Life Unveiled, by a Child of the Drumlins — Chapter 11 Part IV - Through the Gate of Dreams
This was near a month before the baby came--an anxious month for me, what must it have been for Hetty!
The baby died in two weeks.
I felt relieved; it simplified things; but Hetty’s grief was real and deep: “Oh, Doctor, my baby is dead!
” she wrote.
She was not a “Hetty Sorrel,” after all, as I had sometimes thought her, but a sorrowing mother, her shame and fear of detection--everything--forgotten in her anguish over the death of her illegitimate baby!
The night she came home, meeting her train, I went with her to her door.
I longed to go in and help her face her family; but that could not be.
She had brought back to me all the letters I had written her, with a lock of her baby’s hair--a tiny silken curl which the doctor had cut from the dead baby’s head.
The pathos of it!
the little curl was folded in a powder paper, and put in a tiny box marked “mourning-pins.
” “I don’t dare to take it home with me, but you will keep it for me,” she said.
We had been preparing her family for her altered appearance: she was supposed to be worn out from caring for the invalid, and, the last two weeks, to have had a severe attack of dysentery.
By her manner of dress she was to arrange that her figure should appear much as when she went away; but, oh, her face!
--they must have been blind, indeed, if they could not see that it was not, and never would be again, the round girlish face they had known.
It was the face of a saddened woman.
Her grief for her baby was pitiful, and she was denied even the comfort of that little lock of hair!
Months later she told me her people never learned the truth, but I sometimes felt that they must have surmised more than they let her know; and yet, perhaps not.
By a ruse I got from her subsequently the name of her child’s father, making her think I knew it when only suspecting it--a strange thing this--the woman’s loyalty in shielding the man!
My little “Hetty Sorrel” began to show the more heroic traits of “Hester Prynne.
” I kept in touch with her for several years.
When Dr. Wyeth learned of all this, she was frightened at the risks I had taken, and begged me never to undertake a case like that again, unless some other member of the family be taken into confidence.
But the poor girl had said that it would kill her mother; that her father would kill her lover; and that, if they knew the truth, she might as well kill herself; so I had yielded to her entreaties for secrecy.
Had she died in confinement, I knew my letters to her, and hers to me, would vindicate me, proving that there had been no crime--merely the attempt to help her to keep her secret.
Only a short time after this another girl came to me in the same trouble.
Here the circumstances were different: She had no relatives in this country; she was English, twenty-three years old; her lover was Irish, and a Roman Catholic.
She frankly told me his name and where he worked, and said he drank some, but she was willing to marry him if he would have her, but she doubted if he would marry her.
I told her to send him to me.
When he paid no attention to this request, I wrote, asking him to call.
This also he ignored; then I called at his boarding-place and left a note saying I should be under the necessity of calling upon him at his place of business, unless he came at once to see me.
This brought him to the office.
He was a factory hand.
He had a dogged air.
While sounding him, to see if he would marry the girl, I had spoken of seeing the priest, which evidently impressed him, for he said, “You can make me marry her, but I won’t live with her.
” Then I took another tack: Of course I could make him marry her, but I wouldn’t do that if he was not man enough to marry her willingly--such marriages could only bring misery; and anyhow, I understood he was a drinking man, and Molly was too good a girl to be tied to a man with such habits.
He sneered when I spoke of her as being a good girl; that roused my wrath.
I told him he was a coward to get a girl in trouble and refuse to stand by her, then sneer at her in the bargain; that the least he could do was to help her financially, so she could go away and have her child where her acquaintances would be none the wiser, and she could take up her old life again, untrammelled by the stain and disgrace.
I made him see that she had got to face all the pain and danger and disgrace, and that he certainly ought to make it easier for her by paying her board in a Home, and the expenses of her confinement.
He rose to the occasion, and went out of the office with more self-respect, and commanding more respect from me, than when he had come in; and in a few days, when he sent me money for several months’ board, I arranged for Molly’s admittance to the Providence Home.
It was a much easier affair to manage than the other.
But as Molly’s money began to give out, Mike’s manliness oozed out, too.
As he ignored her appeals, I wrote for him to call on me again.
The days went by and he made no sign.
Meantime, a letter from the doctor told me that Molly’s son was born, was already adopted, and that Molly had a place as a wet nurse for a premature baby which was being raised in an incubator.
Molly’s bills were still unsettled; if Mike was to help any more I must compass it then; she would need all she could earn for future necessities.
Calling at his boarding-place, I found he had just gone back to work.
Hurrying toward the factory, I saw him ahead of me, sauntering along, all unconscious of who or what was overtaking him.
Coming up behind him, I spoke his name.
Turning, surprised and sheepish, he faltered, “I was going to come to the office to-night.
” Looking in his eyes I announced, “Mr. Dagon, your son was born day before yesterday.
” Conflicting emotions showed in his wretched face--astonishment, pride, joy, were quickly followed by shame and humiliation, as he realized he had no right to be proud of being a father.
The words “your son” had roused the man and the father in him, but the painful feelings had quickly supervened.
