Bridget Cookson slowly signed her name to the letter she had been
writing in the drawing-room of the boarding-house where she was
accustomed to stay during her visits to town. Then she read the letter
through--
'I can't get back till the middle or end of next week at least. There's
been a great deal to do, of one kind or another. And I'm going down to
Woking to-morrow to spend the week-end with a girl I met here who's
knocked up in munition-work. Don't expect me till you see me. But I
daresay I shan't be later than Friday.'
Bridget Cookson had never yet arrived at telling falsehoods for the mere
pleasure of it. On the whole she preferred not to tell them. But she was
well aware that her letter to Nelly contained a good many, both
expressed and implied.
Well, that couldn't be helped. She put up her letter, and then proceeded
to look carefully through the contents of her handbag. Yes, her passport
was all right, and her purse with its supply of notes. Also the letter
that she was to present to the Base Commandant, or the Red Cross
representative at the port of landing. The latter had been left open for
her to read. It was signed 'Ernest Howson, M.D.,' and asked that Miss
Bridget Cookson might be sent forward to No. 102, General Hospital, X
Camp, France, as quickly as possible.
There was also another letter addressed to herself in the same
handwriting. She opened it and glanced through it--
'DEAR MISS COOKSON,--I think I have made everything as easy for you as I
can on this side. You won't have any difficulty. I'm awfully glad you're
coming. I myself am much puzzled, and don't know what to think. Anyway I
am quite clear that my right course was to communicate with
you--_first._ Everything will depend on what you say.'
The following afternoon, Bridget found herself, with a large party of
V.A.D.'s, and other persons connected with the Red Cross, on board a
Channel steamer. The day was grey and cold, and Bridget having tied on
her life-belt, and wrapped herself in her thickest cloak, found a seat
in the shelter of the deck cabins whence the choppy sea, the destroyer
hovering round them, and presently the coast of France were visible. A
secret excitement filled her. What was she going to see? and what was
she going to do? All round her too were the suggestions of war,
commonplace and familiar by now to half the nation, but not to Bridget
who had done her best to forget the war. The steamer deck was crowded
with officers returning from leave who were walking up and down, all of
them in life-belts, chatting and smoking. All eyes were watchful of the
sea, and the destroyer; and the latest submarine gossip passed from
mouth to mouth. The V.A.D.'s with a few army nurses, kept each other
company on the stern deck. The mild sea gave no one any excuse for
discomfort, and the pleasant-faced rosy girls in their becoming
uniforms, laughed and gossiped with each other, though not without a
good many side glances towards the khaki figures pacing the deck, many
of them specimens of English youth at its best.
Bridget however took little notice of them. She was becoming more and
more absorbed in her own problem. She had not in truth made up her mind
how to deal with it, and she admitted reluctantly that she would have to
be guided by circumstance. Midway across, when the French coast and its
lighthouses were well in view, she took out the same letter which she
had received two days before at the Grasmere post-office, and again read
it through.
'X Camp, 102, General Hospital.
'DEAR MISS COOKSON,--I am writing to _you_, in the first instance
instead of to Mrs. Sarratt, because I have a vivid remembrance of what
seemed to me your sister's frail physical state, when I saw you last May
at Rydal. I hope she is much stronger, but I don't want to risk what, if
it ended in disappointment, might only be a terrible strain upon her to
no purpose--so I am preparing the way by writing to you.
'The fact is I want you to come over to France--at once. Can you get
away, without alarming your sister, or letting her, really, know
anything about it? It is the merest, barest chance, but I think there is
just a chance, that a man who is now in hospital here _may_ be poor
George Sarratt--only don't build upon it yet, _please_. The case was
sent on here from one of the hospitals near the Belgian frontier about a
month ago, in order that a famous nerve-specialist, who has joined us
here for a time, might give his opinion on it. It is a most
extraordinary story. I understand from the surgeon who wrote to our
Commandant, that one night, about three months ago, two men, in German
uniforms, were observed from the British front-line trench, creeping
over the No Man's Land lying between the lines at a point somewhere east
of Dixmude. One man, who threw up his hands, was dragging the other, who
seemed wounded. It was thought that they were deserters, and a couple of
men were sent out to bring them in. Just as they were being helped into
our trench, however, one of them was hit by an enemy sniper and mortally
wounded. Then it was discovered that they were not Germans at all. The
man who had been hit said a few incoherent things about his wife and
children in the Walloon patois as he lay in the trench, and trying to
point to his companion, uttered the one word "Anglais"--that, everyone
swears to--and died. No papers were found on either of them, and when
the other man was questioned, he merely shook his head, with a vacant
look. Various tests were applied to him, but it was soon clear, both
that he was dumb--and deaf--from nerve shock, probably--and that he was
in a terrible physical state. He had been severely wounded--apparently
many months before--in the shoulder and thigh. The wounds had evidently
been shockingly neglected, and were still septic. The surgeon who
examined him thought that what with exposure, lack of food, and his
injuries, it was hardly probable he would live more than a few weeks.
