A DEATH-SCENE.—LOCK'S FIELDS.
The room-door was left open; and the inmates could therefore hear every
thing that took place in the passage.
Toby Bunce opened the street-door cautiously, and said, "Who's there?"
"In the name of heaven, grant me a night's lodging," exclaimed the
appealing voice of a female: "if not for myself—at least for this poor
dear child!"
"Toby, shut the door!" screamed the querulous tones of Mrs. Bunce from
the back-room. "We don't want beggars and poor children here."
"Stay!" cried Tom Rain: "never be hard-hearted!"
And, hastening to the street-door, he saw, by the light of a shop-window
opposite, the form of a miserable-looking female crouching upon the
steps, and with one arm round the neck of a little boy who was crying
bitterly.
"Come in, my good woman," said Rainford. "I will pay any expenses that
your presence may entail on the people of the house:—come in, I say."
But the poor creature fell back insensible.
"Toby, take care of the child," cried Tom Rain in an authoritative tone;
"while I lift the woman off the steps."
And, suiting the action to the word, he raised the senseless being in
his arms, and conveyed her into the passage, Toby following with the
little boy, who seemed to be about five or six years old.
"Surely you're mad, Tom," exclaimed Old Death, advancing from the
back-room, "to bring strangers into this house."
"I should be a brute to see a dying woman turned away from the door of
this or any other house," said Rainford firmly. "Stand back, and let me
have my way. My purse shall satisfy the Bunces for any trouble this
business may give them."
"Well, well—be it as you will," growled Old Death: then, in a hasty
whisper to Betsy Bunce, he added, "You had better let him do as he
likes. He is a queer fellow, but very useful—and must not be offended."
Thus advised, and cheered moreover by Rain's liberal promise of payment,
Mrs. Bunce suddenly exhibited a vast amount of sympathy on behalf of the
poor creature; and, having fetched a candle from the back-room, she
lighted Rainford, who carried the still senseless woman in his arms, up
stairs to a chamber where there was a sordid kind of bed.
Rainford placed his burden on the miserable pallet, and Betsy Bunce
applied such restoratives as the circumscribed economy of her household
furnished.
In the meantime Toby had brought the little boy into the chamber; and
the child, hastening towards the bed, exclaimed, "Mamma—dear mamma—speak
to me—why don't you speak to me?"
The woman opened her eyes languidly; but the moment they encountered the
face of the child, they were lighted up with joy; and snatching the boy
to her breast, she murmured in a faint tone, "I thought I had lost you,
Charles—I dreamt that we were separated! Oh! my head—it seems to split!"
And she pressed her open palm to her forehead with all the appearance of
intense suffering.
We must pause a moment to observe that this woman seemed to be about
five-and-thirty years of age; that she was dressed in widow's weeds of
the coarsest materials; and that her entire aspect denoted dreadful
privations and great sufferings, mental as well as physical. The boy was
also attired in mourning garments; and though his little cheeks were
wan, and his form emaciated, still was he a very interesting child.
"My good woman," said Tom Rain, approaching the bed, "banish all
misgivings relative to the present; for you shall be taken care of."
Then, turning towards Mrs. Bunce, he directed her to procure food and to
send Jacob for a surgeon.
"No—no, it's useless," cried the poor woman, alluding to the latter
order. "I feel that I am dying—my last hour is come!"
The child threw his little arms about her neck, and wept piteously.
"Oh! my God!" cried the wretched stranger, "who will now take care of
you, my poor dear—dear little Charles! I who have been to you as a
mother——"
"Yes—you are my mamma—my own mamma," exclaimed the child, his heart
ready to burst, although he scarcely understood the real nature of the
misgivings which oppressed him.
