THE DEPRIVED... Chapter 3...Part25.

A continuation of my book.

The East-End of London had begun life as a dockside which brought commercial goods from all parts of the world. It had sprawled out like a bowl which springs a leak and spreads, the richness moving out to more promising soils, while the Docks became the dumping ground for refugees and the poor so that a steel ring bound in the nature of poverty and stretching in property to expand the territory, ever-widening so that the slums included in their boundary a mile’s ending, broadening to include Mile End and Bethnal Green, to encircle Shoreditch and Hoxton and to Aldgate East. And within this boundary lived all the ills, the mice and rats coming from the same boats along with the people to share the plague and pestilence, the poverty and the decadence which came under the name of slums.
And it was this life that Beth understood, these people who she considered to be her own so that she set about her new life with a zest and zeal which brightened her eyes and sharpened her appetite.

Joy had retained her real name and was now Sister Joy and it was with Sister Joy that Beth walked out of the convent gate to begin her new start of working among the people. To Beth who had not seen the outside of the convent for over nine months it was rather like coming out into the shade after spending a day in bright sunlight.
The streets were grey and crowded with grey faces, ghosts of people who crept about on their business, casting suspicious glances at the couple as Sister Joy walked with head high. The smell of overflowing cesspits and the buckets of body fluid cast out of open windows ran to stain the cobbles and this brought the reality of life back to Beth. The sight of street urchins, the vagabonds who stared with sly eyes at those who passed by and waited for the smallest chance to nip in and take whatever they could, be it a pie from the pie-man’s stall or a silver fob from a careless hung watch chain along with the scuttling run of mice and rats was no threat to her and she strangely felt at home in this world. Beth slowed her walk, to take in this world.

“Hurry, Beth.” urged Sister Joy as they made their way through the streets.

The houses in Bolton Street were aged and leaning into each other like a deck of cards stacked up with a drunken eye and about to fall. Each house contained rooms which were full of shouting screaming and fighting children whose parents were too tired and too uncaring to put a stop to the noise.
“What’s the cooking with you?” asked the little boy who had opened the door.
He was naked, his face and body covered with sores and scabs. Staring at Sister Joy and Beth with a suspicious eye he poked out a tongue.
“Can we speak to your mother?” asked Sister Joy. “Hoi!” shouted the boy, looking back into the room. “There’s two of them ‘Creeping Jesus’ people at the door!”
He was now joined by a crowd of siblings of all ages and sizes, all naked and grimed with a year’s collection of dirt. They too seemed to share the sores and scabs, all of them having their heads shaved of hair.
“Hoi!” the boy shouted again and this time his shout was echoed by the siblings.
“What’s a-doing?” came a woman’s voice.
“It’s them funny God’s people. Them as wear them God things!” replied the boy, fighting to keep the other children behind him.
“Tell them as is there at the door to flake away and say we aint into God, unless He’s got some bread and things going lightly!”
“She says has you got any bread and fancies for us?” said the boy, this time losing the fight to stop the brood pushing past him and they gathered round Sister Joy, pulling at her clothes.
“You tell your mother we are Godly persons and making our way in!” shouted Beth, at which the children suddenly stopped pulling at Sister Joy’s garments and ran into the room.
The boy looked at Beth’s stern face and held the door open wide.
“Come on, Sister Joy.” said Beth, stepping into the room.
The room lay in utter squalor with no curtains to the windows or mat to the floor. At one corner lay a bundle of old clothes, the smell coming from them made Beth gasp at first and she conquered the urge to be sick. The mother sat in a corner on a pile of rags, nursing a baby while another child of about a year older hung to her knees.
“If you God’s people has come to giving me some gospels as afore then pray, as I don’t have another of these babes afore you tells the gospels or afore I pegs me last breath.” said the woman as she took the new-born from her breast and held it out.
“If it’s God’s will that you be blessed with children then you should be joyful.” replied Sister Joy.
“Then you and her aside you is kind in taking a few of these brats away with you!” cried the woman, emitting a hacking couch which set all the children off, imitating the cough till the room echoed with their cries.
“Now you sees what you has done with the nippers, setting them a whooping.” cried the woman.
A movement from the pile of rags in the corner caught Beth’s eyes and she walked over to lift and poke at them with her foot. She jumped back quickly as a rat suddenly ran out from the bundle and out through the open doorway, leaving Beth to stare with wide eyes at what lay beneath the rags. A small girl of around four years old lay lifeless, the small body full of sores and fresh bite marks.
“Them rats is bitten into the baby.” said the woman, totally unconcerned and Beth kept the children away as they moved in to kick at the body.
Sister Joy crossed herself and knelt to wrap the body in some of the old clothes.
“Them’s the kids tatters!” shouted the woman, rising and putting the baby into the arms of one of the children.
The other children began to fight over the baby so that Beth stepped forward to rescue the child, holding it up high as the children jumped up to reach it.
“Them’s the kids tatters!” shouted the woman again, demanding the rags back which Sister Joy had used.
“I will take the body of the child back to the convent and give it a decent Christian burial.” said Sister Joy in defiance.
“Them’s me tatters!” continued to scream the woman, concerned at losing the rags.
“I will bring some clothes back for the children.” said Sister Joy.
As she made her way out of the door, the woman snatched the baby from Beth while screaming out that the ‘God’s People’ had stolen her children’s clothes.
Doors opened to other rooms and the passage was soon filled with other ragged and naked children who joined in the shouting and began to throw whatever they could lay their hands on as Sister Joy, quickly followed by Beth, made her way out into the street. Hurrying down the street they were followed by the hoard of children who had streamed out from the houses till it seemed that every house was emptied of droves of screaming children who followed Sister Joy and Beth back to the convent, banging and hammering on the convent door after Sister Joy and Beth had disappeared inside.

