THE FORBIDDEN SANDWICH
While Sarah Brown's unenviable leisure was spent in acting as slave to
committees, she had at the same time a half-time profession which, when
she was well enough to follow it, brought twenty shillings a week to her
pocket. She was in the habit of sitting every morning in a small office,
collecting evidence from charitable spies about the Naughty Poor, and,
after wrapping the evidence in mysterious ciphers, writing it down very
beautifully upon little cards, so that the next spy might have the
benefit of all his forerunners' experience. Sarah Brown never thought
about the theory of this work, because the different coloured inks and
the beautiful writing pleased her so.
There are people to whom a ream of virgin paper is an inspiration, who
find the first sharpening of a pencil the most lovable of all labours,
who see something almost holy in the dedication of green and red
penholders to their appropriate inks, in whose ears and before whose
eyes the alphabet is like a poem or a prayer. Touch on stationery and
you touched an insane spot in Sarah Brown's mind. Her dream of a perfect
old age was staged in a stationer's shop in a quiet brown street; there
she would spend twilit days in stroking thick blotting-paper, in drawing
dogs--all looking one way--with new pen-nibs, in giving advice in a
hushed voice to connoisseur customers, who should come to buy a diary or
a book-plate or a fountain-pen with the same reverence as they now show
who come to buy old wine.
Therefore Sarah Brown's hand had found ideal employment on a charity
register. As for her mind, it usually shut its eye during office hours.
Her Dog David liked the work too, as the hearth-rug was a comfortable
one, and Charity, though it may suffer long in other directions, is
rather particular about its firing.
On the Monday after her change of home, Sarah Brown found that the
glory had gone out of the varied inks, and even a new consignment of
index-cards, exquisitely unspotted from the world, failed to arouse her
enthusiasm. This was partly because the first name in the index that she
looked up was that of Watkins, Thelma Bennett, single, machinist. The
ciphers informed the initiated that Watkins had called on the War
Association, to ask for Help and Advice, See Full Report. Sarah Brown
felt sad and clumsy, and made two blots, one in green on the Watkins
card, and the other in ordinary Stephens-colour on the card of one Tonk,
chocolate-box-maker, single, to whom a certain charity was obstinately
giving a half-pint of milk daily, regardless of the fact that last month
she had received a shilling's-worth of groceries from the Parish.
The air of that office rang with the name of Tonk that morning. Hardly
had the industrious Sarah Brown finished turning the blot upon her card
into the silhouette of a dromedary by a few ingenious strokes of the
pen, when the lady representing the obstinate charity came in, her lips
shaped to the word Tonk.
"Tonk," she said. "Late of Mud Street. She has changed her address. I am
the Guild of Happy Hearts. She still comes to fetch her half-pint of
milk daily, and only yesterday I learnt from a neighbour that she had
left Mud Street three weeks ago. It really is disgraceful the way these
poor people conceal important facts from us. Have you her new address?"
"Our last address for Tonk was 12 Mud Street," answered Sarah Brown
coldly. "But we have already notified you three times that the woman is
not entitled to milk from the Happy Hearts, as she has been having
parish relief, as well as an allotment."
"Tonk is--hm--hm," said the Happy Heart delicately in an undertone, so
that the blushing masculine ear of the Dog David might be spared. "After
Baby Week, you know, we feel bound to help all hm--hm women as far as we
can, regardless of other considerations--"
"Really you oughtn't to. Tonk is posing as a single
chocolate-box-maker." Sarah Brown was rapidly becoming exasperated with
everybody concerned, but not least with the evidently camouflaging Tonk.
"She has a soldier at the Front," said the Happy Heart. "I am sorry to
say that she will not promise to marry him, even if he does come home.
But even so--"
Sarah Brown wrote down on Miss Tonk's card the small purple cipher that
stood for hm--hm. "I will make enquiries about her address," she said.
But that was not the last of Tonk. Presently the red face of the
Relieving Officer loomed over the index.
"In the case of Plummett--" he began loudly.
