Chapter VII: In the Workhouse

IF, when Esther so hastily took her future into her own hands and ran away from home, she could have looked onward but a few weeks, or even a few days, how she would have shrunk from the picture that would have been disclosed to her! What would have been the righteous anger of mother and father, or any punishment they might inflict, as compared with the cold attentions of infirmary officials to a workhouse tramp?

For some weeks Esther was too ill to know where she was. Unconsciousness mercifully hid her present surroundings from her. But one day she woke up after a long sleep, and as her eyes took in, not the well-remembered furniture of her little room at home, but the long row of little beds with their blue check counterpanes, the bare whitewashed walls, and the sour-looking nurse, that came towards her with a bottle in her hand, Esther closed her eyes, well-nigh overwhelmed with misery, as recollection came back to her.

"Here! Come, take your physic; you're awake, I can see," said a harsh, rough voice. "Come! Stir up; we've had trouble enough with you," went on the nurse, seeing Esther did not move.

But the poor girl did not stir up. She was too weak and faint even to lift her hand, and the conviction that she was not at home in her own little room had well-nigh crushed all the little life that remained out of her.

"Oh, well, if you won't take it, you must go without it," said the nurse roughly, as she set the bottle down with a bang on the locker that stood beside the bed, and went to see to another patient.

Esther heard the words as if they were spoken a long way off, and did not concern her in the least, for she seemed to be sinking, sinking, sinking down into the cold waves of death, because there was no one at hand that loved her well enough to help her to struggle back into life. If she had but been ill like this at home, how anxiously would her mother have watched beside her, lovingly nursing her back to life and consciousness when the fever had passed away. But as it was, Esther slipped back into the dark valley of horrible dreams and fancies, and for a time her life was again despaired of by the doctor.

This second illness puzzled him a good deal. And although she was still only a workhouse tramp, she now became an interesting case to the young doctor who had lately watched over her. He had a keen suspicion that the nurse was not as attentive as she might be, and he went in to see Esther and look after her more frequently, giving her food and medicine often himself. He happened to be by her bedside when she slowly struggled back to consciousness the second time. And without a word being spoken, she felt something sweet and pleasant put between her lips, that seemed to revive her, and give her new strength as soon as she had swallowed it.

"Now lie quite still, and keep your eyes shut," said a gentle voice, for the keen-eyed doctor had noticed the shudder that passed over Esther's face as she caught sight of the rows of little beds again, and that set him thinking.

The sight of the place evidently upset her, and that might account for the previous relapse. So he had a screen brought from his own room and placed round Esther's bed, and then he gave her a little more of the cordial. And she opened her eyes without a shudder this time.

"Where am I?" she feebly whispered.

"With friends," said the doctor; "and they wish you to lie quite still and get well."

"Has mother come?" asked Esther, after a pause.

"Not yet, my dear. You must go to sleep now; you have talked enough," said her friend.

And he moved away, telling the nurse he should be back in about an hour.

"Not yet," murmured Esther; "mother not come yet, and I've been here weeks and weeks now, so that if they'd tried to find me, they would have done so long ago."

And the tears welled up to Esther's eyes, as she thought of how soon she had been forgotten by mother and father.

Poor foolish Esther made herself very miserable again, until she fell asleep and forgot her trouble. But every time she woke, there it was waiting for her; for she knew the pictured screen only hid the long row of little beds, and the harsh voice of the nurse could be heard all too plainly. And she wished—oh, how she wished—that father and mother had loved her well enough to come and find her, and take her home again. She altogether ignored her own share in the separation—that she had put it out of their power to find her, and that she alone could bridge the gulf that now separated them, and bring about a reunion.

All day long she lay there, wishing her mother would come, longing for the gentle touch of a loving hand to raise her head and shake up her pillow, and soothe her restlessness when she grew so unutterably weary. But that she ought to seek for this, that a word from her to the kind-hearted doctor would have induced him to write at once to her parents, she never thought of.

