WORKHOUSE CHARACTERS
[Illustration: Logo]
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
IN THE WORKHOUSE
A PLAY IN ONE ACT
The International Suffrage Shop, John St., Strand, W.C.2 (6d.)
Press Notices
"Dull talk none the less offensive because it may have been
life-like."--_Daily Mail._
"The piece though mere talk is strong talk."--_Morning Advertiser._
"The play is clean and cold and humorous. The main value of the piece is
that it is a superb genre picture. One or two of the flashes from this
strange, generally unknown world are positive sparks of
life."--_Sheffield Daily Telegraph._
"I found it interesting and convincing; but then I am prepared to
believe that our laws always will be rotten till lawyers are
disqualified from sitting in Parliament."--_Reynolds'._
"The masculine portion of the audience walked with heads abashed in the
_entr'acte_; such things had been said upon the stage that they were
suffused with blushes."--_Standard._
"Delicate matters were discussed with much knowledge and some
tact."--_Morning Post._
"'In the Workhouse' reminds us forcibly of certain works of M. Brieux,
which plead for reform by painting a terrible, and perhaps overcharged,
picture of things as they are.... The presence of the idiot girl helps
to point another moral in Mrs. Nevinson's arraignment, and is therefore
artistically justifiable; and the more terrible it appears the better
have the author and the actress done their work.... Such is the power of
the dramatic pamphlet, sincerely written and sincerely acted. There is
nothing to approach it in directness and force. It sweeps all mere
prettiness into oblivion."--_Pall Mall Gazette._
"It is one of the strongest indictments of our antiquated laws relating
to married women. A man seated behind the present writer called the play
immoral! and as Mrs. Nevinson says in her preface to the published
edition, the only apology she makes for its realism is that it is
true."--_Christian Commonwealth._
"The whole thing left an unpleasant taste."--_Academy._
NOTE.--Two years after this piece was given by the _Pioneer Players_ the
law was altered.
WORKHOUSE CHARACTERS
AND OTHER SKETCHES OF THE LIFE OF THE POOR
BY
MARGARET WYNNE NEVINSON
L.L.A.
The depth and dream of my desire,
The bitter paths wherein I stray.
Thou knowest Who hast made the Fire,
Thou knowest Who hast made the Clay.
One stone the more swings to her place
In that dread Temple of Thy Worth--
It is enough that through Thy grace
I saw naught common on Thy earth.
RUDYARD KIPLING.
LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.1
Almost the whole of these sketches have appeared in the
_Westminster Gazette_; the last two were published in the _Daily
News_, and "Widows Indeed" and "The Runaway" in the _Herald_. It is
by the courtesy of the Editors of the above papers that they are
reproduced in book form.
_First published in 1918_
_(All rights reserved.)_
TO MY SON
C. R. W. NEVINSON
PREFACE
These sketches have been published in various papers during the last
thirteen years. Many of the characters are life portraits, and the wit
and wisdom of the common people have been faithfully recorded in a true
Boswellian spirit; others are _Wahrheit und Dichtung_ (if one may still
quote Goethe), but all have been suggested by actual fact and
experience.
During the last ten years great reforms have been taking place in the
country. In 1908 the Old Age Pensions Act came into force, and the
weekly miracle of 5s. a week (now 7s. 6d.) changed the world for the
aged, giving them the liberty and independence, which ought to be the
right of every decent citizen in the evening of life.
The order by which a pauper husband had the right to detain his wife in
the workhouse by "his marital authority" is now repealed. A case some
years ago of this abominable breach of the law of Habeas Corpus startled
the country, especially the ratepayers, and even the House of Commons
were amazed at their own laws. The order was withdrawn in 1913 on the
precedent of the judgment given in the case of the Queen _v._ Jackson
(1891), when it was decided "that the husband has no right, where his
wife refuses to live with him, to take her person by force and restrain
her of her liberty" (60 L. J. Q. B. 346).
Many humane reforms and regulations for the classification of inmates
were made in 1913, and the obnoxious words "pauper" and "workhouse" have
been abolished; but before the authorities rightly grasped the changes
the war was upon us, the workhouses were commandeered as military
hospitals, the inmates sent into other institutions, and all reforms
lapsed in overcrowded and understaffed buildings.
Once again the Poor Law is in the melting-pot, and it seems as if now it
will pass into the limbo of the past with other old, unhappy far-off
things.
CONTENTS
PAGE
EUNICE SMITH--DRUNK 13
DETAINED BY MARITAL AUTHORITY 21
A WELSH SAILOR 27
THE VOW 33
BLIND AND DEAF 39
"AND, BEHOLD, THE BABE WEPT" 47
"MARY, MARY, PITY WOMEN!" 53
THE SUICIDE 61
PUBLICANS AND HARLOTS 68
OLD INKY 75
A DAUGHTER OF THE STATE 80
IN THE PHTHISIS WARD 85
AN IRISH CATHOLIC 91
AN OBSCURE CONVERSATIONIST 97
MOTHERS 104
"YOUR SON'S YOUR SON" 110
"TOO OLD AT FORTY" 115
IN THE LUNATIC ASYLUM 118
THE SWEEP'S LEGACY 126
AN ALIEN 130
"WIDOWS INDEED!" 134
THE RUNAWAY 138
"A GIRL! GOD HELP HER!" 145
ON THE PERMANENT LIST 148
THE PAUPER AND THE OLD-AGE PENSION 153
THE EVACUATION OF THE WORKHOUSE 157
WORKHOUSE CHARACTERS
EUNICE SMITH--DRUNK
The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Here and There as strikes the Player goes;
And He that toss'd you down into the Field,
_He_ knows about it all--He knows--_He_ knows.
