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

"I should like you to come home; I may have something to talk over."

Mr. Hunt agreed.

"Just as you like, of course," he said. He looked hard at her, and an uneasy sensation stirred within him.

She was the idol of his life; she was all the child he had ever had; she represented everything that made his money valuable. He was a rough diamond – a rough sort of man in every sense of the word. But he was tender, and gentle, and chivalrous to Katherine. He had always been tender and chivalrous to her. He respected her; she was a good girl, and he knew it. He trusted her implicitly. If he had a dread in life, it was that some day she might leave him; she might do what in his opinion all worthy women did – seek a husband and a home of her own. He did not want this. The thought of her marrying did not annoy him, but the thought of her leaving him was almost unbearable. If only he could secure a son-in-law who would be submissive – who would be satisfied to live at home, to share the big house with Katherine and himself – then, indeed, he would consider himself a lucky man. But no such son-in-law had ever loomed across his horizon, and he was not the man to seek one. He was a keen business man, but he could do nothing towards making an establishment for Katherine. His dread now, as he looked into her face, was that a son-in-law of the undesirable sort – a man who would want to take his one ewe lamb away from him – had appeared; that Katherine had found her mate, and was going to leave him.

"For if she does want to go, I can't refuse her," he thought. "Although it break my heart, I can't refuse her anything."

So he went away a little anxious and slightly perturbed. Katherine would not ask him to come home to dinner for a mere nothing.

Meanwhile that young lady thought out her thoughts, and having arranged them compactly and neatly to her own satisfaction, she proceeded to act. She was very sensible, very wise. She was also very clever. From her earliest days she had possessed a talent for writing. She had written smart articles more than once for the different newspapers. She was rather in request as society correspondent to a weekly, which, for the purposes of this story, we will call The Snowball. The Snowball had on several occasions published a series of papers by this young lady, and now Katherine Hunt drove straight to the office in order to interview the editor.

Times were busy for newspaper people. Newspaper proprietors and editors were at their wits' end as to how to shove and push into their papers all the interesting items with regard to the war which were pouring in by Reuters and every other telegraphic agency. The editor of The Snowball would not have seen any other outside correspondent that day; but Katherine Hunt was a valuable contributor to his paper, and he sent a message that he would spare her a few moments. She entered his office in her usual bright, brisk fashion, and came to the point at once.

"I want to make a request, Mr. Henderson," she said.

"What is that, Miss Hunt? We have no room for your special line of work just now; every scrap of available space is required for war intelligence. Where this war will end God only knows! The impression amongst most people is that with a small force we shall bring the Boers to their senses; but I, for one, think that the future of the war is larger, and involves more serious issues, than most of my confrères seem to think. What can I do for you?"

"I called to say that I am going to South Africa on Friday," said Katherine Hunt.

"You!"

"Yes. I want you to give me the proud position of your war correspondent at Ladysmith."

"Miss Hunt!"

"I should make a good correspondent, and will send you the news as direct as I can."

The editor hesitated.

"Our circulation is scarcely large enough to warrant our meeting your expenses," he said then. "I could not pay much for the articles."

"It is not a question of money," said Katherine, rising. "Pay me what you think fair; but the remuneration need not stand in the way. If you decline my offer, I shall go to the office of The Sparrow and make the same proposal to its editor. I should like to write for you, or for some paper, because I should go out to South Africa in a more assured position as a war correspondent. That is all."

A moment or two later Katherine left the office, having got the post she coveted. The editor knew that he would be a madman to refuse so golden a chance.

CHAPTER XIV.

AWAY TO THE WARS

Mr. Hunt came home in good time. Katherine was an excellent housekeeper, and she had the sort of dinner which he loved. Rich as they were, Katherine was not by any means too proud to see after small domestic matters herself. It is true she had a chef as cook, but that did not matter. He and she consulted every morning with regard to the bill of fare. The man respected the girl, and the girl was not unreasonable to the man; they pulled well together. Such was the case with all Katherine's servants. She was free-handed, but firm; she was liberal, not extravagant. They liked her because they respected her, and they respected her because they liked her. The wheels of the establishment were well oiled, and went smoothly. Katherine never parted with her servants except for marriage or ill-health.

