"An' to think," said Mrs. D., as we followed the attendant upstairs to inspect the dormitories, "to think that there might 'ave bin some of the mothers in that very church this mornin'."
"And fathers," I reminded her.
"I don't think," answered the old lady. "A father out er wedlock's a very different thing to a mother out er wedlock. Nature never took much account er the fathers. They ony got a walkin'-on part, and some of them's precious quick at walkin' orf when it's a case er payin' the piper."
The long, long rows of little white-counterpaned beds in the dormitories were an eloquent comment on the old lady's indictment of my sex, and I am glad it was a man who thought of making a home for the babies. If Thomas Coram's ghost walks, it must sometimes pay a visit to the little sleepers who have no mothers to tuck them up. Those long dormitories, too, must often be haunted at nights by ghosts of the living women, who, in their dreams, look for one round face on its pillow—the one who is theirs. To visit them in the flesh is not allowed. The surrender of the babies is complete, no alternative being compatible with the working of the scheme which is to save the child and at the same time to hide the mother's shame.
One hears stories of callous behaviour on the part of some of the mothers. But such cases are rare, I should think, and that long pathway leading from the hospital to the iron gates must have been a via dolorosa to many a woman who trod it on her way back home with empty arms.
No child is received after the age of twelve months, and they are put out to nurse in country homes until the age of five, when they are returned to the hospital. Would a woman who had parted from her child of a year old know it again at five? Did such women ever go to that prosaic-looking church and search the rows of small faces for the one which belonged to her by rights of the flesh? If she did she must, anyhow, have found comfort in the sight of that happy-looking crowd of youngsters.
Mrs. Darling asked me if I thought the children ever found their parents when, at the age of fifteen and sixteen, they left the hospital? It was a question which opened up all sorts of possibilities and situations. There must be mothers who had died, mothers who, in the course of years, had become reconciled to the loss of their children, but what of those who had not forgotten or died?
In one of the yearly reports which I saw there is mention of one child only restored to its mother. I believe instances of this kind are rare, very searching inquiry being made by the governors before they consent to such an application. As a rule, once the institution takes the children they belong to it practically for life. It does not wash its hands of them when it sends them out to service or apprenticeship, but gives them substantial assistance (when needed, and as far as the means of the Institution permit) to the day of their death.
The situation of these children is not only pathetic but strange in the entire isolation from the ordinary ties and obligations of humanity. No going home for holidays, no parcels from fond parents, no one particular person to whom the small boy or girl belongs. They do not miss these things because they have never known them, and, at least, they are not burdened with objectionable or tiresome relatives. There must, though, be moments when they feel lonely: moments when they could sympathise with the little drudge I once saw in a play who wrote letters to herself, and put a crape band on her arm for the death of a supposed relative.
The picture gallery, with its polished floor, its great expanse of Turkey carpet, its richly carved plaster ceiling, is a room in which to spend a winter afternoon with a book, watching the light fade through the row of long windows, and finding fresh horrors in Rafælle's "Murder of the Innocents," an enormous cartoon which covers nearly the whole of the wall at one end. The apartment is the Court Room as well as the picture gallery, and it must have been the Calvary of many a woman who parts from her child within its walls.