"Well, come on then."
Darius did not move.
"Come on," Edwin urged. "I'm sure you're overtired, and you'll be
better in bed."
He took his father by the arm, but there was no responsive movement.
Often Edwin noticed this capricious, obstinate attitude; his father
would express a wish to do a certain thing, and then would make no
effort to do it. "Come!" said Edwin more firmly, pulling at the
lifeless arm. Albert sprang up, and said that he would assist. One on
either side, they got Darius to his feet, and slowly walked him out of
the room. He was very exasperating. His weight and his inertia were
terrible. The spectacle suggested that either Darius was pretending to
be a carcass, or Edwin and Albert were pretending that a carcass was
alive. On the stairs there was not room for the three abreast. One had
to push, another to pull: Darius seemed wilfully to fall backwards if
pressure were released. Edwin restrained his exasperation; but though
he said nothing, his sharp half-vicious pull on that arm seemed to say,
"Confound you! Come up--will you!" The last two steps of the stair had
a peculiar effect on Darius. He appeared to shy at them, and then
finally to jib. It was no longer a reasonable creature that they were
getting upstairs, but an incalculable and mysterious beast. They lifted
him on to the landing, and he stood on the landing as if in his sleep.
Both Edwin and Albert were breathless. This was the man who since the
beginning of his illness had often walked to Hillport and back! It was
incredible that he had ever walked to Hillport and back. He passed more
easily along the landing. And then he was in his bedroom.
"Father going to bed?" Maggie called out from below.
"Yes," said Albert. "We've just been getting him upstairs."
"Oh! That's right," Maggie said cheerfully. "I thought he was looking
very tired to-night."
"He gave us a doing," said the breathless Albert in a low voice at the
door of the bedroom, smiling, and glancing at his cigarette to see if it
was still alight.
"He does it on purpose, you know," Edwin whispered casually. "I'll just
get him to bed, and then I'll be down."
Albert went, with a `good night' to Darius that received no answer.
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