On the morning of the 24th Glory rose at five, that she might get
through her work and have the entire day for her holiday. At that hour
she came upon a rough-haired nurse wearing her cap a little on one side
and washing a floor with disinfectants. Being in great spirits, Glory
addressed her cheerfully.
“Are you off to-day too?” she said.
The nurse gave her a contemptuous glance and answered: “I'm not one of
your paying probationers, Miss--playing probationers _I_ call them. We
nurses are hard-working women, whose life spells duty; and we've got no
time for sight-seeing and holiday-making.”
“No, but you are one of those who ruin the profession altogether,” said
a younger woman who had just come up. “They will expect everybody to do
the same. This is my day off, but I have to do the grate, and sweep the
ward, and make the bed, and tidy the Sister's room--and it's all through
people like you. Small thanks you get for it either, for a girl may not
even wear her hair in a fringe, and she is always expecting to hear the
matron's 'You're not fit for nursing, Miss.'”
Glory looked at her. She was an exquisitely pretty girl, with dark hair,
pink and ivory cheeks, and light-gray eyes; but her hands were coarse,
and her finger nails flat and square, and when you looked again there
was a certain blemished appearance about her beauty as of a Sèvres vase
that is cracked somewhere.
“Do you say you are off to-day?” said Glory,
“Yes, I am; are you?”
“Yes, but I'm strange to London. Could you take me with you--if you are
going nowhere in particular?”
“Certainly, dear. I've noticed you before and wanted to speak to you.
You're the girl with the splendid name--Glory, isn't it?”
“Yes; what is yours?”
“Polly Love.”
At ten o'clock that morning the two girls set out for their long day's
jaunt.
“Now where shall we go?” said Polly.
“Let's go where we can see a great many people,” said Glory.
“That's easy enough, for this is the Queen's birthday, and----”
Glory thought of Aunt Rachel and made a cry of delight.
“And now that I think of it,” said Polly, as if by a sudden memory,
“I've got tickets for the trooping of the colours--the Queen's colours,
you know.”
“Shall we see her?” said Glory.
“What a question! Why, no, but we'll see the soldiers, and the generals,
and perhaps the Prince. It's at ten-thirty, and only across the park.”
“Come along,” said Glory, and she began to drag at her companion and to
run.
“My gracious, what a girl you are, to be sure!”
But they were both running in another minute, and laughing and
chattering like children escaped from school. In a quarter of an hour
they were at the entrance to the Horse Guards. There was a crowd at the
gates, and a policeman was taking tickets. Polly dived into her pocket.
“Where are mine? Oh, here they are. A great friend gave me them,” she
whispered. “He has a chum in one of those offices.”
“A gentleman,” said Glory with studied politeness; but they were
crushing through the gate by that time, and thereafter she had eyes and
ears for nothing but the pageant before her.
It was a beautiful morning, and the spring foliage of the park was
very green and fresh. Three sides of the great square were lined with
redcoats; the square itself was thronged with people, and every window
and balcony looking over it was filled. There were soldiers, sentries,
policemen, the generals in cocked hats, and the Prince himself in a
bearskin, riding by with the jingle of spurs and curb-chain. Then the
ta-ra-ta-ta-ra of the bugle, the explosive voice crying, “Escort for
the colour!” the officer carrying it, the white gloves of the staff
fluttering up the salute, the flash of bayonets, the march round, and
the band playing The British Grenadiers. It was like a dream to Glory.
She felt her bosom heaving, and was afraid she was going to cry.
Polly was laughing and prattling merrily. “Ha, ha, ha! see that soldier
chasing a sunshade? My! he has caught it with his sword.”
“I suppose these are all great people,” whispered Glory.
“I should think so,” said Polly. “Do you see that gentleman in the
window opposite?--that's the Foreign Office.”
“Which?” said Glory, but her eyes were wandering.
“The one in the frock-coat and the silk hat, talking to the lady in the
green lawn and the black lace fichu and the spring bonnet.”
“You mean beside that plain girl wearing the jungle of rhododendrons?”
“Yes; that's the gentleman that gave my friend the tickets.”
Glory looked at him for a moment, and something very remote seemed to
stir in her memory; but the band was playing once more, and she was
wafted away again. It was God save the Queen this time, and when it
ended and everybody cried “All over!” she took a long, deep breath and
said, “_Well!_”
Polly was laughing at her, and Glory had to laugh also. They set each
other off laughing, and people began to look at them, and then they had
to laugh again and run away.
“This Glory is the funniest girl,” said Polly; “she is surprised at the
simplest thing.”
They went to look at the shops, passing up Regent Street, across the
Circus and down Oxford Street toward the City, laughing and talking
nonsense all the time. Once when they made a little purchase at a shop
the shopwoman looked astonished at the freedom with which they carried
themselves, and after that they felt inclined to go into every shop in
the street and behave absurdly everywhere. In the course of two
hours they had accomplished all the innocent follies possible to the
intoxication of youth, and were perfectly happy.
