Victorian Maiden (13 page)

The bed was narrow, crude and uncomfortable, and like the princess in the fairytale, she could feel every one of the narrow iron struts pressing into her back through the thin mattress. The door clicked shut behind Old Rachel and she looked up. Mr Wright's long, black silhouette was looming over her. Blind, visceral panic gripped her and began inexorably to overwhelm her senses. Lizzie watched as his hands lifted and reached down for her. They were big hands, as big as Mr Price's, and they were overpowering and unstoppable. She wanted to beg him to still them, beg him to let her go, to let her flee this bed, this ward, this workhouse, but the words she needed choked unuttered in her throat. She wanted to turn away, to push him back but her leaden limbs refused to heed the shrieking, shrieking screams of her brain.

“You've a nice manner and a quite beautiful face, Elizabeth,” Mr Wright purred as his fingertips trailed along the smooth line of her jaw. “Have you ever thought of going into domestic service?”

“No, sir,” Elizabeth whispered. 

She needed him to stop talking to her. If he was quiet, if she didn't need to listen to him or think of answers to his questions, she would be able to take herself away to her safe and special place, where it would seem as if all of this was going to happen to a different little girl.

“In this workhouse, Elizabeth, we discourage idleness by means of austerity, discipline and good, hard work. It can be a very, very cruel place for poor little girls like you.”

His fingers drifted down the length of her arm and slowly encircled her trembling hand. 

“Your hands are so soft and so warm. I can think of a much better employ for them than hours and hours of scrubbing floors or picking oakum.” 

He let her hand fall gently back onto the mattress and his hands floated to the hem of her dress.

“I know several gentlemen in Harrogate who would willingly employ a nice, pretty girl such as you, Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes tight as the coarse material of her dress scratched its way along the length of her shins, brushed her knee, lifted from her thighs.

“Those gentlemen are very wealthy. They would happily pay you pounds and pounds if you would play a special game with them.”

‘Please, Lord Jesus, please, Mama, please send your angel to make us die right now. Please take my baby and me into Heaven to be angels with you.'

“You have marks on your body, Elizabeth, that suggest that you've had a baby already.”

She opened her eyes straight into Mr Wright's as he leered down at her with an expression somewhere between triumph and bitter disappointment.

“Yes, sir, I had a baby; it was Baby Albert but he was only little and he died.”

“Did you kill him, Wilson?”

“Oh lordy, no, sir; Mrs Eire took him away because she said that a boy was neither use nor ornament to her or anybody else, and she gave him to a lady friend to fetch up. But Mary told me that he'd died and gone to be with his grandmama and grandpapa in Heaven.”

“I see.” 

She felt his hand cup her breast, felt his fingers pressing into her. 

“You have a heavy bosom for one so young.” 

Another hand pressed hard on her stomach and then there was a sudden, sharp pinch on her nipple that made her yelp out in pain.

He said: “You're due to have another baby soon aren't you, Wilson? That's what has brought you running to our door begging for relief. In that case, to use our friend Mrs Eire's words, you're neither use nor ornament to me either. My friends only want chaste, virgin girls around them, not some shameless harlot with someone's bastard whelp growing inside her.”

She felt her dress being dragged back over her legs.

“She's having a baby.” 

The wizened old hag from the bed at the end of the ward suddenly appeared next to the Medical Officer, peering down with startlingly bright eyes from the shadows of her shabby poke bonnet.

“Hold your tongue, woman,” Wright growled without looking round.

“She's having a baby,” the woman repeated. 

She cackled and began to sing in a high, trill voice.

“Hush-a-bye baby, on the tree top, 

When you grow old, your wages will stop. 

When you have spent, the bit money you made. 

First to the poorhouse, then to the grave.”

“Will you hold your tongue, woman?” Wright roared, “Or do you wish to start your time in the workhouse in the refractory cell?”

“Her baby died so she's having another,” the woman persisted.

She knew it would come: the memory, the very worst memory of them all. 

She knew it was surely coming to hurt her again and there was nothing she could do to stop it. The panic that had been waiting to overwhelm her ever since she had first felt Wright's shadow falling across her started to rise still further. She didn't have her Bible with its comforting Book of Revelation; she couldn't run to Mary, she was just lying here, on a bed, trapped beneath a man who was surely going to punish her. He had already hurt her nipple, and she could still feel it stabbing with pain. She closed her eyes, and concentrated with all her might on the hurt, on the pain, letting it flood her consciousness, letting it block out everything else.

