Kabanata Kabanata 24 · TREATS ON A VERY POOR SUBJECT, BUT IS A SHORT ONE, AND MAY BE FOUND OF

. TREATS ON A VERY POOR SUBJECT, BUT IS A SHORT ONE, AND MAY BE FOUND OF

IMPORTANCE IN THIS HISTORY

It was no unfit messenger of death, who had disturbed the quiet of the

matron’s room. Her body was bent by age; her limbs trembled with palsy;

her face, distorted into a mumbling leer, resembled more the grotesque

shaping of some wild pencil, than the work of Nature’s hand.

Alas! How few of Nature’s faces are left alone to gladden us with their

beauty! The cares, and sorrows, and hungerings, of the world, change

them as they change hearts; and it is only when those passions sleep,

and have lost their hold for ever, that the troubled clouds pass off,

and leave Heaven’s surface clear. It is a common thing for the

countenances of the dead, even in that fixed and rigid state, to

subside into the long-forgotten expression of sleeping infancy, and

settle into the very look of early life; so calm, so peaceful, do they

grow again, that those who knew them in their happy childhood, kneel by

the coffin’s side in awe, and see the Angel even upon earth.

The old crone tottered along the passages, and up the stairs, muttering

some indistinct answers to the chidings of her companion; being at

length compelled to pause for breath, she gave the light into her hand,

and remained behind to follow as she might: while the more nimble

superior made her way to the room where the sick woman lay.

It was a bare garret-room, with a dim light burning at the farther end.

There was another old woman watching by the bed; the parish

apothecary’s apprentice was standing by the fire, making a toothpick

out of a quill.

“Cold night, Mrs. Corney,” said this young gentleman, as the matron

entered.

“Very cold, indeed, sir,” replied the mistress, in her most civil

tones, and dropping a curtsey as she spoke.

“You should get better coals out of your contractors,” said the

apothecary’s deputy, breaking a lump on the top of the fire with the

rusty poker; “these are not at all the sort of thing for a cold night.”

“They’re the board’s choosing, sir,” returned the matron. “The least

they could do, would be to keep us pretty warm: for our places are hard

enough.”

The conversation was here interrupted by a moan from the sick woman.

“Oh!” said the young man, turning his face towards the bed, as if he

had previously quite forgotten the patient, “it’s all U.P. there, Mrs.

Corney.”

“It is, is it, sir?” asked the matron.

“If she lasts a couple of hours, I shall be surprised,” said the

apothecary’s apprentice, intent upon the toothpick’s point. “It’s a

break-up of the system altogether. Is she dozing, old lady?”

The attendant stooped over the bed, to ascertain; and nodded in the

affirmative.

“Then perhaps she’ll go off in that way, if you don’t make a row,” said

the young man. “Put the light on the floor. She won’t see it there.”

The attendant did as she was told: shaking her head meanwhile, to

intimate that the woman would not die so easily; having done so, she

resumed her seat by the side of the other nurse, who had by this time

returned. The mistress, with an expression of impatience, wrapped

herself in her shawl, and sat at the foot of the bed.

The apothecary’s apprentice, having completed the manufacture of the

toothpick, planted himself in front of the fire and made good use of it

for ten minutes or so: when apparently growing rather dull, he wished

Mrs. Corney joy of her job, and took himself off on tiptoe.

When they had sat in silence for some time, the two old women rose from

the bed, and crouching over the fire, held out their withered hands to

catch the heat. The flame threw a ghastly light on their shrivelled

faces, and made their ugliness appear terrible, as, in this position,

they began to converse in a low voice.

“Did she say any more, Anny dear, while I was gone?” inquired the

messenger.

“Not a word,” replied the other. “She plucked and tore at her arms for

a little time; but I held her hands, and she soon dropped off. She

hasn’t much strength in her, so I easily kept her quiet. I ain’t so

weak for an old woman, although I am on parish allowance; no, no!”

“Did she drink the hot wine the doctor said she was to have?” demanded

the first.

“I tried to get it down,” rejoined the other. “But her teeth were tight

set, and she clenched the mug so hard that it was as much as I could do

to get it back again. So _I_ drank it; and it did me good!”

Looking cautiously round, to ascertain that they were not overheard,

the two hags cowered nearer to the fire, and chuckled heartily.

“I mind the time,” said the first speaker, “when she would have done

the same, and made rare fun of it afterwards.”

“Ay, that she would,” rejoined the other; “she had a merry heart. A

many, many, beautiful corpses she laid out, as nice and neat as

waxwork. My old eyes have seen them—ay, and those old hands touched

them too; for I have helped her, scores of times.”

Stretching forth her trembling fingers as she spoke, the old creature

shook them exultingly before her face, and fumbling in her pocket,

brought out an old time-discoloured tin snuff-box, from which she shook

a few grains into the outstretched palm of her companion, and a few

more into her own. While they were thus employed, the matron, who had

been impatiently watching until the dying woman should awaken from her

stupor, joined them by the fire, and sharply asked how long she was to

wait?

