The Mysteries of London Volume 1

by Reynolds, George W. M.

  “And you will apply to him who has already suffered so much by you?” said the daughter, shaking her head. “Alas! he will refuse you the succour you require!”

  “No—no—not he!” ejaculated the old man. “Be of good cheer, Ellen—I shall not be long absent; and on my return thou shalt have food, and fire, and clothes!”

  “God grant that it may be so!” cried Ellen, clasping her hands together.

  “I have moreover a piece of news relative to that villain Montague to communicate to him,” added Monroe; “and for that reason—if for none other—should I have called at his residence to-day. While I was roving about in the City yesterday to endeavour to procure employment I accidentally learnt that Montague is pursuing his old game at the West End, under the name of Greenwood.”

  “Ah! why do you not rather call upon this man,” cried Ellen, “and represent to him the misery to which his villany has reduced us? He is doubtless wealthy, and might be inclined to give a few pounds to one whom he robbed of thousands.”

  “Alas! my dear Ellen, you do not know the world as I know it! I have no means of convincing Montague, or Greenwood, that I lost money by him. He only knew Allen in the entire transaction: he never saw me in his life—nor I him,—at least to my knowledge. Allen is dead;—how then can I present myself to this man, whom villany has no doubt rendered hard-hearted and selfish, with mere assertions of losses through his instrumentality? He would eject me ignominiously from his abode! No—I shall repair to Richard Markham; he is my last and only hope!”

  With these words the old man embraced his daughter affectionately, and left the room.

  The moment he was gone Eliza said to herself, “My father has undertaken a hopeless task! It is not probable that Markham, whom he has reduced to a miserable pittance, will spare from that pittance aught to relieve our necessities. What is to be done? There are no more artists or sculptors who require my services—no more statuaries or photographers who need my aid. And yet we cannot starve! When I last saw the old woman, she spoke out plainly—her meaning could not be misunderstood. I rushed away from her presence, as if she were a venomous reptile! Fool that I was. Starvation is undermining those charms which I have learnt to value: hunger is defacing that beauty which gave me bread for nearly two years, and which may give me bread again in the same way. I am clothed in rags, and shiver with the cold! My hands, once so white, are becoming red: my form, lately so round and plump, is losing its fulness and its freshness; my cheeks grow thin and hollow. And in a few hours my poor old father will return home, wasted with fatigue, and overwhelmed with famine and disappointment. O my God!” she continued, clasping her hands together in an ebullition of intense agony; “pardon—pardon—I can hesitate no longer!”

  And straightway she proceeded to the dwelling of the old hag.

  * * * * * * * * *

  It was about two o’clock in the afternoon when Mr. Monroe returned to the court in Golden Lane.

  His countenance was animated with an expression of joy, as he encountered the landlady upon the threshold of the house in which he resided.

  “Miss Monroe is not come in yet,” said the woman roughly. “Here is the key of your lodgings—not that I think there is much worth the locking up. However, this key you don’t have again till my rent is paid.”

  “Here—pay yourself—pay yourself!” cried the old man, taking a handful of gold and silver from his pocket.

  The woman’s manner instantly changed into cringing politeness. She was not now pressed for the rent. She could wait till it was convenient. She always knew that she had to deal with a gentleman. What did it matter to her when she was paid, since she felt convinced the money was safe?

  Monroe cut short her compliments by settling the arrears due, and sending the landlady out to purchase some food. The old man was determined to be extravagant that day—he was so happy! Markham had declared that he and his daughter should never know want again;—and then—he had such a surprise for Ellen. They were to proceed next day to take up their abode with Richard: the young man had insisted upon it—Whittingham had supported the proposal;—and so it was all resolved upon. No more poverty—no more cold—no more hunger!

  It was for this that the old gentleman was resolved to be extravagant. He was anxious to provide a delicate little treat for his daughter;—and he was glad that she was not at home when he returned. He felt convinced that she had gone out to seek for work, and hoped that she would not be long ere she returned.

  By means of the landlady he procured a cold fowl, a piece of ham, and a bottle of cheap wine; and his own thin and meagre hands spread the dainties upon the table, while the landlady lighted a fire in the grate.

  When these arrangements were complete, Monroe dispatched the now obsequious mistress of the house to redeem from pledge the various articles which had been pawned during this latter period of destitution; and when she returned, laden with the necessaries and the comforts which had thus been temporarily disposed of, Monroe felt pleasure in arranging them in such a way that they might strike Ellen’s eyes the moment she should return.

  The poor old man was so joyful—so happy, as he executed his task, that he did not observe the lapse of time. Six o’clock struck, and the candle had been burning for some time upon the mantelpiece, ere Monroe began to wonder what could keep his daughter so long away.

  Another half-hour passed; and her well-known step was heard ascending the staircase. The door opened; and Ellen rushed into the room, exclaiming, “My dear father, here is gold! here is gold!”

  “This then appears to be a day of good fortune,” said the old man, glancing triumphantly around him. “I also have gold—and these are the fruits of the first use which I have made of it!”

