Nurse Elisia

“My dear Alison, is this a time for such a subject to be discussed? Pray go now.”

“Oh, very well – till four o’clock, then.”

The young man left the room, and Neil sat down to think, after a closer examination of his father’s state. For Alison’s words had started a current of thought which soon startled him by its intensity, as it raised up the calm, pale face of one who had constantly been at his side in cases of emergency – one who was always tenderly sensitive and ready to suffer with those who suffered, whose voice had a sweet, sympathetic ring as she spoke words of encouragement or consolation to the agony-wrung patient, but who could be firm as a rock at times, when a sufferer’s life depended upon the strength of mind and nerve of the attendant.

Always that face, looking with calm, deep, thoughtful eyes into his, but with no heightening of colour, no tremor in the sensitive nerves of the smooth, high temples; and as he sat there thinking, she seemed to him one whom no words of man, however earnest and impassioned, could stir, certainly not such words as he could speak.

He started from his reverie, which had in spirit taken him back to the hospital where the tall, graceful figure glided silently from bed to bed, and the colour mounted quickly to his cheeks as a faint tapping came at the door, and upon his opening it he started again, for there was a figure, tall and slight, indistinctly seen in the darkness, as if his thoughts had evoked the presence of her upon whom his mind had dwelt.

“It is only I, Neil, dear,” whispered a pleasant, silvery voice.

“Isabel? I thought you were in bed.”

“How could you, Neil, dear!” she said reproachfully. “I could not go to bed and sleep knowing you were sitting up with poor papa. How is he now, dear?”

“Just the same, and must be for some time.” Isabel sighed.

“Neil, dear,” she whispered, “I’ve got a spirit-lamp and kettle in the next room, and as soon as you like I’ll make you some tea.”

“Thank you, my dear. Leave it ready and I’ll make some myself.”

“No, no, Neil, dear,” she said, clinging to him. “Don’t send me away. I could not sleep to-night.”

“But you must, dear. I want you to be rested and strong, so as to come and sit with him to-morrow while I have some sleep.”

“Yes, dear, of course,” she whispered, as she crept closer within the protecting arm round her, and laid her head upon her brother’s shoulder.

“Come, come,” Neil whispered, as he stroked her soft hair, “you must not fret and give way. Troubles come into every family, and we must learn to bear them with fortitude.”

“Yes, Neil, dear, and I am trying hard to bear this bravely.”

She nestled to him more closely, and as he smoothed her hair again and stroked her cheek, gazing down the while at its soft outline, he could not help thinking how attractive in appearance she had grown. “There,” he said at last. “Now you must go.”

“Yes, dear, directly. But – Neil – ”

“What is it?”

“May I talk to you?”

“Of course.”

“But as I used when you were at home and I told you all my secrets?”

“I hope you will, Bel. Why shouldn’t you trust your big brother?”

“Yes; why not?” she said eagerly. “And you will not think me a silly girl nor forward?”

“I hope not.”

“Nor that I should not have spoken to you at such a time?”

“Why, what is the terrible secret, then?” he whispered, as he kissed her tenderly and made her throw her arms about his neck and utter a sob.

“Ah, I see; something about Beck.”

She hid her face on his shoulder, and he felt her nod her head.

“He told me what you said to him, dear,” she whispered. “It was very dreadful at a time like this, but I could not help him speaking.”

“Oh, he told you, eh?”

“Yes, dear, and he told me what papa said.”

“Don’t – don’t talk about it, my child. It seems too terrible now.”

“Yes, dear, it does,” she said with a sob, “but the words would come. Let me ask you one thing, Neil, dear, and then I will not say another word. I wouldn’t say this, only it is so very terrible to me, and it’s all so still and quiet here now in the middle of the night, and it seems just the time for speaking.”

“What is it, then?”

Isabel was silent for a few moments, and then, with her lips very close to her brother’s ear, she whispered:

“Neil, dear, do you feel sure that papa will get better?”

“Yes; I do not think there is any doubt about it.”

Isabel uttered a sigh full of relief, and, leaving her brother, went softly to the bedside to bend down and kiss the sufferer’s brow. Then returning, she nestled close up to her brother again.

He kissed her affectionately, and led her toward the door.

