Bluebell / A Novel

by Mrs. G. C. Huddleston

"I know, I know. But don't invent anything from me to Bertie Du Meresq." Then, with a softer manner, and most cordial squeeze of the hand as she saw the other men rising to go,—"Good-bye, and come back safe, you dear, true-hearted boy!"

Next day the mystery came out. She had been qualifying as a hospital nurse, with the view of joining Miss Nightingale's staff at Scutari.

Cecil had quite anticipated the antagonism and ridicule with which this announcement would assuredly be met. A craze to go out to the East possessed many romantic young ladies of the period, too adventurous to be satisfied with merely knitting socks and comforters for their frost-bitten heroes. Colonel Rolleston had frequently expressed a profound contempt for this mania, refusing to perceive any more exalted motive for it than a desire to follow their partners. So his horror may be imagined when his own daughter, whom he had always credited with a certain amount of sense, thus enrolled herself in the ranks of these fair enthusiasts.

Cecil allowed the first torrent of words to expend itself, but, in reply to the contemptuous query of "What earthly use could she be?" reiterated the fact of her having received a certificate of competency from the hospital, and adding, that as five of the sisterhood were shortly to be taken out to Scutari, it would be easy for her to accompany them as a volunteer. Then, evading further discussion by leaving the room, she calmly left the idea to work.

It was not certainly innate love of the occupation that had made Cecil so diligent an attendant of the accident ward. At first she shuddered and faltered at the simplest operation in which her assistance was called for, but it was essential to test her own nerve before dressing gun-shot wounds, besides which, a certificate from the hospital would much facilitate her chance of being taken out to Scutari. And, moreover, she was desperately unhappy, and rushed into anything to escape from herself.

I don't know how it was that Cecil prevailed in the end. A year ago, if she had proposed such a thing, Colonel Rolleston would have a considered her a fit subject for a maison de sante, but he had been thinking for some time that his daughter was "odd." She was evidently turning out one of those unmanageable beings, an eccentric woman. Of age, and with an independent income, if baulked in this, she might only do something else equally perverse, and, though a most extraordinary fancy for a girl so brought up, he would not oppose it further.

And then Cecil, when she had got her wish, with a strange inconsistency seemed almost inclined to give it up again. But the Colonel, being in ignorance of her vacillating purpose, took her passage in the same ship as the other nurses.

Work enough was there for every one when that vessel reached its destination. The battle of the Alma had just been fought, and the wounded were being brought in daily to Scutari.

In the mean time, Colonel Rolleston had sailed with his regiment, and Mrs. Rolleston fell into such a state of nervous depression, that Cecil saw it would be cruel to abandon her—another opportunity for going out would soon occur, and defering her journey till then, she remained at home to fulfil the more obvious duty of supporting the sinking spirits of her step-mother.

And so passed many weary weeks. The battle of the Alma had been won, and none of their belongings had appeared in the long list of killed and wounded. Mrs. Rolleston, becoming more accustomed to suspense, bore up with greater fortitude. Letters from the seat of war were, of course, waited for with fearful anxiety, and on the few and far between occasions when these arrived, they were all comparatively happy.