Part 15

'Yes, but I've found the date,' and then all will be harmony and love. No one could be angry with a person who had found the date 1570.

I have to get up so desperately early in the morning. Nannie is horrid about the whole thing, refuses to call me or help me dress, says she is sure Master Michael won't approve and that she's not going to have any hand in it. However, 1570 consoles me for much, though everything else is rather beastly.

So on Tuesday I went to the hospital. It was a vile morning, blowing half a gale and raining. It took me so long to get into the unaccustomed clothes without Nannie that I had to run most of the way to avoid being late.

If you were outside a place and wanted to get in, what would you do? Ring the front door bell, of course, you say. Well, that's what I did, but it wasn't right, quite wrong, in fact. The person who opened the door to me seemed to think I must be dotty. I ought to have gone to the back door and taken off my hat and coat in a kind of mausoleum in the yard. By the time I had rectified all these mistakes it was a quarter past eight. I didn't know how the veil ought to be worn either, so I put it on as the nurses did in Ross's hospital in London, which turned out wrong, for when I went to matron for my orders, she snapped,--

'Washing up--you're not an army sister yet, and no use at all to me unless you're punctual.'

I could see that she meant something horrid, but couldn't think what, and I blushed and stammered like a school child. There was a nice girl in the scullery who came behind the door and altered my veil and tried to console me by saying,--

'Matron isn't a bit like that usually, only she's absolutely overdone, as we all are.'

Then I started washing up. They had had kippers for breakfast, and I had no idea that they were so disgusting cold, or how impossible it was to prevent water going over one's feet when one emptied a big panful down the sink. By the time I had been at it an hour I was soaking, I could feel it on my skin, and the floor was all awash. A diver's costume would have been really useful. The girls who had been there for months thought I was such a fool. (They do not suffer fools gladly in a military hospital!) They were quite polite, of course, that's why it was so hard. I'm not used to people being polite to me.

The only person who was really decent was the charwoman, who was also new that morning, so perhaps she had a fellow feeling. She did not, however, seem to be quite clear as to what a V.A.D. was, for she said,--

'Oh, duckie, you are wet; new at it, ain't you? Why don't you buy yourself a mackintosh apron? I did in my first place, they aren't expensive.'

Later on, when I had dried up a bit and was cleaning a saucepan with great vigour, she said,--

'Nice 'elp you'll be to mother after this, duckie.'

I was very bucked at that remark. It's nice to feel that one person, at any rate, believes you to be young enough to be 'a nice 'elp to mother.'

At 10.30 a.m. the kitchen staff all came into the scullery and sat on boxes and drank cocoa, and ate bread and dripping (I hid the dripping part of mine) while the orderly and boy scout had theirs in the kitchen. After cocoa I helped with the potatoes and then cleaned saucepan lids. Then I washed up the men's dinner things. They had had Irish stew and suet pudding. Have you ever washed a pudding cloth? My last job was the pig pail! In the happy past when I have gone and loved the little pigs at Uncle Jasper's I never knew there was a pig pail. Ours stands outside the backdoor in the yard. It's rather like a domed cathedral; into it you scrape the kipper skins and bits of bread and fat and apple cores, and things like that.

I can do it now without active sickness. By the end of the week, perhaps, I need not shut my eyes or hold my nose.

But my hands are disgusting. My finger-nails are in deep mourning and the grease will not come off.

On Wednesday I committed the sin that can never be forgiven, for, unaddressed, I spoke to a General in front of matron, and I am to be shot at dawn on Friday.

This is what happened. I was just about to replenish the pig pail, trying to screw up my courage to remove the dome from the cathedral, when round the house came matron in a very starched apron with several extra ramrods down her back. With her was a most splendid brass hat--rows of ribbons, gorgets, gold braid, all complete, and there were several other officers. Picture me standing by the pig bucket--I was not too clean. I hadn't got my sleeves on, my arms were streaked with blue bell, and my cap was slightly crooked. Suddenly I looked at the advancing General, and I said quite loudly,--

'Toby, dear, what priceless luck!'

It was General Sir Tobias Merriwater, K.C.B., D.S.O., M.D., F.R.C.P. All I remembered was that I had known him all my life, and never called him anything but 'Toby'.

