Memoirs of a Surrey Labourer Part 20

And on the following morning, as we had arranged, their daughter went that weary journey to the relieving officer, and brought back to me by ten o'clock his order for the medical officer's attendance. It seemed that the old pitiful routine we had been through several times before was to be entered upon once more; but to expedite matters I enclosed the order for attendance in a note of my own to the doctor; and the girl started off with it to the town, to add another three miles to the five or six she had already walked that morning.

That, one would have supposed, should have almost ended the trouble; but though a man be dying it is not easy, under the existing Poor Law, to get him that help which the ratepayers provide, for the machinery is c.u.mbersome, and the people who should profit by it do not appreciate its intricacies, or know how to make it work smoothly. In the present instance much trouble would have been saved, if Bettesworth's neighbours had known enough to correct an oversight of the doctor's. There was no delay on his side; but unfortunately it was the _loc.u.m tenens_ again who called; and he contented himself with giving his verbal a.s.sent to Bettesworth's going to the infirmary.

That, of course, was useless; but the women attending Bettesworth did not know it. On the contrary, they supposed that the formal certificate could be dispensed with, and that a note from myself would satisfy the relieving officer. A message from them reached me, begging me to write such a note, which, they said, Bettesworth's nephew would take over to Moorway's in the evening.

Of course the suggestion was utterly futile. The relieving officer could not recognize a request from me as an order, and an attempt to make him do so, if it effected nothing worse, would certainly delay Bettesworth's removal for yet another day, although, as it was, the unhappy old man must be left a second night in the care of his ignorant if well-meaning neighbours. But worse might easily follow the sending of Bettesworth's nephew for a long walk on such a fool's errand. Strong pa.s.sionate man that he was, it was more than likely that he would quarrel with the officer; and to applicants for relief a relieving officer is an autocrat with whom it is not well to quarrel.

These considerations, duly weighed, persuaded me not to do what I was asked; but I sent the messenger back with the request that Bettesworth's nephew should call upon me.

He came in the evening: a black-haired powerful builder's-labourer, tired with his day's work, but prepared to be sent on a five-mile walk. As we discussed Bettesworth's condition, and the desirability of getting him to the infirmary, the man's tone jarred a little. He said, "It's the best place for him. But it strikes me he'll never come home again." A feeling pa.s.sed over me that a wish was father to this thought: that Jack Bettesworth was not eager for the responsibility which would rest upon him, if his uncle should come home. After events seem to prove that I wronged the man: on this occasion I was chiefly eager to secure his help. Almost apologetically I said, "It makes a lot of running about." "Well, can't 'elp it," was the laconic answer.

We did help it to some extent, however, by sending him, not to the relieving officer, which would have cost another five miles, but to the doctor, at the expense of no more than three. The nephew was to get the doctor's certificate, and post it in the town to the relieving officer; and for this purpose he was furnished with a stamped and addressed envelope, in which was enclosed a letter to the relieving officer, begging him to attend to the case on his way through the village in the morning. It was the best we could do. Should all go well, not more than ten or twelve miles of walking (I omit the carrying of messages to and from me) and not more than two days of waiting would have sufficed for getting Bettesworth the help of which he was officially certified to be in need.

_February 9, 1905._--And all did go well. On Thursday morning, the 9th of February, I went to Bettesworth's cottage, and found preparations in progress for his going away. There was more than preparation. With all their kindliness, it must be said of the labouring people that they want tact. Bettesworth's poor home had become a sort of show, in its small squalid fashion. The door stood wide open; there were half a dozen people in the living-room, where the old man had of late shut himself in with his loneliness and his independence; and upstairs in his bed he must have been aware of the nakedness of the place now displayed. The unswept hearth and the extinct fire were pitiful to see; yet there stood women and children, seeing them. Mrs. Eggar ("Kate") had a good right to be there. She had sat up a second night, and, albeit sleepy-eyed and untidy, there was helpfulness in her large buxom presence. Perhaps there were reasons too for her daughter's being there with the baby. Another woman, tall, grave, and sympathetic of aspect, had brought two more children; and she told me that upstairs Jack Bettesworth's wife Liz was washing the old man. Liz, by the way, was prepared to go with him on his journey.

I went up into the little square-windowed dirty bedroom and saw him.

