WELCOME HER, WON'T YOU?
[Illustration: Chapter XVI drop-cap L]
Ladysmith was hemmed in. Sir George White sent a message to Joubert,
asking leave for the non-combatants, women, and children, to go to
Maritzburg. Joubert refused. The wounded, women, and children, and
other non-combatants, might be collected in a place about four miles
from the town, but would not be allowed to go further. All those who
remained would be treated as combatants. Sir George White advised the
town to accept the proposal, but his advice was indignantly rejected.
Everybody's life was in danger, therefore, for the Queen. The proposal
to leave the town was flung back with defiance. There was no more
going out. Until help came, the inhabitants of Ladysmith were besieged
by the enemy.
Meanwhile, day after day, Long Tom did his deadly work. Shell after
shell entered Ladysmith and exploded, carrying consternation and death
with it. Then people became quiet and submissive. Even to danger one
can get accustomed. The excitement had subsided to something not
exactly like despair, and not resembling indifference, but to a state
of mind midway between the two. The inhabitants of Ladysmith tried to
go about their usual occupations. The women still kept their houses
tidy, and their children washed and well fed; and every one hoped that
relief would come any day or any hour. And the soldiers fought as only
English soldiers can fight; and the Boers were brave as enemy could be,
and more and more closely surrounded the town. Even the Naval Brigade,
splendid fellows all of them, could not deliver Ladysmith, although
beyond doubt they kept the enemy in check.
Meanwhile Kitty remained in her rooms. She became a sort of mystery to
the other people in the hotel. Mollie Hepworth had not the slightest
idea that her sister was close to her. Gavon Keith, with a contingent
of his men, had arrived. Kitty longed to see him; but the strangest
nervousness was over her. What with the dust and the heat, and all her
fears, and the dangers through which she had travelled, the girl was
suddenly prostrated with a kind of malarial fever. There was a time
when Katherine feared that it would turn to enteric; but watching
Mollie Hepworth's patients, she soon saw that she had nothing to
apprehend on that score, and resolved to nurse Kitty herself.
She could not understand the wayward girl, so plucky, so determined to
join her lover while in England, and yet now so overcome with nervous
terrors that she dreaded him to know of her arrival. Whenever a shell
exploded in Ladysmith, Kitty screamed, covered her face with her hands,
sat up in bed trembling all over, and asked Katherine, who seldom left
her, if the hotel were still intact.
Katherine had much ado to put up with Kitty's fears, and quite longed
for the time when the girl would be well enough to leave her enforced
imprisonment and take what small pleasure lay before her in the
beleaguered city.
There had come a day of general attack. Early in the morning Long Tom
had spoken, and Lady Anne and all the other Naval Brigade guns replied
at once. The firing went on for hours, and finally the enemy were
repulsed. But it was a day of horror to all in the brave little town;
and when night came, Katherine, who had been busy helping Mollie with
the sick and wounded, and doing all that woman, could to lighten the
strained situation, came into Kitty's room. She had left Kitty much
better--had given her all that was absolutely necessary for her
comfort; had cheered her up as best she could; had offered her a
yellow-backed novel to read, and left her, hoping that she would drop
asleep. She came back to find the frightened girl partly dressed, half
fainting, and leaning against the wall of the room.
"Now, Kitty, what is it?" said Katherine, in a tone of expostulation.
"You know you are not fit to get up. What is the matter?"
"I had an awful dream," said Kitty. "After you went I fell asleep as
you meant me to do, and I dreamed a long, terrible dream all about
Gavon. I thought he was killed. Is he killed? Is it true? I believe
it is. Oh, I was so terrified! Is it true?"
"It is not true," replied Katherine.
"But I am so frightened; and there is something in your face which
makes me think you are hiding something. He has been wounded!"
"Kitty, sit down," said Katherine. "Sit down and stay quiet. You had
no right to try to get up; you are too weak."
"I am a miserable, good-for-nothing girl, but I will be good if only
you will tell me that he is safe."
"You ought to have seen him long ago. Now that you are here, I cannot
understand your attitude. Your illness has made you nervous."
"I will be good if only you will tell me the truth. Is he--is he
wounded?"
