by Erica Brown
A small fire produced the only light and warmth in a low, dark room that vaguely resembled a cellar. It smelled of mould, gin and dirty backsides. For a moment, Blanche was sure they were in the wrong place. In the middle of the room was a wooden stage, the sort entertainers might use to dance, juggle or sing a song. What looked like three bundles of laundry were laid in a row. On closer inspection, they proved to be babies wound tightly in various shades of shawls, their little limbs almost bound to their sides. Two of them were asleep. The blue eyes of the third were wide open.
It didn’t cry or gurgle like most babies of that age, but just looked, perhaps wondering what else this grim world had in store for the likes of them born poor and out of wedlock.
‘Dear God,’ she whispered.
Edith reached out a hand to the child. ‘Poor little mite.’ Warily, it curled its fingers around hers and instantly began to suckle at it. ‘It’s hungry,’ she exclaimed.
Blanche turned to the Reverend Smart who had been exchanging a few words with the woman she recognized as Ethel.
‘When was this baby fed last?’ Blanche asked.
‘The wet nurse came in this morning,’ said Ethel and scratched her behind.
‘And when does she call again?’
‘Tomorrow morning.’ Her scratching now transferred to her crotch.
Blanche looked at her in disbelief. ‘You can’t feed a baby once a day. And how many babies is she supposed to feed? Surely she hasn’t enough milk for three.’
‘Six is what she usually does. They all do, and then we gives a bit of porridge to the older ones if they’re not full. See?’ She pointed a dirt-encrusted finger at a black cauldron hanging in the fireplace in which something grey simmered like boiled mud.
‘Six babies? And what do you mean, they all do? How many wet nurses are there? How many babies do you take in?’
Ethel sniffed and eyed her warily. She looked to the Reverend Smart, who was hovering nervously, unhappy with Blanche’s reaction and unsure as to how he should handle it.
‘Come along, Ethel,’ he said in a mildly cajoling tone. ‘Tell Mrs Heinkel how many you usually have to look after in a week.’
‘Twenty. Thirty.’ She shrugged. ‘Depends.’ She sniffed noisily then spat into the fire. A meagre flame flared up then disappeared. ‘Not many survive. Sometimes six, sometimes more, most often less. We work out the ones most likely to live and put them on the tit. The rest get my porridge.’
Blanche ran her hand across her forehead. ‘Oh my God!’
Edith was more vocal. ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ she exclaimed, directing her anger at the Reverend Smart. ‘What’s the matter with you, a man of the cloth allowing poor babes barely out of their mothers’ bellies to be left in the care of this old harridan. Look at her! She’s dirty, smokes like a Jack Tar and stinks of gin. So what are you going to do about it, I ask? What are you going to do?’ Unused to strident females of large proportion with no respect for the self-righteous, Smart backed away, his face reddening and his eyes almost popping out of his head.
Blanche looked at each baby in turn, hoping against hope that one of them might be Tom’s son. But they were all white-skinned, too pale even to be healthy.
Ethel, who was now scratching her armpit, began to turn nasty and made the mistake of targeting Edith. ‘Who do you think you are, eh? Think yer a lady or sommut? Think you could do any better than me, do you?’ She spat into the fire again, one or two teeth coming out with the phlegm and landing among the coals.
Edith, who’d lived in some pretty disgusting places in her life and known some pretty despicable people, had a strong stomach. The old girl’s head jerked back when Edith snapped her answer straight into her face, their noses almost touching.
‘Yes, you old soak. You’re more suited to be in charge of a flea circus than babies. You certainly seem to be keeping a few on board judging by the amount of scratching you’ve been doing.’
‘I ain’t staying around yer to be insulted.’
‘Then out you go!’
Grabbing the old crone with both hands, Edith swung her round like a doll and propelled her through the open door, her feet barely touching the ground.
The slamming door shivered in its frame.
‘Sorry,’ said Edith, as the sound echoed around the low room.