He was inclined to cry at the prospect of shutting up his home; but a little talk about my garden--perhaps dearer to him now than even his home was--brightened him up. It pleased him to learn that some early peas had been sown. In what part? he wanted to know. And being told, "Ah," he said, "and there's another place where peas 'd do well: up there under George Bryant's hedge." When I left, it was with a promise to go and see him in the infirmary on the next visiting day. Going out I saw old Nanny Norris at her door, observant of all that went on, but unserviceably deaf. She was wearing her bonnet and black shawl, looked ill, and complained of cough and of pains across her shoulders. I think there were two or three other women standing near. They were probably waiting to see Bettesworth removed, as he duly was, at mid-day.

x.x.xII

_February 10._--The day after his departure a rather annoying circ.u.mstance came to light. The monthly contribution to the club was found to be a whole year in arrear. As the sum was but threepence a month, so that even now only three shillings were due, it seemed a little too bad of Bettesworth to have neglected the payments which at least secured him a doctor's attendance and at his death would produce four pounds for funeral expenses. Perhaps, however, he was not so much to blame as appeared; at any rate, the manner by which we learnt of his carelessness offers to the imagination the material for an affecting picture of the old man on his sick-bed. It was Mrs. Eggar who, in some trouble for him, brought his club-membership card to me, and told how he had asked her to find it. On the eve of his departure he had taken her into his confidence, spoken of the possibility that he might be going away only to die, and desired, in that event, to be brought home from the infirmary and buried decently, "same as his wife," with this sum which the club would pay. Of course the money for the arrears had to be found, and Mrs. Eggar undertook to pay it to the club secretary on the next day, when she went to the town to do her Sat.u.r.day's shopping. Bettesworth had further asked her, she said, to find his discharge papers from the army, and see what reason for his discharge was stated, since he had forgotten. I have never understood why he should have been curious on that point, at such a time. Defective sight seems to have been the unexciting reason alleged.

And now, its occupant gone and Mrs. Eggar's rummagings done, the squalid tenement next door to the Norris's stood shut up, with the door locked on the few poor belongings it contained. To the neighbours there seemed to be all the circ.u.mstances of a death, except the death itself. People began to remember, what I had failed to observe yet could well believe, how greatly Bettesworth had changed of late; others recalled complaints he had uttered of being unbearably lonely.

It was the general opinion that, even if he lived, he would never work again, and never again come back to the place he had left. Three or four men approached me in the hope of getting work in my garden; while as for the cottage, had I cared to give it up, there were already (the owner told me) four or five applicants eager to take it. What I should do, and what Bettesworth, formed the subject of a good deal of speculation. Old Nanny, meeting me in the road, plunged excitedly into the middle of the discussion. In her harsh snapping voice she a.s.sured me that the cottage was "as dirty as _ever_!" and that, as regarded Bettesworth, the infirmary was "the best place _for_ him!" "Have ye give up the cot?" she asked. "No." "Oh! ... Beagley" (the owner) "told young Cook as you had?" "I haven't." "Well, he _said_ you had." For some reason that was never divulged, Nanny had conceived a violent animosity towards Bettesworth, which I then supposed to be peculiar to herself; but in other respects her unmannerly questionings only betrayed the att.i.tude of almost all the other neighbours. Bettesworth was done for: he had better stay at the infirmary and let others have his work and his cottage. Such was the prevailing opinion. The people were not intentionally unkind; but in the merciless working-cla.s.s struggle for life one may admire how long Bettesworth had held his own.

On the other hand, the opposite side, Bettesworth's side, was championed probably by not a few labouring men, who had learnt to appreciate his quality. Among these was George Bryant. Bryant had been doing a few necessary jobs for me during Bettesworth's illness, and it was to his interest, if anybody's, that the old man should not come home again. When I repeated to him, however, what people had been saying--namely, that Bettesworth ought now to stay in the infirmary, he said "H'm!" and clearly did not agree. Finally, "Well, of course, we knows 'tis a place where old people _ought_ to be looked after, but--well, Bettesworth likes his liberty. And so should I, if I was in his place!"

With a cordial feeling which warmed me at the time and may give a little colour now to the grey narrative, he spoke of the change he had lately observed in Bettesworth, who had confessed to him that life had grown so lonely "he didn't know how ever to put up with it." On the very last Sunday evening Bryant had been over at the old man's cottage, "and 'tis a _lot_ cleaner 'n what it used to be in the old lady's time." But the difficulty was that Bettesworth could not see. I a.s.sented, mentioning his last labours at planting shallots. Bryant smiled; from his adjoining garden he had noticed the same thing a year ago, with some peas. But, in general, he admired Bettesworth. "He's a man that don't talk much till he's started, and then.... He was tellin' me Sunday about the things he see in the war. I reckon that got a lot to do with the way he is now: the cold winds, when the tents blowed over, and he'd have to lay out all in the mud. He might think 't didn't hurt 'n," but in all likelihood Bettesworth was now feeling the effects of these sufferings of so long ago. The Crimean wind, as described by Bettesworth, seemed to have impressed Bryant. "He did tell me what regiment it belonged to, but I forgets which 'twas; but one o' the regiments had the big drum lifted right up into the air an'

carried out to sea by the wind."

x.x.xIII

The remainder of Bettesworth's story may for the most part be told in the notes made at the time, without much comment. I was unable to go to the infirmary on the first visiting day after his admission, as I had promised that I would; but I managed to get to him a week later, namely on Tuesday, the 21st of February, when he had been there twelve days; and on the next day the following account of the visit was jotted down.

