He hadn"t the heart to say what he had always said, that Prothero"s genius was and always had been most peculiarly a disease; but he did not shrink from telling her that at the present crisis it was death.
For he was angry now. He could not help being moved by professional animus, the fury of a man who has brought his difficult, dangerous work to the pitch of unexpected triumph, and sees it taken from his hands and destroyed for a perversity, an incomprehensible caprice.
He was still more deeply stirred by his compa.s.sion, his affection for the Protheros. Secretly, he was very fond of Owen, though the poet _was_ impossible; he was even more fond of little Laura. He did not want to see her made a widow because Prothero refused to control his vice. For the literary habit, indulged in to that extent, amounted to a vice. The Doctor had no patience with it. A man was not, after all, a slave to his unwholesome inspiration (it had dawned on him by this time that Prothero had made a joke about it). Prothero could stop it if he liked.
"I"ve told him plainly," he said, "that what it means to him is death.
If you want to keep him, you must stop it."
"How can I?" she moaned.
"Don"t encourage him. Don"t let him talk about it. Don"t let his mind dwell on it. Turn the conversation. Take his pens and paper from him and don"t let him see them again till he is well."
When the Doctor left her she went up-stairs to Owen.
He was still sitting up writing, dashing down lines with a speed that told her what race he ran.
"Owen," she said, "you know. He told you----"
He waved her away with a gesture that would have been violent if it could.
She tried to take his pen and paper from him, and he laid his thin hands out over the sheets. The sweat stood in big drops between the veins of his hands; it streamed from his forehead.
"Wait just a little longer, till you"re well," she pleaded.
"For G.o.d"s sake, darling," he whispered hoa.r.s.ely, "leave me, go away."
She went. In her own room her work stood unfinished on the table where she had left it, months ago. She pushed it away in anger. She hated the sight of it. She sat watching the clock for the moments when she would have to go to him with his medicine.
She thought how right they had been after all. Nina and Jane and Tanqueray, when they spoke of the cruelty of genius. It had no mercy and no pity. It had taken its toll from all of them. It was taking its toll from Owen now, to the last drop of his blood, to the last torturing breath. His life was nothing to it.
She went to him silently every hour to give him food or medicine or to take his temperature. She recorded on her chart heat mounting to fever, and a pulse staggering in its awful haste. He was submissive as long as she was silent, but at a word his thin hand waved in its agonized gesture.
Once he kissed her hands that gave him his drink.
"Poor little thing," he said, "it"s so frightened--always was. Never mind--It"ll soon be over--only--don"t come again" (he had to whisper it), "if you don"t mind--till I ring."
She sat listening then for his bell.
Rose came and stayed with her a little while. She wanted to know what the Doctor had said to-day.
"He says he must choose between his genius and his life. And it"s I who have to choose. If he goes on he"ll kill himself. If I stop him I shall kill him. What am I to do?"
Rose had her own opinion of the dilemma, and no great opinion of the Doctor.
"Do nothin"," she said, and pondered on it. "Look at it sensible. You may depend upon it "e"s found somethin" "e"s got to do. "E"s set "is "eart on finishin" it. Don"t you cross "im. I don"t believe in crossin"
them when they"re set."
"And if he dies, Rose? If he dies?"
""E dies "is way--not yours."
It was the wisdom of renunciation and repression; but Laura felt that it was right.
Her hour struck and she went up to Owen. He was lying back now with his eyes closed and his lips parted. Because of its peace his face was like the face of the dead. But his lips were hot under hers and his cheek was fire to her touch. She put her finger on his pulse and he opened his eyes and smiled at her.
"It"s finished," he said. "You can take it away now."
She gathered up the loose sheets and laid them in a drawer in his desk.
The poem once finished he was indifferent to its disposal. His eyes followed her, they rested on her without noting her movements. They drew her as she came towards him again.
"Forgive me," he said. "It was too strong for me."
"Never again," she murmured. "Promise me, never again till you"re well."
"Never again." He smiled as he answered.
Dr. Brodrick, calling late that night, was informed by Laura of the extent to which he had been disobeyed. He thundered at her and threatened, a Brodrick beside himself with fury.
"Do you suppose," she said, "it isn"t awful for me to have to stand by and see it, and do nothing? What can I do?"
He looked down at her. The little thing had a will of her own; she was indeed, for her size, preposterously over-charged with will. Never had he seen a small creature so indomitably determined. He put it to her.
She had a will; why couldn"t she use it?
"His will is stronger than mine," she said. "And his genius is stronger than his will."
"You overrate the importance of it. What does it matter if he never writes another line?"
It seemed to her that he charged him with futility, that he echoed--and in this hour!--the voice of the world that tried to make futile everything he did.
"It doesn"t matter to you," she said. "You never understood his genius; you never cared about it."
"Do you mean to tell me that you--_you_ care about it more than you care about him? Upon my word, I don"t know what you women are made of."
"What could I do?" she said. "I had to use my own judgment."
"You had not. You had to use mine."
He paused impressively.
"It"s no use, my child, fighting against the facts."
To Henry Laura was a little angry child, crying over the bitter dose of life. He had got to make her take it.
He towered over her, a Brodrick, the incarnate spirit of fact.
It was a spirit that revolted her. She stood her ground and defied it in its insufferable tyranny. She thought of how these men, these Brodricks, behaved to genius wherever they met it; how, among them, they had driven poor Jinny all but mad, martyrizing her in the name of fact. As for Owen, she knew what they had thought and said of him, how they judged him by the facts. If it came to that she could fight the Doctor with his own weapons. If he wanted facts he should have them; he should have all the facts.
"_This_ isn"t what"s killing him," she said. "It"s all the other things, the things he was made to do. Going out to Manchuria--that began it. He ought never to have been sent there. Then--five years on that abominable paper. Think how he slaved on it. You don"t know what it was to him. To have to sit in stuffy theatres and offices; to turn out at night in vile weather; to have to work whether he was fit to work or not."