 Preface of Workhouse Characters. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by John Brandon. Workhouse Characters by Margaret Nevinson. Preface. These sketches have been published in various papers during the last 13 years. Many of the characters are live portraits and the wit and wisdom of the common people have been faithfully recorded in a true Boswellian spirit. Others are Vorheit und Dichtung, if one may still quote Geirtha. What all have been suggested by actual fact and experience. During the last 10 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 five shillings a week. Now, seven shilling sixpence 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 The order by which a pauper husband had the right to detain his wife in the workhouse by his marital authority is now repealed.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, this abominable breach of the law of habeas corpus startled the country, especially the rate payers. 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 The order was withdrawn in 1913 on the precedent of the judgment given in the case of the Queen versus Jackson, 1891.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. End of Preface, Recording by John Brandon Chapter 1 Of Workhouse Characters This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Workhouse Characters by Margaret Nevenson Chapter 1 Eunice Smith, Drunk The ball no question makes of eyes and nose, but here and there as strikes the player goes, and he that tossed 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 garden 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 Romain. Eunice Romain The name took me back down long vistas of years to a conference school at Oxford, to the clanging bells of Tom Tower, to the vibrant note of boys' voices in college chapels, to the centre flowers and incense at early celebrations, to the high devotions and ideals of youth, to its passionate griefs and joys. Eunice Romain 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 straight waistcoat, alternately singing hymns and blaspheming, and a tearful melancholic who begged me to dig up her husband's body in the northeast 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 recognised the schoolgirl Eunice by the broad, intellectual brow, and by the delicate, high-bred hands. She's 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 that 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 call some days later, I find my old friend is charged the general sick ward. A placard above her head setting forth her complaint, as chronic alcoholism, cirrhosis of the liver, and cardiac disease. She recognised 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 comes so spontaneously but are so impossible to force, and I heard the short history of her soul's tragedy. Just after I left Cambridge, mother died. She told me on her deathbed 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 lightheartedly 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 realise 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 headmistress 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 realised the pangs of despised love, of jealousy and hate. A nark shine 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. Someone dragged me again to Harley Street and this time the great specialist advised Seer and cheerful society. The latter prescription is not available for lonely and jilted high school mistresses in London, but I tried Seer and it did me good. I don't think for a moment that the doctor realised that I was practically off my head. The terrible 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 Bade 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 plucked 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 classroom, 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 anyone 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'd 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 humor 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 to pass, to cast, 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 Benedict for pure joy. I lunged at a little in 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 tours 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 were crying. Having shed more than my own share of tears, nothing irritates me so much just to see another woman 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'm going to write an article on workhouses and firmries that will startle the public. What do you know of workhouses? You are only a guardian. Tissui 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 examiters from home and Virgil and stately passages from the Greek tragedians. We spared her a poor perfuneral, 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. CHAPTER II 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 woman's ward. Mrs. Cleaver had gone down to appear before the committee, and though the ways of committees were slow, and proper time worthless, it was felt that her ordeal was being unduly protracted. She is having a dose she is, said a young woman walking up and down, futilely patting the back of a shrieking infant. I ate appearing before them committees. Last time I was down I called the lady sir, and the gentleman mum, and my art went pitter-patter in my breast so that you might have knocked me down with a feather. There she is. Well, my dear, you do look bad. Them committees always turned me sick, and the most outwomen, my boots feel too tight for me, and I goes into a perspiration, and the great drops go rolling off my forehead. Well, he's kept his word, and got the law right of England behind him. What reporters call a sensation made itself felt through the ward. The inmates gathered close around Mrs. Cleaver, and screaming infants were rocked and patted and soothed with much vigor and little result. Well, said Mrs. Cleaver, sinking on to the end of a bed. I went up for the committee, and I says, I want to take my discharge, I says. I applied last week to the master, but mine got at him first, and mastered up and says, No, Mrs. Cleaver, you can't go. He says, your husband can't spare you, he says. Wants to keep you in company in there, he says. Is that true, master? Says the little man what sits lost in a big chair. That is so, sir, says master, and then he outs with a big book and reads something very learned and brain-confusing that I did not rightly understand as to how a husband may detain his wife in the workhouse by his marital authority. Good Evans, says the little lady guardian, for what's dressed so shabby. Is that the law of England? Then they all began talking at once, excited, and the little man in the big chair beat like a madman on the table with amour, 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 how he lost his word through being drunk on duty, which was the line-tongue of the police. For his head was clear, the drink all has taken him in the legs, like most cabmen, the old us keep sober. It was a thick fog, and he just got off the box to lead the us through the gates of the muse, and the policeman spotted his legs walking out in contrary directions. Though his head was clear as daylight, and so the police ran him in, and the big took his license from him, and here we are. Now I've got over my confinement and the child safe in heaven. After all, there were it 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 home. I ate being here, living on the rates, and he not having done better for us than this Bastille, though I always says it was the line-tongue of a policeman. It seems fair I should go free. The lady what comes round Sundays told me I ain't got no responsibility for my children being a married lady with the lines. And the little man flew out most violent. Don't talk like that, my good women. 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 what sits next to the little man, him as you unmarried girls go before to try and father your children. I heard him say quite distinct. The woman is right, sir. Married women are not responsible for their children. I believe the husband is within his rights in refusing to allow her to leave the work-house without him. Then they ask me to retire, and the master told me to come back here, and I should know the results later. Oh Lord, I'm that odd and upset with the worry of it all. I feel I'll never cool again. And Mrs. Cleaver wiped her brow and found herself with her apron. Single life has its advantages, said a tall, handsome woman nursing a baby by the window. You with the lines ain't been as polite as might be to us who ain't got them, but we as the laugh over you really. I'm taking my discharge to-morrow morning, and not one of them daresay me nay. I needn't appear before boards and be worried and upset with husbands and guardians and things before I can take myself off the parish and eat my bread independent. But why weren't you married, Pennyloaf? Not for one of asking, I'll be bound. No, it warn't for one of asking. Fact is, I was put off marriage at a very early age. I had a drunken beast of a father have spent his time a-drinking by day and a-beaten mother by night. One night he overdid it and killed her. He got imprisonment for life, and we was put away in the work-house schools. It would have been kinder of the parish to put us in the lethal chamber, as they do cats and dogs as ain't wanted. But we grew up somehow, knowing we weren't wanted, and then the parish found me a situation under house-made in a big house, and then I found as the young master wanted me, the first time as any human soul had taken any interest in me, and oh Lord, I