Chapter XVIII: Peace After Storm

"You must go to him," said Katherine.

"To whom?" asked Mollie.

She was looking very white: she had gone through a night of intense anxiety and ceaseless work. The poor fellows around were dying fast. One man after another succumbed to his wounds and to the hardships of the last battle. Those who were still living were very ill indeed. Mollie felt as if all her world were hemmed in by the shadow of death. The mysteries of life and of death were close to her, and all the trivial things of daily existence seemed miles and miles away. She raised her big and beautiful eyes now, and fixed them on Katherine's face.

"Who wants me?" she repeated.

"Major Strause," was Katherine's reply.

"I had forgotten about him," said Mollie. She put up her hand to her forehead. "Must I see him?" she asked.

"He seems to be very ill. His temperature has gone up; he is in for a sharp attack of fever. Nothing will quiet him but your presence."

Mollie gave a sigh.

"I will go to him," she said. "Will you stay here until I return?"

Katherine nodded, and Mollie went slowly down the ward. One ward led into another. The dying men looked at her as she walked. She had a slow and dignified step; there was never any undue haste or hurry about her. It calmed the delirious men even to look at her. Her hand was always cool, too--her touch always firm. She entered the ward. Hudson was weak and very, very ill, but his face lit up when he saw the girl.

"Come here, you angel, come here," he said in a whisper, under his breath.

"Come here, come here," said Major Strause.

The face of the lad who was soon to see his Maker, and the face of the angry, worldly-minded major, were both visible to Mollie as she approached.

"Hush!" she said to Major Strause. She raised her finger warningly, and bent over Hudson.

"I am better," he said, with a smile.

"Yes, I think you are," she said. But as she spoke she swallowed something in her throat; for she had learned by this time to discern, and she saw on the white face, and on the worn brow which illness had made so prominent and thin, the unmistakable shadow. The great wings loomed above the dying man; soon he would be folded in their embrace, and all the sorrows of earth would pass away from him.

"I am sorry for the folks at home," he said in a whisper. "If I die they will grieve; but I shall not die--I am better."

"Yes," said Mollie. She spoke firmly, and he did not see in her face any of the knowledge which she dreaded.

"I don't want to die," he said; "I want to live. Last night I thought I'd like to die, for the pain did grind so; but now I want to live. There are my father and mother, and I have a young sister. Her name is Ethel. She is so pretty. You remind me of her. She is only sixteen, and she is very clever and very pretty; and she has a look of you--or, rather, you have a look of her. It will be all right. I'll get well, won't I, Nurse Mollie?"

"Drink this," said Mollie. She poured a restorative into a teaspoon.

He shook his head.

"I'll get well," he repeated. "But I cannot swallow; my throat is closed up. All the same, I am much better."

"Yes, dear," she said.

She knelt down by him and took his hand. She laid her finger on his pulse--it scarcely beat. There was a cold dew all over him.

"Oh, I am much, much better," he said, smiling, "and--where am I? Where's mother? Where are you, governor? I am back home. George, your son, has come back. We have had a grand victory--the Boers utterly routed. Hurrah for the British flag! Where am I? Oh, here in the sick ward at Ladysmith. Sister Mollie?"

"Yes, my dear lad."

"Sing to me."

"Oh, I can't," came to her lips. But she never uttered the words. "What shall I sing?" she asked.

"My mother's favourite hymn, 'Peace, perfect peace.' It is peace, you know--wonderful--all the pain gone--not a bit thirsty--sure to get well--going--home; invalided home, you know. Peace! Yes, sing it, won't you?"

Mollie sang the first verse,--

"Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin."

"Sing it louder," said the poor lad; "I can't hear you. Wonderful! how quiet it is! And it is dark--night--yes, it is night."

"No, dear," she answered; "it is morning."

"Morning! then I am much better," he said "Peace--yes, the morning brings peace." The words died away. "Much better," he said again, after a pause. "Going to--get--_well_."

As he uttered the last words Mollie bent forward. She laid her fingers on his eyelids and closed them down. Then she motioned to a nurse who stood a little way off. She turned to Major Strause. His eyes were shining--there were tears in them.

"God bless you! God bless you!" he said

"What do you want with me?" she answered.

"Nothing now. You have quieted me; you have stilled my evil passions. Do you want to go on stilling them? Do you want still to be an angel in the ward?"

"You are very ill, Major Strause," said Mollie. "Let me take your temperature."

She did so. His temperature was high--104°. She laid her hand on his forehead.

"You have been exciting yourself," she said. "I don't believe you have got enteric; it is just a bad chill. I am going to give you a soothing draught and a compress. Now stay perfectly quiet."

"Won't you nurse me, instead of Miss Hunt?"

"I cannot; my place is in the surgical ward."

"Can't I be moved in there?"

