The Rosary

CHAPTER XIV

IN DERYCK’S SAFE CON­TROL

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 un­bi­ased 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.”