CHAPTER VIII.
A PROPHECY CAME TRUE.
“Well, if you are not a sly one,” remarked Miss Allyn, as soon as she and Marion were alone in the little parlor.
Marion indulged in a hearty laugh before she told her how she had met young Brookes and his mother on the train the day she came back from the country.
“Will you take my advice and marry him if he asks you,” said Miss Allyn, shortly. “There are not many men like Reginald Brookes, Marion, I can tell you.”
“Is he better than Mr. Ray?” asked Marion, jokingly. “I have been trying to answer that question for myself all the evening.”
“Poor Mr. Ray! His chances are fading,” said Miss Allyn, smiling. “Well, it wouldn’t be fair to the absent to praise his rival, so I’ll decline the responsibility of answering your question.”
“That’s just like you, Alma,” said Marion, soberly. “You are the most loyal woman that I ever met or heard of.”
“Well, I know another that answers to that description,” said Miss Allyn, quickly. “Do you want to see her?”
She grasped Marion by the shoulders and whirled her around so that she faced the mirror directly over the mantel.
Marion blushed and was about to speak, when Dollie tapped on the door. Her lover, Ralph Moore, was with her and begged the girls to let him come in a minute.
“Come right in, Brother Ralph,” said Marion, teasingly. “Come in and see Dollie’s new home, and I’ll introduce you to Miss Allyn.”
Ralph Moore was a handsome fellow, with charming manners, and since his engagement to Dollie he was just like a big brother to Marion.
“It’s very pretty,” he said, admiringly. “I hope I’ll soon be able to furnish as pretty a one for Dollie.”
“What, and take her away from me?” asked Miss Allyn, quickly. “Well, that settles it, Mr. Moore. You can consider me your sworn enemy.”
“Oh, you’ll have to live with us,” retorted Dollie. “We’ll take a bigger flat and all live together.”
“No, thanks,” said Miss Allyn, laughing; “none of that for me. Do you suppose I could stand it to see you forever spooning?”
After a laugh at this remark, Mr. Moore took his departure, boldly kissing his sweetheart in the tenderest manner.
“Good-by, Ralph,” said Marion. “I will not see you again. I have an engagement to-morrow night, and Monday I go to the Island.”
“Well, good luck, Sister Marion,” said Ralph, taking her hand; then he turned toward Dollie with a pleading expression.
“Yes, you can kiss her, seeing it’s Marion,” said Dollie, laughing, “but just look out for yourself, sir. If I ever catch you kissing any other girl, why, I’d just scratch your eyes out, even if I do love you.”
“I won’t take any chances,” said Ralph, in mock terror; then he kissed Marion good-by and said good night to Miss Allyn.
“A mighty fine fellow,” was Miss Allyn’s comment.
“A noble young man,” was Marion’s answer. “We can never forget how loyally he has defended us.”
Miss Allyn knew what she meant, and nodded her head. She had heard the story of Ralph Moore’s strange deed, how he had appropriated a jewel from his aunt and pawned it to keep the girls from starvation.
“I’d trust a man like that anywhere,” she said, slowly, “for no matter what he did, no one would suffer by it; he would look at both sides of a brook before he jumped it.”
The girls were soon in bed and sound asleep. They had had a tiresome day, but would have been absolutely happy had not the unfaithfulness of Miss Allyn’s lover cast a cloud upon their thoughts.
Early Monday morning Marion said good-by to her friend and to her sister, for Miss Allyn and Dollie were going down town together, as it was Dollie’s first day of service as a typewriter.
At ten o’clock Marion started out. Her boat left at eleven from the East Twenty-sixth street dock, and she had a permit in her pocket which the clerk at Charity Hospital had sent her.
It was to be a strange experience, and Marion trembled a little. Some way she dreaded to see the sights that she was about to encounter.
“There are prisoners and crazy people of all kinds up there,” she whispered to herself. “I just dread to face such misery, and yet some one has to do it.”
She had packed her little trunk and sent it on before her, so now she had nothing but a handbag to carry, and she quite enjoyed the ride from Harlem in the elevated train.
