Work: A Story of Experience Part 46

She poured her last drop into his parched mouth and hurried off for more. She was detained by the way, and, when she returned, fancied he was asleep, but soon discovered that he had fainted quietly away, utterly spent with two days of hunger, suffering, and exposure. He was himself again directly, and lay contentedly looking up at her as she fed him with hot soup, longing to talk, but refusing to listen to a word till he was refreshed.

"That's very nice," he said gratefully, as he finished, adding with a pathetic sort of gayety, as he groped about with his one hand: "I don't expect napkins, but I should like a handkerchief. They took my coat off when they did my arm, and the gentleman who kindly lent me this doesn't seem to have possessed such an article."

Christie wiped his lips with the clean towel at her side, and smiled as she did it, at the idea of Mr. Fletcher's praising burnt soup, and her feeding him like a baby out of a tin cup.

"I think it would comfort you if I washed your face: can you bear to have it done?" she asked.

"If you can bear to do it," he answered, with an apologetic look, evidently troubled at receiving such services from her.

Yet as her hands moved gently about his face, he shut his eyes, and there was a little quiver of the lips now and then, as if he was remembering a time when he had hoped to have her near him in a tenderer capacity than that of nurse. She guessed the thought, and tried to banish it by saying cheerfully as she finished:

"There, you look more like yourself after that. Now the hands."

"Fortunately for you, there is but one," and he rather reluctantly surrendered a very dirty member.

"Forgive me, I forgot. It is a brave hand, and I am proud to wash it!"

"How do you know that?" he asked, surprised at her little burst of enthusiasm, for as she spoke she pressed the grimy hand in both her own.

"While I was recovering you from your faint, that man over there informed me that you were his Colonel; that you 'fit like a tiger,'

and when your right arm was disabled, you took your sword in the left and cheered them on as if you 'were bound to beat the whole rebel army.'"

"That's Drake's story," and Mr. Fletcher tried to give the old shrug, but gave an irrepressible groan instead, then endeavored to cover it, by saying in a careless tone, "I thought I might get a little excitement out of it, so I went soldiering like all the rest of you. I'm not good for much, but I can lead the way for the brave fellows who do the work. Officers make good targets, and a rebel bullet would cause no sorrow in taking me out of the world."

"Don't say that! I should grieve sincerely; and yet I'm very glad you came, for it will always be a satisfaction to you in spite of your great loss."

"There are greater losses than right arms," muttered Mr. Fletcher gloomily, then checked himself, and added with a pleasant change in voice and face, as he glanced at the wedding-ring she wore:

"This is not exactly the place for congratulations, but I can't help offering mine; for if I'm not mistaken your left hand also has grown doubly precious since we met?"

Christie had been wondering if he knew, and was much relieved to find he took it so well. Her face said more than her words, as she answered briefly:

"Thank you. Yes, we were married the day David left, and have both been in the ranks ever since."

"Not wounded yet? your husband, I mean," he said, getting over the hard words bravely.

"Three times, but not badly. I think a special angel stands before him with a s.h.i.+eld;" and Christie smiled as she spoke.

"I think a special angel stands behind him with prayers that avail much," added Mr. Fletcher, looking up at her with an expression of reverence that touched her heart.

"Now I must go to my work, and you to sleep: you need all the rest you can get before you have to knock about in the ambulances again,"

she said, marking the feverish color in his face, and knowing well that excitement was his only strength.

"How can I sleep in such an Inferno as this?"

"Try, you are so weak, you'll soon drop off;" and, laying the cool tips of her fingers on his eyelids, she kept them shut till he yielded with a long sigh of mingled weariness and pleasure, and was asleep before he knew it.

When he woke it was late at night; but little of night's blessed rest was known on board that boat laden with a freight of suffering.

Cries still came up from below, and moans of pain still sounded from the deck, where shadowy figures with lanterns went to and fro among the beds that in the darkness looked like graves.

Weak with pain and fever, the poor man gazed about him half bewildered, and, conscious only of one desire, feebly called "Christie!"