The father and daughter now sat down to their nicely-appointed meal. They were alone. Hunt had resisted the temptation to bring home a couple of his own special cronies to dinner. Katherine and her father always dressed in the evening. Katherine's dress was simple and girlish, but her neck was bare, and she wore short sleeves. Hunt, in his immaculate white tie and expanse of shirt front, looked imposing, and even handsome. He was the sort of man who may be described as lion-like. He had a big head and a bushy beard. His eyebrows were bushy also, and his dark, well-open eyes were very like his daughter's. He had a firm, massive sort of appearance altogether, and looked what he was – a John Bull of the old type. During dinner he was hungry and a little tired, and while enjoying his meal he did not talk much. Towards the end of dinner, however, he was sufficiently refreshed to look across the table at his handsome daughter.

Certainly Kate was looking her best to-night – the colour in her face was absolutely brilliant; she did not often have such a mantle of crimson to add to her charms. Her eyes were very bright and very dark, and her lips were remarkably firm.

"There's something in the wind," thought Hunt; "she does not wear that mouth for nothing. What can it be?"

The uneasiness which visited him destroyed his appetite for the rest of the dinner.

"By George," he said to himself, "if she is going to come over me with the news of some impossible marriage, I'll – I'll oppose it tooth and nail."

But as Hunt thought of opposing the child so like himself in all her characteristics, he owned to himself that he would have a tough time before him.

Dessert was placed on the table, and the servants withdrew. The moment they had done so Hunt looked straight across at his daughter.

"Have it out, Katie," he said; "don't beat about the bush. What's up? what's wrong? Why are you wearing your mouth in that particular angle? I know you. You are up to mischief, Katie. But out with it, for any sake! Don't beat about the bush."

"It isn't what you think, father," replied Katherine.

"And how do you know what I think, miss?"

"You are imagining," said Katherine, and she gave a smile which was very sad, and which took on the instant all the hardness, and almost all the firmness, out of her mouth – "you are imagining that I am going to tell you that I love somebody better than you, dear old man, and that I am going to leave you for him. But that's not the case, daddy mine – that is by no means the case."

"Then nothing matters," said David Hunt – "nothing." He took out his large white silk handkerchief and mopped his forehead. "I got a bit of a fright," he said. "I will own it – I got a considerable bit of a fright. You don't wear that mouth for nothing."

"I wish you would leave my mouth alone, father. My lips must form themselves into any curves they like."

"They don't go down at the corners for nothing," said the obstinate old man.

"If they were down at the corners during dinner, they had good reason to be," she replied. "I am not going to do what you feared, but I am going to do something else you won't like."

"You are always doing things I don't like. You are at once my worry and my blessing. I don't like your going out so late in the evening to visit the slums; don't like your having those old women from the workhouse to tea once a week; I don't like your – "

"Don't go on, father. You know you do like me to visit the slums, and you do like the old women to come to tea. And perhaps, father, we might arrange for them to come in my absence. Marshall, my maid, knows them almost as well as I do; and on their day out from the workhouse they have nowhere to go, poor darlings, and they do so love their cup of tea and their chat with me, and to sit in a warm room and look at a bright fire."

Katherine paused abruptly; in the midst of her glowing picture she caught sight of her father's face.

"In your absence!" he said – "your absence! What does this mean?"

Katherine paused for a moment. Hunt jumped to his feet.

"I tell you," he said, "you are not to beat about the bush. You have got something at the back of your head. Out with it!"

"I have a very big thing," answered the girl – "the biggest thing in all my life; and there's no going back on it, father. There's no changing my mind. It's got to be done, and I am not prepared with any special reasons. You've got to bear it, daddy."

"What in all the world have I got to bear?"

"I am going out to South Africa, father, as special war correspondent to The Snowball."

