CHAPTER VII
DR. RENTON BREAKS SOME NEWS TO ME
The week has passed at last—in the daytime on leaden feet, on wings of gold in the evening when, as the clock has struck six, Dimbie and happiness have entered my room hand in hand.
"Only four more days, dear one," Dimbie has said hopefully.
"Only three more days. Nurse must begin to air your tea-gown."
"Only two more. I am putting bamboo poles through the small wicker chair. You may not be able to walk at first, and nurse and I will carry you. I could manage you alone, you are only a feather in weight, but I might hurt you—such a frail Marguerite my little wife looks."
"Is it the drain-bamboo you are using?" I ask demurely. "For Amelia might object." And Dimbie laughs like a happy boy.
"Only one more day. To-morrow you will meet me at the door. Nurse will help you there, and then she will go away, and—we shall be alone." His voice vibrates with happiness and my cheeks glow.
"Have you missed me, Dimbie?" I whisper. "Have you enjoyed pouring out your own tea and finding your slippers and working in the garden alone?"
And he smiles tenderly and says he hasn't missed me one little bit, and can't I see it in his face? And nurse who comes into the room says "Ahem!" Her throat often seems a little troublesome.
And now to-morrow has come. Dr. Renton may walk in at any minute, and I press my finger to my wrist to try to hush the beating.
Nurse has put me into my best blue silk jacket, and my hair has been done—well, not in the very latest Parisian mode, but its two plaits are tied with new blue ribbons. She has propped me up so that I may see the lane and know the exact moment in which Dr. Renton may drive down it.
I persuaded her to go for her walk as soon as lunch was over. I told her Dr. Renton never came, as she herself knew, much before half-past three, and that I felt unusually well.
And as soon as ever I heard the click of the gate and knew she had gone I rang the tortoise—the bell which always lives on the other pillow—for Amelia.
She appeared, very dirty.
"Why, you're not dressed," I said.
"Did you ring to tell me that, mum? Because I knewed it."
Her attitude was not that of impertinence, but of inquiry.
"Oh, no," I replied quickly. "I want you to bring me up one of the volumes of the encyclopædia. I don't know the number, but it will have SPI on the back."
I spoke nervously, for I felt guilty. I was about to embark upon an act of deception. Would Amelia detect me? But, for a wonder, she left the room without a comment.
In a minute she was back.
"There is no volume with SPI on it," she announced. "There is one with SIB and SZO on it, mum."
"That will do," I said eagerly. "It will be in that."
She brought it with a running accompaniment of squeaks and gasps.
"Three at a time, mum."
"Three at a time! What?" I inquired.
"Stairs, mum."
"Well, then," I said, "it is very foolish of you, Amelia. Your breathing resembles a gramophone when you wind it up. I shan't require anything further, thank you; but please get dressed. I should like you to be neat when Dr. Renton arrives, and he will probably have tea with me. I don't know how it is you are so late."
"I do, mum."
"Why?"
My question was answered by another.
"Have you any idea what I do after lunch, mum? Do you think I am skipping or playing marbles?"
"Oh, no," I said hastily, "I am sure you are not, Amelia."
"Well, then, I'll tell you what I do, so as you won't be wonderin' why I'm not dressed by half-past two." She spoke volubly. "I washes up the lunch things—nurse's now as well; she's too grand to so much as put a kettle on. Then I sweeps up the kitchen, sides up the hearth, brushes the kettle, cleans the handle——"
"What do you do that for?" I asked with interest.
"For fun, of course."
"Amelia!" I said rebukingly.
"Beggin' your pardon, mum, but it seemed such a foolish question—meanin' no offence to you. I cleans the handle, which is copper here—it was brass at Tompkinses'—to get the dirt and smoke off. You never got your hands black in lifting my kettle, did you now?"
"I don't think I have ever lifted it," I rejoined.
"Oh, well," she said in a superior way, "of course you can't know; but people who knows anything at all about a house knows that generals' kettles are mostly black. Then I scrubs the table, dusts the kitchen, feeds the canary, and waters the geranium, which is looking that sickly-like I'm ashamed of the tradespeople seeing it. The butcher only says to me yesterday, 'I see you are a bit of a horticulturist, miss.'"
She stopped, breathless.
"You certainly are very busy," I said.
"Busy isn't the word. I'm like a fire-escape from morning till night."
