BEHIND THE SCREEN.
Lucy went to her coach the next day. She ought to have known her
way about a college staircase by this time, but she had never yet
penetrated beyond the outer courts. She had never ventured up those
mysterious stairways sacred to gyps, bed-makers and gownsmen.
A great many gownsmen must have climbed the stairs that led to Mr.
Colville's rooms before her; they had left their marks here, if they
had left them nowhere else in the annals of the University. Mr.
Colville's rooms were in the oldest part of the college, and his
staircase was as narrow and steep and dark as any lover of mediæval
architecture could desire.
It was so dark that when Lucy reached the first landing she didn't see
where to go; there was a passage in front of her and doors on either
side. Instead of looking at the names painted over the doors, she went
down the passage and knocked at the door at the end.
There are several ways of knocking at a door, but there is only one way
of knocking at a college door if one expects to be heard. A timid rap
with the knuckles is wasted effort; the knob of an umbrella, or the
handle of a walking-stick, or any other form of bludgeon one happens
to have at hand, is more effective; or a succession of well-delivered
blows with a fist, or the body falling heavily against the door, have
been known to attract the attention of persons within the room; but
Lucy had recourse to none of these devices. She knocked feebly with
her gloved hand on the door and waited. She was sure it was the right
landing. She had read the directions painted on the door-post at the
foot of the staircase:
FIRST FLOOR--MR. COLVILLE.
She knocked again presently; and then, as nobody answered, she went
in. The Senior Tutor was expecting her; it was surely right to go in.
She thought she heard voices as she opened the door--at least a voice,
a voice that had a familiar ring in it; she heard it clearer when she
opened the first door; there was an outer oak, as usual to a college
room. Lucy opened both doors and went in. She went quite into the room,
and closed the door--there was a screen before the door--before she saw
the occupants of the room.
What she saw didn't exactly make her hair stand on end, but she gave
a little cry. She couldn't help crying out. On the couch behind the
screen a man was lying, with the blood flowing from a wound in his
throat, and on his knees beside him was a man praying.
The man who was praying stopped and looked up at the sound of that
startled cry, and saw Lucy standing in the middle of the floor. He got
up from his knees, and with a gesture of silence went behind the screen
and fastened the two doors.
'I am glad you are come,' he said, going back to Lucy. 'I did not know
the doors were open. You must be sure to keep them fastened. We don't
want the authorities to know of this, and the Senior Tutor has the next
rooms. You must be sure not to let him suspect anything. If you can do
what is necessary for Edgell by day, I will sit up with him at night.
It is not a bad wound; I don't think it is at all serious.'
Lucy stood frightened and speechless. What did the man mean? Did he
take her for a nurse?
'I am afraid there is some mistake,' she said in a low voice; she
couldn't keep from shaking. 'I--I thought this was Mr. Colville's room.'
Then a light seemed to break in upon the man, and he looked at Lucy
with a quick, startled glance.
'Oh!' he said, 'I thought you were the nurse. I beg your pardon.
There--there has been an accident here; our friend has not been quite
himself--he has been over-working--and--and this has happened. Thank
God it is no worse! It might have been fatal; a mere hair's breadth
and it would have been fatal. We are anxious to keep it from the
authorities. It would be very serious for him if it were known. It
would ruin him for life. May we ask you to keep the chance knowledge of
this most deplorable occurrence secret?'
What could Lucy say? Clearly it was her duty as the Master's niece to
go straight to the lodge and acquaint him with the state of affairs. It
was her duty to summon Mr. Colville without a moment's loss of time; he
was only separated from the scene of this tragedy by a narrow passage.
Of course, the man lying bleeding there ought to have a doctor and a
nurse, and his friends should be telegraphed for, and the whole college
ought to be thrown into a commotion. Suppose the man were to die, what
would her feelings be if she were _particeps criminis_ in this dreadful
secret?
All these things flashed through Lucy's mind as she stood there looking
at the man on the couch. She knew him now; it was the man who had taken
his hat off to her as he came out of chapel.
It was the man that Cousin Mary said was going to take a very high
place in the Tripos, perhaps the highest. It was Wyatt Edgell.
She made up her mind in a moment.
'Yes,' she said, 'I will keep your secret. But I cannot go away from
here and leave you like this. There is something I can do. I am used to
nursing and sickness; tell me what I can do.'
She had torn off her gloves and thrown down her books, and was kneeling
beside the couch where the man lay, wiping away the blood that was
trickling beneath the bandage, and dropping down over his chest.
There was so much she could do that a woman could best do, and the man
with his hand on the wrist of the patient stood by and watched her
while she did it.
'You know something about medicine?' she said.
'I have been a doctor. I have spent seven years in acquiring a
knowledge of surgery--seven years out of my life--but it has not been
wasted if I have been the means of saving him;' and he nodded towards
the bed.
'And you think you have saved him?'
Where had she heard this man's voice before, and where had she seen his
eyes? She was asking herself this question as she was speaking to him.
'Yes, I think he is saved. He will do very well with careful nursing.
One of the men has a sister at Addenbroke's, and he has gone to fetch
her. I thought she had come when I saw you standing there. She will
certainly be here presently. I don't think we need detain you.'
'I shall not go till she comes,' Lucy said with such decision that she
quite frightened herself. 'I shall certainly stay here as long as I can
be of any use.'
