Children of the Tide (5 page)

A Bit of
On
ion

T
en-year-old Catherine Smeets drew in a quick breath. She kept her head down. Next to her, and on both sides of the long scuffed table, girls her age frantically licked thin gruel from wooden bowls. Here, in St. Pancras Workhouse, the food was scant. In the other workhouses of London, like St. Giles two miles south, pots of porridge with a shred of meat were standard fare for the midday meal. This was not the case in St. Pancras, where a small bowl of gruel was all that was served at each meal. This moment of rest would soon be finished; all children at the tables would rise shortly at the clap of the matron's hands and march off to start the toil of the afternoon after a morning of scrubbing floors.

Catherine Smeets put down her wooden bowl. Her right hand shot out; she grabbed a second half onion from the serving platter — a treat only on Wednesdays in St. Pancras — and glanced up at Nell sitting kitty-corner on the opposite side. Nell jammed her eyes right, then left and blinked twice. Catherine slipped the bit of onion under the hem of her blue muslin shift.
For later,
she thought.
For our plan.

Matron Pickens approached on her inspection walk. Nell tapped her right hand once. Catherine bent again over her bowl and felt Matron Pickens brush by her back, the
whish
of her birch rod cutting through the cold air.

“Girls,” Matron Pickens announced, “extra for those who get all windows washed before supper. Whippings for those who dawdle or whine.” Matron Pickens spoke with a scratchy throat, as if she had swallowed broken pebbles for her midday meal. Nell once said Matron Pickens was a puppet and not a human, like the Judy in the Tom Fool shows.

Now the final prayer was intoned by Master Jenkins, who was standing by the iron stove with his hat on, his hands raised up before his face. He had a ringing voice, his thanks to the parish elders and to Jesus echoing off the high stone walls of the dining ward. This afternoon the boys of St. Pancras were to be sent to chop wood for the parish. “A good day's labour, boys, meant to show you the joys of honest work,” shouted Master Jenkins. Catherine never could understand how blistered hands were rewards. This same afternoon she and Nell and Little Mag were to be sent down below into the laundry to mend sheets.

Catherine Smeets slowly stood up with her mates. She still had a trace of rose in her cheeks even though she had been in St. Pancras three months, ever since her father, Sergeant Peter Smeets, had abandoned her at the front door in late December and gone off to Scotland to join his regiment. Oh, how she missed him and her mother, dead these past two years of the fever. But mostly her uncle, her mother's only brother. How brutally he was treated. How good he
tried to be
in fighting against her drunken father. But all of that life was gone.
Forever
, thought Catherine.

The line of girls marched to the archway and split into sections, then into groups of three and four. Matron Pickens clapped her hands. Nell, Little Mag, and Catherine scampered down the damp stone stairs into a basement of low ceilings and grimy walls. “Skip along,” whispered Nell, always the boldest one. Little Mag had a shrunken left foot but she could keep up with the other two. After a moment, all three stopped and panted. Catherine's head ached. The dark corridor drew Catherine's mind back to her mother's bed, back when her uncle looked after her. He often folded her in his arms and told Catherine the story of a brave peasant girl who had rescued a child princess from a witch.

“Hurry with it,” Nell now said, shaking Catherine's arm. “We'll wait by the sheet bin. If the puppet comes we'll give out a loud coughin'.”

From Nell's hand and from Little Mag's, Catherine took their bits of stolen onion. She pulled out the bit she had hidden at table and cupped all in her left hand. She ran swiftly to the far end of the corridor, knowing she must not dawdle. Time was always measured in seconds in the workhouse. From under one of the floor stones, Catherine pulled out a thick bundle of rags —two layers to protect and keep cool the onions, bits of hardened lard, cooked potato skins and dried apple peels.

“There, there,” she whispered to the rags, folding them carefully. “You shall have good use soon enough,” she said. Fearful of delay, she shoved the wad under the stone, tamped the stone down with her bare foot. She scurried back against the slimy wall into the laundry room where, to her relief, only Nell and Little Mag were sitting, their needles already threaded. Long worn sheets lay over their laps and spread onto the floor.

“Done then?” asked Nell.

“Not even a goblin could find them,” whispered Catherine.

Little Mag shivered. “Me, I hate the likes of goblins. Too many of'em for my needs.”

Catherine smiled, reached over and patted Little Mag on her shoulder.

“If Matron comes, let us sit so still only our arms move,” Nell said.

“She'll fart at us,” Little Mag giggled.

“Dog farts,” squealed all three.

Nell and Little Mag began to mend. Catherine threaded her needle and thought back to her village near Frogmore. She pictured again the bright carriage of the old princess riding up the main street and on toward her grand house. She pictured the slim figure of her dear uncle, his nose and chin so like his sister's, Catherine's sweet mother. How Catherine had loved Uncle's jokes and especially his nicknames. Her childhood nickname for him was just a simple sound and she began to whisper it to herself in time to her stitching hand.

