Everyman's Land. C. N. Williamson
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we had all been rather overworked in the hospital, and I was feeling ready to drop. I must only have imagined my tiredness though, for when I heard about Brian I grew suddenly strong as steel. I was given leave, and disinfected, and purified as thoroughly as Esther when she was being made worthy of Ahasuerus. Then I dashed off to catch the first train going north.
St. Raphael was our railway station, but I hadn't seen the place since I took up work in the Hôpital des Épidémies. That was many months before; and meanwhile a training-school for American aviators had been started at St. Raphael. News of its progress had drifted to our ears, but of course the men weren't allowed to come within a mile of us: we were too contagious. They had sent presents, though—presents of money, and one grand gift had burst upon us from a young millionaire whose father's name is known everywhere. He sent a cheque for a sum so big that we nurses were nearly knocked down by the size of it. With it was enclosed a request that the money should be used to put wire-nettings in all windows and doors, and to build a roofed loggia for convalescents. If there were anything left over, we might buy deck-chairs and air-pillows. Of course it was easy for any one to know that we needed all these things. Our lack was notorious. We sent a much disinfected, carbolic-smelling round robin of thanks to "James W. Beckett, Junior," son of the western railway king.
As I drove to the gare of St. Raphael, I thought of the kind boys who had helped our poor poilus, and especially of James Beckett. Whether he were still at the aviation camp, or had finished his training and gone to the front, I didn't know: but I wafted a blessing to our benefactor. I little dreamed then of the unforgivable injury I was fated to do him! You see, Padre, I use the word "fated." That's because I've turned coward. I try to pretend that fate has been too strong for me. But down deep I know you were right when you said, "Our characters carve our fate."
It was a long journey from the south to the north, where Brian was, for in war-days trains do what they like and what nobody else likes. I travelled for three days and nights, and when I came to my journey's end, instead of Brian being dead as I'd seen him in a hundred hideous dreams, the doctors held out hope that he might live. They told me this to give me courage, before they broke the news that he would be blind. I suppose they thought I'd be so thankful to keep my brother at any price, that I should hardly feel the shock. But I wasn't thankful. I wasn't! The price seemed too big. I judged Brian by myself—Brian, who so worshipped beauty that I used to call him "Phidias!" I was sure he would rather have gone out of this world whose face he'd loved, than stay in it without eyes for its radiant smile. But there I made a great mistake. Brian was magnificent. Perhaps you would have known what to expect of him better than I knew.
Where you are, you will understand why he did not despair. I couldn't understand then, and I scarcely can now, though living with my blind Brian is teaching me lessons I feel unworthy to learn. It was he who comforted me, not I him. He said that all the beauty of earth was his already, and nothing could take it away. He wouldn't let it be taken away! He said that sight was first given to all created creatures in the form of a desire to see, desire so intense that with the developing faculty of sight, animals developed eyes for its concentration. He reminded me how in dreams, and even in thoughts—if they're vivid enough—we see as distinctly with our brains as with our eyes. He said he meant to make a wonderful world for himself with this vision of the brain and soul. He intended to develop the power, so that he would gain more than he had lost, and I must help him.
Of course I promised to help all I could; but there was death in my heart. I remembered our gorgeous holiday together before the war, tramping through France, Brian painting those lovely "impressions" of his, which made him money and something like fame. And oh, I remembered not only that such happy holidays were over, but that soon there would be no more money for our bare living!
We were always so poor, that church mice were plutocrats compared to us. At least they need pay no rent, and have to buy no clothes! I'm sure, if the truth were known, the money Father left for our education and bringing up was gone before we began to support ourselves, though you never let us guess we were living on you. As I sat and listened to Brian talk of our future, my very bones seemed to melt. The only thing I've been trained to do well is to nurse. I wasn't a bad nurse when the war began. I'm an excellent nurse now. But it's Brian's nurse I must be. I saw that, in the first hour after the news was broken, and our two lives broken with it. I saw that, with me unable to earn a penny, and Brian's occupation gone with his sight, we were about as helpless as a pair of sparrows with their wings clipped.
If Brian in his secret soul had any such thoughts, perhaps he had faith to believe that not a sparrow can fall, unless its fall is appointed by God. Anyhow, he said never a word about ways and means, except to mention cheerfully that he had "heaps of pay saved up," nearly thirty pounds. Of course I answered that I was rich, too. But I didn't go into details. I was afraid even Brian's optimism might be dashed if I did. Padre, my worldly wealth consisted of five French bank notes of a hundred francs each, and a few horrible little extra scraps of war-paper and copper.
The hospital where Brian lay was near the front, in the remains of a town the British had won back from the Germans. I called the place Crucifix Corner: but God knows we are all at Crucifix Corner now! I lodged in a hotel that had been half knocked down by a bomb, and patched up for occupation. As soon as Brian was able to be moved, the doctor wanted him to go to Paris to an American brain specialist who had lately come over and made astonishing cures. Brian's blindness was due to paralysis of the optic nerve; but this American—Cuyler—had performed spine and brain operations which had restored sight in two similar cases. There might be a hundredth chance for my brother.
Of course I said it would be possible to take Brian to Paris. I'd have made it possible if I'd had to sell my hair to do it; and you know my curly black mop of hair was always my pet vanity. Brian being a soldier, he could have the operation free, if Doctor Cuyler considered it wise to operate; but—as our man warned me—there were ninety-nine chances to one against success: and at all events there would be a lot of expenses in the immediate future.
I sent in my resignation to the dear Hôpital des Épidémies, explaining my reasons: and presently Brian and I set out for Paris by easy stages. The cap was put on the climax for me by remembering how he and I had walked over that very ground three years before, in the sunshine of life and summer. Brian too thought of the past, but not in bitterness. I hid my anguish from him, but it gnawed the heart of me with the teeth of a rat. I couldn't see what Brian had ever done to deserve such a fate as his, and I began to feel wicked, wicked. It seemed that destiny had built up a high prison wall in front of my brother and me, and I had a wild impulse to kick and claw at it, though I knew I couldn't pull it down.
When we arrived in Paris, Doctor Cuyler saw us at once; but his opinion added another pile of flinty black blocks to the prison wall. He thought that there would be no hope from an operation. If there were any hope at all (he couldn't say there was) it lay in waiting, resting, and building up Brian's shattered health. After months of perfect peace, it was just on the cards that sight might come back of itself, suddenly and unexpectedly, in a moment. We were advised to live in the country, and Doctor Cuyler suggested that it would be well for my brother to have surroundings with agreeable occupation for the mind. If he were a musician he must have a piano. There ought to be a garden for him to walk in and even work in. Motoring, with the slight vibration of a good car, would be particularly beneficial a little later on. I suppose we must have looked to Doctor Cuyler like millionaires, for he didn't appear to dream that there could be the slightest difficulty in carrying out his programme.
I sat listening with the calm mien of one to whom money comes as air comes to the lungs; but behind my face the wildest thoughts were raging. You've sometimes seen a row of tall motionless pines, the calmest, stateliest things on earth, screening with their branches the mad white rush of a cataract. My brain felt like such a screened cataract.
Except for his blindness, by this time Brian was too well for a hospital. We were at the small, cheap hotel on "la rive gauche" where we'd stayed and been happy three years ago, before starting on our holiday trip. When we came back after the interview with Doctor Cuyler, Brian was looking done up, and I persuaded him to lie down and rest. No one else could have slept, after so heavy a blow of disappointment, without a drug, but Brian is a law unto himself. He said