Читать книгу Blind Man's Year - Warwick Deeping - Страница 10

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She remembered feeling grateful to Will and Jane for taking the rescue out of her hands. The virtue had gone out of her for a moment, perhaps because Mary had said to her in the midst of the fog: “Oh, miss, look at your hand.” There was blood on her left hand. Had she noticed it before and forgotten it? She could not say. She had spread the blanket just clear of the wreckage, and stood listening to what sounded like the chattering of Mary’s teeth. How strong and capable those two old people were. She heard Will say, “He’s only a bit of a lad. I’ve got he. Take his legs, Mother.”

They were carrying him between them to the spread blanket. She was aware of an arm hanging and a hand trailing along the grass. She did not want to look at that clotted face, and instead she looked at old Will’s face. It made her think of one of those troubled and compassionate countenances in a “Descent from the Cross.” They were laying him on the blanket. She bent down, and lifting that trailing arm tucked it in close to the body.

Old Will’s blue eyes stared. He was breathing hard.

“Mary, you take t’corner there.”

She placed herself opposite Mary.

“I guess we can manage, miss.”

“Can you, Jane?”

“I can, miss.”

“We must lift all together.”

“Better skirt round t’hill, miss.”

“We mustn’t get lost, Will.”

“Guess I know how t’ground goes.”

The fog seemed to thicken about them, and half-way to the house she told them to rest. “Put him down gently.” She was aware of Mary turning her face away, and of old Will’s moustache grizzled with fog. They bent again to their work and, with the fall of the ground in their favour, the next carry brought them to the stone wall. Miss Gerard had remembered to leave the gate open and there was sufficient space between the pillars for them to squeeze through.

They came to the loggia and all four of them were panting.

“Where shall we put him, miss?”

Her long chair!

“Here, Will.”

With one hand she managed to toss rug and cushion aside.

“Come this side, Jane. That’s right.”

The thing was lying on her chair. For to all four of them it had the qualities of an inert body which they had laboured to bring in out of the fog. It was both human, tragically so, and yet vaguely alien and frightening, as is something that is dead to those who are alive. Old Will was mopping his forehead with his cap. His daughter, with thin fingers pressed against her face, stood to look and could not look away.

“I’m sure he’s dead, miss.”

Miss Gerard seemed to wince. She gave Jane a glance which said, “Get the girl away.” Jane’s hand was laid on Mary’s arm. “Come on, my girl. What you want is a cup of tea.” Admirable, pragmatical Jane! But Miss Gerard remembered that the doctor would be here at any moment and that the gates were locked. She told Will to go and open them. There were two cars which were privileged to drive up to the house: Margaret’s and Dr. Heberden’s, both of whom were healers.

She was alone with that thing on the long chair. Who was he, what was he? Someone might care terribly whether he was dead or alive. What had Mary said? She turned and made herself look, not at the poor smashed face, but at the buttons of his leather coat. Was he breathing; was there any movement? She fancied that there was. And then her eyes came to rest upon the hand of that obviously broken arm. She had laid it carefully across his chest. The hand interested her; the fingers were long and fine and delicate, and so was the texture of the skin. It was a sensitive hand, not the pragmatical paw of some cheerful young cad to whom life was all noise and stunting.

Then she heard the doctor’s car in the lane, and walked round the house to meet him. She had ceased to be shy of Tom Heberden, not merely because on sundry occasions she had been his patient, but because of the essential and sweet sanity of the man. He was big and brown and quiet, never flurried, rarely irritable, and he loved a garden as much as she did.

He got out of the car with a bag.

“Took longer than I thought. I had to crawl through the fog. Sorry you have had this tragedy.”

She said: “We managed to carry him in. He is lying on my long chair in the loggia. I’m afraid he is terribly hurt.”

He gave her an understanding glance.

“I see. What happened?”

“The fog. He was lost, I suppose, and flew into some trees on the hill.”

They were walking round the house together. There seemed to be nothing more for her to do or say. The tragedy was in Heberden’s hands, and probably he would prefer to have no interference.

“Shall I leave you alone? I shall be in the lower room.”

“I’ll call you.”

She entered into the house and sat down on the sofa near the window in the room she called her parlour. Silence and the fog. She heard a clock ticking. And then she remembered the dog. She had left him shut up in her working room. Poor Prince, but with all these strange happenings he would be safer in his kennel. She went up and brought the dog down, and handed him over to Jane in the kitchen.

“Take him to his kennel, Jane. The doctor’s here.”

“Yes, miss. Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Presently.”

Returning to the front of the house she heard the voice of Dr. Heberden calling her.

“Miss Gerard.”

“Yes, coming.”

She joined him in the loggia. He was standing looking down at the figure on the chair. The leather coat had been unbuttoned, the helmet removed. The lad had fair hair.

“Rather hopeless, I’m afraid.”

“Is he—?”

“Just alive; that’s all. Two ribs broken, as far as I can judge, and the arm. And his poor face. I imagine that a branch must have hit him in the face.”

She noticed that his bag lay unopened on the garden table. Was it as hopeless as that?

“I had better ring up an ambulance and get him down to Westbourn.”

“Yes.”

“I’m afraid he will die in the ambulance.”

She was conscious of a spasm of pity. She looked at Heberden and their eyes met.

“Why move him? Doesn’t it seem rather callous to send him away to die? I mean, wouldn’t it be more human if it happened here?”

“Quite. I agree. But I was thinking—”

“I’m not quite so complete an egoist. And perhaps there might be just a chance?”

Heberden’s eyes thanked her.

“I was feeling that way also. There is too much of the idea of rushing a carcase into a truck. But, you mean—?”

“Can’t we do just something? What someone might like done for him. Not just anonymous scavenging. We are three women here. There is a ground-floor room.”

He nodded at her.

“Thank you, Miss Gerard. There are certain human decencies, even to the dying.”

She turned to enter the house.

“We will bring a bed down. And will you be wanting things? I mean, you’ll try?”

Again he nodded at her.

“I’ll try to patch him up.”