Читать книгу Peter & Co. - Mary Grant Bruce - Страница 4

Table of Contents

I DID my best to remember what Mr. Garfield had said about feeling in sympathy with the masseur when I went to him on Thursday; but it was no good. He was in one of his playful moods, making silly jokes all the time and laughing at them himself, and it was all I could do to follow the last part of Mr. Garfield’s advice—to refrain from damaging him. I went off feeling that if I could keep my temper with that man twice a week until the end of term I should be more of a saint than anyone suspected.

But I’d stopped worrying about him when Saturday morning came and it was time to meet Mr. Garfield. It was a gorgeous morning, blue sky and hardly any wind; I reckoned it would be all right for the speed-boat. He was there on the stroke of ten in his big Daimler. It is an open car, and there was heaps of room for my leg to stretch out: and he’d brought a little cushion that just fitted into my back where it was wanted most.

“Temporary expedient,” he said, tucking it in behind me. “I remember being glad enough of a cushion myself when they were patching up my remains after the War. You’ll be chucking it away long before I did.”

Mr. Garfield never talks much about the War, except to tell us funny things that happened. He has plenty of that sort of yarn. But Dad knew he had managed to enlist when he was well under enlisting age, and he had gone right through until the last few months, when he got blown up by a shell. Then he had had an awful time. It rather cheered me up to realize that he knew just what he was talking about when it came to accidents. If he hadn’t minded using a cushion, then I needn’t—and there was no doubt it was a comfort. I knew well enough how many bits of me could ache after sitting for a few hours at my desk every day in school.

We got out into the country as quickly as we could and had a ripping run, stopping at a wayside place for a cup of coffee. You hardly knew that car was moving when the spedo. said sixty. I could have gone on all day, it was so lovely to be among trees and paddocks again. But Mr. Garfield said he had an appointment at twelve, so we turned back. When we were getting near Artamon he said, “How did the Thursday appointment go?”

“Oh, same as usual,” I told him. “Honest, Mr. Garfield, I don’t think that chap’s doing me a scrap of good. But I’ve got to stick to him, I suppose.”

“Well, I’m inclined to think you needn’t,” he said—and my heart seemed to give a huge leap and come back with a thud. “Fact is, Peter, I’d heard one or two things about that fellow that I didn’t like: and after I saw you on Tuesday I picked up one or two more. He’s the fashion, and of course the country doctors don’t hear everything about a man. I prefer someone a bit less fashionable and a bit more genuine.”

“Do you really mean I won’t have to go back to him?” I asked, greatly excited. “What would Dad and Mother say?”

“Well, the fact is, I’ve seen your people,” he said. “I had nothing much to do, so I hopped down the other evening and paid them a call. I told them what I thought about your oily friend, and they were very horrified. Peter, you young ass, why don’t you tell them a bit more in your letters? They hadn’t an idea you weren’t happy about going to him.”

“Well, I can’t start grousing in letters, can I?” I said, a bit hotly. “It would only worry them for nothing. And of course I knew I might be making a mistake. Goodness knows I’m no judge of a masseur.”

“Perhaps not,” he said. “Anyhow, there’s one thing about which no mistake is going to be made, and that’s your leg. So your people have left you in my hands, and I’m going to take you to the man who made a good job of me after the doctors had told me I’d never walk again. Cheerful people, doctors, but now and then they bark up the wrong tree. They didn’t know old Watty Morgan—Watty doesn’t hang out a shingle in Macquarie Street. But he’s a healer all right, and what he doesn’t know about bones isn’t worth knowing.”

“And I don’t have to go to the other fellow on Monday?”

“You do not—nor any other day. And you’re going to Watty Morgan now, if you don’t mind sparing him a bit of your Saturday. He’s arranged to be ready for you at twelve.”

I didn’t care for the idea too much, because it seemed a pity to spoil a perfectly good day; and as I’d never enjoyed my other visits to a masseur I didn’t expect to enjoy this one. But of course I could only say it was O.K. by me and hope privately that the new man wouldn’t leave me feeling as cheap as the old one always did. I did want to be in as decent form as I could for going in the speed-boat. Anyhow, I hadn’t much time to think, for presently we turned down a side-street in North Sydney and pulled up in front of a cottage.

It was the rummest contrast to the swagger rooms the other masseur had in town. The cottage was very small, with ferns hanging all over the verandah. There was a very tidy garden with heaps of flowers, and the path up to the door was paved with white pebbles and edged with big shells. In one window I could see a splendid model of a sailing-ship. There was no sign of any brass plate—no name anywhere at all to show that a masseur worked there. I said as much to Mr. Garfield, and he grinned.

