CHILD OF THE EAST END.
"What is it to be a lady?" The voice was the voice of a small and
exceedingly grimy child, who held in her arms one still smaller and even
grimier, known to the neighborhood as "Wemock's Orlando." Under ordinary
circumstances, neither Wemock's nor anybody's youngest could have
excited the least attention in Tower Hamlets where every doorway and
passage swarms with children. But Orlando had the proud distinction of
having spent three months of his short life in hospital, "summat wrong
with his inside" having resulted from the kick of a drunken father who
objected to the sight or sound of the children he had brought into the
world, these at present numbering but seven, four having been mercifully
removed from further dispensation of strap and fist and heavy boot.
Such sympathy as the over-worked drudges who constituted the wives of
the neighborhood had to spare, had concentrated on Orlando, whose
"inside" still continued wrong, and who, though almost three, had never
been able to bear his weight on his feet, but became livid at once, if
the experiment was tried,--a fact of perennial interest to the entire
alley.
Wemock's fury at this state of things was something indescribable. A
"casual" at the Docks, with the uncertainty of work which is the
destruction of the casual laborer, he regarded the children as simply a
species of investment, slow of making any return, but certain in the
end. Up to five, say, they must be fed and housed somehow, but from five
on a boy of any spirit ought to begin a career as mud-lark to graduate
from it in time into anything for which this foundation had fitted him.
The girls were less available, and he blessed his stars that there were
but three, and cursed them as he reflected that Polly was tied hand and
foot to Orlando, who persisted in living, and equally persisted in
clinging to Polly, who mothered him more thoroughly than any previous
Wemock had been.
Not that the actual mother had not some gleams of tenderness, at least
for the babies. But life weighed heavily against any demonstration. She
was simply a beast of burden, patient, and making small complaint, and
adding to the intermittent family income in any way she could,--charing,
tailoring, or sack-making when the machine was not in pawn, and standing
in deadly terror of Wemock's fist. The casual, like most of the lower
order of laborers, has small opinion of women as a class, and meets any
remonstrance from them as to his habits with an unvarying formula.
"I'm yer 'usban', ain't I?" is the reply to request or objection alike,
and "husband" by the casual is defined as "a man with a right to knock
his woman down when he likes." This simplifies responsibility, and,
being accepted with little or no question by the women, allows great
latitude of action.
Wemock had learned that the strap was safer than a knock-down, however,
as a dose of it overnight did not hinder his wife from crawling out of
bed to prepare the breakfast and get to work, whereas a kick such as he
preferred, had been known to disable her for a week, with inconvenient
results as to his own dinners and suppers.
"It's the liquor as does it. 'E's peaceable enough when the liquor's out
of 'im. But their 'ands comes so 'eavy. They don't know how 'eavy their
'ands comes." Thus Mrs. Wemock, standing in the doorway, for the moment
holding Orlando, who resented his transfer with a subdued howl of grief,
and looked anxiously down the alley toward Polly's retreating figure.
"'Ush now an' ma'll give him a winkle. Polly's gone for winkles. It's
winkles we'll 'ave for supper, and a blessing it's there's one thing
cheap and with some taste to it. A penny-'orth even, goes quite a way,
but a penny-'orth ain't much when there's a child to each winkle an' may
be two."
"The churchyard's been a better friend to me than to you," said a thin
and haggard-looking woman, who had come across the street for a look at
Orlando. "Out of my seventeen, there ain't but six left an' one o' them
is in the Colonies. There's small call to wish 'em alive, when there's
nought but sorrow ahead. If we was ladies I suppose it might all be
different."
It was at this point that Polly's question was heard,--Polly, who had
rushed back with the winkles and put the dish into her mother's hand and
caught Orlando as if she had been separated from him hours instead of
minutes. And Orlando in turn put his skinny little arms about her neck.
Whatever might be wrong with his inside, the malady had not reached his
heart, which beat only for Polly, his great dark eyes, hollow with
suffering, fixing themselves on her face with a sort of adoration.
"A lady?" Mrs. Wemock said reflectively, eying her winkles, "there's
more than one kind, Polly. A lady's mostly one that has nought to do but
what she likes, and goes in a carriage for fear she'll soil her feet.
But I've seen real ladies that thought on the poor, and was in and out
among 'em. That kind is 'ard to find, Polly. I never knew but two an'
they're both dead. It's them as has money, that's ladies, and them that
hasn't--why they isn't."
"Then I can't be a lady," said Polly. "I heard Nelly Anderson say she
meant to be a lady."
"Lord keep you from that kind!" said the mother hastily, with a
significant look at her neighbor, which Polly did not fail to note and
puzzle over. Tending Orlando gave her much time for puzzling. She was
known as an "old fashioned" child, with ways quite her own, always to be
depended upon, and confiding in no one but Orlando, who answered her in
a language of his own.