Marion had just reached the street from the elevated station, when the sharp clang of a bell startled her from her reflections.
There was a large group of people about half way down the block, and in an instant an ambulance came dashing around the corner.
“A woman either sick or drunk,” said somebody near her.
Marion walked along slowly, so as not to get in the crowd which, like all New York crowds, seemed to spring right up through the sidewalk.
“Get out of the way there, will you!” shouted a burly policeman, as he rushed up. “Stand back there and give the doctor a chance. Move on, I say, or I’ll club the heads off’n you!”
Marion shrank back a little, but she was the only one. The others swarmed about the ambulance as though the officer had not spoken.
In the twinkling of an eye the ambulance swung around and a physician in uniform sprang to the curbing.
The crowd fell back a little when the officer resorted to vigorous measures, and the next moment Marion caught sight of a woman lying on the sidewalk, with her head actually falling over the curb into the gutter.
“Run out the stretcher,” ordered the physician as another officer arrived on the scene. He picked the woman up bodily and laid her on the floor of the ambulance, which was fitted with a mattress and blankets.
A break in the crowd enabled her to see clearly. In a second she was staring hard, her breath almost choking her.
There was something familiar about the woman’s dress, which was of a plain, dark homespun, so common in the country.
The next moment Marion had pressed forward until she obtained a clear view of the poor creature’s face, and then a cry burst from her lips that made the crowd stare at her.
“It is Sallie—Sallie Green!” she cried hysterically.
The ambulance bell clanged and there was a swaying of the crowd. Before she could collect her senses the ambulance dashed off, carrying Silas Johnson’s wretched wife to a cot in Bellevue Hospital.
Sallie had kept her word—she had “run away to the big city.”
CHAPTER IX.
MARION MEETS A MISSIONARY.
Marion made her way down to the dock, feeling almost dazed at what she had seen. She was endeavoring to decide what was her duty in the matter.
She heard the clang of the bell as the ambulance dashed into Bellevue Hospital yard, but she was too late to see more, for the great gate closed as she reached it.
She took her permit from her pocket and glanced at it eagerly. It was dated, so she knew she must use it that day, and, furthermore, it was now five minutes of eleven, so there was no time to be spent in helping Sallie.
“They’ll take good care of her, I am sure,” she whispered to herself, “and, anyway, I can write to Silas as soon as I get up there. He can’t be so bad but what he’ll come and get her.”
In less than five minutes she was on the dock, and here for a moment Marion almost forgot poor Sallie. There were several policemen standing around, as if waiting for something, and on the deck of the Thomas Brennan, the ferryboat that was to convey her to Blackwell’s Island, and which was moored to the dock, she could see several more men in blue uniforms waiting.
As soon as Marion passed the dock entrance an officer came up to her. Marion handed him her permit and he turned and nodded to the captain.
“Go right on deck, miss. The prisoners will stay down below,” he said, kindly, as he led Marion over and helped her down the gangplank.
Marion glanced around the boat, which looked anything but attractive, and was soon on the deck as the officer had directed her.
Just as she reached it a great covered wagon came lumbering down to the dock.
“Here she comes at last! Here’s the ‘Black Maria!’” cried the captain; then he gave some orders and at once all was activity.
Marion’s eyes were widely opened when she saw what followed, for there were fourteen prisoners in the “Black Maria,” two of the worst ones being handcuffed together.
In the quickest possible manner they were driven on to the boat, a guard standing at each side of the gangplank to keep them from jumping overboard.
As soon as they were all on, the order was given to start, and the boat was soon ploughing its way up the East River and among the craft that dotted the water.
“Is this a strange sight for you, miss?” asked a voice behind Marion.
The young girl turned quickly and confronted an elderly woman.
“It is, indeed,” said Marion promptly, “and it is about the saddest sight that I ever dreamed of,” she added.
“Are you a nurse?” asked the woman again in a courteous manner.
“Not yet,” answered Marion, “but I am accepted on probation. I am on my way to the Charity Hospital.”