“Oh, Watty isn’t that kind,” he said. “The doctors would probably howl at me for taking you to anyone so unprofessional. He’s just an old sailor with a queer gift. But don’t you worry on that account—he knows his job.”

The door opened as we went up the path and an old man came to meet us. I’d never seen anyone like him. Not tall, but immensely broad; his hair very white, and his face as brown as an old saddle. He was clean-shaven, with blue eyes under fierce white bushy eyebrows. I got to know Watty’s face very well later on when he worked over me, and it was a good face to have close, after the oily one I’d had all that term. There are precious few faces that you’d be able to stand near you for half an hour, but old Watty’s was one of them.

“Well, you’ve brought the boy, Major,” he said—and that surprised me, for Mr. Garfield had never let on that he’d been an officer. He shook hands with me, looking straight into my eyes. It was a very friendly look. “Come along in, and we’ll give him an overhaul.”

I was hoping we would go into the room where the ship was, and so we did. I edged over to have a look at her. She was a model of the Cutty Sark—beautifully done, with every sail and every bit of rigging complete. I’d have liked to examine her for a long time. Old Watty said, “Care for ships, bo’? I can tell ye lots of yarns about that one. A lovely ship she was—better than that mad contraption o’ the Major’s that he calls a speed-boat.” He twinkled at me. “What d’ye think y’rself, eh?”

“She’s prettier, all right,” I said. “Only I’m going out in the speed-boat this afternoon, so I’m not going to run her down.”

The old chap chuckled.

“Got to keep on the right side o’ the skipper, eh, bo’? He’s had me out in her a few times, and thankful I was to get ashore alive. I’ve lain out on the main upper t’gallant yard in a Cape Horn squall and not been as frightened as I was in that tearing steam-kettle of his. An’ now he’ll take up our time explaining carefully to me that she isn’t a steam-kettle, if I give him a chance with his technicalities, so we’ll just have a look at that leg o’ yours instead.”

“Well, I’ll go and smoke a pipe on the verandah till I’m wanted,” said Mr. Garfield.

I was glad he went out. Because suddenly I began to get deadly scared. I don’t know how it was, but I had a feeling that the old man was terribly wise, and that he’d know as soon as he looked at it why my leg didn’t get better; and perhaps he would have to tell me that it never would be much good to me again. All the fears I’d been trying for weeks and weeks to smother rushed up over me, and my hands began to shake so that I could hardly get my braces undone. It was bad enough to have a stranger there to see what a complete fool I was, without Mr. Garfield seeing it.

Old Watty didn’t seem to notice anything. Only he steadied me with his arm while I got out of my trousers, and then he just picked me up like a baby and put me on his leather-covered table. “No sense in putting any strain on it, bo’,” he said, as if he was apologizing for lifting me. I hadn’t minded it—there was a sort of comforting feeling in the way he did it. Then he looked hard at my leg for nearly a minute, I suppose, but it felt like ten. I stared at his face, wondering what he was thinking, what he saw: and I began to shake all over. I couldn’t stop myself. He looked at my face then. I was chewing my under-lip, and my throat felt all stiff. It is pretty hard to write it all down, but I can’t explain Watty unless I do. Not that anyone could really explain Watty Morgan, though.

He came nearer and patted my shoulder. “Easy, bo’, easy,” he said. “Don’t hold y’rself in—let y’rself go slack. I can’t do anything for ye unless ye relax. Been holding y’rself in too long, I reckon—your mind’s hurtin’ more than your leg.” And he went and stood behind me at the head of the table and began to stroke my forehead with both hands, slow, quiet movements. “Shut y’r eyes for a minute and let every muscle in y’r body go flop. Just as if you were too tired to hold out any longer.”

Well, I felt like that suddenly. I just went limp all over. And the hands went on stroking, and the queerest feeling of peace came over me, and it seemed to flow from his hands. I can’t explain it, even to myself. All the misery and fear I’d been bottling up seemed drawn out of me, and it wasn’t only peace that flowed in, but strength, too. I believe I’d have gone fast asleep in a few minutes—I’d forgotten all about my leg. But the hands stopped presently, and he came round and smiled at me.

“That’s better. Keep slack now, and don’t worry about anything: I’ll take over the worries for a bit. I’ll warn ye if I have to hurt ye—but I know ’twasn’t the fear of a bit of pain was the trouble.”

