TROUBLES.
In the beginning of the following year, the lady who filled Miss Clare's
place was married, and Miss Clare resumed the teaching of Judy's children.
She was now so handsomely paid for her lessons, that she had reduced the
number of her engagements very much, and had more time to give to the plans
in which she labored with Lady Bernard. The latter would willingly have
settled such an annuity upon her as would have enabled her to devote all
her time to this object; but Miss Clare felt that the earning of her bread
was one of the natural ties that bound her in the bundle of social life;
and that in what she did of a spiritual kind, she must be untrammelled by
money-relations. If she could not do both,--provide for herself and assist
others,--it would be a different thing, she said; for then it would be
clear that Providence intended her to receive the hire of the laborer for
the necessity laid upon her. But what influenced her chiefly was the dread
of having anything she did for her friends attributed to professional
motives, instead of the recognition of eternal relations. Besides, as she
said, it would both lessen the means at Lady Bernard's disposal, and cause
herself to feel bound to spend all her energies in that one direction; in
which case she would be deprived of the recreative influences of change and
more polished society. In her labor, she would yet feel her freedom, and
would not serve even Lady Bernard for money, except she saw clearly that
such was the will of the one Master. In thus refusing her offer, she but
rose in her friend's estimation.
In the spring, great trouble fell upon the Morleys. One of the children
was taken with scarlet-fever; and then another and another was seized in
such rapid succession--until five of them were lying ill together--that
there was no time to think of removing them. Cousin Judy would accept
no assistance in nursing them, beyond that of her own maids, until her
strength gave way, and she took the infection herself in the form of
diphtheria; when she was compelled to take to her bed, in such agony at the
thought of handing her children over to hired nurses, that there was great
ground for fearing her strength would yield.
She lay moaning, with her eyes shut, when a hand was laid on hers, and Miss
Clare's voice was in her ear. She had come to give her usual lesson to one
of the girls who had as yet escaped the infection: for, while she took
every precaution, she never turned aside from her work for any dread of
consequences; and when she heard that Mrs. Morley had been taken ill, she
walked straight to her room.
"Go away!" said Judy. "Do you want to die too?"
"Dear Mrs. Morley," said Miss Clare, "I will just run home, and make a few
arrangements, and then come back and nurse you."
"Never mind me," said Judy. "The children! the children! What _shall_ I
do?"
"I am quite able to look after you all--if you will allow me to bring a
young woman to help me."
"You are an angel!" said poor Judy. "But there is no occasion to bring any
one with you. My servants are quite competent."
"I must have every thing in my own hands," said Miss Clare; "and therefore
must have some one who will do exactly as I tell her. This girl has been
with me now for some time, and I can depend upon her. Servants always look
down upon governesses."
"Do whatever you like, you blessed creature," said Judy. "If any one of my
servants behaves improperly to you, or neglects your orders, she shall go
as soon as I am up again."
"I would rather give them as little opportunity as I can of running the
risk. If I may bring this friend of my own, I shall soon have the house
under hospital regulations. But I have been talking too much. I might
almost have returned by this time. It is a bad beginning if I have hurt you
already by saying more than was necessary."
She had hardly left the room before Judy had fallen asleep, so much was she
relieved by the offer of her services. Ere she awoke, Marion was in a cab
on her way back to Bolivar Square, with her friend and two carpet-bags.
Within an hour, she had intrenched herself in a spare bedroom, had lighted
a fire, got encumbering finery out of the way, arranged all the medicines
on a chest of drawers, and set the clock on the mantle-piece going; made
the round of the patients, who were all in adjoining rooms, and the round
of the house, to see that the disinfectants were fresh and active, added to
their number, and then gone to await the arrival of the medical attendant
in Mrs. Morley's room.
"Dr. Brand might have been a little more gracious," said Judy; "but I
thought it better not to interrupt him by explaining that you were not the
professional nurse he took you for."
"Indeed, there was no occasion," answered Miss Clare. "I should have told
him so myself, had it not been that I did a nurse's regular work in St.
George's Hospital for two months, and have been there for a week or so,
several times since, so that I believe I have earned the right to be spoken
to as such. Anyhow, I understood every word he said."
Meeting Mr. Morley in the hall, the doctor advised him not to go near his
wife, diphtheria being so infectious; but comforted him with the assurance
that the nurse appeared an intelligent young person, who would attend to
all his directions; adding,--
"I could have wished she had been older; but there is a great deal of
illness about, and experienced nurses are scarce."
Miss Clare was a week in the house before Mr. Morley saw her, or knew she
was there. One evening she ran down to the dining-room, where he sat over
his lonely glass of Madeira, to get some brandy, and went straight to the
sideboard. As she turned to leave the room, he recognized her, and said, in
some astonishment,--
"You need not trouble yourself, Miss Clare. The nurse can get what she
wants from Hawkins. Indeed, I don't see"--
"Excuse me, Mr. Morley. If you wish to speak to me, I will return in a few
minutes; but I have a good deal to attend to just at this moment."
