The Tale of a Hopeless Struggle.
by Marion Elliston.
Originally published in The Novel Magazine (C. Arthur Pearson, Ltd.) vol.2 #11 (Feb 1906).
For some months the great problem of the Unemployed has been exercising the minds of King, Parliament, and People, and in order to alleviate the distress in some degree H.M. Queen Alexandra inaugurated, last November, a fund which has already done much to afford relief during the rigours of winter. Miss Elliston's pathetic story depicts, only too truly, the desperate straits of a clerk who, through no fault of his own, was compelled to join the ranks of the Unemployed.
Glimpse I.
The Clerks Room in a Large Office.
"Henderson, His Most Serene Highness the Rajah desires sweet converse with you," said the flippant Wilmott, returning from the Chief's private room, whither he had carried a handful of letters for signature.
Henderson laid down the quill with which he was indorsing the particulars of an important-looking document, pulled his neck tie into better shape, put the lock of hair that was always wrong into its proper place, surveyed himself critically, and departed.
"Poor chap! The Rajah's going to sack him, but I couldn't warn him," Wilmott went on to his neighbour as Henderson passed beyond earshot—"the Rajah" being merely their popular name for the Chief.
"Sack Henderson? What for? He's steady enough in all conscience—nicely you sobered by matrimony! Now, if it had been you—"
"Exactly! Much more comprehensible, I own! But it isn't steadiness that happens to be the point. The Rajah desires to cut down expenses, and thinks we could do with a smaller staff Think of it on foreign mail days! It's hard luck on Henderson—just at the beginning of winter, too! He might at least have waited till the spring, or else have sacked one of us bachelor chaps!"
Knocking at the door of the imperial sanctum, Henderson received the gracious "Come in" of the mighty potentate.
A big, comfortably-groomed, comfortably-fed gentleman looked up as he entered.
"Ah, that's right! There you are! Well, you see, Mr. Henderson, the fact is—I'm really very sorry to send for you this afternoon, but we are so shockingly over-staffed here, that I really must cut down expenses. With such testimonials as you have (and I shall be only too pleased to add mine to them) I don't think you will have the very slightest difficulty in finding something satisfactory to do instead, so that I think we must consider your appointment here at an end after the usual notice expires."
"Do you mean that I leave, sir?" almost gasped Henderson. "The winter is just coming on, and if there is anything the matter with the work—well, I would do anything that was possible."
"No, no, my dear fellow. There is no fault with your work whatever! Quite the contrary! I shall indorse every testimonial to your ability. And you have my best wishes for your future, but you quite understand how it is—it is simply either into your pocket or into mine! And so really we need not detain you. Believe me, you will have no trouble at all!"
The complacent gentleman turned again to that satisfactory ledger, wherein he would now be able to add another hundred a year to the net profits, saved off the salary of a turned-off clerk.
Henderson went back to the general office. He wrote a few more letters; then, taking his hat and coat, he went out into the chill air of the early October evening-out into the darkness and the agony of staring the hunger and cold of wife and little ones full in the face.
There was no hurried flight to the Mansion House Station to-night. He couldn't go home yet. He must fight this out alone, and pull himself together! It would be foolish to worry Mabel sooner than need be, and—it is so difficult to conceal a worry from a wife. Walking made it easier—he might walk all the way.
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Glimpse II.
The Sitting-room of No. 20 Manchester Road,
N., Monday Morning, Jan. 15.
"Can you make it last through the week, dear? I don't know how you are to do it, but it is the last I have! Try not to mind about it too much, for I may manage to get some more somewhere, though I don't know where. There's some cold mutton left, isn't there, and a little bacon—we can manage on that for a day or two, can't we? I'm going out to look for something to do, so I shan't be at home to dinner."
He gave her his last half-crown, kissed her, and the wee mite in her arms, and took up his hat.
She went to the door with him to see him off—then came back and sat down. Yes, she knew it all now. He had tried to tell her so gently when baby was a fortnight old, and now she was six weeks.
He had tried to make light of it, and had talked hopefully of getting some other appointment to take its place. But it had not deceived her. She knew exactly what it meant. She knew exactly how all her little extra comforts had been purchased.
