Читать книгу Blind Man's Year - Warwick Deeping - Страница 14

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Miss Gerard entered his room about twelve. A full moon was shining, and so still was the night that she could hear the wash of the sea at the foot of the cliffs. The moonlight lit up the room sufficiently for her to distinguish the shape of him in the bed, the splintered arm and bandaged head. Was the moonlight too bright? But how could it be, when he was sleeping like some prince in a fairy tale? Heberden had paid his last visit at ten o’clock and helped by Jane had played the nurse. The doctor had been more hopeful, but guardedly so. “Just a flicker. One can’t say more.” She stood by the bed, listening. She could hear the faint wash of the sea; on nights such as this the sound would travel up those twin valleys. But, surely, there was some other sound in the room, a faint sighing like a curtain drifting to and fro? His breathing? Yes, his breathing was audible, and as she listened to it this little sibilant sighing seemed to gain in strength. Was she imagining it? Was her sense of hearing concentrated sensitively on that sound and amplifying it? She bent nearer; she could see the bedclothes rising and falling.

The fluttering of a leaf! But life still clung to the tree, and very softly she slipped out of the room, and leaving the light burning in the passage she reclimbed the stairs. She was feeling extraordinarily wakeful, and sitting down in an arm-chair by her window, she suffered the day’s happenings to drift across her consciousness. She had arranged to sit up till three o’clock and then to wake Jane.

But if she was so wakeful why should she not complete the correcting of those proofs? She had not troubled to undress, for she had no intention of going to bed until Jane took charge, and Jane had hinted that she was going to render the early hours useful by making marmalade. “I can keep looking in on him.” Indefatigable old woman! Miss Gerard crossed the landing to her working-room, switched on the desk-light and sat down. The window was open, and so was the window of the room below. She unscrewed the cap of her fountain-pen and set to work. There was a somewhat unusual name in the book and the printer had managed to misspell it, and since the name occurred very frequently Miss Gerard’s pen was kept busy. Why had not the proof-reader spotted the error? But no doubt the proof-reader, like other mortals, preferred the excitement and the glory of hunting literary slips, or of catching the author bending.

Bother the name! She began to wish she had used a more obvious surname, but the character in question was an unpleasant one, and Miss Gerard had suffered from enterprising people who had attempted to inflict legal blackmail upon her because she happened to have used a particular name. Slushman, Slushman, Slushman, the wretched thing kept recurring. Slushman might be both apposite and descriptive, but it was too like Dickens and she kept on restoring the necessary vowel. Slashman. Would anyone pop up with the name of Slashman and accuse her of besmirching the family honour?

Her pen paused abruptly over the twentieth correction. What was that? For three seconds or so she sat listening, and then she was running down the stairs. She remembered saying to herself that even the wisest of physicians can misread a case. But she had been swept away by a sound, something between a moan and a whimper that became terribly and poignantly articulate, like the outcry of a child waking from a nightmare.

She switched on the light as she entered the room. She was aware of a hand groping and clutching at the bandages. Instantly she was by the bed and gently suppressing that wandering hand.

“You must keep quite still, Mr. Strange.”

She felt the muscles in the arm relax. His mouth mumbled at her from amid the dressings.

“Where am I?—What—?”

“You must lie quite still. Please don’t struggle. You have had an accident. You are in bed.”

The dark terror had left him panting. She sat on the edge of the bed with one hand laid firmly but gently on his.

“Accident, crash?”

“Yes, in the fog. You don’t remember. Don’t try to remember. It doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Just lie still.”

She was aware of the fingers of his hand bending over and clasping hers. Like a child he wanted to grasp something, feel reassured by human contact.

“Where am I?”

“In my house, on the Sussex coast. There is nothing for you to worry about.”

She was conscious of the grip of his fingers.

“Who is it? I can’t see.”

“Just the person who lives here. We brought you in.”

“What’s your name?”

“My name? Oh, Gerard, Rosamund Gerard.”

She felt his fingers relax. He breathed out a little sigh.

“How funny! Everything’s gone. What’s happened to my left arm?”

“The doctor had to put it in splints, my dear. What you have to do is to lie still and not worry.”

Her immediate urge was to run to the ’phone and ring up Dr. Heberden. What did one do when a man came back to life so suddenly? Poor Dr. Heberden! But she was very glad that she had continued to allow her house a telephone, even though her number was not in the directory. She made a movement to withdraw her hand, but instantly his fingers closed upon it.

“Please don’t go away.”

“I’m only going to the telephone. I want the doctor to know.”

“You’ll come back?”

“Of course. Tell me, does the arm hurt?”

“No, everything feels numb.”

She patted his hand and slipped away, conscious of a sudden inward exultation, and of an emotion that she had not experienced before save in certain passages in her books. Poor Dr. Heberden, it seemed churlish to wake him at one in the morning, but she had the receiver in her hand and was listening to the voice of the night operator. “Dr. Heberden’s of Feldhurst, please. Miss Gerard speaking from Knoll Farm.” She stood tense yet trembling; waiting upon the night’s silence, and then she was listening to Heberden’s voice. “Hallo, who’s that?” “Miss Gerard, Doctor, I’m so sorry to call you up.” No, she wasn’t sorry. “He’s awake, and quite rational. No, I don’t want to drag you here. I wondered what I ought to do. Make him keep perfectly quiet? Yes, it is rather amazing. You are coming? How very good of you.”

Returning to the room she drew a chair up to the bed.

“The doctor’s coming.”

“I’m afraid I’m giving you an awful lot of trouble. What’s all this on my head?”

“Bandages.”

“How did it happen?”

“You were flying an aeroplane, and there was fog.”

“I don’t remember any fog. I don’t remember. I ought to be able to remember.”

She put her hand on his.

“Why? Why worry?”

“You are being awfully good to me. What’s the time?”

“About one o’clock in the morning.”

“One o’clock in the morning! And you’re sitting up! There isn’t any reason, is there? I’m quite all right.”

“Yes, but you mustn’t talk. I’m just going out to see that the gates are open for the doctor’s car. It is a beautiful night and the moon is shining.”

And then he said an unexpected thing to her.

“I do wish I could see you.”

She withdrew her hand gently, but her conscious self flinched as she remembered.

“Well, you will do, quite soon.”

“You’ll come back, won’t you?”

“Yes.”

She went out into the moonlight and down to the blue gates. She was angry with herself and moved to self-mockery. Silly, sensitive fool, of course he would have to see her face. How could it matter to either of them? Youth had flown into her life for a moment, and just as swiftly and fortuitously it would fly out again. But he was going to live. Was she not glad of that? Of course, but somehow the crisis had suffered a sudden transformation, and like a ruthless mirror it confronted her. But why should she care? Had sentimentality and the name of Slushman got into her head? Idiot!

Heberden’s car. She heard it coming up the lane and she went and stood in the gateway. The car’s headlights glared at her. Was she afraid of the light?

She stepped on to the running-board as he slowed up.

“Thank you for coming.”

“I had to, after being so utterly wrong.”

“Oh, no.”

“It is sometimes good to be wrong. I postulated a fractured base. Well, there may be. How did it happen?”

“He just woke up rather like a frightened child. I was correcting proofs and I heard him.”

She stepped off the running-board as the car stopped by the porch.

“I’m so glad.”

“So am I, even though my prognosis was so wrong. Shall I tell you what I’m going to do?”

“Yes.”

“Put him gently to sleep again. That’s the best anodyne for all shocks, both mental and physical.”