Return to Paradise

by Erica Brown

  A brass bell jangled as she opened the shop door. The decor was dark pink, the floor polished pine scattered with rugs. The walls were decorated with gilt-framed mirrors, and huge peacocks’ feathers in olive green vases sat in corners and alcoves. The intention was to resemble a mughal’s palace, or at least Madame Mabel’s interpretation of one.

  ‘Perhaps your maid could wait in the assistants’ room,’ said Madame Mabel in an affected French accent.

  ‘No. I very much value my maid. She has an eye for fashion.’

  Edith took a seat and Madame Mabel’s disdainful look disappeared quickly once it became apparent that Blanche wanted more than just a single hat.

  ‘You are out of mourning, madame?’ the milliner trilled, her eyes sweeping over the navy blue outfit as she took Blanche’s order.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘It is still too dark, madame. You have been in mourning for too long and have grown accustomed to darkness. But soon you will have light. C’est bon! C’est bon! But this veil…?’ Madame Mabel turned critical eyes on the stiff veil that fell from the back of Blanche’s bonnet. ‘This is no good. It should be much longer, at least reaching halfway down madame’s back. The Queen favours such a length, I believe. If you will allow me to alter it, I am sure you will be very pleased with the result. Shall I arrange for it to be collected when Magdalene delivers your new bonnet?’

  Blanche agreed it to be a very good arrangement and glanced at Edith, who was now beaming from ear to ear, her lips compressed as though she were suppressing a huge fit of laughter. Her shoulders shook as they headed for the door and once they were outside, she burst into laughter. ‘French? French? She’s about as French as my Aunt Fanny. Her name’s Mabel Pudding – or at least I think it is.’

  ‘Pudding?’ Blanche chuckled. ‘How can she possibly have a name like that?’

  Edith took off her bonnet and scratched at her bun with a hatpin. ‘Don’t know whether it was her real name. It was just that her mother was in the pudding club all the time, so everybody called her Mrs Pudding.’

  ‘And her father?’ asked Blanche between giggles.

  Edith shrugged. ‘He went to sea a lot. Never knew his real name.’

  She fell to sudden silence, the mention of a seaman clearly bringing back old memories. In the case of her first husband, Edith had enjoyed her best times when he was away at sea. In the case of her second husband, she’d preferred the times when he was home. Losing Jim had been a heartfelt loss.

  They were still brooding by the time they arrived at St Philip’s Workhouse.

  Edith glanced out of the window of the carriage at the grim walls surrounding the place. ‘Rather you than me,’ she said, then gathered her cloak more closely about herself and looked the other way.

  Taking her courage in both hands, Blanche got out of the carriage and was at once struck by the brooding height of the Workhouse walls and the black shadows they cast. She shivered as she imagined the thoughts of a penniless pauper about to enter the high wooden gates, studded with black nails and as formidable as any prison.

  McDougal, the coachman, hovered at her side, his voice quivering with concern. ‘Will you be all right, ma’am?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘I think so,’ she said to him, then mostly to herself added, ‘After all I shall be coming out again in less than two hours. Not so the inmates of this place.’

  Henry McDougal tugged the iron bell pull. A dull tone sounded just beyond the gate. She heard coughing and the sound of heavy boots, then the grating of iron against iron as a bolt was drawn.

  One half of the gate opened. The man standing there had a red face and wore a confused mix of more than one military uniform. The Royal Navy was represented by his trousers, which were of the baggy type and made of canvas. His jacket was green and trimmed with a little gold braid; his hat was blue and trimmed with a lot. His boots were of the cavalry type. She noticed that one was brown and one was black.

  ‘Madam,’ he said, bowing slightly without removing his hat.

  ‘I am attending the Board of Governors’ meeting,’ she explained.

  His watery eyes stayed fixed on her face and his tongue swept along his lower lip. She took it he was wondering at her colouring, though God knows she was paler nowadays than she’d ever been, thanks to the climate and her chest condition. He opened the gate wider and she found herself in a yard about twenty feet by twenty feet and surrounded by buildings that threw inky black shadows. The main entrance was straight ahead of her and was far less dour than she’d expected. The door was imposing, approached up a flight of three stone steps and flanked by two rather grand Doric columns, their whiteness bright against the dull red brick.

