AGAINST HIS WILL.
“I beg your pardon for disturbing you, but I think you must belong to
the British Mission to Ethiopia?”
The speaker was a hot and dusty lady, mounted on a sorry pony, who had
halted in front of the hotel at Bab-us-Sahel, the port of Khemistan,
in which Sir Dugald Haigh’s party were quartered. Dick North, who had
been reclining in a cane chair on the verandah, with a cigar and a
wonderfully printed local paper, jumped up when he heard the voice.
“I am a member of the Mission,” he answered. “Can I do anything for
you? I am sorry that Sir Dugald Haigh is out, but perhaps you would
prefer to wait for him? Won’t you come in out of the sun?”
“Thanks,” said the lady, dismounting nimbly before he could reach her,
and giving the bridle to a youthful native groom who had accompanied
her, “but I need not trouble Sir Dugald Haigh. Please tell me whether
it is true that there is a lady doctor in your party?”
“Yes. Miss Keeling is her name.”
The lady uttered an exclamation of delight.
“Oh, that is just splendid! I must see her at once, please. My name is
Guest; she will remember me if you tell her that Nurse Laura is here.
I was a probationer at the Women’s Hospital when she was house-surgeon
there, and we knew each other well. Please ask her to see me at once:
it is a matter of life and death.”
Drawing forward a chair for the lady, Dick departed on his errand, and
returned presently with Georgia, who had been resting in her room
after a long ride in the morning. Miss Guest jumped up to meet her.
“Oh, Miss Keeling, it is such a relief to find you here! I want you to
come with me at once, to see a poor woman who is most dangerously ill.
I will tell you about it while you get your things together. There is
not a moment to lose.”
The two ladies vanished round the corner of the verandah, and returned
in a few minutes, Georgia wearing her riding-habit and carrying a
professional-looking black bag.
“Would you be so kind as to tell them to put my saddle on a fresh
horse for me, Major North?” she said, briskly. “I am afraid we are
losing time.”
“What is it you are proposing to do?” asked Dick, after calling one of
the native servants and giving him the order.
“Miss Keeling is going to ride out with me to our summer station,”
explained Miss Guest, volubly. “Missionaries are not permitted to
reside in Khemistan except in Bab-us-Sahel itself, you know, but the
Government allows us to rent a small house in a village five miles off
for the hot weather. This poor young woman is the wife of one of our
native converts there, the son of the principal landowner.”
“But do you mean that Miss Keeling is to ride five miles in this heat,
when she is tired already?” demanded Dick. “It is preposterous!”
“I should not think of asking her to do it if it was not so
important,” said Miss Guest. “You see, I have ridden all the way in,
and I am going out again with her.”
“You will be down with sunstroke to-morrow,” said Dick to Georgia.
“Wait until it is a little cooler, and I will hunt up some sort of
cart and drive you out.”
“We can’t afford the time,” said Georgia.
“No, indeed,” said Miss Guest; “I scarcely dared to come away myself.
Happily, I was able to leave dear Miss Jenkins with the poor woman.
She has such wonderful nerve! I believe she would have attempted the
operation herself if only we had had the proper appliances.”
“It is a very good thing you had not,” murmured Georgia, grimly.
Dick glanced at her, hoping that she was giving way.
“Headlam will be back in another half-hour,” he said. “He has had
plenty of experience, and he will be delighted to go out and see the
woman.”
“Oh, but you don’t know Khemistan,” said Miss Guest, quickly. “Surely
you must have forgotten that a gentleman would never be admitted into
the women’s apartments.”
“I thought you said the people were Christians?” said Dick, taken
aback.
“The husband is, but the wife has not been baptised, and is still in
her father-in-law’s house. They are most bigoted people, and regard
this as a kind of test case. Every one has been dinning into the poor
young man’s ears that his wife’s illness is a judgment upon him for
becoming a Christian, and his faith is beginning to waver. ‘What can
these Christians and their Christ do for you?’ they ask him. He is
terribly tried, and though Miss Jenkins and I have done everything we
could think of for the poor girl, it was no good. Then we heard of the
arrival of the Mission, and it suddenly flashed into my mind that I
had seen something in a paper from home about a lady doctor who was to
accompany it, and I rode over here at once, and found Miss Keeling, of
all people. It was a real answer to prayer,” and Miss Guest’s voice
faltered, and the tears rose in her eyes.
“Oh, when are they going to bring that horse?” said Georgia,
impatiently.
