The Rosary

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.