Workhouse Waif
Elizabeth Keysian
Workhouse Waif
Copyright © May 2020.
Cover Design by Sentinel Designs.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the author’s permission. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorised electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is greatly appreciated.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Elizabeth Keysian
Preview of Never Trust a Widow
Prologue
Chapter 1
Bella Hart fumed and fretted in the Punishment Cupboard. She was tempted to ram her fist against the door, but what she’d rather be doing was ramming it in Marie Froggatt’s face. It was all her fault, with her spiteful insults which had goaded Bella into giving her a slap. It had only been a little one, but Marie had flown wild, and Bella’s back still ached from the blows rained down upon it. But when she got out of here, the other girl would pay for it—oh yes, she would!
Time passed, and gradually, the regular noises of the workhouse died away. Bella knew it must be bedtime. But there was nowhere to rest her head. The only thing in the cupboard with her was the noisome pot in the corner in which to relieve herself. She’d have to grope around when she needed it—the cupboard was dark as pitch. Had the people who built this place, with all their good intentions, made this stupid cupboard for a purpose? There had never been anything in it but the chamber pot, the now invisible curls of dust and the smell of mouldering wood. Perhaps it was always intended for a prison, a place to punish small girls like Bella who couldn’t keep their tempers.
She wasn’t even sure what all the insults had meant. But the tone had been enough to infuriate her. She’d lashed out, and the fight had begun. Some adult women had come, and finally, the Matron arrived to find the girls separated and hanging—faces flushed with tears—in the arms of their captors. Marie’s quick tongue had got her out of trouble, so she’d be all comfortable in her bed now. But Bella would get her revenge—that bed would never be safe again for Marie Froggatt.
“Bella? Are you asleep?”
Miss Ainsty! What was she doing here? She should have been home long ago. Lessons had ceased many hours since, and the teacher was usually doing her sewing at this time—before the daylight died and the gas flared too dimly.
“No, Miss.” Her voice sounded small, sullen.
“Ah, Bella.” Miss Ainsty’s sigh whispered through the chink in the door. “Child, when will you ever learn to mind your temper?”
“But it’s not fair, Miss. She started it by calling names.”
“Did that make it right to hit her?”
“It was only a little slap.”
“After all I’ve told you, Bella. You’re a great disappointment to me.” Miss Ainsty’s voice was soft, for the child was one of her favourites.
“Can you let me out?” pleaded Bella.
“I haven’t the key. Matron’s got it. You’ll not be out before breakfast, I’m afraid. Have you had any supper?”
“No. Not allowed.”
“Why do you do this? You’re your own worst enemy.”
Bella digested this information and found she disagreed. “If I hadn’t hit her, she’d have done it again. Anyway, what she said about me was a lie. And that’s a sin, to lie, Miss, isn’t it?”
The gentle sigh came again. “Dear Lord! I don’t know why I waste my time with you. You’re a bright girl, very bright. You could make something of yourself—yes, even in a place like this. How many times have I told you how to behave properly, how to rise above these people?”
Bella wondered if she was supposed to count and give an answer. But before she could speak, something rustled in a corner and she squealed. “Rats! Oh, Miss, rats! I hate rats!”
Rustling and thumping came from behind the door, followed by Bella’s whimper. “Oh Miss, can’t you get me out of here?”
Miss Ainsty smiled ruefully. Where was all that bravado now? The belligerent child was now a little girl again, sniffling and squirming in her prison.
“Please Miss… rats!” as if it was the worst thing in the world. She should be used to rats by now—there were plenty in the workhouse yards. But everyone had their Achilles Heel.
The girl in the cupboard was sobbing now. “Please get me out of here, Miss Ainsty. I don’t like it when there’s rats.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
The teacher stood up and dusted down her skirts, picturing in her mind the terrifying mountain of a woman she would have to confront. She was no coward, but the Matron was enough to quell even the stoutest heart.
Cowering in a corner, the girl heard the light footsteps fade away. If she kept very still and quiet, perhaps the rat would not run over her foot. But she didn’t know if she had the courage to do it.