  ‘This way, me lady,’ said the man in the odd uniform. He gave another awkward bow before striding off in a lop-sided fashion by virtue of one leg being stiffer than the other. He dragged it behind him as if it were cast in lead.

  As she followed, she noticed there were gates to either side of her. Above one it said ‘Men’ and above the other ‘Women’.

  She hadn’t wanted to believe all that Edith had said, but this was evidence enough. She could barely drag her gaze away from the sight of the signs. What a terrible thing! Husbands separated from their wives and children. She thought of Edith waiting in the

  carriage outside and how she had turned away from the austere building.

  ‘This shouldn’t be,’ she whispered to herself. These people were being punished for being poor. The thought appalled her. How do you know for sure? she asked herself then. You know nothing about this place. You’ve never been in a workhouse before. Guard your tongue and delay your judgement.

  Her attention was drawn to a set of stocks beside the gate leading to the men’s quarters. She frowned. Surely they weren’t used nowadays? She found herself unable to accept that they had any use, convinced they were merely a leftover from earlier times when another building had been on this site.

  The man in the muddled uniform rang a bell by the Doric-columned entrance before limping back across the yard. The door was opened by a wan-faced girl with pale blue eyes.

  ‘Ma’am,’ she said, bobbing her a curtsey.

  An attempt had been made to hold the girl’s fair hair into a bun at the nape of her neck. Some of it had escaped and hung like limp feathers around her face. Her dress was shapeless, mostly grey but with a yellow stripe down the front.

  Blanche smiled at her. ‘Good morning.’

  The girl kept her eyes downcast and whispered a swift, ‘Good morning, ma’am.’

  It was reassuring, but also unsettling to see that she’d already met someone more nervous than she.

  ‘I am come for the Board of Governors’ meeting.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Follow me.’

  She accompanied the girl down a long corridor. Two women were on their hands and knees scrubbing the floor and the skirting boards, their hands red raw. The pungent smell of carbolic lay heavy on the air. They did not look up as she swept by, but attended the floor, their faces hidden by the flapping frills of their cotton bonnets.

  She was shown into a room with big windows. There were no pictures, no soft furnishings and no curtains. A dining table was set out at one end, a dresser at the other and a number of chairs around the walls. The only decoration, if it could be so called, was various religious texts written in green paint on one cream-coloured wall.

  One read:

  Who best can drink His cup of woe

  Triumphant over pain,

  Who patient hears His cross below,

  He follows in His train.

  The smell of steak and kidney pie and other delicious foods seeped through from some other room she could not see. Her stomach rumbled. The food smelled as good as anything her own cook could prepare. Perhaps the inmates were fed better than she’d been led to believe.

  A door in the far corner opened and a man entered, dressed in the drear black of a minister. She guessed that this was the chairman of the Board of
Governors.

  He extended his podgy hand. ‘The Reverend Godfrey Smart, at your service, my dear Mrs Heinkel. I have heard so much about you from Justice Booker-Green. How nice of you to come.’

  He held her hand very tightly and tried to clasp it to his chest as his eyes bored into hers, travelled as far as her waist, then returned to her face.

  ‘It was the least I could do,’ she replied once she’d snatched back her hand, barely managing to hold onto a very tight smile. ‘This room is so light.’

  She purposely turned her back on him and began walking around the room, as though it really was of great interest. She didn’t stop until the whole length of the dining table lay between them.

  ‘So we may all see each other as we are,’ he exclaimed, his hands clasped as if in prayer and took a step closer.

  ‘And those smells,’ she said, side-stepping around the end of the table in order to keep the same distance between them.

  ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, and remembered a fairy tale about a girl, a grandmother and a wolf.

  He took a step closer; she took a step back.

  Blanche thanked heaven when the door at the far end of the room opened again and in walked the other members of the Board: six gentlemen and a plump woman wearing a yellow wig under her bonnet.