Suddenly the warm spring day vanished, I was up at the North Pole, or the South one if it's colder, as I saw the matron's face. And then, by way of trying to ease the situation, I dropped the scullery pig pail, showered the kipper skins and apple cores, bits of bread and fat and suet, like rice and rose leaves at a wedding in the pathway of a bride.

There was an awful silence, even the officers forgot to be bored, and looked quite interested. I drew back and wished I could get right inside the pig bucket, and shut down the lid.

'Ah,' said General Sir Tobias Merriwater to the matron, 'you keep pigs?'

'Yes, sir,' said she.

She was very bright and nice to him. (I understand people are always nice and bright to Generals.)

'And this is for them, I suppose. Most commendable, very.' And the retinue passed on.

I picked up all the 'rice and rose leaves,' every bit of it by hand, and then I went and told the girl I work with in the scullery. She collapsed into the coal box, saying, 'You'll be shot at dawn,' when a hand cautiously opened the scullery window and a voice said,--

'I'll be waiting outside the gate when you go home at one o'clock, and if you would kindly hurry I think it would be better, for I'm very much afraid I shall explode.'

So at one o'clock I went outside the gate, whereupon there appeared the unseemly spectacle of the latest V.A.D. hugging the Visiting Committee!

'Oh, Toby, it's such pure bliss to see you. I wish I could shake hands,' I said, 'but I really am so filthy.'

'A kiss of yours is good enough for any man,' said Toby. So of course I kissed him, as I always have, and at that moment matron caught us! Somehow, my luck's dead out. However, I felt as I was not on duty I could hug Generals if I chose, and, anyway, I was to be shot at dawn on Friday, so nothing mattered.

So the Visiting Committee came home to lunch with me and stayed to tea, which it hadn't meant to do, and then stayed on for dinner, but it couldn't stop the night, or else it would have. It was delightful to see Toby. When he went he said,--

'Darling, you don't look too frightfully well, are you being taken care of properly? You ought not to be going to that beastly hospital when they've got influenza. You're not strong enough. Do you ever faint now?'

'Never, except once last Thursday.'

But I don't think he heard, for he went down to the car and drove away.

*CHAPTER XXVII*

Ross wired to say that he was delayed till Tuesday, and then came on Saturday after all. I was in the hall wondering why I felt so tired and whether I'd bother to change for dinner, when my brother let himself in at the front door, followed by Brown.

'Why, Ross, this is a surprise. I didn't expect you to-day!'

He had, however, somehow grown deaf during his absence, and merely said,--

'Good-evening, Margaret. See to the luggage, will you, Brown,' and walked upstairs, followed by all the dogs.

'Has anything happened, Sam?' I asked.

'Not in London, miss,' and he handed me the evening paper.

Obviously a storm was brewing, so I decided that it was worth while to dress. I put on my best and latest frock. At dinner I was sparkling, and told my brother all about the hospital in my most vivid style. Somehow he didn't think any of it the least amusing. I asked him then if he wasn't sorry to miss Toby, and he informed me that he had had lunch with him at the club in London.

Ross was, however, quite polite and civil, more so than he'd been for years, but as to rowing me as I had thought, oh, dear, no; he quite obviously was not interested in me at all, the whole subject of the hospital bored him stiff.

I thought I'd see if the date would warm the atmosphere.

'Ross, we've had such an excitement while you were away. We've found the date in the roof, and it's 1570.'

'Oh, really,' he drawled.

After that I gave it up. If 1570 wouldn't melt an iceberg, nothing would, so we adjourned to the hall for coffee, and now there sits on one side of the fire, surrounded by ice and snow fields, something which was once my twin, while I sit on the other writing my novel, trying to get thawed, pretending I don't mind a bit.

I have such a poisonous headache. I feel so funny! I----

* * * * *

For ten days I haven't been allowed to write, not even to Michael, and even now I may only do so for a 'very little while.'

After my headache I remember nothing till I found myself in bed and Ross making up the fire, still in his old dinner jacket. He looked a giant in the dim light, and I called out to him,--

'Why am I in bed if it's dinner time?'

'It isn't, it's eleven o'clock at night.'

'Then why are you here, Ross?'

'You weren't very well, fainted or something naughty, and I'm just going to change and stay with you for a bit.'

