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Red Wallflower

<h2 id="id03933" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XLIII.</h2> <h5 id="id03934"> MARTIN'S COURT.</h5> 'What is for to-day, Pitt?' There had been a succession of rather gay days, visiting of galleries and palaces. Mrs. Dallas put the question at breakfast. 'I am going to show Miss Frere something, if she will allow me.' 'She will allow you, of course. You have done it pretty often lately. Where is it now?' 'Nowhere for you, mamma. My show to-day is for Miss Frere alone.' 'Alone? Why may I not go?' 'You would not enjoy it.' 'Then perhaps she will not enjoy it.' 'Perhaps not.' 'But, Pitt, what do you mean? and what is this you want to show her which she does not want to see?' 'She can tell you all about it afterwards, if she chooses.' 'Perhaps she will not choose to go with you on such a doubtful invitation.' Betty, however, declared herself ready for anything. So she was, under such guidance. They took a cab for a certain distance; then Pitt dismissed it, and they went forward on foot. It was a dull, hot day; clouds hanging low and threatening rain, but no rain falling as yet. Rain, if decided, to a good degree keeps down exhalations in the streets of a city, and so far is a help to the wayfarer who is at all particular about the air he breathes. No such beneficent influence was abroad to-day; and Betty's impressions were not altogether agreeable. 'What part of the city is this?' she asked. 'Not a bad part at all. In fact, we are near a very fashionable quarter. This particular street is a business thoroughfare, as you see.' Betty was silent, and they went on a while; then turned sharp out of this thoroughfare into a narrow alley. It was hot and close and dank enough here to make Miss Frere shrink, though she would not betray it. But dead cats and decaying cabbage leaves, in a not very clean alley, where the sun rarely shines, and briefly then, with the thermometer well up, on a summer day, altogether make an atmosphere not suited to delicate senses. Pitt picked the way along the narrow passage, which at the end opened into a little court. This was somewhat cleaner than the alley; also it lay so that the sun sometimes visited it, though here too his visits could be but brief, for on the opposite side the court was shut in and overshadowed by the tall backs of great houses. They seemed, to Betty's fancy, to cast as much moral as physical shadow over the place. The houses in this court were small and dingy. If one looked straight up, there was a space of grey cloud visible; some days it would no doubt be a space of blue sky. No other thing even dimly suggesting refreshment or purity was within the range of vision. Pitt slowly paced along the row of houses. 'Who lives here?' Betty asked, partly to relieve the oppression that was creeping upon her. 'No householders, that I know of. People who live in one room, or perhaps in two rooms; therefore in every house there are a number of families. This is Martin's court. And here,'—he stopped before one of the doors,—'in this house, in a room on the third floor—let me suppose a case'— 'Third floor? why, there are only two stories.' 'In the garret, then,—there lives an old woman, over seventy years old, all alone. She has been ill for a long time, and suffers a great deal of pain.' 'Who takes care of her?' Betty asked, wondering at the same time why Pitt told her all this. 'She has no means to pay anybody to take care of her.' 'But how does she live?—if she cannot do anything for herself.' 'She can do nothing at all for herself. She has been dependent on the kindness of her neighbours. They are poor, too, and have their hands full; still, from time to time one and another would look in upon her, light a fire for her, and give her something to eat; that is, when they did not forget it.' 'And what if they did forget it?' 'Then she must wait till somebody remembered; wait perhaps days, to get her bed made; lie alone in her pain all day, except for those rare visits; and even have to hire a boy with a penny to bring her a pitcher of water; lie alone all night and wait in the morning till somebody could give her her breakfast.' 'Why do you tell me all this, Mr. Pitt?' said Betty, facing round on him. 'Ask me that by and by. Come a little farther. Here, in this next house but one, there is a man sick with rheumatism—in a fever; when I first saw him he was lying there shivering and in great pain, with no fire; and his daughter, a girl of perhaps a dozen years old, was trying to light a fire with a few splinters of sticks that she had picked up. That was last winter, in cold weather. They were poverty-stricken, since the man had been some time out of work.' 'Well?' said Betty. 'I must not repeat my question, but what is all this to me? I have no power to help them. Do you know these people yourself?' 