Essays in Rebellion

by Henry Woodd Nevinson

"Yes," said the superintendent, "we do our very best to make it a happy home. Don't we, Ma?"

"We do, indeed," said the matron. "You see, sir, it has to be a home as well as a school."

The superintendent had been employed in workhouse schools for many years, and had gradually worked himself up to the highest position. On his appointment he had hoped to introduce many important changes in the system. Now, at the end of nine years, he could point to a few improvements in the steam-laundry, and the substitution of a decent little cap for the old workhouse Glengarry. At one time he had conceived the idea of allowing the boys brushes and combs instead of having their hair cropped short to the skin. But in this and other points he had found it better to let things slide rather than throw the whole place out of gear for a trifle. Changes received little encouragement; and the public didn't really care what happened until some cruel scandal in the evening papers made their blood boil for half a minute as they went home to dinner in the suburbs.

The gong sounded. All stood up again with clasped hands, and again Looney suffered while Clem joined in the grace. As the boys marched out at one door, Alfred looked back and caught sight of Lizzie departing flushed and torpid with the infants after her struggle to make a "clean plate" of her legal pound of flesh and solid dough. In the afternoon he was sent to enjoy the leisure of school with his "standard," or to creep about in the howling chaos of play-time in the yard. After tea he was herded with four hundred others into a day-room quite big enough to allow them to stand without touching each other. Hot pipes ran round the sides under a little bench, and the whitewashed walls were relieved by diagrams of the component parts of a sweet pea and scenes from the life of Abraham. As usual an attempt was made at hide-and-seek under strange conditions. Some inglorious inventor had solved the problem of playing that royal game in an empty oblong room. His method was to plant out the "juniors" in clusters or copses on the floor, whilst the "seniors" lurked and ran and hunted in and out their undergrowth. To add zest to the chase, Clem now let Looney slip as a kind of bag-fox, and the half-witted creature went lumbering and blubbering about in real terror of his life, whilst his pursuers encouraged his speed with artifices in which the animated spinnies and coverts deferentially joined. Unnoticed and lonely in the crowd, Alfred was almost sorry he was not half-witted too.

At last he was marched off to his dormitory with fifty-five others, and lay for a long time listening with the fascination of innocence whilst Clem in a low voice described with much detail the scenes of "human nature" which he had recently witnessed down hopping with his people. Almost before he was well asleep, as it seemed, the strange new life began again with the bray of a bugle and the flaring of gas, and he had to hurry down to the model lavatory to wash under his special little jet of warm spray, so elaborately contrived in the hope of keeping ophthalmia in check.

So, with drills and scrubbings and breakfasts and schools, the great circles of childhood's days and nights went by, each distinguished from another only by the dinner and the Sunday services. And from first to last the pauper child was haunted by the peculiar pauper smell, containing elements of whitewash, damp boards, soap, steam, hot pipes, the last dinner and the next, corduroys, a little chlorate of lime, and the bodies of hundreds of children. It was not unwholesome.

IV

One thing shed a light over the days as it approached, and then left them dark till the hope of its return brought a dubious twilight. Once a month, on a Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Reeve had promised to come and see the two children. She might have come oftener, for considerable allowance was made for family affection. But it was difficult enough in four weeks to lay by the few pence which would take her down to the suburb. Punctually at two she was at the gate, and till four she might sit with the children in the lodge. Not much was said. They clung to each other in silence. Or she undid the boy's stiff waistcoat, and looked at his grey shirt, and tried to accustom herself to her Lizzie's short hair and heavy blue dress. Many others came too, and sat in the same room—eloquent drunkards appealing to heaven, exuberant relatives with apples and sweets, unsatisfied till the children howled in answer to their pathos, girls half-ashamed to be seen, and quiet working mothers. As four struck, good-bye was said, and with Lizzie's crying in her ears Mrs. Reeve walked blindly back through the lines of suburban villas to the station. Twice she came, and, counting the days and weeks, the children had made themselves ready for the third great Saturday. Carefully washed and brushed, they sat in their separate day-rooms, and waited. Two o'clock struck, but no message came. All the afternoon they waited, sick with disappointment and loneliness. At last, seeing the matron go by, Alfred said: "Please, mum, my mother ain't come to-day."

"Not come?" she answered. "Oh, that is a cruel mother! But they're all the same. Each time, sure as fate, there's somebody forgotten, so you're no worse off than anybody else. Look, here's a nice big sweet for you instead! Oh yes, I'll tell them about your little sister. What's your name, did you say?"

As he went out along the corridor, Alfred came upon Looney hiding behind an iron column, and crying to himself. "Why, what's the matter with you?" he asked.