INTO a long broad ward with scarlet counterpaned cots, headed against the
wall on either side, and a shining floor between, Bobbie Lancaster, after
being with ever so much tenderness bathed and combed in a small room, was
conveyed, and there he relinquished for a few weeks his identity and
became Number Twenty. The young doctor whom he saw when first brought
into the hospital had whistled softly, and had murmured the words
“compound fracture”; the damaged boy felt glad that the injury was of
some importance and likely to attract attention. He woke the morning
following his arrival on tea being brought round at five o’clock, to find
that his arm, accurately bound up with two small boards, gave him less
pain than be had expected. There was an acceptable scent of cleanliness
in the ward, helped sternly by the universal scent of carbolic, receiving
more joyful volunteer assistance from the bowl of heliotrope on the
Sister’s table at the centre. Turning his head, Bobbie saw a comfortable
fire blazing away not far from him; a fire that made all polished things
reflect its flames; saw, too, that some of his neighbours were unable to
rise, and had to be fed by the white-aproned nurses going softly to each
cot. One or two of the numbers had arched protectors under the
bedclothes to keep the sheets from touching their small bodies; Number
Twenty-one had a head so fully bandaged that there was not much of his
face to be seen but the eyes and the tip of a nose; wherefore he was
called by the others “Fifth of November.” Bobbie’s other immediate
neighbour, Number Nineteen, a white-faced boy, lost no time in bragging
to the new-comer that he possessed hips about as bad as hips could manage
to be.
“Well, Twenty,” said the nurse to Bobbie cheerfully. “You going to stay
at our hotel for a few weeks?” The nurse was a pleasing round-faced
young woman, who signalled the approach of an ironical remark by winking;
in the absence of this intimation the ward understood Nurse Crowther to
be serious. “All the nobility come here,” said Nurse Crowther,
deflecting her eyelid, “seem to have given up Homburg and Wiesbaden and
places, and to have made up their mind to come to Margaret Ward. Here’s
Lord Bailey, otherwise known as Nineteen, for instance.” The white-faced
boy laughed at this personal allusion. “He’s given up everything,”
declared Nurse Crowther. “Dances, receptions, partridge shooting, and I
don’t know what all, just in order that he should come and spend a few
months here with us. Isn’t that right, Nineteen?”
“Gawspel!” affirmed little Nineteen, in a whisper.
“It must affect some of the other fashionable resorts,” said Nurse
Crowther, pursuing the facetious vein. “I’m told that there’s nobody at
Trouville this year, and as for Switzerland—”
“All the time you’re trying to be funny,” complained Master Lancaster,
“you’re letting my milk get cold. Why don’t you attend to bisness
first?”
“Hope you’re not going to be a tiresome boy,” said the nurse.
“Wait and see.”
“I must bring the Sister to see you presently. You’ve got a nice open
face.”
“If I’ve got an open face I can keep me mouth shut,” said Twenty,
drinking his milk. “That’s more than some of you can.”
“Arm pretty comfortable this morning?” asked the nurse, good-temperedly,
as she smoothed the scarlet counterpane. “Had a good night’s rest?
Weren’t disturbed by the noise of the traffic, were you? What—”
“One at a time, one at a time,” said Twenty crossly. “I can’t answer
forty thousand blooming questions at once.”
“Sit back now, there’s a dear, and keep as quiet as you can till the
doctors come round.”
“What time do they put in an appearance?”
“That, dear duke,” said the nurse winking, “entirely depends upon you.
You have but to say the word.”
“If there’s one thing I can’t stand more’n another,” said the boy,
settling himself down cautiously, “it is gels trying to be comic.”
The young doctor with three or four men still younger, and all of them
endeavouring to look an incalculable age, paid their visit to Margaret
Ward in due course, and Bobbie felt indignant because whereas they stayed
at the end of his bed but a couple of minutes writing some casual marks
on the blue form pinned on the board above his head, at the next bed they
ordered a screen to be placed, and behind this they remained in
consultation over the white-faced little Nineteen for quite a long time.
When they had gone, Bobbie salved his jealousy by telling Nineteen at
once that Nineteen need not think himself everybody, giving a long list
of imaginary complaints that he (Bobbie) had in the past suffered from,
ranging in character from a wart on the knuckles to complete paralysis of
the right side. This seemed to restrain any idea that Nineteen might
have had of exhibiting conceit, and that little chap contented himself by
offering to bet two to one in halfpennies that he would he the next in
the Margaret Ward to go. Bobbie forced the odds to three to one, and
then closed with the wager.
