CHAPTER XXVII
THE EYES GARTH TRUSTED
"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
sail. "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.