And the worst memory of all didn't come. This time – mercifully – it stayed. It remained festering in that remote part of her mind she kept especially for it and for its foul and loathsome kin. This time, it didn't come to hurt her as it always did. The only pain she knew was the throbbing ache in her nipple and it was oh, such a relief.

 

“Bless me but t' child's fallen asleep!”

She opened her eyes. It was Old Rachel.

“I'm not a wicked girl, Rachel, truly I'm not.”

“O' course ye aren't, Lizzie.”

“The Medical Officer said that I was. He said that I was a shameless harlot.”

Old Rachel slowly eased her body down until she was perched on the edge of the narrow bed frame opposite. 

“Well we both know t' truth of it, don' we?” she murmured. “An' God knows t' truth of it, and Jesus knows t' truth of it, an' ye mammy an' daddy know t' truth of it, so why do ye worry abou' what t' Medical Officer thinks?”

Elizabeth smiled and blinked back sudden tears and Old Rachel patted her stomach.

“Ye jus' be a-worryin' 'bout this little 'un, child. They say there's enough worry a-comes from one little child to last their mammy a lifetime. Now, rouse thyself, I'm to take ye to t' girls' ward an' old Leah there to t' refractory cell for t' night. Oh, an' Mr Wright 'as ordered that ye wear one o' these.” She held up a stiff, grogram jacket. It had been dyed to a bright yellow colour.

“But why would he wish me to wear one of those, Rachel? I'm getting quite used to the chill and the colour – well it would make me look just like a little duckling. No one else wears one.”

“I know, me lamb, but t' jacket ain't t' keep thee warm, it's… well, it's t' show that ye're not a chaste girl, Lizzie. Mr Wright said that t' other girls needed warning abou' ye ‘lack o' moral virtue.'”

She mimicked his voice perfectly and chuckled. 

“But don' worry, it be more t' other way about, an' none o' t' other girls won' take any notice o' ‘t anyway, not really.”

It had seemed longer – much longer – than the three hours the library clock had tried to pretend it had been before at last they heard Dr Roberts' voice echoing beyond the hallway door. It was answered almost immediately by a woman's – Mary Lovell's – speaking in equally urgent, muffled tones.

Lucie Fox quickly closed the thick tome on phrenology she had been using to help pass the time and mirrored the lurcher Gladstone as he pricked up his ears and stared intently at the green baize lining of the door.

“He's returned from the magistrate's at last,” Atticus said, carefully setting down a large African tribal mask he had been examining.

The brass handle of the door rattled and twisted and Roberts burst in, followed by a tearful and strained-looking Mary. Gladstone gave a great bark and bounded to his feet.

“Hello, old fellow.”

Roberts bent and rubbed the dog's shoulder for what seemed like an age before he stood straight and tall again.

His face was unreadable and he said: “Thank you for your patience Atticus, Mrs Fox; I'm so sorry to have been away for so long.”

“Never mind that,” Atticus snapped, “What did he say?”

Roberts' face broke into a grin. “He said – and the police superintendant didn't object one bit – that Aunt Elizabeth may stay here at Sessrum House in my care and keeping until he decides whether or not she must stand trial.”

“That's wonderful news.” Lucie beamed too. “But surely there can be no question whether she's fit to stand trial?”

Roberts' grin tautened and became as strained as Mary's.

“I'm afraid that's where the superintendant and I did disagree. Apparently the constable who accompanied Aunt Elizabeth to the police station swore that she gave signs of perfectly understanding what he was saying to her. He's pushing for her to stand trial anyway and to let the judge and jury decide what happens to her.”

“But that's preposterous,” Atticus roared.

“I know, Atticus,” Roberts said, “But that battle is for another day. At least she's coming back here for the present. Mary is going to fetch her from the police station presently, and walk her back across the Stray. I won't have her ride in a carriage; she's done enough of that already to last a lifetime. Then, once she's safely home, we can push for the McNaughton rules to be applied, and if we can achieve that, I cannot see any other outcome but that she will live out her final days here, in peace.”

“Here's the Stray, Lizzie; do you remember the Stray?”

