IN SAMARIA.
The season, I have said, was wearing on, and, with waning summer, the
heat increased to an intensity almost tropical. There are few parts of
Europe where the atmosphere can be more suffocating than in London
during dog-days, although while everybody goes about gasping, fainting,
bewailing the temperature, nobody seems to dream of putting off ball,
drum, dinner, or other festive gathering to a cooler date.
The July sun glared pitilessly down on square, street, and crescent, to
be refracted with tenfold power from walls and pavements; the Park was a
burnished waste, Mayfair an oven, and Belgravia a furnace. Cabmen plied
in their shirt-sleeves, foot passengers put up their umbrellas, the
water-carts disappeared altogether, and supply for once seemed
inadequate to demand in the matter of beer.
If people drooped and languished in spacious drawing-rooms with
sun-blinds, thorough draughts, fans, and all other appliances against
the heat, what must that numerous class of our fellow-citizens have felt
who live in stifling lodgings, stewing parlours over the kitchen and
almost in the street, retired two-pair backs with eighteen inches of
window, dusty carpets, heavy bed-furniture, and utter hopelessness of
ventilation unaccompanied by showers of soot?
It is two o'clock in the day, the dinner-beer has been taken in and
consumed, bare-armed artizans with short black pipes smoked out, are
leaning and loitering at door-steps and window-ledge, doubtful whether
to make holiday for the rest of the afternoon. A distant hum of
children, like the drone of insects in a flower-garden, pervades the
quarter; for the energy of childhood is irrepressible by atmospheric
influences, but their hard-worked mothers are snatching a brief repose,
and for a space, even their tongues are still. An omnibus has stopped at
the corner public-house while the horses are watered, a costermonger is
fast asleep in his barrow by the roadside, and a drowsy, dreary torpor
seems to pervade one of those narrow, tortuous streets that wind in an
easterly direction from the Marlborough Road, S.W.
In the second floor of a shabby little house, a window stands as wide
open as it can be propped by a bit of wood, and from that window, with a
weary sigh, speaking volumes of patience, suffering, and sorrow, turns
Miss Ross, to take her seat once more by the side of a low sofa-bed, and
watch a toss of black curls, a little wan, pinched face, with a dull
aching pain about her heart, that grows and strengthens as hope fades,
and dies out, day by day. Poor Jin's own face has turned very white and
thin too. Her features are sharpened, and the black eyes seem large, out
of all proportion; yet never in the days gone by, when they flashed with
coquetry, or sparkled with wit, did they possess so rare a charm, as the
soft and tender lustre that shines in them now.
"It's cooler, dear, isn't it?" said she, pushing those dark curls off
the pale little brow. "And mamma wasn't going to leave her pet--was she?
Did Gustave think mamma could fly out at the window?" She tried to speak
lightly, anything to woo a smile from the sick child, but he only
replied by turning pettishly away, and burrowing his face in the pillow,
while he murmured, "Not leave Johnnie--Johnnie wants his shoes--wants to
be dressed and taken away." As he got weaker, he resisted and entirely
repudiated the name of Gustave, and although he had nearly forgotten
Mrs. Mole, would only acknowledge his own identity as the "Johnnie" who
had been so christened in the cottage by the river-side.
The boy caught cold on that eventful evening when Miss Ross carried him
off, and had never regained strength. The cold turned to low fever, and
hour by hour, in those long broiling summer's days, he seemed to get
gradually but surely weaker. He was fractious, though naturally
sweet-tempered, restless without being in pain; there seemed no tangible
organic malady, such as could be watched, fought against, overcome, but
he drooped like a flower, and so drooping, well-nigh broke his mother's
heart.
She never forgave herself, that the child had been exposed to rain on
the evening she took him away. Arriving in London she at once sought
this obscure locality, renting, indeed, the best rooms in the house, and
sparing no expense for the comfort and convenience of her boy. By
degrees, in addition to fears for his life, she had to face the anxiety
of a waning purse, and the terrible consideration of what was to become
of them both when her money was gone. The most skilful doctor in the
neighbourhood was called in at a guinea a visit; very often he wouldn't
take his guinea; very often there would have been none forthcoming, had
he wanted it. For a time, they lived on Jin's wardrobe, her watch, her
jewels, by degrees the sources of supply began to fail. Then she moved
herself and her boy up-stairs. First, she had the whole second floor,
then she gave up the other room, and, inhabiting one small apartment
with her sick child, devoted to him her time, her energies, her whole
existence, as she often thought, with sad, cold forebodings, in vain.
She starved, she pinched, she denied herself every luxury, almost every
necessary, of life; but she never regretted what she had done, and she
never lost courage.
"If Gustave gets well," she used to think, "I can work for him and me as
I did before. If I can only struggle on till then, how happy I shall be.
