Vance put his hand out hastily. “Say—I guess that’s mine.”
“Who’s it from?”
“Oh, just somebody I had an appointment with. I guess I forgot.” She looked relieved, and he added: “Say—it’s colder than blazes. I guess I forgot to make up the fire too, before we went out.” He laughed at his own joke as he drew her into the kitchen. “There—you sit down and I’ll fix things up in no time.”
He pushed her into Mrs. Tracy’s rocking chair, lit the lamp, raked out the stove, shook in coal and kindlings, and rummaged for milk, while she leaned back and watched him with dusky burning eyes. She looked little and frail in the faint light, and the returning heat brought out on her cheekbones those scarlet spots which made the hollows underneath so wan. Why was it that whenever she and Vance attempted to do anything jolly together she got tired? That she seemed fated never to keep step with him? He poured out the milk and brought it to her. “Here—swallow this down quick. The matter with you is, you’re hungry,” he tried to jolly her; but she shook her head, and the smile on her gaunt little face turned into a grimace of weariness. “I guess I’m just tired—” Always the same wistful refrain! “She’s sick,” Vance thought with sudden terror. Aloud he said: “Wait till I heat the milk up; then maybe it’ll tempt you.” He thought with a shiver of the cold bed upstairs, their fireless room, the time it would take to warm the house—and where on earth could he find a brick to heat and put at her feet when he got her undressed? He warmed the milk, pressed it to her lips again—but she pushed it away with feverish hands, and the eyes she lifted were dark with a sort of animal fright. “Vanny—I’m so tired. Darling, carry me upstairs!” She wound her arms about his neck, and her cheek burned on his. … Halfway up she clutched him closer, and he felt her whisper in his ear. “It wasn’t a woman who telegraphed you, Vanny?” “Woman? Hell no! The idea!” he lied back, stumbling up the steps, pressing her tight, and shrinking from the touch of her tears. …
He had had the vision of a big poem up there on the mountain—yes, he knew it was big. Line after line had sprung up like great snow eagles challenging the sun, soaring in inaccessible glory: he had only to lie back and wait, and one by one they planed down and shut their wings in his breast. And now, stumbling up the stairs in the darkness with this poor child, getting her undressed, trying to find something warm to wrap her feet in, wondering why her eyes were so fixed, her cheeks so scarlet, wondering how you felt a pulse, how you knew if anybody had fever … all the while, with another sense, he watched the crystal splinters of his poem melt away one after another, as the spring icicles were melting from the roof.
XXVI
Mrs. Tracy was not expected back till the following evening, and for twenty-four hours Vance struggled alone against the dark mystery of illness. As he watched through the night beside Laura Lou, watched her burning face and hollow eyes, and sought to quiet her tossings and soothe her incessant cough, he tried to recall what had been done for him during his own illness. He too had been consumed with fever day and night, week after week; and his mother and sisters had been always there, with cooling drinks, soft touches, ingenious ways of easing his misery—and here he sat by his wife, his hands all thumbs, his shoes creaking, his brain in a fog, unable to imagine what he ought to do for her.
At one moment her eyes, which had clung to his so anxiously, always asking for something he could not guess, suddenly became the eyes of a stranger. She looked at him in terror, and sitting up thrust him back. “Oh, go away—go away! You shan’t take Vanny from me … I say you shan’t!” For a while she rambled on, battling against the obduracy of some invisible presence; then she sank back, and tears of weakness forced their way through the lids she had shut against her husband … Vance threw himself down by her and held her in beseeching arms. “Laura Lou … Laura Lou … Vanny’s here; love, it’s Vanny holding you. …” With passionate murmurs he smoothed the hair from her forehead, and gradually her contracted face relaxed, and she opened her lids, and tried to smile. “Is it you, Vanny? Don’t go … you’ll never leave me any more, will you?” … She dozed off on his shoulder for a few minutes before the cough woke her again. …
When morning came she refused to touch the milk he had warmed, and lay tossing and coughing in parched misery. What was it? Bronchitis? His heart sank: what was it people did for bronchitis? There was no telephone, and no nearby neighbour except an old deaf woman who would probably not be of much use—even if Vance could absent himself long enough to summon her. He decided to run across to the deaf woman’s house, and bribe her grandson, a lazy fellow who was not on good terms with Mrs. Tracy, to bicycle to Paul’s Landing for a doctor; but whenever he tried to creep out of the room his shoes creaked or a board cried, and Laura Lou started up. “Don’t leave me, Vanny—you mustn’t leave me …” and the heavy hours dragged on … Vance rummaged out an old bottle of cough mixture, and gave her some; but it did not relieve her, and the hands she wound about his neck
