Memoirs of a Surrey Labourer Part 21

_March 8._--I have promised Bettesworth (we walked down the garden this morning to talk it over out of earshot) that when he finds himself past work I will make him an allowance, to keep him from the workhouse. He is to tell me, when the time comes; at present, he still hopes to do a little more.

I was wrong, it seems, in surmising that dread of losing his employment made him so anxious to quit the infirmary. "Was it so?" was a question put to him this morning, point blank. He denied it. "No,"

he said; "I was afraid I should die. That's what made me so eager to get away. I felt I should die if I bid there another week." So many died, he said, while he was there--several in one day, I understood, one being the man in the bed next to Bettesworth's. This man "made up his mind" and was gone, in twenty minutes--one Freeland, from Moorways. There also died there a certain old Taff Skinner, an old neighbour whom Bettesworth, in his own convalescence, tried to get upstairs to see. A nurse turned him back, he protesting that he "didn't know as he was doin' wrong," and she explaining that he might only visit another room or ward on visiting day. "Or else," he told me, "Old Taff's wife an' daughter was there, and ast me if I wouldn't go an' see 'n to cheer 'n up."

Having got home and shifted a few things to Jack's, Bettesworth's great joy was in his "nice soft bed." He has been used to feathers, and found the mattress hard at the infirmary. He said with gusto, "That was a treat to me, to get into that bed and roll myself over.

And my poor old back seemed almost well the next morning." Across the loins and down the back of his thighs he is tender, and his elbows were beginning to get sore from hoisting himself up on the mattress.

To ease the loins Jack has been rubbing in "some o' that strong liniment." On the whole Jack seems to be treating the old man very well.

That he will continue to do so is devoutly to be hoped. For there are not many refuges open to Bettesworth now, nor can the infirmary any more be looked to as one of them. According to his last version of it, when the doctor asked him if it was really his wish to leave, he answered, "Once I gets away I'll never come here no more, not if there's a ditch at home I can die in."

_March 12._--I find there is a steady set of public opinion--that is to say, the opinion of his own cla.s.s--against Bettesworth, which has grown very marked since he came out of the infirmary, although probably it is not quite a new thing.

One of the first indications of it, besides old Nanny's animosity already mentioned, appeared while he was still away, when Bill Crawte spoke to me in the town, alleging that the old man had been misbehaving of late in his evenings. I received an impression of drinking bouts and disorder, which was conveyed in innuendo rather than directly. "He spends too much money at the public-house; and he can't take much without its going to his head"--such was Crawte's expression, intended, it seemed, to warn me that I was deceived in my protege.

A few days ago I met old Mrs. Skinner. I remember that I crossed the street to speak to her "because she was such a stranger," and she looked flattered, but complained of "such a bad face-ache, sir," and grimaced, holding her black shawl over her mouth. Then she hurried into the subject of Bettesworth's home-coming, and did not hesitate to a.s.sure me that he was "a _bad_ old man." Once again I felt that I was being warned that the old man was unworthy of my help. I had heard Mrs. Skinner before, however--months before--on the same subject. In her way she is a good woman whom I like and respect, but she has a taste for commenting on other people's faults. Moreover, there was never much love lost between her and Bettesworth: his old tongue, I suspect, has been too shrewd for her at times.

Yesterday I met old Nanny, with a bundle on her back, and I stopped to speak, partly sheltered from a driving rain by the umbrella she held behind her. She, too, has not scrupled before to complain of Bettesworth's behaviour, and always with the air of saying to me "he's not the good old man you take him for." But yesterday her tongue knew no reticence; she felt wronged herself, and she lashed Bettesworth's character mercilessly, in the hope of hurting him in my esteem. Swift and snappish, out came the long screed, while the old woman's eyes were fiery and her cheeks flushed. Oh, but she felt righteous, I am sure. She was exposing a blackguard, a scamp! And if she could injure him, she would.

