Hilda Wade

Grant Allen

Description

Canadian-born author Grant Allen held progressive views about women and their role in society. In order to bring more awareness to the issue, he penned numerous novels featuring strong female protagonists. Hilda Wade: A Woman With Tenacity of Purpose is an engrossing look at the life of a skilled and highly respected nurse who often puts her formidable intellect to work solving mysteries.

Sujets

• Short story

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776581870
• Langue: English

Extrait

HILDA WADE
A WOMAN WITH TENACITY OF PURPOSE
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GRANT ALLEN
 
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Hilda Wade A Woman with Tenacity of Purpose First published in 1899 Epub ISBN 978-1-77658-187-0 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77658-188-7 © 2013 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Publishers' Note Chapter I - The Episode of the Patient Who Disappointed Her Doctor Chapter II - The Episode of the Gentleman Who Had Failed for Everything Chapter III - The Episode of the Wife Who Did Her Duty Chapter IV - The Episode of the Man Who Would Not Commit Suicide Chapter V - The Episode of the Needle that Did Not Match Chapter VI - The Episode of the Letter with the Basingstoke Postmark Chapter VII - The Episode of the Stone that Looked About It Chapter VIII - The Episode of the European with the Kaffir Heart Chapter IX - The Episode of the Lady Who was Very Exclusive Chapter X - The Episode of the Guide Who Knew the Country Chapter XI - The Episode of the Officer Who Understood Perfectly Chapter XII - The Episode of the Dead Man Who Spoke
Publishers' Note
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In putting before the public the last work by Mr. Grant Allen,the publishers desire to express their deep regret at the author'sunexpected and lamented death—a regret in which they are sure to bejoined by the many thousand readers whom he did so much to entertain. Aman of curiously varied and comprehensive knowledge, and with themost charming personality; a writer who, treating of a wide variety ofsubjects, touched nothing which he did not make distinctive, he filleda place which no man living can exactly occupy. The last chapter of thisvolume had been roughly sketched by Mr. Allen before his final illness,and his anxiety, when debarred from work, to see it finished, wasrelieved by the considerate kindness of his friend and neighbour, Dr.Conan Doyle, who, hearing of his trouble, talked it over with him,gathered his ideas, and finally wrote it out for him in the form inwhich it now appears—a beautiful and pathetic act of friendship whichit is a pleasure to record.
Chapter I - The Episode of the Patient Who Disappointed Her Doctor
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Hilda Wade's gift was so unique, so extraordinary, that I mustillustrate it, I think, before I attempt to describe it. But first letme say a word of explanation about the Master.
I have never met anyone who impressed me so much with a sense ofGREATNESS as Professor Sebastian. And this was not due to his scientificeminence alone: the man's strength and keenness struck me quite asforcibly as his vast attainments. When he first came to St. Nathaniel'sHospital, an eager, fiery-eyed physiologist, well past the prime oflife, and began to preach with all the electric force of his vividpersonality that the one thing on earth worth a young man's doing wasto work in his laboratory, attend his lectures, study disease, and bea scientific doctor, dozens of us were infected by his contagiousenthusiasm. He proclaimed the gospel of germs; and the germ of his ownzeal flew abroad in the hospital: it ran through the wards as if it weretyphoid fever. Within a few months, half the students were convertedfrom lukewarm observers of medical routine into flaming apostles of thenew methods.
The greatest authority in Europe on comparative anatomy, now that Huxleywas taken from us, he had devoted his later days to the pursuit ofmedicine proper, to which he brought a mind stored with luminousanalogies from the lower animals. His very appearance held one. Tall,thin, erect, with an ascetic profile not unlike Cardinal Manning's, herepresented that abstract form of asceticism which consists in absoluteself-sacrifice to a mental ideas, not that which consists in religiousabnegation. Three years of travel in Africa had tanned his skin forlife. His long white hair, straight and silvery as it fell, just curledin one wave-like inward sweep where it turned and rested on the stoopingshoulders. His pale face was clean-shaven, save for a thin and wirygrizzled moustache, which cast into stronger relief the deep-set,hawk-like eyes and the acute, intense, intellectual features. In somerespects, his countenance reminded me often of Dr. Martineau's: inothers it recalled the knife-like edge, unturnable, of his greatpredecessor, Professor Owen. Wherever he went, men turned to stare athim. In Paris, they took him for the head of the English Socialists; inRussia, they declared he was a Nihilist emissary. And they were notfar wrong—in essence; for Sebastian's stern, sharp face was above allthings the face of a man absorbed and engrossed by one overpoweringpursuit in life—the sacred thirst of knowledge, which had swallowed uphis entire nature.