“I hear it coming now,” said Dick. “But let me drive you over, Miss
Keeling; it won’t be so fatiguing for you, and I am sure I can borrow
a cart from some one very soon.”
“I can’t lose another minute,” said Georgia. “No, thank you, Major
North, we must not wait.”
“But just tell me when you are likely to be ready, that we may send a
carriage to fetch you.”
“I can’t tell. These cases vary so much. I shall probably be obliged
to remain at the village all night.”
“But this is absurd! You are throwing away your health. What does this
woman signify to you?”
“It is my professional duty to attend any one who summons me,” said
Georgia, giving him an indignant glance; “even if there were no
special reasons connected with this case.”
[image: images/img_02.jpg
caption:
“It is my professional duty to attend any one who summons me,” said
Georgia, giving him an indignant glance.]
“Well, if you will do these ridiculous things, I can’t help it!” said
Dick, angrily. “I suppose you will have your own way.”
“I think it extremely probable that I shall,” retorted Georgia. “No,
thank you, I won’t trouble you--I can mount alone.”
With an intensity that would have seemed laughable to himself under
any other circumstances, Dick longed that she might find the feat
impracticable; but she beckoned to the groom to bring the horse to the
verandah steps, and, mounting with great agility, rode away with Miss
Guest, who had been staring with round eyes at the “horrid sneering
officer,” as, after this day’s experience, she persisted in
denominating Dick.
As for Dick himself, he shrugged his shoulders as he looked after the
two ladies, and went away to Stratford’s room to relieve his mind.
Stratford, who was lying on his bed reading, looked up in surprise as
he entered.
“I thought I had left you comfortably established on the verandah?” he
remarked.
“I was driven away by an invasion of the Amazons,” said Dick,
gloomily, taking a seat on the table, where he smoked in silence for a
few minutes. “If there is one kind of creature I bar and detest above
all others”--he burst out suddenly--“it’s the New Woman!”
“Have you met one?” inquired Stratford, with deep interest. “I always
thought it was a case of ‘much oftener prated of than seen?’”
“There’s no need to go about looking for specimens,” returned Dick.
“We’ve got one with us, worse luck!”
“You have been getting the worst of it in an argument again, haven’t
you?” asked Stratford, genially.
“What in the world has that to do with it? I don’t want any of your
chaff. It ought to be made penal for any woman to enter any trade or
profession practised by men.”
“Good gracious! would you add the attraction of forbidden fruit?
Still, I don’t say that your plan isn’t worth considering. The penalty
would be death, I suppose, and it might redress the inequality of the
sexes a little.”
“Oh, hang it all, Stratford!” cried Dick, flinging away his cigar,
“I’m serious. It makes me perfectly sick to see these women parading
their independence of men, and glorying in what they know, and ought
never to have learnt. It’s bad enough when they are strangers, and you
don’t care a scrap about them, but when it comes to a girl you’ve
known----”
“Better not go on, old man,” said Stratford. “You may say more than
you mean, and be sorry for it when you are cooler.”
“I can’t help it. I know I’m safe with you. Now I put it to you: can a
man be cool when he sees a girl he knew years ago--his sister’s
friend--turning into one of these unsexed women, of whom the less that
is said the better? One would rather see her in her grave!”
“You are a little out of sorts,” said Stratford, with imperturbable
calmness, “and you are making mountains out of molehills. I won’t
pretend not to know what you are driving at, but I do say that I think
you are using most unwarrantable language---- Hullo! who’s there? Come
in.”
This was in answer to a knock at the door, which opened immediately,
and admitted Fitz Anstruther. The young fellow’s hands were clenched
and his face flushed, and it was apparent to the two men that he was
hard put to it to restrain an outburst of furious passion.
“I wasn’t listening,” he said, hastily, “but I couldn’t help hearing
what you were saying. These beastly rooms----” He broke off suddenly,
and his hearers, perceiving that the side walls only reached within
some six feet of the roof, realised that their conversation must have
been audible to any of their neighbours on either side who chanced to
be in their rooms. “But that’s neither here nor there,” he went on. “I
heard you blackguarding Miss Keeling’s name in the most shameful way,
and I am not going to listen to it.”
“I was not aware that we had mentioned the name of any lady,” said
Stratford. Fitz was taken aback for a moment, but recovered himself
speedily.
“It wasn’t you, it was Major North,” he said, glaring at Dick. “He
mentioned no names, but if he can assure me he wasn’t speaking of Miss
Keeling, I’ll apologise at once. You see? I knew he could not do it.
