The Girl in the Ragged Shawl

by Cathy Sharp

  Joan glared at him. In the past he’d been only too eager to take the younger girls. She knew he liked them himself and often used them first before passing them on to his rich clients. Only if the girl was virgin and very lovely did he keep her fresh for the highest bidder.

  ‘It is all very well for you, but we had an agreement. What am I to do with her? She defies me at every turn and beating her does no good – besides, the last time she nearly died and one of the governors told me if it happened again I should lose my place here.’

  ‘That would be Stoneham, I dare swear?’ her visitor said and nodded. He swore and spat on the floor, drawing a frown from Joan. She disliked his coarse manners, and would not have admitted him to her rooms had he not proved both useful and generous in the past. ‘He never visits my place nor any other brothel from what I can gather – sanctimonious fool! He has been stirring things in the background and one of his friends spoke in the Lords for half an hour concerning young girls – the white slave trade, he called it. What else is there for little guttersnipes but lying on their backs to earn their keep? Tell me that! They get food, clothes, a warm bed and a few shillings – left to themselves they’d sell their bodies for food and gin and sleep in the gutter, so where’s the harm? I swear they’re better off in my house. Damn the Honourable Toby Rattan and his friends! Such nonsense gets into the newssheets and it makes the clients edgy. They fear exposure for many of them have reputations to lose.’

  ‘And wives and children they would not wish to know of their guilty pleasures,’ Joan said, nodding in understanding. ‘I am disappointed, sir. I had hoped you would take her off my hands.’ It was inconvenient that he’d had an attack of conscience regarding young girls. Despite putting the girl on short rations and threatening her, Eliza still looked defiant and there was a smile in her eyes that irked Joan.

  ‘You should sell her to a master who would work her until she was too exhausted to defy him.’ Her visitor smiled unpleasantly. ‘He will use her in whatever way he chooses and no one will question him, for she will be his servant, and bought from the workhouse she has no rights – or none that she knows of. The law has double standards, for if it was known he took advantage of her in my house they would deem it unlawful, but in his own, none will know or care.’

  ‘Yes …’ She smiled cruelly. ‘I could not be blamed if she died at her master’s hands. I hired her to him in good faith – in the hope and belief she would have a new and useful life.’

  ‘Exactly.’ His eyes met hers in amused agreement. ‘Once all this fuss has died down I’ll take the girls again.’

  ‘I think I’ve found the way out,’ Joe told Eliza when she joined him that night. She’d managed to find a piece of soft bread in the kitchen, which she shared with him. ‘As I thought, it’s a tunnel of sorts. Once this cellar had a chute for coal outside the walls of the house. It has become neglected, covered by debris and filled in with earth and filth – but I can dig it out with my hands and a small digging tool I stole from the vegetable garden. Someone had left it lying on the ground and I took it.’ Eliza looked at him doubtfully in the darkness. ‘Well,’ Joe protested, ‘he should’ve taken more care of it!’

  Eliza shook her head. Stealing food was punishable by restrictions and being shut up alone, but stealing a valuable tool from the vegetable plot was serious – Joe could be taken to the magistrate and sent to prison, which she’d heard from Ruth was much worse than being here. He might be birched, and he would be made to do hard work, perhaps even harder than he did now.

  ‘You must be careful, Joe.’

  He laughed. ‘I shan’t get caught. I’ve hidden it with my clothes and the key to the cellar, and, as soon as we’re ready we’ll steal some food from the kitchen and then we’ll escape at night.’

  ‘Yes, I’m ready to go,’ Eliza said. ‘Can I help you clear away the debris?’

  ‘No, for it would make your clothes filthy. I work on the rope, so no one takes notice of me, but if you got your dress dirty they would be suspicious – and it would hurt your hands.’ Joe grinned at her. ‘It won’t be long, Eliza, I promise. Another week or so and we can leave this accursed place – and I’ll put a curse on that old witch too.’

  Eliza giggled. It was fun to sit with her friend and plan their escape together. She nursed her secret inside as she went back to the dorm and snuggled up to Ruth, who was fast asleep. Eliza wasn’t sure if her friend knew she was meeting Joe, but if she did she wouldn’t tell anyone because Ruth would never do anything to hurt her. Eliza longed to escape from this place, but a part of her was reluctant to leave Ruth behind.

