Bright Messenger — Chapter 21
CHAPTER XXI
Dr. Fillery, lying on a couch in his patient's bedroom, snatched some four to five hours' sleep, though, if "snatched," it was certainly enjoyed--a deep, dreamless, reposeful slumber.
He woke, refreshed in mind and body, and the first thing he saw, even before he had time to stretch a limb or move his head, was two great blue eyes gazing into his own across the room.
They belonged, it first struck him, to some strange being that had followed him out of sleep--he had not yet recovered full consciousness and the effects of sleep still hovered;
then an earlier phrase recurred: to some divine great animal.
"N. H.
," in his bed in the opposite corner, lay gazing at him.
He returned the gaze.
Into the blue eyes came at once a look of happy recognition, of contentment, almost a smile.
Then they closed again in sleep.
The room was full of morning sunshine.
Fillery rose quietly, and performed his toilet in his own quarters, but on returning after a hurried breakfast, the patient still slept soundly.
He slept on for hours, he slept the morning through; but for the obvious evidences of perfect normal health, it might have been a state of coma.
The body did not even change its position once.
He left Devonham in charge, and was on his way to visit some of the other cases, when Nurse Robbins stood before him.
Miss Khilkoff had "called to inquire after Mr. LeVallon," and was waiting downstairs in case Dr. Fillery could also see her.
He glanced at her pretty slim figure and delicate complexion, her hair, fine, plentiful and shiny, her dark eyes with a twinkle in them.
She was an attractive, intelligent, experienced, young woman, tactful too, and of great use with extra sensitive patients.
She was, of course, already hopelessly in love with her present "case."
His "singing," so she called it to Mrs. Soames, had excited her "like a glass of wine--some music makes you feel like that--so that you could love everybody in the world."
She already called him Master.
"Please say I will be down at once," said Dr. Fillery, watching her for the first time with interest as he remembered these details Paul had told him.
The girl, it now struck him, was intensely alive.
There was a gain, an increase, in her appearance somewhere.
He recalled also the matron's remark--she was not usually loquacious with her nurses--that "he's no ordinary case, and I've seen a good few, haven't I?
The way he understands animals and flowers alone proves that!"
Dr. Fillery went downstairs.
His first rapid survey of the girl, exhaustive for all its quickness--he knew her so well--showed him that no outward signs of excitement were visible.
Calm, poised, gentle as ever, the same generous tenderness in the eyes, the same sweet firmness in the mouth, the familiar steadiness that was the result of an inner surety--all were there as though the wild scene of the night before had never been.
Yet all those were heightened.
Her beauty had curiously increased.
"Come into my study," he said, taking her hand and leading the way.
"We shan't be disturbed there.
Besides, it's ours, isn't it?
We mustn't forget that you are a member of the Firm."
He was aware of her soft beauty invading, penetrating him, aware, too, somehow, that she was in her most impersonal mood.
But for all that, her nature could not hide itself, nor could signs of a certain, subtle change she had undergone fail to obtrude themselves.
In a single night, it seemed, she had blossomed into a wondrous ripe maturity; like some strange flower that opens to the darkness, the bud had burst suddenly into full, sweet bloom, whose coming only moon and stars had witnessed.
There was moonlight now in her dark mysterious eyes as she glanced at him; there was the gold of stars in her tender, yet curious smile, as she answered in her low voice--"Of course, I always _was_ a partner in the Firm"--there was the grace and rhythm of a wild flower swaying in the wind, as she passed before him into the quiet room and sank into his own swinging armchair at the desk.
But there was something else as well.
A detail of his recent Vision slid past his inner sight again while he watched her....
"I thought--I felt sure--you would come," he said.
He looked at her admiringly, but peace strong in his heart.
"The ordeal," he went on in a curious voice, "would have been too much for most women, but you"--he smiled, and the sympathy in his voice increased--"you, I see, have only gained from it.
You've mastered, conquered it.
I wonder"--looking away from her almost as if speaking to himself--"have you wholly understood it?"
He realized vividly in that moment what she, as a young, unmarried girl, had suffered before the eyes of all those prying eyes and gossiping tongues.
