In Darkest London · Chapter 8 (2/2)

She wanted to know the best casual wards on the road to Tunbridge Wells, and once more the fine old Irishwoman came to the rescue. Kitty has a strong, handsome face. She is over sixty, but quite upright, with a wealth of greyish hair and quick, humorous eyes. She is a most efficient woman and, as she told me, can plant a field of potatoes with any man, and is first on the list for a number of fruit pickers. She is well-known at Southwark, where she returns every month or six weeks. She has been on the road for some eight years, driven there by that economic pressure which has dehoused so many women. She lived for some time in a room in Kennington, supporting herself by daily housework, with occasional incursions into a laundry.

“And then, me dear, they wanted me room, so they could get more rent⁠—and somehowes they managed it and I’ve been on the road ever since. A fine, healthy life it is, and many’s the helping hand I get, though⁠—” she glanced at her feet, “boots is me trouble. You’re new to the House, me dear,” she added, “but don’t you worry, I’ll put you right, so that you’ll know what to do when you come again.”

It was at this moment that a short, stugger little woman with a red face claimed attention. She was very agitated and most aggrieved. It seems that her vest, which had been fumigated with the rest of her clothes, was missing from her bundle, and leave the House without that vest she would not. The attendant on duty, a kindly young woman, of great humanity and understanding, had hunted for it up and down the corridor, but nowhere could it be found. Various women were interrogated but not a shadow of a vest was forthcoming. The red faced lady would not budge; the vest was hers, and somehow or other it must be produced.

“And right you are,” said Kitty, “and isn’t it the law? They take your clothes and if they lose your clothes you’ve got to have the value, and haven’t I had many a fight over the same thing and never have I been beaten.”

She tossed her head with its ample thatch, due, she assured me, to the constant use of vaseline⁠—“twopence the box and well worth the price.”

Under Kitty’s behest a further, furious search was instigated, and at last the attendant, a little weary, brought back in triumph, the most begrimed thing in vests ever to be seen.

“Here it is, Martha, and of all places in the world I found it in the men’s room.” She looked at the red-faced woman. “Have you been trying to get off?” she asked.

The sally was received with shouts of laughter. Such a little thing relieves the monotony in a casual ward! Everyone is so pathetically eager to break through the cold officialdom, which, for all the kindness of the attendants⁠—and I found them very kind⁠—is always present.

Martha, being comforted, went on her way, and I found myself left with Kitty and a big battered woman of about fifty, and two others.

Like Sterne’s starling, I was beginning to wish to get out. The walls seemed to be closing in on me. I got a little panic-stricken. Supposing this machine with which I had placed myself in contact should hold me against my will? Suppose they said that I must stay. Guardians have such plenary powers to use against the poor. I saw myself sentenced to remain permanently in an institution, I remembered with quick alarm the “tests” by which they measure your intelligence. They might easily find me mentally deficient!

I went to the attendant and asked if I could go. It was then that the jaws of the trap began to close.

“You can’t go until tomorrow morning,” she said, “unless the superintendent gives you permission. According to law, you’ve got to give a day’s work for your lodging. You are due to go out on Sunday.”

“But⁠—but I’ve got a chance of work. I may lose it if I’m kept here.” Already I could detect it in my own voice that rising note that speaks a nervous excitation. I realised that if I did not keep cool I must arouse official antagonism. Emotional display is terribly contagious in any form of institutional life, and at the first sign the official mind takes fright and closes down on the unfortunate pleader.

“The superintendent will be up about ten,” she said, “meanwhile you get on with some work.”

She motioned me towards Kitty, and obediently I went and asked what I was to do. Kitty at that moment was cleaning the grate, heaving up great handfuls of ashes⁠—they are not lavish with implements in the House⁠—to a running commentary on life in general and her own adventures in particular.

“There’s nothing particular you can do,” she answered, “just you look busy, that’s what matters.”

I found this to be the case. The tables had already been scrubbed; the corridor washed; there were only the brass knobs on the doors that awaited attention. I polished and repolished with assiduity. But time hung heavy on my hands. A kindly attendant gave me the tip that the superintendent would not like to find me idle, so I traversed the corridor over and over again, loathing each separate handle, to which I applied Brasso with a new and instinctive dislike.

