St. Martha's Home; or, Work for women

Front matter

ST. MARTHA'S HOME; OK, WORK FOE WOMEN. BY EMILY BOWLES. '* In every land I saw, wherever light iUuminetb, Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand The downward slope of death."— Tennyson. DUBLIN: JAMES DUFFY, 15, WELLINGTON-QUAY; AND 22, PATERNOSTER-P.OW, LONDON. 1864. DUBLIN : Urinttb Im |. gt. ©%aah anb Son, 6 & 7, Gt. Brunswick-street. CONTENTS. PAGE The Good Neighbour, 1 St. Joseph's Night, 53 The New Servant, 82 The Wife's Victory, 12^ How Dora went into Business, - 16S What became oe the Cock and Pin, Sbskt Par%, at pome anb %koA THE GOOD NEIGHBOUE.

Chapter I. Xe

of the commonest remarks made by people who frequent London without living '>■'" there, is, that among the countless streams of passers-by, there is scarcely one to be found ■whose face does not express hurry, trouble, or vexation. The waves of human life, in their restjb and How, cast up the mire and. dirt of weariness of spirit, and the turmoil of every passion. How refreshing it is then to know, that if we dragged this waste of waters, though we should bring to light the lees and dregs of much unspeakable vileness, putrifying corpses and dead men's bones, we should here and there also chance upon a rich jewel, a fair pearl, or pile of long buried gold, whose price and beauty would " be a thing of joy" for evermore ! So thought one —wholly unconscious of her own worth —who was treading her quiet way, not long since, through the labyrinths of the Seven Dials.

It was Sunday morning, when shops ought to have been shut and labour stilled, and all hearts turned to their first greatest duties of religion. Not far off, the third Mass of the morning was going on ; the Angels were gathered round the sanctuary, and all heads were bent to adore their approaching God. There the few faithful worshippers felt over again the beauty of the old Hebrew words : " The Lord is in His holy place ; let all the earth keep silence before Him." They knew that the hush of all human thoughts, passions, and desires, best prepared the soul to welcome and receive His gift; and there, at least, was a little Sabbath, the truest rest on earth of the people of God. The outside of life was different. Men and women, in every variety of dirty and scarcely decent slovenli ness, were chaffering over their goods, wrangling, shout ing, blaspheming, and pouring out filthy words and as odious laughter.

Great boys were exchanging rude jests and blows with young girls, from whom every trace of girlhood had departed ; and the whole air was full of foul scents of coarse tobacco and spirits, un drained alleys, and houses and people innocent of pure water and soap. " Take care of yourself !" exclaimed an uncombed boy to a girl, who would have been exceedingly hand some if it had not been for a fixed and brazen expres sion, and many shades of dirt. " Take care of yourself, pretty Nell ! you'll be getting the small-pox soon, and then your fine face may go begging !" " What's that to you, you thundering bosthoon !" screamed back the girl, her eyes flashing, and her hands clenched. "I'll not have the small-pox, I say! 'Tis the old, and the children, and the starving, that get it !" "And how about those that drink, pretty Nellv?

What did the doctor say at Mick Coonan's inquest? You heard it, I know, though you drank none the less afterwards at the ' Cock and Pin.' " The girl uttered a frightful curse, or rather, in the very act of uttering it, when a hand was laid gently on her lips, and a low voice said : " Oh ! Nelly, Nelly ! on Sunday morning, and such words !" The girl turned quickly at the sound of the voice, and her face changed from furious to half -ashamed. " Sister !" she said, " I did not know the likes of you was by me; they keep on bating and angering me always ! ' " You should not do it, Dennis Keegan," said the same sweet voice again. " Go away now, like a good lad, and think about going to High Mass. That is your last chance to-day, for I am sure you have not been." " And that's true for you, Sister; and indeed its long since I did go.

I was out all night, too, and up late this morning." " I know," quietly replied the same voice ; " but there must come an end to that. You may get the small-pox as well as Nell, and instead of making jokes about it for others, you had better get ready yourself. If you died of it, Dennis, where would you stand? Death comes once." The boy's face changed. He had often heard these words, or something like them, before, and they had never checked a career of vice, carried on from the age of eight years. Now the idea seemed to strike him as fresh and new. Death must come, and it must come once. And after death ? He walked slowly away. "Where are you going, Sister?" said Nell. " Could you look in at mother to-day? She is very bad." " I will if I can ; if not, I will come to-morrow," replied the Sister.

