The weeks that followed were the most terrible and most wearing that
Jeannie had ever known. During the first day or two she showed a real
aptitude for her work; she was gentle, firm, and untiring, and as the
epidemic increased Miss Fortescue was soon moved to help in a larger
ward, and a dozen cases in a smaller ward, off the one under Nurse
James, were put under Jeannie. The head nurse was thus always at hand in
case she wanted her, but otherwise Jeannie had to manage her patients
alone. It was a constant matter of anxiety to Jeannie as to whether she
ought or ought not to summon the other. At first the slightest rise in a
patient’s temperature seemed to her enough grounds on which to ask the
inspection of the elder woman, for she had been told she could not be
too careful. Nurse James herself was worked almost to death; and on
Jeannie’s calling her one day to look at a patient she had exclaimed,
snappishly:
“It would be less trouble to look after them myself.”
Jeannie flushed slightly, but said nothing, and went back to her work.
Nurse James hurried out of the room, but returned a moment later.
“You must forgive me, Miss Avesham,” she said, “but I am worried to
death. What we should do without you and Miss Fortescue I don’t know.
But the temperature always goes up a little in the afternoon; it is only
the very sudden rise or sudden falls, particularly the latter, which
need alarm you.”
Jeannie smiled.
“I see; I will try to remember,” she said. “You are very patient with
me.”
The work was terribly severe to any one unaccustomed to it. In her ward
were women and girls only, who were easier to manage than the men, but
who were more hopeless and apathetic, and Jeannie often thought that she
would sooner have them fretful and irritable if they only would be less
despondent. One woman, who was having the attack very slightly, and
getting through with it very well, would spend half the day in sulky
tears, pitying herself, and moaning over the cruelty of Jeannie, who, in
obedience to her orders, did not, of course, let her have a crumb of any
solid food. Sometimes when she was giving her a wash in the morning she
would be called away by another trying to raise herself in bed or
wanting to be attended to in some way, and when she came back there
would be nothing but querulous complaints of the time she had been left;
she felt sure she would catch a cold; Jeannie had not dried her properly
before she went. At another time she would beg for food with tears,
saying how she had read a story in which was described an epidemic of
typhoid, where a charitable lady in the village had sat by her patients
and fed them with cooling fruits. Jeannie had laughed at this, out of
the superiority of her ten days’ knowledge.
“My good woman,” she said, “if I wanted to kill you I should give you a
cooling fruit.”
“You are killing me with starvation,” cried the woman. “Look how thin I
have grown with a fortnight of this. Oh, for God’s sake, Miss, give me
just a crust of bread!”
Jeannie had finished washing her, and covered her up gently.
“Now I am leaving you, and I shall come again to you in two hours with
your milk,” she said. “Look, you have two hours before you. Just say
your prayers, and thank God for getting over this. And ask Him to make
you more sensible and more patient. You are more trouble than all the
rest of the ward put together.”
Jeannie took down the woman’s temperature-chart, which hung over her
bed, and put down the ten o’clock register.
“You are doing very well,” she said. “Just think over what I have said.”
The next case was as bad as a case can be. It was a girl not more than
sixteen years old, and even now, when the second week of the fever was
only just beginning, her strength was terribly exhausted by the
continued high fever. The afternoon before Jeannie had spent two hours
sponging her with iced water, and had only succeeded in bringing it
down to 102°. She came on duty herself at eight in the morning, and as
she put the thermometer into the child’s mouth she looked at the
temperature-chart. It had been 102° again at six in the morning, when it
should have been lowest, and she looked anxiously at the face. It was
very wan and thin, and the skin looked hard and tight as if it had been
stretched. Below the eyes were deep hollows, and though they were wide
open it was clear that the girl was scarcely conscious. She waited a
full half minute, and then drew the thermometer gently out of her mouth
and looked at it. It registered only 98°. She frowned and put it into
her mouth again, hoping there might have been some mistake. Then when
she saw it a second time she hurried into the next ward.
“That girl, Number 8,” she said to Nurse James, “had a six-o’clock
temperature of 102°. It has sunk to 98°.”
Nurse James hardly looked up; she was watching a man who lay quite
still, but tried every other moment to get up in bed.
