A Sister of the Red Cross: A Tale of the South African War

"Sing it louder," said the poor lad; "I can't hear you. Wonderful! how quiet it is! And it is dark – night – yes, it is night."

"No, dear," she answered; "it is morning."

"Morning! then I am much better," he said "Peace – yes, the morning brings peace." The words died away. "Much better," he said again, after a pause. "Going to – get —well."

As he uttered the last words Mollie bent forward. She laid her fingers on his eyelids and closed them down. Then she motioned to a nurse who stood a little way off. She turned to Major Strause. His eyes were shining – there were tears in them.

"God bless you! God bless you!" he said

"What do you want with me?" she answered.

"Nothing now. You have quieted me; you have stilled my evil passions. Do you want to go on stilling them? Do you want still to be an angel in the ward?"

"You are very ill, Major Strause," said Mollie. "Let me take your temperature."

She did so. His temperature was high – 104°. She laid her hand on his forehead.

"You have been exciting yourself," she said. "I don't believe you have got enteric; it is just a bad chill. I am going to give you a soothing draught and a compress. Now stay perfectly quiet."

"Won't you nurse me, instead of Miss Hunt?"

"I cannot; my place is in the surgical ward."

"Can't I be moved in there?"

"No, you must not; there is too much noise, and some of the sights are – You must stay here, Major Strause. Try to control yourself, won't you?"

"If you will come to see me twice or three times a day I will. What's that?" He looked around him in a frightened way.

A nurse had brought a screen, and was putting it round the bed where the lad Hudson had breathed his last.

Mollie took the major's hand.

"I will come to see you," she said; "and you will try to be good?"

"For such an angel I would do anything. Oh, I have been bad – yes, I have been very bad; you don't know half. Is there any chance for a worldly chap like me? Not young, either. When I heard you talk to that boy, I felt I would give all the world to be that boy myself."

"If there was a dear lad on this earth, it was George Hudson," she answered.

"I know – so different from what I am! I am not even young, you know, and I have led a – "

"I cannot stay now, Major Strause. – Sister Eugenia, will you look after Major Strause, please? he wants – "

Mollie gave quick directions. The young sister bowed her head. The major made a wry face. He could be good in Mollie's presence, but he did not think he could be good with Sister Eugenia, who was small, and plain, and awkward.

Mollie left the room. All that day the effect of Hudson's death remained with the major, and as Mollie did come into the ward two or three times in the course of the morning, he tried to believe himself satisfied. But when the dead man had been removed for burial, and when his place was occupied by another man, uninteresting, coarse, not particularly ill, Major Strause forgot his good resolutions. He grumbled, and gave the nurses who looked after him a bad time. When Mollie came in he was soothed and comforted, and he could express his feelings to Katherine Hunt. In a day or two the fever left him, and he was able to crawl about a little, and then, as his bed was wanted, to get back to his own hut. Still, the memory of what he had seen Mollie do when Hudson was dying remained with him, and, for the time at least, he gave up all idea of persecuting her, or forcing her, as he expressed it, to listen to his suit. He had no intention, however, of giving Mollie up.

"I will live for her sake, and try to lead a clean life for her sake, and in the end I must win her," he thought. "She is better than any money – she is worth her price in rubies. She is the finest woman God ever made."

The major might for a time have had strength to keep these resolves, had he not once again seen Mollie and Gavon Keith together. They were talking just at the door of one of the wards, and they did not touch hands this time. But the major saw the light in Mollie's eyes, and could not mistake its import. The moment he observed this there fell away from him, like a mantle, all the good resolves of the last few days. He would do something, and at once.

He passed the couple, who started aside when they saw him, and strode away to the hotel where Kitty lived. He asked boldly to see Miss Hepworth. The servants of the hotel were busy in those days, when every one had his or her special duty to perform. One of them said carelessly, —

"You will find Miss Hepworth in her sitting-room;" and he ran upstairs and knocked at the door.

A girlish voice said, "Come in." He turned the handle and entered.

