Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  An instant later, and just as Ugo was challenging the man, two shots were fired. The first smashed and extinguished the lantern in Pica’s hand without hurting him; the second took effect, and the Captain staggered against the wall, but instead of falling, sat down suddenly on the wet ground with his back against the masonry. The ruffian was gone and Pica had dashed after him in a fruitless pursuit, for the breaking of the lantern in his hand had checked the orderly as he was about to spring at the miscreant, who thus gained a sufficient start to ensure his escape.

  In a few seconds the officer on duty and three or four of the men were on the spot with lights.

  ‘You will have to carry me,’ said the Captain calmly enough. ‘I am shot in the foot and something is broken. Turn out the guard, Lieutenant, as a matter of principle and have the neighbourhood searched, though you will not find any one now. The fellow has got clean away.’

  The men lifted him and carried him towards his house. Before they reached the door Pica met them, breathing hard and muttering Sicilian imprecations on the man who had wounded his master and got away; but while the Captain was being taken upstairs the orderly lit a candle and went to the telephone in the hall. He glanced at the address-book and then without hesitation he asked the central office to give him Princess Chiaromonte’s number. His reason for doing so was simple: she was the only person in Rome who had ever appeared in the light of a friend of the Captain’s family; she would do the right thing at once, Pica thought, and would send the best surgeon in Rome out to Monteverde in a motor in the shortest possible time. She was at home that evening, as it turned out, and at Pica’s request she came to the telephone herself and heard his story.

  She answered that she would try and get Doctor Pieri to go at once in her own motor, as he had the reputation of being the best surgeon in the city, but that if he could not be found she would send another doctor without delay. Pica went upstairs and found the Captain stretched on his bed in his wet clothes, while the three soldiers who had carried him up were trying to pull his boot off instead of cutting it. One of the younger officers from the magazine was already scouring the neighbourhood in obedience to Ugo’s orders.

  Pica sent the men away at once with the authority which a favourite orderly instinctively exercises over his less fortunate comrades. He was neither stupid nor quite unskilled, however, and in a few minutes he had slit the Captain’s boot down the seam at the back and removed it almost without hurting him, as well as the merino sock. The small round wound was not bleeding much, but it was clear that the bone of the ankle was badly injured and the whole foot was already much swollen. The revolver had evidently been of small calibre, but the charge had been heavy and the damage was considerable. Pica had the sense not to attempt to make any bandage beyond laying two soft folded handkerchiefs one upon the other to the wound and loosely confining them with a silk one. While he was busy with this, he explained what he had done. The Captain, who knew that he was badly hurt and guessed that he might be lamed for life by unskilful treatment, was glad to hear that the famous Pieri had been called. He said that he felt no pain worth speaking of, and he questioned his man as to the latter’s impression of what had happened. Pica did not believe in anarchists and gave it as his opinion that the ruffian was an ordinary bad character who was in daily expectation of being arrested for some crime and who had fallen asleep in his cups, not knowing that he was close to the magazine. Being awakened suddenly, he had probably supposed himself overtaken by justice, had fired and run away. The explanation was plausible, at all events. Neither Ugo nor his man believed that any one would really try to blow up the place, for they regarded that as quite impossible without the collusion of some one of the soldiers, which was not to be thought of.

  While they were talking, Pica managed to get off the Captain’s outer clothes; but as they were partly wet with rain, the bed was now damp. He therefore went and got the new camp bedstead and set it up, spread dry blankets and sheets over it, and lifted Ugo to it without letting the injured foot hang down, for he was a fairly strong man and was far from clumsy.

  The change had just been successfully made when a motor was heard coming up the short stretch from the high-road to the house, and Pica hastened downstairs to open the door for the surgeon. To his surprise, but much to his satisfaction, the Princess Chiaromonte was the first to get out in the rain, bareheaded, but muffled in a waterproof. She had no footman and no umbrella, and she made a quick dash for the door, followed at once by Doctor Pieri. She recognised the handsome orderly and smiled at him as she shook the rain-drops from her hair and then gave him her cloak.

  ‘Is he badly hurt?’ she asked quickly; but she saw from Pica’s face that it was not a matter of life and death, and she did not wait for his answer. ‘We will go upstairs at once,’ she added, leading the way to the steps.

  On learning that Ugo was already in bed, she said she would wait in the large sitting-room while the doctor went in to see what could be done. If the Captain would see her, she would speak to him when Pieri had finished his work.

  Nearly three-quarters of an hour passed before he joined her.

  ‘It is a bad fracture,’ he said, ‘and it will require an operation if he is not to be lamed for life. I should much prefer to perform it in a proper place. There is none better than the private hospital of the White Sisters and it is by far the nearest. Do you happen to know the place?’

  The Princess said that she did and that she was a patroness of the Convent. The surgeon observed that it was now past eleven, and that the patient could not be moved before morning. If she agreed with him and would lend her motor for the purpose, he would communicate with the hospital and take the Captain there himself between eight and nine o’clock. For the present he needed no special nursing, and the orderly seemed to be an unusually intelligent young fellow, who could be trusted and was sincerely attached to his master. The Princess agreed to everything, and asked whether the Captain wished to see her.