"In the case of Tonk--" interrupted Sarah Brown, to whom, in her present
mood, Plummett could only have been a last straw. She hated the
Relieving Officer unjustly, because he knew she was deaf and raised his
voice, with the best intentions, to such a degree that the case papers
on the index were occasionally blown away. "We have already notified you
three times that Tonk is having a half-pint of milk daily from the
Happy Hearts, as well as an allotment from a soldier."
"We stopped the groceries," roared the Relieving Officer. "But in the
case of Plummett--"
"In the case of Tonk--" persisted Sarah Brown. "She has moved from Mud
Street, can you tell me her last address?"
"She is living in a sort of private charitable institution, somewhere on
the outskirts of the district--Mitten Island, I fancy. I don't know the
exact address, because we have stopped the groceries, she paying no rent
now. In the case of Plummett, I thought you might be interested to know
that she got a month this morning for assaulting the Sanitary
Inspector--pulling his nose, I hear. She told the magistrate it struck
her as being a useless nose if it didn't notice anything wrong with her
drains. The children came into the House this morning."
"What is Tonk's Christian name?" asked Sarah Brown, who had been a
changed woman since Mitten Island was mentioned.
"I forget. Some flower name, I think. Probably Lily or Ivy. In the case
of M'Clubbin, the woman is said to have fallen through a hole in the
floor of the room she and her three children slept in. She was admitted
into the Infirmary last night, and her furniture will be sold to pay her
rent--"
"It begins with P," said Sarah Brown. "P. Tonk, unmarried wife, of
Mitten Island...."
The Relieving Officer went away, for it was dinner-time. Sarah Brown
absently unwrapped the little dinner which she had brought hanging by a
thin string from a strangled finger. Mustard sandwiches with just a
flavouring of ham, and a painfully orthodox 1918-model bun, made of
stubble. Sarah Brown almost always forgot the necessity of food until
she was irrevocably in the 'bus on her way to work. But this morning, as
she had taken her seat with David in the bouncing ferry-boat, there had
been a panting rustling noise behind her, and Harold the Broomstick had
swept a little packet of sandwiches into her lap. He had disappeared
before she had been able to do more than turn over in her mind the
question whether or no broomsticks ever expect to be tipped.
Now I could not say with certainty whether the witch, in making up this
packet of sandwiches, had included the contents of one of her own little
packets of magic. Sarah Brown would have been very susceptible to such a
drug; her mind was always on the brink of innocent intoxication. Perhaps
she was only half a woman, so that half a joy could make her heart reel
and sing, and half a sorrow break it. She was defenceless against
impressions, and too many impressions make the heart very tired.
Therefore, I think, she was a predestined victim of magic, and it seems
unlikely that the witch should have missed such an opportunity to
dispense spells.
After the first bite at the first sandwich, Sarah Brown was conscious of
a Joke somewhere. This feeling in itself was akin to delirium, for there
are no two facts so remote as a Joke and a Charity Society. The office
table confronted Sarah Brown, and she wondered that she could ever have
seen it as anything but a butt. She wondered how she had been able to
sit daily in front of that stout and earnest index without poking it in
the ribs and making a fool of it. The office clock, alone among clocks,
had never played a practical joke. The sad fire below it, conscious of a
Mission, was overloaded with coal and responsibility.
The second bite, ten minutes later, caused Sarah Brown to be tired and
distrustful of a room that had no smile. Her eyes turned to seek the
hidden Joke beyond the limits of that lamentable room. There was a
spring-coloured tree in the school-ground opposite, and above the tree a
rough blue and silver sky contradicted all the doctrines preached in
offices. There was in the wind something of the old raw simplicity and
mirth that always haunts the sea, and penetrates inland only on rare
spring days. The high white clouds crossed the sky like galleons, like
old stories out of the innocent Eden-like past of the sea, before she
learnt the ways of steam and secret killing. Old names of ships came to
Sarah Brown's mind ... Castle-of-Comfort ... Cloud-i'-the-Sun....
"I am doing wrong," said Sarah Brown. She took a third bite.
