A Mother's Dilemma

by Emma Hornby

  ‘I don’t know,’ she was finally forced to respond. ‘But say I did have the means? Is there anyone you know of?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Eeh, that’s great. Who?’

  ‘Minnie.’

  ‘Mrs Maddox, really?’

  ‘Really,’ Sarah murmured.

  A sob caught in Jewel’s throat. For the first time in a long time, she saw a ray of happiness on the horizon. ‘I can think of no one else I’d rather go to. After what that woman did for us the day … I know she’d do me – do the baby, here – right.’

  Sarah’s words were softer still. ‘Aye, she would.’

  Left alone soon afterwards to get some rest, Jewel allowed herself to dream of the tantalising possibilities not too far from her reach. She envisioned a handsome lady tenderly cradling the child, whilst her husband looked on with an adoring smile. She saw her daughter through the years, shiny-haired and pink-cheeked with health, watched her slip from infant to youth into womanhood without a moment’s want or strife. A future worth the living, as she deserved. And yet …

  Jewel tried her best to dispel another image that had crept in amongst the rest, but it refused to leave her. It was of herself falling to her knees, hand outstretched in desperation to the retreating backs of the couple carrying her baby away. No matter how hard or how long she screamed, they didn’t seem to hear and continued on, taking their precious cargo out of her life for ever …

  Throat thick, chest heavy, eyes burning with the searing pain of it all, she shook her head. ‘Nay,’ she told the room on a shaky growl. Then louder: ‘Nay.’

  She wouldn’t ruin this for the child. She refused to allow her own selfish yearnings to win through, to dominate her decision, affect her daughter’s destiny.

  That truly would be a cruelty she’d never recover from.

  Chapter 19

  AS THE PASSING days slipped into weeks, life in the small, cramped room in Canal Street became intolerable.

  Though Jewel hadn’t expected the women to cease their drunken, nocturnal antics upon the baby’s arrival, she had hoped they would curtail them somewhat. But if anything, things seemed to have grown worse.

  At least if they had limited their work to the backstreet adjoining the inn, things wouldn’t have been so bad. But no. Still almost nightly, once the beer houses had kicked out, they fetched back any number of men, and their ‘parties’ could go on right into the following morning.

  The noise was like a torture device from which she couldn’t escape. Laughter, singing, shouting, arguing – they seemed to roll on a continual wheel. Then there were the other sounds, the ones that came with their trade, relentless, day and night. The child was constantly being woken and Jewel barely ever managed to drop off to sleep at all. The stress of it all was beginning to affect her well-being and the end of her tether was growing ever nearer. She had to get out of here.

  Despite her desperation, Jewel had recognised that she wasn’t yet strong enough to be up and about. She’d suffered severely from the extraordinary birth. She was weak, grew fatigued easily. Unable to rest properly in comfort and peace was only delaying her progress.

  It was midday on a Saturday towards the end of the month when matters eventually came to a head. Louise and her mother had been sniping at each other since rolling from their beds, and the rowing had intensified as the day wore on. Glad of the curtain around the bed that shut her off from the room, Jewel lay with gritted teeth to wait it out.

  Julia hadn’t been home for two days and the women blamed each other for her absence. Where had they last seen her, and with whom? This wasn’t like her at all, to fail to come home. Their line of work brought them into close contact with all manner of people, some worse than others. Anything could have happened to her and they wouldn’t even know until a body turned up, as those of streetwalkers did all too often. And on, and on.

  ‘You should have kept an eye to her,’ Louise’s mother snapped, sounding more disgruntled than worried about her missing child’s welfare. ‘Don’t I allus say you must stick together on t’ nights?’

  ‘You’re her mam, not me. Why didn’t you keep a check on her movements?’ shot back the girl.

  ‘Aye well, it’s all the harder you’ll work, let me tell thee. Until she returns, we’re an income down. Mine and Sarah’s owd cunnies don’t attract the fellas like they used to. It’s young ones like yours they prefer – and you’ll give it to them, an’ all, at double the rate from now on.’

  Jewel shook her head. Money. That’s all it ever boiled down to with the so-called mother of these girls. She possessed not a single ounce of real love for either of them. She truly was the most grotesque person she’d ever had the misfortune of meeting. No wonder Julia had gone. Chances were she wasn’t in any danger but had seen the light at long last.

