Читать книгу The Sinner - Eliza Margaret Humphreys - Страница 7

Table of Contents

Nell had been nine months in the hospital. She had nursed many 'cases' since that memorable first one—had seen all that illness and accident can do with poor frail human bodies—had attended men, women, and children, and still felt enthusiastic about her work. But each month taxed her strength more severely, and watchful eyes noted it. She had lost the pretty roundness of face and figure; the soft colour in her cheeks had faded into a delicate pallor. Her eyes looked larger and more wistful than ever under their thick black lashes.

In these nine months she had had but a fortnight's holiday, which one wet week and a bad crossing had done their best to spoil. She came back from Dublin looking worse than when she went, and Deborah Gray told her so bluntly the first moment they were alone. The girl had stoutly denied any symptoms of illness, or even fatigue. The summer had been trying she said, and the winter equally so, and she was not used to fogs, or the hard-freezing cold that sometimes visits London. There had been always an excuse handy.

It was April now. The sun had vouchsafed its presence once more. The trees were putting forth tender buds, and the chestnuts were already in blossom. The air was soft and balmy; even London looked less ugly and dreary beneath the soft blueness of the sky, and in the primrose-tinted sunsets. The park was thronged with carriages, and the treadmill of fashion had claimed its usual crowd of martyrs. The streets were full of endless noise, and it seemed to Nell that the days were endlessly long and wearisome. Yet not even to herself would she acknowledge she was failing—that she had overrated her powers of endurance, and was physically unfitted for the profession she had desired to follow.

'You are not equal to it, Nell. You will have to give it up,' said her friend Deborah Gray, one morning, as they were taking their regulation walk. 'I heard the matron and Dr. Mowbray talking about you yesterday. I am sure it means a hint that you have misjudged your capacity, not your willingness, or your ability for the duties, but I said from the first the life was too hard. And you have not yet got over that bad habit of suffering with your patients, as well as sympathising with them. You have worn yourself out in less than a year, and you would be dead at the end of another.'

Nell was silent; she could not deny the truth of her friend's words, though they were unwelcome. She gave a little sigh as she lifted her face to the cool soft breeze. They were in St. James's Park, and a moment before she had thought how bright and fair it all looked. Now a sudden sense of depression seized her. The sun seemed hazy, and the pale grey clouds took a wintry hue, against the blueness of the sky.

A sense of failure oppressed her in this mood, as it had oppressed her in other days, when the resolve to achieve or dare something had been combated by physical incapacity or mental irresolution. Life was hard on her. She was doomed to be one of the unlucky ones of this world. For ever striving—for ever failing. And she did not like to fail. She hated to feel herself beaten.

Deborah Gray, wondering at her silence, looked at her. She saw her lips were quivering, and that her face had grown very white.

'Don't take it to heart so, dear child,' she said gently. 'There are other things in the world for you to do. After all, nursing is only one of the many feminine resources of modern women. Thank goodness we need no longer sit with folded hands waiting for some man to throw the handkerchief of his choice at our feet. The world is our oyster as much as his. No labour, or trade, or profession is denied to us if we choose to work. If we fail in one we can take up another. We are not compelled to repress ourselves, and sink into the mere child-bearing half of humanity. Try something else, Nell, and don't look so down-hearted.'

'What else can I try?' said the girl, despondently. 'I told you of my venture at governessing—I won't go in for that again. I've no artistic faculties marked enough to repay development. I can draw a little, and paint a little, but that's all. If I could put my thoughts into words I might write a book, but it needs something more than words to make a book readable. I love music passionately, but I am no executant, and my voice is hardly equal to Irish ballads. I don't know what will become of me, Debbie, if this fails. I set my heart upon it.'

'Always an unwise thing to do, my dear.'

'I am sure of that, but all the same I did it.'

'You might try private nursing,' suggested Deborah Gray. 'You have had a good deal of experience here, though you were never much good in the operation cases, or you might get into one of the children's hospitals in some provincial town. The work would not be so hard, and you are quite up to it.'

'You think, then, that I shall be told to leave here,' said Nell, gloomily.

'I am afraid so. I have heard two or three hints to that effect. But cheer up, my dear, all doors are not closed because of one. Something will turn up; depend upon it.'

Nell said nothing. She knew in her own mind that her friend was right—that she was not strong enough for the work demanded. But she had hoped to struggle on for the probationer's time of service at least. She hated the idea of going back to Dublin. How they would triumph. All those friends who had prophesied failure, the brother who had set himself against the scheme from the first!

The soft air swept over her temples, and lifted the little delicate tendrils of hair that curled naturally about her smooth brow. The green freshness of the young year seemed to breathe of hope and joy.

Some memory was at work within her heart; some words echoing with latent tenderness that she had left unanswered. A fragment of a letter—the only letter she had ever received from Dick Barrymore.

'If it ever lies in my power to serve you in any way, command me. I owe my life to you, and the debt will lie heavy upon me until deeds, not words, can repay it in some degree. It seems to me that we could not have met only to part. That life holds something more for us. I dare not ask you to write. You may think I am presuming on your past goodness and interest. I can only repeat that I shall never forget you, and that I would do anything in the world to serve you.'