He had told her that he had not broken into that little store they had put by for the rainy day, and that the weekly bills had not been left standing, so that she was not to worry and fret. She had promised him that she wouldn't, but she had noticed that, whenever she asked him the time, he had always looked at the clock instead of at his watch, and then she had understood how it had all been managed, and had buried her face in the pillow and cried.
She had sent Nurse away, halved her doses of beef-tea, and tried to be playful! But that was a long time ago now—nearly a full month. And "growing strong" had been slow; and "seeming playful" had been difficult, with that anxiety weighing her down.
Every morning she had watched him off with bright, cheery "Good-byes" as he started out "to look for something to do"—heart-sickening quest. Every evening she had watched him come home, weary and dispirited; each To-day a little more hope. less than its yesterday; each To-day making the pathetic mockery of "trying to seem jolly" for the other one's sake, a little more farcical than it had been yesterday; each To-day finding him more worn and harassed than he had been yesterday.
And Henderson—every morning he made the weary round of the offices, but nobody seemed to want superior clerks—they all advanced their own staff, they said. And nobody wanted a secretary.
Every evening he answered advertisements—a curiously cheerful occupation, as no one knows until he has tried! Then he listened for the postman's knock, and felt as though he could hear the thud of another spadeful of earth fall on his coffin, when he heard his footsteps pass the door and die away without the familiar "Rat-tat."
Now even the postage stamps had become a heavy consideration, for the time had come and long since been past when the "rainy day" store had had to be broken into, and had melted down to this last half crown, barring the quarter's rent that would soon be falling due, and must be kept intact at all costs.
The weekly bills had been regularly paid until now, but there was nothing to pay them with this week.
Debt, debt, debt—was that to be added to their anxieties? Debt, that drags a man down, and degrades him in his own eyes, until he loathes the sight of himself and dreads lest he should meet an old acquaintance. Debt—that drives him from friends and from church, by branding him in his own soul as a thief and a robber, until he is too self-abased to dare to join the congregation of the righteous on Sunday.
The children must have milk. Bread and coals are certainly almost necessaries in winter! The tradesmen will go on for a week or two, and then—
Yes, this was the dreary ground he was going over as he turned Citywards that morning. This was the unsolved problem that she sat down to grapple with at home.
What could she do to help? She looked at the baby's dainty little clothes—every stitch of her own setting. Could she make dainty little clothes like that for other people's babies and sell them at the shops? But then, she had no money to buy materials, so that was no good! Could she get any lessons to give—any accounts to keep? But three babies under four years keep one pretty busy, when you do everything for them yourself!
"Not coming home to dinner, he said," she went on. "That was to make the cold mutton last longer! Going to try to live on two meals a day instead of four, so that the food shall last longer for the babies and me. Ah, well, I can try that, too! Perhaps if we each always leave it for the other, it will last a month," she half-whispered, with a smile that partook of the nature of a rainbow.
"One half-crown to last till Saturday, and no knowledge of another to come even then, and this is only Monday! There, fretting won't mend it, and it is time little Hugh was put to bed for his morning sleep, and baby's getting fretty for her next bottle, poor mite!"
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Glimpse III.
Evening of the Same Day in the Same Place.
The evening came, and he came home at last–weary with wandering about, faint with hunger, and utterly despondent of winning work. She coaxed him into eating the little supper she had prepared for him, and beguiled him into something nearer cheerfulness with stories of the children's quaint sayings and doings.
Tuesday and Wednesday passed, repeating the same programme, save that the half crown was melting down, and that each day she thought he looked thinner, and his hands whiter and more transparent than the day before.
She begged him to come home in the middle of the day, and have something to eat, even if it were only bread and a cup of tea.
He said if a man didn't work he had no business to eat, and went out again.
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Glimpse IV.
Concerning Hunger and the Pawnshop.
So the days passed, growing slowly and heavily into weeks. The milkman had grown restive now, and every knock at the door she expected would turn out to be a County Court summons for payment. And yet—surely the children must have milk; surely, it really was "must," especially when they were having so little else!
She had just kept bread in the house—since the baker refused further credit—by pawning! How the thought of it made her tingle all over.
