"You've got to make him believe that you wish for the marriage to take
place now, for your own sake, not for his."
It was with those words, uttered by Sir Jacques Robey, still sounding in
her ears, that Rose Otway walked up to the door of the room where Jervis
Blake, having just seen his father, was now waiting to see her.
Sir John Blake's brief "He has taken it very well. He has a far greater
sense of discipline than I had at his age," had been belied, discounted,
by the speaker's own look of suffering and of revolt.
Rose waited outside the door for a few moments. She was torn with
conflicting fears and emotions. A strange feeling of oppression and
shyness had come over her. It had seemed so easy to say that she would
be married at once, to-morrow, to Jervis. But she had not known that she
would have to ask Jervis's consent. She had supposed, foolishly, that it
would all be settled for her by Sir Jacques....
At last she turned the handle of the door, and walked through into the
room. And then, to her unutterable relief, she saw that Jervis looked
exactly as usual, except that his face, instead of being pale, as it had
been the last few days, was rather flushed.
Words which had been spoken to him less than five minutes ago were also
echoing in Jervis's brain, pushing everything else into the background.
He had said, "I suppose you think that I ought to offer to release
Rose?" and his father had answered slowly: "All I can say is that I
should do so--if I were in your place."
But now, when he saw her coming towards him, looking as she always
looked, save that something of the light and brightness which had always
been in her dear face had faded out of it, he knew that he could say
nothing of the sort. This great trouble which had come on him was her
trouble as well as his, and he knew she was going to take it and to bear
it, as he meant to take it and to bear it.
But Jervis Blake did make up his mind to one thing. There should be no
hurrying of Rose into a hasty marriage--the kind of marriage they had
planned--the marriage which was to have taken place a week before he
went back to the Front. It must be his business to battle through this
grim thing alone. It would be time enough to think of marriage when he
was up and about again, and when he had taught himself, as much as might
be possible, to hide or triumph over his infirmity.
As she came and sat down quietly by the side of his bed, on the chair
which his father had just left, he put out his hand and took hers.
"I want to tell you," he said slowly, "that what my father has just told
me was not altogether a surprise. I've felt rather--well, rather afraid
of it, since Sir Jacques first examined me. There was something in the
nurses' manner too--but of course I knew I might be wrong. I'm sorry now
that I didn't tell you."
She still said nothing--only gripped his hand more and more tightly.
"And Rose? One thing father said is being such a comfort to me. Father
thinks that I shall still be able to be of use--I mean in the way I
should like to be, especially if the war goes on a long time. I wonder
if he showed you this?" He picked up off his bed a little piece of paper
and held it out to her.
Through her bitter tears she read the words: "German thoroughness"--and
then a paragraph which explained how the German military authorities
were using their disabled officers in the training of recruits.
"Father thinks that in time they'll do something of the sort here--not
yet, perhaps, but in some months from now."
And then, as she still did not speak, he grew uneasy. "Come a little
nearer," he whispered. "I feel as if you were so far away. We needn't be
afraid of any one coming in. Father has promised that no one shall
disturb us till you ring."
She did as he asked, and putting his uninjured arm right round her, he
held her closely to him.
It was the first time since that strange home-coming of his that Jervis
had felt secure against the sudden irruption into the room of some
well-meaning person. Of the two it was Jervis who had been silently
determined to give the talkative, sentimental nurses no excuse for even
the mildest, the kindliest comment.
But now everything was merged in this great ordeal of love and grief
they were battling through together--secure from the unwanted presence
of others as they had not been since he had last felt her heart
fluttering beneath his, in the porch of the cathedral.
"Oh, Rose," he whispered at last, "you don't know what a difference
having you makes to me! If it wasn't for you, I don't know how I could
face it."
For a moment she clung a little closer to him. He felt her trembling
with a wave of emotion to which he had no present clue. "Oh,
Jervis--dear Jervis, is that true?" she asked piteously.
"Do you doubt it?" he whispered.
"Then there's something I want you to do for me."
"You know that there isn't anything in the world you could ask me to do
that I wouldn't do, Rose."
