Part 34 (1/2)
”Next time I reach the Gulf of Partings in Sightless Land,” continued Garth, ”I shall say: 'A dear friend has stood here for my sake.'”
”Oh, and one's meals,” said Nurse Rosemary laughing. ”Are they not grotesquely trying?”
”Yes, of course; I had forgotten you would understand all that now. I never could explain to you before why I must have my meals alone. You know the hunt and chase?”
”Yes,” said Nurse Rosemary, ”and it usually resolves itself into 'gone away,' and turns up afterwards unexpectedly! But, Mr. Dalmain, I have thought out several ways of helping so much in that and making it all quite easy. If you will consent to have your meals with me at a small table, you will see how smoothly all will work. And later on, if I am still here, when you begin to have visitors, you must let me sit at your left, and all my little ways of helping would be so un.o.btrusive, that no one would notice.”
”Oh, thanks,” said Garth. ”I am immensely grateful. I have often been reminded of a silly game we used to play at Overdene, at dessert, when we were a specially gay party. Do you know the old d.u.c.h.ess of Meldrum?
Or anyway, you may have heard of her? Ah, yes, of course, Sir Deryck knows her. She called him in once to her macaw. She did not mention the macaw on the telephone, and Sir Deryck, thinking he was wanted for the d.u.c.h.ess, threw up an important engagement and went immediately. Luckily she was at her town house. She would have sent just the same had she been at Overdene. I wish you knew Overdene. The d.u.c.h.ess gives perfectly delightful 'best parties,' in which all the people who really enjoy meeting one another find themselves together, and are well fed and well housed and well mounted, and do exactly as they like; while the dear old d.u.c.h.ess tramps in and out, with her queer beasts and birds, shedding a kindly and exciting influence wherever she goes. Last time I was there she used to let out six Egyptian jerboas in the drawing-room every evening after dinner, awfully jolly little beggars, like miniature kangaroos. They used to go skipping about on their hind legs, frightening some of the women into fits by hiding under their gowns, and making young footmen drop trays of coffee cups. The last importation is a toucan,--a South American bird, with a beak like a banana, and a voice like an old sheep in despair. But Tommy, the scarlet macaw, remains prime favourite, and I must say he is clever and knows more than you would think.”
”Well, at Overdene we used to play a silly game at dessert with muscatels. We each put five raisins at intervals round our plates, then we shut our eyes and made jabs at them with forks. Whoever succeeded first in spiking and eating all five was the winner. The d.u.c.h.ess never would play. She enjoyed being umpire, and screaming at the people who peeped. Miss Champion and I--she is the d.u.c.h.ess's niece, you know--always played fair, and we nearly always made a dead heat of it.”
”Yes,” said Nurse Rosemary, ”I know that game. I thought of it at once when I had my blindfold meals.”
”Ah,” cried Garth, ”had I known, I would not have let you do it!”
”I knew that,” said Nurse Rosemary. ”That was why I week-ended.”
Garth pa.s.sed his cup to be refilled, and leaned forward confidentially.
”Now,” he said, ”I can venture to tell you one of my minor trials. I am always so awfully afraid of there being a FLY in things. Ever since I was a small boy I have had such a horror of inadvertently eating flies.
When I was about six, I heard a lady visitor say to my mother: 'Oh, one HAS to swallow a fly--about once a year! I have just swallowed mine, on the way here!' This terrible idea of an annual fly took possession of my small mind. I used to be thankful when it happened, and I got it over. I remember quickly finis.h.i.+ng a bit of bread in which I had seen signs of legs and wings, feeling it was an easy way of taking it and I should thus be exempt for twelve glad months; but I had to run up and down the terrace with clenched hands while I swallowed it. And when I discovered the fallacy of the annual fly, I was just as particular in my dread of an accidental one. I don't believe I ever sat down to sardines on toast at a restaurant without looking under the toast for my bugbear, though as I lifted it I felt rather like the old woman who always looks under the bed for a burglar. Ah, but since the accident this foolishly small thing HAS made me suffer! I cannot say: 'Simpson, are you sure there is not a fly in this soup?' Simpson would say: 'No--sir; no fly--sir,' and would cough behind his hand, and I could never ask him again.”
Nurse Rosemary leaned forward and placed his cup where he could reach it easily, just touching his right hand with the edge of the saucer.
”Have all your meals with me,” she said, in a tone of such complete understanding, that it was almost a caress; ”and I can promise there shall never be any flies in anything. Could you not trust my eyes for this?”
And Garth replied, with a happy, grateful smile: ”I could trust your kind and faithful eyes for anything. Ah! and that reminds me: I want to intrust to them a task I could confide to no one else. Is it twilight yet, Miss Gray, or is an hour of daylight left to us?”
Nurse Rosemary glanced out of the window and looked at her watch. ”We ordered tea early,” she said, ”because we came in from our drive quite hungry. It is not five o'clock yet, and a radiant afternoon. The sun sets at half-past seven.”
”Then the light is good,” said Garth. ”Have you finished tea? The sun will be s.h.i.+ning in at the west window of the studio. You know my studio at the top of the house? You fetched the studies of Lady Brand from there. I dare say you noticed stacks of canvases in the corners. Some are unused; some contain mere sketches or studies; some are finished pictures. Miss Gray, among the latter are two which I am most anxious to identify and to destroy. I made Simpson guide me up the other day and leave me there alone. And I tried to find them by touch; but I could not be sure, and I soon grew hopelessly confused amongst all the canvases. I did not wish to ask Simpson's help, because the subjects, are--well, somewhat unusual, and if he found out I had destroyed them it might set him wondering and talking, and one hates to awaken curiosity in a servant. I could not fall back on Sir Deryck because he would have recognised the portraits. The princ.i.p.al figure is known to him. When I painted those pictures I never dreamed of any eye but my own seeing them. So you, my dear and trusted secretary, are the one person to whom I can turn. Will you do what I ask? And will you do it now?”
Nurse Rosemary pushed back her chair. ”Why of course, Mr. Dalmain. I am here to do anything and everything you may desire; and to do it when you desire it.”
Garth took a key from his waistcoat pocket, and laid it on the table.
”There is the studio latch-key. I think the canvases I want are in the corner furthest from the door, behind a yellow j.a.panese screen. They are large--five feet by three and a half. If they are too c.u.mbersome for you to bring down, lay them face to face, and ring for Simpson. But do not leave him alone with them.”
Nurse Rosemary picked up the key, rose, and went over to the piano, which she opened. Then she tightened the purple cord, which guided Garth from his chair to the instrument.
”Sit and play,” she said, ”while I am upstairs, doing your commission.
But just tell me one thing. You know how greatly your work interests me. When I find the pictures, is it your wish that I give them a mere cursory glance, just sufficient for identification; or may I look at them, in the beautiful studio light? You can trust me to do whichever you desire.”
The artist in Garth could not resist the wish to have his work seen and appreciated. ”You may look at them of course, if you wish,” he sail.
”They are quite the best work I ever did, though I painted them wholly from memory. That is--I mean, that used to be--a knack of mine. And they are in no sense imaginary. I painted exactly what I saw--at least, so far as the female face and figure are concerned. And they make the pictures. The others are mere accessories.” He stood up, and went to the piano. His fingers began to stray softly amongst the harmonies of the Veni.