 | CHAPTER V.
MRS. ZERVIAH MYRTLE. Hedged in |  |
5. CHAPTER V.
MRS. ZERVIAH MYRTLE.
NIXY, so far from thinking of God, was
crying impatiently because the baby was
heavy, and because every time that she sat
down to rest she seemed to hear Monsieur
Jacques, and the guitar, and the sorrowful song
about the hill.
She found herself obliged to rest very often;
between whiles she walked fast, now thinking
that she must put distance between herself and
the doctor's 'sylum; now, between herself and
Moll.
It was not until nearly twelve o'clock that it
occurred to her that she had nowhere to spend
the night, and that the lights in the houses were
all out.
She must have walked far when she made this
discovery, — very far for one in her feeble condition.
The city burned dimly behind her, like the
embers of a huge bonfire; the cultivated suburban
country lay smooth and dark before her;
shades of houses gathered about her; shades of
trees, parks, walls, finished and elegant things,
filed past her with a shadowy hauteur. She
crept on by them, chilled and frightened, wondering
whether nobody lived in small houses without
the city, and how many tenements there might
be in such a place as that square house with the
curiously gabled roof. She ventured as far as
the pebbled drive that led to it, and looked up
and around timidly for encouragement; this she
found, or thought she found, in a bar of mellow
light which fell quivering upon the lawn from a
bay-window at the side of the house; the sash
was raised, and a warmly tinted curtain, stirred by
the wind, floated in and out. As she stood looking
up, very still there, under the trimmed trees,
in her shabby shawl, a sharp gust caught in the
bright damask that folded the sick-room (she had
concluded that it was a sick-room) from her sight,
and there flashed before her a kaleidoscope of soft
lights, tints, glasses, cushions, curtains, and there
was wafted out to her a child's cry. This frightened
to wish that she had left her child at No. 19, and
to wonder, Would anybody take her in with the
child? Then, remembering her promise to Lize,
she “tried to like it,” but succeeded only in patting
the little thing with a desperate gentleness
that woke and terrified it.
She plodded on for a while, the child crying
across her arm, and her weak limbs sinking, in
hopes of finding another lighted window; but
there were no more. Exhausted and desperate,
she crawled, at length, under the shadow of a
wooden gate, thinking that she would rest there,
or die there, as chance might be, and thinking
(as all young people think when they are tired)
that she cared little which.
The wooden gate belonged to an omnibus station;
Nixy discovered this presently, and as it
was very cold where she lay, and as, on the
whole, she might die just as well at another time,
she conceived the idea of spending the night in
an omnibus. So she pushed the baby under the
gate, which was locked; and, being so slight and
small, contrived to follow without much trouble,
and to climb into one of the silent, empty
flung herself down upon the straw, for the dirty
velvet cushions seemed too grand to sleep on,
and dropped, probably at once, into a heavy
sleep.
In the morning, when driver No. 23 of the Urban
Line, rolled out his coach, a baby rolled
against, and very nearly out of, the door.
Nixy, haggard and terrified, appeared, and
picked it up.
“Land of Liberty!” said No. 23. He was
over six feet, with fierce whiskers, and voice in
proportion.
“Yes,” said Nixy, “I 'll go right away. I
meant to go away before you came. I did n't
mean any harm. But nobody liked to take me
in, you see, — and it was past midnight. I 'll go
right away!”
“S'pose I 'd ought to report you as a vagrant,
no two sides to that!” replied 23. But he fell to
musing behind his beard.
“How old be ye now?”
“Not sixteen.”
“Got any folks?”
“No.”
“Got anywheres to go?”
“No.”
“Go there, then, for all me!” thundered 23,
turning his back. “Clear out quick, and I 'll
let ye alone.”
Nixy “cleared.”
In the frost of the early morning she wandered
about for a while, till the smoke, in little
blue coils, screwed holes in a silver sky, and bare-footed
children began to group in the chilly sunlight,
and odors of crisp muffins and coffee fed
the wind.
