Copyright

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2018

Copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

Cover photographs © Gordon Crabb/alisoneldred.com (girl), Topical Press Agency/Stringer/Getty Images (background scene)

Cathy Sharp asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008286651

Ebook Edition © October 2018 ISBN: 9780008286668

Version: 2018-09-06

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Keep Reading …

Don’t miss these other novels by Cathy Sharp, available to buy now

About the Author

Also by Cathy Sharp

About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1

Eliza curled into a ball, crossing her arms over her stomach as the ache became a gnawing pain of hunger and she bit her lip to stop herself moaning. It was three days since she’d eaten anything, and she’d drunk only a few sips of water that Ruth had risked a beating to bring her just after she was shut up in here. Since then no one had come near. She was so cold that her fingers felt numb and her teeth were chattering. She believed she might die, locked in this dark cellar because of the mistress’s spite. She’d been beaten and thrown in this terrible place without a blanket or a mattress to lie on, all because she had told Mistress Simpkins that she was a liar.

‘You wicked, evil child!’ the incensed mistress of the workhouse had yelled at her. ‘How dare you say such a thing to me? How dare you speak to your betters in such a tone?’

‘You told us a lie.’ Eliza had stuck to her guns, despite her fear. ‘Tommy Hills died because you beat him for falling over when he was working but he was ill and – and it was your fault, because you withheld his rations,’ she ended defiantly, staring proudly at the woman who ran the female side of the workhouse. Tommy was not in Mistress Simpkins’ ward, but she’d given him the task of clearing a pile of heavy wood intended for repairs to the roof. He’d suffered with a malady of the lungs and he’d been coughing and gasping for breath when he staggered and fell, dropping an armful of the logs in front of the mistress. In a rage, Joan Simpkins had beaten the lad with the cane she carried at all times, striking him across his shoulders and arms until he’d collapsed into a heap on the ground at her feet.

Eliza had tried to help him and so had Ruth, but they’d been told to go about their business and the mistress had had one of the men carry him to the infirmary, where he’d died in the night. An infection of the lungs, so the mistress had told them, but the inmates all knew who was to blame. Only Eliza was foolish enough to say it out loud and now she was being punished for her audacity.

‘You are both disorderly and refractory,’ Mistress Simpkins said in a cold voice, ‘and you know the punishment for breaking the rules, girl. You will be put on short rations and removed to a place of solitude until you are suitably penitent.’

Eliza had stared at her defiantly, refusing to be cowed by the woman’s cruel threats and for that she received several hard blows across her face. She had been seized by the arm and dragged into the dismal punishment room and there she had been stripped by other women and forced to wear the filthy garb of one judged disorderly, after which she had been brought here to this dark place and thrust into it.

‘You are disobedient, a wicked evil girl,’ the mistress had told her. ‘It would serve you right if I just left you there and forgot you.’

She couldn’t do that! Ruth had told Eliza that the harsh rules of the workhouse allowed for the punishment she’d just been given, but surely the mistress could not leave her here to die? Yet Mistress Simpkins was a law unto herself. It was lawful for her to hire the inmates out for work because she was allowed to recover the costs of keeping them in the workhouse from any employer – and sometimes she charged far more than she was owed, which made it impossible for many to leave in order to take up work unless the employer was willing to pay. Ruth had told her that it was mostly men who came to the workhouse, wanting workers they could beat and work almost to death.

‘An honest employer can take a child or a young woman from a poor family and treat that person fairly,’ Ruth had told her. ‘But a man who means to work his servant to the bone, giving them poor food and expecting them to work all hours, comes here where no questions are asked. If a child or a woman dies after being beaten, who will bother about them if they are from the workhouse? An honest father might inquire after his daughter if she died suddenly – but who will ask for you or me?’

Eliza had shaken her head, because she had no answer. The only person who cared for her was Ruth. In the workhouse there were several other children who had no one, but some remembered their parents, many of whom had died of fevers or starvation, for there was little help for the destitute anywhere. Eliza, however, had been brought here as a babe and knew no one but Ruth and the other inmates. Ruth said it could be worse on the streets, though Eliza could not credit it. For some reason the mistress had taken against her and the other orphans stayed clear of Eliza lest her wrath fall on them.

Even those children who had a mother and father seldom saw them. Families were segregated, the men separated from their wives and children, and the women were not allowed to see their children, except at the discretion of the master or mistress on Sundays when they attended the church. It was forbidden to speak to your husband or wife except during the permitted times and breaking that rule could lead to severe punishment.

Some workhouses had their own chapel, but the roof of the chapel here had fallen in during a storm last winter and as yet sufficient money had not been found to repair it and so the favoured inmates were allowed to walk to church at the end of the road on a Sunday morning. On their return, the families were allowed time together until after the evening meal, when they were once again locked into their separate wings. All the inmates should have been permitted access to a place of worship, but if they chose, the mistress or master could withhold the privilege, and they did – as with schooling, which was meant to be provided for the children. Here there was no resident schoolmaster and lessons were given by the rector, who came three mornings a week, but children were sometimes prevented from attending as a form of punishment. Eliza was more often than not put to work in the laundry when she should have been at her lessons.

‘You have no need of learning,’ Mistress Simpkins had told her more than once. ‘A wicked girl like you deserves no such privilege.’

The lessons provided did not include reading or writing, and for the girls were more likely to be sewing, spinning and weaving, and for the boys, carpentry, masonry, or anything that would be useful in the kind of work they would be expected to do in their future lives. The rector told them beautiful stories of the Christ Child and sometimes he would write things on a blackboard with chalk, explaining that the squiggles he made were writing and that the stories he told them were all written in a book. Eliza was curious about the letters and had asked what they meant, but he’d looked at her sadly and shaken his head, because only a few of the boys were ever given a chance to learn those letters. Eliza had been taught to mend and to weave a little, but she’d hoped that one day she might be taught what the symbols meant inside the book he called the Bible and resented that she was refused that knowledge. The most she’d been taught were the letters of her name so that she could sign the register, though many inmates simply made their mark.

Eliza’s rebellion had built in recent weeks, but left here alone, she was afraid that she might never see Ruth again. Ruth had taken her precious shawl, because Eliza feared the mistress would snatch it and she would never see it again. It had once been a beautiful thing, made of soft ivory wool and edged with satin ribbon and lace but the lace had frayed long ago, because Eliza kept it with her always, even when she was in her bed. It was her only link with the past; Ruth had told her that she had been brought into the workhouse, wrapped in that shawl, and ragged as it was, she could do with it around her shoulders now, even though she knew the mistress would have taken it from her when she was stripped.

It was so cold lying on the stone floor, and very dark in the cellar beneath the workhouse. A tiny chink of light came from an iron grating above her head, but it wasn’t enough to show her more than the shapes of wooden crates and old, broken furniture that had been stored in here. Eliza had tried to find something to sit or rest on, but there were only bits of chairs and broken chests that would one day be used as firewood. Rats scuttled in and out of the rubbish, and one had run over her feet, making her scream, but she was no longer afraid of them: she was too numbed by hunger and cold to feel fear.

Eliza rubbed at her face, but she wasn’t crying. Tears only made you weak and they didn’t help; she’d learned that long ago. Her first memories were of Ruth talking to her and feeding her bread and milk slops sweetened with a little honey that her dearest friend had got from somewhere. She knew that it was a miracle she’d survived in this terrible place for all of her twelve years, for she’d been brought into the workhouse as a baby of a few weeks and in a few more weeks she would be thirteen. Ruth had told her the story so many times.

‘You be the child of a fine lady, my Eliza,’ she’d whispered as they sat huddled together on cold nights, trying to instil warmth into each other, for there were never any fires in the dormitories in which the inmates slept. Only in the kitchen was there a good fire to be found and that was used to fuel the big black iron range that Cook used to heat their food. ‘That shawl be of the finest wool and lace. The mistress didn’t notice, for you be wrapped in a coarse blanket and the shawl be beneath it. She give you to me to care for because she did not want to be bothered with a child that never stopped cryin’ and I hid the shawl until you be older for had she seen it she would’ve taken it.’

‘It belongs to me,’ Eliza said and clutched the shawl to her. There was no fear Mistress Simpkins would sell it now, for it was worn thin and the lace almost gone, but she might still have taken it from spite.

‘Aye, but if she’d seen it then she would have taken it and I doubt not she’d have sold it,’ Ruth said and touched her hand when she saw Eliza’s anger. ‘She would sell the clothes off her back if it wouldn’t shame her to go naked. But she don’t know all …’ Ruth touched the side of her nose. ‘Ruth be up to her tricks and mistress don’t know all.’

‘What do you mean, Ruth?’ Eliza asked.

‘I did find somethin’, my lovely,’ Ruth said, ‘and I hid it away where none shall find it – for ’tis yours, Eliza, and one day you shall have it, but not till we be safe away from here, for she would have it off you if she spied it.’

‘What is it?’ Eliza was curious, but Ruth only shook her head and told her she must wait. Eliza sometimes wondered if Ruth had just made it up to amuse her and take her mind from the hunger and cold, because even when Eliza wasn’t punished by being sent to bed without supper she was always hungry.

Despite the rules that said inmates should be properly fed, Eliza and most of the women could not remember being given sufficient food, unless an important visitor was due. Thin soup of some kind was provided in the middle of the day and sometimes they were given a sliver of cheese at night, but a bowl of porridge or gruel and a small piece of bread twice a day was hardly enough to keep her strength up for the tasks she was made to perform. Only on Sunday, which was a rest day, did the women and children sup on a watery stew with more vegetables than meat, or when the Board of Governors paid a visit, though the men were given stew most days because they needed meat and could not work unless they were fed properly. Their work might be anything from chopping wood or repairing the building, to breaking stones into small pieces, or picking oakum, which was used to help repair the holds of ships, though, of late, the master had acquired good work for the stronger men making rope. The women, though, were mostly given domestic chores, scrubbing, washing and sorting rags that brought in a few pennies for their mistress. They washed and ironed the clothes for the inmates; some of the more skilled women did weaving or spinning, and one woman did the most beautiful sewing, which earned money for the mistress, but some were just too sick to work much and they were either lying in beds in the infirmary wing until they died or sitting hunched up wherever they could find shelter from the cold.

Mistress Simpkins seemed to pick on Eliza more often than anyone else. She was made to scrub floors and empty the slops from the women’s dormitories every morning, and any dirty or unpleasant job that needed to be done was given to Eliza. Sometimes, she wondered why the mistress hated her, but Ruth told her to keep her head down and do whatever she was told.

‘I’ve been sold twice to different masters; they call it hiring but selling is what it is,’ she’d told Eliza. ‘The first one beat me and starved me and then he died and his wife sent me back here; the second one fed me, but he wanted more than a servant and I didn’t like the stink of him so I ran away. I lived on the streets for a few weeks but then I was caught beggin’ and the beak sent me back here to the spike; since then no one has asked for me.’

‘Why do you not leave?’ Eliza asked innocently. ‘Could you not ask to be signed out, as the men do?’ It was easy enough to give the three hours’ notice, which was necessary for the lengthy forms that had to be signed, but to leave without permission was deemed a crime, and if you wore the clothes provided for you by the workhouse it was theft, for they belonged to the master and must be paid for.

‘A man may take his family out if he has work to go to, and in the spring and summer there be work aplenty for those with a strong back,’ Ruth said, ‘but for a woman ’tis not easy to find work unless it be offered afore she leaves, and the fine ladies think twice of taking a servant from the workhouse, for they think us be lazy good-for-nothings. I be not beautiful, my lovely. Not many men look twice at me, and since you came I’ve been content to bide my time here – but they will look at you when you’re older. We must get away from here before that happens, Eliza. Mistress might have sold you afore this if she be willin’ but she refused – and I worry what she plans to do with you, my lovely.’

‘What do you mean?’ Eliza had asked, but Ruth would only shake her head and mutter something she could not understand but knew concerned her friend.