His admiration deepened.
She did not take up his words, however.
"I've come to inquire," she said simply in an even voice, "for father and myself.
He wanted to know if you got home all right, and how Julian LeVallon is."
The tone, the heightened colour in the cheek, as she spoke the name no one had yet used, explained, partly at least, to the experienced man who listened, the secret of her sudden blossoming.
Also she used her father, though unconsciously, perhaps.
"He was afraid the electricity--the lightning even--had"--she hesitated, smiled a little, then added, as though she herself knew otherwise--"done something to him."
Fillery laughed with her then.
"As it has done to you," he thought, but did not speak the words.
The need of formula was past.
He thanked her, adding that it was sweet yet right that she had come herself, instead of writing or telephoning.
"And you may set your--your father's mind at rest, for all goes well.
The electricity, of course," he added, on his own behalf as well as hers, "was--more than most of us could manage.
Electricity explains everything except itself, doesn't it?"
He was inwardly examining her with an intense and accurate observation.
She seemed the same, yet different.
The sudden flowering into beauty was simply enough explained.
It was another change he now became more and more aware of.
In this way a ship, grown familiar during the long voyage, changes on coming into port.
The decks and staircases look different when the vessel lies motionless at the dock.
It becomes half recognizable, half strange.
Gone is the old familiarity, gone also one's own former angle of vision.
It is difficult to find one's way about her.
Soon she will set sail again, but in another direction, and with new passengers using her decks, her corners, hatchways ...
telling their secrets of love and hate with that recklessness the open sea and sky make easy....
And now with the girl before him--he couldn't quite find his way about her as of old ...
it was the same familiar ship, yet it was otherwise, and he, a new passenger, acknowledged the freedom of sea and sky.
"And you--Iraida?"
he asked.
"It was brave of you to come."
She liked evidently the use of her real name, for she smiled, aware all the time of his intent observation, aware probably also of his hidden pain, yet no sign of awkwardness in her; to this man she could talk openly, or, on the contrary, conceal her thoughts, sure of his tact and judgment.
He would never intrude unwisely.
"It was natural, Edward," she observed frankly in return.
"Yes, I suppose it was.
Natural is exactly the right word.
You have perhaps found yourself at last," and again he used her real name, "Iraida."
"It feels like that," she replied slowly.
She paused.
"I have found, at least, something definite that I have to do.
I feel that I--must care for him."
Her eyes, as she said it, were untroubled.
The well-known Nayan flashed back a moment in the words; he recognized--to use his simile--a familiar corner of the deck where he had sat and talked for hours beneath the quiet stars--to someone who understood, yet remained ever impersonal.
And the person he talked with came over suddenly and stood beside him and took his hand between her own soft gloved ones: "You told me, Edward, he would need a woman to help him.
That's what you mean by 'natural'--isn't it?
And I am she, perhaps."
"I think you are," came in a level tone.
"I know it," she said suddenly, both her eyes looking down upon his face.
"Yes, I suppose I know it."
"Because _you_--need him," his voice, equally secure, made answer.
Still keeping his hand tight between her own, her dark eyes still searching his, she made no sign that his blunt statement was accepted, much less admitted.
Instead she asked a question he was not prepared for: "You would like that, Edward?
You wish it?"
She was so close against his chair that her fur-trimmed coat brushed his shoulder; yet, though with eyes and touch and physical presence she was so near, he felt that she herself had gone far, far away into some other place.
He drew his hand free.
"Iraida," he said quietly, "I wish the best--for him--and for you.
And I believe this is the best--for him and you."
He put his patient first.
He was aware that the girl, for all her outer calmness, trembled.
"It is," she said, her voice as quiet as his own; and after a moment's hesitation, she went back to her seat again.
"If you think I can be of use," she added.
"I'm ready."
A little pause fell between them, during which Dr. Fillery touched an electric bell beside his chair.
Nurse Robbins appeared with what seemed miraculous swiftness.
"Still sleeping quietly, sir, and pulse normal again," she replied in answer to a question, then vanished as suddenly as she had come.
