Unawares: A Story of an Old French Town

by Frances Mary Peard

After that night she had no more dreams. She slept too heavily when the time for sleeping came. M. Deshoulières had done well to warn her, Sister Gabrielle to strengthen her for it; there was so much that was terrible and ghastly and full of horror. Not fear. There was no time for fear. But she was very young and tender-hearted, and somehow, at first, she had expected to see more relief, and to have the consolation of soothing these poor souls more than she found by experience to be the case. By and by she understood her position better, and was content to look for less, and yet Sister Gabrielle told her, smiling, that she was one of the most popular nurses among them all.

French organisation is the most perfect in the world, but the fever beat the organisation. If all that M. Deshoulières wanted had been done, there would scarcely have been room enough for the fresh patients. As it was, there was over-crowding and over-work. Now and then a nurse failed, and was carried away to the infirmary at the convent. It was found that such as fell ill for the first time at the hospital could not recover there, and so they were taken away at once. The precautions to avoid spreading the infection were strongly enforced. Still it spread. People went about the streets softly, with an awe-struck look on their faces. There were special services, litanies. Day after day the fierce sun beat down on Charville; day after day the fever smote its victims; day after day such doctors and such nurses as were spared were at their posts, fighting it.

M. Deshoulières seldom spoke to Thérèse, unless it was to give special orders, and she was quite unconscious how narrowly he watched her during this terrible time. He was ready to interfere at once if she flagged But she did not flag. Her eye was brighter, her face was alive with keener energy than he had seen in it yet. At first she had a great deal to learn, but by and by it became evident that among all the brave women who laboured there as women can labour, there was not one more self-denying, more courageous, more tender than Mademoiselle Veuillot. Where patient watching was needed, in cases where it seemed impossible not to shrink, she stood her ground. When speech failed, and only mute gestures, difficult to interpret, remained to the sufferer, those pitiful grey eyes were quick to read the hidden meaning. When these, too, ceased, and death followed upon his shadow, more than once dying looks or dying lips faltered blessings upon the faithful nurse who stood there faithful to the last.

And so it arrived that Sister Gabrielle told her that she was one of the most popular nurses among them all.

M. Deshoulières watched and wondered. She was different from what she had been. He had known her well enough to know that. But he was ignorant how the change had come, or, rather, how her character had thus ripened and opened out. Perhaps it was the outbreak of a heart tender enough to overcome selfishness. Perhaps there was a touch of shame about it that her own trials had seemed so unendurable, now that she was brought face to face with what we call life’s great realities. Least of all did he think, when he had time to think, which was not often, that his own example had any thing to do with it. Yet so it was. Thérèse had never been the same since that day when he and she had spoken together; and, seeing him in the heart of his work at the hospital, she owned that even yet she had not done him justice.

For now she could understand more fully what a great, noble heart was this man’s. She could understand why a soft light came into Sister Gabrielle’s eyes when she spoke of him—the sort of reverence with which the attendants in the wards obeyed his bidding. It seemed to her as if he, single-handed, did more to keep them all at work in the most efficient manner, than the other members of the staff put together. It seemed to her as if a great deal of the bravery and the cheerfulness which distinguished the workers grew in some fashion out of this bravery and cheerfulness which never failed. Always at his post, ready with keen promptitude to decide the crowd of doubtful questions brought for his opinions, accepting responsibilities from which others shrunk,—“My friend, the Minister of Health is in Paris, and I am here,” Thérèse heard, him say one day, in answer to a timid objection from little M. Pinot,—quick to note the first symptom of over-fatigue among the band of nurses; encouraging Sister Annette’s merry little sayings; swift, patient, tender, inflexible, all at once. It was here that she first realised Max Deshoulières’ kingdom.

Fanchon was well again. M. Deshoulières found means to let her know that. Nannon told her that the fever had not spread in the upper town; there were only a few isolated cases. Madame Roulleau had said that when there had been a little rain to cool the air, M. Roulleau would return.

“Otherwise I think she will fetch him,” said Nannon, laughing; “and, dame, I believe the fever would be less terrible to him than madame with her claws out.”

“But will it ever rain again!” answered Thérèse, who was walking by a cornfield in the early morning. All the nurses were compelled to be in the open air for half air hour daily, and she had been on night duty lately.

People asked that question a hundred times in the day. The sky, with its bright sunny beauty, had grown quite terrible and fierce in their eyes. Water was becoming scarce, the air was so heated that the nights scarcely cooled it at all; while all this continued it was scarcely possible that the fever should subside.