THE HOSPITAL
At about 5.15 a.m. the stillness of the prison was broken by many
sounds. One of the unexpected things in prison life are the number of
sounds one hears which one cannot interpret at the time, and which are
never accounted for afterwards. One early morning sound, or rather
wrenching noise, seemed to come from the ward or passages below our
own, as if a giant iron fender, with the fireirons loose and rattling
within it, were being dragged from one end of the building to the other.
At home I am no early riser, and I had looked forward with most
cowardly dread to the prison routine in this respect. The puritanical
elements in my character, which hitherto had failed to drill the rest
of me on this point, took on a triumphant air of sanctimonious glee
with the expectation that a fundamental reform would be wrought in me
by at least this portion of my punishment. But neither the fears of
my vices nor the hopes of my virtues were realised. To rise at 5.30
requires no heroism, under any conditions, when you have been allowed
to retire to rest at 6.30 or even earlier; but when in addition your
bed is extremely uncomfortable, your pillow seems stuffed with thunder,
you have with difficulty been able to keep warm, and when you have
scarcely been able to sleep a wink all night, then the virtue necessary
to make you rise early is _nil_.
At 5.30 punctually, a little 3rd Division prisoner, who slept in one of
the infirmary cells along our passage, came in to clean the grate and
light the fire. She moved very quickly and did her work with precision
and dexterity. She had a most attractive and lovable face, refined
features and a beautiful expression. I wondered for what crime she had
been sent to prison. She wore several stripes on her arm denoting good
conduct during a protracted sentence.
Soon after this the wardress came near my bed and said it was time to
get up. She told me to make my bed and gave me what she called a duster
for the purpose of cleaning the iron bedstead. The duster was a strip
of thick sail-cloth, which moved the dust but refused to absorb it. I
dusted every part of the iron, turned the mattresses and re-made the
bed. A thin counterpane of blue check gave a rather pleasing finish.
This had to be folded in a particular way at the foot of the bed so as
to fall over the side in rectangular fashion. The wardress came up to
show me how to do it. It required a certain dodge which pleased me very
much, as did all the other old-maidish fads of the kind in the prison
routine. But I found that no two experts achieved this bed-cover fold
in quite the same way. On that first morning several of the prisoners,
two wardresses, and one of the overseeing wardresses (“officers” is the
correct term) came up to my bed and refolded the corners of the bed
cover, saying, “You haven’t got that quite right,” or “That’s wrong;
this is the way you should do it.”
We took it in turns to wash. Hot water was brought by the 3rd Division
servant of the ward in jugs. There were two crockery basins on the
washing-stand, which stood against the wall in the centre of the ward.
Such appointments seemed positively luxurious, but one detail was
sorely lacking, and its absence marred all the rest--privacy.
When dressed a superintendent “officer” came into the ward. She looked
extremely severe. She asked, “Had I dusted my bed thoroughly before I
made it?” “Yes.” “Had I turned up the movable half of the iron frame,
and dusted it underneath?” “No, I did not know there was a part that
turned up.” She said that was wrong, that another morning I must be
sure and do it, but she did not tell me to make the bed again. I was
fortunate, for I heard afterwards that this same officer took hold of
the bedclothes and threw them all off without explaining to their owner
anything of what it was about.
Breakfast was brought in at about 6.30. The patients who were well
enough to be out of bed laid the cloth and put out plates from a small
cupboard hung on the wall near the door. Then a wardress and two 3rd
Division prisoners carried in the hot milk and tea in large cans,
loaves of bread, a small supply of butter and boiled eggs. The tea
was ladled out from the cans with a long tin spoon and poured into
the earthenware mugs. It looked as if it must make a great mess, but
was always very skilfully done. The mugs and plates, I was pleased to
notice, were made of leadless glaze. In ordinary life I have always
considered hot boiled milk a very disagreeable drink, but that
morning, after the long wide-awake night, it seemed to me positive
nectar. In hospital we were allowed white bread; it was of excellent
quality, made of seconds flour. Tea and eggs are no part of my diet,
so I was limited to the milk and bread and butter, but they were dealt
out abundantly, all except the butter, which was fresh and of fairly
good quality. Those of us who were well sat at the table all together
and waited on the patients in bed. We were not supposed to talk to
each other, but we were allowed to communicate to a certain extent in
whispers. We were very much amused at each other’s appearance in the
strange clothes and cap.
