by Cathy Sharp
Now, she glared at her brother. ‘That wretched girl accused me of causing that stupid boy’s death. I had to make an example of her. If I hadn’t nipped it in the bud there would’ve been a rebellion. If something like that reached the ears of that interfering man Arthur Stoneham …’
‘Well, well, I daresay you had your reasons. However, Mr Stoneham has been very generous to us, Joan. He paid for the installation of new water pipes and we’ve not had a return of the cholera since then. He has granted us money towards some very necessary repairs to the roof and that will give the men work for weeks and us extra money.’
It was all right for her brother, Joan thought resentfully. Robbie was weak and lazy. He always took his cut of any money that came in. The funds for running the workhouses were raised by taxing the wealthy, which caused some dissent, but others saw it as a good thing that vagrants were taken off the streets, and made donations voluntarily. Joan did not share in her brother’s perks and was only able to save a few pence on the food and clothing she supplied to the women and children in her ward. If it were not for her other little schemes she would not have a growing hoard of gold coins in her secret place.
Joan hated living in the workhouse. The inmates stank and their hair often crawled with lice when they were admitted. Most of them obeyed the rules to keep themselves clean, but there were always some who were too lazy to bother. It was all very well for Mr Stoneham and the doctor to say the inmates should be given more opportunities to bathe. Heating water cost money and so did the soap she grudgingly gave her wards. She needed to pocket some of the funds she was given for their upkeep, because one day she intended to leave this awful place.
Joan had dreams of living in a nice house with servants to wait on her, and perhaps a little business. Once, she’d hoped she might find a man to marry her, but she was now over thirty and plain. Men never turned their heads when she walked by in the market and she resented pretty women who had everything given to them; like the woman who had brought that rebellious brat in and begged her to keep her safe from harm.
‘One day I’ll come back and pay you in gold and take her with me,’ the woman had promised, her eyes filled with tears.
She’d crossed Joan’s hands with four silver florins and placed the squalling brat in her arms. As soon as she’d gone, Joan had given the brat to one of the inmates and told her to look after it. She’d told Ruth that the child had been brought in by a doctor, though she hardly knew why she lied. Perhaps because she liked secrets and she’d believed then that the woman would return and pay to take the girl with her. She’d kept the girl all these years, refusing two offers to buy her, because of the woman’s promise, but the years had passed and the girl was nearly thirteen. She was a nuisance and caused more trouble than she was worth. It was time to start thinking what best to do with her …
Eliza paused in the act of stirring the large tub of hot water and soda. A load of clothes had been dumped into it earlier and it was Eliza’s job to use the wooden dolly stick she’d been given to help release the dirt from clothes that had been worn too long. They smelled of sweat, urine and excrement where the inmates wiped themselves for lack of anything else, and added to the general stench of the workhouse.
It was steamy and hot in the laundry, though the stone floors could be very cold in winter, especially if your feet were bare, and Eliza had been set to work here again once she recovered from her ordeal in the cellar. So far she’d been asked to stir the very hot water and then help one of the other women to transfer the steaming clothes to a tub of cold water for rinsing. Eliza wasn’t yet strong enough to turn the mangle they used to take out the excess liquid before the washing was hung to dry on lines high above their heads, which were operated by means of a pulley.
‘Watch it, girl,’ a cackling laugh announced the approach of Sadie, the oldest inmate of the workhouse. She’d been here so many years she couldn’t remember any other life. ‘Mistress be in a terrible rage this mornin’.’
Eliza looked at the older woman in apprehension. Sadie was handy with her fists on occasion and Eliza had felt the brunt of her temper more than once. She was the only one that didn’t seem to fear the mistress and was seldom picked on by her.
‘I’ve done nothin’ wrong, Sadie,’ Eliza said. ‘Do you know what has upset her?’
‘I knows the master took in a boy this mornin’ – a gypsy lad he be, dirty and rough-mannered, and mistress be told to have him bathed and feed him. She can’t abide gypsies.’
‘What exactly is a gypsy? I’ve heard the word but do not know what it means.’
