CHAPTER V
AN ACCIDENT
There was a cricket luncheon at 'The Tiger' when Bridport played its last match for the season against Axminster. The western township had won the first encounter, and Bridport much desired to cry quits over the second.
Raymond played on this occasion, and though he failed, the credit of Bridetown was worthily upheld by Nicholas Roberts, the lathe-worker. He did not bowl as fast as of yore, but he bowled better, and since Axminster was out for one hundred and thirty in their first innings, while Bridport had made seventy for two wickets before luncheon, the issue promised well.
Job Legg still helped Richard Gurd at great moments as he was wont to do, for prosperity had not modified Job's activity, or diminished his native goodwill. Gurd carved, while Job looked after the bottles. Arthur Waldron, who umpired for Bridport, sat beside Raymond at lunch and condoled with him, because the younger, who had gone in second wicket down, had played himself in very carefully before the interval.
"Now you'll have to begin all over again," said Waldron. "I always say luncheon may be worth anything to the bowlers. It rests them, but it puts the batsman's eye out."
"Seeing how short of practice you are this year, you were jolly steady, Ray," declared Neddy Motyer, who sat on the other side of Ironsyde. "You stopped some very hot ones."
Neddy preserved his old interest in sport, but was now a responsible member of society. He had married and joined his father, a harness-maker, in a prosperous business.
"I can't time 'em, like I could. That fast chap will get me, I expect."
And Raymond proved a true prophet. Indeed far worse happened than he anticipated.
Estelle came to watch the cricket after luncheon. She had driven into Bridport with her father and Raymond in the morning and gone on to Jenny Ironsyde for the midday meal. Now she arrived in time to witness a catastrophe. A very fast bowler went on immediately after lunch. He was a tall and powerful youth with a sinister reputation for bowling at the man rather than the wicket. At any rate he pitched them short and with his lofty delivery bumped them very steeply on a lively pitch. Now, in his second over, he sent down a short one at tremendous speed, and the batsman, failing to get out of the way, was hit on the point of the jaw. He fell as though shot and proved to be quite unconscious when picked up.
They carried him to the pavilion, and it was not until twenty minutes had passed that Raymond came round and the game went on. But Ironsyde could take no further part. There was concussion of doubtful severity and he found himself half blind and suffering great pain in the neck and head.
Estelle came to him and advised that he should go to his aunt's house, which was close at hand. He could not speak, but signified agreement, and they took him there in an ambulance, while the girl ran on to advise his aunt of the accident.
A doctor came with him and helped to get him to bed. His mind seemed affected and he wandered in his speech. But he recognised Estelle and begged her not to leave him. She sat near him, therefore, in a darkened room and Miss Ironsyde also came.
Waldron dropped in before dusk with the news that Bridport had won, by a smaller margin than promised, on the first innings. But he found Raymond sleeping and did not waken him. Estelle believed the injured man would want her when he woke again. The doctor could say nothing till some hours had passed, so she went home, but returned a few hours later to stop the night and help, if need be, to nurse the patient. A professional nurse shared the vigil; but their duties amounted to nothing, for Raymond slept through the greater part of the night and declared himself better in the morning.
He had to stop with his aunt, however, for two or three days, and while Estelle, her ministration ended, was going away after the doctor pronounced Raymond on the road to recovery, the patient begged her to remain. He appeared in a sentimental vein, and the experience of being nursed was so novel that Ironsyde endured it without a murmur. To Estelle, who did not guess he was rather enjoying it, the spectacle of his patience under pain awoke admiration. Indeed, she thought him most heroic and he made no effort to undeceive her.
Incidentally, during his brief convalescence the man saw more of his aunt than he had seen for many days. She also must needs nurse him and exhaust her ingenuity to pass the time. The room was kept dark for eight-and-forty hours, so her method of entertaining her nephew consisted chiefly in conversation.
Of late years Raymond seldom let a week elapse without seeing Miss Ironsyde if only for half an hour. Her waning health occupied him on these occasions and, at his suggestion, she had gone to Bath to fight the arthritis that slowly gained upon her. But during his present sojourn at Bridport as her guest, Raymond let her lead their talk as she would, indeed, he himself sometimes led it into channels of the past, where she would not have ventured to go.
Life had made an immense difference to the man and he was old for his age now, even as until his brother's death he had been young for his age. She could not fail to note the steadfastness of his mind, despite its limitations. As Estelle had often done, she perceived how he set his faith on material things—the steel and steam—to bring about a new order and advance the happiness of mankind; but he was interested in social questions far more than of old time, and she felt no little surprise to hear him talk about the future.
"The air is full of change," she said, on one occasion.
"It always is," he answered. "There is always movement, although the breath of advance and progress seems to sink to nothing, sometimes. Now it's blowing a stiff breeze and may rise to a hurricane in a few years."
