Daisy in the Field Part 72

"Why, you ain't going to give out, are you?" said Miss Yates in a concerned voice. "You've gone a little beyond your tether."

"Not at all," said I; "not at all. I am only not hungry. I will go back, if you please, to something I _can_ do."

I busied myself restlessly about the ward, till one of the men, I forget who, asked me to sing to them. It had become a standing ordinance of the place; and people said, a very beneficial one. But to-night I had not thought I could sing.

Yet when he asked me, the power came. I did not sit down 'as usual;' standing at the foot of Mr. Thorold's bed I sang, leaning hard against strength and love out of sight; and my voice was as clear as ever.

The ward was so very still that I should have thought nothing could come in or go out without my being conscious of a stir.

However, the absolute hush continued, until it occurred to me that I must have been singing a great while, and I half turned and glanced down the room. My singing was done; for there stood Dr. Sandford, as still as I had been, with folded arms near the door. I went towards him immediately.

"Do you have this sort of concert most evenings?" he inquired, as he took my hand.

"Always, Dr. Sandford."

"I never heard you sing so well anywhere else," he remarked.

"I never had such an audience. But now, you remember my request this morning, Dr. Sandford?"

"I never forget your requests," he said, gravely. And we went to business.

From one to another, from one to another. Generally with no more but a pleasant or a kind word from the doctor to the patient; but two or three times the doctor's hand came to his chin for a moment, before such a word was spoken. - It did not in those cases tell me much. I had known, or guessed, the truth of them before. I suppose every good nurse must get a power or faculty of reading symptoms and seeing the state of the patient, both actual and probable. I was not shocked nor startled. But the shock and the start were all the greater, when pausing before the one cot which held what I cared for in this world, the doctor's fingers were thrust suddenly through his thick auburn hair. He went on immediately with the due attention to Mr. Thorold's wounds; and I waited and stood by, with no outward sign, I think, of the death at my heart. Even through all the round, I kept my place by Dr. Sandford's side, doing whatever was wanted of me, attending, at least in outward guise, to what was going on. So one can do, while the whole soul and life are concentrated on some point unconnected with it all, outside of it all, in the distance. Towards that point I slowly made my way, as the doctor went through his rounds; and came up with it at last in the little retiring room which he called his own and where our conversation of the morning had been held.

"I see how little I know, Dr. Sandford," I remarked.

"Ay?" said he. "I had been thinking rather the other way."

"You surprised me very much - with the one touch of your hair."

The doctor was silent.

"I should have thought - in my ignorance - several others more likely to have called for it."

"Thorold is the only one," said the doctor.

"How is it?"

"The injuries are internal and complicated; and beyond reach."

The doctor had been was.h.i.+ng his hands, and I was now was.h.i.+ng mine; and with my face so turned away from him, I went on.

"He does not seem to suffer much."

"Doesn't he?" said the doctor.

"Should he?"

"He should, if he has not good power of self-control. No man in the ward suffers as he does. I have noticed, he hides it well."

I was was.h.i.+ng my hands. I remember my wringing the water from them; then I remember no more. When I knew anything again, I was lying on an old sofa that stood in the doctor's room, and he was putting water or brandy - I hardly know what - on my face. With a face of his own that was pale, I saw even then, without seeing it, as it bent over me. He was speaking my name. I struggled for breath and tried to raise myself. He gently put me back.

"Lie still," he said. "Are you better?"

"I am quite well," I answered.

He gave me a few drops of something to swallow. It revived me.

I sat up presently on the sofa, pushed back the hair from my face, and thought I would get up and be as though nothing had been. Dr. Sandford's hand followed my hasty fingers and put gently away from my brow the hair I had failed to stroke into order. It was an unlucky touch, for it reached more than my hair and my brow. I turned deadly sick again, and fell back into unconsciousness.

When a second time I recovered sense, I kept still and waited and let Dr. Sandford minister to me as he thought best, with strong waters and sweet waters and ice water; until he saw that I was really restored, and I saw that great concern was sitting upon his features.

"You have overtasked yourself at last," he said.

"Not at all," I answered, quietly.

"You must do no more, Daisy."

"I must do all my work," I said. And I sat up now and put my feet to the floor, and put up my fallen-down hair, taking out my comb and twisting up the hair in some semblance of its wont.

"Your work here is done," said the doctor.

I finished doing up my hair and took a towel and wiped the drops of water and brandy from my face.

"Daisy, I know your face," said the doctor, anxiously; "and it has just the determined gentleness I used to see at ten years old. But you would yield to authority then, and you must now.

And you will."

"When it is properly exerted," I said. "But it is not now, Dr.

Sandford, and it will not be. I am perfectly well; and I am going to do my work."

"You fainted just now from very exhaustion."

"I am not exhausted at all. Nor even tired. I am perfectly well."

"I never knew you faint before."

"No," I said. "It is very disagreeable."

"Disagreeable!" said the doctor, half laughing, though thoroughly disturbed. "What made you do it, then?"

I could not answer. I stood still, with cheeks I suppose again growing so white, that the doctor hastily approached me with hartshorn. But I put it away and shook my head.

"I am not going to faint again, thank you."

"Daisy, Daisy!" said the doctor, "don't you know that your welfare is very dear to me?"

"I know it," I said. "I know you are like a good brother to me, Dr. Sandford."

"I am not like a brother at all!" said he. "Cannot you see that?"

"I do not want to see it," I answered sadly. "If I have not a brother in you, I have nothing."