"I will tell you the truth," said Katherine, in a brave voice. She
looked at the trembling, weak, terrified creature with eyes large with
compassion. "Here, drink this," she said. She poured out a
restorative which had always a soothing effect on Kitty, and brought it
to her. "Drink it, my dear; you will want your courage. But things
are by no means so very bad. Captain Keith has had a slight
wound--nothing at all dangerous. He is in hospital. He must remain
there for a few days, and--"
"And Mollie is nursing him?"
"Thank God, your brave sister is there, doing all she can for every
one."
"Don't look at me as if you meant to despise me, Katherine. I
sometimes see that look in your eyes, and it makes me so sick."
"I don't understand you, Kitty. I admired you in London, for I thought
that, whatever happened, yours was a true and a great love, and I
always respect sincerity in anybody or in anything. But since you came
here--"
"It is all my nerves," said the poor girl. "It is the bursting of the
horrible shells, and the terror that one will come through the roof."
"Well, and if it does come through the roof?"
"Katherine! Why, we should all be killed."
"What of that? we can but die once. Oh, you must lose your fear of
death if you are to be any good at all in Ladysmith. And look here,
Kitty, I mean you to be good--I mean you to be of use. What is a
woman, strong and in her youth, doing in a place of this sort if she is
not of use? We are going to have a very terrible time; I don't pretend
to deny it. We are hemmed in closer every day. The enemy are coming
up in greater and greater numbers. The Boers are no fools, let me tell
you. They know how to fight, and they know how to endure. They have
the courage, some of them, of ten men, and they are fighting for their
country. And they mean--yes, Kitty, they mean to take Ladysmith if
they can. Of course they won't take it, for we will never, never give
in. But if there were many of us like you in this place, why, we'd be
indeed a poor lot!"
Kitty turned white. Her handkerchief was lying near; she took it up
and wiped the moisture off her brow.
"I wish I was not so--shaky," she said, in a tremulous voice.
"You poor little thing! I am sorry I spoke harshly, but I have been
seeing so very much of real life all day. Those poor fellows--not a
murmur out of them! And oh, the agony some of them have endured! And
then I come here, and I see you with a whole skin, in a comfortable
room with food and water within reach, crying because you have a fit of
the nerves. But I know people who get these nervous attacks are to be
pitied. And I do pity you, poor little Kitty; only I want to stimulate
you to courage."
"I will be good," said Kitty faintly. "Help me to dress."
Katherine hesitated for a moment. It was between nine and ten at
night; the heat of the day was mitigated. Long Tom had ceased firing;
until morning there would be comparative peace. She took Kitty's wrist
between her finger and thumb, and felt her pulse.
"Your fever has gone," she said; "you are only weak, I have got some
bovril here. I will make you a cup, and then--"
"Yes, what?"
"Then I am going to take you to the hospital."
"O Katherine!"
"Yes; to see Captain Keith and your sister Mollie. I hope you will be
helping Mollie this time to-morrow night."
Kitty was so excited at Katherine's daring proposal that the colour
mounted at once into her pale cheeks.
"I wonder if I dare," she said.
"Dare or not, you have got to come--and to-night. Here's your bovril."
Katherine brought her a cup. She had heated the water with her
spirit-lamp. "Drink it. That is a good girl."
"Things are so horrid!" Kitty moaned; "I have no appetite for the
coarse food here."
"O Kitty, you are very lucky to have any food. The supplies are by no
means unlimited, although at present we have not felt the stint. Now,
then, I will help you to dress."
She went to one of the trunks of crushed cane and brought out a white
skirt and white blouse. She helped Kitty to put them on, and she
herself brushed out the girl's dark, pretty hair, and arranged it
becomingly around her head.
"There, now," she said. "Have you got a blue sash anywhere? A girl in
white with a blue sash will be a sort of angel in the wards to-night.
The moment you enter one of the wards, if you are worth anything at
all, Kitty Hepworth, you will forget yourself."
"And you are quite, quite certain that none of the awful shells will
come into Ladysmith to-night?"
"Quite certain; we have some hours of peace and safety."
