TO ANGELA
CHAPTER. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGE
I. ENTER - THE DUCHESS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
II. INTRODUCES THE
HONOURABLE JANE . . . . . . . . . . .9
III. THE SURPRISE
PACKET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
IV. JANE VOLUNTEERS . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
V. CONFIDENCES . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35
VI. THE VEIL IS LIFTED
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52
VII. GARTH FINDS HIS
ROSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60
VIII. ADDED PEARLS . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69
IX. LADY INGLEBY’S
HOUSE PARTY . . . . . . . . . . . . .75
X. THE REVELATION . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95
XI. GARTH FINDS THE
CROSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116
XII. THE DOCTOR’S
PRESCRIPTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
XIII. THE ANSWER OF THE
SPHINX . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
XIV. IN DERYCK’S SAFE
CONTROL . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
XV. THE CONSULTATION .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
XVI. THE DOCTOR FINDS A
WAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
XVII. ENTER - NURSE
ROSEMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . .184
XVIII. THE NAPOLEON OF
THE MOORS . . . . . . . . . . . .189
XIX. THE VOICE IN THE
DARKNESS . . . . . . . . . . . . .198
XX. JANE REPORTS
PROGRESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .212
XXI. HARD ON THE
SECRETARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
XXII. DR. ROB TO THE
RESCUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
XXIII. THE ONLY WAY . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
XXIV. THE MAN’S POINT
OF VIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
XXV. THE DOCTOR’S
DIAGNOSIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
XXVI. HEARTS MEET IN
SIGHTLESS LAND . . . . . . . . . . 283
CHAPTER. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGE
XXVII. THE EYES GARTH
TRUSTED. . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
XXVIII. IN THE STUDIO .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .304
XXIX. JANE LOOKS INTO
LOVE’S MIRROR . . . . . . . . . 307
XXX. "THE LADY
PORTRAYED" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .315
XXXI. IN LIGHTER VEIN .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
XXXII. AN INTERLUDE . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .328
XXXIII. "SOMETHING
IS GOING TO HAPPEN!" . . . . . . . .331
XXXIV. "LOVE NEVER
FAILETH" . . . . . . . . . . . . . .343
XXXV. NURSE ROSEMARY
HAS HER REWARD . . . . . . . . . .354
XXXVI. THE REVELATION
OF THE ROSARY . . . . . . . . . .363
XXXVII. "IN THE
FACE OF THIS CONGREGATION" . . . . . . 369
XXXVIII. PERPETUAL
LIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
THE peaceful stillness
of an English summer after-noon brooded over the park and gardens at Overdene.
A hush of moving sunlight and lengthening shadows lay upon the lawn, and a
promise of refreshing coolness made the shade of the great cedar tree a place
to be desired.
The old stone house,
solid, substantial and unadorned, suggested unlimited spaciousness and comfort
within; and was redeemed from positive ugliness without, by the fine ivy,
magnolia trees, and wistaria, of many years’ growth, climbing its plain face,
and now covering it with a mantle of soft green, large white blooms, and a
cascade of purple blossom.
A terrace ran the full
length of the house, bounded at one end by a large conservatory, at the other
by an aviary. Wide stone steps, at intervals, led down from the terrace on to
the soft springy turf of the lawn. Beyond -- the wide park; clumps of old
trees, haunted by shy brown deer; and, through the trees, fitful gleams of the
river, a narrow silver ribbon, winding gracefully in and out between long
grass, buttercups, and cow-daisies.
The sundial pointed to
four o’clock.
The birds were having
their hour of silence. Not a trill sounded from among the softly moving leaves;
not a chirp, not a twitter. The stillness seemed almost oppressive. The one
brilliant spot of colour in the landscape was a large scarlet macaw, asleep on
his stand under the cedar.
At last came the sound
of an opening door. A quaint old figure stepped out on to the terrace, walked
its entire length to the right, and disappeared into the rose-garden. The
Duchess of Meldrum had gone to cut her roses.
She wore an ancient
straw hat, of the early-Victorian shape known as "mushroom," tied
with black ribbons beneath her portly chin; a loose brown holland coat; a very
short tweed skirt, and Engadine "gouties." She had on some very old
gauntlet gloves, and carried a wooden basket and a huge pair of scissors.
A wag had once remarked
that if you met her Grace of Meldrurn returning from gardening or feeding her
poultry, and were in a charitable frame of mind, you would very likely give her
sixpence. But, after you had thus drawn her attention to yourself and she
looked at you, Sir Walter Raleigh’s cloak would not be in it! Your one possible
course would be to collapse into the mud, and let the ducal "gouties
" trample on you. This the duchess would do with gusto; then accept your
apologies with good nature; and keep your sixpence, to show when she told the
story.
The duchess lived
alone; that is to say, she had no desire for the perpetual companionship of any
of her own kith and kin, nor for the constant smiles and flattery of a paid
companion. Her pale daughter, whom she had systematically snubbed, had married;
her, handsome, son, whom ,she had adored and spoiled, had prematurely died;
before the death, a few years since, of Thomas, fifth Duke of Meldrum. He had
come to a sudden and, as the duchess often remarked, very suitable end; for, on
his sixty-second birthday, clad in all the splendours of his hunting scarlet,
top hat, and buff corduroy breeches, the mare he was mercilessly putting at an
impossible fence, suddenly refused, and Thomas, Duke of Meldrum, shot into a
field of turnips, pitched upon his head, and spoke no more.
This sudden cessation
of his noisy and fiery life meant a complete transformation in the entourage of
the duchess. Hitherto she had had to tolerate the boon companions, congenial to
himself, with whom he chose to fill the house; or to invite those of her own
friends to whom she could explain Thomas, and who suffered Thomas gladly, out
of friendship for her, and enjoyment of lovely Overdene. But even then the
duchess had no pleasure in her parties; for, quaint rough diamond though she
herself might appear, the bluest of blue blood ran in her veins; and, though
her manner had the off-hand abruptness and disregard of other people’s feelings
not unfrequently found in old ladies of high rank, she was at heart a true
gentlewoman, and could always be trusted to say and do the right thing in
moments of importance. The late duke’s language had been sulphurous and his
manners Georgian; and when he had been laid in the unwonted quiet of his
ancestral vault -- "so unlike him, poor dear," as the duchess
remarked, "that it is quite a comfort to know he is not really there"
-- her Grace looked around her, and began to realise the beauties and
possibilities of Overdene.
At first she contented
herself with gardening, making an aviary, and surrounding herself with all
sorts of queer birds and beasts; upon whom she lavished the affection which, of
late years, had known no human outlet.
But after a while her
natural inclination to hospitality, her humorous enjoyment of other people’s
foibles, and a quaint delight in parading her own, led to a constant succession
of house-parties at Overdene, which soon became known as a Liberty Hall of
varied delights, where you always met the people you most wanted to meet, found
every facility for enjoying your favourite pastime, were fed and housed in
perfect style, and spent some of the most ideal days of your summer, or cheery
days of your winter, never dull, never bored, free to come and go as you
pleased, and everything seasoned for everybody with the delightful "sauce
piquante" of never being quite sure what the duchess would do or say next.
She mentally arranged
her parties under three heads, -- "freak parties," "mere people
parties," and "best parties." A "best party" was in
progress on the lovely June day when the duchess, having enjoyed an unusually
long siesta, donned what she called her "garden togs" and sallied
forth to cut roses.
As she tramped along
the terrace and passed through the little iron gate leading to the rose-garden,
Tommy, the scarlet macaw, opened one eye and watched her; gave a loud kiss as
she reached the gate and disappeared from view, then laughed to himself and
went to sleep again.
Of all the many pets,
Tommy was prime favourite. He represented the duchess’s one concession to
morbid sentiment. After the demise of the duke she had found it so depressing
to be invariably addressed with suave deference by every male voice she heard.
If the butler could have snorted, or the rector have rapped out an
uncomplimentary adjective, the duchess would have felt cheered. As it was, a
fixed and settled melancholy lay upon her spirit until she saw in a dealer’s
list an advertisement of a prize macaw, warranted a grand talker, with a
vocabulary of over five hundred words.
The duchess went
immediately to town, paid a visit to the dealer, heard a few of the macaw’s
words and the tone in which he said them, bought him on the spot, and took him
down to Overdene.
The first evening he
sat crossly on the perch of his grand new stand, declining to say a single one
of his five hundred words, though the duchess spent her evening in the hall,
sitting in every possible place; first, close to him; then, away in a distant
corner; in an arm-chair placed behind a screen; reading, with her back turned,
feigning not to notice him; facing him with concentrated attention. Tommy
merely clicked his tongue at her every time she emerged from a hiding-place;
or, if the rather worried butler or nervous under-footman passed hurriedly
through the hall, sent showers of kisses after them, and then went into fits of
ventriloquial laughter. The duchess, in despair, even tried reminding him in a
whisper of the remarks he had made in the shop; but Tommy only winked at her
and put his claw over his beak. Still, she enjoyed his flushed and scarlet
appearance, and retired to rest hopeful and in no wise regretting her bargain.
The next morning it
became instantly evident to the house-maid who swept the hall, the footman who
sorted the letters, and the butler who sounded the breakfast gong, that a good
night’s rest had restored to Tommy the full use of his vocabulary. And when the
duchess came sailing down the stairs, ten minutes after the gong had sounded,
and Tommy, flapping his wings angrily, shrieked at her: "Now then, old
girl! Come on!" she went to breakfast in a more cheerful mood than she had
known for months past.
THE only one of her
relatives who practically made her home with the duchess was her niece and
former ward, the Honourable Jane Champion; and this consisted merely in the
fact that the Honourable Jane was the one person who might invite herself to
Overdene or Portland Place, arrive when she chose, stay as long as she pleased,
and leave when it suited her convenience. On the death of her father, when her
lonely girlhood in her Norfolk home came to an end, she would gladly have
filled the place of a daughter to the duchess. But the duchess did not require
a daughter; and a daughter with pronounced views, plenty of backbone of her
own, a fine figure and a plain face, would have seemed to her Grace of Meldrum
a peculiarly undesirable acquisition. So Jane was given to understand that she
might come whenever she liked, and stay as long as she liked, but on the same
footing as other people. This meant liberty to come and go as she pleased, and
no responsibility towards her aunt’s guests. The duchess preferred managing her
own parties in her own way.
Jane Champion was now
in her thirtieth year. She had once been described, by one who saw below the
surface, as a perfectly beautiful woman in an absolutely plain shell; and no
man had as yet looked beneath the shell, and seen the woman in her perfection.
She would have made earth heaven for a blind lover who, not having eyes for the
plainness of her face or the massiveness of her figure, might have drawn
nearer, and apprehended the wonder of her as a woman, experiencing the wealth
of tenderness of which she was capable, the blessed comfort of the shelter of
her love, the perfect comprehension of her sympathy, the marvellous joy of winning
and wedding her. But, as yet, no blind man with farseeing vision had come her
way; and it always seemed to be her lot to take a second place, on occasions
when she would have filled the first to infinite perfection.
She had been bridesmaid
at weddings where the charming brides, notwithstanding their superficial
loveliness, possessed few of the qualifications for wifehood with which she was
so richly endowed.
She was godmother to
her friends’ babies, she, whose motherhood would have been a thing for wonder
and worship.
She had a glorious
voice, but her face not matching it, its existence was rarely suspected; and as
she accompanied to perfection, she was usually in requisition to play for the
singing of others.
In short, all her life
long Jane had filled second places, and filled them very contentedly. She had
never known what it was to be absolutely first with any one. Her mother’s death
had occurred during her infancy, so that she had not even the most shadowy remembrance
of that maternal love and tenderness which she used sometimes to try to
imagine, although she had never experienced it.
Her mother’s maid, a
faithful and devoted woman, dismissed soon after the death of her mistress,
chancing to be in the neighbourhood some twelve years later, called at the
manor, in the hope of finding some in the household who remembered her. After
tea, Fräulein and Miss Jebb being out of the way, she was spirited up into the
school-room to see Miss Jane, her heart full of memories of the "sweet
babe" upon whom she and her dear lady had lavished so much love and care.
She found awaiting her
a tall, plain girl with a frank, boyish manner and a rather disconcerting way,
as she afterwards remarked, of "taking stock of a body the while one was
a-talking," which at first checked the flow of good Sarah’s reminiscences,
poured forth so freely in the housekeeper’s room below, and reduced her to
looking tearfully around the room, remarking that she remembered choosing the
blessed wall-paper with her dear lady now gone, whose joy had been so great
when the dear babe first took notice and reached up for the roses. "And I
can show you, miss, if you care to know it, just which bunch of roses it
were."
But before Sarah’s
visit was over, Jane had heard many undreamedof things; amongst others, that
her mother used to kiss her little hands," ah, many a time she did, miss;
called them little rosepetals, and covered them with kisses."
The child, utterly
unused to any demonstrations of affection, looked at her rather ungainly brown
hands and laughed, simply because she was ashamed of the unwonted tightening at
her throat and the queer stinging of tears beneath her eyelids. Thus Sarah
departed under the impression that Miss Jane had grown up into rather a
heartless young lady. But Fraulein and Jebbie never knew why, from that day
onward, the hands, of which they had so often had cause to complain, were kept
scrupulously clean; and on her birthday night, unashamed in the quiet dark-
ness, the lonely little child kissed her own hands beneath the bedclothes,
striving thus to reach the tenderness of her dead mother’s lips.
And in after years,
when she became her own mistress, one of her first actions was to advertise for
Sarah Matthews and engage her as her own maid, at a salary which enabled the
good woman eventually to buy herself a comfortable annuity.
Jane saw but little of
her father, who had found it difficult to forgive her, firstly, for being a
girl when he desired a son; secondly, being a girl, for having inherited his
plainness rather than her mother’s beauty. Parents are apt to see no injustice
in the fact that they are often annoyed with their offspring for possessing
attributes, both of character and appearance, with which they themselves have
endowed them.
The hero of Jane’s
childhood, the chum of her girlhood, and the close friend of her maturer years,
was Deryck Brand, only son of the rector of the parish, and her senior by
nearly ten years. But even in their friendship, close though it was, she had
never felt herself first to him. As a medical student, at home during
vacations, his mother and his profession took precedence in his mind of the
lonely child, whose devotion pleased him and whose strong character and
original mental development interested him. Later on he married a lovely girl,
as unlike Jane as one woman could possibly be to another; but still their
friendship held and deepened; and now, when he was rapidly advancing to the
very front rank of his profession, her appreciation of his work, and
sympathetic understanding of his aims and efforts, meant more to him than even
the signal mark of royal favour, of which he had lately been the recipient.
Jane Champion had no close friends amongst the women of her set. Her lonely girlhood
had bred in her an absolute frankness towards herself and other people which
made it difficult for her to understand or tolerate the little artificialities
of society, or the trivial weaknesses of her own sex. Women to whom she had
shown special kindness--and they were many--maintained an attitude of grateful
admiration in her presence, and of cowardly silence in her absence when she
chanced to be under discussion.
But of men friends she
had many, especially among a set of young fellows just through college, of whom
she made particular chums; nice lads, who wrote to her of their college and
mess-room scrapes, as they would never have dreamed of doing to their own
mothers. She knew perfectly well that they called her "old Jane" and
"pretty Jane" and "dearest Jane" amongst themselves, but
she believed in the harmlessness of their fun and the genuineness of their
affection, and gave them a generous amount of her own in return.
Jane Champion happened
just now to be paying one of her long visits to Overdene, and was playing golf
with a boy for whom she had long had a rod in pickle, on this summer afternoon
when the duchess went to cut blooms in her rose-garden. Only, as Jane found
out, you cannot decorously lead up to a scolding if you are very keen on golf,
and go golfing with a person who is equally enthusiastic, and who all the way
to the links explains exactly how he played every hole the last time he went
round, and all the way back gloats over, in retrospection, the way you and he
have played every hole this time.
So Jane considered her
afternoon, didactically, a failure. But, in the smoking-room that night, young
Cathcart explained the game all over again to a few choice spirits, and then
remarked: "Old Jane was superb! Fancy! Such a drive as that, and doing
number seven in three and not talking about it! I’ve jolly well made up my mind
to send no more bouquets to Tou-Tou. Hang it, boys! You can’t see yourself at
champagne suppers with a dancing-woman, when you’ve walked round the links, on
a day like this, with the Honourable Jane. She drives like a rifle shot, and
when she lofts, you’d think the ball was a swallow; and beat me three holes up
and never mentioned it. By Jove, a fellow wants to have a clean bill when he
shakes hands with her!"
THE sundial pointed to
half past four o’clock.
The hour of silence
appeared to be over. The birds commenced twittering; and a cuckoo, in an
adjacent wood, sounded his note at intervals.
The house awoke to
sudden life. There was an opening and shutting of doors. Two footmen, in the
mulberry and silver of the Meldrum livery, hurried down from the terrace,
carrying folding tea-tables, with which they supplemented those of rustic oak
standing permanently under the cedar. One, promptly returned to the house;
while the other remained behind, spreading snowy cloths over each table.
The macaw awoke,
stretched his wings and flapped them twice, then sidled up and down his perch,
concentrating his attention upon the footman.
"Mind!" he
exclaimed suddenly, in the butler’s voice, as a cloth, flung on too hurriedly,
fluttered to the grass.
"Hold your
jaw!" said the young footman irritably; flicking the bird with the
table-cloth, and then glancing furtively at the rose-garden.
"Tommy wants a
gooseberry!" shrieked the macaw, dodging the table-cloth and hanging, head
downwards, from his perch.
"Don’t you wish
you may get it?" said the footman viciously.
"Give it him,
somebody," remarked Tommy, in the duchess’s voice. The footman started,
and looked over his shoulder; then hurriedly told Tommy just what he thought of
him, and where he wished him; cuffed him soundly, and returned to the house,
followed by peals of laughter mingled with exhortations and imprecations from
the angry bird, who danced up and down on his perch until his enemy had
vanished from view.
A few minutes later the
tables were spread with the large variety of eatables considered necessary at
an English afternoon tea; the massive silver urn and teapots gleamed on the buffet-table,
behind which the old butler presided; muffins, crumpets, cakes, and every kind
of sandwich supplemented the dainty little rolled slices of white and brown
bread-and-butter, while heaped-up bowls of freshly gathered strawberries lent a
touch of colour to the artistic effect of white and silver. When all was ready,
the butler raised his hand and sounded an old Chinese gong hanging in the cedar
tree. Before the penetrating boom had died away, voices were heard in the
distance from all over the grounds.
Up from the river, down
from the tennis courts, out from house and garden, came the duchess’s guests,
rejoicing in the refreshing prospect of tea, hurrying to the welcome shade of
the cedar;-- charming women in white, carefully guarding their complexions
beneath shady hats and picturesque parasols; -- delightful girls, who had long
ago sacrificed complexions to comfort, and now walked across the lawn
bareheaded, swinging their rackets and discussing the last hard-fought set; men
in flannels, sunburned and handsome, joining in the talk and laughter; praising
their partners, while remaining unobtrusively silent as to their own
achievements. They made a picturesque group as they gathered under the tree,
subsiding with immense satisfaction into the low wicker chairs, or on to the
soft turf, and helping themselves to what they pleased. When all were supplied
with tea, coffee, or iced drinks, to their liking, conversation flowed again.
"So the duchess’s
concert comes off to-night," remarked someone." I wish to goodness
they would hang this tree with Chinese lanterns and have it out here. It is too
hot to face a crowded function indoors."
"Oh, that’s all
right," said Garth Dalmain. "I’m stage-manager, you know; and I can
promise you that all the long windows opening on to the terrace shall stand
wide. So no one need be in the concert-room, who prefers to stop outside. There
will be a row of lounge chairs placed on the terrace near the windows. You won’t
see much; but you will hear, perfectly."
"Ah, but half the
fun is in seeing," exclaimed one of the tennis girls. "People who
have remained on the terrace will miss all the point of it afterwards when the
dear duchess shows us how everybody did it. I don’t care how hot it is. Book me
a seat in the front row! "
"Who is the
surprise packet to-night? " asked Lady Ingleby, who had arrived since
luncheon.
"Velma," said
Mary Strathern. "She is coming for the week-end, and delightful it will be
to have her. No one but the duchess could have worked it, and no place but
Overdene would have tempted her. She will sing only one song at the concert;
but she is sure to break forth later on, and give us plenty. We will persuade
Jane to drift to the piano accidentally and play over, just by chance. the
opening bars of some of Velma’s best things, and we shall soon hear the magic
voice. She never can resist a perfectly played accompaniment." "Why
call Madame Velma the ’surprise packet’?" asked a girl, to whom the
Overdene "best parties" were a new experience. "That, my
dear," replied Lady Ingleby, "is a little joke of the duchess’s. This
concert is arranged for the amusement of her house party, and for the
gratification and glorification of local celebrities. The whole neighbourhood
is invited. None of you are asked to perform, but local celebrities are. In
fact they furnish the entire programme, to their own delight, the satisfaction
of their friends and relatives, and our entertainment, particularly afterwards
when the duchess takes us through every item, with original notes, comments,
and impersonations. Oh, Dal! Do you remember when she tucked a sheet of white
writing-paper into her tea-gown for a dog collar, and took off the high-church
curate nervously singing a comic song? Then at the very end, you see -- and
really some of it is quite good for amateurs -- she trots out Velma, or some
equally perfect artiste, to show them how it really can be done; and suddenly
the place is full of music, and a great hush falls on the audience, and the
poor complacent amateurs realise that the noise they have been making was,
after all, not music; and they go dumbly home. But they have forgotten all
about it by the following year; or a fresh contingent of willing performers
steps into the breach. The duchess’s little joke always comes off."
"The Honourable Jane does not approve of it," said young Ronald
Ingram; "therefore she is generally given marching orders and departs to
her next visit before the event. But no one can accompany Madame Velma so
perfectly, so this time she is commanded to stay. But I doubt if the ’surprise
packet’ will come off with quite such a shock as usual, and I am certain the
fun won’t be so good afterwards. The Honourable Jane has been known to jump on
the duchess for that sort of thing. She is safe to get the worst of it at the
time, but it has a restraining effect afterwards." "I think Miss
Champion is quite right," said a bright-faced American girl, bravely,
holding a gold spoon poised for a moment over the strawberry ice- cream with
which Garth Dalmain had supplied her. "In my country we should call it
real mean to laugh at people who had been our guests and performed in our
houses." " In your country, my dear," said Myra Ingleby,
"you have no duchesses." " Well, we supply you with quite a good
few," replied the American girl calmly, and went on with her ice. A
general laugh followed, and the latest Anglo- American match came up for
discussion. "Where is the Honourable Jane?" inquired some one
presently. " Golfing with Billy," said Ronald Ingram. " Ah, here
they come." Jane’s tall figure was seen, walking along the terrace,
accompanied by Billy Cathcart, talking eagerly. They put their clubs away in
the lower hall; then came down the lawn together to the tea-tables. Jane wore a
tailor-made coat and skirt of grey tweed, a blue and white cambric shirt,
starched linen collar and cuffs, a silk tie, and a soft felt hat with a few
black quills in it. She walked with the freedom of movement and swing of limb
which indicate great strength and a body well under control. Her appearance was
extraordinarily unlike that of all the pretty and graceful women grouped
beneath the cedar tree. And yet it was in no sense masculine -- or, to use a
more appropriate word, mannish; for everything strong is masculine, but a woman
who apes an appearance of strength which she does not possess, is mannish; --
rather was it so truly feminine that she could afford to adopt a severe
simplicity of attire, which suited admirably the decided plainness of her
features, and the almost massive proportions of her figure. She stepped into
the circle beneath the cedar, and took one of the half dozen places immediately
vacated by the men, with the complete absence of self-consciousness which
always characterized her. "What did you go round in, Miss Champion?"
inquired one of the men. " My ordinary clothes," replied Jane;
quoting Punch, and evading the question. But Billy burst out: " She went
round in" -- " Oh, be quiet, Billy, " interposed Jane. "
You and I are practically the only golf maniacs present. Most of these dear
people are even ignorant as to who ’bogie’ is, or why we should be so proud of
beating him. Where is my aunt? Poor Simmons was toddling all over the place
when we went in to put away our clubs, searching for her with a telegram."
"Why didn’t you open it? " asked Myra. " Because my aunt never
allows her telegrams to be opened. She loves shocks; and there is always the
possibility of a telegram containing startling news. She says it completely
spoils it if some one else knows it first, and breaks it to her gently."
"Here comes the -- duchess," said Garth Dalmain, who was sitting
where he could see the little gate into the rose garden. "Do not mention
the telegram," cautioned Jane. "It would not please her that I should
even know of its arrival. It would be a shame to take any of the bloom off the
unexpected delight of a wire on this hot day, when nothing unusual seemed
likely to happen." They turned and looked towards the duchess as she
bustled across the lawn; this quaint old figure, who had called them together;
who owned the lovely place where they were spending such delightful days; and
whose odd whimsicalities had been so freely discussed while they drank her tea
and feasted off her strawberries. The men rose as she approached, but not quite
so spontaneously as they had done for her niece. The duchess carried a large
wooden basket filled to overflowing with exquisite roses. Every bloom was
perfect, and each had been cut at exactly the right moment.
THE duchess plumped
down her basket in the middle of the strawberry table. "There, good
people!" she said, rather breathlessly. "Help yourselves, and let me
see you all wearing roses to-night. And the concert-room is to be a bower of
roses. We will call it ’La Fête des Roses.’ . . . No, thank you, Ronnie. That
tea has been made half an hour at least, and you ought to love me too well to
press it upon me. Besides, I never take tea. I have a whiskey and soda when I
wake from my nap, and that sustains me until dinner. Oh yes, my dear Myra, I
know I came to your interesting meeting, and signed that excellent pledge ’pour
encourager les autres;’ but I drove straight to my doctor when I left your
house, and he gave me a certificate to say I must take something when I needed
it; and I always need it when I wake from my nap . . . . Really, Dal, it is
positively wicked for any man, off the stage, to look as picturesque as you do,
in that pale violet shirt, and dark violet tie, and those white flannels. If I
were your grandmother I should send you in to take them off. If you turn the
heads of old dowagers such as I am, what chance have all these chickens? . . .
Hush, Tommy! That was a very naughty word! And you need not be jealous of Dal.
I admire you still more. Dal, will you paint my scarlet macaw? " The young
artist, whose portraits in that year’s Academy had created much interest in the
artistic world, and whose violet shirt had just been so severely censured, lay
back in his lounge-chair, with his arms behind his head and a gleam of
amusement in his bright brown eyes. "No, dear Duchess," he said.
" I beg respectfully to decline the commission. Tommy would require a
Landseer to do full justice to his attitudes and expression. Besides, it would
be demoralising to an innocent and well-brought-up youth, such as you know me
to be, to spend long hours in Tommy’s society, listening to the remarks that
sweet bird would make while I painted him. But I will tell you what I will do.
I will paint you, dear Duchess, only not in that hat! Ever since I was quite a
small boy, a straw hat with black ribbons tied under the chin has made me feel
ill. If I yielded to my natural impulses now, I should hide my face in Miss
Champion’s lap, and kick and scream until you took it off. I will paint you in
the black velvet gown you wore last night, with the Medici collar, and the
jolly arrangement of lace and diamonds on your head. And in your hand you shall
hold an antique crystal mirror, mounted in silver." The artist half closed
his eyes, and as he described his picture in a voice full of music and mystery,
an attentive hush fell upon the gay group around him. When Garth Dalmain
described his pictures, people saw them. When they walked into the Academy or
the New Gallery the following year, they would say: "Ah, there it is! Just
as we saw it that day, before a stroke of it was on the canvas." " In
your left hand, you shall hold the mirror, but you shall not be looking into it;
because you never look into mirrors, dear Duchess, excepting to see whether the
scolding you are giving your maid, as she stands behind you, is making her cry;
and whether that is why she is being so clumsy in her manipulation of pins and
things. If it is, you promptly promise her a day off, to go and see her old
mother; and pay her journey there and back. If it isn’t, you scold her some
more. Were I the maid, I should always cry, large tears warranted to show in
the glass; only I should not sniff, because sniffing is so intensely
aggravating; and I should be most frightfully careful that my tears did not run
down your neck."
"Dal, you
ridiculous child!" said the duchess. "Leave off talking about my
maids, and my neck, and your crocodile tears, and finish describing the portrait.
What do I do with the mirror?"
"You do not look
into it," continued Garth Dalmain, meditatively; "because we know
that is a thing you never do. Even when you put on that hat, and tie those
ribbons -- Miss Champion, I wish you would hold my hand -- in a bow under your
chin, you don’t consult the mirror. But you shall sit with it in your left
hand, your elbow resting on an Eastern table of black ebony inlaid with
mother-of- pearl. You will turn it from you, so that it reflects something
exactly in front of you in the imaginary foreground. You will be looking at
this unseen object with an expression of sublime affection. And in the mirror I
will paint a vivid, brilliant, complete reflection, minute, but perfect in
every detail, of your scarlet macaw on his perch. We will call it ’Reflections,’
because one must always give a silly up-to-date title to pictures, and just now
one nondescript word is the fashion, unless you feel it needful to attract to
yourself the eye of the public, in the catalogue, by calling your picture
twenty lines of Tennyson. But when the portrait goes down to posterity as a
famous picture, it will figure in the catalogue of the National Gallery as ’The
Duchess, the Mirror, and the Macaw.’"
"Bravo!" said
the duchess, delighted. "You shall paint it, Dal, in time for next year’s
Academy, and we will all go and see it."
And he did. And they
all went. And when they saw it they said: "Ah, of course! There it is;
just as we saw it under the cedar at Overdene."
"Here comes
Simmons with something on a salver," exclaimed the duchess. " How
that man waddles! Why can’t somebody teach him to step out? Jane! You march
across this lawn like a grenadier. Can’t you explain to Simmons how it’s done?
. . . Well? What is it? Ha! A telegram. Now what horrible thing can have
happened? Who would like to guess? I hope it is not merely some idiot who has
missed a train. "
Amid a breathless and
highly satisfactory silence, the duchess tore open the orange envelope.
Apparently the shock
was of a thorough, though not enjoyable, kind; for the duchess, at all times
highly coloured, became purple as she read, and absolutely inarticulate with
indignation. Jane rose quietly, looked over her aunt’s shoulder, read the long
message, and returned to her seat.
"Creature!"
exclaimed the duchess, at last. "Oh, creature! This comes of asking them
as friends. And I had a lovely string of pearls for her, worth far more than
she would have been offered, professionally, for one song. And to fail at the
last minute! Oh, creature! "
"Dear aunt,"
said Jane, "if poor Madame Velma has a sudden attack of laryngitis, she
could not possibly sing a note, even had the Queen commanded her. Her telegram
is full of regrets."
"Don’t argue,
Jane!" exclaimed the duchess, crossly.
"And don’t drag in
the Queen, who has nothing to do with my concert or Velma’s throat. I do
abominate irrelevance, and you know it! Why must she have her
what-do-you-call-it, just when she was coming to sing here? In my young days
people never had these new-fangled complaints. I have no patience with all this
appendicitis and what not -- cutting people open at every possible excuse. In
my young days we called it a good old-fashioned stomach ache, and gave them
turkey rhubarb!" Myra Ingleby hid her face behind her garden hat; and
Garth Dalmain whispered to Jane: "I do abominate irrelevance, and you know
it!" But Jane shook her head at him, and refused to smile.
"Tommy wants a
gooseberry!" shouted the macaw, having apparently noticed the mention of
rhubarb.
"Oh, give it him,
somebody!" said the worried duchess.
" Dear aunt,"
said Jane, " there are no goose- berries."
"Don’t argue,
girl!" cried the duchess, furiously; and Garth, delighted, shook his head
at Jane. "When he says ’gooseberry,’ he means anything green, as you very
well know! "
Half a dozen people
hastened to Tommy with lettuce, water-cress, and cucumber sandwiches; and Garth
picked one blade of grass, and handed it to Jane, with an air of anxious
solicitude; but Jane ignored it.
"No answer,
Simmons," said the duchess. " Why don’t you go? . . . Oh, how that
man waddles! Teach him to walk, somebody! Now the question is, What is to be
done? Here is half the county coming to hear Velma, by my invitation; and Velma
in London pretending to have appendicitis - no, I mean the other thing. Oh, ’drat
the woman!’ as that clever bird would say. "
"Hold your
jaw!" shouted Tommy. The duchess smiled, and consented to sit down.
"But, dear
Duchess," suggested Garth in his most soothing voice, "the county
does not know Madame Velma was to be here. It was a profound secret. You were
to trot her out at the end. Lady Ingleby called her your ’surprise packet.’"
Myra came out from behind her garden hat, and the duchess nodded at her
approvingly.
"Quite true,"
she said. "That was the lovely part of it. Oh, creature!"
"But, dear
Duchess, "pursued Garth persuasively, "if the county did not know,
the county will not be disappointed. They are coming to listen to one another,
and to hear themselves, and to enjoy your claret-cup and ices. All this they
will do, and go away delighted, saying how cleverly the dear duchess dis-
covers and exploits local talent."
"Ah, ha!"
said the duchess, with a gleam in the hawk eye, and a raising of the hooked
nose -- which Mrs. Parker Bangs of Chicago, who had met the duchess once or
twice, described as ’genuine Plantagenet’ -- "but they will go away wise
in their own conceits, and satisfied with their own mediocre performances. My
idea is to let them do it, and then show them how it should be done."
"But, Aunt ’Gina,"
said Jane, gently; "surely you forget that most of these people have been
to town and heard plenty of good music, Madame Velma herself most likely, and
all the great singers. They know they cannot sing like a prima donna; but they
do their anxious best, because you ask them. I cannot see that they require an
object lesson."
" Jane, "
said the duchess, " for the third time this afternoon I must request you
not to argue."
" Miss
Champion," said Garth Dalmain, " if I were your grandmamma, I should
send you to bed."
"What is to be
done?" reiterated the duchess.
"She was to sing ’The
Rosary.’ I had set my heart on it. The whole decoration of the room is planned
to suit that song--festoons of white roses, and a great red cross at the back
of the platform, made entirely of crimson ramblers. Jane!"
" Yes, aunt."
" Oh, don’t say ’Yes,
aunt,’ in that senseless way! Can’t you make some suggestion? "
" Drat the
woman!" exclaimed Tommy, suddenly.
" Hark to that
sweet bird! " cried the duchess, her good humour fully restored. "
Give him a strawberry, somebody. Now, Jane, what do you suggest? " Jane
Champion was seated with her broad back half turned to her aunt, one knee crossed
over the other, her large, capable hands clasped round it. She loosed her
hands, turned slowly round, and looked into the keen eyes peering at her from
under the mushroom hat. As she read the half-resentful, half-appealing demand
in them, a slow smile dawned in her own. She waited a moment to make sure of
the duchess’s meaning, then said quietly: " I will sing ’The Rosary’ for
you, in Velma’s place, to-night, if you really wish it, aunt."
Had the gathering under
the tree been a party of "mere people," it would have gasped. Had it
been a "freak party," it would have been loud-voiced in its
expressions of surprise. Being a "best party," it gave no outward
sign; but a sense of blank astonishment, purely mental, was in the air. The
duchess herself was the only person present who had heard Jane Champion sing.
" Have you the
song? " asked her Grace of Meldrum, rising, and picking up her telegram
and empty basket.
" I have,"
said Jane. " I spent a few hours with Madame Blanche when I was in town
last month; and she, who so rarely admires these modern songs, was immensely
taken with it. She sang it, and allowed me to accompany her. We spent nearly an
hour over it. I obtained a copy afterwards."
"Good," said
the duchess. "Then I count on you. Now I must send a sympathetic telegram
to that poor dear Velma, who will be fretting at having to fail us. So ‘au
revoir,’ good people. Remember, we dine punctually at eight o’clock. Music is
supposed to begin at nine. Ronnie, be a kind boy, and carry Tommy into the hall
for me. He will screech so fear- fully if he sees me walk away without him. He
is so very loving, dear bird! "
Silence under the
cedar.
Most people were
watching young Ronald, holding the stand as much at arm’s length as possible,
while Tommy, keeping his balance wonderfully, sidled up close to him, evidently
making confidential remarks into Ronnie’s terrified ear. The duchess walked on
before, quite satisfied with the new turn events had taken.
One or two people were
watching Jane.
" It is very brave
of you," said Myra Ingleby, at length. " I would offer to play your
accompaniment, dear; but I can only manage ’Au clair de la lune,’ and ’Three
Blind Mice, ’with one finger."
"And I would offer
to play your accompaniment, dear," said Garth Dalmain, " if you were
going to sing Lassen’s ’Allerseelen,’ for I play that quite beautifully with
ten fingers! It is an education only to hear the way I bring out the tolling of
the cemetery chapel bell right through the song. The poor thing with the bunch
of purple heather can never get away from it. Even in the grand crescendo,
appassionata, fortissimo, when they discover that ’in death’s dark valley this
is Holy Day,’ I give then no holiday from that bell. I don’t know what it did ’once
in May.’ It tolls all the time, with maddening persistence, in my
accompaniment. But I have seen ’The Rosary,’ and I dare not face those chords.
To begin with, you start in every known flat; and before you have gone far you
have gathered unto yourself handfuls of known and unknown sharps, to which you
cling, not daring to let them go, lest they should be wanted again the next
moment. Alas, no! When it is a question of accompanying ’The Rosary,’ I must
say, as the old farmer at the tenants’ dinner the other day said to the duchess
when she pressed upon him a third helping of pudding: ’Madam, I cannot! ’
"
" Don’t be silly,
Dal," said Jane. " You could ac- company ’The Rosary’ perfectly, if I
wanted it done. But, as it happens, I prefer accompanying myself."
" Ah," said
Lady Ingleby, sympathetically, " I quite understand that. It would be such
a relief all the time to know that if things seemed going wrong, you could stop
the other part, and give yourself the note."
The only two real
musicians present glanced at each other, and a gleam of amusement passed
between them.
" It certainly
would be useful, if necessary," said Jane.
"I would ’stop the
other part’ and ’give you the note,’" said Garth, demurely.
" I am sure you
would, " said Jane. " You are always so very kind. But I prefer to
keep the matter in my own hands."
" You realise the
difficulty of making the voice carry in a place of that size unless you can
stand and face the audience?" Garth Dalmain spoke anxiously. Jane was a
special friend of his, and he had a man’s dislike of the idea of his chum
failing in anything, publicly.
The same quiet smile
dawned in Jane’s eyes and passed to her lips as when she had realised that her
aunt meant her to volunteer in Velma’s place. She glanced around. Most of the
party had wandered off in twos and threes, some to the house, others back to
the river. She and Dal and Myra were practically alone. Her calm eyes were full
of quiet amusement as she steadfastly met the anxious look in Garth’s, and
answered his question.
" Yes, I know. But
the acoustic properties of the room are very perfect, and I have learned to
throw my voice. Perhaps you may not know -- in fact, how should you know?- but
I have had the immense privilege of studying with Madame Marchesi in Paris, and
of keeping up to the mark since by an occasional delightful hour with her no
less gifted daughter in London. So I ought to know all there is to know about
the management of a voice, if I have at all adequately availed myself of such
golden opportunities. "
These quiet words were
Greek to Myra, conveying no more to her mind than if Jane had said: "I
have been learning Tonic sol-fa." In fact, not quite so much, seeing that
Lady Ingleby had herself once tried to master the Tonic sol-fa system in order
to instruct her men and maids in part-singing. It was at a time when she owned
a distinctly musical household. The second footman possessed a fine barytone.
The butler could " do a little bass," which is to say that, while the
other parts soared to higher regions, he could stay on the bottom note if
carefully placed there, and told to remain. The head housemaid sang what she
called "seconds" ; in other words, she followed along, slightly
behind the trebles as regarded time, and a major third below them as regarded
pitch. The housekeeper, a large, dark person with a fringe on her upper lip,
un- shaven and unashamed, produced a really remarkable effect by singing the
air an octave below the trebles. Unfortunately Lady Ingleby was apt to confuse
her with the butler. Myra herself was the first to admit that she had not
"much ear"; but it was decidedly trying, at a moment when she dared
not remove her eyes from the accompaniment of "Good King Wenceslas",
to have called out: "Stay where you are, Jenkins!" and then find it
was Mrs. Jarvis who had been travelling upwards. But when a new footman,
engaged by Lord Ingleby with no reference to his musical gifts, chanced to
possess a fine throaty tenor, Myra felt she really had material with which
great things might be accomplished, and decided herself to learn the Tonic
sol-fa system. She easily mastered mi, re, do and so, fa, fa, mi, because these
represented the opening lines of "Three Blind Mice," always a musical
landmark to Myra. But when it came to the fugue-like intricacies in the theme
of "They all ran after the farmer’s wife," Lady Ingleby was lost
without the words to cling to, and gave up the Tonic sol-fa system in despair.
So the name of the
greatest teacher of singing of this age, did not convey much to Myra’s mind.
But Garth Dalmain sat up.
" I say! No wonder
you take it coolly. Why, Velma herself was a pupil of the great madame. "
"That is how it
happens that I know her rather well," said Jane. " I am here to-day
because I was to have played her accompaniment."
" I see,"
said Garth. " And now you have to do both. ’Land’s sake!’ as Mrs. Parker
Bangs says when you explain who’s who at a Marlborough House garden party. But
you prefer playing other people’s accompaniments, to singing yourself, don’t
you?"
Jane’s slow smile
dawned again.
"I prefer
singing," she said, "but accompanying is more useful."
"Of course it
is," said Garth. "Heaps of people can sing a little, but very few can
accompany properly."
" Jane, "
said Myra, her grey eyes looking out lazily from under their long black lashes,
"if you have had singing lessons, and know some songs, why hasn’t the
duchess turned you on to sing to us before this?"
" For a sad
reason," Jane replied. " You know her only son died eight years ago?
He was such a hand- some, talented fellow. He and I inherited our love of music
from our grandfather. My cousin got into a musical set at college, studied with
enthusiasm, and wanted to take it up professionally. He had promised, one
Christmas vacation, to sing at a charity concert in town, and went out, when
only just recovering from influenza, to fulfil this engagement. He had a
relapse, double pneumonia set in, and he died in five days from heart failure.
My poor aunt was frantic with grief; and since then any mention of my love of
music makes her very bitter. I, too, wanted to take it up professionally, but
she put her foot down heavily. I scarcely ever venture to sing or play
here."
"Why not
elsewhere?" asked Garth Dalmain.
" We have stayed
about at the same houses, and I had not the faintest idea you sang."
" I do not
know," said Jane slowly. " But -- music means so much to me. It is a
sort of holy of holies in the tabernacle of one’s inner being. And it is not
easy to lift the veil. "
"The veil will be
lifted to-night," said Myra Ingleby.
" Yes, "
agreed Jane, smiling a little ruefully, " I suppose it will."
" And we shall
pass in," said Garth Dalmain.
THE shadows silently
lengthened on the lawn.
The home-coming rooks
circled and cawed around the tall elm trees.
The sundial pointed to
six o’clock.
Myra Ingleby rose and
stood with the slanting rays of the sun full in her eyes, her arms stretched
over her head. The artist noted every graceful line of her willowy figure.
" Ah, bah! "
she yawned. " It is so perfect out here, and I must go in to my maid.
Jane, be advised in time. Do not ever begin facial massage. You become a slave
to it, and it takes up hours of your day. Look at me."
They were both looking
already. Myra was worth looking at.
" For ordinary
dressing purposes, I need not have gone in until seven; and now I must lose
this last, perfect hour."
"What
happens?" asked Jane. "I know nothing of the process."
" I can’t go into
details," replied Lady Ingleby, "but you know how sweet I have looked
all day? Well, if I did not go to my maid now, I should look less sweet by the
end of dinner, and at the close of the evening I should appear ten years
older."
" You would always
look sweet," said Jane, with frank sincerity; " and why mind looking
the age you are? "
"My dear, a man is
as old as he feels; a woman is as old as she looks," quoted Myra.
" I feel just
seven, " said Garth.
" And you look
seventeen," laughed Myra.
"And I am
twenty-seven," retorted Garth; "so the duchess should not call me ’a
ridiculous child.’ And, dear lady, if curtailing this mysterious process is
going to make you one whit less lovely to-night, I do beseech you to hasten to
your maid, or you will spoil my whole evening. I shall burst into tears at
dinner, and the duchess hates scenes, as you very well know!" Lady Ingleby
flapped him with her garden hat as she passed.
" Be quiet, you
ridiculous child!" she said. " You had no business to listen to what
I was saying to Jane. You shall paint me this autumn. And after that I will
give up facial massage, and go abroad, and come back quite old. "
She flung this last
threat over her shoulder as she trailed away across the lawn.
"How lovely she
is!" commented Garth, gazing after her. " How much of that was true,
do you suppose, Miss Champion?"
" I have not the
slightest idea, " replied Jane. " I am completely ignorant on the
subject of facial massage. "
"Not much, I
should think," continued Garth, "or she would not have told us."
"Ah, you are wrong
there," replied Jane quickly.
"Myra is
extraordinarily honest, and always inclined to be frank about herself and her
foibles. She had a curious upbringing. She is one of a large family, and was
always considered the black sheep, not so much by her brothers and sisters, as
by her mother. Nothing she was, or said, or did, was ever right. When Lord
Ingleby met her, and I suppose saw her incipient possibilities, she was a tall,
gawky girl, with lovely eyes, a sweet, sensitive mouth, and a
what-on-earth-am-I- going-to-do-next expression on her face. He was twenty
years her senior, but fell most determinedly in love with her and, though her
mother pressed upon him all her other daughters in turn, he would have Myra or
nobody. When he proposed to her it was impossible at first to make her
understand what he meant. His meaning dawned on her at length, and he was not
kept waiting long for her answer. I have often heard him tease her about it.
She looked at him with an adorable smile, her eyes brimming over with tears,
and said: ’Why, of course. I’ll marry you gratefully, and I think it is
perfectly sweet of you to like me. But what a blow for mamma!’ They were
married with as little delay as possible, and he took her off to Paris, Italy,
and Egypt, had six months abroad, and brought her back - this! I was staying
with them once, and her mother was also there. We were sitting in the morning
room, - no men, just half a dozen women,-and her mother began finding fault about
something, and said: ’Has not Lord Ingleby often told you of it?’ Myra looked
up in her sweet, lazy way and answered: ’Dear mamma, I know it must seem
strange to you, but, do you know, my husband thinks everything I do perfect.’ ’Your
husband is a fool!’ snapped her mother. ’From your point of view, dear mamma,’
said Myra, sweetly. "
"Old
curmudgeon!" remarked Garth. "Why are people of that sort allowed to
be called ’mothers’? We, who have had tender, perfect mothers, would like to
make it law that the other kind should always be called ’she-parents,’ or ’female
progenitors, or any other descriptive title, but not profane the sacred name of
mother!"
Jane was silent. She
knew the beautiful story of Garth’s boyhood with his widowed mother. She knew his
passionate adoration of her sainted memory. She liked him best when she got a
glimpse beneath the surface, and did not wish to check his mood by reminding
him that she herself had never even lisped that name.
Garth rose from his
chair and stretched his slim figure in the slanting sun-rays, much as Myra had
done. Jane looked at him. As is often the case with plain people, great
physical beauty appealed to her strongly. She only allowed to that appeal its
right proportion in her estimation of her friends. Garth Dalmain by no means
came first among her particular chums. He was older than most of them, and yet
in some ways younger than any, and his remarkable youthfulness of manner and
exuberance of spirits sometimes made him appear foolish to Jane, whose sense of
humour was of a more sedate kind. But of the absolute perfection of his outward
appearance, there was no question; and Jane looked at him now, much as his own
mother might have looked, with honest admiration in her kind eyes.
Garth, notwithstanding
the pale violet shirt and dark violet tie, was quite unconscious of his own
appearance; and, dazzled by the golden sunlight, was also unconscious of Jane’s
look.
"Oh, I say, Miss
Champion! " he cried, boyishly.
"Isn’t it nice
that they have all gone in? I have been wanting a good jaw with you. Really,
when we all get together we do drivel sometimes, to keep the ball rolling. It
is like patting up air-balls; and very often they burst, and one realises that
an empty, shrivelled little skin is all that is left after most conversations.
Did you ever buy air-balls at Brighton? Do you remember the wild excitement of
seeing the man coming along the parade, with a huge bunch of them -- blue,
green, red, white, and yellow, all shining in the sun? And one used to wonder
how he ever contrived to pick them all up -- I don’t know now! -- and what
would happen if he put them all down. I always knew exactly which one I wanted,
and it was generally on a very inside string and took a long time to
disentangle. And how maddening it was if the grown-ups grew tired of waiting,
and walked on with the penny. Only I would rather have had none, than not have
the one on which I had fixed my heart. Wouldn’t you? "
" I never bought
air-balls at Brighton," replied Jane, without enthusiasm. Garth was
feeling seven again, and Jane was feeling bored. For once he seemed conscious
of this. He took his coat from the back of the chair where he had hung it, and
put it on.
"Come along, Miss
Champion," he said; "I am so tired of doing nothing. Let us go down
to the river and find a boat for two. Dinner is not until eight o’clock, and I
am certain you can dress, even for the rôle of Velma, in half an hour. I have
known you do it in ten minutes, at a pinch. There is ample time for me to row you
within sight of the minster, and we can talk as we go. Ah, fancy! the grey old
minster with this sunset behind it, and a field of cowslips in the foreground!
"
But Jane did not rise.
" My dear Dal,
" she said, " you would not feel much enthusiasm for the minster or
the sunset, after you had pulled my twelve stone odd up the river. You would
drop exhausted among the cowslips. Surely you might know by now that I am not
the sort of person to be told off to sit in the stern of a tiny skiff and
steer. If I am in a boat, I like to row; and if I row, I prefer rowing stroke.
But I do not want to row now, because I have been playing golf the whole
afternoon. And you know perfectly well it would be no pleasure to you to have
to gaze at me all the way up and all the way down the river; knowing all the
time, that I was mentally criticising your stroke and marking the careless way
you feathered. "
Garth sat down, lay
back in his chair, with his arms behind his sleek dark head, and looked at her
with his soft shining eyes, just as he had looked at the duchess.
" How cross you
are, old chap," he said, gently.
"What is the
matter?"
Jane laughed and held
out her hand. "Oh, you dear boy! I think you have the sweetest temper in
the world. I won’t be cross any more. The truth is, I hate the duchess’s
concerts, and I don’t like being the duchess’s ‘surprise packet."’
"I see," said
Garth, sympathetically. "But, that being so, why did you offer?"
" Ah, I had to,
" said Jane. " Poor old dear! She so rarely asks me anything, and her
eyes besought. Don’t you know how one longs to have something to do for some
one who belongs to one? I would black her boots if she wished it. But it is so
hard to stay here, week after week, and be kept at arm’s length. This one thing
she asked of me, and her proud old eyes pleaded. Could I refuse?"
Garth was all sympathy.
" No, dear, " he said thoughtfully; "of course you couldn’t. And
don’t bother over that silly joke about the ’surprise packet.’ You see, you won’t
be that. I have no doubt you sing vastly better than most of them, but they
will not realise it. It takes a Velma to make such people as these sit up. They
will think ’The Rosary’ a pretty song, and give you a mild clap, and there the
thing will end. So don’t worry."
Jane sat and considered
this. Then: "Dal," she said, " I do hate singing before that
sort of audience. It is like giving them your soul to look at, and you don’t
want them to see it. It seems indecent. To my mind, music is the most revealing
thing in the world. I shiver when I think of that song, and yet I daren’t do
less than my best. When the moment comes, I shall live in the song, and forget
the audience. Let me tell you a lesson I once had from Madame Blanche. I was
singing Bemberg’s ’Chant Hindou,’ the passionate prayer of an Indian woman to
Brahma. I began: ’Brahma! Dieu des croyants,’ and sang it as I might have sung ’do,
re, mi.’ Brahma was nothing to me. ’Stop!’ cried Madame Blanche in her most
imperious manner. ’Ah, vous Anglais! What are you doing? Brahma,, c’est un
Dieu! He may not be your God. He may not be my God. But he is somebody’s God.
He is the God of the song. Écoutez!’ And she lifted her head and sang: ’Brahma!
Dieu des croyants! Maître des cités saintes!’ with her beautiful brow
illumined, and a passion of religious fervour which thrilled one’s soul. It was
a lesson I never forgot. I can honestly say I have never sung a song tamely,
since. "
"Fine! " said
Garth Dalmain. " I like enthusiasm in every branch of art. I never care to
paint a portrait, unless I adore the woman I am painting."
Jane smiled. The
conversation was turning exactly the way she had hoped eventually to lead it.
" Dal dear, "
she said, " you adore so many in turn, that we old friends, who have your
real interest at heart, fear you will never adore to any definite
purpose."
Garth laughed. "Oh
bother!" he said. "Are you like all the rest? Do you also think
adoration and admiration must necessarily mean marriage. I should have expected
you to take a saner and more masculine view."
"My dear
boy," said Jane, "your friends have decided that you need a wife. You
are alone in the world. You have a lovely home. You are in a fair way to be
spoiled by all the silly women who run after you. Of course we are perfectly
aware that your wife must have every incomparable beauty under the sun united
in her own exquisite person. But each new divinity you see and paint apparently
fulfils, for the time being, this wondrous ideal; and, perhaps, if you wedded
one, instead of painting her, she might continue permanently to fulfil
it."
Garth considered this
in silence, his level brows knitted. At last he said: "Beauty is so much a
thing of the surface. I see it, and admire it. I desire it, and paint it. When
I have painted it, I have made it my own, and somehow I find I have done with
it. All the time I am painting a woman, I am seeking for her soul. I want to
express it on my canvas; and do you know, Miss Champion, I find that a lovely
woman does not always have a lovely soul."
Jane was silent. The
last things she wished to dis- cuss were other women’s souls.
"There is just one
who seems to me perfect," continued Garth. " I am to paint her this
autumn. I believe I shall find her soul as exquisite as her body."
" And she is --?
" inquired Jane.
" Lady
Brand."
" Flower! "
exclaimed Jane. " Are you so taken with Flower?"
" Ah, she is
lovely," said Garth, with reverent enthusiasm. " It positively is not
right for any one to be so absolutely flawlessly lovely. It makes me ache. Do
you know that feeling, Miss Champion, of perfect loveliness making you
ache?"
" No, I don’t,"
said Jane shortly. " And I do not think other people’s wives ought to have
that effect upon you."
"My dear old
chap," exclaimed Garth, astonished; "it has nothing to do with wives
or no wives. A wood of bluebells in morning sunshine would have precisely the
same effect. I ache to paint her. When I have painted her and really done
justice to that matchless loveliness as I see it, I shall feel all right. At
present I have only painted her from memory; but she is to sit to me in
October."
"From
memory?" questioned Jane.
" Yes, I paint a
great deal from memory. Give me one look of a certain kind at a face, let me
see it at a moment which lets one penetrate beneath the surface, and I can
paint that face from memory weeks after. Lots of my best studies have been done
that way. Ah, the delight of it! Beauty -- the worship of beauty is to me a
religion."
"Rather a godless
form of religion," suggested Jane.
"Ah no," said
Garth reverently. " All true beauty comes from God, and leads back to God.
’Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the
Father of lights.’ I once met an old freak who said all sickness came from the
devil. I never could believe that, for my mother was an invalid during the last
years of her life, and I can testify that her sickness was a blessing to many,
and borne to the glory of God. But I am convinced all true beauty is God-given,
and that is why the worship of beauty is to me a religion. Nothing bad was ever
truly beautiful; nothing good is ever really ugly."
Jane smiled as she
watched him, lying back in the golden sunlight, the very personification of
manly beauty. The absolute lack of self-consciousness, either for himself or
for her, which allowed him to talk thus to the plainest woman of his
acquaintance, held a vein of humour which diverted Jane. It appealed to her
more than buying coloured air-balls, or screaming because the duchess wore a
mushroom hat.
"Then are plain
people to be denied their share of goodness, Dal?" she asked.
"Plainness is not
ugliness," replied Garth Dalmain simply. " I learned that when quite
a small boy. My mother took me to hear a famous preacher. As he sat on the
platform during the preliminaries he seemed to me quite the ugliest man I had
ever seen. He reminded me of a grotesque gorilla, and I dreaded the moment when
he should rise up and face us and give out a text. It seemed to me there ought
to be bars between, and that we should want to throw nuts and oranges. But when
he rose to speak, his face was transfigured. Goodness and inspiration shone
from it, making it as the face of an angel. I never again thought him ugly. The
beauty of his soul shone through, transfiguring his body. Child though I was, I
could differentiate even then between ugliness and plainness. When he sat down
at the close of his magnificent sermon, I no longer thought him a complicated
form of chimpanzee. I remembered the divine halo of his smile. Of course his
actual plainness of feature remained. It was not the sort of face one could
have wanted to live with, or to have day after day opposite to one at table.
But then one was not called to that sort of discipline, which would have been
martyrdom to me. And he has always stood to my mind since as a proof of the
truth that goodness is never ugly; and that divine love and aspiration shining
through the plainest features may redeem them temporarily into beauty; and,
permanently, into a thing one loves to remember."
"I see," said
Jane. " It must have often helped you to a right view to have realised
that so long ago. But now let us return to the important question of the face
which you are to have daily opposite you at table. It cannot be Lady Brand’s,
nor can it be Myra’s; but, you know, Dal, a very lovely one is being suggested
for the position."
"No names,
please," said Garth, quickly. "I object to girls’ names being
mentioned in this sort of conversation."
"Very well, dear
boy. I understand and respect your objection. You have made her famous already
by your impressionist portrait of her, and I hear you are to do a more
elaborate picture ’in the fall.’ Now, Dal, you know you admire her immensely.
She is lovely, she is charming, she hails from the land whose women, when they
possess charm, unite with it a freshness and a piquancy which place them beyond
compare. In some ways you are so unique yourself that you ought to have a wife
with a certain amount of originality. Now, I hardly know how far the opinion of
your friends would influence you in such a mat- ter, but you may like to hear
how fully they approve your very open allegiance to -- shall we say -- the
beautiful ’Stars and Stripes’? "
Garth Dalmain took out
his cigarette case, carefully selected a cigarette, and sat with it between his
fingers in absorbed contemplation.
"Smoke," said
Jane.
"Thanks,"
said Garth. He struck a match and very deliberately lighted his cigarette. As
he flung away the vesta the breeze caught it and it fell on the lawn, flaming
brightly. Garth sprang up and extinguished it, then drew his chair more exactly
opposite to Jane’s and lay back, smoking meditatively, and watching the little
rings he blew, mount into the cedar branches, expand, fade, and vanish.
Jane was watching him.
The varied and characteristic ways in which her friends lighted and smoked
their cigarettes always interested Jane. There were at least a dozen young men
of whom she could have given the names upon hearing a description of their
method. Also, she had learned from Deryck Brand the value of silences in an
important conversation, and the art of not weakening a statement by a
postscript.
At last Garth spoke.
"I wonder why the
smoke is that lovely pale blue as it curls up from the cigarette, and a greyish
white if one blows it out."
Jane knew it was
because it, bad become impreg- nated with moisture, but she did not say so,
having no desire to contribute her quota of pats to this air-ball, or to
encourage the superficial workings of his mind just then. She quietly awaited
the response to her appeal to his deeper nature which she felt certain would be
forthcoming. Presently it came.
"It is awfully
good of you, Miss Champion, to take the trouble to think all this and to say it
to me. May I prove my gratitude by explaining for once where my difficulty
lies? I have scarcely defined it to myself, and yet I believe I can express it
to you. " Another long silence. Garth smoked and pondered. Jane waited. It
was a very comprehending, very companionable silence. Garth found himself parodying
the last lines of an old sixteenth-century song:
"Then ever pray that heaven may send Such weeds, such chairs, and
such a friend." Either the
cigarette, or the chair, or Jane, or perhaps all three combined, were producing
in him a sublime sense of calm, and rest, and well-being; an uplifting of
spirit which made all good things seem better; all difficult things, easy; and
all ideals possible. The silence, like the sunset, was golden; but at last he
broke it.
" Two women -- the
only two women who have ever really been in my life -- form for me a standard
below which I cannot fall, -- one, my mother, a sacred and ideal memory; the
other, old Margery Graem, my childhood’s friend and nurse, now my housekeeper
and general tender and mender. Her faithful heart and constant remembrance help
to keep me true to the ideal of that sweet presence which faded from beside me
when I stood on the threshold of manhood. Margery lives at Castle Gleneesh.
When I return home, the sight which first meets my eyes as the hall door opens
is old Margery in her black satin apron, lawn kerchief, and lavender ribbons. I
always feel seven then, and I always hug her. You, Miss Champion, don’t like me
when I feel seven; but Margery does. Now, this is what I want you to realise.
When I bring a bride to Gleneesh and present her to Margery, the kind old eyes
will try to see nothing but good; the faithful old heart will yearn to love and
serve. And yet I shall know she knows the standard, just as I know it; I shall
know she remembers the ideal of gentle, tender, Christian womanhood, just as I
remember it; and I must not, I dare not, fall short. Believe me, Miss Champion,
more than once, when physical attraction has been strong, and I have been
tempted in the worship of the outward loveliness to disregard or forget the
essentials, -- the things which are unseen but eternal, -- then, all
unconscious of exercising any such influence, old Margery’s clear eyes look
into mine, old Margery’s mittened hand seems to rest upon my coat sleeve, and
the voice which has guided me from infancy says, in gentle astonishment: ’Is
this your choice, Master Garthie, to fill my dear lady’s place?’ No doubt, Miss
Champion, it will seem almost absurd to you when you think of our set and our
sentiments, and the way we racket round, that I should sit here on the duchess’s
lawn and confess that I have been held back from proposing marriage to the
women I have most admired, because of what would have been my old nurse’s
opinion of them! But you must remember her opinion is formed by a memory, and
that memory is the memory of my dead mother. Moreover, Margery voices my best
self, and expresses my own judgment when it is not blinded by passion or warped
by my worship of the beautiful. Not that Margery would disapprove of loveliness;
in fact, she would approve of nothing else for me, I know very well. But her
penetration rapidly goes beneath the surface. According to one of Paul’s
sublime paradoxes, she looks at the things that are not seen. It seems queer
that I can tell you all this, Miss Champion, and really it is the first time I
have actually formulated it in my own mind. But I think it so extremely
friendlyof you to have troubled to give me good advice in the matter."
