Part 4

_Note._--I understand that under a separation order the police have authority to search for the husband without forcing the family into the House. I called at the police-station to inquire why this was not done, and was informed that the woman's destitution was so great that they feared the children might die of starvation before the man was brought to book.

THE SUICIDE

In she plunged boldly, No matter how coldly The rough river ran; Over the brink of it-- Picture it--think of it, Dissolute man.

She lay in bed, in the long, clean Sick Ward--a fine-grown and well-favoured young woman with masses of black hair tossed over the whiteness of the ratepayers' sheets. Such a sight is rare in a workhouse infirmary, where one needs the infinite compassion of Christian charity or the hardness of habit to bear the pitiful sights of disease and imbecility.

"She looks as if she ought not to be here?" I observed interrogatively to the nurse.

"Attempted suicide. Brought last night by the police, wrapped in a blanket and plastered in mud from head to foot. Magnificent hair?--yes, and a magnificent job I had washing of it, and my corridor and bathroom like a ploughed field. Usual thing--might have killed her?--oh, no; these bad girls take a deal of killing."

I sat down beside the bed, and heard the usual story--too common to excite either interest or compassion in an official mind.

She had been a nursemaid, but had left service for the bar; and there one of the gentlemen customers had been very kind to her and had walked out with her on Sundays and taken her to restaurants and the theatre. Then followed the usual promise of marriage and the long delay, till her work had become impossible, "and the governor had spoken his mind and given her the sack."

"I wrote to the gentleman, but the letter came back through the Returned Letter Office. He must have given me a false name, because when I called at the house no one had heard of him. I had no money, and had to pawn my clothes and the jewellery he had given me to pay for food and the rent of my room. I dared not go home; they are very strict Chapel people, and they told me I never was to come near them after I became a barmaid. Then one day the gentleman wrote, giving no address, and saying that his wife had found out about me, and our friendship must come to an end. He enclosed two pounds, which was all he could afford, and asked me to forgive him the wrong he had done me. I seemed to go clean mad after that letter. I did not know he was married, and I had kept hoping it would be all right, and that he would make an honest woman of me. I thought I should have died in the night. I was taken with dreadful pains, so that I could not move from my bed, and though I shouted for help no one heard till the next morning, when my landlady came to me, and she went for the doctor. The two pounds lasted me about a month, and then I had nothing left again--nothing to eat and nothing to pawn, and the rent always mounting up against me. My landlady was very kind to me, but her husband had gone off with another woman and left her with three children. She was often in want herself, and I couldn't take anything from her. There seemed nothing but the pond; and after the gentleman had played it down so low the whole world looked black and inky before my eyes. I just seemed to long for death and peace before every one knew my disgrace. I came up twice to chuck myself into the pond, and twice I hadn't the pluck. Then last night I had been so sick and dizzy all day with hunger I did not feel a bit of a coward any longer, so I waited about till it was dark and then I climbed up on the railings and threw myself backwards. The water was bitterly cold, and like a fool I hollered; then I sank again, and the water came strangling and choking down my throat, and I remember nothing more till I felt something raising my head and a dark-lantern shining in my face. The nurse came about half an hour ago to tell me that I must go before the magistrates to-morrow; it seems rather hard, when one cannot live, that the police will not even let you die. No, I did not know that girls like me might come to the workhouse. I thought it was only for the very old and the very poor; perhaps if I had known that I need not have made a hole in the water. But must I go with the police to the court all alone amongst a lot of men? Oh, ma'am, I can't; I should be so shamed. And think of the questions they will ask me! And I was a good girl till such a short time ago. Won't one of the nurses come with me, or will you?"

It is one thing to promise to chaperone a beautiful, forlorn young woman lying in bed, a type of injured youth and innocence, and another to meet her in the cold light of 9 a.m. arrayed in the cheap finery of her class. Her flimsy skirt was shrunk and warped after its adventure in the pond, and with the best will in the world the nurses had been unable to brush away the still damp mud which stuck to the gauged flounces and the interstices of the "peek-a-boo" blouse. A damp and shapeless mass of pink roses and chiffon adorned the beautiful hair, which had been tortured and puffed into vulgarity, and to complete the scarecrow appearance, her own boots being quite unwearable, she had been provided with a pair of felt slippers very much _en evidence_ owing to the shrinkage of draperies.

