A CONSULTATION.
When Roland Graeme's inquiry regarding the time of the doctor's return
was answered by the entrance of a tall and graceful young lady, he
naturally supposed her to be the doctor's wife. He met her with his
usual frank and ready courtesy, addressing her as "Mrs. Blanchard, I
presume?"--apologizing for the trouble he had given her, and describing
briefly, but graphically, the condition of the patient on whose behalf
he had come, as Mr. Alden's messenger.
Miss Blanchard, on her side, was surprised at encountering, in Roland
Graeme's unusual type of face and expression, with the clear, candid,
gray-blue eyes, so different an individual from the one she had expected
to find waiting in the surgery. She expressed no surprise, however, but
quietly corrected his mistake in addressing her, and, after listening
attentively to his statement, added, after a moment or two of thought:
"As we don't know just when my brother will be in, I think I had better
go with you myself, in the meantime; not that I pretend to any medical
skill, but I have nursed a relative through an attack of bronchitis, and
could take some things with me that I know would do her good."
Roland thanked her warmly, regarding her more attentively than he had
done while absorbed in stating his errand. He could not help noticing
the earnest and sympathetic expression of the dark-blue eyes, the fair
forehead with its natural curve of dark-brown hair, untortured by
"crimps," and the sweetness of the smile that seemed just to hover about
the flexible mouth, as she--half-apologetically--made the unexpected
offer. She was gone in a moment, and then his attention was monopolized
by Eddie, who, with childish curiosity had followed his "Auntie," and
with whom he had a delightful talk while awaiting the return of the
doctor's volunteered substitute. For, to Roland Graeme, children were
always delightful, doubtless because of the childlike element in his own
nature.
But Miss Blanchard soon returned, ready for her expedition, with a small
basket on her arm, of which Roland speedily relieved her, as they passed
on through the now lighted streets, full of work-people returning from
their daily toil. Roland, with the old-fashioned courtesy in which he
had been trained, offered the young lady his arm--an offer which she
courteously declined, with a touch of somewhat stately dignity. It was
clear, indeed, that the firm elastic step needed no support. They walked
on rapidly, Miss Blanchard asking more questions about their patient
than Roland could answer, only explaining briefly that he and Mr. Alden
had found her out, accidentally, through the child's appeal.
"Is it not sad," she said, taking a long breath, "how many such cases
there must be around us that we never know? It puzzles me often to
understand how such things can be."
"It's positively maddening, sometimes!" said Roland, irrepressibly
breaking into the subject that was generally nearest his heart;
"especially when one sees the cool, selfish indifference, with which so
many people actually shut their eyes to these things; how they even
help, so far as they are able, to crush their fellows down and to keep
them down!"
"Why, how?--who would do that?" she asked.
"Employers are doing it all the time, and the rich employers are the
worst. I suppose that is one reason why they _are_ rich! But if they did
not generally keep their rates of payment down to the minimum they can
get men and women to take, there could not be such hard, grinding
poverty. The truth is, a large proportion of our laboring classes are
always living next door to starvation, and if sickness or want of work
comes, it is next door no longer!"
"That seems very strange to me," said Miss Blanchard, thoughtfully. "I
have lived all my life in Rockland, a quiet little place among the
hills;--where everybody knows everybody else, and where our one or two
employers think it their duty to know all the circumstances of all their
workers, and are always ready to help them on, and to tide them over a
difficulty."
"Yes, that's beautiful!" said Roland. "I know there are such noble
exceptions--and they are especially likely to occur in small places,
where the fierce tide of competition for wealth and luxury isn't so
irresistible, and people seem to have some humanity left! Here, in
Minton, where I haven't been so very long, I know numbers of cases where
people are living on what I call starvation wages--especially women. You
see, operatives are so apt to leave everything to selfish managers,
whose main object is to please the firm, and these managers are often
guilty of positive inhumanity. There now," he said, as they passed a
large building gleaming with long rows of lighted windows, from whose
entrance a stream of young women was pouring forth; "there's a place
where too many things are done, contrary to all sound principles of
justice and humanity. The operatives are made simply working-machines,
obliged to work more hours than any young woman should be allowed to do;
miserably paid, and exposed to petty tyrannies enough to take out of
their life any little comfort they might have in it."
"Whose place is it?" she asked.
"Pomeroy & Company's silk and woolen mills."
"Why, I know young Mr. Pomeroy very well!" exclaimed Miss Blanchard;
"and his mother, Mrs. Pomeroy, is a very good woman! I'm sure they can't
know about such things!"
"They probably then don't try to know," he replied. "That's the great
trouble. The heads of such places are so fully occupied with the
business part of their concerns, that they have no time to think of the
people by whom the business is made."
As they passed the building, they came up with two of the girls who were
standing engrossed in earnest conversation.
"Don't go, Nelly!" they heard one say to the other. "It won't come to no
good, any way, and Jim would be that vexed, if he knew!"
"Oh, I guess he'd live to get over it," laughed the other. "Don't _you_
bother about it, Liz!" And she turned toward them, as they passed, a
pretty, pert face, beneath a mass of elaborately frizzed hair, and a
very tawdry hat.
"Those poor girls!" Miss Blanchard remarked, as soon as they were out of
hearing. "How little real interest or pleasure there must be in their
lives! How it makes one wish that we, who have so many pleasant things
in ours, could do something to brighten theirs!"
"Yes, indeed," replied Roland. "I've often thought about that, and
people do try more than they did--in that way. But so long as the work
hours are so protracted and so exhausting, you can't make life much
brighter for them, do what you will. It's one of my ambitions to do
something toward securing shorter hours all round. I believe every one
would gain by it in the end."
"Yes, I suppose it is pretty hard to have such a long day of steady work
at one thing--especially for girls. I am afraid I shouldn't like to have
to do it," said Miss Blanchard, with a sigh.
