by Emily Organ
“Everything has been organised to dissuade people from staying here,” I replied. “They don’t want anyone to rely on poor relief.”
“So what are they supposed to do instead? Everyone would surely prefer to work if they could find employment, but it’s not readily available, is it? We both heard what the watercress seller said.”
“I suppose the argument is that if they make it too comfortable here people would become dependent upon it.”
“While I can understand that, it’s such a miserable, demoralising place that it doesn’t help people at all. I agree that no one should rely on charity, and many of the tenants I help look after manage to work hard and pay their rent. But I know that if they are unable to keep up with their payments they often end up in places like this.”
A woman at a nearby table was trying to persuade her children to eat their gruel, but they were protesting loudly with wails and crumpled faces. It simply wasn’t right that such young children didn’t have a proper meal to eat, and my heart ached whenever I glanced over at them. The sight was also difficult for Eliza, who kept wiping tears away from her eyes with her fingers.
A drunk elderly lady joined us at our table, she ate her gruel and bread heartily. I had no doubt that it was a diet to which she had become accustomed.
“Ain’t yer gonner eat yer skilly?” she asked, pointing at the gruel left over in my bowl.
“You may have it if you like,” I replied.
She grabbed the bowl and helped herself. “What about yer toke?”
“Toke?”
“Bread. Ain’t yer gonner eat it?”
I shook my head.
“Good, I’ll ’ave that an’ all.” She took it from me and kept it in her hand, as if she intended to save it for later.
She proceeded to tell us about the pains she had in her back and legs, and Eliza and I listened patiently. Her lined skin was darkened by years of dirt, and when she grinned I saw that she had only three teeth. Her hair was dry, and I wondered how she had managed to escape washing it.
“Don’t suppose you’ve got any bacca on yer, ’ave yer?”
“No,” I replied. “We aren’t allowed to bring any in.”
“There’s ways an’ means of gettin’ it in. Ways an’ means,” she said before getting up from the table and wandering off.
Chapter 3
Our sleeping quarters consisted of a stone shed with no heating of any kind, the air in which had a stale, pungent odour. The women there were beginning to make themselves comfortable, if that were possible, on straw-filled mattresses which lay directly atop the squalid floor. The whitewashed stone walls were furred with filth.
Once again I felt glad of Eliza’s company, though many of the other women were on their own. They appeared to be well practised at wrapping themselves in the dirty blankets and lying down on the thin mattresses.
The portress had told us to place one rug on the mattress and two on top of us. There was no pillow. As soon as I laid myself down in this way, I realised my surroundings were too cold for my wet hair to dry at all, and the nightgown was not only itchy because of its rough fabric but also from the vermin crawling among the rugs.
I thought of James.
“I can’t say that I envy you, Penny,” he had said when I told him of my plan. “Have you ever been inside a workhouse before?”
I’d replied that I hadn’t. “But I want to find out what it would be like,” I had said. I now felt that I had already seen enough.
“Oh, this is miserable,” whispered Eliza. We had placed our mattresses close together for warmth. “I don’t think I can bear a single night of this, and to think that some people have to do it every night. And those children! They’ll catch their death in here, it’s so cold.”
The pail of water and its chained cup were placed at the centre of the room. More and more women were shown in, each berated by the portress for their lateness, or for walking too slowly or being overly noisy. Many of the latecomers were clearly the worse for drink. They stumbled over the other sleepers, laughing and singing tuneless ditties as they went.
“I wonder how Francis is recovering,” said Eliza with a sigh.
The new year had brought bad news from Colombia, where our friend Francis Edwards was searching for our father, the plant-hunter Frederick Brinsley Green.
“I hope he is much better now,” I replied. “The fever sounded serious.”
We had received a telegram from Francis at the end of November to say that he had heard tell of a European orchid grower in Cali, Western Colombia, and that he intended to visit him. A letter promising more detail had never arrived, but then we received a short letter from Francis’ translator and travelling companion, Anselmo. Sent at the beginning of December, it had taken a month to reach us in London.
Borrero Ayerbe, United States of Colombia, 5th December 1884
To Miss Green and Mrs Billington-Grieg,
It is my regret to inform you that my good friend Mr Francis Edwards has been taken ill with fever and is resting at the house of a helpful gentleman, Mr Valencia, whose wife has been most attentive to him. He asked me to write this letter to you, and to convey his hope that he will soon recover so that we may continue our journey to Cali.
I am reliably at your service,
Mr. A. Corrales
The news had filled me and Eliza with great concern for Francis, and having had no further updates from Anselmo we had no idea whether our friend was recovering. I had looked up Borrero Ayerbe on a map and discovered that it was a village about twenty miles north-west of Cali. I could not imagine a competent physician being easily found in such a place, and with no further detail concerning Francis’ fever, Eliza and I had no idea whether it was a life-endangering affliction or one from which he could easily recover.
It was frustrating that there was nothing we could do to help Francis. All we could do at the present time was pray for his recovery.
