Conveniently contiguous to the busy centre of a wide and populous city,
situated on the shore of one of those great inland fresh-water seas,
whose lake line girdles the primeval American upheaval, the Laurentian
rocks,--stands in the middle of a square, enclosed by a stone coping
and an iron railing, a stately pile of brick and granite several
stories high, flanked by wings that enclose in the rear a spacious
court. The facade was originally designed in the trabeated style, and
still retained its massive entrance, with straight, grooved lintel over
the door which was adorned by four round columns; but subsequent
additions reflected the fluctuations of popular architectural taste, in
the later arched windows, the broad oriel with its carved corbel, and
in the new eastern wing, that had flowered into a Tudor tower with
bulbous cupola. The strip of velvet sward between the street and the
house entrance, was embossed with brilliant coleus set in the form of
anchors; and a raised border, running the entire length under the
windows of the basement, was ablaze with geraniums of various hues.
On a granite pediment above the portico, a large bronze anchor was
supported, and beneath it was cut, in projecting letters: "The Umilta
Anchorage".
In front of the building ran a broad, paved boulevard; in the rear, the
enclosure was bounded by a stone wall, overgrown with ivy, and built
upon the verge of the blue lake, whose waves broke against the base,
and rolled away in the distance beyond the northern horizon.
Fully in accord with the liberal eclecticism that characterized its
exterior, was the wide-eyed, deep, tender-hearted charity which,
ignoring all denominational barriers, opened its doors in cordial
welcome to worthy, homeless women, whom misfortune had swept away from
family moorings, and whose clean hands and pure hearts sought some
avenue to honest work. The institution was a memorial erected and
endowed by a wealthy man, whose only child Umilta, just crossing the
threshold of womanhood, had been lost in a sudden storm on the lake;
whose fair, drowned face had been washed ashore just below the stone
wall, and whose statue stood, guarded by marble angels, in the small
chapel in the centre of the building, which was designed as an enduring
monument to commemorate her untimely fate, and perpetuate her name.
Divided into various industrial departments, the "Anchorage" was
maintained almost entirely by the labor of its inmates; and it had
rarely been found necessary to draw from the reserve endowment fund,
that was gradually accumulating for future contingencies.
Trained nurses, trained housekeepers were furnished on demand; lace
curtains mended, laundered; dainty lingerie of every description, from
a baby's wardrobe to a bride's trousseau; ornamental needle-work on all
fabrics; artificial flowers, card engraving, artistic designs for
upholstering, menus, type-writing, all readily supplied to customers;
and certain confectionery put up in pretty boxes made by the inmates,
and bearing the "Anchor" stamp. A school of drawing, etching, painting,
and embroidery attracted many pupils; and a few pensioners who had
grown too infirm and dim-eyed for active work, had a warm, bright room
where they knitted stockings and underwear of various kinds.
At one end of the long refectory was emblazoned on the wall: "For
whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in Heaven, the same
is my brother and sister and mother." At the other: "Bear ye one
another's burdens." The chapel contained no pulpit, but on a marble
altar stood a life-size figure of a woman clinging to the cross: and on
the walls hung paintings representing the Crucifixion, the Descent, the
Resurrection and the Mater Dolorosa; while in a niche at the extremity,
behind the altar, an Ecce Homo of carved ivory was suspended above a
gilt cross, and just beneath it glittered the motto "Faith, Hope,
Charity". Every morning and evening the band of women gathered here,
and recited the Apostles' Creed, and the Lord's Prayer; but on Sabbath
the members attended the church best suited to their individual tenets.
The infirmary was a cheerful, airy room, and here professional nurses
were trained under the guidance of visiting physicians; and in an
adjoining kitchen were taught to prepare the articles of diet usually
belonging to the regimen of sick rooms.
Widows, maidens, Catholics, Protestants, admitted from the age of
eighteen to forty, these "Umilta Sisters" were received on probation
for eighteen months; then entered upon a term of five years, subject to
renewal at will; bound by specified rules, but no irrevocable vow.
Yielding implicit obedience to the matron, elected by themselves every
four years--subject to approval and ratification by the Chapter of
Trustees, they were recognized wherever they went by the gray garb, the
white aprons, and snowy mob caps peculiar to the institution.
Fashionable women patronized and fondled the "Anchorage", for much the
same reason that led them to pamper their pugs; and since the Chapter
of Trustees consisted of men of wealth and prominence, their wives, as
magnates in le beau monde, set the seal of "style" upon articles
manufactured there, by ordering quilted satin afghans with anchors of
pansies embroidered in the centre, for their baby carriages; painted
tea gowns; favors for a "German", or fans and bonbonnieres for birthday
parties.
