"Oh, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow,Whiter than snow, whiter than snow,"
"Oh, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow,Whiter than snow, whiter than snow,"
"Oh, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow,
Whiter than snow, whiter than snow,"
sang a blear-eyed girl in a raucous, tuneless chant.
Musical Meg put her fingers to her ears. "You've got the wrong tune, Rosie; listen, I'll hum it to you," but finding her attempts after musical correctness were unheeded, she started herself theQui habitatof theComplineoffice.
"Good Lord, girls!" came the shrill voice of Daisy Crabtree; "what's up now? It gives me the hump to hear you sniffing and sobbing over your psalm tunes; let's have something cheerful with a chorus: ''Allo! 'allo! 'allo! it's a different girl again——'"
"Oh! do be quiet, Daisy; wait until the poor little things has said their prayers," came the gentle voice of Priscilla.
"'Different eyes and a different nose——'"
"Stow that, Daisy, or I'll drive those teeth you're so proud of down your throat," said the tall wardswoman.
Temperance Hunt (known to her associates as "Tipsy Tempie," all unconscious of the classical dignity of the oxymoron) was a clear starcher and ironer, so skilled in the trade that it was said she could command her own terms in West End laundries, but like many "shirt and collar hands," she was given to bouts of terrible drunkenness, during which she would pawn her furniture and her last rag for gin. Then she would retire to the workhouse for a time, get some clothes out of the charitable, sign another pledge, and come forth again, to the comfort and peace of many households—for the wearers of Tempie's shirtsdressed for dinner without a murmur, and "never said a single 'damn.'"
Tipsy Tempie was a very powerful woman, and the song died on Daisy's lips as she came towards her, a threatening light in her eyes. "All right, keep your 'air on; if I mayn't sing I'll tell you another tale. When I was in the Haymarket last Boat-race night——"
"Now, duckies, you go and get washed; your poor faces are all swelled with crying—can't go to bed like that, you know; we lidies in this ward are most particular."
"Please, teacher," said the elder child, "governess downstairs said as we were to go straight to bed; we had a bath yesterday directly we came in."
"Do what I tell you. A little drop of water'll stop the smarting of all your tears, and you'll get to sleep quicker."
"Now, then, Daisy," she exclaimed, as the two children obediently departed, "if you tell any more of your beastly stories before them two innocent dears, I'll throttle you."
"Then you will be hung," said Daisy airily.
"Do you think I'd care? Good riddance of bad rubbish, as can't help making a beast of itself. But one thing I insists on—don't let us corrupt these 'ere little girls; we're a bad lot in here; most of you are—well, I won't say what, for it ain't polite, and I don't 'old with the pot calling the kettle black, and I know as I'm a drunkard. My father took me to church hisselfand had me christened 'Temperance,' hoping as that might counterrack the family failing; but drink is in the blood too deep down for the font-water to get at. Poor father! he struggled hard hisself; but he kicked my blessed mother wellnigh to death, and then 'anged hisself in the morning when he found what he done; so I ain't got no manner of chance, and though I take the pledge when the lidies ask me, I know it ain't no good. Well, as I said before, we're a rotten lot, but not so bad that we can't respect little kiddies, and any one can see that these little girls aren't our sort. I ask you all—all you who are mothers, even though your children ain't any fathers in particular—to back me in this." ("'Ear, 'ear!" said Priscilla.) "I ain't had the advantage some of you have; I ain't been in twenty-seven religious homes like Daisy, and I don't know psalms and hymns like Meg; but I've got as strong a pair of fists as ever grasped irons, and those shall feel 'em who says a word as wouldn't be fit for the lady Guardian's ears."
The frightened Daisy had crept meekly into bed; the two little children came back, and Tempie tucked them up with motherly hands, kissing the little swollen faces; Musical Meg started a hymn.
The assistant matron came up from supper, and her brows knitted angrily as she heard the singing. But at the door of the ward she paused, handle in hand, for, from the lips of the fallen and the outcast, of the wanton and the drunkard,led by the strangely beautiful voice of the half-witted girl, rose the hymn of high Heaven—
Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty;God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity.
Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty;God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity.
Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty;
God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity.
There be two things that grieve my heart; and the third maketh me angry:A man of war that suffereth poverty.
There be two things that grieve my heart; and the third maketh me angry:A man of war that suffereth poverty.
There be two things that grieve my heart; and the third maketh me angry:A man of war that suffereth poverty.
There be two things that grieve my heart; and the third maketh me angry:
A man of war that suffereth poverty.
A cab stood at the door of the workhouse, and a crowd of children and idlers collected at once. A cab there often contained a lunatic or a "d.t." case, or some person maimed or unconscious—generally something sensational. The cabman slashed his whip several times across the window to apprise the fares of his arrival, but there was no movement from within, and an enterprising boy, peering in through the closed windows, announced gleefully: "Why, it's old Inky and his wife, drunk as lords!"
