Part 51 (1/2)
Christopher concluded his simple and direct account with these words, and waited vainly for a reply from his hearer, who stood by the window with his back to him.
”It's so nearly a thing of the past, too, that it hardly seemed worth mentioning,” he went on presently, an uneasy wonder at the silence growing on him.
At length Geoffry spoke, in a thick, slow way, like a man groping in darkness.
”You mean she did throw that stone deliberately, meaning to hit me?”
He had no sight at present for the wider issues that beset them or for Patricia's story: his attention was concentrated on the incident immediately affecting him and he could see it in no light but that of dull horror.
”Deliberately tried to do it?” he repeated, turning to Christopher.
”There wasn't anything deliberate about it. She just flung the stone at you precisely as you flung one at the rabbit. Sort of blind instinct. She does not know now she really hurt you.”
He glanced at the crossing strips of plaster with which the other's head was adorned on the right side.
”It's horrible,” muttered Geoffry, ”I can't understand it.”
”It's simple enough.” There was growing impatience in Christopher's voice. ”She inherits this ghastly temper as I've told you. It's like a sudden gust of wind if she's not warned. It takes her off her feet, as it were, but she's nearly learnt to stand firm. She has a wretched time after.”
”It's madness.”
”It's nothing of the kind. She wasn't taught to control it as a child.
They just treated it as something she couldn't help.”
”By heavens, are you going to make out she can help it, and that that makes it better?”
Christopher faced him with amazed indignation. Geoffry's whole att.i.tude and reception of his story seemed to him incredibly one-sided.
”Of course it's better. A hundred times better. Do you mean you'd rather have her the victim of a real madness she could not control?
Think what you are saying, man.”
”To me, it's fairly unbearable if it's something she can help and doesn't.”
Exasperation nearly choked the other. To have to defend Patricia at all was almost a desecration in his eyes, but he was her amba.s.sador and he stuck to his orders.
”She does help it. She's nearly mastered it now.”
Geoffry put his hand to his injured head and gave a short laugh.
Christopher got up abruptly.
”What am I to tell her, then?” he demanded shortly.
The real tenor of the discussion seemed to break suddenly upon Geoffry and he was cruelly alive to his own inability to meet it. He spoke hurriedly and almost pleadingly.
”Don't go yet. I've got to think this out. Can't you help me?”
”What's there to think about? I've told you. I can tell you how to help her if you like.”