The Rosary

CHAPTER XXXV

NURSE ROSE­MARY HAS HER RE­WARD

“Mr. Dal­main,” said Nurse Rose­mary, with pa­tient in­sis­tence, “I re­al­ly do want you to sit down, and give your mind to the tea-​ta­ble. How can you re­mem­ber where each thing is placed, if you keep jump­ing up, and mov­ing your chair in­to dif­fer­ent po­si­tions? And last time you pound­ed the ta­ble to at­tract my at­ten­tion, which was al­ready anx­ious­ly fixed up­on you, you near­ly knocked over your own tea, and sent floods of mine in­to the saucer. If you can­not be­have bet­ter, I shall ask Margery for a pinafore, and sit you up on a high chair!”

Garth stretched his legs in front of him, and his arms over his head; and lay back in his chair, laugh­ing joy­ous­ly.

“Then I should have to say: ‘Please, Nurse, may I get down?’ What a cheeky lit­tle thing you are be­com­ing! And you used to be quite op­pres­sive­ly po­lite. I sup­pose you would an­swer: ‘If you say your grace nice­ly, Mas­ter Garth, you may.’ Do you know the sto­ry of ‘Tom­my, you should say Your Grace’?”

“You have told it to me twice in the last forty-​eight hours,” said Nurse Rose­mary, pa­tient­ly.

“Oh, what a pity! I felt so like telling it now. If you had re­al­ly been the sort of sym­pa­thet­ic per­son Sir Deryck de­scribed, you would have said: ‘No; and I should so LOVE to hear it!’”

“No; and I should so LOVE to hear it!” said Nurse Rose­mary.

“Too late! That sort of thing, to have any val­ue should be spon­ta­neous. It need not be true; but it MUST be spon­ta­neous. But, talk­ing of a high chair,–when you say those chaffy things in a voice like Jane’s, and just as Jane would have said them–oh, my wig!–Do you know, that is the duchess’s on­ly orig­inal lit­tle swear. All the rest are quo­ta­tions. And when she says: ‘My wig!’ we all try not to look at it. It is usu­al­ly slight­ly awry. The tou­can tweaks it. He is so very LOV­ING, dear bird!”

“Now hand me the but­tered toast,” said Nurse Rose­mary; “and don’t tell me any more naughty sto­ries about the duchess. No! That is the thin bread-​and-​but­ter. I told you you would lose your bear­ings. The toast is in a warm plate on your right. Now let us make be­lieve I am Miss Cham­pi­on, and hand it to me, as nice­ly as you will be hand­ing it to her, this time to-​mor­row.”

“It is easy to make be­lieve you are Jane, with that voice,” said Garth; “and yet–I don’t know. I have nev­er re­al­ly as­so­ci­at­ed you with her. One lit­tle sen­tence of old Rob’s made all the dif­fer­ence to me. He said you had fluffy floss-​silk sort of hair. No one could ev­er imag­ine Jane with fluffy floss-​silk sort of hair! And I be­lieve that one sen­tence saved the sit­ua­tion. Oth­er­wise, your voice would have driv­en me mad, those first days. As it was, I used to won­der some­times if I could pos­si­bly bear it. You un­der­stand why, now; don’t you? And yet, in a way, it is NOT like hers. Hers is deep­er; and she of­ten speaks with a de­li­cious kind of drawl, and us­es heaps of slang; and you are such a very prop­er lit­tle per­son; and pos­sess what the primers call ‘per­fect­ly cor­rect dic­tion.’ What fun it would be to hear you and Jane talk to­geth­er! And yet–I don’t know. I should be on thorns, all the time.”

“Why?”

“I should be so aw­ful­ly afraid lest you should not like one an­oth­er. You see, YOU have re­al­ly, in a way, been more to me than any one else in the world; and SHE–well, she IS my world,” said Garth, sim­ply. “And I should be so afraid lest she should not ful­ly ap­pre­ci­ate you; and you should not quite un­der­stand her. She has a sort of way of stand­ing and look­ing peo­ple up and down, and, wom­en hate it; es­pe­cial­ly pret­ty fluffy lit­tle wom­en. They feel she spots all the things that come off.”

“Noth­ing of mine comes off,” mur­mured Nurse Rose­mary, “ex­cept­ing my pa­tient, when he will not stay on his chair.”