laughs now when I think what a happy time it was. Since then I've had four children, and I have twenty-five shillings a week coming in regular besides what I can make at the cooking. I lives clean and respectable, no drinking, no bad language. My children never see nor hear what I saw and heard, and they are mine, mine, mine! I always comes into the house for confinement, like in quiet and skilled medical attendants. I never gets refused, the law-daring refuse such as me. I always leaves the coming in to the last moment, then there are no awkward questions, and when they begin to inquire as to settlement, I'm off. All the women in our street are expecting next week. They're husbands all out of work, and not a pair of sheets or the price of a pint of milk between them, all lying in one room, too, with children and husbands about, as I don't consider decent, but having the lines it is precious hard for them to get in here, and half of them dare not come for fear he and someone else will sell up the home whilst they're away. You remember Mrs. Hall, who died here last week? Well, she told me that her husband swore at her so fearful for having twins that the doctor sent her in here out of his way, and well with all the upset and the starvation which she was carrying the children, took fever and snuffed out like a candle. No, the neighbors don't know, as I'm a bad woman. I generally moves before a confinement, and I as a husband on the eye sees. Well, I'm going back tomorrow to my neat little home, that my lady help has been minding for me, to my dear children and to my regular income, and I don't say as I envies you married ladies your rings or your slavery. Chapter 3 Of Workhouse Characters This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Workhouse Characters by Margaret Nevenson. Chapter 3 A Welch Sailor I will go back to the great sweet mother, mother and lover of men, the sea. The master of the casual ward rattled his keys pompously in the lock of the high workhouse gates, and the shivering tramps entered the yard. A battered and foot sore procession of this world's failures, the outcast and downtrodden in the fear struggle for existence. Some of them were young and strong, some old and feeble, all wan and white with hunger, and the chill of the November fog which wrapped like a wet blanket round their ill-clothed bodies. Amongst them was an old man with earrings and thick, curly white hair, with broad shoulders and rolling-gate, and as he passed I seemed to feel the salt wind of the sea blowing in my face and the plunge of the good ship in the billows of the bay. One by one the master shut them up in the dreary little cell where each man is locked for thirty-six hours in a terry of porridge, cheese, and bread, and ten hours work a day at stone-breaking or fiber-picking. And yet the men walk in with something approaching relief on their weary faces. The hot bath will restore circulation, and really, to appreciate a bed, one should wander the streets through a winter's night or lodge with Miss Green as they termed sleeping on the heath. Half an hour later, as I sat in one of the sick wards, I felt once again the salt freshness of the air above the iota form and carbolec, and laying on the ambulance I saw the curly white head of the old sailor, his face blanched under its tan. Fainted in the bath, no food for three days, we get them in sometimes like that from the casual ward. Wait a moment till I put the pillow straight, said the nurse, as quickly and deftly she raised the hoary head, which has been called a crown of glory. A few weeks later I passed through the ward and saw the old man still lying in bed, his sleeves were rolled up, and his night-shirt loosened his throat, and I saw his arms and chest tattooed gorgeously with the ships and anchors and flags, with hearts and hands and the red dragon of whales. He's been very bad, said the nurse, bronchitis and great weakness, been starving for weeks, the doctor thinks. Talks English all right when his temperature is down, but raves to himself in a sort of double-dutch no one can understand, though we have French and Germans and Russians in the ward. Finu, finu, paham yem gate-waste, cried the old man, and I recognized the cry from the cross. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Oh, lady, he exclaimed as I sat down beside him. Oh, lady, get me out of this. My mates tell me as I'm in the workhouse, and if my old mother knew it would kill her. It would indeed. Yes, lady, I follow the sea. Went off with my old dad when I was eight years old. We sailed our old ship, Pollybock, for well my forty years, and then she floundered off Bouchy Island Reef, where as straits, and we'd lost nearly all we had. After that I sailed with Captain Jones of the High Flyer, as first mate, but now he's dead I can't get a job know-how. I'm too old, and I've lost my left hand. Some tackle got loose in a storm and fell upon it, and though the hook is wonderfully handy, they won't enter me any more as an A-B. I'm a skipper of an ancient time, a chandyman and a fiddler. I can navigate, checking the chronometer by lunar observation. I can rig a ship from rail to truck. I can reef, hand steer, and set and take in a top-mass studying sail. I can show the young fools how to use a Marlin spike. Yes, indeed, but all this is no good now. I came up to London to find an old shipmate, Hugh Pugh. We sailed together fifty years ago, but he left the sea when he got married and started in the milk business in London. We was always good mates, and he said to me not long ago, down in Wales, that the Lord had prospered him and that I was to turn to him in any trouble. So when my skipper died I remembered me of Hugh Pugh and slung my bundle to come and find him. Folks was wonderful kind to me along the road, and I sailed along in fair weather till I got to London, and then I was fair frightened. Navigation is very difficult along the streets, the crafts too crowded, and folks were shocking, hard, and unkind. I cruised about for a long time, but London's a bigger place than I thought. Knowing only the docks, and David Evans doesn't seem to have got the address quite ship-shape, and I just drifted and lost faith. Somehow it's harder to trust in the Lord in London than on the high seas. Then the mates tell me I fainted and was brought into the ship's hospital, and here I've lain, a coughing, and a burning, and a shivering, with queer tunes a plain in my head. I couldn't remember the English, they say, and talked only Welsh, and they thought I was a Dutchman. This morning I felt a slight better, and though the nurse told me not to get up, I just tried to put on my clothes and go, but bloat if my legs didn't behave shocking, rolled to Larbird, rolled to Starbird, and then pitched me headlong, so that I thought I'd shivered all my timbers. So I suppose I must lie at anchor a bit longer. My legs will never stand the homeward voyage. They're that rotten and barnacled, but I'll never get better here. What I'm sickening for is the sea, the sight of her, and the smell of her, and the noise of the waves round the helm. She and me's never been parted before for more than two days, and I'm as sick for her as a man for his lass. Oh, dear, oh, dear, if I could only find Hugh Pugh. I suggested that there was a penny-post. Yes, lady, but to tell the truth, I haven't got a stamp, nor yet a penny, and David Evans hasn't got the address-ship shape. The policeman laughed in my face when I asked him where Hugh Pugh lived, and said I must get it writ down better than that for London. Out of his locker he drew a Welsh testament containing a piece of tobacco-stained paper, on which was written, Hugh Pugh, master mariner, now dairyman, in a big house in a south-eastern road, off the north road, out of London, northeast by North. Fortunately, Hugh Pugh is not a common name. A visit to the library, a search in the trade directory, and a telephone communication saved all further cruising. A couple of days later I got a letter from Hugh Pugh. Dear Madam, thank you for your communication with regard to my old friend and shipmate, Joshua Howell, of whom I had lost sight. I am glad to say I am in a position to find him some work at once, having given up my London business to my sons and taken a house down by the sea. I am in want of a good waterman to manage a ferry boat over the river and to take charge of a small yacht, and I know that I can trust old Joshua with one hand better than most men with two. There is a cottage on the shore where he can live with his mother, and tell him we shall all be delighted to welcome an old friend and shipmate. My daughter is coming down here shortly with her children, and will be very glad for Joshua to travel with her. She will call and make arrangements for him to go to her house as soon as he is well enough to be moved. I enclose five pounds for clothes or any immediate expenses, and am sorry that my old friend has been through such privations. As to any expense for his keep at the infirmary, I will hold myself responsible. Yours faithfully, Hugh Pugh. Lanrymore, December 6. A welch letter was enclosed for the old sailor, over which he poured with tears of joy running down his cheeks. A few days later, Hugh Pugh's daughter's motor throbbed at the front door of the workhouse, and the old tar rolled round shaking hands vigorously with the mates. Good-bye! Good-bye, mateys! The Lord has brought me out of the stormy waters, and is smooth sailing now. He'll do the same for you, mates, if you trust him. Then the door closed, and the fresh breeze dropped, and it seemed as if the ward grew dark and grey. