The Workhouse Girl (2 page)

‘They call us pauper apprentices, but it means the same. I've seen it happen often enough. You get these fat old mill owners who pay the workhouse master for boys and girls to work for them. I suppose it'll be my turn next.'

‘No. You mustn't leave me,' Sarah cried, clutching her hand even tighter. ‘What if Ma dies? I'll be all alone in the world.'

‘Then you'll be the same as most of us in this place. Some of us, like me for instance, was dumped here as babies, and there ain't no escape unless we go to work at the mill or go into service. You just got to be brave, Sarah. Do what they tell you, but don't let them beat the spirit out of you.'

‘You there. Nettie Bean.' A stentorian voice from the end of the passageway made them both jump. ‘Stop talking and get to the women's yard now or you'll be on bread and water for the rest of the week.'

‘That's Stoner,' Nettie whispered. ‘He's the superintendent of outdoor labour. You don't want to fall foul of him. If you think that Matron Trigg is a dragon then he's a demon from hell.' She broke into a run, dragging Sarah behind her.

They arrived in the yard just in time to file in at the end of the line. The sight that met Sarah's eyes made her heart sink even further. Rows of women sat on wooden benches tugging at lengths of tarred rope with their bare fingers in order to extract the strands of hemp. The late autumn sun beat down on their heads and it was hot and airless in the enclosed area of the yard. Even from a distance Sarah could see that the women's fingers were raw and bleeding from picking at the salt-stiffened fibres.

‘We do this until dinnertime,' Nettie whispered, seemingly regardless of the fact that the man Stoner was glaring at her beneath beetling black eyebrows. Sarah blinked, not daring to acknowledge this piece of information in case it brought his wrath down upon her head. She knew that she was an object of curiosity, if not pity, as she sported the damning sign. She had seen one of the women, who presumably could read, cross herself at the sight of the devil's child.

As she shuffled along behind Nettie towards the area set aside for the younger girls, Sarah glanced up at the building which towered five storeys above her. She had heard someone say that the lying-in ward was on the topmost floor beneath the roof. Ma was surely closer to heaven up there, but Sarah could only hope that she did not go there too soon.

‘You there. Pay attention.' Stoner's loud bellow made her jump and she realised with a sinking heart that he was pointing at her. She huddled a little closer to Nettie but he reached out and grabbed her by the ear. ‘So you're the devil's daughter, are you? Well, I'm Beelzebub hisself and if you don't behave yourself, little girl, I'll strike you dead on the spot.' He leaned over her and his breath stank of stale beer and tooth decay. ‘D'you understand what I'm saying?'

‘Y-yes, sir.' Sarah swallowed the bile that rose in her throat and threatened to make her vomit all over Stoner's dusty boots.

He gave her a shove that sent her sprawling on the bench beside Nettie. ‘Show the brat what to do, Bean. I'll be round to check, so no slacking.' His cold grey stare encompassed the rest of the girls, who had already begun their onerous task. ‘That goes for all of you.' With his hands clasped tightly behind his back he proceeded to walk slowly along the row and back again. Apparently satisfied with their prowess, he turned his attention to the older women.

Nettie waited until he was out of earshot before heaving a sigh of relief. ‘He's a bastard, that one. We all hate him even worse than Trigg, and that's saying something.'

Sarah was doing her best to extract the fibres from the tarred rope, but her hands were small and her fingers were already beginning to hurt. ‘Is it always like this?'

‘No, love. Sometimes it's much worse.' Nettie bent her head over her work. ‘You'll get used to it.'

By midday Sarah was exhausted and her fingers were a bleeding mass of broken blisters. She had been up before six o'clock that morning and had eaten nothing since a meagre breakfast of a slice of stale bread. After three hours in the schoolroom and two hours of picking oakum, she was barely able to stand when the dinner bell rang. Nettie helped her to her feet but Sarah had to walk to the refectory unaided, and she stumbled several times before she reached the large, echoing room filled with trestle tables and narrow forms. The meal of thin soup and a hunk of bread was barely edible but she was so hungry that by this time she did not care. There was silence except for the sound of the women and children slurping the tasteless broth and slapping their lips as though it were nectar from heaven.

