Part 1

WORKHOUSE CHARACTERS

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

IN THE WORKHOUSE

A PLAY IN ONE ACT

The International Suffrage Shop, John St., Strand, W.C.2 (6d.)

Press Notices

"Dull talk none the less offensive because it may have been life-like."--_Daily Mail._

"The piece though mere talk is strong talk."--_Morning Advertiser._

"The play is clean and cold and humorous. The main value of the piece is that it is a superb genre picture. One or two of the flashes from this strange, generally unknown world are positive sparks of life."--_Sheffield Daily Telegraph._

"I found it interesting and convincing; but then I am prepared to believe that our laws always will be rotten till lawyers are disqualified from sitting in Parliament."--_Reynolds'._

"The masculine portion of the audience walked with heads abashed in the _entr'acte_; such things had been said upon the stage that they were suffused with blushes."--_Standard._

"Delicate matters were discussed with much knowledge and some tact."--_Morning Post._

"'In the Workhouse' reminds us forcibly of certain works of M. Brieux, which plead for reform by painting a terrible, and perhaps overcharged, picture of things as they are.... The presence of the idiot girl helps to point another moral in Mrs. Nevinson's arraignment, and is therefore artistically justifiable; and the more terrible it appears the better have the author and the actress done their work.... Such is the power of the dramatic pamphlet, sincerely written and sincerely acted. There is nothing to approach it in directness and force. It sweeps all mere prettiness into oblivion."--_Pall Mall Gazette._

"It is one of the strongest indictments of our antiquated laws relating to married women. A man seated behind the present writer called the play immoral! and as Mrs. Nevinson says in her preface to the published edition, the only apology she makes for its realism is that it is true."--_Christian Commonwealth._

"The whole thing left an unpleasant taste."--_Academy._

NOTE.--Two years after this piece was given by the _Pioneer Players_ the law was altered.

WORKHOUSE CHARACTERS

AND OTHER SKETCHES OF THE LIFE OF THE POOR

BY

MARGARET WYNNE NEVINSON

L.L.A.

The depth and dream of my desire, The bitter paths wherein I stray. Thou knowest Who hast made the Fire, Thou knowest Who hast made the Clay.

One stone the more swings to her place In that dread Temple of Thy Worth-- It is enough that through Thy grace I saw naught common on Thy earth.

RUDYARD KIPLING.

LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.1

Almost the whole of these sketches have appeared in the _Westminster Gazette_; the last two were published in the _Daily News_, and "Widows Indeed" and "The Runaway" in the _Herald_. It is by the courtesy of the Editors of the above papers that they are reproduced in book form.

_First published in 1918_

_(All rights reserved.)_

TO MY SON

C. R. W. NEVINSON

PREFACE

These sketches have been published in various papers during the last thirteen years. Many of the characters are life portraits, and the wit and wisdom of the common people have been faithfully recorded in a true Boswellian spirit; others are _Wahrheit und Dichtung_ (if one may still quote Goethe), but all have been suggested by actual fact and experience.

During the last ten years great reforms have been taking place in the country. In 1908 the Old Age Pensions Act came into force, and the weekly miracle of 5s. a week (now 7s. 6d.) changed the world for the aged, giving them the liberty and independence, which ought to be the right of every decent citizen in the evening of life.

The order by which a pauper husband had the right to detain his wife in the workhouse by "his marital authority" is now repealed. A case some years ago of this abominable breach of the law of Habeas Corpus startled the country, especially the ratepayers, and even the House of Commons were amazed at their own laws. The order was withdrawn in 1913 on the precedent of the judgment given in the case of the Queen _v._ Jackson (1891), when it was decided "that the husband has no right, where his wife refuses to live with him, to take her person by force and restrain her of her liberty" (60 L. J. Q. B. 346).

Many humane reforms and regulations for the classification of inmates were made in 1913, and the obnoxious words "pauper" and "workhouse" have been abolished; but before the authorities rightly grasped the changes the war was upon us, the workhouses were commandeered as military hospitals, the inmates sent into other institutions, and all reforms lapsed in overcrowded and understaffed buildings.

Once again the Poor Law is in the melting-pot, and it seems as if now it will pass into the limbo of the past with other old, unhappy far-off things.