Now look here, Major North--you are my superior, and I know you can
ruin me if you like, but I won’t hear Miss Keeling spoken of in that
way.”
“Your hearing what you did was quite your own affair,” said Dick,
coolly. He had an enormous advantage over Fitz, for the sudden attack
had restored him to his usual calmness, but the boy did not flinch.
“I know, but I can’t help that. You may be sure I wouldn’t have
listened to it of my own accord, but when you talked as you did, it
naturally forced itself on my hearing, and a nice hearing it was! Miss
Keeling has no one here to look after her, and if you are cad enough
to take advantage of that, I’ll do what I can. If you dare to say that
she isn’t every bit as good and as gentle as your own sister, I tell
you to your face you’re a liar.”
“Anstruther!” cried Stratford, sitting up suddenly, “do you know what
you are saying? For your own sake and the lady’s be quiet.”
“I can’t help it,” repeated Fitz. “Miss Keeling has been awfully kind
to me, and I’m not going to hear her insulted. You can do what you
like, Major North. If you want to fight, I’m ready.”
“Young idiot! who wants to fight you?” growled Dick, lounging to the
door with his hands in his pockets. “I didn’t know you were going to
hold a levée, Stratford. I think I’ll leave you to train the young
idea for a little.”
“You haven’t answered me,” said Fitz, doggedly, barring his passage;
but Stratford interposed again.
“Have the goodness to sit down on that chair, young Anstruther. I want
a straight talk with you.” The boy obeyed sullenly, and Stratford went
on. “As you are in my department, I suppose it falls to me to ask you,
now that North is gone, whether you think you have done a very fine
thing?”
“I don’t think about it at all,” was the uncompromising response, “but
I know I should have been a cad not to have done it.”
“Let us just consider what it is you have done,” said Stratford. “You
hear North and myself engaged in private conversation, and you thrust
yourself into it uninvited.”
“If it had been private I shouldn’t have heard it,” retorted Fitz.
“Well, it was intended to be private, at any rate. Couldn’t you have
gone away, or have let us know that you were listening?”
“That’s what I would have done, certainly, if it hadn’t been for what
North said. I couldn’t stand that.”
“No? and you felt bound to come in and tell us so. Now, Anstruther, I
am going to speak to you as a friend. When you are a little older, you
will know that men of the world--gentlemen--are not in the habit of
bringing the names of ladies into a discussion. If they differ in
opinion on some subject of this kind, they contrive to quarrel
ostensibly about something else.”
“And you would have me let Major North say the vile things he was
doing about Miss Keeling for all the hotel to hear, and yet pretend to
take no notice?”
“Allow me to remind you that North mentioned no names. Any listener
could only at best have made a guess at the identity of the lady in
question, until you came in and published her name.”
Fitz’s face was turning a dull red, and he said nothing. Stratford saw
his advantage, and followed it up.
“You ought to be very thankful that there are so few people about just
at this time. If the place had been full, you might have done terrible
harm. It would have been quite possible to remonstrate with North on
general grounds, if you felt called upon to do it, without mentioning
any names or calling anybody a liar, but to march in and identify a
particular lady as the one of whom these things had been said, was
unpardonable. So was the way in which you did it. Of course, I don’t
know what your ideas as to duty and discipline may be, but it does not
seem to me your business to reprove North at all.”
“I wouldn’t have done it, except in this case,” said Fitz, eagerly. “I
know he has led a rough life, and I can put up with a good deal from
him, but when it comes to behaving like a cad to a lady, I had to
speak.”
“And who gave you the right to make excuses for your superiors, or to
bring accusations against them?” demanded Stratford, in a tone which
made the youthful censor shake in his shoes. “I think you have
forgotten the position North holds, and the way in which he gained it.
Any man in Khemistan would laugh at you if you told him that Dick
North had been rude to a lady. He is one of the most chivalrous
fellows that ever breathed. You may not know that when Fort
Rahmat-Ullah was relieved, and the non-combatants conducted back into
safety, North gave up his horse to a Eurasian clerk’s wife who had a
sick child, and walked all the way himself.”
“I can’t make it out,” said Fitz, hopelessly.
“You see that it doesn’t do to judge a man merely on the strength of a
momentary impression, then? Well, I will tell you in confidence what
really happened this afternoon. It was this very chivalry of North’s
which got him into trouble. You know that the lady of whom mention has
unfortunately been made is very independent, and I gather that she
persisted in refusing all North’s offers of help in some business or
other. That hurt his feelings, and he came to my room to have his
growl in peace, with the result you know. I don’t say he was right,
but I do say you were wrong.”
