young chap says: 'Don't go up top, mother, you'll catch cold.' 'Thank
you kindly,' I says, 'but I ain't a 'ot-house plant, being born on the
moors,' and up I went, but Lor'! I hadn't reckoned how the wind cut
going the galloping pace we went; it petrified to the negrigi, as poor
mother used to say--no, I don't know where the negrigi is--but take off
your fur-coat top of a motor-bus in a vehement east wind and perhaps
you'll feel.
"Yes, that's little Walker's bell a-going--it ain't a wedding and it
ain't a funeral; it's a kind of prayers that he says, chiefly to
'isself, at five o'clock--'e's 'Igh Church.
"Must you be going? Well, come again soon; being country yourself, you
understands fresh air as folk brought up among chimbleys can't be
expected to--but don't worry me about no infirmaries, for I ain't
a-going, so there!
"Mrs. Curtis has her orders, and when I'm took worse she's to put me in
the long train that whistles and goes to York--yes, I've saved up the
railway fare, and from there I can get 'ome and die comfortable on the
moor with plenty of air and the peace of God all around."
* * * * *
The landlady came to open the door for me as I went down the
well-scrubbed staircase. "Yes, ma'am, Miss Brooks is better, but she's
very frail; the doctor thinks as she can't last much longer, but her
conversation continues as good as ever. My old man or one of my sons
goes up to sit with her every evening; she's such good company she saves
them the money for the 'alls, and makes them laugh as much as Little
Tich. We'll take care of her, ma'am; the Reverent Walker told me to get
whatever she wanted, and 'e'd pay, and all the folks are real fond of
her in the house, she's that quick with her tongue.
"No, ma'am, she'll never get to York, she's too weak, but the doctor
told me to humour her."
MOTHERS
For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; ...
astonishment hath taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead; is
there no physician there? why then is not the health of the
daughter of my people recovered?
Every first Monday of the month a trainload of shabby, half-starved
women moves southwards from London to one of our great Poor Law schools;
and perhaps in the whole world, spite of poverty, hunger, and rags,
there is no more joyous band. For two blessed hours they meet their
children again, and though later they return weary, hungry, and
heart-sore, nothing is allowed to mar the joy of the present, for the
poor are great philosophers, and hold in practice as well as in theory
that "an ounce of pleasure is worth a peck of pain."
Humour exudes from every pore; triumphs are related on all
sides--triumphs over civil authorities, triumphs over Boards of
Guardians, triumphs over "Organization ladies" and "cruelty men"; and
methods are discussed as to the best way of triumphing over the school
authorities and conveying sweets and cakes to the children.
"Yes, 'e kept 'is word and had me up, but I said as I was a widder, and
had to keep the girl at 'ome to mind the sick children, and the beak
dismissed the summons, and I came out and danced a jig under 'is nose.
'Done you again, old chap,' I says, and 'e looked fit to eat me.
"'E's a good sort, our chairman, with a terrible soft spot in his heart
for widows. We allus says you have only got to put on a widow's crape
and you can get what you like out of him; so Mrs. James upstairs--she's
been a milliner, you know--she rigged me out with a little bonnet, and a
long crape fall, and a white muslin collar, and she pulled my 'air out
loose round my ears, and gave me a 'andkerchief with an inch border of
black, and she says, 'There, Mrs. Evans, there ain't a bloke on the
Board as won't say you are a deserving case,' and sure enough they went
and did just as I told them as good as gold. If I'd my time over again
I'd come into the world a widder born."
"Just what I says. When Spriggs was alive we were half-clemmed, but
nothing could we get from the parish, 'cos they said 'e was an
able-bodied man. Spriggs wasn't a lazy man, and 'e did try for work, and
he wasn't a drunkard though 'e did fall down under the motor-bus, one of
his mates standing 'im a drink on a empty stomach, which we all knows
flies quicker to the 'ead. It don't seem right as married ladies
a-carrying the kiddies should always go 'ungry, but it's the fact. Since
Spriggs was took and the inquest sat on 'im we've had enough, but it's
too late to save the little 'un, who was born silly, and Ernest was put
away in Darenth, and I always says it was being starved, and the teacher
always a-caning of 'im because 'e couldn't learn on an empty stomach."
