Nurse Elisia

“No, Aunt, dear,” said Neil quickly. “Not necessary. I am going to sit up.”

“My dear boy, your brother said something of this kind to me,” said the lady querulously; “but pray don’t you be obstinate. I really must sit up with your father. It is my duty, and I will.”

“It is your duty, Aunt, to obey the surgeon in attendance upon the patient,” said Neil firmly, but he winced a little at his aunt’s next words.

“So I would, my dear, if we had one here; but do you really think, Neil, that you are able to deal with such a terrible case? Hadn’t you better have in the Moreby doctor, and hear what he says?”

“We have had Sir Denton Hayle to-day, and I have his instructions. Is not that enough?”

“No, my dear, really I don’t think it is. You see it isn’t as if you were a much older man and more experienced, and had been a surgeon ever so long.”

“There is no need for you to sit up, Aunt,” said Neil quietly. “I can quite understand your anxiety, but, believe me, I am doing my best.”

“Oh, dear,” sighed Aunt Anne. “You boys areas obstinate and as determined as your poor father. Well, there, I cannot help myself,” she continued in a tone full of remonstrance. “No one can blame me, and I am sure that I have done my duty.”

“Yes, Aunt, dear, quite,” said Neil soothingly. “Go and get a good night’s rest. I don’t think there will be any need, but if it is necessary I will have you called.”

“Encouraging!” he said to himself as he returned to the sick room, thinking that after all it was very natural on his aunt’s part, for it must seem to her only a short time since he was a boy at home, when, upon the death of his mother, she had come to keep house.

Alison rose from a chair near the bed as he closed the door, and signed to him to come to the other end of the room.

“I say,” he whispered, “I don’t like the governor’s breathing. Just you go and listen. Its catchy like and strange.”

Neil crossed to the bed and bent down over the sleeping man, felt his pulse, and came back.

“Quite natural,” he said, “for a man in his condition. I detect nothing strange.”

Alison looked at him curiously, turned away, and walked softly up and down the shaded room, to stop at last by his brother.

“I don’t want to upset you,” he said, “but I feel obliged to speak.”

“Go on,” said Neil, “but I know what you are going to say.”

“Impossible!” said Alison, staring.

“By no means. You are uneasy, and think I am not capable of caring for my father.”

“Well, I can’t help it, old fellow,” said Alison. “I was thinking something of the kind. You see a regular old country doctor – ”

“Has not half the experience of a young man in a large hospital,” said Neil, interrupting him and speaking now in a quite confident manner. “We have had many such cases as this, and I have helped to treat them.”

“Yes, but – ”

“Pray try and have a little confidence in me, old fellow. I am sure you do not mean it, but you are making my task much harder.”

“Oh, I don’t want to do that, but you see I can’t help looking at you as my brother.”

“Never cease to, pray. Now go and lie down for a few hours. Yes,” he continued, as Alison hesitated, “I wish it. I desire it. I will call you about four.”

“Oh, very well, if I must, I must,” said Alison rather sulkily. Then, as if ashamed of the tone he had taken, “All right. Be sure and call me then.” He crossed to the bed again, stood looking down at the sleeping face, and returned.

“I say,” he whispered, “what a change it seems! Only this morning talking to us as he did, and now helpless like that.”

“Yes; it is terrible how prostrate an accident renders a man.”

“Did – did he say anything to you about – about marriage?”

Neil started and looked sharply at his brother, who had faltered as he spoke.

“Yes, but there is no occasion to discuss that now.”

“No, I suppose not, but he was wonderfully set upon our being regularly engaged to those two girls. Don’t seem natural for that sort of thing to be settled for you downright without your being consulted. It’s just as if you were a royal personage.”

“My dear Alison, is this a time for such a subject to be discussed? Pray go now.”

“Oh, very well – till four o’clock, then.”

The young man left the room, and Neil sat down to think, after a closer examination of his father’s state. For Alison’s words had started a current of thought which soon startled him by its intensity, as it raised up the calm, pale face of one who had constantly been at his side in cases of emergency – one who was always tenderly sensitive and ready to suffer with those who suffered, whose voice had a sweet, sympathetic ring as she spoke words of encouragement or consolation to the agony-wrung patient, but who could be firm as a rock at times, when a sufferer’s life depended upon the strength of mind and nerve of the attendant.

Always that face, looking with calm, deep, thoughtful eyes into his, but with no heightening of colour, no tremor in the sensitive nerves of the smooth, high temples; and as he sat there thinking, she seemed to him one whom no words of man, however earnest and impassioned, could stir, certainly not such words as he could speak.

He started from his reverie, which had in spirit taken him back to the hospital where the tall, graceful figure glided silently from bed to bed, and the colour mounted quickly to his cheeks as a faint tapping came at the door, and upon his opening it he started again, for there was a figure, tall and slight, indistinctly seen in the darkness, as if his thoughts had evoked the presence of her upon whom his mind had dwelt.

“It is only I, Neil, dear,” whispered a pleasant, silvery voice.

“Isabel? I thought you were in bed.”

“How could you, Neil, dear!” she said reproachfully. “I could not go to bed and sleep knowing you were sitting up with poor papa. How is he now, dear?”

“Just the same, and must be for some time.” Isabel sighed.