Complete works of hall c.., p.283
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 283
On a morning in August the matron’s report had closed with a startling item. It recommended the immediate suspension of a nurse on the ground of gross impropriety of conduct. The usual course in such a case was for the board of the hospital to depute the matron to act for them in private, but the chairman in this instance was a peppery person, with a stern mouth and a solid under-jaw.
“This is a most serious matter,” he said. “I think — this being a public institution — I really think the board should investigate the case for itself. We ought to assure ourselves that — that, in fact, no other irregularity is going on in the hospital.”
“May it please your lordship,” said a rotund voice from, one of the side tables, “I would suggest that a case like this of grievous moral delinquency comes directly within the dispensation of the chaplain, and if he has done his duty by the unhappy girl (as no doubt he has) he must have a statement to make to the board with regard to her.”
It was Canon Wealthy.
“I may mention,” he added, “that Mr. Storm has now returned to his duties, and is at present in the hospital.”
“Send for him,” said the chairman.
When John Storm entered the board room it was remarked that he looked no better for his holiday. His cheeks were thinner, his eyes more hollow, and there was a strange pallor under his swarthy skin.
The business was explained to him, and he was asked if he had any statement to make with regard to the nurse whom the matron had reported for suspension.
“No,” he said, “I have no statement.”
“Do you mean to tell the board,” said the chairman, “that you know nothing of this matter — that the case is too trivial for your attention — or perhaps that you have never even spoken to the girl on the subject?”
“That is so — I never have,” said John.
“Then you shall do so now,” said the chairman, and he put his hand on the bell beside him, and the messenger appeared.
“You can not intend, sir, to examine the girl here,” said John.
“And why not?”
“Before so many — and all of us men save one. Surely the matron — —”
The canon rose to his feet again. “My young brother is naturally sensitive, my lord, but I assure him his delicate feelings are wasted on a girl like this. He forgets that the shame lies in the girl’s sin, not in her just and necessary punishment.”
“Bring her in,” said the chairman. The matron whispered to the messenger, and he left the room.
“Pardon me, sir,” said John Storm; “if it is your expectation that I should question the nurse on her sin, as the canon says, I can not do so.”
“Can not?”
“Well, I will not.”
“And is that your idea of your duty as a chaplain?”
“It is the matron’s duty, not the chaplain’s, to — —”
“The matron! The matron! This is your parish, sir — your parish. A great public institution is in danger of a disgraceful scandal, and you who are responsible for its spiritual welfare — really, gentlemen — —”
Again the canon rose with a conciliatory smile.
“I think I understand my young friend,” he said, “and your lordship and the hoard will appreciate his feelings, however you may disapprove of his judgment. What generous heart can not sympathize with the sensitive spirit of the youthful clergyman who shrinks from the spectacle of guilt and shame in a young and perhaps beautiful woman? But if it will relieve your lordship from an embarrassing position, I am myself willing — —”
“Thank you,” said the chairman; and then the girl was brought into the room in charge of Sister Allworthy.
She was holding her head down and trying to cover her face with her hands.
“Your name, girl?” said the canon.
“Mary Elizabeth Love,” she faltered.
“You are aware, Mary Elizabeth Love, that our excellent and indulgent matron” (here he bowed to a stout lady who sat in the open space) “has been put to the painful duty of reporting you for suspension, which is equivalent to your immediate discharge. Now, I can not hold out a hope that the board will not ratify her recommendation, but it may perhaps qualify the terms of your ‘character’ if you can show these gentlemen that the unhappy lapse from good conduct which brings you to this position of shame and disgrace is due in any measure to irregularities practised perhaps within this hospital, or to the temptations of any one connected with it.”
The girl began to cry.
“Speak, nurse; if you have anything to say, the gentlemen are willing to hear it.”
The girl’s crying deepened into sobs.
“Useless!” said the chairman.
“Impossible!” said the canon.
But some one suggested that perhaps the nurse had a girl friend in the hospital who could throw light on the difficult situation. Then Sister Allworthy whispered to the matron, who said, “Bring her in.”
John Storm’s face had assumed a fixed and absent expression, but he saw a girl of larger size than Polly Love enter the room with a gleam, as it were, of sunshine on her golden-red hair. It was Glory.
There was some preliminary whispering, and then the canon began again:
“You are a friend and companion of Mary Elizabeth Love?”
“Yes,” said Glory.
Her voice was full and calm, and a look of quiet courage lit up her girlish beauty.
“You have known her other friends, no doubt, and perhaps you have shared her confidence?”
“I think so.”
“Then you can tell the board if the unhappy condition in which she finds herself is due to any one connected with this hospital.”
“I think not.”
“Not to any officer, servant, or member of any school attached to it?”
“No.”
“Thank you,” said the chairman, “that is quite enough,” and down the tables of the governors there were nods and smiles of satisfaction.
“What have I done?” said Glory.
