Stories of Childhood Part 9

The Lady of Shalott lay quite still in her little brown calico night-gown [I cannot learn, by the way, that Bulfinch's studious and in general trustworthy researches have put him in possession of this point.

Indeed, I feel justified in a.s.serting that Mr. Bulfinch never so much as _intimated_ that the Lady of Shalott wore a brown calico night-dress]--the Lady of Shalott lay quite still, and her lips turned blue.

"Are you very much hurt? Where were you struck? I heard the cry, and came. Can you tell me where the blow was?"

But then the doctor saw the gla.s.s, broken and blown in a thousand glittering sparks across the palace floor; and then the Lady of Shalott gave him a little blue smile.

"It's not me. Never mind. I wish it was. I'd rather it was me than the gla.s.s. O, my gla.s.s! my gla.s.s! But never mind. I suppose there'll be some other--pleasant thing."

"Were you so fond of the gla.s.s?" asked the doctor, taking one of the two chairs that Sary Jane brought him, and looking sorrowfully about the room. What other "pleasant thing" could even the Lady of Shalott discover in that room last summer, at the east end of South Street?

"How long have you lain here?" asked the sorrowful doctor, suddenly.

"Since I can remember, sir," said the Lady of Shalott, with that blue smile. "But then I have always had my gla.s.s."

"Ah!" said the doctor, "the Lady of Shalott!"

"Sir?" said the Lady of Shalott.

"Where is the pain?" asked the doctor, gently, with his finger on the Lady of Shalott's pulse.

The Lady of Shalott touched the shoulder of her brown calico night-dress, smiling.

"And what did you see in your gla.s.s?" asked the doctor, once more stooping to examine "the pain."

The Lady of Shalott tried to tell him, but felt confused; so many strange things had been in the gla.s.s since it grew hot. So she only said that there were waves and a purple wing, and that they were broken now, and lay upon the floor.

"Purple wings?" asked the doctor.

"Over the sidewalk," nodded the Lady of Shalott. "It comes up at night."

"Oh!" said the doctor, "the malaria. No wonder!"

"And what about the waves?" asked the doctor, talking while he touched and tried the little brown calico shoulders. "I have a little girl of my own down by the waves this summer. She--I suppose she is no older than you!"

"I am seventeen, sir," said the Lady of Shalott. "Do they have green faces and white hair? Does she see them run up and down? I never saw any waves, sir, but those in my gla.s.s. I am very glad to know that your little girl is by the waves."

"Where you ought to be," said the doctor, half under his breath. "It is cruel, cruel!"

"What is cruel?" asked the Lady of Shalott, looking up into the doctor's face.

The little brown calico night-dress swam suddenly before the doctor's eyes. He got up and walked across the floor. As he walked he stepped upon the pieces of the broken gla.s.s.

"O, don't!" cried the Lady of Shalott. But then she thought that perhaps she had hurt the doctor's feelings; so she smiled, and said, "Never mind."

"Her case could be cured," said the doctor, still under his breath, to Sary Jane. "The case could be cured yet. It is cruel!"

"Sir," said Sary Jane,--she lifted her sharp face sharply out of billows of nankeen vests,--"it may be because I make vests at sixteen and three quarters cents a dozen, sir; but I say before G.o.d there's something cruel somewheres. Look at her. Look at me. Look at them stairs. Just see that scuttle, will you? Just feel the sun in't these windows. Look at the rent we pay for this 'ere oven. What do you s'pose the meriky is up here? Look at them pisen fogs arisen' out over the sidewalk. Look at the dead as have died in the Devil in this street this week. Then look out here!"

Sary Jane drew the doctor to the blazing, blindless window, out of which the Lady of Shalott had never looked.

"Now talk of curin' her!" said Sary Jane.

The doctor turned away from the window, with a sudden white face.

"The Board of Health--"

"Don't talk to me about the Board of Health!" said Sary Jane.

"I'll talk to them," said the doctor. "I did not know matters were so bad. They shall be attended to directly. To-morrow I leave town--" He stopped, looking down at the Lady of Shalott, thinking of the little lady by the waves, whom he would see to-morrow, hardly knowing what to say. "But something shall be done at once. Meantime, there's the Hospital."

"She tried Horspital long ago," said Sary Jane. "They said they couldn't do nothing. What's the use? Don't bother her. Let her be."

"Yes, let me be," said the Lady of Shalott, faintly. "The gla.s.s is broken."

"But something must be done!" urged the doctor, hurrying away. "I will attend to the matter directly."

He spoke in a busy doctor's busy way. Undoubtedly he thought that he should attend to the matter directly.

"You have flowers here, I see." He lifted, in hurrying away, a spray of lilies that lay upon the bed, freshly sent to the Lady of Shalott that morning.

"They ring," said the Lady of Shalott, softly. "Can you hear?

'Bless--it! Bless--it!' Ah, yes, they ring!"

"Bless what?" asked the doctor, half out of the door.

"The Flower Charity," said the Lady of Shalott.

"Amen!" said the doctor. "But I'll attend to it directly." And he was quite out of the door, and the door was shut.

"Sary Jane, dear?" said, the Lady of Shalott, a few minutes after the door was shut.

"Well!" said Sary Jane.

"The gla.s.s is broken," said the Lady of Shalott.

"Should think I might know that!" said Sary Jane, who was down upon her knees, sweeping shining pieces away into a pasteboard dust-pan.

"Sary Jane, dear?" said the Lady of Shalott again.

"Dear, dear!" echoed Sary Jane, tossing purple feathers out of the window and seeming, to the eyes of the Lady of Shalott, to have the spray of green waves upon her hands. "There they go!"

"Yes, there they go," said the Lady of Shalott. But she said no more till night.

It was a hot night for South Street. It was a very hot night for even South Street. The lean children in the attic opposite cried savagely, like lean cubs. The monkeys from the spring-box came out and sat upon the lid for air. Dirty people lay around the dirty hydrant; and the purple wing stretched itself a little in a quiet way, to cover them.

"Sary Jane, dear?" said the Lady of Shalott, at night. "The gla.s.s is broken. And, Sary Jane, dear, I am afraid I _can't_ stand it as well as you can."

Sary Jane gave the Lady of Shalott a sharp look, and put away her nankeen vests. She came to the bed.