Читать книгу Gordon of the Lost Lagoon - Robert Watson - Страница 7

Table of Contents

And thus it was with me, Douglas Gordon, as it is with all else in this transitory existence: time sped on with its youthful joys, excitements and disappointments. The glorious summer days, with the golden sunshine thrown back in dazzling brilliance from the everlasting, snow-tipped panorama of mountains to the ever-moving, sparkling waters of the Inlet, became interwoven with days when the heavy sea-logs rolled in through The Narrows and obliterated the beauties of the harbor, spreading their chilling forecast of winter, but leavening it with reminders of the days just gone with a few hours every afternoon of bright, Indian-summer sunshine, bracing and buoyant but all too short, for night harried day and winter pushed summer in relentless procession: when the long days and nights of rain; incessant, searching, chilling rain that hit the streets and splashed up again, thus getting one two ways; rain that no garment could for long resist, seeping and wind-blown; rain that made the traveler hasten on his journey, that cleared the streets of all humanity save those who could not be elsewhere, that overflowed the eaves-troughing and poured in a cataract from the roofs of the houses and buildings; rain rushing in torrents along the street gutters until they swelled and refused to swallow more, spreading over the street surface like a coating of fresh, liquid tar that mirrored the night-lights and the passing vehicles; rain that crammed the street cars with steaming, soaked humanity and chilled the marrow of the corner newsboy, causing him to count and recount his unsold and slowly dwindling bundle of papers under his arm; rain that sent the shuffling Chinaman into a jog-trot that was neither a walk nor a run and caused him to push his hands farther up his wide sleeves as he hurried along close to the shelter of the high buildings; skidding automobiles, shivering, homeless dogs and people cowering in alleyways; immovable, stoical, rubber-clad traffic-policemen—these, and all that go with them, passed in the procession of the seasons.

The cheerless, chilling wet of a November afternoon was sending me trotting homeward from school. I had no desire to loiter by the way. The rain ran in streams down my clothes. I was bumped and I in turn bumped into people who were sheltering behind downward-held umbrellas, all intent on nothing but getting to their respective destinations in the shortest possible time.

I ran up on the back veranda of our house and into the kitchen by the back door, shaking myself like a wet spaniel and shouting a cheery salutation.

"Hullo, mother! Gee, but it's wet out!"

The usual cheery answer did not come back to me. I hurried into the dining-room. There was no one there. The parlor, the bedrooms—all were empty.

I went back to the kitchen and changed my wet clothes, fancying that my mother had gone on some errand and would be back shortly.

An hour later a heavy tread up the back stairway told me of the arrival of Sam.

"Where's mother?" I asked, as soon as Sam showed his face indoors.

A glance at him and I noticed that he was unusually solemn. Not only that, but he was sober. Something in his look sent a chill of dread through me. He sat down dejectedly.

"What's the matter with mother?" I asked, going over.

"Dougie," he answered, gazing stupidly at the floor, "mother is very sick. She took bad after you left for school this afternoon and they sent to the sheds for me. The doctor hurried her away to the hospital. He says she's pretty bad, sonny."

And as Sam said it, my heart stood still.

"If I went up to-night, could I see her, Sam?" I asked at last.

"No,—they wouldn't let you in. We'll know better to-morrow how it is going to be with her, for they are trying to fix her up."

"Don't you cry, sonny," he continued, although he was unable to restrain the tears that rose to his own eyes. "She says not to worry, for she'll be all right soon."

But Sam Berry could not rid his voice of the hopeless tone. "She says you and me's to get our supper for ourselves and stay in and go to bed early. She wants you not to forget her when you say your prayers. She sent a kiss to you, Dougie, and asks you to be as good as you can."

Sam gulped. "She never asked me to be good. I guess she thought it was useless asking that."

I put my arm round his neck and tried to comfort him, but it was little that I could do, for this was something new in my own understanding. I had been too young to feel any earlier troubles that might have beset me.

I went to bed early, and I had been sleeping a long time when a noise woke me. The light was still burning in the kitchen. Sam had not gone to bed. He was sitting there in the chair with his head in his hands. I slipped out of bed and went to him. Tears were running through his fingers. I tried once more to comfort him, but only cried myself in unison. Helpless and forlorn both of us were, as most men are when, even if only temporarily, they lose their womankind in the home.