He looked into the girl's eyes across the room.
"A competent, reliable nurse," he remarked, "and, as you saw, a pretty woman."
He glanced out of the window.
"She is unmarried."
He mentioned it apparently to the sky.
The quick mind took in his meaning instantly.
"All women will be drawn to him irresistibly, of course," she said.
"But it is not _that_."
"No, no, of course it is not that," he agreed at once.
"I should like you to see him, though not, however, just yet----" He went on after a moment's reflection, and speaking slowly: "I should like you to wait a little.
It's best.
There _has_ been a--a certain disturbance in his being----" "It's his first experience," she began, "of beauty----" "Of beauty in women, yes," he finished for her.
"It is.
We must avoid anything in the nature of a violent shock----" "He has asked for me?"
she interrupted again, in her quiet way.
He shook his head.
"And we cannot be sure that it was you--as _you_--he sought and is affected by.
The call he hears is, perhaps, hardly the call that sounds in most men's ears, I mean."
The hint of warning guidance was audible in his voice, as well as visible in his eyes and manner.
The laughter they both betrayed, a grave and curious laughter perhaps, was brief, yet enough to conceal stranger emotions that rose like dumb, gazing figures almost before their eyes.
Yet if she knew inner turmoil, emotion of any troubling sort, she concealed it perfectly.
"I am glad," the girl said presently.
"Oh, I am really glad.
I think I understand, Edward."
And, even while he sat silent for a bit, watching her with an ever-growing admiration that at the same time marvelled, he saw the wonder of great questions riding through her face.
The recollection of what she had suffered publicly in the Studio a few hours before came into his mind again.
In these questions, perhaps, lay the only signs of the hidden storm below the surface.
"Are there--are there such things as Nature-Beings, Edward?"
she asked abruptly.
"We know this is his first experience.
Are there then----?"
He was prepared a little for this kind of question by her eyes.
"We have no evidence, of course," he replied; "not a scrap of evidence for anything of the sort.
There are people, however, so close to Nature, so intimate with her, that we may say they are--strangely, inexplicably akin."
"Has he a soul--a human soul like ours?"
she asked point blank.
"He is perhaps--not--quite--like us.
That may be your task, Iraida," he added enigmatically.
He watched her more closely than she knew.
She appeared to ponder his words for a few minutes; then she asked abruptly: "And when do you think I ought to come and see him?
You will let me know?"
"I will let you know.
A few days perhaps, perhaps a week, perhaps longer.
Some education, I think, is necessary first."
He gazed at her thoughtfully, and she returned his look, her dark eyes filled with the wonder that was both of a child and of a woman, and yet with a security of something that was of neither.
"It will be a--a great effort to you," he ventured with significant and sympathetic understanding, "after--what happened.
It is brave and generous of you----" He broke off.
She nodded, but at once afterwards shook her head.
She rose then to go, but Dr. Fillery stopped her.
He rose too.
"Nayan, I now want _your_ help," he said with more emotion than he had yet shown.
"My responsibility, as you may guess, is not light--and----" "And he is in your sole charge, you mean."
She had willingly resumed her seat, and made herself comfortable with a cushion he arranged for her.
He was aware chiefly of her eyes, for in them glowed light and fire he had never seen there before--but still in their depths.
"Well--yes, partly," he replied, lighting a cigarette, "though Paul is ready with help and sympathy whenever needed.
But the charge, as you call it, is not mine alone: it is ours."
"Ours!"
She started, though almost imperceptibly, as she repeated his word.
"Subconsciously," he said in a firm voice, "we three are similar.
We are together.
We obey half instinctively the unknown laws of"--he hesitated a moment--"of some unknown state of being."
He added then a singular sentence, though so low it seemed almost to himself: "Had we been man and wife, Iraida, our child must have been--like him."
"Yes," she said, leaning forward a little in her chair, increased warmth, yet no blush, upon her skin.
"Yes, Edward, we three are somehow together in this, aren't we?
Oh, I feel it.
It pours over me like a great wind, a wind with heat in it."