First it was the one cherished bracelet her father had given her when she was first engaged to Dick. The silver cake-knife that had been her sister's wedding present had gone, too, for little Madge's only pair of shoes had given out altogether. But as they never had any cake now, perhaps it didn't matter—only, somehow, it hurt a good deal! Some of the tea-spoons had gone, too, and the bread-fork, so that there wasn't much left!
One day, when things had looked their very blackest, she had taken one of baby's sashes and a pair of shoulder "tie-ups" and sold them to a friend. She had lied about it—said the colour didn't suit her a bit!
And she had nearly broken her heart about it, too—had cried half the night over it afterwards, but it was such a cold, wet day, and she had no coals, and nothing for his supper, and she couldn't let him come home to nothing, after he had been out all day, struggling to get work!
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Glimpse V.
But the Flesh is Weak.
One night she sat waiting for him. He was later than usual. At last she heard him, but his footsteps sounded irregular and uncertain. Was he ill? She hurried to the door. He came in, leaning against the wall—then rolled into the sitting-room.
What could it mean? Could it be—he, her husband—her children's father—her ideal and pride in everything—could he be drunk? It couldn't be true! He—the man she vowed to honour and obey—her husband, drunk! She wouldn't believe it. And yet—and yet—there he was before her.
How dare he come home to her like that? How could she ever do anything but loathe and despise him after this? Love and honour him—how could she?
She felt numbed, bewildered—it seemed to freeze her! How could she bear this trouble, too? How could she ever go out side the door again? She should always feel that everyone she passed had seen him like this! And they would pity her, and speak of her as "poor thing—the wife of that Henderson, don't you know!" And she had always been so proud of him. No, she never, never could forgive him this!
For a few seconds she stood there, looking at him—him in the past, the present, the future! Then she roused, took his hat, and helped him quietly upstairs. Presently she came back, put away the little supper and the tiny pinafore she had been darning, and sat down to look at life!
Not to think! No, she couldn't think. Her brain seemed stunned! Not to cry! No, she couldn't cry! But just to look at life, because she couldn't help looking at it—couldn't help picture after picture—of all that had been and all that might be—rising up, ghastly and weird, to terrify her!
And yet—and yet—and a great gulp rose in her throat that nearly choked the passionate anger—how had it happened? How many hours had he been without food? How many days and weeks had he been without proper food? And for whose sake?
How could she be angry with him, when he had suffered so much that she might suffer less! How could she scorn and despise him, when, after all, it was only the wreckage wrought by his tender unselfishness? Yet, oh–the awful pain of it.
And the curse of all true men, and sorrowful women, and pure-souled little children lie for ever on the accursed drink customs of England. Drink customs which make it possible—nay, more, which make it the polite, the natural, the only thing to do—out of pity to offer drink to the man with starvation written upon his face, and out of delicacy to abstain from offering him food!
Drink customs, which daily, meeting a man in hungry emptiness and sequent weakness, first fill him with spirits and then taunt, mock, and reproach him that he reels! Poor, unballasted frame, what else can it do?
Presently she stole upstairs, and, as he lay in his heavy sleep, pressed upon his brow the kiss of forgiveness, that was the triumph-seal of the fiercest fight her soul had ever known. Then she sat down beside the little crib in which her baby was sleeping, and watched—guardian angel alike of the man and the little child.
In the morning shame and contrition overwhelmed him. "Never, never again," he vowed. But how could it be "Never, never again" when each day he was hungrier and weaker than the day before—when each day life grew darker and poverty grew poorer?
How could it be "Never, never again" when, without a penny for bread, almost every man he went to talk business with or to ask work from insisted on "Having a drink over it," or "Something longer and stronger," often out of heedless indulgence of heedless habit, and often out of an unwise, unhelpful pity.
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Glimpse VI.
"And Women Must Weep."
But one day life grew darker yet to the young wife and mother. A constable called with a note in his hand. He seemed uncomfortable and hesitating, and said he would walk up and down for a bit and call again to see if there was any message.
She took the letter from him and shut the door. She went in and sat down, looking at it numbedly; but she couldn't open it. Baby cried, and she hushed it. But that letter! She couldn't touch it—she could only sit and look at it lying there on the table where she had put it when she hushed baby.
