The Workhouse Girl Read online

  Sarah went down on her knees at her mother’s bedside, taking her hand and holding it to her cheek. ‘Ma, speak to me.’

  Ellen Scrase turned her head slowly, focusing her eyes on her daughter. ‘My Sarah.’

  ‘Ma, they wouldn’t let me see you, but I came anyway.’

  Ellen twisted her lips in a caricature of a smile. ‘Don’t cry, love. I can’t bear to see you in tears.’

  Sarah sniffed and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. She glanced anxiously at her mother’s flat belly, but there was no sign of the baby. ‘Is it . . .’

  ‘Gone to join his pa in heaven, darling. It wasn’t meant to be, Sarah.’

  ‘But you’re all right, Ma. You’ll be up and about soon.’

  Ellen’s eyelids fluttered and closed for a second but she opened them again. ‘I think not, love.’ Her voice was faint and her breathing laboured.

  Fear greater than anything she had ever known created panic in Sarah’s heart and she chafed her mother’s cold hand. ‘Don’t die, Ma. You got to get well. You can’t go to Pa and the boys and leave me in this dreadful place.’

  ‘Come closer.’

  Sarah leaned over and her tears mingled with her mother’s. ‘Please don’t go. I love you, Ma.’

  ‘I’m dying.’

  ‘No, Ma. You’re not.’ Sarah clutched her mother’s cold hand, holding it against her cheek. ‘I won’t let you die.’

  ‘Come away from there.’ A hand jerked Sarah to her feet. ‘What are you doing up here, girl? Don’t you know it’s against the rules?’

  Sarah kicked out but the nurse had her in an iron grip. ‘Let me go. I won’t leave Ma.’

  The woman shook her like a terrier with a rat. ‘She’s left you already by the look of her,’ she said wearily. She picked Sarah up bodily and thrust her into the arms of one of her colleagues, who had rushed to her assistance. ‘Take the kid away, Nurse Brown. I’ll see to the dead woman.’

  ‘No.’ Sarah was carried, kicking and screaming, from the ward, and dumped unceremoniously outside the door.

  ‘Get back to work,’ Nurse Brown said, giving her a push towards the bucket and scrubbing brush which Sarah had left on the narrow landing. ‘Take a tip from me and make yourself scarce. This ain’t no place for a nipper of your age.’ She closed the door, and the sound of the bolt being shot into place echoed in Sarah’s ears. She sank down on her knees, bowing her head. She was alone in the world with no one to love and care for her. If only she could die too, and join her family in heaven.

  The touch of a hand on her shoulder made Sarah jump. She raised her tear-stained face to see Nettie gazing anxiously down at her. ‘I’ve been looking for you. What are you doing up here?’

  ‘My ma’s dead.’

  ‘So is mine,’ Nettie said in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘You won’t get no sympathy here, dearie. Don’t let them see you cry or it’ll make things worse.’

  Sarah had to bite her bottom lip in order to stop it trembling. ‘They can’t get no worse.’

  ‘I’ll look after you.’ Nettie helped her to her feet. ‘Pick up your bucket and try to be brave. I know it’s hard, but if they sees you got a weakness, the stink-pots will make your life hell. Do as I do and keep your head down. You’ll be all right.’

  Sarah allowed herself to be led downstairs, moving like a sleepwalker, barely aware of her surroundings as the pain in her heart threatened to engulf her in a bottomless pit of misery. Nettie emptied her bucket in the back yard, tipping the contents onto the cobblestones. ‘Go on, Sarah. Empty yours, there’s a good girl. We ain’t got all day.’

  Sarah did as she was told, staring at the filthy water as it pooled at her feet. She had to combat the sudden urge to throw herself face down in the muddy morass so that she might drown, and join her family in that mystical place above the clouds. Above her the sun shone from an azure sky with tiny white clouds drifting across the celestial blue. She tried to imagine Ma reclining on one of them as she made her journey to heaven, but all she could see in her mind’s eye was the waxen face of her dead mother, and she knew the image would remain with her for the rest of her life.

