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

Yes, whatever his past, he was a brave soldier now. But what was this dark thing of the past? The old proverbial saying came into force where he was concerned, "There is no smoke without fire." Was it true that Keith had received a large legacy from a brother officer who had died? Was it true that he had officiously undertaken the nursing of this young man, when a proper hospital nurse was wished for by the doctor in attendance? Was it true that the friend had died suddenly, and Keith had secured his legacy? And was it – could it be – true that a wrong medicine had been given to the sick man by Keith – oh, of course, by mistake; yes, only by mistake? Was there any truth at all in this curious story?

Each person to whom it was told said that he, for one, did not believe a word of it; nevertheless, he, for one, was interested in it, and looked askance at Keith the next time he appeared on the scene. The men of Keith's own regiment were eagerly questioned. Yes, they knew something – they knew about Aylmer. He had died, poor chap, quite young, and very suddenly; and he and Keith were tremendous friends. Yes, Strause was Aylmer's cousin. No one liked Strause; they were all glad when he left the regiment. Of course, he was a very brave officer – no one could say a word against him now; but he had not been popular in the North Essex Light Infantry. Keith had certainly received a large legacy, and at the time there was a little cloud over him; he had not been himself – his nerves wrong. People had wondered, but suspicion had long died away. He was very popular. There was nothing in the story; of course there was nothing in it. The man who questioned also said that there was nothing in it; but he looked grave, and whispered it to his brother officer, and the brother officer whispered it to another; and so it came to pass that, except Sir George White and one or two others high in command, every one in Ladysmith knew the rumour about Keith. And even this might not have mattered much if Keith himself had not known it; but he did. The cloud fell about him like a winter fog. It dogged his footsteps; it surrounded him when he lay down and when he rose. At first he could not understand what this cold breath, this dullness in the air, meant; but at mess one day his eyes were cruelly opened. A man who had always sat near him got up and took a seat at the extreme end of the table. Keith asked a brother officer what it meant. This man looked at him hard, and after a slight hesitation said, —

"We have been listening to a story about you."

"A story about me!" said Keith; and then, he did not know why, but the colour rushed up into his face. "What is the story?" he said, after a pause.

"It is not my affair," said the man. "If it is false, you had better never hear it; if it is true – well, I leave it to your conscience."

Keith would have insisted on a further inquiry, but at that instant he received a message from his colonel, and was obliged to go off. He intended to go back afterwards and demand a full explanation; but he was depressed after a very hard day's work and want of sufficient food, and instead of going to the messroom he turned aside and went to see Mollie. He had avoided her since Kitty's all too frank words; but now she drew him, as the wretched and starving are drawn to food, and the cold and miserable to the sun.

Mollie gave him a quick, bright glance, and invited him into a little corner which was curtained off for herself. He sat down, and she spoke quickly, —

"What is the matter? Have you got a fresh wound? Oh, I know – you have had nothing to eat. You must have a cup of bovril."

"Not for the world," he answered. "We shall want every scrap of nourishing food for the sick and dying."

"For the sick, truly; but the dying do not matter," she answered. "But if you won't have bovril, there is plenty of chevral; it isn't bad."

He shuddered.

"I could not bring myself to taste it," he said.

"Don't be sentimental," she answered. "Try it now. Believe me, it is first-rate."

She left him, prepared a cup of the mixture, and brought it to him.

"Shut your eyes," she said, "and drink it off."

He did as she told him, and the trembling which had tried him so inexplicably no longer thrilled through his frame.

"And now tell me what is up," she said.

He was silent for a minute; then he told her just what had occurred in the messroom that day. He started when he saw the expression on her face. It had grown white as death, and her eyes shone with a strange light.

"Do you know anything about this?" he asked, amazed at her look.

"I would rather not say," she replied. "But I have to ask you an urgent question. You know it is false; can you live it down?"

"To be suspected of the most ghastly crime by the men I care for is just the drop too much now," he answered.

"It shall be put right," she replied at once.

A light flashed into her eyes, the colour returned to her face, her lips grew red.

"But you cannot put it right, Nurse Mollie."

