But no one could have predicted what the ultimate outcome of that temper would be, nor the affect it would have on little Bella Hart.
Chapter 4
By the time three weeks had passed, Bella had almost forgotten the trauma of the punishment cupboard. She was happily cleaning the corridor outside the men’s hall—it pleased her to be so close to where her Pa would be eating. He was only on the other side of the door, and if anyone opened it, she might even catch a glimpse. She was scrubbing more slowly than she needed to, just in case.
But it had not proved a good day for Rob Withers, Bella’s pretend papa. He’d woken with a terrible griping in his stomach. They’d made him get up and perform his duties, but he’d had to keep rushing to the privy to empty his guts. In the interests of getting a good day’s work out of him—for he was a hard worker—the supervisors had decreed him two hard-boiled eggs for his lunch, as a remedy against the runs. He’d eaten his way with relish through one of them but had to clamber off his seat and make a dash for it the minute he’d peeled the other.
It was forbidden to speak during mealtimes, but Rob wasn’t afraid to flout the rules. “Watch me egg!” he hissed to his mate Geoffrey and threw a dark scowl over his shoulder at the other men sitting on the bench.
When he came back, the egg was gone.
“Who took it, yew bastards? Who’s got me egg? Yew’d better not of eaten him, or there’ll be trouble!”
The rough faces of the other men assumed an angelic innocence. One of them tittered. In an instant Rob was at his throat, hauling him up by the grubby lapels.
“Yew tell me!” he yelled, shaking the man. Somebody banged a tin cup on the table.
“Go fer it, Rob!” one of the men cried.
There was a movement of workhouse warders towards the men’s bench as the noise began to increase. If Rob was spoiling for a fight, he’d get all the encouragement he needed from the other inmates, and they’d have a riot on their hands.
As Rob’s glittering eyes scanned his victim, they fell on a small piece of eggshell lodged in the fellow’s meagre beard. Rob’s chest swelled. Men grabbed for plates and held them out of harm’s way just as the warders flanked Rob and grabbed both his arms.
He was a dangerous man. He didn’t go red when he was angry—he went pale. Anyone with sense could see he was about to explode, but he always kept a lid on it until his victim was least expecting it, and then let rip. Some said he was waiting for the blood to get to his fists before he flew. This time, while the warders pulled him backwards and settled the egg-stealer back onto the bench, Rob went quietly. But those who saw his face as he was escorted to the door went rigid in their seats.
The end of the room was reached, and thirty heads turned to watch as Rob Withers took an enormous breath, flexed his chest, and sent his captors reeling. He seized something from down by the fireplace and came screaming back, vaulted onto the table, and sped down it faster than anyone else could move.
Bella was just outside the door now, on hands and knees with a pail of grey water, brushing down the tiles. She’d tried to bunch her uniform skirts underneath to protect her knees, but now she was getting damp there, and it was never easy to dry out in this place, even in the height of summer.
She hummed as she scrubbed away. Last week Marie Froggatt had climbed into bed and put her feet on something cold and slushy. From the screams and yells Bella heard from that end of the ward, she knew Marie had got well covered in the contents of the slops bucket.
She’d been careful and clever. Marie would never be able to prove who’d done it, and Bella had waited a fortnight after the cupboard incident before exacting her revenge. The thrill of success had sustained her all week. She almost wished Marie would strike again so she’d be justified in plotting another brilliant revenge.
There was a row coming from behind the door to the men’s hall. Suddenly it banged open, and she staggered to her feet to avoid the flailing mass coming towards her.
Her heart leapt into her throat. It was Pa!
It didn’t take long to see he was in trouble. His arms were bound awkwardly behind his back with a piece of linen, and something had been stuffed in his mouth as a gag. Horrified, she dropped her brush to the floor and hurled herself at the nearest warder.
“Get off him! Leave him be!”
He knocked her off as if she was a fly. “Go tell the Matron to get the constable, and hurry.”
