The Doctor's Daughter

by Vera

CHAPTER XII.

My cousin Bessie, or Mrs. Robert Nyle, lived in a small, comfortable house, on a quiet street, in a small comfortable city, not more than a day's journey from the place of my former residence.

I had, of course, made many conjectures about the relative merits and demerits of the new home towards which I was travelling in all haste. With nothing more accurate to build upon than my cousin's reserved letters and my own vivid imagination, it could hardly be expected that I could arrive very near the truth in my speculations about my uncertain destiny.

Nor did I. I had pictured my cousin Bessie as quite a morbid and prosy character, suspended midway between a hopeless resignation and a helpless despair. I thought there must be lines of sadness about her mouth and a profusion of silver in her hair, I had almost heard her plaintive sighs, and had begun to invent cures for her nervous headaches. I do not know why such gloomy foresights loomed up before me, unless it be because I fancied she was poor and yet educated, and in our circle at that time it was generally believed that people so situated were eminently miserable and uncomfortable. We will not be satisfied with the uncertain until we have made mental sketches of the people and places connected with it, even though they be all awry, as mine were in this instance.

Cousin Bessie was a tall, graceful woman with chestnut brown hair and fine soft eyes, her figure was slight as a girl's, though she was no longer young, and her step was as active and light as ever it could have been in her maiden days. She was not a beautiful woman, but there was as much kindness and dignity combined in her dear face as to make it more attractive than many a handsome one. I was simply charmed with her appearance and manner, and made up my mind that I had no further reason to be solicitous about my future happiness after she had taken me securely under her charge.

Cousin Bessie's household consisted of her husband, Robert Nyle, and their two children, Zita and Louis. Mr. Nyle, who was somewhat older than his wife, was one of these placid, easy going husbands that the world knows little about on account of their retirement and admirable domestic qualities. Zita was then a pretty, growing girl of sixteen summers and Louis a handsome boy of eighteen.

I lived with cousin Bessie for many seasons, and at the end of that time I had become more truly attached to her and her dear family than I had ever been to my own. Yet they were plain people, living a quiet, unostentatious life in the very heart of social exuberances, they were not rich either, in fact they had little more than medium comforts, of those which it takes money to buy, but the sweetness and happiness of their home was not of that kind which gold can gather, it is richer and rarer far than that.

It pleased me to find that they were not wealthy nor worldly. I had so little now, myself, that richer relatives would have pitied me and been urged to bestow petty charities upon me now and then, when my own diminished income proved insufficient to meet the great demands that stylish living could not fail to make upon it.

"I hope you won't feel like a captive bird in this little cage of ours," cousin Bessie remarked with a quiet smile the morning after my arrival. "I offered it only as a shelter, Amey, you know, until you can make yourself more comfortable elsewhere."

I looked at her reproachfully and answered without hesitation:

"I am glad you do not specify my time. I hope I may take as long as I like, to find some place I prefer to this."

"Oh certainly!" said she, with a covert amusement. "You are more than welcome to remain here, as long as you are contented."

There was a time, when I would have doubted the possibility of my being satisfied under circumstances such as these, but to look upon respectable seclusion from a distance, is not really to see, and understand what it is; there is a latent charm about it, which is known only to those who embrace it with cheerful hearts.

Cousin Bessie had no servants, not even one, fashionable humanity, think of that! This surprised and even disappointed me at first, but soon it also became absorbed by that all prevailing spirit of quiet contentment that presided over their domestic circle, and kept the sun shining when it was shadow outside.

I did not question cousin Bessie about the necessity for dispensing with menial assistance. It was a delicate subject, but when Zita and Louis and Mr. Nyle went away, one morning after breakfast, I began to clear away the dishes and make myself generally useful.

Cousin Bessie watched me from her corner by the kitchen table, where she was engaged in preparing some sundries for the next meal and when I had made my last trip with an armful of the breakfast equipage, she looked up with a meaning smile, and said,

"This is the see-saw of life, Amey, yesterday you were away up, and to-day you are away down."

