The forehead was damp and cold, like a cellar wall. Una sat bolt up in horror. Her mother’s face had a dusky flush, her lips were livid as clotted blood. Her arms were stiff, hard to the touch. Her breathing, rapid and agitated, like a frightened panting, was interrupted just then by a cough like the rattling of stiff, heavy paper, which left on her purple lips a little colorless liquid.
“Mother! Mother! My little mother—you’re sick, you’re really sick, and I didn’t know and I spoke so harshly. Oh, what is it, what is it, mother dear?”
“Bad—cold,” Mrs. Golden whispered. “I started coughing last night—I closed the door—you didn’t hear me; you were in the other room—” Another cough wheezed dismally, shook her, gurgled in her yellow deep-lined neck. “C-could I have—window closed now?”
“No. I’m going to be your nurse. Just an awfully cranky old nurse, and so scientific. And you must have fresh air.” Her voice broke. “Oh, and me sleeping away from you! I’ll never do it again. I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to you.... Do you feel any headache, dear?”
“No—not—not so much as— Side pains me—here.”
Mrs. Golden’s words labored like a steamer in heavy seas; the throbbing of her heart shook them like the throb of the engines. She put her hand to her right side, shakily, with effort. It lay there, yellow against the white muslin of her nightgown, then fell heavily to the bed, like a dead thing. Una trembled with fear as her mother continued, “My pulse—it’s so fast—so hard breathing—side pain.”
“I’ll put on an ice compress and then I’ll go and get a doctor.”
Mrs. Golden tried to sit up. “Oh no, no, no! Not a doctor! Not a doctor!” she croaked. “Doctor Smyth will be busy.”
“Well, I’ll have him come when he’s through.”
“Oh no, no, can’t afford—”