(Complete Story.) The Panted Ship.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIII, Issue XXIV, 10 December 1904, Page 12

(Complete Story.) The Panted Ship.

He happened to be a guest at a village entertainment, and as it included a feast of baked ineats bis neighbour across the narrow table attracted the surgeon’s attention. He decided that she had rather a good face, although Ire did not take her to be so young as she actually was. Amongst the many helpers she had seemed the most intelligent and industrious, going silently about her work while the others delayed to gossip and get in each other’s way. Her service had been silently rendered, and no one had appeared to notice her much. Now that she was near him having home needed refreshment, Whitley addressed a remark to her, not seeing why they should sit dumb because they had not been introduced. She answered quietly with a little flush as though it cost an effort to enter into conversation with a stranger, but her shyness was not awkward, and her brown eyes —a little hollow and wistful —were frank and clear.

As she was answering bis second remark he saw a sudden alert purpose spring into those eyes—and she was instantly upon her feet to seize and eatch a knife which some unskilled assistant had let fall. If the girl had not caught it the knife would have descended upon Whitley’s head. As she let it fall harmlessly upon the table he took it up and found it dangerously sharp and heavy. “I sin extremely obliged to you, but I fear that in sparing me you have hurt yourself badly.” She shook her head and made some remark to the lady by her as though to end the incident, but Whitley was not so easily disposed of. ‘•l am perfectly certain you must have cut your hand; let me see it.” A very busy, bustling lady who was passing caught the words and paused interrogatively.

"Anything the matter, Hope; have you come to grief again The girl seemed to shrink into herself and she cast a swift imploring glance at \\ hitlev.

"There is nothing the matter, Annette; where are the children?” As this was an exhaustive query the, voluble lady’s attention was diverted, and Whitley said no more; he merely asked Hope for the salt which was near her right hand—but she passed it awkwardly with her left. Now, a successful surgeon must naturally be a man of action, and without making any audible fuss he rose quietly as one who had finished and went round to her side. "Come with me, please; I know all about it.” He spoke low, but with authority, and she obeyed. As soon as they bad left the others she begged him to make no fuss, for the hurt was nothing. “I am not going to make the. least fuss. I know these grounds well, and it is quite easy to get out of the fashionale crush. I never attend largo gatherings without sticking-plaster; on the last occasion it was a broken collar-bone due to too much beer; this is not your case, you know, so you need not be a fraid.” Leading the way to a discreet little summer-house, he took her hand and undid the handkerchief to discover a deep cut right across the palm. “This is worse than I thought; you must have grasped hard.” “I think I did—for 1 was frightened.” “Most unselfishly so—you probably Caved me from a severe injury.” Her pale face lighted up. but she was less brave as he drew the cut together with a stitch. “Don’t hurt mo—l have had so much pain!” “I won’t hurt you any more,” he answered soothingly, neither did he embarrass her with questioning, fol" ho felt that it was not physical suffering which had weakened her nerve without subduing her courage in an emergency. He looked critically at the hand as he bound it up.

“Your hand reminds me of my brother's; he is an artist; do you paint?” A quick play of light and shadow Baade her quiet fnee expressive. “A little —that is, I used to.”

“Why do you speak like that, when life is only beginning with you?”

For he felt there were potentialities in this quiet girl who looked older than she was, although he did not know this. “Beginning,” she repeated; “I should not like to feel I was only beginning—■ the way would seem too long in front of me.”

He was interested in her personality, but he was not satisfied with her frame of mind. Going back to town that evening he suddenly remembered that he had not asked her name. When be wrote to his friends to inquire about a girl named Hope, they could give him no information.

To a man whose time is money the garrulity of his patients and their wearisome reiteration of things he knows quite well is annoying, but when this annoyance comes from the friend accompanying the patient it becomes unbearable. Possibly in this case there was some excuse for the friend, because the patient herself said nothing. Apparently she was the least interested of the three as she sat idly fingering some of the shining instruments on the table with a childlike curiosity. Her sister-in-law did all the talking, being well qualified for the task, and he appeared to listen politely while all his attention was centred upon this extraordinary patient who had no interest in her own grave case. When tired of her scientific toys upon the tables she looked round the room and a certain picture upon the wall caught her attention. Quite impulsively she rose from her seat and went close to examine it; when she turned round again she looked quite bright; evidently she had more sympathy with the painting than with herself.

As he watched her recognition dawned upon I'm, and going to her lie took her right hand anti looked at t; there was a scar across the palm. Meanwhile the talkative Annette’s eloquence never ceased.

