"Father, dear father, prithee let me go!"
"What, my child? Have I not lost all but thee? Am I to send thee
forth to thy death in this terrible city, stricken by the hand of
God?"
Into Gertrude's face there crept a wonderful light and brightness.
Her eyes shone with the intensity of her feeling.
"Father," she said, "it is even because I hold the city to be
smitten by God that I ask thy permission to go forth to minister to
the sick and stricken ones. It seems to me as though in my heart a
voice had spoken, saying, 'Go, and I will be with thee.' Father,
listen, I pray thee. I heard that voice first, methought, upon the
terrible night when they came and took Frederick away. When mother
was next laid low, and as I watched beside her, and watched
likewise how Dinah soothed and comforted and assuaged her anguish
of mind and body, the voice in my heart grew ever louder and
louder. Whilst she lived, I knew my place was beside her; but it
has pleased God to take her away. No tie binds me here now. If I
stay, I shall but eat out my heart in fruitless longing, shut into
these walls, and by no means permitted to sally forth. From a
plague-stricken house I may only go to those smitten with the
distemper. Father, let me go! prithee let me go! Dinah will take
me; she will let me be with her. Ask her; she will tell thee."
As the girl made her appeal to her father, the grave-faced, gentle
woman who had remained with this household for nigh fourteen days
stood quietly by. Dinah Morse had not quitted the house since the
day upon which the hapless Frederick had been stricken down by the
fell disease. For hardly had his remains been borne from the house
before the mother fell violently ill of a wasting fever. At first
there were no special indications of the plague in her malady; but
after a week's time these suddenly developed themselves. From the
first she had declared herself smitten by the distemper, and
whether this conviction helped to develop the germs of the malady
none could say. But be that as it might, the dreaded tokens
appeared upon her body at last, and within three days from that
time she lay dead.
All that the kindness of friends and neighbours could avail had
been done. The Harmer family, in particular, had showed so much
attention and sympathy in this trying time, that Gertrude was often
overcome with shame as she recalled in what uncivil fashion they
had been treated by her mother of late years, and how they were now
returning good for evil, just at a time when so many men were
finding themselves forsaken even by their nearest and dearest in
the hour of their affliction.
The whole experience through which she had passed had made a deep
and lasting impression upon Gertrude. She had already watched two
of the beings nearest and dearest to her fall victims to the dire
disease which was raging in the city and laying low its thousands
daily. It seemed to her that there was but one thing to be done now
by those whose circumstances permitted it, and that was to go forth
amid the sick and smitten ones, and do what lay within human power
to mitigate their sufferings, and to afford them the solace and
comfort of feeling that they were not altogether shut off from the
love and sympathy of their fellow men.
"Father," she urged, as she saw that her parent still hesitated,
"what would have become of us without Dinah? What should we have
done had no help come to us in our hour of need? Think of the
hundreds and thousands about us longing for some such tendance and
love as she brought hither to us! What would have become of us had
no kind neighbours befriended us? And are we not bidden to do unto
others as we would have them do unto us in like case?"
"But the risk, my child, the risk!" he urged. "Am I to lose my last
and only stay and solace?"
"Mother died in this house, which is now doubly infected. I was
with her and with Frederick both, and yet I am sound and whole, and
thou also. Why should we so greatly fear, when no man can say who
will be smitten and who will escape? Methinks, perchance, those who
seek to do their duty to the living, as our good neighbours and the
city aldermen and magistrates and doctors are doing, will be
specially protected of God. Father, let me go! Truly I feel that I
have been bidden. Here I should fret myself ill in fruitless
longing. Let me go forth with Dinah. Let me obey the call which
methinks God has sent me. Truly I think I shall be the safest so.
And who can say in these days, take what precaution he will, that
he may not already have upon him the dreaded tokens? If we must
die, let us at least die doing good to our fellow men. Did not our
Lord say to those who visited the sick in their necessity, 'Ye have
done it unto me'?"
"Child," said the Master Builder, in a much-moved voice, "it shall
be as you desire. Go; and may the blessing of God go with you. I
will offer myself for any post, as searcher or examiner, which may
be open, if indeed I may go forth from this house ere the
twenty-eight days be expired. If Dinah will take you, and if the
Harmers will let you both sally forth from the house, I will not
keep you back. It may be indeed that God has called you; and if so,
may He keep and bless you both."
Father and daughter embraced each other tenderly.
In those times the shadow of death was so very apparent that no one
knew from day to day what might befall him ere the morrow. Strong
men, leaving their homes apparently in their usual health, would
sink down in the streets an hour afterwards, and perhaps die before
the very eyes of the passersby, none of whom would be found willing
so much as to approach the sufferer with a kind word. Men would
hasten by with vinegar-steeped cloths held closely over their
faces; and later on some bearer with a cart or barrow would be sent
to carry away the corpse and fling it into the nearest pit, of
which there was now an ever-increasing number in the various
parishes.
