by Sara Seale
He pressed his fingers against his eyelids in that familiar gesture of tiredness and she wanted to go to him, to put her arms round him and tell him this misunderstanding was none of her making.
“Dane—” she said, but he straightened and immediately put his hands in his pockets. His sightless eyes looked blood-shot and infinitely tired, but his face was the still mask of distaste.
“I could scarcely take advantage of your compassion, even if I’d wanted to, could I?” he said harshly.
“Do you despise compassion, then?”
“I despise pity.”
“They’re not the same. But I’ve never known what you wanted, Dane. When I agreed to marry you, you said—”
“When you agreed to marry me there was no question of emotions being mixed up. You knew what you had undertaken, just as I did.”
“I suppose so. But what of Vanessa, Dane? Had you bargained for that when you married me?”
“No more than I’d bargained for your young man coming back into the picture.”
“But he didn’t—he hasn’t.”
“Hasn’t he?” said Dane, and she went to him then, putting her hands on his shoulders.
“No,” she said. “I only want them both to go away—Tim and Vanessa. What you’ve offered me I’m content with—if you are. Aren’t you satisfied?”
“No,” he said, thrusting her hands away. “No, I’m not content. I should never have married you, Emily—I should never have tempted providence, nature—whatever you like to call it, so flagrantly. Blindness is a handicap in more ways than one. One is too sensitive to things which those who can see don’t notice. I was foolish ever to think that this sort of thing could work.”
“You mean our marriage?”
“I mean our marriage and all it entails.” His voice suddenly softened and his face, too, and only a great weariness remained.
“I’m sorry, Emily,” he said. “I hadn’t meant to treat you to a scene. Things will work out—they always do.” She was almost crying. His face, ravished by an emotion she had never seen before, tugged at her compassion. She did not know what he wanted; whether it was Vanessa or the lost days of his youth, but each, she thought, was one with the other. How could she hope to make up for the bitterness of the past?
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry that things can’t be as they were.”
“Friday’s child?” he asked with an odd little smile. “Never mind, Emily, life is not eternal.”
That night she slept very little. She could hear Dane pacing his room far into the small hours and once she opened the dividing door and called to him softly.
“Let me come and talk to you,” she said. “You must be so tired.”
He was only a dim figure in the darkness but he seemed to stiffen.
“No,” he said., “Go back to bed, Emily. I’m sorry if I’ve kept you awake.”
She went because she knew she could not reach him, but she lay awake, listening to his movements in the other room until, long after dawn, there was silence, and she knew he slept.
It was difficult the next day for Emily to revert to normal. For the first time she was glad of Dane’s blindness so that she need not guard her face. Alice looked sullen and peaky, and it was good to have Shorty back with his disregard for polite speech.
“Cor!” he observed. “You and Miss Alice look as if you’d lost a fortune! Wot’s been ’appening since we’ve been away?”
“Nothing much,” said Emily evasively. “Miss Alice has been a bit difficult, that’s all.”
“Ho!” said Shorty with a world of expression, but his look told Emily that he was of the opinion that she was mostly to blame.
The day before Alice was to return to school, Emily went out to the orchard. The blossom was in full bloom now, and the old trees were a mass of delicate foam. Emily stood fingering the rough bark of the tree she had climbed, remembering its significance; the tree from which she had first seen Alice, the tree where Dane had found the first colored egg at Easter, the tree from which he had told her he would always see her, peeping out between the snowy branches. She swung herself into the familiar cleft branch, then almost immediately jumped down again, for she had seen, over the high wall, Tim’s car coming up the hill and she did not want him in the house. They met at the gate.
“You can’t come in,” said Emily, and he looked amused.
“As a matter of fact I’d come to say good-bye,” he replied. “I’m going back to town tomorrow.”
Emily experienced a sudden flood of relief, followed by a swift, illogical pang of regret. With Tim’s going the past would have gone, and with it the nebulous assurance of the present.
“You’ll not come back, Tim, will you?” she said.
