The Mysteries of London Volume 1

by Reynolds, George W. M.

O God! thou know’st I do not crave

  To eat the bread of sloth:

  I labour hard both day and night,

  To earn enough for both!

  But though I starve myself for her,

  Yet hunger wastes her form:—

  My God! and must that darling child

  Soon feed the loathsome worm?

  ’Tis vain—for I can work no more—

  My eyes with toil are dim;

  My fingers seem all paralyzed,

  And stiff is every limb!

  And now there is but one resource;

  The pauper’s dreaded doom!

  To hasten to the workhouse, and

  There find a living tomb.

  I know that they will separate

  My darling child from me;

  And though ’t will break our hearts, yet both

  Must bow to that decree!

  Henceforth our tears must fall apart,

  Nor flow together more;

  And from to-day our prayers may not

  Be mingled as before!

  O God! is this the Christian creed,

  So merciful and mild?

  The daughter from the mother snatched,

  The mother from her child!

  Ah! we shall ne’er be blessed again

  Till death has closed our eyes,

  And we meet in the pauper’s ground

  Where my poor mother lies.—

  Though sad this chamber, it is bright

  To what must be our doom;

  The portal of the workhouse is

  The entrance of the tomb!

  Ellen read these lines till her eyes were dim with tears. She then retired to her wretched couch; and she slept through sheer fatigue. But dreams of hunger and of cold filled up her slumbers;—and yet those dreams were light beside the waking pangs which realised the visions!

  The young maiden slept for three hours, and then arose unrefreshed, and paler than she was on the preceding day. It was dark: the moon had gone down; and some time would yet elapse ere the dawn. Ellen washed herself in water upon which the ice floated; and the cold piercing breeze of the morning whistled through the window upon her fair and delicate form.

  As soon as she was dressed, she lighted her candle and crept gently into her father’s room. The old man slept soundly. Ellen flung his clothes over her arm, took his boots up in her hand, and stole noiselessly back to her own chamber. She then brushed those garments, and cleaned those boots, all bespattered with thick mud as they were; and this task—so hard for her delicate and diminutive hands—she performed with the most heart-felt satisfaction.

  As soon as this occupation was finished, she sate down once more to work.

  Thus that poor girl knew no rest!

  CHAPTER LVI.

  THE ROAD TO RUIN.

  ABOUT two months after the period when we first introduced Ellen Monroe to our readers, the old woman of whom we have before spoken, and who dwelt in the same court as that poor maiden and her father, was sitting at work in her chamber.

  The old woman was ill-favoured in countenance, and vile in heart. Hers was one of those hardened dispositions which know no pity, no charity, no love, no friendship, no yearning after any thing proper to human fellowship.

  She was poor and wretched;—and yet she, in all her misery, had a large easy chair left to sit upon, warm blankets to cover her at night, a Dutch clock to tell her the hour, a cupboard in which to keep her food, a mat whereon to lay her feet, and a few turves burning in the grate to keep her warm. The walls of her room were covered with cheap prints, coloured with glaring hues, and representing the exploits of celebrated highwaymen and courtezans; scenes upon the stage in which favourite actresses figured, and execrable imitations of Hogarth’s “Rake’s Progress.” The coverlid of her bed was of patchwork, pieces of silk, satin, cotton, and other stuffs, all of different patterns, sizes, and shapes, being sewn together—strange and expressive remnants of a vicious and faded luxury! Upon the chimney-piece were two or three scent-bottles, which for years had contained no perfume, and in the cupboard was a champagne-bottle, in which the hag now kept her gin. The pillow of her couch was stuffed neither with wool nor feathers—but with well-worn silk stockings, tattered lace collars, faded ribands, a piece of a muff and a boa, the velvet off a bonnet, and old kid gloves. And—more singular than all the other features of her room—the old hag had a huge Bible, with silver clasps, upon a shelf!