By this time they had reached the Bank and were feeling the prickings
of hunger, so they looked out a restaurant in Cheapside and went in for
some dinner. The place was full of men, and several of them rose at
once when the two girls entered. They were in their out-door hospital
costume, but there was something showy about Polly's toilet, and the men
kept looking their way and smiling. Glory looked back boldly and said in
an audible voice, “What fun it must be to be a barmaid, and to have the
gentlemen wink at you, and be laughing back at them!” But Polly nudged,
her and told her to be quiet. She looked down herself, but nevertheless
contrived to use her eyes as a kind of furtive electric battery in the
midst of the most innocent conversation. It was clear that Polly had
flown farthest in the ways of the world, and when you looked at her
again you could see that the balance of her life had been deranged by
some one.
After dinner the girls got into an omnibus and went still farther east,
sitting at opposite sides of the car, and laughing and talking loudly to
each other, amid the astonishment of the other occupants. But when
they came to mean and ugly streets with green-grocers' barrows by the
curbstone, and weird and dreary cemeteries in the midst of gaunt, green
sticks that were trying to look like trees, Glory thought they had
better return.
They went back by the Thames steamboat from some landing stage among the
docks. The steamer picked up passengers at every station on the river,
and at London Bridge a band came aboard. As they sailed under St. Paul's
the boat was crowded with people going west to see the celebrations in
honour of the birthday, and the band was playing And her Golden Hair was
hanging down her Back.
At one moment Glory was wild with delight, and at the next her gaiety
seemed to be suddenly extinguished. The sun was setting behind the
towers of Westminster in a magnificent lake of fire, and it seemed
like the sun going down at Peel, except that the lights beneath, which
glistened and flashed, were windows, not waves, and the deep hum was not
the noise of the mighty sea, but the noise of mighty millions.
They landed at Westminster Bridge and went to a tearoom for tea. When
they came out it was quite dark, and they got on to the top of an
omnibus. But the town was now ablaze with gas and electric lights that
were flinging out the initials of the Queen, and Whitehall was dense
with carriages going to the official receptions. Glory wanted to be in
the midst of so much life, so the girls got down and walked arm in arm.
As they passed through Piccadilly Circus they were laughing again, for
the oppression of the crowds made them happy. The throng was greatest
at that point and they had to push their way through. Among others there
were many gaily-dressed women, who seemed to be waiting for omnibuses.
Glory noticed that two of these women, who were grimacing and lisping,
had spoken to a man who was also lounging about. She tugged at Polly's
arm.
“That's strange! Did you see that?” she said.
“That! Oh, that's nothing. It's done every day,” said Polly.
“What does it mean?” said Glory.
“Why, you don't mean to say--well, this, Glory---- Really your friends
ought to take care of you, my dear, you are so ignorant of the world.”
And then suddenly, as by a flash of lightning, Glory had her first
glimpse of the tragic issues of life.
“Oh, my gracious! Come along,” she whispered, and dragged Polly after
her.
They were panting past the end of St. James's Street when a man with
an eye-glass and a great shield of shirt-front collided with them and
saluted them. Glory was for forging ahead, but Polly had drawn up.
“It's only my friend,” said Polly in another voice.--“This is a new
nurse. Her name is Glory.”
The man said something about a glorious name and a glorious pleasure to
be nursed by such a nurse, and then both the girls laughed. He was glad
they had found his tickets useful, but sorry he could not see them
back to the hospital, being dragged away to the bally Foreign Office
reception in honour of the Queen's birthday.
“But I'm coming to the ball, you know, and,” with a glance at Glory,
“I've half a mind to bring my chum along with me!”
“Oh, do,” said Polly, partly covering the pupils of her eyes with her
eyelids.
The man lowered his voice and said something about Glory which Glory did
not catch, then waved his white-kid glove, saying “Ta-ta,” and was gone.
“Is he married?” said Glory.
“Married! Good gracious, no; what ridiculous ideas you've got!”
It was ten minutes after ten as the girls turned in at a sharp trot at
the door of the hospital, still prattling and chattering and bringing
some of the gaiety and nonsense of their holiday into the quiet
precincts of the house of pain. The porter shook his finger at them with
mock severity, and a ward Sister going through the porch in her white
silence stopped to say that a patient had been crying out for one of
them.
“It's me--I know it's me,” said Polly. “I've got a brother here out of
a monastery, and he can't do with anybody else about him. It makes me
tired of my life.”
But it was Glory who was wanted. The woman whom John Storm had picked
up out of the streets was dying. Glory had helped to nurse her, and the
poor old thing had kept herself alive that she might deliver to Glory
her last charge and message. She could see nobody, so Glory leaned over
the bed and spoke to her.
“I'm here, mammie; what is it?” she said, and the flushed young face
bent close above the withered and white one.
“He spoke to me friendly and squeedged my 'and, he did. S'elp me never,
it's true. Gimme a black cloth on the corfin, my dear, and mind yer tell
'im to foller.”
“Yes, mammie, yes. I will-be sure I--I--Oh!”
It was Glory's first death.