Cathy Sharp - The Girl in the Ragged Shawl

‘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.’