JANE CHESTER AND THE STRANGER.
Disease, thou art a fearful thing
When, half disarmed by household care,
Thou sweepest with thy poison wing,
O'er the loved forms to which we cling,
And bending to the sweet and fair,
Leav'st thy corroding mildew there!
But if thou treadst the plundered track,
Where poverty has swept before,
Leaving his victim on the rack,
Then, then, thou art a demon black,
That steals within the poor man's door.
Crushing his hopes forevermore!
And Jane Chester--where was she while strangers were bearing away
the husband of her youth to his lone grave? Amid her fever that day,
amid all her delirium, one idea had been vivid and prominent before
her. The woman's heart remained true to its anchorage amid the storm
and fire of approaching ship-fever. Long after reason had failed,
the love that was stronger than reason told her that some great evil
was befalling her husband. Time was to her a vague idea; she thought
that he had been gone for weeks--that he was seeking for her and the
children along the wharves and in the dim alleys of the city, and
that the Mayor had forbidden him to come home. She would find him--she
would take food and clean garments to him in the street. He should
not wander there so poverty-stricken and neglected, without her. In
defiance of the Mayor, in defiance of the whole world, she would go
to him.
This thought ran through her burning brain, and trembled wildly on
her tongue. Her husband--her husband--he could not come to her, and
she must go to him. But the two little girls--they appeared to her
like guards--great gaunt creatures dressed in fantastic uniform,
stationed by her bed to coerce and frighten her. They held her back;
they seemed to smother her in the bed-clothes, and gird her head down
to the pillow with the hot clasp of their united hands. Those two
little creatures became to her an object of terrible dread. She longed
for strength to tear them down from the towering altitude which her
imagination gave, and blindfold them, as they, in her wild fancy,
had blindfolded her with their scorching hands.
She saw little Mary Fuller put on her hood and go forth with a thrill
of insane delight. That wild, uncouth form had seemed far more
terrible than the other, and yet now the petite figure of her own
child seemed to rise and swell over her like a fiend.
"Ice--ice!"
She knew, in her delirium, that this cry sometimes sent her dreaded
jailors from the room. If they were absent, she could find her
clothes--she could steal softly down stairs, and away after _him_.
"Ice--ice!" she cried, "I will drink nothing unless the ice rattles
in the glass--cold, cold. It must be cold as death, I say."
Isabel rose up in terror, and taking their last sixpence, went forth
for the ice. Then the mother laughed beneath the bedclothes--alone,
all alone. She started up--tore off her cap and her night-dress, and
thrust her unstockinged feet in a pair of slippers that stood near
the bed.
Several dresses hung in the room. With her eager and burning hands
she took them down, cast all but one on the floor, and put that on,
laughing low and dismally all the while. A bandbox stood at the foot
of the bed. She crept to it, took out a bonnet, and drew it with her
trembling hands over the disordered masses of her hair, which she
tried vainly to smooth with her hot palms. Strong with fever, wild
with apprehension that her guard might return, the poor woman arose
to her feet, and after steadying herself by the door-frame awhile,
staggered from the room down the stairs and into the broad city.
Filled with the one idea, that of finding her husband, she passed
on, turning a corner--another, pausing now and then by an iron
railing, to which she clung, with a desperate effort to keep herself
upright.
Many persons saw her as she passed, reeling in her walk, and with
her sweet face flushed crimson; but, alas! these sights are not
uncommon in our city, from causes far more heart-rending than illness,
and with passing wonder that a person of her appearance should be
thus exposed at mid-day. Those who noticed her went by, some smiling
in scorn, others filled with such pity as the truly good feel for
erring humanity. But the poor invalid tottered forward, unconscious
of their pity or their scorn. She had but one object--one fixed
thought among all the wild ideas that floated through her brain--her
husband. She was in search of him, and, in her fever-strength, she
walked on and on, murmuring his name over and over to herself, as
a lost child mutters the name of its parents.
At last, her strength gave way. She was upon a broad sidewalk, to
which the granite steps swept down from many a lordly mansion. Her
head reeled; the sunshine fell upon her eyes like sparks of fire;
she clung to an iron balustrade, swung half round with a feeble effort
to sustain herself, and sunk upon the pavement, moaning as she fell.
Many persons passed by the poor invalid as she lay thus helpless upon
the stones. At last, one more thoughtful and more humane than the
rest, bent down and spoke to her. She opened her eyes, looked at him
with a dull, vacant gaze, and besought him, in husky tones, to go
away and tell Chester that she was there, waiting. The man saw that
she was suffering, and, let the cause be what it might, incapable
of moving. He called to a woman, who was passing by with a basket
on her arm, and gave her a shilling to sit down and hold the invalid's
head in her lap, while he went for help.
