AND MAY BE FOUND OF IMPORTANCE IN THIS HISTORY
It was no unfit messenger of death, who had disturbed the quiet of
the matron’s room. Her body was bent by age; her limbs trembled with
palsy; her face, distorted into a mumbling leer, resembled more the
grotesque shaping of some wild pencil, than the work of Nature’s
hand.
Alas! How few of Nature’s faces are left alone to gladden us with
their beauty! The cares, and sorrows, and hungerings, of the
world, change them as they change hearts; and it is only when those
passions sleep, and have lost their hold for ever, that the troubled
clouds pass off, and leave Heaven’s surface clear. It is a common
thing for the countenances of the dead, even in that fixed and rigid
state, to subside into the long-forgotten expression of sleeping
infancy, and settle into the very look of early life; so calm, so
peaceful, do they grow again, that those who knew them in their
happy childhood, kneel by the coffin’s side in awe, and see the
Angel even upon earth.
The old crone tottered along the passages, and up the stairs,
muttering some indistinct answers to the chidings of her companion;
being at length compelled to pause for breath, she gave the light
into her hand, and remained behind to follow as she might: while the
more nimble superior made her way to the room where the sick woman
lay.
It was a bare garret-room, with a dim light burning at the farther
end. There was another old woman watching by the bed; the parish
apothecary’s apprentice was standing by the fire, making a toothpick
out of a quill.
‘Cold night, Mrs. Corney,’ said this young gentleman, as the matron
entered.
‘Very cold, indeed, sir,’ replied the mistress, in her most civil
tones, and dropping a curtsey as she spoke.
‘You should get better coals out of your contractors,’ said the
apothecary’s deputy, breaking a lump on the top of the fire with
the rusty poker; ‘these are not at all the sort of thing for a cold
night.’
‘They’re the board’s choosing, sir,’ returned the matron. ‘The least
they could do, would be to keep us pretty warm: for our places are
hard enough.’
The conversation was here interrupted by a moan from the sick woman.
‘Oh!’ said the young mag, turning his face towards the bed, as if
he had previously quite forgotten the patient, ‘it’s all U.P. there,
Mrs. Corney.’
‘It is, is it, sir?’ asked the matron.
‘If she lasts a couple of hours, I shall be surprised,’ said the
apothecary’s apprentice, intent upon the toothpick’s point. ‘It’s a
break-up of the system altogether. Is she dozing, old lady?’
The attendant stooped over the bed, to ascertain; and nodded in the
affirmative.
‘Then perhaps she’ll go off in that way, if you don’t make a row,’
said the young man. ‘Put the light on the floor. She won’t see it
there.’
The attendant did as she was told: shaking her head meanwhile, to
intimate that the woman would not die so easily; having done so,
she resumed her seat by the side of the other nurse, who had by
this time returned. The mistress, with an expression of impatience,
wrapped herself in her shawl, and sat at the foot of the bed.
The apothecary’s apprentice, having completed the manufacture of the
toothpick, planted himself in front of the fire and made good use
of it for ten minutes or so: when apparently growing rather dull, he
wished Mrs. Corney joy of her job, and took himself off on tiptoe.
When they had sat in silence for some time, the two old women rose
from the bed, and crouching over the fire, held out their withered
hands to catch the heat. The flame threw a ghastly light on their
shrivelled faces, and made their ugliness appear terrible, as, in
this position, they began to converse in a low voice.
‘Did she say any more, Anny dear, while I was gone?’ inquired the
messenger.
‘Not a word,’ replied the other. ‘She plucked and tore at her arms
for a little time; but I held her hands, and she soon dropped off.
She hasn’t much strength in her, so I easily kept her quiet. I ain’t
so weak for an old woman, although I am on parish allowance; no,
no!’
‘Did she drink the hot wine the doctor said she was to have?’
demanded the first.
‘I tried to get it down,’ rejoined the other. ‘But her teeth were
tight set, and she clenched the mug so hard that it was as much as I
could do to get it back again. So I drank it; and it did me good!’
Looking cautiously round, to ascertain that they were not overheard,
the two hags cowered nearer to the fire, and chuckled heartily.
‘I mind the time,’ said the first speaker, ‘when she would have done
the same, and made rare fun of it afterwards.’
‘Ay, that she would,’ rejoined the other; ‘she had a merry heart.
‘A many, many, beautiful corpses she laid out, as nice and neat as
waxwork. My old eyes have seen them--ay, and those old hands touched
them too; for I have helped her, scores of times.’
Stretching forth her trembling fingers as she spoke, the old
creature shook them exultingly before her face, and fumbling in
her pocket, brought out an old time-discoloured tin snuff-box,
from which she shook a few grains into the outstretched palm of
her companion, and a few more into her own. While they were thus
employed, the matron, who had been impatiently watching until the
dying woman should awaken from her stupor, joined them by the fire,
and sharply asked how long she was to wait?
‘Not long, mistress,’ replied the second woman, looking up into
her face. ‘We have none of us long to wait for Death. Patience,
patience! He’ll be here soon enough for us all.’
