Chapter XVI: Welcome Her, Won't You?

Ladysmith was hemmed in. Sir George White sent a message to Joubert, asking leave for the non-combatants, women, and children, to go to Maritzburg. Joubert refused. The wounded, women, and children, and other non-combatants, might be collected in a place about four miles from the town, but would not be allowed to go further. All those who remained would be treated as combatants. Sir George White advised the town to accept the proposal, but his advice was indignantly rejected. Everybody's life was in danger, therefore, for the Queen. The proposal to leave the town was flung back with defiance. There was no more going out. Until help came, the inhabitants of Ladysmith were besieged by the enemy.

Meanwhile, day after day, Long Tom did his deadly work. Shell after shell entered Ladysmith and exploded, carrying consternation and death with it. Then people became quiet and submissive. Even to danger one can get accustomed. The excitement had subsided to something not exactly like despair, and not resembling indifference, but to a state of mind midway between the two. The inhabitants of Ladysmith tried to go about their usual occupations. The women still kept their houses tidy, and their children washed and well fed; and every one hoped that relief would come any day or any hour. And the soldiers fought as only English soldiers can fight; and the Boers were brave as enemy could be, and more and more closely surrounded the town. Even the Naval Brigade, splendid fellows all of them, could not deliver Ladysmith, although beyond doubt they kept the enemy in check.

Meanwhile Kitty remained in her rooms. She became a sort of mystery to the other people in the hotel. Mollie Hepworth had not the slightest idea that her sister was close to her. Gavon Keith, with a contingent of his men, had arrived. Kitty longed to see him; but the strangest nervousness was over her. What with the dust and the heat, and all her fears, and the dangers through which she had travelled, the girl was suddenly prostrated with a kind of malarial fever. There was a time when Katherine feared that it would turn to enteric; but watching Mollie Hepworth's patients, she soon saw that she had nothing to apprehend on that score, and resolved to nurse Kitty herself.

She could not understand the wayward girl, so plucky, so determined to join her lover while in England, and yet now so overcome with nervous terrors that she dreaded him to know of her arrival. Whenever a shell exploded in Ladysmith, Kitty screamed, covered her face with her hands, sat up in bed trembling all over, and asked Katherine, who seldom left her, if the hotel were still intact.

Katherine had much ado to put up with Kitty's fears, and quite longed for the time when the girl would be well enough to leave her enforced imprisonment and take what small pleasure lay before her in the beleaguered city.

There had come a day of general attack. Early in the morning Long Tom had spoken, and Lady Anne and all the other Naval Brigade guns replied at once. The firing went on for hours, and finally the enemy were repulsed. But it was a day of horror to all in the brave little town; and when night came, Katherine, who had been busy helping Mollie with the sick and wounded, and doing all that woman, could to lighten the strained situation, came into Kitty's room. She had left Kitty much better--had given her all that was absolutely necessary for her comfort; had cheered her up as best she could; had offered her a yellow-backed novel to read, and left her, hoping that she would drop asleep. She came back to find the frightened girl partly dressed, half fainting, and leaning against the wall of the room.

"Now, Kitty, what is it?" said Katherine, in a tone of expostulation. "You know you are not fit to get up. What is the matter?"

"I had an awful dream," said Kitty. "After you went I fell asleep as you meant me to do, and I dreamed a long, terrible dream all about Gavon. I thought he was killed. Is he killed? Is it true? I believe it is. Oh, I was so terrified! Is it true?"

"It is not true," replied Katherine.

"But I am so frightened; and there is something in your face which makes me think you are hiding something. He has been wounded!"

"Kitty, sit down," said Katherine. "Sit down and stay quiet. You had no right to try to get up; you are too weak."

"I am a miserable, good-for-nothing girl, but I will be good if only you will tell me that he is safe."

"You ought to have seen him long ago. Now that you are here, I cannot understand your attitude. Your illness has made you nervous."

"I will be good if only you will tell me the truth. Is he--is he wounded?"