“As- I’ve already said, Mr Whitley, she has been going about the house looking peaky and wretched for ever so long, but there was no getting a word out of her. I assure you I had the greatest difficulty in bringing her here this morning—l call it ungrateful and flying in the face of Providence.” “I am not ungrateful. Annette - — I merely wanted to avoid giving any trouble—l didn’t think myself worth making a fuss about.”

It was the same voice which had told him five years ago that she had no wish to be at the beginning of her life; now she was perilously near the end of it, and she seemed to have no fear—no interest even in her own life. Mrs Edsell was obviously past patience with her.

“To hear her talk, Mr Whitley, one would think she had not always had a happy home with us —she has-had every comfort, and never been sent out into the world like many girls. I assure you we were shocked when she broke down so deplorably, and her brother insisted —rye both insisted -— that she should come to you at once.”

Something in the lady's manner suggested that she was speaking in selfdefence and conscious of having overworked a willing horse. The surgeon’s grave silence did nothing to ease her of this feeling, and when he told her plainly that he desired to have speech with his patient alone she did not like it, but. she had to obey his polite ushering into the outer waiting-room, and then the two were alone. Hope. Edsell answered his first, question so absently that he’had to recall her sharply. “Miss Edsell, your ease is serious; I must bog for your undivided attention.” Bhe obeyed him then as she had obeyed him five years ago, and he altered bis manner, for he wanted her to recognise a friend in him: for the second time he touched her hand and indicated the scar.

— Graphic—Painted Ship—Three “You do not remember me, and yet you saved me a bad accident by injuring yourself instead?’’

A pleasant smile dawned, as though »he were interested at last, and after

* word of surprise she turned again to the picture.

“How odd that we should meet like this —and you bought my picture—the only one I ever sold. I always liked ituntil I got tired of the little ship that would never pass under the bridge; you see it is still on the wrong side?” She spoke with a gentle humour which was curiously out of place in so grave a crisis, and again he had to recall her sharply. “.Miss Edsell, I sent your sister-in-law out of the room that I might receive your confidence; I won’t betray ft, but I must understand your extraordinary frame of mind. You knew for months that something was seriously wrong, and yet you did not speak or seek advice? In a sense lam bringing a charge against you—one that you must answer?”

“Perhap I thought the remedy might be worse than the disease—l have always dreaded pain.” “That may be part 41 the truth, but it is not the whole truth. I must know more before 1 accept the responsibility of your case. If you will not tell me yourself, I must apply to your brother, for there has been very culpable neglect somewhere?”

It was but the shadow of a threat which he had no intention of carrying out, but it vanquished her, and she began to speak quite hurriedly:

“Of course, I knew something was wrong; but as I was poor —I had a little money onee, but it was sunk in my brother’s business —and as I could no longer do much for Annette or the children, I thought—you see, there arc so many women in the world that it seemed hardly worth while spending money on one who was neither strong nor clever—we must all die, and it seemed to me not to matter if I went a few months or years sooner. They were very kind, my brother and Annette, but they have a large family, and I hoped that perhaps one less to feed and house might make things better for them—l daresay these thoughts sound very silly to you.”

She ended apologetically, and he felt that for one about to undergo a severe physical shock she was in a disastrous frame of mind. Love of life was an incalculable factor in obtaining a good result in suck work as his.

“Arc your statements quite accurate? My brother, who is an artist, thinks very highly- of your handiwork.” She looked at the little picture again that was really a work of art, although the painted ship could not move along its course, and he saw her moved at last.

“It was just a dream —dead years ago —that I might have succeeded even a little. You see, lessons cost money, and they —it was thought that I might spend my time to better advantage. Naturally, if my talent had been real it would have fought for its life and won.”

He saw the whole story —they- had taken her money first and then made of her a useful drudge; neither had they noticed anything amiss until the drudge had finally broken down. And for this misusage there was no blame in her—no bitterness; only the feeling of being an unprofitable servant who was better dismissed and forgotten. Now, Whitley knew how grievously precious time had been wasted, but he was not entirely without hope of her, if she could be induced to take a firmer hold on life. Without entering into any details he told her plainly that she must submit to whatever they thought best within twenty-four hours, and then he tried to administer hope whereby she might live. “If you recover —as I hope and trust you may —you will probably be stronger and better in every way than you have ever been. Moreover, I firmly- believe that your life will enlarge and expand itself; I can see means whereby- you may pursue your congenial employment—your labour of love not unprofitably to yourself and others. You may take my word for it that things will never go back into the old groove.”

