Page:Weird Tales volume 02 number 03.djvu/31

Rh head, in the soothing gesture he had asked in those past weeks, were flung off. His old arrogance grew into him again.

"Yes," the specialist announced, after the long examination, "success is certain. It will be a tedious operation, but it will come out fine."

He made an engagement for the following Saturday, four days off.

"There's nothing we can do until then," he continued. "I will be busy until Saturday. Two or three old friends I must look up. Bring him to the hospital, then. No, there's no occasion for that expense. We'll look after it right here. I'll find a nurse."

Rubbing his hands together, he smiled broadly, delightedly.

"It will be a splendid operation—great! You will be very happy."

Meta wondered, steadily and increasingly wondered about this, after the doctor left. Would she be happy? Could anything, any set of circumstances in the world bring so great happiness as the past months in which she had mothered a man? What would be the way of her life, after David saw? Steadily and increasingly, as the four days wore on, she gave herself to the solution of this question.

Already David was changing, the dictatorial manner falling upon him again. His voice was hardening, his jaw stiffening, his shoulders lifting aggressively. Already he had begun to tell her of the things a man would do for himself, after the coming of Saturday. In all its hideous repulsion, Meta felt again the coming of her Hell.

On Thursday, working, she had begun to sing. David called out angrily:

"Cut out that yowling! I want to think. Let me think. I haven't had a minute to myself for nearly a year."

Later in, the afternoon, after reading a newspaper, she obtained David's permission and went to Mrs. Jobbins' store, sitting in the space back of the partition with the proprietress. Meta's eyes wandered searchingly over the shelves, laden with their bottles. Before her she saw strange names of drugs. Flitting back and forth across the rows of bottles, her body gave a little start as she recognized a name. Furtively she glanced at the folded paper, which she had brought with her.

"It tells here," she said, "about two people that took something and never waked up."

Mrs. Jobbins wiped her glasses on the hem of her apron, and read the tale in the newspaper.

"A hypnotic," she said importantly, when she had finished, and went into description of hypnotics. Thus Meta learned there were poisons that did not twist as they killed.

A girl came in to buy a chocolate soda, and Meta was left alone in the space back of the prescription case, the space with its shelves filled with bottles that bore strange-sounding names. Fingering over this stock, after she had arisen hurriedly and looked stealthily toward the front, she found the bottle with the familiar name, the name that was set forth in the newspaper.

When Meta left the back room, half hour later, one hand in her apron pocket tightly was clasping a hurriedly wrapped small package.

RIDAY was torture-day. David gave Meta no moment to herself, but continually called to her, demanding some attention, then bemoaning the blindness that made the attention necessary.

"But, dear," Meta said once, "I am so glad—"

"Don't 'dear' me!" he barked. "I'm not a baby. In a week I'll be different. I won't be setting here while you're babying me. Don’t baby me! Don't 'dear' me!"

Thus she found she must drop the new tender word from her thoughts. She must harden herself again. She must—

Out in the kitchen, later, she fought the thing out. Could she forget? Could she go back to the terror? After these weeks? These white, golden glad weeks?

From the time of the doctor's first visit, David lost his fear of the night-dark. He turned his back to Meta, on each of the three nights, and snored immediately. On Friday night, Meta did not sleep and David did not know it. She did not sleep because she had been to see the great specialist, her visit unknown to David, and had questioned him.

"David—my man," she asked, "will come out all right?"

Dr. Dulayne had patted her shoulder.

"As surely as the sun rises—as the day comes, he will see again," he smiled.

"There is no—no mistake?" she insisted.

"None."

So, thinking over this statement, weighing the possibility, striving to arrange in her mind the various perplexities, that night she lay awake. In the small hours of the morning she rose, went into the living-room, carefully lighted the fire, fearful of a noise that would awaken David, and sat long before the little stove, gazing into it. At times she walked to the window, watching the coming of the dawn, seeing the stretching forth of the golden-pink fingers of the east. She marveled at the beauty of the coming of day. She had not noticed it before, for years and years. She had been too tired, too taken up with other things. Now she was keyed up.

Aiding David to dress, after breakfast, on that last morning, she fell under the continual pricks of his tight temper. He fumed when she momentarily left the room.

"Don't you know I've got to hurry!" he called, "I have to be ready by eleven o'clock. What are you doing? Step around, there!"

"Yes. I'm just getting things ready. Myself and some things for you."

"For me? I don't have to get anything ready!"

"Yes," she answered quietly. "You must be dressed. You would not look like a bum—a hobo. You must dress."

She brought his black suit, and stood quietly at his side.

"I'm ready to dress you, now."

His fingers skipped over the cloth,

"Get my grey suit," he ordered. "I don't want that black thing. I'm not going to a funeral."

"This is your grey suit," Meta lied. "You—you have just not yet learned to feel—"

"That's right!" he stormed, "Twit me about my blindness!"

"Dear!" she cried. "Dear!"

"Do what you've got to do and don't pester me with talk!" he raged. "Get away! I can do this."

His arms becoming twisted in the vest, Meta quietly assisted him. He stormed and called her "clumsy."

"In about a week—a week," he whimpered, "I'll be out of this: I'll be myown man again But this feels like my black suit."

"It's your grey one," Meta said again.

Pattering about the kitchen in her slippered feet, an apron over her best grey silk dress, Meta put the kettle on the stove, and squeezed two lemons into two cups. The querulous tones of David grated into her. The sunlight had left her days, the voices of the birds were stilled, the colors had bleached from the flowers.

The faces of her two children came into things, seemed to be ringed in the bottoms of the cups; and she saw again the piteous fright of the two white rats. The crunching of the bones in the jaws of the old cat, her neighbor's cat, was in her ears. The little new cat, the one that had come to her, brushed against her skirt, and she lifted it in her arms, cradling it close, feeling her body respond to the rumbling of its purr. Walking to the window, she looked out into the golden world.