  The Reverend introduced her as the widow of Conrad Heinkel – ‘A great benefactor to the poor of this city,’ he added. ‘She wishes to become an official visitor.’

  She was also introduced to the warden, a Mr Tinsley, who wore woollen mittens and had a slight stoop. His wife was taller than he, with a strong face, a too-long chin and eyes set wide apart. She explained she acted as matron for the women.

  ‘And the children. Do you care for those too?’

  ‘Indeed I do, ma’am,’ said Mrs Tinsley, bobbing a quick, polite curtsey. ‘I don’t say I’m soft with them, but I do say I’m fair, as the Reverend gentleman will vouch.’ She bobbed another curtsey and aimed a greasy smile in Smart’s direction.

  Smart radiated cordiality. ‘Very commendable,’ he exclaimed. ‘Mrs Tinsley keeps everyone on the straight and narrow.’

  Blanche managed a thin smile and warned herself to be careful of these two. Smart looked as though he revelled in Mrs Tinsley’s servility. Mrs Tinsley’s smile never wavered, yet her eyes were constantly on the move as if searching for any sign of disagreement or distrust, and alighted on the Reverend more than they did on anyone else. Blanche sensed conspiracy and secrets.

  ‘With the agreement of my fellow members of the Board of Governors, I think it would be sensible if I take you on a tour of our fine establishment, so you can see for yourself what St Philip’s Workhouse is doing to alleviate poverty in this area.’

  The other members of the board nodded their approval and Blanche felt their eyes on her as the Reverend Smart cupped her elbow and guided her to the door. No one was fooled, she decided. They all knew he was a lecher and that she’d have to watch her step. No matter how innocent she was, they would gossip among themselves whilst she was gone, smearing her reputation whether she deserved it or not.

  Purposely treading on the Reverend’s toe, she turned round suddenly and smiled affably at the warden’s wife. ‘Perhaps Mrs Tinsley would like to come with us? After all, it is the needs of the women and children that concern me. I have strong views on family ties, and perhaps Mrs Tinsley could elaborate on some of the finer detail more astutely than can a man.’ Sugar, never mind butter, could not have melted in her mouth when she smiled.

  Mrs Tinsley looked ecstatic. Obviously, she trusted the Reverend gentleman no more than Blanche did.

  The Reverend took on a pained expression that ebbed and flowed, then burst like a river flooding its banks.

  Blanche congratulated herself too soon. The Reverend’s mind was as nimble as his hands.

  ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible, not if we’re thoroughly to enjoy the sumptuous meal that’s been prepared for us. I believe we’re out of port, Mrs Tinsley,’ he said, pointing a fat finger to where the decanter sat in a red stain. ‘Would have helped if Sir Bertram hadn’t upset it,’ he chortled.

  A man with a red face and a perpetual grin raised his empty glass. His buff waistcoat bore a streak of red over his rotund belly.

  Mrs Tinsley pursed her lips, threw Blanche a jealous glare and obeyed.

  The Reverend Smart again cupped her elbow and manoeuvred her to the door. The heat of his palm burned through her sleeve.

  ‘I used to preach in Bath,’ he said, smiling smugly. ‘A very genteel, cultured place, with an aura of the classic cities of antiquity.’

  Ah, thought Blanche, the man was a pompous ass as well as a lecher.

  ‘I was also attached to a number of similar institutions to this,’ the Reverend continued, as they walked along a dark panelled corridor. ‘Some had been set up by certain august personages, whose names of course I cannot possibly reveal, to care for the more infirm and aged of our society. I was appointed as chaplain to a number of almshouses where the elderly poor were housed following a lifetime of diligence and righteousness. We investigated their backgrounds most thoroughly before accepting them as possible residents.’

  His arm went around her back, as though to chivvy her protectively through the door ahead of them, and he chuckled into her ear. ‘It was a lustful city at one time, a Sodom and Gomorrah in this England of pleasant green fields and uplifting virtue. Have you ever been to Bath, Mrs Heinkel?’

  ‘Never.’

  There were times when the truth would not do at all, and this had been one of them. It was very likely she would be visiting Bath again. The thought of the Reverend Smart offering his services as a guide was utterly repugnant.

