‘Oh, do not despise the advice of the wise,
Learn wisdom from those that are older,
And don’t try for things that are out of your reach —
An’ that’s what the Girl told the Soldier!
Soldier! soldier!
Oh, that’s what the Girl told the Soldier!’
THE RECORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT
The year’s at the spring
And day’s at the dawn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn
God’s in His heaven
All’s right with the world!
— Pippa Passes.
THIS is not that Badalia whose spare names were Joanna, Pugnacious, and M’Canna, as the song says, but another and a much nicer lady.
In the beginning of things she had been unregenerate; had worn the heavy fluffy fringe which is the ornament of the costermonger’s girl, and there is a legend in Gunnison Street that on her wedding-day she, a flare-lamp in either hand, danced dances on a discarded lover’s winkle-barrow, till a policeman interfered, and then Badalia danced with the Law amid shoutings. Those were her days of fatness, and they did not last long, for her husband after two years took to himself another woman, and passed out of Badalia’s life, over Badalia’s senseless body; for he stifled protest with blows. While she was enjoying her widowhood the baby that the husband had not taken away died of croup, and Badalia was altogether alone. With rare fidelity she listened to no proposals for a second marriage according to the customs of Gunnison Street, which do not differ from those of the Barralong. ‘My man,’ she explained to her suitors, ‘‘e’ll come back one o’ these days, an’ then, like as not, ‘e’ll take an’ kill me if I was livin’ ‘long o’ you. You don’t know Tom; I do. Now you go. I can do for myself — not ‘avin’ a kid.’ She did for herself with a mangle, some tending of babies, and an occasional sale of flowers. This latter trade is one that needs capital, and takes the vendor very far westward, insomuch that the return journey from, let us say, the Burlington Arcade to Gunnison Street, E., is an excuse for drink, and then, as Badalia pointed out, ‘You come ‘ome with your shawl arf off of your back, an’ your bonnick under your arm, and the price of nothing-at-all in your pocket, let alone a slop takin’ care o’ you.’ Badalia did not drink, but she knew her sisterhood, and gave them rude counsel. Otherwise she kept herself to herself, and meditated a great deal upon Tom Herodsfoot, her husband, who would come back some day, and the baby who would never return. In what manner these thoughts wrought upon her mind will not be known.
Her entry into society dates from the night when she rose literally under the feet of the Reverend Eustace Hanna, on the landing of No. 17 Gunnison Street, and told him that he was a fool without discernment in the dispensation of his district charities.
‘You give Lascar Loo custids,’ said she, without the formality of introduction; ‘give her pork-wine. Garn! Give ‘er blankits. Garn ‘ome! ‘Er mother, she eats ‘em all, and drinks the blankits. Gits ‘em back from the shop, she does, before you come visiting again, so as to ‘ave ‘em all handy an’ proper; an’ Lascar Loo she sez to you, “Oh, my mother’s that good to me!” she do. Lascar Loo ‘ad better talk so, bein’ sick abed, ‘r else ‘er mother would kill ‘er. Garn! you’re a bloomin’ gardener — you an’ yer custids! Lascar Loo don’t never smell of ‘em even.’
Thereon the curate, instead of being offended, recognised in the heavy eyes under the fringe the soul of a fellow-worker, and so bade Badalia mount guard over Lascar Loo, when the next jelly or custard should arrive, to see that the invalid actually ate it. This Badalia did, to the disgust of Lascar Loo’s mother, and the sharing of a black eye between the three; but Lascar Loo got her custard, and coughing heartily, rather enjoyed the fray.
Later on, partly through the Reverend Eustace Hanna’s swift recognition of her uses, and partly through certain tales poured out with moist eyes and flushed cheeks by Sister Eva, youngest and most impressionable of the Little Sisters of the Red Diamond, it came to pass that Badalia, arrogant, fluffy-fringed, and perfectly unlicensed in speech, won a recognised place among such as labour in Gunnison Street.