"She may be only ill," said the benevolent Samaritan to the officer
of police, whom he met on a corner. "There is no look about her of
habitual intemperance; at any rate, she cannot be hardened."
The officer followed this kind man, and they found Mrs. Chester
moaning bitterly, and much exhausted by the exertion she had made.
"It is a singular case," said the policeman, "her language is good,
her appearance might be ladylike. But, see." The man pointed with
a meaning smile at the symmetrical feet in their loose slippers. The
blue veins were swelling under the white surface, and there was a
faint spasmodic quiver of the muscles that seemed to spread over her
whole frame.
"I can hardly believe that this is intoxication," said the stranger,
gazing compassionately on the prostrate woman. "She must be ill--taken
down suddenly in the street."
"But how came she barefooted? and her hair, it has not been done up
in a week? I'm afraid we can't make out a clear case, sir."
"But where will you take her?"
"Home, if she can tell us where it is--to the Tombs, if she is so
far gone as not to know," replied the man.
"The Tombs!"
"Oh, that is the City Prison, sir."
"I know, but the City Prison is no place for a person like this!"
"Well, if you can point out anything better."
"If I had a home in the city, this poor creature should never sleep
in a prison," was the answer.
"Oh, I thought you must be a stranger," was the half compassionating
reply. "It takes some time before one gets used to these sights, but
they are common enough, I can tell you, sir. Now let us see if she
can be made to comprehend what we say."
With that sort of half-contemptuous interest with which the insane
are sometimes cajoled, the policeman began to question the invalid;
but she only asked him very earnestly if her husband had come; and
turning her face from the hot sunshine that was pouring upon her,
began to complain piteously that they had laid her down there to be
consumed by a storm of fire-flakes that was dropping upon her neck
and forehead.
"You see the poor creature can tell us nothing; she is quite beside
herself," said the policeman. "I must take her to the prison--it is
the best I can do--to-morrow her friends may claim her, perhaps. At
the worst she will only be committed for a day or two."
"Wait here," said the stranger, hurriedly, "wait till I get a
carriage; she must not be taken through the streets in this state,"
and the kind man went off in haste.
The officer looked after him smiling.
"You might know that he was from the country, poor fellow," he
muttered, turning his back upon the sun, and good-naturedly sheltering
Mrs. Chester from its rays. "After all, I hope he is right; there
is something about her that one does not often meet with! upon my
word I hope she is only sick."
The stranger came back with a carriage, a showy and rather expensive
affair, the cushions covered with fresh linen, and the driver quite
an aristocrat in his way.
"So that is the fun, is it?" he said, eyeing poor Mrs. Chester with
a look of superb disdain. "I don't, as a usual thing, take people
up from the sidewalks in this carriage, my good friend."
"But I will pay you--I have paid you in advance," urged the stranger.
"Not for a job like this. Gentlemen who have an interest in keeping
these little affairs quiet, should be ready to pay well--couldn't
think of starting without another dollar at the least!"
"There is the dollar--now help lift the lady in!"
"The lady--a pretty place this for a lady!" muttered the man,
dismounting from his seat with a look of magnificent condescension,
and approaching Mrs. Chester.
"Gently--lift her with great care!" said the stranger, placing his
arm under Mrs. Chester's head. "There, my good woman, get in first,
and be ready to receive her."
The poor woman who had given her lap to the invalid as a pillow,
attempted to get up, but the driver, after eyeing her from head to
foot, turned to the stranger:
"I couldn't think of taking in that sort of person; the sick woman
seems clean enough; but, as for the other, she'll have to walk if
she goes at all! Carriages wasn't made for the like of her."
The noble face of the stranger flushed with something akin to
indignation, but, relinquishing Mrs. Chester to the policeman, he
stepped into the carriage, and received the poor invalid in his own
arms.
The policeman had become more and more charitable in his opinion of
the unhappy lady. He hesitated a moment, with his hand on the carriage
window.
"I say, sir, there does seem to be a doubt if this poor lady is not
really ill. Perhaps, you might as well take her to the Alms House
Commissioner first. He may think it right to send her up to the
Hospital, and, then, she need not go before a magistrate."
"And can we do this? can she be taken directly to a hospital?"
"If the Commissioner pleases, he has the power to send her there at
once."
"Then order the man to drive to the Commissioner's office," cried
the stranger, eagerly. "I thought that in this great city the
unfortunate might find shelter short of a prison. Tell him to drive
on."
The door was closed; the carriage moved on; and in it sat the generous
stranger, with the head of that poor invalid resting on his shoulder,
supporting her with all the benign gentleness of a father. He felt
that the hot breath floating across his cheek was heavy with
contagion; he knew that fever raged and burned in the blue veins that
swelled over those drooping arms and the unstockinged feet, but, he
neither shrank nor trembled at the danger. Possessed of that pure
and holy courage which tranquilly meets all peril when it presents
itself--a courage utterly beyond that selfish bravado which mocks
at death and exults in carnage--he scarcely gave his own position
a thought. Bravery, with this man, was a principle, not an excitement.