“Dr. Maitland is in the next ward,” she said; “go and tell him at once.
It may be perforation. Then, when you have finished your round, if all
the rest are doing well, I wish you would come here while I finish. I
can’t leave this man alone. You can hear any sound in your ward from his
bed.”
Jeannie hurried on and told Dr. Maitland. He came at once, looked at the
girl, and shook his head.
“You did quite right to send for me, Miss Avesham,” he said. “Yes, she
is as bad as she can be. I can do nothing.”
At moments like these Jeannie felt sick and utterly helpless, and almost
inclined to say that she could bear it no longer. But she said nothing,
and went on to the next bed.
The next patient was a robust woman of about thirty with a baritone
voice. She proclaimed loudly that she was perfectly well, and was being
starved. Her gray Irish eyes used to plead with Jeannie for something to
eat, and she badly resented being washed. But this morning she took it
in silence, and thanked Jeannie.
“She’s bad?” she asked, looking hard to the next bed.
“Yes, very bad,” said Jeannie, hardly able to speak. She took the
woman’s chart down from the wall and indicated the ten-o’clock
temperature on it.
“You’re nearly through, I hope,” she said. “Yes, quite normal this
morning. Now all you have to do is to lie very quiet, and you will get
stronger every day. The doctor said you might have beef-tea this morning
instead of milk.”
She smiled at her rather sadly, and was passing on, but the woman seized
her hand.
“It’s cruel hard on ye,” said she; “but don’t mind so, don’t mind so.
An’ me worrying you and all. I’ll bite out me tongue before I say
another hasty word to ye.”
Then came two or three very bad cases. One was a frail, tired-looking
woman, who glanced at Jeannie wistfully as she examined the thermometer.
“I’m no better?” she asked.
Jeannie smiled, but with a heavy heart. The woman, she felt sure, could
not last through very many days of this.
“How do you feel?” she said.
“Weak and tired--oh, so tired! And I have a pain in my back.”
“Do you cough at all?” asked Jeannie.
“I couldn’t sleep for it last night,” said the woman, “and that makes a
body weary.”
“Keep yourself warm, then,” she said, “and lie still.”
“But I’m no better?” she asked again.
“That was one of the questions which we settled not to ask,” said
Jeannie. “When you are quite well you will get up. Till then, nothing,
nothing.”
Half an hour more sufficed to finish the round, and she went into the
next ward to watch the man who was so restless. For nearly an hour she
had to sit close by his bedside, with her hands continually pressing on
his shoulders to prevent his getting up. He was more than half
unconscious and wandering in his talk, saying things now and then which
ten days ago would have made Jeannie turn from him in horror and
disgust. But now she had nothing of that left, only pure pity and the
one great end in view to let none of these poor people die.
Then when Nurse James had finished her round she came back to her, and
by then it was time to get the patients’ food. Some of the more advanced
and progressing cases were already allowed Mellin’s Food, but for the
most it was still only milk and beef-tea.
At mid-day she had a couple of hours’ interval, usually returned home to
lunch, and went afterward for a walk. But to-day she felt too fagged and
too sick at heart to do more than sit in the garden and beneath the
pitiless leaden cowl of the sky. The effort of appearing cheerful and
remaining cheering was too great, and when alone she abandoned herself
to a sort of resigned hopelessness. Just before leaving the ward she had
seen the terrible screen put up round the bed of the girl who was dying.
That was all the privacy that could be given her. She almost hoped that
when she got back the end would have come; only two days before she had
sat in the still and awe-struck ward while a woman passed through her
last hours. She had heard the wandering, inarticulate cries; she had
counted her breaths through the long, pitiless silences; she had shut
her teeth hard to bear, without screaming audibly, that one last
exclamation in which the spirit clutches with unavailing hands not to be
torn away from the inert body, the one last convulsive breath in which
the body tries to retain it, and she thought she could hardly bear it
again. Then she cudgelled and contemned herself for her paltry, selfish
cowardice. Was there ever, she thought, a girl so puny-spirited?
During these ten days in which she had been nursing the epidemic had
showed no signs of abatement. Sometimes for a couple of days the return
of the fresh cases was suddenly diminished, and once when Jeannie went
to the hospital at eight in the morning to take up her duties they told
her that there had been no fresh cases reported since the night before.
