The Man of the Desert (14 page)

And then with sudden impulse she told him about finding his mother and why she’d wanted to go to the country in the middle of the society season, because she wanted to know more of the peaceful life this woman lived.

“Perhaps you’ll meet him again. Who knows?” said the father, looking wistfully at his lovely daughter. Then he turned his head away and sighed again.

As the confidence grew between them she told him one day of Milton Hamar’s unwelcome proposal, and the father’s indignation knew no bounds.

After that she ventured to read to him from the little book and told about the worship held out under the desert stars. It became a habit between them, as the days lessened, that she would read the little book, and afterward he’d always lie still as if he were asleep.

On the words of the precious psalm he closed his eyes for the last time in this world, and the psalm comforted the daughter’s heart when she returned to the empty house after the funeral.

Her brother was there, it’s true. But he was afraid of death and wanted to get back to his world again, back to the European trip where he’d left his friends and especially a young countess who’d smiled on him. He was impatient of death and sorrow. Hazel saw he couldn’t comprehend her loneliness, so she bid him go as soon as decency would allow. He wasn’t long in obeying her, for he’d had his own way all his life, and even death wasn’t to deny him.

The work of the trained nurses who cared for her father interested Hazel deeply. She talked with them about their work and preparation for it. And when she could no longer stand the great empty house with only Aunt Maria for company, who had come back just before Mr. Radcliffe’s death, she determined to become a nurse herself.

Her acquaintances made much over her decision, and Aunt Maria thought it wasn’t respectable for her to do such an eccentric thing and so soon after her father’s death. She preferred that Hazel run down to Lakewood for a few weeks and then follow her brother across the water for a year or two of travel. But Hazel was determined, and before January was over she was established in the hospital, through their family physician’s influence, and undergoing her first initiation.

It wasn’t easy to give up her life of doing exactly as she pleased and become a servant under orders. Her back often ached, and her eyes grew heavy with watching and ministering, and she was almost ready to give up. Then the thought of the man of the desert gave her new courage and strength. She realized she was partaking with him in the great work of the kingdom. With this thought she’d rise and go about the strange new work again, until her interest in the individuals she ministered to deepened, and she understood in part the reason for the glory in the missionary’s face as he spoke in the starlight about his work.

Often her heart went out wistfully to her invalid friend in New Hampshire, and she’d rest by writing a long letter and would cherish the delicately written answers. Now and again these letters contained some slight reference to “my son.” As spring approached they were more frequent, for May would bring the general assembly, and the son was to be one of the speakers. How her heart throbbed when she read this was certain now.

A few days later, when she happened to read in the daily paper some item about assembly plans and discovered for the first time it was to meet in New York, she found herself in a flutter of joy. Could she hear him speak? That was the great question that kept coming and going in her mind. Could she arrange to be off duty when his time came to speak? How could she find out about it all? Thereafter, her interest in the church news of the daily papers increased.

Then spring arrived with its languid air and the hard round of work, with often a call to watch when she was weary or do some unaccustomed task that tried her undisciplined soul. But the papers were full of the coming assembly, with at last the program and his name.

She laid her plans carefully. But the case she was out on that week was dying, and the woman liked her and begged her to stay by her till the end. It was part of the new Hazel that she stayed, though her heart protested and tears of disappointment kept coming to her eyes. The head nurse marked them with disapproval and told the house doctor that Radcliffe would never make much of a nurse; she had no control over her emotions.

Death came, almost too late, and freed her for the afternoon. But it was half an hour to the time set for his speech, and she was three miles from the meeting place and still in her uniform. It was almost foolish to try. Nevertheless she hurried to her room, slipped into a plain street suit and left.

It seemed as if every cab, car, and mode of transit had conspired to hinder her. Five minutes before the time set for the next speech she hurried breathless into the dim hallway of a great crowded church, pressed up the stairs to the gallery, through the silent leather doors that could scarcely swing open for the crowd inside them, and heard at last—his voice!

