The Eye of the Storm

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THE OLD woman’s head was barely fretting against the pillow. She could have moaned slightly.

‘What is it?’ asked the nurse, advancing on her out of the shadow. ‘Aren’t you comfortable, Mrs Hunter?’

‘Not at all. I’m lying on corks. They’re hurting me.’

The nurse smoothed the kidney-blanket, the macintosh, and stretched the sheet. She worked with an air which was not quite professional detachment, nor yet human tenderness; she was probably something of a ritualist. There was no need to switch on a lamp: a white light had begun spilling through the open window; there was a bloom of moonstones on the dark grove of furniture.

‘Oh dear, will it never be morning?’ Mrs Hunter got her head as well as she could out of the steamy pillows.

‘It is,’ said the nurse; ‘can’t you — can’t you feel it?’ While working around this almost chrysalis in her charge, her veil had grown transparent; on the other hand, the wings of her hair, escaping from beneath the lawn, could not have looked a more solid black.

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