"You can take your corpuscles to hell," replied Brodie contemptuously. "You've done her as much good as my foot."
"Come now, Mr. Brodie," said Lawrie in a half -expostulating, half- placating tone, "don't be unreasonable. I'm here every day. I'm doing my best."
"Do better then! Finish her and be done wi't," retorted Brodie bitterly, and turning abruptly, he walked away and entered the house, leaving the other standing aghast, his eyes wide, his small mouth pursed into an indignant orb.
Inside his home, a further wave of disgust swept over Brodie as, making no allowance for the fact that he was earlier than usual, he observed that his dinner was not ready, and he cursed the bent figure of his mother amongst the disarray of dishes, dirty water, pots and potato peelings in the scullery.
"I'm gettin' ower auld for this game, James," she quavered in reply. "I'm not as nimble as I used to be and forbye the doctor keepit me back."
"Move your auld bones then," he snarled. "I'm hungry." He could not sit down amongst such chaos, and, with a sudden turn of his black mood, he decided that he would fill in the time before his meal by visiting his wife the good wife, as Lawrie had called her and give her the grand news of the business.
"She maun hear some time," he muttered, "and the sooner the better. It's news that'll not stand the keepin’” He had lately fallen into the habit of avoiding her room, and as he had not seen her during the last two days, she would no doubt find the unexpectedness of his visit the more delightful.
"Well!" he remarked softly, as he went into the bedroom. "You're still here, I see. I met the doctor on my way in and he was gi'en us a great account o' your corpuscles o' the blood they're uncommon strong, by his report."
She did not move at his entry, but lay passive, only the flicker of her eyes showing that she lived. In the six months that had elapsed since she had been forced to take to her bed she had altered terrifyingly, and one who had not marked the imperceptible, day-by-day decline, the gradual shrinking of her flesh, would now have found her unrecognisable, even as the ailing woman she had then appeared.
Her form, beneath the light covering of the sheet, was that of a skeleton with hip bones which stuck out in a high, ridiculous protuberance; only a flaccid envelope of sagging skin covered the thin, long bones of her legs and arms, while over the framework of her face a tight, dry parchment was drawn, with cavities for eyes, nose and mouth. Her lips were pale, dry, cracked, with little brown desiccated flakes clinging to them like scales, and above the sunken features her bony forehead seemed to bulge into unnatural, disproportioned relief. A few strartds of grey hair, withered, lifeless as the face itself, straggled over the pillow to frame this ghastly visage. Her weakness was so apparent that it seemed an impossible effort for her to breathe, and from this very weakness she made no reply to his remark, but looked at him with an expression he could not read. It seemed to her that there was nothing more for him to say to wound her.
"Have ye everything ye want?" he continued, in a low tone of assumed solicitude. "Everything that might be necessary for these corpuscles o' yours ? Ye've plenty of medicine, anyway plenty of choice, I see. One, two, three, four," he counted; "four different bottles o' pheesic. There's merit in variety, apparently. But woman, if ye go on drinkin' it at this rate, we'll have to raise another loan frae your braw friends in Glasgow to pay for it a'."
Deep in her living eyes, which alone of her wasted features indicated her emotions, a faint wound reopened, and they filled with a look of dull pleading. Five months ago she had, in desperation, been forced to confess to him her obligation to the money-lenders and though he had paid the money in full, since then he had not for a moment let her forget the wretched matter, and in a hundred different ways, on the most absurd pretexts, he would introduce it into the conversation. Not even her present look moved him, for he was now entirely without sympathy for her, feeling that she would linger on for ever, a useless encumbrance to him.
"Ay," he continued pleasantly, "ye've proved yourself a great hand at drinkin* the medicine. You're as gleg at that as ye are at spendin' other folks' money." Then abruptly he changed the subject and queried gravely, "Have ye seen your big, braw son the day? Oh! Ye have, indeed," he continued, after reading her unspoken reply. "I'm real glad to hear it. I thocht he michtna have been up yet,
but I see I'm wrong. He's not downstairs though. I never seem to be fortunate enough to see him these days."
At his words she spoke at last, moulding her stiff lips to utter, in a weak whisper:
"Matt's been a good son to me lately."
"Well, that's only a fair return," he exclaimed judiciously. "You've been a graund mother to him. The result o' your upbringing o' him is a positive credit to you both." He paused, recognising her weakness, hardly knowing why he spoke to her thus; yet, unable to discard
the habit of years, impelled somehow by his own bitterness, by his own misfortunes, he continued in a low voice, "Ye've brocht up a’ your children bonnie, bonnie. There's Mary now what more could ye wish for than the way she's turned out? I don't know where she is exactly, but I'm sure she'll be doin' ye credit nobly." Then, observing that his wife was attempting to speak, he waited on her words.
"I know where she is," she whispered slowly.
He gazed at her.
"Ay!" he answered. "Ye know she's in London and that's as much as we a' ken as much as ye'll ever know."
Almost incredibly she moved her withered hand, that looked incapable of movement, and lifting it from the counterpane stopped him with a gesture; then, as her shrunken arm again collapsed, she said weakly, and with many tremors:
"Ye mustna be angry with me, ye mustna be angry with her. I've had a letter from Mary. She's a good girl she still is. I see more clearly now, than ever I did that 'twas I that didna do right by her. She wants to see me now, James, and I I must see her quickly before I die." As she uttered the last words she tried to smile at him pleadingly, placatingly, but her features remained stiff and frigid, only her lips parted slightly in a cracked, pitiful grimace.
The colour mounted slowly to his forehead.
"She dared to write to you," he muttered, "and you dared to read it."
"’Twas Doctor Renwick, when you stoppit him comin', that wrote to London and told her I was not not likely to last long. He's aye had a great interest in Mary. He said to me that morning that Mary my daughter Mary was brave, ay, and innocent as well."
"He was a brave man himself to raise that name in my house," returned Brodie, in a low, concentrated tone. He could not shout and rave at her in her present state, prevented only by some shred of compunction from turning violently upon her, but he added, bitterly, "If I had known he was interferin' like that, I would have brained him before he went out the door."
"Don't say that, James," she murmured. "It's beyond me to bear bitterness now. I've had a gey and useless life, I think. There's many a thing left undone that should have been done, but I must oh! I must see Mary, to put things right between her and me."
He gritted his teeth till the muscles of his stubbled jowl stuck out in hard, knotted lumps.
"Ye must see her, must ye," he replied " that's verra, verra touchin'. We should a' fall down and greet at the thought o' this wonderful reconciliation." He shook his head slowly from side to side. "Na! Na! My woman, ye'll not see her this side o' the grave, and I have strong misgivings if ye'll see her on the other. You're never to see her. Never!"
She did not answer, but, withdrawing into herself, became more impassive, more aloof from him. For a long time her eyes remained fixed on the ceiling. There was silence in the room but for the drowsy drone of an insect as it circled around the few sprays of sweet-scented honeysuckle that had been gathered by Nessie and placed by her in a vase that stood beside the bed. At length a faint tremor ran through Mamma's wasted body.