'Yes, I know them. In the last house of the row there is another old woman I want to tell you of; and then we will go. She is not ill, nor disabled; she is only very old and quite alone. She is not unhappy either, for she is a true old Christian. But think of this: in the room which she occupies, which is half underground, there is just one hour in the day when a sunbeam can find entrance. For that hour she watches; and when the sky is not clouded, and it comes, she takes her Bible and holds it in the sunshine to read for that blessed hour. It is all she has in the twenty-four. The rest of the time she must only think of what she has read; the place is too dark for any more.' 'Do let us go!' said Betty; and she turned, and almost fled back to the alley, and through the alley back to the street. There they walked more moderately a space of some rods before she found breath and words. She faced round on her conductor again. 'Why do you take me to such a place, and tell me such things?' 'Will you let that question still rest a little while?' Almost as he spoke Pitt called another cab, and Betty and he were presently speeding on again, whither she knew not. It was a good time to talk, and she repeated her question. 'Instead of answering you, I would like to put a question on my side,' he returned. 'What do you think is duty, on the part of a servant of Christ, towards such cases?' 'Pray tell me, is there not some system of poor relief in this place?' 'Yes, there is the parish help. And sorrowful help it is! The parishes are often very large, the sufferers very many, the cases of fraud and trickery almost—perhaps quite—as numerous as those at least which come to the notice of the parish authorities. The parish authorities are but average men; is it wonderful if they are hard administrators? I can tell you, justice is bitterly hard, as she walks the streets here; and mercy's hand has grown rough with friction!' Betty looked at the speaker, whose brow was knit and his eye darkened and flashing; she half laughed. 'You are eloquent,' she said. 'You ought to be representing the case on the floor of the House of Commons.' 'Well,' he said, coming down to an easier tone, 'the parish authorities are but men, as I said, and they grow suspicious, naturally; and in any case the relief they give is utterly insufficient. A shilling a week, or two shillings a week,—what would they do for the people I have been telling you of? And it is hard dealing with the parish authorities. I know it, for here and there at least I have followed Job's example; "the cause I knew not, I searched out." One must do that, or one runs the risk of being taken in, and throwing money away upon rogues which ought to go to help honest people.' 'But that takes time?' 'Yes.' 'A great deal of time, if it is to be done often.' 'Yes.' 'Mr. Pitt, if you follow out that sort of business, it would leave you time for nothing else.' 'What better can I do with my time?' 'Just suppose everybody did the like!' 'Suppose they did.' 'What would be the state of things?' 'I should say, the world would be in a better state of health; and that elephant we once spoke of would not shake his head quite so often.' 'But you are not the elephant, as I pointed out, if I remember; the world does not rest on your head.' 'Part of it does. Go on and answer my question. What ought I to do for these people of whom I have told you?' 'But you cannot reach everybody. You can reach only a few.' 'Yes. For those few, what ought I to do?' 'I daresay you know of other cases, that you have not said anything about, equally miserable?' 'More miserable, I assure you,' said Pitt, looking at her. 'What then? Answer my question, like a good woman.' 'I am not a good woman.' 'Answer it like a good woman, anyhow,' said Pitt, smiling. 'What should I do, properly, for such people as those I have brought to your notice? Apply the golden rule—the only one that can give the measure of things. In their place, what would you wish—and have a right to wish—that some one should do for you? what may those who have nothing demand from those who have everything?' 'Why, they could demand all you have got!' 'Not justly. Cannot you set your imagination to work and answer me? I am not talking for nothing. Take my old Christian, near eighty, who sees a sunbeam for one hour in the twenty-four, when the sun shines, and uses it to read her Bible. The rest of the twenty-four hours without even the company of a sunbeam. Imagine—what would you, in her place, wish for?' 'I should wish to die, I think.' 'It would be welcome to Mrs. Gregory, I do not doubt, though perhaps for a different reason. Still, you would not counsel suicide, or manslaughter. While you continued in life, what would you like?' 'Oh,' said Betty, with an emphatic utterance, 'I would like a place where I could breathe!' 'Better lodgings?' 'Fresh air. I would beg for air. Of all the horrors of such places, the worst seems to me the want of air fit to breathe.' 'Then you think she ought to have a better lodging, in a better quarter. She cannot pay for it. I can. Ought I to give it to her?' Betty fidgeted, inwardly. The conditions of the cab did not allow of much external fidgeting. 