However, he has lingered till now, and the specialist I spoke of has
just seen him.
'As to identification marks there were none. But you'll hear all about
that when you come. All I can say is that, as soon as they got the man
into hospital, the nurses and surgeons became convinced that he _was_
English, and that in addition to his wounds, it was a case of severe
shell-shock--acute and long-continued neurasthenia properly
speaking,--loss of memory, and all the rest of it.
'Of course the chances of this poor fellow being George Sarratt are
infinitesimal--I must warn you as to that. How account for the interval
between September 1915 and June 1916--for his dress, his companion--for
their getting through the German lines?
'However, directly I set eyes on this man, which was the week after I
arrived here, I began to feel puzzled about him. He reminded me of
someone--but of whom I couldn't remember. Then one afternoon it suddenly
flashed upon me--and for the moment I felt almost sure that I was
looking at George Sarratt. Then, of course, I began to doubt again. I
have tried--under the advice of the specialist I spoke of--all kinds of
devices for getting into some kind of communication with him. Sometimes
the veil between him and those about him seems to thin a little, and one
makes attempts--hypnotism, suggestion, and so forth. But so far, quite
in vain. He has, however, one peculiarity which I may mention. His hands
are long and rather powerful. But the little fingers are both
crooked--markedly so. I wonder if you ever noticed Sarratt's hands?
However, I won't write more now. You will understand, I am sure, that I
shouldn't urge you to come, unless I thought it seriously worth your
while. On the other hand, I cannot bear to excite hopes which may--which
probably will--come to nothing. All I can feel certain of is that it is
my duty to write, and I expect that you will feel that it is your duty
to come.
'I send you the address of a man at the War Office--high up in the
R.A.M.C.--to whom I have already written. He will, I am sure, do all he
can to help you get out quickly. Whoever he is, the poor fellow here is
very ill.'
* * * * *
The steamer glided up the dock of the French harbour. The dusk had
fallen, but Bridget was conscious of a misty town dimly sprinkled with
lights, and crowned with a domed church; of chalk downs, white and
ghostly, to right and left; and close by, of quays crowded with
soldiers, motors, and officials. Carrying her small suit-case, she
emerged upon the quay, and almost immediately was accosted by the
official of the Red Cross who had been told off to look after her.
'Let me carry your suit-case. There is a motor here, which will take you
to X----. There will be two nurses going with you.'
Up the long hill leading southwards out of the town, sped the motor,
stopping once to show its pass to the sentries--khaki and grey, on
either side of the road, and so on into the open country, where an
autumn mist lay over the uplands, beneath a faintly starlit sky. Soon it
was quite dark. Bridget listened vaguely to the half-whispered talk of
the nurses opposite, who were young probationers going back to work
after a holiday, full of spirits and merry gossip about 'Matron' and
'Sister,' and their favourite surgeons. Bridget was quite silent.
Everything was strange and dreamlike. Yet she was sharply conscious that
she was nearing--perhaps--some great experience, some act--some
decision--which she would have to make for herself, with no one to
advise her. Well, she had never been a great hand at asking advice.
People must decide things for themselves.
She wondered whether they would let her see 'the man' that same night.
Hardly--unless he were worse--in danger. Otherwise, they would be sure
to think it better for her to see him first in daylight. She too would
be glad to have a night's rest before the interview. She had a curiously
bruised and battered feeling, as of someone who had been going through
an evil experience.
Pale stretches of what seemed like water to the right, and across it a
lighthouse. And now to the left, a sudden spectacle of lines of light in
a great semicircle radiating up the side of a hill.
The nurses exclaimed--
'There's the Camp! Isn't it pretty at night?'
