BLIND AND DEAF
Oh, human soul! as long as thou canst so
Set up a mark of everlasting light,
Above the howling senses' ebb and flow,
To cheer thee and to right thee if thou roam—
Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night!
Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home.
Mary Grant, pauper, of Sick Ward 42, had been making charges of unkindness against Nurse Smith, and I had been appointed by the House Committee to inquire into the matter. I found a somewhat harassed-looking nurse filling up temperature-charts in a corner of the ward, and she began volubly to deny the charges.
"The woman's deaf, so it is no good shouting at her, and I believe she is angry because I can't talk on my fingers; but what with looking after both wards and washing and bathing them all, and taking their temperatures and feeding them, and giving them their medicine, I have not time to attend to the fads and fancies of each one. Granny Hunt, too, takes half my time seeing that she does not break her neck with her antics; and as to scraping the butter off Grant's bread I hope as the Committee did not attend to such a tale."
The last accusation, I assured her, had not even been brought before us, and I passed down the long clean ward where lay sufferers of all ages and conditions—the mighty head of the hydrocephalus child side by side with the few shrivelled bones of an aged paralytic. I passed the famous Mrs. Hunt—a "granny" of ninety-six, who "kept all her limbs very supple" and herself in excellent condition by a system of mattress gymnastics which she had evolved for herself. Two comparatively young people of seventy and eighty, who were unfortunate enough to lie next her, complained bitterly of Granny's restlessness; but the old lady was past discipline and "restraining influences," and, beyond putting a screen round her to check vanity and ensure decency, the authorities left her to her gymnastic displays. On the whole, though, the ward was very proud of Granny; she was the oldest inhabitant, not only in the House but also in the parish, and even female sick-wards take a certain pride in holding a record. The old lady cocked a bright eye, like a bird, upon me as I passed her bed, and, cheerfully murmuring "Oh, the agony!" executed a species of senile somersault with much agility.
Round the blazing fire at the end of the ward (for excellent fires commend me to those rate-supported) sat a group of "chronics" and convalescents—a poor girl, twisted and racked with St. Vitus's dance, white-haired "grannies" in every stage of rheumatic or senile decay, and a silent figure with bowed head, still in early middle life, who, they told me, was Mary Grant.
I shouted my inquiries down her ear crescendo fortissimo, without the smallest response—not even the flicker of an eyelid—whilst the grannies listened with apathetic indifference.
"Not a bit of good, ma'am," they said presently, when I paused, exhausted; "she's stone deaf."
Then I drew a piece of paper from my pocket and wrote my questions, big and clear.
"Not a bit of good, ma'am," shouted the grannies again; "she's stone blind."
I gazed helplessly at the silent figure, with the blood still flowing in her veins, and yet living, as it were, in the darkness and loneliness of the tomb.
"If she is blind and deaf and dumb, how does she manage to complain?"
"Oh! she manages that all right, ma'am," said a granny whose one eye twinkled humorously in its socket; "she's not dumb—not 'alf. The nuss that's left and Mrs. Green, the other blind lidy, talk on her fingers to her, and she grumbles away, when the fit takes 'er, a treat to 'ear; not as I blimes her, poor sowl; most of us who comes 'ere 'ave something to put up with; but she 'as more than 'er share of trouble. No, none of us know 'ow to do it—we aren't scholards; but you catches 'old on 'er 'and, and mauls it about in what they call the deaf-and-dumb halphabet, and she spells out loud like the children."
I remembered with joy that I also was "a scholard," for one of the few things we all learned properly at school was the art of talking to each other on our fingers under the desks during class. A good deal of water had flowed under London Bridge since then, but for once I felt the advantage of what educationists call "a thorough grounding."
"How are you?" spelt out a feeble, harsh voice as I made the signs—I had forgotten the "w" and was not sure of the "r," but she guessed them with ready wit—then in weird rasping tones, piping and whistling into shrill falsetto like the "cracking" voice of a youth, she burst into talk: "Oh! I am so thankful—so thankful. It seems years since any one came to talk to me—the dear nurse has left, and the other blind lady's gone to have her inside taken out, and the blind gentleman is taking a holiday, and I have been that low I have not known how to live. 'Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit; in a place of darkness and in the deep. Thine indignation lieth hard upon me; and Thou hast vexed me with all Thy storms.' David knew how I feel just exactly—might have been a deaf and blind woman himself, shut up in a work'us. I have been here nigh on two year now; I used to do fine sewing and lace-mending for the shops, and earned a tidy bit, being always very handy with my needle; then one day, as I was stitching by the window—finishing a job as had to go home that night—a flash of lightning seemed to come and hit me in the eye somehow—I remember how the fire shone bright zig-zag across the black sky, and then there was a crash, and nothing more.
