PUBLICANS AND HARLOTS
Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.
It was 7.30 p.m., and in the Young Women's Ward of the workhouse the inmates were going to bed by the crimson light of the July sunset. Most of the women had babies, and now and then a fretful cry would interrupt a story that was being listened to with much interest and laughter and loud exclamations: "Oh, Daisy, you are a caution!"
Had a literary critic been present, he would have classed the tale as belonging to the French realistic school of Zola and Maupassant. The raconteuse, Daisy Crabtree, who might have sat as a model for Rossetti's Madonna of the Annunciation, was a slight, golden-haired girl, known to philanthropists as a "daughter of the State," and an object-lesson against such stepmothering. Picked up as an infant under a crab-tree by the police, and christened later in commemoration of the discovery, she had been brought up in a "barrack-school," and a "place" found for her at fifteen, from which she had "run" the following day; the streets had called to their daughter, and she had obeyed. Since then she had been "rescued" twenty-seven times—by Catholics, Anglicans, Wesleyans, Methodists, Baptists, and Salvationists—but not even the great influence of "Our Lady of the Snows" or "The Home of the Guardian Angels" could save this child of vice, and most Homes in London being closed against her, she perpetually sought shelter in the various workhouses of the Metropolis, always being "passed" back to the parish of the patronymic crab-tree where she was "chargeable." Here she resided at the expense of the rates, till some lady visitor, struck by her beauty and seeming innocence, provided her with an outfit and a situation.
"Shut up, Daisy!" said one girl, quiet and demure as her namesake Priscilla. "You're only fit for a pigsty."
"'The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork,'" sang Musical Meg, a half-witted girl, who had given two idiots to the guardianship of the ratepayers. She was possessed of a soprano voice, very clear and true, and, having been brought up in a High Church Home, she punctiliously chanted the offices of Prime and Compline, slightly muddling them as her memory was bad.
"Hold your noise, Meg; we want to hear the tale."
"'Brethren, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour, whom resist, steadfast in the faith,'" chanted Musical Meg again.
The door opened and the white-capped attendant entered, leading by the hand two little girls of about twelve and fourteen, who were sobbing pitifully.
"Less noise here, if you please. Meg, you know you have been forbidden to sing at bedtime. Now, my dears, don't cry any more; get undressed and into bed at once; you'll see your mother in the morning."
"Why are you here, duckies? Father run away and left you all starving?" asked an older woman who had been walking about the room administering medicine, opening windows, and generally doing the work of wardswoman.
"Yes," sobbed the children; "they've put mother in another room, and we are so frightened."
"There, stop crying, my dears," said Priscilla; "come and look at my baby."
"What a lot of babies!" said the elder girl. "Have all your husbands run away and left you?"
"Oh, Lor'! child, don't ask questions; get into bed, quick." The children donned their pink flannelette nightgowns and then knelt down beside their beds, making the sign of the Cross. There was deep silence, some of the girls began to cry, "Irish Biddy" threw herself on her knees and recited the Rosary with sobs and gasps.
"Oh, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow,
Whiter than snow, whiter than snow,"
sang a blear-eyed girl in a raucous, tuneless chant.
Musical Meg put her fingers to her ears. "You've got the wrong tune, Rosie; listen, I'll hum it to you," but finding her attempts after musical correctness were unheeded, she started herself the Qui habitat of the Compline office.
"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 associates as "Tipsy Tempie," all unconscious of the classical 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 "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 Tempie's shirts dressed for dinner without a murmur, and "never said a single 'damn.'"
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 assistant 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 God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty;
God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity.