Bone Street/Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
ILL-LUCK
IT was no use keeping the home on now that his father was dead, so he decided to dispose of the pieces of furniture they possessed and seek lodgings.
His good friend, Marthalice, would have put him up, but she, good soul, had not sufficient room.
“Tha sees, we’ve nobbut two bedrooms, and there’s four of us. I would like to tak’ thi, Jack, but I must help to find thi some decent place instead.” And so she sought him lodgings.
Eventually he was fixed up in a house off Falkingham Lane. He had to share a room with another, a widower, of over sixty, who was an overlooker at Bramfitt’s, and taking everything into consideration got a good return for the eleven shillings he paid weekly for board and lodgings. This left him seven shillings each week for himself, and after selling the few effects, Jack found he was the possessor of about six pounds. Not much to start life with alone, perhaps, but he was young, strong, and confident, unable to see that he was yet to experience the full struggle for life.
Going through his father’s effects, he found his mother’s wedding ring, marriage certificate, and a small photograph, evidently the original of the enlargement which had hung in the kitchen. These Jack carefully enclosed in an envelope, and placed in the bottom of his tin trunk. The enlargement he had given Marthalice to take care of for the present.
Reading the marriage certificate, he knew for the first time where his mother was married from. Mary Newcome, eighteen, spinster, residing at Six Ravine Street, Gainsborough. Mary Newcome. What a pretty name, and his grandfather never forgave her. He remembered his father’s words.
Was his grandfather alive? he wondered. No, surely not, thought Jack. He could not have withheld his forgiveness so many years. Yes, he must be dead. Poor mother. Poor dad.
And so Jack started on a new life, for with the exception of his work at Bramfitt’s, which went on in the same, steady ceaseless toil, everything was new.
Mrs. Thornton, his landlady, was a study. A sharp-faced woman of about fifty, precise, and particular, both in dress and speech. She never allowed herself to use the “thee’s” and “thou’s” commonly used by Beckton folks. No, she was a South-country woman, and prided herself on her speech and manners, but, sharp and shrewish as she was, there oft lurked in her eye a faint, motherly gleam when she looked at Jack. Of the other lodgers she reckoned nothing, yet rarely did she serve Jack his meals without a slight softening of the mouth. He received exactly the same food as the others, but the occasional touching of his hair made all the difference. Her hand never lingered long, there is too much to do for that, when one takes in lodgers for a livelihood. Even when resting, her time was spent knitting and darning socks.
Jack would sit for hours by the kitchen fire reading, and occasionally looking up, as he heard the click, click, of her knitting-needles.
Yes, it was a change, for even in the most flourishing times, in Bone Street, they had never used a tablecloth, but now never a meal was eaten without one. He and his dad would attack a bone with their fingers. But now—knives and forks. “Will you pass the salt, please, Mr. Bradley?” “Thank you.”
Yes, it was a change, and in some respects for the better, although he would cheerfully have resumed his old life, along with his father. Still, he was learning how to conduct himself in company, and to one brought up as he had been, it was no easy task, but he was “framing,” as Marthalice would say.
He said “Excuse me” when rising from the table, and didn’t take salt with his fingers. He had discovered a salt spoon, and all those little things that make for table manners. Clean linen every week-end, and actually had the joy of revelling in a real bath at home every Friday evening. He would go for solitary walks on Sundays, not that he preferred his own company, but because his chums chose to stay in bed on Sunday morning, and at other times desired to ride. They could not understand the joy and quiet pleasure that Jack received from tramping across the moors, with nothing but a few sandwiches, and a book for company, then the walk back, feeling gloriously fit, and as hungry as a young horse.
His fellow-lodgers were nice men, but the most interesting to Jack was his room-mate, Mr. Grimshaw. He had been employed in the wool trade all his life, and well remembered when the wool was combed at home. He related to Jack stories of the good old days, the days of the commencement of the power factories, when wee mites of seven years were roused from their sleep at 5 a.m. to commence work at the mill at 6 a.m., and were never released before 7 p.m., Saturday included. The only respite granted the children was half an hour for breakfast and an hour for dinner.
Mr. Grimshaw himself had been employed at Varley’s Mill (called “Hell’s Bay”) from 4 a.m. till 9 p.m.
Small wonder the mill-owners piled up wealth.
Jack would sit for hours absorbed in the stories the old man would tell, some of the Chartist movement, those early fighters, and their violent agitation against the introduction of machinery, believing it was robbing them of their livelihood; another evening the story of the splendid work accomplished by Richard Oastler, whose statue stood in Westland Square.
Then in a retrospective mood, Jack would be shown the futility of any attempt to stem the tide of science and progress, and that new ideas should be utilised for the benefit of all mankind, not to make a few people rich, and give them power over others.
“Aye, Mr. Grimshaw,” said Jack one night, “it’s right grand to listen to you; my father didn’t seem to know how to talk with me about them things.”
“Nay, I don’t suppose he did,” replied the older man. “I think from all accounts your father lost interest in everything when thi mother died,” and then half to himself, “Poor chap, he had a rough time, no wonder he took to t’drink. I hope you’ll fare better, lad.”
In this manner life went on for another year, and by the time Jack was twenty he was in receipt of a wage of twenty-one shillings, which he thought a princely sum, for, though his lodging money had been increased to twelve shillings a week, there was still nine shillings left for other necessities.
And then one morning something happened, which was to have an effect on the whole of Jack’s life, one of those industrial accidents, thought nothing of at the time, but which mars the whole life of the victim.
