OF course, it seemed ridiculous for a sane and moderately well
brought-up individual to dress herself to go out—and in a new hat,
too—and, then, simply because her dog happened to tumble out of the
window, to collapse on the hearthrug like an anæmic concertina, while
she draped her head gracefully over the fender, with the plumes of the
said new hat resting resignedly on the fire-irons.
It didn’t seem quite reasonable to want to go to sleep like that.
Still, as I showed signs of doing it once more, after they had propped
me upright again, they decided to put me to bed.
When I woke up, they told me I was ill. That seemed ridiculous, too,
and I said so; and added that now I had had a little rest I intended
to get up and go to town—important appointment; couldn’t possibly be
spared, etc.
And they all said lots of things—you know the kind of arguments your
friends always bring to bear on you if you chance to be just a little
out of sorts. I tried to make them understand that I was indispensable
to the well-being of London; that, though _they_ might be in the habit
of shirking work under the slightest pretext of a headache, _I_ wasn’t
that sort of a person. I owed it to my conscience, as well as to the
world at large, to be at work in my office within half an hour, penning
words of wisdom that should keep the universe on its proper balance.
Ursula merely asked if I liked the milk with the beaten egg _quite_
cold or a trifle warm?
In the end I had to give in. They insisted I was ill; and I admit I was
feeling unusually tired.
But as the weeks went by I did not get as strong as I had hoped to do.
I seldom got farther than an easy-chair, and not always as far as that.
So at last I determined to try the cure that hitherto had never failed
me. Trunks were packed, and they got me down by easy stages to the
cottage among the hills. I felt that if only I could see the flowers
and breathe the air that blows way over from where the lighthouse
blinks in the channel, I should certainly pick up both my strength and
my courage.
* * * * *
When I reached the cottage the autumn sun was setting on hills that
were a gorgeous blaze of brilliant crimson, yellow, bright rust,
gold, pale lemon, chestnut brown, with the dark green of yew-trees
at intervals. I have never seen colours like our autumn hillsides
anywhere in the world, though, of course, they can be matched in places
where the woods are made up of a wide variety of different trees. After
the murk of London in October the glory of it all fairly dazzled me.
The garden was lovely too, but in a wistful sort of way. Snapdragons
and zinnias and eschscholtzias were blooming lustily; there were still
blossoms on the monthly rose bushes; nasturtiums flaunted in odd
corners, and made splashes of brightness; the purple clematis over
the porch was in full flower; fuchsias, geraniums, belated larkspurs,
hollyhocks, and sweet alyssum talked of summer not yet over; while
peeping out from crevices among the stones and nestling at the roots of
trees were primroses already in flower; violets were blooming in the
big bed by the kitchen door, and the yellow jasmine was smothered in
bloom—such a curious mixture of summer and spring overlapping, with no
hint of autumn and winter in between.
The fruit had not all been gathered in, and the trees in the orchard
were bowed down with masses of crimson and pale green and golden
yellow and russet brown, with spots of colour dotted about among the
lush grass. It seemed impossible that one could remain ill in such an
earthly paradise!
I was too tired with the journey to go round the garden that day; I
put it off till to-morrow. Next day I was not equal to going out at
all, and the third day I did not get up.
The colours gradually faded from the hillsides; the woods grew a
purply-brown; the white mists were later and later in rising from the
river in the valley below me. All day long I lay in bed watching the
sun move from east to west across the mountains, while near at hand
tomtits and finches, jays and magpies, cheeky robins and green and
crimson woodpeckers flitted about in the bare trees just outside my
windows.
One little wren used regularly to pay me a morning call on the
window-ledge; often she flew right into the room. I liked to think she
came to ask how I was. Once I opened my eyes to find a robin perched on
the rail at the bottom of the bed, eyeing me inquiringly. The little
wild things on these hills seem so friendly.
As soon as twilight fell the owls woke up the adjoining wood, and
called to other owls across the ravine.
These were the only sounds to break the silence.
* * * * *
It is when you are ill, more than at any other time, that you realise
the human difference between town and country. You can live all
your life, and then be ill and die, in London, and the people next
door—even those in the same building—may know nothing about it.
