IN THE HOSPITAL.
"Why, Eddie, is that Daisy crying? What is the matter?" she asked, starting up.
"Oh, it's the new little girl that's come," replied Eddie, with cheerful unconcern. "And she won't stop crying. I've showed her Tatters and my Noah's Ark and the gray kitten; and 'tisn't any use—she's such a silly!"
"Oh! dear!" exclaimed Nora. "I must go down at once." And, hurriedly re-arranging her hair and dress, she ran down-stairs, followed by Eddie.
On the rug outside the drawing-room door crouched the little girl, shaken by a storm of passionate sobs. She had borne the separation from her weak and passive mother, with a quiet resignation mainly produced by the doctor's assurance that if she were good and did not worry her mother, who was going where she would be made better, she should soon see her again. The grave quietude which the child had maintained with a great effort had not given way, until Dr. Blanchard, in haste to reach an urgent "case," had put her inside his own door in charge of a servant. Then, the strangeness of everything about her, and the blank loneliness of the situation, from her point of view, had apparently so oppressed her, that the unnatural composure gave way before a tornado of passionate abandonment. Mrs. Blanchard was out, but the nurse had tried her best to console and divert her, and so had Eddie and Daisy; but so far without avail. Nora could hardly help smiling, as she remembered her programme for the children's relation to each other, and saw how it had been reversed.
The plump little Daisy stood over her, looking concerned, but holding out her gray kitten as if it were the olive-branch of peace, while the neglected inhabitants of Noah's Ark lay in picturesque confusion in the background.
When Miss Blanchard appeared, however, matters changed a little, as she bent over the sobbing child with loving words and gestures, pushed aside the old hood and shawl, and smoothed the tangled mass of dark, curly hair, till the sobs grew fainter and the child allowed herself to be raised from the floor. Under the uncouth disguise of her outer raiment, now removed, she wore a neatly-made, though faded, print frock; which, though evidently outgrown, was whole and clean; and, for the first time, Miss Blanchard realized her unusual beauty of face and form, with the pleasure of one keenly sensitive to beauty of all kinds.
She had heard from Lizzie that "Cissy" was passionately fond of music, and the happy thought occurred to her of taking her into the drawing-room, and playing to her some sweet and simple melodies that were favorites of her own. The experiment succeeded beyond her hopes. The child listened like one entranced. Her large, soft, lustrous eyes dilated, and her whole face seemed lighted with a new expression, as she followed with evident appreciation every change of the music. It was as if the delight of listening absorbed her whole being. Then, as Nora began to sing to her, her delight seemed to increase. A dawning smile relaxed the sad curves of her lips, a dewy moisture suffused the lovely dark-gray eyes. It was clear, Miss Blanchard thought, that she had discovered here a musical soul.
"Does your mother sing to you sometimes?" she asked.
"Not much," said the child. "She likes me to sing to her, best."
"Sing to me now, then," replied Nora.
But the child was too shy. That evening, however, when she was alone with the other children in the nursery, Nora heard her trying to hum over the airs of the songs she had sung to her, with wonderful accuracy and sweetness of tone. This discovery set her castle-building at once. There was no knowing what musical talent this little one might develop! And if she could aid her to develop it, she would thus help one girl, at least, out of the weary monotony of poorly paid and unremitting toil.
The following day was Sunday, and Nora had a headache, as was hardly surprising, after her unusual fatigue and excitement, so that it was only on the day following, that she and the little Cecilia, for whom some garments had meantime been remodelled out of old ones of Mrs. Blanchard's, were set down by the doctor at the door of the hospital.
It was a new experience for her, and she walked with some nervous dread along the whitewashed corridors, oppressed by the feeling that behind those white walls were being fought, unseen, many battles between disease and death on the one hand, and medical care and skill on the other. As she passed on, guided by the porter, she could catch glimpses, through partially open doors, of wards filled with "heavy cases"—every bed, apparently, tenanted; of others where convalescents were sitting among neat beds with snowy coverlets—pictures and plants giving an air of comfort to the place. At the end of a long passage, she found herself in a cheerful little room, with an open fire burning brightly in the grate, and her old acquaintance, Miss Spencer, Kitty Farrell's cousin, in her pretty nurse's uniform, sitting beside the bed on which lay the invalid she had come to see. The latter looked pale and weak, indeed, but seemed so different in her new surroundings and fresh white draperies, that Miss Blanchard would scarcely have recognized her. The little Cecilia threw herself upon her mother in a close, clinging embrace, which the nurse presently loosened gently, lifting her to a seat on the bed, where she could look at her mother without tiring her. The latter was evidently very weak, and scarcely cared to talk; but she looked gratefully, if shyly, at Miss Blanchard, and then lay with her beautiful dark-gray eyes, so like the child's, and half-screened by the long dark lashes, fixed on the little one beside her. The dusky hair that lay in a mass about her pale face, on the white pillow, seemed to make it paler by comparison, but also made her look even younger than Miss Blanchard had supposed her. The latter purposely made her visit very brief, but suggested that she and Miss Spencer should leave the mother and child alone, with the almost unnecessary caution "not to talk," to which neither seemed disposed. Miss Spencer led the way to the little sitting-room used by the nurses, which was then empty.