  And yet … She saw in her mind’s eye the picture – and the money nestled behind it. She’d checked only last night, fearing the worst – her daughter’s whole future depended on it, after all – but no, it was still there. If Julia had deserted, she’d have surely taken her treasure trove with her.

  ‘There’s no way I’m toiling extra hours to keep thee in gin. It ain’t happening.’

  ‘You’ll do as I bleedin’ well say.’

  ‘Aye? Watch me!’ retorted Louise.

  There followed next the sound of scuffling. Then the curtain collapsed inwards as both women fell, clawing and tearing at each other’s hair, on to the bed, missing the sleeping baby by inches.

  With a scream of horror, Jewel snatched up her child and, caring naught for her stitches, jumped from the bed. Burning fury rapidly replaced her shock and she jabbed a finger in their direction. ‘You pair of gutter dog bitches, yer!’ But lost in their battle, they didn’t hear, and she turned instead to Sarah, who was trying to split the women up. ‘Take me to Mrs Maddox’s.’

  ‘What, now? But Jewel, your confinement’s not over—’

  ‘I’m well enough,’ she barked, snatching up her shawl and wrapping it around the baby tightly. ‘If I stay here any longer, they’ll finish up doing my child a serious mischief – or, God help them, I’ll end up going at the pair of them. Just get us out of here, Sarah. Please.’

  A woman with dark hair and small, quick eyes opened the door to Minnie’s house minutes later. ‘Hello, Sarah.’

  ‘All right, Eliza? Is Minnie home?’

  ‘Aye, come on in.’

  Following behind, Jewel took stock of the kitchen they entered. Like the procurer’s house in Lum Street, this, too, was clean and tidy. Only here there was a marked difference: it was cosy and welcoming and oozing warmth. A sudden lump came to her throat and she swallowed hard. It was almost like stepping into Mam’s house. Yet another difference here was the bed by the fire, upon which lay a row of contented-looking babies sleeping peacefully, not holed away in the back bedroom in the way Mater had operated.

  ‘Hello, Sarah love,’ called Minnie from her fireside chair. Then her gaze shifted to Jewel and a wide smile spread across her lined face. ‘Lass! By, I see you’re progressing well. And is that the young angel you’ve got with thee? Ay, give us her here, let me have a cuddle of her.’

  Smiling back, Jewel placed the baby into her arms. ‘It’s nice to see thee, Mrs Maddox.’

  ‘And youse, all three.’

  ‘Take the weight off,’ Eliza told them, nodding to the table before limping to the fire. ‘I’ll brew a fresh pot.’

  ‘So,’ asked Minnie, pausing in her cooing at the child, when they were seated. ‘To what do I owe this fine pleasure?’

  ‘I want the child adopted, Mrs Maddox,’ Jewel blurted out before she could stop herself. ‘Please, will tha help me?’

  Surprised silence filled the room for a moment. Minnie glanced to Sarah then back to Jewel.

  ‘Can I ask why, lass?’

  ‘I can’t give her the life she deserves. That’s the top and bottom of it.’

  The old woman nodded. ‘It seems to me this ain’
t a fresh decision. You’ve given this matter thought forra good while?’

  ‘I’ve known I couldn’t keep the child since the day I discovered I were carrying it.’

  A shadow of understanding crossed Minnie’s face, and Jewel knew she sensed Benji’s crime. Given her experience, she’d likely witnessed this scenario many times over.

  ‘So will you help me, Mrs Maddox?’ she continued on a note of pleading. ‘Can you find my daughter a better life?’

  ‘There’s no going back, lass, once the deed is done.’

  ‘I understand that. Please, you’re my last hope. I did find another baby farmer who promised to help, but she—’

  Minnie and Eliza cut her off with a collective gasp.

  ‘What is it?’ Jewel glanced from one to the other in puzzlement. ‘What did I say?’

  ‘How dare you.’ Eliza’s voice shook with offence. ‘Min here is no bloody baby farmer!’

