CHAPTER IV.
UPHILL WORK IN BRUSSELS.
Edith Cavell needed all her strength of character in her first years in Brussels. When she went there nine years ago as Matron of a Surgical and Medical Home, English nursing methods were not appreciated on the Continent as they are now. Nursing was regarded as one of the functions of the Church. Miss Cavell was a Protestant as well as a foreigner. She was felt to be a rival of the nuns and sisters working under religious vows.
The authorities of the Catholic Church looked coldly upon an enterprise which, from their point of view, had an aspect of irreligion and freethinking. But it was not long before the Matron’s efficiency and tact carried the day. A well-known priest trusted himself to the English lady. His tribute to her devotion and skill brought public opinion to her side. In 1909 she established a training home for nurses. The authorities recognised and encouraged her; and shortly before the outbreak of war she was provided with a modern and well-equipped building.
The first warning of the war came when she was spending a holiday at home with her mother at Norwich. During these years in Brussels two holidays a year had been spent in England. They were happy halting places in a rough journey. What made them so pleasant to Edith Cavell was that she could spend them with her mother.
The love of the younger woman for the old was one of the most beautiful aspects of her character. “People may look upon me as a lonely old maid,” she said once to a friend; “but with a mother like mine to look after, and, in addition, my work in the world which I love, I am such a happy old maid that everyone would feel envious of me if they only knew.”
That was her secret—her love for her mother and her work. It was that which enabled her to look upon the world as a beautiful garden, where there was always something to do for sickly plants. The real flowers, and the care of them which could only be given in English holidays, were almost a passion to her from the earliest Rectory days.
Her success as a nurse, both in Brussels and the slums of London, owed three-parts of its efficacy to her overflowing sympathy. “It was her gentle way,” said an old patient, “that did most to make me well again; I felt she was a minister of God working for my good.” And there are wounded British soldiers who have pressed the doctors to send them back quickly to the firing line. “We will go back willingly,” they say, “to avenge this great woman’s death.”
Daily Mirror Photograph.
THE REV. FREDERICK CAVELL, FATHER OF NURSE CAVELL.
Daily Mirror Photograph.
MRS. CAVELL, MOTHER OF NURSE CAVELL.
Every holiday in England was spent with the aged mother, who looked forward to these meetings as much as the daughter. Without warning, the war broke into the last of these holidays in the full summer of 1914. Edith Cavell made her mind up promptly. Her holiday was not yet over, but she hurried back at once. “My duty is out there,” she said; “I shall be wanted.”