“’Taint that,” said the woman sharply, “it’s what’s done to me here, and the shameful neglect. It’s horrid; I’m half killed, and then Mr Neil goes away and leaves me to that horrible old man, and as soon as Mr Neil’s gone, the other leaves me to die.”

“I am afraid you are a very foolish woman,” said the nurse quietly. “I can assure you that you are getting well fast.”

“Oh, yes, I know. And you are as bad as they are. It’s shameful!”

“You have been working yourself up to think you are being neglected, but your troubles are imaginary.”

“Oh, yes, I know,” cried the woman angrily.

“Pray try and be reasonable,” said the nurse, speaking in a voice full of patient resignation.

“Go on, pray, ma’am. You’ve all got me down here and are trampling on me. I’m unreasonable now, am I?”

“I am afraid you are a little,” said the nurse, smiling as she rearranged the bedclothes. “Mr Elthorne went away because he was worn out with attending the poor people here, and Sir Denton was telegraphed for to attend some unfortunate gentleman who had met with an accident.”

“Then he oughtn’t to have gone,” cried the woman loudly.

“Pray, hush,” said the nurse. “You are hurting yourself and upsetting the other patients.”

“And I say he’d no right to go. My life’s as much consequence as anybody else’s life, and it’s a shameful piece of neglect. Oh, if I do live to get away from this ’ateful place, I’ll let some of you know. I’m to be left to die because the doctors are too idle to come and see me. If I’d only known, you’d never caught me here.”

“Hush, hush! Pray be quiet, dear. You are making yourself hot and feverish.”

The nurse laid her cool white hand upon the patient’s brow, but she resented it and thrust it away. “Let me be. I don’t want holding down. It’s shameful. It’s cruel. Oh, why did I come to this dreadful place? As for that Sir Denton, or whatever his name is – ”

“What about him? Do you want me?” said the gentleman in question, who had come into the ward and up to the bed unnoticed. “How are you this morning? – Ah, better.”

“No, I’m not, I’m worse, and it’s shameful.”

“What is?” said the surgeon, smiling.

“For me to be neglected by the doctors and nurses as I am. It’s too bad, it is; and I might have died – no doctor, no nurse.”

“Ah, yes; it is very cruel,” said Sir Denton. “I have shamefully neglected my patients here, and as for the conduct of Nurse Elisia to you, it is almost criminal. You will have to go back home to your own people and be properly treated. Dreadful places, these hospitals are.”

Nurse Elisia looked up at the old surgeon with wondering eyes, as he took the woman’s own tone, but he smiled at her sadly.

“Come with me, I want to talk to you. Poor thing,” he said, as they walked away, “she is in the irritable, weary state of the convalescent. She is not answerable for what she says. Sorry I was obliged to go, but the case was urgent. Mr Elthorne’s father. A terrible accident. The spine injured, and paralysis of the lower part of the body.”

“Mr Elthorne’s father!” cried the nurse, turning pale. “How shocking!”

“Terrible. Mr Elthorne telegraphed for me. It was not necessary, for he was doing everything possible, and now it is a case of careful nursing to save the poor fellow’s life.”

“Nursing?”

“Yes. I have promised Mr Elthorne to send him down the most helpful, trustworthy nurse I knew, at once.”

“Sir Denton,” faltered the nurse, with a faint colour rising in her cheeks.

“It is an exceptional ease, my child, one which calls for all a nurse’s skill and tenderness with, perhaps, as much patience as I have seen you exercise toward that foolish woman. I am going to ask you to start at once for Hightoft, and take up this case.”

“Sir Denton!” she cried. “Oh! it is impossible.”

“Why?”

“My patients here.”

“Your place can be filled, just as it would be necessary to fill it if you were taken ill.”

“But I am not ill, Sir Denton, and I am needed here.”

“But you are needed there – at this gentleman’s house, where the services of a patient lady like yourself would be invaluable.”

“I could not go, Sir Denton; I beg you will not send me.”