Nixy knew better than to ask for breakfast,
with such a burden as she carried in her
arms, at the door of one of the houses whose
haughty shadows had repelled her on her midnight
tramp. Any one observing her closely
would have noticed that she selected rather
a shabby street, and, all things considered, the
shabbiest dwelling in it, for her errand. It
is one of the whims, or instincts, of the poor,
to beg favors of their kind. It is also one
of their whims, perhaps a foreign fancy which
Yankee pride has adopted, never to seem hungry
under a stranger's roof. So Nixy, knocking
in a busy voice to enter, asked leave to
warm her feet, to wash her hands, talked of
the weather, the walking, the town, saw a hot
breakfast steam before her dizzy eyes; saw the
room whirl, felt the words slip; sat up straight
and stiff, and dropped a dead weight faint upon
the floor.
When she came to herself, the busy young
woman had hot tea at her lips in a spoon.
“I never thought of Jacques's money! I can
pay you. Here!” Nixy's weak hands fumbled
in her pocket. “I suppose I was hungry!”
She saw then that some one had taken the
baby, and all her faint face flushed.
“The child is over-young to be travelling,”
said the young woman, with a keen look.
“Yes.” Poor Nixy did not know what else
to say.
“Four weeks, I should say, makin' guess-work.”
“Three, next Tuesday.”
The busy young woman exchanged glances
with the woman who held the baby. She did
not know whether to be most scandalized or
of her state of mind.
“Humph! Travelled far?”
“I don't know. It must be some ways. I 'm
a little tired.”
She was probably a “little tired” still, when
she started, in the course of half an hour, to
go. It seemed, when the opening of the door
brought the fresh air upon her, that she would
faint again; but she shut her white lips together;
she did not mean to die — for she had
never fainted before, and supposed herself to
be dying — in anybody's house; in the open
air and under the open sky she felt as if she
might have the right to commit so rude a
blunder.
She wished, as she went out, holding dizzily by
chairs and fences, that she had dared to ask in
the house for work. The busy young woman
took money for her breakfast, for she was poor
as well as busy, and stood looking after her at
the door.
“Nothing but a child herself!” — uneasily
said. “Though, to be sure, what can one do?”
What could one do? Other busy people asked
about the streets, white and frightened,
through the day.
One woman beckoned her back after she had
turned her from the door, questioned her much,
and cried over her a little; but when her own
child, a little girl, bounded in from somewhere,
she sent Nixy hurriedly away.
“I would rather Clara should not see you, if
you 'll excuse me.”
“I would n't hurt her,” said Nixy, stopping
upon the steps after the door had closed. She
spoke to herself, in some perplexity, and with
perplexed eyes she walked away.
At another house, where she asked for work,
and where “they could n't think of the child,”
they compassionately offered her dinner and
rest. These she accepted — as she accepted
everything that happened — with little surprise
and few words.
“I suppose you know how wicked you 've
been,” suggested the lady of the house, anxious,
in the only way that presented itself to her vivid
invention, to “reform” the girl.
“Yes,” said Nixy, in her unhappy, unmeaning
the night.
“It is a dreadful thing, — you so young!”
“Yes.”
“Do you mean to be a better girl?”
“O yes.”
“It will be very hard, — with the child.”
“Yes.”
The lady looked at her, puzzled.
“I doubt if she understands a thing I say.”
But she was mistaken. Nixy had perfectly
understood and would remember her last remark.
She was growing very tired of the child.
At another place, to which she had been directed,
she was told at the door, and the door
was shut with the words: —
“We wanted a girl — about your size, but not
a baby.”
So, by degrees, the baby became horrible.
About dusk, after a weary afternoon, she
stopped at the dip of a little hilly street, and in
the shadow of a little dark yard that guarded a
bright little house, to rest.
The master of the house, whistling his way
home to supper, stumbled across her with the
back against a tree. When he saw her he
said, —
“This is a land of liberty!” — for it was No.
23. He tried to lift her up, but dropped her as
if she had been porcelain, and thundered for
“Marthy! Marthy Ann!” — he had a voice like
the Last Trump; but the summons to “Marthy”
disturbed Nixy far more than the noise.
