The Midwife

by Jennifer Worth

  A feeling of decay and menace hovered over the whole area like an evil vapour. The craters left by the bombs were filled with rubbish and smelled horrible. Jagged bits of wall, rose starkly towards the sky. No one was around: mornings in a red-light district are generally slow for business. The quietness had an oppressive quality about it, and I would be glad to get away.

  I had barely turned the corner of the house when the sound started. I froze to the spot, the hair prickling on the back of my neck as a sort of terror gripped me. It was like the howl of a wolf, or an animal in dreadful pain. The sound seemed to come from everywhere, echoing off the few buildings, and filling the bombsites with an unearthly pain. The noise stopped, but I literally couldn’t move. Then it started again, and the window in the house opposite opened. The woman who had told me to throw stones to attract the landlord leaned out, shouting, “It’s that mad old hag. Yer lookin’ after ’er. Tell ’er to shu’ up, or I’ll come and kill ’er, I will. You tell ’er from me.”

  The window banged shut. My mind raced.

  Mad old hag? Mrs Jenkins? It couldn’t be! She couldn’t be making that anguished noise. I’d left her contented and happy only a few minutes ago.

  The noise stopped and, trembling, I went back into the house, down the passage to her door and turned the handle.

  “Rosie? That you, Rosie?”

  I opened the door. Mrs Jenkins was sitting just as I had left her, with a cat on her knee and another preening itself beside her chair. She looked up brightly.

  “If you see Rosie, tell ’er I’m coming. Tell ’er not to lose ’eart. Tell ’er I’m comin’, an’ the li’l ones, an’ all. I’ll scrub an’ scrub all day, an’ they’ll let me come this time, they will. You tell my Rosie.”

  I was bewildered. She couldn’t have made that howling noise; it was impossible. I took her pulse, which was normal, and enquired if she felt all right, to which she did not reply but smacked her lips together and looked steadily at me.

  There seemed no point in my staying, but I left with misgivings that morning.

  Sister Evangelina took the morning report, and I told her that Mrs Jenkins seemed to enjoy her bath. I reported on the toenails and the fleas. I reported that her mental condition seemed fairly stable - she loved her new clothes, was chatting companionably to the cats, and was not at all withdrawn and defensive. I hesitated to report the unearthly noise I had heard in the street; after all it might not have come from Mrs Jenkins. It was only the woman opposite who had suggested it had.

  Sister Evangelina looked up at me, her heavy features expressionless.

  “And?” she said.

  “And what?” I faltered.

  “And what else? What have you not reported?”

  Was she a mind reader? There was clearly no way out. I told her of the ghastly cry I had heard from the street, adding that I couldn’t be sure it was Mrs Jenkins.

  “No, but you cannot be sure that it was not Mrs Jenkins, can you? Describe the cry.”

  Again I hesitated, as it was so difficult to describe, but I ended by likening it to the howl of a wolf.

  Sister looked down at her notes, not moving, and when she spoke her voice was different, subdued and low. “Those who have heard that sound can never forget it. It makes your blood run cold. I think the cry you heard probably did come from Mrs Jenkins, and it was what used to be called ‘the workhouse howl’.”

  “What is that?” I enquired.

  She did not reply straight away, but sat tapping her pen with impatience. Then, “Humph. You young girls know nothing of recent history. You’ve had it too easy, that’s your trouble. I will come with you on your next visit, and I will also see if we can get hold of any medical or parish records about Mrs Jenkins. Proceed with your report.”

  I completed the report and had time to wash and change before lunch. At table, it was hard to join in the general conversation. I was hearing in my mind that horrible wolf-howl, thinking of Sister Evangelina’s explanation, and remembering. Her words brought to mind something my grandfather had told me years before, about a man he knew well who had fallen on hard times. The man had applied to the Board of Guardians for temporary relief, and had been told that he could not have it, but would be sent to the workhouse. The man replied, “I would rather die” and went away and hanged himself.