Kitty was lying on a sofa, in just the position where she could get what little air there was. The heat was intense, and the red dust was more irritating than ever. It lay on the table, and made a pink shade over the cup and saucer out of which she had taken her last meal; it made a pink shade also on the girl's dark hair and on her white blouse; but it did not take any of the prettiness out of her big brown eyes, nor any of the refined delicacy from her beautifully-chiselled features. The strong likeness to her sister Mollie was very apparent at this moment, and Strause uttered an exclamation, which he suddenly checked.

"I never guessed it," he said to himself.

"How do you do, Major Strause?" said the girl. "Do you want anything? I am quite alone."

"I called to see you, Miss Hepworth, because I thought you would be alone," was his reply.

Already his anger against Mollie was more or less abated; but he lashed it up again, for he said to himself, —

"If I don't take extreme steps I shall lose her. I have a great deal to tell this little miss, and tell it I will."

"Why did you utter that exclamation when you came into the room?" said Kitty.

"Because you are so like your sister," he replied. "You know I have been in hospital for the last fortnight. I am better, but I am confoundedly weak. Would you think me very rude if I dropped into a chair?"

"Oh, please seat yourself," said the girl. She gave a dreary sigh and looked out of the window. "It will soon be dark," she said. "The only peaceful time in Ladysmith is when it is dark! Do you think the enemy will make an assault and try to take the town at night, Major Strause?"

"Oh, bless you, no," said the major. "The Boers like to fight under cover. They won't attack us; at least that is my belief."

"But I heard some of the officers saying to-day at dinner that the Boers did fight sometimes in the open, and that they might make an assault on the town. I heard them say so – I did really," said Kitty.

"Well, they talked nonsense; don't you believe a word of it," said the major.

He felt himself quite manly as he sat not far away from Kitty and looked avariciously at her face. Her likeness to Mollie made this quite an agreeable task. She shuffled uneasily under his stare, and turned once more to look out of the window.

"It is so dull in Ladysmith," she said then, with a sigh. "I never knew a siege meant this."

"What did you think it meant?" asked the major.

"Oh, nothing like this," she repeated. "I thought there was great excitement, and that everybody kept close together, and that – "

"There is plenty of excitement, if that is what you want," said Major Strause.

"Well, it doesn't come to me," answered the girl. "I spend all my days here. I am awfully frightened, too. I am terribly afraid of the shells. Do you think one of them will strike the hotel, Major Strause?"

"Can't tell you; hope not."

"Well, that is poor comfort," said Kitty, and she gave a dreary laugh.

The major was not getting any nearer the object of his visit. This would never do.

"If I were you," he said, "I would go into the hospital and make myself useful."

"I cannot; they have turned me out."

"Who have?"

"Why, Mollie, my sister, and – and Gavon."

"Oh, indeed! And did they give you a reason?"

"They said that I was nervous and would not make a good nurse. And they are right," she added. "I am nervous. I quite screamed when I saw a poor man brought in one morning with his leg shattered. He was unconscious, and my scream awoke him, and he looked at me. Oh, I see his face still! He was dead in an hour, and I never saw anything like the reproach that was in his eyes! They haunt me. He thought I was afraid of him – and I was – and his eyes haunt me! No, I am not fit to be a nurse."

"I don't think you are," said Strause. "You are a delicate little thing, not a bit like your sister."

"Oh, Mollie is so strong – she is almost coarse," said Kitty.

"I don't think there is anything coarse about her. I wish you could have seen her the other morning. It was quite early, before daylight, and a poor chap was dying, and she sang to him."

"Oh, please don't tell me about dying people, it is so melancholy."

"May I ask, Miss Hepworth," said Strause, "why you came here at all?"

"Can't you guess?" she answered, and she flushed a very rosy red. "To be near Gavon."

"Do you see much of Captain Keith?"

"Yes, a good deal. He comes in most evenings. He has not been in yet to-night."

"You are desperately in love with him, aren't you?"

Kitty sighed, then she smiled, then she put up her hand to sweep away the curls from her forehead.

"Oh yes," she said then; "of course I am. We are going to be married."

"I wonder," said the major, "if you would thank me for a piece of information?"

"What? what?" she asked eagerly.

"Something to do with Captain Keith."

"What do you know about Gavon?"

"Something. Would you thank me if I told you?"

"I'd like to hear it very much. I don't believe you know anything bad of him."

