Chapter XXIII Both Norval and Donelle — See
When Donelle stood on the threshold of Anderson Law’s studio and looked within, her courage almost deserted her. There, stretched on the steamer chair, was Norval, his eyes bandaged, his helpless legs covered by a heavy rug. He was very still and his long, thin hands were folded in a strange, definite way that seemed to say eloquently, “Finis.”
The tears rose to Donelle’s eyes, overflowed, and rolled down her white cheeks. She stretched out her empty, yearning arms toward the man across the room. Law, standing by, shook his head warningly. He feared the beautiful, dramatic plan was about to crumble, but in another moment he realized that the strength of Donelle lay in her depths, not her surfaces.
“Jim,” he said, “here’s Miss Walden.”
Norval was alert on the instant. Making the best of things, as both Donelle and Law saw, he smiled, put out a hand, and said:
“Glad to see you, Miss Walden. It’s awfully good of you to spend hours making life a little less of a bore to a fellow.”
Donelle tried her brand-new voice:
“One has to make a living, Mr. Norval. This is a very pleasant way to do it.”
Mary Walden had framed that speech and had coached her pupil. Then:
“May I go in the inner room and take off my hat?”
“Law, show her, please. You see, Miss Walden, I’m a squatter. This is Mr. Law’s place.”
In ten minutes Donelle was back, red wig, trim gown, white collar and cuffs, a demure and tragically determined young person.
Law began to enjoy the sport now that he knew Donelle was not going to betray him.
“I’m going over to the north end of the room,” he said, “and daub. There’s a book on the stand, Miss Walden, that Norval likes. There’s a cigarette stump between the pages where we left off.”
“Reading will not disturb you, Mr. Law?” Donelle was reaching for the book when suddenly Norval started up as if an electric current had gone through him. Donelle shivered, that cigarette stump had made her careless.
“What is the matter, Mr. Norval?” she asked in Mary Walden’s most casual and businesslike tones.
“Oh! just for a moment, please excuse me, but you made me think of someone I once knew. The blind are subject to all sorts of fancies. Law, did you notice——” but Norval stopped short and Anderson Law waved frantic hands at Donelle.
She did not let go of herself after that for many days; not until her assumed voice became so familiar to Norval that those undertones lost their power over him.
Donelle read tirelessly, her practice with Jo stood her in good stead. Books, books, books! Greedily Norval demanded them, motionless he lay upon his couch, and listened while Law at the north window painted and dreamed, and then painted his dreams. He got Jo at the oven on canvas for the spring exhibit. Donelle silently wept before it, kissed the blessed face, and gave Law a bad half hour painting off the kiss!
Always while life lasted Donelle was to look back upon those studio days as a sacred memory. Life was using her and she was ready to pay—to pay. New York, until years later, meant to her only three high notes: terror of its bigness and noise, patience while she waited with Mary Walden until she was used, glory as she served the man she loved.
The flights through the city streets grew to be mere detail. She neither saw nor heeded the bustle and unrest. She was like a little, eager soul seeking, unerringly, its own.
There was to be a time when Donelle would know the splendour and meaning of the City, but not then. She was conscious at that time only of the crude joy of existence near her love.
He depended upon, watched for her; the maternal in her was so rapidly developed that at length Norval, from his dark place of helplessness, confided in her!
“Your voice is tired,” he said one day; they had been reading Olive Schreiner’s “Dreams.”
“Oh, no, I’m not tired, only the little Lost Joy sort of filled me up.” That was an expression of Jo’s.
“But it’s infernally true,” Norval went on, “these ‘Dreams’ are about as gripping as anything I know of. If we cannot have exactly what we want in life, we are as blind as bats to, perhaps, the thing that is better than our wishes.” Then, so suddenly that Donelle drew back in alarm, he asked:
“Are you a big young person, or a little one?”
“Why, I’m thin, but I’m quite tall.” The voice was sterner than Mary Walden could have evolved.
“You think me rude, presuming?”
“Oh! no, Mr. Norval. I was only wishing I was, well—rather nicer to talk about.”
Law, by the north window, went through a series of contortions that lightened the occasion.
“You know, here in the dark where I live now, one has to imagine a lot. Lately I’ve wanted to know exactly—exactly as words can portray, just how you look. Andy?”
“Yes, Jim. What’s up?”
“Come here.”
Law came forward, smudgy and dauby, pallette on thumb.
“Tell me how Miss Walden looks. I want to place her. She has a ghastly habit of escaping me when I’m alone and thinking her over. I can’t seem to fix her.”
“Well,” Law stood off and regarded Donelle seriously, “She’s red headed and thin. She ought to be fed up. I don’t believe she can stand the city in summer. She doesn’t walk very well, she’s at her best when running.”
“Oh! Mr. Law.” Donelle found herself laughing in spite of herself.
