The Wages Of Virtue (A Poor Man at the Gate Series, Book 8)

by Andrew Wareham

  Knowing this, Luke could do nothing - if the children remained starving on the streets they would come to the same end more quickly and certainly, younger.

  They reached the door to the Workhouse and Luke called to the porter to open up.

  "Four more, I am afraid, Mr Tidworth."

  The porter made no attempt to argue - he knew better than to try to face Luke down; he asked them to wait, providing Luke with a chair, and went to the Master's office.

  Three minutes and the Master was with them - he, too, was aware of Luke's name and family and would not put his own place at risk. There was far too much of wealth and power riding on a Star's shoulders for any minor functionary to say him nay.

  "Good morning, Mr Star! More unfortunates for our care?"

  Luke summoned a smile and a courteous response - 'care' indeed!

  "Mr Lovelace! How are you today, sir?"

  Lovelace was very fit and happy - he looked it, a prosperous paunch saying that he at least was well fed, though possibly the only man in the building who could make that claim.

  "Another drunken lout who has thrown his family onto the street, Mr Lovelace, leaving them with no roof, no food and almost no clothing, as you see. I shall deal with him next, sir, but for the while I see no alternative to giving them entry here."

  Lovelace accepted them, writing their names into the ledger and calling his female assistant - the Matron - to take them in.

  "To the bath first, I think, Mrs Williams, and then clothe them and put them to their places."

  She made her curtsey and led the family away.

  There was no heating in the building and they still shivered in their thin clothing, but they would at least be fed and eventually, after their cold-water baths and lye soap had cleaned them, be given long woollen dresses and flannel underthings. Each would have a blanket on her bed as well.

  Luke walked briskly to the Town Hall - he was cold, his frieze coat old and wearing thin - and he needed to warm himself. He went straight to the office of the Clerk to the Magistrates, well-known and having the right of entry where he pleased. It had never occurred to him that others might resent his place of authority in the town, his use of the family name and power - it was all done for the best of reasons, so why should there be any objection?

  In the presence of the Clerk - a youngish local man who had sat his years in an attorney's office but had never hung up his own plate - he briefly explained his mission and made his request for the services of a pair of constables. The town had benefitted from a Private Act just four years previously and had instituted a local Rate to provide an income and had built its own Workhouse and created a small Watch of a dozen paid, and hence young and healthy, constables reporting to the Bench.

  "Where are you going, Reverend?"

  "The back alleys behind Cross Street, Mr Everard."

  "Not with just two of my constables, sir!"

  The Clerk called for all six of the men on duty, waited half an hour while they were pulled together, the three on patrol brought back from the shopping area, providing Luke with tea and light conversation the while.

  "Escort to the Reverend Star, to collect a drunken layabout who has assaulted his wife and refused food to his children. He is to stand before the Bench in the morning."

  The warning was given - the prisoner, when taken, should be fit to stand unaided within the day.

  It made the constables' job more difficult, it being far easier to arrest an unconscious drunk than a fighting berserk. They hefted their long sticks and looked unkindly at the Reverend - a man of peace and goodwill who had no concept of the reality of the streets, despite his long familiarity with their surface.

  "Take the wagon, sir?"

  "Certainly, you will not wish to carry the malefactor through the streets."

  The constables cheered up again - the Clerk did not envisage the prisoner being capable of independent locomotion.

  The wagon was small, four-wheeled and closed - strong wooden sides and iron bars across the tiny window and a heavy grille to make a back door. It was drawn by two sturdy van-horses, well cared for and thoroughly groomed - the constables liked animals.

  Luke gave the direction and sat up next to the driver, not himself one of the peace-keepers but with a short-barrelled fowling piece tucked away under his bench.

  "Just in case, Reverend - you never knows what might 'appen in this job!"

  In daylight hours very little was likely - darkness provided anonymity which encouraged violence while the constables were known to have a good memory for faces spotted in the sunshine.

  The back alley was just wide enough for the wagon and they drew up close to the buildings Luke indicated; he called a group of small boys across. Four of them instantly ran away but two came to command.

  "Which is Nudger's place?"

  Luke pulled out two pennies as he asked the question, the boys' eyes fixing upon them - they could buy a loaf of three day old black bread with a penny - soaked in water it was perfectly edible.

  "Second door, mister, upstairs at the back. Give us it, quick, before they sees it!"

  Luke handed over the coins, saw the boys disappear at top gallop before the rest of the gang could rob them.

  There would be no back staircase in this sort of terrace, and the window would probably be boarded over, the glass long broken; there was no way to escape. Luke opened the door and stepped inside, was shouldered back by the constables, four of them getting in front of him and two close behind - lose the Reverend and they would be pilloried, possibly literally, certainly their jobs gone and lucky not to be transported for neglect of duty.

  They ran upstairs and kicked the door down, burst into the small, smelly room, grabbed hold of the short, stinking drunk laid on the single bed.

  "This 'im, Reverend?"

