The Rosary

CHAPTER XXII

DR. ROB TO THE RES­CUE

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 gun-​pow­der. 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, un­doubt­ed­ly 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 on 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 as 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 had 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.