"When I am a lady, we will go away somewhere together," Polly said. "I
think I shall be a lady sometime, Orlando, and then we'll have good
times. There are good times somewhere, only they don't get into the
Buildings," and with a look at the sooty walls and the dirty passage she
followed her mother slowly up the stairs, and took her three winkles and
the big slice of bread and dripping, which she and Orlando were to
share, into the corner. Orlando must be coaxed to eat, which was always
a work of time, and before her own share had been swallowed, her
father's step was on the stairs, and her mother turned round from the
machine.
"Keep out of the way, Polly. 'E's taken too much, I know by the step of
'im, and 'e won't 'alf know what he's about."
Polly shrunk back. There was no time to get under the bed, which she
often did, and she hugged Orlando close and waited fearfully. Both were
silent, but she put her bread behind her. To see them eating sometimes
enraged him, and he had been known to fling loaf and teapot both from
the windows.
Both were on the table now, two or three slices spread with dripping for
the younger boys who would presently come in. Wemock sat down, his hands
in his pockets and his legs stretched out to their utmost length, and
looked first at his wife who was stitching trousers, and then at Polly,
whose eyes were fixed upon him.
"I'll teach you to look at me like that, you brat," he said, rising
slowly.
"For the Lord's sake, Wemock!" his wife cried, for there was deeper
mischief than usual in his tone. "Remember what you did to Orlando."
"I'll do for him again. I've 'ad enough of him always hunder foot. Out
o' the way, you fool."
Polly looked toward the door. A beating for herself could be taken, but
never for Orlando. Her mother had come between, and she saw her father
strike her heavily, and then push her into the chair.
"Go on with your trousers," he said. "There's no money at the Docks, and
these children eating me out of house and home. A man might be master of
his own. Come 'ere. You won't, won't you? Then--"
There were oaths and a shriek from Orlando, on whom the strap had
fallen; and then Polly, still holding him, rushed for the door, only to
be caught back and held, while the heavy fist came down with cruel
weight.
"Wemock's a bit worse than common," they said in the next room as the
sounds began; but the shrieks in another moment had drawn every one in
the Buildings, and the doorway filled with faces, no one volunteering,
however, to interfere with the Briton's right to deal with his own as
he will. He had flung Polly from him, and she lay on the floor
unconscious and bleeding. Orlando had crept under the bed, and lay there
paralyzed with terror; and the mother shrieked so loudly that the brute
slunk back and seated himself again with attempted indifference.
"You've done for yourself this time," a neighbor said, and Wemock sprang
up, too late to escape the policemen who had been brought by the sounds,
not usual in broad daylight, and who suddenly had their hands upon him,
while another stooped doubtfully over the child.
"She's alive," he said. "They take a deal to kill 'em, such do, but
she'll need the 'ospital. Her arm's broke."
He lifted the arm as he spoke, and it fell limp, a cry of pain coming
from the child, whose eyes had opened a moment and then closed with a
look of death on the face. An ambulance was passing. Some one had been
hurt on the Docks, where accidents are always happening, and was being
carried to the hospital; and a neighbor ran down.
"It's best to do it sudden," she said, "or Orlando 'll never let her go
or her mother either," and she hailed the ambulance driver, who
objected to taking two, but agreed when he found it was only a child.
Polly came to herself at last, gasping with pain. A broken arm was the
least of it. There was a broken rib as well, and bruises innumerable.
But worse than any pain was the separation from Orlando, for whom Polly
wailed, till, in despair, the nurse promised to speak to the surgeon and
see if he might not be brought; and, satisfied with this hope, the child
lay quiet and waited.
She was in a clean bed,--such a bed as she had never seen, and her soft
dark eyes examined the nurse and all the strange surroundings in the
intervals of pain. But fever came soon, and in long days of unconscious
murmurings and tossings, all that was left of Polly's thin little frame
wasted away.
"It is a hopeless case," the doctor said, "though after all with
children you can never tell."
There came a day when Polly opened her eyes, quite conscious, and looked
up once more at the nurse with the old appeal.
"I want Orlando. Where's Orlando?"
"He can't come," the nurse said, after a moment, in which she turned
away.
"You promised," Polly said faintly.
"I know it," the nurse said. "He should come if he could, but he can't."
"Is he sick?" Polly said after a pause. "Did father hurt him?"
"Yes, he hurt him. He hurt him very much, but he can never hurt him any
more. Orlando is dead."
Polly lay quite silent, nor did her face change as she heard the words;
but a smile came presently, and her eyes lightened.
"You didn't know," she said. "Orlando has come. He is right here, and
somebody is carrying him. He is putting out his arms."
The child had raised herself, and looked eagerly toward the foot of the
bed, "She is bringing him to me. She says, 'Polly, you 're going to be a
lady and never do what you don't want to any more.' I thought I should
be a lady sometime, because I wanted to so much; but I didn't think it
would be so soon. They won't know me in the Buildings. I'm going to be a
lady, and never--"
Polly's eyes had closed. She fell back. What she had seen no man could
know, but the smile stayed.
It was quite certain that something at least had come to her of what she
wanted.