"It is the safer place of the two, Cousin Bessie, don't you think so?"

"Well, if I did not think it, Amey, my life would hardly be worth living," she answered with a quiet emphasis.

"Why? You don't think you will always be down, do you?" I asked timidly, plunging a cup and saucer into the boiling water.

"I don't know; we were better off once, in one way, but it is a long time ago," she answered, taking a large white apron from a peg beside her in the wall, and offering it to me, "Put this over your dress, child, and take off your pretty rings," she put in parenthetically, and then went on—

"Robert was a man of wealth when we married, we had a fine house with servants and horses and every such luxury—while the money was there he lavished it upon us: but he lost heavily one year, there was a bank failure first, and a series of smaller misfortunes followed quickly in its wake. We had to sacrifice house and horses, and all, and come down the ladder to our present station. The children found it hard in the beginning, but they have come to look upon it now, nearly as their father and I do."

"But you are not poor, cousin Bessie," I interrupted, as I dried a plate briskly with my linen cloth.

"No: not poor exactly: but we must be careful and economical for awhile, until Zita and Louis are educated: we will make every sacrifice that is necessary to grant them a thorough education. When they are rich in knowledge they won't mind how empty their purses are; they will feel themselves equal to the best in the land. When they have finished their courses here, if they show themselves susceptible to a still higher training, we will make still greater restrictions upon our household expenses to favor any particular talent they may have developed. Robert and I decided that long ago."

"I suppose it is a good plan," I said half doubtfully, "if it does not unfit them for their after-life."

"You mean it may raise them above their station?" cousin Bessie interrupted eagerly. "Well, you are not the only one who thinks that, but it never shall. We have seen such a possible danger ahead and have laboured to avert it I have done my utmost all their lives to bring them up to frugal habits. We have taught them to live sparingly in every way; to shun those people and places that tempt one to idle amusements and questionable pastimes, and never to seek the society of such persons as are brought up to pity or ridicule poverty and struggling gentility. They are fond of one another, and in their mutual companionship do not miss the intercourse which is denied them with the outside world. I have explained to Zita that the saint whose name she bears was a poor servant-maid, who was looked down upon and ignored by those who were better favored by the world; and that like her, she must be poor and humble in spirit, satisfied to be a little nobody here if she can be happy hereafter. Louis learned the story of his royal patron saint when he was a lisping baby at my knee, and understands now, I think, how secondary material prosperity is to the advancement of the moral man. I am almost sure he could wear a crown and rule a nation, and yet look upon such glories as mere accidents of existence, that must be subject to higher aims and occupations."

"Then you are happy in the possession of very exceptional children, Cousin Bessie," said I, shaking my towel and hanging it up to dry. My task was finished, and I sat down beside my industrious cousin who was now up to her elbows in a basin of flour.

"They are my chief comfort, to tell you the truth," she answered, as if in soliloquy, while she sifted handfuls of the white powder through her busy fingers, "and I thank God for this great compensation that has survived all my other pleasures. There is no wretchedness, I think, like that which must fill the heart of a mother whose children have strayed away from her loving, clinging solicitude into the by-ways of folly or vice. It is a dark blight upon the most buoyant heart that ever swelled with maternal devotion. I sometimes think I would rather have never existed, that I could forfeit all the grand privileges of a created being destined for a noble end, rather than have become the mother of impious and vicious children."

"Then it is well you have saved yours from such a common fate," I put in warmly, "for I think in the world's present stage, young people have a monopoly of all the evil tendencies to which our flesh is prone."