Her hands clasped her knee, as they gazed at one another for a moment's silence.
"I feel it," she repeated presently.
"I'm sure of it, quite sure."
She stretched out a spirit hand, as it were, for an instant across the impersonal barrier between them, but he did not take it, pretending he did not see it.
"Ours, Nayan," he emphasized, again using the name that belonged to everyone.
"Therefore, you see, I want you to tell me--if you will--what you felt, experienced, perceived--in the Studio last night."
After watching her a little, he qualified: "Another day, if you would like to think it over.
But some time, without fail.
For my part, I will confess--though I think you already know it--that I brought him there on purpose----" "To see my effect upon him, Edward."
"But in _his_ interest, and in the interest of my possible future treatment.
His effect upon yourself was not my motive.
You believe that."
"I know, I know.
And I will tell you gladly.
Indeed, I want to."
He was aware, as she said it, that it would be a satisfaction to her to talk; she would welcome the relief of confession; she could speak to him as doctor now, as professional man, as healer, and this, too, without betraying the impersonal attitude she evidently wore and had adopted possibly--he wondered?
--in self-protection.
"Tell me exactly what it is you would like to know, please, Edward," she added, and instinctively moved to the sofa, so that he might occupy the professional swinging chair at the desk.
"What you saw, Nayan," he began, accepting the change of position without comment, because he knew it helped her.
"What you saw is of value, I think, first."
He had all his usual self-control again, for he was now on his throne, his seat of power; his inner attitude changed subtly; he was examining two patients--the girl and himself.
She sat before him demure, obedient, honest, very sweet but very strong; if her perfume reached him he did not notice it, the appeal of her loveliness went past him, he did not see her eyes.
He had a very comely and intelligent young woman facing him, and the glow, as it were, of an intense inner activity, strongly suppressed, was the chief quality in her that he noted.
But his new attitude made other things, too, stand out sharply: he realized there was confusion in her own mind and heart.
Her being was not wholly at one with itself.
This impersonal rôle meant safety until she was sure of herself; and so far she had been entirely and admirably non-committal.
No girl, he remembered, could look back upon what she had experienced in the Studio, upon what she had herself said and done, before a crowd of onlookers too, without deep feelings of a mixed and even violent kind.
That scene with a young man she had never seen before must bring painful memories; if it was love at first sight the memories must be more painful still.
But was it a case of this sudden, rapturous love?
What, indeed, were her feelings?
What at any rate was her dominant feeling?
She had felt his appeal beyond all question, but was it as Nayan or as Iraida that she felt it?
She was non-committal and impersonal, conscious that therein safety lay--until, having become one with herself, harmonious, she could feel absolutely sure.
One hint only had she dropped--it was Nayan speaking--that her mothering, maternal instinct was needed and that she must obey its prompting.
She must "care" for him....
Dr. Fillery, meanwhile, though he might easily have probed and made discoveries without her knowing that he did so, was not the man to use his powers now.
Unless she gave of her own free will, he would not ask.
He would close eyes and ears even to any chance betrayal or unconscious revelation.
"When you first looked in, for instance?
You had just come in from the street, I think.
You opened the door on your way upstairs.
Do you remember?"
She remembered perfectly.
"I wanted to see who was there.
You, I think, were chiefly in my thoughts--I was wondering if you had come."
Her voice was even, her eyes quite steady; she chose her next words slowly: "I saw--to my intense surprise--a figure of light."
"Shining, you mean?
A shining figure?"
She nodded her head, as one little hand put back a straying wisp of dark hair from her forehead.
"A figure like flame," she agreed.
"I saw it quite clearly.
I saw everything else quite clearly too--the inner room, various people standing about, the piano, the thick smoke, everything as usual.
I saw you.
You were in the big outer room beyond, but your face was very distinct.
You were staring--staring straight at me."
"True," put in Dr. Fillery; "I saw you in the doorway plainly."
"In the foreground, by itself apart somehow, though surrounded by people, was this shining, radiant outline.
I thought it was a Vision--the first thing of that sort I had ever seen in my life."
