The Daughters of Ironbridge

by Mollie Walton

  Oh, the courage of this young woman. She was looking at Margaret that way again, that clear-eyed, honest stare. No tears now. They had all been shed many moons ago, she guessed. Lucy Arnett’s fortitude shamed Margaret. Listening to her story, hearing those words of pain and survival changed Margaret forever. Something clicked in her head, a cog slotting into place, set in motion. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. We will not allow this.’

  ‘We dunna have no choice.’

  ‘Yes, yes, we do.’ Her mind was moving fast now, possibility rushing like water over the wheel. ‘Lucy, listen to me. You’ve said this to me before, that there is no chance for change, that this is the way the world works. Well, what if it didn’t have to be that way? What if we could try, just one time, to change things? To make things better for everyone who counts? For Anny and for you. What would you say to that?’

  ‘I would say they’d have me guts for garters.’

  ‘Have faith, Lucy. If it fails, I shall give you money anyway. I shall leave it for you here, secretly, hidden in my room.’

  ‘If what fails? What money? Are you mad, miss?’

  Margaret lifted her head up. ‘No. I am not. Now, listen carefully. For we are going to fix this. I have nothing to lose, as I am away this very night. And whatever happens, I promise that you will be free of this place. We are going to make that change and make things right. Do you believe me, Lucy? Do you trust me?’

  Lucy narrowed her eyes at Margaret. ‘Dunna go all round the Wrekin. Stop blethering and tell me. What’s yer plan?’

  Chapter 24

  Queenie sat in her favourite chair in the drawing room. Her son Ralph sat opposite her, reading an illustrated paper of some sort, something cheap and thrilling, no doubt. He had not the wit to read books. Every so often, he would snort with amusement. Queenie watched him with her usual distaste. What a lonely thing it was to dislike your own child. Nobody understood, nobody except Jenkins. Ah, Jenkins. Her only confidante. If Jenkins ever left her . . . The thought was too much to bear! But Queenie was worried. There was talk in the house, gossip amongst the servants of how the Kings were responsible for the explosion. Queenie felt the danger of a great scandal unfolding and she smarted at this. She knew there would be plenty around these parts who would love to see the Kings in disarray. It was satisfying to the envious poor. The poor around these parts had suffered, indeed they had. But didn’t the poor always suffer? Now the rich were getting some of it too. And nobody deserved to suffer more than this family, some may be saying. She knew her useless son would mismanage it, as always. She needed to keep her wits about her and step in. Something needed to be done, and soon. Reparation must be made, swiftly, to the affected families, the ones with dead and injured men and boys. There must be some sort of grand gathering, a service to honour the lives lost. She should meet with Brotherton and Pritchard on the morrow, to arrange these things and to talk about the future of the ironworks, now production at the furnace had been halted. The accounts must be scrutinised, money rerouted to other parts of the operation, new revenues of cash flow must be sought out. She had seen her son running about like a headless chicken, trying to solve the mess, but nothing had been decided, nothing achieved. It was her turn now. This could bring them down, destroy not only their reputation but the business itself.

  The stark, bright image of Blaize’s ghost appeared in her mind and gave her a chill. The curse would come true, if they weren’t careful. This was just the kind of thing that destroyed good families. Well, not on her watch. Nothing must be allowed to threaten the King family reputation. Everything from then on must be about the limitation of the damage, stemming the flow and rebuilding their defences. The fortress of the Kings must not fall.

  The drawing room door opened. Queenie did not look round, as she assumed it was Benjamina joining them – that indolent, lazy strumpet. But there was not the whiff of Benjamina’s sickly perfume. Instead, two sets of footsteps came across the hard floor and onto the rug before her. There stood Margaret and another figure, one of the maids. Queenie had heard that Margaret had been to Shrewsbury again that day. The last time she took the barouche without asking, all hell broke loose, but her son was so preoccupied with his own troubles these days, he barely noticed what the girl was up to. Queenie had noticed, though, and had made her mind up to call her granddaughter in the following day and discuss these reckless trips to Shrewsbury to see the Woodvine girl. All right, the girl’s father had been killed and that couldn’t be helped. But it was not seemly for the King daughter to be involved any more than was necessary. That was something else on her list: take Margaret in hand. The child needed a husband, and soon.

