Mad: A Story of Dust and Ashes

Isaac was smoking away as usual, and giving the finishing touch to a boot-sole by means of a piece of broken glass, whose keen edge took off minute shavings of the leather. Mrs Slagg was busily carrying on trading transactions with a dirty man, and giving the best price for a barrowful of old newspapers; but both Isaac and Mrs Slagg seemed out of spirits, and when a customer presented himself in the shape of Septimus Hardon, the translator put down his work slowly, sighed, laid his pipe upon a shelf, and seemed to carry out his bargain with more than his usual heaviness. As a rule, Isaac was a man given to smiling – smiling very slowly, and bringing his visage back to its normal state, a solid aspect; but there was no smile visible now; and when his visitor for “three-and-nine and the old uns,” became the lucky possessor of a pair – no, not a pair – of two Oxonian shoes, Isaac took the money with another sigh, put it in an old blacking-bottle upon the shelf, which he used as a till, dropped the old boots upon a heap close by, took up his pipe, smoked, sighed, and then scraped away at his boot-sole without taking a single peep at his neighbour.

For Isaac Gross was sore at heart concerning the state of his old friend Matt, as sore at heart as was his customer; and when, slightly limping and pinched, Septimus creaked away in his new shoes, Mrs Slagg having finished her paper purchases, and retaken her seat inside her door, – a seat she seldom quitted, making her customers perform the weighing and lifting when practicable, – she peeped round the door-jamb twice in vain; and though trade was prosperous as her love, in spite of its being enshrined so softly in fat, Mrs Keziah Slagg’s heart was also sore, and she too sighed.

The feeling that everyone was watching him was stronger than ever upon Septimus Hardon that morning as he made his way along the big streets and alleys on his way towards one of the hospitals, and after letting the matter sleep as it were for some time, he had now awakened to the fact that he should like to prosecute his claim; though he told himself frequently that he was too weak and wanting in decision to go on without help – the help he could not now obtain. He knew that Mr Sterne would willingly assist him, but his was not the required help; and he shrank from making him his confidant, while he eagerly sought the aid of the old printer now it was not forthcoming.

There are some strange contradictions in the human heart; and at the present time, had old Matt presented himself to go on with the search in the unbusiness-like way already followed, the chances are that Septimus Hardon would have shrunk from it, or allowed himself unwillingly to be dragged into farther proceedings.

But old Matt was not present; and now, with the idea troubling him that much time had been wasted, and the matter must be at once seen to, Septimus Hardon made his way towards the hospital; not that he was ill in body, though troubled greatly in mind concerning the man who had been his friend in the hardest struggle of his life. For there were strong passions in the vacillating soul of Septimus Hardon, and he had been greatly moved when, after another long absence, during which he had anxiously waited for the old man, a letter had been delivered, telling how that Matthew Space lay seriously ill in a hospital-ward.

For the first few days after their parting, Matt’s last words had strangely haunted Septimus, and he could not rest for thinking of them; but they grew fainter with the lapse of time; Matt came not to spur him once more to his task, and he sank lower and lower, while Doctor Hardon of Somesham, portly and smiling, grew great in the estimation of the people of the little town.

Septimus had tried more than once in his unbusiness-like, haphazard way to find out the residence of old Matt, at such times as the thoughts of his last words were strong upon him. “He said he was ill, and then talked of medicine and attendance. He was wandering,” said Septimus. “I remember I had great difficulty in getting him along. Perhaps he is dead. Well, well; so with all of us. Let it rest, for I’ll take no farther steps.”

A rash promise to make, as he felt himself when one day came the few lines written in a strange hand, asking his attendance at the hospital. Only a few lines in a crabbed hand, without a reference to the search; but now the desire had risen strong in him once more, though he called himself selfish to think of his own affairs at such a time.

Septimus was not long in responding to the note, but he found the old man delirious. The second time, Lucy begged to go and see her old friend, and wept bitterly over his shrivelled hand; but the old man was incoherent, and knew them not.