Ignoring him, she made to rescue Rob again, but this time the second warder, with less patience than the first, struck her a stinging blow across the cheek which sent her sprawling.
“Do as you’re told, or there’ll be more of that. You don’t want to start any trouble with me, girl. I always remember a face.”
It was some time before news of what Rob Withers had done filtered through to the rest of the workhouse. Marie’s friend Annie Tullard couldn’t keep the glee out of her voice when she told Bella later that evening.
“Your Pa’s killed a man. Put a red-hot poker through his neck. He’ll swing for it.”
Pain and anger surged up as Bella’s vision blurred. By the time she was pulled off Annie, both girls were bleeding and hysterical.
Chapter 5
That winter was hard on everyone. Several inmates died, but that was not unusual since so many of them were elderly or infirm. Of the survivors, those who were religious thanked their God for sparing them this time and begged that their escape from the Union would be other than by death. Winter brought much sickness too, and the children picking oakum had hands blighted with sores. The best place to be was in the schoolroom, where Miss Ainsty had a fire.
Her pupils behaved much better in the bitter weather. Good children were permitted to sit at the front of the class, near the heat. Bad children were relegated to the back. Bella sat on a form in the midst of the class.
The child had lost her spark after her “Pa” had been taken away to await trial and execution. This shouldn’t have mattered to Miss Ainsty—she really didn’t mean to have favourites. But there was something about the wan-faced little girl that attracted her. Bella was quick-witted and had learned to write and read faster than any of the others. She had a pretty face as well, a delicate frame and unusual green eyes—she didn’t look rough like the other children, so they picked on her.
Bella’s future should have been none of Miss Ainsty’s concern—that was up to the authorities. All she was supposed to do was educate the children as best she could, so long as it didn’t spoil them for work or give them thoughts above their station. But as winter faded and travelling became easier, overlookers started arriving from the manufacturing towns to take the bigger children away as apprentices.
It was a grim prospect. Once taken, the children led lives of drudgery, no better than their time in the workhouse. But the authorities smiled on the practice, saying it was better the children should have a trade that would set them up for their future. This would, of course, depend on the children’s ability to survive the rigours and dangers of factory life.
Bella Hart was strong. Thin, waif-like, but tough, on the outside and within. No one knew her exact age, and no-one could actually prove she was still too young to be taken off. But she’d be wasted in a factory. It was necessary to take action to protect the child.
On the morning of the scheduled overlooker’s visit, Miss Ainsty awoke early. As she made her way from her rented room to the workhouse gates, the colour of the sky made her realise she was far too early. But there was an insistence in the air, heralding the coming of spring. The birds had been up long since, and the smoke of cooking fires was already rising above several chimneys. Overhead, gulls that had been scavenging for scraps down by the docks were gliding in lazy spirals above the city.
After the porter rose blearily to let her in, Miss Ainsty headed down into the kitchens to carry out her plan.
“Is there hot water yet?”
The shabby woman stirring the coals nodded. “Aye Miss, plenty. I’ve b
een up since cock-crow.”
“Then I’d like a cup of tea. And a hot brick if there is one. I feel a chill coming on.”
Though tired and work-worn, like all the female inmates, the kitchen maid was efficient. The tea was made, the hot brick wrapped in a cloth and Miss Ainsty went on her way, well pleased with herself.
The warder outside the girl’s dormitory was fast asleep, slumped awkwardly on a chair. Miss Ainsty managed to creep past without disturbing her.
The cold in the room set the cup trembling in her hand; it would be a while before the sun was high enough to pass over the workhouse walls and penetrate the small high windows of the long room. All the children were dead to the world, exhausted.
Slipping quietly along the rows, Miss Ainsty located Bella and gently shook her awake. “You’re going to pretend you’re not well today, Bella.”
“I’m alright, Miss—only tired.”
“No—you must act like you’re ill. Do it for me. It’s a secret, just between us. Look, I’ve brought you some tea.”
“Tea? Why, thank you, Miss!”