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of Workhouse Characters This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Workhouse Characters by Margaret Nevenson. Chapter 4 The Vow Better thou shits not vow than thou shits vow and not pay. The heavy machines in the steam laundry clanked and groaned, and the smell of soap and soda, cleansing the unspeakable foulness of the infirmary linen, rose up strong and pungent as the women carried out the purified heaps to blow dry in the wind and sunshine. The inmates worked hard and steadily under the keen eye of the matron. Many of them knew by bitter experience that inattention or gossip might cost them the loss of fingers at the calendars and ringing machines. Most of the women were strong and able-bodied, and yet the briefest inquiry would reveal some moral flaw, rendering them incapable of competing in the labor market. Drink dishonesty, immorality, feeble mindedness. Amongst the heavy, uncomely figures I noticed a young woman, tall and well-grown, with a modest face and refined, framed in masses of dark hair under the popper cap. She was folding sheets and tablecloths, working languidly as if in pain, and she drew the matron's attention to the fact. Yes, I don't think she'll finish the day's work. I told her to go over to the infirmary if she liked, but she said she would rather stay here as long as she could. Yes, usual thing, but she is a class better than we get here as a rule. A few days later I saw her again in the lane inward, a black-haired babe in the cradle beside her, and her hair in two rope-like plates hanging over the pillow nearly to the ground. She looked so healthy, handsome, and honest amongst the disease and ugliness and vice around that one wondered how she came to the work-house. Yes, said the nurse, in answer to my thoughts, she is not the sort we have here generally. No, I don't know anything about her. She is very silent, and they say she refused to answer the relieving officer. I sat down beside her and tried to talk about her future, but the girl answered in monosyllables, with tightly shut lips, as if she were afraid to speak. Won't the father of your child do anything for you? I do not wish him to. I had been a guardian long enough to respect reticence, and I rose to go. The darkness of the December afternoon had fallen in the long half-empty ward, the sufferers dozed, the wailing of babes was hushed, all was strangely quiet, and as I reached the door I heard a voice. Please come back, ma'am, I should like to ask you something. Then, as I turned to her bed-side again, I have not told any one my story here. I don't think they would believe me, but it is true all the same. But please tell me first, do you hold with keeping a vow? Yes, certainly I do. That is why I am here. I swore an oath to my dying mother, and I have kept it. I did not know how hard it would be to keep, but because I would not break it I have come to disgrace. When we were children we had a cruel drunken father, and I seemed to remember mother always crying, and at night we would be awakened with screams, and we used to rush in and try to stop father beating her to death, and the cruel blows used to half-shatter our poor little bodies. One night we were too late, and we saw mother wrapped in a sheet of flame, and her shrieks. It is fifteen years ago now, but they still ring in my ears. The neighbors came and the police, and they put out the fire, and took mother to the hospital and father to the lock-up. My mother did not live long, and she suffered cruel. The next day they took us children to see her. We hardly knew it was mother. She was bandaged up with white, like a mummy, and only one black eye blazing like a live coal out of the rags. She had beautiful eyes, made us know her. The little boys cried, so that nurse took them out again, but they let me stay with her all night, holding a bit of rag where her hand had once been. Just as the grey dawn came in at the windows mother spoke, very low, so that I had to stoop down to here. Hester, my child, swear to me you will never marry, and I will die happy. The boys can look after themselves, but I cannot bear to think of you suffering as I have suffered. Yes, mother, I'll swear. No girl of thirteen is keen on marriage, particularly with a father like ours, and I took up the book light-heartedly and swore, so help me God. Thank heaven, my dear, now kiss me. I kissed a bit of rag where her mouth had been, and I saw that the black eye was dim and glazed, and the eyelid fell down as if she were sleeping. I sat on till the nurses changed watch, and then they told me she was dead. Father got a life sentence. The boys were sent to work-house schools, and some ladies found me in a situation in the country near Oxford. When I was about seventeen the under-gardener came courting me. He was a straight, well-set-up young chap, and I fell in love with him at once, but when he talked about marriage, having good wages, I remembered my oath. Jem said an oath like that wasn't binding, and when I said I'd live with him if he liked, he was very shocked, having honorable intentions, and he went and fetched the vicar to talk to me. He was a very holy man, with the peace of God shining through his eyes, and he talked so kind and clever, telling me that mother was dying and half mad with pain and weakness, and that she would be the first to absolve me from such a vow. I couldn't argue with him, and so I forgot my manners, and ran out of the room for fear he'd master me. When Jem saw nothing would move me he went off one morning to America, leaving a letter to say as he had gone away for fear he should take me at my word and be my ruin. Things were very black after that. I had not known what he was to me till the sea was between us, and worse than the sea, my oath to the dying. I left my good situation because I could not bear it any longer without him, and I came up to London and got into bad places and saw much wickedness, and got very lonely and very miserable, and learned what temptation is to girls left alone. I used to go into the big Catholic Cathedral by Victoria Station and kneel down by the image of the Virgin and just say, help me to keep my oath. Then one day in spring, when all the flowers were out in the park, and all the lovers whispering under the trees, I remembered I was twenty-seven, and though I could never have a husband, at least I might have a child. A great wave of longing came over me that I could not resist, and so I fell. And then later, when I knew what was coming to me, I was filled with terrible remorse. Least ways one day I was full of joy because of my baby, and the next day I was fit to drown myself in shame. Then the Sunday before I was brought in here I went to service in St. Paul's. I had felt sick and queer all day. I just sat down on one of the seats at the back and listened to the singing high and sweet above my head, like the chanting of the heavenly host. I was always fond of going to St. Paul's, and once on my Sunday out I even went to the sacrament, and I says, oh God, I've lost my character, but I've kept my oath. You made me so fond of children, please don't let me eat and drink my own damnation. I sat and thought of this, puzzling and puzzling, and the hot air out of the gradings made me drowsy, and I fell asleep and dreamt it was the judgment day, and I stood with my baby before the throne, and a great white light shone on me, bleak and terrible, so that I felt scorched with blinding cold. And the angel from his book read out, Hester French and her bastard child. Then there came a little kind voice. She kept her oath to her dying mother, and remember, she was a woman and all alone, and I knew it was the Virgin Mary pleading for me. And then a voice like thunder sounded, blot out her sin, and all the choir of Heaven sang together, and I awoke, but it was only the organ crashing out very loud, and the Virger shaking me because he wanted to lock up. Oh, ma'am, do you think as my sin will be forgiven? At least I kept my vow. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jennifer Pratt. Workhouse Characters by Margaret Nevenson. Blind and deaf. O human soul, as long as thou can't sow, set up a mark of everlasting light above the howling senses ebb and flow, to cheer thee and to write thee if thou roam. Not with last toil thou labourest through the night, thou makes the Heaven thou hopes'd indeed thy home. Mary Grant, Popper, of Sick Ward 42, had been making charges of unkindness against Nurse Smith, and I had been appointed by the House Committee to inquire into the matter. I found a somewhat harassed-looking nurse filling up temperature charts in a corner of the ward, and she'd be involubly to deny the charges. The woman's deaf, so it's no good shouting at her, and I believe she is angry because I can't talk on my fingers, but with looking after both wards and washing and bathing them all, and taking her temperatures and feeding them and giving them no medicine, I have not time to attend to the fads and fancies of each one. Granny Yunt, too, takes half my time seeing that she does not break her neck with her antics, and as to scrape in the butter off Grant's bread, I hope as a committee did not attend to such a tale. The last accusation I assured her had not even been brought before us, and I passed down the long, clean ward where lay sufferers of all ages and conditions. The mighty head of the hydrocephalus child, side by side with the few shriveled bones of an aged paralytic. I've passed the famous Mrs. Hunt, a granny of ninety-six who kept all her limbs very supple, and