They talked together for a while without interruption, until Dr. Rob remarked: "I suppose I will have to be going."
Then Garth said: "I wish to speak to you alone, doctor, for a few minutes."
"I will wait for you downstairs, Dr. Mackenzie," said Jane, and was moving towards the door, when an imperious gesture from Dr. Rob stopped her, and she turned silently to the fireplace. She could not see any need now for this subterfuge, and it annoyed her. But the freckled little Napoleon of the moors was not a man to be lightly disobeyed. He walked to the door, opened and closed it; then returned to the bedside, drew up a chair, and sat down.
"Now, Mr. Dalmain," he said.
Garth sat up and turned towards him eagerly.
Then, for the first time, Jane saw his face.
"Doctor," he said, "tell me about this nurse. Describe her to me."
The tension in tone and att.i.tude was extreme. His hands were clasped in front of him, as if imploring sight through the eyes of another. His thin white face, worn with suffering, looked so eager and yet so blank.
"Describe her to me, doctor," he said; "this Nurse Rosemary Gray, as you call her."
"But it is not a pet name of mine, my dear sir," said Dr. Rob deliberately. "It is the young lady"s own name, and a pretty one, too.
"Rosemary for remembrance." Is not that Shakespeare?"
"Describe her to me," insisted Garth, for the third time.
Dr. Mackenzie glanced at Jane. But she had turned her back, to hide the tears which were streaming down her cheeks. Oh, Garth! Oh, beautiful Garth of the shining eyes!
Dr. Rob drew Deryck"s letter from his pocket and studied it.
"Well," he said slowly, "she is a pretty, dainty little thing; just the sort of elegant young woman you would like to have about you, could you see her."
"Dark or fair?" asked Garth.
The doctor glanced at what he could see of Jane"s cheek, and at the brown hands holding on to the mantelpiece.
"Fair," said Dr. Rob, without a moment"s hesitation.
Jane started and glanced round. Why should this little man be lying on his own account?
"Hair?" queried the strained voice from the bed.
"Well," said Dr. Rob deliberately, "it is mostly tucked away under a modest little cap; but, were it not for that wise restraint, I should say it might be that kind of fluffy, fly-away floss-silk, which puts the finishing touch to a dainty, pretty woman."
Garth lay back, panting, and pressed his hands over his sightless face.
"Doctor," he said, "I know I have given you heaps of trouble, and to-day you must think me a fool. But if you do not wish me to go mad in my blindness, send that girl away. Do not let her enter my room again."
"Now, Mr. Dalmain," said Dr. Mackenzie patiently; "let us consider this thing. We may take it you have nothing against this young lady excepting a chance resemblance in her voice to that of a friend of yours now far away. Was not this other lady a pleasant person?"
Garth laughed suddenly, bitterly; a laugh like a hard, sob. "Oh, yes,"
he said, "she was quite a pleasant person."
""Rosemary for remembrance,"" quoted Dr. Rob. "Then why should not Nurse Rosemary call up a pleasant remembrance? Also it seems to me to be a kind, sweet, womanly voice, which is something to be thankful for nowadays, when so many women talk, fit to scare the crows; cackle, cackle, cackle--like stones rattling in a tin canister."
"But can"t you understand, doctor," said Garth wearily, "that it is just the remembrance and the resemblance which, in my blindness, I cannot bear? I have nothing against her voice, Heaven knows! But I tell you, when I heard it first I thought it was--it was she--the other--come to me--here--and--" Garth"s voice ceased suddenly.
"The pleasant lady?" suggested Dr. Rob. "I see. Well now, Mr. Dalmain, Sir Deryck said the best thing that could happen would be if you came to wish for visitors. It appears you have many friends ready and anxious to come any distance in order to bring you help or cheer. Why not let me send for this pleasant lady? I make no doubt she would come.
Then when she herself had sat beside you, and talked with you, the nurse"s voice would trouble you no longer."
Garth sat up again, his face wild with protest. Jane turned on the hearth-rug, and stood watching it.
"No, doctor," he said. "Oh, my G.o.d, no! In the whole world, she is the last person I would have enter this room!"
Dr. Mackenzie bent forward to examine minutely a microscopic darn in the sheet. "And why?" he asked very low.