Eliza closed her eyes. How long had she been in this cellar? Far longer than the rules allowed, she was sure. Her fingers and toes were turning numb with the cold. Her eyelids were feeling heavy and she was so tired. Surely, she should have been released before this? She felt as if she were drifting away, being dragged down in the dark cold waters of a deep cavern and it was almost too much trouble to breathe. Perhaps she was dying – and surely death must be easier than living with this pain …

‘Eliza! Oh, be you not dead, my lovely.’ Ruth’s voice seemed to come from a long way off. ‘I swear that I will kill that evil witch if you be dead, my sweet babe, for as innocent as a babe you are and she a hell-born monster.’

Eliza’s mouth felt so dry and she tried to moisten her lips and ask for water but the words wouldn’t come. She felt Ruth’s rough-skinned but gentle hands stroking her forehead and her eyelids flickered. Her lips moved as she tried to speak but failed.

‘Sip a little of this, my lovely,’ Ruth said, and Eliza felt the sweetness of cool water on her lips and in her mouth. A trickle went down her throat and she made a little choking noise. ‘She ’ad no right to keep you shut up there that long. Now sip this for me …’

‘Not too much,’ a man’s voice said, and Eliza thought she knew it but she couldn’t be sure. Surely the master wouldn’t be here in the women’s side. He never bothered with the women and children, leaving all that to his sister. ‘I thank you for coming to me, Miss Jones. I cannot afford to have another child die so soon. Mr Stoneham is still demanding answers about the lad who—’

‘Eliza was punished for speaking out, sir. She believed it was because the mistress beat Tommy that he died.’

‘Well, well, no more is to be said of that, do you hear? My sister is a good warden and I won’t hear her slandered – but she should not have left the girl for so long in the cellar. One day shut up is the rule and two on short rations. I fear that she might have died had you not begged me to save her – and I have done so. You must be grateful to me and not speak ill of my sister to the doctor when he comes. The girl hid in the cellar and the door slammed on her. We have been looking for her – do you understand me?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Ruth agreed eagerly. ‘May I heat some milk and honey for her, sir – and then some nourishing broth?’

‘Yes, yes, tell Cook to give you whatever necessary, but in return you will give the story I have prepared – do you agree?’

‘Yes, sir, I do. Thank you for what you did, sir.’

‘Well, well, I am not a bad man,’ Master Simpkins said and cleared his throat. ‘My wife was an angel and she ministered to those in her charge – as you will recall, Ruth. You were but a child when she took ill of a fever and died. Was she not an angel?’

‘Yes, sir, ’tis so. The late mistress was a good woman and I do wish she was still with us.’

‘Well, well, it is what we all wish. My sister is not the woman my wife was – but she does her duty by you all. Now, I have work to do. Remember, if you are questioned by the doctor – or Mr Arthur Stoneham, in particular – you must tell them that the girl ran away and locked herself in the cellar. You do understand me?’

‘Yes, sir, I understand, and thank you for helping me.’

Eliza vaguely heard their conversation and then the sound of a door closing. ‘Where am I?’ she asked, her voice cracked and hoarse. ‘Can I have some more water please?’

‘You’re in the infirmary and I be told to look after you. The master said I am not to leave you until you’re better, my lovely. I will bring you some warm milk sweetened with honey and you must drink it, a little at a time, for it will make you strong again. When your throat’s better you shall have bread and milk and Cook says she shall save you a little of the stew from the master’s dinner, for she always cooks too much.’

‘Kind …’ Eliza murmured and drifted away into sleep.

She did not know how long she lay without stirring, but then she became aware of a man bending over her, touching her, and she cried out in fear.

‘Now then, child, there’s nought to fear.’ The doctor’s voice calmed her, for she had seen him tend other sick inmates. ‘There’s no real harm done. It’s fortunate your friend found you or you might have died in your hiding place.’

‘No …’ Eliza tried to deny the lie, but her words did not reach her lips. ‘She shut me in there …’

‘What is she saying?’ a voice Eliza did not recognise asked. ‘She seems distressed.’

‘It is just the ordeal she has suffered,’ the doctor said. ‘There is nothing to worry about, Mr Stoneham, I do assure you. Bed rest, nourishing food and the care of this good woman here and all will be well.’ The doctor turned to Ruth. ‘Remember, keep her warm, feed her – and a bath would not come amiss. I think it must be a long time since this young lady was properly bathed; her hair is crawling with lice and this dirt on her skin did not get there in three days. It is a sin not to clean yourself and the girl must be told this. So make sure she is bathed and has clean clothes – can you do that?’

‘Yes, if the mistress permits,’ Ruth said.

‘You must do exactly as the doctor tells you,’ Mistress Simpkins said in a soft caressing voice that Eliza did not recognise. The sound of it made her whimper and try to deny her lies, but her moans just made the doctor laugh.

‘These children do not like soap and water, Mistress Simpkins, but cleanliness is next to godliness – and I think she must learn to keep herself clean and to pray. I do hope you take your inmates to church every Sunday while your chapel is out of order?’

‘Of course, sir. I am not sure it makes any impression on them, for many of them are base and idle, but we try our utmost to keep them clean in body and mind.’

‘Our good queen sets us all an example by her conduct,’ the doctor said in a pious tone and the mistress agreed, for since the attack on Queen Victoria’s life some years earlier the people had taken her firmly to their hearts. ‘We must all attempt to live godly lives.’

A tear ran down Eliza’s cheek, because being dirty was one of the punishments heaped on her for disobedience. She had not been allowed to wash for weeks because she was deemed to be unworthy of the privilege. Feeling a gentle but firm hand on hers, Eliza tried to look at the man bending over her, but her eyes wouldn’t focus properly.

‘Things will improve, I promise,’ he said in a soft whisper that only she was meant to hear. ‘Have faith, child.’

Eliza’s fingers fluttered, trying to communicate her need, but he’d removed his hand and he and the doctor were leaving. She closed her eyes and waited until she heard the sound of the mistress’s footsteps returning.

‘If ever you dare to tell Mr Stoneham or the doctor that I shut you in the cellar I shall kill you!’ she hissed

Eliza opened her eyes and stared at her. The mistress met her look for a moment and then walked away. Eliza believed her threat, because children often died of fever or near starvation in this fearful place and one more would not be noticed. The mistress stood in place of a matron, which every workhouse was meant to have, but she cared little for the health of her inmates and anyone who was sick was left to rot in the infirmary unless Ruth or one of the other women cared for them.

‘Eliza, are you awake at last?’ Ruth’s face was bending over. ‘Can you drink a little milk now, my lovely?’

‘Yes please.’ Eliza felt herself raised against the hard pillows and a cup was held to her mouth. ‘She will punish us, Ruth. Just as soon as she thinks it safe, she will punish us again.’

CHAPTER 2

‘I swear there is something badly wrong at the workhouse in Whitechapel,’ Arthur Stoneham said to his companion as they lingered over the good dinner of roast beef and several removes Arthur’s housekeeper had served them. ‘I saw a child there today and she was barely alive. The tale was that she’d fallen down the stairs of the cellar when hiding to avoid doing her work – but those bruises looked to me very like she’d been beaten, and the idea of her having locked herself in the cellar is ludicrous.’

‘What do you mean to do about it?’ Toby Rattan asked. The younger son of Lord Rosenburg, Toby tended to spend his days in idle pursuits, gambling on the horses and cards, riding and indulging his love of good wine and beautiful women. He yawned behind his hand, for at times Arthur could be a dull dog, unlike the bold adventurer he’d been when the pair was first on the town in 1867 when they were both nineteen years of age. Something had happened about that time and it had sobered Arthur, making him more serious, though Toby had never known what had taken that devil-may-care look from his friend’s eyes, but their friendship had held for more years than he could recall since then, despite the change in Arthur’s manner.

‘I am trying to change things, but it is very slow, for although some of the board are well-meaning men they believe the poor to be undeserving,’ Arthur said and laughed as he saw Toby’s expression. ‘You did not dine with me this evening to hear about such dull stuff as this, I’ll wager.’

‘If only you would wager,’ Toby said and smiled oddly, because he was inordinately fond of his friend, even though he did consider him slow company when he got on his high horse about the state of the poor. ‘Actually, I agree with you, my dear fellow. If it would not bore me to death I would sit on the Board of Governors with you and help you get rid of that wretched woman.’

‘Ah, dear Toby, as if I would ask you to sacrifice so much,’ Arthur said and arched his left eyebrow mockingly. Toby was as fair as Arthur was dark and the two men were of a similar build and well-matched in form and looks, turning heads whenever they entered a room together. Toby grinned, for his sense of humour matched Arthur’s. ‘Fear not, all I would ask of you is that you donate a small portion of your obscene fortune to helping me repair and reform the workhouse.’

‘In what way?’ Toby smiled affectionately, because he admired his friend’s unswerving purpose in trying to rescue unfortunates from poverty and worse. ‘Are you going to install gas lighting or new drains?’

‘Firstly, they need a new roof, and I have already installed some new water pipes, but there was an outbreak of cholera in that area recently and I fear more needs to be done in the area as a whole,’ Arthur said and laughed as Toby’s lazy attitude fell away and he sat forward, suddenly intent. ‘Gas lighting is going a little too far for the moment, but I was hoping for both money and your help with changing opinions. For most the workhouse is a place of correction—’

‘Was that not its true purpose?’ Toby interrupted.

‘In 1834, because the demands of the destitute were so heavy on some parishes, the law was changed so that the poor could not claim on the parish unless they entered the workhouse,’ Arthur informed him, though he doubted his friend was ignorant of the law. ‘However, it was meant as a place of refuge where men, women and children would be cared for in return for work. The rules are strict, because they have to be – but I think Mistress Simpkins is not the only one who abuses them.’

‘In what way?’

‘I am fairly certain that they interpret the laws, using them for their own benefit. That girl had been in the cellar for three days, when the legal punishment in solitary confinement is one day, and she was lucky to be alive. Only a week or so back a boy died in mysterious circumstances in that same house and I believe the conditions to be much the same in many other workhouses.’

‘You do not hold to the opinion that the poor are shiftless and undeserving?’ Toby murmured one eyebrow lifting. ‘Most would say they have to prove their worth.’

‘Money is a privilege, not a right,’ Arthur said. ‘If I had a lazy servant to whom I paid good wages I would dismiss him – but I spoke to some of the men in that place and I believe that they are ready to work and care for their families. When they do have a situation, the wages are so poor that they can save nothing for the times when there is no work and so are forced into the workhouse through no fault of their own.’

‘You are a reformer, my friend,’ Toby chided. ‘You should take my father’s seat in the House of Lords.’

‘I leave the law-making to men like your father, Toby, but I would ask you to beg him to add his voice to those who seek reform. It is time the poor were treated with respect and given help in a way that does not rob them of their pride. Men should not be forced to take their families into the workhouse – and women should not be forced to prostitution to keep from starving. I also have it in mind to set up a place of refuge for such women.’

‘You know I am in agreement with that.’

‘Yes, I know – but I need help with these reforms at the workhouse.’

‘You have my promise,’ Toby said. ‘And if you need money for your reforms I will offer you five thousand immediately.’

‘I was sure I could count on you,’ Arthur murmured. ‘What I need most is your support. The more voices raised against those dens of iniquity the better, Toby, and I speak now of the whorehouses, not the spike, as the unfortunates within its walls call the workhouse. I would wish to have all brothels closed down, but every time I try to raise the subject I am told that such women are more at risk on the streets. At least in the brothels they are protected from violence and their health is monitored, so they tell me – and I fear it may be true, poor wretches.’

