‘Dear Sir,
‘For God’s sake, come and see us! This is a forlorn hope.’
As it gave the name and address of the writer, I went, and again it was Christmas Eve. The snow lay deep on the ground, and a hard frost had bound it together; the fog was choking and almost impenetrable, when about seven in the evening I found myself knocking at the door of the house. There was no light in the passage, but someone—I could not see who—answered the door. I inquired for Miss G——, and the voice said: ‘Downstairs.’ The door closed, the owner of the voice went away, and I was left in complete darkness. I struck a match, and by the aid of its feeble light found the ramshackle staircase that led below. I groped for a door, found one, and again knocked, and it was opened. A middle-aged woman with an old shawl round her head stood before me, a small benzoline lamp in her hand. Her face was so swollen that her features would not have been recognised even by friends. I told her my errand, and she asked me in and gave me a chair. It was an uncanny place. The fog penetrated the room, and the small, smoky lamp scarcely relieved the gloom. I had not been seated a moment before I was aware that there was something or somebody alive in one corner of the room, for a difficult and almost choking breathing was very audible. Beyond asking me in, the woman in the shawl had not spoken, so, lifting the little lamp from the table, I went to the corner, and very soon found a pair of eyes gazing into mine. The eyes and the breathing belonged to another woman, who lay on a miserable bed in the corner. She was evidently near death, and could not speak to me, so I found my way to the chair. ‘Who is she?’ I asked quietly of the woman in the shawl. ‘My sister.’ ‘She is very ill?’ I said. ‘She is dying,’ was the reply. ‘Have you had the doctor?’ ‘Yes; the parish doctor has just gone away, and he says she won’t last till morning.’ ‘Why did you write to me?’
She cried silently for some time, and then she told me that they had lived together for years, getting a living by making ladies’ aprons, etc., for the shops; that for a long time past her sister had been failing, and that for the past three months she had lain on that bed. She told me also how her own eyes had been gradually weakening, and her own earnings had fallen off, and, to make things worse, for the past month she had been half mad with neuralgia. So they had got behind with their rent, and the landlady was constantly abusing them and threatening to turn them out. They were the daughters of a once thriving tradesman. The dying sister had married a professor of languages, and with her husband had lived for a long time in Germany and France. Her husband had lived expensively and died suddenly, leaving his wife unprovided for. She herself had kept house for her father—she scarcely remembered her mother—and after the death of her father, who left her some little money, her sister joined her, and they tried to eke it out by doing needlework. But their earnings were small, and by degrees their bit of money went, and now sickness and death had come, and they were penniless. I made no more inquiries. I could see for myself that poverty and death were in that murky room. So I satisfied the landlady, sent in some coals, nourishment, and a better lamp. On Christmas Day, by the aid of this lamp, she saw her sister die, and a few days afterwards she stood by the grave of that sister, who had been given a common—very common—interment by the parish.
Several years they had lived in that underground room; a street grating was over their only window, and over that grating children played, and hundreds of people tramped daily knowing nothing of the tragedy going on underneath. But I helped her out of the cellar to a first-floor back, where there was a good window. I obtained a pair of spectacles to aid her weakened eyes, and she said she could keep herself, for old women think they can do wonders. I heard no more of her for years, but one day there came a small package to me. There was no letter, but the package contained a silver German coin, nicely mounted and made into a brooch; it was wrapped in a piece of paper, on which was written: ‘In memory. Forlorn hope.’ Either the workhouse or the grave—most probably the latter—has swallowed her.
But the numbers of poor women, devoted sisters, who go hand in hand to the grave is not limited. I have met with many such. About many of them there is nothing picturesque, no story to tell, but their lives are lives of devotion, and one might well marvel and say: ‘Behold, how these sisters love each other!’ The faults of the poor are well known to us; if they are not, ’tis not for the want of telling. The marvel is that they are as good as they are, for of many it may be said, ‘Hope is not for them.’ And yet to go on, month after month, year after year, with their self-imposed duties, with their hard, onerous, and ill-requited toil, uncheered and uninspired by hope, makes the marvel the greater and their lives the more noble. Some, as I have shown, become apathetic, and work on as machines, but still on and on with their drudgery they go, until welcome and well-earned death comes to them. But with others it is far different, for their hope has turned to bitterness, and though they never dream of relinquishing the struggle, and never seem to realize that old age is coming upon them, yet they retain a stern, rugged, and sometimes even a pugnacious independence when, after many weary years, well-meant assistance is offered them. ‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.’
But let me tell a story. I have told it before, but I want to tell it again. Standing in the dock of one of our police courts is a tall, spare woman of fifty-five. Her dress is of rusty black, and has done duty for many a year. Her bonnet, surmounted by a veil, is also black, and of ancient type. Her face tells of years of suffering, and bears that wistful look that is generally found on the faces of those that are stone-deaf. The gaoler stands beside her with a slate, on which are written down bits of the evidence for her to read. The officer in the witness-box says that about ten o’clock the previous night—a cold, dark night in February—he was on duty by the Lea, when he heard a splash and a cry. By the aid of his lantern he saw a black object in the water; he swam towards it, and found the prisoner, who said, ‘Let me die! Let me die!’ With difficulty he got her out, for she had tied a satchel round her waist, and in the satchel he found a flat-iron.
Following the officer in the witness-box came a little elderly woman, a small edition of the prisoner, but bent with hard work, her face furrowed and wrinkled. Her hands were twisted and gnarled like the roots of a tree; every joint was enlarged with rheumatics: they told a tale of hard, incessant toil. For thirty years, day after day, year after year, she had stood at the wash-tub and scrubbed out the social salvation of herself and sister.
The prisoner, she said, lived with her, and had done so for many years. Thirty years ago her sister had brain fever, and lost completely her sense of hearing. She was also detained for a short time in an asylum, out of which place she came to live with her. She had been ill many times since, and lately had not seemed happy. Yesterday the witness went to fetch home some work, and when she got back her sister had disappeared. Under an inverted basin on the table she found two pennies, a piece of cake, and a note which read as follows:
‘Dear Emma,
‘I have been a great burden to you; for more than thirty years you have worked for me, and now you are getting old, and will not be able to work for me much longer. Good-bye; you will never see me again.’
She begged the magistrate to allow her to take her sister home again; her sister was no burden to her. She could easily keep her, and would promise to look well after her. The magistrate kindly agreed to this, and asked me to render what help I could, so I went home with them; and I shall not forget going, for that poor little home is before me now, with all its spare, old-fashioned, respectable poverty, and its scrupulous cleanliness. It bore eloquent witness to the work and struggles of the pair. A week later I was in that little home again on a very glad errand. I had ten golden sovereigns to give them, and my wife was with me to see the joy of the sisters, and to share in my pleasure. Ten golden sovereigns! What would they not do for the sisters? Coal, food, warm clothing, and rest were all in those shining bits of metal. I loved the chink of the metal for the sake of the two women. The skinny arms were bared to the elbows, the gnarled and twisted fingers were in the soap-suds when I told her my errand, and put the money before her.