  This horrible woman was darning old stockings, and stooping over her work, when a low knock at the door of her chamber fell upon her ear. That knock was not imperative and commanding, but gentle and timid; and therefore the old woman did not hurry herself to say, “Come in!” Even after the door had opened and the visitor had entered the room, the old hag proceeded with her work for a few moments.

  At length raising her head, she beheld Ellen Monroe.

  She was not surprised: but as she gazed upon that fair thin face whose roundness had yielded to the hand of starvation, and that blue eye whose fire was subdued by long and painful vigils, she said, “And so you have come at last? I have been expecting you every day!”

  “Expecting me! and why?” exclaimed Ellen, surprised at these words, which appeared to contain a sense of dark and mysterious import that was ominous to the young girl.

  “Yes—I have expected you,” repeated the old woman. “Did I not tell you that when you had no money, no work, and no bread, and owed arrears of rent, you would come to me?”

  “Alas! and you predicted truly,” said Ellen, with a bitter sigh. “All the miseries which you have detailed have fallen upon me;—and more! for my father lies ill upon the one mattress that remains to us!”

  “Poor creature!” exclaimed the old woman, endeavouring to assume a soothing tone; then, pointing to a foot-stool near her, she added, “Come and sit near me that we may talk together upon your sad condition.”

  Ellen really believed that she had excited a feeling of generous and disinterested sympathy in the heart of that hag; and she therefore seated herself confidently upon the stool, saying at the same time, “You told me that you could serve me: if you have still the power, in the name of heaven delay not, for—for—we are starving!”

  The old woman glanced round to assure herself that the door of her cupboard was closed; for in that cupboard were bread and meat, and cheese. Then, turning her eyes upwards, the hag exclaimed, “God bless us all, dear child! I am dying of misery myself, and have not a morsel to give you to eat!”

  But when she had uttered these words, she cast her eyes upon the young girl who was now seated familiarly as it were, by her side, and scanned her from head to foot, and from foot to head. In spite of the wretched and scanty garments which Ellen wore, the admirable symmetry of her shape was easily descried; and the old woman thought within herself how happy she should be to dress that sweet form in gay and gorgeous garments, for her own unhallowed purposes.

  “You do not answer me,” said Ellen. “Do not keep me in suspense—but tell me whether it is in your power to procure me work?”

  The old hag’s countenance wore a singular expression when these last words fell upon her ears. Then she began to talk to the poor starving girl in a manner which the latter could not comprehend, and which we dare not describe. Ellen listened for some time, as if she were hearing a strange language which she was endeavouring to make out; and then she cast a sudden look of doubt and alarm upon the old hag. The wretch grew somewhat more explicit; and the poor girl burst into an agony of tears, exclaiming, as she covered her blushing cheeks with her snow-white hands—“No: never—never!”

  Still she did not fly from that den and from the presence of that accursed old hag, because she was so very, very wretched, and had no hope els
ewhere.

  There was a long pause; and the old hag and the young girl sate close to each other, silent and musing. The harridan cast upon her pale and starving companion a look of mingled anger and surprise; but the poor creature saw it not—for she was intent only on her own despair.

  Suddenly a thought struck the hag.

  “I can do nothing for you, miss, since you will not follow my advice,” she said, after a while: “and yet I am acquainted with a statuary who would pay you well for casts of your countenance for his Madonnas, his actresses, his Esmeraldas, his queens, his princesses, and his angels.”

  These words sounded upon the ears of the unhappy girl like a dream; and parting, with her wasted fingers, the ringlets that clustered round her brow, she lifted up her large moist eyes in astonishment towards the face of the aged hag.

  But the old woman was serious in her offer.

  “I repeat—will you sell your countenance to a statuary?” she said. “It is a good one; and you will obtain a handsome price for it.”

  Ellen was literally stupefied by this strange proposal; but when she had power to collect her ideas into one focus, she saw her father pining upon a bed of sickness, and surrounded by all the horrors of want and privation;—and she herself—the unhappy girl—had not tasted food for nearly thirty hours. Then, on the other side, was her innate modesty;—but this was nothing in the balance compared to the poignancy of her own and her parent’s sufferings.

