WAIF.
Deadman's Alley was at all times a secluded thoroughfare; after dark,
indeed, its echoes rarely woke to the sound of a footstep; and the watch
reflecting, perhaps, that such loneliness saved them a deal of trouble,
abstained from disturbing its repose. An empty cask, a bale of goods, or
a human body thrown aside in Deadman's Alley, might have remained there
many hours without attracting the notice or obstructing the transit of a
passenger.
John Garnet, however, was unusually fortunate, for he had wallowed in
the gutter but a few minutes, when a girl's step came dancing along the
alley, and the lightest foot in London tripped over him as he lay at
length upon the stones, not quite unconscious, yet altogether powerless
to move. The girl, who had nearly fallen, recovered her footing with the
activity of a cat; and smothering an exclamation in some outlandish
tongue, peered down through the darkness to discover the nature of her
stumbling-block. Then she felt that her naked ankles, for she wore no
stockings, were wet with blood. In an instant she flew to the little red
lamp, for which John Garnet had been making when he fell, tapped hard at
the latticed window whence it shone; and after a hurried whisper with
some one inside, returned in equal haste, accompanied by an old man
wearing a skull-cap and black velvet gown. Together they lifted their
burden in a deliberate business-like manner, as though they traded
habitually in such goods, and carried it into their dwelling, carefully
securing the shutters of the lattice, and closing the door.
When John Garnet recovered his senses he thought he must be dreaming, so
like a trick of Fancy was the scene to which he awoke. Above him hung
heavy bed-curtains of a rich brocade, under his head was a laced pillow,
and he lay on a scarlet coverlet bound with a border of blue. His eyes,
travelling lazily round the room, rested on a silver lamp, fed by some
aromatic oil; and when he closed them again, wearied by the exertion,
gentle hands pressed a cordial to his lips, and a consoling voice
whispered in his ear:
"Courage, my young friend. Do not attempt to raise your head. Another
sip, Waif. Good. In five minutes he will come-to."
In five minutes he _did_ come to, and found strength to ask what had
happened and where he was?
"The first question you must answer for yourself," said the grave old
man who sat by his bedside, with a finger on his pulse. "To the second I
reply, make your mind easy, you are in the house and under the care of
the celebrated Doctor Katerfelto, who has won more games of skill
against death than any practitioner now alive. Waif, bring me the roll
of lint that stands on the top shelf in the surgery. Look in the middle
drawer for some red salve, and put that flask out of my patient's
reach."
The girl had left the room, and was back again quicker than John
Garnet's languid senses could follow her movements. When she returned
with these simple remedies, he did not fail to mark the softness of her
dark eyes, the subdued grace of her bearing, the sweet and loving pity
that seemed to pervade her whole being while she hovered about his
couch, and administered skilfully to the wants of a wounded man. Nor was
this tenderness, this sympathy, this almost maternal solicitude, in
accordance with her general habits, in keeping with her type of form and
feature. She looked more like a panther of the wilderness than the nurse
in a sick room. The lithe and supple frame, the light and noiseless
gait, the quick stealthy turn of ear and eye and limb, ready on the
instant for attack, defence, or flight, all this partook of the fierce,
feline nature, and all this she inherited from that mysterious race to
which she belonged, whose origin history has failed to discover, whose
destiny conjecture is at a loss to guess. From her gipsy ancestors she
derived her tameless glances, her nimble strength, her shapely limbs
with their delicate extremities, her swarthy savage beauty and light
untiring step. From them, too, came the wild blood that boiled under
restraint or contradiction, the unbridled passions that knew no curb of
custom nor of conscience, the cunning that could conceal them till
occasion offered, the recklessness that would then indulge them freely
without pity or remorse.
John Garnet had never yet seen anything so beautiful as this tawny girl
bending over his couch, with gold coins studding her jetty hair, with
collar and bracelets of gold round her neck and wrists, with a shawled
robe of scarlet and orange reaching to her naked ankles, and broad
buckles of gold in her red-heeled shoes.
He thought of Cleopatra, young whole-hearted, and untainted by the kiss
of an emperor; of the Queen of Sheba, before she fathomed the wisdom of
Solomon. Then he thought the dark eyes looked at him more than kindly,
and fell to wondering how she came here, and what relation she bore to
this old man in the velvet gown who sat by his pillow with a grave
attentive face. But the cordial was doing its work. Ere his wounds had
been dressed, the salve spread, and the lint bandages deftly swathed
round his body, John Garnet's senses lost themselves once more in
oblivion; the last words he heard were in the doctor's voice. Listening
for the girl's answer he fell sound asleep.
"There is no fear now," said Katerfelto reflectively. "Shall I say there
is no hope? He would have made a beautiful subject, and I wanted just
such an one, to bring my new discovery to perfection. Look at his chest,
Waif. Did you ever see a finer specimen? Some men in my place would be
incapable of this self-denial."
