THE HOSPITAL NURSE.
Late in the evening, the hospital nurse, who had been an evil actor in
the scene we have just described, stood, with a smoking lamp in her
hand, in a closet or store-room where the patient’s garments were kept.
From one of the shelves she took a bundle tied up in a coarse woollen
shawl, and drew forth a long merino cloak that had evidently found its
origin in old Ireland. She folded the cloak cautiously around her, and
selecting a bonnet from a score or two that filled a side press, she
tied a green veil closely over it. Then she extinguished her lamp,
finding her way out by the glow of its smouldering wick, and leaving a
cloud of offensive smoke to deepen the already unpleasant atmosphere of
the room.
The woman had evidently intended to disguise herself, and she stole like
a thief down the dark passages of the building, avoiding the officers
and keeping close to the shadow whenever she came within the range of a
light, like one who feared to be seen.
At last she came out into the grounds in front of the hospital. The moon
was up, but hidden occasionally by masses of clouds that cumbered the
sky with a darkness that threatened snow. The woman waited under the
shadow of the steps till a heap of these clouds had completely obscured
the moon, and then darted out, taking a central walk that led from the
principal entrance to Bellevue down to the water.
A grape-arbor, at the time of our story, ran half-way down this walk,
covering it, even in winter, with a thousand gnarled and twisted vines,
that kept, the light away and afforded the obscurity of which she seemed
so desirous.
Here she paused, and heaving a deep breath, walked more leisurely
forward, drawing her veil closer, and folding the cloak over her
garments more resolutely as she approached the open grounds again.
As she came forth, the moon had waded half through the bank of clouds,
that had overwhelmed it for a moment, and began to pour its faint silver
along their edges, a sight beautiful to look upon, but very repulsive to
the woman, who wanted no radiance and could expect no beauty on the dark
path she had begun to tread.
Resolved to be in advance of the threatened illumination, she darted in
a slanting direction across a range of garden beds, that lay, a mass of
trodden mud and decaying vegetable stumps, between her and the southern
wall.
Again she was in safety, though the moon had rolled forth into the clear
of the sky once more, and all around was dimly illuminated. She stood in
the shadow cast by a low, stone building, half buried behind heaps of
coal, empty barrels, and all sorts of refuse lumber that had been
allowed to accumulate in that portion of the grounds.
Another might have trembled and shrunk back appalled from the position
in which this woman found herself. It was late at night, and she stood
in the very presence of death. The atmosphere was heavy and so
oppressive, that even in the clear cold of the night, a faintness crept
over her, not from fear, not from any over-excitement of the nerves, but
purely from the unwholesome air that she breathed.
She knew that the low stone building was heaped with the dead, prepared
for burial with such scant care as the pauper receives. She knew, also,
that there was an epidemic in the hospital, and that this store-house of
mortality was unusually crowded; but this gave her no uneasiness, and
she shook off the sickness that oppressed her, with a sort of scorn, as
if she and death had become too familiar for him to take such liberties
with her.
The effect which habit produces upon a coarse nature, was repulsively
visible here. The woman stood within a narrow path, over which the
dead-house flung its repulsive shadow. On the other side the moonbeams
fell, grim and ghastly, revealing double rows of rough pine coffins,
lifted endwise, and arranged in hideous proximity, so far as the dim
light would permit her to see.
Thus between these hollow receptacles prepared for the dead, and death
itself, the woman walked, the moonlight revealing the suggestive horror
on one hand, while a dense shadow and a thick wall of stone shut out the
real horror close by.
But what cared the hospital nurse for this? The coffins on her right, so
glistening and ghastly, were nothing but a heap of pine boards fashioned
in a fantastic shape to her. The building simply a grim pile of stone,
which cast a convenient shadow for her to walk in. She rather resented
the closeness of the atmosphere, but scorned to walk faster, and cast it
off with a sort of defiant toss of the head, muttering that “she could
stand anything, and wasn’t to be frightened by shadows, not she!”
Thus picking her steps leisurely, she went down this valley of death;
and secure of not being discovered from the hospital windows, passed
through a gate, in the wall near the water, which had most conveniently
been left unlocked by the porter.
Once free of the hospital walls, Jane Kelly moved on with more
resolution. An omnibus stood at its station on one of the avenues. She
entered it, and seating herself in an extreme corner, subsided, to all
appearances, into a state of passive indifference.
The omnibus heaved and rumbled on its way, receiving here and there a
woman of the lower classes, or a half intoxicated man passing home to
his family after a primary meeting or a reunion in some corner grocery.
The hospital nurse got out where Nassau Street verges from Chatham, and
disappeared after walking half a dozen blocks down one of the cross
streets. We find her again threading her way up through the darkness of
a large building, divided into offices and rooms of various sizes,
mostly untenanted at that hour of the night. The passages were
profoundly dark; the staircase narrow, winding in and out with no regard
to architectural rules; in some places considerably out of repair, while
in others bits of coal and peanut husks crunched underfoot, and gave
evidence of a general state of untidiness perceptible even in the dark.
At last the woman came to a wooden door, at which she paused. A gleam of
light stole through a crevice over the threshold, and struggled around
an iron key half turned in the lock. With this came a faint noise as of
some person moving within.
Jane Kelly knocked at this door, rather timidly, as if she were a little
uncertain about the place she sought.
There was no answer. But the noise of a moving chair, and a shuffle of
feet as if approaching the door, kept Jane Kelly stationary. After some
delay the door was partially opened and a face looked through.
“Who are you? What do you want here with a veil on that nobody can see
through? Go away,” said a sharp, angry voice.
“You told me to come!” said the woman, lifting her veil and bending
forward that her features might be seen.
“Not at this time of night,” cried the voice, which now exhibited a
slightly foreign accent; and, without having really seen the face
presented for her inspection, the woman who owned it was about to close
the door entirely.
“You don’t know me. I came from Bellevue,” said the nurse; “you told me
to come, and I’m here.”
“Bellevue, Bellevue. Oh! and in the night. Come in; has anything
happened? anybody dead, eh?”
The door was flung open more generously, and the visitor half pulled,
half invited through.