Without Sin

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘Well,’ Letitia said, ‘that’ll make it easier for the guardians to decide. In the meantime, we’ll get you settled in. Come along.’

  ‘Goodbye, Albert,’ Meg said to the old man, who had remained silent ever since Ursula Waters had stepped into his room.

  ‘ ’Bye, mi duck. For now.’

  They followed the matron and Ursula across the yard, which was enclosed on all sides either by the buildings or walls and solid gates.

  Meg shivered as she looked about her and once again the feeling of guilt swept through her. Was it her impertinent tongue that had landed them here? Or had it been because of her friendship with Alice? The thought of the girl she had liked so much was like a knife in her heart. Alice had betrayed her. She had done nothing to help Meg and her family. Surely, Alice could have done something.

  Oh, Dad, Meg begged silently, come back for us. Don’t leave us in this place. Please come back, Dad. Please.

  Four

  ‘Take your clothes off.’

  Appalled, Meg stared at Ursula. ‘All of them?’

  ‘Yes. You wear the workhouse uniform whilst you’re in here.’

  ‘But – but what happens to our own clothes?’

  ‘We have them cleaned.’ Ursula eyed the newcomers up and down, assessing them. ‘Fumigated in some cases. Just in case you’re riddled with lice and—’

  ‘We most certainly are not,’ Meg said, deeply insulted. She turned to her mother. ‘Tell her, Mam.’

  But Sarah only murmured, ‘Do as Miss Waters tells you, love. Don’t make a fuss.’

  ‘I’m not making a fuss, I just want to know what happens to our clothes. Miss Alice gave me this dress and . . .’

  At once her mother’s face was bleak and Meg was sorry she’d brought back memories of the comfortable, happy life that had been so suddenly and brutally torn away from them. She bit her lip. She still couldn’t believe that Miss Alice had been party to their dismissal.

  ‘We label all your clothes,’ Letitia said and Meg felt the matron was trying to lessen Ursula’s harshness. ‘You’ll get them back when you leave.’

  Meg heard Ursula mutter darkly, ‘If you leave.’

  ‘That’s all right, then,’ Meg said, addressing her remark to the matron and ignoring Ursula. ‘We won’t be without them very long. We’ll soon be out of here.’ She felt embarrassed as Ursula stood watching them undress, gaping at Sarah’s swollen belly.

  ‘When are you due, Kirkland?’ Ursula asked, once more taking the lead. To Meg’s surprise, it was the matron who was helping Bobbie out of his clothes, smiling down at him and talking to him in gentle, reassuring tones, whilst Ursula stood to one side as if to have to touch the newcomers offended her.

  Quietly, Sarah said, ‘Sometime this month, I think.’

  ‘The medical officer will inspect you tomorrow morning and classify you.’ Then Meg saw Ursula lean towards the matron. ‘If you ask me that girl ought to be classed as an able-bodied woman. She’s no child.’

  Meg felt them gazing at her young breasts, slim waist and firm, rounded buttocks. She faced them boldly, but it was hard to do so. Being naked took away her last vestige of dignity, leaving her humiliated and vulnerable. ‘I’ve told you, I am fifteen – nearly sixteen – and I’m not afraid of work. I don’t want to be with the children.’

  ‘We’ll see what the medical officer thinks,’ was all the matron would say. ‘Now, let’s get you bathed and don’t forget to wash your hair.’ She bundled up their clothes and the few possessions they had brought with them. ‘Here you are, Waters. See these are washed and properly labelled.’

  The look of distaste on Ursula’s face as she was forced to take their clothing made Meg want to laugh out loud for the first time.

  ‘Bet that’s the last we see of them,’ she muttered, though not loud enough for the matron to hear as Ursula disappeared through the door.

  The matron was bending towards Bobbie. ‘Come on, little man, you come with me.’

  ‘I’ll wash Bobbie,’ Meg began, but Miss Pendleton said firmly, ‘You help your mother and see to yourself. He’ll be fine with me.’

  She led Bobbie away. Sarah and Meg looked helplessly at each other as they listened for his protesting wails. But Bobbie made no sound and trotted off, his hand happily in the matron’s plump grasp.