Garth Dalmain ceased
speaking, and the silence which followed suddenly assumed alarming proportions,
seeming to Jane like a high fence which she was vainly trying to scale. She
found herself mentally rushing hither and thither, seeking a gate or any
possible means of egress. And still she was confronted by the difficulty of
replying adequately to the totally unexpected. And what added to her dumbness
was the fact that she was infinitely touched by Garth’s confession; and when
Jane was deeply moved speech always became difficult. That this young man --
adored by all the girls for his good looks and delightful manners; pursued for
his extreme eligibility by mothers and chaperons; famous already in the world
of art; flattered, courted, sought after in society -- should calmly admit that
the only woman really left in his life was his old nurse, and that her opinion
and expectations held him back from a worldly or unwise marriage, touched Jane
deeply, even while in her heart she smiled at what their set would say could
they realise the situation. It revealed Garth in a new light; and suddenly Jane
understood him, as she had not understood him before.
And yet the only reply
she could bring herself to frame was: "I wish I knew old Margery."
Garth’s brown eyes
flashed with pleasure.
" Ah, I wish you
did," he said. " And I should like you to see Castle Gleneesh. You
would enjoy the view from the terrace, sheer into the gorge, and away across
the purple hills. And I think you would like the pine woods and the moor. I
say, Miss Champion, why should not I get up a ’best party’ in September, and
implore the duchess to come and chaperon it? And then you could come, and any
one else you would like asked. And -- and, perhaps -- we might ask the
beautiful ’Stars and Stripes,’ and her aunt, Mrs. Parker Bangs of Chicago; and
then we should see what Margery thought of her!"
" Delightful!
" said Jane. " I would come with pleasure. And really, Dal, I think
that girl has a sweet nature. Could you do better? The exterior is perfect, and
surely the soul is there. Yes, ask us all, and see what happens."
" I will,"
cried Garth, delighted. " And what will Margery think of Mrs. Parker
Bangs?"
" Never
mind," said Jane decidedly. " When you marry the niece, the aunt goes
back to Chicago."
"And I wish her
people were not millionaires."
"That can’t be
helped," said Jane. "Americans are so charming, that we really must
not mind their money."
"I wish Miss
Lister and her aunt were here," remarked Garth. " But they are to be
at Lady Ingleby’s, where I am due next Tuesday. Do you come on there, Miss
Champion?"
"I do,"
replied Jane. " I go to the Brands for a few days on Tuesday, but I have
promised Myra to turn up at Shenstone for the week-end. I like staying there.
They are such a harmonious couple."
" Yes," said
Garth, " but no one could help being a harmonious couple, who had married
Lady Ingleby."
"What
grammar!" laughed Jane. "But I know what you mean, and I am glad you
think so highly of Myra. She is a dear! Only do make haste and paint her and
get her off your mind, so as to be free for Pauline Lister."
The sundial pointed to
seven o’clock. The rooks had circled round the elms and dropped contentedly
into their nests.
" Let us go
in," said Jane, rising. " I am glad we have had this talk," she
added, as he walked beside her across the lawn.
" Yes," said
Garth. " Air-balls weren’t in it! It was a football this time -- good
solid leather. And we each kicked one goal, -- a tie, you know. For your advice
went home to me, and I think my reply showed you the true lie of things; eh, Miss
Champion?"
He was feeling seven
again; but Jane saw him now through old Margery’s glasses, and it did not annoy
her.
" Yes," she
said, smiling at him with her kind, true eyes; "we will consider it a tie,
and surely it will prove a tie to our friendship. Thank you, Dal, for all you
have told me."
Arrived in her room,
Jane found she had half an hour to spare before dressing. She took out her
diary. Her conversation with Garth Dalmain seemed worth recording, particularly
his story of the preacher whose beauty of soul redeemed the ugliness of his
body. She wrote it down verbatim.
Then she rang for her
maid, and dressed for dinner and the concert which should follow.
" MISS CHAMPION!
Oh, here you are! Your turn next, please. The last item of the local programme
is in course of performance, after which the duchess explains Velma’s
laryngitis -- let us hope she will not call it ’appendicitis’ -- and then I
usher you up. Are you ready? "
Garth Dalmain, as
master of ceremonies, had sought Jane Champion on the terrace, and stood before
her in the soft light of the hanging Chinese lanterns. The crimson rambler in
his button-hole, and his red silk socks, which matched it, lent an artistic
touch of colour to the conventional black and white of his evening clothes.
Jane looked up from the
comfortable depths of her wicker chair; then smiled at his anxious face.
" I am
ready," she said, and rising, walked beside him. " Has it gone well?
"she asked. " Is it a good audience? "
"Packed,"
replied Garth, "and the duchess has enjoyed herself. It has been funnier
than usual. But now comes the event of the evening. I say, where is your
score?"
"Thanks,"
said Jane. "I shall play it from memory. It obviates the bother of turning
over."
They passed into the
concert-room and stood behind screens and a curtain, close to the half dozen
steps leading, from the side, up on to the platform.
" Oh, hark to the
duchess! " whispered Garth. ’My niece, Jane Champion, has kindly consented
to step into the breach -- Which means that you will have to step up on to that
platform in another half minute. Really it would be kinder to you if she said
less about Velma. But never mind; they are prepared to like anything. There!
Appendicitis! I told you so. Poor Madame Velma! Let us hope it won’t get into
the local papers. Oh, goodness! She is going to enlarge on new-fangled
diseases. Well, it gives us a moment’s breathing space . . . . I say, Miss
Champion, I was chaffing this afternoon about sharps and flats. I can play that
accompaniment for you if you like. No? Well, just as you think best. But
remember, it takes a lot of voice to make much effect in this concert-room, and
the place is crowded. Now -the duchess has done. Come on. Mind the bottom step.
Hang it all! How dark it is behind this curtain?"
Garth gave her his
hand, and Jane mounted the steps and passed into view of the large audience
assembled in the Overdene concert-room. Her tall figure seemed taller than
usual as she walked alone across the rather high platform. She wore a black
evening gown of soft material, with old lace at her bosom and one string of
pearls round her neck. When she appeared, the audience gazed at her and
applauded doubtfully. Velma’s name on the programme had raised great
expectations; and here was Miss Champion, who certainly played very nicely, but
was not supposed to be able to sing, volunteering, to sing Velma’s song. A mote
kindly audience would have cheered her to the echo, voicing its generous
appreciation of her effort, and sanguine expectation of her success. This
audience expressed its astonishment, in the dubiousness of its faint applause.
Jane smiled at them
good-naturedly; sat down at the piano, a Bechstein grand; glanced at the
festoons of white roses and the cross of crimson ramblers; then, without
further preliminaries, struck the opening chord and commenced to sing.
The deep, perfect voice
thrilled through the room.
A sudden breathless
hush fell upon the audience.
Each syllable
penetrated the silence, borne on a tone so tender and so amazingly sweet, that
casual hearts stood still and marvelled at their own emotion; and those who
felt deeply already, responded with a yet deeper thrill to the magic of that
music.
"The hours I spent
with thee, dear heart,
Are as a string of pearls to me; I
count them over, ev’ry one apart,
My rosary, -- my rosary." Softly,
thoughtfully, tenderly, the last two words were breathed into the silence,
holding a world of reminiscence - a large-hearted woman’s faithful remembrance
of tender moments in the past.
The listening crowd
held its breath. This was not a song. This was the throbbing of a heart; and it
throbbed in tones of such sweetness, that tears started unbidden.
Then the voice, which
had rendered the opening lines so quietly, rose in a rapid crescendo of
quivering pain.
" Each hour a
pearl, each pearl a prayer,
To still a heart in absence wrung; I
tell each bead to the end, and there--
A cross is hung!" The
last four words were given with a sudden power and passion electrified the
assembly. In the pause which followed, could be heard the tension of feeling
produced. But in another moment the quiet voice fell soothingly, expressing a
strength of endurance which would fail in no crisis, nor fear to face any depths
of pain; yet gathering to itself a poignancy of sweetness, rendered richer by
the discipline of suffering.
" O memories that
bless and burn!
O barren gain and bitter loss! I
kiss each bead, and strive at last to learn
To kiss the cross . . . to kiss the cross." Only those who have heard Jane sing "The Rosary"
can possibly realise how she sang "I kiss each bead." The lingering
retrospection in each word, breathed out a love so womanly, so beautiful, so
tender, that her identity was forgotten -even by those in the audience who knew
her best -in the magic of her rendering of the song.
The accompaniment,
which opens with a single chord, closes with a single note.
Jane struck it softly,
lingeringly; then rose, turned from the piano, and was leaving the platform,
when a sudden burst of wild applause broke from the audience. Jane hesitated;
paused; looked at her aunt’s guests as if almost surprised to find them there.
Then the slow smile dawned in her eyes and passed to her lips. She stood in the
centre of the platform for a moment, awkwardly, almost shyly; then moved on, as
men’s voices began to shout " Encore! ’core!" and left the platform
by the side staircase.
But there, behind the
scenes, in the semi-darkness of screens and curtains, a fresh surprise awaited
Jane, more startling than the enthusiastic tumult of her audience.
At the foot of the
staircase stood Garth Dalmain. His face was absolutely colourless, and his eyes
shone out from it like burning stars. He remained motion- less until she stepped
from the last stair and stood close to him. Then with a sudden movement he
caught her by the shoulders and turned her round.
"Go back!" he
said, and the overmastering need quivering in his voice drew Jane’s eyes to his
in mute astonishment. "Go back at once and sing it all over again, note
for note, word for word, just as before. Ah. don’t stand here waiting! Go back
now! Go back at once! Don’t you know that you must?"
Jane looked into those
shining eyes. Something she saw in them excused the brusque command of his
tone. Without a word, she quietly mounted the steps and walked across the
platform to the piano. People were still applauding, and redoubled their
demonstrations of delight as she appeared; but Jane took her seat at the
instrument without giving them a thought.
She was experiencing a
very curious and unusual sensation. Never before in her whole life had she
obeyed a peremptory command. In her childhood’s days, Fraulein and Miss Jebb
soon found out that they could only obtain their desires by means of carefully
worded requests, or pathetic appeals to her good feelings and sense of right.
An unreasonable order, or a reasonable one unexplained, promptly met with a
point-blank refusal. And this characteristic still obtained, though modified by
time; and even the duchess, as a rule, said "please" to Jane.
But now a young man
with a white face and blazing eyes had unceremoniously swung her round, ordered
her up the stairs, and commanded her to sing a song over again, note for note,
word for word, and she was meekly going to obey.
As she took her seat,
Jane suddenly made up her mind not to sing "The Rosary" again. She
had many finer songs in her repertoire. The audience expected another. Why
should she disappoint those expectations because of the imperious demands of a
very highly excited boy?
She commenced the
magnificent prelude to Handel’s "Where’er you walk," but, as she
played it, her sense of truth and justice intervened. She had not come back to
sing again at the bidding of a highly excited boy, but of a deeply moved man;
and his emotion was of no ordinary kind. That Garth Dalmain should have been so
moved as to forget even momentarily his punctilious courtesy of manner, was the
highest possible tribute to her art and to her song. While she played the
Handel theme - and played it so that a whole orchestra seemed marshalled upon
the key-board under those strong, firm fingers - she suddenly realised, though
scarcely understanding it, the must of which Garth had spoken, and made up her
mind to yield to its necessity. So, when the opening bars were ended, instead
of singing the grand song from "Semele," she paused for a moment;
struck once more "The Rosary’s " opening chord; and did as Garth had
bidden her to do.
"The hours I spent
with thee, dear heart,
Are as a string of pearls to me; I
count them over, ev’ry one apart,
My rosary; my rosary. "Each
hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer,
To still a heart in absence wrung; I
tell each bead unto the end, and there --
A cross is hung! " O
memories that bless and burn!
O barren gain and bitter loss! I
kiss each bead, and strive at last to learn
To kiss the cross .... to kiss the cross." When Jane left the platform, Garth was still standing
motionless at the foot of the stairs. His face was just as white as before, but
his eyes had lost that terrible look of unshed tears, which had sent her back,
at his bidding, without a word of question or remonstrance. A wonderful light
now shone in them; a light of adoration, which touched Jane’s heart because she
had never before seen any-thing quite like it. She smiled as she came slowly
down the steps, and held out both hands to him with an unconscious movement of
gracious friendliness. Garth stepped close to the bottom of the staircase and
took them in his, while she was still on the step above him.
For a moment he did not
speak. Then in a low voice, vibrant with emotion: "My God!" he said,
"Oh, my God!"
"Hush, " said
Jane; "I never like to hear that name spoken lightly, Dal. "
" Spoken lightly!
" he exclaimed. " No speaking lightly would be possible for me to-night.
‘ Every perfect gift is from above.’ When words fail me to speak of the gift,
can you wonder if I apostrophise the Giver?"
Jane looked steadily
into his shining eyes, and a smile of pleasure illumined her own. "So you
liked my song?" she said.
"Liked-liked your
song?" repeated Garth, a shade of perplexity crossing his face. " I
do not know whether I liked your song. "
"Then why this
flattering demonstration?" inquired Jane, laughing.
"Because,"
said Garth, very low, "you lifted the veil, and I -- I passed within.
"
He was still holding
her hands in his; and, as he spoke the last two words, he turned them gently
over and, bending, kissed each palm with an indescribably tender reverence;
then, loosing them, stood on one side, and Jane went out on to the terrace
alone.
JANE spent but a very
few minutes in the drawing-room that evening. The fun in progress there was not
to her taste, and the praises heaped upon herself annoyed her. Also she wanted
the quiet of her own room in order to think over that closing episode of the
concert, which had taken place between herself and Garth, behind the scenes.
She did not feel certain how to take it. She was conscious that it held an
element which she could not fathom, and Garth’s last act had awakened in
herself feelings which she did not understand. She extremely disliked the way
in which he had kissed her hands; and yet he had put into the action such a
passion of reverent worship that it gave her a sense of consecration - of
being, as it were, set apart to minister always to the hearts of men in that
perfect gift of melody which should uplift and ennoble. She could not lose the
sensation of the impress of his lips upon the palms of her hands. It was as if
he had left behind something tangible and abiding. She caught herself looking
at them anxiously once or twice, and the third time this happened she
determined to go to her room.
The duchess was at the
piano, completely hidden from view by nearly the whole of her house party,
crowding round in fits of delighted laughter. Ronnie had just broken through
from the inmost circle to fetch an antimacassar; and Billy, to dash to the
writing-table for a sheet of note-paper. Jane knew the note-paper meant a
clerical dog collar, and she concluded something had been worn which resembled
an antimacassar.
She turned rather
wearily and moved towards the door. Quiet and unobserved though her retreat had
been, Garth was at the door before her. She did not know how he got there; for,
as she turned to leave the room, she had seen his sleek head close to Myra
Ingleby’s on the
further side of the duchess’s crowd. He opened the door and Jane passed out.
She felt
equally desirous of
saying two things to him,-either: " How dared you behave in so
unconventional a way? " or:" Tell me just what you want me to do, and
I will do it."
She said neither.
Garth followed her into
the hall, lighted a candle and threw the match at Tommy; then handed her the
silver candlestick. He was looking absurdly happy. Jane felt annoyed with him
for parading this gladness, which she had unwittingly caused and in which she
had no share. Also she felt she must break this intimate silence. It was saying
so much which ought not to be said, since it could not be spoken. She took her
candle rather aggressively and turned upon the second step.
" Good-night, Dal,
" she said. " And do you know that you are missing the curate?"
He looked up at her.
His eyes shone in the light of her candle.
" No, " he
said. " I am neither missing nor missed. I was only waiting in there until
you went up. I shall not go back. I am going out into the park now to breathe
in the refreshing coolness of the night breeze. And I am going to stand under
the oaks and tell my beads. I did not know I had a rosary, until to-night, but
I have -- I have! "
" I should say you
have a dozen, " remarked Jane, dryly.
"Then you would be
wrong, " replied Garth. " I have just one. But it has many hours. I
shall be able to call them all to mind when I get out there alone. I am going
to ‘count each pearl.’ "
"How about the
cross?" asked Jane.
" I have not
reached that yet," answered Garth. "There is no cross to my
rosary."
"I fear there is a
cross to every true rosary, Dal," said Jane gently, "and I also fear
it will go hard with you when you find yours."
But Garth was confident
and unafraid.
" When I find
mine," he said, " I hope I shall be able to" -Involuntarily Jane
looked at her hands. He saw the look and smiled, though he had the grace to
colour beneath his tan, --"to face the cross," he said.
Jane turned and began
to mount the stairs; but Garth arrested her with an eager question.
" Just one moment,
Miss Champion! There is something I want to ask you. May I? Will you think me
impertinent, presuming, inquisitive?"
" I have no doubt
I shall, " said Jane. " But I am thinking you all sorts of unusual
things to-night; so three adjectives more or less will not matter much. You may
ask."
"Miss Champion,
have you a rosary?"
Jane looked at him
blankly; then suddenly understood the drift of his question.
" My dear boy,
no!" she said. "Thank goodness, I have kept clear of ’memories that
bless and burn.’ None of these things enter into my rational and well-ordered
life, and I have no wish that they should."
"Then, "
deliberated Garth, "how came you to sing ‘The Rosary’ as if each line were
your own experience; each joy or pain a thing -long passed, perhaps but your
own? "
" Because, "
explained Jane, " I always live in a song when I sing it. Did I not tell
you the lesson I learned over the ’Chant Hindou’? Therefore I had a rosary
undoubtedly when I was singing that song to-night. But, apart from that, in the
sense you mean, no, thank goodness, I have none. "
Garth mounted two
steps, bringing his eyes on a level with the candlestick.
" But if you
cared, " he said, speaking very low, "that is how you would care?
that is as you would feel?" Jane considered. " Yes, " she said,
" if I cared, I suppose I should care just so, and feel as I felt during
those few minutes. "
"Then it was you
in the song, although the circumstances are not yours?"
" Yes, I suppose
so, " Jane replied, " if we can consider ourselves apart from our
circumstances. But surely this is rather an unprofitable ‘air-ball.’
Good-night, ‘ Master Garthie !’ "
" I say, Miss
Champion! Just one thing more. Will you sing for me to-morrow? Will you come to
the music-room and sing all the lovely things I want to hear? And will you let
me play a few of your accompaniments? Ah, promise you will come. And promise to
sing whatever I ask, and I won’t bother you any more now. "
He stood looking up at
her, waiting for her promise, with such adoration shining in his eyes that Jane
was startled and more than a little troubled. Then suddenly it seemed to her
that she had found the key, and she hastened to explain it to herself and to
him.
"Oh, you dear
boy!" she said. "What an artist you are! And how difficult it is for
us commonplace, matter-of-fact people to understand the artistic temperament.
Here you go, almost turning my steady old head by your rapture over what seemed
to you perfection of sound which has reached you through the ear; just as,
again and again, you worship at the shrine of perfection of form, which reaches
you through the eye. I begin to understand how it is you turn the heads of
women when you paint them. However, you are very delightful in. your delight,
and I want to go up to bed. So I promise to sing all you want and as much as
you wish to-morrow. Now keep your promise and don’t bother me any more
to-night. Don’t spend the whole night in the park, and try not to frighten the
deer. No, I do not need any assistance with my candle, and I am quite used to
going upstairs by myself, thank you. Can’t you hear what personal and
appropriate remarks Tommy is making down there? Now do run away, Master
Garthie, and count your pearls. And if you suddenly come upon a cross
--remember, the cross can, in all probability, be persuaded to return to
Chicago!"
Jane was still smiling
as she entered her room and placed her candlestick on the dressing-table.
Overdene was lighted
solely by lamps and candles. The duchess refused to modernise it by the
installation of electric light. But candles abounded, and Jane, who liked a
brilliant illumination, proceeded to light both candles in the branches on
either side of the dressing-table mirror, and in the sconces on the wall beside
the mantel-piece, and in the tall silver candlesticks upon the writing-table.
Then she seated herself in a comfortable arm-chair, reached for her
writing-case, took out her diary and a fountain pen, and prepared to finish the
day’s entry. She wrote, " Sang ‘ The Rosary’ at Aunt ’Gina’s concert in
place of Velma, failed (laryngitis), and came to a full stop.
Somehow the scene with
Garth was difficult to record, and the sensations which still remained
therefrom, absolutely unwritable. Jane sat and pondered the situation, content
to allow the page to remain blank.
Before she rose, locked
her book, and prepared for rest, she had, to her own satisfaction, clearly
explained the whole thing. Garth’s artistic temperament was the basis of the
argument; and, alas, the artistic temperament is not a very firm foundation,
either for a theory, or for the fabric of a destiny. However,faute de mieux,
Jane had to accept it as main factor in her mental adjustment, thus: This
vibrant emotion in Garth, so strangely disturbing to her own solid calm, was in
no sense personal to herself, excepting in so far as her voice and musical
gifts were concerned. Just as the sight of paintable beauty crazed him with
delight, making him wild with alternate hope and despair until he obtained his
wish and had his canvas and his sitter arranged to his liking; so now, his
passion for the beautiful had been awakened, this time through the medium, not
of sight, but of sound. When she had given him his fill of song, and allowed
him to play some of her accompaniments, he would be content, and that
disquieting look of adoration would pass from those beautiful brown eyes.
Meanwhile it was pleasant to look forward to to-morrow, though it behooved her
to remember that all this admiration had in it nothing personal to herself. He
would have gone into even greater raptures over Madame Blanche, for instance,
who had the same timbre of voice and method of singing, combined with a beauty
of person which delighted the eye the while her voice enchanted the ear.
Certainly Garth must see and hear her, as music appeared to mean so much to
him. Jane began planning this, and then her mind turned to Pauline Lister, the
lovely American girl, whose name had been coupled with Garth Dalmain’s all the
season. Jane felt certain she was just the wife he needed. Her loveliness would
content him, her shrewd common sense and straightforward, practical ways would
counterbalance his somewhat erratic temperament, and her adaptability would
enable her to suit herself to his surroundings, both in his northern home and
amongst his large circle of friends down south. Once married, he would give up
raving about Flower and Myra, and kissing people’s hands in that "absurd
way," Jane was going to say, but she was invariably truthful, even in her
thoughts, and substituted "extraordinary"as the more correct
adjective in that extraordinary way.
She sat forward in her
chair with her elbows on her knees, and held her large hands before her, palms
upward, realising again the sensations of that moment. Then she pulled herself
up sharply. " Jane Champion, don’t be a fool! You would wrong that dear,
beauty-loving boy, more than you would wrong yourself, if you took him for one
moment seriously. His homage to-night was no more personal to you than his
appreciation. of the excellent dinner was personal to Aunt Georgina’s chef. In
his enjoyment of the production, the producer was included; but that was all.
Be gratified at the success of your art, and do not spoil that success by any
absurd sentimentality. Now wash your very ungainly hands and go to bed."
Thus Jane to herself. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
And under the oaks,
with soft turf beneath his feet stood Garth Dalmain, the shy deer sleeping
around, unconscious of his presence; the planets above, hanging like lamps in
the deep purple of the sky. And he, also, soliloquised.
" I have found
her, " he said, in low tones of rapture, "the ideal woman, the crown
of womanhood, the perfect mate for the spirit, soul, and body of the man who
can win her. -- Jane! Jane! Ah, how blind I have been! To have known her for years,
and yet not realised her to be this. But she lifted the veil, and I passed in.
Ah grand, noble heart! She will never be able to draw the veil again between
her soul and mine. And she has no rosary. I thank God for that. No other man
possesses, or has ever possessed, that which I desire more than I ever desired
anything upon this earth, - Jane’s love, Jane’s tenderness. Ah, what will it
mean? ’I count each pearl.’ She will count them some day - her pearls and mine.
God spare us the cross. Must there be a cross to every true rosary? Then God
give me the heavy end, and may the mutual bearing of it bind us together. Ah,
those dear hands! Ah, those true, steadfast eyes! . . . Jane! -- Jane! Surely
it has always been Jane, though I did not know it, blind fool that I have been!
But one thing I know: whereas I was blind, now I see. And it will always be
Jane from this night onward through time and -- please God -- into
eternity."
The night breeze
stirred his thick dark hair, and his eyes, as he raised them, shone in the
starlight.
And Jane, almost
asleep, was roused by the tapping of her blind against the casement, and
murmured: "Anything you wish, Garth, just tell me, and I will do it."
Then awakening suddenly to the consciousness of what she had said, she sat up
in the darkness and scolded herself furiously. " Oh, you middle-aged
donkey! You call yourself staid and sensible, and a little flattery from a boy
of whom you are fond, turns your head completely. Come to your senses at once;
or leave Overdene by the first train in the morning."
THE days which followed
were golden days to Jane. There was nothing to spoil the enjoyment of a very
new and strangely sweet experience.
Garth’s manner the next
morning held none of the excitement or outward demonstration which had
perplexed and troubled her the evening before. He was very quiet, and seemed to
Jane older than she had ever known him. He had very few lapses into his
seven-year-old mood, even with the duchess; and when some one chaffingly asked
him whether he was practising the correct deportment of a soon-to-be-married
man, " Yes," said Garth quietly, " I am."
"Will she be at
Shenstone?" inquired Ronald; for several of the duchess’s party were due
at Lady Ingleby’s for the following week-end.
"Yes," said
Garth, "she will."
" Oh, lor’ !
" cried Billy, dramatically. " Prithee, Benedict, are we to take this
seriously?"
But Jane who, wrapped
in the morning paper, sat near where Garth was standing, came out from behind
it to look up at him and say, so that only he heard it
"Oh, Dal, I am so
glad! Did you make up your mind last night?"
" Yes," said
Garth, turning so that he spoke to her alone, "last night."
" Did our talk in
the afternoon have something to do with it?"
" No, nothing
whatever."
" Was it ’The
Rosary’?"
He hesitated; then
said, without looking at her: "The revelation of ’The Rosary’? Yes."
To Jane his mood of
excitement was now fully explained, and she could give herself up freely to the
enjoyment of this new phase in their friendship, for the hours of music
together were a very real delight. Garth was more of a musician than she had
known, and she enjoyed his clean, masculine touch on the piano, unblurred by
slur or pedal; more delicate than her own, where delicacy was required. What
her voice was to him during those wonderful hours he did not express in words,
for after that first evening he put a firm restraint upon his speech. Under the
oaks he had made up his mind to wait a week before speaking, and he waited.
But the new and
strangely sweet experience to Jane was that of being absolutely first to some
one. In ways known only to himself and to her Garth made her feel this. There
was nothing for any one else to notice, and yet she knew perfectly well that
she never came into the room without his being instantly conscious that she was
there; that she never left a room, without being at once missed by him. His
attentions were so unobtrusive and tactful that no one else realised them. They
called forth no chaff from friends and no "Hoity-toity! What now?"
from the duchess. And yet his devotion seemed always surrounding her. For the
first time in her life Jane was made to feel herself first in the whole thought
of another. It made him seem strangely her own. She took a pleasure and pride
in all he said, and did, and was; and in the hours they spent together in the
music-room she learned to know him and to understand that enthusiastic.
beauty-loving, irresponsible nature, as she had never understood it before.
The days were golden,
and the parting at night was sweet, because it gave an added zest to the
pleasure of meeting in the morning. And yet during these golden days the
thought of love, in the ordinary sense of the word, never entered Jane’s mind.
Her ignorance in this matter arose, not so much from inexperience, as from too
large an experience of the travesty of the real thing; an experience which
hindered her from recognising love itself, now that love in its most ideal form
was drawing near.
Jane had not come
through a dozen seasons without receiving nearly a dozen proposals of marriage.
An heiress, independent of parents and guardians, of good blood and lineage, a
few proposals of a certain type were inevitable. Middle-aged men -- becoming
bald and grey; tired of racketing about town; with beautiful old country places
and an unfortunate lack of the wherewithal to keep them up -proposed to the
Honourable Jane Champion in a business-like way, and the Honourable Jane looked
them up and down, and through and through, until they felt very cheap, and then
quietly refused them, in an equally businesslike way.
Two or three nice boys
whom she had pulled out of serapes and set on their feet again after hopeless
croppers, had thought, in a wave of maudlin gratitude, how good it would be for
a fellow always to have her at hand to keep him straight and tell him what he
ought to do, don’t you know? and -- er -- well, yes -- pay his debts, and be a
sort of mother-who-doesn’t-scold kind of person to him; and had caught hold of
her kind hand, and implored her to marry them. Jane had slapped them if they
ventured to touch her, and recommended them not to be silly.
One solemn proposal she
had had quite lately from the bachelor rector of a parish adjoining Overdene.
He had often inflicted wearisome conversations upon her, and when he called,
intending to put the momentous question, Jane, who was sitting at her
writing-table in the Overdene drawing-room, did not see any occasion to move
from it. If the rector became too prosy, she could surreptitiously finish a few
notes. He sank into a deep arm-chair close to the writing-table, crossed his
somewhat bandy legs one over the other, made the tips of his fingers meet with
unctuous accuracy, and intoned the opening sentences of his proposition. Jane,
sharpening pencils and sorting nibs, apparently only caught the drift of what
he was saying, for when he had chanted the phrase, " Not alone from
selfish motives, my dear Miss Champion; but for the good of my parish, for the
welfare of my flock, for the advancement of the work of the church in our
midst," Jane opened a despatch-box and drew out her cheque-book.
" I shall be
delighted to subscribe, Mr. Bilberry, " she said. " Is it for a font,
a pulpit, new hymn-books, or what?"
"My dear
lady," said the rector tremulously, "you misunderstand me. My desire
is to lead you to the altar. "
"Dear Mr.
Bilberry," said Jane Champion, "that would be quite unnecessary. From
any part of your church the fact that you need a new altar-cloth is absolutely
patent to all comers. I will, with the greatest pleasure, give you a cheque for
ten pounds towards it. I have attended your church rather often lately, because
I enjoy a long quiet walk by myself through the woods. And now I am sure you
would like to see my aunt before you go. She is in the aviary, feeding her
foreign birds. if you go out by that window and pass along the terrace to your
left, you will find the aviary and the duchess. I would suggest the
advisability of not mentioning this conversation to my aunt. She does not
approve of elaborate altar-cloths, and would scold us both, and insist on the
money being spent in providing boots for the school children. No, please do not
thank me. I am really glad of an opportunity of helping on your excellent work
in this neighbourhood. "
Jane wondered once or
twice whether the cheque would be cashed. She would have liked to receive it
back by post, torn in half; with a few wrathful lines of manly indignation. But
when it returned to her in due course from her bankers, it was indorsed P.
Bilberry, in a neat, scholarly hand, without even a dash of indignation beneath
it; and she threw it into the waste-paper basket, with rather a bitter smile.
These were Jane’s
experiences of offers of marriage. She had never been loved for her own sake;
she had never felt herself really first in the heart and life of another. And
now, when the adoring love of a man’s whole being was tenderly, cautiously
beginning to surround and envelop her, she did not recognise the reason of her
happiness or of his devotion. She considered him the avowed lover of another
woman, with whose youth and loveliness she would not have dreamed of competing;
and she regarded this closeness of intimacy between herself and Garth, as a
development of a friendship more beautiful than she had hitherto considered
possible.
Thus matters stood when
Tuesday arrived and the Overdene party broke up. Jane went to town to spend a
couple of days with the Brands. Garth went straight to Shenstone, where he had
been asked expressly to meet Miss Lister, and her aunt, Mrs. Parker Bangs. Jane
was due at Shenstone on Friday for the week-end.
AS Jane took her seat
and the train moved out of the London terminus she leaned back in her corner
with a sigh of satisfaction. Somehow these days in town had seemed insufferably
long. Jane reviewed them thoughtfully, and sought the reason. They had been
filled with interests and engagements; and the very fact of being in town, as a
rule contented her. Why had she felt so restless and dissatisfied and lonely?
From force of habit she
had just stopped at the railway book-stall for her usual pile of literature.
Her friends always said Jane could not go even the shortest journey without at
least half a dozen papers. But now they lay unheeded on the seat in front of
her. Jane was considering her Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and wondering
why they had merely been weary stepping-stones to Friday. And here was Friday
at last, and once in the train en route for Shenstone, she began to feel happy
and exhilarated. What had been the matter with these three days? Flower had
been charming; Deryck, his own friendly, interesting self; little Dicky, delightful;
and Baby Blossom, as sweet as only Baby Blossom could be. What was amiss?
" I know, "
said Jane. " Of course! Why did I not realise it before? I had too much
music during those last days at Overdene; and such music! I have been suffering
from a surfeit of music, and the miss of it has given me this blank feeling of
loneliness. No doubt we shall have plenty at Myra’s, and Dal will be there to
clamour for it if Myra fails to suggest it. "
With a happy little
smile of pleasurable anticipation, Pane took up the Spectator, and was soon
absorbed in an article on the South African problem.
Myra met her at the
station, driving ponies tandem. A light cart was also there for the maid and
baggage; and, without losing a moment, Jane and her hostess were off along the
country lane at a brisk trot.
The fields and woods
were an exquisite restful green in the afternoon sunshine. Wild roses clustered
in the hedges. The last loads of hay were being carted in. There was an ecstasy
in the songs of the birds and a transporting sense of sweetness about all the
sights and scents of the country, such as Jane had never experienced so vividly
before. She drew a deep breath and exclaimed, almost involuntarily: "Ah !
it is good to be here!"
" You dear!"
said Lady Ingleby, twirling her whip and nodding in gracious response to
respectful salutes from the hay-field. " It is a comfort to have you ! I
always feel you are like the bass of a tune- something so solid and
satisfactory and beneath one in case of a crisis. I hate crises. They are so
tiring. As I say: Why can’t things always go on as they are? They are as they
were, and they were as they will be, if only people wouldn’t bother. However, I
am certain nothing could go far wrong when you are anywhere near."
Myra flicked the
leader, who was inclined to"sugar," and they flew along between the
high hedges, brushing lightly against overhanging masses of honeysuckle and
wild clematis. Jane snatched a spray of the clematis, in passing. " ’Traveller’s
Joy,’ " she said, with that same quiet smile of glad anticipation, and put
the white blossoms in her button-hole.
"Well,"
continued Lady Ingleby, "my house party is going on quite satisfactorily.
Oh, and, Jane, there seems no doubt about Dal. How pleased T shall be if it
comes off under my wing! The American girl is simply exquisite, and so
vivacious and charming. And Dal has quite given up being silly - not that 1
ever thought him silly, but I know you did - and is very quiet and pensive;
really were it any one but he, one would almost say ‘ dull.’ And they roam
about together in the most approved fashion. I try to get the aunt to make all
her remarks to me. I am so afraid of her putting Dal off. He is so fastidious.
I have promised Billy anything, up to the half of my kingdom, if he will sit at
the feet of Mrs. Parker Bangs and listen to her wisdom, answer her questions,
and keep her away from Dal. Billy is being so abjectly devoted in his
attentions to Mrs. Parker Bangs that I begin to have fears lest he intends
asking me to kiss him; in which case I shall hand him over to you to chastise.
You manage these boys so splendidly. I fully believe Dal will propose to
Pauline Lister tonight. I can’t imagine why he didn’t last night. There was a
most perfect moon, and they went on the lake. What more could Dal want? - a
lake, and a moon, and that lovely girl! Billy took Mrs. Parker Bangs in a
double canoe and nearly upset her through laughing so much at the things she
said about having to sit flat on the bottom. But he paddled her off to the
opposite side of the lake from Dal and her niece, which was all we wanted. Mrs.
Parker Bangs asked me afterwards whether Billy is a widower. Now what do you
suppose she meant by that?"
" I haven’t the
faintest idea," said Jane. "But I am delighted to hear about Dal and
Miss Lister. She is just the girl for him, and she will soon adapt herself to
his ways and needs. Besides, Dal must have flawless loveliness, and really he
gets it there. "
"He does
indeed," said Myra. "You should have seen her last night, in white
satin, with wild roses in her hair. I cannot imagine why Dal did not rave. But
perhaps it is a good sign that he should take things more quietly. I suppose he
is making up his mind."
" No," said
Jane. " I believe he did that at Overdene. But it means a lot to him. He
takes marriage very seriously. Whom have you at Shenstone ? "
Lady Ingleby told off a
list of names. Jane knew them all.
" Delightful!
" she said. " Oh! how glad I am to be here! London has beer, so hot
and so dull. I never thought it hot or dull before. I feel a renegade. Ah!
there is the lovely little church! I want to hear the new organ. I was glad
your nice parson remembered me and let me have a share in it. Has it two
manuals or three?"
" Half a dozen I
think," said Lady Ingleby, " and you work them up and down with your
feet. But I judged it wiser to leave them alone when I played for the children’s
service one Sunday. You never know quite what will happen if you touch those
mechanical affairs."
" Don’t you mean
the composition pedals?" suggested Jane.
" I dare say I
do," said Myra placidly. " Those things underneath, like foot-rests,
which startle you horribly if you accidentally kick them."
Jane smiled at the
thought of how Garth would throw back his head and shout, if she told him of
this conversation. Lady Ingleby’s musical remarks always amused her friends.
They passed the village
church on the green, ivy-clad, picturesque, and, half a minute later, swerved
in at the park gates. Myra saw Jane glance at the gatepost they had just
shaved, and laughed. "A miss is as good as a mile," she said, as they
dashed up the long drive between the elms, "as I told dear mamma when she
expostulated wrathfully with me for what she called my ’furious driving’ the
other day. By the way, Jane, dear mamma has been quite cordial lately. By the
time I am seventy and she is ninety-eight I think she will begin to be almost
fond of me. Here we are. Do notice Lawson. He is new, and such a nice man. He
sings so well, and plays the concertina a little, and teaches in the Sunday
school, and speaks really quite excellently at temperance meetings. He is
extremely fond of mowing the lawns, and my maid tells me he is studying French
with her. The only thing he seems really incapable of being, is an efficient
butler; which is so unfortunate, as I like him far too well ever to part with
him. Michael says I have a perfectly fatal habit of liking people, and of
encouraging them to do the things they do well and enjoy doing, instead of the
things they were engaged to do. I suppose I have; but I do like my household to
be happy."
They alighted, and Myra
trailed into the hall with a lazy grace which gave no indication of the
masterly way she had handled her ponies, but rather suggested stepping from a comfortable
seat in a barouche. Jane looked with interest at the man-servant who came
forward and deftly assisted them. He had not quite the air of a butler, but
neither could she imagine him playing a concertina or haranguing a temperance
meeting, and he acquitted himself quite creditably.
" Oh, that was not
Lawson," explained Myra, as she led the way upstairs. " I had
forgotten. He had to go to the vicarage this afternoon to see the vicar about a
’service of song’ they are getting up. That was Tom, but we call him ’Jephson’
in the house. He was one of Michael’s stud grooms, but he is engaged to one of
the house-maids, and I found he so very much preferred being in the house, so I
have arranged for him to under-study Lawson, and he is growing side whiskers. I
shall have to break it to Michael on his return from Norway. This way, Jane. We
have put you in the Magnolia room. I knew you would enjoy the view of the lake.
Oh, I forgot to tell you, a tennis tournament is in progress. I must hasten to
the courts. Tea will be going on there. under the chestnuts. Dal and Ronnie are
to play the final for the men’s singles. It ought to be a fine match. It was to
come on at about half past four. Don’t wait to do any changings. Your maid and
your luggage can’t be here just yet."
"Thanks,"
said Jane; "I always travel in country clothes, and have done so to-day,
as you see. I will just get rid of the railway dust, and follow you."
Ten minutes later,
guided by sounds of cheering and laughter, Jane made her way through the
shrubbery to the tennis lawns. The whole of Lady Ingleby’s house party was
assembled there, forming a picturesque group under the white and scarlet
chestnut trees. Beyond, on the beautifully kept turf of the court, an exciting
set was in progress. As she approached, Jane could distinguish Garth’s slim,
agile figure, in white flannels and the violet shirt; and young Ronnie, huge
and powerful, trusting to the terrific force of his cuts and drives to
counterbalance Garth’s keener eye and swifter turn of wrist.
It was a fine game.
Garth had won the first set by six to four, and now the score stood at five to
four in Ronnie’s favour; but this game was Garth’s service, and he was almost
certain to win it. The score would then be "games all."
Jane walked along the
line of garden chairs to where she saw a vacant one near Myra. She was greeted
with delight, but hurriedly, by the eager watchers of the game.
Suddenly a howl went
up. Garth had made two faults.
Jane found her chair,
and turned her attention to the game. Almost instantly shrieks of astonishment
and surprise again arose. Garth had served into the net and over the line. Game
and set were Ronnie’s.
" One all,"
remarked Billy. " Well ! I never saw Dal do that before. However, it gives
us the bliss of watching another set. They are splendidly matched. Dal is
lightning, and Ronnie thunder."
The players crossed
over, Garth rather white beneath his tan. He was beyond words vexed with
himself for failing in his service, at that critical juncture. Not that he
minded losing the set; but it seemed to him it must be patent to the whole
crowd, that it was the sight, out of the tail of his eye, of a tall grey figure
moving quietly along the line of chairs, which for a moment or two set earth and
sky whirling, and made a confused blur of net and lines. As a matter of fact,
only one of the onlookers connected Garth’s loss of the game with Jane’s
arrival, and she was the lovely girl, seated exactly opposite the net, with
whom he exchanged a smile and a word as he crossed to the other side of the
court.
The last set proved the
most exciting of the three. Nine hard-fought games, five to Garth, four to
Ronnie. And now Ronnie was serving, and fighting hard to make it games-all.
Over and over enthusiastic partisans of both shouted "Deuce! " and
then when Garth had won the " vantage, " a slashing over-hand service
from Ronnie beat him, and it was " deuce " again.
"Don’t it make ore
giddy?"said Mrs. Parker Bangs to Billy, who reclined on the sward at her
feet. " I should say it has gone on long enough. And they must both be
wanting their tea. It would have been kind in Mr. Dalmain to have let that ball
pass, anyway."
" Yes, wouldn’t
it? " said Billy earnestly. " But you see, Dal is not naturally kind.
Now, if I had been playing against Ronnie, I should have let those overhand
balls of his pass long ago."
" I am sure you
would," said Mrs. Parker Bangs, approvingly; while Jane leaned over, at
Myra’s request, and pinched Billy.
Slash went Ronnie’s
racket. " Deuce ! deuce!" shouted half a dozen voices.
"They shouldn’t
say that," remarked Mrs. Parker Bangs, " even if they are mad about
it."
Billy hugged his knees,
delightedly; looking up at her with an expression of seraphic innocence.
"No. Isn’t it
sad?" he murmured. "I never say naughty words when I play. I always
say ’ Game, love.’ It sounds so much nicer, I think."
Jane pinched again, but
Billy’s rapt gaze at Mrs. Parker Bangs continued.
"Billy," said
Myra sternly, "go into the hall and fetch my scarlet sunshade. Yes, I dare
say you will miss the finish," she added in a stern whisper, as he leaned
over her chair, remonstrating; "but you richly deserve it."
" I have made up
my mind what to ask, dear queen, " whispered Billy as he returned, breathless,
three minutes later and laid the parasol in Lady Ingleby’s lap. " You
promised me anything, up to the half of your kingdom. I will have the head of
Mrs. Parker Bangs in a charger."
" Oh, shut up,
Billy! " exclaimed Jane, " and get out of the light! We missed that
last stroke. What is the score ? "
Once again it was Garth’s
vantage, and once again Ronnie’s arm swung high for an untakable smasher.
" Play up,
Dal!" cried a voice, amid the general hubbub.
Garth knew that dear
voice. He did not look in its direction, but he smiled. The next moment his arm
shot out like a flash of lightning. The ball touched ,ground on Ronnie’s side
of the net and shot the length of the court without rising. Ronnie’s wild scoop
at it was hopeless. Game and set were Garth’s.
They walked off the
ground together, their rackets under their arms, the flush of a well-contested
fight on their handsome faces. It had been so near a thing that both could
sense the thrill of victory.
Pauline Lister had been
sitting with Garth’s coat on her lap, and his watch and chain were in her
keeping. He paused a moment to take them up and receive her congratulations;
then, slipping on his coat, and pocketing his watch, came straight to Jane.
"How do you do,
Miss Champion?"
His eyes sought hers
eagerly; and the welcoming gladness he saw in them, filled him with certainty
and content. He had missed her so unutterably during these days. Tuesday,
Wednesday, and Thursday had just been weary stepping-stones to Friday. It
seemed incredible that one person’s absence could make so vast a difference.
And yet how perfect that it should be so; and that they should both realise it,
now the day had come when he intended to tell her how desperately he wanted her
always. Yes, that they should both realise it - for he felt certain Jane had
also experienced the blank. A thing so complete and overwhelming as the miss of
her had been to him could not; be one-sided. And how well worth the experience
of these lonely days if they had thereby learned something of what together
meant, now the words were to be spoken which should insure forever no more such
partings.
All this sped through
Garth’s mind as he greeted Jane with that most commonplace of English
greetings, the everlasting question which never receives an answer. But from
Garth, at that moment, it did not sound commonplace to Jane, and she answered
it quite frankly and fully. She wanted above all things to tell him exactly how
she did; to hear all about himself, and compare notes on the happenings of
these three interminable days; and to take up their close comradeship again,
exactly where it had left off. Her hand went home to his with that firm
completeness of clasp, which always made a hand shake with Jane such a
satisfactory and really friendly thing.
" Very fit, thank
you, Dal, " she answered. " At least I am every moment improving in
health and spirits, now I have arrived here at last. "
Garth stood his racket
against the arm of her chair and deposited himself full length on the grass
beside her, leaning on his elbow.
"Was anything
wrong with London?" he asked, rather low, not looking up at her, but at
the smart brown shoe, planted firmly on the grass so near his hand.
" Nothing was
wrong with London, " replied Jane frankly; "it was hot and dusty of
course, but delightful as usual. Something was wrong with me; and you will be
ashamed of me, Dal, if I confess what it was. "
Garth did not look up,
but assiduously picked little blades of grass and laid them in a pattern on
Jane’s shoe. This conversation would have been exactly to the point had they
been alone. But was Jane really going to announce to the assembled company, in
that dear, resonant, carrying voice of hers, the sweet secret of their miss of
one another?
"Liver?" inquired
Mrs. Parker Bangs suddenly.
"Muffins!"
exclaimed Billy instantly, and, rushing for them, almost shot them into her lap
in the haste with which he handed them, stumbling headlong over Garth’s legs at
the same moment.
Jane stared at Mrs.
Parker Bangs and her muffins; then looked down at the top of Garth’s dark head,
bent low over the grass.
"I was dull,"
she said, "intolerably dull. And Dal always says ’only a dullard is dull.’
But I diagnosed my dulness in the train just now and found it was largely his
fault. Do you hear, Dal?"
Garth lifted his head
and looked at her, realising in that moment that it was, after all, possible
for a complete and overwhelming experience to be one-sided. Jane’s calm grey
eyes were full of gay friendliness.
" It was your
fault, my dear boy," said Jane.
"How so?"
queried Garth; and though there was a deep flush on his sunburned face, his
voice was quietly interrogative.
" Because, during
those last days at Overdene, you led me on into a time of musical dissipation
such as I had never known before, and I missed it to a degree which was
positively alarming. I began to fear for the balance of my well-ordered
mind."
"Well," said
Myra, coming out from behind her red parasol, " you and Dal can have
orgies of music here if you want them. You will find a piano in the
drawing-room and another in the hall, and a Bechstein grand in the
billiard-room. That is where I hold the practices for the men and maids. I
could not make up my mind which makers I really preferred, Erard, Broadwood,
Collard, or Bechstein; so by degrees I collected one of each. And after all I
think I play best upon the little cottage piano we had in the schoolroom at
home. It stands in my boudoir now. I seem more accustomed to its notes, or it
lends itself better to my way of playing."
" Thank you,
Myra," said Jane. " I fancy Dal and I will like the Bechstein."
" And if you want
something really exciting in the way of music," continued Lady Ingleby,
" you might attend some of the rehearsals for this ’service of song’ they
are getting up in aid of the organ deficit fund. I believe they are attempting
great things."
"I would sooner
pay off the whole deficit, than go within a mile of a ’service of song,’ "
said Jane emphatically.
"Oh no," put
in Garth quickly, noting Myra’s look of disappointment. " It is so good
for people to work off their own debts and earn the things they need in their
churches. And ’services of song’ are delightful if well done, as I am sure this
will be if Lady Ingleby’s people are in it. Lawson outlined it to me this
morning, and hummed all the principal airs. It is highly dramatic. Robinson
Crusoe -- no, of course not! What’s the beggar’s name?--’Uncle Tom’s Cabin’?
Yes, I knew it was something black. Lawson is Uncle Tom, and the vicar’s small
daughter is to be little Eva. Miss Champion, you will walk down with me to the
very next rehearsal."
" Shall I?"
said Jane, unconscious of how tender was the smile she gave him; conscious only
that in her own heart was the remembrance of the evening at Overdene when she
felt so inclined to say to him: "Tell me just what you want me to do, and
I will do it."
" Pauline will
just love to go with you," said Mrs. Parker Bangs. " She dotes on
rural music."
" Rubbish, aunt!
" said Miss Lister, who had slipped into an empty chair near Myra. "
I agree with Miss Champion about ‘services of song,’ and I don’t care for any
music but the best."
Jane turned to her
quickly, with a cordial smile and her most friendly manner. " Ah, but you
must come," she said. " We will be victimised together. And perhaps
Dal and Lawson will succeed in converting us to the cult of the ‘service of
song.’ And anyway it will be amusing to have Dal explain it to us. He will need
the courage of his convictions."
"Talking of
something ’really exciting in the way of music,"’ said Pauline Lister,
"we had it on board when we came over. There was a nice friendly crowd on
board the ’Arabic,’ and they arranged a concert for half past eight on the
Thursday evening. We were about two hundred miles off the coast of Ireland, and
when we came up from dinner we had run into a dense fog. At eight o’clock they
started blowing the fog-horn every half minute, and while the fog-horn was
sounding you couldn’t hear yourself speak. However, all the programmes were
printed, and it was our last night on board, so they concluded to have the
concert all the same. Down we all trooped into the saloon, and each item of
that programme was punctuated by the stentorian boo of the fog-horn every
thirty seconds. You never heard anything so cute as the way it came in, right
on time. A man with a deep bass voice sang ’Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep,’
and each time he reached the refrain, ’And calm and peaceful is my sle-eep,’
BOO went the fog-horn, casting a certain amount of doubt on our expectations of
peaceful sleep that night, anyway. Then a man with a sweet tenor sang ’ Oft in
the Stilly Night,’ and the foghorn showed us just how oft, namely, every thirty
seconds. But the queerest effect of all was when a girl had to play a
pianoforte solo. It was something of Chopin’s, full of runs and trills and
little silvery notes. She started all right, but when she was halfway down the
first page, BOO went the fog-horn, a longer blast than usual. We saw her
fingers flying, and the turning of the page, but not a note could we hear; and
when the old horn stopped and we could hear the piano again, she had reached a
place half-way down the second page, and we hadn’t heard what led to it. My! it
was funny. That went on all through. She was a plucky girl to stick to it. We
gave her a good round of applause when she had finished, and the fog-horn
joined in and drowned us. It writhe queerest concert experience I ever had. But
we all enjoyed it. Only we didn’t enjoy that noise keeping right on until five
o’clock next morning."
Jane had turned in her
chair, and listened with appreciative interest while the lovely American girl
talked, watching, with real delight, her exquisite face and graceful gestures,
and thinking how Dal must enjoy looking at her when she talked with so much
charm and animation. She glanced down, trying to see the admiration in his
eyes; but his head was bent, and he was apparently absorbed in the occupation
of tracing the broguing of her shoe with the long stalk of a chestnut leaf. For
a moment she watched the slim brown hand, as carefully intent on this useless
task, as if working or a canvas; then she suddenly withdrew her foot, feeling
almost vexed with him for his inattention and apparent indifference.
Garth sat up instantly.
"It must have been awfully funny," he said. "And how well you
told it. One could hear the fog-horn, and see the dismayed faces of the
performers. Like an earthquake, a fog-horn is the sort of thing you don’t ever
get used to. It sounds worse every time. Let’s each tell the funniest thing we
remember at a concert. I once heard a youth recite Tennyson’s ’Charge of the
Light Brigade’ with much dramatic action. But he was extremely nervous, and got
rather mixed. In describing the attitude of mind of the noble six hundred, he
told us impressively that it was
" ’Theirs not to make reply; Theirs not to do or die; Theirs but to
reason why."’The tone and action were all right, and I doubt whether many
of the audience noticed anything wrong with the words." " That reminds me," said Ronald
Ingram, " of quite the funniest thing I ever heard. It was at a
Thanksgiving service when some of our troops returned from South Africa. The
proceedings concluded by the singing of the National Anthem right through. Yon
recollect how recently we had had to make the change of pronoun, and how
difficult it was to remember not to shout: ’Send Her victorious’? Well, there
was a fellow just behind me, with a tremendous voice, singing lustily, and
taking special pains to get the pronouns correct throughout. And when he
reached the fourth line of the second verse he sang with loyal fervour,
" ’ Confound his politics, Frustrate his knavish tricks! "’ "That would amuse the King,"
said Lady Ingleby. " Are you sure it is a fact, Ronnie? "
"Positive! I could
tell you the church, and the day, and call a whole pewful of witnesses who were
convulsed by it."
" Well, I shall
tell his Majesty at the next opportunity, and say you heard it. But how about
the tennis? What comes next? Final for couples? Oh, yes! Dal, you and Miss
Lister play Colonel Loraine and Miss Vermount; and I think you ought to win
fairly easily. You two are so well matched. Jane, this will be worth
watching."
" I am sure it
will," said Jane warmly, looking at the two, who had risen and stood
together in the evening sunlight, examining their rackets and discussing
possible tactics, while awaiting their opponents. They made such a radiantly
beautiful couple; it was as if nature had put her very best and loveliest into
every detail of each. The only rault which could possibly have been found with
the idea of them wedded, was that her dark, slim beauty was so very much just a
feminine edition of his, that they might easily have been taken for brother end
sister; but this was not a fault which occurred to Jane. Her whole-hearted
admiration of Pauline increased every time she looked at her; and now she had
really seen them together, she felt sure she had given wise advice to Garth,
and rejoiced to know he was taking it. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Later on, as they
strolled back to the house together -- she and Garth alone, -- Jane said,
simply: " Dal, you will not mind if I ask? Is it settled yet? "
" I mind nothing
you ask," Garth replied; "only be more explicit. Is what settled?
"
"Are you and Miss
Lister engaged? "
" No," Garth
answered. " What made you suppose we should be? "
" You said at
Overdene on Tuesday -- Tuesday! oh ! doesn’t it seem weeks ago? -- you said we
were to take you seriously."
" It seems years
ago," said Garth; " and I sincerely hope you will take me --
seriously. All the same I have not proposed to Miss Lister; and I am anxious
for an undisturbed talk with you on the subject. Miss Champion, after dinner
to-night, when all the dames and amusements are in full swing, and we can
escape unobserved, will you come out on to the terrace with me, where I shall
be able to speak to you without fear of interruption? The moonlight on the lake
is worth seeing from the terrace. I spent an hour out there last night -- ah,
no; you are wrong for once I spent it alone, when the boating was over, and
thought of -- how -- to-night -- we might be talking there together."
"Certainly I will
come," said Jane; "and you must feel free to tell me anything you
wish, and promise to let me advise or help in any way I can."
" I will tell you
everything," said Garth very low, "and you shall advise and help as
only you can." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jane sat on her
window-sill, enjoying the sunset and the exquisite view; and glad of a quiet
half hour before she need think of summoning her maid. Immediately below her
ran the terrace, wide and gravelled, bounded by a broad stone parapet, behind
which was a drop of eight or ten feet to the old-fashioned garden, with quaint
box-bordered flower-beds, winding walks, and stone fountains. Beyond, a stretch
of smooth lawn sloping down to the lake, which now lay, a silver mirror, in the
soft evening light. The stillness was so perfect; the sense of peace, so
all-pervading. Jane held a book on her knee, but she was not reading. She was
looking away to the distant woods beyond the lake; then to the pearly sky
above, flecked with rosy clouds and streaked with gleams of gold; and a sense
of content, and gladness, and well- being, filled her.
Presently she heard a
light step on the gravel below and leaned forward to see to whom it belonged.
Garth had come out of the smoking-room and walked briskly to and fro, once or
twice. Then he threw himself into a wicker seat just beneath her window, and
sat there, smoking meditatively. The fragrance of his cigarette reached Jane,
up among the magnolia blossoms. "’Zenith,’ Marcovitch,"she said to
herself, and smiled. " Packed in jolly green boxes, twelve shillings a
hundred! I must remember in case I want to give him a Christmas present. By
then it will be difficult to find anything which has not already been showered
upon him."
Garth flung away the
end of his cigarette, and commenced humming below his breath; then gradually
broke into words and sang softly, in his sweet barytone:
" ’ It is not mine to sing the stately grace, The great soul
beaming in my lady’s face."’ The
tones, though quiet, were so vibrant with passionate feeling, that Jane felt
herself an eavesdropper. She hastily picked a large magnolia leaf and, leaning
out, let it fall upon his head. Garth started, and looked up.
"Hullo!" he said. "You --up there?"
" Yes, " said
Jane, laughing down at him, and speaking low lest other casements should be
open, "1up here. You are serenading the wrong window, dear ‘devout
lover."’
"What a lot you
know about it," remarked Garth rather moodily.
" Don’t I?"
whispered Jane. " But you must not mind, Master Garthie, because you know
how truly I care. In old Margery’s absence, you must let me be mentor."
Garth sprang up and
stood erect, looking up at her, half-amused, half-defiant.
" Shall I climb
the magnolia?" he said. " I have heaps to say to you which cannot be
shouted to the whole front of the house."
"Certainly
not," replied Jane. "I don’t want any Romeos coming in at my window. ’Hoity-toity!
What next?’ as Aunt ’Gina would say. Run along and change your pinafore, Master
Garthie. The ’heaps of things’ must keep until to-night, or we shall both be
late for dinner. "
"All right,"
said Garth, "all right. But you will come out here this evening, Miss
Champion? And you will give me as long as I want?"
" I will come as
soon as we can possibly escape," replied Jane; "and you cannot be
more anxious to tell me everything than I am to hear it. Oh! the scent of these
magnolias! And just look at the great white trumpets! Would you like one for
your buttonhole? "
He gave her a wistful,
whimsical little smile; then turned and went indoors.
"Why do I feel so
inclined to tease him?" mused Jane, as she moved from the window. "
Really it is I who have been silly this time; and he, staid and sensible. Myra
is quite right. He is taking it very seriously. And how about her? Ah! I hope
she cares enough, and in the right way. -- Come in, Matthews! And you can put
out the gown I wore on the night of the concert at Overdene, and we must make
haste. We have just twenty minutes. What a lovely evening! Before you do
anything else, come and see this sunset on the lake. Ah! it is good to be here!
ALL the impatience in
the world could not prevent dinner at Shenstone from being a long function, and
two of the most popular people in the party could not easily escape afterwards
unnoticed. So a distant clock in the village was striking ten, as Garth and
Jane stepped out on to the terrace together. Garth caught up a rug in passing,
and closed the door of the lower hall carefully behind him.
They were quite alone.
It was the first time they had been really alone since these days apart, which
had seemed so long to both.
They walked silently,
side by side, to the wide stone parapet overlooking the old-fashioned garden.
The silvery moonlight flooded the whole scene with radiance. They could see the
stiff box-borders, the winding paths, the queerly shaped flower-beds, and,
beyond, the lake, like a silver mirror, reflecting the calm loveliness of the
full moon.
Garth spread the rug on
the coping, and Jane sat down. He stood beside her, one foot on the coping, his
arms folded across his chest, his head erect. Jane had seated herself sideways,
turning towards him, her back to an old stone lion mounting guard upon the
parapet; but she turned her head still further, to look down upon the lake, and
she thought Garth was looking in the same direction.
But Garth was looking
at Jane.
She wore the gown of
soft trailing black material she had worn at the Overdene concert, only she had
not on the pearls or, indeed, any ornament save a cluster of crimson rambler
roses. They nestled in the soft, creamy old lace which covered the bosom of her
gown. There was a quiet strength and nobility about her attitude which thrilled
the soul of the man who stood watching her. All the adoring love, the passion
of worship, which filled his heart, rose to his eyes and shone there. No need
to conceal it now. His hour had come at last, and he had nothing to hide from
the woman he loved.
Presently she turned,
wondering why he did not begin his confidences about Pauline Lister. Looking up
inquiringly, she met his eyes.
" Dal! "
cried Jane, and half rose from her seat. " Oh, Dal, --don’t! "
He gently pressed her
back. " Hush, dear," he said. " I must tell you everything, and
you have promised to listen, and to advise and help. hi, Jane, Jane! I shall
need your help. I want it so greatly, and not only your help, Jane -- but you
-- you, yourself. Ah, how I want you! These three days have been one continual
ache of loneliness, because you were not there; and life began to live and move
again, when you returned. And yet it has been so hard, waiting all these hours
to speak. I have so much to tell you, Vane, of all you are to me -- all you
have become to me, since the night of the concert. Ah, how can I express it? I
have never had any big things in my life; all has been more or less trivial --
on the surface. This need of you -- this wanting you-is so huge. It dwarfs all
that went before; it would overwhelm all that is to come, -- were it not that
it will be the throne, the crown, the summit, of the future. -- Oh, Jane! I
have admired so many women. I have raved about them, sighed for them, painted
them, and forgotten them. But I never loved a woman before; I never knew what
womanhood meant to a man, until I heard your voice thrill through the stillness
-- ’I count each pearl.’ Ah, belovéd, I have learned to count pearls since
then, precious hours in the past, long forgotten, now remembered, and at last
understood. ‘ Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer,’ ay, a passionate plea
that past and present may blend together into a perfect rosary, and that the
future may hold no possibility of pain or parting. Oh, Jane -- Jane! Shall I
ever be able to make you understand -- all how much -- Oh, Jane! "
She was not sure just
when he had come so near; but he had dropped on one knee in front of her, and,
as he uttered the last broken sentences, he passed both his arms around her
waist and pressed his face into the soft lace at her bosom. A sudden quietness
came over him. All struggling with explanations seemed hushed into the silence
of complete comprehension -- an all-pervading, enveloping silence.