CONTENTS

PAGE EUNICE SMITH--DRUNK 13

DETAINED BY MARITAL AUTHORITY 21

A WELSH SAILOR 27

THE VOW 33

BLIND AND DEAF 39

"AND, BEHOLD, THE BABE WEPT" 47

"MARY, MARY, PITY WOMEN!" 53

THE SUICIDE 61

PUBLICANS AND HARLOTS 68

OLD INKY 75

A DAUGHTER OF THE STATE 80

IN THE PHTHISIS WARD 85

AN IRISH CATHOLIC 91

AN OBSCURE CONVERSATIONIST 97

MOTHERS 104

"YOUR SON'S YOUR SON" 110

"TOO OLD AT FORTY" 115

IN THE LUNATIC ASYLUM 118

THE SWEEP'S LEGACY 126

AN ALIEN 130

"WIDOWS INDEED!" 134

THE RUNAWAY 138

"A GIRL! GOD HELP HER!" 145

ON THE PERMANENT LIST 148

THE PAUPER AND THE OLD-AGE PENSION 153

THE EVACUATION OF THE WORKHOUSE 157

WORKHOUSE CHARACTERS

EUNICE SMITH--DRUNK

The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes, But Here and There as strikes the Player goes; And He that toss'd you down into the Field, _He_ knows about it all--He knows--_He_ knows.

"Eunice Smith, drunk, brought by the police."

The quaint Scriptural name, not heard for years, woke me up from the dull apathy to which even the most energetic Guardian is reduced at the end of a long Board meeting, and I listened intently as the Master of the workhouse went on to explain that the name Smith had been given by the woman, but her clothes and a small book, which the doctor said was Homer, in Greek, were marked Eunice Romaine.

Eunice Romaine--the name took me back down long vistas of years to a convent school at Oxford, to the clanging bells of Tom Tower, to the vibrant note of boys' voices in college chapels, to the scent of flowers and incense at early celebrations, to the high devotions and ideals of youth, to its passionate griefs and joys. Eunice Romaine had been the genius of our school--one of those gifted students in whom knowledge seems innate; her name headed every examination list, and every prize in the form fell to her; other poor plodders had no chance where she was. From school she had gone with many a scholarship and exhibition to Cambridge, where she had taken a high place in the Classical Tripos; later I heard she had gone as Classical Mistress to one of the London High Schools, then our paths had separated, and I heard no more.

I went down to the Observation Ward after the meeting, where between a maniacal case lying in a strait-waistcoat, alternately singing hymns and blaspheming, and a tearful melancholic who begged me to dig up her husband's body in the north-east corner of the garden, I saw my old friend and classmate.

She was lying very quiet with closed eyes; her hair had gone grey before her time, and her face was pinched and scored with the deep perpendicular lines of grief and disappointment; but I recognized the school-girl Eunice by the broad, intellectual brow and by the delicate, high-bred hands.

"She is rather better," said the nurse in answer to my question, "but she has had a very bad night, screaming the whole time at the rats and mice she thought she saw, and the doctor fears collapse, as her heart is weak; but if she can get some sleep she may recover."

Sleep in the crowded Mental Ward, with maniacs shrieking and shouting around! But exhausted Nature can do a great deal, and when I called some days later I found my old friend discharged to the General Sick Ward, a placard above her head setting forth her complaint as "chronic alcoholism, cirrhosis of the liver, and cardiac disease."

She recognized me at once, but with the apathy of weakness she expressed neither surprise nor interest at our meeting, and only after some weeks had passed I found her one evening brighter and better, and anxious to go out. Over an impromptu banquet of grapes and cakes we fell into one of those intimate conversations that come so spontaneously but are so impossible to force, and I heard the short history of a soul's tragedy.

"Just after I left Cambridge mother died. She told me on her death-bed that I had the taint of drink in the blood, and urged me never to touch alcohol. My father--a brilliant scholar and successful journalist--had killed himself with drink whilst we were all quite young; mother had kept us all away at school, so that we should not know, and had borne her burden alone. I promised light-heartedly; I was young and strong, and had not known temptation. After mother died I was very lonely: both my brothers had gone to Canada. My father's classical and literary abilities had come only to me: their talents were purely mechanical and they had never been able to acquire book knowledge. I was not very happy teaching. Classics had come to me so easily--hereditary question again--that I never could understand the difficulties of the average girl, and I had very little patience with dullness and stupidity. However, very soon I became engaged to be married, and lived for some time in a fool's paradise of love and joy. My _fiancé_ was a literary man--I will not tell you his name, as he is one of those who have arrived--but it is difficult to start, and we waited about two years before he got an appointment sufficiently secure to make marriage possible. I was very busy; we had taken a flat, and I was engaged in choosing furniture and preparing my humble trousseau. I had given notice at the school, and the wedding-day was within a fortnight, when one morning I got a letter from my _fiancé_, couched in wild, allegorical language, bemoaning his unworthiness, but asking me to release him from his engagement, as he found his love for me had been a mirage now that he had come across his twin-soul. I read the letter over and over again, hardly grasping the meaning, when there fell from the envelope a little newspaper cutting that I had overlooked--it was the announcement of his marriage three days before to his twin-soul.