‘They be travellin’ folk,’ Molly, another inmate, said coming up to them with an armful of dirty washing. They ain’t always dirty nor yet rough-mannered. I’ve known some, what be kind and can heal the sick.’
Sadie scowled and spat on the floor. ‘You’m be a dirty little whore yerself,’ she snarled and walked off.
‘Sadie’s in her usual cheerful mood.’ Molly winked at Eliza. ‘Do you want a hand with the rinsing, Eliza love?’
‘Would you help me?’ Eliza asked hopefully. ‘Sadie is supposed to give me a hand lifting the clothes into the tub of cold water, but she gets out of it whenever she can.’
‘You’re too small and slight for such work, little Eliza,’ Molly said and grinned at her. ‘And I’m too big.’ She laughed and looked at her belly, because she was close to giving birth again. Molly had been to the workhouse three times to give birth since Eliza had been here and each time she’d departed afterwards, leaving the baby in Mistress Simpkins’ care. Ruth had told her that the warden sold the babies to couples who had no children of their own.
Since workhouse children who were found new lives were thought to be lucky, no one sanctioned the mistress for disposing of the babies as she chose.
‘You might hurt yourself,’ Eliza said as Molly took up the wooden tongs. ‘If you lift something too heavy it might bring on the birth too soon.’
‘What difference?’ Molly shrugged. ‘If the babe be dead it will be one less soul born to misery and pain.’
Eliza looked up at her. ‘Would you not like to keep your child and love it?’
‘They wouldn’t let me. I should have to leave the whorehouse and I have nowhere else to go and no other way of earning my living,’ Molly said and pain flickered in her eyes. ‘They own me, Eliza love, body and soul.’ She smiled as she saw Eliza was puzzled. ‘You don’t understand, and I pray to God that you never will.’
‘If you are unhappy why don’t you go far away?’ Eliza asked. ‘When I’m older I shall go away, go somewhere there are flowers and trees and fields …’
‘What do you know of such things?’ Molly laughed as she started to transfer clothes from the steaming hot tub to the vat of cold water.
‘Ruth’s father was a tinker and they used to travel the roads. He found work where he could and they lived off the land, foraging for food and workin’ for what they could not catch or pick from the hedges.’
‘And where did that get them?’ Molly said wryly. ‘He took ill one winter and was forced to bring them into the workhouse. Ruth Jones has watched all her family die, one by one, and now what does she have to look forward to? It be a life of toil in the workhouse unless she be given work outside – and when men come looking for a servant we all know what they want.’ Eliza shook her head and Molly laughed. ‘No, you be innocent as a new-born lamb, little one, but that won’t last – and when you understand the choice you’ll know why I choose the whorehouse.’
Eliza did not answer. She did not consider that Molly was free, for Ruth had told her the whorehouse was no better than the workhouse, even though the food was more plentiful and at least Molly had decent clothes and was able to wash when she wanted.
‘You, girl – come here!’
Eliza jumped because she’d had not noticed the mistress approaching. She left the rinsing to Molly and went to stand in front of the mistress, but instead of hanging her head as most of the in
mates did, she looked her in the face and saw for herself that Sadie was right: mistress was in a foul mood.
‘There’s a boy,’ Mistress Simpkins said, looking at Eliza with obvious dislike. ‘He’s filthy and disobedient and refuses to answer me. Tell Ruth to scrub him with carbolic and give him some clothes. I want him presentable – and in a mood to answer when spoken to; if he refuses he will have no supper. You know that I mean what I say.’
‘Yes.’ Eliza’s eyes met hers. She knew all too well that Mistress Simpkins gained pleasure from punishing those unfortunate enough to arouse her ire. ‘I’ll find Ruth – what is the boy’s name, please?’
‘His name is Joe, so I am told, but he refuses to answer to it.’ Mistress Simpkins’ eyes gleamed. ‘You might tell him what happened to you, girl.’
