Chapter XXI: Kitty's Request

Kitty was terribly upset when Lawson breathed his last. She made a painful scene by the deathbed. Her nerve gave way, and she went off into violent hysterics. The angry nurses made short work with her; two of them carried her right out of the hospital. Sister Eugenia said she would see her home.

"I will walk with you," she said, "as far as the hotel. A girl like you is worse than useless in Ladysmith."

The stinging words recalled Kitty to herself.

"Why won't you have any pity for me?" she gasped.

"No one has pity for moral weakness in Ladysmith," replied the sister. "You are worse than a coward; you are selfish. If you had come into the ward when you were asked for, you might have done some good, and the poor fellow would have died happy. But nothing can be done now. All the tears in the world won't alter things. And to make a fuss when there are soldiers dying, soldiers of the Queen--oh, I could shake you!"

Sister Eugenia's words were so full of passion that Kitty was aroused to be ashamed of herself. She turned when they were half-way up the street.

"I don't think I'll be afraid of the kisses," she said. "You can go back."

"Afraid of what?"

"Of Long Tom's shells."

"They are not likely to touch you," said the sister, in contempt. "They don't touch the selfish and the useless. You are safe. If you don't want me, I will go back."

She turned, and Kitty, putting wings to her feet, re-entered the hotel. For the rest of the day she was as miserable and remorseful as girl could be, but towards evening she began to recover. Once again her selfish nature came to the fore. She began to consider herself ill-used and neglected. Nothing would have been wrong had Mollie only loved her as she used to love her, and were Gavon only as true to her as he ought to be to his promised wife. Yes, she must see Mollie that evening. Things could not go on as they were doing any longer. Accordingly she wrote a tiny note, and sent it to the hospital.

The large hospital for the sick and wounded was at Intombi, a sheltered position about four miles away; but the Town Hall was largely used during the siege, and another hospital was in the Congregational Chapel. Mollie, with a few nurses under her, had charge of the Town Hall hospital. She received her sister's note late that evening, and went to her during the hour which she usually devoted to her supper.

Captain Keith was better. He sat up as Mollie passed his side.

"How white and tired you look!" he said. "Is anything troubling you?"

"I have had a note from Kitty. She wants me to go to her."

"I am sorry Kitty came out here," said Keith, in a grave tone. "I am sorry Miss Hunt brought her."

"Katherine Hunt is of immense use," said Mollie. "She is as good as any trained nurse."

"I know; but my poor little Kit is different."

"We all have different natures," replied Mollie, in a gentle tone. "Kitty was never accustomed to nursing. She has been very tenderly treated all her life, and perhaps just a little bit spoiled. We must have patience with her."

"You have patience with every one, I think," said the young man, and his eyes shone brightly as he spoke.

Mollie looked gently back at him.

"Are you better?" she asked.

"I am always better when you are by. You don't know what you are to me."

"Hush!" said Mollie. "I know exactly what I am--your sister, your friend, and nurse."

"You are far, far more. Oh, I can't help it!" he said under his breath. "You must know what you are to me; you must know what I feel for you. I am a coward to speak of it, but just now I--your presence, the look in your eyes, unmans me."

"Think of Kitty, and you will recover your manhood."

Mollie spoke hurriedly. She did not want him to say any more. She went out into the night. She was very tired, and the healing and comforting stars shone down upon her. The Boers were sending a searchlight over Ladysmith, and as Mollie quickened her steps she wondered whether they meant to send shells into the little town during the night. But no firing was heard. An orderly going past suddenly stopped and spoke quickly.

"Have you noticed anything, nurse?" he said.

"No," she replied; "what do you mean?"

The words had scarcely passed her lips before there came a sharp report, a screaming noise, and a loud explosion. Mollie turned in some astonishment.

"Pepworth Hill knows Long Tom no more," was the orderly's next remark. "He now reigns on Little Bulwan, below Lombard's Kop. His range is nearer. If this sort of thing goes on, Ladysmith will soon be taken."

"I don't believe it," answered Mollie.

She hurried past the orderly and went into the hotel. She ran upstairs at once to Kitty's room. Kitty was standing in the middle of the floor. Her face looked ghastly.