“It is in a lovely part of the country. It is a charming place, and I can guarantee for you that the ladies will receive you as their equal – perhaps as their superior,” he added with a meaning smile, which made her look slightly resentful.

“Really, Sir Denton,” she began.

“Forgive me,” he said. “It was a slip. I have no wish to pry into your private life, Nurse Elisia. I am only thankful to have the help and co-operation of a refined woman in my sad cases here.”

“Thank you, Sir Denton, but you must excuse me from this.”

“I cannot,” he said firmly, “for I feel that it is your duty to go. I have no hesitation in saying that it is absolutely necessary for you to have a change, even if you do not have rest, but you will be able to combine both there.”

“Pray send someone else, Sir Denton.”

“I know nobody whom I could trust as I would you, Nurse Elisia,” he replied quietly, “and I am quite sure that there is no one in whom Mr Elthorne would have so much confidence.”

He noted the change in the nurse’s mobile countenance as he went on speaking in his quiet way, for she was evidently agitated and trying hard to conceal it.

“You see it would be so advantageous,” he continued. “After a few days you could set Mr Elthorne at liberty to come back here. Of course, as you know, the case is one which needs almost wholly a careful nurse’s skill. How soon will you be free to go?”

Like lightning the thoughts flashed through her brain of the position she would occupy. It was like throwing her constantly in Neil Elthorne’s society, and she shrank from the position almost with horror. For, of late there had been no disguising from herself the fact that the young surgeon had, in his quiet way, been more than courteous to her, and that his manner betokened a something, which on his side was fast ripening into admiration.

“It is impossible,” she thought. “It would be cruelty to him, for he is sincere and manly. No, I cannot go. It would be a crime. Sir Denton,” she said hastily, aloud. “You must excuse me from this duty. I cannot go.”

“No,” he said firmly, and he took her hand. “I cannot, I will not excuse you. Once more I tell you that you ought to go; it is your duty.”

“But why?” she cried, rather excitedly.

“Because you – evidently a lady of gentle birth – have set yourself the task of toiling for your suffering fellow-creatures. Here is one who may die if you do not go to his help.”

“But another would be as efficient.”

“I do not know one at the present moment whom I would trust as I would you; and in addition, the call comes at a time when it is imperative that you should have rest and change.”

“But,” she said, with a smile full of perplexity, “that would not be rest and change.”

“Can you not trust me to advise you for your good?” said Sir Denton gravely.

“Oh, yes, but – ”

“That ‘but’ again. Come, nurse, I think you believe that I take great interest in you.”

“Oh, yes, Sir Denton,” she said eagerly.

“Then trust me in this. Take my advice. More – oblige me by going. I am surgeon here, and you are nurse, but it has seemed to me, for some time past, that we have had a closer intimacy – that of friends. Come, you will oblige me?”

“It is your wish then, that I should go?”

“Indeed, yes. When will you be ready to start?”

“At once.”

“That is good. Then I will telegraph down, so that a carriage may be in waiting for you at the station. I am sure that Mr Elthorne will see that you have every comfort and attention. Good-morning. Thanks.”

Nurse Elisia stood by the door of the ward, watching the retiring figure of the old surgeon as he passed down the corridor.

“Is it not weak to have given way?” she said to herself. “Perhaps not in such a case as this. Mr Elthorne will see that I have every comfort and attention,” she said softly. “Mr Elthorne must be taught that I am the hospital nurse, sent down there for a special purpose. Mr Elthorne is weak, and given to follies such as I should not have suspected in so wise and able a man.”

She stood hesitating for a few moments looking toward where Maria Bell lay, evidently watching her attentively, and her first impulse was to cross to the woman and to tell her that she would be handed over now to the charge of another nurse; but, reconsidering the matter, she decided merely to tell the next nurse in authority that she must take full charge of the ward, and going down to the matron, she stated that she would be absent for a time. That evening she was being hurried down by a fast train, to reach the station within a few minutes of the appointed time, and she had scarcely stepped on to the platform when a man’s voice made her start with dread lest it should be Neil.