Kitty looked fragile and lovely when Katherine had dressed her. She
herself also put on a neat and becoming dress, but she took care that
Kitty's beauty should be the chief focus of attraction. She then took
the girl's hand and led her downstairs. The mystery about the sick
English girl had come almost to fever height amongst the officers and
nurses, who principally inhabited the hotel. Many people glanced now
at Katherine, whose face was quite familiar, and at Kitty, whose face
was unknown, as they went slowly by. Major Strause suddenly burst out
of the smoking-room.
"I say!" he exclaimed. "Miss Hepworth, you here!"
He pretended that he had not until now known of Kitty's arrival in
Ladysmith.
She gave him her hand indifferently, raised her pretty eyes to his
face, and then dropped them.
"I am going to Gavon," she said. "He is wounded, and I must go to him."
"Only a flesh wound--nothing of any importance. He must lie up for a
day or two.--Shall I go across to the hospital with you, Miss Hunt?"
"No, thank you," replied Katherine; "Kitty and I can manage nicely
alone.--Now, Kitty," she said, as the girls went down the street, "you
must remember that Sister Mollie knows nothing of your arrival here.
She will be very much astonished when you walk into the ward, and
perhaps a little hurt with you for keeping things dark from her."
"I shall like to see her," replied Kitty; "and if she is nursing Gavon,
I of course will help her. It is my place to nurse him, is it not,
Katherine?"
"I should say yes. I am glad you feel it in that way."
Katherine could not help a note of sarcasm coming into her voice.
She and Kitty entered the hospital. A moment later they found
themselves in the long ward. Kitty's face turned white. Had she
thought of herself, she might have fainted; but just then her eyes were
arrested by seeing a girl bending over a sick man, holding a stimulant
to his lips, and speaking cheering words. The girl was her sister; the
man she was bending over was Captain Keith.
With a cry--a curious mingling of delight, and suffering, and absolute
self-forgetfulness--Kitty, in her white dress and blue sash, looking
something like a fashionable London girl and also something like an
angel, ran down the long ward and approached the side of the sick man.
"Gavon," she said, "Gavon, I am here! I have come.--Mollie, I have
come--Kitty has come."
Mollie Hepworth had often said that nothing could ever take her by
surprise--that she was, owing to her education, and perhaps also to her
temperament, prepared for any emergency--but she was sorely tested at
the present moment. Her first wild thought was that Kitty was dead,
and that this was her wraith come to visit the sick ward in the
beleaguered town of Ladysmith; but one glance at Kitty showed her that
it was a very living girl with whom she had to deal. She stifled the
inclination to cry out; she showed no surprise, and putting her finger
to her lips, gave a warning glance at the excited girl.
"He is very weak from loss of blood," she said; "don't startle him."
Gavon Keith had been looking full up at Mollie while she was
ministering to him. Her touch brought him comfort, the look in her
eyes brought him strength. The next instant he encountered eyes like
hers, a face like hers, but without the strength, without the power to
give comfort. He had a sick feeling all over him that in his heart of
hearts he had no welcome for Kitty; and then, weak as he was, he
struggled to subdue it. His eyes lit up with a faint smile; but the
effort was too much--he fainted away.
"Sit down quietly," said Mollie--"there, in that corner, where he can't
see you when he comes to. Of course you shall be with him. But I have
no time to ask any questions now.--Miss Hunt, give me the brandy,
please, and that bottle of smelling-salts."
Katherine Hunt brought the necessary restoratives, and Mollie bent over
the wounded man just as if Kitty did not exist. The faint was a bad
one, but after a time he recovered consciousness. Mollie held his hand
and stroked it gently.
"Did I dream anything? Was it all a mistake?" he said, in a low
whisper.
She bent over him.
"It is no dream," she said. "Your little Kitty, whom you are engaged
to marry, is here. She has come out all the way from England for love
of you. She has encountered grave danger and difficulty and the
possibility either of death or imprisonment all for love of you. She
will stay by you part of to-night. Welcome her, won't you?"
"Kitty!" said the wounded man; and then Kitty bent forward, and he
smiled at her, this time without fainting.
After this incident Kitty Hepworth was established as one of the extra
nurses in the central hospital. Mollie secured her this post, and on
the whole it did her good. There was no time in Ladysmith for fainting
or hysterics. The minor ills of life had to be put out of sight, for
the men and women in that town were face to face with a great tragedy.