  So she agreed to accompany the old hag to the house of the statuary in Leather Lane, Holborn. But first she hurried home to see if her father required any thing—a vain act of filial tenderness, for if he did she had nothing to give. The old man slept soundly—worn out with suffering, want, and sorrowful meditation; and the landlady of the house promised to attend to him while Ellen was absent.

  The young maiden then returned to the old woman; and they proceeded together to the house of the statuary.

  Up two flights of narrow and dark stairs, precipitate as ladders, did the trembling and almost heart-broken girl follow the hag. They then entered a spacious depository of statues modelled in plaster of Paris. A strange assembly of images was that! Heathen gods seemed to fraternize with angels, Madonnas, and Christian saints; Napoleon and Wellington stood motionless side by side; George the Fourth and Greenacre occupied the same shelf; William Pitt[127] and Cobbett[128] appeared to be contemplating each other with silent admiration; Thomas Paine[129] elbowed a bishop; Lord Castlereagh[130] seemed to be extending his hand to welcome Jack Ketch;[131] Cupid pointed his arrow at the bosom of a pope; in a word, that strange pell-mell of statues was calculated to awaken ideas of a most wild and ludicrous character, in the imagination of one whose thoughts were not otherwise occupied.

  The statuary was an Italian; and as he spoke the English language imperfectly, he did not waste much time over the bargain. With the cool criticism of a sportsman examining a horse or a dog, the statuary gazed upon the young maiden; then, taking a rule in his hand, he measured her head; and with a pair of blunt compasses he took the dimensions of her features. Giving a nod of approval, he consulted a large book which lay open upon a desk; and finding that he had orders for a queen, an opera-dancer, and a Madonna, he declared that he would take three casts of his new model’s countenance that very morning.

  The old woman whispered words of encouragement in Ellen’s ear, as they all three repaired to the workshop, where upwards of twenty men were employed in making statues. Some were preparing the clay models over which the plaster of Paris was to be laid: others joined legs and arms to trunks;—some polished the features of the countenances: others effaced the seams that betrayed the various joints in the complete statues. One fixed wings to angels’ backs—another swords to warriors’ sides: a third repaired a limb that had been broken; a fourth stuck on a new nose in the place of an old one knocked off.

  Ellen was stretched at full length upon a table; and a wet cloth was placed over her face. The statuary then covered it with moist clay;—and the process was only complete when she was ready to faint through difficulty of breathing. She rested a little while; and then the second cast was taken. Another interval to recover breath—and the third and last mould was formed.

  The statuary seemed well pleased with this trial of his new model; and placing a sovereign in the young maiden’s hand, he desired her to return in three days, as he should require her services again. The poor trembling creature’s eyes glistened with delight as she balanced the gold in her little hand; and she took her departure, accompanied by the hag, with a heart comparatively light.

  “You will have plenty to do there,” said the old woman, as they proceeded homewards: “I have introduced you to a good thing. You must therefore divide your first day’s earnings with me.”

  Ellen really felt grateful to the selfish harridan; and having changed her gold for silver coin at a shop where she stopped to buy provisions, she counted ten shillings in the withered and sinewy hand which the hag thrust forth.

  Thus for three months did Ellen earn the means of a comfortable subsistence, by selling her countenance to the statuary. And that countenance might be seen belonging to the statues of Madonnas in catholic chapels; opera dancers, and actresses in theatrical clubs; nymphs holding lamps in the halls of public institutions; and queens in the staircase windows of insurance offices.

  She never revealed to her father the secret spring of that improved condition which soon restored him to health; but assured him that she had found more needle-work, and was well paid for it. The old man had too good an opinion of his daughter to suspect her of crime or frailty; and he believed her innocent and well-meant falsehood the more readily, inasmuch as he saw her constantly engaged with her needle when he was at home.

  Three months passed away; and already had a little air of comfort succeeded to the former dismal aspect of those two chambers which the father and daughter occupied, when the statuary died suddenly.

