"Never!" said Garth. "Never, while life shall last! Can you not see that if when I had sight, and fame, and all heart could desire, I could not win her love, what she might feel for me now, in my helpless blindness, could be but pity? And pity from her I could never accept.
If I was "a mere boy" three years ago, I am "a mere blind man" now, an object for kind commiseration. If indeed you are right, and she mistrusted my love and my fidelity, it is now out of my power forever to prove her wrong and to prove myself faithful. But I will not allow the vision of my beloved to be dimmed by these suggestions. For her completion, she needed so much more than I could give. She refused me because I was not fully worthy. I prefer it should be so. Let us leave it at that."
"It leaves you to loneliness," said the doctor sadly.
"I prefer loneliness," replied Garth"s young voice, "to disillusion.
Hark! I hear the first gong, Brand. Margery will be grieved if we keep her Sunday dishes waiting."
He stood up and turned his sightless face towards the view.
"Ah, how well I know it," he said. "When Miss Gray and I sit up here, she tells me all she sees, and I tell her what she does not see, but what I know is there. She is keen on art, and on most of the things I care about. I must ask for an arm, Brand, though the path is wide and good. I cannot risk a tumble. I have come one or two awful croppers, and I promised Miss Gray--The path is wide. Yes, we can walk two abreast, three abreast if necessary. It is well we had this good path made. It used to be a steep scramble."
"Three abreast," said the doctor. "So we could--if necessary." He stepped back and raised Jane from her seat, drawing her cold hand through his left arm. "Now, my dear fellow, my right arm will suit you best; then you can keep your stick in your right hand."
And thus they started down through the wood, on that lovely Sabbath morn of early summer; and the doctor walked erect between those two severed hearts, uniting, and yet dividing them.
Just once Garth paused and listened. "I seem to hear another footstep,"
he said, "besides yours and mine."
"The wood is full of footsteps," said the doctor, "just as the heart is full of echoes. If you stand still and listen you can hear what you will in either."
"Then let us not stand still," said Garth, "for in old days, if I was late for lunch, Margery used to spank me."
CHAPTER XXVI
HEARTS MEET IN SIGHTLESS LAND
"It will be absolutely impossible, Miss Gray, for me ever to tell you what I think of this that you have done for my sake."
Garth stood at the open library window. The morning sunlight poured into the room. The air was fragrant with the scent of flowers, resonant with the songs of birds. As he stood there in the sunshine, a new look of strength and hopefulness was apparent in every line of his erect figure. He held out eager hands towards Nurse Rosemary, but more as an expression of the outgoing of his appreciation and grat.i.tude than with any expectation of responsive hands being placed within them.
"And here was I, picturing you having a gay weekend, and wondering where, and who your friends in this neighbourhood could be. And all the while you were sitting blindfold in the room over my head. Ah, the goodness of it is beyond words! But did you not feel somewhat of a deceiver, Miss Gray?"
She always felt that--poor Jane. So she readily answered: "Yes. And yet I told you I was not going far. And my friends in the neighbourhood were Simpson and Margery, who aided and abetted. And it was true to say I was going, for was I not going into darkness? and it is a different world from the land of light."
"Ah, how true that is!" cried Garth. "And how difficult to make people understand the loneliness of it, and how they seem suddenly to arrive close to one from another world; stooping from some distant planet, with sympathetic voice and friendly touch; and then away they go to another sphere, leaving one to the immensity of solitude in Sightless Land."
"Yes," agreed Nurse Rosemary, "and you almost dread the coming, because the going makes the darkness darker, and the loneliness more lonely."
"Ah, so YOU experienced that?" said Garth. "Do you know, now you have week-ended in Sightless Land, I shall not feel it such a place of solitude. At every turn I shall be able to say:--"A dear and faithful friend has been here.""
