DARK DAYS.
[Illustration: Chapter XXIII drop-cap T]
That evening Molly was sent for in a hurry to visit Kitty. One of the
servants from the hotel had rushed across to the hospital, and told her
that her sister was ill, was in a most nervous condition, and ought not
to be left.
"What am I to do?" said Mollie. She turned to Katherine Hunt.
"Don't go to her; leave her to me," said Katherine, her cheeks first
flushing and then turning pale. "Yes," she continued, "leave her to
me. She could not have come out here but for me. She must not disturb
your grand, your magnificent work. I am the one who ought to look
after her."
"There are one or two cases that I ought not to leave to-night," said
Mollie. "Even if Kitty were dying, I ought not to leave those cases;
for I am a servant of the Queen, and her service ought to come first."
"It ought, and must, and shall," replied Katherine Hunt. "Go to her
for a few minutes, Mollie; I will follow you."
Mollie went out.
"If I told her now that I was going to marry Major Strause, she would
get better," thought Mollie.
But although she knew that, she shrank back--she had shrunk back all
day. She had felt the sacrifice demanded of her too terrible. Until
this morning, although she had not had one particle of regard for the
major, still she had thought that in some ways there were a certain
bravery, dash, and fineness about him. She had noticed his tender
touch with the sick men--his devotion to her service could not but in a
measure touch her; but when he unfolded his scheme, he showed her all
the blackness of his heart, and Mollie recoiled from the sight.
"Not only to love another man who is white as snow beside him--not only
to love that man, but to hate Major Strause as I must hate all
wickedness; and then--then, with that knowledge in my heart, to become
his wife--it is too monstrous! I cannot do it!" thought the Red Cross
nurse.
She reached the hotel, and went up to Kitty's room. Kitty was lying in
bed. She looked very white and feeble; there was a curious expression
about her--an absence of excitement and also of life. She was all
alone in her bedroom. When Mollie entered, she raised her heavy
eyelids; she saw Mollie, and uttered a feeble cry.
"I tried to do it," she said, "but I couldn't. I took some, but not
enough. I could not go on. Do you think I am poisoned?"
"O my dear Kitty, my dear Kitty! what has happened?" said Mollie.
"I got some laudanum--I stole it from the hospital--and I swallowed
some, but not enough. I could repeat the dose, and then it would be
all over, but I am frightened. When I took a certain amount I got
frightened. I have been very sick, and I thought I was going to die,
and--oh, I couldn't do it. I would have made it all right for you if I
could have done--_it_; but I couldn't."
"My dear, dear Kitty, how wicked and dreadful of you! Oh, God was with
you to prevent this most terrible thing! But I am not going to scold
you now; only you must not be left alone."
"You won't tell that I tried to do it?" said Kitty.
"No, darling Kitty; but I must take the laudanum away at once."
Mollie's lips were trembling; her strong frame was shaken to its
depths. Kitty pointed to a shelf over her bed where a small bottle of
laudanum stood. Mollie put it into her pocket. Then she tried to make
her sister more comfortable, and talked to her cheerily. When
Katherine Hunt arrived, Mollie left her in that young lady's charge,
and went downstairs. Her firm nerves were upset. Still, her
resolution was fixed to have nothing to do with Major Strause. He was
coming for his answer that night; she would not have an interview with
him. She went back to the hospital, and wrote him a short note,--
"Don't trouble me any more. Go your own wicked way. God will protect
the innocent.
"NURSE MOLLIE."
This note she gave to an orderly, to deliver to the major when he made
his appearance. She did not even ask the orderly whether he had come,
or whether the note had been given to him; but she did not get it back
again.
The next few days passed quietly. There were no messages from the
outside world. Rations grew shorter. The stricken town lay quiet,
preparing for its death agonies. After a hurried consultation, it was
decided to kill only three hundred of the cavalry horses, and to turn
the others out on to the flat beyond the racecourse, and let them
survive if they could. This was done; and several of the soldiers said
that it was one of the most pitiable events in all the war to see the
astonishment and terror of the horses, particularly when they were not
allowed to come home to their accustomed lines at night. The poor
creatures looked like skeletons, and had scarcely strength to hold
themselves upright. At night they came back in groups, hoping to get
their food and grooming as usual. They had to be driven away by
Basutos with long whips; and then they seemed to recognize that it was
useless, and wont wearily back to spend the night on the bare hillside.
They were too weak and wanting in energy even to look for fodder.
Meanwhile death was busy. Men fell ill daily and hourly. More died
from enteric and dysentery and sunstroke than from wounds. Chevral, a
preparation of horse meat, was now in daily use. At first the sick and
wounded refused to touch it, but afterwards they took it greedily; and
it seemed to stem the tide of mortal illness, and to bring back
strength.
