A MILITARY NURSE.
Colonel Baron might not confess the fact in so many words, but before
he had been three days in Paris, he was sorely regretting his own
action in taking Roy across the Channel.
Had he admitted that it really was his wife's persistency, overbearing
his better judgment, which had settled the matter, he might have been
tempted to blame her. But even to himself he did not admit this. Rather
than confess that he had been managed by a woman, he preferred to look
upon the mistake as entirely his own. Moreover, he was too devoted a
husband to condemn openly any fault in his wife. She was, of course, a
woman, and as such he would have counted it _infra dig._ on his part to
have been controlled by her; but she was also in his eyes the fairest
and most charming woman that ever had lived; and the one thing on earth
before which the Colonel's courage failed was the sight of tears in his
Harriette's large grey eyes.
That they should return home, as at first proposed, by the end of
a fortnight, unless they were willing to leave the boy behind, was
impossible; and neither of them would for a moment contemplate that
idea. No matter how well Roy might get on, he would be a prisoner
beyond the fortnight. Small-pox is a disease which "gangs its ain
gait," and makes haste for no man's convenience. Even after actual
recovery, there would still be need for quarantine.
Had Roy remained at home, he would probably have sickened at the same
date, if, as was supposed, he had taken the infection from one of his
schoolfellows. But then he would have been safe in England, and his
parents could any day have returned to him. Now he seemed likely to
keep them abroad, at a time when war-clouds hovered unpleasantly near.
When Roy first fell ill, the doctor who was hastily called in at once
pronounced him to be sickening for that fell disease, which held the
world in a thraldom of terror. Not without good reason. It was reckoned
that in those days nearly half a million of people died in Europe every
year of small-pox; about forty-five millions being swept away in a
century; while tens of thousands were rendered hideous for life, and
large numbers were hopelessly blinded. We, who know small-pox mainly
in the very modified form which sometimes occurs in vaccinated people,
can scarcely even imagine what the ravages of the disease were in those
years of its fullest and most unchecked sway.
Mrs. Baron was a fond and tender mother; yet when first that dread word
left the doctor's lips, even she fled in horror from the sick room,
agonised, not only at the thought of losing her child, but of parting
also with her own attractive looks. From infancy she had been used to
admiration; and she knew only too well to what a mere mockery of the
human face many a lovelier countenance than hers was reduced. Though
a most winning woman, she was hardly of a strong nature; and even her
mother-love failed for the moment under that fearful test. The Colonel,
kind but helpless, was left alone by his boy's bedside.
Soon, ashamed of herself, Mrs. Baron rallied and would have returned;
but at the door she was met by the Colonel, who sternly prohibited
re-entrance. She bowed to his decision, trembling, as she did not
always bow when her wishes were crossed.
The people of the hotel, no whit less dismayed, insisted on Roy's
instant removal. The question was, where could he go?
Then it was that Denham Ivor came to the rescue. He had had small-pox;
he had nursed a friend through it; he was, therefore, not only safe but
also experienced. He would undertake the boy himself, allowing no other
to enter the room. Neither Mrs. Baron nor Colonel Baron might again
approach Roy, until all danger of infection was over. His steady manner
and cheerful face brought comfort to everybody.
He consulted with the hotel people, and heard of a certain Monsieur and
Madame de Bertrand, members of the lesser _noblesse_ of past days, who
lived in a street near, and who might be willing to take in him and
Roy. Three years earlier they had both been inoculated, and had had
the complaint. Their servant, too, was safe; and, since they had lost
heavily in Revolution times, and were badly off, they might be glad
thus to make a little money.
Colonel Baron hastened to the house, ready to offer anything, and he
was met kindly, matters being speedily arranged. Roy was then conveyed
thither, wrapped in blankets, already much too ill to care what might
be done with him. Colonel and Mrs. Baron remained at the hotel, to
endure a long agony of suspense. The Colonel was, indeed, almost
overcome with terror, not only for Roy, but also for his wife, lest she
should already have caught the infection.
