Part 33 (1/2)
”Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”
Ursula Pendrill was a girl of good family who had been left a year or two ago an orphan, and with very narrow means. She was, however, a girl of high spirit and brave heart, and instead of asking a home with any of her kinsfolk, she preferred to supplement her small resources by working in various ways herself.
The field of woman's work in those days was much narrower than it has since become; but Ursula knew a lady who had been a nurse under Miss Nightingale in the Crimean War, and had since then given much of her time to the service of the sick. She was then in charge of a hospital, and welcomed Ursula on a long visit, where she learned considerable skill in nursing, and made herself acquainted with the right treatment of most ailments.
After that she had often nursed private patients in their own houses, and had travelled a good deal with invalids going to Madeira and other places in search of health. So that she was no timid, helpless girl, but a rather experienced and resourceful woman, who would not easily be frightened or nonplussed in ordinary cases of sickness, or in the ordinary circ.u.mstances of travel. But there was nothing ordinary in the charge which she felt had been laid upon her to-day!
Yet no one expected this thing of her. Probably she would be the last person the Captain would think of for such a service. Ursula was young, and she looked younger than her years. She had not talked about herself to her fellow-pa.s.sengers. She had not told how she had been taken to India by a delicate lady to look after her and her fragile children. She had not supposed that anybody would be interested in her private affairs. She was surmised to be one of those growing-up girls sent home from the perils of the hot season to their friends in England. n.o.body would expect a young thing like herself to volunteer for such a deadly and terrible service.
But the more Ursula thought of it, the more resolved she was to make this sacrifice. It seemed to her that she had received a message from on high; that she had been shown it was for her to take up the cross and carry it, and that if she did so in fearless faith and obedience, she would receive help and blessing and strength for the task.
At dusk she left her cabin and went on deck, and asked where she could find the Captain. The officer she addressed looked at her keenly for a moment, and then pointed to where the Captain was standing alone, save for the presence of the big Irish-Australian with whom he was often in company.
Ursula slowly approached, and the two men stopped talking and looked at her. The Captain stepped forward.
”Did you wish to speak to me, Miss Pendrill?”
”Just for a minute, please,” answered Ursula, with a beating heart, but with outward self-possession. ”I came to say that I will go ash.o.r.e to-morrow with Mrs. Varden, and take care of her.”
”You, child?” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Captain incredulously.
”I am not a child,” answered Ursula steadily, ”I am older than I look, and I know a great deal about nursing. Once I lived in a hospital for a year. I have often taken care of sick people since. I understand about fevers, though I was only once with a small-pox case, and that only for a little while, as she was taken away when the symptoms declared themselves. But I have been vaccinated quite recently. I have never taken anything from a patient yet. I am not afraid. I will go with poor Mrs. Varden--if there is n.o.body more suitable and more efficient.”
The Captain paced once or twice up and down the s.p.a.ce between the rails, and came back to where Ursula was standing.
”There is n.o.body else at all. I have had the husbands one after the other--or the relations and friends. n.o.body can bear to face the awful task--or be spared to do it----”
”Yes, I understand. Other people have ties--so many to cling to them--to miss them, so many depending on them. If it were so with me perhaps I could not offer. But it is not. I have no very near relations. I have no parents or brothers and sisters. If anything happened there would be a few to be sorry; but n.o.body would feel life to be shadowed. I am the sort of person who can do this thing.”
”You are the sort of person from whom the world's saints and heroines are made!” cried Captain Donaldson, with a most unwonted outbreak of emotion. ”My dear young lady, I do not know how to accept the sacrifice, nor yet how to decline it. G.o.d will bless and reward you, I truly believe; for He only can reward such a deed as the one you are about to do.”
”I do not want any reward,” answered Ursula simply; ”I only want to do what is right. Suppose it were somebody very dear to me, it would be no sacrifice; and Mrs. Varden is very near and dear to somebody--to her poor young husband. I saw him as he went off the vessel.”
”Poor fellow--yes. I fear----” but the Captain pulled up short, and kept the fear to himself. Ursula moved away towards her own cabin.
”I have a few preparations to make; but I shall be ready to-morrow when you send for me. I think I shall not come up any more till then.”
She disappeared in the gathering gloom, and the Captain stood looking after her, till a hand was laid upon his arm, and the deep voice of his Australian pa.s.senger said in his ear:
”Is that girl going ash.o.r.e with Mrs. Varden?”
”Yes; she has volunteered, she has all the qualifications for the task; but I don't know now how to let her,--that lonely leper-house,--that awful fear before her eyes. Mrs. Varden will not live the week out. But I dare not keep her on board. My duty to my pa.s.sengers and to the company prevents it. But those two frail young creatures--set down alone----”
”Look here, Captain, you may make your mind easy there. They won't be alone. I shall get off there too. I shall see them through!”
”You, Mr. Kelly? Why, man, what do you mean? There is no accommodation in the Arab settlement--nothing but the squalid place, and the leper-house beyond. You cannot be in there----”
”No; I shall pitch my tent just beyond, but within sight and sound.
Jehoshaphat, man! Do you think I have never roughed it in a tent before this? Do you think I can't speak the primitive language, common to all races, enough to get those dirty Arabs to do all I want of them? Do you think British gold will ever fail to work the will of its master in any quarter of the globe? You go and make all your palaver with the heathen Chinee, or blackguard Arab, or whatever he may be. I'll pitch my tent, and I'll be there as long as any British woman is, and I'll see the thing through. As a nurse I'm no good, even if a rough fellow could volunteer for the task where a lady is in the case. But I'll be hanged, Captain, if Brian Kelly will stand by and see that brave young girl and that poor dying wife left alone in a place like that without a countryman near them. I've n.o.body specially waiting me in the old country. They've done without me all these years; they can do without me a few weeks longer. I'll see this bit of business through. If those poor creatures die there, I'll stop and give them such Christian burial as is possible; if they live through it, I'll be there to bring them home--one or both. Confound it all, Captain, d'ye think I'd ever know another night's sleep in my bed if I looked on at a bit of heroic devotion like that--and walked on with me hands in me pockets!”
The Captain put out his h.o.r.n.y hand and wrung that of his Irish pa.s.senger. He had liked Kelly from the first; now he felt a new and warmer feeling towards him.