GARDEN AND LAUNDRY.
"The nasty pigs!"
Nurse Branscome's face, usually composed and business-like
(as a nurse's should be), was aflush between honest shame and equally
honest scorn.
"To be sure," said Brother Copas soothingly. He had met her by
chance in the ambulatory on her way from Brother Bonaday's rooms.
On a sudden resolve he had told her of the anonymous letter, not
showing it, but conveying (delicately as he might) its substance.
"To be sure," he repeated. "But I am thinking--"
"As if I don't know your thoughts!" she interrupted vigorously.
"You are thinking that, to save scandal, I had better cease my
attendance on Brother Bonaday, and hand over the case to Nurse
Turner. That I could do, of course; and if _he_ knows of it,
I certainly shall. Have you told him?"
Brother Copas shook his head.
"No. What is more, I have not the smallest intention of telling
him."
"Thank you. . . . Oh, but it is vile--vile!"
"So vile that, believe me, I had great difficulty in telling you."
"I am sure you had. . . . I can hand over the case to Nurse Turner,
of course; in fact, it came on her _rota_, but she asked me as a
favour to take it, having her hands full just then with Brother Royle
and Brother Dasent's rheumatics. It will be hard, though, to give up
the child." Nurse Branscome flushed again. "Oh, yes--you are a
gentleman, Brother Copas, and will not misunderstand! I have taken a
great liking for the child, and she will ask questions if I suddenly
desert her. You see the fix? . . . Besides, Nurse Turner--I hope I
am not becoming like one of these people, but I must say it--Nurse
Turner has not a nice mind."
"There we get at it," said Brother Copas. "As a fact, you were far
from reading my thoughts just now. They did not (forgive me) concern
themselves with you or your wisest line of conduct. You are a grown
woman, and know well enough that honesty will take care of its own in
the end. I was thinking rather of Corona. As you say, she has laid
some hold upon the pair of us. She has a pathetic belief in all the
inmates of St. Hospital--and God pity us if our corruption infects
this child! . . . You take me?"
Nurse Branscome looked at him squarely.
"If I could save her from that!"
"You would risk appearances?"
"Gladly. . . . Will you show me the letter?"
Brother Copas shook his head.
"You must take it on faith from me for a while . . . at any rate
until I find out who in St. Hospital begins her 'w's' with a curl
like a ram's horn. Did you leave the child with her father?"
"No; she had run out to the kitchen garden. Since she has discovered
it she goes there regularly twice a day, morning and evening.
I can't think why, and she won't tell. She is the queerest child."
The walled kitchen garden of St. Hospital lies to the south, between
the back of the "Nunnery" and the River Mere. It can be reached from
the ambulatory by a dark, narrow tunnel under the nurses' lodgings.
The Brethren never went near it. For years old Battershall, the
gardener, had dug there in solitude--day in, day out--and had grown
his vegetables, hedged in from all human intercourse, nor grumbling
at his lot.
Corona, exploring the precincts, had discovered this kitchen garden,
found it to her mind, and thereafter made free of it with the
cheerfullest _insouciance_. The dark tunnel, to begin with, put her
in mind of some adventure in a fairy tale she could not recall; but
it opened of a sudden and enchantingly upon sunshine and beds of
onions, parsley, cabbages, with pale yellow butterflies hovering.
Old Battershall, too, though taciturn, was obviously not displeased
by her visits. He saw that while prying here and there--especially
among the parsley beds, for what reason he could not guess--the child
stole no fruit, did no harm. She trampled nothing. She lifted no
leaf to harm it. When she stopped to speak with him her talk was
"just nonsense, you know." Unconsciously, by the end of the third
day he had looked up twice or thrice from his delving, asking himself
why she was late.
And what (do you suppose) did Corona seek in the kitchen garden?
She too, unknowing, was lonely. Unknowing, this child felt a need
for children, companions. Uncle Copas's doll--well meant and priced
at 1s. 3d.--had somehow missed to engage her affections. She could
not tell him so, but she hated it.
Like every woman-child of her age she was curious about babies.
She had heard, over in America, that babies came either at early
morning or at shut of eve, and were to be found in parsley
beds. Now old Mr. Battershall grew parsley to make you proud.
At the Merchester Rural Gardening Show he regularly took first prize;
his potting-shed, in the north-east angle of the wall, was papered
with winning tickets from bench to roof. At first when he saw Corona
moving about the bed, lifting the parsley leaves, he had a mind to
chide her away; for, as he put it, "Children and chicken be always
a-pickin'--the mischief's in their natur'." Finding, however, that
she did no damage, yet harked back to the parsley again and again, he
set her down for an unusually intelligent child, who somehow knew
good gardening when she saw it.
