as soon as she could get away from newnham the next morning, lucy went to addenbroke's to see nurse brannan. she couldn't get away very early; there was a mathematical lecture at nine o'clock that wasn't over till eleven, and she had to plod, plod through those weary diagrams while her mind was far away. oh, how she hated those problems and riders, and all the dreary, dreary round! she made one or two futile little diagrams on her paper, and then she rubbed them out again, and sat staring at the blackboard, and watching the perplexing white lines come and go while her mind was far away. she was calculating what would happen if the man had died in the night.
[pg 114]
'what would they do with the body? would eric gwatkin expect her to keep the secret, and assist, perhaps, at some mysterious obsequies?' it was with a distinct feeling of relief she saw the duster sweep over the blackboard and wipe all those cabalistic characters away. it was like wiping out the record of her guilt.
lucy shook off the dust and gloom of the lecture-room and ran off to addenbroke's. she really could run a good part of the way. she went across the fens, as less frequented, and giving her space to breathe and think. it was such a blue day, and the fresh green of the year was over the low-lying fields, and the chestnut-tree by the bridge was budding, and the pollard willows that marked the winding course of the river were sallow-gray in the sunshine, and the daisies were in bloom. lucy walked over quite a carpet of flowers; she crushed the little tender pink buds remorselessly under her feet in her hurry to get to addenbroke's.
she had never been to the hospital before, and[pg 115] she was rather afraid to go in when she got there. there were a lot of people coming out with newly-bandaged limbs and white faces, and some children were carried in in their mothers' arms. there were people of all ages, men and women, and little children all with that sad patience on their faces which is born of suffering. lucy was so sorry for the people. she had no idea her heart was still tender; she had rather prided herself on its growing cold and hard like maria stubbs and the rest of the stoics of newnham. there was a tired-looking woman coming up the path with a puny little creature in her arms, with, oh! such a white, white face. its eyes were open, and it was smiling a wan little smile up into the mother's face, and she was crooning over it; she was a poor, weakly thing, and she carried it as if even its light weight were too much for her. lucy turned to look after the sickly mother and the sickly child, and she noticed the child's arm—a lean, puny little arm—had escaped from the shawl in which it was wrapped, and was feebly embracing the mother's waist.
[pg 116]
the sight of that small clinging hand brought a rush of tears to her eyes. there was compensation even here; there was something here between that sickly mother and child—there wasn't much to show for it, only a crooning voice and a wan smile and a little wasted clinging hand—that would last longer than the stoics, that would last 'to and through the doomsday fire.'
strangely softened by this every-day sight, lucy crept up the wide stone staircase to find nurse brannan. she looked so lost that a man going up, a medical student, asked her where she was going, and took her to the ward where miss brannan was nurse.
'i am afraid the doctors are going their rounds,' he said, as he looked in at the door, 'but i will take you into miss brannan's room, and you can wait there.'
he led lucy through the ward—a large, delightful chamber, well lighted and cheerful, and with quite a bank of tall palms and ferns on a[pg 117] table near the door, an oasis of verdure for tired eyes to feast upon.
lucy saw all this at a glance, and she saw also a group of men round a bed, and the nurses standing near, and she crept softly into nurse brannan's room.
she had time before the nurse came to her to see what a nurse's room was like. it was a tiny bit of a room partitioned off the ward, and it seemed all walls and ceiling. there was a little floor room, however, and a big window that went nearly up to the ceiling.
it was not unlike a room in a woman's college, only that there were texts on the walls, and there are no texts on the walls of the stoics.
the occupant of the room must have understood latin and greek, for there were texts in both these languages. there was one text only in our common tongue, and that was over the mantelpiece. it was not an illuminated text, and it had no lovely floral border. it was written in plain, bold characters in black and white: 'inasmuch as[pg 118] ye do it unto the least of these my brethren, ye do it unto me.'
lucy couldn't keep her eyes off those familiar words which she read now in a new light. there wasn't much else in the room to look at. there was a bed that was a couch by day; it was a bed still, though it was past eleven o'clock; nurse brannan had evidently not long risen from it. the room was in the disorder of the early morning, and the day arrangements did not yet prevail. it was as untidy as a nurse's room well could be: the breakfast things were still on the table, and the demure little bonnet and cloak looked as if they had hastily been taken off and thrown on the bed, and a pair of outdoor shoes were lying in the middle of the floor.
while lucy was still noticing these details nurse brannan came in.
she was a little bit of a nurse, with pink cheeks and steady blue eyes and fluffy hair. she was not at all a formidable person.
lucy ran up to her when she came in, and took[pg 119] both her hands. she couldn't ask the question that was on her lips, she was moved out of all sense and reason. the anxieties of the night and the mathematics of the morning, and the lean little encircling arm had moved her strangely, and now she was hardly master of herself.
nurse brannan shook her head.