She left the room; and, as he had said nothing in reply, did not return.
Two days after, about the same hour, whether suspecting the fact, or for
some other reason, he requested the butler to send the nurse to him.
"The nurse from the nursery, sir; or the young person as teaches the young
ladies the piano?" asked Hawkins.
"I mean the sick-nurse," said his master.
In a few minutes Miss Clare entered the dining-room, and approached Mr.
Morley.
"How do you do, Miss Clare?" he said stiffly; for to any one in his
employment he was gracious only now and then. "Allow me to say that I
doubt the propriety of your being here so much. You cannot fail to carry
the infection. I think your lessons had better be postponed until _all_
your pupils are able to benefit by them. I have just sent for the nurse;
and,--if you please"--
"Yes. Hawkins told me you wanted me," said Miss Clare.
"I did not want you. He must have mistaken."
"I am the nurse, Mr. Morley."
"Then I _must_ say it is not with my approval," he returned, rising from
his chair in anger. "I was given to understand that a properly-qualified
person was in charge of my wife and family. This is no ordinary case, where
a little coddling is all that is wanted."
"I am perfectly qualified, Mr. Morley."
He walked up and down the room several times.
"I must speak to Mrs. Morley about this." he said.
"I entreat you will not disturb her. She is not so well this afternoon."
"How _is_ this, Miss Clare? Pray explain to me how it is that you come
to be taking a part in the affairs of the family so very different from
that for which Mrs. Morley--which--was arranged between Mrs. Morley and
yourself."
"It is but an illustration of the law of supply and demand," answered
Marion. "A nurse was wanted; Mrs. Morley had strong objections to a hired
nurse, and I was very glad to be able to set her mind at rest."
"It was very obliging in you, no doubt," he returned, forcing the
admission; "but--but"--
"Let us leave it for the present, if you please; for while I am nurse, I
must mind my business. Dr. Brand expresses himself quite satisfied with me,
so far as we have gone; and it is better for the children, not to mention
Mrs. Morley, to have some one about them they are used to."
She left the room without waiting further parley.
Dr. Brand, however, not only set Mr. Morley's mind at rest as to her
efficiency, but when a terrible time of anxiety was at length over, during
which one after another, and especially Judy herself, had been in great
danger, assured him that, but for the vigilance and intelligence of Miss
Clare, joined to a certain soothing influence which she exercised over
every one of her patients, he did not believe he could have brought Mrs.
Morley through. Then, indeed, he changed his tone to her, in a measure,
still addressing her as from a height of superiority.
They had recovered so far that they were to set out the next morning for
Hastings, when he thus addressed her, having sent for her once more to the
dining-room:--
"I hope you will accompany them, Miss Clare," he said. "By this time you
must be in no small need of a change yourself."
"The best change for me will be Lime Court," she answered, laughing.
"Now, pray don't drive your goodness to the verge of absurdity," he said
pleasantly.
"Indeed, I am anxious about my friends there," she returned. "I fear they
have not been getting on quite so well without me. A Bible-woman and a
Roman Catholic have been quarrelling dreadfully, I hear."
Mr. Morley compressed his lips. It _was_ annoying to be so much indebted to
one who, from whatever motives, called such people her friends.
"Oblige me, then," he said loftily, taking an envelope from the
mantle-piece, and handing it to her, "by opening that at your leisure."
"I will open it now, if you please," she returned.
It contained a bank-note for a hundred pounds. Mr. Morley, though a hard
man, was not by any means stingy. She replaced it in the envelope, and laid
it again on the chimney-piece.
"You owe me nothing, Mr. Morley," she said.
"Owe you nothing! I owe you more than I can ever repay."
"Then don't try it, please. You are _very_ generous; but indeed I could not
accept it."
"You must oblige me. You _might_ take it from _me_," he added, almost
pathetically, as if the bond was so close that money was nothing between
them.
"You are the last--one of the last I _could_ take money from, Mr. Morley."
"Why?"
"Because you think so much of it, and yet would look down on me the more if
I accepted it."
He bit his lip, rubbed his forehead with his hand, threw back his head, and
turned away from her.
"I should be very sorry to offend you," she said; "and, believe me, there
is hardly any thing I value less than money. I have enough, and could have
plenty more if I liked. I would rather have your friendship than all the
money you possess. But that cannot be, so long as"--
She stopped: she was on the point of going too far, she thought.
"So long as what?" he returned sternly.
"So long as you are a worshipper of Mammon," she answered; and left the
room.
She burst out crying when she came to this point. She had narrated the
whole with the air of one making a confession.