  ‘Oh. But I thought—’

  ‘You thought wrong, lass.’ Folding her arms, Minnie’s face was grave. ‘I have no part, nor have I ever, in that scandalous practice. If it’s that you’re here seeking, you’ve come to the wrong place – and shame on you!’

  ‘But …’ Jewel was miffed. ‘Baby farmers are a godsend to women like me. They offer a solution, a haven—’

  ‘What?’ Eliza gazed at her as if she were mad. ‘Them beasts are one of the great plagues of society. How can you condone – accept – the slaughtering of innocents? Commercial infanticide, that’s what it is!’

  Jewel’s mouth fell open. ‘What the divil are you talking about?’

  ‘Lass,’ interrupted Sarah quietly. ‘Baby farmers are a whole other breed of procurers – and Minnie ain’t one of them. She’s decent and respectable. Honest, not callous. To put your little one out to nurse, and to farm them out, are two different things.’

  Minnie and Eliza nodded their agreement. Still, Jewel was no closer to understanding. She shook her head, and Sarah continued:

  ‘The term “baby farmer” is used as an insult and implies improper treatment. No respectable wench would call herself so. Baby farming is an accusation, not a profession.’

  ‘That’s right,’ followed up Minnie. ‘I care for the mites I’m paid to rear or rehome, I don’t abuse and neglect them.’

  Jewel’s mind spun in her struggle to digest what she was hearing. Then Minnie spoke again, and all the blood drained from her face:

  ‘Take that Bickerstaff piece from Bolton town. A regular hell-dweller, and no mistake.’

  ‘Did you say Bickerstaff? Ada Bickerstaff?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Do you know the divil?’

  ‘Aye. She’s the procurer I went to first, months ago, but the arrangement didn’t work out.’

  ‘Then, by God,’ breathed Eliza, shaking her head, ‘yon babby here must have a guardian angel looking out for her to escape them clutches.’

  The police storming Lum Street, the children hidden away upstairs … Jewel’s breathing quickened. She was almost too afraid to ask. ‘How do youse know of her?’

  The old woman wrinkled her nose as though smelling something unpleasant. ‘Her name’s been in every newspaper in the land – strikes horror still into the hearts of all good and decent folk it does, an’ all. I mean, there’s been a few sensational cases regarding this in t’ press over the years, but nowt on this scale.’

  ‘What’s she done?’ Jewel whispered.

  ‘Murdered an untold number of babbies, that’s what.’

  No …

  ‘She opened the door one day last November to who she thought would be a customer she were waiting on, only to find two constables standing there.’

  Oh, dear God in heaven, it was true …

  ‘Top and bottom of it is,’ continued Minnie, ‘they did a search of the property. That’s when the gruesome discoveries were made: body parts wrapped in blankets in the cellar. She’d been dismembering tiny babbies down there, then feeding them to her dogs to get rid of the evidence.’

  ‘What?’ She was going to be sick.

  ‘Aye, beggars belief. Three infants were found alive still in a back bedroom, all in a pitiable state and weighing half what they should. They were removed to the workhouse but never recovered from her neglect and died soon after.’

  She’d been there. She’d lived, ate and slept beneath that roof, when all the time, right above her head, in the next room … She’d suspected nothing. Nothing. This couldn’t be happening. She was stuck in some nightmare, had to be, and would waken soon, surely?

  ‘Them angels were simply left to wilt away and die,’ Eliza was saying now, though Jewel barely heard her, with the blood crashing through her ears. ‘She deliberately forewent even the most basic of care. They were neither fed, bathed nor shown the slightest attention. It were all about the brass she got from taking them on. That’s all she wanted and, once she had it in her sweaty palm, the children were nowt but an inconvenience, for their upkeep would have only ate away at her profits. But a mistreated babby is a noisy babby, so she dosed them with “quietness” – narcotic potions and deadly syrups such as laudanum and Godfrey’s Cordial – to render them docile. The little loves didn’t stand a chance.’

  That’s why she’d hardly heard the poor souls’ cries. When she had on occasion, they were but sleepy-sounding mews. I’m so sorry, so sorry …

  ‘Seems likely she’d been carrying on her evil trade for ten years or more, could have murdered hundreds of children in all.’

  Jewel swallowed down bile. This just got worse and worse … ‘Mother of God. How was this allowed to happen?’

