A Life Unveiled, by a Child of the Drumlins

by Anonymous

After a time the family moved away. Years later I saw them again. They seemed to be getting on well. We then discussed calmly the earlier times. I found much of my bitterness and denunciation toward him had moderated. I had by that time seen more of life; had learned to be more tolerant; understood him better. He told me that he had never ceased to be thankful that my own steadfastness had prevented him from ruining my life; that, whether I chose to believe him or not, bad as he had been, he had never meant to wrong me; that he had always esteemed me above any woman he had known; and that no one in the world, knowing of his baseness, had shown him the tenderness and tolerance and helpfulness that I had shown. He talked over my own life and subsequent experiences with me, and gave me sound advice. He understood me better than I had understood myself. I am bound to say that his retrospections and prophecies were alike sympathetic and penetrating.

During that first year’s practice, a few weeks after this regrettable experience which had cast such a shadow over me, I saw deep into the tragedy of the life of a young girl who came to me for succour. She was only nineteen; she refused to give me her name or address, but haltingly told me her story, and expressed her fears. It was some weeks before I could either dispel or confirm her fears, during which time my hold on her was precarious; but she came again and again, both of us hoping against hope as long as we could. On the day when I had to acknowledge to myself and her that what she feared was true, I seemed to grow years older. Though I had now been graduated in medicine a year, my worldly wisdom was very limited, and here was a desperate girl looking to me for help—a pretty, round-faced, red-cheeked child, unsophisticated, undeveloped. She resolutely refused to tell me the name of the young man concerned, saying if he were willing she would not marry him. She did not mind what she suffered if only her parents did not find out. Her mother would die if she learned the truth. When she found I could not help her in the way she had hoped, she was in dire distress. I tried to persuade her to send her mother to me and together we would plan something, but she would not consent; if I could help her to go away and keep the secret from everyone there, she would go and have her child honourably; if not, she would go to someone who would help her in the other way. I felt I must save her from that crime at all costs, and my earnest convictions must have impressed her, too; for she then begged me to think out some way by which it could be arranged.

Knowing the resident woman physician in a Home in a distant city, where they took girls who had gone astray for the first time, and found homes for their babies, I took steps to get her admitted there. While our plans were pending, the girl came to me almost daily; she had nowhere else to go. During these interviews, I was struck by the fact that she seemed all intent on concealing the consequences of her wrong-doing, but showed little remorse for the wrong itself. I could not understand this; but, as I came later to see more of such cases, I learned that by the time the poor creatures are certain of their condition, the acuteness of remorse has spent itself—they are confronted by a desperate condition calling for action, and their need of escaping detection then overrides contrition. Not appreciating this then, I was puzzled and hurt at the girl’s apparent callousness. As an accomplice in the scheme for getting her away, I was throwing myself so completely into the situation that I shared her shame. I verily believe I felt her sin and remorse more than she did at that time, though there’s no telling what she had felt earlier. The knowledge which I had so recently gained had made me aware of the dangerous fascination between the sexes, or I might have been less sympathetic with her; as it was, I came to be almost glad of an experience that enabled me to help the poor girl more understandingly than I otherwise could have helped her.

At length we learned the cost and requirements at the Home. She could manage the cost, but how were we to get her away, and keep her away all the months necessary, so that her family and friends should be blinded to the facts? Her already changing figure made it imperative that she go at once. Persuading a friend in the country to take her a few weeks to board, it was still necessary to devise some excuse for her going that would appeal to her family. As her mother knew that I had been treating her for an “anemic condition,” it would be, I thought, a simple matter to persuade her that her daughter needed to get away for a change of air, so I told her to bring her mother to the office.

The woman came, solicitous about her daughter. She rehearsed her daughter’s symptoms; was afraid she was going into a decline, or had a tumour growing, or some other serious condition. The mother was very deaf; I thought her blind also, for she evidently suspected nothing. Reassuring her as well as I could, I persuaded her to let Hetty go to my friend’s for two weeks, well knowing that after once getting her away, we must invent some other excuse for a longer stay. Right there in the mother’s presence, owing to her deafness, we perfected the plans. I shudder when I think of that hour; when necessary to talk at length about details, to avoid suspicion, I would go to a distant part of the room a little out of range of the mother’s vision, and, appearing to be busy there, would, in a low voice, give my directions.

Our scheme was for her to stay with my friend for two months, if possible, writing back home frequent encouraging letters as to her marked improvement in health, thus gaining consent to remain away. Later she was to state that my friend, Miss Hurd, a semi-invalid, had grown attached to her and had invited her to go on to New England for a little visit. If this worked, and she obtained permission to go so far from home, we were to have Miss Hurd become so ill while away as to require Hetty’s services as a nurse, thus accounting for her long stay in Providence.

It proved even a harder undertaking than I had bargained for. It was my first experience in downright, sustained deception; but there was much at stake, and I was bound to carry the thing through.

Hetty had been at Miss Hurd’s only three weeks when they felt they could keep her no longer—the neighbours were getting curious, and the family was uneasy about the whole situation. So it was decided to have Hetty go on to Providence early. As a matter of fact, Miss Hurd came on to U—— to visit me, so they came that far together, Hetty going on to New England. Meeting her at the train, I could offer only a few hurried words of direction and encouragement, and the train bore her away in the darkness. Homesick and frightened, she could not get off that train and seek her home, but must journey on, alone, at night, to that strange city, suffering, dread, and wretchedness ahead of her!

About two weeks later her mother appeared at my office, this time in great distress. Miss Hurd opened the door for her—the very young woman with whom her daughter was supposed to be in Providence—but of course she had no suspicion as to who she was. The woman demanded that I write and tell Miss Hurd that her daughter must come home at once: people were thinking it queer that Hetty was staying away so long; someone had even intimated that she was married and was going to have a baby—they were saying all sorts of things. There that deluded mother sat and said to me: “You and I know that it isn’t so; we know the poor girl has been sick, and that she is taking care of this invalid friend of yours; but they have made these insinuations and her father is furious; he says she must come home at once and put a stop to such reports—he says that under the circumstances her duty is to herself and not to Miss Hurd.”