"It shall be put right. Don't be afraid."

She laid her hand on his shoulder as she spoke, and looked into his eyes. Then she said, in a hoarse voice which he scarcely recognized as hers, —

"Leave me – you are better; leave me. I have something to do at once."

As soon as ever he had gone, Mollie sent an orderly from the hospital to desire Major Strause to come to see her without a moment's delay. The man said that he had never seen Nurse Mollie so imperative. He rushed off immediately to do her bidding, and in half an hour Major Strause was in her presence.

"I must speak to you where we can be alone," said the girl.

"We can be alone there," he said, and he motioned to a little lobby just outside one of the wards.

"Yes, I think we can," she answered. "Come."

She went before him. He did not know whether he was frightened or whether hope filled his heart at her curious manner and at the expression in her face. As soon as ever they got into the lobby, she turned and faced him.

"Major Strause," she said, "you have won. You have been doing the devil's work, and you have won. On certain conditions I will promise to be your wife."

"Oh!" said the major, "is it true? Will you? Oh, I cannot realize it!"

He trembled all over; his face turned ghastly white. He looked as if he meant to devour her with kisses, but she held up a restraining hand.

"No," she said, "you don't kiss me – you don't make love to me; but I will be your promised wife. When the siege is over, if we are alive, then I will marry you. I am your promised wife – but no courting in Ladysmith. That is one of the conditions."

"I submit," he said. "I shall court you in my own heart; I shall think of you when I lie down and when I rise up. You will be my good angel in the battlefield; you will help me when I am starving; you will bring me luck. I shall escape out of this net spread by the fowler. I shall escape, and so will you, brave Nurse Mollie. And we will marry, and be happy; yes, we will be happy!"

"Leave that to the future," said Mollie; "we have to do with the present. I yield to you because I must, and because the weapon you carry is too mighty – because you are too cruel. But I am not going to reproach you; I am going to give you my conditions. You may not accede to them. On no other conditions do I marry you."

"Make your own conditions, my darling; whatever you say shall be done. I would go through fire and water for you."

"Major Strause, you have spread a black, black lie against one of the bravest officers in Her Majesty's service. You have spread that lie now in Ladysmith. You have got to eat your own words. You have got to go to the sources from whence the ugly lie has arisen, and clean them out, and put them straight, and allow the truth – God's truth – to go through them. You have got to go to every man who now suspects Gavon Keith, and tell those men that it was a foul lie, and that Gavon is as innocent as an unborn babe of the crime you imputed to him."

"You think so?" said Strause.

"I know it, Major Strause. On no other condition do I marry you."

Strause's face turned livid.

"And if you don't go," said Mollie, "then I will go, and I will tell an ugly story where you have told an ugly one. I will tell of a day when I found a young officer of the North Essex Light Infantry lying by the roadside insensible; but not drunk, Major Strause, not drunk, but drugged! I, a nurse, can prove that. I myself saw Captain Keith. It was there I found him, and it was then I first learned to love him. I will tell the story just as he told it to me. Your lie can be refuted with my truth – here, now, in Ladysmith. Choose, Major Strause. Set your ugly lie right; blot it out as though it had never existed. I don't tell you how to do it; I only say it must be done. And if you do it, and the rumour dies away, and Gavon Keith is known to be what he is – brave of the brave, good of the good, pure and honourable of the pure and honourable – then I give myself away. I have done that which God meant me to do, and my pain and my misery mean nothing at all. I marry you, and I do not reproach you; and I try, God helping me, to be a good wife to you, if we get away from Ladysmith. Now go; you know what you have to do. You have to choose. If you don't do it – and I shall soon find out – then I do what I said I would do, and you go under for ever."

CHAPTER XXIV.

