Marcella

"Em"ly!" said Mrs. Jervis, with energy.

Emily looked round trembling. The delicate invalid was sitting bolt upright, her eyes sparkling, a spot of red on either hollow cheek. The glances of the two women crossed; there seemed to be a mute struggle between them. Then Emily laid down her iron, stepped quickly across to her mother, and kneeling beside her, threw her arms around her.

"Have it your own way, mother," she said, while her lip quivered; "I wasn"t a-goin" to cross you."

Mrs. Jervis laid her waxen cheek against her daughter"s tangle of brown hair with a faint smile, while her breathing, which had grown quick and panting, gradually subsided. Emily looked up at Marcella with a terrified self-reproach. They all knew that any sudden excitement might kill out the struggling flame of life.

"You ought to rest a little, Mrs. Jervis," said Marcella, with gentle authority. "You know the dressing must tire you, though you won"t confess it. Let me put you comfortable. There; aren"t the pillows easier so? Now rest--and good-bye."

But Mrs. Jervis held her, while Emily slipped away.

"I shall rest soon," she said significantly. "An" it hurts me when Emily talks like that. It"s the only thing that ever comes atween us. She thinks o" forms an" ceremonies; an" _I_ think o" _grace_."

Her old woman"s eyes, so clear and vivid under the blanched brow, searched Marcella"s face for sympathy. But Marcella stood, shy and wondering in the presence of words and emotions she understood so little. So narrow a life, in these poor rooms, under these crippling conditions of disease!--and all this preoccupation with, this pa.s.sion over, the things not of the flesh, the thwarted, cabined flesh, but of the spirit--wonderful!

On coming out from Brown"s Buildings, she turned her steps reluctantly towards a street some distance from her own immediate neighbourhood, where she had a visit to pay which filled her with repulsion and an unusual sense of helplessness. A clergyman who often availed himself of the help of the St. Martin"s nurses had asked the superintendent to undertake for him "a difficult case." Would one of their nurses go regularly to visit a certain house, ostensibly for the sake of a little boy of five just come back from the hospital, who required care at home for a while, _really_ for the sake of his young mother, who had suddenly developed drinking habits and was on the road to ruin?

Marcella happened to be in the office when the letter arrived. She somewhat unwillingly accepted the task, and she had now paid two or three visits, always dressing the child"s sore leg, and endeavouring to make acquaintance with the mother. But in this last attempt she had not had much success. Mrs. Vincent was young and pretty, with a flighty, restless manner. She was always perfectly civil to Marcella, and grateful to her apparently for the ease she gave the boy. But she offered no confidences; the rooms she and her husband occupied showed them to be well-to-do; Marcella had so far found them well-kept; and though the evil she was sent to investigate was said to be notorious, she had as yet discovered nothing of it for herself. It seemed to her that she must be either stupid, or that there must be something about her which made Mrs. Vincent more secretive with her than with others; and neither alternative pleased her.

To-day, however, as she stopped at the Vincents" door, she noticed that the doorstep, which was as a rule shining white, was muddy and neglected. Then n.o.body came to open, though she knocked and rang repeatedly. At last a neighbour, who had been watching the strange nurse through her own parlour window, came out to the street.

"I think, miss," she said, with an air of polite mystery, "as you"d better walk in. Mrs. Vincent "asn"t been enjyin" very good "ealth this last few days."

Marcella turned the handle, found it yielded, and went in. It was after six o"clock, and the evening sun streamed in through a door at the back of the house. But in the Vincents" front parlour the blinds were all pulled down, and the only sound to be heard was the fretful wailing of a child. Marcella timidly opened the sitting-room door.

The room at first seemed to her dark. Then she perceived Mrs. Vincent sitting by the grate, and the two children on the floor beside her. The elder, the little invalid, was simply staring at his mother in a wretched silence; but the younger, the baby of three, was restlessly throwing himself hither and thither, now pulling at the woman"s skirts, now crying l.u.s.tily, now whining in a hungry voice, for "Mama! din-din!