She was away up at the top of the gallery. Men and women were standing close all about her. She couldn’t catch even a glimpse of the platform with its array of noble men whose consecration, power, and intellect had made them great religious leaders. She couldn’t see the young commanding figure standing at the edge of the platform or catch the flash of his brown eyes as he held the audience in his power while he told the simple story of his Western work. But she could hear the voice, and it went straight to her lonely heart.

Straightway the church with its mass of packed humanity, its arched and carved ceiling, its magnificent stained-glass windows, its wonderful organ, and costly fittings faded from her sight. Overhead there arched a dome of dark blue pierced with stars, mountains stood in the distance with a canyon opening, and a fire flickered. She heard the voice speak from its natural setting, though her eyes were closed and full of tears.

He finished his story amid a breathless silence from his audience and then with scarcely a break in his voice spoke to God in one of his uplifting prayers. The girl, trembling, almost sobbing, felt herself included in the prayer, felt again the protection of an unseen Presence, felt the benediction in his voice as he said, “Amen,” and echoed its utmost meaning in her soul.

The audience was still hushed as the speaker turned to go to his seat at the back of the platform. A storm of applause was made impossible by that prayer, for heaven opened with the words and God looked down and had to do with each soul present. But the applause burst forth after all in a moment, for the speaker had whispered a few words to the moderator and was hurrying from the platform. There were cries of “Don’t go! Tell us more! Keep on till six o’clock!” Hazel couldn’t see a thing, though she stretched her neck and stood on the tips of her toes, but she clasped her hands tightly together when the applause came, and her heart echoed every sound.

The clamor ceased a moment as the moderator raised his hand and explained that the brother they’d all been listening to with such pleasure would be glad to speak to them longer, but he was hurrying to take the train to see his invalid mother who’d waited two years for her boy. A pause, a great sigh of sympathy and disappointment, and then the applause burst forth again and continued till the young missionary had left the church.

Hazel, in bitter disappointment, turned and slipped out. She hadn’t caught a glimpse of his beloved face. She exulted that she’d heard the honor given him and been part of those who rejoiced in his power and consecration, but she couldn’t let him go without at least one look at him.

She hurried blindly down the stairs, out to the street, and saw a carriage standing before the door. The carriage door had just been closed, but as she gazed he turned and looked out for an instant, lifting his hat in farewell to a group of ministers who stood on the church steps. Then the carriage whirled him away, and the world grew suddenly blank.

She was behind the men on the steps, just inside the shadow of the dim doorway. He didn’t see her and of course wouldn’t recognize her if he had. Yet now she realized she’d hoped—oh—what hadn’t she hoped from meeting him here!

But he was gone, and it might be years before he came East again. He’d put her from his life. He wouldn’t think of her again if he didn’t come! Oh, the loneliness of a world like this! Why, oh, why did she ever go to the desert to learn the emptiness of her life, when there was no other for her anywhere!

The days that followed were sad and hard. The only thought that helped now was that she too had tried to give her life for something worthwhile as he had, and perhaps it might be accepted. But her soul had a deep unrest now, a something she knew she didn’t have that she longed inexpressibly to have. She’d learned to cook and nurse. She wasn’t nearly as useless as she was when she rode carefree on the desert. She’d overcome much of her seeming unworthiness. But one great obstacle made her still unfit for companionship and partnership with the man of the desert. She didn’t have that something in her heart and life that was the source and center of self-sacrifice.

A long letter arrived about the first of June from her friend in New Hampshire, more shakily written, Hazel thought, than earlier ones. Then came an interval without any reply to hers. She had little time, however, to worry about it, for the weather was unusually warm and the hospital full. Her strength was taxed to its utmost to fill her round of daily duties. Aunt Maria scolded and insisted on a vacation and finally in high dudgeon took herself to Europe for the summer. The few friends with whom Hazel had kept up any contact hurried away to mountains or sea, and the summer settled down to business.

And now in the hot, hot nights when she lay on her small bed, too weary almost to sleep, she imagined she heard again that voice as he spoke in the church or longer ago in the desert. And sometimes she could think she felt the breeze of the desert night on her hot forehead.

