Читать книгу The Christian - Sir Hall Caine - Страница 26

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The board room of the hospital of Martha's Vineyard was a large and luxurious chamber, with an oval window at its farther end, and its two side walls panelled with portraits of former chairmen and physicians. In great oaken armchairs, behind ponderous oaken tables, covered with green cloth and furnished with writing pads, the Board of Governors sat in three sides of a square, leaving an open space in the middle. This open space was reserved for patients seeking admission or receiving discharge, and for officers of the hospital presenting their weekly reports.

On a morning in August the matron's report had closed with a startling item. It recommended the immediate suspension of a nurse on the ground of gross impropriety of conduct. The usual course in such a case was for the board of the hospital to depute the matron to act for them in private, but the chairman in this instance was a peppery person, with a stern mouth and a solid under-jaw.

“This is a most serious matter,” he said. “I think—this being a public institution—I really think the board should investigate the case for itself. We ought to assure ourselves that—that, in fact, no other irregularity is going on in the hospital.”

“May it please your lordship,” said a rotund voice from, one of the side tables, “I would suggest that a case like this of grievous moral delinquency comes directly within the dispensation of the chaplain, and if he has done his duty by the unhappy girl (as no doubt he has) he must have a statement to make to the board with regard to her.”

It was Canon Wealthy.

“I may mention,” he added, “that Mr. Storm has now returned to his duties, and is at present in the hospital.”

“Send for him,” said the chairman.

When John Storm entered the board room it was remarked that he looked no better for his holiday. His cheeks were thinner, his eyes more hollow, and there was a strange pallor under his swarthy skin.

The business was explained to him, and he was asked if he had any statement to make with regard to the nurse whom the matron had reported for suspension.

“No,” he said, “I have no statement.”

“Do you mean to tell the board,” said the chairman, “that you know nothing of this matter—that the case is too trivial for your attention—or perhaps that you have never even spoken to the girl on the subject?”

“That is so—I never have,” said John.

“Then you shall do so now,” said the chairman, and he put his hand on the bell beside him, and the messenger appeared.

“You can not intend, sir, to examine the girl here,” said John.

“And why not?”

“Before so many—and all of us men save one. Surely the matron——”

The canon rose to his feet again. “My young brother is naturally sensitive, my lord, but I assure him his delicate feelings are wasted on a girl like this. He forgets that the shame lies in the girl's sin, not in her just and necessary punishment.”

“Bring her in,” said the chairman. The matron whispered to the messenger, and he left the room.

“Pardon me, sir,” said John Storm; “if it is your expectation that I should question the nurse on her sin, as the canon says, I can not do so.”

“Can not?”

“Well, I will not.”

“And is that your idea of your duty as a chaplain?”

“It is the matron's duty, not the chaplain's, to——”

“The matron! The matron! This is your parish, sir—your parish. A great public institution is in danger of a disgraceful scandal, and you who are responsible for its spiritual welfare—really, gentlemen——”

Again the canon rose with a conciliatory smile.

“I think I understand my young friend,” he said, “and your lordship and the hoard will appreciate his feelings, however you may disapprove of his judgment. What generous heart can not sympathize with the sensitive spirit of the youthful clergyman who shrinks from the spectacle of guilt and shame in a young and perhaps beautiful woman? But if it will relieve your lordship from an embarrassing position, I am myself willing——”

“Thank you,” said the chairman; and then the girl was brought into the room in charge of Sister Allworthy.

She was holding her head down and trying to cover her face with her hands.

“Your name, girl?” said the canon.

“Mary Elizabeth Love,” she faltered.

“You are aware, Mary Elizabeth Love, that our excellent and indulgent matron” (here he bowed to a stout lady who sat in the open space) “has been put to the painful duty of reporting you for suspension, which is equivalent to your immediate discharge. Now, I can not hold out a hope that the board will not ratify her recommendation, but it may perhaps qualify the terms of your 'character' if you can show these gentlemen that the unhappy lapse from good conduct which brings you to this position of shame and disgrace is due in any measure to irregularities practised perhaps within this hospital, or to the temptations of any one connected with it.”

The girl began to cry.

“Speak, nurse; if you have anything to say, the gentlemen are willing to hear it.”

The girl's crying deepened into sobs.

“Useless!” said the chairman.

“Impossible!” said the canon.

But some one suggested that perhaps the nurse had a girl friend in the hospital who could throw light on the difficult situation. Then Sister Allworthy whispered to the matron, who said, “Bring her in.”

John Storm's face had assumed a fixed and absent expression, but he saw a girl of larger size than Polly Love enter the room with a gleam, as it were, of sunshine on her golden-red hair. It was Glory.

There was some preliminary whispering, and then the canon began again:

“You are a friend and companion of Mary Elizabeth Love?”

“Yes,” said Glory.

Her voice was full and calm, and a look of quiet courage lit up her girlish beauty.

“You have known her other friends, no doubt, and perhaps you have shared her confidence?”

“I think so.”

“Then you can tell the board if the unhappy condition in which she finds herself is due to any one connected with this hospital.”

“I think not.”

“Not to any officer, servant, or member of any school attached to it?”