She had grown very much afraid of her own
kind. Men swore at her generally, discouraged
her always, but they asked no questions. Women
had held her on a slow toasting-fork of curiosity
all day.
So she said to 23 as she had said before, “I 'll
go right away!”
But Marthy Ann (she was a little woman) had
come out of the bright little house, and drawn
Nixy in from the little dark yard; she had a
warm hand and a silent tongue, and the girl
submitted to her leading.
“Lord help her!” said the little woman, when
she had got her into the light. What was quite
as much to the point, she kept her for the
night.
She could not give her a bed, — the house was
far too small for that, — but she rolled her up on
a cosey lounge by the bright kitchen fire. All the
house was cosey, and all the house was bright.
There was a baby somewhere, and she could hear
Marthy Ann, in snatches, singing and fondling
this baby, and No. 23 whistling and fondling
Marthy. She thought, listening from her lounge,
that it must be a very happy house.
Something less than an idea, and more than a
notion, came for the first time to the Thicket
Street girl, of the pure loves of wife and mother.
She sat up straight upon her lounge to hear the
whole of Marthy's song.
“If I was like that,” she said, half aloud,
“mebbe I 'd like the baby without trying.”
But she was not like that; it was quite certain
that she was not like that.
She lay down again and shut her eyes. Presently
she opened them suddenly. 23 and Marthy
Ann — in bed and half asleep — were talking
of her.
“If it was n't for the child there 'd be chances.”
“Chances enough. It 's a likely girl.”
“Now there was Celia Bean. You remember
glad I had that lounge!”
Marthy, soon asleep, forgot her words. Nixy
sat up still and straight, and pondered them in
her heart.
The baby was the mischief of it! Was there,
then, no way in which she could be the baby's
honest mother? She felt a little pity for the
child, and patted it softly. But she felt more
pity for herself, as was natural under the circumstances.
What with this pity, and the dead of night,
and weakness and misery and fear, Nixy concluded,
sitting there on Marthy's lounge, that it
was about time to be rid of the baby.
By the light of Marthy's cooking-stove, she
crept down from her lounge, and found the
kitchen door. She unlocked and unlatched it
without noise, and then, upon the threshold,
stopped. After some thought, she returned to
the fire, and, kneeling down upon the floor,
held the infant up for a moment in the dying
light. Her face exhibited no trace of grief or
love; some puzzled regret and a little compassion,
but nothing besides.
“Lize was right,” she thought, — and thought
no more; “he will take after me when he 's big
enough. The poor little fellow!”
She made as though she would have kissed
him, but the inevitable sudden loathing, or something
else, prevented her. She drew the child
under her shawl again, and, closing Marthy's
door very softly behind her, went away with
him into the chilly autumn night.
Nixy had no thought of murder. She was not
old enough or melodramatic enough for that. To
be rid of the child was a simple matter; to live
without him a simpler. She knew something
of deserted children and foundling homes, — she
had not lived fifteen years in Thicket Street for
nothing. It occurred to her, as she glided along,
like an uneasy ghost, through the silent and sleeping
town, dodging police and street-lamps, to
leave her little boy in the curiously gabled house
with the wonderful room. It made very little
difference to her where she left him; there was
this house; it saved trouble, and was near at
hand. Possibly she had some dim idea, that, for
the sake of their own new baby, the people in
the happy house would take some pains to be
him well treated, — it was not his fault that nobody
wanted her.
At any rate, with the thought she had found
the house. She knew it easily, for the sick-lamp
was still burning in the bright room, and the
wind was tossing the curtain in and out; and
with the sight of the house, her mind settled
apathetically into the plan. The child had
grown so heavy! The world was growing so
cruel! One place was like another. Her arms
ached. Why seek farther?
We talk of “instinctive maternal affection.” I
cannot learn that Nixy, when she left her child,
with a violent pull at the door-bell, upon the
massive steps of the gabled house, experienced
any other than emotions of relief. To be sure,
when the child's little fingers fumbled feebly over
her face, she thought that his hands were soft,
thought of Marthy and her baby, wondered who
Celia Bean was, and what happened to her, and
so was reminded of 23, and of being reported as
a vagrant, and that it was quite time to be away.