That letter lay in a little feather pocketbook. She had read it often, and yet she had not answered it. Why, she scarcely knew. He was rich now. He might be famous. Their paths in life had diverged. She would not have him think that she put forth any claim to be remembered. Had he been poor—struggling, friendless—it would have been different.

But to-day its memory recurred to her. She knew he would serve her by wealth, by influence, by any means that were in his power. Why should she not ask him? Geoffrey Masterman was a rich man. He must have innumerable friends. Among them all might she not get a companionship, or secretaryship; something that would uphold her independence.

'How quiet you are. What are you debating in your mind?' asked Deborah Gray, suddenly.

Nell started.

'I was only thinking what I should do if I got my congé,' she said. 'Do you remember that Mr. Barrymore, whose rich uncle turned up in such an opportune manner?'

'Remember the "Romance of the Ward!"' exclaimed Deborah. 'I should think so. Why, it was a perfect three-volume novel of incident. What about him? Did you ever write? You said you would not, and I thought you very foolish. Perhaps you changed your mind?'

'No,' said Nell. 'I never wrote. I thought it would look as if——'

She stopped, colouring hotly.

'I know,' said Deborah, with a quiet smile, 'as if you wanted him to remember you. And I told you that you were a foolish little thing. That a friend at court is always advisable, and that gratitude in a man is so rare a virtue it deserved to be cultivated.'

'I was thinking his uncle, Mr. Geoffrey Masterman, must have a great deal of influence. Supposing I wrote to him.'

'Certainly. Why not? Rich and influential people are expected to benefit their less-favoured brethren. Do you know his address?'

'I have that letter still. I suppose the same address would find them.'

'You might try, of course. But don't be in too great a hurry. You are not dismissed yet, you know. I've often had a fancy about you, Nell,' she went on as they turned out of the park. 'I think you are destined to get more out of life than most girls. I mean, that it won't be commonplace or uneventful. Even your short experience here has been signalised by a romantic experience. None of the other nurses, myself included, have ever got beyond the ordinary, troublesome, vagabondish patients. You are quite distinguished. Perhaps you don't know it, but you are. Now, it would only be in the natural sequence of things, if the rich and grateful uncle helps you, and the prospectively rich and equally grateful nephew falls in love with you. You might give your wedding an air of distinction by asking a bevy of nurses to it as bridesmaids and guests. The papers would be full of it, and the hospital would become more famous than it is.'

Nell laughed.

'I didn't give you credit for so much imagination, Debbie,' she said. 'It is a very pretty little romance, as you put it, but likely to remain one, as far as the principals are concerned.'

'The unexpected always happens,' said Deborah Gray. 'I have seen more wildly improbable things than this prophecy of mine come true. You know, Nell, it is all very well for plain women—unattractive women, disappointed women, to take up missions and turn their backs on the softer joys of life; but for a girl like you it has always seemed to me a little bit absurd. You are not the sort of female thing that men pass by or ignore. You will not be allowed to follow out your own conception of a woman's duties. Men won't let you: you are too pretty and too feminine altogether. Love and marriage will play the chief part in your life, take my word for it.'

Nell shook her pretty brown head.

'Oh, no,' she said; 'you are wrong. I am sure of it. I put away all thought of marriage long ago.'

'Because one man played you false!' said Deborah Gray, bitterly. 'And you found him out, and thought your heart was broken. But you know a woman does not always marry the man she loves. It sometimes happens, and I often think it is better for the woman, that she marries the man who loves her.'

Nell was silent.

'It sounds well enough,' she said at last, 'if it only proved satisfactory——but a one-sided union, Debbie, must turn out a failure in the end. I should not like to risk it.'

'When the hour comes,' said Deborah, 'and the man, you will forget there is any risk in the matter. A woman often loves her own ideal of love in the lover she accepts. The higher the ideal the worse for him. But a man loves her—the woman herself—so he is generally too strong for her, and she takes him because she must, because he overwhelms her, he won't let her think.'

'Why, Debbie, I can hardly believe it is you talking. I fancied you never thought of such things as love, and romance, and all that.'

'"All that" is a comprehensive phrase, Nell. I have thought of such things. I suppose no woman can help it some time or other.'

She lifted her face, and looked up at the bright sky and the drifting fleecy clouds.

'It is as well not to think of them too often,' she said. 'I hate the springtime, Nell! It makes one feel so old—old and sad, and lonely. It must have been a hundred years ago that I was a girl like you!'

There was something in her face so sad and desperate that it frightened Nell. But suddenly Deborah calmed herself. Her dark face took back its usual grave composure.

'I have been talking nonsense,' she said. 'Come, let us forget all this. After all, discipline is a grand thing, Nell. I don't wonder men become soldiers.'

They spoke no more until they reached the hospital gates, and went up the broad stone steps.

As Nell was turning to the nurses' quarters a sister stopped her.

'The matron wishes to see you, Nurse Nugent,' she said. 'Will you go to her room as soon as you have changed your dress?'

Nell's heart sank within her. Some instinct told her the meaning of that summons.