“I shan’t be sorry,” said white-faced Nineteen, “’pon me word I shan’t.
It can’t be much worse than this.”
“You be careful how you talk,” advised Bobbie. “A man that’s getting
near to kicking the bucket can’t be too cautious of what he says.”
“Likely as not,” said Nineteen, “it’ll he a jolly sight better than
this.”
“How can you tell?”
“Anyway,” said Nineteen, “it’ll he a rare old lark to watch and see what
’appens. I ’eard a man arguin’ once in Victoria Park that those what put
up with a lot in this world, got it all their own way in the next, and
vicer verser.”
“How did he get to know?”
“Of course,” admitted Nineteen, “it’s all speculation.” Little Nineteen
yawned. “I feel bit tired.”
“You take jolly good care what you’re about, old man,” recommended
Bobbie. “You’ll look jolly silly if you find yourself all at once in
’ell.”
“Even that’d be interesting.”
“And hot,” said Bobbie.
“I shouldn’t mind chancing it a bit,” said Nineteen, “only there’s the
old woman. She worries about me a good deal, she does.”
“Your mother?”
“She’d he upset if she thought I hadn’t gone to ’Eaven.” Nineteen gave
the skeleton of a laugh. “You know what Primitive Methodists are,” he
added excusingly.
“Tell you what,” said Bobbie. “If anything ’appens to you and you pop
off the hooks, I’ll tell her that you were going there all right, and
I’ll make up something about angels, and say they was your last words.
See!”
“I shall take it very kind of you,” said little Nineteen thankfully.
“You leave it me. And touchin’ that bet. Just occurs to me. If you
lose you mayn’t be able to pay.”
“If I win I shan’t be able to dror it off of you.”
“Never mind,” said Bobbie, “we’ll see what ’appens.”
“I’ve never stole nothin’,” urged Nineteen, after a pause.
“You’re all right.” With some awkwardness.
“I’ve never had a copper even speak to me.”
“You’re as right as ninepence. There’s lots of cheps worse than you.”
“I’ve got to ’ave port wine and jellies,” remarked Nineteen after a
pause.
“Some of you get all the luck,” said Bobbie. At which Nineteen dozed off
contentedly.
When, later in the morning, the tall young Sister came up to Bobbie’s cot
and introduced herself, he permitted her to talk for some time, and
watched her quiet, attractive face. Dressed in her plain gown, she
looked, the boy thought, perfect, and he touched the white hand that
rested on the coverlet of his bed with shy respect. Sister Margaret
talked of his accident; chatted about the other numbers of the ward.
Leaving him for a moment to give white-faced Nineteen a kiss, she was
called back by Bobbie.
“I say, Miss.”
“Well, Twenty.”
“Something to ask you. Bend down.”
As the tall young woman obeyed, Bobbie put one hand to his mouth in order
that his confidential inquiry might not be heard by the other boys.
“How’s your young man?” he whispered.
Sister Margaret flushed and stood upright.
“What do you mean, Twenty?” she answered, severely. “You must understand
that here we don’t allow boys to be impudent.”
“It’s all right, Miss,” whispered Bobbie. “Don’t fly all to pieces. I’m
not chaffing of you. I mean Mr. West—Mr. Myddleton West.”
“You know Mr. West?” she said, bending down again.
“Rather!” said the boy. “Saw your photograph in his place yesterday.
Only one in the room.”
She sat down beside the bed, her eyes taking a light of interest. Bobbie
looking round the ward to see that this special honour was being noted,
and observed that the numbers on the opposite side scowled jealously at
him.
“I’ve known him off and on,” said Bobbie, “these two or three years.
Good sort, he is.”
“Mr. West is indeed a very good fellow,” said the Sister earnestly. “But
you—you are wrong, Twenty, in assuming that we are engaged. Nothing, in
point of fact, is further from the truth. We are very good friends, and
that is all.”
“You don’t kid me,” said the boy knowingly.
“Twenty! I shall be extremely annoyed if, whilst you are in the ward,
you couple my name with Mr. West’s.”
“Shouldn’t think of doing so, Sister,” he said seriously. “If there’s
one thing I can do better than another it is keeping a secret. Once I
make up my mind to shut my mouth, wild ’orses wouldn’t open it.”