Little Madgie came wanting her dolly's bonnet tied on; mother did it, but her lips wouldn't move; she couldn't smile, she couldn't speak. Still that letter—there unopened.
There was another knock at the door. She knew it was the policeman again. It roused her, but she never moved to answer the knock. She took up the letter again and at last tore the envelope. She tried to read it, but she couldn't understand. It was all words; but nothing seemed to mean anything! Baby cried again—but it sounded far away. It didn't seem to belong to her. The policeman knocked again, but she didn't move.
Presently she seems to feel that he is there, moving about, and arranging things. There's a neighbour hushing her baby, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with her; she feels dead.
Then the vicar comes; she knows he is speaking to her, but she doesn't understand. She sees him comforting the little ones who seem frightened of the strangers treading hushedly about. She hears him tell the woman to take them up to the vicarage for a while. At last things grow quiet again, and she hears him say "Our Father Which art in Heaven."
Then it came back to her—yes, that morning at prayers—a long lifetime ago—she had heard her husband say that. Yes, she remembered now—she had heard him teaching little Madgie to say "Our Father"—when she knelt on his knees in her night-gown last night to say her baby prayers.
Yes, she remembered now! And that letter! Yes, she must read it—the letter clenched tightly in her hand. Yes, the vicar had finished saying that prayer now—"Our Father, for ever and ever, Amen," Perhaps if he would read it to her, she might be able to understand. What is it, it says?
"MINE,—I can't go on any longer. I am cursing you and starving the children by my existence—I can't go on. I can't work, for I can get none to do! I have spent hours of every day for months now begging work. The pious promise me their prayers and recommendations—they generally forget to write the one; they probably forget to pray the other. The rich and influential bow me out with, "My dear sir, you have my sincerest sympathy, and, if any opening should offer itself, I will certainly remember you!' But no opening ever does offer itself, and it never occurs to anyone to make one, for that would revive the original question of, "Into your pocket or into mine, which is the keynote of the whole problem when the labour supply exceeds the demand. The successful and prosperous upbraid me with, 'A man of your abilities not able to get work, indeed! Any man can work who chooses to!' And the poor say, 'Come and have a drink to cheer you up, old fellow.'
"But the work comes never! And the curse enwraps me closer every day, and its coils tighten around me. Whichever way I turn there is always drink and always spirits, but never work, and never food. I fight against it, but it gains upon me every day. I struggle to resist it, but it drags me down, down, down—deeper, deeper, deeper. There is no escape from it, but by hurling myself straight into the arms of God. If He is indeed 'Our Father,' He can't be very angry that I go to Him to own that I am beaten, knowing how I have fought, and suffered, and striven! If He is indeed 'Our Father,' He cannot be so relentless and so unhelping as everyone around us here is!
"It is the only way left in which I can help you. Men, cold and mocking as they are to their fellows, won't stand by and let a helpless woman and little children starve. They will call me 'coward' and 'selfish brute' to leave you to fight it out alone, but they will help you.
"And it is the only thing left. For no one will help you while I am with you, and even now you are hungry. But they must, they will rally to the rescue when I am gone and they know that you are alone. Perhaps one more worthy of you will come, and be to you all that I have hoped to be, but have so miserably failed in. For a while you will sorrow, but you will soon forgive me, and God will not refuse when I plead with him to send you help—it is only men, not God, who can do that.
"For me, my darling—for me it is but one short struggle, one little moment, and I shall be beyond the help of men. They have had their chance and lost it. Now I risk it all with 'Our Father, for ever and ever, Amen.'
"My last thought will be of you and of my little ones, my precious little ones that I shall never see again. One last thing I ask, and I know you will do it—when they bring me home to you, before you send me away from you for ever, kiss me once more, and let my children kiss me. 'Our Father' take care of you and them here, and of me in the darkness and silence.—Ever your loving husband,
"RICHARD HENDERSON."
By-and-by they brought him home to her, and she kissed him and laid baby down beside him. Then Madgie and little Hugh came home, and they tried to wake "Dear Daddy to kiss them 'Good-night,'" kneeling down close beside the still figure for the first time unresponsive to their calling, to say their "Pray God bless my dear daddy and mummie," and so on right to the end.
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Glimpse VII.
And After Death the Judgment—of Men.
