Chapter Seventeen
Two Locks of Hair
It was Sunday morning at Wandsworth House of Correction – a fair, late autumnal morning. The trees had on their bright, many-coloured tints, the sky above was flecked with soft, greyish-white clouds, and tender with the loveliest blue. The summer heat was over, but the summer fragrance still dwelt in the air; the summer beauty, subdued, but perhaps more lovely than when in its prime, still lingered on the fair landscape of Wandsworth common.
In the prison the walls were gleaming snowy white, but so they gleamed when the frost and snow sparkled a little whiter outside, when the hot breath of fiercest summer seemed to weigh down the air.
The symbols of the four seasons – the leafless trees, the tender, pale green trees, the drooping, heavily-laden, sheltering trees, the trees clothed in purple and gold – were unknown to those within the House of Correction.
The prisoners saw no trees from the high windows of their cells. When they walked out in that walled-in enclosure, each prisoner treading in those dreary circles five feet apart from his fellow, they saw a little withered grass, and a little sky, blue, grey, or cloudy, but no trees.
The trees are only for the free, not for men and women shut in for the punishment of their crimes.
So the seasons are felt in the temperature, but unknown to the sense of sight.
On this particular Sunday morning a warder might have been seen pacing slowly down the dismal corridor which divides the dark and light punishment cells.
He was whistling a low tune under his breath, and thinking how by and by he should be off duty, and could enjoy his Sunday dinner and go for a walk across the common with his wife and the child. He thought of his Sunday treat a great deal, as was but natural, and just a little of the prisoners, whom he apostrophised as “Poor Brutes.” Not that he felt unkindly towards them – very far from that; he was, as the world goes, a humane man, but it was incomprehensible to him how men and boys, when they were confined in Wandsworth, did not submit to the rules of the place, and make themselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit, instead of defying everything, and getting themselves shut up in those dreary dark cells.
“And this willan ’ave been in fur four days and nights now,” he soliloquised, as he stopped at the door of one. “Well, I’m real glad ’is punishment is hover, though ’ee’s as ’ardened a young chap as hever see daylight.”
He unlocked the double doors, which, when shut, not only excluded all sound, but every ray of light, and went in.
A lad was cowering up in one corner of the wooden bedstead – a lad with a blanched face, and eyes glowing like two coals. The warder went over and laid his hand on his shoulder – he started at the touch, and shivered from head to foot with either rage or fear.
“Now then, G.2.14,” in a kindly voice, “your punishment’s hover for this time, and I ’opes you’ll hact more sensible in future – you may get back to your cell.”
The lad staggered blindly to his feet, and the warder, catching hold of him, arranged his mask – a piece of dark grey cloth, having eyelet holes, and a tiny bit of alpaca inserted for the mouth – over his face.
On the back of his jacket were painted in white letters two inches long, H.C.W.S., which initials stood for House of Correction, Wandsworth, Surrey.
Staying his staggering steps with his strong arm, the warder conducted him back to his cell, into which he locked him.
Then the boy, with a great groan, or sigh of relief, threw up his mask, and looked about the little room. He had tasted nothing but bread and water for the last four days, and his Sunday breakfast, consisting of a pint of oatmeal gruel and six ounces of bread, stood ready for his acceptance, and by the side of the bread was – what?
Something that made him forget his great bodily hunger, and start forward with a ray of joy breaking all over his sullen face. This was what he saw.
A letter was here – a letter ready for him to open.
He had heard that once in three months the Wandsworth prisoners were allowed to write and receive letters. This rule he had heard with indifference – in all his life he had never had a letter – what matter was it to him whoever else got them.
He knew how to read and write. Long ago, when a little lad, he had learned these accomplishments – he could also decipher the writing of other people, and spelt his own name now on the little oblong packet which had found its way into his cell.
Yes, it was a bonâ fide letter, it had a stamp on it, and the London post-mark. It was a bonâ fide letter, and his letter also – a letter directed to him. He gazed at it for a moment or two, then took it up and handled it carefully, and turned it round, and examined the back of it, and held it up to the light – then he put it down, and took a turn the length of his cell.