And now for the third visit Septimus made his way to the hospital, where he found the old man apparently sinking from the effects of some operation. The doctor had just left, when one of the nurses, a great, gaunt, bony woman, with a catlike smile, and a fine high colour in her cheeks, ushered the visitor to the bedside – a bed, one of many in the light, clean, airy ward.

Septimus Hardon was shocked at the change which had taken place in the old man, as he lay with his hands spread out upon the white coverlet of the bed, pale and glassy-eyed, and rather disposed to wander in his speech; but his face seemed to light up when he heard his visitor’s voice.

“No; no better,” he whispered. “Let’s see, I told you, didn’t I? Mrs Hardon, medicine and attendance, wasn’t it? To be sure it was. Yes, medicine and shocking bad attendance here. That’s it; and I can’t tell you any more. I’m falling out of the forme, sir, unless some of these doctors precious soon tighten up the quoins.”

“No, no,” said Septimus cheerily, “not so bad as that; a good heart is half the battle.”

“Yes, yes, yes, so it is,” whispered the old man feebly; “but, I say, is she gone?”

Septimus told him the nurse had left the room, and the old man continued:

“You can’t keep a good heart here, sir, nohow. I wouldn’t have come if I’d known all I know now. You saw her, didn’t you?”

“The nurse?” said Septimus.

“Yes, her,” replied the old man, shuddering; “she’s a wretch, with no more feeling in her than a post. She’ll do what the porters shrink from, sir. They have to carry the – you know what I mean, sir – down to the deadhouse; and I’ve known her laugh at the young one, and do it herself in a way that makes your blood run cold. Just wink, sir, if you see her coming. She’ll be here directly with my wine or jelly: says I’m to have some on the little board, don’t it?”

Septimus looked at the board above his head, and found that wine was ordered.

“Yes,” said the old man, “the doctors are trumps, sir, everyone of them; and no poor fellow out of the place could get the care and attention I’ve done here. My doctor couldn’t do more if I paid him ten pound a day; and I always feel wonderful after he’s gone; seems to understand my chronics, sir, as you wouldn’t believe in. But those nurses, sir – don’t tell ’em I said so, but they’re devils, sir, devils. Medicine and attendance, sir; it’s all the first and none of the last.”

“Hush,” said his visitor, seeing as he thought that the old man was beginning to wander, “Mrs Hardon would have liked to see you, and Lucy; but she could not leave her mother to-day.”

“God bless her!” said the old man fervently. “He asleep in the bed there told me she came the other day, looking like an angel of comfort in this dreary place, sir. God bless her! Tell her, sir, that the old man’s true as steel, sir; the old blade’s notched and rusty, but he’s true as steel, sir. Do you hear? tell her that old Matt’s true as steel. But these nurses, sir,” he whispered, holding by his visitor’s coat, and drawing him nearer, “they’re devils, sir, regular devils!”

“Not quite so bad as that,” said Septimus, smiling.

“Not so bad, sir? Worse, sir, worse; ever so much worse. They’d do anything. There’s no Sisters of Mercy here, sir, like they’re talking of having at some places; they’re sisters of something else – she-demons, sir, and one daren’t complain or say a word. They’d kill a poor fellow as soon as look at him, and do, too, – dozens.”

“Nonsense,” said Septimus, smiling, “don’t be too hard, Matt.”

“’Tain’t nonsense, sir,” whispered the old man eagerly. “I ain’t wandering now, though I have been sending up some queer proofs – been touched in the head, you know, and thought I was going; but it didn’t seem to matter much if I could only have been easy in my mind, for I wanted to be out of my misery. But I couldn’t be comfortable on account of the medicine and attendance, and your uncle. What business has he to get himself made head doctor here, sir, just because I came; and then to set the nurses against me to get me out of the way? He knows I’m against him, and mean you to have your rights, and he’s trying with medicine and attendance to – no, stop, that’s not it,” whispered the old man, “I’ve got wrong sorts in my case, and that’s not what I wanted to say.” And then for a few moments it was pitiable to witness the struggle going on against the wandering thoughts that oppressed him; but he seemed to get the better of his weakness, and went on again.

