"No--that is my blind man I have brought to see you. I told you about him, you know. But he must not tire you too much."
"But _can_ he see me?"
"I didn't mean _see_, that way. I meant see to talk to. Some day he will _really_ see you--with his eyes. We are sure of it, now. He shall come and sit by you, and talk."
"Yes--and I may hold his hand. And may I speak to him about ... about ..."
"About his blindness and the accident? Oh dear yes! _You_ won't _see_ that he's blind, you know."
"His eyes look like eyes?"
"Like beautiful eyes. I shall go and fetch him." She knew she was straining facts in her prediction of their recovery of sight, but she liked the sound of her own voice as she said it, though she knew she would not have gone so far except to give her hearer pleasure.
Said old Maisie to Adrian, whom Gwen brought back to sit by her, giving him the chair she had occupied beside the bed:--"You, sir, are very happy! But oh, how I grieve for your eyes!"
"Is Lady Gwendolen here in the room still?" said Adrian.
"She has just gone away, to the other room," said old Maisie. For Gwen had withdrawn. One at a time was the rule.
"Very well, dear Mrs. Picture. Then I'll tell you. There never was a better bargain driven than mine. I would not have my eyesight back, to lose what I have got. No--not for fifty pairs of eyes." And he evidently meant it.
"May I hold your hand?"
"Do. Here it is. I am sure you are a dear old lady, and can see what she is. When I had eyes, I never saw anything worth looking at, till I saw Gwen."
"But is it a rule?"
Adrian was perplexed for a moment. "Oh, I see what you mean," said he.
"No--of course not! I may have my eyesight back." Then he seemed to speak more to himself than to her. "Men _have_ been as fortunate, even as that, before now."
"But tell me--is that what the doctor says? Or only guessing?"
"It's what the doctor says, and guessing too. Doctors only guess. He's guessing."
"But don't they guess right, oftener than people?"
"A little oftener. If they didn't, what use would they be?"
"But you have seen _her_?"
"Yes--once! Only once. And now I know she is there, as I saw her.... But I want to know about you, Mrs. Picture dear. Because I'm so sorry for you."
"There is no need for sorrow for me, I am so happy to know my sister was not drowned. And my little girl I left behind when I went away over the great sea, and the wind blew, and I saw the stars change each night, till they were all new. And then I found my dear husband, and lived with him many, many happy years. God has been good to me, for I have had much happiness." There was nothing but contentment and rest in her voice; but then some of the tranquillity may have been due to exhaustion.
Adrian made the mistake of saying:--"And all the while you thought your sister dead."
He felt a thrill in her hand as it tightened on his, and heard it in her voice. "Oh, could it have been?" she said. "But I was told so--in a letter."
It was useless for Adrian to affect ignorance of the story; and, indeed, that would have made matters worse, for it would have put it on her to attempt the retelling of it.
Perhaps he did his best to say:--"Lady Gwendolen has told me the whole story. So I know. Don't think about it!... Well--that's nonsense! One can't help thinking. I mean--think as little as possible!" It did not mend matters much.
Her mind had got back to the letter, and could not leave it. "I have to think of it," she said, "because it was my husband that wrote that letter. I know why he wrote it. It was not himself. It was a devil. It came out of Roomoro the black witch-doctor and got a place inside my husband. _He_ did not write that letter to Phoebe. _It_ wrote it. For see how it had learned all the story when Roomoro sucked the little scorpion's poison out of Mary Ann Stennis's arm!"
To Adrian all this was half-feverish wandering; the limited delirium of extreme weakness. No doubt these were real persons--Roomoro and Mary Ann Stennis. It was their drama that was fictitious. He saw one thing plainly. It was to be humoured, not reasoned with. So whatever was the cause of a slight start and disconcertment of his manner when she stopped to ask suddenly:--"But you do not believe in devils, perhaps?"--it was not the one she had ascribed it to. In fact he was quite ready with a semi-conscientious affirmative. "Indeed I do. Tell me exactly how you suppose it happened, again. Roomoro was a native conjurer or medicine-man, I suppose?"
Then old Maisie recapitulated the tale her imagination had constructed to whitewash the husband who had ruined her whole life, adding some details, not without an interest for students of folklore, about the devil that had come from Roomoro. She connected it with the fact that Roomoro had eaten the flesh of the little black Dasyurus, christened the "Native Devil" by the first Tasmanian colonists, from the excessive shortness of its temper. The soul of this devil had been driven from the witch-doctor by the poison of the scorpion, and had made for the nearest human organisation. Adrian listened with as courteous a gravity as either of us would show to a Reincarnationist's extremest doctrines.