The gas jet in the workhouse ward was turned off at eleven o’clock, and it was eerily quiet until a child began sobbing because she was afraid of the dark. Her mother did her best to comfort the little girl, and then a drunk lady began singing what she described as a “soothing ditty” to lull her to sleep. Instead, it provoked laughter among the huddled forms, though fortunately the child stopped crying before long. I began to wish I had eaten more of the gruel because hunger –along with the cold, fleas and lice – kept me awake.
The clocks chimed each hour, and I drifted in and out of a light sleep until my head ached. I was disturbed by people stumbling over me on their way to the water pail or to the lavatory. The sound of coughing was almost incessant; the cold winter appeared to have afflicted many with consumption. There were also occasional moans and groans as people complained about their illnesses or aches and pains. Eliza and I whispered to each other occasionally as we counted down the hours.
The chime of the factory bells at six o’clock was a welcome sound. Some women stayed put when the workhouse bell sounded soon afterwards, while others emerged from their beds of straw.
The portress marched in and ordered us to pile our mattresses over on one side of the room and to heap all the rugs together. We then filed into the changing room, where we collected our bundles of clothes and dressed. It was a relief to be rid of the uncomfortable nightgowns, and I couldn’t wait to leave the unpleasant place behind.
My hair was damp and tangled, and I longed for a brush to pull through it. I tried to pin it out of the way as best I could for the time being. I noticed that a number of the women had their hair cut quite short, which no doubt made it easier to look after as they moved between workhouses and lodging houses.
There was more gruel and dry bread to endure for breakfast, and even though Eliza and I knew we would be able to find ourselves a good meal as soon as we left the place, we had to keep up the pretence that we needed the food. As I watched the others eat, I felt a shameful guilt that I would be returning to my comfortable life that same day while they faced yet
another day of hardship. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to struggle every day, being unable to eat properly and feeling demeaned and looked down upon by those in authority.
I couldn’t eat all of my bread, so I pushed it up my sleeve to give to someone who might be more in need of it than me. Eliza did the same.
After breakfast, a tall woman in a dark dress with a white collar swept into the room accompanied by several inmates carrying barrels filled with rope. The woman’s steely gaze and smart dress suggested to me that she was a senior staff member at the workhouse; the matron, perhaps. The barrels of rope represented the work we had to complete in return for our board on the casual ward. Each of us had to pick three pounds of oakum before we could leave. We sat down at the tables as each of us was handed our ration of cut rope.
Eliza and I had never done such a thing as oakum picking before. We surreptitiously watched the women, who were much more adept at it, and saw that there was little more to it than separating the strands of rope until they were picked apart into fine little threads.
“What do they do with this?” Eliza wondered out loud.
“It goes down the shipyard,” replied a sunken-cheeked woman. “And they puts it in the gaps in the ships’ planks. Makes ’em watertight.”
It seemed a useful purpose, and I supposed the workhouse made some income selling the oakum to the shipyard. However, what began as a seemingly simple task soon became onerous when I realised how much it hurt my fingers. Many of the women had hands as tough as old leather, and they worked quickly and effectively. For me and Eliza it was much slower going, and it wasn’t long before the tips of our fingers began to bleed.
“There’s tar on this piece of rope,” commented Eliza. “It’s almost impossible to pull apart.”
I helped her with some of it, but my fingers felt raw and the coarse fibres had worked their way beneath my fingernails.
A few of the women rested a while. They seemed to be in no hurry to get their work done and leave. The old lady we had spoken to the previous evening had found some tobacco and was smoking it in a clay pipe. I feared she would find herself in trouble if caught, but perhaps she didn’t care. One lady in possession of a needle was called upon to make repairs to well-worn skirts and bodices with the strands of oakum.
Just when it seemed as though our work would never come to an end, Eliza and I finally finished picking our quota. A nod from the lady in the dark dress confirmed that our work was deemed adequate and that we could be on our way.
The bell chimed eleven as Eliza and I stepped through the workhouse door back into The Land of Promise. The street seemed aptly named for those leaving the workhouse, but only providing they were never forced to return.
An elderly lady rested against the wall. She was wrapped in layers of old clothes and wore a shawl over her head and shoulders.
“You’ve a long wait before they admit people for this evening,” I said to her. “Would you like us to help you find somewhere warmer?”
“I ain’t allowed in,” she replied.
“They won’t admit you to the workhouse?” I asked incredulously. “Did you spend the night out here?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged.
“But that’s awful!”
She shrugged again. “If yer seek refuge more ’n three times a month yer get sent to the work’ouse fer good.”
“Staying in the workhouse is surely better than living on the streets,” I said.
“Sactly. So I keeps tryin’, and ’opefully soon they’ll let me in.”
Her face brightened enormously when Eliza and I gave her our bread.
“Thankee!”
“Why would they not let her in?” I asked Eliza as we walked away. “It makes no sense.”
I glanced back at the lady as she contentedly ate the dry bread. She appeared to harbour no anger or sadness about her predicament, and I could only assume that those feelings had long since passed. She had somehow accepted her position in life and felt able to find contentment in the smallest of things, such as a morsel or two of bread.