"No, you must not; there is too much noise, and some of the sights are-- You must stay here, Major Strause. Try to control yourself, won't you?"

"If you will come to see me twice or three times a day I will. What's that?" He looked around him in a frightened way.

A nurse had brought a screen, and was putting it round the bed where the lad Hudson had breathed his last.

Mollie took the major's hand.

"I will come to see you," she said; "and you will try to be good?"

"For such an angel I would do anything. Oh, I have been bad--yes, I have been very bad; you don't know half. Is there any chance for a worldly chap like me? Not young, either. When I heard you talk to that boy, I felt I would give all the world to be that boy myself."

"If there was a dear lad on this earth, it was George Hudson," she answered.

"I know--so different from what I am! I am not even young, you know, and I have led a--"

"I cannot stay now, Major Strause.--Sister Eugenia, will you look after Major Strause, please? he wants--"

Mollie gave quick directions. The young sister bowed her head. The major made a wry face. He could be good in Mollie's presence, but he did not think he could be good with Sister Eugenia, who was small, and plain, and awkward.

Mollie left the room. All that day the effect of Hudson's death remained with the major, and as Mollie did come into the ward two or three times in the course of the morning, he tried to believe himself satisfied. But when the dead man had been removed for burial, and when his place was occupied by another man, uninteresting, coarse, not particularly ill, Major Strause forgot his good resolutions. He grumbled, and gave the nurses who looked after him a bad time. When Mollie came in he was soothed and comforted, and he could express his feelings to Katherine Hunt. In a day or two the fever left him, and he was able to crawl about a little, and then, as his bed was wanted, to get back to his own hut. Still, the memory of what he had seen Mollie do when Hudson was dying remained with him, and, for the time at least, he gave up all idea of persecuting her, or forcing her, as he expressed it, to listen to his suit. He had no intention, however, of giving Mollie up.

"I will live for her sake, and try to lead a clean life for her sake, and in the end I must win her," he thought. "She is better than any money--she is worth her price in rubies. She is the finest woman God ever made."

The major might for a time have had strength to keep these resolves, had he not once again seen Mollie and Gavon Keith together. They were talking just at the door of one of the wards, and they did not touch hands this time. But the major saw the light in Mollie's eyes, and could not mistake its import. The moment he observed this there fell away from him, like a mantle, all the good resolves of the last few days. He would do something, and at once.

He passed the couple, who started aside when they saw him, and strode away to the hotel where Kitty lived. He asked boldly to see Miss Hepworth. The servants of the hotel were busy in those days, when every one had his or her special duty to perform. One of them said carelessly,--

"You will find Miss Hepworth in her sitting-room;" and he ran upstairs and knocked at the door.

A girlish voice said, "Come in." He turned the handle and entered.

Kitty was lying on a sofa, in just the position where she could get what little air there was. The heat was intense, and the red dust was more irritating than ever. It lay on the table, and made a pink shade over the cup and saucer out of which she had taken her last meal; it made a pink shade also on the girl's dark hair and on her white blouse; but it did not take any of the prettiness out of her big brown eyes, nor any of the refined delicacy from her beautifully-chiselled features. The strong likeness to her sister Mollie was very apparent at this moment, and Strause uttered an exclamation, which he suddenly checked.

"I never guessed it," he said to himself.

"How do you do, Major Strause?" said the girl. "Do you want anything? I am quite alone."

"I called to see you, Miss Hepworth, because I thought you would be alone," was his reply.

Already his anger against Mollie was more or less abated; but he lashed it up again, for he said to himself,--

"If I don't take extreme steps I shall lose her. I have a great deal to tell this little miss, and tell it I will."

"Why did you utter that exclamation when you came into the room?" said Kitty.

"Because you are so like your sister," he replied. "You know I have been in hospital for the last fortnight. I am better, but I am confoundedly weak. Would you think me very rude if I dropped into a chair?"

"Oh, please seat yourself," said the girl. She gave a dreary sigh and looked out of the window. "It will soon be dark," she said. "The only peaceful time in Ladysmith is when it is dark! Do you think the enemy will make an assault and try to take the town at night, Major Strause?"

"Oh, bless you, no," said the major. "The Boers like to fight under cover. They won't attack us; at least that is my belief."

"But I heard some of the officers saying to-day at dinner that the Boers did fight sometimes in the open, and that they might make an assault on the town. I heard them say so--I did really," said Kitty.

"Well, they talked nonsense; don't you believe a word of it," said the major.

He felt himself quite manly as he sat not far away from Kitty and looked avariciously at her face. Her likeness to Mollie made this quite an agreeable task. She shuffled uneasily under his stare, and turned once more to look out of the window.

"It is so dull in Ladysmith," she said then, with a sigh. "I never knew a siege meant this."

"What did you think it meant?" asked the major.

"Oh, nothing like this," she repeated. "I thought there was great excitement, and that everybody kept close together, and that--"

"There is plenty of excitement, if that is what you want," said Major Strause.