She had been of a good deal of use already. She had removed all traces
of the dreadful deed; she had washed up every stain that could be
washed away, and she had covered up the rest. She had fetched a pillow
and some coverings from the adjoining room, and straightened the
couch, and anyone coming into the room and seeing the man lying there
with a white handkerchief over his throat, and the quilt drawn up over
his chest, would not have dreamed of the ghastly sight beneath.
He looked as he lay there as if he had broken down in the middle of
his work, and had thrown himself down there in a sudden attack of
faintness. His face was dreadfully white, as white as the coverlet, and
he was breathing hard, and there was a strange faint odour Lucy noticed
as she bent over him. He was not sensible, but once he opened his eyes
and looked at her with a strange, far-away look in them that haunted
her for days.
They were beautiful eyes, tender and dreamy as a woman's, with a depth
in them Lucy had never seen in any eyes before. But then she had not
been accustomed to look into young men's eyes. She could not remember
bending over a man before and seeing herself reflected in his eyes.
Perhaps it was the novelty of the situation that moved her. Having done
all, everything she could do, she settled herself down in a chair by
the head of the bed and began to weep.
The man was nothing to her, she had never heard his name till
yesterday, and here she was sitting by his side weeping for him as if
she had known him all her life.
The man who stood by let her tears fall unchecked.
'I don't think you will disturb him,' he said with a smile; 'I have
given him an anodyne. Nobody could tell what he would do if he were
left to himself, so I have made things sure by quieting him for a time.
Pray have your cry out if it does you any good.'
He evidently knew something of girls. There is nothing like a little
weep for soothing the nerves.
While Lucy was availing herself of her woman's privilege, he turned
down the coverlet and examined the bandages; the blood was trickling
down beneath them, thick and black where it had congealed, and a paler
streak behind.
'It's broken out again,' he said quietly. 'I think there must be a
stitch. Can you help me?'
If Lucy had been told an hour ago that she could have stood by and
assisted as the man sewed up that gaping wound, and never by word or
look betrayed faintness or alarm, she would not have believed it.
It was the little weep that did it.
'I think it will do now,' said the man, drawing up the coverlet over
his work. 'There is only one thing we can do more for the poor fellow,
and that is commit him to God. Will you kneel down beside him while we
ask His blessing on the means that we have used? Remember, when two or
three are gathered together--we are two, and--and I am sure his mother
is here with us.'
Lucy knelt down beside the couch while the man prayed aloud.
He talked to God as he knelt there as one who knew Him as a Friend of
old. He made no preamble in entering this solemn Presence Chamber, but
went straight up to the throne with his petition, and laid the poor,
blind, suffering soul at the foot of the Cross.
Lucy had been brought up in the bosom of the Church; she had heard
prayers read every morning and evening of her life, and she had never
missed being in her place on Sundays. She had heard her father read the
prayers hundreds of times, and she had heard, oh, so many sermons, but
she had never heard a man pray like this.
It was heart speaking to heart; it was the spirit of man speaking to
the Spirit of God.
While he was still speaking the door, or doors, rather, opened, and
someone came in. He did not stop or get up from his knees, but went on
wrestling for the blessing that he sought.
Lucy felt dreadfully guilty kneeling there. She heard the door
open, and people--distinctly people--come in; and she had an awful
overwhelming sense of guiltiness, as if she had been consenting to a
murder. She was afraid to get up; she expected to see the Senior Tutor
standing there and her cousin Mary. She didn't at all know why she
expected Mary.
She was almost afraid to look up when she rose from her knees, and she
felt herself shaking all over. But it was not Mary, and it was not the
Tutor. It was a man that Lucy had often seen in the courts below, and
he had a girl in a nurse's dress with him.
He looked over to Lucy in some alarm, and took off his cap.
'It's all right,' said the other. 'You didn't lock the door after you,
old man, when you went out, and this lady found her way in--at least,
God showed her the way in. If she hadn't come at the right moment it
would have gone hard with our friend here. I am glad you have brought
your sister. And now,' he said, turning to Lucy, 'we need not detain
you any longer. This lady will stay with us, I hope, till late; and I
shall sit up with him to-night. To-morrow, I hope, the worst will be
over.'
'I hope so,' Lucy said with a sob she couldn't choke down--she hadn't
the heart to say any more.
'I am sure you will respect our secret,' the man said, as Lucy was
drawing on her gloves.
She didn't answer him; she only looked at him, and she saw the blood
flush up under his skin. She remembered somebody else's cheeks she had
seen flush in the same way--not a man's.
'I beg your pardon,' he said humbly.
Lucy was so angry with him for doubting her that she did not see his
proffered hand; she drew her gloves on hurriedly, and picked up her
books and went out into the passage, but she beckoned the nurse to
follow her.
'I don't think the man's going to get better,' she said in a hurried
whisper. 'It's like consenting to a murder to let him lie there and
die; but _I_ am not going to tell. I think his mother ought to know. I
think someone ought to write and tell her that he is ill--dying!'
The nurse shook her head.
'It would kill her!' she said. 'She has such faith in her son--her
beautiful son! He is such a noble, splendid fellow! Oh, it is a
dreadful pity!'
'Why did he do it?'
'Why? Oh, don't you know?'
'No----'
The door of the room opened as they were speaking, and the nurse's
brother beckoned her to come in.
'Come to me to-morrow morning at Addenbroke's,' she said. 'Ask for
Nurse Brannan;' and then she went into the room and shut the door.
Lucy crept guiltily down the stairs. She quite shivered as she passed
the Tutor's door: she would not have encountered him for the world. She
didn't feel safe until she had got outside the college gate, and then
she ran all the way back to Newnham.