II
The Bruddersford Infirmary could not be mistaken for one of the local factories because it has no tall chimney. Otherwise there is little difference. It is a rambling ugly building, all in blackened stone and surrounded first by an asphalt courtyard, where the smuts drizzle ceaselessly, and then by tall iron railings that would not seem out of place around a prison. Through these railings a nurse may be seen occasionally, and as she flits across those grim spaces of stone and soot she looks like a being from another world, incredibly immaculate. Here, out of the sunlight, far from green shades and blue distances, where no birds sing, but where the lorries and steam-wagons come thundering down and the trams go groaning up the hill, here behind this rusting iron and walls thickened with black grime, the Bruddersfordians have a bout or two, a tussle, or a fight to a finish, with Death.
The last time Mr.¬ÝOakroyd had visited the Infirmary was to see a friend of his from Higden‚Äôs, a good many years ago. He could hardly remember what it looked like inside. He was familiar enough with the outside, for the place was not quarter of a mile from Ogden Street and for years he had walked past it nearly every day. This morning, however, even the outside seemed strange. His wife was somewhere inside it, behind one of those dark windows.
“Is it special?” asked the porter, “ ’cos this isn’t visiting time, yer knaw.”
‚ÄúWell, I don‚Äôt know fairly,‚Äù said Mr.¬ÝOakroyd. ‚ÄúI wer sent for, like, an‚Äô I‚Äôve come a long way.‚Äù
“If yer’ll howd on a minute, I’ll see. What’s t’name again? All right. Yer can wait in there.” And the porter, after pointing to a door, turned away.
There were several people in the bare little waiting-room. One of them was an enormously fat woman, wrapped in a shawl. The tears were streaming down her face, and she made no attempt to dry her eyes, but repeated over and over again, without any variation of tone: “They nivver owt to ha’ let him come in, nivver.”
On the other side was an oldish man, whose drooping face Mr.¬ÝOakroyd dimly recognized. ‚ÄúFower operations in eighteen months, that‚Äôs what she‚Äôs had,‚Äù he was saying. ‚ÄúFower operations.‚Äù There was mournful pride in his voice. He looked round, nodded vaguely to Mr.¬ÝOakroyd, and then began again: ‚ÄúAy, fower operations.‚Äù
The others there, including two children, said nothing at all. They just waited, and Mr.¬ÝOakroyd had an obscure conviction that they had been waiting a long time. His heart sank. He wanted to go away.
The porter was standing at the door, beckoning to him. “Oakroyd, isn’t it? That’s Num‑ber Twen‑ty-sev‑en, List‑er Ward. Well, t’sister says she’s very sorry but yer can’t see ’er now but will you come again this afternoon.”
‚ÄúI see,‚Äù said Mr.¬ÝOakroyd, and immediately found himself invaded by a feeling of relief. He tried to be disappointed, told himself he must see her as soon as he could, but nevertheless he could not help feeling relieved. He had been in there only a few minutes, had not really been inside, but even so it was comforting to be back again in the bustle of Woolgate. Something dogged him, however, throughout his stroll through the main streets. He was like a chap out on bail.
He called again in the early afternoon, only to be told to return later. Then at last he was admitted. He climbed up four flights of stone steps and then found Lister Ward. A nurse met him at the entrance. ‚ÄúLet me see,‚Äù she said, ‚Äúyou‚Äôre for Number Seventeen‚ÅÝ‚Äîlittle Doris Smith‚ÅÝ‚Äîaren‚Äôt you?‚Äù
When Mr.¬ÝOakroyd told her he was wanting Number Twenty-seven, she seemed disappointed, and this made him all the more uncomfortable, as if he had no right to be there.
“Yes, I remember now,” she said, looking all round him but not at him. “Sister said you could see her, didn’t she? You’re the husband, aren’t you? She hasn’t been asking for you. There’s a son, isn’t there? I thought I’d seen him. This way then, and don’t make too much noise. This isn’t the proper visiting day, and you mustn’t disturb the others.”
He crept after her in a fashion that would not have disturbed a fly. He tiptoed so gently that his legs ached. They had to go almost the whole length of the ward, and though he tried to see as little of it as possible, he could not help noticing some things. All the women were in bed and they all seemed to have something blue on; some were old, some very young; some asleep, some staring fiercely; and there were strange things, pulley arrangements, on some of the beds; and one or two were completely surrounded by screens. No moaning and groaning; not a sound, it was all as quiet as a waxwork show; all tidy and polished and still; very queer, frightening.
The nurse suddenly stopped. She turned round, looking right at him this time. “Your wife’s very ill, you know,” she whispered. “You must be very quiet with her. Don’t mind if she’s not very clear, wandering a little. Just a minute.” She walked forward to a bed, and he heard her say: “Now, Twenty-seven, your husband’s come to see you.” What else she said he did not know, but he saw her leaning over the bed, doing something, and then she stepped back and nodded to him. He tiptoed forward, feeling horribly clumsy, uncertain. One hand, held behind him, was tightening, tightening, until its nails were digging into the horny palm. Then he stood by the bedside, looking down into the face of Number Twenty-seven.
‚ÄúEh, lass,‚Äù he said huskily. He tried to smile, but could only make a grimace. ‚ÄúNay‚ÅÝ‚Äînay.‚Äù And there seemed nothing more he could say.