  ‘Come on, Sarah,’ Nettie said, prodding her gently in the ribs. ‘We got work to do.’ She led her unprotesting into the building where they deposited the empty buckets and collected dusters and polish. Blindly following Nettie’s example, Sarah did her best but she was small for her age and undernourished. She was attempting to polish one of the benches in the refectory when the necessity to sleep was so overwhelming that she lay down on the floor and curled up in a ball. She was awakened by the strident tones of Matron Trigg. ‘Nettie Bean. Come here, girl.’

  ‘Yes, Matron.’

  Sarah could hear the clatter of Nettie’s shoes on the bare floorboards as she hurried from the far end of the room. She stretched cautiously, not wanting to draw attention to herself.

  ‘Where is the new girl? Where’s that wicked Sal Scratch? You were supposed to be keeping an eye on her.’

  A screech of pain from Nettie brought Sarah to her senses and she sprang to her feet. ‘Leave her alone. She ain’t done nothing wrong, missis.’

  Matron Trigg released Nettie’s ear with a spiteful tweak and she advanced on Sarah, rolling up her sleeves. ‘You were asleep, you lazy little brat. It’ll be another taste of the Tickler for you.’

  ‘No, please don’t beat her again, Matron,’ Nettie cried passionately. ‘It were my fault. I’m the one what should be punished.’

  ‘And you will be,’ Matron Trigg said with a twist of her thin lips. ‘There’ll be no supper for either of you.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Sarah shouted, shaking her fist. ‘My ma’s dead. You can kill me too, if you want. I wish you would.’

  ‘Wicked child.’ Matron Trigg cast her eyes heavenward. ‘You really are the devil’s spawn, Sal Scratch. It’s the coal cellar for you and Bean. After a night down there, you’ll change your tune.’

  Huddled against Nettie in the pitch darkness of the coal cellar, Sarah had no more tears to cry. Hunger and cold had numbed her small body, and she felt herself drifting in space like a dandelion clock. Nettie was shivering violently, but she wrapped her arms around Sarah and held her close. ‘It’s all right, dearie. There ain’t nothing down here what can hurt more than old Tickler. Us can’t see the spiders and the rats are too clever to come where there ain’t no food.’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ Sarah whispered, ‘and thirsty.’

  ‘Me too, but we got to wait until bitch-face lets us out in the morning, so we’d best try to sleep.’

  ‘I hate her and I hate this place.’

  Nettie uttered a hollow laugh. ‘You and me both, but one day I’ll get out of here and I’ll take you too.’

  ‘Will you? Promise?’

  ‘Cross me heart and hope to die.’

  ‘Don’t say that. It might come true.’

  ‘Not me, Sarah. I’m going to live forever, and I’m going to see that bitch-face and her old man get what’s coming to them. One day I’ll be rich and famous, and I’ll set all of them what lives here free. How about that?’

  Sarah snuggled against Nettie’s flat chest, resting her head against her shoulder. ‘I believe you.’

  ‘I’ll marry a rich toff,’ Nettie murmured, rubbing her cheek against Sarah’s shorn head. ‘You can come and live in me great big house, and have three square meals a day and all the chocolate you can eat.’

  ‘Sing to me, Nettie. Ma used to sing me to sleep when I was little.’

  ‘You ain’t so big now, dearie.’

  ‘Please sing a song. I’m scared of the dark.’

  Nettie gave her a hug and began to croon a lullaby, filling in gaps where she had forgotten the words by humming. Sarah tried to imagine that it was her mother’s sweet voice singing her to sleep and eventually she drifted into a state of oblivion. But it was not to last. She was rudely awakened by the creaking of the hinges on the cellar door and the sound of heavy footsteps on the flagstone f
loor. Blinded by the light from a lantern held above their heads, Sarah and Nettie struggled to their feet.

  ‘If you girls think last night was your punishment, you got another think coming.’ Workhouse master Trigg raised his arm and the familiar sound of the Tickler swishing though the dank air made Sarah go weak at the knees.

  Chapter Two

  MATRON TRIGG HATED her and did not bother to make a secret of it. Sarah suffered miserably at her hands, but there was nothing she could do to prevent the sadistic bullying that continued to make her life a living hell. She bore the name Sal Scratch with as much dignity as she could muster, but she often found herself wishing that she really was the devil’s daughter. If that were the case she would invoke her satanic father and beg him to do his worst to Matron Trigg and the workhouse master. She would like to watch them suffer in purgatory together with Stoner and the midwife who would not allow her to say her last goodbye to her dead mother.