“There, good-night, now,” he whispered, but she clung to him tightly, and he took her head between his hands and gazed down into her shrinking eyes.

“What is it, little one?” he said; and she feebly struggled with him, so as to avert her face from his searching eyes, but she made no reply.

“Why, Isabel, darling, what is it? You have something you wish to say to me?”

“Yes, Neil,” she whispered, “but I hardly like to tell it.”

“I thought you were always ready to tell me everything.”

“Yes, dear,” she said quickly now, and she looked up full in his face. “Neil, do you know what dear papa wishes?”

“I have a suspicion.”

“It was more than a suspicion with me, Neil. But, tell me, do you think now that he will want me to listen to that dreadful Sir Cheltnam?”

“Let’s wait and see, dear,” said Neil quickly. “We must not meet troubles half way. This is no time to think of such a matter as that.”

“No; I felt that, dear, but I think so much about it that it would keep coming up.”

“Leave it now, and we will talk about it another time,” said Neil gently. “You can always come to me, Isabel, and I will try to be worthy of your confidence.”

“Yes, I know that, Neil,” she said quickly; and after kissing him once more she hurried out of the room, leaving her brother to his thoughts and the long watch through the night.

And as he seated himself near the bed, where he could gaze at the stern, deeply lined countenance upon the pillow, his memory went back to early days, when he and his brother felt something akin to dread whenever their father spoke. And from that starting point he went on through boyhood up to manhood, right up to the present, when, after shaping the lives of his children as far as had been possible, his father seemed determined to carry out his plans for the future.

A slight movement on the part of the patient made Elthorne rise from his seat, take the shaded lamp and go close to the bedside, but his father slept heavily, and he returned to his seat to continue unravelling the thread of his career.

A few months back his father’s plans had seemed of no consequence to him whatever. Half jokingly Mr Elthorne had thrown him and Saxa Lydon together, and the bright, talkative girl, with her love of out door life, had amused him. If he must marry, he thought it did not much matter to him who the lady might be, so long as she was not exacting and did not interfere with his studies. Saxa Lydon was not likely to want him to take her into society. She was too fond of her horses and dogs, and if it pleased his father, why, it would please him.

But then came the appointment of Nurse Elisia to Sir Denton’s ward, and by degrees a complete change had come over the spirit of his dream. At first he had hardly noticed her save that she was a tall, graceful woman, with a sweet, calm, saddened countenance which he felt would be sympathetic to the patients; and, soon after, half wonderingly he had noticed the intense devotion of this refined gentlewoman to the various cases. Nothing was too horrible, nothing too awful. The most sordid and repellent duties were unshrinkingly done, and in the darkest, most wearisome watches of the night she was always at her post, patient and wakeful, ready to tend, to humour, to relieve the poor sufferer whose good fortune it had been to have her aid.

Then he had thought it no wonder that Sir Denton was loud in her praise, and a certain intimacy of a friendly nature had sprung up between them, during which he had soon discovered that their new nurse was no ordinary woman, but who or what she was he had no idea, and it seemed was not likely to know, for she never referred to her antecedents.

After a time he had often found himself after some painful episode at a patient’s bedside, wondering why Nurse Elisia was there. Everything about her betokened the lady, and no ordinary lady, and Neil unconsciously began building up romantic stories about her previous life, in most of which he painted her as a woman who had passed through some terrible ordeal, become disgusted with the world in which she had lived, and had determined to devote herself to the duty of assuaging the pangs of her suffering fellow-creatures.

Once he had turned the conversation in her direction when dining with Sir Denton, but the old surgeon had quietly parried all inquiries, and at the same time let him see that he was touching on delicate ground in connection with one who was evidently his protégée. Naturally this increased the interest as time went on, and he found himself taking note of the bearing of the old man toward the nurse.

But he learned nothing by this. Perhaps there was a quiet, paternal manner visible at times on Sir Denton’s part, but on Nurse Elisia’s nothing but an intense look and a display of eagerness to grasp fully his instructions in regard to some dying creature whose life they were trying to save. Nothing more; and her bearing was the same to him, always calm and distant. If ever she was eager, it was in respect to a patient, and, his wishes carried out, she was either watching at some bedside or gliding patiently about the ward to smooth and turn a hot pillow here, gently move an aching head or injured limb there; and after many months Neil Elthorne found, to the disturbance of his mental balance, that he was constantly thinking of Nurse Elisia, while, save in connection with her duties and his instructions, she apparently never gave him a thought.

