The Girl in the Ragged Shawl

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.