“Dear boy, don’t swear like that. No, it can’t be your eyes that hurt; if they did it would be a very good thing. It’s your face that—that is cut up rather. Not that all hope is gone, of course, there is still a chance, there always is, the specialist said so. Miracles have happened before now. But I do hate your swearing like this.”
“I’m sorry.”
Why had she died, who could have helped him so much now? All these years he had thought so little about her, and now she was back, and she ought to be sitting by the bed, and she would be helping so much, and there would be nothing to hide, and it would be so much simpler if Mummy were here. Her hands would drive away the pain. It would be so different.
“But I will read to you, all your nice books. And then you will go on writing just the same; you could dictate to me. I shall always be there to help, we’ll see it out together.”
Heaven forbid. She would never be able to read Dostoievsky, would never be able to understand. Besides, poor dear, it would bore her so except for the first few weeks when she would feel a martyr, and that was never a feeling to encourage. And how fine it would be to renounce her help in seeing it through, not as if it ever had an end, but how unselfish. Why was there no one else?
“Thank you, darling.”
What had he said? He ought never to have said that, it gave the whole show away. Why did one’s voice go? But what was there to say? He was blind, finished, on the shelf, that was all. Still, he must carry her through. She must be dreadfully upset about it all. But what was there to say?
She was struggling.
“It’s all right, it’s not so bad as it looks, it’s not as if we were very poor, it could—much worse, much worse.”
How wonderful he was, taking it like this, just like Ralph. She would like to say so many things, she longed to, but he did so hate demonstrativeness. She must try to say the right thing, she must not let it run away with her. And she must talk to keep his mind off.