  He did, and when she stood beside him he pressed her hand gratefully and thanked her with real feeling for her great kindness. She answered, before Pica, that she would always do anything in her power for any one of his name, and she explained that she would be at the hospital on the following morning to see that he had a good private room and received special care. He thanked her again and bade her good-night. Two or three minutes later he heard the motor puffing and wheezing, and Pica came back after shutting the door. Ugo now sent him over to the guard-room with a message to the lieutenant on duty, requesting him to write a brief official account of the occurrence and to send it by hand to headquarters the next morning. It was necessary that another officer should take Ugo’s place in command of the fort while he was in hospital.

  Pica came back again in a few moments. Then Ugo insisted on having writing-materials, and sat up, propped with cushions, while he wrote a short note to the Minister of War, explaining what had happened, and that he would not leave his home on the morrow till his brother had arrived, but that some further arrangement must be made if Giovanni was to lodge in the house, which would probably be wanted for the officer who was to take his own place. Pica was to be at the Minister’s own residence at seven o’clock with this note and was to wait for an answer. The Minister was known to be a very early riser and would have plenty of time to arrange matters as he thought best.

  Ugo was now in a good deal of pain, and it seemed very long before the panes of his window turned from black to grey as the dawn fore-lightened. He made Pica get him coffee, and soon after sunrise the orderly brought one of the men from the guard-house to remain within call in case the Captain needed anything. Pica took his bicycle and went off to the city with the note for the Minister.

  As Ugo had anticipated, Giovanni arrived in a station cab while the orderly was still absent, and was admitted by the soldier, on his representing that he was a relation of the Captain’s and had come a long distance to see him. The man briefly explained that Ugo was in bed, having bee
n wounded in the foot during the night, but was in no danger. A moment later the brothers were together.

  Ugo saw a man standing beside his bed and holding out his hand whom he would certainly not have recognised if he had met him in the street. His skin was almost as dark as an Arab’s, and he wore a brown beard which had reddened in streaks under the African sun. He was as lean as a half-starved greyhound, but did not look ill, and his eyes were fiery and deeper set than formerly. His head had been shaved when he had worn a turban, but the hair was now more than half an inch long, and was as thick as a beaver’s fur. He was dressed in a suit of thin grey clothes which he had picked up in Massowah, and which did not fit him, and his canvas shoes were in a bad way. When he spoke, it was with a slight accent, unlike any that Ugo had heard, and he occasionally hesitated as if trying to find a word.

  After the first greetings, he sat down and told the main facts of his story. When he paused the two looked at each other and after a while they laughed.

  ‘The disguise is complete,’ Ugo said. ‘But are you going to call on the Minister in those clothes? If you are seen near the magazine in that condition you will be warned off and I shall have to explain who you are.’

  ‘I suppose I could get into a uniform of yours, since I have grown thin,’ Giovanni answered. ‘We are the same height, I remember, and as I am in the artillery no one can find fault with me for wearing the uniform of another regiment than my own, in an emergency. It will be better than presenting myself before the Minister in these rags! I suppose you have got your captaincy by this time?’

  ‘Six months ago!’

  They talked on, and Ugo explained that he was to be taken to the hospital of the White Sisters soon after eight o’clock.

  ‘I shall go with you,’ Giovanni answered, ‘and see you installed in your room. The Minister does not want me till twelve o’clock.’

  They agreed to tell Pica, when he returned, that Giovanni was an artillery officer and a relative who had just arrived from a long journey without any luggage. As the orderly had known that the Captain expected a visitor before long, he would not be surprised, and the relationship would account for Giovanni’s name.

  The latter selected an undress uniform from his brother’s well-stocked wardrobe and proceeded to scrub and dress in the adjoining dressing-room, talking to Ugo through the open door and asking him questions about old friends and comrades. Ugo told him of the Princess Chiaromonte’s visit and of her kindness in coming with Doctor Pieri on the previous evening. Giovanni appeared at the door, half dressed.

  ‘Did you tell her that I am alive?’ he asked.

  ‘No. The Ministry has made an official secret of it, so I have told no one.’

  ‘And you say that she will be at the hospital this morning! We shall meet, then. I wonder whether she will know me.’

  ‘It is impossible, I should say,’ Ugo answered, looking at his brother’s lean face and heavy beard. ‘I hardly recognise you even now!’

  Giovanni finished dressing and came out at last, looking very smart in Ugo’s clothes. He had asked no questions about Angela, for he felt tolerably sure that Ugo had never known her, and it was his intention to go directly from the hospital to Madame Bernard’s lodgings, where he hoped to find them both as he had left them. He could not bring himself to make vague and roundabout inquiries just then, and he was still less inclined to confide his love story to this brother whom he hardly felt that he knew. So he kept his own counsel and waited, as he had learned to do in five years of slavery.

  The Minister sent back a line by Pica to say that Giovanni was to come to him at noon, and would then receive his instructions as to a change of lodging, if any should seem advisable. There was a word of sympathy also for Ugo.