  Ellen’s occupation was once more gone; and, after vainly endeavouring to obtain needle-work—for that which she did in the presence of her father was merely a pretence to make good her tale to him—she again repaired to the abode of the old hag who had introduced her to the statuary.

  The aged female was, if possible, more wrinkled and hideous than before; the contrast between her and her fair young visitant was the more striking, inasmuch as the cheeks of the latter had recovered their roundness, and her form its plumpness by means of good and sufficient food.

  “You have come to me again,” said the hag. “Doubtless I should have never seen you more if you had not wanted my services.”

  “The statuary is dead,” returned Ellen, “and has left behind him an immense fortune. His son has therefore declined the business, and has discharged every one in the employment of his late father.”

  “And what would you have me do for you, miss?” demanded the old woman. “I am not acquainted with another statuary.”

  Ellen heaved a deep sigh.

  The hag contemplated her for some time in silence, and then exclaimed, “Your appearance has improved; you have a tinge of the carnation upon your cheeks; and your eyes have recovered their brightness. I know an artist of great repute, who will be glad of you as a copy for his shepherdesses, his huntresses, his sea-nymphs, and heathen goddesses. Let us lose no time in proceeding to his residence.”

  This proposal was far more agreeable to the maiden than the one which had led her into the service of the statuary; and she did not for a moment hesitate to accompany the old woman to the abode of the artist.

  The great painter was about forty years of age, and dwelt in a splendid house in Bloomsbury Square. The rooms on the third floor were his studio, as he required a clear and good light. He accepted the services of Ellen Monroe as a copy, and remunerated the old woman out of his own pocket, for the introduction.
But he required the attendance of his copy every day from ten till four; and she was accordingly compelled to tell her father another story to account for these long intervals of absence. She now assured him that she was engaged to work at the residence of a family in Bloomsbury Square; and the old man believed her.

  Her countenance having embellished statues, was now transferred to canvass. Her Grecian features and classic head appeared surmounted with the crescent of Diana, the helmet of Minerva, and the crown of Juno. The painter purchased dresses suitable to the characters which he wished her to adopt; and, although she was frequently compelled to appear before him, in a state which at first was strongly repugnant to her modesty—with naked bust, and naked arms, and naked legs—the feeling of shame gradually wore away. Thus, though in body she remained pure and chaste, yet in soul was she gradually hardened to the sentiments of maiden delicacy and female reserve!

  It is true that she retained her virtue—because it was not tempted. The artist saw not before him a lovely creature of warm flesh and blood; he beheld nothing but a beautiful and symmetrical statue which served as an original for his heathen divinities and pastoral heroines. And in this light did he treat her.

  He paid her handsomely; and her father and herself were enabled to remove to better lodgings, and in a more respectable neighbourhood, than those which had been the scene of so much misery in Golden Lane.

  The artist whom Ellen served was a portrait-painter as well as a delineator of classical subjects. When he was employed to paint the likeness of some vain and conceited West End daughter of the aristocracy, it was Ellen’s hand—or Ellen’s hair—or Ellen’s eyes—or Ellen’s bust—or some feature or peculiar beauty of the young maiden, in which the fashionable lady somewhat resembled her, that figured upon the canvass. Then when the portrait was finished, the artist would assemble his friends at the same time that the lady and her friends called to see it; and the artist’s friends—well tutored beforehand—would exclaim, one, “How like is the eye!” another, “The very mouth!” a third, “The hair to the life itself!” a fourth, “The exact profile!”—and so on. And all the while it was Ellen’s eye, or Ellen’s mouth, or Ellen’s hair, or Ellen’s profile, which the enthusiasts admired. Then the lady, flattering herself that she alone was the original, and little suspecting that the charms of another had been called in to enhance the beauty of her portrait, persuaded her fond and uxorious husband to double the amount of the price bargained for, and had the picture set in a very costly frame, to hang in the most conspicuous place in her mansion.