Chapter XXXVIII

“So when the Angel of the darker Drink,
At last shall find you by the river brink,
And, offering his cup, invite your soul
Forth to your lips to quaff—you shall not shrink!”

RUBIAYAT.

Arthur Field rang an electric bell, and as his wife’s nurse entered the room, he swung round on his chair, and looked at her. “You may sit down,” he said.

The nurse was a quiet, sensible-looking woman of thirty, but she was a woman with one enthusiasm, and that was devoted to her profession in the abstract, and to the surgeon in particular.

“I never trust nurses,” he announced, “they are usually either professionally or socially incompetent for their positions, and in the rare cases, where they neither neglect nor interfere with their patients, they make difficulties with servants or quarrel with relations. However, there are exceptions to every rule, and it would suit me very well if you were to turn out one of the exceptions.

“I, therefore, propose to put you in a position of trust, though I shall of course keep my eye on you.” He paused. “I meant to leave town to-morrow with my wife, but a case has arrived which I must attend to myself, so that I shall send you and Mrs. Field on ahead. It is possible I may be detained in town for some weeks longer. I should prefer that you did not wear uniform, but accompany Mrs. Field unofficially, and as her friend. I wish a weekly report from you, and if any undesirable symptoms should arise, you may wire. If I should send for my wife, you would of course bring her here directly. That is all. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir, but I wish we need not leave you,” said the nurse, with unaccustomed boldness.

“Why?” asked her companion.

“You have not looked yourself lately, sir.” The surgeon stared a little, but took no further notice of her remark.

“Here is a cheque for a hundred pounds,” he said; “you are to keep an account of your expenditure and let me know if you need more.” He turned back to his desk again. The nurse hesitated.

“Good-bye, sir,” she said at last.

“What?” asked the surgeon over his shoulder. “Ah—good-bye.”

The nurse turned away quickly. She did not wish him to see that her eyes were full of tears. When he had seen them off, he gave a sigh of relief and drove to the hospital. He did not feel himself at all, and the case he intended to devote his time to, was his own. He began to feel the need of a consultant.

An hour later, bending in absolute absorption over the operating-table, an intense spasm of pain seized him, making furrows in his face, and bringing out strange blue lines about his mouth. He felt furiously angry, and forced himself with the whole power of his will, to carry out his task. The assistant, handing him a sponge, gasped; he had distinctly seen the great operator’s hand tremble. Arthur Field felt that intolerable struggle of will and flesh, which comes fortunately to few of us, and only to the strongest. The perspiration stood in heavy drops on his forehead. He seemed swimming through bewildering seas of faintness and pain; through it all, he saw the sharp instruments succeeding each other in the hands, of what seemed to him another man, a man provokingly, cruelly slow. He felt his legs shake under him, and the great theatre rose and sank in queer, slanting lines, above and around him. A voice was crying in his brain, “Let go! let go! let go!” He was submerged in a storm of pain at the mercy of an element he did not understand, an element which claimed an absolute surrender. The important thing was to keep the other fellow’s hands steady. It took several years to put in the last stitch; at the end of the time the other fellow fell down on the floor, and someone poured brandy between his teeth, but the operation was finished, and he knew it would be successful. A group of students carried the other fellow out, and put him in a cab. Strangely enough one of them came with him, and took him to the surgeon’s own house. Then Arthur Field came to himself, and knew that he had performed his last operation.

“Wouldn’t you like to see someone, sir?” the young man asked him deferentially. “The big men aren’t all out of town yet; there are——and——”

“Yes, I mean to see Sir Edmund Blake this afternoon,” said Arthur Field. (He felt it was bitterly unfair that, after one had surrendered, the enemy should go on fighting.) “I am obliged to you,” he added. (If the young man would only go, one might breathe without the world pressing on one’s chest; it is impossible for two people to breathe comfortably in one room.)

“May I send you one of our nurses, sir?” the young man questioned him. Arthur bowed suddenly to the necessity.

“Get me one of the hospital staff, if you can,” he agreed, “one who will know how to hold her tongue. This is not—my first attack.” The student put on an expression of forced cheerfulness, (it was this more than anything else that revealed to the surgeon that he had joined the ranks—he was a patient now, and they would all try to deceive him.)

“You need a short rest,” the young man observed, reassuringly.

“I am going to take one,” said the surgeon, a little grimly. “Good-afternoon.” Then he sent in his resignation to the hospital.

Katherine, within a few hours of her expected holiday, was sent for to the Matron’s room. The Matron gave her a quick, searching glance.

“I cannot spare you to-morrow,” she said, “I have a very responsible and important case to put into your hands. You have shown yourself to be reliable. I hope you will continue to be so. You will kindly report yourself at Mr. Field’s as soon as you can put your things together.”