Waif, as he called her, turned pale under her tawny skin, but there was
a fierce glitter in her eyes while she answered, "I thought he was dead
you may be sure, that was why I brought you out to him. He'll get well
now. So much the better! Patron! you dare not do it."
The old man smiled, stroking his velvet gown with a white well-cared-for
hand.
"Dare not, or will not, or shall not," he replied. "It little matters
which. No. It is an interesting case as it stands, and to cure him will
be almost as instructive as to cut him up. Science, Waif, exacts from us
great sacrifices, but she has also her rewards. The man will live, I
think. Live probably to be ungrateful. Meanwhile, let us see who and
what he is."
Thus speaking, and with a marvellous dexterity the result of long
practice, he turned every one of the sleeper's pockets inside out, felt
in his cravat, his bosom, his waistband, leaving no part of his dress
unsearched, yet without in the slightest degree disturbing his repose.
The girl, holding the lamp to assist, looked down on the prostrate
figure, with a new sensation growing up in her heart, a vague wild
longing that seemed to covet no less than to pity and admire.
"The outcome is unequal to the pains bestowed," said Katerfelto, holding
up a light purse, a tavern bill, and a valueless snuff-box, as the
fruit of his exertions. "Yet the man is well-born, Waif, and well-to-do,
or I am mistaken. In due time we shall know more about him; there is no
hurry. He cannot leave that bed for a week, nor this house, I should
say, for a month. It's a beautiful case. Beautiful! the other
gentleman's sword must have gone through to the very hilt!"
"Patron! will he die?" asked Waif with a tremble of the lip she tried
hard to conceal.
"Most assuredly!" was the answer. "So will you, and so shall I. But not
of such a scratch as _this_, while under _my_ care! No! No! We will set
him on his legs, Waif, in less than a fortnight. Then he will pay his
doctor's bill, walk off with a huge appetite, and we shall see him no
more."
Her face, over which every shade of hope and fear had passed while she
listened, looked very grave and earnest now.
"Am I to nurse him, Patron?" said she; "we can keep him safe and quiet
in here, and I can see after his wants while you attend to the people
that come to consult you, patients and----"
"Fools--" added the old man. "Fools, who are yet so wise in their folly
as to purchase ease of mind at a price they would grudge for health of
body. It's a worse trade, Waif, to set a broken leg than to heal a
broken heart. We want skill, learning, splints, bandages, and anatomy
for the one, but a little cunning and a bold guess will answer all
purposes for the other. There are many men and more women who would
laugh in my face if I told them their head was a workshop and their
heart a pump; yet they can believe the whole of their future life is
contained in a pack of cards. You and I, Waif, have thriven well in a
world of fools--and the fools thrive too--why, I know not. The wisest
people on earth are _your_ people, but they have never prospered. Is it
best to be true, simple, honest? I cannot answer--I have never tried."
"I will do everything you tell me," persisted Waif, taking for granted
the permission she was so eager to obtain. "I can creep about the
chamber like a mouse; I never want to sleep, nor eat, nor drink, nor go
out into the filthy muddy streets. I know every phial in the surgery as
well as yourself. Hand him over to me, Patron, and I will promise to
bring him through."
He eyed her narrowly, and she seemed conscious of his scrutiny, for she
turned her head away and busied herself in adjustment of the
bed-clothes. Then he laughed a little mocking laugh, and proceeded to
give directions for the treatment of their patient.
"You must watch him," he insisted, and though she muttered, "you needn't
tell me that!" finished his say without noticing the interruption. "You
must watch him narrowly; if he wakes, give him one more spoonful of the
cordial; if he is restless after that, come to me. If he wanders in his
sleep mark every word he utters, and remember it. Such drivellings are
not of the slightest importance, but interesting, very interesting, in a
medical point of view. Good-night, Waif. Do exactly as I bid you, and if
all goes well, do not wake me till sunrise."
Then he trimmed the lamp, listened at the lattice, and retired, leaving
the girl alone with her patient.
How quiet she sat! moving not so much as a finger, with her large dark
eyes fixed on the floor, and her thoughts like restless sea-birds flying
here, there, everywhere; now skimming the Past, now soaring into the
Future, finally gathering out of all quarters to settle themselves on
the Present. From the moment when Katerfelto, or the Patron, as she
called him, left the room, she seemed to have entered on a new life, to
have risen in her own esteem, to have accepted responsibilities of which
she was proud, to have become a gentler, fairer, softer being, more
susceptible to pleasure and to pain. She only knew there was a great
change; she did not know that she was passing into Fairy Land by the
gate through which there is no return.
Behind her lay rugged mountain and dreary moor, paths that soil and
blister weary feet, barren uplands yielding scanty harvest in return for
daily toil, a scorching sun, a drenching rain, mocking winds that whirl,
and buffet, and moan. Before her opened the dazzling vistas of a magic
region: gleaming rivers, golden skies, velvet lawns fretted with gems,
bending flowers laden with perfume; glade and thicket, field and forest
bathed in glows of unearthly beauty, rich in tints of unearthly
splendour, teeming with fruits of unearthly hues. Would she not enter in
and rest? Would she not reach forth her hand to gather, and smell, and
taste? Had she not wild longings, vague curiosity, unreasonable daring?
