‘Christopher!’ the voice yelled.
‘It be my neighbour, Lottie,’ Christopher realised. ‘She don’t sound good.’
‘Let’s be going,’ Harriet said, leading the way back down the rock, minding her path as best the light would permit.
‘Christopher—I’ve been looking all over for you—it be your mother—she’s catched hurt,’ Lottie exclaimed breathlessly when they reached her.
‘What’s gone on?’ Christopher demanded.
‘Fell off her horse—smashed her leg into bits,’ Lottie cried. ‘It’s just plain awful; she be wailing like a goose.’
‘Lead the way,’ Christopher instructed.
The three of them sped through the darkness at a gallop, as the sounds and smells from the Priory Ground burgeoned around them. They raced through the labyrinth of shady narrow passageways that cut between cottages and yards, instinctively navigating around the foul rivers of effluence.
As they neared Christopher’s house, the entangled noises emanating from the Black Horse merged with the deathly shrieks of Widow Elphick. Finally, they turned the corner beside Mr Ranger’s blacksmith’s shop and were confronted by a wall of shawls and Garrick coats. Widow Elphick’s squawks were immediately met with the low murmur of soothing compassion from those who surrounded her.
‘Mother!’ Christopher yelled.
The wall of coats miraculously parted as grave, concerned faces, hauntingly lit by the reed lights in their owners’ clenched hands, looked in his direction.
Christopher fell to his mother’s side, as another anguished yelp rose painfully into the night sky. Harriet saw a man in a bottle-green coat and long black boots—presumably the surgeon—on his knees beside her tying a tourniquet around her upper thigh. She had just glimpsed the grotesque sight of an open case bearing unimaginable tools and instruments, that looked like they should be hanging in Mr Ranger’s forge, when the babbling circle around Widow Elphick drew tighter; Harriet was forced to take a step backwards and could no longer see anything other than the tall stove-pipe hat of the gentleman in front.
Balancing herself on tiptoes, Harriet watched as Christopher was jostled clear and the brawny fishermen Mr Cooper, Mr Mann and Mr Piper stepped in to hold down the poor Widow Elphick.
Harriet thrust her hands over her eyes as the surgeon picked up a gleaming knife and sliced into Widow Elphick’s exposed thigh.
The crowd suddenly gasped, several turned their heads and some even covered their ears at the incredible howl emitted by the stricken woman.
When the crying subsided for an instant, Harriet took one more look and immediately wished that she hadn’t; she just caught the moment when the surgeon picked up his ebony-handled steel saw and began hacking through Widow Elphick’s thighbone. Harriet shut her eyes and covered her ears, wondering if anyone within a twenty-mile radius hadn’t heard the desperate yelps and cries. She had seen and heard enough; she hurried from the gruesome scene, taking the longer route back home so as to carry herself out of earshot as quickly as possible.
As soon as the Black Horse came into view Harriet knew that she was in trouble. The gin palace was all but empty and what few customers had remained loitered outside, animatedly discussing the fate of Widow Elphick. Amid the crowd was her own mother, tightly pulling ten-year-old Ann into the folds of her dress. Harriet could see that Ann was sobbing. She could also see that her mother was furious.
‘Fegs! Where have you been, girl? I’ll be blamed, you was supposed to be looking after your sisters,’ her mother bawled. ‘I be a-needing to be with my poor friend!’
Harriet had to think fast. If she confessed to having sneaked out she would be in no end of trouble for leaving her sisters by themselves. ‘Sorry, Ma. I be a-hearing a God-forsaken cry and went to see the cause of the bother,’ she began, ‘and I be finding poor Widow Elphick in a terrible state, so I be fetching Christopher.’
Harriet watched her mother scurry along the alley to be with Widow Elphick; their long-lasting friendship had been cemented in their childhood and Widow Elphick’s very presence here was down to her mother.
‘We was scared, Hattie,’ Ann said quietly. ‘There were an horrible noise.’
‘It be alright,’ she reassured her with a gentle squeeze, leading her by the hand and slipping through the open street door into the parlour. When she closed the door behind them, the wails of Widow Elphick all but disappeared.
Harriet sighed deeply, grateful to have protected her secret life for a little longer.