He laughed a laugh of such almost boyish pleasure, that all the mother in Jane"s love rose up and demanded of her one supreme effort. She looked at the slight figure in white flannels, leaning against the window frame, so manly, so beautiful still, and yet so helpless and so needing the wealth of tenderness which was hers to give. Then, standing facing him, she opened her arms, as if the great preparedness of that place of rest, so close to him must, magnet-like, draw him to her; and standing thus in the sunlight, Jane spoke.
Was she beautiful? Was she paintable? Would a man grow weary of such a look turned on him, of such arms held out? Alas! Too late! On that point no lover shall ever be able to pa.s.s judgment. That look is for one man alone. He only will ever bring it to that loving face. And he cannot p.r.o.nounce upon its beauty in voice of rapturous content. He cannot judge. He cannot see. He is blind!
"Mr. Dalmain, there are many smaller details; but before we talk of those I want to tell you the greatest of all the lessons I learned in Sightless Land." Then, conscious that her emotion was producing in her voice a resonant depth which might remind him too vividly of notes in The Rosary, she paused, and resumed in the high, soft edition of her own voice which it had become second nature to her to use as Nurse Rosemary: "Mr. Dalmain, it seems to me I learned to understand how that which is loneliness unspeakable to ONE might be Paradise of a very perfect kind for TWO. I realised that there might be circ.u.mstances in which the dark would become a very wonderful meeting-place for souls.
If I loved a man who lost his sight, I should be glad to have mine in order to be eyes for him when eyes were needed; just as, were I rich and he poor, I should value my money simply as a thing which might be useful to him. But I know the daylight would often be a trial to me, because it would be something he could not share; and when evening came, I should long to say: "Let us put out the lights and shut away the moonlight and sit together in the sweet soft darkness, which is more uniting than the light.""
While Jane was speaking, Garth paled as he listened, and his face grew strangely set. Then, as if under a reaction of feeling, a boyish flush spread to the very roots of his hair. He visibly shrank from the voice which was saying these things to him. He fumbled with his right hand for the orange cord which would guide him to his chair.
"Nurse Rosemary," he said, and at the tone of his voice Jane"s outstretched arms dropped to her sides; "it is kind of you to tell me all these beautiful thoughts which came to you in the darkness. But I hope the man who is happy enough to possess your love, or who is going to be fortunate enough to win it, will neither be so unhappy nor so unfortunate as to lose his sight. It will be better for him to live with you in the light, than to be called upon to prove the kind way in which you would be willing to adapt yourself to his darkness. How about opening our letters?" He slipped his hand along the orange cord and walked over to his chair.
Then, with a sense of unutterable dismay, Jane saw what she had done.
She had completely forgotten Nurse Rosemary, using her only as a means of awakening in Garth an understanding of how much her--Jane"s--love might mean to him in his blindness. She had forgotten that, to Garth, Nurse Rosemary"s was the only personality which counted in this conversation; she, who had just given him such a proof of her interest and devotion. And--O poor dear Garth! O bold, brazen Nurse Rosemary!--he very naturally concluded she was making love to him. Jane felt herself between Scylla and Charybdis, and she took a very prompt and characteristic plunge.
She came across to her place on the other side of the small table and sat down. "I believe it was the thought of him made me realise this,"
she said; "but just now I and my young man have fallen out. He does not even know I am here."
Garth unbent at once, and again that boyish heightening of colour indicated his sense of shame at what he had imagined.
"Ah, Miss Gray," he said eagerly, "you will not think it impertinent or intrusive on my part, but do you know I have wondered sometimes whether there was a happy man."
Nurse Rosemary laughed. "Well, we can"t call him a happy man just now,"
she said, "so far as his thoughts of me are concerned. My whole heart is his, if he could only be brought to believe it. But a misunderstanding has grown up between us,--my fault entirely,--and he will not allow me to put it right."
"What a fool!" cried Garth. "Are you and he engaged?"
Nurse Rosemary hesitated. "Well--not exactly engaged," she said, "though it practically amounts to that. Neither of us would give a thought to any one else."