  “What!” exclaimed Ellen, gazing wildly upon the well-spread table and the various articles redeemed from the pawnbroker; “Richard Markham——”

  “Is an angel!” cried Monroe. “He never will let us know want again!”

  “Oh! my God!” ejaculated Ellen, throwing herself upon a chair, and burying her face in her hands: “why did I not wait a few hours? why did I not have patience and hope until your return?”

  “Ellen, what mean those words?” demanded the old man: “speak—tell me——”

  “Simply, my dear father,” she answered, raising her head, and at the same time exercising an almost superhuman control over her inward emotions, “that I have consented to receive work at a price which will scarcely find us in bread; and——”

  “You shall not hold to your bargain, dearest,” interrupted Monroe. “The money which you may have received in advance,—for you said, I think, that you had money,—shall be returned to those who would condemn you to a slavery more atrocious than that endured by the negroes in the West Indies! Take courage my beloved Ellen—take courage: a brighter day will yet dawn upon us.”

  Ellen made no reply: but her countenance wore so singular an expression, that her father was alarmed.

  “My dearest daughter,” he exclaimed, “you have no longer any hope! I see by your looks that you despair! God knows that we have encountered enough to teach us to place but little reliance upon the smiles of fortune: nevertheless, let us not banish hope altogether from our bosoms! To-morrow we shall leave this dismal abode, and repair to the house of our young benefactor, Markham.”

  “Markham!” cried Ellen, the very name appearing to arouse agonizing emotions in her mind: “have you promised Mr. Richard Markham that we will reside with him?”

  “Yes, dearest Ellen; and in so doing I had hoped to give thee pleasure. You have known each other from infancy. Methinks I see thee now, a little child, climbing up that hill in company with Richard and his brother——”

  “His brother!” repeated Ellen, a cold shudder passing over her entire frame.

  “My dearest
girl, you are not well,” said the old man; and, pouring some wine into a glass, he added, “drink this, Ellen; it will revive thee.”

  The young lady partook of the exhilarating beverage, and appeared refreshed. Her father and herself then seated themselves at the table, and partook of the meal.

  Ellen ate but little. She was pensive and melancholy; and every now and then her countenance wore an expression of supreme horror, which denoted intense agony of feeling within her bosom. She, however, contrived to veil from her father’s eyes much of the anguish which she thus experienced; and the old man’s features were animated with a gleam of joy, as he sate by the cheerful fire and talked to his daughter of brighter prospects and happier days.

  On the following morning they took leave of those rooms in which they had experienced so much misery, and repaired to the dwelling of Richard Markham.

  CHAPTER LVIII.

  NEW YEAR’S DAY.

  IT was the 1st of January, 1839.

  The weather was cold and inclement;—Nature in nakedness appeared to recline upon the turfless grave of summer.

  The ancient river which intersects the mightiest city upon the surface of the earth, was swollen; and in the country through which it wound its way, the fields were flooded in many parts.

  The trees were stripped of their verdure: the singing of birds had ceased.

  Gloomy and mournful was the face of nature, sombre and lowering the aspect of the proud city.

  So pale—so faint were the beams of the mid-day sun, that the summit of Saint Paul’s, which a few months back was wont to glitter as if it were crowned with a diadem of gold, was now veiled in a murky cloud; and the myriad pinnacles of the modern Babylon, which erst were each tipped as with a star, pointed upwards to a sky ominous and foreboding.

  Nevertheless, the ingenuity and wonderous perseverence of man had adopted all precautions to expel the cold from the palaces of the rich and powerful, and to surround the lordly owners of those splendid mansions with the most delicious wines and the most luxurious food, in doors, to induce them to forget that winter reigned without.

  Soft carpets, thick curtains—satin, and velvet, and silk,—downy beds beneath gorgeous canopies,—warm clothing, and cheerful fires, combined to defy the approach of winter, and to render the absence of genial summer a matter of small regret.

  Then, when the occupants of these palaces went abroad, there was no bold exertion required for them to face the nipping cold; for they stepped from their thresholds into carriages thickly lined with wool, and supplied with cushions, soft, luxurious, and warm.

  But that cold which was thus expelled from the palaces of the rich took refuge in the dwellings of the poor; and there it remained, sharp as a razor, pitiless as an executioner, inexorable as a judge, and keen as the north-western wind that blows from the ice-bound coasts of Labrador.

  No silks, nor satins, nor velvets, nor carpets, nor canopies, nor curtains, had the dwellings of the poor to defy, or even mitigate the freezing malignity of that chill which, engendered in the arctic regions of eternal snow, and having swept over the frozen rivers and the mighty forests of America, had come to vent its collected spite upon the islands of Europe.

  Shivering, starving, in their miserable hovels, the industrious many, by the sweat of whose brow the indolent few were supplied with their silks, and their satins, and their velvets, wept bitter—bitter tears over their suffering and famished children, and cursed the day on which their little ones were born.

  For the winter was a very hard one; and bread—bread was very dear!

  Yes—bread, which thou, Almighty God! hast given to feed those whom thou didst create after thine own image,—even bread was too dear for the starving poor to buy!