His blue eyes watched her with gentle amusement. He did not speak for a moment and she was conscious of his first attraction for her; the sunlight bright on his thick red hair, the lean body, gay and careless, with its elegant bones. But black is the color of my true love’s hair ... The strange, mournful air of the song ran through her thoughts as she watched that bright head.
“No, I’ll be waiting,” he said, and grinned.
“Waiting? For what?”
“For you, perhaps. Don’t you know why your husband went to London?”
“Business, I suppose—or was it Vanessa?”
“Vanessa’s been here at Torcroft. Never mind, Emily, all in good time. Where is he today?”
“Dane? He’s gone in to Plymouth with Shorty—to the laboratory, I think. Did you want to see him?”
“No, that can wait. Well, au revoir, my sweet—I’ll be seeing you.”
He did not wait for any more but jumped into his car and drove away. Emily looked after him with no regrets now. She did not consider his suggestion that he would be waiting for her, only his query as to whether she knew why Dane had gone to London. Vanessa was linked with that remark, she was sure, and she began to watch for Dane’s return from Plymouth. She would question him, she decided, just as he had questioned her.
He did not come until very late. In the bright glare from the chandelier in the hall he looked rather white, and Shorty came slowly in after him, carrying Bella.
Emily ran to Dane’s side.
“What’s happened? Is she hurt?” she cried in alarm.
“She was hit by a car,” said Dane. “I gave the wrong command.”
“She’s not—she’s not—” Emily began, horrified, but Shorty threw her a reassuring look.
“Lor’ bless you ma’am, she ain’t dead,” he said. “Vet’s patched ’er up good and proper, but Mr. Merritt’s upset, see?”
“I gave the wrong command,” said Dane again, and Emily’s heart ached for him. She remembered how he had told her that a guide dog worked through the handler’s intelligence. To make a mistake would bring home to Dane all the bitterness of his handicap.
“Where shall we put her?” asked Emily quickly, and Dane replied:
“In my room, of course. I’ll be up in a minute.”
Emily followed Shorty upstairs and watched him lay the bitch tenderly on her blanket by the fire.
“Poor Bella ... poor girl ...” said Emily softly, and went on her knees beside the bitch.
Bella licked her hand and feebly wagged her tail and Emily looked up at Shorty, the tears springing to her eyes.
“Is she bad?” she asked.
“ ’Ard to say,” the little cockney answered, scratching his head. “The vet’rinary didn’t seem to think there was internal injuries and there’s no wound. Mostly shocks ’e thinks.”
“How did it happen?”
“Crossing in front of the research building. They’ve done it a hundred times in traffic as ’eavy, but today—well, I think the governor must ’a’ been wool-gatherin. Bella, she plainly said wait, but the governor said go on. Anyways, she got ’it, pore ole girl.”
“How dreadful for Mr. Merritt,” said Emily compassionately. “How terrible to feel yourself responsibl
e.”
“Yes,” said Shorty soberly. “It shook ’im up and that’s a fact. Go down, ma’am, and pour him a real stiff snorter—none of that sherry, mind. I’ll make sure the old faggot’s comfortable before I leaves her.”
Emily turned to go, but Dane had already come upstairs. He blundered a little into things, she saw, as if his confidence had gone.
“Come down with me, Dane,” she coaxed. “She’s lying quite peacefully on her blanket. There’s nothing you can do.”
“I can at least stay with her,” said Dane expressionlessly. “I was responsible.”
It was Shorty who got him to go. Watching his expert handling of his employer, and the gentleness with which he put his arguments, Emily understood why Dane had kept him all these years, and understood, too, how much the little man’s skill and devotion must have meant through the bad times.
Downstairs in the library, Emily took Shorty’s advice and mixed a strong whisky and soda. As he drank it Dane’s color came back and his hands were steady again.
“She’ll be all right,” said Emily softly, and he smiled.