I am afraid I longed for a telegram or sudden indisposition--anything for an excuse decently to break faith. There are not even cabs near our workhouse, and so, under the escort of a mighty policeman, the forlorn little procession set forth to brave the humorous glances of the heartless street-boys until the walls of the police-court hid us, along with other human wreckage, from mocking eyes.

Presently a boy of seventeen or eighteen, small and slight, in the dress of a clerk, came up to my companion and hoped in a very hoarse voice that she had not taken cold.

"This is the gentleman," said the girl, "who saved my life the other night in the pond."

"I don't know how I managed it," said the boy, "but I was passing along the Heath when I heard you screaming so dreadfully that I rushed down to the pond and into the water before I really knew what I was doing, for I can't swim a stroke. I just managed to catch your dress before you sank, but the mud was so slippery I could hardly keep my footing, and your weight was dragging me down into deep water. Fortunately I managed to catch hold of the sunk fence, and that steadied me so that I could lift your head out, and you came round. Yes, I have had a very bad cold. I had to walk a long way in my wet clothes, and the night air was sharp. But never mind that--what I did want to say to you is that you must buck up, you know, and not do this sort of thing. We are here now, and we've got to make the best of it." And, all unconscious of the tragedy of womanhood, the boy read her a simple, straightforward lesson on the duty of fortitude and trust in God.

Whilst he talked my eye wandered round the court and the motley collection of plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses. The preponderance of the male sex bore witness to the law-abiding qualities of women, for, with the exception of the girl and myself, the only other woman was a thin, grey-haired person very primly dressed.

"Yes, that is mother," said the girl, "but she won't speak to me. She has taken no notice of me for more than a year. I've been such a bad example to the younger girls, and they're all strict Chapel folks."

"Lily Weston!" cried a stentorian voice, and our "case" was bundled into the inner court, mother and daughter walking next to each other in silent hostility. The poor girl was placed in the prisoner's dock between iron bars as if she were some dangerous wild beast, whilst "the gentleman" who was the real offender ranged free and unmolested. Constable X 172 told the story of attempted suicide, and then the boy followed. Then the mother spoke shortly and bitterly as to the girl's troubles being of her own making.

"Anything to say?" asked the magistrate; but the girl hung her head low in shame and confusion, whilst the magistrate congratulated the boy on his pluck and presence of mind.

The clerk came round and whispered in the ear of his chief, who looked at the prisoner with grave kindliness under his bushy white eyebrows; he had more sympathy than the laws he administered.

"Call Miss Sperling," he said to the policeman, and then to the prisoner: "If I discharge you now, will you go away with this lady, who will find a home for you?"

"Oh, yes, sir," cried the prisoner with a burst of hysterical weeping as the bolts rattled from the dock and the kindly hand of the lady missionary clasped hers.

A distinguished Nonconformist once told me that our Anglican Prayer Book was a mass of ungranted petitions, which, after careful thought, I had to admit was true; but at least on the whole I think our prayers for this particular magistrate have been answered.

PUBLICANS AND HARLOTS

Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.

It was 7.30 p.m., and in the Young Women's Ward of the workhouse the inmates were going to bed by the crimson light of the July sunset. Most of the women had babies, and now and then a fretful cry would interrupt a story that was being listened to with much interest and laughter and loud exclamations: "Oh, Daisy, you are a caution!"