  The air became colder as they turned into a stone-floored passage that he told her led to the women’s dining room. She’d managed to keep ahead of his arm, so his hand had returned to her elbow.

  ‘Tell me, dear Mrs Heinkel, how long is it since your husband departed this world?’

  ‘Two years,’ she said abruptly.

  ‘My dear lady.’ His voice dripped like rosehip syrup.

  ‘And I am loyal to his memory,’ said Blanche.

  ‘Ah yes. Of course.’

  Row upon row of trestle tables filled the dining room. Bench seating was set on one side so that all the inmates faced the front. The women ate silently without raising their eyes. Their grey clothes matched their complexions. The ceiling was high and interspersed with curved beams, each boasting a biblical text: ‘God is Love’; ‘Trust in the Lord’; ‘Narrow is the Path of Righteousness’; and ‘The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth’.

  Blanche turned a jaundiced eye on each one in turn, as Smart’s arm again began to slide around her back. She took a step forward.

  ‘We endeavour to encourage our charges to live by such creeds, dear lady,’ he said, his face shining with false conviction. ‘The meek shall inherit the earth.’

  ‘Hardly the earth, Reverend,’ she said cuttingly, ‘just the workhouse. Shall we see the accommodation?’

  ‘We have three different forms of dormitory,’ he said obsequiously, his chastisement unnoticed.

  Blanche gritted her teeth. Already she was beginning to see herself as a bulwark between the needful poor and the sanctimonious patronage of people like Smart. God knows, but it seemed the poor needed a champion.

  The first dormitory was depressing, dark and lined with troughs.

  Blanche frowned when she saw there were lids hinged at the back of each trough.

  ‘Those are beds for the casuals,’ he explained.

  ‘Beds? But why do they have lids?’

  ‘In case they die during the night. We just shut the lid and have them taken out in it. That way no one is upset by the sight. Once they’re buried – or whatever – the bed is brought back in to be used again.’

  ‘Whatever’? The sheer inhumanity of what he had just described appalled her. And yet t
he Reverend seemed unperturbed by the arrangement, blinded by functionality and apparently oblivious that even the poor deserve some respect.

  He took her to see other sleeping areas, one of which was merely a platform designed to sleep twenty. Others were stalls, similar to those used for horses. The bedding too was the same. The inmates slept on straw like animals. The smell was terrible.

  Hidden by shadow, a woman nursing a child crouched in the corner of one stall. The child was obviously ill, its breathing rasping and loud.

  Smart frowned and his voice altered, no longer the slippery-tongued, would-be seducer. ‘What are you doing here, woman? You should be working with the others.’

  The woman lifted her head.

  Blanche clutched at her stomach on seeing the exhausted face and the deep shadows beneath despairing eyes.

  ‘My John is sick.’

  ‘Well, nothing you can do is going to make him better, is it? Leave him there, get to your work and I’ll get Mrs Tinsley to fetch the doctor.’

  The woman shook her head and began to cry. ‘He’s dying. Please, sir, I want to stay with him ‘til he’s gone.’

  Smart puffed out his chest and his face reddened. ‘Any excuse to get out of work,’ he said in an aside to Blanche.

  Before he could say another word, she was at the woman’s side amongst the sour straw. Ripping her glove from her hand, she laid her cool fingers on the child’s forehead and put her hand inside the thin garment that covered his chest.

  ‘His skin burns like fire and his breathing is shallow.’

  She shouted at Smart. ‘We must have a doctor!’

  His face turned redder and for a moment it seemed as though he too was unable to breathe. At last he managed an awkward smile. ‘If it pleases you, dear lady, I will get Mrs Tinsley to send for Doctor Pettigrew.’

  ‘Now!’ she said, her expression and tone of voice leaving him in no doubt that she would stay by the woman’s side until assured it had been done.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ he said, nodding emphatically before dashing to a door, hauling it open and bawling for someone called Betty. She heard him giving orders, heard someone reply, then his voice again: ‘Get back here as soon as you’ve done it. No slacking.’