  ‘Mistress says you’re to wash yerself and put this on.’ Sadie thrust a dress at Eliza. It was old and worn but better than the uniform she was wearing, which had been mended so many times it had more patches than Eliza could count and marked her out as being refractory and therefore subject to punishment. ‘Be quick about it! She wants yer in her office sharpish or you’ll feel her stick.’

  ‘Am I going to church tomorrow? Is that why I’ve been given a different dress?’

  ‘How should I know?’ Sadie’s look was cunning and filled with malice. ‘Mistress never tells me what she’s goin’ ter do.’ Yet Eliza was sure she did know and was pleased.

  Ruth looked at Eliza anxiously when Sadie had gone. ‘I wonder what mistress be up to now, my lovely,’ she said. ‘’Tis not Sunday tomorrow but Saturday so it cannot be church.’

  ‘Is she goin’ to send me away somewhere?’ Eliza felt a spurt of fear. There had been a time when she’d longed for someone to come and take her away, but she was too old to be adopted by a family. They always wanted babies or very small children. So it must mean that she was to be sold as a servant. ‘I have to see Joe – I have to tell him …’

  ‘If you go to the men’s workrooms you’ll be in trouble and so will he,’ Ruth said. ‘No need to be scared, my lovely; it bain’t always bad to be taken away by a master and might be better. Some folk find good masters and a new life – better than in here.’

  ‘No! I don’t want to leave you and Joe,’ Eliza said her eyes stinging with tears she struggled to hold back. ‘Joe and me are goin’ ter run away together one day and live in the country – and you could come with us, Ruth.’

  ‘Bless you, my lovely,’ Ruth said and smiled at her. ‘I be too old for a life on the road; I know what it be like to go without food for days and never have a place to lay yer head. You’ve no idea, Eliza. As a girl of your age I worked makin’ chain for two shillin’ a week, burned by the heat of the furnace and my shoulders aching fit to break; tiny links we made, and paid by weight not length. My ma worked long hours at it for not much more than I earned, and workhouse be better than that or the open fields when ’tis cold and wet.’

  ‘I long to be free,’ Eliza said passionately not listening to her wise counsel. ‘And I want to be with Joe.’

  ‘Wash yerself and change yer dress like mistress bid yer,’ Ruth said. ‘I’ll get a message to Joe and mebbe he’ll find yer afore mistress gets her claws in yer, my lovely.’

  ‘Ruth, I love you,’ Eliza said and flung her arms about her, sobbing against her plump body.

  For a few moments Ruth held her close, her hand stroking the silky hair that was the colour of moonlight when it was fresh washed. ‘Be brave, my Eliza. If mistress be made up her mind to hire yer out, we cannot stop her. You’ve lived here all your life and she has clothed and fed you and is entitled to her fee. One day I’ll find you again, I promise. Find out the name of the master you be sold to and tell Joe afore you leave. I’ll come lookin’ fer yer one day – and if I can’t, then Joe will know where you be.’

  ‘I don’t want to go! I hate her but I want to stay with Joe and you.’ Eliza’s tears streamed down her face.

  Ruth let go and held her away from her. ‘Wash yerself well, Eliza, and don’t let her see yer tears, for it’s that will pleasure her. Remember, you’ve got friends and one day we’ll see each other again.’
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  Washing herself with the coarse soap and scrubbing her fingers through her hair until her scalp tingled, Eliza wondered about her new master. Would he be like Master Simpkins, who mostly abided by the rules and treated the men better than his sister treated the women in her ward? If he was fair and did not beat her, then Eliza would not mind working for him long enough to repay her bond – though she did not know how many years that would take.

  If she could just talk to Joe before she left, make certain he knew that she did not want to leave him and was ready to go away with him when the time was right, she would not mind so very much.

  Eliza had not realised what it would feel like to be inspected by the man who had purchased her from the mistress. He was not a tall man, but he was very fat with little piggy eyes that seemed to bore into her, stripping away her clothes and leaving her vulnerable. First of all he walked round her, nodding to himself, and he touched her hair, which had sprung into natural waves now that it had dried after the scrubbing Eliza had administered. Then he stood in front of her and told her to open her mouth; when she did not obey instantly his eyes narrowed and a cold shiver went down her spine: this was not a kind man.