"Sir," said the woman, after a few moments of profound silence, during
which the sobbings of the boy and the uneasy palpitations of her own
breast were alone heard in the chamber,—"sir," she said, addressing
herself abruptly to Rainford, "you spoke to me kindly—you look kindly
upon me,—and, if I may judge by your countenance, you possess a kind
heart——"
"Speak, poor woman!" cried Rain, softened almost to tears. "If there is
any thing I can do for you, confide in me—and I swear——"
"The gratitude of a dying being is all that I can offer you in return
for what I am about to ask," interrupted the woman in a faint, yet
hurried tone—for she seemed to feel that she had not long to live. "Draw
near, sir—there—and now listen attentively. Dreadful privation—exposure
to the cold—sleeping in the fields—and painful wanderings have reduced
me to this state. But I shall die contented—nay, even happy, if I
thought——"
"I understand you," cried Rain. "You are anxious for the welfare of this
boy? Compose your mind—banish those painful reflections—I swear to
protect him!"
There was something so earnest and sincere in the manner, the voice, and
the countenance of Rainford, who was a creature of the most generous
impulses, that the dying woman believed him; and her heart bounded with
fervent gratitude.
Then, making a sign for Rainford to draw nearer to her still, she
collected all her remaining force to utter a few last words; but
physical exhaustion almost completely choked her utterance.
"This boy," she murmured in a faint and dying voice, "is not mine. Do
not weep, Charles, love—I am not your mamma——although I love you——as if
you was my own child. But the moment you were born——in secret——and
mystery——the nurse brought you to me——all having been so
arranged——and——from that moment I——but, my God! I am dying!——oh! give me
strength to declare that——your mother——is——"
"Speak, speak!" cried Tom Rain: "breathe but the name of his mother—I
shall catch it—and I declare most solemnly——O God! she is dead!"
And it was so! Vain were her last, last efforts to give utterance to the
name which trembled upon her tongue: the death-rattle stifled the words
in her throat—her eyes glazed—her countenance settled in inanimation—and
she was no more!
The little Charles would not believe that she was really dead; to him
she only appeared to sleep;-and this infantine delusion Tom Rain
gradually dissipated, making him aware of his sad bereavement in so
delicate a manner, that a stranger would have believed him to be a
father himself as well as an individual of the most upright and noble
principles.
[Illustration]
But if Rainford's morality was in some points of the most indifferent
nature, he nevertheless possessed kind feelings and a generous heart;
and the tears trickled down his cheeks, as he exerted himself to console
the little stranger.
Children seem to be endowed with an intuitive power of discrimination
between those who would treat them well, and those whose dispositions
are severe and harsh; and Charles speedily acquired confidence in the
good intentions of Rainford.
At length, when Tom fancied that he had obtained some degree of
influence over the boy's mind, he led him away from the chamber where
the poor woman had breathed her last.
Old Death had remained in the room below; and Jacob had been sent to
fetch a surgeon, who now arrived, but departed again immediately upon
learning that his services could no longer be rendered available. Toby
and Mrs. Bunce had quitted the chamber of death the moment Rain
ejaculated, "O God! she is dead;"—and thus the child had no leisure to
take particular notice of any one save the individual who manifested so
much kindness towards him.
Fearing that the repulsive appearance of Old Death might alarm the boy,
and even fill his mind with misgivings relative to the person who now
took charge of him, Rainford stopped in the dark passage down stairs;
and calling Mrs. Bunce from the back-room, he placed five guineas in her
hand, saying, "The burial of that poor creature who has just breathed
her last, must be your care. See that it is performed decently; and if
there are any papers about her person—any proofs of who she is—keep them
for me. Be faithful in this respect—and what I have now given you may be
considered as an earnest of additional recompense."
Rainford then left the house, leading the boy by the hand.
Proceeding to the nearest hackney-coach stand, Tom hired one of the
vehicles, and desired to be driven to the Elephant and Castle.
Previously, however, to entering the vehicle, the thoughtful Tom Rain
purchased some of the very best cakes which a shop in such a
neighbourhood could produce; and, though the little boy kept sobbing as
he repeated to himself, "Mamma is dead,"—for he was too young to
understand that she had denied this maternity with her dying breath,—yet
he ate greedily of the food—for he was famished.