" I have some bad cases in Little Crown Court just now, and they will take up some time." " Little Crown Court !" exclaimed Nell in dismay — " why, Sister, that is where the small-pox is so bad !" " For that very reason I am going there," replied the Sister, smiling and gathering her cloak round her. "And now Nelly, my child, remember this Sunday morning. Perhaps you may never see another. Have you made up your accounts T The girl said nothing, but grasping at the corner of the Sister's cloak as she passed, gave it a rapid, passionate kiss, and then turned away up the narrow court, and was lost to sight. She whom they had called " Sister," and who justly merited the title by her brotherly love towards her neighbour, did not, however, belong to any religious community. Miss Turvile was at the head of a Guild, called the Guild ofthe Sorrowful Heart of Mary, whose members bound themselves chiefly to the service of the sick poor, but who visited also the sick of other classes, if their services or visits were desired.

Being thus volunteers in the great army of charity, they were free from the restrictions and difficulties of a fixed rule, and held themselves at the disposal of the parish priest, to go wherever they were most needed for the time. Some of them were ladies, some dressmakers, or work women, some widows of a lower class still, some young women who had been received for this special work into the House, called St. Martha's Home, where the permanent members resided. Some of the members, therefore, were wholly devoted to this service; others only for a set portion of time, according to the circum stances of their lives; but whatever class of society they belonged to, or whatever their labour might be, they all did what they could for the sick. All called one another " Sister" at their meetings, and in their work; and, without affectation or restraint, were all looked upon as equal members of the Guild, obeying their Warden as far as the work went, and the rules of the House when there.

The lady who was now going to Little Crown Court, was free from all home ties, and in consequence of this fact, and her long experience among the poor, had been chosen Warden of the Guild. She walked on, gently avoiding contact with the worst and most ribald of the throng, sometimes fixing her clear eyes upon a drunkard or blasphemer, but generally looking a little down, and carrying such music in her heart* as drowned the unseemly sounds of that dreadful place. She turned off at the entry of a foul court, at the portals of whicht stood a gin-palace, and a pawnshop on either hand — the one to find food for the other, that both might the more quickly make an end of the soul. For, never let any one believe that poverty, as a general rule, frequents or feeds the pawnshop. It is not the industrious poor labourer, who has a cracked teapot full of pawntickets on his chimney piece.

They are the accursed fruits of gin, and richly deserve the name once given them, Notes of the Devil's Bank. Sister Lettiee sighed as she saw the noisy, wrangling * Keble's Christian Year. t "Alton Locke." crowd through the half-opened doors, but she could now only hasten on her way, putting up the fervent prayer, " Deliver us from evil." She stopped at a door nearly at the end of the court, and went up the narrow, creaking, dilapidated stairs. On the second floor she paused, knocked, and opened a door. The foulest smells greeted her entrance into the dark and crowded room. " My child," she said, half choking, " you forget what I told you must be done ; you must have air, or you cannot possibly get well." She went to the window, but the lower half would not go up, and the upper one as obstinately refused to come down.

A feeble voice came from the bed: " I ha' spoke to our landlord about it till I'm sick. He wo'nt do a ha'porth for us !" The Sister took a stout knife out of her pocket, and a stick of firewood from a corner, and at length suc ceeded in raising and propping the lower half of the window. She then took a bottle of disinfecting fluid from her bag, and plentifully sprinkled the room and bed. The effects were quickly perceivable in dispersing the foul air. She then went to the bedside. It was a terrible sight. The poor woman's face was a mass of pustules, and had not been washed for several days. The sheets were nearly black, and a black stuff quilted coverlet outside the dingy bed clothes, smelt very abominably. There was no use in worrying the sick woman now with admonitions, so Sister Lettiee con tented herself with shaking her head, looking very grave the while, and beckoned to the girl -who sat cowering in a corner.

" Come, Katie, go and get a bucket of good hot water, and some cloths; and have you any sheets but those on the bed?" " No, Sister," replied the girl, in a thick, hoarse voice. " We had a pair, but hither pawned them away." " Never mind, now. Have you the ticket for them?" " Yes, Sister," said Katie, brightening up. " Here it is in the jug." " Go down first to the pawnshop, and ask whether they are gone or not. How much were they in for?" " Three shillings," replied Katie. The Sister took the money out of her purse. Before giving it to the child, she said to the sick woman: " My child, if yon were not so very ill, nothing should make me do this. I never, as a rule, help any one to get anything out of pawn. I believe the habit of pawning to be next bad to a habit of drinking. Remember, that we lend linen from lending bags at the Home.

