The spectacular developments were rapid. In the afternoon Auntie Hamps,
Clara, Maggie, and Edwin were grouped around the bed of Darius. A fire
burned in the grate; flowers were on the dressing-table. An extra table
had been placed at the foot of the bed. The room was a sick-room.
Dr Heve had called, and had said that the patient's desire not to be
left alone was a symptom of gravity. He suggested a nurse, and when
Maggie, startled, said that perhaps they could manage without a nurse,
he inquired how. And as he talked he seemed to be more persuaded that a
nurse was necessary, if only for night duty, and in the end he went
himself to the new Telephone Exchange and ordered a nurse from the
Pirehill Infirmary Nursing Home. And the dramatic thing was that within
two hours and a half the nurse had arrived. And in ten minutes after
that it had been arranged that she should have Maggie's bedroom and that
she should take night duty, and in order that she might be fresh for the
night she had gone straight off to bed.
Then Clara had arrived, in spite of the illness of her baby, and Auntie
Hamps had forced herself up Trafalgar Road, in spite of her rheumatism.
And a lengthy confabulation between the women had occurred in the
dining-room, not about the invalid, but about what `she' had said, and
about the etiquette of treating `her,' and about what `she' looked like
and shaped like; `her' and `she' being the professional nurse. With a
professional nurse in it, each woman sincerely felt that the house was
no longer itself, that it had become the house of the enemy.
Darius lay supine before them, physically and spiritually abased,
accepting, like a victim who is too weak even to be ashamed, the cooings
and strokings and prayers and optimistic mendacities of Auntie Hamps,
and the tearful tendernesses of Clara.
"I've made my will," he whimpered.
"Yes, yes," said Auntie Hamps. "Of course you have!"
"Did I tell you I'd made my will?" he feebly insisted.
"Yes, father," said Clara. "Don't worry about your will."
"I've left th' business to Edwin, and all th' rest's divided between you
two wenches." He was weeping gently.
"Don't worry about that, father," Clara repeated. "Why are you thinking
so much about your will?" She tried to speak in a tone that was easy
and matter-of-fact. But she could not. This was the first authentic
information that any of them had had as to the dispositions of the will,
and it was exciting.
Then Darius began to try to sit up, and there were protests against such
an act. Though he sat up to take his food, the tone of these
apprehensive remonstrances implied that to sit up at any other time was
to endanger his life. Darius, however, with a weak scowl, continued to
lift himself, whereupon Maggie aided him, and Auntie Hamps like
lightning put a shawl round his shoulders. He sighed, and stretched out
his hand to the night-table for his gold watch and chain, which he
dangled towards Edwin.
"I want ye--" He stopped, controlling the muscles of his face.
"He wants you to wind it up," said Clara, struck by her own insight.
"No, he doesn't," said Edwin. "He knows it's wound up."
"I want ye--" Darius recommenced. But he was defeated again by his
insidious foe. He wept loudly and without restraint for a few moments,
and then suddenly ceased, and endeavoured to speak, and wept anew,
agitating the watch in the direction of Edwin.
"Take it, Edwin," said Mrs Hamps. "Perhaps he wants it put away," she
added, as Edwin obeyed.
Darius shook his head furiously. "I want him--" Sobs choked him.
"I know what he wants," said Auntie Hamps. "He wants to give dear Edwin
the watch, because Edwin's been so kind to him, helping him to dress
every day, and looking after him just like a professional nurse--don't
you, dear?"
Edwin secretly cursed her in the most horrible fashion. But she was
right.
"Ye-hes," Darius confirmed her, on a sob.
"He wants to show his gratitude," said Auntie Hamps.
"Ye-hes," Darius repeated, and wiped his eyes.
Edwin stood foolishly holding the watch with its massive Albert chain.
He was very genuinely astonished, and he was profoundly moved. His
father's emotion concerning him must have been gathering force for
months and months, increasing a little and a little every day in those
daily, intimate contacts, until at length gratitude had become, as it
were, a spirit that possessed him, a monstrous demon whose wild
eagerness to escape defeated itself. And Edwin had never guessed, for
Darius had mastered the spirit till the moment when the spirit mastered
him. It was out now, and Darius, delivered, breathed more freely.
Edwin was proud, but his humiliation was greater than his pride. He
suffered humiliation for his father. He would have preferred that
Darius should never have felt gratitude, or, at any rate, that he should
never have shown it. He would have preferred that Darius should have
accepted his help nonchalantly, grimly, thanklessly, as a right. And if
through disease, the old man could not cease to be a tyrant with
dignity, could not become human without this appalling ceremonial
abasement--better that he should have exercised harshness and oppression
to the very end! There was probably no phenomenon of human nature that
offended Edwin's instincts more than an open conversion.
Maggie turned nervously away and busied herself with the grate.
"You must put it on," said Auntie Hamps sweetly. "Mustn't he, father?"
Darius nodded.
The outrage was complete. Edwin removed his own watch and dropped it
into the pocket of his trousers, substituting for it the gold one.
"There, father!" exclaimed Auntie Hamps proudly, surveying the curve of
the Albert on her nephew's waistcoat.
"Ay!" Darius murmured, and sank back on the pillow with a sigh of
relief.
"Thanks, father," Edwin muttered, reddening. "But there was no
occasion."
"Now you see what it is to be a good son!" Auntie Hamps observed.
Darius murmured indistinctly.
"What is it?" she asked, bending down.
"I must have his," said Darius. "I must have a watch here."
"He wants your old one in exchange," Clara explained eagerly.
Edwin smiled, discovering a certain alleviation in this shrewd demand of
his father's, and he drew out the silver Geneva.
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