All these memories came back to Neil Elthorne as he sat that night by his father’s couch. They troubled and annoyed him, and he moved feverishly from time to time in his chair.

“It is absurd,” he said to himself. “One would think I was some romantic boy, ready to be attracted by the first beautiful face I see – Yes; she is beautiful, after all, and that simple white cap and plain black dress only enhance instead of hiding it. And she is a lady, I am sure. But what does it mean? A nurse; devoting herself to all those repulsive cases as if she were seeking by self-denial and punishment to make a kind of atonement for something which has gone before. What can have gone before? Who is she? Why is she there?”

His questioning thoughts became so unbearable that he rose from his seat, thrust off the soft slippers he was wearing, and began to pace the room.

“It was quite time I left the hospital,” he thought. “The work there has weakened my nerves, and made me ready to think like this – caused this susceptible state. Quite time I left. It is a kind of disease, and I am glad I am away before I committed myself to some folly. I should look well – I, a man with an advancing reputation – if I were to be questioned by Sir Denton upon what I meant by forgetting myself, and degrading myself by making advances toward one of the nurses. It would come before the governors of the hospital, and I should be asked to resign. I must be worse than I thought. Too much strain. Incipient nerve attacks previous to something more terrible. There,” he muttered, as he returned to and resumed his seat, “one never knows what is best for one’s self. It was right that I should come away from the hospital, and I am here. Bah! ready in my selfishness to think I am of so much consequence that my poor father was called upon to suffer like this to save me from a folly. Yes; there is no doubt about it,” he added, after a pause, during which he sat in the semi-darkness of the bedroom gazing straight before him into the gloom; “I have been too much on the strain. A month or two in this pure air will set me up again, and I shall go back ready to look her calmly in the face as of old, and treat her as what she is – a hospital nurse. You shall not have cause to blush for your son, father,” he said in a low whisper as he leaned toward the bed and gently took the old man’s hand. “You will have enough to bear without meeting with rebellion against your wishes.”

He raised the hand to his lips, and then tenderly laid it back on the coverlet, bent over the sufferer, and drew back with a sigh.

“It will be a question of time and careful nursing,” he said, softly. “There must be no mental trouble to hinder his progress. We must not let him feel his weakness and want of power, or he will suffer horribly. Only a few hours since, and so strong and well; but by management we can keep off a good deal, and we will. My poor old dad!”

Chapter Seven.

“Join your Ship at once.”

The morning broke warm and bright, but the gloom within the fine old manor-house deepened as the facts became more and more impressed on all these that the master would, if his life were spared, never again be the same.

Isabel came softly into the room twice during the night, so silently that Neil, as he sat watching, did not hear her till she touched his arm. She stayed with him for a time, and as they sat together in those solemn hours brother and sister seemed to be drawn more together than before. Not that there had ever been any gap between them, for Neil, partaking more of the nature of their dead mother than Alison, had always been the one to whom Isabel had clung, and whom she had gone to with her troubles when their father was in his sterner and most exacting moods.

Alison, too, came twice to see how the patient was; but here, somehow, his brother’s manner and words are jarred upon Neil, for there seemed a want of sympathy and a suggestion of Alison’s feeling free and independent, now that the autocrat of their house, hold had been cast down from his throne.

Just before morning, too, Aunt Anne had been in, ready to assert that she might just as well have sat up and kept her nephew company, for she had not slept a wink, her eyes stubbornly refusing to support her declaration, for they looked as if they had been tightly closed for hours.

As the morning progressed, and the injured man still lay in a stupor-like sleep, visitors and messengers arrived with inquiries about his state.

Beck was one of the first, and he came in the hope that Isabel would contrive to see him for a few minutes. He was not disappointed, for he had not been seated many minutes before Isabel came into the drawing room quite by accident, to fetch some work left on one of the chairs, and in an instant her hands were clasped in those of the young sailor.

“No, no!” she cried excitedly. “You know what papa said.”