The baby whose eyes were open looked startled, but did not cry. The others continued to sleep. Yet the sound of the slamming door was enough to wake the dead.
‘Oh dear,’ said the Reverend Smart, wringing his hands. ‘Now who do I get to look after them? What shall I do? What shall I do?’
Blanche sniffed at the pot of simmering porridge and exchanged a quick glance with Edith. ‘It smells of gin. That’s why they’re so quiet. But the Reverend’s right. Someone has to look after them.’
Edith looked set to admit the error of her ways, but changed her mind. ‘Anyone’s better than that old hag! I wouldn’t want her looking after my baby. I’d sooner be destitute.’
‘Most women in here would be destitute if it wasn’t for us,’ sniffed the Reverend Smart.
Blanche leaned over the blue-eyed baby. Her heart was heavy and she certainly wasn’t looking forward to telling Tom the bad news. His son was obviously dead. But what about these? Could some good come out of her prying?
Something about the exchange between Edith and the Reverend floated around in her head. The women in the Workhouse earned their keep smashing bones, stitching canvases and stripping oakum.
She peered from around the brim of her bonnet at the Reverend Smart. ‘Why can’t the women here work as nursemaids?’
His face quivered and his mouth worked as though he were chewing something particularly difficult to swallow. ‘But they’re paupers!’ he exclaimed at last.
‘Does that make them less acceptable than a flea-bitten drunk?’ Edith demanded.
Unable to deny the logic of the idea, Smart floundered. ‘Well… no…’
‘Will you organize something, Reverend Smart?’
Blanche adopted an appealing expression.
‘I know you’re a good man,’ she said, her voice oozing like molasses. ‘I’m sure this can be arranged fairly quickly, don’t you think?’
‘Yes,’ he said, sucking in his breath in response to the fact that she was standing very close to him. ‘I can get Mrs Tinsley to choose some women—’
‘I think that you and I are better able to choose suitable nursemaids, Mr Smart,’ said Blanche, swiftly slipping her arm into his. ‘Edith will stay here and start sorting things out.’
‘And this is first to go,’ said a grim-faced Edith, using a potholder to extricate the cauldron from its hook.
I can’t believe I’m doing this, thought Blanche. She flashed a reassuring smile at the Reverend Smart whose face was bright with joy. At last! He’d got her on his arm.
In the room where the women tore oakum into shreds, which was then recycled at the rope factory, the air was dusty and the light was not good. The women worked by a wan light diffusing through the small windows. Everyone turned to face them, looked tiredly at the Reverend Smart, but with more interest at Blanche.
‘Now who would be most suitable?’ said Smart, his words low so only she could hear.
Blanche searched the upturned faces for one that was darker than all the rest. They were all white except for an elderly woman who looked as though she’d been out in the sun too long. Her skin was as wrinkled as a walnut in contrast to her hair, which was snowy white.
‘In order to save time, might I suggest that you make a selection here and I’ll go into the bone yard and enquire there?’
She read a mix of emotions in his eyes. It was a sensible suggestion. On the other hand, he’d dearly enjoyed the feel of her arm through his and regretted its withdrawal.
‘I won’t be long,’ she said with a parting smile.
Her heart pattered like a racing rabbit as she made her way along the dark corridor leading to th
e door that opened into the bone yard.
The smell was appalling. The sound of hammers smashing bone filled the air but ceased as those using the hammers turned surprised expressions on her. Men and women were segregated by a series of ropes and barrels. The ends of the ropes were tied onto drainpipes. The barrels contained piles of stinking bones and the air was thick with flies.
She found herself in the women’s section. There was one dark-skinned woman there, a child standing beside her. Samson’s family. It had to be.
* * *
In the men’s section, intrigued by the elegant lady making straight for his wife, Samson approached the division.
Warden Tinsley attempted to stop him. ‘No approaching the barrier,’ he said in a high-pitched, panicky voice.
Samson brushed him aside. The woman was obviously not an inmate and looked vaguely familiar. He saw her address his wife, but her voice was low and he could not hear.