"She never asked me to be good, Dougie,—she never asked me to be good," Sam harped. "She knew it would be wasting words."

At last, with my continued coaxing, we huddled into bed together and slept till morning.

Sam had to hurry down to the dock, for his favorite "Green Funnel" liner was unloading. He had already lost time. He told me to go to school and take a lunch with me. He would take a lunch with him too, then, after tea time, he would take a run up to find out how the invalid was getting along.

But after Sam left I thought for a while. I had no desire for school. I fed my dog, Bones, then he and I set out all the way, in the pitiless torrent of rain—which had not ceased for two days—up Main Street, across the False Creek bridge, still on to the suburban part of the town, then off at right angles in the Fairview direction where I knew the great city-like building called the hospital was located.

I was terribly afraid of that hospital. I still am. Prisons, asylums, reformatories, morgues and hospitals were all in the same category with me then. Like policemen, judges, lawyers and dentists, I felt that doctors were good people to keep away from if possible. They overawed me and seemed to be a premonition of worse to follow.

The rain soon soaked me through and streamed from my forehead down over my face. Bones trailed along after me, his nose just touching my heels at every step and the water dripping from the end of his stumpy tail, presenting a picture of woe-begone dejection.

At last I entered the courtyard and stood aside in a state of indecision. An ambulance raced up to the main entrance. Two men, dressed in white, came out from swing doors, apparently without being signalled for. The men in the ambulance opened up the vehicle and brought out a stretcher containing a workman all bandaged and broken and bloody. The man groaned and swore in his agony. The swing doors closed again and the ambulance drove silently away, leaving me outside, alone again, shivering in the rain.

A kindly-faced man came out from the swing doors. As he turned up his collar, buttoned up his coat and opened up his umbrella, he noticed me.

"Did you wish to see anybody, sonny?" he asked.

"Yes!—my mother is in there. I would like to see her, please."

"Then you go right in to the office and ask them there. Just go right in."

The kindly-faced man hurried off. People came and went. Cars drove up noiselessly and as silently rolled away. But it was a long time before my courage was equal to permitting me to venture inside.

With a word of admonition, I left Bones and entered. Slowly I approached a counter and stood by while several people came up and were attended to.

"What would you like, boy?" at last asked a man behind the counter.

"I would like to see my mother. She is in here."

"What's her name?"

"Mrs. Berry, sir."

The man looked over a card-index.

"I'm sorry, but you can't see her to-day. It won't be possible to see her for several days."

I felt that strange, creepy, cold sensation of fear running in my stomach again.

The man turned away to attend to others, but I still stood by.

A nurse standing near came over to me. There was a real touch of the mother in her—she understood me.

"Do you wish to see her so very much as that? She is very, very sick, you know; and it might not be good for her to see anybody. Are you Douglas?"

"Yes!" I answered, brightening that she should know my name.

"Your mother was talking about you when she was coming out of the ether. She has been talking about you every now and again since. She loves you very much, Douglas. Now, I'll tell her that you called, if you run along to school like a good boy. She wouldn't like you to miss your school. Come back in two days and maybe we shall be able to let you see her then for a minute or two."

I had no notion what "coming out of the ether" meant, but I surmised that it was something very dreadful and dangerous. The nurse went with me to the swing doors and let me out with a smile.

But I did not go to school. All day long I lingered about, now so wet that I was past feeling the rain's discomfort.

I had never known before there was so much sickness in the world. Everybody seemed to have something wrong somewhere. People were driven up to the hospital in dozens; drawn, haggard, huddled; some violent, others deathly quiet; and people were driven away from it with the same deathly pallor and the same fragile-looking frames.

And my conception of God altered that day. My confidence in Him was shaken. It was in fear and trembling that my mind formed the words of a prayer for my mother, for I was not then old enough or sufficiently read to know that the good, all-loving God, who created all and pronounced it good, did not send sickness any more than He sent sin.

When it was beginning to grow dark, the nurse who had spoken to me at the desk came out. She saw me at once.

"Goodness, child!" she exclaimed, "are you still here?"

I did not answer.

"Have you been here all this time?"

"Yes, miss!"

"Haven't you had anything to eat?"

"I'm not hungry, miss. I just would like to see my mother, please. I won't speak, if you tell me not to, but I just would like to see her."

My childish appeal touched her tender heart. She put her arm round my shoulder and hurried me inside, and evidently she had more than the usual authority.

