God's Children

by Mabli Roberts

  I continued. ‘The disease is contagious, but can be avoided with careful management of the patient. Sadly, such is the terror of infection that society’s answer in these faraway places is to banish the lepers to a place sufficiently far away from others that they are not seen as a threat. This, of course, condemns the sufferer not only to endure the disease itself, but to struggle, unwell and bereft, torn from family and loved ones, to manage in the harsh wilderness, banished and alone.’

  By this time the young woman who had asked the question had sat down again, her face quite pale. Still she managed to ask, ‘Is there no cure?’

  I shook my head. ‘None,’ I said simply.

  Now I heard another voice, from the rear of the auditorium.

  ‘But you believed that a cure did exist, is that not the case, Miss Marsden?’

  I squinted into the gloom, the brightness of the stage lights up close limiting my view. People turned to see who had spoken.

  ‘Would you stand, please?’ I asked. ‘If you would stand up, so that we might know who is putting the question…’

  I could see someone moving. She did not content herself with staying in the shadows, but moved along the row of seats until she reached the aisle. She then stepped forwards several paces so that she stood in a well-lit part of the stalls, a tall, expensively dressed woman in her middle years. She had a proud, confident bearing, and a strong, forthright voice to match.

  ‘I understand that you went to Siberia in search of a fabled flower that you wrongly believed to offer a cure for leprosy. Is that not a fact?’

  ‘It is true I had been told of a rare plant that was thought to contain properties that might provide a cure.’

  ‘And you found this plant?’

  ‘I did.’ There were more murmurs from the audience at this.

  ‘But it wasn’t a cure at all, was it?’ There was an unmistakeable hostility in this woman’s tone. Indeed she made no attempt to hide her contempt for me in either her questions or her manner.

  ‘Alas it was not. It does alleviate some of the symptoms in a minor way, but—’

  ‘But it is not the magic remedy you believed would make your fame and fortune.’

  At this there was even some laughter. ‘A pity for you,’ she went on, addressing the audience as much as she addressed me, ‘having trekked so very far in such testing conditions, withstanding, no doubt, all kinds of discomforts, and all for nothing. No wonder cure. No triumphal return for Nurse Marsden, saviour of the lepers.’ This statement was greeted with equal amounts of gasps and sniggers.

  I kept my own voice level as I replied. ‘My mission was to help the lepers in whatever ways I could,’ I said.

  ‘But if you could help yourself at the same time, so much the better, eh?’

  ‘I assure you there are easier paths to take should one look for fame and fortune, as you put it. Easier than risking one’s life in the bear-infested forests, crossing frozen lakes during the thaw, or enduring the extreme temperatures of the wilderness for weeks on end…’

  ‘Yes, yes, the trials of Nurse Marsden the Adventuress are well known, for you are an able self-publicist, no one would challenge your claim to that title.’

  ‘Madam, if I am to be insulted I demand to have your name,’ I said, struggling to keep my temper on a short rein.

  ‘Isabel Hapgood. You may have heard of me. Many here will have,’ there were a few nods and yesses from the stalls, no doubt from her companions. ‘I have had the honour and the pleasure of visiting Russia myself on many occasions, and my work as a translator of Russian literature is well known.’

  ‘Then if you know that great country you will know, Mrs Hapgood, that Siberia is as far from the sophistication and comforts of Moscow as Moscow is from London. And that between the two places lie thousands of miles of brutal wilderness, and that it is there the lepers are sent to live their wretched lives.’

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘I do say!’

  ‘And I say bunkum!’

  Now the audience reacted with more gasps and some shouts and further bursts of laughter. They had come for a sober and informative talk, in the cause of philanthropy. Now they were enjoying an altogether different entertainment. Mrs Hapgood stood, feet firmly planted, arms folded across her chest, braced fearlessly for my response.

  ‘Do you question the very existence of these lepers, madam?’

  ‘I question the numbers you count them in. Is it not the case that there are no more than sixty people affected with the disease in the whole of Russia? Sixty, and yet you would have us build your glorious hospital, with rooms to house three or four times that number.’

  ‘You fail to comprehend how far spread and remote are the current dwellings of the lepers. I saw for myself twice the number you have given, and have reliable accounts of many, many more in existence…’

  ‘Saw for yourself? From the comfort of your luxurious sleigh, perhaps? Or the vantage point of your hotel?’

  ‘I assure you there was no luxury to be had within a thousand miles of my lepers.’

  ‘Your lepers! There’s the point, is it not? This mission as you style it was nothing more than the travelling of a well-to-do woman who wished to make a name for herself and haul herself up into high society in the process.’

  ‘These accusations are outrageous and without foundation!’

  ‘Are they? You were told by numerous physicians and experts on Russia that this miraculous herb was nothing more than a balm for sores. You were further told by Russian officials in St Petersburg before ever you set off on your voyage that the lepers numbered so few as to make a nonsense of all your expensive preparations and calls for people to fund your whimsical travel plans. What is more, I have proof that you were afraid to venture into the lepers’ dwellings, and sent others in your place so that they could report back to you, and you could present their findings as your own.’

