"How are you feeling now?"
Words could not express the music of these six liquid syllables that
fell through the stillness and the blackness on my ears.
"Not very bright, I'm afraid, nurse," said I.
Think of something to do with streams and moonlight, and you may have
an idea of the mellow ripple of the laugh I heard.
"I'm not the nurse. Can't you tell the difference? I'm Miss
Deane--Dr. Deane's daughter."
"Deane?" I echoed.
"Don't you know where you are?"
"Every thing is still confused," said I.
I had an idea that they had carried me somewhere by train and put me
into a bed, and that soft-fingered people had tended my eyes; but where
I was I neither knew nor cared. Torture and blindness had been quite
enough to occupy my mind.
"You are at Dr. Deane's house," said the voice, "and Dr. Deane is the
twin brother of Mr. Deane, the great oculist of Grandchester, who was
summoned to Shepton-Marling when you met with your accident. Perhaps
you know you had a gun accident?"
"I suppose it was only that after all," said I, "but it felt like the
disruption of the solar system."
"Are you still in great pain?" my unseen hostess asked sympathetically.
"Not since you have been in the room. I mean," I added, chilled by a
span of silence, "I mean--I am just stating what happens to be a fact."
"Oh!" she said shortly. "Well, my uncle found that you couldn't be
properly treated at your friend's little place at Shepton-Marling, so
he brought you to Grandchester--and here you are."
"But I don't understand," said I, "why I should be a guest in your
house."
"You are not a guest," she laughed. "You are here on the most sordid
and commercial footing. Your friend--I forget his name----"
"Mobray," said I.
"Mr. Mobray settled it with my uncle. You see the house is large and
father's practice small, as we keep a nursing home for my uncle's
patients. Of course we have trained nurses."
"Are you one?" I asked.
"Not exactly. I do the housekeeping. But I can settle those
uncomfortable pillows."
I felt her dexterous cool hands about my head and neck. For a moment
or two my eyes ceased to ache, and I wished I could see her. In
tendering my thanks, I expressed the wish. She laughed her delicious
laugh.
"If you could see you wouldn't be here, and therefore you couldn't see
me anyhow."
"Shall I ever see you?" I asked dismally.
"Why, of course! Don't you know that Henry Deane is one of the
greatest oculists in England?"
We discussed my case and the miraculous skill of Henry Deane.
Presently she left me, promising to return. The tones of her voice
seemed to linger, as perfume would, in the darkness.
That was the beginning of it. It was love, not at first sight, but at
first sound. Pain and anxiety stood like abashed goblins at the back
of my mind. Valerie Deane's voice danced in front like a triumphant
fairy. When she came and talked sick-room platitudes I had sooner
listened to her than to the music of the spheres. At that early stage
what she said mattered so little. I would have given rapturous heed to
her reading of logarithmic tables. I asked her silly questions merely
to elicit the witchery of her voice. When Melba sings, do you take
count of the idiot words? You close eyes and intellect and just let
the divine notes melt into your soul. And when you are lying on your
back, blind and helpless, as I was, your soul is a very sponge for
anything beautiful that can reach it. After a while she gave me
glimpses of herself, sweet and womanly; and we drifted from commonplace
into deeper things. She was the perfect companion. We discussed all
topics, from chiffons to Schopenhauer. Like most women, she execrated
Schopenhauer. She must have devoted much of her time to me; yet I
ungratefully complained of the long intervals between her visits. But
oh! those interminable idle hours of darkness, in which all the
thoughts that had ever been thought were rethought over and over again
until the mind became a worn-out rag-bag! Only those who have been
through the valley of this shadow can know its desolation. Only they
can understand the magic of the unbeheld Valerie Deane.
"What is the meaning of this?" she asked one morning. "Nurse says you
are fretful and fractious."
"She insisted on soaping the soles of my feet and tickling me into
torments, which made me fractious, and I'm dying to see your face,
which makes me fretful."
"Since when have you been dying?" she asked.
"From the first moment I heard your voice saying, 'How are you feeling
now?' It's irritating to have a friend and not in the least know what
she is like. Besides," I added, "your voice is so beautiful that your
face must be the same."
She laughed.
