"He"s a nice chap." Selwyn"s voice was unqualifiedly emphatic. "And his father is as honest a man as ever lived. His mother, I believe, comes of pretty plain people."
"I don"t know where she comes from, but she"s made a success of her son, which is what a good many well-born women fail to do. People aren"t responsible for their ancestors, but they are for their descendants to a great extent, and Mrs. Cressy seems to understand this more clearly than certain ancestrally dependent persons I have met. I"d like to know her."
"You"re looking at me as if I didn"t agree with you. Some day I hope there may be deeper understanding of, and better training for, the supreme profession of life; but to get out of generalizations into a concrete case, what can I do in the way of service to Miss Swink and Mr. Thomas Cressy? Being, as I said before, an interested party, I hardly--"
A knock on the door behind him made Selwyn start as if struck; gave evidence of strain and nervousness of which he was unconscious, and, jumping up, he went toward the door and opened it. In the hall Bettina and Jimmy Gibbons were standing. The latter was twisting his cap round and round in his hand, his big, brown eyes looking first at Bettina and then at me and then at Selwyn, but to my "Come in," he paid no attention.
Getting up, I went toward him, put my hand on his shoulder. "What is it, Jimmy? Why don"t you come in?"
"My shoes ain"t fitten. I wiped them, but the mud wouldn"t come off." His eyes looked down on his feet. "I could tell you out here if you wouldn"t mind listening."
"I told him I"d take the message or call you down-stairs, but he wouldn"t let me do either one." Bettina, hands behind her, nodded in my face. "His mother says her boarder is dying and she wants to tell you something before she dies, and she told Jimmy he must see you himself. Grannie"s gone to prayer-meeting with Mrs. Crimm, and afterward to see about a sick person. I"m awful sorry to interrupt you, and if the lady hadn"t been dying--"
"You"re not interrupting." I drew the boy inside. Bettina came also. From the fire to which I led him, Jimmy drew back, however, and blew upon his stiff little fingers until it was safe to put them closer to the blazing coals. Looking down at his feet, I saw a large and ragged hole on the side of his right shoe from which a tiny bit of blood was slowly oozing upon the rug.
"What"s the matter with your foot, Jimmy? Have you cut it, stuck something in it? You must take your shoe off and see what"s the matter." I pointed to the floor.
"I didn"t know I"d done it." Craning his neck to its fullest extending. Jimmy peered down at the bleeding foot, then looked up at me. "I"m awful sorry it got on the rug. I"ll wipe it up in a minute." Imperishable merriment struggled with abashed regret, and, holding out the offending foot, he laughed wistfully. "It ain"t got no feeling in it, though it"s coming. I guess it"s kinder froze.
They"re regular flip-flops, them shoes are."
Under his breath I heard a smothered exclamation from Selwyn. He was standing in front of the boy, hands in his pockets, and staring at him. He knew, of course, there were countless ill-fed, ill-clothed, unprotected children in every city of every land, but personally he had come in contact with but few of them, and the bit of flesh and blood before him stabbed with sharp realization. Helplessly he turned to me. "The boy"s half frozen. Where did he come from? What does he want you to do?"
Jimmy looked up at me. "Mother told me to hurry. The doctor"s done gone and Mrs. Cotter says she"s bound to see you before she dies.
She"s got something to tell you. She says please, "m, come quick."
Hesitating, I looked at the boy, who had come closer to the fire.
"Did the doctor say she was dying? I saw her yesterday and she seemed better. Miss White was to see her to-day."
"Miss White is there now." Jimmy lifted his right foot and held it from the ground. The warmth of the room was bringing pain to the benumbed member into which something had been stuck. "She told me to tell you please, "m, to come if you could. Mrs. Cotter says she can"t die until she sees you, and she"s so tired trying to hold out.
She won"t have breath left to talk, mother says, if you don"t hurry."
Perplexed, uncertain, I waited a half-minute longer. Mrs. Cotter, the renter of Mrs. Gibbons"s middle room, and sometime boarder, I had seen frequently of late. Nothing human could have stood what she had been forcing herself to do for some weeks past, and that resistance should have yielded to relentless exaction was not to be wondered at.
Ten hours a day she sewed in the carpet department of one of the city"s big stores, and for some time past she had been one of the office-cleaning force of the Metropolitan Building, which at night made ready for the day"s occupants the rooms which were swept and dusted and scrubbed while others slept or played, or rested or made plans for coming times. The extra work had been undertaken in order to get nourishment and medicine needed for her little girl, who had developed tuberculosis. There was nowhere for the child to go. The insufficient sanatorium provided by the city for its diseased and germ-disseminating poor was over-crowded. To save her child she had fought valiantly, but her life was the forfeit of her fight. I wondered what she wanted to tell me.
I looked at Selwyn, in my eyes questioning. Mrs. Mundy was out. I could not leave Bettina alone in the house. What must I do?
"Do you think she is really dying? People like that are often hysterical, often nervously imaginative." Selwyn"s voice was worried. "You ought not to be sent for like this. It isn"t right."
"She wouldn"t have sent as late as this, but the doctor says she won"t last till daybreak." Jimmy twisted his cap into a round, rough ball. "I"ll get Mrs. Mundy for Bettina if you"ll tell me where she is."
"You can"t get her. She"s out the prayer-meeting by now and gone to see somebody who sent for her. I don"t know who it is, and I ain"t by myself. Miss Sallie Jenks is sitting with me while grannie"s out." Bettina"s tones were energetic. She turned to me. "You needn"t stay back on my account, Miss Danny. Aren"t you going?"
"Yes--I"m going." I walked toward my bedroom. At its door I stopped. "I"m sorry, Selwyn, but I"ll have to go. The woman is dying."