But on all these occasions the lull was only temporary, and in the next
twelve hours there would perhaps be seventy more reported. She pictured
the disease to herself like some hideous monster which would lie down to
sleep for a few hours after one of its gigantic meals, and then, when
the victims were digested, would rise up again and clutch at them with
his hot hands. Once as she was leaving the hospital Dr. Maitland had
called her into his consulting-room to ask her a question about one of
her patients, and as she rose to go he had said:
“Would you like to see what is the matter with all these people?”
He pointed to a microscope which stood on the table, and Jeannie looked
through it at the drop of water which was beneath the lenses.
“There are a quantity of typhoid bacilli in that,” he said; “they are
long and black, with one pointed end, rather like pencils.”
He adjusted the light for her, and among the infinitesimal denizens of
the water she saw five or six little dark lines seemingly as lifeless as
the rest. She drew back with a shudder.
“I thought of it as some terrible beast with claws and teeth,” she said;
“but this is the more terrible.”
Never before had she realized on what a hair-breadth path this
precarious life of ours pursues its way. The strength and the wit and
the beauty of man were slaves and puppets in the hands of this minute
organism. A king on his throne mixes one day a little water with the
wine in his golden cup, and with it one of these black pencils,
invisible but to a high power of lens, and thereafter he ascends his
throne no more, but another sits in his place, before whom they sing
“God save the King.” And the father is but one among the uncounted dead.
This afternoon, as she sat under the trees in the garden after her
lunch, thoughts like these flitted bat-like through the gloomy chambers
of the brain. How insignificant and insecure was life! It was like some
ill-constructed clock which might stop any moment. And how mean and
trivial were all its best aims. Here was she, with a fair average of
birth and brains and heart, and life held for her no more heroic task
than to wage war--and, oh, how hopelessly!--with an infinitesimal atom.
The peace and sheltered security of Wroxton, the busy tranquility she
had fashioned for herself here, were all knocked in the dust. Everything
was at the mercy of the bacillus.
Luckily for her peace of mind these unfruitful imaginings were
interrupted by Pool. She did not hear his step on the soft grass, and
his voice spoke before she knew he was there.
“Mr. Collingwood is here, Miss,” he said, “and wants to know if you can
see him.”
Jeannie did not move, but her voice trembled a little.
“Yes, ask him to come out here,” she said; “and bring another chair.”
She rose to meet him.
“Ah, how do you do?” she said. “Tell me, the baby is quite well?”
“Quite well,” he said, and then there was silence.
Pool brought out another chair, and still in silence they sat down.
Jeannie’s heart had suddenly begun to beat furiously.
“I heard from Arthur this morning,” he said, “and that is why I am here.
I knew, of course, from the papers that there was an epidemic of typhoid
here, and I was frightened. But his letter told me more. It told me that
you spent all your days in nursing at the hospital. And I could not bear
it.”
Jeannie said nothing, but a great, pervading peace took possession of
her troubled soul. It was as if she had suddenly passed from a stormy,
mountainous sea round into a harbour, and the bacilli resumed their real
dimensions.
“I could not bear it,” he said, again looking at her.
No word of explanation passed between them. His right to question what
she did Jeannie did not dispute, and he did not miss the significance of
that.
“I could not help myself,” she said. “It was impossible for me not to do
what I could. Oh, it has been a terrible time, and we are not at the end
of it yet. Oh, these poor people!”
“Leave the place, come away,” he began, suddenly and passionately, but
then stopped, for he saw in Jeannie’s face the light of pity, divine and
human and womanly, and all that was selfish in his love for her, all
that said “I cannot live without her,” died.
“Do not leave the place,” he resumed. “Do all that your heart prompts
you to do. But promise me this--promise that you will leave no
precaution untaken to minimize the risk to yourself. I know there is no
need to ask you that, because that is your duty as much as the other,
but it will comfort me to hear you say it.”
“I promise you that,” said Jeannie, simply.
The divine deed was done, and the word yet unspoken had changed all.
Three minutes before there had been only a leaden sky, the withered,
drought-yellowed grass round her, but the grass was become the paved
sapphire of the courts of heaven, and the sky was the sky. Each of them
was so utterly in tune with the other that Jack felt no desire to speak
directly, nor did Jeannie wish it. The pause out of which music should
issue was theirs.
