Part 25 (1/2)
Not all the wool in the world, he thought, would be sufficient to drive the cold from his body. He fell into a temporary exhaustion of sleep; but was waked later by sharp and oppressive pains in his chest, deepening when he breathed. The suffering must be mastered, and he lay with gripping hands, striving by force of will to overcome what he thought of as the brutal play of small, sharp knives. He conquered, it seemed; the pain grew less; but it had left an increasing difficulty in his breathing; it was a labour to absorb sufficient air even for his small, aged demands. Sleep deserted him; and he waited through seeming years for the delayed appearance of dawn. He had hoped that the new day would be sunny, warm; it was overcast, he could see the snow drifted in the lower window panes.
Rudolph usually knocked at the door at half past eight; but, apparently, to-day he had forgot. Howat Penny's watch lay on the table, at his hand, yet it was far distant; he couldn't face the heavy effort of its inspection. At last the man came in with his even morning greeting.
Howat was so exhausted that he could make no reply; and Rudolph moved silently to the bedside. His expression, for an instant, was deeply concerned. ”I have a cold, or something of the sort,” the other said. He raised his head, but sank back, with a thin, audible inspiration. ”It would be best, sir, to have the doctor from Jaffa,” the servant suggested. Howat, in the midst of protest, closed his eyes; the pain had returned. When he had again defeated it Rudolph was gone.
The room blurred, lost its walls, became formless s.p.a.ce; out of which, to his pleasurable surprise, he saw the carefully garbed figure of Colonel Mapleson walking toward him. He never forgot that tea rose!
Confound him--probably another benefit for one of his indigent song birds. As Howat was about to speak the Colonel disappeared. It was Scalchi, in street dress, a yellow fur about her throat, warm, seductive. He had sent the divine Page the bouquet in paper lace. But she too vanished. He heard the strains of an orchestra; lingering he had missed the overture, and it might be the first duet--with Geister in superb voice. He was waiting for Mariana, that was it ... always late.
Then her hand was under his arm. But it was the doctor from Jaffa.
Rudolph was at the foot of the bed, and the two men moved aside, conversed impolitely in hushed tones. I'm sick, he thought lucidly. One word reached him--oxygen. It all melted away again, into a black lake with ghostly swans, a painted mouth and showering confetti; one of the supreme waltzes that Johann Strauss alone could compose. Later a woman in a folded linen cap was seated beside him, a chimera. But she laid cool fingers on his Wrist, held a brownish, distasteful mixture to his lips. A draught of egg nog was better, although it wasn't as persuasive as some he had had: Bundy Provost's, for example.
Bundy was a galliard youth, but he was clear as ice underneath. He wouldn't have let them put that thing over his, Howat's, face. He tried to turn aside, but a cap of darkness descended upon him. Afterward his breathing was easier. A blue iron tank was standing nearby, and the nurse was removing a rubber mask attached to a flexible tube. The latter led from a gla.s.s bottle, with a crystal pipe into the tank; the bottle held water; and the water was troubled with subsiding, clear bubbles.
More of the dark, unpleasant mixture, more egg nog. Why did they trouble and trouble him--already he was late getting to Irving Place.
The opera, as he had feared, had commenced; and it was at once strange and familiar. The chorus and orchestra were singing in a deep ground tone; the stage was set with a row of great, seething furnaces; glaring white bars of light cut through vaporous, yellow gases and showered steel sparks where coppery figures were labouring obscurely in a flaming heat that rolled out over the audience. There was a shrilling of violins, and then a deafening blare of bra.s.s, an appalling volume of sound pouring out like boiling metal.... But here was Rudolph; the performance was at an end; it was time to go home.
”I took the liberty of searching for--for Miss Jannan's address,” the other told him. Well, and why not! ”Mr. Provost and Mrs. Jannan are away for a week.” Howat hoped that Kingsfrere would not turn up with his flat face. He was conscious of smiling at a memory the exact shape of which escaped him--something humorous that had happened to the pasty youth. A refres.h.i.+ng air came in at the open windows, and he struggled for a full, satisfying breath. The relief of what he dimly recognized as oxygen followed. The nurse moved to the door and Mariana entered.
”Howat,” she exclaimed, sitting beside him, ”how silly of you! A cold now with winter done. The snow is running away. And these soda-watery tanks.” He felt a warmth communicated by her actual presence. ”It's just my breathing,” he told her; ”it gets stopped up. A d.a.m.ned nuisance! Did Honduras meet you?”
She a.s.sured him that she had been correctly received, and vanished to remove her hat. Mariana must not sit in here, with the windows open, he told the nurse; but then, he added, it was no good giving Mariana advice. She wouldn't listen to it, except to do the opposite. She came back, in one of her eternal knitted things, this one like a ripe banana, and sat in the nurse's place. There was a great deal he wanted to know, in a few minutes, when he felt less oppressed. The night came swiftly, lit by his familiar lamps; Rudolph moved about in the orderly disposition of fresh white laundry. A coat needed pressing. It would do to-morrow. The doctor hurt him with a little sc.r.a.ping stab at the bottom of his ear.
”Mariana,” he at last made the effort of speech, questioning: ”I have been bothered about your--your temporary arrangement. That Harriet, you know ... make trouble.”