  Luke nodded, hand over his mouth and nose.

  "Dirty little bastard - sorry, Reverend! Too drunk to get 'is trousers off!"

  There was no fight, the prisoner could hardly move. They bundled him downstairs and dropped him in a deep puddle of rainwater at the side of the alley, rolling him over and over until the worst had washed away. The water was dirty, but cleaner than him.

  "Jock! Billy!"

  The two youngest constables acknowledged their names.

  "Get him under the pump in the backyard when we get in, and don't let him out until he's fit to be put in a cell."

  They nodded - both were big lads, quite capable of all that was implied.

  Luke stood in court next morning as the still damp defendant was pushed into the box.

  "You are Nigel Rudge, commonly known as 'Nudger'?"

  "Yes."

  The defendant winced as a heavy boot stamped down on his bare foot - he knew better than to cry out.

  "Yes, Your Honour!"

  The Clerk informed him that he was charged with wilfully neglecting his children and assault upon the female living with him as his wife. It was convenient that they had never actually married, because it was probably impossible for a husband to 'assault' a wife, possessing as he did legal powers over her of correction and punishment; anything less than murder could be argued to be lawful, and the junior courts had better things to do than dabble in grey areas of the law.

  "Guilty, Your Honour."

  Nudger knew better than to waste the time of court and constables with a not guilty plea.

  The three magistrates briefly conferred with the Clerk and then called Luke across to join them, listened to his brief, whispered report.

  "Four more in the Workhouse?"

  Luke nodded.

  The Clerk took over to briefly expound the law and the punishments available to the magistrates.

  "Death sentence is allowable for abuse of the children but is hardly appropriate in this instance. Seven years or life, gentlemen?"

  They agreed that life in Botany Bay would be excessive and sentenced the prisoner to transportation for seven years. As all were aware, there was no provisi
on for repatriation to England at the end of a term of transportation - the prisoner, if he wished to return, having to buy his own ticket - so it made little practical difference but looked better on paper.

  Nudger, having had no alcohol in twelve hours and rapidly going into withdrawal, neither noticed nor cared; he was about to vomit and dared not do so in the courtroom, not if he wished to survive long enough to board the transportation ship.

  Luke left the court saddened, another lost soul going to his Purgatory on Earth, and there was nothing he could do for him or the vast number of others in his case.

  The problem was, in part, that drink was available so easily and cheaply; the other part was that life for the ordinary man was so desperate that for many drink made the sole refuge. Bonds of affection, the ties of family, all became less than nothing under the unending pressure of living in the back-streets with no certainty of work and less than a living wage in exchange for six of twelve or perhaps sixteen hour shifts, if they could find them.

  He walked past the doors of the local Temperance Hall, disinclined to enter because they were concerned only with the obvious half of the issue of poverty. A distance down the street, still taken up by his musings, he was stopped.

  "Good morning, Reverend Star!"

  He turned to the lady who had greeted him, apologising for not seeing her party first.

  "Miss Martinsyde, how do you do, ma'am! It is an age since we met! I had heard that you were staying at the house of my brother and his wife."

  "I joined them last month, Reverend, have come across to Burnley for the day to visit with my youngest sister and her daughter, recently moved into the town on the death of their husband and father. We came from Burnley originally, sir - a far smaller town in those days."

  She introduced the couple, a pleasant lady in her forties and a daughter of twenty or a little less. Both were genteelly dressed, warm and comfortable despite the weather, in sober colours but not black - the man of the house must be at least six months in his grave.

  "Mrs Porter and Miss Porter - Reverend Star."

  "I believe we shall be members of your congregation, Reverend Star - my husband was a convinced chapel-goer and I feel I must continue as he would have wished."

  Luke made them welcome, discovered that Miss Porter possessed a very attractive smile and a quite lovely face. He evidently held her gaze long enough for Miss Martinsyde to comment that he was still a bachelor, she believed.

  "I am, Miss Martinsyde - too busy with my flock to discover time for a social life!"

  They parted with a commitment from Luke to take tea with them two mornings hence.

  They drank tea and found much to talk about, and chatted even more after divine service on the Sunday. He discovered that Miss Porter's name was Ellen and that she was quite unattached; he also found out that she was very pretty - he so much preferred the brunette to the blonde, he discovered - and that she thought correctly about all of the important issues of the day and was a dedicated, believing Christian, not a social chapel-goer. She joined him during the week in visiting some of the poor on the edges of the back-slums - he would not take her into the depraved centre, as much for fear of epidemic disease as for any other reason.

  "Winter is passing, Miss Porter, and as soon as the weather becomes even a little warmer the first signs of the fevers appear. Typhoid and scarlet fever rage every year and two years ago there was an outbreak of the cholera, luckily small, confined only to two streets at the edge of town, separate from the great mass of people. It is thought that a sailor, returned from the long voyage to Canton, brought the disease home to his parents - they were first to die so may have been the originators of the infection. Four out of every five died of the cholera, twice as high a rate as from the spotted fevers. Should the contagion ever appear in the back streets then I fear that thousands will succumb."

