The Rosary

CHAPTER XXI

HARD ON THE SEC­RE­TARY

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 sun-​beams.

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 a broad 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.