Despite her physical discomfort, Sarah's only thoughts were for her mother. She was determined to get to the lying-in ward one way or another, but it proved almost impossible. Their every movement was watched by someone in authority, and after the tables were cleared and scrubbed until they were bleached bone-white, and the floors had been swept clean, it was time to return to work. The women went back to the yard to continue picking oakum, but the girls were divided up and some went to the sewing room and the others, including Nettie and Sarah, were given buckets and scrubbing brushes and strict instructions to clean the corridors and staircases until they were spotless.

This was something that Sarah had often done in the theatre when her mother was unwell or too far advanced in pregnancy. She filled her bucket and rolled up her sleeves. The cold water soothed her sore hands but the coarse lye soap stung when it touched the raw flesh. She did her best to ignore the pain as she made her way up five flights of stairs to the top floor. No one, it seemed, was eager to start at the top but it gave her the opportunity of sneaking into the female ward.

The heat beneath the rafters was suffocating, and the smell of blood almost knocked her sideways as she crept into the lying-in ward. The moans and screams of the women in labour filled her with horror, and she was tempted to turn and run, but somehow she forced herself to keep going. She tiptoed between the rows of iron beds, hardly daring to look at the tortured faces of the women as they struggled to give birth. The midwives were too busy to notice one small child in their midst, and Sarah was able to get to the far end of the room without being apprehended. She found her mother lying white-faced and still amongst blood-stained sheets. Her eyes were glazed and her lips moved silently as if in prayer.

Sarah went down on her knees at her mother's bedside, taking her hand and holding it to her cheek. ‘Ma, speak to me.'

Ellen Scrase turned her head slowly, focusing her eyes on her daughter. ‘My Sarah.'

‘Ma, they wouldn't let me see you, but I came anyway.'

Ellen twisted her lips in a caricature of a smile. ‘Don't cry, love. I can't bear to see you in tears.'

Sarah sniffed and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. She glanced anxiously at her mother's flat belly, but there was no sign of the baby. ‘Is it . . .'

‘Gone to join his pa in heaven, darling. It wasn't meant to be, Sarah.'

‘But you're all right, Ma. You'll be up and about soon.'

Ellen's eyelids fluttered and closed for a second but she opened them again. ‘I think not, love.' Her voice was faint and her breathing laboured.

Fear greater than anything she had ever known created panic in Sarah's heart and she chafed her mother's cold hand. ‘Don't die, Ma. You got to get well. You can't go to Pa and the boys and leave me in this dreadful place.'

‘Come closer.'

Sarah leaned over and her tears mingled with her mother's. ‘Please don't go. I love you, Ma.'

‘I'm dying.'

‘No, Ma. You're not.' Sarah clutched her mother's cold hand, holding it against her cheek. ‘I won't let you die.'

‘Come away from there.' A hand jerked Sarah to her feet. ‘What are you doing up here, girl? Don't you know it's against the rules?'

Sarah kicked out but the nurse had her in an iron grip. ‘Let me go. I won't leave Ma.'

The woman shook her like a terrier with a rat. ‘She's left you already by the look of her,' she said wearily. She picked Sarah up bodily and thrust her into the arms of one of her colleagues, who had rushed to her assistance. ‘Take the kid away, Nurse Brown. I'll see to the dead woman.'

‘No.' Sarah was carried, kicking and screaming, from the ward, and dumped unceremoniously outside the door.

‘Get back to work,' Nurse Brown said, giving her a push towards the bucket and scrubbing brush which Sarah had left on the narrow landing. ‘Take a tip from me and make yourself scarce. This ain't no place for a nipper of your age.' She closed the door, and the sound of the bolt being shot into place echoed in Sarah's ears. She sank down on her knees, bowing her head. She was alone in the world with no one to love and care for her. If only she could die too, and join her family in heaven.

The touch of a hand on her shoulder made Sarah jump. She raised her tear-stained face to see Nettie gazing anxiously down at her. ‘I've been looking for you. What are you doing up here?'

‘My ma's dead.'

‘So is mine,' Nettie said in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘You won't get no sympathy here, dearie. Don't let them see you cry or it'll make things worse.'

Sarah had to bite her bottom lip in order to stop it trembling. ‘They can't get no worse.'

