Читать книгу The Sinner - Eliza Margaret Humphreys - Страница 6

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It was an awkward moment for both.

Geoffrey Masterman's conscience rebuked him for years of neglect and silence, while this, his only near relative, had been fighting the battle of life. He had promised his sister to look after her boy. He had broken that promise. He had been far too much engrossed in amassing fortune—far too eager in the pursuit of solid investments and profitable speculations, to think of the youth, struggling single-handed with the giants of poverty and despair.

A wave of remorse swept over him. He was the possessor of millions of dollars. He had silver mines and oil wells, and railway shares, and western mortgages, and this man, his next-of-kin, had been brought penniless and dying to a public hospital.

He paused opposite Dick. He gave a swift, shamed glance at the pale, thin face.

'Dick, my boy,' he said abruptly, 'I'm afraid you've had a tough fight for it. I wish I had known. Why didn't you write to me?'

'I didn't know where you were. America is rather a vague address, you know.'

'True, boy, true. It was my fault. I have been forgetful. But you were at college. I thought you had a grand career before you. What has happened? Come, sit down and tell me.'

And briefly, and with no undue dwelling on the miseries and hardships he had endured, Dick Barrymore related the same story that he had poured out in a moment of weakness to his pretty nurse. His very reticence about his own sufferings and his own feelings touched the older man as no complaint would have done.

The springs of life had run down very low. The tired face, the tired voice, the spiritless patience, these were the things with which young manhood should have naught to do. They were things Geoffrey Masterman had never known, and in some new vague way they hurt him. He sat by the table, one restless hand turning the leaves of a medical book, the other shading his face. When he spoke at last his voice was strangely quiet.

'It has been hard for you—terribly hard. But that's all over now. I've come back in the nick of time, it seems to me. You're leaving here, they said. What—had you any plans?'

'Yes.' The white face brightened, a softer light came into the brown, sunken eyes. 'I have found a friend here who has been very good to me. It is through her influence I have secured employment again.'

'Here? A woman then?'

'Yes—the woman who has nursed me back to life.'

'What!' and Geoffrey Masterman sprang up excitedly. 'That little dolly-faced creature I saw. Do you mean to say you call her a friend. That you would let her help you!'

'Why not?' asked Dick, simply. 'It is a case of "needs must." Through her I have got a post on an Irish newspaper, and I am to start to-morrow for Dublin. You have no idea how kind she has been—all she has done for me.'

His voice broke. He was still so weak that any emotion mastered his ordinary self-control. 'I can never be grateful enough,' he went on presently. 'But for her I should have died. To her I owe not only life, but the chance to make something of it still.'

'Humph!' said his uncle, gruffly. 'So that's it, eh? Those pretty nurses are the devil for getting round men in their weak moments. Catch me ever having one. Well, well, my boy, this was all right and square as long as you were ill and friendless, as you say. But that's all altered now. I'll make the pretty nurse a handsome present to buy herself a gown, or some woman's fallals with, and you and I——'

'My dear uncle!' gasped Dick. 'For goodness sake don't insult this girl by offering her money! She's a lady as—as my mother was. She has only taken up nursing out of tender-hearted sympathy with the poor sufferers who are brought to these hospitals. She is going to devote her life to their service. It is very noble of her, and very self-denying.'

'Yes,' said Geoffrey Masterman, dryly, 'it is. How old is she, this noble young martyr? About seventeen, I should say, from her looks.'

'Oh, she is much older than that,' said Dick, 'and quite a woman in her ways—her thoughtfulness and delicacy and sympathy.'

Geoffrey Masterman looked at him with grim amusement.

'It strikes me,' he said, 'that you are leaving one disease behind you here, and taking away another. Heart complaint, I fancy, brought on by sympathy, and studying a woman's worth in the performance of hospital duty. It won't do, my boy. It won't do. You must come away with me. We'll go to Switzerland, Italy, Russia, anywhere you please, and you'll pick up your health, and I'll look after you for the future. I've no son, Dick, and I shall never marry now. All I have shall be yours, my boy, and I'll put everything ship-shape at once. You can find plenty of work as my secretary, if you must work, and you can write your books, or whatever it is you do write, unhampered by the rapacity of publishers, or the ignorance or bad taste of the public at large. Come, cheer up. Don't pull a long face like that. Your troubles are over, and you shall live life as a young man ought to live it. But no philandering, mind! no hankering after pretty nurses, or nonsense of that sort. You shall travel, you shall enjoy the good things of this world, you shall get your grip on mankind in general, and make them smart for past insolence. You can do it, I know. I read power in your face, sarcasm on your lip. I like you, Dick, and I shall be proud of you, I know. I'm not sorry that you've had this tussle with Fate, that you've learnt the meaning of hardship. One takes these things better young, believe me.'