With little regret she kissed her child, — for the
first time and the last. With nothing more positive
folded her shawl about her empty arms, and stole
off down the pebbled drive, into the wide, empty,
solitary street. She had done by her own flesh
and blood as the world had done by her. It
seemed to this poor little mother rather a fair
arrangement than otherwise.
Only, when half a mile away from the child,
she stopped and thought of Lize.
“But I kep' my promise,” she said, looking
troubled, for she did not like to break a promise
to Lize. “I kep' it. I tried to like him. But
there's nowheres, no folks. What could we do?”
She fell to sobbing, — thinking of Lize, — she
was so weak from walking, and homesick, and
alone; she wished that she were back in No. 19
upon the straw; wished that she had gone, as
Moll advised, into the concert-hall; wished that
she could see Monsieur Jacques; wished that
she had stayed among “her folks,” — meaning
Thicket Street. When one has no family, one
adopts a county, a cause, an alley, as the case
may be. It seemed to Nixy, in her desperate
mood, to be a great mistake that she had ever
undertaken this dreary attempt at “staying honest.”
In Thicket Street, at least, she was at home. In
this world of pure men and women she was bewildered,
lost.
So, gloomily thinking, she travelled the country
up and down for a couple of miserable days.
She seldom consciously missed her child, excepting
with a sense of relief; yet the weight of the
little thing, gone from her empty arms, burdened
her heart at times in a dull way. He had been
some company.
She never went back to 23 and Marthy Ann, —
not daring to without the child; she was quite out
of the region by daylight. In her confused condition,
however, she must have trodden a circle like
a lost traveller in a forest, for, on the third day,
faint and discouraged, — Jacques's money all
gone and the girl's brave heart too, — she was
seen climbing the pebbled slope to the curiously
gabled house which had attracted her twice before.
That was at dead of night; now, in fair
sunlight, and blinded by exhaustion, she did not
know the place.
“Do you know of anybody as wants a girl?”
She asked the old question stupidly, looking
was hard up for help,” and, to her surprise,
Nixy was bidden to enter, and sent to the mistress
of the mansion for inspection.
The lady was in her bedroom, and a little pink
cradle stood by her side. On the threshold of the
chamber Nixy stopped short. She recognized
the slow, soft curtain, the light bay-window, pictures,
pillows, and the wailing cry of the “wonderful
room.”
The frightened color rushed to her face. She
peered into corners, expecting to be confronted
by her deserted child, turned and would have
fled, but Mrs. Myrtle — Mrs. Zerviah Myrtle, by
the way, she was commonly called — detained
her sharply.
“Don't be afraid of me! I won't hurt you.
Besides, you let the air in on Baby. There, —
stand where I can see you. I suppose some one
directed you here? I 've had such a time getting
girls!”
“So I heard,” said Nixy, roused now, and
shrewd.
“I want a girl,” continued Mrs. Myrtle, raising
her head, — it was a handsome head, fresh
take steps for me, and help nurse, and all that;
to make herself useful wherever and whenever
wanted; to keep herself tidy, and not run about
evenings. I have such a time with my girls!
Why did you leave your last place?”
“Family moved West,” said Nixy, feeling her
way with care.
“You came from town?”
Nixy nodded, in no haste to commit herself
by many words. Not that she objected to telling
a lie, — why should she? — but that she preferred
to tell a good one.
The amount of it was — for when Nixy had
become convinced that there was but one child
in the room, she and her story both appeared to
advantage — that Mrs. Zerviah Myrtle engaged
her services.
“Age, under sixteen.
“Temper, amiable.
“Common-school education.
“Seen service before.
“Lost her recommendations.
“Respectable family connection.
“Widowed mother —”
Mrs. Myrtle ran over the notes which she had
taken of Nixy's conversation.
“I think, on the whole, I will try you. Though
I do object to your having lost your recommendations.
Nobody ever has such a time with girls
as I! And there 's no knowing whom you may
take in. The number of tramps about is alarming.