This time I will do it, because we are in great need." Away ran Katie, and soon returned triumphant, bringing a pair of decently clean sheets with her. Meanwhile, the Sister had become aware that the filthy bedding swarmed with vermin, and the case was evidently too bad for clean sheets to mend. She went out, first bidding Katie fill the kettle, and set it on the fire, and make the fire up well. She soon returned, with a strong, useful-looking woman, a good sack ing filled with chaff, and a couple of blankets. These last were lent. The Sister then took a strong knitted hospital bandage from her bag, and passing part of it under the shoulders, and part under the hips of the sick woman, she was lifted lightly from her bed, and laid in the blankets on the sacking. The whole of the old bedding was then quickly thrown out into the court, when the sheets and blankets were put into a pail of boiling water.

The bedding was put away to bo burned. Sister Lettiee arranged the bedstead, and replaced the sick woman upon it. Next she was lightly lifted up, the ragged night-dress taken off, and a clean one put on. The ragged garment was put at once on the fire. Katie was then dispatched for a handful of soda, and the amazed girl was told to wash the floor. "Are you not afraid, Sister, and she so bad?" in quired the able-bodied woman ? " Sure enough, its mucky ; but I thought when the pock was out, thero could not be too much care for heat." " Yes, that is the miserable old notion, which has killed so many," replied the Sister. " I assure you there is no cure so effectual as cleanliness and air. She would never have been so bad had it not been for the dirt of this place. It is really a kind of madness to let dirt heap up as you all do, for every speck of dirt and dust helps to make foul air, and as soon as that is breathed into the body, it helps to make sickness, or to make it worse.

And now, Mrs. Sullivan, you will be more astonished still ; but we must wash this poor woman's face and hands at least. Her skin is so clogged that she is a trouble to herself. Will you get me some of that water off the fire, and wash out this basin quite clean." Mrs. Sullivan immediately did as she was asked, for she and all the neighbours round had implicit faith in "the Sister," and her firm but gentle requests were gene rally granted with cheerful readiness. The basin was really cleansed for the first time for many a day; the clean water,nearly boiling, was poured into it; and Sister Lettiee produced from her endless bag a small soft sponge and towel. A portion of good, pure soap was rubbed on the sponge, and the sick woman soon pre sented a different appearance. The cleansing process appeared to give her great relief.

The Sister then cut all the sick woman's hair, except two long locks in front, which, with the whole head, she combed and cleansed. This was not a pleasant operation, and Mrs. Sullivan could not repress several urgent expostulations at the office the sister had taken on herself. " Blessed be God for all His mercies '." at length ejaculated the good woman. " And now, Sister, what shall I be to give her to eat and drink till vou come again ?" •• What is there in the cupboard?" " Then little else but nothing. Sister, bless the hearers ! There's tea and bread, and her little snuff, and that's all." " She can have tea when she likes ; but you must come to St. Martha's dispensary for some groats and arrowroot, or sago. Do you know how to boil sago?" "^No, Sister; I cannot sav I ever much handled it at all." '• But vou must learn these things, mv child ; vou will soon be a good nurse if you give your mind to a few simple things.

I believe I have enough here to show you. I never go out without either that or arrowroot. Is there a pan or saucepan to cook it in ?" " May the Lord be praised !" softly ejaculated the good woman. " Here is a decent saucepan, if it was but clean !" • Some of the all-useful soda was put into hot water, and the saucepan became cleansed. It was then filled with cold water, and the sago dropped gently into it, and it was set on the fire to boil, wnile Mrs. Sullivan and the Sister stirred it by turns. In rather more than twenty minutes it boiled, and had thoroughly swelled. Mrs. Sullivan was highly delighted with this success; and when she had well washed a cup and spoon, and the Sister had put into it a half slice of lemon and some sugar, and poured the boiling sago over it, she declared it was " fit for Queen Victoria and all her court."

Having seen the sick woman take some with evident relish, Sister Lettiee left strict orders with Mrs. Sullivan to keep up the fire, to have water always boiling, and the window or door propped open, and then bade them good-bye. Before doing so, she leaned over the sick woman, and said: " My child, have you sent for the priest ? Has Father Barrow been to you at all ?" Mrs.Coonan shook her head. " Sister, I'll not tell you a lie ; I have not kneeled to a priest this long while." " How long, my child?" " Sister, it is nine years come Easter." " Well, my child, if it were nineteen intead of nine years, our Lord would be ready to come and meet you, and forgive you all. Will you stay away from Him now, when He has sent this sickness on purpose to re mind you of His love? Would you like me to ask Father Barrow to come and talk to you a little?"

" Yes, Sister; but, oh ! I do be so ashamed." " My child, we all need to be ashamed. But that must not hinder us from doing what is right. You know you are very ill. If you were to die, having been brought up in your .own country as a good Catholic, you would be more ashamed to die without your priest." " Oh, its true, Sister ! Sure I would not have come to this at home. I'll see him, Sister . God bless you for ever, and may he be blessed that sent you like an angel to me !" The Sister softly withdrew. She felt that the sick ness had been indeed an angel recalling this poor lost and strayed sheep, and she lifted up her heart in fer vent praise.

