The Long Walk Home (3 page)

Bridget gave him another wink and ran her tongue over her lips; then, with a shrug and a swirl of her torn skirt, she left.

How strange, he thought. Is that what girls do? He couldn't imagine his sister asking for kisses, and, he mused, he hoped that she didn't. His mother would not be pleased. But Bridget . . . well, it seemed that she was a law unto herself, and he wondered how it was that he was in prison whilst others, such as the baker's boy, giving away his master's bread, and Bridget, receiving it, were not.

'Here.' The warder on duty clanged open the cell door. 'Present for you.' He handed Mikey a moist paper bag stained with gravy. 'Nice lass you've got. Lucky devil!'

'She's not my lass,' Mikey said. 'She's my sister's friend.' He took the offering and sniffed. Meat pie! However had Bridget managed that? He was starving hungry in spite of the slice of bread they'd brought him at midday.

'Better get it eaten,' the officer said. 'It'll be 'last good food you'll get for a month. You'll be moved at about half past two. Doubt you'll get meat pie brought in at Kingston Street.'

Mikey bit into the pie. It was still warm and running with gravy. 'Won't I be allowed visitors?' he asked, his mouth full of pastry.

'Depends who's on duty and what 'visitors are offering.' He gave a grin. 'Your lass might be able to get in.'

Mikey considered. Bridget had obviously charmed the warders, so perhaps he should pretend that she was his lass if it meant that she could come in to see him and perhaps bring a message from his mother, or even, he pondered, deliver an ill-gotten pie.

He was manacled and taken by handcart across the town to Kingston Street prison, which had been built near the banks of the Humber some thirty years before. It had once been considered to be amongst the best houses of correction in the country, and over the years it had been extended to accommodate the growing prison population. There were separate buildings for men and women, a holding cell where the worst prisoners would languish awaiting their sentence or transference to the County Assizes, cells for debtors, work buildings where some prisoners were put to the treadmill, and a large courtyard where others were set on the back-breaking work of crushing stones.

Mikey was stripped of his clothes and given prison garb of scratchy cotton. It was too big for him, the trousers flapping below his ankles and the sleeves hanging lower than his fingertips. It had been made for an adult man, whereas he was still growing out of childhood into adolescence. Stitched on to the jacket was a number: 3624.

He was marched down a flight of stone steps and past locked doors, and put into a cell where he was left alone for several hours. The bare brick cell had a fixed board to sit or lie on, a metal pail beneath it and a greasy tin bowl for washing. It was cold and very damp.

Mikey sat down on the bench and this time he did cry. He cried for his mother, and he cried for himself and the enormity of the situation in which he found himself.

'I'll never do owt wrong again in my life,' he vowed, sniffling. 'Never. Not even if I'm starving at death's door.'

But although he was frightened and ashamed, he was also resentful. He and his family had not had a proper meal in weeks. His mother received a small allowance from a seamen's society which helped the families of those lost at sea, but it was barely enough to pay the rent on their room, which was in a narrow dark entry and shared a pump and one privy with several other families. What little their mother earned was spent on food, but there was never enough for all of them and there was no work for boys such as Mikey.

'Here you are, three six two four.' The warder handed a bowl of soup through a hatch in the door. 'Get that down you.' He offered Mikey a slice of bread on a tin plate. 'There'll be nowt else till morning.'

Mikey took the bread from the plate and took it and the bowl to the bench, where he sat down and sniffed at the soup. It was pale green and strong-smelling. 'Yuck!' he muttered. 'Yesterday's cabbage. I hate cabbage!'

He ate it nevertheless, his hunger getting the better of his revulsion, but ten minutes after finishing it he was violently sick, vomiting his stomach's contents into the pail, which left him feeling weak and nauseous and still hungry.

Three days he was left alone in his cell and there were times when he felt he had been forgotten; he would hear the sound of boots on the stone floor, the clang of cell doors and an echo of voices, and then silence. The tedium was broken at breakfast and midday by the arrival of a warder with bread and water, and in the evening he was brought a bowl of some kind of thin liquid which went under the name of soup.

