Читать книгу Workhouse Characters, and other sketches of the life of the poor - Margaret Wynne Nevinson - Страница 7

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Better thou shouldest not vow than thou shouldest 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 calenders and wringing 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 labour market—drink, dishonesty, immorality, feeble-mindedness. Amongst the heavy, uncomely figures I noticed a young woman, tall and well-grown, with a face modest and refined, framed in masses of dark hair under the pauper cap. She was folding sheets and table-cloths, working languidly as if in pain, and I 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 better class than we get here as a rule."

A few days later I saw her again in the lying-in ward, a black-haired babe in the cradle beside her, and her hair in two rope-like plaits 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 workhouse. "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 bedside 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 seem to remember mother always crying, and at night we would be wakened with screams, and we used to rush in and try and 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 neighbours came and the police, and they put out the fire, and took mother to the hospital and father to the lock-up. 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 hear: '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 workhouse schools, and some ladies found me 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 honourable 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 learnt 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, 'Please 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—leastways 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, and 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, 'O 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 gratings 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 choirs of heaven sang together; and I awoke, but it was only the organ crashing out very loud, and the verger 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."