"About My Father's Business": Work Amidst the Sick, the Sad, and the Sorrowing

by Thomas Archer

It is a still autumnal day, and, as we turn up the wooded lane on the left of the hill leading from the Putney Railway Station to Wimbledon, a tender gleam in the grey clouds betokens coming rainfall. A light, hanging drift descends upon the distant hills, and breaks into pale vaporous shapes amidst the wooded slopes and valleys. The yellow leaves that strew the ground lie motionless, as though they waited for their late companions to fall gently from the branches overhead and join their silent company.

Coming into a broader roadway, and passing through the gate of a lodge, we come almost suddenly upon a glorious sloping lawn, adorned with goodly trees, worthy of the great building—meant for a ducal residence, and now put to nobler uses—which, for all its stately look, has about it a home-likeness that is full of promise. Even the matchless landscape lying around it—the expanse of wood and dale, the soft slopes of Surrey hills, the deep-embowered glades where the bronze-and-gold of moving tree-tops takes a changeful sheen from slowly-drifting clouds, or reflects strange gleams of colour from the glistening silver of the rain—will not hold us from the nearer glow of windows bright with flowers, which give a festal look to the place, although it is so quiet that we stand and imagine for a moment what it is that we have come to see. For this great mansion, with its long rows of windows and wide-spreading wings, is the home of a hundred and fifty-four men and women, some of whom have been suddenly stricken down, others having slowly fallen day by day into a condition of incurable disease, and, in many cases, also into a condition of utter bodily helplessness. They, and the attendants whose constant kindly services are essential for their relief, constitute the family of what is known, plainly enough, as "The Royal Hospital for Incurables." There are no distinctions among its members, though in their previous lives they have belonged to various grades—no distinctions, at least, except those which arise from personal qualifications.

The claim for election to the benefits of the charity is the necessity which is implied in the name of the institution itself: and once within its sheltering walls the patients, whose failing eyes brighten, and whose wan cheeks flush with every loving mention of it as their home, are all alike sharers in its benefits.

Not only the 154 at present within its walls, however, but 327 of those who, having family and friends with whom to dwell, receive pensions of £20 a year each, and so cease to be a heavy burden to others.

Do you think at first sight, and from the external appearance of the building, that charity here has gone beyond precedent in providing such a place—a palatial pile standing amidst scenery that one might well come far to see? Remember what is the need of those who have to be lifted out of the dark, hopeless depths of what is almost despair; of those who, finding themselves banished from hospital wards, unable to earn their bread, feeling themselves a burden upon those for whom they would almost consent to die rather than live upon their poverty; of those who, in the midst of hourly pain, have the mental anguish of knowing that the long calendar of darkening days may find them utterly dependent on the toil of others most dear to them, and whose few expedients can bring little ease, and will not serve to hide the ever-present sense of disappointment and distress.

Think how much wealth is wasted daily in the world, and what a small part of it suffices to lighten by every available means the burden of such lives as these; the sorrow of those who, in the dreadful deprivation of what to us seems almost all that makes life dear, have no resource between that provided for them in such a place as this and the infirmary-ward of a workhouse, amidst sordid surroundings and the hard, mechanical, unfeeling officialism which in such cases is little more than organised neglect.

There are people who would reduce all charitable institutions—yes, even such as this, of which living personal interest and the care that comes of more than merely casual benevolence are the very foundation and corner-stone—to a dead level of official rule, in which benevolence should be represented by a mechanical department, and the sentiment of charity by a self-elected board of control, dealing with public subscriptions as though they were a poor-rate, and recognising neither individual interest nor the right of contributors to give it expression. Such a system would lack the very qualification most needed here, and to be found only in that voluntary personal interest that brings to the recipients of bounty more than the mere bounty itself, the heart-throb of sympathy, the feeling that the gift means more than the cold official recognition of a national duty, that it is the expression of loving-kindness ever active and living; and so making for the helpless, the destitute, and the dying, not a mere asylum, but a home.

The entrance into the hall of a cheerful, genial gentleman, with a kindly, brisk manner, and a reassuring expression of deliberation and repose in his observant face and easy bearing, rouses us from melancholy fancies, and with a few words of courteous welcome we are at once conducted to the door that is to open to us the first scene in this wonderful visit.

A spacious assembly room—let us call it by the good old name of "parlour," for there is much quietly animated talk going on—talk, and needlework of all kinds, from the knitting of a warm woollen shawl to the manipulation of delicate lace, and the deft handling of implements for making those exquisite tortures of society known as antimacassars. With ever so wide an experience of halls, salons, suites, or drawing-rooms, the visitor can see nothing resembling this wonderful parlour elsewhere. A room of noble proportions, one end of which is occupied by an organ; the great windows reaching almost from floor to ceiling, and overlooking a broad expanse of lawn, with a glorious view of hill and woodland beyond; on the tables flowers, books, ornaments; in every kind of couch and chair—many of which are comfortable beds on wheels and springs—a company of women, with bright, cheerful, intelligent faces, full of a recent interest, and, even in cases where some paroxysm of pain is passing, with a certain serene satisfaction which it is infinitely good to see.

There has been a morning service, conducted by a visiting clergyman, and there is a general expression of approval which, if the reverend gentleman himself were present to witness it, would surely prove highly gratifying. The congregation has settled down to easy talk, and has resumed its occupation of plain and fancy needlework. Here is an old lady whose silver hair adds to her natural grace and dignity, who is busy with wool-knitting, and at the same time engages in a discriminating criticism of the address to one of the many visitors who sit and spend an hour of their afternoon in agreeable chat. There is a pretty but rather sad-eyed mignon lady, whose excellently-fitting silk dress, delicate hands, and general "niceness" of appearance, quite prepare us to see the beautiful examples of all kinds of fancy work of which she never seems to tire. Every year, in June, they hold a grand bazaar at the hospital, so that those who are skilful and capable are able to earn enough money to clothe themselves as they please—everything except clothing being found by the charity, except to two or three inmates who are able to pay for their own maintenance. Now we hear the low tones of cheerful talk, the pleasant ripple of laughter—note the brightening glance, the quick smile, the feeble but earnest finger-clasp which greets the cheerful salutation of the house governor, Mr. Darbyshire, or the presence of his wife, the lady matron of this great happy family of incurables, we begin to wonder at our gloomy estimate of the place before this visit.