I knew of a girl living in a block of small flats occupied by women
workers, and trying to make a living by journalism, who lay dead in her
room for a week, and then was only discovered by the caretaker because
her rent was overdue. No one had missed her, though there were women
going up and down stairs and in and out of the rooms, all around her.
The isolation of the solitary woman in a crowded city can be something
awful.
It isn’t that town dwellers at heart are more selfish than country
folks; it is their mode of life that is to blame.
London claims so much of one’s time and energy for the doing of “most
important” work, and the pursuit of machine-made pleasure, till next to
nothing is left for the greatest of all work and the greatest of all
pleasure—merely being kind.
* * * * *
Once it was known that I wasn’t getting better and the local doctor
had been summoned (he lives in another village nearly four miles off),
kindnesses came from all directions, everybody offering the best
they had. If extra people had been required to take turns sitting up
at night, any number were ready to come on duty. One woman, who is
exceedingly capable, though an amateur masseuse, came to inquire if it
was a case where rubbing would be beneficial. She brought a bottle of
Elliman’s with her, in case she could be of use, and offered to come
daily.
Did the Buff Orpingtons lay that priceless treasure, an unexpected
mid-winter egg? It was promptly sent up by a small child, with a kind
hope from mother that the lady would be able to take it.
I believe Sarah Ann Perkins would have slain every duck she possessed
(and have scorned to take payment), if only there had been the
slightest chance of my once more eating that fair slice from the breast!
A calf’s foot was needed for jelly. The butcher hadn’t one, didn’t
know who had; but one arrived next day, though he had had to scour the
county for it.
Was anything required hurriedly from the village shop? Everybody
was willing to go and fetch it, or Miss Jarvis would toil up with
it herself, after the shop was closed, rather than I should be kept
waiting, bringing up a bunch of early violets from her garden at the
same time.
One farmer’s wife trailed up the rough, wet paths, with a little pigeon
all ready for roasting, in the hope that it might tempt me.
The handy man went out and shot an owl because he was sure I must find
all they hooters a turr’ble noosance. Of course he didn’t know how I
love the owls, nor how companionable it seemed to hear them calling to
one another through the long, long night. But probably the kind thought
behind his gun was of greater worth than the bird he shot.
Yes, everybody was anxious to do something, only there was so little
they could do—till one day Angelina lost herself! She had followed
Abigail in the afternoon to the village, where a dog suddenly scared
and chased her, and she flew off into the woods.
Abigail hunted for her till the winter dusk settled in, but no cat
responded to her calls. So she had to content herself with mentioning
the matter at each cottage in the vicinity, everyone willingly
undertaking to keep a look-out for the missing cat. By the next
afternoon every youngster in the village was out scouting for her, and
saucers of milk were placed enticingly outside doors.
But poor Angy was never seen again.
I missed her very much. She was only a very ordinary tabby, but she was
a large, comfortable, homely sort of a cat; and she had made it part
of her daily programme to come upstairs and jump softly on my bed with
a pleased little mew, and then settle herself down beside me, where I
could reach out my hand to stroke her, while she purred soothingly the
whole time. The little dog was too boisterously demonstrative, in his
joy at seeing me, to be allowed in the room; but the more sedate and
gentle Angelina helped me to pass many a weary hour.
When all search for her proved fruitless, the kindly village people
didn’t dismiss the matter as done with. Forthwith there started a
procession from the village to my house, and about every hour someone
arrived with an offering. I could hear their voices at the door below,
through the open bedroom window.
First it was a labouring man with a big hamper: “My missus is so worrit
about the poor young lady losing her cat, so I’ve brought up our Tom,
if she’d care to accept him. He’s a fust-class ratter—killed a big ’un
in our barn yesterday,” etc.
Then it was the piping voice of a small girl, accompanied by two
smaller: “Please, we’re so sorry about the lady not having a pussy when
she’s poorly, and we’ve brought her our two little kitties, an’ one has
six toes!”
Next a bigger girl: “Gran says would miss like one of our kittens?
They’ll be able to leave their mother next week, and I’ll bring the lot
up for her to choose from, if she’d like one.”
