Midnight Webs

Story Four: Violets in the Snow

Story 4-Chapter I

On one side there was a square, with trees that tried to look green in summer, but in winter time stuck in scraggy form out of the soot-peppered snow, with a beadle who wore a gold band round his hat and lived in a lodge, out of which he issued every morning with a thin rattan cane to keep away the boys; on the other side there was a row of goodly mansions, with a mews for the horses and carriages of the grandees who inhabited those mansions; and down between square and mansions, hidden behind the mews, as if it was a brick-and-mortar snake, there was Gutter-alley.

People said, how could such a dirty, squalid, unhealthy, beggar-inhabited place get there between the mansions of the rich. People said so to the parish officers, and the parish officers shook their heads; not so much as to say that they did not know, but to imply thereby, a great deal, as if the wickedness of the inhabitants had something to do with it. Then people said so to the dwellers in Gutter-alley in an ill-used fashion, to which Gutter-alley very reasonably replied that it must get somewhere, which was perfectly true; that it squeezed itself up as much out of the way as it could, which was also quite true; that it – to wit, Gutter-alley – did not get between the square and the row of mansions, but that the square came and sat upon it on one side, and the row of mansions came and sat upon it on the other, which was true again; and lastly, Gutter-alley said, where was it to go, for it must have living room? Then people who knew its squalor said that it was all very shocking, and that a meeting ought to be held. And it was very shocking, but a meeting was not held; and Gutter-alley stood where it had stood before, in the year of our Lord 1862, when there was a very great exhibition building very close at hand; and Gutter-alley remained an exhibition itself, staying as it did where, without much effort, it could have thrown a stone into the grounds of a palace.

Story 4-Chapter II

Now, whether in summer or winter, poor people can patronise as well as rich; and so it fell out that the custom in poverty-stricken, hunger-pinched Gutter-alley was for the poor folk there to speak condescendingly to old Dick Bradds, when he stood at the door of Number 5, with his poor old head on one side as he looked up the court; head on the other side as he looked down. “Dickey” he was generally called, and more than one stout costermonger – they did a deal in costering in Gutter-alley, and if you penetrated into the rooms of the human rabbit-warren, fish could be found mingled with furniture, turnips amongst the wash-tubs, and a good full bucket of mussels often formed the seat of the father of a family while he helped his wife to make up ropes of onions for the morrow’s sale – well, many a stout costermonger told his wife in confidence that old Dickey Bradds always put him in mind of a moulting thrush. No inapt simile, and doubtless taken from the life, for there were always plenty of feathered captives to be seen in Gutter-alley.

It was quite true Dick – old Dickey Bradds – did look very much like some aged and shabby bird, lame of one leg; and when he stood on a cold winter’s morning peering up and down through the fog that loved to hang about the court, no one would have felt at all surprised to have seen the old man begin to peck, or to whet his long sharp old nose against the door-post.

Not that Dick did do anything of this kind – he only gave two or three keen one-sided bird-like looks about before slowly hopping up-stairs to his room on the second floor – the front room – to wait for Jenny.

A keen old blade though was Dick – a piece of that right good true steel so often to be found in the humblest implements, while your finely-polished, gaily-handled, ornamental upper-ten-thousand cutlery is so often inferior, dull of edge, and given to shut up just when they are wanted the most. Dick was not human hurried up, but a piece of fine old charcoal-made steel. Toil and hard usage had ground and ground Dick till there was little left of him but the haft, and seventy years of existence rubbing away through the world – that hard grindstone to some of us – had made that haft very rickety of rivet and springs. Certainly there was blade enough left to cut in one direction, but you could not trust Dick for fear of his giving way, or perhaps closing upon the hand that employed him.

It was so with poor old Dick when he left the great auction-rooms, where he had been kept as long as was possible; and, being proud, Dick would not believe in Nature when she told him that he had grown to be an old man, and that the time had gone by when he was lusty and strong, and able to lift great weights; and when Dick’s fellow-porters told him that a piece of furniture was too heavy for him to lift, he only felt annoyed, and grew angry and stubborn.

