TREATS ON A VERY POOR SUBJECT. BUT IS A SHORT ONE, AND MAY BE
FOUND OF IMPORTANCE IN THIS HISTORY
It was no unfit messanger of death, who had disturbed the quiet of the
matron's room. Her body was bent by age; her limbs trembled with palsy; her
face, distorted into a mumbling leer, resembled more the grotesque shaping of
some wild pencil, than the work of Nature's hand.
Alas! How few of Nature's faces are left alone to gladden us with their
beauty! The cares, and sorrows, and hungerings, of the world, change them as
they change hearts; and it is only when those passions sleep, and have lost
their hold for ever, that the troubled clouds pass off, and leave Heaven's
surface clear. It is a common thing for the countenances of the dead, even in
that fixed and rigid state, to subside into the long-forgotten expression of
sleeping infancy, and settle into the very look of early life; so calm, so
peaceful, do they grow again, that those who knew them in their happy childhood,
kneel by the coffin's side in awe, and see the Angel even upon earth.
The old crone tottered alone the passages, and up the stairs, muttering some
indistinct answers to the chidings of her companion; being at length compelled
to pause for breath, she gave the light into her hand, and remained behind to
follow as she might: while the more nimble superior made her way to the room
where the sick woman lay.
It was a bare garret-room, with a dim light burning at the farther end. There
was another old woman watching by the bed; the parish apothecary's apprentice
was standing by the fire, making a toothpick out of a quill.
'Cold night, Mrs. Corney,' said this young gentleman, as the matron entered.
'Very cold, indeed, sir,' replied the mistress, in her most civil tones, and
dropping a curtsey as she spoke.
'You should get better coals out of your contractors,' said the apothecary's
deputy, breaking a lump on the top of the fire with the rusty poker; 'these are
not at all the sort of thing for a cold night.'
'They're the board's choosing, sir,' returned the matron. 'The least they
could do, would be to keep us pretty warm: for our places are hard enough.'
The conversation was here interrupted by a moan from the sick woman.
'Oh!' said the young mag, turning his face towards the bed, as if he had
previously quite forgotten the patient, 'it's all U.P. there, Mrs. Corney.'
'It is, is it, sir?' asked the matron.
'If she lasts a couple of hours, I shall be surprised.' said the apothecary's
apprentice, intent upon the toothpick's point. 'It's a break-up of the system
altogether. Is she dozing, old lady?'
The attendant stooped over the bed, to ascertain; and nodded in the
affirmative.
'Then perhaps she'll go off in that way, if you don't make a row,' said the
young man. 'Put the light on the floor. She won't see it there.'
The attendant did as she was told: shaking her head meanwhile, to intimate
that the woman would not die so easily; having done so, she resumed her seat by
the side of the other nurse, who had by this time returned. The mistress, with
an expression of impatience, wrapped herself in her shawl, and sat at the foot
of the bed.
The apothecary's apprentice, having completed the manufacture of the
toothpick, planted himself in front of the fire and made good use of it for ten
minutes or so: when apparently growing rather dull, he wished Mrs. Corney joy of
her job, and took himself off on tiptoe.
When they had sat in silence for some time, the two old women rose from the
bed, and crouching over the fire, held out their withered hands to catch the
heat. The flame threw a ghastly light on their shrivelled faces, and made their
ugliness appear terrible, as, in this position, they began to converse in a low
voice.
'Did she say any more, Anny dear, while I was gone?' inquired the messenger.
'Not a word,' replied the other. 'She plucked and tore at her arms for a
little time; but I held her hands, and she soon dropped off. She hasn't much
strength in her, so I easily kept her quiet. I ain't so weak for an old woman,
although I am on parish allowance; no, no!'
'Did she drink the hot wine the doctor said she was to have?' demanded the
first.
'I tried to get it down,' rejoined the other. 'But her teeth were tight set,
and she clenched the mug so hard that it was as much as I could do to get it
back again. So I drank it; and it did me good!'
Looking cautiously round, to ascertain that they were not overheard, the two
hags cowered nearer to the fire, and chuckled heartily.
'I mind the time,' said the first speaker, 'when she would have done the
same, and made rare fun of it afterwards.'
'Ay, that she would,' rejoined the other; 'she had a merry heart.
A many, many, beautiful corpses she laid out, as nice and neat as waxwork. My
old eyes have seen them--ay, and those old hands touched them too; for I have
helped her, scores of times.'
Stretching forth her trembling fingers as she spoke, the old creature shook
them exultingly before her face, and fumbling in her pocket, brought out an old
time-discoloured tin snuff-box, from which she shook a few grains into the
outstretched palm of her companion, and a few more into her own. While they were
thus employed, the matron, who had been impatiently watching until the dying
woman should awaken from her stupor, joined them by the fire, and sharply asked
how long she was to wait?
'Not long, mistress,' replied the second woman, looking up into her face. 'We
have none of us long to wait for Death. Patience, patience! He'll be here soon
enough for us all.'