‘It is the children certain men abduct and initiate into their disgusting ways that disturbs me,’ Toby said, all pretence of being a fop gone now that Arthur had raised a subject that angered him. Toby enjoyed a dalliance with a beautiful woman as much as the next man, but he chose married or widowed women from his own class, women who were bored with their lives and enjoyed the company of a younger man. Visiting whores at houses of ill repute was something he had not done since he’d seen for himself the terrible consequences such places inflicted on the women forced to serve them. ‘If a woman chooses to support herself in this way it is her prerogative, but to force mere children! I told you of my groom’s twelve-year-old daughter who was snatched from her own lane, not two yards from her home?’

‘Yes, you did. When she was eventually found two years later, she had syphilis and was deranged. I know how that angered you, Toby.’ It was sadly but one case of many. Victorian society was outwardly God-fearing and often pious to the extreme, but it hid a cesspool of depravity and injustice that no decent man could tolerate.

‘Had I found the person that snatched poor Mary, I should have killed him,’ Toby vowed.

‘Exactly so.’ Arthur smiled at him. ‘I knew you were of the same mind, my dear friend. In our society the whore is thought of as the lowest of the low, but who brought her to that state? Men – and a State that cares nothing that a woman may be starving and forced to sell herself to feed her children.’

‘Yes, true enough, we are all culpable, but the ladies of the night do have a choice in many cases – the children sold into these places do not, Arthur. It is the children we must protect.’

Arthur reached forward to fill his wine glass. ‘We are in agreement. Thank you, Toby. I shall put your name at the top of my list – and I know of one or two influential ladies who will add theirs, but it is men we need, because for the most part they have the money and the power.’

‘I shall ask my father and brother to add their names. They will not do more, though of course I can usually extract a few thousand from my father for a good cause.’ Toby smiled, because he knew that his father indulged him. ‘I find the ladies are more vociferous when it comes to demanding change.’

Arthur raised his glass. ‘To your good health, Toby. Now tell me, have you visited the theatre of late?’

Arthur looked at himself in the dressing mirror as he prepared for bed. It was three in the morning and Toby had just departed to visit a certain widow of whom he was fond, and she of him. Their arrangement had lasted more than a year and Arthur thought it might endure for some time because the pair were suited in many ways, and Toby was too restless to marry.

He envied his friend in having found a lady so much to his liking. Arthur had thought of marriage once or twice but at the last he had drawn back, perhaps because he was still haunted by that time … No, damn it! He would not let himself remember that which shamed him even now. It was gone, finished, and he had become a better man, and yet he had not married because of his secret. He could never wed a young and beautiful girl, for he would soil her with his touch, and as yet he had not found a woman of more mature years of whom he might grow fond. Perhaps it was his punishment that he could not find love in his heart.

He had good friends, several of whom were married ladies that he might have taken to bed had he so wished, but he lived, for the most part, a celibate life. Yet he enjoyed many things – sharing a lavish dinner with his friends was a favourite pastime, as was visiting Drury Lane and the other theatres that abounded in London. On occasion he had even visited a hall of music, where singers and comedians entertained while drinks were served. He found it amusing and it helped him to see much of the underlife that ran so deep in Victorian society. It was seeing the plight of women thrown out of the whorehouse to starve because they were no longer attractive enough to serve the customers that made him feel he must do something to help, at least a few of them.

Mixing with a rougher element at the halls of music brought him in touch with the extreme poverty that the industrialisation of a mainly rural nation had brought to England. It had begun a century before, becoming worse as men who had been tied to the land followed the railways looking for work and then flocked to the larger towns, bringing their women and children with them. The lack of decent housing and living space had become more apparent and the poor laws which had once provided help, with at least a modicum of dignity, had failed miserably to support a burgeoning population. Public houses catered to the need to fill empty lives with gin, which brought temporary ease to those suffering from cold and hunger. It was because the towns and cities had become too crowded that the old laws were no longer sufficient to house and feed those unable to support themselves, so the workhouses had been built. All manner of folk, weak in mind and body were sent there, as well as those who simply could not feed themselves.

Arthur frowned as he climbed into bed and turned down the wick of his oil lamp. He’d long ago had gas lighting installed downstairs but preferred the lamps for his bedroom. His thoughts were still on the workhouse. It had been thought a marvellous idea to take in men, women and children who were living on the streets or in crumbling old ruins in cities and towns; to feed them, clothe them, and give them work, though production of goods made cheaply by the inmates was disapproved of by the regular tradesmen, who felt it harmed their livelihoods. Indeed, it should have been a good solution, but it was being abused. Women like that Simpkins harridan abused their power. Arthur frowned as he closed his eyes. His instincts told him that she had beaten the boy that died and locked that poor girl in the cellar – but was that all she was up to?

CHAPTER 3

Joan Simpkins was in a foul mood. She had sharply reprimanded by her brother, because he’d been warned that if there were more deaths they would be investigated and he could lose his ward-ship of the workhouse.

‘You must curb your temper,’ he’d told Joan after the latest meeting of the Board of governors. ‘I’ve been informed that we’re bein’ watched and if they find we’re mistreating the inmates we’ll be asked to leave.’

Joan felt her temper rise. Nothing annoyed her so much as knowing that those mealy-mouthed men and women, who understood little of what the poor were actually like, taking her to task. The Board consisted of gentlemen, prosperous businessmen, wives of important men, and even a military officer – and what did they know of the stinking, coarse wretches she was forced to deal with every day? Even when water and soap was provided some of them didn’t bother to wash, and some thought it dangerous to take off the shirt they’d worn all winter until it was mid-summer – and the women who came to the workhouse bearing an illegitimate child got no sympathy from Joan; they were whores and wanton and deserved to be treated as such. She made them wear a special uniform that proclaimed their sin and, if she had room, segregated them from the others in a special ward and made them scrub floors until they dropped the brat.

Now, she glared at her brother. ‘That wretched girl accused me of causing that stupid boy’s death. I had to make an example of her. If I hadn’t nipped it in the bud there would’ve been a rebellion. If something like that reached the ears of that interfering man Arthur Stoneham …’

‘Well, well, I daresay you had your reasons. However, Mr Stoneham has been very generous to us, Joan. He paid for the installation of new water pipes and we’ve not had a return of the cholera since then. He has granted us money towards some very necessary repairs to the roof and that will give the men work for weeks and us extra money.’

It was all right for her brother, Joan thought resentfully. Robbie was weak and lazy. He always took his cut of any money that came in. The funds for running the workhouses were raised by taxing the wealthy, which caused some dissent, but others saw it as a good thing that vagrants were taken off the streets, and made donations voluntarily. Joan did not share in her brother’s perks and was only able to save a few pence on the food and clothing she supplied to the women and children in her ward. If it were not for her other little schemes she would not have a growing hoard of gold coins in her secret place.

Joan hated living in the workhouse. The inmates stank and their hair often crawled with lice when they were admitted. Most of them obeyed the rules to keep themselves clean, but there were always some who were too lazy to bother. It was all very well for Mr Stoneham and the doctor to say the inmates should be given more opportunities to bathe. Heating water cost money and so did the soap she grudgingly gave her wards. She needed to pocket some of the funds she was given for their upkeep, because one day she intended to leave this awful place.

Joan had dreams of living in a nice house with servants to wait on her, and perhaps a little business. Once, she’d hoped she might find a man to marry her, but she was now over thirty and plain. Men never turned their heads when she walked by in the market and she resented pretty women who had everything given to them; like the woman who had brought that rebellious brat in and begged her to keep her safe from harm.

‘One day I’ll come back and pay you in gold and take her with me,’ the woman had promised, her eyes filled with tears.

She’d crossed Joan’s hands with four silver florins and placed the squalling brat in her arms. As soon as she’d gone, Joan had given the brat to one of the inmates and told her to look after it. She’d told Ruth that the child had been brought in by a doctor, though she hardly knew why she lied. Perhaps because she liked secrets and she’d believed then that the woman would return and pay to take the girl with her. She’d kept the girl all these years, refusing two offers to buy her, because of the woman’s promise, but the years had passed and the girl was nearly thirteen. She was a nuisance and caused more trouble than she was worth. It was time to start thinking what best to do with her …

Eliza paused in the act of stirring the large tub of hot water and soda. A load of clothes had been dumped into it earlier and it was Eliza’s job to use the wooden dolly stick she’d been given to help release the dirt from clothes that had been worn too long. They smelled of sweat, urine and excrement where the inmates wiped themselves for lack of anything else, and added to the general stench of the workhouse.

It was steamy and hot in the laundry, though the stone floors could be very cold in winter, especially if your feet were bare, and Eliza had been set to work here again once she recovered from her ordeal in the cellar. So far she’d been asked to stir the very hot water and then help one of the other women to transfer the steaming clothes to a tub of cold water for rinsing. Eliza wasn’t yet strong enough to turn the mangle they used to take out the excess liquid before the washing was hung to dry on lines high above their heads, which were operated by means of a pulley.

‘Watch it, girl,’ a cackling laugh announced the approach of Sadie, the oldest inmate of the workhouse. She’d been here so many years she couldn’t remember any other life. ‘Mistress be in a terrible rage this mornin’.’

Eliza looked at the older woman in apprehension. Sadie was handy with her fists on occasion and Eliza had felt the brunt of her temper more than once. She was the only one that didn’t seem to fear the mistress and was seldom picked on by her.

‘I’ve done nothin’ wrong, Sadie,’ Eliza said. ‘Do you know what has upset her?’

‘I knows the master took in a boy this mornin’ – a gypsy lad he be, dirty and rough-mannered, and mistress be told to have him bathed and feed him. She can’t abide gypsies.’

‘What exactly is a gypsy? I’ve heard the word but do not know what it means.’

‘They be travellin’ folk,’ Molly, another inmate, said coming up to them with an armful of dirty washing. They ain’t always dirty nor yet rough-mannered. I’ve known some, what be kind and can heal the sick.’

Sadie scowled and spat on the floor. ‘You’m be a dirty little whore yerself,’ she snarled and walked off.

‘Sadie’s in her usual cheerful mood.’ Molly winked at Eliza. ‘Do you want a hand with the rinsing, Eliza love?’

‘Would you help me?’ Eliza asked hopefully. ‘Sadie is supposed to give me a hand lifting the clothes into the tub of cold water, but she gets out of it whenever she can.’

‘You’re too small and slight for such work, little Eliza,’ Molly said and grinned at her. ‘And I’m too big.’ She laughed and looked at her belly, because she was close to giving birth again. Molly had been to the workhouse three times to give birth since Eliza had been here and each time she’d departed afterwards, leaving the baby in Mistress Simpkins’ care. Ruth had told her that the warden sold the babies to couples who had no children of their own.

Since workhouse children who were found new lives were thought to be lucky, no one sanctioned the mistress for disposing of the babies as she chose.

‘You might hurt yourself,’ Eliza said as Molly took up the wooden tongs. ‘If you lift something too heavy it might bring on the birth too soon.’

‘What difference?’ Molly shrugged. ‘If the babe be dead it will be one less soul born to misery and pain.’

Eliza looked up at her. ‘Would you not like to keep your child and love it?’

‘They wouldn’t let me. I should have to leave the whorehouse and I have nowhere else to go and no other way of earning my living,’ Molly said and pain flickered in her eyes. ‘They own me, Eliza love, body and soul.’ She smiled as she saw Eliza was puzzled. ‘You don’t understand, and I pray to God that you never will.’

‘If you are unhappy why don’t you go far away?’ Eliza asked. ‘When I’m older I shall go away, go somewhere there are flowers and trees and fields …’

‘What do you know of such things?’ Molly laughed as she started to transfer clothes from the steaming hot tub to the vat of cold water.

‘Ruth’s father was a tinker and they used to travel the roads. He found work where he could and they lived off the land, foraging for food and workin’ for what they could not catch or pick from the hedges.’

‘And where did that get them?’ Molly said wryly. ‘He took ill one winter and was forced to bring them into the workhouse. Ruth Jones has watched all her family die, one by one, and now what does she have to look forward to? It be a life of toil in the workhouse unless she be given work outside – and when men come looking for a servant we all know what they want.’ Eliza shook her head and Molly laughed. ‘No, you be innocent as a new-born lamb, little one, but that won’t last – and when you understand the choice you’ll know why I choose the whorehouse.’