A volunteer rang the bell, and an aged inmate at once opened the door, and finding that matters were beyond him, fetched a liveried officer, who gazed contemptuously at the cabman and asked satirically what he had got there.
"I have just driven back the Dook and Duchess of Hinkerman to the quiet of their suburban residence after the h'arduous festivities of the season. Her Grace was a little overcome by the 'eat at the crowded reception of the King of Bohemia, and was compelled to withdraw. Isent the footman round to the town 'ouse to say as their Graces would not dine at 'ome this evening, so I must ask you kindly to assist her Grace to alight."
The crowd roared loudly at this sally, and the porter, opening the cab door, drew out an aged and infirm man, whom he dragged off roughly through the whitewashed lobby. Then he returned for the wife, a shrunken little body in a state of stupefaction, whom he flung over his shoulder like a baby, and then the hall door shut with a bang.
The cabman looked rather crestfallen, and requested that the bell might be rung again, and again the aged inmate blinked forth helplessly.
"I am waiting," said the cabman, "for a little gratuity from his Grace; his own brougham not being in sight, I volunteered my services."
The liveried officer again appeared, and a heated altercation ensued, in the midst of which the Master of the workhouse arrived and endeavoured to cut short the dispute, observing that his workhouse not being Poplar, he had no power to pay cab fares for drunken paupers out of the rates. The cabman gulped, and, dropping his Society manner, appealed to the Master as man to man, asking what there was about his appearance that caused him to be taken for "such a —— fool as to have driven a —— pair of —— paupers to a —— workhouse unless he had seen the colour of a florin a kind-'earted lady had put into the old man's hand afore the perlice ran them both in."
He appealed to the public to decide "whether he looked a greater fool than he was, or whether they took him for a greater fool than he looked." In either case, he "scorned the himputation," and if the Master thought cabmen were so easy to be had he (the Master) had better withdraw to a wing of his own work'us, where, he understood, a ward was set apart for the "h'observation of h'alleged lunatics."
The crowd roared approval, and orders were sent that the old couple should be searched, and after a breathless ten minutes, spent by the cabman with his pink newspaper, a florin was brought out by the aged inmate, reported to have been found in the heel of the old lady's stocking. The crowd roared and cheered, and the cabman drove off triumphant, master of the situation.
I found old "Inky" a few days later sitting in a corner, surly and sullen and pipeless, having been cut off tobacco and leave of absence for four weeks. I suppose discipline must be maintained, but there is something profoundly pathetic in the sight of hoary-headed men and women, who have borne life's heavy load for seventy and eighty years, cut off their little comforts and punished like school-children.
He stood up and saluted at my approach; his manners to what he called "his betters" were always irreproachable. I brought him a message from a teetotal friend urging him to take the pledge, but he sniffed contemptuously;like many a hard drinker, he never would admit the offence.
"I warn't drunk, not I; never been drunk in my life. 'Cos why? I've got a strong 'ed; can take my liquor like a man. Small wonder, though, ma'am, if we old soldiers do get drunk now and then. Our friends are good to us and stand us a drop; and we need it now and then when we get low-spirited, and this work'us and them clothes"—and he glanced contemptuously at his fustians—"do take the pluck out of a man. We ain't got nothing to live for and nothing to be proud on; and it takes our self-respeck—that's what it does—the self-respeck oozes out of our finger-tips. Old Blowy, at St. Pancras Work'us, 'e says just the same. Don't you know Old Blowy, ma'am—'im as had the good luck to ride at Balaclava? I'm told some gentleman's got 'im out of there and boards 'im out independent for the rest of his life. Can't you get me out, ma'am? I ain't done nothin' wrong, and 'ere I am in prison. If it weren't for the missis I'd starve outside. I can play a little mouth-organ and pick up a few pence, and my pals at the 'King of Bohemia' are very good to me. I can rough it, but my missis can't—females are different—and so we was druv in 'ere. The Guardians wouldn't give me the little bit of out-relief I asked for—four shillings would have done us nicely. They listened to some foolish women's cackle—teetotal cant, I call it—and refused me anything. 'Offered the 'Ouse,' as they say; and, though me and themissis half-clemmed afore we accepted the kind invitation, a man can't see 'is wife starve; and so 'ere we are—paupers. Yes, I fought for the Queen"—and he saluted—"Gawd bless 'er! all through the Crimean War; got shot in the arm at Inkermann and half-frozen before Sebastopol, and I didn't think as I should come to the work'us in my old age; but one never knows. The world ain't been right to us old soldiers since the Queen went. I can't get used to a King nohow, and it's no good pretending; and Old Blowy at St. Pancras says just the same. I suppose we're too old. I can't think why the Almighty leaves us all a-mouldering in the work'uses when she's gone. However, I'm a-going out; I shall take my discharge, if it's only to spite 'im and show my independent spirit," and he shook an impotent fist at the Master, who passed through the hall. "It's warm weather now, and we can sleep about on the 'eath a bit. We shan't want much to eat—we're too old."