  Ralph looked up, peeved to be interrupted. ‘What is this?’

  Margaret spoke first, the servant girl standing with her hands clasped behind her back, eyes down. Queenie felt unsettled. Something was not right here.

  ‘Grandmother, Father, I must speak with you both.’

  ‘Arnett, is it?’ said Queenie, fixing her eye on the servant girl. She was always good with servants’ names, prided herself on it.

  The girl looked up, not wide-eyed and fearful as Queenie expected, but she looked straight at her, direct and steady. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’ spluttered Ralph.

  ‘It concerns Cyril,’ said Margaret. ‘I have approached you both before to voice my concerns about my brother’s behaviour. I have told you both that I was convinced of Cyril’s guilt in the matter of the theft of money from the safe. But my concerns were dismissed and Anny Woodvine remains imprisoned for a crime she did not commit.’

  ‘This again,’ said Ralph in a low, threatening voice. Queenie saw her son’s hackles rise. Would he strike the girl? Possibly not in front of a servant. This was something the King men liked to imagine was done in private, though word always got around. But whatever Margaret had suffered from her father in the past, it did not stop her now. Queenie saw her turn her gaze on her father, unintimidated and determined.

  ‘Yes, this again, Father. But now we have a witness. Lucy Arnett, a maidservant of this household who has served us faithfully for many years. She has something to impart to you both. And I urge you to listen to what she has to say.’

  ‘Get out,’ said Ralph simply, placing his reading material on the settee beside him, looking about ready to leap up and box both their ears.

  ‘No,’ said Queenie. Ralph glared at her. ‘Let them speak. I am curious.’

  ‘The very idea . . .’ began Ralph.

  ‘They will be heard. In these trying times, the whole community in mourning, never let it be said that the Kings do not listen to reason, that we are too far above the common fray to at least let them be heard. Proceed, Arnett. Tell us what you wish to say.’

  Ralph puffed and shuffled in his seat, his anger barely contained. But Queenie could see that he was caught in the trap of having to appease the neighbourhood, and this servant girl was one of theirs, so he had to resist, for appearances’ sake. ‘Arnett, go on. Say your piece.’

  The girl had her wary eye on Ralph, her body stiff with tension. She turned to Queenie, and there came that clear look again. She began to speak, no hint of a wobble in her voice. Queenie was convinced in that moment that anything this girl had to say was the truth, no doubt whatsoever.

  ‘On the day that Anny Woodvine was arrested, Master Cyril sent for me. This was first thing in the morning. He told me to take a message to Mr Brotherton, that he should go to town for ink. He said the message had come from Mrs King senior. From yourself, ma’am.’

  ‘Did he now?’ said Queenie. What a fool Cyril was, involving her. Anyone in the household would know she would never send Cyril to do such a thing. Why would she need that idiot boy, when she had Jenkins?

  ‘Yes, he did, ma’am. He surely did. He said to make sure that Mr Brotherton himself was sent to town to fetch the ink, green ink, for you, ma’am. Then he said, very certain like, that I was not to tell anyone that it was him t
hat gave me the message. That if I was ever asked about it, I shouldna mention his name and I should say that Mrs – that is, you, ma’am – were the one that gave me the message for Mr Brotherton. Well, I did as I was asked and delivered the message. Then, the stable boy, Paddy, came to see me soon after. He was worried about summat. He said Master Cyril had been to see him earlier, had told him to take a message to the office, that Anny Woodvine must go to the library and wait on you, sir.’

  Queenie was even more impressed with Arnett, now that she had had the nerve to address Ralph directly, despite his barely contained rage. She liked this girl. She liked any girl with spirit.