"You are right there Amey, and more's the pity," cousin Bessie answered, leaning her white palms on the sides of the dish and looking out of the kitchen window away over the steeples of the distant church, as if her glance fell upon the whole wicked world at once. "There is hardly a channel of sin and guilt that has not been explored by these young persons, who should not even know of the existence of such dangers. So much fine manhood is wasted in folly and dissipation; so many noble energies devoted to degrading causes, so much mental greatness given to solving the mysteries of villainy and roguery. Oh! it is written on the brow of modern youth, in flaming characters," she exclaimed, closing her fingers tightly over the edges of the dish, upon which her hands still rested. "When I pass along the busy streets of the town, I see the wickedness of the world on many a fair young face, and my heart swells with a great desire to know whose life is being saddened by their extravagances. 'They are dear to someone, surely,' I say to myself, 'there must be some one from whom they are trying to hide their deeds of darkness,' and I could almost stop to plead in favor of that lingering love, that they turn back from the beck and call of temptation to that other wholesome course which yields reward both here and hereafter. I cannot help this strong sentiment that stirs within my breast. I love the beauty of blooming human nature; I like to see the glow of physical and moral health upon its beaming countenance, and the stimulus to noble purposes in its restless heart, but it seems as if this never can be again with the majority."

"It is a sad outlook, Cousin Bessie, but there must be a remedy somewhere," I suggested, full of the enthusiasm which had characterized her remarks.

"Remedy? Yes, of course there's a remedy," she retorted emphatically, "but the world's votaries have elbowed it out. What can one expect from a baby girl who has been brought up for the world, but that she shall be of the world? Little misses who can waltz before they know the 'Our Father,' who are taught manners before morals, and are given for their absolute standard 'what others will say.' Can they become good women? It would be a paradox to suppose so. And our boys in knickerbockers who smoke cigars and buy ten cent novels, who speculate in the market of experience with ill-gotten gain, who form opinions of life from dime shows and contact with veterans in vice; can they grow in virtue and integrity after such an initiation as this? It would be nothing less than a moral phenomenon if they did. Yes there is a remedy, and its application is needed at the very root of the evil. Let fathers and mothers look abroad over the heads of their prattling offspring, and realize the fate that is awaiting them if they do not take proper and timely precautions. I attribute much blame to them because I have seen results of their carelessness grow and magnify under my own eyes."

Here the door-bell rang violently, and interrupted cousin Bessie's wholesome homily on the social irregularities of the day. As her hands were still buried in flour I started to my feet and answered the hasty summons. A man in ragged attire stood leaning against the outer post of the doorway. His soft hat was slouched over one eye, and his turned-up faded coat-collar but half-concealed the fragments of a soiled shirt front that lay open on his breast inside. When I confronted him, he advanced a step and said, with his eyes directed towards his boots,

"Will you give me a little help, miss, for God's sake. I am starving and can get no work."

Cousin Bessie from her place by the window could hear his words, and coming to the door, she looked at him from head to foot. He was young and stalwart, though so destitute.

"I will give you some work and pay you well for it" she said. "Come, you are a strapping young fellow and won't find it hard to do."

He was silent for a moment and still kept looking at his dilapidated boots.

"I will give you the price of an honest, independent supper" she continued, "that is better than begging it. You will relish it, I know."

"It's done ma'am" said he, kicking his dusty toes against the step where he stood. "Show me the work."

Cousin Bessie looked significantly at me and led him out to where his occupation lay. As she turned to leave him, with a strict injunction to do it well, he raised his hat from his head and turned reverently towards her.

"I'll do it as well as mortal hands can do it ma'am" he said with a tremor in his hoarse husky voice. "You're the first woman as has spoken a kind word to me since—since—I buried the one that 'ud have made my life different if she'd lived."

"Your mother?" Asked Cousin Bessie gently.

"No, ma'am, she was more, she was my wife, but only for a year. When I lost her I lost my luck and my courage, and everything. I've hardly done a day's good since."

He drew the back of one brawny, dirty hand across his eyes and turned away his head. Cousin Bessie was looking at him with a great pity in her countenance.

"Have you a child?" she next asked.

"One, ma'am, a little girl, but not like the mother."

"Where is she?"

"On the streets, like myself, begging her bread and going to ruin," he answered in dogged despair.

"How old is she?" cousin Bessie asked, with renewed interest.

