The Rosary

CHAPTER XXIII

THE ON­LY WAY

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 non-​ap­pear­ance 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 came 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 cores 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 ex­pe­ri­ences, 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 and 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!”