  Arnett continued, ‘Paddy was worried because he knew you were out all that day, sir, because he’d seen you go himself, up before the larks. He liked Anny, did Paddy, and he didna want to think of her alone in the library waiting for you, sir, when you were never going to come. Well, not till hours away, leastways. I told him not to interfere with family business and get on with his job. But after, I went back into the house and I saw Master Cyril go into your study, sir, and he came out holding your keys, sir, and he went off towards the office. Why would Master Cyril do all this? Why did he send those messages from you, ma’am, and from you, sir, that were not true? And why would he take the keys to the office from your room, sir? Why would he do all that?’

  ‘You were spying on my grandson, then?’ said Queenie.

  ‘Servants dunna need to spy, when things are done before their very eyes. Servants are invisible to gentlefolk sometimes, so they say. But we do see things, ma’am, sir. We see things and we know things.’

  This last statement hung heavy in the air like cigar smoke. Arnett waited. King, red-faced, looked at Queenie.

  Margaret said, ‘Go on, Lucy. Tell them what happened next.’

  ‘So, Paddy and I, we were worried about what it all meant. We were suspicious. You must forgive us our cheek but we thought we should follow him, follow Master Cyril and see what he was about. So we did. We crept behind and saw him. He went into the office. We peeked through the windows. He took the money from the safe and he put it in Anny Woodvine’s bag. Paddy and I saw him do it, clear as day.’

  Queenie said, ‘And why did you not speak up before now? If this were true, you should have said something before the Woodvine girl was taken away. Why have you waited so long for the truth to be shared, if it is indeed the truth and not some tale of your own devising?’

  Queenie was bluffing. She had not one shred of doubt that the girl was speaking plainly. Margaret answered for her: ‘I have encouraged her to speak out now but I’m sure we all know that, without my support in this matter, it is a universal truth that servants are not listened to. That they fear being dismissed over any hint of disloyalty to their masters. Lucy did not say anything about this before as she feared losing her job. She cannot afford to do so, as she has a widowed mother to support.’

  Ralph spluttered, ‘The perfect excuse for blackmail then, this sob story about her poor mother! Throwing false accusations of theft at my son!’

  ‘It is not false. And he has done worse than theft,’ said Arnett. The courage of the girl! Queenie was eager to hear more from her, but a creeping sense of unease caused her to shiver. What more was there? What else had she to tell of Cyril King?

  Margaret placed her hand tenderly on Arnett’s arm. ‘Shall I . . . ?’ Margaret began. For the first time, Arnett appeared to falter. She blinked rapidly and looked down at her shoes. She nodded.

  Margaret said bluntly, ‘Cyril raped Lucy. Many times. He gave her a child. The child died . . . before birth . . . and the whole thing was covered up by Jenkins.’

  Jenkins? What had Jenkins to do with this? Queenie was certain Jenkins would have told her of such a thing. But now she regarded this girl, who had raised her head and was looking now at Margaret, her eyes steady again, her back straight. She knew it was true. She knew that Jenkins had hidden it from her to protect her. Queenie felt sickened. Another girl’s life ruined. Another hateful crime perpetrated by the King men.

  ‘This is slander of the worst . . .’

  ‘Shut up, Ralph.’

  ‘There is no proof of this!’ he cried. ‘Just the word of a common slut below stairs!’

  Margaret stepped forward towards her father and pointed at him. ‘You are wrong. There are many in this house that know this to be true. Paddy the stable boy saw Cyril take the money. And Jenkins, Grandmother’s own trusted lady’s maid cleared up the bloody remains of this girl’s dead child, of your son’s dead child. When will you stop protecting him, when you know him to be rotten to the core?’

  Ralph cried, ‘Never! I will never stop protecting my only son!’

  Queenie saw the situation getting out of hand. ‘Now then, we must remain calm.’ But Margaret was not listening.