Eliza met her gloating look with one of pride. If it had been Mistress Simpkins’ intention to break her by shutting her in the cellar her plan had misfired. The horror she had endured had just made her hate the warden more and she was determined to defy her silently, giving her nothing she could use to administer more unjust punishment.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I might …’
‘You impertinent little bitch!’ Mistress Simpkins raised her hand as if she would strike but Molly made a move towards her and something in her manner made the mistress back away. ‘Get off and do as I tell you or you will feel the stick on your back.’
Eliza ran off, leaving the clammy heat of the washhouse to dash across the icy yard to the kitchen. She knew that if Molly hadn’t been there to witness it, Mistress Simpkins would have struck her. Molly had some status in the workhouse. Eliza didn’t know what it was but she thought perhaps the master favoured her.
She found Ruth in the kitchen helping Cook prepare vegetables and told her what the mistress had instructed her to do. Ruth nodded, for she was used to being given such tasks. Mistress Simpkins always passed on the children she could not be bothered with herself, and it was usually Ruth that had the task of caring for them.
‘Let’s fetch the lad here,’ she told Eliza with a smile. ‘We’ll give him a drop of the master’s stew – is that all right with you, Cook?’
‘Aye, Ruth lass. Let the boy get some food inside him and he’ll feel more like talkin’.’ Cook smiled at them. ‘I daresay you wouldn’t mind a drop of my soup, Eliza love? No need for the mistress to know. She grudges every penny she spends on our food, but she dare not question what I spend on the master’s dinners.’ She winked at them. ‘A little deception does no harm now and then. What say you, Eliza?’
‘I don’t want you to get into trouble or Ruth …’
‘Nay, lass, there’ll be no trouble. Mistress knows if I left she could not replace me. There’s not many would work here for the pittance they pay. So she would have to do the cooking herself or get another inmate to do it and none of them have the first idea how to start so I’m safe enough.’
Eliza smiled and took the bowl of soup Cook offered, drinking it down quickly as if she feared Mistress Simpkins might appear and snatch it from her.
‘Lawks a’ mercy,’ Cook said. ‘You’ll get hiccups, girl. Off with the pair of yer and let me get on or there’ll be no soup for the men.’
Ruth winked at Eliza as they left the kitchen. ‘She’s not a bad woman, Eliza for all her sharp tongue at times.’
‘I like Cook,’ Eliza said and smiled, the goodness of the soup giving her a lovely warmth inside. ‘Sadie said the new boy was a gypsy – his family travel, like yours, Ruth.’
‘My father was a tinker. He mended pots and pans and did odd jobs of any sort, but he wasn’t Romany,’ Ruth told her. ‘The true Romany is special, Eliza. The women often have healin’ powers – and the men are handsome and strong, and some of them could charm the birds from the trees.’
‘Perhaps Joe is Romany,’ Eliza said. She pointed across the wide, cobbled courtyard, swept clean every morning by the older boys no matter the weather. It was bounded by high walls with only one way out: a pair of strong iron gates that were impossible to scale. ‘Look, that must be him, standing near the gates.’
‘Aye, the poor lad be feelin’ shut in,’ Ruth said and there was pity in her tone. ‘I mind my father standin’ like that for many a month afore he grew accustomed to this terrible place.’
‘Doesn’t he know that he can’t leave unless his father comes for him – or unless he’s taken by a master?’
‘If he knows, he won’t admit it in his heart,’ Ruth said. ‘A lad like that needs to be free to run in the fields and breathe fresh country air.’
‘I’ll go to him.’ Eliza set off at a run, ignoring Ruth’s murmured warning to take care. As she approached, the boy turned and looked at her, glaring and angry, his blue eyes smouldering with suppressed rage. ‘Are you Joe?’ Eliza asked. ‘I’m Eliza. I was brought here when I was a babe. It is a terrible place but I’m goin’ to leave one day and then I’ll go far away, somewhere there are fields and wild flowers in the hedges.’
‘You don’t know where to find them,’ the boy said, and Eliza was startled by the sound of his voice that had a lilting quality. ‘You’re not Romany.’
