The Workhouse Girl (26 page)

Pale-faced but seemingly resigned Mrs Arbuthnot went to her room to sort out what she intended to take to her new home, leaving Sarah and Dorcas to accomplish the rest of the packing. They decided between them that the large furniture would have to be left behind but they would need beds, bedding and anything else that they could pile onto the cart.

It was mid-afternoon and Franz, accompanied by Dorcas and Betty, had just driven off with the fourth and last load when Trigg arrived with the bailiffs and a mob of tough-looking individuals. They seemed mildly disappointed to discover that there were only women and a middle-aged solicitor in the house, and that the occupants were not going to put up a fight.

Moorcroft examined the documents and acknowledged their validity. With her head held high Sophia Arbuthnot walked out of her home and Moorcroft handed the keys to Trigg. Sarah was glad to see that some of the men had the grace to look shame-faced as the dignified widow walked past them. The bailiffs moved on and even Trigg seemed to be more subdued than normal, but that did not prevent him from seizing Sarah by the arm and pressing his face close to hers. ‘You'll keep, girlie. But don't think I've done with you.'

Moorcroft stepped in between them. ‘I hope you're not threatening my client, sir.'

Trigg backed away. ‘Of course I ain't, guv. Just passing the time of day with a sweet young thing what used to be my ward all those years ago.'

Sarah was tempted to ignore him, but concern for Grey overrode commonsense. ‘Isn't it enough for you that you've robbed an innocent woman of her home, Mr Trigg? Why don't you act like a gentleman and drop the charges against Tobias Grey? He's done nothing to you.'

‘He crossed me, girl. I never forgets and I never forgives. I ain't finished with him by a long chalk.'

‘Come away, Sarah,' Moorcroft said, tucking her hand in the crook of his arm. ‘Don't waste words on a man of his ilk.'

‘Look down on me, would you, squire?' Trigg took a menacing step towards him. ‘We'll see who comes out on top, and it won't be you, lawyer.'

The house in Elbow Lane was squashed between two warehouses like the jam in a sandwich. Sarah accompanied Franz with the last load of possessions from Wellclose Square, while Mrs Arbuthnot and Moorcroft followed in a hansom cab and Cook together with her precious copper pots and pans travelled in a growler.

Sarah climbed down from the cart, peering up at a tiny patch of blue just visible above the rooftops. The dark canyons between the manufactories and industrial buildings seemed to linger in a state of perpetual twilight. The ground shook beneath her feet as carts and drays thundered past laden with barrels, sacks and crates. The docks were just a street away and the shouts of stevedores, warehousemen and porters competed with the sound of the flapping of sails and the creak of wooden masts as sailing ships prepared to enter the docks. Unfamiliar odours emanated from the buildings; tobacco, molasses and roasting coffee beans struggled to overpower the stench of the Shadwell Basin and the festering mud on the foreshore. She felt as though she had entered another world, far different from the peace and quiet of the salt marshes as they slumbered beneath acres of open sky.

‘Here,' Franz said, leaping off the driver's seat. ‘Take the lightest things into the house. I'll bring the rest.'

She smiled. ‘You're a gent, Franz.'

‘I'm used to heavy work.' He stroked Boxer's muzzle. ‘You're due for a rest, I think.'

Sarah heaved two baskets of food from the back of the cart. ‘Are there any stables round here? Boxer belongs to my friend, and this conveyance is his livelihood.'

‘There's the yard at the refinery. The cart will be safe there and there are several horses in the stables. One more won't make much difference.'

‘Thank you, Franz. I don't know what we'd have done without you today.'

‘Miss Pearl would want me to help you. I do it for her.'

She nodded. Everyone loved Pearl and she could understand why Franz was smitten, but she could not help wondering if Miss Parfitt felt the same or what went on beneath her calm exterior. As far as Sarah could tell her wonderful Miss Perfect went through life like a silver swan gliding over a glassy lake, serene and unruffled by the world around her. How wonderful, Sarah thought, to be untouched by the turbulent emotions experienced by ordinary mortals.

The front door was open and she stepped into the narrow entrance hall, almost tripping over a box of books that someone had left in the middle of the floor. ‘Dorcas,' she called. ‘Where are you?'