  Sarah closed her eyes and swayed. She might have fallen if Meg hadn’t been quick to steady her. ‘Let’s get ourselves bathed quick, Mam, and then perhaps we can go and find him.’

  Sarah nodded weakly and allowed Meg to help her.

  It was the first time that Meg had seen her mother’s body. Standing naked in the lukewarm water, she tried to avert her gaze, tried to leave her mother some shred of dignity.

  But what self-respect was there left for either of them in this place?

  When they were bathed and their hair washed, but still wet and clinging, Ursula returned. She handed them coarse scratchy underwear and the grey dress and white apron that were the uniform of the workhouse, saying, ‘You can keep your own boots.’

  ‘Where’s Bobbie? Where’s she taken him?’ Meg demanded when they were fully clothed once more.

  ‘If by “she” you mean matron, then she’ll have taken him to the children’s dormitory, I expect.’

  Meg glanced at her mother, willing her to stand up to these people, but Sarah seemed to have lost her spirit completely. Meg could hardly believe the change in her. Sarah had always been quiet, but content with her lot and happy with her husband and young family, despite the sadness of losing three babies. She’d always had a gentle smile on her face and, even when Meg had been her naughtiest, Sarah had never raised her voice. Her chastisement had been a disappointed admonishment that had always left Meg feeling guilty at having hurt her mother by her wilfulness. But now Sarah was defeated by the shame of entering a place which she’d been taught since childhood was the ultimate in degradation.

  So it was the young girl who turned back to face Ursula. She’s like a jailer, Meg thought. ‘Matron said he could stay with us. At least until tomorrow.’

  ‘It’s the rules,’ Ursula snapped. ‘Everyone’s classified and segregated in here. Until the medical officer’s seen you, you’ll be in the receiving ward.’ She pointed upwards, indicating the room on the next floor up, directly above their heads. ‘He classifies you and then you go into the dormitories in the main building.’ With a sideways flick of her head, she gestured towards the long, three-storey building across the yard. She ticked off the categories of inmates on her fingers. ‘At the far end there’s the able-bodied men’s day room on the ground floor with their dormitories above on the first and second floors. Next to that are the old and infirm men. Then on the ground floor there’s the clerk’s office and the master’s room. Right in the centre of the building is the guardians’ committee room with the school room behind it and above them are the master’s bedroom and the children’s dormitory. Still on the ground floor is the kitchen, then the old women and then right at this end there’s the able-bodied women.’

  ‘Where are the children? Where will Bobbie be?’ Meg demanded.

  ‘He’ll spend most of the time in the school room or the dormitory, but they’re allowed into the women’s exercise yards.’

  ‘Are those at the front of the building, behind those walls?’

  ‘Yes. That’s where the privies are too. And there’s a privy in this back courtyard too. Here, next to the bath room.’

  For the first time Sarah spoke. ‘Will I be allowed to put Bobbie to bed?’

  Ursula shook her head and Sarah’s shoulders drooped even more.

  ‘I’ll show you upstairs. You’re going to be a bit crowded in the receiving ward. It’s the casual ward where the vagrants stay overnight, as well as people like you waiting to be admitted. Come along.’

  The small dormitory was jammed with beds – if they could be called beds, for they were nothing more than rough hessian bags filled with straw, grubby grey blankets and a lumpy
pillow on the floor. Meg and her mother were obliged to share, and later on, through that first night they huddled together, hardly sleeping in their anxiety over Bobbie.

  ‘He’ll be all right, Mam. Miss Pendleton was kind to him. Much nicer than the dragon.’

  In the darkness, Sarah buried her head against Meg’s shoulder and wept. With her arms about her mother, Meg lay staring into the darkness, listening to the snuffling and snoring of the other women. Real sleep was impossible and she dozed fitfully, waking in the early light of the following morning still unable to accept what had happened to her family in the short space of the last thirty-six hours.

  Was it really only the night before last that her father had come home with the news that they had to leave their home?