On the fourth morning he was told that after finishing his breakfast of gruel and a cup of lukewarm tea he should prepare himself for work. He was given a brush and shovel to sweep out his cell and told to bring out his slop pail for emptying.

It was a relief to know that he wasn't going to spend the whole month in the cell, though he was slightly apprehensive as to what kind of work he would have to do. 'Hope they don't put me on 'treadmill,' he muttered as he swept. 'Seems senseless to me, as well as being painful.' He recalled an old man, local to the Hull streets, who was bent almost double and, rumour had it, could no longer straighten up after enduring years of working the treadmill in prison as a young man.

'Three six two four!' The warder opened the cell door. 'Fetch your pail and don't spill any or you'll have to scrub all of 'corridor.'

Mikey put down his sweeping brush, picked up the pail and followed the warder down the passageway. He was still below ground, but the air was fresher than in his now stinking cell, a draught blowing down from outside. He took a breath as he went up the flight of stairs and stepped at last into the open air.

The warder showed him where to empty his pail and swill it out under the pump. Mikey ducked his head and face under the stream of cold water to refresh himself. He shook his head and hair and took another breath. Right, he thought. What's next?

'Papa?' Eleanor hesitated. Her father did not encourage questions, but on evenings when he was home early from his office and not working late, as he often did, she visited her parents in the drawing room before they went down to the dining room for supper to tell them about her lessons and the happenings of her day. He was the one who instigated the questions, and she answered them. Never, in all her eleven years, could she remember daring to pluck up the courage to ask him anything.

Her days were long. There were lessons every morning from her governess, Miss Wright, who was, she insisted, always right; after the midday meal there was a walk to the pier if the weather was clement, or to a museum if it was not, with either her governess or one of the maids. There had never been anything she wanted to ask or tell her father. He was a remote figure who happened to be married to her mother.

Her mother might come to the schoolroom occasionally and sit on a chair for five minutes and question Miss Wright vaguely on the subject that Eleanor was studying, or tell her about a letter received from her older brother Simon, who was away at a hated boarding school. Then she would drift away, saying she had masses to do before Eleanor's lawyer father returned home for luncheon.

Eleanor never received letters from her brother. Once, when he was very young and had first gone away, he had written to her, but Eleanor wasn't allowed to read the letter. It had been intercepted by her father and confiscated. Eleanor knew in her heart that it had contained a message of misery, for Simon hadn't wanted to go to school. He feared it, and on subsequent visits home told Eleanor how terrible it was; how the masters beat him and the other boys did too. Now, at almost thirteen, he stood up for himself and boasted to her that he gave out similar punishments to younger, newer boys.

Her father raised his eyebrows. 'Do you wish to ask me something, Eleanor?'

Eleanor bit hard on her lip. Her heart was pounding. 'I just— I just wanted to ask—'

'Speak up, child,' her father said impatiently. 'Don't mumble.'

She swallowed, wishing she hadn't begun the conversation. She glanced at her mother for encouragement, but Mrs Kendall was gazing down into her lap and was no help at all. 'I wondered what had happened to that boy. The one who stole the rabbit.' She trembled at her own boldness. If her father hadn't chosen that particular day to take her to his place of work for the very first time, so that she might see for herself how he conducted his affairs and made a living for the family, then she would have known nothing about the incident. But she had witnessed it, and she had not been able to dismiss it from her mind.

Her father drew himself up in his chair, his shoulders even straighter than usual, though he never slouched. 'And what, young lady, is that to do with you?'

'Nothing, Papa; but I wondered if he'd been very hungry and that was why he stole it.' She felt her cheeks growing pink, but she raised her eyes to his.

'Two rabbits, Quinn stole. That was the crime, even though he had only one in his hands when he was so timely caught. The other he probably passed on to an accomplice.' He narrowed his gaze. 'I hope you are not feeling sorry for him?'

She didn't answer, but put her hands behind her back and hung her head.

'He has gone to prison,' he said scathingly. 'The best place for him. But not for long enough, in my opinion. One month is not sufficient time for him to consider the error of his ways. Look at me, girl! You are not to even think about it, do you understand?'

'Edgar, dear,' her mother protested, but uneasily. 'I'm sure she won't. She is merely curious. Isn't that so, Eleanor?'