"Eunice Smith, drunk, brought by the police."
The quaint Scriptural name, not heard for years, woke me up from the
dull apathy to which even the most energetic Guardian is reduced at the
end of a long Board meeting, and I listened intently as the Master of
the workhouse went on to explain that the name Smith had been given by
the woman, but her clothes and a small book, which the doctor said was
Homer, in Greek, were marked Eunice Romaine.
Eunice Romaine--the name took me back down long vistas of years to a
convent school at Oxford, to the clanging bells of Tom Tower, to the
vibrant note of boys' voices in college chapels, to the scent of flowers
and incense at early celebrations, to the high devotions and ideals of
youth, to its passionate griefs and joys. Eunice Romaine had been the
genius of our school--one of those gifted students in whom knowledge
seems innate; her name headed every examination list, and every prize in
the form fell to her; other poor plodders had no chance where she was.
From school she had gone with many a scholarship and exhibition to
Cambridge, where she had taken a high place in the Classical Tripos;
later I heard she had gone as Classical Mistress to one of the London
High Schools, then our paths had separated, and I heard no more.
I went down to the Observation Ward after the meeting, where between a
maniacal case lying in a strait-waistcoat, alternately singing hymns and
blaspheming, and a tearful melancholic who begged me to dig up her
husband's body in the north-east corner of the garden, I saw my old
friend and classmate.
She was lying very quiet with closed eyes; her hair had gone grey before
her time, and her face was pinched and scored with the deep
perpendicular lines of grief and disappointment; but I recognized the
school-girl Eunice by the broad, intellectual brow and by the delicate,
high-bred hands.
"She is rather better," said the nurse in answer to my question, "but
she has had a very bad night, screaming the whole time at the rats and
mice she thought she saw, and the doctor fears collapse, as her heart is
weak; but if she can get some sleep she may recover."
Sleep in the crowded Mental Ward, with maniacs shrieking and shouting
around! But exhausted Nature can do a great deal, and when I called some
days later I found my old friend discharged to the General Sick Ward, a
placard above her head setting forth her complaint as "chronic
alcoholism, cirrhosis of the liver, and cardiac disease."
She recognized me at once, but with the apathy of weakness she expressed
neither surprise nor interest at our meeting, and only after some weeks
had passed I found her one evening brighter and better, and anxious to
go out. Over an impromptu banquet of grapes and cakes we fell into one
of those intimate conversations that come so spontaneously but are so
impossible to force, and I heard the short history of a soul's tragedy.
"Just after I left Cambridge mother died. She told me on her death-bed
that I had the taint of drink in the blood, and urged me never to touch
alcohol. My father--a brilliant scholar and successful journalist--had
killed himself with drink whilst we were all quite young; mother had
kept us all away at school, so that we should not know, and had borne
her burden alone. I promised light-heartedly; I was young and strong,
and had not known temptation. After mother died I was very lonely: both
my brothers had gone to Canada. My father's classical and literary
abilities had come only to me: their talents were purely mechanical and
they had never been able to acquire book knowledge. I was not very happy
teaching. Classics had come to me so easily--hereditary question
again--that I never could understand the difficulties of the average
girl, and I had very little patience with dullness and stupidity.
However, very soon I became engaged to be married, and lived for some
time in a fool's paradise of love and joy. My _fiancé_ was a literary
man--I will not tell you his name, as he is one of those who have
arrived--but it is difficult to start, and we waited about two years
before he got an appointment sufficiently secure to make marriage
possible. I was very busy; we had taken a flat, and I was engaged in
choosing furniture and preparing my humble trousseau. I had given notice
at the school, and the wedding-day was within a fortnight, when one
morning I got a letter from my _fiancé_, couched in wild, allegorical
language, bemoaning his unworthiness, but asking me to release him from
his engagement, as he found his love for me had been a mirage now that
he had come across his twin-soul. I read the letter over and over again,
hardly grasping the meaning, when there fell from the envelope a little
newspaper cutting that I had overlooked--it was the announcement of his
marriage three days before to his twin-soul.
"Still I was unable to realize what had happened. I kept saying over and
over to myself, 'Charlie is married,' but in my heart I did not believe
it. That afternoon the head-mistress came to see me; she was very kind,
and took me herself to a brain specialist, who said I had had a nervous
shock, that I ought to have a rest, and mountain air would be best for
me. The council of my school agreed to take me back again, and allow me
a term's holiday on full pay. One of my colleagues (it was holiday-time)
came with me to Switzerland, and there, amid the ice and snow of the
high latitudes, the full understanding of what had come to me dawned
upon my mind, and I realized the pangs of despised love, of jealousy,
and hate. A _Nachschein_ of Christianity suddenly made me rush back to
England in terror of what might happen; it is easy to commit suicide in
Switzerland, and a certain black precipice near the hotel drew me ever
towards it with baleful fascination. Some one dragged me again to Harley
Street, and this time the great specialist advised sea air and cheerful
society. The latter prescription is not available for lonely and jilted
high-school mistresses in London, but I tried sea air, and it did me
good. I don't think for a moment that the doctor realized that I was
practically off my head; the terribly obsession of love and jealousy had
me in its grip. It had taken me some time to fall in love, and I could
not fall out again to order, whilst the knowledge that the man who had
broken his promise to me now belonged to another woman was driving me to
madness. One day I went down to bathe, and suddenly determined to end my
woe. I swam out far to sea--so far that I judged it beyond my force ever
to get back; but though my will commanded my limbs to cease their work
they refused to obey. I was always a very strong swimmer, and I landed
again more humiliated than ever: I had not even the pluck to end my
sorrows.
