Part 28 (2/2)
”Ah, no,” said Jane, leaning towards him with her pathetic bandaged eyes. ”Don't you see, dear, you give me the chance of pa.s.sing through what will in time be one of his hardest experiences, when his dearest friends will come and go, and be to him only voice and touch; their faces unseen and but dimly remembered? Deryck, just because this hearing and not seeing you IS so hard, I realise how it is enriching me in what I can share with him. He must not have to say: 'Ah, but you saw him before he left.' I want to be able to say: 'He came and went,--my greatest friend,--and I did not see him at all.'”
The doctor walked over to the window and stood there, whistling softly.
Jane knew he was fighting down his own vexation. She waited patiently.
Presently the whistling stopped and she heard him laugh. Then he came back and sat down near her.
”You always were a THOROUGH old thing!” he said.
”No half-measures would do. I suppose I must agree.”
Jane reached out for his hand. ”Ah, Boy,” she said, ”now you will help me. But I never before knew you so nearly selfish.”
”The 'other man' is always a problem,” said the doctor. ”We male brutes, by nature, always want to be first with all our women; not merely with the one, but with all those in whom we consider, sometimes with egregious presumption, that we hold a right. You see it everywhere,--fathers towards their daughters, brothers as regards their sisters, friends in a friends.h.i.+p. The 'other man,' when he arrives, is always a pill to swallow. It is only natural, I suppose; but it is fallen nature and therefore to be surmounted. Now let me go and forage for your hat and coat, and take you out upon the moors. No? Why not? I often find things for Flower, so really I know likely places in which to search. Oh, all right! I will send Margery. But don't be long. And you need not be afraid of Dalmain hearing us, for I saw him just now walking briskly up and down the terrace, with only an occasional touch of his cane against the parapet. How much you have already accomplished! We shall talk more freely out on the moor; and, as I march you along, we can find out tips which may be useful when the time comes for you to lead the 'other man' about. Only do be careful how you come downstairs with old Margery. Think if you fell upon her, Jane! She does make such excellent coffee!”
CHAPTER XXIV
THE MAN'S POINT OF VIEW
A deep peace reigned in the library at Gleneesh. Garth and Deryck sat together and smoked in complete fellows.h.i.+p, enjoying that sense of calm content which follows an excellent dinner and a day spent in moorland air.
Jane, sitting upstairs in her self-imposed darkness, with nothing to do but listen, fancied she could hear the low hum of quiet voices in the room beneath, carrying on a more or less continuous conversation.
It was a pity she could not see them as they sat together, each looking his very best,--Garth in the dinner jacket which suited his slight upright figure so well; the doctor in immaculate evening clothes of the latest cut and fas.h.i.+on, which he had taken the trouble to bring, knowing Jane expected the men of her acquaintance to be punctilious in the matter of evening dress, and little dreaming she would have, literally, no eyes for him.
And indeed the doctor himself was fastidious to a degree where clothes were concerned, and always well groomed and unquestionably correct in cut and fas.h.i.+on, excepting in the case of his favourite old Norfolk jacket. This he kept for occasions when he intended to be what he called ”happy and glorious,” though Lady Brand made gentle but persistent attempts to dispose of it.
The old Norfolk jacket had walked the moors that morning with Jane. She had recognised the feel of it as he drew her hand within his arm, and they had laughed over its many a.s.sociations. But now Simpson was folding it and putting it away, and a very correctly clad doctor sat in an arm-chair in front of the library fire, his long legs crossed the one over the other, his broad shoulders buried in the depths of the chair.
Garth sat where he could feel the warm flame of the fire, pleasant in the chill evening which succeeded the bright spring day. His chair was placed sideways, so that he could, with his hand, s.h.i.+eld his face from his visitor should he wish to do so.
”Yes,” Dr. Brand was saying thoughtfully, ”I can easily see that all things which reach you in that darkness a.s.sume a different proportion and possess a greatly enhanced value. But I think you will find, as time goes on, and you come in contact with more people, there will be a great readjustment, and you will become less consciously sensitive to sound and touch from others. At present your whole nervous system is highly strung, and responds with an exaggerated vibration to every impression made upon it. A highly strung nervous system usually exaggerates. And the medium of sight having been taken away, the other means of communication with the outer world, hearing and touch, draw to themselves an overplus of nervous force, and have become painfully sensitive. Eventually things will right themselves, and they will only be usefully keen and acute. What was it you were going to tell me about Nurse Rosemary not shaking hands?”
”Ah, yes,” said Garth. ”But first I want to ask, Is it a rule of her order, or guild, or inst.i.tution, or whatever it is to which she belongs, that the nurses should never shake hands with their patients?”
”Not that I have ever heard,” replied the doctor.
”Well, then, it must have been Miss Gray's own perfect intuition as to what I want, and what I don't want. For from the very first she has never shaken hands, nor in any way touched me. Even in pa.s.sing across letters, and handing me things, as she does scores of times daily, never once have I felt her fingers against mine.”
”And this pleases you?” inquired the doctor, blowing smoke rings into the air, and watching the blind face intently.
”Ah, I am so grateful for it,” said Garth earnestly. ”Do you know, Brand, when you suggested sending me a lady nurse and secretary, I felt I could not possibly stand having a woman touch me.”
”So you said,” commented the doctor quietly.
”No! Did I? What a bear you must have thought me.”
”By no means,” said the doctor, ”but a distinctly unusual patient. As a rule, men--”
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