The Queen of Hearts

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"No," says I. "You have got into a low-spirited, despairing way.
I won't trust you with it."

"I am afraid I can't do without it," says Mary, in her usual
quiet, hopeless voice. "What with work that I can't get through
as I ought, and troubles that I can't help thinking of, sleep
won't come to me unless I take a few drops out of that bottle.
Don't keep it away from me, Anne; it's the only thing in the
world that makes me forget myself."

"Forget yourself!" says I. "You have no right to talk in that
way, at your age. There's something horrible in the notion of a
girl of eighteen sleeping with a bottle of laudanum by her
bedside every night. We all of us have our troubles. Haven't I
got mine?"

"You can do twice the work I can, twice as well as me," says
Mary. "You are never scolded and rated at for awkwardness with
your needle, and I always am. You can pay for your room every
week, and I am three weeks in debt for mine."

"A little more practice," says I, "and a little more courage, and
you will soon do better. You have got all your life before you--"

"I wish I was at the end of it," says she, breaking in. "I am
alone in the world, and my life's no good to me."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying so," says I.
"Haven't you got me for a friend? Didn't I take a fancy to you
when first you left your step-mother and came to lodge in this
house? And haven't I been sisters with you ever since? Suppose
you are alone in the world, am I much better off? I'm an orphan
like you. I've almost as many things in pawn as you; and, if your
pockets are empty, mine have only got ninepence in them, to last
me for all the rest of the week."

"Your father and mother were honest people," says Mary,
obstinately. "My mother ran away from home, and died in a
hospital. My father was always drunk, and always beating me. My
step-mother is as good as dead, for all she cares about me. My
only brother is thousands of miles away in fore ign parts, and
never writes to me, and never helps me with a farthing. My
sweetheart--"

She stopped, and the red flew into her face. I knew, if she went
on that way, she would only get to the saddest part of her sad
story, and give both herself and me unnecessary pain.

"_My_ sweetheart is too poor to marry me, Mary," I said, "so I'm
not so much to be envied even there. But let's give over
disputing which is worst off. Lie down in bed, and let me tuck
you up. I'll put a stitch or two into that work of yours while
you go to sleep."

Instead of doing what I told her, she burst out crying (being
very like a child in some of her ways), and hugged me so tight
round the neck that she quite hurt me. I let her go on till she
had worn herself out, and was obliged to lie down. Even then, her
last few words before she dropped off to sleep were such as I was
half sorry, half frightened to hear.

"I won't plague you long, Anne," she said. "I haven't courage to
go out of the world as you seem to fear I shall; but I began my
life wretchedly, and wretchedly I am sentenced to end it."

It was of no use lecturing her again, for she closed her eyes.

I tucked her up as neatly as I could, and put her petticoat over
her, for the bedclothes were scanty, and her hands felt cold. She
looked so pretty and delicate as she fell asleep that it quite
made my heart ache to see her, after such talk as we had held
together. I just waited long enough to be quite sure that she was
in the land of dreams, then emptied the horrible laudanum bottle
into the grate, took up her half-done work, and, going out
softly, left her for that night.

March 6th. Sent off a long letter to Robert, begging and
entreating him not to be so down-hearted, and not to leave
America without making another effort. I told him I could bear
any trial except the wretchedness of seeing him come back a
helpless, broken-down man, trying uselessly to begin life again
when too old for a change.

It was not till after I had posted my own letter, and read over
part of Robert's again, that the suspicion suddenly floated
across me, for the first time, that he might have sailed for
England immediately after writing to me. There were expressions
in the letter which seemed to indicate that he had some such
headlong project in his mind. And yet, surely, if it were so, I
ought to have noticed them at the first reading. I can only hope
I am wrong in my present interpretation of much of what he has
written to me--hope it earnestly for both our sakes.

This has been a doleful day for me. I have been uneasy about
Robert and uneasy about Mary. My mind is haunted by those last
words of hers: "I began my life wretchedly, and wretchedly I am
sentenced to end it." Her usual melancholy way of talking never
produced the same impression on me that I feel now. Perhaps the
discovery of the laudanum-bottle is the cause of this. I would
give many a hard day's work to know what to do for Mary's good.
My heart warmed to her when we first met in the same
lodging-house two years ago, and, although I am not one of the
over-affectionate sort myself, I feel as if I could go to the
world's end to serve that girl. Yet, strange to say, if I was
asked why I was so fond of her, I don't think I should know how
to answer the question.

