"Well, what do I do?"

"I don't see that there is anything more that you can do. What do you think is the real trouble? Have they some kind of religious scruple about surgery?"

"No. They're Thirteeners, whatever that means. But the preacher was at the house the other day when I called -- a fellow named Beamis -- and when I explained the situation to him he was perfectly reasonable. Tried to persuade her to go to hospital. Did everything he could, really. But the old girl kept sobbing and moaning 'Don't let 'em take me; please don't let 'em take me'. I felt like a fool."

"There's no need for you to feel like that, Jimmy. You've given the best advice -- the only advice, really. If they don't take it, you can throw up the case, but I wouldn't, if I were you. If people are determined to commit suicide by the long and painful course of going against medical opinion, it's hard to watch, but I don't think you want to be known as the kind of doctor who throws up cases."

"I had a little hope until this week. The younger daughter is home, now. You've heard of her; she's the girl that's being educated with old Mrs Bridgetower's money. They insisted on putting off a final decision till she came. She's far above the rest of them, and she's certainly not scared. I've talked to her very frankly; she knows exactly what'll happen. I got her to the point of saying that her mother should go to hospital. 'I'll tell her myself', she said, and we went into the room together. But the old lady must be a mind-reader. She snatched the girl's hand, and began to scream. 'Monny, don't let 'em take me; Monny, don't let 'em get me in that place', she shrieked, over and over again. The girl looked dreadful; I was really sorry for her. Her mother made her swear, then and there, with a Bible in her hand, that she should not be taken to hospital. 'You see how it is', she said to me, and I suppose I do, in a way. But she said a funny thing to me, as I was leaving. 'You realize that your decision may be bringing about your mother's death?' I said --"

"Now Jimmy, that was a mistake."

"Yes, I know it was, but I was mad. It's all so senseless! But she looked me straight in the eye and said: 'My decision may do so, Dr Cobbett, but your decision would do so beyond any doubt. My mother lives by the spirit as well as by the flesh; if I kill the spirit by delivering her, frightened and forsaken, into your hands, what makes you think that you can save the flesh?' Now what do you make of that? A layman ever dare talk to you in that way?"

"Speaking after more than thirty years of practice, I think the girl is right. Under stress, you know, Jimmy, people sometimes speak wiser than they know. I suppose if the girl had said yes, you could have doped the mother enough to get her to hospital and operate on her. But it would have been a serious risk. And -- I don't know -- if the whole cast of her mind, and her level of intelligence, and everything about her is against having her life saved by science, I question if we've any cast-iron moral right to save it."

"The job of the profession is to preserve life, under all possible circumstances."

"Oh, I know. I was taught that, too. And as long as you never learn any thing but medicine, you'll probably continue to think so."

"I'm sorry you take it like that, Father."

"Don't be hurt, Jimmy. I'm sorry you've got such a miserable case. But they do turn up, from time to time. Hang on; it's your duty, and it can't last long."

[FIVE].

Mrs Gall's illness had already lasted for two weeks and two days when Monica came home. The first violent onset had utterly demoralized Mr Gall, who fully believed his wife's agonized protests that she was dying. He had no experience of illness, except for occasional coughs and colds, and the Galls had no physician, now that old Doctor Wander, who had attended to the children, had died. He had called Alice, and Alice had called young Dr Cobbett. But she did not call him until morning, heeding the widespread complaint of doctors about night calls, and had been scolded by Dr Cobbett when he arrived, for not calling him sooner. By that time Mrs Gall had discovered that if she lay very still, with her knees up, and breathed as shallowly and as slowly as possible, her pain was less. But she was deeply frightened.

She was only a little less frightened when the doctor disposed of her fear that she had cancer. This was her secret dread, which she had hugged to herself for years. But if it were not cancer, what was it? Dr Cobbett talked in big, unfamiliar words, but it emerged that he did not know what it was, either. Myocardial infarction; what could that be? Acute pancreatitis; an obstructive neoplasm; volvulus of the small intestine? Young Dr Cobbett was kindly and able, but he was not above astonishing the simple. When Mrs Gall, feebly supported by her husband, showed strong resistance to going to the hospital, he astonished them even more, in the hope of breaking down their determination. But it was useless, and as he could not put Mrs Gall in hospital by force, he had to leave her at home, and get Nurses Gourlay and Heffernan to take care of her. The nurses were as much affronted as he by the Galls' refusal to accommodate themselves to the needs of medical science, and they let their displeasure be felt. Nurse Gourlay, indeed, made no secret of the fact that if she had her way, there would be a law to compel people to do what the doctor said was best for them.