‘I'll look after you.' Nettie helped her to her feet. ‘Pick up your bucket and try to be brave. I know it's hard, but if they sees you got a weakness, the stink-pots will make your life hell. Do as I do and keep your head down. You'll be all right.'

Sarah allowed herself to be led downstairs, moving like a sleepwalker, barely aware of her surroundings as the pain in her heart threatened to engulf her in a bottomless pit of misery. Nettie emptied her bucket in the back yard, tipping the contents onto the cobblestones. ‘Go on, Sarah. Empty yours, there's a good girl. We ain't got all day.'

Sarah did as she was told, staring at the filthy water as it pooled at her feet. She had to combat the sudden urge to throw herself face down in the muddy morass so that she might drown, and join her family in that mystical place above the clouds. Above her the sun shone from an azure sky with tiny white clouds drifting across the celestial blue. She tried to imagine Ma reclining on one of them as she made her journey to heaven, but all she could see in her mind's eye was the waxen face of her dead mother, and she knew the image would remain with her for the rest of her life.

‘Come on, Sarah,' Nettie said, prodding her gently in the ribs. ‘We got work to do.' She led her unprotesting into the building where they deposited the empty buckets and collected dusters and polish. Blindly following Nettie's example, Sarah did her best but she was small for her age and undernourished. She was attempting to polish one of the benches in the refectory when the necessity to sleep was so overwhelming that she lay down on the floor and curled up in a ball. She was awakened by the strident tones of Matron Trigg. ‘Nettie Bean. Come here, girl.'

‘Yes, Matron.'

Sarah could hear the clatter of Nettie's shoes on the bare floorboards as she hurried from the far end of the room. She stretched cautiously, not wanting to draw attention to herself.

‘Where is the new girl? Where's that wicked Sal Scratch? You were supposed to be keeping an eye on her.'

A screech of pain from Nettie brought Sarah to her senses and she sprang to her feet. ‘Leave her alone. She ain't done nothing wrong, missis.'

Matron Trigg released Nettie's ear with a spiteful tweak and she advanced on Sarah, rolling up her sleeves. ‘You were asleep, you lazy little brat. It'll be another taste of the Tickler for you.'

‘No, please don't beat her again, Matron,' Nettie cried passionately. ‘It were my fault. I'm the one what should be punished.'

‘And you will be,' Matron Trigg said with a twist of her thin lips. ‘There'll be no supper for either of you.'

‘I don't care,' Sarah shouted, shaking her fist. ‘My ma's dead. You can kill me too, if you want. I wish you would.'

‘Wicked child.' Matron Trigg cast her eyes heavenward. ‘You really are the devil's spawn, Sal Scratch. It's the coal cellar for you and Bean. After a night down there, you'll change your tune.'

Huddled against Nettie in the pitch darkness of the coal cellar, Sarah had no more tears to cry. Hunger and cold had numbed her small body, and she felt herself drifting in space like a dandelion clock. Nettie was shivering violently, but she wrapped her arms around Sarah and held her close. ‘It's all right, dearie. There ain't nothing down here what can hurt more than old Tickler. Us can't see the spiders and the rats are too clever to come where there ain't no food.'

‘I'm hungry,' Sarah whispered, ‘and thirsty.'

‘Me too, but we got to wait until bitch-face lets us out in the morning, so we'd best try to sleep.'

‘I hate her and I hate this place.'

Nettie uttered a hollow laugh. ‘You and me both, but one day I'll get out of here and I'll take you too.'

‘Will you? Promise?'

‘Cross me heart and hope to die.'

‘Don't say that. It might come true.'

‘Not me, Sarah. I'm going to live forever, and I'm going to see that bitch-face and her old man get what's coming to them. One day I'll be rich and famous, and I'll set all of them what lives here free. How about that?'

Sarah snuggled against Nettie's flat chest, resting her head against her shoulder. ‘I believe you.'

‘I'll marry a rich toff,' Nettie murmured, rubbing her cheek against Sarah's shorn head. ‘You can come and live in me great big house, and have three square meals a day and all the chocolate you can eat.'

‘Sing to me, Nettie. Ma used to sing me to sleep when I was little.'