"But, then, it doesn't do to judge altogether by the outside," rejoined
her companion, in a more cheery tone. "I suppose, after all, 'Ilka blade
o' grass has its ain drap o' dew.' The greater wickedness is," he added,
"when heartless fools try to squeeze the one 'drap o' dew' out of it!
But here's our destination."
They found Mr. Alden seated on the one broken chair, near the miserable
pallet. The child lay curled up beside her mother, fast asleep. The
invalid seemed somewhat revived, and able to talk a little. She fixed
her eyes on Miss Blanchard, as she entered, with a strange, wild, almost
hunted expression, which rather startled her visitor. Miss Blanchard's
gentle, kindly greeting, with Mr. Alden's introduction, seemed to
reassure her a little, however, and she swallowed a portion of the
soothing medicine that Miss Blanchard had brought for relieving her
harassing cough. Then the young lady produced a tiny spirit-lamp from
her basket, and soon had prepared a little cup of hot beef-tea, doing it
all with a quick and ready lightness that showed her to be quite at home
in work of this kind. Mr. Alden and Roland felt themselves to be
supernumeraries at once. The latter, indeed, after offering the young
lady some scarcely needed assistance in her arrangements, began to think
that it was time for him to retire, when a step was heard on the stairs,
and a young girl entered, carrying a cup of tea. She hesitated a moment
in surprise at the unexpected sight of the strangers, dimly seen by the
light of the one poor lamp. Miss Blanchard thought she recognized the
pale, eager face of the girl who had begged "Nelly" "not to go," as they
had passed the two standing under the lamp-post. She was sure of it,
when the girl approached the invalid, scarcely looking at the visitors,
and said, in the same deaf penetrating tone:
"Well, Mrs. Travers, how do you feel yourself to-night?"
"A little better now, thank you, Lizzie, but I have been so ill to-day!
I thought I was dying a while ago, and Cissy went out and brought back
this gentleman, and he has been so kind!"
She spoke in a soft musical English voice, decidedly the voice of a
lady, Mr. Alden thought. Then turning to him, she said, with some
energy:
"This is my best friend! She has been so good to me--sat up with me at
night after working all day! I'd have been dead before now, if it hadn't
been for her."
Miss Blanchard, as she bent over the patient, with a cup of beef-tea
which she was administering by teaspoonfuls, looked up at the new-comer,
with a light of softened admiration in her expressive eyes, which
recalled to Roland Graeme, as he chanced to catch it, the memory of his
enjoyment of the Sistine Madonna, at Dresden, on a brief visit he had
made to Europe. He had not thought of calling Miss Blanchard beautiful,
nor did he now; still there was something, either in feature, or
expression, or both, that reminded him of the most beautiful and
spiritual of Raffaelle's Madonnas. He looked at the poor working-girl,
however, with scarcely less of admiration in his honest eyes--little as
there was of beauty in the pale, thin face, without any advantage of
dress to make up for the defects of contour and coloring.
The invalid, with the wilfulness of illness, insisted on putting aside
the broth for the cup of tea that Lizzie had brought her.
"You see, she's used to it," Lizzie said, apologetically. "I always
bring her a cup of tea and a bit of toast before I take my own supper,
and she likes it."
"Well," said Mr. Alden, "I ought to be going home, if I can't do
anything more here; but I don't like leaving you alone till your brother
comes, Miss Blanchard. Perhaps this good friend of Mrs. Travers wouldn't
mind coming back when she has had her supper, and staying with you till
your brother comes, or I return, which I shall do, in any case."
"I am going to stay here all night, Mr. Alden," said Miss Blanchard,
decidedly.--"I shall be only too glad to relieve you," she said to
Lizzie, who was looking at her in surprise. "It's too much for you, when
you can't rest in the daytime, as I can easily do; and I don't mind
being alone, Mr. Alden! However, if you will be more satisfied----"
"Indeed, miss," Lizzie eagerly interposed, "I'll be back in ten minutes,
and stay with you as long as you like. It's so good of you to say you'll
stay all night! I don't mind it generally, but to-night I am dead
tired."
And she looked it.
Mr. Alden insisted on Roland's going home with him to tea, as he was so
far from his own quarters; and, as soon as Lizzie had returned, they
took their departure. Miss Blanchard begged that Mr. Alden would not
return that evening, as her brother would soon be there to give her all
necessary directions, and Mr. Alden could see him later as to what it
would be best to do for the patient. She bade Roland, also, a cordial
good-night, which he as cordially returned; thinking, with some regret,
how little likely it was that he should have any opportunity of
improving an acquaintance which, brief as it had been, had already
strongly interested him.
"Miss Blanchard is one of my special admirations," said Mr. Alden,
smiling, as they walked on together. "She's an uncommon type, and has
been brought up in a very different atmosphere from Minton society. A
quiet, refined country home, time and training for thought and study,
good literature to grow up among, a wide-minded, philosophical father of
the old school, and an aunt with the soul of a saint and the active
benevolence of a Sister of Charity; it is no wonder that Nora Blanchard
is a sort of _rara avis_ among girls."
"You believe in heredity then, sir, and in environment?" said Roland.
The clergyman looked at him keenly, but with a genial smile.
"Certainly," he said; "I believe in both, but I believe also in
something else, that is not either; and in this lies the difference
between my philosophy and that of the people who are so bent on making
_automata_ of us all. They always seem to me to give, in their own
persons, a most apt illustration of the lines,
"'Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!'"
"Yes," replied Roland, "I believe we were meant to aspire. '_Excelsior_'
seems the motto of the universe."
"And a good motto, too! But here we are." And stopping at his own door,
he admitted Roland and himself with his latch-key.