CONCERNING SAL.
And where had the woman gone? Westward, we are told by the poet, the
course of empire takes its way. She had gone west, and very naturally;
not at first, she was too artful for that—her old man, as she called him
(she did not know his proper name), might be after her, and she had had
enough of him, and wanted to be free. In this case she had not two
strings to her bow. She was not thinking of accepting a new keeper in
the case of the one cashiered. She simply wanted to be free—at any rate
for awhile. As to the child left behind, she had no thought of that.
Somebody would give it a crust and a night’s lodging. Then it would roam
into the streets to be picked up by the police, and supported by the
British taxpayer.
We are a very humane people. The more people neglect their offspring,
the more ready are we to look after them. If Sal, as she was called, had
been a true and tender-hearted woman, she would have dragged the little
fellow out with her into the cold, raw night away from Sloville. He
might have caught his death o’ cold, and then and there ceased to be a
blessing to her or anybody else. As a waif off the streets he had a
better chance of being clothed, and fed, and educated, and cared for, and
planted out in life. It is thus we reward our rascals. It is thus we
relieve fathers and mothers of their responsibility, do our duty, ease
our consciences, and offer a premium to vice.
Finding the way clear, our Sal emerged from her hiding-place, and made
her way, as much hidden as possible by the dark shades of lofty walls,
towards Waterloo Bridge. She was a remarkable woman, was our Sal. Her
father was an agricultural labourer, earning his ten or twelve shillings
a week, and bringing up a numerous family on that exceedingly limited
sum. At the National school she had learned, in a very imperfect way, to
read and write, to do a little needlework, and to curtsey to her betters.
As she grew up, she displayed alike her good looks and good manners. As
to morals, they were not to be expected of a girl who lived in a cottage
with but one sleeping room for the entire family, and whose good looks
exposed her to the bucolic amativeness of the Bœotians of the district.
All her ambition was to go to London in service in a superior family.
She had known girls leave that district and come back real ladies, though
they were as low down in the world as herself. One of the girls, a
little older than herself, had gone to London, and turned gay; and what
was the result? That she was living with the son of a lord, and she and
all the other girls, who soon learned the story, were quite eager to be
off to win, if possible, a similar prize.
Surely that was better than hard work, or remaining satisfied with the
station in which God had placed them, as they were told every Sunday they
ought to be—if that only meant marriage with Hodge, and the workhouse
when she and Hodge would be past work. It was all very well to be called
a good girl by the Rector’s wife, to be confirmed, whatever that might
mean, as a matter of course, by the Bishop, to sing in the parochial
choir, and once a year to be admitted to the privileges of the
Sunday-school treat; but that did not buy her a new bonnet, or prevent
her wearing her old clothes, or save her from doing a lot of drudgery at
times when she preferred romping in the hayfields with Farmer Giles’s
sons, strapping young fellows, just as rustic and as ignorant as herself.
A time came when she went out to service at a country house just by. A
London lady of fashion saw her, was attracted by her appearance, and got
her to come to town. The illustrious aristocrat she married was taken
with the kitchen wench, as her ladyship indignantly termed her, and then
there was a row, and the poor girl was ignominiously discharged to hide
her head where she could, and to give birth to an illegitimate child.
That aristocratic admirer was Sir Watkin Strahan.
Everyone heard the story of Sal’s disgrace in her native village, and she
dared not return thither. She had to hide herself in London where she
could, and to live as best she could, all the while cherishing a fearful
revenge against the gay Baronet.
Her aristocratic seducer sent her fifty pounds, with an intimation that
in that quarter she was to look for no more, and that she must do the
best she could for herself. With that money, later on, she married a
Sloville inhabitant, who soon died and left her destitute.
Naturally, in her fallen state, she took to drink, and she drank till her
good looks were gone—till she was a bundle of filthy rags, till she had
lost alike all decency and sense of shame. It was nothing new to her to
prowl about London by night when honesty and respectability had gone to
bed. She rather liked the excitement of that kind of life.
On she went beneath the lamps and the stars, past gin palaces, where fair
young girls were learning to fall as completely and rapidly as herself;
past cadgers and tramps, like herself on the look-out for what chance
might send in their way; past old criminals, training young ones in the
same dreary and joyless round. She saw what we all of us see if we walk
out of a night, the drunken harlot run in by the police, who stand in
admiration as her more fortunate and equally sinning sister drives by in
her brougham. She saw ragged, distress, imperiously bidden to be off,
whilst wealthy rascality, in pomp and majesty, was drawn in a carriage
and pair with fine flunkies behind. She peered into club windows, where
rich sinners quaff rich wine in warmth and comfort, while their victims
walk the streets in sorrow and despair.
She stood on Waterloo Bridge—that bridge of sighs—where many a poor girl
has leaped
‘Mad with life’s history,
Glad to death’s mystery,
Swift to be hurled
Anywhere—anywhere
Out of the world.’