"Nothing exactly bad, and yet something important – at least for you. I can tell you if you will make me a promise. I think you ought to know it, too, but I can only tell you if you make me a promise."

"And what is that?"

"That you will keep it dark that I told you. I must have your promise; then I have something of great interest to say."

"You quite frighten me," said the girl. "What can it be? Something about Gavon, and something, I see by your manner, not quite good. And I am to make you a promise."

"You can act in any way you like, but you are never to tell who told you. And if you give me your promise, I will take you a little bit into my confidence, and you and I can work together. You won't find it dull in Ladysmith when you and I have made our little plot to stick together and work together."

"But I don't at all know that I want to work with you, Major Strause."

"Oh, it isn't a love business – nothing of that sort."

Kitty flushed and looked annoyed.

"It simply means that you and I want to hold what we have got."

"To hold what we have got!" repeated the girl.

"Yes, that's about it. You and I want to hold our possessions tightly; and I think we can if we make a little league to work together."

"All right; let's make a league," said Kitty. "It really is exciting, and while you talk to me I forget Long Tom."

"Before we do anything you have got to make me your promise."

"Yes; what is it?"

"That you will never, under any circumstances, tell anybody that I have informed you of that thing which I know."

"Of course I won't."

"That kind of loose way of answering won't suit me. You must answer me solemnly; and remember, before you make the promise which I am going to make you give me, that if you break it you bring a great deal of bad luck not only upon yourself, but upon Keith."

"Oh, I would not do him harm, my darling, for all the world!"

"Well, see you don't. You will if you break your vow."

"Vow!" said Kitty; "must I make a vow?"

"You must, and pretty sharp, too, if you want me to tell you what I know."

"All right," said Kitty, who was now overcome with curiosity. "Of course I'll do what you require."

"Then say these words after me: 'I promise that whatever happens – '"

"'I promise that whatever happens,'" she repeated.

"'I will never tell that Major Strause was my informant with regard to Gavon Keith and Mollie Hepworth.'"

As Strause uttered the last words Kitty's face turned white as a sheet. She sprang from her reclining position, and stood before the major with both her hands tightly clasped.

"'Gavon Keith and Mollie Hepworth.' Oh yes, I will make a thousand promises if necessary. I will never, never tell. Thank you, Major Strause, thank you. And now, please tell me."

"You will do him an injury if you break your vow. You must say, 'So help me, God.'"

"'So help me, God,' I will never tell."

"Then this is my information: it will pain you, but not more than it has pained me. I have been in the hospital, and I know. You can find out for yourself. Your sister Mollie is in love with Captain Keith, and Captain Keith is in love with her."

CHAPTER XIX.

IN THE HOSPITAL

Kitty was supposed to be weak; but when this information was quietly given her by Major Strause, she showed no weakness. Even the pallor left her face, giving place to a rosy red. Just for an instant she staggered; then she regained her self-control, and sat down on her sofa.

"Don't sit on that chair," she said; "come near me and tell me why – why you said such an awful thing as that to me."

Major Strause replied by giving Kitty a full account of the two occasions on which he had seen Mollie and Keith together. He described with vividness and power that hand-clasp and those few words, and then with greater power he got his excitable hearer to understand the look which filled Gavon's eyes and the look which filled Mollie's eyes on the next occasion when he had seen them together. And Kitty, who had been jealous of her sister from the first, gave a heavy, very heavy sigh.

"You need not tell me any more," she said. "I know you are right. I know you have just said what is the truth."

"And you are satisfied to sit down under it?" was the major's remark.

"No, I am not."

"Yet you must be. You are willing to give up your lover to your sister. Your sister is a very fine woman, a very noble woman, and you are willing, for your sister's sake, to submit to this act of extreme renunciation."

"Never!" said Kitty, "never!

"Ah, now you speak with spirit. And the renunciation is not necessary, believe me. You can, if you will take my advice, keep your lover for yourself."

"Yes!"

"I know a way in which you can not only keep him, but get him to love you just as passionately as he now loves Nurse Mollie."

"Do you indeed, Major Strause? If there is such a way, believe me I will take it."

"I think you will. You must listen attentively."

"I will listen," said Kitty.