“Once,” con­tin­ued Garth, with the glee­ful en­joy­ment in his voice which al­ways pre­saged a sto­ry in which Jane fig­ured, “there was a fear­ful­ly sil­ly lit­tle wom­an stay­ing at Over­dene, when a lot of us were there. We nev­er could make out why she was in­clud­ed in one of the duchess’s ‘best par­ties,’ ex­cept that the dear duchess vast­ly en­joyed tak­ing her off, and telling sto­ries about her; and we could not ap­pre­ci­ate the clev­er­ness of the im­per­son­ation, un­less we had seen the orig­inal. She was rather pret­ty, in a fussy, curl­ing-​tongs, wax-​doll sort of way; but she nev­er could let her ap­pear­ance alone, or al­low peo­ple to for­get it. Al­most ev­ery sen­tence she spoke, drew at­ten­tion to it. We got very sick of it, and asked Jane to make her shut up. But Jane said: ‘It doesn’t hurt you, boys; and it pleas­es her. Let her be.’ Jane was al­ways ex­tra nice to peo­ple, if she sus­pect­ed they were asked down in or­der to make sport for the duchess af­ter­wards. Jane hat­ed that sort of thing. She couldn’t say much to her aunt; but we had to be very care­ful how we egged the duchess on, if Jane was with­in hear­ing. Well–one evening, af­ter tea, a lit­tle group of us were wait­ing around the fire in the low­er hall, to talk to Jane. It was Christ­mas time. The logs looked so jol­ly on the hearth. The red vel­vet cur­tains were drawn right across, cov­er­ing the ter­race door and the win­dows on ei­ther side. Tom­my sat on his perch, in the cen­tre of the group, keep­ing a keen look­out for cigarette ends. Out­side, the world was deep in snow; and that won­der­ful si­lence reigned; mak­ing the talk and laugh­ter with­in all the more gay by con­trast–you know, that PEN­ETRAT­ING si­lence; when trees, and fields, and paths, are cov­ered a foot thick in soft sparkling white­ness. I al­ways look for­ward, just as ea­ger­ly, each win­ter to the first sight–ah, I for­got! . . . Fan­cy nev­er see­ing snow again! . . . Nev­er mind. It is some­thing to re­mem­ber HAV­ING seen it; and I shall hear the won­der­ful snow-​si­lence more clear­ly than ev­er. Per­haps be­fore oth­er peo­ple pull up the blinds, I shall be able to say: ‘There’s been a fall of snow in the night.’ What was I telling you? Yes, I re­mem­ber. About lit­tle Mrs. Fussy. Well–all the wom­en had gone up to dress for din­ner; ex­cept­ing Jane, who nev­er need­ed more than half an hour; and Fussy, who was be­ing spright­ly, in a laboured way; and fan­cied her­self the cen­tre of at­trac­tion which kept us con­gre­gat­ed in the hall. As a mat­ter of fact, we were wait­ing to tell Jane some pri­vate news we had just heard about a young chap in the guards, who was in fear­ful hot wa­ter for rag­ging. His colonel was an old friend of Jane’s, and we thought she could put in a word, and im­prove mat­ters for Bil­ly. So Mrs. Fussy was very much de trop, and didn’t know it. Jane was sit­ting with her back to all of us, her feet on the fend­er, and her skirt turned up over her knees. Oh, there was an­oth­er one, un­der­neath; a hand­some silk thing, with rows of lit­tle frills,–which you would think should have gone on out­side. But Jane’s best things are nev­er pa­rad­ed; al­ways hid­den. I don’t mean clothes, now; but her splen­did self. Well–lit­tle Fussy was ‘chat­ting’–she nev­er talked–about her­self and her con­quests; quite un­con­scious that we all wished her at Jeri­cho. Jane went on read­ing the evening pa­per; but she felt the at­mo­sphere grow­ing restive. Present­ly–ah, but I must not tell you the rest. I have just re­mem­bered. Jane made us promise nev­er to re­peat it. She thought it detri­men­tal to the oth­er wom­an. But we just had time for our con­fab; and Jane caught the evening post with the let­ter which got Bil­ly off scot-​free; and yet came down punc­tu­al­ly to din­ner, bet­ter dressed than any of them. We felt it rather hard luck to have to promise; be­cause we had each count­ed on be­ing the first to tell the sto­ry to the duchess. But, you know, you al­ways have to do as Jane says.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know! I can’t ex­plain why. If you knew her, you would not need to ask. Cake, Miss Gray?”

“Thank you. Right, this time.”

“There! That is ex­act­ly as Jane would have said: ‘Right, this time.’ Is it not strange that af­ter hav­ing for weeks thought your voice so like hers, to-​mor­row I shall be think­ing her voice so like yours?”

“Oh, no, you will not,” said Nurse Rose­mary. “When she is with you, you will have no thoughts for oth­er peo­ple.”

“In­deed, but I shall!” cried Garth. “And, dear lit­tle Rose­mary, I shall miss you, hor­ri­bly. No one–not even she–can take your place. And, do you know,” he leaned for­ward, and a trou­bled look cloud­ed the glad­ness of his face, “I am be­gin­ning to feel anx­ious about it. She has not seen me since the ac­ci­dent. I am afraid it will give her a shock. Do you think she will find me much changed?”

Jane looked at the sight­less face turned so anx­ious­ly to­ward her. She re­mem­bered that morn­ing in his room, when he thought him­self alone with Dr. Rob; and, leav­ing the shel­ter of the wall, sat up to speak, and she saw his face for the first time. She re­mem­bered turn­ing to the fire­place, so that Dr. Rob should not see the tears rain­ing down her cheeks. She looked again at Garth–now grow­ing con­scious, for the first time, of his dis­fig­ure­ment; and then, on­ly for her sake–and an al­most over­whelm­ing ten­der­ness gripped her heart. She glanced at the clock. She could not hold out much longer.

“Is it very bad?” said Garth; and his voice shook.