I think she meant fire-engine, and I was not sorry when she departed, for I was anxious to get to my encyclopædia.
I turned the pages rapidly—Sphygmograph, Spice Islands, Spider, Spikenard, Spinach, Spinal Cord. "Ah, here we are!" I said delightedly. In a moment my spirits drooped. "See Physiology, vol. xix. p. 34. For diseases affecting the Spinal Cord, see Ataxy (Locomotor), Paralysis, Pathology, and Surgery."
I gave a deep sigh. I always have disliked the Encyclopædia Britannica. From the moment Dimbie introduced it to our happy home I have had a feeling of unrest. It appears to think you have nothing to do with your time beyond playing "hunt the slipper" with it. You wish to look up a subject like dog. With a certain amount of faith and hope you approach your encyclopædia. Dog refers you to Canine. You check your impatience. Canine refers you to Faithfulness. A bad word, if you were a man, would then be used; but you are not a man, so you only stamp your foot. Faithfulness refers you to Gelert, and you hurt yourself rather badly as you replace the volume. You give up dog. You would prefer your pet dying before your very eyes to searching any more heavy volumes.
When Dimbie first saw the Encyclopædia Britannica advertised in the Daily Mail he became very enthusiastic, and after talking about it for some time commented upon my lack of interest in the subject.
"Why, Marg, they are giving it away!" he cried.
"Oh," I said, rousing myself, "that is quite a different thing. I like people who give books away. When will they arrive?"
"When I said, 'Giving it away,'" Dimbie explained, hedging, "I meant that the payments would be by such easy instalments that we couldn't possibly miss them. And a fumed oak bookcase will be thrown in free."
I became interested in the bookcase, and when it arrived I wasn't, for it was black and varnishy and sticky, and very far removed from fumed oak as I knew it. I gave it to Amelia for her pans, and we ordered another from the joiner, who charged us £4 for it, money down, as we were strangers.
We don't find the payment of the instalment each month in the least easy. In fact, we almost go without fire and food to meet it.
I rang the tortoise sharply. The encyclopædia should be made to divulge that which I wished to know. I would not be hoodwinked.
"Please bring me volumes PHY, LOC, PAR, PAT, and SUR," I said to Amelia, who was buttoning her black bodice all wrong. "And where's your cap?"
"In my pocket, mum." She produced it, fastening it on wrong end foremost with two hair-pins which once might have been black.
"It is an unsuitable place to keep it," I pronounced. "And where are your cuffs?"
Amelia smiled.
"They've melted, mum. I forgot they was india-rubber, and I put them into the oven after washing them, and when I went for them they was just drippin'."
I sighed deeply.
"Well, bring me the volumes. Do you remember which I mentioned?"
"No, mum."
"I will write them down for you."
"Why not have the whole forty, mum?" she said, as she took the slip of paper.
"Those five will be sufficient, thank you," I said coldly.
Her panting was naturally excessive as she laid the volumes on the bed.
"They are rather heavy for me to lift, Amelia," I said. "Please open PHY for me and turn over the leaves till you come to Physiology, and then go and see about some tea. I don't feel I can wait till four o'clock to-day."
"Would you like some drippin' toast, mum? I've got some lovely beef drippin' from the last sirloin which master carved all wrong. He cut it just like ribs—I mean the under-cut—instead of across. He'd have catched it if he'd been Mrs. Tompkins' husband."
"But he isn't, you see." My manner was extinguishing.
"You're a bit cross, mum?" she suggested.
"No, Amelia, I'm not, only tired—tired of waiting for Dr. Renton—tired, sick to death of lying here. Do you know how long I have lain here?"
"Seven weeks come Wednesday," she replied promptly.
"No, Amelia. You have miscalculated. You have minimised the period of time. I have lain here," and I stretched my arms wide, "a thousand days and nights, a million days and nights; and each day and night has stretched away to eternity."
"Lawks, mum!" Her corsets cracked.
"Lawks! doesn't express it, Amelia. Go now and put on the kettle with the clean copper handle. No dripping toast, thank you. I am sure nurse would disapprove. She has a tiresome habit of disapproving of most things. Besides, I don't feel like common fare. I want something to take me out of myself and to uplift me. Something delicate, subtle, ambrosial. Do you know what ambrosial means? No? Ambrosia means food for the gods. I want food for the gods—iced rose leaves, a decoction of potpourri to assuage my thirst. Go, Amelia, and make speed to do my bidding."