  I wish I could have seen Miss Alice. Perhaps her mam or her dad stopped her seeing me. I can’t believe she wouldn’t have tried to help us, Meg thought, trying to find excuses for the older girl. She still did not want to believe that Alice, her bright, vivacious friend, had really deserted her so cruelly. Perhaps it hadn’t been Alice’s fault. Perhaps . . .

  Somewhere a loud bell was being rung, disturbing her thoughts. The other women in the room were stirring.

  ‘Come on, Mam,’ Meg said, gently shaking her mother awake. ‘We have to get up.’

  Meg and Sarah stood side by side, submitting to the medical officer’s thorough examination. Once more they were obliged to be almost naked before a stranger, with Miss Pendleton standing in the background. And Ursula was there again, by the door, her beady eyes missing nothing.

  ‘Now, Mrs Kirkland,’ the doctor said, ‘I think your baby will come very soon, so only light duties for you. But I shall put you with the able-bodied women. Matron –’ he half turned towards the woman standing behind him – ‘you’ll see to it?’

  ‘Of course, Doctor. She can help in the kitchen, preparing vegetables and such.’

  ‘Excellent, excellent. She can be allowed to sit down to do that.’ It was an order rather than a suggestion.

  ‘Whatever you say, Doctor.’

  ‘She could pick oakum,’ Ursula put in, a malicious smile on her face. ‘She can sit down to do that.’

  The doctor frowned at Ursula. He could not interfere directly with the internal running of the workhouse, even if he wanted to. But unpicking lengths of old, tarred rope, though a sedentary occupation, was painful work resulting in raw and bleeding fingers.

  He sighed as he beckoned Meg forward. ‘Now then, young lady, let’s have a look at you.’

  Dr Collins was young, only in his early thirties, Meg guessed. He was very good-looking and, as he examined even her most secret places, Meg grew hotter and hotter with embarrassment. He was tall with fair curly hair and the brightest blue eyes that Meg had ever seen in a man.

  Moments later he pronounced her, ‘Fit as a flea and strong as an ox. Now –’ he glanced down at his papers before adding – ‘Meg, you’re fifteen, but sixteen next month.’

  ‘Yes, sir, and I don’t want to be with the children. I can work. I—’

  ‘Hold your tongue, girl,’ Ursula snapped from her place by the door, but the doctor held up his hand, smiling at the girl standing before him.

  ‘What I was going to suggest is that you should be with the children for the first month—’

  ‘Oh, we won’t be here as long as that. Mi dad will be back for us. I know he will.’

  ‘I’m sure he will, but just in case he – er – encounters a few difficulties, we’ll plan for a little longer, shall we?’

  Meg stared into the man’s blue eyes and saw sympathy there. A lump came into her throat and she nodded. ‘All right,’ she agreed huskily.

  ‘What I suggest is that you should help the schoolmistress with the little ones. She is responsible not only for the teaching, but for the general care of the children too. I’m sure Miss Daley would be glad of some help and –’ he leant towards Meg and lowered his voice – ‘you’ll be near your little brother for a while. Help him settle in. The little chap looked none too happy when I saw him earlier.’

  Meg realized suddenly that the doctor was trying to do her a favour. She beamed at him, her whole demean-our changing in an instant. Her eyes shone and her cheeks dimpled prettily. It was like the sun appearing after a rain shower. ‘Thank you, sir. Oh, thank you,’ she breathed.

  The doctor stared at her for a moment, then blinked, glanced down and shuffled his papers. Clearing his throat, he said, ‘Don’t mention it. I can see that you are a nice family, who’ve hit a bad patch in your lives.’ He looked up again and smiled, once more in control of himself. ‘I hope you’re right and that your father returns for you very soon.’ He glanced towards Sarah. ‘Perhaps by then he’ll have become a father again. In the meantime, we’ll take good care of you all.’

  Outside the infirmary, where they had been summoned for the medical officer’s examination, Meg helped her mother down the stone steps.

  ‘I don’t believe this place, Mam.’

  Sarah drew in a deep breath. ‘Why? What do you mean?’

  ‘Most of them are so nice, Mr Pendleton, the doctor, even Miss Pendleton isn’t a bad old stick. But that Waters is a dragon. I thought they’d all be like that. I mean, everyone’s always so frightened of the workhouse. It’s like a terrible shadow hanging over anyone who can’t work or falls sick.’

