THE MAGDALENE.
ummer seemed no longer to smile upon Bourhill. That sunny evening was the last for many days. A wild, chill, wintry blast ushered in September, if the Lammas spates had tarried, when they came they brought destruction in their train. All over the country the harvest was endangered, in low-lying places carried away, by the floods. Whole fields lay under water, and there were many anxious hearts among those who earned their bread by tillage of the soil. These dull days were in keeping with the mood prevailing at Bourhill. Never had the atmosphere of that happy house been so depressed and melancholy; its young mistress appeared to have lost her interest in life. Many anxious talks had the little spinster and the faithful Teen upon the theme so absorbingly interesting to both—unsatisfactory talks at best, since none can minister to a mind diseased. One day a letter came which changed the current of life at Bourhill. How often is such an unpretending missive, borne by the postman's careless hand, fraught with stupendous issues? It came in a plain, square envelope, bearing the Glasgow post-mark, and the words 'Royal Infirmary' on the flap. Gladys opened it, as she did most things now, with but a languid interest, which, however, immediately changed to the liveliest concern.
'Why, Miss Peck, it is a letter, see, about poor Lizzie Hepburn. I must go to her at once, I and Teen. Where is she? If we make haste, we shall catch the eleven-o'clock train.'
She handed Miss Peck the letter, and sprang up from a half-finished breakfast. The little spinster perused the brief communication with the deepest concern.
Ward XII., Royal Infirmary, Glasgow,
'September 6, 188 .
'Madam,—I write to you at the request of one of the patients under my care, a young woman called Lizzie Hepburn, who, I fear, is dying. She appears very anxious to see you, and asked me to write and ask you to come. I would suggest that, if at all possible, you should lose no time, as we fear she cannot last many days, perhaps not many hours.—Yours truly,
'Charlotte Rutherfurd.'
'This is from one of the nurses, I suppose,' said the little spinster pityingly. 'Poor girl, poor thing! the end has come only a little sooner than we anticipated.'
Gladys did not hear the last sentence. She was already in the hall giving her orders, and then off in search of Teen, whose duties were not very clearly defined, and who had no particular place of habitation in the house. It said a great deal for Teen's prudence and tact that her rather curious positions in the house—the trusted companion of the housekeeper and the friend of the young lady—had not brought her into bad odour with the servants. She was a favourite with them all, because she gave herself no airs, and was always ready to lend a hand to help at any time, disarming all jealousy by her unpretentious, willing, cheerful ways. Gladys found her in the drawing-room, dusting the treasures of the china cabinet.
'Oh, Teen, there is a letter about poor Lizzie at last!' she cried breathlessly. 'It is from the Infirmary; the nurse says she is very ill, perhaps dying, and she wishes to see me. You would like to go, I am sure, and if we make haste we can get the eleven train.'
Teen very nearly dropped the Sèvres vase she held in her hand in her sheer surprise over this news.
'There is no time to talk. Make haste, if you wish to go; we must be off in fifteen minutes,' cried Gladys, and ran off to her own room to make ready for her journey, Miss Peck fussing about her as usual, anxious to see that she forgot nothing which could protect her from the storm. It was indeed a wild morning, a heavy rain scudding like drift before the biting wind, and the sky thickly overcast with ink-black clouds; but they drove off in a closed carriage, and took no hurt from the angry elements. They did not speak much during the journey. In addition to her natural excitement and concern for the poor lost girl, Gladys was also possessed by a strange prevision that that day was to be a turning-point in her history.
'Surely Walter will have seen his sister; he cannot have left Glasgow so soon,' she said, as they drove from St. Enoch's Station, by way of the old High Street, to the Infirmary. These streets, with their constant stream of life, were all familiar to the eyes of Gladys. Many an hour in the old days she had spent wandering their melancholy pavements, scanning with a boundless and yearning pity the faces of the outcast and the destitute, feeling no scorn of them or their surroundings, but only a divine compassion, which had betrayed itself in her sweet face and shining, earnest eyes, and had arrested many a rude stare, and awakened a vague wonder in many a hardened breast. She was not less compasionate now, only a degree more hopeless. Since she had been so far removed from the sins and sorrows, the degradations and grinding poverty of the great city, she had, while not thinking less seriously or sympathetically of it all, felt oppressed by the impotence of those standing on the outside to lift it up to any level of hope.
'The loud, stunning tide of human care and crime,' as Keble has it, beat more remorselessly and hopelessly on her ears as she looked up to the smoke-obscured sky that wet and dismal day. She felt as if heaven had never been so far away. Almost her faith had lost its hold. These sad thoughts, which gave a somewhat worn and wearied look to her face, were arrested by their arrival at the Infirmary gates. It was not the visiting hour, but a word of explanation to the porter secured them admittance, and they found their way to the portion of the old house where Lizzie Hepburn lay. The visiting surgeons and physicians had just left, so there were no impediments put in their way, and one of the housemaids speedily brought Nurse Rutherfurd to them. She was a pleasant-faced, brisk little body, whose very presence was suggestive of skill and patience and kindly thought for others.
'Oh yes, you are Miss Graham, and have come to see poor Lizzie,' she said. 'Will you just come in here a moment? Her brother is with her. I will tell her you have come.'
She took them into a little room outside the ward door, and lingered only a moment to give them some particulars.
'She has been here three weeks,' she explained; 'she was over in the surgical wards first, and then came to us; it was too late for us to do any good. The doctor said this morning that she will probably slip away to-day.'
