Cathy Sharp - The Girl in the Ragged Shawl

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.’