"Here, my boy! It is for me."
She tore it open. It was from the doctor.
"Welcome home. Just back from Scotland. Will meet you Charing Cross, and give you all the time you want. Have coffee at Dover. DERYCK."
Jane gave one hard, tearless sob of thankfulness and relief. She had been so lonely.
Then she turned to the window. "Here, somebody! Fetch me a cup of coffee, will you?"
Coffee was the last thing she wanted; but it never occurred to any one to disobey the doctor, even at a distance.
The young porter, who still stood sentry at the door of Jane"s compartment, dashed off to the refreshment room; and, just as the train began to move, handed a cup of steaming coffee and a plate of bread-and-b.u.t.ter in at the window.
"Oh, thank you, my good fellow," said Jane, putting the plate on the seat, while she dived into her pocket. "Here! you have done very well for me. No, never mind the change. Coffee at a moment"s notice should fetch a fancy price. Good-bye."
The train moved on, and the porter stood looking after it with tears in his eyes. Over the first half-crown he had said to himself: "Milk and new-laid eggs." Now, as he pocketed the second, he added the other two things mentioned by the parish doctor: "Soup and jelly"; and his heart glowed. "Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things."
And Jane, seated in a comfortable corner, choked back the tears of relief which threatened to fall, drank her coffee, and was thereby more revived than she could have thought possible. She, also, had need of many things. Not of half-crowns; of those she had plenty. But above all else she needed just now a wise, strong, helpful friend, and Deryck had not failed her.
She read his telegram through once more, and smiled. How like him to think of the coffee; and oh, how like him to be coming to the station.
She took off her hat and leaned back against the cushions. She had been travelling night and day, in one feverish whirl of haste, and at last she had brought herself within reach of Deryck"s hand and Deryck"s safe control. The turmoil of her soul was stilled; a great calm took its place, and Jane dropped quietly off to sleep. "Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things."
Washed and brushed and greatly refreshed, Jane stood at the window of her compartment as the train steamed into Charing Cross.
The doctor was stationed exactly opposite the door when her carriage came to a standstill; mere chance, and yet, to Jane, it seemed so like him to have taken up his position precisely at the right spot on that long platform. An enthusiastic lady patient had once said of Deryck Brand, with more accuracy of definition than of grammar: "You know, he is always so very JUST THERE." And this characteristic of the doctor had made him to many a very present help in time of trouble.
He was through the line of porters and had his hand upon the handle of Jane"s door in a moment. Standing at the window, she took one look at the firm lean face, now alight with welcome, and read in the kind, steadfast eyes of her childhood"s friend a perfect sympathy and comprehension. Then she saw behind him her aunt"s footman, and her own maid, who had been given a place in the d.u.c.h.ess"s household. In another moment she was on the platform and her hand was in Deryck"s.
"That is right, dear," he said. "All fit and well, I can see. Now hand over your keys. I suppose you have nothing contraband? I telephoned the d.u.c.h.ess to send some of her people to meet your luggage, and not to expect you herself until dinner time, as you were taking tea with us.
Was that right? This way. Come outside the barrier. What a rabble! All wanting to break every possible rule and regulation, and each trying to be the first person in the front row. Really the patience and good temper of railway officials should teach the rest of mankind a lesson."
The doctor, talking all the time, piloted Jane through the crowd; opened the door of a neat electric brougham, helped her in, took his seat beside her, and they glided swiftly out into the Strand, and turned towards Trafalgar Square.
"Well," said the doctor, "Niagara is a big thing isn"t it? When people say to me, "Were you not disappointed in Niagara? WE were!" I feel tempted to wish, for one homicidal moment, that the earth would open her mouth and swallow them up. People who can be disappointed in Niagara, and talk about it, should no longer be allowed to crawl on the face of the earth. And how about the "Little Mother"? Isn"t she worth knowing? I hope she sent me her love. And New York harbour! Did you ever see anything to equal it, as you steam away in the sunset?"
Jane gave a sudden sob; then turned to him, dry-eyed.
"Is there no hope, Deryck?"
The doctor laid his hand on hers. "He will always be blind, dear. But life holds other things beside sight. We must never say: "No hope.""
"Will he live?"
"There is no reason he should not live. But how far life will be worth living, largely depends upon what can be done for him, poor chap, during the next few months. He is more shattered mentally than physically."
Jane pulled off her gloves, swallowed suddenly, then gripped the doctor"s knee. "Deryck--I love him."
The doctor remained silent for a few moments, as if pondering this tremendous fact. Then he lifted the fine, capable hand resting upon his knee and kissed it with a beautiful reverence,--a gesture expressing the homage of the man to the brave truthfulness of the woman.