"I will tell you the truth," said Katherine, in a brave voice. She looked at the trembling, weak, terrified creature with eyes large with compassion. "Here, drink this," she said. She poured out a restorative which had always a soothing effect on Kitty, and brought it to her. "Drink it, my dear; you will want your courage. But things are by no means so very bad. Captain Keith has had a slight wound--nothing at all dangerous. He is in hospital. He must remain there for a few days, and--"

"And Mollie is nursing him?"

"Thank God, your brave sister is there, doing all she can for every one."

"Don't look at me as if you meant to despise me, Katherine. I sometimes see that look in your eyes, and it makes me so sick."

"I don't understand you, Kitty. I admired you in London, for I thought that, whatever happened, yours was a true and a great love, and I always respect sincerity in anybody or in anything. But since you came here--"

"It is all my nerves," said the poor girl. "It is the bursting of the horrible shells, and the terror that one will come through the roof."

"Well, and if it does come through the roof?"

"Katherine! Why, we should all be killed."

"What of that? we can but die once. Oh, you must lose your fear of death if you are to be any good at all in Ladysmith. And look here, Kitty, I mean you to be good--I mean you to be of use. What is a woman, strong and in her youth, doing in a place of this sort if she is not of use? We are going to have a very terrible time; I don't pretend to deny it. We are hemmed in closer every day. The enemy are coming up in greater and greater numbers. The Boers are no fools, let me tell you. They know how to fight, and they know how to endure. They have the courage, some of them, of ten men, and they are fighting for their country. And they mean--yes, Kitty, they mean to take Ladysmith if they can. Of course they won't take it, for we will never, never give in. But if there were many of us like you in this place, why, we'd be indeed a poor lot!"

Kitty turned white. Her handkerchief was lying near; she took it up and wiped the moisture off her brow.

"I wish I was not so--shaky," she said, in a tremulous voice.

"You poor little thing! I am sorry I spoke harshly, but I have been seeing so very much of real life all day. Those poor fellows--not a murmur out of them! And oh, the agony some of them have endured! And then I come here, and I see you with a whole skin, in a comfortable room with food and water within reach, crying because you have a fit of the nerves. But I know people who get these nervous attacks are to be pitied. And I do pity you, poor little Kitty; only I want to stimulate you to courage."

"I will be good," said Kitty faintly. "Help me to dress."

Katherine hesitated for a moment. It was between nine and ten at night; the heat of the day was mitigated. Long Tom had ceased firing; until morning there would be comparative peace. She took Kitty's wrist between her finger and thumb, and felt her pulse.

"Your fever has gone," she said; "you are only weak, I have got some bovril here. I will make you a cup, and then--"

"Yes, what?"

"Then I am going to take you to the hospital."

"O Katherine!"

"Yes; to see Captain Keith and your sister Mollie. I hope you will be helping Mollie this time to-morrow night."

Kitty was so excited at Katherine's daring proposal that the colour mounted at once into her pale cheeks.

"I wonder if I dare," she said.

"Dare or not, you have got to come--and to-night. Here's your bovril." Katherine brought her a cup. She had heated the water with her spirit-lamp. "Drink it. That is a good girl."

"Things are so horrid!" Kitty moaned; "I have no appetite for the coarse food here."

"O Kitty, you are very lucky to have any food. The supplies are by no means unlimited, although at present we have not felt the stint. Now, then, I will help you to dress."

She went to one of the trunks of crushed cane and brought out a white skirt and white blouse. She helped Kitty to put them on, and she herself brushed out the girl's dark, pretty hair, and arranged it becomingly around her head.

"There, now," she said. "Have you got a blue sash anywhere? A girl in white with a blue sash will be a sort of angel in the wards to-night. The moment you enter one of the wards, if you are worth anything at all, Kitty Hepworth, you will forget yourself."

"And you are quite, quite certain that none of the awful shells will come into Ladysmith to-night?"

"Quite certain; we have some hours of peace and safety."