"After that I went back to work; mountains and sea had no message for
me. I was better sitting at my desk in the class-room, trying to drill
Latin and Greek into the unresponsive brains of girls.
"I got through the days, but the nights were terrible; all the great
army of forsaken lovers know that the nights are the worst. I used to
lie awake hour after hour, sobbing and crying for mercy and strength to
endure, and I used to batter my head against the floor, not knowing any
one could hear. One night a fellow-lodger, who slept in the next room,
came in and begged me to be quiet; she had her work to do, and night
after night I kept her awake with my sobbing. 'I suppose it is all about
some wretched man,' she observed coolly; 'but, believe me, they are not
worth the love we give them. I left my husband some years ago, finding
that he had been carrying on with a woman who called herself my friend.
At first I cried and sobbed just as you do now; but I felt such a fool
making such a fuss about a man who had played it down so low, that I
made up my mind I would forget him; and in time you will get over this,
and give thanks that you have been delivered from a liar and a traitor.'
"She gave me a glass of strong brandy and water; it was the first I had
ever tasted, and I remember how it ran warm through my veins, and how I
slept as I had not slept for months.
"My fellow-lodger and I became great friends; she was quite an
uneducated woman, the matron of a laundry, but she braced me up like a
tonic with her keen humour and experience of life.
"How strange it seems for a middle-aged drunkard in a pauper infirmary
to be telling this ancient love-tale, and posing as one of 'the
aristocracy of passionate souls,' But _tout passe tout casse_, and after
years of anguish and strife I woke up one bright spring morning and felt
that I was cured and for ever free of the wild passion of love. That day
always stands out as the happiest of my life. I shall never forget it.
It was Saturday, and a holiday; and I got on my bicycle and rode off for
miles far into the country singing the _Benedicite_ for pure joy. I
lunched at a little inn on the Thames, and ordered some champagne to
celebrate the recovery of my liberty.
"But by strange irony of fate the very day I escaped from the toils of
love I fell under another tyranny--that of alcohol. Now, Peg"--I started
at the unfamiliar old nickname of my school days--"I believe you are
crying. Having shed more than my own share of tears, nothing irritates
me so much as to see other women cry, and if you don't stop I'll not say
another word."
I drew my handkerchief across my eyes and admitted to a cold in the
head.
"Shortly afterward I received notice to leave the High School. I did not
mind--I always hated teaching, and I found that I had the power of
writing; an article that I could flash off in a few hours would keep me
for a week, and I could create my own paradise for half a crown--now,
Peg, you are crying again. But of late life was not so bad. I enjoyed
writing, and shall always be thankful I can read Greek; besides, I was
not always drunk; the craving only takes me occasionally, and at its
worst alcohol is a kinder master than love. I shall be well enough to go
out in a few days; bring me some pens and paper, and my editor will
advance me some money. I am going to write an article on workhouse
infirmaries that will startle the public. What do you know of
workhouses? You are only a Guardian; 'tis we musicians (or rather
inmates) who know."
The article never got written. The next day I found Eunice very ill; she
was unconscious and delirious till her death, reeling off sonorous
hexameters from Homer and Virgil and stately passages from the Greek
tragedians.
We spared her a pauper funeral, and a few old school and college friends
gathered round the grave. A white-haired professor of world fame was
there also, and he shook hands with us as we parted at the cemetery
gates. "Poor Eunice!" he said, his aged face working painfully. "One of
the best Greek scholars of the day, and the daughter of my oldest
friend. Both of them geniuses, and both of them with the same taint in
the blood; but I feel I ought not to have let her come to this."
I think we all felt the same as we walked sadly home.
DETAINED BY MARITAL AUTHORITY
(By the law of England the mothers of illegitimate children are
often in a better position than their married sisters.)
An unusual sense of expectancy pervaded the young women's ward; Mrs.
Cleaver had gone down "to appear before the Committee," and though the
ways of committees are slow, and pauper-time worthless, it was felt that
her ordeal was being unduly protracted.
"She's having a dose, she is," said a young woman walking up and down,
futilely patting the back of a shrieking infant. "I 'ate appearing afore
them committees; last time I was down I called the lady 'Sir' and the
gentleman 'Mum,' and my 'eart went pitter-patter in my breast so that
you might have knocked me down with a feather. 'Ere she is--well, my
dear, and you do look bad----"
"Them committees allus turn me dead sick, and, being a stout woman, my
boots feel too tight for me, and I goes into a perspiration, and the
great drops go rolling off my forehead. Well, 'e's kept 'is word, and
got the law and right of England behind 'im."
What reporters call a "sensation" made itself felt through the ward; the
inmates gathered closer round Mrs. Cleaver, and screaming infants were
rocked and patted and soothed with much vigour and little result.
"Well," said Mrs. Cleaver, sinking on to the end of a bed, "I went afore
the Committee and I says, 'I want to take my discharge,' I says; I
applied last week to the Master, but mine got at 'im first, and Master
up and says--
"'No, Mrs. Cleaver, you can't go,' he says; 'your 'usband can't spare
you,' he says, 'wants you to keep 'im company in 'ere,' he says.
