Finders and Keepers (47 page)

‘Strip off, bag your clothes and shoes.' The nurse opened a cupboard and handed Mary a linen bag. ‘Then get into that bath and start scrubbing.'

‘In that?' Mary stared at the bath in horror. ‘The water's filthy.'

‘That's what you get for being the last admittance today.' She took a grey Welsh flannel smock from the cupboard and hung it on a peg. After glancing at Mary's feet she placed a pair of wooden clogs on the floor beneath it. ‘Get a move on,' she snapped. ‘I haven't all day.'

‘I will not get into that water.' For the first time Mary was glad that her brothers and sister weren't with her. If they had been, she would never have found the courage to refuse to obey someone in authority lest they suffered for her defiance.

The nurse whirled around. ‘What did you say?'

‘I will not get into that water. It is full of dirt and vermin.'

‘I know what you young farm girls are like. Dirty to bed and dirty to rise. You've probably never had a bath in your life. Well, you're going to have one now. The rules state that everyone who comes into the workhouse has to have a bath before being issued with a uniform and that is exactly what you are going to do.'

‘I bathed every day at home, including this morning. We have a stone sink large enough for a grown-up to lie down in.'

‘You bathe every day, where?' the nurse jeered.

Mary tensed herself and bit her lip. Until that moment she hadn't allowed herself to think further than the next few minutes. That way it had been easier to fool herself that her situation was temporary. That tomorrow morning she would wake up back in her own bed next to Martha and Luke with the boys sleeping in the room next door. She recalled something Mr Pritchard had said about a woman whose children had been taken to the orphanage:
She'll probably never see them again in this life.

David had been right in what he had said to Harry. He and Martha were accustomed to hard work. A farmer looking for free labour would soon snap them up. And that would leave Matthew and Luke all alone with strangers who wouldn't care for them.

‘You don't want to start your life here by drawing the wrong kind of attention to yourself,' the nurse warned. ‘We've ways of dealing with young girls who try to get above their station. You're here because you're worse than a penniless, pauper degenerate, Ellis. You're a debtor! The lowest of the low, and if the master gets to hear of your refusal, make no mistake, you will be punished – and severely. Now get in that bath.'

Mary shook her head, backed away and whispered, ‘No.'

‘What's going on in here, Staff?' The ward sister, wearing an apron and veil that crackled with starch, entered and looked from the nurse to Mary.

‘This new inmate is refusing to get in the bath.'

‘Are we running a hotel or a workhouse, Staff?' The sister's voice was high-pitched in indignation.

‘A workhouse, Sister. I have informed her of the rules.'

‘Not firmly enough, by the look of it.' The sister addressed Mary. ‘Strip off and get in that bath, girl.'

‘There are fleas and lice in it.' Mary pointed to the water.

‘One bath of warm water is to be drawn for morning admissions, one for evening. You are the last admission this evening and you will get in it.'

‘Please, allow me to let out the water and scrub the bath and I will wash in cold,' Mary pleaded.

The sister crossed her arms over her thin chest and pursed her lips. ‘You think we don't know what you are up to, Ellis? You want a cold bath so you can catch bronchitis, or even better, pneumonia. That way you won't have to work and contribute to your keep. You'd rather do what you and your family have done all your lives – run up debts and expect others to keep you.'

‘No -'

‘You will address me at all times as “Sister”. Strip and get in that bath. Now!'

Mary was trembling but she stood her ground. ‘I will not get into dirty water.'

‘Then on your own head be it.' The sister stepped back into the corridor and called, ‘Porters!'

Two burly men in khaki coats appeared. ‘Sister?'

‘Strip her, put her in the bath and scrub her. With the brushes we use for the floor.'

‘Please, no, I'll get in -'

‘You had your chance. You refused.' The sister nodded to the staff nurse. ‘Afterwards, take her to the ward. Tell the sister there she is to be put on scrubbing duty and bread and water for three days. That should teach her manners.'

‘Yes, Sister.'

The sister glanced at the linen bag. ‘And there's no need to keep her clothes or boots. She won't be going anywhere. Incinerate them.'