After breakfast we cleared the table, the gate of the ward was unlocked
and we carried the crockery to baskets on the floor in the passage.
From there the 3rd Division prisoners took them and washed them out in
the bath room cell next door. The hospital wardress had to stand at
the gate all the time that we were doing this. Some wardresses allowed
us sometimes to come and go freely; others, or the same wardresses on
different days, would allow only one of us out of the ward at a time.
This and all other rules of the kind would hardly ever be told to us in
so many words, but suddenly the wardress would step out and block the
way, laying her hand upon us without a word as if we were animals. This
being handled when there is no occasion for it seems very insulting.
Like all these prison methods, it seemed curious and interesting when
first done to oneself, but aroused a feeling of indignation when one
saw it being done to others. It gave one the feeling of belonging to a
race apart, something degraded and imbecile, despised not only for the
particular crime one had committed but as an all-round inferior being.
The moral influence of this kind of treatment is rubbed in afresh
through every hour of prison life and has a bad moral influence on both
prisoners and wardresses. It seemed, moreover, quite unnecessary.
After breakfast the chief wardress who had reproved us for not lifting
up the movable section of the beds, beckoned me to her--“Take off your
slippers. Bring your shoes; you have to go before the Senior Medical
Officer.” This made me anxious. I knew quite well that I was not in a
state of ill-health to cause the release of an ordinary prisoner; I
knew, too, that many suffrage prisoners had been kept in prison when
much more seriously ill than I was. But I remembered the specially
constructed rule which had sanctioned a letter being delivered to
me, and I was on the look-out for more privileges of the kind. The
wish was strong in me to have personal experience of the inflictions
which a Liberal Government thought suitable to woman Suffragists, to
share every incident of the treatment which my leaders and friends
had suffered in our cause and to gain some experience of prison life
from within for the sake of one day being equipped to work for prison
reforms.
Outside the ward I was told to put on my shoes. I hated those shoes
with the vigorous hatred of a child. The laces had no tags, my fingers
were very cold, and being hurried up by the wardress made them the more
awkward. I was given a cloak of green cloth and taken downstairs.
The staircase was of stone and, with my feet encased in these thick
unyielding shoes, I was afraid of slipping. I laid my hand on the
banister to steady myself. “If you must have hold of that rail, can’t
you use the uprights? Don’t you see the top’s polished, you’ll soil
it.” This remark was made by the wardress who shouted past me with a
sort of bark. At the foot of the stairs she pulled at my cloak, “Got
it on inside out, is that how you mean to wear it?” This was said in
the same voice, but I thought I caught something of a twinkle in her
eye as if she were not without a sense of humour and would welcome an
appeal to the same. I noted this for future experimenting, but was at
the moment unable to take advantage of it. I felt mentally stunned,
physically cowed, morally indignant, a blend of sensations which I
think must be common to many prisoners.
The doctor’s room was a sort of office well lit by several large
windows. The Senior Medical Officer was a different man from the doctor
who had inspected us the previous night. I had expected a struggle
on the question of tonics, but to my delight he quickly agreed that
I should survive without drugs. He spoke in an ordinary voice, his
expression of face and the things he said were quite natural, he
treated me as though I were an ordinary mortal. After even twelve hours
of prison customs this seemed a remarkable and gladdening thing. Up
till that moment I had incessantly wished that I should some day be
able to tell the officials the entirely harmful impression conveyed
by their manner to the prisoners. It was obvious that this official
manner was quite detached from the individual personality of those
who assumed it. They looked and spoke in this way, not to serve their
private ends, but in compliance with some strangely mistaken tradition,
as a matter of conformity. When under the heel of it, one felt a
conviction that no reform of prison regulations would alter the maiming
influence of prison life until this tradition were altered. Now, on
the contrary, I felt equally desirous of proclaiming that here was an
individual with an innate gift to usefully fill the part of prison
official; he had mastered the fundamental matter of treating prisoners
as he would treat other human beings. I think this doctor tried some
slight persuasion to obtain my release by consenting to be bound over.
