The Clean HeartHutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth)
Science
The Clean Heart
Hutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth)
Authors -- Fiction; Happiness -- Fiction
They carry her to her room. There is only one doctor in Whitecliffe.
He is found and fetched; and leaving Mr. and Mrs. Bickers by the
bedside, comes down to the sitting-room where is a man stunned to
apparent speechlessness by grief, whom he takes to be the patient's
brother. The doctor says he will stay till the end, and for "the
end" then substitutes "for the night." There is nothing he can do
immediately and by himself. He speaks of the possibility of an
operation in the morning, but seemingly has no thought of
telegraphing to a surgeon he names who could perform it. She will
pass away without recovery of consciousness, he fears. There is not
only the injury to her head but of her spine. More than that there
is the question of-- If the case had been taken to the hospital at
Market Redding.... The man whom he takes to be her brother drags
with blundering fingers from his pocket a packet of banknotes and
thrusts them towards him with a curious action--an action suggestive
(were not the idea ridiculous) of their being some horrible thing.
Well, are they not the price of her that was to buy her?
Taking the packet, the doctor flushes. He had judged these people by
the rooms they occupy--a clumsy thing to do at the seaside where
frequently people must take what accommodation they can find. This
man's educated bearing, perceptible despite the grief that scarcely
enables him to speak, should have informed him of his mistake. Very
well, he will telegraph. He cannot hold out much hope. But convey
hope to those poor old folk up-stairs. Indeed, of course one knows
of cases.... In these days of aeroplanes one hears of cases where
terrible falls, long periods of unconsciousness, have been survived.
Eh? Still--and though he is alone in the sitting-room with this the
poor girl's brother he drops his voice and tells him....
She lies in her room, Mother and Dad with her. She lies there
unconscious and only, under God, to wake to die. He that had
stumbled before her bier, directing those who bore her, stumbles now
from the house. "Kill me! Kill me!" Ah, cry that pulses as a wound
within him; that he desires to cry aloud, and would cry aloud, and
does wordlessly groan with his breathing. But there is agony that he
endures that of speech bereaves him, of power of movement wherewith
to carry out what now alone remains, numbs and denies him. There is
a seat without the house upon the parade. He drops upon it, and
there endures ... and there endures....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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