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.