The head nurse and the house doctor decided Radcliffe needed a change and suggested a few days at the shore with a convalescing patient. But Hazel’s heart turned from the thought, and she insisted upon sticking to her post. She clung to the thought that she could at least be faithful. It was what he’d do, and in so much she wanted to be like him and worthy of his love.

It was the last thought in her mind before she fainted on the broad marble staircase, holding a tiny baby in her arms, and fell to the floor at the bottom. The baby was uninjured, but it took a long time to bring the nurse back to consciousness and still longer to renew her courage and enthusiasm.

“She isn’t fit for the work!” she heard the biting tongue of the head nurse declare. “She’s too frail and pretty and—emotional. She feels everybody’s troubles. I never let a case worry me in the least!”

And the house doctor eyed her and said in his heart,
Anyone would know that
.

But Hazel, listening, was more disheartened than ever. Then here, too, she was failing and was judged unworthy!

The next morning a brief, blunt note arrived from Amelia Ellen: “Dear Mis Raclift, Ef yore a trainurse why don’t yo cum an’ take car o’ my Mis Brownleigh. She ain’t long fer heer an she’s wearyin to see yo. She as gotta hev one, a trainurse I mean. Yors respectfooly, Amelia Ellen Stout.”

After an interview with the house doctor and another with her old family physician, Hazel packed up her uniforms and departed for New Hampshire.

On the evening of her arrival, after the gentle invalid had been prepared for sleep and left in the quiet and dark, Amelia Ellen told the story.

“She ain’t ben the same since John went back. Seems like she sort o’ sensed thet he wouldn’t come again while she was livin’. She tole me the next day a lot of things she wanted done after she was gone, and she’s been gettin’ ready to leave this earth ever since. Not that she’s gloomy, oh, my senses, no! She’s jes’ as interested as can be in her flowers and in folks an’ the church, but she don’t want to try to do so many things, and she has them weak, fainty spells oftener an’ more pain in her heart. She sits for long hours with jest her Bible open now, but, land, she don’t need to read it! She knows it most by heart—that is the livin’ parts, you know. She don’t seem to care ‘tall fer them magazine articles now anymore.

“I wish t’ the land they’d be anuther gen’l ‘sembly! That was the greatest thing fer her. She jest acted like she was tendin’ every blessed one o’ them meetin’s. Why, she couldn’t wait fer me t’ git done my breakfast dishes. She’d want me t’ fix her up fer the day, an’ then set down an’ read their doin’s.

“‘We kin let things go, you know, ‘Meelia Ellen,’ she’d say with her sweet smile, ‘just while the meetin’s last. Then when it’s over they’ll be time ‘nough fer work—an’ rest, too, ‘Meelia Ellen,’ says she.

“Well, seems like she was just ‘tendin’ those meetin’s herself, same es if she was there. She’d take her nap like it was a pill er somethin’ and then be wide awake an’ ready fer her afternoon freshenin’, an’ then she’d watch for the stage to bring the evenin’ paper. John, he hed a whole cartload o’ papers sent, an’ the day he spoke they was so many I jes’ couldn’t get my bread set. I hed to borry a loaf off the inn. First time that’s ever happened to me either. I jest hed to set an’ read till my back ached, and my eyes swum. I never read so much in my whole borned days t’ oncet. An’ I’ve done a good bit o’ readin’ in my time, too, what with nursin’ her an’ bein’ companion to a perfessor’s invaleed daughter one summer.

“Wal, seems like she went on an’ on, gettin’ workeder-up an’ workeder-up, till the ‘sembly closed an’ he come. She was clear to the top o’ the heap all them three weeks whilst he was here. Why, I never seen her so bright since when I was a little girl an’ went to her Sunday school class, an’ she wore a poke bonnet trimmed with lute string ribbon an’ a rose inside.

“Talk ’bout roses—they wasn’t one in the garden as bright pink as her two cheeks, an’ her eyes shone just fer all the world like his. I was terrible troubled lest she’d break down, but she didn’t. She got brighter an’ brighter. Let him take her out ridin’ an’ let him carry her into the orchard an’ lay her down under the apple boughs where she could reach a wild strawberry herself. Why, she hedn’t ben off ‘n the porch sence he went away three years ago. But every day he stayed she got brighter.