Complete Works of Bram Stoker (9 page)

When Jerry had arrived at the theatre he had found visitors waiting to see him. They were none other than Mr and Mrs Muldoon, who had appeared just before. The bride had taken a fancy to see the inside of the theatre in which Jerry worked; and being certain of finding him at his business, the pair had come straight to the theatre instead of calling at his lodgings.

A man is seldom so busy that he cannot spare a while to act as cicerone to his friends; and Jerry accordingly laid aside his hurry, and conducted the happy couple over the theatre. Both husband and wife took a great pleasure in everything, and insisted in going everywhere. Margaret would work the machines by which in the stage art the sounds of rain and wind and thunder are produced; and altogether the pair raised as pretty a storm as had been heard in the theatre for many a long day.

In spite of her prejudice against going up corkscrew stairs and down into cellars, Mrs Muldoon managed to poke her nose into every odd corner of the stage. She insisted on going up into the flies, where the dust lay in places almost inches thick, quite heedless of the state of dirt to which her clothing was reduced. This part of the sight-seeing did not please her husband much on account of several accidents which happened to him. In the first place, he slipped on a flight of stairs as steep as a ladder and ‘barked’ his shin. Then he ran his head against a beam and utterly destroyed his new silk hat. Finally, he put his foot in a division between two boards and hurt his ankle, narrowly escaping a sprain. At all these calamities his wife laughed loudly except at the spoiling of the hat, for which she reprimanded him severely as being guilty of a needless piece of extravagance. Mr Muldoon began to think that married life was not such a delightful thing after all.

Then they all went down to the cellars, as Mrs Muldoon wanted to see how the demons came up through the ground. Jerry explained to her the mechanism of the traps, how a sliding board was pulled away so as to leave an open space, into which fitted exactly a piece of flooring, on which stood the person or thing to be raised; that to this flooring were attached ropes which worked over pulleys and were attached to immense counter-weights, which, when suddenly released, shot up the trap swiftly between its grooves. Mrs Muldoon wished to see it working, so Jerry drew away the slot, and released the counter-weights. She gave a little ecstatic laugh as the trap flew up, and then said to Jerry -

‘But surely it doesn’t work that way when there’s anything on it?’

‘Just the same.’

‘And how do you go up? Do you just stand on that and then up you go?’

‘Exactly.’

‘How do they stand? I suppose as stiff as pokers?’

‘This way,’ said Jerry, getting up and standing on the trap.

This was just what Mrs Muldoon wanted. She had all along been watching for an opportunity of releasing the trap, and had purposely led Jerry to stand on it that she might see him shoot up through the opening in the stage. Without giving him warning she suddenly released the trap, which flew up. Jerry, to whom the experience was novel, for his business was to work the trap and not ascend on it, felt the ground flying up with him, and was horribly startled, for the idea of the trap working of its own accord never entered his head. With an instinctive movement he started back, and in doing so lost his balance. He was hurled against the groove in which the trap worked, and from the velocity with which he was moving received a desperate blow.

When the trap was closed, Jerry lay on it perfectly insensible, and bleeding profusely.

In the meantime Mr Muldoon had been prowling about the cellar in a very bad humour, looking at the various appliances. When the trap flew up Margaret saw that Jerry was hurt, but did not know how much. She got afraid of something serious, and wished to avoid the consequences. Accordingly she ran over to her husband and said hurriedly -

‘John, dear, I think Jerry has hurt himself. He was standing on the trap and it flew up, and he struck something. They will lay the blame on us. Don’t you think we had better go?’

‘All right, but make haste,’ said the husband. And so they found their way with some difficulty into the street.

There was no one on the stage at the time, so Jerry’s accident was unnoticed. He lay there for some time, still senseless, and still bleeding, till Mr Griffin saw him as he crossed the stage on his way to his own room. He thought it was a case of drunkenness and turned the man over with his foot, with that contemptuous ‘get up’ which is used on such occasions. As he did so he saw the blood, and with an exclamation, bent over to look more closely. He saw that some accident had occurred and called for help. In a few moments the various employes began turning up, one by one, till quite a little crowd had assembled; the alarm penetrated to Grinnell’s and a large contingent arrived from that quarter.

