"I mean, sir," said John Storm, "that half the young people nowadays--the young women in the west of London especially--are asked to dance to the Dead March."
And then he spoke of the infamous case of Mercy Macrae, how she was being bought and sold, and how scandalous was the reputation of the man she was required to marry.
"That was what I was coming down to speak about, sir--to ask you to save this innocent girl from such a mockery of holy wedlock. She is not a child, and the law can not help her, but you can do so, because the power of the Church is at your back. You have only to set your face against this infamy, and say----"
"My dear Mr. Storm," the canon was smiling condescendingly and swinging his gla.s.ses, "the business of the Church is to solemnize marriages, not to make them. But if the young lady comes to me I will say: "My dear young lady, the conditions you complain of are more common than you suppose; put aside all foolish, romantic notions, make a nest for yourself as comfortably as you can, and come back in a year to thank me.""
John Storm was on his feet; the blood was mounting to his face and tingling in his fingers.
"And so these men are to make their wives of the daughters of the poor first, and then ask the Church to solemnize their polygamy----"
But the canon had lifted his hand to silence him.
"My dear young friend, a policy like yours would decimate the House of Commons and abolish the House of Lords. Practical religion has a sweet reasonableness. We are all human, even if we are all gentlemen; and while silly young things----"
But John Storm was out in the hall and putting on his hat to see Glory.
Glory had not yet awakened from her trance. While others were living in to-day she was still going about in yesterday. The emotion of the theatre was upon her, and the world of reality took the tone and colour of drama. This made her a tender woman, but a bad nurse.
She began the day in the Outpatient Department, and a poor woman came with a child that had bitten its tongue. Its condition required that it should remain in the house a day or two. "Let me put the pore thing to bed; she"s allus used to me," said the woman piteously. "Are you the mother?" said the Sister. "No, the grandmother." "The mother is the only person who can enter the wards except on visiting day." The poor woman began to cry. Glory had to carry the child to bed, and she whispered to the grandmother, "Come this way," and the woman followed her. When they came to the surgical ward, she said to the nurse in charge, "This is the child"s mother, and she has come to put the poor little thing to bed."
Later in the morning she was sent up to help in the same ward. A patient in great pain called to her and said, "Loosen this bandage for me, nurse; it is killing me!" And she loosened it.
But the glamour of the theatre was upon her as well as its sentiment and emotion, and in the s.p.a.ce before the bed of one of the patients, at a moment when the ward Sister was away, she began to make imitations of Beatrice and Bened.i.c.k and the singer of "Sigh no more, ladies." The patient was Koenig, the choirmaster of "All Saints"," a little fat German with long mustaches, which he waxed and curled as he lay in bed. Glory had christened him "the hippopotamus," and at her mimicry he laughed so much that he rolled and pitched and dived among the bedclothes.
"Ach, Gott!" he cried, "vot a girl! Never--I haf never heard any one so goot on de stage. Vot a voice, too! A leetle vork under a goot teacher, and den, mein Gott! Vot is it de musicians say?--the genius has a Cremona inside of him on which he first composes his immortal vorks. You haf the Cremona, my dear, and I will help you to bring it out. Vot you tink?"
It was the hour of the morning when the patients who can afford it have their newspapers brought up to them, but the newspapers were thrown aside; every eye was on Glory, and there was much noisy laughter and even some clapping of hands.
Ward Sister Allworthy entered with the house doctor.
"What"s the meaning of this?" she demanded. Glory told the truth, and was reproved.
"Who has loosened this bandage?" said the doctor. The patient tried to prevaricate, but Glory told the truth again, and was reproved once more.
"And who permitted this woman to come into the ward?" said the nurse.
"I did," said Glory.
"You"re not fit to be a nurse, miss, and I shall certainly report you as unfit for duty."
Glory laughed in the Sister"s face.
It was at this moment that John Storm arrived after his interview with the canon. He drew Glory into the corridor and tried to pacify her.
"Oh, don"t suppose I"m going to do hospital nursing all my life," she said. "It may be good womanly work, but I want to be a human being with a heart, and not a machine called Duty. How I hate and despise my surroundings! I"ll make an end of them one of these days. Sooner or later it must come to that."
"Your life has been deranged, Glory, and that is why you disdain your surroundings. You were at the theatre last night."
"Who told you that? Well, what of it? Are you one of those who think the theatre----"
"I don"t object to the theatre, Glory. It is the derangement of your life I am thinking of; and if anybody is responsible for that he is your enemy, not your friend."
"You will make me angry again, as you did before," and she began to bite her quivering lip.
"I did not come to make you angry, Glory. I came to ask you--even to entreat you--to break off this hateful connection."
"Because you know nothing of this--this connection, as you say--you call it hateful."
"I know what I am talking about, my child. The life these men live is worse than hateful; and it makes my heart bleed to see you falling a victim to it."
"You are degrading me again; you are always degrading me. Other men try to be agreeable to me, but you---- Besides, I can not hear my friends abused. Yes, they _are_ my friends. I _was_ at the theatre with them last night, and I am going to take tea at their chambers on my next holiday. So please----"
"Glory!"
With one plunge of his arm he had gripped her by the wrist.
"You are hurting me."
"You are never to set foot in the rooms of those men!"
"Let me go!"
"You are as inexperienced as a child, Glory, and it is my duty to protect you against yourself."
"Let go, I say!"
"Don"t destroy yourself. Think while there"s time--think of your good name, your character!"
"I shall do as I please."
"Listen! If I have chosen to be a clergyman, it"s not because I"ve lived all my life in cotton wool. Let me tell you what the lives of such men really are--the best of them, the very best. He gets up at noon, walks in the park, takes tea with some one, grunts and groans that he must go to somebody"s dinner party, escapes to the Gaiety Theatre, sups at a so-called club----"
"You mean Lord Robert. But what right have you to say----"
"The right of one who knows him to be as bad as this, and worse--ten times worse! Such a man thinks he has a right to play with a girl if she is poor. She may stake her soul, her salvation, but he risks nothing.
To-day he trifles with her; to-morrow he marries another, and flings her to the devil!"
"There"s something else in this. What is it?"
But John Storm had swung about and left her.
As soon as she was at liberty she went in search of Polly Love, expecting to find her in her cubicle, but the cubicle was empty. Coming out of the little room she saw a piece of paper lying on the floor. It was a letter, carefully folded. She picked it up, unfolded it, and read it, hardly knowing what she was doing, for her head was dizzy and her eyes were swimming in unshed tears. It ran:
"You ask, Do I mean to adopt entirely? Yes; to bring up just the same as if it were born to me. I hope yours will be a strong and healthy boy; but if it is a girl----"
Glory could not understand what she was reading. Whose letter could it be? It was addressed "X. Y. Z., Office of _Morning Post_."