It was early afternoon. Miss Widdington had retired to take her
customary after-luncheon siesta, an indulgence permitted to her
seniority, but not granted, except on rare occasions, to the young.
Miss Ursula, therefore, kept watch in the sick chamber, just such a
little white spotless room as their own, but containing only one little
white bed in which the youth lay dry and warm and comfortably asleep.
He was exhausted from cold and exposure, said the doctor who had driven
in from St. Madoc, eight miles off, and his ankle was broken. The
doctor had done what was necessary, had swathed him in one of old
Dorcas's flannel nightgowns, and had departed. Miss Ursula had the
patient all to herself. A bright fire burned in the grate, and the
strong Atlantic breeze came in through the open window where she sat,
her knitting in her hand. Now and then she glanced at the sleeper,
longing, in a most feminine manner, for him to awake and render an
account of himself. Miss Ursula's heart fluttered mildly. For
beautiful youths, baffling curiosity, are not washed up alive by the
sea at an old maid's feet every day in the week. It was indeed an
adventure, a bit of a fairy tale suddenly gleaming and dancing in the
grey atmosphere of an eventless life. She glanced at him again, and
wondered whether he had a mother. Presently Dorcas came in, stout and
matronly, and cast a maternal eye on the boy and smoothed his pillow.
She had sons herself, and two of them had been claimed by the pitiless
sea.
"It's lucky I had a sensible nightgown to give him," she remarked. "If
we had had only the flimsy things that you and Miss Janet wear----"
"Sh!" said Miss Ursula, colouring faintly; "he might hear you."
Dorcas laughed and went out. Miss Ursula's needles clicked rapidly.
When she glanced at the bed again she became conscious of two great
dark eyes regarding her in utter wonder. She rose quickly and went
over to the bed.
"Don't be afraid," she said, though what there was to terrify him in
her mild demeanour and the spotless room she could not have explained;
"don't be afraid, you're among friends."
He murmured some words which she did not catch.
"What do you say?" she asked sweetly.
He repeated them in a stronger voice. Then she realised that he spoke
in a foreign tongue. A queer dismay filled her.
"Don't you speak English?"
He looked at her for a moment, puzzled. Then the echo of the last word
seemed to reach his intelligence. He shook his head. A memory rose
from schoolgirl days.
"_Parlez-vous français?_" she faltered; and when he shook his head
again she almost felt relieved. Then he began to talk, regarding her
earnestly, as if seeking by his mere intentness to make her understand.
But it was a strange language which she had not heard before.
In one mighty effort Miss Ursula gathered together her whole stock of
German.
"_Sprechen Sie deutsch?_"
"_Ach ja! Einige Worte,_" he replied, and his face lit up with a smile
so radiant that Miss Ursula wondered how Providence could have
neglected to inspire a being so beautiful with a knowledge of the
English language, "_Ich kann mich auf deutsch verständlich machen, aber
ich bin polnisch_."
But not a word of the halting sentence could Miss Ursula make out; even
the last was swallowed up in guttural unintelligibility. She only
recognised the speech as German and different from that which he used
at first, and which seemed to be his native tongue.
"Oh, dear, I must give it up," she sighed.
The patient moved slightly and uttered a sudden cry of pain. It
occurred to Miss Ursula that he had not had time to realise the
fractured ankle. That he realised it now was obvious, for he lay back
with closed eyes and white lips until the spasm had passed. After that
Miss Ursula did her best to explain in pantomime what had happened.
She made a gesture of swimming, then laid her cheek on her hand and
simulated fainting, acted her discovery of his body on the beach, broke
a wooden match in two and pointed to his ankle, exhibited the medicine
bottles by the bedside, smoothed his pillow, and smiled so as to assure
him of kind treatment. He understood, more or less, murmured thanks in
his own language, took her hand, and to her English woman's
astonishment, pressed it to his lips. Miss Widdington, entering
softly, found the pair in this romantic situation.
When it dawned on him a while later that he owed his deliverance
equally to both of the gentle ladies, he kissed Miss Widdington's hand
too. Whereupon Miss Ursula coloured and turned away. She did not like
to see him kiss her sister's hand. Why, she could not tell, but she
felt as if she had received a tiny stab in the heart.