"In that case, dear," he said, "the future holds in store so great a good for Garth Dalmain that I think he may dispense with sight.-- Meanwhile you have much to say to me, and it is, of course, your right to hear every detail of his case that I can give. And here we are at Wimpole Street. Now come into my consulting-room. Stoddart has orders that we are on no account to be disturbed."
CHAPTER XV
THE CONSULTATION
The doctor"s room was very quiet. Jane leaned back in his dark green leather arm-chair, her feet on a footstool, her hands gripping the arms on either side.
The doctor sat at his table, in the round pivot-chair he always used,--a chair which enabled him to swing round suddenly and face a patient, or to turn away very quietly and bend over his table.
Just now he was not looking at Jane. He had been giving her a detailed account of his visit to Castle Gleneesh, which he had left only on the previous evening. He had spent five hours with Garth. It seemed kindest to tell her all; but he was looking straight before him as he talked, because he knew that at last the tears were running unchecked down Jane"s cheeks, and he wished her to think he did not notice them.
"You understand, dear," he was saying, "the actual wounds are going on well. Strangely enough, though the retina of each eye was pierced, and the sight is irrecoverably gone, there was very little damage done to surrounding parts, and the brain is quite uninjured. The present danger arises from the shock to the nervous system and from the extreme mental anguish caused by the realisation of his loss. The physical suffering during the first days and nights must have been terrible. Poor fellow, he looks shattered by it. But his const.i.tution is excellent, and his life has been so clean, healthy, and normal, that he had every chance of making a good recovery, were it not that as the pain abated and his blindness became more a thing to be daily and hourly realised, his mental torture was so excessive. Sight has meant so infinitely much to him,--beauty of form, beauty of colour. The artist in him was so all-pervading. They tell me he said very little. He is a brave man and a strong one. But his temperature began to vary alarmingly; he showed symptoms of mental trouble, of which I need not give you technical details; and a nerve specialist seemed more necessary than an oculist.
Therefore he is now in my hands."
The doctor paused, straightened a few books lying on the table, and drew a small bowl of violets closer to him. He studied these attentively for a few moments, then put them back where his wife had placed them and went on speaking.
"I am satisfied on the whole. He needed a friendly voice to penetrate the darkness. He needed a hand to grasp his, in faithful comprehension.
He did not want pity, and those who talked of his loss without understanding it, or being able to measure its immensity, maddened him.
He needed a fellow-man to come to him and say: "It is a fight--an awful, desperate fight. But by G.o.d"s grace you will win through to victory. It would be far easier to die; but to die would be to lose; you must live to win. It is utterly beyond all human strength; but by G.o.d"s grace you will come through conqueror." All this I said to him, Jeanette, and a good deal more; and then a strangely beautiful thing happened. I can tell you, and of course I could tell Flower, but to no one else on earth would I repeat it. The difficulty had been to obtain from him any response whatever. He did not seem able to rouse sufficiently to notice anything going on around him. But those words, "by G.o.d"s grace," appeared to take hold of him and find immediate echo in his inner consciousness. I heard him repeat them once or twice, and then change them to "with the abundance of Thy grace." Then he turned his head slowly on the pillow, and what one could see of his face seemed transformed. He said: "Now I remember it, and the music is this"; and his hands moved on the bedclothes, as if forming chords.
Then, in a very low voice, but quite clearly, he repeated the second verse of the VENI, CREATOR SPIRITUS. I knew it, because I used to sing it as a chorister in my father"s church at home. You remember?"
""Enable with perpetual light The dulness of our blinded sight.
Anoint and cheer our soiled face With the abundance of Thy grace.
Keep far our foes; give peace at home; Where Thou art Guide, no ill can come.""
"It was the most touching thing I ever heard."
The doctor paused, for Jane had buried her face in her hands and was sobbing convulsively. When her sobs grew less violent, the doctor"s quiet voice continued: "You see, this gave me something to go upon.
When a crash such as this happens, all a man has left to hold on to is his religion. According as his spiritual side has been developed, will his physical side stand the strain. Dalmain has more of the real thing than any one would think who only knew him superficially. Well, after that we talked quite definitely, and I persuaded him to agree to one or two important arrangements. You know, he has no relations of his own, to speak of; just a few cousins, who have never been very friendly. He is quite alone up there; for, though he has hosts of friends, this is a time when friends would have to be very intimate to be admitted; and though he seemed so boyish and easy to know, I begin to doubt whether any of us knew the real Garth--the soul of the man, deep down beneath the surface."
Jane lifted her head. "I did," she said simply.