He quickly saw, however, that my imprisonment was not due to any hasty
or unconsidered act, and he did not press the matter for long.
It was agreed that I should go back to bed for the benefit of my heart
condition. After the prolonged strain I was only too glad to do this.
The morning, however, was taken up with many visits of inspection.
The Governor made his rounds in a formal way and never relaxed his
official muscles, but he seemed kindly, nevertheless, and I felt sorry
for him having to play what I supposed was a disagreeable game for him.
The matron wore a quite different expression from when I had seen her
the evening before. She looked very tired, and I wondered whether any
part of her work gave her satisfaction. The Chaplain, too, looked ill
and I thought what a harrowing life his must be, always pouring out
sympathy for sorrows and sufferings that he had no power to relieve.
He came up to my bed with a smile and said, in a voice well-flavoured
with contempt: “Well, you must have done something very wicked to
find yourself in here?” I was surprised, supposed he meant it for a
joke; supposed, too, that possibly from his point of view it was an
entirely comic thing that we should be in prison. But it seemed odd
that his imagination and sympathy should not at least have led him to
inquire first what was our point of view in the matter, and he seemed
not to consider it possible that our actions should have entailed
self-sacrifice and the pain of bringing anxiety to those we loved. I
answered: “If I had thought what I did very wicked, I should not have
done it.”
At ten o’clock hot milk was again brought into the ward for those who
wished for it, also fruit, but, to my great relief, this was optional.
The morning was taken up with cleaning the ward. The 3rd Division
prisoner by a series of processes and with the aid of a long-handled
polisher, first swept, then beeswaxed, then polished the wooden floor.
She did it with the skill of an expert and her graceful gestures were
a pleasure to watch. She never paused for a moment in her work except
when the entry of some official necessitated a temporary suspension.
Then followed a polishing of metal fixtures and dusting of the walls,
shelves, books, etc. To my great joy, the patients not in bed were
ordered to take part in the dusting. It was a means of practising
my favourite hobby of cleaning, also of keeping warm, of helping
the little 3rd Division prisoner, and occasionally exchanging a
whispered word with her, though this was rarely achieved. The dust
was continuously stirred throughout the morning, moved from the floor,
then from the wall. The grey fluff that came from the bedding and
floated about the floor gathered a certain amount of dust as it was
swept up and eventually burnt in the fire, but no damping or reasonable
process to get rid of the dust was used, so that shelves, books, beds,
were no sooner dusted than they were again covered as before. On one
or two occasions I ventured to damp my duster, but this, of course,
made it very dirty, which result met with disfavour. It was no doubt
felt that as the more vigorous patients had nothing much better to
do, they might as well go on dusting throughout the morning. In an
ordinary home the daily processes of sweeping and dusting always seem
to me absurdly laborious, elaborate and inadequate; the workers at
these household crafts having had so little share in the application of
modern invention to their toil, and little appeal on behalf of public
service and utility has been made to women of higher education and
greater leisure than the workers themselves. The housecraft of prison,
as one watched it day by day, pressed one’s thoughts on to the subject.
The collecting of dust by means of damp cloths immediately followed by
a dry rubber would certainly be more effective.
At about twelve the midday food was served, it was the most solid
meal in the twenty-four hours. It consisted every day of fried fish,
potatoes, cabbage, bread, butter and a custard pudding or boiled rice
pudding made with eggs. I, being a vegetarian, did not eat fish. After
some days I had the courage to ask for a rice pudding made without
eggs and was allowed this. The food was good and well cooked, but the
absolute monotony of the bill of fare was a great trial to some of the
prisoners, more especially the bed patients.