If children of the Brahmin caste of millionairdom were seized by the
Pariah ills of measles, or chicken-pox, or mumps, it was deemed quite
as imperatively the duty of doting parents to provide an "Anchorage"
nurse, as to secure an eminent physician, and the most costly brand of
condensed milk. In the name of sweet charity, gay gauzy-winged
butterflies of fashion harnessed themselves in ropes of roses, and
dragged the car of benevolence; as painted papillons drew chariots of
goddesses on ancient classic walls; so in the realm of social economy
the ubiquitous law of correlation of industrial force--of conservation
of energy--transmuted the arrested labor of the rich and idle into the
fostering heat that stimulated the working poor.
Scarcely a month previous to her unexpected release from prison, Beryl
had received a letter from Doctor Grantlin, enclosing one addressed to
"Sister Ruth, Matron of Anchorage". He wrote that his daughter's health
demanded some German baths; and on the eve of sailing, he desired to
secure for the prisoner a temporary refuge, should the efforts which he
had heard were made to obtain her pardon, prove successful. As a nephew
of the founder, and a cousin of the young lady for whom the "Anchorage"
was intended as a lasting memorial, he had always been accorded certain
privileges by the trustees; and the letter, if presented to the matron,
would insure at least an entrance into the haven of rest, until the
prisoner could mature some plan for her future.
Spurred away from X--by the dread of another interview with the man
whom she had assiduously shunned, and of being required to visit "Elm
Bluff" and scrutinize the accusing picture, Beryl had shrouded herself
in her heavy mourning, and fled from the scene of her suffering, on the
3 A.M. train Sunday morning; ten hours after receiving the certificate
of her discharge. Shrinking from observation, she refused Mr. Singleton
permission to accompany her to the station house, and bade him good-bye
three squares distant; promising to write soon to his still absent
wife, and assured by him that a farewell letter of affectionate
gratitude should be promptly delivered to Dyce. Fortunately a stranger
stood in the office and sold her a ticket; and in the same corner,
where twenty months before she had knelt during the storm, she waited
once more for the sound of the train. How welcome to her the shuddering
shriek that tore its way through the dewy silence of the star-lit
summer night, and she hurried out, standing almost on the rails, in her
impatience to depart.
Several travellers were grouped near a pile of luggage awaiting the
train, but as it rolled swiftly in and jarred itself to a standstill,
she saw even through her crape veil a well known figure, leaning
against an iron post that held an electric lamp. She sprang up the
steps leading to the platform, and took the first vacant seat, which
was in front of an open window.
The silvery radiance from the globe just opposite, streamed in, and her
heart seemed to cease beating as the tall form moved forward and taking
off his hat, stood at the side of the car. Neither spoke. But when the
brass bell rang its signal and the train trembled into motion, a hand
was thrust in, and dropped upon her lap a cluster of exquisite white
roses, with one scarlet passion flower glowing in the centre.
During the three days spent in New York, Beryl's wounds bled afresh,
and she felt even more desolate than while sheltered behind prison
walls. The six-storied tenement house where she had last seen her
mother's face, and kissed her in final farewell, had been demolished to
make room for a new furniture warehouse. Strange nurses in the hospital
could tell her nothing concerning the last hours of the beloved dead;
and the only spot in the wide western world that seemed to belong to
her, was a narrow strip of ground in a remote corner of the great
cemetery, where a green mound held its square granite slab, bearing the
words "Ellice Darrington Brentano."
With her face bowed upon that stone, the lonely woman had wept away the
long hours of an afternoon that decided her plan for the future.
Dr. Grantlin had gone abroad for an indefinite period, and no one knew
the contents of his last letter. In New York her movements would be
subject to the SURVEILLANCE she most desired to escape; but in that
distant city where the "Anchorage" was situated, she might disappear,
leaving no more trace than that of a stone dropped in some stormy,
surging sea.
To find Bertie and reclaim him, was the only goal of hope life held for
her, and to accomplish this, the first requisite was to effectually
lose herself.
Anxious and protracted deliberation finally resulted in an
advertisement, which she carried next morning to the "Herald" office,
to be inserted for six months in the personal column, unless answered.
"BERTIE, IF YOU WANT THE LOST BUTTON WE BOUGHT AT LUCCA, WHEN CAN
GIGINA HAND IT TO YOU IN ST. CATHERINE'S, CANADA?"