"Well, it doesn't come to me," answered the girl. "I spend all my days here. I am awfully frightened, too. I am terribly afraid of the shells. Do you think one of them will strike the hotel, Major Strause?"

"Can't tell you; hope not."

"Well, that is poor comfort," said Kitty, and she gave a dreary laugh.

The major was not getting any nearer the object of his visit. This would never do.

"If I were you," he said, "I would go into the hospital and make myself useful."

"I cannot; they have turned me out."

"Who have?"

"Why, Mollie, my sister, and--and Gavon."

"Oh, indeed! And did they give you a reason?"

"They said that I was nervous and would not make a good nurse. And they are right," she added. "I am nervous. I quite screamed when I saw a poor man brought in one morning with his leg shattered. He was unconscious, and my scream awoke him, and he looked at me. Oh, I see his face still! He was dead in an hour, and I never saw anything like the reproach that was in his eyes! They haunt me. He thought I was afraid of him--and I was--and his eyes haunt me! No, I am not fit to be a nurse."

"I don't think you are," said Strause. "You are a delicate little thing, not a bit like your sister."

"Oh, Mollie is so strong--she is almost coarse," said Kitty.

"I don't think there is anything coarse about her. I wish you could have seen her the other morning. It was quite early, before daylight, and a poor chap was dying, and she sang to him."

"Oh, please don't tell me about dying people, it is so melancholy."

"May I ask, Miss Hepworth," said Strause, "why you came here at all?"

"Can't you guess?" she answered, and she flushed a very rosy red. "To be near Gavon."

"Do you see much of Captain Keith?"

"Yes, a good deal. He comes in most evenings. He has not been in yet to-night."

"You are desperately in love with him, aren't you?"

Kitty sighed, then she smiled, then she put up her hand to sweep away the curls from her forehead.

"Oh yes," she said then; "of course I am. We are going to be married."

"I wonder," said the major, "if you would thank me for a piece of information?"

"What? what?" she asked eagerly.

"Something to do with Captain Keith."

"What do you know about Gavon?"

"Something. Would you thank me if I told you?"

"I'd like to hear it very much. I don't believe you know anything bad of him."

"Nothing exactly bad, and yet something important--at least for you. I can tell you if you will make me a promise. I think you ought to know it, too, but I can only tell you if you make me a promise."

"And what is that?"

"That you will keep it dark that I told you. I must have your promise; then I have something of great interest to say."

"You quite frighten me," said the girl. "What can it be? Something about Gavon, and something, I see by your manner, not quite good. And I am to make you a promise."

"You can act in any way you like, but you are never to tell who told you. And if you give me your promise, I will take you a little bit into my confidence, and you and I can work together. You won't find it dull in Ladysmith when you and I have made our little plot to stick together and work together."

"But I don't at all know that I want to work with you, Major Strause."

"Oh, it isn't a love business--nothing of that sort."

Kitty flushed and looked annoyed.

"It simply means that you and I want to hold what we have got."

"To hold what we have got!" repeated the girl.

"Yes, that's about it. You and I want to hold our possessions tightly; and I think we can if we make a little league to work together."

"All right; let's make a league," said Kitty. "It really is exciting, and while you talk to me I forget Long Tom."

"Before we do anything you have got to make me your promise."

"Yes; what is it?"

"That you will never, under any circumstances, tell anybody that I have informed you of that thing which I know."

"Of course I won't."

"That kind of loose way of answering won't suit me. You must answer me solemnly; and remember, before you make the promise which I am going to make you give me, that if you break it you bring a great deal of bad luck not only upon yourself, but upon Keith."

"Oh, I would not do him harm, my darling, for all the world!"

"Well, see you don't. You will if you break your vow."

"Vow!" said Kitty; "must I make a vow?"

"You must, and pretty sharp, too, if you want me to tell you what I know."

"All right," said Kitty, who was now overcome with curiosity. "Of course I'll do what you require."

"Then say these words after me: 'I promise that whatever happens--'"

"'I promise that whatever happens,'" she repeated.

"'I will never tell that Major Strause was my informant with regard to Gavon Keith and Mollie Hepworth.'"

As Strause uttered the last words Kitty's face turned white as a sheet. She sprang from her reclining position, and stood before the major with both her hands tightly clasped.

"'Gavon Keith and Mollie Hepworth.' Oh yes, I will make a thousand promises if necessary. I will never, never tell. Thank you, Major Strause, thank you. And now, please tell me."

"You will do him an injury if you break your vow. You must say, 'So help me, God.'"

"'So help me, God,' I will never tell."

"Then this is my information: it will pain you, but not more than it has pained me. I have been in the hospital, and I know. You can find out for yourself. Your sister Mollie is in love with Captain Keith, and Captain Keith is in love with her."