In the afternoon, those who were allowed out exercised for an hour
walking round and round a yard with high walls to it. We were exercised
at a different time from ordinary prisoners. We were not allowed to
talk to each other and had to walk single file one behind the other at
a given distance apart. As there were never more than four or five of
us from the hospital a certain amount of laxness was allowed. We could
go our own pace, the faster walkers from time to time overtaking the
slower and now and then one was allowed to stop and lean up against
the wall. The weather was cold, we had frost and snow, during most of
my time in Holloway, and being used to furs, gloves and muffs, I felt
the cold very much especially in my hands. The only extra garment for
out of doors was an unlined cloth cape with hood attached. This was
warmer than it looked. I used to do arm exercises as I walked to stir
my blood. The discomfort of the shoes prevented any joy in walking,
there was no yield in the soles and the hard leather pressed the feet
in a way to make every footstep a consideration. I have sensitive feet
and may have suffered more in this respect than others, but to judge
from appearance the tread and gait of all prisoners is laborious and
artificial, affecting the hang of the whole body, on account of the
shoes.
I did not go out for the first two or three days. In the afternoon
the sense of fatigue overcame one. Unless the patients were ill enough
to undress and get into bed, they were not allowed to lie on it, we,
however, sometimes sat on a chair close to the bed, leaned our heads
upon the pillow and slept.
Some read books, others did needlework, others tended the bed patients.
I am a little deaf, and found it a tiring business after no sleep
at night to hold intercourse by means of whispers, the only form
of conversation allowed, but nevertheless this was far the most
interesting occupation available. People are inclined to be
communicative, although total strangers to each other, when cut off
from their homes and friends and all sharing the same fate. I heard
life stories in Holloway hospital that would fill many novels. I
wondered, as I have always done, how it is that people can trouble to
read books when romance, adventure, comedy, tragedy and pathos are to
hand at all times in more living form and with far greater variety of
event and character.
At about five the supper was brought in, the food being the same as
at breakfast. I sometimes kept back a potato from the midday meal to
eat cold with the bread and butter. As soon as this was cleared away
we were let out in turns to the bath-room, where a hot foot bath was
provided, and privacy. This was a most welcome luxury. Two mornings
after we had been in, a screen was put round the washing table so that
the morning ablutions became more effective. From this time forward I
experienced nothing to complain of in the washing line.
These first days of prison, although immensely interesting, were,
nevertheless, longer in point of time than anything I remember in life,
not excluding early childhood. The novelty of every detail and the fact
that observation was sharpened to a pitch only known at moments of
great emotion, no doubt partly accounted for this.
I knew that my eldest sister had intended to come and visit me as soon
as she could get a permit; I supposed she would have no difficulty.
The first and second day went by and she did not come. I became a
prey to a morbid depression of spirits. Being completely cut off from
previous existence, one rapidly fell into the belief that all friends
and belongings had discarded and forgotten one. This state of mind was
one of the most melancholy experiences of prison. It seems childish and
absurdly unreasonable when remembered after release. It nevertheless
was bitterly real at the time, and a few hours within prison walls were
sufficient to develop the illusion. As with so many other prisoner
sensations, it is akin to child life, engendered from complete
helplessness, subjection to others, ignorance and uninformedness as to
what is happening outside the cramped horizon of the life to which one
is subject. The sense of continuous expectancy and comfort for present
distressful monotony in the belief that undreamed of good might happen
at any moment is also very similar to the mental outlook of children.
The next day, February 26, Mrs. Pethick Lawrence was summoned out of
the ward. She came back radiant, having had a visit from her husband.
Her happiness and the news she brought back of the outer world shed
joy upon us all, but, nevertheless, I had the feeling all the more
strongly that my own people had forgotten me, since they, I argued,
could have obtained the same privileges as Mr. Lawrence. The ordinary
prisoner is usually allowed a visitor only after the first month of the
sentence has expired.