Unless we are quite dunned by creditors, and mean never to open anything that is sent to us by the post, we have a kind of interest in that sharp double knock, and a kind of pleasure in opening our various epistles.
However many we get, our pulses do beat just a quarter of a shade quicker as we unfasten the envelope. There is never any saying what news the contents may announce to us; perhaps a fortune, an advantageous proposal, the birth of a new relation, the death of an old friend, that appointment we never thought to have obtained, that prize we never hoped to have won: or perhaps, the loss of that prize, the filling up by another man of that appointment. A letter may bring us any possible or impossible news, therefore at all times these little missives, with the Queen’s head on them, are interesting.
But what if we are in prison, if we have just been confined for days and nights in the dark cell, fed on bread and water, sentenced to the horrors and silence of the tomb; if bad thoughts, and hardening thoughts, and maddening thoughts, if Satan and his evil spirits, have been bearing us company? What, if we are only addressed when spoken to at all as a number, and our human name, our Christian name, is never pronounced to us; and what if we have been going through this silent punishment, this unendurable confinement, for months, and we feel that it is right and just we should be so punished, right and just that all men should forsake us, and pass us by, and forget us – and all the time, though we know that justice is dealing with us, and we ought neither to cry out nor to complain, we know and feel also, that seven devils are entering into us, and our last state will be worse, far worse than our first?
And then, when we come back from the darkness, and feel again the blessed light of day, and the pure breeze of nature – coming in through the open window of our cell – is fanning our face, and though our spirit is still burning with mad and rebellious passions, our body is grateful for the relief of God’s own gifts of light and air, then we, who never before, never in our happiest days, received even a halfpenny wrapper’s worth through the post, see a letter – our first letter – pure, and thick, and white, awaiting us – a little dainty parcel bearing our baptismal name, and the name, unspotted by any crime, which our father bequeathed to us, lying ready for our acceptance?
Jenks had returned to his cell after all this severe punishment as hardened and bad a lad as ever walked – sullen, disobedient, defiant. The kind of boy whom chaplains, however tender-hearted, and however skilful in their modes of dealing with other men and boys, would regard as hopeless, as past any chance of reform.
He gazed at the letter, so unexpected, so welcome. At first he was excited, agitated, then he grew calm, a look of satisfaction changed utterly the whole expression of his face.
Somebody in that great, wide, outer world had not forgotten him. He sat down and ate his breakfast with appetite and relish; he could enjoy things again; he was still William Jenks to somebody – the boy felt human once more.
But he would not open his letter at once – not he. No irreverent fingers, no hasty fingers, should tear that precious envelope asunder.
When a man only gets a letter after three months of absolute silence he is never over-hasty in perusing its contents. The sweets of anticipation are very good, and must not be too quickly got over, and when a letter is once opened its great charm is more or less gone.
But the first letter of all, the first letter received in one’s entire life, and received in prison, must be made a very long pleasure indeed.
Jenks had hitherto found Sunday at Wandsworth the most unendurable day of the seven: the slow hours seemed really leaden-weighted.
On other days he had his oakum to pick, his routine of labour to get through – on this day, with the exception of chapel and meals, he had nothing whatever wherewith to wile away the long hours. True, the chaplain supplied him with books, but Jenks could not read well enough to take pleasure in reading for its own sake, and never was there a nature less studiously inclined than his.
So on Sunday he thought his darkest thoughts, and hatched his worst plots for the future, and prepared himself for the week of rebellion and punishment which invariably ensued.
But, on this Sunday all would be different, his letter would give him employment and satisfaction for many hours. He grudged the time he must spend in chapel, he wanted the whole day to hold his little missive, to gaze at the cover, to put it up to the light, to spell out the beloved direction, after a time to spell out the contents. First of all he must guess who sent it.
If it took him two hours, three hours, he must guess from whom it came.
Who could have written to him? He was popular in his way – he had too bright a manner, too merry a face, not to be that. He had a good many acquaintances, and friends and chums, lads who, with all their thieving propensities and ruffianly ways, would have shared their last crust with him, and one and all voted him a jolly good fellow.
But not one of these would write to him; he passed them over in silent contempt, at the bare possibility of their being either able or willing to write to him.