A door to her right opened and Dorcas stuck her head out. ‘I'm trying to light the fire and the bloody thing keeps going out. Come and give me a hand.'

Sarah put the baskets on top of the box and took off her bonnet and shawl. ‘What can I do?'

Dorcas thrust a pair of bellows into her hands. ‘Get the damn thing going. We've tried to make the place as homely as possible for the mistress. Miss Parfitt says that first impressions are the most important and we all know what a terrible wrench it must be for madam to leave the house she went to as a young bride.'

Sarah took the bellows and went down on her knees in front of the grate. She worked them vigorously. ‘It's not too bad,' she said, trying to ignore the peeling wallpaper, chipped paintwork and patches of damp creeping up the walls.

Dorcas grabbed a broom and began sweeping the floor. ‘Looks like they kept pigs in the kitchen,' she muttered. ‘And why there's sawdust on the floor in the front parlour beats me.' She swept the dust into the hall. ‘Lay the rugs down when you've seen to the fire,' she said over her shoulder. ‘At least the poor lady will have somewhere decent to sit this evening. Miss Parfitt's seeing to her bedroom with the help of that Heinrich fellow. I can hardly understand a word he says but he's willing enough if you can make him understand what you want.'

Sarah concentrated on the task in hand and after a few minutes the flames took hold, producing a welcome blaze. She would have liked to sit there and enjoy the warmth, but there was still work to do and she rose to her feet. Having laid the rugs on the floor and set the furniture straight she took a moment to look round to see if there were any finishing touches that would make Mrs Arbuthnot feel more at home. The small house in a poor area was undoubtedly a comedown from Wellclose Square, but it was better than living on the streets and quite palatial compared to Miss Fitch's humble abode on the marshes. Satisfied that she could do no more, Sarah went to retrieve the baskets from the hall.

Dorcas swept the last of the dust into the street. ‘No one will notice a bit more rubbish on top of what's already there,' she said with a grim smile. ‘Come with me, and I'll show you the rest of the ground floor.' She bustled on ahead. ‘That will have to do as the dining room,' she said, thrusting a door open so that Sarah could peer inside a small, dark room that smelled of damp and dry rot. Dorcas closed the door with a sigh. ‘God alone knows what Mrs Burgess will say when she sees her kitchen, and Betty will have to sleep in the washhouse or the outside privy, but don't say nothing to her about it. I've set her to cleaning the range and she's not happy.' She led the way to the room in question where they found Betty sobbing quietly as she attempted to scrape the rust off the range. It was quite obvious that no one had cleaned it for a very long time, let alone applied a coat of blacklead.

Sarah rolled up her sleeves. ‘I'll give you a hand, Betty. We'll need to get a fire going as soon as possible or it'll be bread and cheese for supper.'

‘There's a pie and eel shop round the corner in the High Street,' Dorcas said, licking her lips. ‘I like a bit of eel pie and liquor with some mashed taters.'

‘I doubt if Mrs Arbuthnot would agree.' Sarah dipped a scrubbing brush in a bucket of cold water. ‘But I don't think we're going to get this thing working today. Did you pack the blacklead, Dorcas?'

‘Of course I did, but don't ask me which box it's in.' Dorcas started to unpack the baskets. She held up a bottle of mushroom ketchup. ‘I don't think Cook will need this for a few days.' She opened a cupboard and began emptying the contents of the basket onto the shelves. ‘You should have seen the state the larder was in when I arrived. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with me own eyes. There was cockroaches the size of mice. I'm not joking, Sarah. I never seen the like. And mouse droppings – the floor was thick with them. Mrs Burgess would've had a fit if she'd seen it. If I could get my hands on that man Trigg, I'd wring his fat neck.' She stopped talking and cocked her head on one side. ‘I think they've arrived. Now we're for it. Cook will have hysterics. Hide the cooking sherry.' She rushed from the room.

Sarah smiled to herself as she heard Dorcas welcoming Mrs Arbuthnot to her new home as if it were a palace and not a shabby three-storey dwelling that had probably been on the site since the time of Good Queen Bess. Moments later Cook sidled into the kitchen, clutching her hanky to her nose and mouth. ‘Is this where I'm supposed to work?' she demanded with a cry of anguish. ‘It's little bigger than a scullery.'

Betty clambered to her feet. ‘Can we go home now, Cook? Me hands is red raw from scrubbing this old monster.'