Jane neither moved nor
spoke. It was so strangely sweet to have him there -- this whirlwind of emotion
come home to rest, in a great stillness, just above her quiet heart. Suddenly
she realised that the blank of the last three days had not been the miss of the
music, but the miss of him; and as she realised this, she unconsciously put her
arms about him. Sensations unknown to her before, awoke and moved within her,
-- a heavenly sense of aloofness from the world, the loneliness of life all
swept away by this dear fact -- just he and she together. Even as she thought
it, felt it, he lifted his head, still holding her, and looking into her face,
said: "You and I together, my own -- my own."
But those beautiful
shining eyes were more than Jane could bear. The sense of her plainness smote
her, even in that moment; and those adoring eyes seemed lights that revealed
it. With no thought in her mind but to hide the outward part from him who had
suddenly come so close to the shrine within, she quickly put both hands behind
his head and pressed his face down again, into the lace at her bosom. But, to
him, those dear firm hands holding him close, by that sudden movement, seemed
an acceptance of himself and of all he had to offer. For ten, twenty, thirty
exquisite seconds, his soul throbbed in silence and rapture beyond words. Then
he broke from the pressure of those restraining hands; lifted his head, and
looked into her face once more.
" My wife! "
he said.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . .
Into Jane’s honest face
came a look of startled wonder; then a deep flush, seeming to draw all the
blood, which had throbbed so strangely through her heart, into her cheeks,
making them burn, and her heart die within her.
She disengaged herself
from his hold, rose, and stood looking away to where the still waters of the
lake gleamed silver in the moonlight.
Garth Dalmain stood
beside her. He did not touch her, nor did he speak again. He felt sure he had
won; and his whole soul was filled with a gladness unspeakable. His spirit was
content. The intense silence seemed more expressive than words. Any ordinary
touch would have dimmed the sense of those moments when her hands had held him
to her. So he stood quite still and waited.
At last Jane spoke.
" Do you mean that you wish to ask me to be -- to be that -- to you?"
" Yes, dear,
" he answered, gently; but in his voice vibrated the quiet of strong
self-control. " At least I came out here intending to ask it of you. But I
cannot ask it now, belovéd. I can’t ask you to be what you are already. No
promise, no ceremony, no giving or receiving of a ring, could make you more my
wife than you have been just now in those wonderful moments. "
Jane slowly turned and
looked at him. She had never seen anything so radiant as his face. But still
those shining eyes smote her like swords. She longed to cover them with her
hands; or bid him look away over the woods and water, while he went on saying
these sweet things to her. She put up one foot on the low parapet, leaned her
elbow on her knee, and shielded her face with her hand. Then she answered him,
trying to speak calmly.
" You have taken
me absolutely by surprise, Dal. I knew you had been delightfully nice and
attentive since the concert evening, and that our mutual understanding of music
and pleasure in it, coupled with an increased intimacy brought about by our
confidential conversation under the cedar, had resulted in an unusually close
and delightful friendship. I honestly admit it seems to have -- it has -- meant
more to me than any friendship has ever meant. But that was partly owing to
your temperament, Dal, which tends to make you always the most vivid spot in
one’s mental landscape. But truly I thought you wanted me out here in order to
pour out confidence about Pauline Listen Everybody believes that her loveliness
has effected your final capture, and truly, Dal, truly -- I thought so, too.
" Jane paused.
"Well?" said
the quiet voice, with its deep undertone of gladness. " You know otherwise
now. "
" Dal -- you have
so startled and astonished me. I cannot give you an answer to-night. You must
let me have until to-morrow -- to-morrow morning. "
" But, belovéd,
" he said tenderly, moving a little nearer, "there is no more need
for yon to answer than I felt need to put a question. Can’t you realise this?
Question and answer were asked and given just now. Oh, my dearest -- come back
to me. Sit down again. "
But Jane stood rigid.
" No, " she
said. " I can’t allow you to take things for granted in this way. You took
me by surprise, and I lost my head utterly -- unpardonably, I admit. But, my
dear boy, marriage is a serious thing. Marriage is not a mere question of
sentiment. It has to wear. It has to last. It must have a solid and dependable
foundation, to stand the test and strain of daily life together. I know so many
married couples intimately. I stay in their homes, and act sponsor to their
children; with the result that I vowed never to risk it myself. And now I have
let you put this question, and you must not wonder if I ask for twelve hours to
think it over. "
Garth took this
silently. He sat down on the stone coping with his back to the lake and,
leaning backward, tried to see her face; but the hand completely screened it.
He crossed his knees and clasped both hands around them, rocking slightly
backward and forward for a minute while mastering the impulse to speak or act
violently. He strove to compose his mind by fixing it upon trivial details
which chanced to catch his eye. His red socks showed clearly in the moonlight
against the white paving of the terrace, and looked well with black
patent-leather shoes. He resolved always to wear red silk socks in the evening,
and wondered whether Jane would knit some for him. He counted the windows along
the front of the house, noting which were his and which were Jane’s, and how
many came between. At last he knew he could trust himself, and, leaning back,
spoke very gently, his dark head almost touching the lace of her sleeve.
" Dearest -- tell
me, didn’t you feel just now --"
" Oh, hush! "
cried Jane, almost harshly, " hush, Dal! Don’t talk about feelings with
this question between us. Marriage is fact, not feeling. If you want to do
really the best thing for us both, go straight indoors now and don’t speak to
me again to-night. I heard you say you were going to try the organ in the
church on the common at eleven o’clock to-morrow morning. Well -- I will come
there soon after half past eleven and listen while you play; and at noon you
can send away the blower, and I will give you my answer. But now -- oh, go
away, dear; for truly I cannot bear any more. I must be left alone."
Garth loosed the strong
fingers clasped so tightly round his knee. He slipped the hand next to her
along the stone coping, close to her foot. She felt him take hold of her gown
with those deft, masterful fingers. Then he bent his dark head quickly, and
whispering: " I kiss the cross," with a gesture of infinite reverence
and tenderness, which Jane never forgot, he kissed the hem of her skirt. The
next moment she was alone.
She listened while his
footsteps died away. She heard the door into the lower hall open and close.
Then slowly she sat down just as she had sat when he knelt in front of her. Now
she was quite alone. The tension of these last hard moments relaxed. She
pressed both hands over the lace at her bosom where that dear, beautiful,
adoring face had been hidden. Had she felt, he asked. Ah! what had she not
felt?
Tears never came easily
to Jane. But to-night she had been called a name by which she had never thought
to be called; and already her honest heart was telling her she would never be
called by it again. And large silent tears overflowed and fell upon her hands
and upon the lace at her breast. For the wife and the mother in her had been
wakened and stirred, and the deeps of her nature broke through the barriers of
stern repression and almost masculine self-control, and refused to be driven
back without the womanly tribute of tears.
And around her feet lay
the scattered petals of crushed rambler roses.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Presently she passed
indoors. The upper hall was filled with merry groups and resounded with
"goodnights" as the women mounted the great staircase, pausing to
fling back final repartees, or to confirm plans for the morrow.
Garth Dalmain was
standing at the foot of the staircase, held in conversation by Pauline Lister
and her aunt, who had turned on the fourth step. Jane saw his slim, erect
figure and glossy head the moment she entered the hall. His back was towards
her, and though she advanced and stood quite near, he gave no sign of being
aware of her presence. But the joyousness of his voice seemed to make him hers
again in this new sweet way. She alone knew what had caused it, and
unconsciously she put one hand over her bosom as she listened.
"Sorry, dear
ladies," Garth was saying, "but tomorrow morning is impossible. I
have an engagement in the village. Yes -- really! At eleven o’clock."
"That sounds so
rural and pretty, Mr. Dalmain," said Mrs. Parker Bangs. "Why not take
Pauline and me along? We have seen no dairies, and no dairymaids, nor any of
the things in ’Adam Bede,’ since we came over. I would just love to step into
Mrs. Poyser’s kitchen and see myself reflected in the warming-pans on the
walls."
"Perhaps we would
be de trop in the dairy," murmured Miss Lister archly. She looked very
lovely in her creamy-white satin gown, her small head held regally, the
brilliant charm of American womanhood radiating from her. She wore no jewels,
save one string of perfectly matched pearls; but on Pauline Lister’s neck even
pearls seemed to sparkle. All these scintillations, flung at Garth, passed over
his sleek head and reached Jane where she lingered in the background. She took
in every detail. Never had Miss Lister’s loveliness been more correctly
appraised.
"But it happens,
unfortunately, to be neither a dairy-maid nor a warming-pan," said Garth.
"My appointment is with a very grubby small boy, whose rural beauties
consist in a shock of red hair and a, whole pepper-pot of freckles."
"Philanthropic?"
inquired Miss Lister.
"Yes, at the rate
of threepence an hour."
"A caddy, of
course," cried both ladies together.
"My! What a
mystery about a thing so simple!" added Mrs. Parker Bangs. " Now we
have heard, Mr. Dalmain, that it is well worth the walk to the links to see you
play. So you may expect us to arrive there, time to see you start around."
Garth’s eyes twinkled.
Jane could hear the twinkle in his voice. "My dear lady," he said,
"you overestimate my play as, in your great kindness of heart, you
overestimate many other things connected with me. But I shall like to think of
you at the golf links at eleven o’clock to-morrow morning. You might drive
there, but the walk through the woods is too charming to miss. Only remember,
you cross the park and leave by the north gate, not the main entrance by which
we go to the railway station. I would offer to escort you, but duty takes me,
at an early hour, in quite another direction. Beside, when Miss Lister’s wish
to see the links is known, so many people will discover golf to be the one
possible way of spending to-morrow morning, that I should be but a unit in the
crowd which will troop across the park to the north gate. It will be quite
impossible for you to miss your way."
Mrs. Parker Bangs was beginning
to explain elaborately that never, under any circumstances, could he be a unit,
when her niece peremptorily interposed.
" That will do,
aunt. Don’t be silly. We are all unit, except when we make a crowd; which is
what we are doing on this staircase at this present moment, so that Miss
Champion has for some time been trying ineffectually to pass us. Do you golf
to-morrow, Miss Champion? "
Garth stood on one
side, and Jane began to mount the stairs. He did not look at her, but it seemed
to Jane that his eyes were on the hem of her gown as it trailed past him. She
paused beside Miss Lister. She knew exactly how effectual a foil she made to
the American girl’s white loveliness. She turned and faced him. She wished him
to look up and see them standing there together. She wanted the artist eyes to
take in the cruel contrast. She wanted the artist soul of him to realise it.
She waited.
Garth’s eyes were still
on the hem of her gown, close to the left foot; but he lifted them slowly to
the lace at her bosom, where her hand still lay. There they rested a moment,
then dropped again, without rising higher.
" Yes," said
Mrs. Parker Bangs, "are you playing around with Mr. Dalmain to-morrow
forenoon, Miss Champion? "
Jane suddenly flushed
crimson, and then was furious with herself for blushing, and hated the
circumstances which made her feel and act so unlike her ordinary self. She
hesitated during one long dreadful moment. How dared Garth behave in that way?
People would think there was something unusual about her gown. She felt a wild
impulse to stoop and look at it herself to see whether his kiss had
materialised and was hanging like a star to the silken hem. Then she forced
herself to calmness and answered rather brusquely: " I am not golfing to-morrow;
but you could not do better than go to the links. Good-night, Mrs. Parker
Bangs. Sleep well, Miss Lister. Good-night, Dal."
Garth was on the step
below them, handing Pauline’s aunt a letter she had dropped.
"Good-night, Miss
Champion," he said, and for one instant his eyes met hers, but he did not
hold out his hand, or appear to see hers half extended. The three women mounted
the staircase together, then went different ways. Miss Lister trailed away down
a passage to the right, her aunt trotting in her wake.
"There’s been a
tiff there," said Mrs. Parker Bangs.
" Poor
thing!" said Miss Lister softly. " I like her. She’s a real good
sort. I should have thought she would have been more sensible than the rest of
us."
" A real plain
sort," said her aunt, ignoring the last sentence.
"Well, she didn’t
make her own face," said Miss Lister generously.
" No, and she don’t
pay other people to make it for her. She’s what Sir Walter Scott calls: ’Nature
in all its ruggedness."’
" Dear aunt,
" remarked Miss Lister wearily, " I wish you wouldn’t trouble to
quote the English classics to me when we are alone. It is pure waste of breath,
because you see I know you have read them all. Here is my door. Now come right
in and make yourself comfy on that couch. I am going to sit in this palatial
arm-chair opposite, and do a little very needful explaining. My! How they fix
one to the floor! These ancestral castles are all right so far as they go, but
they don’t know a thing about rockers. Now I have a word or two to say about
Miss Champion. She’s a real good sort, and I like her. She’s not a beauty; but
she has a fine figure, and she dresses right. She has heaps of money, and could
have rarer pearls than mine; but she knows better than to put pearls on that
brown skin. I like a woman who knows her limitations and is sensible over them.
All the men adore her, not for what she looks but for what she is, and, my
word, aunt, that’s what pays in the long run. That is what lasts. Ten years
hence the Honourable Jane will still be what she is, and I shall be trying to
look what I’m not. As for Garth Dalmain, he has eyes for all of us and a heart
for none. His pretty speeches and admiring looks don’t mean marriage, because
he is a man with an ideal of womanhood and he can’t see himself marrying below
it. If the Sistine Madonna could step down off those clouds and hand the infant
to the young woman on her left, he might marry her; but even then he would be
afraid he might see some one next day who did her hair more becomingly, or that
her foot would not look so well on his Persian rugs as it does on that cloud.
He won’t marry money, because he has plenty of it. And even if he hadn’t, money
made in candles would not appeal to him. He won’t marry beauty, because he
thinks too much about it. He adores so many lovely faces, that he is never sure
for twenty-four hours which of them he admires most, bar the fact that, as in
the case of fruit trees, the unattainable are usually the most desired. He won’t
marry goodness -- virtue -- worth -- whatever you choose to call the sterling
qualities of character -- because in all these the Honourable Jane Champion is
his ideal, and she is too sensible a woman to tie such an epicure to her plain
face. Besides, she considers herself his grandmother, and doesn’t require him
to teach her to suck eggs. But Garth Dalmain, poor boy, is so sublimely lacking
in self-consciousness that he never questions whether he can win his ideal. He
possesses her already in his soul, and it will be a fearful smack in the fare
when she says "No," as she assuredly will do, for reasons aforesaid.
These three days, while he has been playing around with me, and you and other
dear match-making old donkeys have gambolled about us, and made sure we were
falling in love, he has been worshipping the ground she walks on, and counting
the hours until he should see her walk on it again. He enjoyed being with me
more than with the other girls, because I understood, and helped him to work
all conversations round to her, and he knew, when she arrived here, I could be
trusted to develop sudden anxiety about you, or have important letters to
write, if she came in sight. But that is all there will ever be between me and
Garth Dalmain; and if you had a really careful regard for my young affections
you would drop your false set on the marble washstand, or devise some other
equally false excuse for our immediate departure for town to-morrow. -- And
now, dear, don’t stay to argue; because I have said exactly all there is to say
on the subject, and a little more. And try to toddle to bed without telling me
of which cute character in Dickens I remind you, because I am cuter than any of
them, and if I stay in this tight frock another second I can’t answer for the
consequences. -- Oui, Joséphine, entrez! -- Good-night, dear aunt. Happy
dreams! "
But after her maid had
left her, Pauline switched off the electric light and, drawing back the
curtain, stood for a long while at her window, looking out at the peaceful
English scene bathed in moonlight. At last she murmured softly, leaning her
beautiful head against the window frame:
" I stated your
case well, but you didn’t quite deserve it, Dal. You ought to have let me know
about Jane, weeks ago. Anyway, it will stop the talk about you and me. And as
for you, dear, you will go on sighing for the moon; and when you find the moon
is unattainable, you will not dream of seeking solace in more earthly lights --
not even poppa’s best sperm," she added, with a wistful little smile, for
Pauline’s fun sparkled in solitude as freely as in company, and as often at her
own expense as at that of other people, and her brave American spirit would not
admit, even to herself, a serious hurt.
Meanwhile Jane had
turned to the left and passed slowly to her room. Garth had not taken her
half-proffered hand, and she knew perfectly well why. He would never again be
content to clasp her hand in friendship. If she cut him off from the touch
which meant absolute possession, she cut herself off from the contact of simple
comradeship. Garth, to-night, was like a royal tiger who had tasted blood. It
seemed a queer simile, as she thought of him in his conventional evening
clothes, correct in every line, well-groomed, smart almost to a fault. But out
on the terrace with him she had realised, for the first time, the primal
elements which go to the making of a man -- a forceful determined, ruling man
-- creation’s king. They echo of primeval forests. The roar of the lion is in
them, the fierceness of the tiger; the instinct of dominant possession, which
says: "Mine to have and hold, to fight for and enjoy; and I slay all
comers!" She had felt it, and her own brave soul had understood it and
responded to it, unafraid; and been ready to mate with it, if only -- ah! if
only --
But things could never
be again as they had been before. If she meant to starve her tiger, steel bars
must be between them for evermore. None of those sentimental suggestions of
attempts to be a sort of unsatisfactory cross between sister and friend would
do for the man whose head she had unconsciously held against her breast. Jane
knew this. He had kept himself magnificently in hand after she put him from
her, but she knew he was only giving her breathing space. He still considered
her his own, and his very certainty of the near future had given him that
gentle patience in the present. But even now, while her answer pended, he would
not take her hand in friendship.
Jane closed her door
and locked it. She must face this problem of the future, with all else locked
out excepting herself and him. Ah! if she could but lock herself out and think
only of him and of his love, as beautiful, perfect gifts laid at her feet, that
she might draw them up into her empty arms and clasp them there forevermore.
Just for a little while she would do this. One hour of realisation was her
right. Afterwards she must bring herself into the problem, -- her
possibilities; her limitations; herself, in her relation to him in the future;
in the effect marriage with her would be likely to have upon him. What it might
mean to her, did not consciously enter into her calculations. Jane was
self-conscious, with the intense self-consciousness of all reserved natures,
but she was not selfish.
At first, then, she
left her room in darkness, and, groping her way to the curtains, drew them
back, threw up the sash, and, drawing a chair to the window, sat down, leaning
her elbows on the sill and her chin in her hands, and looked down upon the
terrace, still bathed in moonlight. Her window was almost opposite the place
where she and Garth had talked. She could see the stone lion and the vase full
of scarlet geraniums. She could locate the exact spot where she was sitting
when he -- Memory awoke, vibrant.
Then Jane allowed
herself the most wonderful mental experience of her life. She was a woman of
purpose and decision. She had said she had a right to that hour, and she took
it to the full. In soul she met her tiger and mated with him, unafraid. He had
not asked whether she loved him or not, and she did not need to ask herself.
She surrendered her proud liberty, and tenderly, humbly, wistfully, yet with
all the strength of her strong nature, promised to love, honour, and obey him.
She met the adoration of his splendid eyes without a tremor. She had locked her
body out. She was alone with her soul; and her soul was all-beautiful --
perfect for him.
The loneliness of years
slipped from her. Life became rich and purposeful. He needed her always, and
she was always there and always able to meet his need. "Are you content,
my belovéd? " she asked over and over; and Garth’s joyous voice, with the
ring of perpetual youth in it, always answered: "Perfectly content."
And Jane smiled into the night, and in the depths of her calm eyes dawned a
knowledge hitherto unknown, and in her tender smile trembled, with unspeakable
sweetness, an understanding of the secret of a woman’s truest bliss. " He
is mine and. I am his. And because he is mine, my belovéd is safe; and because
I am his, he is content."
Thus she gave herself
completely; gathering him into the shelter of her love; and her generous heart
expanded to the greatness of the gift. Then the mother in her awoke and
realised how much of the maternal flows into the love of a true woman when she
understands how largely the child-nature predominates in the man in love, and
how the very strength of his need of her, reduces to unaccustomed weakness the
strong nature to which she has become essential.
Jane pressed her hands
upon her breast. "Garth," she whispered, " Garth, I understand.
My own poor boy, it was so hard to you to be sent away just,. But you had had
all -- all you wanted, in those few wonderful moments, and nothing can rob you
of that fact. And you have made me so yours that, whatever the future brings
for you and me, no other face will ever be hidden here. It is yours, and I am
yours -to-night, and henceforward, forever."
Jane leaned her
forehead on the window-sill. The moonlight fell on the heavy coils of her brown
hair. The scent of the magnolia blooms rose in fragrance around her. The song
of a nightingale purled and thrilled in an adjacent wood. The lonely years of
the past, the perplexing moments of the present, the uncertain vistas of the
future, all rolled away. She sailed with Garth upon a golden ocean far removed
from the shores of time. For love is eternal; and the birth of love frees the
spirit from all limitations of the flesh.
. . . . . . . . . . .
A clock in the distant
village struck midnight. The twelve strokes floated up to Jane’s window across
the moonlit park. Time was, once more. Her freed spirit resumed the burden of
the body.
A new day had begun,
the day upon which she had promised her answer to Garth. The next time that
clock struck twelve she would be standing with him in the church, and her
answer must be ready.
She turned from the
window without closing it, drew the curtains closely across, switched on the
electric light over the writing-table, took off her evening gown, hung up bodice
and skirt in the wardrobe, resolutely locking the door upon them. Then she
slipped on a sage-green wrapper, which she had lately purchased at a bazaar
because every one else fled from it, and the old lady whose handiwork it was
seemed so disappointed, and, drawing a chair near the writing-table, took out
her diary, unlocked the heavy clasp, and began to read. She turned the pages
slowly, pausing here and there, until she came to those she sought. Over them
she pondered long, her head in her hands. They contained a very full account of
her conversation with Garth on the afternoon of the day of the concert at
Overdene; and the lines upon which she specially dwelt were these: "His
face was transfigured . . . . Goodness and inspiration shone from it, making it
as the face of an angel . . . . I never thought him ugly again. Child though I
was, I could differentiate even then between ugliness and plainness. I have
associated his face ever since with the wondrous beauty of his soul. When he
sat down, at the close of his address, I no longer thought him a complicated
form of chimpanzee. I remembered the divine halo of his smile. Of course it was
not the sort of face one could have wanted to live with, or to have day after
day opposite one at table, but then one was not called to that sort of
discipline, which would have been martyrdom to me. And he has always stood to
my mind since as a proof of the truth that goodness is never ugly, and that
divine love and aspiration, shining through the plainest features, may redeem
them, temporarily, into beauty; and permanently, into a thing one loves to
remember."
At first Jane read the
entire passage. Then her mind focussed itself upon one sentence: "Of
course it was not the sort of face one could have wanted to live with, or to
have day after day opposite one at table, which would have been martyrdom to
me."
At length Jane arose,
turned on all the lights over the dressing-table, particularly two bright ones
on either side of the mirror, and, sitting down before it, faced herself
honestly.
. . . . . . . . . . .
When the village clock
struck one, Garth Dalmain stood at his window taking a final look at the night
which had meant so much to him. He remembered, with an amused smile, how, to
help himself to calmness, he had sat on the terrace and thought of his socks,
and then had counted the windows between his and Jane’s. There were five of
them. He knew her window by the magnolia tree and the seat beneath it where he
had chanced to sit, not knowing she was above him. He leaned far out and looked
towards it now. The curtains were drawn, but there appeared still to be a light
behind them. Even as he watched, it went out.
He looked down at the
terrace. He could see the stone lion and the vase of scarlet geraniums. He could
locate the exact spot where she was sitting when he -- Then he dropped upon his
knees beside the window and looked up into the starry sky.
Garth’s mother had
lived long enough to teach him the holy secret of her sweet patience and
endurance. In moments of deep feeling, words from his mother’s Bible came to
his lips more readily than expressions of his own thought. Now, looking upward,
he repeated softly and reverently: " ’Every good gift and every perfect
gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning.’ "And oh, Father," he added,
" keep us in the light -- she and I. May there be in us, as there is in
Thee, no variableness, neither shadow which is cast by turning."
Then he rose to his
feet and looked across once more to the stone lion and the broad coping. His
soul sang within him, and he folded his arms across his chest. "My wife!
" he said. "Oh! my wife! "
. . . . . . . . . . .
And, as the village
clock. struck one, Jane arrived at her decision.
Slowly she rose, and
turned off all the lights; then, groping her way to the bed, fell upon her
knees beside it, and broke into a passion of desperate, silent weeping.
THE village church on
the green was bathed in sunshine as Jane emerged from the cool shade of the
park. The clock proclaimed the hour half past eleven, and Jane did not hasten,
knowing she was not expected until twelve. The windows of the church were open,
and the massive oaken doors stood ajar.
Jane paused beneath the
ivy-covered porch and stood listening. The tones of the organ reached her as
from an immense distance, and yet with an all-pervading nearness. The sound was
disassociated from hands and feet. The organ seemed breathing, and its breath
was music.
Jane pushed the heavy
door further open, and even at that moment it occurred to her that the freckled
boy with a red head, and Garth’s slim proportions, had evidently passed easily
through an aperture which refused ingress to her more massive figure. She
pushed the door further open, and went in.
Instantly a stillness
entered into her soul. The sense of unseen presences, often so strongly felt on
entering an empty church alone, the impress left upon old walls and rafters by
the worshipping minds of centuries, hushed the insistent beating of her own
perplexity, and for a few moments she forgot the errand which brought her
there, and bowed her head in unison with the worship of ages.
Garth was playing the
" Veni, Creator Spiritus" to Attwood’s perfect setting; and, as Jane
walked noiselessly up to the chancel, he began to sing the words of the second
verse. He sang them softly, but his beautifully modulated barytone carried
well, and every syllable reached her.
"Enable with perpetual
light
The dulness of our
blinded sight;
Anoint and cheer our
soiléd face
With the abundance of
Thy grace;
Keep far our foes; give
peace at home;
Where Thou art Guide,
no ill can come."
Then the organ swelled
into full power, pealing out the theme of the last verse without its words, and
allowing those he had sung to repeat themselves over and over in Jane’s mind:
" Where Thou art Guide, no ill can come." Had she not prayed for
guidance? Then surely all would be well.
She paused at the
entrance to the chancel. Garth had returned to the second verse, and was
singing again, to a waldflute accompaniment, " Enable with perpetual
light--."
Jane seated herself in
one of the old oak stalls and looked around her. The brilliant sunshine from
without entered through the stained-glass windows, mellowed into golden beams
of soft amber light, with here and there a shaft of crimson. What a beautiful
expression -- perpetual light! As Garth sang it, each syllable seemed to pierce
the silence like a ray of purest sunlight. " The dulness of --" Jane
could just see the top of his dark head over the heavy brocade of the organ
curtain. She dreaded the moment when he should turn, and those vivid eyes
should catch sight of her -- "our blinded sight." How would he take
what she must say? Would she have strength to come through a long hard scene?
Would he be tragically heart-broken? -- "Anoint and cheer our soiled
face" Would he argue, and insist, and override her judgment? "With
the abundance of Thy grace --" Could she oppose his fierce strength, if he
chose to exert it? Would they either of them come through so hard a time
without wounding each other terribly? -- " Keep far our foes; give peace at
home - -" Oh! what could she say? What would he say? How should she
answer? What reason could she give for her refusal which Garth would ever take
as final? "Where Thou art Guide, no ill can come."
And then, after a few
soft, impromptu chords, the theme changed.
Jane’s heart stood
still. Garth was playing "The Rosary." He did not sing it; but the
soft insistence of the organ pipes seemed to press the words into the air, as
no voice could have done. Memory’s pearls, in all the purity of their gleaming
preciousness, were counted one by one by the flute and dulciana; and the sadder
tones of the waldflute proclaimed the finding of the cross. It all held a new
meaning for Jane, who looked helplessly round, as if seeking some way of escape
from the sad sweetness of sound which filled the little church.
Suddenly it ceased.
Garth stood up, turned, and saw her. The glory of a great joy leaped into his
face.
"All right,
Jimmy," he said; "that will do for this morning. And here is a bright
sixpence, because you have managed the blowing so well. Hullo! It’s a shilling!
Never mind. You shall have it because it is such a glorious day. There never
was such a day, Jimmy; and I want you to be happy also. Now run off quickly,
and shut the church door behind you, my boy."
Ah! how his voice, with
its ring of buoyant gladness, shook her soul.
The red-headed boy,
rather grubby, with a whole pepper-pot of freckles, but a beaming face of
pleasure, came out from behind the organ, clattered down a side aisle, dropped
his shilling on the way and had to find it; but at last went out, the heavy
door closing behind him with a resounding clang.
Garth had remained
standing beside the organ, quite motionless, without looking at Jane, and now
that they were absolutely alone in the church, he still stood and waited a few
moments. To Jane those moments seemed days, weeks, years, an eternity. Then he
came out into the centre of the chancel, his head erect, his eyes shining, his
whole bearing that of a conqueror sure of his victory.
He walked down to the
quaintly carved oaken screen and, passing beneath it, stood at the step. Then
he signed to Jane to come and stand beside him.
"Here,
dearest," he said; "let it be here."
Jane came to him, and
for a moment they stood together, looking up the chancel. It was darker than
the rest of the church, being lighted only by three narrow stained-glass
windows, gems of colour and of significance. The centre window, immediately
over the communion table, represented the Saviour of the world, dying upon the
cross. They gazed at it in reverent silence. Then Garth turned to Jane.
"My belovéd,"
he said, "it is a sacred Presence and a sacred place. But no place could
be too sacred for that which we have to say to each other, and the Holy
Presence, in which we both believe, is here to bless and ratify it. I am
waiting for your answer."
Jane cleared her throat
and put her trembling hands into the large pockets of her tweed coat.
"Dal," she
said, "my answer is a question. How old are you?"
She felt his start of intense
surprise. She saw the light of expectant joy fade from his face. But he
replied, after only a momentary hesitation: " I thought you knew, dearest.
I am twenty-seven."
"Well," said
Jane slowly and deliberately, " I am thirty; and I look thirty-five, and
feel forty. You are twenty-seven, Dal, and you look nineteen, and often feel
nine. I have been thinking it over, and -- you know -- I cannot marry a mere
boy."
Silence -- absolute.
In sheer terror Jane
forced herself to look at him. He was white to the lips. His face was very
stern and calm -- a strange, stony calmness. There was not much youth in it
just then. "Anoint and cheer our soiled face " -- The silent church
seemed to wail the words in bewildered agony.
At last he spoke.
" I had not thought of myself," he said slowly. " I cannot
explain how it comes to pass, but I have not thought of myself at all, since my
mind has been full of you. Therefore I had not realised how little there is in
me that you could care for. I believed you had felt as I did, that we were --
just each other’s." For a moment he put out his hand as if he would have
touched her. Then it dropped heavily to his side. "You are quite
right," he said. " You could not marry any one whom you consider a
mere boy."
He turned from her and
faced up the chancel. For the space of a long silent minute he looked at the
window over the holy table, where hung the suffering Christ. Then he bowed his
head. " I accept the cross," he said, and, turning, walked quietly
down the aisle. The church door opened, closed behind him with a heavy clang,
and Jane was alone.
She stumbled back to
the seat she had left, and fell upon her knees.
" O, my God,"
she cried, "send him back to me, oh, send him back! . . . Oh, Garth! It is
I who am plain and unattractive and unworthy, not you. Oh, Garth - come back!
come back! come back! . . . . I will trust and not be afraid . . . . Oh, my own
Dear - come back!"
She listened, with
straining ears. She waited, until every nerve of her body ached with suspense.
She decided what she would say when the heavy door reopened and she saw Garth
standing in a shaft of sunlight. She tried to remember the " Veni,"
but the hollow clang of the door had silenced even memory’s echo of that
haunting music. So she waited silently, and as she waited the silence grew and
seemed to enclose her within cruel, relentless walls which opened only to allow
her glimpses into the vista of future lonely years. Just once more she broke
that silence. "Oh darling, come back! I will risk it," she said. But
no step drew near, and, kneeling with her face buried in her clasped hands,
Jane suddenly realised that Garth Dalmain had accepted her decision as final
and irrevocable, and would not return.
How long she knelt
there after realising this, she never knew. But at last comfort came to her.
She felt she had done right. A few hours of present anguish were better than
years of future disillusion. Her own life would be sadly empty, and losing this
newly found joy was costing her more than she had expected; but she honestly
believed she had done rightly towards him, and what did her own pain matter?
Thus comfort came to Jane.
At last she rose and
passed out of the silent church into the breezy sunshine.
Near the park gates a
little knot of excited boys were preparing to fly a kite. Jimmy, the hero of
the hour, the centre of attraction, proved to be the proud possessor of this
new kite. Jimmy was finding the day glorious indeed, and was being happy. "Happy
also," Garth had said. And Jane’s eyes filled with tears, as she
remembered the word and the tone in which it was spoken.
"There goes my
poor boy’s shilling," she said to herself sadly, as the kite mounted and
soared above the common; "but, alas, where is his joy?"
As she passed up the
avenue a dog-cart was driven swiftly down it. Garth Dalmain drove it; behind
him a groom and a portmanteau. He lifted his hat as he passed her, but looked
straight before him. In a moment he was gone. Had Jane wanted to stop him she
could not have done so. But she did not want to stop him. She felt absolutely
satisfied that she had done the right thing, and done it at greater cost to
herself than to him. He would eventually -- ah, perhaps before so very long --
find another to be to him all, and more than all, he had believed she could be.
But she? The dull ache at her bosom reminded her of her own words the night
before, whispered in the secret of her chamber to him who, alas, was not there
to hear: "Whatever the future brings for you and me, no other face will
ever be hidden here." And, in this first hour of the coming lonely years,
she knew them to be true.
In the hall she met
Pauline Lister.
"Is that you, Miss
Champion?" said Pauline. "Well now, have you heard of Mr. Dalmain? He
has had to go to town unexpectedly, on the 1.15 train; and aunt has dropped her
false teeth on her marble washstand and must get to the dentist right away. So
we go to town on the 2.30. It’s an uncertain world. It complicates one’s plans,
when they have to depend on other people’s teeth. But I would sooner break
false teeth than true hearts, any day. One can get the former mended, but I
guess no one can mend the latter. We are lunching early in our rooms; so I wish
you good-by, Miss Champion."
THE Honourable Jane
Champion stood on the summit of the Great Pyramid and looked around her. The
four exhausted Arabs whose exertions, combined with her own activity, had
placed her there, dropped in the picturesque attitudes into which an Arab falls
by nature. They had hoisted the Honourable Jane’s eleven stone ten, from the
bottom to the top in record time, and now lay around, proud of their
achievement and sure of their "back-sheesh."
The whole thing had gone
as if by clock-work. Two mahogany-coloured, finely proportioned fellows, in
scanty white garments, sprang with the ease of antelopes to the top of a high
step, turning to reach down eagerly and seize Jane’s upstretched hands. One
remained behind, unseen but indispensable, to lend timely aid at exactly the
right moment. Then came the apparently impossible task for Jane, of placing the
sole of her foot on the edge of a stone four feet above the one upon which she
was standing. It seemed rather like stepping up on to the drawing-room
mantelpiece. But encouraged by cries of "Eiwa! Eiwa!" she did it;
when instantly a voice behind said, " Tyeb ! " two voices above
shouted, " Ketéer! " the grip on her hands tightened, the Arab behind
hoisted, and Jane had stepped up, with an ease which surprised herself. As a
matter of fact, under those circumstances the impossible thing would have been
not to have stepped up.
Arab number four was
water carrier, and offered water from a gourd at intervals; and once, when Jane
had to cry halt for a few minutes’ breathing space, Schehati, handsomest of
all, and leader of the enterprise, offered to recite English
Shakespeare-poetry. This proved to be:
" Jack-an-Jill Went uppy hill, To fetchy paily water; Jack fell
down-an Broke his crown-an, Jill came tumbling after." Jane had laughed; and Schehati,
encouraged by the success of his attempt to edify and amuse, used lines of the
immortal nursery epic as signals for united action during the remainder of the
climb. Therefore Jane mounted one step to the fact that Jack fell down, and
scaled the next to information as to the serious nature of his injuries, and at
the third, Schehati, bending over, confidentially mentioned in her ear, while
Ali shoved behind, that " Jill came tumbling after."
The familiar words,
heard under such novel circumstances, took on fresh meaning. Jane commenced
speculating as to whether the downfall of Jack need necessarily have caused so
complete a loss of self-control and equilibrium on the part of Jill. Would she
not have proved her devotion better by bringing the mutual pail safely to the
bottom of the hill, and there attending to the wounds of her fallen hero? Jane,
in her time, had witnessed the tragic downfall of various delightful jacks, and
had herself ministered tenderly to their broken crowns; for in each case the
Jill had remained on the top of the hill, flirting with that objectionable
person of the name of Horner whose cool, calculating way of setting to work --
so unlike poor Jack’s headlong method -- invariably secured him the plum; upon
which he remarked "What a good boy am I!" and was usually taken at
his own smug valuation. But Jane’s entire sympathy on these occasions, was with
the defeated lover, and more than one Jack was now on his feet again, bravely
facing life, because that kind hand had been held out to him as he lay in his
valley of humiliation, and that comprehending sympathy had proved balm to his
broken crown.
"Dickery, dickery,
dock!" chanted Schehati solemnly, as he hauled again; " Moses ran up
the clock. The clock struck ’one’ --
The clock struck
"one" ? -- It was nearly three years since that night at Shenstone
when the clock had struck "one," and Jane had arrived at her
decision, -- the decision which precipitated her Jack from his Pisgah of future
promise. And yet -- no. He had not fallen before the blow. He had taken it
erect, and his light step had been even firmer than usual as he walked down the
church and left her, after quietly and deliberately accepting her decision. It
was Jane herself, left alone, who fell hopelessly over the pail. She shivered
even now when she remembered how its icy waters drenched her heart. Ah, what
would have happened if Garth had come back in answer to her cry during those
first moments of intolerable suffering and loneliness? But Garth was not the
sort of man who, when a door has been shut upon him, waits on the mat outside,
hoping to be recalled. When she put him from her, and he realised that she
meant it. he passed completely out of her life. He was at the railway station
by the time she reached the house, and from that day to this they had never
met. Garth evidently considered the avoidance of meetings to be his
responsibility, and he never failed her in this. Once or twice she went on a
visit to houses where she knew him to be staying. He always happened to have
left that morning, if she arrived in time for luncheon; or by an early
afternoon train, if she was due for tea. He never timed it so that there should
be tragic passings of each other, with set faces, at the railway stations; or a
formal word of greeting as she arrived and he departed, -- just enough to
awaken all the slumbering pain and set people wondering. Jane remembered with
shame that this was the sort of picturesque tragedy she would have expected
from Garth Dalmain. But the man who had surprised her by his dignified
acquiescence in her decision, continued to surprise her by the strength with
which he silently accepted it as final and kept out of her way. Jane had not
probed the depth of the wound she had inflicted.
Never once was his
departure connected, in the minds of others, with her arrival. There was always
some excellent and perfectly natural reason why he had been obliged to leave,
and he was openly talked of and regretted, and Jane heard all the latest
"Dal stories," and found herself surrounded by the atmosphere of his
exotic, beauty-loving nature. Ann there was usually a girl -- always the
loveliest of the party -- confidentially pointed out to Jane, by the rest, as a
certainty, if only Dal had had another twenty-four hours of her society. But
the girl herself would appear quite heart-whole, only very full of an evidently
delightful friendship, expressing all Dal’s ideas on art and colour as her own,
and confidently happy in an assured sense of her own loveliness and charm and
power to please. Never did he leave behind him traces which the woman who loved
him regretted to find. But he was always gone -- irrevocably gone. Garth
Dalmain was not the sort of man to wait on the door-mat of a woman’s
indecision.
Neither did this Jack
of hers break his crown. His portrait of Pauline Lister, painted six months
after the Shenstone visit, had proved the finest bit of work he had as yet
accomplished. He had painted the lovely American, in creamy white satin,
standing on a dark oak staircase, one hand resting on the balustrade, the
other, full of yellow roses, held out towards an unseen friend below. Behind
and above her shone a stained-glass window, centuries old, the arms, crest, and
mottoes of the noble family to whom the place belonged, shining thereon in
rose-coloured and golden glass. He had wonderfully caught the charm and
vivacity of the girl. She was gaily up-to-date, and frankly American, from the
crown of her queenly little head, to the point of her satin shoe; and the
suggestiveness of placing her in surroundings which breathed an atmosphere of
the best traditions of England’s ancient ancestral homes, the fearless wedding
of the new world with the old, the putting of this sparkling gem from the new
into the beautiful mellow setting of the old and there showing it at its best,
-- all this was the making of the picture. People smiled, and said the painter
had done on canvas what he shortly intended doing in reality; but the tie between
artist and sitter never grew into anything closer than a pleasant friendship,
and it was the noble owner of the staircase and window who eventually persuaded
Miss Lister to remain in surroundings which suited her so admirably.
One story about that
portrait Jane had heard discussed more than once in circles where both were
known. Pauline Lister had come to the first sittings wearing her beautiful
string of pearls, and Garth had painted them wonderfully, spending hours over
the delicate perfecting of each separate gleaming drop. Suddenly one day he
seized his palette-knife, scraped the whole necklace off the canvas with a
stroke, and declared she must wear her rose-topazes in order to carry out his
scheme of colour. She was wearing her rose-topazes when Jane saw the picture in
the Academy, and very lovely they looked on the delicate whiteness of her neck.
But people who had seen Garth’s painting of the pearls maintained that that
scrape of the palette-knife had destroyed work which would have been the talk
of the year. And Pauline Lister, just after it had happened, was reported to
have said, with a shrug of her pretty shoulders: "Schemes of colour are
all very well. But he scraped my pearls off the canvas because some one who
came in hummed a tune while looking at the picture. I would be obliged if
people who walk around the studio while I am being painted will in future
refrain from humming tunes. I don’t want him to scoop off my topazes and call
for my emeralds. Also I feel like offering a reward for the discovery of that
tune. I want to know what it has to do with my scheme of colour, anyway."
When Jane heard the
story, she was spending a few days with the Brands in Wimpole Street. It was
told at tea, in Lady Brand’s pretty boudoir. The duchess’s concert, at which
Garth had heard her sing "The Rosary," was a thing of the past.
Nearly a year had elapsed since their final parting, and this was the very
first thought or word or sign of his remembrance, which directly or indirectly,
had come her way. She could not doubt that the tune hummed had been "The
Rosary."
" The hours I spent with thee, dear heart, Are as a string of
pearls to me; I count them over, every one, apart." She seemed to hear Garth’s voice on the terrace, as she heard it
in those first startled moments of realising the gift which was being laid at
her feet --" I have learned to count pearls, belovéd."
Jane’s heart was
growing cold and frozen in its emptiness. This incident of the studio warmed
and woke it for the moment, and with the waking came sharp pain. When the
visitors had left, and Lady Brand had gone to the nursery, she walked over to
the piano, sat down, and softly played the accompaniment of "The
Rosary." The fine unexpected chords, full of discords working into harmony,
seemed to suit her mood and her memories.
Suddenly a voice behind
her said: "Sing it, Jane." She turned quickly, The doctor had come
in, and was lying back luxuriously in a large arm-chair at her elbow, his hands
clasped behind his head. "Sing it, Jane," he said.
"I can’t,
Deryck," she answered, still softly sounding the chords. " I have not
sung for months."
" What has been
the matter -- for months? "
Jane took her hands off
the keys, and swung round impulsively.
" Oh, boy,"
she said, " I have made a bad mess of my life! And yet I know I did right.
I would do the same again; at least -- at least, I hope I would."
The doctor sat in
silence for a minute, looking at her and pondering these short, quick
sentences. Also he waited for more, knowing it would come more easily if he
waited silently.
It came.
" Boy -- I gave up
something, which was more than life itself to me, for the sake of another, and
I can’t get over it. I know I did right, and yet - I can’t get over it."
The doctor leaned forward and took the clenched hands between his.
"Can you tell me
about it, Jeanette?"
"I can tell no
one, Deryck; not even you."
" If ever you find
you must tell some one, Jane, will you promise to come to me?"
" Gladly."
"Good! Now, my
dear girl, here is a prescription for you. Go abroad. And, mind, I do not mean
by that, just to Paris and back, or Switzerland this summer, and the Riviera in
the autumn. Go to America and see a few big things. See Niagara. And all your
life afterwards, when trivialities are trying you, you will love to let your
mind go back to the vast green mass of water sweeping over the falls; to the
thunderous roar, and the upward rush of spray; to the huge perpetual onwardness
of it all. You will like to remember, when you are bothering about pouring
water in and out of teacups, ’Niagara is flowing still.’ Stay in a hotel so
near the falls that you can hear their great voice night and day, thundering
out themes of power and progress. Spend hours walking round and viewing it from
every point. Go to the Cave of the Winds, across the frail bridges, where the
guide will turn and shout to you: ’Are your rings on tight?’ Learn, in passing,
the true meaning of the Rock of Ages. Receive Niagara into your life and soul
as a possession, and thank God for it.
Then go in for other
big things in America. Try spirituality and humanity; love and life. Seek out
Mrs. Ballington Booth, the great ’Little Mother’ of all American prisoners. I
know her well, I am proud to say, and can give you a letter of introduction.
Ask her to take you with her to Sing-Sing, or to Columbus State Prison, and to
let you hear her address an audience of two thousand convicts, holding out to
them the gospel of hope and love, -- her own inspired and inspiring belief in
fresh possibilities even for the most despairing.
" Go to New York
City and see how, when a man wants a big building and has only a small plot of
ground, he makes the most of that ground by running his building up into the
sky. Learn to do likewise.-- And then, when the great-souled, large-hearted,
rapid-minded people of America have waked you to enthusiasm with their bigness,
go off to Japan and see a little people nobly doing their best to become great.
-- Then to Palestine, and spend months in tracing the footsteps of the greatest
human life ever lived. Take Egypt on your way home, just to remind yourself
that there are still, in this very modern world of ours, a few passably ancient
things, -- a well-preserved wooden man, for instance, with eyes of opaque white
quartz, a piece of rock crystal in the centre for a pupil. These glittering
eyes looked out upon the world from beneath their eyelids of bronze, in the
time of Abraham. You will find it in the museum at Cairo. Ride a donkey in the
Mooskee if you want real sport; and if you feel a little slack, climb the Great
Pyramid. Ask for an Arab named Schehati, and tell him you want to do it one
minute quicker than any lady has ever done it before.
Then come home, my dear
girl, ring me up and ask for an appointment; or chance it, and let Stoddart
slip you into my consulting-room between patients, and report how the
prescription has worked. I never gave a better; and you need not offer me a
guinea! I attend old friends gratis."
Jane laughed, and
gripped his hand. "Oh, boy," she said, " I believe you are
right. My whole ideas of life have been focussed on myself and my own
individual pains and losses. I will do as you say; and God bless you for saying
it. -- Here comes Flower. Flower," she said, as the doctor’s wife trailed
in, wearing a soft tea-gown, and turning on the electric lights as she passed,
"will this boy of ours ever grow old? Here he is, seriously advising that
a stout, middle-aged woman should climb the Great Pyramid as a cure for
depression, and do it in record time!"
"Darling,"
said the doctor’s wife, seating herself on the arm of his chair, "whom
have you been seeing who is stout, or depressed, or middle-aged? If you mean
Mrs. Parker Bangs, she is not middle-aged, because she is an American, and no
American is ever middle-aged. And she is only depressed because, even after
painting her lovely niece’s portrait, Garth Dalmain has failed to propose to
her. And it is no good advising her to climb the Great Pyramid, though she is
doing Egypt this winter, because I heard her say yesterday that she should
never think of going up the pyramids until the children of Israel, or who- ever
the natives are who live around those parts, have the sense to put an elevator
right up the centre."
Jane and the doctor
laughed, and Flower, settling herself more comfortably, -- for the doctor’s arm
had stolen around her, -- said: " Jane, I heard you playing ’The Rosary’
just now, such a favourite of mine, and it is months since I heard it. Do sing
it, dear."
Jane met the doctor’s
eyes and smiled reassuringly; then turned without any hesitation and did as
Flower asked. The prescription had already done her good.
At the last words of
the song the doctor’s wife bent over and laid a tender little kiss just above
his temple, where the thick dark hair was streaked with silver. But the doctor’s
mind was intent on Jane, and before the final chords were struck he knew he had
diagnosed her case correctly. "But she had better go abroad," he thought.
" It will take her mind off herself altogether, giving her a larger view
of things in general, and a better proportioned view of things in particular.
And the boy won’t change; or, if he does, Jane will be proved right, to her own
satisfaction. But, if this is her side, good heavens, what must his be! I had
wondered what was sapping all his buoyant youthfulness. To care for Jane would
be an education; but to have made Jane care! And then to have lost her! He must
have nerves of steel, to be facing life at all. What is this cross they are
both learning to kiss, and holding up between them? Perhaps Niagara will sweep
it away, and she will cable him from there."
Then the doctor took
the dear little hand resting on his shoulder and kissed it softly, while Jane’s
back was still turned. For the doctor had had past experience of the cross, and
now the pearls were very precious.
So Jane took the
prescription, and two years went by in the taking; and here she was, on the top
of the Great Pyramid, and, moreover, she had done it in record time, and
laughed as she thought of how she should report the fact to Deryck.
Her Arabs lay around,
very hot and shiny, and content. Large backsheesh was assured, and they looked
up at her with pleased possessive eyes, as an achievement of their own; hardly
realising how large a part her finely developed athletic powers and elastic
limbs had played in the speed of the ascent.
And Jane stood there,
sound in wind and limb, and with the exhilarating sense, always helpful to the
mind, of a bodily feat accomplished.
She was looking her
best in her Norfolk coat and skirt of brown tweed with hints of green and
orange in it, plenty of useful pockets piped with leather, leather buttons, and
a broad band of leather round the bottom of the skirt. A connoisseur would have
named at once the one and only firm from which that costume could have come,
and the hatter who supplied the soft green Tyrolian hat -- for Jane scorned
pith helmets-which matched it so admirably. But Schehati was no connoisseur of
clothing, though a pretty shrewd judge of ways and manners, and he summed up
Jane thus: "Nice gentleman-lady! Give good backsheesh, and not sit down
halfway and say: ’No top’! But real lady-gentleman! Give backsheesh with kind
face, and not send poor Arab to Asian."
Jane was deeply tanned
by the Eastern sun. Burning a splendid brown, and enjoying the process, she had
no need of veils or parasols; and her strong eyes faced the golden light of the
desert without the aid of smoked glasses. She had once heard Garth remark that
a sight which made him feel really ill, was the back view of a woman in a
motor-veil, and Jane had laughingly agreed, for to her veils of any kind had
always seemed superfluous. The heavy coils of her brown hair never blew about
into fascinating little curls and wisps, but remained where, with a few
well-directed hairpins, she each morning solidly placed them.
Jane had never looked
better than she did on this March day, standing on the summit of the Great
Pyramid. Strong, brown, and well-knit, a reliable mind in a capable body, the
undeniable plainness of her face redeemed by its kindly expression of interest
and enjoyment; her wide, pleasant smile revealing her fine white teeth,
witnesses to her perfect soundness and health, within and without.
"Nice
gentleman-lady," murmured Schehati again; and had Jane overheard the
remark it would not have offended her; for, though she held a masculine woman
only one degree less in abhorrence than an effeminate man, she would have taken
Schehati’s compound noun as a tribute to the fact that she was well-groomed and
independent, knowing her own mind, and, when she started out to go to a place,
reaching it in the shortest possible time, without fidget, fuss, or flurry.
These three feminine attributes were held in scorn by Jane, who knew herself so
deeply womanly that she could afford in minor ways to be frankly unfeminine.
The doctor’s
prescription had worked admirably. That look of falling to pieces and ageing
prematurely -- a general dilapidation of mind and body -- which it had grieved
and startled him to see in Jane as she sat before him on the music-stool, was
gone completely. She looked a calm, pleasant thirty; ready to go happily on,
year by year, towards an equally agreeable and delightful forty; and not afraid
of fifty, when that time should come. Her clear eyes looked frankly out upon
the world, and her sane mind formed sound opinions and pronounced fair
judgments, tempered by the kindliness of an unusually large and generous heart.
Just now she was
considering the view and finding it very good. Its strong contrasts held her.
On one side lay the
fertile Delta, with its groves of waving palm, orange, and olive trees, growing
in rich profusion on the banks of the Nile, a broad band of gleaming silver. On
the other, the Desert, with its far-distant horizon, stretching away in
undulations of golden sand; not a tree, not a leaf, not a blade of grass, but
boundless liberty, an ocean of solid golden glory. For the sun was setting, and
the sky flamed into colour.
"A parting of the
ways," said Jane; "a place of choice. How difficult to know which to
choose -- liberty or fruitfulness. One would have to consult the Sphinx -- wise
old guardian of the ages, silent keeper of Time’s secrets, gazing on into the
future as It has always gazed, while future became present, and present glided
into past. -- Come, Schehati, let us descend. Oh yes, I will certainly sit upon
the stone on which the King sat when he was Prince of Wales. Thank you for
mentioning it. It will supply a delightful topic of conversation next time I am
honoured by a few minutes of his gracious Majesty’s attention, and will save me
from floundering into trite remarks about the weather. -- And now take me to
the Sphinx, Schehati. There is a question I would ask of It, just as the sun
dins below the horizon."
MOONLIGHT in the
desert.
Jane ordered her
after-dinner coffee on the piazza of the hotel, that she might lose as little
as possible of the mystic loveliness of the night. The pyramids appeared so
huge and solid, in the clear white light; and the Sphinx gathered unto itself
more mystery.
Jane promised herself a
stroll round by moonlight presently. Meanwhile she lay back in a low wicker
chair, comfortably upholstered, sipping her coffee, and giving herself up to
the sense of dreamy content which, in a healthy body, is apt to follow vigorous
exertion.
Very tender and quiet
thoughts of Garth came to her this evening, perhaps brought about by the
associations of moonlight.
"The moon shines bright: -- in such a night as this, When the sweet
wind did gently kiss the trees, And they did make no noise--" Ah! the great poet knew the effect upon the
heart of a vivid reminder to the senses. Jane now passed beneath the spell.
To begin with, Garth’s
voice seemed singing everywhere:
" Enable with perpetual light The dulness of our blinded
sight." Then from out the deep
blue and silvery light, Garth’s dear adoring eyes seemed watching her. Jane
closed her own, to see them better. To-night she did not feel like shrinking
from them, they were so full of love.
No shade of critical
regard was in them. Ah! had she wronged him with her fears for the future? Her
heart seemed full of trust to-night, full of confidence in him and in herself.
It seemed to her that if he were here she could go out with him into this
brilliant moonlight, seat herself upon some ancient fallen stone, and let him
kneel in front of her and gaze and gaze in his persistent way, as much as he
pleased. In thought there seemed to-night no shrinking from those dear eyes.
She felt she would say: " It is all your own, Garth, to look at when you
will. For your sake, I could wish it beautiful; but if it is as you like it, my
own Dear, why should I hide it from you?"
What had brought about
this change of mind? Had Deryck’s prescription done its full work? Was this a
saner point of view than the one she had felt constrained to take when she
arrived, through so much agony of renunciation, at her decision? Instead of
going up the Nile, and then to Constantinople and Athens, should she take the
steamer which sailed from Alexandria to-morrow, be in London a week hence, send
for Garth, make full confession, and let him decide as to their future?
That he loved her
still, it never occurred to Jane to doubt. At the very thought of sending for
him and telling him the simple truth, he seemed so near her once more, that she
could feel the clasp of his arms, and his head upon her heart. And those dear
shining eves! Oh Garth, Garth!
"One thing is
clear to me to-night," thought Jane " If he still needs me - wants me
- I cannot live any longer away from him. I must go to him.’ She opened her
eyes and looked towards the Sphinx The whole line of reasoning which had
carried such weight at Shenstone flashed through her mind it twenty seconds.
Then she closed her eyes again and clasped her hands upon her bosom.
" I will risk
it," she said; and deep joy awoke within her heart.
A party of English
people came from the diningroom on to the piazza with a clatter. They had
arrived that evening and gone in late to dinner. Jane had hardly noticed them,
-- a handsome woman and her daughter, two young men, and an older man of
military appearance. They did not interest Jane, but they broke in upon her
reverie; for they seated themselves at a table near by and, in truly British
fashion, continued a loud-voiced conversation, as if no one else were present.
One or two foreigners, who had been peacefully dreaming over coffee and
cigarettes, rose and strolled away to quiet seats under the palm trees. Jane
would have done the same, but she really felt too comfortable to move, and
afraid of losing the sweet sense of Garth’s nearness. So she remained where she
was.
The elderly man held in
his hand a letter and a copy of the Morning Post, just received from England.
They were discussing news contained in the letter and a paragraph he had been
reading aloud from the paper.
"Poor fellow! How
too sad!" said the chaperon of the party.
" I should think
he would sooner have been killed outright!" exclaimed the girl. " I
know I would."
" Oh no,"
said one of the young men, leaning towards her. " Life is sweet, under any
circumstances."
"Oh, but
blind!" cried the young voice, with a shudder. "Quite blind for the
rest of one’s life. Horrible! "
"Was it his own
gun?" asked the older woman. "And how came they to be having a
shooting party in March?"
Jane smiled a fierce
smile into the moonlight. Passionate love of animal life, intense regard for
all life, even of the tiniest insect, was as much a religion with her as the
worship of beauty was with Garth. She never could pretend sorrow over these
accounts of shooting accidents, or falls in the hunting-field. When those who
went out to inflict cruel pain were hurt themselves; when those who went forth
to take eager, palpitating life, lost their own; it seemed to Jane a just
retribution. She felt no regret, and pretended none. So now she smiled fiercely
to herself, thinking: "One pair of eyes the less to look along a gun and
frustrate the despairing dash for home and little ones, of a terrified little
mother rabbit. One hand that will never again change a soaring upward flight of
spreading wings, into an agonised mass of falling feathers. One chance to the
good, for the noble stag, as he makes a brave run to join his hinds in the
valley."
Meanwhile the
military-looking man had readjusted his eye-glasses and was holding the sheets
of a closely written letter to the light.
"No," he said
after a moment, "shooting parties are over. There is nothing doing on the
moors now. They were potting bunnies."
"Was he shooting?
" asked the girl.
"No," replied
the owner of the letter, "and that seems such hard luck. He had given up
shooting altogether a year or two ago. He never really enjoyed it, because he
so loved the beauty of life and hated death in every form. He has a lovely
place in the North, and was up there painting. He happened to pass within sight
of some fellows rabbit-shooting, and saw what he considered cruelty to a
wounded rabbit. He vaulted over a gate to expostulate and to save the little
creature from further suffering. Then it happened. One of the lads, apparently
startled, let off his gun. The charge struck a tree a few yards off, and the
shot glanced. It did not strike him full. The face is only slightly peppered
and the brain quite uninjured. But shots pierced the retina of each eye, and
the sight is hopelessly gone."
"Awful hard
luck," said the young man.
" I never can
understand a chap not bein’ keen on shootin’, " said the youth who had not
yet spoken.
" Ah, but you
would if you had known him," said the soldier. "He was so full of
life and vivid vitality. One could not imagine him either dying or dealing
death. And his love of the beautiful was almost a form of religious worship. I
can’t explain it; but he had a way of making you see beauty in things you had
hardly noticed before. And now, poor chap, he can’t see them himself."
" Has he a mother?
" asked the older woman.
" No, he has no
one. He is absolutely alone. Scores of friends of course; he was a most popular
man about town, and could stay in almost any house in the kingdom if he chose
to send a post-card to say he was coming. But no relations, I believe, and
never would marry. Poor chap! He will wish he had been less fastidious, now. He
might have had the pick of all the nicest girls, most seasons. But not he! Just
charming friendships, and wedded to his art. And now, as Lady Ingleby says, he
lies in the dark, helpless and alone."
" Oh, do talk of
something else!" cried the girl, pushing back her chair and rising. "
I want to forget it. It’s too horribly sad. Fancy what it must be to wake up
and not know whether it is day or night, and to have to lie in the dark and
wonder. Oh, do come out and talk of something cheerful."
They all rose, and the
young man slipped his hand through the girl’s arm, glad of the excuse her
agitation provided.
"Forget it,
dear," he said softly. "Come on out and see the old Sphinx by
moonlight."
They left the piazza,
followed by the rest of the party; but the man to whom the Morning Post
belonged laid it on the table and stayed behind, lighting a cigar.
Jane rose from her
chair and came towards him.
"May I look at
your paper? " she said abruptly.
"Certainly,"
he replied, with ready courtesy. Then, looking more closely at her: "Why,
certainly, Miss Champion. And how do you do? I did not know you were in these
parts."
"Ah, General Loraine!
Your face seemed familiar, but I had not recognised you, either. Thanks, I will
borrow this if I may. And don’t let me keep you from your friends. We shall
meet again by and by."
Jane waited until the
whole party had passed out of sight and until the sound of their voices and
laughter had died away in the distance. Then she returned to her chair, the
place where Garth had seemed so near. She looked once more at the Sphinx and at
the huge pyramid in the moonlight.
Then she took up the
paper and opened it.
"Enable with perpetual light The dulness of our blinded
sight." Yes -- it was Garth
Dalmain -- her Garth, of the adoring shining eyes -who lay at his house in the
North; blind, helpless, and alone.
THE white cliffs of
Dover gradually became more solid and distinct, until at length they rose from
the sea, a strong white wall, emblem of the undeniable purity of England, the
stainless honour and integrity of her throne, her church, her parliament, her
courts of justice, and her dealings at home and abroad, whether with friend or
foe. " Strength and whiteness," thought Jane as she paced the steamer’s
deck; and after a two years’ absence her heart went out to her native land.
Then Dover Castle caught her eye, so beautiful in the pearly light of that
spring afternoon. Her mind leaped to enjoyment, then fell back stunned by the
blow of quick remembrance, and Jane shut her eyes.
All beautiful sights
brought this pang to her heart since the reading of that paragraph on the
piazza of the Mena House Hotel.
