Chapter 9

“Since our interview of this morning (so strangely abridged) I have had the honour to visit your dear uncle, the Prime Minister, and he agrees with me that the strain of your recent examinations and the anxieties of a new occupation have probably disturbed your health, and that it will be prudent of you to take a short vacation. I have therefore the greatest pleasure in assuring you that you are free from duty for a week, a fortnight, or a month, as your convenience may determine; and during your much-regretted absence I will do my best to sustain the great loss of your invaluable help.”

On reading the message, John Storm flung himself into a chair and burst into a long peal of bitter laughter. But when the laughter was spent there came a sense of great loneliness. Then he remembered Mrs. Callender, and went across to her little house in Victoria Square, and showed her the canon's letter and told her everything.

“Lies, lies, lies!” she said. “Ah, laddie, laddie! to lie, to know you lie, to be known to lie, and yet to go on lying--that is the whole art of life with these fashionable shepherds and their fashionable flock. As for that woman--ugh! She was separated from her husband for two years before his death; and he died in a hotel abroad without kith or kin to comfort him: and now she wears his hair in a gold locket on her bosom--that's what she is! But all's well that ends well, laddie. The _holly_ will do ye good, for you were killing yerself with work. You'll no be spending it in your little island, now, eh?”

John Storm was sitting with one leg across the other, and his head on his hand and his elbow on his knee.

“I shall spend it,” he said, “in Retreat at the Brotherhood in Bishopsgate.”

“God bless me, man! is that the change of air ye'll be going to gie yoursel'? It may be well enough for men with water in their veins; but you have blood, laddie--blood! Tak' care, tak' care!”

XVI.

“Still at Martha's.

“Quite right, dear Aunt Anna, the terms 'authority' and 'obedience' must be known and honoured. Only, when it is a case of put a penny in the slot and out comes the word of command, you can't exactly feel that way. The board of directors put the penny into the slot of this institution, and the word of command, so far as I am concerned, comes out of the mouth of Ward Sister Allworthy. I call her the White Owl. She is five feet ten, and has big round cheeks which sometimes I should dearly love to slap--as mothers slap their 'childers' when they administer a humiliating punishment.

“So you think you notice 'a certain want of aptitude'? Well, I don't think I am naturally a bad nurse, Aunt Anna. The patients like me, and they don't die of the dumps when I am about. Only I can't practise nursing by the rule of three, and as a consequence I get myself reported. Sister Allworthy has reported me three times, bless her! Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed, and now she threatens to have me up before the matron. That dear soul has difficulties of locomotion, being buried under the Pelion on Ossa of a mountain of fat. She inhabits a cave of Adullam on the edge of the Inferno--i. e., the 'theatre'--below stairs, and has a small dog with a bad heart and broken wind always nagging on her knee. I call her the Chief Broker in Breakages and Head Dealer in Diseases, and she is only seen once a day when she comes round to take stock. You have to be nice with her Majesty,' for she can haul you up at the weekly board, and put a score against you in the black book, and send you away without a certificate. If that happens, a girl who expects to earn her living as a nurse has never any particular need to pray, 'In all time of our wealth, good Lord deliver us.'

“But, oh, my dear grandfather, what do you think of our John Storm now? After uttering the lamentations of Jeremiah and predicting all the plagues of Egypt, he has gone off to hold his peace--that is to say, he has gone to make his 'Retreat,' which, being interpreted, means praying without ceasing, and also without speaking, eighteen hours a day, six days at a spell, and sometimes sixty. When he comes back reeking with all that holiness I shall feel myself such a miserable sinner----

“Soberly, I could cry to think of it, though, and when I remember that perhaps I was partly to blame----

