She was standing at the door of a chemist's shop, endeavoring to
arouse the proprietor by repeated pulling of the night bell, pausing
between each summons, and vainly endeavoring to choke back her tears.
I could not see her face, but so keen and poignant was her grief that
I should have been less than human had I passed by without a word. The
note of suffering in her voice touched a sympathetic chord in my
heart, and awoke the dormant sense of good within me.
"What are you crying for?" I inquired, stepping to her side.
My question seemed to terrify her, and she made a movement as if about
to fly. But the duty upon which she was bent gave her courage.
"Don't speak to me!" she implored. "For heaven's sake, leave me!"
I knew what she intended to convey by this appeal. She mistook me for
one of the human ghouls who prowl the streets in the belief that every
woman is frail.
"I will not harm you," I said, and I repeated my question. "What are
you crying for?"
My sad voice reassured her--so she subsequently informed me--and after
a pause she answered timidly. "I have been trying for a quarter of an
hour to make the chemist hear, but he will not come down. It is life
or death, and he will not come down!"
"Your life or death?" I asked.
"No," she replied, "not mine; my mother's--my dear mother's!"
"Let me see what I can do," I said, and I pulled the bell, and
listened, with my ear close to the door.
There was no response, and I pulled again, and failed to hear the
ring. I discovered then that the night bell was broken. There was
another bell on the other side of the door, and this I pulled
vigorously, and beat on the door with my fist.
"What is the matter with your mother?"
"She is very ill--she has been ill for months. Are you a doctor, sir?"
"No. What does the doctor who is attending her say?"
"We have none, sir."
"But why? Surely in a matter of life or death one is necessary." I
continued to ring and beat on the door.
"I know, I know," she murmured. "Oh, will he 'never come?"
I gathered from this mournful reply that they were poor and could not
afford a doctor, which was presently confirmed. My vigorous summons
was successful in arousing the chemist, who, with a sleepy and
unwilling air, opened the door and admitted us. Now, by the light in
the shop, I saw that the woman was young, hardly yet out of her teens,
and though grief was stamped too plainly upon her countenance, that
she was fair and prepossessing. So modest and gentle was she that I
was filled with pity for her. Her eyes were dim with tears, her hair
had become loosened and hung in lovely disorder upon her white neck,
her features bore traces of exhausting vigil. With a trembling hand
she held out a prescription, saying in a wistful tone:
"I am sorry to disturb you, but my mother is much worse to-night. I
will pay you to-morrow--I have some work to take back."
He grumbled a little and hesitated, and I, stepping back so that the
young woman could not see my action, nodded to him and held up my
purse. Understanding from this that I intended to pay him he made up
the medicine and gave her the bottle, with which, after expressing her
gratitude, she was about to depart, when I said to her:
"Will you wait for me a moment at the door? You may trust me."
The sincerity I felt must have made itself manifest in my voice, for
she bent her head slightly, and waited for me outside.
"What is the matter with her mother?" I asked.
"I cannot say," replied the chemist. "She has been ill a long time and
ought to have a doctor. This is an old prescription; I have made it up
several times."
"Am I right in supposing that they cannot afford 'a doctor?"
"That is evident. They are very poor. They owe me for three bottles
already."
"She appears to be respectable," I said, as I paid him what was due.
"No doubt of it. She works day and night, and I should say it is as
much as she can do to keep body and soul together."
At my request he wrote the address of a doctor in the neighborhood,
and instructed me how to find him. Then I joined the young woman.
"You must accept my escort," I said. "It is hardly safe for you to be
out on such a night. I am sincerely sorry for your trouble. I may be
able to lighten it."
She trembled so violently that I feared she would fall, but she did
not accept my arm. We walked side by side, in silence, till we reached
one of the poorest houses in one of the poorest streets. There she
stopped, and wished me good night, and thanked me for my services.
"I am going to fetch a doctor to your mother," I said. "How shall we
obtain admittance?"
"I am afraid I must refuse, sir," she said. "We are not in a position
to pay him."
"Leave that to me," I replied. "When one dear to you is in peril you
cannot refuse to accept assistance even from a stranger. I can
sympathize with honest pride, but surely this would be carrying it too
far. Your mother needs a doctor. She shall see one." I looked up at
the windows, and in one at the top of the house I could faintly
distinguish a glimmer of light. "Is that your room?"
"Yes, sir."