Chapter II. Ihe

had not gone the length of the street, when the young girl Nell came flying after her, clasping her hands, and nearly breath less with haste. " Oh, Sister, Sister, for the ■ love of God, come into Lane-court ! Little Dan Houlahan is so badly burnt ! His poor mother does be almost raving mad !" The Sister instinctively turned, and with surprising quickness glided after Nell, who turned into a wretched little narrow entry, on the opposite side of the way to Little Crown Court. It was of course choked with people ; blouzy, undressed women and men, with short pipes in their mouths, pushing and vociferating, and apparently scolding each other to the best of their strength, doing everything they best could to make a disorder and hinder operations in general. They were amazed when Sister Lettiee penetrated their ranks, and in a clear, commanding voice bade them go out of the court, and leave her free to do her work.

She told them that it was her business and not theirs, and that if they disobeyed and hindered the child's cure, she should wash her hands of them all, and work in another parish. As soon as she had finished speaking, they melted away like a snowball, without murmur or resis tance, and in a few minutes the little court was emptied of all but two boys, whom the Sister retained in case messengers should be wanted. Policeman D, No. 137, who had been for some time vainly trying to make an impression, looked at the Sister with great respect, and turning to No. 152, who kept him company, said so lemnly: " Blowed if I ever see the likes of that! Blest if she ought not to be taken on by Sir Richard for hextrornary service !" And No. 152 replied in equally solemn strain : " Which she undoubtedly might, and rank as A 1."

The Sister, all unconscious of the possible prospec tive honours in store for her, had turned rapidly into the house where the burnt child lay, for Nell had waited at the door while she dismissed the crowd. She found the child laid on the miserable bed, his clothes burnt to tinder, and the whole side of his arm and head a frightful charred sore. Water had been thrown over him while burning, which had increased the pain ten fold, and he moaned and shrieked with the intense agony of the nerves exposed to the raw air. Sister Lettiee hastily made the sign of the cross, and put up a fervent prayer. She had never seen so bad a burn, and it was impossible to handle it without inflicting terrible pain. She sent Nell out for a large feather, and as it was Sunday, she returned with a quill pen, the best feather that was to be had.

The Sister then dexterously cut round the jagged remains of the shirt sleeve that still adhered, and drew it from the arm. She also softly cut away all the frizzled mat of hair from the head, and taking a bottle of castor-oil from her bag, she poured some of it into a clean saucer, and with the feather spread it as lightly as possible over the whole sore. Even with her exquisite lightness and tenderness of hand, the operation gave great pain, but the relief afterwards was evident. The oil effectually closed up the raw flesh from the air, and the throbbing nerves were relieved. As soon as this was done, the Sister dispatched one of the waiting boys to a chemist's for some cotton-wool, -which she spread lightly over the ■whole, and bound up the arm. Having left her bottle of castor-oil with Mrs. Houlahan, with a strict charge to renew the dressing with the feather in the same manner, Sister Lettiee went her way, promising to call in the evening, and bring something that could not be procured in that quarter.* By this time the Sister began to feel rather painfully the effects of the foul air and close courts.

She felt in her bag, and took out a piece of wood charcoal, which she put into her mouth. By slowly reducing it to powder and swallowing it, she found every effect of the close rooms removed Tired as she was, she resolved to see Nell's mother before she went home. The one hope, the one chord, the one soft spot in the poor girl's heart, was her love for her aged mother, whose life she had embittered, wdiose heart she had nearly broken by her wild and headlong career. Sister Lettiee now bec koned to Nell to follow her, and said she was going to her home. Her home! You who know what a home is, and ought to be, who have been carefully and tenderly { She did go, and took with her the remedy, which waa collodion. As it is not always obtainable, and spoils by keeping, it is not men tioned in the text ; but its effects in healing and removing pain in burns and severe wounds is marvellous. cherished in the fair homes of our dear country, in the cottages trellised with honeysuckles and china roses ; in the snug farms ; in the picturesque, broad-windowed village shops; in the halls, and granges, and courts, standing in terraced gardens, in vast parks, in purple woods, on old velvet lawns, across which giant and age worn oaks fling their mossy arms ; you whose hearts are filled, whose minds are stored, with a wealth of associa tions, and memories, and holy and happy thoughts, bound up for ever with your home ; consider for a little while the lot of your brothers and sisters brought up in the low life homes of London ; shut your eyes for a little space upon your delicate rooms, your books, your choice flowers, all those many forms of beauty which feed and form your life, and picture to yourselves, if you cannot visit them, these dwellings of the London poor.