The officer sitting in front beside the driver turned to ask--
'Where shall I put you down?'
'Number----' said both the maidens in concert. The elderly major in
khaki--who in peace-time was the leading doctor of a Shropshire country
town--could not help smiling at the two lassies, and their bright looks.
'You don't seem particularly sorry to come back!' he said.
'Oh, we're tired of holidays,' said the taller of the two, with a laugh.
'People at home think they're _so_ busy, and---'
'You think they're doing nothing?'
'Well, it don't seem much, when you've been out here!' said the girl
more gravely--'and when you know what there is to do!'
'Aye, aye,' said the man in front. 'We could do with hundreds more of
your sort. Hope you preached to your friends.'
'We did!' said both, each with the same young steady voice.
'Here we are--Stop, please.'
For the motor had turned aside to climb the hill into the semicircle. On
all sides now were rows of low buildings--hospital huts--hospital
marquees--stores--canteens. Close to the motor, as it came to a
stand-still, the door of a great marquee stood open, and Bridget could
see within, a lighted hospital ward, with rows of beds, men in scarlet
bed-jackets, sitting or lying on them--flowers--nurses moving about. The
scene was like some bright and delicate illumination on the dark.
'I shall have to take you a bit further on,' said the major to Bridget,
as the two young nurses waved farewell. 'We've got a room in the hotel
for you. And Dr. Howson will come for you in the morning. He thought
that would be more satisfactory both for you and the patient than that
you should go to the hospital to-night.'
Bridget acquiesced, with a strong sense of relief. And presently the
camp and its lights were all left behind again, and the motor was
rushing on, first through a dark town, and then through woods--pine
woods--as far as the faint remaining light enabled her to see, till dim
shapes of houses, and scattered lamps began again to appear, and the
motor drew up.
'Well, you'll find a bed here, and some food,' said the major as he
handed her out. 'Can't promise much. It's a funny little place, but
they don't look after you badly.'
They entered one of the small seaside hotels of the cheaper sort which
abound in French watering-places, where the walls of the tiny rooms seem
to be made of brown paper, and everyone is living in their neighbour's
pocket. But a pleasant young woman came forward to take Bridget's bag.
'Mademoiselle Cook--Cookson?' she said interrogatively. 'I have a letter
for Mademoiselle. Du médecin,' she added, addressing the major.
'Ah?' That gentleman put down Bridget's bag in the little hall, and
stood attentive. Bridget opened the letter--a very few words--and read
it with an exclamation.
'DEAR MISS COOKSON,--I am awfully sorry not
to meet you to-night, and at the hospital to-morrow.
But I am sent for to Bailleul. My only brother
has been terribly wounded--they think fatally--in a
bombing attack last night. I am going up at once--there
is no help for it. One of my colleagues, Dr.
Vincent, will take you to the hospital and will tell me
your opinion. In haste.--Yours sincerely,
'ERNEST HOWSON.'
'H'm, a great pity!' said the major, as she handed the note to him.
'Howson has taken a tremendous interest in the case. But Vincent is next
best. Not the same thing perhaps--but still--Of course the whole
medical staff here has been interested in it. It has some extraordinary
features. You I think have had a brother-in-law "missing" for some
time?'
He had piloted her into the bare _salle à manger_, where two young
officers, with a party of newly-arrived V.A.D.'s were having dinner, and
where through an open window came in the dull sound of waves breaking on
a sandy shore.
'My brother-in-law has been missing since the battle of Loos,' said
Bridget--'more than a year. We none of us believe that he can be alive.
But of course when Dr. Howson wrote to me, I came at once.'
'Has he a wife?'
'Yes, but she is very delicate. That is why Dr. Howson wrote to me. If
there were any chance--of course we must send for her. But I shall
know--I shall know at once.'
'I suppose you will--yes, I suppose you will,' mused the major. 'Though
of course a man is terribly aged by such an experience. He's
English--that we're certain of. He often seems to understand--half
understand--a written phrase or word in English. And he is certainly a
man of refinement. All his personal ways--all that is instinctive and
automatic--the subliminal consciousness, so to speak--seems to be that
of a gentleman. But it is impossible to get any response out of him, for
anything connected with the war. And yet we doubt whether there is any
actual brain lesion. So far it seems to be severe functional
disturbance--which is neurasthenia--aggravated by his wounds and general
state. But the condition is getting worse steadily. It is very sad, and
very touching. However, you will get it all out of Vincent. You must
have some dinner first. I wish you a good-night.'