  When I was a child the local workhouse had been pointed out to me with hushed and terrified whispers. Even the empty building seemed to evoke fear and loathing. People would not go down the road in which it stood, or would pass on the other side with faces averted. The dread even affected me, a little child who knew nothing about the history of the workhouses. All my life I have looked on those buildings with a shudder.

  Sister Evangelina frequently accompanied me on my visits to Mrs Jenkins, and I had marvelled at the way in which she got the old lady talking. Reminiscing was obviously good therapy for her, as she relived the pain of the past with a loving and sympathetic person.

  The Council supplied Sister with the old records of the Board of Guardians of Poplar Workhouse. Mrs Jenkins had been a pauper inmate from 1916 to 1935. “Enough to drive anyone mad,” Sister Evie commented wryly. She had been admitted as a widow with five children, unable to support herself. She was described as an “able-bodied adult”. The records stated that Mrs Jenkins was discharged in 1935, with the gift of a sewing machine, the use of which would enable her to support herself, and twenty-four pounds, which was her accumulated earnings after nineteen years in the workhouse. No further mention was made of the children.

  The records were dry and scant. Mrs Jenkins herself filled in the missing details in her conversations with Sister Evie. Little bits of the story came out here and there, relived with a complete lack of emotion or melodrama as though her story were nothing unusual. I felt that she had seen and experienced so much suffering for so long that she had accepted it as inevitable. A happy life seemed unthinkable to her.

  She had been born in Millwall, and like most girls had gone to work in a factory at the age of thirteen, and then married a local boy when she was eighteen. They rented two rooms over a tailor’s shop in Commercial Road, and six children were born to them over the next ten years. Then her young husband developed a cough that did not get better. Six months later he was spitting blood. “He jus’ wasted away,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. Three months later he was dead.

  Mrs Jenkins was strong and less than thirty years of age at the time. She left the two rooms and took a small back room for herself and her children. She returned to work in the shirt-making factory, working from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Her baby was only three months old, but Rosie - her eldest daughter - was already ten and left school in order to look after the younger children. Extra hand-sewing was taken in, and she often sat half the night sewing by candlelight. Rosie learned to sew too and became a good needlewoman, often sitting up with her mother into the night hours. These silent hours of female labour brought in a little extra money - enough to feed the family - after the rent was paid.

  Then catastrophe struck. The machinery of the factory was completely unguarded, and the sleeve of Mrs Jenkins’ dress caught in a wheel, dragging her right arm towards the cutting blades. Her arm was badly injured, she lost a lot of blood, and tendons were severed before the machine was stopped. She was lucky not to lose her arm. She showed us the six inch scar. The lacerations were never stitched because she could not afford to pay a doctor, and the scar, though healed, was wide, deep red, and irregular. Her arm was slightly withered because the tendons had not been sutured. It was surprising that she could use her hand at all.

  She looked at the scar without emotion. “This is wha’ done fer us,” she said.

  The family moved out of the back room, and found shelter in a basement with no window. It was close to the river’s edge, and at high tide, when the water level rose, moisture seeped through the brickwork and ran down the walls. For this hovel, the landlord demanded one shilling a week, but with the mother not earn
ing, how was this to be found?

  She went out begging, but was driven off the streets by the police who saw her as an undesirable vagrant. She pawned her coat, and with the money bought matches, then went out into the streets as a match seller. The profits from her sales brought in a little money, but not enough to pay the rent as well as feed the children.

  Bit by bit she pawned everything they had - the furniture, pots, saucepans, the plates and mugs, clothes, linen. Last to go was the bed in which they all slept. She constructed a platform out of orange boxes to raise them off the damp floor, and on this the family slept. Finally the blankets had to go in to be pawned, and mother and children clung to each other for warmth at night.

