I confess my stomach lurched with terror just as the tarantasslurched and bounced down the hillside. But then I reminded myself that I was in God’s hands. I trusted that He would see me safely delivered, for how else could I complete His work? Comforted by this thought, I resigned myself to the fate He had chosen for me. At last the animals tired, the slope levelled out, and we came to a slithering halt at the side of the road. Another vehicle happened upon us and its occupants hurried to our aid. Miraculously, the horses were unharmed, as was I. The driver, alas, had been severely trampled and did not survive his injuries.
The sitting room of our house in Wellington was not grand by any measure, but it had a pleasant window seat overlooking the garden. In summer the lawns became a little brown and the gardener struggled to stop the beds of flowers from wilting, but as autumn approached there was a softening in the weather and of the landscape in general, so that the aspect was cheerful enough.
After my accident I was compelled to spend far longer than I had patience for recovering at home. This inactivity was a testing state in which to find myself, as my natural inclination was for useful activity. My mother, of course, made the most of my company, so that after a few weeks she had become accustomed to sitting with me in whatever room I put myself. I tried to read, or to attend to my correspondence as best I could in her presence, but she was rarely content to sit quietly.
‘Another letter, Kate? It is a mystery to me whom you find to write to. Your pen is ever scratching at a page.’
‘I may not be able to work in the hospital at present, Mama, but there are still many matters related to my position that demand my attention,’ I told her.
‘Surely that must be for someone else to worry about now? I cannot see that the quality of your rest is as it should be if you are always concerning yourself with the hospital.’
‘My body may be injured, but my mind is in perfect health and ready to be used. I cannot simply sit and wait to heal.’
My mother gave a grunt. ‘It seems to me you make a good nurse but a poor patient.’
‘Believe me, I am eager to be well and return to work.’ I bent my head over my paper again. The little writing tray I had taken to using allowed room for inkwell, blotter and a sheet of paper, giving me a steady surface upon which to work. I was completing yet another letter to the insurance company who appeared intent on avoiding their obligation to me if I gave them the slightest opportunity to do so. Since my fall, I had submitted all the correct papers and documents in order that I might obtain the full and fair payment due me. After all, what is the point of an insurance policy if not to draw upon it in times of need? That is its very purpose. Why the insurance had been so obstinate I could not fathom. I did not, however, allow their behaviour to unsettle me. I had already filed another claim, I knew what I was about, I was confident I was in the right and ultimately they, and indeed the hospital, would pay out as they should. There was no question that the stepladder’s poor condition had caused my fall. It being hospital property, the responsibility to maintain equipment lay with them, and therefore they were liable for any injury caused to any of their employees because of it. It had taken four lengthy letters before they had capitulated on this point. I did not anticipate my insurers proving any more difficult to persuade of the merits of my case.
Much as I disliked being unable to go about my work, the accident had in fact eased our financial situation considerably. Wages brought up to date. The roof, at last, got its repair. I was even able to organise a trip or two for myself and Rose, who had shown herself to be such a devoted and caring friend. I could not have wished for better.
‘If you are feeling quite up to it,’ my mother interrupted both my letter writing and my thoughts of Rose, ‘I should like to invite the Morrisons to dine with us. And possibly the Devlins.’
‘A dinner party?’
‘Why not? Nothing elaborate, you understand, something simple. Refined. A way of thanking them for their sympathies when Annie died. And for their concern over your own health.’
‘If any of them have shown any such concern I am unaware of it.’
‘Oh, come now, Kate, Mrs Morrison sent flowers the day you came home from hospital. And the Devlins asked us to take tea with them…’
‘Safe in the knowledge I was unable to accept!’
‘You seem determined to see problems where there are none! Do you wish me to live out my years in solitude?’
‘Of course not.’
‘You have your work. Your hospital, your vocation, as you never tire of telling me. And your nurses, of course.’ She paused here, but when I said nothing, pressed on. ‘A simple dinner, that is all. It is common courtesy, and I should like it. Need there be better reason?’
‘Have I raised any objection?’
‘I have not heard you speak in support of my idea.’
‘Mama, if it would make you happy to invite the Morrisons and the Devlins to dine with us, then by all means, let us fix a date and dispatch the invitations. I am sure you will have no objection to my inviting a friend to join us.’
‘A friend?’ There was no hope or excitement in my mother’s eyes, only a wariness that pinched at something tender in me.
‘The nurse who has had to shoulder a great deal of my work since my accident. Rose Farley. You have met her more than once.’
‘Indeed I have.’
Ignoring the barb in her voice I turned back to my letter. ‘That’s settled then. It will be something for us all to look forward to.’