March 7th. I am almost ashamed to write it down, even in this
journal, which no eyes but mine ever look on; yet I must honestly
confess to myself that here I am, at nearly one in the morning,
sitting up in a state of serious uneasiness because Mary has not
yet come home.

I walked with her this morning to the place where she works, and
tried to lead her into talking of the relations she has got who
are still alive. My motive in doing this was to see if she
dropped anything in the course of conversation which might
suggest a way of helping her interests with those who are bound
to give her all reasonable assistance. But the little I could get
her to say to me led to nothing. Instead of answering my
questions about her step-mother and her brother, she persisted at
first, in the strangest way, in talking of her father, who was
dead and gone, and of one Noah Truscott, who had been the worst
of all the bad friends he had, and had taught him to drink and
game. When I did get her to speak of her brother, she only knew
that he had gone out to a place called Assam, where they grew
tea. How he was doing, or whether he was there still, she did not
seem to know, never having heard a word from him for years and
years past.

As for her step-mother, Mary not unnaturally flew into a passion
the moment I spoke of her. She keeps an eating-house at
Hammersmith, and could have given Mary good employment in it; but
she seems always to have hated her, and to have made her life so
wretched with abuse and ill usage that she had no refuge left but
to go away from home, and do her best to make a living for
herself. Her husband (Mary's father) appears to have behaved
badly to her, and, after his death, she took the wicked course of
revenging herself on her step-daughter. I felt, after this, that
it was impossible Mary could go back, and that it was the hard
necessity of her position, as it is of mine, that she should
struggle on to make a decent livelihood without assistance from
any of her relations. I confessed as much as this to her; but I
added that I would try to get her employment with the persons for
whom I work, who pay higher wages, and show a little more
indulgence to those under them than the people to whom she is now
obliged to look for support.

I spoke much more confidently than I felt about being able to do
this, and left her, as I thought, in better spirits than usual.
She promised to be back to-night to tea at nine o'clock, and now
it is nearly one in the morning, and she is not home yet. If it
was any other girl I should not feel uneasy, for I should make up
my mind that there was extra work to be done in a hurry, and that
they were keeping her late, and I should go to bed. But Mary is
so unfortunate in everything that happens to her, and her own
melancholy talk about herself keeps hanging on my mind so, that I
have fears on her account which would not distress me about any
one else. It seems inexcusably silly to think such a thing, much
more to write it down; but I have a kind of nervous dread upon me
that some accident--

What does that loud knocking at the street door mean? And those
voices and heavy footsteps outside? Some lodger who has lost his
key, I suppose. And yet, my heart-- What a coward I have become
all of a sudden!

More knocking and louder voices. I must run to the door and see
what it is. Oh, Mary! Mary! I hope I am not going to have another
fright about you, but I feel sadly like it.

March 8th.

March 9th.

March 10th.

March 11th. Oh me! all the troubles I have ever had in my life
are as nothing to the trouble I am in now. For three days I have
not been able to write a single line in this journal, which I
have kept so regularly ever since I was a girl. For three days I
have not once thought of Robert--I, who am always thinking of him
at other times.

My poor, dear, unhappy Mary! the worst I feared for you on that
night when I sat up alone was far below the dreadful calamity
that has really happened. How can I write about it, with my eyes
full of tears and my hand all of a tremble? I don't even know why
I am sitting down at my desk now, unless it is habit that keeps
me to my old every-day task, in spite of all the grief and fear
which seem to unfit me entirely for performing it.

The people of the house were asleep and lazy on that dreadful
night, and I was the first to open the door. Never, never could I
describe in writing, or even say in plain talk, though it is so
much easier, what I felt when I saw two policemen come in,
carrying between them what seemed to me to be a dead girl, and
that girl Mary! I caught hold of her, and gave a scream that must
have alarmed the whole house; for frightened people came crowding
downstairs in their night-dresses. There was a dreadful confusion
and noise of loud talking, but I heard nothing and saw nothing
till I had got her into my room and laid on my bed . I stooped
down, frantic-like, to kiss her, and saw an awful mark of a blow
on the left temple, and felt, at the same time, a feeble flutter
of her breath on my cheek. The discovery that she was not dead
seemed to give me back my senses again. I told one of the
policemen where the nearest doctor was to be found, and sat down
by the bedside while he was gone, and bathed her poor head with
cold water. She never opened her eyes, or moved, or spoke; but
she breathed, and that was enough for me, because it was enough
for life.