'he is no better,' she said.
she didn't say it at all sadly. she was so used to such things—to sickness and suffering and death—it didn't move her in the least.
'i have just come back from st. benedict's, and there is no improvement. he has had a dreadful night. they thought at one time of calling up the tutor.'
'and they have not told him yet?' lucy asked, pale to the lips. 'are they going to let him die?'
'they have not told him; they have not told anyone in the college; but i don't know about letting him die.'
'you think he'll get over it? oh, do you really[pg 120] think it possible with that—that dreadful wound he can get better?'
only talking about the wound made lucy sick and faint. she was made of very poor stuff. she would have been no good at addenbroke's.
nurse brannan smiled.
'the wound is nothing,' she said: 'it is not at all serious. he will get better if he is well watched, and they protect him from himself. when the attack passes off he will not be much the worse—only it may occur again at any time.'
'the attack?' lucy said feebly; she was quite at sea as to nurse brannan's meaning.
'oh, you didn't know he did it in a fit of delirium tremens. this is the second time he has had an attack, and he has attempted his life both times. his friends ought to take him away and put him under restraint.'
lucy didn't know what delirium tremens meant; happily she had been spared all her life from such miserable knowledge. she vaguely knew it was a[pg 121] 'possession' of some kind, an awful 'possession' like that which used to seize the men of old.
'you think the fit will pass?' she said.
'oh yes; there is no reason why it shouldn't pass, and then the less they say to him about it the better. it would be well if he never knew; but the scar will remain, they cannot cover up that. there is no reason why he shouldn't be well enough to take his tripos and go "down." the best thing that can happen to him will be to "go down."'
'go down'—he looked very much more like going 'up,' lucy thought, as she recalled the white face on the pillow; but she was immensely relieved by the nurse's assurance.
'and you have seen him this morning?' she said.
'yes; i ran over for a minute directly i got up. i was not up till late. a woman was dying in the ward, and i stayed with her till she died. she did not die till daylight, and then i lay down for a few hours; and i had just time to snatch some breakfast and run over to st. benedict's before the[pg 122] doctors came their rounds. i was only just back in time. i had to throw my things down and put on my slippers—i hadn't even time to put my cap straight. they were waiting for me in the ward when i came back. oh dear! what a mess i left my room in!'
her pretty plaited nurse's cap, that ought to be worn in the most demure fashion, that ought to be as straight as those lines of that detestable blackboard, was all awry, was positively jaunty, and her fluffy hair was quite outrageous. she didn't look the least like a real, staid nurse who is called upon to face death at any moment, and is always doing dreadful disagreeable things. she might have been playing at nursing, only her eyes were steady, and her lips had a great calm about them; they didn't quiver, and tremble, and curl, and ripple with laughter, like other girls.
lucy was almost angry with her for the cool, not to say unfeeling, way in which she spoke of these dread realities—death and suffering. 'she has no heart!' she said to herself as she went back over[pg 123] the fens to newnham. 'nurses are so used to pain that they have no sympathy. i wouldn't be a nurse for the world!' then she remembered the words over the mantelpiece: 'inasmuch——.' was this the secret of that little fluffy, girlish nurse's hardness and endurance?
they don't do very much for other people at newnham; and they do nothing for each other. they positively ignore each other. perhaps this is owing to culture—the higher culture—and it hadn't reached addenbroke's yet.
lucy had written to the tutor of st. benedict's when she got back the previous day, excusing herself, in an incoherent fashion, for not keeping her appointment, and promising to come to his rooms at the same hour the next day.
she knew her way quite well this time, and she was five minutes before the hour she had appointed. the senior tutor's door was closed, and the way was quite clear. there was not a soul on the staircase; there was not a soul in the passage. lucy could not resist the desire to knock at that closed[pg 124] door at the end of the passage, and find out for herself how the man was. she hadn't much faith in that thick-skinned little nurse; she would see for herself.
she knocked at the door at the end of the passage in her futile way, but of course nobody answered. if she had wasted all her strength upon it, it would have been the same thing, as the inmates of that mysterious room only gave admittance to privileged individuals upon preconcerted signals.
lucy hadn't got the secret of that 'open sesame,' and she was turning away. she hadn't got to the end of the passage, when the door really did open and someone came out. it was the bed-maker with a tray. somebody had been having a meal, and she was carrying the débris away. lucy stopped her at the end of the passage, and the two women stood looking at each other—the bed-maker suspiciously, and lucy eagerly. there was no mistaking the anxious eagerness in lucy's eyes.
