FLIGHT.
The snow was falling more heavily, and a strong wind blew the flakes
into his face as he made his way to Mrs. Turner's garret. He walked as
quickly as he could, but his progress was impeded by the force of the
wind and by its driving the snow into his eyes. Despite these
obstacles he preserved his mental balance, and was observant of all
that was passing around him; and it was a proof of his kindly and
unselfish nature that, in the light of the vital errand upon which he
was engaged, he was oblivious of the sense of physical discomfort.
Conflicting questions agitated his mind. No longer under the influence
of the cold, cruel logic which distinguished Mr. Gordon's utterances,
he once more asked himself whether he would be acting rightly in
urging Mrs. Turner to renounce her maternal duties and obligations,
and to part for ever with the child of her blood. The human and the
Divine law were in conflict. On one side degradation and direst
poverty from which there seemed no prospect of escape, and driving the
mother perhaps to a course of life condemned alike by God and man; on
the other side a life of material comfort and respectability for
herself and her child. A fortuitous accident--a chance for which he
had prayed earlier in the night--had made him at once the arbiter and
the judge; his hand was on the wheel to steer these two helpless
beings through the voyage upon which they were embarked, and upon him
rested the responsibility of their future. There was no case here of
ploughing through unknown waters over hidden rocks; he saw the ocean
of life before him, he saw the rocks beneath. Amid those rocks lay the
forms of lost abandoned women who in their mortal career would surely
have been saved had an offer of rescue come, such as had come to the
woman who chiefly occupied his thoughts. They would have been spared
the suffering of despairing days, the horrors of a despairing death;
they would have been lifted from the gulf of shame and ignominy. New
hopes, new joys would have arisen to comfort them. The sacrifice they
would have been called upon to make would have been hallowed by the
consciousness that they had performed their duty. It was not alone the
happiness of the mortal life that had to be considered; if the
ministrations of God's ministers on earth were not a mockery and a
snare, it was the immortal life that was equally at stake. The soul's
reward sprang from the body's suffering.
And still the pitiless snow fell, and the wind howled around him; and
through the white whirlwind he beheld the light of heaven and the
stars shining upon him.
How should he act? He imagined himself steering the vessel through an
ocean of sad waters. On the right lay a haven of rest, on the left lay
a dark and desolate shore. Here, salvation; there, destruction. Which
way should he turn the wheel? His pity for her had drawn from him
during their last interview the exclamation, "God help you!" and she
had asked hopelessly, "Will He?" He had turned from her then; he had
no answer to make. There is, he said to himself now, no Divine
mediation in human affairs; the Divine hand is not stretched forth to
give food to the hungry. In so grave an issue as the starvation of a
human being, dependence upon Divine aid will not avail. Admitting
this, he felt it to be almost a heresy, but at the same time he knew
that it was true.
There were but few people in the white streets, and of those few a
large proportion tinged his musings with a deeper melancholy. These
were ragged shivering children, and women recklessly or despondently
gashing the white carpet, so pure and innocent and fair in its
sentimental, so hard and bitter and cruel in its material aspect. By a
devious process of reasoning he drew a parallel between it and the
problem he was engaged in solving. It was poetic, and it freezed the
marrow; it had a soul and a body, one a sweet and smiling spirit, the
other a harsh and frowning reality. The heart of a poet without boots
would have sunk within him as he trod the snow-clad streets.
Dr. Spenlove's meditations were arrested by a sudden tumult. A number
of people approached him, gesticulating and talking eagerly and
excitedly, the cause of their excitement being a couple of policemen
who bore between them the wet limp body of a motionless woman. He was
drawn magnetically towards the crowd, and was immediately recognised.
"Here's Dr. Spenlove," they cried; "he knows her."
Yes, he knew her the moment his eyes fell upon her, the people having
made way for him. The body borne by the policeman was that of a young
girl scarcely out of her teens, an unfortunate who had walked the
streets for two or three years past.
"You had better come with us, doctor," said one of the policemen, to
both of whom he was known. "We have just picked her out of the water."
A middle-aged woman pushed herself close to Dr. Spenlove.
"She said she'd do it a month ago," said this woman, "if luck didn't
turn."
Good God! If luck didn't turn! What direction in the unfortunate
girl's career was the lucky turn to take to prevent her from courting
death?
"You will come with us, sir?" said the policeman.
"Yes," answered Dr. Spenlove, mechanically.
The police station was but a hundred yards away, and thither they
walked, Dr. Spenlove making a hasty examination of the body as they
proceeded.
"Too late, I'm afraid, sir," said the policeman.
"I fear so," said Dr. Spenlove, gravely.
It proved to be the case. The girl was dead.
The signing of papers and other formalities detained Dr. Spenlove at
the police station for nearly an hour, and he departed with a heavy
weight at his heart. He had been acquainted with the girl whose life's
troubles were over since the commencement of his career in Portsmouth.
She was then a child of fourteen, living with her parents, who were
respectable working people. Growing into dangerous beauty, she had
fallen as others had fallen, and had fled from her home, to find
herself after a time deserted by her betrayer. Meanwhile the home in
which she had been reared was broken up; the mother died, the father
left the town. Thrown upon her own resources, she drifted into the
ranks of the "unfortunates," and became a familiar figure in low
haunts, one of civilisation's painted, bedizened night-birds of the
streets. Dr. Spenlove had befriended her, counselled her, warned her,
urged her to reform, and her refrain was, "What can I do? I must
live." It was not an uncommon case; the good doctor came in contact
with many such, and could have prophesied with unerring accuracy the
fate in store for them. The handwriting is ever on the wall, and no
special gift is needed to decipher it. Drifting, drifting, drifting,
for ever drifting and sinking lower and lower till the end comes. It
had come soon to this young girl--mercifully, thought Dr. Spenlove, as
he plodded slowly on, for surely the snapping of life's chord in the
springtime of her life was better than the sure descent into a
premature haggard and sinful old age. Recalling these reminiscences,
his doubts with respect to his duty in the mission he had undertaken
were solved. There was but one safe course for Mrs. Turner to follow.