Chapter 2
By the time Miss Ainsty returned with Mrs Uphill—who’d been very unwilling to be disturbed—Bella was hysterical. Thumping and sobbing could be heard from behind
the door, interspersed with high-pitched wails of fear.
Miss Ainsty raised a censorious eyebrow. “I would venture to suggest the child has had punishment enough.”
The Matron placed her fists on her ample hips. “You know the importance of discipline in a place like this. If anyone is allowed to take liberties, it’ll be all through the workhouse like a dose of dysentery.”
As the teacher wrinkled her nose at the thought, Mrs Uphill turned away from the door, apparently immune to the sounds of suffering coming from behind it. “The children have to follow the same rules as the other folk. They’re lucky they don’t get the same punishments as their elders—that would give them something to complain about, and no mistake.”
Miss Ainsty jumped as Bella hammered at the cupboard door with her fists. “She’ll hurt herself, for heaven’s sake!”
“And what if she does? It’ll be her own fault. These children only learn when they know what their just deserts are. Leave her in there the night, and she’ll be meek as a mullet in the morning.”
Mrs Uphill’s expression told Miss Ainsty what she wasn’t prepared to say out loud, that she was too soft for a teacher. Certainly, too soft to teach in a place as brutal as the workhouse.
“And that’s your last word on it, is it, Mrs Uphill?”
The other woman’s lips formed a thin line, and she arched her eyebrows. “Mr Uphill and I are ready for our chocolate. I can’t keep my man waiting.” She turned around and stomped heavily back to the Master’s house.
Miss Ainsty reddened. Each crash on the door, each squeal of fright, rent her heart. There’d be trouble if she tried to get Bella out. There’d just as likely be trouble if she didn’t—the child might have had a seizure by morning. Mrs Uphill didn’t have the power to dismiss Miss Ainsty, but the Board did. She might complain to the Board, and there’d be hell to pay.
The teacher’s lips moved as she struggled to find a solution. In the end, she was forced to compromise, deciding to get the rat out before locking the door again. The Matron need never know.
She sent one of Bella’s classmates to fetch Jenner, an inmate of the workhouse who had been elevated to the permanent position of carpenter and handyman. She didn’t tell him of Mrs Uphill’s veto—then he couldn’t be held responsible. With the bagful of tools at his disposal, he soon had the lock off and the door open.
Miss Ainsty captured the half-fainting girl in her arms as Jenner swung his lantern around inside. There was a gleeful snort and a loud thud. The man backed out with a grin, brandishing the disjointed rat by its tail.
“There’s likely plenty of these about. Rear wall backs onto the midden, don’t he? I can stuff the hole if you’re wantin’.”
“Yes, please.” The teacher was struggling with the weight of the child. Then she realised the girl was pulling away.
“Don’t touch me, Miss, please. I’m… I’m dirty.”
“No dirtier than the rest of them.” Miss Ainsty reached out her hand. It was rebuffed.
“I am!” Bella’s voice was a snivelling whisper. “I’ve wet meself.”
“Dear Lord! Then I’ll just have to go to the laundry and get you some spare drawers. Better give me what you’ve got on and I’ll put them on the dirty pile.”
Bella’s face was red, shining with tears. As soon as Jenner turned his back, she struggled out of her wet drawers, then said, “I’d better take ‘em. You shouldn’t touch ‘em, Miss.”
Miss Ainsty rolled her eyes. “Let me be the judge of that. Now give!”
It nearly broke her heart to have to lock Bella in that grim cupboard again. But at least the girl had fresh linen—she also now had a bit of stale bread to nibble on. And there’d be no more rats for the moment. She’d thought of leaving a blanket too, but that would be found in the morning when they came to let Bella out, leading to punishment for them both.
She gave Jenner sixpence for his trouble, a sum she could ill afford. But she couldn’t have stood by and done nothing. No good Christian could. Life in the workhouse seemed to her to be getting worse. Perhaps it was all part of the Government’s plan to keep people away, by making it a place too unbearable to contemplate. God’s own Truth was that most of the people were there through their own misfortune, not through any wrong-doing. But the regime was so harsh, some discharged themselves quickly, preferring to beg.