The policeman left in the room was a big, thick-voiced, pompous
man, with a horrible unfeeling pleasure in hearing himself talk
before an assembly of frightened, silent people. He told us how
he had found her, as if he had been telling a story in a
tap-room, and began with saying: "I don't think the young woman
was drunk."

Drunk! My Mary, who might have been a born lady for all the
spirits she ever touched--drunk! I could have struck the man for
uttering the word, with her lying--poor suffering angel--so
white, and still, and helpless before him. As it was, I gave him
a look, but he was too stupid to understand it, and went droning
on, saying the same thing over and over again in the same words.
And yet the story of how they found her was, like all the sad
stories I have ever heard told in real life, so very, very short.
They had just seen her lying along on the curbstone a few streets
off, and had taken her to the station-house. There she had been
searched, and one of my cards, that I gave to ladies who promise
me employment, had been found in her pocket, and so they had
brought her to our house. This was all the man really had to
tell. There was nobody near her when she was found, and no
evidence to show how the blow on her temple had been inflicted.

What a time it was before the doctor came, and how dreadful to
hear him say, after he had looked at her, that he was afraid all
the medical men in the world could be of no use here! He could
not get her to swallow anything; and the more he tried to bring
her back to her senses the less chance there seemed of his
succeeding. He examined the blow on her temple, and said he
thought she must have fallen down in a fit of some sort, and
struck her head against the pavement, and so have given her brain
what he was afraid was a fatal shake. I asked what was to be done
if she showed any return to sense in the night. He said: "Send
for me directly"; and stopped for a little while afterward
stroking her head gently with his hand, and whispering to
himself: "Poor girl, so young and so pretty!" I had felt, some
minutes before, as if I could have struck the policeman, and I
felt now as if I could have thrown my arms round the doctor's
neck and kissed him. I did put out my hand when he took up his
hat, and he shook it in the friendliest way. "Don't hope, my
dear," he said, and went out.

The rest of the lodgers followed him, all silent and shocked,
except the inhuman wretch who owns the house and lives in
idleness on the high rents he wrings from poor people like us.

"She's three weeks in my debt," says he, with a frown and an
oath. "Where the devil is my money to come from now?" Brute!
brute!

I had a long cry alone with her that seemed to ease my heart a
little. She was not the least changed for the better when I had
wiped away the tears and could see her clearly again. I took up
her right hand, which lay nearest to me. It was tight clinched. I
tried to unclasp the fingers, and succeeded after a little time.
Something dark fell out of the palm of her hand as I straightened
it.

I picked the thing up, and smoothed it out, and saw that it was
an end of a man's cravat.

A very old, rotten, dingy strip of black silk, with thin lilac
lines, all blurred and deadened with dirt, running across and
across the stuff in a sort of trellis-work pattern. The small end
of the cravat was hemmed in the usual way, but the other end was
all jagged, as if the morsel then in my hands had been torn off
violently from the rest of the stuff. A chill ran all over me as
I looked at it; for that poor, stained, crumpled end of a cravat
seemed to be saying to me, as though it had been in plain words:
"If she dies, she has come to her death by foul means, and I am
the witness of it."

I had been frightened enough before, lest she should die suddenly
and quietly without my knowing it, while we were alone together;
but I got into a perfect agony now, for fear this last worst
affliction should take me by surprise. I don't suppose five
minutes passed all that woful night through without my getting up
and putting my cheek close to her mouth, to feel if the faint
breaths still fluttered out of it. They came and went just the
same as at first, though the fright I was in often made me fancy
they were stilled forever.

Just as the church clocks were striking four I was startled by
seeing the room door open. It was only Dusty Sal (as they call
her in the house), the maid-of-all-work. She was wrapped up in
the blanket off her bed; her hair was all tumbled over her face,
and her eyes were heavy with sleep as she came up to the bedside
where I was sitting.