I think I must have looked not very well, for presently the battered woman⁠—her name was Ellen⁠—beckoned me mysteriously.

“Kitty’s got some hot tea made for you, dear. I put it in your cell; drink it up, I’ll see that nobody catches you.”

To this hour I do not know what special pains and penalties were risked by Kitty and the kindly Ellen in the doing of this act of mercy. But whatever punishment they might have incurred they did not worry, and out of the largeness of their hearts, without a thought of themselves, they got me what I wanted that moment most in all the world.

The tea was hot and sweetened, and as I drank, vitality swept back into my blood. Kitty, it seemed, had a small store of groceries concealed somewhere on her person, or on the premises, from which she drew when occasion required. With the genius of her race she had already enlisted supporters all over the building, and Ellen, transmitting her desire, had induced a man on the next floor to supply hot water⁠—tact did all the rest.

I had a chat with Kitty after this refreshment and she warned me very solemnly to avoid certain casual wards.

“Some are good, some are bad, but I manage to get on with them all, except Tonbridge. I can’t never go to Tonbridge⁠—never again.”

It sounded strangely ominous. I was intrigued as to the fate that presided at this place of doom.

“What happened, Kitty?” I asked.

“It’s the law, me dear,” she said, “that the Master mustn’t put you to work on an empty belly; neither must you be put out of the House on an empty belly, and who should know this better than meself. There’s another law, me dear, the Master shan’t put you to do any of his private work, unless he pays for the same. An’ there was a certain woman that came in with me, an’ she told the master that she was by trade a laundress. ‘Then you’ll suit me,’ he says, ‘for I’ve a sight of washing that wants doing.’ ‘An’ I’m not doing your washing,’ says the woman, ‘an’ me wanting food.’ The Master shouted at her, but she was obstinate, an’ I’m not blaming her.”

“ ‘An’ ye’ll do me washing,’ says he, ‘or ye’ll go to gaol.’ ‘An’ it’s to gaol I’ll go,’ says she, an’ for all I told her what to say she sat there an’ she wouldn’t speak. She was given in charge, brought before the Bench an’ as I’m a living sinner they gave her fourteen days. The Master never said a word it was his own washing, an’ the poor creature never had the wit to speak up for herself.”

“And how did you come into the story, Kitty?”

“You wait an’ listen, me dear. When he was through with giving the poor thing to the police, he comes to me an’ wants to start me washing the floor. I didn’t argue, I just said, quite quiet, ‘But, Master, that’s not the law, an’ none should know it better than you⁠—an’ me belly is empty an’ on an empty belly the law says you mustn’t put me to work. An’ I’ll be pleased an’ proud to tell the Bench the same.’ ”

“He scowled at me, but I had me bit of cheese before I scrubbed. I wasn’t bearing him any ill-will, but he got a spite against me, an’ when it was time for me to leave I had a cup of cold gruel, though something hot in the way of tea is the right of ev’ryone before they leave the House. He wouldn’t give me any, so I took the gruel an’ hides it in the garden, an’ then I walks out an’ I asks if there’s anyone can send me to a committee lady, an’ don’t you forget, me dear, that’s what you’ve got to do. Always go to a committee lady. I found one right enough, an’ I asked her very civil if she’d be kind enough to step up to the House an’ see me breakfast. An’ she came, God bless her, an’ I showed her me gruel. She put the Master in his place an’ stood by while I had me cup of tea, an’ she wished me a pleasant good morning an’ gave me sixpence. But⁠—”⁠—Kitty spat on her blacklead brush⁠—“I can’t never go to Tonbridge again.”

But for Kitty’s entertainment time would have been a heavy burden. There is nothing so enervating to the spirit as a repetition of totally useless work, and the only alternative to the re-scrubbing of tables already scrubbed, the re-polishing of handles already shining, is to pick oakum. This is of all tasks the most cruel. It tears the finger nails and soils the soul; it has no value, social or economic. Oakum is employed, it is true, as hospital swabs, but, like all mechanical, impersonal labour, it is untouched with any satisfaction. Oakum-picking is part of the system deliberately designed to deter people from claiming a night’s lodging to which, as members of a community heavily rated, they are entitled.