The members of the Freedom League were in great excitement, expecting
that their leader would be coming to prison that day and very likely
be sent to hospital. She had been arrested at the head of a deputation
when the other members of the Freedom League had been imprisoned, but
her case had been remanded. In the afternoon the prayer card at the
head of one of the spare beds was altered to one of Roman Catholic
prayers. This was taken to indicate beyond doubt the coming of Mrs.
Despard. I read the Roman Catholic card and thought it compared
favourably, in point of suitability to prisoners, with the selection
made by the Church of England. The hymns, biblical passages and prayers
were more tender and personal and less concerned with misdoing. They
were rather childish, but, as I have pointed out, prisoners resemble
children.
In the evening, when the curfew hour of our bedtime was already past, a
stranger prisoner, a very remarkable looking woman with white hair, a
fine face, and stately carriage came into the ward, and was immediately
recognised by her followers as their deservedly beloved leader. She
came up to greet Mrs. Lawrence, and they were about to shake hands with
cordiality when the wardress interfered, angrily forbidding them to
touch one another.
When the poison basket came round that night, I noticed with
admiration and envy Mrs. Despard’s dignified but effectively determined
refusal of the proffered tonic. She discarded the hospital whisper and
said out loud to the drug dispenser: “I have never taken medicine in
my life and I am not going to begin now; I will explain to the doctor
to-morrow.” She was a most vigorous lady. I have never heard of a
prisoner before or since who slept soundly through the first night of
sentence. She walked round the exercise yard, too, at a pace beyond my
powers. I was fortunate in achieving one very interesting conversation
with her, when she told me of how the women’s workrooms instituted
under the recent Local Government Board’s Central Unemployment Fund had
been closed down, on the ground that they were not self-supporting,
although they were worked at less loss and at far less cost per head
than some of the workshops for unemployed male workers. £28,000 was
said to have been spent on one farm colony for men which had produced
only £1,000 return. Yet there was no complaint, no talk of closing
down because of its unremunerative character. £750 had been allotted
for widows’ and single women’s workrooms. These, too, were worked at a
loss as there was not sufficient sale for the clothes they made, and
because of this loss, small in total and far smaller in proportion than
in the men’s work, the room was closed. To our great surprise Mrs.
Despard was released “on medical grounds,” after serving only a week of
her sentence, although she was in robust health. The weekly paper _The
Christian Commonwealth_ had taken up her case and the House of Commons
was circularised by the editor, Mr. Dawson. This is supposed to have
moved the Home Office to clemency.
One of the patients who slept in a separate cell, but came to the
ward for meals, had a particularly attractive face and personality.
She was exceptionally gentle and courteous in her manner, but her
outward calm nevertheless suggested a reserve of inward force; her
eyes had a way of lighting up suddenly with sympathy, pathos, or fun.
I longed to have a free talk with her. Her name was Mrs. Clarke; she
was one of three Suffragettes, the others being Miss Irene Dallas and
Miss Douglas Smith, who had been arrested on a deputation to Downing
Street on January 24. I had sent in my name for the larger deputation
to the House of Commons. I had been invited to go instead on this
smaller one to Downing Street, but I had refused. When I saw the women
afterwards who had undertaken this much more disagreeable job than
mine, I felt again thoroughly ashamed of myself. I should say they were
all three unusually sensitive to the odiousness of the errand which
had appalled me to the point of shirking it. I did not realise until
after she had left the prison that Mrs. Clarke was a sister of Mrs.
Pankhurst.[5] These three were released on the morning of February 27.
We could just hear the sounds of their welcome and the band playing the
_Marseillaise_ outside the prison, but, of course, could see nothing
through the high, grained-glass windows. One was filled with a great
longing to join them. This was after only thirty-six hours of prison,
I imagined what it must be to those under long sentences when a fellow
prisoner is released.
FOOTNOTE: [5] Mrs. Clarke was released from Holloway the second time
on December 23, 1910. She died on December 25, 1910.