herself in excellent condition by a system of mattress gymnastics, which she had evolved for herself. Two comparatively young people of seventy and eight here, who were unfortunate enough to lie next to her, complained bitterly of Granny's restlessness, but the old lady was past discipline and restraining influences, and beyond putting a screen round her to check vanity and ensure decency, the authorities left her to her gymnastic displays. On the whole, though, the ward was very proud of Granny. She was the oldest inhabitant, not only in the house but also in the parish, and even female sick wards take a certain pride in holding a record. The old lady cocked a bright eye like a bird upon me as I passed her bed, and cheerfully murmuring, Oh, the agony! executed a species of senile somersault with much agility. Round the blazing fire at the end of the ward, for excellent fires commend me to those rate-supported, set a group of chronics and confalescence, a poor girl twisted and wracked with saint-fighter's dance, white-haired Granny's in every stage of rheumatic or senile decay, and a silent figure with a bowed head, still an early middle-life, who they told me was merry-grants. I shouted my inquiries down her ear crescendo fortissimo, without the smallest response, not even the flicker of an eyelid, whilst the Granny's listened with apathetic indifference. Not a bitter good, ma'am, they said presently when I paused, exhausted, shaced down daft. Then I drew a piece of paper from my pocket, and wrote my questions big and clear. Not a bitter good, ma'am, shouted the Granny's again. She stoned blind. I gazed helplessly at the silent figure, with the blood still flowing in her veins and yet living, as it were, in the darkness and loneliness of the tomb. If she is blind and deaf and dumb, how does she manage to complain? How she manages that all right, ma'am, said a Granny whose one eye twinkled humorously in its socket. She's not dumb, not aff. The nurse that's left, and Mrs. Green, the other blind lady, talked on her fingers to her. And she grumbles away when the fit takes her. A treat to air, not as I blames a poor soul. Most of us who comes here have something to put up with, but she's as more than a share of trouble. None of us knows how to do it. We aren't scar lards. But she catches hold on ear, and moulds it about in what they call the deaf and dumb alphabet, and she spells out loud like the children. I remember with joy that I also was a schoolard. But one of the few things we all learned properly at school was the art of talking to each other on our fingers under the desks during class. A good deal of water had flowed under London Bridge since then. But for once I felt the advantage of what educationists call a thorough grounding. How are you? spelt out a feeble, harsh voice as I made the signs. I had forgotten the W, and was not sure of the R. But she guessed them with ready, wit, and then in weird rasping tones, piping and whistling to shrill falsetto like the cracking voice of a youth, she burst into talk. Oh, I'm so thankful, so thankful. It seems years since anyone came to talk to me. The dear nurses left, and the other blind ladies gone to have her insides taken out. And the blind gentleman is taking her all a day, and I've been that low, I've not known how to live. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit in a place of darkness and in the deep. Thine indignation layeth hard upon me, and thou has vexed me with all thy storms. David knew how I felt just exactly. Might have been a deaf and blind woman himself shut up in the workers. I've been here nigh on two year now, I used to do fine sewing and lace mending for the shops, and earned a tidy bit being always very handy with my needle. Then one day as I was stitching by the window, finishing the job as I had to go home that night, a flash of lightning seemed to come and hit me in the eye somehow. I remember how the fire shone bright zigzag across the black sky, and then there was a crash and nothing more. No, it was not a very nice thing that happened to anybody two years ago now, and there's been nothing but a fierce aching blackness round me ever since. And great silence, except for the rumblings in my ears like trains in a tunnel, but I hear nothing, not even the thunder. At first I feared awful. I felt as if I must have done something very wicked for God to rain down fire from heaven on me, as if I had been Sodom and Gomorrah. But I had not done half so bad as many. I'd always kept myself respectable and done the lace mending and earned enough for mother too. Fortunately she died before the thunder came and hit me, or she'd have broken her arm up for me. It was very strange. Mother was such a one to be frightened at thunder, and when we lived in the country before father died, she always took a candle and a book and went down to the cellar out of the way of the lightning, seemed as if she knew what a nasty trick the thunder was going to play me. She was always a very understanding woman, was Mother. She came from Wales and had what she called the sight. Yes, I went on fretting fearful about my sins until the blind gentleman found me out. Him as comes the Saturdays and teaches us blind ladies to read. Oh, he was the comfort. He learned me the death alphabet and how to read an abrayal book. And it's not so bad now. He knows all about the heavenly Jerusalem and the beautiful music and the flowers blossoming round the throne of God. I think he's what they call a method. A mother and I were church. I used to go to Sunday school and let the catechism and thus to think of the trinity. However, he's a very good man all the same and a great comfort and he found me a special text from God. Then the eyes of the blind shall be open and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. That is the promise to me. And to him being blind, he understands a bit himself. Though what the hullabaloo my ears is no tongue and tail. Mrs. Green, the other blind ladies, such a one as to be talking on about the diamonds and pearls and the crowns of glory. But I don't understand enough about no jewels. What I seem to want to see again is the row of scarlet geraniums that used to stand out on our windowsill. The sun always shone in on them about tea time. Mother and I thought a world of this light shining on them red jackabies, but the blind gentlemen says as I shall see them again round the throne. She wanders a bit at the one eye granted, touching her forehead significantly. She shudder one for this methody talk. I have noticed that the tone of the work-house, though perfectly tolerant and liberal, is inclined to skepticism in spite of the vast preponderance of the Church of England in the Creed book. Let her wander, then, retorted another Orthodox member. She ain't got much to comfort her below. The work has sent exactly a paradise for God's sake. Leave her, Evan, and her scarlet geraniums. One thing, mam, as pleased there was some dirty old lace one of the ladies brought for her one afternoon. She was just as happy as most females are with a baby, a fingering of it and calling it all manner or queer names. There isn't a sight to old lace knocking about here. And her one eye twinkled merrily. I guess we lied. He's wielded away to our ancestry before seeking retirement. Our gowns ain't exactly trimmed with priceless gearpure, though there was some fine and embroidery on my hatpern. And she thrust the coarsely dunlin' in between the delicate fingers. Cahana, oh, he's kidding me, yes, mam. I love to feel real lace. I can tell them all by touch. Brussels, and Chantilly, and Harnerton, and Rose Point. It reminds me of the lovely things I used to mend up for the ladies to go see the queen in. They showed me her needlework, handkerchiefs and dusters hemmed with much accuracy and knitting more even than half of many of us who can see. As I rose to go, she took my finger and laid it upon the cupolistic signs of the book. Don't you understand it? That's my own text as I read, things are worse in general or like affliction, which is but for a moment working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Yes, they'll be glory for me, glory for me, glory for me. I heard the shrill horse voice piping out the old revival hymn very much out of tune as I passed down the ward. I had a nasty lump in my throat when I got back to the boardroom and I can't exactly remember what I said to the committee. I think I cleared Nurse Smith from any definite charge of cruelty, something after the fashion of the Irish jurymen, not guilty, but don't do it again, adding the ride that Mary Grant was blind and deaf, and if she grumbled, it was not surprising. It is possible that what was incoherent and subversive of discipline and my feelings were not hurt because it was neither received nor adopted, nor embodied, nor filed for future reference, but metaphorically speaking lay on the table to all eternity. Chapter 6 of Workhouse Characters This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Workhouse Characters by Margaret Nevenson. Chapter 6 And Behold the Babe Wept And Behold the Babe Wept And She Had Compassion Upon Him The night porter sat in his lodge at 1 a.m., trying hard to keep off the sleep that weighed his eyelids down. That heavy sleep that all night watchers know when nothing in the world seems worth the longer vigil. But the man before him had been dismissed for sleeping on duty and our night porter had had six months out of work, so, with resolute determination, he dragged up his leaden lens and began to pace the corridors toward the mental ward, where he knew the