“It was this way: In that 'ter'ble discoorse' I told you he had scotched the snake, not killed it, and his vicar (I call him Mr. Worldly Wiseman), finding that his ladies and nobility went out like the Pharisees, one by one, told our poor John he was ill and stood in need of instant rest. It looked like it certainly, and the trouble must have been a sort of human rabies in which the poor victim bites at his best friends first. He came here with his lower lip hanging like an old dog's, and I was so stupid as not to see that he was being hunted like a dog too, and only told myself how ugly and untidy he had grown of late. But the Sister had just before been showing me her tusks again, and being possessed with a fury, I gave it him world without end. He was very unreasonable though, and seemed to say that I must have no friends and no amusements that were not of his choosing, and that after spending my days walking through the inside of this precious hospital I must spend my nights walking round the outside of it. Being a woman of like passions with himself, I had a 'ter'ble dust' with him on the subject, and the next I heard was that he was going to make Retreat in a kind of English-church monastery somewhere in the city, where he would 'try to disentangle' himself 'from the world' and see what he 'ought to do next.' He sent me his blessing with this message, and I sent him back mine--a less holy one, but he'll make it do.

“I thought you would remember Mr. Drake's mother, dear Auntie Rachel. Yes, he is fair also, and wears his hair brushed across his forehead, much as you see in the portraits of Napoleon. In fact, he is a sort of fair-haired Napoleon in nature as well.

“He took me to the theatre the other evening, and that was the great event I intended to tell you about. It was quite a proper sort of place, and nobody behaved badly except Glory, who kept talking and preaching and going silly with excitement all the evening through, with the result that everybody was staring mewards and wanting to turn me out.

“Since then Mr. Drake's friend, Lord Bob, who knows all the actors on earth seemingly, has taken us 'behind,' and we have seen a rehearsal. Things don't look quite the same behind as before, but nothing in the world does that, and I wasn't a bit disenchanted. In fact, I found everything delightfully romantic and amusing, and really I do not think it _can_ be so very wicked to be an actress. Do you?

“My friend Polly Love was with us. Polly is a probationer also, and sleeps in the cubicle next to mine, and after the rehearsal we went to the gentlemen's chambers to tea. I can hear what Aunt Anna is saying: 'Goodness gracious! you didn't do that, girl?' Well, yes, I did though. In the interest of my sex I wanted to see how two boys could live in rooms all by themselves, and it's perfectly shocking how well they get on without a woman. Of course I wasn't such a silly as to let wit about that, but after I had examined their sitting-room and cross-examined its owners on its numerous photographs (chiefly feminine) and tried how it feels to hold their big pipes between one's teeth, I whipped off my hat at once and began to put things straight for them, and then I made the tea.

“By this time the gentlemen had changed into their jackets, and I sent them flying around for cups and saucers and sugar basins. It turned out that they had only one teaspoon in the place, and when anybody wanted to stir her tea she said, 'Will you oblige me with _spoon_ please?' What fun it was! We laughed until we cried--at least one of us did--and eventually we managed to break the teapot and a slop basin and to overturn a standing lamp. It was perfectly delightful!

“But the best sport was after tea was over, and Glory was called on for imitations of the people we had seen at the theatre. Of course she couldn't imitate a man when she was in a woman's frock, so being as bright as diamonds that night and twice 'as impudent as a white stone,' [* A Manx proverb] she actually conceived the idea of dressing up in man's clothes. Naturally the gentlemen were enchanted, so I hope Auntie Rachel isn't terribly shocked. Mr. Drake lent me his knickerbockers and a velvet jacket, and Polly and I went into the bedroom, where she helped me to find the way to put them on. With my own blouse and my own hat (I am wearing a felt one now with a broad brim and a feather), and _of course_ my own slippers and stockings, I made a bogh of a boy, I can tell you. I thought Polly would have died of delight in the bedroom, but when we came out she kept covering her face and crying, 'Glory, how _can_ you!'

“I'm afraid I sang and talked more than was good for the soul, but it was all Mr. Drake's doing. He declared I was such a marvellous mimic that it was simply a waste of time and the good gifts of God to go on hospital nursing any longer. And I do believe that if anything happened, and the need arose, he would----

“Only fancy Glory a public person, and all the world and his wife going down on their knees to her! But then it's fearful to think of being an actress, isn't it?