My mother’s silence was as eloquent as any I had heard. I paid her no heed. To include Rose in the dinner party was important, for me and for her. The more the respectable people of Wellington saw that ours was an entirely respectable friendship the better. I was not immune to the cruel whispers that followed us about, and I was certain they had reached my mother. I wondered what thoughts she entertained on the matter in her private moments. I knew there was no possible circumstance in which she would begin a conversation on the subject, for to do so would give it credence, and her mind would not, simply could not, shed light on such a dark possibility.
In Jessy Brodie I found a fellow nurse whose determination to help the lepers of the world matched my own. She was a mature woman, considerably older than myself, who had established herself as a nurse of repute in New Zealand, and together we worked to set up the St John’s Ambulance in the town of Nelson. We talked often of how we might travel to India to seek out those unfortunates outcast and abandoned, who needed us most. She understood, however, that after my accident my health was compromised, as was my income. Indeed, when it was decided I would not be fit to return to my post at the Wellington Hospital, it was Jessy who came to my aid.
‘Truly, Kate, my house in Nelson sits barely used. I am so often about the country, and in any case there are more than enough rooms for us all. You and your mother would be most welcome to stay until you are completely well again.’
‘But, Jessy, it is such an imposition.’
‘Nonsense. Think how much better able to form our plans for the future we will be when we are under the same roof.’
‘It is a fact that I am finding the upkeep of our house here in Wellington… difficult.’
‘I cannot stand by and see you so taken up with worry over money when I have it to give, Kate.’
‘I confess, since I was replaced at the Wellington I have relied entirely upon the payments I received for my injuries. They never seem sufficient to cover our needs, particularly now that Mama requires tempting with good food if she is to eat at all well.’
‘Then let us decide it here and now. You will be my guests.’
And so we were. The house was small, and the garden lacking in any plants of note, but it was a comfortable and quiet place for us to stay. Mama resisted the idea at first, not wishing to give up what she considered to be her domain. When I made her understand how much easier life would be without the financial burden of our address in Wellington, howeve
r, she agreed to the move.
As time passed we came to see the little house as our home. Jessy was, as she had predicted, often away, so that more and more Mama and I inhabited the place without harbouring a desire to move on or take on a lease ourselves elsewhere.
I have always acted out of love. Our Lord told us to value faith, hope and love, but that the greatest of these is love. He instructed us, clearly, to love our neighbours as ourselves. That is all and ever what I have tried to do. How was it that people were unable or unwilling to see that? Why were they so determined to find some other, baser motivation for my actions?
And then, are there loves that are wrong? How can this be so? Why would God equip us with the ability to care for and cherish someone if it were wrong for us to do so? Surely real love can never be a malformed thing.
Our small party eventually halted at the leper settlement at Hatignach, an innermost area of Siberia. My guides were anxious at our proximity to the leper hovels and held back. By this point in my mission I had encountered many lepers, and seen for myself the terrible conditions in which they were forced to live out their pitiful existences, but still I was unprepared for the sight that greeted me at this place. It was too horrible to fully describe, and so I summarise here. A dozen or so men, women and children inhabited two tiny yourta. They were each and every one of them scantily dressed in ragged clothes, so that they must huddle together due to cold or lack of space. The dwellings themselves were riddled with vermin. One of the men was at the point of death. Two of the others who had lost their feet had tied boards to their knees so that they might drag themselves where they needed to go. Many there had only fingerless hands, and I leave it to you to imagine the hardships this brought about in a place that already offered only a harsh life. When one of the men attempted to make the sign of the cross without the aid of fingers it would have brought tears to the most callous of hearts.
They were all quite terrified of us, anticipating our loathing, borne of fear. They had learned to expect the roughest of treatments, and no words of sympathy. When they were at last helped to understand what it was we were about they fell to their knees, praising God for his mercy, blessing Him that had sent me to help them.
At one point I heard voices raised in anger and found that the Yakuts were driving away the lepers who were trying to approach me. They wished only to speak to me, but my guides and guards feared contagion, for myself and for them, and so angrily attempted to send the lepers away. I at once went towards them, an action which met with horrified objections from my travelling companions. I refused to be kept from those I had journeyed to help, and spent time reassuring them, as best our language shortfalls would permit, of my plans. My Russian was still woeful, but they heard the sincerity in my voice, and understood the true affection in my gestures. Once again I believe a shared love of God and His own language transcended the difficulties in our communications. They soon came to see that I was there because of Him, for them. They were tearful in their gratitude, and begged me to work swiftly so that a hospital might be built for them. In the meantime I promised to see that the bread that was taken out to them be of good quality, as many of them were falling ill through eating putrid food.
I arrived in Chicago for the World Trade Fair in the unshakeable belief that when the story of my journey to Siberia was heard, when my dream of the hospital for the lepers living there was explained, and when the suffering of those same people was laid before the gathering, my request for funds would be swiftly answered. God had chosen me for his instrument in this task, but I knew that He also dwells in the heart of every good and right-thinking person. And those people would be moved to act.