My anger melted as I saw his pitiable state; but, knowing him for a shifty fellow, I realized I must get him to commit himself in regard to the money.
He promised to bring it that evening;
then asked in a shamefaced way more about Molly and the boy.
I told him of the baby being adopted by a childless couple almost before it was born.
The practice in that institution was to encourage the prospective mothers to keep their babies, face conditions, and live so correctly afterward that people would overlook the wrong-doing; but the girls were offered the alternative of giving up the child; the decision, however, had to be made before the child was born.
Molly had decided to give up her baby.
When it came, she wanted it back; but it was too late--it had been pledged to these people, who had immediately taken it away.
They had taken Molly’s name, left her a name and address that would always reach them, and had agreed to let her hear from the child once a year, on his birthday; but she was not to see him, and he was never to learn that she was his mother.
As I explained all this to Mike, he listened in silence till I said she was to be a wet nurse for a feeble baby; then he fired up, looking black and angry.
“I should think she’d be ashamed,” he said, “to nurse a strange baby, and let her own be brought up on a bottle.
” “Whose fault is it that she has to do this?
” I retorted.
“She wanted to keep her child; she would have borne the disgrace; would have come back openly with it in her arms, had you stood ready to support her and it; but you would have none of it; you wouldn’t even send her enough money to pay for her board and medical care.
She couldn’t face the world, weak and sick, in disgrace, in debt, and out of work, with a helpless baby; she had to decide as she did that her child might have a good home, and she be free to support herself.
And now, after it is too late, after you have neglected her, you dare to blame her for what she has done!
Don’t you suppose she has suffered, and will suffer, more than you can ever know?
Hasn’t she everything to bear, and alone; while you, who have gone scot-free, have the face to blame her for what you have forced her to do!
” He was man enough to be ashamed, and lamely said so, and then, of course, I pitied him.
He came in the evening with the money, asked for more particulars, and showed the best there was in him.
In time Molly returned to her old work in U----.
She had developed remarkably.
Association with persons of refinement had helped her; she wanted to better herself; was full of plans for going to night-school, and for seeking worthier associates.
She was hungry for news of her baby, and its adopted mother was soon better than her word, writing to her, and continuing to write every few months--letters full of his baby ways, which Molly would bring to me with all a mother’s pride in her boy, but with a cruel hunger that most mothers never know.
In a year’s time Molly came to me saying that a young carpenter wanted to marry her, a good steady fellow that she liked, but that she would not marry him and not tell him about the baby; and if she told him, she feared he would cease to care for her.
We agreed that there was but the one right thing to do, and though feeling sure he would turn against her, she heroically promised to do it.
A few days later she came to me with a radiant face: she had told him her story; he had “been good” to her; had even said they would take the baby to rear if she could get it; but, alas!
she was pledged not to seek to do this.
They soon married and had babies of their own.
The queer thing about the little “John Alden,” as Molly’s baby was called, is this: he had the same effect that adopted waifs have often had in childless homes--within a year or two the foster-parents had a child of their own, which naturally called out the mother’s strongest love; still she wrote Molly that the little John was as dear as ever.
But after a second child came, and then reverses, Molly and I detected a change in the letters.
I fancied the foster-parents would not be sorry to relinquish the care of the little fellow; but whether or not the question was ever really broached I cannot remember, if indeed I ever knew.
These were only two of several similar cases which fell into my hands during my years in U----.
Dr. Wyeth told me I had had more of them than she had had in all her years of practice.
Nothing that has come into my professional life has yielded me such unalloyed satisfaction as the help I was able to give these girls.
Sometimes I have had to go to parents and break the news, in one case, actually had to plead with the girl’s mother for mercy and kind treatment of the misguided girl.
Much of my work as a physician has been inefficient and faulty--this I know better than any one else--but this work is the best I have ever done;
and it is work that I was perhaps better prepared to do in the right spirit because of that regrettable personal experience during my first few months of practice.
After a year’s time I was cosily established in an office of my own across the hall from Dr. Wyeth.
What a good time I had getting my furniture!
Not a cent was spent without careful planning.
My rooms were modestly but attractively furnished, and I was happy in the change.
I
had a small waiting room, a large private office, and a little room where I kept my gas-stove and household appliances--an improvised kitchenette.
I could choose my own office hours now, so had better ones, and my practice steadily increased.
Then I reduced expenses further by getting my own meals and caring for my rooms.
What cosy suppers we had when Father came in town, or when friends came to see me!
But I lived frugally, and accounted for every quart of milk, or pound of beef, or box of cocoa, every postage stamp, and carfare; I think, on the whole, there was little that I bought which I could have done without.
If I purchased a book, or spent more than was absolutely necessary in some such way, I skimped in table supplies to even up matters.
Eating alone, as I did most of the time, very little sufficed me; but once in a while I would get downright hungry, then would buy a beefsteak, and was sometimes so ravenous I could hardly wait to get it cooked.
It was worth the abstinence to have the appetite I occasionally had.