TRUE TO HER PROMISE

After the bursting of the shell over the roof of the Town Hall hospital, it was decided that it was no longer a safe hospital for the sick. Some were removed to the Congregational Chapel; others to a camp specially provided for their safety; and others, again, to the field hospital at Intombi. Mollie, to her great distress, was ordered to Intombi. She went with a number of the sick and wounded, and she tried, in the full absorption of her new duties, to forget the anxieties which surrounded her personal life. In some ways this was easy, in others it was difficult. She was now effectually parted from Katherine Hunt and from Kitty. She was also not likely to see either Captain Keith or Major Strause; for although they might manage to get to Intombi, the way there, lying as it did through the enemy's lines, was difficult.

Meanwhile she wondered what the major had decided to do. She resolved, as far as she was concerned, not to leave a stone unturned to extricate Keith from the dilemma which surrounded him. But having been ordered so unexpectedly to Intombi, the strong step which she had meant to take, supposing the major did not comply with her wishes, was now almost impossible to carry out. Meanwhile her duties absorbed every moment of her time. The hospital at Intombi consisted of about two hundred bell tents, together with one or two marquees which the medical staff used. A train went from the town every day to the hospital camp. It took the wounded to the hospital, and also took what supplies could possibly be spared.

Mollie missed the close companionship which had been hers in the beleaguered town. The site chosen for the hospital was anything but desirable, and the patients were both anxious and flurried. Good news affected them favourably; but if the news was depressing, many more on those days were added to the list of deaths. They were within constant hearing of the guns, and although they were supposed to be safe at Intombi, yet the shock to the nerves was very trying. The comforts needed for the sick were almost impossible to be had. They were terribly short of all wholesome and nourishing food. They wanted changes of linen and all sorts of comforts. Many of the sick were obliged, for lack of camp beds, to lie upon the damp ground. The nurses were at their wits' end to keep things going at all. The deaths increased daily. The enteric cases became more and more numerous. Relief seemed far off. Despair came nigh, and hope sank very low.

The food both in Ladysmith and at Intombi was now of the worst type. In Ladysmith the bread degenerated to ground mealies of maize. It was quite indigestible, and caused inflammation of the stomach.

Meanwhile Major Strause considered his strange position, and for a time did nothing. Should he or should he not secure Mollie Hepworth on her own terms? Over and over again, when he lay down for a few hours' rest on his hard bed in his miserable hut, his thoughts turned to her; and his passion and desire to obtain her grew so great that he felt he would even give up every chance of ever appearing straight with his fellow-men for her sake. He knew well that if by a few words – words which, in spite of himself, must give his position away – he did what she required, she would be true to her promise. She would become his wife, and neither reproach him nor bring up his ugly past to him. She would be, what he had always hoped, his faithful and true wife. He felt certain he could make her love him. He did not believe love so great as what he called his feeling for her could be unreturned. She would forget Keith, and give up her entire life to him. And yet again, when daylight broke and he moved amongst his brother officers, he felt that Mollie's conditions were beyond his strength. If he had hated Keith before, the bare mention of his name was enough to madden him now. He was torn between the desire to obtain Mollie and the terror of humiliating himself. He was weak, too, from many hardships, from sundry small wounds, and from insufficient food.

Kitty was confined altogether to her room. She was not ill enough to go to hospital, nor was there any hospital for her to go to, and Katharine was absorbed with her. Captain Keith avoided Strause, and went moodily about his duties. He was often seen wending his way to Observation Hill. He often consulted the heliograph. He would come gravely back, his face more sallow day by day, his step more languid. Major Strause learned to watch for him. Although he hated him, he could scarcely now endure himself except when Captain Keith was in sight. Mollie's absence from Ladysmith made it altogether a terrible spot to both the men who loved her. Yes, they both loved her, each after his own fashion; but Keith's love was unselfish, Strause's the reverse.

Keith now called daily to see Kitty. He went to her room when she was well enough, and sat by her bedside and talked to her cheerily. The little girl answered him in her gentlest fashion. She no longer showed the unworthy terrors which had possessed her on her arrival at Ladysmith. She expected very little, and did not talk as much as formerly about her future. It did not seem to Kitty now that anything mattered. She had to a great extent given up hope. With the absence of hope she became gentler and more bearable – less selfish too. She seemed to have got untold relief from the absence of Mollie. It was impossible for Captain Keith to go very often to Intombi. That he did go from time to time she knew, but now she could rest happily in the knowledge that he was not visiting Mollie daily. In his presence she was very patient, and no longer grumbled. Some of his old love for her returned. He liked to sit with her, to watch her slow-coming smiles, and to talk over matters with Katherine Hunt. He felt very much at home with Katherine, who showed herself a braver and finer woman each day.

