Poor Mrs. Venn

Irish Jesuit Province

Poor Mrs. VennAuthor(s): Alexandra BrandtSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 37, No. 429 (Mar., 1909), pp. 146-149Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20502581 .

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I 46 1

POOR MRS. VENN

By ALEXANDRA BRANDT

T HEY buried her yesterday. Few were the mourners and of a humble class, for the deceased had lived and died a pauper.

When I heard of her death, I made it a duty to attend the funeral of one whom, in spite of her lowly station, I had learned to respect and look up to.

I met a little friend at the open grave, a young music-teacher, who used often to go and see the good woman in her lifetime; and I was pleased to notice tears in the girl's eyes,-the only tears that were shed on that occasion. She stole to my side, and I silently pressed her hand; well I knew what a dear friend and model she had lost in the destitute and crippled old widow -a model of perfection such as is rarely met with in our days of harebrained levity on the one side and sham piety on the other.

It was by chance that I had made her acquaintance. One fine day, on my way to the cemetery, I happened to witness a disaster: a motor-car ran over a poor wee kitten, and as none of the passers-by minded the wretched little creature, though it

was evidently badly hurt, I took it up and looked about, at a loss what to do.

Presently I was hailed by a mild voice proceeding from a window on the ground floor of the house next to which the accident had happened. I turned round and saw the emaciated face of an elderly woman which wore a pale, sickly hue, but was lit up by eyes brimful of sympathy and kindliness. She begged

me to come into her room, " first door to the right," and when I had entered the gloomy dungeon-like apartment, she apologised for her seeming want of courtesy in not getting up from her seat to open the door for me. From the time of her husband's death, she went on to tell me, she had a paralysed leg. The poor man met his untimely death in a gas explosion, and the terrible shock left her crippled for life. There was much simple grace and dignity in her demeanour; her speech was correct and strangely refined for the vulgar surroundings in which she lived, and I soon found out that the poor lady had seen better days. From stray remarks of hers, as well as from odd pieces of furniture which, though faded and time-worn, bore traces of



POOR MRS. VENN I47

good taste and refinement, I gathered that, in her youth, want and sorrow had been unknown to her.

She fondly took the kitten into her lap, saying that she was willing to nurse it until it would be reclaimed.

"Good sport it might find here, were it to recover," she remarked with a faint smile. "The mice are a great nuisance, and I am utterly helpless."

" You have got mice in your room ?" I looked about, rather ill at ease, I must confess, for I cannot help sharing that ridi culous sensation of terror my sex is prone to, respecting those little animals.

" Indeed I have, and they will keep me wide awake these long weary nights, playing at hide and seek in my bed."

" In your bed ? Impossible! " I exclaimed aghast. She only smiled-a sweet subdued smile, a smile that long

and continuous suffering had evidently not had the power to efface.

" The little intruders are well aware that I am helpless and unable to chase them away. I used to clap my hands and shout, but move I could not; so they soon made sure that the straw of my mattress was as safe a hiding place as ever they had enjoyed, and a warm one, to boot."

"Did you never keep a cat overnight ? " I asked. "Of course I did, but the result was disheartening. The

baker's cat, for one, was too proud a customer to be of any use. She feeds on bread and milk; no wonder that she hardly noticed the mice, and coiling herself upon my old rug, slept peacefully until morning ! I took my chance a second time, and borrowed one of a very poor neighbour. But, dear me! she made matters worse: I might have fancied my bed to be a howling ground, and puss a big ball, 'tipping all nine' across

my body.... I had to stop that game." " You never tried poison ?" " I'd rather have them alive than dying, or dead, under

me! " From that day, the old lady and I were friends. During

some later interview, she told me of her sad reverses and con fessed that, without ever begging, she actually lived by public charity.

" God has been very good to me; I was never altogether forsaken, and so I have every reason to be grateful and happy,,' she would often say in her simple straightforward manner which

was equally far from false humility and from false pride. Our first meeting dates many years back. Having but very

little time to spare, I induced some young friends of mine to



I48 THE IRISH MONTHLY

go and see her regularly. I knew that occasional calls were her sole diversion in her loneliness. A rude, ill-favoured neighbour looked in every morning to do the rough work for her, for which the " good Samaritan " extorted the last penny from the helpless invalid; the woman would also send her children to run an errand, or do some odd job for the poor lady, but, " like sire, like son," she had to prepay every service.

Each of her visitors asserted that no one could have been with her half an hour without being heartily ashamed of ever having grumbled at and worried about those inevitable trifling annoyances of daily life. As time wore on, a few of her faithful visitors died; others were drifting on the current of existence to the four points of the compass, so that, in the course of the years, none were left to her except that little music-teacher and myself.

" Whenever I feel sad or in trouble," that young lady often said, " I go straight to Mrs. Venn. She knows how to console

me; how to infuse the virtue I need most-patience-into my soul. . . . Indeed, merely to look at her gentle form, more and

more bent by infirmity and privations, and constant sitting in her old arm-chair, would do anyone's heart good, and soften the passions and sorrows one might have been troubled

with." A young friend once made her the present of a canary-bird.

She tamed it in a surprisingly short time, so as to have it hop about on the floor looking for crumbs, and alight on her shoulder at her call. It was a touching sight-the poor crippled invalid and her lively winged companion that, in spite of the gloom and desolation of its new abode, warbled forth its sweet songs of joy and love, and seemed to consider life in this miserable room fully as amusing as in the dantily painted brass cage it had recently left.

Of late, she had sometimes complained of failing health and of incessant neuralgic pains in her head; but these complaints

were uttered gently, even joyfully, and frequently wound up wvith some reflections such as, " Our Lord's pains were surely a thousand times worse than mine," or " Isn't it good of our dear Lord to send me something to suffer for Him ?"

She often told me of her only daughter who is a Poor Clare, in one of the few French convents that, up to now, have escaped the cruel fate of religious communities in that distressed country.

Her anxiety for the nuns was great; every day she expected to hear that they had been expelled.

" Your daughter might have done better: stay with you

and support you in your helpless old age! " I remarked one



POOR MRS. VENN I49

day rather tartly when she showed me the photograph of the healthy and cheerful-looking young religious.

Her glance was fixed on me reproachfully. "I wonder at you," she said. "God called her! Who am I that I should have stepped between Him and my child ? Surely, you do not

mean I should have refused Him that sacrifice ?" The priest was very kind to her, she often assured me. "He

brings me our Lord every week-am I not infinitely better off than your grand ladies who, whilst flitting from one dinner party to another, have never time to feed their immortal souls ?"

As her life had been, her death was: gentle, peaceful, and saintly. Her priest had been with her the day before, when she was laid up with a severe attack of bronchitis. She received the Last Sacraments with ineffable devotion and gratitude in the presentiment that her earthly sufferings were drawing to an end. Her young friend had decorated the dingy room with a few bright flowers for the occasion, and had supplied a fine linen

Communion cloth with dainty lace, and a beautifully carved Oberammergau crucifix.

Poor Mrs. Venn having expressed the wish that I should be present when the Last Sacraments were administered to her, a messenger was despatched; but, unfortunately, I had been away from town for a couple of days, and the message did not reach me until after she had ceased to breathe.

Never before did the truth of the saying come home to me so forcibly that " there is none so simple but can set good ex ample, none so poor but can enrich his fellow-creatures, none so

miserable but can brighten up another's life, none so low but can attain the exalted standing of heir to eternal glory."

VENIT NOX

The night is coming that ends all toil: Let us no briefest moment spoil.



Poor Mrs. Venn

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