"Maybe thirteen or thereabout, ma'am, poor, small thing," he replied with a dash of fatherly love.

"Can she read or write?" was cousin Bessie's next query.

"I couldn't say, ma'am. I never taught her. I've been a heartless wretch and didn't mind about her much."

"I am afraid you have done her a great injustice," said cousin Bessie, turning to re-enter the house. "I hope you will try to make some amends. Begin your work, like a good fellow, and I will see you again before you go."

She came back to her duties in the kitchen with a thoughtful face and a slow, measured step.

"Is your hero in rags at his work?" I asked playfully, when she had closed the door behind her.

"Yes, I am glad to say," she answered, "manual labor is what these fellows want. I shall keep him busy until evening, now that he has started, it will only cost me a few pence, and it will keep him out of so much harm."

There was a pause of a few moments after this. Cousin Bessie then looked up and said, half regretfully:

"I wish I had a few spare dollars now. I could, perhaps do some good with them."

"What is your latest freak?" asked I, returning her steady glance.

"I would like to send for his little girl," said she, "the winter is coming on, and there will be extra work to do, in consequence. She may be smart enough to clean our windows and wash the wainscoting. She could run errands and answer the door for a trifle, and we might teach her her prayers and her catechism and send her to church on Sunday, which is never done for her now."

"But you do not know who or what she may be," I argued dissuasively.

"That is nothing," she persisted. "She is only a child, and our house is so small that no harm can be done in it unknown to me. I think it would do her good if she came. You and Zita might take an interest in her and make something respectable of her poor, empty life."

"Perhaps you are right, Cousin Bessie," I conceded, "let us send for her, I can easily afford to clothe her, it will be such a pleasure to me to contribute towards the success of one of your good works."

And so we sent for her. Next day she arrived, carrying a miniature wooden box in one hand and a little old faded umbrella in the other. She was small and dark, with sharp, black eyes and pale features. Her short hair clustered thickly around her brow and over her ears, from which hung suspended a pair of long brass ear-rings. A ring of the same valuable material was conspicuous on one small finger. She was very ragged and careless-looking, but had an intelligent sparkle in her quick glance that diverted one's attention from her appearance.

"What is your name?" asked Cousin Bessie, admitting her into the hall.

"Snip, ma'am," she answered, sweeping a glance from the ceiling to the floor.

"Snip!" we both exclaimed.

"Well, that's what the Grimes and the Dwyers and all them calls me, anyhow," she argued, with a perfectly placid countenance.

"What does your father call you?" cousin Bessie asked.

"Sometimes he says 'little 'un,' and more times it's 'girly.' I ain't particular about names, ma'am, suit yourself," she said, without a change of expression, which was one of stolid earnestness.

"Well, then, we'll call you 'Girly' for the time being," cousin Bessie interposed, smiling and directing a glance of sly amusement at me.

"I hope you will be a very good little girl while you are in my house and we shall all be very good to you," Cousin Bessie began in a premonitory tone. "You must give up your old friends now and listen to us instead and—" here she paused, as if the next sacrifice had to be delicately proposed. "I don't like to see those ear-rings nor that ring with you, they are not becoming to a poor little girl."

Up went the two small hands to the ear-rings, which were hurriedly dragged out, she pulled the tight brass ring from her finger, revealing a dark blue circle where it had lain, and gathering them together in her little palm she looked us straight in the face and said with great earnestness

"D'ye suppose I care a continental for finery?" Then curling her red lips as if she had discovered that we so misjudged her, she shook her bushy head sideways with an emphatic gesture and said with a fiery indignation, which amused us intensely

"Not I! I hate it! I wore it for spite. I'll give this to either of you ladies now, and I'll never ask to lay eyes on it again."

Cousin Bessie took them from her saying,

"You look better without them, Girly," then changing her tone to one of gentle, solicitous enquiry, she asked the pert little stranger,

"Do you ever go to church, Girly, or say any prayers?"