Katherine managed to get the very best rations which the beleaguered town could afford for Kitty's use, and she often gave Captain Keith a nourishing meal. He accepted her ministrations without a word. He knew that for Kitty's sake, and perhaps for Mollie's also, he ought not to throw away his life. He was also fully confident that relief would come, sooner rather than later.

"We shall survive this," he said. "Buller is making way, not a doubt of it, and the Boers are only sitting down hoping to starve us out. As long as there is a horse left in Ladysmith we won't be starved."

He had taken quite kindly to his chevral, and tried to induce Kitty to take it. This she would not do. She burst into tears whenever it was offered to her, and in the end Katherine and Keith resolved that she should not be worried to take it. Keith spent almost all his available money in buying eggs and other dainties for the sick girl. Eggs rose to something like four shillings a piece, and even at that they were scarcely worth eating. But Kitty had what few there were to be obtained. Keith had another reason now for liking to be with Kitty and Katherine Hunt. Katherine Hunt had heard nothing of those rumours which were making his life a hell on earth, neither had Kitty. In their presence he could still feel himself a gallant soldier of Her Majesty. He could still look squarely into the faces of these two women, and knew deep down in his inmost heart that they were not ashamed of him. But outside Kitty's sick-room things were otherwise. This was not a time when one brave soldier could be rude to another, but still marked preferences were shown, also marked aversions. Keith was more or less sent to Coventry. Even his own men heard the rumours which were rife about him, and were not quite as obliging and ready to obey his orders as formerly.

One day, about a month after Mollie had been ordered to Intombi, Captain Keith went up to Observation Hill. He wanted, if possible, to send off a heliograph. To his surprise he saw Major Strause coming slowly up the hill. The two met at the top. It was impossible for Keith to turn away. Before he could in any manner make his escape the major called him.

"I want to say a word to you," was his remark. "Don't go. I have something to communicate which will give you both pleasure and pain."

"You don't look very fit, Major Strause," answered Keith. "Is anything wrong?"

"I have been having a fresh touch of fever – a touch of the sun, I suppose. For the last few days I have been in the hospital down here – the Congregational Chapel: a beastly hole – no comforts of any sort; not a decent nurse in the place. I was looked after, if you can call it being looked after, by one or two orderlies. You may be sure I left as soon as I could. Oh what I suffered!"

"You look like it," said Keith.

"General White seems more hopeful," pursued Strause. "He is confident that relief will be ours before long. And have you noticed that the Boers are beginning to trek?"

"No, I have not. Is that the case?"

"Beyond doubt. If you look now, you will see something."

The two men went to the top of the hill, and noticed a long line, more than a mile in length, of wagons, slowly but surely going away from Ladysmith. Then they saw heavy dust clouds. The wagons were crowded with people. They went twining like snakes round the hillsides. They certainly looked like a beaten army in full retreat.

Keith's eyes sparkled. There came a streak of red into his sallow cheek.

"It can't be true!" he said. "We have waited so long for good news that now I can scarcely realize it!"

"It may or may not come," said Strause. "The general is confident. Another good sign is that there is no more horse-flesh ordered for the men, and we are put on full rations."

"Still I can scarcely believe it," answered Keith.

"The next few days will solve all our doubts," was Strause's answer. "But we are not out of the wood yet – by no means. For my part, I want a hand-to-hand fight. I would rather end the thing than go on as I have been doing. It is maddening. Everything has been maddening here lately," he added, with a sneer, and in a peculiar tone.

Keith looked at him. His face, which had assumed a kindly and interested expression while he and the major were watching the great trek from Ladysmith, now stiffened. It turned white.

"To what do you allude?" he said.

"I allude to the absence of the one woman who made Ladysmith bearable."