And she felt half inclined to climb over and do the same herself, only
the water looked so black and cold, and she put off her half-formed
purpose for another day. Perhaps, also, she was too old for that sort of
thing. She should have taken the false leap when she was gay and
good-looking. Then the papers would have made London ring with her
story, and the low pictorial pennies would have made her the subject of a
sensational sketch.
As she was, alas! prematurely old, and wrinkled, and gray, no one would
take any notice of her; it was hardly worth while attempting to drown
herself, she thought. She might as well live on, she could not well be
worse off; and then she sat herself down in the arch and fell asleep,
dreaming of— But who can tell the grotesque misery of a tramp’s dream?
Suddenly she was awoke by the policeman’s grasp.
‘Well, old ’oman,’ said he, ‘you’ve been having a nice time of it here.’
‘And why not?’ said she, waking up to a sense of her condition. ‘Why
not? What’s the harm of sleeping out here? I arn’t kicking up a row—I
arn’t creating a disturbance—I arn’t screaming “Perlice!” am I? I arn’t
in no ways disrespectful or aggravatin’—why can’t you let me be?’
‘’Cause it is agin the perlice regulations,’ was the reply.
‘The perlice regulations, what are they?’
‘Why, that you must not stop here, and it is as much as my place is worth
to let you.’
‘Oh, p’liceman, don’t be hard on a poor old woman that’s enjoying the
hevening hair!’
‘No, I can’t,’ said he. ‘I am going over the bridge. When I come back,
don’t let me find you here. You’ve had a nice little nap. You must be
as fresh as a daisy now.’
‘Perhaps I am, and perhaps I am not,’ said the poor woman, as she renewed
her aimless walk.
In a few minutes she was in the Strand, just as the theatres were emptied
of admiring crowds. Of course the poor woman knew all about such
matters. Many a time in the pride of youth had she spent an evening in
the pit. Many a time, at a later period, she had sold lucifer matches at
the pit doors, and many were the coppers she had earned thereby.
She liked to see the bright lamps, and the swells, and the women, as well
as anyone else. The sight, she said, did her old eyes good. That night
the crowd had been unusually large. The last theatrical star, as she
learned from the bills, Miss Kate Howard, had been performing, and all
the world and his wife had come there to see.
‘Lor’ bless me!’ said Sal to herself, ‘I’ll go to the stage-door at the
back. I’ve seen a good many of these women in my time. I’d like to see
what this one is like. I suppose she is like all the rest of ’em, as
fine as paint and fine feathers can make ’em, but not of much account,
neither. Many of ’em ain’t much better than me, after all.’
She turned up a side-street, hurried down another, and soon was at the
stage-door.
A brougham was drawn up before it; on the box a page was seated. As she
looked, her first impulse was to scream out his name. It was her
Sloville boy, looking clean and respectable.
‘Wait a bit, Sally,’ she said to herself. ‘This is a serious business.
It ought to be made to pay. Oh, my fine young gentleman belongs to the
popular actress. Ah, if I can come the broken-hearted mother dodge it
ought to bring me a fiver.’
Presently there was a rustle under the stage-door, and a pressure of the
crowd without. The actress appeared wrapped up and well attended. As
she leaped into the brougham she told the driver to make the best of his
way home.
‘Gad! I know that voice,’ said a gentleman in the crowd. ‘It is that
girl Rose; good heavens! where’s her home? Oh, there you are, Harry,’
said he, speaking to the manager as he stood at the door watching the
brougham as it drove away. ‘You’ve done it to-night, you have! Where on
earth does that woman live?’
‘Well, Sir Watkin, I can tell you, but it is no good. She lives with her
mother.’
‘And is married?’ he eagerly exclaimed.
‘Yes, to be sure. No, not married, but just about to be so.’
‘Then, I am after her!’ he exclaimed. ‘Faint heart never won fair lady.’
‘It is a wild goose-chase, Sir Watkin;’ but Sir Watkin was off in a
hansom, nevertheless, not before, however, our Sal had made an effort to
secure him, which effort he impatiently evaded, bidding her ‘go to the
d----’ and not bother him.
‘You nearly had him then, old girl,’ said a ragged bystander, in a voice
perfectly familiar to her ear. It was the tramp’s chum from Mint Street.
‘You here?’ said she, in a tone which did not express delight. ‘I
thought yer was as tight as my old man.’
‘Not exactly; as soon as I missed you I thought I’d see that you did not
come to harm.’
‘Thank you for nothin’,’ said the woman angrily.
‘Now, don’t be angry,’ he said, with a good-natured smile, ‘now I’ve
come. I wants to do yer a good turn. That old tramp will be cotched
to-morrow as sure as eggs is eggs, and I thought I’d better tell ye to
keep out of the way.’
‘Out of the way; wot do you mean? Do you think I’ve been up to
anything?’
‘No, of course not,’ said the chum in a mocking tone; ‘but appearances
ain’t promising, and that is all I’ve got to say. You’d better work yer
way along with me to-night.’
‘Where to?’
‘Down Drury Lane way; it ain’t safe to be in the Boro’.’
