CHAPTER I.
"We'll keep our aims sublime, our eyes erect,
Although our woman-hands should shake and fail."—E. B. Browning.
Sister Warwick was slowly rousing to the consciousness of the birth of another working-day. Her first sensation was weariness, her next a thought of surprise that the night had been passed without a summons to the side of one of the many beds in her ward, the third, and this with fully-awakened faculties, that her good Staff-nurse Carden was holding towards her the welcome tea-tray that her kind thoughtfulness never failed to bring with this earliest report of the "night duty."
Margaret Carden's hospital career had fulfilled the expectations of those who had watched it with loving, interested eyes. She had quietly and conscientiously worked her way from her probation through the three years of training, had done well, if not brilliantly, in her exams., and was now back again in the ward that was her "first love," so to speak. She was a staff-nurse on night duty.
She was very happy to be here. She loved little Sister Warwick—loved and respected and reverenced her. She could see through the brusque exterior that nettled some of the others, and could fully appreciate the noble heroism of her consistent, hard-working, unselfish life.
Sister Warwick was one who always felt the full responsibility of the life she had to live. Seven years before, after the governors of the hospital had offered her the coveted position of Sister of one of these hospital wards, she had written to her mother—
"It is very trying work beginning to be a Sister—more so than you can possibly imagine. To feel the whole weight of your domain weighing on you, a family of thirty to care for, and nurses to guide and train, is very appalling, very full of care."
And now, though she was used to her position, if experience was teaching her the wisest way to carry her cares, custom did not lighten them.
To-day she greeted her friend Carden with a smile and a "Good morning! What sort of a night have you had in the ward?"
"All has gone comfortably, Sister, except that Susie and Patty have both been troublesome again."
"Susie fretting for her mother, and Patty crying with the pain?"
"Yes, Sister, and really disturbing the others by being very noisy, poor mites."
"Perhaps there is some naughtiness in their crying. We must think what we can do. And Mrs. 13?"
"She is distinctly weaker, but she says the pain is less. How patient she is!"
And whereas within hospital walls it is the rule, not the exception, for the patients to show touching bravery and endurance in their pain, such an exclamation from a nurse was a special tribute to Mrs. 13's heroism. It was partly because before both Sister and nurse there rose in that moment a picture of what that poor woman's life had been. A dressmaker for some second-rate theatre, she had spent her days with ten or twelve other women in a room without a window, with the gas burning, and only the fireplace for ventilation.
"After tea, Sister, the women used to drop from their seats and faint away on the floor. We seemed not to mind after a bit, somehow."[1]
That had been the spiritless summing-up of the description which had so stirred the hearts of her listeners. And now she lay dying of the terrible disease that still baffles medical science, and seems to have no cure—and her patience did not fail!
Nurse Carden continued her report of the other cases, and then, before leaving, said anxiously:
"You will be able to take your hours 'off duty' this afternoon, Sister? You know you did not last week."
Sister Warwick smiled. This staff-nurse of hers was bold in her determination to take care of her. None of the others ventured, except, perhaps, Nurse Greg; but she was promoted now, a Sister like herself—on her own level, in fact.
"You will, Sister," urged Margaret Carden again. "I know you are getting tired out."
"Not quite that," answered Sister Warwick, amused and touched. "But I do want a taste of the outside world, and if I possibly can, I mean to go."
With that the night nurse departed more contented, not hearing the sigh that followed the words, not knowing that it was want of confidence in her day staff-nurse—Nurse Hudson—that tied the Sister with so many anxious thoughts to her ward.
Sister Warwick and Sister Cumberland, which was the new title Nurse Greg had lately assumed with the donning of her dark stuff dress, met on the staircase in their bonnets and cloaks before eight o'clock. As their custom was, they walked together to the shortened morning service in the old parish church near the hospital gates. They had both learnt that the few quiet moments they spent there were "well invested," and they never passed out again into the whirl of their busy lives without an earnest prayer, first
"for the sick ...
God's prisoners, laid in bonds by His own hands,"
and then for themselves, that they,
"By prayer, and sympathy, and smile,
The burden of the weary might beguile."
How better could they step into the daily routine than thus equipped?
Breakfast in their own rooms was followed by hours of occupation. Sister Warwick preferred to take her share of actual nursing with the rest.
