Sorrell and Son (Alfred A. Knopf, printing 9)/Chapter 36

by George Warwick Deeping

XXXVI

1

SOME days seem made for tragedy, and on that bleak January morning when Hulks brought a telegram to Sorrell's office, and Sorrell read it and then sat looking at the rocking and complaining trees, he was conscious of fear. The telegram had been sent by Simon Orange from a post office in Berner's Street at half-past nine that morning.

"Your son ill. Come at once."

Sorrell caught the twelve o'clock train from Winstonbury, and with his eyes watching the grey country cowering under the bluster of the wind, he too felt his spirit cowering under the menace of fortuitous happenings. From the very first his intuition had reached out towards something that was to be feared. He had felt it in his soul's marrow, nor was there any comfort in the thought that Orange was no alarmist.

His taxi broke down in the Marylebone Road, and he left it, and carrying the suitcase into which he had tumbled a few things, he walked the rest of the way. And what a pinched world it was, blue of nose, and hurrying and fretful. The faces that passed him seemed to suggest that nothing good could happen. Fear and insecurity, and a helpless muffling of body and spirit against wind and circumstance. Sorrell hurried, but when he came to the door of No. 107 he found that he was afraid of that door. He looked at the brass plate with his son's name upon it, and was absurdly reminded of a name as a coffin. He pushed the bell, and rallied himself against panic. What was the use of panic? A man could receive a telegram and not tumble into emotional forebodings.

When the door was opened he entered with an air of confident briskness.

"What's this,—'flu or something?"

The woman in black looked cold and worried.

"Mr. Sorrell is not here, sir."

"O, but I had a wire."

"He is at the hospital."

"Then he can't be——"

"In a private ward, sir."

She saw the rimmed whiteness of Sorrell's eyes. For the moment he was unable to speak.

"At St Martha's?"

"Yes, sir."

She was astonished by his sudden fierceness.

"What is it,—what's all the fuss about?"

"Mr. Sorrell cut himself at an operation, sir. I don't understand—quite. Only two or three days ago——"

She stood watching his vanishing back, for he had turned and walked out of the house with that same strange suggestion of rage, lips pale, nose sharp and pinched, eyes brittle. She had seen fear before, but not that sort of fear, and she did not recognize it. She realized that he had one off, lugging the suitcase along with him.

"Poor gentleman. One of the worrying sort."

As though a man was not justified in worrying when the labour of half a lifetime was in danger of slipping into the sea! For Sorrell had begun to feel so secure; he had founded his edifice so carefully, and watched it grow while he himself had grown old in contemplating its completion. So Kit had cut himself at an operation? A mere nick of the knife. But what—exactly—did it mean? Why all this panic, and a private ward, and the queer look in that woman's eyes? The mere nick of a knife! But Orange had wired——

At the hospital the porter said to him with that bland, English gentleness—"Hadn't you better leave that suitcase with me, sir!"

Suitcase! He had been quite unconscious of the fact that his concentrated grip had made the thing a part of himself,—and let the porter take it from him.

"Yes,—I suppose so. Mr. Orange wired to me——"

"I know all about it, sir."

"My son——"

"Yes, sir. Mr. Orange left instructions; he is upstairs, sir. If you will come with me."

From the warmth of a corridor they passed into the bleakness of the hospital garden where the plane trees complained above the dingy asphalted paths. A grim and sooty rockery built of old bricks and clinker seemed to contain the corpses of a few miserable ferns. The porter, pushing open the swing-door of a red brick building, and catching sight of a nurse, called to her. "Mr. Sorrell's here. Tell Mr. Orange." But Orange was waiting. He appeared at the doorway of the sister's room half-way down the corridor, and beckoned, and to Sorrell he had the look of a man who had been fighting with his back to the wall.

"Come in here."

He closed the door, and stood with his big head hanging forward.

"Sorry; it is rather bad."

He did not look at Sorrell, who stood with a rather vacant and helpless air in the middle of the little room.

"Quick as you can. I may as well know."

"One of these septic cases. Kit was operating, and cut his left hand through the glove; scarcely noticed it—I dare say. A virulent bug. Cellulitis, left hand and arm. We have operated twice. Kennard and Sir Ormsby want the arm off at the shoulder."

Sorrell rocked slightly on his heels. He made a little sibilant sound as though he had drawn his breath in sharply.

"Left arm?"

"Yes. Seems to be the one chance of saving him, if it's done at once. What is called blood poisoning—colloquially—you know. Kit won't have it."

"No."

"Says he would rather go under than be a one-armed cripple,—career gone."

He looked up at Sorrell questioningly from under the dark briskness of his eyebrows.

"What do you think?"

Sorrell was the colour of linen, his face old and plaintive and grim.

"You mean—it is the only chance?"

"Afraid so."

"It might not be certain—even if——?"

"No."

"Can I see him?"

"He wants to see you."