He stopped at last, and Dick looked up at his excited face.

'You are very good,' he said, drawing a deep breath, 'very good. I can't refuse your generous offer. But I am fond of my independence, uncle, and I can't live a life of idleness.'

Geoffrey Masterman laughed.

'I'm not asking you to do that. I'll find you work enough, never fear.'

'But what about this appointment,' continued Dick. 'I have accepted it, and they expect me to-morrow. I hardly like to put them off. Besides, Miss Nugent took so much trouble——'

'Good little soul!' said Geoffrey Masterman, with an approving nod. 'Well, you must write and say your circumstances have altered, and you are unable to accept the appointment. Why, you only look fit for nursing and coddling still. Well, it's my turn to look after you. You'll just come straight away with me, and see if I don't make a different man of you before another month's out. Is there,'—and his hand went to his pocket in a fashion that was the outcome of an overflowing purse and a consciousness of many possessions—'Is there anything to pay before you leave?'

Dick coloured hotly.

'No, of course not,' he said. 'Hospitals like these are free. But you can give a donation to the building if you like. I should suggest a cheque, or a yearly subscription, if you prefer it.'

'Very well. I'll write out a cheque, and you go and get your traps together, Dick, and we'll say goodbye to this place for ever I hope.'

'I've no "traps," except what you see me in,' said Dick. 'I was brought here without my own knowledge. I expect that the few things I left behind have been sold to pay the rent of my room. But I'll go upstairs and say goodbye to the nurses, and then I'm quite ready to come with you, uncle. By the way, I've no hat.'

'What's to be done? Couldn't you borrow one from the students or one of the doctors?'

'I will ask the house surgeon,' said Dick. 'Perhaps, on the strength of your cheque, uncle, they will be charitable enough to lend me a head covering.'

'If we were in America it wouldn't matter,' observed Geoffrey Masterman, 'but they're so almighty respectable and particular in this country!'

'They read a man's character in London by the cut of his coat,' said Dick, bitterly. 'I have learnt that long ago, Uncle Geoffrey. But here comes Dr. Mowbray. Let us put our case to him.'

A case backed by a millionaire's cheque, the romance of a returned uncle, and a rescued nephew, appealed strongly to the charitable side of the house surgeon.

It was altogether so extraordinary, so unprecedented, so much more like the chapter of a novel than the prose of reality. Of course, a hat could be supplied to the now discharged patient, whose gratitude and memory were set to the tune of a hundred pounds. And then Dick went up to the ward to say goodbye to Nell and Deborah Gray, and to thank them for the care and attention of the past weeks.

He was very quiet. He seemed in no way elated at this sudden stroke of fortune. Nell was a thousand times more excited over it than he was. It seemed to her the most wonderful story she had ever heard.

He held her little hand a long time; he was trying to summon courage to tell her of his passionate gratitude; his grateful remembrance, but the words would not come. He resolved to write to her. He faltered out a few broken words that besought permission to do so, and then a mist seemed to come before his eyes, and the ward and the white beds, and the little figure he had learnt to know so well, all reeled and swam hazily before him.

He released her hand and braced himself up, and walked away down the long room, out of the door, with slow, unsteady steps. She stood there watching him, and then went silently over to the window, and gazed out at the street below. A cab was waiting. She saw him enter, followed by his uncle. The door closed, the horse sprang forward. Her lips parted as if to say 'goodbye,' but no word escaped.

She turned away. In all the ward she seemed conscious of nothing but that one empty bed. Mechanically, she went up and smoothed the pillows; her hand lingered over the snowy coverlet.

She heard a voice speaking to her, somewhat sharply. 'Strip that bed, nurse, and get it ready. It is sure to be wanted soon.'

It was the voice of the head sister. And then Nell remembered she was only a hospital nurse, whose first patient had been discharged—cured.