Victorian Maiden (12 page)

“All manner o' places, Lizzie; Mrs Eire's not one t' be put off easily. She gets 'em from apprentice houses an' t' shops where t' servant girls run for their errands. Nurse girls are always a favourite with her, I hear; there are always lots on 'em walkin' t' Stray wit' their mistress' bairns in perambulators. She knows fine they're generally on their own an' that they're nearly all virgins. Virgins are where Mrs Eire can get 'er best money. Once t' gentlemen 'ave 'ad their way with 'em, well then… there's always Brimston an' more money t' be 'ad from 'em there.”

“I preferred the gentlemen at Brimston to the ones at…” 

She clapped her hand to her mouth, mortified at what she had almost let slip. Rachel seemed kind to be sure but she was still virtually a complete stranger.

But Old Rachel swept her into a tight embrace. Inside the cocoon of gnarled, wrinkled old arms and coarse, stiff cloth, Elizabeth felt just a little of the pain of her life begin to seep away.

“Hush, child. I know, I know. With these old eyes, I've seen all manner o' things that shouldn' happen under God's keepin'. I know wha' men can do to a helpless li'le child they're meant to protect an' cherish; aye, and laugh about it too. But ye are safe now, Lizzie. Mrs Dixon an' I'll keep ye safe an' look after ye an' your baby jus' fine here.”

“Oh, Rachel, I do believe that you'll keep me safe, I truly do. It's just that I can't seem to get it all out of my head. Everything keeps whirling around and around like a merry-go-round.”

“Ye will, Lizzie, ye will, wi' good hard work an' that there baby out of yer belly an' into t' sunshine.”

Elizabeth felt the dry, cracked lips press onto her forehead just as her legs threatened to give way as if they had turned to india-rubber. 

“How do you know about my baby?” she whispered.

Rachel chuckled again. 

“'Cause I work in t' infirmary, me pretty child, and in t' lyin'-in room, and I've delivered hundreds o' babies in t' years I've been 'ere.” She sighed deeply. “An' in that time, Lizzie, I'll tell thee straight: I've seen more than a few pretty young lambs like ye, who'd rather come an' sell their soul t' a poor-law workhouse than be ill-used a' home.”

She stepped back and forced her lined, toothless, old face into a reassuring grin.

“Look now, girl, ye've gone an' quite crumpled them fine clothes o' yours. 'Ere, let's straighten ye out an' then we'll in an' see Mrs Dixon.”

She followed Old Rachel towards the little entrance porch under the great, ornate facade of the workhouse. It was the mouth of the African mask she was so reminded of, and it never moved as it swallowed her whole.

In spite of the warmth of the bright summer morning outside, as Lizzie entered the bowels of the workhouse, she was engulfed by a sudden gloom and icy chill that made her skin creep. And as she gazed about, the chill seemed to penetrate further than her skin; it seemed to seep deep inside her chest and freeze her very heart.

From without, Starbeck Workhouse was a handsome, well proportioned, even grand building, but from within it was bleak, austere and labyrinthine. The floors were of great, cold stone flags, a little like the pavements of Harrogate, but without the warming sun. The walls and ceilings had no plaster, no paint and no hangings; only a thick, smothering layer of stark, white lime-wash, and instead of paintings and portraits, there were terse, official notices prescribing what every part of her life was now going to be.

“Jump in 'ere, Lizzie, while I fetch Matron or t' Master.”

Rachel was pointing through a doorway into a little room beyond. A polished, brass plaque on the wall announced it as the ‘Receiving Office,' so wide-eyed and obedient, she walked inside. 

The Receiving Office was a small and very square room, with a large sash window on one side looking out over the part-swept front yard, and the great stone boundary wall beyond. The wall seemed so much further away, yet so much higher, from in here. After the dark of the corridor, the room was oppressively bright.

Several notices punctuated the wall opposite, and the sight of one of these in particular flooded her instantly with cold, visceral dread. It was headed by the words, ‘Punishments for the Misbehaviour of Paupers,' and Elizabeth's eyes swept quickly down it. They swept down it so fast that she could pick out only the occasional word, almost as if somehow, those words might not be as real, might not be as true, that way.

Her eyes searched in horror for anything that might hint at the punishments Uncle Alfie or his gentlemen friends meted out. And there it was. Dear Lord there it was. Amongst all of the withholding of cheese and butter, or tea or sugar; amid all the warnings of various confinements in the refractory cell, there were the words: ‘…the pauper may be publically whipped.' She shivered as she remembered once more the big room at Brimston and the mess of blood and wheals that was the fallen girl's back. That memory changed instantly into a terrifying image of her mama, tramping despairingly around the Eighth Circle of Hell being whipped on and on by demons. Then she saw herself, stripped naked in front of Old Rachel and hundreds of other paupers, and chained to a rack. There would be no circumspection. They would surely all see her lumpy belly, see its faint, pink marks where it had once been stretched so tight and they would know for certain what a wicked, wicked creature she really was.