"I've two hours good before I begin to work," says she, in her
hoarse, drowsy voice, "and I've come to sit up and take my turn
at watching her. You lay down and get some sleep on the rug.
Here's my blanket for you. I don't mind the cold--it will keep me
awake."

"You are very kind--very, very kind and thoughtful, Sally," says
I, "but I am too wretched in my mind to want sleep, or rest, or
to do anything but wait where I am, and try and hope for the
best."

"Then I'll wait, too," says Sally. "I must do something; if
there's nothing to do but waiting, I'll wait."

And she sat down opposite me at the foot of the bed, and drew the
blanket close round her with a shiver.

"After working so hard as you do, I'm sure you must want all the
little rest you can get," says I.

"Excepting only you," says Sally, putting her heavy arm very
clumsily, but very gently at the same time, round Mary's feet,
and looking hard at the pale, still face on the pillow.
"Excepting you, she's the only soul in this house as never swore
at me, or give me a hard word that I can remember. When you made
puddings on Sundays, and give her half, she always give me a bit.
The rest of 'em calls me Dusty Sal. Excepting only you, again,
she always called me Sally, as if she knowed me in a friendly
way. I ain't no good here, but I ain't no harm, neither; and I
shall take my turn at the sitting up--that's what I shall do!"

She nestled her head down close at Mary's feet as she spoke those
words, and said no more. I once or twice thought she had fallen
asleep, but whenever I looked at her her heavy eyes were always
wide open. She never changed her position an inch till the church
clocks struck six; then she gave one little squeeze to Mary's
feet with her arm, and shuffled out of the room without a word. A
minute or two after, I heard her down below, lighting the kitchen
fire just as usual.

A little later the doctor stepped over before his breakfast-time
to see if there had been any change in the night. He only shook
his head when he looked at her as if there was no hope. Having
nobody else to consult that I could put trust in, I showed him
the end of the cravat, and told him of the dreadful suspicion
that had arisen in my mind when I found it in her hand.

"You must keep it carefully, and produce it at the inquest," he
said. "I don't know, though, that it is likely to lead to
anything. The bit of stuff may have been lying on the pavement
near her, and her hand may have unconsciously clutched it when
she fell. Was she subject to fainting-fits?"

"Not more so, sir, than other young girls who are hard-worked and
anxious, and weakly from poor living," I answered.

"I can't say that she may not have got that blow from a fall,"
the doctor went on, locking at her temple again. "I can't say
that it presents any positive appearance of having been inflicted
by another person. It will be important, however, to ascertain
what state of health she was in last night. Have you any idea
where she was yesterday evening?"

I told him where she was employed at work, and said I imagined
she must have been kept there later than usual.

"I shall pass the place this morning" said the doctor, "in going
my rounds among my patients, and I'll just step in and make some
inquiries."

I thanked him, and we parted. Just as he was closing the door he
looked in again.

"Was she your sister?" he asked.

"No, sir, only my dear friend."

He said nothing more, but I heard him sigh as he shut the door
softly. Perhaps he once had a sister of his own, and lost her?
Perhaps she was like Mary in the face?

The doctor was hours gone away. I began to feel unspeakably
forlorn and helpless, so much so as even to wish selfishly that
Robert might really have sailed from America, and might get to
London in time to assist and console me.

No living creature came into the room but Sally. The first time
she brought me some tea; the second and third times she only
looked in to see if there was any change, and glanced her eye
toward the bed. I had never known her so silent before; it seemed
almost as if this dreadful accident had struck her dumb. I ought
to have spoken to her, perhaps, but there was something in her
face that daunted me; and, besides, the fever of anxiety I was in
began to dry up my lips, as if they would never be able to shape
any words again. I was still tormented by that frightful
apprehension of the past night, that she would die without my
knowing it--die without saying one word to clear up the awful
mystery of this blow, and set the suspicions at rest forever
which I still felt whenever my eyes fell on the end of the old
cravat.

At last the doctor came back.