An hour after she had
read it, she was driving down the long straight road to Cairo; embarked at
Alexandria the next day; landed at Brindisi, and this night and day travelling
had brought her at last within sight of the shores of England. In a few minutes
she would set foot upon them, and then there would be but two more stages to
her journey. For, from the moment she started, Jane never doubted her ultimate
destination, -- the room where pain and darkness and despair must be waging so
terrible a conflict against the moral courage, the mental sanity, and the
instinctive hold on life of the man she loved.
That she was going to
him, Jane knew; but she felt utterly unable to arrange how or in what way her
going could be managed. That it was a complicated problem, her common sense
told her; though her yearning arms and aching bosom cried out: "O God, is
it not simple? Blind and alone! My Garth! But she knew an unbiassed judgment,
steadier than her own, must solve the problem; and that her surest way to
Garth, lay through the doctor’s consulting-room. So she telegraphed to Deryck
from Paris, and at present her mind saw no further than Wimpole Street. At
Dover she bought a paper, and hastily scanned its pages as she walked along the
platform in the wake of the capable porter who had taken possession of her rugs
and hand baggage. In the personal column she found the very paragraph she
sought.
" We regret to announce that Mr. Garth Dalmain still lies in a most
precarious condition at his house on Deeside, Aberdeenshire, as a result of the
shooting accident a fortnight ago. His sight is hopelessly gone, but the
injured parts were progressing favourably, and all fear of brain complications
seemed over. During the last few days, however, a serious reaction from shock
has set in, and it has been considered necessary to summon Sir Deryck Brand,
the well-known nerve specialist, in consultation with the oculist and the local
practitioner in charge of the case. There is a feeling of wide-spread regret
and sympathy in those social and artistic circles where Mr. Dalmain was so well
known and so deservedly popular. "
Oh, thank you, m’lady," said the efficient porter when he had ascertained,
by a rapid glance into his palm, that Jane’s half-crown was not a penny. He had
a sick young wife at home, who had been ordered extra nourishment, and just as
the rush on board began, he had put up a simple prayer to the Heavenly Father
"who knoweth that ye have need of these things," asking that he might
catch the eye of a generous traveller. He felt he had indeed been
"led" to this plain, brown-faced, broad-shouldered lady, when he
remembered how nearly, after her curt nod from a distance had engaged him, he
had responded to the blandishments of a fussy little woman, with many more bags
and rugs, and a parrot cage, who was now doling French coppers out of the
window of the next compartment. " Seven pence ’apenny of this stuff ain’t
much for carrying all that along, I don’t think! " grumbled his mate; and
Jane’s young porter experienced the double joy of faith confirmed, and willing
service generously rewarded.
A telegraph boy walked
along the train, saying: " Honrubble Jain Champyun" at intervals.
Jane heard her name, and her arm shot out of the window.
"Here, my boy! It
is for me."
She tore it open. It
was from the doctor.
" Welcome home. Just back from Scotland. Will meet you Charing
Cross, and give you all the time you want. Have coffee at Dover.DERYCK." Jane gave one hard, tearless sob of
thankfulness and relief. She had been so lonely. Then she turned to the window.
" Here, somebody! Fetch me a cup of coffee, will you?" Coffee was the
last thing she wanted; but it never occurred to any one to disobey the doctor,
even at a distance. The young porter, who still stood sentry at the door of
Jane’s compartment, dashed off to the refreshment room; and, just as the train
began to move, handed a cup of steaming coffee and a plate of bread-and-butter
in at the window.
"Oh, thank you, my
good fellow," said Jane, putting the plate on the seat, while she dived
into her pocket. "Here! you have done very well for me. No, never mind the
change. Coffee at a moment’s notice should fetch a fancy price. Good-bye."
The train moved on, and
the porter stood looking after it with tears in his eyes. Over the first half
crown he had said to himself: "Milk and new-laid eggs." Now, as he
pocketed the second, he added the other two things mentioned by the parish
doctor: "soup and jelly;" and his heart glowed. "Your heavenly
Father knoweth that ye have need of these things."
And Jane, seated in a
comfortable corner, choked back the tears of relief which threatened to fall,
drank her coffee, and was thereby more revived than she could have thought
possible. She, also, had need of many things. Not of half crowns; of those she
had plenty. But above all else she needed just now a wise, strong, helpful
friend, and Deryck had not failed her.
She read his telegram
through once more, and smiled. How like him to think of the coffee; and oh, how
like him to be coming to the station.
She took off her hat
and leaned back against the cushions. She had been travelling night and day, in
one feverish whirl of haste, and at last she had brought herself within reach
of Deryck’s hand and Deryck’s safe control. The turmoil of her soul was
stilled; a great calm took its place, and Jane dropped quietly off to sleep.
" Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things."
. . . . . . . . . . .
Washed and brushed and
greatly refreshed, Jane stood at the window of her compartment as the train
steamed into Charing Cross.
The doctor was
stationed exactly opposite the door when her carriage came to a standstill;
mere chance, and yet, to Jane, it seemed so like him to have taken up his
position precisely at the right spot on that long platform. An enthusiastic
lady patient had once said of Deryck Brand, with more accuracy of definition
than of grammar: "You know, he is always so very just there." And
this characteristic of the doctor had made him to many a very present help in
time of trouble.
He was through the line
of porters and had his hand upon the handle of Jane’s door in a moment.
Standing at the window, she took one look at the firm lean face, now alight
with welcome, and read in the kind, steadfast eyes of her childhood’s friend a
perfect sympathy and comprehension. Then she saw behind him her aunt’s footman,
and her own maid, who had been given a place in the duchess’s household. In
another moment she was on the platform and her hand was in Deryck’s.
"That is right,
dear," he said. "All fit and well, I can see. Now hand over your
keys. I suppose you have nothing contraband? I telephoned the duchess to send
some of her people to meet your luggage, and not to expect you herself until
dinner time, as you were taking tea with us. Was that right? This way. Come
outside the barrier. What a rabble! All wanting to break every possible rule
and regulation, and each trying to be the first person in the front row. Really
the patience and good temper of railway officials should teach the rest of
mankind a lesson."
The doctor, talking all
the time, piloted Jane through the crowd; opened the door of a neat electric
brougham, helped her in, took his seat beside her, and they glided swiftly out
into the Strand, and turned towards Trafalgar Square.
"Well," said
the doctor, "Niagara is a big thing, isn’t it? When people say to me:
"Were you not disappointed in Niagara? We were!" I feel tempted to
wish, for one homicidal moment, that the earth would open her mouth and swallow
them up. People who can be disappointed in Niagara, and talk about it, should
no longer be allowed to crawl on the face of the earth. And how about the ’Little
Mother’? Isn’t she worth knowing? I hope she sent me her love. And New York
harbour! Did you ever see anything to equal it, as you steam away in the
sunset?
Jane gave a sudden sob;
then turned to him, dry-eyed.
"Is there no hope,
Deryck?"
The doctor laid his
hand on hers. " He will always be blind, dear. But life holds other things
beside sight. We must never say: ’No hope’."
"Will he live?
"
"There is no
reason he should not live. But how far life will be worth living, largely
depends upon what can be done for him, poor chap, during the next few months.
He is more shattered mentally than physically."
Jane pulled off her
gloves, swallowed suddenly, then gripped the doctor’s knee. "Deryck -- I
love him."
The doctor remained
silent for a few moments, as if pondering this tremendous fact. Then he lifted
the fine, capable hand resting upon his knee and kissed it with a beautiful
reverence, -- a gesture expressing the homage of the man to the brave
truthfulness of the woman.
"In that case,
dear," he said "the future holds in store so great a good for Garth
Dalmain that I think he may dispense with sight. - Meanwhile you have much to
say to me, and it is, of course, your right to hear every detail of his case
that I can give. And here we are at Wimpole Street. Now come into my
consulting-room. Stoddart has orders that we are on no account to be disturbed.
THE doctor’s room was
very quiet. Jane leaned back in his dark green leather arm-chair, her feet on a
footstool, her hands gripping the arms on either side.
The doctor sat at his
table, in the round pivot-chair he always used, -- a chair which enabled him to
swing round suddenly and face a patient, or to turn away very quietly and bend
over his table.
Just now he was not
looking at Jane. He had been giving her a detailed account of his visit to
Castle Gleneesh, which he had left only on the previous evening. He had spent
five hours with Garth. It seemed kindest to tell her all; but he was looking
straight before him as he talked, because he knew that at last the tears were
running unchecked down Jane’s cheeks, and he wished her to think he did not
notice them.
" You understand,
dear, " he was saying, "the actual wounds are going on well.
Strangely enough, though the retina of each eye was pierced, and the sight is irrecoverably
gone, there was very little damage done to surrounding parts, and the brain is
quite uninjured. The present danger arises from the shock to the nervous system
and from the extreme mental anguish caused by the realisation of his loss. The
physical suffering during the first days and nights must have been terrible.
Poor fellow, he looks shattered by it. But his constitution is excellent, and
his life has been so clean, healthy, and normal, that he had every chance of
making a good recovery, were it not that as the pain abated and his blindness
became more a thing to be daily and hourly realised, his mental torture was so
excessive. Sight has meant so infinitely much to him, -- beauty of form, beauty
of colour. The artist in him was so all-pervading. They tell me he said very
little. He is a brave man and a strong one. But his temperature began to vary
alarmingly; he showed symptoms of mental trouble, of which I need not give you
technical details; and a nerve specialist seemed more necessary than an
oculist. Therefore he is now in my hands."
The doctor paused,
straightened a few books lying on the table, and drew a small bowl of violets
closer to him. He studied these attentively for a few moments, then put them
back where his wife had placed them, and went on speaking.
" I am satisfied
on the whole. He needed a friendly voice to penetrate the darkness. He needed a
hand to grasp his, in faithful comprehension. He did not want pity, and those
who talked of his loss without understanding it, or being able to measure its
immensity, maddened him. He needed a fellow-man to come to him and say: ’ It is
a fight -- an awful, desperate fight. But by God’s grace you will win through
to victory. It would be far easier to die; but to die would be to lose; you
must live to win. It is utterly beyond all human strength; but by God’s grace
you will come through conqueror.’ All this I said to him, Jeanette, and a good
deal more; and then a strangely beautiful thing happened. I can tell you, and
of course I could tell Flower, but to no one else on earth would I repeat it.
The difficulty had been to obtain from him any response whatever. He did not
seem able to rouse sufficiently to notice anything going on around him. But
those words, ’ by God’s grace,’ appeared to take hold of him and find immediate
echo in his inner consciousness. I heard him repeat them once or twice, and
then change them to ’with the abundance of Thy grace.’ Then he turned his head
slowly on the pillow, and what one could see of his face seemed transformed. He
said: ’Now I remember it, and the music is this’; and his hands moved on the
bedclothes, as if forming chords. Then, in a very low voice, but quite clearly,
he repeated the second verse of the ’ Veni Creator Spiritus.’ I knew it,
because I used to sing it as a chorister in my father’s church at home. You
remember?
"’ Enable with perpetual light The dulness of our blinded sight.
Anoint and cheer our soiled face With the abundance of Thy grace. Keep far our
foes; give peace at home; Where Thou art Guide, no ill can come.’ It was the
most touching thing I ever heard." The
doctor paused, for Jane had buried her face in her hands and was sobbing
convulsively. When her sobs grew less violent, the doctor’s quiet voice
continued: " You see, this gave me something to go upon. When a crash such
as this happens, all a man has left to hold on to, is his religion. According
as his spiritual side has been developed, will his physical side stand the
strain. Dalmain has more of the real thing than any one would think who only
knew him superficially. Well, after that we talked quite definitely, and I
persuaded him to agree to one or two important arrangements. You know, he has
no relations of his own, to speak of; just a few cousins, who have never been
very friendly. He is quite alone up there; for, though he has hosts of friends,
this is a time when friends would have to be very intimate to be admitted; and
though he seemed so boyish and easy to know, I begin to doubt whether any of us
knew the real Garth - the soul of the man, deep down beneath the surface."
Jane lifted her head.
" I did," she said simply.
" Ah," said
the doctor, " I see. Well, as I said, ordinary friends could not be
admitted. Lady Ingleby went, in her sweet impulsive way, without letting them
know she was coming; travelled all the way up from Shenstone with no maid, and
nothing but a handbag, and arrived at the door in a fly. Robert Mackenzie, the
local medical man, who is an inveterate misogynist, feared at first she was an
unsuspected wife of Dal’s. He seemed to think unannounced ladies arriving in
hired vehicles must necessarily turn out to be undesirable wives. I gather they
had a somewhat funny scene. But Lady Ingleby soon got round old Robbie, and
came near to charming him -- as whom does she not? But of course they did not
dare let her into Dal’s room; so her ministry of consolation appears to have
consisted in letting Dal’s old housekeeper weep on her beautiful shoulder. It
was somewhat of a comedy, hearing about it, when one happened to know them all,
better than they knew each other. But to return to practical details. He has
had a fully trained male nurse and his own valet to wait on him. He absolutely
refused one of our London hospital nurses, who might have brought a little gentle
comfort and womanly sympathy to his sick-room. He said he could not stand being
touched by a woman; so there it remained. A competent man was found instead.
But we can now dispense with him, and I have insisted upon sending up a lady
nurse of my own choosing; not so much to wait on him, or do any of a sick-nurse’s
ordinary duties -- his own man can do these, and he seems a capable fellow but
to sit with him, read to him, attend to his correspondence, -- there are piles
of unopened letters he ought to hear, -- in fact help him to take up life again
in his blindness. It will need training; it will require tact; and this
afternoon I engaged exactly the right person. She is a gentlewoman by birth,
has nursed for me before, and is well up in the special knowledge of mental
things which this case requires. Also she is a pretty, dainty little thing;
just the kind of elegant young woman poor Dal would have liked to have about
him when he could see. He was such a fastidious chap about appearances, and
such a connoisseur of good looks. I have written a descriptive account of her
to Dr. Mackenzie, and he will prepare his patient for her arrival. She is to go
up the day after to-morrow. We are lucky to get her, for she is quite
first-rate, and she has only just finished with a long consumptive case, now on
the mend and ordered abroad. So you see, Jeanette, all is shaping well. -- And
now, my dear girl, you have a story of your own to tell me, and my whole
attention shall be at your disposal. But first of all I am going to ring for
tea, and you and I will have it quietly down here, if you will excuse me for a
few minutes while I go upstairs and speak to Flower."
. . . . . . . . . . .
It seemed so natural to
Jane to be pouring out the doctor’s tea, and to watch him putting a liberal
allowance of salt on the thin bread-and-butter, and then folding it over with
the careful accuracy which had always characterised his smallest action. In the
essentials he had changed so little since the days when as a youth of twenty
spending his vacations at the rectory he used to give the lonely girl at the
manor so much pleasure by coming up to her school-room tea; and when it proved
possible to dispose of her governess’s chaperonage and be by themselves, what delightful
times they used to have, sitting on the hearth-rug, roasting chestnuts and
discussing the many subjects which were of mutual interest. Jane could still
remember the painful pleasure of turning hot chestnuts on the bars with her
fingers, and how she hastened to do them herself, lest he should be burned. She
had always secretly liked and admired his hands, with the brown thin fingers,
so delicate in their touch and yet full of such gentle strength. She used to
love watching them while he sharpened her pencils or drew wonderful diagrams in
her exercise books; thinking how in years to come, when he performed important
operations, human lives would depend upon their skill and dexterity. In those
early years he had seemed so much older than she. And then came the time when
she shot up rapidly into young womanhood and their eyes were on a level and
their ages seemed the same. Then, as the years went on, Jane began to feel
older than he, and took to calling him "Boy" to emphasise this fact.
And then came -- Flower; -- and complications. And Jane had to see his face
grow thin and worn, and his hair whiten on the temples. And she yearned over
him, yet dared not offer sympathy. At last things came right for the doctor,
and all the highest good seemed his; in his profession; in his standing among
men; and, above all, in his heart life, which Flower had always held between
her two sweet hands. And Jane rejoiced, but felt still more lonely now she had
no companion in loneliness. And still their friendship held, with Flower
admitted as a third -- a wistful, grateful third, anxious to learn from the
woman whose friendship meant so much to her husband, how to succeed where she
had hitherto failed. And Jane’s faithful heart was generous and loyal to both,
though in sight of their perfect happiness her loneliness grew.
And now, in her own
hour of need, it had to be Deryck only; and the doctor knew this, and had
arranged accordingly; for at last his chance had come, to repay the faithful
devotion of a lifetime. The conversation of that afternoon would be the supreme
test of their friendship. And so, with a specialist’s appreciation of the
mental effect of the most trivial external details, the doctor had ordered
muffins, and a kettle on the fire, and had asked Jane to make the tea.
By the time the kettle
boiled, they had remembered the chestnuts, and were laughing about poor old
Fraulein’s efforts to keep them in order, and the strategies by which they used
to evade her vigilance. And the years rolled back, and Jane felt herself very
much at home with the chum of her childhood.
Nevertheless, there was
a moment of tension when the doctor drew back the tea-table and they faced each
other in easy-chairs on either side of the fireplace. Each noticed how
characteristic was the attitude of the other.
Jane sat forward, her
feet firmly planted on the hearth-rug, her arms on her knees, and her hands
clasped in front of her.
The doctor leaned back,
one knee crossed over the other, his elbows on the arms of his chair, the tips of
his fingers meeting, in absolute stillness of body and intense concentration of
mind.
The silence between
them was like a deep, calm pool.
Jane took the first
plunge.
" Deryck, I am
going to tell you everything. I am going to speak of my heart, and mind, and
feelings, exactly as if they were bones, and muscles, and lungs. I want you to
combine the offices of doctor and confessor in one."
The doctor had been
contemplating his finger-tips. He now glanced swiftly at Jane, and nodded; then
turned his head and looked into the fire.
"Deryck, mine has
been a somewhat lonely existence. I have never been essential to the life of
another, and no one has ever touched the real depths of mine. I have known they
were there, but I have known they were unsounded."
The doctor opened his
lips, as if to speak; then closed them in a firmer line than before, and merely
nodded his head silently.
" I had never been
loved with that love which makes one absolutely first to a person, nor had I
ever so loved. I had -- cared very much; but caring is not loving. -- Oh, Boy,
I know that now!"
The doctor’s profile
showed rather white against the dark-green background of his chair; but he
smiled as he answered: "Quite true, dear. There is a distinction, and a
difference."
" I had heaps of
friends, and amongst them a good many nice men, mostly rather younger than
myself, who called me ’Miss Champion’ to my face, and ’good old Jane’ behind my
back."
The doctor smiled. He
had often heard the expression, and could recall the whole-hearted affection
and admiration in the tones of those who used it.
"Men, as a
rule," continued Jane, "get on better with me than do women. Being
large and solid, and usually calling a spade ’ a spade,’ and not ’ a garden
implement,’ women consider me strong-minded, and are inclined to be afraid of
me. The boys know they can trust me; they make a confidante of me, looking upon
me as a sort of convenient elder sister who knows less about them than an elder
sister would know, and is probably more ready to be interested in those things
which they choose to tell. Among my men friends, Deryck, was Garth
Dalmain."
Jane paused, and the
doctor waited silently for her to continue.
" I was always
interested in him, partly because he was so original and vivid in his way of
talking, and partly because" -- a bright flush suddenly crept up into the
tanned cheeks -- "well, though I did not realise it then, I suppose I
found his extraordinary beauty rather fascinating. And then, our circumstances
were so much alike, -- both orphans, and well off; responsible to no one for
our actions; with heaps of mutual friends, and constantly staying at the same
houses. We drifted into a pleasant intimacy, and of all my friends, he was the
one who made me feel most like ’a man and a brother.’ We discussed women by the
dozen, all his special admirations in turn, and the effect of their beauty upon
him, and I watched with interest to see who, at last, would fix his roving
fancy. But on one eventful day all this was changed in half an hour. We were
both staying at Overdene. There was a big house party, and Aunt Georgina had
arranged a concert to which half the neighbourhood was coming. Madame Velma
failed at the last minute. Aunt ’Gina, in a great state of mind, was borrowing
remarks from her macaw. You know how? She always says she is merely quoting ’the
dear bird.’ Something had to be done. I offered to take Velma’s place; and I
sang."
" Ah," said
the doctor.
" I sang ’The
Rosary’ -- the song Flower asked for the last time I was here. Do you
remember?"
The doctor nodded.
" I remember."
" After that, all
was changed between Garth and me. I did not understand it at first. I knew the
music had moved him deeply, beauty of sound having upon him much the same
effect as beauty of colour; but I thought the effect would pass in the night.
But the days went on, and there was always this strange sweet difference; not
anything others would notice; but I suddenly became conscious that, for the
first time in my whole life, I was essential to somebody. I could not enter a
room without realising that he was instantly aware of my presence; I could not
leave a room without knowing that he would at once feel and regret my absence.
The one fact filled and ,completed all things; the other left a blank which
could not be removed. I knew this, and yet -- incredible though it may appear
-- I did not realise it meant love. I thought it was an extraordinarily close
bond of sympathy and mutual understanding, brought about principally by our
enjoyment of one another’s music. We spent hours in the music-room. I put it
down to that; yet when he looked at me his eyes seemed to touch as well as see
me, and it was a very tender and wonderful touch. And all the while I never
thought of love. I was so plain and almost middle-aged; and he, such a
beautiful, radiant youth. He was like a young sun-god, and I felt warmed and
vivified when he was near; and he was almost always near. Honestly, that was my
side of the days succeeding the concert. But his! He told me afterwards,
Deryck, it had been a sudden revelation to him when he heard me sing ’The
Rosary,’ not of music only, but of me. He said he had never thought of me
otherwise than as a good sort of chum; but then it was as if a veil were
lifted, and he saw, and knew, and felt me as a woman. And - no doubt it will
seem odd to you, Boy; it did to me; -- but he said, that the woman he found
then was his ideal of womanhood, and that from that hour he wanted me for his
own as he had never wanted anything before."
Jane paused, and looked
into the glowing heart of the fire.
The doctor turned
slowly and looked at Jane. He himself had experienced the intense attraction of
her womanliness, -- all the more overpowering when it was realised, because it
did not appear upon the surface. He had sensed the strong mother-tenderness
lying dormant within her; had known that her arms would prove a haven of
refuge, her bosom a soothing pillow, her love a consolation unspeakable. In his
own days of loneliness and disappointment, the doctor had had to flee from this
in Jane, -- a precious gift, so easy to have taken because of her very
ignorance of it; but a gift to which he had no right. Thus the doctor could
well understand the hold it would gain upon a man who had discovered it, and
who was free to win it for his own.
But he only said,
" I do not think it odd, dear."
Jane had forgotten the
doctor. She came back promptly from the glowing heart of the fire.
" I am glad you
don’t," she said. " I did. -- Well, we both left Overdene on the same
day. I came to you; he went to Shenstone. It was a Tuesday. On the Friday I
went down to Shenstone, and we met again. Having been apart for a little while
seemed to make this curious feeling of ‘togetherness’ deeper and sweeter than
ever. In the Shenstone house party was that lovely American girl, Pauline
Lister. Garth was enthusiastic about her beauty, and set on painting her.
Everybody made sure he was going to propose to her. Deryck, I thought so, too;
in fact I had advised him to do it. I felt so pleased and interested over it,
though all the while his eyes touched me when he looked at me, and I knew the
day did not begin for him until we had met, and was over when we had said
good-night. And this experience of being first and most to him made everything
so golden, and life so rich, and still I thought of it only as an unusually
delightful friendship. But the evening of my arrival at Shenstone he asked me
to come out on to the terrace after dinner, as he wanted specially to talk to
me. Deryck, I thought it was the usual proceeding of making a confidante of me,
and that I was to hear details of his intentions regarding Miss Lister.
Thinking that, I walked calmly out beside him; sat down on the parapet, in the
brilliant moonlight, and quietly waited for him to begin. Then -- oh, Deryck!
It happened."
Jane put her elbows on
her knees, and buried her face in her clasped hands.
" I cannot tell
you -- details. His love -- it just poured over me like molten gold. It melted
the shell of my reserve; it burst through the ice of my convictions; it swept
me off my feet upon a torrent of wondrous fire. I knew nothing in heaven or earth
but that this love was mine, and was for me. And then -- oh Deryck! I can’t
explain - I don’t know myself how it happened -- but this whirlwind of emotion
came to rest upon my heart. He knelt with his arms around me, and we held each
other in a sudden great stillness; and in that moment I was all his, and he
knew it. He might have stayed there hours if he had not moved or spoken; but
presently he lifted up his face and looked at me. Then he said two words. I can’t
repeat them, Boy; but they brought me suddenly to my senses, and made me
realise what it all meant. Garth Dalmain wanted me to marry him."
Jane paused, awaiting
the doctor’s expression of surprise.
"What else could
it have meant?" said Deryck Brand, very quietly. He passed his hand over
his lips, knowing they trembled a little. Jane’s confessions were giving him a
stiffer time than he had expected. "Well, dear, so you --?"
" I stood
up," said Jane; "for while he knelt there he was master of me, mind
and body; and some instinct told me that if I were to be won to wifehood, my
reason must say ’yes’ before the rest of me. It is ’spirit, soul, and body’ in
the Word, not ’body, soul, and spirit,’ as is so often misquoted; and I believe
the inspired sequence to be the right one."
The doctor made a quick
movement of interest. "Good heavens, Jane!" he said. "You have
got hold of a truth there, and you have expressed it exactly as I have often
wanted to express it without being able to find the right words. You have found
them, Jeanette."
She looked into his
eager eyes and smiled sadly. "Have I, Boy?" she said. "Well,
they have cost me dear. -- I put my lover from me and told him I must have
twelve hours for calm reflection. He was so sure -- so sure of me, so sure of
himself - that he agreed without a protest. At my request he left me at once.
The manner of his going I cannot tell, even to you, Dicky. I promised to meet
him at the village church next day and give him my answer. He was to try the
new organ at eleven. We knew we should be alone. I came. He sent away the
blower. He called me to him at the chancel step. The setting was so perfect.
The artist in him sang for joy, and thrilled with expectation. The glory of
absolute certainty was in his eyes; though he had himself well in hand. He kept
from touching me while he asked for my answer. Then -- I refused him, point
blank, giving a reason he could not question. He turned from me and left the
church, and I have not spoken to him from that day to this."
A long silence in the
doctor’s consulting-room. One manly heart was entering into the pain of
another, and yet striving not to be indignant until he knew the whole truth.
Jane’s spirit was
strung up to the same pitch as in that fateful hour, and once more she thought
herself right.
At last the doctor
spoke. He looked at her searchingly now, and held her eyes.
"And why did you
refuse him, Jane?" The kind voice was rather stern.
Jane put out her hands
to him appealingly. "Ah, Boy, I must make you understand! How could I do
otherwise, though, indeed, it was putting away the highest good life will ever
hold for me? Deryck, you know Garth well enough to realise how dependent he is
on beauty; he must be surrounded by it, perpetually. Before this unaccountable
need of each other came to us he had talked to me quite freely on this point,
saying of a plain person whose character and gifts he greatly admired, and
whose face he grew to like in consequence: ’But of course it was not the sort
of face one would have wanted to live with, or to have day after day opposite
to one at table; but then one was not called to that sort of discipline, which
would be martyrdom to me.’ Oh, Deryck! Could I have tied Garth to my plain
face? Could I have let myself become a daily, hourly discipline to that
radiant, beauty-loving nature? I know they say, ’Love is blind.’ But that is
before Love has entered into his kingdom. Love desirous, sees only that, in the
one beloved, which has awakened the desire. But Love content, regains full
vision, and, as time goes on, those powers of vision increase and become, by
means of daily, hourly, use, - microscopic and telescopic. Wedded love is not
blind. Bah! An outsider staying with married people is apt to hear what love
sees, on both sides, and the delusion of love’s blindness is dispelled forever.
I know Garth was blind, during all those golden days, to my utter lack of
beauty, because he wanted me so much. But when he had had me, and had steeped
himself in all I have to give of soul and spirit beauty; when the daily routine
of life began, which after all has to be lived in complexions, and with
features to the fore; when he sat down to break- fast and I saw him glance at
me and then look away; when I was conscious that I was sitting behind the
coffee-pot, looking my very plainest, and that in consequence my boy’s
discipline had begun; could I have borne it? Should I not, in the miserable
sense of failing him day by day through no fault of my own, have grown plainer
and plainer; until bitterness and disappointment, and perhaps jealousy, all
combined to make me positively ugly? I ask you, Deryck, could I have borne it?
"
The doctor was looking
at Jane with an expression of keen professional interest.
" How awfully well
I diagnosed the case when I sent you abroad," he remarked meditatively.
" Really, with so little data to go upon "
"Oh, Boy,"
cried Jane, with a movement of impatience, "don’t speak to me as if I were
a patient. Treat me as a human being, at least, and tell me as man to man --
could I have tied Garth Dalmain to my plain face? For you know it is
plain."
The doctor laughed. He
was glad to make Jane a little angry. "My dear girl," he said,
"were we speaking as man to man, I should have a few very strong things to
say to you. As we are speaking as man to woman, -- and as a man who has for a
very long time respected, honoured, and admired a very dear and noble woman, --
I will answer your question frankly. You are not beautiful, in the ordinary
acceptation of the word, and no one who really loves you would answer
otherwise; because no one who knows and loves you would dream of telling you a
lie. We will even allow, if you like, that you are plain; although I know half
a dozen young men who, were they here, would want to kick me into the street
for saying so, and I should have to pretend in self-defence that their ears had
played them false and I had said, ’You are Jane,’ which is all they would
consider mattered. So long as you are yourself, your friends will be well
content. At the same time, I may add, while this dear face is under discussion,
that I can look back to times when I have felt that I would gladly walk twenty
miles for a sight of it; and in its absence I have always wished it present,
and in its presence I have never wished it away."
" Ah, but, Deryck,
you did not have to have it always opposite you at meals," insisted Jane
gravely.
"Unfortunately
not. But I enjoyed the meals more on the happy occasions when it was
there."
"And, Deryek --
you did not have to kiss it."
The doctor threw back
his head and shouted with laughter, so that Flower, passing up the stairs,
wondered what turn the conversation could be taking.
But Jane was quite
serious; and saw in it no laughing matter.
"No, dear,"
said the doctor when he had recovered; "to my infinite credit be it recorded,
that in all the years I have known it I have never once kissed it."
"Dicky, don’t
tease! Oh, Boy, it is the most vital question of my whole life; and if you do
not now give me wise and thoughtful advice, all this difficult confession will
have been for nothing."
The doctor became grave
immediately. He leaned forward and took those clasped hands between his.
"Dear," he
said, "forgive me if I seemed to take it lightly. My most earnest thought
is wholly at your disposal. And now let me ask you a few questions How did you
ever succeed in convincing Dalmain that such a thing as this was an insuperable
obstacle to your marriage?"
" I did not give
it as a reason."
" What then did
you give as your reason for refusing him? "
"I asked him how
old he was."
" Jane! Standing
there beside him in the chancel, where he had come awaiting your answer?"
" Yes. It did seem
awful when I came to think it over afterwards. But it worked."
" I have no doubt
it worked. What then?"
" He said he was
twenty-seven. I said I was thirty and looked thirty-five, and felt forty. I
also said he might be twenty-seven, but he looked nineteen, am I was sure he
often felt nine."
" Well?"
"Then I said that
I could not marry a mere boy.’
"And he
acquiesced?"
" He seemed
stunned at first. Then he said of course I could not marry him if I considered
him that. He said it was the first time he had given a thought to himself in
the matter. Then he said he bowed to m decision, and he walked down the church
and wen out, and we have not met since."
" Jane," said
the doctor, " I wonder he did not se through it. You are so unused to
lying, that you cannot have lied, on the chancel step, to the man you loved,
with much conviction."
A dull red crept up
beneath Jane’s tan.
" Oh, Deryck, it
was not entirely a lie. It was one of those dreadful lies which are ’part a
truth,’ of which Tennyson says that they are ’a harder matter to fight.’"
"’ A lie which is
all a lie
May be met and fought with outright; But
a lie which is part a truth
Is a harder matter to fight,"’ quoted
the doctor.
" Yes," said
Jane. "And he could not fight this, just because it was partly true. He is
younger than I by three years, and still more by temperament. It was partly for
his delightful youthfulness that I feared my maturity and staidness. It was
part a truth, but oh, Deryck, it was more a lie; and it was altogether a lie to
call him -- the man whom I had felt complete master of me the evening before --
’a mere boy.’ Also he could not fight it because it took him so utterly by
surprise. He had been all the time as completely without self-consciousness, as
I had been morbidly full of it. His whole thought had been of me. Mine had been
of him and -- of myself."
"Jane," said
the doctor, " of all that you have suffered since that hour, you deserved
every pang."
Jane bent her head.
"I know," she said.
"You were false to
yourself, and not true to your lover. You robbed and defrauded both. Cannot you
now see your mistake? To take it on the lowest ground, Dalmain, worshipper of
beauty as he was, had had a surfeit of pretty faces. He was like the
confectioner’s boy who when first engaged is allowed to eat all the cakes and
sweets he likes, and who eats so many in the first week, that ever after he
wants only plain bread-and-butter. You were Dal’s bread-and-butter. I am sorry
if you do not like the simile."
Jane smiled. "I do
like the simile," she said,
" Ah, but you were
far more than this, my dear girl. You were his ideal of womanhood. He believed
in your strength and tenderness, your graciousness and truth. You shattered
this ideal; you failed this faith in you. His fanciful, artistic, eclectic
nature, with all its unused possibilities of faithful and passionate devotion, had
found its haven in your love; and in twelve hours you turned it adrift. Jane --
it was a crime. The magnificent strength of the fellow is shown by the way he
took it. His progress in his art was not arrested. All his best work has been
done since. He has made no bad mad marriage, in mockery of his own pain; and no
grand loveless one, to spite you. He might have done both -- I mean either. And
when I realise that the poor fellow I was with yesterday -- making such a brave
fight in the dark, and turning his head on the pillow to say with a gleam of
hope on his drawn face: ’Where Thou art Guide, no ill can come’ -- had already
been put through all this by you -- Jane, if you were a man, I’d horsewhip you!
" said the doctor.
Jane squared her
shoulders and lifted her head with more of her old spirit than she had yet
shown.
" You have lashed
me well, Boy," she said, "as only words spoken in faithful
indignation can lash. And I feel the better for the pain. -- And now I think I
ought to tell you that while I was on the top of the Great Pyramid I suddenly
saw the matter from different standpoint. You remember that view, with its
sharp line of demarcation? On one side the river, and verdure, vegetation,
fruitfulness, a veritable ’garden enclosed’; on the other, vast space as far as
the eye could reach; golden liberty, away to the horizon, but no sign of
vegetation, no hope of cultivation; just barren, arid loneliness. I felt this
was an exact picture of my life as I live it now. Garth’s love, flowing through
it, as the river, could have made it a veritable ’ garden of the Lord.’ It
would have meant less liberty, but it would also have meant no loneliness. And,
after all, the liberty to live for self alone, becomes in time a weary bondage.
Then I realised that I had condemned him also to this hard desert life. I came
down and took counsel of the old Sphinx. Those calm, wise eyes, looking on into
futurity, seemed to say: ’They only live who love.’ That evening I resolved to
give up the Nile trip, return home immediately, send for Garth, admit all to
him, asking him to let us both begin again just where we were three years ago
in the moonlight on the terrace at Shenstone. Ten minutes after I had formed
this decision, I heard of his accident."
The doctor shaded his
face with his hand. "The wheels of time, " he said in a low voice,
" move forward -- always; backward, never."
"Oh, Deryck,"
cried Jane, "sometimes they do. You and Flower know that sometimes they
do."
The doctor smiled sadly
and very tenderly. " I know," he said, "that there is always one
exception which proves every rule." Then he added quickly: "But,
unquestionably, it helps to mend matters, so far as your own mental attitude is
concerned, that before you knew of Dalmain’s blindness you should have admitted
yourself wrong, and made up your mind to trust him."
" I don’t know
that I was altogether clear about having been wrong," said Jane, "but
I was quite convinced that I couldn’t live any longer without him, and was
therefore prepared to risk it. And of course now, all doubt or need to question
is swept away by my poor boy’s accident, which simplifies matters, where that
particular point is concerned."
The doctor looked at
Jane with a sudden raising o his level brows. "Simplifies matters?"
he said. Then, as Jane, apparently satisfied with the expression, did not
attempt to qualify it, he rose and stirred the fire; standing over it for a few
moments in silent thought. When he sat down again, his voice was very quiet,
but there was an alertness about his expression which roused Jane. She felt
that the crisis of their conversation had been reached.
" And now, my dear
Jeanette, " said the doctor, "suppose you tell me what you intend
doing."
"Doing?"said
Jane. "Why, of course, I shall go straight to Garth. I only want you to
advise me how best to let him know I am coming, and whether it is safe for him
to have the emotion of my arrival. Also I don’t want to risk being kept from
him by doctors or nurses. My place is by his side. I ask no better thing of life
than to be always beside him. But sickroom attendants are apt to be pig-headed;
and a fuss under these circumstances would be unbearable. A wire from you will
make all clear."
" I see,"
said the doctor slowly. " Yes, a wire from me will undoubtedly open a way
for you to Garth Dalmain’s bedside. And, arrived there, what then? "
A smile of ineffable
tenderness parted Jane’s lips. The doctor saw it, but turned away immediately.
It was not for him, or for any man, to see that look. The eyes which should have
seen it were sightless evermore.
"What then,
Deryck? Love will know best what then. All barriers will be swept away, and
Garth and I will be together."
The doctor’s
finger-tips met very exactly before he spoke again; and when he did speak, his
tone was very level and very kind.
" Ah, Jane,"
he said, "that is the woman’s point of view. It is certainly the simplest,
and perhaps the best. But at Garth’s bedside you will be confronted with the
man’s point of view; and I should be failing the trust you have placed in me
did I not put that before you now. -- From the man’s point of view, your own
mistaken action three years ago has placed you now in an almost impossible position.
If you go to Garth with the simple offer of your love -- the treasure he asked
three years ago and failed to win -- he will naturally conclude the love now
given is mainly pity; and Garth Dalmain is not the man to be content with pity,
where he has thought to win love, and failed. Nor would he allow any woman --
least of all his crown of womanhood - to tie herself to his blindness unless he
were sure such binding was her deepest joy. And how could you expect him to
believe this in face of the fact that, when he was all a woman’s heart could
desire, you refused him and sent him from you? -- If, on the other hand, you
explain, as no doubt you intend to do, the reason of that refusal, he can but
say one thing: ’You could not trust me to be faithful when I had my sight.
Blind, you come to me, when it is no longer in my power to prove my fidelity.
There is no virtue in necessity. I can never feel I possess your trust, because
you come to me only when accident has put it out of my power either to do the thing
you feared, or to prove myself better than your doubts.’ My dear girl, that is
how matters stand from the man’s point of view; from his, I make no doubt, even
more than from mine; for I recognise in Garth Dalmain a stronger man than
myself. Had it been I that day in the church, wanting you as he did, I should
have grovelled at your feet and promised to grow up. Garth Dalmain had the iron
strength to turn and go, without a protest, when the woman who had owned him
mate the evening before, refused him on the score of inadequacy the next
morning. I fear there is no question of the view he would take of the situation
as it now stands."
Jane’s pale, startled
face went to the doctor’ s heart.
" But, Deryck --
he -- loves -- ’
" Just because he
loves, my poor old girl, where you are concerned he could never be content with
less than the best."
" Oh, Boy, help
me! Find a way! Tell me what to do!" Despair was in Jane’s eyes.
The doctor considered
long, in silence. At last he said: "I see only one way out. If Dal could
somehow be brought to realise your point of view at that time as a possible
one, without knowing it had actually been the cause of your refusal of him, and
could have the chance to express himself clearly on the subject -- to me, for
instance -- in a way which might reach you without being meant to reach you, it
might put you in a better position toward him. But it would be difficult to
manage. If you could be in close contact with his mind, constantly near him
unseen -- ah, poor chap, that is easy now -- I mean unknown to him; if, for
instance, you could be in the shoes of this nurse-companion person I am sending
him, and get at his mind on the matter; so that he could feel, when you
eventually made your confession, he had already justified himself to you, and
thus gone behind his blindness, as it were."
Jane bounded in her
chair. "Deryck, I have it! Oh, send me- as his nurse-companion! He would
never dream it was I. It is three years since he heard my voice, and he thinks
me in Egypt. The society column in all the papers, a few weeks ago, mentioned
me as wintering in Egypt and Syria and remaining abroad until May. Not a soul
knows I have come home. You are the best judge as to whether I have had
training and experience; and all through the war our work was fully as much
mental and spiritual, as surgical. It was not up to much otherwise. Oh, Dicky,
you could safely recommend me; and I still have my uniforms stowed away in case
of need. I could be ready in twenty-four hours, and I would go as Sister -
anything, and eat in the kitchen if necessary."
"But, my dear
girl," said the doctor quietly, "you could not go as Sister Anything,
unfortunately. You could only go as Nurse Rosemary Gray; for I engaged her this
morning, and posted a full and explicit account of her to Dr. Mackenzie, which
he will read to our patient. I never take a case from one nurse and give it to
another, excepting for incompetency. And Nurse Rosemary Gray could more easily
fly, than prove incompetent. She will not be required to eat in the kitchen.
She is a gentlewoman, and will be treated as such. I wish indeed you could be
in her shoes, though I doubt whether you could have carried it through. -- And
now I have something to tell you. Just before I left him, Dalmain asked after
you. He sandwiched you most carefully in between the duchess and Flower; but he
could not keep the blood out of his thin cheeks, and he gripped the bedclothes
in his effort to keep his voice steady. He asked where you were. I said, I
believed, in Egypt. When you were coming home. I told him I had heard you
intended returning to Jerusalem for Easter, and I supposed we might expect you
home at the end of April or early in May. He inquired how you were. I replied
that you were not a good correspondent, but I gathered from occasional cables
and post-cards that you were very fit and having a good time. I then
volunteered the statement that it was I who had sent you abroad because you
were going all to pieces. He made a quick movement with his hand as if he would
have struck me for using the expression. Then he said: ’Going to pieces? She!’
in a tone of most utter contempt for me and my opinions. Then he hastily made
minute inquiries for Flower. He had already asked about the duchess all the
questions he intended asking about you. When he had ascertained that Flower was
at home and well, and had sent him her affectionate sympathy, he begged me to
glance through a pile of letters which were waiting until he felt able to have
them read to him, and to tell him any of the handwritings known to me. All the
world seemed to have sent him letters of sympathy, poor chap. I told him a
dozen or so of the names I knew, -- a royal handwriting among them. He asked
whether there were any from abroad. There were two or three. I knew them all,
and named them. He could not bear to hear any of them read; even the royal
letter remained unopened, though he asked to have it in his hand, and fingered
the tiny crimson crown. Then he said: ’ Is there one from the duchess?’ There
was. He wished to hear that one, so I opened and read it. It was very
characteristic of her Grace; full of kindly sympathy, heartily yet tactfully
expressed. Half-way through she said: ’Jane will be upset. I shall write and
tell her next time she sends me an address. At present I have no idea in which
quarter of the globe my dear niece is to be found. Last time I heard of her she
seemed in a fair way towards marrying a little Jap and settling in Japan. Not a
bad idea, my dear Dal, is it? Though, if Japan is at all like the paper
screens, I don’t know where in that Liliputian country they will find a house,
or a husband, or a what-do-you-call-’em thing they ride in, solid enough for
our good Jane!’ With intuitive tact of a very high order, I omitted this entire
passage about marrying the Jap. When your aunt’s letter was finished, he asked
point blank whether there was one from you. I said No, but that it was unlikely
the news had reached you, and I felt sure you would write when it did. So I
hope you will, dear; and Nurse Rosemary Gray will have instructions to read all
his letters to him."
"Oh, Deryck,"
said Jane brokenly, "I can’t bear it! I must go to him!"
The telephone bell on
the doctor’s table whirred sharply. He went over and took up the receiver.
"Hullo! . . . Yes,
it is Dr. Brand. . . . Who is speaking? . . . Oh, is it you, Matron?" --
Jane felt quite sorry the matron could not see the doctor’s charming smile into
the telephone. -- "Yes? What name did you say? . . . Undoubtedly. This
morning; quite definitely. A most important case. She is to call and see me
to-night . . . . What? . . . Mistake on register? Ah, I see . . . . Gone where?
. . . Where? . , . Spell it, please . . . . Australia! Oh, quite out of reach!
. . . Yes, I heard he was ordered there . . . . Never mind, Matron. You are in
no way to blame . . . . Thanks, I think not. I have some one in view . . . .
Yes. . . . Yes. . . . No doubt she might do . . . . I will let you know if I
should require her . . . . Good-bye, Matron, and thank you."
The doctor hung up the
receiver. Then he turned to Jane; a slow, half-doubtful smile gathering on his
lips.
" Jeanette,"
he said, " I do not believe in chance. But I do believe in a Higher
Control, which makes and unmakes our plans. You shall go."
"AND now as to
ways and means," said the doctor, when Jane felt better. " You must
leave by the night mail from Euston, the day after tomorrow. Can you be
ready?"
"I am ready,"
said Jane.
"You must go as
Nurse Rosemary Gray."
" I don’t like
that," Jane interposed. " I should prefer a fictitious name. Suppose
the real Rosemary Gray turned up, or some one who knows her."
"My dear girl, she
is half way to Australia by now, and you will see no one up there but the
household and the doctor. Any one who turned up would be more likely to know
you. We must take these risks. Beside, in case of complications arising, I will
give you a note, which you can produce at once, explaining the situation, and
stating that in agreeing to fill the breach you consented at my request to take
the name in order to prevent any necessity for explanations to the patient,
which at this particular juncture would be most prejudicial. I can honestly say
this, it being even more true than appears. So you must dress the part, Jane,
and endeavour to look the part, so far as your five foot eleven will permit;
for please remember that I have described you to Dr. Mackenzie as ’ a pretty,
dainty little thing, refined and elegant, and considerably more capable than
she looks."’
"Dicky! He will
instantly realise that I am not the person mentioned in your letter."
"Not so, dear.
Remember we have to do with a Scotchman, and a Scotchman never realises
anything ’instantly.’ The Gaelic mind works slowly, though it works exceeding
sure. He will be exceeding sure, when he has contemplated you for a while, that
I am a ’verra poor judge o’ women,’ and that Nurse Gray is a far finer woman
than I described. But he will have already created for Dalmain, from my letter,
a mental picture of his nurse; which is all that really matters. We must trust
to Providence that old Robbie does not proceed to amend it by the original. Try
to forestall any such conversation. If the good doctor seems to mistrust you,
take him on one side, show him my letter, and tell him the simple truth. But I
do not suppose this will be necessary. With the patient, you must remember the
extreme sensitiveness of a blind man’s hearing. Tread lightly. Do not give him
any opportunity to judge of your height. Try to remember that you are not
supposed to be able to reach the top shelf of an eight-foot bookcase without
the aid of steps or a chair. And when the patient begins to stand and walk, try
to keep him from finding out that his nurse is slightly taller than himself.
This should not be difficult; one of his fixed ideas being that in his
blindness he will not be touched by a woman. His valet will lead him about.
And, Jane, I cannot imagine any one who has ever had your hand in his, failing
to recognise it. So I advise you, from the first, to avoid shaking hands. But
all these precautions do not obviate the greatest difficulty of all, -- your
voice. Do you suppose, for a moment, he will not recognise that?"
" I shall take the
bull by the horns in that case," said Jane, "and you must help me.
Explain the fact to me now, as you might do if I were really Nurse Rosemary
Gray, and had a voice so like my own."
The doctor smiled.
"My dear Nurse Rosemary," he said, "you must not be surprised if
our patient detects a remarkable similarity between your voice and that of a
mutual friend of his and mine. I have constantly noticed it myself."
"Indeed,
sir," said Jane. "And may I know whose voice mine so closely
resembles?"
"The Honourable
Jane Champion’s," said the doctor, with the delightful smile with which he
always spoke to his nurses. "Do you know her?"
"Slightly,"
said Jane, "and I hope to know her better and better as the years go
by."
Then they both laughed.
"Thank you, Dicky. Now I shall know what to say to the patient. -- Ali,
but the misery of it! Think of it being possible thus to deceive Garth, --
Garth of the bright, keen, all-perceiving vision! Shall I ever have the courage
to carry it through?"
" If you value
your own eventual happiness and his, you will, dear. And now I must order the
brougham and speed you to Portland Place, or you will be late for dinner, a
thing the duchess cannot overlook, ’as you very well know,’ even in a traveller
returned from round the world. And if you take my advice, you will tell your
kind, sensible old aunt the whole story, omitting of course all moonlight
details, and consult her about this plan. Her shrewd counsel will be
invaluable, and you may be glad of her assistance later on."
They rose and faced
each other on the hearth-rug.
"Boy," said
Jane with emotion, "you have been so good to me, and so faithful. Whatever
happens, I shall be grateful always."
"Hush," said
the doctor. " No need for gratitude when long-standing debts are paid. --
To-morrow I shall not have a free moment, and I foresee the next day as very
full also. But we might dine together at Euston at seven, and I will see you
off. Your train leaves at eight o’clock, getting you to Aberdeen soon after
seven the next morning, and out to Gleneesh in time for breakfast. You will
enjoy arriving in the early morning light; and the air of the moors braces you
wonderfully. -- Thank you, Stoddart. Miss Champion is ready. Hullo, Flower! Look
up, Jane. Flower, and Dicky, and Blossom, are hanging over the topmost
banisters, dropping you showers of kisses. Yes, the river you mentioned does
produce a veritable ’garden of the Lord.’ God send you the same, dear. And now,
sit well back, and lower your veil. Ali, I remember, you don’t wear them. Wise
girl! If all women followed your example it would impoverish the opticians.
Why? Oh, constant focussing on spots, for one thing. But lean back, for you
must not be seen if you are supposed to be still in Cairo, waiting to go up the
Nile. And, look here" -- the doctor put his head in at the carriage window
-- "very plain luggage, mind. The sort of thing nurses speak of as ’my box’;
with a very obvious R. G. on it ! "
"Thank you,
Boy," whispered Jane. "You think of everything."
" I think of
you," said the doctor. And in all the hard days to come, Jane often found
comfort in remembering those last quiet words.
NURSE ROSEMARY GRAY had
arrived at Gleneesh.
When she and her
"box" were deposited on the platform of the little wayside railway
station, she felt she had indeed dropped from the clouds; leaving her own
world, and her own identity, on some far-distant planet.
A motor waited outside
the station, and she had a momentary fear lest she should receive deferential
recognition from the chauffeur. But he was as solid and stolid as any other
portion of the car, and paid no more attention to her than he did to her
baggage. The one was a nurse; the other, a box; both common nouns, and merely
articles to be conveyed to Gleneesh according to orders. So he looked straight
before him, presenting a sphinx-like profile beneath the peak of his leather
cap, while a slow and solemn porter helped Jane and her luggage into the motor.
When she had rewarded the porter with threepence, conscientiously endeavouring
to live down to her box, the chauffeur moved foot and hand with the silent
precision of a machine, they swung round into the open, and took the road for
the hills.
Up into the fragrant
heather and grey rocks; miles of moor and sky and solitude. More than ever Jane
felt as if she had dropped into another world; and so small an incident as the
omission of the usual respectful salute of a servant, gave her a delightful
sense of success and security in her new rôle.
She had often heard of
Garth’s old castle up in the north, an inheritance from his mother’s family,
but was hardly prepared for so much picturesque beauty or such stateliness of
archway and entrance. As they wound up the hillside and the grey turrets came
into view, with pine woods behind and above, she seemed to hear Garth’s boyish
voice under the cedar at Overdene, with its ring of buoyant enjoyment, saying:
"I should like you to see Castle Gleneesh. You would enjoy the view from
the terrace; and the pine woods, and the moor." And then he had laughingly
declared his intention of getting up a "best party" of his own, with
the duchess as chaperon; and she had promised to make one of it. And now he, the
owner of all this loveliness, was blind and helpless; and she was entering the
fair portals of Gleneesh, unknown to him, unrecognised by any, as a
nurse-secretary sort of person. Jane bad said at Overdene: " Yes, ask us,
and see what happens. " And now this was happening. What would happen
next?
Garth’s man, Simpson,
received her at the door, and again a possible danger was safely passed. He had
entered Garth’s service within the last three years and evidently did not know
her by sight.
Jane stood looking
round the old hall, in the leisurely way of one accustomed to arrive for the
first time as guest at the country homes of her friends; noting the quaint,
large fireplace, and the shadowy antlers high up on the walls. Then she became
aware that Simpson, already half way up the wide oak staircase, was expecting
the nurse to hurry after him. This she did, and was received at the top of the
staircase by old Margery. It did not require the lawn kerchief, the black satin
apron, and the lavender ribbons, for Jane to recognise Garth’s old Scotch
nurse, housekeeper, and friend. One glance at the grave, kindly face, wrinkled
and rosy, -- a beautiful combination of perfect health and advancing years, --
was enough. The shrewd, keen eyes, seeing quickly beneath the surface, were unmistakable.
She conducted Jane to her room, talking all the time in a kindly effort to set
her at her ease, and to express a warm welcome with gentle dignity, not
forgetting the cloud of sadness which hung over the house and rendered her
presence necessary. She called her "Nurse Gray" at the conclusion of
every sentence, with an upward inflection and pretty rolling of the r’s, which
charmed Jane. She longed to say: "You old dear! How I shall enjoy being in
the house with you!" but remembered in time that a remark which would have
been gratifying condescension on the part of the Honourable Jane Champion,
would be little short of impertinent familiarity from Nurse Rosemary Gray. So
she followed meekly into the pretty room prepared for her; admired the chintz; answered
questions about her night journey; admitted that she would be very glad of
breakfast, but still more of a bath if convenient.
And now bath and
breakfast were both over, and Jane was standing beside the window in her room,
looking down at the wonderful view, and waiting until the local doctor should
arrive and summon her to Garth’s room.
She had put on the
freshest-looking and most business-like of her uniforms, a blue print gown,
linen collar and cuffs, and a white apron with shoulder straps and large
pockets. She also wore the becoming cap belonging to one of the institutions to
which she had once been for training. She did not intend wearing this later on,
but just this morning she omitted no detail which could impress Dr. Mackenzie
with her extremely professional appearance. She was painfully conscious that
the severe simplicity of her dress tended rather to add to her height,
notwithstanding her low-heeled ward shoes with their noiseless rubber soles.
She could but hope Deryck would prove right as to the view Dr. Mackenzie would
take.
And then far away in
the distance, along the white ribbon of road, winding up from the valley, she
saw a high gig, trotting swiftly; one man in it, and a small groom seated
behind. Her hour had come.
Jane fell upon her
knees, at the window, and prayed for strength, wisdom, and courage. She could
realise absolutely nothing. She had thought so much and so continuously, that
all mental vision was out of focus and had become a blur. Even his dear face
had faded and was hidden from her when she frantically strove to recall it to
her mental view. Only the actual fact remained clear, that in a few short
minutes she would be taken to the room where he lay. She would see the face she
had not seen since they stood together at the chancel step - the face from
which the glad confidence slowly faded, a horror of chill disillusion taking
its place.
"Anoint and cheer our soiléd face With the abundance of Thy
grace."She would see that dear face, and he, sightless, would not see
hers, but would be easily deluded into believing her to be some one else. The gig had turned the last bend of the
road, and passed out of sight on its way to the front of the house.
Jane rose and stood
waiting. Suddenly she remembered two sentences of her conversation with Deryck.
She had said: "Shall I ever have the courage to carry it through?"
And Deryck had answered, earnestly: If you value your own eventual happiness
and his, you will."
A tap came at her door.
Jane walked across the room, and opened it.
Simpson stood on the
threshold.
"Dr. Mackenzie is
in the library, nurse," he said, "and wishes to see you there."
"Then will you
kindly take me to the library, Mr. Simpson," said Nurse Rosemary Gray.
ON the bear-skin rug,
with his back to the fire, stood Dr. Robert Mackenzie, known to his friends as
" Dr. Rob " or " Old Robbie, " according to their degrees
of intimacy.
Jane’s first impression
was of a short, stout man, in a seal-skin waistcoat which had seen better days,
a light box-cloth overcoat three sizes too large for him, a Napoleonic
attitude, -- little spindle legs planted far apart, arms folded on chest,
shoulders hunched up, -- which led one to expect, as the eye travelled upwards,
an ivory-white complexion, a Roman nose, masterful jaw, and thin lips folded in
a line of conscious power. Instead of which one found a red, freckled face, a
nose which turned cheerfully skyward, a fat pink chin, and drooping sandy
moustache. The only striking feature of the face was a pair of keen blue eyes,
which, when turned upon any one intently, almost disappeared beneath bushy red
eyebrows and became little points of turquoise light.
Jane had not been in
his presence two minutes before she perceived that, when his mind was working,
he was entirely unconscious of his body, which was apt to do most peculiar
things automatically; so that his friends had passed round the remark:
"Robbie chews up dozens of good pen-holders, while Dr. Mackenzie is
thinking out excellent prescriptions."
When Jane entered, his
eyes were fixed upon an open letter, which she instinctively knew to be Deryck’s,
and he did not look up at once. When he did look up, she saw his unmistakable
start of surprise. He opened his mouth to speak, and Jane was irresistibly
reminded of a tame goldfish at Overdene, which used to rise to the surface when
the duchess dropped crumbs. He closed it without uttering a word, and turned
again to Deryck’s letter; and Jane felt herself to be the crumb, or rather the
camel, which he was finding it difficult to swallow.
She waited in
respectful silence, and Deryck’s words passed with calming effect through the
palpitating suspense of her brain. "The Gaelic mind works slowly, though
it works exceeding sure. He will be exceeding sure that I am a verra poor judge
o’ women."
At last the little man
on the hearth-rug lifted his eyes again to Jane’s; and, alas, how high he had
to lift them!
"Nurse --
er?" he said inquiringly, and Jane thought his searching eyes looked like
little bits of broken blue china in a hay-stack.
" Rosemary
Gray," replied Jane meekly, with a curtsey in her voice; feeling as if
they were rehearsing amateur theatricals at Overdene, and the next minute the
duchess’s cane would rap the floor and they would be told to speak up and not
be so slow.
" Ah," said
Dr. Robert Mackenzie, " I see."
He stared hard at the
carpet in a distant corner of the room, then walked across and picked up a
spline broken from a bass broom; brought it back to the hearth-rug; examined it
with minute attention; then put one end between his teeth and began to chew it.
Jane wondered what was
the correct thing to do at this sort of interview, when a doctor neither sat
down himself nor suggested that the nurse should do so. She wished she had
asked Deryck. But he could not possibly have enlightened her, because the first
thing he always said to a nurse was: " My dear Nurse So-and-So, pray sit
down. People who have much unavoidable standing to do should cultivate the habit
of seating themselves comfortably at every possible opportunity."
But the stout little
person on the hearth-rug was not Deryck. So Jane stood at attention, and
watched the stiff bit of bass wag up and down, and shorten, inch by inch. When
it had finally disappeared, Dr. Robert Mackenzie spoke again.
" So you have
arrived, Nurse Gray," he said.
"Truly the mind of
a Scotchman works slowly," thought Jane, but she was thankful to detect
the complete acceptance of herself in his tone. Deryck was right; and oh the
relief of not having to take this unspeakable little man into her confidence in
this matter of the deception to be practised on Garth.
" Yes, sir, I have
arrived," she said.
Another period of
silence. A fragment of the bass broom reappeared and vanished once more, before
Dr. Mackenzie spoke again.
" I am glad you
have arrived, Nurse Gray," he said.
" I am glad to
have arrived, sir," said Jane gravely, almost expecting to hear the
duchess’s delighted "Ha, ha!" from the wings. The little comedy was
progressing.
Then suddenly she
became aware that during the last few minutes Dr. Mackenzie’s mind had been
concentrated upon something else. She had not filled it at all. The next moment
it was turned upon her, and two swift turquoise gleams from under the shaggy
brows swept over her, with the rapidity and brightness of search-lights. Dr.
Mackenzie commenced speaking quickly, with a wonderful rolling of y’s.
" I understand,
Miss Gray, you have come to minister to the patient’s mind rather than to his
body. You need not trouble to explain. I have it from Sir Deryck Brand, who
prescribed a nurse-companion for the patient, and engaged you. I fully agreed
with his prescription; and, allow me to say, I admire its ingredients."
Jane bowed, and realised
how the duchess would be chuckling. What an insufferable little person! Jane
had time to think this, while he walked across to the table-cloth, bent over
it, and examined an ancient spot of ink. Finding a drop of candle grease near
it, he removed it with his thumb nail; brought it carefully to the fire, and
laid it on the coals. He watched it melt, fizzle, and flare, with an intense
concentration of interest; then jumped round on Jane, and caught her look of
fury.
"And I think there
remains very little for me to say to you about the treatment, Miss Gray,"
he finished calmly. "You will have received minute instructions from Sir
Deryck himself. The great thing now is to help the patient to take an interest
in the outer world. The temptation to persons who suddenly become totally
blind, is to form a habit of living entirely in a world within; a world of
recollection, retrospection, and imagination; the only world, in fact, in which
they can see."
Jane made a quick
movement of appreciation and interest. After all she might learn something
useful from this eccentric little Scotchman. Oh to keep his attention off
rubbish on the carpet, and grease spots on the table-cloth!
"Yes?" she
said. "Do tell me more."
"This,"
continued Dr. Mackenzie, "is our present difficulty with Mr. Dalmain.
There seems to be no possibility of arousing his interest in the outside world.
He refuses to receive visitors; he declines to hear his letters. Hours pass
without a word being spoken by him. Unless you hear him speak to me or to his
valet, you will easily suppose yourself to have a patient who has lost the
power of speech as well as the gift of sight. Should he express a wish to speak
to me alone when we are with him, do not leave the room. Walk over to the
fireplace and remain there. I desire that you should hear, that when he chooses
to rouse and make an effort, he is perfectly well able to do so. The most
important part of your duties, Nurse Gray, will be the aiding him day by day to
resume life, -- the life of a blind man, it is true; but not therefore
necessarily an inactive life. Now that all danger of inflammation from the
wounds has subsided, he may get up, move about, learn to find his way by sound
and touch. He was an artist by profession. He will never paint again. But there
are other gifts which may form reasonable outlets to an artistic nature."
