LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Yes,” I replied. “I am happy enough. I am living my life.”

      “Don’t you find it wearisome?” she asked pityingly.

      She made me tell her all my doings, and she marvelled, but all the time her eyes were dubious and pitiful.

      “You have George here,” I said.

      “Yes. He’s in a poor state, but he’s not as sick as he was.”

      “What about the delirium tremens?”

      “Oh, he was better of that — very nearly — before he came here. He sometimes fancies they’re coming on again, and he’s terrified. Isn’t it awful! And he’s brought it all on himself. Tom’s very good to him.”

      “There’s nothing the matter with him — physically, is there?” I asked.

      “I don’t know,” she replied, as she went to the oven to turn a pie that was baking. She put her arm to her forehead and brushed aside her hair, leaving a mark of flour on her nose. For a moment or two she remained kneeling on the fender, looking into the fire and thinking. “He was in a poor way when he came here, could eat nothing, sick every morning. I suppose it’s his liver. They all end like that.” She continued to wipe the large black plums and put them in the dish.

      “Hardening of the liver?” I asked. She nodded.

      “And is he in bed?” I asked again.

      “Yes,” she replied. “It’s as I say, if he’d get up and potter about a bit, he’d get over it. But he lies there skulking.”

      “And what time will he get up?” I insisted.

      “I don’t know. He may crawl down somewhere towards teatime. Do you want to see him? That’s what you came for, isn’t it?”

      She smiled at me with a little sarcasm, and added, “You always thought more of him than anybody, didn’t you? Ah, well, come up and see him.”

      I followed her up the back stairs, which led out of the kitchen, and which emerged straight in a bedroom. We crossed the hollow-sounding plaster-floor of this naked room and opened a door at the opposite side. George lay in bed watching us with apprehensive eyes.

      “Here is Cyril come to see you,” said Emily, “so I’ve brought him up, for I didn’t know when you’d be downstairs.”

      A small smile of relief came on his face, and he put out his hand from the bed. He lay with the disorderly clothes pulled up to his chin. His face was discoloured and rather bloated, his nose swollen.

      “Don’t you feel so well this morning?” asked Emily, softening with pity when she came into contact with his sickness.

      “Oh, all right,” he replied, wishing only to get rid of us.

      “You should try to get up a bit, it’s a beautiful morning, warm and soft —” she said gently. He did not reply, and she went downstairs.

      I looked round to the cold, whitewashed room, with its ceiling curving and sloping down the walls. It was sparsely furnished, and bare of even the slightest ornament. The only things of warm colour were the cow and horse skins on the floor. All the rest was white or grey or drab. On one side, the room sloped down so that the window was below my knees, and nearly touching the floor, on the other side was a larger window, breast high. Through it one could see the jumbled, ruddy roofs of the sheds and the skies. The tiles were shining with patches of vivid orange lichen. Beyond was the cornfield, and the men, small in the distance, lifting the sheaves on the cart.

      “You will come back to farming again, won’t you?” I asked him, turning to the bed. He smiled.

      “I don’t know,” he answered dully.

      “Would you rather I went downstairs?” I asked.

      “No, I’m glad to see you,” he replied, in the same uneasy fashion.

      “I’ve only just come back from France,” I said.

      “Ah!” he replied, indifferent.

      “I am sorry you’re ill,” I said.

      He stared unmovedly at the opposite wall. I went to the window and looked out. After some time, I compelled myself to say, in a casual manner:

      “Won’t you get up and come out a bit?”

      “I suppose I s’ll have to,” he said, gathering himself slowly together for the effort. He pushed himself up in bed.

      When he took off the jacket of his pyjamas to wash himself I turned away. His arms seemed thin, and he had bellied, and was bowed and unsightly. I remembered the morning we swam in the millpond. I remembered that he was now in the prime of his life. I looked at his bluish feeble hands as he laboriously washed himself. The soap once slipped from his fingers as he was picking it up, and fell, rattling the pot loudly. It startled us, and he seemed to grip the sides of the washstand to steady himself. Then he went on with his slow, painful toilet. As he combed his hair he looked at himself with dull eyes of shame.

      The men were coming in from the scullery when we got downstairs. Dinner was smoking on the table. I shook hands with Tom Renshaw, and with the old man’s hard, fierce left hand. Then I was introduced to Arthur Renshaw, a clean-faced, large, bashful lad of twenty. I nodded to the man, Jim, and to Jim’s wife, Annie. We all sat down to table.

      “Well, an’ ‘ow are ter feelin’ by now, like?” asked the old man heartily of George. Receiving no answer, he continued, “Tha should ‘a gor up an’ corn’ an’ gen us a ‘and wi’ th’ wheat, it ‘ud ‘a done thee good.”

      “You will have a bit of this mutton, won’t you?” Tom asked him, tapping the joint with the carving-knife. George shook his head.

      “It’s quite lean and tender,” he said gently.

      “No, thanks,” said George.

      “Gi’e ’im a bit, gi’e ’im a bit!” cried the old man. “It’ll do ’im good — it’s what ‘e wants, a bit o’ strengthenin’ nourishment.”

      “It’s no good if his stomach won’t have it.” said Tom, in mild reproof, as if he were sneaking of a child. Arthur filled George’s glass with beer without speaking. The two young men were full of kind, gentle attention.

      “Let ’im ‘a’e a spoonful o’ tonnup then,” persisted the old man. “I canna eat while ‘is plate stands there emp’y.”

      So they put turnip and onion sauce on George’s plate, and he took up his fork and tasted a few mouthfuls. The men ate largely, and with zest. The sight of their grand satisfaction, amounting almost to gusto, sickened him.

      When at last the old man laid down the dessert-spoon which he used in place of a knife and fork, he looked again at George’s plate, and said:

      “Why tha ‘asna aten a smite, not a smite! Tha non goos th’ raight road to be better.”

      George maintained a stupid silence.

      “Don’t bother him, Father,” said Emily.

      “Tha art an öwd whittle, Feythey,” added Tom, smiling good-naturedly. He spoke to his father in dialect, but to Emily in good English. Whatever she said had Tom’s immediate support. Before serving us with pie, Emily gave her brother junket and damsons, setting the plate and the spoon before him as if he were a child. For this act of grace Tom looked at her lovingly, and stroked her hand as she passed.

      After dinner, George said, with a miserable struggle for an indifferent tone:

      “Aren’t you going to give Cyril a glass of whisky?”

      He looked up furtively, in a conflict of shame and hope. A silence fell on the room.

      “Ay!” said the old man softly. “Let ’im ‘ave a drop.”

      “Yes!”

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