  How long, O Lord! wilt thou permit the few to wrest every thing from the many—to monopolize, accumulate, gripe, snatch, drag forth, cling to, the fruits of the earth, for their own behoof alone?

  How long shall there exist such spells in the privilege of birth? how long must all happiness and all misery be summed up in the words—

  WEALTH. | POVERTY.

  We said that it was New Year’s Day, 1839.

  In the palaces of the great were rejoicings, and music, and festivity; and diamonds glittered—and feathers waved—and silks rustled;—the elastic floors bent beneath the steps of the dancers; the wine flowed in crystal cups; and the fruits of summer were amongst the dainties spread to tempt the appetite of the aristocracy.

  Ah! there was happiness indeed, in thus welcoming the new year; for those who there greeted its presence, were well assured that it would teem with the joys and blandishments which had characterized the one that had just sunk into the grave of Time!

  And how was it with the poor of this mighty metropolis—the imperial city, to whose marts whole navies waft the commerce of the world!

  The granaries were full; the pastures had surrendered up fat oxen to commemorate the season; the provision-shops teemed with food of the most luxurious and of the humblest kinds alike. A stranger walking through this great city would have wondered where the mouths were that could consume such vast quantities of food.

  And yet thousands famished for want of the merest necessaries of life.

  The hovels of the poor echoed not to the sounds of mirth and music—but to the wail of hunger and the cry of misery. In those sad abodes there was no joviality to welcome a new year;—for a new year was a curse—a mere prolongation of the acute and poignant horrors of the one gone by.

  Alas! that New Year’s Day was one of strange contrasts in the social sphere of London.

  And as London is the heart of this empire, the disease which prevails in the core is conveyed through every vein and artery over the entire national frame.

  The country that contains the greatest wealth of all the territories of the universe, is that which also knows the greatest amount of hideous, revolting, heart-rending misery.

  In England men and women die of starvation in the streets.

  In England women murder their children to save them from a lingering death by famine.

  In England the poor commit crimes to obtain an asylum in a gaol.

  In England aged females die by their own hands, in order to avoid the workhouse.

  There is one cause of all these miseries and horrors—one fatal scourge invented by the rich to torture the poor—one infernal principle of mischief and of woe, which has taken root in the land—one element of a cruelty so keen and so refined, that it outdoes the agonies endured in the Inquisition of the olden time.

  And this fertile source of misery, and murder, and suicide, and crime, is—

  THE TREATMENT OF THE WORKHOUSE.

  Alas! when the bees have made the honey, the apiarist comes and takes all away, begrudging the industrious insects even a morsel of the wax!

  Let us examine for a moment the social scale of these realms:

  The lowest step in the ladder is occupied by that class which is the most numerous, the most useful, and which ought to be the most influential.

  The average annual incomes of the individuals of each class are as follows:—

  The Sovereign .................................£500,000.

  The member of the Aristocracy ...... £30,000.

  The Priest ........................................... £7,500.

  The member of the middle classes ....... £300.

  The member of the industrious classes... £20.

  Is this reasonable? is this just? is this even consistent with common sense?

  It was New Year’s Day, 1839.

  The rich man sate down to a table crowded with every luxury: the pauper in the workhouse had not enough to eat. The contrast may thus be represented:—

  Turtle, venison, turkey, har
e, pheasant, perigord-pie, plum-pudding, mince-pies, jellies, blanc-manger, trifle, preserves, cakes, fruits of all kinds, wines of every description.

  ½ lb. bread, 4 oz. bacon, ½ lb. potatoes , 1½ pint of gruel.

  And this was New Year’s Day, 1839!

  But to proceed.

  It was five o’clock in the evening. Three persons were conversing together on Constitution Hill, beneath the wall of the Palace Gardens.

  Two of them, who were wrapped up in warm pilot coats, are well known to our readers: the third was a young lad of about sixteen or seventeen, and very short in stature. He was dressed in a blue jacket, dark waistcoat of coarse materials, and corduroy trousers. His countenance was effeminate and by no means bad-looking; his eyes were dark and intelligent; his teeth good. The name of this youth was Henry Holford.

  “Well, my boy,” said the Resurrection Man, for he was one of the lad’s companions, the other being the redoubtable Cracksman,—“well, my boy, do you feel equal to this undertaking?”

  “Quite,” answered Holford in a decided tone.

  “If we succeed, you know,” observed the Cracksman, “it will be a jolly good thing for you; and if you happen to get nabbed, why—all the beaks can do to you will be to send you for a month or two upon the stepper. In that there case Tony and me will take care on you when you come out—won’t we, Tony?”

  “Certainly,” replied the Resurrection Man.—“But if you get scented, Harry,” he continued, addressing himself to the lad, “as you approach the big house, you must have a run for it, and we shall stay here and leave the rope over the wall for two hours. If you don’t come back by that time, we shall suppose that you’ve either got into some quiet corner of the palace, or that you’re taken; and then, whichever happens of these two events, we shan’t be of any service to you.”