'But I don't want any one to sit up with me.'

'Sorry,' said the giant firmly.

'No, but I mean that I don't need any one.'

'The doctor's the best judge of that, Meg.'

'Ross, am _I_ ever the best judge of anything?

'Not to talk till you're better,' he replied.

I said, 'Oh, I shan't be better till I've talked.' So he said I might 'a very little while then.'

'Have I got the bug?' I asked.

'Yes, a minute one, so Nannie mustn't come because of the Gidger; it's nothing to be alarmed about.'

'I'm not a bit alarmed about the bug, only it always frightens me to faint. You won't leave me when I feel like fainting, will you?' I asked, feeling very like it at the moment. Even an iceberg seems a standby when you're going to faint. Then I began to shake and shiver and felt as if I were slipping down a slope, till Ross held me in his arms to stop me sliding down so fast. When I was a little better I said,--

'Oh, don't be angry with me any more.' He was so ridiculous then and teased me, said I must be much worse than the doctor thought, to mind about any one being angry with me.

'But I do mind,' I said.

He was very sweet to me. I can't think how big things can be so gentle.

'Of course, I'm not "angry" with you, darling, only I feel I have so badly bungled things, if you felt it was necessary to go to the hospital without telling me.'

'But, Ross, if you had been here, you wouldn't have let me go.'

'Well, of course I wouldn't when you catch the 'flu every time you meet the bug. Michael----'

'Oh, don't let Michael be angry with me either, I can't bear it.'

'Oh, Meg, I'm sure your temperature must have gone up miles, I shall have to send the S.P. for the doctor, if you go on being "meek." Has Michael ever been angry with you, you little goose?'

'No, except about the being taken care of side of things.'

'Well, don't you see, one must take care of something smaller than oneself. I can't explain, little 'un, only it's in one's blood, and your going to the hospital like that----'

'Hurt you?'

'Well, darling, if you make me say it, yes, a little bit.'

'I wish that I were dead and buried.'

'The bug always makes a chap feel like that, Meg.'

'It isn't the bug,' I answered, and cried against his sleeve. 'Oh, could you stop feeling hurt?'

'It depends how good you're to be in future,' said the giant, grinning. 'Will you do all the things I want you to, the next few days? Will you be a doormat just for once and let me trample on you because you've got the bug?'

'Yes,' I said meekly.

'Oh, my angel,' exclaimed my brother in great amazement, 'I do feel frightfully worried about you, I'm perfectly certain you'll be dead in the morning.'

So the list includes a nurse, no letters till I'm told I may, 'a willing spirit' as to letting the doctor decide when I am to get up, and millions of etcs. When I tell you that I took the whole lot 'lying down,' you will know to what deeps that bug has brought me. So I am a doormat, and Ross tramples on me.

One day Toby came to see me when I was feeling extra specially ill. Ross sent for him, I found out afterwards. And when he went away and Ross came back into my room he said,--

'Oh, Meg, you look heaps better, your eyes are shining so,--why, darling!' For the tears and smiles were all mixed up. But I couldn't tell him why just then, only Toby said he thought the stork might fly into my house again some day if I were careful.

*CHAPTER XXVIII*

The garden has been a place of sweet delights the last ten days. The pear-trees are veiled in bloom, the pink almonds fully out, and the gorse a golden glory. I think my dear Dame Nature comes every night and makes some scent for me. I do not see her though, because I have to go to sleep so early since I became a doormat. But when I am carried down into the garden in the morning the air is warm and sweet, and I lie out under the fir-tree all day long, gradually getting stronger and thinking lovely secret things.

On Tuesday it was so funny and yet pathetic. Sam went before his M.O. and Ross for his last and final Board. He got home first and was tired but radiant, because he had been passed and might expect his orders any day. He was standing by my chair talking to me when the gate clicked and Sam came in, and Ross hailed him as a man and brother.

'Well, what luck, Sam?'

'Oh, all right, sir, passed all right.'

'What priceless luck, Sam; did they pull your knee about a lot?'

'Did a bit, sir,' said Sam, looking very fagged I thought.

'Hurt at all?'

'Hardly at all, sir.'

'If it hurt _at all_ they oughtn't to have passed you,' said Ross, the officer, careful for his men. 'I shall send you back and say that you've been humbugging.'