* * * * * *
A week or so later I heard of the death of old "Inky." He had been found in a half-dying condition on one of the benches on the heath, and had been brought by the police into the infirmary, where he passed away without recovering consciousness. As we "rattled his bones over the stones" to his pauper grave I said a sincereLaus Deothat another man of war had been delivered from poverty and the hated workhouse.
Quis est homo, qui non fleret?
"No, ma'am, I've never had no misfortune; I'm a respectable girl, I am. Why am I in the workhouse, then? Well, you see, it was like this: I had a very wicked temper, and I can't control it somehow when the mistresses are aggravating, and I runned from my place. I always do run away. No, there was nothing agen the last mistress—it was just my nasty temper. Then I got wandering about the streets, and a policeman spoke to me and took me to a kind lady, and she put me here to prove me, and left me to learn my lesson. She takes great interest in my case. Yes, Matron says it is a disgrace for a strong girl to be on the rates, but what am I to do? I ain't got no clothes and no character, so I suppose I shall always be here now. No, it ain't nice; we never go out nor see nothing—leastways, the young women don't. There's no sweet puddings and no jam. Some of the girls say jail's far better. Yes, I am an orphan—at least, father died when I was very little, and the Board gentlemen put me and my brothers into theschools. No, I never heard any more of them. Mother came to see me at first, but she ain't been nor wrote for five years; perhaps she is dead or married again. No, I don't know how old I am; Matron says she expects about eighteen. Oh, yes, I have been in places. The Board ladies got me my first place at a butcher's, only he was always coming after me trying to kiss me, and the missis did not seem to like it somehow and she cut up nasty to me, and there was words and I went off in a temper. No gentleman! I should think not. A damned low scoundrel I call him. I beg your pardon, ma'am, I know 'damned' isn't a word for ladies. I ain't an ignorant girl, but there's worse said in the Young Women's Room sometimes. Then after that the Salvation Army took me in and found me a place in a boarding-house. Heaps to do I had, and such a lot of glasses and plates and things for every meal. I always got muddled laying the table, and the missis had an awful nasty temper, quite as bad as mine, and one day she blew me up cruel, and I ran away. Then this time some nuns took me to their Home, and there I made a great mistake; I thought it was a Church of England Home, but they was Cartholics. Oh, yes, the nuns were very kind to me—real good ladies—but the lady who takes an interest in my case said as I had made a great mistake; I don't know why except that I always was a Church of England girl. No, ma'am, I hope I may never make a worse mistake—for they was good, and they sangbeautiful in the chapel. Then the nuns found a place for me with two old homespun people; they was very dull and often ill, and I was always getting muddled over the spoons and forks, an that made themurritable, and one day I felt so low-spirited and nasty-tempered that I ran away again. The worst of places for me is, no porters sit at the front doors and I run away before I think, and then I get no character. But this time I have been proved, and I have learnt my lesson. I won't do it any more. No, ma'am, I never knew I could be taken to the police-courts just for running away—none of the ladies never told me; I thought you were only copped for murders and stealing. Daisy White—she pinched her missis's silk petticoat to go out in on Sunday, and now she's out of jail no one won't have her any more. But it's mostly misfortunes that brings girls here, and fits of course. Blanche, that big girl with the squint eye, went off in a fit yesterday as we were scrubbing the wards. No, I don't have no fits, and I'm honest as the day. Would I be a good girl and not run away if you get me a place? Oh, ma'am, only try me. The kind ladies quote textesses to me, but they never get me a job. No, I don't mind missing my dinner. Matron will keep it hot for me, but it's only suet pudding to-day with very little sugar. In situations they give you beautiful sweet puddings nearly every day, and Juliet Brown—she that's in with her third misfortune—she says she's lived with lords and ladies near the King's Palaceat Buckingham—at least, she pretends she has—well, she says in her places the servants had jam with their tea every day.
"No, I haven't got no clothes but these workhouse things, but Matron keeps a hat and jacket to lend to girls who ain't got none. Oh! it is beautiful to see the sun shining, and the shops, and the horses, and the ladies walking about, and the dear little children. I love children. Often when the Labour Mistress wasn't about I ran up to the nursery to kiss the babies. Juliet's third misfortune is a lovely boy with curls. I haven't been out of doors for three months—the young women mayn't go out in the workhouse, only the old people—so you can guess I like it: but the air makes me hungry. We had our gruel at seven this morning. We don't have no tea for breakfast, but girls do in situations, I know, and as much sugar as they like—at least, in most places. Thank you, ma'am, I should love a bun. I love cakes. Yes; I have a cold in my head, and I ain't got no pocket-handkerchief. I've lost it, and it wasn't very grand. An old bit of rag I call it. It would be so kind of you to buy me one, ma'am. I know it looks bad to go to see ladies without one. I ain't an ignorant girl; the kind lady who takes an interest in my case always said so. Isn't that barrel-organ playing beautiful! It makes me want to dance, only I don't know how. Daisy White—she that pinched the silk petticoat—can dance beautiful; some of us sing tunes in the Young Women's Room, and she'd dance. I love music—that's why I liked the Cartholic Home best; the nuns sang lovely in the chapel.
