"Anne?"
"Yes."
"Jerrold, to think that Anne should be with him and me not."
"Well, she'll be all right. She can stand things."
"It's all very well for Anne. He isn't _her_ husband."
"You'd better go away, Mother."
"Not before you tell me how he is. Go in, Jerrold."
He knocked and went in.
His father was sitting up in his white, slender bed, raised on Eliot's
arm. He saw his face, strained and smoothed with exhaustion, sallow
white against the pillows, the back-drawn-mouth, the sharp, peaked nose,
the iron grey hair, pointed with sweat, sticking to the forehead. A face
of piteous, tired patience, waiting. He saw Eliot's face, close, close
beside it by the edge of the pillow, grave and sombre and intent.
Anne was crossing the room from the bed to the washstand. Her face was
very white but she had an air of great competence and composure. She
carried a white basin brimming with a reddish froth. He saw little red
specks splashed on the sleeve of her white linen gown. He shuddered.
Eliot made a sign to him and he went back to the door where his mother
waited.
"Is he better?" she whispered. "Can I come in?"
Jerrold shook his head. "Better not--yet."
"You'll send for me if--if--"
"Yes."
He heard her trailing away along the gallery. He went into the room. He
stood at the foot of the bed and stared, stared at his father lying
there in Eliot's arms. He would have liked to have been in Eliot's
place, close to him, close, holding him. As it was he could do nothing
but stand and look at him with that helpless, agonized stare. He _had_
to look at him, to look and look, punishing himself with sight for not
having seen.
His eyes felt hot and brittle; they kept on filling with tears, burned
themselves dry and filled again. His hand clutched the edge of the
footrail as if only so he could keep his stand there.
A stream of warm air came through the open windows. Everything in the
room stood still in it, unnaturally still, waiting. He was aware of the
pattern of the window curtains. Blue parrots perched on brown branches
among red flowers on a white ground; it all hung very straight and
still, waiting.
Anne looked at him and spoke. She was standing beside the bed now,
holding the clean basin and a towel, ready.
"Jerrold, you might go and get some more ice. It's in the bucket in the
bath-room. Break it up into little pieces, like that. You split it with
a needle."
He went to the bath-room, moving like a sleepwalker, wrapped in his
dream-like horror. He found the ice, he broke it into little pieces,
like that. He was very careful and conscientious about the size, and
grateful to Anne for giving him something to do. Then he went back again
and took up his station at the foot of the bed and waited. His father
still lay back on his pillow, propped by Eliot's arm. His hands were
folded on his chest above the bedclothes.