He was fearless because he was good; and, from this cause, also, was
kindly and unpretending.
The carriage drew up in Chambers street, not far from the place where
the cart had stood with poor Chester's body upon it, not an hour
before. The stranger composed Mrs. Chester on the seat, and placed
a cushion against the carriage for her head to rest on; then, opening
a gate, he hurried through the narrow flower-garden that ran between
the old Alms House and Chambers street, crossed through one of those
broad halls to be found in the basement, lined on each side with
public officers, and, mounting half a dozen steps, he found himself
in the Park. An Irish woman sat upon the steps of the nearest
entrance, holding a forlorn bundle in her lap, and with a ragged baby
playing with its little soiled feet on the pavement before her. This
woman turned her head, and nodded toward the door when he inquired
for the Commissioner's office, then bent her eyes again with a dead
heavy gaze upon the pavement. The stranger, mounting the steps, found
himself in a place utterly new and bewildering to him.
It happened to be "pay-day" for the out-door poor, and, into the
ante-room of the Alms House, the alleys, rear buildings and dens of
the city, once a fortnight, pour forth their human misery. The room
was nearly full, and, amid this mass of poverty--such as he, fresh
from the pure country air, had never even dreamed of--the stranger
stood overpowered.
There is something horrible in the aspect of poverty when it reaches
that low and bitter level that seeks relief in the lobby of an Alms
House! The stranger looked around, and the philanthropy within him
was put to its severest test. For the first time in his whole life
he saw poverty in one dark, struggling mass clamoring for money!
money! money! coarse, grasping poverty, such as crushes and kills
all the honest pride of man's nature.
The room, large as it was, appeared more than half full, and not a
single happy face was there. At the upper end was a platform, reached
by two or three steps, and fenced in by a low wooden railing, along
which ran a continuous desk. At this desk half a dozen clerks and
visitors sat, with ponderous and soiled books spread open before them.
Up to this railing pressed the want-stricken crowd, the strong and
healthy bustling and crowding back the fallen and infirm. Here old
women struggled in the human tide, some casting fierce and quarrelsome
glances at each other, others shrinking back with tears in their eyes,
unequal to the coarse strife. Here, too, were men lean and gaunt with
the hunger of a long sea voyage, elbowed aside by some brawny armed
woman, who clamored loudly of the children she had left fast locked
up in her little place, that she could but just pay the rent for.
Here, too, were young girls, children with an aged, worn look, like
the fruit that withers to half its size before it ripens. Most
heartrending of all, persons of real refinement were mingled up with
this rude mass; poor wretches who had indeed seen better days, and
their helpless, broken-hearted looks, the remnants of early
sensitiveness, that still clung around them, was pitiful to behold.
The stranger saw that upon the outskirts of the crowd these persons
always lingered, waiting patiently till the coarse and strong were
served. Outstretched upon the benches near the walls, and resting
upon their bundles, were eight or ten sick men, with the fever upon
them, waiting for the van which was to convey them to Bellevue.
Through all this misery, huddled and jostling together, our good
Samaritan must force his way; for when he asked for the Commissioner,
the people pointed their lank fingers toward a door within the
railing, and between himself and that was all this crowd of hungry
beings.
"Let me pass, will you? Let me pass," he said, pale with the effects
of the scene, but speaking in a gentle tone.
"And why should you pass? Wait your turn like the rest of us!" said
a harsh-featured woman, turning fiercely upon him. "Is't because
you've a fine coat on that you'd put before your bethers, I'd be
liking to know?"
The stranger drew back. With all his benevolence he could not breast
that rough wave of human life, which dashes weekly against the steps
of our Alms House.
"Make room--make room there. What does the gentleman want? Make room,
I say!"
It was the voice of a clerk, who, casting his eyes over the crowd,
had seen the stranger.
The people did not fall back, but they huddled close together, with
their heads turned and gazing upon the stranger, some muttering
fiercely, others taking advantage of the moment to crowd closer to
the railing. Thus a passage was made, and the stranger made his way
through a little gate up to the platform, where the attentive clerk
came forward to learn his business.
"Oh, you should have passed on to the next entrance. It is difficult
to get along in this room on Saturdays," he said, after the stranger
had unfolded his errand. "You will find the Commissioner in his
office," and the clerk courteously opened a door.
The stranger entered a large, airy room, furnished as most public
offices are, with the most hideous carpets and the stiffest looking
chairs; in this instance there was a sofa that seemed to have been
for years the pauper inmate of some furniture store, and to have been
transferred from thence to the City Poor House, when the owners became
tired of keeping it as a private charity.
