She tossed her head with its ample thatch, due, she assured me, to the constant use of vaseline—“twopence the box and well worth the price.”
Under Kitty’s behest a further, furious search was instigated, and at last the attendant, a little weary, brought back in triumph, the most begrimed thing in vests ever to be seen.
“Here it is, Martha, and of all places in the world I found it in the men’s room.” She looked at the red-faced woman. “Have you been trying to get off?” she asked.
The sally was received with shouts of laughter. Such a little thing relieves the monotony in a casual ward! Everyone is so pathetically eager to break through the cold officialdom, which, for all the kindness of the attendants—and I found them very kind—is always present.
Martha, being comforted, went on her way, and I found myself left with Kitty and a big battered woman of about fifty, and two others.
Like Sterne’s starling, I was beginning to wish to get out. The walls seemed to be closing in on me. I got a little panic-stricken. Supposing this machine with which I had placed myself in contact should hold me against my will? Suppose they said that I must stay. Guardians have such plenary powers to use against the poor. I saw myself sentenced to remain permanently in an institution, I remembered with quick alarm the “tests” by which they measure your intelligence. They might easily find me mentally deficient!
I went to the attendant and asked if I could go. It was then that the jaws of the trap began to close.
“You can’t go until tomorrow morning,” she said, “unless the superintendent gives you permission. According to law, you’ve got to give a day’s work for your lodging. You are due to go out on Sunday.”
“But—but I’ve got a chance of work. I may lose it if I’m kept here.” Already I could detect it in my own voice that rising note that speaks a nervous excitation. I realised that if I did not keep cool I must arouse official antagonism. Emotional display is terribly contagious in any form of institutional life, and at the first sign the official mind takes fright and closes down on the unfortunate pleader.
“The superintendent will be up about ten,” she said, “meanwhile you get on with some work.”
She motioned me towards Kitty, and obediently I went and asked what I was to do. Kitty at that moment was cleaning the grate, heaving up great handfuls of ashes—they are not lavish with implements in the House—to a running commentary on life in general and her own adventures in particular.
“There’s nothing particular you can do,” she answered, “just you look busy, that’s what matters.”
I found this to be the case. The tables had already been scrubbed; the corridor washed; there were only the brass knobs on the doors that awaited attention. I polished and repolished with assiduity. But time hung heavy on my hands. A kindly attendant gave me the tip that the superintendent would not like to find me idle, so I traversed the corridor over and over again, loathing each separate handle, to which I applied Brasso with a new and instinctive dislike.
I think I must have looked not very well, for presently the battered woman—her name was Ellen—beckoned me mysteriously.
“Kitty’s got some hot tea made for you, dear. I put it in your cell; drink it up, I’ll see that nobody catches you.”
To this hour I do not know what special pains and penalties were risked by Kitty and the kindly Ellen in the doing of this act of mercy. But whatever punishment they might have incurred they did not worry, and out of the largeness of their hearts, without a thought of themselves, they got me what I wanted that moment most in all the world.
The tea was hot and sweetened, and as I drank, vitality swept back into my blood. Kitty, it seemed, had a small store of groceries concealed somewhere on her person, or on the premises, from which she drew when occasion required. With the genius of her race she had already enlisted supporters all over the building, and Ellen, transmitting her desire, had induced a man on the next floor to supply hot water—tact did all the rest.
I had a chat with Kitty after this refreshment and she warned me very solemnly to avoid certain casual wards.
“Some are good, some are bad, but I manage to get on with them all, except Tonbridge. I can’t never go to Tonbridge—never again.”
It sounded strangely ominous. I was intrigued as to the fate that presided at this place of doom.
“What happened, Kitty?” I asked.
“It’s the law, me dear,” she said, “that the Master mustn’t put you to work on an empty belly; neither must you be put out of the House on an empty belly, and who should know this better than meself. There’s another law, me dear, the Master shan’t put you to do any of his private work, unless he pays for the same. An’ there was a certain woman that came in with me, an’ she told the master that she was by trade a laundress. ‘Then you’ll suit me,’ he says, ‘for I’ve a sight of washing that wants doing.’ ‘An’ I’m not doing your washing,’ says the woman, ‘an’ me wanting food.’ The Master shouted at her, but she was obstinate, an’ I’m not blaming her.”
“ ‘An’ ye’ll do me washing,’ says he, ‘or ye’ll go to gaol.’ ‘An’ it’s to gaol I’ll go,’ says she, an’ for all I told her what to say she sat there an’ she wouldn’t speak. She was given in charge, brought before the Bench an’ as I’m a living sinner they gave her fourteen days. The Master never said a word it was his own washing, an’ the poor creature never had the wit to speak up for herself.”
“And how