'I don't think you will send me back,' grinned the Hickley Woods.

'What?' snapped the King's Regulations.

'I'm sure you won't,' said the Hickley Woods again.

'Why not?' demanded the King's Regulations furiously.

'Because you've done the same yourself, Master Ross.' And Sam went into the house quickly, leaving his master gasping,--

'Oh, what a chap!'

* * * * *

And everything is packed, and there is only just the telegram to wait for.

* * * * *

And it has come and he is to go to-night.

* * * * *

And now it is to-night, and he has gone. Oh, it was hard that I was made to go to bed early as usual. It is sometimes very difficult to be a doormat. So he came to say 'good-bye' to me when I had gone to bed.

'Oh, Meg, isn't it just too rotten to miss daddy?' And I agreed it was.

'You will keep the nurse a few more days, darling, won't you? Just till Monday, anyway. I shall feel that much happier about you, if you will.'

So I said I would. I wanted him to go away 'that much happier,' though I would much rather have been alone.

'Feeling pretty well, to-night, little 'un?'

'Yes, pretty well. Ross, darling, I have loathed having you.'

'I know,' he said. 'It's been the most wretched five months I ever remember, and this cottage is appalling. I suppose you couldn't see your way to move into a red-brick villa. Oh, here's your watch, it came to-day.'

'Oh, thank you, I'd forgotten all about it.'

'You'll be able to count the hours now till daddy comes, Meg.'

'Yes,' and I thought that I could also count the minutes till my brother went. I looked at my watch and found it wasn't my old silver thing, but a little gold wrist one set with pearls, and he 'hoped I liked it,' and I said I did. And then he asked,--

'Have I taken care of you nicely for Michael, little 'un?'

I said he had.

'Oh, Meg, I do wish daddy had come. Why does Aunt Constance go and get the 'flu again, just when I wanted her to be here to look after you.'

'I don't know, but I shall be all right, Ross.'

'Why, Jonathan, you're like the old woman that used to amuse you in the village, there's 'Only the Almighty' left to do it.'

And I smiled, but my lips quivered, too, and I clenched my hands. So then he sat down on my bed and said,--

'You needn't be ashamed to if you want to. I know you've got "views" about it, and didn't when you said good-bye to Michael, but a person that has had a bug is not considered to be eternally disgraced if she does.'

So I did, and clung to him a little while, and then he remarked that it was an awful thing to have a sister who had got a bug, so that no one would come and stay with her. Then he kissed me and whispered,--

'I'm not perfectly positive that you aren't safest of all with Him, darling.'

*PART III*

'Acquainted with grief.'

*CHAPTER I*

'I fled Him, down the nights and down the days: I fled Him, down the arches of the years: I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind: and in a mist of tears I hid from Him.' _Hound of Heaven._

Another fortnight has slipped away. I have had one little note from Ross in which he sent me 'all his love,' and now, how can I write the news I have to tell?

Three days ago (ah, what an eternity it seems) I was ordering the dinner, for I am stronger now, and able to do the usual things.

Uncle Jasper and Aunt Constance were due to arrive in time for lunch. Captain Everard was to dine that night, and I had just said to cook, 'Extra good to-night, please, Dulcie, because he is a very special friend of my brother's' when the S.P. came into the kitchen with rather a startled look, and said, 'Captain Everard has arrived already, ma'am.' When I saw his face, I knew.

'It's Ross,' I said. 'So soon?'

Yes, directly he got over. He must have been rushed straight up to the trenches. How can I tell you, Mrs Ellsley?'

'See, I am quite calm,' I said, 'please, tell me just the truth.'

So he told me the little that he knew, how very early in the morning he had received a telegram, (as Ross in his dear thoughtfulness had wished any such news to go first to him and not to me.) He said that Ross was wounded very desperately, and he had come himself to take me to the coast.

'Can you leave here in half an hour?' he asked. 'If that is possible you may see him.'

'Yes,' I answered.

Nannie packed for me, while I got ready. She was very quiet and good, only said, 'My lamb, my lamb, tell him----'

'I will tell him all your eyes say, darling,' and I got into the car.

I do not remember what happened then. I felt nothing. I was numb. I only knew that kind hands passed me on from car to boat, and then from boat to train, and car again, till I stood at midnight in a little room opposite a sister with a tired face, waiting for her to speak.