“The nurse for Hightoft?” said the voice; and as she turned she found that it was only a servant.

“Yes, I am the nurse,” she replied.

“Well, here’s a carriage for you. Any luggage?”

The man’s voice was sharp, and wanting in respect, the ordering of the carriage for a long night drive having found little favour with coachman and footman.

“That little black bag, that is all,” said the nurse quietly.

“Don’t mean to stay long, then,” said the man with a laugh, as he took the little travelling bag, and swung it up on to the foot-board, while the nurse stood patiently waiting, and without resenting the man’s insolence and indifference as he entered into a conversation with the coachman before turning and, stepping back, stared hard at the calm, refined face dimly seen by the feeble station lamps.

“Will you have the goodness to open the carriage door?”

“Eh? Open the door? Of course. Just going to,” said the footman cavalierly, as he snatched open the door and rattled down the steps.

He held out his hand, but she stepped in without his assistance, the door was banged sharply to, and the handle took some time to turn, as the man stared in at the visitor, who quietly drew up the window and sank back in her seat.

“Gives herself airs, does she!” said the footman to himself. “How fond people who have never been in a carriage before are of making believe they are used to one. Can’t cheat me, my lady. Bet a shilling she has never been in anything better than a cab or a station-fly before in her life.”

“What are you grumbling about?” said the coachman, as his fellow-servant climbed up to his side.

“Nothing, only thinking aloud about her ladyship inside. Got in with a reg’lar toss of her head. There, hit ’em up, Tom, and let’s get back. I don’t want to be on this job all night.”

“Regular nurse, arn’t she?” said the coachman. “Horspittle?”

“Yes, I suppose so. Dressed up like a nun out for a holiday. Why couldn’t they have had a nurse out of the village, or your wife?”

“Ah! Why indeed?” said the coachman sourly. “’Fraid poor people should make a few shillings too much, I suppose. It’s just the same if one of the horses is bad; we must have the vet to see him, when I could put him right in a week. It’s having the name does it with some people. Horspittle nurse! A deal, I dare say, she knows.”

The ill-usage to which he and his fellow-servants were called upon to submit claimed both their tongues during the long, dark drive to Hightoft, while Nurse Elisia sat back in the carriage, dreamy and thoughtful, watching the lights of the lamps thrown upon hedgerow and tree as the good pair of horses trotted swiftly back.

It seemed a strange contrast to the glaring, shop-filled streets of sooty London, this long winding lane with only a long, low whitewashed cottage seen at intervals. So quiet and calm was it all that there appeared to be no reason for the rapid action of the nurse’s pulses as they sped onward. But the action was going on, and the occupant of the carriage felt a strange longing more than once to pull the check string, and bid the coachman stop and turn back. But she refrained and grew cooler as they progressed, forcing herself to keep on trying to make out the landscape, till, in due time, the lodge gates were passed, and the carriage drawn up at the entrance, where Nurse Elisia descended and stood beside her little bag till Neil descended and uttered the words expressing his astonishment at her presence there.

Chapter Ten.
Neil is Perplexed

Neil Elthorne had hard work to control himself for, paradoxically, although Nurse Elisia was the most likely personage for Sir Denton to send down to attend his young friend’s father, it had never once occurred to him that she would be chosen.

“I am glad you have come,” he said quietly. “Ah, here is my aunt,” he continued, as that lady appeared. “Aunt, dear, this is Nurse Elisia, from the hospital. Will you see that she is shown to her room and has some refreshment before she comes upstairs?”

Isabel, looking very white and careworn, joined them as he spoke, unable to withdraw his eyes from the countenance which filled so large a portion of his meditative hours, but the nurse met his eyes calmly and turned and bowed to Aunt Anne and Isabel in turn, the former lady seeming quite taken back by the attendant’s appearance.

“I don’t like the look of her at all, Isabel, my dear,” she said, as soon as they were alone. “I expected she would look like a nurse, not be a tall body like that.”

“She seemed very nice, Aunt, dear,” said Isabel quietly, “and of course she will be a very skillful nurse. I thought she looked very tired, but her face seemed to me quite beautiful.”