"Shall I knock or ring when I come back with the doctor?"
"If you will give a gentle knock, so as not to disturb the other
lodgers, I will come down." Then, after a momentary pause, "I did not
believe there was such goodness in the world."
"You overrate my services. If you knew what you have saved me
from----" I did not finish, but asked her to give me the name of the
street and the number of the house, which she did. "And your name?"
"Cameron, sir."
"Thank you. The trust you repose in me shall not be abused."
I waited till she had let herself in with a latch-key, and then I
departed on my errand.
By this time the fog was so thick that I doubt whether I should have
found the street to which I had been directed had it not been for the
assistance of a policeman, who accompanied me to the doctor's house.
The doctor himself answered my summons, an elderly gentleman, with a
careworn, benignant face, who, when he learned what was required of
him, said he would come with me at once. We conversed on the way, and
he informed me that he had some knowledge of the Camerons, who had
called him two or three months ago to prescribe for the mother. They
were respectable people, he told me, who had, like numbers of others
in the locality, a hard fight to keep the wolf from the door. They
belonged to the class who slaved and suffered patiently and silently;
everybody spoke well of them, and the daughter was specially modest
and gentle in her manners. Except that they appeared to be superior in
point of conduct and education, to their neighbors, he knew nothing
more of them. He was surprised, the mother being so ill, that the
daughter had not come to him; but yet, on second thoughts, he was not
surprised, their peculiar delicacy in money matters stopping the way.
It was often so with the poor, who were hyper-sensitive in their
pride.
I then explained what it was I wished him to do--to attend to the sick
woman regularly, and to prescribe what was necessary in the shape of
food and medicine. He was to relieve their minds in respect of his
fees, which, with all other expenses, I would pay. In token of my
sincerity and ability to carry out my desire I begged him to accept a
couple of sovereigns in advance, to which he very willingly consented.
"My patients are not quite regular in their payments," he said in a
gentle tone, "and it is not in my nature to press them. So far as
gratitude goes, I am richly repaid. You are, perhaps, a relative of
the Camerons."
"I am not in any way related to them," I replied.
"A friend of long standing, then."
"I have never seen the mother, and scarcely an hour ago I saw Miss
Cameron for the first time--by chance," I added.
"A singular hour," he observed, "and a strange night for a chance
meeting."
"Yes--but so it happened." And I related how it came about, saying
nothing of myself or of the circumstances which caused me to be
perambulating the streets at such a time.
He was silent for a little while, and I fancied I heard him sigh. Then
he said, "You are a gentleman."
"I hope I may lay claim to the title."
"In station, by which I mean worldly circumstances, far above the
Camerons--at least, so I judge."
"Well?"
"They are poor and lowly. Miss Cameron is young, and not
unattractive."
"I understand you. My motives are open to suspicion."
"Is it not natural?"
"Quite, and I do not blame you for doubting me, but you must not do
Miss Cameron an injustice. She is absolutely blameless. I have related
the simple truth, and were you acquainted with my story--which I do
not consider myself free to disclose--your doubts would vanish. Can
you not credit me with a sincere desire to serve two poor and
deserving persons without harboring a base thought towards them?"
As my sad voice had won Miss Cameron's confidence, so it now won the
confidence of the good doctor.
"It is a censorious world," he said, "and I spoke out of its mouth.
Forgive me."
Miss Cameron must have been keeping watch for us, for my soft tap on
the street door was almost immediately answered. Standing in the
passage, her hand shading the candle from the night air, she seemed to
hesitate whether to invite me in, and I, divining--which was the
case--that she and her mother occupied but one room, resolved the
difficulty by saying, "I will see you bye and bye, doctor," and
pulling the street door to.
Left alone in the dark street, I fell to musing upon the events of the
last twenty-four hours. I could scarcely see a dozen yards before me,
and even at that distance a moving form would have presented the
semblance of a shadow created by the spreading fog; not a sound but
that of my own footsteps disturbed the stillness of the dreary scene.
And yet, dismal as were my surroundings, I was conscious that my
spirits had assumed a more healthy tone. I was devoutly grateful for
the change that had come over me, and I did not stop to consider
whether it was due to chance or to a merciful interposition of
Providence at the most critical period in my life. A heavy weight was
lifted from my heart. I had been saved by a woman's face, a woman's
voice; she had set free the sealed springs of sympathy and pity--I
once was more human.