“You dreamin'?” asked Little Mag.

“Remembering. 'Tis nothing,” said Catherine. “About my darling uncle.”

“Tell us the story again,” asked Little Mag. Catherine put down her needle and the sheet.

“He was my mother's brother. So kind, so gentle. He told me once he had been brought up in a workhouse. A cruel place.”

“No worse than this,” grumped Nell, pulling at her thread.

“He found a trade, loved to read books from the village lending library. When my Poppa went off to serve in his regiment, Uncle always came to live with us. He would clean our house, cook. And always buy me things.”

“He bought you a pony, didn't he?” marvelled Little Mag.

“Oh, yes. A sad little thing. He reminded me of Uncle.”

“Don't be daft,” sniffed Nell.

“I mean, he was gentle and quiet. Uncle liked to read by himself. One time I caught him weeping at a story he had read.”

“Sounds like a soft head to me,” Nell scowled, lifting up her sheet to check her stitching.

“I like the part about your mother and him,” whispered Little Mag.

Catherine had to wipe her eyes before going on. “Yes, Momma always said he suffered so much, especially
inside
his head. He was too tender of feeling, she always said. He could break so easily. She saw how Uncle felt pained when Poppa teased him too much.”

Matron Pickens stomped so suddenly into the laundry room the three girls jumped. She was dragging a small weeping boy behind her. “This be a weaklin'.” she explained. “Master says he has the cough so cannot go choppin.' You filth here, you tend ‘im. Mind, no tweakin' no gigglin',” she said, her slash of a mouth breaking into a dry chuckle. Matron Pickens marched off. The boy fell to the floor. He coughed and coughed until Catherine raised him up, dried his forehead with the hem of her shift and sat him down on a basket of soiled sheets. Nell, meantime, found a bucket and pumped it full of water. She hauled it over to the boy where Little Mag washed down his face and made him take a drink. The boy caught his breath.

“I shall always thank you,” the boy said, his voice soft like the feeble blowing of a whistle. “My mother and father died in a fire,” he said. Then without pause he slumped over and fell asleep on the mound of sheets.

“He'll be carried out soon,” Nell said, her voice without sentiment.

“Nell, sssh,” Catherine said. “He may hear you.”

“Yes,” said Little Mag. “Like a goblin hears you from under the floor.”

“
Mend,
” Nell said, hitting the other two on their wrists. “Mend, and think of our path. The open fields.”

Catherine and Little Mag nodded. “I love your story,” Little Mag then said in a low voice.

“Me, too,” replied Catherine. “I hope Uncle is alive and well.”

“To be sure,” said Little Mag.

“Work on, you two,” snapped Nell. The three girls bent over their sheets. The little boy moaned in his sleep as Catherine quickly pulled her thread into a steady rhythm. She let thoughts of her uncle fade as she concentrated on the day ahead.

“We got little time left in here,” she then said to Nell and Little Mag.

“So we do, Catherine,” Nell said, her voice full of determination. “Little time before we are free!”

On Tuesday night past, Catherine Smeets had sat alone very late, a quill in her right hand. There'd been enough fire from the hearth in the ward for her to see. Her chilly legs were spread out on the cold floor beside an inkwell and a piece of soiled paper, items allowed her by the head matron. Catherine read and wrote well for a girl of ten years: her uncle had taught her when she was four. Every Tuesday, she would write a letter. Not a real one. Not one she could actually post. It was one she composed even though she had no pennies for stamps and no address. It was always to her dear uncle, a pretend letter to him to tell him about herself, as if he were still with her, as if he were alive. Catherine remembered the terrible things done to him. The constable dragging him to the public prison cell in the village square, the bruises around his eyes from the fists and truncheons. She remembered running out in the night and handing him through the prison bars a letter she had carefully written herself. He had read it and held it to his heart and thanked her. He had put it in his pocket. “I will guard it forever,” he had said. Catherine hoped one day he would read all the letters she had written to him.

Matron Pickens had once said her uncle was a convicted felon, words Catherine did not quite understand. Matron Pickens once said he had been hanged and quartered, but Catherine did not believe such nonsense. He was her only hope. She recalled seeing him in the village's courtroom standing before the man in the long grey wig. She was told her uncle was to sail away on a ship. Perhaps the ship sank, but Catherine would never allow that idea into her head. All her pretend letters she kept under her pallet mattress, wrapped in brown paper. No one touched them. Not even Matron Pickens. On this Tuesday night she wrote a short letter since she was very tired:

Dearest Uncle,

Such cold winds today. I have not much to tell! I worked in the latrines all the morning. I don't mind. Dear Mama would hate the smell. Nell says I am very strong. She is my best friend. I miss you so much, dear Uncle. You are on the sea now? Will you see elephants? Will you see strange beasts under the world? I pray for you. God will be kind! I must to bed.

Your Catherine