'Ah,' she said, 'you have been very quick; we hardly hoped to be in time to reach you.' Then she told me that he had been brought in the day before, hopelessly wounded in the body.

'It is a miracle that he has lasted with such appalling wounds; he is only living on his willpower, waiting for you.'

'Is he in pain?' I asked.

'At first, yes, agony all the time, but now there are intervals between the bouts of pain, and at the end I think he will not suffer.'

'But you can keep it down with morphia,' I said quiveringly.

'We did at first, but he dislikes it so, and now the pain is lessening he has refused to have any more because it clouds his mind. He asked for the chaplain a little while ago,' she continued. 'Just before he had the Blessed Sacrament he had a bout of pain and I begged him to let me give him morphia. "No, don't ask me again, sister," he said, and I felt rebuked. But it is not safe to linger--come. I am afraid he may be very exhausted,' she added as I followed her upstairs.

She opened the door of a small, quiet room, and signed to the orderly to go away. Ross was little altered, but his face had lost its colour, and there was a drawn look round his mouth, and his eyes were very tired. He stirred as the door closed on the orderly.

'It's Meg,' he said faintly and smiled. 'How sweet of you to come, how quick you've been, darling.'

The sister gave him a little brandy, which revived him.

'She's been so beautifully kind,' he said, as she prepared to go, then as she went she whispered,--

'Sponge his face and hands after the pain, and give him a little brandy when he is exhausted. I can do no more for him than you can, and he will love to have you to himself. Ring if you want me, I am close at hand.'

I put my arms around him.

'So happy now,' he sighed.

'Are you in pain, my darling?'

'Better,' he answered. 'I feel now like the lady in _Hard Times_, as if there were a pain somewhere in the room, but I'm not perfectly sure that I've got it!'

'Mrs Gradgrind?' I said.

'How well you know your Dickens, little 'un. I always thought that such a funny joke. Don't hold me, darling, you must be so tired. Sit down beside me.'

Presently he said,--

'You might see poor old Sam to-morrow, he's somewhere in the hospital. He wants to marry the S.P.' And he smiled a little.

'Ought you to talk so much?' I asked.

'It doesn't matter when I can,' he answered, 'there are such a lot of things I want to say. That night when we were in the trench Sam said, "If we get out of this alive I want to marry Emma, if you've no objection, sir."

'"Who on earth," I said, "is Emma, Brown?"

'"Miss Margaret's parlourmaid, you know, sir."

'"Oh, the S.P., yes. Well, Sam, why shouldn't you if the lady's willing?"

'"If you've no objection, sir," he said again.

'"You're not by any chance asking for my permission, are you, Sam?"

'"Yes, I am, sir."

'"Well, you have it," I replied, laughing. "I won't forbid the banns, and good luck, Sam, you always were a funny ass."

'"Yes, sir, thank you, sir," he said--you know his funny way, Meg, ah--it's coming--on again----'

And then a bout of pain, and although I loved him so there was nothing I could do but watch and wipe the pouring sweat and pray for God to take him. When it passed I offered him some brandy, but he said,--

'No, keep it for the bad turns.'

Ah, God, was there worse than that?

He spoke of Michael and daddy, and his little Gidg., and sent messages to Nannie and Charlie and one or two others, and then suddenly there was nothing in the world for him again but pain, and I could only watch and wait and pray and agonise.

The sister came in with some milk and food for me, but as I shook my head she, with a glance of pity at the bed, was taking it away when Ross opened his eyes and signed for her to leave it. He let me sponge his face and hands but 'No, no brandy, just a little water.'

'Is it too hard for you, Jonathan?' he whispered as he saw that the glass trembled a little. (Too hard for me? ah, Ross, always yourself last), and, choking back the tears, I told him 'No.'

Presently, when he felt a little easier, he opened his eyes and said, 'Eat your supper, darling,' but as I shook my head he added, with a flash of his old mastery,--

'Just the milk, little 'un. I must send you away if you don't. Sit where I can see you, there by the fire. I told nurse you liked one at night, you always felt so chilly.'

I drank the milk to please him, and ate a bit of biscuit as he lay and watched me. Then as I crossed the room to kiss him he said,--