Rainford said but little to him, beyond a few occasional cheering and
consolatory words, as they rode along, because the heavy rumbling of the
vehicle rendered it difficult to hear what was uttered within.
In about three-quarters of an hour the coach stopped at the Elephant and
Castle; and Rainford, conducting the boy tenderly by the hand, plunged
into the maze of streets which form a neighbourhood requiring a detailed
description.
Any one who is acquainted with that part of London, or who, with the map
of the great metropolis before him, takes the trouble to follow us in
this portion of our narrative, will understand us when we state that,
almost immediately behind the Elephant and Castle tavern, there is a
considerable district totally _unexplored_ by thousands and thousands of
persons dwelling in other parts of the English capital. This district is
now bounded on the north by the New Kent Road, on the east by the Kent
or Greenwich Road, on the south by Walworth, and on the west by the
Walworth Road. Built upon a low, damp, and unhealthy soil, the dwellings
of the poor there throng in frightful abundance,—forming narrow streets
half choked up with dirt, miserable alleys where the very air is
stagnant, and dark courts, to enter which seems like going into the
fœtid vault of a church. Many of the streets, that appear to have been
huddled together without any architectural plan, but merely upon a
studied system of crowding together as many hovels as possible, have
their back windows looking upon ditches, the black mire and standing
water of which exhale vapours sufficiently noxious to breed a
pestilence. When the sun shines upon these noisome ditches, their
surface displays a thousand prismatic hues, thrown out by the
decomposing offal and putrid vegetables which have been emptied into
those open sewers. But sewers they cannot be called—for instead of
carrying off the filth of the neighbourhood, those ditches preserve it
stagnant.
A considerable portion of the district we are describing is known by the
name of Lock's Fields; and the horrible condition of this locality can
only be properly understood by a visit. The pen cannot convey an
adequate idea of the loathsome squalor of that poverty—the heart-rending
proofs of that wretchedness—and the revolting examples of that utter
demoralization, which characterise this section of the metropolis. The
houses for the most part contain each four rooms; every room serving as
the domicile of a separate family. Perhaps one of the members of such a
family may be afflicted with some infectious malady: there he must lie
upon his flock mattress, or his bundle of rags, or his heap of straw,
until he become, through neglect, so offensive as to render one minute
with him intolerable; and yet his relatives—four, five, or even six in
number—are compelled to sleep in the same apartment with him, inhaling
the stench from that mass of putrefaction, hearing his groans, breathing
the steam from his corrupted lungs, and swarming with the myriads of
loathsome animalcule engendered by the filth of the place. In another
room, perhaps, we shall find some old man, living by himself—starving
upon the miserable pittance obtained by picking up bones or rags, doing
an odd job now and then for a neighbour, and filling up the intervals of
such pursuits by begging,—his entire furniture consisting of a cup, a
kettle, and a knife—no chair, no table—but with a heap of rubbish in one
corner for a bed, on which he sleeps with his clothes on. In a third
room there is most likely a family consisting of a man and his wife, who
at night occupy one mattress, and their grown-up sons and daughters who
all pig together upon another. Shame and decency exist not amongst
them—because they could never have known either. They have all been
accustomed from their infancy to each other's nakedness; and, as their
feelings are brutalised by such a mode of existence, they suffer no
scruples to oppose that fearful intercourse which their sensuality
suggests. Thus—for we _must_ speak plainly, as we speak _the truth_—the
very wretchedness of the poor, which compels this family commingling in
one room and as it were in one bed, leads to incest—horrible, revolting
incest! The fourth room in the house which we take for our example of
the dwellings in Lock's Fields, is occupied by the landlord or landlady,
or both; and there is perhaps no more morality nor cleanliness in their
chamber than in either of the others.