Bella wrapped her small fingers around the tin mug and yelped at the heat. But the drink was such a treat, she couldn’t wait to sample it, and scalded her tongue.
“Don’t drink it all. I want you to keep a little where no one can see it and when they ring the bell, you’re to dab some on your forehead and in your hair, make it look like you’re sweating.”
The girl looked ruefully into the mug. “Hadn’t I better drink it? Seems a shame to waste it like that.”
“Bella Hart, do as you’re told.”
The child subsided. It was all right to be ordered around by Miss Ainsty. Apart from her silent Ma, the teacher was the only person in the whole place she liked and respected.
“There’s a hot brick here too. I want you to curl up around it, hold it to your belly. You’ve got to make yourself hot, you hear?”
“You want me to pretend I’ve a fever?”
“Yes. Now, I must go before everyone starts waking up. Remember what I’ve told you. You’re to stay in bed, not come to class or go to work. If they take you to the infirmary, make sure you hide the brick and the cup. No one must find them.”
“But why, Miss?”
Miss Ainsty looked into the wide green eyes and took a breath. “If you’re a very good girl,” she whispered, “I’ll train you up as a teacher. You’re clever and quick. If you can learn a little more patience and forbearance, you may even have a career and independence ahead of you.”
Bella nodded despite not understanding the long words. The brightness in the teacher’s eye suggested she was offering something good and not to be ignored.
They just had to hope Miss Ainsty’s plan could keep Bella safe from the overlookers for another year.
Chapter 6
Miss Ainsty’s plan to keep Bella out of the grim factories was an unqualified success. So successful, it kept her protégé safe for the best part of the next seven years.
During those hard, dreary years, Bella laboured to improve herself and make Miss Ainsty proud. She felt as if she’d been given a medal by the queen on the first day she found herself standing in front of a bench full of little ones, all rendered characterless by the cropped hair and uniform clothing of the workhouse.
She finally felt like a real someone, not just the daughter of two invented parents. They were no use to her now anyway—one of them was buried in an unmarked convict’s grave, and the other, Bella’s ‘ma’, had silently vanished from the workhouse. It was rumoured she’d entered into ‘grim servitude’—whatever that meant. Bella now felt a person in her own right, doing a job far more rewarding than oakum-picking, stone-breaking or scrubbing floors.
She was no longer troubled by her cruellest enemy—Marie Froggatt’s family had been taken back to the town they’d come from when skilled labour was needed there again. While the bullying girls left behind fought amongst themselves for who should take precedence in Marie’s absence, Bella had been left undisturbed.
While she grew from a girl into a young woman, Miss Ainsty taught her everything she knew. On the days when Bella felt so oppressed she wanted to scream, she reminded herself of the teacher’s “Grand Plan” for her and forced herself to be patient. Escape would come, she would be free. But one fact gnawed constantly at the back of her mind—that as she grew in stature and skill, Miss Ainsty appeared to decline.
There were few outward signs of the teacher’s illness, but she seemed to get tired more quickly, and sometimes she was assailed by the most agonising headaches. Bella learned to care for her during these times, rushing to fetch chill water from the well in the yard, and taking Miss Ainsty’s pupils into her own class. She should have been immune to the fear of death, for it was a common enough event in the Union, but that it should happen to someone as fair and fine as Miss Ainsty was an injustice.
On a crisp day in early autumn, not long after Bella worked out she must be almost sixteen years old, she was gazing critically at her reflection in a bowl of water in the workhouse kitchen. It was hard to make a lady of oneself in such dismal surroundings, no matter how grown-up one felt. She was too thin, but her figure had filled out in the right places and anyway, she’d much rather be slender than fat. Under Miss Ainsty’s tutelage, she’d learned to stand ram-rod straight and keep her chin in the air. Miss Ainsty often told her she was very pretty. Which explained the resentment she got from the other girls, especially Marie Froggatt’s one-time great friend, Annie Tullard. Annie’s own looks were as dark as if she’d just come out of a coal hole, and her body was gangly and awkward.
