THECURSE OF GOLD.
THECURSE OF GOLD.
THECURSE OF GOLD.
THE
CURSE OF GOLD.
CHAPTER I.A WARD IN BELLEVUE.
The sick ward of a hospital, mockingly, it would seem, called Bellevue. The room was long, low in the ceiling, and lighted by a range of windows sunk deep in the wall, which overlooked the East River and an expanse of Long Island that curved along the opposite shore.
A few poverty-stricken women, and some worse than that, because bowed down by shame as well as poverty, had sought this ward as the only place in which their anguish and sorrow could find shelter.
Narrow, pauper cots, furnished with straw beds and covered with coarse, checkered cotton, were ranged down each side, of the room, with just space enough between to allow a sort of foot-path in which the nurses could pass from one bed to another.
Every cot was occupied. Here a young face, so pale and mournful that your heart ached while gazing on it, was turned sadly toward you on the straw pillow, or a feeblehand would make an effort to draw up the coverlet, that you might not mark the flush of shame that stole over her forehead, or discover the cause of that shame which lay nestled in her bosom.
Other faces met your view, coarse and shameless, or haggard with long suffering; and some turned upon you eyes so full of gentle submission, that you wondered why human beings so opposite in their nature should be crowded together in one room, even by the terrible leveller Poverty.
Sounds, in painful harmony with the scene, greeted your entrance. Murmurs of sharp impatience, imprecations suppressed only by fear, and open complaints from the coarser and ruder inmates, drowned the sighs and timid whispers of maternal love that gave a breath of heaven even to that miserable place.
Two cots in the room, both standing in a remote corner, were occupied like the rest, but gave forth no signs of life. They stood close together, and of the occupants it seemed impossible to say which was living, or which was actually dead, so coldly pale were the two faces that gleamed upon you from the pillows. Both were young, and one was wondrously beautiful even in that deathly state, when forehead, hands and lips were blanched to the whiteness of a corpse.
The other was less beautiful, but very young, and so fragile that you wondered why death had waited to find her in that miserable place, for she was dying. The gray shadows, settling like a mist upon her face, the locked whiteness of her features, the imperceptible stiffening of her white hand upon the coverlet, all proclaimed this truth with terrible distinctness. But there was yet a breath of life close to her heart, a faint flutter as if a wounded bird had folded its wings forever, and then all was quiet as if sleep were there, or death had come twice.
The gray shadows of a winter’s morning crept through the checkered curtains of a neighboring window, and hungcoldly around that pauper couch; and amid the muttering of patients restless with fever, or clamorous for nourishment, the wail of sickly infants, and the outcries of healthy ones, this poor young creature died and grew cold, unwatched and unwept.
The other, she who lay so like an exquisite statue on the neighboring couch, would no life ever return to her? There was a faint motion of the bed-clothes, as if breath still lingered there; but did it exist in that fair young mother or in the child, for she, poor thing, was a mother, and even in the chill of insensibility she held the little being into which her own seemed to have merged, clasped to her bosom.
Just as the day dawned, a nurse came into the ward, not with her usual dauntless step, but stealthily, and casting sidelong glances from cot to cot, like a panther fearing to arouse his prey. She stopped once or twice and arranged the pillows of her patients, with a sort of cajoling attention, always leaving their faces turned from the corner where those two young creatures suffered. Then she stole softly between the two cots, and bending down her face till her soiled curl-papers almost touched the dead, listened, felt the cold hand on the coverlet, and cautiously turned down the clothes.
At the head of each cot a square wooden label was hung against the wall, on which was painted the name and number of the occupant. The nurse took down these labels when quite sure that one of these young women was dead, and replaced them again, looking furtively around as she did so.
After making herself busy with the labels a while, the nurse stood over the cot of the dead woman and took a rapid survey of the ward.
All was quiet, save the murmurs of a child, far down the room, who was struggling to keep its place in the arms of a drowsy mother.
The nurse was relieved by this sound. It gave her time for breath. The rustle of her own dress seemed less startling. She turned to the other bed, stooped over it still more cautiously, and laid her hand down upon the heart of the senseless woman.
