Not Wife, But Waif
Tom Watterly's horse was the pride of his heart. It was a bobtailed,
rawboned animal, but, as Tom complacently remarked to Alida, "He can
pass about anything on the road"--a boast that he let no chance escape
of verifying. It was a terrible ordeal to the poor woman to go dashing
through the streets in an open wagon, feeling that every eye was upon
her. With head bowed down, she employed her failing strength in
holding herself from falling out, yet almost wishing that she might be
dashed against some object that would end her wretched life. It
finally occurred to Tom that the woman at his side might not, after her
recent experience, share in his enthusiasm, and he pulled up remarking,
with a rough effort at sympathy, "It's a cussed shame you've been
treated so, and as soon as you're ready, I'll help you get even with
the scamp."
"I'm not well, sir," said Alida humbly. "I only ask for a quiet place
where I can rest till strong enough to do some kind of work."
"Well, well," said Tom kindly, "don't lose heart. We'll do the best by
you we can. That aint saying very much, though, for we're full and
running over."
He soon drew rein at the poorhouse door and sprang out. "I--I--feel
strange," Alida gasped.
Tom caught the fainting woman in his arms and shouted, "Here, Bill,
Joe! You lazy loons, where are you?"
Three or four half wrecks of men shuffled to his assistance, and
together they bore the unconscious woman to the room which was used as
a sort of hospital. Some old crones gathered around with such
restoratives as they had at command. Gradually the stricken woman
revived, but as the whole miserable truth came back, she turned her
face to the wall with a sinking of heart akin to despair. At last, from
sheer exhaustion, feverish sleep ensued, from which she often started
with moans and low cries. One impression haunted her--she was falling,
ever falling into a dark, bottomless abyss.
Hours passed in the same partial stupor, filled with phantoms and
horrible dreams. Toward evening, she aroused herself mechanically to
take the broth Mrs. Watterly ordered her to swallow, then relapsed into
the same lethargy. Late in the night, she became conscious that someone
was kneeling at her bedside and fondling her. She started up with a
slight cry.
"Don't be afraid; it's only me, dear," said a quavering voice.
In the dim rays of a night lamp, Alida saw an old woman with gray hair
falling about her face and on her night robe. At first, in her
confused, feverish impressions, the poor waif was dumb with
superstitious awe, and trembled between joy and fear. Could her mother
have come to comfort her in her sore extremity?
"Put yer head on me ould withered breast," said the apparition, "an'
ye'll know a mither's heart niver changes. I've been a-lookin' for ye
and expectin' ye these long, weary years, They said ye wouldn't come
back--that I'd niver find ye ag'in; but I knowed I wud, and here ye are
in me arms, me darlint. Don't draw away from yer ould mither. Don't ye
be afeard or 'shamed loike. No matter what ye've done or where ye've
been or who ye've been with, a mither's heart welcomes ye back jist the
same as when yes were a babby an' slept on me breast. A mither's heart
ud quench the fires o' hell. I'd go inter the burnin' flames o' the
pit an' bear ye out in me arms. So niver fear. Now that I've found
ye, ye're safe. Ye'll not run away from me ag'in. I'll hould ye--I'll
hould ye back," and the poor creature clasped Alida with such
conclusive energy that she screamed from pain and terror.
"Ye shall not get away from me, ye shall not go back to evil ways.
Whist, whist! Be aisy and let me plead wid ye. Think how many long,
weary years I've looked for ye and waited for ye. Niver have I slept
night or day in me watchin'. Ye may be so stained an' lost an' ruined
that the whole wourld will scorn ye, yet not yer mither, not yer ould
mither. Oh, Nora, Nora, why did ye rin away from me? Wasn't I koind?
No, no; ye cannot lave me ag'in," and she threw herself on Alida, whose
disordered mind was tortured by what she heard. Whether or not it was a
more terrible dream than had yet oppressed her, she scarcely knew, but
in the excess of her nervous horror she sent out a cry that echoed in
every part of the large building. Two old women rushed in and dragged
Alida's persecutor screaming away.
"That's allus the way o' it," she shrieked. "As soon as I find me Nora
they snatches me and carries me off, and I have to begin me watchin'
and waitin' and lookin' ag'in."
Alida continued sobbing and trembling violently. One of the awakened
patients sought to assure her by saying, "Don't mind it so, miss. It's
only old crazy Kate. Her daughter ran away from her years and years
ago--how many no one knows--and when a young woman's brought here she
thinks it's her lost Nora. They oughtn't 'a' let her get out, knowin'
you was here."
For several days Alida's reason wavered. The nervous shock of her sad
experiences had been so great that it did not seem at all improbable
that she, like the insane mother, might be haunted for the rest of her
life by an overwhelming impression of something lost. In her morbid,
shaken mind she confounded the wrong she had received with guilt on her
own part. Eventually, she grew calmer and more sensible. Although her
conscience acquitted her of intentional evil, nothing could remove the
deep-rooted conviction that she was shamed beyond hope of remedy. For
a time she was unable to rally from nervous prostration; meanwhile, her
mind was preternaturally active, presenting every detail of the past
until she was often ready to cry aloud in her despair.