I was glad in a vague sort of way that he understood that, but I didn’t seem to care what he did to me now, because the peaceful feeling was still there. He began to feel my leg, inch by inch, as if he was exploring it with his fingers. There was hardly any pain, even when he was feeling round the break. He took a long while over it, going back over some parts; now and then he would pause for a moment, keeping up a gentle pressure. I watched his face, and though it doesn’t sound sense, it seemed as if he was actually listening with his fingers.

Then he made me do a lot of movements with the leg while he felt it. That hurt a bit; nothing to speak of, only the peaceful feeling began to die away and I got anxious again. He seemed to know that at once. “Easy, bo’,” he said, under his breath, and his hands went more quickly and firmly. I got the idea that he had suddenly found something he’d been looking for. And then he stood back and looked at me, and his eyes twinkled.

“Been a long time, haven’t I, but I’ve got it, bo’,” he said. “It’ll take a bit of handling, but that’s neither here nor there. The one thing you can hang on to is that when I’ve finished with ye there’ll not be a pin to choose between those two legs of yours—one’ll be as good as the other.”

Well, I blubbed like a kid. I couldn’t help it; it just had to come. I never thought for one second of doubting him—I knew; and if I hadn’t howled I believe I’d have simply burst with the great wave of relief that swept through me. You have to know what it feels like to believe you’re going to be a cripple to understand.

Old Watty understood all right. He just patted my shoulder and said, “That’s no shame to ye—do y’good, bo’. I’ll go and tell the Major.” And he went out quickly, and I heard his voice on the verandah, and I think I heard Mr. Garfield say, “Thank God.” But he’d never let me see he was one bit anxious.

Watty came back presently, and he told me I’d have to come to him twice a week for a while. He said he couldn’t begin the real treatment until he’d got my leg obedient. I didn’t understand it, but he said that I’d worried until all the muscles and things were tense and stiff, and he’d got to work that out of them. That’s as near as I can put it, and I suppose any doctor would laugh at the idea; but I bet Watty knew what he was talking about.

“We’ll have a few minutes now to show ye what I mean,” he said. “There’ll be no pain this time; just let y’rself go limp, so as there’ll be no resistance.”

What he did then was just magic. He drew his hands down each side of my leg, but he never touched it. Over and over again he brought his hands down in long sweeping movements, an inch or so from the skin, and at the end of each sweep he flicked his fingers as if he was flicking away something bad. The leg was pretty sore and stiff from handling, but the pain simply drained out of it. He worked like that for five minutes. Then he stood back and said, “Now get down and walk about.”

I wouldn’t have known it was my old leg. It felt cool and light, and there was scarcely any pain at all. I walked round the room, almost afraid to believe it—and then I ran. Only a few strides, but I just had to feel I could run again. Watty caught hold of my arm to stop me, but he was laughing.

“Easy, bo’. You’ll run all right, but give it time.”

“But what did you do to it?” I yelled. “You never touched it.”

“Ah, that’s more than I can tell you, bo’.” He was grave all of a sudden. “That’s healing, but if ye ask me to explain it I don’t know any more than ye do y’rself. It’s a power right enough, but it’s not mine. ’Twas an old woman in Scotland showed me I could use it, but she couldn’t tell me where it came from, nor how it works. Better leave it at that. And if I was you I’d put my pants on.”

“But is it going to last?” I asked him, not caring at the moment if I ever put on trousers again.

“It ought to last most of to-day. You may wake up to-morrow aching as usual, but it won’t feel as bad now, because you’ll know it’s only a matter of time until y’r a well man. There’s handling to be done to that leg to get at the root of the trouble o’ course, but the handling’ll be easier because of the healing treatment. An’ each day we’ll finish up with that, an’ the effect’ll last longer.”

I got into my things slowly, feeling utterly bewildered. Watty went to a sink in the corner and washed his hands under the tap. When I was ready he said:

“Remember one thing, bo’; you an’ I have got to work as a team. It’s y’r mind I want working—cut out all the worrying thoughts an’ try to feel all over that you’re getting better. Tell your leg it’s getting better: over an’ over again, ’specially when you’re in bed. An’ practise going slack an’ limp before y’ do it: no use doing it with your teeth clenched as if ye were bullying the thing. An’ if it seems just foolishness to ye, well ... think how foolish ye’d have thought anyone who’d told you yesterday that an old sailor-man could help ye by stroking the air round y’r leg. But ye know now that there’s something in it.”

“By Jove, I do!” I said. “Only I can’t understand a thing about it. It’s like magic in fairy-tales.”