Eliza did not answer. She did not consider that Molly was free, for Ruth had told her the whorehouse was no better than the workhouse, even though the food was more plentiful and at least Molly had decent clothes and was able to wash when she wanted.

‘You, girl – come here!’

Eliza jumped because she’d had not noticed the mistress approaching. She left the rinsing to Molly and went to stand in front of the mistress, but instead of hanging her head as most of the inmates did, she looked her in the face and saw for herself that Sadie was right: mistress was in a foul mood.

‘There’s a boy,’ Mistress Simpkins said, looking at Eliza with obvious dislike. ‘He’s filthy and disobedient and refuses to answer me. Tell Ruth to scrub him with carbolic and give him some clothes. I want him presentable – and in a mood to answer when spoken to; if he refuses he will have no supper. You know that I mean what I say.’

‘Yes.’ Eliza’s eyes met hers. She knew all too well that Mistress Simpkins gained pleasure from punishing those unfortunate enough to arouse her ire. ‘I’ll find Ruth – what is the boy’s name, please?’

‘His name is Joe, so I am told, but he refuses to answer to it.’ Mistress Simpkins’ eyes gleamed. ‘You might tell him what happened to you, girl.’

Eliza met her gloating look with one of pride. If it had been Mistress Simpkins’ intention to break her by shutting her in the cellar her plan had misfired. The horror she had endured had just made her hate the warden more and she was determined to defy her silently, giving her nothing she could use to administer more unjust punishment.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I might …’

‘You impertinent little bitch!’ Mistress Simpkins raised her hand as if she would strike but Molly made a move towards her and something in her manner made the mistress back away. ‘Get off and do as I tell you or you will feel the stick on your back.’

Eliza ran off, leaving the clammy heat of the washhouse to dash across the icy yard to the kitchen. She knew that if Molly hadn’t been there to witness it, Mistress Simpkins would have struck her. Molly had some status in the workhouse. Eliza didn’t know what it was but she thought perhaps the master favoured her.

She found Ruth in the kitchen helping Cook prepare vegetables and told her what the mistress had instructed her to do. Ruth nodded, for she was used to being given such tasks. Mistress Simpkins always passed on the children she could not be bothered with herself, and it was usually Ruth that had the task of caring for them.

‘Let’s fetch the lad here,’ she told Eliza with a smile. ‘We’ll give him a drop of the master’s stew – is that all right with you, Cook?’

‘Aye, Ruth lass. Let the boy get some food inside him and he’ll feel more like talkin’.’ Cook smiled at them. ‘I daresay you wouldn’t mind a drop of my soup, Eliza love? No need for the mistress to know. She grudges every penny she spends on our food, but she dare not question what I spend on the master’s dinners.’ She winked at them. ‘A little deception does no harm now and then. What say you, Eliza?’

‘I don’t want you to get into trouble or Ruth …’

‘Nay, lass, there’ll be no trouble. Mistress knows if I left she could not replace me. There’s not many would work here for the pittance they pay. So she would have to do the cooking herself or get another inmate to do it and none of them have the first idea how to start so I’m safe enough.’

Eliza smiled and took the bowl of soup Cook offered, drinking it down quickly as if she feared Mistress Simpkins might appear and snatch it from her.

‘Lawks a’ mercy,’ Cook said. ‘You’ll get hiccups, girl. Off with the pair of yer and let me get on or there’ll be no soup for the men.’

Ruth winked at Eliza as they left the kitchen. ‘She’s not a bad woman, Eliza for all her sharp tongue at times.’

‘I like Cook,’ Eliza said and smiled, the goodness of the soup giving her a lovely warmth inside. ‘Sadie said the new boy was a gypsy – his family travel, like yours, Ruth.’

‘My father was a tinker. He mended pots and pans and did odd jobs of any sort, but he wasn’t Romany,’ Ruth told her. ‘The true Romany is special, Eliza. The women often have healin’ powers – and the men are handsome and strong, and some of them could charm the birds from the trees.’

‘Perhaps Joe is Romany,’ Eliza said. She pointed across the wide, cobbled courtyard, swept clean every morning by the older boys no matter the weather. It was bounded by high walls with only one way out: a pair of strong iron gates that were impossible to scale. ‘Look, that must be him, standing near the gates.’

‘Aye, the poor lad be feelin’ shut in,’ Ruth said and there was pity in her tone. ‘I mind my father standin’ like that for many a month afore he grew accustomed to this terrible place.’

‘Doesn’t he know that he can’t leave unless his father comes for him – or unless he’s taken by a master?’

‘If he knows, he won’t admit it in his heart,’ Ruth said. ‘A lad like that needs to be free to run in the fields and breathe fresh country air.’

‘I’ll go to him.’ Eliza set off at a run, ignoring Ruth’s murmured warning to take care. As she approached, the boy turned and looked at her, glaring and angry, his blue eyes smouldering with suppressed rage. ‘Are you Joe?’ Eliza asked. ‘I’m Eliza. I was brought here when I was a babe. It is a terrible place but I’m goin’ to leave one day and then I’ll go far away, somewhere there are fields and wild flowers in the hedges.’

‘You don’t know where to find them,’ the boy said, and Eliza was startled by the sound of his voice that had a lilting quality. ‘You’re not Romany.’

‘No – are you?’ He inclined his head, his eyes focused on her so intently that Eliza’s heart jumped. ‘I think I should like to live as you did – travellin’ from place to place.’

‘In the winter it be hard,’ he said. ‘Ma took sick again this winter and Pa came to Lun’un lookin’ for a warm place to stay for her and work – but they said he was a dirty gypsy and a thief and they put him in prison for startin’ a fight, which he never did.’ His eyes glittered like ice in the sun. ‘My Pa never stole in his life nor did harm to any. He be an honest man and good – I hate them and all their kind.’

‘So do I,’ Eliza said and moved a little closer. ‘Master is not too bad as long as you don’t disobey him openly – but mistress is spiteful and cruel and she’s boss of her brother. I hate her so much. I should like to kill her.’ Eliza made a stabbing movement with her hand. ‘See, she’s fallen down dead.’

A slow smile spread across the newcomer’s face. ‘I like you, Eliza,’ he said. ‘Shall we kill her together?’

‘Yes, Joe – one day, when we’re bigger and stronger,’ Eliza said. ‘For now we have to do as she says – or pretend to. Let her think she rules, but she can’t rule our hearts and minds – she can’t break us even if she beats us. If you come with Ruth and me, Cook will give you some of the master’s stew. It’s good, much better than they give us. Mistress said we shouldn’t feed you until you were bathed and changed your clothes, but Cook said you should eat first. Will you come?’

‘I’ll come for you,’ Joe said. ‘You’re pretty – like my ma. She’s beautiful, but the travellin’ don’t suit her and she be ill in the winter.’

‘Where is your ma?’ Eliza offered her hand and he took it, his grip strong and possessive. Her eyes opened wide and she seemed to feel something pass between them, a bond that was not spoken or acknowledged but felt by both.

‘Bathsheba took her to Ireland,’ Joe told her. ‘She’s Pa’s sister and travels with us, though she has her own caravan. They wanted me to go with them but I ran away to be near my pa. When I can I shall visit him in prison and let him know I be waitin’ for him.’

‘You will need to get away from here,’ Eliza said. ‘How did they catch you?’

‘I went to the prison gates and demanded to see my pa; they tried to send me away but I refused and kept shouting at them. They sent the constable to arrest me and he brought me here because I had no money and nowhere to stay and he said I be a vagrant.’

‘They won’t let you go unless your pa comes for you or a master takes you,’ Eliza said with the wisdom of a child reared in the workhouse. ‘You could try to escape. Not many do because it’s hard out there, so they tell us. I’ve never been anywhere …’ Eliza’s eyes filled with tears, for there were times when she ached to be free of this place. Joe reached out to her, smoothing her tears away with his fingers.

‘You shouldn’t cry. You should just hate them. You’re be too pretty to cry, Eliza. Your hair’s like spun silk … My ma has hair like yours but ’tis darker, not as silver as yours.’ He smiled at her and leaned his head closer. ‘When I escape I’ll take you with me.’

‘Oh yes, please let me come with you,’ Eliza begged. ‘We could go and live in the fields and you can show me where the wild flowers grow.’

Joe nodded and then scowled. ‘I be hungry. ’Tis ages since I’ve eaten more than a crust of bread. I’ll wash ’cos I don’t like nits in my hair – but I want my own clothes. Can you wash them for me and give them back? If she gets them I’ll have to ask her for them before I leave and she wouldn’t let me go for I am too young to be alone on the streets – at least that’s what they claim.’

‘Yes, I can do that for you,’ Eliza said, though if she was caught stealing from the laundry she would be beaten. ‘You’ll have to wear what you’re given for now, but you can hide your things and then when you escape, you can wear them.’

‘You’re a bright girl,’ Joe said and smiled. ‘Can you read and write, Eliza?’

‘Rector taught us to write our names once and Ruth helped me practice, but I can’t read,’ Eliza admitted and the smile left her eyes. ‘Mistress never lets me take lessons with the vicar now. She says all I need to know is how to address my betters.’

‘You’re better than her,’ Joe said fiercely and once again his eyes glittered like ice, ‘and don’t you forget it. Ma taught me to read, write and my numbers – and I’ll teach you.’

‘Yes.’ Eliza felt the warmth spread through her. ‘We’ll be friends, Joe – me and you. Whatever they do, we’ll always be friends …’

CHAPTER 4

‘It is time the rules were reformed,’ Arthur said to a group of men as they moved to leave the inn parlour that had been their meeting place. ‘Some of them are too harsh – and I believe the wardens should be more strictly regulated.’

‘You would relax the rules for the undeserving and regulate the hard-working men and women who enforce them?’ one of the board members asked incredulously. ‘Have you lost your wits, Stoneham?’

‘No, Sir Henry, I think not,’ Arthur replied. ‘I believe that the rules were set up in good faith but they are open to abuse by the master and the mistress – and I think it is time they were reviewed. Just as I do not believe that a master should be allowed to beat his servant for some small misdemeanour.’

‘Good grief! You would turn society on its head,’ Sir Henry said, staring at him with eyes that bulged in disbelief. ‘You cannot imagine what chaos could ensue, my dear Stoneham. Your compassion does you credit – but they are cunning wretches. You must not believe a word they say. A servant who complains of his master’s whip has probably stolen from him – and if dealt with firmly would be sent for a year’s hard labour. He is lucky to escape with a beating.’

‘Come, sir,’ Toby said and raised a lazy eyebrow. ‘Are all the poor undeserving wretches?’

‘Most – and if not they are usually insolent and impertinent and should be kept in their place or a man will not be able to keep hold of his property. Only those that prove their worth and know their place should be promoted.’

‘And what if I had proof that the rules were being abused and vulnerable girls harmed?’ Arthur asked.

‘Well, in certain circumstances we might have to replace the master and the woman who assists him as matron or whatever.’ Sir Henry yawned, obviously bored. ‘These meetings are tiresome. I must be off to my club – good-day, gentlemen.’ He tipped his hat and went on his way muttering about reformers.

‘You see what I am up against,’ Arthur said, and his gaze followed the baronet in disgust. ‘Any mention of reform and they fear for their property.’

‘Sir Henry does not speak for us all,’ a deep voice said from behind them and they turned to see another of the governors looking at them with interest. ‘I agree that the rules may need updating.’

‘Major Cartwright …’ Arthur nodded. He was not inclined to make an ally of the old soldier and yet it seemed that he might have to take what votes he could get. ‘I believe that some of the punishments used on children are too severe.’