"What is the matter?" she said, the moment she saw her sister.

"Oh, I am so terribly frightened!"

"What of?" asked Mollie, speaking in a soothing tone.

"That awful report--the bursting of a shell at night. Oh, what does it mean?"

"I hope nothing to frighten you, Kitty; but, of course, you quite understand that all our lives are in danger. They are all in His hands, Kitty--in His hands who does nothing wrong; who has ordered the day and the hour, and the manner of our deaths, when death comes."

"I wish you wouldn't talk like that," said Kitty. "You terrify me--oh, how you terrify me!"

"You sent for me, Kitty," said Mollie.

She sat down by her trembling little sister, and took one of her small hands in hers.

"What have you done with your rings?" was her next remark.

"Gavon said that I ought not to wear them in the siege. I have taken off my bracelets too. Nothing matters. See how terribly my hand is stained, Mollie."

"Yes," said Mollie, "You did a very dangerous thing this morning. You made the lotion far and away too strong. It was lucky that Gavon is so healthy and that his skin is healing. It is healing, so you need not trouble."

"And you will let me go back to the hospital again, Mollie, and--and nurse the poor fellows. Oh, I promise--I really will promise--to be good. Will Gavon be at the hospital to-morrow, Mollie?"

"I hope not. He is much better to-night. Our soldiers do not stay in hospital for trifles, Kitty. My dear Kitty, why don't you too become a soldier of the Queen? A real soldier, I mean--one who fights as a woman should fight, with such brave weapons, my dear, such sympathy, such courage, such faith. Such a woman in Ladysmith now would be an angel of light. Why don't you try to become one, my poor little Kit?"

"I can't," said the girl, sobbing; "I am all selfish. I know I am. Mollie, when you hear why I really sent for you, you will hate me."

"I can never hate my only little sister."

"But you are so different," sobbed Kitty. "You are so brave and strong, and all--yes, all that constitutes an angel of light. Why were you made the way you are, Mollie? and why was I made the way I am? Oh, it was wrong of God, it was wrong!"

"Don't say that, Kitty. I feel God to be so near me now it hurts me to have even one word said in His dishonour. He made you for His glory, He made you for His praise, He made you for your own best, best happiness. Lift up your head, little Kitty, and take courage. Take courage, darling, and do better in the future."

"But you know how badly I behaved to-day. I was so selfish I would not go back to the hospital in time to receive poor Lawson's message."

"Perhaps he is able to give it himself now," said Mollie.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing--it is only a thought; he may be able himself to convey the comfort he wanted to give to his poor sweetheart. Anyhow, Kitty, there is no looking back over that. In Ladysmith we have no time to look back. There are other poor fellows with sweethearts and mothers and sisters--others who are either dying now or who will have to die before this terrible siege is over--and you can comfort them."

As Mollie spoke she clasped Kitty in her arms, and laid the girl's tired, frightened head on her breast. There came another sharp, very sharp report, and the searchlight suddenly lit up the windows of Kitty's room. She gave a terrified scream.

"I wish I had never come to Ladysmith. I wish I could get away."

"Too late for that now; you are a little soldier, and must stand to your guns."

"I am a coward; I am the sort of soldier who runs away," said the girl.

Mollie was silent until the noise of the explosion ceased; then she said quietly,--

"This may mean more patients for me; I must hurry off again. What did you really want with me?"

Kitty raised her head and looked full at her sister.

"I have got something to confess," she said.

"What is that?"

"I came back to the hospital to-day because--not because I am a soldier of the Queen, not because I wanted to help anybody, but because--"

"Well, child, speak," said Mollie.

"Because I wished to watch you."

"What do you mean? To watch me, your sister!"

"Yes; to watch you and--and Gavon."

As Kitty said the last words, she forgot her fears with regard to Long Tom; she forgot everything but the wild passion, the jealous, miserable rage, which filled her. She sprang to her feet and faced her sister, she clasped her little stained fingers together and looked with her white face into Mollie's face, and then she hurled out her words impulsively.

"You love him--you know you do! And he loves you, and he--he is engaged to me. You have taken him from me. Oh, how I hate you! Oh, I shall die with misery!"

