Workhouse Characters Part 4

"You're right, mate," said the young man. "This job has put me off my tea. I'll just turn into the 'King of Bohemia,' and drink till I forget them children's sobs."

_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 dest.i.tution 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 ma.s.ses 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 compa.s.sion 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 compa.s.sion 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 p.a.w.n 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 p.a.w.n, 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 cla.s.s. 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 ma.s.s 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 pa.s.sing 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 fort.i.tude and trust in G.o.d.

Whilst he talked my eye wandered round the court and the motley collection of plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses. The preponderance of the male s.e.x 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 ma.s.s of ungranted pet.i.tions, 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 G.o.d 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 cla.s.sed the tale as belonging to the French realistic school of Zola and Maupa.s.sant. 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 "pa.s.sed" 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 G.o.d 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.