_February 22, 1905._--At the infirmary yesterday I found Bettesworth still in bed, in a large ward on the ground floor. Out of doors, though it was a day of fair sunshine generally, the north-east wind was bitter, and a storm of sleet and spa.r.s.e hail which I had been watching as it drove across the eastern sky, and which had reached me as I neared the gate, made it agreeable to get inside the fine well-warmed building. From Bettesworth's bedside I could see, through the tall windows of the ward, distant fields and the grey storm drifting slowly over them. Trees on the horizon stood out sombre against the sombre sky.

Within, was plentiful light--plentiful air and warmth too, and cleanly order. The place looked almost cheerful, although some twenty men lay there, suffering or unhappy. One only was sitting up, who coughed exhaustedly, not violently; he seemed able to do no more than sit up, shaking with debility. In the beds the patients mostly lay quite still. The man next beyond Bettesworth drew the counterpane up over his ears, and I saw a glowing feverish eye watching me. There were but few other visitors--only four, I think, besides myself. Somewhere an electric bell sounded. A little nursing attendant with sleeves stripped up came stumping cheerily all down the ward. She had been washing dishes or something in a kind of scullery just outside when I came in. As she pa.s.sed through she said, as though to interest the sick men, "This is how I do my work--see? Walkin' about like this!"

My first impression of the place was favourable; all looked so well-appointed, so sumptuous even. And there lay Bettesworth under his white counterpane, himself wonderfully clean and trim, and wearing a floppy white nightcap. I had hoped to find him sitting up; but still....

"How are you?" I shook his hand--unrecognizably thin and clean and soft--and he flushed and sat up, pleased enough. But, "I'm as well as ever I shall be," he murmured; or was it (I don't quite remember) "I shan't never be no better." Shocked, and not sure of having heard aright, I asked again, and the answer came, "I shan't never be no better, so long as I bides here."

What was the matter, then? Everything. The interview turned forthwith into one protracted, unreasoning grumble from the old man. He had not food enough. Bread and b.u.t.ter--just a little piece at one time, and a little piece more at some other time. And beef-tea--"they calls it beef-tea, but 'tis only that stuff out o' the bottle--_I_ forgets the name of it. Bovril? Ah, that's it. One cup we has at home 'd make twenty o' these."

I tried to reason with him, but it was useless. Evidently he was very weak. He coughed at times, but said he had no pain now. What he wanted was to get up, and be about, where he could obtain for himself such things as he might fancy. If a man, he argued, feeling as he did, was allowed to get up and put on his clothes for an hour or two, and have a sluice down, wouldn't it brighten that man up? But last night--he didn't know what time it was, and he got out of bed. One of the nurses came in just then. "'What are you doin' out there?' she said; 'you ought to be in bed.' 'And so did you ought to be,' I says." To judge from his tone in narrating, he said it in no amiable voice. He added petulantly, "There! give me Guildford Hospital before this, twenty times over!"

Thus he grumbled continuously. "There's old Hall in that bed over there. _He's_ wantin' to go 'ome, too." Bettesworth spoke with a sneer, not at our poor old neighbour Hall, but at Hall's pitiful prospect of getting release from this imprisonment. He told me of the other's bad cough, and of his age, and so forth, and for a minute or two forgot his own grievances, but only for a minute or two. I asked some question about the doctor. The doctor? They never set eyes on him, for two or three days at a time. And he didn't give him any medicine much, either. That bottle he" (Bettesworth) "had from the club doctor before leaving home--he only had two doses out of it, but that was a _lot_ nicer than this stuff. And the bed was hard--"nothin'

soft to lay on," and his back was getting sore. "Let's see--'twas a fortnight last Thursday I come here, wasn't it?" "No, a week." "Oh, only a week? I thought 'twas a fortnight. The time seems so _long_."

A woman and a girl were at old Hall's bedside, farther down the ward.

I could see him sitting up, panting, white, the picture of despair.

Then the woman turned and came towards us; it was Bettesworth's niece Liz. She was smiling a little bewilderedly. "He wants me to send for the nurse," she said, alluding to Hall; "he wants to go home."

She joined me in talking to Bettesworth. One or two things I told him about the garden awakened but a faint interest in him; and meanwhile I could see Hall sitting up, his under-lip drooping, his eyes abnormally bright. Yet I think he could not see much. Usually he wears spectacles, being eighty years old. And still we talked to Bettesworth. His niece was as unsuccessful as myself in trying to reason with him. To some remark of hers, suggesting that if he were at home he would be without anyone to nurse him, he replied fiercely (and I have no notion of his meaning), "No! and there won't _be_ none, neither, once I gets home and got my key. I shall lock my door!..."