“No.”

“Thank you,” said the chairman, “that is quite enough,” and down the tables of the governors there were nods and smiles of satisfaction.

“What have I done?” said Glory.

“You have done a great service to an ancient and honourable institution,” said the canon, “and the best return the board can make for your candour and intelligence is to advise you to avoid such companionship for the future and to flee such perilous associations.”

A certain desperate recklessness expressed itself in Glory's face, and she stepped up to Polly, who was now weeping audibly, and put her arm about the girl's waist.

“What are the girl's relatives?” said the chairman.

The matron replied out of her book. Polly was an orphan, both her parents being dead. She had a brother who had lately been a patient in the hospital, but he was only a lay-helper in the Anglican Monastery at Bishopsgate Street, and therefore useless for present purposes.

There was some further whispering about the tables. Was this the girl who had been recommended to the hospital by the coroner who had investigated a certain notorious and tragic case? Yes.

“I think I have heard of some poor and low relations,” said the canon, “but their own condition is probably too needy to allow them to help her at a time like the present.”

Down to this moment Polly had done nothing but cry, but now she flamed up in a passion of pride and resentment.

“It's false!” she cried. “I have no poor and low relations, and I want nobody's help. My friend is a gentleman—as much a gentleman as anybody here—and I can tell you his name, if you like. He lives in St. James's Street, and he is Lord——”

“Stop, girl!” said the canon, in a loud voice. “We can not allow you to compromise the honour of a gentleman by mentioning his name in his absence.”

John stepped to one of the tables of the governors and took up a pamphlet which lay there. It was the last annual report of Martha's Vineyard, with a list of its governors and subscribers.

“The girl is suspended,” said the chairman, and reaching for the matron's book, he signed it and returned it.

“This,” said the canon, “appears to be a case for Mrs. Callender's Maternity Home at Soho, and with the consent of the board I will request the chaplain to communicate with that lady immediately.”

John Storm had heard, but he made no answer; he was turning over the leaves of the pamphlet.

The canon hemmed and cleared his throat. “Mary Elizabeth Love,” he said, “you have brought a stain upon this honourable and hitherto irreproachable institution, but I trust and believe that ere long, and before your misbegotten child is born, you may see cause to be grateful for our forbearance and our charity. Speaking for myself, I confess it is an occasion of grief to me, and might well, I think, be a cause of sorrow to him who has had your spiritual welfare in his keeping” (here he gave a look toward John), “that you do not seem to realize the position of infamy in which you stand. We have always been taught to think of a woman as sweet and true and pure; a being hallowed to our sympathy by the most sacred associations, and endeared to our love by the tenderest ties, and it is only right” (the canon's voice was breaking), “it is only right, I say, that you should be told at once, and in this place—though tardily and too late—that for the woman who wrongs that ideal, as you have wronged it, there is but one name known among persons of good credit and good report—a hard name, a terrible name, a name of contempt and loathing—the name of prostitute!”

Crushing the pamphlet in his hand, John Storm had taken a step toward the canon, but he was too late. Some one was there before him. It was Glory. With her head erect and her eyes flashing, she stood between the weeping girl and the black-coated judge, and everybody could see the swelling and heaving of her bosom.

“How dare you!” she cried. “You say you have been taught to think of a woman as sweet and pure. Well, I have been taught to think of a man as strong and brave, and tender and merciful to every living creature, but most of all to a woman, if she is erring and fallen. But you are not brave and tender; you are cruel and cowardly, and I despise you and hate you!”

The men at the tables were rising from their seats.

“Oh, you have discharged my friend,” she said, “and you may discharge me, too, if you like—if you dare! But I will tell everybody that it was because I would not let you insult a poor girl with a cruel and shameful name, and trample upon her when she was down. And everybody will believe me, because it is the truth; and anything else you may say will be a lie, and all the world will know it!”

The matron was shambling up also.

“How dare you, miss! Go back to your ward this instant! Do you know whom you are speaking to?”

“Oh, it's not the first time I've spoken to a clergyman, ma'am. I'm the daughter of a clergyman, and the granddaughter of a clergyman, and I know what a clergyman is when he is brave and good, and gentle and merciful to all women, and when he is a man and a gentleman—not a Pharisee and a crocodile!”

“Please take that girl away,” said the chairman.

But John Storm was by her side in a moment.

“No, sir,” he said, “nobody shall do that.”

But now Glory had broken down too, and the girls, like two lost children, were crying on each other's breasts. John opened the door and led them up to it.

“Take your friend to her room, nurse: I shall be with you presently.”

Then he turned back to the chairman, still holding the crumpled pamphlet in his hand, and said calmly and respectfully:

“And now that you have finished with the woman, sir, may I ask what you intend to do with the man?”

“What man?”

“Though I did not feel myself qualified to sit in judgment on the broken heart of a fallen girl, I happen to know the name which she was forbidden to mention, and I find it here, sir—here in your list of subscribers and governors.”

“Well, what of it?”

“You have wiped the girl out of your books, sir. Now I ask you to wipe the man out also.”

“Gentlemen,” said the chairman, rising, “the business of the board is at an end.”