“That rotten pair of steps came down with me,” said the infuriated voice of Arthur Witham, “and about broke my leg.”
Alvina advanced towards him, picking her way over the steps. He was sitting nursing his leg.
“Is it bad?” she asked, stooping towards him.
In the shadow he lifted up his face. It was pale, and his eyes were savage with anger. Her face was near his.
“It is bad,” he said furious because of the shock. The shock had thrown him off his balance.
“Let me see,” she said.
He removed his hands from clasping his shin, some distance above the ankle. She put her fingers over the bone, over his stocking, to feel if there was any fracture. Immediately her fingers were wet with blood. Then he did a curious thing. With both his hands he pressed her hand down over his wounded leg, pressed it with all his might, as if her hand were a plaster. For some moments he sat pressing her hand over his broken shin, completely oblivious, as some people are when they have had a shock and a hurt, intense on one point of consciousness only, and for the rest unconscious.
Then he began to come to himself. The pain modified itself. He could not bear the sudden acute hurt to his shin. That was one of his sensitive, unbearable parts.
“The bone isn’t broken,” she said professionally. “But you’d better get the stocking out of it.”
Without a thought, he pulled his trouser-leg higher and rolled down his stocking, extremely gingerly, and sick with pain.
“Can you show a light?” he said.
She found the candle. And she knew where matches always rested, on a little ledge of the organ. So she brought him a light, whilst he examined his broken shin. The blood was flowing, but not so much. It was a nasty cut bruise, swelling and looking very painful. He sat looking at it absorbedly, bent over it in the candlelight.
“It’s not so very bad, when the pain goes off,” she said, noticing the black hairs of his shin. “We’d better tie it up. Have you got a handkerchief?”
“It’s in my jacket,” he said.
She looked round for his jacket. He annoyed her a little, by being completely oblivious of her. She got his handkerchief and wiped her fingers on it. Then of her own kerchief she made a pad for the wound.
“Shall I tie it up, then?” she said.
But he did not answer. He sat still nursing his leg, looking at his hurt, while the blood slowly trickled down the wet hairs towards his ankle. There was nothing to do but wait for him.
“Shall I tie it up, then?” she repeated at length, a little impatient. So he put his leg a little forward.
She looked at the wound, and wiped it a little. Then she folded the pad of her own handkerchief, and laid it over the hurt. And again he did the same thing, he took her hand as if it were a plaster, and applied it to his wound, pressing it cautiously but firmly down. She was rather angry. He took no notice of her at all. And she, waiting, seemed to go into a dream, a sleep, her arm trembled a little, stretched out and fixed. She seemed to lose count, under the firm compression he imposed on her. It was as if the pressure on her hand pressed her into oblivion.
“Tie it up,” he said briskly.
And she, obedient, began to tie the bandage with numb fingers. He seemed to have taken the use out of her.
When she had finished, he scrambled to his feet, looked at the organ which he was repairing, and looked at the collapsed pair of steps.
“A rotten pair of things to have, to put a man’s life in danger,” he said, towards the steps. Then stubbornly, he rigged them up again, and stared again at his interrupted job.
“You won’t go on, will you?” she asked.
“It’s got to be done, Sunday tomorrow,” he said. “If you’d hold them steps a minute! There isn’t more than a minute’s fixing to do. It’s all done, but fixing.”
“Hadn’t you better leave it,” she said.
“Would you mind holding the steps, so that they don’t let me down again,” he said. Then he took the candle, and hobbled stubbornly and angrily up again, with spanner and hammer. For some minutes he worked, tapping and readjusting, whilst she held the rickety steps and stared at him from below, the shapeless bulk of his trousers. Strange the difference—she could not help thinking it—between the vulnerable hairy, and somehow childish leg of the real man, and the shapeless form of these workmen’s trousers. The kernel, the man himself—seemed so tender—the covering so stiff and insentient.
And was he not going to speak to her—not one human word of recognition? Men are the most curious and unreal creatures. After all he had made use of her. Think how he had pressed her hand gently but firmly down, down over his bruise, how he had taken the virtue out of her, till she felt all weak and dim. And after that was he going to relapse into his tough and ugly workman’s hide, and treat her as if she were a pair of steps, which might let him down or hold him up, as might be.
As she stood clinging to the steps she felt weak and a little hysterical. She wanted to summon her strength, to have her own back from him. After all he had taken the virtue from her, he might have the grace to say thank you, and treat her as if she were a human being.
At last he left off tinkering, and looked round.
“Have you finished?” she said.
“Yes,” he answered crossly.
And taking the candle he began to clamber down. When