screams of the insane were generally to be relied upon to keep sleep away from anyone in the neighborhood. Tonight all was quiet, and it was with a brief prayer of thanksgiving that he heard the insistent note of the electric bell and rushed to answer it, the lethargy leaving him under the necessity of action. A policeman entered in a blast of wind and rain, drops off his cape, making black runlets on the white stone floor. From under his arm he drew a red bundle and laid it carefully down on the mat in front of the fire. Evening, porter, I've brought you a present from the cabbage bed. What do you think of that for a saucy girl? Hush, my dear, don't cry, as the babe, unsettled from his warm arms, gave forth the shrill cry of displeasure. Pretty little thing, ain't she, and left out under a laurel bush this bitter night. Some women are worse than brutes. The porter, who himself a married man, picked up the babe and soothed it in practiced arms. And how about the father? Something else calls itself a man, as add-in and in this business, and rub the gal to it, maybe. My old dad always says, the scoundrel who leaves a poor lass to bear her trouble alone. And now, said the policeman, when the nurse summoned by the telephone had borne off the indigent babe to the children's ward, I suppose you must enter the case. I found the kid under a laurel bush at Seven Daven Tree Terrace. A lady blew a whistle out of the window and said she could not sleep for a whining outside. I tried to put her off as it was cats, but she stuck to it. So just to quiet her, I cast round with my lantern, and sure enough, she was right. Mindy upset about it, poor woman she was, being a single lady. However, as I told her, such things may happen in any garden, married or single. A name was chosen for her by an imaginative member of the House Committee, remembering his classical education, Daphne Daventree. The Christian name as an everlasting reminder of her foster parent, the Laurel Bush. In due season the familiar notices were posted at the police stations offering a reward for the discovery of person or persons unknown who had abandoned a female infant in the garden of Seven Daventree Terrace, whereby the aforesaid female infant had become chargeable to the parish, and the press giving publicity to the affair offers of adoption poured into the guardian. Pathetic letters from young mothers whose children had died, and business-like communications from middle-aged couples who had weighed the matter and were prepared to adopt the foundling. The Board discussed the question at their next meeting, and the clerk was directed to inquire into the character and circumstances of the most likely applicants. Which I would like to draw the attention of the Board, said a conscientious guardian, is the importance of bringing up a child in the religion of his parents. Seems to me in this case retorted a working man member, who was also a humorist, that it might be a good thing to try a change. And then the clerk, in his clear legal way, pointed out that the religious question had better not be pressed as there was small evidence of the female infant. Maintime, the latest workhouse character slumbered in the nursery in passive enjoyment of the excellent rate-supported fires, and was fed with a scientific fluid, so pasteurized and sterilized and generally bolderized that it seemed quite vulgar to call it milk. The nurses adorned the cot with all the finery they could collect, and all the women in the place managed to evade the rules of classification and got into the nursery, where they dandled the infant and said it was a shame. One of the most devoted worshippers at the shrine of Daphne Daventry was a lady guardian, a frail and tiny little woman, with a pair of wide-open eyes, from which a look of horror was never wholly absent. She was always very shabbily dressed, so shabbily indeed, that a new official had once taken her for a case and conducted her to the waiting-room of applicants for relief. After such an object lesson, any other woman would have gone to do some shopping, but not so the little lady guardian. She did not even brighten her dowdiness with a new pair of bonnet-strings. Though she wrote herself down in the nomination papers as a married woman, no one ever heard of her husband, and reports said that she was either a lunatic or a convict. This mystery of her married life, combined with her dreadful appearance and a certain reckless generosity towards the poor, made her many enemies among scientific philanthropists. Her large-hearted charity had been given to the just and the unjust, to the drunk as well as the sober, and the charity-organization society complained that her investigations were not thorough and that the quality of her mercy was neither strained nor trained. But the little lady guardian opened her old silk purse again and quoted the scriptures, give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow turn not thou away. The charity-organization society replied, such precepts had proved to be out of date economically and nominated by the lady who had missed a great career as a private detective. But the little lady guardian had a faithful majority and her name was always head of the pole. One afternoon, as the little lady guardian sat by the fire with Daphne Daventry on her shabby, surged lap, a prospective parent, Mrs. Annie Smith, was brought up to see if she took to the child. Oh, what a lovely baby! she cried, falling on her knees to adore. What nice blue eyes! and what dear little hands! and her hair is beginning to grow already. Both my children died five years ago. I have never had another and I just feel as if I could not live without a baby. It is terrible to lose one's children. It is worse to have none. Oh, no, no! Yes it is, said the little lady guardian in a low voice as if she were talking to herself. When I was a little girl I had six Sailor Boy dolls and I always meant to have six sons, but directly after my marriage I realized it could never be. Mrs. Smith had known sorrow and feeling by intuition that she was in the presence of no ordinary tragedy, she held her peace. Perhaps, she asked presently, you are going to adopt this baby? I'm very fond of her. I love all babies, but I don't think I could adopt one. These workhouse children don't start fair and I should be too frightened. If the child went wrong later I don't think I could bear it. Mrs. Smith had been a pupil teacher and in the last five years of leisure she had read widely, if confusedly, at the free library. But people now no longer live in heredity. Weisman's theory is that environment is stronger than heredity. Oh! said the little lady guardian. Do read him, said Mrs. Smith excitedly, and then you won't feel so low-spirited, and perhaps the guardians will let you adopt the next foundling. But please let me have this one. I have taken to her more than I thought. Oh, please, please! I will bolt for you at the next board meeting, said the little lady guardian, may she make up to you for the children you have lost. A few days later Mrs. Annie Smith, her honest face beaming with joy, arrived again at the workhouse, followed by a small servant with a big bundle. The attiring of the infant was long and careful, and many came to help, and then Daphne Daventry was whirled away in a flutter of purple and fine linen, and the burden of the rates was lightened. End of chapter 6 Chapter 7 of Workhouse Characters This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Lesanne Levoix of Swansea, Illinois. Workhouse Characters by Margaret Nevenson Chapter 7 Mary Mary, Pity Women A woman set alone with folded hands in a dark, fireless room. There was little or no furniture to hold the dust, and one could see that the pitiful process known as putting away had been going on. For the cleanly scrubbed boards and polished grate showed the good housewife struggle after decency. On a small table in the center of the room stood half a loaf of bread, a jug of water, and a cup of milk. The woman bore traces of good looks, but her face was gray and changed with hunger, and in her eyes was a smoldering fire of resentment and despair. Presently, the silencing gloom was broken by the entrance of a troop of children returning noisily from school. Their faces fell when they saw the scanty meal, and the youngest, a child of four or five, threw himself sobbing into his mother's arms. Oh, mother, I so hungry. We only had that bit of bread for dinner. Hush, dear, there is a little milk for you and Gladys. You can drink as far as the blue pattern and the rest is for her. The mother kissed him and tried to dry his tears, but it is hard to hear one's children crying for food, and presently her fortitude gave way, and she began to sob too. The older children frightened at her breakdown, clung round her, weeping. The room echoed like a torture chamber with sobs and wails. Presently, a knock sounded at the door, and a stout motherly woman entered. Good evening, Mrs. Blake. I've just looked in to know if you'd bring the children to have a cup of tea with me. I'm all alone and I like a bit of company. Albert is always the boy for my money. I just opened a part of my O-Me plum jam on purpose for him. There, my dear, have you cry out and never mind me. Things have gone badly with you, I know, and nothing clears the system so well as a good cry. You feel a slight better after, enabled to face the world fair and square. Now, kiddies, leave mother to herself for a bit and come and help me set the tea things. Let's see. We shall be seven, old toad. So, Lily, will you run upstairs to Mrs. Johnson, my