I do not recall many of her words. His ingrat.i.tude to her was Bettesworth's chief offence--after all she had done for him! So she told what she had done: how she had cooked his supper night after night, and got it all ready while he sat down there at the public-house waiting to be fetched. She wouldn't have done it, but Kid said, "Poor old feller, help 'n all you can. He en't got n.o.body to do anything for him." And she had washed his clothes, and scrubbed out his house; and he was such a dirty old man that it almost made her sick. And when he was ill, Mrs. Cook watching (downstairs, I gathered) was obliged to sit all night with the window open, because the place so stank. I heard how many pails of water it took to scrub the floor; how the boards upstairs--new boards "as white as drippen snow" when the Bettesworths took possession--would in all likelihood never come white again; and how the landlord had said that he should demand a week's rent (from me, of course) to pay for cleaning, when Bettesworth moved. And now Bettesworth was gone away, "taking his money" (his wages or his allowance), and "I don't like it, Mr. Bourne!" said old Nanny, vehemently. Not, apparently, that the money was an object to her, but that all her good offices had gone unthanked, nay, minimized.

Had not Bettesworth complained that he had no one to do anything for him? And all the time Mrs. Norris was slaving for him. Had he not told me during his illness that he had taken nothing, when, in fact, Mrs.

Cook not long before had taken him up a cup of tea and two slices of bread and b.u.t.ter, which he had eaten? "I don't _like_ it, Mr. Bourne."

No, I could see that she did not; I could hear as much in the emphasis of the words, rapped out like swift hammer-strokes; and the old woman looked almost handsome in the flush of her indignation.

I left her and pa.s.sed on, wondering what the original offence could have been to produce such bitterness. Probably it was some harsh speech of Bettesworth's, some antique savagery drawn from him in the despair of his lonely situation, with his powers failing, the workhouse looming. Suspicious, hard, obstinate, wrapped-up now wholly in himself, he may easily ... but it is useless to surmise.

Useless is it, too, to pretend that the repeated insinuations have had no effect upon me. As a rule backbiters succeed only in making me see their own unreason, while mentally I take sides with their victims; but in this case fancies of my own were corroborated by the slanders of the neighbours. I have believed, and think it likely, that Bettesworth is ready to deceive me to his own advantage, just as I have long known that he has not really been worth half his wages. He is in desperate plight, dependent on my caprice, and he cannot afford to be over scrupulous on a point of honour. As for old Nanny and the others, I suppose their sense of justice is outraged by Bettesworth's good fortune in having my protection. They are jealous; they resent the imposition which they suppose is being put upon me, and imagine me a blind fool who ought to be enlightened.

To-day I fell in with old Mrs. Hall, whose husband is still at the infirmary. She had nothing hopeful to tell me about that old man's condition. He had been more contented, however, since his master had written to him, though he did talk, bedridden as he is, of digging a hole somewhere under the infirmary wall, so that he might escape to the cab that would bring him back home. But Mrs. Hall didn't think--if she said what she really thought--that he would ever come home again.

At his great age (why, he is eighty to-morrow!) how could she hope that he would recover? Poor little dumpy old woman, with the plump face, and dainty chin, and round eyes--her lips trembled, talking of her husband and of her own difficulties. "For while he lays up there,"

she said, "I got nothin' to live on," except a little help from the Vicar. Her daughter, married and away in Devonshire, will pay the quarter's rent, but....

"And Mr. Bettesworth's out, it seems," the old woman continued. "It seems to me he's an ungrateful old man. For 'tis all nice and comfortable up there. It do seem ungrateful."

Such was Mrs. Hall's unasked for, unexpected comment, on Bettesworth's behaviour. Poor old woman, to me too it seemed unjust that she should be so unaided, and he, perhaps, so over-aided. He is no old woman, though; allowance must be made for that. He could not away with the sort of comfort so praised by Mrs. Hall.

Is, then, the last word about Bettesworth to be that he is dirty, dishonest, degraded? He may be all three (he certainly is the first) and yet have a claim to be helped now and remembered with honour.