The woman looked at her kindly, but Marion’s gaze was wandering. She was trying to realize her extraordinary surroundings.
“Those are ‘ten-day’ men,” said the woman, as she saw Marion staring at two of the deck hands on the steamer. “In other words, they have been sent up for ten days and are allowed to work on the boat.”
Marion opened her eyes in absolute surprise. She had never before heard of such an arrangement.
“Why, that is ever so much better than keeping them shut up,” she said, quickly. “Poor fellows! I am sorry for them. They haven’t all got bad faces.”
“And they are not all bad; now,” said the woman again. “I can assure you, I have many good friends among the prisoners.”
Marion turned and looked at her with interest. She seemed to be both a refined and an intelligent person.
“I am a Bible reader,” said the woman, smiling. “I visit some of the islands every day, and my principal duty is to read the Bible to the prisoners.”
Marion’s smile changed instantly into an expression of wonderment.
“Do they like that, madam?” she asked, a little bluntly.
“Some of them do,” said the woman, with a peculiar laugh, “but some are very hardened. I can hardly get them to listen.”
“Well, I don’t wonder,” said the girl, with a heavy sigh. “I should think that some parts of the Bible would make them feel decidedly uncomfortable. Of course, there are many classes of criminals,” she added, quickly. “There are those who sin through weakness and those who are deliberately vicious. Then, of course, there are the others who sin almost from necessity.”
The woman looked at her in a little surprise. She had not expected so young a girl to be so serious on this subject.
“The good Word comforts each of these classes,” was her only answer. “If they are truly sorry they will be forgiven.”
Marion’s next remark showed that she was thinking more than listening.
“Society is all to blame,” she said, very soberly. “If conditions were right, there would be very few criminals, and none, I am sure, of the last class I mentioned. If you could only read the Bible to our lawmakers, madam, and to the rich men and women who are mighty and all powerful.”
The woman smiled and looked at her curiously.
“Perhaps you are right,” she said, after a minute, “but we should rise above conditions and not be slaves to them.”
“That is easier said than done,” said Marion, sharply. “When a man’s strength is deficient he is not to blame for it.”
“They should have prayed for strength,” said the woman, devoutly, “and at any rate they should not have fallen into sin. It is their own fault that they are here doing penance for their wickedness.”
“Well, I am very sorry for them, anyway,” replied Marion, quickly, “and I sincerely hope that you are able to comfort them, madam. To me they look like poor creatures who have never had half a chance. No doubt they would all have been honest if they could have earned decent livings.”
She turned abruptly on her heel and walked away. Some way, it vexed her to hear this woman blaming the poor creatures.
“Probably she was never hungry or in want in her life,” she thought, angrily, “so what can she know of the temptations they have suffered?”
This glimpse of misery was making Marion depressed already. The faces of the men haunted her, they were so pinched and eager.
She wandered across the boat and stood looking over the water, her brain busy with the problems of how to help the poor creatures.
The woman did not come near her and Marion was glad of it. She wanted to be alone and do a little hard thinking.
“I may be wrong in pitying them, but I can’t help it,” she thought. “I am sure the struggle of life has been too hard for many of them. I suppose that woman thinks I am a heathen, because I did not say I thought they deserved what they were getting.”
A light ripple of laughter relieved her over-strained tension and for the next few minutes the woman was forgotten.
Marion watched the prisoners land, with the guards beside them, and then as they marched slowly toward the penitentiary, she left the boat and started for the hospital.
It was all so strange, so almost alarming, this guarding and marching, that for a minute she felt a sense of oppression in her soul. It was as though she were breathing the air of a prison cell rather than the breath of sweet liberty, which was her rightful possession.
CHAPTER X.
MARION’S FIRST WEEK AT CHARITY.
In less than a week Marion began to feel quite at home in the big hospital, whose windows overlooked a scene of magnificence as well as much that was less inspiring.