"Good," said Sorrell, looking as he had looked sometimes during the war, and not knowing that he faced a forlorn hope with the eyes of death.

It was the simplest of meetings, so quiet and in its way so brave. Kit's face was both earthy and flushed. His left arm was a mass of dressings. Sorrell sat by the bed with a face that twitched very slightly, and eyes that hid their fear.

"My own fault, pater."

"O, no one's fault——."

"But—I want you to say——. Don't you agree? I'd rather go under fighting—than come out crippled."

Sorrell sat for a moment with his head in his hands.

"Life's good," he said.

"But one's job? Half a life."

"Let's take it fighting," said his father; "all or nothing."

He sat and held Kit's hand. He felt bewildered, and yet holding to some grim ideal, scared and sick and cold but obdurate. Almost he could remember the cold and clammy feel of a trench wall, with the sandbags close to his face. And death going over, and his feet numb, and his belly full of emptiness.

Then he understood that Kit wanted to say something.

"Pater, dear old pater——."

Sorrell's head jerked stiffly.

"I should like to see her. Would you——?"

"I'll go and find her."

2

"O, my dear, haven't you heard?"

Molly had come into Cherry's red and black room, as though life can be triumphant even when your enemy is only the weather. That rich, white skin of hers defied the cold, and her eyes glimmered with the wind. She wore black, a long coat with a collar of some mouse coloured fur. She had stood by the fire, throwing back the cloak like a sheath, hair and eyes gleaming.

"What? Not measles in the nursery?"

"No, Kit; he is dying. O, the poor father!"

There was a stillness. Molly had a hand on the black oak mantelshelf and a foot on the brass curb. Her eyes turned suddenly upon Cherry.

"What do you mean? I have been out of town. I only came back this morning."

"Kit cut himself operating on some wretched case. It is his arm,—blood poisoning. They still have hopes if his arm could be amputated, but Kit won't have it——"

She got up and walked quickly to the bay window.

"The father has been here. Oh,—if you had seen his poor face! He has been trying to find you."

Still that white silence upon the face of Molly Pentreath.

"All frozen, and a kind of burning fire behind it. O, my dear, isn't life cruel! After all these years of devotion. I don't believe a man ever loved his son as Sorrell——. And then—just when success had come, and pride in it——"

Molly's lips moved.

"He wants me,—to see me!"

"Yes,"

Her whole body seemed to become swift and purposeful. She refastened her coat as she went towards the door.

"Where is he?"

"At St. Martha's. His father was here an hour ago. He has gone to your flat. Tom went to the 'club.' Wait,—there's the bell."

Molly had opened the door. She stood there waiting, listening to two voices. She turned her head and spoke to Cherry.

"It is—the father. He is coming up. Do you mind——?"

Cherry slipped past her and up the stairs, and Molly went back to the fireplace. She was drawing on a pair of fur-lined gloves when Kit's father came into the room.

It was she who spoke first.

"Have you a taxi?"

He nodded, and sat down suddenly in a chair near the door. He looked ghastly, and his distress was a wind that went to the core of her. She saw his head go down into his hands; he was faint.

She went quickly towards him, and standing by the chair, let her hand rest on his shoulder.

"Keep still a moment,—and your head down. I heard only five minutes ago."

She felt him trembling, and her eyelids and lips quivered, but when she spoke her voice was very steady.

"I'm different—now. We will go to him as soon as you feel ready. There must be some hope."

Sorrell's figure straightened. There was an almost childish pleading in his eyes.

"He won't give up his arm."

"And you——?"

"I?—— Oh,—I said the same. I don't think I knew——. But if there is a chance——."

She stood there, with deep eyes looking down into the heart of life, her hand still upon his shoulder.

"Does Kit want to live? But—of course. And the arm——. We want him to live. If it matters so much to you—and to me——."

Sorrell looked upwards at her white and urgent face.

"To you——?"

"Yes. If I can help, O—yes—everything. I'll give everything. Let's go. Do you feel able?"

He rose; she slipped her hand under his arm, and her strong young body made his stooping figure look very old. But her strength was gentle. If she bent towards him compassionately it was towards a splendid veteran.

3

What two people say or do not say at such a moment in their lives is written in the sealed books of the gods. A few disjointed words, a meeting of the hands, a stripping off of all pretence, a throwing of every little personal bauble into the great furnace. So, Molly Pentreath came out from Christopher Sorrell's room with a shine upon her face, the woman eternally surrendering, and becoming sacred by reason of her surrender.

She met the group of men, Sorrell, old Gaunt, Kennard, Orange, and one or two more. Their eyes waited upon her. She had gone in to persuade a man to lose his arm and live, or take his last chance of living. She came out to them with wet and shining eyes that smiled.

"He wishes to keep his arm. I think he is right."

