_January 22, 1905._--The 22nd of January was the date, as nearly as I
can make out now, of Bettesworth's being seized by another of his
bronchial colds, from which he had hitherto been tolerably free this
winter. An influenza attacking myself about the same time prevented me
from going out to see how he fared, and for about ten days I know only
that he did not come to work. Then, on the 3rd of February, leaning
heavily on his stick and looking white and feeble, he managed to get
this far to report himself. It would take over long to tell how he sat
by the kitchen fire that day and discussed sundry affairs of the
village. For himself, he was rapidly getting well, and hoped to be
back at work in a few days. I surmise that he had been lonely. Kid
Norris had not come near him, but had been audible through the
partition wall, asking his deaf mother "How old Freddy was?" Old Nanny
herself had an extremely bad cold.
_February 8._--A few more days pass; and then on February the 8th
there is the following brief entry in my note-book:
"Bettesworth started work again yesterday. He planted some shallots,
and even while I watched him smoothing the earth over them, he raked
out two which, failing to see, he trod upon and left on the ground."
And that was Bettesworth's last day's work. He never again after that
day put hand to tool, and probably some suspicion that the end had at
length come to the usefulness of his life prompted me the next morning
to make that entry in my book.
On that day he had professed to be fairly well, and so he seemed. He
mentioned, however, when I asked if Kid Norris had yet been to see
him, that the kindness of the Norrises had "fell away very much. Very
much, it have. I en't _told_ nobody, but...." He talked of giving up
his cottage and accepting an offer to lodge with George Bryant. This
young labourer, who has been spoken of before, was now and to the end
a stanch friend and admirer of Bettesworth. With him Bettesworth
fancied he would be comfortable, and I thought so too, and encouraged
him in the project, for the old man's illness had shown that it was
not right for him to live alone.
But the proposal came too late. On the following morning (the 8th: a
Tuesday) no Bettesworth appeared; but about nine o'clock a messenger,
who was on the way to fetch a doctor, called to say that Bettesworth
was very ill; and then I remembered that on the previous afternoon he
had spoken of having been shivering all through his dinner-hour.
It was a wet day: the influenza had barely left me, and I dared not go
out to visit Bettesworth. Towards evening, as there had been no news
of him, a member of my family started out across the valley to make
inquiries, and had not long been gone, when one of his neighbours
arrived here. It was Mrs. Eggar--"Kate," as he called her: the same
good helpful woman who had volunteered to do his washing when his wife
was ill, and had despatched the messenger for a doctor this morning.
On this evening she had stepped into the gap again. Her errand was to
urge that Bettesworth should be sent off at once to the infirmary, and
to persuade me to write to the relieving officer asking him to take
the necessary action. Her daughter, she said, would carry my letter to
him in the morning, and would bring back any message or instructions
he might send.
From her account of him it was evident that Bettesworth was in a
critical state. He ought not to be left alone for the approaching
night; but the question was, who would sit up with him? As it was out
of my own power to do that, and as the old man's life might depend on
its being done, my duty was clear enough: I could make it worth
somebody's while to undertake the watching; and accordingly I made the
offer. The woman hesitated, thinking of her family and her laundry
work, and of her husband's toilsome days too; and then, seeing that
with all their toil they were very poor (she told me much about her
circumstances afterwards), she finally decided that she and her
husband would see Bettesworth through the night. Her husband had work
three or four miles away, and was leaving home at four in the morning:
she herself had a young baby at the time; but, says my note-book,
"they did it."
And on the following morning, as we had arranged, their daughter went
that weary journey to the relieving officer, and brought back to me by
ten o'clock his order for the medical officer's attendance. It seemed
that the old pitiful routine we had been through several times before
was to be entered upon once more; but to expedite matters I enclosed
the order for attendance in a note of my own to the doctor; and the
girl started off with it to the town, to add another three miles to
the five or six she had already walked that morning.
That, one would have supposed, should have almost ended the trouble;
but though a man be dying it is not easy, under the existing Poor Law,
to get him that help which the ratepayers provide, for the machinery
is cumbersome, and the people who should profit by it do not
appreciate its intricacies, or know how to make it work smoothly. In
the present instance much trouble would have been saved, if
Bettesworth's neighbours had known enough to correct an oversight of
the doctor's. There was no delay on his side; but unfortunately it
was the _locum tenens_ again who called; and he contented himself with
giving his verbal assent to Bettesworth's going to the infirmary.