‘Ah yes, the poor young ones,’ the major said but looked odd. ‘Well, I am not against reform. You may rely on me if you need my vote – good day, gentlemen.’

Arthur watched him leave. ‘Why don’t I trust that man?’

‘I’ve met his sort before …’ Toby shook his head. ‘Not sure you are right not to trust him, but he might be an ally if you need one, Arthur.’

‘I’m glad you decided to sit in this morning,’ Arthur said. ‘Now, I propose to treat you to a dinner at my club to make up for all the boring chatter you’ve been forced to endure.’

‘And so I should think,’ Toby said and twirled his Malacca cane with its silver knob. ‘At least you got the money for the new drains passed so it’s not all bad, my friend.’

‘Tell me, Molly, is that my brat in there?’ Master Simpkins smiled and touched her swollen belly. ‘I dare swear I’ve swived you enough to claim it.’

Molly laughed and reached for the tankard of strong ale on the table beside her, drinking deeply from it and wiping her chin with the back of her hand before kissing him on the mouth and thrusting her tongue inside. He tasted of strong ale and his breath smelled, but she’d known worse and she tolerated him. Robbie could be coarse, and he’d taken her virginity by force when she was a young girl, but she’d more or less forgiven him because she accepted that it was her lot in life. Robbie wasn’t the worst of the men she served and these days she used him as much as he used her. He was weak, a creature of lust and greed, and yet he could be generous if he chose. Because of Robbie, Molly was able to come here to have her child and leave again when she chose.

Few knew that he was part owner of the whorehouse where she worked and lived, though he had nothing to do with its daily life, but Molly had discovered it long since. It made her smile to think that his sister was ignorant of what her brother got up to in his quarters.

Oh, Mistress Simpkins had her own dirty little schemes but Molly would bet that Robbie was as ignorant of what his sister was up to as she was of his part-ownership of the brothel. However, whereas Molly could accept Robbie’s involvement, she hated his sister and what she did with a deep vengeance. Grown women selling themselves for money and a life of comparative ease was one thing, but condemning children to the brutality of the evil men that used them was quite another. If she’d thought that she could stop Joan Simpkins from selling the children she would have told Robbie, but she knew he would either disbelieve her or be unable to control his sister; Joan was the stronger of the two and though she held her post through him, he seldom interfered with her.

‘You’re not a bad old sod,’ she told him now. ‘I can’t let yer ride me, Robbie love, ‘cos I’m too big – but I’ll give yer a treat if yer like.’ She moved her hand suggestively to his bulging breeches and smiled. ‘You’m be hung like a horse, me darling. It must be painful fer yer with yer breeches so tight … let Molly ease yer.’

‘Yer the best, Molly. Yer always look after me,’ he said and pulled her in for a kiss. ‘Get on with it then – and take your time.’

Joan Simpkins paused outside her brother’s door listening to the disgusting sounds coming from inside. He and his whores thought she was ignorant of what they did in his rooms, but she’d learned what he was long ago – even before his wife died. To hear him speak of his wife anyone would think he’d adored the woman he called a saint, but if he had loved her it had never stopped him indulging his baser needs with whores.

She frowned and turned away, making her own secret tour of all the wards while her brother was otherwise engaged. He had no idea that she overlooked his side of the workhouse, but she knew all the spyholes and enjoyed watching men, women and children as they moved about their quarters or lay in their beds, believing that no one but their companions knew of what they did in the hours of darkness; their misery satisfied her and eased her own self-pity.

Joan had learned of the baseness of these creatures when she was but a young girl. Spying on them, she saw the furtive couplings between certain types of men, and it pleased her that she knew their secrets – the filthy beasts were no better than animals to her mind. She grudged what comfort their couplings gave them for she thrived on the suffering of others. When gentlemen instructed that these creatures should be treated as human beings she hardly knew how to contain her ire. Men like Mr Stoneham, used to the luxury of clean linen, warm fires, and all the wine and choice foods he desired, had no idea what kind of beasts they dealt with here; ignorant, filthy, base creatures who would do nothing to help themselves unless prodded to it. They rutted like animals and deserved no better treatment.

Joan also knew that some of the men fought off those others and sought their pleasures with the women, sometimes their wives if they could find a way, but often another young woman taken with her consent and, at times, without. The strict rules meant that the men and women were segregated and locked in their own wings to prevent this kind of thing, but they were cunning and some had discovered how to move about the workhouse even after the doors were locked at night. When she discovered where their illicit key was hidden she would take great pleasure in punishing the culprits. For the moment it amused her that they believed themselves safe.

Joan had not interfered even when she witnessed the rape of a young girl by her own brother. It had amused her to watch for the girl was nothing but an impertinent upstart – and pretty. She deserved her fate.

Soon afterwards, the girl had come to her and confessed she was with child. Joan had told her she had her just deserts for fornicating and offered her a choice – she might go to an asylum for correction or enter a whorehouse. The girl had chosen the life of a whore, which just showed that Joan was perfectly justified in her opinion of her character.

Molly was a slut and always had been. She was a whore at heart and there was no more to be said, but it irked Joan that she seemed to enjoy her life. Why should she be happy and free to come and go when Joan was tied to her post, not by duty but the need for money? When she left this place it would be for good and she needed a great deal of money to live in comfort – or she would one day find herself once more in a place like this but as an inmate.

Eliza lay snuggled up to Ruth beneath the blanket they shared. Now that she was thirteen she was allowed to sleep on the women’s wing instead of being sent to join the other young children at night. Lying close to her friend was the only way to keep warm and Eliza liked being with the woman she called friend, but this night she found it hard to sleep. Joe had told her about his life while he ate his meal in the kitchen and Eliza felt an aching need inside her to see what it was like to be free, to travel wherever she wished.

The only place she’d ever been taken to was the church at the end of Farthing Lane. It was a treat on Sunday and she was given a clean dress on the days she was allowed to go, but that was not often. A group of children and women and a few men went every week, because the Board of Governors insisted that the inmates hear the word of God, but Mistress Simpkins did not allow everyone from her ward to go. A few women and girls were chosen and supervised by Mistress Simpkins and Sadie, and they were dressed cleanly with aprons and little white caps over a grey dress. Eliza sometimes wondered why the men and women did not just walk away on these outings, for neither Sadie nor the mistress could have stopped them, but when she asked Ruth, she’d told her that they simply had nowhere to go.

‘Life is hard in here,’ she’d said looking sad, ‘but it can be terrible cruel on the streets, Eliza. Here we be given food every day; it may not be much and ’tis often hard to stomach, but it is better than no food at all. The men bring their families in when they be close to starvin’. I tried to live on the streets and it’s no place for children, my lovely. There are dangers out there that we be protected from in here. The women won’t leave without their kids and the men won’t leave their families here alone so they stay until work is offered and they can sign themselves out, though many are back in a few months when the work dries up. ’Sides, if they walked off in the uniform they could be taken up fer stealin’.’

Ruth was fast asleep and snoring gently, and Eliza wished she might sleep, but her rebellious nature kept her wakeful. One of these days she was going to run away. She would like it to be with her new friend Joe, but if not she would go alone. Eliza knew her chances of surviving on the streets alone at her age were slight; she had to hold on, to endure the mistress’s spite for another year or so. When she was older she could ask for work and might be given it. At the moment she was too young and slight. Most people wanted a strong girl to do all their chores and Eliza might not look strong, even though the years of hardship had toughened her. They would want an older girl or a woman and that was why she was still here after so many years.

Yet perhaps if she and Joe ran away together they could manage. In the country, perhaps, folk were kinder than in town …

‘I’ve been lookin’ round,’ Joe told Eliza the next morning when they met after breakfast. It was a time when the two sides mixed in the dining room and then dispersed, each to their own work. ‘I’ve been put to work with the men making hemp rope. There’s a man called Bill and he knows a way to get out, though he says he’s not ready to leave yet. I asked him to tell me, but he said if I used it, it would spoil his chances when he goes, but if there is one way there must be others.’

‘No talking!’ Eliza looked up and saw the mistress watching them. ‘Get to your work, girl, or you will feel my stick.’

‘Don’t you dare hurt her,’ Joe said and moved in front of Eliza. ‘Lay a finger on her and I’ll see you dead – I’ll lay a curse on you and you’ll die in agony, withered and alone!’

For a moment the colour left Mistress Simpkins’ face and Eliza thought she saw fear in her eyes, but then in a moment it had gone.

‘I do not believe in your curses, gypsy,’ she said and raised her stick bringing it down hard, but Joe was too quick for her and seized it, twisting it from her hand with a flick of his wrist. ‘How dare you? I shall see you are flogged for this – and you’ll have no food this day.’

Joe stared at her defiantly and then broke the stick over his knee and flung down the pieces. She raised her hand and struck him again about the face but though he flinched he stood firm, his eyes daring her to touch him again.

‘Now then, now then,’ the master’s voice made Eliza spin round for she had not noticed his approach, but Joe and the mistress had not taken their eyes from each other as if neither would give in. ‘What has this boy done to upset you, sister?’

‘He is a disobedient, dirty gypsy and he needs to be punished. He broke my stick and he dared to threaten he would put a curse on me.’

The master looked at Joe severely. ‘Did you do as the mistress claims, boy?’

‘Yes, sir, ’tis true. She be goin’ to hit Eliza and I told her I’d curse her if she did – so she tried to hit me with her stick and I broke it.’

‘Did you indeed?’ For a moment it looked as if the master approved of Joe’s action but then he frowned. ‘Well then, well then, boy – what am I to do with you? This won’t do, you know. I cannot allow you to defy the mistress – even though you are in my ward, not hers.’ His thick brows met as he looked at his sister as if sending her a challenge.

‘He must be flogged and sent to the hole – and no food today, none!’ Mistress Simpkins’ voice had reached a shrill pitch that made the master frown.

He reached out and took hold of the collar of the worn and much-patched jacket Joe was wearing. ‘You come along with me boy,’ he said looking angry. ‘You have upset the mistress and you must be punished.’

Eliza watched as Joe was dragged off, holding back her tears. She was so angry and yet so frightened for Joe. He’d been rebellious from the start because he was used to living free and he didn’t understand how hard life was in the workhouse. Open defiance made the mistress lose her temper and she had been known to beat a child until the blood ran in one of her rages.

‘What are you staring at, girl?’ the mistress snapped suddenly making Eliza jump. ‘Get to your work or you’ll find my stick about your shoulders.’ A glint of temper showed in her eyes as she looked down at the stick Joe had broken. ‘Don’t think that will save you. I’ve another stronger and thicker that that gypsy brat won’t break.’

Eliza turned and walked towards the laundry. Her heart was racing wildly and she wanted to run but she made herself walk. She must never show fear, never show weakness. If the mistress once thought she could break you, she would never let up.

Eliza’s back felt as if it were breaking when she finished her day’s work. She’d filled the vats with hot water from the copper and then stirred ten piles of dirty clothes into the water that had turned a muddy brown colour by the time she’d finished the last. They were only allowed to heat one tub of water a day but they used two tubs of cold water to rinse the clothes, so that when they were mangled for the last time they smelled reasonably fresh and the dirt had gone. Once the washing was hanging high above their heads under the vaulted ceiling, they had to empty all the vats and tip the filthy water into the ditches that ran past the rear of the laundry out into the gutters in the lane and finally into the sewers. It was back-breaking work and all the women were exhausted by the time they were told to take their places for the second meal of the day in the dining-hall.

Ruth was waiting for her and had saved a place for her. Every day Ruth fetched a piece of the coarse brown bread and soup for them both, as well as a cup of water.

That day the soup was vegetable but there was a flavour of something more and Ruth told her that Cook had used the bone left over from the master’s ham to flavour their soup and put a little goodness in it.

‘You’re tired, Eliza,’ Ruth said as Eliza swallowed a little of the liquid which tasted better than usual. ‘They work you to death in that damned place – and you’re not strong enough for such labour.’

