Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 277
After dinner the girls got into an omnibus and went still farther east, sitting at opposite sides of the car, and laughing and talking loudly to each other, amid the astonishment of the other occupants. But when they came to mean and ugly streets with green-grocers’ barrows by the curbstone, and weird and dreary cemeteries in the midst of gaunt, green sticks that were trying to look like trees, Glory thought they had better return.
They went back by the Thames steamboat from some landing stage among the docks. The steamer picked up passengers at every station on the river, and at London Bridge a band came aboard. As they sailed under St. Paul’s the boat was crowded with people going west to see the celebrations in honour of the birthday, and the band was playing And her Golden Hair was hanging down her Back.
At one moment Glory was wild with delight, and at the next her gaiety seemed to be suddenly extinguished. The sun was setting behind the towers of Westminster in a magnificent lake of fire, and it seemed like the sun going down at Peel, except that the lights beneath, which glistened and flashed, were windows, not waves, and the deep hum was not the noise of the mighty sea, but the noise of mighty millions.
They landed at Westminster Bridge and went to a tearoom for tea. When they came out it was quite dark, and they got on to the top of an omnibus. But the town was now ablaze with gas and electric lights that were flinging out the initials of the Queen, and Whitehall was dense with carriages going to the official receptions. Glory wanted to be in the midst of so much life, so the girls got down and walked arm in arm.
As they passed through Piccadilly Circus they were laughing again, for the oppression of the crowds made them happy. The throng was greatest at that point and they had to push their way through. Among others there were many gaily-dressed women, who seemed to be waiting for omnibuses. Glory noticed that two of these women, who were grimacing and lisping, had spoken to a man who was also lounging about. She tugged at Polly’s arm.
“That’s strange! Did you see that?” she said.
“That! Oh, that’s nothing. It’s done every day,” said Polly.
“What does it mean?” said Glory.
“Why, you don’t mean to say — well, this, Glory —— Really your friends ought to take care of you, my dear, you are so ignorant of the world.”
And then suddenly, as by a flash of lightning, Glory had her first glimpse of the tragic issues of life.
“Oh, my gracious! Come along,” she whispered, and dragged Polly after her.
They were panting past the end of St. James’s Street when a man with an eye-glass and a great shield of shirt-front collided with them and saluted them. Glory was for forging ahead, but Polly had drawn up.
“It’s only my friend,” said Polly in another voice.— “This is a new nurse. Her name is Glory.”
The man said something about a glorious name and a glorious pleasure to be nursed by such a nurse, and then both the girls laughed. He was glad they had found his tickets useful, but sorry he could not see them back to the hospital, being dragged away to the bally Foreign Office reception in honour of the Queen’s birthday.
“But I’m coming to the ball, you know, and,” with a glance at Glory, “I’ve half a mind to bring my chum along with me!”
“Oh, do,” said Polly, partly covering the pupils of her eyes with her eyelids.
The man lowered his voice and said something about Glory which Glory did not catch, then waved his white-kid glove, saying “Ta-ta,” and was gone.
“Is he married?” said Glory.
“Married! Good gracious, no; what ridiculous ideas you’ve got!”
It was ten minutes after ten as the girls turned in at a sharp trot at the door of the hospital, still prattling and chattering and bringing some of the gaiety and nonsense of their holiday into the quiet precincts of the house of pain. The porter shook his finger at them with mock severity, and a ward Sister going through the porch in her white silence stopped to say that a patient had been crying out for one of them.
“It’s me — I know it’s me,” said Polly. “I’ve got a brother here out of a monastery, and he can’t do with anybody else about him. It makes me tired of my life.”
But it was Glory who was wanted. The woman whom John Storm had picked up out of the streets was dying. Glory had helped to nurse her, and the poor old thing had kept herself alive that she might deliver to Glory her last charge and message. She could see nobody, so Glory leaned over the bed and spoke to her.
“I’m here, mammie; what is it?” she said, and the flushed young face bent close above the withered and white one.
“He spoke to me friendly and squeedged my ‘and, he did. S’elp me never, it’s true. Gimme a black cloth on the corfin, my dear, and mind yer tell ‘im to foller.”
“Yes, mammie, yes. I will-be sure I — I — Oh!”
It was Glory’s first death.
IX.
John Storm had been through his first morning call that afternoon. For this ordeal he had presented himself in a flannel shirt in the hall, where the canon was waiting for him in patent-leather boots and kid gloves, and his daughter Felicity in cream silk and white feathers. After they had seated themselves in the carriage the canon, said: “You don’t quite do yourself justice, Mr. Storm. Believe me, to be well dressed is a great thing to a young man making his way in London.”
The carriage stopped at a house that seemed to be only round the corner.
“This is Mrs. Macrae’s,” the canon whispered. “An American lady-widow of a millionaire. Her daughter — you will see her presently — is to marry into one of our best English families.”
They were walking up the wide staircase behind the footman in blue. There was a buzz of voices coming from a room above.
“Canon — er — Wealthy, Miss Wealthy, and — er — the — h’m — Rev. Mr. Storm!”