'how is he?' she asked, more with her eyes[pg 125] than her lips, and she laid her detaining hand on the woman's arm. there must have been some freemasonry in the touch, for the bed-maker softened, and the look of suspicion gave place to one of pity.
'he's quieter,' she said in a whisper, drawing lucy back into the passage, out of sight of the tutor's door; 'but he's been orful bad all the morning. as much as two of 'em could do to keep him in bed. it's a sad pity, miss, and such a nice gentleman—there isn't his fellow in the college!'
the bed-maker sniffed; she would have wept, no doubt, but she held a tray, and it would have been inconvenient, so she sniffed instead, and regarded lucy with a watery eye. she evidently thought lucy was his sweetheart.
lucy took a coin from her slender purse and laid it on the tray. she didn't give it to anybody in particular, she only laid it on the tray, and the bed-maker curtsied.
'will you ask mr. gwatkin if i may come in?' she said—'the lady who was with him yesterday.'
[pg 126]
she didn't give her name, but the woman knew her quite well—every bed-maker in st. benedict's knew her. she wasn't the least surprised at the master's niece taking an interest in one of her gentlemen—the nicest gentleman in the college. she had a tender spot in her withered bosom, under that rusty old shawl, and she was quite flustered at an affaire de c?ur on her staircase.
she toddled back, tray and all, and by a preconcerted signal the door was opened, and she said a few words to someone inside, and then eric gwatkin came out into the passage and led lucy in and closed the doors behind her.
he was looking dreadfully tired, she thought, and there were quite deep lines on his face; he seemed to have aged since yesterday. perhaps it was with want of sleep, but lucy put it down at once to his guilty conscience. she was feeling old herself, years older than yesterday.
'he has had a very bad night,' eric gwatkin said, speaking in a low voice and with his lips twitching, 'such a night as i pray god i may[pg 127] never witness again. you were not praying for us last night. you did not pray for him—for me—when you went away.'
lucy bowed her head; she remembered she had not prayed for these men. what were they to her that she should pray for them?
she had been walking about the passages and frightening pamela out of her wits instead, when she ought to have been on her knees.
the screen had been moved since yesterday; it had been drawn nearer the bed, so that the middle of the room where they were standing was left clear.
'he does not like to see anyone whispering,' eric explained; 'he is very suspicious, and the least thing excites him.'
'you were alone with him all night?' lucy asked, with a perceptible quiver in her voice; 'you have been up two nights.'
'that doesn't matter,' he said, 'i shall have all the strength i need; but last night he was very violent, and—and i thought i should have to call[pg 128] mr. colville. it was a great temptation—i could hardly resist it.'
'oh, why didn't you?' said lucy. 'why do you take all this responsibility upon yourself?'
eric gwatkin smiled. his smile was not the least like pamela's. lucy couldn't help thinking, as she stood there, how it would change pamela's face and take the weariness out of it if she had that smile.
'i don't mind the responsibility,' he said, 'or the anxiety, if i can save him. it would be worse than death to him to have it known. oh, i think you must go home and pray that he may be brought through this, and may be kept for the future. he will need all our prayers.'
'what on earth are you whispering about, wattles? i wish you would speak so that a fellow can hear what you are saying.'
the voice came from behind the screen—an impatient voice, not weak by any means.
'all right, old man; miss rae has come to ask how you are. he saw you yesterday,' he said,[pg 129] turning to lucy and speaking in a lower voice; 'he remembered you quite well.'
'it's awfully good of you,' wyatt edgell said as lucy came from behind the screen; 'i'm afraid we don't look like receiving visitors. old wattles here insists upon making a mess.'
he was lying back on the pillow with a wet bandage round his head, and a basin of lotion and some rags on a chair beside the bed. his shirt was torn open as if in a struggle, and his chest was bare. there was a scarf round his throat, a large silk scarf striped with the colours of his college that concealed whatever was beneath. lying there with his head thrown back and those wet bandages, and his chest open—his splendid manly chest with all the muscles exposed—he looked like a man stricken down with fever, or some head trouble; no one would have guessed what the scarf thrown so loosely around his neck concealed.
'i am so glad you are better,' said lucy softly, coming over to the bed and bending over him;[pg 130] 'you ought to get well soon, you have got such a good nurse.'