"Mr. Small," she said to the man behind the counter, "please have Johnson take this child's clothes off and have them dried. He is wet to the skin and has been in this condition all day. Give him something hot to eat. He is the son of the patient, Mrs. Berry. She has been calling for the kiddie all day. I packed him off this morning and I did not know that he had been standing there outside all this time. Doctor Sanderson said this afternoon that it would be well to indulge Mrs. Berry all she wants. Send the kiddie up to her for a few minutes after he is fed and dry.

"I must hurry off, but you'll do that like a good fellow, won't you, Mr. Small?"

The matron's smile was evidently irresistible.

In half an hour my clothes were dry and on again. I was fed, and in my pocket I had a slice of bread hidden away for the faithful Bones waiting outside. I was aglow with joy and excitement for I was being ushered along long corridors to see my mother.

"May I talk to her?" I asked of the nurse, remembering my promise to the matron.

"Oh, yes!—a little bit, but not too much."

It was a big room they led me into, curtained off in sections.

The nurse set aside a curtain and I was before my mother's bed.

I gasped, and that sickly fear got hold of me again, for her eyes were closed and her face was deathly pale.

"Mrs. Berry—your boy Douglas is here to see you. And he mustn't stay more than ten minutes."

At the mention of my name, her eyes opened and her face lit up with a tender smile. I stood by her bed, looking earnestly at her for a moment, then tears sprang into my eyes. She had never looked like this before and she was so changed. I sobbed till my heart ached, then I stifled my sobs, for I knew I had so little time.

Softly a white, blue-veined hand crept over the sheet and on to my head. The hand stroked my hair gently.

"Don't you cry, my own Douglas," came a far-away whisper. "Don't fret, laddie. I'm quite well, and nothing hurts me now except the fear for you and Sam. It's the fear that hurts always; and, after all, fear is just a big bugaboo.

"I'm not going to ask you to make promises to me, sonny. Just try to be as good as you can. Stay at school as long as you can. Help Sam, but never take him as your example."

She stopped and closed her eyes for a little, and I became too afraid to move. Then she went on.

"When you feel like doing anything shabby or mean, remember, sonny, your mother was a lady and your father, although he had to leave you, was a gentleman. I meant to tell you all I knew and I have always put it off thinking there would be lots of time, but now it is nearly too late."

Her breathing was difficult. "Will you try to remember all I tell you now, Douglas?"

With my cheek against hers, I whispered, "Yes."

"Your mother died when you were born. She was a very handsome lady and had run away with your father from over the water somewhere. His name I believe is the name I have always insisted on you keeping—Gordon. When your mother died so suddenly, your father was heart-broken, but he was called away. He gave you in the keeping of a woman I knew, and he left quite a lot of money to pay for you till he should send for you. And that was the last the woman ever heard of your father. Her husband put the money in stock of some kind and lost it all. Then he took some trouble in his eyes and went blind. The woman fell sick and, when I knew she was dying, I asked her to let me have you to care for, for I had none of my own. She said, 'Yes' and I have had you ever since.

"And we've got on so well haven't we, Douglas?

"You may hear from your father some day and, again, you may never hear, because he may be with your mother, but—never forget—your mother was a beautiful, refined lady, and never do anything that would have made her ashamed of you.

"If ever you do meet your father, you want to be able to say to him, 'I fought my own battles, and I fought them clean.'

"Don't think unkindly of him because he appears to have neglected you. Maybe he could not help it. He may have tried to find you and failed, having left no address behind him and Mrs. Rayburn, your first guardian, having moved from town to town before I made her acquaintance in the West here. She had had you four years when she told me your story.

"Don't bear your father a grudge, Douglas."

She rested again and her breath came fast. But she recovered quickly and continued.

"Remember the envelope in the trunk—it is yours. Give it to some banker to keep for you. A good banker will do that much and not charge you.

"I can't speak very well now, sonny. Just lay your head there beside mine and we'll stay quiet."

And when the nurse returned, she found us that way.

"You must come now," she said kindly. "You've been here a long time and your mother is very, very tired."

I kissed the woman who had been so good a mother to me, then I allowed myself to be led away. At the door of the ward, a strange impulse seized me, telling me that I would never see her again. With a sharp gulping cry—that hurts me yet when I think of it—I ran back, threw my arms about her and kissed her again and again.

And she patted my head and smiled through a mist of tears.