“I like him,” she went on (it appeared that the Sister was not averse to
speaking of Myddleton West), “I like him very much, but it is possible to
like a person, Twenty, without going so far as to become engaged.”
“Depends!”
“There are several courses open nowadays to women,” she said half to
herself, and with something of enthusiasm. “It is no longer marriage or
nothing for them. There are certain duties in the world—public
duties—that a woman can take upon herself, and marriage would only
interfere with their performance. The old idea of woman’s place in the
world was, to my mind, not quite decent. We are getting away from all
that, and we are coming to see that the possibilities—”
“Don’t he mind your taking up with this nonsense?” asked Bobbie. The
boy’s interruption stopped the argumentative young woman. She laughed
brightly at finding herself lecturing to Twenty on this subject, and,
smoothing his pillow before she went, asked him with a smile whether he
did not agree with her.
“I call it a silly ass of an idea,” he said frankly.
This was not the last talk that he had with the tall young Sister of the
ward, and for some days in that week the ward inclined to mutiny on
account of the disproportionate time that she gave to Twenty and to
little Nineteen. It almost seemed that Nineteen showed signs of
improvement under the combined influence of her visits and the
companionship of Bobbie his neighbour; Bobbie’s predecessor had been a
gloomy boy, with his own views in regard to details of eternal torments,
and Bobbie’s optimism cheered the white-faced boy so much that when his
tearful mother came to see him, being by special permission admitted at
any time, she found herself debating with him on his walk in life when he
should grow up, and discussing the relative advantages of the position of
engine-driver as compared with that of policeman. Nineteen introducing
his neighbour, Nineteen’s mother gave Bobbie two oranges and an
illuminated card bearing minatory texts. Bobbie enjoyed the oranges.
“I think he’s better, nurse,” said Nineteen’s mother respectfully.
“Seems to have got more colour, and—”
“It’s my belief,” answered Nurse Crowther at the foot of the bed, “that
there’s nothing whatever the matter with his lordship. I believe it’s
all his nonsense. I tell him that he’ll have to take me to the theatre
some evening, soon as ever he gives up playing this game of lying in
bed.”
Little Nineteen smiled faintly. The good-humoured nurse went and placed
her cool hand on his forehead.
“I don’t hold with theatres, nurse,” said Nineteen’s mother precisely.
“To my mind chapel is a great deal better than all these devil’s
playhouses.”
“Dam sight duller,” remarked Bobbie.
“Twenty! I’m surprised.”
“Well, nurse,” said Bobbie excusingly, “she said ‘devil.’”
“Anyway,” remarked Nurse Crowther, “we’re going to dodge off somewhere,
the very first day he gets well, aren’t we, Nineteen?”
Happy nod of acquiescence from the tired boy.
“And we shan’t say anything to anybody else about it, shall we,
Nineteen?”
Not a word, signalled poor Nineteen.
“And, goodness! how people will stare when they see us on the steamer
together off to Rosherville.”
“I’ll come with you,” interposed Bobbie from the next bed.
“Not likely,” declared Nurse Crowther, with another wink. “Two’s
company, three’s a crowd. Aye, Nineteen?”
“Most decidedly,” intimated the delighted boy.
“And now it’s time for your little pick-me-up. Say good-bye to your
mother.”
Nineteen’s mother, having said good-bye, drew the nurse aside, whispering
a question, and Bobbie heard the answer, “No hope!” This startled
Bobbie, and made him think; presently he worked so hard in the endeavour
to cheer little Nineteen that Sister Margaret had to command silence,
because Nineteen required rest. That night, when the ward was silent,
Bobbie watched him as he lay with eyes closed, his breathing short and
irregular, and for almost the first time in his life, Bobbie thought
seriously of the desirability—taking everything into consideration—of
becoming religious.
He could see the red fire, and watching it he considered this entirely
new suggestion. He lifted the bed-clothes to shield himself from the
sight of the distant fireplace, for he was becoming heated. It required
much determination to put gloomy thoughts from him; when he had partly
succeeded in doing this he looked again at the fire, and then he knew
that there were tears in his eyes, because the light of the fire became
starry and confused in appearance. He sniffed and rubbed his eyes. It
seemed that he could see another fire, a small one, near to the grate,
and this he assumed to be an optical delusion until it crept along a
black rug and commenced to blaze, whereupon he slipped cautiously out of
bed; his bandaged arm paining, despite his care, and called for the
nurse. An answer did not come immediately, and the boy hurried
bare-footed, in his scarlet gown only, across the floor to the burning
rug. Afterwards, he remembered rolling it up awkwardly with one hand and
stamping upon it; the night nurse hurrying up with a scream, forty heads
up in forty cots—it was then for the first and last time in his life that
Bobbie fainted.