"How nice and neat it all is!" said Nora, as they sat down, her eyes coming back from their survey to rest admiringly on the serene, happy face of the young nurse. Janet or "Janie" Spencer, as her friends called her, had interested her very much in their occasional meetings. There was something about her, not easy to define, which attracted most people. She was a rather large, well-developed young woman, with her cousin Kitty's fairness of coloring, but not Kitty's exquisite delicacy of complexion and moulding. An expression of kindly good sense and good-humored benevolence seemed to shine in her clear eyes and to hover about the curves of her red lips; her calm, even manner was soothing in itself, and in her fresh picturesque uniform, Nora thought she looked like an impersonation of the divine art of healing.
"Well, how do you like your work?" asked Nora, eagerly.
"'Like' isn't the word!" was the reply. "It's intensely interesting. You get so absorbed in the interest of it that you never take time to think whether you like it or not! Of course, there are things you can't like in themselves, but you forget that, when you know that you are doing what is of real consequence. And then I think I always was cut out for a nurse. Ever since I was a child, I liked nothing so well as caring for sick people."
"We all thought it was very lovely of you to make up your mind to do it, though."
"Well, I simply couldn't go on as I was. You know there were some things I could never forget——"
Nora touched caressingly the soft hand that looked so strong and helpful, with all its softness. She had heard of the young lover whose sudden death had altered Janie Spencer's life. Presently she went on:
"That ordinary, humdrum, easy existence—so many of us girls at home, and no interests but calls and parties and novels and fancy-work—it seemed just trifling away life; and I thought if ever I could save any one who was ill as he was, how sweet it would be!—almost as if I did it for him!"
"Then it wasn't Mr. Chillingworth's preaching, after all," said Nora, vaguely disappointed.
"Oh, I think that did decide me," she said. "It was one of his strongest sermons, I think, and it came just when I was feeling so sick of doing nothing in particular. He was speaking, you know, of the beauty of the Christian ideal of living for the good of others; and he gave as an example, the life of a hospital nurse, and how happy she might always be in realizing the truth of the words, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it to one or the least of these, ye have done it unto Me.' I think it was that that decided me."
"But now," said Miss Spencer, after a short silence, "I suppose you don't know much about this poor young woman?"
"No," said Nora; "but I'm sure she has a history."
"So am I! One or two things she said made me suspect a romance of some kind. I notice that her wedding ring is very massive, and she has a habit of fingering it in a caressing sort of way."
"Poor thing! I suppose she's a widow."
"She wouldn't say, and I couldn't press her. It seemed to pain her to talk about it. My impression is that she is not; but of course that is merely an impression."
"The child is passionately fond of music," said Nora. "I shouldn't wonder if she turned out to be a musical genius."
"Possibly, then, her father may have been one of those professionals who seem so lax in their matrimonial ideas, and desert their wives so easily.—At least, I've heard of such cases," she added. "I suppose the 'artistic temperament' as they call it, has a tendency to forsake ordinary lines."
"It's queer," said Nora, thoughtfully. "One would think music should always be an elevating influence."
"I'm sure it is, at its best," said Janet. "But it has another side, like most things."
"Oh dear!" said Nora, "this is a very puzzling world. Well, it's nice to be you, and to have found out just the work you are fitted for, and how you can best help other people."
And this thought clung to her as she walked home with the still silent Cecilia, through the damp, foggy December afternoon, the child bravely keeping down her strong inclination to cry, lest she should forfeit the privilege of going again. The world seemed, to Nora's imagination, to have taken the dull, cheerless aspect of the day, seen from the under side, from which she had lately been looking at it. And it seemed to her that they alone could be counted happy who knew how to lighten a little the cheerlessness and gloom. If she only knew how!