Mama! din-din!"

Mrs. Vincent neither moved nor spoke, even when Marcella came in. She sat with her hands hanging over her lap in a desolation incapable of words. She was dirty and unkempt; the room was covered with litter; the breakfast things were still on the table; and the children were evidently starving.

Marcella, seized with pity, and divining what had happened, tried to rouse and comfort her. But she got no answer. Then she asked for matches. Mrs. Vincent made a mechanical effort to find them, but subsided helpless with a shake of the head. At last Marcella found them herself, lit a tire of some sticks she discovered in a cupboard, and put on the kettle. Then she cut a slice of bread and dripping for each of the children--the only eatables she could find--and after she had dressed Bertie"s leg she began to wash up the tea things and tidy the room, not knowing very well what to be at, but hoping minute by minute to get Mrs. Vincent to speak to her.

In the midst of her labours, an elderly woman cautiously opened the door and beckoned to her.

Marcella went out into the pa.s.sage.

"I"m her mother, miss! I "eered you were "ere, an" I follered yer. Oh!

such a business as we "ad, "er "usband an" me, a gettin" of "er "ome last night. There"s a neighbour come to me, an" she says: "Mrs. Lucas, there"s your daughter a drinkin" in that public "ouse, an" if I was you I"d go and fetch her out; for she"s got a lot o" money, an" she"s treatin" everybody all round." An" Charlie--that"s "er "usband--ee come along too, an" between us we got holt on her. An" iver sence we brought her "ome last night, she set there in that cheer, an" niver a word to n.o.body! Not to me "t any rate, nor the chillen. I believe "er "usband an" "er "ad words this mornin". But she won"t tell me nothin". She sits there--just heart-broke"--the woman put up her ap.r.o.n to her eyes and began crying. "She ain"t eatin" nothink all day, an" I dursen"t leave the "ouse out o" me sight--I lives close by, miss--for fear of "er doing "erself a mischief."

"How long has she been like this?" said Marcella, drawing the door cautiously to behind her.

"About fourteen month," said the woman, hopelessly. "An" none of us knows why. She was such a neat, pretty girl when she married "im--an" ee such a steady fellow. An" I"ve done _my_ best. I"ve talked to "er, an"

I"ve "id "er "at an" her walking things, an" taken "er money out of "er pockets. An", bless yer, she"s been all right now for seven weeks--till last night. Oh, deary, deary, me! whatever "ull become o" them--"er, an"

"im, an" the children!"

The tears coursed down the mother"s wrinkled face.

"Leave her to me a little longer," said Marcella, softly; "but come back to me in about half an hour, and don"t let her be alone."

The woman nodded, and went away.

Mrs. Vincent turned quickly round as Marcella came back again, and spoke for the first time:

"That was my mother you were talkin" to?"

"Yes," said Marcella, quietly, as she took the kettle off the fire. "Now I do want you to have a cup of tea, Mrs. Vincent. Will you, if I make it?"

The poor creature did not speak, but she followed Marcella"s movements with her weary eyes. At last when Marcella knelt down beside her holding out a cup of tea and some bread and b.u.t.ter, she gave a sudden cry.

Marcella hastily put down what she carried, lest it should be knocked out of her hand.

"He struck me this morning!--Charlie did--the first time in seven years.

Look here!"

She pulled up her sleeve, and on her white, delicate arm she showed a large bruise. As she pointed to it her eyes filled with miserable tears; her lips quivered; anguish breathed in every feature. Yet even in this abas.e.m.e.nt Marcella was struck once more with her slim prettiness, her refined air. This woman drinking and treating in a low public-house at midnight!--rescued thence by a decent husband!

She soothed her as best she could, but when she had succeeded in making the wretched soul take food, and so in putting some physical life into her, she found herself the recipient of an outburst of agony before which she quailed. The woman clung to her, moaning about her husband, about the demon instinct that had got hold of her, she hardly knew how--by means it seemed originally of a few weeks of low health and small self-indulgences--and she felt herself powerless to fight; about the wreck she had brought upon her home, the shame upon her husband, who was the respected, well-paid foreman of one of the large shops of the neighbourhood. All through it came back to him.

