Good Luck by L.T. Meade

It was bitterly cold weather when Grannie arrived at the workhouse. Not that the workhouse itself was really cold. Its sanitary arrangements were as far as possible perfect; its heating arrangements were also fairly good. Notwithstanding the other old women's groans, the food was passable and even nourishing, and beyond the fact that there was an absence of hope over everything, there were no real hardships in the great Beverley workhouse. There were a good many old women in this workhouse -- in fact, two large wards full -- and these were perhaps the most melancholy parts of the establishment. They slept on clean little narrow beds in a huge ward upstairs. There was a partition about eight feet high down the middle of this room. Beds stood in rows, back to back, at each side of this partition; beds stood in rows along the walls; there were narrow passages between the long rows of beds. The room was lighted with many windows high up in the walls, and there was a huge fireplace at either end. By a curious arrangement, which could scarcely be considered indulgent, the fires in very cold weather were lit at nine o'clock in the morning, after the paupers had gone downstairs, and put out again at five in the afternoon. Why the old creatures might not have had the comfort of the fires when they were in their ward, it was difficult to say, but such was the rule of the place.

Grannie's bed was just under one of the windows, and when she went upstairs the first night, the chill, of which she had complained ever since she had taken her bath, kept her awake during the greater part of the hours of darkness. There were plenty of blankets on her little bed, but they did not seem to warm her. The fact is, there was a great chill at her heart itself. Her vitality was suddenly lowered; she was afraid of the long dreary future; afraid of all those hopeless old women; afraid of the severe cleanliness, the life hedged in with innumerable rules, the dinginess of the new existence. Her faith burned dim; her trust in God himself was even a little shaken. She wondered why such a severe punishment was sent to her; why she, who wrote so little, should get a disease brought on by writing. It seemed all incomprehensible, unfathomable, too dark for any ordinary words, or any ordinary consolation to reach.