And the good man, so stout and broad-shouldered that he seemed to be
bursting out of his khaki, hurried away. The lady seemed to him
curiously hard and silent--'a forbidding sort of party.' But then he
himself was a person of sentiment, expressing all the expected feelings
in the right places, and with perfect sincerity.
Bridget took her modest dinner, and then sat by the window, looking out
over a lonely expanse of sand, towards a moonlit sea. To right and left
were patches of pine wood, and odd little seaside villas, with fantastic
turrets and balconies. A few figures passed--nurses in white head
dresses, and men in khaki. Bridget understood after talking to the
little _patronne_, that the name of the place was Paris à la Mer, that
there was a famous golf course near, and that large building, with a
painted front to the right, was once the Casino, and now a hospital for
officers.
It was all like a stage scene, the sea, the queer little houses, the
moonlight, the passing figures. Only the lights were so few and dim, and
there was no music.
'Miss Cookson?'
Bridget turned, to see a tall young surgeon in khaki, tired, pale and
dusty, who looked at her with a frown of worry, a man evidently
over-driven, and with hardly any mind to give to this extra task that
had been put upon him.
'I'm sorry to be late--but we've had an awful rush to-day,' he said, as
he perfunctorily shook hands. 'There was some big fighting on the Somme,
the night before last, and the casualty trains have been coming in all
day. I'm only able to get away for five minutes.
'Well now, Miss Cookson'--he sat down opposite her, and tried to get his
thoughts into business shape--'first let me tell you it's a great
misfortune for you that Howson's had to go off. I know something about
the case--but not nearly as much as he knows. First of all--how old was
your brother-in-law?'
'About twenty-seven--I don't know precisely.'
'H'm. Well of course this man looks much older than that--but the
question is what's he been through? Was Lieutenant Sarratt fair or
dark?'
'Rather dark. He had brown hair.'
'Eyes?'
'I can't remember precisely,' said Bridget, after a moment. 'I don't
notice the colour of people's eyes. But I'm sure they were some kind of
brown.'
'This man's are a greenish grey. Can you recollect anything peculiar
about Lieutenant Sarratt's hands?'
Again Bridget paused for a second or two, and then said--'I can't
remember anything at all peculiar about them.'
The surgeon looked at her closely, and was struck with the wooden
irresponsiveness of the face, which was however rather handsome, he
thought, than otherwise. No doubt, she was anxious to speak
deliberately, when so much might depend on her evidence and her opinion.
But he had never seen any countenance more difficult to read.
'Perhaps you're not a close observer of such things?'
'No, I don't think I am.'
'H'm--that's rather a pity. A great deal may turn on them, in this
case.'
Then the face before him woke up a little.
'But I am quite sure I should know my brother-in-law again, under any
circumstances,' said Bridget, with emphasis.
'Ah, don't be so sure! Privation and illness change people terribly. And
this poor fellow has _suffered_!'--he shrugged his shoulders
expressively. 'Well, you will see him to-morrow. There is of course no
external evidence to help us whatever. The unlucky accident that the
Englishman's companion--who was clearly a Belgian peasant, disguised--of
that there is no doubt--was shot through the lungs at the very moment
that the two men reached the British line, has wiped out all possible
means of identification--unless, of course, the man himself can be
recognised by someone who knew him. We have had at least a dozen
parties--relations of "missing" men--much more recent cases--over here
already--to no purpose. There is really no clue, unless'--the speaker
rose with a tired smile--'unless you can supply one, when you see him.
But I am sorry about the fingers. That has always seemed to me a
possible clue. To-morrow then, at eleven?'
Bridget interrupted.
'It is surely most unlikely that my brother-in-law could have survived
all this time? If he had been a prisoner, we should have heard of him,
long ago. Where could he have been?'
The young man shrugged his shoulders.
'There have been a few cases, you know--of escaped prisoners--evading
capture for a long time--and finally crossing the line. But of course it
_is_ very unlikely--most unlikely. Well, to-morrow?' He bowed and
departed.