Mrs Gall was down, but she was not out. Pain and fright lent her courage, and she gave Nurse Gourlay a piece of her mind; for Nurse Heffernan, a softer sort of woman altogether, she reserved her fears that she might die, and her dread that her ailment might yet turn out to be cancer. Nurse Heffernan seized the chance to say that if only Mrs Gall would go to hospital, like a good girl, they'd have her leppin' like a goat in a couple of weeks. But Mrs Gall was firm: no hospital.

Her resolution was strengthened by morphia, which Dr Cobbett ordered in doses sufficient to control her pain. But in her morphia dreams there detached itself from some submerged mass of fear and floated upward into Mrs Gall's consciousness a notion that she was being held against her will in a bawdy-house, which was also a hospital, and where the wildest indecencies were demanded of her. She had too much cunning to confide these dreams to Nurse Heffernan, who would certainly have derided them, because of her professional stake in hospitals; she told them instead to her daughter Alice, during the eight hours of the night when neither nurse was on duty.

It was Alice who insisted that Monica should be sent for. She was not a bad or unkind daughter, but she took her duties as Charles Proby's wife heavily, and she was impatient of what she considered "nonsense". Not to go to the hospital was nonsense. To have delusions of being in a bawdy-house was nonsense. There were times when Alice was very close to thinking that being ill, which involved claims upon the time and charity of busy, ambitious young matrons, was nonsense. Nonsense had to be stopped. And why should she carry the weight of all this nonsense when Monica was living abroad, free of all care, thinking of nobody but herself?

"Every tub must stand on its own bottom," said Alice, and went to see Mr Snelgrove. It was on the sixteenth day of Mrs Gall's illness that Monica arrived home, and was greeted by her father with his pathetic cry of fear that Mrs Gall might die.

Dr Cobbett and the nurses seized upon Monica as a new ally. By this time Dr Cobbett was virtually certain that Mrs Gall had acute cholecystitis and might die even if she were now moved to the hospital. But it was his task to do everything in his power to save her, and he would have risked an operation at an even later date: it must also be admitted that he loved to have his own way, and wanted to beat down this insurrection against the righteous forces of Hygeia.

Monica would not be bustled. She was a strange figure now in the stuffy little house. Her manner of speech, her clothes, her demeanour were all at odds with it. Nurse Gourlay did not dare to bully her; Nurse Heffernan, who had a feudal streak in her, accepted Monica as the mistress, to be heeded right or wrong. Monica took on the night nursing.

"Monny, are you there?"

"Yes, Ma, right here."

"Monny, you won't let 'em take me to that place?"

"No, Ma; don't worry."

"I've been there. I was there this afternoon. But I run away. I run away in my night-gown. A couple o' fellas in the hall seen me, and they tried to grab me. Was it bad? -- Monny, was it bad?"

"Was what bad, Ma?"

"Was it bad they seen me in only my night-gown?"

"No, no; not bad. It was only a dream."

"It wasn't a dream. I was there. Monny, when they get you in there they make you do awful things. It's a bad-house. There was girls there I used to know. Kate Dempster was there, flirtin' her tail just like she used when we was girls. Kate's a bad girl. Am I a bad girl, Monny?"

"No, Ma, you're a good girl."

"Are you a good girl, Monny?"

"Yes, Ma, I'm a good girl."

"Then why do you talk so funny? You're talkin' all the time waw-waw-waw so I can't make you out. You ain't Monny!"

"Yes, yes dear, I'm Monny. You mustn't upset yourself. I'm Monny and I'm right here."

"No you ain't. Monny don't talk like that. You've sent Monny away! And I'm a bad girl, and they'll put me in the bad-house!"

"Quiet, dear. Let me give you a sip of this. Just a sip."

"I'm a bad girl. -- Monny, will I die?"

"No, dear, of course not. You had a very good day today."

But it was not a good day. It was what Dr Cobbett called "a remission".

The period of remission lasted for seven days. To the nurses the vomiting, the bloating, the wasting away of flesh, the groaning and the recurrence of pain were the accustomed circumstances of serious illness. To Alfred Gall, who had never seen his wife in such straits, it was an agony for which he could find no expression. Morning and night he would go to the door of her room, look at the inert form in the bed and listen to its heavy breathing, after which he would creep away, his face marked with fear and loss. Only his sister Ellen had power to raise any hope in him. Alice was impatient of his spiritlessness; it was her temperament to talk about troubles, and to find relief in talk; she had no understanding of her father's stricken silence. Monica was gentle with him, but her energies were saved for the long vigils at her mother's bed-side.