That, of course, was useless; but the women attending Bettesworth did
not know it. On the contrary, they supposed that the formal
certificate could be dispensed with, and that a note from myself would
satisfy the relieving officer. A message from them reached me, begging
me to write such a note, which, they said, Bettesworth's nephew would
take over to Moorway's in the evening.
Of course the suggestion was utterly futile. The relieving officer
could not recognize a request from me as an order, and an attempt to
make him do so, if it effected nothing worse, would certainly delay
Bettesworth's removal for yet another day, although, as it was, the
unhappy old man must be left a second night in the care of his
ignorant if well-meaning neighbours. But worse might easily follow the
sending of Bettesworth's nephew for a long walk on such a fool's
errand. Strong passionate man that he was, it was more than likely
that he would quarrel with the officer; and to applicants for relief a
relieving officer is an autocrat with whom it is not well to quarrel.
These considerations, duly weighed, persuaded me not to do what I was
asked; but I sent the messenger back with the request that
Bettesworth's nephew should call upon me.
He came in the evening: a black-haired powerful builder's-labourer,
tired with his day's work, but prepared to be sent on a five-mile
walk. As we discussed Bettesworth's condition, and the desirability of
getting him to the infirmary, the man's tone jarred a little. He said,
"It's the best place for him. But it strikes me he'll never come home
again." A feeling passed over me that a wish was father to this
thought: that Jack Bettesworth was not eager for the responsibility
which would rest upon him, if his uncle should come home. After events
seem to prove that I wronged the man: on this occasion I was chiefly
eager to secure his help. Almost apologetically I said, "It makes a
lot of running about." "Well, can't 'elp it," was the laconic answer.
We did help it to some extent, however, by sending him, not to the
relieving officer, which would have cost another five miles, but to
the doctor, at the expense of no more than three. The nephew was to
get the doctor's certificate, and post it in the town to the relieving
officer; and for this purpose he was furnished with a stamped and
addressed envelope, in which was enclosed a letter to the relieving
officer, begging him to attend to the case on his way through the
village in the morning. It was the best we could do. Should all go
well, not more than ten or twelve miles of walking (I omit the
carrying of messages to and from me) and not more than two days of
waiting would have sufficed for getting Bettesworth the help of which
he was officially certified to be in need.
_February 9, 1905._--And all did go well. On Thursday morning, the 9th
of February, I went to Bettesworth's cottage, and found preparations
in progress for his going away. There was more than preparation. With
all their kindliness, it must be said of the labouring people that
they want tact. Bettesworth's poor home had become a sort of show, in
its small squalid fashion. The door stood wide open; there were half a
dozen people in the living-room, where the old man had of late shut
himself in with his loneliness and his independence; and upstairs in
his bed he must have been aware of the nakedness of the place now
displayed. The unswept hearth and the extinct fire were pitiful to
see; yet there stood women and children, seeing them. Mrs. Eggar
("Kate") had a good right to be there. She had sat up a second night,
and, albeit sleepy-eyed and untidy, there was helpfulness in her large
buxom presence. Perhaps there were reasons too for her daughter's
being there with the baby. Another woman, tall, grave, and sympathetic
of aspect, had brought two more children; and she told me that
upstairs Jack Bettesworth's wife Liz was washing the old man. Liz, by
the way, was prepared to go with him on his journey.
I went up into the little square-windowed dirty bedroom and saw him.
He was inclined to cry at the prospect of shutting up his home; but a
little talk about my garden--perhaps dearer to him now than even his
home was--brightened him up. It pleased him to learn that some early
peas had been sown. In what part? he wanted to know. And being told,
"Ah," he said, "and there's another place where peas 'd do well: up
there under George Bryant's hedge." When I left, it was with a promise
to go and see him in the infirmary on the next visiting day. Going out
I saw old Nanny Norris at her door, observant of all that went on, but
unserviceably deaf. She was wearing her bonnet and black shawl, looked
ill, and complained of cough and of pains across her shoulders. I
think there were two or three other women standing near. They were
probably waiting to see Bettesworth removed, as he duly was, at
mid-day.