“Of course” had been an overstatement. I realised that by the time I had been heaved to my feet. Even with all the help that was going on around me it was an exertion which brought on heavy breathing. I looked down at the monstrous form that billowed under my pink draperies, with a sickly revulsion and a feeling that whatever this particular mass of symbolism disguised, it was likely to prove a distasteful revelation later on. I tried a step. “Walk” was scarcely the word for my progress. It felt like, and must have looked like, a slow series of forward surges. The women, at little more than my elbow height, fluttered about me like a flock of anxious hens. Once started, I was determined to go on, and I progressed with a kind of wave motion, first across a few yards of gravel, and then, with ponderous deliberation, up the left hand side of the steps.
There was a perceptible sense of relief and triumph all around as I reached the summit. We paused there a few moments for me to regain my breath, then we moved on into the building. A corridor led straight ahead, with three or four closed doors on each side, at the end it branched right and left. We took the left arm, and, at the end of it, I came face to face, for the first time since the hallucination had set in, with a mirror.
It took every volt of my resolution not to panic again at what I saw in it. The first few seconds of my stare were spent in fighting down a leaping hysteria.
In front of me stood an outrageous travesty: an elephantine female form, looking the more huge for its pink swathings. Mercifully, they covered everything but the head and hands, but these exposures were themselves another kind of shock, for the hands, though soft and dimpled and looking utterly out of proportion, were not uncomely, and the head and face were those of a girl.
She was pretty, too. She could not have been more than twenty-one, if that. Her curling fair hair was touched with auburn lights, and cut in a kind of bob. The complexion of her face was pink and cream, her mouth was gentle, and red without any artifice. She looked back at me, and at the little women anxiously clustering round me, from a pair of blue-green eyes beneath lightly arched brows. And this delicate face, this little Fragonard, was set upon that monstrous body: no less outrageously might a blossom of freesia sprout from a turnip.
When I moved my lips, hers moved; when I bent my arms, hers bent; and yet, once I got the better of that threatening panic, she ceased to be a reflection. She was nothing like me, so she must be a stranger whom I was observing, though in a most bewildering way. My panic and revulsion gave way to sadness, an aching pity for her. I could weep for the shame of it. I did. I watched the tears brim on her lower lids; mistily, I saw them overflow.
One of the little women beside me caught hold of my hand.
“Mother Orchis, dear, what’s the matter?” she asked, full of concern.
I could not tell her: I had no clear idea myself. The image in the mirror shook her head, with tears running down her cheeks. Small hands patted me here and there; small, soothing voices encouraged me onward. The next door was opened for me and I was led into the room beyond, and concerned fussing.
We entered a place that struck me as a cross between a boudoir and a ward. The boudoir impression was sustained by a great deal of pink in the carpet, coverlets, cushions, lampshades, and filmy window curtains; the ward motif, by an array of six divans, or couches, one of which was unoccupied.
It was a large enough room for three couches, separated by a chest, chair and table for each, to be arranged on either side without an effect of crowding, and the open space in the middle was still big enough to contain several expansive easy chairs and a central table bearing an intricate flower arrangement. A not displeasing scent faintly pervaded the place, and from somewhere came the subdued sound of a string quartet in a sentimental mood. Five of the bed couches were already mountainously occupied. Two of my attendant party detached themselves and hurried ahead to turn back the pink satin cover on the sixth.
Faces from all the five other beds were turned towards me. Three of them smiling in welcome, the other two less committal.
“Hallo, Orchis,” one of them greeted me in a friendly tone. Then, with a touch of concern she added: “What’s the matter, dear? Did you have a bad time?”
I looked at her. She had a kindly, plumply pretty face, framed by light-brown hair as she lay back against a cushion. The face looked about twenty-three or twenty-four years old. The rest of her was a huge mound of pink satin. I couldn’t make any reply, but I did my best to return her smile as we passed.
Our convoy hove to by the empty bed. After some preparation and positioning I was helped into it by all hands, and a cushion was arranged behind my head.
The exertion of my journey from the car had been consderable, and I was thankful to relax. While two of the little women pulled up the coverlet and arranged it over me, another produced a handkerchief and dabbed gently at my cheeks. She encouraged me: “There you are, dear. Safely home again now. You’ll be quite all right when you’ve rested a bit. Just try to sleep for a little.”
“What’s the matter with her?” enquired a forthright voice from one of the other beds. “Did she make a mess of it?”
The little woman with the handkerchief she was the one who wore the St Andrew’s cross and appeared to be in charge of the operation turned her head sharply.
“There’s no need for that tone, Mother Hazel. Of course Mother Orchis had four beautiful babies didn’t you, dear?” she added to me. “She’s just a bit tired after the journey, that’s all.”
“H’mph,” said the girl addressed, in an unaccommodating tone, but she made no further comment.
A degree of fussing continued. Presently the small woman handed me a glass of something that looked like water, but had unsuspected strength. I spluttered a little at the first taste, but quickly felt the better for it. After a little more tidying and ordering, my retinue departed leaving me propped against my cushion, with the eyes of the five other monstrous women dwelling upon me speculatively.
An awkward silence was broken by the girl who had greeted me as I came in.
“Where did they send you for your holiday, Orchis?”
“Holiday?” I asked blankly.
She and the rest stared at me in astonishment.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I told them.
They went on staring, stupidly, stolidly.
“It can’t have been much of a holiday,” observed one, obviously puzzled. “I’ll not forget my last one. They sent me to the sea, and gave me a little car so that I could get about everywhere. Everybody was lovely to us, and there were only six Mothers there, including me. Did you go by the sea, or in the mountains?”
They were determined to be inquisitive, and one would have to make some answer sooner or later. I chose what seemed the simplest way out for the moment.
“I can’t remember,” I said. “I can’t remember a thing. I seem to have lost my memory altogether.”
That was not very sympathetically received, either.
“Oh,” said the one who had been addressed as Hazel, with a degree of satisfaction. “I thought there was something. And I suppose you can’t even remember for certain whether your babies were Grade One this time, Orchis?”
“Don’t be stupid, Hazel,” one of the others told her. “Of course they were Grade One. If they’d not been, Orchis wouldn’t be back here now she’d have been rerated as a Class Two Mother, and sent to Whitewich.” In a more kindly tone she asked me: “When did it happen, Orchis?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t remember anything before this morning at the hospital. It’s all gone entirely.”
“Hospital!” repeated Hazel, scornfully.