  ‘Madam, these are slanderous allegations, which I refute absolutely!’

  Here she brandished a piece of paper. ‘I have a letter telling the truth of the Godly Miss Marsden. Proof of the self-serving nature of your expedition; a letter written by none other than a respected Russian official who was required to travel with you and saw first-hand the way in which the mission was first and foremost for the benefit not of the few lepers who could be dragged before you, but for one pious English woman set upon self-aggrandisement!’

  Now there was something approaching uproar. To my left, on the stage, I was aware of the organiser of the event getting to her feet and appealing for quiet. But the room was filled with shouts of ‘Shame!’ and ‘Liar!’ Some directed at Mrs Hapgood, but most, astonishingly, thrown with fury in my direction.

  ‘Here we are, Miss Marsden. A lovely bowl of soup for your supper. Chicken, I believe, and this bread smells very appetising, I must say.’

  The young nurse is setting the tray upon my bed. I have already been lifted so that I am sitting up and better able to eat. I don’t feed myself any longer. I think I could, were I given time to try. But the nurses find it quicker to do it for me. Less fuss and less mess. Would I have done the same in their position? I do not recall ever having so little time for a patient. Perhaps I am mistaken about that. Perhaps, to my patients, I was every bit as absent, as elusive, as those who are now charged with my care.

  The nurse repositions the tray onto my lap and begins spooning the soup into my mouth. She is kind and goes about her work with an earnest diligence that reminds me of Jessy.

  ‘I wanted to go to India,’ I tell her. ‘I meant to go.’

  ‘Of course you did,’ she replies, pausing to dab at my chin with the napkin.

  ‘But Nell needed me, you see? And I had to go to Russia.’

  ‘Goodness. India, Russia… what a lot of travelling.’

  ‘Jessy was in India.’

  ‘Another spoonful? There, that’s right. Got to keep your strength up.’

  ‘For what, I wonder?’

  ‘S
orry?’

  ‘Why must my strength be kept up? I never leave this bed, nor will I ever, so why should I need to be strong?’

  The nurse frowned a little. ‘Now, now. It does no one any good at all to think like that. Everybody needs to eat well, you know that. You were a nurse, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. And so was Jessy. That’s why she went to India ahead of me. But I couldn’t follow.’

  ‘Not sure I should like to work in India. Too hot for me, I’m afraid.’

  ‘There was a terrible cholera outbreak.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Jessy fell ill. She was nursing the victims of the epidemic and she fell ill. And I wasn’t there to help her.’

  ‘Try not to distress yourself, Miss Marsden. It was all a very long time ago, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Jessy caught cholera and she died. It was because of me that she went there. Because of me that she died.’

  ‘Now I highly doubt that,’ says the nurse, quickly scraping up the last of the soup and feeding it to me. ‘There. All eaten up. Very well done.’ She dabs my mouth again and, picks up the tray, and walks towards the door. ‘You see if you can’t have a little nap,’ she calls over her shoulder without looking back. ‘Dr Philips will be doing his rounds at three. So we must have you spruced up and looking your best, mustn’t we?’ she asks without expecting an answer, and then she leaves.

  ‘Just like Jessy. Everything done as it should be done. No place for cut corners. Only that time she would not wait for me. She was determined that she should go. She died and I wasn’t there.’

  How long the night seems. The daylight hours move by in a more business-like fashion, with the brisk comings and goings of nurses and doctors and orderlies but, at night, it is as if the weight of the darkness slows all movement. The heaviness of the night deadens sounds and pulls at the heels of the passing minutes. How long have I lain here? I know it is more than weeks, but is it months or years now? I can see the icy expanse of the wilderness so clearly that I can taste the falling snow as if it were landing upon my tongue, but I cannot bring to mind the moment of my coming to this hospital.

  This night I am aware of a curious odour, one altogether different from the usual scent of human frailty and the harsh smell of treatments. It is something as dark as the night itself. Something earthy. I have smelled it before, yet I cannot place its origins. The air is so tainted with the odour that it catches at the back of my throat and triggers in me a primal fear. I can hear the fluttering of my own disturbed pulse beating on the drum of my ear. It is one of the many ironies of ageing that as my ability to discern noises outside my own body dwindles, I hear more clearly the stuttering sounds within. The quality of the silence around me, however, is not pure, for I can just detect the rasping of breaths taken that do not match my own flimsy rhythm. These are deep, gruff gulps of air, swiftly snatched and then grunted out, fetid and used up.

  I sense rather than see movement, at first. There is a slow shifting of a large, heavy form in the darkest corner of the room. As my visitor moves nearer I am at last able to put a name to the familiar odour. If I could scream I would. I would scream on and on with my dying breath, but I find I cannot make a sound. The stroke left me with only a stammering whisper of a voice that has not the capacity for screaming. If I could run I would, but I cannot so much as raise myself up, nor turn away from the approaching horror. All I can do is shrink back on my pillows, drawing in what little of me is left, pulling myself in close to that tiny light that still insists on burning deep inside me. Beyond that there is nothing left but prayer. Oh God! Let it be a swift deliverance now!

