‘Tell me about Kate’s holidays,’ I asked, still curious of Commandant Lucy Lee. Into her eyes stole a faraway look, and after some hesitation, came vague answers.
‘Well,’ she began, ’last year we had our holiday together, preparing the Home of Rest at Ramsgate; the year before, Kate came to me in France. We had a lovely time visiting the hospitals and camps together; but, of course, it was not exactly a rest. And the year before that we spent them fixing up this little home. We did enjoy that. And the year before that?—’
Something else unsatisfactory to my way of thinking. ’But tell about a nice restful holiday at the seaside, or in the country where, out in the open, Kate just unwound and was refreshed for her work.’
’Well’–Lucy half closed her eyes and smiled wistfully–’somehow there always seemed something to prevent plans like that. So long as we could be together and have a quiet time, we were perfectly happy.’
Until the end of her life, a certain insularity clung to Kate Lee. She gloried to fight in a crowd, but she could not rest with a crowd. When set free from duty, all she longed for was some quiet corner with the protecting love of her sister–that love which perfectly understands and makes no demands–filling the days with tenderness. As her sister suggests, something generally turned up that made arrangements for real rest and change difficult to arrange. On the face of things, we might judge that in this particular Kate Lee’s usual common sense and good management failed her; but to one who has seen behind the scenes, into the hidden life of this remarkable woman, it would appear, rather, that in the matter of rest, as in other affairs touching her temporal happiness, God shut her up to Himself and taught her, first for her own joy, and then through her life taught others the possibility of having nothing, and yet possessing all things.
During one furlough, Kate determined to feel for herself the conditions of the very poor. To this end she spent a night amongst the women who frequent our Women’s Shelter in the East End of London.
Dressing in rags, she went to the door, paid her pence for a bed, passed into the long dormitory and, flattering herself that she was so well got up that she would not attract attention, sat down beside her bunk. But soon she discovered that she was the centre of discussion.
‘Poor thing, she’s not used to this,’ mumbled an old woman, steadily surveying her. Presently another, remarking that she would need some supper, offered her a mug of tea; another, a piece of bread. She accepted the bread, but said she was not thirsty, only tired, and would go to bed. She proceeded to lie down with her clothes on. Now the women were sure she had never been there before. ’Oo ever ’eard tell of agoing to bed wif close on?’ they remarked in loud whispers. But seeing the poor, tired thing would not be advised, they pitied her, told her the most comfortable way to lie, and left her alone.
The details of that long night remained clear in the Adjutant’s memory. The miserable seared days of these women were echoed in their sleep. Groans; curses; snatches of song; angry or weary talk, with heavy breathing troubled the night. Oh, the sorrows that follow in the wake of sin; it pressed upon Kate Lee’s heart until it felt like breaking.
With the first streak of dawn she rose, and noiselessly stealing out, escaped into the street. She felt cold and sick. Standing at a corner, she hailed a bus. The driver gave her a glance and drove on. She hailed another and another, but none would stop. They did not want to carry such as she. At last she managed to board a street car, and the passengers eyed her as she crouched in a corner. She knew, perhaps for the first time, what it really meant to be poor, and hungry, and despised. From that morning she believed that the very poor suffer more in spirit than in body, and she used her experience powerfully to plead their cause.