“You have done a great service to an ancient and honourable institution,” said the canon, “and the best return the board can make for your candour and intelligence is to advise you to avoid such companionship for the future and to flee such perilous associations.”
A certain desperate recklessness expressed itself in Glory’s face, and she stepped up to Polly, who was now weeping audibly, and put her arm about the girl’s waist.
“What are the girl’s relatives?” said the chairman.
The matron replied out of her book. Polly was an orphan, both her parents being dead. She had a brother who had lately been a patient in the hospital, but he was only a lay-helper in the Anglican Monastery at Bishopsgate Street, and therefore useless for present purposes.
There was some further whispering about the tables. Was this the girl who had been recommended to the hospital by the coroner who had investigated a certain notorious and tragic case? Yes.
“I think I have heard of some poor and low relations,” said the canon, “but their own condition is probably too needy to allow them to help her at a time like the present.”
Down to this moment Polly had done nothing but cry, but now she flamed up in a passion of pride and resentment.
“It’s false!” she cried. “I have no poor and low relations, and I want nobody’s help. My friend is a gentleman — as much a gentleman as anybody here — and I can tell you his name, if you like. He lives in St. James’s Street, and he is Lord — —”
“Stop, girl!” said the canon, in a loud voice. “We can not allow you to compromise the honour of a gentleman by mentioning his name in his absence.”
John stepped to one of the tables of the governors and took up a pamphlet which lay there. It was the last annual report of Martha’s Vineyard, with a list of its governors and subscribers.
“The girl is suspended,” said the chairman, and reaching for the matron’s book, he signed it and returned it.
“This,” said the canon, “appears to be a case for Mrs. Callender’s Maternity Home at Soho, and with the consent of the board I will request the chaplain to communicate with that lady immediately.”
John Storm had heard, but he made no answer; he was turning over the leaves of the pamphlet.
The canon hemmed and cleared his throat. “Mary Elizabeth Love,” he said, “you have brought a stain upon this honourable and hitherto irreproachable institution, but I trust and believe that ere long, and before your misbegotten child is born, you may see cause to be grateful for our forbearance and our charity. Speaking for myself, I confess it is an occasion of grief to me, and might well, I think, be a cause of sorrow to him who has had your spiritual welfare in his keeping” (here he gave a look toward John), “that you do not seem to realize the position of infamy in which you stand. We have always been taught to think of a woman as sweet and true and pure; a being hallowed to our sympathy by the most sacred associations, and endeared to our love by the tenderest ties, and it is only right” (the canon’s voice was breaking), “it is only right, I say, that you should be told at once, and in this place — though tardily and too late — that for the woman who wrongs that ideal, as you have wronged it, there is but one name known among persons of good credit and good report — a hard name, a terrible name, a name of contempt and loathing — the name of prostitute!”
Crushing the pamphlet in his hand, John Storm had taken a step toward the canon, but he was too late. Some one was there before him. It was Glory. With her head erect and her eyes flashing, she stood between the weeping girl and the black-coated judge, and everybody could see the swelling and heaving of her bosom.
“How dare you!” she cried. “You say you have been taught to think of a woman as sweet and pure. Well, I have been taught to think of a man as strong and brave, and tender and merciful to every living creature, but most of all to a woman, if she is erring and fallen. But you are not brave and tender; you are cruel and cowardly, and I despise you and hate you!”
The men at the tables were rising from their seats.
“Oh, you have discharged my friend,” she said, “and you may discharge me, too, if you like — if you dare! But I will tell everybody that it was because I would not let you insult a poor girl with a cruel and shameful name, and trample upon her when she was down. And everybody will believe me, because it is the truth; and anything else you may say will be a lie, and all the world will know it!”
The matron was shambling up also.
“How dare you, miss! Go back to your ward this instant! Do you know whom you are speaking to?”
“Oh, it’s not the first time I’ve spoken to a clergyman, ma’am. I’m the daughter of a clergyman, and the granddaughter of a clergyman, and I know what a clergyman is when he is brave and good, and gentle and merciful to all women, and when he is a man and a gentleman — not a Pharisee and a crocodile!”
“Please take that girl away,” said the chairman.
But John Storm was by her side in a moment.
“No, sir,” he said, “nobody shall do that.”
But now Glory had broken down too, and the girls, like two lost children, were crying on each other’s breasts. John opened the door and led them up to it.
“Take your friend to her room, nurse: I shall be with you presently.”
Then he turned back to the chairman, still holding the crumpled pamphlet in his hand, and said calmly and respectfully:
“And now that you have finished with the woman, sir, may I ask what you intend to do with the man?”
“What man?”
“Though I did not feel myself qualified to sit in judgment on the broken heart of a fallen girl, I happen to know the name which she was forbidden to mention, and I find it here, sir — here in your list of subscribers and governors.”
“Well, what of it?”
“You have wiped the girl out of your books, sir. Now I ask you to wipe the man out also.”