The shops in Lock's Fields are naturally in keeping with the means and
habits of their customers. Beer-shops and public-houses abound: the
lower and the poorer the locality, the greater the number of such
establishments. But who can wonder? Crime requires its stimulants—and
poverty its consolation. Men drink to nerve themselves to perpetrate
misdeeds which are attended with peril: women drink to supply that
artificial flow of spirits necessary to the maintenance of a career of
prostitution;—and the honest poor drink to save themselves from the
access of maddening despair. Children drink also, because they see their
parents drink, and because they have acquired the taste from their
earliest infancy;—and thus beer-shops and public-houses thrive most
gloriously in the most wretched neighbourhoods.
Lock's Fields abound with small "general shops," where every thing
is sold in the minutest detail—a pennyworth of sugar, a
penny-farthing-worth of tea, a farthing candle, or a quarter of a
pound of bacon for a penny. There are also many eating-houses
where leg-of-beef soup can be procured for five farthings the
bowl. The knackers do a good business with the owners of those
establishments. Tripe-shops are likewise far from rare; and upon
their boards in the open windows, may be seen gory slices of
black-looking liver, tongues and brains in a dish, sheep's heads,
huge cow-heels, chitterlings, piles of horses' flesh and rolls of
boiled offal upon sticks—the two last-mentioned species of article
being intended for cat's-meat,—but the whole heaped pell-mell
together, loathsome to behold, and emitting odours of the most
fœtid and nauseating description. Coal-sheds, where potatoes and
greens may likewise be purchased, abound in Lock's Fields; as do
also pie-shops and that kind of eating-houses where pudding fried
in grease, stocking-pudding, and sop-in-the-pan are displayed in
the windows, to tempt with their succulent appearance the
appetites of hungry men passing to their work, or of half-famished
children wearied of playing in the gutter.
It is wretched—heart-rending to linger on a description of this kind:
but we must endeavour to make it as complete as possible. The generality
of the inhabitants of Lock's Fields are in a state of barbarian
ignorance. Nine-tenths of the children, even of ten or twelve years old,
are unable to read, and know not who Jesus Christ is, nor that the
Saviour of Mankind suffered upon the cross to save _them_, as well as
the proudest peers or the most brilliant peeresses that shine in the
realms of fashion. Look more closely at the aspect of the population in
Lock's Fields. What care is depicted upon the pale cheek of that
emaciated woman who is hanging the _one_ change of linen upon the
elder-bushes skirting the black ditch behind her dwelling! And yet she
is better off than many of her neighbours—because her family does
possess the _one_ change of linen! Behold that man sitting on the
threshold of his door, smoking his pipe:—his elbows rest upon his
knees—he stares vacantly before him—not even the opiatic influence of
tobacco soothes him. He is thinking of what will become of his wife and
children when he shall be out of work—because the job on which he has
lately been engaged will be finished on the coming Saturday. His wife
comes out to speak to him—and he answers her harshly: his children
approach him, and endeavour to climb up his knees—but he knocks them
away. Yet that man is not brutal by nature: he loves his wife and
children—and was even debating within himself whether he should not soon
turn thief in order to support them, when they thus accosted him and
were repulsed. Let another person insult his wife—let a stranger lay a
finger upon that man's children, and the demon will be raised within his
breast. But he speaks harshly and treats them all brutally, because he
is miserable—because he is dissatisfied with every thing and every
body—because he is reduced to despair. The unfeeling aspect of the cold
world around him—that world which frowns so sternly upon poverty, and
smiles so sweetly upon wealth—has rendered _him_ unfeeling. His hard
fate drives him to the public-house:—talk of the infamy of which that
man is guilty in spending a few pence—the pence which would buy his
children more bread—upon beer or gin,—it is ridiculous! That man _must_
drink—he _must_ drown his care: thought drives him mad—and from thought
he must therefore fly. But whither can he fly? The rich and the
well-to-do have their theatres and places of amusement: if a penny
tea-garden or a penny theatre be opened in Lock's Fields, or in any
other poor neighbourhood, the magistrates must put it down;—it is a
source of demoralisation—it is a focus of thieves and prostitutes! But
the swell-mob and flash women frequent the Haymarket Theatre—and the
Lyceum—and the Surrey—and the Victoria—aye, and Covent-Garden and Drury
Lane Theatres also. "Oh!" cries the magistrate; "_that_ is very
different!" Yes—every thing in this country is different when the
wealthy or the well-dressed are concerned on one side, and the poor and
the ragged on the other. Then, whither can this pauperised despairing
man in Lock's Fields go to escape the bitterness of his reflections? To
the public-house—or to throw himself into the canal:—those are the only
alternatives!