The next day an inquest was held on the death of Richard Henderson, and after solemn deliberation the clerk to the jury wrote in the coroner's book: "Suicide whilst of unsound mind." One juror, more audacious and unconventional than most of the custom-paralysed public, proposed that the verdict should read "Death from want of sympathy accelerated by hunger"; but the coroner negatived the amendment as "Out of form."
Another, noted for his Christian charity and lovableness of disposition, suggested that duty required them to inquire into his habits of life—had he been strictly temperate?
"No, I swear he hasn't,"retorted another of the twelve. "No man living could call 'nothing at all to eat' a 'strictly temperate habit of living.' I call starvation of men like this 'shocking intemperance' and 'extravagant waste of somebody else.'"
The lovable man replied that that was not at all what he meant.
"No one supposes it was," growled the coroner, "but it is what we mean! But since you are so scrupulously conscientious about the inquiry, I'll begin with you! Have you ever tempted the deceased out of his 'strictly temperate habits" by offering him drink either in your own house or in a house of refreshment?"
The lovable man said he should take the wishes of his colleagues and withdraw his suggestion.
A third proposal was to substitute "broken heart" for "unsound mind." But the coroner again interposed to remark that the British law did not recognise "broken hearts" as any justification for dying, since it would bring into notice one of the nation's most popular forms of legalised murder.
After that the original verdict was allowed to stand.
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Glimpse VIII.
Where Wrangling Should Cease.
It rained all day on the day of the funeral. The vicar going before the coffin recited, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends," and again, "For perfect love casteth out fear." The white surpliced choristers sang "Safe in the arms of Jesus."
The churchwarden was so scandalised when he heard of it, that he called on the vicar instantly to ask if it could really be true that he had read the Church prayers over the grave of a suicide.
The vicar referred him to the bishop, as he was busy preparing Sunday morning's sermon.
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Glimpse IX.
Saturday Morning in the House of "The Rajah."
On Saturday morning it was fully reported in the local North London Mercury. A comfortably-circumstanced gentleman digesting his newspapers and his breakfast simultaneously, read it, and remarked:
"Dear me! How very inconvenient! An old clerk of ours has committed suicide. I would sooner have given a sovereign than it should have happened."
"Why? Was he worth all that, father?" promptly inquired his small son. "Why do you mind about it a whole sovereign's worth?"
The comfortably-circumstanced gentleman did not explain why he cared "a whole sovereign's worth." It seemed difficult to give words to—"Well, because when most other firms are doing so much to help their people tide over a bad season, it is likely to call attention to our being considerably in the rear of a good movement."
Still, he felt a vague sense of discomfort over it, for it occurred to him that while God and many business men were greatly in agreement, God and some others held curiously divergent views in estimating the worth of such trifles as human life and the responsibility for it.
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Glimpse X.
Sunday Morning. "The Rajah" Meets it Again.
On Sunday morning the vicar preached from the words "The price of him that was sold!" And the same comfortably-circumstanced gentleman and many another fairly shivered before the sermon was over; more especially at the quotation read from the letter about "Into your pocket or into mine" being the "Keynote of the problem" in disordered times.
He seemed to think he knew the origin of the remark. He made calculations on the fly-leaf of his hymn-book as to the number of "pieces of silver' which had gone into his pocket instead of into that of his turned-off clerk—the price of him that was sold unto starvation.
The next morning he put banknotes for the amount into an envelope, and posted them anonymously to the widow. Yet still "The price of him that was sold" would ring in his ears, unhushed by his magnanimity—which he considered very unreasonable and annoying on the part of the text, when he was looking forward to feeling comfortably virtuous.
The churchwarden's wife, discussing the sermon at lunch, said:
"How very unwise to preach such sermons. Someone ought to interfere, and put a stop to such theology. For my part, I shall decline to contribute to the fund for the widow. One can't sanction vice like that for the sake of amiable sentiment, you know; it really isn't respectable! The whole parish will be committing suicide, if he encourages it like that."
The butler, digesting her remarks as he handed the vegetables, murmured mentally:
"Not likely! The 'whole parish' if they once knew what being hungry felt like, wouldn't enjoy the feeling sufficiently to go through a whole and complete starvation for the privilege of being preached about after they were dead!"