“After all such glorious 'outs' I have to go 'in' to the hospital, and then comes my fit again. Do you remember my little boy who said he was going to the angels, and he would get lots of gristly pork up there? He has gone, and I don't think I like nursing children now. Oh, how I long to go out into the world! I want to shine in it. I want to become great and glorious. I could do it too, I know I could. I have got it in me, I am sure I have. Yet here I am in a little dark corner crying for the sunshine!

“How silly this is, isn't it? It sounds like madness. My dears, allow me to introduce you to some one--

“Glory Quayle, 'March Hare and Madwoman.'”

XVII.

The board room of the hospital of Martha's Vineyard was a large and luxurious chamber, with an oval window at its farther end, and its two side walls panelled with portraits of former chairmen and physicians. In great oaken armchairs, behind ponderous oaken tables, covered with green cloth and furnished with writing pads, the Board of Governors sat in three sides of a square, leaving an open space in the middle. This open space was reserved for patients seeking admission or receiving discharge, and for officers of the hospital presenting their weekly reports.

On a morning in August the matron's report had closed with a startling item. It recommended the immediate suspension of a nurse on the ground of gross impropriety of conduct. The usual course in such a case was for the board of the hospital to depute the matron to act for them in private, but the chairman in this instance was a peppery person, with a stern mouth and a solid under-jaw.

“This is a most serious matter,” he said. “I think--this being a public institution--I really think the board should investigate the case for itself. We ought to assure ourselves that--that, in fact, no other irregularity is going on in the hospital.”

“May it please your lordship,” said a rotund voice from, one of the side tables, “I would suggest that a case like this of grievous moral delinquency comes directly within the dispensation of the chaplain, and if he has done his duty by the unhappy girl (as no doubt he has) he must have a statement to make to the board with regard to her.”

It was Canon Wealthy.

“I may mention,” he added, “that Mr. Storm has now returned to his duties, and is at present in the hospital.”

“Send for him,” said the chairman.

When John Storm entered the board room it was remarked that he looked no better for his holiday. His cheeks were thinner, his eyes more hollow, and there was a strange pallor under his swarthy skin.

The business was explained to him, and he was asked if he had any statement to make with regard to the nurse whom the matron had reported for suspension.

“No,” he said, “I have no statement.”

“Do you mean to tell the board,” said the chairman, “that you know nothing of this matter--that the case is too trivial for your attention--or perhaps that you have never even spoken to the girl on the subject?”

“That is so--I never have,” said John.

“Then you shall do so now,” said the chairman, and he put his hand on the bell beside him, and the messenger appeared.

“You can not intend, sir, to examine the girl here,” said John.

“And why not?”

“Before so many--and all of us men save one. Surely the matron----”

The canon rose to his feet again. “My young brother is naturally sensitive, my lord, but I assure him his delicate feelings are wasted on a girl like this. He forgets that the shame lies in the girl's sin, not in her just and necessary punishment.”

“Bring her in,” said the chairman. The matron whispered to the messenger, and he left the room.

“Pardon me, sir,” said John Storm; “if it is your expectation that I should question the nurse on her sin, as the canon says, I can not do so.”

“Can not?”

“Well, I will not.”

“And is that your idea of your duty as a chaplain?”

“It is the matron's duty, not the chaplain's, to----”

“The matron! The matron! This is your parish, sir--your parish. A great public institution is in danger of a disgraceful scandal, and you who are responsible for its spiritual welfare--really, gentlemen----”

Again the canon rose with a conciliatory smile.

“I think I understand my young friend,” he said, “and your lordship and the hoard will appreciate his feelings, however you may disapprove of his judgment. What generous heart can not sympathize with the sensitive spirit of the youthful clergyman who shrinks from the spectacle of guilt and shame in a young and perhaps beautiful woman? But if it will relieve your lordship from an embarrassing position, I am myself willing----”

“Thank you,” said the chairman; and then the girl was brought into the room in charge of Sister Allworthy.

She was holding her head down and trying to cover her face with her hands.

“Your name, girl?” said the canon.

“Mary Elizabeth Love,” she faltered.