Is it not dreadful to think that we have a sovereign and a royal family
on whom the country lavishes money by hundreds of thousands,—whose
merest whims cost sums that would feed and clothe from year to year
_all_ the inhabitants of such a place as Lock's Fields;—that we have
also an hereditary aristocracy and innumerable sleek and comfortable
dignitaries of the Church, who devour the fruits of the earth and throw
the parings and the peelings contemptuously to the poor;—in a word, that
we have an oligarchy feasting upon the fatted calf, and flinging the
offal to the patient, enduring, toiling, oppressed millions,—is it not
dreadful, we ask, to think how much those millions do for Royalty,
Aristocracy, Church, and Landed Interest, and how little—how miserably
little, Royalty, Aristocracy, Church, and Landed Interest do for _them_
in return?
But let us go back to Thomas Rainford and the little boy, whom we left
on their way to Lock's Fields—for it was to this district that the
excellent-hearted man was leading his young charge.
And, as they went along, many were the kind words that Tom Rain uttered
to cheer his artless companion.
"Come, don't cry, my dear little fellow," he would say: "here is another
cake—and when we get home you shall have something nice for supper. Are
you cold, Charley? Well, you shall soon warm yourself by the side of a
good blazing fire. And to-night you shall sleep in a soft bed; and
to-morrow morning you shall have some new clothes. I am going to take
you where you will find a pretty lady, who will be as kind to you as the
mamma you have just lost. Are you tired, Charley? Well, I'll take you up
and carry you."
And Tom Rain lifted the poor child in his arms and kissed away the tears
which ran down his cheeks. The boy threw his little arms around the neck
of his kind protector, and said, "Oh! you are as good to me as my dear
papa was."
"And how long has your papa been dead, Charley?" asked Rainford,
supposing that the child meant by his father the husband of the woman
who had died that evening in Toby Bunce's house.
"Not very long—but I don't know how long," was the reply. "Oh! stay—I
think I heard mamma say this morning that he died six months ago."
"And where did you live then, Charley?"
"At a cottage near a great town—Oh! I remember—Winchester."
"Winchester!" cried Rainford. "I know all that part of the country
well—or at least I ought to do so," he murmured to himself, with a
profound sigh. "But what made you leave your cottage?"
"When papa was buried, mamma had no money," replied the child; "and some
naughty people came at last and took away all the things in the cottage,
and turned mamma and me out of doors. And then mamma cried so much—oh!
so much; and we were very often hungry after that—and we sometimes had
no bed to sleep in."
"Poor little fellow!" cried Rainford, hugging the child closer still to
his breast. "What was your papa's name?"
"Watts—and my name is Charley Watts," said the boy.
At this moment Rainford stopped at one of the few decent-looking houses
in Lock's Fields, and knocked at the door, which was immediately opened
by a young and beautiful woman, who appeared overjoyed at his return.
"I have brought you a present in the shape of this poor little boy,"
said Rainford as he entered the house. "If you wish to please me, you
will behave to him as kindly as I shall."
The young woman took Charley in her arms, and kissed him as a proof that
Tom's request should be attended to; and Rainford, well pleased at that
demonstration, closed the street-door behind him.