“Love like a bird hath perched upon a spray,
For thee and me to hearken what he sings,
Contented he forgets to fly away;
But hush! . . . remind not Eros of his wings!”
WATSON.
The two girls dressed quickly, exchanging no word. Katherine looked at
Daphne sharply from time to time, but the work before them both warned
her to touch on nothing but the external. She ventured on a “You’re
tired?” as they hurried down to breakfast. Daphne stared at her.
“My dear,” she said, “I am tired right through to my soul.” Katherine
laughed; she was used to her extravagances.
Nevertheless she felt uneasily that some things were different. Daphne
had thrown off her sweet manner, little bitter things came to her lips
all the morning, and the young dresser who adored her got tossed down
precipices of blackness by a withering snub. Katherine had often
counselled her friend to be less charming in her ways, now she would
have given a great deal to catch her in a pretty insincerity, instead
Daphne was cuttingly truthful.
“Do you think I shall make a good nurse?” a new arrival asked her.
“I don’t know what you’ll be in the next world,” said Daphne, “but
you’ll never be a nurse in this!” Katherine gasped. At tea-time she
attacked her.
“What happened last night, Daphne?” she asked sternly.
“Last night,” said Daphne, “I realized that I had been insulted by a man
who was supposed to be in love with me. It was a dose to my
self-conceit. I thought I understood David, and I found I had left out
an important ingredient in his composition. It will make very little
difference as far as he is concerned, as it will put him out of my life;
but in my dealings with mankind in the future, I must reckon on the
ingredient David introduced me to! Must things always happen before one
can see?” she added passionately. “I thought I knew most things and was
prepared to face them, yet a child on the streets knows more of life
than I do!”
“I thought you understood,” said Katherine, “and were pretending that
you didn’t mind, and I thought that Arthur Field——”
“Ah, no!” interrupted Daphne, “Arthur never taught me those kinds of
things! I remember his saying to me once, ‘Daphne, your ignorance of
passion amounts to genius,’ but it isn’t the things a man says that
makes you see, it’s what they mean, and show that they mean quite
wordlessly—David was drunk! and even _that_ I didn’t know! One seems to
have been given instincts to act as warnings, only they don’t go far
enough to tell us what we are being warned against! It’s time I went
back to work again, I suppose? Has Sister had her tea yet?”
“Yes,” said Katherine.
“Katherine,” Daphne asked suddenly, “is it because I am not really good
that it has happened?” Her friend looked at her very tenderly.
“Not quite that,” she said, “only you do make things terribly difficult,
Daphne. Couldn’t you be more impersonal somehow? I can’t explain
exactly, but people get awfully fond of you, and you do and say the very
things, to make them worse.”
“But I like people to be fond of me if they would stop at the right
place.”
“Well, they won’t,” said Katherine, “if you mean the place that you want
them to stop at.”
“You’re off now, aren’t you?” said Daphne, preparing to return to her
ward. “Katherine, I believe you see things very plainly.”
“I sometimes see very plain things,” said Katherine quietly. The maid
announced a visitor for her.
“Let us hope this is not one of them!” laughed Daphne.
“It is a gentleman, Miss,” said the maid importantly.
Katherine walked into the nurses’ sitting-room.
“Philip!” she exclaimed. Mr. Mitchell shook hands with her very warmly.
“I hoped you wouldn’t mind my coming here to see you,” he said; “I’ve
got my work at last, an East-end curacy.” They sat down opposite each
other.
“Tell me about it,” said Katherine.
Philip Mitchell gave a sigh of content. She was a picture of what he had
all his life missed, a sympathetic and strongly sensible woman; that she
was good to look at as well, did not take away from the value of the
picture. There were other nurses sitting, and standing about the room.
All of them looked tired, and some of them looked inquisitive.
“If you have time, won’t you come out?” he asked.
“I have two hours,” she said, and left him to get her things on.
A part of her previous history he knew from Mr. Fordington. When he had
heard of her mother’s marriage, he had wanted immeasurably to put the
unspoken feelings, that had grown up between them on a solid basis, but
he knew her too well to imagine she would listen to him just then. She
must, first of all, prove her soul in the work she found to do, before
she would be ready to help him in his. He had still a scruple as to a
married priesthood, but it was a scruple which love of Katherine had
worn thin. Now he felt sure as he looked at her in her plain and
serviceable uniform, that she was quite as competent to be a slum-worker
as himself. It was after all one thing to give up love for one’s work,
and quite another and a foolishly impossible thing, to give up a love
that would act as a stimulant to one’s work. As he waited for Katherine
he assured himself of this, and looked curiously at her sister nurses.
They talked slang over his head and lolled about, he noticed; he was not
sure that he thought such things as they must live amongst quite
suitable for women. Katherine appeared.
“Come along,” she said shortly. When they entered the street, she looked
up at him and smiled. “I should not have done this for anybody but you,”
she said; “I shall get awfully chaffed about you!”
Philip frowned. “Who by?” he asked almost angrily.
“Oh! all the nurses!” said Katherine. “Would you like to bite their
heads off, for mentioning your name?”