'Yes, Mama.' Eleanor heard the entreaty in her mother's voice, but was exceedingly glad that her father wasn't able to read her mind, for if he could she would surely get a whipping, just as Simon sometimes did.

Her father ignored her mother's appeal. 'You must take a lesson from it. Breaking the law is a crime and punishment is the only answer. It's a great pity that public whipping and the pillory are no longer sanctioned,' he continued, getting on to his favourite topic. 'That's the answer: sharp deterrents to stop these young criminals from offending again.'

Eleanor was excused and told to return upstairs. Nothing was asked about her day. Supper was always served promptly and her allotted time had been taken up by her father's disquisition on crime. She still had no answer to her most pressing question: why had the boy stolen the rabbits?

She decided she would consult Nanny. Nanny wouldn't shout at her or tell her it was nothing to do with her. Nanny had been her mother's nurse, and had looked after Mrs Kendall when she was young. She was old and white-haired and stricken with rheumatism, but she regularly gave Eleanor a hug when she sensed the girl was feeling sad or lonely. It was the only affection that Eleanor received. Her mother gave her a peck on the cheek every evening, but her father only inclined his head as she dipped her knee in goodnight.

Eleanor hadn't discussed the subject with Nanny before, but she told her now as they sat by the nursery fire and she drank milk and ate bread and butter and Nanny had a glass of stout.

Eleanor was, of course, too big for a nursery now and the old bassinet which had been Simon's and then hers had been removed. When Simon came home he slept in a small room, not much bigger than a cupboard, on a truckle bed which was put away when he returned to school, and the nursery now only contained Eleanor's bed and washstand and chest of drawers. But Nanny kept her squashy old chair by the fire and Eleanor had a cane basket chair drawn up on the other side of the hearth, and here they sat in companionship every evening, although Nanny often fell asleep after finishing her stout whilst her charge read a book for an hour until bedtime.

'So this young feller-me-lad stole some rabbits and got caught,' Nanny mused, and took a sip from her glass. 'And went to prison?'

Eleanor nodded. 'That's what Papa said. He said he had gone for a month and that it wasn't long enough. But I wondered— I wondered why he had stolen them. Do you think, Nanny, that he did it for a lark, or was someone going to cook them for supper?'

Nanny pondered and took another satisfying draught of ale. 'Did he look like a young swell that'd do such a thing for a lark, or a roughneck from the hoi polloi who was down on his uppers?'

'Oh, he wasn't a swell,' Eleanor protested. 'And he had blood on his hands which would have been distasteful to a gentleman.' She considered. 'He had a dirty face and his boots were shabby. Oh, yes, and his breeches were ragged.'

'So what do you think?' Nanny asked softly. 'It would seem to me to be quite obvious.'

'Yes.' Eleanor felt very sad. 'I think that he must have been very hungry to do such a shameful thing. But I'm sorry that he had to stoop so low.'

'Yes, indeed,' Nanny commented sourly. 'The butcher must have been devastated to lose his income, and who knows what happened to the rabbits.'

'Oh, the policeman took the one the boy had. He said it would be used in evidence. But I don't know about the one he dropped; perhaps whoever found it took it back to the butcher.'

'More than likely,' Nanny nodded. 'Yes, could well be so. On the other hand'— she gazed affectionately at Eleanor and wondered who would ever advise her on the way of the world— 'it might have made somebody a good supper.'

Eleanor gazed wide-eyed at her. 'But do you not think it would turn sour in their stomachs with the knowledge of its being stolen?'

Nanny drained her glass. 'No, my dear. I don't. But don't tell your father I said so.'

'You don't think he'll be hanged, do you?' Eleanor asked after a moment's silence. 'Papa told him he might swing from a rope one day.'

'Did he? Well, your papa would know about such things, being in law himself. But I shouldn't worry,' Nanny said kindly. 'They'll not hang him this time, and mebbe after a spell in prison he'll walk a straight line. If he's not starving, that is,' she added, and gave a little grunt as she bent to put more coal on the fire. 'It's incredible what lengths a person will go to if he's got a hunger in his belly.'