As days passed this dread was proved to be groundless, and Roy was
found to have the complaint on the whole mildly, though thoroughly. It
was not a case of the awful "confluent" small-pox, of which fully half
the number attacked generally died, but of the simple "discrete" kind.
Though he had much of the eruption on his body, few pustules appeared
on his face. There was a good deal of fever, and at times he wandered,
calling for "Molly," and complaining that she was cross and would not
answer him. More often he was dull and stupefied, saying little.
No one who had seen Denham Ivor only on parade or in society, would
have singled him out as likely to be an especially good nurse; but
Roy soon learnt this side of the man. A modern hospital nurse would
doubtless have found a great deal to complain of in his methods, and
not a little to arouse her laughter. Many of his arrangements were
highly masculine. The room was seldom in anything like order; and
whatever he used he commonly plumped down afterwards in the most
unlikely places. But his patience and attention never failed; he
never forgot essentials; he never seemed to think of himself, or to
require rest. Day after day he remained in that upstairs room with the
invalid, only once in the twenty-four hours going out of the house for
half-an-hour's turn, that he might report Roy's condition to Colonel
Baron, meeting him and standing a few yards distant.
The usual nine days of full eruption, following upon forty-eight hours
of fever, were gone through, with, of course, abundance of discomfort
and restlessness. Despite the comparatively mild nature of his illness,
Roy fell away fast in flesh and strength, while Ivor managed with a
minimum of repose. If Roy were able to get a short sleep, Denham used
that opportunity to do the same himself, but in some mysterious way he
always contrived to be awake before Roy woke up. His handsome bronzed
face grew less bronzed with the confinement and lack of exercise.
So far as he knew how to guard against the spread of infection, he did
his best. No one beside himself and the doctor entered the sick room,
except a wizened old Frenchwoman, herself frightful from the effects
of the same dire disease, who was hired to come in each morning for
half-an-hour, while Ivor went out, that she might put the room into
something like order. For the rest, the gallant young Guardsman, sweet
Polly's lover, undertook the whole.
Then tokens of improvement began; and Colonel Baron sent a letter home
which cheered Molly's sore heart; and, just when all promised well for
a quick recovery, violent inflammation of one ear set in. For days and
nights the boy suffered tortures, and sleep was impossible for him,
therefore for his nurse. Roy, in his weakened state, sometimes broke
down and cried bitterly with the pain, imploring Ivor never to let
Molly know that he had cried.
"She'd think me so girlish," he said, while tears rolled down his thin
cheeks, marked by half-a-dozen red pits. "Please don't ever tell her!"
In the midst of this trouble a most unexpected blow fell upon Ivor,
in the shape of a stern official notice, desiring him to consider
himself a prisoner of war, and at once to render his parole. Ivor was
a calm-mannered man generally, with the composure which means only the
determined holding-down of a far from placid nature, but some fierce
and angry words broke from him that day. He was compelled to go out
to give his parole, infection or no infection, leaving the old woman
in charge for as brief a space as might be; and indignant utterances
were exchanged between himself and Colonel Baron, whom he chanced to
meet, bent on the same errand. Then he had to hasten back to the boy,
with a heavy weight at his heart. It meant to Ivor, not only indefinite
separation from Polly, but also a complete deadlock in his military
career. He was passionately in love with her; he was hardly less
passionately in love with his profession. Had imprisonment come in the
ordinary way, through reverse or capture in actual warfare, he would
have borne it more easily; but the sense of injustice rankled here.
Also at once he foresaw the complications likely to arise, and the
probability that an exchange of prisoners would be impossible. As he
patiently tended the boy, doing all that he could to bring relief, his
brain went round at the thought of his position, and that of Colonel
Baron.
(_To be continued._)
ABOUT PEGGY SAVILLE.
BY JESSIE MANSERGH (Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey), Author of "A Girl in
Springtime," "Sisters Three," etc.