  ‘And that is your greatest failing. Cyril is rotten through and through. But even if you cannot see that, know this: if word of this gets out, this family’s name will be mud. The explosion at the furnace already has our reputation in tatters. The careless death of our men is already a disaster for investors and clients. And I know you were responsible. You knowingly used materials that were inferior and were sure to lead to an accident. It was only a matter of time. And if the truth comes out of Cyril as a thief, a liar and a rapist, our name will be destroyed. Cyril King is this family’s heir. He must make a good marriage and produce his own heir. What decent family in their right mind would willingly offer a large dowry and wed their daughter to Cyril King, with stories like this on everyone’s lips? Bad blood, they will say. Those Kings have bad blood. We all know this family has a history of abusing young women, and it is only a matter of time before more secrets come out. And the name of King will always be spat out, like a bitter taste on the tongue. If you do nothing to remedy this, you, Father and you, Grandmother, then you leave us with no choice. We will speak the truth, far and wide. And make no mistake. This house will fall!’

  Those four words shocked Queenie rigid. She felt her body seize up, pinning her to her seat. How did Margaret know of this? Had the ghost visited her too? But she could see that the child was not looking knowingly at her. She was incensed with a hatred of her father, her brother, of all the Kings. Margaret had turned. She would not care if her name were ruined, if indeed the house and everything in it fell to the ground. She would never give up on this and her determination alone would ruin their name, if the truth did not do it by itself. If Queenie dismissed these children and their threats, the curse of Betsy Blaize would come to pass.

  ‘I never thought I’d . . .’ began Ralph, too stupid even now to see how close they all were to ruin.

  ‘Silence!’ Queenie cried, her strength mustered and returning admirably, now, when she needed it. Her son stopped. He might make a noise about being the master, but everyone knew it was Queenie who ruled this roost. ‘There will be no more argument. It is clear now how things proceeded. You, Arnett. I suspect you do not want to stay in this house, but of course you will be in need of employment. I will write you an excellent reference, but it will be best for all if you leave our employ as soon as you are able. I will give you three months’ wages and a bonus, if you will leave tonight and never mention any detail of this again.’

  The maid looked her in the eye and nodded. ‘Agreed.’

  ‘Good,’ said Queenie and turned away.

  ‘On one condition,’ said Arnett.

  ‘You are in no position . . .’ began Queenie.

  But the maid interrupted her. ‘That they let Anny Woodvine go. You can do that, sir, ma’am. I know if you drop those charges against her, they’ll set her free. That’s my condition.’

  ‘And mine, too,’ added Margaret. ‘Anny must be released. If you drop the charges, Father, and Anny is freed, with no stain about her name, and if Lucy is given a good reference and the wages you suggest, Grandmother, then and only then will we keep our silence about these crimes of Cyril. We shall never speak
of them more.’

  Queenie smiled at Margaret with begrudging admiration. Despite her distasteful threats, Queenie was pleased her granddaughter was coming into her own, at last. She wondered what the girl would do with this new-found confidence. Ralph clearly did not feel the same way about his daughter. He huffed, threw his hands up in the air, then folded his arms tightly. He had lost his voice all of a sudden, but let out a kind of frustrated whine. What a wretched man he was. But no matter. It was the old sow who would make this decision, not the squealing piglet.

  ‘It shall be done,’ said Queenie. ‘You are dismissed, both of you.’

  Her granddaughter was grinning at Arnett. Was this all a game to her? True, she was proud of Margaret for finding her backbone, but the girl had turned traitor to her own family. God knows Queenie had hated the Kings at times over the years, but never had she been a turncoat. There were rules about such things. These young ones these days had no sense of duty or honour. But these two had the Kings in a pickle and a deal had to be done. Margaret and Arnett left the room. She heard them talk excitedly outside. She never thought she’d live to see the day when servants and family plotted together and crowed about it. All except her and Jenkins, of course. They had their own rules.