compliments, and will she oblige with a cup and saucer as we are such a big party? The landlady's kitchen was warmed with a big fire and hermetically sealed against struts. A big bed took up the greater part of the room and this formed a luxurious demand for the four children to whom the hot tea and toast, the tinned lobster and the homemade jam were nectar and ambrosia. Mrs. Blake had the place of honour by the fire, but when the meal was over the children were advised to run out for a game in the street and Mrs. Wells turned her chair round to the cheerful blaze and said soothingly, Now, my dear, you look a bit better. Tell us all about it. Yes, you are quite right. We have to go into the workhouse. I went round to the Reverend Walker and he advised me to go to the police station and they told me there as I and the children had better become a burden to the rates as we are destitute and they can start looking for Blake to make him pay the 18 shillings in order to think of me and my children having to go into the house and me first class in the scholarship examination it breaks my heart to think of it. Yes, you've had a rough time, my dear. Worse than the rest of us we all have our troubles. I'll remember when you came a 12 month ago to engage the room and you said you was a widow. I passed the remark to Wells that evening. The lady in the top floor back ain't no widow, mock my words. There's a husband knocking about somewhere. On the faces of them as our widows I have noticed a great peace as if they were giving thanks that they are forever free from the worteans of men and that look ain't on your face, my dear. Not by a long chuck. Yes, he's alive all right. I got a separation order from him a couple of years ago. He went off with a woman in the next street and though he's soon tired of her and came back again I felt I could not live with him any longer. The very sight of him filled me with repulsion and loathing. Father and mother always warned me against him. Father told me he saw he wasn't any good but then I was only 19 and obstinate as girls in love always are and I wouldn't be sad. Poor father. I often wish I had listened to him but I didn't and I always think it was the death of him when I went home and told him what my married life was. He had been so proud of me doing so well in school and in all the examinations. Just at first we were very happy after our marriage. He earned good money as a commercial traveller in the drapery business. We had a little house in Wellesden and a piano and an Indian rubber plant between the curtains and the parlor and a girl to help with the housework. And I, like a fool, worshipped the very ground and walked on. Then after a time he seemed to change. He came home less and took to going after women as if he were a boy of 18 instead of a married man getting on for forty. He gave me less and less money for the house and spent his weekends at the sea for the good of his health. One very hot summer the children were pale and fretting and I was just sick for a sight of the sea but he said he could not afford to take us for a trip. Afterwards I heard his Mrs. Bates was always with him. There was plenty of money for that. That summer it seemed as if it would never get cool again. And one evening in late September my Martin was taken very queer. I begged my husband not to go away. I felt frightened somehow but he said as some sea was necessary for his health and that there was nothing to matter with the boy. Worse and worse towards morning a neighbor went for the doctor but the child throttled and died in my arms before he came. I was all alone. I didn't even know my husband's address and when I went with a little coffin all alone to the cemetery it seemed as if I'd left my heart there in the grave with a boy. He was my eldest and none of the others have been to me what he was. Later on all the girls caught the diphtheria when Martin was taken. Blake seemed a bit ashamed when he got back but he left Wellesdon some of the neighbors speaking out plain to him about Mrs. Bates and he not to be found to follow his child's funeral. He tried to make it up with me but I told him I was going to get a separation order as I'd taken a sort of repulsion against looking at him since Martin had died alone with me and the magistrate made an order upon him for 18 shillings a week. 5 or 6 pounds a week he could earn before he took to wine and women and Mrs. Bates. My little home and the piano were sold up and I soon found 18 shillings a week did not go far with 400 children to clothe and feed and rent beside. I tried to get back into my old profession but I had been out of it too long. No one would look at me and I could only get cooking and charring to do. Very exhausting work when you haven't been brought up to it. At first I got the money pretty regular but lately it has been more and more uncertain. Some weeks only 8 or 10 shillings and sometimes missing altogether. He owes me now a matter of 20 pounds or more and last week I braced myself up and determined to do what I could to recover it. If it was only myself I'd manage but work as hard as I can I can't keep the 5 of us and it has about broke my heart lately to hear the children crying with hunger and cold. Mrs. Robbins, where I used to work died a fortnight ago and I shan't find anyone like her again. When one of the ladies goes it is a job to get another. So many poor creatures are after the charring and cleaning. The Reverend Walker has been a good friend to me but he says I ought to go into the house. A man ought to support his wife and children he says and I hope I'll help him he says. Yes I says but it is awful to go into the house when we haven't done anything wrong and my father an organist. Very cruel Mrs. Blake he says but I see no other way. I will write to the guardians to ask if they will allow you out of relief but I fear they will say you are too destitute. And now Mrs. Wells we had better be starting I hope if they find him I shall be able to pay up the back rent The table and chairs left I hope will keep you towards the payment of the debt. Thank you for all your kindness. Alright Mrs. Blake don't you worry about that my dear. Wells is in good work thank God and I don't miss a few appents. I'm such a one for children and your Albert is a beauty he is. I've been right glad to give them a bite and suck now and again. I know children sit out with empty stomachs in a fit state to absorb learning it leads to words and brows with the teachers and canyons before the days over. I can't bear to see people cross with children and I do anything to save them the cane. Well I hope my dear as they'll soon nail that beauty of yours and that we shall see you back again. Perhaps I ought to tell you that a chap calling himself a sanitary inspector called this morning to say his five people mustn't sleep in the top back floor. I told him as the room was led to a poor widow, Lidie, in poor circumstances and was he prepared to guarantee the rent of two rooms? That made him offy. It wasn't his business he said but overcrowding was against his council's rules and the old lady held up the document upside down and then consigned it to the flames. Said Mrs. Blake bitterly. The children were collected and scrubbed till their faces shone with friction and yellow soap and then the little procession started to the workhouse. Mr. Wells, returned from work, announced his intention of giving his arm up the hill to Mrs. Blake and the young man of the second floor volunteered his services to Carrie Albert who was heavy and sleepy and his contribution of a packet of peppermints cheered the journey greatly. When the cruel gates of the house closed on the weeping children the two men walked home silently once Wells swore quietly but forcibly under his breath. You alright mate? said the young man. This job has put me off my tea. I'll just turn into the king of Baemia 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 destitution was so great that they feared the children might die of starvation before the man was brought to book. End of Chapter 7 Recording by LaSanne LaVoy Chapter 8 of Workhouse Characters This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by LaSanne LaVoy of Swansea, Illinois Workhouse Characters by Margaret Nevenson Chapter 8 The Suicide The Suicide In she plunged boldly no matter how coldly the rough river ran through the brink of it picture it, think of it disillute man She lay in bed in the long-cleaned sick ward a fine-grown and well-favored young woman with masses of black hair tossed over the whiteness of the rate payer's sheets. Such a sight is rare in a workhouse infirmary where one needs the infinite compassion of Christian charity or the hardness of habit sights of disease and imbecility. She looks as if she ought not to be here I observed interrogatively to the nurse. Attempted suicide throat 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 my corridor and bathroom like a plowed field usual thing oh no these bad girls take a deal of killing I sat down beside the bed and heard the usual story to come and 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 theater then followed the usual promise of marriage in 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 gentlemen but the letter came back through the return letter office he must have given me a false name because when I called at that house no one had heard of him I had no money and I had to pawn my clothes and the jewelry he had given me to pay for food in the room I did 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 and 