“Acquainting ourselves with the rules and regulations already, are we?”

She started and whirled round. A small, intelligent-looking man was standing in front of her, regarding her shrewdly. Old Rachel was behind him smiling a smile of encouragement with her lovely, toothless old face.

“I am Mr Dixon,” the man continued, “And I am the Master of the Harrogate Workhouse. Rachel here has told me that you entertain some notion of admittance as an inmate?”

“That is quite correct, sir.” 

Elizabeth bobbed her nervous curtsey. The Master's eyes followed her movements with rapt attention. 

“If I may say so, Miss…”

“Elizabeth Beatrice Wilson if you please, sir.” 

She curtsied once again.

“If I may say so, Miss Elizabeth Beatrice Wilson, you are not in our usual line of inmates.”

“Am I not, sir?” 

Dread took a cold grip on her gullet.

“No indeed. However, Rachel has told me that you are an orphan and that you wish for relief to escape your uncle's cruel punishments. Is that correct?” 

His eyes seemed to bore into hers, and instinctively, she reached up and caught her silver crucifix between her fingertips.

“Yes, sir, if you please.”

She was watching the Master's eyes, waiting for them to begin to creep down her body as all men's eyes did. And then they did, and dread took her in its hands and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed.

“How old are you, Elizabeth?” the Master asked.

“I am fifteen years old, sir.”

“That is convenient; I thought perhaps you might be older. Rachel, would you have a bath prepared for her? Cold taps first, mind you and ninety-five degrees by the thermometer. I shall be supervising her myself as she's not yet sixteen. Mrs Dixon is occupied at present and can't be broke off. After that you may see to her hair and clothes, and then take her up to the receiving ward for the Medical Officer to examine her.”

“Aye, Mr Dixon,” said Rachel, then: “Come, Lizzie, let me take ye t' Ablutions Room; I'll get t' men to fill thee a bath.”

She could feel her body trembling, feel the myriad pinpricks of goose flesh pimple her naked skin. The hem of the Master's jacket brushed lightly against her thigh as he stooped across her and she shuddered and cried out.

“A little over ninety-three degrees, Rachel, so that will do quite nicely for her.”

Mr Dixon stood and flicked a drop of bathwater deftly from the bulb of his thermometer. He turned and his eyes slid once more down her naked body. She shuddered again and shielded herself with her arms and her hands, writhing in her humiliation like some worm caught in a salt pit.

“Very well, Wilson, into the bath you go. I don't suppose for one moment that you actually need one, but regulations are regulations.”

Old Rachel's horny fingers steered her into the water. It was just tepid, and she could feel it creeping inexorably up every inch of her skin as she lowered herself down into the tub. 

“I bath every Saturday, sir,” she ventured nervously, “And wash my face and hands each morning.”

The Master chuckled and held out a large, red block. 

“I don't doubt it, Wilson, but not with this though, I'd wager. Take it; it's carbolic soap.” 

He held the block out to her, then, just as her fingers peeled from her skin to take it, he pulled it tantalisingly out of reach.

“Take it,” he repeated, grinning horribly. 

Elizabeth hesitated; she so needed to be admitted; for her baby to be safe. 

The Master raised his eyebrows and scowled, and she vacillated for just a second longer before she reached out and snatched it from his hand. The chill air of the room wafted against her naked breast, where her hand had been a second before. The Master chuckled again, and this time she sensed the catch in it, that awful catch that gentlemen have when they intend to be cruel. She curled up tight and began to rock gently to-and-fro in the water, waiting for the brutal touch of his hands, of his mouth, of…

“Make sure she uses the carbolic, Rachel. You know how the Medical Officer likes to smell it on his new arrivals.” 

Then the door clicked and he was gone.

“Don' mind 'im, Lizzie.” 

She started violently as Old Rachel's fingers touched her back. They were slick and lumpy with soap, and her nose was filled with the sudden pungent aroma of the carbolic. 

“Mr Dixon likes ye t' know that he's t' Master 'ere an' that ye be only an inmate, but upon my soul, 'e would never touch ye.”

Elizabeth sat patiently in the bathtub as Rachel washed the fine perfume and powder of Sessrum House from her skin and replaced it with the coarse, brutal stench of carbolic. And then she sat patiently on a stool as her long, blonde tresses were carefully cut away.

“We'll get a pretty penny for these, Lizzie,” Rachel cackled as she laid the handfuls of hair carefully onto a sheet of new, brown paper.

“You'll sell it, you mean; you'll sell my hair?” Elizabeth was astounded. 

“I winnet, child, but t' poor-law will. It'll go to be made into wigs for t' fine, old ladies o' Harrogate to make 'em look pretty.”