It will well be understood that in such days as these the need for
nurses for the sick was terribly great. The majority of those
so-called nurses were women of the lowest class, whose motive was
personal gain, not a loving desire to mitigate the sufferings of
the stricken.
Whether all the dismal tales told by the miserable beings shut up
in their houses, and left to the mercy of watchmen and nurses, were
true may be well open to doubt. Many poor creatures became half
demented by terror, and scarcely knew what they said. But enough
was from time to time substantiated to prove how very terrible were
the scenes which sometimes went on within these sealed abodes; and
more than once some careless watchman or thieving and neglectful
nurse had been whipped through the streets for misdemeanours
brought home to them by the authorities.
But now things were growing too pressing for individual cases to
attract much attention. Do as men would to cope with the evil, the
spread of the fell disease was something terrible to witness. Up
till quite recently, the cases in the southern and eastern parishes
and within the city walls had been few as compared with those in
the north and west; but now the scourge seemed to have fallen upon
the city itself, and the resources of the authorities were taxed to
the uttermost.
The Harmer family welcomed back Dinah with joy; but when they heard
of Gertrude's resolve, they looked grave and awed. Then Janet
stepped forward suddenly, and addressing her father, said:
"Dear father, what Gertrude has desired for herself is nothing less
than what I myself have often wished. Let me go forth also to tend
the sick. If our neighbour can dare to let his only child do this
thing, surely thou wilt spare me. Every day brings terrible tales
of the woe and the pressing need of hundreds and thousands around
us. Let me go, too. I am like to be safer than many, seeing that I
may already have been touched by the distemper, though I knew it
not."
The example of his neighbour was not without effect upon the worthy
citizen. Moreover, it seemed to him that those who went about their
daily duties, and shrank not from contact with the sick when it was
needful, fared better than many who shut themselves up at home, and
feared to look forth even from their windows. As an examiner of
health he was frequently brought into contact with the sick, and
his son even oftener, and yet both kept their health wonderfully.
True, there were many amongst those who filled these perilous
offices who did fall victims, but not more in proportion than
others who shunned all contact with peril. Steady nerves and a
stout heart seemed as good preventives as any antidote; and the
physicians who laboured ceaselessly and devotedly amongst the
stricken ones seemed seldom to suffer. Moreover, after all these
weeks of terror, the minds of persons of all degrees were growing
used to the sense of uncertainty and peril, and Janet's request
aroused no very strenuous opposition from any member of her family.
"She shall please herself," said her father, after some discussion
on the subject. "God has been very merciful to us so far. We will
put our trust in Him during all this time. If the girl has had a
call, let her do her duty, and He will he with her."
That night the three devoted women slept beneath the roof of the
bridge house. Upon the morrow they sallied forth to their strange
task, but were told by the master of the house that they might
return thither at any time they chose, provided they took the
prescribed precautions with regard to their clothing before they
entered.
The sun was blazing hotly down on the streets as they opened the
door to go forth. Sultry weather had now set in, no rain fell
through the long, scorching days, and the heat was a terrible
factor in the spread of the epidemic. Dinah, who had been nigh upon
fourteen days shut up in one house, looked about her with grave,
watchful eyes. Already she saw a great difference in the look of
the bridge. Four houses were marked with the ominous red cross; and
the tide of traffic, bearing the stream of persons out from the
stricken city, had almost ceased. Bills of health were difficult to
obtain now. The country villages round were loth to receive inmates
of London. All roads were watched, and many hapless stragglers sent
back again who had thought to escape from the city of destruction.
Myriads had already left, and others were still flying--they could
make shift to escape. But the continuous stream had ceased to cross
the bridge. Foot passengers were few, and all walked in the middle
of the road, avoiding contact with one another. Many kept a
handkerchief or cloth pressed to their faces. Strangers eyed each
other askance, none knowing that the other might not be already
sickening of the disease. Between the stones of the streets blades
of grass were beginning to grow up. Dinah pointed to these tokens
and gave a little sigh.
Just before they turned off from the bridge a flying figure was
seen approaching, and Janet exclaimed quickly:
"Why, it is Dorcas!"
Since her fright of a fortnight back, Dorcas had remained an inmate
of Lady Scrope's house by her own desire. Although she knew that
poor Frederick would annoy her no more, she had come to have a
horror of the very streets themselves. She had never forgotten the
apparition of that white-robed figure, clad in what seemed like its
death shroud; and as Lady Scrope was by no means ill pleased to
keep her young maiden by night as well as by day, her father was
glad that she should be saved the risk even of the short walk to
and fro each day.
