Nurse Elisia Part 22

"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, hus.h.!.+ 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 n.o.body 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--"