THE VIAL OF WHITE MEDICINE.
Mary Margaret was strangely wakeful, and as her child sunk off to rest,
she left her bed again and stole down the ward to see if her charge
slept. Then the nurse arose and came boldly forward. A strange,
wheedling smile hung around her lips, and there was something in her
look that made Mary Margaret shudder.
“It’s very kind of you, I’m sure, Mrs. Dillon, to be taking all this
trouble for me, that isn’t fit for duty to-night no more than your baby
there. I’m very grateful that you will have an eye to this poor thing,
for my sick headache just uses me up, and the doctor is very particular
about her medicine. If you’d only take charge now while I catch a little
nap, it would be a charity to more than one; but do be particular about
the medicine.”
Mary Margaret was seized with an unaccountable shudder, but she answered
quite naturally, “Sure and I’ll do me best, marm.”
“That’s a good soul; don’t forget the medicine, the directions are all
on the bottles, and—and——”
The voice was husky and unnatural, and all around her mouth settled a
strange pallor, as if the sickness of which she complained had seized
with new force upon her.
“I’ll do my best,” repeated Mary Margaret, and she sat down upon the
foot of the poor young creature’s bed like one who had resolved to guard
it well.
The nurse went half-way to her chair in the corner, and turned back with
her face from the light.
“In fifteen minutes it will be time to give her first dose,” she said,
still huskily, and with an effort; “a teaspoonful, don’t forget.”
“I’ll not forget, will I, me purty darlint?” answered Mary Margaret,
folding the two pale hands of the invalid between her palms, and gazing
upon her with kindly mournfulness.
The nurse stumbled back to her corner as if worn out with her headache,
and sat brooding there, sometimes with her eyes closed, sometimes with
that basilisk glance peering out from above her folded arms. She
reminded you of a rattlesnake watching amid its own coils.
Mary Margaret caught these glances once or twice without appearing to
regard them, but they kept her intellect upon the alert, and without
knowing exactly what she was to guard against, the good woman felt that
harm was around her, and that the evil thing must find her watching. A
slight change in her position threw the light directly across the chair
upon which the cups and vials used about the sick had been placed, and
where she had left her basin of weak tea.
Without having consciously made the discovery, Mary Margaret became
aware that the only vial which stood upon the chair had been moved, and
that its contents, a pale wine color, had become white as water. Still
the vial was the same, and as she bent over softly to read the label,
that was also unchanged, a “teaspoonful every hour.” This was what she
read and had seen before while searching for drink among the empty cups.
Why was this? For what object had the contents of that vial been
changed? Who _could_ have done it but the nurse, and why _had_ she done
it? Then Mary Margaret began to ponder over the change in nurse Kelly’s
manner—the sudden favor into which she had fallen, and an unaccountable
antipathy to give the medicine in that bottle seized upon her.
“Isn’t it time to give the medicine?” asked a low voice from the corner.
“It should be given on the stroke of the hour.”
“Yes!” answered Mary Margaret, with a start, “it’s time.”
She turned her back toward the nurse and received the light over her
shoulder. A pewter spoon lay upon the chair. She held up the vial, and,
pouring a few drops into the spoon, drank it herself with a rash
determination to know, if possible, what the drug was before she
administered it. It left a strong taste of opium in her mouth; and,
quick as thought, she remembered that morphine was colorless, that a few
drops would kill, and she had been directed to give that frail creature
a teaspoonful.
Mary Margaret shuddered from head to foot. The blood seemed curdling in
her veins; her plump fingers grew cold as she clasped the vial. How much
had she drank? Would those few drops be her death? No, no, they could
not be enough. She felt sure that God would not let her perish there in
the midst of her duty.
“Have you given her the medicine?” asked the hoarse voice again from the
clouded corner.
“Not—not yet. I—I am pouring it out,” was the reply, and setting down
the vial, she hastily poured out some tea into another spoon and gave it
to the patient, who smiled gratefully as the moisture crept through her
lips.
“Has she drank it?” asked the nurse, starting up as Mary Margaret
settled the invalid back upon her pillow.
“You see!” answered Mary, pointing to the moist lips of the girl.
The nurse pushed her away between the cots, saw the vial with its cork
out and moisture about the neck, and her white lips broke into a half
smile, so cold, so deadly, that Mary Margaret shrunk back as if a snake
were creeping across her feet.
Still the woman did not seem quite satisfied, but took up the spoon, out
of which Mary Margaret had drank, and touched her tongue to the bowl.
“Oh!” she said, rather in a deep breath than with words, “oh! now watch,
and I will go to bed a while. If she sleeps, let her!—if she wakes up,
call me.”
“And if she is worse, where can I find the doctor?” asked Mary, gazing
wistfully at her enemy through the lamp-light, and shuddering at the
strange sensations that she fancied to be creeping over her. “The
doctor, where is he?”
“Call _me_ if you want any one. Bellevue doctors don’t come to the beck
and call of their pauper patients.”
“But I must have a doctor!” persisted Mary.
“_Must!_” echoed the woman, turning deadly white.
“Oh!” and with a slow, cat-like movement she crept back to the bed,
lingered over the pillow an instant and disappeared, carrying the vial
of medicine with her.
Poor Mary Margaret scarcely saw it. Her eyes were growing so heavy, and
an oppressive languor weighed down her limbs. She forgot every thing,
even the fair young mother, who opened her eyes and asked so meekly for
drink again. All that the poor woman hoped for now was power to get back
to her own pauper cot and die close to her baby. She thought nothing of
the strange nursling then, for all the feeling left unnumbed in her
heart turned to her own offspring.
Half unconsciously she gave the invalid some drink, and then moved with
slow, leaden steps across the floor. It seemed as if she had been
walking miles when she reached the bed, and turned back the blankets
with her heavy hand. The two infants were huddled together below the
pillows. One was her own child: with that she wished to lie down and
sleep; but the other, it must not perish with her, some one must care
for it, but who?
Heavier and heavier grew her brain; still, kind thoughts lingered there
last. She took up the strange baby, staggered with it down the ward, and
laid it softly into the fair bosom of the young girl but late so
feverish and delirious.
“It must not starve, and it must not die,” said Mary Margaret, in her
thick, fettered speech. “Take care of it. I—I must take no baby but my
own.”
And with a still slower and more dragging step, Margaret went back to
her cot, fell down, and became senseless as stone.
The sick girl grew calm as Mary became more and more like the dead. Her
slender arms clasped themselves like vine tendrils around the child. A
smile stole over her mouth, and a cool moisture crept, like dew upon the
leaves of a lily, over her neck and forehead. With sweet, drowsy
fondness, she drew the little creature closer and closer to her
bosom—gave out one long sigh of exquisite satisfaction, and murmured
some words which sounded, in their sweet indistinctness, like the cooing
of a ring-dove.
The fever had abated. That wicked nurse was struggling in vain for the
sleep that had fallen so calmly on her intended victim. Thus with bland,
healthful life closing around her, the young creature was left to her
pure motherhood, dreaming that her own child had crept back close, close
to her bosom, from which the pain was melting away in soft warm drops,
which broke like pearls between the infant’s lips.