The Invalid.
Paddy hesitated a moment, looking straight into Gwen’s eyes, almost
with a challenge.
“How much is he hurt?”
“I don’t know. It happened three days ago, and he was taken to a
hospital, but father had him brought in an ambulance to our house
to-day. Surely you are not going to refuse to come...!”
“No,” said Paddy slowly, “I am coming;” but her instinct told her he
would not have been moved if he had been very badly hurt, and she
believed that Gwen knew it. Still, when she saw him, her heart smote
her indefinably; for Lawrence lying on a sofa with his arm in a splint,
and a white, exhausted air of endurance, was something she could not
steel herself against. She wished vaguely that Gwen had not left them
alone so quickly, and moved away a little further, uncertain of
herself.
“I’m not much hurt,” he told her carelessly, though even as he spoke
she saw that a spasm of sharp pain made him clench his hands and teeth.
“But I expect I’m in for a bad time with my arm, and may have to have
it off in the end. Serves me right, I suppose.” Then he added: “I don’t
want the mater to know anything about it yet. She would only worry
herself ill. How are you? It was nice of you to come.” He was looking
at her as if he could read her soul, and Paddy felt her colour rising,
and was unable to meet his eyes. She longed suddenly to go to him in
his pain-wrung helplessness and touch his bandaged arm, and the fear
that she would show it held her silent and constrained and aloof. With
his quick intuition Lawrence noted everything.
“Why, I believe you’re quite sorry about this stupid smash!” with a
little callous laugh; “sorry in spite of yourself, eh, Paddy?” She did
not answer, feeling vaguely hurt, and he ran on: “You’re allowed to
pity me, then, and to come and see me out of charity as the poor
invalid! Well, I don’t know that there’s anything in the world I hate
more than charity, but I seem to be with the beggars every time now,
and called upon to be thankful for anything I can get.”
“You know it is not charity,” she blurted out. “It is unkind of you to
say so. I hate to see you lying there, looking so ill. I—I—” She
stopped short suddenly—pitfalls lay ahead that might engulf her.
“Let it be charity if it brings you nearer. I can’t afford pride any
longer. Charity should bring you close beside my couch of suffering,
laying your hand on my fevered brow, and all that stuff. You are not a
very good district visitor, Paddy.” There was a taunt in his voice, and
he saw that he was hurting her more and more, and because in some way
it gave him pleasure, he drove the barbs in. “Don’t look so resentful.
Do you feel you’ve been trapped here under false pretences? Did Gwen
tell you I was dying or something? How wicked of her! And now you find
I’ve only a smashed-up arm, and all that beautiful Christian spirit of
pity is like to be wasted on an unworthy object. Well, the arm hurts
pretty badly, if that is any help to you. They give me morphia now and
then, but I wouldn’t have it to-day.”
But that was a little too much, and a flash of the old Paddy came back.
“You have no right to speak to me like this,” she declared hotly; “it
is ungenerous of you. I have done nothing to deserve it. Gwen told me
that you were hurt, and that you wanted me; that was all.”
“And haven’t I wanted you for weeks and months!... Yet you only ran
away. Paddy, why did you run away from Omeath! It wasn’t quite fair.
You made me behave like a brute; and to mother. I’m expiating it in my
mind every hour, but, thank heaven, a mother like mine always
understands. I wrote afterward and told her how it happened. I’d have
gone across if I hadn’t had this smash.” His voice changed suddenly, as
with a quick, keen expression he leaned toward her and asked: “Paddy,
why did you run away?... Why do you treat me like this, _when you love
me_?”
Again the tell-tale colour flooded her face, and she could not meet his
eyes; but pulling herself together quickly, she answered in a voice
that had borrowed some of the taunt from his: “I thought you said it
was just charity.”
He smiled as if the taunt pleased him. “It is certainly about the same
temperature just now. But there, I won’t tease you any more. You were a
dear thing to come. I’ll get you a cozy, inviting chair if I can, then
perhaps you’ll stay.” He attempted to rise, but the effort brought on a
sharp spasm that turned him faint, and Paddy sprang forward.
“Oh, you mustn’t move, you mustn’t move,” she cried. “Why did you try
to?... Can I get you anything...!”
His rigid lips broke into the ghost of a smile, and a great tenderness
came into his eyes. “Sit where I can see you, mavourneen; it is all the
healing I need.”
Paddy pulled up a footstool, and sat beside him, and quietly began to
run her fingers with a light touch up and down his uninjured arm. She
had seen his mother do it, and knew he found it soothing. Thus for some
time neither spoke, and gradually the drawn, blue look left his face.
At last, from gazing into the fire, she looked up suddenly into his
face, and found he was watching her intently.
“Mavourneen,” he said very quietly, “I suspected that you were
beginning to care at Christmas. I know it now. What are you going to do
about it?”
She hid her face against his hand, and did not reply.
“What is your own idea, anyway?” he asked, in a winsome, humorous
voice.
“Oh, if you could only run away with me by force,” she murmured
intensely. “If only I needn’t decide at all. I’m just a lump of
obstinacy, and I don’t want to climb down and meekly give in; don’t you
see how I hate that part of it? You could always say ‘I told you so,’”
and she smiled a little.
“Bravo, Patricia! I like that spirit in you. Curse it all, a few
hundred years ago, I’d just have brought along my men-at-arms and
captured you. What good old days they must have been. And here we are
hemmed in all round by barriers, and I haven’t even got a couple of
good arms to drag you onto my horse. But anyhow, the gods are evidently
relenting, so I’ll take heart and think out a plan.” He saw her glance
at the clock.
“Must you go now? Are the beastly medicine bottles squirming on the
shelf? Well, I won’t keep you. It isn’t good enough with a crocked-up
arm. In fact, it isn’t good at all; it’s merely maddening. You see, I
want to kiss you, Paddy, and I dare say if I asked very appealingly and
pathetically, you would lean over and give me a sort of benevolent,
motherly salute.” He gave a low laugh with a note of masterfulness in
it. “But I’ll have none of it. To dream as I have dreamed, and then
begin with a mild caress! _Never_. I forbid you to come near me again
until I’m on my feet with, at any rate, one strong arm. Then I’ll show
you. I had always a weakness for the best.”
She stood up, a little non-plussed and uncertain, but he only smiled
into her eyes with something of the old mocking light.
“Good-by, mavourneen, I’ll let you know when you must come again. I’ve
had enough healing for a little—and I’m sure the bottles are
clamouring.”
“Good-by,” she answered, and went slowly out of the room.
But as she trundled back to Shepherd’s Bush on a motor ’bus, she saw no
greyness and shabbiness and desolation any more—saw nothing at all—only
knew that in her heart there was a sort of shy, fierce, bewildering
gladness.