SHAKSPEARE’S NURSE.
In a little back room in a street running off the Lambeth Road, a lad
of about sixteen lay on the sofa, wheeled near the window so that he
might see out into the street.
By his side, busily plying her needle and thread, sat a young woman
whose thin hands and haggard cheeks told their own story of mental
torture and bodily suffering.
She was very poor—you could tell that by her well-worn dress and the
nature of her occupation. A woman must be poor indeed who sews linen
for a livelihood in our great city. She was married, if the
wedding-ring on her finger spoke the truth, and she called herself Mrs.
Smith. Presently she lifted her face from the work and looked across to
the sofa.
‘Well, Shakspeare,’ she said, ‘do you feel wanner now?’
‘Yes, thank you, Mrs. Smith,’ answered the lad; ‘I’m all right now. It
makes me warm to see the folks a-movin’ about. Lor, shan’t I be glad
when I can go out! Do you think it’ud hurt me if I wropped up?’
‘You mustn’t go out, the doctor says, not when the wind’s in the east.’
‘Ah, I have been bad, ain’t I?—reg’lar bad. Do you know, Mrs. Smith, I
believe if you hadn’t nussed me I should o’ been a-turnin’ up my toes
to the daisies now. Granny’s a good soul, but she ain’t in the hunt
with you at nussin’.
‘Poor old lady,’ said Mrs. Smith, ‘she’s wanted nursing herself; but
we’ve got you all right between us, Shakspeare, and when your mother
comes back she’ll find her boy nearly himself again.’
‘Poor mother—ain’t she just fond of me!’ exclaimed Master Shakspeare
Jarvis, drawing a letter from his pocket. ‘Here’s the last letter as
the leadin’ tragedian wrote for her to say as they was on the road
home. Why, she might be here any time now, Mrs. Smith. It’s the first
tower as they’ve bin without me ever since I can remember, and I hope
it’ull be the last.’
‘Never mind,’ said Mrs. Smith, with a smile; ‘you haven’t been idle;
there’s the new drama.’
‘Ah!’ exclaimed the lad, his pale face flushing, ‘I think I’ve done it
this time. There’s a part for mother as’ull suit her prime, and my
part’s tiptop. Shall I give you a scene now?’
‘No, you must not excite yourself.’
‘I know what I shall do,’ answered Master Shakspeare; ‘I shall get
mother and father to call a rehearsal here afore we start on the tower,
and then you shall see it. I should like you to see it. I’ve called the
lady in it Bess, after you.’
Mrs. Smith sighed. It was many a long day since anyone had called her
Bess. Young Jarvis had found out that it was her name quite by
accident.
Mrs. Smith had come some time since to lodge in this little house in
Lambeth. She took the top room and kept it to herself, and the other
lodgers, who were as curious as most lodgers are about their
neighbours, could find out nothing about her except that she worked for
one of the City houses, and was a married woman whose husband was never
seen.
But old Mrs. Jarvis, the landlady, finding her a quiet, nice young
woman, always ready to sympathise with her rheumatics and other
ailments, gradually made a friend and confidant of her, and Bess, when
she could spare the time, was invited to come down into the little
parlour and listen to her landlady’s trials and tribulations.
Thus it was that she learned the Jarvis’s family history. She learned
how Mr. Jarvis, the old lady’s son, had a travelling theatrical show;
how he had invested a portion of his savings in house property, partly
as a home for his old mother, and partly as a refuge for himself and
family when in town, which wasn’t often. By letting off a portion of
the house, and leaving the old lady in charge, this arrangement became
a profitable one, for the strolling players had ‘a drum’ to come to
between their tours where they could live rent free.
Mrs. Smith had lived in the little top room for about six months when
the Jarvises came home for a fortnight to reorganize their company and
arrange for some novelties; and then Shakspeare, the boy, fell ill—so
ill that there was nothing to do but leave him at home with granny.
Granny had her hands full with the lodgers and wanted cosseting
herself, so that when Mrs. Smith saw the poor boy, who was like a caged
bird, and pined for the roving life, tossing on the bed of sickness,
she sat by his side and comforted him, and did little womanly things
for him, which helped him to bear his pain more patiently.
At last he grew to look for her, to fret if she did not come and sit by
him; he would take his medicine from no one else; and poor-old granny’s
stock of patience was soon exhausted by what she called his ‘whims and
contrarinesses.’ Then Mrs. Smith would be called in and would act as
peacemaker, soothing the irritable boy and the irritated old lady at
the same time.
So it came about that at last she was regularly installed as
Shakspeare’s nurse, and she would bring her work down into the room
where he lay, and sit beside him for hours together. A firm friendship
grew up between them. All that was best in the lad’s Bohemian but
honest nature blossomed in the sunshine of Bess’s gentle care, and he
looked upon her as a sort of angel—an angel who was deserving a much
better fate than to be oppressed by some terrible grief, and to have to
work for slop-houses in the City for her living.
Shakspeare could write, and was what his mother called a ‘scholard’;
and so from time to time, as he grew better, he had written her full,
true, and particular accounts of his recovery, and of the lady-lodger’s
kindness to him.
Mrs. Jarvis’s heart overflowed with motherly gratitude, for she
idolized her boy; but she was not ‘scholard’ enough to let it trickle
from her heart down her arm into a pen and or to paper; and so from
time to time she got the leading man (who had seen better days, and
taught virtue in a national school before he took to delineating
villainy on the boards) to write in reply to Shakspeare, and in every
letter there was always a mother’s blessing for Mrs. Smith, the kind
lodger.