A boy arrived with a basket containing a fine black cat. “Mother’s sent
this for the lady. Just you see how he’ll jump over my hand and stand
on his hind legs!”—(a wild scramble followed). “Here, Peter! here—come
_back_—Pe-ter! Puss, puss, puss! There now, I’ve done it! Mother said
as I wasn’t to open the basket till I was inside the house! I ’spect
he’s back home again by now! But I’ll bring him up again presently. The
lady’ll love to have him, he’s so knowing.”
Later, I heard a woman’s voice: “Poor _dear_ soul, it _do_ seem hard;
and the on’y cat she’ve got, too! Well, we’ve six to our house, and she
can have all of ourn and welcome.”
As Virginia said, it was not quite so embarrassing as griskins,
because, at least, each had four legs with which to get itself off home
again.
* * * * *
But it is weary work lying still day after day till the weeks actually
lengthen into months. I kept on telling myself I was making headway,
but it was a poor pretence. I gave up thinking about it at last, and
wondered how I could best endure the pain that no one seemed able to
relieve.
The autumn had now changed to winter, and one morning I woke to see
snow bearing down the fir-trees and lying on the hills. The snow is
very beautiful when one is well and strong, and able to go out in the
crisp cold air and enjoy it; but to me, penned in among the hills,
miles away from town and the advantages of up-to-date civilisation, it
gave a sudden sense of desolation. It shut me off most effectually from
the big world I wanted so badly to see again. As I looked out upon that
snow, it seemed as though I were buried already.
One desire swamped all others, and that was the longing to get back
to London where friends would be around me, and specialists within
easy reach. And yet that appeared to be an utter impossibility. It has
always been a matter of pride with me that my cottage is situated in
one of the most inaccessible spots in the British Isles; I used to feel
so happy in the thought that it was only with the utmost difficulty
that a vehicle could be got near the garden gate. It gave me such a
sense of seclusion and delightful “far-away-ness” after the crush and
hustle of town life.
But for once I wished I had been a wee bit more accessible. I realised
that there might be certain advantages in having a good county road
close by whereon a helpless invalid could be driven to the station
without having every bone in her body jolted to pieces! But it was too
late to do anything now.
Altogether it was two months before I let anyone in town know how ill
I really was; most people thought I was merely taking a long rest.
Naturally it was at once suggested a specialist should be sent for; but
I said no. I was such a weak creature by this time, I felt I couldn’t
bear to hear the worst—I was almost sure there would be a “worst” to
hear—and that a specialist wouldn’t diagnose my illness as merely
overwork. I insisted that I would rather be left to die quietly. I know
it sounds very cowardly, and I _was_ a coward at the time. But I think
many women will understand this condition of mind; we do try so often
to push back, with both our hands, trouble of this sort, when we dimly
see it ahead.
The hale and hearty person will naturally exclaim: “How perfectly
ridiculous! How much more sensible to have proper advice, and then set
to work to get strong again!” I know! I have myself said this sort of
thing to ill people many a time in the past! But I learnt a lot of
things during that breakdown; among them, that it is very easy to lay
down the law as to what should be done, and to act in a common-sense
manner, when one is well; but it is quite another thing to follow one’s
own good advice, or, in fact, do anything one ought to do, when one is
too weak even to think!
Yet how often it happens that, in our direst extremity, help comes when
least expected! So soon as it became known in town that I was really
seriously ill, there appeared among my morning letters a note from one
of London’s most famous surgeons saying that he was coming down on a
friendly visit in a couple of days “just to see if I can help you at
all.”
I read the letter a second time, and then all my fears vanished.
Someone coming “to help” me seemed so different from a formal
consultation. That phrase was better than reams of ordinary sympathy,
or kind inquiries, or professional expressions. And then I felt so glad
that the matter had been taken out of my hands. It seemed as though
a weight was lifted from my brain, and being a feeble as well as a
foolish creature, at first I put my head under the eiderdown and had a
weep—for sheer gratitude; but a few minutes later I rubbed my eyes and
felt I was heaps better already!
* * * * *
Yet the way was not entirely clear, even though this busy, over-worked
specialist was offering to spend more than a day in journeying right
across England to the far-off cottage; there was the snow to be
reckoned with, and, when it likes, the snow on our hills can frustrate
anybody’s best-laid plans. The sky was very grey; I did hope no more
would fall, otherwise the roads would probably be impassable.