Strips of clear blue water stretched on both sides of the island, and as Marion listened to the thrilling tales and traditions which have long made Hell Gate a place of blood-curdling interest, she could hardly turn her eyes from the far-famed danger spot. It seemed to enthral her in some spell of enchantment.
The great cities of Brooklyn and New York made a magnificent background to the scene. Spires towered from expensive churches, and at sunset the plate-glass windows of the many noble structures gave back a glow which was almost glorious.
Thus the city’s grandeur and luxury was before her eyes, while its misery was in even closer proximity, for was she not caring for its victims, its slaves and its outcasts in the very wards of this isolated building?
“Oh, to think that such wretchedness should exist!” she sighed over and over. “To think that with all the wealth and luxury of New York, these poor, poor creatures should drag out such an existence!”
As Marion passed through the wards, her heart was heavy within her. It was a condition which the simple country girl had never dreamed could exist—a condition which she could by any possibility have imagined, but, nevertheless, one of the saddest, sternest, most reliable facts in the history of the city.
Inside were the sick, the deformed, the crippled. Women whom shame had driven from the sight of the world, others whom care, abuse, over-work and under-pay had reduced to that condition known as invalid vagrancy.
Outside, in the numerous buildings, were other classes—criminals, “crooks,” “scapegraces” and prodigals and careworn men and decrepit women—paupers, homeless and penniless at the close of life and dependent upon what some have called a city’s “charity.”
It took Marion some time to grasp the full horror of the Island. The spot was so beautiful that it made the realization more difficult.
True to her resolve, she had written at once to Silas, and as the hours went by, she consoled herself by thinking that Sallie must be safely at home, unless—and here a thrill of horror would cross her—unless she had died in the hospital before Silas could get the letter.
The thought of poor Sallie made her keenly alive to the sufferings of the unfortunates around her. That one glimpse of Sallie’s white face seemed to haunt her continually.
Over and over she marveled at the apparent indifference of the other nurses, and wondered if it were possible that she, too, would become hardened to her surroundings.
“I am afraid I shall become morbid,” she said to the head nurse in her ward one day. “I cannot drive the horrors of this Island out of my mind for a minute. It is fortunate for me that you keep me so busy.”
Miss Williams smiled sadly. She was a sweet-faced woman.
“You will be obliged to grow indifferent. It is your only safeguard,” she said, kindly. “An over-sympathetic nurse is never very successful.”
“I shall try not to show my feelings,” said Marion, quickly. “I know that would be fatal to success, Miss Williams, but I am almost certain that I can never help feeling.”
“Oh, but that is different,” was the cordial answer. “A nurse that cannot feel is a mere machine. She will do her work well, and to some patients this will be quite satisfactory, but to others, to the majority, sympathy is more than medicine. An encouraging word, or a kindly interest will heal the soul, which is often more stricken than the body. There is Katie B——,” she went on more softly. “Just see how that child hungers for a mother’s voice, yet she is a mother herself, the poor unfortunate. A nurse who would be cold to her would lose the child’s confidence altogether.”
“I understand you perfectly,” said Marion, slowly. “A nurse in Charity Hospital has something to do besides make beds and give medicines. She has human hearts to cheer and strengthen. Oh, I hope I may be wise enough not to throw away my opportunity.”
“You are doing nobly,” said Miss Williams, smiling. “I have seldom seen a ‘probationer’ take so kindly to her lot. Making beds and cleaning wards is not very pleasant work, but we all had to do it before we could wear strings to our aprons.”
Both girls laughed pleasantly at this allusion to future honors, for even Marion had learned that a nurse’s highest ambition was to wear an honorable graduate’s cap and apron.
“I shall be glad when my probation is ended,” said Marion, eagerly. “I do so want to wear the regulation uniform. Of course, I am willing to admit that I don’t like to do drudgery, but I remember that all have to start at the beginning, and it won’t be long before I can wield the temperature thermometer.”
Miss Williams sighed, and her face saddened for a minute.
“You will find that the responsibility has increased wonderfully by that time,” she said, slowly. “Sometimes I wish that I could always have been a ‘probationer.’”