David sat curled on a tiny high windowsill of the workhouse dormitory. It wasn't late – eight o'clock or thereabouts, he guessed, from the sun sinking over the narrow sliver of hill that was all he could see. He, Matthew and twenty-two other boys had been marched into the room half an hour earlier by a man who had locked his fingers into his curly hair and pulled hard when he hadn't called him ‘Sir'.

Sir had given them five minutes to change out of the institution uniforms of grey flannel shirts, short trousers, grey woollen underwear and socks, and into sackcloth nightshirts. Afraid of what Sir would do to Matthew if he didn't do as he was told, David had complied along with the other boys.

When they had all changed, Sir had ordered them to stand, barefoot, eyes closed at the foot of their beds while he had gabbled a hasty, unintelligible prayer. Finally he had ordered them into their beds and, after leaving strict instructions that they remain in there until they were woken by the bell at six, locked them in for the night.

Ignoring the whispered warnings of the other boys, he had climbed out of his bed as soon as he heard the key turn. It was the first time that he had slept behind a locked door, and he felt like a hen in a coop waiting to be slaughtered. He remembered what the agent had said about Mary leaving him and the others in the house and going to the stable – not that he had believed him:
They could have burned to death in their beds.

Well, he and Matthew were in the orphanage wing of the workhouse, supposedly being looked after by their ‘betters', and they were in more danger of being burned to death than they had ever been at home.
Home.
Hoping no one was watching him, he wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand, smearing his face with stinging salt water.

He gripped the thick iron bars in front of him that covered the glass window pane and, using all his strength, tried to pull them apart. They didn't give a fraction of an inch. He continued to gaze at the small slice of sky and hills, and wished he were free – but only if the rest of his family were too.

He looked down at the two dozen beds in the room. Matthew's was directly below him. Even in the subdued light that came from the small windows he could see that his brother's eyes were closed, but his shoulders were shaking and he knew he was crying. A piercing wail echoed faintly from another part of the building. He couldn't be certain but he thought he recognized Martha's voice and he blanched at the thought of her misery – and Luke's.

It had taken him half an hour of the journey to the workhouse to quieten the toddler. But the moment he had stepped down into the yard outside the building, his brother had been snatched from his arms by the woman who had sat next to the driver. Luke had howled like a dog when she carried him away, and in between howls had held his breath for so long that his face had almost turned black. But when he had run after the woman and tried to comfort Luke, two men had beaten him back.

He wondered if Luke was still crying, or if he had finally worn himself out enough to sleep. He might be as frightened as the rest of them but at least he was too young to understand what was happening. He shivered when he thought of Mary. He hated this place but he suspected the adult block was worse. Bob the Gob had called her ‘a moral degenerate'. He didn't understand what the words meant but he knew they were bad. Everything Bob Pritchard had ever said or done to them had been bad.

So much for him being ‘the man' of the family. He hadn't been able to stop the bailiffs from evicting them and he had been forced to stand back and watch Luke and Martha being taken away from him to the babies' and girls' parts of the workhouse.

When he had asked that he and Matthew be allowed to keep their own clothes, not only he but also his brother had received painful clips around the ear, and he'd realized that if they couldn't control him by beating him, they'd do it by punishing his brother.

‘Please, Harry… Please, Harry …' He murmured his friend's name over and over again as if it were a prayer. Harry was the first adult apart from Diana Adams who had tried to help his family since his parents had died. He'd never understood why. But whatever Harry's motives, he was their only hope of getting out of the workhouse. But would Harry even dare try now that he had seen what Bob the Gob could do?

He locked his hands around his knees and sank into despair. His family had been broken up, and somewhere on the journey between the Ellis Estate and the workhouse he had lost the hope that one day life might get better. All that was left to him now was this tiny glimpse of the world, framed by an iron-barred window.

Chapter Twenty

‘I am entitled to a telephone call.'

‘You're a prisoner and, as such, entitled to precisely nothing.' The constable grabbed the chain that linked Harry's handcuffs and yanked him out of the back of the van. Harry blinked and looked around. He barely had time to register the sign ‘Police Station' before being shoved through the door of a grey, forbidding building.

