Chapter Seventeen
The perfect young lady is very industrious. She sews and paints, plays the piano, sings or composes poetry. Such pursuits are wholly suitable for the delicate female temperament...
M iss Mansfield was unusually quiet in the carriage and wore an expression of uncomfortable bewilderment. Whether that was because she was stunned that he had actually come with her today or she was horrified to be stuck with him for the duration he could not rightly say, but the effect was unnerving. Nobody was as surprised as Bennett himself at what he was about to do. A week ago, if somebody had said that he should dress as a pauper and work in a soup kitchen, he would have told them in no uncertain terms that he had much better things to do with his time. Like helping to run the country. He was more knowledgeable about the poor than anybody else he knew. Hadn’t he read extensively on the topic? Hadn’t he visited the mines, factories and workhouses on numerous occasions? Hadn’t he lobbied for change on their behalf?
However, since he had lain in his own hallway to look at his own painting in wonderment, he could not shake the feeling that there were other things that he had once been quite certain of which he was now convinced he might have got wrong. From that moment, it had been imperative that he find out for himself what was actually going on in the slums as an ordinary working man rather than as a duke who lived, as Miss Mansfield had scathingly called it, a gilded life. There were so many things that now needed urgent clarification that he did not know quite where to start. What sort of people went to a soup kitchen? Surely they were only the most wretched? What were the doss houses like? He needed to know how Miss Mansfield had suffered to reassure himself that it was not as bad as his imagination warned him it had been.
And what did those people really think of the government? Because if the government was as out of touch with reality as he was beginning to think, then perhaps there was a very real possibility of a revolution in England whereby all of the old would be ruthlessly swept away, much like it had in France and America, and everything that Bennett stood for would be gone. Somebody needed to do something to prevent that from happening and that somebody might as well be him. He had a duty to all of the people of Britain to do right by them, not just the noble few. He just wished that Miss Mansfield was as confident in his abilities as he was himself. And why was it that her good opinion of him was suddenly paramount?
‘I shan’t let you down,’ he blurted as the carriage lurched to a stop at the end of Piccadilly. ‘Nobody will know that I am a member of the aristocracy, if that is what you are worried about, and you will still be able to continue your good works unaffected after today.’
She gave him a lacklustre smile. ‘I am sure that you will do your best, although your accent might well betray you.’
‘I can change that,’ he offered reassuringly in his best impression of a cockney. ‘I knows how the common man speaks.’
Her answering smile was genuine. ‘Where would you like to go first? We have an hour or two before I need to be at the kitchen.’
Bennett shrugged as he helped her out of the carriage. ‘You are my guide today. I want to know the truth, Miss Mansfield, no matter how awful that might be. Show me all of the things that you think I should see.’
‘All right. But I am curious to know what you intend to do with the knowledge.’
That was easy to answer. Bennett had always known what his role in the government was. ‘I shall use the knowledge to try to change things. I am well aware of the need for reform; however, I am prepared to concede that the reforms I believe are the most pressing might not be so for the poor.’
‘That is all well and good; however, Parliament is notoriously slow at bringing about change. You have said yourself that it has tantrums that prevent any meaningful work from being done. What makes you think they will be open to listening to you?’
Bennett pondered this for a moment. She did make a valid point. ‘Change is always slow. That way it can occur without alarming anyone.’ Or so his father had always said.
‘By “anyone” you mean the aristocracy. Yet they are the people least affected by reform.’
Another valid point that completely contradicted his father’s wisdom. The more time he spent with this vexing woman, the more uncertain about his unshakeable beliefs he became. ‘Perhaps. However, there are a great many politicians and aristocrats who realise that reform is inevitable. The last thing we all want is a revolution here on our own doorstep. Which is precisely why a slower pace of change is preferable. Reforms should come via compromise rather than forcibly. It is better for everyone that way. In a few years, things will be very different.’
Her lovely face screwed up in consternation. ‘And in those few years, thousands will have died as a result of the poverty they are trapped in. I doubt they would agree that the introduction of slow reform is preferable—but, as they do not have any say in what is done to them, either in Parliament or outside of it, I suppose it is easier to ignore their pleas. England’s laws are made without their consultation.’
‘We do not want to alienate the aristocracy either.’ All at once Bennett felt defensive of the system of government he had always believed in, a system that had taken hundreds of years to create. ‘We need them to agree to pay more in taxes to help fund the improvements we must make for the poor.’
‘Heaven forbid that they should be lighter in the pocket. Why, once a week they might have to eat fish instead of beef. Or a lady might have to suffer the indignity of one fewer gown each season. Meanwhile, innocent children are dying.’
When she put it like that, it was difficult to defend his father’s argument— No! His own argument. Or was it their argument? ‘Once I take on a cause, I do not abandon it. Show me how things really are in Seven Dials and I give you my word that I will do all that I can to help, Miss Mansfield.’
For a moment he thought that she would continue to argue, but then she shrugged. ‘That is a start, I suppose.’ She set off at her customary brisk pace and Bennett did his best to march beside her in his unwieldy hobnailed boots. They had walked less than ten paces when she stopped and glared at him. ‘If you are going to blend in, it might be better if you unclasped your hands from behind your back. Your posture is far too noble.’
Feeling decidedly odd with his arms dangling loose, Bennett offered one of them to her and she laughed as she took it. ‘Put your other hand in your pocket. That is what pockets are for.’
She led him nimbly through Covent Garden and along Shaftesbury Avenue to the edge of the infamous area known as Seven Dials. A place where seven rancid streets all converged around a sundial, as if the sun could blaze through all of the squalor in the overcrowded narrow streets to show anyone the time.