“There, that’s better, sir; your coming has seemed to do me good, and brightened me up. I get like that sometimes, and it seems that I’ve no power over my tongue, and it says just what it likes. Tell Miss Lucy I’m getting better, and that I want to get out of this place. I know what I’m saying now, sir, though I can’t make it quite right about that medicine and attendance that we wanted to know about; for it bothers me, and makes my head hot, and gets mixed up with the medicine and attendance here. But I shall have it right one of these days; I did nearly, once, but it got away again.”

In his anxiety now to know more, Septimus drew out paper and pencil.

“Don’t think about it now,” he said; “but keep these under your pillow, and put it down the next time you think anything.”

Old Matt smiled feebly, and drew forth his old memorandum-book, and slowly opening it, showed the worn stumpy piece of pencil inside.

“I’d thought of that, sir, and should have done so before, only I was afraid that I might put down the wrong thing – something about the nurses, you know, when they would have read it, and then, perhaps, I shouldn’t have had a chance to say any more. And ’tisn’t really, sir, it isn’t nonsense about them. You think I’m wandering, and don’t believe it; and it’s just the same with the doctors – they don’t believe it neither. There was one poor chap on the other side of the ward, down at the bottom there – he told the doctor his nurse neglected him, and drank his wine, putting in water instead, beside not giving him his medicine regular; so the old doctor called for the nurse, and – ”

“But you must not talk any more,” said Septimus kindly, “you are getting exhausted.”

“I ain’t,” said the old man angrily; “it does me good, revives me; and you don’t believe me, that’s what it is.”

“Yes, I do, indeed,” cried Septimus. “Then let me finish,” whispered the old man. “Doctor Hardon called and asked her where she saw the entry. There, now, there,” whimpered Matt, “see what you’ve done: you made me upset a stickful of matter, and got me all in a pye again. No; all right, sir, I see, I see – he asked her about it before the patient, speaking very sharply, for the doctors mean well, sir. And then what did the old crocodile do, sir, but just turn her eyes towards the whitewash, smooth her apron, raise her hands a bit, and then, half smiling, looks at the doctor like so much pickled innocence, but never says a word; while he, just to comfort the poor fellow, told him to keep up, and it should all be seen to; and then there was a bit of whispering between the doctor and the nurse, and then he went off. But I could see who was believed, for I heard the doctor mutter something about sick man’s fancies as he came across to me. That poor chap died, sir!”

Just then, Septimus gave the old man a meaning look, for one of the nurses came up with a glass of wine, and smiled and curtsied to the visitor.

“I hope he ain’t been talking, sir?” said the woman, in a harsh grating voice with the corners a little rubbed down; “getting on charming, ain’t he, sir? only he will talk too much. – Now drink your wine up, there’s a good soul. Don’t sip it, but toss it down, and it will do you twice as much good;” and while the old man, with the assistance of his visitor, raised himself a little, she gave his pillow two or three vengeful punches and shakes as she snatched it off the bed, the result of her efforts being visible in a slit across the middle, which she placed undermost.

“Yes,” muttered Matt when the woman had gone. “Yes; toss it down, so as not to taste it. Why, that was half water – beautiful wines and spirits as they have here, sir. That’s the very one herself, sir. She killed him.”

“Killed who?” exclaimed Septimus, horrified.

“Don’t shout, sir; leastwise, not if you want to see me again,” said Matt grimly. “Killed that poor fellow I was telling you about. She never forgave him, and a week afterwards and there was the screen round his bed, and the porters came and carried him away. She killed him, sure enough, and I ain’t agoing to tell you about the bother there was with his friends about the doctors, and what they did to him afterwards, it might upset you. It almost does me; not that I care much, for it don’t matter when you’re gone, and I’ve got no friends.”

“Hush, pray; it can’t be so,” exclaimed Septimus, shuddering.