“Good-looking, not beautiful, my dear, and that’s it. I always made a point of never having good-looking servants in the house, especially as there are young men about.”

“Aunt!”

“Oh, yes, you may say ‘Aunt,’ my dear, but you do not understand these things. Good-looking servants always know it, and give themselves airs.”

“But this lady is not a servant, Aunt.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Isabel,” said Aunt Anne tartly. “She is a servant, and she is not a lady. I can’t help it, my dear; I don’t like her at all, and I hope she will prove to be so dissatisfied, when she finds what she has to do, that she will want to go back to town at once. There’s too much of the fine madam about her for me.”

“Sir Denton would not have sent down a person who was not quite suitable, Aunt,” said Isabel gravely. “If she nurses poor papa well that is all we want.”

“Yes, my dear, but will she? There, I can’t help it; I must speak plainly. I am the least suspicious woman in the world, but I do not like a surprise like this being sprung upon us.”

“A surprise, Aunt?”

“Yes. Why did not Neil tell us what sort of a person this woman was going to be. He knows her, of course. You heard him call her by name.”

“Aunt, dear, of what are you thinking?” cried Isabel wonderingly, and giving her aunt a strangely perplexed look.

“Oh, nothing, my dear. There, I suppose I must see to her having some tea when she comes down. She will have her meals with the servants of course.”

“Has Nurse Elisia come down yet?” said Neil, entering quickly.

“No, my dear,” said Aunt Anne, pinching her lips together.

“You have given orders for refreshments to be brought up to her?”

“Indeed no, my dear. I was just going to ring and tell them to get something ready in the servants’ hall.”

Neil’s countenance changed.

“No, no,” he said harshly.

“My dear Neil, she cannot have her meals with us.”

“I cannot see why not,” he replied sternly. “But she will not wish to leave her patient. Have one of the dressing rooms set apart entirely for her use, and all her meals can be taken to her upstairs.”

Isabel looked at her brother in surprise, his manner seemed so changed.

“Oh, very well, my dear,” said Aunt Anne in an ill-used tone as she rose to ring the bell, but was forestalled by her nephew. “I always thought when I came here that I was to take the entire management of this establishment, but your father always interfered, and now that he is helpless, I suppose you, as his eldest son – ”

“Why, dear Aunt,” said Neil, “pray do not think that I wish to interfere, but you do not understand Nurse Elisia’s position. She is our principal lady nurse at the hospital, one in whom Sir Denton Hayle places every confidence, and whom he treats almost as a friend.”

“Oh, indeed!” said Aunt Anne. “I was not aware. Why did you not tell me before, my dear, who was coming down?”

“For the simple reason that I did not know, Aunt,” said Neil quietly.

The footman, who had been waiting, signified his presence by a faint cough, received his orders, and left the room.

About this time Alison, who had been seated alone in the little study, smoking and trying to read, suddenly threw the book one way, the end of his cigar another, and rose with a yawn.

“Tired out and sleepy,” he muttered. “Last night to make up for.”

He seated himself on the table, and began swinging one leg about.

“Wonder how the guv’nor is,” he said to himself, “and I wonder what he would say if he had seen us this afternoon. Those girls are giving themselves fine airs of their own. Miss Dana is siding with her sister, I suppose because Neil is so careless. I can’t help it. No fault of mine, and if she thinks I am going to be snubbed and treated just as she pleases, she is mistaken. The money’s all very well, but I’m not quite the easy-going fool she seems to think me. Hang me, if I go for a ride with them again till I’m treated better.”

He gave his leg a sharp slap as a sudden thought struck him.

“That’s it!” he cried. “I never thought of it before. It’s Master Burwood’s doing. That accounts for his being down home instead of in town. He wouldn’t hang about so much on account of our Isabel. The governor’s made all that too easy for him. And they knew it, and there’s a sort of an idea that it would be nice to be my lady. Would it? Well, I’m not so stupid as they think me, and people get checkmated sometimes in a way they little expect.”