  And so it comes out of the gloom and into the half-light of the lamp, and I find I cannot look away but must stare right into the face of the great, hungry bear as it towers over me, its golden eyes fixed upon me, its savage gaze burning into me. At last the moment is come, and the terror of the taiga has found me, alone and unprotected, save for what mercy God might choose to show me.

  Was it worth all the sacrifices? In the end, was it worth it?

  Why do you ask me that? You of all people.

  Perhaps I am the only one who knows, who truly knows, what it cost you. Your mission. Your cause. Your beloved lepers.

  I had to go. I had to.

  Everyone thinks you wanted to be famous, to go about in high society and live a celebrated life.

  Mixing with people of wealth and influence was a necessary part of attempting to raise funds.

  Even so, a rather pleasant necessity, wouldn’t you say? Balls at the Winter Palace. Being received at Windsor Castle. Taking tea with the Empress and accepting gifts from the Queen of England. I should have liked some of that necessity myself.

  I would have exchanged it all for one more picnic with you. I believe you know that, in your heart.

  And what of your heart, Kate? Did it ever mend?

  My pain was part of my penance.

  And my pain?

  I am so sorry, Rose. I would not have hurt you for the world, but…

  …not for the world, but for God…? For your conscience?

  It must be summer, I think. Or at least, an unusually sunny day, for the light falling through the window has bleached my room white. The linen of the bed, the paint of the walls, even the tiles of the floor, all are rendered bright, sharp, white without blemish. Or am I again on the tundra? Yes, this purity is too absolute for anything formed by man’s hand. Such spotlessness, such flawlessness can surely only be found in the vast, wild places that are God’s splendid work. I wish my eyes were not so feeble. I can only squint into the dazzle, searching for form or shape, for shade or shadow. But I am certain I am treading on the uncorrupted snow of the wilderness. How wonderful it is to stand again. I can see me feet are bare, bony and gnarled, but I do not feel them freeze. The snow has a crust of ice where it has melted slightly beneath the fleeting sun, and then frozen again, and again, and again. I stand upon this glass-like rime, yet my skin does not burn, nor stick, nor send jabbing pain upwards through my body.

  I see now that my hands are gloveless, and yet they retain a healthy pink hue. It is as if I have a warmth from within that cannot be doused and quenched even by this arctic cold. I am accepted here at last. The elements no longer seem set upon my destruction. This vast emptiness allows me to be a part of it, and I find I am at last at peace with myself. How far I have travelled to come to this point. And look, there! Low buildings, arranged in a rectangle, with a church atop the hill. All white, and pristine, and newly built. And I can hear the church bell ring, summoning the faithful to worship, and there they go, arm in arm, nurses and patients, the old and the young, safe and sound.

  The SS Ruapehu for the duration of the voyage from New Zealand to England was home to a curious mix of people. People who might otherwise never have found themselves in close proximity. It was not a grand ship, so that we were not treated to the company of people from the highest ranks of society. Nevertheless, there were those who interested me, and those I judged might listen to my plans with a sympathetic ear.

  Upon a calm sea, we sailed into evening, having dined early, and retired to the saloon. Those with a yen for card games got up a four for bridge. A young businessman and a gentleman returning home to Scotland challenged one another to a game of chess. Mama was engaged in conversation by an elderly lady from Hampstead who wished to debate the curative properties of taking the waters at Bath, and whether better treatments could be found on the Continent. Nell and I took peppermint tea with Mr and Mrs Rawlings, a refined couple enjoying the freedom of travel now that their family were grown, and a rather brash man by the name of Harris who was, he told us, ‘in entertainments’ in the north of England. I quickly learned that both the Rawlings and the entrepreneur were of a philanthropic nature and had funds with which to indulge this inclination.

  ‘Tell me, Miss Marsden,’ Mrs Rawlings sat forwards on the red velvet chair, ‘how is it that you have committed yourself to seeking out these lepers? What co
mpels you?’

  ‘As a nurse I am called to help those who suffer, wherever they may be.’

  Mr Harris puffed on a stout cigar, not troubling himself to remove it from his mouth as he spoke. ‘I heard you were out in Bulgaria. It’s brave woman who puts herself in the way of the Turks. You went to help the Russians, though, not lepers.’

  ‘That was early in my nursing career,’ I explained, ‘and I was asked, along with four fellow nurses, to assist at a field hospital during the war. It was there I first encountered patients afflicted with leprosy. I have never forgotten them, and I never will.’ I looked directly at Mrs Rawlings as I spoke. ‘Imagine if you will a disease that robs a person of every shred of dignity, inflicts upon them cruel suffering and hideous disfigurement, on top of which that person must be cast out, to survive or not as he is able, away from loved ones, away from all Christian charity… no right-thinking person could turn their backs on such torment.’

  Mrs Rawlings shook her head slowly, not in disagreement, but in disbelief at the cruelty of chance, no doubt, and the callousness of man. ‘They are surely to be pitied,’ she said quietly.