"I think you may safely clear your mind of any doubts to which
that bit of stuff may have given rise," he said. "She was, as you
supposed, detained late by her employers, and she fainted in the
work-room. They most unwisely and unkindly let her go home alone,
without giving her any stimulant, as soon as she came to her
senses again. Nothing is more probable, under these
circumstances, than that she should faint a second time on her
way here. A fall on the pavement, without any friendly arm to
break it, might have produced even a worse injury than the injury
we see. I believe that the only ill usage to which the poor girl
was exposed was the neglect she met with in the work-room."

"You speak very reasonably, I own, sir," said I, not yet quite
convinced. "Still, perhaps she may--"

"My poor girl, I told you not to hope," said the doctor,
interrupting me. He went to Mary, and lifted up her eyelids, and
looked at her eyes while he spoke; then added, "If you still
doubt how she came by that blow, do not encourage the idea that
any words of hers will ever enlighten you. She will never speak
again."

"Not dead! Oh, sir, don't say she's dead!"

"She is dead to pain and sorrow--dead to speech and recognition.
There is more animation in the life of the feeblest insect that
flies than in the life that is left in her. When you look at her
now, try to think that she is in heaven. That is the best comfort
I can give you, after telling the hard truth."

I did not believe him. I could not believe him. So long as she
breathed at all, so long I was resolved to hope. Soon after the
doctor was gone, Sally came in again, and found me listening (if
I may call it so) at Mary's lips. She went to where my little
hand-glass hangs against the wall, took it down, and gave it to
me.

"See if the breath marks it," she said.

Yes; her breath did mark it, but very faintly. Sally cleaned the
glass with her apron, and gave it back to me. As she did so, she
half stretched out her hand to Mary's face, but drew it in again
suddenly, as if she was afraid of soiling Mary's delicate skin
with her hard, horny fingers. Going out, she stopped at the foot
of the bed, and scraped away a little patch of mud that was on
one of Mary's shoes.

"I always used to clean 'em for her," said Sally, "to save her
hands from getting blacked. May I take 'em off now, and clean 'em
again?"

I nodded my head, for my heart was too heavy to speak. Sally took
the shoes off with a slow, awkward tenderness, and went out.

An hour or more must have passed, when, putting the glass over
her lips again, I saw no mark on it. I held it closer and closer.
I dulled it accidentally with my own breath, and cleaned it. I
held it over her again. Oh, Mary, Mary, the doctor was right! I
ought to have only thought of you in heaven!

Dead, without a word, without a sign--without even a look to tell
the true story of the blow that killed her! I could not call to
anybody, I could not cry, I could not so much as put the glass
down and give her a kiss for the last time. I don't know how long
I had sat there with my eyes burning, and my hands deadly cold,
when Sally came in with the shoes cleaned, and carried carefully
in her apron for fear of a soil touching them. At the sight of
that--

I can write no more. My tears drop so fast on the paper that I
can see nothing.

March 12th. She died on the afternoon of the eighth. On the
morning of the ninth, I wrote, as in duty bound, to her
stepmother at Hammersmith. There was no answer. I wrote again; my
letter was returned to me this morning unopened. For all that
woman cares, Mary might be buried with a pauper's funeral; but
this shall never be, if I pawn everything about me, down to the
very gown that is on my back. The bare thought of Mary being
buried by the workhouse gave me the spirit to dry my eyes, and go
to the undertaker's, and tell him how I was placed. I said if he
would get me an estimate of all that would have to be paid, from
first to last, for the cheapest decent funeral that could be had,
I would undertake to raise the money. He gave me the estimate,
written in this way, like a common bill:

A walking funeral complete............Pounds 1 13 8
Vestry.......................................0 4 4
Rector.......................................0 4 4
Clerk........................................0 1 0
Sexton.......................................0 1 0
Beadle.......................................0 1 0
Bell.........................................0 1 0
Six feet of ground...........................0 2 0
------
Total Pounds 2 8 4

If I had the heart to give any thought to it, I should be
inclined to wish that the Church could afford to do without so
many small charges for burying poor people, to whose friends even
shillings are of consequence. But it is useless to complain; the
money must be raised at once. The charitable doctor--a poor man
himself, or he would not be living in our neighborhood--has
subscribed ten shillings toward the expenses; and the coroner,
when the inquest was over, added five more. Perhaps others may
assist me. If not, I have fortunately clothes and furniture of my
own to pawn. And I must set about parting with them without
delay, for the funeral is to be to-morrow, the thirteenth.

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