She wore her old blue bunting dress, and a faded blue veil when she
delivered the notice at the office of the newspaper, and paid in
advance the cost of its publication. Later in the same day, clad in her
mourning garments, she went down to the Grand Central Depot and bought
a railway ticket; and the night express bore her away on her long
journey westward.
It was on the fourth of July, her twenty-first birthday, that she
entered the reception room at the "Anchorage", and presented in
conjunction with Doctor Grantlin's letter, a copy of the newspaper
printed at X--, which contained an article descriptive of the discovery
of the picture on the glass door; and expressive of the profound
sympathy of the public for the prisoner so unjustly punished by
incarceration.
For twenty years a resident of the institution, over which she had
repeatedly presided, Sister Ruth was now a woman of fifty-five, whose
white hair shone beneath her cap border like a band of spun silver, and
whose yellowish, dim eyes seemed unnaturally large behind their
spectacles. Thin and wrinkled, her face was nobly redeemed by a
remarkably beautiful, patient mouth; and her angular, wiry figure, by
small feet and very slender hands, where the veins rose like blue cords
lacing ivory satin. Over the shoulders of her gray flannel dress was
worn the distinctive badge of her office, a white mull handkerchief
pleated surplice fashion into her girdle, whence hung by a silver chain
a set of tablets; and the folds of mull were fastened at her throat by
a silver anchor.
Having deliberately read letter and paper, she put the former in her
pocket, and returned the latter with a stately yet graceful inclination
of the head, that would have been creditable in Mdm. Recamier's salon.
"I have expected you for some weeks, an earlier letter from Doctor
Grantlin having prepared me for your arrival; but it appears you have
not been released from prison by the pardon he anticipated?"
"No, madam; the authorities who caused my arrest and imprisonment,
considered the discovery of the printed door a complete refutation of
the accusation against me, and ordered my release. I come here not as a
pardoned criminal, but as an unfortunate victim of circumstantial
evidence; acquitted of all suspicion by a circumstance even stranger
than those which seemed to condemn me. In the darkest days of my
desolation, Doctor Grantlin believed me innocent, honored me with his
confidence and friendship, soothed my mother's dying hour; and he will
rejoice to learn that acquittal anticipated the mockery of a pardon.
Only his generous encouragement emboldened me to hope for a temporary
shelter here."
"Then you have no desire to become a permanent resident?"
"At present, I shall be grateful if allowed to enjoy the privilege of
hiding my sore heart for a while from the gaze of a world that has
cruelly wronged me. I want to rest where wicked men and women do not
pollute the air, where I can try to forget the horrors of convict life;
and the rest I need is not idleness, it is labor of some kind that will
so fully employ my hands and brain, that when I lie down at night my
sad, aching heart and wounded soul can find balm in sleep. Locked at
night into a dark cell has made existence for nearly eighteen months a
mere hideous vigil, broken by fitful nightmare. To see only pure faces,
to listen to sweet feminine voices that never knew the desecration of
blasphemy, to exchange the grim, fetid precincts of a penitentiary for
a holy haven such as this, is indeed a glimpse of paradise to a
tortured spirit."
"Have you special reasons for wishing to shun observation?"
The dim eyes probed like some dull blade that tears the tissues.
"Yes, madam, special cause to want to be forgotten by the public, who
have stared me at times almost to frenzy."
"You are an orphan, I am told; with no living relatives in America."
"I am an orphan; and think I have no relative in the United States."
"In the very peculiar circumstances that surround and isolate you, I
should imagine you would esteem it a great privilege to cast your lot
here, and become one of the permanently located Sisters of the
'Anchorage'. Ours is a noble and consecrated mission."
"Knowing literally nothing of your institution, except that it is a
hive of industrious good women, offering a home and honest work to
homeless and innocent unfortunates, I could not pledge myself to a life
which might not prove suitable on closer acquaintance. Take me in; give
me employment that will prevent me from being a tax upon your
hospitality and mercifully shelter me from pitiless curiosity and
gossip."
"Even were our sympathies not enlisted in your behalf, Doctor
Grantlin's request would insure your admission, at least for a season.
Where is your luggage?"
"I have only a trunk, for which I have retained the railway check,
until I ascertained your willingness to receive me."
"Give it to me."
She crossed the room and pressed the knob of a bell on the opposite
wall. Almost simultaneously a door opened, and to a stout, middle-aged
woman who appeared on the threshold, the matron gave instructions in an
under tone.
Returning to the stranger, she resumed:
"I infer from the Doctor's letter, that you are a gifted person. In
what lines do your talents run?"