Bridget made her way to her small carpetless room, and sat for long with
a shawl round her at the open window. She could imagine the farm in this
moonlight. It was Saturday. Very likely both Cicely and Sir William were
at the cottage. She seemed to see Nelly, with the white shawl over her
dark head, saying good-night to them at the farm-gate. That meant that
it was all going forward. Some day,--and soon,--Nelly would discover
that Farrell was necessary to her--that she couldn't do without
him--just as she had never been able in practical ways to do without her
sister. No, there was nothing in the way of Nelly's great future, and
the free development of her--Bridget's--own life, but this sudden and
most unwelcome stroke of fate. If she had to send for Nelly--supposing
it really were Sarratt--and then if he died--Nelly might never get over
it.
It might simply kill her--why not? All the world knew that she was a
weakling. And if it didn't kill her, it would make it infinitely less
likely that she would marry Farrell--in any reasonable time. Nelly was
not like other people. She was all feelings. Actually to see George
die--and in the state that these doctors described--would rack and
torture her. She would never be the same again. The first shock was bad
enough; this might be far worse. Bridget's selfishness, in truth,
counted on the same fact as Farrell's tenderness. 'After all, what
people don't see, they can't feel'--to quite the same degree. But if
Nelly, being Nelly, had seen the piteous thing, she would turn against
Farrell, and think it loyalty to George to send her rich suitor about
his business. Bridget felt that she could exactly foretell the course of
things. A squalid and melancholy veil dropped over the future. Poverty,
struggle, ill-health for Nelly--poverty, and the starving of all natural
desires and ambitions for herself--that was all there was to look
forward to, if the Farrells were alienated, and the marriage thwarted.
A fierce revolt shook the woman by the window. She sat on there till the
moon dropped into the sea, and everything was still in the little
echoing hotel. And then though she went to bed she could not sleep.
* * * * *
After her coffee and roll in the little _salle à manger_, which with its
bare boards and little rags of curtains was only meant for summer
guests, and was now, on this first of November, nippingly cold, Bridget
wandered a little on the shore watching the white dust of the foam as a
chill west wind skimmed it from the incoming waves, then packed her bag,
and waited restlessly for Dr. Vincent. She understood she was to be
allowed, if she wished, two visits in the hospital, so as to give her an
opportunity of watching the patient she was going to see, without undue
hurry, and would then be motored back to D---- in time for the night
boat. She was bracing herself therefore to an experience the details of
which she only dimly foresaw, but which must in any case be excessively
disagreeable. What exactly she was going to do or say, she didn't know.
How could she, till the new fact was before her?
Punctually on the stroke of eleven, a motor arrived in charge of an army
driver, and Bridget set out. They were to pick up Vincent in the town of
X---- itself and run on to the Camp. The sun was out by this time, and
all the seaside village, with its gimcrack hotels and villas flung
pell-mell upon the sand, and among the pines, was sparkling under it. So
were the withered woods, where the dead leaves were flying before the
wind, the old town where Napoleon gathered his legions for the attack on
England, and the wide sandy slopes beyond it, where the pine woods had
perished to make room for the Camp. The car stopped presently on the
edge of the town. To the left spread a river estuary, with a spit of
land beyond, and lighthouses upon it, sharp against a pale blue sky.
Every shade of pale yellow, of lilac and pearl, sparkled in the
distance, in the scudding water, the fast flying westerly clouds, and
the sandy inlets among the still surviving pines.
'You're punctuality itself,' said a man emerging from a building before
which a sentry was pacing--'Now we shall be there directly.'
The building, so Bridget was informed, housed the Headquarters of the
Base, and from it the business of the great Camp, whether on its
military or its hospital side, was mainly carried on. And as they drove
towards the Camp her companion, with the natural pride of the Englishman
in his job, told the marvellous tale of the two preceding years--how the
vast hospital city had been reared, and organised--the military camp
too--the convalescent camp--the transports--and the feeding.
'The Boche thought they were the only organisers in the world!--We've
taught them better!' he said, with a laugh in his pleasant eyes, the
whole man of him, so weary the night before, now fresh and alert in the
morning sunshine.
Bridget listened with an unwilling attention. This bit of the war seen
close at hand was beginning to suggest to her some new vast world, of
which she was wholly ignorant, where she was the merest cypher on
sufferance. The thought was disagreeable to her irritable pride, and she
thrust it aside. She had other things to consider.
They drew up outside one of the general hospitals lined along the Camp
road.
'You'll find him in a special ward,' said Vincent, as he handed her out.