No one said a word, but old Gaunt seemed to toss his head like a restive war-horse, and Orange stared at the wall as though he were looking through it into some other world. Only—Sorrell the father made a sound, a sort of sound as of something breaking in him. And instantly she was with him, slipping her arm through his, and pressing it firmly.

In the taxi she sat very erect, holding his hand, and looking out of the window.

"I think he was right. To you it must seem such wanton and cruel waste. But—I still hope."

Sorrell had passed beyond hope. He was feeling as old as sorrow, a fatalist, and her hope seemed to him a mere flutter of helpless wings.

"They—don't hold out any hope."

"Those wise men! But Kit wants to live."

She smiled at the passing show in the fretful streets, and if there was any radiance left in life she had brought it with her from that bedside. Sorrell's lamp was out. He sat in that inward darkness, thinking of yesterday as some impossibly serene and very distant past.

It was she who paid for the taxi, and in Kit's empty dining-room she took off her hat and laid it on the sideboard.

"I am staying here. I can sleep on a sofa."

"No need for that," he said dully; "they can fix you up a bed. I'm glad you are staying."

He wandered about the room, looking at the furniture and the china and the pictures, and her next glimpse of his face warned her that a mood of mockery had been forced upon him.

"All this——! I collected every piece. Like the war, being blown to bits—for next to nothing."

"O, no," she said; "things do matter."

His wide eyes remained fixed upon hers. She puzzled him, the change in her, this flippant and brilliant thing grown suddenly deep and compassionate. The whole quality of her was different. Before she had made him think of a clean, cold, audacious dawn, with a little frost in the air. But now——! Even her voice had a new meaning.

"I suppose you have had nothing to eat?"

"I'd forgotten——"

She rang the bell. The whole house seemed to be in her hands.

"O, can you manage some lunch? Mr. Sorrell has had nothing."

The woman in black disappeared, and lunch was forthcoming. She ate in order to make him eat, and at the end of the meal she continued her persuasion.

"Go and lie down,—or read. I am going round again to the hospital. No need for you to have to face that door."

His eyes lit up for a moment.

"How you understand! I'm getting a bit old. I haven't the nerve I used to have."

"That's not quite true," she said gently; "you had the courage to go out for all or nothing. I'm going now."

She bent down and kissed his forehead.

"I'm willing—hard, willing—and feeling. I am one of those who believes that it helps."

4

Molly returned after dark. It was raining now, and she had walked in the wind and the rain, and her face was wet with a little glistening moisture. Yes, a face of the trenches, of war, of a set and bitter courage, so Sorrell thought, but there was a gleam too of something else.

She found him hunched over the fire as though the very marrow of him was cold. Yes, she had been with Kit, not talking, but sitting with him and holding his hand.

"The temperature is down a little."

"What do they say?"

"Not much. But Kit is fighting, and fighting hard. Have you had any tea?"

No, Sorrell had not had tea. He got up mechanically and rang the bell, and when the woman in black answered it he appeared to have forgotten what he had rung for. He was staring at the fire.

The two women exchanged looks.

"Can you manage some tea!"

"Of course, Miss."

The woman in black had placed Molly by a photograph that stood on Mr. Christopher Sorrell's desk. A stolen photograph—too.

"Mr. Sorrell is just a little better."

"I'm very glad to hear it, Miss."

When the door had closed she found Stephen Sorrell's eyes fixed upon her.

"Did you mean that,—what you said?"

She gave him a grave movement of the head.

"Two of us pulling,—you and I. He understands."

And then she went close to him with the air of invoking a comrade.

"You don't grudge me that, do you? I—should never take him away from you."

"My dear," he said, putting out his hand; "if he lives, I want his job to live. That—and a comrade—make a man's happiness."

5

She came to the door of No. 107 in the grey of a winter dawn. The very pallor of her tired face seemed to be triumphing over the mere weariness of the flesh. She had a latchkey with her, and with steady and untrembling hand she slipped it into the keyhole. Someone was scrubbing the floor. She went past the inquisitive yet crouching figure into the dining-room where Sorrell was sitting in front of the fire. He was asleep, his head sagging forward, his hands on the arms of the chair.

She stood near and looked down at him with a little smile of compassion, and with some of her old mischief trembling in the corners of her mouth. The old gladiator, white headed, overcome by sleep and by the suspense of waiting! She could picture his head rising with a jerk, and his eyes challenging hers. Ave, Cæsar——!

She touched his shoulder.

He came to life, just as she had pictured it, with a jerk of the head, and a deep, harsh drawn breath. His eyes were both hard and eager.

"Well——?"

"Six hours' sleep."

"I?"

"No,—Kit. The temperature normal; the arm half its size."

Sorrell staggered up out of the chair.

"My God!" he said; "then, the arm and everything?"

She nodded.

"I left that Orange man with an awful beard on, grinning like an ecstatic ape. O,—my dear——!"

She had to catch him, and help him back into the chair.

"I'm getting old," he said; "my God,—I'm getting old."