  She said the right words of horror - knowing that there was no action to take, for none knew the aetiology of the disease.

  Two months and Luke was sure that he had met his life's companion, and he was fairly certain that she held him in affection. He said nothing, for his financial state barely allowed him to live and he could certainly not support a wife; he informed the committee of the elders of the chapel that he must go away for three days on family business in the middle of the following week, having discovered by letter that brother Thomas, Lord Star, would be resident at Freemans.

  "A rare pleasure, Luke, we do not see enough of you at your home! You are thin, my brother - you need feeding up!"

  Elizabeth agreed, innocently said that he really needed a wife to look after him - she had visited Bob in the previous week and had spoken with Miss Martinsyde, who was a regular correspondent with her sister.

  "Well, in fact... to be open with you... that is why I am here. I have my income left me by Papa in his Will, and very welcome it is, too, but I feel myself obliged to aid the less fortunate as I can and the money simply disappears. Papa left me some three hundred a year, as you know, Thomas. Would it be possible to place some, say two hundred of that, into a trust fund for my wife, if I was to be wed, to draw upon for the household expenses only?"

  "You have an income from the chapel as well, I presume, Luke?"

  "Only about one hundred a year, Thomas."

  A total of four hundred - neither could understand how he could possibly live so low.

  "What of your house?"

  "Very small, Thomas, one bedroom and attached to the chapel, but it comes rent-free."

  "Is promotion possible in your denomination, Luke? I know it is mine as well, originally, but I have had to become Church of England in my observances, for the convenience of Public Life."

  "Normally only in one's early years, Thomas. A young man, like myself, who has become a minister after a few years assisting an older reverend, will be expected to move away to find his own chapel. Only a few years ago it meant quite literally to found a new congregation, but now one will be invited to fill the shoes of a retired or dead man. I moved from Wigan to Burnley in that fashion. Rarely, a respected minister may be invited to fill a vacancy in a larger house of worship, Thomas. I was asked to translate to Manchester last year - but I had rather serve my flock than sermonise to the middle order of folk in the comfortable city."

  It was very worthy, but also terribly poor.

  Something had to be done.

  Thomas and Elizabeth discussed the question at length that night, deciding in the end that he really must be taken out of the environment of the back-streets, and if he would not minister to the middle order of people in England, well, alternatives existed...

  "Lord Andrews mentioned recently that there are very few educated ministers to be found out in the backwoods of America. His people in the north west of New York State must rely upon themselves for divine guidance, and many of the villages nearby are very poorly served on the Sabbath."

  It was a possible answer; if they could find a worthy young man to step into Luke's shoes then they might be able to persuade him to go west, to live on his own farm while bringing the Word to a deprived set of people. They would be able to adjust his income as well, without him protesting that he was not to beg their charity. If he wished to marry, had finally fallen into love, then they suspected that he might not object too strongly.

  "We appear to be successful in our nightly labours, husband - I believe myself to be in the family way, looking to be delivered, on a first calculation, in some six months' time. That will be eleven months after the wedding, and therefore publicly satisfactory; it is always as well not to be too close, because there are many and many, and not all of them old wives, who believe that a carrying may sometimes stretch to ten months, but none who could swallow eleven or more."

  George Star showed a polite enthusiasm, perhaps slightly relieved that he would be excused nocturnal duty for a significant time - his dutiful, almost obsessive, wife had become hard work.

  "I have not informed my father, sir, belie
ving that to be your privilege, and duty."

  She was punctilious in all matters of courtesy, performing her part of their contract to the best of her considerable ability; she demanded a like commitment from him, and he felt obliged to concur.

  "The question of a house arises, Mr Star."

  They had remained in George's rented villa for the first months of marriage, the small place sufficient in their early days. Obviously, the quarters of a single gentleman did not lend themselves to the creation of a nursery or the accommodation of the servants they would now require.

  "I think we must purchase rather than build new, ma'am, simply because of the constraint of time. You will not wish to suffer the hustle and bustle of moving house five or six months from now."

  "Thank you, sir, you are very considerate. I suspect you are right in your supposition as well. Observation of other females in my current condition suggests that they grow limited in their mobility when coming towards term."

  He bowed in response to her thanks, confirming again his breeding and politesse.

  "You have greater knowledge than I of the areas of gentility in and around the town, ma'am. Where may we properly dwell, and where must we not?"

  "Best we should locate near Papa, sir. To the west of town and on the hillside where the air is fresher and the smokes are less."

  "Eight to ten bedrooms and the house on three floors, the attics for the servants?"

  "That is to be somewhat larger than I had expected, sir."

  "It will do for the while, ma'am. It is my fixed intent that we shall - before too many years are passed as well - establish ourselves in an estate such as my father possessed. You have seen Freemans and know its air of ease - our family will grow up as I did, not in sinful luxury but in true comfort."