'But I'll take you first to Sister.'
They entered the first hut, and made their way past various small rooms,
amid busy people going to and fro. Bridget was aware of the usual
hospital smell of mingled anesthetic and antiseptic, and presently, her
companion laid a hasty hand on her arm and drew her to one side. A
surgeon passed with a nurse. They entered a room on the right, and left
the door of it a little ajar.
'The operating theatre,' said Vincent, with a gesture that shewed her
where to look; and through the open door Bridget saw a white room
beyond, an operating table and a man, a splendid boy of nineteen or
twenty lying on it, with doctors and nurses standing round. The youth's
features shewed waxen against the white walls, and white overalls of the
nurses.
'This way,' said Vincent. 'Sister, this is Miss Cookson. You
remember--Dr. Howson sent for her.'
A shrewd-faced woman of forty in nurse's dress looked closely at
Bridget.
'We shall be very glad indeed, Miss Cookson, if you can throw any light
on this case. It is one of the saddest we have here. Will you follow me,
please?'
Bridget found herself passing through the main ward of the hut, rows of
beds on either hand. She seemed to be morbidly conscious of scores of
eyes upon her, and was glad when she found herself in the passage beyond
the ward.
The Sister opened a door into a tiny sitting-room, and offered Bridget a
chair.
'They have warned you that this poor fellow is deaf and dumb?'
'Yes--I had heard that.'
'And his brain is very clouded. He tries to do all we tell him--it is
touching to see him. But his real intelligence seems to be far away.
Then there are the wounds. Did Dr. Howson tell you about them?'
'He said there were bad wounds.'
The Sister threw up her hands.
'How he ever managed to do the walking he must have done to get through
the lines is a mystery to us all. What he must have endured! The wounds
must have been dressed to begin with in a German field-hospital. Then on
his way to Germany, before the wounds had properly healed--that at least
is our theory--somewhere near the Belgian frontier he must have made his
escape. What happened then, of course, during the winter and spring
nobody knows; but when he reached our lines, the wounds were both in a
septic state. There have been two operations for gangrene since he has
been here. I don't think he'll stand another.'
Bridget lifted her eyes and looked intently at the speaker--
'You think he's very ill?'
'Very ill,' said the Sister emphatically. 'If you can identify him, you
must send for his wife at once--_at once_! Lieutenant Sarratt was, I
think, married?'
'Yes,' said Bridget. 'Now may I see him?'
The Sister looked at her visitor curiously. She was both puzzled and
repelled by Bridget's manner, by its lack of spring and cordiality, its
dull suggestion of something reserved and held back. But perhaps the
woman was only shy; and oppressed by the responsibility of what she had
come to do. The Sister was a very human person, and took tolerant views
of everything that was not German. She rose, saying gently--
'If I may advise you, take time to watch him, before you form or express
any opinion. We won't hurry you.'
Bridget followed her guide a few steps along the corridor. The Sister
opened a door, and stood aside to let Bridget pass in. Then she came in
herself, and beckoned to a young probationer who was rolling bandages on
the further side of the only bed the room contained. The girl quietly
put down her work and went out.
There was a man lying in the bed, and Bridget looked at him. Her heart
beat so fast, that she felt for a moment sick and suffocated. The Sister
bent over him tenderly, and put back the hair, the grey hair which had
fallen over his forehead. At the touch, his eyes opened, and as he saw
the Sister's face he very faintly smiled. Bridget suddenly put out a
hand and steadied herself by a chair standing beside the bed. The Sister
however saw nothing but the face on the pillow, and the smile. The smile
was so rare!--it was the one sufficient reward for all his nurses did
for him.
'Now I'll leave you,' said the Sister, forbearing to ask any further
questions. 'Won't you sit down there? If you want anyone, you have only
to touch that bell.'
She disappeared. And Bridget sat down, her eyes on the figure in the
bed, and on the hand outside the sheet. Her own hands were trembling, as
they lay crossed upon her lap.
How grey and thin the hair was--how ghostly the face--what suffering in
every line!
Bridget drew closer.
'George!' she whispered.
No answer. The man's eyes were closed again. He seemed to be asleep.
Bridget looked at his hand--intently. Then she touched it.