"'Is that true, Master?' says the little man wot sits lost in the big
chair.
"'That is so, sir,' says Master, and then 'e outs with a big book and
reads something very learned and brain-confusing that I did not rightly
understand, as to how a 'usband may detain his wife in the workhouse by
his marital authority.
"'Good 'eavens!' says the little lady Guardian 'er wot's dressed so
shabby. 'Is that the law of England?'
"Then they all began talking at once most excited, and the little man in
the big chair beat like a madman on the table with a 'ammer, and no one
took the slightest notice, but when some quiet was restored the little
man asked me to tell the Board the circumstances. So I says 'ow he lost
his work through being drunk on duty, which was the lying tongue of the
perlice, for 'is 'ed was clear, the drink allus taking him in the legs,
like most cabmen, and the old 'oss keeps sober. It was a thick fog, and
he'd just got off the box to lead the 'oss through the gates of the
mews, and the perliceman spotted 'is legs walking out in contrary
directions, though 'is 'ed was clear as daylight, and so the perlice ran
'im in and the beak took his licence from 'im, and 'ere we are.
"Now I've got over my confinement, and the child safe in 'eaven, after
all the worrit and starvation, I thought I'd like to go out and earn my
own living--I'm a dressmaker by trade, and my sister will give me a
'ome; I 'ate being 'ere--living on the rates, and 'e not having done
better for us than this Bastille--though I allus says as it was the
lying tongue of a perliceman--it seems fair I should go free. The lady
wot comes round Sundays told me I ain't got no responsibility for my
children being a married lady with the lines. Then the little man flew
out most violent: 'Don't talk like that, my good woman; of course you
have responsibility to your children; you must not believe what ignorant
people tell you.'
"Then I heard the tall, ginger-haired chap wot sits next to the little
man--'im as you unmarried girls go before to try and father your
children--I 'eard 'im say quite distinct: 'The woman is right, sir;
married women are not responsible for their children, but I believe the
husband is within his rights in refusing to allow her to leave the
workhouse without him.'
"Then they asked me to retire, and the Master told me to come back
'ere, and I should know the result later. Oh, Lord! I'm that 'ot and
upset with the worry of it all, I feel I'll never cool again," and Mrs.
Cleaver wiped her brow and fanned herself with her apron.
"Single life has its advantages," said a tall, handsome woman, who was
nursing a baby by the window. "You with the lines ain't been as perlite
as might be to us who ain't got 'em, but we 'as the laugh over you
really. I'm taking my discharge to-morrow morning, and not one of 'em
dare say me nay; I needn't appear afore Boards and be worried and upset
with 'usbands and Guardians and things afore I can take myself off the
parish and eat my bread independent."
"But why weren't you married, Pennyloaf? Not for want of asking, I'll be
bound."
"No, it warn't for want of asking; fact is, I was put off marriage at a
very early age. I 'ad a drunken beast of a father as spent his time
a-drinking by day and a-beating mother by night--one night he overdid it
and killed 'er; he got imprisonment for life, and we was put away in the
workhouse schools; it would have been kinder of the parish to put us in
the lethal chamber, as they do to cats and dogs as ain't wanted. But we
grew up somehow, knowing as we weren't wanted, and then the parish found
me a situation, under-housemaid in a big house; and then I found as the
young master wanted me, the first time as any human soul had taken any
interest in me, and, oh, Lord! I laughs now when I think what a 'appy
time it was. Since then I've had four children, and I have twenty-five
shillings a week coming in regular besides what I can make at the
cooking. I lives clean and respectable--no drinking, no bad language; my
children never see nor hear what I saw and heard, and they are
mine--mine--mine. I always comes into the House for confinement, liking
quiet and skilled medical attendance. I never gets refused--the law
daren't refuse such as me. I always leaves the coming in till the last
moment; then there are no awkward questions, and when they begin to
inquire as to settlement, I'm off. All the women in our street are
expecting next week, their husbands all out of work, and not a pair of
sheets or the price of a pint of milk between them, all lying in one
room, too, with children and husbands about, as I don't consider decent,
but having the lines, it's precious hard for them to get in here, and
half of them daren't come for fear he and some one else will sell up the
'ome whilst they're away. You remember Mrs. Hall, who died here last
week? Well, she told me that her husband swore at her so fearful for
having twins that the doctor sent her in here out of his way, and what
with all the upset and the starvation whilst she was carrying the
children, she took fever and snuffed out like a candle. No, the
neighbours don't know as I'm a bad woman; I generally moves before a
confinement, and I 'as a 'usband on the 'igh seas.
"Well, I'm going back to-morrow to my neat little home, that my
lady-help has been minding for me, to my dear children and to my regular
income, and I don't say as I envies you married ladies your rings or
your slavery."
A WELSH SAILOR
I will go back to the great sweet mother,
Mother and lover of men, the sea.
The Master of the Casual Ward rattled his keys pompously in the lock of
the high workhouse gates, and the shivering tramps entered the yard, a
battered and footsore procession of this world's failures, the outcast
and down-trodden in the fierce struggle for existence. Some of them were
young and strong, some old and feeble, all wan and white with hunger and
the chill of the November fog which wrapped like a wet blanket round
their ill-clothed bodies. Amongst them was an old man with ear-rings,
and thick, curly white hair, with broad shoulders and rolling gait, and
as he passed I seemed to feel the salt wind of the sea blowing in my
face, and the plunge of the good ship in the billows of the bay. One by
one the master shut them up in the dreary little cell where each man is
locked for thirty-six hours on a dietary of porridge, cheese, and bread,
and ten hours' work a day at stone-breaking or fibre-picking. And yet
the men walk in with something approaching relief on their weary faces;
the hot bath will restore circulation; and really to appreciate a bed
one should wander the streets through a winter's night, or "lodge with
Miss Green" as they term sleeping on the heath.
