Dimbie and I—and Amelia

by Mabel Barnes-Grundy

CHAPTER XVIII

DIMBIE ROLLS A GREAT LOAD FROM MY HEART

In the crises of life—the tremendous moments of fear, hope, and expectation—what a curious calmness overtakes us. Maud's poor lover, after killing her brother in the duel, says—

"Why am I sitting here so stunn'd and still,
Plucking the harmless wild-flower on the hill?"

And later on, when he sits on the Breton strand, he says—

"Strange that the mind when fraught
With a passion so intense
One would think that it well
Might drown all life in the eye,—
That it should, by being so over-wrought,
Suddenly strike on a sharper sense
For a shell, or a flower, little things
Which else would have been passed by."

And so it was with me, I "suddenly struck on a sharper sense" as Dimbie came through the gate, and I had nothing to say in the first moment of greeting but to tell him that a button was missing from one of his boots and his coat was very dusty.

His look of utter astonishment expelled my apathy, and when his arms were round me and he was showering kisses upon my face and hair, and whispering, "Marguerite, Marguerite, have you nothing else to say?" in an overwhelming torrent it came to me what I had to say, what I had to tell him. The reality of it suffocated me, I felt as though I were drowning. I could only cling to him murmuring his name.

"Dear love," he whispered at length, "say that you love me!"

"Love you!" I cried, finding speech. "Love you! Ah, Dimbie, it is not for you to ask such a question. It is I who must put it to you. Do you love me? Can you always love me—forever and ever, whatever happens to me? Whatever I am——"

I broke off. "Whatever I am," I repeated mechanically.

Again he looked at me, held my face away from his, and surprise and bewilderment chased across his countenance.

I could not meet the look in his eyes, and my own fell.

He took my hands in his and held them to his lips very tenderly.

"Love you as you are, whatever you are! Why of course, that is why I shall love you always, because you are Marguerite. You may grow blind and deaf, and old and feeble, but you will always be my Marguerite. That is the beautiful part, we shall always have each other—to the end. Aunt Letitia's was a lonely life and a lonely death. Only old Ann and I with her. No husband nor children, nor brothers nor sisters, no one very closely related; only I, a nephew, and an old servant." He settled himself on the grass at the side of the couch and leant his head against my knee. "But you and I will have each other for ever. But I am not going to talk of sad things—not that Aunt Letitia's death in itself was sad, for it was very peaceful and beautiful—but I want to talk of the delights of being home again, of sitting in our jolly little garden with my own dear wife, and of the said wife's stroking her husband's head." He raised his blue eyes to mine and pulled my hand down to his hair, and perforce I had to stroke it.

"I cannot tell him yet," I cried to myself. "We must have this beautiful hour together. Later on—perhaps when the dusk has fallen."

He sighed contentedly as my hand passed over his crisp, kinky hair, and took Jumbles, who was purring and arching his back, on to his knee.

"Now tell me the news, wife," he commanded. "First of all, how are you? Has Renton been to see you?"

"Yes," I replied after a pause, "he came the other day."

"And what does he think?"

"He thinks"—I caught at my breath—"that I am thinner and—not quite so well."

Dimbie turned round quickly and gave me a prolonged scrutiny. Then he threw Jumbles off his knee and got up.

"You are decidedly thinner, Marg. Let me feel your arms."

"My arms," I said, trying to smile, "were always so abominably fat that it is an improvement their being thinner."

Dimbie felt me carefully, then his mouth set in a hard, straight line.

"We must get you away from here," he said, "to the sea, or somewhere bracing. By the time you are ready to walk about there will be nothing left of you to walk."

"By the time you are ready to walk about," I started. Amelia was coming across the lawn, and heard Dimbie's words. Her lips parted. She was going to tell him.

"Amelia," I cried, "come here quickly. The—the tortoise is slipping down the couch."

"And that won't be the first time, mum," she returned, diving after it. "And you won't have a pocket, mum."

"Shake up my cushions, please, and—" I whispered in her ear as she leaned over me, "don't tell the master yet."

"What are you two up to?" asked Dimbie.

"Amelia is bringing you some tea, and we are going to have supper in the garden. I always have supper under the apple tree when it's fine," I said quickly.

"Isn't it a bit earwiggy?"

"It is; but to make up for that there is the night-scented stock, and a corncrake in the field. Peter got very angry with the corncrake and the frogs."

"By the way, where are Peter and your mother? It is very decent of them to have gone out and left us alone for a bit."

"They are gone home," I replied. "A seismic movement of the earth's crust is now taking place at Dorking."

Dimbie laughed.

"Not very polite to me to clear off just as I was returning."

"I think Peter feared you might quarrel with him."

"A nice way of putting it. How did he and Amelia get on?"

"They didn't get on at all. Amelia gave me notice to leave, and Peter flung dinner plates on to the floor. I think he had been reading about Savage Landor's pitching crockery about when he was a little annoyed."

"I'd have pitched him out of the house."

"Yes," I said, "that was why I felt glad you were not at home."

Amelia appeared with the tray.