Jim Stokes, or Bob Allen, or any of those other fine daring young fellows, send him a letter! Send him too a letter looking like this, or directed like this! Why, this letter had a more genteel appearance than long ago the letters his sailor father had sent to his mother had worn. Was it likely that either Jim or Bob, or any of the companions of Jim or Bob, those ignorant lads who could hardly sign their names, would send him a letter like this? Had they wished it ever so much, the thing was impossible.
Could it be from Dick?
Well, that was certainly an unlikely guess. Dick, who was also in prison, able to write to another boy? He passed this thought by with a little laugh of derision.
His next idea was Flo.
He had been really in his own rough fashion fond of Flo, he had liked her pretty little face, and enjoyed in his flush and successful days bringing home dainties for her to cook for all their suppers. In spite of himself he had a respect for Flo, and though he might have loved her better if she had been willing to learn his trade, and help him in his thieving, yet the pluck she showed in keeping honest, roused a certain undefined respect within him.
But of all the ignorant children he ever met, he often said to himself that Flo was the most ignorant. Why she knew nothing of the world, nothing whatever.
How he had laughed at her ideas of earls and dukes and marquises – at her absurd supposition that she could be the queen.
Was there ever before in the records of man, a London child so outrageously ignorant as this same little Flo? She write him a letter! she had probably never heard of a letter.
Besides, even if she could write, would she? What were her feelings to Jenks now, that she should show him so great a kindness? He had broken his word to her, he had converted her brother, her much-loved, bright little brother, into a thief. By means of him he had tasted prison discipline, and was branded with a dishonest stain for ever. He remembered the reproach in her eyes when she stood in the witnesses’ box, and gave those funny little reluctant answers about him and Dick.
Even there too she had shown her ignorance, and proclaimed to the whole police-court that she was the greatest little simpleton that ever walked.
No, be she where she might now, poor child, it was his wildest guess of all to suppose that she could write to him.
Who wrote the letter? There was no one else left for him to guess, unless! but here his breath came quick and fast, the beads of perspiration stood on his forehead, he caught up the letter and gazed at it, a white fear stealing over him. No, thank God! He flung it down again with a gesture of intense relief – that was not her writing. She knew how to write, but not like that. She had not written to him. No, thank God! – he murmured this again fervently, – things were bad with him, but they had not come to such a dreadful pass as that. She thought him dead, drowned, come to a violent end; anyhow, done with this present life – she did not know that he, his honest, brave father’s only son, had stood in the prisoner’s dock, had slept in the dark cell, had worn the prisoner’s dress, with its mask, and distinguishing brand!
The chapel-bell rang; he started up, thrust his precious unopened letter into his pocket, adjusted his, mask, and walked with his fellow-prisoners in silent, grim, unbroken order into chapel.
Had any one looked beneath the mask, they would have seen, for the first time since perhaps his entrance into that prison, that the old sullen expression had left his face, that it wore a look of interest and satisfaction. He hugged his letter very close to his breast, and edged himself into the queer little nook allotted to him, from which he could just see the chaplain, and no one else. As a rule he either went to sleep in chapel, or made faces at the chaplain, or fired pellets of bread, which he kept concealed about him, at the other prisoners. On one occasion the spirit of all evil so far possessed him, that one of these, as hard as any shot, came with a resounding report on the mild nose of the then officiating chaplain, as he was fumbling for a loose sheet of his sermon, and nobody discovered that he was the offender. How often he had chuckled over this trick, over the discomfiture of the Rev. Gentleman, and the red bump which immediately arose on his most prominent feature; how often, how very often, he had longed to do it again. But to-day he had none of this feeling: if he had a thousand bread pellets ready, they might have lain quite harmless in his pocket. He was restless, however, and longed to get back to his cell, not to open his letter, he did not mean to do that until quite the evening, but to hold it in his hand, and turn it round and gaze at it; he was restless, and wished the hour and a quarter usually spent in chapel was over, and he looked around him and longed much to find somebody or something to occupy his attention, for Jenks never dreamed of joining in the prayers, or listening to the lessons.
