The Old Wives' Tale - Arnold Bennett [23]
And she had an image of that remote brain as something with a red spot on it, for once Constance had said: "Mother, why did father have a stroke?" and Mrs. Baines had replied: "It was a haemorrhage of the brain, my dear, here"—putting a thimbled finger on a particular part of Sophia's head.
Not merely had Constance and Sophia never really felt their father's tragedy; Mrs. Baines herself had largely lost the sense of it—such is the effect of use. Even the ruined organism only remembered fitfully and partially that it had once been John Baines. And if Mrs. Baines had not, by the habit of years, gradually built up a gigantic fiction that the organism remained ever the supreme consultative head of the family; if Mr. Critchlow had not obstinately continued to treat it as a crony, the mass of living and dead nerves on the rich Victorian bedstead would have been of no more account than some Aunt Maria in similar case. These two persons, his wife and his friend, just managed to keep him morally alive by indefatigably feeding his importance and his dignity. The feat was a miracle of stubborn self-deceiving, splendidly blind devotion, and incorrigible pride.
When Sophia entered the room, the paralytic followed her with his nervous gaze until she had sat down on the end of the sofa at the foot of the bed. He seemed to study her for a long time, and then he murmured in his slow, enfeebled, irregular voice:
"Is that Sophia?"
"Yes, father," she answered cheerfully.
And after another pause, the old man said: "Ay! It's Sophia."
And later: "Your mother said she should send ye."
Sophia saw that this was one of his bad, dull days. He had, occasionally, days of comparative nimbleness, when his wits seized almost easily the meanings of external phenomena.
Presently his sallow face and long white beard began to slip down the steep slant of the pillows, and a troubled look came into his left eye. Sophia rose and, putting her hands under his armpits, lifted him higher in the bed. He was not heavy, but only a strong girl of her years could have done it.
"Ay!" he muttered. "That's it. That's it."
And, with his controllable right hand, he took her hand as she stood by the bed. She was so young and fresh, such an incarnation of the spirit of health, and he was so far gone in decay and corruption, that there seemed in this contact of body with body something unnatural and repulsive. But Sophia did not so feel it.
"Sophia," he addressed her, and made preparatory noises in his throat while she waited.
He continued after an interval, now clutching her arm, "Your mother's been telling me you don't want to go in the shop."
She turned her eyes on him, and his anxious, dim gaze met hers. She nodded.
"Nay, Sophia," he mumbled, with the extreme of slowness. "I'm surprised at ye… Trade's bad, bad! Ye know trade's bad?" He was still clutching her arm.
She nodded. She was, in fact, aware of the badness of trade, caused by a vague war in the United States. The words "North" and "South" had a habit of recurring in the conversation of adult persons. That was all she knew, though people were starving in the Five Towns as they were starving in Manchester.
"There's your mother," his thought struggled on, like an aged horse over a hilly road. "There's your mother!" he repeated, as if wishful to direct Sophia's attention to the spectacle of her mother. "Working hard! Con—Constance and you must help her…. Trade's bad! What can I do … lying here?"
The heat from his dry fingers was warming her arm. She wanted to move, but she could not have withdrawn her arm without appearing impatient. For a similar reason she would not avert her glance. A deepening flush increased the lustre of her immature loveliness as she bent over him. But though it was so close he did not feel that radiance. He had long outlived a susceptibility to the strange influences of youth and beauty.
"Teaching!" he muttered. "Nay, nay! I canna' allow that."
Then his white beard rose at the tip as he looked up at the ceiling above his head, reflectively.
"You understand me?" he questioned finally.