"Your face is like your laugh," I declared.
"If my face were my fortune I should come off badly," she said in a
light tone. I think she was leaning over the foot-rail, and I longed
for her nearer presence.
"Nurse has tied this bandage a little too tightly," I said mendaciously.
I heard her move, and in a moment her fingers were busy about my eyes.
I put up my hand and touched them. She patted my hand away.
"Please don't be foolish," she remarked. "When you recover your sight
and find what an exceedingly plain girl I am, you'll go away like the
others, and never want to see me again."
"What others?" I exclaimed.
"Do you suppose you're the only patient I have had to manage?"
I loathed "the others" with a horrible detestation; but I said, after
reflection:
"Tell me about yourself. I know you are called Valerie from Dr. Deane.
How old are you?"
She pinned the bandage in front of my forehead.
"Oh, I'm young enough," she answered with a laugh. "Three-and-twenty.
And I'm five-foot-four, and I haven't a bad figure. But I haven't any
good looks at all, at all."
"Tell me," said I impatiently, "exactly how you do look. I must know."
"I have a sallow complexion. Not very good skin. And a low forehead."
"An excellent thing," said I.
"But my eyebrows and hair run in straight parallel lines, so it isn't,"
she retorted. "It is very ugly. I have thin black hair."
"Let me feel."
"Certainly not. And my eyes are a sort of watery china blue and much
too small. And my nose isn't a bad nose altogether, but it's fleshy.
One of those nondescript, unaristocratic noses that always looks as if
it has got a cold. My mouth is large--I am looking at myself in the
glass--my my teeth are white. Yes, they are nice and white. But they
are large and protrude--you know the French caricature of an
Englishwoman's teeth. Really, now I consider the question, I am the
image of the English _mees_ in a French comic paper."
"I don't believe it," I declared.
"It is true. I know I have a pretty voice--but that is all. It
deceives blind people. They think I must be pretty too, and when they
see me--_bon soir, la compagnie_! And I've such a thin, miserable
face, coming to the chin in a point, like a kite. There! Have you a
clear idea of me now?"
"No," said I, "for I believe you are wilfully misrepresenting yourself.
Besides, beauty does not depend upon features regular in themselves,
but the way those features are put together."
"Oh, mine are arranged in an amiable sort of way. I don't look cross."
"You must look sweetness itself," said I.
She sighed and said meditatively:
"It is a great misfortune for a girl to be so desperately plain. The
consciousness of it comes upon her like a cold shower-bath when she is
out with other girls. Now there is my cousin----"
"Which cousin?"
"My Uncle Henry's daughter. Shall I tell you about her?"
"I am not in the least interested in your cousin," I replied.
She laughed, and the entrance of the nurse put an end to the
conversation.
Now I must make a confession. I was grievously disappointed. Her
detailed description of herself as a sallow, ill-featured young woman
awoke me with a shock from my dreams of a radiant goddess. It arrested
my infatuation in mid-course. My dismay was painful. I began to pity
her for being so unattractive. For the next day or two even her
beautiful voice failed in its seduction.
But soon a face began to dawn before me, elusive at first, and then
gradually gaining in definition. At last the picture flashed upon my
mental vision with sudden vividness, and it has never left me to this
day. Its steadfastness convinced me of its accuracy. It was so real
that I could see its expression vary, as she spoke, according to her
mood. The plainness, almost ugliness, of the face repelled me. I
thought ruefully of having dreamed of kisses from the lips that barely
closed in front of the great white teeth. Yet, after a while, its
higher qualities exercised a peculiar attraction. A brave, tender
spirit shone through. An intellectual alertness redeemed the heavy
features--the low ugly brow, the coarse nose, the large mouth; and as I
lay thinking and picturing there was revealed in an illuminating flash
the secret of the harmony between face and voice. Thenceforward
Valerie Deane was invested with a beauty all her own. I loved the dear
plain face as I loved the beautiful voice, and the touch of her
fingers, and the tender, laughing womanliness, and all that went with
the concept of Valerie Deane.
Had I possessed the daring of Young Lochinvar, I should, on several
occasions, have declared my passion. But by temperament I am a
diffident procrastinator. I habitually lose golden moments as some
people habitually lose umbrellas. Alas! There is no Lost Property
Office for golden moments!