Keith made no answer. The major looked full at him.

"I did you a beastly wrong."

Keith stared.

"I am going to put it right. I cannot stand these things any longer. I dreaded for a time turning the opprobrium which has been your portion on myself, but I don't care that for a man's opinion any longer. Men live for the women they love, not for other men. I don't care what my colonel or my brother officers think. But I care all God's earth, the warmth of His sun, and the cheer of life for a woman's smile, and I mean to get it."

"Explain yourself," said Keith.

"I can do so in a few words. What was wrong shall be put right. I cannot tell you any more. What was wrong shall be put quite right. That is about all as far as you are concerned."

Keith turned his head away. His one desire was to get past Major Strause and go back to Ladysmith. Strause laid a detaining hand on his shoulder.

"I don't suppose you think well of me," he said, "although I am about to do the hardest thing a man like myself could ever do. I am going to bring myself down in order that you may show in your true colours. And I hate you, Captain Keith, as I hate no other man on earth. It would be a satisfaction to me to put a bullet through you! But there, I am going to put everything right for you; only I don't do it for your sake."

"Why do you detain me, Major Strause? I have urgent duties to perform. I will wish you good-morning."

"You must stay one minute. I am going to be square with you. I am going to do what I do, and you will be right, and I shall – "

He paused.

"Yes?" said Keith. His pulse beat rapidly. There had come a breeze something like health round his stagnant heart, his eyes had brightened, but now a cold and dreadful fear crept over him.

"Look," said the major – he pointed with his hand – "there lies the hospital."

"The Intombi hospital?" said Keith.

"There lies the hospital, and I go there."

"You – you are not ill!"

"If I can go in no other way, I shall pose as a sick man. It can be done, and I go. You would like to know why?"

"Yes," said Keith.

"I will tell you." The major moistened his dry lips. "I am going there to see the one woman who is all God's earth to me. I am going to —kiss her."

"You lie, you scoundrel!" said Keith.

"I may be a scoundrel, but on this occasion I do not lie. I go to kiss Nurse Mollie, and claim her as my promised wife."

"You lie!" said Keith again.

His face turned white as ashes. He trembled. It was with an effort he kept himself from falling. The major smiled at him – a strange smile of triumph. Then, without uttering another word, he strode past him, and was lost to view.

CHAPTER XXV.

STUNNED

Captain Keith slowly returned to Ladysmith. He was stunned: there were a coldness and faintness round his heart; but he walked straight and stiff. Was he to get back his freedom at such a price as this? No; he would rather lie under the blackest cloud all his life. Was Mollie going to force the major's hand, and was his reward to be – herself? The thought was monstrous.

"She does not love him," thought Keith, "on the contrary, she hates him. And yet Major Strause would not have spoken as he did nor looked as he did if there had been no truth in the idea. Men like Major Strause do not suddenly turn into angels, nor humiliate themselves, for mere sentiment. Conscience is not the major's strong point. If he speaks the truth, he has a motive for his actions. Mollie gives herself to him that I may be cleared. It is like her, but I will not permit it."

Keith went straight to the hotel. He inquired for Katherine Hunt. She was in, and he went upstairs to the girls' sitting-room. He had resolved, in his extremity, to take Katherine into his confidence. When he entered the small room, he was relieved to find that Kitty was not there. There were folding doors between the sitting-room and the bedroom, and the folding doors were shut. After a moment they were opened, and Katherine Hunt came in. Kitty was lying on the bed in the other room. Katherine, without intending it, left the doors between the two rooms slightly ajar. Kitty noticed this. As soon as Katherine had disappeared, she raised herself on her elbow, slipped off the bed, and approached the door. She stood on the other side.

"I don't know why I am mean enough to listen," she thought, "but I will listen, come what may. Gavon has been very kind to me lately, but I am not sure of him."

Meanwhile Katherine had given her hand to Keith. She had looked full in his face, and said quietly, —

"Something is worrying you."

"Yes," answered Keith. "I am half maddened. I must confide in some one. No one can help me, unless you, Miss Hunt, will take pity on me."