Nell's mother lived in the kitchen, that is, on the underground floor. A very little light penetrated the narrow area slip, and struggled through the one small window the room possessed. The house was old, the landlord surly and reckless because his rents were diffi cult to collect, the drainage bad, and the floor damp, reeking as it was with a foul smell from the broken sink and the yard. If the yard-door was opened, the smell became nearly unbearable. If it had not been for the constant smouldering fire, no one could have lived in the atmosphere of such a room. Upon an old wooden bedstead, on a nondescript heap of ragged bedding, with one blanket nearly as black as the floor, Mrs. Hennessy lay, suffering from an incurable tumour, and many long-standing sores, the result of dirt, neglect, and bad air.

On account of the great size of the tumour, Sister Lettiee and Dr. Harley, the medical man under whom she principally worked, had long tried to persuade her to go to the neighbouring hospital, where she would have the best advice and care ; but the poor woman re sisted. Wretched and suffering as was her state, she preferred it to leaving Nell. Out of that bundle of rags and sores, there breathed a love heroic in its strength. " Sister," she had replied, " as long as I stay here, Nelly will not go altogether to the bad ; but I dread the day when I am laid in the ground. If she has no other friend, she will go off altogether on a wicked course, and then who will bring her back ? I will stav here, as long as body and soul will hold together, to make a little home for Nelly." "Nelly, my child," were the Sister's first words after her examination, " you have neglected to wash your mother's sores; you really must do it, or we shall fall out.

Get me, now, some quite hot water out of the kettle, and cut me a thick slice of bread, all crumb, and bring it with a saucer and basin." The Sister carefully washed Mrs. Hennessy 's back, during which her murmurs and grumblings sufficiently explained Nell's difficulties in the office, and then she began to make a large poultice for it. She laid the bread in the basin with some boiling water, and covered it with the saucer ; in a little while the bread had sucked up all the water, and swelled to twice its size. The Sister folded and wrung it lightly in a cloth, and laid it in a piece of very soft, thin muslin she had with her. She folded the corners of the muslin over on one side, so that the other was perfectly smooth. When this was laid over the sores, it gave immediate relief. Sister Lettiee then spoke seriously and quietly to Nell, charging her to wash her mother's back in a day or two, with quite cold water, which, when the skin was healed, would harden it.

She gave her a little money, and told her to buy a box of elder ointment for a few pence at the chemists, and to put some of it every day on the part as long as it continued sore. Nell was also bidden to go to St. Martha's Home for some bed linen from the lending bags, and to ask to see her at the same time. It was now absolutely necessary to take a little rest, and Sister Lettiee was glad to ring at the door of a large house in Soho-square. The door was opened by a neat girl, dressed in dark blue woollen stuff, with a little cap and collar as white as snow. She smiled a glad smile when she saw who it was. " Oh ! Mother, I am so glad you are come home, there's so many wants to see you, and Dr. Harley is here ; but Sister Alice says you are to have your dinner first, come what may. The Sisters have dined, and the ladies had their lunch, and your dinner is all hot and ready."

" Very well, Cecil, obedience is a prince of virtues ; I will have my dinner: but I think I shall eat more and stay longer at it if you bring Dr. Harley with it." The dinner accordingly came, and shortly after Dr. Harley, who took his chair, and said pleasantly, that a roasted potatoe was a very good thing, and he thought he would have one. Soon afterwards: "I looked in to-day, Sister, to ask you to do one or two things for me. One is to pay a visit out of your beat, but I think you will not mind. It is a bad case — congestion of the lungs and inflammation, and I want a good blister put on. The boy has no one with him but a bedridden aunt and an occasional neighbour. The aunt would not go to the workhouse, and now we cannot move the boy. It would be a real charity if you went there a few times.

" I shall be glad," replied the Sister, " because you know I am specially bound to look after your cases. Is the boy a Catholic ?" " Ought to be — I fancy a thorough heathen. This is the address. The other thing I have at heart is a lady in Newman-street. She has bad scarlet fever and throat, which has driven every one out of the house. I know nothing of the nurse, except that she seems slovenly and ignorant. The poor lady is in reduced circumstances, and cannot afford much, and Mr. Barrow* tells me she has been very careless in religious matters. Will you undertake to see after her?" " Certainly, if you will write down her address with the other. Have you seen the new Sisters, and are they satisfactory?" " I have seen them. They appear to have a notion of work. You should always take one with you when you do not go to the worst small-pox cases."