“So the vet said, but that doesn’t make me feel any the less criminal. I forced her on when she was plainly telling me to wait. I was thinking of something else.”
“Something was worrying you?”
“Yes, my punctilious Emily, something was worrying me,” he said and fell silent.
III
Emily went in to say goodnight to Alice that evening, remembering only then that it was the child’s last night at home.
Alice was sitting up in bed, her hair brushed neatly and her face shining from soap and water. Her school uniform was already neatly laid out for the morrow and her eyes went to Emily speculatively.
“Is Bella dead?” she asked.
“No, of course not, but she’s been hurt,” Emily said soothingly, realizing with compunction that, in all the upset, Alice had been forgotten.
“Is she going to get better?”
“Yes, of course, in a very few days.”
“I don’t want her to get better. I want her to die,” said Alice flatly.
Emily looked as horrified as she felt.
“Alice! What a dreadful thing to say!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you like poor Bella?”
“I don’t mind her. But if Bella died, Uncle Dane would have no one to lead him about, would he? He says it takes two years to get a guide dog because of the waiting list.”
“Well, you needn’t sound so pleased. What’s been the matter with you these holidays, Alice? You’ve been a very different little girl, and not above making mischief, too.”
Emily spoke severely and the child suddenly burst into tears.
“No one wanted me,” she sobbed. “I thought when you got married to Uncle Dane I would have you always, but you only wanted that hateful Mr. Lonnegan.”
“What nonsense!” scolded Emily, but she took the little girl into her arms and was relieved to find her a normal unhappy child at last.
“If—if Uncle Dane had no one to lead him about, you’d have to do it, wouldn’t you?” Alice tried to explain. “Then you couldn’t go away.”
“But I wasn’t thinking of going away,” said Emily, a little dismayed by the way the child’s mind had evidently been working.
“Not with Mr. Lonnegan? Miss Larne said—”
“I don’t want to hear what Miss Larne said,” interrupted Emily quickly. “And Mr. Lonnegan has already gone.”
“Has he?” Alice’s tears were stopping and she already was beginning to look embarrassed at being caught crying.
“Yes. I don’t suppose we shall see him again, so stop thinking about him, and, Alice—don’t tell Uncle Dane tomorrow that you hope Bella will die. He’s very fond of her and quite upset enough as it is.”
“All right,” said Alice quite happily, and snuggled down in the bed. “I don’t mind going back to school tomorrow now because you’ll be here when I come back in the summer, won’t you, dear Emily?”
“Yes,” said Emily a little unsteadily. “I’ll be here when you come in the summer. Now go to sleep.”
By the next day Bella had rallied sufficiently to be taken downstairs for her necessary runs in the garden. She was very stiff, but she took her food normally and did a great deal of sleeping.
“She’ll be as right as rain in another week and taking the governor for his walks again,” pronounced Shorty cheerfully, but on the third day the bitch’s breathing became alarmingly bad and she refused all food.
“What is it, Shorty? She was so much better,” said Emily, alarmed.
“Pneumonia,” Shorty replied laconically.
“Pneumonia? But we’ve kept her warm.”
“Shock can cause it,” Shorty said, and shook his head despondently. “Pore old girl, she’ll ’ave a struggle.”
“We’d better get the vet at once, hadn’t we?” Emily asked, but Shorty gave her a snort of contempt.
“Naow! I reckon I know more than these country ’orse doctors when it comes to pneumonia. The governor can get me all the drugs I need from the laboratory. It’s nursing does the trick, see?” he said and she remembered that Shorty had been a male nurse before he had come to Dane, and hope returned to her.
But Bella grew steadily worse. Chloromycin seemed to have no effect, and Emily’s tender heart ached to watch the bitch fall away to nothing under her eyes, to listen helplessly to the labored breathing and observe the patient resignation with which the animal seemed to await death. She could not bear Dane’s terse enquiries or the impatience she knew he must feel for his own blindness which made him helpless to assist.
Emily and Shorty shared the nursing between them. They had persuaded Dane to let the bitch be moved to Shorty’s pantry.