Half an hour later, as I sat in one of the sick-wards, I felt once again
the salt freshness of the air above the iodoform and carbolic, and lying
on the ambulance I saw the curly white head of the old sailor, his face
blanched under its tan.
"Fainted in the bath, no food for three days; we get them in sometimes
like that from the Casual Ward. Wait a moment till I put the pillow
straight," said the nurse, as quickly and deftly she raised the hoary
head, which has been called a crown of glory.
A few weeks later I passed through the ward, and saw the old man still
lying in bed; his sleeves were rolled up, and his nightshirt loose at
the throat, and I saw his arms and chest tattooed gorgeously with ships
and anchors and flags, with hearts and hands and the red dragon of
Wales.
"He's been very bad," said the nurse; "bronchitis and great
weakness--been starving for weeks, the doctor thinks. Talks English all
right when his temperature is down, but raves to himself in a sort of
double-Dutch no one can understand, though we have French and Germans
and Russians in the ward."
"Fy Nuw, fy Nuw, paham y'm gadewaist?" cried the old man, and I
recognized the cry from the Cross, "My God, My God, why hast Thou
forsaken Me?"
"Oh! lady," he exclaimed as I sat down beside him--"oh! lady, get me
out of this. My mates tell me as I'm in the workhouse, and if my old
mother knew it would kill her--it would, indeed. Yes, lady, I follow the
sea--went off with my old dad when I was eight year old; we sailed our
old ship _Pollybach_ for wellnigh forty years; and then she foundered
off Bushy Island Reef, Torres Straits, and we lost nearly all we had.
After that I've sailed with Captain Jones, of the _Highflyer_, as first
mate; but now he's dead I can't get a job nohow. I'm too old, and I've
lost my left hand; some tackle got loose in a storm and fell upon it,
and though the hook is wonderful handy, they won't enter me any more as
an A.B.
"I'm a skipper of the ancient time--a Chantey-man and a fiddler. I can
navigate, checking the chronometer by lunar observation. I can rig a
ship from rail to truck; I can reef, hand-steer, and set and take in a
top-mast studding sail; and I can show the young fools how to use a
marlin-spike. Yes, indeed! But all this is no good now.
"I came up to London to find an old shipmate--Hugh Pugh. We sailed
together fifty years ago, but he left the sea when he got married and
started in the milk business in London. We was always good mates, and he
said to me not long ago, down in Wales, that the Lord had prospered him,
and that I was to turn to him in any trouble. So when my skipper died I
remembered me of Hugh Pugh, and slung my bundle to come and find him.
Folks was wonderful kind to me along the road, and I sailed along in
fair weather till I got to London; and then I was fair frightened;
navigation is very difficult along the streets--the craft's too
crowded--and folks were shocking hard and unkind. I cruised about for a
long time, but London's a bigger place than I thought, knowing only the
docks; and David Evans doesn't seem to have got the address quite
ship-shape, and I just drifted and lost faith. Somehow it's harder to
trust the Lord in London than on the high seas. Then the mates tell me I
fainted and was brought into the ship's hospital; and here I've lain,
a-coughing, and a-burning, and a-shivering, with queer tunes a-playing
in my head; couldn't remember the English, they say, and talked only
Welsh; and they thought I was a Dutchman. This morning I felt a sight
better, and though the nurse told me not to get up, I just tried to put
on my clothes and go; but blowed if my legs didn't behave
shocking--rolled to larboard, rolled to starboard, and then pitched me
headlong, so that I thought I'd shivered all my timbers. So I suppose I
must lie at anchor a bit longer; my legs will never stand the homeward
voyage, they're that rotten and barnacled; but I'll never get better
here; what I'm sickening for is the sea--the sight of her, and the smell
of her, and the noise of the waves round the helm; she and me's never
been parted before for more than two days, and I'm as sick for her as a
man for his lass. Oh, dear! oh, dear! If I could only find Hugh
Pugh----"
I suggested that there was a penny post. "Yes, lady; but, to tell the
truth, I haven't got a stamp, nor yet a penny; and David Evans hasn't
got the address ship-shape. The policeman laughed in my face when I
asked him where Hugh Pugh lived, and said I must get it writ down better
than that for London." Out of his locker he drew a Welsh Testament
containing a piece of tobacco-stained paper, on which was written--
HUGH PUGH, Master Mariner, now Dairyman;
In a big house in a South-Eastern Road,
Off the North-road, out of London, Nor-East by Nor.
Fortunately, Hugh Pugh is not a common name--a visit to the library, a
search in the trade directory, and a telephonic communication saved all
further cruising.
