The Quality of Mercy - By Barry Unsworth Page 0,57
in the city; the numbers were nowhere recorded. Some had been manumitted and lived as free men and women; others fled and lived as they could, as laborers, market porters, street musicians, beggars; yet others remained in the service of those who had brought them here, slaves still, liable to be sold to another master or carried back to the West Indies. This growing population had created a new trade: the manhunters, who combed the streets for runaways and lived on the rewards.
It was late in the afternoon when Jane returned. She had spent most of the day, in company with two ladies of her acquaintance, in the Pass Room at Bridewell, where the female vagrants and prostitutes and unmarried mothers were kept confined for short periods before being moved on. She was engaged, together with the others, in trying to teach the women useful skills, such as weaving, frame knitting and basketwork. She often encountered resistance, but today there had been progress, or so she felt, and she was happy at this—so much so that she launched into speech immediately at sight of her brother, giving him no opportunity for the time being to relate the doleful news he had received that day.
“They have been harshly used since earliest childhood, most of them,” she said. “No one has ever thought of them or taken any care for them in all their lives. They have been whipped out of one parish after another. Why should we be so shocked that they have bastard children or take to thieving and whoring? Is it any wonder?”
“No, certainly not.” Ashton had never grown altogether used to his sister’s impetuous habit of speech when she was excited in her feelings, nor to her forthright use of terms not usually regarded as polite in young unmarried ladies.
“They feel of no use to themselves or anybody, that’s what it is. Today we had two silk weavers with us, we paid them for the day’s work, they set up their looms and the women took turns to try their hand, they saw things made and finished—small things: handkerchiefs, braid, ribbons.”
Jane’s face was alight, her eyes were shining. “They took part in it themselves, you see, Frederick, that is the great thing about it, they could see what they had produced. Only give these women power over themselves and they will be saved from so much misery. A few shillings a week, I know it is not much, but it would give them some self-respect, some control over their own lives.”
All the force of her conviction vibrated in the words. People must be given means to act, to change things. It was no use wringing one’s hands and doing nothing. Pitying people was only useful as a spur to action, it had no value as a state of mind. Sometimes Jane wondered if she were really such a good Christian after all. Compassion made her feel uncomfortable and impatient, and it could turn quickly to anger unless there was some immediate scope for rendering it superfluous. She could not feel that it was good for the soul to contemplate the sufferings of others—or one’s own, for that matter.
“Houses of Correction, they call them,” she said. “That is correction, is it, covering women with shame?”
Only now did she notice that her brother’s face was not showing the degree of gladness at her success that she might have expected. “How has your day been?” she asked.
Prompted thus, he related the double blow he had received, told her how he had set the men on to discover Evans’s whereabouts. “Without some luck they have small chance of finding him in time,” he said. “Evans’s new owner, as he considers himself, this sugar planter, Lyons, may be the one behind it, or perhaps he is in league with the previous owner, Bolton. Both were intending to bring an action against me for trespass and theft in the sum of two hundred guineas.”
“Yes, I remember you speaking of this.”
“Well, they keep finding reasons for postponing the action, and this is because they cannot be sure of winning. Two witnesses to the first assault, when they carried him out to the ship, have now come forward. I believe that is why they have anticipated the judgment by securing Evans’s person. Better to have fifty guineas in hand than wait for a doubtful ruling.”
“They have gone to a great deal of trouble for the sake of their fifty guineas.”