Owing to the scarcity of trains in our valley, the local doctor was to
tap the main line some miles away, and meet the great surgeon; and a
rich resident was kindly loaning a cherished new car, as the doctor
did not consider either of his own motors worthy of the occasion.
But even he was dubious as he looked at the heavy skies. He said he
could manage to get the car through eighteen inches of snow; but if
it were deeper than that——! I remembered that only a couple of years
before I had been snowed up in the cottage with drifts six-foot deep.
The outlook wasn’t exactly encouraging.
Such heaps of tragedies seemed possible within the next twenty-four
hours. Suppose, for instance, royalty should suddenly develop some
malady necessitating arms or legs being amputated without delay——!
I simply dared not think about such a calamity; and even though the
specialist escaped a royal command, and actually set off to catch the
train that was to bring him to our hill-country, there might be an
accident; London streets are beset with terrors; I never realised till
that moment how many dangers a man must face between Wimpole Street and
Paddington Station! But I tried to have faith that all would be well.
I heard a soft step in the room—every step that came near me was
softened nowadays. I opened my eyes and saw Abigail beside my bed.
“Please, m’m, do you happen to know if the specialist-doctor takes
pepper?” she asked in the half-whisper that she had adopted as her
bedroom voice.
“I haven’t the remotest idea,” I said; “but why do you want to know?”
“Because we’ve just smashed the glass pepper-box, and we haven’t
another down here. And I can’t exactly put it on the table in a
mustard-pot!”
* * * * *
I watched for the snow, the eighteen inches I was dreading; but the
wind changed and it didn’t fall. Instead, next morning found us
enveloped in a solid fog—the only fog we had had this season. Hills
and valleys were blotted out as completely as though they had never
existed. The cottage seemed to stand in mid-air, with nothing but grey
unoccupied space around it. And it was such a raw, penetrating fog.
I just lay and watched the grey, blind world outside the windows, and
counted the half-hours as the morning wore by. And isn’t it amazing how
long the very minutes can be when one is right-down ill, and waiting
for a doctor?
In a small isolated community like ours, one excitement is made to do
duty for a long while. The impending visit of the surgeon from London
was soon the topic of general conversation. And little white curtains
were pulled aside from cottage windows as the car, with the doctor and
a stranger, was seen coming down one hill and over the bridge into the
village in the valley, switchbacking again up the opposite hill to
reach the particular crag on which my cottage is perched.
Owing to previous heavy rains, the lanes were almost impassable in
places; overflowing brooks made rivers and swamps in most unexpected
spots. Thus it was that the car could not come within half-a-mile
of the cottage; it had to be “beached” high and dry in somebody’s
farmyard, and the rest of the journey made on foot. The walk is a
positive fairyland dream in summer; but on the bleak December day the
ferns and flowers were gone, and the withered grass stalks rustled with
a disconsolate wheeze, while the pine-trees creaked and moaned in the
wind. It seemed an unkind, inhospitable sort of a day to bring a busy,
valuable man such a long, cold distance.
At last I heard brisk footsteps coming down the path to the door,
scrunching the cones that had fallen from the larches. Then a cheerful
voice was speaking, while great-coats were being taken off down below.
I shut my eyes, and felt I need not worry any more.
* * * * *
After all, we women are curious creatures! We consult a specialist when
we have some weakness that won’t give way to ordinary treatment, and
then, when, out of his exceptional knowledge and wide experience, he
tells us what will probably cure us, many of us immediately beseech
him to make it something else.
When the surgeon told me what course it would be necessary to take
if I was to be got on to my feet again, I immediately began to state
a hundred reasons why I wished he would prescribe something entirely
different. He said he was going to have me brought to London at once
and taken to a hospital. I knew that was the very last thing I could
endure. I have always had an absolute terror lest I should ever have to
go into a hospital; and here I was confronted with it face to face. I
said I could _not_ go into one; whatever treatment was necessary must
be done in my own home. I didn’t want to be among strangers and with
nurses whom I had never seen before; I wanted to be nursed by people I
knew. And as for chloroform, well, I would gladly die first! such was
the horror I had of it. And I continued on these lines.