"It is for the stable, solid backbone of the nation—we of the middle-class—to withstand such storms," she declared, and he agreed.
"If you've got a stake in the world, you must certainly see its foundations are driven deep and look to the stake itself, that it's not rotting. Some stakes are certainly not made of stuff stout enough to stand against the storms ahead. Education is the great, vital thing. I often feel mad to think how I wasted my own time at school, and came to man's work a raw, ignorant fool. We talk of the education of the masses and what I see is this: they will soon be better educated than we ourselves; for we bring any amount of sense and modern ideas to work on their teaching, while our own prehistorical methods are left severely alone. I believe the boys who come to working age now are better taught than I was at my grammar school. I wish I knew more."
"Yet we see education may run us into great dangers," said Jenny Ironsyde. "It can be pushed to a perilous point. One even hears a murmur against the Bible in the schools. It makes my blood run cold. And we need not look farther than dear Estelle to see the peril."
"What do you think of Estelle?" he asked. "I almost welcome this stupid collapse, nuisance though it is, because it's made a sort of resting-place and brought me nearer to you and Estelle. You've both been so kind. A man such as I am, is so busy and absorbed that he forgets all about women; then suddenly lying on his back—done for and useless—he finds they don't forget all about him."
"You ask what I think about Estelle?" she said. "I never think about Estelle—no more than I do about the sunshine, or my comfortable bed, or my tea. She's just one of the precious things I take for granted. I love her. She is a great deal to me, and the hours she spends with a rather old-fashioned and cross-grained woman are the happiest hours I know."
"I'm like her father," he said. "I give Estelle best. Nothing can spoil her, because she's so utterly uninterested in herself. Another thing: she's so fair—almost morbidly fair. The only thing that makes her savage is injustice. If she sees an injustice, she won't leave it alone if it's in her power to alter it. That's her father in her. What he calls 'sporting,' she calls 'justice.' And, of course, the essence of sport is justice, if you think it out."
"I don't know anything about sport, but I suppose I have to thank cricket for your company at present. As for Estelle. I think she has a great idea of your judgment and opinion."
He laughed.
"If she does, it's probably because I generally agree with her.
Besides—"
He broke off and lighted a cigarette.
"'Besides' what?" asked the lady.
"Well—oh I hardly know. I'm tremendously fond of her. Perhaps I've taken her too much as you say we take the sun and our meat and drink—as a matter of course. Yes, like the sun, and as unapproachable."
Miss Ironsyde considered.
"I suppose you're right. I can well imagine that to the average man a
'Una,' such as Estelle, may seem rather unapproachable."
"We're very good friends, though how good I never quite guessed till this catastrophe. She seemed to come and help look after me as a matter of course. Didn't think it a bit strange."
"She's simple, but in a very noble way. I've only one quarrel with her—the faith of her fathers—"
"Leave it. You'll only put your foot into it, Aunt Jenny."
"Never," she said. "I shall never put my foot into it where right and wrong are concerned—with Estelle or you, or anybody else. I'm nearly seventy, remember, Raymond, and one knows what is imperishable and to be trusted at that age."
Thus she negatived Mr. Churchouse's dictum—that mere age demanded no particular reverence, since many years are as liable to error as few.
Her nephew was doubtful.
"Right and wrong are a never-ending puzzle," he said. "They vary so from the point of view. And if you once grant there are more view points than one, where are you?"
"Right and wrong are not doubtful," she assured him, "and all the science in the world can't turn one into the other—any more than light can turn into darkness."
"Light can turn into darkness easily enough. I've learned that during the last three days," he answered. "If you fill this room with light, I can't see. If you keep it dark, I can."
Estelle came to tea and read some notes that Mr. Best had prepared for Raymond. They satisfied him, and the meal was merry, for he found himself free of pain and in the best spirits. Estelle, too, had some gossip that amused him. Her father was already practising at clay pigeons to get his eye in for the first of September; and he wished to inform Raymond that he was shooting well and hoped for a better season than the last. He had also seen a vixen and three cubs on North Hill at five o'clock in the morning of the preceding day.
"In fact, it's the best of all possible worlds so far as father is concerned," said Estelle, "and now he hears you're coming home early next week, he will go to church on Sunday with a thankful heart. He said yesterday that Raymond's accident had a bright side. D'you know what it is? Ray meant to give up cricket altogether after this year; but father points out that he cannot do so now. Because it is morally impossible for Ray to stop playing until he stands up again to that bowler who hurt him so badly. 'Morally impossible,' is what father said."
"He's quite right too," declared the patient. "Till I've knocked that beggar out of his own ground for six, I certainly shan't chuck cricket. We must meet again next season, if we're both alive. Everybody can see that."