"Ah," said the doctor, "I see. Well, as I said, ordinary friends could not be admitted. Lady Ingleby went, in her sweet impulsive way, without letting them know she was coming; travelled all the way up from Shenstone with no maid, and nothing but a handbag, and arrived at the door in a fly. Robert Mackenzie, the local medical man, who is an inveterate misogynist, feared at first she was an unsuspected wife of Dal"s. He seemed to think unannounced ladies arriving in hired vehicles must necessarily turn out to be undesirable wives. I gather they had a somewhat funny scene. But Lady Ingleby soon got round old Robbie, and came near to charming him--as whom does she not? But of course they did not dare let her into Dal"s room; so her ministry of consolation appears to have consisted in letting Dal"s old housekeeper weep on her beautiful shoulder. It was somewhat of a comedy, hearing about it, when one happened to know them all, better than they knew each other. But to return to practical details. He has had a fully trained male nurse and his own valet to wait on him. He absolutely refused one of our London hospital nurses, who might have brought a little gentle comfort and womanly sympathy to his sick-room. He said he could not stand being touched by a woman; so there it remained. A competent man was found instead. But we can now dispense with him, and I have insisted upon sending up a lady nurse of my own choosing; not so much to wait on him, or do any of a sick-nurse"s ordinary duties--his own man can do these, and he seems a capable fellow--but to sit with him, read to him, attend to his correspondence,--there are piles of unopened letters he ought to hear,--in fact help him to take up life again in his blindness. It will need training; it will require tact; and this afternoon I engaged exactly the right person. She is a gentlewoman by birth, has nursed for me before, and is well up in the special knowledge of mental things which this case requires. Also she is a pretty, dainty little thing; just the kind of elegant young woman poor Dal would have liked to have about him when he could see. He was such a fastidious chap about appearances, and such a connoisseur of good looks. I have written a descriptive account of her to Dr. Mackenzie, and he will prepare his patient for her arrival. She is to go up the day after to-morrow. We are lucky to get her, for she is quite first-rate, and she has only just finished with a long consumptive case, now on the mend and ordered abroad. So you see, Jeanette, all is shaping well.--And now, my dear girl, you have a story of your own to tell me, and my whole attention shall be at your disposal. But first of all I am going to ring for tea, and you and I will have it quietly down here, if you will excuse me for a few minutes while I go upstairs and speak to Flower."
It seemed so natural to Jane to be pouring out the doctor"s tea, and to watch him putting a liberal allowance of salt on the thin bread-and-b.u.t.ter, and then folding it over with the careful accuracy which had always characterised his smallest action. In the essentials he had changed so little since the days when as a youth of twenty spending his vacations at the rectory he used to give the lonely girl at the manor so much pleasure by coming up to her school-room tea; and when it proved possible to dispose of her governess"s chaperonage and be by themselves, what delightful times they used to have, sitting on the hearth-rug, roasting chestnuts and discussing the many subjects which were of mutual interest. Jane could still remember the painful pleasure of turning hot chestnuts on the bars with her fingers, and how she hastened to do them herself, lest he should be burned. She had always secretly liked and admired his hands, with the brown thin fingers, so delicate in their touch and yet full of such gentle strength. She used to love watching them while he sharpened her pencils or drew wonderful diagrams in her exercise books; thinking how in years to come, when he performed important operations, human lives would depend upon their skill and dexterity. In those early years he had seemed so much older than she. And then came the time when she shot up rapidly into young womanhood and their eyes were on a level and their ages seemed the same. Then, as the years went on, Jane began to feel older than he, and took to calling him "Boy" to emphasise this fact.
And then came--Flower;--and complications. And Jane had to see his face grow thin and worn, and his hair whiten on the temples. And she yearned over him, yet dared not offer sympathy. At last things came right for the doctor, and all the highest good seemed his; in his profession; in his standing among men; and, above all, in his heart life, which Flower had always held between her two sweet hands. And Jane rejoiced, but felt still more lonely now she had no companion in loneliness. And still their friendship held, with Flower admitted as a third--a wistful, grateful third, anxious to learn from the woman whose friendship meant so much to her husband, how to succeed where she had hitherto failed. And Jane"s faithful heart was generous and loyal to both, though in sight of their perfect happiness her loneliness grew.
And now, in her own hour of need, it had to be Deryck only; and the doctor knew this, and had arranged accordingly; for at last his chance had come, to repay the faithful devotion of a lifetime. The conversation of that afternoon would be the supreme test of their friendship. And so, with a specialist"s appreciation of the mental effect of the most trivial external details, the doctor had ordered m.u.f.fins, and a kettle on the fire, and had asked Jane to make the tea.
By the time the kettle boiled, they had remembered the chestnuts, and were laughing about poor old Fraulein"s efforts to keep them in order, and the strategies by which they used to evade her vigilance. And the years rolled back, and Jane felt herself very much at home with the chum of her childhood.