In the low lighted room the thing that Gwenda Cartaret had seen lay
stretched in the middle of the great bed, covered with a sheet. The
bed, with its white mound, was so much too big for the four walls that
held it, the white plaster of the ceiling bulging above it stooped so
low, that the body of John Greatorex lay as if already closed up in
its tomb.
Jim Greatorex, his son, sat on a wooden chair at the head of the
bed. His young, handsome face was loose and flushed as if he had been
drinking. His eyes--the queer, blue, wide-open eyes that had hitherto
looked out at you from their lodging in that ruddy, sensuous face,
incongruously spiritual, high and above your head, like the eyes of a
dreamer and a mystic--Jim's eyes were sunken now and darkened in their
red and swollen lids. They stared at the rug laid down beside the bed,
while Jim's mind set itself to count, stupidly and obstinately, the
snippets of gray and scarlet cloth that made the pattern on the black.
Every now and then he would recognise a snippet as belonging to some
suit his father had worn years ago, and then Jim's brain would receive
a shock and would stagger and have to begin its counting all over
again.
The door opened to let Rowcliffe in. And at the sound of the door,
as if a spring had been suddenly released in his spine, Jim Greatorex
shot up and started to his feet.
"Well, Greatorex----"
"Good evening, Dr. Rawcliffe." He came forward awkwardly, hanging his
head as if detected in an act of shame.
There was a silence while the two men turned their backs upon the
bed, determined to ignore what was on it. They stood together by the
window, pretending to stare at things out there in the night; and so
they became aware of the men carrying the coffin.
They could no longer ignore it.
"Wull yo look at 'Im, doctor?"
"Better not----." Rowcliffe would have laid his hand on the young
man's arm, muttering a refusal, but Greatorex had moved to the bed and
drawn back the sheet.
What Gwenda Cartaret had seen was revealed.
The dead man's face, upturned with a slight tilt to the ceiling that
bulged so brutally above it, the stiff dark beard accentuating the
tilt, the eyes, also upturned, white under their unclosing lids, the
nostrils, the half-open mouth preserved their wonder and their terror
before a thing so incredible--that the walls and roof of a man's room
should close round him and suffocate him. On this horrified face there
were the marks of dissolution, and, at the corners of the grim beard
and moustache, a stain.
It left nothing to be said. It was the face of the man who had drunk
hard and had told his son that he had never been the worse for drink.
Jim Greatorex stood and looked at it as if he knew what Rowcliffe was
thinking of it and defied him to think.
Rowcliffe drew up the sheet and covered it. "You'd better come out of
this. It isn't good for you," he said.
"I knaw what's good for me, Dr. Rawcliffe."
Jim stuck his hands in his breeches and gazed stubbornly at the
sheeted mound.
"Come," Rowcliffe said, "don't give way like this. Buck up and be a
man."
"A ma-an? You wait till yor turn cooms, doctor."
"My turn came ten years ago, and it may come again."
"And yo'll knaw then what good it doos ta-alkin'." He paused,
listening. "They've coom," he said.
There was a sound of scuffling on the stone floor below and on the
stairs. Mrs. Gale's voice was heard out on the landing, calling to the
men.
"Easy with un--easy. Mind t' lamp. Eh--yo'll never get un oop that
road. Yo mun coax un round corner."
A swinging thud on the stone wall. Then more and more desperate
scuffling with muttering. Then silence.
Mrs. Gale put her head in at the door.
"Jimmy, yo mun coom and gie a haand wi' t' coffin. They've got un
faasst in t' turn o' t' stair."
Through the open doorway Rowcliffe could see the broad shoulders of
the coffin jammed in the stairway.
Jim, flushed with resentment, strode out; and the struggling and
scuffling began again, subdued, this time, and respectful. Rowcliffe
went out to help.
Mrs. Gale on the landing went on talking to herself. "They sud 'ave
browt trestles oop first. There's naw place to stond un in. Eh dear!
It's job enoof gettin' un oop. What'll it be gettin' un down again
wit' 'E layin' in un? 'Ere--yo get oonder un, Jimmy, and 'eave un
oop."
Jim crouched and went backward down the stair under the coffin. His
flushed face, with its mournful, mystic eyes, looked out at Rowcliffe
for a moment under the coffin head. Then, with a heave of his great
back and pushing with his powerful arms against the wall and stair
rail, he loosened the shoulders of the coffin and bore it, steadied by
Rowcliffe and the men, up the stair and into the room.
