The Girl in the Ragged Shawl. Cathy Sharp

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СКАЧАТЬ and you can hide it inside your tunic. If mistress sees it we’ll both be in for it so be careful.’

      ‘Yes, I will thank you. You be so kind to us, Cook.’

      ‘Well, well, ’tis only right,’ she muttered beneath her breath. ‘It breaks a body’s heart to see what that woman makes folk suffer. When I was a lass I worked in the kitchen as the lowest of the low, Eliza, but Cook fed me and she taught me about good food. She would turn in her grave if she saw what I have to put up with here for she believed in good ingredients, and if you tasted her apple pie you would think you’d gone to Heaven.’

      Eliza’s interest was caught. ‘Where did you live when you were a girl, Cook?’

      ‘I don’t remember the name of the house,’ Cook said with a sigh, ‘but I recall ’twas near the sea. I think ’twas on the South Coast, near a place called Bournemouth but I never went there in my life. When Cook retired, mistress made me Cook in her place for I had learned all that I could and she took me with her when the great house was sold and they came to London town. The family had fallen on hard times and it was a much smaller house. The master drank, you see, and lost his fortune. Then he died and mistress was forced to sell up and go to live with her sister. She took her personal maid but the rest of us were let go.’

      ‘Did you come here as an inmate then?’

      ‘No, I worked for an elderly gentleman for some time – but in the end he died too and then I cooked for working men on the docks at a canteen there for it was all I could find. They were rough-tongued but it was well enough, until I fell afoul of a rogue. He persuaded me to run off with him and be his mistress and like a fool I did, and he left me when I became pregnant. That was when I came here until I had the child and it died soon after it was born. I would have left then for I could always find work but the late mistress asked me if I would cook for them; she was a good woman and I stayed for her – and here I be until this day. It be not such a bad place afore the old mistress died – though we did often suffer the cholera and ’twas that killed her. Mr Stoneham told the master it be the old water pipes and he put in fresh and since then ’tis not visited us.’

      ‘I’m so glad you stayed here,’ Eliza said, and her eyes stung with tears. ‘You and Ruth are all that makes this place bearable.’

      ‘Well then, child, off you go,’ Cook said. ‘Keep that food safe and take the lad a little water in this cup. You must bring it back to me when you can.’

      ‘Yes, Cook. I shall.’ Eliza left with her precious bundle inside her clothes. Cook’s kindness had made weepy and she felt tears on her cheek, which she swiped away with the back of her hand. Cook’s story was sad but not as bad as many of the men and women who came to the workhouse. She’d had a good life until she allowed a rogue to deceive her.

      It was dark when Eliza crept from her bed and moved noiselessly between the rows of sleeping women. To reach the boy’s dorms Eliza had to leave the women’s wing and cross to the men’s side, which she did by climbing through a window that had no bars because it led only to the inner courtyard. The main door of the men’s wing was locked, and she was not privy to the key, but it was easy enough to go through the window at the back of the workroom where the men made hemp ropes. This was never locked, because the room needed plenty of fresh air while the men worked, and Eliza was aware of it as were most of the inmates, and she was not the only one to use it that night. When she entered the workroom, she saw one of the men entering through the window. His name was Jamie and he had a wife and son in the workhouse; he’d spoken to her kindly a few times in the past. He put his finger to his lips.

      ‘You will not tell you saw me?’ he said, because if he was discovered out of his dorm he would be punished. She shook her head. ‘Good girl. Joe’s not in his dorm but in the cellar. My boy is sick in the infirmary, and I sneaked out to visit him. Master sent him to bed after the work was done, but he told me that mistress put Joe in the cellar. I thought I would take him this later.’ Jamie pulled a piece of bread and a little stone bottle out from under his shirt, which he offered to her ‘Water.’

      Eliza thanked him but said, ‘I shall take the water, but you keep the bread. I have food.’ She knew he must have saved the bread from his own ration. She turned back from the window because she knew the way to the cellar well enough.

      She returned to the hall and then found her way in the semi-darkness by pressing her hand against the wall until she reached the cellar door. When she reached it she fumbled for the lock and found the key was still there. Mistress left it there so that she could not be blamed if the child died; she’d sworn that Eliza had shut herself in and no doubt she would swear the same of Joe.

      Turning the key, Eliza removed it and put it in her pocket. She went inside, leaving the door slightly ajar so that the faint light from a window showed her the steep stairs. Her hand against the wall for there was no rail, Eliza gingerly moved down the steps one by one.

      ‘Joe, are you there?’ she called.

      ‘Eliza – is that you?’ his voice answered, and she could just see a dark shape. He had been lying on the floor of the cellar but now he was standing and he moved towards her. ‘Stand still. I can see in the dark; I’ll come to you.’

      Eliza did as he told her and the next moment she felt him touch her hands, drawing her in further. She stumbled against something and he steadied her.

      ‘It’s a wooden crate I found to sit on,’ he said ‘and there are sacks. I made a bed of them.’

      ‘I did not find them when I was shut in here with the rats.’ She shuddered.

      Joe laughed. ‘I be not afraid of them. I like to hear them moving about – and they be clever, rats.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘I’ll tell you when I be ready,’ Joe said, and then, a new note in his voice. ‘Why did you come, Eliza? If mistress finds out, she’ll beat you.’

      ‘I don’t care. She hits me all the time,’ Eliza told him. ‘I brought you food, Joe. I didn’t want you to go hungry as I did.’

      ‘How did you get in for I know the door was locked?’

      ‘Mistress left the key in the door. I nearly died in here, Joe, and she was afraid if you died she would be blamed so she left the key – and I have it, so she cannot lock us in.’

      ‘You’m be clever like the rats,’ Joe said and hugged her. ‘And brave. Not everyone would do what you have, little Eliza.’

      ‘You’re my friend,’ Eliza said. ‘I asked Cook and she gave me food – a piece of bread, cheese and a slice of apple pie.’

      ‘A feast fit for a king,’ Joe said and there was laughter in his voice. ‘Sit here on my box and share it with me, Eliza.’

      ‘I have supped; it is for you.’ She pressed the parcel into his hands.

      ‘Nay, we shall share it,’ Joe insisted. ‘It is a bond between us, Eliza. One day we shall leave here. The rats will show us the way and if you give me the cellar key it will make our escape easier and sooner.’

      Joe had broken the cheese as he spoke and gave a piece to Eliza. She put it in her mouth and the taste made the moisture run for she had seldom had anything so good and when Joe gave her a piece of the pie and told her to eat it with the cheese she sighed with pleasure.

      ‘It СКАЧАТЬ