"Still I was unable to realize what had happened. I kept saying over and over to myself, 'Charlie is married,' but in my heart I did not believe it. That afternoon the head-mistress came to see me; she was very kind, and took me herself to a brain specialist, who said I had had a nervous shock, that I ought to have a rest, and mountain air would be best for me. The council of my school agreed to take me back again, and allow me a term's holiday on full pay. One of my colleagues (it was holiday-time) came with me to Switzerland, and there, amid the ice and snow of the high latitudes, the full understanding of what had come to me dawned upon my mind, and I realized the pangs of despised love, of jealousy, and hate. A _Nachschein_ of Christianity suddenly made me rush back to England in terror of what might happen; it is easy to commit suicide in Switzerland, and a certain black precipice near the hotel drew me ever towards it with baleful fascination. Some one dragged me again to Harley Street, and this time the great specialist advised sea air and cheerful society. The latter prescription is not available for lonely and jilted high-school mistresses in London, but I tried sea air, and it did me good. I don't think for a moment that the doctor realized that I was practically off my head; the terribly obsession of love and jealousy had me in its grip. It had taken me some time to fall in love, and I could not fall out again to order, whilst the knowledge that the man who had broken his promise to me now belonged to another woman was driving me to madness. One day I went down to bathe, and suddenly determined to end my woe. I swam out far to sea--so far that I judged it beyond my force ever to get back; but though my will commanded my limbs to cease their work they refused to obey. I was always a very strong swimmer, and I landed again more humiliated than ever: I had not even the pluck to end my sorrows.

"After that I went back to work; mountains and sea had no message for me. I was better sitting at my desk in the class-room, trying to drill Latin and Greek into the unresponsive brains of girls.

"I got through the days, but the nights were terrible; all the great army of forsaken lovers know that the nights are the worst. I used to lie awake hour after hour, sobbing and crying for mercy and strength to endure, and I used to batter my head against the floor, not knowing any one could hear. One night a fellow-lodger, who slept in the next room, came in and begged me to be quiet; she had her work to do, and night after night I kept her awake with my sobbing. 'I suppose it is all about some wretched man,' she observed coolly; 'but, believe me, they are not worth the love we give them. I left my husband some years ago, finding that he had been carrying on with a woman who called herself my friend. At first I cried and sobbed just as you do now; but I felt such a fool making such a fuss about a man who had played it down so low, that I made up my mind I would forget him; and in time you will get over this, and give thanks that you have been delivered from a liar and a traitor.'

"She gave me a glass of strong brandy and water; it was the first I had ever tasted, and I remember how it ran warm through my veins, and how I slept as I had not slept for months.

"My fellow-lodger and I became great friends; she was quite an uneducated woman, the matron of a laundry, but she braced me up like a tonic with her keen humour and experience of life.

"How strange it seems for a middle-aged drunkard in a pauper infirmary to be telling this ancient love-tale, and posing as one of 'the aristocracy of passionate souls,' But _tout passe tout casse_, and after years of anguish and strife I woke up one bright spring morning and felt that I was cured and for ever free of the wild passion of love. That day always stands out as the happiest of my life. I shall never forget it. It was Saturday, and a holiday; and I got on my bicycle and rode off for miles far into the country singing the _Benedicite_ for pure joy. I lunched at a little inn on the Thames, and ordered some champagne to celebrate the recovery of my liberty.

"But by strange irony of fate the very day I escaped from the toils of love I fell under another tyranny--that of alcohol. Now, Peg"--I started at the unfamiliar old nickname of my school days--"I believe you are crying. Having shed more than my own share of tears, nothing irritates me so much as to see other women cry, and if you don't stop I'll not say another word."

I drew my handkerchief across my eyes and admitted to a cold in the head.

"Shortly afterward I received notice to leave the High School. I did not mind--I always hated teaching, and I found that I had the power of writing; an article that I could flash off in a few hours would keep me for a week, and I could create my own paradise for half a crown--now, Peg, you are crying again. But of late life was not so bad. I enjoyed writing, and shall always be thankful I can read Greek; besides, I was not always drunk; the craving only takes me occasionally, and at its worst alcohol is a kinder master than love. I shall be well enough to go out in a few days; bring me some pens and paper, and my editor will advance me some money. I am going to write an article on workhouse infirmaries that will startle the public. What do you know of workhouses? You are only a Guardian; 'tis we musicians (or rather inmates) who know."

The article never got written. The next day I found Eunice very ill; she was unconscious and delirious till her death, reeling off sonorous hexameters from Homer and Virgil and stately passages from the Greek tragedians.