Mollie's face turned very nearly as white as Kitty's; she did not speak at all for a moment. Kitty, having hurled out her reproaches, waited, expecting Mollie to speak. Mollie still was silent. There came another screaming report, another explosion. Kitty was deaf to it. That fact alone impressed Mollie. She looked with almost reverence at her sister now. How great and strong, after all, were her love and her passion!

"It is true," said Kitty. "Why don't you speak? why don't you speak? You know it is true. I saw it in your eyes, and I saw it in his eyes; and if you were to tell me a thousand, thousand times that you don't love him, I would not believe you."

"But I am not going to tell you any such thing," replied Mollie.

"Then it is true," said Kitty; "you have confessed that it is true."

"No, I have not confessed it; I have said nothing."

"How can I bear you? I wonder I don't even try to kill you."

"Why so, Kitty? I have never done you any harm."

"You have: you have taken away the love of the man I am engaged to--the man I worship."

"Now listen to me, Kitty. You really must allow your common-sense to come to the fore. I am not going to tell you a lie. As you have put the question to me, I shall answer you frankly. Were you not engaged to Gavon Keith, did you not love Gavon, it is just possible--I do not say any more--that I might love him. But as you are engaged to him, the thought to me of taking him from you is as impossible as that I should be faithless now in Ladysmith to the Queen. Won't you understand that, little sister? won't you believe it? Have I ever to your knowledge done a downright mean thing, that you should think me capable of doing this greatest of all sins now?"

"Oh dear!" gasped Kitty. "But he is often in the ward with you, and I know that he--he cares for you."

"He has never been unfaithful to you; and what you have got to do is to keep well for his sake, and to be brave for his sake. You must try to learn so to live that he shall not think small things of you. Believe me, I am right in saying this. Your character must grow too, and your love shall make you noble. Won't you try, dear, to live differently in the future?"

"I can't! I can't! And your words don't comfort me a bit. What are words, after all? It is actions that I want."

"You want me to prove my words; in what way?"

"You must do something for me; you must do something to put matters straight between Gavon and me. Will you?"

"I will do anything in my power," replied Mollie, but her voice had grown suddenly tired and faint.

"Will you really and truly, and from your very heart, prove your love for me in that way?"

"Really and truly, and from my very heart."

"Then there is something you can do."

"What is it?"

"He has never told you that he loves you?"

"Never."

"But you think he does?"

Mollie was silent.

"But you think he does?" Kitty repeated.

"You have no right to ask that question, Kitty."

"I know without your telling me," replied Kitty. "He must learn to unlove you."

"What do you mean?"

"You must do something which will upset his faith in you--something which will astonish him very much."

Mollie's face now indeed turned pale. She ceased to regard her sister as a weak, hysterical girl. She stared at her with her wide-open brown eyes.

"Some one has been putting you up to this," she said. "Those words are not the words of my sister. Kitty, what is the matter?"

"There is so much the matter that only by doing exactly what I ask can you put things right. There is a man in Ladysmith who loves you. No, that man is not Gavon; I speak of another. He loves you, and you must marry him. You must marry him for my sake."

"Whom am I to marry?"

"Major Strause."

"Kitty, are you mad?"

"I am not mad; I am sane, It is the only possible way out. If you will marry him, I shall be saved; if you marry him, all will be right. Gavon is not the sort of man to love you as Major Strause's wife. Gavon does not like Major Strause, and I hope he won't like his wife, and he will turn back to me. Mollie, you must marry him. O Mollie, only thus can you save me--only thus, by marrying Major Strause."

"Kitty!"

"Yes; and you must marry him now, and here."

"I marry Major Strause now, and here--now, in this time of war, and famine, and siege, and misery! My dear little sister, you ask too much. If that is what you have sent for me for, I must leave you, and I cannot do what you ask. The sick and wounded are wanting me. This is not the time for personal feelings, or for marrying and giving in marriage."

"Then I am the most miserable girl in all the world," cried Kitty.

She fell on her knees, and looked passionately up in her sister's face.

"I can't give you the promise, Kitty. It is too much; you had no right to ask it."

With a quick movement Mollie tore herself from Kitty's embrace and rushed from the room.