Very gently he and Mills lifted him out, and carried him into the house and up three flights of excessively dark and narrow stairs, while Judy and Noel followed behind. They had to pause once or twice as the weight and length of their burden made getting round corners very difficult.
“I’m going to wait till the doctor comes,” said Noel. “Hadn’t you better go home in the car now, Judy?”
“Why should I?” she demanded. “Can’t I wait too? I dare say I can help. Noel, isn’t it ghastly?”
“I like Chip,” said Noel. “It’s funny, but I did the moment I saw him. Didn’t you?”
Judy nodded, unable to say much. Her throat ached, and she knew she was not very far from tears. It was so grotesque and unreal, that they should have caused this unnecessary suffering.
Major Stroud telephoned to the doctor, and Mills went to fetch him, as being the quickest way. Meanwhile Noel and the Major got Chip into bed.
Judy, left to herself, explored the little flat. She lit a gas-ring in the tiny kitchenette and put a kettle on. Then she found a small store of brandy which she brought out in case it was wanted. As she busied herself getting ready things the doctor might ask for she made herself well acquainted with Chip’s home. The sitting room possessed two solidly comfortable chairs and a sofa, all covered in brown linen. There was a gate-legged table, two etchings by Rops, and a vast number of books on religious subjects. Except for the books and the etchings it was as impersonal a room as a man could have. It touched her, it was so—she searched for a word—so starved.
“Man cannot live by books alone, my poor Chip,” she thought. She seemed to see again the kindly, tired lines about his mouth and eyes. She imagined a lonely life for him, with Major Stroud as the only close human tie. They had been through two campaigns together, the latter had told her. Fancy calling the Great War a campaign! She smiled at the thought. A hard-bitten man, the Major. She supposed the two were about of an age—say, forty-three. Bachelors? Oh, undoubtedly.
Then the doctor arrived—a cheerful, bustling man with a short gray beard. He seemed to have known the two of them for years.
“I helped to bring this young man into the world,” he told Judy, clapping an affectionate hand on the Major’s solid shoulder. That gentleman, who didn’t look as though he could possibly have needed help on that or any other occasion, smiled a little sheepishly, and then the bedroom door closed upon them. Noel and Judy, left in unhappy suspense in the sitting room looked at one another.