These were a mixed corps, zealous or hysterical, faint-hearted or only very wearied of battle against misery, according to their lights. The most part were consumed with small rivalries and personal jealousies, to be retailed confidentially to their own tiny cliques in the pauses between wrestling with death for the body of a moribund laundress, or scheming for further mission-grants to resole a consumptive compositor’s very consumptive boots. There was a rector that lived in dread of pauperising the poor, would fain have held bazars for fresh altar-cloths, and prayed in secret for a large new brass bird, with eyes of red glass, fondly believed to be carbuncles. There was Brother Victor, of the Order of Little Ease, who knew a great deal about altar-cloths, but kept his knowledge in the background while he strove to propitiate Mrs. Jessel, the Secretary of the Tea Cup Board, who had money to dispense, but hated Rome — even though Rome would, on its honour, do no more than fill the stomach, leaving the dazed soul to the mercies of Mrs. Jessel. There were all the Little Sisters of the Red Diamond, daughters of the horseleech, crying ‘Give’ when their own charity was exhausted, and pitifully explaining to such as demanded an account of their disbursements in return for one half-sovereign, that relief-work in a bad district can hardly be systematised on the accounts’ side without expensive duplication of staff. There was the Reverend Eustace Hanna, who worked impartially with Ladies’ Committees, Androgynous Leagues and Guilds, Brother Victor, and anybody else who could give him money, boots, or blankets, or that more precious help that allows itself to be directed by those who know. And all these people learned, one by one, to consult Badalia on matters of personal character, right to relief, and hope of eventual reformation in Gunnison Street. Her answers were seldom cheering, but she possessed special knowledge and complete confidence in herself.
‘I’m Gunnison Street,’ she said to the austere Mrs. Jessel. ‘I know what’s what, I do, an’ they don’t want your religion, Mum, not a single — . Excuse me. It’s all right when they comes to die, Mum, but till they die what they wants is things to eat. The men they’ll shif’ for themselves. That’s why Nick Lapworth sez to you that ‘e wants to be confirmed an’ all that. ‘E won’t never lead no new life, nor ‘is wife won’t get no good out o’ all the money you gives ‘im. No more you can’t pauperise them as ‘asn’t things to begin with. They’re bloomin’ well pauped. The women they can’t shif’ for themselves — ’specially bein’ always confined. ‘Ow should they? They wants things if they can get ‘em anyways. If not they dies, and a good job too, for women is cruel put upon in Gunnison Street.’
‘Do you believe that — that Mrs. Herodsfoot is altogether a proper person to trust funds to?’ said Mrs. Jessel to the curate after this conversation. ‘She seems to be utterly godless in her, speech at least.’
The curate agreed. She was godless according to Mrs. Jessel’s views, but did not Mrs. Jessel think that since Badalia knew Gunnison Street and its needs, as none other knew it, she might in a humble way be, as it were, the scullion of charity from purer sources, and that if, say, the Tea Cup Board could give a few shillings a week, and the Little Sisters of the Red Diamond a few more, and, yes, he himself could raise yet a few more, the total, not at all likely to be excessive, might be handed over to Badalia to dispense among her associates. Thus Mrs. Jessel herself would be set free to attend more directly to the spiritual wants of certain large-limbed hulking men who sat picturesquely on the lower benches of her gatherings and sought for truth — which is quite as precious as silver, when you know the market for it.
‘She’ll favour her own friends,’ said Mrs. Jessel. The curate refrained from mirth, and, after wise flattery, carried his point. To her unbounded pride Badalia was appointed the dispenser of a gran
t — a weekly trust, to be held for the benefit of Gunnison Street.
‘I don’t know what we can get together each week,’ said the curate to her. ‘But here are seventeen shillings to start with. You do what you like with them among your people, only let me know how it goes so that we shan’t get muddled in the accounts. D’you see?’
‘Ho yuss! ‘Taint much though, is it?’ said Badalia, regarding the white coins in her palm. The sacred fever of the administrator, only known to those who have tasted power, burned in her veins. ‘Boots is boots, unless they’re give you, an’ then they ain’t fit to wear unless they’re mended top an’ bottom; an’ jellies is jellies; an’ I don’t think anything o’ that cheap pork-wine, but it all comes to something. It’ll go quicker ‘n a quartern of gin — seventeen bob. An’ I’ll keep a book — same as I used to do before Tom went an’ took up ‘long o’ that pan-faced slut in Hennessy’s Rents. We was the only barrer that kep’ regular books, me an’ — ’im.’