Kitty looked fragile and lovely when Katherine had dressed her. She herself also put on a neat and becoming dress, but she took care that Kitty's beauty should be the chief focus of attraction. She then took the girl's hand and led her downstairs. The mystery about the sick English girl had come almost to fever height amongst the officers and nurses, who principally inhabited the hotel. Many people glanced now at Katherine, whose face was quite familiar, and at Kitty, whose face was unknown, as they went slowly by. Major Strause suddenly burst out of the smoking-room.

"I say!" he exclaimed. "Miss Hepworth, you here!"

He pretended that he had not until now known of Kitty's arrival in Ladysmith.

She gave him her hand indifferently, raised her pretty eyes to his face, and then dropped them.

"I am going to Gavon," she said. "He is wounded, and I must go to him."

"Only a flesh wound--nothing of any importance. He must lie up for a day or two.--Shall I go across to the hospital with you, Miss Hunt?"

"No, thank you," replied Katherine; "Kitty and I can manage nicely alone.--Now, Kitty," she said, as the girls went down the street, "you must remember that Sister Mollie knows nothing of your arrival here. She will be very much astonished when you walk into the ward, and perhaps a little hurt with you for keeping things dark from her."

"I shall like to see her," replied Kitty; "and if she is nursing Gavon, I of course will help her. It is my place to nurse him, is it not, Katherine?"

"I should say yes. I am glad you feel it in that way."

Katherine could not help a note of sarcasm coming into her voice.

She and Kitty entered the hospital. A moment later they found themselves in the long ward. Kitty's face turned white. Had she thought of herself, she might have fainted; but just then her eyes were arrested by seeing a girl bending over a sick man, holding a stimulant to his lips, and speaking cheering words. The girl was her sister; the man she was bending over was Captain Keith.

With a cry--a curious mingling of delight, and suffering, and absolute self-forgetfulness--Kitty, in her white dress and blue sash, looking something like a fashionable London girl and also something like an angel, ran down the long ward and approached the side of the sick man.

"Gavon," she said, "Gavon, I am here! I have come.--Mollie, I have come--Kitty has come."

Mollie Hepworth had often said that nothing could ever take her by surprise--that she was, owing to her education, and perhaps also to her temperament, prepared for any emergency--but she was sorely tested at the present moment. Her first wild thought was that Kitty was dead, and that this was her wraith come to visit the sick ward in the beleaguered town of Ladysmith; but one glance at Kitty showed her that it was a very living girl with whom she had to deal. She stifled the inclination to cry out; she showed no surprise, and putting her finger to her lips, gave a warning glance at the excited girl.

"He is very weak from loss of blood," she said; "don't startle him."

Gavon Keith had been looking full up at Mollie while she was ministering to him. Her touch brought him comfort, the look in her eyes brought him strength. The next instant he encountered eyes like hers, a face like hers, but without the strength, without the power to give comfort. He had a sick feeling all over him that in his heart of hearts he had no welcome for Kitty; and then, weak as he was, he struggled to subdue it. His eyes lit up with a faint smile; but the effort was too much--he fainted away.

"Sit down quietly," said Mollie--"there, in that corner, where he can't see you when he comes to. Of course you shall be with him. But I have no time to ask any questions now.--Miss Hunt, give me the brandy, please, and that bottle of smelling-salts."

Katherine Hunt brought the necessary restoratives, and Mollie bent over the wounded man just as if Kitty did not exist. The faint was a bad one, but after a time he recovered consciousness. Mollie held his hand and stroked it gently.

"Did I dream anything? Was it all a mistake?" he said, in a low whisper.

She bent over him.

"It is no dream," she said. "Your little Kitty, whom you are engaged to marry, is here. She has come out all the way from England for love of you. She has encountered grave danger and difficulty and the possibility either of death or imprisonment all for love of you. She will stay by you part of to-night. Welcome her, won't you?"

"Kitty!" said the wounded man; and then Kitty bent forward, and he smiled at her, this time without fainting.

After this incident Kitty Hepworth was established as one of the extra nurses in the central hospital. Mollie secured her this post, and on the whole it did her good. There was no time in Ladysmith for fainting or hysterics. The minor ills of life had to be put out of sight, for the men and women in that town were face to face with a great tragedy.