"That was your very first impression--even before you had time to think?"
"Yes."
"It struck you as unusual?"
"I cannot say more than that.
I knew by the light it was unusual.
Then it moved--talking to Povey or Kempster or someone--and I realized in a flash who it was.
I knew it must be your friend, the man you had promised to bring--Ju----" "And then----?"
he asked quickly, before she could pronounce the name.
"And then----" She stopped, and her eyes looked away from him, not in the sense that they moved but that their focus changed as though she looked at something else, at something within herself, no longer, therefore, at the face in front of her.
He waited; he understood that she was searching among deep, strange, seething memories; he let her search;
and, watching closely, he presently saw the sight return into her eyes from its inward plunge.
"And when you knew who it was," he asked very quietly, "were you still surprised?
Did he look as you expected him to look, for instance?"
"I had expected nothing, you see, Edward, because I had not been consciously thinking about his coming.
No mental picture was present in me at all.
But the moment I realized who it was, the light seemed to go--I just saw a young man standing there, with his head turned sideways to me.
The light, I suppose, lasted for a second only--that first second.
As to how he looked?
Well, he looked, not only bigger--he _is_ bigger than most men," she went on, "but he looked"--her voice hushed instinctively a little on the adjective--"different."
Her companion made a gesture of agreement, waiting in silence for what was to follow.
"He looked so extraordinary, so wonderful," she resumed, gazing steadily into his eyes, "that I--I can hardly put it into words, Edward, unless I use childish language."
She broke off and sighed, and something, he fancied, in her wavered for a second, though it was certainly neither the voice nor the eyes.
A faint trembling again perhaps ran through her body.
Her account was so deliberately truthful that it impressed him more than he quite understood.
He was aware of pathos in her, of some vague trouble very poignant yet inexplicable.
A
breath of awe, it seemed, entered the room and moved between them.
"The childish words are probably the best, the right ones," he told her gently.
"An angel," she said instantly in a hushed tone, "I thought of an angel.
There is no other word I can find.
But somehow a helpless one.
An angel--out of place."
He looked hard at her, his manner encouraging though grave; he said no word; he did not smile.
"Someone not of this earth quite," she added.
"Not a man, at any rate."
Still more gently, he then asked her what she felt.
"At first I couldn't move," she went on, her voice normal again.
"I must have stood there ten minutes fully, perhaps longer"--her listener did not correct the statement--"when I suddenly recovered and looked about for you, Edward, but could not see you.
I needed you, but could not find you.
I remember feeling somehow that I had lost you.
I tried to call for you--in my heart.
There was no answer....
Then--then I closed the door quietly and went upstairs to change from my street clothes."
She paused and passed a hand slowly across her forehead.
Dr. Fillery asked casually a curious question: "Do you remember _how_ you got upstairs, Nayan?"
Her hand dropped instantly; she started.
"It's very odd you should ask me that, Edward," she said, gazing at him with a slightly rising colour in her face, an increase of fire glowing in her eyes; "very odd indeed.
I was just trying to think how I could describe it to you.
No. Actually I do not remember how I got upstairs.
All I know is--I was suddenly in my room."
A new intensity appeared in voice and manner.
"It seemed to me I flew--or that--something--carried me."
"Yes, Nayan, yes.
It's quite natural you should have felt like that."
"Is it?
I remember so little of what I actually felt.
I wonder--I wonder," she went on softly, with an air almost of talking to herself, "if it will ever come back again--what I felt then----" "Such moments of subliminal excitement," Dr. Fillery reminded her gently, "have the effect of obliterating memory sometimes----" "Excitement," she caught him up.
"Yes, I suppose it was excitement.
But it was more, much more, than that.
Stimulated--I think that's the word really.
I felt caught away somewhere, caught away, caught up--as if into the rest of myself--into the whole of myself.
I became vast"--she smiled curiously--"if you know what I mean--in several places at once, perhaps, is better.
It was an immense feeling--no, I mean a feeling of immensity----" "Happy?"
His voice was low.
Her eyes answered even before her words, as the memory came back a little in response to his cautious suggestion.
