PATCHWORK PIECES

Otago Witness, Issue 3993, 23 September 1930, Page 5

PATCHWORK PIECES

By

Eileen Service.

(Special fob the Otago Witness.)

CLOSED EYES.

The last thing Miss Brown could remember was standing with her hands clasped, watching the train: A muddy street, a black railway yard, an engine grimed with soot and grease, and a clean sky • suddenly, against that sky a plume of steam, snow-white and wreathing. Then, the shock as the lorry struck her, the pang of terror, and—darkness.

.Strangely, when she recovered consciousness, it was this picture which recurred to her first. She might almost have been still standing there, lost in the bravery of the sight. Still she could see the keen vigour, the vital beauty of the silver jet, still could exult in the frail edge where it dissolved against the heavens. It was so clear that it made her want to gasp even as she had gasped and thrilled on that fatal day. Then the realisation came to her that it was a vision she was seeing etched upon the canvas of her closed eves.

Closed eyes. Eyes oppressed by a bandage. An aching pain at the back of her head, and eyes closed. “ Lie still,” somebody said,.“ you are doing wonderfully.” And then'it was the darkness again, like a shadow fallen over everything. Next time she awoke, it was to know' that, in her sleep, some of the pain had vanished. Her mind was nimble now, no longer heavy and unwieldy, and she felt herself use it as one uses a tool. It would do as she wished; she could guide it where she pleased. To think was an exercise ridiculously easy. She deliberately practised it, conscioiis of a sensation of power. It seemed that, could she always be like this, she w'ould be one of the wise ones of the world. All at once she again became aware of her closed eyes. A bandage was upon them, holding them down. And somewhere, too, there was a hint of hurt. She raised her hand, trying to touch the bandage. A voice spoke: “Don’t,” it said, “just lie quiet and rest. You’ll be all right. You’re doing wonderfully.” But this time it could not comfort her. She refused to let it lure her to the numbing helplessness of sleep. . , She answered clearlv:

“What has happened, please? And why is my head bandaged ? I can’t remember ? ”

There was hesitation .for a moment, then the voice spoke again: “There was an accident,” it said, “you were run over, Your head was hurt. Then you W’ere brought to this hospital.” Another pause; then, in coaxing tones:

“Lie very still. There’s nothing to bother about. The doctor will be here ;to' see you soon, and-you can talk to -him.” :

’ " She lay still. Not< sleep, but resigna- ■ tion descended upon her, as if, the narrow bed being so quiet and restful, either to move or worry seemed unnecessary. She felt that she was being shamelessly lazy, but it did not affect her. Again she wielded her agile mind, letting it swing and dance as if it were a tov.

Then a man’s voice speaking, cheerily, confidently:

“ Good morning, Miss Brown. So we’re compos mentis to-day?” A chuckle as if the phrase had proved a happy one: “Compos mentis. And high time, too, you’ll be thinking.” “High time?” How long had she been here? This would be the doctor. The nurse had said she could speak to him. A sudden desire to have done with resignation broke through the airiness of her thoughts. Her closed eyes . . . she must ask him. And the darkness! She said:

“ Good morning, doctor. Please what has happened.” And then: “She said you would tell me. Why am I here ? ” But in his loud, frank voice, he merely echoed what the nurse had told her: An accident; run over; head hurt; hospital. “ But my eyes,” she insisted, “ why are my eyes covered ? ” The bandage seemed to weary her. She wanted nothing so much as to be free of it. Silence for a moment, then his voice again, softened and gentle, astonishly so: “We fear, Miss Brown, that your sight is destroyed. The blow on the head, you know. Vision affected. You are quite well, otherwise—wonderfully well, indeed. A miracle how you came through so cleanly. But your eyes ” He paused. You could almost see him shrug. She said quietly: “Is there any hope ? ” “ A fraction,” he answered. “We shall do all we can, of course. I have told you, because I think it best that you should know. Different doctors, different methods. But this is mine.”

She thanked him, aware of the irony of her words. She could feel her mind watching her as she spoke. When she was alone she lay in a silence darkened by her closed eyes. The mind that had danced had lost its buoyance. Now it could move to only one rhythm: “ Blind, blind, blind, blind.” There was no other call to which it would respond. That was the only one it knew.

Suddenly, feverishly, as if she had just realised how serious it was, she began examining the word on which her thoughts hung. She was interested to see that she could do so dispassionately, and that, no matter how she stared and pulled at it, it did not cause her any sorrow.. Her sight was destroyed, he had said. There was only a fraction of a chance of its recovery. But even as she recalled his sentence she knew that it was deceptive; there was not even that fraction of a chance. ‘ She was blind. ’

She decided that the reason why she could be so unfeeling about it was that she was still bemused by the shock of the accident. It was unlike her to lie still, although her body was well and able, and to make stoic recognition of a fact which once would have’ despaired her. In- all probability she would feel it personally when she was up and about again—when this dark dream of unreality had given place to her own world.

But, thinking of that world, a sudden fear shot through her heart lest she should not have the wherewithal to furnish it. For it would be a new world different from the old by reason of her closed eyes. She would have to make 'it fit for herself so that its darkness could be bearable, and such furnishings would have to come from the past. There would be none in the future.

Oh, that she had not had to live all her days in the city ! To have been to the sea, the country, the mountains ! To have been accustomed to the beauty of fields ! Memories like those would have lightened the heaviest darkness. But she had none of them. Her eyes had known only the town. To be blind at this age, and have seen only houses and streets ! For the first time a sense of woe came upon her like a cruel hand.

And at the same moment, suddenly again, the memory of that rising steam ! On the background of her closed eyes it was vibrant and splendid; it triumphed with a shout to the bright sky; it shone and soared. Below it the drab street was lost and forgotten. Nothing mattered in all the world but that spiral of joy. “ Oh,” she thought, shaken to the quick. “ The last thing I can remember—beauty itself ! ” She knew that the spirit of the sight would never leave her, and that every time it came back to her mind it would be fresh and startling and delightful as now. Also, it .would hearten her to remember other things, things which, till this moment, she had’ forgotten. ... . . . Her new world could, after all, be lovely. Despite the loss of sea and meadow there could be magic in every corner. It could be delicately furnished with the sparse taste of. a Japanese dwelling, and be more exquisite and precious than even a world of mountains and lake. ... A moment at dusk when the street had swum in violet, and a child, playing with a kitten, had flung back her head and been silent; a morning when the air was misty and a roof seen against the sky had looked like the ramparts of a castle; in the rain when everything had glimmered, and a girl wearing a scarlet coat had been reflected like a flame in the black pavement; and an evening when the new moon had swung for one breathless minute between two chimney-pots; always the sky, always colour somewhere; and once a cloud of white steam on a sheet of azure. What though her eyes were closed. Behind them lay a world whose close darkness was a wall on which to hang the treasures of life.