"Because," said Garth, "that pleasant lady, as you rightly call her, has a n.o.ble, generous heart, and it might overflow with pity for my blindness; and pity from her I could not accept. It would be the last straw upon my heavy cross. I can bear the cross, doctor; I hope in time to carry it manfully, until G.o.d bids me lay it down. But that last straw--HER pity--would break me. I should fall in the dark, to rise no more."
"I see," said Dr. Rob gently. "Poor laddie! The pleasant lady must not come."
He waited silently a few minutes, then pushed back his chair and stood up.
"Meanwhile," he said, "I must rely on you, Mr. Dalmain, to be agreeable to Nurse Rosemary Gray, and not to make her task too difficult. I dare not send her back. She is Dr. Brand"s choice. Besides--think of the cruel blow to her in her profession. Think of it, man!--sent off at a moment"s notice, after spending five minutes in her patient"s room, because, forsooth, her voice maddened him! Poor child! What a statement to enter on her report! See her appear before the matron with it! Can"t you be generous and unselfish enough to face whatever trial there may be for you in this bit of a coincidence?"
Garth hesitated. "Dr. Mackenzie," he said at last, "will you swear to me that your description of this young lady was accurate in every detail?"
""Swear not at all,"" quoted Dr. Rob unctuously. "I had a pious mother, laddie. Besides I can do better than that. I will let you into a secret. I was reading from Sir Deryck"s letter. I am no authority on women myself, having always considered dogs and horses less ensnaring and more companionable creatures. So I would not trust my own eyes, but preferred to give you Sir Deryck"s description. You will allow him to be a fine judge of women. You have seen Lady Brand?"
"Seen her? Yes," said Garth eagerly, a slight flush tinting his thin cheeks, "and more than that, I"ve painted her. Ah, such a picture!--standing at a table, the sunlight in her hair, arranging golden daffodils in an old Venetian vase. Did you see it, doctor, in the New Gallery, two years ago?"
"No," said Dr. Rob. "I am not finding myself in galleries, new or old.
But"--he turned a swift look of inquiry on Jane, who nodded--"Nurse Gray was telling me she had seen it."
"Really?" said Garth, interested. "Somehow one does not connect nurses with picture galleries."
"I don"t know why not," said Dr. Rob. "They must go somewhere for their outings. They can"t be everlastingly nosing shop windows in all weathers; so why not go in and have a look at your pictures? Besides, Miss Rosemary is a young lady of parts. Sir Deryck a.s.sures me she is a gentlewoman by birth, well-read and intelligent.--Now, laddie, what is it to be?"
Garth considered silently.
Jane turned away and gripped the mantelpiece. So much hung in the balance during that quiet minute.
At length Garth spoke, slowly, hesitatingly. "If only I could quite disa.s.sociate the voice from the--from that other personality. If I could be quite sure that, though her voice is so extraordinarily like, she herself is not--" he paused, and Jane"s heart stood still. Was a description of herself coming?--"is not at all like the face and figure which stand clear in my remembrance as a.s.sociated with that voice."
"Well," said Dr. Rob, "I"m thinking we can manage that for you. These nurses know their patients must be humoured. We will call the young lady back, and she shall kneel down beside your bed--Bless you! She won"t mind, with me to play old Gooseberry!--and you shall pa.s.s your hands over her face and hair, and round her little waist, and a.s.sure yourself, by touch, what an elegant, dainty little person it is, in a blue frock and white ap.r.o.n."
Garth burst out laughing, and his voice had a tone it had not yet held.
"Of all the preposterous suggestions!" he said. "Good heavens! What an a.s.s I must have been making of myself! And I begin to think I have exaggerated the resemblance. In a day or two, I shall cease to notice it. And, look here, doctor, if she really was interested in that portrait--Here, I say--where are you going?"
"All right, sir," said Dr. Rob. "I was merely moving a chair over to the fireside, and taking the liberty of pouring out a gla.s.s of water.
Really you are becoming abnormally quick of hearing. Now I am all attention. What about the portrait?"
"I was only going to say, if she the nurse, you know--is really interested in my portrait of Lady Brand, there are studies of it up in the studio, which she might care to see. If she brought them here and described them to me I could explain--But, I say, doctor. I can"t have dainty young ladies in and out of my room while I"m in bed. Why shouldn"t I get up and try that chair of yours? Send Simpson along; and tell him to look out my brown lounge-suit and orange tie. Good heavens!