Bella was relieved to have escaped the company of the other girls, who’d been even more spiteful than usual today. She’d volunteered to scrub the turnips for a vegetable stew for the Master and Matron. Despite Miss Ainsty’s training, Bella had already done what everyone else did when left alone in the company of anything edible—she’d stolen some. There was now a turnip concealed in the front of her drawers.
She smiled at her reflection. The plan was to pass the turnip onto one of the warders later for their soup, in exchange for a rind of cheese she could share with her best friend, Lucy. Or perhaps she’d just ask for a favour she could call on later. The warders here were little better off than the God-forsaken souls they minded, so if their charges ever had anything to offer, none of the staff—except perhaps Miss Ainsty—was above a bribe.
Suddenly the pock-marked nose of Mr Pinchmore, the beadle, appeared round the door. “You’re wanted in Matron’s sitting room. Leave that.”
Bella wiped her hands on her skirts, then held them awkwardly in front of her, trying to conceal the lump the turnip created against her belly. What a time to be called to the Matron! If she was caught thieving food from the Matron’s kitchen, she would more than likely be beaten, pupil-teacher or not.
As she walked briskly in Pinchmore’s wake, her mind raced. How to conceal the turnip from Matron’s gimlet stare? Hurriedly she let the neep slide down the leg of her drawers, and kicked it into the dusty darkness under a dresser. Her face, as she entered the Matron’s presence, was a study in innocence, even as she was trying to fathom out how to retrieve her spoils later on.
She couldn’t help but stare as she entered the hallowed portals. Only the most respectable of the Union’s inmates were allowed in the Master’s house, and despite this perceived respectability, they were subjected to the most humiliating searches when they left, to make sure nothing had been stolen.
As she gazed around, Bella marvelled at the luxury surrounding her. There was thick cloth on the floor, patterned in red and blue, and paper stuck to the walls, also decorated. A fire burned in a wrought-iron grate and a small round table, covered with a lace-edged cloth, stood near it. In the corner was a tall clock with a dark wooden case, emitting a satisfying tick. It had been polished to a chestnut shine.
A mantelpiece above the fireplace held various objects of interest, including a colourful ceram
ic pot containing tapers, and a strange contraption of metal and glass, bearing the label “Lloyd’s Patent Vaporiser”.
But it was the items on the little table that made Bella’s eyes widen—a china tea service, with strong hot tea in the cups, and an array of iced cakes sitting on a plate with a gold rim. Her mouth watered, but even as she looked at the dainties, she knew there was no possibility any of them would be offered to her.
No, this show of splendour was obviously intended for the gentleman who sat in the high-backed leather chair by the fireside, opposite the generous form of the Matron.
He was not dressed in the finery of the Poor Relief Committee members who made occasional visits. But he looked comfortable enough, except for the hacking cough that brought tears to his eyes and made the Matron shoot anxious glances at her precious vaporiser.
The man cleared his throat as Bella stood inside the doorway—with Pinchmore lurking just behind her—and took a deep draught of tea before saying, “So this is the girl, you think, Ma’am?”
His voice was cultured but with a strange accent, not local.
“Indeed. The only one who came in about the time you said.”
“Was there no information concerning the child?”
Bella was hardly listening, her attention snagging on a phalanx of leather-bound books on a mahogany shelf—the only objects in that luxurious room she truly coveted.
Matron shuffled her bulk in her chair. “There was a slip of paper with the child, bearing her name. That’s all.”
Hearing the creak of sprung upholstery, Bella tore her attention from the books to see the man had got up and was strolling slowly around her, eyeing her up and down. She stood erect and stiff, resenting the intimacy of his stare.
After a further bout of coughing which made her wince, he collapsed back into his chair. “It could be the child. I can see a similarity in the looks. Not from both sides, mind you, only from one. Can you give me a better description of the servant who brought her here?”
Workhouse Waif Page 2