The buzz of voices abated, and a bright-faced little woman, showily dressed, came forward and welcomed them with a marked accent. There were several other ladies in the room, but only one gentleman. This person, who was standing, with teacup and saucer in hand, at the farther side, screwed an eyeglass in his eye, looked across at John Storm, and then said something to the lady in the chair beside him. The lady tittered a little. John Storm looked back at the man, as if by an instinctive certainty that he must know him when he saw him again. He was engulfed in a high, stiff collar, and was rather ugly; tall, slender, a little past thirty; fair, with soft, sleepy eyes, and no life in his expression, but agreeable; fit for good society, with the stamp of good breeding, and capable of saying little humorous things in a thin “roofy” voice.
“I was real sorry I didn’t hear Mr. Storm Wednesday evening,” Mrs. Macrae was saying, with a mincing smile. “My daughter told me it was just too lovely. — Mercy, this is your great preacher. Persuade him to come to my ‘At Home’ Tuesday.”
A tall, dark girl, with gentle manners and a beautiful face, came slowly forward, put her hand into John’s, and looked steadily into his eyes without speaking. Then the gentleman with the eyeglass said suavely, “Have you been long in London, Mr. Storm?”
“Two weeks,” John answered shortly, and half turned his head.
“How — er — interesting!” with a prolonged drawl and a little cold titter.
“Oh, Lord Robert Ure — Mr. Storm,” said the hostess.
“Mr. Storm has done me the honour to become one of my assistant clergy, Lord Robert,” said the canon, “but he is not likely to be a curate long.”
“That is charming,” said Lord Robert. “It is always a relief to hear that I am likely to have one candidate the less for my poor perpetual curacy in Pimlico. They’re at me like flies round a honey-pot, don’t you know. I thought I had made the acquaintance of all the perpetual curates in Christendom. And what a sweet team they are, to be sure! The last of them came yesterday. I was out, and my friend Drake — Drake of the Home Office, you know — couldn’t give the man the living, so he gave him sixpence instead, and the creature went away quite satisfied.”
Everybody seemed to laugh except John, who only stared into the air, and the loudest laughter came from the canon. But suddenly an incisive voice said:
“But why sharpen your teeth on the poor curates? Is there no a canon or a bishop handy that’s better worth a bite?”
It was Mrs. Callender.
“I tell ye a story too, only mine shall be a true one.”
“Jane! Jane!” said the hostess, shaking her fan as a weapon; and Lord Robert stretched his neck over his collar and made an amiable smile.
“A girl of eighteen came to me this morning at Soho, and she was in the usual trouble. The father was a wicked rector. He died last year leaving thirty-one thousand pounds; and the mother of his unfortunate child — that is to say, his mistress — is now in the Union.”
It was the first sincere word that had been spoken, where every tone had been wrong, every gesture false, and it fell on the company like a thunderclap. John Storm drew his breath hard, looked up at Lord Robert by a strange impulse, and felt himself avenged.
“What a beautiful day it has been!” said somebody. Everybody looked up at the maker of this surprising remark. It was a lady, and she blushed until her cheeks burned again.
A painful silence followed, and then the hostess turned to Lord Robert and said:
“You spoke of your friend Drake, didn’t you? Everybody is talking of him, and as for the girls, they seem to be crazy about the man. So handsome, they say; so natural, and such a splendid talker. But then, girls are so quick to take fancies to people. You really must take care of yourself, my dear.” (This to Felicity.) “Who is he? Lord Robert will tell you — an official of some kind, and son of Sir something Drake, of one of the northern counties. He knows the secret of getting on in the world, though he doesn’t go about too much. But I’ve determined not to live any longer without making the acquaintance of this wonderful being, so Lord Robert must just bring him along Tuesday evening, or else — —”
John Storm escaped at last, without promising to come to the “At Home.” He went direct to the hospital and learned that Glory was out for the day. Where she could have gone, and what she could be doing, puzzled him grievously. That she had not put herself under his counsel and direction on her first excursion abroad hurt his pride and wounded his sense of responsibility. As the night fell his anxiety increased. Though he knew she would not return until ten, he set out at nine to meet her.
At a venture he took the eastward course, and passed slowly down Piccadilly. The facade of nearly every club facing the park was flaming with electric light. Young men in evening dress were standing on the steps, smoking and taking the air after dinner, and pretty girls in showy costumes were promenading leisurely in front of them. Sometimes, as a girl passed, she looked sharply up and the corner of her mouth would be raised a little, and when she had gone by there would be a general burst of laughter.
John’s blood boiled, and then his heart sank; he felt so helpless, his pity and indignation were so useless and unnecessary. All at once he saw what he had been looking for. As he went by the corner of St. James’s Street he almost ran against Glory and another nurse in the costume of their hospital. They did not observe him; they were talking to a man; it was the man he had met in the afternoon — Lord Robert Ure.
John heard the man say, “Your Glory is such a glorious — —” and then he lowered his voice, and appeared to say something that was very amusing, for the other girl laughed a great deal.
John’s soul was now fairly in revolt, and he wanted to stop, to order the man off and to take charge of the two nurses as his duty seemed to require of him. But he passed them, then looked back and saw the group separate, and as the man went by he watched the girls going westward. There was a glimpse of them under the gas-lamp as they crossed the street, and again a glimpse as they passed into the darkness under the trees of the park.