Garth knew there was a cla.s.s of people whose preliminary step to marriage was called "keeping company," a stage above the housemaid"s "walking out," both expressions being exactly descriptive of the circ.u.mstances of the case; for, whereas pretty Phyllis and her swain go walking out of an evening in byways and between hedges, or along pavements and into the parks,--these keep each other company in the parlours and arbours of their respective friends and relations. Yet, somehow, Garth had never thought of Nurse Rosemary as belonging to any other cla.s.s than his own. Perhaps this a.s.s of a fellow, whom he already cordially disliked, came of a lower stratum; or perhaps the rules of her nursing guild forbade a definite engagement, but allowed "an understanding." Anyway the fact remained that the kind-hearted, clever, delightful little lady, who had done so much for him, had "a young man"
of her own; and this admitted fact lifted a weight from Garth"s mind.
He had been so afraid lately of not being quite honest with her and with himself. She had become so necessary to him, nay, so essential, and by her skill and devotion had won so deep a place in his grat.i.tude.
Their relation was of so intimate a nature, their companionship so close and continuous; and into this rather ideal state of things had heavily trodden Dr. Rob the other day with a suggestion. Garth, alone with him, bad been explaining how indispensable Miss Gray had become to his happiness and comfort, and how much he dreaded a recall from her matron.
"I fear they do not let them go on indefinitely at one case; but perhaps Sir Deryck can arrange that this should be an exception," said Garth.
"Oh, hang the matron, and blow Sir Deryck," said Dr. Rob breezily. "If you want her as a permanency, make sure of her. Marry her, my boy! I"ll warrant she"d have you!"
Thus trod Dr. Rob, with heavily nailed boots, upon the bare toes of a delicate situation.
Garth tried to put the suggestion out of his mind and failed. He began to notice thoughts and plans of Nurse Rosemary"s for his benefit, which so far exceeded her professional duties that it seemed as if there must be behind them the promptings of a more tender interest. He put the thought away again and again, calling Dr. Rob an old fool, and himself a conceited a.s.s. But again and again there came about him, with Nurse Rosemary"s presence, the subtile surrounding atmosphere of a watchful love.
Then, one night, he faced and fought a great temptation.
After all why should he not do as Dr. Rob suggested? Why not marry this charming, capable, devoted nurse, and have her constantly about him in his blindness? SHE did not consider him "a mere boy." ... What had he to offer her? A beautiful home, every luxury, abundant wealth, a companionship she seemed to find congenial ... But then the Tempter overreached himself, for he whispered: "And the voice would be always Jane"s. You have never seen the nurse"s face; you never will see it.
You can go on putting to the voice the face and form you adore. You can marry the little nurse, and go on loving Jane." ... Then Garth cried out in horror: "Avaunt, Satan!" and the battle was won.
But it troubled his mind lest by any chance her peace of heart should be disturbed through him. So it was with relief, and yet with an unreasonable smouldering jealousy, that he heard of the young man to whom she was devoted. And now it appeared she was unhappy through her young man, just as he was unhappy through--no, because of--Jane.
A sudden impulse came over him to do away forever with the thought which in his own mind had lately come between them, and to establish their intimacy on an even closer and firmer basis, by being absolutely frank with her on the matter.
"Miss Gray," he said, leaning towards her with that delightful smile of boyish candour which many women had found irresistible, "it is good of you to have told me about yourself; and, although I confess to feeling unreasonably jealous of the fortunate fellow who possesses your whole heart, I am glad he exists, because we all miss something unless we have in our lives the wonderful experience of the One Woman or the One Man. And I want to tell you something, dear sweet friend of mine, which closely touches you and me; only, before I do so, put your hand in mine, that I may realise you in a closer intimacy than heretofore. You, who have been in Sightless Land, know how much a hand clasp means down here."
Garth stretched his hand across the table, and his whole att.i.tude was tense with expectation.