The heavy blue-veined eyelids rose again, as though at the only summons
the brain understood. Bridget bent forward. What colour there had been
in it before ebbed from her sallow face; her lips grew white. The eyes
of the man in the bed met hers--first mechanically--without any sign of
consciousness; then--was it imagination?--or was there a sudden change
of expression--a quick trouble--a flickering of the lids? Bridget shook
through every limb. If he recognised her, if the sight of her brought
memory back--even a gleam of it--there was an end of everything, of
course. She had only to go to the nearest telegraph office and send for
Nelly.
But the momentary stimulus passed as she looked--the eyes grew vacant
again--the lids fell. Bridget drew a long breath. She raised herself and
moved her chair farther away.
Time passed. The window behind her was open, and the sun came in, and
stole over the bed. The sick man scarcely moved at all. There was
complete silence, except for the tread of persons in the corridor
outside, and certain distant sounds of musketry and bomb practice from
the military camp half a mile away.
He was dying--the man in the bed. That was plain. Bridget knew the look
of mortal illness. It couldn't be long.
She sat there nearly an hour--thinking. At the end of that time she rang
the hand-bell near her.
Sister Agnes appeared at once. Bridget had risen and confronted her.
'Well,' said the Sister eagerly. But the visitor's irresponsive look
quenched her hopes at once.
'I see nothing at all that reminds me of my brother-in-law,' said
Bridget with emphasis. 'I am very sorry--but I cannot identify this
person as George Sarratt.'
The Sister's face fell.
'You don't even see the general likeness Dr. Howson thought he saw?'
Bridget turned back with her towards the bed.
'I see what Dr. Howson meant,' she said, slowly. 'But there is no real
likeness. My brother-in-law's face was much longer. His mouth was quite
different. And his eyes were brown.'
'Did you see the eyes again? Did he look at you?'
'Yes.'
'And there was no sign of recognition?'
'No.'
'Poor dear fellow!' said the Sister, stooping over him again. There was
a profound and yearning pity in the gesture. 'I wish we could have kept
him more alive--more awake--for you, to see. But there had to be morphia
this morning. He had a dreadful night. Are you _quite_ sure? Wouldn't
you like to come back this afternoon, and watch him again? Sometimes a
second time--Oh, and what of the hands?--did you notice them?' And
suddenly remembering Dr. Howson's words, the Sister pointed to the
long, bloodless fingers lying on the sheet, and to the marked deformity
in each little finger.
'Yet--but George's hands were not peculiar in any way.' Bridget's voice,
as she spoke, seemed to herself to come from far away; as though it were
that of another person speaking under compulsion.
'I'm sorry--I'm sorry!'--the Sister repeated. 'It's so sad for him to be
dying here--all alone--nobody knowing even who he is--when one thinks
how somebody must be grieving and longing for him.'
'Have you no other enquiries?' said Bridget, abruptly, turning to pick
up some gloves she had laid down.
'Oh yes--we have had other visitors--and I believe there is a gentleman
coming to-morrow. But nothing that sounded so promising as your visit.
You won't come again?'
'It would be no use,' said the even, determined voice. 'I will write to
Dr. Howson from London. And I do hope'--for the first time, the kindly
nurse perceived some agitation in this impressive stranger--'I do hope
that nobody will write to my sister--to Mrs. Sarratt. She is very
delicate. Excitement and disappointment might just kill her. That's why
I came.'
'And that of course is why Dr. Howson wrote to you first. Oh I am sure
he will take every care. He'll be very, very sorry! You'll write to him?
And of course so shall I.'
The news that the lady from England had failed to identify the nameless
patient to whom doctor and nurses had been for weeks giving their most
devoted care spread rapidly, and Bridget before she left the hospital
had to run the gauntlet of a good many enquiries, at the hands of the
various hospital chiefs. She produced on all those who questioned her
the impression of an unattractive, hard, intelligent woman whose
judgment could probably be trusted.
'Glad she isn't my sister-in-law!' thought Vincent as he turned back
from handing her into the motor which was to take her to the port. But
he did not doubt her verdict, and was only sorry for 'old Howson,' who
had been so sure that something would come of her visit.
The motor took Bridget rapidly back to D----, where she would be in good
time for an afternoon boat. She got some food, automatically, at a hotel
near the quay, and automatically made her way to the boat when the time
came. A dull sense of something irrevocable,--something
horrible,--overshadowed her. But the 'will to conquer' in her was as
iron; and, as in the Prussian conscience, left no room for pity or
remorse.