"I want you to marry me to-morrow," she said. And then, as for a moment
he remained silent, she began to cry. "Oh, Jervis, do say yes--unless
you very, very much want to say no!"
* * * * *
During the next forty-eight hours Sir Jacques Robey settled what was to
be done, when it should be done, and how it was to be done.
Of the people concerned, it was perhaps Lady Blake who seemed the most
under his influence. She submitted without a word to his accompanying
her into her son's bedroom, and it was in response to his insistent
command--for it was no less--that instead of alluding to the tragic
thing which filled all her thoughts, she only spoke of the morrow's
wedding, and of her happiness in the daughter her son was giving her.
It was Sir Jacques, too, who persuaded Mrs. Otway to agree that an
immediate marriage was the best of all possible solutions for Rose as
well as for Jervis; and it was he, also, who suggested that Sir John
Blake should go over to the Deanery and make all the necessary
arrangements with Dr. Haworth. But perhaps the most striking example of
Sir Jacques's good sense and thoroughness occurred after Sir John had
been to the Deanery.
Dr. Haworth had fallen in with every suggestion with the most eager,
ready sympathy; and Sir John, who before coming to Witanbury had
regarded him as a pacifist and pro-German, had come really to like and
respect him. So it was that now, as he came back from the Deanery, and
up to the gate of the Trellis House, he was in a softer, more yielding
mood than usual.
Sir Jacques hurried out to meet him. "Is everything all right?"
"Yes--everything's settled. But it's your responsibility, not mine!"
"I've been wondering, Sir John, whether the Dean reminded you that we
shall require a wedding ring?"
"No, he did not." Sir John Blake looked rather taken aback. "I wonder
what I'd better do?" he muttered helplessly.
"You and Lady Blake had better go into the town and buy one," said Sir
Jacques. "I don't feel that we can put _that_ job on poor little Rose.
She's had quite enough to do as it is--and gallantly she's done it!"
And as Sir John began to look cross and undecided, the other said with a
touch of sharpness, "Of course if you'd rather not do it, I'll buy the
ring myself. But I've been neglecting my work this morning."
Ashamed of his ungraciousness, as the other had meant him to be, Sir
John said hastily, "Of course I'll get it! I was only wondering whether
I hadn't better go alone."
"Lady Blake would be of great use in choosing it, and for the matter of
that, in trying it on. If you wait here a moment I'll go and fetch her.
She's got her hat on, I know."
So it happened that, in three or four minutes, just long enough for Sir
John to begin to feel impatient, Jervis's mother came out of the Trellis
House. She was smiling up into the great surgeon's face, and her husband
told himself that it was an extraordinary thing how this wedding had
turned their minds--all their minds--away from Jervis's coming ordeal.
"I wonder if Rose would like a broad or narrow wedding ring?" said Lady
Blake thoughtfully. "I'm afraid there won't be very much choice in a
place like Witanbury."
Sir Jacques looked after the couple for a few moments, then he turned
and went into the Trellis House, and so into the drawing-room.
"Bachelors," he said meditatively, "sometimes have a way of playing the
very mischief between married couples--eh, Mrs. Otway? So it's only fair
that now and again a bachelor should do something towards bringing a
couple together again."
She looked at him, surprised. What odd--and yes, rather improper
things--Sir Jacques sometimes said! But--but he was a _very_ kind man.
Mrs. Otway was a simple woman, though she would have felt a good deal
nettled had anyone told her so.
"I rather wonder," she said impulsively, "why _you_ never married. You
seem to approve of marriage, Sir Jacques?" She was looking into his face
with an eager, kindly look.
"If you look at me long enough," he said slowly, "I think you'll be
able to answer that question for yourself. The women I wanted--there
were three of them----" and then, as he saw that she again looked
slightly shocked, he added, "Not altogether, but consecutively, you
understand--well, not one of them would have me! The women who might
have put up with me--well, I didn't seem to want them! But I should like
to say one thing to you, Mrs. Otway. This particular affair in which you
and I are interested does seem to me, if you'll allow me to say so, 'a
marriage of true minds----'" He stopped abruptly, and to her great
surprise left the room without finishing his sentence.
