The voice of the servant came: "Yes, mum. The doctor's been called away
to a case. He's not likely to be back before five o'clock."
My wife said, with sad indifference: "It doesn't matter now. I'll let
you in."
She went from the room. I heard the opening and shutting of the door.
Then both women returned into the room, and talked in low voices.
My wife said: "As soon as it's light you must ..." She stopped and
corrected herself. "No, the nurse will be back at seven o'clock. She
said she would. She will attend to all that. Mary, go and get a little
rest, if you can."
"Aren't you going to put the pennies on his eyes, mum?" the servant
asked.
"Ought I?" said my wife. "I don't know much about these things."
"Oh, yes, mum. And tie his jaw up," the servant said.
_His_ eyes! _His_ jaw! I was terribly angry, in my desolation. But it
was a futile anger, though it raged through me like a storm. Could they
not understand, would they never understand, that they were grotesquely
deceived? How much longer would they continue to fuss over that body on
the bed while I, _I_, the person whom they were supposed to be sorry
for, suffered and trembled in dire need just behind them?
A ridiculous bother over pennies! There was only one penny in the house,
they decided, after searching. I knew the exact whereabouts of two
shillings worth of copper, rolled in paper in my desk in the
dining-room. It had been there for many weeks; I had brought it home
one day from the works. But they did not know. I wanted to tell them, so
as to end the awful exacerbation of my nerves. But of course I could
not. In spite of Mary's superstitious protest, my wife put a penny on
one eye and half-a-crown on the other. Mary seemed to regard this as a
desecration, or at best as unlucky. Then they bound up the jaw of that
body with one of my handkerchiefs. I thought I had never seen anything
more wantonly absurd. Their trouble in straightening the arms--the legs
were quite straight--infuriated me. I wanted to weep in my tragic
vexation. It seemed as though tears would ease me. But I could not weep.
The servant said: "You'd better come away now, mum, and rest on the sofa
in the drawing-room."
Margaret, with red-bordered, glittering eyes, answered, staring all the
while at that body: "No, Mary. It's no use. I can't leave him. I won't
leave him!"
But she wasn't thinking about me at all. There I was, neglected and
shivering, near the windows; and she would not look at me!
After an interminable palaver Margaret induced the servant to leave the
room. And she sat down on the chair nearest the bed, and began to cry
again, not troubling to wipe her eyes. She sobbed, more and more loudly,
and kept touching that body. She seized my gold watch, which hung over
the bed, and which she wound up every night, and kissed it and put it
back. Her sobs continued to increase. Then the door opened quietly, and
the servant, half-undressed, crept in, and without saying a word gently
led Margaret out of the room. Margaret's last glance was at that body.
In a moment the servant returned and extinguished the gas, and departed
again, very carefully closing the door. I was now utterly abandoned.