‘No – are you?’ He inclined his head, his eyes focused on her so intently that Eliza’s heart jumped. ‘I think I should like to live as you did – travellin’ from place to place.’
‘In the winter it be hard,’ he said. ‘Ma took sick again this winter and Pa came to Lun’un lookin’ for a warm place to stay for her and work – but they said he was a dirty gypsy and a thief and they put him in prison for startin’ a fight, which he never did.’ His eyes glittered like ice in the sun. ‘My Pa never stole in his life nor did harm to any. He be an honest man and good – I hate them and all their kind.’
‘So do I,’ Eliza said and moved a little closer. ‘Master is not too bad as long as you don’t disobey him openly – but mistress is spiteful and cruel and she’s boss of her brother. I hate her so much. I should like to kill her.’ Eliza made a stabbing movement with her hand. ‘See, she’s fallen down dead.’
A slow smile spread across the newcomer’s face. ‘I like you, Eliza,’ he said. ‘Shall we kill her together?’
‘Yes, Joe – one day, when we’re bigger and stronger,’ Eliza said. ‘For now we have to do as she says – or pretend to. Let her think she rules, but she can’t rule our hearts and minds – she can’t break us even if she beats us. If you come with Ruth and me, Cook will give you some of the master’s stew. It’s good, much better than they give us. Mistress said we shouldn’t feed you until you were bathed and changed your clothes, but Cook said you should eat first. Will you come?’
‘I’ll come for you,’ Joe said. ‘You’re pretty – like my ma. She’s beautiful, but the travellin’ don’t suit her and she be ill in the winter.’
‘Where is your ma?’ Eliza offered her hand and he took it, his grip strong and possessive. Her eyes opened wide and she seemed to feel something pass between them, a bond that was not spoken or acknowledged but felt by both.
‘Bathsheba took her to Ireland,’ Joe told her. ‘She’s Pa’s sister and travels with us, though she has her own caravan. They wanted me to go with them but I ran away to be near my pa. When I can I shall visit him in prison and let him know I be waitin’ for him.’
‘You will need to get away from here,’ Eliza said. ‘How did they catch you?’
‘I went to the prison gates and demanded to see my pa; they tried to send me away but I refused and kept shouting at them. They sent the constable to arrest me and he brought me here because I had no money and nowhere to stay and he said I be a vagrant.’
‘They won’t let you go unless your pa comes for you or a master takes you,’ Eliza said with the wisdom of a child reared in the workhouse. ‘You could try to escape. Not many do because it’s hard out there, so they tell us. I’ve never been anywhere …’ Eliza’s eyes filled with tears, for there were times when she ached to be free of this place. Joe reached out to her, smoothing
her tears away with his fingers.
‘You shouldn’t cry. You should just hate them. You’re be too pretty to cry, Eliza. Your hair’s like spun silk … My ma has hair like yours but ’tis darker, not as silver as yours.’ He smiled at her and leaned his head closer. ‘When I escape I’ll take you with me.’
‘Oh yes, please let me come with you,’ Eliza begged. ‘We could go and live in the fields and you can show me where the wild flowers grow.’
Joe nodded and then scowled. ‘I be hungry. ’Tis ages since I’ve eaten more than a crust of bread. I’ll wash ’cos I don’t like nits in my hair – but I want my own clothes. Can you wash them for me and give them back? If she gets them I’ll have to ask her for them before I leave and she wouldn’t let me go for I am too young to be alone on the streets – at least that’s what they claim.’
‘Yes, I can do that for you,’ Eliza said, though if she was caught stealing from the laundry she would be beaten. ‘You’ll have to wear what you’re given for now, but you can hide your things and then when you escape, you can wear them.’
‘You’re a bright girl,’ Joe said and smiled. ‘Can you read and write, Eliza?’
‘Rector taught us to write our names once and Ruth helped me practice, but I can’t read,’ Eliza admitted and the smile left her eyes. ‘Mistress never lets me take lessons with the vicar now. She says all I need to know is how to address my betters.’