"Is this the house? Ain't it lovely! I never saw such a beautiful droring-room in all my life. Just look at the carpet and the flowers and the pictures! Ain't that a beautiful one, ma'am, with the trees and the water running down the rocks, and the old castle at the back! The nuns at the Cartholic Home once took us an excursion by train to a place just like that, and whilst we were having our tea the old castle turned sudden all yellow in the sun—just like Jerusalem the Golden.
"Do you think the lady will have me, ma'am? I shan't never want to run away here. I will be a good girl, ma'am; I promise I will be good."
Why, O my God, hast Thou forsaken Me?Not so My mother; for behold and see,She steadfast stands! O Father, shall it beThat she abides when Thou forsakest Me?
Why, O my God, hast Thou forsaken Me?Not so My mother; for behold and see,She steadfast stands! O Father, shall it beThat she abides when Thou forsakest Me?
Why, O my God, hast Thou forsaken Me?Not so My mother; for behold and see,She steadfast stands! O Father, shall it beThat she abides when Thou forsakest Me?
Why, O my God, hast Thou forsaken Me?
Not so My mother; for behold and see,
She steadfast stands! O Father, shall it be
That she abides when Thou forsakest Me?
Three days of frost had brought the customary London fog—dense, yellow, and choking. Londoners groped their way about with set, patient faces, breaking out, however, into wild jubilation in the bowels of the earth, where the comparative purity and brightness of the atmosphere of the Tube railway seemed to rush to their heads like cheap champagne.
In the Open-air Ward of the workhouse infirmary the sufferers coughed and choked away their last strength in the poisonous atmosphere; the cold was very great, but the fever in their veins kept the patients warm, though the nurses went about blue and shivering, and on the side of the ward open to the elements the snow had drifted in, melted, and frozen again, making a perilous slide for the unwary. The sky was black as at midnight, but according to the clock the long night had ended, the long day had begun, the patients were washed, the breakfast was served,and a few, who were well enough, got up, dressed themselves, and occupied themselves with a book or paper. One man worked furiously at rug-making, his knotted fingers dragging the hanks of wool through the canvas as if his life depended on speed. By the side of the ward open to the fog lay a young man so wasted and shrunken that he looked almost like a child. When the nurse brought him his breakfast he raised his head eagerly: "Has mother come?"
"Why, Teddy, you're dreaming! Your mother has only just gone; it's morning, my dear, and she had to get back to the factory; but she'll be here again this evening, never fear. You have a mother in ten thousand, lucky boy! Now get your breakfast."
Teddy's head fell back again in apathetic indifference, and he listened forlornly to a dispute between two men who had been playing dominoes. One had accused the other of cheating, and an angry wrangle had arisen, till at length the nurse had stepped in and stopped the game.
Later on the same men began to dispute about horse-racing, and the world-renowned names of Ladas and Persimmon and Minoru, etc., figured largely.
"I tell you Persimmon was the King's 'oss, and he won the Derby in 1898. I know I'm right, because it was the year I got the Scripture Prize at Netherwood Street."
"No, that warn't till 1900, and I'll tell you why—"
"I tell you it war!"
"I tell you it warn't!"
Again the nurse intervened, and tried to distract the disputants with a copy of a newspaper, but the warfare was renewed after her back was turned, to the amusement or irritation of the sufferers.
In the farther corner of the ward a man in delirium raved and blasphemed, occasionally giving rapid character-sketches of some woman—not complimentary either to her taste or morals; then he would relapse into semi-unconsciousness and wake with a loud, agonized cry for his mother.
In the afternoon a visitor came to see Teddy Wilson. Teddy had sung in the choir and his vicar called often to visit him. Teddy had been a prize-scholar of the L.C.C. schools; from scholarship to scholarship he had passed to a lawyer's office in the City; and then one day he had begun to cough and to shiver, and the hospital to which he had been taken had seen that phthisis was galloping him to the grave. They did not keep incurable cases, and Teddy had been passed on to die in the workhouse infirmary. When Teddy found himself a pauper he had raged furiously and futilely, and the gallop to the grave went at double pace. He lifted his head eagerly when the nurse brought the clergyman to his bedside. "Has mother come?" he asked, and then fell back apathetically. Yes, he was getting better; it was only the remains of pleurisy. Would he like prayers read? Oh, yes, he didn't mind. Teddy was always docile.