But here she was, flying homewards as though there were wings to
her feet; and she would almost have passed them in her haste, had
not Janet laid hold of her arm and spoken her name aloud. Then she
gave a little cry of relief and happiness, and turning upon her
aunt, she cried:
"Ah, how glad I am to see thee! I was praying thou mightst still be
at home. Lady Scrope has been suddenly seized by some malady, I
know not what. Everyone in the house but the old deaf man and his
wife has fled. Three servants left before, afraid of passing to and
fro. The rest only waited for the first alarm to seize whatever
they could lay hands upon and fly. I could not stop them. I did
what I could, but methinks they would have rifled the house had it
not been that the mistress, ill as she was, rose from her bed and
chased them forth. They feared her more than ever when they thought
she had the plague upon her. And now I have come forth for help;
for I am alone with her in the house, and I know not which way to
turn.
"Ah, good aunt, come back with me, I prithee. I am at my wit's end
with the fear of it all."
Without a moment's delay the party turned towards the house in
Allhallowes, and speedily found themselves at the grim-looking
portal, which Dorcas opened with her key. The house felt cool and
fresh after the glare of the hot streets. Although by no means a
stately edifice outside, it was roomy and commodious within, and
the broad oak staircase was richly carpeted--a thing in those days
quite unusual save in very magnificent houses. Doors stood open,
and there were traces of confusion in some of the rooms; but Dorcas
was already hurrying her companions up the stairs, and the silence
of the house was broken by the sound of a shrill voice demanding in
imperious tones who were coming and what was their business.
"Fear not, mistress, it is I!" cried Dorcas, springing forward in
advance of the others.
She disappeared within an open door, and her companions heard the
sharp tones of the answering voice saying:
"Tush, child! who talks of fear? It is only fools who fear! Dost
think I am scared by this bogey talk of plague? A colic, child--a
colic; that is all I ail. I have always suffered thus in hot
weather all my life. Plague, forsooth! I could wish I had had it,
that I might have given it as a parting benediction to those knaves
and hussies who thought to rob me when I lay a-dying, as many a
woman has been robbed before! I only hope they may sicken of pure
fright, as has happened to many a fool before now! Ha! ha! ha! how
they did run! They thought I was tied by the leg for once. But I
had them--I had them! I warrant me they did not take the worth of a
sixpence from my house!"
The chuckling laugh which followed bespoke a keen sense of
enjoyment. Certainly this high-spirited old lady was not much like
the ordinary plague patient. Dinah knocked lightly at the door, and
entered, the two girls following her out of sheer curiosity.
"Heyday! and who are these?" cried Lady Scrope.
That redoubtable old dame was sitting up in bed, her great frilled
nightcap tied beneath her chin, her hawk's eyes full of life and
fire, although her face was very pinched and blue, and there were
lines about her brow and lips which told the experienced eyes of
the sick nurse that she was suffering considerable pain.
Dinah explained their sudden appearance, and asked if they could be
of any service. The old lady gazed at them all in turn, and her
face relaxed as she broke into rather a grim laugh.
"Plague nurses, by all the powers! Certes, this is very pretty
company! If all that is said be true, ye be the worst harpies of
all. I had better have my own minions to rob me than be left to
your tender mercies. Three of you, too! Verily, 'wheresoever the
carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together,'" and the
patient laughed again, as though tickled at her own grim
pleasantry.
Dorcas would have expostulated and explained and apologized, but
her mistress cut her short with a sharp tap of her fan.
"Little fool, hold thy peace! as though I didn't know an honest
face when I see it!
"Come, good people, look me well over, and you'll soon see I have
none of the tokens. It is but a colic, such as I am well used to at
this season of the year; but in these days let a body's finger but
ache, and all the world runs helter skelter this way and that,
calling out, 'The plague! the plague!' The plague, forsooth! as
though I had not lived through a score of such scares of plague. If
men would but listen to me, there need never be any more plagues in
London. But the fools will not hear wisdom."
"What is your remedy, madam?" asked Dinah, who saw very clearly
that the old lady had gauged her symptoms aright; and although she
had alarmed her attendants by a partial collapse an hour before,
was mending now, and had no symptom of the distemper upon her.
"My remedy is too simple for fools. Fill up every well in
London--which is just a poison trap--and drink only New River
water, and make every house draw its supply from thence, and we
shall soon cease to hear of the plague! That's my remedy; but when
I tell men so, they gibe and jeer and call me fool for my pains.