For, as another recent incident has served to remind me, our point of view is in danger of growing too narrow. One of the kindest of cultured women, going about her work of visiting the sick, asked me how Bettesworth was doing. Then, in her amiable way, she talked of him and of his wife, and soon was speaking of the extreme dirtiness in which they had lived. As a district visitor she had once or twice come upon them at meal-times, when their food on the table caused her a physical loathing--just as once I had been nauseated myself by the sight of a kippered herring by the old man's bedside. The district visitor--being invited and finding no courteous excuse for refusal--had sat down in Bettesworth's easy-chair, not without dread of what she might bring away. Most cottages she could visit without such terrors; most people, she supposed, "managed to get a tub once a week"; but the Bettesworths.... The lady spoke laughingly. In her comely life, an experience like this is afterwards an adventure.

I smiled, and said, "They are survivals."

"Of the fittest?"

We both laughed; but when I added, "Yes, for some qualities," we knew (or I at least knew) that indeed that squalor of an earlier century is a.s.sociated with a hardness of fibre most intimately connected with the survival of the English people.

Suppose that now in stress of circ.u.mstances, the toughness warps, turns to ill-living, suspicion, selfishness and dishonesty, in the grim determination not to "go under": is it then no longer venerable, because it has ceased to be amiable? The onlooker should give an eye to his own point of view.

x.x.xV

_March 13, 1905._--This (Monday) morning Bettesworth came, slowly hobbling with his stick. Last week he had promised himself to be at work again to-day; but no--he is less well, and fancies he has taken fresh cold.

He looked white, weak, pathetically docile and kind, as he led the way from the kitchen door to the wood-shed, evidently desirous of a private talk.

He said he was "purty near beat, comin' over Saddler's Hill"; he had never before had such a job, having been forced to stop to get breath.

It "felt like a lot o' mud in his chest; it was all slushin' and sloppin' about inside him, jest like a lot o' thick mud." But he had been worrying so: he wanted to pay me his rent. And then about his club pay--that worried him, too. He need not have worried? Ah, but he had done so, none the less; and Liz had said to him, "You better go up an' see about it, and you'll feel better when you got it off your mind"; or else he was hardly fit to be out in this cold wind. He had stayed indoors from Sat.u.r.day afternoon until this morning. At tea-time, "about four o'clock yesterday," Liz had brought him a cup of tea with an egg beaten up in it, which had seemed to do him good.

And she had got him half a quarte'n of whisky to hearten him up as he came away this morning. But he could not eat. "Law! they boys o'

Jack's 'll eat three times what I do. I likes to see 'em. Jack says, 'What d'ye think o' that for a table?'" and indicates to Bettesworth the plentiful supply.

A hint brought the wandering talk back readily to the subject which the old man had on his mind. "_I_ never owed that money to the club, what you says Mrs. Eggar drawed from you.... She've done me out o'

that, ye see." Just as he had supposed, so it proved, he affirmed: he had paid up to last August; and the inference was that Mrs. Eggar had drawn the money from me for her own uses, and now Bettesworth must repay it.

He produced two membership cards in support of his statements. The first was the same which Mrs. Eggar had brought me, at that time bearing no receipt later than February, 1904, but now certifying a further payment of 1s. 6d. up to August. The other was a new card, giving receipt in full to February of this year. To judge by the ink, these two receipts had been given at the same time; in other words, they had been obtained by Mrs. Eggar in return for the money duly paid in by her. But it took me long to satisfy Bettesworth (if he was satisfied) that she had not "done" me out of three shillings on his behalf.

And then there was his rent, which had been running on all the time that he was at the infirmary. He had brought the money for that now, to get out of my debt.

Of course it was refused. In consideration of this rent, I said, I had not helped otherwise during his sickness, and I did not wish him to repay it. What he said to that I regret that I do not exactly remember, but it went somehow in this way:-- "You done a _lot_ for me, sir; more 'n you any call to. And I thinks of you...." He was unable to go on and express his meaning, but his tone rang very sincere. I did not find any ingrat.i.tude in him; nor was there any dishonesty in the purpose for which he had come to me.