He swung his leg about swiftly for a few moments, and then leaped off the table.

“I’m going to bed,” he muttered. “Just see how the governor is as I go by, and – ” he yawned – “oh, dear me! how sleepy I am.”

He went out into the hall, and then, after pausing to listen to the murmur of voices in the drawing room, he shook one hand.

“Good-night, and bless you all,” he said softly. “That’s old Neil’s voice. Look out, my lad, or you will lose the volatile Saxa. I suppose Aunt is with the old man.”

He began to ascend the broad staircase very slowly, his steps being inaudible on the thick soft carpet, and he was about half way up when he became conscious of the soft rustle of a dress, and a faint glow of light passing along the gallery at the head of the stairs.

He stopped short on the landing, half startled as, in the centre of that glow, and gradually coming nearer, he saw, standing out plainly from the surrounding darkness, a clearly cut white face, that looked for the moment almost unearthly; but as it came nearer and approached the head of the stairs the half startled feeling gave way to wonder, and then to admiration.

“Who is she? What does it mean?” he thought as he noted the eyes glistening in the light shed by the candle, and the quaint white headdress, the only part of the costume seen, the black gown being as it were absorbed by the darkness of the great staircase and landing.

The figure came nearer and as she reached the top of the stairs began to descend, holding the candlestick so that it was between her and Alison, and hence she did not see him, where he stood on the landing half way down, till she was close upon him, when she stopped short and raised the light so that it fell upon his face, and they stood gazing at each other.

Nurse Elisia was the first to speak, just as she became conscious of Alison’s admiring look.

“I beg pardon,” she said, “would you kindly show me the way to the sick room.”

“The nurse? You?” cried Alison eagerly.

“Yes; I have just come down from town,” she said quietly.

“Yes, of course,” said Alison eagerly. “And you must be tired and faint. Had any dinner? Here, come with me, and I’ll show you the way to the dining room.”

Nurse Elisia hesitated, and at that moment the drawing-room door opened, shedding a flood of light upon the portion of the staircase where they stood, and Neil Elthorne was conscious of a keen pang which for the moment he could not have explained.

“Oh, there you are,” cried Alison sharply. “This lady does not know the way.”

Aunt Anne’s lips tightened again as she stepped forward majestically.

“Will you come this way, nurse, and I’ll show you my brother’s room,” she said; and her dress rustled loudly, as if partaking of its owner’s agitation, while she crossed the hall and began to ascend the stairs.

Nurse Elisia stood, candle in hand, waiting patiently and gazing at the plump elderly lady approaching her, in profound ignorance of the picturesque, striking aspect she presented as she held up the light whose rays illumined her features.

“I really don’t like her at all,” said Aunt Anne to herself, as her brow furrowed. “What a dreadful looking woman.” And the memory of certain words she had spoken to her niece only a short time back came vividly before her. “I would a great deal rather it had been one of those old-fashioned stout nurses who did not wear white starched caps and black dresses, just as if they were playing at being nurses. This way, please,” she continued aloud.

One minute the light shone strongly upon that white face; the next it seemed as if darkness had suddenly come over the scene and those in the hall were looking at two silhouettes moving up after a dull glow of light, to disappear through an archway; and then Neil Elthorne felt a pang of rage and misery shoot through him as, from the first landing of the broad staircase, he heard Alison exclaim aloud:

“By George!”

He descended then quickly to where Neil and Isabel were standing.

“I say,” he cried banteringly, “so that’s the modern style of nurse. Neil, old chap, is there any room for me to walk your hospital? I’m coming up to study medicine.”

Isabel looked curiously from one to the other in the semi-gloom; and, as she saw her elder brother’s face, a feeling of dislike to the newcomer which she could not have analysed arose within her, and she started as she heard the deep, hoarse tones in which Neil spoke.

“Is not this ribald style of talk out of place when our father is lying up yonder in so dangerous a state?”

“Oh, rubbish! He’s getting better. But I like your taste, I must say. Capital judge of nurses. Neil’s own selection, Bel.”