Dr. Wyeth’s kindness and helpfulness did not abate when I moved to my new office; she always left her keys with me, so I had the use of her books, and telephone, and her operating-chair for a bed for my occasional guests--a similar chair of my own now serving as bed for me.
One day, while sitting in my new office, a queer-looking old farmer came in.
He blinked and stared around as I stepped out, and asked, “Where’s the Doctor?
” “I’m the doctor.
” “Oh--a woman doctor!
” He continued to stare; then, as he recovered himself, said musingly, “I never saw one before.
” “Well, what do you think of It?
” I felt like asking, but probably inquired in my politest professional manner what I could do for him.
He told me about his wife.
I made an appointment for an examination, and shortly after she came.
The little woman, between fifty and sixty, was suffering from a long-standing cancer.
I hated to tell her the truth; she caught eagerly at the slightest hope.
There was but little to expect at that advanced stage from an operation, and I told her so, but she wanted the benefit of that little; so Dr. Wyeth and I operated, and for a time she was more comfortable; but later her symptoms became distressing; yet how she clung to life, even to the last!
One day, toward the end, her husband came for me to go out to their home and see her--one of the queerest drives I ever took.
The man appeared elated, though from his report of her symptoms her death seemed imminent.
I had told him that there was probably little that I could do if I went to see her, and he had seemed divided between pleasure at my going and miserliness at having to pay for the visit.
While I was getting instruments and dressings ready, he looked about the office in undisguised interest and curiosity, commenting naïvely on what must have been the cost of various things; asking if I had a big practice; what I did when I had to go out at night; if I didn’t sometimes wish I had a man to help me; and if I wasn’t lonesome in the evening.
When we stepped into his buggy, he started up his fine horses with a flourish, proud to show them off.
I must have spoken approvingly of them, for he said, “_You_ like to ride fast, don’t you?
So do I. _She_ don’t; she says it hurts her.
” Passing some children along the country road, when I waved a greeting to them, he observed, “_You_ like children?
So do I. _She_ don’t--never could bear to have them around.
” I found the poor woman near the end, and told him it could be a question of only a few days at the most.
His comments on the way had prepared me for his callousness at this news, but not for what followed.
Instead of driving me right back, as I wished, he insisted on showing me all about the house and barns, and even out to the hill-meadow, where he had a fine view of the city.
He acted like a boy.
As we stood on the hill-top, he expatiated on the extent and value of his farm; on his stock and barns; on the improvements he meant to make;
all of which was tiresome to me; but he finally arrested my attention by the remark.
“See what a fine place this would be for a doctor to live; she could come out here after office hours, and could drive into the city in no time with horses like mine.
” More of such talk followed--I hardly knew whether to be angry or amused--the conceited, unfeeling old wretch was apparently making a tentative proposal to me there in his home, his wife within a few days of her death!
(I learned some weeks afterward that he had for some time previous been in the habit of stopping at a neighbour’s and talking excitedly about the “little Doctor”; wondering what her practice amounted to, and whether she would want to give it up, if she married, or keep on with it.
) “What’s the damage?
” he asked, as we were driving home; and when I named the charge for the visit, he sighed as, slowly drawing out his wallet, he said regretfully: “That’s just what I got for the last calf I sold.
” I don’t recall much about him after that, except that he dropped into the office a few times for prescriptions for himself, and once brought me some fruit and some Christmas greens; but if he pushed his hints further, I have forgotten about it.
It was during my years in U---- that Sister’s marriage took place; that Grandma died; and that Kate’s first baby was born--events of great moment to me.
I recall the feeling of sadness and irrevocability that night as the train bore Sister away on her honeymoon.
It was harder, though, to see her leave, a year later, after a summer spent at home, for she was then about to become a mother, and was going so far away;
but, well and happy, she was full of plans for getting settled in her new home, and her chief regret was Grandma’s approaching death with the certainty that she could never see her baby.
When Grandma died we were all anxious to know just the nature of the heart trouble from which she had suffered so long.
Our family physician had refused to do the autopsy; and, incredible as it seems to me now (so important did it seem then), I said, “I will do it since Dr. Hall will not.
” I asked Dr. Campbell to be present; his right hand was disabled, or he would have spared me the ordeal.
There, in that little bedroom, the Doctor and my father looking on, on my twenty-third birthday, I made the examination which revealed to us the cause of those agonizing attacks from which Grandma so long had suffered; but it was little more than a careful study of the case ought to have shown during life.
In these later years I have thought with horror of the girl that stood there that afternoon and cut through the breast that had nourished her mother; through the dear breast that had pillowed so often her own childish head; down, down, into the poor, out-worn heart.
It was a horrible thing to do.
Now, try as I will, I can hardly see how the thing could have presented itself to me so as to make it seem imperative to take that unnatural step.
Father, who was as tenderly attached to Grandma as an own son could be, had to leave the room before the work was done.
A merciful something kept me from feeling about it then as I do now.
Yet I knew then, and know now, that, hard as it was, it was easier to do the work myself--for it was done reverently, and from a rigid sense of duty--than it would have been to stand by and see even the most considerate of physicians lay the investigating hands of science upon the body of my grandmother.