He was loading some skeps, and the crane hook slipping from the skep swung violently into the crane door. One of the prongs caught his left arm, just above the elbow, and penetrating through his smock and shirt sleeve, slightly cut the flesh. Not a deep cut, or did the blood run freely.
“Dash it,” he murmured to himself. “Some more mending for Mrs. Thornton.” The rents in his clothes were mended on his return home, but the injury he never troubled about. “It’ll mend,” he thought, and it did to all outward appearances.
By the week-end it had healed, though still sore, but Jack had been reared in a hard school of life, and would have considered it babyish to complain about a feeling of soreness, so no further notice was taken of it.
On Thursday morning, while washing himself previous to going to work, he found it almost impossible to lift up the arm sufficiently high enough to wash his face, and on examination Jack found it was beginning to swell, also a lump could be felt under the armpit; nevertheless, he thought he would be able to manage the work, so without mentioning it to anyone, went to work as usual.
By seven o’clock the pain was intense, and by seven-thirty the foreman noticed him leaning against a skep, his face drawn with pain.
“What’s up, lad?” asked the foreman.
“My arm,” replied Jack, “it’s awful painful.”
“Let’s hev a look at it,” and loosening the wristbands of smock and shirt, he endeavoured to roll them up. “By gum, lad, it’s swelled!” he exclaimed, “I think tha’d better be off home, and hev it looked at.”
Never would Jack forget that walk home, the pain was terrible, and only with great difficulty did he reach his lodgings, to find Mrs. Thornton just preparing breakfast.
“What is the matter?” she asked, on Jack appearing in the kitchen.
“Oh, my arm, Mrs. Thornton,” he answered. “It’s awfully painful, and swelling.”
“Come here, then, let’s roll the sleeve up, and have a look at it.” But finally, she had to take the scissors, and cut up both smock and shirt to the shoulder.
“You had better go to bed, Jack, and have it poulticed,” she advised. “I’ll come up as soon as the breakfast is over, and attend to it.” Off Jack went to bed, and laid there suffering untold agony. He placed the arm first in one position, then another, but without ease. The hot linseed poultices were of little avail, and now he could scarcely move the arm at all, except with great pain and difficulty. There he lay the whole day, each hour the pain intensifying. He couldn’t read, or sleep, but he grimly set his teeth, determined to stick it without crying out.
All that day his suffering continued, and though Mrs. Thornton continued with the poulticing, Jack obtained no relief.
At night Mrs. Thornton made arrangements for Jack’s room-mate to take the bed of a lodger who had recently left, and how Jack lived through that and the succeeding night, he never knew.
About seven in the evening of the second night, Jack’s foreman called.
“I’ve come to see how Jack Bradley is, Mrs. Thornton.”
“I’m real glad, too,” was her reply. “I don’t like the look of that arm, and he seems to have a temperature to me. Come upstairs and see him.” On seeing Jack’s condition, he decided to ring up the hospital early next morning, with the result that before 10 a.m. a young doctor and nurse arrived at Mrs. Thornton’s.
“Is there a youth named Bradley lives here?” they inquired of Mrs. Thornton.
“Yes, come in, please,” and she showed them both to Jack’s room. The doctor, examining the arm, asked various questions. Were the hooks rusty? was the arm quite clean before the injury? are you quite sure you had never suffered pain in the arm before the accident?
“No,” replied Jack, “my arm was quite clean. I’d never felt a pain previously—you see, Doctor, I thought it was nothing but a scratch that would mend on its own.”
The swelling had now extended down to the wrist; even the fingers were affected.
“Nurse, paint it with iodine. I’ll see if it isn’t possible to get a bed immediately at the hospital,” and with an instruction to Mrs. Thornton to continue the poulticing, they went their way.
Jack lay in bed, ruefully contemplating his arm, all brown with iodine, whimsically comparing it to a “German sausage.” The iodine had eased the pain somewhat, but he felt as helpless as a babe.
By next morning the temporary relief given by the iodine had entirely worn off, and Jack was in excruciating pain, tossing and turning, feeling he couldn’t bear it any longer. About ten o’clock the nurse arrived alone.
“Can’t you do something for me, Nurse?” pleaded Jack. “I can’t stand it much longer, it’s just like someone stabbing me with a knife, and oh, my head does feel queer.”
But she could do nothing except paint with iodine again.
“I’ll ask the doctor to come to-morrow. Good morning, and try to sleep.”
By early afternoon Jack was delirious. He lay on the bed all that night, and up to noon next day, rolling and muttering, his eyes staring and vacant; he worked and played, he loaded hundreds of drays. The whole of his past life was revealed to Mr. Grimshaw, who never left his side all the night. His intimate companionship with his dad, the glory of their roaming on the moors, then occasionally a moan would burst forth. Now and then Mr. Grimshaw would see intelligence gleaming in his eyes, just a flicker, then vacancy once again.
Much to the relief of Mr. Grimshaw, the doctor arrived about noon, but immediately on seeing Jack asked was there a telephone near by.
“The nearest I know is Bramfitt’s,” was Mr. Grimshaw’s reply.
“Take me there sharp,” he requested, “this youth is desperately ill, I must have him removed to the hospital at once.”
The hospital authorities found it quite impossible to admit Jack that day, and though the doctor informed them the arm should have been operated on some four or five days ago, it was all of no avail, they could not empty a bed that day.
“Then send me a nurse at once—I wouldn’t be responsible if it isn’t done to-day. Understand he must be admitted to-morrow in any case, the patient is only in lodgings, has no relatives of his own, and couldn’t possibly be attended to here, it’s a case for an operation.”
“Very well, a bed shall be vacant to-morrow morning,” came the reply.