Mary and Elizabeth looked like just another pair of elderly ladies taking the light exercise that, along with the taking of the mineral-rich spa waters, comprised such an important part of ‘The Harrogate Cure.'

“The whin bushes are pretty,” Mary added. “Look at the whin bushes, Lizzie.”

Elizabeth turned and gazed in the direction in which Mary was pointing, toward a dense thicket of bright yellow gorse.

“Am I to help Rachel?” she asked.

Mary sighed wearily.

“You don't understand one word of what I say, do you, Lizzie? Rachel's long-since dead, my love; she's dead and buried in her grave. I'm Mary.”

 

“The Master mus' like ye, Lizzie,” Old Rachel cackled as she handed her one of a pair of heavy implements she was carrying. It consisted of a large, brutal-looking blade, attached to a stocky wooden handle, and Rachel called it a ‘slasher.' It looked to Lizzie like one of the great medieval weapons her Uncle Alfie was so fond of collecting, and that he kept mounted in their dozens on the walls of his hunting lodge in Northumberland. 

“E's sendin' ye out wi' me to cut whin bush on t' Stray,” Rachel went on. “We're to go out an' cut it an' then t' men will haul it back 'ere at t' end o' t' day.” 

She looked carefully round and then whispered: “It's a hard job an' yer pretty arms will get scratched t' bits on t' spines, but we're out o' t' workhouse an' oftentimes, t' overseers will let them that's been a-doin' it go to t' Stray horse races as a reward.” 

She looked around again and cackled merrily before she winked and added: “Sometimes they even let us 'ave a little drop o' gin too, while we're on.”

“What do you do with whin bush, Rachel? Is it for table vases?”

Old Rachel stared at her, her expression fluid as quicksilver. 

“For table vases?” she stammered at last, “For flowers ye mean?”

Lizzie nodded.

Rachel seemed to suddenly be having some kind of fit, and Lizzie worried if she should be running for Mr Wright or the Matron. Rachel's face went puce, her eyes began streaming with tears and she stooped, hanging onto the handle of her slasher as her ancient shoulders shook and shook. 

“Oh, me poor, innocent lamb,” she gasped at last, and Lizzie realised she had been laughing, “Table flowers in t' refectory is it?” 

She doubled up once more and cackled as if she would never stop. But then she did and she took a hold of herself. 

“We use t' whin bush for animal food mainly, Lizzie. T' farms 'ereabouts buy as much as we can cut. But we use it for makin' brooms as well, an' for a-dressin' the soil in t' garden. Th' flowers go to make pretty yellow dye, so by then, there's generally nothin' left for t' table vases.” And then she erupted into peels of laughter once more.

It was very curious feeling, to walk with Old Rachel back up the long road to Harrogate – almost as if she were entering a strange town for the first time; a town that she had previously known only in picture books. Everything looked the same; the great beech trees that lined the road, the cottages and the farmsteads, the Stray itself… But it was also all strangely different. True, she was dressed as a pauper girl now in her stiff grogram gown and day cap, and the bright yellow jacket she wore seemed to attract all manner of attention, from disdainful stares to outright hostility.

It had taken quite a long time for her to realise that it was the jacket that was the cause of the attention, and not just the sheer fact that she was a wicked pauper girl with a precious bastard baby in her belly. Women hustled their children into their houses or hid them behind their skirts and they would call, ‘slut,' or, ‘harlot,' or ‘whore' as she passed. Men would shout from passing wagons, asking how much for a kiss, and would she meet them in the tavern after dark. One man even broke away from a whistling, jeering group of farm labourers to run across the road and grab at her. She let her body fall limp and her mind flee as his rough stubble raked across her face until Old Rachel beat him off with the thick handle of her slasher. But even as her mind took off and fled to her special, secret place, Elizabeth realised that her uncle and Mrs Eire had been right all along; everyone knew, everyone could see even without the yellow jacket she was wearing that she was a nasty, sinful little harlot who needed to be punished and punished and punished.

“No ye aren', child,” Rachel had said, just as Mary had said before her. “Ye've jus' been terrible unfortunate, that's all. Take that there jacket off an' I'll hide it in a tree for ye 'til we come back. No-one need be any t' wiser. Mr Wright can't see us when we're away from t' poor-law an' what he can't see winnet hurt 'im.”