“Not long, mistress,” replied the second woman, looking up into her

face. “We have none of us long to wait for Death. Patience, patience!

He’ll be here soon enough for us all.”

“Hold your tongue, you doting idiot!” said the matron sternly. “You,

Martha, tell me; has she been in this way before?”

“Often,” answered the first woman.

“But will never be again,” added the second one; “that is, she’ll never

wake again but once—and mind, mistress, that won’t be for long!”

“Long or short,” said the matron, snappishly, “she won’t find me here

when she does wake; take care, both of you, how you worry me again for

nothing. It’s no part of my duty to see all the old women in the house

die, and I won’t—that’s more. Mind that, you impudent old harridans. If

you make a fool of me again, I’ll soon cure you, I warrant you!”

She was bouncing away, when a cry from the two women, who had turned

towards the bed, caused her to look round. The patient had raised

herself upright, and was stretching her arms towards them.

“Who’s that?” she cried, in a hollow voice.

“Hush, hush!” said one of the women, stooping over her. “Lie down, lie

down!”

“I’ll never lie down again alive!” said the woman, struggling. “I

_will_ tell her! Come here! Nearer! Let me whisper in your ear.”

She clutched the matron by the arm, and forcing her into a chair by the

bedside, was about to speak, when looking round, she caught sight of

the two old women bending forward in the attitude of eager listeners.

“Turn them away,” said the woman, drowsily; “make haste! make haste!”

The two old crones, chiming in together, began pouring out many piteous

lamentations that the poor dear was too far gone to know her best

friends; and were uttering sundry protestations that they would never

leave her, when the superior pushed them from the room, closed the

door, and returned to the bedside. On being excluded, the old ladies

changed their tone, and cried through the keyhole that old Sally was

drunk; which, indeed, was not unlikely; since, in addition to a

moderate dose of opium prescribed by the apothecary, she was labouring

under the effects of a final taste of gin-and-water which had been

privily administered, in the openness of their hearts, by the worthy

old ladies themselves.

“Now listen to me,” said the dying woman aloud, as if making a great

effort to revive one latent spark of energy. “In this very room—in this

very bed—I once nursed a pretty young creetur’, that was brought into

the house with her feet cut and bruised with walking, and all soiled

with dust and blood. She gave birth to a boy, and died. Let me

think—what was the year again!”

“Never mind the year,” said the impatient auditor; “what about her?”

“Ay,” murmured the sick woman, relapsing into her former drowsy state,

“what about her?—what about—I know!” she cried, jumping fiercely up:

her face flushed, and her eyes starting from her head—“I robbed her, so

I did! She wasn’t cold—I tell you she wasn’t cold, when I stole it!”

“Stole what, for God’s sake?” cried the matron, with a gesture as if

she would call for help.

“_It_!” replied the woman, laying her hand over the other’s mouth. “The

only thing she had. She wanted clothes to keep her warm, and food to

eat; but she had kept it safe, and had it in her bosom. It was gold, I

tell you! Rich gold, that might have saved her life!”

“Gold!” echoed the matron, bending eagerly over the woman as she fell

back. “Go on, go on—yes—what of it? Who was the mother? When was it?”

“She charged me to keep it safe,” replied the woman with a groan, “and

trusted me as the only woman about her. I stole it in my heart when she

first showed it me hanging round her neck; and the child’s death,

perhaps, is on me besides! They would have treated him better, if they

had known it all!”

“Known what?” asked the other. “Speak!”

“The boy grew so like his mother,” said the woman, rambling on, and not

heeding the question, “that I could never forget it when I saw his

face. Poor girl! poor girl! She was so young, too! Such a gentle lamb!

Wait; there’s more to tell. I have not told you all, have I?”

“No, no,” replied the matron, inclining her head to catch the words, as

they came more faintly from the dying woman. “Be quick, or it may be

too late!”

“The mother,” said the woman, making a more violent effort than before;

“the mother, when the pains of death first came upon her, whispered in

my ear that if her baby was born alive, and thrived, the day might come

when it would not feel so much disgraced to hear its poor young mother

named. ‘And oh, kind Heaven!’ she said, folding her thin hands

together, ‘whether it be boy or girl, raise up some friends for it in

this troubled world, and take pity upon a lonely desolate child,

abandoned to its mercy!’”

“The boy’s name?” demanded the matron.

“They _called_ him Oliver,” replied the woman, feebly. “The gold I

stole was—”

“Yes, yes—what?” cried the other.

She was bending eagerly over the woman to hear her reply; but drew

back, instinctively, as she once again rose, slowly and stiffly, into a

sitting posture; then, clutching the coverlid with both hands, muttered

some indistinct sounds in her throat, and fell lifeless on the bed.

“Stone dead!” said one of the old women, hurrying in as soon as the

door was opened.

“And nothing to tell, after all,” rejoined the matron, walking

carelessly away.

The two crones, to all appearance, too busily occupied in the

preparations for their dreadful duties to make any reply, were left

alone, hovering about the body.