‘Be quiet, you silly girl,' Cook said, sinking down onto a chair. ‘How am I supposed to make meals on that ancient range? I doubt if it's had a fire in it this century.'

‘It's not so bad, Cook,' Sarah said hastily. ‘We've got the worst of the rust off it and when it's been blackleaded it'll come up a treat, although it might need the chimney sweep before we can light the fire.'

Cook buried her face in her hands. ‘I can't even boil a kettle. What have we come to?'

Dorcas rushed into the room. ‘Stop that, Cook. They can hear you in the front parlour and Mr Moorcroft says we mustn't upset the mistress. She's the one who's come down in the world. I daresay that you and I have seen worse than this in our time.'

‘I have,' Betty volunteered. ‘I remember when . . .'

‘Shut up,' Dorcas said angrily. ‘We don't care what you can or can't recall, my girl. Go outside to the pump and fill the kettle with water. We can heat it on a trivet by the fire in the front room. At least we can make a pot of tea and there's one of Cook's ginger cakes in the tin, if Betty hasn't been there before us.'

‘I'm afraid to go out the back,' Betty said, clutching the kettle in her hands. ‘There's rats like bulldogs out there and cats like tigers.'

‘Nonsense.' Sarah guided her towards the back door. ‘We'll go together and you'll see that the rats are no bigger than the ones in Wellclose Square.'

Outside there were two small brick buildings. One, Sarah discovered, was a tiny washhouse and the other housed a privy, which consisted of a bucket placed beneath a wooden seat. The yard was enclosed by a high brick wall with a gate leading into a service alley for the dustman and the night soil collector. There did not seem to be a pump but Sarah found one hidden beneath a stack of wooden floorboards that someone had been chopping up for firewood. She worked the handle and after a few spurts of rust and slime the water flowed freely. ‘There, Betty. Look at that. Nice clean water.'

‘Probably comes from the docks,' Betty muttered as she filled the kettle.

Sarah thought she was probably right but she did not want to discourage her. If Betty got an idea stuck in her head it was almost impossible to make her see sense, and if she told Mrs Burgess that their water was tainted it would be the final straw. She guided Betty back to the kitchen and Dorcas snatched the kettle from her. ‘You took your time. I'll see to the tea. Betty, you must finish cleaning the range and Sarah you can go and help Miss Parfitt make up the beds.' She hurried from the room, bristling with efficiency.

‘You'd think she was the mistress of the house,' Cook grumbled, shaking her head. ‘This is a bad day. A very bad day indeed.'

Sarah patted her on the shoulder. ‘At least we've got a roof over our heads, no thanks to that brute Trigg. Is it all right if I go and help Miss Parfitt, or do you want me to carry on unpacking the kitchen things?'

‘You're a good girl, Sarah. There's no point getting the cooking utensils out when I've got nothing to cook on. You go upstairs and help Miss Parfitt. We'll all be glad to lay our heads on our pillows tonight.'

‘Where will I sleep, Cook?' Betty asked nervously.

Cook gave her a withering look. ‘Get on with your work, you silly girl.'

Sarah left them with Betty muttering beneath her breath and Cook searching the larder, presumably hoping to find the cooking sherry amongst the jars of ketchup, jam and pickles. She was about to mount the stairs when Moorcroft emerged from the front room. ‘Sarah, wait a moment. Can I have a word?'

‘Yes, sir. Of course.'

‘I visited Spital Square first thing this morning to make enquiries about Elsie's will.'

‘Did she leave everything to Grey? Will he be able to pay Trigg and get out of prison?'

‘The document seems to have gone astray. Bertram's clerk delivered it to Spital Square, as requested, but now it's missing.'

‘Oh, no. That's awful.'

‘I'm afraid there's worse to come. I don't like to speak ill of a man whom I've counted as a friend for many years, but George Fitch seems determined to ruin his nephew. He is now saying that Tobias took the will from his desk when you and he visited the house.'

‘That's not true,' Sarah cried angrily. ‘I was with him all the time and he didn't take anything.'

‘George also said that certain valuable items had been stolen from him that day, and he's determined to press charges. Neither you nor I could state for certain that this is untrue, and if he carries out his threat I'm afraid Tobias could go to prison for a very long time.'