  In less than an hour more, Giovanni had helped Pica to carry Ugo down to the Princess’s motor, which had appeared punctually, bringing Doctor Pieri, and the wounded man was comfortably placed in the limousine with the surgeon beside him and Giovanni sitting opposite. Ugo introduced his brother as a relation who had arrived very opportunely that morning.

  The motor buzzed away from the door, and reached the Convent of Santa Giovanna d’Aza in a few minutes. The sky had cleared after the rain and the April sun was shining gloriously.

  CHAPTER XII

  SISTER GIOVANNA WAS the supervising nurse for the week, and in the natural course of her duty it was she who went to the telephone when Doctor Pieri called up the hospital at seven o’clock. In a few words he explained the case as far as was necessary, and begged the Sister to have a good room ready for the patient; he believed that Number Two was vacant.

  It was, and the wounded man could have it. The Doctor said he would bring him in a motor towards nine o’clock.

  ‘The patient’s name, if you please,’ said Sister Giovanna in a businesslike tone.

  ‘Captain Severi. I do not know his first name. What is the matter, Sister?’

  The nun had uttered a low exclamation of surprise, which Pieri had heard distinctly.

  ‘Nothing,’ she answered, controlling her voice. ‘Is he a son of the late general of that name?’

  ‘I do not know, Sister. He is a friend of the Princess Chiaromonte. Is it all right? I am busy.’

  ‘Yes,’ answered the nun’s voice. ‘It is all right.’

  She hung up the receiver and went to give the necessary orders, rather whiter about the lips than usual. The fact that the injured officer was a friend of her aunt’s seemed to make it certain that he was one of the brothers of whom Giovanni had often spoken, and the mere thought that she was to see him in an hour or two was disturbing. For a moment she was strongly impelled to beg the Mother Superior that some one else might take her place during the morning; but in the first place it seemed cowardly to leave her post; and secondly, in order to explain her position, she would have been obliged to tell the Mother Superior her whole story, which she had never done. Monsignor Saracinesca knew it, and Madame Bernard, but no one else whom she ever saw nowadays.

  Then came the comforting inward suggestion that Giovanni would have wished her to do all she could for his brother, and this at once made a great difference. She went to see that the room was in perfect order, though she was quite sure that it was, and she sent for the orderlies on duty and told them to be especially careful in moving a patient who would soon be brought, and to get ready a certain new chair which was especially constructed for carrying persons who had received injuries of the feet only, and who did not require to be transported on the ordinary stretcher, which always gives a patient the idea that his case is a serious one.

  She also went out to the lodge, to warn the portress that Captain Severi was expected, and must not be kept waiting even a few seconds longer than was necessary. The excellent Anna looked up with some surprise, for she had never kept any one waiting without good cause, since she had been in charge of the gate, but she bent her head obediently and said nothing. It seems to be a general rule with religious houses that no one is ever to wait in the street for admittance; the barrier, which is often impassable, is the door that leads inward from the vestibule.

  When everything was prepared for Ugo’s reception, Sister Giovanna went back to the duties which kept her constantly occupied in the morning hours and often throughout the day. She was personally responsible to the house-surgeon for the carrying out of all directions given the nurses, as he was, in grave cases, to the operating surgeon or visiting physician. It was her business to inspect everything connected with the hospital, from the laundry, the sterilising apparatus, and the kitchen, to the dispensary, where she was expected to know from day to day what supplies were on hand and what was needed. She was ultimately answerable for the smallest irregularity or accident, and had to report everything to the Mother Superior every evening after Vespers and before supper. During her week, every one in the establishment came to her for all matters that concerned the hospital and the nurses on duty by day or night; but she had nothing to do with those who were sent o
ut to private cases. They reported themselves and gave an account of their work to the Mother Superior, whenever they returned to the Convent.

  The supervising nurse for the week did not sleep in her cell, but lay down on a pallet bed behind a curtain, in her office on the first floor, close to the dispensary, where she could be called at a moment’s notice, though it rarely happened that she was disturbed between ten o’clock at night and five in the morning.

  The Mother Superior had introduced the system soon after she had taken charge of the Convent hospital, of which the management now differed from that of most similar institutions in this respect, for the most competent Sisters took turns in the arduous task of supervision, from week to week. At other times they went to private cases when required, or acted as ordinary nurses. Any one who has any knowledge of hospitals managed by religious orders is aware that no two of them work by precisely the same rules, and that the rules themselves are largely the result of the Mother Superior’s own experience, modified by the personal theories and practice of the operating surgeon and the principal visiting physician. The scale of everything relating to the administration is, of course, very small compared with that of any public hospital, and all responsibility therefore weighs more directly on the doctors and nurses in charge at any given moment than on a board of management; in other words, on the right individuals rather than on a body.

  Princess Chiaromonte rose early and drove to the Convent in a cab, intending to come home in the motor which was to bring Ugo and the doctor. She rang, was admitted, and asked for the supervising nurse. The portress, who knew her by sight, at once led her to the large hall already mentioned, and rang the bell which gave warning that some one was waiting who had business in the hospital. She drew one of the chairs forward for the Princess and went back to the lodge. A moment later a novice opened the door that led to the wards, and the visitor repeated her request, without mentioning her name.