Neil turned upon him sharply, as if about to speak, but he compressed his lips and went to the foot of the stairs.

“Going up?” said Alison laughingly. “Come along, Isabel; we’ll go, too. I want another look at our new nurse.”

Neil made an angry gesture. “Isabel,” he said hoarsely, “take no notice of him. You had better not come up now.”

As he spoke he began to ascend, and Alison was silent till Neil reached the top.

“Was that the doctor talking, or brother Neil?” he said sarcastically; but there was no reply, for the young surgeon had gone on slowly toward his father’s chamber, with a strange, sickening feeling of misery and despair at his heart, as he felt that, in spite of all his resolutions, a bitter fight was commencing against fate, one which threatened to be complicated in a way that was horrible to contemplate. For his brother’s countenance, as he saw it for one brief moment when he was watching the figure on the stairs, had impressed him in a way which was startling, and as he reached the door, he stopped on the mat listening to a faint murmur, while his brow became furrowed and he muttered.

“Am I so helpless? Have I no will, and do I really love this woman after all?”

He paused, gazing back along the passage to where he could see the dim reflection of the lamp in the hall, and as he stood there, the faintly heard voice of Nurse Elisia came once more to his ear. He drew a long, deep breath, and then, half aloud:

“I had not calculated on this,” he thought. “I fled from the temptation, and it has followed me here. And she – she has never given me a second thought.” He turned the handle quickly, and entered the room.

“Ah, that is right, Neil,” said Aunt Anne. “Will you stay here while I take nurse to have some supper? She says she is not too tired to sit up to-night.”

“Absurd!” said Neil, in a low, harsh voice. “After this long journey? Nurse, you will go with Mrs Barnett, and have some refreshment; then get to bed, and come and relieve me about seven.”

“But, my dear Neil, you, too, want rest,” said Aunt Anne.

“Aunt, be good enough not to interfere,” replied Neil shortly. “Nurse Elisia, you heard my orders.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, very well, my dear,” said Aunt Anne, in an ill-used tone. “I suppose you know best. This way, nurse.”

Neil stood watching them as they left the room, and turned back toward the bed with a sigh of relief.

“I have not lost my strength of mind, then, after all,” he muttered, as he drew himself up. “I will master it.”

There was a faint glow in his pale cheeks as he spoke, but it died out at once, leaving him haggard-looking and careworn, and his face grew set and his eyes dark as he stood gazing straight before him, seeing neither the bed nor the wall beyond, but the scene upon the stairs of the pale, white face lit up by the caudle, while, a short distance below, stood Alison, gazing up from the darkness.

Neil shuddered, closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again they fell upon the sleeping figure before him. And as he looked down it was not with the eyes of man of science but of the son, thinking of his father’s plans. They had been children, and he had planned their education according to an eccentric whim of his own; youths, and he had principally chosen their career; they had reached manhood, and he had settled who were to be the companions of their lives. And as he thought, the faces of Saxa Lydon and her sister, followed by Sir Cheltnam Burwood, floated out of the mental mist, and complication after complication arose.

It was a dreary vigil, for Neil Elthorne was half worn out from broken nights and a long period of great anxiety, which had culminated in the arrival of the nurse; but not once through that long night did he feel the desire to sleep, and he could hardly realise the fact that it was morning, but stared and looked at her wildly when the door opened, and light shone in that was that of the morning sun, throwing up the pale, calm face of Nurse Elisia, who entered as if she were perfectly used to the place, and bearing for his special use a small tray, upon which were dry toast and tea.

Neil rose as she entered, with a whispered “Good-morning,” and he felt that he was trembling, and that he was only man, with all his weaknesses, in spite of his stubborn resolves. But he was himself again directly, as she spoke.

“The patient, sir,” she whispered; “has he passed a quiet night?”

“Yes, quite,” said Neil.

“May I open one of the windows – that farthest from the bed, sir? The room is oppressive and faint.”

“Yes, yes; of course;” he said hastily, and he hurried out of the room.