“You can’t ’ave ’er up ’ere in this state, sir,” Shorty said firmly. “The pore old girl can’t go out when it’s necessary, and you, being blind, wouldn’t know where you’re walking, see? I’ll ’ave a stove going night and day for ’er.”
Emily grew very attached to the little cockney in those night watches. They would sit together in the old-fashioned butler’s pantry, the warmth and stuffy smell of a paraffin stove somehow isolating them from the events of the present, and Shorty talked of his nursing experiences, of Dane’s fight with blindness after his accident, and of his own hopes and fears for his employer’s future. Tim, and even Vanessa, seemed unimportant now. Humbly, Emily accepted Shorty’s cockney wisdom and was grateful for his unfailing support.
He would make them strong cups of cocoa and as often as not took one up to Dane.
“For he won’t be sleeping,” he would say. “Sleeps badly, normal times, him being blind, you understand?”
Emily remembered the times she had heard Dane moving about in the room next to hers, the times when she had tried to bring him comfort and been sent away.
“There’s so little one can do,” she said forlornly.
Shorty grinned.
“Think so?” he asked, cocking his head on one side like a sparrow. “Seems to me you’ve got it your own way if you do things right—meaning no offence.”
“Yes, Shorty,” she said. “It sounds easy enough but—there are other things.”
“Cor!” said Shorty, creasing his face in a thousand wrinkles. “What’s that Miss Larne got that you ’aven’t?”
“Beauty,” said Emily austerely, and he sniffed.
“Beauty’s in the eye of the be’older, so they say. You ain’t so bad yourself, and, anyways, he can’t see you, can ’e?” he said.
Bella died in the night, peacefully and without struggle. She lay on her side, her thin flanks heaving with each difficult breath. She gave a little sigh and then was gone, and the silence in the small room was complete.
Emily stood looking down at her, while Shorty folded the blanket over her.
“Poor Bella...” she murmured softly. “What will your master do now?”
“It might ’ave been ’im,” said Shorty g
ruffly, and Emily turned away. Yes, she thought, it might have been Dane.
It was three in the morning. Emily made her way upstairs, unutterably tired. The folds of her long dressing-gown brushed each step with a sad little sighing sound. She went quietly into her own room but Dane heard her and called. She opened the door between their rooms and stood there without speaking.
“She’s gone?” said Dane sharply.
“Yes,” said Emily. “How did you know?”
“There was something in your footsteps that told me—something, even, in the way you are standing there in the doorway,” he said, and she burst into tears.
“Oh, Dane, I’m so sorry ... I’m so terribly sorry ...” she cried and ran to the bed, flinging herself across it.
The strain of those broken nights had snapped her control at last. She could not stop weeping and she felt his arms go round her and he held her as she had sometimes held Alice in moments of stress.
“Don’t, my dear,” he murmured. “Don’t tear your heart out ... you did all you could, you and Shorty ... I shouldn’t have let you break yourself up like this.”
She shivered violently and he got out of bed and picked her up and put her in his place, tucking the bedclothes round her with gentle hands.
“There,” he said. “Keep warm ... sleep, if you can. I’ll be here.”
He put on his dressing-gown and sat on the bed beside her, talking quietly, soothingly. Even in her distress it seemed strange to Emily that he should be bringing comfort to her and not she to him.
“Dane, will you let me take her place?” she said, feeling for his hands in the darkness. “Will you let me be your eyes instead of poor Bella?”
“Yes,” he said, his fingers closing on hers. “Yes, my dear, if you’ll have the patience. You shall be my eyes. Now try to sleep.”
She must have fallen asleep almost at once for she did not remember him saying any more. When she awoke he had dressed and gone and the morning sunlight was streaming into the room. Shorty brought her breakfast in and she felt suddenly shy, sitting up in Dane’s bed with his discarded night things thrown across the foot. Shorty winked as he put down the tray, a meaning wink which made Emily blush.