"Perhaps I should not lay claim to talent, but I am, by grace of study,
a good musician; and I draw and paint, at least with facility. At one
time I supported my mother and myself by singing in a choir, but
diphtheria closed that avenue of work. With the restoration of health,
I think I have recovered my voice. I am an expert needle woman, and can
embroider well, especially on fine linen."
"Do you feel competent to teach a class in 'water color', in our Art
School? Our aquarelle Sister is threatened with amaurosis, and the
oculist prohibits all work at present."
"You can form an opinion of my qualifications by examining some
sketches which are in my trunk. I have furnished several designs for
the 'Society of Decorative Art', and have sold a number of painted
articles at the Woman's Exchange."
"Then I think you have only to step into a vacant niche, and supply a
need which was beginning to perplex us. During the latter part of
September, an International Scientific Congress will be held in this
city, and one of our patrons, Mr. Brompton, who expects to entertain
the distinguished foreign delegates, has given us an order for dinner
cards for eight courses, and each set for twenty-four covers. As nearly
as we can comprehend the design, his intention is to represent the
order of creation in fish, game, fruits and flowers; and each card will
illustrate some special era in geology and zoology. The cream and ices
set are expected to show the history of Polar regions as far as known,
and at the conclusion of the banquet, each guest will be presented with
a velvet smoking cap, to which must be attached a card representing
'scientific soap-bubbles pricked by the last scientists' junta'. Now
while the 'Anchorage's' cultured art standard claims to be as high as
any, East, we should scarcely venture to fill this order, had not two
of the professors in our University, promised to map out the order, and
furnish some dots in the way of engravings, which will aid the
accomplishment of the work; and we are particularly desirous of
pleasing our patron, from whom the 'Anchorage' expects a bequest. If
you think you can successfully undertake a portion of this order, given
us by Mr. Brompton, we shall make you doubly welcome."
"I think I may safely promise satisfactory work in the line you
designate; and at least, I shall be grateful for the privilege of
making the attempt."
"You are aware, I presume, that all inmates of the 'Anchorage' are
required to wear its regulation uniform."
"I shall be very glad to don it; hoping it may possess some spell to
exorcise memories of the last uniform I wore; the blue homespun of
penitentiary convicts."
"You must try to forget all that. The 'Anchorage' gates shut fast on
the former lives we led; here we dwell in a busy present, hoping to
secure a blessed future. Come with me to the cutting room, and be
measured for your flannel uniform; then one of the Sisters will show
you to your own cell in this consecrated bee-hive, which you will find
as peaceful as its name implies."
The first story contained the reception rooms, chapel, schoolroom,
apartments for the display of sample articles manufactured; the
refectory, kitchen and laundry; and one low wide room with glass on
three sides, where orchids and carnations, the floral specialties of
the institution, were grown. On the second floor were various
workrooms, supplied with materials required for the particular fabric
therein manufactured or ornamented; and cut off from communication, was
the east wing, used exclusively as an infirmary, and provided with its
separate kitchen and laundry. The third story embraced the dormitory, a
broad, lofty apartment divided by carved scroll work and snowy
curtains, into three sets of sleeves running the entire length of the
floor; separated by carpeted aisles, and containing all the articles of
furniture needed by each occupant. On the ceiling directly over every
bed, was inscribed in gilt letters, some text from the Bible, exhorting
to patience, diligence, frugality, humility, gentleness, obedience,
cheerfulness, honesty, truthfulness and purity; and mid-way the central
aisle, where a chandelier swung, two steps led to a raised desk, whence
at night issued the voice of the reader, who made audible to all the
occupants the selected chapter in the Bible. At ten o'clock a bell was
rung by the Sister upon whom devolved the duty of acting as night
watch; then lights were extinguished save in the infirmary. This common
dormitory was reserved for Sisters who had spent at least five years in
the building; and to probationers were given small rooms on the second
story of the west wing.
The third story of the same wing fronted north, and served as a studio
where all designs were drawn and painted; and upon its walls hung
pictures in oil and water color, engravings, vignettes, and all the
artistic odds and ends given or lent by sympathetic patrons.
Each story was supplied with bath-rooms, and the entire work of the
various departments was performed by the appointed corps of inmates;
the Sisters of the wash tub, and of the broom brigade, being selected
for the work best adapted to their physical and intellectual
development.
Visitors lingered longest in the great kitchen with its arched recess
where the range was fitted; where like organ pipes glittering copper
boilers rose, and burnished copper measures and buckets glinted on the
carved shelves running along one side. The adjoining pastry room was
tiled with stone, furnished with counters covered with marble slabs,
and with refrigerators built into the wall; and here the white-capped,
white-aproned priestesses of pots, pans and pestles moved quietly to
and fro, performing the labor upon which depended in great degree the
usefulness of artificers in all other departments.