He paused suddenly,
having apparently caught sight of another grease spot, and walked over to the
table; but the next instant jumped round on Jane, quick as lightning, with a
question.
"Does he
play?" said Dr. Rob.
But Jane was on her
guard, even against accidental surprises.
" Sir Deryck did
not happen to mention to me, Dr. Mackenzie, whether Mr. Dalmain is musical or
not."
"Ah well,"
said the little doctor, resuming hi: Napoleonic attitude in the centre of the
hearth-rug, "you must make it your business to find out. And, by the way,
Nurse, do you play yourself?"
"A little,"
said Jane.
"Ah," said
Dr. Rob. "And I dare say you sing a little, too?"
Jane acquiesced.
" In that case, my
dear lady, I leave most explicit orders that you neither sing a little nor play
a little to Mr. Dalmain. We, who have our sight, can just endure while people
who ’play a little’ show us how little they can play; because we are able to
look round about us and think of other things. But to a blind man, with an
artist’s sensitive soul, the experience might culminate in madness. We must not
risk it. I regret to appear uncomplimentary, but a patient’s welfare must take
precedence of all other considerations."
Jane smiled. She was
beginning to like Dr. Rob.
"I will be most
careful," she said, "neither to play nor to sing to Mr.
Dalmain."
"Good," said
Dr. Mackenzie. "But now let me tell you what you most certainly may do,
by-and-by. Lead him to the piano. Place him there upon a seat where he will
feel secure; none of your twirly, rickety stools. Make a little notch on the
key-board by which he can easily find middle C. Then let him relieve his pent-up
soul by the painting of sound-pictures. You will find this will soon keep him
happy for hours. And, if he is already something of a musician, -- as that huge
grand piano, with no knick-knacks on it, indicates, -- he may begin that sort
of thing at once, before he is ready to be worried with the Braille system, or
any other method of instructing the blind. But contrive an easy way -- a little
notch in the wood-work below the note -- by means of which, without hesitation
or irritation, he can locate himself instantly at middle C. Never mind the
other notes. It is all the seeing he will require when once he is at the piano.
Ha, ha! Not bad for a Scotchman, eh, Nurse Gray?"
But Jane could not
laugh; though somewhere in her mental background she seemed to hear laughter
and applause from the duchess. This was no comedy to Jane, -- her blind Garth
at the piano, his dear beautiful head bent over the keys, his fingers feeling
for that pathetic little notch, to be made by herself, below middle C. She
loathed this individual who could make a pun on the subject of Garth’s
blindness, and, in the back of her mind, Tommy seemed to join the duchess,
flapping up and down on his perch and shrieking: " Kick him out! Stop his
jaw ! "
" And now,"
said Dr. Mackenzie unexpectedly, " the next thing to be done, Nurse Gray,
is to introduce you to the patient."
Jane felt the blood
slowly leave her face and concentrate in a terrible pounding at her heart. But
she stood her ground, and waited silently.
Dr. Mackenzie rang the bell.
Simpson appeared.
" A decanter of
sherry, a wine-glass, and a couple of biscuits," said Dr. Rob.
Simpson vanished.
"Little
beast!" thought Jane. "At eleven o’clock in the morning!"
Dr. Rob stood, and
waited; tugging spitefully at his red moustache, and looking intently out of
the window.
Simpson reappeared,
placed a small tray on the table, and went quietly out, closing the door behind
him.
Dr. Rob poured out a
glass of sherry, drew up a chair to the table, and said: "Now, Nurse, sit
down and drink that, and take a biscuit with it."
Jane protested.
"But, indeed, doctor, I never --"
"I have no doubt
you ’never,’" said Dr. Rob, "especially at eleven o’clock in the
morning. But you will to-day; so do not waste any time in discussion. You have
had a long night journey; you are going upstairs to a very sad sight indeed, a
strain on the nerves and sensibilities. You have come through a trying
interview with me, and you are praising Heaven it is over. But you will praise
Heaven with more fervency when you have drunk the sherry. Also you have been
standing during twenty-three minutes and a half. I always stand to speak
myself, and I prefer folk should stand to listen. I can never talk to people
while they loll around. But you will walk upstairs all the more steadily, Nurse
Rosemary Gray, if you sit down now for five minutes at this table."
Jane obeyed, touched
and humbled. So, after all, it was a kind, comprehending heart under that old
seal-skin waistcoat; and a shrewd understanding of men and matters, in spite of
the erratic, somewhat objectionable exterior. While she drank the wine and
finished the biscuits, he found busy occupation on the other side of the room,
polishing the window with his silk pocket-handkerchief; making a queer humming noise
all the time, like a bee buzzing up the pane. He seemed to have forgotten her
presence; but, just as she put down the empty glass, he turned and, walking
straight across the room, laid his hand upon her shoulder.
"Now, Nurse,"
he said, "follow me upstairs, and, just at first, speak as little as
possible. Remember, every fresh voice intruding into the still depths of that
utter blackness, causes an agony of bewilderment and disquietude to the
patient. Speak little and speak low, and may God Almighty give you tact and
wisdom."
There was a dignity of
conscious knowledge and power, in the small quaint figure which preceded Jane
up the staircase. As she followed, she became aware that her spirit leaned on
his and felt sustained and strengthened. The unexpected conclusion of his
sentence, old-fashioned in its wording, yet almost a prayer, gave her fresh
courage. "May God Almighty give you tact and wisdom," he had said,
little guessing how greatly she needed them. And now another voice, echoing through
memory’s arches to organ-music, took up the strain: "Where Thou art Guide,
no ill can come." And with firm though noiseless step, Jane followed Dr.
Mackenzie into the room where Garth was lying, helpless, sightless, and
disfigured.
JUST the dark head upon
the pillow. That was all Jane saw at first, and she saw it in sunshine. Somehow
she had always pictured a darkened room, forgetting that to him darkness and
light were both alike, and that there was no need to keep out the sunlight,
with its healing, purifying, invigorating powers.
He had requested to
have his bed moved into a corner -- the corner farthest from door, fireplace,
and windows -- with its left side against the wall, so that he could feel the
blank wall with his hand and, turning close to it, know himself shut away from
all possible prying of unseen eyes. This was how he now lay, and he did not
turn as they entered.
Just the dear dark head
upon the pillow. It was all Jane saw at first. Then his right arm in the sleeve
of a blue silk sleeping-suit, stretched slightly behind him as he lay on his
left side, the thin white hand limp and helpless on the coverlet.
Jane put her hands
behind her. The impulse was so strong to fall on her knees beside the bed, take
that poor hand in both her strong ones, and cover it with kisses. Ah surely,
surely then, the dark head would turn to her, and instead of seeking refuge in
the hard, blank wall, he would hide that sightless face in the boundless
tenderness of her arms. But Deryck’s warning voice sounded, grave and
persistent: "If you value your own eventual happiness and his -- ’ So Jane
put her hands behind her back.
Dr. Mackenzie advanced
to the side of the bed and laid his hand upon Garth’s shoulder. Then, with an
incredible softening of his rather strident voice, he spoke so slowly and
quietly that Jane could hardly believe this to be the man who had jerked out
questions, comments, and orders to her, during the last half hour.
"Good morning, Mr.
Dalmain. Simpson tells me it has been an excellent night, the best you have yet
had. Now that is good. No doubt you were relieved to be rid of Johnson, capable
though he was, and to be back in the hands of your own man again. These trained
attendants are never content with doing enough; they always want to do just a
little more, and that little more is a weariness to the patient. -- Now I have
brought you to-day one who is prepared to do all you need, and yet who, I feel
sure, will never annoy you by attempting more than you desire. Sir Deryck Brand’s
prescription, Nurse Rosemary Gray, is here; and I believe she is prepared to be
companion, secretary, reader, anything you want, in fact a new pair of eyes for
you, Mr. Dalmain, with a clever brain behind them, and a kind, sympathetic,
womanly heart directing and controlling that brain. Nurse Gray arrived this
morning, Mr. Dalmain."
No response from the
bed. But Garth’s hand groped for the wall; touched it, then dropped listlessly
back.
Jane could not realise
that she was "Nurse Gray." She only longed that her poor boy need not
be bothered with the woman! It all seemed, at this moment, a thing apart from
herself and him.
Dr. Mackenzie spoke
again. " Nurse Rosemary Gray is in the room, Mr. Dalmain."
Then Garth’s
instinctive chivalry struggled up through the blackness. He did not turn his
head, but his right hand made a little courteous sign of greeting, and he said
in a low, distinct voice: "How do you do? I am sure it is most kind of you
to come so far. I hope you had an easy journey."
Jane’s lips moved, but
no sound would pass them.
Dr. Rob made answer
quickly, without looking at her: "Miss Gray had a very good journey, and
looks as fresh this morning as if she had spent the night in bed. I can see she
is a cold-water young lady."
" I hope my
housekeeper will make her comfortable. Please give orders," said the tired
voice; and Garth turned even closer to the wall, as if to end the conversation.
Dr. Rob attacked his
moustache, and stood looking down at the blue silk shoulder for a minute,
silently. Then he turned and spoke to Jane. "Come over to the window,
Nurse Gray. I want to show you a special chair we have obtained for Mr.
Dalmain, in which he will be most comfortable as soon as he feels inclined to
sit up. You see? Here is an adjustable support for the head, if necessary; and
these various trays and stands and movable tables can be swung round into any
position by a touch. I consider it excellent, and Sir Deryck approved it. Have
you seen one of this kind before, Nurse Gray?"
" We had one at
the hospital, but not quite so complete as this," said Jane.
In the stillness of
that sunlit chamber, the voice from the bed broke upon them with startling
suddenness; and in it was the cry of one lost in an abyss of darkness, but
appealing to them with a frantic demand for instant enlightenment.
"Who is in the
room?" cried Garth Dalmain.
His face was still
turned to the wall; but he had raised himself on his left elbow, in an attitude
which betokened intent listening.
Dr. Mackenzie answered.
" No one is in the room, Mr. Dalmain, but myself and Nurse Gray."
"There is some one
else in the room! " said Garth violently. "How dare you lie to me!
Who was speaking?"
Then Jane came quickly
to the side of the bed. Her hands were trembling, but her voice was perfectly
under control.
" It was I who
spoke, sir," she said; "Nurse Rosemary Gray. And I feel sure I know
why my voice startled you. Dr. Brand warned me it might do so. He said I must
not be surprised if you detected a remarkable similarity between my voice and
that of a mutual friend of yours and his. He said he had often noticed
it."
Garth, in his
blindness, remained quite still; listening and considering. At length he asked
slowly: "Did he say whose voice?"
"Yes, for I asked
him. He said it was Miss Champion’s."
Garth’s head dropped
back upon the pillow. Then without turning he said in a tone which Jane knew
meant a smile on that dear hidden face: " You must forgive me, Miss Gray,
for being so startled and so stupidly, unpardonably agitated. But, you know,
being blind is still such a new experience, and every fresh voice which breaks
through the black curtain of perpetual night, means so infinitely more than the
speaker realises. The resemblance in your voice to that of the lady Sir Deryck
mentioned is so remarkable that, although I know her to be at this moment in
Egypt, I could scarcely believe she was not in the room. And yet the most
unlikely thing in the world would be that she should have been in this room. So
I owe you and Dr. Mackenzie most humble apologies for my agitation and
unbelief." He stretched out his right hand, palm upwards, towards Jane.
Jane clasped her
shaking hands behind her.
"Now, Nurse, if
you please," broke in Dr. Mackenzie’s rasping voice from the window,
" I have a few more details to explain to you over here."
They talked together
for a while without interruption, until Dr. Rob remarked: " I suppose I
will have to be going."
Then Garth said:
"I wish to speak to you alone, doctor, for a few minutes."
"I will wait for
you downstairs, Dr. Mackenzie," said Jane, and was moving towards the
door, when an imperious gesture from Dr. Rob stopped her, and she turned
silently to the fireplace. She could not see any need now for this subterfuge,
and it annoyed her. But the freckled little Napoleon of the moors was not a man
to be lightly disobeyed. He walked to the door, opened and closed it; then
returned to the bedside, drew up a chair, and sat down.
"Now, Mr. Dalmain,"
he said.
Garth sat up and turned
towards him eagerly.
Then, for the first
time, Jane saw his face.
"Doctor," he
said, "tell me about this nurse. Describe her to me."
The tension in tone and
attitude was extreme. His hands were clasped in front of him, as if imploring
sight through the eyes of another. His thin white face, worn with suffering,
looked so eager and yet so blank.
"Describe her to
me, doctor," he said; "this Nurse Rosemary Gray, as you call
her."
"But it is not a
pet name of mine, my dear sir," said Dr. Rob deliberately. " It is
the young lady’s own name, and a pretty one, too. ‘Rosemary for remembrance.’
Is not that Shakespeare? "
"Describe her to
me," insisted Garth, for the third time.
Dr. Mackenzie glanced
at Jane. But she had turned her back, to hide the tears which were streaming
down her cheeks. Oh Garth! Oh beautiful Garth of the shining eyes!
Dr. Rob drew Deryck’s
letter from his pocket and studied it.
" Well, " he
said slowly, " she is a pretty, dainty little thing; just the sort of
elegant young woman you would like to have about you, could you see her."
"Dark or fair?
" asked Garth.
The doctor glanced at
what he could see of Jane’s cheek, and at the brown hands holding on to the
mantel-piece.
"Fair," said
Dr. Rob, without a moment’s hesitation.
Jane started and
glanced round. Why should this little man be lying on his own account?
"Hair? "
queried the strained voice from the bed.
"Well," said
Dr. Rob deliberately, " it is mostly tucked away under a modest little
cap; but, were it not for that wise restraint, I should say it might be that
kind of fluffy, fly-away floss-silk, which puts the finishing touch to a
dainty, pretty woman."
Garth lay back,
panting, and pressed his hands over his sightless face.
"Doctor," he
said, " I know I have given you heaps of trouble, and to-day you must
think me a fool. But if you do not wish me to go mad in my blindness, send that
girl away. Do not let her enter my room again."
" Now, Mr.
Dalmain, " said Dr. Mackenzie patiently, "let us consider this thing.
We may take it you have nothing against this young lady excepting a chance
resemblance in her voice to that of a friend of yours now far away. Was not
this other lady a pleasant person? "
Garth laughed suddenly,
bitterly; a laugh like a hard sob. " Oh yes, " he said, " she
was quite a pleasant person."
"‘Rosemary for
remembrance,"’ quoted Dr. Rob. "Then why should not Nurse Rosemary
call up a pleasant remembrance? Also it seems to me to be a kind, sweet, womanly
voice, which is something to be thankful for nowadays, when so many women talk
fit to scare the crows; cackle, cackle, cackle -- like stones rattling in a tin
canister."
" But can’t you
understand, doctor," said Garth wearily, "that it is just the remembrance
and the resemblance which, in my blindness, I cannot bear? I have nothing
against her voice, Heaven knows! But I tell you, when I heard it first I
thought it was -- it was she -- the other -- come to me -- here -- and --"
Garth’s voice ceased suddenly.
"The pleasant
lady? " suggested Dr. Rob. " I see. Well now, Mr. Dalmain, Sir Deryck
said the best thing that could happen would be if you came to wish for
visitors. It appears you have many friends ready and anxious to come any
distance in order to bring you help or cheer. Why not let me send for this
pleasant lady? I make no doubt she would come. Then when she herself had sat
beside you, and talked with you, the nurse’s voice would trouble you no
longer."
Garth sat up again, his
face wild with protest. Jane turned on the hearth-rug, and stood watching it.
" No, doctor,
" he said. " Oh my God, no! In the whole world, she is the last
person I would have enter this room! "
Dr. Mackenzie bent
forward to examine minutely a microscopic darn in the sheet. " And why?
" he asked very low.
"Because,"
said Garth, "that pleasant lady, as you rightly call her, has a noble,
generous heart, and it might overflow with pity for my blindness; and pity from
her I could not accept. It would be the last straw upon my heavy cross. I can
bear the cross, doctor; I hope in time to carry it manfully, until God bids me
lay it down. But that last straw -- her pity -- would break me. I should fall
in the dark, to rise no more."
"I see," said
Dr. Rob gently. "Poor laddie! The pleasant lady must not come."
He waited silently a
few minutes, then pushed back his chair and stood up.
"Meanwhile,"
he said, " I must rely on you, Mr. Dalmain, to be agreeable to Nurse
Rosemary Gray, and not to make her task too difficult. I dare not send her
back. She is Dr. Brand’s choice. Besides think of the cruel blow to her in her
profession. Think of it, man! -- sent off at a moment’s notice, after spending
five minutes in her patient’s room, because, forsooth, her voice maddened him!
Poor child! What a statement to enter on her report! See her appear before the
matron with it! Can’t you be generous and unselfish enough to face whatever
trial there may be for you in this bit of a coincidence?"
Garth hesitated. "
Dr. Mackenzie," he said at last, "will you swear to me that your description
of this young lady was accurate in every detail?"
"’Swear not at
all,’" quoted Dr. Rob unctuously. " I had a pious mother, laddie.
Besides I can do better than that. I will let you into a secret. I was reading
from Sir Deryck’s letter. I am no authority on women myself, having always
considered dogs and horses less ensnaring and more companionable creatures. So
I would not trust my own eyes, but preferred to give you Sir Deryck’s
description. You will allow him to be a fine judge of women. You have seen Lady
Brand?"
"Seen her?
Yes," said Garth eagerly, a slight flush tinting his thin cheeks,
"and more than that, I’ve painted her. Ah, such a picture! -- standing at
a table, the sunlight in her hair, arranging golden daffodils in an old Venetian
vase. Did you see it, doctor, in the New Gallery, two years ago?"
" No," said
Dr. Rob. " I am not finding myself in galleries, new or old. But" --
he turned a swift look of inquiry on Jane, who nodded -- " Nurse Gray was
telling me she had seen it."
" Really? "
said Garth, interested. " Somehow one does not connect nurses with picture
galleries."
"I don’t know why
not," said Dr. Rob. "They must go somewhere for their outings. They
can’t be everlastingly nosing shop windows in all weathers; so why not go in
and have a look at your pictures? Beside, Miss Rosemary is a young lady of
parts. Sir Deryck assures me she is a gentlewoman by birth, well-read and
intelligent. -- Now, laddie, what is it to be?"
Garth considered
silently.
Jane turned away and
gripped the mantel-piece. So much hung in the balance during that quiet minute.
At length Garth spoke,
slowly, hesitatingly. " If only I could quite disassociate the voice from
the -from that other personality. If I could be quite sure that, though her voice
is so extraordinarily like, she herself is not -- " he paused, and Jane’s
heart stood still. Was a description of herself coming? -- "is not at all
like the face and figure which stand clear in my remembrance as associated with
that voice."
" Well," said
Dr. Rob, " I’m thinking we can manage that for you. These nurses know
their patients must be humoured. We will call the young lady back, and she
shall kneel down beside your bed -- Bless you! She won’t mind, with me to play
old Gooseberry! -- and you shall pass your hands over her face and hair, and
round her little waist, and assure yourself, by touch, what an elegant, dainty
little person it is, in a blue frock and white apron."
Garth burst out
laughing, and his voice had a tone it had not yet held. "Of all the
preposterous suggestions!" he said. "Good heavens! What an ass I must
have been making of myself! And I begin to think I have exaggerated the
resemblance. In a day or two, I shall cease to notice it. And, look here,
doctor, if she really was interested in that portrait -- Here, I say -- where
are you going?"
"All right,
sir," said Dr. Rob. " I was merely moving a chair over to the
fireside, and taking the liberty of pouring out a glass of water. Really you
are becoming abnormally quick of hearing. Now I am all attention. What about
the portrait?"
" I was only going
to say, if she -- the nurse, you know -- is really interested in my portrait of
Lady Brand, there are studies of it up in the studio, which she might care to
see. If she brought them here and described them to me I could explain - But, I
say, doctor. I can’t have dainty young ladies in and out of my room while I’m
in bed. Why shouldn’t I get up and try that chair of yours? Send Simpson along;
and tell him to look out my brown lounge-suit and orange tie. Good heavens!
what a blessing to have the memory of colours and of how they blend! Think of
the fellows who are born blind. And please ask Miss Gray to go out in the pine
wood, or on the moor, or use the motor, or rest, or do anything she likes. Tell
her to make herself quite at home; but on no account to come up here until
Simpson reports me ready."
" You may rely on
Nurse Gray to be most discreet," said Dr. Rob, whose voice had suddenly
become very husky. "And as for getting up, laddie, don’t go too fast. You
will not find your strength equal to much. But I am bound to tell you there is
nothing to keep you in bed if you feel like rising."
" Good-bye,
doctor," said Garth, groping for his hand; "and I am sorry I shall
never be able to offer to paint Mrs. Mackenzie! "
"You’d have to
paint her with a shaggy head, four paws, and the softest amber eyes in the
world," said Dr. Rob tenderly; "and, looking out from those eyes, the
most faithful, loving dog-heart in creation. In all the years we’ve kept house
together she has never failed to meet me with a welcome, never contradicted me
or wanted the last word, and never worried me for so much as the price of a
bonnet. There’s a woman for you! -- Well, good-bye, lad, and God Almighty bless
you. And be careful how you go. Do not be surprised if I look in again on my
way back from my rounds to see how you like that chair."
Dr. Mackenzie held open
the door. Jane passed noiselessly out before him. He followed, signing to her
to precede him down the stairs.
In the library, Jane
turned and faced him. He put her quietly into a chair and stood before her. The
bright blue eyes were moist, beneath the shaggy brows.
" My dear,"
he said, " I feel myself somewhat of a blundering old fool. You must
forgive me. I never contemplated putting you through such an ordeal. I
perfectly understand that, while he hesitated, you must have felt your whole
career at stake. I see you have been weeping; but you must not take it too much
to heart that our patient made so much of your voice resembling this Miss
Campion’s. He will forget all about it in a day or two, and you will be worth
more to him than a dozen Miss Campions. See what good you have done him
already. Here he is wanting to get up and explain his pictures to you. Never
you fear. You will soon win your way, and I shall be able to report to Sir
Deryck what a fine success you have made of the case. Now I must see the valet
and give him very full instructions. And I recommend you to go for a blow on
the moor and get an appetite for lunch. Only put on something warmer than that.
You will have no sick-room work to do; and having duly impressed me with your
washableness and serviceableness, you may as well wear something comfortable to
protect you from our Highland nip. Have you warmer clothing with you? "
" It is the rule
of our guild to wear uniform," said Jane; "but I have a grey
merino."
" Ah, I see. Well,
wear the grey merino. I shall return in two hours to observe how he stands that
move. Now, don’t let me keep you."
"Dr.
Mackenzie," said Jane quietly, "may I ask why you described me as
fair; and my very straight, heavy, plainly coiled hair, as fluffy, fly-away
floss-silk?"
Dr. Rob had already
reached the bell, but at her question he stayed his hand and, turning, met Jane’s
steadfast eyes with the shrewd turquoise gleam of his own.
"Why certainly you
may ask, Nurse Rosemary Gray," he said, "though I wonder you think it
necessary to do so. It was of course perfectly evident to me that, for reasons
of his own, Sir Deryck wished to paint an imaginary portrait of you to the
patient, most likely representing some known ideal of his. As the description
was so different from the reality, I concluded that, to make the portrait
complete, the two touches unfortunately left to me to supply, had better be as
unlike what I saw before me as the rest of the picture. And now, if you will be
good enough -- " Dr. Rob rang the bell violently.
" And why did you
take the risk of suggesting that he should feel me?" persisted Jane.
"Because I knew he
was a gentleman," shouted Dr. Rob angrily. " Oh come in, Simpson --
come in, my good fellow -- and shut that door! And God Almighty be praised that
He made you and me men, and not women!"
A quarter of an hour
later, Jane watched him drive away, thinking to herself: "Deryck was
right. But what a queer mixture of shrewdness and obtuseness, and how
marvellously it worked out to the furtherance of our plans."
But as she watched the
dog-cart start off at a smart trot across the moor, she would have been more
than a little surprised could she have overheard Dr. Rob’s muttered remarks to
himself, as he gathered up the reins and cheered on his sturdy cob. He had a
habit of talking over his experiences, half aloud, as he drove from case to
case; the two sides of his rather complex nature apparently comparing notes
with each other. And the present conversation opened thus:
" Now what has
brought the Honourable Jane up here?" said Dr. Rob.
"Dashed if I
know," said Dr. Mackenzie.
" You must not
swear, laddie," said Dr. Rob; "you had a pious mother."
LETTER from the
Honourable Jane Champion to Sir Deryck Brand.
CASTLE GLENEESH, N. B.
MY DEAR DERYCK: My wires and post-cards have not told you much beyond the fact
of my safe arrival. Having been here a fortnight, I think it is time I sent you
a report. Only you must remember that I am a poor scribe. From infancy it has
always been difficult to me to write anything beyond that stock commencement:
"I hope you are quite well;" and I approach the task of a descriptive
letter with an effort which is colossal. And yet I wish I might, for once,
borrow the pen of a ready writer; because I cannot help knowing that I have
been passing through experiences such as do not often fall to the lot of a
woman.
Nurse Rosemary Gray is
getting on capitally. She is making herself indispensable to the patient, and
he turns to her with a completeness of confidence which causes her heart to
swell with professional pride.
Poor Jane has got no
further than hearing, from his own lips, that she is the very last person in
the whole world he would wish should come near him in his blindness. When she
was suggested as a possible visitor, he said: "Oh my God, no!" and
his face was one wild, horrified protest. So Jane is getting her horsewhipping,
Boy, and -- according to the method of a careful and thoughtful judge, who
orders thirty lashes of the "cat," in three applications of ten -- so
is Jane’s punishment laid on at intervals; not more than she can bear at a
time; but enough to keep her heart continually sore, and her spirit in
perpetual dread. And you, dear, clever doctor, are proved perfectly right in
your diagnosis of the sentiment of the case. He says her pity would be the last
straw on his already heavy cross; and the expression is an apt one, her pity
for him being indeed a thing of straw. The only pity she feels is pity for
herself, thus hopelessly caught in the meshes of her own mistake. But how to
make him realise this, is the puzzle.
Do you remember how the
Israelites were shut in, between Migdol and the sea? I knew Migdol meant
"towers," but I never understood the passage, until I stood upon that
narrow wedge of desert, with the Red Sea in front and on the ’left; the rocky
range of Gebel Attaka on the right, towering up against the sky, like the weird
shapes of an impregnable fortress; the sole outlet or inlet behind, being the
route they had just travelled from Egypt, and along which the chariots and
horsemen of Pharaoh were then thundering in hot pursuit. Even so, Boy, is poor
Jane now tramping her patch of desert, which narrows daily to the measure of
her despair. Migdol is his certainty that her love could only be pity. The Red
Sea is the confession into which she must inevitably plunge, to avoid scaling
Migdol; in the chill waters of which, as she drags him in with her, his love is
bound to drown, as waves of doubt and mistrust sweep over its head, -- doubts
which he has lost the power of removing; mistrust which he can never hope to
prove to have been false and mistaken. And behind come galloping the hosts of
Pharaoh; chance, speeding on the wheels of circumstance. At any moment some
accident may compel a revelation; and instantly he will be scaling rocky
Migdol, with torn hands and bleeding feet; and she -- poor Jane -- floundering
in the depths of the Red Sea. O for a Moses, with divine commission, to stretch
out the rod of understanding love, making a safe way through; so that together
they might reach the Promised Land! Dear wise old Boy, dare you undertake the
role of Moses!
But here am I writing
like a page of Baedeker, and failing to report on actual facts.
As you may suppose,
Jane grows haggard and thin in spite of old Margery’s porridge-which is "
put on " every day after lunch, for the next morning’s breakfast, and
anybody passing "gives it a stir." Did you know that was the right
way to make porridge, Deryck? I always thought it was made in five minutes, as
wanted. Margery says that must be the English stuff which profanely goes by the
name. (N.B. Please mark the self-control with which I repeat Scotch remarks,
without rushing into weird spelling; a senseless performance, it seems to me.
For if you know already how old Margery pronounces " porridge," you
can read her pronunciation into the sentence; and if you do not know it, no
grotesque spelling on my part could convey to your mind any but a caricatured
version of the pretty Scotch accent with which Margery says: "Stir the
porridge, Nurse Gray." In fact, I am agreeably surprised at the ease with
which I understand the natives, and the pleasure I derive from their
conversation; for, after wrestling with one or two modern novels dealing with
the Highlands, I had expected to find the language an unknown tongue. Instead
of which, lo! and behold, old Margery, Maggie the house-maid, Macdonald the
gardener, and Macalister the game-keeper, all speak a rather purer English than
I do; far more carefully pronounced, and with every r sounded and rolled. Their
idioms are more characteristic than their accent. They say "whenever"
for "when," and use in their verbs several quaint variations of
tense.)
But what a syntactical
digression! Oh, Boy, the wound at my heart is so deep and so sore that I dread
the dressings, even by your delicate touch. Where was I? Ah, the porridge gave
me my loophole of escape. Well, as I was saying, Jane grows worn and thin, old
Margery’s porridge notwithstanding; but Nurse Rosemary Gray is flourishing, and
remains a pretty, dainty little thing, with the additional charm of fluffy,
fly-away floss-silk, for hair, -- Dr. Rob’s own unaided contribution to the
fascinating picture. By the way, I was quite unprepared to find him such a
character. I learn much from Dr. Mackenzie, and I love Dr. Rob, excepting on
those occasions when I long to pick him up by the scruff of his fawn overcoat
and drop him out of the window.
On the point of Nurse
Rosemary’s personal appearance, I found it best to be perfectly frank with the
household. You can have no conception how often awkward moments arose; as, for
instance, in the library, the first time Garth came downstairs; when he ordered
Simpson to bring the steps for Miss Gray, and Simpson opened his lips to remark
that Nurse Gray could reach to the top shelf on her own tiptoes with the
greatest ease, he having just seen her do it. Mercifully, the perfect training
of an English manservant saved the situation, and he merely said: "Yes
sir; certainly sir," and looked upon me, standing silently by, as a person
who evidently delighted in giving unnecessary trouble. Had it been dear old
Margery with her Scotch tongue, which starts slowly, but gathers momentum as it
rolls, and can never be arrested until the full flood of her thought has been
poured forth, I should have been constrained to pick her up bodily in my dainty
arms and carry her out.
So I sent for Simpson
and Margery to the dining-room that evening, when the master was safely out of
ear-shot, and told them that, for reasons which I could not fully explain, a
very incorrect description of my appearance had been given him. He thought me
small and slim; fair and very pretty; and it was most important, in order to
avoid long explanations and mental confusion for him, that he should not at
present be undeceived. Simpson’s expression of polite attention did not vary,
and his only comment was: "Certainly, miss. Quite so." But across old
Margery’s countenance, while I was speaking, passed many shades of opinion,
fortunately, by the time I had finished, crystallized into an approving smile
of acquiescence. She even added her own commentary: " And a very good
thing, too, I am thinking. For Master Garth, poor laddie, was always so set
upon having beauty about him. ’Master Garthie,’ I would say to him, when he had
friends coming, and all his ideas in talking over the dinner concerned the
cleaning up of the old silver, and putting out of Valentine glass and Worstered
china; ’Master Garthie,’ I would say, feeling the occasion called for the apt
quoting of Scripture, ’it appears to me your attention is given entirely to the
outside of the cup and platter, and you care nothing for all the good things
that lie within.’ So it is just as well to keep him deceived, Miss Gray."
And then, as Simpson coughed tactfully behind his hand, and nudged her very
obviously with his elbow, she added, as a sympathetic after-thought: "For,
though a homely face may indeed be redeemed by its kindly expression, you
cannot very well explain expression to the blind." So you see, Deryck,
this shrewd old body, who has known Garth from boyhood, would have entirely
agreed with the decision of three years ago.
Well, to continue my
report. The voice gave us some trouble, as you foresaw, and the whole plan hung
in the balance during a few awful moments; for, though he easily accepted the
explanation we had planned, he sent me out, and told Dr. Mackenzie my voice in
his room would madden him. Dr. Rob was equal to the occasion, and won the day;
and Garth, having once given in, never mentioned the matter again. Only,
sometimes I see him listening and remembering.
But Nurse Rosemary Gray
has beautiful hours when poor anxious, yearning Jane is shut out. For her
patient turns to her, and depends on her, and talks to her, and tries to reach
her mind, and shows her his, and is a wonderful person to live with and know.
Jane, marching about in the cold, outside, and hearing them talk, realises how
little she understood the beautiful gift which was laid at her feet; how little
she had grasped the nature and mind of the man whom she dismissed as "a
mere boy." Nurse Rosemary, sitting beside him during long sweet hours of
companionship, is learning it; and Jane, ramping up and down her narrowing
strip of desert, tastes the sirocco of despair.
And now I come to the
point of my letter, and, though I am a woman, I will not put it in a
postscript.
Deryck, can you come up
soon, to pay him a visit, and to talk to me? I don’t think I can bear it,
unaided, much longer; and he would so enjoy having you, and showing you how he
had got on, and all the things he had already learned to do. Also you might put
in a word for Jane; or at all events, get at his mind on the subject. Oh, Boy,
if you could spare forty-eight hours! And a breath of the moors would be good
for you. Also I have a little private plan, which depends largely for its
fulfilment on your coming. Oh, Boy -- come! Yours, needing you, JEANETTE.
From Sir Deryck Brand
to Nurse Rosemary Gray, Castle Gleneesh, N. B.
WIMPOLE STREET. MY DEAR
JEANETTE: Certainly I will come. I will leave Euston on Friday evening. I can
spend the whole of Saturday and most of Sunday at Gleneesh, but must be home in
time for Monday’s work.
I will do my best,
only, alas! I am not Moses, and do not possess his wonder-working rod.
Moreover, latest investigations have proved that the Israelites could not have
crossed at the place you mention, but further north at the Bitter Lakes; a mere
matter of detail, in no way affecting the extreme appositeness of your
illustration, rather, adding to it; for I fear there are bitter waters ahead of
you, my poor girl.
Still I am hopeful,
nay, more than hopeful, -- confident. Often of late, in connection with you, I
have thought of the promise about all things working together for good. Anyone
can make good things work together for good; but only the Heavenly Father can
bring good out of evil; and, taking all our mistakes and failings and
foolishnesses, cause them to work out to our most perfect well-being. The more
intricate and involved this problem of human existence becomes, the greater the
need to take as our own clear rule of life: "Trust in the Lord with all
thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways
acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy piths." Ancient marching orders,
and simple; but true, and therefore eternal.
I am glad Nurse
Rosemary is proving so efficient, but I hope we may not have to face yet
another complication in our problem. Suppose our patient falls in love with
dainty little Nurse Rosemary, where will Jane be then? I fear the desert would
have to open its mouth and swallow her up. We must avert such a catastrophe.
Could not Rosemary be induced to drop an occasional h, or to confess herself as
rather "gone " on Simpson?
Oh, my poor old girl! I
could not jest thus, were I not coming shortly to your aid.
How maddening it is!
And you so priceless! But most men are either fools or blind, and one is both.
Trust me to prove it to him, - to my own satisfaction and his, -- if I get the
chance.
Yours always devotedly,
DERYCK BRAND.
From Sir Deryck Brand
to Dr. Robert Mackenzie.
DEAR MACKENZIE: Do you
consider it to be advisable that I should shortly pay a visit to our patient at
Gleneesh and give an opinion on his progress?
I find I can make it
possible to come north this week-end.
I hope you are satisfied
with the nurse I sent up. Yours very-faithfully, DERYCK BRAND.
From Dr. Robert
Mackenzie to Sir Deryck Brand.
DEAR SIR DERYCK: Every
possible need of the patient’s is being met by the capable lady you sent to be
his nurse. I am no longer needed. Nor are you -- for the patient. But I deem it
exceedingly advisable that you should shortly pay a visit to the nurse, who is
losing more flesh than a lady of her proportions can well afford.
Some secret care,
besides the natural anxiety of having the responsibility of this case, is
wearing her out. She may confide in you. She cannot quite bring herself to
trust in Your humble servant, ROBERT MACKENZIE.
NURSE ROSEMARY sat with
her patient in the sunny library at Gleneesh. A small table was between them,
upon which lay a pile of letters -- his morning mail -- ready for her to open,
read to him, and pass across, should there chance to be one among them he
wished to touch or to keep in his pocket.
They were seated close
to the French window opening on to the terrace; the breeze, fragrant with the
breath of spring flowers, blew about them, and the morning sun streamed in.
Garth, in white
flannels, wearing a green tie and a button-hole of primroses, lay back
luxuriously, enjoying, with his rapidly quickening senses, the scent of the
flowers and the touch of the sunbeams.
Nurse Rosemary finished
reading a letter of her own, folded it, and put it in her pocket with a feeling
of thankful relief. Deryck was coming. He had not failed her.
" A man’s letter,
Miss Gray," said Garth unexpectedly.
"Quite
right," said Nurse Rosemary. "How did you know?"
"Because it was on
one sheet. A woman’s letter on a matter of great importance would have run to
two, if not three. And that letter was on a matter of importance."
" Right
again," said Nurse Rosemary, smiling. "And again, how did you
know?"
" Because you gave
a little sigh of relief after reading the first line, and another as you folded
it and replaced it in the envelope."
Nurse Rosemary laughed.
" You are getting on so fast, Mr. Dalmain, that soon we shall be able to
keep no secrets. My letter was from --"
"Oh, don’t tell
me," cried Garth quickly, putting out his hand in protest. " I had no
idea of seeming curious as to your private correspondence, Miss Gray. Only it
is such a pleasure to report progress to you in the things I manage to find out
without being told."
"But I meant to
tell you anyway," said Nurse Rosemary. "The letter is from Sir
Deryck, and, amongst other things, he says he is coming up to see you next
Saturday."
"Ah, good!"
said Garth. "And what a change he will find! And I shall have the pleasure
of reporting on the nurse, secretary, reader, and unspeakably patient guide and
companion he provided for me." Then he added, in a tone of suddenly
awakened anxiety: "He is not coming to take you away, is he?"
"No," said
Nurse Rosemary, "not yet. But, Mr. Dalmain, I was wanting to ask whether
you could spare me just during forty-eight hours; and Dr. Brand’s visit would
be an excellent opportunity. I could leave you more easily, knowing you would
have his companionship. If I may take the week-end, leaving on Friday night, I
could return early on Monday morning, and be with you in time to do the morning
letters. Dr. Brand would read you Saturday’s and Sunday’s -- Ah, I forgot;
there is no Sunday post. So I should miss but one; and he would more than take
my place in other ways."
" Very well,"
said Garth, striving not to show disappointment. " I should have liked that
we three should have talked together. But no wonder you want a time off. Shall
you be going far?"
" No; I have
friends near by. And now, do you wish to attend to your letters? "
" Yes," said
Garth, reaching out his hand. "Wait a minute. There is a newspaper among
them. I smell the printing ink. I don’t want that. But kindly give me the
rest."
Nurse Rosemary took out
the newspaper; then pushed the pile along, until it touched his hand.
Garth took them.
"What a lot!" he said, smiling in pleasurable anticipation. " I
say, Miss Gray, if you profit as you ought to do by the reading of so many
epistles written in every possible and impossible style, you ought to be able
to bring out a pretty comprehensive ‘Complete Letter-writer.’ Do you remember
the condolences of Mrs. Parker Bangs? I think that was the first time we really
laughed together. Kind old soul! But she should not have mentioned blind
Bartimaeus dipping seven times in the pool of Siloam. It is always best to
avoid classical allusions, especially if sacred, unless one has them
accurately. Now -- ’ Garth paused.
He had been handling
his letters, one by one; carefully fingering each, before laying it on the
table beside him. He had just come to one written on foreign paper, and sealed.
He broke off his sentence abruptly, held the letter silently for a moment, then
passed his fingers slowly over the seal.
Nurse Rosemary watched
him anxiously. He made no remark, but after a moment laid it down and took up
the next. But when he passed the pile across to her, he slipped the sealed
letter beneath the rest, so that she should come to it last of all.
Then the usual order of
proceedings commenced. Garth lighted a cigarette -- one of the first things he
had learned to do for himself -- and smoked contentedly, carefully placing his
ash-tray, and almost unfailingly locating the ash, in time and correctly.
Nurse Rosemary took up
the first letter, read the postmark, and described the writing on the envelope.
Garth guessed from whom it came, and was immensely pleased if, on opening, his
surmise proved correct. There were nine to-day, of varying interest, -- some
from men friends, one or two from charming women who professed themselves ready
to come and see him as soon as he wished for visitors, one from a blind asylum
asking for a subscription, a short note from the doctor heralding his visit,
and a bill for ties from a Bond Street shop.
Nurse Rosemary’s
fingers shook as she replaced the eighth in its envelope. The last of the pile
lay on the table. As she took it up, Garth with a quick movement flung his
cigarette-end through the window, and lay back, shading his face with his hand.
"Did I shoot
straight, nurse?" he asked.
She leaned forward and
saw the tiny column of blue smoke rising from the gravel.
"Quite
straight," she said. " Mr. Dalmain, this letter has an Egyptian
stamp, and the postmark is Cairo. It is sealed with scarlet sealing-wax, and
the engraving on the seal is a plumed helmet with the visor closed."
"And the
writing?" asked Garth, mechanically and very quietly.
" The handwriting
is rather bold and very clear, with no twirls or flourishes. It is written with
abroad nib."
"Will you kindly
open it, nurse, and tell me the signature before reading the rest of the
letter."
Nurse Rosemary fought
with her throat, which threatened to close altogether and stifle her voice. She
opened the letter, turned to the last page, and found the signature.
" It is signed ’Jane
Champion,’ Mr. Dalmain," said Nurse Rosemary.
" Read it,
please," said Garth quietly. And Nurse Rosemary began.
DEAR DAL: What can I
write? If I were with you, there would be so much I could say; but writing is
so difficult, so impossible.
I know it is harder for
you than it would have been for any of us; but you will be braver over it than
we should have been, and you will come through splendidly, and go on thinking
life beautiful, and making it seem so to other people. I never thought it so
until that summer at Overdene and Shenstone when you taught me the perception
of beauty. Since then, in every sunset and sunrise, in the blue-green of the
Atlantic, the purple of the mountains, the spray of Niagara, the cherry blossom
of Japan, the golden deserts of Egypt, I have thought of you, and understood
them better, because of you. Oh, Dal! I should like to come and tell you all
about them, and let you see them through my eyes; and then you would widen out
my narrow understanding of them, and show them again to me in greater
loveliness.
I hear you receive no
visitors; but cannot you make just one exception, and let me come?
I was at the Great
Pyramid when I heard. I was sitting on the piazza after dinner. The moonlight
called up memories. I had just made up my mind to give up the Nile, and to come
straight home, and write asking you to come and see me; when General Loraine
turned up, with an English paper and a letter from Myra, and -- I heard.
Would you have come,
Garth?
And now, my friend, as
you cannot come to me, may I come to you? If you just say: "Come," I
will come from any part of the world where I may chance to be when the message
reaches me. Never mind this Egyptian address. I shall not be there when you are
hearing this. Direct to me at my aunt’s town house. All my letters go there,
and are forwarded unopened.
Let me come. And oh, do
believe that I know something of how hard it is for you. But God can
"enable."
Believe me to be,
Yours, more than I can write, JANE CHAMPION.
Garth removed the hand
which had been shielding his face.
" If you are not
tired, Miss Gray, after reading so many letters, I should like to dictate my
answer to that one immediately, while it is fresh in my mind. Have you paper
there? Thank you. May we begin? -- Dear Miss Champion . . . . I am deeply
touched by your kind letter of sympathy . . . . It was especially good of you
to write to me from so far away, amid so much which might well have diverted
your attention from friends at home."
A long pause. Nurse
Rosemary Gray waited, pen in hand, and hoped the beating of her heart was only
in her own ears, and not audible across the small table.
" I am glad you
did not give up the Nile trip, but --"
An early bee hummed in
from the hyacinths and buzzed against the pane. Otherwise the room was very
still.
--"but, of course,
if you had sent for me I should have come."
The bee fought the
window angrily, up and down, up and down, for several minutes; then found the
open glass and whirled out into the sunshine, joyfully.
Absolute silence in the
room, until Garth’s quiet voice broke it as he went on dictating.
" It is more than
kind of you to suggest coming to see me, but --"
Nurse Rosemary dropped
her pen. "Oh, Mr. Dalmain," she said, "let her come."
Garth turned upon her a
face of blank surprise.
" I do not wish
it," he said, in a tone of absolute finality.
" But think how
hard it must be for any one to want so much to be near a -- a friend in
trouble, and to be kept away."
" It is only her
wonderful kindness of heart makes her offer to come, Miss Gray. She is a friend
and comrade of long ago. It would greatly sadden her to see me thus."
" It does not seem
so to her," pleaded Nurse Rosemary. "Ah, cannot you read between the
lines? Or does it take a woman’s heart to understand a woman’s letter? Did I
read it badly? May I read it over again?"
A look of real
annoyance gathered upon Garth’s face. He spoke with quiet sternness, a frown
bending his straight black brows.
" You read it
quite well," he said, "but you do not do well to discuss it. I must
feel able to dictate my letters to my secretary, without having to explain
them."
" I beg your
pardon, sir," said Nurse Rosemary humbly. " I was wrong."
Garth stretched his
hand across the table, and left it there a moment; though no responsive hand
was placed within it.
" Never
mind," he said, with his winning smile, "my kind little mentor and
guide. You can direct me in most things, but not in this. Now let us conclude.
Where were we? Ah ’to suggest coming to see me.’ Did you put ’ It is most kind’
or ’It is more than kind’?"
"‘More than
kind,"’ said Nurse Rosemary, brokenly.
"Right, for it is
indeed more than kind. Only she and I, can possibly know how much more. Now let
us go on . . . . But I am receiving no visitors, and do not desire any until I
have so mastered my new circumstances that the handicap connected with them
shall neither be painful nor very noticeable to other people. During the summer
I shall be learning step by step to live this new life, in complete seclusion
at Gleneesh. I feel sure my friends will respect my wish in this matter. I have
with me one who most perfectly and patiently is helping -- Ah, wait!"
cried Garth suddenly. " I will not say that. She might think -- she might
misunderstand. Had you begun to write it? No? What was the last word? ’Matter?’
Ah yes. That is right. Full stop after ’matter.’ Now let me think."
Garth dropped his face
into his hands, and sat for a long time absorbed in thought.
Nurse Rosemary waited.
Her right hand held the pen poised over the paper. Her left was pressed against
her breast. Her eyes rested on that dark bowed head, with a look of unutterable
yearning and of passionate tenderness.
At last Garth lifted
his face. " Yours very sincerely, Garth Dalmain," he said. And,
silently, Nurse Rosemary wrote it.
INTO the somewhat
oppressive silence which followed the addressing and closing of the envelope,
broke the cheery voice of Dr. Rob.
"Which is the
patient to-day? The lady or the gentleman? Ah, neither, I see. Both flaunt the
bloom of perfect health and make the doctor shy. It is spring without, but
summer within," ran on Dr. Rob gaily, wondering why both faces were so
white and perturbed, and why there was in the air a sense of hearts in torment.
" Flannels seem to call up boating and picnic parties; and I see you have
discarded the merino, Nurse Gray, and returned to the pretty blue washables.
More becoming, undoubtedly; only, don’t take cold; and be sure you feed up
well. In this air people must eat plenty, and you have been perceptibly losing
weight lately. We don’t want too airy-fairy dimensions."
"Why do you always
chaff Miss Gray about being small, Dr. Rob?" asked Garth, in a rather
vexed tone. " I am sure being short is in no way detrimental to her."
" I will chaff her
about being tall if you like," said Dr. Rob, looking at her with a wicked
twinkle, as she stood in the window, drawn up to her full height, and regarding
him with cold disapproval.
"I would sooner no
comments of any kind were made upon her personal appearance," said Garth
shortly; then added, more pleasantly: "You see, she is just a voice to me
-- a kind, guiding voice. At first I used to form mental pictures of her, of a
hazy kind; but now I prefer to appropriate in all its helpfulness what I do
know, and leave unimagined what I do not. Did it ever strike you that she is
the only person -- bar that fellow Johnson, who belongs to a nightmare time I
am quickly forgetting -- I have yet had near me, in my blindness, whom I had not
already seen; the only voice I have ever heard to which I could not put a face
and figure? In time, of course, there will be many. At present she stands alone
to me in this."
Dr. Rob’s observant eye
had been darting about during this explanation, seeking to focus itself upon
something worthy of minute examination. Suddenly he spied the foreign letter
lying close beside him on the table.
" Hello! " he
said. " Pyramids? The Egyptian stamp? That’s interesting. Have you friends
out there, Mr. Dalmain?"
"That letter came
from Cairo," Garth replied; "but I believe Miss Champion has by now
gone on to Syria." Dr. Rob attacked his moustache, and stared at the
letter meditatively. "Champion?" he repeated. "Champion? It’s an
uncommon name. Is your correspondent, by any chance, the Honourable Jane?"
"Why, that letter
is from her," replied Garth, surprised. "Do you know her?" His
voice vibrated eagerly.
"Well,"
answered Dr. Rob, with slow deliberation, "I know her face, and I know her
voice; I know her figure, and I know a pretty good deal of her character. I
know her at home, and I know her abroad. I’ve seen her under fire, which is
more than most men of her acquaintance can claim. But there is one thing I
never knew until to-day, and that is her handwriting. May I examine this
envelope?" He turned to the window; - yes, this audacious little Scotchman
had asked the question of Nurse Rosemary. But only a broad blue back met his
look of inquiry. Nurse Rosemary was studying the view. He turned back to Garth,
who had evidently already made a sign of assent, and on whose face was clearly
expressed an eager desire to hear more, and an extreme disinclination to ask
for it.
Dr. Mackenzie took up
the envelope and pondered it.
" Yes," he
said, at last, "it is like her,- clear, firm, unwavering; knowing what it
means to say, and saying it; going where it means to go, and getting there. Ay,
lad, it’s a grand woman that; and if you have the Honourable Jane for your
friend, you can be doing without a few other things."
A tinge of eager colour
rose in Garth’s thin cheeks. He had been so starved in his darkness for want of
some word concerning her, from that outer light in which she moved. He had felt
so hopelessly cut off from all chance of hearing of her. And all the while, if
only he had known it, old Robbie could have talked of her. He had had to
question Brand so cautiously, fearing to betray his secret and hers; but with
Dr. Rob and Nurse Gray no such precautions were needed. He could safely guard
his secret, and yet listen and speak.
"Where --
when?" asked Garth.
" I will tell you
where, and I will tell you when," answered Dr. Rob, "if you feel
inclined for a war tale on this peaceful spring morning."
Garth was aflame with
eagerness. " Have you a chair, doctor?" he said. "And has Miss
Gray a chair? "
"I have no chair,
sir," said Dr. Rob, "because when I intend thoroughly to enjoy my own
eloquence it is my custom to stand. Nurse Gray has no chair, because she is
standing at the window absorbed in the view. She has apparently ceased to pay
any heed to you and me. You will very rarely find one woman take much interest
in tales about another. But you lean back in your own chair, laddie, and light
a cigarette. And a wonderful thing it is to see you do it, too, and better than
pounding the wall. Eh? All of which we may consider we owe to the lady who
disdains us and prefers the scenery. Well, I’m not much to look at, goodness
knows; and she can see you all the rest of the day. Now that’s a brand worth
smoking. What do you call it. ’Zenith’? Ah, and ’Marcovitch.’ Yes; you can’t
better that for drawing-room and garden purposes. It mingles with the flowers.
Lean back and enjoy it, while I smell gunpowder. For I will tell you where I
first saw the Honourable Jane. Out in South Africa, in the very thick of the
Boer war. I had volunteered for the sake of the surgery experience. She was out
there, nursing; but the real thing, mind you. None of your dabbling in
eau-de-cologne with lace handkerchiefs, and washing handsome faces when the
orderlies had washed them already; making charming conversation to men who were
getting well, but fleeing in dread from the dead or the dying. None of that,
you may be sure, and none of that allowed in her hospital; for Miss Champion
was in command there, and I can tell you she made them scoot. She did the work
of ten, and expected others to do it too. Doctors and orderlies adored her. She
was always called ’The Honourable Jane,’ most of the men sounding the h and
pronouncing the title as four syllables. Ay, and the wounded soldiers! There
was many a lad out there, far from home and friends, who, when death came, died
with a smile on his lips, and a sense of mother and home quite near, because
the Honourable Jane’s arm was around him, and his dying head rested against her
womanly breast. Her voice when she talked to them? No, -- that I shall never
forget. And to hear her snap at the women, and order along the men; and then
turn and speak to a sick Tommy as his mother or his sweetheart would have wished
to hear him spoken to, was a lesson in quick-change from which I am profiting
still. And that big, loving heart must often have been racked; but she was
always brave and bright. Just once she broke down. It was over a boy whom she
tried hard to save - quite a youngster. She had held him during the operation
which was his only chance; and when it proved no good, and he lay back against
her unconscious, she quite broke down and said: ’Oh, doctor, -- a mere boy --
and to suffer so, and then die like this!’ and gathered him to her, and wept
over him, as his own mother might have done. The surgeon told me of it himself.
He said the hardest hearts in the tent were touched and softened. But it was
the only time the Honourable Jane broke down."
Garth shielded his face
with his hand. His half-smoked cigarette fell unheeded to the floor. The hand
that had held it was clenched on his knee. Dr. Rob picked it up, and rubbed the
scorched spot on the carpet carefully with his foot. He glanced towards the
window. Nurse Rosemary had turned and was leaning against the frame. She did
not look at him, but her eyes dwelt with troubled anxiety on Garth.
" I came across
her several times, at different centres," continued Dr. Rob; "but we
were not in the same departments, and she spoke to me only once. I had ridden
in, from a temporary overflow sort of place where we were dealing with the
worst cases straight off the field, to the main hospital in the town for a
fresh supply of chloroform. While they fetched it, I walked round the ward, and
there in a corner was Miss Champion, kneeling beside a man whose last hour was
very near, talking to him quietly, and taking measures at the same time to ease
his pain. Suddenly there came a crash -- a deafening rush -- and another crash,
and the Honourable Jane and her patient were covered with dust and splinters. A
Boer shell had gone clean through the roof just over their heads. The man sat
up, yelling with fear. Poor chap, you couldn’t blame him; dying, and half under
morphine. The Honourable Jane never turned a hair. ’Lie down, my man,’ she
said, ’and keep still.’ ’Not here,’ sobbed the man. ’All right,’ said the
Honourable Jane; ’we will soon move you.’ Then she turned and saw me. I was in
the most nondescript khaki, a non-com’s jacket which I had caught up on leaving
the tent, and various odds and ends of my outfit which had survived the wear
and tear of the campaign. Also I was dusty with a long gallop. ’Here, serjeant,’
she said, ’lend a hand with this poor fellow. I can’t have him disturbed just
now.’ That was Jane’s only comment on the passing of a shell within a few yards
of her own head. Do you wonder the men adored her? She placed her hands beneath
his shoulders, and signed to me to take him under the knees, and together we
carried him round a screen, out of the ward, and down a short passage; turning
unexpectedly into a quiet little room, with a comfortable bed, and photographs
and books arranged on the tiny dressing-table. She said: ’Here, if you please,
serjeant,’ and we laid him on the bed. ’Whose is it?’ I asked. She looked
surprised at being questioned, but seeing I was a stranger, answered civilly: ’Mine.’
And then, noting that he had dozed off while we carried him, added: ’And he
will have done with beds, poor chap, before I need it.’ There’s nerve for you!
-- Well, that was my only conversation out there with the Honourable Jane. Soon
after I had had enough and came home."
Garth lifted his head.
"Did you ever meet her at home?" he asked.
" I did,"
said Dr. Rob. "But she did not remember me. Not a flicker of recognition.
Well, how could I expect it? I wore a beard out there; no time to shave; and my
jacket proclaimed me a serjeant, not a surgeon. No fault of hers if she did not
expect to meet a comrade from the front in the wilds of -- of Piccadilly,"
finished Dr. Rob lamely. " Now, having spun so long a yarn, I must be off
to your gardener’s cot in the wood, to see his good wife, who has had what he
pathetically calls ’ an increase.’ I should think a decrease would have better
suited the size of his house. But first I must interview Mistress Margery in
the dining-room. She is anxious about herself just now because she ’canna eat
bacon.’ She says it flies between her shoulders. So erratic a deviation from
its normal route on the part of the bacon, un- doubtedly requires
investigation. So, by your leave, I will ring for the good lady."
" Not just yet,
doctor," said a quiet voice from the window. " I want to see you in
the dining-room, and will follow you there immediately. And afterwards, while
you investigate Margery, I will run up for my bonnet, and walk with you through
the woods, if Mr. Dalmain will not mind an hour alone."
When Jane reached the
dining-room, Dr. Robert Mackenzie was standing on the hearth-rug in a Napoleonic
attitude, just as on the morning of their first interview. He looked up
uncertainly as she came in.
" Well? " he
said. " Am I to pay the piper? "
Jane came straight to
him, with both hands extended. " Ah, serjeant ! " she said. "You
dear faithful old serjeant! See what comes of wearing another man’s coat. And
my dilemma comes from taking another woman’s name. So you knew me all the time,
from the first moment I came into the room? "
"From the first
moment you entered the room," assented Dr. Rob.
"Why did you not
say so?" asked Jane.
"Well, I concluded
you had your reasons for being ’Nurse Rosemary Gray,’ and it did not come
within my province to question your identity."
" Oh, you
dear!" said Jane. "Was there ever anything so shrewd, and so wise,
and so bewilderingly far-seeing, standing on two legs on a hearth-rug before!
And when I remember how you said: ’ So you have arrived, Nurse Gray?’ and all
the while you might have been saying: ’How do you do, Miss Champion? And what
brings you up here under somebody else’s name? "’
"I might have so
said," agreed Dr. Rob reflectively; "but praise be, I did not."
"But tell
me," said Jane, "why let it out now?"
Dr. Rob laid his hand
on her arm. " My dear, I am an old fellow, and all my life I have made it
my business to know, without being told. You have been coming through a strain,
-- a prolonged period of strain, sometimes harder, sometimes easier, but never
quite relaxed, -- a strain such as few women could have borne. It was not only
with him; you had to keep it up towards us all. I knew, if it were to continue,
you must soon have the relief of some one with whom to share the secret, --
some one towards whom you could be yourself occasionally. And when I found you
had been writing to him here, sending the letter to be posted in Cairo (how
like a woman, to strain at a gnat, after swallowing such a camel!), awaiting
its return day after day, then obliged to read it to him yourself, and take
down his dictated answer, which I gathered from your faces when I entered was
his refusal of your request to come and see him, well, it seemed to me about
time you were made to realise that you might as well confide in an old fellow
who, in common with all the men who knew you in South Africa, would gladly give
his right hand for the Honourable Jane."
Jane looked at him, her
eyes full of gratitude. For the moment she could not speak.
"But tell me, my
dear," said Dr. Rob, "tell me, if you can: why does the lad put from
him so firmly that which, if indeed it might be his for the asking, would mean
for him so great, so wonderful, so comforting a good?"
" Ah,
doctor," said Jane, "thereby hangs a tale of sad mistrust and
mistake, and the mistrust and mistake, alas, were mine. Now, while you see
Margery, I will prepare for walking; and as we go through the wood I will try
to tell you the woeful thing which came between him and me and placed our lives
so far apart. Your wise advice will help me, and your shrewd knowledge of men
and of the human heart may find us a way out, for indeed we are shut in between
Migdol and the sea."
As Jane crossed the
hall and was about to mount the stairs, she looked towards the closed library
door. A sudden fear seized her, lest the strain of listening to that tale of
Dr. Rob’s had been too much for Garth. None but she could know all it must have
awakened of memory to be told so vividly of the dying soldiers whose heads were
pillowed on her breast, and the strange coincidence of those words, " A
mere boy -- and to suffer so!" She could not leave the house without being
sure he was safe and well. And yet she instinctively feared to intrude when he
imagined himself alone for an hour.
Then Jane, in her
anxiety, did a thing she had never done before. She opened the front door noiselessly,
passed round the house to the terrace, and when approaching the open window of
the library, trod or the grass border, and reached it without making the
faintest sound.
Never before had she
come upon him unawares, knowing he hated and dreaded the thought of an unseen
intrusion on his privacy.
But now -- just this
once --
Jane looked in at the
window.
Garth sat sideways in
the chair, his arms folded on the table beside him, his face buried in them. He
was sobbing as she had sometimes heard men sob after agonising operations,
borne without a sound until the worst was over. And Garth’s sob of agony was
this: "Oh, my wife -- my wife -- my wife!"
Jane crept away. How
she did it she never knew. But some instinct told her that to reveal herself then,
taking him at a disadvantage, when Dr. Rob’s story had unnerved and unmanned
him, would be to ruin all. "If you value your ultimate happiness and
his," Deryck’s voice always sounded in warning. Besides, it was such a
short postponement. In the calm earnest thought which would succeed this storm,
his need of her would win the day. The letter, not yet posted, would be
rewritten. He would say "Come" -- and the next minute he would be in
her arms.
So Jane turned
noiselessly away.
Coming in, an hour later,
from her walk with Dr. Rob, her heart filled with glad anticipation, she found
him standing in the window, listening to the countless sounds he was learning
to distinguish. He looked so slim and tall and straight in his white flannels,
both hands thrust deep into the pockets of his coat, that when he turned at her
approach it seemed to her a: if the shining eyes must be there.
"Was it lovely in
the woods?" he asked. " Simpson shall take me up there after lunch.
Meanwhile, is there time, if you are not tired, Miss Gray, to finish our
morning’s work?"
Five letters were
dictated and a cheque written, Then Jane noticed that hers to him lead gone
from among the rest. But his to her lay on the table ready for stamping. She
hesitated.
" And about the
letter to Miss Champion? " she said, "Do you wish it to go as it is,
Mr. Dalmain?"