“Well, you are. I’ve caught you running two or three times on the street. You looked as if you had your beginnings in wide spaces and could not forget them.”
“I—I am a country girl,” the practical young voice almost broke. “I hate the city. Maybe I do run sometimes. I always feel that something is after me.”
“What?” asked Norval, and he, too, was laughing.
His old depression seldom came now when his faithful reader was present.
“I cannot describe it. I read a child’s story once about a Kicker. It was described as a big, round thing with feet pointing in every direction. One didn’t stand a chance when the Kicker got after him. The city seems like that to me. The round thing is full of noise, noise, noise; it just hurls itself along on its thousands of feet. I do run when I get thinking of it.”
Norval leaned his head back with a delighted chuckle.
“Law,” he asked presently, “does Miss Walden ever remind you of any one?”
Law looked at the red wig.
“No,” he said contemplatively, “she doesn’t.”
A week after that, it was a warm, humid day, the windows of the studio were open.
“I suppose you’ll go away when summer comes?” Norval asked.
“And you?” Donelle laid down her book.
“No. I’ll stay on here. I mean to get a man to look after me. I’m going to send Law on an errand.”
“I wish,” Donelle’s eyes were filled with the yellow glow so like sunlight. “I wish, Mr. Norval, that you would try to walk. Your masseur says you are better.”
“What’s the use, Miss Walden? At the best it would mean a crutch or a cane. I couldn’t bring myself to that. A dog would be better, but I never saw but one dog I’d cotton to for the job.”
“Where is that dog, Mr. Norval?”
“The Lord knows. Gone to the heaven of good, faithful pups, probably.”
“Mr. Norval?”
“Yes, Miss Walden.”
“I wish, while Mr. Law is out every morning for his airing, that you would try—you could lean on my shoulder—to walk! Just think how surprised he’d be some day to find you on your feet by the north window.”
“Would that please you, Miss Walden, to act the part of a nice little dog leading a blind man?”
“I’d love it! And you must remember, your doctor says your eyes are better. Mr. Norval,” here the words came with almost cruel sternness, “I think it is—it is cowardly for you not to try and make the best of things. Even if you can’t see very well, or walk very well, you have no right to hold back from doing the best you can! It is mean and small.”
Ah! if Norval could have seen the eyes that were searching his grim face.
“You may be right. I begin to feel I am not going to die!” Norval drew in a deep breath, his lips relaxed.
“The shock is passing,” Donelle’s voice softened. “You will recover, I know you will—if you are brave.”
“The shock! Good God, the shock! It was like hell let loose. For months I heard the splitting noise, the hot sand in my face——!”
It was the first time Norval had spoken of the war, and the drops of perspiration started on his forehead.
“Don’t talk of it, Mr. Norval. Please let me help you to your feet. Just a few steps.”
Donelle was afraid of the excitement she had aroused.
In self-defense Norval let her help him. He would not lie still and remember. His self-imposed silence, once broken, might overpower him. Something dynamic was surging in him.
“I cannot stand,” he said weakly. “You see?”
“Of course the first time is hard. You may fall halfway, but I’ll catch you, and I—I won’t tell.”
Norval laughed nervously.
“You’re a brick,” he faltered.
“Now then, Mr. Norval. Put your hand on my shoulder, the other hand on this chair. Why, you’re not falling. Come on!”
Two, three steps Norval took, while the veins stood out on his temples.
“Good God!” he muttered under his breath, “I’m not crumbling, that’s a sure thing.”
The next day he did a little better; the tenth day he reached the north window with the aid of the chair and the little shoulder, that felt, under his hand, like fine steel. They kept their mighty secret from Law.
“What’s on the easels?” Norval asked on the morning of the fourteenth day when he felt the breeze from the north coming in through the half-opened window.
“One easel has a girl on it; a girl with a fiddle.”
Norval breathed hard, then gave a laugh.
“Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight,” he whispered.
“Yes. Why, yes, Mr. Norval. Those words are on a piece of paper hanging from the frame. How did you know?”
“Miss Walden, I painted that picture. You may not believe it, but I did. It is a portrait of about the purest soul I ever met.”
“Can you tell me about her?”
“No, she’s not the kind to tell about.”
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Norval.” But Donelle’s face was aglow.
“And the other easel?” Norval was asking. “What’s on that?”
“Such a dear, funny woman. She’s standing by a big oven, an outdoor oven; she’s got loaves of bread on something that looks like a flat spade.”
Norval’s face was a study.
“Where do they use those ovens?” Donelle asked.
“Oh! somewhere in Canada.”
“Did you ever know this dear, funny woman, Mr. Norval.”
“She’s not the kind one knows. I’ve seen her, thank heaven! I’m glad to be able to recall her when I’m alone.”
“Yes—she looks like that kind.” Donelle threw a kiss to the pictured Jo.