The prison chapel is not constructed to enable the prisoners to gaze about them, and as the only individual Jenks could see was the chaplain, he fixed his eyes on him.
He did this with a little return of his old sullenness, for though he was a good man, and even Jenks admitted this, he was so tired of him. He had seen him so very, very often, in his cell and at chapel. After spending his life amid the myriad faces of London, Jenks had found the months, during which he had never gazed on any human countenance but that of his warder, the governor, chaplain, and doctor, interminably long.
He was sick of those four faces, sick of studying them so attentively, he knew every trick of feature they all possessed, and he was weary of watching them. But of all the four the face of the chaplain annoyed him most, perhaps because he had watched him so often in chapel. But to-day it might be a shade better to look at him than to gaze at the hard dead wood in front of his cell-like pew – so sullenly he raised his eyes to the spot where he expected to find him. He did so, then gave a start, and the sullenness passed away like a cloud; his lucky star was in the ascendant to-day – a stranger was in the chaplain’s place, he had a fresh face to study. He had a fresh face to study, and one that even in a London crowd must have occupied his attention. A man bordering on fifty, with grey hair, a massive chin, very dark, very deeply-set eyes, and an iron frame, stood before him.
Jenks hated effeminate men, so he looked with admiration at this one, and presently, the instincts of his trade being ever uppermost, began to calculate how best he could pick his pockets, and what a dreadful grip the stranger could give his – Jenks’ – throat with those great muscular hands.
Suddenly he felt a grip somewhere else, a pang of remorse going right through his hardened heart. The strange chaplain, for half an instant, had fixed his deep-set eyes on him, and immediately it began to occur to Jenks what a shameful fellow he must be to allow such a man as that to speak without listening to him.
The new face was so pleasing, that for a moment or two he made an effort to rouse himself, and even repeated “Our Father” beneath his breath, just to feel what the sensation was like. Then old habits overcame him – he fell asleep.
He was in a sound, sweet sleep, undetected by the warder, when suddenly a movement, a breath of wind, or perhaps the profound silence which reigned for a moment through the little chapel, awoke him – awoke him thoroughly. He started upright, to find that the stranger was about to deliver his text.
This was the text:
“And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.”
The stranger’s voice was low and fervent; he looked round at his congregation, taking them all in, those old sinners, and young and middle-aged sinners, who, in the common acceptation of the term, were sinners more than other men.
He looked round at them, and then he gave it to them.
In that low fervent voice of his, his body bent a little forward, he opened out to them a revelation, he poured out on them the vials of God’s wrath. Not an idea had he of sparing them, he called things by their right names, and spoke of sin, such sin as theirs – drunkenness, uncleanness, thieving – as the Bible speaks of these things; and he showed them that every one of them were filthy and gone astray utterly.
When he said this – without ever raising his voice, but in such a manner, with such emphasis, that every word told home – he sketched rapidly two or three portraits for them to recognise if they would.
They were fancy portraits, but they were sketched from a thousand realities. The murderer’s last night in his cell – the drunkard with the legions of devils, conjured up by delirium tremens, clustering round him – the lost woman dying out in the snow. Then, when many heads were drooping with shame and terror, he suddenly and completely changed his tone.
With infinite pity in his voice he told them that he was sorry for them, that if tears of blood could help them, he would shed them for them.
Their present lives were miserable, degraded, but no words could tell what awaited them when God arose to execute vengeance.
On every man, woman, and child, that vengeance was coming, and was fully due. It was on its road, and when it overtook them, the dark cell, the whipping-post, solitary confinement for ever, would seem as heaven in comparison.
Then he explained to them why the vengeance was so sure, the future woe so inevitable.
“I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.”
Did they know that? Then let them hear it now. Every time the thief stole, every time the drunkard degraded his reason, and sank below the level of the beasts; every time the boy and girl did the thousand and one little acts of deceit which ended so shamefully; then they crucified the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
It was Jesus of Nazareth whom they persecuted.
Would God allow such love as His Son’s love to be trampled on and used slightingly? No, surely. He had borne too long with them; vengeance was His, and He would repay.
When the minister had gone so far, he again changed his voice, but this time it changed to one of brightness.
