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."