"No, it was not a very nice thing to happen to anybody; two year ago now, and there has been nothing but fierce, aching blackness round me ever since, and great silence except for the rumblings in my ears like trains in a tunnel; but I hear nothing, not even the thunder. At first I fretted awful; I felt as if I must have done something very wicked for God to rain down fire from heaven on me as if I had been Sodom and Gomorrah; but I'd not done half so bad as many; I'd always kept myself respectable, and done the lace-mending, and earned enough for mother, too—fortunately, she died afore the thunder came and hit me, or she'd have broken her heart for me. It was very strange. Mother was such a one to be frightened at thunder, and when we lived in the country before father died she always took a candle and the Book and went down to the cellar out of the way of the lightning—seemed as if she knew what a nasty trick the thunder was going to play me—she was always a very understanding woman, was mother—she came from Wales, and had what she called 'the sight.'
"Yes; I went on fretting fearful about my sins until the blind gentleman found me out—him as comes oh Saturdays and teaches us blind ladies to read. Oh, he was a comfort! He learned me the deaf alphabet, and how to read in the Braille book, and it's not so bad now. He knows all about the heavenly Jerusalem, and the beautiful music and the flowers blossoming round the Throne of God. I think he's what they calls a Methody, and mother and I were Church. I used to go to the Sunday School, and learnt the Catechism, and 'thus to think of the Trinity.' However, he's a very good man all the same, and a great comfort—and he found me a special text from God: 'Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.' That is the promise to me and to him; being blind, he understands a bit himself, though what the hullaballoo in my ears is no tongue can tell.
"Mrs. Green, the other blind lady, is such a one to be talking about the diamonds and pearls in the crowns of glory; but I don't understand nothing about no jewels. What I seem to want to see again is the row of scarlet geraniums that used to stand on our window-sill; the sun always shone in on them about tea-time, and mother and I thought a world of the light shining on them red Jacobys. But the blind gentleman says as I shall see them again round the Throne."
"She wanders a bit," said the one-eyed granny, touching her forehead significantly; "she's such a one for this Methody talk."
I have noticed that the tone of the workhouse, though perfectly tolerant and liberal, is inclined to scepticism, in spite of the vast preponderance of the Church of England (C. of E.) in the "Creed Book."
"Let her wander, then," retorted another orthodox member; "she ain't got much to comfort her 'ere below—the work'us ain't exactly a paradise. For Gawd's sake leave 'er 'er 'eaven and 'er scarlet geraniums."
"One thing, ma'am, as pleased her was some dirty old lace one of the lidies brought for her one afternoon. She was just as 'appy as most females are with a babby, a-fingering of it and calling it all manner of queer names. There isn't a sight of old lace knocking about 'ere," and her one eye twinkled merrily; "I guess we lidies willed it all away to our h'ancestry afore seeking retirement. Our gowns aren't hexactly trimmed with priceless guipure, though there's some fine 'and embroidery on my h'apern," and she thrust the coarsely darned linen between the delicate fingers.
"Garn!—they're always a-kiddin' of me. Yes, ma'am, I love to feel real lace; I can still tell them all by the touch—Brussels and Chantilly and Honiton and rose-point; it reminds me of the lovely things I used to mend up for the ladies to go to see the Queen in."
They showed me her needlework—handkerchiefs and dusters hemmed with much accuracy, and knitting more even than that of many of us who can see.
As I rose to go she took my finger and laid it upon the cabalistic signs of the "Book."
"Don't you understand it? That's my own text, as I reads when things are worse than general: 'Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.' Yes, there'll be glory for me—glory for me—glory for me."
I heard the shrill, hoarse voice piping out the old revival hymn, very much out of tune, as I passed down the ward.
I had a nasty lump in my throat when I got back to the Board Room, and I can't exactly remember what I said to the Committee. I think I cleared Nurse Smith from any definite charge of cruelty, something after the fashion of the Irish jurymen: "Not guilty, but don't do it again," adding the rider that Mary Grant was blind and deaf, and if she grumbled it was not surprising.
It is possible my report was incoherent and subversive of discipline, and my feelings were not hurt because it was neither "received," nor "adopted," nor "embodied," nor "filed for future reference," but, metaphorically speaking, "lay on the table" to all eternity.