SEEKING FOR HELP.
Catharine was content in her new home. She had been so completely worn
out with suffering and excitement, that any place, which insured quiet
and rest, was a heaven to her.
Besides, she found objects of interest in that humble shanty that won
her thoughts quietly from her own grief. She was so young and naturally
so hopeful, that anything calculated to arouse affection in her nature
visited it with soft healing. The nurse’s child awoke her heart from its
sorrow with a strange influence, thrilling and sweet. She would hold it
fondly on her lap, smooth its silken hair with her fingers, kiss its
soft lips, its sleepy eyes, and its plump little foot, with an outgush
of tenderness that seemed more than motherly. With all her gratitude to
Mary Margaret, she could not so caress and love her loud-voiced, hearty
little boy. She could not even grieve over the loss of her own child,
with that little creature lifting its soft, wondering eyes to her own so
earnestly.
Catharine loved to sit in the back door of the shanty—with the mock
orange-vine and the morning-glories framing her in, as if she had been
one of those golden-haired Madonnas that Guido loved to paint, creations
that seem half air, half light—and caress the child, that was joy enough
for her.
Mary Margaret being out most of the day, Catharine was left to the
healthful influences of these tender associations. She was still very
pale, and her eyes were circled with shadows, like those that trembled
upon the wall from the half-open morning-glories, but she began to feel
less desolate, and as if neither God nor man had entirely forsaken her.
With all her gentleness and delicacy, Catharine had become precocious in
many things. She had many firm and settled thoughts beyond her years.
Suffering had done a holy work with that young soul, and while the dews
of first youth were on her nature, she was rich in pure womanly
principle. She felt that it was wrong to remain a burden on her poor
friends. Yet when she thought of going, a pang smote her, and it seemed
as if her young heart must be uprooted afresh before she could give the
child up.
Poor, motherless girl, and childless mother! She was not yet eighteen,
and so delicate that it seemed as if a blast of air might prostrate her.
Two weeks passed in comparative tranquillity. No one inquired after
Catharine; and she might have been dead for all her former friends knew
or cared about the matter. Her aunt believed her to be with Madame De
Marke, and that wicked old woman neither asked, nor cared, what had
befallen her.
One morning, before Mary Margaret went out to her day’s work, Catharine
spoke of her determination to find employment for herself. At first, the
kind woman objected, but her good sense directly came into action, and
she saw how impossible it was that a creature so superior should be long
content with a life in her humble abode.
But what could Catharine do? She understood a little of millinery and
ornamental needle-work, but well she knew the precariousness of
resources like these to a homeless female. One thing was certain, she
must henceforth depend on herself. Her relatives had forsaken her. The
husband whom she had so fatally trusted was gone, she knew not
whither—gone, she had been told, to avoid her, and to cast off the
responsibilities which were to burden her so fatally. This was the
bitter drop in Catharine’s cup. This was the arrow that pierced her,
wherever she turned. She could not entirely believe evil of the man she
had loved, but her soul was troubled with a doubt more painful than
certainty.
Still, something must be done. She could not remain there, a helpless
burden upon the industry of others.
Mary Margaret entered into her feelings with prompt tact. But what step
could be taken? With no one to recommend her, scarcely possessed of
decent clothes to wear, without the power to explain the miseries of her
condition, who would receive her? These considerations daunted even Mary
Margaret, but at last a bright idea seized upon the good woman; she
began to see her way out of the difficulty.
“There are societies,” she said, “in New York, with oceans of money,
just got up for the purpose of helping innocent crathurs when the world
casts them adrift. What if Catharine applied to one of these societies?
The directors were all ladies that would, of course, have feeling for
their fellow-creatures.” Margaret had seen their names in the papers,
and that was a crown of glory in her estimation.
Catharine brightened with the idea. A band of benevolent women, with
abundant means and gentle compassion, ready for poor wanderers like her.
It promised to be an oasis in the desert of her life. In every one of
those women she imagined an angel of mercy ready to receive and comfort
her.
It seemed a great blessing that so much benevolence could be
concentrated at one point, harvesting year after year for the good of
humanity. Yes! she would apply to this society; if destitution and
misery was a claim, where could a better right than hers be found? These
angel-women would give her employment, they would point out some way of
usefulness that she could pursue in peace.
Mary Margaret gave up her day’s work, and accompanied Catharine to the
home of benevolence. It would have done your heart good to hear those
unsophisticated creatures congratulating each other that so much good
yet existed in the world, and that women could be found willing to
devote their fortunes and precious time to the helpless and the
unfortunate.
“Of course,” said Mary Margaret, “they’ll see the whole truth in yer
innocent eyes at once, and all ye’ll have to do ’ill be just to hold out
yer hand and take the money that their blissed hearts ’ill be jumpen to
give. I shouldn’t wonder now,” continued the good woman, warming with
her subject, “if one of the ladies should insist on takin’ ye into her
own house and makin’ a lady on ye entirely.”
Catharine smiled. There was something so hopeful in her companion’s
voice, that she could not help yielding to its influence, though her
heart was very heavy at the thought of leaving the poor orphan child,
who had woven itself so closely around her wounded affections.
At length their walk terminated. Mary Margaret rang, with no abatement
of confidence, at the door of a large house, occupied by one of the
principal officers of a society abundantly endowed by the trusting
charity of many Christian women—generous, noble women, who, like our two
friends, fancied that an institution like this could only be guarded by
angels on earth, long-suffering, self-sacrificing angels, whose holy
mission common mortals must not dare to investigate, much less condemn.
The door was opened by a woman, who received them with an air peculiar
to those who have been inmates of our penitentiaries. Her manner was
subdued into a sleek, unnatural quietness, more revolting than her
original audacity would have been.
“The lady-directress was within,” she said, “but engaged just then. They
could sit down in the hall and wait, if they liked, or come again.”
There was something about the atmosphere of the house that chilled
Catharine to the soul, and even Mary Margaret, whose faith in humanity
would have extracted sunbeams from a snow-drift, felt anxious and
depressed.
The hall was very cold, and they were chilled with the wind of a bleak
November day. Catharine shivered beneath her thin shawl, and Mary
Margaret insisted on folding a portion of her own gray cloak around her,
using this as an excuse for a hearty embrace or two, which left the poor
girl a little less nervous and disconsolate than she would have been.
Once or twice a side-door opened, and some poor, want-stricken woman
came out, and moved slowly toward the front door. Catharine observed
that there was a look of angry defiance on one face, and that another
was bathed in tears. She wondered strangely at this. Why should the poor
women go away from a place like that, angry or weeping? These thoughts
made her shrink closer to Mary Margaret, and she longed to ask that kind
creature to leave the place and take her home again.
Three persons had come out from the side-door, and gone forth to the
street with sullen, discontented faces, when our two friends were
summoned from the hall.