Cathy Sharp - The Girl in the Ragged Shawl

‘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.