MISERY AND VICE.
A week had elapsed since the perpetration of the atrocity described in
the preceding chapter.
The scene changes to a miserable garret in one of the foul courts
leading out of King Street, St. Giles's.
It was about eight o'clock in the evening; and the rain pattered on the
roof and against the little window of the wretched room, which, small as
it was, was scarcely lighted by the candle that flickered with the
draught gushing in from beneath the door.
On a mean and sordid mattress stretched upon the floor, and with but a
thin and torn blanket to cover him, lay a man who was not in reality
above five-and-twenty, but who seemed nearly double that age—so ghastly
was his countenance, and so attenuated was his form with sickness and
want.
Near him a young female—almost a mere girl—was seated on a broken chair.
Her apparel was mean, and so scanty that she shivered with the cold; and
though the traces of famine and care were plainly visible upon her
features, yet they had not carried their ravages so far as to efface the
prettiness which naturally characterised the composition of that
countenance.
Beautiful she was not, nor ever had been; but good-looking she decidedly
was;—and though attired almost in rags, and with an expression of
profound misery upon her face, there was something interesting in the
appearance of that poor creature.
The reader will remember that, in the earlier chapters of this tale, we
introduced him to one of those dens of iniquity called low
lodging-houses, in Castle Street, Long Acre; and he will also recollect
that a mock marriage took place in that "padding-ken," between a thief,
called Josh Pedler, and a poor labourer's daughter, named Matilda
Briggs.
The man lying on the mattress in the garret, was Josh Pedler; and the
girl sitting near him, was Matilda Briggs.
"Well, now," suddenly exclaimed Pedler, as he raised himself with
difficulty to a sitting posture, "what do you say in answer to my last
question? are we to die of starvation? or are we to have bread by some
means or another?"
Matilda burst into tears, and wrung her hands bitterly.
"Don't sit whimpering there, damn your eyes!" cried the ruffian.
"Blubbering won't do no good—and you know that as well as me. Here have
I been on my beam-ends, as one may say, for the last three weeks, and
unable to go about to pick up a single farthing—the landlord swears he
will have some money to-morrow morning—all the things is pawned—and here
am I only wanting a little proper nourishment to set me on my legs
again; but that I can't get."
"God knows I have starved myself to give you all I could, Josh," said
Matilda, her voice broken with frequent and agonising sobs. "When you
have asked me if I had kept enough meat or bread for myself, I always
answered yes; and I turned my back towards you that you mightn't see how
much—or rather how _little_ I had kept back. But what can I do? My
father and mother are gone back into the country to throw themselves on
their parish—I have no friends to apply to—and your's seem unable to
assist you at present."
"Something must be done, Tilda," said the man. "We can't starve—we must
do any thing rather than that. I am as hungry as the very devil now—and
I know that if I had a good steak and some porter, it would put me all
right again."
"But, my God! we have not even the means to buy a penny roll!" almost
shrieked the young woman. "There isn't a thing left to pawn. I have
nothing but this old gown on my back—every thing else has gone—gone!"
she added hysterically, as she threw a wild glance around the naked and
dismantled garret. "How cold it is, too! What can we do? what can we
do?"
And she rocked herself to and fro in a manner denoting an utter despair.
"You keep asking what can be done," said Josh Pedler, brutally, "and yet
you know all the time that there's only one thing to be done, and that
it must come to _that_ at last."
Matilda started, and turned a glance of horrified amazement upon her
companion.
"Well—so I suppose you understand what I mean," continued the ruffian;
"and, therefore, there's no use in gammoning about it no longer. We're
starving, and there's the rent to pay: that's one side of the question.
You're a good-looking young o'oman, and can do as other vimen do: that's
t'other side of the question."
"Oh! Josh—and would you have me become a prostitute?" shrieked Matilda,
in a tone of mingled horror and reproach.