‘But lor, bless me, how you’ve altered!’ said Sal. ‘You had a couple of
arms; wot have you done with one?’
‘Oh, it is buttoned down by my side.’
‘And your boots, where are they?’
‘Hid away in my clothes. Ain’t it a capital dodge? I gets lots of
coppers when I thus go out cadging. I was goin’ to perform on the
bridge, when I saw you walk past, and then I followed. I ain’t made much
money to-night. Perhaps we’d better go home.’
‘You’re very kind, but I think I shall stop here.’
‘No you won’t,’ said the man.
He had watched the woman, and he had come to the conclusion that
something was up. He had seen how she gazed at the lad on the box; how
her face betrayed emotion at the sight of the actress; how she had
endeavoured to speak to a swell as he was talking to the manager at the
stage-door, and he had rapidly formed a conclusion in his own mind that
Sal somehow or other had connections which might, in due time, be made
subservient to his own interest. He was a sneak and a cur, but he had a
plausible way of talking and a certain amount of cunning which he had
always turned to excellent account. It was with gratification, then,
that he found the woman was half persuaded to listen to his proposals.
Alas! there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip. As they stood
arguing the matter, a cab dashed up against them, and when he came to his
senses he found his Sal, as he called her, had been taken to the accident
ward of the nearest hospital.
‘That’s just like my ill-luck,’ said he, with an angry oath, as he turned
away in search of cheap lodgings for what was left of the night.
Happily it did not much matter to him if he went to bed late. He was
under no necessity to rise early the next morning. The tramp in old
times led a merry life. In London, at the present time, he certainly
leads an idle one.
Let us follow our Sal to the hospital, one of those noble institutions
which are the glory and pride of London, the money to support which had
been left long ago by pious founders, and which have been the means of
saving many a life, of setting many a broken limb, and of curing many a
foul disease. Under its august wall and in its studious cloisters many
generations of medical students had been trained up for a profession
which has done much to make life worth living, to stay the advance of
disease, to battle with grim death. Gibbon tells us the world is more
ready to honour its destroyers than its saviours. The taunt is too true.
When it ceases to be that, the medical profession will receive its due
homage and reward. The courage of the medical man is quite equal to that
of the hero on the battle-field. His ardour in the pursuit of his
vocation is greater, and the good he does, what tongue can adequately
tell? in generosity, in readiness to relieve human suffering, where is
the equal of the medical man? The more illustrious he is, the more ready
he is to give of his time and money to the poor. There is no truer
Samaritan than a medical man.
The hospital was over London Bridge, as the tourist who rushes to
Brighton is well aware. It stands a lasting monument to the charitable
London publisher known as Guy. It covers a considerable extent of
ground, and consists of several buildings more or less detached. Little
of the original building remains, as, like the British Constitution, it
has grown considerably beyond the general design.
Thomas Guy, Alderman of the City of London, and M.P. for Taunton, who
made his fortune by a printing contract, by buying sailors’ tickets, and
by South Sea speculations, was little aware of what London would become
in the Victorian era, or of the enormous amount of suffering and disease
that would be reached and alleviated by the hospital of which he was the
original founder.
As you enter you have little idea of its extent. On each side are the
residences of officers and medical men. Then you go under a porch, where
students have their letters addressed them, and look into a spacious
quadrangle, lined with wards, which were part of the original building.
Further on are newer buildings and museums, fitted up for the use of
students, and in every way skilfully planned for the accommodation of
patients. On one side is a theatre for surgical operations, a dead-house
for post-mortem examinations, and a little green, on which in fine
weather patients are permitted to take a little exercise, and to
congratulate each other on the fact that this time they have given the
old gentleman, who is always drawn with a scythe and an hour-glass, the
slip. Further beyond are the gates which admit the enormous mass of
out-patients, who, alas! most of them require what not even Guy’s can
give them—fresh air, good food, and a little more cash than they can
manage to secure by their daily labour. It is rather a melancholy place
to visit. Looking up at the long windows all round you, you can’t help
thinking what human suffering lies concealed behind them, and misery
defying alike the aid of doctor or nurse or chaplain. Science may do,
and does do, all it can to make the place healthful. Thoughtful
consideration may line the walls with pictures, and make the old wards
gay with summer flowers, and the nurse may be the kindest and tenderest
of her sex to whom we instinctively turn when in pain, and suffering for
relief; but, nevertheless, you feel in a hospital as if you were in a
city of the dying and the dead.
Our Sal was at once carried to the accident ward, and taken care of by
tender nurses and watchful surgeons. No bones were broken, but she was
very much bruised, and the recovery, if she did recover, it was clear
would be long and tedious. The chances were very much against her.
Drink and evil living had wrecked her stamina in spite of the fine
constitution which she had received from her parents and her early
country life. Fever set in, and it seemed as if the poor woman would
have sunk. She was often delirious, and her mind wandered.
‘There’s something that keeps her back,’ said her attendant guardian.
‘She has either committed some crime she wants to confess, or she has
some secret of which she would fain get rid,’ and the physician was
right.