“I can­not an­swer for an­oth­er wom­an,” replied Nurse Rose­mary; “but I should think your face, just as it is, will al­ways be her joy.”

Garth flushed; pleased and re­lieved, but slight­ly sur­prised. There was a qual­ity in Nurse Rose­mary’s voice, for which he could not al­to­geth­er ac­count.

“But then, she will not be ac­cus­tomed to my blind ways,” he con­tin­ued. “I am afraid I shall seem so help­less and so blun­der­ing. She has not been in Sight­less Land, as you and I have been. She does not know all our plans of cords, and notch­es, and things. Ah, lit­tle Rose­mary! Promise not to leave me to-​mor­row. I want Her–on­ly God, knows how I want her; but I be­gin to be half afraid. It will be so won­der­ful, for the great es­sen­tials; but, for the lit­tle ev­ery-​day hap­pen­ings, which are so mag­ni­fied by the dark­ness, oh, my kind un­seen guide, how I shall need you. At first, I thought it lucky you had set­tled to go, just when she is com­ing; but now, just be­cause she is com­ing, I can­not let you go. Hav­ing her will be won­der­ful be­yond words; but it will not be the same as hav­ing you.”

Nurse Rose­mary was re­ceiv­ing her re­ward, and she ap­peared to find it rather over­whelm­ing.

As soon as she could speak, she said, gen­tly: “Don’t ex­cite your­self over it, Mr. Dal­main. Be­lieve me, when you have been with her for five min­utes, you will find it just the same as hav­ing me. And how do you know she has not al­so been in Sight­less Land? A nurse would do that sort of thing, be­cause she was very keen on her pro­fes­sion, and on mak­ing a suc­cess of her case. The wom­an who loves you would do it for love of you.”

“It would be like her,” said Garth; and leaned back, a look of deep con­tent­ment gath­er­ing on his face. “Oh, Jane! Jane! She is com­ing! She is com­ing!”

Nurse Rose­mary looked at the clock.

“Yes; she is com­ing,” she said; and though her voice was steady, her hands trem­bled. “And, as it is our last evening to­geth­er un­der quite the same cir­cum­stances as dur­ing all these weeks, will you agree to a plan of mine? I must go up­stairs now, and do some pack­ing, and make a few ar­range­ments. But will you dress ear­ly? I will do the same; and if you could be down in the li­brary by half-​past six, we might have some mu­sic be­fore din­ner.”

“Why cer­tain­ly,” said Garth. “It makes no dif­fer­ence to me at what time I dress; and I am al­ways ready for mu­sic. But, I say: I wish you were not pack­ing, Miss Gray.”

“I am not ex­act­ly pack­ing up,” replied Nurse Rose­mary. “I am pack­ing things away.”

“It is all the same, if it means leav­ing. But you have promised not to go un­til she comes?”

“I will not go–un­til she comes.”

“And you will tell her all the things she ought to know?”

“She shall know all I know, which could add to your com­fort.”

“And you will not leave me, un­til I am re­al­ly–well, get­ting on all right?”

“I will nev­er leave you, while you need me,” said Nurse Rose­mary. And again Garth de­tect­ed that pe­cu­liar qual­ity in her voice. He rose, and came to­wards where he heard her to be stand­ing.

“Do you know, you are no end of a brick,” he said, with emo­tion. Then he held out both hands to­wards her. “Put your hands in mine just for once, lit­tle Rose­mary. I want to try to thank you.”

There was a mo­ment of hes­ita­tion. Two strong ca­pa­ble hands–strong and ca­pa­ble, though, just then, they trem­bled–near­ly went home to his; but were with­drawn just in time. Jane’s hour was not yet. This was Nurse Rose­mary’s mo­ment of tri­umph and suc­cess. It should not be tak­en from her.

“This evening,” she said, soft­ly, “af­ter the mu­sic, we will–shake hands. Now be care­ful, sir. You are strand­ed. Wait. Here is the gar­den-​cord, just to your left. Take a lit­tle air on the ter­race; and sing again the love­ly song I heard un­der my win­dow this morn­ing. And now that you know what it is that is ‘go­ing to hap­pen,’ this exquisite May-​Day evening will fill you with ten­der ex­pec­ta­tion. Good-​bye, sir–for an hour.”

“What has come to lit­tle Rose­mary?” mused Garth, as he felt for his cane, in its cor­ner by the win­dow. “We could not have gone on in­def­inite­ly quite as we have been, since she came in from the post- of­fice.”

He walked on; a trou­bled look cloud­ing his face: Sud­den­ly it lift­ed, and he stood still, and laughed. “Duf­fer!” he said. “Oh, what a con­ceit­ed duf­fer! She is think­ing of her ‘young man.’ She is go­ing to him to-​mor­row; and her mind is full of him; just as mine is full of Jane. Dear, good, clever, lit­tle Rose­mary! I hope he is wor­thy of her. No; that he can­not be. I hope he knows he is NOT wor­thy of her. That is more to the point. I hope he will re­ceive her as she ex­pects. Some­how, I hate let­ting her go to him. Oh, hang the fel­low!–as Tom­my would say.”