Matthew Plampin - The Devil’s Acre

Amy was already back in her seat by the fire, a large silk rose in her hands. She was stitching wire-trimmed petals to its cardboard stem by the meagre light of the few coals that smouldered in the grate. The lines on her face deepened as she squinted down at the flower, pushing dark strands of hair behind her ears, searching for the right place to poke in her needle. She looked thin and desperately old for a woman of only four-and-twenty. It seemed to Caroline that her sister, once so strong and clever, was being worn away before her very sight; that life in the Devil’s Acre was killing her by degrees.

On the rug between them, rolling around in the weak firelight, lay Katie. The child was trying to rise onto her knees, plump legs wobbling as they took her weight. Hearing the door close, she looked up, mouth open; and seeing her aunt standing there, she cried out with pure delight, lost her balance and tumbled back down onto her side. Caroline felt a sudden rush of love; a tear, a bloody tear for Christ’s sake, pricked at the corner of her eye. She swooped in on the giggling infant, taking her up into her arms and spinning her around.

‘Why hello, my precious darling,’ she said. ‘And how are you tonight?’

Amy gave them both a quick smile but did not stop working. Caroline knew that she had four hundred flowers to deliver to her current employer, a milliner on Bond Street, first thing in the morning. Failure to meet this deadline would certainly mean the loss of the business, and the five shillings it brought in every week. Amy would not let this happen if she could possibly prevent it. Caroline sniffed the top of Katie’s head; the girl’s skin was sour, her chestnut curls clammy with grease. Once again, Amy had been too busy to bathe her. She glanced over at the cot in the corner that held Michael’s tiny form. He was quiet, at least, unlike the three or four other babies who wailed away nearby, somewhere along the corridor. Whether this was a good or a bad sign she dared not consider.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Caroline took a small paper parcel from her apron and unfolded it on her knee, revealing half of a slightly wilted ham sandwich. Katie grabbed out for it, gobbling down a mouthful with such hungry haste that Caroline feared she might choke. There had plainly not been much food around that day either. She looked at the grey marble fireplace, a remnant from one of the cramped room’s previous, more prosperous lives. The wide central slab bore a relief of a pheasant, spreading its wings as if taking flight from a hunter’s hound; an old crack in the stone, black with dirt, ran through the middle of the bird’s outstretched neck.

‘So I’ve joined the gun factory,’ she announced brightly. ‘Mrs Vincent’s letter of recommendation did the trick, like you said it would. And it’s decent enough work, I s’pose – one and six a day, which ain’t half bad. Better than what I was getting before.’

Amy said nothing; her brow creased as she pulled a needle through the rose. Something was troubling her. Caroline took the sandwich back from Katie and tore off a small piece, placing it carefully in the child’s outstretched fingers.

‘It’s a pleasant thing to be out of service, I must say,’ she continued, ‘and in a new part of town. I’m grateful for you passing on word of this to me, Amy. I mean it. After Mr Vincent done what he done, ending himself in the public road, we all thought we’d be in the workhouse for sure before the month’s close. Blind panic, there was, down in the servants’ parlour.’

Caroline had witnessed her former master’s demise – prompted by a shocking loss on the money markets, or so it was rumoured. Early one cold Wednesday morning at the start of March she’d been on her knees scrubbing the front steps, cursing the butler who’d given her the job, welcoming the warmth of the water on her freezing fingers as she rinsed the brush in the bucket. Mr Vincent had stepped over her, dressed for the City but lacking his coat and hat. The Times was in his hand, held limply by the spine, spilling out pages as he wandered to the gate. Reaching the street, he’d stood on the edge of the pavement, peering back and forth, craning his neck as if searching for a cab. A huge coal wagon had passed by, heading up towards Highgate. Mr Vincent had walked out alongside it, crouched down in the muddy thoroughfare and placed his head beneath one of its rear wheels. It had run on over him without so much as a bump, squashing his skull flat; Caroline’s first reaction, watching incredulously from her soapy step, had been to let out a yelp of manic laughter.

Amy’s needle halted. ‘I am glad you have found a position, Caro,’ she said quietly.

Caroline fed another piece of sandwich to Katie. ‘I saw your Martin, in a tavern near the works. He was drinking with this Yankee engineer. Quill was his name.’

Amy set down her rose. ‘He’s mentioned Mr Quill to me.’

‘A harmless old cove, that one. Likes to talk. Loves his Colonel, this Colt fellow. And he’s really taken a shine to Mart. I’m told that he’s looking to train him up – turn him into a proper engineer.’

This was surely good news, but Amy made no reaction to it. She looked at her daughter for a moment, and then stared blankly into the fire.

‘There were other paddies there as well,’ Caroline went on. ‘Roscommoners like Mart. Friends of his, from the looks of things. Those I work with said that they’re employed in the forging shop, and keep mostly to themselves. One is making a name for himself, though, as a regular hard customer – Pat Slattery, he’s called. Word is that he’ll serve out any Englishman who dares look his way.’

Amy sighed sharply, her head dipping forward.

‘D’you know him?’ Caroline asked.

Her sister rubbed at her eyes with a bony, needle-scarred knuckle. ‘He was a porter with Mart and Jack in Covent Garden,’ she replied, ‘but they’re old pals. From Ireland. There’s a whole group. I – I was hoping that Mart had broken with them, by moving to Colt and all, but I had me doubts.’ Amy hesitated. ‘It’s just that Pat Slattery is – is – he’s –’ Merely saying the name made her slip on her words and lose her way. She was frightened.

‘D’you think they’re up to something? Planning mischief – or thievery?’

Amy shook her head. ‘No. No. Martin wouldn’t. He’s a good man, Caro. He’s never been nothing but kind to Michael and Katie and me.’

Caroline scowled, made immediately impatient by this unconditional loyalty. ‘Oh Amy, for Christ’s sake, listen to yourself! Where is he right now, if he’s such a saint? It’s the dead of night, you’re alone with your babies in this wretched place with no coal and no food even, and where is your precious Martin? Out drinking up his wages, that’s where, propping up some bar with the legion of the bloody useless!’

Katie caught the heat in her aunt’s voice and gazed at her questioningly. The girl’s almond-shaped eyes – the same eyes as Caroline and Amy – were open wide, her lower lip starting to tremble. Caroline made a shushing noise, bounced Katie up and down rather briskly, and then gave her another piece of the sandwich.

Amy, too, grew annoyed. ‘He is gentle,’ she said. ‘Not once has he so much as raised his hand to any of us. And he is true – do you have any notion of how rare that is, Caro?’

Caroline rolled her eyes; her sister would often resort to this tactic. ‘How could I possibly, Amy, unmarried as I am?’

This sarcasm was ignored. ‘Neither does he pay any notice to the many spiteful things that are said out in the Court. They call him a traitor to Ireland, to his people, as he is bound to an Englishwoman with half-English issue. And he does not pay them any notice at all.’ Her pale cheeks were colouring, and her voice becoming yet more insistent. ‘He is my husband, Caro.’