'I do not know why you ask me this,' she said. 'No; but indulge me! I do not ask you without a purpose.' 'I am afraid of your purpose! Yes; if I must tell you, I should say, Oh, take me out of this! Let me see the sun whenever he can be seen in this rainy London; and let me have sweet air outside of my windows. Then I would like somebody to look after me; to open my window in summer and make my fire in winter, and prepare nice meals for me. I would like good bread, and a cup of drinkable tea, and a little bit of butter on my bread. And clothes enough to keep clean; and then I would like to live to thank you!' Betty had worked herself up to a point where she was very near a great burst of tears. She stopped with a choked sob in her throat, and looked out of the cab window. Pitt's voice was changed when he spoke. 'That is just what I thought.' 'And you have done it!' 'No; I am doing it. I could not at once find what I wanted. Now I have got it, I believe. Go on now, please, and tell me what ought to be done for the man in rheumatic fever.' 'The doctor would know better than I.' 'He cannot pay for a doctor.' 'But he ought to have one!' 'Yes, I thought so.' 'I see what you are coming to,' said Betty; 'but, Mr. Pitt, I can not see that it is your duty to pay physician's bills for everybody that cannot afford it.' 'I am not talking of everybody. I am speaking of this Mr. Hutchins.' 'But there are plenty more, as badly off.' 'As badly,—and worse.' 'You cannot take care of them all.' 'Therefore—? What is your deduction from that fact?' 'Where are you going to stop?' 'Where ought I to stop? Put yourself, in imagination, in that condition I have described; the chill of a rheumatic fever, and a room without fire, in the depth of winter. What would your sense of justice demand from the well and strong and comfortable and able? Honestly.' 'Why,' said Betty, again surveying Pitt from one side, 'with my notions, I should want a doctor, and an attendant, and a comfortable room.' 'I do not doubt his notions would agree with yours,—if his fancy could get so far.' 'But who ought to furnish those things for him is another question.' 'Another, but not more hard to answer. The Bible rule is, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it—"' 'Will you, ought you, to do all that you find to do?' But Pitt went on, in a quiet business tone: 'In that same court I found, some time ago, a man who had been injured by an accident. A heavy piece of iron had fallen on his foot; he worked in a machine shop. For months he was obliged to stay at home under the doctor's care. He used up all his earnings; and strength and health were alike gone. The man of fifty looked like seventy. The doctor said he could hardly grow strong again, without change of air.' 'Mr. Pitt!'—said Betty, and stopped. 'He has a wife and nine children.' 'What did you do?' 'What would you have done?' 'I don't know! I never thought it was my business to supplement all the world's failures.' 'Suppose for a moment it were Christ the Lord himself in either of these situations we have been looking at?' 'I cannot suppose it!' 'How would you feel about ministry then?' Betty was silent, choked with discomfort now. 'Would you think you could do enough? But, Miss Frere, He says it is Himself, in every case of His servants; and what is done to them He counts as done to Himself. And so it is!' Looking again keenly at the speaker, Betty was sure that the eyes, which did not meet hers, were soft with moisture. 'What did you do for that man?' 'I sent him to the seaside for three weeks. He came back perfectly well. But then his employers would not take him on again; they said they wanted younger men; so I had to find new work for him.' 'There was another old woman you told me of in that dreadful court; what did you do for her?' 'Put her in clover,' said Pitt, smiling. 'I moved Hutchins and his family into a better lodging, where they could have a room to spare; and then I paid Mrs. Hutchins to take care of her.' 'You might go on, for aught I see, and spend your whole life, and all you have, in this sort of work.' 'Do you think it would be a disagreeable disposition to make of both?' 'Why, yes!' said Betty. 'Would you give up all your tastes and pursuits,—literary, and artistic, and antiquarian, and I don't know what all,—and be a mere walking Benevolent Society?' 'No need to give them up, any further than as they would interfere with something more important and more enjoyable.' 'More enjoyable!' 'Yes. I think, Miss Betty, the pleasure of doing something for Christ is the greatest pleasure I know.' Betty could have cried with vexation; in which, however, there was a distracting mingling of other feelings,—admiration of Pitt, envy of his evident happiness, regret that she herself was so different; but, above all, dismay that she was so far off. She was silent the rest of the drive. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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