"Best not to marry, I says, and then if 'e falls out of work we can go
to the parish and get took in on our own, and you don't 'ave to keep 'im
later on. Did you 'ear about Mrs. Moore? Mrs. Moore was our landlady,
and 'er 'usband went off about three year ago with the barmaid at 'The
Bell'; the perlice tells 'er as she must come in the 'Ouse whilst they
looked for 'im, but she said she wouldn't, not if it was ever so, and
she was glad to be rid of bad rubbish. So she went to 'er old missis,
who lent her money to set up a lodging-house, and, being a good cook,
she soon had a 'ouseful, and brings up the three little ones clean and
well-behaved like ladies' children. Then the Guardians sent the other
day to say as Moore had been taken off to Colney Hatch, mad with drink
and wickedness, and she'd got to pay for 'im in there. Well, Mrs. Moore
went to appear afore the Board. Lord! we 'alf split ourselves with
laughing when she was a-telling us about it; she's got a tongue in 'er
head, as cooks have, I notice; the heat affects their tempers; and she
went off in one of 'er tantrums and fair frighted them.
"'I'm sure you'd like to pay for your 'usband, Mrs. Moore,' says the
little man wot sits in the big chair.
"'I'm quite sure I shouldn't,' says Mrs. Moore; ''e's never been a
'usband to me, pawning the 'ome and drinking and carrying-on with other
women shocking. 'E promised to support me, 'e did: "with all my worldly
goods I thee endow," and lies of that sort, but I made no such promise,
and I won't do it. Working 'ard as I can I just keep a roof and get food
for the four of us, and if you takes a penny out of me I don't pay it,
and I drops the job, and comes into the 'Ouse with Claude and Ruby and
Esmeralda, and lives on the ratepayers, same as other women, which I 'as
a right to, being a deserted woman for three years, while 'e kep 'is
barmaids--or they kep 'im, which is probable if I knows Moore. And my
young Claude being a cripple for life, 'is father kicking 'im when he
was a crawler in one of 'is drunken fits. You may fine me and imprison
me, and 'ang me by the neck till I am dead, but not a 'apenny shall you
get out of me.'
"They told her to be quiet, but she wouldn't, and they pushed 'er out of
the room and into the street, still talking, and quite a crowd came
round and listened to 'er, and they all says, 'Quite right; don't you
pay it, my gal,' and she didn't, and no one ain't asked 'er any more
about it. She fair frighted that Board of Guardians, she says. She's a
fine talker, is Mrs. Moore, and nothing stops 'er when she's once
started."
"I'm another who's done better since mine died," said a frail little
woman on crutches, with a red gash across her throat from ear to ear,
"and 'e was a real good 'usband, as came 'ome regular and did 'is duty
to us all till he lost his work through the firm bankrupting, and not a
job could 'e get again. And somehow, walking about all day with nothing
in 'is inside, and 'earing the kids always crying for bread, seemed to
turn 'im savage and queer in 'is head. 'E took to sleeping with a
carving-knife under the pillow, and hitting me about cruel. I knew it
was only trouble, and didn't think wrong of the man, but I went to ask
the magistrate for advice just what to do, as I thought 'is brain was
queer, and yet didn't want 'im put away. And the beak said 'e didn't
think much of a black eye, and I'd better go 'ome and make the best of
'im. Just what I did, but 'e got worse, and the Organization lady said
as we must go to the 'Ouse, or she'd have the cruelty man on us. And
Jack got wild and said 'e wasn't so cruel as to have bred paupers, and
they should go with 'im to a better land, far, far away. That night 'e
blazed out shocking, as you know, for it was all in _Lloyd's News_, and
cut little Daisy's throat, and rushed at H'albert, killing them dead.
I'd an awful struggle with 'im, but I jumped out of the window just in
time, though my throat was bleeding fearful, and I broke both legs with
the fall. The perlice came then, but it was too late; 'e'd done for
'imself and the two children, though I always give thanks to Mrs. Dore,
who came in whilst 'e was wrestling with me, and took off the little
ones and locked them up in the top-floor back. I done better since
then--the Board's took Amy and Leonard, and I manage nicely on my twelve
shillings a week, with only Cholmondeley and the baby to look after. But
it don't seem right somehow."
"No, it ain't right; married ladies ought not to go short, but we always
do. Boards and Organization ladies think as men keeps us. Granny says
they most always did in her day, and rich people does still, I suppose,
but it ain't the fashion down our street, and it falls 'eavy on the
woman what with earning short money and being most always confined. My
son says as it's the laws as is old, and ought to be swept somewhere
into limbo, not as I understands it, being no scholard."
