On their last trip she volunteered to sit with them, and buried herself in _The Cloister and the Hearth_ while they whispered together. On that occasion (it was near Salisbury) at two in the morning, when the Lier-in-Wait brushed them with his wing, it meant no more than that they should cease talk for the instant, and for the instant hold hands, as even utter strangers on the deep may do when their ship rolls underfoot.
"But still," said Nurse Blaber, not looking up, "I think your Mr.
Skinner might feel jealous of all this."
"It would be difficult to explain," said Conroy.
"Then you"d better not be at my wedding," Miss Henschil laughed.
"After all we"ve gone through, too. But I suppose you ought to leave me out. Is the day fixed?" he cried.
"Twenty-second of September--in spite of both his sisters. I can risk it now." Her face was glorious as she flushed.
"My dear chap!" He shook hands unreservedly, and she gave back his grip without flinching. "I can"t tell you how pleased I am!"
"Gracious Heavens!" said Nurse Blaber, in a new voice. "Oh, I beg your pardon. I forgot I wasn"t paid to be surprised."
"What at? Oh, I see!" Miss Henschil explained to Conroy. "She expected you were going to kiss me, or I was going to kiss you, or something."
"After all you"ve gone through, as Mr. Conroy said,"
"But I couldn"t, could you?" said Miss Henschil, with a disgust as frank as that on Conroy"s face. "It would be horrible--horrible. And yet, of course, you"re wonderfully handsome. How d"you account for it, Nursey?"
Nurse Blaber shook her head. "I was hired to cure you of a habit, dear.
When you"re cured I shall go on to the next case--that senile-decay one at Bourne-mouth I told you about."
"And I shall be left alone with George! But suppose it isn"t cured,"
said Miss Henschil of a sudden. Suppose it comes back again. What can I do? I can"t send for _him_ in this way when I"m a married woman!" She pointed like an infant.
"I"d come, of course," Conroy answered. "But, seriously, that is a consideration."
They looked at each other, alarmed and anxious, and then toward Nurse Blaber, who closed her book, marked the place, and turned to face them.
"Have you ever talked to your mother as you have to me?" she said.
"No. I might have spoken to dad--but mother"s different. What d"you mean?"
"And you"ve never talked to your mother either, Mr. Conroy?"
"Not till I took Najdolene. Then I told her it was my heart. There"s no need to say anything, now that I"m practically over it, is there?"
"Not if it doesn"t come back, but--" She beckoned with a stumpy, triumphant linger that drew their heads close together. "You know I always go in and read a chapter to mother at tea, child."
"I know you do. You"re an angel," Miss Henschil patted the blue shoulder next her. "Mother"s Church of England now," she explained. "But she"ll have her Bible with her pikelets at tea every night like the Skinners."
"It was Naaman and Gehazi last Tuesday that gave me a clue. I said I"d never seen a case of leprosy, and your mother said she"d seen too many."
"Where? She never told me," Miss Henschil began.
"A few months before you were born--on her trip to Australia--at Mola or Molo something or other. It took me three evenings to get it all out."
"Ay--mother"s suspicious of questions," said Miss Henschil to Conroy.
"She"ll lock the door of every room she"s in, if it"s but for five minutes. She was a Tackberry from Jarrow way, yo" see."
"She described your men to the life--men with faces all eaten away, staring at her over the fence of a lepers" hospital in this Molo Island.
They begged from her, and she ran, she told me, all down the street, back to the pier. One touched her and she nearly fainted. She"s ashamed of that still."
"My men? The sand and the fences?" Miss Henschil muttered.
"Yes. You know how tidy she is and how she hates wind. She remembered that the fences were broken--she remembered the wind blowing.
Sand--sun--salt wind--fences--faces--I got it all out of her, bit by bit. You don"t know what I know! And it all happened three or four months before you were born. There!" Nurse Blaber slapped her knee with her little hand triumphantly.
"Would that account for it?" Miss Henschil shook from head to foot.
"Absolutely. I don"t care who you ask! You never imagined the thing. It was _laid_ on you. It happened on earth to _you_! Quick, Mr. Conroy, she"s too heavy for me! I"ll get the flask."
Miss Henschil leaned forward and collapsed, as Conroy told her afterwards, like a factory chimney. She came out of her swoon with teeth that chattered on the cup.
"No--no," she said, gulping. "It"s not hysterics. Yo" see I"ve no call to hev "em any more. No call--no reason whatever. G.o.d be praised! Can"t yo" _feel_ I"m a right woman now?"
"Stop hugging me!" said Nurse Blaber. "You don"t know your strength.
Finish the brandy and water. It"s perfectly reasonable, and I"ll lay long odds Mr. Conroy"s case is something of the same. I"ve been thinking--"
"I wonder--" said Conroy, and pushed the girl back as she swayed again.
Nurse Blaber smoothed her pale hair. "Yes. Your trouble, or something like it, happened somewhere on earth or sea to the mother who bore you.
Ask her, child. Ask her and be done with it once for all."
"I will," said Conroy.... "There ought to be--" He opened his bag and hunted breathlessly.
"Bless you! Oh, G.o.d bless you, Nursey!" Miss Henschil was sobbing. "You don"t know what this means to me. It takes it all off--from the beginning."
"But doesn"t it make any difference to you now?" the nurse asked curiously. "Now that you"re rightfully a woman?"
Conroy, busy with his bag, had not heard. Miss Henschil stared across, and her beauty, freed from the shadow of any fear, blazed up within her.
"I see what you mean," she said. "But it hasn"t changed anything. I want Toots. _He_ has never been out of his mind in his life--except over silly me."
"It"s all right," said Conroy, stooping under the lamp, Bradshaw in hand. "If I change at Templecombe--for Bristol (Bristol--Hereford--yes)--I can be with mother for breakfast in her room and find out."
"Quick, then," said Nurse Blaber. "We"ve pa.s.sed Gillingham quite a while. You"d better take some of our sandwiches." She went out to get them. Conroy and Miss Henschil would have danced, but there is no room for giants in a South-Western compartment.
"Good-bye, good luck, lad. Eh, but you"ve changed already--like me. Send a wire to our hotel as soon as you"re sure," said Miss Henschil. "What should I have done without you?"
"Or I?" said Conroy. "But it"s Nurse that"s saving us really."
"Then thank her," said Miss Henschil, looking straight at him. "Yes, I would. She"d like it."
When Nurse Blaber came back after the parting at Templecombe her nose and her eyelids were red, but, for all that, her face reflected a great light even while she sniffed over _The Cloister and the Hearth_.