Screens were fetched, and the clergyman knelt down by his bedside. The two men noisily resumed their quarrel about horse-racing in order to show their contempt for the Church, till the nurse stuck thermometers into their mouths to secure some silence.
The man in delirium raved on, cursing in picturesque variety the woman of his love and hate. All around the sick and dying coughed and choked in their agonized struggle for breath.
"Consider his contrition, accept his tears, assuage his pain.... We humbly commend the soul of this Thy servant, our dear brother, into Thy hands.... Wash it, we pray Thee, in the blood of the immaculate Lamb ... that whatsoever defilements it may have contracted in the midst of this miserable and naughty world ... it may be presented pure and without spot before Thee."
As the vicar read on silence fell upon the ward; the question of Persimmon was dropped, and even the delirious man ceased to blaspheme and lay quiet for a time. It seemed to the young priest as if the peace of God for which he had prayed had fallen upon this place of pain and terror.
Before he went he stopped for a word or a hand-shake with the patients, and settled the vexed question of Persimmon's victory.
"Fancy his knowing that!" said the first disputant. "Not so bad for a devil-dodger."
"They aren't all quite fools. There was a bloke down at Bethnal Green, a real good cricketerand sportsman; they've made him a bishop now, and as I allus says, there's bigger liars knocking about London than that there bishop."
After tea visitors began to arrive; most of the patients in the Open-air Ward were on the danger list and could see their friends at any time, and now at the close of the day fathers and mothers and wives and sweethearts were coming straight from factory and workshop to comfort their sick. Teddy Wilson, propped up with pillows, watched the door, and presently, when a frail little woman entered, the faces of both mother and son lit up with the light of joy and love ineffable.
"At last!" said Teddy. "Oh, mother, you have been long!"
"I came straight from the factory, dear. I did not even wait for a cup of tea or to get washed. Here are some grapes for you."
The grapes were best hot-house—the poor always give recklessly—and Mrs. Wilson and a bright-eyed little girl who was sweeping up scholarships and qualifying as a typist andtisicawould go short of food for a week.
Ten years ago Mr. Wilson had grown weary of monogamy and had disappeared. His wife, scorning charity and the parish, had starved and fought her own way. Latterly she had found employment at the tooth factory, but food was not abundant on a weekly wage varying from seven to fifteen shillings, and the L.C.C. had worked the brains of the growing children on a diet chiefly of dry bread and tea.
Through the long night she sat by her son—the long night of agony and suffering which she was powerless to relieve—and the nurse, who was reputed a hard woman, looked at her with tearful eyes, and muttered to herself: "Thank God, I never bore a child!"
In the early hours of morning Teddy began to sing, in strange, raucous fashion, fragments of oratorios. "'My God, my God,'" sang Teddy in the recitative of Bach's Passion music, "'why hast Thou forsaken Me?' Oh, mother, don't leave me!"
The next time the nurse came round Teddy lay quiet, and his mother looked up with eyes tearless and distraught. "He has stopped coughing," she said; "I think I am glad."
Godliness is great riches if a man be content with that which he hath.
"God bless all the kind ratepayers for my good dinner and a good cup o' tay to wash it down with, and a nice bit of fire this cold day. You paupers never give thanks unto the Lord, a nasty Protestant lot without a ha'porth of manners between you, a-cursing and swearing, and blaspheming; they have not the grace of God. Say 'Good afternoon' to the lady, Betsy Brown, and don't be so rude; they never do have a word of thanks to the kind ladies and gentlemen who come a-visiting them, and we don't get many visitors just now; all the dear ladies are away a-paddling in the ocean. The gentleman Guardians come sometimes, but they are not so chatty as the ladies, don't seem to know what to say to us old women. You don't happen to have a bit of snuff about you, my lady?—excuse me asking you, but some of the ladies carries a bit for me. I ain't allowed my pipe in here, and I misses it cruel; at first I had gripes a-seizing my vitals through missing the comfort of a bit of 'baccy, and the doctor he seemed much gratified with the symtims of my sufferings, andsays I was attacked by the pensis, I think he termed it, the royal disease of the King, and he was all for cutting me up at once. But I up and says, 'Young man, don't talk to your elders. It's nothing but my poor hinnards a-craving for a pipe and a drop o' Irish, and you'll kindly keep your knives and hatchets off me. The King can be cut up if he likes, but I'll go before my Judge on the Resurrection morning with my poor old body undisfigured by gaping holes and wounds!' Yes, I frets cruel in the work'us, lady. If I could only get away back to Kensington, where I belong, I'd be all right. I have no friends here—only you and the Almighty God. I'm a poor old blind Irishwoman, lady; and my sons is out in Ameriky and seems to have forgotten the mother that bore them, and my husband's been dead these forty years, and he was not exakly one to thank God for on bare knees—God rest his poor black sowl! Yes, I've been blind now these