  The only respite that Sarah could look forward to was the three hours she spent in class every morning except Sundays. Apart from Nettie, who was her only true friend, there was only one person in her small world who treated Sarah with any degree of humanity and kindness, and that was the schoolteacher, Miss Parfitt. The girls had nicknamed her Miss Perfect, and to Sarah she was the next best thing to a saint. With lustrous dark hair and smiling brown eyes, Pearl Parfitt was not only beautiful but she smelled of lavender and spoke in a soft melodious voice, quite unlike Matron Trigg’s metallic tones.

  It was rumoured that Miss Parfitt had been engaged to be married, but her fiancé had been killed in the Crimean War, and the gold-mounted mourning brooch which she wore at the neck of her starched white blouse contained a lock of her dead love’s hair. Whether or not it was true, the notion of a broken-hearted young woman who had forsaken the world to devote her life to the poor and needy lent Miss Parfitt a romantic, almost mystical aura that was not lost on Sarah. She clung to every word her teacher uttered and did her utmost to earn her praise, working hard in every lesson and impressing Miss Parfitt with her ability to remember the passages from Shakespeare that she had learned parrot-fashion backstage at the Theatre Royal. If Miss Parfitt was curious about this fount of knowledge in one so young and underprivileged, she was too well trained to single Sarah out in a class of girls most of whom could barely write their own names. But as the months went by she gradually drew the information from Sarah and encouraged her to further her education.

  After a year of enduring the torments of the workhouse Sarah had learned to live with the monotonous routine, the near starvation diet, the rigorous discipline and the punishments that were meted out with blatant disregard to fairness or clemency. There was one shining light in Sarah’s blighted existence. She thought of her beloved Miss Parfitt as her guardian angel, although there was little that even an angel could do to protect her from continued persecution by Matron Trigg, and there were the all too frequent beatings meted out by the Tickler. The cane had a mind and will of its own, according to the workhouse master, who simply provided the muscle.

  Sarah survived with Nettie’s help, but a few months before her tenth birthday she had to face a situation that threatened to destroy her fragile world. The older boys and girls were summoned to appear before the workhouse master, and Nettie was amongst them. Sarah clung to her hand, but a warning glare from Matron Trigg was enough to send Nettie on her way without a backwards glance. There was silence in the classroom until the door closed, leaving the younger children alone with Miss Parfitt.

  ‘Please, miss,’ Sarah said, putting up her hand. ‘Where are they going?’

  Miss Parfitt met her anxious gaze with an attempt at a smile. ‘There are kind and generous mill owners and other men of business who take on pauper apprentices. Your friends are old enough to go out into the world and be trained to do useful work and earn their own living.’

  ‘Nettie is only eleven, miss.’

  ‘That’s correct, Sarah. You will get your chance one day too. Now I must ask all of you to get on with your sums.’

  ‘No.’ Sarah leapt to her feet. ‘I won’t.’ She ran to the door, wrenched it open and raced after the orderly procession of children as they marched towards the main hall. She caught up with Nettie, and despite Matron Trigg’s efforts to prise them apart she clung to her friend, refusing to let go.

  ‘What’s going on there?’ Trigg demanded from his lofty position on the dais which put him head and shoulders above the assembled businessmen, who were looking on in amazement. ‘What’s all that racket, Mrs Trigg?’

  ‘Nothing that I can’t handle, my dear,’ Mrs Trigg said, tugging viciously at Sarah’s hair, which had grown considerably in the past two years and had come loose when Matron slapped her round the head, knocking her cap to the ground.

  ‘What sort of discipline do you call this, Trigg?’ A rubicund gentleman with mutton-chop whiskers glared at Sarah, shaking his head. ‘Appalling conduct.’

  ‘Send the child back to the classroom, ma’am.’ Trigg’s fleshy features flushed crimson and his eyes bulged in their sockets. He ran his finger round the inside of his tight shirt collar. ‘Get her out of here.’

  Matron Trigg grabbed Sarah by the arm, tugging with all her considerable might but she only succeeded in pulling both girls off their feet and all three of them ended up in a heap on the floor. ‘You’ll pay for this, Sal Scratch,’ she hissed.