“And what is to be done with me?” he asked, in a lighter tone. “May I
stop here?”
“No, Jack,” she said, and the utter unconsciousness with which she spoke
his name smote him with sweetness. “No, you are to go back to your work,
too. We have all got our work; nothing can refute that. Tell me about
the baby.”
“He cries for you,” said Jack.
“Kiss him for me then, and pray for us. Oh, let me tell you about it
all. It will do me good, and I am too heart-sick to talk it over with
the others. If I tell Aunt Em about my cases it is a double burden for
her, and if she tells me about hers it is double for me. Arthur behaves
splendidly. He goes his rounds all day, like a milkman, he says, with
cans of disinfectants.”
“Ah, he helps too, does he?” said Jack. “He never mentioned that in his
letter.”
“No? That is so like the dear boy. He has found lots of cases which they
were trying to keep dark, for they hate going to hospital, and he alone
of us all remains perfectly cheerful. But it is terrible at the
hospital. I have about a dozen cases almost entirely under me. One died
two days ago; another, I am afraid, will die to-day. It is so awful to
work and work and work, and with what result? Oh, I am a stupid,
ungrateful little fool! Is it not enough to find that little silver line
on the thermometer a little lower than it was at the same time
yesterday, and perhaps a degree lower than it was the day before? But
one feels so helpless. And it is all on account of a little invisible
demon which the carelessness of dirty people allowed to get into the
water-supply. People talk of the horror of war. The horror of
water-companies seems to me the more frightful.”
Jeannie paused a moment.
“But I would not have gone through it, and I would not be now going
through it for the kingdoms of the world,” she said. “The mischief has
been done, and it is an inestimable privilege to be allowed to help in
minimizing the results. It is giving me a new view of life, Jack. Here
in this sheltered, peaceful town I was in danger, I think, of becoming a
sort of ruminating animal, sleek, and living in the meadows like a sort
of cow.”
“I didn’t gather you were in danger of that,” remarked Jack. “You did
happen to hold some classes in your meadow, did you not?”
“Yes, classes of other cows. We were all cows together--at least I was.
But out of all this suffering there comes, I know not what--certainly
despondency; but I do not believe that that is the permanent net
result. One learns what a little thing is life, and how great. Also it
seems as if I was learning to be egoistic.”
She got up out of her chair.
“Oh, you have done me good!” she cried. “Look, what was that?”
Jack had seen it, too; it was as if the sky had winked. They waited in
silence, and in a few minutes came the growl of answering thunder.
Jeannie stretched out her arms with a great sigh.
“Thunder!” she cried. “Perhaps there will be rain. How I have prayed for
that. You don’t know what it may mean to us. Well, what is it, Pool?”
“Mrs. Raymond is here, Miss,” said he, “and would like to speak to you.”
“Very well, I will come in. Wait here, Mr. Collingwood; I will see what
she wants.”
Jeannie went indoors with a new briskness of step and found Mrs. Raymond
standing helplessly in the middle of the drawing-room.
“Oh, Miss Avesham,” she said, “will you come? Maria is ill, and I can’t
find any doctor in. So I thought, if you would be so kind, you would
come and look at her, as I heard you have been working at the hospital.”
“When was she taken ill?” asked Jeannie.
“She wasn’t well yesterday at lunch, and had no appetite. And my husband
said it was all nonsense and took her out for a walk. She was very bad
last night, but he said she would be all right in the morning, and now
she’s no better.”
Jeannie gave a little exclamation of impatience, and looked at her
watch.
“Yes, I’ve just got time before I go back to the hospital,” she said.
“Have you a carriage here?”
“Yes, it’s waiting,” said Mrs. Raymond.
“Very good; get in. I’ll follow you in a moment.”
She went quickly into the garden again.
“I must go,” she said to Jack. “I have to see a girl before I go back to
the hospital.”
“And I am to go back to paint my silly little pictures?” he asked.
“Yes; you don’t paint badly, you know!”
“I will try and paint better. But I may come again?”
Jeannie shook hands with him.
“Yes, do come again,” she said.