Had a literary critic been present, he would have classed the tale as belonging to the French realistic school of Zola and Maupassant. The _raconteuse_, Daisy Crabtree, who might have sat as a model for Rossetti's Madonna of the Annunciation, was a slight, golden-haired girl, known to philanthropists as a "daughter of the State," and an object-lesson against such stepmothering. Picked up as an infant under a crab-tree by the police, and christened later in commemoration of the discovery, she had been brought up in a "barrack-school," and a "place" found for her at fifteen, from which she had "run" the following day; the streets had called to their daughter, and she had obeyed. Since then she had been "rescued" twenty-seven times--by Catholics, Anglicans, Wesleyans, Methodists, Baptists, and Salvationists--but not even the great influence of "Our Lady of the Snows" or "The Home of the Guardian Angels" could save this child of vice, and most Homes in London being closed against her, she perpetually sought shelter in the various workhouses of the Metropolis, always being "passed" back to the parish of the patronymic crab-tree where she was "chargeable." Here she resided at the expense of the rates, till some lady visitor, struck by her beauty and seeming innocence, provided her with an outfit and a situation.

"Shut up, Daisy!" said one girl, quiet and demure as her namesake Priscilla. "You're only fit for a pigsty."

"'The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork,'" sang Musical Meg, a half-witted girl, who had given two idiots to the guardianship of the ratepayers. She was possessed of a soprano voice, very clear and true, and, having been brought up in a High Church Home, she punctiliously chanted the offices of _Prime_ and _Compline_, slightly muddling them as her memory was bad.

"Hold your noise, Meg; we want to hear the tale."

"'Brethren, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour, whom resist, steadfast in the faith,'" chanted Musical Meg again.

The door opened and the white-capped attendant entered, leading by the hand two little girls of about twelve and fourteen, who were sobbing pitifully.

"Less noise here, if you please. Meg, you know you have been forbidden to sing at bedtime. Now, my dears, don't cry any more; get undressed and into bed at once; you'll see your mother in the morning."

"Why are you here, duckies? Father run away and left you all starving?" asked an older woman who had been walking about the room administering medicine, opening windows, and generally doing the work of wardswoman.

"Yes," sobbed the children; "they've put mother in another room, and we are so frightened."

"There, stop crying, my dears," said Priscilla; "come and look at my baby."

"What a lot of babies!" said the elder girl. "Have all your husbands run away and left you?"

"Oh, Lor'! child, don't ask questions; get into bed, quick." The children donned their pink flannelette nightgowns and then knelt down beside their beds, making the sign of the Cross. There was deep silence, some of the girls began to cry, "Irish Biddy" threw herself on her knees and recited the Rosary with sobs and gasps.

"Oh, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow, Whiter than snow, whiter than snow,"

sang a blear-eyed girl in a raucous, tuneless chant.

Musical Meg put her fingers to her ears. "You've got the wrong tune, Rosie; listen, I'll hum it to you," but finding her attempts after musical correctness were unheeded, she started herself the _Qui habitat_ of the _Compline_ office.

"Good Lord, girls!" came the shrill voice of Daisy Crabtree; "what's up now? It gives me the hump to hear you sniffing and sobbing over your psalm tunes; let's have something cheerful with a chorus: ''Allo! 'allo! 'allo! it's a different girl again----'"

"Oh! do be quiet, Daisy; wait until the poor little things has said their prayers," came the gentle voice of Priscilla.

"'Different eyes and a different nose----'"

"Stow that, Daisy, or I'll drive those teeth you're so proud of down your throat," said the tall wardswoman.

Temperance Hunt (known to her associates as "Tipsy Tempie," all unconscious of the classical dignity of the oxymoron) was a clear starcher and ironer, so skilled in the trade that it was said she could command her own terms in West End laundries, but like many "shirt and collar hands," she was given to bouts of terrible drunkenness, during which she would pawn her furniture and her last rag for gin. Then she would retire to the workhouse for a time, get some clothes out of the charitable, sign another pledge, and come forth again, to the comfort and peace of many households--for the wearers of Tempie's shirts dressed for dinner without a murmur, and "never said a single 'damn.'"