The fact was that Dick knew from old experience how hard a matter it was for even an industrious man to get a living in the great city; and for him, whose livelihood depended entirely upon his muscles, to turn weak and helpless meant misery, privation, and perhaps the workhouse for his old age.

That was what Dick thought, and therefore he fought hard against even the very semblance of weakness, making a point always at the auction-rooms of doing far more than he need, rushing at heavy pieces of furniture, tiring himself with extra work, and making himself an object of sport to the thoughtless, of pity to his older fellow-servants of the firm.

The consequence was that poor old Dickey Bradds had to go one day to the hospital, to lie there for many weary weeks, and come out at last lame and uncured, for at threescore and ten there is not much chance of a man building up new tissue, piling on fresh muscle and strength, and renewing the waste of so many years.

Poor old Dick left the hospital a confirmed cripple, but hopeful ever of regaining his strength and activity – at least he said so, whether merely to cheer up his grandchild or to mask his sufferings, that was known only to his own heart.

Story 4-Chapter III

Now this was how old Dick became a cripple.

It was early in winter, and there was a heavy sale on at the rooms, for the furniture of a noble mansion had been sent up from the country, and bargain-hunters and Jew brokers were there that day in force, chaffering, running down the value of the goods they coveted, and turning the crowded room into a Babel of confusion.

The sale was progressing, and under the superintendence of one Joseph Brown, the head porter, the lots had been submitted to competition with ease and facility. Old Dick had as usual been working very hard, but, not content to show the others his power, he sought to do more.

“You can’t take that there chist o’ drawers down,” said the head porter, a man most careful in the way in which he looked after the corners and polish of pieces of furniture, saving them from scratch and chip. So careful, in fact, was Brown that he had never had time to look after the polish and corners of her Majesty’s English, which he chipped and scratched most terribly. So “you can’t take that there chist o’ drawers down,” said Brown, “it’s too much for you;” and he meant it kindly, though his words were rough.

“You wouldn’t ha’ talked to me like that ten year ago, Joe Brown!” quavered Dick, turning angrily upon the porter, for he was hurt and annoyed at being spoken to before the other men.

“I didn’t mean to hurt the poor old chap,” said Brown at home to his wife that night, “for I like old Dick, who’s as honest and true-hearted an old chap as ever stepped. All the years we’ve been together I never knew Dick do a man an ill turn; while the way he turns out o’ Sundays to take that there granchile of his to a place o’ wasshup ought to be a patten for some on us.

“In course I wouldn’t ha’ spoke to him in that way ten years ago: for why? ’cos he could ha’ carried the chist o’ drawers easily; but ’stead o’ actin’ sensible, he was that proud, bless you, that he wriggled hisself under ’em like a young cuckoo with a hegg, hystes hisself up slowly by taking hold of the bannisters, and then begins to stagger downstairs.

“‘Now then: lot ’underd and two, waitin’ for lot ’underd and two,’ they calls out below. ‘Comin’ – comin’ – comin’,’ pants out Dick; and I see as it was too much for the poor old chap, who felt touched at being thought past his work, though the governors only expected him to take down the light things. So seeing how matters stood, I steps forrard to help him, when if he didn’t seem to shut up all at once like; and that there chist o’ handsome French-polished mahogany drawers, ’underd and two in the catalogue, went downstairs a deal too fast for its constitution.

“Poor old Dick! he never groaned nor made no fuss when we got him down to the cab to take him to the ’orsepittle, although his poor old leg was broke, through his coming down a whole flight arter that there chist o’ handsome French-polished mahogany drawers; but his lips was shaking, and his face drored as he gets hold of my button and pulls me to him, and says, says he, ‘This’ll be a sad upset for my Jenny, but don’t let ’em frighten her, Joe Brown, don’t please. You’re a married man and got feeling, though I spoke nasty to you just now. Please go and tell her gently, yourself. O, Joe, I shan’t be able to help in many more sales.’