Not all of their talks in the night were coloured by Mrs Gall's semi-delirium. True, most of what was said was in the pattern of fear and delusion, countered by love and reassurance. But for Monica her mother's rational spells were more exhausting than her wanderings, for in them it was emphasized and re-emphasized that to her mother she was now in part a stranger. Her manner of speech had changed, and Mrs Gall could not be comforted easily in the new, clear, warm speech which Monica had been at such pains to learn; but she could not undo it, could not go back to the speech of her home, for the new speech had become the instrument of the best that was in her mind, and heart. It seemed to her cruel and shameful that it should be so, but she was forced to admit the fact; it was so. To speak as Ma wanted her to speak was not only difficult, but it was a betrayal of Revelstoke, of Domdaniel, of Molloy and all the poets and musicians who stood behind them in time. Did she love these things more than her own mother? She put the question to herself, in those words, many times, but never dared to give either of the possible answers. Loyalty demanded that she give love, and she gave it as fully as she was able.

Loyalty demanded truth. But Mrs Gall, fearing death, returned again and again to incidents in her own life, at which she could only bring herself to hint, though in delirium their nature was revealed a little more clearly. She was convinced that she had sinned unforgivably, and that her sins were sexual in their nature. She named no names, spoke of no incidents; perhaps there had been none. But during her lifetime the only morality to which she had ever given a moment of serious thought, or to which she had ever paid solemn tribute, was a morality of sexual prohibition; she felt now that she had not been true to it, yet she could not confess her transgression or give clear expression to her remorse. Instead, she accused herself vaguely, and suffered in the tormented images of her morphia dreams.

She was specific in her demands and exhortations to Monica, however. Was Monica a good girl? The question came again and again when she was partly conscious, and thus phrased, from Mrs Gall, it could have only one meaning. Monica had no intention of saying that, in her mother's terms, she was not a good girl. But she had to meet the question in her own mind. Was she? To say yes was disloyal to home, to the woman who was in such distress at her side. But there were seven of these weary nights, and before the last Monica was sure of her answer. She was a good girl. Chastity is to have the body in the soul's keeping; Domdaniel had said it, and everything in her own experience supported it. And this decision, more than anything else, divided Monica from her mother when her mother most needed her. Her mother's idea of good and bad would not do for her.

If these ideas were invalid for her, what else that was valid had her mother to give her? Nothing, thought Monica; not with any sense of freedom, of breaking a lifelong bondage, but sadly and with pity for her mother and herself. But on the sixth night, after a brief period of sleep, Mrs Gall opened her eyes, and looked at her daughter more clearly than she had done since her homecoming.

"I been asleep."

"Yes, Ma. Do you feel a little rested?"

"Was I talkin' foolish a while ago?"

"The hypodermics make you dream, dear."

"And I guess I go on pretty wild, eh?"

Monica was about to deny it, but she looked into her mother's eye, and saw a twinkle there. Mrs Gall laughed, feebly but unmistakably.

"Yes, you were pretty wild, Ma."

"You bet I was. I've got quite an imagination. That's where you're like me, Monny. Always remember that. You got that from me."

Tears came into Monica's eyes; they were tears of happiness, for at last she shared something with her mother. She wept, and laughed a little, as she said -- "Yes Ma, I got that from you. We're very alike, aren't we?"

"Yes, I guess we are."

The period of remission ended, unmistakably, a few hours later, on the morning of the seventh day, and Dr Cobbett said that peritonitis, which would certainly be fatal, had come, as he had expected it would under the circumstances. The family last saw Mrs Gall, leaden grey, with eyes partly closed and seemingly already dead, though the doctor called it "shock". She died at four o'clock the following morning. Only Monica was with her then.

[SIX].

"I think it is my duty to emphasize once again that this need not have happened," said young Dr Cobbett as he prepared to fill out the certificate of death.

"My mother was always used to having her own way," said Monica, "and there is no point in discussing that now. The decision was mine, made according to her wishes, and if you feel that this matter should be carried any further, I shall be ready to answer any official questions."

Dr Cobbett did not want to pursue the matter. All he wanted was an admission that he had been in the right, and he saw that he was not going to get it. So he continued.

"How old was your mother?"

Monica did not know. It had always been understood that it was "bold" to want to know the ages of one's parents; it was like uncovering their nakedness, in the Bible. When Aunt Ellen was consulted, Monica was surprised to learn that her mother was fifty-six. Then when Monica was born, Mrs Gall had been thirty-three -- ten years older than her own age, attained last December. Mrs Gall, fat and toothless, her hair streaked with grey, had somehow seemed to be without age -- a mother.

"I guess living with Dad wasn't much incentive to her to keep herself up," said Alice.