  Nettie scrambled to her feet and helped Sarah to stand. ‘You got to let go, dearie,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t take you with me. I dunno where I’ll end up, and if you don’t do as she says we’ll both be sent to the cellar for a month on bread and water.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky if you’re let out this side of Christmas,’ Matron Trigg groaned as she floundered on the floorboards in a tangle of hoops and red flannel petticoats. ‘Help me up, someone. Don’t gawp at me, you bloody fools.’

  A dapper gentleman wearing a grey frock coat and top hat hurried to her assistance. With some difficulty he raised her to her feet. ‘There you are, ma’am. No harm done, I think.’

  ‘No harm?’ Matron Trigg pushed him away. ‘That daughter of Satan has been the cause of nothing but trouble since the day she came to this establishment.’ She fanned herself vigorously with her hand. ‘Mr Trigg, do something.’

  ‘Stoner.’ Trigg’s voice echoed off the rafters. ‘Stoner, get in here now and take that devil child away.’

  ‘Just a moment, sir.’ The gentleman who had come to Matron Trigg’s assistance peered at Sarah. ‘This person is very young and is in an obvious state of distress.’ He leaned closer. ‘Is this your sister, little girl?’

  ‘No, sir. Nettie’s me best friend. I ain’t letting go of her. You can cut me arm off and I’ll still cling on.’

  ‘I am so sorry, Mr Arbuthnot.’ Trigg stepped off the podium and hurried to his side, panting from the exertion. ‘This has never happened before. We run the workhouse on very strict lines. Discipline is paramount when dealing with the scum from the gutters.’

  ‘Harsh words indeed, Mr Trigg.’ Mr Arbuthnot laid his hand on Sarah’s shoulder. ‘This child appears to be genuinely distressed.’

  ‘She’ll be punished severely, sir. Mark my words.’ Matron Trigg moved to her husband’s side. ‘We won’t tolerate such indiscipline.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant, ma’am.’ Mr Arbuthnot turned to Nettie. ‘How old are you, and what’s your name, my girl?’

  ‘Nettie Bean, sir. I’m eleven but I’ll soon be twelve.’

  He turned his attention to Sarah. ‘And your name and age, my dear. Don’t be afraid, I merely want to ascertain the facts.’

  ‘Sarah Scrase, sir. I’m nine, but I’ll soon be ten.’

  Mr Arbuthnot’s lips twitched but he maintained a straight face. He turned to the workhouse master. ‘They’re just children, Trigg. Is there no way these two girls could stay together?’

  A murmur ran through the waiting gentlemen and one of them stepped forward. ‘This is
all very well, Arbuthnot, but we’re here to do business. I want six strong lads for my manufactory at Wapping and I can’t afford to waste time like this.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Crawley, but this seems to me to be a matter of conscience.’

  ‘We’re all here to do our best for the poor unfortunates,’ Matron Trigg said with an obsequious smile. ‘Might we get on with the business in hand, sir?’ She grabbed Sarah by the ear. ‘Come with me, sweetheart. I’ll take you back to the classroom where you were studying the bible.’

  Taken by surprise and wincing as Matron Trigg pinched her earlobe, Sarah loosened her grip on Nettie’s arm. ‘No. Don’t let her take me, sir.’ She sent a pleading look at Arbuthnot. ‘I can read and write, and I can recite Shakespeare. I work hard, sir.’ She held out a calloused hand. ‘I didn’t get these from sitting on me backside all day, sir.’

  A ripple of laughter ran around the room and some of the children sniggered. Trigg held up his hand. ‘Silence. This is a serious matter.’

  Arbuthnot took out a bulging wallet. ‘Then to settle it, Mr Trigg, I’ll give you ten pounds for Nettie Bean and five pounds for the younger girl.’

  ‘She’s too young, sir,’ Matron Trigg said, tightening her grip on Sarah’s ear. ‘We can’t allow a child of this age to leave us.’

  Arbuthnot narrowed his eyes. ‘Or is it that by keeping her in this sorry state for another year or two you’ll get a higher price for her?’

  ‘Slander, sir,’ Trigg said, bristling. ‘That is a slanderous remark.’