  ‘Well, the registration of births, live or dead, ain’t compulsory, is it? If the authorities ain’t aware of a babby’s existence, it can be got rid of without anyone knowing the difference. Besides, she moved on regular to avoid detection, changing addresses and aliases as she went. I just thank the good Lord she’s been stopped at last and can do no more poor innocents harm.’

  ‘She admitted to everything?’

  ‘Well, she didn’t have much choice, did she? The evidence were there for all to see. She made a full confession whilst in prison. She swore she never murdered them with her two hands, by strangulation, say, couldn’t bring herself to. But well, leaving them to slowly rot as she did instead is worse in my eyes. It would have took weeks for them to die. What they must have suffered …’ Minnie paused to wipe away a tear. ‘She were charged with five counts of wilful murder – all they could pin on her with the evidence they had, though she were guilty of many more, I’ll be bound – and sentenced to death.

  ‘Her defence tried claiming insanity and she were examined. They found she were sane, all right, just bleedin’ wicked to the marrow. She claimed whilst holed in the condemned cell that she’d performed but acts of charity. That the children were unwanted and she’d just sent them on to God to be looked after by Him. Bloody warped bitch. I hope she died with a struggle, an’ all, knew then how it felt. I pray that noose didn’t afford her a quick release.’

  With a shuddering sigh, Jewel dropped her head in her hands. ‘I had no idea. Truly. She practised so openly, were advertising in the paper. That’s why I believed it to be above board.’

  ‘Aye well. Reformers are fighting tooth and nail to stamp it out completely. Hopefully, they one day will.’

  ‘I just can’t … I suspected nowt, believed her to be reputable, that she were doing lasses a kindness, that’s all. I didn’t realise that to be a baby farmer was a bad thing.’

  Louise. She’d been the one to tell her that Ada Bickerstaff was one such. Was she, too, unaware of the meaning behind the title? Had to be. She must see the girl, inform her of what she’d discovered, what an incredibly lucky escape they – their children – had had.

  ‘I must go.’ She rose shakily, and Minnie handed her child across. Gazing down at the pure and harmless being in her arms, Jewel wanted to cry. I’ve wronge
d you so many times, little one, but I’ll make good in the end. I promise you. ‘Mrs Maddox, Eliza, ta ever so for telling me all you have the day. It’s made me see even more that this child here must have summat better than this, than me. Please, will you help with getting her adopted? I’ll do anything, please.’

  Minnie was silent as she looked from mother to baby with sadness. Finally, she patted Jewel’s hand and nodded. ‘All right, lass, aye. I will.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, thank you, thank you, so very much.’ All I need now is the money. And by God, I’ll get it, she thought, determination washing through her. ‘I’ll be back the morrow, Mrs Maddox. You really …’ She had to clear the tears from her throat before continuing. ‘You really don’t know what this means to me, my child. Thank you once again, from the bottom of my heart.’

  The old woman rose to see them out and, as Jewel followed her to the door, something on the sideboard against the back wall made her do a double-take. She stepped towards it and her eyebrows lifted.

  ‘My mother has this candlestick.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Aye. Very precious to her, it is. But how …?’ She glanced over her shoulder to the old woman in amazement. ‘Mam’s allus said that hers were a last gift from Father afore he passed away. She said it were ’specially made, that there’s none other like it in the whole world.’ Turning it this way and that in her hands, Jewel’s bemusement grew. Some eight inches tall, with exquisitely cut prisms … it could have passed itself off as her mother’s without a doubt. ‘It’s exactly the same. How queer.’

  Minnie’s brows had reacted, too, only hers did the opposite, dropping into a frown. ‘Aye well,’ she said. ‘Happen the designer made more than one after all.’

  ‘Aye, mebbe.’

  After the old woman had waved them off, she and Sarah lowered their heads against the cold and set off back to Canal Street. They were almost at the door when Jewel realised how quiet the other woman was and had been throughout the meeting. When she asked her if she was all right, and received but a nod from Sarah in response, she put it down to the recent shocking revelation concerning that wicked piece Bickerstaff, and left her be. She knew exactly how she felt, could barely wrap her brain around it all herself.