Tipsy Tempie was a very powerful woman, and the song died on Daisy's lips as she came towards her, a threatening light in her eyes. "All right, keep your 'air on; if I mayn't sing I'll tell you another tale. When I was in the Haymarket last Boat-race night----"

"Now, duckies, you go and get washed; your poor faces are all swelled with crying--can't go to bed like that, you know; we lidies in this ward are most particular."

"Please, teacher," said the elder child, "governess downstairs said as we were to go straight to bed; we had a bath yesterday directly we came in."

"Do what I tell you. A little drop of water'll stop the smarting of all your tears, and you'll get to sleep quicker."

"Now, then, Daisy," she exclaimed, as the two children obediently departed, "if you tell any more of your beastly stories before them two innocent dears, I'll throttle you."

"Then you will be hung," said Daisy airily.

"Do you think I'd care? Good riddance of bad rubbish, as can't help making a beast of itself. But one thing I insists on--don't let us corrupt these 'ere little girls; we're a bad lot in here; most of you are--well, I won't say what, for it ain't polite, and I don't 'old with the pot calling the kettle black, and I know as I'm a drunkard. My father took me to church hisself and had me christened 'Temperance,' hoping as that might counterrack the family failing; but drink is in the blood too deep down for the font-water to get at. Poor father! he struggled hard hisself; but he kicked my blessed mother wellnigh to death, and then 'anged hisself in the morning when he found what he done; so I ain't got no manner of chance, and though I take the pledge when the lidies ask me, I know it ain't no good. Well, as I said before, we're a rotten lot, but not so bad that we can't respect little kiddies, and any one can see that these little girls aren't our sort. I ask you all--all you who are mothers, even though your children ain't any fathers in particular--to back me in this." ("'Ear, 'ear!" said Priscilla.) "I ain't had the advantage some of you have; I ain't been in twenty-seven religious homes like Daisy, and I don't know psalms and hymns like Meg; but I've got as strong a pair of fists as ever grasped irons, and those shall feel 'em who says a word as wouldn't be fit for the lady Guardian's ears."

The frightened Daisy had crept meekly into bed; the two little children came back, and Tempie tucked them up with motherly hands, kissing the little swollen faces; Musical Meg started a hymn.

The assistant matron came up from supper, and her brows knitted angrily as she heard the singing. But at the door of the ward she paused, handle in hand, for, from the lips of the fallen and the outcast, of the wanton and the drunkard, led by the strangely beautiful voice of the half-witted girl, rose the hymn of high Heaven--

Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty! All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea; Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty; God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity.

OLD INKY

There be two things that grieve my heart; and the third maketh me angry: A man of war that suffereth poverty.

A cab stood at the door of the workhouse, and a crowd of children and idlers collected at once. A cab there often contained a lunatic or a "d.t." case, or some person maimed or unconscious--generally something sensational. The cabman slashed his whip several times across the window to apprise the fares of his arrival, but there was no movement from within, and an enterprising boy, peering in through the closed windows, announced gleefully: "Why, it's old Inky and his wife, drunk as lords!"

A volunteer rang the bell, and an aged inmate at once opened the door, and finding that matters were beyond him, fetched a liveried officer, who gazed contemptuously at the cabman and asked satirically what he had got there.

"I have just driven back the Dook and Duchess of Hinkerman to the quiet of their suburban residence after the h'arduous festivities of the season. Her Grace was a little overcome by the 'eat at the crowded reception of the King of Bohemia, and was compelled to withdraw. I sent the footman round to the town 'ouse to say as their Graces would not dine at 'ome this evening, so I must ask you kindly to assist her Grace to alight."

The crowd roared loudly at this sally, and the porter, opening the cab door, drew out an aged and infirm man, whom he dragged off roughly through the whitewashed lobby. Then he returned for the wife, a shrunken little body in a state of stupefaction, whom he flung over his shoulder like a baby, and then the hall door shut with a bang.

The cabman looked rather crestfallen, and requested that the bell might be rung again, and again the aged inmate blinked forth helplessly.

"I am waiting," said the cabman, "for a little gratuity from his Grace; his own brougham not being in sight, I volunteered my services."