Before the house-physician's visit was over a piteous wail from bed No. 12 rang through the ward.
"It do hurt so! I can't bear it—I can't!"
Sister Warwick knew that Patty had been spoilt at home, and that her pain was really bearable. She had tried petting. Now she felt that firmness with a flavour of severity would have to be applied.
Earlier in the morning, and in a happier moment, Patty had said insinuatingly—
"You don't know how I like eggs, Sister, or you'd give me one!" and she had answered—
"I will give you one, dear, but not while you do not try to be good and quiet. Patty must learn to bear her pain bravely like the rest. Anyhow, we will see what Mr. H—— (the house physician) says."
And now, with this stormy outburst of weeping, came Sister Warwick's opportunity. She turned to Mr. H——, who was standing close by, and propounded this all-important egg-question.
He came with due gravity and looked down upon the sobbing child. His kind eyes were twinkling with amusement. He was well aware of Patty's character for tempestuosity. His voice was impressive almost to sternness.
"Yes, Sister," he said, "if she is a good girl, I think we may let her have a good egg, and shall we say if she's a bad girl, she shall have a bad egg?"
The solemn tones overawed Patty. She stopped crying and stared, and tried her hardest to think whether the punishment for her naughtiness was as terrible as it sounded.
With poor, home-sick, tired Susie, Sister Warwick had to try other measures. Susie was old enough to be reasoned with, and withal was not a coward in her pain—she was plucky there. But the peace of the ward and of the older patients must not be sacrificed to these wayward children.
So Sister Warwick, seated at her table in the ward, and having filled in her charts and completed other matters of business—such as signing a pass for a nurse's holiday—took a sheet of paper and wrote a letter as if to Susie's mother.
The words ran—
"Susie frets so for her home and for you, and is so especially unhappy after visiting day, that I must beg you not to come again until she can be quite good when you leave her."
She went to Susie's cot and read the sentence without a smile. Susie's eyes dilated, her lip quivered as she listened.
"Shall I post it, Susie?"
"Don't! Oh, please, Sister, don't!"
"Well, dear, it shall depend upon you whether it goes. See, I am going to pin it here on the curtain, where you can look at it. If you are good it shall not be sent."
And sent it never was.
There was much to do for Mrs. 13, and distressing though the work might be, admiration for her endurance and for the simple trust with which she accepted all her pain, as "the touch of God's finger laid on her in love," could only make the Sister's labours a pleasure and a privilege.
It was different when she turned to a bed at the end of the ward, a little apart from the others, where lay, unconscious, one of those sad cases, repulsive and loathsome, in which "the King's image" is disfigured almost beyond recognition by a life of sin and self-indulgence.
At one time Sister Warwick had found it hard to be as careful and tender with these—pity she never failed in. But one day the thought came to her that perhaps these poor souls were included in "the least of these My brethren"—that perhaps these words might mean sometimes those farthest removed from Him. After that the work for them was infinitely easier.
At one o'clock she was in her own room again, to find someone waiting for her there—a young student. His hands were loaded with "a sight for sair een"—a great bunch of buttercups and grasses.
"My mother is up in town to-day, Sister," he said, "and she asked me to bring these to you. They were picked only this morning and so are not at all battered, as you see."
"They are delightful; a real bit of the country for my poor 'children' to feast their eyes on."
Sister stretched out her hand for the golden posy, then an instinct prompted her to look more directly at the boy's face. His mother was her friend; she had promised to be an elder sister to this only son of hers, and she saw that her elder-sisterliness was wanted now.
She gave it—how wisely and strongly, yet tenderly, the young doctor only knew. It was a crisis in his career. He was afraid! How could he go on with the seeming inconsistencies that thronged him in his work? and there were other things.
Well, gradually it all came out. Somehow Sister Warwick understood, and she helped him to sort apparent contradictions and to smooth or explain difficulties. Not all, of course not! There must remain unfathomed mysteries in every profession. But he went away with a new light on his young face, and Sister Warwick with a sigh—not of regret but of humility—turned to her little table and her waiting lunch. She glanced up at the clock. Why, her half-hour had gone! The consulting physician might be here at any moment. She must put on a clean cap and apron and be ready. This done, there was left just time for a few mouthfuls of ham and bread and for a draught of milk, then the probationer's voice at her door was saying—
"Dr. W—— is here, please, Sister."