  She asked the Board of Guardians for outdoor relief, but the chairman said she was obviously lazy and workshy, and when she told them of the accident in the factory, and showed them her right arm, she was told not to be impertinent, or it would count against her. The gentlemen debated amongst themselves, and offered to take two of her children off her hands. She refused, and returned to the basement with six hungry mouths to feed.

  With no light, no heat, constant damp and mildew, and virtually no food, the children became sickly. The family struggled on for six months like this, and still the mother could not work. She sold her hair; she sold her teeth, but it was never enough. The baby became lethargic and ceased to thrive. She called it “wasting fever”.

  When the baby died no money could be spared for burial, so she sealed him in an orange box weighed down with stones, and slipped him into the river.

  That furtive journey in the middle of the night with her dead baby was the moment when she finally accepted defeat, and knew that the inevitable had come. She and the children would have to go to the workhouse.

  THE WORKHOUSE

  The Poor Law Act of 1834 started the workhouse system. The Act was repealed in 1929, but the system lingered on for several decades because there was nowhere else for the inmates to go, and long-term residents had lost the capacity to make any decisions or look after themselves in the outside world.

  It was intended as a humane and charitable Act, because hitherto the poor or destitute could be hounded from place to place, never finding shelter, and could lawfully be beaten to death by their pursuers. To the chronically poor of the 1830s the workhouse system must have seemed like heaven: a shelter each night; a bed or communal bed to sleep in; clothing; food - not lavish, but enough, and, in return, work to pay for your keep. The system must have seemed like an act of pure Christian goodness and charity. But, like so many good intentions, it quickly turned sour.

  Mrs Jenkins and her children left the basement with three weeks’ rent owing. The landlord had threatened to put the whip to her back if she did not pay the following day, so they had left during the night. The family had nothing to take with them; neither she nor the children wore any shoes, their clothes were just rags thrown over their thin bodies. Dirty, hungry, and shivering they stood in the unlit street, ringing the great bell outside the workhouse.

  The children, were not particularly unhappy as yet; in fact, it seemed something of an adventure to them, creeping out in the dead of night and making their way along dark roads. Only their mother was crying, because only she knew the dreadful truth: that the family would be separated once they entered the workhouse gates. She could not bring herself to tell the children, and hesitated before ringing that fateful bell. But her youngest child, a boy of nearly three, started coughing, so she pulled the handle resolutely.

  The sound echoed through the stone building, and the door was opened by a thin, grey man who demanded, “What do you want?”

  “Shelter, and food for the little ones.”

  “You’ll have to come to the Reception Room. You can sleep there till morning, unless, of course, you’re ‘casuals’ and go to the Casual Centre. There’s no food until morning.”

  “No, we are not casuals,” she said wearily.

  They were the only people in the reception room that night. The sleeping platform, a raised wooden construction, was covered with fresh straw and looked inviting. They cuddled up together in the sweet-smelling hay, and the children fell asleep at once. Only the mother lay awake, her arms around her children, until dawn. Her heart was breaking. She knew it would be the last time she would be allowed to sleep with her children.

  Morning sounds, keys clanking, and doors opening, were heard long before anyone unlocked the door of the reception room. Finally, the Mistress entered. She was a resolute looking woman, not unkind, but one who had seen too many paupers to be swayed by emotion. She took their names, and briefly told them to follow her to the washhouse, where they were stripped, and made to wash all over with cold water in shallow stone troughs. Their clothes, such as they were, were removed, and workhouse uniforms provided. These were of coarse grey serge, cut to fit almost any size of person. There were a variety of odd shoes. No undergarments were provided, but that did not matter, because none of them were accustomed to vests or pants, even in the coldest weather. Then their heads were shaved. The boys thought this was great fun, and giggled and pointed at the girls, cramming their fists into their mouths to stop themselves from laughing aloud. Mrs Jenkins did not have to be shaved because she had no hair, having sold it some weeks previously; she was given a bonnet to cover her bare head. She timidly asked if there would be any food for the little ones, and was told that it was too late for breakfast, but that lunch would be served at 12 noon.