The first thing that struck him was the smell. Even on this crisp winter’s morning, it was a pungent combination of rotting vegetables, raw sewage and human sweat, so powerful that it began to make his eyes water. Before, when he had visited the poor, he had taken a perfumed vinaigrette to sniff in order to minimise the foul air, but only the rich did that. The poor had no choice but to be offended by the stench until they were used to it, so he soldiered on. Miss Mansfield sensed his discomfort and squeezed his arm reassuringly. ‘You won’t notice it in an hour. Your nose becomes quite immune to it all after a while.’
But it strengthened his resolve to clean up the streets. Nobody should have to live in filth like this. Yet they did. Huddled in every doorway and alleyway were people, bundled up in rags to ward off the cold, their sunken eyes and drawn expressions stark evidence of their desperation. A man and a woman stood shielding two scrawny, shoeless children from the worst of the frigid breeze. ‘Why are those people just standing around?’
‘They have nowhere else to go. The streets are their home.’ She said this kindly, almost as if he was a child and she was trying to soften the blow. ‘I am sure that when they can they take refuge in a lodging house. Later, we will probably see them at the kitchen, unless they find work in between.’ Bennett was not reassured. The children were clearly half-starved and it did not take a genius to know that their time on God’s earth was likely to be limited.
‘What sort of work is available here for those people?’
‘Mostly casual labour. The flower market might pay them to fetch and carry. Many factories will decide on the day how many workers they need and recruit accordingly. Usually, the normal practice is for the workers to wait outside the factory gates early in the morning in the hope of getting something—but many will leave empty-handed if there is no work to be had. Those that can afford a roof over their heads can earn a living from piecework, although that is equally as hard. To pay for the room, several people all club together, sometimes I have known as many as ten or twelve souls all squashed in one tiny room. The majority of the inhabitants survive day by day.’
She painted a very grim picture that was at odds with what Bennett had always been told about the slums. He had believed that the poor were divided into three distinct categories. Those who wanted to work and did so cheerfully; those who did not want to work and preferred to make a living out of foul means; and those who could no longer work because of illness or age. But the sight of that tragic young family had bothered him. They had been trying to protect their children from the cold with their own bodies. The father probably desperately wanted to earn enough to keep them all safe, but the circumstances in Seven Dials made that impossible. If he were in that position, he might well resort to stealing if it meant that he could get those children out of the cold.
They walked on further and turned into Norfolk Street, a street dominated by one huge municipal brown brick building surrounded by a high wall. ‘That is the workhouse,’ Miss Mansfield said matter-of-factly, although something about her expression did not quite ring true as she scurried past it without breaking her stride. ‘It is run by the parish and provides board and shelter for the most desperate.’
‘Surely board and shelter is better than living on the street?’ The image of the young family still haunted him. Here they would be fed. Be warm. The children would be shod. ‘Is it full?’
‘There are always plenty of inmates, but nobody enters those gates willingly.’ Those gates, he noticed, she hurried past with more speed than she had anything else.
‘Why?’ Bennett tugged on her arm and forced her to stop.
She faced him reluctantly before she answered. ‘It is like a prison. The work is hard and monotonous and the inmates are constantly reminded of the fact that they are a burden to society. You might well be given basic amenities and food, but the cost of that is dreadful. Families are separated.’ At that she pointed to different parts of the building a little too dispassionately. ‘The men are housed to the left, and the women on the right. The children have a separate wing at the rear of the building, near the infirmary. It is forbidden for them to mix with each other.’ She shivered as she looked back at the heavy wrought-iron gates, her expression bleak. ‘Many desperate people go in, but few come out. It is a place to die. A place of no hope.’
Bennett could have sworn he saw tears shimmer in her dark eyes before she turned away and continued along the street as if her life depended on it. All at once, he was filled with an enormous sense of foreboding. Miss Mansfield was not passing on second-hand information, he suddenly realised with a jolt. She had experienced it.
‘You lived here.’ It was a statement rather than a question and she nodded without slowing her pace. Bennett felt anger curdle in his gut and his instantly clenched fists ached to punch something. All of that sudden fury resonated in his voice. ‘How did that happen?’
She shrugged in an attempt to make him believe that it did not matter and forced lightness into her reply. ‘You already know that I came to Seven Dials when my mother fell ill. When her condition worsened I needed to look after her, which made it difficult to earn money. Doctors are expensive. They do not work for free. At least in the workhouse she received medical attention and medicine.’ As the walls of the workhouse gave way to a small cemetery, she finally came to a halt, staring wistfully at the unkempt plot of land. ‘She is buried here somewhere. I am not sure exactly where because I was only told of her passing after the funeral had taken place, but at least I have somewhere to visit.’
His heart ached for her. She stood so proudly and so still. That she had had to cope with all of that alone, and had not only survived it but emerged so determined to change things for others, humbled him. What a truly remarkable young woman she was. Suddenly, knowing the correct way to seat guests at dinner paled into insignificance when compared to Miss Mansfield’s achievements. She had sunk as low as any human could, climbed out of the pit, dusted herself off and then rolled up her sleeves to fix things. He seriously doubted that any of the Potentials had that much gumption. Yet this tiny woman still managed to blithely carry on without complaining.
But now she was sad because she was remembering it all. He wanted to chase away the ghosts in her sorrowful eyes, so it felt like the most natural thing in the world to pull her into his arms and hold her close. She did not protest and went into his embrace willingly, her dark head resting below his chin as they both stared at her mother’s pathetic excuse for a grave. ‘Did you have no one else who could help you? Family, perhaps?’
‘Nobody who was willing to help. My mother’s family were long dead and my father was indifferent.’
Up until that point Bennett had assumed her father to be dead and he stiffened. ‘He was alive at the time?’
‘He is still alive, although he has long been dead to me. He washed his hands of us when I was only twelve. I haven’t seen him in years.’