Jerry’s head was raised and the restoratives usual to such occasions applied, but all in vain. Accordingly, a doctor was sent for, and a boy despatched to tell Mrs O’Sullivan.

Katey and Parnell arrived before the doctor. When the former saw her husband, limp and senseless, with his pale face looking vacantly upward from the knees of the man who was supporting his head, and the stage floor round him stained with blood, she gave a low, startled scream, which subsided into a prolonged moan. For an instant or two she stood, as if petrified, holding her arms out - surprise in her attitude and terror in her looks. Then, with a little hoarse, sibilant moan, she drew her left hand across her eyes and forehead, as if to clear her brain and sight, and then she knelt beside her husband for an instant, with her hands tightly clenched. The crowd made way for her and stood a little aloof.

When she recovered her shock sufficiently to understand what was before her, poor Katey’s grief was terrible. She threw herself on the body of her husband and passed her hands over his hands, his face, his hair, his bosom, whispering in a low, heartbreaking voice:

‘Jerry, Jerry, wake up; speak to me, Jerry, dear. Oh, Jerry, won’t you speak to me - to Katey, your wife, - your little wife that loves you? Oh, weirasthru, weirasthru, he’s dead, he’s dead! He won’t speak to me. He’ll never speak to me, again. Oh, Jerry, Jerry, asthore!” - Jerry, Jerry.’

The poor little woman’s voice died away into a long moan, as she buried her face in the bosom of her husband and wept.

Many of those standing round were touched, and turned away their heads not to show their emotion. All were silent, and waited.

The arrival of the doctor created a diversion. He was a fussy, good-humoured little man, who always looked at the bright side of things. His natural impulse on seeing a woman give way to violent grief was to think that it was without cause; and, as his impulse was supported by his experience, he generally continued so to think. When he bustled in and saw Katey stretched on the body of her husband, he spoke -

‘Come, come! what is all this? Who is crying? The man’s wife? Then the man’s wife has no right to cry. It is an insult to me  —  to science. The man’s wife thinks, I suppose, that Providence is very hard on her. What right, I say, has the man’s wife to judge Providence before science has spoken. The man is sure not to be dead. Why, the man’s wife ought to be ashamed of herself for not being thankful that he is not killed. Stand away and let me see the man, and we’ll very soon hear the man’s wife laughing instead of crying.’

While he was speaking he was preparing to make an examination of Jerry.

Katey was cheered by his tone, and stood up, anxious to the last degree, but feeling somewhat ashamed of her hasty grief.

The doctor made the examination usual in such cases, and then stood up before he spoke. Katey watched his lips to tell by their motion the coming words before they could be spoken.

‘Just as I thought.’ Katey’s heart gave a great bound of joy, and her head began to reel, so that she seemed to hear the remainder of his speech as through a curtain. ‘Now look at the man’s wife - she is going to faint, I warrant, just when she ought to be calm. That’s right. Courage, my poor girl, your husband is only stunned, and will be able to put his arms round your neck in ten minutes.’

Katey’s faintness began to pass away, and she knelt down by Jerry ready to do the doctor’s bidding. The latter gave some directions, which were carried out, and after a while Jerry opened his eyes. For a time he did not remember anything, and seemed quite dazed, staring blankly at the crowd of faces which he saw around him. Presently he recovered sufficiently to answer the doctor’s questions, which elicited the fact that he was hurt in the head and the side. His wounds were dressed, and Katey, after receiving instructions as to his treatment, took him home, with Parnell’s assistance, in a cab.

Parnell was obliged to return to Dublin that night; and as Jerry was very feverish and restless, Katey was obliged to sit up with him all night. In the morning Jerry was worse, and seemed to be a little off his head. He did not seem to realise where he was, and answered Katey’s anxious inquiries so strangely that she got frightened and sent for Dr Sharp, in whom she had acquired great confidence from his manner at the time of the accident.

