That night he went on tip-toe to the dressing-room, turned up the electric light, and drew back the coverlet from the face of the still-born child. His son! What a queer mite! Like a wax doll, with something of Joyce’s look, and something, perhaps, of his own. He kissed the tiny dead face, and then drew back sharply because of its coldness. Not that he was afraid of death. He had seen many men die, and dead. But this little thing was Joyce’s babe. That was piteous! After all her suffering! Oh, God! . . . Was it for the best? Had God been kind? There was something in life now which seemed to spoil things. Some trouble seemed to be brewing for further tragedy. That was what old Christy thought. The old foundations were slipping away. The War had shaken them too much. The next generation might have to go through worse things than their fathers. Fathers who had been good soldiers but not much good in time of peace, and found it hard to get a decent job!
Bertram Pollard covered the face of the still-born child, switched off the light, and went downstairs again. He wrote out an advertisement for The Times—Joyce’s friends would want to know—and then, for hours, sat brooding until he fell asleep, and was only wakened by the “Lor’, sir!” of the parlourmaid, Edith, who came in to tidy his room. She was very sorry for him, and said so in her chatty way.
III
It was the nurse who told him how to arrange for the child’s burial, and he went round to an undertaker’s in Church Street, Kensington, jostled by smart women, very bright at their morning’s shopping so that he hated them. The undertaker’s clerk was respectful but surprised when Bertram explained his errand.
“It’s not usual, sir, to have a funeral for a still-born infant.”
“What then?” asked Bertram.
The man coughed.
“As a rule we just fetch them away.”
“Damn it!” said Bertram, with astonishing violence, “I want you to arrange a funeral.”
He arranged for an oak coffin with a brass plate, on which the name “Bertram Pollard” was to be inscribed.