  ‘I said open your mouth. I want to see if you have your teeth and are healthy.’

  ‘She is not a horse,’ Mistress Simpkins said and for the first time ever Eliza felt gratitude towards her. ‘You can see she is young, strong and clean – do you want her or not? I can sell a girl like this six times over for as much as you offered and perhaps more.’

  His mean little eyes narrowed but he nodded and flicked Eliza’s ear with his finger. ‘I’ll take her as she is then – she looks strong enough and my wife needs a servant for she is carryin’ her fourth child in as many years and has no strength.’

  ‘Make sure you work her hard,’ the mistress said with a look of menace at Eliza. ‘She can be troublesome unless you’re firm – so do not feed her too well and beat her if she disobeys you.’

  ‘I’ve me own ways of taming a wild cat,’ the man said and took hold of Eliza’s arm firmly. ‘I’m Fred Roberts but you call me master and you do as you’re told or I’ll flay the skin from yer back – do yer understand, girl?’

  Eliza inclined her head. She couldn’t speak for if she did she would weep and beg the mistress to keep her. Mistakenly, she’d believed that nothing could be worse than her life at the workhouse, but seeing the glitter in the man’s eyes told Eliza that she was about to discover how bad things could really be.

  Lifting her head proudly, she looked once at the mistress who had sold her and then turned to follow her new master. As they left the office, Joe came hurtling at them, grabbing at Eliza’s arm.

  ‘Fred Roberts – tell Ruth,’ she whispered giving him a look of appeal. ‘I don’t want to go!’

  ‘I won’t let him take you,’ he cried and tried to tow her away but her new master raised his arm and sent Joe flying with one heavy blow. Eliza screamed and bent over him as he lay on the floor. She whispered in his ear before she was yanked to her feet by her hair and forcibly propelled from the workhouse, into the courtyard.

  Tears were on Eliza’s cheek as she looked back and saw Joe stumble out into the courtyard after them. He raised his hand and placed it over his heart and Eliza did the same, passing the message that only they understood. She did not know if Joe had heard what she whispered as he lay stunned on the ground, but it hardly mattered. She’d been sold to this man and it seemed he owned her, just as if she were a horse or a cow.

  Eliza knew nothing of laws or of men who sat in parliament and made speeches about the foul trade in young children sold to brutal masters, of young girls imprisoned in brothels and made to serve men until their bodies were diseased and their minds gone. She did not know that one person had no right to own another, nor that there were rules to protect her. In the workhouse the mistress sold women and children for pieces of silver or gold and there was no one to stop her. For that there would need to be proof – and who would believe the word of a little guttersnipe? The mistress had the right to charge for the clothes any inmate was discharged in, and if she chose to put a high price on them who could challenge her?

  Eliza’s mind was filled with terror as she was thrust into a cart and told to lie on the straw in the back. Warned that she would be pursued and thrashed until the blood ran if she tried to escape, she was frozen, numbed into obedience. The straw was filthy and smelled of the pig that had been transported from the market.

  In her terror, Eliza thought death might be preferable to the unknown future because she was being torn from all she’d known her whole life, from her friends Ruth, Cook, and from Joe, her special friend. The memory of those nights spent whispering together seemed like a golden time, now ripped from her, leaving her bereft. There was a huge black hole of misery inside her as she wept. What was going to happen to her now? Her new master had threatened beatings but somehow it was not the thought of physical pain that caused her to shake – it was the sense of being alone, without Ruth and the other inmates. Now she was alone in a harsh world and she was afraid.

  Eliza was taken to a back lane in a dingy area of the city. Everything, the buildings, pavements, windows were blackened by smoke and the gutters were filthy, running with rain filled with debris that had been thrown out. A dog was hunting for scraps and a mangy cat sat on a windowsill and hissed at it. She had no idea of where she was, but she knew that the stench was worse than anything she’d ever come in contact with before. Her master told her that the large building at the end of the lane was a tannery.