"Glad to see you admirin' it, missie," he said one morning, coming up
behind her unperceived.
Corona, in the act of upturning a leaf, started and drew back her
hand. Babies--she could not tell why--made their appearance in this
world by stealth, and must be searched for furtively.
"A mort o' prizes I've took with that there parsley one time and
another," pursued Mr. Battershall, not perceiving the flush of guilt
on her face (for his eyesight was, in his own words, not so young as
it used to be). "Goodbody's Curly Mammoth is the strain, and I don't
care who knows it, for the secret's not in the strain, but in the way
o' raisin' it. I grows for a succession, too. Summer or winter
these six-an'-twenty years St. Hospital's ne'er been without a fine
bed o' parsley, I thank the Lord!"
Six-and-twenty years. . . . It was comforting in a way to know that
parsley grew here all the seasons round. But--six-and-twenty years,
and not one child in the place save herself, who had come over from
America! Yet Mr. Battershall was right; it _seemed_ excellent
parsley.
"You don't find that anything comes and--and takes away--" she
hazarded, but came to a full stop.
"There's slugs," answered Mr. Battershall stolidly, "and there's
snails. Terrible full o' snails the old wall was till I got the
Master to repoint it."
"Would snails--"
"Eh?" he asked as she hesitated.
"They might take away the--the flowers, for instance."
Old Battershall guffawed.
"You wasn' sarchin' for flowers, was you? Dang me, but that's a good
'un! . . . I don't raise my own seed, missie, if that's your meanin';
an' that bein' so, he'd have to get up early as would find a flower
in my parsley."
Ah, this might explain it! As she eyed him, her childish mind
searching the mystery, yet keeping its own secret, Corona resolved to
steal down to the garden one of these fine mornings very early
indeed.
"Now I'll tell you something about parsley," said Mr. Battershall;
"something very curious, and yet it must be true, for I heard the
Master tell it in one of his sermons. The ancients, by which I mean
the Greeks, set amazin' store by the yerb. There was a kind of
Athletic Sports--sort of Crystal Palace meetin'--_the_ great event,
as you might say, and attractin' to sportsmen all over Greece--"
"All over what?"
"Greece. Which is a country, missy, or, at any rate, was so.
The meeting was held every four years; and what d'ye suppose was the
top prize, answerin', as you may say, to the Championship Cup?
Why, a wreath o' parsley! 'Garn!' says you. And 'Parsley!' says
you. Which a whole wreath of it might cost fivepence at the
outside. . . ."
Now Corona, whose mind was ever picking up and hoarding such trifles,
had heard Uncle Copas two days before drop a remark that the Greeks
knew everything worth knowing. Plainly, then, the parsley held some
wonderful secret after all. She must contrive to outwit old
Battershall, and get to the garden ahead of him, which would not be
easy, by the way.
To begin with, on these summer mornings old Battershall rose with the
lark, and boasted of it; and, furthermore, the door of her father's
bedroom stood open all night. To steal abroad she must pass it, and
he was the lightest of sleepers. She did not intend to be beaten,
though; and meanwhile she punctually visited the parsley morning and
evening.
Heaven knows how the day-dream came to take possession of her.
She was not consciously lonely. She worshipped this marvellous new
home. Sometimes in her rambles she had to pinch herself to make
sure this was all really happening. But always in her rambles she
saw St. Hospital peopled with children--boys, girls, and little
toddlers--chasing one another across the lawns, laughing at
hide-and-seek in the archways, bruising no flower-bed, filling old
souls with glee. They were her playmates, these innocents of her
fancy, the long day through. At evening in her prayers she called
them home, and they came reluctant--
No, no, let us play, for it is yet day
And we cannot go to sleep;
Besides, in the sky the little birds fly
And the hills are all covered with sheep.
The tunnel was populous with them as she passed through it from the
garden to the ambulatory, and at the end of the tunnel she came plump
upon Branny and Uncle Copas in converse. They started guiltily.
"I've been looking for you this half-hour," said Brother Copas,
recovering himself. "Didn't a certain small missy make an
appointment with me to be shown the laundry and its wonders?
And isn't this Tuesday--ironing day?"
"You promised to show it to me _some time_," answered Corona, who was
punctilious in small matters; "but you never fixed any time in
p'tic'lar."
"Oh, then I must have made the appointment with myself! Never mind;
come along now, if you can spare the time."