  They were taken to the Master’s office for segregation. Everyone dreaded this moment, including the Master and Mistress, and four strong pauper inmates were brought in to take the children away. Mrs Jenkins had persuaded herself that it would not be too bad for the younger ones, because they would all be with Rosie, who had looked after them while she was at work. But this was not to be.

  The Master looked at the little ones. “Ages?” he demanded.

  “Two, four, and five,” she whispered.

  “Take them to the children’s ward. And the older boy? What age is he?”

  “Nine.”

  “He’ll go to the boys’ ward. The girl?” he demanded, pointing at Rosie.

  “Ten.”

  “Take her to the girls’ ward,” he ordered.

  Rough hands were laid on the children. The Master turned and walked out. He was not going to stay to watch the scene. As he left, he barked to the helpers, “Mind you do as you are bidden. You know the rules.”

  Mrs Jenkins could not give Sister Evangelina or me the details of the parting. It was too terrible to talk about. The children were dragged away screaming, and she was pushed into the women’s quarters. Great doors were shut behind her, and keys were turned. She heard the sounds of screaming children and doors banging. Then she heard no more. She was told much later by a friendly woman who worked in the kitchens that there was a little boy who cried all the time, and whose eyes never left the great door of the children’s quarters, watching every person who came in. He never said a single word except “mummy” from the day he entered to the day he died. Was it her little boy? She never knew, but it might have been.

  I asked Sister Evangelina about this segregation, which seemed so utterly inhuman that it could not be true, but she assured me that it was. Segregation was the first rule of all workhouses throughout the country, and the one most rigorously applied. Husbands and wives were separated, parents and children, brothers and sisters. Usually, they never saw each other again.

  If Mrs Jenkins was odd, it was not surprising.

  One evening I visited her quite late. It was dark and, down the side passage leading to her back door, I heard a strange, subdued human voice that was chanting in a rhythmic way. I peered through the window and saw Mrs Jenkins on her hands and knees on the floor, scrubbing. An oil-lamp stood beside her, throwing a huge and ghostly shadow of her small figure on to the wall. She had a pail of water beside her, and a scrubbing brush, and she was scrubbing the same square of floor obsessively. All the wh
ile she seemed to be repeating a rythmic pattern of words that I could not distinguish but she did not change her position.

  I rapped on the door and entered. She lifted her head, but did not turn round.

  “Rosie? Come ’ere, Rosie. Look a’ this, girl. Look ’ow clean it is. Master’ll be pleased when ’e sees how clean I scrubbed it.”

  She looked up at the great shadow of herself on the wall.

  “Come an’ see here, Master. It’s so clean, an’ I done it all. It’s clean, an’ I done it to please you, Master. They says I can see my li’l ones if I please you, Master. Can I? Can I? Oh, let me, just once.”

  Her cry lifted, and her tiny body fell forwards. Her head hit the bucket, and she gave a whimper of pain. I went over to her.

  “It’s me, the nurse. I’m just doing my evening visit. Are you all right, Mrs Jenkins?”

  She looked up at me, but didn’t say a word. She sucked her lips, and gazed at me steadily as I helped her to her feet and led her to the armchair.

  On the bare table was a cooked lunch, left for her by the Meals on Wheels ladies. It was untouched, and quite cold.

  I moved the plate, and said, “Didn’t you fancy your lunch, then?”

  She grabbed my wrist with unexpected strength and pushed my arm away. “For Rosie,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

  I checked her physical condition, and asked a few questions, none of which she replied to. She just gazed at me unblinkingly, and continued sucking her lips.

  On another occasion when I called, she was chuckling to herself as she played with a piece of elastic. She was stretching and releasing it and twisting it round her fingers. She said to me, as I entered, “My Rosie brought me a bit of elastic las’ night. Look ’ow it stretches. It’s good an’ strong. She’s a clever girl, my Rose. She can always get hold of a bi’ of elastic for you, if you wants it.”