'Hold your tongue, you doting idiot!' said the matron sternly. 'You, Martha,
tell me; has she been in this way before?'
'Often,' answered the first woman.
'But will never be again,' added the second one; 'that is, she'll never wake
again but once--and mind, mistress, that won't be for long!'
'Long or short,' said the matron, snappishly, 'she won't find me here when
she does wake; take care, both of you, how you worry me again for nothing. It's
no part of my duty to see all the old women in the house die, and I
won't--that's more. Mind that, you impudent old harridans. If you make a fool of
me again, I'll soon cure you, I warrant you!'
She was bouncing away, when a cry from the two women, who had turned towards
the bed, caused her to look round. The patient had raised herself upright, and
was stretching her arms towards them.
'Who's that?' she cried, in a hollow voice.
'Hush, hush!' said one of the women, stooping over her. 'Lie down, lie down!'
'I'll never lie down again alive!' said the woman, struggling. 'I WILL tell
her! Come here! Nearer! Let me whisper in your ear.'
She clutched the matron by the arm, and forcing her into a chair by the
bedside, was about to speak, when looking round, she caught sight of the two old
women bending forward in the attitude of eager listeners.
'Turn them away,' said the woman, drowsily; 'make haste! make haste!'
The two old crones, chiming in together, began pouring out many piteous
lamentations that the poor dear was too far gone to know her best friends; and
were uttering sundry protestations that they would never leave her, when the
superior pushed them from the room, closed the door, and returned to the
bedside. On being excluded, the old ladies changed their tone, and cried through
the keyhole that old Sally was drunk; which, indeed, was not unlikely; since, in
addition to a moderate dose of opium prescribed by the apothecary, she was
labouring under the effects of a final taste of gin-and-water which had been
privily administered, in the openness of their hearts, by the worthy old ladies
themselves.
'Now listen to me,' said the dying woman aloud, as if making a great effort
to revive one latent spark of energy. 'In this very room--in this very bed--I
once nursed a pretty young creetur', that was brought into the house with her
feet cut and bruised with walking, and all soiled with dust and blood. She gave
birth to a boy, and died. Let me think--what was the year again!'
'Never mind the year,' said the impatient auditor; 'what about her?'
'Ay,' murmured the sick woman, relapsing into her former drowsy state, 'what
about her?--what about--I know!' she cried, jumping fiercely up: her face
flushed, and her eyes starting from her head--'I robbed her, so I did! She
wasn't cold--I tell you she wasn't cold, when I stole it!'
'Stole what, for God's sake?' cried the matron, with a gesture as if she
would call for help.
'IT!' replied the woman, laying her hand over the other's mouth. 'The only
thing she had. She wanted clothes to keep her warm, and food to eat; but she had
kept it safe, and had it in her bosom. It was gold, I tell you! Rich gold, that
might have saved her life!'
'Gold!' echoed the matron, bending eagerly over the woman as she fell back.
'Go on, go on--yest--what of it? Who was the mother?
When was it?'
'She charge me to keep it safe,' replied the woman with a groan, 'and trusted
me as the only woman about her. I stole it in my heart when she first showed it
me hanging round her neck; and the child's death, perhaps, is on me besides!
They would have treated him better, if they had known it all!'
'Known what?' asked the other. 'Speak!'
'The boy grew so like his mother,' said the woman, rambling on, and not
heeding the question, 'that I could never forget it when I saw his face. Poor
girl! poor girl! She was so young, too! Such a gentle lamb! Wait; there's more
to tell. I have not told you all, have I?'
'No, no,' replied the matron, inclining her head to catch the words, as they
came more faintly from the dying woman. 'Be quick, or it may be too late!'
'The mother,' said the woman, making a more violent effort than before; 'the
mother, when the pains of death first came upon her, whispered in my ear that if
her baby was born alive, and thrived, the day might come when it would not feel
so much disgraced to hear its poor young mother named. "And oh, kind Heaven!"
she said, folding her thin hands together, "whether it be boy or girl, raise up
some friends for it in this troubled world, and take pity upon a lonely desolate
child, abandoned to its mercy!"'
'The boy's name?' demanded the matron.
'They CALLED him Oliver,' replied the woman, feebly. 'The gold I stole was--'
'Yes, yes--what?' cried the other.
She was bending eagerly over the woman to hear her reply; but drew back,
instinctively, as she once again rose, slowly and stiffly, into a sitting
posture; then, clutching the coverlid with both hands, muttered some indistinct
sounds in her throat, and fell lifeless on the bed.
* * * * * * *
'Stone dead!' said one of the old women, hurrying in as soon as the door was
opened.
'And nothing to tell, after all,' rejoined the matron, walking
carelessly away.
The two crones, to all appearance, too busily occupied in the preparations
for their dreadful duties to make any reply, were left alone, hovering about the
body.
|