  ‘It’s where they cure animal hides to make leather and the stink is worse in summer,’ he told her. ‘You’ll get used to it – there are worse smells, believe me. Wait until the fishmonger tips his waste in the gutters. That stinks to high heaven, but the rats soon clear it – and the meat goes bad in the hot weather sometimes, particularly the offal. I sell as much as I can, but some folk won’t touch it even fer a farthin’.’

  The house she was taken to was fronted by a butcher’s shop, which was just one room with shutters that opened up to the pavement; she could already smell the blood and a lingering bad odour that turned her stomach and even though she tried hard, she couldn’t stop herself retching as he propelled her through the back yard to the kitchen door. The sight of her bringing up her meagre breakfast as she vomited in the yard made him roar with laughter.

  Eliza wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stared at him resentfully. She hated him already, more than she hated Mistress Simpkins, and wished herself back in the workhouse. Ruth had been right when she told her that the workhouse was not so bad. Despite all the suffering she’d endured at the mistress’s hands, Eliza would have given anything to be back in the workhouse now.

  She was thrust into a large kitchen, his large hand at her back. There were thick grey stone flags on the floor and two long tables, one at either end. One was being used for baking by a stout woman dressed in a grey gown covered by a white apron, streaked with stains of the food she had prepared over many days; she was sprinkling flour liberally everywhere and it had spilled on the filthy floor. The other table was clearly a thick wooden chopping board and an array of knives and hatchets were in readiness. She could see that it was wet and had been scrubbed recently, but it was scored and there were deep marks where the hatchet had made ruts and these ruts still held bits of bone and blood, which smelled foul; Eliza’s stomach turned again, though this time she had nothing left to bring up.

  ‘See to her, Mags,’ her master said to the woman and gave Eliza a slap on her backside. ‘I’ve wasted enough time. Give her a slap if she’s any trouble. I’d best see what that fool of a boy of mine is up to or I’ll lose all me profits, and watch what you’re doin’ with that flour!’ He grabbed Eliza’s arm and shoved her forward so violently she almost fell at the feet of the woman he’d called Mags.

  He went through a door, which Eliza realised must lead into the shop, and she caught a glimpse of carc
asses hanging up on thick iron hooks and a heavy wooden counter. The smell of blood and meat was so strong that she felt her stomach heave and ran to the stone sink under the window, hanging over it as she retched. but nothing came up.

  ‘It got me that way too, fer a start,’ the woman named Mags said mockingly. ‘You’ll get used to it in time, girl. It ain’t pleasant workin’ ’ere ’specially in summer, but at least there’s a roof over our heads and enough food. Master gives me meat to make pies and stews, and ’tis always fresh for he won’t eat the stuff what’s gone off – though there’s many that will take it a bit on the turn if it’s cheap.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll ever want to eat meat again,’ Eliza groaned and Mags laughed, her double chins waggling.

  ‘Aye, I felt that way at the start, but you get over it. My pie has tasty gravy and you should eat what yer can, for if he sees yer waste good food he’ll be angry.’

  ‘I don’t care if he beats me. I wish I was dead.’

  ‘Now then, girl, ’tis foolish to talk that way.’ Mags looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You’re no good to me while you’re still pukin’ so I’ll give you a glass of my lemon barley water and a currant bun. That should ease your stomach and then we’ll get you settled.’

  Eliza nodded, because at least this woman didn’t frighten her. She was like some of the older women in the workhouse, capable, with a weathered face that told of long-suffering, and dark hair streaked with grey that she wore pulled back into a knot at the back of her head, covered with a white cap that had seen better days. Her tone was harsh and there was no kindness in her, but thus far she had refrained from hitting her.

  ‘Where am I to sleep?’ Eliza asked looking about her.

  ‘You’ll sleep with me in the attic when we’ve finished for the day,’ Mags said. ‘Master, his son and the mistress have the only bedrooms on the upper floor, ’cos she won’t sleep with ’im. She says he stinks of meat and so he ’as his own room, though he goes to her when he’s a mind to it whether she will or no – three children that poor woman’s had, not counting the one she’s carryin’, and only one lad lived. God knows how many miscarriages she’s had in-between. You’d think he’d let her rest now, but he’s always at her like a ruttin’ ram.’