It cannot be three days — is it, nurse? —
since Boggs picked up that baby on our steps.
It made me so nervous and depressed! I have
n't got over it yet. I am sure I thought I should
be forced to send for the doctor again, though I
don't think Doctor Burtis has the least comprehension
of NERVES! Boggs took the child to the
Burley Street Nursery, — an excellent place. But
such a thing never happened on my premises
before, — never! It was so sad and depressing!
Yes, I think, on the whole, I will try you.”
“Depressing as it is,” Mrs. Myrtle explained to
her husband, “to take an unknown girl into the
family, especially a girl with no more constitution
for housework than this one has, — I cannot
send her up stairs but she loses her breath in
a very unpleasant manner, — I wish to make a
faithful and patient trial of it. I have so few
am with the children and my nervous condition,
that I really feel it, in one sense, a duty to try
the girl. I see nothing bad about her so far, and
she is willing about taking steps, which, in my
weak state, is a great thing. I think I shall take
real comfort in giving her a comfortable home.”
Nixy remained in Mrs. Zerviah Myrtle's “comfortable
home” two weeks.
On a Sabbath morning at the end of that time,
Mrs. Myrtle went to church. The day was superb,
the carriage recushioned, her recovery complete,
her baby well, her bonnet and prayer-book new.
She patted Nixy on the head as she swept smiling
out of the door, and bade her take the air on
the lawn with one of the little girls, — she was
looking pale; and Fanny would enjoy it. Besides,
she (Nixy) had, she must say, been very
faithful since she had been with her, and she was
glad to give her a change. Perhaps she could
manage to let her out to the evening service. It
was too sweet a Sunday to be misimproved.
Nixy listened humbly. If she had not felt “at
home” in Mrs. Myrtle's service, she had at least
enjoyed the honest large work and honest small
19 girl; her dinner (without desserts) luxurious;
her conscience quiet; her hands full; her past
wellnigh forgotten in the novelty, and her future
of no consequence in the security.
In a certain way she was almost happy, as she
sat in the golden Sabbath sun, waiting, with
troublesome Fanny, for her mistress's return.
In the Sabbath sun, Mrs. Zerviah Myrtle rode
home from the house of God with a black brow
and a fast whip. The first thing that she saw
was Nixy, sitting under a tinted maple-tree, with
the child Fanny's arms about her neck. This
looked very affectionate, but it was in fact very
uncomfortable. It made a pretty picture, however,
for the light and color gathered richly about
Nixy's young face, which, however miserable or
pallid, was fair, because it was young. And
Mrs. Myrtle, just at that moment, would have
preferred that the girl should look ugly; it would
have been, I think, a positive moral relief to her.
For the lady had heard that morning, naturally
enough, Nixy's sorrowful story.
Nixy felt it in the air, like thunder, before
Boggs had reined up at the door.
“Fanny!” Mrs. Myrtle, perfumed and perturbed,
prayer-book in hand, and eyes on fire,
called her daughter. “Take down your arms —
at once! — from Nixy's neck, and go into the
house.”
The little girl hesitated to obey, and her mother,
with some emphasis, herself removed the offending
hands from Nixy's shoulders; in so
doing, by accident, something hit Nixy a sharp
blow upon the cheek; it proved to be the edge
of the prayer-book, — a rich one in full calf.
“What a pity!”
“You did not hurt me,” said Nixy.
The lady colored. She had been examining
the dented leather when she spoke; but upon
Nixy's “accepting the apology” so simply, she
remained silent.
She remained silent long enough to speak perhaps
more calmly than she might otherwise have
done.
“This is a dreadful story which I hear of you,
Nixy. It has really made me ill.”
Nixy folded her hands and leaned back against
the maple-tree. She did not much care what
happened next.
“I mean that you were seen, — I heard it twice
this morning, — that you were seen a fortnight
ago, in the streets of this town, with an infant in
your arms. It is of no use to deny it, so many
people saw you. I hear it upon the best of authority.
It must be true.”
“I suppose you sent it to the Burley Street
Nursery.”