“An’ there may be more in fairy-tales than meets the eye—an’ more magic goin’ in the world than most people think. Keep an open mind, bo’, an’ never get too wise to believe in simple things.” He grinned at me: I expect he knew there was mighty little chance of me ever getting too much wisdom.

Mr. Garfield was beaming all over when we went out to him. We said good-bye to Watty, and then we buzzed into Sydney and had a late lunch at his club. That would have been rather thrilling for me on an ordinary day, for I had never been in a men’s club before, and there were lots of interesting people there who all seemed to know Mr. Garfield. But to-day my head was too full of what Watty had done to me: I couldn’t think of anything else. And I was simply aching to ask Mr. Garfield about it.

He made it a bit clearer when we were having coffee in a quiet room after lunch, though he said straight out that nobody could really explain it.

“Some people call it a form of magnetism,” he said. “I suppose that here and there one comes across a person who is extra-highly charged with magnetic force. We’ve all got a bit of it, you know. I expect you noticed when you were ill that there were certain people you preferred to touch you—people whose touch had a sort of easing in it.”

“Dad, every time,” I said. “I always hoped he’d be there when I had to be shifted about. But I thought that was just because he’s so strong.”

“Partly that. And he’d be caring to help you, too—tremendously. But very likely that would be part of magnetism. It’s one of these queer indefinite things you can’t put a name to. Watty calls it ‘the power,’ and he always sticks to it that he’s nothing but a sort of channel for it. I’ve never met anyone like Watty, but I’ve seen a man in Ireland who had an amazing power of healing animals by touch. I’ve seen bleeding stop under his touch—bad bleeding, too.”

“But, Mr. Garfield, Watty didn’t touch me when he made me better. That’s what got me beaten,” I said.

“Well,” he said slowly, “some people believe we don’t end with our skins: that we’ve got a sort of magnetic area round us, something you can’t see, but it’s part of you all the same.”

I thought over that for a moment, and light dawned on me.

“Gosh, that’s like what Mother calls ‘hot-boy-after football,’ isn’t it?” I said. “If you’re in the changing-room with a lot of chaps after a hard match you know all about that—it’s there all right, only you can’t see it.”

Mr. Garfield gave a hoot of laughter and choked over his coffee.

“Well, I wouldn’t say it was the same thing,” he said when he had recovered. “But if it gives you something to go upon in trying to understand the magnetic area, then stick to it, Peter, old man. I’ll admit that I’m glad of any help myself in understanding it, though I believe it’s there. Let’s get down to the Harbour—a speed-boat is less strain on my brain.”

So we went down, and the boat was beyond my wildest dreams. There was nothing on the water that afternoon that could touch her. We took her into all the bays, and we went round the flagship and the destroyers slowly, because I’d never had a chance of seeing them at such close quarters. They carry fighting ’planes, and we had the luck to see one take off just as we got near. There were lots of sailors in view, looking over the side. I said I supposed they were thinking about war; everybody was constantly talking of the chances of war coming. But Mr. Garfield said it was much more likely they were thinking of the girls they’d leave behind them.

Then we ran out into the open water and as hard as we could go, nearly to Manly, dodging ferry-boats and people who were out fishing, and flashing across the bow of a big tramp steamer coming in. But we slowed up when we got near the Admiral’s pinnace going over to the flagship, for Mr. Garfield said it is not wise to give an admiral the wash of a speed-boat. So we passed her at a polite speed and then he opened the throttle again and shot down to the Bridge.

I’d never been under the Bridge before in a small boat, and it did look huge, towering over us. A train was going across it, the roar sounding deafening, and there was a solid stream of cars making for the north. We went on and cruised round the wharves, looking at the shipping from everywhere in the world: French and German and American and Italian, and a big ship in from the Dutch East Indies. I don’t remember half of them, but it was rather a thrill to see them all and to imagine where they’d been. And I liked looking at the men we could see aboard them, foreigners of ever so many different nations. Lots of them waved to us in a friendly way and shouted greetings.

“They all look good sorts,” I said.

“Of course they are,” Mr. Garfield answered. “And to think people go on making wars! Isn’t it rot, Peter!” He looked up at a huge German ship. “I wonder how often she’ll be here again.”

“She won’t be, if there’s another war,” I said.

“No. And I wouldn’t mind betting she’s prepared to cut and run at short notice if things get more threatening. Too many of them got caught in harbour last time: they don’t mean to chance it again if they can help it. Oh, well—don’t let’s spoil a good afternoon by thinking about war. It may never come, anyhow.”