He had not brought them to look at so dark a sight as their own sin and ruin without also showing them a remedy. For every one of them there was a remedy, a hiding-place from the wrath of God. Jesus, whom they persecuted, still loved them. Still loved them! Why, His heart was yearning over them, His pity, infinite, unfathomable, encompassing them. They were not too bad for Jesus – not a bit of it.
For such as them He died, for such as them He pleaded with His Father. If they came to Him – and nothing was easier, for He was always looking out for them – He would forgive them freely, and wash their souls in His blood, and make them ready for heaven. And while on earth He would help them to lead new lives, and walk by their sides Himself up the steep paths of virtue.
Such as they too wicked for Heaven? No, thank God. Jesus Himself led in the first thief into that holy place; and doubtless thousands such as he would yet be found around the throne of God!
There was dead silence when the preacher had finished; no eager shuffling and trooping out of chapel. The prisoners drew down their masks, and walked away in an orderly and subdued manner. No human eye could detect whether these men and women were moved by what they had heard or not. They were quieter than usual, that was all.
As for Jenks, he walked in his place with the others, and when he got to his cell, sat down soberly. His face was no longer dead and sullen, it had plenty of feeling, and excited feeling too. But the look of satisfaction he had worn when gazing at his letter was gone.
That parson had gone down straight, with his burning words, to the place where his heart used to be – had gone down, and found that same heart still there – nearly dead, it is true, but still there – and probed it to the quick.
He sat with his head buried in his hands, and began to think.
Old scenes and old memories rose up before the boy – pure scenes and holy memories. Once he had lisped texts, once he had bent his baby knees in prayer. How far off then seemed a prison cell and a criminal’s life!
Hitherto, ever since he had taken to his present career, he had avoided thought, he had banished old times. He had, even in the dark cell, kept off from his mental vision certain facts and certain events.
They were coming now, and he could not keep them off. O God! how his mother used to look at him, how his father used to speak to him!
Though he was a great rough boy, a hardened young criminal, tears rolled down his cheeks at the memory of his mother’s kiss. He wished that parson had not preached, he was thoroughly uncomfortable, he was afraid.
For the last year and more Jenks had made up his mind to be a thief in earnest. He called it his profession, and resolved to give up his life to it. The daring, the excitement, the false courage, the uncertainty, the hairbreadth escapes, all suited his disposition.
His prison episode had not shaken his resolve in the least. He quite determined, when the weary months of confinement were over, and he was once more free, to return to his old haunts and his old companions. He would seek them out, and expound to them the daring schemes he had concocted while in prison. Between them they would plan and execute great robberies, and never be taken – oh no. He, for one, had had his lesson, and did not need a second; happen what might, he would never again be taken. Not all the king’s horses, nor all the king’s men, should again lay hands on him, or come between him and his freedom.
It was nonsense to say that every thief knew what prison was, and spent the greater part of his time in prison! He would not be down on his luck like that! He would prosper and grow rich, and then, when rich, he might turn honest and enjoy his money.
This was his plan – all for the present life. He had never given the other life a thought. But now he did; now, for the first time, he reflected on that terrible thing for any unforgiven soul to contemplate – the wrath of God.
Some day, however successful he might be in this life, he must die, and his naked soul appear before God; and God would ask him so many things, such a piled-up account of sins he would have to lay to his charge. And his father and mother would look on and reproach him, and God would pass sentence on him – he could not escape. He had crucified the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame!
Jenks was not ignorant, like Flo and Dick, he knew of these things. The thought in his mind became intolerable. He paced up and down his cell, and hailed with pleasure the welcome interruption of his Sunday dinner.
When it was finished, he again drew out his letter, hoping and wishing that the old feeling of satisfaction would return at sight of it. But it did not. Try as he might, it did not. He endeavoured to guess who sent it, but no fresh ideas would occur to him. He thought of Flo, and he thought of his mother – he fought against the thought of his mother, and endeavoured to push it away from him. But, struggle as he might, it would come back; and at last, in desperation, he opened the letter.