The girls were busy in the medicine-room of the ward as they talked. Miss Williams was getting out lint and bandages for a coming operation, while Marion was busy cleaning a number of surgical instruments.
“I feel more like a scullery maid than I do like a nurse,” she said, laughing, as she carefully polished some knives and arranged them in the case.
“There’s your bell,” said Miss Williams, quickly, as she heard a soft tinkle. Marion dropped her cloth and started toward her patient.
“Miss Marlowe!”
Miss Williams raised her voice, but spoke gently and pleasantly.
“Please pick up your cloth and lay it on the table, then move swiftly, but more silently as you go to your patient!”
She smiled as she spoke, and Marion nodded gratefully.
“I see I am much too impulsive,” she said, regretfully. “Oh, will I ever learn to discipline my emotions?”
“Of course you will,” said Miss Williams, as she passed out of the door. “You’ll learn anything that you wish to, Miss Marion Marlowe.”
It was Kittie B—— who had rung the bell. She was lying in bed, her face as white as her pillow, with a tiny red-faced infant nestling beside her.
“May I have a drink of water?” she whispered, with a faint smile. “I guess I am feverish—I’m awful thirsty.”
“Certainly you shall have it, dear,” was Marion’s prompt answer. Then it suddenly occurred to her that she had no right to promise anything.
“I’ll have to ask Miss Williams first, though, Kittie,” she said, quietly; “but I guess there is no doubt but what you can have the water.”
It was only a minute before Marion returned with the water, but the request had brought Miss Williams promptly to the bedside.
In a moment the trained nurse was feeling Kittie’s pulse. In another minute the temperature thermometer was out, and it was discovered that Kittie had a fever.
“The maternity ward is not the place for fevers,” said Miss Williams to Marion when they were out of hearing of the patient. “Put the screen around Kittie’s bed and keep her as quiet as possible. If the baby annoys her or she annoys the baby, take it out and put it in the crib beside the bed. I will look at her again in fifteen minutes.”
Marion went back to the bed and found Kittie fidgeting. There was a look in her face that frightened Marion somewhat.
She took the baby up and laid it in the crib, then turned to soothe Kittie with a smile and a few encouraging words.
The flush of fever was rising to the sick girl’s pale face now, so that even Marion’s untrained eye could observe and study the symptoms.
She bathed her brow and moistened her lips, but the fire in the girl’s veins seemed to burn hotter and hotter.
An hour later and Miss Williams had called the house physician to the bedside.
Kittie was moaning softly and turning her head from side to side.
“It’s a pity we did not know more about her when she came,” said Dr. Hall as he turned away. “The girl is in a very dangerous condition.”
CHAPTER XI.
SOME SHOCKING INCIDENTS.
The next two days were busy ones for Marion, for she was almost constantly at the bedside of poor, delirious Kittie.
As the girl tossed on her pillow she talked incessantly, so that, bit by bit, Marion learned her sad history, finding that, like herself, the child had been born and bred in the country, but had run away from her home only to find treachery and disgrace in a conscienceless city. The names of “father” and “mother” were constantly on her lips. Then there was another name which she tried to speak, but which seemed always to be choked back by a flood of agony or a torrent of bitter, ill-timed denunciations.
Marion guessed that this name would have meant a revelation. It was doubtless the name of poor Kittie’s betrayer, which, for some reason or other, she could never utter.
A sudden dislike to her own child was the next development of the fever. When she saw its tiny face she screamed and shrieked with rage. It was necessary to remove it from her sight entirely.
“It is a typical case,” said Miss Williams to Marion. “You can study the chart as much as you wish. It will not hurt you to learn the tracings, even though you are a ‘probationer.’”
On the very next bed to Kittie lay an older woman. She was also a mother and was slowly dying of consumption.
As Kittie moaned and cried, this woman wept silently. In her own dire distress she was consumed with pity.
“Oh, the misery of it all,” she sighed, as Marion bent over her. “Bless your dear face, nurse, and may the good God keep you from such wretchedness.”