Mollie had not seen her sister since the dreadful evening when she
found her half poisoned in her room. Katherine Hunt gave up nursing
the soldiers for the sake of one weak and troublesome girl whom she, in
a fit of generosity, had brought to Ladysmith. How often in the days
that were at hand did she regret this step!
Meanwhile the major was, to all appearance, silent. What he did only
God and his own conscience knew. Nevertheless, it takes but a little
whisper to set an evil report circulating; and just about this time--in
the midst of the danger, starvation, and anxiety--there was spoken of
in the Royal Hotel, at the officers' mess, and wherever groups of
Englishmen congregated together, a curious rumour, sufficiently out of
the common, even in a moment like the present, to arouse attention.
The days were long gone by when any one smiled or laughed much in
Ladysmith; the days for recreation, football, races, or any other
amusements no longer existed. But the time is never too gloomy for an
evil report to find its listeners, and the report now in circulation
gained in strength and credence day by day. It had something to do
with Gavon Keith. Brave, fearless, handsome Gavon, already recommended
for his V.C., had done something shady, very shady in the past. He did
not look the thing a bit; even his enemies acknowledged that. He had a
clear eye, a frank gaze, an upright look. He did not drink, nor even
smoke, to excess. He was unselfish, and willing to share any small
comforts he himself possessed with his men. Where his own life was
concerned he was reckless. To save a company of his men in the last
sortie, he had himself crossed the plain in order to draw off the
attention of the enemy and let his men get under cover. The bullets
had rained like hail all round him, but none had touched him; and he
had got back again to shelter, having done what he intended to do,
without so much as a scratch.
Yes, whatever his past, he was a brave soldier now. But what was this
dark thing of the past? The old proverbial saying came into force
where he was concerned, "There is no smoke without fire." Was it true
that Keith had received a large legacy from a brother officer who had
died? Was it true that he had officiously undertaken the nursing of
this young man, when a proper hospital nurse was wished for by the
doctor in attendance? Was it true that the friend had died suddenly,
and Keith had secured his legacy? And was it--could it be--true that a
wrong medicine had been given to the sick man by Keith--oh, of course,
by mistake; yes, only by mistake? Was there any truth at all in this
curious story?
Each person to whom it was told said that he, for one, did not believe
a word of it; nevertheless, he, for one, was interested in it, and
looked askance at Keith the next time he appeared on the scene. The
men of Keith's own regiment were eagerly questioned. Yes, they knew
something--they knew about Aylmer. He had died, poor chap, quite
young, and very suddenly; and he and Keith were tremendous friends.
Yes, Strause was Aylmer's cousin. No one liked Strause; they were all
glad when he left the regiment. Of course, he was a very brave
officer--no one could say a word against him now; but he had not been
popular in the North Essex Light Infantry. Keith had certainly
received a large legacy, and at the time there was a little cloud over
him; he had not been himself--his nerves wrong. People had wondered,
but suspicion had long died away. He was very popular. There was
nothing in the story; of course there was nothing in it. The man who
questioned also said that there was nothing in it; but he looked grave,
and whispered it to his brother officer, and the brother officer
whispered it to another; and so it came to pass that, except Sir George
White and one or two others high in command, every one in Ladysmith
knew the rumour about Keith. And even this might not have mattered
much if Keith himself had not known it; but he did. The cloud fell
about him like a winter fog. It dogged his footsteps; it surrounded
him when he lay down and when he rose. At first he could not
understand what this cold breath, this dullness in the air, meant; but
at mess one day his eyes were cruelly opened. A man who had always sat
near him got up and took a seat at the extreme end of the table. Keith
asked a brother officer what it meant. This man looked at him hard,
and after a slight hesitation said,--
"We have been listening to a story about you."
"A story about me!" said Keith; and then, he did not know why, but the
colour rushed up into his face. "What is the story?" he said, after a
pause.
"It is not my affair," said the man. "If it is false, you had better
never hear it; if it is true--well, I leave it to your conscience."
Keith would have insisted on a further inquiry, but at that instant he
received a message from his colonel, and was obliged to go off. He
intended to go back afterwards and demand a full explanation; but he
was depressed after a very hard day's work and want of sufficient food,
and instead of going to the messroom he turned aside and went to see
Mollie. He had avoided her since Kitty's all too frank words; but now
she drew him, as the wretched and starving are drawn to food, and the
cold and miserable to the sun.
Mollie gave him a quick, bright glance, and invited him into a little
corner which was curtained off for herself. He sat down, and she spoke
quickly,--
"What is the matter? Have you got a fresh wound? Oh, I know--you have
had nothing to eat. You must have a cup of bovril."
"Not for the world," he answered. "We shall want every scrap of
nourishing food for the sick and dying."
"For the sick, truly; but the dying do not matter," she answered. "But
if you won't have bovril, there is plenty of chevral; it isn't bad."