I shall have saved my boy. How could he but have been ruined under the
care of that bad man? I shall have saved myself, for it is this poor
patient angel who makes me good. And Frank, dear Frank! I shall have
saved _you_!--you whom I loved better than myself! Ah! I have done well
by you, and you will never know it. _Qu'est que ça fait?_ It is
finished, and there's an end of it. If my darling dies, what signifies
anything? I shall soon die too! They will surely let me keep him in the
next world. I who have had so little of him in this!"
Like the rest of us, she made for herself a future, all the brighter, no
doubt, that the present seemed so cheerless and forlorn.
If the boy could only get well before her money was spent, if there was
only enough left to defray the journey, she would carry him off with her
to sunny France, there to live the old life, amongst the old scenes in
the old familiar way.
Her voice was still fresh, clear, and more powerful than ever; she need
not surely seek long for an engagement, and under a false name, in those
great southern towns, how was she to be traced or identified? She might
defy Picard, she might even baffle the inquiries of Frank Vanguard, if,
indeed, he loved her well enough to try and seek her out. The tears
would come thick to her eyes while she pictured his sorrow and anxiety
on her behalf, but she never wavered in her determination of keeping up
an eternal barrier between them, and of devoting her whole existence
henceforth to her child. Had she known how Frank accepted her loss with
an uncomplaining resignation, very far short of despair, waking up, as
it were, from a dream, with a feeling that, after all, things might have
been worse, it is possible she would have shown less resolution; but
believing _him_ to be inconsolable, she felt herself impracticable and
pitiless as adamant. Who shall say how far such dreams helped her to
bear the nursing, the watching, the fatigue, the heavy anxious days, the
long, weary hours of those sultry, sleepless nights?
Except to go for medicine, for arrowroot, or to summon the doctor on
some fresh alarm, Jin never stirred across the threshold, nor drew a
breath of fresher air than could be obtained at the window of the
sick-chamber.
Amongst other womanly trinkets and trifles, she had a large fan left, of
small money value, but admirably adapted to its purpose. Under the
judicious application of this instrument, the child gradually became
cooler and less feverish. At length, with a few drowsy murmurs, in which
"Mamma" and "Moley" were mixed up unintelligibly, the empty phial that
had served him for a toy dropped from his poor little wasted fingers,
and he went to sleep. Then Jin, bethinking her that the phial must be
refilled according to medical directions, sought out the prescription,
caught up her bonnet and parasol, drew on her last pair of gloves, and
stole down-stairs, leaving the door ajar, while impressing on the
maid-of-all-work that she must peep in every five minutes to see if the
little invalid were still asleep; she herself would not be gone a
quarter of an hour.
I don't care how hard a woman is worked, I never knew one yet but could
make time to look after a child. From the little girl of three, who
carries a doll as big as herself, to the aged dame of threescore, who
has been dandling children and children's children all her life, not one
of the sex but handles an infant with instinctive dexterity, such as no
amount of mere practice could insure. Even the sourest old maid may be
intrusted with a baby; nor is there the slightest fear that she will
crease it, drop it, or carry it upside down. The poor drudge who
answered Jin's summons with grimy hands and unwashed face, would have
liked nothing better than to tend Gustave morning, noon, and night. She
only hoped Miss Ross would stay out the whole afternoon.
It was a relief to emerge from the narrow street, and, after five
minutes' walk, to cross the Fulham Road. Even that suburban thoroughfare
seemed to glitter with life and motion after the gloomy sick-room, and
the dull monotony on which its single window looked out. But Jin had no
time to spare, and was speedily in the chemist's shop waiting for her
prescription to be made up.
The young man behind the counter, clean, curly, smug, and white-handed,
was affable and considerate. "Take a seat, miss," said he, pointing to a
high cane chair. "You seem fatigued like, and faint. The weather, miss,
is uncommon hot this season. Very trying to some constitutions.
Directly, miss. Certainly. Quite a simple prescription. Shall be made up
in five minutes. Address on the phial, I see. Allow me to send it for
you."
Poor Jin, faint and weak from watching and exhaustion, protested feebly
against this arrangement; glad to sit down, nevertheless, for her knees
knocked together, and she trembled from top to toe.
A dreadful misgiving came across her of what was to be done if she
should fall ill too; but Jin was not a nervous person, and felt almost
capable of keeping off bodily disorder by a strong effort of the will.
In the mean time, the young man, hiding his curly head first in one
drawer, then in another, brayed certain mysterious compounds in a
mortar, and, dissolving the nauseous mixture, poured it into a fresh
bottle, packing the whole carefully in paper, with string and
sealing-wax, not handing it to Miss Ross till, in spite of her
impatience, he had copied, in fair and legible writing, the whole label
attached to the discarded vessel. This last bore no name, but on it were
minute directions as to how the draught must be taken, and the address
at which it was to be left.