Elizabeth took it off, but she knew that it would change nothing. She knew for certain that she was wicked – that she was a wicked, wicked creature who would surely go to Hell, and who deserved no mercy. She deserved the shouts and the insults, and she deserved for the men to attack her. As she watched Rachel wind her jacket into a tight roll and push it snugly into a fork of a roadside tree, she hoped with all her heart that the spines of the whin bushes would scratch her and scratch her, and scratch her to death.

It had taken quite a long time for her to realise that it was the jacket after all that had been the cause of the attention. But she walked now with no heavy jacket, listening to Rachel's chattering and her stories of the workhouse, and even her heart seemed to grow lighter. She had just the weight of her perfect, unborn baby in her belly, and the slasher in her arms. People still stared at them to be sure, but now no-one shouted, no-one jeered, and no-one came to hurt her. 

Not long after her poor mama had left her to go to Heaven, and she had been taken away to live in the Annexe, Mr Otter, the steward of the Friday Club, had suddenly burst into her room where she had been sitting in a chair reading to John.

John was a full three years younger than she, but she remembered how brave he had been that day. He had picked up the wooden sword he had recently taken to carrying with him everywhere and he had brandished it at Otter like a gallant knight to an ogre.

Mr Otter had laughed as he had plucked the sword from John's grasp, and he had laughed again as he had smashed it to pieces over his knee. But he had seemed deadly serious when he had said, more to Lizzie than to John: “You want to be very careful with me, you do.”

“You aren't allowed to touch us, Otter. I heard Papa tell you. We're gentlemen's children and we're not to be interfered with.” 

John's scream was a scream of rage. 

“You're only allowed your pick of the downstairs children, and even then, only after the Friday Club has finished with them.”

“You're both to come with me right now,” Mr Otter had growled in reply. “Mr Roberts wants to show something to you on the Stray.”

Curious, but still wary enough to leave a respectful distance, they had followed him obediently through the Annexe's smoking room and down the stairway beyond. But when he reached the big door at the bottom, he had turned on them with a suddenness that had both frightened and surprised them for such a big man.

“If I were ever to touch you, Miss Elizabeth,” he growled, “If I were ever to come to your room and drag you from your bed and take my fill of you, you can be certain that neither of you would live to tell the tale of it.”

His laughter had echoed horribly in the empty void of the stairwell and, when he turned and pulled open the door, neither Lizzie nor John doubted the truth of his words for a moment.

They were almost relieved to find Uncle Alfie waiting impatiently for them by the columns of the portico. 

“John, Lizzie, come with me; I want to show you both what happens to disobedient children and to those who run away.”

He led them along the carriage drive to the big, stone gateposts marking its end. There he pointed.

They looked. A little way across the Stray one of the great, old trees by the roadside had fallen in the night. A large group of people, men, women and children, were crawling over it like the colony of ants John kept in a jam jar under his bed.

“Those creatures are paupers,” Uncle Alfie announced, “From the poor-law workhouse at Starbeck. They have come to clear that tree for firewood.

I want you to look hard and pay heed to their misfortune. Workhouse paupers are the most miserable wretches in Christendom. They are naturally idle, indolent and feckless. That is why, in an attempt to drive the more godlike qualities of industriousness, abstinence and humility into them, they are starved, beaten and worked as hard as they can bear.

Now if you should wish to avoid the fate that has overtaken those poor unfortunates, you must always, always do as your betters instruct you, and you must never run away. If you are being hard punished, I remind you that it is for the sake of your immortal soul. Do you hear me, Lizzie?”

She nodded. She had heard the words her uncle had spoken, certainly, but as she watched the paupers laughing and chattering and calling to each other as they worked, she barely believed the truth of them.

The pauper women and girls – for they looked to have women and girls just like ordinary folk – were all dressed identically in heavy grey dresses. She was reminded suddenly of Halcyon, the house where she had lived with her mama before she went away to Heaven, and of the family who lived next door. They had three children, all girls, and they were always dressed exactly the same – just like a row of little ducklings, as her mama used to say. They had always seemed happy too; they were always laughing and chattering just like the paupers. How she wished and wished that she could be a little duckling, following her mama wherever she went. How she wished she could be a pauper and laugh and chatter like them. They were like a family; one great, big, happy family, with brothers and duckling sisters and even, dear Lord even, warm, living mamas.