She half rose, gave a sharp glance over her shoulder, and taking each of the fair hands, clasped so fondly around a sleeping infant, forced them gently apart, and lifted the child from its mother’s bosom.
A shudder passed through the frame of that young mother, as if the last gleam of life had been torn from her heart. Her eyelids quivered, and her lips were, for an instant, faintly convulsed.
The nurse turned suddenly to the other couch, and back again, while this life-struggle was going on. Without unclosing her eyes, the poor creature reached forth her arms, clasped them fondly again with a sigh of ineffable delight, and sunk away motionless, without a perceptible breath.
But it was not for joy. As the child, a moment before, had seemed to keep the vitality in her heart with its own warmth, so now some outward chill drove back the blood to its centre. With a moan, and a struggle, she came to life, opened her great blue eyes, and fixed them wildly on the nurse.
“I am cold, oh! so cold,” she said, shivering, and cowering down into the bed; “what have you done to me?”
“Done to you?” said the nurse, faintly, “done to you? Nothing, but try my best to bring you to. Why, it’s almost dead you’ve been, I don’t know how long.”
The invalid did not hear this. A momentary impulse of strength seized upon her. She flung back the bed-clothes, and bending her face downward, fixed those wild eyes upon the child. One glance, and she lifted them with a sharp, questioning look to the woman, and passing her hand over the little face, whispered hoarsely,—
“What is this?”
The nurse put her hands down and touched the infant. The poor mother felt those coarse hands shaking against her own, and shrunk away with a faint cry: it seemed as if they had inflicted a wound upon her.
It was some moments before the woman spoke. When she did, it was with a sort of unnatural quickness, accompanied with hurried glances down the room.
“Where’s the doctor? It might have been expected. Fainting fits all night—overlaid and smothered it. Half on your face when I came in—arms grasped around it like a vice. No wonder it’s cold.”
“Cold. Is that all—only cold?” cried the mother, trembling all over,—“only cold?”
“Cold as a stone, and dead as a door-nail, that’s what it is?” answered the nurse, sharply, for that moment the physician of the ward came in sight, and the nurse judged well of the effect her brutal speech would have on the young creature.
With a cry, that in her feebleness scarcely arose above a wail, she fell back perfectly senseless again.
“What is the trouble here?” inquired the doctor, coming forward. “Oh, I expected this!” he added, glancing at the dead; “scarcely a breath of life in her from the first. The baby too, I suppose.”
“No!” answered the nurse, quickly; “thatpoor creature has lost her baby. Hers is just alive yet; I wish they wouldn’t send such delicate creatures here. It’s enough to destroy one’s character to have them die off so.”
“But she is not dead,” replied the doctor, passing between the two cots, and taking the little hand that had fallen away from the child; “almost as bad though; a hard chill—we shall have fever next! Take the child away. No wonder she feels cold! How long has it been dead?”
“It was cold when I came in.”
“Well, well, have it removed. She will never come to with that freezing her to the heart.”
“And the other baby?” questioned the nurse, anxiously.
“Give it to one of these women to nurse, till something can be done; and order two coffins. They mustn’t lie here, or we shall have a panic among the patients.”
The nurse made an effort to take the child once more from its mother’s arms; but, for the first time, she seemed nervous and reluctant to touch the dead. The doctor startled her, saying impatiently,—
“There, be quick, or the woman will die! That will do—now let me see if anything can put life into her? Poor thing, poor thing! It’s a pity the baby is dead—but then what chance has an orphan in this world?—better dead, if she could only be brought to think so!”
While he was talking, the nurse bent suddenly to the floor and snatched up a small, silken bag, which, suspended by a braid chain, had been torn from the invalid’s neck when the babe was first removed from her arms. The doctor turned his eyes that way.
“I am always dropping this pin-cushion from my side!” she said, hurriedly, gathering up the chain in her hand; “there is no keeping any thing in its place.”
“Don’t stop for such nonsense,” cried the physician, impatiently, “or the woman will die under our hands.”
The nurse thrust the silken chain and its appendage into her bosom, and began in earnest to render assistance.