CHAPTER XXIV

“Daddy, my head, my head!”

“Lie quiet, little one. Hold her hands, Kate. Drink it all down, Gwen.”

“I can’t! Daddy, my head, oh, my head!”

Dr. John Tugler, standing before the nursery window, bit one corner of his mustache, and stared hard at the chimney of the steam-mill trailing a plume of smoke across the dull gray of the sky. The monotonous cooing of a dove came from a wooden cage hung in the back yard of the next-door house. A hundred yards away an iron railway bridge crossed the canal, and the thunder of each passing train made peace impossible in the little villa.

Dr. Tugler pulled down the blind.

“Beast of a back room,” he thought; “they must wring the neck of that confounded bird.”

He turned, and stood looking in silence at the two figures bending over the little bed. Catherine had one arm under the child’s head, and was smoothing back the hair from Gwen’s forehead. The child’s eyes were closed, her face flushed. Tugler saw her turn restlessly from her mother’s arm, as though the least touch was feverishly resented.

“Don’t, don’t—”

“There, dear, there!”

The look in the mother’s eyes betrayed how sharply such an innocent repulse could wound.

“Come, Gwen, darling.”

“I should let her rest, dear.”

Murchison’s voice was peculiarly quiet. He was standing at the foot of the bed, bending forward a little over the bar, his eyes fixed on the face of the child.

Dr. Tugler moved softly from the window. His habitual bluster had disappeared completely. His full blue eyes looked dull and puzzled.

“Not much of a room—this,” he said, apologetically, touching Murchison’s elbow.

The father turned and looked at him with the slow and almost stupid stare of a man suffering from shock.

“I suppose it isn’t.”

“We can move her to the front room.”

Catherine had caught John Tugler’s meaning. She was kneeling beside the bed, her eyes fixed on the little man’s plebeian but good-natured face.

“Move her, Mrs. Murchison.”

“At once?”

“Yes. She must be kept absolutely quiet; no light, no noise.”

Catherine looked at him almost helplessly. A train was clanging over the iron bridge, and the caged dove cooed irrepressibly, a living symbol of vexatious sentimentalism.

“There will be less noise in the front room.”

Her husband nodded.

“We can have straw put down.”

“And tell the next-door people to strangle that confounded pigeon.”

“I will ask them.”

“And remember, no light.”

A shrill cry came from the sick child’s lips, as though driven from her by some sudden flaring up of pain.

“My head, my head! Muvver—”

Catherine’s hands flashed out to Gwen, hovering, as though fearing to touch the fragile thing she loved. She tried to soothe the child, a woman whose wounded tenderness overflowed in a flood of broken and disjointed words. Her husband watched her, his firm mouth loosened into a mute and poignant tremor of distress.

Tugler touched him on the shoulder.

“Let’s go down.”

Murchison straightened, and followed the doctor to the door. He looked back for a moment, and saw Catherine’s head, a dull gleam of gold above the child’s flushed face. A strange shock of awe ran through him, like the deep in-drawing of a breath before some picture that tells of tears. His vision blurred as he closed the door, and followed John Tugler slowly down the stairs.

Both men were silent for a moment in the little front room of Clovelly. Tugler had taken his stand between the sofa and the table, and was watching Murchison out of the angles of his eyes. He was accustomed to dealing with ignorant people, but here he had to satisfy a man whose professional education had been far better than his own.

“Why didn’t you tell me of this before, Murchison?”

“Tell you what?”

“About the child.”

Murchison glanced at him blankly.

“Well, it was my own affair.”

“Didn’t like to bother any one, eh? You never ought to have kept the youngster in this beast of a town. I could have told you a lot about Wilton if you had asked.”

John Tugler, like many amiable but rather coarse-fibred people, was often most brusque when meaning to be kind. Moreover, he had a certain measure of authority to maintain, and for the maintenance of authority it was customary for him to wax aggressive.

“I tried to get the child away.”

Murchison spoke monotonously, yet with effort.

“We wrote to her grandmother, but the old lady was ill, and put us off with excuses. The child was only ailing then. It was a matter of money. The only money I could lay my hands on was a small sum deposited with the post-office in the child’s own name. And when I got the money—I saw that it would be no good.”

The florid little man looked sincerely vexed.

“You ought to have mentioned it,” he said—“you ought to have mentioned it. I’m not so damned stingy as not to give a brother practitioner’s child a chance.”

Murchison lifted his head.

“Thanks,” he said. “I suppose it is too late now?”

His eyes met Dr. Tugler’s. The grim question in that look demanded the sheer truth. John Tugler understood it, and met it like a man.

“We can’t move her now,” he said.

“No.”

It is incredible what meaning a single word can carry. With Murchison that “no” meant the surrender of a life.

Dr. Tugler stared out of the window, and rattled his keys.

“Did you notice the squint?” he asked, softly.

“Yes.”

“And the retraction of the head? She’s been sick, too: cerebral vomiting. Damn the disease, I’ve seen too much of it!”

Murchison’s face might have been sculptured by Michael Angelo.

“Then you think it is that?” he asked, dully.

“Tubercular meningitis?”

“Yes.”

John Tugler nodded.

There was a short and distraught silence before the little man picked up his hat. He smoothed it gently with the sleeve of his coat. Murchison stood motionless, staring at the floor.

“Look here, Murchison.”

He glanced up and met the other man’s dull eyes.

“You can’t work to-day. It doesn’t signify. And about the cash—”

“Thanks, but—”

“Now, now, we’re not going to quarrel, are we? The work’s been pretty thick this winter. I’m rather thinking you’ve done rather more than your share. It would make things more comfortable, now—wouldn’t it?”

Murchison gave a kind of groan.

“It’s good of you, Tugler.”

“Oh, bosh, man! Am I a bit of flint? Call it another pound a week. It isn’t much at that. I’ll send you a fiver on account.”

He gave his hat a last rub, crammed it on his head, and walked hurriedly towards the door.

“It’s good of you, Tugler. I—”

“All right. I don’t want it talked about.”

The little man was already in the hall, and fumbling for the handle of the front door. He opened it, slipped out like a guilty debtor, and crunched down the gravel, swearing to himself after the manner of the egregious male.