The teetotal mayor who graced the congregation with his presence, also felt great resentment about it, and remonstrated on this wise:
"Well, certainly, I should have given the casting vote for him instead of against him over that appointment he applied for, if he had not offended me by refusing to join my pet Temperance Guild. After that, naturally I gave it to a brother-councillor's son, for I quite hoped the gratitude of the brother-councillor would have a very definite value from a political and financial point of view! But why the vicar should tirade about "selling favour' and 'purchasing political support' as being 'the price of him that was sold' I do not see. I don't like such personalities from the pulpit. If it happens again, I shall cut down my subscriptions."
A strong-minded lady sat at dinner, toying with her claret-filled glass, and remarked that she had "no patience with such rabid temperance sermons. She had no sympathy with taking pledges and all that sort of weak-minded nonsense. A man ought to be able to take his glass and stop at the proper time!"
To emphasise her creed she poured out wine for her youngest boy, remarking that he looked pale! And the demons who make sport of our destinies laughed discordantly, seeing the birthmark of strong drink upon him, though yet it were invisible to human eyes. And the echoes of their shrieks, ringing through unborn years, were yet to fall on her ears when all the consolations of God would be insufficient to hush them, or to soothe the too-late remorse that she had had "no sympathy with total abstinence" and so cursed her growing boy with a temptation too strong for him to resist.
And various other holy and pious women of the congregation drew their unspotted garments a little closer round them, ejaculating that it was "very sad, of course—and if only it had been an accident, or well—even consumption, then, they would have been very glad to express their sympathy! But to call on a suicide's widow—! And, certainly, it might be only rumour—of course, they hoped it would prove so–but still, certainly, they had heard that occasionally he drank! No, they really couldn't countenance such things by calling! Besides, what would people say?"
And the Vicar, looking over his subscription list a day or two later, wondered at the generous unselfishness of the few who did help, and at the calculating selfishness of the many who didn't.
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Glimpse XI.
The Night Cometh!
A few months later, the widow sat at home, and thought! The anonymously-sent money had paid off all the bills that had driven him out of this chapter of life into the next, and had kept things together so far. Two relatives were offering homes to Madgie and little Hugh, and the mother-heart was smarting sorely at having to give them up!
She had tried to get enough needlework to keep things together. But no one would employ her. They seemed to regard the self caused death of her husband as some sort of infectious disease which they would contract by communication with her.
And after a few weeks of what measure of sympathy the vicar had been able to win for her, she had had to learn in isolated desolation the utter failure of her husband's last little bit of faith in humanity—that men would never stand by and see a woman and little children starve. She had learnt that men have no objection whatever to women and little children starving; that neither have women—but that they only stipulate that they should not do it too obtrusively near their range of vision.
And to-night she was weary, and talked in tired moanings to the baby in her arms.
She had settled it all now. All the fighting was over. Yes, the two little ones were to go as soon as she had finished setting the last few stitches in altering and rearranging the little pinafores and frocks. She would sell the furniture. It would bring enough to pay the travelling fare for the children and for a neighbour to take them. She couldn't do it herself. She couldn't say the "Good-bye." that would end the mother-care of them. And she didn't want to see any relatives ever again. She only wanted to creep away into the dark, out of everyone's sight—away into the silence, out of everyone's hearing.
"And then, you and I, Baby dear," (she went on, moaning softly to the mite in her arms), "some dark, dark night—when the wind is cruel and the rain is drenching, so that no one can come and find us—then you and I will go away to Daddy.
"They shut the gates at sunset, but it won't keep us from him—you and I. We shall climb the railings, you and I—you lying so still in my arms, darling. We shall find him in the dark—find him, oh, so easily. We shall lie down beside him, beside the little mound. It will seem warm and glad to us there, Baby dear, just to be near Daddy, you and I. We shall feel his heart beat, and we shall all sleep together. It will rain, Baby dear, and the wind will blow. But it will not wake us there, we shall be with Daddy.
"There will be no starshine, Baby dear—only night and darkness, silent and still! But we shall sleep on together, Baby dear—you, and I, and Daddy—sleeping, sleeping, sleeping! But in THE MORNING, IN THE MORNING—"