The Island of Faith Part 7

"My dears," she began, "I miss you very much. Often I'm lonely enough to cry. Of course," she added hastily (for they must not worry), "of course, every one is nice to me. I like every one, too. That is, except Dr.

Blanchard. I guess I told you about him; he's the resident physician.

He's awfully good looking but he's not very pleasant. I never hated any one so--" she paused, for a moment, as a round tear splashed devastatingly down upon the paper.

X

MRS. VOLSKY PROMISES TO TRY

As Lily pattered across the room, on her soft, almost noiseless little feet, Rose-Marie stopped talking. She had been having one of her rare conversations alone with Mrs. Volsky--a conversation that she had almost schemed for--and yet she stopped. It struck her suddenly as strange that Lily's presence in any place should make such a vast difference--that the child should bring with her a healing silence and a curious tenderness.

She had felt, many times before, a slowing up in conversations--she had seen the bitterness drain from Ella's face, the stolidness from Bennie's.

She had even seen Pa, half intoxicated, turn and go quietly from a room that Lily was entering. And now, as she watched, she saw a spark leap into the dullness of Mrs. Volsky's eyes.

With a gentle hand she reached out to the child, drew her close. Lily nestled against her side with a slight smile upon her faintly coral lips, with her blue, vacant gaze fixed upon s.p.a.ce--or upon something that they could not see! Rose-Marie had often felt that Lily was watching beautiful vistas with those sightless eyes of hers; that she was hearing wonderful sounds, with her useless little ears--sounds that normal people could not hear. But she did not say anything of the sort to Mrs. Volsky--Mrs.

Volsky would not have been able to understand. Instead she spoke of something else that had lain, for a long time, upon her mind.

"Has Lily ever received any medical attention?" she asked abruptly.

Mrs. Volsky's face took on lines of blankness. "What say?" she mouthed thickly. "I don' understan'?"

Rose-Marie reconstructed her question.

"Has Lily ever been taken to a doctor?" she asked.

Mrs. Volsky answered more quickly than she usually answered questions.

"When she was first sick, years ago," she told Rose-Marie, "she had a doctor then. He say--no help fer her. Las' year Ella, she took Lily by a free clinic. But the doctors, there, they say Lily never get no better.

And if there comes another doctor to our door, now--" she shrugged; and her shrug seemed to indicate the uselessness of all doctors.

Rose-Marie, with suddenly misting eyes, lifted Lily to her knee... "The only times," she said slowly, "when I feel any doubt in my mind of the Divine Plan--are the times when I see little children, who have never done anything at all wicked or wrong, bearing pain and suffering and..."

she broke off.

Mrs. Volsky answered, as she almost always answered, with a mechanical question.

"What say?" she murmured dully.

Rose-Marie eyed her over the top of Lily's golden head. After all, she told herself, in the case of Mrs. Volsky she could see the point of Dr.

Blanchard's a.s.sertion! She had known many animals who apparently were quicker to reason, who apparently had more enthusiasm and ambition, than Mrs. Volsky. She looked at the dingy ap.r.o.n, the unkempt hair, the sagging flesh upon the gray cheeks. And she was conscious suddenly of a feeling of revulsion. She fought it back savagely.

"Christ," she told herself, "never turned away from people because they were dirty, or ugly, or stupid. Christ loved everybody--no matter how low they were. He would have loved Mrs. Volsky."

It was curious how it gave her strength--that reflection--strength to look straight at the woman in front of her, and to smile.

"Why," she asked, and the smile became brighter as she asked it, "why don't you try to fix your hair more neatly, Mrs. Volsky? And why don't you wear fresh ap.r.o.ns, and keep the flat cleaner? Why don't you try to make your children's home more pleasant for them?"

Mrs. Volsky did not resent the suggestion as some other women might have done. Mrs. Volsky had reached the point where she no longer resented even blows.

"I uster try--onct," she said tonelessly, "but it ain't no good, no more.

Ella an' Bennie an' Jim don' care. An' Pa--he musses up th' flat whenever he comes inter it. An' Lily can't see how it looks. So what's th' use?"

It was a surprisingly long speech for Mrs. Volsky. And some of it showed a certain reasoning power. Rose-Marie told herself, in all fairness, that if she were Mrs. Volsky--she, too, might be inclined to ask "What's th' use?" She leaned forward, searching desperately in her mind for something to say.

"Do you like _me_, Mrs. Volsky?" she questioned at last, "Do you like me?"

The woman nodded, and again the suggestion of a light flamed up in her eyes.

"Sure I like you," she said, "you are good to all of us--_an' to Lily_."