“Yes,” he said earnestly; “and it would be cowardly and mean of me to take advantage of his lying there helpless. See, I will try and act like a gentleman,” – he dropped her hands – “I only want to tell you, Isabel, that, come what may, I shall keep to my course. Some day, when he is well again – ”

“Then you think he will get well?” she cried eagerly.

“Yes; why not?” responded Beck. “I say, some day, when he is well again, he may alter and not be so set against me, and I am going to wait till then.”

“Yes,” she said with a sigh.

“I am not going to doubt you for a moment, Isabel. I don’t think, after all these years, you could turn from me; and when your father sees really what is for your happiness, he will, I believe, relent.”

Tom Beck had no opportunity to say more, for just then Aunt Anne bustled into the room.

“You, Mr Beck?” she said. “Why, I thought it was your father.”

“He is going to try and get across, by and by, in the invalid chair. He is not up yet, and honestly I do not think he is fit to leave his bed; but he says he must, and he will.”

“Poor man!” sighed Aunt Anne. “Oh, dear me, Mr Beck, what a deal of – Isabel, my dear, don’t wait.”

“No, Aunt,” said the girl quietly; and then, to herself, “Papa must have told Aunt Anne not to let me be along with Tom, or she would not have spoken like that.”

Then aloud —

“Good-bye, Mr Beck;” and she held out her hand, which was taken for a moment and then dropped, as she turned and left the room.

The vicar’s son had hardly left the house an hour when Sir Cheltnam rode over to make inquiries, and was leaving his card, when Alison came into the hall and went out on the steps to speak to him.

“Can’t ask you in,” said Alison. “The governor’s very bad.”

“Got a doctor down from London, haven’t you?”

“We’ve had one in consultation, but he has gone back.”

“But our doctor here is not attending him, for I met him, and he was asking about it, and thought it rather strange that he had not been sent for.”

“Humph! You see, my brother is attending him.”

“Oh!” ejaculated Sir Cheltnam. “Well, it’s no business of mine, but if anything happened to the old man it wouldn’t look well, and people would talk about it a good deal. I say, isn’t your brother rather disposed to ride the high horse?”

Alison winced.

“What do you mean?” he said rather roughly. “Oh, nothing much. A bit haughty with me, as if he did not approve of my pretensions. Coming the elder brother a bit, and I’m getting nervous as to what it is going to be now your father is down.”

“Oh, it is only Neil’s way,” said Alison sulkily. “And you don’t seem much better. If you came over to my place, I should ask you in, and call a man to take your horse.”

“How can I ask you in at a time like this?” said Alison apologetically.

“Easily enough, and take me into the drawing room. How is Isabel?”

“Broken-hearted, nearly. This came about directly after the governor had given Tom Beck his congé.”

“Then he had done that?”

“Yes; and the little girl’s a bit sore about it.”

“Cheerful for me!” said Sir Cheltnam.

“Bah! He’ll be off to sea directly, and she’ll soon forget him.”

“Then you think I had better not come in to-day? I’m off, then. Wish the old man better. I’ll come on again to-morrow to see how he is. I say, tell Isabel I called and was in great trouble, and that sort of thing.”

“Oh, yes; all right,” growled Alison.

“Pleasant sort of a brother-in-law in prospective,” said Sir Cheltnam to himself, as he cantered off.

“Takes it as a matter of course that he is to have her,” muttered Alison. “I’m not so sure.”

He bit one of his nails and watched the visitor till he was out of sight, and still stood at the foot of the steps frowning.

“Even he sees it,” he muttered. “I won’t stand any more of his arbitrary ways. He is only a year older than I am, and yet he is to lord it over me as if I were a child. Why should he take the lead in everything? Is he to do so always? Not if I know it. If all this means that a new king reigns in Hightoft, it is not going to be brother Neil.”

Almost in perfect ignorance of what was going on downstairs, Neil remained patiently watching by his father’s side. Aunt and sister had both begged him to go and lie down, insisting upon the fact that he would be quite helpless at night, and that it was his duty, so as to be ready to watch again, but he only smiled.

“My dear Aunt,” he said at last to that lady, who was greatly agitated in his behalf, “a doctor grows used to watching by his patient’s bedside, and gets little snatches of sleep which refresh him. Believe me, I am not a bit tired.”

At that moment Isabel entered the room with a telegram.

“For you, Neil, dear,” she said.

“It has been opened.”

