The Rosary

CHAPTER XXXI

IN LIGHTER VEIN

Din­ner that evening, the first at their small round ta­ble, was a great suc­cess. Nurse Rose­mary’s plans all worked well; and Garth de­light­ed in ar­range­ments which made him feel less help­less.

The strain of the af­ter­noon brought its re­ac­tion of mer­ri­ment. A lit­tle ju­di­cious ques­tion­ing drew forth fur­ther sto­ries of the duchess and her pets; and Miss Cham­pi­on’s name came in with a fre­quen­cy which they both en­joyed.

It was a cu­ri­ous ex­pe­ri­ence for Jane, to hear her­self de­scribed in Garth’s vivid word-​paint­ing. Un­til that fa­tal evening at Shen­stone, she had been re­mark­ably free from self-​con­scious­ness; and she had no idea that she had a way of look­ing straight in­to peo­ple’s eyes when she talked to them, and that that was what mud­dled up “the sil­ly lit­tle minds of wom­en who say they are afraid of her, and that she makes them ner­vous! You see she looks right in­to their shal­low shuf­fling lit­tle souls, full of con­ceit­ed thoughts about them­selves, and nasty ill-​na­tured thoughts about her; and no won­der they grow pan­ic-​strick­en, and flee; and talk of her as ‘that formidable Miss Cham­pi­on.’ I nev­er found her formidable; but, when I had the chance of a re­al talk with her, I used to be thank­ful I had noth­ing of which to be ashamed. Those clear eyes touched bot­tom ev­ery time, as our kin­dred over the wa­ter so ex­pres­sive­ly put it.”

Nei­ther had Jane any idea that she al­ways talked with a pok­er, if pos­si­ble; build­ing up the fire while she built up her own ar­gu­ment; or at­tack­ing it vig­or­ous­ly, while she de­mol­ished her op­po­nent’s; that she stirred the fire with her toe, but her very smart boots nev­er seemed any the worse; that when pon­der­ing a dif­fi­cult prob­lem, she usu­al­ly stood hold­ing her chin in her right hand, un­til she had found the so­lu­tion. All these small char­ac­ter­is­tics Garth de­scribed with vivid touch, and dwelt up­on with a tenac­ity of re­mem­brance, which as­ton­ished Jane, and re­vealed him, in his re­la­tion to her­self three years be­fore, in a new light.

His love for her had been so sud­den­ly dis­closed, and had at once had to be con­sid­ered as a thing to be ei­ther ac­cept­ed or put away; so that when she de­cid­ed to put it away, it seemed not to have had time to be­come in any sense part of her life. She had viewed it; re­alised all it might have meant; and put it from her.

But now she un­der­stood how dif­fer­ent it had been for Garth. Dur­ing the week which pre­ced­ed his dec­la­ra­tion, he had re­alised, to the full, the mean­ing of their grow­ing in­ti­ma­cy; and, as his cer­tain­ty in­creased, he had more and more wo­ven her in­to his life; his vivid imag­ina­tion caus­ing her to ap­pear as his beloved from the first; loved and want­ed, when as yet they were mere­ly ac­quain­tances; kin­dred spir­its; friends.

To find her­self thus shrined in his heart and mem­ory was in­finite­ly touch­ing to Jane; and seemed to promise, with sweet cer­tain­ty, that it would not be dif­fi­cult to come home there to abide, when once all bar­ri­ers be­tween them were re­moved.

Af­ter din­ner, Garth sat long at the pi­ano, fill­ing the room with har­mo­ny. Once or twice the theme of The Rosary crept in, and Jane lis­tened anx­ious­ly for its de­vel­op­ment; but al­most im­me­di­ate­ly it gave way to some­thing else. It seemed rather to haunt the oth­er melodies, than to be ac­tu­al­ly there it­self.

When Garth left the pi­ano, and, guid­ed by the pur­ple cord, reached his chair, Nurse Rose­mary said gen­tly “Mr. Dal­main, can you spare me for a few days at the end of this week?”

“Oh, why?” said Garth. “To go where? And for how long? Ah, I know I ought to say: ‘Cer­tain­ly! De­light­ed!’ af­ter all your good­ness to me. But I re­al­ly can­not! You don’t know what life was with­out you, when you week-​end­ed! That week-​end seemed months, even though Brand was here. It is your own fault for mak­ing your­self so in­dis­pens­able.”

Nurse Rose­mary smiled. “I dare­say I shall not be away for long,” she said. “That is, if you want me, I can re­turn. But, Mr. Dal­main, I in­tend to-​night to write that let­ter of which I told you. I shall post it to-​mor­row. I must fol­low it up al­most im­me­di­ate­ly. I must be with him when he re­ceives it, or soon af­ter­wards. I think–I hope– he will want me at once. This is Mon­day. May I go on Thurs­day?”

Poor Garth looked blankly dis­mayed.

“Do nurs­es, as a rule, leave their pa­tients, and rush off to their young men in or­der to find out how they have liked their let­ters?” he in­quired, in mock protest.

“Not as a rule, sir,” replied Nurse Rose­mary, de­mure­ly. “But this is an ex­cep­tion­al case.”

“I shall wire to Brand.”

“He will send you a more ef­fi­cient and more de­pend­able per­son.”

“Oh you wicked lit­tle thing!” cried Garth. “If Miss Cham­pi­on were here, she would shake you! You, know per­fect­ly well that no­body could fill your place!”

“It is good of you to say so, sir,” replied Nurse Rose­mary, meek­ly. “And is Miss Cham­pi­on much ad­dict­ed to shak­ing peo­ple?”

