Workhouse Characters Part 5

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

'allo! it's a different girl again----'"

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

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

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

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

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

When I was in the Haymarket last Boat-race night----"

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

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

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

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

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

"Do you think I'd care? Good riddance of bad rubbish, as can't help making a beast of itself. But one thing I insists on--don't let us corrupt these 'ere little girls; we're a bad lot in here; most of you are--well, I won't say what, for it ain't polite, and I don't 'old with the pot calling the kettle black, and I know as I'm a drunkard. My father took me to church hisself and had me christened 'Temperance,'

hoping as that might counterrack the family failing; but drink is in the blood too deep down for the font-water to get at. Poor father! he struggled hard hisself; but he kicked my blessed mother wellnigh to death, and then 'anged hisself in the morning when he found what he done; so I ain't got no manner of chance, and though I take the pledge when the lidies ask me, I know it ain't no good. Well, as I said before, we're a rotten lot, but not so bad that we can't respect little kiddies, and any one can see that these little girls aren't our sort. I ask you all--all you who are mothers, even though your children ain't any fathers in particular--to back me in this." ("'Ear, 'ear!" said Priscilla.) "I ain't had the advantage some of you have; I ain't been in twenty-seven religious homes like Daisy, and I don't know psalms and hymns like Meg; but I've got as strong a pair of fists as ever grasped irons, and those shall feel 'em who says a word as wouldn't be fit for the lady Guardian's ears."

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

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

Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord G.o.d Almighty!

All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea; Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty; G.o.d in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity.

OLD INKY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The liveried officer again appeared, and a heated altercation ensued, in the midst of which the Master of the workhouse arrived and endeavoured to cut short the dispute, observing that his workhouse not being Poplar, he had no power to pay cab fares for drunken paupers out of the rates.

The cabman gulped, and, dropping his Society manner, appealed to the Master as man to man, asking what there was about his appearance that caused him to be taken for "such a ---- fool as to have driven a ---- pair of ---- paupers to a ---- workhouse unless he had seen the colour of a florin a kind-'earted lady had put into the old man's hand afore the perlice ran them both in."

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

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

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

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

"I warn't drunk, not I; never been drunk in my life. 'Cos why? I've got a strong 'ed; can take my liquor like a man. Small wonder, though, ma'am, if we old soldiers do get drunk now and then. Our friends are good to us and stand us a drop; and we need it now and then when we get low-spirited, and this work'us and them clothes"--and he glanced contemptuously at his fustians--"do take the pluck out of a man. We ain't got nothing to live for and nothing to be proud on; and it takes our self-respeck--that's what it does--the self-respeck oozes out of our finger-tips. Old Blowy, at St. Pancras Work'us, 'e says just the same.

Don't you know Old Blowy, ma'am--'im as had the good luck to ride at Balaclava? I'm told some gentleman's got 'im out of there and boards 'im out independent for the rest of his life. Can't you get me out, ma'am? I ain't done nothin' wrong, and 'ere I am in prison. If it weren't for the missis I'd starve outside. I can play a little mouth-organ and pick up a few pence, and my pals at the 'King of Bohemia' are very good to me. I can rough it, but my missis can't--females are different--and so we was druv in 'ere. The Guardians wouldn't give me the little bit of out-relief I asked for--four s.h.i.+llings would have done us nicely. They listened to some foolish women's cackle--teetotal cant, I call it--and refused me anything. 'Offered the 'Ouse,' as they say; and, though me and the missis half-clemmed afore we accepted the kind invitation, a man can't see 'is wife starve; and so 'ere we are--paupers. Yes, I fought for the Queen"--and he saluted--"Gawd bless 'er! all through the Crimean War; got shot in the arm at Inkermann and half-frozen before Sebastopol, and I didn't think as I should come to the work'us in my old age; but one never knows. The world ain't been right to us old soldiers since the Queen went. I can't get used to a King nohow, and it's no good pretending; and Old Blowy at St. Pancras says just the same. I suppose we're too old. I can't think why the Almighty leaves us all a-mouldering in the work'uses when she's gone. However, I'm a-going out; I shall take my discharge, if it's only to spite 'im and show my independent spirit,"

and he shook an impotent fist at the Master, who pa.s.sed through the hall. "It's warm weather now, and we can sleep about on the 'eath a bit.

We shan't want much to eat--we're too old."

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 pa.s.sed 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.

A DAUGHTER OF THE STATE

Quis est h.o.m.o, qui non fleret?

"No, ma'am, 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 runned from my place. I always do run away. No, there was nothing agen 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, but what am I to 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--leastways, the young women don't. There's no sweet puddings and no jam. Some of the girls say jail's far better. Yes, I am an orphan--at least, father died when I was very little, and the Board gentlemen 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 eighteen. Oh, yes, I have 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 missis 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 gentleman! I should think not. A d.a.m.ned low scoundrel I call him. I beg your pardon, ma'am, I know 'd.a.m.ned'

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 gla.s.ses and plates and things for every meal. I always got muddled laying the table, and the missis had an awful nasty temper, quite as bad as mine, and one day 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 Cartholics. 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, ma'am, I hope I may never make a worse mistake--for 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, an that made them _urri_table, 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 learnt my lesson. I won't do it any more. No, ma'am, 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 were only copped for murders and stealing. Daisy White--she pinched her missis's silk petticoat to go out in on Sunday, and now she's out of jail no one won't have her any more.

But it's mostly misfortunes that brings girls here, and fits of course.

Blanche, 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, ma'am, only try me. The kind ladies quote textesses to me, but 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 to-day with very little sugar. In situations they give you beautiful sweet puddings nearly every day, and Juliet Brown--she that's in with her third misfortune--she says she's 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 got none. Oh! it is beautiful to see the sun s.h.i.+ning, and the shops, and the horses, and the ladies walking about, and the dear little children. I love children.

Often when the Labour Mistress wasn't about I ran up to the nursery to kiss the babies. Juliet's third misfortune is a lovely boy with curls. I haven't been out of doors for three months--the young women mayn't 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, ma'am, 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, ma'am. I know it looks bad to go to see ladies without one. I ain't an ignorant girl; the 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'd dance. I love music--that's why I liked the Cartholic Home best; the nuns sang lovely in the chapel.

"Is this the house? Ain't it lovely! I never saw such a beautiful droring-room in all my life. Just look at the carpet and the flowers and the pictures! Ain't that a beautiful one, ma'am, with the trees and the water running down the rocks, and the old castle at the back! The nuns at the Cartholic 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 me, ma'am? I shan't never want to run away here. I will be a good girl, ma'am; I promise I will be good."