“Yes, dear, Alison opened it. He said it must be for him.”

Neil frowned, but said no more, and taking out the telegram he read:

“The nurse leaves town this afternoon. Let a carriage meet her at the station.

“Hayle.”

“Hah!” he said, passing the letter to his aunt. “I am glad of that; it will set me free, and the help of a good nurse at a time like this is invaluable.”

“But shall we be able to trust her?” said Aunt Anne. “My experience of nurses is that they are dreadful women, who drink and go to sleep in sickrooms, and the patient cannot wake them, and dies for want of attention.”

“Oh, Aunt!” cried Isabel.

“I am assured that it is quite true, my dear,” said Aunt Anne, didactically.

“I think we have changed all that, Aunt, dear,” said Neil, smiling. “Sir Denton would not send down any woman who is not thoroughly trustworthy.”

Aunt Anne pursed up her lips, and tried to look wise and full of experience – a difficult task for a lady with her plump, dimpled countenance.

“Well, my dear,” she said, “I hope so; but it always seems to me that the selection of an attendant for a sick man is a lady’s duty, and I cannot believe in the choice made by a man, and such an old man too. But there, we shall see.”

“Yes, Aunt, dear,” said Neil, smiling, “we shall see.”

Aunt Anne was left in charge of the patient, very much to her satisfaction, so that Neil could go down with Isabel for a rest and a little fresh air.

As they reached the hall they met Alison, who came up directly.

“Oh, Neil,” he said, “I opened that telegram thinking it might be meant for me.”

“Yes,” said his brother. “I heard that you did.”

“Quite a mistake I hope you don’t mind.”

“I have other things to take my attention,” replied Neil. “Come, Isabel, let’s have a walk up and down in the fresh air. I can’t stay long.”

He led the way out on to the drive, and, after hesitating for a few moments, Alison followed, frowning, just as the sound of horses’ hoofs was heard, and Saxa and Dana Lydon rode up.

“Well, how’s the dad?” cried Saxa boisterously. “Going on all right? Glad of it. You boys are making too much fuss over it. Nature soon cures a fall. It isn’t like a disease, is it, Doctor?”

“It’s of no use to ask him,” said Dana merrily. “He’ll pull a professional face, and make the worst of it, and then by and by, rub his hands and say, ‘There; see what a clever fellow I am.’”

“Yes,” said Saxa maliciously, “when I could have set him right with some embrocation and a bit of flannel bandage.”

“Glad the old man’s better,” cried Dana. “Here, you people look white and worried. Order out the horses and come for an hour’s ride.”

“Would you like to go, Isabel?” asked Neil.

“I? Oh, no,” cried the girl hurriedly.

“What a baby you are, Bel!” said Saxa contemptuously. “You’ll come, Neil?”

“I should like a ride,” he replied, “but it is impossible to leave home.”

“Next time I ask you there will be a different answer,” said the girl sharply. “Don’t ask Alison, Dan,” she continued, turning to her sister. “He is going to be a good boy too, and stop and see his papa take his barley-water.”

“Is he?” said Alison gruffly. “Perhaps he was not going to wait to be asked. There is no occasion for me to hang about at home, Neil?”

“N-no, I think not. You can do nothing.”

“I’ll be ready in five minutes, then, girls.”

“Here, we’ll come round to the stables with you,” said Saxa. “I want to see The Don. Is he any the worse for his fall?”

She said this as she rode on beside Alison, her sister following, without any further notice of Neil and his sister, while the former stood looking after her, frowning.

“And I thought of marrying that hoyden!” he said to himself. “It is impossible. We have not a sympathy in common.”

Then the thought of his father’s expressed wishes came back, and of his lying there helpless. He had made no opposition when the matter had been spoken of last. How could he draw back now?

His heart sank low as he looked into the future with a kind of wonder as to what his future life would be bound up to a woman like that, and a feeling of anger rose within him at his weakness in letting the affair drift on so far.

“It is impossible,” he thought. “She does not care for me. It would be madness – a sin against her and against myself. Yes!” he said aloud with a start, for Isabel had laid her hand upon his arm.

“There is something the matter,” she said quickly.

Neil turned to hurry into the house, but his sister held him fast.

“No, no, dear. Tom is coming. Mr Beck must be worse.”