It was not a long letter when opened, but had appeared thick by reason of a little parcel it contained, a little parcel, wrapped in two or three folds of silver paper. Jenks looked at the parcel as it lay on his knee, then took it up and began to unfold it. His fingers trembled, he did not know why. He threw the parcel from him and spread out the letter to read. Not very much writing in it, and what there was, was printed in large round type. Motes began to dance before his eyes, he put down the letter, and again took up the parcel. This time he opened it, unwrapping slowly fold after fold of the soft paper. Two locks of hair fell out, a grey and a brown, tied together with a thread of blue silk. They dropped from Jenks’ fingers; he did not touch them. He gazed at them as they lay on the floor of his cell, the brown lock nearly hidden by the silver. A soft breeze came in and stirred them; he turned from them, gave them even a little kick away, and then, with a burning face, began to read his letter.
“Jenks, —
“I thot ’as yo’d like fur to no – yor mother ’ave furgiven yo, she nos as yo is a thif, and tho she may ’av freted a good bit at fust, she’s werry cherful now – she ’av the litel jackit, and trouses, and westkit, hal redy, as yo used to war wen a litel chap. She ’av them let hout hal rond, and they’l fit yo fine. She livs in the old place – wery butiful it his, and she ’av me, flo, livin’ wid ’er, and scamp to, we ’av livd yer hever sins yo and Dick was in prisin, and we both furgivs yo Jenks, wid hal our ’arts, and yor mother ses as yo is a comin’ bak wen the singin’ burds com, and the floers, and we’ll ’av a diner fur yo, and a welcom, and lov. yer mother don’t no as i is sendin’ this and i ’av kut orf a bit of ’er ’air, unknonst to ’er, and a bit of mi ’air to, widch shos as we thincs of yo, and furgivs yo; and Jenks, I wrot this mi own self, miss mary shoed me ’ow, and i ’av a lot mor in mi ’art, but no words, on’y god lovs yo, yor fond litel —
“flo.
“miss mary, she put in the stops.”
“I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest – it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”
This latter part of the text came back also to the boy’s memory; he bent his head over the odd little letter and saturated it with tears. He snatched up the two locks of hair and covered them with kisses.
His mother had forgiven him – his mother loved him.
She knew he was a thief, and she loved him.
How he had tried to keep this knowledge from her, how he had hoped that during these past three years she had supposed him dead! Her only son, and she a widow, dead! Far better – far, far better, than that she should believe him to be a thief!
He recalled now the last time he had seen her – he recalled, as he had never dared to do hitherto, the history of that parting. He had been wild for some time, irregular at school, and in many ways grieving his parents’ hearts; and his father, before he started on that last voyage, had spoken to him, and begged him to keep steady, and had entreated him, as he loved his mother, as he loved him, his father, as he loved his God, to keep away from those bad companions who were exercising so hateful an influence on his hitherto happy, blameless life. And with tears in his eyes, the boy had promised, and then his brave sailor father had kissed him, and blessed him, and gone away never to return again. And for a time Jenks was steady and kept his word, and his mother was proud of him, and wrote accounts, brilliant, happy accounts, of him to his father at sea. But then the old temptations came back with greater force than before, and the promise to his father was broken and forgotten, and he took really to bad ways.
His mother spoke to him of idleness, of evil companions, but she never knew, he felt sure, how low he had sunk, nor at last, long before he left her house, that he was a confirmed thief. He was a confirmed thief, and a successful thief, and he grew rich on his spoils.
One evening, however, as he expressed it, his luck went against him. He had been at a penny gaff, where, as usual, he had enriched himself at the expense of his neighbours. On his way home he saw a policeman dodging him – he followed him down one street and up another. The boy’s heart beat faster and faster – he had never been before a magistrate in his life, and dreaded the disgrace and exposure that would ensue. He managed to evade the policeman, and trembling, entered his home, and stole up the stairs, intending to hide in his own little bed-room. He reached it, and lay down on his bed. There was only a thin canvas partition between his tiny room and his mother’s. In that room he now heard sobs, and listening more intensely, heard also a letter being read aloud. This letter brought the account of his father’s death – he had died of fever on board ship, and been buried in the sea. His last message, the last thing he said before he died, was repeated in the letter.