The child's face became shadowed for a moment and her lips quivered. When she spoke, her voice had lost its bright carelessness, it was low and broken.

"I'll tell you the truth ma'am, if I died for it. P'raps you'll think me awful wicked but I'll tell you, now you asked me. One Sunday morning I was walking past the big church in the far end of the town, an' the bells began to ring and ring, an' says I, 'I think I'll just go in an' watch them prayin' but when I peeped in no one was inside. I turned to the man that pulled the ropes an' asked him when it 'ud begin. 'In fifteen minutes' says he, like a growl, 'this is the first bell.' So I ran back to our house, for father and I had a room then with the Grimes, an' I got some water in the little basin an' washed my face an' hands good an' clean. I brushed my hair down an' took out my green shawl that I keep clean an' whole for sometimes, an' put it on. I got back in lots of time to the church an' crep' into one of the big seats, waitin' for the music to begin. In a few minutes, along came a grand little lady, all dressed in velvet, with yellow hair and a big bonnet, an' a gentleman with her, an' she stood at the door of the pew an' beckoned me out. 'There's room enough for us all, Miss,' I whispered, pushing farther down the seat, but here the gentleman rapped his stick on the wood an' said so cross 'Hurry out, hurry out there.'"

Here her voice broke into a sob which, however, she swallowed bravely, and went on after a moment's pause "So I went then to another, a little one with no cushings on it, 'cause I thought grand people didn't own that, but I was only there a little while when a fat woman came rollin' up to me an' catchin' me by the arm said, 'Here, I am not payin' for this pew for other people to sit in, this is my pew.' I was mad then, I knew she wasn't a lady, an' I made a face when I was gettin' out, an' says I, 'Oh, dear' Missis Porpoise, who said it wasn't your pew, you want a whole pew to yourself anyhow.' The aisles was all wet, for 'twas a rainy mornin', an' I wasn't goin' to kneel there with my green shawl on, so I made a bold stroke and darted into another pew. This time 'twas alright: this was a kept one for strangers, an' I had it all to myself. The music began, an' oh! it was so nice! I was quite gettin' over all my temper when such a swell of a lady came up the aisle with such a swell of a gentleman, an' landed in beside me. They didn't turn me out, 'cause they'd no right to, but they did worse. She looked at me an' turned such a mouth on her, then gathered up her fine flounces as if I was goin' to eat 'em, an' looked at the gentleman so complainin'-like. Then she pulled out a little bit of a red and white handkerchief, an' hides her nose in it. I knew well enough what she was up to, an' didn't mind her at first, but it ain't pleasant havin' people makin' faces an' stuffin' their noses before you, an' so I got up an' asked 'em to let me out. When I was passin' her I gathered in my rags tight an' held my shawl up to my nose just like she had done, an' says I, in a whisper, as if to myself, 'oh, you dirty beggars, let me get away from you.' The people in the next pew looked back an' laughed, an' I saw the color risin' up in her face as I turned away. I left the church after that, an' says I, 'there's no room for the poor to be good, I guess I won't try it again; an' you can bet I didn't," she added, with an emphatic nod of her bushy head, and a sparkling wrath in her black eyes.

"But that wasn't right, Girly," said cousin Bessie, "it is not that way in every church, nor is everybody like those three persons you happened to come across."

"It's equal to me, ma'am; I got enough of it," she retorted, quickly, "when its fine on a Sunday now, I go to the grave-yard, my mother is there an' it's a big place, there's room for all kinds in it. I sit down an' cry a bit, an' ask her to pray for the poor, for they have a hard time of it here, but I don't think she can hear me, for I'm not much the better of my prayers."

Cousin Bessie and I here exchanged glances again. Such a hardened little heart as this was in one so young. We did not remonstrate with her then, but attended to her more immediate physical wants, there was something worth caring for in the little waif, and we determined to do it slowly and surely.

Before the week expired we had initiated her into the ways of the house, and transformed her exterior, to begin with, into that of a civilized and respectable member of the great human family.