Many persons were in the office, two or three women occupied the sofa,
one of them weeping bitterly. Half a score of men, some from the
country, others belonging to the institution, were grouped about the
room reading newspapers, conversing, or waiting patiently for an
opportunity to transact the business which brought them there.
A large table covered with dark cloth ran along one end of the room,
around which stood half a dozen chairs more commodious than the rest,
two of them occupied by the head clerks of the department, and in
one, before which stood a small writing-desk, sat the Commissioner.
He was a slight, active man, with eyes like an eagle's; his features
were finely cut, and you could read each thought as it kindled over
the dark surface of his face.
By the side of the Commissioner sat an old woman, talking in a low
voice and weeping bitterly. You could see by the expression of the
forehead, and by the faint changes of a countenance which no habit
of self-control could entirely subdue, that the tale which this poor
old creature poured into his ear was one of bitter sorrow. His dark
eyes were bent thoughtfully on the table, and a look of deep
commiseration lay upon his features as she continued her low and
broken narrative.
This man was a benefactor to the poor. Sights of distress, even when
they become habitual, had no power to damp his kindly sympathies.
Yet while generous to the poor, he was faithful to the people.
At length the Commissioner looked up. You could see by the sudden
kindling of his face, that he had bethought himself of some means
by which this old woman might be benefited. He addressed her in a
low but cheering voice. The poor old creature lifted her head, the
tears still hung amid the wrinkles in her cheek; but over her withered
lips there came a smile. The Commissioner reached out his hand, she
changed her staff, leaned upon it with her left hand, and half timidly
held out the other. You could see by the brightening of those aged
eyes, and by the increased vigor of her footsteps as she left the
room, how like a cordial this evidence of sympathy in her distress
had cheered her aged heart.
The stranger whom we have introduced saw all this, and his heart
warmed alike to the old woman and to the man who had comforted her.
He approached the table, and could hardly refrain from holding out
his hand to the Commissioner, so surely do truthful feelings vibrate
to the good acts that they witness.
Had you seen those two men as they sat down together, you might have
supposed that they had been old friends for twenty years.
The stranger told his story in few words, for he saw by the business
appearance of the office that it was no place for long speeches. The
Commissioner listened attentively.
"Where is the poor woman now?" he questioned, when the man paused
in his narrative.
"She is waiting in the street--I brought her with me."
"I will see her myself: one minute and I am ready."
The Commissioner took up his hat, crossed the room, spoke a few words
to the woman who sat weeping on the sofa, told an old man who stood
waiting by the door that he would return in a very few minutes and
attend to him, then with a light, active step he left the room,
followed by the stranger.
They found Mrs. Chester in the carriage, grasping the cushion beneath
her head with both hands, and muttering wildly to herself. The last
few hours had brought her disease into its most malignant state. She
was incapable of a single connected thought.
The Commissioner stepped into the carriage and helped to arrange the
cushions.
"She is delirious; it is the fever. Typhus, I should think, in its
worst form," he said. "She must have prompt care."
"She must, indeed," replied the stranger. "The noise, the hot sun,
all are making her worse."
"And you do not know her name?"
"No; she has muttered over several names, but I could not tell which
was hers."
"Nor her home, of course?"
"No; I found her in the street as I have told you."
"It is strange. She seems like an American. It is a pity to send her
to the hospital, but I can do no better."
"You will send her there!" exclaimed the stranger, joyfully, "The
policeman talked of the Tombs."
"No, no, she is no person for that, I am certain," exclaimed the
Commissioner. "I only wish we had the power of doing more than can
be expected at Bellevue; but certainly she shall go to no worse place
than that."
"Oh, thank you!" said the stranger, gratefully.
"I will write out an order, with a few lines to the resident physician
at Bellevue. Nothing more can be done, I am afraid."
"Oh, that is a great deal--everything, in fact--of course she will
have proper attention in an institution where you have control."
The Commissioner looked grave, but did not answer that over the
Bellevue Hospital his power was merely a name--that he could grant
supplies and give directions, but had no real authority over
subordinates appointed by the Common Council, and could not, for the
most flagrant misconduct, discharge the lowest man about the
department of which he was the bonded and responsible head. Shackled
in his actions and even in his speech, this truly efficient and good
man would pledge himself to nothing, so he merely said:
"Will you, sir--you who have done so much--conduct this poor woman
yourself to Bellevue? The van will go up soon, but she does not seem
of the usual class."
"I will go with her, of course," replied the stranger, resuming his
seat in the carriage with benevolent alacrity, while the Commissioner
returned to his office and hastily wrote a letter to the resident
physician, beseeching him to bestow especial care on the unknown
patient who seemed so ill, and so completely alone in the world.