The city was abuzz with excitement for the Fair, the hotels and guesthouses filled, and the streets crowded. It was as a result of fighting my way through these excited crowds that I was a little late for my meeting with Mrs Elizabeth B Grannis, President of the national Christian League for the Promotion of Social Purity.
‘Please forgive my tardiness,’ I said as she bid me sit down in the charming room she used as an office. ‘I am sorry if it has put you to any inconvenience.’ I would have expected a lady of good manners to have quashed my fears and reassured me that the opposite was true. I was surprised, therefore, when no such assurance came forth from Mrs Grannis. Indeed her demeanour was cool and distant. She asked me to wait, and then left the room. On her return she had with her four more women, whom she identified as members of the board of the League. Once we were all introduced and seated she started up in a manner that quite amazed me.
‘Miss Marsden, I requested you attend this meeting because certain facts have come to our attention. And these facts, given that you wish to speak at the conference, cannot be left unchecked. I’m sure you will understand that I have a duty to the League to be certain of the… nature of the speakers whom we engage.’
I think it was that use of the term nature that so alarmed me. That and the stiff and wholly unfriendly manner in which Mrs Grannis and her colleagues held themselves in my presence. At first I did not say a word. This was not a matter of judgement on my part, simply an inability to trust myself to respond calmly on the matter on which I believed we were about to speak.
Mrs Grannis continued. ‘I have here a letter,’ she said, picking up a sheet of paper from the blotter on her desk. I could see that it contained handwritten lines, but I could not make out the signature. ‘The writer says he has reason to believe you are not entirely trustworthy. Indeed that you are not the pious and Christian soul you profess yourself to be. He states that he knows of your actions in New Zealand, and that there are people in that country who are willing and able to corroborate the facts that he has brought to my notice.
New Zealand! Had it been anywhere else, had she said Turkey, or referred to my time in Bulgaria, or in Siberia, or even Paris… I might have reacted differently. But, New Zealand.
‘Oh!’ I cried, my still-gloved hands flying to my mouth. Before I knew it I was weeping, and my words were an outpouring of emotion. Of guilt. Of confusion. Of shame. Of self-hate. For my truth was discovered, laid bare, and I could no longer deny it to myself or any of my inquisitors.
‘Miss Marsden…!’ My accuser attempted to quieten me, but my confession now flowed from me loudly and wildly and would not be stopped.
‘You cannot know how much I despise myself, good ladies!’ I told them. ‘That you should be forced – by dint of your good standing in society and your being a part of such a noble cause – that you should be forced to listen to tales of my misdeeds, to find that I am such a flawed and wretched creature…’ Through my tears I saw their shocked faces. They paled before me as I spoke. Some stared at me as if I had run mad. The others looked away, no longer able to meet my eye. And why would they wish to? ‘I do not seek to excuse myself,’ I insisted. ‘I only ask you to find it in your hearts to put aside your revulsion, for the sake of my poor lepers. It would be wrong, surely, for them to suffer further as a result of my own failings, when all I wish for in the world is to do God’s work in helping them.’
Now it was the good ladies’ turn to be silent. As I spoke they regarded me, mouths agape, some pallor being replaced by blushes, shocked as if hearing the details of my past for the first time. I knew they would judge me, for was that not their reason for summoning me? And yet I continued with my plea, for the Fair was too great an opportunity to be missed. ‘Ladies, I can only tell you this: the rigours and trials of my journey in the Siberian wilderness will have been for nought if I do not likewise withstand the tribulations facing me now. For if I am unsuccessful in raising funds for the hospital, those poor children of God will be abandoned forever to their suffering.’
I fancied I saw then a softening in their resolve to expose me and punish me. I made haste to capitalise on their compassion. I sprang from my chair and prostrated myself on the floor in front of them. ‘Please, do not force my lepers to pay the price for my sins.’
‘Miss Marsden!’ Mrs
Grannis was on her feet. ‘Will you please stop this… display, and return to your seat.’
‘Alas I cannot, I will not! Not until I have your assurance that my transgressions will be overlooked so that I might give my speech at the Fair. It is for my mission that I beg you, not for myself, for I know I shall never have your respect again. I do not ask for it. I ask only your help for God’s sake.’
‘I must ask you to control yourself and be seated. Only then can we resume this discussion in a civilised manner.’
Reluctantly I pushed myself up from the floor and sat heavily in my chair. Mrs Grannis consulted sotto voce with her companions while I awaited their verdict. Although in truth I knew I could only ever be found guilty. No, it was more their sentencing I waited for. Would they denounce me publicly? Humiliate me? Tear my reputation to shreds and scatter them on the winds of scandal? I prayed silently that God would guide them, for I had to believe that He at least had already forgiven me.
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