Then Abigail gave him a swift look, a sudden surge of hope in her expression. What was going on?
* * *
Joyfully Blanche led Samson’s wife and her child to the nursery and discovered their names: Abigail and Desdemona. She did not introduce herself.
Smart was already back at the nursery with two other women. Both were young and had been put to work by Edith.
‘These babes need decent clothes,’ she said to Blanche.
‘I’m sure we can find some at home,’ Blanche replied.
Edith smiled smugly. ‘I seen them up in that box you keep in the attic.’
‘I’ve been found out,’ Blanche laughed. She’d kept a lot of her children’s baby things. It had been her way of hanging onto the happy times of their childhood.
Abigail was already engrossed in the babies.
‘They need washing,’ Edith pointed out to her.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘I’m not a ma’am,’ Edith corrected her. ‘I’m Edith, and don’t you forget it.’ She grinned and flicked a finger at Desdemona’s nose.
The atmosphere of the dank room changed more quickly than the smell, but by the end of the afternoon, a decent fire was burning in the grate. Washed linen and cotton were drying out in the yard, and a few sheets had been ripped up and used on the babies’ sore bottoms.
Edith caught Blanche staring at Abigail and her daughter, and whispered, ‘Who is she?’
Blanche started. ‘Is it so obvious?’
Edith remained silent, her pale eyes fixed on her old friend as she waited for an answer.
‘I think she’s a relative.’
‘Does she know that?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Just her, or her and her family?’
‘Her husband is a kind of cousin. They’ve come here looking for me.’
‘So when will you tell them?’
‘I don’t know.’
Edith appeared thoughtful. ‘You can’t leave them here, you know.’ Still keeping her voice low, Blanche faced her. ‘What can I do with them? They can’t live with me. What would Max say? He has a future to consider.’
‘Now come along, Mrs Heinkel. Think. This is your friend Edith, who is living alone in an empty cottage since her chicks are now all flown. Why don’t they move in with me?’
If they hadn’t been in company, Blanche would have kissed her. ‘It never occurred to me to ask you. Would you mind?’
Edith shook her head. Her heart was bursting with happiness. She’d have someone to fuss over and, hopefully, plenty of noise. Her family had always been noisy. And perhaps the little girl would like a puppy, or a kitten, perhaps both, perhaps more than one.
But she merely said that she could do with the company.
Blanche turned over the pros and cons of the arrangement. ‘Samson would need a job.’
‘Surely you could find him something. The refinery perhaps?’
‘Then I’d have to tell Max. I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet.’ She hung her head, but lifted it swiftly when Edith nudged her.
‘He’s not that much of a snob. He’s in love with that little milliner that delivers your hats.’
‘It’s not just infatuation?’
Edith winked. ‘Do you think I don’t know the difference?’ She winked. ‘Love don’t care much about class, race or anything much else. Mark my words, Magdalene Cherry will end up as his wife.’ The fact that Max had a sweetheart gladdened Blanche’s heart. It helped her cope with the death of Tom’s child and filled her with hope that she’d see her son married.
She coughed into her handkerchief, crumpling it quickly so that Edith would not see the speck of blood.
She left it to Edith to offer a home to Samson and his family. Once they were out of the earshot of the Reverend Smart and Mrs Tinsley, safely settled in Little Paradise along with Edith and her three cats, she would visit and tell them who she was.
For now she would cope with her other problems. What was the best way of telling Tom the terrible news?
Sitting in front of her writing desk back in Somerset Parade, she composed letter after letter. No matter how she said it, the news seemed factual and cold, and each piece of paper was screwed up and tossed into the wastepaper basket. She couldn’t hold him should he cry, she couldn’t wrap her arms around him and tell him his son was in a better place. She couldn’t kiss the tears from his cheeks. There was nothing else for it but to tell him face to face, so she arranged a trip to the Ambassador Hotel and sent a message to Tom telling him where she was.