A middle-aged, portly constable, who looked as though he was about to burst out of the uniform that strained over his chest, was sitting on a stool behind a high desk in the reception area, reading a copy of the
Brecon and Radnor
and dunking a jumble biscuit into a mug of tea.

‘One Harry Evans for the cells, Smith.' The constable pushed Harry in front of the desk. ‘I've read him his rights and charged him with assault and battery on Mr Robert Pritchard. ‘

‘Bob the Gob?' Constable Smith bit into the soggy jumble, spraying his chin and uniform collar with wet crumbs.

‘Yes. And seeing as how Mr Pritchard's head is all bloodied and bandaged, he wants us to press charges,' the officer confirmed.

‘Mr Pritchard's an important man. I wouldn't like to be in your shoes, Harry Evans.' Smith rose to his feet. ‘Empty your pockets.'

‘This is ridiculous -'

‘Your pockets.'

‘How can I empty anything with these on?' Harry held up his cuffed wrists.

‘He has a point,' Constable Smith said. ‘I'll get a truncheon in case he tries any funny business while you're removing the cuffs, Constable Porter.'

Porter waited until Smith had set a wooden truncheon on the desk, before producing a key and unlocking the handcuffs. Harry reluctantly plunged his hands into his pockets and proceeded to remove the contents. Constable Smith took a large brown paper bag from a cupboard behind the desk, opened a book out on the counter, dipped a pen into an inkwell and proceeded to list Harry's possessions.

‘Effects of Harry Evans.' He picked up the first object Harry had placed on the counter and opened it. ‘One gold cigarette case, holding one … ten … fifteen … nineteen cigarettes. Engraved, “To Harry with love on your twenty-first birthday from Bella, Edyth, Maggie, Beth, Susie and Glyn” – that's quite a harem of women you have there.' He felt the weight of the case in his hand. ‘Is this real gold?'

‘It is,' Harry replied tersely. ‘As is the lighter.'

The constable held it up to the electric light and read, ‘“To Harry with love from your parents on your twenty-first birthday.” Who was a lucky boy, then?'

‘Get on with it, Smith,' Porter snapped. ‘You've had your tea break. I haven't had a bite since breakfast. My stomach thinks my throat's cut.'

‘One wallet, looks like crocodile skin stiffened by gold corners …' He looked enquiringly at Harry.

‘Yes, they're real gold,' Harry confirmed brusquely.

Smith's pen scratched over the page. The nib split, blotted the paper and scraped a small hole. ‘Wallet contains.' He opened it and whistled. ‘Four five-pound notes, three one-pound notes, one ten-shilling note … you rob a bank, Harry Evans?'

‘That is my money and I'll expect it to be there when I get my wallet back,' Harry said tersely.

‘If
you get it back,' Smith corrected. ‘How did you earn it?'

Harry hesitated. The point was he hadn't earned it, but the last thing he wanted to say was, ‘I'm idle rich.' He settled for, ‘I'm a businessman.'

‘And what kind of business would that be?' Constable Porter leaned over the counter and looked Harry in the eye.

‘I own property and shops.'

‘I can't wait until the sergeant questions you, Harry Evans,' he grinned. ‘I'll bet a week's wages on you getting ten years, and that's just for what we know you've done.'

‘One card case – silver – the family let you down there.' Constable Smith flicked it open. ‘Cards in the name of Harry Evans, Pontypridd address and telephone number.' He tossed it to his colleague. ‘Name mean anything to you, Porter?'

Porter shook his head. ‘Nothing.'

‘One linen handkerchief monogrammed H.E. One fountain pen, bearing a gold hallmark.' Smith pushed it into the bag.

‘That's all I have apart from this.' Harry dropped a handful of silver and copper coins on to the counter.

Smith started counting it, making notes as he went along. ‘Two half-crowns, three florins, one shilling, four silver sixpences, two silver joeys, three pennies, three halfpennies, a farthing.'