“We shall have to send you to a home, Twenty.” Sister Margaret looked on
a day or two later, whilst Nurse Crowther re-bound the lint and wool. “A
convalescent home down by the sea-side, upon a hill, where you can watch
the shipping, and—”
“That’ll suit me down to the ground, Sister.”
“I believe he got burnt purposely, Sister,” declared Nurse Crowther, “so
that he should have a nice long holiday. Wish to goodness I was half as
artful as Twenty is.”
“I’m sure,” said Sister Margaret sedately, “that Twenty is a very brave
boy. If it hadn’t been for his courage there might have been quite a
serious fire.”
Twenty blushed.
“Twenty has qualities,” went on the tall Sister, “that if properly
directed—I should bring it twice over the knee, nurse, I think—will make
him a fine young fellow, and a credit to his country.” Sister Margaret
had raised her voice in order that her words might be heard. The ward
listened alertly; little Nineteen, whose eyelids were now very tired,
moving his head in order to hear. “Wrongly directed,” she said, lowering
her voice, “they will only make him dangerous.”
“I should rather like to grow up and—and be brave,” said little Nineteen
from the next bed.
“So you shall,” declared Nurse Crowther, cheerily, “so you shall,
Nineteen. If you don’t get the Victoria Cross some day, Nineteen, never
believe me again.” Little Nineteen consoled, closed his eyes wearily.
“As for you, Marquis,” went on Nurse Crowther, pinning the end of the
roll with which Bobbie’s limb had been enveloped, “I believe that what
Sister says is perfectly true. If you can only keep on the main line
you’ll make a capital journey. Only don’t get branching off.”
“If I don’t get along in the world,” said Bobbie, with a touch of his old
impudence, “it won’t he for the want of telling.”
“You ought to be grateful, my Lord Bishop,” said Nurse Crowther,
adjusting the bed-clothes carefully, “that you’ve got so many friends.”
“Me!” echoed the boy. “Why, I ain’t got a friend in the world.”
“Twenty!” said Sister Margaret reprovingly. “And Mr. West is coming all
the way down here next visiting day specially to see you.”
“To see me?”
“Yes,” said Sister Margaret, a little unsteadily, “to see you.”
“Reckon,” said the boy, looking up, “he’s going to kill two birds with
one stone. What he’s really coming for is to see—”
“Twenty,” she commanded, “silence!”
“Is to-morrow visiting day?” asked the thin voice of Nineteen, sleepily.
“To-morrow,” replied Nurse Crowther. “And mind you’re nice and bright,
Saucy Face, by three o’clock against your mother comes.”
In the ward the next day occurred the usual excitement that preceded an
afternoon for visitors. Little Nineteen alone uninterested; it almost
seemed that he had ceased to take concern in worldly matters such as the
arrival of apples and other contraband, and to be content, when not
asleep, with staring very hard at the ceiling. Bobbie himself, cheered
by receipt of a kindly note from Collingwood Cottage, gave his best
endeavours to the task of enlivening Nineteen (“Sop me goodness,” said
Bobbie, reproachfully to himself, “if I ain’t getting fond of the little
beggar”), but with no result. Elsewhere in the ward movement and
expectation; Sister Margaret and the nurses had trouble to preserve
sanity amongst the boy patients. Thirty-five declared privately his
opinion that all the clocks were slow; that someone had put them back on
purpose; Thirty-five added darkly that if he could find the person
responsible for the deed he would make it a County Court job.
Nevertheless, the hour presently struck, and two minutes afterwards came
the sound of many footsteps in the passage; the swing doors opened, and
the visitors marched in under the narrow inspection of every
scarlet-gowned occupant of every scarlet-counterpaned bed. There were
sounds of kissing in different parts of the ward. Bobbie ordered
Nineteen to wake up and look sharp about it, but little Nineteen did not
answer.
“If you please, Miss, is there a boy named Robert Lancaster in this
ward?”