He did not realise then why lie spoke so confidently, but, because kind encouragement is rarely wrested, his words cheered her, although she felt they had no basis in fact. She thanked him with her scarred hand in his, and he saw no fear of death in her qniet eyes; he might have been better satisfied if she had shrunk more from its near approach.

She looked up out of those ether fumes into the real world again—a world with kind, solicitous faces in it—and after listening vaguely for some minut< s with no power of responding she managed to speak. “Have 1 to live or die?” Whitley bent over her with more than professional interest in a ease that was to do him credit. “The operation has been thoroughly successful; under God y-ou are going to live.” The shadow of a smile parted the bloodless lips, but there came a little sigh as well. “That will be more trouble—for everybody.” But she spoke more cheerfully in - a day or two, and she even begun to wonder where she was, for although something had been said about a private nursing home, she appeared to be tire only patient. Moreover, a very sweetfaced old lady would appear from time to time at her bedside, and this lady’s manner seemed to suggest that she was the mistress of the house.

On the first day that Hope was able to sit up she asked Whitley if she was really in a nursing home, and why there were no other patient's. “You are in the best nursing home that 1 know of—my mother's house!” A delicate pink sprang into her pale clsceks, for she certainly had not ex'pected to hear this. “Your mother’s house—and not yours ?”

“In a sense it is mine, too. London houses are so much alike that you did not recognise it again—and you wore concentrating al! your attention on being brave, were you not?” “But think of the trouble I am giving! Why did your mother —why did you

“Because we owe you a debt —she and I. Oh! pardon me, but w.e do. And you are going to paint me some more pictures by-and-bye when you are quite well and strong again.”

From that moment she tried to hasten, her convalescence, but it was not possible. When the nurse had been dismissed —for her services were not long required—Hope felt herself in a net of kindness from which there seemed no escape. If she had only known it, they kept her with them long after she was physically capable of returning to her brother’s, giving her a breathing space for mental health to spring up and flourish.

She felt so cheered that one day—finding painting materials mysteriously to her hand—she was minded to ask for her picture from the consulting room that she might make a copy of it. Time flew for her over this engrossing occupation. and when Whitley entered she was looking flushed and happy in her labour of love. “Surely you arc much earlier than usual! —and what is that dock saying—• it can’t be so late!” “The clock is telling the. rigid truth; let me see what you are doing.” She was standing by the window to eatch ike last light, and he saw how her whole lieart was in her work, and that this enforced burying of a talent Imd been a cruelty. As he came near a sudden consciousness made her cover her work from his sight; she spoke a little shyly, as though ashamed of her own simplicity. “Don't look, for you would laugh. Mo you remember my telling you that I had no patience with the little ship that would never sail under the bridge? 1 suppose by this time a bvcere has sprung up. for it has sailed under at last.” But he took up the sketch and studied

*, aot without knowledge and ability to nritieise.

“This will be the best of the two,” he ■aid, “and you have made it morning instead of evening!” “Yy, I wanted to make it brighter—then, if you like it better, you shall keep it instead of the other.” “But what if I desire to keep them both! The other is mine already, you know.”

With her eagerness a little checked by his manner she spoke again: “That reminds me; you said something the other day, weeks ago now I am ashamed to say, about my being able to earn my own living by this sort of work. I wonder if you would be kind enough to ask your brother if he thinks I should have any' chance at all?” “I would rather not trouble my brother on such a matter. I want you to do what I wish, and not listen to any advice from others.”

She was checked again, not understanding why he should have changed his opinion. It disappointed her. “But I thought I understood you to say that I might possibly succeed.” “I am not unsaying it—l think you would have, a very fair chance. My dear, I fear I express myself awkwardly when it comes to affairs of this sort, but I can at least be plain. I disapprove of your scheme of independence because I want you to marry me.” A silence fell, and her face slowly darkened; for the first time he heard her speak with bitterness. “You evidently think that a small service rendered years ago demands a high price.”

She held our her hand for the unfinished sketch and it was unsteady. The man took it, for he saw the mistake •he was making. “My dear, you are all wrong; I liked you from the first moment I saw you, •nd I endeavoured quite fruitlessly to find you out again. My reason for asking you is the most old-fashioned one in the world. Hope, the simplest woman in the world knows when a man loves her?” She looked at hinr earnestly and read the truth; then her eyes fell upon her sketch, and a smile that was like light touched lips and eyes. a “I did not know really—and yet something must have made me waft on my little ship with the wings of the morning.” . Ellen Ada Smith, in “M.A.P.”