He WAS what he looked—the most single-minded person I have ever comeacross. And when I say single-minded, I mean just that, and no more. Hehad an End to attain—the advancement of science, and he went straighttowards the End, looking neither to the right nor to the left foranyone. An American millionaire once remarked to him of some ingeniousappliance he was describing: "Why, if you were to perfect thatapparatus, Professor, and take out a patent for it, I reckon you'd makeas much money as I have made." Sebastian withered him with a glance. "Ihave no time to waste," he replied, "on making money!"
So, when Hilda Wade told me, on the first day I met her, that she wishedto become a nurse at Nathaniel's, "to be near Sebastian," I was not atall astonished. I took her at her word. Everybody who meant business inany branch of the medical art, however humble, desired to be close toour rare teacher—to drink in his large thought, to profit by his clearinsight, his wide experience. The man of Nathaniel's was revolutionisingpractice; and those who wished to feel themselves abreast of the modernmovement were naturally anxious to cast in their lot with him. I did notwonder, therefore, that Hilda Wade, who herself possessed in so large ameasure the deepest feminine gift—intuition—should seek a placeunder the famous professor who represented the other side of the sameendowment in its masculine embodiment—instinct of diagnosis.
Hilda Wade herself I will not formally introduce to you: you will learnto know her as I proceed with my story.
I was Sebastian's assistant, and my recommendation soon procured HildaWade the post she so strangely coveted. Before she had been long atNathaniel's, however, it began to dawn upon me that her reasons fordesiring to attend upon our revered Master were not wholly and solelyscientific. Sebastian, it is true, recognised her value as a nurse fromthe first; he not only allowed that she was a good assistant, but healso admitted that her subtle knowledge of temperament sometimes enabledher closely to approach his own reasoned scientific analysis of a caseand its probable development. "Most women," he said to me once, "arequick at reading THE PASSING EMOTION. They can judge with astoundingcorrectness from a shadow on one's face, a catch in one's breath, amovement of one's hands, how their words or deeds are affecting us. Wecannot conceal our feelings from them. But underlying character theydo not judge so well as fleeting expression. Not what Mrs. Jones IS inherself, but what Mrs. Jones is now thinking and feeling—there liestheir great success as psychologists. Most men, on the contrary, guidetheir life by definite FACTS—by signs, by symptoms, by observed data.Medicine itself is built upon a collection of such reasoned facts.But this woman, Nurse Wade, to a certain extent, stands intermediatementally between the two sexes. She recognises TEMPERAMENT—the fixedform of character, and what it is likely to do—in a degree which I havenever seen equalled elsewhere. To that extent, and within proper limitsof supervision, I acknowledge her faculty as a valuable adjunct to ascientific practitioner."
Still, though Sebastian started with a predisposition in favour ofHilda Wade—a pretty girl appeals to most of us—I could see from thebeginning that Hilda Wade was by no means enthusiastic for Sebastian,like the rest of the hospital:
"He is extraordinarily able," she would say, when I gushed to her aboutour Master; but that was the most I could ever extort from her in theway of praise. Though she admitted intellectually Sebastian's giganticmind, she would never commit herself to anything that sounded likepersonal admiration. To call him "the prince of physiologists" didnot satisfy me on that head. I wanted her to exclaim, "I adore him! Iworship him! He is glorious, wonderful!"
I was also aware from an early date that, in an unobtrusive way, HildaWade was watching Sebastian, watching him quietly, with those wistful,earnest eyes, as a cat watches a mouse-hole; watching him with muteinquiry, as if she expected each moment to see him do somethingdifferent from what the rest of us expected of him. Slowly I gatheredthat Hilda Wade, in the most literal sense, had come to Nathaniel's, asshe herself expressed it, "to be near Sebastian."
Gentle and lovable as she was in every other aspect, towards Sebastianshe seemed like a lynx-eyed detective. She had some object in view,I thought, almost as abstract as his own—some object to which, as Ijudged, she was devoting her life quite as single-mindedly as Sebastianhimself had devoted his to the advancement of science.
"Why did she become a nurse at all?" I asked once of her friend, Mrs.Mallet. "She has plenty of money, and seems well enough off to livewithout working."
"Oh, dear, yes