‘I’m all right,’ Eliza said and summoned enough strength to smile at her. She looked around her but could see no sign of Joe. ‘Have you seen or heard what happened to Joe, Ruth?’

‘No, my lovely, I be none the wiser than you. ’Tis whispered he was beaten but Jigger told me he was made to sweep up in the rope store. Mebbe the master thought he was better at work than in the hole. Though it seems he has not been sent for his supper.’ It was forbidden for the men to speak to the women but there were times when a trustee like Jigger was sent over to their side of the workhouse to do some work and he always passed on messages, even though he risked a beating for disobedience.

‘Joe will be so hungry,’ Eliza said, because she knew what it felt like to be beaten and sent to bed with no supper, though often Ruth smuggled something to her, even if it was only a crust of bread.

An idea came to Eliza as she ran the last little piece of her bread round her soup plate and swallowed it. She was still hungry even after their meal and she knew Joe’s stomach would be aching from the pain of hunger. She looked along the line of women and children. Not one of them had left a crumb of bread. No food was ever wasted on this side of the dining room because there was never enough.

If she wanted to smuggle some food to Joe she would have to go to the kitchen and beg something from Cook. She thought the kindly woman might be sympathetic, because she sometimes gave Ruth bits of leftover food from the master and mistress’s table. Master liked his food and did not stint on what he gave Cook to provide for his meals; the mistress contributed nothing for her food but dined with her brother and shared his. Yet even so there was often a piece of soft white bread or a small corner of cheese left over. Cook was fair and would share the extras with the inmates who were currently in her favour. Most people took care never to upset Cook, because the scraps she dispensed could mean the difference between survival and near starvation, particularly on the women’s side. The men’s food was a little better and they had a nourishing stew three times a week with potatoes and sometimes carrots or turnips in season. So Cook saved her scraps for the women and children.

Eliza made an excuse that she needed to relieve herself and stole away to the kitchens when the inmates were lining up for evening prayers. Every night after supper, the master led them in prayers of thankfulness for what they had been given and gave them a little lecture on the evils of sloth and idleness. Eliza was unnoticed as she slipped out of the hall and ran to the kitchens.

Cook was polishing one of her saucepans when she entered, breathing hard. She looked at the girl through narrowed eyes as Eliza struggled for breath.

‘You want something for Joe, don’t you?’

‘Yes, please, Cook, if you will be so kind as to give me a piece of bread and a little milk.’

‘I cannot spare the milk, child, but I have bread – and there’s a piece of cheese, and …’ She hesitated, then went to the pantry and brought out a half-eaten pie, from which she cut a chunky slice. ‘This be apple pie, Eliza. I doubt you’ve ever tasted it, but ’tis tasty and will help moisten his mouth. ‘I’ll wrap it in a bit of linen and you can hide it inside your tunic. If mistress sees it we’ll both be in for it so be careful.’

‘Yes, I will thank you. You be so kind to us, Cook.’

‘Well, well, ’tis only right,’ she muttered beneath her breath. ‘It breaks a body’s heart to see what that woman makes folk suffer. When I was a lass I worked in the kitchen as the lowest of the low, Eliza, but Cook fed me and she taught me about good food. She would turn in her grave if she saw what I have to put up with here for she believed in good ingredients, and if you tasted her apple pie you would think you’d gone to Heaven.’

Eliza’s interest was caught. ‘Where did you live when you were a girl, Cook?’

‘I don’t remember the name of the house,’ Cook said with a sigh, ‘but I recall ’twas near the sea. I think ’twas on the South Coast, near a place called Bournemouth but I never went there in my life. When Cook retired, mistress made me Cook in her place for I had learned all that I could and she took me with her when the great house was sold and they came to London town. The family had fallen on hard times and it was a much smaller house. The master drank, you see, and lost his fortune. Then he died and mistress was forced to sell up and go to live with her sister. She took her personal maid but the rest of us were let go.’

‘Did you come here as an inmate then?’

‘No, I worked for an elderly gentleman for some time – but in the end he died too and then I cooked for working men on the docks at a canteen there for it was all I could find. They were rough-tongued but it was well enough, until I fell afoul of a rogue. He persuaded me to run off with him and be his mistress and like a fool I did, and he left me when I became pregnant. That was when I came here until I had the child and it died soon after it was born. I would have left then for I could always find work but the late mistress asked me if I would cook for them; she was a good woman and I stayed for her – and here I be until this day. It be not such a bad place afore the old mistress died – though we did often suffer the cholera and ’twas that killed her. Mr Stoneham told the master it be the old water pipes and he put in fresh and since then ’tis not visited us.’

‘I’m so glad you stayed here,’ Eliza said, and her eyes stung with tears. ‘You and Ruth are all that makes this place bearable.’

‘Well then, child, off you go,’ Cook said. ‘Keep that food safe and take the lad a little water in this cup. You must bring it back to me when you can.’

‘Yes, Cook. I shall.’ Eliza left with her precious bundle inside her clothes. Cook’s kindness had made weepy and she felt tears on her cheek, which she swiped away with the back of her hand. Cook’s story was sad but not as bad as many of the men and women who came to the workhouse. She’d had a good life until she allowed a rogue to deceive her.

It was dark when Eliza crept from her bed and moved noiselessly between the rows of sleeping women. To reach the boy’s dorms Eliza had to leave the women’s wing and cross to the men’s side, which she did by climbing through a window that had no bars because it led only to the inner courtyard. The main door of the men’s wing was locked, and she was not privy to the key, but it was easy enough to go through the window at the back of the workroom where the men made hemp ropes. This was never locked, because the room needed plenty of fresh air while the men worked, and Eliza was aware of it as were most of the inmates, and she was not the only one to use it that night. When she entered the workroom, she saw one of the men entering through the window. His name was Jamie and he had a wife and son in the workhouse; he’d spoken to her kindly a few times in the past. He put his finger to his lips.

‘You will not tell you saw me?’ he said, because if he was discovered out of his dorm he would be punished. She shook her head. ‘Good girl. Joe’s not in his dorm but in the cellar. My boy is sick in the infirmary, and I sneaked out to visit him. Master sent him to bed after the work was done, but he told me that mistress put Joe in the cellar. I thought I would take him this later.’ Jamie pulled a piece of bread and a little stone bottle out from under his shirt, which he offered to her ‘Water.’

Eliza thanked him but said, ‘I shall take the water, but you keep the bread. I have food.’ She knew he must have saved the bread from his own ration. She turned back from the window because she knew the way to the cellar well enough.

She returned to the hall and then found her way in the semi-darkness by pressing her hand against the wall until she reached the cellar door. When she reached it she fumbled for the lock and found the key was still there. Mistress left it there so that she could not be blamed if the child died; she’d sworn that Eliza had shut herself in and no doubt she would swear the same of Joe.

Turning the key, Eliza removed it and put it in her pocket. She went inside, leaving the door slightly ajar so that the faint light from a window showed her the steep stairs. Her hand against the wall for there was no rail, Eliza gingerly moved down the steps one by one.

‘Joe, are you there?’ she called.

‘Eliza – is that you?’ his voice answered, and she could just see a dark shape. He had been lying on the floor of the cellar but now he was standing and he moved towards her. ‘Stand still. I can see in the dark; I’ll come to you.’

Eliza did as he told her and the next moment she felt him touch her hands, drawing her in further. She stumbled against something and he steadied her.

‘It’s a wooden crate I found to sit on,’ he said ‘and there are sacks. I made a bed of them.’

‘I did not find them when I was shut in here with the rats.’ She shuddered.

Joe laughed. ‘I be not afraid of them. I like to hear them moving about – and they be clever, rats.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ll tell you when I be ready,’ Joe said, and then, a new note in his voice. ‘Why did you come, Eliza? If mistress finds out, she’ll beat you.’

‘I don’t care. She hits me all the time,’ Eliza told him. ‘I brought you food, Joe. I didn’t want you to go hungry as I did.’

‘How did you get in for I know the door was locked?’

‘Mistress left the key in the door. I nearly died in here, Joe, and she was afraid if you died she would be blamed so she left the key – and I have it, so she cannot lock us in.’

‘You’m be clever like the rats,’ Joe said and hugged her. ‘And brave. Not everyone would do what you have, little Eliza.’

‘You’re my friend,’ Eliza said. ‘I asked Cook and she gave me food – a piece of bread, cheese and a slice of apple pie.’

‘A feast fit for a king,’ Joe said and there was laughter in his voice. ‘Sit here on my box and share it with me, Eliza.’

‘I have supped; it is for you.’ She pressed the parcel into his hands.

‘Nay, we shall share it,’ Joe insisted. ‘It is a bond between us, Eliza. One day we shall leave here. The rats will show us the way and if you give me the cellar key it will make our escape easier and sooner.’

Joe had broken the cheese as he spoke and gave a piece to Eliza. She put it in her mouth and the taste made the moisture run for she had seldom had anything so good and when Joe gave her a piece of the pie and told her to eat it with the cheese she sighed with pleasure.

‘It be like Heaven,’ she said. ‘Be we both dead, Joe?’

‘No, we’re alive, and one day we’ll be free,’ he said and smiled at her. ‘You’m be my girl one day, Eliza. No matter if they part us – no matter what happens to us, you mind what I say. We were meant to be together and one day I’ll make it happen. I swear it on my heart – now swear on yours that you’ll be mine.’ Joe took her hand and placed it over her chest. ‘Swear, Eliza. Swear to be true …’

‘I swear it, Joe. I swear it on my heart …’ Eliza felt the touch of his lips on her cheek and his arm about her. It was at that moment that the door of the cellar was flung open and at the top of the stairs stood the master and the mistress, both holding a candlestick and looking down at them.

‘I know you’re there, you little slut,’ mistress said viciously, though she could not see down into the darkness of the cellar. ‘Your master would not believe you so wicked – but I knew you had stolen food to bring that gypsy brat.’

Eliza wanted to protest that she’d been given the food, but if she did that Cook would be in trouble. The food she gave to the women and children did not belong to Cook; it was the property of the master and Cook could be branded a thief. Eliza knew that she must take the blame.

In the darkness of the well of the cellar, she handed the key to Joe, who slipped it inside his tunic. He squeezed her arm and whispered to her and she nodded, for Joe could see clearer than she in the darkness.

‘Our time will come, believe,’ he whispered as she walked towards the mistress and began to ascend the steps

‘You shouldn’t have put him here to starve like you did me,’ she said boldly as she reached the top of the steps and received a sharp slap across her head.

‘Insolent child!’ Mistress Simpkins took hold of her arm, her fingers digging into her upper arm so that Eliza almost cried out with the pain. ‘I shall tell Cook that you are on short rations again tomorrow.’

‘I don’t care what you do to me,’ Eliza defied her. ‘He is my friend.’

‘You dirty little slut! What have you been doing with that gypsy?’ the mistress demanded and grabbed hold of Eliza’s arm as she reached the top of the cellar. Rutting like the beast you are no doubt. ‘Give me the key!’

‘I do not have it,’ Eliza answered boldly. ‘The door was unlocked and there was no key.’

‘Liar!’ The mistress slapped her face. ‘The key was there for I left it so.’

‘Then someone must have taken it,’ Eliza said and held her head high.

For her pains she received another slap and Mistress Simpkins would have continued to beat her but the master intervened.

‘Perhaps you mislaid it yourself, sister. Take her back where she belongs. I shall deal with the boy. He is my ward. Come up here to me, Joe. I have something to say to you.’

Eliza looked back as she was dragged off by the furious Mistress Simpkins and saw Joe emerge from the cellar. She saw the master give him a cuff round the ear and their eyes met before she was pushed around the corner and out into the courtyard.

‘You may wait out here until I’m ready to speak to you and I shall want to know how you managed to get out of your dorm,’ the mistress said as they reached her office. She slapped Eliza several times on the arms and head. ‘Sit in the corridor and wait – and if you dare to disobey me I’ll thrash you until you can neither lie down nor sit.’

