THE GREAT HEALER
It was late in the afternoon when the Mallow car once more purred up to
the door of Trenby Hall and Nan descended from it. She was looking
very pale, her face like a delicate white cameo beneath the shadow of
her hat, while the clinging black of her gown accentuated the slender
lines--too slender, now--of her figure. She had not yet discarded her
mourning for Lord St. John, but in any case she would have felt that
gay colours could have no part in to-day.
Kitty had told her of Barry's interview with Trenby and of its utter
futility, and, although Nan had been prepared to sacrifice her whole
existence to the man who had suffered so terrible an injury, she was
bitterly disappointed that he proposed exacting it from her as a right
rather than accepting it as a free gift.
If for once he could have shown himself generous and offered to give
her back her freedom--an offer she would have refused to accept--how
much the fact that each of them had been willing to make a sacrifice
might have helped to sweeten their married life! Instead, Roger had
forced upon her the realisation that he was unchanged--still the same
arrogant "man with the club" that he had always been, insisting on his
own way, either by brute force or by the despotism of a moral
obligation which was equally compelling.
But these thoughts fled--driven away by a rush of overwhelming
sympathy--when her eyes fell on the great, impotent hulk of a man who
lay propped up against his pillows. A nurse slipped past her in the
doorway and paused to whisper, as she went:
"Don't stay too long. He's run down a lot since this morning. I
begged him not to see any more visitors to-day, but he insisted upon
seeing you."
The nurse recalled very vividly the picture of her patient when she had
endeavoured to dissuade him from this second interview--his white,
rather drawn face and the eyes which blazed feverishly at her beneath
their penthouse brows.
"You've got to let me see my best girl to-day, nurse," he had said,
forcing a smile. "After that you shall have your own way and work your
wicked will on me."
And the nurse, thinking that perhaps a visit from his "best girl" might
help to allay the new restlessness she found in him, had yielded,
albeit somewhat reluctantly.
"Oh, Roger!" With a low cry of dismay Nan ran to the bed and slipped
down on her knees beside it.
"It's a rotten bit of luck, isn't it?" he returned briefly.
She expected the fierce clasp of his arms about her and had steeled
herself to submit to his kisses without flinching. But he did not
offer to kiss her. Instead, pointing to a chair, he said quietly:
"Pull up that chair--I'm sorry I can't offer to do it for you!--and sit
down."
She obeyed, while he watched her in silence. The silence lasted so
long that at last, finding it almost unbearable, she broke it.
"Roger, I'm so--so grieved to see you--like this." She leaned forward
in her chair, her hands clasped tightly together. "But don't give up
hope yet," she went on earnestly. "You've only had one specialist's
opinion. He might easily be wrong. After a time, you may be walking
about again as well as any other man. I've heard of such cases."
"And I suppose you're banking on the hope that mine's one of them, so
that you'll not be tied to a helpless log for a husband. Is that it?"
She shrank back, hurt to the core of her. If he were to be always like
this--prey to a kind of ferocious suspicion of every word and act of
hers, then the outlook for the future was dark indeed. The burden of
it would be more than she could bear.
Roger, seeing her wince, gestured apologetically.
"I didn't mean quite all that," he said quickly. "I'm rather like a
newly-caged wild beast--savage even with its keeper. Still, any woman
might be forgiven for preferring to marry a sound man rather than a
cripple. You're ready to go on with the deal, Nan?"
"Yes, I'm ready," she answered in a low voice.
"Have you realised all it means? I'm none too amiable at the best of
times"--grimly. "And my temper's not likely to improve now I'm tied by
the leg. You'll have to fetch and carry, and put up with all the whims
and tantrums of a very sick man. Are you really sure of yourself?"
"Quite sure."
His hawk's eyes flashed over her face, as though he would pierce
through the veil of her grave and tranquil expression.
"Even though Peter Mallory's free to marry you now?" he demanded
suddenly.
"Peter!" The word came in a shrinking whisper. She threw out her
hands appealingly. "Roger, can't we leave the past behind? We've each
a good deal"--her thoughts flew back to that dreadful episode in the
improvised studio--"a good deal to forgive. Let us put the past quite
away--on the top shelf"--with a wavering little laugh--"and leave it
there. I've told you I'm willing to be your wife. Let's start afresh
from that. I'll marry you as soon as you like."
After a long pause:
"I believe you really would!" said Roger with a note of sheer
wonderment in his voice.
"I've just said so."
"Well, my dear"--he smiled briefly--"thank you very much for the offer,
but I'm not going to accept it."
"Not going to accept it!" she repeated, utterly bewildered. "But you
can't--you won't refuse!"
"I can and I do--entirely refuse to marry you."
Nan began to think his mind was wandering.
"No," he said, detecting her thought. "I'm as sane as you are. Come
here--a little closer--and I'll tell you all about it."
Rather nervously, Nan drew nearer to him.
"Don't be frightened," he said with a strange kindness and gentleness
in his voice. "I had a visitor this morning who told me some
unpalatable truths about myself. He asked me to release you from your
engagement, and I flatly refused. He also enlightened my ignorance
concerning Peter Mallory and informed me he was now free to marry you.
That settled matters as far as I was concerned! I made up my mind I
would never give you up to another man." He paused. "Since then I've
had time for reflection. . . . Reflection's a useful kind of
thing. . . . Then, when you came in just now, looking like a broken
flower with your white face and sorrowful eyes, I made a snatch at
whatever's left of a decent man in this battered old frame of mine."
He paused and took Nan's hand in his. Very gently he drew the ring he
had given her from her finger.