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 being close to pounds which was all we could afford and asked me to forgive him the wrong he had done me after that letter I did not know he was married and I had kept open it would be alright 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 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 mounted 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 of self 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 everyone knew my disgrace I came up twice to chuck myself into the pond and twice I had in 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 till about it was dark and then I climbed up on the railings and threw myself backwards the water was bittersweet cold and like a fool I hollered and 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 tomorrow it seems rather hard when one cannot live and the police will not even let you die no I did not know that girls like me came 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 they go with the police to the court all alone against a lot of men oh mom I can't I should be so ashamed and think of the questions they will ask me and I was a good girl till such a short time ago would 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 9am a raid 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 damp mud which stuck to the gouged flounces and the interstices of the peekaboo blouse a damp and shapeless mass of pink roses in 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 on evidence owing to the shrinkage of the 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 hit us along with other human wreckage from mocking eyes presently a boy of 17 or 18 small and slate 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 O say 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 east when I heard you scream dreadfully that I rushed down to the pond and into the water before I knew what I was doing for I can't swim a stroke I just managed to catch your dress for you sank but the mud was so slippery I could hardly keep my footing and your weight was dragging me down into the deep water fortunately I managed to catch hold of the sunk fence and that steadied me so I could lift your head out and you came around yes I have a very bad cold my 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 back up and not do this sort of thing here we are now and we've got to make the best of it and all unconscious of the tragedy of the womanhood the boy read her a simple straightforward lesson on the duty of fortitude and trust in God whilst he talked about the notion 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 of 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 than the younger girls and their 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 two iron bars as if she were some dangerous wild beast whilst the gentleman who was the real offender and unmalested constable X172 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 Spurling 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 rabble from the dock and the kindly hand of the lady missionary clasp tears 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 End of Chapter 8 Recording by LeSanne LeVoy Chapter 9 of Workhouse Characters This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by LeSanne LeVoy of Swansea, Illinois Workhouse Characters by Margaret Nevison Chapter 9 Publicans and Harlots Fairly I say unto you that the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you It was 730 and in the young woman'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 Mopassant the Rock on Toofs Daisy Crabtree who might have sat as a model for Rosetti's Madonna of the Annunciation was a slight golden-haired girl known to philanthropists as the daughter of the state and an object lesson against such stepmothering picked up as an infant under a Crabtree 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 15 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 27 times by Catholics, Anglicans Westlands, 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 Crabtree 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 Shaab Daisy said one girl quiet and amure as her namesake Priscilla you're only fit for a pigsty the heavens declare the glory of God in the firmament show with his handy work saying musical Meg a half-witted girl who had given two idiots to the guardianship of the rate payers 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 Complin slightly muddling them as her memory was bad Old your noise Meg you want to hear the tale brethren be sober be diligent because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may debour 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 anymore get undressed and into bed at once you'll see your mother in the morning why you weird duckies follow on away and let you all starving asked an older woman who had been walking about the room administering medicine opening windows and generally doing the work of the words woman 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 lord 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 wash me and I shall be wider than snow wider than snow sing a blear-eyed girl in a raucous, tombless chant musical Meg put her fingers to her ears you've got the two wrong Rosie listen I'll admit to you but finding her attempts after musical correctness were unheeded she started herself the key habitat of the Compton office good lord girls came the shrill voice of Daisy Crabtree what's up now it gives me the empty you sniffing and sobbing all over your Psalm tombs let's have something cheerful with a chorus hello, hello, hello it's a different girl again oh, to 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 stowed at Daisy all the drive those teeth of yours you're so proud of it down your throat said the time down your throat said the tall wards woman temperance hunt known to her associates as tipsy tempy all unconscious of the classical dignity of the oxymoron was a clear stature and ironer so skilled in the trade that it was said she could command her own terms at 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 tempy shirts dressed for dinner without a murmur and never said a single damn tipsy tempy was a very powerful woman and the song died on Daisy's lips as she came towards her light in her eyes alright alright keep your ear on if I may sing I'll tell you another tale when I was in a market last boat race night now duckies you go and get washed your faces are all swelled with crying can't go to bed like that you know we ladies in this water most particular please teacher said the elder child governess down says 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 will stop the smarten 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 basely stories before them two innocent dears I'll fro you then you will be hanged like hair good riddance or bad rubbish as can't help make an abuse of itself but one thing I insist on don't let us corrupt these ear 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 know with the pot calling the kettle black and I know as I'm a drunkard my father took me to church a self and had me christen temperance open as that might but drink is in the blood too deep down for the front water to get at poor father he struggled all to self but he kicked my blessed mother well nigh to death and then aimed to self in the morning when he found out what he'd done so I ain't got no manner of chance and though I take the pledge when the ladies ask me I know it ain't no good well as I've said before we're a rotten lot but not so bad as we can't respect little kiddies and anyone can see that these little girls aren't our soul I ask you all all you are mothers even though your children ain't any fathers in particular to back me in this yeah yeah said Priscilla I ain't had the advantage of some of you have I ain't been in 27 religious homes like Dysie and I don't know songs and names like me but I've got a strong pair of fists as ever grasped for irons who shall feel them who says a word as wouldn't be fit for the lady guardian's ears the frightened Dysie had crept meekly into bed and the two little children came back and Tempey tucked them up with motherly hands kissing the little swollen faces musical med 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 for from the lips of the fallen and the outcast of the wanton and the drunkards led by the strangely beautiful voice of the half-witted girl rose the hymn of high heaven holy holy end of chapter 9 recording by LaSanne Lavoie chapter 10 of workhouse characters this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by John Brandon workhouse characters by Margaret Nevenson chapter 10 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 sat 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 is 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 cab man and asked satirically what he had got there I have just driven back the Duke and Duchess of Hinkerman to the quiet of their suburban residence after the arduous festivities of the season a 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 townhouse to say as their graces would not diner at home this evening so I must ask you kindly to assist her grace to a light 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 stupefication whom he flung over his shoulder like a baby and then the hall door shut with a bang the cab man 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 cab man for a little gratuity from his grace his own brome not being in sight I volunteered my services the liveried officer again appeared an heated