“There is a great deal to write about,” I said as we paused outside the Unicorn public house. “I think it will need to be serialised! Thank you for accompanying me, Eliza. I couldn’t have endured that without you.”
“I can’t say that I enjoyed the experience, but it has certainly opened my eyes and made me feel determined to do something about it.”
“Such as what?”
“I don’t quite know.” Her eyes grew damp. “There must be something that can be done to improve their lot in life. Nobody would wish to find themselves in this situation, would they?”
“I wonder what the rest of the workhouse is like.”
“I wouldn’t have thought it was much better.”
The pale, haggard faces of two young men caught my eye as they stepped through the workhouse gates. Although I was now accustomed to seeing anguished faces at the workhouse, it appeared as though something particularly dreadful had occurred. I watched as they walked up to the door of the Unicorn, at which point the taller of the two paused and lowered his face into his grimy hands.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
The other man looked back toward the workhouse gates, his eyes red. “’E’s died.”
“Someone’s died?”
“Yeah, Bill.”
I thought immediately of the three young men who had waited outside the workhouse with us the previous evening. I looked at the two men and realised neither was the one who had grinned at me.
“Bill?” I said, associating his face with the name. “What happened to him?”
“’E got sick an’ they took ’im to the infirmary. We went lookin’ for ’im just now, an’ Old Sawbones told us ’e’s dead.”
“But what was the cause?” asked Eliza.
“’E ’ad a problem with his ’eart.”
“There weren’t nuffink wrong with ’is ’eart,” said the taller man.
“There was, ’cause ’e died of it. ’E was arright when we was makin’ our beds, then all of a sudden ’e starts gaspin’ and ’oldin’ his throat and neck, like.” The shorter chap demonstrated a man struggling to breathe. “The master come then, got the doctor and they took ’im away. That was the last we saw of ‘im.”
“That’s awful,” said Eliza.
“I only knowed ’im a short while,” added the taller man, burying his hands in his pockets. He stared at the ground. “Never would’ve thought it of ’im. Can’t believe ’e’s gone.”
“I’m so sorry to hear it,” I said, appalled that such a young man should have died so suddenly.
“We needs a drink,” said the shorter man as he pushed open the door to the pub. “Bill would’ve wanted us to ’ave a drink.”
The two men stepped inside and the door slammed shut behind them.
Chapter 4
“I wish I could ask the doctor exactly what has happened,” I said.
“Go and tell him you’re a news reporter,” replied Eliza. “He might be willing to speak to you.”
“Dressed in these rags? He’d struggle to believe me, I imagine. And besides, I don’t suppose it’s really any of my business. People must die at the workhouse on a regular basis, and it sounds as though Bill had a problem with his heart. It just seems so terribly sad.”
“It does.”
A hansom cab pulled into The Land of Promise, and two respectable-looking ladies laden with books stepped out.
“Books?” commented Eliza as they made their way toward the workhouse entrance.
“I beg your pardon?” asked one of the ladies, pausing to look at us. She was a dark-haired lady of about thirty, and wore a lilac woollen dress with a high lace collar.
“I do apologise,” replied my sister, “but you strike me as rather unusual visitors to the workhouse.”
“We’re quite usual visitors, in fact,” replied the woman. “We come here twice a week to read to the patients in the infirmary.”
/> “Oh, I see! What a wonderful idea!” enthused Eliza.
I noticed the lady and her companion looking Eliza up and down, as if confused that her manner and speech did not match with her appearance.
“Perhaps we should explain who we are and what we’re doing here,” I suggested. “I’m Miss Penelope Green, and I’m a reporter for the Morning Express newspaper. This is my sister, Mrs Eliza Billington-Grieg. The pair of us spent the night on the casual ward as I’m writing a report on it for the newspaper.”
The dark-haired lady’s face broke out into a smile. “Well, you are brave ladies indeed! And I can see that you came dressed for the part. I’m Miss Lucy Russell and this is Mrs Jane Menzies.”
Her companion gave us a friendly nod.
“We’ve been working for some time to help the inmates in the workhouse,” she continued. “How did you sleep? Or perhaps I should ask whether you managed any sleep at all!”
I gave a laugh. “Eliza and I achieved very little sleep,” I replied. “In fact, I don’t believe anyone should have to endure such conditions. Not even criminals.”
Her smile faded. “I agree. The conditions are particularly bad for the tramps, as the visitors to the casual wards are called. It’s because the authorities want to dissuade them from staying and to encourage them to find alternative solutions to their poverty.”
“And what might those alternatives be?” asked Eliza. “How are mothers caring for young children supposed to find opportunities? I couldn’t bear to see those little children suffering so, and as for the poor old lady who is too old and infirm to work, she spent the night lying beside the workhouse steps. They wouldn’t even let her in!”
Miss Russell nodded sadly. “Conditions need to improve. They have improved in recent years, believe it or not, and the inmates in the main workhouse are now afforded a little more comfort than they used to be. But there is a great deal more that needs to be done. We’re fortunate that the board of guardians for the Shoreditch Union is quite receptive to our help and suggestions.”