Katherine made her announcement quietly after all. The beating about the bush had ceased. The blow had fallen with a vengeance! As she spoke she rose, and now she stood a foot or so away from her father, confronting him. Her long arms hung at her sides; her slim figure was drawn up to its fullest height; her eyes flashed defiance and resistance into the eyes of the old man. But the hard lips were no longer hard – they trembled. Hunt's face turned from red to white, and from white to red again, and then he put his hand with a sudden gesture over his heart, and sank into a chair.

"Wha – what did you say?" was his first remark.

Katherine repeated her intelligence. Then she said, after a pause, —

"We sail on Friday."

"Whom do you mean by 'we'? I cannot go with you."

"No; you must stay at home and look after the dollars. You were always a dear old daddy, and the dollars are necessary to our existence. I shall want a good few to take with me. 'We' means Miss Katherine Hepworth and myself."

"Who is Katherine Hepworth?"

"A girl I met at Lady Marsden's – a girl I am interested in. She is also going to Ladysmith, and I am going with her."

"But why to Ladysmith?"

"Because a considerable contingent of our army is assembled in that neighbourhood. We go to be in the thick of – the fun."

"Fun, Katherine!"

"Oh, it is only a word, father. It means one thing to you and another to me."

"And you leave me – you absolutely leave me for this?"

"For no slight thing I leave you," said the girl.

"You are of age; I don't suppose I can legally prevent you."

"You cannot. But, all the same, I would ask your blessing before I go."

"You would leave me, really?"

"For no light thing do I leave you, daddy. Our men, the flower of our manhood, are going to encounter a tough time, and every woman who has a spark of womanly feeling in her ought to help them if she can. I am one of the women who can."

"You are not a nurse," he answered. "This is all tomfoolery – mere sentiment. I am surprised at you, Katherine."

"I am not a nurse; but I have got what every nurse does not possess – enormous health, enormous animal spirits, enormous courage – and I won't fail; I will succeed. And oh, daddy, daddy darling, I am going! Yes, I am going on Friday; and you can't – no, daddy, even if you cried to me – even if you went on your knees to me – you can't keep me back."

"Leave the room," said Hunt.

He pointed towards the door. Katherine, who had come close to him, started back.

"What does this mean?"

"Leave the room; I cannot bear your presence just now. I will come to you by-and-by."

Then she saw that she had caused some emotion within him too mighty to be held down. She knew he wanted solitude, and she left him. She went into her little private sitting-room – the one where she had seen Kitty Hepworth that morning – and there she fell on her knees. She did not sob, but she prayed.

In about a quarter of an hour Hunt came in. His face was quite white.

"Let us talk about pros and cons," he said.

Katherine pushed a chair towards him.

"What a dear daddy you are!" she said. "Few would treat my wilfulness as you are doing."

He winced when she said a tender word.

"There's a thing that I want to say," he remarked then, "and afterwards I'll be silent."

"What is it, father?"

"You think you are doing your duty. You are very —painfully modern. The old ideas with regard to 'Honour thy father and mother' are exploded in this end of the nineteenth century. It is a dull sort of task to stay at home with the old man, and it is heroic, and glorious, and grand to step out of your place and go where God knows you may not be wanted. It is a grand thing to make a fuss, and think that you can help, when all the time you are only hindering. It's a mistaken idea of duty, according to my way of thinking. The old man wants you far more than the army wants you. The old man may – break down." He paused as he spoke, and looked full at Katherine.

She clasped her hands together, and her nails were hurting her tender skin; but the colour in her face did not alter, nor did her eyes fall beneath her father's gaze. He gave a quick sigh, and then resumed his remarks.

"God knows why you go, but you yourself think it heroic – you think you will help?"

"I shall help," she answered. "There is a task to be done, and if I do not undertake it, two lives may be ruined."

"Why don't you confide in me fully, Katherine?"

"Because I can't. Up to the present you have always taken me on trust; you must take me on trust now."

Hunt jumped to his feet.

"I have had my say," he remarked. "To me it is the reverse of filial; to me it savours of sentiment, not of duty. But you go, I take it, in spite of my feelings."