A couple of days later I got a letter from Hugh Pugh--
DEAR MADAM,
I thank you for your communication with regard to my old friend and
shipmate, Joshua Howell, of whom I had lost sight. I am glad to say I am
in a position to find him some work at once, having given up my London
business to my sons, and taken a house down by the sea. I am in want of
a good waterman to manage a ferryboat over the river and to take charge
of a small yacht, and I know that I can trust old Joshua with one hand
better than most men with two. There is a cottage on the shore where he
can live with his mother; and tell him we shall all be delighted to
welcome an old friend and shipmate. My daughter is coming down here
shortly with her children, and will be very glad for Joshua to travel
with her; she will call and make arrangements for him to go to her house
as soon as he is well enough to be moved. I enclose £5 for clothes or
any immediate expenses, and am sorry that my old friend has been through
such privations. As to any expenses for his keep at the infirmary, I
will hold myself responsible.
Yours faithfully,
HUGH PUGH.
LLANRHYWMAWR, _December 6._
A Welsh letter was enclosed for the old sailor, over which he pored with
tears of joy running down his cheeks.
A few days later Hugh Pugh's daughter's motor throbbed at the door of
the workhouse, and the old tar rolled round shaking hands vigorously
with the mates: "Good-bye; good-bye, maties; the Lord has brought me out
of the stormy waters, and it's smooth sailing now. He'll do the same for
you, mates, if you trust Him."
Then the door closed, and the fresh breeze dropped, and it seemed as if
the ward grew dark and grey.
THE VOW
Better thou shouldest not vow than thou shouldest vow and not pay.
The heavy machines in the steam-laundry clanked and groaned, and the
smell of soap and soda, cleansing the unspeakable foulness of the
infirmary linen, rose up strong and pungent, as the women carried out
the purified heaps to blow dry in the wind and sunshine.
The inmates worked hard and steadily under the keen eye of the matron;
many of them knew by bitter experience that inattention or gossip might
cost them the loss of fingers at the calenders and wringing machines.
Most of the women were strong and able-bodied, and yet the briefest
inquiry would reveal some moral flaw rendering them incapable of
competing in the labour market--drink, dishonesty, immorality,
feeble-mindedness. Amongst the heavy, uncomely figures I noticed a young
woman, tall and well-grown, with a face modest and refined, framed in
masses of dark hair under the pauper cap. She was folding sheets and
table-cloths, working languidly as if in pain, and I drew the matron's
attention to the fact.
"Yes, I don't think she'll finish the day's work. I told her to go over
to the infirmary if she liked, but she said she would rather stay here
as long as she could. Yes, usual thing, but she is a better class than
we get here as a rule."
A few days later I saw her again in the lying-in ward, a black-haired
babe in the cradle beside her, and her hair in two rope-like plaits
hanging over the pillow nearly to the ground.
She looked so healthy, handsome, and honest amongst the disease and
ugliness and vice around that one wondered how she came to the
workhouse. "Yes," said the nurse, in answer to my thoughts, "she is not
the sort we have here generally. No, I don't know anything about her;
she is very silent, and they say she refused to answer the relieving
officer." I sat down beside her and tried to talk about her future, but
the girl answered in monosyllables, with tightly shut lips, as if she
were afraid to speak.
"Won't the father of your child do anything for you?"
"I do not wish him to."
I had been a Guardian long enough to respect reticence, and I rose to
go. The darkness of the December afternoon had fallen in the long,
half-empty ward, the sufferers dozed, the wailing of babes was hushed,
all was strangely quiet, and as I reached the door I heard a voice,
"Please come back, ma'am; I should like to ask you something." Then, as
I turned to her bedside again, "I have not told any one my story here;
I don't think they would believe me; but it is true all the same. But
please tell me first, do you hold with keeping a vow?"
"Yes, certainly I do."
"That is why I am here. I swore an oath to my dying mother, and I have
kept it. I did not know how hard it would be to keep, but because I
would not break it I have come to disgrace. When we were children we had
a cruel, drunken father, and I seem to remember mother always crying,
and at night we would be wakened with screams, and we used to rush in
and try and stop father beating her to death, and the cruel blows used
to half shatter our poor little bodies. One night we were too late, and
we saw mother wrapped in a sheet of flame--and her shrieks! It is
fifteen years ago now, but they still ring in my ears. The neighbours
came and the police, and they put out the fire, and took mother to the
hospital and father to the lock-up. Mother did not live long and she
suffered cruel. The next day they took us children to see her. We hardly
knew it was mother; she was bandaged up with white like a mummy, and
only one black eye blazing like a live coal out of the rags--she had
beautiful eyes--made us know her. The little boys cried, so that nurse
took them out again, but they let me stay with her all night, holding a
bit of rag where her hand had once been. Just as the grey dawn came in
at the windows mother spoke, very low so that I had to stoop down to
hear: 'Hester, my child, swear to me you will never marry, and I will
die happy. The boys can look after themselves, but I cannot bear to
think of you suffering as I have suffered.'
"'Yes, mother, I'll swear.' No girl of thirteen is keen on marriage,
particularly with a father like ours, and I took up the book
light-heartedly and swore 'So help me, God.'
"'Thank Heaven, my dear! Now kiss me.'
"I kissed a bit of rag where her mouth had been, and I saw that the
black eye was dim and glazed, and the eyelid fell down as if she were
sleeping. I sat on till the nurses changed watch, and then they told me
she was dead.
