CHAPTER IX.HOPE—KATE REILLY.
While anxiously waiting for the action of Government, we abandoned our idea of starting the proposed home, and determined to devote the money we had previously collected in providing small comforts for the inmates of the Government Leper Asylum, whom we continued to visit every Tuesday, and to minister to their small requirements. Other lepers, who were living in Calcutta, outside of the asylum, heard of our work in it, and made a practice of coming to our house for alms. We allowed two rupees weekly to an Eurasian who was a bad leper, and who tried to keep his wife and family on what he could manage to get by begging. He had been an inmate of the Government Asylum; but, as he found that he received therelittle or no medical treatment, he preferred to live outside and to procure, as far as he could afford, special treatment from a native doctor in the city. He told me he was getting much better and that he hoped soon to be cured and able again to work for his family. Hope, glorious hope, is ever present with even the most horribly afflicted of God’s creatures. I have seen the distorted features of the leper man or woman brighten as though a light had been suddenly illumined within them at the mention of the word “hopeâ€; a light that even years of suffering and disappointment was unable to extinguish.
One of the first lepers to hear of my visits to the asylum was a girl, Kate Reilly, who lived in a crowded quarter of the town, and who sent for me to go and see her. The person who came with the message looked like a respectably-dressed shopkeeper, quoted several texts from Scripture, by way, I suppose, of stimulating me into going to her friend, and wound up by telling me of all that she had done for her. When I saw Kate afterwards, she told me to come again of my own accord, and not oblige her to send Mrs. ——, who always chargedher cab hire when she executed any commissions for her. I experienced some difficulty in seeing Kate when I first called. The address given me by the woman who came to my house was in a lane off Chandney Choke, one of the lowest and most thickly populated of the slums of Calcutta. It is here one may see exposed for sale everything that it is possible to imagine, from a hammer and nails or a button hook, to a complete outfit for man or horse. Side by side with legs of thin miserable-looking mutton will be seen a set of harness, gaudy and cheap; saddles that make one feel sorry for the unfortunate horse or pony on whose back they will be placed; hats and bonnets trimmed with bits of satin of the most showy colours procurable; bedsteads, tobacco, sweets, padlocks, old books, and a thousand and one miscellaneous articles repose on the benches of Chandney Choke. Drunken sailors, and soldiers, in Her Majesty’s uniform, earning an honest penny by selling the Salvation Army’sWar Cry, half-caste loafers, mulattos and “shady†characters from every quarter of the globe seem to be always prowling about there in search of money or adventure. Knowing that it would be unsafe for a lady to go alone into any ofthese dens, I asked a gentleman friend to accompany me, and I drove as well as I could through the crowd till we came to the lane where Kate Reilly lived. Here the road was too narrow to drive along, so we alighted from the trap and walked to the house. There was a number on it, but no door, only an archway. On entering it I was conscious of the well-remembered “faint†smell of leprosy; so knew we had arrived at the right address. We passed through the archway into a small yard in which a number of Eurasian children were playing. The yard was enclosed on all sides by houses, which were inhabited by several poor families. Kate Reilly occupied a couple of rooms on the ground floor of one on the right-hand side. As I was preparing to make for this room, the door of which was open, I was met by a native (Mussulman) woman, engaged in cleaning her cooking utensils. Without getting up from the ground where she was squatting, she told me that no such person as the one I mentioned lived there. On hearing my voice, Kate called out from within in English, “Oh, yes; I’m Kate Reilly, I want to see you!†The native woman then said in Hindustanee that the “Miss Baba, hadno clothes on.†“I can soon put them on,†called Kate from within. The woman finding herself beaten, made a last effort to prevent my seeing her mistress by running to tell her that a “sahib†(gentleman) was with me! This announcement, happily did not prevent her coming quickly. When Kate presented herself before me at the door of her room, I was horrified on seeing her. Her feet were enveloped in bandages, her legs were almost covered with sores, while an arm that was exposed to view was a mass of decay and corruption. She wore a dark petticoat reaching a little below her knees, a chemise and a red shawl thrown over one half of her shoulders, leaving the bad arm, which was too sore to be put in contact with any clothing, bare as I saw it. She is a young woman of about twenty-four years of age, of Irish parents, and has a sister a nun in a Catholic convent in Calcutta. This sister, she said, is not permitted by her religious Order to visit her, or go into the world; so she is left entirely at the mercy of the native woman, of whom I have written. Kate told me that she has well-connected relatives, but they never go near her. Her uncle pays the rent of herroom, but the rest of her wants are supplied by a charitable lady, who allows her the equivalent of 30s. a month, but who is leaving for England at the end of this year, when she fears such money will no longer continue to be paid her. She was greatly troubled about this, and asked me if I thought someone would send money when her allowance was stopped. She also told me that she was very miserable in the hands of the native servant, and had tried hard, but without success, to get a native Christian woman to attend her; for if she were to die she would not like to be alone with a heathen. She said she would willingly go to the Government Leper Asylum, if suitable accommodation was provided. She had been there some years before, but was unable to stay in a room with native lepers. She asked me if things were changed now, and if she could obtain a room to herself, or one in which only white women were, if she went. I had to tell her that she could not, and, except for the fact of being entirely alone and at the mercy of her servant, she was more comfortable in her own little room. On asking if I could bring her anything, she told me she would like a mackintosh sheet, for her sores were sotroublesome that she could not sleep in comfort without one. She also asked me to visit her as often as I could, and to bring others who would be her friends when I left India, as I was shortly about to do.