"I am sorry, father, but I do go in spite of your feelings."

"Then we will cease to talk over why you go. We have too little time to talk of the way in which you go. You are a rich woman, Katherine."

"I know it, father."

"Since your mother died I have toiled for you; I have added pound to pound, and hundred to hundred, and thousand to thousand – and all has been for you. And if I died to-morrow, you would find yourself one of the greatest heiresses in London. You would have a cool million of your own – yes, a cool million – to do exactly what you liked with. And if I live another ten years, God only knows how many millions you may have. The American heiresses will be nothing to you. And it's money in consols, mind you, as safe as the Bank of England. And I have done it – I, your father, David Hunt."

"There never was such a daddy," said the girl.

"It seems to me that you don't think much of him. But there, I am getting personal, and I don't wish to be that. But you will understand that, as you have made up your mind to do this foolhardy, mad, and reckless thing, you must do it comfortably – you must do it in the best possible way. There is to be no stint, mind you. When you want to draw on me, draw. I will give you a cheque book, and I'll sign every cheque, and you can fill in any amount you fancy. Can I do more than that?"

"No one else would do as much," she said.

"And you will take care of yourself, Kate? you won't run needlessly into risk? you won't try to catch that abominable fever, which they say tracks our armies like the plague, will you, Kate?"

"I will do my utmost to keep well for two reasons: first, because of you – because I want to come back to you; because each single hour I spend away from you, my heart will be drawn and drawn, as if a great pain were pulling me to your side."

"Don't, Kate; you are abominably sentimental."

But Hunt stretched out his big hand as he spoke, and patted his daughter on her shoulder.

"And also I will take care of myself because I honestly wish to live. I wish to do big things if I can; if not, small ones. But anyhow I want to live, and not to die. And I want to make my life as useful as possible."

"Then sit down, and let us go over the list of things you will require," said Hunt.

When Kitty Hepworth came to see Katherine Hunt the next morning, Katherine Hunt told her that she was going with her.

"And you will never know – never to your dying day – what it has cost me," said Katherine Hunt. "Don't keep me now. Go and make your preparations."

Kitty's face, which had been white when she entered the room, grew rosy as the dawn. She rushed to Katherine, clasped her hands, and kissed them frantically.

"You are so big and so strong," she said, "you are as good as a man. And you are going with me! There are no words in the English language to tell you how passionately I love you!"

"Love me as much as you like, Kitty; all I ask is that, you should not be foolish, and that you should keep yourself straight. If you mean to marry a man like Captain Keith, you have great reason to keep yourself straight. And now go and make your preparations. We leave here on Friday; we have only to-day and to-morrow in which to do what is necessary."

Kitty hurried back to Mrs. Keith, and Katherine began the arduous task of getting ready to leave the country in about forty-eight hours. Without unlimited money it would have been almost impossible, but with boundless resources the task was comparatively easy. And Hunt, having given his consent to his daughter's going, suddenly became almost mild and certainly thoroughly amiable on the point.

He insisted on being with her during those two days. He accompanied her from shop to shop, and made, with the marvellous common-sense which always characterized him, and which his daughter inherited, the most useful purchases. It was necessary to take as little luggage as possible, so "condensation" was his favourite word. "Boil down, condense. Do the thing in the most expensive, but also in the tiniest compass," he would say; and he planned the sort of trunks she ought to have, and the luggage which should go into them: and not one single thing which was necessary to the comfort of a girl travelling through an enemy's country did he neglect.

Finally, on Friday morning, the two girls, both bearing the same initials, met at Waterloo Station, en route for Southampton. Hunt was there, and also Mrs. Keith. Mrs. Keith looked broken down and very sorrowful; but whatever Hunt's feelings were, he kept them to himself. Kitty's face was radiant, and Katherine's face was strong. Katherine clasped Kitty's small hand, and bent towards Mrs. Keith, and said earnestly, —

"I will take great care of her. It is a venturesome thing that she is doing; but, on the whole, perhaps she is right."

