In the spring they went for rambles into the country, sometimes with the Clarion Scouts, sometimes with a more select party made up for the occasion. Bob Ryrie often went with them, and Helen was charmed by his gentlemanly attentiveness, which made her feel that with his eyes he was supporting her in the mere act of walking, helpfully assisting her to climb over any stile, it did not matter how low, anxiously hoping that she would enjoy her ramble – as if he were responsible for it, the absurd fellow! His brown eyes with their protective glance enveloped her warmly, and even his brown tweeds, which gave out the delicatest aroma of tobacco and peat, were like a soft buffer against every shock, and she felt secure and irresponsible behind them. To Mansie Bob was enthusiastic about her. ‘A superior girl!’ he said, and it was at his suggestion that Mansie ceased to take her to the Clarion Scout rambles. ‘A bit rough and tumble,’ Bob said. ‘Playing football in a field’s all right for you and me, even if it’s on a Sunday. But for a refined girl like Helen—’ So they made up a small party every Sunday and went out to Strathblane or the Mearns. They were very happy.
Yet though such a revolutionary change had taken place within Mansie and Helen, anyone perusing their actions would not have found any sign of it, for conduct too lay for them in the future. So although they devoutly believed in free love it never entered their minds to put it into practice; and had Mansie attempted any of the liberties with Helen which had caused Tom’s downfall, she would have been just as indignant again, in spite of her emancipated ideas; still more indignant, indeed, for she had fled to Mansie as a refuge from those very perils. But she had no need to fear Mansie. For in this atmosphere disinfected by the future, an atmosphere generated by Ibsen, Shaw, Nietzsche, Carpenter and Wells, but whose fantastic possibility was unbounded even by that fact, for Mansie had not even read those writers, it became quite easy to dissipate in an ever wider concentric circle every impulse that was urgent or painful, to vaporise oneself until one was conscious of no residue. Never before had Mansie felt so free.
When a disturbing fact, a case of objective suffering, an illness, say, in the family, impinges on the consciousness of anyone in Mansie’s state, at first it is a distant and muffled sound heard by the physical ear while the mind is securely asleep, and for a while the mind tries to weave it into its dream. Until the moment comes when the phantom shadow becomes so gigantic and affrighting, so far more oppressive than the objective fact itself, that with a start the sleeper awakes.
THIRTEEN
ONE EVENING A few weeks after the May Day procession Mansie was sitting at the kitchen window reading the evening paper until it should be time to go out. Tom was crouching over the fire with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. His presence did not disturb Mansie, for though they still did not speak to each other all the tension had gone out of their silence; and even when, as sometimes happened, they brushed shoulders as they passed each other in the lobby, that was a mere chance which could not be avoided in a small flat.
Tom gave a muffled groan now and then, but even that did not disturb Mansie very greatly; it must be one of Tom’s headaches, for Tom had been having a great many headaches lately. But when Tom began to rock his head from side to side, still holding it tightly clenched in his hands, and emitting a long quivering sigh that ended in a loud groan, Mansie became alarmed; he laid down the paper on the table and half raised himself from his chair. Should he speak to the fellow? This looked serious! Why had his mother and Jean gone out this evening of all evenings? Perhaps he should really speak to him? For Tom’s rocking had grown faster now, it went on and on as if he couldn’t stop, as if he actually didn’t know what he was doing. And Mansie was on the very point of opening his mouth – this couldn’t go on! – when Tom turned an unrecognisable face to him, a bloodshot face over which some dreadful change had come, so that it looked like somebody else’s, and gasped: ‘Get a doctor, for God’s sake!’
‘I’ll get one at once!’ Mansie burst out, almost taking the words out of Tom’s mouth. He should have spoken before! ‘I’ll get one at once … What’s the matter? … Wouldn’t you feel better lying down?’
‘No, no!’ groaned Tom, and as if speech had released something he beat his head against the wall and burst out: ‘I don’t know what it can be! I don’t know what it can be!’ He turned a blind face to Mansie, and Mansie saw with terror that in his wide open eyes the eyeballs were rolling round and round like wheels that had flown off their axles.
‘Don’t do that, Tom!’ he cried. Good God, what could it be? ‘Let me help you across to the bed.’ He put his arms under Tom’s armpits, pulled him up, stumbled with him over to the bed and carefully lowered him, laying his head on the pillow. He looked back before he rushed out; Tom was lying still.
At the second attempt he found a young doctor who was willing to accompany him. When they entered the kitchen Mrs Manson and Jean were standing by the bed still wearing their hats and coats.
‘What has happened, Mansie?’ said Mrs Manson. Her face was white and she looked at him reproachfully. The doctor went forward to the bed. Mansie told what had happened, and involuntarily added: ‘I don’t know what it can be.’ It sounded almost like an exculpation, but for what?
While she was listening Mrs Manson kept her eyes fixed on the doctor. The doctor was bent over Tom as if engaged on some secret and sinister task, bent so low that they could not see what he was doing, could see nothing but Tom’s crumpled blue trousers and grey stockinged feet.
At last the doctor straightened himself and turned round.
‘I think I can give him a powder that will ease the pain,’ he said, and he turned to Mansie: ‘You’d better come back with me for it.’
‘What is it, doctor?’ asked Mrs Manson.
‘To be honest, Mrs Manson, I can’t say yet. I’ll have to give him a second examination tomorrow. No need for worry meantime. The powder will put him to sleep.’ And the doctor made resolutely for the door.
Outside he turned to Mansie. ‘I’ll tell you what I would like,’ he began in quite a different tone. ‘I would like your brother to go into the Western Infirmary for observation for a week or two.’
Mansie’s heart sank. The infirmary! Could it be as bad as that?
‘Will you try to persuade your mother that it’s the best thing to do? He’ll be well looked after and quite comfortable.’
Mansie promised with a sinking heart. After a pause the doctor asked: ‘What sort of life has your brother led?’
A queer question to ask a fellow! Mansie replied: ‘He’s an engineer by trade.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant. I’ve a definite reason for asking, and you can help me by being perfectly frank. Did he go about with women a lot?’
Mansie’s face grew red. He looked at the people passing as though he were afraid they had heard.
‘No. He had a girl once, but they haven’t been keeping company for some time now.’ Why had he said that? A stupid thing to say!
But the doctor still persisted. What was he getting at? ‘Can you tell me whether he ever went with – er – loose women?’ then as if taking a plunge, ‘with prostitutes?’
‘My brother would never do such a thing!’ Mansie burst out. These doctors! Bad as the nurses, the way they spoke about things. But he felt relieved; if the doctor connected Tom’s headache with that he was quite off the track.
There was silence again, and then the doctor asked, as if casually; ‘I noticed a slight scar on his head. How was that caused?’
As if it had been waiting for this question Mansie’s heart stopped. If it should turn out to be that fall from