And then she felt the spirit of the Naughty Poor in the room; there was
laughter, as of the registered, in the ears of the Registrar. It is not
really permissible for the Naughty Poor to invade offices which exist to
do them good. The way of charity lies through suspicion, but the
suspicion of course must be all on one side. We have to judge the
criminal unheard; if we called him as a witness in his case we might
become sentimental. The Charity Society may be imagined as keeping two
lists of crimes, a short one for Registrars and Workers, and a very long
one for the registered. High on the list of crimes possible to
Registrars and Workers is Sentimentality. It is sentimental to feel
personal affection for a Case, or to give a child of the Naughty Poor a
penny without full enquiry, or to say "A-goo" to a grey pensive baby
eating dirt on the pavement, or to acknowledge the right of a Case to
ask questions sometimes instead of answering them, or to disapprove of
spying and tale-bearing, or to believe any statement made by any one
without an assured income, or to quote any part of the New Testament, or
in fact to confuse in any way the ideas of charity and love. Christ,
who, by the way, unfortunately omitted to join any reputable
philanthropic society, commanded seekers of salvation to be poor and to
despise themselves. But this was sentimental, and the Charity Society
decrees that only the prosperous and the self-respectful shall deserve a
hearing.
"I am sentimental," said Sarah Brown to her Dog David in a broken voice.
She turned again to her enchanted sandwich.
There was increased laughter in the air, and through it she heard the
hoarse and happy shouting of the sparrows in the spring-coloured tree
opposite. Sparrows are the ideal Naughty Poor, the begging friars, the
gypsies of the air, they claim alms as a right and as a seal of
friendship; with their mouths full of your crumbs they share with you
their innocent and vulgar wit, they give you in return no I.O.U., and no
particulars for your case-paper. When they have got from you all that
you will give, they wink and giggle and shake the dust of your
window-sill from off their feet.
Sarah Brown opened the office window, and the air of the office began at
once to dance with life and the noise of children and birds. She thought
perhaps these were magic noises, for she heard them so clearly. She
broke her second sandwich upon the window-sill, and the sparrows crossed
the street and stood on the area railing in a row below her, all
speaking at once in an effort to convey to her the fact that a retreat
on her part would be tactful.
The sparrow obviously buys all his clothes ready-made, probably at
Jumble Sales, and he always seems to choose clothes made for a stouter
bird. There is no reason why he should never look chic; he has a slimmer
figure than the bullfinch, for instance, who always manages to look so
well-tailored. It is just arrogance, pure Londonism, on the part of the
sparrow, just that impudent socialistic spirit that makes it so
difficult for us to reform the Naughty Poor.
Sarah Brown retreated one step. "I'm not going farther away. Either you
eat that sandwich with me looking on, or you leave it."
The sparrows whispered together for a moment, saying to each other, "You
go first." They obviously knew that it was a charity window-sill, and
were afraid Sarah Brown might intend to rebuke them for not shutting
their beaks while chewing, or for neglecting to put any crumbs into the
Savings Bank. But after a minute one sparrow moistened his beak and
came.... He ate, they all ate, and did not seek to escape as the door of
the office opened and the witch came in. She went straight to the window
and picked up from among the stooping sparrows a piece of the broken
sandwich, and ate it. The Dog David was making sure that there was no
surviving crumb on the floor to tell the tale of his mother's
sentimental weakness. Almost instantly, therefore, that sandwich was but
a memory, a fading taste in about twenty beaks and two mouths. But still
the window stood open, and the air danced, and the white reflections of
the ship-like clouds lay on the oilcloth floor.
Sarah Brown in the meanwhile, disregarding the witch, had returned to
the index, and had taken from its drawer a notification form. In the
space given for Name of Case she had written in her irreproachable
printing hand:
"CHARITY, Cautionary Case, 12 Pan Street, Brown Borough. With reference
to the above case, I have to report that it seems unsatisfactory. There
are indeed grave suspicions that the above name is only an alias, the
address being also probably false, for the genuine Charity's place of
origin is said to be the home rather than the office. The present
registrar is at a loss to identify with certainty this case. It would
seem to be one of the Habits that haunt the world, collecting Kudos
under assumed names...."
"It puzzles me," said the witch, looking out of the window, "why one
never sees two birds collide. If there were as many witches in the air
as there are birds, I bet you twopence there would be constant
accidents. Do you think they have any sort of a rule of the road, or do
they indicate with their beaks--"
"Witch," said Sarah Brown, "I have got to say something."