She bought a large copy-book — her unschooled handwriting demanded room — and in it she wrote the story of her war; boldly, as befits a general, and for no other eyes than her own and those of the Reverend Eustace Hanna. Long ere the pages were full the mottled cover had been soaked in kerosene — Lascar Loo’s mother, defrauded of her percentage on her daughter’s custards, invaded Badalia’s room in 17 Gunnison Street, and fought with her to the damage of the lamp and her own hair. It was hard, too, to carry the precious ‘pork-wine’ in one hand and the book in the other through an eternally thirsty land; so red stains were added to those of the oil. But the Reverend Eustace Hanna, looking at the matter of the book, never objected. The generous scrawls told their own tale, Badalia every Saturday night supplying the chorus between the written statements thus:
Mrs. Hikkey, very ill brandy 3d. Cab for hospital, she had to go, 1s. Mrs. Poone confined. In money for tea (she took it I know, sir) 6d. Met her husband out looking for work.
‘I slapped ‘is face for a bone-idle beggar! ‘E won’t get no work becos ‘e’s — excuse me, sir. Won’t you go on?’ The curate continued’
Mrs. Vincent. Confid. No linning for baby. Most untidy. In money 2s. 6d. Some cloths from Miss Evva.
‘Did Sister Eva do that?’ said the curate very softly. Now charity was Sister Eva’s bounden duty, yet to one man’s eyes each act of her daily toil was a manifestation of angelic grace and goodness — a thing to perpetually admire.
‘Yes, sir. She went back to the Sisters’ ‘Ome an’ took ‘em off ‘er own bed. Most beautiful marked too. Go on, sir. That makes up four and thruppence.’
Mrs. Junnet to keep good fire coals is up. 7d.
Mrs. Lockhart took a baby to nurse to earn a triffle but mother can’d pay husband summons over and over. He won’t help. Cash 2s. 2d. Worked in a ketchin but had to leave. Fire, tea, and shin of beef 1s. 7½d.
‘There was a fight there, sir,’ said Badalia. ‘Not me, sir. ‘Er ‘usband, o’ course ‘e come in at the wrong time, was wishful to ‘ave the beef, so I calls up the next floor an’ down comes that mulatter man wot sells the sword-stick canes, top o’ Ludgate-’ill. “Muley,” sez I, “you big black beast, you, take an’ kill this big white beast ‘ere.” I knew I couldn’t stop Tom Lockart ‘alf drunk, with the beef in ‘is ‘ands. “I’ll beef ‘m,” sez Muley, an’ ‘e did it, with that pore woman a-cryin’ in the next room, an’ the top banisters on that landin’ is broke out, but she got ‘er beef-tea, an’ Tom ‘e’s got ‘is gruel. Will you go on, sir?’
‘No, I think it will be all right. I’ll sign for the week,’ said the curate. One gets so used to these things profanely called human documents.
‘Mrs. Churner’s baby’s got diptheery,’ said Badalia, turning to go.
‘Where’s that? The Churners of Painter’s Alley, or the other Churners in Houghton Street?’
‘Houghton Street. The Painter’s Alley people, they’re sold out an’ left.’
‘Sister Eva’s sitting one night a week with old Mrs. Probyn in Houghton Street — isn’t she?’ said the curate uneasily.
‘Yes; but she won’t sit no longer. I’ve took up Mrs. Probyn. I can’t talk ‘er no religion, but she don’t want it; an’ Miss Eva she don’t want no diptheery, tho’ she sez she does. Don’t you be afraid for Miss Eva.’
‘But — but you’ll get it, perhaps.’
‘Like as not.’ She looked the curate between the eyes, and her own eyes flamed under the fringe. ‘Maybe I’d like to get it, for aught you know.’
The curate thought upon these words for a little time till he began to think of Sister Eva in the gray cloak with the white bonnet ribbons under the chin. Then he thought no more of Badalia.
What Badalia thought was never expressed in words, but it is known in Gunnison Street that Lascar Loo’s mother, sitting blind drunk on her own doorstep, was that night captured and wrapped up in the war-cloud of Badalia’s wrath, so that she did not know whether she stood on her head or her heels, and after being soundly bumped on every particular stair up to her room, was set down on Badalia’s bed, there to whimper and quiver till the dawn, protesting that all the world was against her, and calling on the names of children long since slain by dirt and neglect. Badalia; snorting, went out to war, and since the hosts of the enemy were many, found enough work to keep her busy till the dawn.