thirty years (I was ninety on the Feast of the Blessed Lady of Mount Carmel), and one day in the winter we'd just been saying Mass for the sowl of the Cardinal Newman, and when I got back home I put up a bit of gunpowder to clane the chimbly, which smoked cruel (I always was a decent, clane body) and the wicked stuff turned round on me very vindictious, and blew down into the room, burning red-hot into my poor, innocent eyes. They cut one out at St. Bartholomew's 'Orspital, and they hoped to save the other, but it took to weeping itself away voluntarious, and a-throbbing likesteam-engines, and the young chaps fetched it out a few weeks later. But I'm a very happy blind woman. Yes, lady, it was dreadful at first, and I'll not deny that the cross seemed too heavy for my poor back—as if God Himself had forsaken me—great, black, thundering darkness all round as I couldn't cut a peep-show in nohow. All night I'd be a raging and a-fighting to get one little ray of light, and then I'd howl and shriek to the Blessed Virgin and all the saints, and then I'd curse and blaspheme and call to all the devils in hell; but no one heard, and the darkness continued dark. But, glory be to the saints! it's astonishing how used you get to things. At the end of a couple of months you seems to forget as there was ever anything else but darkness around, and by the grace of God and the favour of the angels I gets about most nimblous. No, I don't belong to this parish at all; that's why I hopes one day to get sixpence and get back to Kensington. But, you see, lady, it was like this—I came up to call on my poor sister at the top of the hill, and when I got there they told me she was dead and buried (God rest her sowl!), and the shock was so great I fell down overcome, as you may say, by emotion, and a kind gentleman picked me up and brought me in here, and there I lay stretched out on a bed of pain with a great bruise all down my poor side, and my poor hinnards a-struggling amongst theirselves for a bit of comfort, which they've never got since I've been here, and the young chap of a doctor a-talking in long and indecentwords to the nusses. (I hear you inmates a-smiling again!) But I was not in liquor lady—s'help me it's God's truth! (May your lips stiffen for ever, sitting there a-grinning and a-mocking at God's truth!) I've allus been a sober woman, and I've always conducted myself. (God blast you all, and your children and children's children!) Yes, my lady, I know it's not a prison and I can take my discharge; but, you see, I don't know the way to the 'bus as'll take me to Kensington, and I ain't got sixpence—a most distressful and unpleasant circumstance not to have sixpence. May the Holy Mother preserve you in wealth and prosperity so that you may never know! If I had sixpence of my own do you think I'd stay in this wicked Bastille, ordered about by the ladies of the bar? I calls them ladies of the bar, not as they ever give you a drop to cheer you, but because as they is puffed up with vanity and three-ha'porth of starched linen. Yes, my lady, I know as they calls theirselves nusses, but when you're ninety you won't like to be ordered about by a parcel of girls. Oh, my lady, if you would only put me in the 'bus that goes to Kensington and give me a sixpence here in my poor old hand, then may the Blessed Mother keep you for ever, you and your good children, and may the crown of glory that is waiting for you before the Great White Throne be studded with di'monds and rubies brighter than the stars! How could I get on? I'd be all right if I only got to Kensington; there's the praists!—Godlove 'em!—they knows me and helps me, and kind ladies who give me the tickets for meat and groceries; and there's the landlord of the 'Fish and Quart'—he'll be near you, lady, before the Great White Throne—and on wet days, when the quality don't come out, I go round to him and there's always a bite and a sup for old Bridget. I hear you paupers smiling again, but believe me, lady, it is the black wickedness of their iniquitous hearts. Ask the perlice, lady—God bless the bhoys for leading the old pauper over many a tumultuous street!—they will tell you my excellent character for temperance and sobriety and cleanliness. They give me a paper from Scotland Yard, which lets me walk in the High Street. I sells nothing and I asks nothing, but I just stands, and the ladies and gentlemen rains pennies in my hand thick as hail in May-time. And do I get enough to live on? I should think I did, and enough to fill the belly of another woman who clanes my room and cooks my food and leads me about. No, I shan't get run over by no motor-car. The Lord may have taken the sight of my eyes, but He has left me an uncommon sharp pair of ears and a nose like a ferret, and by this special mercy I can hear the things stinking and rampaging long afore they're near me. You needn't be afeard for me, lady—old Bridget can take care of herself, being always a sober and temperate woman. Any one who tells you different in this wicked Bastille is a liar and a slanderer, a child of the Devil and Satan, who shall have their portionin hell-fire. Matron says I've no clothes, does she?—and after the beautiful dress as I came up to see my poor sister with? Yes, I know as I must have a decent gown on in a fashionable neighbourhood. I like to be in the fashion, even if I am blind; but you'll find me an old one of yours, lady, and I shall look so beautiful in it the bhoys will be all for eloping with me as I stand.
