She entered the kitchen. A cry of delight welcomed her appearance--the
mere sight of her composed the men. From one straw bed to another she
passed with comforting words that gave them hope, with skilled and
tender hands that soothed their pain. They kissed the hem of her black
dress, they called her their guardian angel, as the beautiful creature
moved among them, and bent over their hard pillows her gentle,
compassionate face. "I will be with you when the Germans come," she
said, as she left them to return to her unwritten letter. "Courage, my
poor fellows! you are not deserted by your nurse."
"Courage, madam!" the men replied; "and God bless you!"
If the firing had been resumed at that moment--if a shell had struck
her dead in the act of succoring the afflicted, what Christian judgment
would have hesitated to declare that there was a place for this woman
in heaven? But if the war ended and left her still living, where was the
place for her on earth? Where were her prospects? Where was her home?
She returned to the letter. Instead, however, of seating herself to
write, she stood by the table, absently looking down at the morsel of
paper.
A strange fancy had sprung to life in her mind on re-entering the room;
she herself smiled faintly at the extravagance of it. What if she were
to ask Lady Janet Roy to let her supply Miss Roseberry's place? She had
met with Miss Roseberry under critical circumstances, and she had done
for her all that one woman could do to help another. There was in this
circumstance some little claim to notice, perhaps, if Lady Janet had no
other companion and reader in view. Suppose she ventured to plead her
own cause--what would the noble and merciful lady do? She would write
back, and say, "Send me references to your character, and I will
see what can be done." Her character! Her references! Mercy laughed
bitterly, and sat down to write in the fewest words all that was needed
from her--a plain statement of the facts.
No! Not a line could she put on the paper. That fancy of hers was not
to be dismissed at will. Her mind was perversely busy now with an
imaginative picture of the beauty of Mablethorpe House and the comfort
and elegance of the life that was led there. Once more she thought of
the chance which Miss Roseberry had lost. Unhappy creature! what a home
would have been open to her if the shell had only fallen on the side of
the window, instead of on the side of the yard!
Mercy pushed the letter away from her, and walked impatiently to and fro
in the room.
The perversity in her thoughts was not to be mastered in that way. Her
mind only abandoned one useless train of reflection to occupy itself
with another. She was now looking by anticipation at her own future.
What were her prospects (if she lived through it) when the war was over?
The experience of the past delineated with pitiless fidelity the dreary
scene. Go where she might, do what she might, it would always end in the
same way. Curiosity and admiration excited by her beauty; inquiries made
about her; the story of the past discovered; Society charitably sorry
for her; Society generously subscribing for her; and still, through all
the years of her life, the same result in the end--the shadow of the old
disgrace surrounding her as with a pestilence, isolating her among other
women, branding her, even when she had earned her pardon in the sight of
God, with the mark of an indelible disgrace in the sight of man: there
was the prospect! And she was only five-and-twenty last birthday; she
was in the prime of her health and her strength; she might live, in the
course of nature, fifty years more!