Nurse Elisia Part 47

"Weak now as some poor fretful child," he whispered. "It came home then when you spoke. It cannot be for long, my child. I am only a poor broken man now, against whom his sons rebel, whose daughter is disobedient, and whose sister is ready to trample him down. Don't leave me," he pleaded. "Have pity on me, my child. I could not bear it. I-- I should die."

Nurse Elisia looked at him wildly.

"No, no," she said hastily. "You feel low and weak to-day. In a short time you will have forgotten all this. I cannot--indeed I cannot stay."

But even as she spoke she saw that her patient believed the words he had uttered, and, trembling for the consequences to one in his weak, imaginative state, she hastily promised to give up all thought of going for the present.

"Thank you--thank you," he said, trembling as he clung to her hand.

"You see how weak and childish I am. Only such a short time back and I was strong, and people hurried to obey my word or look. Now it seems as if everyone were falling away from me--even you."

"Oh, no," she said soothingly; "and, besides, what am I to you? Only the hired nurse."

"Yes," he said, gazing up at her piteously, "only the hired nurse; and yet you have tended me as if you were my child. But you will stay? You are not trifling with me?"

"No, no," she said. "There, it is time you had your sleep."

"Yes," he cried bitterly, and with a suspicious look in his eyes. "You are treating me as if I were a child. Go to sleep, so that I may awake by and by and find you gone."

She bent down and laid her hand on his, as she smiled sadly in his face.

"Have more confidence in me," she whispered. "Have I ever deceived you in the slightest thing? I tell you I will stay till you are more fit to leave." He uttered a low sigh and lay with his eyes half closed.

"It is so hard to have confidence when one is helpless as I am. People try to cheat me, and say to themselves, `It is for his good.'"

"You may trust me, Mr Elthorne," she said gently, "trust me in everything. Sleep now--that is for your good. You shall find me here, or within call, when you awake."

He looked at her sharply once, and then closed his eyes, dropping off at once into a heavy sleep which lasted some hours, but to awaken with a sharp start, and a wildly suspicious look around.

The chair, where it seemed to him only a minute before he had seen Nurse Elisia seated, was empty, and he uttered a low, despairing cry.

"It is my punishment," he groaned, "for a life of arrogance and pride.

It has been a kind of tyranny to them all, and now I am to lie here, helpless, deceived by everyone in turn. My punishment--my punishment!

Better that I had never awakened to my wretched state."

At that moment there was the faint rustling made by a door being softly opened and pa.s.sing over a thickly piled carpet, and directly after a faint shadow fell across his couch, then another, and there was a faintly heard sob.

"Hush, dearest; he sleeps more lightly now." Ralph Elthorne's head was turned away from the speaker, but he knew the gentle voice, and he repeated to himself the words wonderingly, "Hush, dearest; he sleeps more lightly now." To whom was Nurse Elisia speaking so tenderly?

The answer came at once.

"Oh, nurse, dear nurse, is he never to be well and strong again?"

The words came from the speaker's heart so full of love and sorrow that there was a stifling sensation in the listener's breast, and when, directly after, he felt warm breath upon his cheek, and a kiss, light almost as the breath itself, his arms clasped Isabel to his breast.

"Papa! papa!"

That was all; but as Nurse Elisia turned away to the window, it seemed to her that father and daughter were closer together in heart than they could have been for years.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

AUNT ANNE HARa.s.sED.

Many days had pa.s.sed, and life went on at Hightoft in the same sad way.

It was the "master's" desire that the nurse should stay, but there was rebellion among the servants against "master's favourite," and poor Aunt Anne's breast swelled with anger against her niece, who had ventured to tell her that she was unjust.

"But I shall say nothing, Isabel, only that some day you will come to me repentant, asking my pardon. I always have been ready to ridicule all superst.i.tious things, and have laughed at table turnings, and talkings, and hypnotisms, and mesmerisms, and all the rest of it, but that woman has something of the sort in her, a kind of power for influencing weak people, for she has literally bewitched you all. If she had lived a hundred years ago, she would have died."

"Why, of course, Aunt dear," said Isabel smiling. "It is nothing to make fun of, my dear. She would have either had her toes tied together, and been thrown into a pond, or been burned at the stake. That was the fate of all these witches then."

"Poor Nurse Elisia!" said Isabel smiling. "I'm glad she did not live then."

"Maria tells me," continued Aunt Anne, "that it was just the same at the hospital. That woman used to turn all the other nurses and the students round her little finger; and as for Sir Denton--well, they may call him a great surgeon, but if ever the carriage overturns, and I am badly hurt, no Sir Dentons for me. I call him a weak, silly, infatuated old goose. Maria only yesterday told me that once--"

"Aunt Anne," said Isabel quickly, "does it ever strike you that it is very undignified and degrading to listen to the wretched tattlings of an ignorant, spiteful woman, who returns all Nurse Elisia's kindness to her by telling falsities and distorting simple matters that happened in the past?"

"Isabel!" cried Aunt Anne, starting bolt upright in her chair, "you surprise me!"

"Do I, Aunt?"

"Yes, you do. You, a.s.suming the tones and manners of your poor father, and speaking to me, the mistress of the house, like that!"

"But you are not the mistress of the house, Aunt."

"I beg your pardon, child. Your father has delegated all authority to me, and he renewed the charge only a few weeks back."

"Then you ought to do your duty, Aunt," said Isabel.

"Isabel, you do surprise me, you do indeed!" cried Aunt Anne, who looked quite aghast at what was, in her eyes, rank rebellion by a child against her authority.

"Do I, Aunt? I am very sorry," replied Isabel quietly. "I was only thinking that if I were mistress here, I should consider it my duty to send Maria away at once."

"And I do not," cried Aunt Anne. "My idea is that it would be my duty to discharge that dreadful nurse."

"But poor Auntie cannot," thought Isabel, "and consequently she is not sole mistress of the house."

"And now, as I have occasion to talk to you, Isabel," continued Aunt Anne, drawing herself up, and gazing very sternly at her niece, "I will not reprove you for your very flippant, disrespectful treatment of your poor father's sister."

"Oh, Auntie dear," cried the affectionate girl, jumping up from her place to go behind the elder lady's chair, and place her arms about her neck.

"Isabel, I beg you will not do that," said Aunt Anne. "It is not prompted by genuine affection."

"Oh, yes, Auntie, it's quite true," said Isabel.

"It cannot be, my dear; but, as I going to say, as I have found it necessary to reprove you, I must remind you that your conduct is not what it should be to your friends Saxa and Dana."

"But, Aunt dear, they went off to Lucerne without a word to me, and you know that I never felt that they were great friends of mine, in spite of all. They always looked down upon me because I did not care for horses, and dogs, and grooms."