It was an immense consolation to old Maisie, evidently, to be taken in such good faith. Having made up his mind that his conscience should not stand between him and any fiction that would benefit this dear old lady, Adrian was not going to do the thing by halves. He launched out into reminiscences of his own experiences on the Essequibo and elsewhere, and was able without straining points to dwell on the remarkable similarities of the Magians of all primitive races. As he afterwards told Gwen, he was surprised at the way in which the actual facts smoothed the way for misrepresentation. He stuck at nothing in professions of belief in unseen agencies, good and bad; apologizing afterwards to Gwen for doing so by representing the ease of believing in them just for a short time, to square matters. Optional belief was no invention of his own, he said, but an ancient and honourable resource of priesthoods all the world over.
It was the only little contribution he was able to make towards the peace of mind without which it seemed almost impossible so old a constitution could rally against such a shock. And it was of real value, for old Maisie sorely needed help against her most awful discovery of all, the hideous guilt of the man whom she had loved ungrudgingly throughout. Nor was it only this. It palliated her son's crimes. But then there was a difference between the son and the father.
The latter had apparently done nothing to arouse his wife's detestation.
Forgery is a delinquency--not a diabolism!
They talked more--talked a good deal in fact--but only of what we know.
Then Gwen came back, bringing Irene to make acquaintance. This young lady behaved very nicely, but admitted afterwards that she had once or twice been a little at a loss what to say.
As when for instance the old lady, with her tender, sad, grey eyes fixed on Miss Torrens, said:--"Come near, my dear, that I may see you close."
And drew her old hand, tremulously, over the mass of rich black hair which the almost nominal bonnet of that day left uncovered, with the reticular arrangement that confined it, and went on speaking, dreamily:--"It is very beautiful, but _my_ lady's hair is golden, and shines like the sun." Thereon Gwen to lubricate matters:--"Yes--look here! But I know which I like best." She managed to collate a handful of her own glory of gold and her friend's rich black, in one hand. "I know which _I_ like best," said Irene. And Gwen laughed her musical laugh that filled the place. "No head of hair is a prophet in its own country," said she.
Old Maisie was trying to speak, but her voice had gone low with fatigue.
"Phoebe and I," she was saying, "long ago, when we were girls.... It was a trick, you know, a game ... we would mix our hair like that, and make little Jacky Wetherall guess whose hair he had hold of. When he guessed right he had sugar. He was three. His mother used to lend him to us when she went out to scrub, and he never cried...." She went on like this, dwelling on scraps of her girlhood, for some time; then her voice went very faint to say:--"Phoebe was there then. Phoebe is back now--somehow--how is it?" Gwen saw she had talked enough, and took Irene away; and then Ruth Thrale went to sit with her mother.
Dr. Nash, who arrived during their absence, had been greeted by Adrian after his "first appearance as a corpse," last summer. He would have known the doctor's voice anywhere. "You never _were_ a corpse," said that gentleman. To which Mr. Torrens replied:--"You _thought_ I was a corpse, doctor, you know you did!"
Dr. Nash, being unable to deny it, shifted the responsibility. "Well,"
said he, "Sir Coupland thought so too. The fact is, we had quite given you up. When he came out and said to me:--'Come back. I want you to see something,' I said to him:--'Is that why the dog barked?' Because your dog had given a sudden queer sort of a bark. And he said to me:--'It isn't only the dog. It's Lady Gwen Rivers.'"
"What did he mean by that?" said Gwen.
"He meant that your ladyship's strong impression that the body....
Excuse my referring to you, Mr. Torrens, as...."
"As 'the body'? Not at all! I mean, don't apologize."
"The--a--subject, say, still retained vitality. No doubt we _might_ have found out--probably _should_...."
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Gwen remorselessly. "You would have buried him alive if it hadn't been for me. You doctors are the most careless, casual creatures. It was me and the dog--so now Mr. Torrens knows what he has to be thankful for!"
"Well--as a matter of fact, it was the strong impression of your ladyship that did the job. We doctors are, as your ladyship says, an incautious, irresponsible lot. I hope you found Mrs. Prichard going on well."
Gwen hesitated. "I wish she looked a little--thicker," said she.
Dr. Nash looked serious. "We mustn't be in too great a hurry. Remember her age, and the fact that she is eating almost nothing. She won't take regular meals again--or what she calls regular meals--till the tension of this excitement subsides...."