Chapter Sixteen
Emerald came into his bedroom with her finger held tightly to her lips.
Tom smiled at her as he pulled on his riding jacket. ‘Are you telling me I have to be quiet?’
She nodded and pursed her lips, letting out a fragile ‘sshhh’.
He shook his head. ‘Who told you to be quiet?’
‘Mother did,’ she whispered, then cocked her head to one side, her expression inquisitive. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I have a business appointment in Bath.’ He felt guilty lying. It wasn’t something he’d ever get used to, but since marrying Horatia, he’d sometimes found it necessary. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’
Emerald climbed on the bed, the springs squealing in protest as she bounced up and down. ‘Can I come?’
‘Not today, my pretty one. It’s business and you’ll get bored.’
‘Mother doesn’t get bored. She told me that business is the blood of life. Do you think that too, Father?’
Tom clenched his jaw as he reached for his hat. Horatia was indoctrinating the child, and he did not approve.
He was just about to reply that he most certainly did not, when Horatia entered the room.
She looked directly at him, merely glancing at their daughter from the corner of her eye. ‘Emerald. Get off that bed this instant.’ Looking far less buoyant, Emerald obeyed.
Horatia took hold of the child’s shoulders and steered her towards the door. ‘Off to the schoolroom with you, or you’ll be late for your lessons.’
Emerald dug in her heels, spun round and raced back to Tom. ‘I want to say goodbye to Father.’
Tom smiled. Whether or not Horatia knew it, her daughter determined to have her own way as much as her mother did. He took her into his arms and kissed each cheek before setting her back down.
‘Now run along, or you’ll be over my knee and soundly spanked,’ said Horatia, her expression and tone hardening.
Emerald knew when she’d reached the limit of her mother’s patience, but she still had an air of defiance about her. ‘I’ll cry if I’m spanked. You won’t like that, will you?’
‘One more word, young lady,’ said Horatia, bending down close to her daughter’s face in order to emphasize the point. ‘And remember what I told you. Be quiet. You know that Sears is not well. She must not be disturbed.’
Emerald nodded silently.
Sears had been sinking slowly for days. Much to her credit, Horatia had made sure that her long-serving pers
onal maid was well taken care of.
‘How is she?’
Horatia sighed and eyed the single valise Tom’s valet had packed. ‘Not well. I shall miss her. She truly has been a good and faithful servant.’
He knew his wife resented anyone except Sears looking after her clothes and her personal effects.
‘So who takes her place?’
She shrugged. At the same time she beat a continuous tattoo on the windowpanes with her fingertips. He sensed she was agitated. He wondered why and feared she had seen through his ruse about his visit to Bath.
‘I think you should see Max again.’
She didn’t look round, so failed to notice his surprise. Why? he wondered.
‘It would make things less difficult if he agreed to this sale.’
Ah, he thought. That was it. Septimus wanted a neat transaction. Max’s continuous refusal to comply made the buyers jittery.
‘Why me?’
‘That’s a stupid question.’
She turned and stood in front of him, her arms folded. He didn’t understand the accusing look in her eyes, but feared it. Had she guessed who he was seeing today?
‘Please remember, Horatia, Max does not know that I am his father.’
‘The fact that you know influences your attitude. I would be less sensitive in my dealings if he were my child.’
Well, that was true, he thought.
‘Can we discuss this when I get back from Bath?’
She seemed to think about it for a moment. Again, it worried him. ‘Indeed. And for now, I shall walk with you to the carriage, where I shall kiss you on the cheek like any ordinary little wife.’
Tom smiled ruefully. ‘You’ll never be that, Horatia – ordinary, I mean.’
‘Good. I’m glad you think so.’
The odd thing was, he didn’t want her to see him to the carriage that would take him to the railway station and thus to Bath and the Ambassador Hotel. But he couldn’t say so.
‘Perhaps I should see Sears before I go,’ he said instead. ‘She might not be here when I get back.’
Tom mounted the stairs to the servants’ quarters two at a time.