“If they mention yours as well I’ll forgive them,” said Philip; “all the
same I think it’s not quite a profession for _young_ women, Katherine.”
“Now I wonder why you think that?” she asked him.
“They must see a side of life which they would be better without,” said
Philip. Katherine looked at him thoughtfully.
“You are a good man, Philip,” she said, “but there would be more good
men I think, if young women knew ‘sides of life’ as you call them. Our
ignorance fights against the very good we desire.”
“I do not consider this a fit matter for discussion,” said Philip
stiffly. Katherine smiled at him good-humouredly.
“Oh, well!” she said, “we won’t quarrel over my sex’s limits on our
first afternoon, and you shall discuss only the most respectable
subjects. We can begin on the thirty-nine articles if you like. Can we
take a ’bus?” He hailed a green one, and they climbed to the top. It was
a perfect evening early in July. Great water carts had laid the dust of
the streets, and all the folk of the city, had drifted out in cool
garments on to the pavement. Men were in their shirt sleeves smoking,
girls walked arm in arm up and down the street, house-wives haggled over
piled up barrows for to-morrow’s dinner. It was a Saturday evening, and
the world was given up to summer thoughts and ways. The two on the
’bus-top watched, with new eagerness, the crowds below them.
“They are sordid,” Philip said, “but how they are alive! Look at that
girl with a baby in her arms, hasn’t she got a soul?”
“She has got a baby,” said Katherine smiling, “and that makes most
women, half-way to being Madonnas.” Philip looked at her gently.
“I did not know you were so fond of children, Katherine,” he said.
Katherine blushed furiously, she hated to show her feelings, and the
intensest of them all, was her passion of motherhood.
“I said ‘most women,’” she said rather shortly. “Is your parish like
this?” He gave her an earnest and sanguine outline of what it was, and
what he meant it should be. She watched him with silent interest; she
felt that he was far too hopeful, but that was a fault that time would
soon cure.
“Your work is one,” she said at last, “in which you ought to have no
self-love, a very deep purse, and a little judgment wouldn’t be a bad
thing either, Philip.”
“You think I have none?” he asked ruefully.
“I was only wondering whether you would know when you were taken in,”
she said. He looked a trifle indignant. “Don’t ever be angry when you
are,” she said, “even with yourself, for it blinds one as to what to do
next.”
“Have you any other advice to offer me?” he asked a little stiffly.
Katherine laughed so merrily that the ’bus driver turned his head and
smiled at her. Katherine, to Philip’s horror, smiled and nodded back.
“You must learn to laugh, Philip,” she said, “or you will break your
heart, and you mustn’t mind ’bus drivers!” Philip changed the subject.
“We get out here,” he said. To his amazement Katherine was down and off
the ’bus before he had had time to signal to the ’bus driver to stop; he
was a little awkward in following her. “You should never do that,” he
said disapprovingly, “it’s very dangerous.”
“How long did you say you had been in London?” Katherine asked, as they
turned into a narrow street where the people were all on the steps.
Philip was not sure that after all a celibate priesthood was not the
better part. “The parish begins here,” he said rather shortly. Katherine
glanced down a net-work of alleys, broken into by tenement courts, and
finished off at the corners by public houses, none of which on this
summer evening were empty. There were callings of fretful babies, and
the sharp tongues of exasperated mothers, with the usual asides that if
Tom didn’t stop making that row, his neck would be wrung, or some
equally strong and final operation performed on him. Katherine imagined
it was not a bad quarter. There were plants in the windows, and a smell
of steak floated out of one of the doors. Two loud-voiced women at the
end of the street advanced sharply towards each other. There was a
moment’s preliminary language, and then, to Katherine’s amusement, and
Philip’s horror, the fight began.
One woman, standing back for a moment, launched herself in growling fury
upon the other, who clawed at her with a skill, won through many
encounters. A small crowd gathered around them, and called out
encouraging expletives, gave hints as to the handling of hair, and
advised the stouter of the two to “come down on ’er like a feather-bed.”
Philip cast an anxious glance at his companion. He looked white and
troubled.
“I must separate them,” he said. “I am so sorry to have brought you
here!” Katherine smiled.
“You may need my services afterwards,” she said “It is just as well I
came.”
He hardly heard her, for in a moment he had pushed his way through the
crowd. “Mrs. McCullen!” he gasped in horror, catching the fat woman by
the shoulder. This worthy lady who was getting the worst of the
encounter, sat down heavily upon the pavement and began to dab her
scratched face with a dirty apron. The other woman, of an alert and wiry
nature, finding nothing for the work of her hands to do, lifted up a
high and piercing voice, and began to describe her opponent, starting
with her entry into the world, and ending up with her final destination
beyond it.
Someone made an offer to Philip, that if he would fork out a bob, they
would stop her jaw, but he refused shortly and bent, in wretched
disappointment, over the woman on the pavement.
“Oh! Mrs. McCullen, how did this come about?” he exclaimed, “and you
were at church on Sunday, too!”