"In the first place, you must completely change your mode of life. You must not shrink any longer from terrible sights, nor from unselfish actions; you must not spend all your time in this dull, wretched room – any one would get hipped who lived in a place of this sort; you must show your pluck and spirit; you must go back to the hospital; you must learn the duties of a nurse; and you must not leave your sister and Keith alone."

"I will not," said Kitty. Her cheeks were flaming and her eyes shining.

"That is right. You will be twice the girl you are now. You will cease to fear Long Tom when you have so many other things to fear."

"I don't really mind Long Tom," answered Kitty, and as she spoke she gave a shudder. "I think," she added, "that I would almost like a shell to come in and – end everything; for oh, your words have made me so very miserable!"

"I was obliged to speak; but, after all, the very pain you now suffer may be your means of deliverance. It is necessary, absolutely necessary for your sake, to take extreme steps. The thing is serious; it can only be combated by extreme measures."

"What way is that? oh, do tell me! I shall always look upon you as my greatest friend if you save me from the terrible fate which seems hanging over me."

"Remember you are never to breathe that I was your informant."

"I never will."

"Well, you must act with guile. In the first place, you must go back to the hospital. You will soon have proof that your sister loves Keith, and that Keith loves her. Tell your sister, or Miss Hunt, that you are very much better, and that you are going back to the hospital to do what little good you can. If you show tact and spirit, you will soon learn your duties, and your sister will be pleased with you; and what is far more important, Captain Keith will be pleased with you. You will be no longer the pretty nonentity who has come to Ladysmith to be a trouble and a worry. No woman ought to be a trouble and a worry who lives in Ladysmith now."

"Yes, but I don't care to be a heroine. You may think nothing of me, but I really don't. If I act as you suggest, how will it get me back Gavon's love?"

"In the first place, he will cease to despise you."

"Oh, he cannot despise me – my darling cannot despise me!" said Kitty, and her lips trembled.

"I am sorry to have to say it, but I greatly fear he does despise you. If you were to look into his heart, you would find that he does. He has his faults – no one has more reason to know that than myself – but he is not a nonentity. He is a brave soldier, and he would not like the girl he marries to be a coward. Now, while you stay in this room, you are acting a coward's part. Go back to the hospital, reinstate yourself, and see that what I tell you is the truth. You will not be very long before you know. Not that Captain Keith makes love to your sister in so many words – he would not do that sort of thing for worlds – but there is a love which fills the eyes when the lips never speak; and if you watch you will see it, and you will also see the same expression in your sister's eyes, although she also would not speak of her love for worlds. When you see that love in her eyes and in Keith's eyes, the time will have come for you to speak openly to your sister, and that is what I am coming to."

"Yes!" said Kitty.

"Now, Miss Hepworth, I am really going to confide in you. There is one way, and only one, to save the position."

"What is that, Major Strause?"

"Your sister Mollie must marry me."

"O Major Strause!"

"Yes; I love her madly. I love her with the most pure, self-sacrificing passion. I would do anything on earth for her. She must become my wife here, in Ladysmith, and thus you are saved. Captain Keith is not the man to love her after she is my wife."

"But if Mollie doesn't love you?" said Kitty, trembling very much, and fixing her eyes full on the major's flushed face.

"She shall love me; and you must bring it about. I am determined to win her. If she won't have me after you have spoken, I have another lever to bring to bear. It will be her mission to save you and to save Captain Keith; for if she doesn't, as there is a God in heaven, you go under, and he goes under. Now I have spoken; now I think you understand."

As the major spoke he rose to his feet.

"But I don't understand," said Kitty.

"That is all you are to understand to-night. Go to the hospital to-morrow. I have spoken the truth. The way to save the situation is to get your sister Mollie to marry me."

"If she doesn't love you, she will not marry you."

"Watch Miss Hepworth; be silent, be wary, watch! and when you see what I know you will see, then speak to her – tell her to her face that she loves him. She will deny it, perhaps, or perhaps she will confess it. If she does, you are to tell her there is only one way out —she must marry me! If she refuses, let me know. I shall have another lever to bring to bear. Now, good-night, Miss Hepworth."