They set it on its feet beside the bed, propped against the wall. And
Jim Greatorex stood and stared at it.
Rowcliffe went down into the kitchen, followed by Mrs. Gale.
"What d'yo think o' Jimmy, Dr. Rawcliffe?"
"He oughtn't to be left alone. Isn't there any sister or anybody who
could come to him?"
"Naw; 'e's got naw sisters, Jimmy 'assn't."
"Well, you must get him to lie down and eat."
"Get 'im? Yo can do nowt wi' Jimmy. 'E'll goa 'is own road. 'Is
feyther an' 'e they wuss always quar'ling, yo med say. Yet when t' owd
gentleman was taaken bad, Jimmy, 'e couldn' do too mooch for 'im. 'E
was set on pullin' 's feyther round. And when 'e found 'e couldn't
keep t' owd gentleman, 'e gets it on 'is mind like--broodin'. And 'e's
got nowt to coomfort 'im."
She sat down to it now.
"Yo see, Dr. Rawcliffe, Jim's feyther and 'is granfeyther before 'im,
they wuss good Wesleyans. It's in t' blood. But Jim's moother that
died, she wuss Choorch. And that slip of a laass, when John Greatorex
coom courtin', she turned 'im. 'E was that soft wi' laasses. 'Er
feyther 'e was steward to lord o' t' Manor and 'e was Choorch and all
t' family saame as t' folk oop at Manor. Yo med say, Jim Greatorex,
'e's got naw religion. Neither Choorch nor Chapel 'e is. Nowt to
coomfort 'im."
Upstairs the scuffling and the struggling became frightful. Jim's feet
and Jim's voice were heard above the muttering of the undertaker's
men.
Mrs. Gale whispered. "They're gettin' 'im in. 'E's gien a haand wi' t'
body. Thot's soomthin'."
She brooded ponderously. A sound of stamping and scraping at the back
door roused her.
"Eh--oo's there now?" she asked irritably.
Willie, the farm lad, appeared on the threshold. His face was flushed
and scared.
"Where's Jim?" he said in a thick voice.
"Ooosh-sh! Doan't yo' knaw t' coffin's coom? 'E's oopstairs w' t' owd
maaster."
"Well--'e mun coom down. T' mare's taaken baad again in 'er insi-ide."
"T' mare, Daasy?"
"Yes."
"Eh dear, there's naw end to trooble. Yo go oop and fatch Jimmy."
Willie hesitated. His flush deepened.
"I daarss'nt," he whispered hoarsely.
"Poor laad, 'e 's freetened o' t' body," she explained. "Yo stay
there, Wullie. I'll goa. T' body's nowt to me. I've seen too many o'
they," she muttered as she went.
They heard her crying excitedly overhead. "Jimmy! Yo coom to t'
ma-are! Yo coom to t' ma-are!"
The sounds in the room ceased instantly. Jim Greatorex, alert and in
violent possession of all his faculties, dashed down the stairs and
out into the yard.
Rowcliffe followed into the darkness where his horse and trap stood
waiting for him.
* * * * *
He was lighting his lamps when Jim Greatorex appeared beside him with
a lantern.
"Dr. Rawcliffe, will yo joost coom an' taak a look at lil maare?"
Jim's sullenness was gone. His voice revealed him humble and
profoundly agitated.
Rowcliffe sighed, smiled, pulled himself together and turned with
Greatorex into the stable.
In the sodden straw of her stall, Daisy, the mare, lay, heaving and
snorting after her agony. From time to time she turned her head
toward her tense and swollen flank, seeking with eyes of anguish the
mysterious source of pain. The feed of oats with which Willie had
tried to tempt her lay untouched in the skip beside her head.
"I give 'er they oats an hour ago," said Willie. "An' she 'assn't so
mooch as nosed 'em."
"Nawbody but a donmed gawpie would have doon thot with 'er stoomach
raw. Yo med 'ave killed t' mare."
Willie, appalled by his own deed and depressed, stooped down and
fondled the mare's face, to show that it was not affection that he
lacked.
"Heer--clear out o' thot and let doctor have a look in."
Willie slunk aside as Rowcliffe knelt with Greatorex in the straw and
examined the sick mare.
"Can yo tell at all what's amiss, doctor?"
"Colic, I should say. Has the vet seen her?"
"Ye-es. He sent oop soomthing--"
"Well, have you given it her?"