Tom Watterly took an unusual interest in her case and exhorted the
visiting physician to do his best for her. She finally began to
improve, and with the first return of strength sought to do something
with her feeble hands. The bread of charity was not sweet.
Although the place in which she lodged was clean, and the coarse,
unvarying fare abundant, she shrank shuddering, with each day's clearer
consciousness, from the majority of those about her. Phases of life of
which she had scarcely dreamed were the common topics of conversation.
In her mother she had learned to venerate gray hairs, and it was an
awful shock to learn that so many of the feeble creatures about her
were coarse, wicked, and evil-disposed. How could their withered lips
frame the words they spoke? How could they dwell on subjects that were
profanation, even to such wrecks of womanhood as themselves?
Moreover, they persecuted her by their curiosity. The good material in
her apparel had been examined and commented on; her wedding ring had
been seen and its absence soon noted, for Alida, after gaining the
power to recall the past fully, had thrown away the metal lie, feeling
that it was the last link in a chain binding her to a loathed and hated
relationship. Learning from their questions that the inmates of the
almshouse did not know her history, she refused to reveal it, thus
awakening endless surmises. Many histories were made for her, the
beldams vying with each other in constructing the worst one. Poor Alida
soon learned that there was public opinion even in an almshouse, and
that she was under its ban. In dreary despondency she thought,
"They've found out about me. If such creatures as these think I'm
hardly fit to speak to, how can I ever find work among good,
respectable people?"
Her extreme depression, the coarse, vulgar, and uncharitable natures by
which she was surrounded, retarded her recovery. By her efforts to do
anything in her power for others she disarmed the hostility of some of
the women, and those that were more or less demented became fond of
her; but the majority probed her wound by every look and word. She was
a saint compared with any of these, yet they made her envy their
respectability. She often thought, "Would to God that I was as old and
ready to die as the feeblest woman here, if I could only hold up my
head like her!"
One day a woman who had a child left it sleeping in its rude wooden
cradle and went downstairs. The babe wakened and began to cry. Alida
took it up and found a strange solace in rocking it to sleep again upon
her breast. At last the mother returned, glared a moment into Alida's
appealing eyes, then snatched the child away with the cruel words,
"Don't ye touch my baby ag'in! To think it ud been in the arms o' the
loikes o'ye!"
Alida went away and sobbed until her strength was gone. She found that
there were some others ostracized like herself, but they accepted their
position as a matter of course--as if it belonged to them and was the
least of their troubles.
Her strength was returning, yet she was still feeble when she sent for
Mrs. Watterly and asked, "Do you think I'm strong enough to take a
place somewhere?"
"You ought to know that better than me," was the chilly reply.
"Do you--do you think I could get a place? I would be willing to do
any kind of honest work not beyond my strength."
"You hardly look able to sit up straight. Better wait till you're
stronger. I'll tell my husband. If applications come, he'll see about
it," and she turned coldly away.
A day or two later Tom came and said brusquely, but not unkindly,
"Don't like my hotel, hey? What can you do?"
"I'm used to sewing, but I'd try to do almost anything by which I could
earn my living."
"Best thing to do is to prosecute that scamp and make him pay you a
good round sum."
She shook her head decidedly. "I don't wish to see him again. I don't
wish to go before people and have the--the--past talked about. I'd
like a place with some kind, quiet people who keep no other help.
Perhaps they wouldn't take me if they knew; but I would be so faithful
to them, and try so heard to learn what they wanted--"
"That's all nonsense, their not taking you. I'll find you a place some
day, but you're not strong enough yet. You'd be brought right back
here. You're as pale as a ghost--almost look like one. So don't be
impatient, but give me a chance to find you a good place. I feel sorry
for you, and don't want you to get among folks that have no feelings.
Don't you worry now; chirk up, and you'll come out all right."
"I--I think that if--if I'm employed, the people who take me ought to
know," said Alida with bowed head.
"They'll be blamed fools if they don't think more of you when they do
know," was his response. "Still, that shall be as you please. I've
told only my wife, and they've kept mum at the police station, so the
thing hasn't got into the papers."
Alida's head bowed lower still as she replied, "I thank you. My only
wish now is to find some quiet place in which I can work and be left to
myself."
"Very well," said Tom good-naturedly. "Cheer up! I'll be on the
lookout for you."
She turned to the window near which she was sitting to hide the tears
which his rough kindness evoked. "He don't seem to shrink from me as if
I wasn't fit to be spoken to," she thought; "but his wife did. I'm
afraid people won't take me when they know."
The April sunshine poured in at the window; the grass was becoming
green; a robin alighted on a tree nearby and poured out a jubilant
song. For a few moments hope, that had been almost dead in her heart,
revived. As she looked gratefully at the bird, thanking it in her
heart for the song, it darted upon a string hanging on an adjacent
spray and bore it to a crotch between two boughs. Then Alida saw it
was building a nest. Her woman's heart gave way. "Oh," she moaned, "I
shall never have a home again! No place shared by one who cares for
me. To work, and to be tolerated for the sake of my work, is all
that's left."