There was less for the doctors to do that day than usual, and it was not later than half-past two when, in bonnet and cloak, Sister Warwick began the little programme she had made for these "off hours."
Passing through the hospital gates, she took her way eastward until she reached the entrance to Pleasant Court.
Alas! Was there ever such a misnomer?
Insanitary, overcrowded, stifling, filthy, she wondered how any could live in such an atmosphere, and thought with pity of that poor ex-patient she had come to see, who had begged to come back here—"because it was home"—to die!
She climbed up the creaking stairs to an attic room, and her gentle tap was answered by a weak "Come in, please."
It was good to see how the wan face of the sick woman lit up at sight of her visitor, and to hear the glad "Oh, Sister, is it you?"
The poor, bare room was well swept and tidy, and the woman herself was as clean and orderly as she knew how to be. Months of hospital days had taught her much, and she had a husband tenderly anxious to please her by "doing for her" as carefully and as long as he could. Sister had been expected "one of these days," and she was touched to find, when she set to work to wash and dress an unhealed wound, that a ragged but clean towel was laid ready for her use afterwards.
Surgical duties performed, she sat beside Mrs. Sutton with her wasted hand in hers, listening to her laboured breathing and turning over a possibility in her mind.
"We'll try it!" she said suddenly out loud. And then, smiling at the woman's surprised expression, she went on. "What do you say to our getting a breath of fresh air together? Shall we have a drive?"
"Oh, Sister! Not really? Could I?"
Sister Warwick certainly had a way of sweeping aside difficulties when her mind was set to an end. She went to the nearest cab-stand, picked out the driver with care, and came back with the hansom to the entrance of the court. It could go no further.
A boy was found to hold the horse, and together she and cabby carried Mrs. Sutton down the old stairs. She was comfortably wedged into the corner of the seat with pillows, and a footstool was found for her feet. Then Sister gave the man her instructions—
"It is to be a shilling drive, please, and take us to see a bit of something green."
"Right you are, Nuss! Embankment's the place for we!"
Away they went—the air cool in their faces—until the sick woman began to draw long breaths of enjoyment, and even a little colour crept into her pale cheeks. Under the trees, with the glittering water on one side and patches of green grass within railings on the other. There was a laburnum in blossom. Some of the windows of the houses were bright with scarlet geraniums and marguerites. A donkey-cart came towards them laden with ferns and plants in bloom.
Mrs. Sutton's eyes feasted on it all. A few happy tears rolled down her cheeks. She had not hoped or thought to see these things until she rested in "the Park of God." And the sky was so blue! Heaven would be clearer to her imagination after this.
But Sister Warwick began to wonder when their driver meant to turn homewards. It was a very long shilling's-worth already, and she had not wanted to spend more out of her slender purse. At last she pushed up the little trap-door.
"I think we had better be going back now," she said.
"Very well, Nuss. If you please."
But they had had at least a four-mile drive before they drew up at the court again and helped the tired but happy woman to her room once more.
When, with rough tenderness, he had given all the assistance he could, Sister Warwick followed the man on to the little landing. She offered him half-a-crown.
"I know it ought really to be more," she said.
He put back the coin.
"It's only a shilling, Nuss. I only meant it to be a shilling all along. Just let it be a shilling's-worth—now doo ee."[2]
She let him have his way. How could she resist him? And he stumped down the stairs smiling and proud, as if he had received a favour that afternoon. Well, perhaps he had!
There was time for Sister Warwick to pay another and a very different visit before she was due at the hospital for the Sisters' dinner. A visit to another court, but how different! What a contrast!
It is hard to believe that such dear old places are still left standing in the very heart of the great city. Sister Warwick passed through an archway into a flagged square and mounted a flight of steps leading to a quaint, old-fashioned house.
She turned before ringing the bell to look straight away through the large old iron gates on the opposite side of the square, at a long, delicious stretch of green—grass below, trees above. And far away—she fancied it might be really a quarter of a mile—a great flight of stone steps led down to the outer world again.