“I’m awfully sorry,” said Fitz. “I will apologise, Mr Stratford, if
you say I ought.”
“I don’t think it is advisable to make more of the matter. I will
undertake to convey your sentiments to North, if you like.”
“Thank you; and perhaps I had better apologise to Miss Keeling too?”
“No!” Stratford almost shouted. “How old do you consider yourself,
Anstruther? Twenty? I shouldn’t have thought it. Your ideas are what
one might expect of a boy fresh from a dame’s school. You must learn
never under any circumstances to trouble a lady about any affair of
the kind. I really did not expect to have to undertake infant tuition
when I started on this journey. If you have made a fool of yourself,
don’t go and make things worse by worrying Miss Keeling.”
“I’m awfully sorry,” murmured Fitz again. “Thank you for what you have
been telling me, Mr Stratford. I wish I hadn’t said what I did to
Major North, and yet I know I should do it again if I heard him
talking like that, and I feel I ought to do it too.”
“Your ideas are mixed,” said Stratford. “You had better go away and
think things out a little by yourself,” and Fitz departed obediently.
Georgia did not return to the hotel again that evening. Dick, appealed
to by Lady Haigh as the member of the party who had last seen her,
said that he believed she had gone out into the country with some lady
missionary or other, and might not be back until the next day. The
news drew from Sir Dugald a mild lamentation to the effect that he
really thought they had done with missionaries when they left Baghdad,
a remark for which he received a reproof from Lady Haigh afterwards in
private.
“I wish you would not say that kind of thing before these new young
men, Dugald. They don’t know how kind you were to the missionaries at
Baghdad, and they may think you mean it,” a charge to which Sir Dugald
offered no defence. It was by means of rebukes of this kind that Lady
Haigh kept up the fiction dear to her soul that she ruled her husband
with a rod of iron, and guided him gently into the paths it was well
for him to take; whereas those who watched the pair were of opinion
that Sir Dugald’s was emphatically the ruling spirit, and that his
mastery in his own household was so complete that he could afford to
allow his wife to think otherwise without making any protest.
In spite of Dick’s careless and positive words to Lady Haigh, it might
have been observed that he lingered on the hotel verandah later than
any one else that night, and that he appeared there again at a most
unearthly hour in the morning, wearing the haggard and strained aspect
characteristic of a man who has slept only by fits and starts, owing
to the fear of oversleeping himself. One who did not know the
circumstances of the case might have said he was there watching for
some one, but that would have been manifestly absurd. Whatever might
be the cause of his unusual wakefulness, he was occupying his place of
the day before when the creaking and groaning of wheels, gradually
coming nearer, announced an arrival. A few minutes later, as Georgia,
tired and exhausted, descended from the missionaries’ bullock-cart,
which was wont to convey Miss Jenkins and Miss Guest, in company with
a miniature harmonium, a stock of vernacular gospels, and occasionally
a native Bible-woman, on their itinerating tours among the villages
around, she discovered him waiting to receive her. She was so tired
that she had dozed unconsciously in the bullock-cart, in spite of the
rough music of the wheels and of the appalling jolts; and now,
awakened suddenly by the cessation of both sound and motion, she stood
shivering and blinking in the grey twilight, a sadly unimpressive
figure. Dick mercifully forbore to look at her as he took the bag from
her hand and helped her up the steps, then settled her in his chair
and shouted to the servants to hurry with the doctor lady’s coffee.
Georgia tried to protest feebly, but he was adamant.
“You must have something to eat before you go to bed, or we shall have
you down with fever this evening. You will allow me to know something
of the climate of Khemistan, I hope, though I am not a ‘professional’
man.”
There was an unconscious emphasis on the adjective, which showed
Georgia that coals of fire were being heaped upon her head in return
for her words of the day before. But she did not respond to the
challenge, for she was too much exhausted for a war of words; and,
moreover, the coffee was very acceptable, even though it was Major
North to whom she owed it. When the sleepy and unwilling servants had
made and brought the coffee, however, she paused before tasting it.
“I can’t argue with you now, Major North, but I just want to say this.
It was worth while going through all the training, and some of it was
bad enough at the time, simply for the sake of this night’s work. If I
never attended another case, I should be glad I was a doctor, if only
to remember the happiness of those poor Christians in that village.”
“I wasn’t aware that I had attempted to argue,” said Dick, who was
busily cutting what he imagined was thin bread and butter. “There, eat
that, Miss Keeling. The woman didn’t die, then?”