"Why
certainly," he said. "Did we not finish it?"
" I thought,"
said Jane nervously, looking away from his blank face, " I thought perhaps
-- after Dr. Rob’s story -- you might --"
" Dr. Rob’s story
could make no possible difference as to whether I should let her come here or
not," said Garth emphatically; then added more gently: "It only
reminded me --"
"Of what?"
asked Jane, her hands upon her breast.
"Of what a glorious
woman she is," said Garth Dalmain, and blew a long, steady cloud of smoke
into the summer air.
WHEN Deryck Brand
alighted at the little northern wayside station, he looked up and down the
gravelled platform, more than half expecting to see Jane. The hour was early,
but she invariably said: "So much the better" to any plan which
involved rising earlier than usual. Nothing was to be seen, however, but his
portmanteau in the distance -- looking as if it had taken up a solitary and
permanent position where the guard had placed it -- and one slow porter, who
appeared to be overwhelmed by the fact that he alone was on duty to receive the
train.
There were no other
passengers descending; there was no other baggage to put out. The guard swung
up into his van as the train moved off.
The old porter, shading
his eyes from the slanting rays of the morning sun, watched the train glide
round the curve and disappear from sight; then slowly turned and looked the
other way, -- as if to make sure there was not another coming, -- saw the
portmanteau, and shambled towards it. He stood looking down upon it pensively,
then moved slowly round, apparently reading the names and particulars of all
the various continental hotels at which the portmanteau had recently stayed
with its owner.
Dr. Brand never hurried
people. He always said: " It answers best, in the long run, to let them
take their own time. The minute or two gained by hurrying them is lost in the
final results." But this applied chiefly to patients in the
consulting-room; to anxious young students in hospital; or to nurses, too
excitedly conscious at first of the fact that he was talking to them, to take
in fully what he was saying. His habit of giving people, even in final moments,
the full time they wanted, had once lost him an overcoat, almost lost him a
train, and won him the thing in life he most desired. But that belongs to
another story.
Meanwhile he wanted his
breakfast on this fresh spring morning. And he wanted to see Jane. Therefore,
as porter and portmanteau made no advance towards him, the doctor strode down
the platform.
"Now then, my man!
" he called.
"I beg your
pardon? " said the Scotch porter.
"I want my
portmanteau."
"Would this be
your portmanteau? " inquired the porter doubtfully.
" It would,"
said the doctor. "And it and I would be on our way to Castle Gleneesh, if
you would be bringing it out and putting it into the motor, which I see waiting
outside."
" I will be
fetching a truck," said the porter. But when he returned, carefully
trundling it behind him, the doctor, the portmanteau, and the motor were all
out of sight.
The porter shaded his
eyes and gazed up the road. " I will be hoping it was his portmanteau,"
he said, and went back to his porridge.
Meanwhile the doctor
sped up into the hills, his mind alight with eagerness to meet Jane and to
learn the developments of the last few days. Her nonappearance at the railway
station filled him with an undefinable anxiety. It would have been so like Jane
to have been there, prompt to seize the chance of a talk with him alone before
he reached the house. He had called up, in anticipation, such a vivid picture
of her, waiting on the platform, -- bright, alert, vigorous, with that fresh
and healthy vigour which betokens a good night’s rest, a pleasant early
awakening, and a cold tub recently enjoyed, -- and the disappointment of not
seeing her had wrought in him a strange foreboding. What if her nerve had given
way under the strain?
They turned a bend in
the winding road, and the grey turrets of Gleneesh carne in sight, high up on
the other side of the glen, the moor stretching away behind and above it. As
they wound up the valley to the moorland road which would bring them round to
the house, the doctor could see, in the clear morning light, the broad lawn and
terrace of Gleneesh, with its gay flower-beds, smooth gravelled walks, and
broad stone parapet, from which was a drop almost sheer down into the glen below.
Simpson received him at
the hall door; and he just stopped himself in time, as he was about to ask for
Miss Champion. This perilous approach to a slip reminded him how carefully he
must guard words and actions in this house, where Jane had successfully steered
her intricate course. He would never forgive himself if he gave her away.
" Mr. Dalmain is
in the library, Sir Deryck, " said Simpson; and it was a very alert,
clear-headed doctor who followed the man across the hall.
Garth rose from his chair
and walked forward to meet him, his right hand outstretched, a smile of welcome
on his face, and so direct and unhesitating a course that the doctor had to
glance at the sightless face to make sure that this lithe, graceful,
easy-moving figure was indeed the blind man he had come to see. Then he noticed
a length of brown silk cord stretched from an arm of the chair Garth had
quitted to the door. Garth’s left hand had slipped lightly along it as he
walked.
The doctor put his hand
into the one outstretched, and gripped it warmly.
"My dear fellow!
What a change! "
"Isn’t it?"
said Garth delightedly. "And it is entirely she who has worked it, -- the
capital little woman you sent up to me. I want to tell you how first-rate she
is." He had reached his chair again, and found and drew forward for the
doctor the one in which Jane usually sat. "This is her own idea." He
unhitched the cord, and let it fall to the floor, a fine string remaining
attached to it and to the chair, by which he could draw it up again at will.
"There is one on this side leading to the piano, and one here to the
window. Now how should you know them apart?"
"They are brown,
purple, and orange," replied the doctor.
"Yes," said
Garth. "You know them by the colours, but I distinguish them by a slight
difference in the thickness and in the texture, which you could not see, but
which I can feel. And I enjoy thinking of the colours, too. And sometimes I
wear ties and things to match them. You see, I know exactly how they look; and
it was so like her to remember that. An ordinary nurse would have put red,
green, and blue, and I should have sat and hated the thought of them, knowing
how vilely they must be clashing with my. Persian carpet. But she understands
how much colours mean to me, even though I cannot see them."
" I conclude that
by ’she ’ you mean Nurse Rosemary," said the doctor. " I am glad she
is a success."
"A success!"
exclaimed Garth. "Why, she helped me to live again! I am ashamed to
remember how at the bottom of all things I was when you came up before, Brand,
-- just pounding the wall, as old Robbie expresses it. You must have thought me
a fool and a coward."
" I thought you
neither, my dear fellow. You were coming through a stiffer fight than any of us
have been called to face. Thank God, you have won."
" I owe a lot to
you, Brand, and still more to Miss Gray. I wish she were here to see you. She
is away for the week-end."
"Away! J -- just
now?" exclaimed the doctor, almost surprised into another slip.
" Yes; she went
last night. She is week-ending in the neighbourhood. She said she was not going
far, and should be back with me early on Monday morning. But she seemed to want
a change of scene, and thought this a good opportunity, as I shall have you
here most of the time. I say, Brand, I do think it is extraordinarily good of
you to come all this way to see me. You know, from such a man as yourself it is
almost overwhelming."
"You must not be
overwhelmed, my dear chap; and, though I very truly came to see you, I am also
up, about another old friend in the near neighbourhood in whom I am interested.
I only mention this in order to be quite honest, and to lift from off you any
possible burden of feeling yourself my only patient."
"Oh, thanks!"
said Garth. "It lessens my compunction without diminishing my gratitude.
And now you must be wanting a brush up and breakfast, and here am I selfishly
keeping you from both. And I say, Brand," -- Garth coloured hotly,
boyishly, and hesitated, -- " I am awfully sorry you will have no
companion at your meals, Miss Gray being away. I do not like to think of you
having them alone, but I -- I always have mine by myself. Simpson attends to
them."
He could not see the
doctor’s quick look of comprehension, but the understanding sympathy of the
tone in which he said: "Ah yes. Yes, of course," without further
comment, helped Garth to add: " I couldn’t even have Miss Gray with me. We
always take our meals apart. You cannot imagine how awful it is chasing your
food all round your plate, and never sure it is not on the cloth, after all, or
on your tie, while you are hunting for it elsewhere."
" No, I can’t
imagine," said the doctor. " No one could who had not been through
it. But can you bear it better with Simpson than with Nurse Rosemary? She is
trained to that sort of thing, you know."
Garth coloured again.
"Well, you see, Simpson is the chap who shaves me, and gets me into my
clothes, and takes me about; and, though it will always be a trial, it is a
trial to which I am growing accustomed. You might put it thus: Simpson is eyes
to my body; Miss Gray is vision to my mind. Simpson’s is the only touch which
comes to me in the darkness. Do you know, Miss Gray has never touched me, -not
even to shake hands. I am awfully glad of this. I will tell you why presently,
if I may. It makes her just a mind and voice to me, and nothing more; but a
wonderfully kind and helpful voice. I feel as if I could not live without
her."
Garth rang the bell and
Simpson appeared.
"Take Sir Deryck
to his room; and he will tell you what time he would like breakfast. And when
you have seen to it all, Simpson, I will go out for a turn. Then I shall be
free, Brand, when you are. But do not give me any more time this morning if you
ought to be resting, or out on the moors having a holiday from minds and
men."
The doctor tubbed and
got into his knickerbockers and an old Norfolk jacket; then found his way to
the dining-room, and did full justice to an excellent breakfast. He was still
pondering the problem of Jane, and at the same time wondering in another
compartment of his mind in what sort of machine old Margery made her excellent
coffee, when that good lady appeared, enveloped in an air of mystery, and the
doctor immediately propounded the question.
" A jug," said
old Margery. "And would you be coming with me, Sir Deryck, -- and softly,
-- whenever you have finished your breakfast?"
"Softly,"
said Margery again, as they crossed the hall, the doctor’s tall figure closely
following in her portly wake. After mounting a few stairs she turned to whisper
impressively: " It is not what ye make it in; it is how ye make it."
She ascended a few more steps, then turned to say: "It all hangs upon the
word fresh," and went on mounting. "Freshly roasted -- freshly ground
-- water -- freshly boiled --" said old Margery, reaching the topmost
stair somewhat breathless; then turning, bustled along a rather dark passage,
thickly carpeted, and hung with old armour and pictures.
"Where are we
going, Mistress Margery?" asked the doctor, adapting his stride to her
trot -- one to two.
"You will be
seeing whenever we get there, Sir Deryck," said Margery. "And never
touch it with metal, Sir Deryck. Pop it into an earthenware jug, pour your
boiling water straight upon it, stir it with a wooden spoon, set it on the hob
ten minutes to settle; the grounds will all go to the bottom, though you might
not think it, and you pour it out -- fragrant, strong, and clear. But the
secret is, fresh, fresh, fresh, and don’t stint your coffee."
Old Margery paused
before a door at the end of the passage, knocked lightly; then looked up at the
doctor with her hand on the door-handle, and an expression of pleading
earnestness in her faithful Scotch eyes.
"And you will not
forget the wooden spoon, Sir Deryck? "
The doctor looked down
into the kind old face raised to his in the dim light. " I will not forget
the wooden spoon, Mistress Margery," he said, gravely. And old Margery,
turning the handle whispered mysteriously into the half-opened doorway:
"It will be Sir Deryck, Miss Gray," and ushered the doctor into a
cosy little sitting-room.
A bright fire burned in
the grate. In a high-backed arm-chair in front of it sat Jane, with her feet on
the fender. He could only see the top of her head, and her long grey knees; but
both were unmistakably Jane’s.
"Oh, Dicky! "
she said, and a great thankfulness was in her voice, "is it you? Oh, come
in, Boy, and shut the door. Are we alone? Come round here quick and shake
hands, or I shall be plunging about trying to find you."
In a moment the doctor
had reached the hearth-rug, dropped on one knee in front of the large chair,
and took the vaguely groping hands held out to him.
" Jeanette ?
" he said. " Jeanette ! " And then surprise and emotion silenced
him.
Jane’s eyes were
securely bandaged. A black silk scarf, folded in four thicknesses, was firmly
tied at the back of her smooth coils of hair. There was a pathetic helplessness
about her large capable figure, sitting alone, in this bright little sitting-room,
doing nothing.
"Jeanette! "
said the doctor, for the third time. "And you call this week-ending?"
"Dear, " said
Jane, " I have gone into Sightless Land for my week-end. Oh, Deryck, I had
to do it. The only way really to help him is to know exactly what it means, in
all the small, trying details. I never had much imagination, and I have
exhausted what little I had. And he never complains, or explains how things
come hardest. So the only way to find out, is to have forty-eight hours of it one’s
self. Old Margery and Simpson quite enter into it, and are helping me
splendidly. Simpson keeps the coast clear if we want to come down or go out;
because with two blind people about, it would be a complication if they ran
into one another. Margery helps me with all the things in which I am helpless;
and, oh Dicky, you would never believe how many they are! And the awful, awful
dark -- a black curtain always in front of you, sometimes seeming hard and
firm, like a wall of coal, within an inch of your face; sometimes sinking away
into soft depths of blackness - miles and miles of distant, silent, horrible
darkness; until you feel you must fall forward into it and be submerged and
overwhelmed. And out of that darkness come voices. And if they speak loudly, they
hit you like tapping hammers; and if they murmur indistinctly, they madden you
because you can’t see what is causing it. You can’t see that they are holding
pins in their mouths, and that therefore they are mumbling; or that they are
half under the bed, trying to get out something which has rolled there, and
therefore the voice seems to come from somewhere beneath the earth. And,
because you cannot see these things to account for it, the variableness of
sound torments you. Ah! -- and the waking in the morning to the same blackness
as you have had all night ! I have experienced it just once, - I began my
darkness before dinner last night, -- and I assure you, Deryck, I dread
to-morrow morning. Think what it must be to wake to that always, with no prospect
of ever again seeing the sunlight! And then the meals "
" What! You keep
it on?" The doctor’s voice sounded rather strained.
" Of course,"
said Jane. "And you cannot imagine the humiliation of following your food
all round the plate, and then finding it on the table-cloth; of being quite
sure there was a last bit somewhere, and when you had given up the search and
gone on to another course, discovering it, eventually, in your lap. I do not
wonder my poor boy would not let me come to his meals. But after this I believe
he will, and I shall know exactly how to help him and how to arrange so that
very soon he will have no difficulty. Oh, Dicky, I had to do it! There was no
other way."
" Yes," said
the doctor quietly, " you had to do it." And Jane in her blindness
could not see the working of his face, as he added below his breath: "You
being you, dear, there was no other way."
"Ah, how glad I am
you realise the necessity, Deryck! I had so feared you might think it useless
or foolish. And it was now or never; because I trust -- if he forgives me --
this will be the only week-end I shall ever have to spend away from him. Boy,
do you think he will forgive me?"
It was fortunate Jane
was blind. The doctor swallowed a word, then: "Hush, dear," he said.
"You make me sigh for the duchess’s parrot. And I shall do no good here,
if I lose patience with Dalmain. Now tell me; you really never remove that
bandage?"
"Only to wash my
face," replied Jane, smiling. " I can trust myself not to peep for
two minutes. And last night I found it made my head so hot that I could not
sleep; so I slipped it off for an hour or two, but woke and put it on again
before dawn."
"And you mean to
wear it until to-morrow morning?"
Jane smiled rather
wistfully. She knew what was involved in that question.
"Until to-morrow
night, Boy," she answered gently.
"But, Jeanette,
" exclaimed the doctor, in indignant protest; "surely you will see me
before I go! My dear girl, would it not be carrying the experiment
unnecessarily far?"
"Ah no," said
Jane, leaning towards him with her pathetic bandaged eyes. " Don’t you
see, dear, you give me the chance of passing through what will in time be one
of his hardest experience, when his dearest friends will come and go, and be to
him only voice and touch; their faces unseen and but dimly remembered? Deryck,
just because this hearing arid not seeing you is so hard, I realise how it is
enriching me in what I can share with him. He must not have to say: ’Ah, but
you saw him before he left.’ I want to be able to say: ’He came and went, -- my
greatest friend, -- and I did not see him at all.’"
The doctor walked over
to the window and stood there, whistling softly. Jane knew he was fighting down
his own vexation. She waited patiently. Presently the whistling stopped and she
heard him laugh. Then he came back and sat down near her.
"You always were a
thorough old thing!" he said. "No half measures would do. I suppose I
must agree." Jane reached out for his hand. "Ah, Boy," she said,
"now you will help me. But I never before knew you so nearly
selfish."
"The ’other man’
is always a problem," said the doctor. "We male brutes, by nature,
always want to be first with all our women; not merely with the one, but with
all those in whom we consider, sometimes with egregious presumption, that we
hold a right. You see it everywhere, -- fathers towards their daughters,
brothers as regards their sisters, friends in a friendship. The ’other man,’
when he arrives, is always a pill to swallow. It is only natural, I suppose;
but it is fallen nature and therefore to be surmounted. Now let me go and
forage for your hat and coat, and take you out upon the moors. No? Why not? I
often find things for Flower, so really I know likely places in which to
search. Oh, all right! I will send Margery. But don’t be long. And you need not
be afraid of Dalmain hearing us, for I saw him just now walking briskly up and
down the terrace, with only an occasional touch of his cane against the
parapet. How much you have already accomplished! We shall talk more freely out
on the moor; and, as I march you along, we can find out tips which may be
useful when the time comes for you to lead the ’other man’ about. Only do be
careful how you come downstairs with old Margery. Think if you fell upon her,
Jane! She does make such excellent coffee !"
A DEEP peace reigned in
the library at Gleneesh. Garth and Deryck sat together and smoked in complete
fellowship, enjoying that sense of calm content which follows an excellent
dinner and a day spent in moorland air.
Jane, sitting upstairs
in her self-imposed darkness, with nothing to do but listen, fancied she could
hear the low hum of quiet voices in the room beneath, carrying on a more or
less continuous conversation.
It was a pity she could
not see them as they sat together, each looking his very best, -- Garth in the
dinner jacket which suited his slight upright figure so well; the doctor in
immaculate evening clothes of the latest cut and fashion, which he had taken
the trouble to bring, knowing Jane expected the men of her acquaintance to be
punctilious in the matter of evening dress, and little dreaming she would have,
literally, no eyes for him.
And indeed the doctor
himself was fastidious to a degree where clothes were concerned, and always
well groomed and unquestionably correct in cut and fashion, excepting in the
case of his favourite old Norfolk jacket. This he kept for occasions when he
intended to be what he called "happy and glorious," though Lady Brand
made gentle but persistent attempts to dispose of it.
The old Norfolk jacket
had walked the moors that morning with Jane. She had recognised the feel of it
as he drew her hand within his arm, and they had laughed over its many
associations. But now Simpson was folding it and putting it away, and a very
correctly clad doctor sat in an arm-chair in front of the library fire, his
long legs crossed the one over the other, his broad shoulders buried in the
depths of the chair.
Garth sat where he
could feel the warm flame of the fire, pleasant in the chill evening which
succeeded the bright spring day. His chair was placed sideways, so that he
could, with his hand, shield his face from his visitor should he wish to do so.
" Yes," Dr.
Brand was saying thoughtfully, " I can easily see that all things which
reach you in that darkness assume a different proportion and possess a greatly
enhanced value. But I think you will find, as time goes on, and you come in
contact with more people, there will be a great readjustment, and you will
become less consciously sensitive to sound and touch from others. At present
your whole nervous system is highly strung, and responds with an exaggerated
vibration to every impression made upon it. A highly strung nervous system
usually exaggerates. And the medium of sight having been taken away, the other
means of communication with the outer world, hearing and touch, draw to
themselves an overplus of nervous force, and have become painfully sensitive.
Eventually things will right themselves, and they will only be usefully keen
and acute. What was it you were going to tell me about Nurse Rosemary not
shaking hands? "
"Ah yes,"
said Garth. "But first I want to ask, is it a rule of her order, or guild,
or institution, or whatever it is to which she belongs, that the nurses should
never shake hands with their patients? "
"Not that I have
ever heard," replied the doctor.
"Well, then, it
must have been Miss Gray’s own perfect intuition as to what I want, and what I
don’t want. For from the very first she has never shaken hands, nor in any way
touched me. Even in passing across letters, and handing me things, as she does
scores of times daily, never once have I felt her fingers against mine."
"And this pleases
you? " inquired the doctor, blowing smoke rings into the air, and watching
the blind face intently.
"Ah, I am so
grateful for it," said Garth earnestly. "Do you know, Brand, when you
suggested sending me a lady nurse and secretary, I felt I could not possibly
stand having a woman touch me."
"So you
said," commented the doctor quietly.
"No! Did I? What a
bear you must have thought me."
"By no
means," said the doctor, "but a distinctly unusual patient. As a
rule, men --"
"Ah, I dare
say," Garth interposed half impatiently. " There was a time when I
should have liked a soft little hand about me. And I dare say by now I should
often enough have caught it and held it, perhaps kissed it -- who knows? I used
to do such things, lightly enough. But, Brand, when a man has known the touch
of The Woman, and when that touch has become nothing but a memory; when one is dashed
into darkness, and that memory becomes one of the few things which remain, and,
remaining, brings untold comfort, can you wonder if one fears another touch
which might in any way dim that memory, supersede it, or take away from its
utter sacredness?"
" I
understand," said the doctor slowly. " It does not come within my own
experience, but I understand. Only -- my dear boy, may I say it? -- if the One
Woman exists -- and it is excusable in your case to doubt it, because there
were so many -- surely her place should be here; her actual touch, one of the
things which remain."
"Ah, say it,"
answered Garth, lighting another cigarette. " I like to hear it said,
although as a matter of fact you might as well say that if the view from the
terrace exists, I ought to be able to see it. The view is there, right enough,
but my own deficiency keeps me from seeing it."
" In other
words," said the doctor, leaning forward and picking up the match which,
not being thrown so straight as usual, had just missed the fire; "in other
words, though She was the One Woman, you were not the One Man? "
" Yes," said
Garth bitterly, but almost beneath his breath. "I was ’a mere boy.’"
" Or you thought
you were not," continued the doctor, seeming not to have heard the last remark.
" As a matter of fact, you are always the One Man to the One Woman, unless
another is before you in the field. Only it may take time and patience to prove
it to her."
Garth sat up and turned
a face of blank surprise towards the doctor. "What an extraordinary
statement! " he said. " Do you really mean it?"
"Absolutely,"
replied the doctor in a tone of quiet conviction. " If you eliminate all
other considerations such as money, lands, tittles, wishes of friends,
attraction of exteriors -- that is to say, admiration of mere physical beauty
in one another, which is after all just a question of comparative anatomy; if,
freed of all this social and habitual environment, you could place the man and
the woman in a mental Garden of Eden, and let them face one another, stripped
of all shams and conventionalities, soul viewing soul, naked and unashamed; if
under those circumstances she is so truly his mate, that all the noblest of the
man out: ’This is the One Woman!’ then I say, so truly is he her mate, that he
cannot fail to be the One Man; only he must have the confidence required to
prove it to her. On him it bursts, as a revelation; on her it dawns slowly, as
the breaking of the day."
" Oh, my
God," murmured Garth brokenly, " it was just that! The Garden of
Eden, soul to soul, with no reservations, nothing to fear, nothing to hide. I
realised her my wife, and called her so. And the next morning she called me ’a
mere boy,’ whom she could not for a moment think of marrying. So what becomes
of your fool theory, Brand?"
" Confirmed,"
replied the doctor quietly. " Eve, afraid of the immensity of her bliss,
doubtful of herself, fearful of coming short of the marvel of his ideal of her,
fleeing from Adam, to hide among the trees of the garden. Don’t talk about fool
theories, my boy. The fool-fact was Adam, if he did not start in prompt
pursuit."
Garth sat forward, his
hands clutching the arms of his chair. That quiet, level voice was awakening
doubts as to his view of the situation, the first he had had since the moment
of turning and walking down the Shenstone village church three years ago. His
face was livid, and as the fire-light played upon it the doctor saw beads of
perspiration gleam on his forehead.
"Oh, Brand,"
he said, "I am blind. Be merciful. Things mean so terribly much in the
dark."
The doctor considered.
Could his nurses and students have seen the look on his face at that moment,
they would have said that he was performing a most critical and delicate
operation, in which a slip of the scalpel might mean death to the patient. They
would have been right; for the whole future of two people hung in the balance;
depending, in this crisis, upon the doctor’s firmness and yet delicacy of
touch. This strained white face in the firelight, with its beads of mental
agony and its appealing "I am blind," had not entered into the doctor’s
calculations. It was a view of " the other man " upon which he could
not look unmoved. But the thought of that patient figure with bandaged eyes
sitting upstairs in suspense, stretching dear helpless hands to him, steadied
the doctor’s nerve. He looked into the fire.
"You may be blind,
Dalmain, but I do not want you to be a fool," said the doctor quietly.
" Am I - was I - a
fool? " asked Garth.
"How can I
judge?" replied the doctor. "Give me a clear account of the
circumstances from your point of view, and I will give you my opinion of the
case."
His tone was so
completely dispassionate and matter -- of -- fact, that it had a calming effect
on Garth, giving him also a sense of security. The doctor might have been
speaking of a sore throat, or a tendency to sciatica.
Garth leaned back in
his chair, slipped his hand into the breast-pocket of his jacket, and touched a
letter lying there. Dare he risk it? Could he, for once, take for himself the
comfort of speaking of his trouble to a man he could completely trust, and yet
avoid the danger of betraying her identity to one who knew her so intimately?
Garth weighed this,
after the manner of a chess-player looking several moves ahead. Could the
conversation become more explicit, sufficiently so to be of use, and yet no
clue be given which would reveal Jane as the One Woman?
Had the doctor uttered
a word of pressure or suggestion, Garth would have decided for silence. But the
doctor did not speak. He leaned forward and reached the poker, mending the fire
with extreme care and method. He placed a fragrant pine log upon the springing
flame, and as he did so he whistled softly the closing bars of "Veni Creator
Spiritus."
Garth, occupied with
his own mental struggle, was, for once, oblivious to sounds from without, and
did not realise why, at this critical moment, these words should have come with
gentle insistence into his mind:
" Keep far our foes; give peace at home ; Where Thou art Guide, no
ill can come."He took them as an omen. They turned the scale. "Brand," he said, "if, as
you are so kind as to suggest, I give myself the extreme relief of confiding in
you, will you promise me never to attempt to guess at the identity of the One
Woman? "
The doctor smiled; and
the smile in his voice as he answered, added to Garth’s sense of security.
" My dear
fellow," he said, " I never guess at other people’s secrets. It is a
form of mental recreation which does not appeal to me, and which I should find
neither entertaining nor remunerative. If I know them already, I do not require
to guess them. If I do not know them, and their possessors wish me to remain in
ignorance, I would as soon think of stealing their purse as of filching their
secret."
"Ah, thanks,"
said Garth. "Personally, I do not mind what you know. But I owe it to her,
that her name should not appear."
"Undoubtedly,"
said the doctor. "Except in so far as she herself chooses to reveal it, the
One Woman’s identity should always remain a secret. Get on with your tale, old
chap. I will not interrupt."
" I will state it
as simply and as shortly as I can," began Garth. " And you will
understand that there are details of which no fellow could speak. -- I had
known her several years in a friendly way, just staying at the same houses, and
meeting at Lord’s and Henley and all the places where those in the same set do
meet. I always liked her, and always felt at my best with her, and thought no
end of her opinion, and so forth. She was a friend and a real chum to me, and
to lots of other fellows. But one never thought of love-making in connection
with her. All the silly things one says to ordinary women she would have
laughed at. If one had sent her flowers to wear, she would have put them in a
vase and wondered for whom they had really been intended. She danced well, and
rode straight; but the man she danced with had to be awfully good at it, or he
found himself being guided through the giddy maze; and the man who wanted to be
in the same field with her, must be prepared for any fence or any wall. Not
that I ever saw her in the hunting-field; her love of life and of fair play
would have kept her out of that. But I use it as a descriptive illustration. One
was always glad to meet her in a house party, though one could not have
explained why. It is quite impossible to describe her. She was just -- well,
just -- ’
The doctor saw
"just Jane" trembling on Garth’s lips, and knew how inadequate was
every adjective to express this name. He did not want the flood of Garth’s
confidences checked, so he supplied the needed words. " Just a good sort.
Yes, I quite understand. Well?"
" I had had my
infatuations, plenty of them," went on the eager young voice. "The one
thing I thought of in women was their exteriors. Beauty of all kinds -- of any
kind -- crazed me for the moment. I never wanted to marry them, but I always
wanted to paint them. Their mothers, and aunts, and other old dowagers in the
house parties used to think I meant marriage, but the girls themselves knew
better. I don’t believe a girl now walks this earth who would accuse me of
flirting. I admired their beauty, and they knew it, and they knew that was all
my admiration meant. It was a pleasant experience at the time, and, in several
instances, helped forward good marriages later on. Pauline Lister was
apportioned to me for two whole seasons, but she eventually married the man on
whose jolly old staircase I painted her. Why didn’t I come a cropper over any
of them? Because there were too many, I suppose. Also, the attraction was
skin-deep. I don’t mind telling you quite frankly: the only one whose beauty
used to cause me a real pang was Lady Brand. But when I had painted it and
shown it to the world in its perfection, I was content. I asked no more of any
woman than to paint her, and find her paintable. I could not explain this to
the husbands and mothers and chaperons, but the women themselves understood it
well enough; and as I sit here in my darkness not a memory rises up to reproach
me."
" Good boy,"
said Deryck Brand, laughing. "You were vastly misunderstood, but I believe
you."
"You see,"
resumed Garth, "that sort of thing being merely skin-deep, I went no
deeper. The only women I really knew were my mother, who died when I was
nineteen, and Margery Graem, whom I always hugged at meeting and parting, and
always shall hug until I kiss the old face in its coffin, or she straightens me
in mine. Those ties of one’s infancy and boyhood are among the closest and most
sacred life can show. Well so things were until a certain evening in June
several years ago. She -- the One Woman -- and I were in the same house party
at a lovely old place in the country. One afternoon we had been talking
intimately, but quite casually and frankly. I had no more thought of wanting to
marry her than of proposing to old Margery. Then -- something happened, -- I
must not tell you what; it would give too clear a clue to her identity. But it
revealed to me, in a few marvellous moments, the woman in her; the wife, the
mother; the strength, the tenderness; the exquisite perfection of her true,
pure soul. In five minutes there awakened in me a hunger for her which nothing
could still, which nothing ever will still, until I stand beside her in the
Golden City, where they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; and
there shall be no more darkness, or depending upon sun, moon, or candle, for
the glory of God shall lighten it; and there shall be no more sorrow, neither
shall there be any more pain, for former things shall have passed away."
The blind face shone in
the firelight. Garth’s retrospection was bringing him visions of things to
come.
The doctor sat quite
still and watched the vision fade. Then he said: "Well?"
"Well,"
continued the young voice in the shadow, with a sound in it of having dropped
back to earth and finding it a mournful place; "I never had a moment’s
doubt as to what had happened to me. I knew I loved her; I knew I wanted her; I
knew her presence made my day and her absence meant chill night; and every day
was radiant, for she was there."
Garth paused for breath
and to enjoy a moment of silent retrospection.
The doctor’s voice
broke in with a question, clear, incisive. "Was she a pretty woman; handsome,
beautiful? "
"A pretty
woman?" repeated Garth, amazed. "Good heavens, no! Handsome?
Beautiful? Well you have me there, for, ’pon my honour, I don’t know."
"I mean, would you
have wished to paint her?"
" I have painted
her," said Garth very low, a moving tenderness in his voice; "and my
two paintings of her, though done in sadness and done from memory, are the most
beautiful work I ever produced. No eye but my own has ever seen them, and now
none ever will see them, excepting those of one whom I must perforce trust to
find them for me and bring them to me for destruction."
" And that will be
--?" queried the doctor.
" Nurse Rosemary
Gray," said Garth.
The doctor kicked the
pine log, and the flames darted up merrily. " You have chosen well,"
he said, and had to make a conscious effort to keep the mirth in his face from
passing into his voice. " Nurse Rosemary will be discreet. Very good. Then
we may take it the One Woman was beautiful?"
But Garth looked
perplexed. "I do not know," he answered slowly. "I cannot see
her through the eyes of others. My vision of her, in that illuminating moment,
followed the inspired order of things, -- spirit, soul, and body. Her spirit
was so pure and perfect, her soul so beautiful, noble, and womanly, that the
body which clothed soul and spirit partook of their perfection and became
unutterably dear."
" I see,"
said the doctor, very gently. " Yes, you dear fellow, I see." (Oh,
Jane, Jane! You were blind, without a bandage, in those days!)
"Several glorious
days went by," continued Garth. " I realise now that I was living in
the glow of my own certainty that she was the One Woman. It was so clear and
sweet and wonderful to me, that I never dreamed of it not being equally clear
to her. We did a lot of music together for pure enjoyment; we talked of other
people for the fun of it; we enjoyed and appreciated each other’s views and
opinions; but we did not talk of ourselves, because we knew, -- at least I knew,
and, before God, I thought she did. Every time I saw her she seemed more grand
and perfect. I held the golden key to trifling matters not understood before.
We young fellows, who all admired her, used nevertheless to joke a bit about
her wearing collars and stocks, top boots and short skirts; whacking her leg
with a riding-whip, and stirring the fire with her toe. But after that evening,
I understood all this to be a sort of fence behind which she hid her exquisite
womanliness, because it was of a deeper quality than any man looking upon the
mere surface of her had ever fathomed or understood. And when she came trailing
down in the evening, in something rich and clinging and black, with lots of
soft old lace covering her bosom and moving with the beating of her great
tender heart; ah, then my soul rejoiced and my eyes took their fill of delight!
I saw her, as all day long I had known her to be, -- perfect in her proud,
sweet womanliness."
" Is he really
unconscious," thought the doctor, " of how unmistakable a
word-picture of Jane he is painting? "
"Very soon,"
continued Garth, "we had three days apart, and then met again at another
house, in a weekend party. One of the season’s beauties was there, with whom my
name was being freely coupled, and something she said on that subject, combined
with the fearful blankness of those three interminable days, made me resolve to
speak without delay. I asked her to come out on to the terrace that evening. We
were alone. It was a moonlight night."
A long silence. The
doctor did not break it. He knew his friend was going over in his mind all
those things of which a man does not speak to another man.
At last Garth said
simply, " I told her."
No comment from the
doctor, who was vividly reminded of Jane’s ’Then -- it happened,’ when he had
reached this point in the story. After a few moments of further silence,
steeped in the silver moonlight of reminiscence for Garth; occupied by the
doctor in a rapid piecing in of Jane’s version; the sad young voice continued:
" I thought she
understood completely. Afterwards I knew she had not understood at all. Her
actions led me to believe I was accepted, taken into her great love, even as
she was wrapped around by mine. Not through fault of hers, -- ah, no; she was
blameless throughout; but because she did not, could not, understand what any
touch of hers must mean to me. In her dear life, there had never been another
man; that much I knew by unerring instinct and by her own admission. I have
sometimes thought that she may have had an ideal in her girlish days, against
whom, in after years, she measured others, and, finding them come short, held
them at arm’s length. But, if I am right in this surmise, he must have been a
blind fool, unconscious of the priceless love which might have been his, had he
tried to win it. For I am certain that, until that night, no man’s love had
ever flamed about her; she had never felt herself enveloped in a cry which was
all one passionate, inarticulate, inexplicable, boundless need of herself. While
I thought she understood and responded, -- Heaven knows I did think it, -- she
did not in the least understand, and was only trying to be sympathetic and
kind."
The doctor stirred in
his chair, slowly crossed one leg over the other, and looked searchingly into
the blind face. He was finding these confidences of the "other man"
more trying than he had expected.
"Are you sure of
that? " he asked rather huskily.
"Quite sure,"
said Garth. "Listen. I called her-- what she was to me just then, what I
wanted her to be always, what she is forever, so far as my part goes, and will
be till death and beyond. That one word, -- no, there were two, -- those two
words made her understand. I see that now. She rose at once and put me from
her. She said I must give her twelve hours for quiet thought, and she would
come to me in the village church next morning with her answer. Brand, you may
think me a fool; you cannot think me a more egregious ass than I now think
myself; but I was absolutely certain she was mine; so sure that, when she came,
and we were alone together in the house of God, instead of going to her with
the anxious haste of suppliant and lover, I called her to me at the chancel
step as if I were indeed her husband and had the right to bid her come. She came,
and, just as a sweet formality before taking her to me, I asked for her answer.
It was this: ‘I cannot marry a mere boy."’
Garth’s voice choked in
his throat on the last word. His head was bowed in his hands. He had reached
the point where most things stopped for him; where all things had ceased
forever to be as they were before.
The room seemed
strangely silent. The eager voice had poured out into it such a flow of love
and hope and longing; such a revealing of a soul in which the true love of beauty
had created perpetual youth; of a heart held free by high ideals from all
playing with lesser loves, but rising to volcanic force and height when the
true love was found at last.
The doctor shivered at
that anticlimax, as if the chill of an empty church were in his bones. He knew
how far worse it had been than Garth had told. He knew of the cruel,
humiliating question: "How old are you? " Jane had confessed to it.
He knew how the outward glow of adoring love had faded as the mind was suddenly
turned inward to self-contemplation. He had known it all as abstract fact. Now
he saw it actually before him. He saw Jane’s stricken lover, bowed beside him
in his blindness, living again through those sights and sounds which no
merciful curtain of oblivion could ever hide or veil.
The doctor had his
faults, but they were not Peter’s. He never, under any circumstances, spoke
because he wist not what to say.
He leaned forward and
laid a hand very tenderly on Garth’s shoulder. " Poor chap," he said.
" Ah, poor old chap." And for a long while they sat thus in silence.
" SO you expressed
no opinion? explained nothing? let him go on believing that? Oh, Dicky! And you
might have said so much!"
In the quiet of the
Scotch Sabbath morning, Jane and the doctor had climbed the winding path from
the end of the terrace, which zigzagged up to a clearing amongst the pines. Two
fallen trees at a short distance from each other provided convenient seats in
full sunshine, facing a glorious view, -- down into the glen, across the
valley, and away to the purple hills beyond. The doctor had guided Jane to the
sunnier of the two trunks, and seated himself beside her. Then he had quietly
recounted practically the whole of the conversation of the previous evening.
" I expressed no
opinion. I explained nothing. I let him continue to believe what he believes,
because it is the only way to keep you on the pinnacle where he has placed you.
Let any other reason for your conduct than an almost infantine ignorance of men
and things be suggested and accepted, and down you will come, my poor Jane, and
great will be the fall. Mine shall not be the hand thus to hurl you headlong.
As you say, I might have said so much, but I might also have lived to regret
it."
"I should fall
into his arms," said Jane recklessly, "and I would sooner be there
than on a pinnacle."
"Excuse me, my
good girl," replied the doctor. "It is more likely you would fall
into the first express going south. In fact, I am not certain you would wait
for an express. I can almost see the Honourable Jane quitting yonder little
railway station, seated in an empty coal-truck. No! Don’t start up and attempt
to stride about among the pine needles," continued the doctor, pulling
Jane down beside him again. "You will only trip over a fir cone and go
headlong into the valley. It is no use forestalling the inevitable fall."
"Oh, Dicky,"
sighed Jane, putting her hand through his arm, and leaning her bandaged eyes
against the rough tweed of his shoulder; " I don’t know what has come to
you to-day. You are not kind to me. You have harrowed my poor soul by repeating
all Garth said last night; and, thanks to that terribly good memory of yours,
you have reproduced the tones of his voice in every inflection. And then,
instead of comforting me, you leave me entirely in the wrong, and completely in
the lurch."
" In the wrong --
yes," said Deryck; " in the lurch -- no. I did not say I would do
nothing to-day. I only said I could do nothing last night. You cannot take up a
wounded thing and turn it about and analyse it. When we bade each other
good-night, I told him I would think the matter over and give him my opinion
to-day. I will tell you what has happened to me if you like. I have looked into
the inmost recesses of a very rare and beautiful nature, and I have seen what
havoc a woman can work in the life of the man who loves her. I can assure you,
last night was no pastime. I woke this morning feeling as if I had,
metaphorically, been beaten black and blue."
"Then what do you
suppose I feel?" inquired Jane pathetically.
" You still feel
yourself in the right -- partly," replied Deryck. " And so long as
you think you have a particle of justification and cling to it, your case is
hopeless. It will have to be: ’I confess. Can you forgive?’ "
"But I acted for
the best," said Jane. " I thought of him before I thought of myself.
It would have been far easier to have accepted the happiness of the moment, and
chanced the future."
"That is not
honest, Jeanette. You thought of yourself first. You dared not face the
possibility of the pain to you if his love cooled or his admiration waned. When
one comes to think of it, I believe every form of human love - a mother’s only
excepted -- is primarily selfish. The best chance for Dalmain is that his
helpless blindness may awaken the mother love in you. Then self will go to the
wall."
" Ah me! "
sighed Jane. " I am lost and weary and perplexed in this bewildering
darkness. Nothing seems clear; nothing seems right. If I could see your kind
eyes, Boy, your hard voice would hurt less."
"Well, take off
the bandage and look," said the doctor.
" I will
not!" cried Jane furiously. "Have I gone through all this to fail at
the last?"
" My dear girl,
this self-imposed darkness is getting on your nerves. Take care it does not do
more harm than good. Strong remedies --"
"Hush!"
whispered Jane. " I hear footsteps."
" You can always
hear footsteps in a wood if you hearken for them," said the doctor; but he
spoke low, and then sat quiet, listening.
"I hear Garth’s
step," whispered Jane. "Oh, Dicky, go to the edge and look over. You
can see the windings of the path below."
The doctor stepped
forward quietly and looked down upon the way they had ascended. Then he came
back to Jane.
"Yes," he
said. "Fortune favours us. Dalmain is coming up the path with Simpson. He
will be here in two minutes."
"Fortune favours
us? My dear Dicky! Of all mischances ! " Jane’s hand flew to her bandage,
but the doctor stayed her just in time.
"Not at all,"
he said. "And do not fail at the last in your experiment. I ought to be
able to keep you two blind people apart. Trust me, and keep dark -- I mean, sit
still. And can you not understand why I said fortune favours us? Dalmain is
coming for my opinion on the case. You shall hear it together. It will be a
saving of time for me, and most enlightening for you to mark how he takes it.
Now keep quiet. I promise he shall not sit on your lap. But if you make a
sound, I shall have to say you are a bunny or a squirrel, and throw fir cones
at you."
The doctor rose and
sauntered round the bend of the path.
Jane sat on in
darkness.
"Hullo,
Dalmain," she heard Deryck say. "Found your way up here ? An ideal
spot. Shall we dispense with Simpson? Take my arm."
"Yes,"
replied Garth. " I was told you were up here, Brand, and followed
you."
They came round the
bend together, and out into the clearing.
"Are you alone ?
" asked Garth standing still. " I thought I heard voices."
"You did,"
replied the doctor. " I was talking to a young woman.
"What sort of
young woman?" asked Garth.
"A buxom young
person," replied the doctor, " with a decidedly touchy temper."
"Do you know her
name?"
"Jane," said
the doctor recklessly.
"Not ’Jane,’"
said Garth quickly, -- "Jean. I know her, -- my gardener’s eldest
daughter. Rather weighed down by family cares, poor girl."
"I saw she was
weighed down," said the doctor. " I did not know it was by family
cares. Let us sit on this trunk. Can you call up the view to mind? "
"Yes,"
replied Garth; " I know it so well. But it terrifies me to find how my
mental pictures are fading; all but one."
"And that is
--?" asked the doctor.
"The face of the
One Woman," said Garth in his blindness.
"Ah, my dear
fellow," said the doctor, " I have not forgotten my promise to give
you this morning my opinion on your story. I have been thinking it over
carefully, and have arrived at several conclusions. Shall we sit on this fallen
tree? Won’t you smoke? One can talk better under the influence of the fragrant
weed."
Garth took out his
cigarette case, chose a cigarette, lighted it with care, and flung the flaming
match straight on to Jane’s clasped hands.
Before the doctor could
spring up, Jane had smilingly flicked it off.
"What nerve!"
thought Deryck, with admiration. "Ninety-nine women out of a hundred would
have said ‘Ah!’ and given away the show. Really, she deserves to win."
Suddenly Garth stood
up. " I think we shall do better on the other log," he said
unexpectedly. " It is always in fuller sunshine." And he moved
towards Jane.
With a bound the doctor
sprang in front of him, seized Jane with one strong hand and drew her behind
him; then guided Garth to the very spot where she had been sitting.
"How accurately
you judge distance," he remarked, backing with Jane towards the further
trunk. Then he seated himself beside Garth in the sunshine. "Now for our
talk," said the doctor, and he said it rather breathlessly.
"Are you sure we
are alone?" asked Garth. " I seem conscious of another
presence."
"My dear
fellow," said the doctor, "is one ever alone in a wood? Countless
little presences surround us. Bright eyes peep down from the branches; furry
tails flick in and out of holes; things unseen move in the dead leaves at our
feet. If you seek solitude, shun the woods."
" Yes,"
replied Garth," I know, and I love listening to them. I meant a human
presence. Brand, I am often so tried by the sense of an unseen human presence
near me. Do you know, I could have sworn the other day that she -- the One
Woman -- came silently, looked upon me in my blindness, pitied me, as her great
tender heart would do, and silently departed."
"When was
that?" asked the doctor.
" A few days ago.
Dr. Rob had been telling us how he came across her in -- Ah! I must not say
where. Then he and Miss Gray left me alone, and in the lonely darkness and
silence I felt her eyes upon me.
"Dear boy,"
said the doctor, "you must not encourage this dread of unseen presences.
Remember, those who care for us very truly and deeply can often make us
conscious of their mental nearness, even when far away, especially if they know
we are in trouble and needing them. You must not be surprised if you are often
conscious of the nearness of the One Woman, for I believe - and I do not say it
lightly, Dalmain -- I believe her whole heart and love and life are
yours."
"Good Lord!"
exclaimed Garth, and springing up, strode forward aimlessly.
The doctor caught him
by the arm. In another moment he would have fallen over Jane’s feet.
"Sit down,
man," said the doctor, "and listen to me. You gain nothing by dashing
about in the dark in that way. I am going to prove my words. But you must give
me your calm attention. Now listen. We are confronted in this case by a
psychological problem, and one which very likely has not occurred to you. I
want you for a moment to picture the One Man and the One Woman facing each
other in the garden of Eden, or in the moonlight -- wherever it was -- if you
like better. Now will you realise this? The effect upon a man of falling in
love is to create in him a complete unconsciousness of self. On the other hand,
the effect upon a woman of being loved and sought, and of responding to that
love and seeking, is an accession of intense self-consciousness. He, longing to
win and take, thinks of her only. She, called upon to yield and give, has her
mind turned at once upon herself. Can she meet his need? Is she all he thinks
her? Will she be able to content him completely, not only now but in the long
vista of years to come? The more natural and unconscious of self she had been
before, the harder she would be hit by this sudden, overwhelming attack of
self-consciousness."
The doctor glanced at
Jane on the log six yards away. She had lifted her clasped hands and was
nodding towards him, her face radiant with relief and thankfulness.
He felt he was on the
right tack. But the blind face beside him clouded heavily, and the cloud
deepened as he proceeded.
"You see, my dear
chap, I gathered from yourself she was not of the type of feminine loveliness
you were known to admire. Might she not have feared that her appearance would,
after a while, have failed to content you?"
"No," replied
Garth with absolute finality of tone. "Such a suggestion is unworthy.
Beside, had the idea by any possibility entered her mind, she would only have
had to question me on the point. My decision would have been final; my answer
would have fully reassured her."
"Love is
blind," quoted the doctor quietly.
"They lie who say
so," cried Garth violently. " Love is so far-seeing that it sees
beneath the surface and delights in beauties unseen by other eyes."
"Then you do not
accept my theory?" asked the doctor.
"Not as an
explanation of my own trouble," answered Garth; "because I know the
greatness of her nature would have lifted her far above such a consideration.
But I do indeed agree as to the complete oblivion to self of the man in love.
How else could we ever venture to suggest to a woman that she should marry us?
Ah, Brand, when one thinks of it, -- the intrusion into her privacy; the asking
the right to touch, even her hand, at will; -- it could not be done unless the
love of her and the thought of her had swept away all thoughts of self. Looking
back upon that time I remember how completely it was so with me. And when she
said to me in the church: ’How old are you?’ -- ah, I did not tell you that
last night -- the revulsion of feeling brought about by being turned at that
moment in upon myself was so great, that my joy seemed to shrivel and die in
horror at my own unworthiness."
Silence in the wood.
The doctor felt he was playing a losing game. He dared not look at the silent
figure opposite. At last he spoke.
"Dalmain, there
are two possible solutions to your problem. Do you think it was a case of Eve
holding back in virginal shyness, expecting Adam to pursue?"
"Ah no," said
Garth emphatically. "We had gone far beyond all that. Nor could you
suggest it, did you know her. She is too honest, too absolutely straight and
true, to have deceived me. Besides, had it been so, in all these lonely years,
when she found I made no sign, she would have sent me word of what she really
meant."
"Should you have
gone to her then? " asked the doctor.
"Yes," said
Garth slowly." I should have gone and I should have forgiven, -- because
she is my own. But it could never have been the same. It would have been
unworthy of us both."
"Well,"
continued the doctor, "the other solution remains. You have admitted that
the One Woman came somewhat short of the conventional standard of beauty. Your
love of loveliness was so well known. Do you not think, during the long hours of
that night -- remember how new it was to her to be so worshipped and wanted, --
do you not think her courage failed her? She feared she might come short of
what eventually you would need in the face and figure always opposite you at
your table; and, despite her own great love and yours, she thought it wisest to
avoid future disillusion by rejecting present joy. Her very love for you would
have armed her to this decision."
The silent figure
opposite nodded, and waited with clasped hands. Deryck was pleading her cause
better than she could have pleaded it herself.
Silence in the woods.
All nature seemed to hush and listen for the answer.
Then: --
"No," said Garth’s young voice unhesitatingly. " In that case
she would have told me her fear, and I should have reassured her immediately.
Your suggestion is unworthy of my belovéd."
The wind sighed in the
trees. A cloud passed before the sun. The two who sat in darkness, shivered and
were silent.
Then the doctor spoke.
"My dear boy," he said, and a deep tenderness was in his voice;
"I must maintain my unalterable belief that to the One Woman you are still
the One Man. In your blindness her rightful place is by your side. Perhaps even
now she is yearning to be here. Will you tell me her name, and give me leave to
seek her out, hear from herself her version of the story; and, if it be as I
think, bring her to you, to prove, in your affliction, her love and
tenderness?"
"Never! "
said Garth. "Never, while life shall last! Can you not see that if when I
had sight, and fame, and all heart could desire, I could not win her love, what
she might feel for me now, in my helpless blindness, could be but pity? And
pity from her I could never accept. If I was ’a mere boy’ three years ago, I am
’ a mere blind man’ now, an object for kind commiseration. If indeed you are
right, and she mistrusted my love and my fidelity, it is now out of my power
forever to prove her wrong and to prove myself faithful. But I will not allow
the vision of my beloved to be dimmed by these suggestions. For her completion,
she needed so much more than I could give. She refused me because I was not
fully worthy. I prefer it should be so. Let us leave it at that."
" It leaves you to
loneliness," said the doctor sadly.
" I prefer
loneliness," replied Garth’s young voice, "to disillusion. Hark! I
hear the first gong, Brand. Margery will be grieved if we keep her Sunday
dishes waiting."
He stood up and turned
his sightless face towards the view.
"Ah, how well I
know it," he said. "When Miss Gray and I sit up here, she tells me
all she sees, and I tell her what she does not see, but what I know is there.
She is keen on art, and on most of the things I care about. I must ask for an
arm, Brand, though the path is wide and good. I cannot risk a tumble. I have come
one or two awful croppers, and I promised Miss Gray --- The path is wide. Yes,
we can walk two abreast, three abreast if necessary. It is well we had this
good path made. It used to be a steep scramble."
" Three
abreast," said the doctor. " So we could -if necessary." He
stepped back and raised Jane from her seat, drawing her cold hand through his
left arm. "Now, my dear fellow, my right arm will suit you best; then you
can keep your stick in your right hand."
And thus they started
down through the wood, on that lovely Sabbath morn of early summer; and the
doctor walked erect between those two severed hearts, uniting, and yet dividing
them.
Just once Garth paused
and listened. " I seem to hear another footstep," he said,
"beside yours and mine."
"The wood is full
of footsteps," said the doctor, "just as the heart is full of echoes.
If you stand still and listen, you can hear what you will in either."
"Then let us not
stand still," said Garth, "for in old days, if I was late for lunch,
Margery used to spank me."
"IT will be
absolutely impossible, Miss Gray, for me ever to tell you what I think of this
that you have done for my sake."
Garth stood at the open
library window. The morning sunlight poured into the room. The air was fragrant
with the scent of flowers, resonant with the songs of birds. As he stood there
in the sunshine, a new look of strength and hopefulness was apparent in every
line of his erect figure. He held out eager hands towards Nurse Rosemary, but
more as an expression of the outgoing of his appreciation and gratitude than
with any expectation of responsive hands being placed within them.
" And here was I,
picturing you having a gay weekend, and wondering where, and who your friends in
this neighbourhood could be. And all the while you were sitting blindfold in
the room over my head. Ah, the goodness of it is beyond words! But did you not
feel somewhat of a deceiver, Miss Gray? "
She always felt that --
poor Jane. So she readily answered: "Yes. And yet I told you I was not
going far. And my friends in the neighbourhood were Simpson and Margery, who
aided and abetted. And it was true to say I was going, for was I not going into
darkness? and it is a different world from the land of light."
"Ah, how true that
is! " cried Garth. " And how difficult to make people understand the
loneliness of it, and how they seem suddenly to arrive close to one from
another world; stooping from some distant planet, with sympathetic voice and friendly
touch; and then away they go to another sphere, leaving one to the immensity of
solitude in Sightless Land."
"Yes," agreed
Nurse Rosemary, "and you almost dread the coming, because the going makes
the darkness darker, and the loneliness more lonely."
"Ah, so you
experienced that? " said Garth. "Do you know, now you have week-ended
in Sightless Land, I shall not feel it such a place of solitude. At every turn
I shall be able to say: ‘A dear and faithful friend has been here."’
He laughed a laugh of
such almost boyish pleasure, that all the mother in Jane’s love rose up and
demanded of her one supreme effort. She looked at the slight figure in white
flannels, leaning against the window frame, so manly, so beautiful still, and
yet so helpless and so needing the wealth of tenderness which was hers to give.
Then, standing facing him, she opened her arms, as if the great preparedness of
that place of rest so close to him must, magnet-like, draw him to her; and
standing thus in the sunlight, Jane spoke.
Was she beautiful? Was
she paintable? Would a man grow weary of such a look turned on him, of such
arms held out? Alas! Too late! On that point no lover shall ever be able to
pass judgment. That look is for one man alone. He only will ever bring it to
that loving face. And he cannot pronounce upon its beauty in voice of rapturous
content. He cannot judge. He cannot see. He is blind!
"Mr. Dalmain,
there are many smaller details; but before we talk of those I want to tell you
the greatest of all the lessons I learned in Sightless Land." Then,
conscious that her emotion was producing in her voice a resonant depth which
might remind him too vividly of notes in "The Rosary," she paused,
and resumed in the high, soft edition of her own voice which it had become
second nature to her to use as Nurse Rosemary: "Mr. Dalmain, it seems to
me I learned to understand how that which is loneliness unspeakable to one
might be Paradise of a very perfect kind for two. I realised that there might
be circumstances in which the dark would become a very wonderful meeting-place
for souls. If I loved a man who lost his sight, I should be glad to have mine
in order to be eyes for him when eyes were needed; just as, were I rich and he
poor, I should value my money simply as a thing which might be useful to him.
But I know the daylight would often be a trial to me, because it would be
something he could not share; and when evening came, I should long to say: ‘Let
us put out the lights and shut away the moonlight and sit together in the sweet
soft darkness, which is more uniting than the light."
While Jane was
speaking, Garth paled as he listened, and his face grew strangely set. Then, as
if under a reaction of feeling, a boyish flush spread to the very roots of his
hair. He visibly shrank from the voice which was saying these things to him. He
fumbled with his right hand for the orange cord which would guide him to his
chair.
" Nurse
Rosemary," he said, and at the tone of his voice Jane’s outstretched arms
dropped to her sides; " it is kind of you to tell me all these beautiful
thoughts which came to you in the darkness. But I hope the man who is happy
enough to possess your love, or who is going to be fortunate enough to win it,
will neither be so unhappy nor so unfortunate as to lose his sight. It will be
better for him to live with you in the light, than to be called upon to prove
the kind way in which you would be willing to adapt yourself to his darkness.
How about opening our letters?" He slipped his hand along the orange cord
and walked over to his chair.
Then, with a sense of
unutterable dismay, Jane saw what she had done. She had completely forgotten
Nurse Rosemary, using her only as a means of awakening in Garth an
understanding of how much her -- Jane’s -- love might mean to him in his
blindness. She had forgotten that, to Garth, Nurse Rosemary’s was the only
personality which counted in this conversation; she, who had just given him
such a proof of her interest and devotion. And -- O poor dear Garth! O bold,
brazen Nurse Rosemary! -- he very naturally concluded she was making love to
him. Jane felt herself between Scylla and Charybdis, and she took a very prompt
and characteristic plunge.
She came across to her
place on the other side of the small table and sat down. " I believe it
was the thought of him made me realise this," she said; "but just now
I and my young man have fallen out. He does not even know I am here."
Garth unbent at once,
and again that boyish heightening of colour indicated his sense of shame at
what he had imagined.
"Ah, Miss
Gray," he said eagerly, "you will not think it impertinent or
intrusive on my part, but do you know I have wondered sometimes whether there
was a happy man."
Nurse Rosemary laughed.
"Well, we can’t call him a happy man just now," she said, "so
far as his thoughts of me are concerned. My whole heart is his, if he could
only be brought to believe it. But a misunderstanding has grown up between us, --
my fault entirely, -- and he will not allow me to put it right."
"What a
fool!" cried Garth. "Are you and he engaged?"
Nurse Rosemary
hesitated. "Well -- not exactly engaged," she said, "though it
practically amounts to that. Neither of us would give a thought to any one
else."
Garth knew there was a
class of people whose preliminary step to marriage was called " keeping
company," a stage above the housemaid’s " walking out," both
expressions being exactly descriptive of the circumstances of the case; for, --
whereas pretty Phyllis and her swain go walking out of an evening in by-ways
and between hedges, or along pavements and into the parks, -- these keep each
other company in the parlours and arbours of their respective friends and
relations. Yet, somehow, Garth had never thought of Nurse Rosemary as belonging
to any other class than his own. Perhaps this ass of a fellow, whom he already
cordially disliked, came of a lower stratum; or perhaps the rules of her
nursing guild forbade a definite engagement, but allowed "an
understanding." Anyway the fact remained that the kind-hearted, clever,
delightful little lady, who had done so much for him, had "a young
man" of her own; and this admitted fact lifted a weight from Garth’s mind.
He had been so afraid lately of not being quite honest with her and with
himself. She had become so necessary to him, nay, so essential, and by her
skill and devotion had won so deep a place in his gratitude. Their relation was
of so intimate a nature, their companionship so close and continuous; and into
this rather ideal state of things had heavily trodden Dr. Rob the other day
with a suggestion. Garth, alone with him, had been explaining how indispensable
Miss Gray had become to his happiness and comfort, and how much he dreaded a
recall from her matron.
" I fear they do
not let them go on indefinitely at one case; but perhaps Sir Deryck can arrange
that this should be an exception," said Garth.
" Oh, hang the
matron, and blow Sir Deryck," said Dr. Rob breezily. " If you want
her as a permanency, make sure of her. Marry her, my boy! I’ll warrant she’d
have you! "
Thus trod Dr. Rob, with
heavily nailed boots, upon the bare toes of a delicate situation.
Garth tried to put the
suggestion out of his mind and failed. He began to notice thoughts and plans of
Nurse Rosemary’s for his benefit, which so far exceeded her professional duties
that it seemed as if there must be behind them the promptings of a more tender
interest. He put the thought away again and again, calling Dr. Rob an old fool,
and himself a conceited ass. But again and again there came about him, with
Nurse Rosemary’s presence, the subtile surrounding atmosphere of a watchful
love.
Then, one night, he
faced and fought a great temptation.
After all why should he
not do as Dr. Rob suggested? Why not marry this charming, capable, devoted
nurse, and have her constantly about him in his blindness? She did not consider
him " a mere boy." . . . What had he to offer her? A beautiful home,
every luxury, abundant wealth, a companionship she seemed to find congenial . .
. . But then the Tempter overreached himself, for he whispered: "And the
voice would be always Jane’s. You have never seen the nurse’s face; you never
will see it. You can go on putting to the voice the face and form you adore.
You can marry the little nurse, and go on loving Jane." . . . Then Garth
cried out in horror: "Avaunt, Satan! " and the battle was won.
But it troubled his
mind lest by any chance her peace of heart should be disturbed through him. So
it was with relief, and yet with an unreasonable smouldering jealousy, that he
heard of the young man to whom she was devoted. And now it appeared she was
unhappy through her young man, just as he was unhappy through -- no, because of
-- Jane.
A sudden impulse came
over him to do away forever with the thought which in his own mind had lately
come between them, and to establish their intimacy on an even closer and firmer
basis, by being absolutely frank with her on the matter.
" Miss Gray,"
he said, leaning towards her with that delightful smile of boyish candour which
many women had found irresistible; "it is good of you to have told me
about yourself; and, although I confess to feeling unreasonably jealous of the
fortunate fellow who possesses your whole heart, I am glad he exists, because
we all miss something unless we have in our lives the wonderful experience of
the One Woman or the One Man. And I want to tell you something, dear sweet
friend of mine, which closely touches you and me; only, before I do so, put
your hand in mine, that I may realise you in a closer intimacy than heretofore.
You, who have been in Sightless Land, know how much a hand clasp means down
here."
Garth stretched his
hand across the table, and his whole attitude was tense with expectation.
" I cannot do
that, Mr. Dalmain," said Nurse Rosemary, in a voice which shook a little.
" I have burned my hands. Oh, not seriously. Do not look so distressed.
Just a lighted match. Yes; while I was blind. Now tell me the thing which
touches you and me."