He hastened his steps. His interview with Mr. Gordon and the tragic
incident in which he had been engaged had occupied a considerable
time, and it was now close upon midnight. It was late for an ordinary
visit, but he was a medical man, and the doors of his patients were
open to him at all hours. In the poor neighbourhood in which Mrs.
Turner resided, many of the street doors were left unlocked night and
day for the convenience of the lodgers, and her house being one of
these, Dr. Spenlove had no difficulty in obtaining admission. He shook
the snow from his clothes, and, ascending the stairs, knocked at Mrs.
Turner's door; no answer coming he knocked again and again, and at
length he turned the handle and entered.
The room was quite dark; there was no fire in the grate, no candle
alight. He listened for the sound of breathing, but none reached his
ears.
"Mrs. Turner!" he cried.
Receiving no response he struck a match, and looked around. The room
was empty. Greatly alarmed he went to the landing, and knocked at an
adjoining door. A woman's voice called,--
"Who's there?"
"It is I, Dr. Spenlove."
"Wait a moment, sir."
He heard shuffling steps, and presently the tenant appeared, only
partially dressed, with a lighted candle in her hand.
"I didn't send for you, doctor," she said.
"No. I want to ask you about Mrs. Turner. She is not in her room."
"I thought it was strange I didn't hear the baby crying, but I don't
know where she is."
"Did you not hear her go out?"
"No, sir; I came home at ten soaked through and through, and I was
glad to get to bed. It ain't a night a woman would care to keep out in
unless she couldn't help herself."
"Indeed it is not. Did you see anything of her before you went to
bed?"
"I didn't see her, I heard her. I was just going off when she knocked
at my door, and asked if I could give her a little milk for the baby;
but I hadn't any to give. Besides, she ain't got a feeding-bottle that
I know of. She's been trying to borrow one, but nobody in the house
could oblige her. She's having a hard time of it, doctor."
"She is, poor soul!" said Dr. Spenlove, with a sigh.
"It's the way with all of us, sir; no one ought to know that better
than you do. There ain't a lodger in the house that's earning more
than twelve shillings a week; not much to keep a family on, is it,
sir? And we've got a landlord with a heart of stone. If it hadn't been
for her baby, and that it might have got him in hot water, he'd have
turned her out weeks ago. He's bound to do it to-morrow if her rent
ain't paid. He told me so this morning when he screwed the last penny
out of me."
"Do you know whether she succeeded in obtaining milk for the child?"
"It's hardly likely, I should say. Charity begins at home, doctor."
"It is natural and just that it should; but it is terrible, terrible!
Where can Mrs. Turner have gone to?"
"Heaven knows. One thing I do know, doctor, she's got no friends; she
wouldn't make any, kept herself to herself, gave herself airs, some
said, though I don't go as far as that. I dare say she has her
reasons, only when a woman sets herself up like that it turns people
against her. Are you sure she ain't in her room?"
"The room is empty."
"It's enough to be the death of a baby to take it out such a night as
this. Listen to the wind."
A furious gust shook the house, and made every window rattle. To Dr.
Spenlove's agitated senses it seemed to be alive with ominous voices,
proclaiming death and destruction to every weak and helpless creature
that dared to brave it. He passed his hand across his forehead in
distress.
"I must find her. I suppose you cannot tell me of any place she may
have gone to for assistance?"
"I can't, sir. There's a bare chance that as she had no coals and no
money to buy 'em with, some one in the house has taken her in for the
night. I'll inquire, if you like."
"I shall be obliged to you if you will," said Dr. Spenlove, catching
eagerly at the suggestion; "and I pray that you may be right."
"You won't mind waiting in the passage, sir, till I've dressed myself.
I sha'n't be a minute."
She was very soon ready and she went about the house making inquiries;
and, returning, said that none of the lodgers could give her any
information concerning Mrs. Turner.
"I am sorry to have disturbed you," said Dr. Spenlove; and, wishing
her good-night, he once more faced the storm. The fear by which he was
oppressed was that the offer of succour had come too late, and that
Mrs. Turner had been driven by despair to the execution of some
desperate design to put an end to her misery. Instinctively, and with
a sinking heart, he took the direction of the sea, hurrying eagerly
after every person he saw ahead of him, in the hope that it might be
the woman of whom he was in search. The snow was many inches thick on
the roads, and was falling fast; the wind tore through the now almost
deserted streets, moaning, sobbing, shrieking, with an appalling human
suggestion in its tones created by Dr. Spenlove's fears. Now and then
he met a policeman, and stopped to exchange a few words with him, the
intention of which was to ascertain if the man had seen any person
answering to the description of Mrs. Turner. He did not mention her by
name, for he had an idea--supposing his search to be happily
successful--that Mr. Gordon would withdraw his offer if any publicity
were attracted to the woman he was ready to marry. The policemen could
not assist him; they had seen no woman with a baby in her arms
tramping the streets on this wild night.
"Anything special, sir?" they asked.
"No," he replied, "nothing special;" and so went on his way.