CHAPTER VIII.THE VIAL OF WHITE MEDICINE.
Mary Margaret was strangely wakeful, and as her child sunk off to rest, she left her bed again and stole down the ward to see if her charge slept. Then the nurse arose and came boldly forward. A strange, wheedling smile hungaround her lips, and there was something in her look that made Mary Margaret shudder.
“It’s very kind of you, I’m sure, Mrs. Dillon, to be taking all this trouble for me, that isn’t fit for duty to-night no more than your baby there. I’m very grateful that you will have an eye to this poor thing, for my sick headache just uses me up, and the doctor is very particular about her medicine. If you’d only take charge now while I catch a little nap, it would be a charity to more than one; but do be particular about the medicine.”
Mary Margaret was seized with an unaccountable shudder, but she answered quite naturally, “Sure and I’ll do me best, marm.”
“That’s a good soul; don’t forget the medicine, the directions are all on the bottles, and—and——”
The voice was husky and unnatural, and all around her mouth settled a strange pallor, as if the sickness of which she complained had seized with new force upon her.
“I’ll do my best,” repeated Mary Margaret, and she sat down upon the foot of the poor young creature’s bed like one who had resolved to guard it well.
The nurse went half-way to her chair in the corner, and turned back with her face from the light.
“In fifteen minutes it will be time to give her first dose,” she said, still huskily, and with an effort; “a teaspoonful, don’t forget.”
“I’ll not forget, will I, me purty darlint?” answered Mary Margaret, folding the two pale hands of the invalid between her palms, and gazing upon her with kindly mournfulness.
The nurse stumbled back to her corner as if worn out with her headache, and sat brooding there, sometimes with her eyes closed, sometimes with that basilisk glance peering out from above her folded arms. She reminded you of a rattlesnake watching amid its own coils.
Mary Margaret caught these glances once or twice without appearing to regard them, but they kept her intellect upon the alert, and without knowing exactly what she was to guard against, the good woman felt that harm was around her, and that the evil thing must find her watching. A slight change in her position threw the light directly across the chair upon which the cups and vials used about the sick had been placed, and where she had left her basin of weak tea.
Without having consciously made the discovery, Mary Margaret became aware that the only vial which stood upon the chair had been moved, and that its contents, a pale wine color, had become white as water. Still the vial was the same, and as she bent over softly to read the label, that was also unchanged, a “teaspoonful every hour.” This was what she read and had seen before while searching for drink among the empty cups.
Why was this? For what object had the contents of that vial been changed? Whocouldhave done it but the nurse, and whyhadshe done it? Then Mary Margaret began to ponder over the change in nurse Kelly’s manner—the sudden favor into which she had fallen, and an unaccountable antipathy to give the medicine in that bottle seized upon her.
“Isn’t it time to give the medicine?” asked a low voice from the corner. “It should be given on the stroke of the hour.”
“Yes!” answered Mary Margaret, with a start, “it’s time.”
She turned her back toward the nurse and received the light over her shoulder. A pewter spoon lay upon the chair. She held up the vial, and, pouring a few drops into the spoon, drank it herself with a rash determination to know, if possible, what the drug was before she administered it. It left a strong taste of opium in her mouth; and, quick as thought, she remembered that morphine was colorless, thata few drops would kill, and she had been directed to give that frail creature a teaspoonful.
Mary Margaret shuddered from head to foot. The blood seemed curdling in her veins; her plump fingers grew cold as she clasped the vial. How much had she drank? Would those few drops be her death? No, no, they could not be enough. She felt sure that God would not let her perish there in the midst of her duty.
“Have you given her the medicine?” asked the hoarse voice again from the clouded corner.
“Not—not yet. I—I am pouring it out,” was the reply, and setting down the vial, she hastily poured out some tea into another spoon and gave it to the patient, who smiled gratefully as the moisture crept through her lips.
“Has she drank it?” asked the nurse, starting up as Mary Margaret settled the invalid back upon her pillow.
“You see!” answered Mary, pointing to the moist lips of the girl.
The nurse pushed her away between the cots, saw the vial with its cork out and moisture about the neck, and her white lips broke into a half smile, so cold, so deadly, that Mary Margaret shrunk back as if a snake were creeping across her feet.
Still the woman did not seem quite satisfied, but took up the spoon, out of which Mary Margaret had drank, and touched her tongue to the bowl.
“Oh!” she said, rather in a deep breath than with words, “oh! now watch, and I will go to bed a while. If she sleeps, let her!—if she wakes up, call me.”
“And if she is worse, where can I find the doctor?” asked Mary, gazing wistfully at her enemy through the lamp-light, and shuddering at the strange sensations that she fancied to be creeping over her. “The doctor, where is he?”
“Callmeif you want any one. Bellevue doctors don’t come to the beck and call of their pauper patients.”
“But I must have a doctor!” persisted Mary.
“Must!” echoed the woman, turning deadly white.
“Oh!” and with a slow, cat-like movement she crept back to the bed, lingered over the pillow an instant and disappeared, carrying the vial of medicine with her.
Poor Mary Margaret scarcely saw it. Her eyes were growing so heavy, and an oppressive languor weighed down her limbs. She forgot every thing, even the fair young mother, who opened her eyes and asked so meekly for drink again. All that the poor woman hoped for now was power to get back to her own pauper cot and die close to her baby. She thought nothing of the strange nursling then, for all the feeling left unnumbed in her heart turned to her own offspring.
Half unconsciously she gave the invalid some drink, and then moved with slow, leaden steps across the floor. It seemed as if she had been walking miles when she reached the bed, and turned back the blankets with her heavy hand. The two infants were huddled together below the pillows. One was her own child: with that she wished to lie down and sleep; but the other, it must not perish with her, some one must care for it, but who?
Heavier and heavier grew her brain; still, kind thoughts lingered there last. She took up the strange baby, staggered with it down the ward, and laid it softly into the fair bosom of the young girl but late so feverish and delirious.
“It must not starve, and it must not die,” said Mary Margaret, in her thick, fettered speech. “Take care of it. I—I must take no baby but my own.”
And with a still slower and more dragging step, Margaret went back to her cot, fell down, and became senseless as stone.
The sick girl grew calm as Mary became more and more like the dead. Her slender arms clasped themselves like vine tendrils around the child. A smile stole over hermouth, and a cool moisture crept, like dew upon the leaves of a lily, over her neck and forehead. With sweet, drowsy fondness, she drew the little creature closer and closer to her bosom—gave out one long sigh of exquisite satisfaction, and murmured some words which sounded, in their sweet indistinctness, like the cooing of a ring-dove.
The fever had abated. That wicked nurse was struggling in vain for the sleep that had fallen so calmly on her intended victim. Thus with bland, healthful life closing around her, the young creature was left to her pure motherhood, dreaming that her own child had crept back close, close to her bosom, from which the pain was melting away in soft warm drops, which broke like pearls between the infant’s lips.