Bobbie’s head came up. Nurse Crowther pointed him out to a young girl,
dressed quietly, her hair rolled up into a neat bunch, and wearing brown
gloves fiercely new. She carried a small paper bag, and looked casually
at her silver watch as she advanced to the bedside of Twenty.
“What ho!” said Bobbie, not unkindly. “Who sent for you?”
“Mother told me I might come,” said Miss Trixie Bell, breathlessly, “and
mother sent this bunch of the best grapes she could get in Spitalfields
Market, and mother said I was to give you her kind regards, and tell you
to get well as soon as you could.”
“Left to meself,” said Bobbie, “I should never ’ave thought of that.
They ain’t so dusty them grapes, though, are they?” he added, admiringly.
“I should rather think not,” said Trixie. “They cost money. How’s your
arm? You look nice and neat in your scarlet—” Miss Bell checked herself
and bit her lips. “I nearly said bed-gown,” she remarked,
apologetically, taking out her watch again.
“You’ve altered,” said Bobbie, “since you came to see me last.”
“Mother says I’m going to grow up tall.”
“Take care you don’t grow up silly the same time. Where’d you get your
watch from?”
“Fancy your noticing,” said Trixie Bell, delightedly. “That’s new
to-day. Mother gave it me because it was my birthday, and I’d helped
nicely with the shop.”
“Many ’appy returns,” he said, gruffly.
“Thank you, Bobbie.”
“Ever see anything of them Drysdale Street bounders? I mean Nose and
Libbis and—”
“I never take no notice of nobody,” said the young lady, precisely.
“Mother says its best to ignore them altogether. Mother says its unwise
even to pass the time of day. So when they call out after me, I simply
walk on as though I hadn’t ’eard.”
“That’s right,” said Bobbie, approvingly.
“Your neighbour’s asleep.”
“Little beggar’s always at it. He’ll wake up directly when his mother
comes.”
A scent of flowers and a familiar deep voice. Trixie, who had been
resting one elbow on the pillow, drew back, as Myddleton West came up.
“Well, young man,” said Myddleton West, cheerily, “how are we getting on?
Sister Margaret has been telling me of your fire brigade exploit.”
“That was nothing.”
“It might have been, apparently, if you had not acted as you did. This a
friend of yours?” Miss Bell stood up and bowed. “Why, I’ve met you two
together before. On a tram going Shoreditch way on the night when—”
“Let bygones be bygones,” said Bobbie, uneasily. “That was ages ago.”
“When you were mere boy and girl?”
“Jesso!”
“Sister Margaret thinks of getting you away to a convalescent home,” said
Myddleton West.
“You seem to have had a rare old chat with her,” said the boy, pointedly.
“Give her them flowers, instead of leaving them here. They’ll please
her.”
“Excuse me,” interrupted Trixie, “don’t you think you ought to call the
nurse for this little chap in the next bed? I’ve just touched his hand,
and somehow—”
Nurse Crowther and another nurse come quickly to the bed of Nineteen.
Nurse Crowther flies for the screen; when this is fixed around the bed, a
doctor is sent for. The doctor hurries in, goes away directly, but the
screen remains. Nineteen’s mother arriving tardily with oranges for her
boy, is admitted behind the screen, and there comes presently the sound
of weeping.
“Ain’t he woke up, Nurse?” asks Bobbie, anxiously.
“Nearly time for visitors to go,” says Nurse Crowther. “You’ll soon have
to say good-bye. Nice bright day outside, they tell me.”
“Ain’t he woke up yet, Nurse?”
“Who, your Highness?”
“Why, Nineteen.”
For once Nurse Crowther’s wink declines to respond to her summons. Her
lips move, and she puts her hand up to control them.
“My chick,” she says, “Nineteen won’t wake again in this world.” The bed
clothes go quickly over Bobbie’s head, and remain there for some few
minutes. When Sister Margaret’s voice is heard warning visitors of the
approach of half-past four, his head reappears rather shamefacedly.
“Trixie.”
“Yes, Bobbie.”
“Anybody looking?”
“Not a soul.”
“Well,” whispers Bobbie, “if you like to bend down, you can give me a
kiss.”
Miss Bell takes sedate advantage of this offer, and, readjusting her hat,
when she has done so, finds her bright brown gloves.
“Thank you, Bobbie,” says Miss Bell. Then she adds very softly, “Dear.”
“Not so much of the ‘dear,’” orders Bobbie.