"Come—none of your nonsense, my lady," said Josh Pedler; "or I shall
precious soon know how to settle your hash. Either go and earn some tin,
or cut your lucky altogether. If I starve, I'll starve by myself——"
"My God! I will not abandon you!" murmured the unhappy young creature,
terrified by this menace of separation from one to whom she had grown
greatly attached. "No—I cannot—I will not leave you, Josh: and yet——"
"Let's have no more of this humbug, Tilda!" exclaimed the man, brutally.
"Leave off whimpering—or, ill as I am, I'll give you something worth
crying for. Come, put on your bonnet and tramp; or, by hell——"
"Oh! you could not—you would not do me a mischief!" she cried, clasping
her hands together. "And if I obey you now, in what you have ordered me
to do, shall you not hate and detest me ever afterwards?"
"Not a bit of it," returned Josh Pedler, softening a little as he
perceived that his point was already well nigh gained: for the poor
young woman found powerful incentives to yield to the commands of the
ruffian—she herself being almost famished. "Not a bit of it!" he
repeated. "You ought to have turned out when I was first taken ill; and
then if I'd had common necessaries I should have got well by this time.
So be a good girl, and see if you can't bring back something good to eat
and drink, and a trifle to pay the landlord."
With a bursting heart, Matilda rose from her seat, and put on her bonnet
and her scanty shawl—a poor rag which the pawnbroker had refused to
advance a single penny upon.
"Give us a kiss afore you go, old gal," said Josh Pedler, by way of
affording her some encouragement to begin the frightful course of
prostitution to which he strove to urge her.
She bent down, and pressed her lips upon his forehead, murmuring, "Are
you sure that you will not loathe me _afterwards_?"
"Don't have any more of that gammon, Tilda," he cried; "but cut along—or
else I shall be tempted to bite a piece out of your face, I'm so
thundering hungry."
Matilda shuddered from head to foot, and rushed from the room.
As she was about to quit the house, a door in the passage opened, and a
stout ill-looking fellow, without a coat, and smoking a short pipe, came
forth, exclaiming, "Ah! I know'd it was you by your sneaking step. Now I
tell you what it is, Mrs. Pedler—if so be I don't have my rent, or a
good part on't to-night, you and your man must tramp before I shuts up.
I've got people as will be glad to have a airy and comfortable room like
your'n and as will pay; leastways I'll get rid of _you_."
Matilda stayed to hear no more, but rushed wildly from the house, the
threat of the landlord ringing like the knell of hope in her ears.
She observed not which direction she was pursuing;—she saw not the
passengers who jostled her on either side:—her eyes were open—and yet
the surrounding and the passing objects formed only one vast void—one
tremendous blank to her.
Her pace was hurried, like that of a person intent on some important
mission, and having some defined and positive end in view:—and yet she
had even forgotten the motive that had sent her forth into the streets
that evening, to dare the cold wind and face the pattering rain,—she who
had but so scanty a clothing to protect her!
There was a humming noise in her ears: but she could not discriminate
the sounds of voices from the roll of carriages;—and even when she
crossed a street, it was through no caution exercised on her part that
she was not ran over.
At last her ideas began to assume a more settled shape; and her
thoughts, rescuing themselves as it were from utter confusion, settled
gradually down into their proper cells in the brain—the racking brain
which held them!
She walked slower, and with more apparent uncertainty of aim; objects
assumed a defined shape to her eyes; and her ears recognised the various
sounds which raised the echoes of the streets.
At length she stood still in the midst of Holborn, and tears burst from
her eyes; for she now remembered that she was there—there, in the wide
and open thoroughfare—to commence the dread avocation of a prostitute!
She shuddered from head to foot—but with no ordinary tremor: it was a
convulsion which began at the very heart, and vibrated with electric
rapidity and spasmodic violence throughout the entire form.
"Now then, young voman—out o' the vay!" cried a porter carrying a huge
load upon his head.
And, like a startled deer, Matilda hurried along.