"We had words, Nurse, this morning, when he went out to his work. He said he"d nearly died of shame last night; that he couldn"t bear it no more; that he"d take the children from me. And I was all queer in the head still, and I sauced him--and then--he looked like a devil--and he took me by the arm--and _threw_ me down--as if I"d been a sack. An" he never, _never,_--touched me--before--in all his life. An" he"s never come in all day. An" perhaps I shan"t ever see him again. An" last time--but it wasn"t so bad as this--he said he"d try an" love me again if I"d behave. An" he did try--and I tried too. But now it"s no good, an" perhaps he"ll not come back. Oh, what shall I do? what shall I do!"

she flung her arms above her head. "Won"t _anybody_ find him? won"t _anybody_ help me?"

She dropped a hand upon Marcella"s arm, clutching it, her wild eyes seeking her companion"s.

But at the same moment, with the very extremity of her own emotion, a cloud of impotence fell upon Marcella. She suddenly felt that she could do nothing--that there was nothing in her adequate to such an appeal--nothing strong enough to lift the weight of a human life thus flung upon her.

She was struck with a dryness, a numbness, that appalled her. She tried still to soothe and comfort, but nothing that she said went home--took hold. Between the feeling in her heart which might have reached and touched this despair, and the woman before her, there seemed to be a barrier she could not break. Or was it that she was really barren and poor in soul, and had never realised it before? A strange misery rose in her too, as she still knelt, tending and consoling, but with no efficacy--no power.

At last Mrs. Vincent sank into miserable quiet again. The mother came in, and silently began to put the children to bed. Marcella pressed the wife"s cold hand, and went out hanging her head. She had just reached the door when it opened, and a man entered. A thrill pa.s.sed through her at the sight of his honest, haggard face, and this time she found what to say.

"I have been sitting by your wife, Mr. Vincent. She is very ill and miserable, and very penitent. You will be kind to her?"

The husband looked at her, and then turned away.

"G.o.d help us!" he said; and Marcella went without another word, and with that same wild, unaccustomed impulse of prayer rilling her being which had first stirred in her at Mellor at the awful moment of Hurd"s death.

She was very silent and distracted at tea, and afterwards--saying that she must write some letters and reports--she shut herself up, and bade good-night to Minta and the children.

But she did not write or read. She hung at the window a long time, watching the stars come out, as the summer light died from the sky, and even the walls and roofs and chimneys of this interminable London spread out before her took a certain dim beauty. And then, slipping down on the floor, with her head against a chair--an att.i.tude of her stormy childhood--she wept with an abandonment and a pa.s.sion she had not known for years. She thought of Mrs. Jervis--the saint--so near to death, so satisfied with "grace," so steeped in the heavenly life; then of the poor sinner she had just left and of the agony she had no power to stay.

Both experiences had this in common--that each had had some part in plunging her deeper into this darkness of self-contempt.

What had come to her? Daring the past weeks there had been something wrestling in her--some new birth--some "conviction of sin," as Mrs.

Jervis would have said. As she looked back over all her strenuous youth she hated it. What was wrong with her? Her own word to Anthony Craven returned upon her, mocked her--made now a scourge for her own pride, not a mere, measure of blame for others. Aldous Raeburn, her father and mother, her poor--one and all rose against her--plucked at her--reproached her. "Aye! what, indeed, are wealth and poverty?" cried a voice, which was the voice of them all; "what are opinions--what is influence, beauty, cleverness?--what is anything worth but _character_--but _soul?_"

And character--soul--can only be got by self-surrender; and self-surrender comes not of knowledge but of love.

A number of thoughts and phrases, hitherto of little meaning to her, floated into her mind--sank and pressed there. That strange word "grace"