Situated as it was on the outskirts of Bristol, the city workhouse took in both locals and country folk, and a strange mix it made. As in almost every other such institution, there were more women than men. Some of these were there because they had no families to support them, while others had families who’d turned to crime as an escape from poverty.
With a shudder, Miss Ainsty recalled the story of Sarah Meaton. Her husband had been caught sheep-stealing, the desperate act of a man whose children were facing starvation. He was captured because he hadn’t finished butchering the animal when the authorities found him, and the farmer had recognised its severed head. As if anyone would recognise a sheep just by its head! Miss Ainsty didn’t believe that for a minute.
The distressed Sarah had watched her emaciated husband haul his coffin to the place where they hanged him. Then he was gone, buried under quicklime, and she was left with two children, and no future but the workhouse.
Despite their rudeness and roughness, Miss Ainsty felt sympathy for the inmates. But it wouldn’t do to show it, to seem to be too lenient. Mrs Uphill always kept an eye open for what she called signs of slackness, or laxity in discipline. If the teacher wasn’t careful, her rôle with the younger children would be taken over by someone else, and then what would she do?
Chapter 3
That afternoon, after Bella’s release, Miss Ainsty kept her back to fill up inkwells, cut pencils and perform the various little tasks all schoolchildren considered a privilege. She felt it was the least she could do, for in her philosophy, children could only flourish if they knew kindness.
Bella had known there’d be problems with Marie Froggatt and her little group of bullying girls. Marie had come to Bristol from one of the wool factories in a neighbouring town. There’d been a bad fire and the family had all lost their work so the parents were in here too, though they saw little of their daughter. But they still had the chance of freedom, of a return to work once the mill was rebuilt, all modern, with new concrete floors, not wood. Wood absorbed oil from the machines and had fuelled the blaze that had ruined everything.
The Froggatts would get out, and Bella would still be in. So, they took chances, those bold girls led by Marie, thinking themselves above the other inmates, above the laws that governed the folk in the warehouse. The only retribution to be hoped for must be personal and secret. Bella was always plotting vengeance for injustice, revenge that would never be traced back to herself.
Her mind worked on her plan as she poured the ink into the china inkwells. Miss Ainsty meant well by keeping her back and she didn’t mind it because the place was often too noisy, or she was too exhausted, to work out her thoughts.
“You should try and keep out of trouble, Bella,” Miss Ainsty said. “You know Marie and her friends are always spoiling for a fight. And you always give it to them. And somehow, I don’t know why, it’s always you who ends up getting punished, even though you didn’t start it all. If you could just ignore them, and turn the other cheek. You’d be much happier.”
“They’re the ones that do wrong, Miss, calling names. My Pa will sort them out as soon as he gets a chance. He’ll get us all out of here soon.”
Miss Ainsty turned her back and started wiping the list of Kings and Queens from the blackboard. For all Bella seemed so tough, she was just a frightened little girl at heart. In some kind of fantasy world she’d invented for herself, she’d picked a mother and father from amongst the inmates, so she could say she had a family like the other girls. The man and woman weren’t even a couple, and Bella had never spoken to either of them. But she’d claimed a silent, tow-haired woman with a tragic face
for her mother. The woman was never likely to dispute it—it seemed she’d lost her tongue through some trauma years before, and had not said a word to anybody since.
Bella’s choice of a father was far more understandable. The man she referred to as “Pa” was the stockiest—and also the most handsome—fellow in the workhouse. He was full of pride, determined to get out, and more than happy to fight his way out if necessary. He had a temper on him matching Bella’s, and his fist was as firm as the rest of his muscles. The men often deliberately goaded him into a battle so they could bet their meagre provisions on the outcome. It wasn’t much of a gamble—Rob Withers’ blows flew straight and sure. He hardly ever lost.
He was always just about to leave the workhouse, as he told his mates, so he didn’t much care for the rules or anything. He liked the way they were impressed when he told them this so he said it a lot and they always begged him to stay a little longer because with his strong arm and quick temper, they knew they could rely on him to see them right.
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