"Here I am;" and the dull light of a lantern showed him her face very worn arid tired, but full of friendliest compa.s.sion.

"What can I do for you?" she asked, as he clutched her gown, and peered up at her with mingled doubt and satisfaction in his haggard eyes.

"Just speak to me; let me touch you: I thought it was a dream; thank G.o.d it isn't. How much longer will this last?" he added, falling back on the softest pillows she could find for him.

"We shall soon land now; I believe there is an officers' hospital in the town, and you will be quite comfortable there."

"I want to go to your hospital: where is it?"

"I have none; and, unless the old hotel is ready, I shall stay on the wharf with the boys until it is."

"Then I shall stay also. Don't send me away, Christie: I shall not be a trouble long; surely David will let you help me die?" and poor Fletcher stretched his one hand imploringly to her in the first terror of the delirium that was coming on.

"I will not leave you: I'll take care of you, and no one can forbid it. Drink this, Philip, and trust to Christie."

He obeyed like a child, and soon fell again into a troubled sleep while she sat by him thinking about David.

The old hotel was ready; but by the time he got there Mr. Fletcher was past caring where he went, and for a week was too ill to know any thing, except that Christie nursed him. Then he turned the corner and began to recover. She wanted him to go into more comfortable quarters; but he would not stir as long as she remained; so she put him in a little room by himself, got a man to wait on him, and gave him as much of her care and time as she could spare from her many duties. He was not an agreeable patient, I regret to say; he tried to bear his woes heroically, but did not succeed very well, not being used to any exertion of that sort; and, though in Christie's presence he did his best, his man confided to her that the Colonel was "as fractious as a teething baby, and the domineeringest party he ever nussed."

Some of Mr. Fletcher's attempts were comical, and some pathetic, for though the sacred circle of her wedding-ring was an effectual barrier against a look or word of love, Christie knew that the old affection was not dead, and it showed itself in his desire to win her respect by all sorts of small sacrifices and efforts at self-control. He would not use many of the comforts sent him, but insisted on wearing an army dressing-gown, and slippers that cost him a secret pang every time his eye was affronted by their ugliness. Always after an angry scene with his servant, he would be found going round among the men bestowing little luxuries and kind words; not condescendingly, but humbly, as if it was an atonement for his own shortcomings, and a tribute due to the brave fellows who bore their pains with a fort.i.tude he could not imitate.

"Poor Philip, he tries so hard I must pity, not despise him; for he was never taught the manly virtues that make David what he is,"

thought Christie, as she went to him one day with an unusually happy heart.

She found him sitting with a newly opened package before him, and a gloomy look upon his face.

"See what rubbish one of my men has sent me, thinking I might value it," he said, pointing to a broken sword-hilt and offering her a badly written letter.

She read it, and was touched by its affectionate respect and manly sympathy; for the good fellow had been one of those who saved the Colonel when he fell, and had kept the broken sword as a trophy of his bravery, "thinking it might be precious in the eyes of them that loved him."

"Poor Burny might have spared himself the trouble, for I've no one to give it to, and in my eyes it's nothing but a bit of old metal,"

said Pletcher, pus.h.i.+ng the parcel away with a half-irritated, half-melancholy look.

"Give it to me as a parting keepsake. I have a fine collection of relics of the brave men I have known; and this shall have a high place in my museum when I go home," said Christie, taking up the "bit of old metal" with more interest than she had ever felt in the brightest blade.

"Parting keepsake! are you going away?" asked Fletcher, catching at the words in anxious haste, yet looking pleased at her desire to keep the relic.

"Yes, I'm ordered to report in Was.h.i.+ngton, and start to-morrow."

"Then I'll go as escort. The doctor has been wanting me to leave for a week, and now I 've no desire to stay," he said eagerly.

But Christie shook her head, and began to fold up paper and string with nervous industry as she answered:

"I am not going directly to Was.h.i.+ngton: I have a week's furlough first."