"How did you like General Macintosh, Amelia?" asked Dimbie.

She sniffed and tilted her head.

"I gave him his half-sovereign back when he went this morning; that will show you how much I liked him, sir. He nearly wore the mistress and me out. I managed him though in the end."

"What did you do?"

"Well, sir, I peppered him and Keatinged him just as though he was a house-moth."

We both stared at her.

"Readin' a book made me think of it; it was about a duchess and a baby, and the baby kept sneezin'. 'This will do for him,' says I to myself. So I buys a quarter of a pound of pepper and a tin of Keating's moth powder, and I sprinkles his pillow and hairbrushes, and handkerchiefs and pyjamas, and shaving-brush and his clothes, and the sneezin' which took place after that was somethin' dreadful. His eyes and nose was runnin', and he says he had a dreadful attack of influenza. Don't you remember, mum?"

She looked at me, but I made no answer. He was, after all, my father, and I must not sympathise with Amelia in her depravity.

"Go on," said Dimbie encouragingly, helping himself to a large supply of strawberry jam.

"Well, he came and danced about my kitchen like a hathlete at the circus. Couldn't have believed pepper could have made anythink so active, and with his gout, sir. I couldn't get him out of the kitchen for hever so long."

"And what did you do?"

"Oh, I just fetched the pepper-pot and shook it at him, one shake and he fairly raced. And Jumbles began a-sneezin' too, and rushed off to the roof of the shed; there was legs flying in all directions."

Dimbie tilted back his chair and roared with laughter.

"And was he polite to you after that?"

"Pretty well, sir. He had to be. Every time he was going to break out I just casual-like referred to the pepper. I would ask Mrs. Macintosh if there was enough of it in her soup, or if the curry was too hot."

"You are a strategist, Amelia," said Dimbie.

"Yes, sir," she replied, without comprehension.

"Do you know what I mean?"

"No, sir."

"You can outwit the enemy."

"Yes, sir."

She moved towards the house. She was wearing the tea-rose slippers again. Dimbie caught sight of them.

"Why are you wearing my slippers? How dare you, Amelia!"

She stood nonplussed for a moment, then, "The mistress won't allow you to wear them, sir, and I thought it was a pity for them to be wasted," and she disappeared into the house.

We looked at each other and laughed.

"She is a good girl, and looks after you well, doesn't she?"

"Excellently."

"But I think we will get another maid—one who is more used to invalids."

"No one but Amelia shall look after me; besides, we can't afford," I said decidedly.

"Oh, we can afford right enough, Marg. Wouldn't you like one, dear?"

"No, I wouldn't."

He smiled.

"Well, don't get so heated about it, you shan't if you don't like. You shan't do anything or have anything contrary to your wishes."

"You are very good to me, Dimbie, dear;" and tears trembled in my eyes.

"Whatever's the matter?" he said in alarm.

"I'm only tired. I have been so excited about your coming."

"Poor darling!" he murmured softly. "It's this hot weather that is making you so weary. I'm going to read you to sleep, and you must sleep till supper. What shall it be?" He picked up one or two of the books from the table. "Omar?"

"No, I'm tired of Omar."

"The Garden of Allah?"

"No, beautiful but sad."

"What, then?"

I lay and thought. Dimbie had a musical voice; he read well. I wanted something to suit his voice.

"Pilgrim's Progress," I said. "It's on the drawing-room table."

He fetched it, and turned the pages.

"What part do you fancy?"

"Anywhere, so long as I can see you while you read."

He stooped and kissed me, and holding one of my hands in his he began.

Very little of the beautiful language did I hear, for I was thinking and pondering upon what I should say to him later. How should I tell him? How break my news? The shock would be so great; I must choose my words carefully. "Help me to say the right thing," I prayed I know not to whom. "Help me to choose the right words, and let him go on loving me."

*****

And Dimbie himself made it all quite easy for me, for before I spoke or told him his own words rolled a great load from my heart.

We had finished supper, the darkness had fallen, and a moon swam in a sky of the deepest blue. Heavy on the warm night air lay the perfume of the roses, the night-scented stock, and the flowering lime, in which a thousand and one bees had been humming throughout the day. Now they were asleep, and the lime was at rest.

Dimbie, with his arm around me, was telling me of Aunt Letitia's death, and how glad she was to go; how quietly and simply she had talked of her business affairs, of the disposal of her money, of her legacies. She had left her house in order, and with the faith of a little child had set out on the long, unknown journey fearless and with a great trust in the mercy of God.

"At the last she said to me, 'From what you have told me I quite seem to know Marguerite, and I should have loved her I am sure. I feel she is good. Some good women are very unlovable; they are hard on the frailties of others. In their unsmirched purity they cannot understand the meaning of the words temptation, sin; but I do not think Marguerite is one of these. I should imagine she would be very tender towards those who are weak, for she understands and knows the mercy of God.'"

"The mercy of God." The words rang in my ears—dinned and hammered and beat.