“We have to bury this poor little mite!” exclaimed Sister Joy as she lay the bundle of rags down and opened it to show Sister Dominique the body of the little girl.

The funeral was a hurried affair with Sister Dominique officiating.
“I’ve lived in those kind of places and I’ve lived under the arches and seen Mudlarkers in filth but that room is the worst I’ve ever seen. It’s in bad company, what with all those starving children.” cried Beth as she watched the little girl’s body being laid to rest.
“That’s the trouble, Beth.” said Sister Joy. “We could not bury all the babies and children we see, otherwise we would not have enough room to live in the convent. Sometimes the mothers just lay the bodies outside in the streets so that the scavenger dogs and rats eat them.”
“What can you do about it?” asked Beth as she followed Sister Joy into the building.
“Not a lot, unfortunately.” said Sister Joy. “But you can tell the girls in your dormitory what you have seen and that will make them think about how lucky they are to be living here in the convent and able to learn a trade which will help them when the time comes to leave here. And thank you for your help, Beth. You understand these people and their speech. If I had been on my own, I would have had the door slammed in my face.” Beth nodded, feeling very proud.
“What do we do now?” asked Beth.
“I will draw a bucket from the stores. We have some old ones which have had the holes plugged. And I shall ask if there are any children’s clothes to be had. We’ll take them back to the woman and leave them there. That’s all we can do.” answered Sister Joy.

Beth waited down in the yard while Sister Joy went up to the stores. She returned after a while, one arm carrying a bundle of clothes while a bucket swung from the other hand.
“I’ll carry the clothes.” said Beth, taking the clothes and the two of them hurried out through the gate and retraced their steps back to the house, going up the stairs to the room. The boy who had answered the door before now stood staring at them again and refused to open the door any wider.
“You has taken the dead ‘un away!” he cried. “And now you come for the other nippers, aint it so?”
“We bring some clothes and a bucket for your mother.” said Beth.
Sister Joy placed the bucket on the floor and motioned Beth to do the same with the clothes then the pair of them began to descend the stairs. The boy watched them go down the stairs then rushed out to grab the clothes, throwing the bundle back into the room for the other children to fight over while he snatched up the bucket and ran off down the hallway, banging on the other doors and calling out he had a bucket to sell.
“That’s what the mother will do with the clothes.” said Sister Joy, sadly. “She will sell the clothes to a nearest rag-shop.”

 

That night in the dormitory Beth sat on her bed with the girls crowded round as she told them of her experience, the death of the baby girl and the squalor she had seen.
“That’s why you should not be sad at living here. It’s in good keeping and you should be happy to put yourselves into working and learning so you can all be in comfort when you leave.” she told the listening girls.
It was later as Beth lay in the dark that she thought about her own life. She was turning fifteen and knew that when a girl turned sixteen she would be sent away from the convent to start her own life. Her bed would be needed for the next girl. Beth determined she would learn to work as a Co-Worker, working with the poor and helping the Nuns. While the pay was very little there was food and a bed and the company of those who lived in the convent. This she was determined to tell Sister Joy in the morning.

With the morning came an emergency which robbed Beth’s promise of the night before.