On that day, Saturday, at about the time for our exercise, one of
the superior officers came into the ward and, singling me out from
the others, ordered me to leave my slippers, bring my shoes to put
on outside and follow her. I had already learnt the order of the
daily routine, and every event that was slightly exceptional filled
me with hope that my turn had come for a “visitor,” but I had had
several disappointments in this line and so steeled myself not to
expect too readily. I was taken across the yard of the main entrance
and ushered through a part of the prison where I had not been before
to a row of rooms looking like small offices with glass doors, giving
on to a passage. On the door to which I was led was written the word
“Solicitor,” and almost before I had time for joyous conjectures as
to who my “visitor” could be, the door was opened and my sister,
Betty Balfour, was facing me. It was like seeing the sun after a long
time of darkness. I only then realised to what an extent the gloom of
prison surroundings and anxiety about my home people had taken hold
of my mind. The sight of my sister did not dispel them, but seemed
to take me from within their grip to an independent position outside
of them, the physical trials of my fellow Suffragettes in our ward,
the anti-happiness get up of the prison building, clothing, food,
equipment, and the general vitality-destroying framework of the prison
system and its officials, seemed suddenly to be a thing apart from me
instead of one with my very self.
We were told to seat ourselves on opposite sides of a small table and
not to touch each other nor pass anything from one to the other. The
door was left open and the wardress sat just outside so as to hear,
and if necessary control our communications. She was a benignant,
kindly woman whom I had not seen before; she reminded me of Madeleine
de Rohan, of the Theatre Français, in _Le Monde où l’on s’ennui_.
She was dignified, gentle, sympathetic. I was nevertheless afraid of
her, or rather of the office which she filled, and wished her miles
away. I never saw her again, either during my month in Holloway or on
the many occasions when I have since revisited it on behalf of other
prisoners. I have tried several times to write down my impressions
of this “visit” from my sister. I have to own myself beaten. The joy
of it seems so exaggerated, I cannot trust myself to convey it for
publication. All prison sensations are exaggerated from the point of
view of those out of prison, that is their essential characteristic.
Still more exaggerated must a genuine description of them seem to a
prison official who is used to witness without sharing them. For men
and women who have experienced them, it is never again possible to
discredit their intensity or to be contemptuous towards those who try
to give expression to them. My own recollections of prison are isolated
from other parts of my life by a kind of halo of reverence. Awe comes
over me whenever they are in my mind; this awe and reverence are twice
as powerful in connection with those moments when joy had her turn,
and these rare occasions of gladness outweigh from their importance the
much more numerous experiences of gloom, anxiety, anger and physical
suffering.
After twenty minutes of eager and joyful ecstasy of communication,
during which I drank in the sight and sound of my sister’s loved
personality, the wardress told us that our time was up and I was taken
away. My sister and I were allowed to kiss each other before parting.
When I got back to hospital I had three very distinct sensations.
That of having experienced a good thing which was over; distress at
not being able to impart my joy to my companions nor discuss it with
them, since none of them knew my sister; indignation when I realised
that no ordinary prisoner, who needed the help of joy so much more
than I did, and no Suffragette prisoner without influential friends,
would be able to have a similar experience until after the first
month of imprisonment. In the practical sense more especially, for
the settlement of business and family affairs, it is on first being
imprisoned that letters and interviews are needed by prisoners.