"Father got a life sentence, the boys were sent to workhouse schools,
and some ladies found me a situation in the country near Oxford. When I
was about seventeen the under-gardener came courting me. He was a
straight, well-set-up young chap, and I fell in love with him at once,
but when he talked about marriage--having good wages--I remembered my
oath. Jem said an oath like that wasn't binding; and when I said I'd
live with him if he liked, he was very shocked, having honourable
intentions, and he went and fetched the vicar to talk to me. He was a
very holy man, with the peace of God shining through his eyes, and he
talked so kind and clever, telling me that mother was dying and half-mad
with pain and weakness, and that she would be the first to absolve me
from such a vow. I couldn't argue with him, and so I forgot my manners,
and ran out of the room for fear he'd master me. When Jem saw nothing
would move me he went off one morning to America, leaving a letter to
say as he had gone away for fear he should take me at my word and be my
ruin.
"Things were very black after that; I had not known what he was to me
till the sea was between us, and, worse than the sea, my oath to the
dying. I left my good situation because I could not bear it any longer
without him, and I came up to London and got into bad places and saw
much wickedness, and got very lonely and very miserable, and learnt what
temptation is to girls left alone. I used to go into the big Catholic
cathedral by Victoria Station and kneel down by the image of the Virgin
and just say, 'Please help me to keep my oath.'
"Then one day in spring, when all the flowers were out in the park, and
all the lovers whispering under the trees, I remembered I was
twenty-seven, and though I could never have a husband at least I might
have a child. A great wave of longing came over me that I could not
resist, and so I fell. And then later, when I knew what was coming to
me, I was filled with terrible remorse--leastways one day I was full of
joy because of my baby, and the next day I was fit to drown myself in
shame. Then the Sunday before I was brought in here I went to service in
St. Paul's. I had felt sick and queer all day, and I just sat down on
one of the seats at the back and listened to the singing high and sweet
above my head, like the chanting of the heavenly host. I was always fond
of going to St. Paul's, and once on my Sunday out I even went to the
Sacrament, and I says, 'O God, I've lost my character, but I've kept my
oath. You made me so fond of children; please don't let me eat and drink
my own damnation.'
"I sat and thought of this, puzzling and puzzling, and the hot air out
of the gratings made me drowsy, and I fell asleep and dreamt it was the
Judgment Day, and I stood with my baby before the Throne, and a great
white light shone on me, bleak and terrible, so that I felt scorched
with blinding cold. And the angel from his book read out: 'Hester French
and her bastard child.'
"Then there came a little kind voice: 'She kept her oath to her dying
mother, and remember, she was a woman and all alone'; and I knew it was
the Virgin Mary pleading for me. And then a voice like thunder sounded:
'Blot out her sin!' and all the choirs of heaven sang together; and I
awoke, but it was only the organ crashing out very loud, and the verger
shaking me because he wanted to lock up. Oh, ma'am, do you think as my
sin will be forgiven? At least I kept my vow."
BLIND AND DEAF
Oh, human soul! as long as thou canst so
Set up a mark of everlasting light,
Above the howling senses' ebb and flow,
To cheer thee and to right thee if thou roam--
Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night!
Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home.
Mary Grant, pauper, of Sick Ward 42, had been making charges of
unkindness against Nurse Smith, and I had been appointed by the House
Committee to inquire into the matter. I found a somewhat
harassed-looking nurse filling up temperature-charts in a corner of the
ward, and she began volubly to deny the charges.
"The woman's deaf, so it is no good shouting at her, and I believe she
is angry because I can't talk on my fingers; but what with looking after
both wards and washing and bathing them all, and taking their
temperatures and feeding them, and giving them their medicine, I have
not time to attend to the fads and fancies of each one. Granny Hunt,
too, takes half my time seeing that she does not break her neck with her
antics; and as to scraping the butter off Grant's bread I hope as the
Committee did not attend to such a tale."
The last accusation, I assured her, had not even been brought before
us, and I passed down the long clean ward where lay sufferers of all
ages and conditions--the mighty head of the hydrocephalus child side by
side with the few shrivelled bones of an aged paralytic. I passed the
famous Mrs. Hunt--a "granny" of ninety-six, who "kept all her limbs very
supple" and herself in excellent condition by a system of mattress
gymnastics which she had evolved for herself. Two comparatively young
people of seventy and eighty, who were unfortunate enough to lie next
her, complained bitterly of Granny's restlessness; but the old lady was
past discipline and "restraining influences," and, beyond putting a
screen round her to check vanity and ensure decency, the authorities
left her to her gymnastic displays. On the whole, though, the ward was
very proud of Granny; she was the oldest inhabitant, not only in the
House but also in the parish, and even female sick-wards take a certain
pride in holding a record. The old lady cocked a bright eye, like a
bird, upon me as I passed her bed, and, cheerfully murmuring "Oh, the
agony!" executed a species of senile somersault with much agility.
Round the blazing fire at the end of the ward (for excellent fires
commend me to those rate-supported) sat a group of "chronics" and
convalescents--a poor girl, twisted and racked with St. Vitus's dance,
white-haired "grannies" in every stage of rheumatic or senile decay, and
a silent figure with bowed head, still in early middle life, who, they
told me, was Mary Grant.
I shouted my inquiries down her ear _crescendo fortissimo_, without the
smallest response--not even the flicker of an eyelid--whilst the
grannies listened with apathetic indifference.
"Not a bit of good, ma'am," they said presently, when I paused,
exhausted; "she's stone deaf."
Then I drew a piece of paper from my pocket and wrote my questions, big
and clear.
"Not a bit of good, ma'am," shouted the grannies again; "she's stone
blind."
I gazed helplessly at the silent figure, with the blood still flowing in
her veins, and yet living, as it were, in the darkness and loneliness of
the tomb.