"You are quite free, now," he said quietly.
"No, no!" Impulsively she tried to recover the ring. "Let me be your
wife! I'm willing--quite, quite willing!" she urged, her heart
overflowing with tenderness and pity for this man who was now
voluntarily renouncing the one thing left him.
"But Mallory wouldn't be 'quite willing,'" replied Roger, with a
twisted smile. "Nor am I. And an unwilling bridegroom isn't likely to
make a good husband!"
Nan's mouth quivered.
"Roger--" she began, but the sob in her throat choked into silence the
rest of what she had meant to say. Her hands went out to him, and he
took them in his and held them.
"Will you kiss me--just once, Nan?" he said. "I don't think Mallory
would grudge it me."
She bent over him, and for the first time unshrinkingly and with
infinite tenderness, laid her lips on his. Then very quietly she left
the room.
She was conscious of a sense of awe. First Maryon, and now, to an even
greater degree, Roger, had revealed some secret quality of fineness
with which no one would have credited them.
"I shall never judge anyone again," she told Kitty later. "You can't
judge people! I shall always believe that everyone has got a little
patch of goodness somewhere. It's the bit of God in them. Even Judas
Iscariot was sorry afterwards, and went out and hanged himself."
She was thankful when she came downstairs from Roger's bedroom to find
that there was no one about. A meeting with Lady Gertrude at the
moment would have been of all things the most repugnant to her. With a
feeling of intense thankfulness that the thin, steel-eyed woman was
nowhere to be seen, she stepped into the car and was borne swiftly down
the drive. At the lodge, however, where the chauffeur had perforce to
pull up while the lodge-keeper opened the gates, Isobel Carson came
into sight, and common courtesy demanded that Nan should get out of the
car and speak to her. She had been gathering flowers--for Roger's
room, was Nan's involuntary thought--and carried a basket, full of
lovely blossoms, over her arm.
In a few words Nan told her of her interview with Roger.
Isobel listened intently.
"I'm glad you were willing to marry him," she said abruptly, as Nan
ceased speaking. "It was--decent of you. Because, of course, you were
never in love with him."
"No," Nan acknowledged simply.
"While I've loved him ever since I knew him!" burst out Isobel. "But
he's never looked at me, thought of me like that! Perhaps, now you're
out of the way--" She broke off, leaving her sentence unfinished.
Into Nan's mind flashed the possibility of all that this might
mean--this wealth of wasted love which was waiting for Roger if he
cared to take it.
"Would you marry him--now?" she asked.
"Marry him?" Isobel's eyes glowed. "I'd marry him if he couldn't move
a finger! I love him! And there's nothing in the world I wouldn't do
for him."
She looked almost beautiful in that moment, with her face irradiated by
a look of absolute, selfless devotion.
"And I wouldn't rest till he was cured!" The words came pouring from
her lips. "I'd try every surgeon, in the world before I'd give up
hope, and if they failed, I'd try what love--just patient, helpful
love--could do! One thinks of a thousand ways which might cure when
one loves," she added.
"Love is a great Healer," said Nan gently. "I'm not sure that
_anything's_ impossible if you have both love and faith." She paused,
her foot on the step of the car. "I think--I think, some day, Roger
will open the door of his heart to you, Isobel," she ended softly.
She was glad to lean back in the car and to feel the cool rush of the
air against her face. She was tired--immensely tired--by the strain of
the afternoon. And now the remembrance came flooding back into her
mind that, even though Roger had released her, she and Peter were still
set apart--no longer by the laws of God and man, but by the fact that
she herself had destroyed his faith and belief in her.
She stepped wearily out of the car when it reached Mallow. She was
late in returning, and neither Kitty nor Penelope were visible as she
entered the big panelled hall. Probably they had already gone upstairs
to dress for dinner.
As she made her way slowly towards the staircase, absorbed in rather
bitter thoughts, a slight sound caught her ear--a sudden stir of
movement. Then, out of the dim shadows of the hall, someone came
towards her--someone who limped a little as he came.
"Nan!"
For an instant her heart seemed to stop beating. The quiet, drawling
voice was Peter's, no longer harsh with anger, nor stern with the
enforced repression of a love that was forbidden, but tender and
enfolding as it had been that moonlit night amid the ruins of King
Arthur's Castle.
"Peter! . . . Peter! . . ."
She ran blindly towards him, whispering his name.
How it had happened she neither knew nor cared--all that mattered was
that Peter was here, waiting for her! And as his arms closed round
her, and his voice uttered the one word: "Beloved!" she knew that every
barrier was down between them and that the past, with all its blunders
and effort and temptations, had been wiped out.
Presently she leaned away from him.
"Peter, I used to wonder _why_ God kept us apart. I almost lost my
faith--once."
Peter's steady, blue-grey eyes met hers.
"Beloved," he said, "I think we can see why, even now. Isn't our
love . . . which we've fought to keep pure and clean . . . been
crucified for . . . a thousand times better and finer thing than the
love we might have snatched at and taken when it wasn't ours to take?"
She smiled up at him, a tender gravity in her face. Her thoughts
slipped back to the little song which seemed to hold so strange a
symbolism of her own life. The third verse had come true at last. She
repeated it aloud, very softly:
"But sometimes God on His great white Throne
Looks down from the Heaven above,
And lays in the hands that are empty
The tremulous Star of Love."
Peter stooped and kissed her lips. There was a still, quiet passion in
his kiss, but there was something more--something deep and
intransmutable--the same unchanging troth which, he had given her at
Tintagel of love that would last "through this world into the next."
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Moon out of Reach, by Margaret Pedler