“No, of course not,” chuckled the old man, brightening up from the effects of his stimulant, “O, no; sick man’s fancies, sir, ain’t they? Just what everyone would say; but she killed him all the same, just as dozens more have been killed here. It don’t take much to kill a poor fellow hanging in the balance – him in one scale, and his complaint in the other. The doctor comes and gets in the same scale with him, and bears him down a bit right way; but then as soon as the doctor’s gone, the nurse goes and sits in the other scale, and sends him wrong way again. Good nursing’s of more consequence sometimes than the doctoring, I can tell you, sir, and if I’d had good nursing I shouldn’t have been here at all. Ikey means well, you know, sir; and so does Mother Slagg, eh? but you don’t know them, sir, and it don’t matter.”

“But had you not better be silent now?” hinted Septimus.

“No,” said the old man testily; “being so quiet, and having no one to talk to has half-killed me as it is. I don’t want to be killed, I want to get out, sir. And, mind you, I don’t say about that poor fellow that she poisoned him, or choked him, or played at she-Othello with the pillow, sir; but there’s plenty of other ways of doing it. The doctor knows the man’s condition, and his danger, and orders him such and such things to keep him going, and bring him round, eh?”

Septimus nodded, for the old man paused for breath; though the wine he had taken made him talk in a voluble and excited manner, but still with perfect coherence.

“Well, sir; and who’s got to carry out the doctor’s orders? Why, the nurse, to be sure. Just push the pillow a little more under my head, sir; she’s made it uncomfortable. That’s it; thanky, sir. Well, you nor no one else won’t believe that a nurse here would do anything wrong. But now, look here: suppose you see that a lamp wants trimming, what do you do? You give orders for it to be trimmed, sir, don’t you?”

Septimus nodded again.

“Well, then,” whispered the old man, hooking one of his long fingers in a buttonhole of his visitor’s coat; “suppose they don’t trim the lamp; suppose it isn’t trimmed, eh? what then?”

“It goes out!” said Septimus.

“To be sure – exactly, sir; and there have been lots of lamps go out here. They won’t trim them, or forget to trim them, and tell themselves they’re only sparing the poor creatures misery, while no one dares to speak about it. Talk of death, sir, they think no more of it here, sir, than one does of snuffing out a candle. You see, decent women won’t come to a place like this to do the work these nurses do. It’s only to be done for money or love. Now it’s done for money, and while it’s done for money it can only be done by hard, heartless, drinking creatures who’ve got women’s shapes and devils’ hearts, sir. But the doctors are all right, sir, only that they don’t see all we poor patients see. If skill and doctoring will put me right, sir, I shall be put right, sir. But I’m scared about it sometimes, and half afraid that some of those beauties will weight the wrong scale so heavily that the doctors won’t pull me square. Sick man’s fancies, sir, eh? Wanderings, ain’t they?”

Septimus Hardon knew not what to say, but whispered such comfort as he could.

“Something ought to be done, you know,” said the old man feebly; “but don’t hint a word of what I’ve said, sir, to a soul – please don’t,” he said pitifully. “You see that all these goings on prey upon a poor fellow’s mind; and if he isn’t low-spirited lying in a hospital-ward, when is he likely to be? One wants sympathy and comfort, sir, and to feel that there’s someone belonging to you who cares for you, and is ready to smooth your pillow, and lay a cold hand upon your hot forehead, and say ‘God bless you!’ and I’ve no one, no one;” and the old man’s voice grew weak and quavering.

“Come, come,” whispered Septimus, “take heart, Matt; we’ll come as often as they will let us. And you are getting better; see how you have chatted. You are only low now from the reaction. Try and rest a bit, and get rid of some of these fancies.”

Old Matt’s eyes turned angrily upon his visitor as he exclaimed, “I tell you they are not fancies, sir, but truth. I wouldn’t have come if I’d known, for I’ve seen men drink, and women drink; but never anyone like these she-wolves. Would you trust anyone you loved to the care of a woman who drank, sir?”

“No!”

“They say they must have support, and I suppose they must; but it’s hard, hard, hard!” groaned the old man, and he shut his eyes, seeking out the hand of his visitor, and holding it tightly, until, by the rules of the place, he was obliged to leave.