“Gentlemen,” said the chairman, rising, “the business of the board is at an end.”
XVIII.
John Storm wrote a letter to Mrs. Callender explaining Polly Love’s situation and asking her to call on the girl immediately, and then he went out in search of Lord Robert Ure at the address he had discovered in the report.
He found the man alone on his arrival, but Drake came in soon afterward. Lord Robert received him with a chilly bow; Drake offered his hand coldly; neither of them requested him to sit.
“You are surprised at my visit, gentlemen,” said John, “but I have just now been present at a painful scene, and I thought it necessary that you should know something about it.”
Then he described what had occurred in the board room, and in doing so dwelt chiefly on the abjectness of the girl’s humiliation. Lord Robert stood by the window rapping a tune on the window pane, and Drake sat in a low chair with his legs stretched out and his hands in his trousers pockets.
“But I am at a loss to understand why you have thought it necessary to come here to tell that story,” said Lord Robert.
“Lord Robert,” said John, “you understand me perfectly.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Storm, I do not understand you in the least.”
“Then I will not ask you if you are responsible for the girl’s position.”
“Don’t.”
“But I will ask you a simpler and easier question.”
“What is it?”
“When are you going to marry her?”
Lord Robert burst into ironical laughter and faced round to Drake.
“Well, these men — these curates — their assurance, don’t you know... May I ask your reverence what is your position in this matter — your standing, don’t you know?”
“That of chaplain of the hospital.”
“But you say she has been, turned out of it.”
“Very well, Lord Robert, merely that of a man who intends to protect an injured woman.”
“Oh, I know,” said Lord Robert dryly, “I understand these heroics. I’ve heard of your sermons, Mr. Storm — your interviews with ladies, and so forth.”
“And I have heard of your doings with girls,” said John. “What are you going to do for this one?”
“Exactly what I please.”
“Take care! You know what the girl is. It’s precisely such girls —— At this moment she is tottering on the brink of hell, Lord Robert. If anything further should happen — if you should disappoint her — she is looking to you and building up hopes — if she should fall still lower and destroy herself body and soul — —”
“My dear Mr. Storm, please understand that I shall do everything or nothing for the girl exactly as I think well, don’t you know, without the counsel or coercion of any clergyman.”
There was a short silence, and then John Storm said quietly: “It is no worse than I expected. But I had to hear it from your own lips, and I have heard it. Good-day.”
He went back to the hospital and asked for Glory. She was banished with Polly to the housekeeper’s room. Polly was catching flies on the window (which overlooked the park) and humming, “Sigh no more, ladies.” Glory’s eyes were red with weeping. John drew Glory aside.
“I have written to Mrs. Callender, and she will be here presently,” he said.
“It is useless,” said Glory. “Polly will refuse to go. She expects Lord Robert to come for her, and she wants me to call on Mr. Drake.”
“But I have seen the man myself.”
“Lord Robert?”
“Yes. He will do nothing.”
“Nothing!”
“Nothing, or worse than nothing.”
“Impossible!”
“Nothing of that kind is impossible to men like those.”
“They are not so bad as that though, and even if Lord Robert is all you say, Mr. Drake — —”
“They are friends and housemates, Glory, and what the one is the other must be also.”
“Oh, no. Mr. Drake is quite a different person.”
“Don’t be misled, my child. If there were any real difference between them — —”
“But there is; and if a girl were in trouble or wanted help in anything — —”
“He would drop her, Glory, like an old lottery ticket that has drawn a blank and is done for.”
She was biting her lip, and it was bleeding slightly.
“You dislike Mr. Drake,” she said, “and that is why you can not be just to him. But he is always praising and excusing you, and when any one — —”
“His praises and excuses are nothing to me. I am not thinking of myself. I am thinking — —”
He had a look of intense excitement, and his speaking was abrupt and disconnected.
“You were splendid this morning, Glory, and when I think of the girl who defied that Pharisee, being perhaps herself the victim — The man asked me what my standing was, as if that — But if I had really had a right, if the girl had been anything to me, if she had been somebody else and not a light, shallow, worthless creature, do you know what I should have said to him? ‘Since things have gone so far, sir, you must marry the girl now, and keep to her and be faithful to her, and love her, or else I — —”
“You are flushed and excited, and there is something I do not understand — —”
“Promise me, Glory, that you will break off this bad connection.”
“You are unreasonable. I can not promise.”
“Promise that you will never see these men again.”
“But I must see Mr. Drake at once and arrange about Polly.”
“Don’t mention the man’s name again; it makes my blood boil to hear you speak it!”
“But this is tyranny; and you are worse than the canon; and I can not bear it.”
“Very well; as you will. It’s of no use struggling — What is the time?”
“Six o’clock nearly.”
“I must see the canon before he goes to dinner.”
His manner had changed suddenly. He looked crushed and benumbed.
“I am going now.” he said, turning aside.