Eliza did not answer, nor did she hang her head. It was cold and she was sleepy but if the mistress wished it, she would have to wait all day and go without both her breakfast and perhaps her supper. Yet it had been worth it for the pleasure of sitting with Joe and eating delicious apple pie and cheese, and if Eliza died now she would keep the memory in her heart forever.

CHAPTER 5

Joe was put back to work with the men working on the rope the next day and Eliza met him when they gathered for the mid-day meal. They were not supposed to mingle, and talking at mealtimes was strictly forbidden, but Joe lingered at the serving table and brushed against her as Eliza went up to get a drink of water.

‘I’ll meet you tonight in the cellar,’ he whispered. Eliza looked at him and nodded, because she knew what she risked if she was caught but she wanted to spend time with Joe and it was the only way.

‘No talking there,’ the master said and glared at them. Joe winked at her before walking off to join the men he’d been working with that day.

‘Be careful, Eliza, love,’ Ruth said when she sat down next to her. ‘If mistress sees you, she’ll punish you again.’

Eliza nodded but didn’t answer. Her heart was singing because now she knew that she had a true friend other than Ruth and she felt drawn to him in a way she could not explain. Joe had said they were bound to each other and Eliza believed him. Having somewhere they could meet and talk without fear of being seen or heard was worth any risk and she could hardly wait for darkness to fall.

She looked at the men working on breaking stones in the yard as she left the dining hall and walked back to the laundry for another stint of hard work. Each man was hammering at large rocks, which they had to break down into small stones for use in building the new railways that were gradually spreading all over the country. Eliza didn’t know what a train looked like but the men who worked on the stones had told Ruth that these stones went between the lines that held the great fire-breathing monsters that ran on them.

Some of the younger boys were sweeping the yard, and two old women sat on stools picking over rags and putting them into baskets. Their clothes were little better than the rags they sorted and their long grey hair straggled about their heads. One was coughing and looked so ill that Eliza thought she ought to be in the infirmary instead of working in the bitter cold.

Entering the laundry, Eliza found Joe’s clothes, which she’d hidden once they were dry, and tucked them inside her dress. Her coarse, striped apron hid the bulge and she would give them to Joe that evening so that he could hide them somewhere ready for when he ran away.

‘You came then?’ Joe greeted her as she crept down the cellar steps that night and he guided her to the upturned crate where they could sit and talk. ‘I thought you might not be able – or that you would fear what that old witch would do to you.’

‘I hate her – and she will punish me if she finds out,’ Eliza said, ‘but I don’t care. You’re my friend, Joe. I want to be with you.’

‘I’m going to run away soon,’ Joe told her. ‘I think there is a way out of the cellar, a tunnel that leads to outside the walls. I stole a piece of candle from my dorm and I’m going to find the entrance and then, when I’m ready, we’ll both go – we’ll leave this place together and never come back.’

‘Oh, Joe!’ Eliza gave a little squeal of excitement. ‘You promise you’ll take me with you when you escape?’

‘I promise,’ Joe said and caught her hand, pressing it to his chest. ‘If they prevent us some way, I won’t forget you – and I’ll come back for you.’

‘I promise I’ll never forget you,’ Eliza said and sat snuggled up to his shoulder. They had no feast that night, nor in all the nights that followed that week and the next, but the warmth of friendship kept Eliza warm as no blanket ever had in this terrible place. Even her love for Ruth, the woman who had cared for her as a mother, did not make her feel like this. Joe was special, and she knew that nothing could ever make her forget him even if they were parted.

Sitting in the dark, hugging her precious ragged shawl about her, listening to Joe talk about his family and his travels from one country to another, took Eliza to the outside world, opening her mind to the idea that there was a different life – another place where it was possible to be happy and not to live in fear. Now that Joe was her friend, Eliza believed that it would not be long before she was free to leave the workhouse. She would go with Joe and they would find work somewhere while they waited for Joe’s father to be released from prison and then she would live with them in their caravan and go to wonderful places that she had never heard of.

‘I have a disobedient girl I want schooling,’ Joan said to the man who sat in her office drinking ale one morning, some twelve days after the gypsy boy arrived. Her visitor was a gentleman by birth, but his secret trade was not one he would ever wish his family to know of and he and Joan had done business more than once in the past. ‘What will you pay me for her? She is fresh and well-looking enough if she’s washed and clothed as your clients like.’

‘How old is she?’ the man asked, eyes narrowed. ‘Some interfering fool is making a fuss in the House of Lords about young girls being used for immoral purposes and if she was seen on the premises I might lose everything. Most of the time my clients turn a blind eye, but recently I’ve heard some of them question a girl’s age before they buy her services.’

Joan glared at him. In the past he’d been only too eager to take the younger girls. She knew he liked them himself and often used them first before passing them on to his rich clients. Only if the girl was virgin and very lovely did he keep her fresh for the highest bidder.

‘It is all very well for you, but we had an agreement. What am I to do with her? She defies me at every turn and beating her does no good – besides, the last time she nearly died and one of the governors told me if it happened again I should lose my place here.’

‘That would be Stoneham, I dare swear?’ her visitor said and nodded. He swore and spat on the floor, drawing a frown from Joan. She disliked his coarse manners, and would not have admitted him to her rooms had he not proved both useful and generous in the past. ‘He never visits my place nor any other brothel from what I can gather – sanctimonious fool! He has been stirring things in the background and one of his friends spoke in the Lords for half an hour concerning young girls – the white slave trade, he called it. What else is there for little guttersnipes but lying on their backs to earn their keep? Tell me that! They get food, clothes, a warm bed and a few shillings – left to themselves they’d sell their bodies for food and gin and sleep in the gutter, so where’s the harm? I swear they’re better off in my house. Damn the Honourable Toby Rattan and his friends! Such nonsense gets into the newssheets and it makes the clients edgy. They fear exposure for many of them have reputations to lose.’

‘And wives and children they would not wish to know of their guilty pleasures,’ Joan said, nodding in understanding. ‘I am disappointed, sir. I had hoped you would take her off my hands.’ It was inconvenient that he’d had an attack of conscience regarding young girls. Despite putting the girl on short rations and threatening her, Eliza still looked defiant and there was a smile in her eyes that irked Joan.

‘You should sell her to a master who would work her until she was too exhausted to defy him.’ Her visitor smiled unpleasantly. ‘He will use her in whatever way he chooses and no one will question him, for she will be his servant, and bought from the workhouse she has no rights – or none that she knows of. The law has double standards, for if it was known he took advantage of her in my house they would deem it unlawful, but in his own, none will know or care.’

‘Yes …’ She smiled cruelly. ‘I could not be blamed if she died at her master’s hands. I hired her to him in good faith – in the hope and belief she would have a new and useful life.’

‘Exactly.’ His eyes met hers in amused agreement. ‘Once all this fuss has died down I’ll take the girls again.’

‘I think I’ve found the way out,’ Joe told Eliza when she joined him that night. She’d managed to find a piece of soft bread in the kitchen, which she shared with him. ‘As I thought, it’s a tunnel of sorts. Once this cellar had a chute for coal outside the walls of the house. It has become neglected, covered by debris and filled in with earth and filth – but I can dig it out with my hands and a small digging tool I stole from the vegetable garden. Someone had left it lying on the ground and I took it.’ Eliza looked at him doubtfully in the darkness. ‘Well,’ Joe protested, ‘he should’ve taken more care of it!’

Eliza shook her head. Stealing food was punishable by restrictions and being shut up alone, but stealing a valuable tool from the vegetable plot was serious – Joe could be taken to the magistrate and sent to prison, which she’d heard from Ruth was much worse than being here. He might be birched, and he would be made to do hard work, perhaps even harder than he did now.

‘You must be careful, Joe.’

He laughed. ‘I shan’t get caught. I’ve hidden it with my clothes and the key to the cellar, and, as soon as we’re ready we’ll steal some food from the kitchen and then we’ll escape at night.’

‘Yes, I’m ready to go,’ Eliza said. ‘Can I help you clear away the debris?’

‘No, for it would make your clothes filthy. I work on the rope, so no one takes notice of me, but if you got your dress dirty they would be suspicious – and it would hurt your hands.’ Joe grinned at her. ‘It won’t be long, Eliza, I promise. Another week or so and we can leave this accursed place – and I’ll put a curse on that old witch too.’

Eliza giggled. It was fun to sit with her friend and plan their escape together. She nursed her secret inside as she went back to the dorm and snuggled up to Ruth, who was fast asleep. Eliza wasn’t sure if her friend knew she was meeting Joe, but if she did she wouldn’t tell anyone because Ruth would never do anything to hurt her. Eliza longed to escape from this place, but a part of her was reluctant to leave Ruth behind.

‘Mistress says you’re to wash yerself and put this on.’ Sadie thrust a dress at Eliza. It was old and worn but better than the uniform she was wearing, which had been mended so many times it had more patches than Eliza could count and marked her out as being refractory and therefore subject to punishment. ‘Be quick about it! She wants yer in her office sharpish or you’ll feel her stick.’

‘Am I going to church tomorrow? Is that why I’ve been given a different dress?’

‘How should I know?’ Sadie’s look was cunning and filled with malice. ‘Mistress never tells me what she’s goin’ ter do.’ Yet Eliza was sure she did know and was pleased.

Ruth looked at Eliza anxiously when Sadie had gone. ‘I wonder what mistress be up to now, my lovely,’ she said. ‘’Tis not Sunday tomorrow but Saturday so it cannot be church.’

‘Is she goin’ to send me away somewhere?’ Eliza felt a spurt of fear. There had been a time when she’d longed for someone to come and take her away, but she was too old to be adopted by a family. They always wanted babies or very small children. So it must mean that she was to be sold as a servant. ‘I have to see Joe – I have to tell him …’

‘If you go to the men’s workrooms you’ll be in trouble and so will he,’ Ruth said. ‘No need to be scared, my lovely; it bain’t always bad to be taken away by a master and might be better. Some folk find good masters and a new life – better than in here.’

‘No! I don’t want to leave you and Joe,’ Eliza said her eyes stinging with tears she struggled to hold back. ‘Joe and me are goin’ ter run away together one day and live in the country – and you could come with us, Ruth.’

‘Bless you, my lovely,’ Ruth said and smiled at her. ‘I be too old for a life on the road; I know what it be like to go without food for days and never have a place to lay yer head. You’ve no idea, Eliza. As a girl of your age I worked makin’ chain for two shillin’ a week, burned by the heat of the furnace and my shoulders aching fit to break; tiny links we made, and paid by weight not length. My ma worked long hours at it for not much more than I earned, and workhouse be better than that or the open fields when ’tis cold and wet.’

‘I long to be free,’ Eliza said passionately not listening to her wise counsel. ‘And I want to be with Joe.’

‘Wash yerself and change yer dress like mistress bid yer,’ Ruth said. ‘I’ll get a message to Joe and mebbe he’ll find yer afore mistress gets her claws in yer, my lovely.’

‘Ruth, I love you,’ Eliza said and flung her arms about her, sobbing against her plump body.

For a few moments Ruth held her close, her hand stroking the silky hair that was the colour of moonlight when it was fresh washed. ‘Be brave, my Eliza. If mistress be made up her mind to hire yer out, we cannot stop her. You’ve lived here all your life and she has clothed and fed you and is entitled to her fee. One day I’ll find you again, I promise. Find out the name of the master you be sold to and tell Joe afore you leave. I’ll come lookin’ fer yer one day – and if I can’t, then Joe will know where you be.’

‘I don’t want to go! I hate her but I want to stay with Joe and you.’ Eliza’s tears streamed down her face.

Ruth let go and held her away from her. ‘Wash yerself well, Eliza, and don’t let her see yer tears, for it’s that will pleasure her. Remember, you’ve got friends and one day we’ll see each other again.’