Still I vow, although nothing definite was said, that when the
unanticipated end drew near, our intercourse was arrant love-making.
All pain had gone from my eyes. I was up and dressed and permitted to
grope my way about the blackness. To-morrow I was to have my first
brief glimpse of things for three weeks, in the darkened room. I was
in high spirits. Valerie, paying her morning visit, seemed depressed.
"But think of it!" I cried in pardonable egotism. "To-morrow I shall
be able to see you. I've longed for it as much as for the sight of the
blue sky."
"There isn't any blue sky," said Valerie. "It's an inverted tureen
that has held pea-soup."
Her voice had all the melancholy notes of the woodwind in the unseen
shepherd's lament in "Tristan und Isolde."
"I don't know how to tell you," she exclaimed tragically, after a
pause. "I shan't be here to-morrow. It's a bitter disappointment. My
aunt in Wales is dying. I have been telegraphed for, and I must go."
She sat on the end of the couch where I was lounging, and took my hands.
"It isn't my fault."
My spirits fell headlong.
"I would just as soon keep blind," said I blankly.
"I thought you would say that."
A tear dropped on my hand. I felt that it was brutal of her aunt to
make Valerie cry. Why could she not postpone her demise to a more
suitable opportunity? I murmured, however, a few decent words of
condolence.
"Thank you, Mr. Winter," said Valerie. "I am fond of my aunt; but I
had set my heart on your seeing me. And she may not die for weeks and
weeks! She was dying for ever so long last year, and got round again."
I ventured an arm about her shoulders, and spoke consolingly. The day
would come when our eyes would meet. I called her Valerie and bade her
address me as Harold.
I have come to the conclusion that the man who strikes out a new line
in love-making is a genius.
"If I don't hurry I shall miss my train," she sighed at last.
She rose; I felt her bend over me. Her hands closed on my cheeks, and
a kiss fluttered on my lips. I heard the light swish of her skirts and
the quick opening and shutting of the door, and she was gone.
Valerie's aunt, like King Charles II, was an unconscionable time
a-dying. When a note from Valerie announced her return to
Grandchester, I had already gone blue-spectacled away. For some time I
was not allowed to read or write, and during this period of probation
urgent affairs summoned me to Vienna. Such letters as I wrote to
Valerie had to be of the most elementary nature. If you have a heart
of any capacity worth troubling about, you cannot empty it on one side
of a sheet of notepaper. For mine reams would have been inadequate. I
also longed to empty it in her presence, my eyes meeting hers for the
first time. Thus, ever haunted by the beloved plain face and the
memorable voice, I remained inarticulate.
As soon as my business was so far adjusted that I could leave Vienna, I
started on a flying visit, post-haste, to England. The morning after
my arrival beheld me in a railway carriage at Euston waiting for the
train to carry me to Grandchester. I had telegraphed to Valerie; also
to Mr. Deane, the oculist, for an appointment which might give colour
to my visit. I was alone in the compartment. My thoughts, far away
from the long platform, leaped the four hours that separated me from
Grandchester. For the thousandth time I pictured our meeting. I
foreshadowed speeches of burning eloquence. I saw the homely features
transfigured. I closed my eyes the better to retain the beatific
vision. The train began to move. Suddenly the door was opened, a
girlish figure sprang into the compartment, and a porter running by the
side of the train, threw in a bag and a bundle of wraps, and slammed
the door violently. The young lady stood with her back to me, panting
for breath. The luggage lay on the floor. I stooped to pick up the
bag; so did the young lady. Our hands met as I lifted it to the rack.
"Oh, please, don't trouble!" she cried in a voice whose familiarity
made my heart beat.
I caught sight of her face, for the first time, and my heart beat
faster than ever. It was her face--the face that had dawned upon my
blindness--the face I had grown to worship. I looked at her,
transfixed with wonder. She settled herself unconcerned in the farther
corner of the carriage. I took the opposite seat and leaned forward.
"You are Miss Deane?" I asked tremulously.
She drew herself up, on the defensive.
"That is my name," she said.
"Valerie!" I cried in exultation.