A CHARITABLE CROSS-EXAMINATION.
While Catharine reflected, that woman’s cold eyes were upon her,
passionless and steady as if she quietly enjoyed the crimson as it
flushed and paled on her face.
At last Catharine gave her maiden name, but it was in a low, faltering
voice, and with a sharp struggle to keep the tears from her eyes.
“You are single, of course?” questioned the woman, suspiciously eying
her from head to foot.
“No, I have been married.”
“And is this your husband’s name?”
Catharine clasped her hands so tightly, that the blood left them even to
the rounded nails. She looked at Mary Margaret and at her cold, hard
questioner, as if she would have asked pity even with those eyes upon
her.
“No,” she answered, at last, “it is not his name; I have never borne
it.”
“Why?”
“We were married privately, and without his mother’s consent.”
“I thought so—I was sure of it,” exclaimed the woman, softly, caressing
her hands again, as if they had detected the wrong in this young girl’s
character, and she was assuring them of her approbation. “And so you
were married privately, without his mother’s consent, and without
certificate, I dare say?”
“No, I had a certificate,” replied Catharine, with tears of shame and
anger in her eyes. “I had a certificate, but it is gone—lost or stolen,
I suppose.”
“Lost or stolen—where?”
“At the hospital, when I was sick.”
“Oh! ha. So you have been in the institution. I thought so—I thought
so!” cried the woman, with cold exultation. “In what ward did they place
you?”
Catharine did not shrink or tremble now. There was nothing in the
remembrance of her maternal anguish and bereavement, to burn her cheek
with shame, though it might be blanched with sorrow. She answered
firmly, but in a low voice,—
“I was a wife, and they put me among those who had become mothers in
their poverty.”
“A wife—a mother—and no certificate—that seems strange;—and you even say
it to me, me—a lady whose life has been one series of the most perfect
rectitude—me, President of this Board, a person who has passed through
the very dregs of sin in her pious search after objects of charity, and
kept herself white as snow all the time. Are you not afraid that these
uncontaminated boards will shrink apart beneath your feet, as they
witness this attempt to impose on us?”
Catharine had learned “to suffer and grow strong.” Child as she was in
all worldly things, there lay a power in her nature that rose to defend
the innocence thus coarsely arraigned. She was pale, but it was a proud,
calm pallor, which told how powerfully the blood had flowed back upon
her heart, as an army gathers around a citadel when fiercely assailed.
“I have not attempted to impose on you, madam. Circumstances may be
against me; still, you know in your innermost heart that what I have
said is the truth. But why do you ask these questions? Who gives you
authority to tear out the secrets from a human soul, before you will
extend help to a fellow-creature who only asks the means of earning her
own bread in humble peace? What if I were all that you think me, a weak,
betrayed, or, if you will, a wicked young creature—am I the less an
object of charity, or of kindness? Have I ceased to be a human being
with human wants? Was it thus that our Saviour received the erring and
the sinful? Is it thus that our God deals with them here, and at this
day? Does he forbid them to earn their bread by honest labor, because of
sins that may have been repented of? Does he withhold the sunshine, the
rain, and the blossoms of the earth from their enjoyment? I ask you
again, would it be a just reason for withholding food and shelter from
me, if I _had_ done all the wrong you suspect?”
The Lady-Philanthropist really seemed a little moved. A vague
speculation came into her eyes, and the yellowish-white of her
complexion became ashen; but it was with rage at this unheard-of
audacity, not with any gentle acknowledgment of the truth in that young
creature’s words.
As Catharine ceased speaking, the woman of many virtues folded the skirt
of her dress closer about her person, as if to shield herself from the
contagion of such sinful audacity, and sunk into a cold, Pharisaical
attitude again.
“Oh,” she said, with her eyes lifted devoutly to the cornice, “I
sometimes wonder that these sacred walls—yes, I may be excused for
calling them sacred, for are they not consecrated to charity?—I
sometimes wonder that these walls do not fall down and crush the
audacious wickedness that sometimes intrudes itself here. Young person,
it is not that you have committed this heinous wrong which offends me.
