Orientations

'That's right,' said Mrs Clinton; 'you get to bed and I'll bring you something 'ot. I expect you've got a bit of a chill and a good perspiration'll do you a world of good.'

She mixed bad whisky with harmless water, and stood over her husband while he patiently drank the boiling mixture. Then she piled a couple of extra blankets on him and went down stairs to have her usual nip, 'Scotch and cold,' before going to bed herself.

All night Mr Clinton tossed from side to side; the heat was unbearable, and he threw off the clothes. His restlessness became so great that he got out of bed and walked up and down the room--a pathetically ridiculous object in his flannel nightshirt, from which his thin legs protruded grotesquely. Going back to bed, he fell into an uneasy sleep; but waking or sleeping, he had before his eyes the faces of the three horrible bodies he had seen at the mortuary. He could not blot out the image of the thin, baby face with the pale, open eyes, the white face drawn and thin, hideous in its starved, dead shapelessness. And he saw the drawn, wrinkled face of the old man, with the stubbly beard; looking at it, he felt the long pain of hunger, the agony of the hopeless morrow. But he shuddered with terror at the thought of the drowned girl with the sunken eyes, the horrible discolouration of putrefaction; and Mr Clinton buried his face in his pillow, sobbing, sobbing very silently so as not to wake his wife....

The morning came at last and found him feverish and parched, unable to move. Mrs Clinton sent for the doctor, a slow, cautious Scotchman, in whose wisdom Mrs Clinton implicitly relied, since he always agreed with her own idea of her children's ailments. This prudent gentleman ventured to assert that Mr Clinton had caught cold and had something wrong with his lungs. Then, promising to send medicine and come again next day, went off on his rounds. Mr Clinton grew worse; he became delirious. When his wife, smoothing his pillow, asked him how he felt, he looked at her with glassy eyes.

'Lor' bless you!' he muttered, 'on a 'eavy day we'll 'ave 'alf a dozen, easy.'

'What's this he's talking about?' asked the doctor, next day.

''E was serving on a jury the day before yesterday, and my opinion is that it's got on 'is brain,' answered Mrs Clinton.

'Oh, that's nothing. You needn't worry about that. I daresay it'll turn to clothes or religion before he's done. People talk of funny things when they're in that state. He'll probably think he's got two hundred pairs of trousers or a million pounds a year.'

A couple of days later the doctor came to the final conclusion that it was a case of typhoid, and pronounced Mr Clinton very ill. He was indeed; he lay for days, between life and death, on his back, looking at people with dull, unknowing eyes, clutching feebly at the bed-clothes. And for hours he would mutter strange things to himself so quietly that one could not hear. But at last Dame Nature and the Scotch doctor conquered the microbes, and Mr Clinton became better.

VII

One day Mrs Clinton was talking to a neighbour in the bedroom, the patient was so quiet that they thought him asleep.

'Yes, I've 'ad a time with 'im, I can tell you,' said Mrs Clinton. 'No one knows what I've gone through.'

'Well, I must say,' said the friend, 'you haven't spared yourself; you've nursed him like a professional nurse.'

Mrs Clinton crossed her hands over her stomach and looked at her husband with self-satisfaction. But Mr Clinton was awake, staring in front of him with wide-open, fixed eyes; various thoughts confusedly ran through his head.

'Isn't 'e looking strange?' whispered Mrs Clinton.

The two women kept silence, watching him.

'Amy, are you there?' asked Mr Clinton, suddenly, without turning his eyes.

'Yes, dear. Is there anything you want?'

Mr Clinton did not reply for several minutes; the women waited in silence.

'Bring me a Bible, Amy,' he said at last.

'A Bible, Jimmy?' asked Mrs Clinton, in astonishment.

'Yes, dear!'

She looked anxiously at her friend.

'Oh, I do 'ope the delirium isn't coming on again,' she whispered, and, pretending to smooth his pillow, she passed her hand over his forehead to see if it was hot. 'Are you quite comfortable, dear?' she asked, without further allusion to the Bible.

'Yes, Amy, quite!'

'Don't you think you could go to sleep for a little while?'

'I don't feel sleepy, I want to read; will you bring me the Bible?'

Mrs Clinton looked helplessly at her friend; she feared something was wrong, and she didn't know what to do. But the neighbour, with a significant look, pointed to the Daily Telegraph, which was lying on a chair. Mrs Clinton brightened up and took it to her husband.

'Here's the paper, dear.' Mr Clinton made a slight movement of irritation.

'I don't want it; I want the Bible.' Mrs Clinton looked at her friend more helplessly than ever.

'I've never known 'im ask for such a thing before,' she whispered, 'and 'e's never missed reading the Telegraph a single day since we was married.'

'I don't think you ought to read,' she said aloud to her husband. 'But the doctor'll be here soon, and I'll ask 'im then.'

The doctor stroked his chin thoughtfully. 'I don't think there'd be any harm in letting him have a Bible,' he said, 'but you'd better keep an eye on him.... I suppose there's no insanity in the family?'

'No, doctor, not as far as I know. I've always 'eard that my mother's uncle was very eccentric, but that wouldn't account for this, because we wasn't related before we married.'

Mr Clinton took the Bible, and, turning to the New Testament, began to read. He read chapter after chapter, pausing now and again to meditate, or reading a second time some striking passage, till at last he finished the first gospel. Then he turned to his wife.

'Amy, d'you know, I think I should like to do something for my feller-creatures. I don't think we're meant to live for ourselves alone in this world.'

Mrs Clinton was quite overcome; she turned away to hide the tears which suddenly filled her eyes, but the shock was too much for her, and she had to leave the room so that her husband might not see her emotion; she immediately sent for the doctor.

'Oh, doctor,' she said, her voice broken with sobs, 'I'm afraid--I'm afraid my poor 'usband's going off 'is 'ead.'

And she told him of the incessant reading and the remark Mr Clinton had just made. The doctor looked grave, and began thinking.

'You're quite sure there's no insanity in the family?' he asked again.

'Not to the best of my belief, doctor.'

'And you've noticed nothing strange in him? His mind hasn't been running on money or clothes?'

'No, doctor; I wish it 'ad. I shouldn't 'ave thought anything of that; there's something natural in a man talking about stocks and shares and trousers, but I've never 'eard 'im say anything like this before. He was always a wonderfully steady man.'

VIII

Mr Clinton became daily stronger, and soon he was quite well. He resumed his work at the office, and in every way seemed to have regained his old self. He gave utterance to no more startling theories, and the casual observer might have noticed no difference between him and the model clerk of six months back. But Mrs Clinton had received too great a shock to look upon her husband with casual eyes, and she noticed in his manner an alteration which disquieted her. He was much more silent than before; he would take his supper without speaking a word, without making the slightest sign to show that he had heard some remark of Mrs Clinton's. He did not read the paper in the evening as he had been used to do, but would go upstairs to the top of the house, and stand by an open window looking at the stars. He had an enigmatical way of smiling which Mrs Clinton could not understand. Then he had lost his old punctuality--he would come home at all sorts of hours, and, when his wife questioned him, would merely shrug his shoulders and smile strangely. Once he told her that he had been wandering about looking at men's lives.