Chapter Nineteen.
Life Work.
After the first few weeks were over Jean recovered her strength more quickly than had been expected, and by the end of the second month was able to take her usual place in the household.
One of the first things which she had done after being pronounced convalescent was to fold away with her own hands all the tiny garments which had been prepared with such joy, and to cover the dainty new furnishings of the nursery with careful wrappings. This done, the key was turned in the lock, and henceforward there was a ghost-chamber in the house—a chamber haunted by the ghost of a dead hope.
Jean spoke but little of her loss—the wound went too deep for words; and as time went on some of the old interest in life began to revive, aided by the joys of recovered health, and of Robert’s devotion, if possible more ardent than before. Nevertheless no one could look upon her without realising the change wrought by the last few months. She had been a merry, thoughtless girl, to whom grief and pain were but abstract words conveying no definite impression: now the great revelation had come, anguish of body, anguish of soul, and she emerged from the shadows, sobered and thoughtful.
“What women have to suffer! The thought of it haunts me. I can’t get away from it,” she said to Vanna one afternoon as they sat together in the autumn gloaming, enjoying that quiet tête-à-tête which was the most intimate moment of the day. “I walk along the streets staring at the women I meet, and marvel! There they are—thousands of them, British matrons, plain, ordinary, commonplace creatures with dolmans, and bonnets far back on their heads, each with a family of—what? four, six, eight, sometimes ten children! For years and years of their lives they have been chronic invalids, goaded on by the precepts that it is ‘only natural,’ and that they have no right to shirk their work on that account. The courage of them, and the patience, and the humility! They never seem to consider that they deserve any praise. If they read in the newspaper of a soldier who saved a life in the rush and excitement of battle, and was wounded in the act, they rave of him by the hour together; but if you offered them the Victoria Cross, they would think you were mad! Yet every life given to the world means nearly a year of suffering for some poor mother!”
Vanna was silent. It was inevitable that in her position she should see the other side of the question, and feel that a year would be a light price to pay for the joy of holding Piers’s son in her arms; but Jean had lost that great recompense which wipes away the remembrance of the anguish. Her heart was still hungry and sore. Having no words of comfort to offer, Vanna deftly turned the conversation to a safer channel.
“Apropos of suffering, Jean, I have been waiting to talk to you about my own plans. I’ve been here over four months, dear, and it’s time I moved on. I told you I had a plan in my head which was slowly working itself out. Well! at last, I think I can see daylight. I have my life to live, and I can’t be content just to fritter it away. I must find something that is worth doing, and which will justify my existence. I’ve thought of many things, but it always comes back to nursing as the likeliest and most suitable. For the last four years that’s been my work, and I know I did it well. Every doctor I have met told me I was a born nurse. One Sunday when you were ill I went to Dr Greatman, and had a long talk. He had asked me to go. I told him what I wanted—technical training to add to what I had learnt by experience, and then when I was properly equipped to give my services to poor gentlewomen who could not afford to pay to be properly cared for.”
“A nurse! A hospital nurse! You!” Jean’s tone was eloquent with dismay. The day of lady nurses was but in its dawn, and public opinion had yet to be reconciled to the thought. “Vanna, you could not stand the everlasting strain. And you spoke of a home, a house of your own! If you were at the hospital—”