"Then," Rose-Marie's voice was quivering with eagerness, "then won't you try--_for my sake_--to make things here," the sweep of her hand included every corner of the ugly room, "a little better? I'll help you, very gladly. I'll make new ap.r.o.ns for you, and I'll"--her brave resolution faltered, but only for a moment--"I'll wash your hair, and take you to the free baths with me. And then," she had a sudden inspiration, "then Lily will love to touch you, you'll be so nice and clean! Then Lily will be glad that she has you for a mother!"

All at once the sh.e.l.l of stupidity had slipped from Mrs. Volsky's bent shoulders. All at once she was eager, breathlessly eager.

"Miss," she said, and one thin, dingy hand was laid appealingly upon Rose-Marie's dress, "Miss, you can do wit' me as you wish to! If you t'ink dat my bein' clean will make Lily glad"--she made a sudden impetuous gesture with her hand--"den I will be clean! If you t'ink dat she will like better dat I should be her mother," the word, on her lips, was surprisingly sweet, "den I will do--_anyt'ing_!" All at once she broke into phrases that were foreign to Rose-Marie, phrases spoken lovingly in some almost forgotten tongue. And the girl knew that she was quite forgotten--that the drab woman was dreaming over some youthful hope, was voicing tenderly the promises of a long dead yesterday, and was making an impa.s.sioned pledge to her small daughter and to the future! The words that she spoke might be in the language of another land--but the tone was unmistakable, was universal.

Rose-Marie, listening to her, felt a sudden desire to kneel there, on the dirty tenement floor, and say a little prayer of thanksgiving. Once again she had proved that she was right--and that the Young Doctor was wrong.

XI

BENNIE COMES TO THE SETTLEMENT HOUSE

It was Bennie who came first to the Settlement House. Shyly, almost, he slipped through the great doors--as one who seeks something that he does not quite understand. As he came, a gray kitten, creeping out from the shadows of the hall, rubbed affectionately against his leg. And Bennie, half unconsciously--and with absolutely no recognition--stooped to pat its head. Rose-Marie would have cried with joy to have seen him do it, but Rose-Marie was in another part of the building, teaching tiny children to embroider outlines, with gay wool, upon perforated bits of cardboard. The Young Doctor, pa.s.sing by the half-opened door of the kindergarten room, saw her there and paused for a moment to enjoy the sight. He thought, with a curious tightening of his lips, as he left noiselessly, that some day Rose-Marie would be surrounded by her own children--far away from the Settlement House. And he was surprised at the sick feeling that the thought gave him.

"I've been rather a fool," he told himself savagely, "trying to send her away. I've been a fool. But I'd never known anything like her--not in all of my life! And it makes me s.h.i.+ver to think of what one meeting with some unscrupulous gangster would do to her point of view. It makes me want to fight the world when I realize how an unpleasant experience would affect her love of people. I'd rather never see her again," he was surprised, for a second time, at the pain that the words caused him, "than to have her made unhappy. I hope that this man of hers is a regular fellow!"

He pa.s.sed on down the hall. He walked slowly, the vision of Rose-Marie, a dream child held close to her breast, before his eyes. That was why, perhaps, he did not see Bennie--why he stumbled against the boy.

"h.e.l.lo," he said gruffly, for his voice was just a trifle hoa.r.s.e (voices get that way sometimes, when visions _will_ stay in front of one's eyes!) "h.e.l.lo, youngster! Do you want anything? Or are you just looking around?"

Bennie straightened up. The kitten that he had been patting rubbed rea.s.suringly against his legs, but Bennie needed more rea.s.surance than the affection of a kitten can give. The kindness of Rose-Marie, the stories that she had told him, had given him a great deal of confidence.

But he had not yet learned to stand up, fearlessly, to a big man with a gruff voice. It is a step forward to have stopped hurting the smaller things. But to accept a pretty lady's a.s.surance that things larger than you will be kind--that is almost too much to expect! Bennie answered just a shade shrinkingly.

"Th' kids in school," he muttered, "tol' me 'bout a club they come to here. It's a sort of a Scout Club. They wears soldier clo's. An' they does things fer people. An' I wanter b'long," he gulped, noisily.

The Young Doctor leaned against the wall. He did not realize how tall and strong he looked, leaning there, or he could not have smiled so whimsically. To him the small dark boy with his earnest face, standing beside the gray kitten, was just an interesting, rather lovable joke.

"Which do you want most," he questioned, "to wear soldier clothes, or to do things for people?"

Bennie gulped again, and shuffled his feet. His voice came, at last, rather thickly.

"I sorter want to do things fer people!" he said.

More than anything else the Young Doctor hated folk, even children, who say or do things for effect. And he knew well the lure that soldier clothes hold for the small boy.