Selwyn"s teeth came together sharply and in his eyes were disapproval and protest. For a half-minute he did not speak, then he faced me.
"If you insist, there"s nothing to be said except that I am going with you. Where"s your telephone? I"ll get a cab."
"Oh no! You must not go." Back to the door, I leaned against it.
"You"ve never seen things of this kind. They"re--they"re--"
"No pleasanter for you than for me." His voice was decisive; but his eyes were no longer on mine. They were on Jimmy Gibbons"s shoes with the big and ragged hole in one of them through which the bare skin of his foot showed red and raw. He drew in his breath; turned to me.
"Put on warm things. It"s pretty cold to-night."
CHAPTER XXI
Jimmy followed me into the taxi, and as Selwyn snapped the door he huddled in an opposite corner as if effacement were an obligation required by the situation in which he found himself. But he had never been in an automobile before, and his sense of awe soon yielded to eager anxiety to miss no thrill of the unexpected experience. His face was pressed against the gla.s.s pane of the door before we had gone two blocks, in the hope that he might see some one who would see him in the glory of an adventure long hoped for and long delayed and Selwyn and I were forgotten in the joy of a dream come true.
There was time to tell Selwyn but little of the woman I was going to see. Mrs. Gibbons"s home was only a short distance from Scarborough Square, and before I could do more than give the briefest explanation of Mrs. Cotter"s condition, of her long hours of work and lack of home life, the cab had stopped, and Jimmy, springing out, hopped, on his unhurt foot, to the sagging gate of his little yard and opened it for us to pa.s.s through. Going up the broken steps, I pushed open the partly closed door and went in.
A faint light from a kerosene-lamp, set on a bracket in the wall at the far end of the hall, caused weird shadows to flicker on the floor and up the narrow staircase, and for a half-minute Selwyn and I waited until we could see where we should go. From the middle room we could hear hoa.r.s.e and labored breathing and the stir of footsteps on the bare floor. Putting my hand on the door-k.n.o.b, I was about to turn it when Mrs. Gibbons came out, holding Mrs. Cotter"s little girl by the hand.
"I"m glad you"ve come. She keeps calling for you." Her voice was the monotone of old, and, as unmoved as ever, she nodded to me and then looked at Selwyn. "Is he a doctor? Did he come to see her?"
I explained Selwyn"s presence and suggested that he wait for me while I went to Mrs. Cotter. Beckoning him to follow, she went toward her kitchen bedroom, but stopped to give warning of the two steps that led down to it, and as she stopped I heard the low whimper of the frightened child by her side and saw her footsteps drag.
"I want my mother! I want to go back to my mother! I don"t want to go "way from my mother!"
Was it well to let her go back? Only a few minutes were left for them to be together. Was it kind or cruel to keep them apart?
Uncertain, I looked at the group before me and saw Selwyn stoop and take the child, a little girl of five, up in his arms.
"Your mother is going to sleep." His voice was low. "And we are going to be quiet and not wake her. Jimmy will play with you, and I--"
"Will you tell me a story?" Sleepily the child leaned against his shoulder, one arm thrown over it. "Will you tell me a pretty story about--"
As they disappeared through the door opening into Mrs. Gibbons"s quarters I went into Mrs. Cotter"s room, but for a moment drew back.
I had learned not to shrink at much that once I would have run from, but the gaunt body and ghastly face of the woman propped against pillows on the bed frightened me, and my feet refused to move. All the hardships and denials, the injustices and inequalities, of working womanhood, unfit to fight and unprepared for struggle, were staring at me, and on the open lips was something of the mocking smile that had been on Lillie Pierce"s face when she was first brought in to Mrs. Mundy.
Heavily, and with great labor, breath came gaspingly, and the blank stare in the eyes made me think at first I was too late. Slowly I went toward the bed, and at its side I took a twitching hand in mine, and as I did so the staring eyes turned to me. Too nearly gone for aught save faint returning, light struggled back in a supreme and final effort, and with life"s last spark of energy she clutched my fingers with her work-worn, weary hands. Miss White, the district nurse, who was standing at the foot of the bed, nodded to me, and from a far corner the sobbing of a man and woman in shabby clothes, and crouched close together, reached across the room. All other worlds were, for the moment, far away, and only the world before me seemed real and true and unescapable.
Drawing a low chair close to the bed, I sat down and leaned toward the woman. There was little time to lose. "What is it, Mrs. Cotter?
Look at me. This is Dandridge Heath. You have something you want to say to me. Tell me what it is."
Her head made backward, twisting movement as if for breath, then her eyes held mine, and in them was the cry eternal of all motherhood.
"My little girl! My little girl! If only--I could take--her with me! Who"s going to--tell her how--not to go--wrong? She won"t be safe--on earth. Promise me--promise me!"
"Promise you what?" I leaned still farther over the bed. The fire of a tortured soul was burning in the eyes before me, and out of them had gone dull glaze and ghastly stare; into them had come appeal, both piteous and pa.s.sionate, and fear that defied death. "What must I promise?" My eyes held hers lest words should wander.
"Tell me what I must do?"
"Don"t let them put her in--an orphan home. The ones who--manage it--don"t know themselves--how life--treats girls. They mean kind--but they don"t teach them--what might happen. Little Etta--little Etta Blake lived in an orphan home. And now--now--"
The hands in mine were dropped, amazement for the moment making me forget all else. I leaned yet closer. "Where is she? Where is Etta Blake? Where can I find her?"
As if groping, the eyes looking into mine made effort to understand, then turned away. "You can"t find her--now. It"s--too late. She was let go--to work--and she--didn"t know. She come--from a little town--to a big one. And n.o.body--told her--what might happen. My little Nora--who"s going to tell her?"