“Poor old chap, how the tears did run down his cheeks as he whispered me again —

“‘Don’t say it’s much, Joe; tell her it’s a bit of a scratch, and she isn’t to fidget about me. Tell her gently, Joe; good bye, Joe; I shall be over again to-morrow or next day, Joe; and, Joe,’ he calls out in his weak piping way, as the keb begins to move, ‘Joe,’ he says, ‘just take my apern and give the lookin’-glass in the big wardrobe a bit of a rub before it comes down; and don’t forget about Jenny.’

“Poor old Dickey: got his ’art in his work, he had; and somehow as he went off, and I knew as we shouldn’t never see him again at work, if we ever see him at all, my nose wanted blowing to that degree that nothing couldn’t be like it; and it’s my belief, Sarah, if I hadn’t been roused up by a call for the next lot, that I should have turned soft; for you see, says I to myself, I says, suppose as that had been me.

“But he told me to tell Jenny gently, and I did.”

Story 4-Chapter IV

Old Dick went no more to porter at the rooms when he came out of the hospital; his smoothly-shaven face did not peer out of windows where he was hanging out hearthrugs with, pinned upon them, the bills announcing the capital modern household furniture for sale; but when he returned to Gutter-alley, Dick would always be clean-shaven of a morning, spending an hour over the process, pulling out wrinkles to get at the silver stubble lurking in the bottoms of the furrows, and stopping at times, when his hands grew tremulous, to rest. Many was the time that his grandchild, Jenny, would have to run down in haste to fetch a bit of cobweb from the cellar to stay the bleeding when that tremulous old hand did make a slip, for the nap upon Dick’s Sunday hat was too scarce to be used up in so wanton a way.

But at last Dick would strop and put away his razor and shaving-brush, hang up the little glass, and then tie on a clean white apron, take his round carpet-cap down from a nail and carefully put it on so as not to disarrange his grey locks, and then sit patiently nursing his porter’s knot and waiting, as he used to tell Jenny, for a job.

“Strong, my little lass? Strong as ever,” he’d say. “If I could only get this leg right;” and then Jenny would drop her work, take his old face between her plump little hands, kiss him tenderly, and tell him to wait a little.

So old Dick Bradds used to wait on, day after day, waiting for the jobs that never came, and the injured leg did not get right. The old man’s strength sufficed to carry him down to the front door and back again. Down he would go slowly, holding tightly by the balustrade, one leg always first, till he reached the bottom, where the mat should have been, only they could not afford mats in Gutter-alley, and then as regularly as possible the old man, in his thankfulness at being able to walk so far, would take off the old carpet-cap and say softly, when there was no one by, “Thank God!” and the same again when, after a visit to the front door and a glance up and down the court, he had slowly and painfully made his way up to his own room.

Jenny would have helped him; but no: the old man could not shake off the belief that he was in a state to do heavy work and to help his child. There was too much determination left yet in the old piece of steel, and heedless of rust and weakness Dick struggled up and down.

People used to say that Sharpnesses, the great auctioneers, ought to have pensioned old Bradds, but they were people who made money fast, and knew its value in too worldly a way to pension worn-out servants, so old Dick had to live as he could.

Jenny was Dick’s support – Jenny, his grandchild – Jenny Blossom, as they called her in Gutter-alley. She was the last of the family – father, mother, and another child had died in Gutter-alley, where fevers used to practise and get themselves into full strength before issuing out to ravage the districts where sanitary arrangements were so perfect.

The place was very foul, but somehow Jenny grew brighter day by day, and the old crones of the alley used to chuckle and say no wonder, for flowers always throve in the dirt. At all events, the foul odours did not take the bloom from her cheek, and when fever or cholera held high revel, Jenny had passed scatheless through trials when scores had fallen around.

Every one spoke well of Jenny; untidy women with bare arms and rough hair always had for her a pleasant look; great hulking market-attending men, with hoarse voices, would always stand aside for Jenny to pass; and the slatternly girls of the alley, though they occasionally glanced at her with envious eyes, displayed no open jealousy. Away from Gutter-alley it was different, but in the forty houses of the court, and their four or five hundred inhabitants, there was not one who did not look up to Jenny Blossom.

And no unsuitable title was that – Jenny Blossom; for whether taken in connection with her young and blooming face, or her trade, the name seemed equally adapted. Ask for her as Jane Bradds, and people would have shaken their heads; though the mention of Jenny Blossom brought a bright look into perhaps a scowling face; and Number 5 in the court was indicated directly.