"I understand the mercy of God! Dimbie, Dimbie, Aunt Letitia is wrong. I don't, I don't. I'm wicked, I'm rebellious, I——" My words broke off in a bitter cry, and I clung to him with both hands.

"Hush, hush, my dear one," he said, holding me closely. "If you are wicked it is a poor lookout for the rest of humanity. Why, to myself, I always call you my white Marguerite. I—" he paused, and I could hear the beating of his heart—"I want to tell you now what you have made of me, of my manhood. I have wanted to tell you ever since I first met you, but—it is difficult to lay your heart bare, even to the woman you love, but—I think I'm a better man now, Marguerite. I was a careless, selfish sort of beggar before, I only thought of myself. The down-on-their-luck fellows were down through their own fault I supposed. The women on the streets disgusted me; the sick and suffering I shunned as something repulsive; the poor and hungry bored me with their whining. Then I met you. You gave me something priceless—your love. I knew I was not worthy of it, but you married me. Then came your accident and illness. Will you think me cruel when I tell you I was almost glad? Now I could do something for you, wait on you, take care of you, cherish you, I thought, try to make myself worthy of your love. And your first question was, Would my love stand the strain of your illness? Ah, Marguerite, how those words hurt, how they cut me to the heart. 'She doesn't understand me,' I cried, 'she has no faith in me.' And have you still no faith in me? Do you not trust me? Marguerite, wife, were you to be stricken for life, always tied down to your couch, always a helpless invalid, I should feel that you were a sacred trust given to me by God to love and cherish. And—so long as you gave me your love I should be more than content. Do you still doubt me, fear that my affection would waver? Tell me that you trust me. Speak, Marguerite."

And I spoke, very slowly at first. The words came haltingly, brokenly. I was trying to keep the tears back—tears not of sorrow now, but of joy. As my husband was speaking sorrow left me, and my soul was irradiated with a great and wondrous happiness. I forgot my tired body, it seemed to fade away, dissolve, and only my spirit was left behind singing a Te Deum. My doubts, my fears had gone. Dimbie would always love me. I believed him as truly as I believed that the sun would rise on the morrow.

"Dimbie, dear," I said simply, "I do believe you, and I do trust you. Your words to-night have made that which I have to tell you quite easy. I—shall never walk again." My arm stole round his neck and I drew his cheek to mine. "No, don't speak till I have finished. I want to tell you all about it now—everything. Then we will accept it as the inevitable and never speak of it again. You say that I am patient, good. When the doctors had left me—Dr. Renton had broken it to me—I railed against God. I cried out in my agony, 'This cross is greater than I can bear!' I beat the pillows, tried to tear the sheets, struck my head against the bed. I longed to die. I prayed to die. I struggled to rise, only to fall in unconsciousness on the floor. This unconsciousness, I think, saved my reason. And, oh, the tears I shed, the bitter tears! I was glad you were not there, Dimbie. In the darkness of the night, even as Job, I cried out, 'Let the day perish wherein I was born!' Never to walk again—the words rang in my ears. Always to lie still. The wind and sea would call me, but I must lie still. Spring and summer would call me, but I must lie still, always still. Never stretch my limbs in the sunshine or feel the mountain air upon my face. Never hear the wind in the corn, or listen to the soft falling of the pine-needles in the woods. Dimbie, that night has left its mark upon my brow, I fear. I felt as though I had been seared with a hot iron. I quivered when they touched me—Peter, mother, Amelia—they all came to me, and I cried, 'Leave me, leave me!'"

With a passionate movement Dimbie made to speak, but I laid my fingers on his lips.

"Wait," I said. "Hush, dear. I don't feel unhappy now, that has all gone, you have sent it away. For above all my grief there was a sorrow which was a thousand-fold more keen, more bitter. I doubted you. I doubted your love, and I did not in my mind reproach you, Dimbie. 'He is young and strong,' I cried, 'and I am a cripple. He cannot spend the remainder of his life with a hopeless invalid. Nature demands a healthy mate. I cannot expect him to be faithful to me.'

"But, oh, I felt I could not give you up! I loved you so. You were my husband. No other woman should have you. And—I looked at my face. It is a little pitiful when a woman comes to look at her face, I think. Is it the men's fault, I wonder? Ah, and what the mirror told me! I put it from me, and I laughed mirthlessly. 'That will never hold him,' I said, and so I drew nearer and nearer to my Gethsemane and my cup was wellnigh full. And—then you came, and I woke as from a hideous nightmare; my sorrow and pain and anxiety fell from me like an old worn-out cloak. Dimbie, Dimbie, do you know how you smiled? In that dear crooked, whimsical, and most loving smile lay a woman's heaven—a heaven upon earth—and without you she wants no other paradise."

Dimbie's arms were around me as I finished. His tears fell upon my face, but he did not speak. In each other's arms we lay, wrapped around by the still, warm, scented night, and the silence was more beautiful than words. Later on, when he carried me to bed, he knelt down and said—

"I thank Thee for my most precious wife, O Lord, so much more precious now that she is—she is—brok——" He paused, and, getting up, went quietly out of the room.