The liveried officer again appeared, and a heated altercation ensued, in the midst of which the Master of the workhouse arrived and endeavoured to cut short the dispute, observing that his workhouse not being Poplar, he had no power to pay cab fares for drunken paupers out of the rates. The cabman gulped, and, dropping his Society manner, appealed to the Master as man to man, asking what there was about his appearance that caused him to be taken for "such a ---- fool as to have driven a ---- pair of ---- paupers to a ---- workhouse unless he had seen the colour of a florin a kind-'earted lady had put into the old man's hand afore the perlice ran them both in."

He appealed to the public to decide "whether he looked a greater fool than he was, or whether they took him for a greater fool than he looked." In either case, he "scorned the himputation," and if the Master thought cabmen were so easy to be had he (the Master) had better withdraw to a wing of his own work'us, where, he understood, a ward was set apart for the "h'observation of h'alleged lunatics."

The crowd roared approval, and orders were sent that the old couple should be searched, and after a breathless ten minutes, spent by the cabman with his pink newspaper, a florin was brought out by the aged inmate, reported to have been found in the heel of the old lady's stocking. The crowd roared and cheered, and the cabman drove off triumphant, master of the situation.

I found old "Inky" a few days later sitting in a corner, surly and sullen and pipeless, having been cut off tobacco and leave of absence for four weeks. I suppose discipline must be maintained, but there is something profoundly pathetic in the sight of hoary-headed men and women, who have borne life's heavy load for seventy and eighty years, cut off their little comforts and punished like school-children.

He stood up and saluted at my approach; his manners to what he called "his betters" were always irreproachable. I brought him a message from a teetotal friend urging him to take the pledge, but he sniffed contemptuously; like many a hard drinker, he never would admit the offence.

"I warn't drunk, not I; never been drunk in my life. 'Cos why? I've got a strong 'ed; can take my liquor like a man. Small wonder, though, ma'am, if we old soldiers do get drunk now and then. Our friends are good to us and stand us a drop; and we need it now and then when we get low-spirited, and this work'us and them clothes"--and he glanced contemptuously at his fustians--"do take the pluck out of a man. We ain't got nothing to live for and nothing to be proud on; and it takes our self-respeck--that's what it does--the self-respeck oozes out of our finger-tips. Old Blowy, at St. Pancras Work'us, 'e says just the same. Don't you know Old Blowy, ma'am--'im as had the good luck to ride at Balaclava? I'm told some gentleman's got 'im out of there and boards 'im out independent for the rest of his life. Can't you get me out, ma'am? I ain't done nothin' wrong, and 'ere I am in prison. If it weren't for the missis I'd starve outside. I can play a little mouth-organ and pick up a few pence, and my pals at the 'King of Bohemia' are very good to me. I can rough it, but my missis can't--females are different--and so we was druv in 'ere. The Guardians wouldn't give me the little bit of out-relief I asked for--four shillings would have done us nicely. They listened to some foolish women's cackle--teetotal cant, I call it--and refused me anything. 'Offered the 'Ouse,' as they say; and, though me and the missis half-clemmed afore we accepted the kind invitation, a man can't see 'is wife starve; and so 'ere we are--paupers. Yes, I fought for the Queen"--and he saluted--"Gawd bless 'er! all through the Crimean War; got shot in the arm at Inkermann and half-frozen before Sebastopol, and I didn't think as I should come to the work'us in my old age; but one never knows. The world ain't been right to us old soldiers since the Queen went. I can't get used to a King nohow, and it's no good pretending; and Old Blowy at St. Pancras says just the same. I suppose we're too old. I can't think why the Almighty leaves us all a-mouldering in the work'uses when she's gone. However, I'm a-going out; I shall take my discharge, if it's only to spite 'im and show my independent spirit," and he shook an impotent fist at the Master, who passed through the hall. "It's warm weather now, and we can sleep about on the 'eath a bit. We shan't want much to eat--we're too old."

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