As she had promised, she took Mrs. Probyn into her own care, and began by nearly startling the old lady into a fit with the announcement that ‘there ain’t no God like as not, an’ if there is it don’t matter to you or me, an’ any’ow you take this jelly.’ Sister Eva objected to being shut off from her pious work in Houghton Street, but Badalia insisted, and by fair words and the promise of favours to come so prevailed on three or four of the more sober men of the neighbourhood, that they blockaded the door whenever Sister Eva attempted to force an entry, and pleaded the diphtheria as an excuse. ‘I’ve got to keep ‘er out o’ ‘arm’s way,’ said Badalia, ‘an’ out she keeps. The curick won’t care a — for me, but — he wouldn’t any’ow.’
The effect of that quarantine was to shift the sphere of Sister Eva’s activity to other streets, and notably those most haunted by the Reverend Eustace Hanna and Brother Victor, of the Order of Little Ease. There exists, for all their human bickerings, a very close brotherhood in the ranks of those whose work lies in Gunnison Street. To begin with, they have seen pain — pain that no word or deed of theirs can alleviate — life born into Death, and Death crowded down by unhappy life. Also they understand the full significance of drink, which is a knowledge hidden from very many well-meaning people, and some of them have fought with the beasts at Ephesus. They meet at unseemly hours in unseemly places, exchange a word or two of hasty counsel, advice, or suggestion, and pass on to their appointed toil, since time is precious and lives hang in the balance of five minutes. For many, the gas-lamps are their sun, and the Covent Garden wains the chariots of the twilight. They have all in their station begged for money, so that the freemasonry of the mendicant binds them together.
To all these influences there was added in the case of two workers that thing which men have agreed to call Love. The chance that Sister Eva might catch diphtheria did not enter into the curate’s head till Badalia had spoken. Then it seemed a thing intolerable and monstrous that she should be exposed not only to this risk, but any accident whatever of the streets. A wain coming round a corner might kill her; the rotten staircases on which she trod daily and nightly might collapse and maim her; there was danger in the tottering coping-stones of certain crazy houses that he knew well; danger more deadly within those houses. What if one of a thousand drunken men crushed out that precious life? A woman had once flung a chair at the curate’s head. Sister Eva’s arm would not be strong enough to ward off a chair. There were also knives that were quick to fly. These and other considerations cast the soul of the Reverend Eustace Hanna into torment that no leaning upon Providence could relieve. God was indubitably great and terrible — one had on
ly to walk through Gunnison Street to see that much — but it would be better, vastly better, that Eva should have the protection of his own arm. And the world that was not too busy to watch might have seen a woman, not too young, light- haired and light-eyed, slightly assertive in her speech, and very limited in such ideas as lay beyond the immediate sphere of her duty, where the eyes of the Reverend Eustace Hanna turned to follow the footsteps of a Queen crowned in a little gray bonnet with white ribbons under the chin.
If that bonnet appeared for a moment at the bottom of a courtyard, or nodded at him on a dark staircase, then there was hope yet for Lascar Loo, living on one lung and the memory of past excesses, hope even for whining sodden Nick Lapworth, blaspheming, in the hope of money, over the pangs of a ‘true conversion this time, s’elp me Gawd, sir.’ If that bonnet did not appear for a day, the mind of the curate was filled with lively pictures of horror, visions of stretchers, a crowd at some villainous crossing, and a policeman — he could see that policeman — jerking out over his shoulder the details of the accident, and ordering the man who would have set his body against the wheels — heavy dray wheels, he could see them — to ‘move on.’ Then there was less hope for the salvation of Gunnison Street and all in it.
This agony Brother Victor beheld one day when he was coming from a death-bed. He saw the light in the eye, the relaxing muscles of the mouth, and heard a new ring in the voice that had told flat all the forenoon. Sister Eva had turned into Gunnison Street after a forty- eight hours’ eternity of absence. She had not been run over. Brother Victor’s heart must have suffered in some human fashion, or he would never have seen what he saw. But the Law of his Church made suffering easy. His duty was to go on with his work until he died, even as Badalia went on. She, magnifying her office, faced the drunken husband; coaxed the doubly shiftless, thriftless girl-wife into a little fore-thought, and begged clothes when and where she could for the scrofulous babes that multiplied like the green scum on the untopped water-cisterns.
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 261