The doctor often looked at her and felt puzzled, wondering why it was she made such slow progress towards recovery. If he had had time, he might have questioned her, and thus brought out all the truth, and ended the poor girl's misery. But the infirmary was very full just now, and he had a great many patients on his hands, for there had been an outbreak of scarlet fever in the town, and a good many of the poor people who were seized with the epidemic had been removed to the infirmary.

For this reason, too, the visits of those ladies who came to read to the patients had to be suspended just now, so that Esther was left entirely without friendly advice or attention from any one. The nurse regarded her as sulky and ill-tempered, because she lay quietly crying or thinking, but never tried to rouse herself, even when any of the other patients spoke to her. She took the screen away, thinking this would compel her to rouse herself a little. But it seemed to have a contrary effect, and Esther lay there apparently more lifeless than ever.

"I don't believe she wants to get well, that's my opinion," said nurse one day, after the doctor had been questioning her about Esther's appetite.

And although the doctor shook his head and smiled, he thought there must be some truth in the remark.

In point of fact, the nurse's opinion was the correct one. Esther did not want to get well. Why should she? According to her present belief, there was no one in the wide world who loved her, or cared whether she was ill or well; and so there was no energy in her to enable her to struggle back to life and health again.

For some little time, she made slow progress towards recovery. Then the progress ceased, and she began to slip back, growing weaker instead of stronger each day.

One morning, after the doctor had paid his usual visit, Esther overheard him say to the nurse, "We shan't save her, after all; she has no strength to rally." And she knew what he meant, and thought she must be dying then, and grew dreadfully afraid.

She tried to pray; she implored that God would spare her life, and let her see her mother once more. And when nurse brought her some beef tea shortly afterwards, instead of turning away from it, as she usually did, she drank the whole of it; for a strong desire to live had now taken possession of Esther. And from this time, she began to amend in real earnest, using all the means possible to aid her recovery.

She still shrank from letting the workhouse people know who she was, or her friends from knowing where she was. The same foolish pride that had led her into all this misery prevented her getting out of it. As soon as she began to get better, the old resolution of being independent of mother and father for help took possession of her again, and she resolved to get a situation as nursery-maid when she could leave the workhouse.

As soon as she was able to get up, a fresh trial awaited her, for she had to put on one of the ugly, ill-fitting workhouse dresses, and put a little shawl round her shoulders, like everybody else. She shed a good many tears over it at first, but nobody noticed her or her tears. And at last she grew tired of crying, and tried to walk a little way down the ward.

Now there was one old lady in the last bed, who had often looked at Esther and pitied her, feeling sure the girl was something different from the ordinary run of tramps. And now, as she approached, she said,—

"Will you come and sit down in this armchair, my dear? For I am afraid you feel very tired."

"Yes, I do," said Esther, with a sigh. "I suppose it must be because I have been ill so long."

And as she spoke, she looked out of the window, and noticed for the first time that the trees were putting on their leaves again, and knew that she must indeed have been a long time ill.

"Now sit down here and rest a bit. Another day, if you can get as far, you shall read to me, my dear. Can you read?" asked the old woman.

"Oh, yes," answered Esther with a faint smile, forgetting that it was no uncommon thing for tramps not to be able to read.

"My old eyes are getting dim," remarked the old lady, as she put on her spectacles, the better to have a good look at Esther as she sat by her bedside. "A lady used to come and read to us once or twice a week, but since the fever broke out in the town, no visitors are allowed. Where do you live—not in this town, do you?"

"Oh, no," answered Esther quickly, who had hitherto escaped questioning on this point, through being known as a tramp.

"Ah! I thought not," said the old lady; and then she relapsed into silence, and sat looking at Esther's pale face.

The girl felt she was being looked at, and grew uncomfortable.

"I'll go back to my own bed now," she said; "but I'll come and read to you to-morrow, if I can."

"Yes, do. Good-bye, my dear; God bless you! It does my old eyes good to look at your young face; for you remind me of my Nellie, before she went away."

"Did—did she go away from home?" asked Esther, pausing by the bed to ask the question.