"Most peculiar joyful feeling there is about a sixpence if you've not felt one these fower months. The other night I'd been worriting my poor old head shocking all day how to get sixpence in this den of paupers, and when I fell asleep I had a vision of our Blessed Lady a-smiling most gracious like and a-stretching out a silver sixpence bright as the glory round her most blessed head. I cried cruel when I woke, sixpence seemed so far off; but now, thanks be to God and to all His howly angels, my dream is true!"
Out of the night that covers me,Black as the Pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever gods may beFor my unconquerable soul.* * * * * *It matters not how strait the gate,How charged with punishments the scroll,I am the master of my fate;I am the captain of my soul.
Out of the night that covers me,Black as the Pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever gods may beFor my unconquerable soul.* * * * * *It matters not how strait the gate,How charged with punishments the scroll,I am the master of my fate;I am the captain of my soul.
Out of the night that covers me,Black as the Pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever gods may beFor my unconquerable soul.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
It matters not how strait the gate,How charged with punishments the scroll,I am the master of my fate;I am the captain of my soul.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.
"Aye, lass, but you ain't been to see me for a long time, and me been that queer and quite a fixture in bed all along of catching cold at that funeral. Been abroad, have you? Oh, well, you're welcome, for I've been a bit upset about not seeing you and because of a dream I 'ad. I dreamt I was up in 'eaven all along of the Great White Throne and the golden gates, with 'oly angels all around a-singing most vigorous. Mrs. Curtis was there, and my blessed mother and my niece Nellie and the Reverent Walker—you know the Reverent Walker, ma'am, 'im as I sits under?—yes, I like little Walker, what there is of him to like, for I wish he was bigger; but he was all right in my dream, larger than life, with a crown on 'im; but I missed some of you, and I says tomyself: 'Mrs. Nevinson ain't 'ere,' so I'm glad, lass, as you're safe like.
"Yes, I've been that queer I couldn't know myself, and though I'm better I'm that bone-lazy I can't move, but I'll be all right again soon and I'll get those petticoats of yourn finished which I am ashamed of having cluttering about still. I've 'ad what's called brownchitis. Mrs. Curtis fetched the doctor when I was took bad, and they built me up a sort of tent with a sheet, and a kettle a-spitting steam at me through a roll of brown paper they fixed on the spout, and I 'alf-killed myself with laughing at such goings-on. I was that hot and smothered I had to get up in the middle of the night and get to the open window to take a breath of fog, for you can't call it air; I felt just like a boiled lobster. I ain't had nothing to do with doctors before and I don't understand their ways. This young chap 'e got 'old on a piece of wood and planked it down on my chest with 'is ear clapped to the other end. 'Say ninety-nine,' 'e says as grave as a judge. 'Sir,' I says, 'I'm not an imbecile, and not having much breath to spare I'll keep it to talk sense.'
"He burst hisself with laughing, and then 'e catches 'old on my 'and as men do when they go a-courting. 'Sir,' I says, 'a fine young chap like you 'ad better 'ang on with some young wench.'
"He guffawed again fit to split 'isself. 'It's a treat to come and see you,' 'e says, 'but you're really ill this time, you know, and you ought to go into the infirmary and get properly nursed up.''Never,' I says, 'never!' and 'e went away cowed like.
"No, lass, I ain't a-going to no work'us with poor critturs a-gasping and a-groaning all round. I've kept myself to myself free and independent all my life, and free and independent I'll die. Little Walker catched it 'ot the other day sending a sort of visiting lady 'ere—the Organization lady she calls 'erself, so Mrs. Curtis said. Well, she asked so many questions and wanted to know why I had not had thrift, as she called it, that I turned on 'er and I says: 'I think you've made a little mistake in the number. I ain't got no 'idden crime on my conscience, but I'm a lady of independent means, and must ask for the peace and quiet which is due to wealth.'
"I was that angry with the Reverend Walker!—did it for the best, he said, thought as I might have got a little 'elp from the Organization if I hadn't been so rude. The very idea! I 'ate help. I've hung by mine own 'ed like every proper herring and human ought to, and when I can't 'ang no longer I'll drop quiet and decent into my grave.