Garth withdrew his hand
and clasped both around his knee. He leaned back in his chair, his face turned
upwards. There was upon it an expression so pure, the exaltation of a spirit so
lifted above the temptations of the lower nature, that Jane’s eyes filled with
tears as she looked at him. She realised what his love for her, supplemented by
the discipline of suffering, had done for her lover.
He began to speak
softly, not turning towards her.
"Tell me," he
said, "is he -- very much to you? "
Jane’s eyes could not
leave the dear face and figure in the chair. Jane’s emotion trembled in Nurse
Rosemary’s voice.
"He is all the
world to me," she said.
"Does he love you
as you deserve to be loved? "
Jane bent and laid her
lips on the table where his outstretched hand had rested. Then Nurse Rosemary
answered: "He loved me far, far more than I ever deserved."
" Why do you say ’loved’?
Is not ’loves’ the truer tense? "
"Alas, no! "
said Nurse Rosemary, brokenly; "for I fear I have lost his love by my own
mistrust of it and my own wrong-doing."
" Never! "
said Garth. "’ Love never faileth.’ It may for a time appear to be dead,
even buried. But the Easter morn soon dawns, and lo, Love ariseth! Love
grieved, is like a bird with wet wings. It cannot fly; it cannot rise. It hops
about upon the ground, chirping anxiously. But every flutter shakes away more
drops; every moment in the sunshine is drying the tiny feathers; and very soon
it soars to the tree top, all the better for the bath, which seemed to have
robbed it of the power to rise."
" Ah, -- if my
beloved could but dry his wings," murmured Nurse Rosemary. "But I
fear I did more than wet them. I clipped them. Worse still, -- I broke
them."
"Does he know you
feel yourself so in the wrong?" Garth asked the question very gently.
" No,"
replied Nurse Rosemary. " He will give me no chance to explain, and no
opportunity to tell him how he wrongs himself and me by the view he now takes
of my conduct."
" Poor girl!
" said Garth in tones of sympathy and comprehension. " My own
experience has been such a tragedy that I can feel for those whose course of
true love does not run smooth. But take my advice, Miss Gray. Write him a full
confession. Keep nothing back. Tell him just how it all happened. Any man who
truly loves would believe, accept your explanation, and be thankful. Only, I
hope he would not come tearing up here and take you away from me!"
Jane smiled through a
mist of tears.
" If he wanted me,
Mr. Dalmain, I should have to go to him," said Nurse Rosemary.
"How I dread the
day," continued Garth, "when you will come and say tome : ’I have to
go.’ And, do you know, I have sometimes thought -- you have done so much for me
and become so much to me -I have sometimes thought -- I can tell you frankly
now -- it might have seemed as if there were a very obvious way to try to keep
you always. You are so immensely worthy of all a man could offer, of all the
devotion a man could give. And because, to one so worthy, I never could have
offered less than the best, I want to tell you that in my heart I hold shrined
forever one belovéd face. All others are gradually fading. Now, in my
blindness, I can hardly recall clearly the many lovely faces I have painted and
admired. All are more or less blurred and indistinct. But this one face grows
clearer, thank God, as the darkness deepens. It will be with me through life, I
shall see it in death, the face of the woman I love. You said ’loved’ of your
lover, hesitating to be sure of his present state of heart. I can neither say ’love’
nor ’loved’ of my beloved. She never loved me. But I love her with a love which
makes it impossible for me to have any ‘best’ to offer to another woman. If I
could bring myself, from unworthy motives and selfish desires, to ask another
to wed me, I should do her an untold wrong. For her unseen face would be
nothing to me; always that one and only face would be shining in my darkness.
Her voice would be dear, only in so far as it reminded me of the voice of the
woman I love. Dear friend, if you ever pray for me, pray that I may never be so
base as to offer to any woman such a husk as marriage with me would mean."
"But --" said
Nurse Rosemary. "She -- she who has made it a husk for others; she who
might have the finest of the wheat, the full corn in the ear, herself? "
"She," said
Garth, "has refused it. It was neither fine enough nor full enough. It was
not worthy. O my God, little girl --! What it means, to appear inadequate to
the woman one loves!"
Garth dropped his face
between his hands with a groan.
Silence unbroken
reigned in the library.
Suddenly Garth began to
speak, low and quickly, without lifting his head.
"Now," he
said, "now I feel it, just as I told Brand, and never so clearly before,
excepting once, when I was alone. Ah, Miss Gray! Don’t move! Don’t stir! But
look all round the room and tell me whether you see anything. Look at the
window. Look at the door. Lean forward and look behind the screen. I cannot
believe we are alone. I will not believe it. I am being deceived in my
blindness. And yet -- I am not deceived. I am conscious of the presence of the
woman I love. Her eyes are fixed upon me in pity, sorrow, and compassion. Her
grief at my woe is so great that it almost enfolds me, as I had dreamed her
love would do . . . . O my God! She is so near -- and it is so terrible,
because I do not wish her near. I would sooner a thousand miles were between us
-- and I am certain there are not many yards! . . . Is it psychic? or is it
actual? or am I going mad? . . . Miss Gray! You would not lie to me. No
persuasion or bribery or confounded chicanery could induce you to deceive me on
this point. Look around, for God’s sake, and tell me! Are we alone? And if not,
who is in the room besides you and me?"
Jane had been sitting
with her arms folded upon the table, her yearning eyes fixed upon Garth’s bowed
head. When he wished her a thousand miles away she buried her face upon them.
She was so near him that had Garth stretched out his right hand again, it would
have touched the heavy coils of her soft hair. But Garth did not raise his
head, and Jane still sat with her face buried.
There was silence in
the library for a few moments after Garth’s question and appeal. Then Jane
lifted her face.
"There is no one
in the room, Mr. Dalmain," said Nurse Rosemary, " but you -- and
me."
"SO you enjoy
motoring, Miss Gray? "
They had been out in
the motor together for the first time, and were now having tea together in the
library, also for the first time; and, for the first time, Nurse Rosemary was
pouring out for her patient. This was only Monday afternoon, and already her
week-end experience had won for her many new privileges.
" Yes, I like it,
Mr. Dalmain; particularly in this beautiful air."
"Have you had a
case before in a house where they kept a motor? " Nurse Rosemary
hesitated. " Yes, I have stayed in houses where they had motors, and I
have been in Dr. Brand’s. He met me at Charing Cross once with his electric
brougham."
" Ah, I
know," said Garth. "Very neat. On your way to a case, or returning
from a case? " Nurse Rosemary smiled, then bit her lip. "To a
case," she replied quite gravely. " I was on my way to his house to
talk it over and receive instructions."
" It must be
splendid working under such a fellow as Brand," said Garth; "and yet
I am certain most of the best things you do are quite your own idea. For
instance, he did not suggest your week-end plan, did he? I thought not. Ah, the
difference it has made! Now tell me. When we were motoring we never slowed up
suddenly to pass anything, or tooted to make something move out of the way,
without your having already told me what we were going to pass or what was in
the road a little way ahead. It was: ’We shall be passing a hay cart at the
next bend; there will be just room, but we shall have to slow up’; or, ‘An old
red cow is in the very middle of the road a little way on. I think she will
move if we hoot.’ Then, when the sudden slow down and swerve came, or the toot
toot of the horn, I knew all about it and was not taken unawares. Did you know
how trying it is in blindness to be speeding along and suddenly alter pace
without having any idea why, or swerve to one side and not know what one has
just been avoiding? This afternoon our spin was pure pleasure, because not once
did you let these things happen. I knew all that was taking place, as soon as I
should have known it had I had my sight."
Jane pressed her hand
over her bosom. Ah, how able she was always to fill her boy’s life with pure
pleasure. How little of the needless suffering of the blind should ever be his
if she won the right to be beside him always.
"Well, Mr.
Dalmain," said Nurse Rosemary, " I motored to the station with Sir
Deryck yesterday afternoon, and I noticed all you describe. I have never before
felt nervous in a motor, but I realised yesterday how largely that is owing to
the fact that all the time one keeps an unconscious look-out; measuring
distances, judging speed, and knowing what each turn of the handle means. So
when we go out you must let me be eyes to you in this."
"How good you are!
" said Garth, gratefully. "And did you see Sir Deryck off? "
" No. I did not
see Sir Deryck at all. But he said good-bye, and I felt the kind, strong grip
of his hand as he left me in the car. And I sat there and heard his train start
and rush away into the distance."
"Was it not hard
to you to let him come and go and not to see his face? "
Jane smiled. "Yes,
it was hard," said Nurse Rosemary; "but I wished to experience that
hardness."
" It gives one an
awful blank feeling, doesn’t it?" said Garth.
"Yes. It almost
makes one wish the friend had not come."
" Ah -- "
There was a depth of contented comprehension in Garth’s sigh; and the brave
heart, which had refused to lift the bandage to the very last, felt more than
recompensed.
" Next time I
reach the Gulf of Partings in Sightless Land," continued Garth, "I
shall say: ’A dear friend has stood here for my sake.’ "
"Oh, and one’s
meals," said Nurse Rosemary, laughing. "Are they not grotesquely
trying?"
"Yes, of course; I
had forgotten you would understand all that now. I never could explain to you
before why I must have my meals alone. You know the hunt and chase?"
"Yes," said
Nurse Rosemary, "and it usually resolves itself into ’gone away,’ and
turns up afterwards unexpectedly! But, Mr. Dalmain, I have thought out several
ways of helping so much in that and making it all quite easy. If you will
consent to have your meals with me at a small table, you will see how smoothly
all will work. And later on, if I am still here, when you begin to have
visitors, you must let me sit at your left, and all my little ways of helping
would be so unobtrusive, that no one would notice."
"Oh, thanks,"
said Garth. "I am immensely grateful. I have often been reminded of a
silly game we used to play at Overdene, at dessert, when we were a specially
gay party. Do you know the old Duchess of Meldrum? Or anyway, you may have
heard of her? Ah yes, of course, Sir Deryck knows her. She called him in once
to her macaw. She did not mention the macaw on the telephone, and Sir Deryck,
thinking he was wanted for the duchess, threw up an important engagement and
went immediately. Luckily she was at her town house. She would have sent just
the same had she been at Overdene. I wish you knew Overdene. The duchess gives
perfectly delightful ‘best parties,’ in which all the people who really enjoy
meeting one another find themselves together, and are well fed and well housed
and well mounted, and do exactly as they like; while the dear old duchess
tramps in and out, with her queer beasts and birds, shedding a kindly and
exciting influence wherever she goes. Last time I was there she used to let out
six Egyptian jerboas in the drawing-room every evening after dinner, awfully
jolly little beggars, like miniature kangaroos. They used to go skipping about
on their hind legs, frightening some of the women into fits by hiding under
their gowns, and making young footmen drop trays of coffee cups. The last
importation is a toucan, -- a South American bird, with a beak like a banana,
and a voice like an old sheep in despair. But Tommy, the scarlet macaw, remains
prime favourite, and I must say he is clever and knows more than you would
think.
" Well, at
Overdene we used to play a silly game at dessert with muscatels. We each put
five raisins at intervals round our plates, then we shut our eyes and made jabs
at them with forks. Whoever succeeded first in spiking and eating all five was
the, winner. The duchess never would play. She enjoyed being umpire, and
screaming at the people who peeped. Miss Champion and I -- she is the duchess’s
niece, you know -- always played fair, and we nearly always made a dead heat of
it."
"Yes," said
Nurse Rosemary, " I know that game. I thought of it at once when I had my
blindfold meals."
"Ah," cried
Garth, "had I known, I would not have let you do it!"
"I knew that,"
said Nurse Rosemary. "That was why I week-ended."
Garth passed his cup to
be refilled, and leaned forward confidentially.
"Now," he
said, " I can venture to tell you one of my minor trials. I am always so
awfully afraid of there being a fly in things. Ever since I was a small boy I
have had such a horror of inadvertently eating flies. When I was about six, I
heard a lady visitor say to my mother: ‘Oh, one has to swallow a fly about once
a year! I have just swallowed mine, on the way here!’ This terrible idea of an
annual fly took possession of my small mind. I used to be thankful when it
happened, and I got it over. I remember quickly finishing a bit of bread in
which I had seen signs of legs and wings, feeling it was an easy way of taking
it and I should thus be exempt for twelve glad months; but I had to run up and
down the terrace with clenched hands while I swallowed it. And when I
discovered the fallacy of the annual fly, I was just as particular in my dread
of an accidental one. I don’t believe I ever sat down to sardines on toast at a
restaurant without looking under the toast for my bugbear, though as I lifted
it I felt rather like the old woman who always looks under the bed for a
burglar. Ah, but since the accident this foolishly small thing has made me
suffer! I cannot say: ‘Simpson, are you sure there is not a fly in this soup?’
Simpson would say: ‘No-sir; no fly-sir,’ and would cough behind his hand, and I
could never ask him again."
Nurse Rosemary leaned
forward and placed his cup where he could reach it easily, just touching his
right hand with the edge of the saucer. "Have all your meals with
me," she said, in a tone of such complete understanding, that it was
almost a caress; "and I can promise there shall never be any flies in
anything. Could you not trust my eyes for this? "
And Garth replied, with
a happy, grateful smile: "I could trust your kind and faithful eyes for
anything. Ah! and that reminds me: I want to intrust to them a task I could
confide to no one else. Is it twilight yet, Miss Gray, or is an hour of
daylight left to us? "
Nurse Rosemary glanced
out of the window and looked at her watch. " We ordered tea early,"
she said, "because we came in from our drive quite hungry. It is not five
o’clock yet, and a radiant afternoon. The sun sets at half past seven."
"Then the light is
good," said Garth. "Have you finished tea? The sun will be shining in
at the west window of the studio. You know my studio at the top of the house?
You fetched the studies of Lady Brand from there. I dare say you noticed stacks
of canvases in the corners. Some are unused; some contain mere sketches or
studies; some are finished pictures. Miss Gray, among the latter are two which
I am most anxious to identify and to destroy. I made Simpson guide me up the
other day and leave me there alone. And I tried to find them by touch; but I
could not be sure, and I soon grew hopelessly confused amongst all the
canvases. I did not wish to ask Simpson’s help, because the subjects are --
well, somewhat unusual, and if he found out I had destroyed them it might set
him wondering and talking, and one hates to awaken curiosity in a servant. I
could not fall back on Sir Deryck because he would have recognised the
portraits. The principal figure is known to him. When I painted those pictures
I never dreamed of any eye but my own seeing them. So you, my dear and trusted
secretary, are the one person to whom I can turn. Will you do what I ask? And
will you do it now? "
Nurse Rosemary pushed
back her chair. "Why of course, Mr. Dalmain. I am here to do anything and
everything you may desire; and to do it when you desire it."
Garth took a key from
his waistcoat pocket, and laid it on the table. "There is the studio
latch-key. I think the canvases I want are in the corner furthest from the
door, behind a yellow Japanese screen. They are large -- five feet by three and
a half. If they are too cumbersome for you to bring down, lay them face to
face, and ring for Simpson. But do not leave him alone with them."
Nurse Rosemary picked
up the key, rose, and went over to the piano, which she opened. Then she
tightened the purple cord, which guided Garth from his chair to the instrument.
" Sit and
play," she said, " while I am upstairs, doing your commission. But
just tell me one thing. You know how greatly your work interests me. When I
find the pictures, is it your wish that I give them a mere cursory glance, just
sufficient for identification; or may I look at them, in the beautiful studio
light? You can trust me to do whichever you desire."
The artist in Garth
could not resist the wish to have his work seen and appreciated. " You may
look at them of course, if you wish," he said. "They are quite the
best work I ever did, though I painted them wholly from memory. That is -- I mean,
that used to be -- a knack of mine. And they are in no sense imaginary. I
painted exactly what I saw -- at least, so far as the female face and figure
are concerned. And they make the pictures. The others are mere
accessories."
He stood up, and went to
the piano. His fingers began to stray softly amongst the harmonies of the
" Veni."
Nurse Rosemary moved
towards the door. "How shall I know them? " she asked, and waited.
The chords of the
"Veni" hushed to a murmur. Garth’s voice from the piano came clear
and distinct, but blending with the harmonies as if he were reciting to music.
" A woman and a
man . . . alone, in a garden -but the surroundings are only indicated. She is
in evening dress; soft, black., and trailing; with lace at her breast. It is
called: ’The Wife’"
" Yes? "
"The same woman;
the same scene; but without the man, this time. No need to paint the man; for
now -- visible or invisible -- to her, he is always there. In her arms she
holds" -the low murmur of chords ceased; there was perfect silence in the
room -- "a little child. It is called: ’The Mother.’"
The " Veni "
burst forth in an unrestrained upbearing of confident petition:
"Keep far our
foes; give peace at home" -- and the door closed behind Nurse Rosemary.
JANE mounted to the
studio; unlocked the door; and, entering, closed it after her.
The evening sun shone
through a western window, imparting an added richness to the silk screens and
hangings; the mauve wistaria of a Japanese embroidery; or the golden dragon of
China on a deep purple ground, wound up in its own interminable tail, and
showing rampant claws in unexpected places.
Several times already
Jane had been into Garth’s studio, but always to fetch something for which he
waited eagerly below; and she had never felt free to linger. Margery had a
duplicate key; for she herself went up every day to open the windows, dust
tenderly all special treasures; and keep it exactly as its owner had liked it
kept, when his quick eyes could look around it. But this key was always on
Margery’s bunch; and Jane did not like to ask admission, and risk a possible
refusal.
Now, however, she could
take her own time; and she seated herself in one of the low and very deep wicker
lounge-chairs, comfortably upholstered; so exactly fitting her proportions, and
supporting arms, knees, and head, just rightly, that it seemed as if all other
chairs would in future appear inadequate, owing to the absolute perfection of
this one. Ah, to be just that to her belovéd! To so fully meet his need, at
every point, that her presence should be to him always a source of strength,
and rest, and consolation.
She looked around the
room. It was so like Garth; every detail perfect; every shade of colour
enhancing another, and being enhanced by it. The arrangements for regulating
the light, both from roof and windows; the easels of all kinds and sizes; clean
bareness, where space, and freedom from dust, were required-, the luxurious
comfort round the fireplace, and in nooks and corners; all were so perfect. And
the plain brown wall-paper, of that beautiful quiet shade which has in it no
red, and no yellow; a clear nut-brown. On an easel near the further window
stood an unfinished painting; palette and brushes beside it, just as Garth had
left them when he went out on that morning, nearly three months ago; and,
vaulting over a gate to protect a little animal from unnecessary pain, was
plunged himself into such utter loss and anguish.
Jane rose, and took
stock of all his quaint treasures on the mantel-piece. Especially her mind was
held and fascinated by a stout little bear in brass, sitting solidly yet
jauntily on its haunches, its front paws clasping a brazen pole; its head
turned sideways; its small, beady, eyes, looking straight before it. The chain,
from its neck to the pole denoted captivity and possible fierceness. Jane had
no doubt its head would lift, and its body prove a receptacle for matches; but
she felt equally certain that, should she lift its head and look, no matches
would be within it. This little bear was unmistakably Early Victorian; a friend
of childhood’s days; and would not be put to common uses. She lifted the head.
The body was empty. She replaced it gently on the mantel-piece, and realised
that she was deliberately postponing an ordeal which must be faced.
Deryck had told her of
Garth’s pictures of the One Woman. Garth, himself, had now told her even more.
But the time had come when she must see them for herself. It was useless to
postpone the moment. She looked towards the yellow screen.
Then she walked over to
the western window, and threw it wide open. The sun was dipping gently towards
the purple hills. The deep blue of the sky began to pale, as a hint of lovely
rose crept into it. Jane looked heavenward and, thrusting her hands deeply into
her pockets, spoke aloud. "Before God" she said, -- "in case I
am never able to say or think it again, I will say it now -- I believe I was
right. I considered Garth’s future happiness, and I considered my own. I
decided as I did for both our sakes, at terrible cost to present joy. But,
before God, I believed I was right; and I believe it still." Jane never
said it again.
BEHIND the yellow
screen, Jane found a great confusion of canvases, and unmistakable evidence of
the blind hands which had groped about in a vain search, and then made
fruitless endeavours to sort and rearrange. Very tenderly, Jane picked up each
canvas from the fallen heap; turning it the right way up, and standing it with
its face to the wall. Beautiful work, was there; some of it finished; some,
incomplete. One or two faces she knew, looked out at her in their pictured
loveliness. But the canvases she sought were not there.
She straightened
herself, and looked around. In a further corner, partly concealed by a Cairo
screen, stood another pile. Jane went to them.
Almost immediately she
found the two she wanted; larger than the rest, and distinguishable at a glance
by the soft black gown of the central figure.
Without giving them
more than a passing look, she carried them over to the western window, and
placed them in a good light. Then she drew up the chair in which she had been
sitting; took the little brass bear in her left hand, as a talisman to help her
through what lay before her; turned the second picture with its face to the
easel; and sat down to the quiet contemplation of the first.
The noble figure of a
woman, nobly painted, was the first impression which leapt from eye to brain.
Yes. nobility came first, in stately pose, in uplifted brow, in breadth of
dignity. Then -- as you marked the grandly massive figure, too
well-proportioned to be cumbersome, but large and full, and amply developed;
the length of limb; the firmly planted feet; the large capable hands, -- you
realised the second impression conveyed by the picture, to be strength; --
strength to do; strength to be; strength to continue. Then you looked into the
face. And there you were confronted with a great surprise. The third thought
expressed by the picture was Love -- love, of the highest, holiest, most ideal,
kind; yet, withal, of the most tenderly human order; and you found it in that
face.
It was a large face,
well proportioned to the figure. It had no pretensions whatever to ordinary
beauty. The features were good; there was not an ugly line about them; and yet,
each one just missed the beautiful; and the general effect was of a
good-looking plainness; unadorned, unconcealed, and unashamed. But the longer
you looked, the more desirable grew the face; the less you noticed its
negations; the more you admired its honesty, its purity, its immense strength
of purpose; its noble simplicity. You took in all these outward details; you
looked away for a moment, to consider them; you looked back to verify them; and
then the miracle happened. Into the face had stolen the "light that never
was on sea or land." It shone from the quiet grey eyes, -- as, over the
head of the man who knelt before her, they looked out of the picture -- with an
expression of the sublime surrender of a woman’s whole soul to an emotion
which, though it sways and masters her, yet gives her the power to be more
truly herself than ever before. The startled joy in them ; the marvel at a
mystery not yet understood; the passionate tenderness; and yet the almost
divine compassion for the unrestrained violence of feeling, which had flung the
man to his knees, and driven him to the haven of her breast; the yearning to
soothe, and give, and content; -- all these were blended into a look of such
exquisite sweetness, that it brought tears to the eyes of the beholder.
The woman was seated on
a broad marble parapet. She looked straight before her. Her knees came well
forward, and the long curve of the train of her black gown, filled the
foreground on the right. On the left, slightly to one side of her, knelt a man,
a tall slight figure in evening dress, his arms thrown forward around her
waist; his face completely hidden in the soft lace at her bosom; only the back
of his sleek dark head, visible. And yet the whole figure denoted a passion of
tense emotion. She had gathered him to her with what you knew must have been an
exquisite gesture, combining the utter self-surrender of the woman, with the
tender throb of maternal solicitude; and now her hands were clasped behind his
head, holding him closely to her. Not a word was being spoken. The hidden face
was obviously silent; and her firm lips above his dark head, were folded in a
line of calm self-control; though about them hovered the dawning of a smile of
bliss ineffable.
A crimson rambler rose
climbing some woodwork faintly indicated on the left, and hanging in a glowing
mass from the top left-hand corner, supplied the only vivid colour in the
picture.
But, from taking in
these minor details, the eye returned to that calm tender, face, alight with
love; to those strong capable hands, now learning for the first time to put
forth the protective passion of a woman’s tenderness; and the mind whispered
the only possible name for that picture: The Wife.
Jane gazed at it long,
in silence. Had Garth’s little bear been anything less solid than Early
Victorian brass, it must have bent and broken under the strong pressure of
those clenched hands.
She could not doubt,
for a moment, that she looked upon herself; but, oh, merciful heavens! how
unlike the reflected self of her own mirror! Once or twice as she looked, her
mind refused to work, and she simply gazed blankly at the minor details of the
picture. But then again. the expression of the grey eyes drew her, recalling so
vividly every feeling she had experienced when that dear head had come so
unexpectedly to its resting-place upon her bosom. "It is true," she
whispered; and again: "Yes; it is true. I cannot deny it. It is as I felt;
it must be as I looked."
And then, suddenly, she
fell upon her knees before the picture. "Oh, my God! Is that as I looked?
And the next thing that happened was my boy lifting his shining eyes and gazing
at me in the moonlight. Is this what he saw? Did I look so? And did the woman
who looked so; and who, looking so, pressed his head down again upon her
breast, refuse next day to marry him, on the grounds of his youth, and her
superiority? . . . Oh, Garth, Garth! . . . O God, help him to understand! . . .
help him to forgive me!"
In the work-room just
below, Maggie the housemaid was singing as she sewed. The sound floated through
the open window, each syllable distinct in the clear Scotch voice, and reached
Jane where she knelt. Her mind, stunned to blankness by its pain, took eager
hold upon the words of Maggie’s hymn. And they were these.
" O Love, that
will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in
Thee;
I give Thee back the
life I owe,
That in Thine ocean
depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
" O Light, that
followest all my way,
I yield my flick’ring
torch to Thee;
My heart restores its
borrowed ray,
That in Thy sunshine’s
blaze its day
May brighter, fairer
be."
Jane took the second
picture, and placed it in front of the first.
The same woman, seated
as before; but the man was not there; and in her arms, its tiny dark head
pillowed against the fulness of her breast, lay a little child. The woman did
not look over that small head, but bent above it, and gazed into the baby face.
The crimson rambler had
grown right across the picture, and formed a glowing arch above mother and
child. A majesty of tenderness was in the large figure of the mother. The face,
as regarded contour and features, was no less plain; but again it was
transfigured, by the mother-love thereon depicted. You knew "The
Wife" had more than fulfilled her abundant promise. The wife was there in
fullest realisation; and, added to wifehood, the wonder of motherhood. All mysteries
were explained; all joys experienced; and the smile on her calm lips, bespoke
ineffable content.
A rambler rose had
burst above them, and fallen in a shower of crimson petals upon mother and
child. The baby-fingers clasped tightly the soft lace at her bosom. A petal had
fallen upon the tiny wrist. She had lifted her hand to remove it; and, catching
the baby-eyes, so dark and shining, paused for a moment, and smiled.
Jane, watching them,
fell to desperate weeping. The "mere boy" had understood her
potential possibilities of motherhood far better than she understood them
herself. Having had one glimpse of her as "The Wife," his mind had
leaped on, and seen her as "The Mother." And again she was forced to
say: " It is true -- yes; it is true."
And then she recalled
the old line of cruel reasoning: " It was not the sort of face one would
have wanted to see always in front of one at table." Was this the sort of
face -- this, as Garth had painted it, after a supposed year of marriage? Would
any man weary of it, or wish to turn away his eyes?
Jane took one more long
look. Then she dropped the little bear, and buried her face in her hands; while
a hot blush crept up to the very roots of her hair, and tingled to her
finger-tips.
Below, the fresh young
voice was singing again.
" O Joy, that
seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart
to Thee;
I trace the rainbow
through the rain,
And feel the promise is
not vain
That morn shall
tearless be."
After a while Jane
whispered: "Oh, my darling, forgive me. I was altogether wrong. I will
confess; and, God helping me, I will explain; and, oh, my darling, you will
forgive me?"
Once more she lifted
her head and looked at the picture. A few stray petals of the crimson rambler
lay upon the ground; reminding her of those crushed roses, which, falling from
her breast, lay scattered on the terrace at Shenstone, emblem of the joyous
hopes and glory of love which her decision of that night, had laid in the dust
of disillusion. But crowning this picture, in rich clusters of abundant bloom,
grew the rambler rose. And through the open window came the final verse of
Maggie’s hymn.
"O cross, that
liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly
from Thee;
I lay in dust life’s
glory dead,
And from the ground
there blossoms red
Life that shall endless
be."
Jane went to the
western window, and stood, with her arms stretched above her, looking out upon
the radiance of the sunset. The sky blazed into gold and crimson at the
horizon; gradually as the eye lifted, paling to primrose, flecked with rosy
clouds; and, overhead, deep blue -- fathomless, boundless, blue.
Jane gazed at the
golden battlements above the purple hills, and repeated, half aloud: "And
the city was of pure gold; -- and had no need of the sun, neither of the moon
to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it. And there shall be no more
death; neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for
the former things are passed away."
Ah, how much had passed
away since she stood at that western window, not an hour before. All life
seemed readjusted; its outlook altered; its perspective changed. Truly Garth
had "gone behind his blindness."
Jane raised her eyes to
the blue; and a smile of unspeakable anticipation parted her lips. "Life,
that shall endless be," she murmured. Then, turning, found the little
bear, and restored him to his place upon the mantel-piece ; put back the chair;
closed the western window; and, picking up the two canvases, left the studio,
and made her way carefully downstairs.
"IT has taken you
long, Miss Gray. I nearly sent Simpson up, to find out what had happened."
"I am glad you did
not do that, Mr. Dalmain. Simpson would have found me weeping on the studio
floor; and to ask his assistance under those circumstances, would have been
more humbling than inquiring after the fly in the soup!"
Garth turned quickly in
his chair. The artist-ear had caught the tone which meant comprehension of his
work.
"Weeping!" he
said. "Why?"
"Because,"
answered Nurse Rosemary, " I have been entranced. These pictures are so
exquisite. They stir one’s deepest depths. And yet they are so pathetic -- ah,
so pathetic; because you have made a plain woman, beautiful."
Garth rose to his feet,
and turned upon her a face which would have blazed, had it not been sightless.
"A what? " he
exclaimed.
"A plain woman,
" repeated Nurse Rosemary, quietly. " Surely you realised your model
to be that. And therein lies the wonder of the pictures. You have so beautified
her by wifehood, and glorified her by motherhood, that the longer one looks the
more one forgets her plainness; seeing her as loving and loved; lovable, and
therefore lovely. It is a triumph of art." Garth sat down, his hands
clasped before him.
"It is a triumph
of truth," he said. " I painted what I saw."
"You painted her
soul," said Nurse Rosemary, "and it illuminated her plain face."
"I saw her
soul," said Garth, almost in a whisper; "and that vision was so radiant
that it illumined my dark life. The remembrance lightens my darkness, even
now."
A very tender silence
fell in the library.
The twilight deepened.
Then Nurse Rosemary
spoke, very low. "Mr. Dalmain, I have a request to make of you. I want to
beg you not to destroy these pictures."
Garth lifted his head.
" I must destroy them, child," he said. " I cannot risk their
being seen by people who would recognise my -- the -- the lady portrayed."
"At all events,
there is one person who must see them, before they are destroyed."
"And that
is?" queried Garth.
" The lady
portrayed," said Nurse Rosemary, bravely.
"How do you know
she has not seen them?"
"Has she?"
inquired Nurse Rosemary.
"No," said
Garth, shortly; "and she never will."
"She must."
Something in the tone
of quiet insistence, struck Garth.
"Why?" he
asked; and listened with interest for the answer.
"Because of all it
would mean to a woman who knows herself plain, to see herself thus
beautified."
Garth sat very still
for a few moments. Then: "A woman who -- knows -- herself -- plain? "
he repeated, with interrogative amazement in his voice.
" Yes,"
proceeded Nurse Rosemary, encouraged. "Do you suppose, for a moment, that
that lady’s mirror has ever shown her a reflection in any way approaching what
you have made her in these pictures? When we stand before our looking-glasses,
Mr. Dalmain, scowling anxiously at hats and bows, and partings, we usually look
our very worst; and that lady, at her very worst, would be of a most
discouraging plainness."
Garth sat perfectly
silent.
"Depend upon
it," continued Nurse Rosemary, "she never sees herself as ’The Wife’ ’The
Mother.’ Is she a wife?"
Garth hesitated only
the fraction of a second. "Yes, " he said, very quietly.
Jane’s hands flew to
her breast. Her heart must be held down, or he would hear it throbbing.
Nurse Rosemary’s voice
had in it only a slight tremor, when she spoke again.
"Is she a
mother?"
"No," said
Garth. "I painted what might have been."
"If -- ?"
"If it had
been," replied Garth, curtly.
Nurse Rosemary felt
rebuked. " Dear Mr. Dalmain," she said, humbly; "I realise how
officious I must seem to you, with all these questions, and suggestions. But
you must blame the hold these wonderful paintings of yours have taken on my
mind. Oh, they are beautiful -- beautiful!"
"Ah, " said
Garth, the keen pleasure of the artist springing up once more. "Miss Gray,
I have some- what forgotten them. Have you them here? That is right. Put them
up before you, and describe them to me. Let me hear how they struck you, as
pictures."
Jane rose, and went to
the window. She threw it open; and as she breathed in the fresh air, breathed
out a passionate prayer that her nerve, her voice, her self-control might not
fail her, in this critical hour. She herself had been convicted by Garth’s
pictures. Now she must convince Garth, by her description of them. He must be
made to believe in the love he had depicted.
Then Nurse Rosemary sat
down; and, in the gentle, unemotional voice, which was quite her own, described
to the eager ears of the blind artist, exactly what Jane had seen in the
studio.
It was perfectly done.
It was mercilessly done. All the desperate, hopeless, hunger for Jane, awoke in
Garth; the maddening knowledge that she had been his, and yet not his; that,
had he pressed for her answer that evening, it could not have been a refusal;
that the cold calculations of later hours, had no place in those moments of
ecstasy. Yet -- he lost her -- lost her! Why? Ali, why? Was there any possible
reason other than the one she gave?
Nurse Rosemary’s quiet
voice went on, regardless of his writhings. But she was drawing to a close.
" And it is such a beautiful crimson rambler, Mr. Dalmain," she said.
" I like the idea of its being small and in bud, in the first picture; and
blooming in full glory, in the second."
Garth pulled himself
together and smiled. He must not give way before this girl.
" Yes," he
said; " I am glad you noticed that. And, look here. We will not destroy
them at once. Now they are found, there is no hurry. I am afraid I am giving
you a lot of trouble; but will you ask for some large sheets of brown paper,
and make a package, and write upon it: ’Not to be opened,’ and tell Margery to
put them back in the studio. Then, when I want them, at any time, I shall have
no difficulty in identifying them."
"I am so
glad," said Nurse Rosemary. "Then perhaps the plain lady --
"I cannot have her
spoken of so," said Garth, hotly. " I do not know what she thought of
herself -- I doubt if she ever gave a thought to self at all. I do not know
what you would have thought of her. I can only tell you that, to me, hers is
the one face which is visible in my darkness. All the loveliness I have
painted, all the beauty I have admired, fades from my mental vision, as wreaths
of mist; flutters from memory’s sight, as autumn leaves. Her face alone abides;
calm, holy, tender, beautiful, -- it is always before me. And it pains me that
one who has only seen her as my hand depicted her, should speak of her as
plain."
"Forgive me,"
said Nurse Rosemary, humbly. "I did not mean to pain you, sir. And, to
show you what your pictures have done for me, may I tell you a resolution I
made in the studio? I cannot miss what they depict -- the sweetest joys of life
-- for want of the courage to confess myself wrong; pocket my pride; and be
frank and humble. I am going to write a full confession to my young man, as to
my share of the misunderstanding which has parted us. Do you think he will understand?
Do you think he will forgive?"
Garth smiled. He tried
to call up an image of a pretty troubled face, framed in a fluffy setting of
soft fair hair. It harmonised so little with the voice; but it undoubtedly was
Nurse Rosemary Gray, as others saw her.
"He will be a
brute if he doesn’t, child," he said.
DINNER that evening,
the first at their small round table, was a great success. Nurse Rosemary’s
plans all worked well; and Garth delighted in arrangements which made him feel
less helpless.
The strain of the
afternoon brought its reaction of merriment. A little judicious questioning
drew forth further stories of the duchess and her pets; and Miss Champion’s
name came in with a frequency which they both enjoyed.
It was a curious
experience for Jane, to hear herself described in Garth’s vivid word-painting.
Until that fatal evening at Shenstone, she had been remarkably free from
self-consciousness; and she had no idea that she had a way of looking straight
into people’s eyes when she talked to them, and that that was what muddled up
" the silly little minds of women who say they are afraid of her, and that
she makes them nervous! You see she looks right into their shallow shuffling
little souls, full of conceited thoughts about themselves, and nasty ill-natured
thoughts about her; and no wonder they grow panic-stricken, and flee; and talk
of her as ‘that formidable Miss Champion.’ I never found her formidable; but,
when I had the chance of a real talk with her, I used to be thankful I had
nothing of which to be ashamed. Those clear eyes touched bottom every time, as
our kindred over the water so expressively put it."
Neither had Jane any
idea that she always talked with a poker, if possible; building up the fire
while she built up her own argument; or attacking it vigorously, while she
demolished her opponent’s; that she stirred the fire with her toe, but her very
smart boots never seemed any the worse; that when pondering a difficult
problem, she usually stood holding her chin in her right hand, until she had
found the solution. All these small characteristics Garth described with vivid
touch, and dwelt upon with a tenacity of remembrance, which astonished Jane,
and revealed him, in his relation to herself three years before, in a new
light.
His love for her had
been so suddenly disclosed, and had at once had to be considered as a thing to
be either accepted or put away; so that when she decided to put it away, it
seemed not to have had time to become in any sense part of her life. She had
viewed it; realised all it might have meant; and put it from her.
But now she understood
how different it had been for Garth. During the week which preceded his
declaration, he had realised, to the full, the meaning of their growing
intimacy; and, as his certainty increased, he had more and more woven her into
his life; his vivid imagination causing her to appear as his beloved from the
first; loved and wanted, when as yet they were merely acquaintances; kindred
spirits; friends.
To find herself thus
shrined in his heart and memory, was infinitely touching to Jane; and seemed to
promise, with sweet certainty, that it would not be difficult to come home
there to abide, when once all barriers between them were removed.
After dinner, Garth sat
long at the piano, filling the room with harmony. Once or twice the theme of
"The Rosary" crept in, and Jane listened anxiously for its
development; but almost immediately it gave way to something else. It seemed
rather to haunt the other melodies, than to be actually there itself.
When Garth left the
piano, and, guided by the purple cord, reached his chair, Nurse Rosemary said
gently: "Mr. Dalmain, can you spare me for a few days at the end of this
week?"
"Oh, why?"
said Garth. "To go where? And for how long? Ah, I know I ought to say: ’Certainly!
Delighted!’ after all your goodness to me. But I really cannot! You don’t know
what life was without you, when you week-ended! That week-end seemed months,
even though Brand was here. It is your own fault for making yourself so
indispensable."
Nurse Rosemary smiled.
" I daresay I shall not be away for long," she said. "That is,
if you want me, I can return. But, Mr. Dalmain, I intend tonight, to write that
letter of which I told you. I shall post it to-morrow. I must follow it up
almost immediately. I must be with him when he receives it, or soon afterwards.
I think -- I hope -- he will want me at once. This is Monday. May I go on
Thursday?"
Poor Garth looked
blankly dismayed.
"Do nurses, as a
rule, leave their patients, and rush off to their young men in order to find
out how they have liked their letters?" he inquired, in mock protest.
"Not as a rule,
sir," replied Nurse Rosemary, demurely. " But this is an exceptional
case."
"I shall wire to
Brand."
"He will send you
a more efficient and more dependable person."
"Oh you wicked
little thing!" cried Garth. "If Miss Champion were here, she would
shake you! You know perfectly well that nobody could fill your place!"
"It is good of you
to say so, sir," replied Nurse Rosemary, meekly. "And is Miss
Champion much addicted to shaking people? "
"Don’t call me,
sir’! Yes; when people are tiresome she often says she should like to shake
them; and one has a mental vision of how their teeth would chatter. There is a
certain little lady of our acquaintance whom we always call ’Mrs. Do-and-don’t.’
She isn’t in our set; but she calls upon it; and sometimes it asks her to
lunch, for fun. If you inquire whether she likes a thing, she says: ‘Well I do,
and I don’t.’ If you ask whether she is going to a certain function, she says: ’Well,
I am, and I’m not.’ And if you send her a note, imploring a straight answer to
a direct question, the answer comes back: ’Yes and no.’ Miss Champion used to
say she would like to take her up by the scruff of her feather boa, and shake
her, asking at intervals: ’Shall I stop?’ so as to wring from Mrs. Do-and-don’t
a definite affirmative, for once."
"Could Miss
Champion carry out such a threat? Is she a very massive person? "
"Well, she could,
you know; but she wouldn’t. She is most awfully kind, even to little freaks she
laughs at. No, she isn’t massive. That word does not describe her at all. But
she is large, and very finely developed. Do you know the Venus of Milo? Yes; in
the Louvre. I am glad you know Paris. Well, just imagine the Venus of Milo in a
tailor-made coat and skirt, -- and you have Miss Champion."
Nurse Rosemary laughed,
hysterically. Either the Venus of Milo, or Miss Champion, or this combination
of both, proved too much for her.
"Little Dicky
Brand summed up Mrs. Do-and-don’t rather well," pursued Garth. "She
was calling at Wimpole Street, on Lady Brand’s ’at home’ day. And Dicky stood
talking to me, in his black velvets and white waistcoat, a miniature edition of
Sir Deryck. He indicated Mrs. Do-and-don’t on a distant lounge, and remarked: ’That
lady never knows; she always thinks. I asked her if her little girl might come
to my party, and she said: "I think so. "Now if she had asked me if I
was coming to her party, I should have said: "Thank you; I am. "It is
very trying when people only think about important things, such as little girls
and parties; because their thinking never amounts to much. It does not so much
matter what they think about other things -- the weather, for instance; because
that all happens, whether they think or not. Mummie asked that lady whether it
was raining when she got here; and she said: "I think not." I can’t
imagine why Mummie always wants to know what her friends think about the
weather. I have heard her ask seven ladies this afternoon whether it is
raining. Now if father or I wanted to know whether it was raining we should
just step over to the window, and look out; and then come back and go on with
really interesting conversation. But Mummie asks them whether it is raining, or
whether they think it has been raining, or is going to rain; and when they have
told her, she hurries away and asks somebody else. I asked the thinking lady in
the feather thing, whether she knew who the father and mother were, of the young
lady whom Cain married; and she said: "Well, I do; and I don’t." I
said: "If you do, perhaps you will tell me. And if you don’t, perhaps you
would like to take my hand, and we will walk over together and ask the
Bishop-the one with the thin legs, and the gold cross, talking to Mummie.
" But she thought she had to go, quite in a hurry. So I saw her off; and
then asked the Bishop alone. Bishops are most satisfactory kind of people;
because they are quite sure about everything; and you feel safe in quoting them
to Nurse. Nurse told Marsdon that this one is in "sheep’s clothing,"
because he wears a gold cross. I saw the cross; but I saw no sheep’s clothing.
I was looking out for the kind of woolly thing our new curate wears on his back
in church. Should you call that "sheep’s clothing"? I asked father,
and he said: " No. Bunny-skin." And mother seemed as shocked as if
father and I had spoken in church, instead of just as we came out. And she
said: " It is a B. A. hood. " Possibly she thinks "baa " is
spelled with only one " a." Anyway father and I felt it best to let
the subject drop."’
Nurse Rosemary laughed.
"How exactly like Dicky," she said. " I could hear his grave
little voice, and almost see him pull down his small waistcoat! "
"Why, do you know
the little chap?" asked Garth.
"Yes,"
replied Nurse Rosemary; " I have stayed with them. Talking to Dicky is an
education; and Baby Blossom is a sweet romp. Here comes Simpson. How quickly
the evening has flown. Then may I be off on Thursday?"
" I am
helpless," said Garth. " I cannot say ’no,’ But suppose you do not
come back?"
"Then you can wire
to Dr. Brand."
" I believe you
want to leave me," said Garth, reproachfully.
" I do, and I don’t!
" laughed Nurse Rosemary; and fled from his outstretched hands.
. . . . . . . . . . .
When Jane had locked
the letter-bag earlier that evening, and handed it to Simpson, she had slipped
in two letters of her own. One was addressed to
Georgina, Duchess of
Meldrum Portland Place the other, to Sir Deryck Brand Wimpole Street
Both were marked:
Urgent. If absent, forward immediately.
TUESDAY passed
uneventfully, to all outward seeming.
There was nothing to
indicate to Garth that his secretary had sat up writing most of the night; only
varying that employment by spending long moments in silent contemplation of his
pictures, which had found a temporary place of safety, on their way back to the
studio, in a deep cupboard in her room, of which she had the key.
If Nurse Rosemary
marked, with a pang of tender compunction, the worn look on Garth’s face,
telling how mental suffering had chased away sleep; she made no comment
thereupon.
Thus Tuesday passed, in
uneventful monotony.
Two telegrams had
arrived for Nurse Gray in the course of the morning. The first came while she
was reading a Times leader aloud to Garth. Simpson brought it in, saying:
"A telegram for you, miss."
It was always a source
of gratification to Simpson afterwards, that, almost from the first, he had
been led, by what he called his "unhaided hintuhition," to drop the
"nurse," and address Jane with the conventional "miss." In
time he almost convinced himself that he had also discerned in her "a
Honourable"; but this, Margery Graem firmly refused to allow. She herself
had had her "doots," and kept them to herself; but all Mr. Simpson’s
surmisings had been freely expressed and reiterated in the housekeeper’s room;
and never a word about any honourable had passed Mr. Simpson’s lips. Therefore
Mrs. Graem berated him for being so ready to "go astray and speak
lies." But Maggie, the housemaid, had always felt sure Mr. Simpson knew
more than he said. "Said more than he knew, you mean, "prompted old
Margery. " No," retorted Maggie, " I know what I said; and I
said what I meant." "You may have said what you meant, but you did
not mean what you knew," insisted Margery; "and if anybody says
another word on the matter, I shall say grace and dismiss the table,"
continued old Margery, exercising the clôture, by virtue of her authority, in a
way which Simpson and Maggie, who both wished for cheese, afterwards described
as "mean."
But this was long after
the uneventful Tuesday, when Simpson entered, with a salver; and, finding Jane
enveloped in the Times, said: " A telegram for you, miss."
Nurse Rosemary took it;
apologised for the interruption, and opened it. It was from the duchess, and
ran thus:
Most inconvenient, as
you very well know; but am leaving Euston to-night. Will await further orders
at Aberdeen.
Nurse Rosemary smiled,
and put the telegram into her pocket. "No answer, thank you,
Simpson."
"Not bad news, I
hope? " asked Garth.
"No," replied
Nurse Rosemary; "but it makes my departure on Thursday imperative. It is
from an old aunt of mine, who is going to my ’young man’s’ home. I must be with
him before she is, or there will be endless complications."
" I don’t believe
he will ever let you go again, when once he gets you back," remarked
Garth, moodily.
"You think
not?" said Nurse Rosemary, with a tender little smile, as she took up the
paper, and resumed her reading.
The second telegram
arrived after luncheon. Garth was at the piano, thundering Beethoven’s
"Funeral March on the death of a hero." The room was being rent
asunder by mighty chords; and Simpson’s smug face and side-whiskers appearing
noiselessly in the doorway, were an insupportable anticlimax. Nurse Rosemary
laid her finger on her lips; advanced with her firm noiseless tread, and took
the telegram. She returned to her seat and waited until the hero’s obsequies
were over, and the last roll of the drums had died away. Then she opened the
orange envelope. And as she opened it, a strange thing happened. Garth began to
play "The Rosary." The string of pearls dropped in liquid sound from
his fingers; and Nurse Rosemary read her telegram. It was from the doctor, and
said: Special license easily obtained. Flower and I will come whenever you
wish. Wire again.
"The Rosary"
drew to a soft melancholy close.
"What shall I play
next?" asked Garth, suddenly.
" Veni, Creator
Spiritus," said Nurse Rosemary; and bowed her head in prayer.
WEDNESDAY dawned; an
ideal First of May.
Garth was in the garden
before breakfast. Jane heard him singing, as he passed beneath her window:
" It is not mine to sing the stately grace, The great soul beaming
in my lady’s face." She leaned out.
He was walking below in
the freshest of white flannels; his step so light and elastic; his every
movement so lithe and graceful; the only sign of his blindness the Malacca cane
he held in his hand, with which he occasionally touched the grass border, or
the wall of the house. She could only see the top of his dark head. It might
have been on the terrace at Shenstone, three years before. She longed to call
from the window: "Darling -- my Darling! Good morning! God bless you
to-day."
Ah what would to-day
bring forth; -- the day when her full confession, and explanation, and plea for
pardon, would reach him? He was such a boy in many ways; so light-hearted,
loving, artistic, poetic, irrepressible; ever young, in spite of his great
affliction. But where his manhood was concerned; his love; his right of choice
and of decision; of maintaining a fairly formed opinion, and setting aside the
less competent judgment of others; she knew him rigid, inflexible. His very
pain seemed to cool him, from the molten lover, to the bar of steel.
As Jane knelt at her
window that morning, she had not the least idea whether the evening would find
her travelling to Aberdeen, to take the night mail south; or at home forever in
the heaven of Garth’s love. And down below he passed again, still singing:
"But mine it is to follow in her train; Do her behests in pleasure or
in pain. Burn at her altar love’s sweet frankincense, And worship her in
distant reverence." "Ah,
belovéd!" whispered Jane, "not ’distant.’ If you want her, and call
her, it will be to the closest closeness love can devise. No more distance
between you and me."
And then, in the
curious way in which inspired words will sometimes occur to the mind quite
apart from their inspired context, and bearing a totally different meaning from
that which they primarily bear, these words came to Jane: "For He is our peace,
Who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition
between us . . . that He might reconcile both . . . by the cross." "
Ah, dear Christ!" she whispered. " If Thy cross could do this for Jew
and Gentile, may not my boy’s heavy cross, so bravely borne, do it for him and
for me? So shall we come at last, indeed, to ’kiss the cross.’"
The breakfast gong
boomed through the house. Simpson loved gongs. He considered them
"haristocratic." He always gave full measure.
Nurse Rosemary went
down to breakfast.
Garth came in, through
the French window, humming: -- "the thousand beauties that I know so
well." He was in his gayest most inconsequent mood. He had picked a golden
rosebud in the conservatory and wore it in his buttonhole. He carried a yellow
rose in his hand.
"Good morning,
Miss Rosemary," he said. "What a May Day! Simpson and I were up with
the lark; weren’t we, Simpson? Poor Simpson felt like a sort of ’Queen of the
May,’ when my electric bell trilled in his room, at 5 A.M. But I couldn’t stay
in bed. I woke with my something-is-going-to-happen feeling; and when I was a
little chap and woke with that, Margery used to say: ‘Get up quickly then,
Master Garth, and it will happen all the sooner.’ You ask her if she didn’t,
Simpson. Miss Gray, did you ever learn: ’If you’re waking call me early, call
me early, mother dear’? I always hated that young woman! I should think, in her
excited state, she would have been waking long before her poor mother, who must
have been worn to a perfect rag, making all the hussy’s May Queen-clothes, over
night."
Simpson had waited to
guide him to his place at the table. Then he removed the covers, and left the
room.
As soon as he had
closed the door behind him, Garth leaned forward, and with unerring accuracy
laid the opening rose upon Nurse Rosemary’s plate.
" Roses for
Rosemary," he said. "Wear it, if you are sure the young man would not
object. I have been thinking about him and the aunt. I wish you could ask them
both here, instead of going away on Thursday. We would have the ’maddest
merriest time!’ I would play with the aunt, while you had it out with the young
man. And I could easily keep the aunt away from nooks and corners, because my
hearing is sharper than any aunt’s eyes could be; and if you gave a gentle
cough, I would promptly clutch hold of auntie, and insist upon being guided in
the opposite direction. And I would take her out in the motor; and you and the
young man could have the gig. And then when all was satisfactorily settled, we
could pack them cuff home, and be by ourselves again. Ah, Miss Gray, do send
for them, instead of leaving me on Thursday."
"Mr.
Dalmain," said Nurse Rosemary, reprovingly, as she leaned forward and
touched his right hand with the rim of his saucer; "this May day morning
has gone to your head. I shall send for Margery. She may have known the
symptoms, of old."
" It is not
that," said Garth. He leaned forward and spoke confidentially.
"Something is going to happen to-day, little Rosemary. Whenever I feel
like this, something happens. The first time it occurred, about twenty-five
years ago, there was a rocking-horse in the hall, when I ran downstairs! I have
never forgotten my first ride on that rocking horse. The fearful joy when he
went backward; the awful plunge when he went forward; and the proud moment when
it was possible to cease clinging to the leather pommel. I nearly killed the
cousin who pulled out his tail. I thrashed him, then and there, with the tail;
which was such a silly thing to do; because, though it damaged the cousin, it
also spoiled the tail. The next time -- ah, but I am boring you! "
"Not at all,"
said Nurse Rosemary, politely; "but I want you to have some breakfast; and
the letters will be here in a few minutes."
He looked so brown and
radiant, this dear delightful boy, with his gold-brown tie, and yellow rose.
She was conscious of her pallor, and oppressive earnestness, as she said:
"The letters will be here."
" Oh, bother the
letters!" cried Garth. "Let’s have a holiday from letters on May Day!
You shall be Queen of the May; and Margery shall be the old mother. I will be
Robin, with the breaking heart, leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree;
and Simpson can be the ’bolder lad.’ And we will all go and ’gather knots of flowers,
and buds, and garlands gay.’"
" Mr.
Dalmain," said Nurse Rosemary, laughing, in spite of herself; " you
really must be sensible, or I shall go and consult Margery. I have never seen
you in such a mood."
" You have never
seen me, on a day when something was going to happen," said Garth; and
Nurse Rosemary made no further attempt to repress him.
After breakfast, he
went to the piano, and played two-steps, and rag-time music, so infectiously,
that Simpson literally tripped as he cleared the table; and Nurse Rosemary
sitting pale and preoccupied, with a pile of letters before her, had hard work
to keep her feet still.
Simpson had two-stepped
to the door with the cloth, and closed it after him. Nurse Rosemary’s remarks
about the postbag, and the letters, had remained unanswered. "Shine little
glowworm glimmer" was pealing gaily through the room, like silver bells,
-- when the door opened, and old Margery appeared; in a black satin apron, and
a blue print sunbonnet. She came straight to the piano, and laid her hand
gently on Garth’s arm.
"Master
Garthie," she said, "on this lovely May morning, will you take old
Margery up into the woods?"
Garth’s hands dropped
from the keys. "Of course I will, Margie," he said. ", I say
Margie, something is going to happen."
"I know it,
laddie," said the old woman, tenderly; and the expression with which she
looked into the blind face, filled Jane’s eyes with tears. " I woke with
it too, Master Garthie; and now we will go into the woods, and listen to the
earth, and trees, and flowers, and they will tell us whether it is for joy, or
for sorrow. Come, my own laddie."
Garth rose, as in a
dream. Even in his blindness he looked so young, and so beautiful, that Jane’s
watching heart stood still.
At the window he
paused. "Where is that secretary person?" he said, vaguely. "She
kept trying to shut me up."
"I know she did,
laddie," said old Margery, curtseying apologetically towards Jane.
"You see she does not know the ’something-is-going-to-happen-to-day’
awakening."
"Ah, doesn’t
she?" thought Jane, as they disappeared through the window. "But as
my Garth has gone off his dear head, and been taken away by his nurse, the
thing that is going to happen, can’t happen just yet." And Jane sat down
to the piano, and very softly ran through the accompaniment of "The
Rosary." Then, -- after shading her eyes on the terrace, and making sure
that a tall white figure leaning on a short dark one, had almost reached the
top of the hill, -- still more softly, she sang it.
Afterwards she went for
a tramp on the moors, and steadied her nerve by the rapid swing of her walk,
and the deep inbreathing of that glorious air. Once or twice she took a
telegram from her pocket, stood still and read it; then tramped on, to the
wonder of the words: "Special license easily obtained." Ah, the
license might be easy to obtain; but how about his forgiveness? That must be
obtained first. If there were ’only this darling boy to deal with, in his white
flannels and yellow roses, with a May Day madness in his veins, the license
might come at once; and all he could wish should happen without delay. But this
is a passing phase of Garth. What she has to deal with is the white-faced man,
who calmly said: "I accept the cross," and walked down the village
church leaving her -- for all these years. Loving her, as he loved her; and yet
leaving her, without word or sign, for three long years. To him, was the confession;
his would be the decision; and, somehow, it did not surprise her, when she came
down to luncheon, a little late, to find him seated at the table.
"Miss Gray,"
he said gravely, as he heard her enter; "I must apologise for my behaviour
this morning. I was what they call up here ’fey.’ Margery understands the mood;
and together she and I have listened to kind Mother Earth, laying our hands on
her sympathetic softness, and she has told us her secrets. Then I lay down
under the fir trees and slept; and awakened calm and sane, and ready for what
to-day must bring. For it will bring something. That is no delusion. It is a
day of great things. That much, Margery knows, too.
"Perhaps,"
suggested Nurse Rosemary, tentatively, "there may be news of interest in
your letters."
"Ah, " said
Garth, " I forgot. We have not even opened this morning’s letters. Let us
take time for them immediately after lunch. Are there many?"
"Quite a
pile," said Nurse Rosemary.
"Good. We will
work soberly through them."
Half an hour later
Garth was seated in his chair calm and expectant; his face turned towards his
secretary. He had handled his letters, and amongst them he had found one
sealed; and the seal was a plumed helmet, with visor closed. Nurse Rosemary saw
him pale, as his fingers touched it. He made no remark; but, as before, slipped
it beneath the rest, that it might come up for reading, last of all. When the
others were finished, and Nurse Rosemary took up this letter, the room was very
still. They were quite alone. Bees hummed in the garden. The scent of flowers
stole in at the window. But no one disturbed their solitude.
Nurse Rosemary took up
the envelope.
"Mr. Dalmain, here
is a letter, sealed with scarlet wax. The seal is a helmet with visor --"
"I know,"
said Garth. "You need not describe it further. Kindly open it."
Nurse Rosemary opened
it. "It is a very long letter, Mr. Dalmain."
"Indeed? Will you
please read it to me, Miss Gray."
A tense moment of
silence followed. Nurse Rosemary lifted the letter; but her voice suddenly
refused to respond to her will. Garth waited without further word.
Then Nurse Rosemary
said: "Indeed, sir, it seems a most private letter. I find it difficult to
read it to you."
Garth heard the
distress in her voice, and turned to her kindly.
"Never mind, my
dear child. It in no way concerns you. It is a private letter to me; but my
only means of hearing it, is through your eyes, and from your lips. Besides,
the lady whose seal is a plumed helmet, can have nothing of a very private
nature to say to me."
"Ah, but she
has," said Nurse Rosemary, brokenly.
Garth considered this
in silence.
Then: "Turn over
the page," he said, "and tell me the signature."
"There are many
pages," said Nurse Rosemary.
"Turn over the pages
then," said Garth, sternly. "Do not keep me waiting. How is that
letter signed?"
"Your wife,"
whispered Nurse Rosemary.
There was a petrifying
quality about the silence which followed. It seemed as if those two words,
whispered into Garth’s darkness, had turned him to stone.
At last he stretched
out his hand. "Will you give me that letter, if you please, Miss Gray?
Thank you. I wish to be alone for a quarter of an hour. I shall be glad if you
will be good enough to sit in the diningroom, and stop any one from coming into
this room. I must be undisturbed. At the end of that time kindly return."
He spoke so quietly
that Jane’s heart sank within her. Some display of agitation would have been
reassuring. This was the man who, bowing his dark head towards the crucifixion
window, said: "I accept the cross." This was the man, whose footsteps
never once faltered as he strode down the aisle, and left her. This was the
man, who had had the strength, ever since, to treat that episode between her
and himself, as completely closed; no word of entreaty; no sign of remembrance;
no hint of reproach. And this was the man to whom she had signed herself:
"Your wife."
In her whole life, Jane
had never known fear. She knew it now.
As she silently rose
and left him, she stole one loots at his face. He was sitting perfectly still;
the letter in his hand. He had not turned his head toward her as he took it.
His profile might have been a beautiful carving in white ivory. There was not
the faintest tinge of colour in his face; just that ivory pallor, against the
ebony lines of his straight brows, and smooth dark hair.
Jane softly left the
room, closing the door behind her.
Then followed the
longest fifteen minutes she had ever known. She realised what a tremendous
conflict was in progress in that quiet room. Garth was arriving at his decision
without having heard any of her arguments. By the strange fatality of his own
insistence, he had heard only two words of her letter, and those the crucial
words; the two words to which the whole letter carefully led up. They must have
revealed to him instantly, what the character of the letter would be; and what
was the attitude of mind towards himself, of the woman who wrote them.
Jane paced the
dining-room in desperation, remembering the hours of thought which had gone to
the compiling of sentences, cautiously preparing his mind to the revelation of
the signature.
Suddenly, in the midst
of her mental perturbation, there came to her the remembrance of a conversation
between Nurse Rosemary and Garth over the pictures. The former had said:
"Is she a wife?" And Garth had answered: "Yes." Jane had
instantly understood what that answer revealed and implied. Because Garth had
so felt her his, during those wonderful moments on the terrace at Shenstone,
that he could look up into her face and say: " My wife " -- not as an
interrogation, but as an absolute statement of fact, -- he still held her this,
as indissolubly as if priest, and book, and ring, had gone to the welding of their
union. To him, the union of souls came before all else; and if that had taken
place, all that might follow was but the outward indorsement of an accomplished
fact. Owing to her fear, mistrust, and deception, nothing had followed. Their
lives had been sundered; they had gone different ways. He regarded himself as
being no more to her than any other man of her acquaintance. During these years
he had believed, that her part in that evening’s wedding of souls, had existed
in his imagination, only; and had no binding effect upon her. But his,
remained. Because those words were true to him then, he had said them; and,
because he had said them, he would consider her his wife, through life, -- and
after. It was the intuitive understanding of this, which had emboldened Jane so
to sign her letter. But how would he reconcile that signature, with the view of
her conduct which he had all along taken, without ever having the slightest
conception that there could be any other?