Was she not a woman to the core? How could she tell that the Fairy Land
was a glamour, the lustre a delusion, the beauty a snare? that serpents
were coiling in the grass, that poison lurked in the flowers, that the
fruits turned to dust and ashes on the lip? How could she foresee the
time when she would yearn and strive and pray to get back to the outer
world? In vain! Those who have once passed its gate and tasted the
fruits in that fairy garden have to do with middle earth no more. Their
phantoms may indeed remain among us, but themselves are far away in the
enchanted country, pacing their weary round without a respite,
fulfilling their endless penance in the listless apathy of despair.
Once the sleeping man turned with a low, deep sigh of comfort, as in
relief from pain. Waifs dark eyes gleamed on him with glances of
unspeakable tenderness and admiration. How noble he looked lying there
in his wounds, like a dead prince. How graceful was the recumbent form;
how luxuriant the dark brown hair escaped from its black riband to
wander over the pillow; how white and shapely the strong hand opened
loosely on the coverlet. This, then, was what they called a gentleman.
She had seen gentlemen in the streets, or when they came to consult the
Patron, but never under such favourable conditions for examination as
now. What was _she_ in comparison? She, the drudge of a charlatan,
half-quack, half-conjuror? How could there be anything in common between
them? She stirred uneasily in her chair, rose, crept to the bedside, and
laid her slim, dusky hand by the side of his.
Waif's hands, in spite of hard work and hard weather, were beautiful
with the beauty of her race; long, lithe, and delicate; the slender
fingers and filbert-shaped nails concealed a vigour of grasp and
tenacity denied to the broad coarse fist of many a powerful man. She
smiled as she compared them with those of the sleeping patient; and her
smile grew brighter while she reflected that she was herself the
superior in those advantages of birth she so esteemed in him. Yes, the
oldest blood in England seemed a mere puddle compared with hers. Where
was the English gentleman who could trace his pedigree back for a
hundred generations without break or blemish, to ancestors who had
served the Pharaohs and set taskwork for the Jews, who even in that
remote time boasted themselves lineal descendants of an illustrious line
that was only lost with every other record of history in the dim
obscurity of the Past.
All this Waif had learned beneath the stars, on Bagshot Heath or Barnes
Common, sitting over the camp-fires in the steam of the camp-kettles,
filled with spoils from neighbouring hen-roosts, stolen by the high-born
patriarchs and princes of her tribe.
But she was a good nurse, notwithstanding her royal descent and
barbarian bringing-up. Twenty times during the night she smoothed her
patient's pillows and straightened his bed-clothes, watching with
experienced eye and ear for symptoms of weakness or relapse. Never once
did she relax her vigilance, nor so much as relieve her slender, supple
form by leaning back in her chair. Unlike most watchers, for _her_ the
minutes seemed to fly on golden wings, and when the grey light of dawn
began to steal through the shutter, dulling the lamp still burning in
that sick chamber, she could have reproached the summer morning for
coming so soon.
Yet it had been a long night to Waif in fact, if not in appearance.
Those watchful hours had brought for her the great change that comes
once in a lifetime. An ancient philosopher compared our terrestrial
career to the letter Y. He has been quoted till we are tired of him, but
none the less must we acknowledge the force of his illustration. As we
travel along the road we must needs arrive, some in the morning, some in
the middle of the day, some (and these last are much to be pitied) not
till the afternoon, at a point where two paths branch out in different
directions. There is a guide-post indeed, but it stands so high above
our heads that we seldom look at it, choosing rather to trust our
passions and inclinations for directions on the way. So we turn to right
or left as nature, habit, or convenience prompts us, and on the turn
thus taken depends our future journey, and the hope of ever reaching
home.
It was broad day when John Garnet woke and tried to sit up in bed.
"Where am I?" was his first exclamation, rubbing his eyes with the hand
his bandages left free. "And why am I trussed up like a fowl that's been
skewered? Ah! I remember now. I _have_ been skewered, and you've been
nursing me, my pretty maid. I fear I have given you a vast deal of
trouble and shall give you more before I can stand up."
She bent over him like a mother over her child. It was such happiness to
protect and soothe him, to feel that he might even owe his life to her.
"Do not try to move yet," said she; "you are safe and in good hands. The
longer you stay with us the better we shall be pleased."
"Will _you_ nurse me?" he asked gaily, unconscious of the tremble that
ran through her frame, while she bowed her head in answer.
"Then I don't care how long it is!" he laughed. "With such a pretty
nurse I should like never to get well!"
The blood flew to her face, reddening brow and temples, with a blush of
pride and exquisite pleasure, rather than of resentment or shame.