The little seamstress turned away to the grey window and wept silently; Gladys remained composed, but very pale.
'And her brother is with her? Is this the first time?' she asked.
'Yes; it was only when we told her there was no hope that she mentioned the names of anybody belonging to her. She spoke of you yesterday, and asked only this morning that her brother might be sent for. Shall I tell her you have come?'
'If you please. Tell her her old chum is with me; she will quite understand,' said Gladys quietly, and the nurse withdrew. Not a word passed between her and Teen while they were alone.
The nurse was not many moments absent, and the two followed her in to the long ward. It was a painful sight to Gladys, who had never before been within the walls of an hospital. Teen, however, looked about her with her usual calm self-possession, only her heart gave a great beat when the nurse stopped at a bed surrounded and shut off by draught-screens from sight of the other beds. She knew, though Gladys did not, why the screens had been placed there. The nurse drew one aside, and then slipped away. There was absolute silence there when these four met again. Walter, who had been sitting with his face buried in his hands, rose from the chair and offered it to Gladys, but he did not look at her, nor did any sort of greeting pass between them. Gladys mechanically sat down, then Walter walked away slowly out of the ward. With a low cry, Teen flung herself on her knees, laying her face on the white, wasted hand of Liz as it lay outside the coverlet. The figure in the bed, raised up in a half-sitting posture, had an unearthly beauty in the haggard face, a brilliance in the eye, which struck her chilly to the heart; it was like Liz, and yet strangely unlike. Gladys felt a strange thrill pass over her as she bent towards her, trying to smile, and to say a word of kindly greeting. It brought no answering smile to the dying girl's face, and the only sign of recognition she betrayed was to raise her feeble hand and touch the bowed head of the little seamstress with a tender touch, never bestowed in the days of health and strength.
'Weel,' she said, looking at Gladys, and speaking in the feeblest whisper, 'I'm gled ye've come. I couldna dee withoot seem' ye. Ye bear me nae grudge for takin' French leave? Ye can see I've suffered for it. I say, is't true that ye are to be mairried to George Fordyce? Tell me that plain. I must ken.'
These words were spoken with difficulty at intervals, and so feebly that Gladys had to bend forward to catch the sound. She felt that there was not only anxiety, but a certain solemnity in the question, and she did not evade it, even for a moment.
'They have fixed my marriage for the eighth of October,' she answered; and the manner of the reply struck even Liz, and her great hollow eyes dwelt yet more searchingly on the girl's sweet face.
'It'll no' be noo,' she said. 'I've lain here ever since the nurse telt me she heard it was to be, wonderin' whether I should tell. If ye hadna been what ye are I wad never hae telt; but, though I hae suffered, I wad spare you. It was him that brocht me to this.'
Gladys neither started nor trembled, but sat quite motionless, staring at the sad, beautiful face before her, as if not comprehending what was said to her.
'It was him that led me awa' first, an' when a lassie yince gets on that road, it's ill keepin' straicht. He said he wad mairry me, an' I believed it, as mony anither has afore me. Wheesht, Teen; dinna greet.'
The sobs of the little seamstress shook the narrow bed, and appeared to distress Liz inexpressibly. Presently she glanced again at the face of Gladys, and was struck by its altered look. It was no longer sympathetic nor sweet in its expression, but very pale and hard and set, as if the iron had entered into the soul within.
'Is this quite true?' she asked, and her very voice had a hard, cold ring.
'When ye're deein', ye dinna perjure yersel',' replied Liz, with a faint return of the old caustic speech. 'If ye dinna believe me, ask him. Is Wat away? Teen, ye micht gang an' bring him back.'
The little seamstress rose obediently, and when they were alone behind the screens, Liz lifted her feeble hand again and touched the arm of Gladys.
'Oh, dinna tak' him! He's a bad man—bad, selfish, cruel; dinna tak' him, or ye'll rue'd but yince. I dinna want to excuse mysel'. Maybe I wasna guid, but afore God I lo'ed him, an' I believed I wad be his wife. Eh, d'ye think that'll be onything against me in the ither world? Eh, wummin, I'm feared! If only I had anither chance!'
That pitiful speech, and the unspeakable pathos on the face of Liz, lifted Gladys above the supreme bitterness of that moment.
'Oh, do not be afraid,' she cried, folding her gentle hands, whose very touch seemed to carry hope and healing. 'Jesus is so very tender with us; He will never send the erring away. Let us ask Him to be with you now, to give you of His own comfort and strength and hope.'
She knelt down by the bed, unconscious of any listener save the dying girl, and there prayed the most earnest and heartfelt prayer which had ever passed her lips. While she was speaking, the other two had returned to the bed-side, and stood with bowed heads, listening with a deep and solemn awe to the words which seemed to bring heaven so very near to that little spot of earth. The dying girl's strength was evidently fast ebbing; the brilliance died out of her eyes, and the film of death took its place. She smiled faintly upon them all with a glance of sad recognition, but her last look, her last word, was for Gladys, and so she passed within the portals of the unseen without a struggle, nay, even with an expression of deep peace upon her worn face.
A wasted life? Yes; and a death which might have wrung tears of pity from a heart of stone.
But the Pharisee, who wraps the robe of his respectability around him, and, with head high in the air, thanks God he is not as other men are, what spark of divine compassion or human feeling has he in his soul?
Yet what saith the Scriptures?—'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.'
