Chapter Twenty Three.
Discussing the Past.
A fortnight’s watching, and the accompaniments of care and skill, had been needed to save Ralph Elthorne from sinking slowly into his grave. The shock of his seizure had wrought terrible havoc, but the worst was now over, and he was weak, but recovering fast.
There had been no further talk of the nurse leaving, and matters had remained in abeyance. Sir Denton had been down twice and given his instructions, and she had resigned herself to her position—knowing that the invalid depended upon her for everything, refusing even to take his food from other hands, and that if she persisted in her wish to go, the consequences might be terrible.
It must have been a terribly lonely life, for she seemed to be avoided by all in the house. She saw Neil, of course, frequently in the sick room, but few words passed, and those he uttered with formal respect, as he gave her some instructions. Alison she saw from time to time, evidently watching her window, and from him came flowers and fruit daily, Maria being the bearer, and setting them down with an insolent sneer, which would have roused one less dignified and patient to some retort. But Nurse Elisia had her consolations in the progress of the patient and the grateful looks he gave her, while, regularly now, stealing in hurriedly, and as if she were performing some guilty act, a little figure crept in, last thing, to pass its arm about her neck, kiss her, and say “Good-night.”
It was then at the end of a fortnight, and Ralph Elthorne, terribly changed, but recovering now fast from the shock, lay near the window, while Nurse Elisia sat close at hand, working, and ready to attend to his lightest wish.
He had been lying there very silent since his son’s last visit to the room, when he suddenly raised one thin white hand, and beckoned.
Elisia was at his side in a moment.
“What can I get you, sir?” she said gently.
“Nothing. Come and sit here. I want to talk to you.”
“Do you feel strong enough, sir?”
“Yes.”
She brought her work and sat near him, but he signed to her to put the work away.
“I want to talk to you seriously about the past.”
She glanced at him quickly, and he went on.
“Yes—about the past. I have not said a word till now. I have been too weak, and it is only just within the last day or two that I have grasped it all thoroughly.”
“Pray leave it still, sir,” she said, with some show of agitation.
“No, I must get this all off my mind. Now, tell me—you heard what my son said on the day of my seizure—my son Neil?”
She bowed her head.
“Well, has he made further advances to you?”
“No, sir, we have only spoken in your presence.” There was a pause, and then, gazing at her curiously, he continued.
“Did you—know—what he expressed—before you came down here—at the hospital?”
“Yes, sir, perfectly well.”
“Ah! Then ought you to have come?”
“It was my duty sir,” she said with animation; “it was Sir Denton’s wish—almost his command; and, knowing what I did, I felt that I might come.”
“Knowing what you did? What was that?”
“I could trust myself, sir, to let Mr Neil Elthorne see that what he wished was impossible.”
“Ah, but he offered you his hand?”
“Yes, sir, and I refused.”
Again there was a pause.
“You do not like my son Neil?”
“Like him, sir!” she cried, with her face flushing; “I think him the truest, noblest gentleman I ever met.”
“Ah! And yet, feeling like that, you refused him?”
“Yes, sir, it is impossible.”
Ralph Elthorne lay watching her, and she met his searching gaze without blanching, her soft grey eyes slightly clouded by the tears which rose and gathered till they brimmed over and one great drop slowly trickled down her cheek.
“And my son Alison?—he was attracted by you too. What of him?”
“Mr Alison Elthorne has followed me from the day I came, sir, and proffered his love.”
“And you have turned a deaf ear to him as well?”
“Of course, sir,” she said coldly.
“And he, too, has given up, I suppose?”
“No, sir.”
“It is no more than I expected from such a woman as you, nurse,” said Elthorne, after another pause. “But there is a reason for all this. Forgive me: it is an old and broken man who speaks; there must be a reason.”
“Yes, Mr Elthorne,” she said, and her clear musical voice seemed to fill the room; “there is a reason—a good reason—for all this.”
“May I know it?”
“Yes; why not? Some women love but once.”
“Ah!” he said, and he took her hand. “Then you have loved—in the past?”
“Yes.”
She paused in turn, while he waited patiently, expectant that she would continue.
“Ask me no more, Mr Elthorne. I gave my trusting, girlish heart to one I believed good and noble, but I was rudely awakened from my dream; and, after a long illness, I devoted myself to the task of trying to help those in sore need of a woman’s hand, sometimes to nurse them back to life, sometimes—ah, too often!—to close their eyes in death. Ask me no more.”
He raised her hand reverently to his lips, and then let it fall.
“I will ask you no more,” he said gently; and they sat in silence for a time.