Do not misunderstand me. The brief interview with Miss Cameron,
the few words we had exchanged, had not inspired me with love for
her--that was in the future, and to be reared upon a more reasonable
foundation; but it had revealed to me that there was still some worthy
work for me to do, that having sinned through self-indulgence in a
vice I abhorred, and having contemplated a deed the thought of which
now sent a shudder through me, I might work out my redemption by
simple acts of kindness to beings even more forlorn than myself.
No, it was not love I felt, but deep gratitude that an example of
self-sacrifice and devotion should have crushed forever out of me the
impious doubt of the existence of a beneficent Creator. It was to this
I owed my salvation, and as I paced the foggy street I thought of the
daughter toiling for her sick mother. I saw her patient face of
suffering, heard her wistful voice saying: "I will pay you to-morrow;
I have some work to take back." Ah, what a story is here revealed! I
dwelt upon the modesty which caused her to shrink from the
compassionate advances of a stranger, and with tears in my eyes dwelt
also upon the child-like confidence she had reposed in me. She
became to me an incarnation of purity. There were good women in the
world--thank God for that. Through her spirit my faith in human
goodness was restored, and I saw my life in a clearer light, unstained
and unclouded by vice and degradation. Peace, if not happiness, might
yet be mine.
To one course I pledged myself, and vowed that nothing should turn me
from it. I would never live with my wife again; her revolting
duplicities, her shameful debasement, should no longer torture me. I
would be done with her, so far as personal association went, and with
those other relatives who had systematically persecuted me and
maligned me. The infamous law--wickedly and falsely called the law of
God--which bound me to a living curse, to a moral pest, could not
compel me to inhabit the house in which she indulged in her
depravities. Of so much of my fortune as was left she should have a
share, and should receive it through an agent. One visit only would I
pay to what was in mockery called my home, and that for the purpose of
removing my private papers. Then would I shake the dust of that
earthly hell from my feet, and turn my back upon it forever.
To this end I must efface myself, and must be known henceforth by
another name than Fordham. That was easy, and I was stung by no
reproach as to justification. If ever a man was justified in
practising such a deceit it was I.
My musings were interrupted by the unclosing of the street door. The
doctor was there, and Miss Cameron; he was bidding her take some
repose.
"We must not have you break down," he said. "Ah, here is our friend.
The fog has not swallowed him up."
"How can I thank you?" she said to me, holding out her hand. It
trembled as it lay for a moment in mine, and her eyes shone with
tears.
"By following the doctor's advice," I replied, "and by allowing me to
call when I have had some rest myself. Your mother is no worse, I
hope?"
The doctor--one of those sensible practitioners who help their
patients to get well by bright words--answered for her.
"No, not worse, not at all, not at all. With heaven's help we'll set
her up again. There, there, my dear, don't cry; and what are you
about, stopping here in the cold? Go and lie down. I will send the
medicine at nine o'clock."
As we walked away together he said: "It would be cruel to tell her the
truth."
"Then there is no hope?" I said.
It seemed to me as if in those few words he had pronounced a sentence
of death, and as if I were about to sustain a personal loss.
"Oh, yes, there is hope," he replied; "but for poor people the gates
are closed."
I begged him to explain, and he did so. Mrs. Cameron was suffering not
only from debility, brought on by want of nourishing food, but from a
chest and throat complaint which would certainly result fatally if she
remained in London. The pestilential air, the poisonous fog--they
spelt death. She could not possibly live through the coming winter.
She needed a purer air, wine, and better food, and these were out of
her reach. By slaving day and night at her needle the mother and
daughter earned eight or nine shillings a week. They had no rich
friends. What could they do?
"It is a question of money?" I said.
"Yes, it is a question of money, though even then I do not say she
will recover. The privations she has endured have made terrible
inroads upon her constitution."
"But there would be a chance of recovery."
"Undoubtedly a chance of recovery. In fact, the only chance. It is
painful to witness such cases, to stand by a bedside and see a life
passing away which money would probably save; but there is no help for
it. The poor girl will suffer terribly. I have seldom witnessed such
love, such devotion. It is surprising how she keeps up."
"There is help for it, doctor," I said, "and I should like to see you
to-morrow to speak about it."
"I am home for consultations till twelve. May I ask your name?"
"Fletcher," I replied.
Thus was the first stone in my self-banishment laid.