She glanced to the left and to the right, and beheld magnificent shops
teeming with merchandise, and crowded with purchasers:—she lingered in
front of the pastry-cooks' establishments;—and she stopped to devour
with her eyes the smoking joints, the piles of vegetables, and the large
tins full of pudding, in the windows of the eating-houses!
But she knew it was useless to implore a meal;—and moreover it was
something beyond food that she required,—for money to pay her heartless
landlord she must have!
She resumed her mournful, melancholy walk, now slow in pace and drooping
in gait.
Time was wearing on—nine o'clock would soon strike—and if she were ever
to take the first step in a loathsome trade, now was the moment!
Think not, reader, that because this young woman had become the mistress
of a thief, and had passed through all the training of a low
lodging-house and several weeks of misery and want,—think not that she
was prepared to rush at once and in a moment on a career of public
prostitution! No: she was attached to her lover, in the first place;—and
secondly, she was no brazen-faced slut, whose mind had derived
coarseness from intemperance, or callousness from ill-treatment.
She shrank from the path which alone seemed open to her: she recoiled
from the ways into which a stern necessity commanded her to enter.
While she was endeavouring to subdue the bitterness of the reflections
which crowded upon her soul, a young woman, scarcely a year older than
herself, accosted her, and said, "My dear, are you come on this beat to
be one of us?"
Matilda saw by a glance that the female was one of the lowest class of
prostitutes; and she burst into tears.
"Oh! then, you _are_ come out for that purpose!" exclaimed the other.
"Well, you must pay your footing at all events;"—and making a signal to
several of her friends who stood at a short distance, she cried, "Here's
a precious lark! a gal which wants to be one of us, and is blubbering at
it!"
Matilda was now surrounded by loose women, who vowed that she should
treat them, or they would tear her eyes out.
Vainly did she protest that she had no money: tears and remonstrances
were of no avail; and the prostitutes were growing more clamorous,—for,
it must be remembered, there were no New Police in those days,—when an
old man, decently dressed, but horribly ugly, stopped near the group and
asked what was the matter.
"Here's a young gal which wants to go upon the town, and can't pay her
footing," explained one of the loose women; "and so she shan't come on
our beat."
"Come, come," said the old man; "don't tease the poor thing! Which is
she? Oh! rather good-looking. Well, my dears—here's half-a-crown for you
to get something to drink—and I'll get the young woman to take a little
walk along with me."
Thus speaking, the old man handed the coin to the girl who had given him
the above recorded explanation; and she and her friends were too much
rejoiced at the receipt of this unexpected donation, to trouble
themselves further concerning Matilda Briggs.
When the loose women had disappeared, the old man turned towards
Matilda, and said, "Take my arm, my dear; and I'll conduct you to a nice
place where we can have a chat together for half an hour or so; and I'll
make you a present of half-a-guinea before we part."
The unfortunate girl obeyed in silence; but not quite
mechanically:—gratitude for the seasonable assistance she had received
from the old man, and the idea of obtaining enough money not only to buy
food but also liquidate the greater portion of the arrears of rent due
to the merciless landlord, were powerful motives to stifle compunctious
feelings in her breast.
The old man was one of those sexagenarian voluptuaries who dishonour
gray hairs—one of those hoary sinners who prowl about the streets after
dusk, to pick up girls of tender age, and who seldom choose females of
ripe years. Under ordinary circumstances this old man would not have
bestowed the slightest notice upon Matilda; because she was between
fifteen and sixteen, and he affected children of eleven and twelve. But
the incident which had brought them together had given him a sudden zest
for novelty; and thus the gray-headed reprobate, who was old enough to
be Matilda's great grandfather, tucked her under his arm and led her off
to the nearest brothel with which he was acquainted.
* * * * *
It was eleven o'clock when the door of the garret in which Josh Pedler
was lying, opened abruptly and Matilda made her appearance.