Her face was all bone and sharp wrinkles and seemed as brittle as eggshell. Her mouth was a short line, dark, bitter. But her eyes, though they wandered with an awful slowness, still gleamed in their hollows, and there looked out from those eyes the soul, stubborn, unflinching, ironic, of Mrs.¬ÝOakroyd. He himself could feel this, though he had no words for it. But an inner voice was saying ‚ÄúEh, she‚Äôll nivver give in,‚Äù and he stared at her in mingled pity and awe.
Her eyes roamed over him. She stirred a little and there came a sickly sweet smell. A hand travelled slowly over the folded sheet, and as he sat down he grasped it. His face working desperately but to no purpose.
‚ÄúJess? What‚ÅÝ‚Äîwhat‚ÅÝ‚Äîyou doing here?‚Äù
“Our Leonard sent.”
At the mention of Leonard those eyes changed, softened. They would not do that for anything else now, it seemed.
“I didn’t tell him to.” Her voice was clear but slow, a voice speaking out of a dream.
“He thowt he’d better send word. He’s been a good lad. I told him he’s been a good lad to his mother.”
‚ÄúTime you thowt so,‚Äù she said, with a flash of the old sharp spirit. ‚ÄúAy, ay, a good lad‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ our Leonard. Is he coming soon?‚Äù
“Soon as he can or whenivver you want him,” he told her.
She nodded, very slowly, so that it hurt him to watch her doing it. Then she looked away, at nothing it seemed, as if he was no longer there. He waited through a shrinking and numbing silence. At last, however, she looked at him again, and it was as if she had returned from far away and was faintly surprised to find him still there. He tried to think of something to say, but there seemed to be nothing he could say and somehow his voice too had rusted away.
“I’m bad, Jess,” she said finally.
His voice came back. “Eh, lass, why didn’t you tell me afore?”
She did not seem to hear this. “I wish they’d let me alone,” she muttered. “They can do nowt.”
“Nay, they will,” he said, and tried to convince himself that they could do something though in his heart he knew they could not.
‚ÄúCan‚Äôt‚ÅÝ‚Äîcan‚Äôt I do owt?‚Äù he asked desperately.
To this she made no reply beyond looking at him searchingly, with a faint gleam of irony in her eyes. When it faded and she stirred again, it seemed as if he had been dismissed. Her hand crept out of his and moved uneasily over the sheet. When she spoke again, she began wandering. There was something about their Lily, about Higden’s, about a peggy-tub she had borrowed; all a dreamy jumble. The nurse came up quietly and touched him on the shoulder. He stood up, looked on while she gave his wife something to drink.
“You’d better go now,” she told him. But she withdrew for a moment.
His wife looked at him, steadily now. “Going, Jess, now, aren’t yer? Yer managed all right for yersen when yer went away, didn’t yer?”
“I nivver owt to ha’ gone.”
“Nay, lad, I don’t know. You’ve done nowt to be sorry for. Couldn’t be helped. Are yer going on all right?”
He nodded.
‚ÄúBetter so, then,‚Äù she went on. ‚ÄúAnd our Leonard‚Äôs doing right well. Eh, he is‚ÅÝ‚Äîright well!‚Äù She closed her eyes for a moment, then looked at him again, with the wizened ghost of a smile. ‚ÄúYer mun go and see our Lily some time if yer can get. That‚Äôs what you‚Äôve allus wanted, isn‚Äôt it? Nay, Jess, I know. Tell our Leonard to come tonight.‚Äù
This time, when he found himself outside in Woolgate again, he also found that he had not really left the Infirmary behind. It was the streets and shops, the trams and lorries, the whole noisy bustling business, that seemed grotesque, unreal now. Half of him still went tiptoeing in that long room of beds and blue-covered shoulders, of pulley things and screens. The quiet of it remained with him and conjured away all the solid reality from the traffic of the streets. What was all the commotion about? Mr.¬ÝOakroyd did not say all these things to himself; he could not have found words for most of them; but nevertheless he felt them. You could have read them in his wondering glances as you passed him in the street.
When he went the next day, she was obviously weaker. Her eyes had a drugged look; she mumbled in her talk; and nearly everything she said was disconnected, wandering, the old wreckage of dreams and scattered memories. He sat there for an hour, staring sadly, squeezing his fingers, and then crept away, hurt, and frightened.
In the evening, he went again, with Leonard, and they were told they could go up to the ward. They were not admitted, however; the sister said it had been a mistake: Number Twenty-seven could not be seen just then. Perhaps it might be as well if they stayed some time in the waiting-room below. And they caught a glimpse through the door of screens round the bed. They waited an hour, two hours, turning over evening papers that seemed to say nothing, starting up every time the door was opened. It was late. They inquired again, and were told it was useless waiting any longer. There was no change; they must hope for the best; everything that could be done was being done. But next morning, before the earliest buzzers had sounded, Number Twenty-seven was dead.
After he had visited the cold little chapel, where the body would remain until the undertaker wanted it, they put into his hand a parcel wrapped in brown paper, and mechanically he accepted it and took it home, and mechanically he opened it there. Some clothes; a brush and comb; a little envelope, out of which rolled a wedding-ring. There was something else in the envelope. False teeth.
‚ÄúEh, well I don‚Äôt know!‚Äù cried Mrs.¬ÝSugden, who was forever in the house now. ‚ÄúWhat they want to bother yer with them things for? Poor soul! They‚Äôve ner more sense than‚ÅÝ‚Äînay, I don‚Äôt know!‚Äù
But Mr.¬ÝOakroyd only nodded and then stumped away.