We spared her a pauper funeral, and a few old school and college friends gathered round the grave. A white-haired professor of world fame was there also, and he shook hands with us as we parted at the cemetery gates. "Poor Eunice!" he said, his aged face working painfully. "One of the best Greek scholars of the day, and the daughter of my oldest friend. Both of them geniuses, and both of them with the same taint in the blood; but I feel I ought not to have let her come to this."

I think we all felt the same as we walked sadly home.

DETAINED BY MARITAL AUTHORITY

(By the law of England the mothers of illegitimate children are often in a better position than their married sisters.)

An unusual sense of expectancy pervaded the young women's ward; Mrs. Cleaver had gone down "to appear before the Committee," and though the ways of committees are slow, and pauper-time worthless, it was felt that her ordeal was being unduly protracted.

"She's having a dose, she is," said a young woman walking up and down, futilely patting the back of a shrieking infant. "I 'ate appearing afore them committees; last time I was down I called the lady 'Sir' and the gentleman 'Mum,' and my 'eart went pitter-patter in my breast so that you might have knocked me down with a feather. 'Ere she is--well, my dear, and you do look bad----"

"Them committees allus turn me dead sick, and, being a stout woman, my boots feel too tight for me, and I goes into a perspiration, and the great drops go rolling off my forehead. Well, 'e's kept 'is word, and got the law and right of England behind 'im."

What reporters call a "sensation" made itself felt through the ward; the inmates gathered closer round Mrs. Cleaver, and screaming infants were rocked and patted and soothed with much vigour and little result.

"Well," said Mrs. Cleaver, sinking on to the end of a bed, "I went afore the Committee and I says, 'I want to take my discharge,' I says; I applied last week to the Master, but mine got at 'im first, and Master up and says--

"'No, Mrs. Cleaver, you can't go,' he says; 'your 'usband can't spare you,' he says, 'wants you to keep 'im company in 'ere,' he says.

"'Is that true, Master?' says the little man wot sits lost in the big chair.

"'That is so, sir,' says Master, and then 'e outs with a big book and reads something very learned and brain-confusing that I did not rightly understand, as to how a 'usband may detain his wife in the workhouse by his marital authority.

"'Good 'eavens!' says the little lady Guardian 'er wot's dressed so shabby. 'Is that the law of England?'

"Then they all began talking at once most excited, and the little man in the big chair beat like a madman on the table with a 'ammer, and no one took the slightest notice, but when some quiet was restored the little man asked me to tell the Board the circumstances. So I says 'ow he lost his work through being drunk on duty, which was the lying tongue of the perlice, for 'is 'ed was clear, the drink allus taking him in the legs, like most cabmen, and the old 'oss keeps sober. It was a thick fog, and he'd just got off the box to lead the 'oss through the gates of the mews, and the perliceman spotted 'is legs walking out in contrary directions, though 'is 'ed was clear as daylight, and so the perlice ran 'im in and the beak took his licence from 'im, and 'ere we are.

"Now I've got over my confinement, and the child safe in 'eaven, after all the worrit and starvation, I thought I'd like to go out and earn my own living--I'm a dressmaker by trade, and my sister will give me a 'ome; I 'ate being 'ere--living on the rates, and 'e not having done better for us than this Bastille--though I allus says as it was the lying tongue of a perliceman--it seems fair I should go free. The lady wot comes round Sundays told me I ain't got no responsibility for my children being a married lady with the lines. Then the little man flew out most violent: 'Don't talk like that, my good woman; of course you have responsibility to your children; you must not believe what ignorant people tell you.'

"Then I heard the tall, ginger-haired chap wot sits next to the little man--'im as you unmarried girls go before to try and father your children--I 'eard 'im say quite distinct: 'The woman is right, sir; married women are not responsible for their children, but I believe the husband is within his rights in refusing to allow her to leave the workhouse without him.'

"Then they asked me to retire, and the Master told me to come back 'ere, and I should know the result later. Oh, Lord! I'm that 'ot and upset with the worry of it all, I feel I'll never cool again," and Mrs. Cleaver wiped her brow and fanned herself with her apron.

"Single life has its advantages," said a tall, handsome woman, who was nursing a baby by the window. "You with the lines ain't been as perlite as might be to us who ain't got 'em, but we 'as the laugh over you really. I'm taking my discharge to-morrow morning, and not one of 'em dare say me nay; I needn't appear afore Boards and be worried and upset with 'usbands and Guardians and things afore I can take myself off the parish and eat my bread independent."

"But why weren't you married, Pennyloaf? Not for want of asking, I'll be bound."