And Amelia, with bulging eyes, has gone. I could hear her muttering to the landing furniture, "Just a bit dotty in the head like Ned Wemp, the village softy. Poor thing, no wonder she's queer at times. She did bump her head."
And I am laughing weakly. I feel, after all, unequal to tackling the encyclopædia. I feel faint with waiting and watching for Dr. Renton. It is half-past three. I heard nurse come in a few minutes ago. I hear Amelia rattling the tea-cups. But the sound doesn't cheer me. Somehow, why I cannot say, fear has gripped me at the heart. And I cannot laugh it away. Why is Dr. Renton so long in coming?
"'He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'"
*****
Dr. Renton has been here. And I have sent nurse away so that I may fight it out alone before Dimbie comes home. I broke down a little before Dr. Renton, but I mustn't cry before Dimbie. I must always try to remember that. He has quite enough worries of his own. I must never cry before Dimbie.
Dr. Renton's words keep slowly repeating themselves in my brain: "To lie for twelve months is hard, but—supposing it had been life-long crippledom, that would be harder."
"Supposing it had been life-long crippledom!"
I must go on saying it over and over again till I feel patient, till I feel grateful for only being asked to bear the lighter burden. But, oh, how long it seems! How very long! To think that I must lie quite still. And this was to have been my first year of happiness, the first year in which I was free to roam at my will, free to stretch my wings away from Peter's cramping influence.
It seems a little hard.
"But supposing it had been life-long crippledom!" I must learn to be patient.
*****
I think I might have helped Dr. Renton, made it less difficult for him to tell. But I was selfish. Instinctively I knew what was coming—his rugged face was more rugged than usual—and yet I clasped my hands and cried, "How long you have been. When may I get up? Oh, say to-day. I do so want to go to the door to meet Dimbie. I ache to go and meet him. I hear the latch of the garden gate, his footstep on the gravel; then my spirit like a bird flies to meet his, and—Amelia meets him. Speak, Dr. Renton. Say it quickly. Say I may get up."
And all the answer he made was to pick up one of the volumes of the encyclopædia and walk to the window.
There was silence for a moment, and that silence told me all.
"But my pulse is steady, doctor, dear," I cried with a sob in my voice. "My temperature is normal. My eyes are clear. My colour is good. I am quite well again."
"I wish to God you were!" he said almost savagely.
"What is the matter with me?" I spoke more quietly. His evident emotion frightened me into a momentary calmness. I might as well know the worst or best and get it over. My heart beat thickly, and I closed my eyes. I had known Dr. Renton long enough to feel sure that whatever he told me would be the truth. And the truth was that I was to be on my back for a whole year; to be lifted from my bed to a couch, and from the couch back again to bed; that I might be wheeled from one room to another on the ground floor, but must never walk.
Never walk! As one in a dream I heard his words. Dully and with unseeing eyes I stared through the window. By and by I should get used to the idea, used to being still. What would Dimbie say?
I turned to the doctor quickly.
"Does my husband know?"
"No," he replied.
"Why haven't you told him?"
"I wanted to make sure."
"And you are sure now? There is no other way—treatment, massage?" I spoke breathlessly.
"There is no other way. But a year will pass quickly. You must be brave."
"But I didn't want it to pass quickly," I cried bitterly. "Don't you understand this was to have been my year—my wonderful year?"
"There will be other years," he began gently. "You are young, Marguerite. All your life is before you. There will be next year——"
"But next year will not be the same as this. Go, Doctor Renton; leave me. I am going to cry, and you will be angry. You hate tears. But I must cry before Dimbie comes home, and the time is passing. Unless I cry I—I shall break in two."
The tears were raining down my face as I spoke, and Dr. Renton swore lustily, as he has always done when upset.
"Good-bye," I said, smiling through my tears. "Your language will deprave Jumbles."
He held my hand between his.
"You know I am sorry. I am a poor hand at expressing what I feel."
"I know," I replied. "No girl ever had a kinder doctor."
"I shook you when you were a little girl with measles for running barefoot about the passages." He was patting my hand.
"Do you mean you want to shake me now?" I asked.
"Yes, if you cry any more," he said a little grimly, but the expression in his eyes was very kind.
"I'll try not to," I whispered tremulously.
"That's a brave girl," he said. "Good-bye, keep up your heart, and we'll get you well." And I lay and cried for half an hour.