altercation ensued in the midst of which the master of the workhouse arrived an endeavor 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 cab man 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 damn fool as to have driven a damn pair of damn paupers to a damn workhouse unless he had seen the color of a florin a kind-hearted lady had put into the old man's hand before the police 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 imputation and if the master thought cab man were so easy to be had that he, the master had better withdraw to a wing of his own workhouse where he understood a ward was set apart for the observation of 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 cab man 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 cab man drove off triumphant master of the situation I found ol' 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 born 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 a sweet total friend urging him to take the pledge but he sniffed contemptuously like many a hard drinker he never would admit the offense I warn't drunk nor I never been drunk in my life cause why? I got a strong ed can take my liquor like a man small wonder though ma'am if we ol' 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 diswork us and them close and he glanced contemptuously at his fustions 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-respect that's what it does the self-respect loses out of our fingertips ol' blowy at St. Pancras workers he says just the same don't you know ol' blowy ma'am him is at the good luck to ride at Bellaclava I'm told some gentlemen's got him out of there and boards him out independent for the rest of his life can't you get me out ma'am I ain't done nothing wrong and here I am in prison if it weren't for the missus I'd starve outside I can play a little mouth-organ and pick up a few pins and my pals at the king of Bohemia are very good to me I can rough it but my missus can females are different and so we was drove in here the guardians wouldn't give me the little bit of out-relief I asked for four shillings would have done us nicely even to some foolish women's cackle tea total can't I call it and refused me anything offered the house as they say and though me and the missus have climbed a floor we accepted the kind invitation a man can't see his wife's star and so here we are paupers yes I fought for the queen god bless her all through the Crimean war got shot in the arm at Inkerman and half frozen before Sebastopol and I didn't think I should come to the workists at 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 and it's no good pretending an old blowy at St. Pancras says the same I suppose we're too old I can't think why the almighty leaves us all a moldering and the work is when she's gone however I'm a going out I shall take my discharge if it's only to spite him 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 aeth a bit we shan't want much to eat we're too old a week or so later I heard of the death of old Inky he had been found in a half dying condition on one of the benches on the heath and had been brought by the police into the infirmary where he passed away without recovering consciousness as we rattled his bones over the stones to his pauper grave I said a sincere Laus Deo that another man of war had been delivered from poverty and the hated workhouse end of chapter 10 recording by John Brandon chapter 11 of workhouse characters this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by John Brandon workhouse characters by Margaret Nevenson chapter 11 a daughter of the state Quis est homo queen en fleurette no mom I've never had no misfortune I'm a respectable girl I am why am I in the workhouse then well you see it was like this I had a very wicked temper and I can't control it somehow when the mistresses are aggravating and I run from my place I always do run away no there was nothing again the last mistress it was just my nasty temper then I got wandering about the streets and a policeman spoke to me and took me to a kind lady and she put me here to prove me and left me to learn my lesson she takes great interest in my case yes matron says it is a disgrace for a strong girl to be on the rates I do I ain't got no clothes and no character so I suppose I shall always be here now no it ain't nice we never go out nor see nothing least ways the young women don't there's no sweet puttons and no jam some of the girls say jails far better yes I am an orphan at least father died when I was very little the board gentleman put me and my brothers into the schools no I never heard any more of them mother came to see me at first but she ain't been nor wrote for five years perhaps she is dead or married again no I don't know how old I am matron says she expects about 18 oh yes I've been in places the board ladies got me my first place at a butcher's only he was always coming after me trying to kiss me and the missus did not seem to like it somehow and she cut up nasty to me and there was words and I went off in a temper no gentlemen I should think not a damned low scoundrel I call him I beg your pardon mom I know damned isn't a word for ladies I ain't an ignorant girl but there's worse said in the young women's room sometimes then after that the salvation army took me in and found me a place in a boarding house heaps to do I had and such a lot of glasses and plates and things for every meal I always got muddled laying the table and the missus had an awful nasty temper quite as bad as mine today she blew me up cruel and I ran away then this time some nuns took me to their home and there I made a great mistake I thought it was a church of England home but they was car flicks oh yes the nuns were very kind to me real good ladies but the lady who takes an interest in my case said as I had made a great mistake I don't know why except that I always was a church of England girl no mom I hope I may never make a worse mistake but they was good and they sang beautiful in the chapel then the nuns found a place for me with two old homespun people they was very dull and often ill and I was always getting muddled over the spoons and forks and that made them audible and one day I felt so low-spirited and nasty tempered that I ran away again the worst of places for me is no porters sit at the front doors and I run away before I think and then I get no character but this time I have been proved and I have learned my lesson I won't do it anymore no mom I never knew I could be taken to the police courts just for running away none of the ladies never told me I thought you're only copped for murders and stealing Daisy White she pinched her Mrs. silk petticoat to go out in on Sunday and now she's out of jail no one won't have her anymore but it's mostly misfortunes that brings girls here and fits of course blanch that big girl with the squint eye went off in a fit yesterday as we were scrubbing the wards no I don't have no fits and I'm honest as the day would I be a good girl and not run away if you get me a place oh mom only try me the kind ladies quote textuses to me or they never get me a job no I don't mind missing my dinner matron will keep it hot for me but it's only suet pudding today with very little sugar in situations that give you beautiful sweet puddings nearly every day and juliette brown she that's in with her third misfortune she says she lived with lords and ladies near the king's palace at Buckingham at least she pretends she has well she says in her places the servants had jam with their tea every day no I haven't got no clothes but these workhouse things but matron keeps a hat and jacket to lend to girls who ain't gotten on oh it is beautiful to see the sun shining and the shops and the horses and the ladies walking about and the dear little children I love children often when the labor mistress wasn't about I ran up to the nursery to kiss the babies juliette's third misfortune is a lovely boy with curls I haven't been out of doors for three months the young women's man to go out in the workhouse only the old people so you can guess I like it but the air makes me hungry we had our gruel at seven this morning we don't have no tea for breakfast but girls do in situations I know and as much sugar as they like at least in most places thank you mom I should love a bun I love cakes yes I have a cold in my head and I ain't got no pocket handkerchief I've lost it and it wasn't very grand an old bit of rag I call it it would be so kind of you to buy me one mom I know it looks bad to go to see ladies without one I ain't an ignorant girl a kind lady who takes an interest in my case always said so isn't that barrel organ playing beautiful it makes me want to dance only I don't know how daisy white she that pinched the silk petticoat can dance beautiful some of us sing tunes in the young women's room and she dance I love music that's why I like the cartwheel home best the nun sang lovely in the chapel is this the house ain't it lovely I never saw such a beautiful drawing room in all my life just look at the carpet and the flowers and the pictures ain't that a beautiful one mom with the trees and the water running down the rocks and the old castle at the back the nuns at the cartwheel home once took us an excursion by train to a place just like that and whilst we were having our tea the old castle turned sudden all yellow in the sun just like Jerusalem the golden do you think the lady will have a good girl mom I shan't never want to run away here I will be a good girl mom I promise I will be good End of Chapter 11 Recording by John Brandon