"Here we are at last! Ain't it a joyful sight to see the 'eavens and the
earth, and no 'ouses in between; it always feels like Sunday in the
country."
"YOUR SON'S YOUR SON"
My little son is my true lover--
It seems no time ago since he was born.
I know he will be quick and happy to discover
The world of other women and leave me forlorn!
Sometimes I think that I'll be scarcely human
If I can brook his chosen woman!
_Anna Wickham._
"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" wailed the old lady, burying her face in her
pocket-handkerchief; "to think as I've lived to see the day! I've always
lived with 'Orace, and I've always prayed that the Lord would take me
unto Himself before I was left alone with my grey hairs. A poor, pretty
thing she is, too, with a pair of blue eyes and frizzled yellow curls,
dressed out beyond her station in cheap indecencies of lace showing her
neck and arms, as no proper-minded girl should. And she won't have me to
live with them--I who have never been parted from 'Orace not one day
since he was born thirty year ago come Sunday. Yes, I've got Esther;
she's away in service: she's Johnson's child; I've buried two husbands,
both of them railway men and both of them dying violent deaths. Johnson
was an engine-driver on the Great Northern, and he smashed 'isself to a
jelly in that accident near York nigh on forty year ago now. I said I'd
never marry on the line again, hating accidents and blood about the
place; however, it's a bit lonesome being a widow when you're young, and
Thompson courted me so faithful at last I gave in. He was 'Orace's
father, a guard on the Midland, and he went to step on his van after the
train was off, as is the habit of guards--none of them ever getting
killed as I ever heard of except Thompson, who must needs miss his
footing and fall on the line, a-smashing of his skull fearful. Yes; I
drew two prizes in the matrimonial market--good, steady men, as always
came 'ome punctual and looked after the jennies in the window-boxes, and
played with the children; but, as Mrs. Wells says, them is the sort as
gets killed. If a woman gets 'old on a brute she may be quite sure he'll
come safe through all perils both on land and water, and live to torture
several unfortunate women into their graves. 'Orace was a toddling babe
then, and Esther just ten years older. Fortunately, I was a good hand at
the waistcoat-making, and so I managed to keep the 'ome going; 'Orace
was always very clever, and he got a scholarship and worked 'isself up
as an electrical engineer. One of the ladies got Esther a place at Copt
Hall, Northamptonshire, when she was only thirteen, and she's done well
ever since, being cook now to Lady Mannering at thirty-six pounds a
year. No, she's never got married, Esther--a chap she walked out with
wasn't as faithful as he should have been, a-carrying on with another at
the same time; and Esther took on awful, I believe, though she's one as
holds her tongue, is Esther--at all events, she's never had naught to do
with chaps since. She's a good girl, is Esther; but 'Orace and me were
always together, and he always was such a one to sit at home with me
working at his wires and currents and a-taking me to see all the
exhibitions, and explaining to me about the positives and negatives and
the volts and ampts; he never went after girls, and I always hoped as he
would never fall in love with mortal woman, only with a current; so it
knocked all the heart out of me when he took to staying out in the
evenings, and then brought the girl in one night as his future wife.
'Orace was the prettiest baby you ever see'd, and when he used to sit on
my knee, with his head all over golden curls, like a picture-book, I
used to hate to think that somewhere a girl-child was growing up to take
him from me--and to think it's come now, just when I thought I was safe
and he no more likely to marry than the Pope of Rome, being close on
thirty, and falling in love for the first time! And she won't have me to
live with them!
"Mrs. Wells has been telling me I mustn't stand in the young people's
way. Of course I don't want to stand in their way; but I'm wondering how
I'll shift without 'Orace; he always made the fire and brought me a cup
of tea before he went to his work; and when the rheumatics took me bad
he'd help me dress and be as handy as a woman. I can't get the work I
used to; my eyesight isn't what it was, and my fingers are stiff. No, I
ain't what I was, and I suppose I mustn't expect it, being turned
sixty-seven, and I ain't old enough either for them pensions.
"Well, if it ain't Esther. You're early, lass; and it's not your evening
out, neither. I've just been telling this lady how Ruby won't have me to
live with them; it's upset me shocking the thought of leaving 'Orace
after all these years. I'm trying not to complain, and I know 'Orace has
been a son in ten thousand; but I'm afeard of the lonesomeness, and I
don't know how I'll live. Mrs. Wells says if the Guardians see my hands
they won't give me no outdoor relief, but they'll force me into the
House, and I'd sooner be in my bury-hole." And again the poor old lady
sobbed into her pocket-handkerchief.