He shuddered.
"I could not bring myself to taste it," he said.
"Don't be sentimental," she answered. "Try it now. Believe me, it is
first-rate."
She left him, prepared a cup of the mixture, and brought it to him.
"Shut your eyes," she said, "and drink it off."
He did as she told him, and the trembling which had tried him so
inexplicably no longer thrilled through his frame.
"And now tell me what is up," she said.
He was silent for a minute; then he told her just what had occurred in
the messroom that day. He started when he saw the expression on her
face. It had grown white as death, and her eyes shone with a strange
light.
"Do you know anything about this?" he asked, amazed at her look.
"I would rather not say," she replied. "But I have to ask you an
urgent question. You know it is false; can you live it down?"
"To be suspected of the most ghastly crime by the men I care for is
just the drop too much now," he answered.
"It shall be put right," she replied at once.
A light flashed into her eyes, the colour returned to her face, her
lips grew red.
"But you cannot put it right, Nurse Mollie."
"It shall be put right. Don't be afraid."
She laid her hand on his shoulder as she spoke, and looked into his
eyes. Then she said, in a hoarse voice which he scarcely recognized as
hers,--
"Leave me--you are better; leave me. I have something to do at once."
As soon as ever he had gone, Mollie sent an orderly from the hospital
to desire Major Strause to come to see her without a moment's delay.
The man said that he had never seen Nurse Mollie so imperative. He
rushed off immediately to do her bidding, and in half an hour Major
Strause was in her presence.
"I must speak to you where we can be alone," said the girl.
"We can be alone there," he said, and he motioned to a little lobby
just outside one of the wards.
"Yes, I think we can," she answered. "Come."
She went before him. He did not know whether he was frightened or
whether hope filled his heart at her curious manner and at the
expression in her face. As soon as ever they got into the lobby, she
turned and faced him.
"Major Strause," she said, "you have won. You have been doing the
devil's work, and you have won. On certain conditions I will promise
to be your wife."
"Oh!" said the major, "is it true? Will you? Oh, I cannot realize it!"
He trembled all over; his face turned ghastly white. He looked as if
he meant to devour her with kisses, but she held up a restraining hand.
"No," she said, "you don't kiss me--you don't make love to me; but I
will be your promised wife. When the siege is over, if we are alive,
then I will marry you. I am your promised wife--but no courting in
Ladysmith. That is one of the conditions."
"I submit," he said. "I shall court you in my own heart; I shall think
of you when I lie down and when I rise up. You will be my good angel
in the battlefield; you will help me when I am starving; you will bring
me luck. I shall escape out of this net spread by the fowler. I shall
escape, and so will you, brave Nurse Mollie. And we will marry, and be
happy; yes, we will be happy!"
"Leave that to the future," said Mollie; "we have to do with the
present. I yield to you because I must, and because the weapon you
carry is too mighty--because you are too cruel. But I am not going to
reproach you; I am going to give you my conditions. You may not accede
to them. On no other conditions do I marry you."
"Make your own conditions, my darling; whatever you say shall be done.
I would go through fire and water for you."
"Major Strause, you have spread a black, black lie against one of the
bravest officers in Her Majesty's service. You have spread that lie
now in Ladysmith. You have got to eat your own words. You have got to
go to the sources from whence the ugly lie has arisen, and clean them
out, and put them straight, and allow the truth--God's truth--to go
through them. You have got to go to every man who now suspects Gavon
Keith, and tell those men that it was a foul lie, and that Gavon is as
innocent as an unborn babe of the crime you imputed to him."
"You think so?" said Strause.
"I know it, Major Strause. On no other condition do I marry you."
Strause's face turned livid.
"And if you don't go," said Mollie, "then I will go, and I will tell an
ugly story where you have told an ugly one. I will tell of a day when
I found a young officer of the North Essex Light Infantry lying by the
roadside insensible; but not drunk, Major Strause, not drunk, but
drugged! I, a nurse, can prove that. I myself saw Captain Keith. It
was there I found him, and it was then I first learned to love him. I
will tell the story just as he told it to me. Your lie can be refuted
with my truth--here, now, in Ladysmith. Choose, Major Strause. Set
your ugly lie right; blot it out as though it had never existed. I
don't tell you how to do it; I only say it must be done. And if you do
it, and the rumour dies away, and Gavon Keith is known to be what he
is--brave of the brave, good of the good, pure and honourable of the
pure and honourable--then I give myself away. I have done that which
God meant me to do, and my pain and my misery mean nothing at all. I
marry you, and I do not reproach you; and I try, God helping me, to be
a good wife to you, if we get away from Ladysmith. Now go; you know
what you have to do. You have to choose. If you don't do it--and I
shall soon find out--then I do what I said I would do, and you go under
for ever."