Thus far had events progressed, and thus they stood on the day when
this chapter opens, and we see Mrs. Smith at her work, and Shakspeare,
who is still weak from his long illness, lying on the sofa.
Mrs. Smith bends over her work and stitches away; and after Shakspeare
has read his mother’s letter aloud, and then read it to himself, there
is a short silence.
Shakspeare folds the letter and puts it away carefully again.
‘You like reading letters over again and again, don’t you?’ he says
presently.
Mrs. Smith starts.
‘Why, what do you mean?’ she says hesitatingly.
‘When I was ill and you thought I was asleep, I often used to see you
take letters from your pocket and read them again and again. Were they
from your husband, who is abroad?’
The question was put in innocent boyish curiosity, but Mrs. Smith
flushed scarlet and turned her head away so that the lad might not
notice her confusion.
‘Yes,’ she answered, after a pause; ‘they were from my husband.’
‘When is he coming home?’
‘I—I don’t know. Soon, I hope,’ stammered Mrs. Smith.
‘I hope I shall see him. I’m sure he must be a good fellow, or you
wouldn’t kiss his letters like you do.’
Shakspeare Jarvis little knew the tender chord he had touched. Mrs.
Smith bent over her work, and the tears trickled down her face. She was
thinking of her absent husband. She had visited him from time to time
as the regulations allowed, and the meetings had been painful to them
both. She had cheered him and bidden him hope. One visiting-day she had
been too ill to go, and had written, telling him; the next she had
gone—had gone at a time when the expense of her journey had crippled
her—and had been told that she could not see him. Her husband had
committed some offence against prison regulations, and his punishment
was ‘no visitors, no letters.’ Since then she had not heard from him,
and now she was getting anxious and nervous again. Every day that
passed and she received no news, she grew more and more distressed. She
knew his impetuous nature, she had seen how terribly he had been tried
by the prison discipline, and she dreaded to think what he might have
done in a fit of rage or despair.
She believed him innocent. He had told her all—all that he knew, and
she believed him. He was still her noble, handsome George. It was all a
vile plot against him; but what could she, a poor, weak, destitute
woman, do to prove it?
After her father’s death, thrown entirely upon her own resources, she
had determined to live—to live on and toil and struggle, trusting that
some day, when the cruel prison-gates rolled back, George might not be
alone in the world, but might have at least one faithful, loving heart
to look to for support when he began the terrible struggle which would
lie before him.
Shakspeare Jarvis noticed the tears as they fell streaming on the work,
and he was wise enough to turn and look out of the window and hum a
tune, just as if he hadn’t the slightest idea what Mrs. Smith was
doing.
He hadn’t looked out of window a minute before he uttered a little cry
of surprise and joy.
A cab had drawn up to the door with four heavy boxes on the roof.
‘Oh, Mrs. Smith,’ cried the lad, half beside himself, ‘here they are!’
‘Who?’
‘Why, mother and father. Hullo! they’ve got a gentleman with them.
Perhaps he’s the new tragedian. Lor ‘ain’t he popped into the house
quick!’
Mrs. Smith rose and folded her work up.
‘I’m going to my own room, Shakspeare dear,’ she said;
‘I’ll come and see your mother presently.’
Bess ran out before Shakspeare could reply. She didn’t want strangers
to come in and see her red eyes.
Hardly had she beat a retreat before Mrs. Jarvis, having duly embraced
granny below, came panting up the stairs, making them creak and
tremble, and, pushing open the door, she had Shakspeare clasped in her
motherly arms, squeezing him so vigorously that his ‘God bless you,
mother!’ came out in spasmodic jerks, a syllable at a time.
Then there was father to shake hands with, and then Shakspeare, looking
up, saw a young man, with a shaved facc and a curious, frightened look
on it, standing at the doorway. He had on a long overcoat that
Shakspeare knew was his father’s, and when he, with instinctive
politeness, took his hat off, Shakspeare’s quick eye noticed that his
hair was closely cropped.
Mrs. Jarvis noticed the look.
‘This is a friend of ours, Shakspeare, my boy, that we met on the road.
He’s going to lodge with us for a bit.’
‘How do you do, sir?’ said Shakspeare, holding out his hand.
The man took the proffered hand and shook it gently, as if he were
ashamed or afraid of it. Shakspeare couldn’t make him out at all.
‘Where’s the guardjen hangel?’ asked Mrs. Jarvis, looking round. ‘I
must thank her for all she’s done for the boy.’
‘She’s gone upstairs, mother. She would go.’
‘We’ll have her down,’ cried Mrs. Jarvis, in her quick, impetuous way;
but before she could move to call up the stairs, there was a gentle
knock at the door.
‘I beg your pardon, I left some of my work, ’said Mrs. Smith. ‘I——
‘GEORGE!’
‘BESS!’
In a moment, with a wild cry of mutual recognition, the strange
gentleman and Mrs. Smith were locked in each other’s arms, while the
Jarvis family looked on in blank astonishment.
‘Which I’m blest!’ exclaimed Mrs. Jarvis, a little later, when the
situation was explained to her, ‘if it don’t beat all the scenes in all
the dramers as ever was writ! Well I never!’