"I am afraid it was very wrong," she said; "and if so, then it was very
rude as well. But something seemed to force it out of me. Just think: there
was a generous heart, clogged up with self-importance and wealth! To me, as
he stood there on the hearth-rug, he was a most pitiable object--with an
impervious wall betwixt him and the kingdom of heaven! He seemed like a man
in a terrible dream, from which I _must_ awake him by calling aloud in his
ear--except that, alas! the dream was not terrible to him, only to me! If
he had been one of my poor friends, guilty of some plain fault, I should
have told him so without compunction; and why not, being what he was? There
he stood,--a man of estimable qualities, of beneficence, if not bounty;
no miser, nor consciously unjust; yet a man whose heart the moth and rust
were eating into a sponge!--who went to church every Sunday, and had many
friends, not one of whom, not even his own wife, would tell him that he was
a Mammon-worshipper, and losing his life. It may have been useless, it may
have been wrong; but I felt driven to it by bare human pity for the misery
I saw before me."
"It looks to me as if you had the message given you to give him," I said.
"But--though I don't know it--what if I was annoyed with him for offering
me that wretched hundred pounds,--in doing which he was acting up to the
light that was in him?"
I could not help thinking of the light which is darkness, but I did not
say so. Strange tableau, in this our would-be grand nineteenth century,--a
young and poor woman prophet-like rebuking a wealthy London merchant on
his own hearth-rug, as a worshipper of Mammon! I think she was right; not
because he was wrong, but because, as I firmly believe, she did it from no
personal motives whatever, although in her modesty she doubted herself. I
believe it was from pure regard for the man and for the truth, urging her
to an irrepressible utterance. If so, should we not say that she spoke by
the Spirit? Only I shudder to think what utterance might, with an equal
outward show, be attributed to the same Spirit. Well, to his own master
every one standeth or falleth; whether an old prophet who, with a lie in
his right hand, entraps an honorable guest, or a young prophet who, with
repentance in his heart, walks calmly into the jaws of the waiting lion.
[Footnote: See the Sermons of the Rev. Henry Whitehead, vicar of St.
John's, Limehouse; as remarkable for the profundity of their insight us
for the noble severity of their literary modelling.--G.M.D.]
And no one can tell what effects the words may have had upon him. I do not
believe he ever mentioned the circumstance to his wife. At all events,
there was no change in her manner to Miss Clare. Indeed, I could not help
fancying that a little halo of quiet reverence now encircled the love in
every look she cast upon her.
She firmly believed that Marion had saved her life, and that of more than
one of her children. Nothing, she said, could equal the quietness and
tenderness and tirelessness of her nursing. She was never flurried, never
impatient, and never frightened. Even when the tears would be flowing
down her face, the light never left her eyes nor the music her voice; and
when they were all getting better, and she had the nursery piano brought
out on the landing in the middle of the sick-rooms, and there played and
sung to them, it was, she said, like the voice of an angel, come fresh
to the earth, with the same old news of peace and good-will. When the
children--this I had from the friend she brought with her--were tossing
in the fever, and talking of strange and frightful things they saw, one
word from her would quiet them; and her gentle, firm command was always
sufficient to make the most fastidious and rebellious take his medicine.
She came out of it very pale, and a good deal worn. But the day they set
off for Hastings, she returned to Lime Court. The next day she resumed
her lessons, and soon recovered her usual appearance. A change of work,
she always said, was the best restorative. But before a month was over
I succeeded in persuading her to accept my mother's invitation to spend
a week at the Hall; and from this visit she returned quite invigorated.
Connie, whom she went to see,--for by this time she was married to Mr.
Turner,--was especially delighted with her delight in the simplicities
of nature. Born and bred in the closest town-environment, she had yet a
sensitiveness to all that made the country so dear to us who were born in
it, which Connie said surpassed ours, and gave her special satisfaction
as proving that my oft recurring dread lest such feelings might but be
the result of childish associations was groundless, and that they were
essential to the human nature, and so felt by God himself. Driving along
in the pony-carriage,--for Connie is not able to walk much, although she
is well enough to enjoy life thoroughly,--Marion would remark upon ten
things in a morning, that my sister had never observed. The various effects
of light and shade, and the variety of feeling they caused, especially
interested her. She would spy out a lurking sunbeam, as another would find
a hidden flower. It seemed as if not a glitter in its nest of gloom could
escape her. She would leave the carriage, and make a long round through the
fields or woods, and, when they met at the appointed spot, would have her
hands full not of flowers only, but of leaves and grasses and weedy things,
showing the deepest interest in such lowly forms as few would notice except
from a scientific knowledge, of which she had none: it was the thing
itself--its look and its home--that drew her attention. I cannot help
thinking that this insight was profoundly one with her interest in the
corresponding regions of human life and circumstance.