"No, I never got married—what I saw of men in service did not exactly set me coveting my neighbours' husbands, a set of big babies as must have the moon if they want it—to say nothing of the wine, and the women, and the trotting horses, and the betting on them silly cards. Besides, to tell the truth, lass, no man of decent stature ever asked me to wed; being a big woman, all thelittle scrubs came a-following me, but I would not go with any of them, always liking Grenadier Guards, six foot at least. Perhaps it was as well; I should never have had patience to put up with a man about the place, being so masterful myself; besides, ain't I been sort of father and 'usband to my sister Cordelia? Mother died when Cordelia was born, and she says to me: 'Ruth, take care of this 'elpless babby,' and, God help me! I done my best, though the poor girl made a poor bargain with life, 'er husband getting queerer and more cantankerous, wandering the country up and down as fast as they brought 'im 'ome and having to be shut up in Colney Hatch at the end. I was not going to satisfy that Organization lady's curiosity and boast how I helped to bring up that family, and a deal of 'thrift' that lady would have managed on the two shillings a week I kept of my wages, the missus often passing the remark that, considering the good money she paid, she liked her servants better dressed. Cordelia was left with three little ones, and I couldn't abide the thought of 'er coming to the parish and having them nice little kids took from 'er and brought up in them work'us schools, so I agreed to give 'er eight shillings week out of my wages, and that with the twelve shillings she got cooking at the 'Pig and Whistle' kept the 'ome together. Poor lass! she's had no luck with her boys either, poor Tim going off weak in his head and having to be put away, and Jonathan killed straight off at Elandslaagter with a bulletthrough his brain. Yes, there's Ambrose—no, I don't ask Ambrose to help me; 'e's got his mother to 'elp and a heavy family besides. No, I don't take food out of the stomachs of little children, a-stunting of their growth, as nothing can be done for them later, and a-starving of their brains—I pulls my belt a bit tighter, thank you. Yes, I know what I am talking about—didn't I spend nearly every Sunday afternoon for nigh on twenty years at Colney Hatch? Well, the will of the Lord be done—but why if He be Almighty He lets folks be mad when He might strike 'em dead has always puzzled and tried my faith.
"Yes, I lives on my five-shilling pension and what my last master left me; half a crown rent doesn't leave me much for food. I allus had a good appetite, I'm sorry to say, and I often dream of grilled steaks—not since the brownchitis, though; I'm all for lemons and fizzy drinks. The folks 'ere are very kind and often bring me some of their dinner, but Lord! they are poor cooks, and if their 'usbands drink I for one ain't surprised. I can grill a steak with any one, and I attribute my independent income to my steaks; at my last place the master thought the world of them, and when there was rumpuses in the kitchen I used to hear 'im say: 'Sack the whole blooming lot, but remember Brooks stays,' and stay I did till the old gentleman died and remembered his steaks in his will.
"Well, I was going to tell you how I caughtthis cold, only you will keep on interrupting of me. I saw as how there was going to be a funeral at St. Paul's, and I thought I'd go. I allus was one for looking at men, and having been kitchen-maid at York Palace, I took on a taste for cathedrals and stained windows and music and such-like, as a sort of respite from the troubles and trials of life.
"It was just beautiful to hear the organ play and to see the gold cross carried in front of the dear little chorister-boys, and I says to myself: 'Their mas are proud of them this day.' Then came the young chaps who sing tenor and bass—fine upstanding young men—and then the curates with their holy faces, but at the end were the bishops and deans and such-like, and they were that h'old and h'ugly I was quite ashamed.
"Well, I thought I'd treat myself to a motor-bus after my long walk. The young chap says: 'Don't go up top, mother, you'll catch cold.' 'Thank you kindly,' I says, 'but I ain't a 'ot-house plant, being born on the moors,' and up I went, but Lor'! I hadn't reckoned how the wind cut going the galloping pace we went; it petrified to the negrigi, as poor mother used to say—no, I don't know where the negrigi is—but take off your fur-coat top of a motor-bus in a vehement east wind and perhaps you'll feel.
"Yes, that's little Walker's bell a-going—it ain't a wedding and it ain't a funeral; it's a kind of prayers that he says, chiefly to 'isself, at five o'clock—'e's 'Igh Church.
"Must you be going? Well, come again soon; being country yourself, you understands fresh air as folk brought up among chimbleys can't be expected to—but don't worry me about no infirmaries, for I ain't a-going, so there!
"Mrs. Curtis has her orders, and when I'm took worse she's to put me in the long train that whistles and goes to York—yes, I've saved up the railway fare, and from there I can get 'ome and die comfortable on the moor with plenty of air and the peace of God all around."
* * * * * *
The landlady came to open the door for me as I went down the well-scrubbed staircase. "Yes, ma'am, Miss Brooks is better, but she's very frail; the doctor thinks as she can't last much longer, but her conversation continues as good as ever. My old man or one of my sons goes up to sit with her every evening; she's such good company she saves them the money for the 'alls, and makes them laugh as much as Little Tich. We'll take care of her, ma'am; the Reverent Walker told me to get whatever she wanted, and 'e'd pay, and all the folks are real fond of her in the house, she's that quick with her tongue.
"No, ma'am, she'll never get to York, she's too weak, but the doctor told me to humour her."