The same system compels the compulsory detention of any casual until the morning of the second day. There could be no ethical or material objection to any woman doing two or three hours’ useful work. This, however, is not the object, which is to undermine all feelings of self-respect, and implant in the mind the belief that poverty is a crime which must be heavily punished. Not by any active or deliberate cruelty, but by the imposition of futile yet degrading denials. This denial of liberty, this abnegation of freedom, is so insistent that only in the last resource will a London outcast go into the House. The case of women on the road is different and will be subsequently dealt with.

Following on the publication in a Sunday newspaper of my article dealing with the Casual Ward, a revision of the rules has taken place. Oakum picking has been abolished for both male and female casuals, and the latter are now permitted to spend two or three hours daily in washing and mending their clothes and attending to their persons. These alterations, with the provision of hot tea at breakfast, already referred to, stand to the credit of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, and though there is still much which awaits reform, these alterations afford me and my fellow casuals cause for thankfulness.

The arrival of the superintendent, a pretty woman, with bobbed hair, aroused my jaded energies. I seized on a duster and rubbed at a door handle, breathing heavily on the brass. My request was explained to her by an attendant official.

“Have you any hope of work?” she asked.

“At Ealing,” I answered, “I am sure of a day’s charing.” Ealing was the first place I could think of.

“Have you been here before?” she asked.

“It’s the first time I have ever slept in a casual ward.”

“In that case I’ll let you go. But you must understand if you come back here within a month you will have to stay for three days; if you return next month, you will have to stay the usual time⁠—a day and a night. On no account will you be let off again.”

I wanted to blaze out my sense of the injustice of this rule, but I remembered in time that she was but the instrument and not the law, and I realised that the Superintendent, like the other officials, was far more humane than the institution which they served. Besides, I was beginning to have a wholesome fear of the State; I did not want to be thrust back into that awful cell. The thought of a second night in that funnel-shaped coffin appalled me. I hurriedly thanked her, and turned towards the office to get my hat and coat, powder puff and pence.

But I was not to leave the house without further proof of loving kindness. The battered Ellen came after me and slipped into my hand a thing most valued in the outcast life⁠—a piece of soap.

I followed the attendant down the stone stairs, a very nice young woman, whom I shall always remember with gratitude. She advised me to go to the Labour Exchange and said that daily chars were in demand and she wished me good luck with a bright smile.

The door clanged behind me and I went out into the bleak, raw day, feeling as if I had escaped from the grave. I reeled almost with the sense of liberty, a liberty that my hunger, weariness and great distress could not embitter. I understood then why it is that humanity dreads what is known as organised relief. I contrasted the ghastly regulations of the Workhouse with the warm, unfettered welcome of the Salvation Army, and I knew that if I found myself again in such a plight rather than go to the casual ward I would spend the whole night walking the streets.

And if I felt this in an institution characterised by the humanity of the officials, how intolerable must be the bitterness of a House ruled by insentient force? I thought of Kitty standing up before the master at Tonbridge and fighting the Law, and in my first flush of recovered independence I saluted that fine old warrior battling, not for her belly alone, but for the bellies of others.

There is, I understand, a Union of Poor Law Officials, who, apart from their work of obtaining decent wages and conditions for the members, are steadily striving to alter the regulations governing casuals. In this they are helped by individual guardians. But on the whole Boards have developed little consciousness since the days of Bumble. They have no souls to save nor bodies to be kicked and, while in London, at any rate, superintendents, male and female, have lost that sense of brutal superiority condemned by Dickens, their superiors have remained untouched. In the process of economic evolution, the soul of Bumble has ascended to a higher social plane.

I left before the midday meal, which consists of potatoes, bread, and a little cheese. The evening meal is skilly. The casuals have no tea, except in the morning. I rejoice to think that on this morning on which I write the women at Great Guildford Street have their tea hot; a small thing⁠—but to them a great feat to have accomplished.