Liz argued then that this place was so comfortable and so clean. "'Tis the patients has to do that," said Bettesworth.

At last a nurse came to old Hall, and we listened while he proffered his request to go home. "To-morrow," he said. "Oh, you can't go till you've seen the doctor!" The nurse spoke pleasantly, though of course with decision, and bustled away. But Bettesworth, with his sneer, commented, "Ah! I _thought_ she'd snap his head off!"

Weary of him, I went over to speak to Hall, who was now looking utterly baffled. Until I was quite close he did not recognize me, but then he shook hands joyfully. To him, as to Bettesworth, I counselled patience. Ah, but he felt he shouldn't get on, so long as he bid there. He couldn't get on with the food. The bread in the broth did not get soft, and as for the dry bread--"I've no teeth at all in the top row," he said, and therefore he could not masticate it. Another reason for his wishing to leave was that his wife was ill with bronchitis at home, and he longed to return to her.

Well, I had no comfort for him, any more than for Bettesworth. And when I left, they were still dissatisfied, and I was equally sure that their grievances were unreal. What, then, was the matter with them?

The root of it all, I think, was in this: that they were homesick. The good order, the cleanliness, the sense of air and s.p.a.ce, the routine of the inst.i.tution, had overwhelmed them. They were no longer their own masters in their own homes. They were pining for their little poky rooms, nice and stuffy, with the windows shut and the curtains half drawn; they missed their own furniture, pictures, and worthless rubbish endeared to them by old a.s.sociations. They did not care, at their age, to begin practising hygiene and learn how to live to grow old. They were old already, and wanted to be at home.

_February 28._--I have no record of my second visit to the infirmary a week later; but, as I remember, Bettesworth was then sitting up in a day-room, so that he was evidently better, although still extremely feeble.

x.x.xIV

_March 7, 1905._--Bettesworth left the infirmary on Sat.u.r.day morning, March the 4th. I met him half a mile away from it, in the town, and he was trembling with weakness where he stood. But he protested that he should get home well enough; he had just had a nice rest, a friend of mine having taken him into his house to sit down by the fire. My friend told me afterwards how the old man, invited in because of his pitiable condition, had seemed to crawl in a state of collapse to the chair set for him.

His tale to my friend was curiously different from the account he gave me of his leaving the infirmary. To the former he explained that on the Thursday he had desired to be allowed to go home. The wish was communicated on the next day to the doctor, who asked, "Do you want to go then?" and was answered ungraciously, "I shan't get no better here." On Sat.u.r.day, therefore, his clothes were brought to him, and out he came.

But this was not quite the same story that he told me. Perhaps I should premise that I felt annoyed with him for coming out, since it was plain who would have to provide for him; and he may have seen that I was displeased when I said, "You have no business out! You're not fit for work, and you ought to have stayed another week or two."

Somehow so I greeted him, none too kindly. He replied that there were seven or eight "turned out" that morning, their room being wanted for others. Nor did he forget to complain. His clothes, he said, having been tied in a bundle with a ticket on them, and tossed into a shed, had been returned to him so damp that he felt "shivery" getting into them; and there was no fire by which to dress.

What did he propose to do? was my next question. He was going home, to make up a fire in his bedroom and air his bed. Already he had arranged with Liz and Jack to come and help him do that. Such of his things as were worth anyone's buying he should sell--Mrs. Eggar, for instance, would take the Windsor chairs; and then he was going to live, probably, at Jack's. But his first care was to go and air his bed.

Firing--coal, at least--he possessed; wood could be provided by knocking up two old tables which were grown rickety. To my protest against such destruction, he replied that already before his illness he had touched one of the tables with his little axe.

He trembled, but his mouth shut resolutely, so that I got the impression, and that not for the first time of late, of something desperate about him, something hard, fierce, suspicious.

The discrepancy between his stories to my friend and to myself strengthens the impression, and as I write this a hypothesis shapes itself: that he fears to lose his employment with me; fears that I am weary of him and anxious to get him permanently settled in the workhouse. For this reason, perhaps, he reviles that hated place, hurries from it, will not own to weakness though I see him shaking, will be independent as to coal and the rest. I asked him how he was off for money. He could do with a shilling or so; but he did not want to get into debt.

That was three days ago. I was from home to-day when he came to see me, announcing himself vastly better. He has gone to live with Jack, in whose house he has a room to himself and "a nice soft bed," and is well looked after, he says. Liz has even been giving him a cup of tea in bed--or desiring to do so.

I understand him to have said that the old cot used to cost him as much as six shillings a week to keep going. And that, he added, would be nearly enough for him to live upon, in his new quarters.