‘Hold your tongue, you doting idiot!’ said the matron sternly. ‘You,
Martha, tell me; has she been in this way before?’
‘Often,’ answered the first woman.
‘But will never be again,’ added the second one; ‘that is, she’ll
never wake again but once--and mind, mistress, that won’t be for
long!’
‘Long or short,’ said the matron, snappishly, ‘she won’t find me
here when she does wake; take care, both of you, how you worry me
again for nothing. It’s no part of my duty to see all the old women
in the house die, and I won’t--that’s more. Mind that, you impudent
old harridans. If you make a fool of me again, I’ll soon cure you, I
warrant you!’
She was bouncing away, when a cry from the two women, who had turned
towards the bed, caused her to look round. The patient had raised
herself upright, and was stretching her arms towards them.
‘Who’s that?’ she cried, in a hollow voice.
‘Hush, hush!’ said one of the women, stooping over her. ‘Lie down,
lie down!’
‘I’ll never lie down again alive!’ said the woman, struggling. ‘I
_will_ tell her! Come here! Nearer! Let me whisper in your ear.’
She clutched the matron by the arm, and forcing her into a chair
by the bedside, was about to speak, when looking round, she caught
sight of the two old women bending forward in the attitude of eager
listeners.
‘Turn them away,’ said the woman, drowsily; ‘make haste! make
haste!’
The two old crones, chiming in together, began pouring out many
piteous lamentations that the poor dear was too far gone to know her
best friends; and were uttering sundry protestations that they would
never leave her, when the superior pushed them from the room, closed
the door, and returned to the bedside. On being excluded, the old
ladies changed their tone, and cried through the keyhole that old
Sally was drunk; which, indeed, was not unlikely; since, in addition
to a moderate dose of opium prescribed by the apothecary, she was
labouring under the effects of a final taste of gin-and-water which
had been privily administered, in the openness of their hearts, by
the worthy old ladies themselves.
‘Now listen to me,’ said the dying woman aloud, as if making a great
effort to revive one latent spark of energy. ‘In this very room--in
this very bed--I once nursed a pretty young creetur’, that was
brought into the house with her feet cut and bruised with walking,
and all soiled with dust and blood. She gave birth to a boy, and
died. Let me think--what was the year again!’
‘Never mind the year,’ said the impatient auditor; ‘what about her?’
‘Ay,’ murmured the sick woman, relapsing into her former drowsy
state, ‘what about her?--what about--I know!’ she cried, jumping
fiercely up: her face flushed, and her eyes starting from her
head--‘I robbed her, so I did! She wasn’t cold--I tell you she
wasn’t cold, when I stole it!’
‘Stole what, for God’s sake?’ cried the matron, with a gesture as if
she would call for help.
‘_It_!’ replied the woman, laying her hand over the other’s mouth.
‘The only thing she had. She wanted clothes to keep her warm, and
food to eat; but she had kept it safe, and had it in her bosom. It
was gold, I tell you! Rich gold, that might have saved her life!’
‘Gold!’ echoed the matron, bending eagerly over the woman as she
fell back. ‘Go on, go on--yes--what of it? Who was the mother? When
was it?’
‘She charge me to keep it safe,’ replied the woman with a groan,
‘and trusted me as the only woman about her. I stole it in my heart
when she first showed it me hanging round her neck; and the child’s
death, perhaps, is on me besides! They would have treated him
better, if they had known it all!’
‘Known what?’ asked the other. ‘Speak!’
‘The boy grew so like his mother,’ said the woman, rambling on, and
not heeding the question, ‘that I could never forget it when I saw
his face. Poor girl! poor girl! She was so young, too! Such a gentle
lamb! Wait; there’s more to tell. I have not told you all, have I?’
‘No, no,’ replied the matron, inclining her head to catch the words,
as they came more faintly from the dying woman. ‘Be quick, or it may
be too late!’
‘The mother,’ said the woman, making a more violent effort than
before; ‘the mother, when the pains of death first came upon her,
whispered in my ear that if her baby was born alive, and thrived,
the day might come when it would not feel so much disgraced to
hear its poor young mother named. “And oh, kind Heaven!” she said,
folding her thin hands together, “whether it be boy or girl, raise
up some friends for it in this troubled world, and take pity upon a
lonely desolate child, abandoned to its mercy!”’
‘The boy’s name?’ demanded the matron.
‘They _called_ him Oliver,’ replied the woman, feebly. ‘The gold I
stole was--’
‘Yes, yes--what?’ cried the other.
She was bending eagerly over the woman to hear her reply; but drew
back, instinctively, as she once again rose, slowly and stiffly,
into a sitting posture; then, clutching the coverlid with both
hands, muttered some indistinct sounds in her throat, and fell
lifeless on the bed.
* * * * *
‘Stone dead!’ said one of the old women, hurrying in as soon as the
door was opened.
‘And nothing to tell, after all,’ rejoined the matron, walking
carelessly away.
The two crones, to all appearance, too busily occupied in the
preparations for their dreadful duties to make any reply, were left
alone, hovering about the body.