Story 4-Chapter V

Number 5 in the court! Come up the four flights of creaking stairs to the only bright thing in the crowded place – the only bright thing likely to meet the eye, where squalor, misery, poverty, wretchedness, filth, and sickness ran riot. Breakfast is over, and, so that Jenny’s needle shall not be stayed, Dick has himself washed and put away the two cups and saucers, and now sits by the fire drying the splashes upon his white apron. His carpet-cap is upon his head, and his porter’s knot rests against his chair. The only sound in the room is the click of Jenny’s thimble, as it sends the sharp needle flying through the hard slop-work upon which she is busy.

Pretty? Well, yes, there is the beauty in her face of youth. No Grecian-cut lines or finely chiselled features, but the simple bright countenance of an English girl, as she bends over her work.

Jenny’s face was never pale, spite of the mephytic gases of Gutter-alley; but the rosy flush upon it deepened as a step was heard upon the stairs, followed by a tap at the door.

A querulous “Come in!” from old Dick, and then a tall, stout young fellow entered, bearing a basket of violets, whose sweet fragrance filled the room.

“Oh, it’s you, is it, Harry?” said the old man. “Had you got money enough?”

“O yes, plenty; but I spent it all,” was the reply. “The flowers are rare and fresh this morning.”

“That’s right, Harry – that’s right,” quavered the old man. “Set ’em down – set ’em down. And now what’s to pay?”

“Pay? What for?” was the rather gruff response, as the new-comer looked hard the while at Jenny.

“For your trouble, Harry. You ought to take something for your trouble.”

“’Tisn’t trouble!” said the young man, more gently, still looking hard at Jenny, who never raised her eyes from her work. “When I’m at market, as I’ve often said before, it isn’t much to bring home a few bunches of flowers. I should like to bring them every morning, if I may.”

He still glanced at Jenny, as if he hoped that the permission might come from her; but she made no sign, and old Dick himself broke the awkward silence by thanking the young man once more, and he then took his departure with a disappointed aspect.

The flower-bearer slowly descended the stairs, nettled at the calm, patronising manner adopted by the old man.

“Poor old chap,” he muttered; “I wonder what he really does think.”

He said no more, for at the foot of the stairs he encountered a smartly-dressed youth, apparently a junior clerk in some city office.

The look which passed between the young men was of no very friendly character; but, directly after, each went upon his way, thinking of his rival – the violet-bearer to his little half stall, half shop, where he, in a very humble fashion, contrived to make a good living – the other, smiling with contempt, ascending to old Dick Bradds’ abode.

For be it known that fair young Jenny Blossom was not without suitors, who were both at this time anything but peaceful at heart, since there was plenty of jealousy and annoyance at Jenny’s coldness. They called it coldness, though hardly with justice, for the visits were none of Jenny’s seeking, since she, poor girl, loved her grandfather, and though she confessed to herself that it was kind of Harry Smith to bring the violets, and to save her from going to the wet, cold market so early in the morning, yet she would very much rather that both – well, that Mr John Wilson, Sharpnesses’ clerk, would stay away.

But John Wilson was quite a favourite with the old man, and the intimacy had arisen when at several times the former had been the bearer of various small gratuities from the great auction firm to their old porter, while he was weak from his accident. Dick admired the young fellow’s appearance and his smart way of dressing, so different from the fustian of Harry Smith, and upon more than one occasion he proved that years had not made him perfect, for said he, “Only think what a good thing it would be for you, my pet,” referring, of course, to John Wilson’s attentions; “what would become of you if I were taken away?”

Jenny said nothing, and the old man talked on under the impression that affairs were as they were years before, and quite oblivious of the fact that Jenny had been for some time past his sole stay and support; and that if the young girl, with her busy fingers morning and evening, and the sale of her violets in the cold streets in the afternoon, could supply sustenance for both, her fate would not have been so very hard had he been taken away.

But there were other feelings animating the breast of old Dick Bradds, and he would have liked to see that the young girl had some one to take his place as protector before the great change came, about which he never attempted self-deceit.

