Roland Graeme: Knight. A Novel of Our Time

by Agnes Maule Machar

Miss Blanchard returned next morning with an encouraging report. The care and nourishing food given frequently during the night had produced a decided improvement; and though the disease was deeply seated, and the patient was reduced to extreme weakness, she had youth and strong vitality on her side, notwithstanding all the privations and misery she had evidently endured. From Lizzie Mason, who had sat with her for an hour or two of her vigil, Nora had heard, while the patient lay unconscious in a heavy slumber, some details about her past life which had gone to her heart, and had made her realize, with a sickening sensation, something of that struggle for life which a poor friendless woman, cast adrift in a busy world, must often endure.

Miss Blanchard felt herself strongly drawn toward the pale, wistful young girl, who had been so ready to sacrifice her own sorely-needed rest in order to care for the invalid, and had drawn from her many particulars of her hard-working life. It was a simple story, told in a very matter-of-fact, uncomplaining way; but involuntary tears of indignant sympathy started to the listener's thoughtful eyes at the unconscious revelation of hard, unremitting, monotonous toil for eleven, twelve, and sometimes thirteen hours a day, as the pressure of work required, and that under conditions unhealthy enough to depress the most vigorous young life.

"But cannot you find something better than that?" Nora asked; "some healthier as well as pleasanter work? Would it not be better to take to domestic service? Every one says it is so difficult to find girls qualified to do it faithfully and well, and I am sure you would do both. You know there is nothing in serving others to lower any right self-respect," she added, quietly; "and who it was who said that He came not to be ministered to but to minister."

"Yes," said Lizzie, "I heard Mr. Alden preach beautifully about that! I often go to his church, Sunday evenings, for it's the nearest, and he speaks so plain-like, I do admire to hear him. But it's not that indeed, miss! I'd love, myself, to be in a good, quiet house, where one could sit down when one was tired, and not have to go out in the dark, all sorts of mornings, and have to be on the go all day! But, you see, if I live at home I can give mother my board, an' that's such a help to her. An' if I was in a place, I'd have to wear good clothes, an' that would eat up all my earnin's, an' mother needs all I can do to help her and the children. An' then my brother Jim's a little wild, and if I'm at home, I can look after him a bit."

Nora, interested in getting for herself a definite idea of this girl's daily life, drew her out a little more about this brother, the eldest of the family. He worked in the mill, too, and would be a great help to the family if it were not for his unsteadiness, which had run away with a good deal of his earnings, and he had once or twice been on the point of being discharged.

"He has never been the same boy," Lizzie said, sadly, "since he has taken up with Nelly Grove."

"That was the girl you were talking to this evening when I passed you, was it not?" asked Miss Blanchard.

"Yes, that was Nelly. She's not a bad-hearted little thing, but she's awful flighty and fond of pleasure. She's an orphan, too, an' her friends live in the country, so she hasn't any one to look after her here. I think she'd be good enough to Jim, if she was let alone, but there's a gentleman"—and Lizzie lowered her voice still further—"as turns her head with compliments an' attentions, an' it makes Jim so jealous that he just goes off on a tear, whenever he finds out about it, unless I can manage to coax him and stop him."

"I see," said Miss Blanchard, thoughtfully; "but what a shame it is!" And so, by force of cruel fate, as it seemed, this girl was as truly chained by invisible fetters to her daily toil among those relentless wheels and pulleys, as if she were a galley-slave. The plantation slaves, on the whole, were not so badly off. They had their regular hours of toil, but their hours of relaxation were free from care, and full of fun and frolic, and—which was another great relief—they had frequent change of labor. Roland Graeme's words occurred to her mind with a new force and significance. But how was it? Did not the Heavenly Father in whom she had been taught to believe, care for the sparrows, and did He not much more care for helpless girls? Was His care not for Lizzie as well as for her, in her pleasant, protected life? It was too deep a problem, and she remembered a saying of Goethe, which she had lately read that "Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do, and then to do that." And if she could hereafter do anything to help her less favored sisters, she then and there registered an unspoken vow that she would do what she could.

The following being as mild a day as was likely to occur that season, Dr. Blanchard recommended that Mrs. Travers should be at once removed to the St. Barnabas Hospital. But it was a task of some difficulty to gain her consent. She seemed to cling tenaciously to the privacy of her wretched little room, and to shrink nervously from the idea of a common hospital ward. She so clearly bore the impress of refinement and culture, that Nora felt as if it were inflicting an indignity on her to ask her to endure the trial; and she offered to bear, herself, the expense of a private room for a month, if the patient would consent to the removal. But what then was to be done with the little girl? She could not go to the hospital, and there seemed to be no room for her in Lizzie's overcrowded home.