When he saw Jerry Dr Sharp looked very grave. Katey saw his face fall and began to cry. He turned on her severely and said, although with a spice of tenderness through his sternness  — 

‘Silence, woman. This is no time to cry. This is a time to act - time enough to cry when there is a reason for it.’

‘Oh, doctor, is he very bad?’ asked poor Katey, so anxiously that the doctor patted her on the head as he answered:-

‘It is best for you to face the worse, my dear. The wound on his head is worse than I thought. I think he will have an attack of brain fever. There now, I oughtn’t to tell you anything. Come, come, stir yourself, and then you won’t want to faint. We must get him to hospital whilst he is fit to be moved.’

At the word hospital Katey’s fear became deadly, for she looked upon an institution as in some wise synonymous with ruin; but the doctor was peremptory, and before she had time to mourn Jerry was safely lodged in the nearest hospital.

Katey would have stayed with him all day only that she had her children to look after. Her sorrow at leaving him was much mitigated by the fact that one of the nurses, a Sister of Mercy, with whose sweet gentle face she fell in love, had promised to give him unfailing attention.

When she got home and thought of its desolation, now temporary, but perhaps to be permanent - Katey would have willingly cried herself stupid. But she felt that she must not give way to her feelings; the children were sobbing bitterly, having missed her for so long; and she felt, moreover, that now during Jerry’s illness, which might be a protracted one, there devolved on her the entire support of the family.

When she was going to bed that night she knelt down to say her prayers with a sadder heart than she had ever had before; she prayed for help and strength, and made a silent vow that she would work unceasingly and uncomplainingly, so that all might be as of old for Jerry when he should be well.

Nobly she kept her vow. Early and late she toiled, her only times of relaxation being those which she spent in the hospital watching by her husband’s bedside with her heart wrung by his piteous moans. He did not know her, and thus wrung her heart still more. To a loving wife there is scarcely anything so painful as the knowing that the man she loves - who is a part of herself - does not know her - that the twain which were one, are now but twain again.

She found it easy enough to get work at first, for some of the people living near knowing of her misfortune held out a helping hand. There was not much to gain, for the neighbourhood was a wretched one, but what little was came freely.

It is amongst the very poor that true generosity is found. The rich man pours his gifts, large to magnificence it may be, into the treasury, but he gives them from his superfluity: it is not often that he has to deny himself in order to be even lavish. But the mite of the widow comes out of her distress, and is valued accordingly. It would give many a wholesome lesson to even the truly charitable rich to see and know the good deeds which are done by their poorer brethren. It is only amongst the poor that charity will tolerate equality - nay, where is accorded the dignity which is the birthright of misfortune.

Katey got some little help from Dublin from Mrs O’Sullivan, who, however, was unable to do much for her on account of the absconding of a solicitor to whom she had intrusted all her little savings.

After a little while the work began to fall away; and do what she would poor Katey found it hard to keep the wolf from the door. She was up before daylight and into the market to buy vegetables which she then sold from house to house; she went charring; she tried needlework. Everything by which an honest penny could be turned she tried, and found no degradation in any employment no matter how lowly.

At last the constant working and watching tended, together with her anxiety, to make her so weak that she could hardly work. Jerry was still dangerously ill. He had by this time regained his consciousness, and she had the pleasure each day of hearing his voice speaking sweet words to her. But he was still wretchedly helpless, and she knew that it would be many a long day before he had regained his old vigour. She did not let him know of her work, but managed to let him believe that the help which she was getting from his mother was sufficient to keep her and the children from want.

When her strength began to go, many articles which could be dispensed with had to go too. Katey’s first visit to a pawn-office was a bitter experience. She was afraid and ashamed to go alone, and got her landlady, from whom she borrowed a thick veil, to go with her. She bore the ordeal well enough, but when she came home she burst out crying, and took her children on her lap and wept over them and clasped them convulsively to her arms.

Her first visit was not her last; and by the time that Jerry was discharged from hospital their lodging, now reduced to a single room, was denuded of all the articles of luxury which had once been Katey’s pride, and even of those articles of utility which were not necessary.