“Wot if I were?” exclaimed the indignant lady, with a savage glance at
her enemy. “Is she to call me a mongrel? Me, that lived h’on this ’ere
street one-and-twenty years come Monday! D’ye think it likely, _h’an’_
my pore ’usband in the grave, h’an’ my daughter ’ead ’ouse-maid in the
West h’end!”
“Ho! that’s where you belong, h’is it?” shrieked her opponent with a
jeer; “thought ye seemed a bit h’out of plice in this ’ere street, more
h’at ’ome in Buckingham Palace, _I_ believe. Want to sit in h’a golden
droreing room that’s what _you_ want—h’oh, I knows ’ere——” Philip
held up his hand and turned and looked at the woman, something in the
pained boyishness of his expression touched her. “I’m not blaming you,
sir!” she said, “we h’all knows what Mrs. McCullen is—nasty drunken
drab!”
“Hi’ll lern ye to call me nimes!” shrieked Mrs. McCullen, who had now
got her second wind and was on her feet. Philip held her back.
“Mrs. McCullen!” he said, “you will be sorry for this to-morrow! you, a
Christian woman, trying to fight like this! I am ashamed of you.”
“Be ashamed of ye’self!” grumbled Mrs. McCullen sullenly, but she made
no fresh attempts on her late companion, and retreated scowling into her
own room, whacking an inoffensive baby playing with a tin can on her
steps. If the mother had been present hostilities would have been
renewed, but she was (for this event) fortunately in the public house.
The baby clung to the can, and picking itself up unconcernedly, toddled
off to another step. It was probably accustomed to a cup-and-ball
existence.
Philip turned to the other woman. “Why should you quarrel with your
neighbour?” he asked gently, “it seems such a pity.”
“She said as ’ow my ’usband was no class!” grumbled the other woman,
“cos ’e comes ’ome drunk! Lor! what d’ye expect? Don’t they all? She’s
been so long without an ’usband she forgot! h’i told ’er _that_, too!”
she added with relish. It was a sting that had gone home. “H’and I
h’added that she were a mongrel, h’and so she be, sir!” Philip looked
perplexed.
“I hope you will never do so again!” he said. “Think, if you have any
children, what a bad example it must be for them to see their mother
quarrelling with her neighbour!” The woman hung her head. The crowd had
dispersed long ago, and Katherine had joined them.
“That’s a pretty little girl you have behind you,” she said. “Is she
yours?”
“Yes, Miss!” said the woman, dragging the child in front of her. “Oh!
but she’s a dirty little girl,” she said in a lighter tone, “I don’t
like for you to see ’er.” Philip’s face brightened.
“I do not know what your name is,” he said, “but I will come and see you
to-morrow; I hope your little girl will grow up a good one.” The woman
looked at him sharply.
“H’i was married in church, sir!” she said.
“I must go now,” Katherine said to Philip quietly.
“Can’t you even come to see my church?” he asked.
“I will come some Sunday with Daphne,” said Katherine. “Philip, what do
you think about that woman?”
“She seems respectable,” said Philip, “but the drunken brute of a
husband has got on her nerves! Ah! the lives those women lead!”
“The lives we all lead!” said Katherine, “fighting for our destinies in
the dark!” His face grew radiant.
“With the certainty of Light Eternal!” he said firmly. “Oh, Katherine,
it has been ringing so in my mind, ‘Beloved, love one another!’ After
all, it is simply in our love of the poor brother whom we _have_ seen,
that the love of the Father whom we have not seen is revealed to us! It
was Mr. Fordington who always said, ‘We are unspiritual because we are
_unreal_ about what we see. When we are honest with the things in sight,
the out of sight will rush in on one, in full reality!’ Tell me, could
you do your work without an intense love?” Katherine hesitated.
“I think it teaches love,” she said, “but only as a disciplined emotion,
one must never let one’s heart go without one’s common sense.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“One mustn’t think well of people because one feels kindly towards
them,” she explained, “but one must go on feeling kindly towards them in
spite of their not doing well. Then one doesn’t get disappointed, for
they are sure not to do well!” He looked at her a little severely.
“You look too much on the dark side!” he pronounced.
“All right!” laughed Katherine as she caught her ’bus, “only don’t
forget that the dark side is a large one!”
Philip was sick of heart that night over Mrs. McCullen, who passed him
reeling drunk. First enthusiasm gets bitterly depressed, and only a
strong will and much courage get the better of depression. Katherine
told Daphne of the incident.
“Do you know you could not have told me all that,” she said, “if you had
been really in love with him?” Katherine looked away. She was cutting
bread and butter for the patients’ supper, and a sharp exclamation of
anger from the Sister, who was passing through the kitchen, showed her
she had nearly cut herself. “I said, ‘Cut _bread_,’” the Sister reminded
her.
“Daphne,” said Katherine with much emphasis, after the sister had passed
them, “I don’t! I thought I did, but something has changed me, and the
worst of it is, I don’t know _what_!”
“Perhaps that isn’t the worst of it,” said Daphne, and Katherine did not
ask her to explain.