'old wattles, yes; he's very well, only he persists in keeping me in such a mess.'
he took the bandages off his head as he spoke, and rolled them up into a ball, and flung them to the other end of the room, where they rolled under a heavy piece of furniture, and wattles, or gwatkin rather, had to go on his knees and fish them out.
'there!' he said, 'that will give wattles an excuse for going on his knees. he has been going on his knees all night. he would be a good fellow if he weren't always preaching and praying.'
he rolled his head impatiently on one side, and flung the pillow after the bandages, and lucy, looking down upon him, saw a dark light in his eyes she had never seen in any eyes before. it wasn't exactly terror, but it was disgust and loathing and impatience.
'i beg your pardon,' he said, 'but there was a creature on that—a toad. i hate toads!' he[pg 131] shuddered as he spoke, and his eyes followed the direction of the pillow. 'it's there now! i wish wattles would put it outside. it's been here all night.'
gwatkin took up the pillow and shook it, and appeared to take something off it, and opened the window and made a gesture as if he had thrown the thing into the court below.
'there, old man,' he said reassuringly, 'it's gone now. it can't trouble you any more.'
and then he brought back the pillow, and lucy put it under the poor fellow's head while he supported it, and she arranged it and smoothed it as only a woman's hand can arrange a pillow.
when she had done this, she put on the wet bandages afresh and bathed his head, and as she bathed it the dark light seemed to fade out of his eyes.
'you are very good,' he said with a sigh; 'you have exorcised that hideous little beast. it is gone now'—and he looked round the room fearfully—'quite gone.'
[pg 132]
'thank god!' said gwatkin. 'your visit has done some good, miss rae, if it has dispelled that hideous nightmare that has been pursuing him all night. i think he will sleep now.'
'i'm sure you ought to sleep yourself,' lucy said, as she suddenly remembered the time and began dragging on her gloves. 'it is quite gone,' she said to edgell, bending down over the bed; 'i am going to pick it up as i go out and carry it away.'
having told this little fib, she went out, and gwatkin closed the two doors after her.
she had to tell another fib or two when she went into the tutor's room. he had been waiting for her exactly fifteen minutes, and he had waited an hour the day before.
she was absent and distrait all through the lesson; she was thinking about the man in the next room, and the creature she had promised to pick up in the court.
the senior tutor had never coached such an unpromising pupil. she would never get through[pg 133] her little-go, he told himself—never, never. she would get plucked to a certainty.
oh, it would never do for the future mistress of st. benedict's to be plucked!
he debated with himself while he was bending over her, and remarking what a dainty little profile it was, and how the little rings of chestnut hair clustered on her forehead, and how clear, how deliciously transparent, was the carnation tint of her cheek, and the shapely curve of her throat—such a little throat he could clasp it with his hand—he debated with himself, as he remarked these quite every-day things that no man in his senses except an old bachelor fellow of a college would have noticed, whether it would not be better to settle the thing at once, and stop all this unprofitable work.
if lucy knew what was before her, she would have other opportunities of fitting herself for her high position besides poring over mathematics, for which she clearly had no vocation.
'i'm afraid you find the work rather hard,' he[pg 134] said with a preliminary 'h'm' and 'ah' to clear his throat. he didn't know exactly how to begin. what comes by nature at thirty is uncommonly hard at sixty. it is like going in again for a hurdle-race, or taking the high jump. he could have done it easily years ago, but he couldn't do it now. he stopped with that preliminary 'ah.'
'yes,' said lucy, 'it is not very easy, but i am going to work eight hours a day. it is more than a month to the exam.; if i work very hard eight hours every day, i think i may manage it.'
eight hours a day for a whole month! she was so much in earnest; and when she lifted her little pale drooping face to his, with just a suspicion of a tear on her eyelashes, he was really sorry for her. he was very near taking her in his arms and kissing away that fugitive tear and settling the matter—he was never nearer in his life.
perhaps it was the best thing he could have done, but he missed the chance, and lucy picked up her books and began to talk about the work she was to prepare for the next lesson.
[pg 135]
'i wouldn't work eight hours a day,' he said; 'you will get through easier than that. i would give an extra two hours to tennis.'
he had never given a man this advice—perhaps it was not needed. he watched her, out of his window, cross the court. she did not happen to pick up the thing by the way as she had promised. her step was less elastic, he noticed, than it used to be, and her face was paler—paler and thinner. she would never, never be young again, and life would never open afresh. there is only one young life, one time of roses, one sweet blossoming time, and it was just a question in the tutor's mind, as he watched lucy cross the court, whether the loss of this were worth all the mathematics in the world.