Then Jane remembered,
with comfort, the irresistible appeal made by Truth to the soul of the artist;
truth of line; truth of colour; truth of values; and, in the realm of sound,
truth of tone, of harmony, of rendering, of conception. And when Nurse Rosemary
had said of his painting of "The Wife": "It is a triumph of
art"; Garth had replied: " It is a triumph of truth." And Jane’s
own verdict on the look he had seen and depicted was: " It is true -- yes,
it is true! " Will he not realise now the truth of that signature; and, if
he realises it, will he not be glad in his loneli ness, that his wife should
come to him; unless the confessions and admissions of the letter cause him to
put her away as wholly unworthy?
Suddenly Jane
understood the immense advantage of the fact that he would hear every word of
the rest of her letter, knowing the conclusion, which she herself could not
possibly have put first. She saw a Higher Hand in this arrangement; and said,
as she watched the minutes slowly pass: "He hath broken down the middle
wall of partition between us"; and a sense of calm assurance descended,
and garrisoned her soul with peace.
The quarter of an hour
was over.
Jane crossed the hall
with firm, though noiseless step; stood a moment on the threshold relegating
herself completely to the background; then opened the door; and Nurse Rosemary
re-entered the library.
GARTH was standing at
the open window, when Nurse Rosemary re-entered the library; and he did not
turn, immediately.
She looked anxiously
for the letter, and saw it laid ready on her side of the table. It bore signs
of having been much crumpled; looking almost as a letter might appear which had
been crushed into a ball; flung into the waste-paper basket; and afterwards
retrieved. It had however been carefully smoothed out; and lay ready to her
hand.
When Garth turned from
the window and passed to his chair, his face bore the signs of a great
struggle. He looked as one who, sightless, has yet been making frantic efforts
to see. The ivory pallor was gone. His face was flushed; and his thick hair,
which grew in beautiful curves low upon his forehead and temples, and was
usually carefully brushed back in short-cropped neatness, was now ruffled and
disordered. But his voice was completely under control, as he turned towards
his secretary.
"My dear Miss
Gray," he said, "we have a difficult task before us. I have received
a letter, which it is essential I should hear. I am obliged to ask you to read
it to me, because there is absolutely no one else to whom I can prefer such a
request. I cannot but know that it will be a difficult and painful task for
you, feeling yourself an intermediary between two wounded and sundered hearts.
May I make it easier, my dear little girl, by assuring you that I know of no
one in this world from whose lips I could listen to the contents of that letter
with less pain; and, failing my own, there are no eyes beneath which I could
less grudgingly let it pass, there is no mind I could so unquestioningly trust,
to judge kindly, both of myself and of the writer; and to forget faithfully,
all which was not intended to come within the knowledge of a third
person."
"Thank you, Mr.
Dalmain," said Nurse Rosemary.
Garth leaned back in
his chair, shielding his face with his hand.
"Now, if you
please," he said. And, very clearly and quietly, Nurse Rosemary began to
read.
"DEAR GARTH, As
you will not let me come to you, so that I could say, between you and me alone,
that which must be said; I am compelled to write it. It is your own fault, Dal;
and we both pay the penalty. For how can I write to you freely when I know,
that as you listen, it will seem to you, of every word I am writing, that I am
dragging a third person into that which ought to be, most sacredly, between you
and me alone. And yet, I must write freely; and I must make you fully
understand; because the whole of your future life and mine, will depend upon
your reply to this letter. I must write as if you were able to hold the letter
in your own hands, and read it to yourself. Therefore, if you cannot completely
trust your secretary, with the private history of your heart and mine; bid her
give it you back without turning this first page; and let me come myself,
Garth, and tell you all the rest."
"That is the
bottom of the page," said Nurse Rosemary; and waited.
Garth did not remove
his hand. "I do completely trust; and she must not come," he said.
Nurse Rosemary turned
the page, and went on reading.
"I want you to
remember, Garth, that every word I write, is the simple unvarnished truth. If
you look back over your remembrance of me, you will admit that I am not
naturally an untruthful person, nor did I ever take easily to prevarication.
But Garth, I told you one lie; and that fatal exception proves the rule of
perfect truthfulness, which has always otherwise held, between you and me; and,
please God, always will hold. The confession herein contained, concerns that
one lie; and I need not ask you to realise how humbling it is to my pride to
have to force the hearing of a confession upon the man who has already refused
to admit me to a visit of friendship. You will remember that I am not naturally
humble; and have a considerable amount of proper pride; and, perhaps, by the
greatness of the effort I have had to make, you will be able to gauge the
greatness of my love. God help you to do so -- my darling; my beloved; my poor
desolate boy!" Nurse Rosemary stopped abruptly; for, at this sudden
mention of love, and at these words of unexpected tenderness from Jane, Garth
had risen to his feet, and taken two steps towards the window; as if to escape
from something too immense to be faced. But, in a moment he recovered himself,
and sat down again, completely hiding his face with his hand.
Nurse Rosemary resumed
the reading of the letter.
"Ah, what a wrong
I have done, both to you, and to myself! Dear, you remember the evening on the
terrace at Shenstone, when you asked me to be -- when you called me -- when I
was -- your wife? Garth, I leave this last sentence as it stands, with its two
attempts to reach the truth. I will not cross them out, but leave them to be
read to you; for, you see Garth, I finally arrived! I was your wife. I did not
understand it then. I was intensely surprised; unbelievably inexperienced in
matters of feeling; and bewildered by the flood of sensation which swept me off
my feet and almost engulfed me. But even then I knew that my soul arose and
proclaimed you mate and master. And when you held me, and your dear head lay
upon my heart, I knew, for the first time, the meaning of the word ecstasy; and
I could have asked no kinder gift of heaven, than to prolong those moments into
hours."
Nurse Rosemary’s quiet
voice broke, suddenly; and the reading ceased.
Garth was leaning
forward, his head buried in his hands. A dry sob rose in his throat, just at
the very moment when Nurse Rosemary’s voice gave way.
Garth recovered first.
Without lifting his head, with a gesture of protective affection and sympathy,
he stretched his hand across the table.
"Poor little
girl," he said, " I am so sorry. It is rough on you. If only it had
come when Brand was here! I am afraid you must go on; but try to read without
realising. Leave the realising to me."
And Nurse Rosemary read
on.
"When you lifted
your head in the moonlight and gazed long and earnestly at me -- Ah, those dear
eyes! --your look suddenly made me self-conscious. There swept over me a sense
of my own exceeding plainness, and of how little there was in what those dear
eyes saw, to provide reason for that adoring look. Overwhelmed with a shy shame
I pressed your head back to the place where the eyes would be hidden; and I
realise now what a different construction you must have put upon that action.
Garth, I assure you, that when you lifted your head the second time, and said: ’My
wife,’ it was the first suggestion to my mind that this wonderful thing which
was happening meant -- marriage. I know it must seem almost incredible, and
more like a child of eighteen, than a woman of thirty. But you must remember,
all my dealings with men up to that hour, had been handshakes, heartiest
comradeship, and an occasional clap on the shoulder given and received. And don’t
forget, dear King of my heart, that, until one short week before, you had been
amongst the boys who called me ’good old Jane,’ and addressed me in intimate
conversation as ’my dear fellow’! Don’t forget that I had always looked upon
you as years younger than myself; and though a strangely sweet tie had grown up
between us, since the evening of the concert at Overdene, I had never realised
it as love. Well you will remember how I asked for twelve hours to consider my
answer; and you yielded, immediately; (you were so perfect, all the time,
Garth) and left me, when I asked to be alone; left me, with a gesture I have
never forgotten. It was a revelation of the way in which the love of a man such
as you, exalts the woman upon whom it is outpoured. The hem of that gown has
been a sacred thing to me, ever since. It is always with me, though I never
wear it. -- A detailed account of the hours which followed, I shall hope to
give you some day, my dearest. I cannot write it. Let me hurl on to paper, in
all its crud ugliness, the miserable fact which parted us; turning our dawning
joy to disillusion and sadness. Garth -- it was this. I did not believe your
love would stand the test of my plainness. I knew what a worshipper of beauty
you were; how you must have it, in one form or another, always around you. I
got out my diary in which I had recorded verbatim our conversation about the
ugly preacher, whose face became illumined into beauty, by the inspired glory
within. And you added that you never thought him ugly again; but he would
always be plain. And you said it was not the sort of face one would want to
have always before one at meals; but that you were not called upon to undergo
that discipline, which would be sheer martyrdom to you.
I was so interested, at
the time; and so amused at the unconscious way in which you stood and explained
this, to quite the plainest woman of your acquaintance; that I recorded it very
fully in my journal. -- Alas! On that important night, I read the words, over
and over, until they took morbid hold upon my brain. Then -- such is the
self-consciousness awakened in a woman by the fact that she is loved and sought
-- I turned on all the lights around my mirror, and critically and carefully
examined the face you would have to see every day behind your coffeepot at
breakfast, for years and years, if I said ’Yes,’ on the morrow. Darling, I did
not see myself through your eyes, as, thank God, I have done since. And I did
not trust your love to stand the test. It seemed to me, I was saving both of us
from future disappointment and misery, by bravely putting away present joy, in
order to avoid certain disenchantment. My belovéd, it will seem to you so
coolly calculating, and so mean; so unworthy of the great love you were even
then lavishing upon me. But remember, for years, your remarkable personal grace
and beauty had been a source of pleasure to me; and I had pictured you wedded
to Pauline Lister, for instance, in her dazzling whiteness, and soft radiant
youth. So my morbid self-consciousness said: ’What! This young Apollo, tied to
my ponderous plainness; growing handsomer every year, while I grow older and plainer?’
Ah, darling! It sounds so unworthy, now we know what our love is. But it
sounded sensible and right that night; and at last, with a bosom that ached,
and arms that hung heavy at the thought of being emptied of all that joy, I
made up my mind to say ’no.’ Ah, believe me, I had no idea what it already
meant to you. I thought you would pass on at once to another fancy; and
transfer your love to one more able to meet your needs, at every point.
Honestly, Garth, I thought I should be the only one left desolate. -- Then came
the question: how to refuse you. I knew if I gave the true reason, you would
argue it away, and prove me wrong, with glowing words, before which I should
perforce yield. So -- as I really meant not to let you run the risk, and not to
run it myself -- I lied to you, my beloved. To you, whom my whole being
acclaimed King of my heart, Master of my will; supreme to me, in love and life,
-- to you I said: ’I cannot marry a mere boy.’ Ah, darling! I do not excuse it.
I do not defend it. I merely confess it; trusting to your generosity to admit,
that no other answer would have sent you away. Ah, your poor Jane, left
desolate! If you could have seen her in the little church, calling you back;
retracting and promising; listening for your returning footsteps, in an agony
of longing. But my Garth is not made of the stuff which stands waiting on the
door-mat of a woman’s indecision.
" The lonely year
which followed so broke my nerve, that Deryck Brand told me I was going all to
pieces, and ordered me abroad. I went, as you know; and in other, and more
vigorous, surroundings, there came to me a saner view of life. In Egypt last
March, on the summit of the Great Pyramid, I made up my mind that I could live
without you no longer. I did not see myself wrong; but I yearned so for your
love, and to pour mine upon you, my beloved, that I concluded it was worth the
risk. I made up my mind to take the next boat home, and send for you. Then --
oh, my own boy -- I heard. I wrote to you; and you would not let me come.
" Now I know
perfectly well, that you might say: ‘She did not trust me when I had my sight.
Now that I cannot see, she is no longer afraid.’ Garth, you might say that; but
it would not be true. I have had ample proof lately that I was wrong, and ought
to have trusted you all through. What it is, I will tell you later. All I can
say now is: -- that, if your dear shining eyes could see, they would see, now,
a woman who is, trustfully and unquestioningly, all your own. If she is
doubtful of her face and figure, she says quite simply: ’They pleased him; and
they are just his. I have no further right to criticise them. If he wants them,
they are not mine, but his.’ Darling, I cannot tell you now, how I have arrived
at this assurance. But I have had proofs beyond words, of your faithfulness and
love.
"The question,
therefore, simply resolves itself into this: Can you forgive me? If you can
forgive me, I can come to you at once. If this thing is past forgiveness, I
must make up my mind to stay away. But, oh, my own Dear, - the bosom on which
once you laid your head, waits for you with the longing ache of lonely years.
If you need it, do not thrust it from you.
"Write me one word
by your own hand: ’Forgiven.’ It is all I ask. When it reaches me, I will come
to you at once. Do not dictate a letter to your secretary. I could not bear it.
Just write - if you can truly write it ’Forgiven’; and send it to Your Wife.
The room was very
still, as Nurse Rosemary finished reading; and, laying down the letter, silently
waited. She wondered for a moment whether she could get herself a glass of
water, without disturbing him; but decided to do without it.
At last Garth lifted
his head.
"She has asked me
to do a thing impossible," he said; and a slow smile illumined his drawn
face.
Jane clasped her hands
upon her breast.
"Can you not write
’forgiven’? asked Nurse Rosemary, brokenly.
"No," said
Garth. " I cannot. Little girl, give me a sheet of paper, and a
pencil."
Nurse Rosemary placed
them close to his hand.
Garth took up the
pencil. He groped for the paper; felt the edges with his left hand; found the
centre with his fingers; and, in large firm letters, wrote one word.
"Is that
legible?" he asked, passing it across to Nurse Rosemary.
"Quite
legible," she said; for she answered before it was blotted by her tears.
Instead of
"forgiven," Garth had written: "Loved."
"Can you post it
at once?" Garth asked, in a low eager voice. "And she will come --
oh, my God, she will come! If we catch to-night’s mail, she may be here the day
after to-morrow!"
Nurse Rosemary took up
the letter; and, by an almost superhuman effort, spoke steadily.
"Mr.
Dalmain," she said; "there is a postcript to this letter. It says: ’Write
to The Palace Hotel, Aberdeen.’"
Garth sprang up, his
whole face and figure alive with excitement.
"In
Aberdeen?" he cried. "Jane, in Aberdeen! Oh, my God! If she gets this
paper to-morrow morning, she may be here any time in the day. Jane! Jane! Dear
little Rosemary, do you hear? Jane will come to-morrow! Didn’t I tell you
something was going to happen? You and Simpson were too British to understand;
but Margery knew; and the woods told us it was joy coming through Pain. Could
that be posted at once, Miss Gray?"
The May-Day mood was
upon him again. His face shone. His figure was electric with expectation. Nurse
Rosemary sat at the table watching him; her chin in her hands. A tender smile
dawned on her lips, out of keeping with her supposed face and figure; so full
was it of the glorious expectation of a mature and perfect love.
"I will go to the
post office myself, Mr. Dalmain," she said. "I shall be glad of the
walk; and I can be back by tea-time." At the post office she did not post
the word in Garth’s handwriting. That lay hidden in her bosom. But she sent off
two telegrams. The first to
The Duchess of Meldrum,
Palace Hotel, Aberdeen. "Come here by 5.50 train without fail this
evening."
The second to Sir
Deryck Brand, Wimpole Street, London. "All is right."
"MR.
DALMAIN," said Nurse Rosemary, with patient insistence, " I really do
want you to sit down, and give your mind to the tea-table. How can you remember
where each thing is placed, if you keep jumping up, and moving your chair into
different positions? And last time you pounded the table to attract my
attention, which was already anxiously fixed upon you, you nearly knocked over
your own tea, and sent floods of mine into the saucer. If you cannot behave
better, I shall ask Margery for a pinafore, and sit you up on a high
chair!"
Garth stretched his
legs in front of him, and his arms over his head; and lay back in his chair,
laughing joyously.
"Then I should
have to say: ‘Please, Nurse, may I get down?’ What a cheeky little thing you
are becoming! And you used to be quite oppressively polite. I suppose you would
answer: ’If you say your grace nicely, Master Garth, you may.’ Do you know the
story of ’Tommy, you should say Your Grace’? "
"You have told it
to me twice in the last forty-eight hours," said Nurse Rosemary,
patiently.
"Oh, what a pity!
I felt so like telling it now. If you had really been the sort of sympathetic
person Sir Deryck described, you would have said: ’ No; and I should so love to
hear it!’"
"No; and I should
so love to hear it!" said Nurse Rosemary.
"Too late! That
sort of thing, to have any value should be spontaneous. It need not be true;
but it must be spontaneous. But, talking of a high chair, -- when you say those
chaffy things in a voice like Jane’s, and just as Jane would have said them --
oh, my wig! -- Do you know, that is the duchess’s only original little swear.
All the rest are quotations. And when she says: ’My wig!’ we all try not to
look at it. It is usually slightly awry. The toucan tweaks it. He is so very
loving, dear bird!"
"Now hand me the
buttered toast," said Nurse Rosemary; "and don’t tell me any more
naughty stories about the duchess. No! That is the thin bread-and-butter. I
told you you would lose your bearings. The toast is in a warm plate on your
right. Now let us make believe I am Miss Champion, and hand it to me, as nicely
as you will be handing it to her, this time to-morrow."
"It is easy to
make believe you are Jane, with that voice," said Garth; "and yet --
I don’t know. I have never really associated you with her. One little sentence
of old Rob’s made all the difference to me. He said you had fluffy floss-silk
sort of hair. No one could ever imagine Jane with fluffy floss-silk sort of
hair! And I believe that one sentence saved the situation. Otherwise, your
voice would have driven me mad, those first days. As it was, I used to wonder
sometimes if I could possibly bear it. You understand why, now; don’t you? And
yet, in a way, it is not like hers. Hers is deeper; and she often speaks with a
delicious kind of drawl, and uses heaps of slang; and you are such a very
proper little person; and possess what the primers call ’perfectly correct
diction.’ What fun it would be to hear you and Jane talk together! And yet -- I
don’t know. I should be on thorns, all the time."
"Why?"
"I should be so
awfully afraid lest you should not like one another. You see, you have really,
in a way, been more to me than any one else in the world; and she -- well, she
is my world," said Garth, simply. "And I should be so afraid lest she
should not fully appreciate you; and you should not quite understand her. She
has a sort of way of standing and looking people up and down, and women hate
it; especially pretty fluffy little women. They feel she spots all the things
that come off."
"Nothing of mine
comes off," murmured Nurse Rosemary, "excepting my patient, when he
will not stay on his chair."
"Once,"
continued Garth, with the gleeful enjoyment in his voice which always presaged
a story in which Jane figured; "there was a fearfully silly little woman
staying at Overdene, when a lot of us were there. We never could make out why
she was included in one of the duchess’s ‘best parties,’ except that the dear
duchess vastly enjoyed taking her off, and telling stories about her; and we
could not appreciate the cleverness of the impersonation, unless we had seen
the original. She was rather pretty, in a fussy, curling-tongs, wax-doll sort
of way; but she never could let her appearance alone, or allow people to forget
it. Almost every sentence she spoke, drew attention to it. We got very sick of
it, and asked Jane to make her shut up. But Jane said: ’It doesn’t hurt you,
boys; and it pleases her. Let her be.’ Jane was always extra nice to people, if
she suspected they were asked down in order to make sport for the duchess
afterwards. Jane hated that sort of thing. She couldn’t say much to her aunt;
but we had to be very careful how we egged the duchess on, if Jane was within
hearing. Well -- one evening, after tea, a little group of us were waiting
around the fire in the lower hall, to talk to Jane. It was Christmas time. The
logs looked so jolly on the hearth. The red velvet curtains were drawn right
across, covering the terrace door and the windows on either side. Tommy sat on
his perch, in the centre of the group, keeping a keen look-out for cigarette
ends. Outside, the world was deep in snow; and that wonderful silence reigned;
making the talk and laughter within all the more gay by contrast - you know,
that penetrating silence; when trees, and fields, and paths, are covered a foot
thick in soft sparkling whiteness. I always look forward, just as eagerly, each
winter to the first sight -- ah, I forgot! . . . Fancy never seeing snow again!
. . . Never mind. It is something to remember having seen it; and I shall hear
the wonderful snow-silence more clearly than ever. Perhaps before other people
pull up the blinds, I shall be able to say: ’There’s been a fall of snow in the
night.’ What was I telling you? Yes, I remember. About little Mrs. Fussy. Well
-- all the women had gone up to dress for dinner; excepting Jane, who never
needed more than half an hour; and Fussy, who was being sprightly, in a
laboured way; and fancied herself the centre of attraction which kept us
congregated in the hall. As a matter of fact, we were waiting to tell Jane some
private news we had just heard about a young chap in the guards, who was in
fearful hot water for ragging. His colonel was an old friend of Jane’s, and we
thought she could put in a word, and improve matters for Billy. So Mrs. Fussy
was very much ’de trop,’ and didn’t know it. Jane was sitting with her back to
all of us, her feet on the fender, and her skirt turned up over her knees. Oh,
there was another one, underneath; a handsome silk thing, with rows of little
frills, -- which you would think should have gone on outside. But Jane’s best
things are never paraded; always hidden. I don’t mean clothes, now; but her
splendid self. Well -- little Fussy was ’chatting’ she never talked -- about
herself and her conquests; quite unconscious that we all wished her at Jericho.
Jane went on reading the evening paper; but she felt the atmosphere growing
restive. Presently -- ah, but I must not tell you the rest. I have just
remembered. Jane made us promise never to repeat it. She thought it detrimental
to the other woman. But we just had time for our confab; and Jane caught the
evening post with the letter which got Billy off scot-free; and yet came down
punctually to dinner, better dressed than any of them. We felt it rather hard
luck to have to promise; because we had each counted on being the first to tell
the story to the duchess. But, you know, you always have to do as Jane
says."
"Why?"
"Oh, I don’t know!
I can’t explain why. If you knew her, you would not need to ask. Cake, Miss
Gray? "
"Thank you. Right,
this time."
"There! That is
exactly as Jane would have said: ’Right, this time.’ Is it not strange that
after having for weeks thought your voice so like hers, to-morrow I shall be
thinking her voice so like yours?"
"Oh no, you will
not," said Nurse Rosemary. "When she is with you, you will have no
thoughts for other people."
"Indeed, but I
shall!" cried Garth. "And, dear little Rosemary, I shall miss you,
horribly. No one -- not even she -- can take your place. And, do you
know," he leaned forward, and a troubled look clouded the gladness of his
face; " I am beginning to feel anxious about it. She has not seen me since
the accident. I am afraid it will give her a shock. Do you think she will find
me much changed?"
Jane looked at the
sightless face, turned so anxiously toward her. She remembered that morning in
his room, when he thought himself alone with Dr. Rob; and, leaving the shelter
of the wall, sat up to speak, and she saw his face for the first time. She
remembered turning to the fireplace, so that Dr. Rob should not see the tears
raining down her cheeks. She looked again at Garth -- now growing conscious for
the first time, of his disfigurement; and then, only for her sake -- and an
almost overwhelming tenderness gripped her heart. She glanced at the clock. She
could not hold out much longer.
"Is it very
bad?" said Garth; and his voice shook.
"I cannot answer
for another woman," replied Nurse Rosemary; "but I should think your
face, just as it is, will always be her joy."
Garth flushed; pleased
and relieved, but slightly surprised. There was a quality in Nurse Rosemary’s
voice, for which he could not altogether account.
"But then, she
will not be accustomed to my blind ways," he continued. " I am afraid
I shall seem so helpless and so blundering. She has not been in Sightless Land,
as you and I have been. She does not know all our plans of cords, and notches,
and things. Ah, little Rosemary! Promise not to leave me tomorrow. I want Her
-- only God, knows how I want her; but I begin to be half afraid. It will be so
wonderful, for the great essentials; but, for the little every-day happenings,
which are so magnified by the darkness, oh, my kind unseen guide, how I shall
need you. At first I thought it lucky you had settled to go, just when she is
coming; but now, just because she is coming, I cannot let you go. Having her,
will be wonderful beyond words; but it will not be the same as having
you."
Nurse Rosemary was
receiving her reward, and she appeared to find it rather overwhelming.
As soon as she could
speak, she said, gently: " Don’t excite yourself over it, Mr. Dalmain.
Believe me, when you have been with her for five minutes, you will find it just
the same as having me. And how do you know she has not also been in Sightless
Land? A nurse would do that sort of thing, because she was very keen on her
profession, and on making a success of her case. The woman who loves you, would
do it for love of you."
"It would be like
her," said Garth; and leaned back, a look of deep contentment gathering on
his face. "Oh, Jane! Jane! She is coming! She is coming!"
Nurse Rosemary looked
at the clock.
"Yes; she is
coming," she said; and though her voice was steady, her hands trembled.
"And, as it is our last evening together under quite the same
circumstances as during all these weeks, will you agree to a plan of mine? I
must go upstairs now, and do some packing, and make a few arrangements. But
will you dress early? I will do the same; and if you could be down in the
library by half past six, we might have some music before dinner."
"Why
certainly," said Garth. " It makes no difference to me at what time I
dress; and I am always ready for music. But, I say: I wish you were not
packing, Miss Gray."
"I am not exactly
packing up," replied Nurse Rosemary. " I am packing things
away."
" It is all the
same, if it means leaving. But you have promised not to go until she
comes?"
"I will not go --
until she comes."
"And you will tell
her all the things she ought to know? "
"She shall know
all I know, which could add to your comfort."
"And you will not
leave me, until I am really -- well, getting on all right?"
"I will never leave
you, while you need me," said Nurse Rosemary. And again Garth detected
that peculiar quality in her voice. He rose, and came towards where he heard
her to be standing.
"Do you know, you
are no end of a brick," he said, with emotion. Then he held out both hands
towards her. "Put your hands in mine just for once, little Rosemary. I
want to try to thank you."
There was a moment of
hesitation. Two strong capable hands -- strong and capable, though, just then,
they trembled -- nearly went home to his; but were withdrawn just in time. Jane’s
hour was not yet. This was Nurse Rosemary’s moment of triumph and success. It
should not be taken from her.
"This
evening," she said, softly; "after the music, we will -- shake hands.
Now be careful, sir. You are stranded. Wait. Here is the garden-cord, just to
your left. Take a little air on the terrace; and sing again the lovely song I
heard under my window this morning. And now that you know what it is that is ’going
to happen,’ this exquisite May-Day evening will fill you with tender
expectation. Good-bye, sir -- for an hour."
" What has come to
little Rosemary?" mused Garth, as he felt for his cane, in its corner by
the window. " We could not have gone on indefinitely quite as we have
been, since she came in from the post office."
He walked on; a
troubled look clouding his face. Suddenly it lifted, and he stood still, and
laughed. "Duffer!" he said. "Oh, what a conceited duffer! She is
thinking of her ’young man.’ She is going to him to-morrow; and her mind is
full of him; just as mine is full of Jane. Dear, good, clever, little Rosemary!
I hope he is worthy of her. No; that, he cannot be. I hope he knows he is not
worthy of her. That is more to the point. I hope he will receive her as she
expects. Somehow, I hate letting her go to him. Oh, hang the fellow! -- as
Tommy would say."
SIMPSON was crossing
the hall just before half past six o’clock. He had left his master in the
library. He heard a rustle just above him; and, looking up, saw a tall figure
descending the wide oak staircase.
Simpson stood
transfixed. The soft black evening-gown, with its trailing folds, and old lace
at the bosom, did not impress him so much as the quiet look of certainty and
power on the calm face above them.
"Simpson,"
said Jane, "my aunt, the Duchess of Meldrum, and her maid, and her
footman, and a rather large quantity of luggage, will be arriving from
Aberdeen, at about half past seven. Mrs. Graem knows about preparing rooms; and
I have given James orders for meeting the train with the brougham, and the
luggage-cart. The duchess dislikes motors. When Her Grace arrives, you can show
her into the library. We will dine in the dining-room at a quarter past eight.
Meanwhile, Mr. Dalmain and myself are particularly engaged just now, and must
not be disturbed on any account, until the duchess’s arrival. You quite
understand?"
"Yes, miss -- m’lady,"
stammered Simpson. He had been boot-boy in a ducal household early in his
career; and he considered duchesses’ nieces to be people before whom one should
bow down.
Jane smiled. "’Miss’
is quite sufficient, Simpson," she said; and swept towards the library.
Garth heard her enter,
and close the door; and his quick ear caught the rustle of a train.
"Hullo, Miss
Gray," he said. "Packed your uniform?"
"Yes," said
Jane. " I told you I was packing."
She came slowly across
the room, and stood on the hearth-rug looking down at him. He was in full
evening-dress, just as at Shenstone on that memorable night; and, as he sat
well back in his deep arm-chair, one knee crossed over the other, she saw the
crimson line of his favourite silk socks.
Jane stood looking down
upon him. Her hour had come at last. But even now she must, for his sake, be
careful and patient.
"I did not hear
the song," she said.
" No,"
replied Garth. " At first, I forgot. And when I remembered, I had been
thinking of other things, and somehow -- ah, Miss Gray! I cannot sing to-night.
My soul is dumb with longing."
"I know,"
said Jane, gently; "and I am going to sing to you."
A faint look of
surprise crossed Garth’s face. " Do you sing?" he asked. "Then
why have you not sung before? "
"When I
arrived," said Jane, " Dr. Rob asked me whether I played. I said: ’A
little.’ Thereupon he concluded I sang a little, too; and he forbade me, most
peremptorily, either to play a little, or sing a little, to you. He said he did
not want you driven altogether mad."
Garth burst out
laughing.
"How like old
Robbie," he said. "And, in spite of his injunctions, are you going to
take the risk, and ’sing a little,’ to me, to-night ? "
"No," said
Jane. "I take no risks. I am going to sing you one song. Here is the
purple cord, at your right hand. There is nothing between you and the piano;
and you are facing towards it. If you want to stop me -- you can come."
She walked to the
instrument, and sat down.
Over the top of the
grand-piano, she could see him, leaning back in his chair; a slightly amused
smile playing about his lips. He was evidently still enjoying the humour of Dr.
Rob’s prohibition.
The Rosary has but one
opening chord. She struck it; her eyes upon his face. She saw him sit up,
instantly; a look of surprise, expectation, bewilderment, gathering there.
Then she began to sing.
The deep rich voice, low and vibrant, as the softest tone of ’cello, thrilled
into the startled silence.
"The hours I spent with thee, dear heart, Are as a string of pearls
to me; I count them over, every one apart, My rosary; my rosary. Each hour a
pearl --" Jane got no
further.
Garth had risen. He
spoke no word; but he was coming blindly over to the piano. She turned on the
music-stool, her arms held out to receive him. Now he had found the woodwork.
His hand crashed down upon the bass. Now he had found her. He was on his knees,
his arms around her. Hers enveloped him -- yearning, tender, hungry with the repressed
longing of all those hard weeks.
He lifted his sightless
face to hers, for one moment. "You?" he said. "You? You -- all
the time? "
Then he hid his face in
the soft lace at her breast.
"Oh, my boy, my
darling!" said Jane, tenderly; holding the dear head close. "Yes; I,
all the time; all the time near him, in his loneliness and pain. Could I have
stopped away? But, oh, Garth! What it is, at last to hold you, and touch you,
and feel you here! . . . Yes, it is I. Oh, my belovéd, are you not quite sure?
Who else could hold you thus? . . . Take care, my darling! Come over to the
couch, just here; and sit beside me."
Garth rose, and raised
her, without loosing her; and she guided herself and him to a safer seat close
by. But there again he flung himself upon his knees, and held her; his arms
around her waist; his face hidden in the shelter of her bosom.
"Ah, darling,
darling," said Jane softly, and her hands stole up behind his head, with a
touch of unspeakable protective tenderness; "it has been so sweet to wait
upon my boy; and help him in his darkness; and shield him from unnecessary
pain; and be always there, to meet his every need. But I could not come --
myself -- until he knew; and understood; and had forgiven -- no, not ’forgiven’;
understood, and yet still loved. For he does now understand? And he does
forgive? . . . Oh, Garth! . . . Oh hush, my darling! . . . You frighten me! . .
. No, I will never leave you; never, never! . . . Oh, can’t you understand, my
beloved? . . . Then I must tell you more plainly. Darling, -- do be still, and
listen. Just for a few days we must be -- as we have been; only my boy will
know it is I who am near him. Aunt ’Gina is coming this evening. She will be
here in half an hour. Then, as soon as possible, we will get a special license;
and we will be married, Garth; and then -- " Jane paused; and the man who
knelt beside her, held his breath to listen -- "and then," continued
Jane in a low tender voice, which gathered in depth of sacred mystery, yet did
not falter -- "then it will be my highest joy, to be always with my
husband, night and day."
A long sweet silence.
The tempest of emotion in her arms, was hushed to rest. The eternal voice of
perfect love had whispered: "Peace, be still"; and there was a great
calm.
At last Garth lifted
his head. "Always? Always together?" he said. "Ah, that will be ’perpetual
light!’ "
. . . . . . . . . . .
When Simpson, pale with
importance, flung open the library door, and announced: "Her Grace, the
Duchess of Meldrum," Jane was seated at the piano, playing soft dreamy
chords; and a slim young man, in evening dress, advanced with eager hospitality
to greet his guest.
The duchess either did
not see, or chose to ignore the guiding cord. She took his outstretched hand
warmly in both her own.
"Goodness
gracious, my dear Dal! How you surprise me! I expected to find you blind! And
here you are, striding about, just your old handsome self!"
"Dear
Duchess," said Garth, and stooping, kissed the kind old hands still
holding his; " I cannot see you, I am sorry to say; but I don’t feel very
blind to-night. My darkness has been lightened, by a joy beyond
expression."
"Oh ho! So that’s
the way the land lies! Now which are you going to marry? The nurse, -- who, I
gather, is a most respectable young person, and highly recommended; or that
hussy, Jane; who, without the smallest compunction, orders her poor aunt from
one end of the kingdom to the other, to suit her own convenience?"
Jane came over from the
piano, and slipped her hand through her lover’s arm.
"Dear Aunt ’Gina,"
she said; "you know you loved coming; because you enjoy a mystery, and
like being a dear old ’Deus-ex-machina,’ at the right moment. And he is going
to marry them both; because they both love him far too dearly ever to leave him
again; and he seems to think he cannot do without either."
The duchess looked at
the two radiant faces; one sightless; the other, with glad proud eyes for both;
and her own filled with tears.
" Hoity-toity!
" she said. " Are we in Salt Lake City? Well, we always thought one
girl would not do for Dal; he would need the combined perfections of several;
and he appears to think he has found them. God bless you both, you absurdly
happy people; and I will bless you, too; but not until I have dined. Now, ring
for that very nervous person, with side-whiskers; and tell him I want my maid,
and my room, and I want to know where they have put my Toucan. I had to bring
him, Jane. He is so loving, dear bird! I knew you would think him in the way;
but I really could not leave him behind."
THE society paragraphs
would have described it as "a very quiet wedding," when Garth and
Jane, a few days later, were pronounced "man and wife together," in
the little Episcopal church among the hills.
Perhaps, to those who
were present, it stands out rather as an unusual wedding, than as a quiet one.
To Garth and Jane the
essential thing was to be married, and left to themselves, with as little delay
as possible. They could not be induced to pay any attention to details as to
the manner in which this desired end was to be attained. Jane left it entirely
to the doctor, in one practical though casual sentence "Just make sure it
is valid, Dicky; and send us in the bills."
The duchess, being a
true conservative, early began mentioning veils, orange-blossom, and white
satin; but Jane said: "My dear Aunt! Fancy me -- in orange-blossom! I
should look like a Christmas pantomime. And I never wear veils, even in motors;
and white satin is a form of clothing I have always had the wisdom to
avoid."
"Then in what do
you intend to be married, unnatural girl?" inquired the duchess.
"In whatever I
happen to put on, that morning," replied Jane, knotting the silk of a soft
crimson cord she was knitting; and glancing out of the window, to where Garth
sat smoking, on the terrace.
" Have you a
time-table? " inquired her Grace of Meldrum, with dangerous calmness.
" And can you send me to the station this afternoon?"
" We can always
send to the station, at a moment’s notice," said Jane, working in a golden
strand, and considering the effect. " But where are you going, dear Aunt ’Gina?
You know Deryck and Flower arrive this evening."
"I am washing my
hands of you, and going South," said the duchess, wrathfully.
"Don’t do that,
dear," said Jane, placidly. " You have washed your hands of me so
often; and, like the blood of King Duncan of Scotland, I am upon them still. ‘All
the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand."’ Then, raising
her voice
"Garth, if you
want to walk, just give a call. I am here, talking over my trousseau with Aunt ’Gina."
"What is a
trousseau? " came back in Garth’s happy voice.
"A thing you get
into to be married," said Jane.
"Then let’s get
into it quickly," shouted Garth, with enthusiasm.
"Dear Aunt,"
said Jane, "let us make a compromise. I have some quite nice clothes
upstairs, including Redfern tailor-mades, and several uniforms. Let your maid
look through them, and whatever you select, and she puts out in readiness on my
wedding morning, I promise to wear."
This resulted in Jane
appearing at the church in a long blue cloth coat and skirt, handsomely
embroidered with gold, and suiting her large figure to perfection; a deep
yellow vest of brocaded silk; and old lace ruffles at neck and wrists.
Garth was as anxious
about his wedding garments, as Jane had been indifferent over hers; but he had
so often been in requisition as best-man at town weddings, that Simpson had no
difficulty in turning him out in the acme of correct bridal attire. And very
handsome he looked, as he stood waiting at the chancel steps; not watching for
his bride; but obviously listening for her; for, as Jane came up the church Dn
Deryck’s arm, Garth slightly turned his head and smiled.
The duchess --
resplendent in purple satin and ermine, with white plumes in her bonnet, and
many jewelled chains depending from her, which rattled and tinkled, in the
silence of the church, every time she moved -- was in a front pew on the left,
ready to give her niece away.
In a corresponding
seat, on the opposite side, as near as possible to the bridegroom, sat Margery
Graem, in black silk, with a small quilted satin bonnet, and a white lawn
kerchief folded over the faithful old heart which had beaten in tenderness for
Garth since his babyhood. She turned her head anxiously, every time the duchess
jingled; but otherwise kept her eyes fixed on the marriage service, in a
large-print prayer book in her lap. Margery was not used to the Episcopal
service, and she had her "doots" as to whether it could possibly be
gone through correctly, by all parties concerned. In fact this anxiety of old
Margery’s increased so painfully when the ceremony actually commenced, that it
took audible form; and she repeated all the answers of the bridal pair, in an
impressive whisper, after them.
Dr. Rob, being the only
available bachelor, did duty as best-man; Jane having stipulated that he should
not be intrusted with the ring; her previous observations leading her to
conclude that he would most probably slip it unconsciously on to his finger,
and then search through all his own pockets and all Garth’s, and begin taking
up the church matting, before it occurred to him to look at his hand. Jane
would not have minded the diversion, but she did object to any delay. So the
ring went to church in Garth’s waistcoat pocket, where it had lived since Jane
brought it out from Aberdeen; and; without any fumbling or hesitation, was
quietly laid by him upon the open book.
Dr. Rob had charge of
the fees for clerk, verger, bell-ringers, and every person, connected with the
church, who could possibly have a tip pressed upon them. Garth was generous in
his gladness, and eager to do all things in a manner worthy of the great gift
made fully his that day. So Dr. Rob was well provided with the wherewithal; and
this he jingled in his pockets as soon as the exhortation commenced, and his
interest in the proceedings resulted in his fatal habit of unconsciousness of
his own actions. Thus he and the duchess kept up a tinkling duet, each hearing
the other, and not their own sounds. So the duchess glared at Dr. Rob; and Dr.
Rob frowned at the duchess; and old Margery looked tearfully at both.
Deryck Brand, the
tallest man in the church, his fine figure showing to advantage in the long
frock coat with silk facings, which Lady Brand had pronounced indispensable to
the occasion, retired to a seat beside his wife, just behind old Margery, as
soon as he had conducted Jane to Garth’s side. As Jane removed her hand from
his arm, she turned and smiled at him; and a long look passed between them. All
the memories, all the comprehension, all the trust and affection of years,
seemed to concentrate in that look; and Lady Brand’s eyes dropped to her dainty
white and gold prayer-book. She had never known jealousy; the doctor had never
given. her any possible reason for acquiring that cruel knowledge. His Flower
bloomed for him; and her fragrance alone made his continual joy. All other
lovely women were mere botanical specimens, to be examined and classified. But
Flower had never quite understood the depth of the friendship between her
husband and Jane, founded on the associations and aspirations of childhood and
early youth, and a certain similarity of character which would not have wedded
well, but which worked out into a comradeship, providing a source of strength
for both. Of late, Flower had earnestly tried to share, even while failing to
comprehend, it.
Perhaps she, in her
pale primrose gown, with daffodils at her waist, and sunbeams in her golden
hair, was the most truly bridal figure in the church. As the doctor turned from
the bride, and sought his place beside her in the pew, he looked at the sweet face,
bent so demurely over the prayer-book, and thought he had never seen his wife
look more entrancingly lovely. Unconsciously his hand strayed to the white
rosebud she had fastened in his coat as they strolled round the conservatory
together that morning. Flower, glancing up, surprised his look. She did not
think it right to smile in church; but a delicate wave of colour swept over her
face, and her cheek leaned as near the doctor’s shoulder, as the size of her
hat would allow. Flower felt quite certain that was a look the doctor had never
given Jane.
The service commenced.
The short-sighted clergyman, very nervous, and rather overwhelmed by the
unusual facts of a special license, a blind bridegroom, and the reported
presence of a duchess, began reading very fast, in an undertone, which old
Margery could not follow, though her finger, imprisoned in unwonted kid,
hurried along the lines. Then conscious of his mistake, he slowed down, and
became too impressive; making long nerve-straining pauses, filled in by the
tinkling of the duchess, and the chinking in Dr. Rob’s trousers-pockets.
Thus they arrived at
the demand upon the congregation, if they could show any just cause why these
two persons might not lawfully be joined together, now to speak -- and the pause
here was so long, and so overpowering, that old Margery said "nay";
and then gave a nervous sob. The bridegroom turned and smiled in the direction
of the voice; and the doctor, leaning forward, laid his hand on the trembling
shoulder, and whispered: "Steady, old friend. It is all right."
There was no pause
whatever after the solemn charge to the couple; so if Garth and Jane had any
secrets to disclose, they had perforce to keep them for after discussion.
Then Jane found her
right hand firmly clasped in Garth’s; and no inadequacy of the Church’s
mouthpiece could destroy the exquisite beauty of the Church’s words, in which
Garth was asked if he would take her to be his own.
To this, Garth, and old
Margery, said they would; with considerable display of emotion.
Then the
all-comprehensive question was put to Jane; the Church seeming to remind her
gently, that she took him in his blindness, with all which that might entail.
Jane said: "I
will"; and the deep, tender voice, was the voice of " The Rosary."
When the words were
uttered, Garth lifted the hand he held, and reverently kissed it.
This was not in the
rubric, and proved disconcerting to the clergyman. He threw up his head
suddenly, and inquired: "Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?"
And as, for the moment, there was no response, he repeated the question wildly,
gazing into distant corners of the church.
Then the duchess, who
up to that time had been feeling a little bored, realised that her moment had
come, and rejoiced. She sailed out of her pew, and advanced to the chancel
step.
"My dear good
man," she said; "I give my niece away; having come north at
considerable inconvenience for that express purpose. Now, go on. What do we do
next?"
Dr. Rob broke into an
uncontrollable chuckle. The duchess lifted her lorgnette, and surveyed him.
Margery searched her
prayer-book in vain for the duchess’s response. It did not appear to be there.
Flower looked in
distressed appeal at the doctor. But the doctor was studying, with grave intentness,
a stencilled pattern on the chancel roof; and paid no attention to Flower’s
nudge.
The only people
completely unconscious of anything unusual in the order of proceedings,
appeared to be the bride and bridegroom. They were taking each other "in
the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation." They were
altogether absorbed in each other, standing together in the sight of God; and
the deportment of "this congregation," was a matter they scarcely
noticed. " People always behave grotesquely at weddings," Jane had
said to Garth, beforehand; "and ours will be no exception to the general
rule. But we can close our eyes, and stand together in Sightless Land; and
Deryck will take care it is valid."
"Not in Sightless
Land, my belovéd," said Garth; "but in the Land where they need no
candle neither light of the sun. However, and wherever, I take you as my wife,
I shall be standing on the summit of God’s heaven."
So they stood; and in
their calmness the church hushed to silence. The service proceeded; and the
minister, who had not known how to keep them from clasping hands when the
rubric did not require it, found no ,difficulty in inducing them to do so
again.
So they took each other
-- these two, who were so deeply each other’s already -- solemnly, reverently,
tenderly, in the sight of God, they took each other, according to God’s holy
ordinance; and the wedding ring, type of that eternal love which has neither
beginning nor ending, passed from Garth’s pocket, over the Holy Book, on to
Jane’s finger.
When it was over, she
took his arm; and leaning upon it, so that he could feel she leaned, guided him
to the vestry.
Afterwards, in the
brougham, for those few precious minutes, when husband and wife find themselves
alone for the first time, Garth turned to Jane with an eager naturalness, which
thrilled her heart as no studied speech could have done. He did not say:
"My wife." That unique moment had been theirs, three years before.
"Dearest," he
said, "how soon will they all go? How soon shall we be quite alone? Oh,
why couldn’t they drive to the station from the church?"
Jane looked at her
watch. " Because we must lunch them, dear," she said. "Think how
good they have all been. And we could not start our married life by being
inhospitable. It is just one o’clock; and we ordered luncheon at half past.
Their train leaves the station at half past four. In three hours, Garth, we
shall be alone."
"Shall I be able
to behave nicely for three hours?" exclaimed Garth, boyishly.
"You must,"
said Jane, " or I shall fetch Nurse Rosemary."
"Oh hush!" he
said. "All that is too precious, to-day, for chaff. Jane " -- he
turned suddenly, and laid his hand on hers -- " Jane! Do you understand
that you are now -- actually -- my wife?"
Jane took his hand, and
held it against her heart, just where she so often had pressed her own, when
she feared he would hear it throbbing.
"My darling,"
she said, " I do not understand it. But I know -- ah, thank God! -- I know
it to be true."
MOONLIGHT on the
terrace -- silvery, white serene.
Garth and Jane had
stepped out into the brightness; and, finding the night so warm and still, and
the nightingales filling the woods and hills with soft-throated music, they
moved their usual fireside chairs close to the parapet, and sat there in
restful comfort, listening to the sweet sounds of the quiet night.
The solitude was so
perfect; the restfulness so complete. Garth had removed the cushion seat from
his chair, and placed it on the gravel; and sat at his wife’s feet leaning
against her knees. She stroked his hair and brow softly, as they talked; and
every now and then he put up his hand, drew hers to his lips, and kissed the
ring he had never seen.
Long tender silences
fell between them. Now that they were at last alone, thoughts too deep, joys
too sacred for words, trembled about them; and silence seemed to express more
than speech. Only, Garth could not bear Jane to be for a moment out of reach of
his hand. What to another would have been: " I cannot let her out of my
sight," was, to him, " I cannot let her be beyond my touch." And
Jane fully understood this; and let him feel her every moment within reach. And
the bliss of this, was hers, as well as his; for sometimes it had seemed to her
as if the hunger in her heart, caused by those long weeks of waiting, when her
arms ached for him, and yet she dared not even touch his hand, would never be
appeased.
"Sweet, sweet,
sweet - thrill," sang a nightingale in the wood. And Garth whistled an
exact imitation.
"Oh,
darling," said Jane, "that reminds me: there is something I do so
want you to sing to me. I don’t know what it is; but I think you will remember.
It was on that Monday evening, after I had seen the pictures, and Nurse
Rosemary had described them to you. Both our poor hearts were on the rack; and
I went up early in order to begin my letter of confession; but you told Simpson
not to come for you until eleven. While I was writing in the room above, I
could hear you playing in the library. You played many things I knew -music we
had done together, long ago. And then a theme I had never heard crept in, and
caught my ear at once, because it was quite new to me, and so marvellously
sweet. I put down my pen and listened. You played it several times, with slight
variations, as if trying to recall it. And then, to my joy, you began to sing.
I crossed the room; softly opened my window, and leaned out. I could hear some
of the words; but not all. Two lines, however, reached me distinctly, with such
penetrating, tender sadness, that I laid my head against the window-frame,
feeling as if I could write no more, and wait no longer, but must go straight
to you at once."
Garth drew down the
dear hand which had held the pen that night; turned it over, and softly kissed
the palm.
"What were they,
Jane?" he said.
"’Lead us, O Christ, when all is gone, Safe home at last.’ And oh,
my darling, the pathos of those words: ’when all is gone’! Whoever wrote that
music, had been through suffering such as ours. Then came a theme of such
inspiring hopefulness and joy, that I arose, armed with fresh courage; took up
my pen, and went on with my letter. Again two lines had reached me " ’Where
Thou, Eternal Light of Light, Art Lord of All.’What is it, Garth? And whose?
And where did you hear it? And will you sing it to me now, darling? I have a
sudden wish that you should sing it, here and now; and I can’t wait! " Garth sat up, and laughed -- a short
happy laugh, in which all sorts of emotions were mingled.
"Jane! I like to
hear you say you can’t wait. It isn’t like you; because you are so strong and
patient. And yet it is so deliciously like you, if you feel it, to say it. I
found the words in the Anthem-book at Worcester Cathedral, this time last year,
at even-song. I copied them into my pocket-book, during the reading of the
first lesson, I am ashamed to say; but it was all about what Balak said unto
Balaam, and Balaam said unto Balak, -- so I hope I may be forgiven! They seemed
to me some of the most beautiful words I had ever read; and, fortunately, I
committed them to memory. Of course I will sing them to you, if you wish, here
and now. But I am afraid the air will sound rather poor without the
accompaniment. However, not for worlds would I move from here, at this
moment."
So sitting up, in the
moonlight, with his back to Jane, his face uplifted, and his hands clasped
around one knee, Garth sang. Much practice had added greatly to the sweetness
and flexibility of his voice; and he rendered perfectly the exquisite melody to
which the words were set. Jane listened with an overflowing heart.
"The radiant morn
hath passed away,
And spent too soon her
golden store;
The shadows of
departing day
Creep on once more. "Our
life is but a fading dawn,
Its glorious noon, how
quickly past!
Lead us, O Christ, when
all is gone,
Safe home at last. "Where
saints are clothed in spotless white,
And evening shadows
never fall;
Where Thou, Eternal
Light of Light,
Art Lord of All." The
triumphant worship of the last line rang out into the night, and died away.
Garth loosed his hands, and leaned back, with a sigh of vast content, against
his wife’s knees.
"Beautiful !
" she said. " Beautiful! Garthie -- perhaps it is because you sang
it; and to-night; -- but it seems to me the most beautiful thing I ever heard.
Ah, and how appropriate for us; on this day, of all days."
"Oh, I don’t
know," said Garth, stretching his legs in front of him, and crossing his
feet the one over the other. " I certainly feel ’Safe home at last’ -- not
because ’all is gone’; but because I have all, in having you, Jane."
Jane bent, and laid her
cheek upon his head. " My own boy," she said, "you have all I
have to give all, all. But, darling, in those dark days which are past, all
seemed gone, for us both. ’Lead us, O Christ’ -- It was He who led us safely
through the darkness, and has brought us to this. And Garth, I love to know
that He is Lord of All -- Lord of our joy; Lord of our love; Lord of our lives
-- our wedded lives, my husband. We could not be so safely, so blissfully, each
other’s, were we not one, in Him. Is this true for you also, Garth?"
Garth felt for her left
hand, drew it down, and laid his cheek against it; then gently twisted the
wedding-ring, that he might kiss it all round.
"Yes, my
wife," he said. " I thank God, that I can say in all things: ’Thou,
Eternal Light of Light, art Lord of All.’"
A long sweet silence.
Then Jane said, suddenly: "Oh, but the music, Garthie! That exquisite
setting. Whose is it? And where did you hear it?"
Garth laughed again; a
laugh of half-shy pleasure.
"I am glad you
like it, Jane," he said, "because I must plead guilty to the fact
that it is my own. You see, I knew no music for it; the Anthem-book gave the
words only. And on that awful night, when little Rosemary had mercilessly
rubbed it in, about ’the lady portrayed’; and what her love must have been, and
would have been, and could have been; and had made me see ’The Wife’ again, and
’The -’the other picture; I felt so bruised, and sore, and lonely. And then
those words came to my mind: ’Lead us, O Christ, when all is gone, safe home at
last.’ All seemed gone, indeed; and there seemed no home to hope for, in this
world." He raised himself a little, and then leaned back again; so that
his head rested against her bosom. "Safe home at last," he said, and
stayed quite still for a moment, in utter content. Then remembered what he was
telling her, and went on eagerly.
"So those words
came back to me; and to get away from despairing thoughts, I began reciting
them, to an accompaniment of chords.
"The radiant morn hath passed away, And spent too soon her golden
store; The shadows of departing day "And then -- suddenly, Jane -- I saw
it, pictured in sound! Just as I used to see a sunset, in light and shadow, and
then transfer it to my canvas in shade and colour, -- so I heard a sunset in
harmony, and I felt the same kind of tingle in my fingers as I used to feel
when inspiration came, and I could catch up my brushes and palette. So I played
the sunset. And then I got the theme for life fading, and what one feels when
the glorious noon is suddenly plunged into darkness; and then the prayer. And
then, I heard a vision of heaven, where evening shadows never fall. And after
that came the end; just certainty, and worship, and peace. You see the eventual
theme, worked out of all this. It was like making studies for a picture. That
was why you heard it over and over. I wasn’t trying to remember. I was
gathering it into final form. I am awfully glad you like it, Jane; because if I
show you how the harmonies go, perhaps you could write it down. And it would
mean such a lot to me, if you thought it worth singing. I could play the
accompaniment -- Hullo! Is it beginning to rain? I felt a drop on my cheek, and
another on my hand." No
answer. Then he felt the heave, with which Jane caught her breath; and realised
that she was weeping.
In a moment he was on
his knees in front of her.
"Jane! Why, what
is the matter, Sweet? What on earth --? Have I said anything to trouble you?
Jane, what is it? O God, why can’t I see her!"
Jane mastered her
emotion; controlling her voice, with an immense effort. Then drew him down
beside her.
"Hush, darling,
hush! It is only a great joy -- a wonderful surprise. Lean against me again,
and I will try to tell you. Do you know that you have composed some of the most
beautiful music in the world? Do you know, my own boy, that not only your proud
and happy wife, but all women who can sing, will want to sing your music?
Garthie, do you realise what it means? The creative faculty is so strong in
you, that when one outlet was denied it, it burst forth through another. When
you had your sight, you created by the hand and eye. Now, you will create by
the hand and ear. The power is the same. It merely works through another
channel. But oh, think what it means! Think! The world lies before you once
more!"
Garth laughed, and put
up his hand to the dear face, still wet with thankful tears.
"Oh, bother the
world!" he said. " I don’t want the world. I only want my wife."
Jane put her arms
around him. Ah, what a boy he was in some ways! How full of light-hearted,
irrepressible, essential youth. Just then she felt so much older than he; but
how little that mattered. The better could she wrap him round with the
greatness of her tenderness; shield him from every jar or disillusion; and help
him to make the most of his great gifts.
"I know,
darling," she said. " And you have her. She is just all yours. But
think of the wonderful future. Thank God, I know enough of the technical part,
to write the scores of your compositions. And, Garth, -- fancy going together
to noble cathedrals, and hearing your anthems sung; and to concerts where the
most perfect voices in the world will be doing their utmost adequately to
render your songs. Fancy thrilling hearts with pure harmony, stirring souls
with tone-pictures; just as before you used to awaken in us all, by your
wonderful paintings, an appreciation and comprehension of beauty."
Garth raised his head.
" Is it really as good as that, Jane?" he said.
"Dear,"
answered Jane, earnestly, "I can only tell you, that when you sang it
first, and I had not the faintest idea it was yours, I said to myself: ’It is
the most beautiful thing I ever heard."’
"I am glad,"
said Garth, simply. "And now, let’s talk of something else. Oh, I say,
Jane! The present is too wonderful, to leave any possible room for thoughts
about the future. Do talk about the present."
Jane smiled; and it was
the smile of "The Wife" -- mysterious; compassionate; tender;
self-surrendering. She leaned over him, and rested her cheek upon his head.
"Yes, darling. We
will talk of this very moment, if you wish. You begin."
"Look at the
house, and describe it to me, as you see it in the moonlight."
"Very grey, and
calm, and restful-looking. And so home-like, Garthie."
"Are there lights
in the windows? "
"Yes. The library
lights are just as we left them. The French window is standing wide open. The
pedestal lamp, under a crimson silk shade, looks very pretty from here,
shedding a warm glow over the interior. Then, I can see one candle in the
dining-room. I think Simpson is putting away silver."
"Any others, Jane?
"
"Yes, darling.
There is alight in the Oriel chamber. I can see Margery moving to and fro. She
seems to be arranging my things, and giving final touches. There is also a
light in your room, next door. Ah, now she has gone through. I see her standing
and looking round to make sure all is right. Dear faithful old heart! Garth,
how sweet it is to be at home to-day; served and tended by those who really
love us."
" I am so glad you
feel that," said Garth. "I half feared you might regret not having an
ordinary honeymoon -- And yet, no! I wasn’t really afraid of that, or of
anything. Just, together at last, was all we wanted. Wasn’t it, my wife?"
"All."
A clock in the house
struck nine.
"Dear old clock,"
said Garth, softly. " I used to hear it strike nine, when I was a little
chap in my crib, trying to keep awake until my mother rustled past, and went
into her room. The door between her room and mine used to stand ajar, and I
could see her candle appear in along streak upon my ceiling. When I saw that
streak, I fell asleep immediately. It was such a comfort to know she was there;
and would not go down again. Jane, do you like the Oriel chamber?"
"Yes, dear. It is
a lovely room; and very sacred because it was hers. Do you know, Aunt Georgina
insisted upon seeing it, Garth; and said it ought to be whitened and papered.
But I would not hear of that; because the beautiful old ceiling is
hand-painted, and so are the walls; and I was certain you had loved those
paintings, as a little boy; and would remember them now."
"Ah, yes,"
said Garth, eagerly. "A French artist stayed here, and did them. Water and
rushes, and the most lovely flamingoes; those on the walls standing with their
feet in the water; and those on the ceiling, flying with wings outspread, into
a pale green sky, all over white billowy clouds. Jane, I believe I could walk
round that room, blindfold -- no! I mean, as I am now; and point out the exact
spot where each flamingo stands."
"You shall,"
said Jane, tenderly. These slips when he talked, momentarily forgetting his
blindness, always wrung her heart. "By degrees you must tell me all the
things you specially did and loved, as a little boy. I like to know them. Had
you always that room, next door to your mother’s?"
"Ever since I can
remember," said Garth. "And the door between was always open. After
my mother’s death, I kept it locked. But the night before my birthday, I used
to open it; and when I woke early and saw it ajar, I would spring up, and go
quickly in; and it seemed as if her dear presence was there to greet me, just
on that one morning. But I had to go quickly, and immediately I wakened; just
as you must go out early to catch the rosy glow of sunrise on the fleeting
clouds; or to see the gossamer webs on the gorse, outlined in diamonds, by the
sparkling summer dew. But, somehow, Margery found out about it; and the third
year there was a sheet of writing-paper firmly stuck to the pin-cushion by a
large black-headed pin, saying, in Margery’s careful caligraphy: ’Many happy
returns of the day, Master Garthie.’ It was very touching, because it was meant
to be so comforting and tactful. But it destroyed the illusion! Since then the
door has been kept closed."
Another long sweet
silence. Two nightingales, in distant trees, sang alternately; answering one
another in liquid streams of melody.
Again Garth turned the
wedding-ring; then spoke, with his lips against it.
"You said Margery
had ‘gone through.’ Is it open to-night?" he asked.
Jane clasped both hands
behind his head, -- strong, capable hands, though now they trembled a little --
and pressed his face against her, as she had done on the terrace at Shenstone,
three years before.
"Yes, my own
boy," she said; "it is."
"Jane! Oh, Jane
" He released himself from the pressure of those restraining hands, and
lifted his adoring face to hers.
Then, suddenly, Jane
broke down. "Ah, darling," she said, " take me away from this
horrible white moonlight! I cannot bear it. It reminds me of Shenstone. It
reminds me of the wrong I did you. It seems a separating thing between you and
me -- this cruel brightness which you cannot share."
Her tears fell on his
upturned face.
Then Garth sprang to
his feet. The sense of manhood and mastery; the right of control, the joy of
possession, arose within him. Even in his blindness, he was the stronger. Even
in his helplessness, -- for the great essentials, Jane must lean on him. He
raised her gently, put his arms about her, and stood there, glorified by his
great love.
"Hush, sweetest
wife," he said. "Neither light nor darkness can separate between you
and me. This quiet moonlight cannot take you from me; but in the still, sweet
darkness you will feel more completely my own, because it will hold nothing we
cannot share. Come with me to the library, and we will send away the lamps, and
close the curtains; and you shall sit on the couch near the piano, where you
sat, on that wonderful evening when I found you, and when I almost frightened
my brave Jane. But she will not be-frightened now, because she is so my own;
and I may say what I like; and do what I will; and she must not threaten me
with Nurse Rosemary; because it is Jane I want - Jane, Jane; just only Jane!
Come in, belovéd; and I, who see as clearly in the dark as in the light, will
sit and play ’The Rosary’ for you; and then ’ Veni Creator Spiritus’; and I
will sing you the verse which has been the secret source of peace, and the
sustaining power of my whole inner life, through the long, hard years,
apart."
"Now,"
whispered Jane. " Now, as we go."
So Garth drew her hand
through his arm; and, as they walked, sang softly:
"Enable with perpetual light, dulness of our blinded sight; Anoint
and cheer our soiléd face With the abundance of Thy grace. Keep far our foes;
give peace at home; Where Thou art Guide, no ill can come." Thus, leaning on her husband; yet guiding
him, as she leaned; Jane passed to the perfect happiness of her wedded home.
A story of prehistoric
times, when nature had evolved an order of beings who, little removed from the
brute in many respects, had implanted within them the rudimentary powers and
affections which in the subsequent development of the race were to become
increasingly expansive. The author presents a vivid picture of this age, when
the wife-hunter prowled around the cave of the savage woman he intended to
appropriate. Into this life of hard necessity, of physical conflict, of
constant peril and unceasing vigilance, is introduced a love affair between a
savage man and a savage woman that presents a blending of tenderness and
savagery typical of an age when love and hate were more deeply rooted passions
than they are to-day.
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