The major strode from the room. Kitty looked wildly round her. She was alone, and night was over the scene. Even over the doomed city of Ladysmith the moon shone, and there was a white sort of fragrance in the air, and the dust no longer covered everything. The beleaguered town lay quiet under the wing of sleep – that is, all those slept who were not suffering from enteric, or from deadly wounds, or from the slow, the slow, cruel death of starvation; for already rations were short, and food was precious. The uneasy neighing of half-fed horses came to Kitty's ears as she went and stood by the open window. She did not heed, she did not care; she was selfishly absorbed in her own mad thoughts, her own wild grief.

The door was opened, and Katherine Hunt came in.

"Well, Kitty," she said, "any better?"

"Yes, much better," said Kitty. She turned, and faced Katherine.

"Come over here and let me look at you," said Katherine suddenly.

She took Kitty's hand and drew her towards the lamp. She looked full into her face. Kitty's face was very white, her eyes were too big, and the black marks under them too dark for health. But just now the eyes were bright and the lips were firm, and there was a hectic flush on each thin cheek.

"I thought you looked well, but I doubt if you do," said Katherine. "You look strange. Is anything the matter?"

"No," said Kitty, "no; only, Kate – "

"Yes!"

"I am going to turn over a new leaf."

"I wish you would, with all my heart. Oh, I have brought you something nice for supper!"

"What?"

"A little, precious, precious pot of bovril. You must make it go as far as you can. I doubt if I can get you another."

"I was hungry at dinner-time – we had a very poor dinner – but I am not hungry now," said Kitty; "only I am thirsty," she added.

"Well, you shall have a drink, but you must eat too. A cup of bovril and some bread will make quite a nice supper for you. Don't throw away good food now."

"Is food really scarce in Ladysmith?" said the girl.

"Not yet; but we don't know how long the siege will last. I think Sir George White is anxious; he wants relief to come quickly. It is being strangely delayed. Oh, we are all right, of course, but our enemies are the sort who will sit down and wait for any length of time. They are not a foe to be despised. We are hemmed in, and the provisions cannot last for ever. Milk is the most pressing want just now. I was passing a house, when a mother came out and asked me if I could get her even a very little milk. She said her baby was dying for want of it. I went in and looked at the poor little thing. It had lived for a week on sugar and water. And the orders now are that all the milk is to be kept for the sick, I could not get her any. While I was with her the child had a slight convulsion, and died. That is the sixth baby that has died in Ladysmith to-day."

"How gloomy!" said Kitty.

"Why do you speak in that tone? Aren't you sorry?"

"No, I don't think I am. No; it is best for the little babies. Oh, oh, oh, I am so unhappy!"

She burst into tears. Katherine kissed her.

"Now, cheer up!" she said. "You stay so much alone! You would be much better if you did what I do. Just go about and fling yourself into the trouble, and do your very best for those who are in distress and suffering, and misery and fear – the deadly fear of death. And yet why should people be afraid?"

"I am not," said Kitty; "I was, but I am not. I was going to tell you that I am about to turn over a new leaf. I am going back to the hospital to-morrow."

"Are you really, Kitten?" said Kate, looking with interest at the girl. "And are you going to be a brave kitten – not to cry out if you are hurt, not to be troubled if everything is not quite your way? Are you going really to help? For if so, you can, and you will be all the better for it."

"Yes, I am going to help," answered the girl; "but I don't at all know that I am brave, and I don't at all know that I shan't cry out. Anything is better than sitting in this room and waiting for Long Tom's kisses."

"Mollie will be pleased."

Kitty gave a shudder.

"I never met a finer woman than your sister. Try to copy her, and you will be a blessing in Ladysmith."

Kitty's shudder this time was invisible. She knew that she must act with guile if she would follow out Major Strause's wishes.

Early next morning she put on a clean white dress, tied a big apron round her slim waist, and followed Katherine into the hospital. Katherine took her in with a certain air of triumph. She brought her straight up to Mollie, who was busily engaged dealing out the food necessary for the sick during the coming twenty-four hours. Nurse Eugenia was waiting for instructions; another nurse, who was called in the ward Nurse Helen, was not far off. The two nurses narrowed their eyes, and looked with anything but favour at Kitty as she came in.