"Well, what news?" demanded the man anxiously "You've left me long
enough——"
"I could not return sooner," answered the young woman, in a hoarse and
strangely altered tone. "But sit up and eat your fill, Josh—for here is
a good plate of meat——"
"And the landlord?" interrupted the thief joyfully.
"Is paid every farthing. I have earned a sovereign by yielding to the
hideous embraces of an old man," she added in a tone expressive of deep
and concentrated emotion,—"an old man whose touch was horrible as the
pawings of an imp or some filthy monster. But he gave me double what he
first promised; and now you may eat—if you can," she exclaimed, with a
hysterical laugh.
"And you will sit down and eat with me, Tilda," said the thief in a
coaxing tone—for he now saw that his mistress might become serviceable
to him, and he was anxious to conciliate her.
"No—not a morsel," she replied impatiently. "I am not hungry—_now_:
besides, even if I was, it would seem to me that I was eating my own
flesh and blood. But I have got some spirits in a bottle, Josh—and I can
drink a drop with you."
"I thought you didn't like spirits, Tilda?" observed the man,
contemplating with some degree of alarm her pale countenance on which
there appeared an expression of settled despair.
"Oh! I dare say I shall like spirits well enough now!" she said. "At all
events I feel an inclination for them to-night. But, come—sit up and
eat."
Thus speaking, she spread open a large brown-paper parcel before the
thief, whose eyes sparkled when he beheld a quantity of slices of
recently cooked meat, a loaf of bread, and some cheese.
Forgetting how the viands were procured, Josh Pedler began to devour
them with the voracity of one who had fasted a long time; and Matilda
hastened to fetch him some beer.
When she returned, she sate down, and drank two glasses of raw gin, with
but a few moments' interval between the drams; and then, bursting out
into a hysterical laugh, she said, "Blue ruin is capital stuff! I feel
myself fit for any thing now!"
"That's right, old gal—cheer up!" exclaimed Josh Pedler. "Take another
glass—and then you'll be able to eat a bit of this meat."
"Well—perhaps I may," cried Matilda. "I was tipsy when you and me were
married by the old parson in the padding-ken; and I'll be tipsy to
night, as it's the first of a new period of my life."
"Damn it! you are coming out strong, Tilda!" ejaculated Josh Pedler.
"_Blue ruin—padding-ken_—why, I never heard you patter flash before."
"Oh! you don't know what you may see me do yet," said the young woman,
in a voice indicative of unnatural excitement. "And what does it matter?
Perhaps you'll hear me cursing and swearing to-morrow! Any thing—any
thing," she added, her voice changing to a tone of deep, intense
feeling,—"any thing, so long as one can only grow hardened!"
And having tossed off a third glass of liquor, she accepted and ate the
portion of food that Josh Pedler handed to her—although but a few
minutes before she recoiled from it, as if it were her own flesh and
blood!
"Now you are acting like a sensible woman," said Josh; "and you make me
feel more comfortable. But when you first come in, I couldn't make out
what the devil possessed you: you looked all queer like—just as if you
was going to commit suicide."
"Suicide!—ha! ha!" laughed Matilda strangely. "Well—I did think
of it as I was coming home; but I remembered that you was
here—hungry—starving—and too ill to get up and shift for yourself. So I
came back, Josh. But won't you have some gin? You don't know what good
it does one. If I had only taken some before I went out just now—that
is, if I had had the money to buy it—I shouldn't have gone whimpering
along the street as I did. No wonder all the poor girls who walk the
pavement drink so much gin. I am already quite another person. I do
declare that I could sing. But here comes some one up the stairs: it
can't be for us."
"Yes, it is though," said Josh Pedler, as the heavy steps of a man
halted at the door, to which a fist was applied by no means lightly.
"Come in!"
The visitor obeyed this invitation without farther ceremony; and the
moment Josh caught sight of his countenance, he cried joyfully, "Tim the
Snammer!"