Gerald sat on a chair by the window in his father’s room. The landscape outside was black and winter-sodden. His father lay grey and ashen on the bed, a nurse moved silently in her white dress, neat and elegant, even beautiful. There was a scent of eau-de-Cologne in the room. The nurse went out of the room, Gerald was alone with death, facing the winter-black landscape.
“Is there much more water in Denley?” came the faint voice, determined and querulous, from the bed. The dying man was asking about a leakage from Willey Water into one of the pits.
“Some more—we shall have to run off the lake,” said Gerald.
“Will you?” The faint voice filtered to extinction. There was dead stillness. The grey-faced, sick man lay with eyes closed, more dead than death. Gerald looked away. He felt his heart was seared, it would perish if this went on much longer.
Suddenly he heard a strange noise. Turning round, he saw his father’s eyes wide open, strained and rolling in a frenzy of inhuman struggling. Gerald started to his feet, and stood transfixed in horror.
“Wha-a-ah-h-h—” came a horrible choking rattle from his father’s throat, the fearful, frenzied eye, rolling awfully in its wild fruitless search for help, passed blindly over Gerald, then up came the dark blood and mess pumping over the face of the agonised being. The tense body relaxed, the head fell aside, down the pillow.
Gerald stood transfixed, his soul echoing in horror. He would move, but he could not. He could not move his limbs. His brain seemed to re-echo, like a pulse.
The nurse in white softly entered. She glanced at Gerald, then at the bed.
“Ah!” came her soft whimpering cry, and she hurried forward to the dead man. “Ah-h!” came the slight sound of her agitated distress, as she stood bending over the bedside. Then she recovered, turned, and came for towel and sponge. She was wiping the dead face carefully, and murmuring, almost whimpering, very softly: “Poor Mr Crich!—Poor Mr Crich! Poor Mr Crich!”
“Is he dead?” clanged Gerald’s sharp voice.