He, however, found dishonesty in the neighbours, who have bought his household goods and now hang back with the purchase money. So cheap, too, he had sold his things! "That landlord at the Swan said 'twas givin' of 'em away.... But what could I do?" Bettesworth urged. His brother-in-law had advised him "not to stand out for sixpence; 't wa'n't as if they was new things," and had warned him against giving trust. But what could he do? Even as it was, the trouble of attending to the business had been too much for him in his weak state. So, one had had a table, and another two saucepans, and so on; and now he could not get the money. Instead of twenty-two shillings which should have been received on Sat.u.r.day, he found himself with no more than five; and this morning only another five shillings had come in.

Yes, the people had "had" him; he was sure of that. There was "that Tom Beagley's wife.... She come to me Sat.u.r.day sayin' Tom was on the booze and hadn't given her no money, so she couldn't pay me....

'That's a lie,' our Tom says; 'he en't bin on the booze. He bin at work all the week, over here at Moorways.' So I told her I should have the things back, if she didn't pay me this mornin'." Other instances were generalized; Bettesworth thought himself cheated all round.

By this time we had left the shed, and were standing in its shadow, where the wind blew up cold and draughty. "Let's get into the sunshine," I proposed.

As we moved, "Wasn't it a day yesterday?" I remarked; and Bettesworth a.s.sented, "No mistake!" It had in fact been a Sunday of March gales, of furious rain and hail-storms, and then gay bursts of sunshine hurrying down the valley. With none to sweep it, the path where we stood was still bestrewn with a litter of dead twigs, which the east winds had left, but this fierce westerly wind had finally torn out from the lilac bushes. "It's a sort of pruning," I said, and was answered, "Yes, that must do a lot o' good. Done it better 'n you could ha' done, too." We found a sunny place, although still a draughty wind searched us out, and fast-changing clouds sometimes drew across the sunshine and left us shivering. "More showers," we predicted, "before the day is out."

There, in the sunshine, Bettesworth coughed--a little painful cough without variety. It seemed as if it need not have begun, yet, having begun, need never cease. "You must get rid of that cough," said I.

"I en't got strength to cough," he replied. Then he put his hands against the pit of his stomach. "That's where it hurts me. Sims to tear me all to pieces." I advised care in feeding, and avoidance of solids. "Bread an' b.u.t.ter's the only solid food I takes," he said.

"Liz wanted me to have a kipper. 'Naw,' I says, 'I en't much of a fish man.' But I don't want it. I en't got no appet.i.te." It was suggested that the warm weather presently would restore him; but he returned, very quietly; "I dunno. I sims to think I shan't last much longer. I got that idear. I can feel it, somehow."

"How long have you felt like that?"

"This six weeks I've had that sort o' feelin'." He went on to repeat what he had said to Jack in consequence. When he had got his bed and other things into Jack's house, "'It's all yours now,' I says. 'You take everything there is. All you got to do is to see me put away.'"

His weakness was distressing to see, and he had to get back home somehow. Would a little more whisky help him? We adjourned to the kitchen, sat down there near the fire, and while the old man had his stimulant he talked of many things.

At first, handing me the key of his cottage, he told of his cat, how plump she looked, and how she had welcomed him home in such fashion as to make Liz say with a laugh, "No call to ask whose cat she is!"

Sometimes he thought of "gettin' old Kid to put a charge o' shot into her"; sometimes, of "puttin' her in a sack an' drownin' her." Either was more than he had the heart to do; yet he could not bear to think of his cat without a home. Would not Mrs. Norris take care of her, then?" Oh yes, she'd _feed_ her, but.... But Mrs. Norris can't _hear_, poor old soul. She bin a good ol' soul to me, though; and so've Kid."

Of course I did not tell Bettesworth how old Nanny had lately talked of him.

What to do about his cabbages puzzled him. He had paid old Carver Cook two shillings for digging the ground and planting them; and now that he had given up the cottage, there was this value like to be lost! He must get "whoever took the cot" to take to the cabbages too; they ought to. He didn't like to cut 'em down--never liked to do anybody else a bad turn, but.... Ultimately I promised to get the price allowed, in settling with his landlord.