To Mrs. Myrtle's exceeding surprise, Nixy
made this answer.
“Well, I must say! I am glad that you confess
it with so little trouble. But you lied to me.”
“O yes. I wanted honest work. You would n't
have taken me, ma'am, if I 'd told you the truth.”
“No,” — Mrs. Myrtle looked undecided whether
to feel rebuked or flattered, — “no, of course not.
With my family, of course not. And of course
I must dismiss you at once.”
“Of course,” repeated Nixy, languidly. She
had learned enough of the pure world now to
know that. She sat very still, with the happy
light from the maple dotting her dress and hair
in a mocking, miserable manner.
“This is so dreadful and depressing!” sighed
Mrs. Myrtle, after an uneasy silence.
“Shall I go to-night?” asked Nixy.
“Well — not to-night, perhaps; but to-morrow
early. With my family of innocent children
I cannot feel as if I ought to keep you under my
roof.”
“I 'd rather go to-night,” said Nixy. “I would
n't want to hurt the children.” She was too
much disheartened to be bitter; she spoke
quietly enough, but Mrs. Myrtle looked dully
disturbed.
“I do not wish to hurry you away — into mischief.
I suppose you can reform, and be better,
and all that. If it were n't for the children —
but how could I feel it to be right to put my
Fanny under your influence? I would consult
with Mr. Myrtle about it, if there were any
chance that we could think it best. We could
not, you see, sacrifice our own offspring to your
reformation, though it would be very Christian
and beautiful. So I do not see how I can do
more than to forgive you for your ingratitude
in so dreadfully deceiving me; which I do.”
“Thank you,” said listless Nixy.
“And to beg of you to consider that there is
hope for us all,” — Mrs. Myrtle spoke with humility,
which our Lord has marked out for sinners.”
If the lady had referred to a way of salvation
from the frosty night, from the hungry morning,
from the wandering week, which Nixy, sitting
under the warm maple-tree, vividly foresaw, and
from which, in her silence, she was shrinking
with a very sick young heart, the girl might, I
must own, have paid better heed to the advice.
Nixy knew little about heaven, cared less; earth
was as much as she could manage just then.
She glanced at the dented prayer-book, and wondered,
in a mixed thought of how she should
carry her clothes, and whether she should go
back to Thicket Street, if the Lord had told
Mrs. Myrtle, in his house that day, to send her
away for fear of Fanny; and if he cared so much
more for Fanny than for her. It was natural
that he should. She only wondered about it,
speculatively.
“I must do my duty, you know,” urged Mrs.
Myrtle, uneasily. “It is not want of Christian
sympathy which compels me to dismiss you. I
have always been much interested in women of
your class. When my health permits, I have
cut out work. That is a very interesting and
Christian retreat. I wonder you never thought
of going there. I could easily —”
“I should like to go away now, if you please.”
Nixy spoke and rose hurriedly, visions of
Dr. Burtis and the 'sylum passing with the old
terror before her.
“I 'd like to go now, without waiting, Mrs.
Myrtle.”
“Stay till afternoon,” urged Mrs. Myrtle, uncomfortably.
“I don't mean to be severe with
you. You make me so nervous, hurrying matters
in this manner! If it were n't for the children
—”
But Nixy had stepped out from the rich
warmth of the maple's light, and was, as the
lady spoke, crossing the darker shadows of the
lawn, on her way to the kitchen door.
Mrs. Zerviah Myrtle, searching for the girl with
troubled face, immediately after her noon nap,
discovered that she had already gone.
“Nothing could give me more pleasure in my
circumscribed field of usefulness,” she confided to
Mr. Myrtle, “than to help such girls, — in their
them, under circumstances, too, of aggravated
deception, into one's own family, I feel that there
are domestic duties which have sacred prior
claims. I would, on reflection, have kept her until
Monday, and have done what little I could for
her; but she got vexed with me, — such girls are
always getting vexed, — and left, I believe, without
her dinner. I don't think that any one appreciates
how depressing the affair has been!”
| CHAPTER V.
MRS. ZERVIAH MYRTLE. Hedged in | |