“Am I to nurse for him please, Matron?” Katherine asked wonderingly.

“You are to nurse—him,” said the Matron. “You will not, however,” she added, “mention this at present. Good-afternoon.”

Katherine hesitated and then went. After all, why should she not nurse him? She could find no answer, and she dared ask no more questions. Curiosity is a weakness that hospital life is quick to eradicate.

When she reached the surgeon’s, she found him in his room on the sofa. A few hours had changed him into a wreck of his former self, he seemed like someone suddenly grown old. The lines in his face had deepened into furrows, and his deep set eyes gleamed from veritable caverns. They seemed, indeed, the only signs of his old, keen life about him, as he lay huddled, struggling with short, uncertain breath, upon his sofa.

He knew her in a moment, but he gave no sign of recognition. His blue lips murmured an expostulation when she told him they must get him to bed.

It was evident to Katherine that he meant to die as hard as he had lived. She had seen the great heart specialist before she went into her patient. He had been (for him) very much upset.

“He has been fighting it for two years,” he told her, “though the mischief must have been latent for a much longer time. If he had had proper treatment and perfect rest—but it’s too late now. And he knew it—he knew it the whole time!” Sir Edmund Blake had grown almost incoherent in his admiration and grief. “It is unjustifiable, perfectly unjustifiable—but it’s magnificent,” he had exclaimed to himself. Katherine questioned as to the future, and the doctor froze into a realization that he had been talking more freely than he liked—to a nurse. “He may get over this attack,” he said, “but even he cannot get over the next.”

“And he may have another?” Katherine ventured.

“Any sudden shock—or strain,” said the doctor; “but you had better go to him, nurse,” and Katherine went. She began to feel glad that she had come.

Katherine would have been terrified of nursing him had he not been so ill, as to make action, work off all her fears. Yet even when he was at his worst, he was sternly, implacably critical.

Once or twice he made her valuable suggestions, which she was quick to carry out. Then he smiled, and she was able to understand about Daphne. A few days later the worst of his attack was over, he had insisted upon remaining alive, and his fight had been apparently successful. He lay in comparative comfort, watching Katherine as she quickly tidied his room, giving the finishing touches to some flowers sent to her from Devonshire.

“Nurse!” said the patient, sharply.

“Yes, sir.”

“Where did those flowers come from?” Katherine hesitated.

“From Daphne,” she said finally. Then she waited, trembling, for the storm. The surgeon said nothing. Half-an-hour later he called to her again.

“I am getting over this,” he said. “Of course I may have another—that is why Sir Edmund Blake wishes you to stay on, but I do not. I wish you to take a holiday. I shall join my wife to-morrow.”

“You are not fit to travel, sir,” said Katherine; “please keep me a week longer. I can wait quite well for my holiday. I should so much prefer——”

“I am not questioning your preferences,” said the surgeon, “I am merely stating my intentions. I should be glad if you would travel with me to-morrow, to the place in Surrey where my wife is staying. Now go!” A spasm of pain shot across his face, and Katherine, knowing what it meant, left him unwillingly.

After she had gone, he re-read a telegram he had received. “Unfavourable symptoms have arisen.—Smith.” He got up and crawled across his room. It took him half-an-hour to reach a cupboard in the wall where his things stood, and he fainted four times. When he reached it, he poured out a tremendous dose, which he would have considered murder, to have given to another patient. Its effect was marvellous, and he reached the sofa again in comparative comfort. Later in the day he sat up, and the next morning Katherine, with a sinking heart, made all preparations for their journey.

It had passed much more easily than she had imagined. The surgeon looked almost his former self again; his power of recuperation was wonderful. Once or twice he took something from a bottle when her back was turned. For the first time since she had been with him, he talked to her charmingly.

Rosamonde and her friend, Miss Smith, had taken a lovely house in the Surrey Hills, where many of their London friends had joined them. Rosamonde was absolutely happy. Had she not at last all the appearances, the semblances, the artificialities which she had always hankered after? She was treated with deference and admiration, she had her own way, and her husband was in London. Once or twice lately she had felt a wave of her old trouble. The sparkling wine, the gaiety and irresponsibility of her guests, had pushed her to the brink of a temptation, but her friend, Miss Smith, kept the key of the cellars, and watched her glass at dinner-time. By-and-bye Rosamonde ceased to be on the watch, and became instead quite convinced that she had won the day. Nothing disagreeable (she felt quite sure) would ever happen again—she told Miss Smith so. Rosamonde showed herself horribly shocked at the tale of a great lady’s slip in an alcoholic circle.

“I really can’t understand people doing such things,” she affirmed. “Drink is so despicable—and for a woman——” Miss Smith smiled, and sent the telegram.