* * * * *
Such trifling, and at the time such seemingly unimportant, little
happenings are often those which long afterwards leap out from the past,
bringing with them poignant memories of joy, of sorrow, of pain, and of
happiness.
Rose Blake will always remember that it was her poor old German nurse,
Anna Bauer, who, on her wedding day, made her wear a white dress and a
veil. She had meant to be married, in so far as she had given any
thought to the matter at all, in her ordinary blue serge skirt and a
clean blouse.
Those about her might be able to forget, for a few merciful hours, what
lay before Jervis; but she, Rose Otway, could not forget it. She knew
that she was marrying him now, not in order that she might be even
closer to him than she felt herself to be--that seemed to her
impossible--but in order that others might think so. She would have
preferred the ceremony to take place only in the presence of his
parents and of her mother. But as to that she had been given no say;
Sir Jacques and Mr. and Mrs. Robey had announced as a matter of course
that they would be present, and so she had assented to her mother's
suggestion that Miss Forsyth should be asked. If Mr. and Mrs. Robey and
Sir Jacques were to be there, then she did not mind Miss Forsyth, her
kind old friend, being there too.
Anna had protested with tearful vehemence against the blue serge skirt
and the pretty blouse--nay, more, she had already taken the white gown
she intended that her beloved nursling should wear, out of the bag which
she, Anna, had made for it last year. It was a very charming frock, a
fine exquisitely embroidered India muslin, the only really beautiful
day-dress Rose had ever had in her young life. And oddly enough it had
been a present from Miss Forsyth.
Miss Forsyth--it was nearly eighteen months ago--had invited Rose to
come up to London with her for a day's shopping, and then she had
suddenly presented her young friend with this attractive, and yes,
expensive gown. There had been a blue sash, but this had now been taken
off by Anna, and a bluey-white satin band substituted. As to that Rose
now rebelled. "If I _am_ to wear this dress to-day, I should like the
blue sash put back," she said quickly. "Blue is supposed to bring luck
to brides, Anna."
What had really turned the scale in Rose's mind had been Anna's tears,
and the fact that Miss Forsyth would be pleased to see her married in
that gown.
But over the lace veil there had been something like a tug of war. And
this time it was Mrs. Otway who had won the day. "If you wear that
muslin dress, then I cannot see why you should not wear your
grandmother's wedding veil," she had exclaimed--and again Rose had given
in.
Poor old Anna! It was a day of days for her--far more a day of days than
had been the marriage of her own daughter. Yet Louisa Bauer's wedding
had been a great festival. And the old woman remembered what pains Mrs.
Otway had taken to make that marriage of five years ago, as far as was
possible in such a very English place as Witanbury, a German bridal. In
those days they had none of them guessed what an unsatisfactory fellow
George Pollit was going to turn out; and Louisa had gone to her new home
with quite a German trousseau--that is, with what would have appeared to
English eyes stacks of under-clothing, each article beautifully
embroidered with a monogram and lavishly trimmed with fine crochet; each
set tied up with a washing band or _Waschebander_, a strip of canvas
elaborately embroidered in cross-stitch.
It seemed strangely sad and unnatural that Anna's gracious young lady
should have no trousseau at all! But that doubtless would come
afterwards, and she, Anna, felt sure that she would be allowed to have a
hand in choosing it. This thought was full of consolation, as was also
her secret supposition that the future trousseau would be paid for by
the bridegroom.
There was certainly cause for satisfaction in that thought, for Anna had
become conscious of late that her dear mistress felt anxious about
money. Prices were going up, but thanks to her, Anna's, zealous care,
the housekeeping bills at the Trellis House were still kept wonderfully
low. It was unfortunate that Mrs. Otway, being the kind of gracious
lady she was, scarcely gave Anna sufficient credit for this. It was not
that she was ungrateful, it was simply that she did not think anything
about it--she only remembered that she was short of money when the
household books were there, open in front of her.