Chapter Five
14th February 1827, The Priory Ground, outside Hastings, Sussex
The parlour in the Lovekins’ dwelling-house was, like most on the Priory Ground, small and sparsely furnished; it comprised a fire, sofa, decorative dresser, looking glass, clock, four chairs and a square chestnut table, at which the three Lovekin girls now sat in their colourless frocks. They were quietly eating their breakfast of herring, eggs and bread. That the table only seated four people necessitated that the family ate at separate times; the children would always eat first, followed by Joseph and Eliza, a fact which much rankled Harriet, who believed that she was now of an age to be dining with her parents and not with her younger sisters. She looked at the pair of them incredulously. Little Ann, timid and frightened of her own reflection, pushed her egg around the plate not having eaten a single morsel and Keziah—she was fifteen now—attacking her herring like some wild beast devouring a carcass: the pair of them, in their own peculiar ways, dismayed her.
‘Keziah,’ Harriet whispered angrily across the table. ‘Eat proper.’
Keziah looked up and ran a greasy hand through her fringe, removing the hair that covered her eyes. ‘What be your problem, Hattie?’
Sitting with his back to them beside the fire skinning a rabbit, their father turned, his eyes flitting between the girls.
‘Pa, at what age can I be eating with you and Ma?’ Harriet ventured, tucking into her breakfast. She didn’t dare cast a look in his direction; he was a splintered and unpredictable man with a volcanic temperament.
Joseph, in his forty-third year, had retained the good looks of his youth; the scars and a few emerging wrinkles, each with their own story to tell, rested around eyes with irises so dark as to appear almost black. ‘You be wanting to be treated more of an adult, Hattie?’ he asked.
Harriet stole a quick glance at him, but could not determine how he had taken her question. ‘That be right, Pa.’
Joseph tugged on his short beard solemnly. ‘What say you earn it? Your Ma is completely worn out by all the work here, in the Horse and now with ole Widow Elphick to mind. You could be taking on more of that?’
‘Yes, Pa,’ she answered. Already helping around the house, she hoped that her father was about to put her to use in the Black Horse. The very idea that she might get to meet—and speak to—the eclectic mixture of clientele attracted to the gin palace (even those of dubious character) sent a thrill through her body. She sat up sharply, unable to contain a small smile.
An earnest nod from her father, then, ‘Good, you can start today with Widow Elphick. You be doing good there, then we see what comes about.’
Harriet forced herself to maintain the smile, despite her initial excitement evaporating before her eyes. Working for Widow Elphick was a dreadful prospect; she was the same age as her mother but was a hard, shrivelled woman who since her husband’s death many years ago had been marinating in the juices of bitterness and spitefulness.
A thin, mocking smile spread across Keziah’s face and Harriet sent her foot sharply into her shin. Keziah winced but knew better than to vocalise her pain. She glowered at Harriet, then returned to stripping herring flesh from the bones.
‘Go to the Horse and tell your Ma,’ her father directed.
Harriet, under the watchful gaze of her two sisters and father, stood from the table, wordlessly pulled on her black and red shawl and stepped outside.
Spirals of grey, white and black pirouetted from every
chimney on the Priory Ground, as the last vestiges of night and all of the foul and flagitious happenings that had accompanied it ebbed away; shutters clattered open and chamber pots were discarded into the alleyways below. A ripe sun, which sat tentatively on the horizon, coated the rooftops in a warm amber hue. Herring gulls and black-headed gulls squawked and cawed noisily from the shore, as they picked among the stones.
It took Harriet a moment to adjust to the brightness after the gloom from within the house. She took a long breath of air and instantly wished that she hadn’t; the stench from the piggeries and the streams of filthy water were especially pungent first thing in the morning.
She found her mother vigorously sweeping the sand from the bare wooden floor of the saloon, a haze of dust whipping around the room like a small hurricane.
‘Hello,’ her mother greeted, a hint of surprise in her voice. She stopped sweeping and ran her sleeve across the small buds of sweat on her forehead. ‘What you be doing in here?’