"Yes, my dear," said the old lady with a groan; "and her father never held up his head again afterwards. I couldn't die, for I knew my girl might want me, and so I just waited and watched, living on at the old cottage until she came back."

"And she did come back?"

"Yes, my poor darling came back to die. It took the last of the few pounds we had been able to save to provide her with the comforts she needed, and when that money was spent, I had to come in here. But what did that matter, so that my darling never knew it, and had her last days made smooth and easy?"

Esther looked at the old woman and wondered. Was it possible that this was the way many mothers loved their daughters? Could her mother have been watching and waiting for news of her, as this old lady had waited for her Nellie?

But no; it was only when they were little ones like Lilla that they were so deeply loved, whispered Jealousy again, as Esther walked slowly down the ward. No; if she had been loved like Lilla, or like this old woman had loved her child, they would have found her out long ago, argued Esther. But still the stirring of her trouble again had been very painful, and she lay down on the bed and cried for the next hour.

The next morning she was up and dressed early, and walked down to the corner bed. The old woman held out her hand and greeted her with a smile of welcome, as she said,—

"Come along, my dear, and sit down."

"Would you like me to read to you?" said Esther, feeling this was the best way to guard against awkward questions being asked.

"Yes, my deary. I've got a Testament here, and I want you to find the story about the Prodigal Son in the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke."

Esther had often read this at Sunday school, and soon found the place. She could read very nicely, too, modulating her voice, so as to give due effect to the narrative. The old habit was strong enough to enable her to do this without trying for effect now, and for the first time, perhaps, in her life she was thinking more of what she was reading than how she ought to read.

At last, as she came to the verses, "I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son," she put down the book, laid her head on the old woman's pillow, and sobbed as though her heart would break.

Light had broken upon her soul at last.

"I have sinned, I have sinned!" she sobbed. "I have been a wicked girl!"

"Hush, hush, my deary," said the old lady, in some alarm lest Esther should make herself ill again.

But Esther sobbed on, "I am too wicked for mother or God ever to forgive me! And I used to think I was so good, because I was the top girl in the class. Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?"

"Do? Why, just what the young man we are reading about did—just what my Nellie did when she let God speak to her. Go home to your mother, if you have one; that is the first step towards going back to God."

"But, oh! Will she forgive me?" sobbed Esther.

"Forgive you? Ah, child, child, you little know what a mother's love is, or you would not ask such a question. Don't you remember the father in this parable? When the son was a great way off, he went to meet him; and that is a picture of God's love and mother's love. God sent His own Son to us sinners when we were yet a great way off, that we might know of the Father's love to us; for—

"'God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'

"My dear, you have heard this before, I daresay, but never thought of it or what it meant, because you never felt the need of it until now. I daresay, if you only knew it, your mother has been waiting and watching and searching for you all this time. Would you like to tell me how it all happened? And then we might find out a way to let her know where you are."

Esther lifted her head and dried her eyes, while she sobbingly whispered the story of her flight from home, and what she had suffered since.

The old lady lifted her hands, and thought she had never heard of anything so foolish.

"It has all happened through your pride, my dear—just a commentary upon the wise man's words, that—

"'Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.'

"And pride has been keeping you away from your poor broken-hearted mother all this time. Now we must see how we can break the news to her. You must write to some friend you know, and tell them where you are—the friend that was with you when you went off to the station," suggested the old lady.

But Esther shrank from letting Mary Coppinger know where she was.

"I'll write a letter to Rhoda Morris, and get her to go in and tell mother," she said.

And once having arrived at this determination, Esther was impatient to put it into effect. The old lady gave her a sheet of paper and an envelope, and nurse lent her some ink, and before dinner the letter was written and posted.

Then Esther went to lie on her bed again, but not to sleep. An overwhelming sense of her sin against God, as well as her mother and father, took possession of her, and she lay mentally praying,—

"'God be merciful to me a sinner!'"

At length the words, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son," brought peace to her soul. God had loved her so much that He had given up His Son to prove it, even to the death upon the cross for her. Her sin might be great, but God's love was greater, and she could rest upon this until some message came from home in answer to her letter.