“No, I hope she will do well. The people, heathen and Christians
alike, took it as a miracle. If it helps Miss Guest and Miss Jenkins
in their work, I shall be so thankful.”
“Time enough to consider that afterwards,” said Dick, as Georgia put
down her cup and sat gazing into the twilight. “If it helps you to an
attack of fever, you won’t be thankful, nor shall I. By the bye, what
happened to your horse? I hope you didn’t meet with an accident?”
“Oh no, but I was so dreadfully sleepy that I was afraid to ride, and
the ladies lent me their bullock-cart. They are to send the horse back
later in the day. You mustn’t think that I am generally so much
overcome by sleep after spending a night out of bed as I am now. When
I was in hospital I thought nothing of sitting up. It is simply that I
am out of practice.”
“Of course,” said Dick, politely, suppressing the retort he would
infallibly have made had things been in their normal condition. It was
so pleasant to be caring for Georgia in this way, without feeling the
slightest desire to quarrel with her, that he began to wish she would
be called out every night by her professional duties. What did his own
broken slumbers signify? At any rate, he had stolen a march on that
young fool Anstruther now. _He_ had not thought of seeing that Miss
Keeling had something to eat when she came in. And Dick caught himself
afterwards recalling with something like tenderness, a feeling which
was obviously out of the question, the pressure of Miss Keeling’s hand
as she shook hands with him before going indoors, and the tones of her
voice as she said--
“Thank you so much, Major North. It was most kind of you to take all
this trouble for me. I hope you won’t be very tired after getting up
so early.”
“Oh, I just happened to be out here. I didn’t sleep very well,” he
explained, airily, and went off well satisfied with his own readiness
of resource, not dreaming that Georgia, in her own room, was saying
bitterly to herself as she took down her hair--
“He need not have told me so particularly that he didn’t get up
because of me. I knew he did not, of course, but it wasn’t necessary
for him to say it. Well, I shall not presume upon his kindness,
although he is afraid I may.”
The natural consequence of this deceitful excess of candour on Dick’s
part was, that when he met her next, he found that he had lost any
ground which his ready services might have gained for him in Miss
Keeling’s estimation. For him the events of the early morning had cast
a glamour over the rest of the day, and when he saw Georgia again
towards evening, he was prepared to meet her with the friendliness
natural between two people who had found the barrier of prejudice
which separated them partially broken down. But she received him with
the easy graciousness she would have shown to the merest acquaintance,
expressing her gratitude for his kindness, indeed, but ignoring
entirely the approach to something like intimacy which he thought had
been established between them. Dick was not accustomed to be repulsed
in this way, and when he overheard Georgia telling Sir Dugald how
fortunate it had been for her that she found Major North up when she
returned, and how kind he had been in getting her some coffee, his
wrath, if not loud, was deep. She was betraying what he liked to think
of as a secret known only to their two selves, and making an ass of
him before the other fellows. This led him to remember that, after
all, circumstances were unchanged. Georgia was still a doctor, and
displayed no symptoms of being convinced, whether against her will or
otherwise, by his arguments against the existence of medical women, or
of discontinuing the practice of her profession. Nay more, Dick was
beginning to see that it was unlikely she would ever be so convinced,
and that if there was to be peace between them it must be on the basis
of acquiescence in facts as they were. Hence, as he was still
determined under no circumstances to extend even the barest toleration
to lady doctors, it is not surprising that Dick felt himself a much
injured man, and that his soul revolted a dozen times a-day against
the conclusions at which he had been forced to arrive.
As for Georgia, she continued to take pains to show him that she quite
understood his view of the case, which she did not, and devoted
herself largely to itinerating in the country round with Miss Jenkins
and Miss Guest. She was welcomed on account of her medical skill in
many places where they had not been able to gain a footing, and had
the pleasure of knowing that she left these houses open to her friends
for the future. The work proved to be so interesting that she was very
sorry to leave it, and on the eve of departure she confided to Lady
Haigh the resolution she had definitely formed to come back to
Bab-us-Sahel when the Mission returned from Kubbet-ul-Haj, and to
settle down with Miss Guest and Miss Jenkins.
“Nonsense, Georgie! you mustn’t throw away your talents like that,”
cried Lady Haigh, aghast.
“But I should only stay here until they would allow me to settle on
the frontier, of course,” said Georgia.
“I wish General Keeling were alive,” said Lady Haigh, irritably. “He
would very soon put a stop to these absurd schemes. Or I wish you were
married. That would do as well.”
“But if that is one reason for my not marrying?” asked Georgia.