Marion looked upon death for the first time that night, for the poor consumptive died without a sound or struggle.
Try as they would, they could not keep it from Kittie. There was too much to be done, too many to be cared for, to go into any extraordinary effort at secrecy. As the stretcher was carried out with the still, cold figure upon it Kittie almost sprang from her bed and tried to peer over the screen to look at it.
Marion caught her in her arms and pressed her firmly back. The girl was screaming with horror, and as strong as a lioness.
“She is my mother, I tell you!” she shrieked over and over. “I saw her face once. I am sure she is my mother!”
Miss Williams came to Marion’s help and together they laid Kittie on her pillow. There were shrieks and groans all over the ward, for Kittie had excited all the other patients.
Marion would have gladly put her fingers in her ears to shut out the sounds, but one glance at Miss Williams’ face made her ashamed of her cowardice.
In a few minutes the head nurse and an assistant were moving about the ward—they went from bed to bed, quieting and soothing their patients.
Kittie was lying back exhausted on her pillow now, and as she lay staring at Marion her eyes seemed suddenly to emit a brilliant lustre. Marion was fascinated by the glance and sat staring back mutely. She held one of Kittie’s hands and was stroking it absently.
Suddenly Kittie leaned a little toward her and began to mutter. There was a fierce intensity in her manner, as though she had determined to impart something which must be divulged.
Marion divined the poor girl’s message at once. It was clear that she was about to speak the forbidden name, and in spite of herself Marion could not help feeling a deep interest in the secret.
Over and over again Kittie struggled to speak distinctly, but her throat seemed parched and her tongue and lips unruly.
Marion held her head and gave her some water, trying with wonderful self-control to lay her back upon her pillow.
“I must! I must!” whispered the poor girl, distinctly. “I must tell it to the world for my baby’s sake. You shall know, every one shall know my baby’s father.”
“Not now, dear,” said Marion, soothingly; “another time. Lie down, Kittie, and be calm. You will be better to-morrow.”
“To-morrow!” murmured the girl, hoarsely. “To-morrow I shall be dead! To-night I must speak! To-night or never.”
Marion saw that she could do nothing, so she leaned sadly over the bed.
“If it will relieve your mind, Kittie, you can whisper it to me softly. I will never tell. It shall always be your secret.”
The burning eyes of the sick girl were searching her face, and the claw-like fingers which Marion held twitched and trembled convulsively.
“No, no. I can’t speak it,” she said at last, “but there is a picture—his picture—in the bosom of my dress: the head nurse has it—ask Miss Williams for it.”
She sank back upon her pillow completely exhausted now. There was a change passing over her face that even Marion noticed.
In a second Miss Williams was standing beside the bed.
“Poor thing, it will soon be over,” she said, sadly; “put the screen around her and go to Miss H——, Miss Marlowe. She is suffering greatly, and I am too busy.”
“What! Leave Kittie now?” whispered Marion in horror.
“She is dead,” said Miss Williams, with a quick glance at Kittie. “The living first, Miss Marlowe, the living and suffering.”
Marion went mutely across the ward, mastering her grief as she went. In that one short week she had learned to love Kittie.
“It will soon kill me at this rate,” she reasoned to herself. “Oh, I must learn not to sympathize so deeply with my patients.”
At sunrise the next morning Marion stood by one of the windows of the hospital, looking out upon the water, that glinted and gleamed all around her.
A group of convicts were busy mending a broken spot in the sea-wall, their two guards standing idly by, each armed with a rifle.
“Here is the picture Kittie spoke of,” said Miss Williams, coming up to her. “You can look at it, Miss Marlowe, and then you must go to bed. It is not necessary for you to work day and night, even if you are a ‘probationer.’”
She slipped a picture into Marion’s hand and went away. She was too busy herself to think of sleeping. A great beam of the golden sun fell upon the window panes at that instant and Marion’s eyes were slightly dazzled as she looked at the picture.
Then with a stifled scream Marion dropped the bit of pasteboard from her hand.
It was a picture of Reginald Brookes—frank, blue-eyed and handsome!