Nurse Branscome nodded and left them, turning in at the stairway
which led to her quarters in the Nunnery. At the foot of it she
paused to call after them--
"Mind, Corona is not to be late for her tea! I've invited myself
this evening, and there is to be a plum cake in honour of the
occasion."
Brother Copas and Corona passed down the ambulatory and by the
porter's lodge to the outer court. Of a sudden, within a few paces
of the laundry, Brother Copas halted to listen.
"You had better stop here for a moment," he said, and walked forward
to the laundry door, the hasp of which he lifted after knocking
sharply with his staff. He threw the door open and looked in,
surveying the scene with an angry disgust.
"Hallo! More abominations?" exclaimed Brother Copas.
The quarrel had started in the forenoon over a dirty trick played by
Brother Clerihew, the ex-butler. (Brother Clerihew had a name for
underhand practice; indeed, his inability to miss a chance of it had
cost him situation after situation, and finally landed him in St.
Hospital.) This time he had played it upon poor old doddering
Brother Ibbetson. Finding Ibbetson in the porter's gateway, with
charge of a lucrative-looking tourist and in search of the key of the
Relique Room, he noted that the key, usually handed out by Porter
Manby, hung on a hook just within the doorway; but old Ibbetson,
being purblind, could not see it, or at all events could not
recognise it, and Manby happened to be away at the brewhouse on some
errand connected with the Wayfarers' Dole. Brother Clerihew, who had
left him there, sent Ibbetson off on a chase in the wrong direction,
loitered around for a couple of minutes chatting about the weather,
and then, with a remark that it was shameful to keep gentlefolks
waiting so, looked casually in at the doorway.
"Why the key is here all the time!" he exclaimed. "If you are in any
hurry, sir, permit me to take brother Ibbetson's place, and show you
round. Oh," he added falsely, seeing the visitor hesitate, "it won't
hurt _him_ at all! I don't like to mention it, but any small
gratuities bestowed on the Brethren are carried to a common fund."
Ibbetson, harking back from a vain search to find his bird had flown,
encountered Porter Manby returning with Brother Warboise from the
brew-house, and tremulously opened up his distress.
"Eh?" snapped Warboise, after exchanging glances with the Porter.
"Clerihew said Manby was in the kitchen, did he? But he'd left us at
the brewhouse not a minute before."
"And the key! gone from the hook!" chimed in Porter Manby, "where
I'll swear I left it. This is one of Clerihew's monkeyings, you
bet."
"I'll monkey him," growled Brother Warboise.
The three kept sentry, knowing that Clerihew must sooner or later
return with his convoy, there being no other exit. When at length he
hove in sight with his convoy his face wore an uneasy, impudent
smile. He was the richer by half a crown. They stood aside and let
him brazen it past them; but Manby and Ibbetson were still waiting
for him as he came back alone. Ibbetson was content with a look of
reproach. Manby told him fair and straight that he was a swindling
cur. But meanwhile Warboise had stumped off and told Ibbetson's
wife. This done, he hurried off, and catching Clerihew by the steps
of the Hundred Men's Hall, threatened the rogue with his staff.
Manby caught them in altercation, the one aiming impotent blows, the
other evading them still with his shameless grin, and separated them.
Brother Ibbetson looked on, feebly wringing his hands.
But Mrs. Ibbetson was worth three of her husband, and a notorious
scold. In the laundry, later on, she announced within earshot of
Mrs. Clerihew that, as was well beknown, Clerihew had lost his last
three places for bottle-stealing; and Mrs. Royle, acknowledged virago
of St. Hospital, took up the accusation and blared it obscenely.
For a good five minutes the pair mauled Mrs. Clerihew, who, with an
air of high gentility, went on ironing shirts. She had been a lady's
maid when Clerihew married her, and could command, as a rule,
a high-bred, withering sneer. Unhappily, the united attack of Mrs.
Ibbetson and Mrs. Royle goaded her so far beyond the bounds of
breeding that of a sudden she upped and called the latter a bitch;
whereupon, feeling herself committed, this ordinarily demure woman
straightened her spine and followed up the word with a torrent of
filthy invective that took the whole laundry aback.
Her success was but momentary. Mrs. Royle had a character to
maintain. Fetching a gasp, she let fly the dirtiest word one woman
can launch at another, and on the instant made a grab at Mrs.
Clerihew's brow. . . . It was a matter of notoriety in St. Hospital
that Mrs. Clerihew wore a false "front." The thing came away in Mrs.
Royle's clutch, and amid shrieks of laughter Mrs. Royle tossed it to
Mrs. Ibbetson, who promptly clapped down a hot flat-iron upon it.
