Winter Daffodils

SOMETHING suddenly went wrong with the eyes of a cousin Of mine in the country, and she had to be brought to London for an operation. As hick would have it, I was the only representative of the family living in town, so it fell to my lot to visit the hospital and report progress on her. I cannot say I relished the task, for we were only distantly related and I share the northally healthy individual's dislike of hospitals. I realise; of course, that they do excellent work ; I am naturally sympathetic when I hear of illness, but for comfort's sake I find it best to relegate such things to the back of my mind. It was, therefore, only a sense of duty which took me to the big eye hospital in the City Road.

" Martha," I said to my old housekeeper, " I have to visit someone in hospital. What shall I take ? "

" Oranges, sir, take some nice oranges." Martha, I am afraid, is typical of those who see in oranges a panacea for all ills. I could not make up my mind . whether it would be tactless to take flowerS to anyone who probably could not see them. I played for safety, and took grapes.

Cousin Helen was in a private room. I did not know there were such things at hospitals, but I learned afterwards that this private ward block was a fairly recent innovation ; an attempt to provide a hospital service for middle-class people.

The nurse who opened the door of Helen's room told me I might go in, and gently closed the door after me.

That is how I came to learn about the daffodils ; for Helen, having both eyes bandaged, and not knowing that I'was there, continued what she was doing. She was repeating to herself Wordsworth's lines about the daffodils.

When all at once T. saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in tho breeze.

She was beating time slowly with one hand. My mind, when faced suddenly with the unexpected, has a trick of straying from the main issue, and I remember thinking just then how bad it was for Helen's wrist watch to be shaken like that ! I had to announce myself. " Helen," I said, " come to see you." She stopped abruptly.

" Oh ! You would be cousin John, I suppos if you heard what I was reciting ! "

" Yes, I'm afraid I did, but I suppose time hangs so much that you just don't know what to do next."

" Well no, it isn't exactly that. It's . but perhaps you'd like to sit down and let Mc tell you about it. There's a chair by the bed, I think." Helen proceeded, however, to talk about family matters for a while before answering my question. Then suddenly she said, " About those daffodils, John. You see, while lying here, I have been wondering what I should I wonder

really miss most of all if I never happened to see again. know now that it's daffodils—I've narrowed it down to those and that wonderful glade at home, John, which is such a WOil(101 lot sight every spring. Somehow it seems to simplify may problem, having got down to something definite. Daffodils ! Spring ! Spring means life—and there you are ! "

The silence that followed was due to the fact that againSt such an unexpected train of thought, I had forgotten all the carefully rehearsed things that I had intended to say.

So Helen started again. .

" Of course, cousin John, there's more in it really h:.€ When this trouble came, and I had got over the first. shoek, I hardened my heart. Why should this have happened to me ? I asked. What had I done to deserve such an affliction ? Now, as I am lying here, I realise that I have to wage 'a kind of conflict. I know that one doesn't usually talk about such things, but somehow it's different now. If I go blind, shall I throw over my beliefs, shall I become cynical and bitter, or shall I take up the threads and weave a new life, accept ing gratefully the compensations that may conic " Unfortunately, I knew nothing of the difficulties of the blind. I could in silence only admire her fortitude.

" Wouldn't it be grand," she resumed, " if, knowing l had won my struggle, I saw the daffodils after all ! "

A nurse put her head in at the doorway, and I accepted t he hint. It was time to go, so I stammered a few self-conscious remarks and bid my cousin Good-Bye.

I walked down the stairs, since the lift WilS in use, 'and OR

the way I caught glimpses of the general wards of the hontal. Here were men and women facing the same problem as Helen's. I wondered what they thought about. Were they able, like Helen, to ease their problem through the attachment of memory to some simple concrete object connected with their past life ? Perhaps they thought about an old, familiar fire- side chair, perhaps about an old ornament, or a struggling rose-tree in a little grimy town garden.

Awl then there was the children's ward. I hurried by I hit.

'flme bandaged babies reminded me of something. E remembered having received a number of charitable ;11)1)e:its a few days previously, one of which gave a picture of a bandaged baby. You know how it is with these thing ;. One says " This appeal business is overdone " and away they go unread, into the waste paper basket. I felt a little guilty about the one with the bandaged baby !

When I got into the street, it had turned colder, and there were signs of fog. Winter had surely 'crone. Yet I was thinking of a daffodil field in Cornwall.

Ten thousand saw I at a glance Tossing their heads in sprightly danee.

I wondered whether, Helen would ever see them again.

M. E. H.