After her first outburst of grief, Alice was unpleasantly practical. Mr Gall could not be sent off to work on such a day, but neither could he be endured in the house, which must be made ready for the funeral. It was Alice who packed him off to her house, with complicated instructions about what he was to do for little Donald. Aunt Ellen, too, stayed away from her work, and it was Alice who put her at the job of calling and telegraphing the necessary relatives, from her own home. This, Alice explained to Monica, was more convenient and meant also that Aunt Ellen would pay for the telegrams; it could be her share of the funeral expenses.

At nine o'clock on the morning of their mother's death, Alice prepared coffee for herself and Monica, and sat down to make plans.

"The funeral can be from Queen Street United," she said; "I'll get Reverend Calder on the phone right away."

"But why?" said Monica. "Why not from the Tabernacle? Mother never had anything to do with Queen Street United."

"Monny, let's face it. Do we want Ma's funeral to be a Thirteener circus, with Beamis spreading himself all over the place? You remember old Mrs Delahaye's funeral? -- Well?"

"But that was her church, Alice. That's what she'd want."

"What makes you so sure? I've heard her say things about Beamis that certainly didn't sound as if she had much use for him."

"But wouldn't it seem odd?"

"Not half as odd as a Thirteener funeral. Chuck and I go to Queen Street United. We could arrange it."

"I don't see it that way, Alice."

"What's it matter to you? You're independent. You'll be away out of this as soon as you can get. But I've got to live here. Listen Monny -- Chuck's boss will probably be attending this funeral. I don't want him coming to the Thirteener Tabernacle, and getting the idea that those are the people we associate with."

"Alice, you're a snob!"

"Who's talking? Lady Haw-haw-haw; even when she was out of her head Ma used to make fun of you, right up till the last. Snob? Listen, I've got my own way to make. I'm not being carried by anybody else's money. And I'll tell you another thing, just while we're speaking our minds: I think Ma ought to have been put in the hospital, so there."

"Then why didn't you put her in yourself, before I came home?"

"Because Dad insisted on waiting for you. You've always been the Big Mucky-Muck around here, and now you've got this Trust behind you, Dad and Ma were scared of you. It had to be Monny's decision. Well, you decided, and a fine mess you made of it. If you'd used common sense Ma would be well and strong now, and not dead upstairs. If you want my straight opinion, you killed Ma."

"Alice, you're over-excited. I did what I did out of kindness; I swear it."

"I never said you didn't. But Ma won't be the first one that's been killed by kindness."

But the final arrangement was for a funeral at the Thirteener Tabernacle. It was not a complete victory for Monica. Pastor Beamis, who knew nothing of Alice's desire to displace him as spiritual adviser to the family, took his position for granted, and began to plan a service; he wanted Monica to sing a solo, and preferably two; he wanted to get the Heart and Hope Quartet together again, to make a special re-appearance at the graveside; it would draw a record crowd, he said, and what a comfort that would be to Brother Gall. Monica did not refuse without consideration; she fought with herself for the greater part of a day, but in the end she refused. Her reason was that she did not feel that she could control her voice well enough to sing upon such an occasion. But the inner voice, increasingly powerful in her thoughts, said: Don't be a hypocrite; you're ashamed of them.

The inner voice was cruel. So often it put the worst construction on everything, and in that respect it was like a conscience. But it spoke no morality which Monica could associate with a conscience -- unless, somewhere, she were developing a new conscience, suited to her new needs. But if that were the case, why was the voice so often cruel? Sometimes it spoke with the unmistakable tones of her Mother, but in this instance it used the voice of Giles Revelstoke.

The three days before the funeral were tiring, after the long trial of Mrs Gall's illness. Ineffectual as he was, decency demanded that Mr Gall be consulted about the more important arrangements, and it was his wish that the funeral be held partly at the house and partly at the Tabernacle. Alice wanted it to be at the undertaker's chapel which, she pointed out, was so undenominational that you could imagine yourself anywhere. But in this last bid for social advancement she was defeated.

She and Monica bickered all the time, and quarrelled at least once a day. Their worst encounter was at the undertaker's, when they were choosing a coffin.

"Can you show us anything in oak?" said Alice.

The undertaker could show them something in oak; he mentioned the price.

"I don't think we want anything as expensive as that," said Monica.

"Who's we?" said Alice; "I think it's very nice."

"It's too expensive. Dad shouldn't be burdened with that on top of every thing else."

"Who said Dad's going to be burdened? Who do you think is paying for this?"

"We all are, I suppose; we'll have to arrange some system of shares."

"Listen, Monny, we're all paying according to what we have. Aunt Ellen has done telegrams. Chuck and I are looking after flowers at the house and the church. Dad'll have all he can manage settling up for the doctor and nurses, even with his insurance. That means that this is your share. See?"

"You mean I'm paying for the funeral?"

"None of the rest of us have got a sugar-daddy."