The spectators rocked with helpless mirth as the poor woman strove to
cover her bald brows, while the thing hissed and shrivelled to
nothing, emitting an acrid odour beneath the relentless flat-iron.
"Ladies! ladies!" commanded Brother Copas. "A visitor, if you
please!"
The word--as always in St. Hospital--instantly commanded a hush.
The women fled back to their tables, and started ironing, goffering,
crimping for dear life, with irons hot and cold. Brother Copas, with
a chuckle, leant back and beckoned Corona in from the yard.
At sight of her on the threshold Mrs. Royle broke into a coarse
laugh. It found no echo, and died away half-heartedly. For one
thing, there might yet be a real visitor behind the child; for
another, these women stood in some little awe of Brother Copas, who
paid well for his laundry-work, never mixed himself up with gossip,
and moreover had a formidable trick of lifting his hat whenever he
passed one of these viragoes, and after a glance at her face, fixing
an amused stare at her feet.
"Pardon me, ladies," said he; "but my small laundry-work has hitherto
gone, as you know, to old Mrs. Vigurs in St. Faith's Road. Last week
she sent me word that she could no longer undertake it, the fact
being that she has just earned her Old Age Pension and is retiring
upon it. I come to ask if one of you will condescend to take her
place and oblige me."
He paused, tasting the fun of it. As he well knew, they all feared
and hated him for his trick of irony; but at least half a dozen of
them desired his custom, for in St. Hospital (where nothing escaped
notice) Brother Copas's fastidious extravagance in body-linen and his
punctuality in discharging small debts were matters of common
knowledge. Moreover, in their present mood each of these women saw a
chance of spiting another by depriving her of the job.
Brother Copas eyed them with an amiable smile.
"Come," he said, "don't all speak at once! . . . I'll not ask you to
bid for my little contract just now when I see you are all so busy.
But seriously, I invite tenders, and will ask any one of you who
cares for my custom to send me (say by to-morrow evening) a list of
her prices in a sealed envelope, each envelope to bear the words
'Washing List' in an upper corner, that I may put all the tenders
aside and open them together. Eh? What do you say, ladies?"
"I shall be happy for one," said Mrs. Clerihew, laying stress on the
aspirate. She was always careful of this, having lived with
gentlefolks. She burned to know if Brother Copas had heard her call
Mrs. Royle a bitch. Mrs. Royle (to do her justice) when enraged
recked neither what she said nor who overheard. But Mrs. Clerihew,
between her lapses, clung passionately to gentility and the world's
esteem. She was conscious, moreover, that without her false "front"
she must be looking a fright. . . . In short, the wretched woman
rushed into speech because for the moment anything was more tolerable
than silence.
"I thank you, ma'am."
Neither voice nor look betrayed that Brother Copas had overheard or
perceived anything amiss.
Mrs. Clerihew, baffled, began desperately to curry favour.
"And you've brought Brother Bonaday's pretty child, I see. . . . Step
over here, my dear, and watch me--when I've heated this iron.
'Crimping,' they call it, and I've done it for titled folks in my
time. One of these days, I hope, you'll be going into good service
yourself. There's nothing like it for picking up manners."
She talked for talking's sake, in a carneying tone, while her bosom
still heaved from the storm of battle.
Mrs. Royle attempted a ribald laugh, but it met with no success, and
her voice died down under a disapproving hush.
Mrs. Clerihew talked on, gaining confidence. She crimped
beautifully, and this was the more remarkable because (as Corona
noted) her hand shook all the while.
In short, the child had, as she put it, quite a good time.
When it was time to be going she thanked Mrs. Clerihew very prettily,
and walked back with Brother Copas to her father's room. They found
Nurse Branscome there and the table already laid for tea; there was a
plum cake, too.
After tea Branny told them all very gravely that this must be her
last visit. She was giving over the care of Corona's father
to Nurse Turner, whose "case" it had really been from the first.
She explained that the nurses, unless work were extra heavy, had to
take their patients in a certain order, by what she called a _rota_.
"But he's bettering every day now, so I don't mind." She nodded
cheerfully towards Brother Bonaday, and then, seeing that Corona's
face was woebegone, she added: "But you will often be running across
to the Nunnery to see me. Besides, I've brought a small parting gift
to console you."
She unwrapped a paper parcel, and held out a black boy-doll, a real
Golliwog, with white shirt buttons for eyes and hair of black Berlin
wool.
"Oh, Branny!"
Corona, after holding the Golliwog a moment in outstretched hands,
strained it to her breast.
"Oh, Branny! And till this moment I didn't know how much I've wanted
him!"