Washing herself with the coarse soap and scrubbing her fingers through her hair until her scalp tingled, Eliza wondered about her new master. Would he be like Master Simpkins, who mostly abided by the rules and treated the men better than his sister treated the women in her ward? If he was fair and did not beat her, then Eliza would not mind working for him long enough to repay her bond – though she did not know how many years that would take.

If she could just talk to Joe before she left, make certain he knew that she did not want to leave him and was ready to go away with him when the time was right, she would not mind so very much.

Eliza had not realised what it would feel like to be inspected by the man who had purchased her from the mistress. He was not a tall man, but he was very fat with little piggy eyes that seemed to bore into her, stripping away her clothes and leaving her vulnerable. First of all he walked round her, nodding to himself, and he touched her hair, which had sprung into natural waves now that it had dried after the scrubbing Eliza had administered. Then he stood in front of her and told her to open her mouth; when she did not obey instantly his eyes narrowed and a cold shiver went down her spine: this was not a kind man.

‘I said open your mouth. I want to see if you have your teeth and are healthy.’

‘She is not a horse,’ Mistress Simpkins said and for the first time ever Eliza felt gratitude towards her. ‘You can see she is young, strong and clean – do you want her or not? I can sell a girl like this six times over for as much as you offered and perhaps more.’

His mean little eyes narrowed but he nodded and flicked Eliza’s ear with his finger. ‘I’ll take her as she is then – she looks strong enough and my wife needs a servant for she is carryin’ her fourth child in as many years and has no strength.’

‘Make sure you work her hard,’ the mistress said with a look of menace at Eliza. ‘She can be troublesome unless you’re firm – so do not feed her too well and beat her if she disobeys you.’

‘I’ve me own ways of taming a wild cat,’ the man said and took hold of Eliza’s arm firmly. ‘I’m Fred Roberts but you call me master and you do as you’re told or I’ll flay the skin from yer back – do yer understand, girl?’

Eliza inclined her head. She couldn’t speak for if she did she would weep and beg the mistress to keep her. Mistakenly, she’d believed that nothing could be worse than her life at the workhouse, but seeing the glitter in the man’s eyes told Eliza that she was about to discover how bad things could really be.

Lifting her head proudly, she looked once at the mistress who had sold her and then turned to follow her new master. As they left the office, Joe came hurtling at them, grabbing at Eliza’s arm.

‘Fred Roberts – tell Ruth,’ she whispered giving him a look of appeal. ‘I don’t want to go!’

‘I won’t let him take you,’ he cried and tried to tow her away but her new master raised his arm and sent Joe flying with one heavy blow. Eliza screamed and bent over him as he lay on the floor. She whispered in his ear before she was yanked to her feet by her hair and forcibly propelled from the workhouse, into the courtyard.

Tears were on Eliza’s cheek as she looked back and saw Joe stumble out into the courtyard after them. He raised his hand and placed it over his heart and Eliza did the same, passing the message that only they understood. She did not know if Joe had heard what she whispered as he lay stunned on the ground, but it hardly mattered. She’d been sold to this man and it seemed he owned her, just as if she were a horse or a cow.

Eliza knew nothing of laws or of men who sat in parliament and made speeches about the foul trade in young children sold to brutal masters, of young girls imprisoned in brothels and made to serve men until their bodies were diseased and their minds gone. She did not know that one person had no right to own another, nor that there were rules to protect her. In the workhouse the mistress sold women and children for pieces of silver or gold and there was no one to stop her. For that there would need to be proof – and who would believe the word of a little guttersnipe? The mistress had the right to charge for the clothes any inmate was discharged in, and if she chose to put a high price on them who could challenge her?

Eliza’s mind was filled with terror as she was thrust into a cart and told to lie on the straw in the back. Warned that she would be pursued and thrashed until the blood ran if she tried to escape, she was frozen, numbed into obedience. The straw was filthy and smelled of the pig that had been transported from the market.

In her terror, Eliza thought death might be preferable to the unknown future because she was being torn from all she’d known her whole life, from her friends Ruth, Cook, and from Joe, her special friend. The memory of those nights spent whispering together seemed like a golden time, now ripped from her, leaving her bereft. There was a huge black hole of misery inside her as she wept. What was going to happen to her now? Her new master had threatened beatings but somehow it was not the thought of physical pain that caused her to shake – it was the sense of being alone, without Ruth and the other inmates. Now she was alone in a harsh world and she was afraid.

Eliza was taken to a back lane in a dingy area of the city. Everything, the buildings, pavements, windows were blackened by smoke and the gutters were filthy, running with rain filled with debris that had been thrown out. A dog was hunting for scraps and a mangy cat sat on a windowsill and hissed at it. She had no idea of where she was, but she knew that the stench was worse than anything she’d ever come in contact with before. Her master told her that the large building at the end of the lane was a tannery.

‘It’s where they cure animal hides to make leather and the stink is worse in summer,’ he told her. ‘You’ll get used to it – there are worse smells, believe me. Wait until the fishmonger tips his waste in the gutters. That stinks to high heaven, but the rats soon clear it – and the meat goes bad in the hot weather sometimes, particularly the offal. I sell as much as I can, but some folk won’t touch it even fer a farthin’.’

The house she was taken to was fronted by a butcher’s shop, which was just one room with shutters that opened up to the pavement; she could already smell the blood and a lingering bad odour that turned her stomach and even though she tried hard, she couldn’t stop herself retching as he propelled her through the back yard to the kitchen door. The sight of her bringing up her meagre breakfast as she vomited in the yard made him roar with laughter.

Eliza wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stared at him resentfully. She hated him already, more than she hated Mistress Simpkins, and wished herself back in the workhouse. Ruth had been right when she told her that the workhouse was not so bad. Despite all the suffering she’d endured at the mistress’s hands, Eliza would have given anything to be back in the workhouse now.

She was thrust into a large kitchen, his large hand at her back. There were thick grey stone flags on the floor and two long tables, one at either end. One was being used for baking by a stout woman dressed in a grey gown covered by a white apron, streaked with stains of the food she had prepared over many days; she was sprinkling flour liberally everywhere and it had spilled on the filthy floor. The other table was clearly a thick wooden chopping board and an array of knives and hatchets were in readiness. She could see that it was wet and had been scrubbed recently, but it was scored and there were deep marks where the hatchet had made ruts and these ruts still held bits of bone and blood, which smelled foul; Eliza’s stomach turned again, though this time she had nothing left to bring up.

‘See to her, Mags,’ her master said to the woman and gave Eliza a slap on her backside. ‘I’ve wasted enough time. Give her a slap if she’s any trouble. I’d best see what that fool of a boy of mine is up to or I’ll lose all me profits, and watch what you’re doin’ with that flour!’ He grabbed Eliza’s arm and shoved her forward so violently she almost fell at the feet of the woman he’d called Mags.

He went through a door, which Eliza realised must lead into the shop, and she caught a glimpse of carcasses hanging up on thick iron hooks and a heavy wooden counter. The smell of blood and meat was so strong that she felt her stomach heave and ran to the stone sink under the window, hanging over it as she retched. but nothing came up.

‘It got me that way too, fer a start,’ the woman named Mags said mockingly. ‘You’ll get used to it in time, girl. It ain’t pleasant workin’ ’ere ’specially in summer, but at least there’s a roof over our heads and enough food. Master gives me meat to make pies and stews, and ’tis always fresh for he won’t eat the stuff what’s gone off – though there’s many that will take it a bit on the turn if it’s cheap.’

‘I don’t think I’ll ever want to eat meat again,’ Eliza groaned and Mags laughed, her double chins waggling.

‘Aye, I felt that way at the start, but you get over it. My pie has tasty gravy and you should eat what yer can, for if he sees yer waste good food he’ll be angry.’

‘I don’t care if he beats me. I wish I was dead.’

‘Now then, girl, ’tis foolish to talk that way.’ Mags looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You’re no good to me while you’re still pukin’ so I’ll give you a glass of my lemon barley water and a currant bun. That should ease your stomach and then we’ll get you settled.’

Eliza nodded, because at least this woman didn’t frighten her. She was like some of the older women in the workhouse, capable, with a weathered face that told of long-suffering, and dark hair streaked with grey that she wore pulled back into a knot at the back of her head, covered with a white cap that had seen better days. Her tone was harsh and there was no kindness in her, but thus far she had refrained from hitting her.

‘Where am I to sleep?’ Eliza asked looking about her.

‘You’ll sleep with me in the attic when we’ve finished for the day,’ Mags said. ‘Master, his son and the mistress have the only bedrooms on the upper floor, ’cos she won’t sleep with ’im. She says he stinks of meat and so he ’as his own room, though he goes to her when he’s a mind to it whether she will or no – three children that poor woman’s had, not counting the one she’s carryin’, and only one lad lived. God knows how many miscarriages she’s had in-between. You’d think he’d let her rest now, but he’s always at her like a ruttin’ ram.’

‘What do you mean?’ Eliza asked, though at the back of her mind she thought she knew. Men and women were strictly segregated in the workhouse, but the rules were broken sometimes and occasionally a man managed to sneak into their dorm. Eliza had once asked what was going on beneath humped blankets and Ruth had told her it was all for a bit of comfort and nothing to worry about, but Mistress Simpkins had spoken to her and Joe of rutting and made it sound bad and dirty, and Mags had the same tone in her voice. ‘Do you mean what men and women do for comfort?’

‘Lawks, but she’s an innocent,’ Mags said and shook her head. ‘You watch out the master don’t catch you in a dark corner or you might find out – and you won’t like it, girl.’

‘I’m called Eliza.’

‘Are you now?’ Mags nodded. ‘Well, if you answer to it, it will do.’ She put a glass of a whitish liquid in front of Eliza and a bun.

Eliza sniffed at the glass. It smelled sharp and she sipped it, feeling the cool taste on her tongue. ‘This is nice,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Mags.’

‘It should stop you feelin’ sick for a bit,’ Mags said shrugging her broad shoulder. ‘Eat yer bun, because I want yer to start work as soon as yer’ve done. The bedrooms want turnin’ out and that means polishin’ as well as sweepin’ – and then there’s this floor to be scrubbed. I suppose yer know how to scrub and clean?’

‘Yes, I can scrub. Mistress didn’t give us polish but I can learn.’

‘If yer willin’ ter work ’ard yer’ll be all right ’ere,’ Mags said. ‘I’ll just put me pie in the oven and then I’ll take yer upstairs. You had best meet mistress fer a start. She may want her pot emptied and that will be one of yer jobs, Eliza. Yer’ll be workin’ from mornin’ ’till night and ’er upstairs will ’ave yer on the run all day if she gets the chance.’

CHAPTER 6

‘How is your latest project coming along?’ Toby asked Arthur when they dined together at Toby’s club one evening in May. He was in a mellow mood. The weather had improved of late, he had spent a pleasant day riding in Richmond Park, and he had recently bought a horse he intended to race at Newmarket. ‘Have you made progress with your drive to reform that workhouse?’

‘Very little,’ Arthur admitted ruefully. ‘Master Simpkins promises everything but delivers little – however, I think him weak rather than truly evil. His sister is another matter. I just do not trust that woman. I have been talking with some of the other members of the Board about her conduct, but unfortunately they seem to think her exemplary in her behaviour.’

‘How can that be?’

‘I fear that most of my fellow members believe that those unfortunates in the workhouse deserve their fate. They tell me the rules are strict because they need to be, and I cannot deny it – but I can smell the rottenness, Toby. I know things are wrong in that place, but until I have proof that she has broken the rules I can do nothing. I have no power to dismiss her without proof.’

‘Then pay the workhouse an impromptu visit on some pretext.’

‘Yes. I have been thinking of setting up a home for fallen women—’ He saw the wicked smile in his friend’s face and laughed. ‘No, not that kind of home, you idiot – a place where those who are destitute may go to rest, rather than the workhouse.’

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