“You are aware, Mary Elizabeth Love, that our excellent and indulgent matron” (here he bowed to a stout lady who sat in the open space) “has been put to the painful duty of reporting you for suspension, which is equivalent to your immediate discharge. Now, I can not hold out a hope that the board will not ratify her recommendation, but it may perhaps qualify the terms of your 'character' if you can show these gentlemen that the unhappy lapse from good conduct which brings you to this position of shame and disgrace is due in any measure to irregularities practised perhaps within this hospital, or to the temptations of any one connected with it.”

The girl began to cry.

“Speak, nurse; if you have anything to say, the gentlemen are willing to hear it.”

The girl's crying deepened into sobs.

“Useless!” said the chairman.

“Impossible!” said the canon.

But some one suggested that perhaps the nurse had a girl friend in the hospital who could throw light on the difficult situation. Then Sister Allworthy whispered to the matron, who said, “Bring her in.”

John Storm's face had assumed a fixed and absent expression, but he saw a girl of larger size than Polly Love enter the room with a gleam, as it were, of sunshine on her golden-red hair. It was Glory.

There was some preliminary whispering, and then the canon began again:

“You are a friend and companion of Mary Elizabeth Love?”

“Yes,” said Glory.

Her voice was full and calm, and a look of quiet courage lit up her girlish beauty.

“You have known her other friends, no doubt, and perhaps you have shared her confidence?”

“I think so.”

“Then you can tell the board if the unhappy condition in which she finds herself is due to any one connected with this hospital.”

“I think not.”

“Not to any officer, servant, or member of any school attached to it?”

“No.”

“Thank you,” said the chairman, “that is quite enough,” and down the tables of the governors there were nods and smiles of satisfaction.

“What have I done?” said Glory.

“You have done a great service to an ancient and honourable institution,” said the canon, “and the best return the board can make for your candour and intelligence is to advise you to avoid such companionship for the future and to flee such perilous associations.”

A certain desperate recklessness expressed itself in Glory's face, and she stepped up to Polly, who was now weeping audibly, and put her arm about the girl's waist.

“What are the girl's relatives?” said the chairman.

The matron replied out of her book. Polly was an orphan, both her parents being dead. She had a brother who had lately been a patient in the hospital, but he was only a lay-helper in the Anglican Monastery at Bishopsgate Street, and therefore useless for present purposes.

There was some further whispering about the tables. Was this the girl who had been recommended to the hospital by the coroner who had investigated a certain notorious and tragic case? Yes.

“I think I have heard of some poor and low relations,” said the canon, “but their own condition is probably too needy to allow them to help her at a time like the present.”

Down to this moment Polly had done nothing but cry, but now she flamed up in a passion of pride and resentment.

“It's false!” she cried. “I have no poor and low relations, and I want nobody's help. My friend is a gentleman--as much a gentleman as anybody here--and I can tell you his name, if you like. He lives in St. James's Street, and he is Lord----”

“Stop, girl!” said the canon, in a loud voice. “We can not allow you to compromise the honour of a gentleman by mentioning his name in his absence.”

John stepped to one of the tables of the governors and took up a pamphlet which lay there. It was the last annual report of Martha's Vineyard, with a list of its governors and subscribers.

“The girl is suspended,” said the chairman, and reaching for the matron's book, he signed it and returned it.

“This,” said the canon, “appears to be a case for Mrs. Callender's Maternity Home at Soho, and with the consent of the board I will request the chaplain to communicate with that lady immediately.”

John Storm had heard, but he made no answer; he was turning over the leaves of the pamphlet.

