When Janet had taken her departure Claire looked at the clock and found
that it was time to start for the hospital. She went out of the
station, and, passing a shop for flowers and fruit went in, spent ten
shillings in the filling of a reed basket, and, leaving the shop, seated
herself in one of the taxis which were standing in readiness outside the
great porch. Such carelessness of money was a natural reversion to
habit, which came as a consequence of her absorbed mind.
The great hospital looked bare and grim, the smell of iodoform was more
repellent than ever, after the sweet scents of the country. Claire knew
her way by this time, and ascended by lift to the women's ward, where
Sophie lay. Beside almost every bed one or two visitors were seated,
but Sophie was alone. Down the length of the ward Claire caught a
glimpse of a recumbent form, and felt a pang at the thought of the many
visiting days when her friend had remained alone. With no relations in
town, her brother's family too pressed for means to afford expeditions
from the country, Sophie had no hope of seeing a familiar face, and her
very attitude bespoke dejection.
Claire walked softly to the further side of the bed, and dangled the
basket before the half-covered face, whereupon Sophie pushed back the
clothes and sat up, her eyes lighting with joy.
"_Claire_! You! Oh, you dearly beloved, I thought you were still away!
Oh, I am glad--I am glad! I was so dreadfully blue!"
She looked it. Even in the eagerness of welcome her face looked white
and drawn, and the pretty pink jacket, Claire's own gift, seemed to
accentuate her pallor. The hands with which she fondled the flowers
were surely thinner than they had been ten days before.
"My dear, what munificence! Have you come into a fortune? And fruit
underneath! I shall be able to treat the whole ward! When did you come
back? Have you had a good time? Are you going on to the farm? It _is_
good of you to come again. It's--it's hard being alone when you see the
other patients with their own people. The nurses are dears, but they
are so rushed, poor things, they haven't time to stay and talk. And oh,
Claire, the days! They're so wearily _long_!"
Claire murmured tender exclamations of understanding and pity. A pained
conviction that Sophie was no better made her shrink from putting the
obvious question; but Sophie did not wait to be asked.
"Oh, Claire," she cried desperately, "it's so hard to be patient and to
keep on hoping, when there's no encouragement to hope! I'm not one
scrap better after all that has been tried, and I've discovered that
they did not expect me to be better; the best they seem to hope for is
that I may not grow worse! It's like running at the pitch of one's
speed, and succeeding only in keeping in the same place. And there are
other arthritics in this ward!" She shuddered. "When I think that I
may become like _them_! It would be much easier to die."
"I think it would often seem easier," Claire agreed sadly, her thoughts
turning to Cecil, whose trouble at the moment seemed as heavy as the one
before her. "But we can't be deserters, Sophie. We must stick to our
posts, and play the game. When these troubles come, we just _have_ to
bear them. There's no hiding, or running away. There's only one choice
open to us--whether we bear it badly or well."
But Sophie's endurance was broken by weeks of suffering, and her bright
spirit was momentarily under an eclipse.
"Everybody doesn't have to bear them! Things are so horribly uneven,"
she cried grudgingly. "Look at your friend Miss Willoughby, with that
angel of a mother, and heaps of money, and health, and strength, and a
beautiful home, and able to have anything she wants, as soon as she
wants it. What does _she_ know of trouble?"
Claire thought of Janet's face, as it had faced her across the table in
the refreshment room, but it was not for her to betray another's secret,
so she was silent, and Sophie lifted a spray of pink roses, and held
them against her face, saying wistfully--
"You're a good little soul, Claire, and it's because you are good that I
want to know what your opinion is about all this trouble and misery.
What good can it possibly do me to have my life ruined by this illness?
Don't tell me that it will not be ruined. It must be, in a material
sense, and I'm not all spiritual yet; there's a lot of material in my
nature, and I live in a material world, and I want to be able to enjoy
all the dear, sweet, natural, human joys which come as a right to
ordinary human beings. I want to _walk_! Oh, my dear, I look out of
these windows sometimes and see all the thousands and thousands of
people passing by, and I wonder if a single one out of all the crowd
ever thinks of being thankful that he can _move_! I didn't myself, but
now--when I hobble along--"
She broke off, shaking back her head as though to defy the rising tears,
then lay back against the pillows, looking at Claire, and saying
urgently--"Go on! Tell me what you think!"
"I think," Claire answered slowly, "that we are bound to grow! The mere
act of death is not going to lift us at once to our full height. Our
training must go on after we leave this sphere; but, Sophie dear, some
of us have an extra hard training here, and if we bear it in the right
way, surely, surely when we move up, it must be into a higher class than
if things had been all smooth and easy. There must be less to learn,
less to conquer, more to enjoy. You and I are school-mistresses and
ought to realise the difficulties of mastering difficult tasks. Don't
look upon this illness as cheating you out of a pleasant holiday, dear--
look upon it as special training for an honours exam.!"
Sophie smiled, her old twinkling smile, and stroked Claire's hand with
the spray of roses.
"I knew you'd say something nice! I knew you'd put it in a quaint,
refreshing way. I shall remember that, when I am alone, and feel
courage oozing out of every pore. Two o'clock in the morning is a
particularly cheery time when you are racked with pain! Claire, I asked
the doctor to tell me honestly whether there was any chance of my ever
taking up the old work again, and he said, honestly, he feared there was
none."
"But Mrs Willoughby--"
"I asked that, too. He says he quite hopes to get me well enough to go
to Egypt in October or November, and that I should certainly be much
better there. It would be the best thing that could happen if it came
off! But--"
Claire held up a protesting hand.
"No ifs! No buts! Do your part, and get better, and leave the rest to
Providence and--Mrs Willoughby! It's her mission in life to help
girls, and she'll help _you_, too, or know the reason why. The truly
sensible thing would be for you to begin to prepare your clothes. What
about starting a fascinating blouse at once? Your hands are quite able
to sew, and if you once got to work with chiffon and lace the time would
fly! You might write for patterns to-night. You would enjoy looking at
patterns."
When Claire took her departure half an hour later, she left behind a
very different Sophie from the wan dejected-looking creature whom she
had found on her arrival.
Hers was a happy nature, easily cheered, responsive to comfort, and
Claire had a happy conviction that whatever physical handicaps might be
in store, her spirit would rise valiantly to the rescue. A winter in
Egypt was practically assured, since Mrs Willoughby had privately
informed Claire that if nothing better offered, she would send Sophie at
her own expense to help in the household of her niece--an officer's
wife, who would be thankful for assistance, though she could not afford
to pay the passage out. What was to happen in the future no one could
tell, and there was no profit in asking the question. The next step was
clear, and the rest must be left to faith, but with a chilling of the
blood Claire asked herself what became of the disabled working women who
had no influential friends to help in such a crisis; the women who fell
out of the ranks to die by the roadside homeless, penniless, _alone_?