The refectory opened on a narrow terrace at the rear of the building,
which was sodded with turf and starred with pansies and ox-eyed
daisies, and on the wide, stone window sills sat boxes and vases filled
with maiden-hair ferns and oxalis, with heliotrope and double white
violets. Three lines of tables ran down this bright pretty room, and in
the centre rose a spiral stair to a cushioned seat, where when "Grace"
had been pronounced, the Reader for the day made selections from such
volumes of prose or poetry as were deemed by the Matron elevating and
purifying in influence; tonic for the soul, stimulant for the brain,
balm for the heart.
Close to the rear wall overhanging the lake, ran a treillage of grape
vines, and on the small grass sown plat of garden, belated paeonies
tossed up their brilliant balls, as play-things for the wind that swept
over the blue waves, breaking into a fringe of foam beyond the stone
enclosure.
Except at meals, and during the last half hour in the dormitory, night
and morning, no restriction of silence was imposed, and one hour was
set apart at noon for merely social intercourse, or any individual
scheme of labor. Busy, tranquil, cheerful, often merry, they endeavored
to eschew evil thoughts; and cultivated that rare charity which makes
each tolerant of the failings of the other, which broadens a sympathy
that can excuse individual differences of opinion, and that consecrates
the harmony of true home life.
The room assigned to Beryl was at the extremity of the second story,
just beneath the studio; and as the north end of the wings was built at
each corner into projections that were crowned with bell towers, this
apartment had a circular oriel window, swung like a basket from the
wall, and guarded by an iron balcony. Cool, quiet, restful as an
oratory seemed the nest; with its floor covered by matting diapered in
blue, its low, wide bedstead of curled maple, with snowy Marseilles
quilt, and crisply fluted pillow cases; its book shelves hanging on the
wall, surmounted by a copy in oil of Angelico's Elizabeth of Hungary,
with rapt face upraised as she lifted her rose-laden skirt.
The lambrequins of blue canton flannel were bordered with trailing
convolvulus in pink cretonne, and the diaphanous folds of white muslin
curtains held in the centre an embroidered anchor which dragged inward,
as the breeze rushed in through open windows. An arched recess in the
wall, whence a door communicated with the adjoining chamber, was
concealed by a portiere of blue that matched the lambrequins, and the
alcove served as a miniature dressing-room, where the brass faucet
emptied into a marble basin.
In this apartment the imperial sway of dull maroons, sullen Pompeiian
reds, and sombre murky olives had never cast encroaching shadows upon
the dainty brightness of tender rose and blue, nor toned down the
silvery reflection of the great sea of waters that flashed under the
sunshine like some vast shifting mirror.
Travel-worn and very weary, Beryl sat down by the window and looked out
over the lake, that far as the eye could reach, lifted its sparkling
bosom to the cloudless dim blue of heaven, effacing the sky line;
dotted with sails like huge white butterflies, etched here and there
with spectral, shadowy ship masts, overflown by gray gulls burnished
into the likeness of Zophiels' pinions, as their wings swiftly dipped.
Driven by storms of adversity away from the busy world of her earlier
youth, leaving the wrack of hopes behind, she had drifted on the
chartless current of fate into this Umilta Sisterhood, this latter day
Beguinage; where, provided with work that would furnish her daily
bread, she could hide her proud head without a sense of shame. Doctor
Grantlin, in compliance with her request, would keep the secret of her
retreat; and surely here she might escape forever the scrutiny and the
dangerous magnetism of the man who had irretrievably marred her fair,
ambitious youth.
To-day, twenty-one, full statured in womanhood, prematurely scorched
and scarred in spirit by fierce ordeals, she saw the pale ghost of her
girlhood flitting away amid the ruins of the past; and knew that
instead of making the voyage of life under silken sails gilded with the
light, and fanned by the breath of love and happiness, she had been
swept under black skies before a howling hurricane, into an unexpected
port,--where, lashed to the deck with "torn strips of hope", she had
finally moored a strained, dismasted barque in the "Anchorage", whence
with swelling canvas and flying pennons no ships ever went forth.
A rush of grateful tears filled her tired eyes, and soothed by the
consciousness of an inviolable security, her trembling lips moved in a
prayer of thankfulness to God, upon whom she had stayed her tortured
soul, grappling it to the blessed promise: "Lo, I am with you always. I
will never leave you nor forsake you."