He could not trust himself to return to the hospital that night, and his indignation was no less in the morning. But there was a letter from Glory saying that his poor old friend was dead, and had begged that he would bury her. He dressed himself in his best (“We can’t take liberties with the poor,” he thought) and walked across to the hospital at once. There he asked for Glory, and they went downstairs together to that still chamber underground which has always its cold and silent occupant. It is only a short tenancy that anybody can have there, so the old woman had to be buried the same morning. The parish was to bury her, and the van was at the door.
He was standing with Glory in the hall, and his heart had softened to her.
“Glory,” he said, “you shouldn’t have gone out yesterday without telling me, the dangers of London are so great.”
“What dangers?” she asked.
“Well, to a young girl, a beautiful girl — —”
Glory peered up under her long eyelashes.
“I mean the dangers from — I’m ashamed in my soul to say it — the dangers from men.”
She shot up a quick glance into his face and said in a moment, “You saw us, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I saw you, and I didn’t like your choice of company.”
She dropped her head demurely and said, “The man?”
John hesitated. “I was speaking of the girl. I don’t like the freedom with which she carries herself in this house. Among these good and devoted women is there no one but this — this —— ?”
Glory’s lower lip began to show its inner side. “She’s bright and lively, that’s all I care.”
“But it’s not all I care, Glory, and if such men as that are her friends outside — —”
Glory’s head went up. “What is it to me who are her friends outside?”
“Everything, if you allow yourself to meet them again.”
“Well,” doggedly, “I am going to meet them again. I’m going to the Nurses’ Ball on Tuesday.”
John answered with deliberation, “Not in that girl’s company.”
“Why not?”
“I say not in that girl’s company.”
There was a short pause, and then Glory said with a quivering mouth: “You are vexing me, and you will end by making me cry. Don’t you see you are degrading me too? I am not used to being degraded. You see me with a weak silly creature who hasn’t an idea in her head and can do nothing but giggle and laugh and make eyes at men, and you think I’m going to be led away by her. Do you suppose a girl can’t take care of herself?”
“As you will, then,” said John, with a fling of his hand, going off down the steps.
“Mr. Storm — Mr. Storm — Jo — Joh — —”
But he was out on the pavement and getting into the workhouse van.
“Ah!” said a mincing voice beside her. “How jolly it is when anybody is suffering for your sake!” It was Polly Love, and again her eyelids were half covering her eyes.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” said Glory. Her own eyes were swimming in big tear-drops.
“Don’t you? What a funny girl you are! But your education has been neglected, my dear.”
It was a combination van and hearse with the coffin under the driver’s box, and John Storm (as the only discoverable mourner) with the undertaker on the seat inside.
“Will ye be willin’ ter tyke the service at the cimitery, sir?” said the undertaker, and John answered that he would.
The grave was on the paupers’ side, and when the undertaker, with his man, had lowered the coffin to its place, he said, “They’ve gimme abart three more funerals this morning, so I’ll leave ye now, sir, to finish ‘er off.”
At the next moment John Storm in his surplice was alone with the dead, and had opened his book to read the burial service which no other human ear was to hear.
He read “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes,” and then the bitter loneliness of the pauper’s doom came down on his soul and silenced him.
But his imprisoned passion had to find a vent, and that night he wrote to the Prime Minister: “I begin to understand what you meant when you said I was in the wrong place. Oh, this London, with its society, its worldly clergy, its art, its literature, its luxury, its idle life, all built on the toil of the country and compounded of the sweat of the nameless poor! Oh, this ‘Circe of cities,’ drawing good people to it, decoying them, seducing them, and then turning them into swine! It seems impossible to live in the world and to be spiritually-minded. When I try to do so I am torn in two.”
X.
On the following Tuesday evening two young men were dining in their chambers in St. James’s Street. One of them was Lord Robert Ure; the other was his friend and housemate, Horatio Drake. Drake was younger than Lord Robert by some seven or eight years, and also beyond comparison more attractive. His face was manly and handsome, its expression was open and breezy; he was broad-shouldered and splendidly built, and he had the fair hair and blue eyes of a boy.
Their room was a large one, and it was full of beautiful and valuable things, but the furniture was huddled about in disorder. A large chamber-organ, a grand piano, a mandolin, and two violins, pictures on the floor as well as on the walls, many photographs scattered about everywhere, and the mirror over the mantelpiece fringed with invitation-cards, which were stuck between the glass and the frame.
Their man had brought in the coffee and cigarettes. Lord Robert was speaking in his weary drawl, which had the worn-out tone of a man who had made a long journey and was very sleepy.
“Come, dear boy, make up your mind, and let us be off.”
“But I’m tired to death of these fashionable routs.”
“So am I.”
“They’re so unnatural — so unnecessary.”
“My dear fellow, of course they’re unnatural — of course they’re unnecessary; but what would you have?”
“Anything human and natural,” said Drake. “I don’t care a ha’p’orth about the morality of these things — not I — but I am dead sick of their stupidity.”