“L’homme propose, et Dieu dispose,” he said at last thoughtfully. “I have spent much of my time in planning, but too often my plans have been brought to naught. Nurse, I give up now; I will only try to do what is right while I stay. It will be a grief and will bring more suffering to me, but it is not just to you that I should keep you here.”
“No, sir. I am waiting patiently, hoping that I may soon be set free to return to my work. You are well enough now to require only the assistance of your child and your sister. Give me leave now to go. I would gladly stay longer, but there is no need.”
“No,” he said after a time, “there is no real need. You must go.”
She rose and stood before him, gazing down at him pityingly, as he lay there, aged by ten years since she came.
“Good-bye, sir,” she said softly.
“What!” he cried, “going now?”
“Better that I should go at once, sir. You will soon become accustomed to another hand. Let me take yours once, and thank you for all your kindness. I think you understand me, though I have failed with your sister. Good-bye.”
She held out her hand and he clutched it with both of his, clinging to it spasmodically as his face began to work.
“Mr Elthorne!” she cried, startled by the change. “Water,” he whispered, and he loosened one hand only as she reached to the table and then held the glass to his lips.
“Thank you,” he whispered; “thank you. I thought I was stronger. Hah!”
He lay back in silence for a time with his eyes closed, but still retaining one of Nurse Elisia’s hands. At last he opened his eyes.
“Weak now as some poor fretful child,” he whispered. “It came home then when you spoke. It cannot be for long, my child. I am only a poor broken man now, against whom his sons rebel, whose daughter is disobedient, and whose sister is ready to trample him down. Don’t leave me,” he pleaded. “Have pity on me, my child. I could not bear it. I—I should die.”
Nurse Elisia looked at him wildly.
“No, no,” she said hastily. “You feel low and weak to-day. In a short time you will have forgotten all this. I cannot—indeed I cannot stay.”
But even as she spoke she saw that her patient believed the words he had uttered, and, trembling for the consequences to one in his weak, imaginative state, she hastily promised to give up all thought of going for the present.
“Thank you—thank you,” he said, trembling as he clung to her hand. “You see how weak and childish I am. Only such a short time back and I was strong, and people hurried to obey my word or look. Now it seems as if everyone were falling away from me—even you.”
“Oh, no,” she said soothingly; “and, besides, what am I to you? Only the hired nurse.”
“Yes,” he said, gazing up at her piteously, “only the hired nurse; and yet you have tended me as if you were my child. But you will stay? You are not trifling with me?”
“No, no,” she said. “There, it is time you had your sleep.”
“Yes,” he cried bitterly, and with a suspicious look in his eyes. “You are treating me as if I were a child. Go to sleep, so that I may awake by and by and find you gone.”
She bent down and laid her hand on his, as she smiled sadly in his face.
“Have more confidence in me,” she whispered. “Have I ever deceived you in the slightest thing? I tell you I will stay till you are more fit to leave.” He uttered a low sigh and lay with his eyes half closed.
“It is so hard to have confidence when one is helpless as I am. People try to cheat me, and say to themselves, ‘It is for his good.’”
“You may trust me, Mr Elthorne,” she said gently, “trust me in everything. Sleep now—that is for your good. You shall find me here, or within call, when you awake.”
He looked at her sharply once, and then closed his eyes, dropping off at once into a heavy sleep which lasted some hours, but to awaken with a sharp start, and a wildly suspicious look around.
The chair, where it seemed to him only a minute before he had seen Nurse Elisia seated, was empty, and he uttered a low, despairing cry.
“It is my punishment,” he groaned, “for a life of arrogance and pride. It has been a kind of tyranny to them all, and now I am to lie here, helpless, deceived by everyone in turn. My punishment—my punishment! Better that I had never awakened to my wretched state.”
At that moment there was the faint rustling made by a door being softly opened and passing over a thickly piled carpet, and directly after a faint shadow fell across his couch, then another, and there was a faintly heard sob.
“Hush, dearest; he sleeps more lightly now.” Ralph Elthorne’s head was turned away from the speaker, but he knew the gentle voice, and he repeated to himself the words wonderingly, “Hush, dearest; he sleeps more lightly now.” To whom was Nurse Elisia speaking so tenderly?
The answer came at once.
“Oh, nurse, dear nurse, is he never to be well and strong again?”
The words came from the speaker’s heart so full of love and sorrow that there was a stifling sensation in the listener’s breast, and when, directly after, he felt warm breath upon his cheek, and a kiss, light almost as the breath itself, his arms clasped Isabel to his breast.
“Papa! papa!”
That was all; but as Nurse Elisia turned away to the window, it seemed to her that father and daughter were closer together in heart than they could have been for years.