The glow of my own happiness, however, triumphed over all else until
bed time, when with a perversity born, I suppose, of the accumulated
fatigue of recent days and nights, the one flaw in my sister’s
visit came uppermost in my thoughts and possessed my brain with an
unconquerable tyranny. Some days before the deputation, she had been
in correspondence with a leading Conservative M.P., one whose lifelong
belief in Woman Suffrage had become a little rusty. The questions he
put to my sister proved that he had not kept pace with recent events
in the movement and was unaware of the tremendous demand made by women
themselves for the vote as evidenced by the resolutions, petitions,
and unreceived deputations of organised societies of working and
professional women, quite apart from the unions that had sprung up
everywhere expressly in support of the Suffrage. I had sent her a
collection of printed evidence to this effect for the benefit of her
correspondent and I inquired of her eagerly that afternoon as to the
result. She told me that she had unfortunately lost the papers. I was
annoyed and wasted several minutes of our precious time together in
reproof. The memory of my anger came back to me now in exaggerated
dimensions. Why had I allowed myself to be reproachful to her? She had
been so dear to me, so prompt and efficient in her efforts to come and
see me, so comforting in her wealth of sympathy, and I had rewarded her
with reproaches! As I went back over the scene, my heart was wrung with
longing to send her some little message of good-will and my inability
to do so appeared to me then as nothing short of a tragedy. For the
fiftieth time in those first hours of imprisonment I seemed to be and
to feel like a child, at the mercy of fluctuating emotions extreme in
their intensity. I longed to be alone, but that night the ward patients
kept unusually wide awake and I had to restrain myself over and over
again. As the night wore on, the avenue of beds became less troubled, a
sense of privacy grew in proportion and at last I gave way to my grief
and sobbed. I covered my face in the bedclothes, but in spite of this
precaution the wardress heard me and before long she came and stood by
my side. I expected a scolding. She very seldom took any notice of the
patients till morning, I knew it was her business to reprove me, but on
looking up at her face I saw that the customary mask-like expression
had vanished. She was kind, she inquired tenderly why I was crying,
sat down on my bed and held my hands, told me that my sister would not
remember my reproaches but would be unhappy if she knew of my present
distress. She did not laugh at me, she showed as much sympathy as a
friend. It was a great surprise. She stayed talking to me in whispers
for a considerable time, though looking continually towards the door as
if in fear of being detected in a kindness, for through the night as
through the day, she was liable to unseen inspection through the locked
gate and open door, or through the spy-hole of the door when closed.
I was most deeply grateful to her, it was a delightful discovery that
underneath her rigid exterior she was an unspoiled human being. I
longed to return her kindness and ventured to propose that I should rub
her chest to ease her hacking cough. At first she would not hear of it,
but at last, after I had fetched some ointment from the bed-head of
one of the patients who had a cough, she consented and allowed me to
open her dress. She seemed much afraid and told me she would probably
be dismissed if we were seen. My attempts to allay her distress eased
my own mind of its childish trouble, for which reason she had probably
allowed me to help her. I would gladly have talked to her all night
about prisoners, the working conditions of wardresses, her own life,
but this, of course, was forbidden. She soon went back to her table,
her face resumed its former expression and I never again held any
intercourse with her. If the horrors of prison existence are enshrined
in an atmosphere of nightmare, the rare happy moments have the glamour
of a good dream. This kind act of the night-wardress remains as one of
the sunlit flower patches of my time in Holloway.
The next morning after the superior officer had been her rounds taking
temperatures, she beckoned me to her. “What have you been complaining
about?” she asked sharply. “I haven’t been complaining,” I answered.
“Yes, you have--you complained of something to a visitor.” I then
remembered that, when reassuring my sister as to my health and to
prove to her the genuineness of my statements as to prison conditions
being in no way harmful to me, I had mentioned two things which proved
rather trying, viz., that my underclothes and stockings were too short
to cover my knees, and the fact that one small towel had to do service
for all purposes during a week. I reported this to the wardress, but
explained that I had mentioned these not in complaint but to prove to
my sister that my discomforts were insignificant. “Well,” she retorted,
“next time you have anything to complain of come to me with it--if
not I shall get into trouble.” This seemed the very reverse of prison
regulations, for usually the trouble was caused by anything out of the
ordinary being granted to a prisoner. From that time forward I was
supplied with two towels, one of them renewed every week, and two rolls
of flannel bandages were brought to me to cover my knees. I supposed
that the ordinary cells, to which I expected soon to be transferred,
would be much colder than the hospital, so I held the flannel bandages
in reserve. After I came out of prison I heard that my family were
troubled, knowing how dependent I was upon warm underclothes,
especially at night. My eldest brother had interviewed the head of the
Prison Commissioners Department, Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, who had said
that I should at once be supplied with bed-socks. Bed-socks, of course,
do not grow in prisons. They were represented, I suppose, by my flannel
bandages, but the official statement had the desired result of quieting
my family’s anxiety.