“Don’t call me ’sir’! Yes; when peo­ple are tire­some she of­ten says she would like to shake them; and one has a men­tal vi­sion of how their teeth would chat­ter. There is a cer­tain lit­tle la­dy of our ac­quain­tance whom we al­ways call ‘Mrs. Do-​and-​don’t.’ She isn’t in our set; but she calls up­on it; and some­times it asks her to lunch, for fun. If you in­quire whether she likes a thing, she says: ‘Well, I do, and I don’t.’ If you ask whether she is go­ing to a cer­tain func­tion, she says: ‘Well, I am, and I’m not.’ And if you send her a note, im­plor­ing a straight an­swer to a di­rect ques­tion, the an­swer comes back: ‘Yes AND no.’ Miss Cham­pi­on used to say she would like to take her up by the scruff of her feath­er boa, and shake her, ask­ing at in­ter­vals: ‘Shall I stop?’ so as to wring from Mrs. Do- and-​don’t a def­inite af­fir­ma­tive, for once.”

“Could Miss Cham­pi­on car­ry out such a threat? Is she a very mas­sive per­son?”

“Well, she could, you know; but she wouldn’t. She is most aw­ful­ly kind, even to lit­tle freaks she laughs at. No, she isn’t mas­sive. That word does not de­scribe her at all. But she is large, and very fine­ly de­vel­oped. Do you know the Venus of Mi­lo? Yes; in the Lou­vre. I am glad you know Paris. Well, just imag­ine the Venus of Mi­lo in a tai­lor-​made coat and skirt,–and you have Miss Cham­pi­on.”

Nurse Rose­mary laughed, hys­ter­ical­ly. Ei­ther the Venus of Mi­lo, or Miss Cham­pi­on, or this com­bi­na­tion of both, proved too much for her.

“Lit­tle Dicky Brand summed up Mrs. Do-​and-​don’t rather well,” pur­sued Garth. “She was call­ing at Wim­pole Street, on La­dy Brand’s ‘at home’ day. And Dicky stood talk­ing to me, in his black vel­vets and white waist­coat, a minia­ture edi­tion of Sir Deryck. He in­di­cat­ed Mrs. Do-​and-​don’t on a dis­tant lounge, and re­marked: ‘THAT la­dy nev­er KNOWS; she al­ways THINKS. I asked her if her lit­tle girl might come to my par­ty, and she said: “I think so.” Now if she had asked ME if I was com­ing to HER par­ty, I should have said: “Thank you; I am.” It is very try­ing when peo­ple on­ly THINK about im­por­tant things, such as lit­tle girls and par­ties; be­cause their think­ing nev­er amounts to much. It does not so much mat­ter what they think about oth­er things–the weath­er, for in­stance; be­cause that all hap­pens, whether they think or not. Mum­mie asked that la­dy whether it was rain­ing when she got here; and she said: “I THINK not.” I can’t imag­ine why Mum­mie al­ways wants to know what her friends think about the weath­er. I have heard her ask sev­en ladies this af­ter­noon whether it is rain­ing. Now if fa­ther or I want­ed to know whether it was rain­ing we should just step over to the win­dow, and look out; and then come back and go do with re­al­ly in­ter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tion. But Mum­mie asks them whether it is rain­ing, or whether they think it has been rain­ing, or is go­ing to rain; and when they have told her, she hur­ries away and asks some­body else. I asked the think­ing la­dy in the feath­er thing, whether she knew who the fa­ther and moth­er were, of the young la­dy whom Cain mar­ried; and she said: “Well, I do; and I don’t.” I said: “If you DO, per­haps you will tell me. And if you DON’T, per­haps you would like to take my hand, and we will walk over to­geth­er and ask the Bish­op–the one with the thin legs, and the gold cross, talk­ing to Mum­mie.” But she thought she had to go, quite in a hur­ry. So I saw her off; and then asked the Bish­op alone. Bish­ops are most sat­is­fac­to­ry kind of peo­ple; be­cause they are quite sure about ev­ery­thing; and you feel safe in quot­ing them to Nurse. Nurse told Mars­don that this one is in “sheep’s cloth­ing,” be­cause he wears a gold cross. I saw the cross; but I saw no sheep’s cloth­ing. I was look­ing out for the kind of wool­ly thing our new cu­rate wears on his back in church. Should you call that “sheep’s cloth­ing”? I asked fa­ther, and he said: “No. Bun­ny-​skin.” And moth­er seemed as shocked as if fa­ther and I had spo­ken in church, in­stead of just as we came out. And she said: “It is a B.A. hood.” Pos­si­bly she thinks “baa” is spelled with on­ly one “a.” Any­way fa­ther and I felt it best to let the sub­ject drop.’”

Nurse Rose­mary laughed. “How ex­act­ly like Dicky,” she said. “I could hear his grave lit­tle voice, and al­most see him pull down his small waist­coat!”

“Why, do you know the lit­tle chap?” asked Garth.

“Yes,” replied Nurse Rose­mary; “I have stayed with them. Talk­ing to Dicky is an ed­uca­tion; and Ba­by Blos­som is a sweet romp. Here comes Simp­son. How quick­ly the evening has flown. Then may I be off on Thurs­day?”

“I am help­less,” said Garth. “I can­not say ‘no.’ But sup­pose you do not come back?”

“Then you can wire to Dr. Brand.”

“I be­lieve you want to leave me,” said Garth re­proach­ful­ly.

“I do, and I don’t!” laughed Nurse Rose­mary; and fled from his out­stretched hands.

* * * * * * *

When Jane had locked the let­ter-​bag ear­li­er that evening, and hand­ed it to Simp­son, she had slipped in two let­ters of her own. One was ad­dressed to Georgina, Duchess of Mel­drum

Port­land Place

The oth­er, to

Sir Deryck Brand

Wim­pole Street

Both were marked: Ur­gent. If ab­sent, for­ward im­me­di­ate­ly.