When I opened my eyes I was lying in bed, with a hot jar at my feet,
and the pungent irritation of smelling-salts in my nostrils. Uncle
George was in the room, and there was a stranger there also. I knew
what had taken place, and, if I hadn’t remembered, there was an
atrocious pain in my head to remind me. I put up my hand and discovered
my head was bandaged.
“Well,” said the stranger, drawing closer. “How do you feel now?”
“My head’s pretty sore,” I answered.
He mixed me something in a glass and I drank it. Uncle George came over
and began to ask questions, but the doctor pulled him away. “Leave him
to go to sleep now: he’ll be better able to talk in the morning. It
might have been a nasty thing. I’ll look in to-morrow.”
I had closed my eyes, and when I opened them again I was alone and
in the dark. A ray of moonlight floated through the window and lay
across the floor where George’s bed had been, but the bed itself was
gone, and I wondered languidly how they had been able to take it away
without my hearing anything. In spite of an abominable headache I felt
drowsy――perhaps it was the effect of whatever drug I had taken――and I
must very soon have lost consciousness.
The first person I saw in the morning was Uncle George, who carried me
in my breakfast. My head still ached, though not nearly so violently.
While I drank a cup of tea Uncle George sat in silence, his eyes fixed
on me, with an expression of anxiety that was almost comic. As for me,
I felt better, and, when Uncle George had removed the tray, I allowed
him to tell me how sorry he was, but without replying or giving him any
encouragement. I could see he was dying for me to say something, but I
thought a little suspense would not do him any harm, so I maintained a
discreet quiet. Secretly I was glad, for this disagreeable adventure
gave me just what I had needed, but I was far from letting Uncle George
know that.
“She wasn’t responsible,” said Uncle George, dejectedly, and plunging
straight to the heart of the subject. “You know she has to take drugs
sometimes on account of the pain she suffers, and they have an effect
upon her. I tell you this in confidence, and that last night she had
taken more than she intended to, and didn’t really know what she
was doin’. But you must forgive her, Peter. And then she is jealous
of you――I may as well tell you everything――she is jealous when she
thinks of the difference between you and George, and that you will be
a gentleman, while George and the others’ll have to get along as best
they can――and times are so bad, and there’s so few openings for lads
nowadays. This drug she had taken――――” He stopped and his eyes fastened
on mine appealingly.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked, smoothing down the sheet.
Uncle George moved nervously in his chair, but did not reply.
“I’m going home to-day,” I went on.
“Home? You’ll be waiting for a day or two――till you get quit of this
pain in your head, won’t you? And then there’s your examination! Will
they take marks off if you get a doctor’s certificate?”
“A certificate for what?”
“That you can’t go in for the examination.”
“I’m going in for the exam. And I’m certainly going home.”
Uncle George, who had never ventured to remonstrate with me on any
subject whatever since my arrival, and who treated me as, if anything,
slightly older than himself, did not begin now. “And what will you tell
them?” was all he asked.
“Would you like me to say I fell downstairs?” I suggested innocently.
Uncle George fidgeted. “I don’t want you to tell a lie,” he made
answer, which was a pretty big one for him.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” I observed, pleasantly.
Uncle George considered this. “I suppose there’s times, maybe, when
it’s best not to tell all the truth,” he brought out lamely.
“This is one when I should think it would be best not to tell any of
it,” I replied.
Uncle George was silent. I was not letting him off particularly easily.
“There must, however, be two lies told,” I pursued. “The first by me,
and the second by you, in a letter saying you can’t take me back after
the holidays――that you haven’t room――any reason you like.”
“But won’t you come back?” asked Uncle George, dolefully. “You were
always quite comfortable, quite happy till――till this accident. And
it wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t been knocking George about. I
don’t know what he had done on you.”
“I was never happy,” I said impatiently. “Either you or Aunt Margaret
will have to write as I say, or I’ll tell my father exactly what
happened. This accident, as you call it, very nearly did for me: and
it’s only one thing out of a lot.”
“Your poor aunt wants to come and tell you how sorry she is.”
“My poor aunt needn’t bother. I know exactly how sorry she is. If it
had been the ceiling that had fallen on me and killed me outright, I
don’t fancy she’d have minded much――except for the mess.”
Uncle George regarded me mournfully. “You’re very unforgiving,” he
said. “I know you’ve a right to say hard things, but――――”
It seemed to me that this was going a bit too far. “What do you mean by
unforgiving?” I asked. “Haven’t I promised not to tell?”
“It’s not that,” said Uncle George.
“What is it then? Do you want me to sacrifice myself simply that
you may make so much a week out of me? Don’t you know that Aunt
Margaret has always hated me like poison? Don’t you know she is pretty
constantly under the influence of whatever it is she takes, though you
speak as if this were the first time? I’m not such a fool that I can’t
see what’s going on. She’s always prying about my things and reading my
letters. Besides, in the very beginning, you know as well as I do that
I came to live here expecting to have a room to myself and not to be
stuck with George.”
Uncle George did not reply, but he looked as he sat there, with his
gray head bent, the picture of dejection.
“I’m sorry if I’ve hurt your feelings, Uncle George, for you’ve been
always very kind and decent to me, and if there was no one here but you
and Alice I would come back certainly. But as it is, I can’t; I really
can’t. I wanted to leave at Christmas, only my father wouldn’t let me.”
As I watched him lift his mild, sheep-like face, and go out, I pitied
him――almost enough to have promised to do what he wanted, which would
have been idiotic. “If he’d had any sense,” I told myself, “he’d have
clapped Aunt Margaret into a ‘home’ or an asylum, or whatever it is,
long ago. But he’s too soft-hearted to do anything but make himself
miserable.”
During the morning little Alice came in several times to see me. The
doctor also called and examined my head, into which he had put a couple
of stitches last night. It was only a scalp wound, he said, and thought
I might go back to Newcastle that afternoon if I felt up to it.
At dinner-time George appeared, looking very sheepish, and shuffling
his feet. “How are you?” he asked. “Ma says you’re goin’ home this
afternoon, so I thought I’d drop in an’ say good-bye. I’m sorry about
this. It’s my fault, an’ it’s rotten for your exam. I only read one
letter. I went to ma’s work-basket for the scissors, an’ I saw it there
lying open, an’ I read it without thinking. That’s the God’s truth,
whether you believe it or not, an’ there was nothin’ in it you need
mind.”
“Oh, it’s all right,” I answered.
“All the same it’s damned putrid luck about the exam.”
“It can’t be helped. Besides, I’m going to have a shot at it.”
“Well, I’ll have to cut on. So long, Peter.” He grinned as he held out
a big hand, which, like his face, was covered with freckles.