Harriet cleared her throat, placed her hands behind her back and chose her words carefully. ‘Well, I be talking to Pa and we think—since I be growing up and all—that I be doing more about the place…’
Eliza eyed Harriet suspiciously. ‘Come on, don’t beat the devil round the gooseberry bush, I’ve work to be done.’
‘So, I be helping Widow Elphick out about the house so you don’t be having to,’ Harriet explained.
Eliza sniffed and wiped more sweat from her face. ‘I see. And what do you be getting in return, I wonder?’
Harriet shrugged. ‘Not to be looked upon as a little girl no more.’
A simple nod came from her mother. ‘Fetch two pails of water—one for here and one for Widow Elphick. Off you go,’ her mother ordered, smacking the birch broom into the floor and sending a great eruption of sand into the air.
Collecting the pails from one of the two rooms used for storage above the gin palace, Harriet marched assuredly towards the stream. She cut through the narrow passageways and twittens, now glazed in sunlight and devoid of all nocturnal wickedness, until the gurgling and whooshing of running water reached her ears. The Priory stream, wide and fast flowing, was held in particular reverence; not only did it provide the occupants of the Priory Ground water for drinking, cooking and washing, it was also the very reason for their existence here, denoting as it did their eastern boundary with the town and governance of Hastings.
Harriet approached the water’s edge and coolly acknowledged the half-a-dozen women gathered there stooping, filling and gossiping, for some of whom she had vague prior knowledge. Their conversation petered out as they eyed her distrustfully. Harriet ignored them and plunged the first pail into the depths of the stream, the ice-cold water shocking her as it rushed over her hands. She placed the pail carefully beside her and went to fill the next. As she did so, she looked up at the gaggle of women and watched with a hint of mirth as they hastily averted their gaze and attempted to rekindle the embers of the conversation that her presence had temporarily extinguished.
She went to turn her focus back to the task in hand when something caught her attention. Just beyond the Priory Bridge, a lone male figure stood staring in her direction. He held her gaze for longer than he might, owing to the fact that his poise and appearance conveyed that he was not from the Priory Ground; he was handsomely dressed and had the countenance of someone of importance. Harriet squinted and demanded more detail from the distant figure than her eyes could furnish.
Holding the second pail in the stream, she watched as the water quickly rushed in and spilled over her hand. She withdrew it, bent to pick the other up then set about her return journey. She turned one last time to glimpse the stranger on the hill, but he had vanished, as if he were only ever a creation of her own imagining.
Harriet arrived at the Black Horse exhausted. Her arms and hands were aching terribly but she was determined not to show it. She would not be beaten on her first foray into being treated as an adult.
Her mother arched an eyebrow and seemed suitably impressed so far. ‘I were expecting half pails on your first go,’ she commented with a wry smile.
Once she had set the water down, Harriet took a surreptitious glance at the insides of her fingers: stark, bloodless and white. She watched as her mother took one of the pails and began to sluice the floor. ‘I be off to Widow Elphick’s, then,’ Harriet said, hoping that her mother might have other more pressing jobs for her to attend to here.
A nodded agreement was all that Harriet received before her mother began to thrust a mop backwards and forwards over the wet floor.
Harriet found the street door and all of the window shutters on Widow Elphick’s house closed and thought for a moment about what to do. She had watched her mother do a particular kind of knock then simply enter the house without invitation. Could she also show the same informality? The alternative, to knock and wait was absurd; since the accident, Widow Elphick had been confined to bed and couldn’t come to the door even if she were so minded. Harriet knew that Christopher would be busy serving as an apprentice shoemaker to Mr Brazier, so she felt that she really had no choice in the matter. Tapping the door twice in quick succession, she lifted the latch and pushed it open. ‘Widow Elphick? Harriet Lovekin here. Can I be a-coming in?’ Harriet placed her head inside the parlour and strained her ear. Nothing. ‘Widow Elphick?’ she called again.
No response came and a sudden flash in her mind that perhaps Widow Elphick had fallen out of bed and was injured on the floor sent a cold shiver down Harriet’s spine. The image of her crippled body lying beside her bed was enough for Harriet to step into the house. Inside was dark and chilled; the fire grate held nothing more than a pile of ivory-white ash. Harriet closed the street door and listened. Nothing. She called out again but still heard nothing.