Story 4-Chapter VI

Gutter-alley was certainly a gloomy home, but somehow time glided on as swiftly there as in more favoured spots. A year soon sped. The attentions of the young men had been incessant, but they had made no progress in their suits, for the love of Jenny continued to be centred in her grandfather, and if she had any to spare it was devoted to the row of flowers in her window, sickly plants which, sheltered though they were from the cold weather without, grew long of stalk and leaf as they strained and struggled to reach the light. But Jenny’s patience was vain; the flowers always ended by drooping, turning yellow, and slowly withering away, even as drooped the wretched birds, supposed to be fowls, which pecked about in the alley, dropping a feather here and a feather there in their perpetual moult and raggedness, but about which fowls there was a legend known to every child in the court, in which it was related that the feathery scarecrow known as “the hen” had once laid an egg – a real genuine egg like those labelled at the cheesemonger’s as “Sixteen a shilling,” though no one had ever been found, from the owner of the fowls to the youngest inhabitant, who could conscientiously declare that he or she had seen that egg in its new-laid form.

For, as has been before hinted at, Gutter-alley had an atmosphere of its own, where not only flowers had their life dried out of them, but human beings grew more sickly day by day. The children became pale and stunted of growth; their elders unwholesome of mien and habit. It was one of Death’s London strongholds, and the visits of parish surgeon and undertaker were frequent here. The close crowded court was one of the spots where typhus lived till it was tired, surfeited with the ill it had done, when for a time it slept.

It was summer, and there was much meeting of women in the court, where they would stand together after their fashion, with apron-wrapped arms, to gossip and compare notes. Now there was a funeral, and that had to be discussed, being considered a decent berryin, wherein all took deep interest, for most likely the majority had subscribed their mites to assist the neighbour in trouble. No matter how poor the sufferers, a decent funeral must be had; and it was no uncommon thing for the undertaker to be called upon to take off the bare, wretched, poverty-stricken aspect of the parish shell by decking it with a few rows of black nails, and a breast-plate and set of handles.

Now the doctor had been seen to go into Number 8. Where would he go next? How was Mrs Rose? Was Banks’s child better? Would Widow Robinson and the five little ones have to go to the workhouse? Plenty of such questions were discussed in those days; and it happened that as four of the women were watching for the return of the doctor from one house, that, laden as usual, Harry Smith came up the road, set down his basket, and then, taking out almost an armful of moss roses, he was about to enter the door of Number 5, when one of the women partly covered her face with her apron, and then whispered something to the young man, which made him hesitate for a moment. Directly after he smiled, shook his head, and entered the house, to return in a few minutes without the roses.

The next morning he found that there was still a discussion going on in the court, and on approaching the door of Number 5 it was shut, and entrance was denied.

He could not see any one, a parish nurse said, for the fever was very bad in the house, as at many more in the court; and the young man sighed as he went away to encounter John Wilson at the end of the alley, glancing down it for a moment before passing on again.

For the fever was bad indeed, and once and twice a day shabby funeral processions left the place. Now that the trouble had come, parish meetings were held, and timid men made some little paltry attempts at battling and staying the progress of the distemper. But in spite of all they could do, the fever still raged; and at last, when he came one morning, Harry Smith learned from the women of the court that Jenny Blossom lay a-dying.

No one now saw the blooming girl, basket in hand, go out to sell her fragrant flowers, and Number 5 was shunned as the blackest plague spot in the court.

But still, day by day, came Harry Smith to the door, where he was never admitted. Not laden now with heavy bunches of flowers, but bearing a few sweet buds, to send by the hands of the nurse to the sick girl’s room. Twice over though had Hany to stop shuddering, to let the bearers of something pass. Shuddering from no selfish fear, but lest some one might have been suddenly snatched away. For in those times he knew that it was not long before the cold harshly-shaped coffin was called into requisition, and his dread was great until the woman at the house set him at rest.

Then came Harry’s turn: one morning he tried to rise for his market trip, but only to find that he had been stricken down by the enemy, and he was soon fighting hard with the fever that had fastened on him.