“Mm …” he muttered impatiently, and as he jumped up from his chair the rough brown greatcoat seemed to fill the dingy lodge. It smelt of England, that coat. And, protruding from it, that sharp, naked, weary face with the worried eyes. …
“Look here, Masters—”
“Here you are,” he muttered. I could not understand why he muttered. “Here you are” until I found a cigarette in one hand and one of those wretched spirit-lighters in the other. A man without conviction even in his ability to strike a match. …
“Known her for years,” he muttered towards his feet. “At Deauville that year … terrible for her. Poor child. …”
“Masters, you said Donna Guelãra might die. You know you did. But she didn’t, did she?”
He looked at me sharply. “If only she’d help herself, lift a finger to help herself! That’s what beats a man. Doesn’t lift one finger, she doesn’t.”
“Oh!” I said, trying to look reasonable. But I couldn’t, for the life of me, accommodate myself to the idea of Iris dying. “I suppose this is the crisis, is it, Masters?”
The rough greatcoat gave one vindictive flounce, filled the room. “Crisis! The way you people talk of crisis this and crisis that! Hear a word once and stick to it through life! ‘When does the crisis pass?’ There is no ‘crisis’ in most of these infernal things. Malaria, pneumonia, a few others—yes, crisis, know where you are. But in these things the patient just continues ill, two, three, four weeks, might live, might not. Lysis, not crisis. Crisis!”
“Sorry. Lysis. …”
“Oh, here!” He suddenly began fumbling in an ancient pocketbook, from which he extracted a small folded piece of paper. “Might interest you,” he muttered.
Scrawled in pencil across the slip of paper were what looked like two names. That indecipherable scrawl! At last I made out the two names: Hilary’s and mine.
“She said, should either of these two happen somehow to hear I am ill and call, just be nice to them, please. Her very words. …”
“Oh!” I said. And I went on staring at the slip of paper. It was a rather grubby slip of paper. And those two scrawled names were like a faint cry of loneliness.
“Known her for years,” Masters was muttering. “Nice! First tells me not to tell anyone, then to be ‘nice’ to you two. …”
I gave him back the slip of paper. I don’t know why, and now I wish I hadn’t. I would like to have it now, beside that fiver. “Nice, fivers are. …” Thoughtful Iris! She knew her friends, she did. Lying lonely here … and having an afterthought about Hilary—and me! “If they should somehow happen to hear and call.” Poor Guy hadn’t a mention. She wasn’t for putting any strain on Guy’s lawfulness. But why lawfulness? I looked at Conrad Masters.
“Septic poisoning,” said Masters. “That’s the trouble.”
That meant very little to me, for never was a man so ill-informed about such things. “But,” I said doubtfully to those gentle-worried eyes, and he murmured:
“Sure you’re not thinking of ptomaine poisoning? Not that that isn’t quite enough to be going on with. …”
“Pain,” I said. “Good Lord, pain. …” All I could think of was pain, pain, pain. One can almost feel the stabs of someone’s pain. Worst of all, one can mentally hear the faint screams of a voice just recognisable. Conrad Masters, the sight of him, reminded me vividly of Anna Estella’s pain. Once, from a waiting-room, I had heard her screaming. “Pain?” I said.
“Oh, no … no.” He weighed the matter. “Nothing to speak of. Just keep still, that’s the main thing. Very still, for weeks and weeks. Long business, you know. But what worries a man is that she doesn’t try to help herself at all. Letting herself go … can’t tell whether consciously or not, but somewhere inside her just not caring. I’ve been sharp with her. … Nice business for me, isn’t it? Good Lord, nice! If only she’d take a pull, pull herself together … someone just give her mind a jab somehow. No good talking, of course. If she won’t, she won’t. Lies there, you know, just not caring. …” He was drawing on a fur-lined glove, and it was to that he spoke; almost, one thought, shyly. A curious, complex gentleman. “She’s said once or twice she’d like to see you and … well, learn you a thing or two. Some stuff about roses and dandelions. You seem to have made a gaffe somewhere, and it’s quite on her mind to tell you about it. Hope I’m not giving anything away … but might do her good just to see you, feel you’re round about. You can’t tell. We’ll see how she is tomorrow. Extraordinary, I’ve found it, the way a woman will wake up for a second from days of delirium for no other purpose than to feel lonely. … Not awake now, though. Ill, this evening. Can’t really, you see, be iller if she tried. It will be good news, really good news, if she is alive in the morning. That’s as much as I can say. Sorry. … Well, I must snatch some dinner. …”
We were outside. The rain had ceased, it was much warmer. The Masters’s Renault, sleek and shining black but for the scarlet wheels, dwarfed my taxi.
Septic poisoning. I began to remember a little about that. I remembered two words which seemed very like “septic poisoning” in reports of trials of wretched women who had “operated.” Surely, Masters couldn’t … she had, after all, trusted me—“be nice to him”—and I must at once think the worst thing. Oh, God, how foul a thing a man’s mind is, how foul! But, Iris, dear Iris, why is one able to think of these awful things in connection with you!
“There’s always hope, you know,” Masters was muttering. “Pity you kept your taxi. I could have dropped you. And Donna Guelãra didn’t die, did she?”
But how Anna Estella had desired to live! “Die, me!” she had later screamed with laughter.
Iris had trusted me. “Be nice to him”—her very words. And I had thought