"If she is blind and deaf and dumb, how does she manage to complain?"
"Oh! she manages that all right, ma'am," said a granny whose one eye
twinkled humorously in its socket; "she's not dumb--not 'alf. The nuss
that's left and Mrs. Green, the other blind lidy, talk on her fingers to
her, and she grumbles away, when the fit takes 'er, a treat to 'ear; not
as I blimes her, poor sowl; most of us who comes 'ere 'ave something to
put up with; but she 'as more than 'er share of trouble. No, none of us
know 'ow to do it--we aren't scholards; but you catches 'old on 'er
'and, and mauls it about in what they call the deaf-and-dumb halphabet,
and she spells out loud like the children."
I remembered with joy that I also was "a scholard," for one of the few
things we all learned properly at school was the art of talking to each
other on our fingers under the desks during class. A good deal of water
had flowed under London Bridge since then, but for once I felt the
advantage of what educationists call "a thorough grounding."
"How are you?" spelt out a feeble, harsh voice as I made the signs--I
had forgotten the "w" and was not sure of the "r," but she guessed them
with ready wit--then in weird rasping tones, piping and whistling into
shrill falsetto like the "cracking" voice of a youth, she burst into
talk: "Oh! I am so thankful--so thankful. It seems years since any one
came to talk to me--the dear nurse has left, and the other blind lady's
gone to have her inside taken out, and the blind gentleman is taking a
holiday, and I have been that low I have not known how to live. '_Thou
hast laid me in the lowest pit; in a place of darkness and in the deep.
Thine indignation lieth hard upon me; and Thou hast vexed me with all
Thy storms._' David knew how I feel just exactly--might have been a deaf
and blind woman himself, shut up in a work'us. I have been here nigh on
two year now; I used to do fine sewing and lace-mending for the shops,
and earned a tidy bit, being always very handy with my needle; then one
day, as I was stitching by the window--finishing a job as had to go home
that night--a flash of lightning seemed to come and hit me in the eye
somehow--I remember how the fire shone bright zig-zag across the black
sky, and then there was a crash, and nothing more.
"No, it was not a very nice thing to happen to anybody; two year ago
now, and there has been nothing but fierce, aching blackness round me
ever since, and great silence except for the rumblings in my ears like
trains in a tunnel; but I hear nothing, not even the thunder. At first I
fretted awful; I felt as if I must have done something very wicked for
God to rain down fire from heaven on me as if I had been Sodom and
Gomorrah; but I'd not done half so bad as many; I'd always kept myself
respectable, and done the lace-mending, and earned enough for mother,
too--fortunately, she died afore the thunder came and hit me, or she'd
have broken her heart for me. It was very strange. Mother was such a one
to be frightened at thunder, and when we lived in the country before
father died she always took a candle and the Book and went down to the
cellar out of the way of the lightning--seemed as if she knew what a
nasty trick the thunder was going to play me--she was always a very
understanding woman, was mother--she came from Wales, and had what she
called 'the sight.'
"Yes; I went on fretting fearful about my sins until the blind gentleman
found me out--him as comes oh Saturdays and teaches us blind ladies to
read. Oh, he was a comfort! He learned me the deaf alphabet, and how to
read in the Braille book, and it's not so bad now. He knows all about
the heavenly Jerusalem, and the beautiful music and the flowers
blossoming round the Throne of God. I think he's what they calls a
Methody, and mother and I were Church. I used to go to the Sunday
School, and learnt the Catechism, and 'thus to think of the Trinity.'
However, he's a very good man all the same, and a great comfort--and he
found me a special text from God: 'Then the eyes of the blind shall be
opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.' That is the
promise to me and to him; being blind, he understands a bit himself,
though what the hullaballoo in my ears is no tongue can tell.
"Mrs. Green, the other blind lady, is such a one to be talking about the
diamonds and pearls in the crowns of glory; but I don't understand
nothing about no jewels. What I seem to want to see again is the row of
scarlet geraniums that used to stand on our window-sill; the sun always
shone in on them about tea-time, and mother and I thought a world of the
light shining on them red Jacobys. But the blind gentleman says as I
shall see them again round the Throne."
"She wanders a bit," said the one-eyed granny, touching her forehead
significantly; "she's such a one for this Methody talk."
I have noticed that the tone of the workhouse, though perfectly tolerant
and liberal, is inclined to scepticism, in spite of the vast
preponderance of the Church of England (C. of E.) in the "Creed Book."
"Let her wander, then," retorted another orthodox member; "she ain't
got much to comfort her 'ere below--the work'us ain't exactly a
paradise. For Gawd's sake leave 'er 'er 'eaven and 'er scarlet
geraniums."
"One thing, ma'am, as pleased her was some dirty old lace one of the
lidies brought for her one afternoon. She was just as 'appy as most
females are with a babby, a-fingering of it and calling it all manner of
queer names. There isn't a sight of old lace knocking about 'ere," and
her one eye twinkled merrily; "I guess we lidies willed it all away to
our h'ancestry afore seeking retirement. Our gowns aren't hexactly
trimmed with priceless guipure, though there's some fine 'and embroidery
on my h'apern," and she thrust the coarsely darned linen between the
delicate fingers.
"Garn!--they're always a-kiddin' of me. Yes, ma'am, I love to feel real
lace; I can still tell them all by the touch--Brussels and Chantilly and
Honiton and rose-point; it reminds me of the lovely things I used to
mend up for the ladies to go to see the Queen in."