"Don't cry, mother; it's all right; you shan't go on the parish, never
fear, neither for outdoor relief nor indoor relief. I've left my place,
and I'm coming to live with you and take care of you to the end of your
days. I'm not 'Orace, I know, but I'm your daughter, and after the
courting's over 'Orace will be your son again."
"Left your place, Esther! What do you mean, lass?"
"What I say, mother. 'Orace wrote and told me what Ruby said, and I was
that sorry I went and gave notice. 'Orace is awful upset, too, but
there, it is no good talking to a man in love, and perhaps Ruby will get
nicer; she's a young thing yet. So when I told my lady all about it she
let me come away at once. The family is going to the Riviera next week,
and the housekeeper can manage quite well."
"You've left your good place, Esther, all for me?"
"Yes; all right, old dear. I've got a fourteen-year character from my
lady, and I'll soon find something to do; I'm not the sort as starves."
And Esther rolled up her sleeves, made up the fire, and poured the
contents of the indignant kettle into the little black teapot.
"Oh, dear!" wailed the old lady, "you must not do this for me, lass;
you're heaping coals of fire on my 'ead, for, as Mrs. Wells often said
to me, 'Don't be so set on 'Orace; remember, you have a girl too.' I was
always set on the boys, and not on the girls; women's life is a poor
game, and when I heard of them 'eathen 'Indus who kill the girl babies,
I thought it a very sensible thing too--better than letting them grow up
to slave for a pittance. But it is you now who are the faithful one,"
and she drew Esther's face down to hers and kissed her fondly.
Tears rose in the daughter's eyes; she seemed to remember with a sense
of loss that her mother had never kissed her like that since she was a
little child, before Horace was born.
"TOO OLD AT FORTY"
I had no place to flee unto; and no man careth for my soul.
Miss Allison sat at her desk in the class-room, where she had sat for
over twenty years, and gazed dreamily out of the window into the
courtyard below, where the girls of the ---- High School were at play.
In her hand she held a letter, which had brought the white, rigid look
to her face, like that of a soldier who has received his death-wound.
Perhaps she ought to have been prepared for the shock; the system of
"too old at forty" has long been in working order in girls' schools,
possibilities had been freely discussed in the mistresses' room; but,
nevertheless, the blow had struck her dumb and senseless. The note was
very polite--"owing to changes on the staff her valuable services would
be no longer required after the summer vacation"--but Miss Allison had
seen enough of the inner workings of High Schools to know that changes
on the staff meant that the old and incompetent were to be crushed out
to make room for the young and fresh. Miss Allison was not
incompetent--her worst enemy could not accuse her of that--but she was
getting just a little tired, just a little irritable; above all, her
forty-second birthday had come and gone. Teaching is well known to
affect the nerves, and in Miss Allison's case nervous exhaustion caused
her tongue to run away with her; her sharp speeches to the idlers of her
form were reported at home--losing nothing in the telling--and duly
retailed by captious parents to the head mistress; the constant
complaints were becoming a nuisance. Moreover, a young mistress, who
would take interest in the sports and could bowl round-arm, was badly
wanted on the staff. Miss Allison belonged to an older generation, when
athletics were not a _sine qua non_; she had never been a cricketer, at
hockey her pupils easily outran her, and she had lost her nerve for
high-diving--altogether, she had lived past her age. The queer part was,
it had all taken such a little time; it seemed only yesterday that she
had come to the school, the youngest on the staff, and now she was the
oldest there, far older than the young girl from Girton who reigned as
head. And yet life was not nearly over yet; Miss Allison remembered with
dismay that women went on living for fifty, sixty, seventy, and even
eighty and ninety years--it might be that half the journey still lay
before her.
She made a rapid calculation in her brain of her little capital in the
savings-bank, which yielded her (after the income-tax had been
recovered) an annual sum of £10 13s. 9d. Though too old to teach, she
was too young to buy much of an annuity with the capital, and she knew
the state of the labour market too well to cherish any illusions as to
the possibility of obtaining work. Perhaps she ought to have saved more,
but for some years she had her invalid mother mainly dependent upon her,
and illness runs away with money; she grudged nothing to the dead, but
she remembered almost with shame the amount she had spent in holiday
tours.