The canon hemmed and cleared his throat. “Mary Elizabeth Love,” he said, “you have brought a stain upon this honourable and hitherto irreproachable institution, but I trust and believe that ere long, and before your misbegotten child is born, you may see cause to be grateful for our forbearance and our charity. Speaking for myself, I confess it is an occasion of grief to me, and might well, I think, be a cause of sorrow to him who has had your spiritual welfare in his keeping” (here he gave a look toward John), “that you do not seem to realize the position of infamy in which you stand. We have always been taught to think of a woman as sweet and true and pure; a being hallowed to our sympathy by the most sacred associations, and endeared to our love by the tenderest ties, and it is only right” (the canon's voice was breaking), “it is only right, I say, that you should be told at once, and in this place--though tardily and too late--that for the woman who wrongs that ideal, as you have wronged it, there is but one name known among persons of good credit and good report--a hard name, a terrible name, a name of contempt and loathing--the name of _prostitute!_”

Crushing the pamphlet in his hand, John Storm had taken a step toward the canon, but he was too late. Some one was there before him. It was Glory. With her head erect and her eyes flashing, she stood between the weeping girl and the black-coated judge, and everybody could see the swelling and heaving of her bosom.

“How dare you!” she cried. “You say you have been taught to think of a woman as sweet and pure. Well, _I_ have been taught to think of a _man_ as strong and brave, and tender and merciful to every living creature, but most of all to a woman, if she is erring and fallen. But you are not brave and tender; you are cruel and cowardly, and I despise you and hate you!”

The men at the tables were rising from their seats.

“Oh, you have discharged my friend,” she said, “and you may discharge me, too, if you like--if you _dare_! But I will tell everybody that it was because I would not let you insult a poor girl with a cruel and shameful name, and trample upon her when she was down. And everybody will believe me, because it is the truth; and anything else you may say will be a lie, and all the world will know it!”

The matron was shambling up also.

“How dare you, miss! Go back to your ward this instant! Do you know whom you are speaking to?”

“Oh, it's not the first time I've spoken to a clergyman, ma'am. I'm the daughter of a clergyman, and the granddaughter of a clergyman, and I know what a clergyman is when he is brave and good, and gentle and merciful to all women, and when he is a man and a gentleman--not a Pharisee and a crocodile!”

“Please take that girl away,” said the chairman.

But John Storm was by her side in a moment.

“No, sir,” he said, “nobody shall do that.”

But now Glory had broken down too, and the girls, like two lost children, were crying on each other's breasts. John opened the door and led them up to it.

“Take your friend to her room, nurse: I shall be with you presently.”

Then he turned back to the chairman, still holding the crumpled pamphlet in his hand, and said calmly and respectfully:

“And now that you have finished with the woman, sir, may I ask what you intend to do with the man?”

“What man?”

“Though I did not feel myself qualified to sit in judgment on the broken heart of a fallen girl, I happen to know the name which she was forbidden to mention, and I find it here, sir--here in your list of subscribers and governors.”

“Well, what of it?”

“You have wiped the girl out of your books, sir. Now I ask you to wipe the man out also.”

“Gentlemen,” said the chairman, rising, “the business of the board is at an end.”

XVIII.

John Storm wrote a letter to Mrs. Callender explaining Polly Love's situation and asking her to call on the girl immediately, and then he went out in search of Lord Robert Ure at the address he had discovered in the report.

He found the man alone on his arrival, but Drake came in soon afterward. Lord Robert received him with a chilly bow; Drake offered his hand coldly; neither of them requested him to sit.

“You are surprised at my visit, gentlemen,” said John, “but I have just now been present at a painful scene, and I thought it necessary that you should know something about it.”

Then he described what had occurred in the board room, and in doing so dwelt chiefly on the abjectness of the girl's humiliation. Lord Robert stood by the window rapping a tune on the window pane, and Drake sat in a low chair with his legs stretched out and his hands in his trousers pockets.

“But I am at a loss to understand why you have thought it necessary to come here to tell that story,” said Lord Robert.

“Lord Robert,” said John, “you understand me perfectly.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Storm, I do not understand you in the least.”

“Then I will not ask you if you are responsible for the girl's position.”

“Don't.”

“But I will ask you a simpler and easier question.”

“What is it?”

“When are you going to marry her?”

Lord Robert burst into ironical laughter and faced round to Drake.

“Well, these men--these curates--their assurance, don't you know... May I ask your reverence what is _your_ position in this matter--your standing, don't you know?”

“That of chaplain of the hospital.”

“But you say she has been, turned out of it.”