Elizabeth glanced into a small, round looking-glass fixed to the wall under a blanket shelf, and saw what looked to be a delicate young boy with bright, piercing blue eyes staring back at her through the film of dust. She smiled and the boy smiled back, but his smile seemed somehow hollow, somehow filled with pain. And when she looked through his eyes and deep into his soul, she shivered.

“I'm glad, Rachel; they can have it. They can be pretty instead of me. I don't want to be pretty anymore. It just makes gentlemen think that you're wicked.”

“Hush, child, don' talk so. Thy hair'll grow back soon enough an' then ye'll be beautiful again and some kind gen'leman will come an' make ye a handsome husband.” Her eyes dropped for a second to the tiny bulge on Elizabeth's naked belly. “Anyway, le's get thy uniform for ye. Ye pretty clothes'll be cleaned an' disinfected in t' sulphur cupboard an' then nailed safely ont' t' wall until ye leave. Not that they need disinfectin', mind ye; it's just tha' t' regulations say tha' they must.”

“I don't want them, Rachel. If you like them, you can have them.”

The boy in the mirror shook his head frantically and the sudden glistening tears in his eyes made him seem even more delicate, yet more fragile.

Rachel's wizened old face appeared next to it. 

“Thank ye, Lizzie, but God himself couldn' fit me into them clothes in a month o' Sundays, no, nor half o' t' women in this poor-law. An' if he did, we'd look nothin' but a troop o' music hall turns. No, me lamb, we'll be nailin' them up safe for ye, else they'll be a-disappearin' down t' pop-shop – th' pawnbrokers t' ye – afore we know it. That way, when ye do want t' leave wi' ye kind gen'leman and ye little baby, well then, they'll be still there waitin' for ye, won' they? Ye won' want t' go out still in ye workhouse uniform an' 'ave everyone stare an' shout names an' t' boys throw stones a' ye, now would ye?”

The boy shook his head and Elizabeth felt a gnarled hand gently pat her shoulder.

“There's a lamb. So 'ere's thy new uniform then.” 

She pointed to what Elizabeth had taken to be a pile of old blankets stacked on the shelf above the mirror. The boy in the mirror looked up and Elizabeth noticed a vivid yellow bruise just below his ear. In her other life, she remembered carefully and shamefully arranging her hair so as to cover it, and a single memory of Mr James fell from its place and made her flesh writhe as if it were crawling with maggots. For a moment she felt his suffocating weight on her back and his teeth, sharp as Mr Price's, biting into her neck.

The hand patted her shoulder once more and the memory fled. 

“Oh, Lizzie, I dare say t' clothes aren't wha' ye are used with, but they'll not be so bad, once ye ge' accustomed to 'em. They last well enough in 'ere, anyway. Ye pretty clothes would be turned t' rags in no time. 

Look ye here; ye've got a good, strong grogram gown for every day, two shifts o' calico, a petticoat an' a pretty gingham dress for church on Sundays. T' blue'll set ye hair off lovely when it grows again, an' this day cap'll hide it until it does. There are worsted stockings for ye pretty legs an' slippers for ye feet.” 

As she spoke, she dropped each item into Elizabeth's naked lap. The rough grogram scratched the skin of her legs, softer than ever from the bath water. She reached down and felt the cloth between her fingers. It was coarse and stiff. Uncle Alfie's gardener, she realised in horror, put better clothes on the old scarecrow that stood in the kitchen garden.

She looked up and saw Rachel smiling at her in the mirror. 

“Look sharp now an' get thee dressed. Mr Wright t' Medical Officer will need to examine ye afore ye can start work.”

The Reception Ward at the Harrogate Workhouse was empty, save for a single wizened old hag who occupied the farthest of a long line of wrought-iron beds. She was trembling and gently sobbing, as she lay curled on her thin flock mattress in what must have been a deeply tormented sleep.

“What is your name, please?” said a sudden, deep voice to her left, which made Elizabeth start and almost cry out in shock. 

She turned to see a gentleman in a top hat and heavy cape coat bent over a desk in a shadowed corner of the room. The nib of his pen was scratching rapidly across a sheet of paper and he hadn't looked up.

“Elizabeth Beatrice Wilson, if you please, sir.” 

Elizabeth curtsied and felt the rough, stiff material of the uniform resisting the movement.

The scratching stopped abruptly at the sound of her voice and the gentleman looked up. His eyes roved languidly down her body and she hid her sudden discomfort in another, nervous curtsey.

“My name is Mr Wright,” said the man at last, “And I am the Medical Officer for this workhouse. It is my duty to examine you before you can gain any relief here.”

“Yes, sir,” said Elizabeth.

Mr Wright pointed the nib of his pen towards the nearest of the beds. 

“Lay there, Wilson and take off your slippers and cap; I'll be with you presently. Rachel, you may wait outside. I'll call for you once I have completed my examination.”