The surgeon listened very patiently and let me have my say out. (Where
in the world does a man like this get his marvellous stock of patience
from!) He even agreed with most of my arguments. Anæsthetics were
disagreeable; it certainly would be pleasanter to be in my own home;
and it might be nicer if I had only friends around me, etc.
But, all the same, it was borne in upon me that I might as well try
to get the Sphinx to turn its head and nod over to a pyramid, as to
attempt to make the man who was talking to me budge an eighth of an
inch. And he wound up by saying, “I am afraid, however, that it will
have to be a hospital—I’m so sorry—but I want you to go into a private
ward in Mildmay. You shall have the best man in London to administer
the anæsthetic; and as for nurses—well, if you don’t say they are some
of the finest women you have ever met, I shall be much surprised.”
By this time I had my head under the eiderdown again, and was howling
away (quietly). I was so truly sorry for myself!
The great man waited for a minute, and then, as the sniffles didn’t
stop, he said—
“Now just listen to me. You are in the habit of writing heaps of good
advice to people when they are in trouble—telling them to have faith
when adversity comes, and to bear their burdens bravely. Don’t you
think you are a most inconsistent person? Here you are, confronted with
something that is going to be a trifle trying, and you immediately turn
your face to the wall, and say you prefer to die, without so much as
giving a solitary kick! Why, Hezekiah isn’t in it, beside you! What is
your faith worth at this rate!”
Then for a good half-hour he sat and talked, reminding me of our duty
as professing Christians; of the wrong we do when we try to shuffle
away from our work; of God’s care for His children individually, and of
our foolishness in doubting Him in times of trouble.
I had got to a very low ebb spiritually as well as physically. Being
cut off from the world and so much alone, with only a pain to think
about, my outlook on life had become altogether distorted. My soul was
certainly in need of a bracing up just then—and it got it.
One thing impressed me very much at this time, viz., the marvellous
power that lies in the hands of those who can bring healing to the soul
as well as healing to the body. The most devoted of God’s ministers
have seldom such power as this. They can bring messages of hope and
consolation, but they do not know how much a sick person is able,
physically, to stand in the way of a strong spiritual tonic, and they
seldom dare administer one, even though they may think it necessary.
But the doctor knows how much the patient is equal to. And the man who
has consecrated to God’s service a life that is spent in mending the
poor broken bodies of humanity is surely doing work that angels might
envy; undoubtedly God gives him power and opportunity that falls to the
lot of few other men.
* * * * *
The December afternoon closed in early, and the surgeon had once more
to take a long, dreary journey to get back to the urgent work waiting
for him in town. But he left behind him a far more sane and sensible
person than he had found on his arrival.
When he had gone, after having made the most comprehensive and detailed
plans for my removal, Abigail tiptoed into my room, her face all aglow
with excitement.
“I thought you’d like to know I heard the specialist-doctor say, when
I was bringing in the sweets at lunch, that he didn’t know when he had
eaten roast chicken he had enjoyed so much. I shall rub it into cook
when we go home. And I’d better let Sarah Ann Perkins know, as we got
it from her.”
“Take whatever is left, and keep it for a souvenir,” I said. “And if
you like to have the carcase framed, I’ll pay for it.”
“You look better already,” she replied.
Thus the great man scattered cheeriness in various directions; and
Sarah Ann, a year later, pridefully showed me the chicken’s wings a-top
her best Sunday bonnet.
* * * * *
In just as much time as it took my London doctor to come west to assume
charge of me, they got me under way.
“But how am I ever going to reach the main road!” I wailed.
“Perfectly easy,” said Ursula. “You are going to be carried, and every
masculine in the place is willing to lend a hand.”
And so they did. One young man made himself entirely responsible for
my luggage, going off with it by train, that there should be no chance
of any delay. A stalwart fisherman and a sturdy young farmer carried
me, in a chair, straight up hill for half a mile to where a motor was
waiting on the county road.
Everybody was so gentle and quiet, and yet very businesslike. They
stood silently, with their hats off, while I was put into the car. I
looked round on the hills, convinced that I was looking at them for the
last time, and felt exactly as though I were present at my own funeral!
Even the people in the village kept sympathetically in the background,
with the same sort of respect one observes when a funeral procession
passes; though at the last house in the village one dear kindly soul
pulled her little white curtains aside, waving her hand and smiling
encouragingly to me as we went by.