Fools every one of them! If it would only please Providence to burn
their city about their ears and fill up all the old wells with the
rubbish, you would soon see an end of these scares of plague. Tush!
if men will drink rank poison they deserve to have the plague--that
is all I have to say to them."
Such an idea as this was certainly far in advance of the times, and
it was small wonder that Lady Scrope found no serious listeners
when she propounded her scheme. Dinah did not profess to have an
opinion on such a wide question. Her duties were with the sick.
Others must seek for the cause of the outbreak. That was not the
province of women.
Something in her way of moving about and performing her little
offices pleased the fancy of the capricious old woman, as did also
the aspect of the two girls, who were assisting Dorcas to set the
room to rights after the confusion of the morning, when the
mistress had suddenly been taken with a violent colic, which had
turned her blue and rigid, and had convinced her household that she
was taken for death, and that by a seizure of the prevailing
malady.
She asked Dinah of herself and her plans, and nodded her head with
approval as she heard that the two girls were to attend the sick
likewise under her care.
"Good girls, brave girls--I like to see courage in old and young
alike. If I were young myself, I vow I would go with you. It's a
fine set of experiences you will have.
"Young woman, I like you. I shall want to hear of you and your
work. Listen to me. This house is my own. I have no one with me
here save the child Dorcas, and I don't think she is of the stuff
that would be afraid; and I take good care of her, so that she is
in no peril. Come back hither to me whenever you can. This house
shall be open to you. You can come hither for rest and food. It is
better than to go to and fro where there be so many young folks as
in the place you come from. Bring the girls with you, too. They be
good, brave maidens, and deserve a place of rest. I have victualled
my house well. I have enough and to spare. I like to hear the news,
and none can know more in these days than a plague nurse.
"Come, children, what say you to this? Go to and fro amongst the
sick; but come home hither and tell me all you have done. What say
you? Against rules for persons to pass from infected houses into
clean ones? Bah! in times like these what can men hope to do by
their rules and regulations? Plague nurses and plague doctors are
under no rules. They must needs go hither and thither wherever they
are called. If I fear not for myself, you need not fear for me. I
shall never die of the plague; I have had my fortune told me too
many times to fear that! I shall never die in my bed--that they all
agree to tell me. Have no fears for me; I have none for myself.
"Make this house your home, you three good women. I am not a good
woman myself, but I know the kind when I see them. They are rare,
but all the more valued for that. Come, I say; you will not find a
better place!"
Dorcas clasped her hands in rapture and looked from one to the
other. The fear of the distemper was small in comparison with the
pleasure of the thought of seeing her sister and aunt and friend at
intervals, now that she was so completely shut up in this lonely
house, and that the servants had all fled never to return.
It was just such an eccentric and capricious whim as was eminently
characteristic of Lady Scrope. She had had nothing but her own
whims to guide her through life, and she indulged them at her
pleasure. She had taken a fancy to Dinah from the first moment. She
knew all about the family of her young companion, from having
listened to Dorcas's chatter when in the mood. Keenly interested in
the spread of the plague, which had driven away all her fashionable
friends, she was eager for news about it, and the more ghastly the
tales that were told, the more did she seem to revel in them. To
have news first hand from those who actually tended the sick seemed
to her a capital plan; and Dinah recognized at once the advantage
of having admittance for herself and the two girls to this solitary
and commodious house, where rest and refreshment could be readily
obtained, and where their coming and going would not be likely to
be observed or to hurt any one.
"If your ladyship really means it--" she began.
"My ladyship generally does mean what she says--as Dorcas will tell
you if you ask her," was the rather short, sharp reply. "Say no
more, say no more; I hate chitter-chatter and shilly-shally. The
thing's settled, and there's an end of it. Go your ways, go your
ways; I'm none too ill for Dorcas to look to, now that the little
fool is assured that I haven't got the plague. But you may have
brought it here yourself, so you are bound in duty to come back and
look after us the first moment you can. Go along with you all, and
bring me word what London is doing, and what the streets are like.
They say there be courts down in the worst parts of the town where
not a living person remains, and where there be none left to give
notice of the deaths. You go and bring me word about all that.
"A fine thing truly for our grand city! The living soon will not be
enough to bury the dead! Go! go! go! I shall wait and watch for
your return. None will interfere with anything that goes on in my
house. You can come and go at will. Dorcas will give you a key. I
will trust you. You have a face to be trusted."
"It is quite true--nobody ever dares interfere with her," said
Dorcas, as she led the way downstairs. "They think she is a witch;
and truly, methinks she is the strangest woman that ever drew
breath! But I shall love her for what she has said and done today.
I pray you be not long in coming again. None can want you much more
sorely than I do!"