"Oh, have you?" said the witch, a little disappointed at being
interrupted. "Oh, well, I can sympathise, I know what that feels like.
Get on and say it."
The Dog David, who was really a good and attentive son to Sarah Brown,
came and laid his chin, with an exaggerated look of interest, on her
knee-cap.
"Is it any use," said Sarah Brown, "fighting against the Habits in the
world, there are so many. Who set these strange and senseless deceivers
at large? Religion which has forgotten ecstasy.... Law which has
forgotten justice.... Charity which has forgotten love.... Surely magic
has suffered at the stake for saner ideals than these?"
"Why, of course," said the witch impatiently. "Magic generally suffered
_because_ it was so sane. I thought everybody knew that."
"All habits. All habits," chanted Sarah Brown. "What is this Charity,
this clinking of money between strangers, and when did Charity cease to
be a comforting and secret thing between one friend and another? Does
Love make her voice heard through a committee, does Love employ an
almoner to convey her message to her neighbour?"
"Not that I know of," sighed the witch. "Sarah Brown, how long do you
want me to keep quiet, while you say things that everybody surely
knows?"
But Sarah Brown went on. "The real Love knows her neighbour face to
face, and laughs with him and weeps with him, and eats and drinks with
him, so that at last, when his black day dawns, she may share with him,
not what she can spare, but all that she has."
The Dog David grunted a little, by way of rather dubious applause. Sarah
Brown, with her own voice printed loud and stark upon the retina of her
hearing, felt a little abashed. But presently she added in a whisper:
"Listen. I am a spy. I am a lover of specially recommended neighbours
only. I am here to help to give the black cloud Tyranny a rather dirty
silver lining. I am the False Steward, in the interest of the
Superfluously Comfortable. My Masters sit upon the King's Highway,
taking toll in bitterness and humiliation from every traveller along
that road. For surely comfort is every man's heritage, surely the happy
years should come to every man--not doled out, not meanly dependent on
his moral orthodoxy, but as his right. The fat philanthropist is a
debtor, but he behaves like a creditor; he distributes obligations with
his gold, yet he has no right to the gold he gives. He makes his brother
beg upon his knees for the life and the health and the dear opportunity
that should have been that brother's birthright."
"You are possessed, dear Sarah Brown," said the witch. "Don't be
frightened, it will soon pass off. I knew a girl who had an attack very
much like this; while she was under its influence she made up a psalm
pretty nearly as good as one of David's. Her mother was much alarmed
about her. But she recovered quite quickly, except that she left her job
as typist in a mind-improving institute and went to sea as a
stewardess."
Sarah Brown talked on, louder and louder. "Too long I have been a
servant in the house of this stranger, this greedy Charity; too long
have I sat--a silly proxy for the Too-Fortunate--in this narrow
stiff-backed judgement-seat from ten till three daily. There is Love and
April outside the window, there is too much wind and laughter outside to
allow of the forming of Habits. I have seen Love and the Spring only
through the glass of a charity office window, the rude voices of
children and sparrows and other inheritors of opportunity have been
dulled for me by grey panes. The white ships ... Castle-of-Comfort ...
Cloud-i'-the-Sun have sailed into port from the open sky without a cargo
for me...."
"Good God!" said Sarah Brown, pushing David from her. "What has happened
to me? I have become sentimental."
The room seemed to her wild imagination to be full of the spirits of
parsons and social workers with flaming swords, pointing at the door.
"Well, that's the end of that job," said the witch. "I'll tell you what,
let's go and sit on the Swing-leg Seat on the Heath. The air there and
the look of Harrow church steeple'll do you good."
"I am damned. I am a Cautionary Case," cried Sarah Brown, and she slunk
behind the witch through the frowning gate of her Eden of fair inks and
smooth white surfaces. She had shared with David the remains of her
Sandwich of Knowledge; she had left on the table her puny paper
defiance. David, except that he had required but little temptation, had
played Adam's part very creditably in the affair. For him Eden had been
a soft warm place, and he was anxious to blame somebody--the woman for
choice--for the loss of his comfort. He followed her out into the cold,
to become, as you shall hear, like Adam, a tiller of the soil.