To those who live in the heart of the country—in the midst of all its delights and, above all, of its peace—this may not sound much to charm the gaze; but here, in the rush of the unending roar night and day, to find a comparative stillness is refreshing beyond everything.
To some natures the noise of London seems always dreadful. And it is true that the traffic never really ceases night or day, except perhaps for two or three hours on Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning. Even in this quiet square the sounds went on—cart succeeded cab, and omnibus followed on—without intermission. But it was all muffled and distant. The peace of it fell upon Sister Warwick's tired spirits.
Inside the house, too, there was more of this old-world feeling of un-hurry and rest. She was led through panelled passages to the long low drawing-room with its wide window-seats and great chintz-covered couches.
Her friend, whose home it was, rose to greet her, and she was at once taken in hand, thrust into the softest lounge, plied with tea, and told to "laze." She was not even permitted to talk; but her thoughtful hostess, having supplied all her wants, went to a little chamber-organ at the far end of the room and played softly and quietly such things as refresh body and soul in one—bits of Beethoven, Handel, Mendelssohn. She passed from one to the other, and Sister Warwick lay and listened with closed eyes—all her responsibilities and anxieties wiled from her for the time.
Was this unusual hour of rest sent to brace her for what was to come that night and the following day? She thought so herself when, later, she looked back at the events of those forty-eight hours.
At the Sisters' dinner that evening, Miss Jameson, the Sister of the Nurses' Home, gave her a summons to the Matron's house for a discussion on some improvement to be made in the nurses' uniform. She was to go when her ward work was over—medicines superintended, prayers read, the change of nurses made for the night.
She hurried back to it all, and with quiet steps was passing between the long rows of beds sooner than was her wont.
Nurse Hudson was settling the patients for the night. A long, thin, languid-looking girl was sitting up in bed No. 10 while her pillows were being arranged and her sheet straightened.
Sister paused to look. The smile she had for the patient quickly faded to sternness as she turned to the nurse.
"What are you doing?" she said in her sharpest tones. "Allowing a typhoid to sit up! Nurse, you know better than that!"
She laid the girl down on the pillows again herself, and then stood silently by while the bed was finished.
Nurse Hudson flushed crimson. But she had no excuse ready, and presently her superior passed on down the ward, registering in her indignant mind another of many carelessnesses she had noticed. She knew that Ellen Hudson was particularly anxious for her own pleasure to get away punctually that evening. But to risk a case in order to do her work more quickly—the selfishness of the act hurt the Sister's pride in the nursing profession. So thoroughly angry did she feel that she wondered whether she could command herself sufficiently to speak a calm reproof before the nurse left the ward that evening. She was very conscious that a biting sarcasm in her fault-finding had often alienated the confidence of her nurses, and she was now striving hard to mete out to them a more kindly and less impatient justice.
Mrs. 13 was watching her with loving eyes as she went to and fro.
"Patty has been a better girl this afternoon, Sister," she said, when she came within hearing, "ever so much better. I expect she is afraid of the bad egg!"
The laugh did Sister Warwick good, and Patty fell asleep that night with the sound of commendation in her ears, and with a virtuous determination "to be a better gairl to-morrow, too."
"Ain't the buttery-cups beeootiful, Sister? They minds me of home. I was a country girl onst, and picked my hands full of them when I was little. But, bless ye, I ain't been out of London since I married. I've 'most forgotten what the country looks like."
It was Granny 20 who was speaking, as Sister bandaged her leg and helped to tidy her for the night.
"We will put that right before long, Granny, see if we don't. You shall pick flowers and get sunburnt with the best of us. Fancy not seeing the grass and the flowers, and hearing the birds sing, for fifty years! How could you bear it?"
"Well, it's true, Sister. I ain't been further than London Bridge all that time. And there! bless ye, I'm 'most afraid to try it now."
But Sister Warwick thought of the beautiful grounds round the Hospital Convalescent Home, which was not so very far away. Granny 20 was getting well fast—a credit to them all. She should renew her acquaintance with "great Nature's pictures" before very long.
The day had been hot; but a cool mist or fog covered the shadowed houses as Sister Warwick lay down that night. Nurse Carden was on duty again; with that knowledge the Sister fell quickly asleep, at ease for the safety of all.
(To be concluded.)