doctors in such cases are seldom sent for, seldom even thought of. One falls sick according to some severely definite, implacable law with which it is foolish to quarrel, and one gets well again for no other reason than that it is impossible to be sick forever. As the night struggles slowly into day, so sickness climbs stealthily into health, and nature has a system of medicining her ailments which might only be thwarted by the ministrations of a mere doctor. Doctors also expect payment for their services—an expectation so wildly beyond the range of common sense as to be ludicrous. Those who can scarcely fee a baker when they are in health can certainly not remunerate a physician when they are ill.
But, despite her sickness, Mrs. Makebelieve was worried with the practical common politics of existence. The food purchased with her last sevenpence was eaten beyond remembrance. The vital requirements of the next day, and the following day, and of all subsequent days thronged upon her, clamouring for instant attention. The wraith of a landlord sat on her bed demanding rent and threatening grisly alternatives. Goblins that were bakers and butchers and grocers grinned and leered and jabbered from the corners of the room.
Each day Mary Makebelieve went to the pawn office with something. They lived for a time on the only capital they had—the poor furniture of their room. Everything which had even the narrowest margin of value was sold. Mary’s dresses kept them for six days. Her mother’s Sunday skirt fed them for another day. They held famine at bay with a patchwork quilt and a crazy washstand. A water jug and a strip of oilcloth tinkled momentarily against the teeth of the wolf and disappeared. The
