But some streets are so ‘respectable’ that Mrs. Grundy will not allow the music-teacher or the plain sewer to exhibit their cards in their windows, either in the basement or the third floor up. It must not be known that poor struggling women pay exorbitant rents for single rooms in such houses, but they do, nevertheless. ‘Whited sepulchres’ are many of these houses, and the cheap lace curtains at all the windows and the artificial plants make pitiful pretence of comfort within. To such houses and the various rooms in such houses I am no stranger. I have seen old women hugging their respectability, and ready to perish; I have seen younger ones living lives that have filled me with wonder; I have seen husbands and wives hoping against hope, and trying to comfort each other, for not always does love fly out at the window when poverty comes in at the door.
In the top room of one of these houses I met with the most wonderful instance of sisterly devotion it has ever been my lot to meet with. I will picture it. Two sisters, only servant-girls, but their room is scrupulously clean, and even tastily furnished. The furniture is old, but the best is made of it. A pretty screen keeps the draught from the bed, on which lies one of the sisters, who is twenty-four years of age, and has lain there seven years. A piece of linen steeped in eau-de-Cologne is across her forehead; underneath her half-closed eyes are dark rings; the cartilage of her nose is almost as thin as writing-paper, and is constantly quivering; her face is pale as death itself, and her faint breath comes in quick vibrations from the top of her throat. Yonder sits her sister, at work with her needle; she is almost as pale as the invalid, and suffers from occasional hæmorrhage. Ten years ago both parents died, and the elder sister made a promise to her dying father that she would ‘look after’ the younger. Some of the furniture was put safely by, and hand in hand into service both girls went, and a year or two passed. But the younger one was delicate. The influenza soon got hold of her, and remained with her so long that she had to leave service--but not for the hospital or infirmary.
An empty room was taken, the remains of their parents’ furniture was put into it, and to her lonely room and bed the younger one was taken. Four-and-sixpence weekly was paid for that empty room. They had saved a little money, but a servant’s wages are small, and it soon went. After the influenza came all sorts of complications, paralysis and spinal disease, etc.; so the younger sister, a child in appearance but a woman in years, has lain on her bed ever since, nursed, waited on, lifted in and out of bed by her sister, who worked for the pair. For the first four years the elder sister remained in service, nursing and keeping house for two old ladies, visiting her sister every morning, washing her, tidying the room, and putting her food to hand; this had to be liquid food, in a baby’s sucking-bottle; for this was the only way in which the younger could take nourishment, and, her right arm being helpless, the bottle had to lie close to the left. Every night, after she had put her old ladies to bed, the elder would return again to the younger sister, and arrange for her comfort during the night. The younger one was left alone day and night except for the sister’s visits. This was their life for years; but her wages were not enough to keep the pair and pay rent. So she took in plain sewing, unknown to her sister or the old ladies, and sat regularly into the small hours of the morning, stitching away for private customers--hence her cough and hæmorrhage. But the old ladies died and were buried, and had no more need of her services, so now the sisters are living together, and stitch, stitch, stitch is the order of the day and night. She does not work for the factory or the sweater, but for private customers, who like their work done by hand and done well.