Her eyes rested with a sense of coming loss on the crowd in the
playground, a kaleidoscopic scene of flying legs and whirling draperies,
the sun shining on bright frocks and on the loose locks of gold and
auburn till the dreary courtyard seemed to blossom like a flower-garden.
How she had loved all these girls, toiled and slaved for them, rejoiced
in their success and mourned for their disappointments; but the children
of the Higher Education, unlike Saturn, devour the mothers of the
movement, and suddenly these fair young girls had turned into rivals and
enemies, beating her down in the dust with cricket bats and hockey
sticks. An hour of bitter atheism fell upon Miss Allison; all her life
had been spent in serving "the cause," the Higher Education of Women had
been her creed, but now in middle life it had failed and she was left
helpless and superfluous as the poor women of an earlier generation, who
hung so forlornly round the neck of their nearest male relation.
A dry sob half choked her, as she rose mechanically in obedience to the
bell to take her class in geometry.
IN THE LUNATIC ASYLUM
O Father, we beseech Thee, sustain and comfort Thy servants who
have lost the powers of reason and self-control, suffer not the
Evil One to vex them, and in Thy mercy deliver them from the
darkness of this world....--_Prayer for Lunatics._
I passed through the spacious grounds of A---- Asylum on my way to visit
the patients chargeable to our parish. A group of men were playing Rugby
football, but even to the eye of the tyro there was something wrong with
the game--there was no unity, no enthusiasm; some lurking sinister
presence--grotesque, hideous, that made one shudder--worse than
strait-waistcoat and padded-room. In conversation the lunatics struck me
as no worse mentally than the rest of us outside. Most of them
complained of unlawful detention, and begged pathetically for freedom.
"It is a dreadful place; why should I be kept here? We have just had a
harvest festival, but I'm not thankful. What have we to do with harvest
festivals?"
"I am quite well," said a tall, powerful-looking man; "I assure you
there is nothing the matter with me," and as I was chronicling the fact
in my notebook a fiendish light blazed in his eyes--the hate of hates,
red-gleaming with fury and malice, as if all the devils in hell were
mocking behind his eyes. For a moment that seemed an eternity I watched,
paralysed, and then two stout warders pinioned him from behind and led
him away, swearing. "Homicidal mania," said the doctor shortly; "we have
to be always on the watch."
I interviewed the man who would be King, and heard his theory as to the
illegal usurpation of the Throne by the Guelph family. I saw a new
Redeemer of the world, and the woman who had conducted one of the great
lawsuits of last century.
The women were more talkative, and complained volubly of captivity. A
few were sullen and suspicious, and would not come to the roll-call and
I visited them on the stairs and corridors, or wherever they threw
themselves down.
The doctor saw to it that my inspection was thorough. I was conducted to
the padded-rooms, where maniacs laughed and shouted and sang and
blasphemed, some of them throwing themselves frantically against the
cushioned walls, others lying silently on the floor, plucking futilely
at their sacking clothing. One poor woman lay in bed wasted to a shadow,
her bones nearly sticking through her skin. "Pray for him," she cried;
"oh, pray for him! His soul is burning in hell; night and day he cries
to me for a drop of cold water, but I may not take it to him. Look at
his poor throat where the rope cut; look at his poor starting eyes. Is
there no mercy in heaven?"
"Poor woman!" said the doctor. "Her only son was hanged, and it has
turned her brain. She is sinking fast. I don't think she can live the
day out, and we shall all say 'Thank God!' It is a most pitiful case."
In the general ward I saw a magnificent growth of golden hair plaited
round and round the head of a young girl who sat in a corner, her face
buried in her hands. Beside her sat a visitor, pressing some hot-house
grapes upon her. "Just try one, Mabel darling; don't you know me, dear?"
The hands were not withdrawn, but as I passed with the doctor she
suddenly sprang to her feet. "Has he come?" The doctor paused, and
nodded cheerfully at the visitor. "Very good sign, Mrs. Foster; I will
see you later about your daughter." At last it was over; my report-sheet
was filled, and with great thankfulness I passed into the outer air. I
gazed at the men and women outside with a sense of comradeship and
security; whatever their private troubles, at least they were
"uncertified," free men, not possessed of devils, grievously tormented.
One gets used to everything; but that first visit to A---- Asylum stands
out in letters of flame in my memory, and as I waited on the platform
for my train, I shivered as if with ague and a sense of deadly nausea
overpowered me.