  ‘It’s the shame, Meg. That’s the worst thing. And you’re right. A lot of places are dreadful, with awful people running them. When I was a girl, we heard terrible stories about this place. It was our worst night-mare that we’d end up in here. And now –’ tears threatened – ‘here I am.’

  Meg put her arm around her mother and hugged her close. ‘Don’t worry, Mam. Dad’ll soon be back. He’ll find work and come back for us.’

  Sarah’s only answer was a sob and a slight shake of her head.

  Reaching the foot of the stairs, they stepped out into the men’s backyard and Meg glanced about her. There was a pump in the centre of the wide open space and three or four men were queuing at it, bending their heads down and opening their mouths to drink. Others strolled around the yard in twos and threes, hands in their pockets and chatting together, but their shoulders were hunched, their heads bent forward. One or two walked alone, a defeated look on their faces. To one side older men, bent and crippled with age, shuffled along. But in the middle of the yard, youths, who must have been sixteen or more to be classed along with the men, played a rowdy game of football with a stone.

  Meg looked about her, half-hoping to see someone she knew, but at the same time hoping no one would recognize her. One of the young lads glanced across at her and, giving the stone a last kick, left the game and swaggered towards her, grinning cheekily. ‘By heck, it’s nice to see a pretty girl in here. Where’ve you come from?’

  Meg put her nose in the air and said loftily, ‘What’s that to do with you?’

  The lad laughed, showing surprisingly even white teeth. His face creased and his brown eyes twinkled. He was thin, but wiry and energetic with thick brown curly hair cut short. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Nowt, just interested that’s all. No offence meant.’

  Meg capitulated and grinned back at him. ‘None taken. Just that we’ve done nothing but answer questions since we got here.’

  The youth nodded. ‘I guess it’s like that, but wouldn’t know.’

  Now Meg was intrigued. ‘Why? Didn’t you have to answer a lot of questions when you came in?’

  He laughed again. ‘Nope. I was born in here. Me mam died having me, so they tell me. I’ve been here all me life.’

  ‘Oh, how terrible!’ The words escaped from Meg’s mouth before she could stop them.

  ‘Is it?’ he asked solemnly, the laughter dying on his face. ‘I’ve never known owt else.’

  ‘No,’ Meg said slowly, beginning to understand. ‘I see that now.’

  ‘Meg,’ Sarah began, ‘we ought to go. I – I need to sit down.’

  At once Meg was co
ntrite. ‘I’m sorry, Mam.’ With Sarah leaning heavily against her, they began to move back towards the gate in the wall, which led from the men’s courtyard into the women’s.

  Meg glanced back over her shoulder towards the youth. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Jake. What’s yours?’

  ‘Meg. I’ll see you again.’

  He pulled a face and lifted his shoulders. ‘Not much chance. They’ll see to that. But I’ll watch out for you.’ He winked at her. ‘There are ways – if you know ’em.’

  Meg nodded, wondering who ‘they’ were, but she could stay no longer. Sarah was looking pale and had deep purple shadows beneath her eyes. ‘Come on, Mam. We’ll find the dormitory and you can lie down.’

  ‘But she needs to rest. Look at her.’ Meg flung out her arm towards her mother as she stood facing Ursula Waters. ‘She’s done in.’

  ‘She can’t lie down in the dormitory during the daytime. If she’s ill, she should report to the infirmary. And she’s not, else the doctor would have said.’

  ‘She’s not ill, just exhausted.’

  The woman pursed her thin mouth. ‘I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do about it.’

  ‘You don’t want to, you mean,’ Meg muttered.

  ‘What did you say?’ Ursula snapped.

  ‘Nothing,’ Meg answered morosely. How she would like to give this woman a mouthful, but she realized her runaway tongue would only make matters worse, especially for her poor mother.

  Ursula sniffed. ‘She’s supposed to start work in the kitchens.’ She glanced at Sarah, who was sitting on the chair and looking as if she was about to fall off it at any moment. Sarah’s pallor must have touched even Ursula’s hard heart, for she relented enough to say, ‘I’ll see what matron says.’