"Her presence may keep Gavon from risking too much," said the widow; "that fact is my only consolation."

Then the train moved out of the station, and the deed was done.

CHAPTER XV.

THE GIRL HAD KITTY'S FACE

Two girls were standing in a plain, barely-furnished room in the best hotel in Ladysmith. A trunk made of condensed cane was open, and the taller of the two was bending over it and taking out a white muslin dress. She shook it as she removed it from its place in the trunk, and then laid it on a tiny bed which stood in one corner of the room.

"I will put this on," she said; "then perhaps I shall feel cool. I never knew anything like the heat."

"It is the dust that tries me," said the other girl. "See, I put this blouse on not half an hour ago; and look at it now."

The white blouse looked no longer white; it was speckled all over with a sort of red dust.

"It blinds my eyes," said Kitty Hepworth, "and it makes my throat sore. I tasted it on the bread and butter and in the tea we had downstairs. But after all," she added, "it does not matter; nothing matters now that we are safe here."

"We were very lucky to get through," said Katherine Hunt. "They have moved the camp into Ladysmith, and the siege has practically begun."

"You have not heard, have you, whether Captain Keith is here?" asked Kitty.

The words seemed to stick in her throat. She looked full up at Katherine with a pathetic and longing expression in her pretty eyes.

"I don't know. If he is not here, he will be soon. All the forces are to collect in Ladysmith. We are lucky to have arrived safely. Don't let us think of anything else just now."

"I cannot help thinking of him; you know I have come out for his sake."

"I will make inquiries about him as soon as possible, dear. Now, do lie down and rest. Try to have a little faith too, Kitty. Remember how lucky we were to have got here at all. We should not have been able to do it were I not one of the special war correspondents. There was an awful moment at Durban when I thought we could not go forward another mile. Don't you want to see your sister? I am told that she is occupied all day long in the central hospital. I will go over there presently, and tell her that we have arrived."

"She will be very much startled," replied Kitty. "I don't know that I want her to hear anything about us just yet. I am anxious to see Gavon. Oh, if only I could find out something about him!"

"I will find out all I can about him, and also about your sister. Now, do lie down and rest."

"I suppose I must. How imperious you are getting!"

"I said I would take care of you; and yours is a character which must be subdued, or you will get into trouble. Now lie flat down and shut your eyes."

Kitty made a show of resistance, but was, all the same, rather glad to yield to Katherine's entreaties. She had not been an hour in Ladysmith, and she was as tired as a delicately-nurtured girl could be who had gone through a terrible time in the armoured train. She had been frightened on her dreadful journey from Durban to Ladysmith; she had been hot and choked with dust; she had wondered if her life was to be the forfeit of her rashness. But, strange to say, although some of the convoy were killed, the passengers in the train remained unhurt. And here she was now in the midst of the enemy's forces, having come forward, and being unable to go back. She was in Ladysmith, knowing little of the perils and trials which lay before her. She was tired – dead tired; and as she lay with her eyes closed, she thought with a feeling of satisfaction, —

"Not all the tears of every soul who ever cared for me could take me back to England. Did not the men who brought us here in the train say that in perhaps twenty-four hours no one would be able to get out of Ladysmith? Well, we are in – in for everything now – and Gavon cannot be far away."

In a few moments the tired girl fell asleep. Katherine, who was moving softly about the room, drew down a blind, opened the door, and went out. She was anxious to consider the position. She herself would have been more than delighted to see Mollie. She had not yet seen her; but Kitty's description of her sister was very emphatic, and she believed that she would recognize her if they were to meet.

She ran down to the entrance of the hotel, where some officers of the 5th Lancers and the Imperial Light Horse were eagerly talking. They all looked at her with some curiosity, and suddenly a familiar face started out of the crowd. A man came quickly forward, and Katherine found herself shaking hands with Major Strause.

"By all that's wonderful," he said, "what has brought you here, Miss Hunt?"

"What brings many another Englishwoman," was her answer – "a soupçon of curiosity, a soupçon of common-sense, and a soupçon of folly."