Setting down the pail of water, Harriet made her way to the bottom of the thin wooden staircase. ‘Widow Elphick? Do you be alright?’ She paused and then, with her heart beginning to thump, began a slow ascent of the stairs. Widow Elphick’s house was, like the Lovekin home, built of a simple timber construction. Upstairs Harriet found two bedrooms, both with their doors firmly shut. Taking a chance, she knocked on the backroom door then gently pushed it open.
She had chosen the correct room. There, sitting in bed wearing a white petticoat and a contemptuous look on her face, was Widow Elphick. ‘Certain-sure, I don’t be knowing what you’re a-doing in my bedroom, Miss Lovekin. If I weren’t bethered, I’d give you a darned good hiding,’ she barked. Great globules of spittle flew from her mouth as she spoke and her eyes were vexed with deep rage.
Harriet flinched, dumbfounded. Despite being the same age as her mother, Widow Elphick could easily have been twenty years her senior.
‘Well? What you sowing gape seed at? Your Pa will be a-giving you such a dish of tongues when he be hearing what you done,’ Widow Elphick seethed.
Finally, Harriet found her voice. ‘It were him what sent me, Widow Elphick—it were Pa. And Ma—I fetched you water from the stream.’
‘I don’t be seeing no water, Miss Lovekin,’ she said, her accusatory tone softening marginally.
‘It be downstairs, Widow Elphick. I were worried that…something had happened—what with the shutters being closed up and all.’
Widow Elphick shrugged and snorted. ‘I don’t be needing ’em opened—have you a-seen this?’ she said, suddenly whipping back the blankets from over her and raising her petticoat.
Harriet wanted to look away but the sight of the woman, entirely naked from the waist down was morbidly captivating. The amputation wound, covered with a strip of bloodstained bandage, was much higher than she had recalled from the night of the accident, running down up from the bottom of her nest of dark pubic hair.
Time seemed to thicken as both women became locked in a battle of wits.
Harriet, feeling sickened by the sight before her, raised her eyes to meet those of the rancorous lady.
It was Widow Elphick
who broke the stalemate. She pulled the blankets back over herself and said, ‘You best get a-working then, girl.’ Another snort and she closed her eyes and turned her head, which Harriet took to be her cue to leave.
Harriet returned downstairs feeling nauseous and threw open the shutters. Despite the chilly February air, she cast open the parlour window, drawing in deep breaths and trying to clear her mind. ‘Come on, Harriet,’ she told herself. She pulled the window closed and set about cleaning the parlour fire before restocking it.
Having lit the fire, Harriet scooped a cup of water from the pail and carried it along with a bundle of kindling up to Widow Elphick’s bedroom. She tapped lightly on the door and proceeded inside, looking nervously at the old woman, who was either asleep or pretending to be. Either way, Harriet was happy to avoid any further confrontation. She placed the water beside her bed and set a small fire burning in the hearth.
Desperate to make a good impression, Harriet toiled hard for Widow Elphick; she mimicked her mother and swept up the sand on the wooden floors, before washing them and then reapplying fresh sand; she tidied and cleaned the kitchen, washed crockery and cutlery then set about making lunch.
‘Widow Elphick, I got you some food,’ Harriet whispered, as she crept into her bedroom.
Widow Elphick sat bolt upright. ‘If you be thinking of thieving my best silverware, you best be thinking again—I knows each and every piece of it—my Christopher shall be a-checking when he’s back tonight.’
‘I weren’t thinking that,’ Harriet said, offering her the plate. ‘It’s bread, ham and fleed cakes what I made.’
Widow Elphick eyed the plate suspiciously before leaning out to take it. ‘How be you a-knowing how to make fleed cakes?’
‘Ma showed me,’ Harriet answered, hoping that her resourcefulness had met with Widow Elphick’s approval. She watched and waited for her to take the first bite.
Widow Elphick looked up. ‘I don’t like being a-watched,’ she snarled and Harriet scuttled quickly towards the door. Just as her hand settled on the latch, Widow Elphick said, ‘Course, you might be a-brushing my hair.’
The America Ground (The Forensic Genealogist Series Book 3) Page 5