Our society is founded in sin, and established in iniquity. Our mission
is more particularly to the sinful, and from them is derived our chief
glory; but every one who comes here must contribute something to the
cause. Are you willing to become an example, to confess your manifold
sins, and give the particulars of your dissolute life, that they can be
advertised in the public prints, and embodied in our own annual reports,
setting forth the repentance which our kindness and prayers have wrought
in you, and the heroism with which you published your crimes that others
may take warning? By this means, my dear child, you will not only be
snatched as a brand from the burning, but the cause will be
strengthened, and means will flow in to secure other cases like your
own; by this confession, our country friends, who have done so much for
the regeneration of this vile city, will be satisfied that we are up and
doing, in season and out of season.”
The woman had arisen and taken Catharine’s hand in both hers, during the
latter portion of this speech. The cold tears dropped, one by one, from
her eyes, and rolled with sanctimonious slowness down her cheeks.
“What is it that you desire of me?” said Catharine, bewildered by this
solemn acting. “What have I done?”
“What do I desire? Why, that you confess and forsake your sin, but
especially confess. I am ready and willing to take down every word of
the fearful narrative, as it falls from your lips. Oh! my dear child,
you have it in your power to aid us in accomplishing a great work—begin,
dear child, begin!”
The woman seated herself at the table, and took up a steel pen, sharp
and hard as herself, which she dipped in an inkstand, shook lightly, and
held ready to pounce on a sheet of paper, already arranged, the moment
Catharine’s lips should unclose.
“Come, my poor, sweet child, don’t hesitate; take up the cross and
begin; what was the first step?”
“Madam, I do not understand. What do you wish me to say? I have done
wrong in marrying my husband without the consent of his mother, but
beyond this I have nothing but grief and poverty to confess!”
Again the tears rolled down that woman’s face. She sighed heavily and
shrouded her forehead with one hand. Then she shook her head, and looked
mournfully at the two women, muttering something in a solemn undertone.
At last she lifted up her head, and smiled benignly.
“I see. This is a case that requires time. I will lay it before the
Board. Doubtless the good seed has been planted in our conversation,
today, and the sisters will strengthen my hands to reap in due season.”
“Then you will find the sweet crathur a place and recommend her
entirely!” exclaimed Mary Margaret, coming to the point at once.
“We will, as I have just said, take her case into consideration,”
replied the directress, blandly. “You can go home, good woman, for
according to your light I do not doubt that you are good. This person
can remain here; I should prefer to have her directly under my own
care.”
Mary Margaret hesitated, and looked wistfully at Catharine, who returned
the glance with a look of gentle submission that went to the poor
woman’s heart.
“I’ll come to-morrow, and bring both the babies with me, niver fear,”
she said, struggling to keep back her tears; “and remember, darlint, if
the worst comes to the worst, there’s the shanty and the childer, where
ye’ll be welcome as the blissed sunshine every day of the year. So don’t
be down-hearted, or put upon by that cowld-hearted lady, or the likes of
her, any how.”
The latter portion of this speech was delivered in a whisper; and
wringing Catharine’s hand, Mary Margaret went out, with some new ideas
of professional philanthropy that puzzled her honest brain not a little.
A motherly old woman passed her in the hall. She was dressed in black
silk and had an old-fashioned Methodist bonnet on, which varied but
slightly from those worn by strict Quakers, and which are lost sight of
now, save by a few old primitive Wesleyans, like the woman we are
introducing.
The old woman stood aside, to allow the Irish woman a free passage, and
looked after her with a kind, genial smile, which almost asked if the
great-hearted Christian could do the Irish woman any good.
Mary Margaret understood the look and answered it at once.
“If ye could only say a kind word for the young crathur in yonder now,”
she whispered, confidentially, “she’s as innocent as a baby, and so
handy about house; if ye could only take her home with yoursel’ now,
it’d be like letting the blissed sunshine into yer door.”
“Who is it?” questioned Mrs. Barr,—“a child?”
“Almost, and yet she’s been the mother of a child.”
“Poor thing!” said the old lady.
“You may well say that—but she’s the innocentest crathur in the wide
world. So please believe everything she says. It’s true, every word of
it.”
The old woman looked into Mary Margaret’s eyes an instant, searchingly,
but with kindness, and answered,—
“Yes, if you say it is true, I shall believe it.”
“God bless ye forever and ever for that same!” exclaimed the Irish woman
warmly, and she went out, satisfied that she had obtained a friend for
her protégé.