Another week and then the chair was discarded. Quite impressively Norval, his hand on the small, steady shoulder, did the length of the studio.
“It’s great,” he said like a happy boy. “Miss Walden, you ought to have the cross, iron, gold, or whatever it is they give to brave women.”
“I have,” Donelle whispered delightedly; “I have.”
“What is it made of, Miss Walden, this cross that you have won?”
“You’ll have to guess.”
“You’re a pert young secretary if that is the title your job goes by. Aren’t you afraid I’ll bounce you?”
“I’m going to bounce myself.”
“What!” The hand on the shoulder tightened. “You’re going away?”
“Yes, I cannot stand a summer in the city. That Kicker almost caught me this morning.”
“You treat me like a spoiled child, Miss Walden. Amusing me, coaxing me; you’ll be bringing me toys next.”
“You’re a strong man, now, Mr. Norval, that is why I’m going away. Soon you will not need me. The doctor told Mr. Law yesterday that surely you would see.”
“Did he? Don’t fool me, Miss Walden. I do not want to be eased up. Did he say that?”
“Yes, I heard him.”
A growing excitement stirred Norval and that afternoon he met Law halfway across the room! Not even the little shoulder aided him. He stretched out his hand and said:
“Andy, here I am!”
For a moment Law reeled back. Of late he feared that Norval would defeat all their hopes by his indifference.
“You—you’ve done this?” he said to Donelle, who stood behind Norval, her trembling hands covering her quivering lips.
“No, he did it quite by himself, Mr. Law. He’s been so brave,” she managed to say, the tears in Law’s eyes making her afraid that she might lose control over her own shaking nerves.
“Lord, Jim!” Law was gripping Norval’s hand. “I feel as if—well, as if I’d seen a miracle.”
The next day the specialist confirmed what Donelle had said about the eyes.
“You’re going to see again, Norval,” was the verdict. “You’ll have to go slow, wear dark glasses for awhile, but most of all, forget what brought this about. Your nerves have played the deuce with you.”
“Yes,” Norval replied, “for some time I’ve had that line on my nerves, ever since Miss Walden bullied me into walking.”
The afternoon of that same day Norval surprised Donelle by announcing that he was dead tired of reading.
“I want to talk,” he said. “Where is Law?”
“He went to—to see Professor Revelle. He said he wanted some music; that you,” the pale face broke into a pathetic smile, “that you had got on his nerves. Unless he got out he’d be——”
“What, Miss Walden? What, exactly?”
“Well, he’d be damned! That is what he said, exactly.”
“He’s beginning to treat me like a human being, Miss Walden. I love Law when he’s at his worst. I suppose I’ve been a big trial, moping here. Have I injured your nerves?”
“No—o! Not for life.”
“You’re a comical little codjer. Excuse me, Miss Walden. There are times still when you remind me of someone to whom I once dared to speak my mind.”
Then, quite suddenly:
“Where are you going this summer?”
“I have not decided yet, Mr. Norval. Why?”
“Nothing, I was only thinking, but I’ll have to speak to Law first. One thing is sure, I’m not going to be an ass much longer. See here, Miss Walden, you’re a sturdy sort; you’ve stuck it out with me at my lowest. I’m going to repay you for the trouble I’ve made you by making more for you. I’m going to go away this summer, too. I’ve wanted to go lately. I’ve got to dreaming about it. I’m going to a little place hidden away in Canada. I have something to do there.”
“Yes?” The word was a mere breath.
“For a time I couldn’t contemplate it; I was too proud to show my battered hulk. Now it seems that I have no longer any right to consider myself. I was going to ask Mr. Law to carry a message for me to a young girl there; the girl on that canvas by the window. Instead—I’m going to carry it!”
Donelle’s hands gripped each other. She struggled to keep her voice steady, cold.
“I think you ought to carry your message yourself, if you can. You have no right to consider only yourself,” she faltered.
“I wasn’t, entirely.” This came humbly from Norval. “The girl to whom I am going is the sort who would be deeply sorry for me; she’d go to any lengths to make up to me, if she could. Of course, you understand, I would not let her, but I’d hate to make life harder for her.”
“Perhaps she has a right to—to judge for herself.” Donelle was holding firm.
“Well, I don’t know, Miss Walden. Such a woman as you might judge wisely—even for yourself. She wouldn’t. She’s the kind that risks everything; she’s what you might call a divine gambler.”
“Poor girl!”
“Yes, that’s what I often say of her—poor girl!”
It was twilight in the quiet studio; there was no one to see Donelle’s tears.
“I’m going to tell you something,” Norval said suddenly, “something that has been troubling me lately. At first it didn’t seem vital, it seemed rather like a detail. I’m wondering how a woman would consider it.”
“I’d love to hear unless you’d rather have me read to you, Mr. Norval.”
“No, for a wonder, I’d rather tell you a story.”