There was less to pay than she expected; but she had not intended to be
absent from her boy so long, and, seizing the packet with impatience,
dashed out of the shop to hurry home.
There was no shady side of the street. An afternoon sun beat fiercely on
her raven hair, not in the least protected by the wisp of lace, with a
leaf in it, that constituted her bonnet. She had slept but little in the
last forty-eight hours, and eaten less. Crossing the Fulham Road,
everything seemed to turn round with her; the roar, as of a thousand
carriages, surged in her ears. She thought she was being run over, and,
making an effort to reach the kerbstone, staggered, tripped, and fell.
A very handsome horse, with too much plating on his harness, was pulled
hard on his haunches; a brougham, painted and varnished like a new toy,
stood still with a jerk, and a woman's voice from the interior
exclaimed, in high accents of condemnation and command:
"Why don't you stop, you infernal idiot? You've knocked the woman down,
and now you want to drive over her!"
Kate Cremorne habitually jumped at conclusions. On the present occasion
she jumped also out of her carriage, with exceeding promptitude, and
lifted Miss Ross off the ground almost before the bystanders knew the
latter had fallen. Glancing at the packet still clutched tightly in her
hand, she summoned a benevolent drayman to the rescue, and, with the
assistance of that worthy, who testified unqualified approval of the
whole proceeding, and called both ladies "pretty dears" more than once
during its performance, placed the poor drooping sufferer in the
carriage, and directed her groom to drive without delay--"like smoke," I
am afraid, was the expression she used--to the address she had so
quickly mastered. Then, and not till then, she produced smelling-bottle,
fan, and laced handkerchief to restore her charge to consciousness.
In Brompton, you see, as in Samaria of old, are to be found those who
bear in mind the great parable that has made the name of Samaritan
synonymous with the most Christian-like of all Christian virtues.
Had Kate "passed on, on the other side," she would not have spoiled an
extremely expensive morning-dress; she would not have been too late for
one of the fastest and liveliest of Richmond dinner-parties; she would
not have missed the man of all others in London who most wished to meet
_her_. But to none of these did she give a thought nor a sigh while she
bathed Jin's pale temples with eau-de-cologne, and rested the dark
drooping head on her snowy bosom, pressing it to her own warm, wilful,
reckless, restless heart.
It was not till they reached her remote and shabby refuge, that Miss
Ross came thoroughly to herself; but even then she looked so white and
ill, that Kate would not hear of leaving her, but insisted on helping
her up-stairs, and taking command at once as superintendent, head-nurse,
in short, captain-general of the whole establishment.
Living, so to speak, on the border-land between good and bad society,
Kate Cremorne knew Miss Ross perfectly well by sight, though Miss Ross
did not know Kate Cremorne. The shrewd, practical, world-experienced
girl saw the whole affair at a glance. Through her keen intellect
flashed a history of perfidy, sorrow, penury, a scrape, a scandal, a
reduced lady, and a half-acted romance. She had sufficient delicacy to
conceal her recognition of Miss Ross; but it was Kate's nature to take
the lead in whatever position she was placed, and it would not have been
her had she failed to make everything airy and comfortable about the
sufferer in ten minutes.
She dismissed her brougham, much to the admiration of the public, with
directions to return in an hour; she sent the maid out for soup, and the
landlady for wine; she did not even forget to order some cut flowers;
she rustled up and down-stairs without waking Johnnie; she insisted on
the front room, fortunately unoccupied, being at once got ready for Miss
Ross, producing that best of references--a little _porte-monnaie_, with
sovereigns in it. She took off her bonnet, made herself completely at
home, kissed the sleeping child, and won the hearts of the people of the
house almost ere Jin had thoroughly opened her eyes; and long before the
brougham returned to carry her away she had put the invalid to bed,
given her a basin of soup, with a glass of port wine in it, and was
soothing her off to sleep, gently and quietly as a mother hushes a baby.
"You want rest, dear," she whispered, smoothing the pillow with her
strong white hand. "I won't leave you till you're as sound as that
beautiful boy in the next room. Then I'll go and sit with him till you
wake, and after that I needn't bother you any more, unless you'll let me
come and see you the first thing to-morrow morning."
Jin smiled faintly, and opened her eyes.
"I don't know who you are," she whispered; "but you're the only
kind-hearted woman I ever met in my life, except one. God bless you!"
Then her head sank back, and every nerve seemed to relax in the
overpowering motionless sleep of utter exhaustion.
But Kate, watching her, looked very grave and thoughtful. She had not
been used to blessings. Perhaps in her whole past she had never earned
one so true and heartfelt before. The sensation was strange, almost
oppressive, opening up a new series of hopes, feelings, interests, and
reflections, with certain wistful misgivings, that she, fair, fast,
flighty Kate Cremorne had hitherto mistaken the chief objects of
existence, wasted her life, and thrown herself away.