At present it was possible to
breathe even in the inmost recesses of the Court. There the fronts
of the houses were fresh white-washed; in the Lane they were
new-painted. Even the pavement and the road-way exhibited an
improvement. If you penetrated into garrets and cellars you no
longer found squalor and dilapidation; poverty in plenty, but at all
events an attempt at cleanliness everywhere, as far, that is to say,
as a landlord's care could ensure it. The stair-cases had ceased to
be rotten pit-falls; the ceilings showed traces of recent care; the
walls no longer dripped with moisture or were foul with patches of
filth. Not much change, it is true, in the appearance of the
inhabitants; yet close inquiry would have elicited comforting
assurances of progressing reform, results of a supervision which was
never offensive, never thoughtlessly exaggerated. Especially in the
condition of the children improvement was discernible. Lodgers in
the Lane and the Court had come to understand that not even punctual
payment of weekly rent was sufficient to guarantee them stability of
tenure. Under this singular lady-landlord something more than that
was expected and required, and, whilst those who were capable of
adjusting themselves to the new _regime_ found, on the whole,
that things went vastly better with them, such as could by no means
overcome their love of filth, moral and material, troubled
themselves little when the notice to quit came, together with a
little sum of ready money to cover the expenses of removal.
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