Workhouse Child Read online

  ‘You took long enough,’ said Alf when she went into the kitchen. ‘Now put my bait up and fill my flask with cold tea. Put some sugar in an’ all.’

  ‘It’s my afternoon off,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Aye well, you can go after the lads get off to school. And mind, be back in time for their teas,’ he warned. ‘I reckon if it wasn’t for me giving you a roof over your head you would be tramping the roads. That or doing hard labour in the workhouse.’

  Later, Lottie walked up to the marketplace. Still struggling with her conscience, she almost went back and put the bet on, for the race wasn’t run until half past three. But she was lost when she saw a pair of boots, which looked almost new. They were shiny black boots with thick, sturdy soles and would last her the whole winter, keeping her feet snug and warm.

  ‘How much is that pair of boots?’ she asked the stallholder, a man of middle age.

  ‘Two and sixpence,’ he replied. ‘Look at them, they’re like new, could have come out of the shop yesterday, like.’

  ‘Two and sixpence! It’s too much,’ Lottie exclaimed.

  He looked at her consideringly. ‘Go on, you can try them on if you want,’ he coaxed. Customers were slow in coming that day and a sale was a sale after all.

  Lottie tried them on. She laced them up and took a few steps. Oh, they were lovely, so warm and comfortable. ‘I’ll give you one shilling and eightpence,’ she said. After all, it was a long time until next payday.

  ‘Two shillings, and it’s a deal,’ he replied. ‘Not a penny less.’

  That left her with only sixpence, and that ill-begotten, thought Lottie. It was as if she could still give Mr Green the money back. But now she had the shoes on she was loth to take them off. The horse would not win, she told herself. No one would be any the wiser, especially Mr Green. And he owed her the money and more besides.

  ‘I’ll take them,’ she said and handed over the money. As she walked away, the steel studs in the heels and toes of the boots ringing on the cobbles, she felt excited and happy and guilty all at the same time. When she saw a policeman on the opposite side of the street, she blushed and hurried on. When he began to follow her she almost panicked, but how could he have found out she had taken the sixpence? What was the punishment for stealing money? Would she go to gaol or would she be hanged? They didn’t transport people to Australia any more, she knew that.

  The bobby walked past her and disappeared down a side street, his cape swinging. Lottie felt weak with relief. On her way home there was a sweet shop and she went in and bought tuppence worth of gobstoppers to give to the lads. Now she could not give him his money back.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you, you bloody little thief,’ said Alf Green as she came in the house. He was sitting in the front room with the door open so he could catch her the minute he heard the door close behind her.

  ‘What?’

  Lottie’s heart fell to her new boots and she began to shake. How did he know? She began to back off down the passage but he was too quick for her. He bounded forward and grabbed her arm and dragged her into the front room. Still holding her arm in a grip like iron, he closed the door after him. Lottie backed away but there was nowhere to go.

  ‘H-how did you know?’ Stammering, she managed to get the words out.

  ‘The horse won. You didn’t think it would win, did you? Well, it did, at twenty to one an’ all. What sort of a fool do you think I am? I’ve a good mind to get the polis and turn you in. It would serve you damn well right an’ all.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ begged Lottie. ‘Please don’t, I beg you!’

  He gazed at the small, immature figure before him: the face that was all eyes that were always peering myopically. Small as she was, it would cost him more money to get someone in her place. And she was a worker, he’d give her that.

  ‘I’ve got fourpence left, look, you can have it back,’ she cried and put four pennies on the table that stood in the middle of the room since his wife’s bed had been taken away to the salerooms.

  ‘I should have had ten bob,’ he snarled. ‘You owe me ten bob. An’ you’ll pay me it back an’ all, I’m telling you.’ He began to take off his belt, a broad, leather belt such as all the pitmen wore in the belief that it strengthened their backs. ‘All right, out of the goodness of my heart, I won’t turn you in to the polis, but I’ll give you the hiding of your life. I’ll show you you cannot rob Alf Green and get away with it.’ He wrapped one end of the belt around his fist and advanced on her.

  ‘Bend over that table,’ he ordered.

  Five

  Lottie climbed slowly and painfully up the stairs to the bedrooms. She was carrying the slop bucket, into which she would empty the chamber pots of the whole family before making the beds and collecting the boys’ dirty clothes to put them into soak in the tin bath so as to loosen the dirt before washing day, which was tomorrow.

  Mr Green and the three boys were at morning service in the Primitive Methodist Chapel up the road. Even if she hadn’t had to clean and make the Sunday dinner, Lottie couldn’t have gone to service. She had a black eye from where Mr Green had slapped her face as an afterthought to the beating. Lottie didn’t understand why. He did not usually mark her face, though her body was covered in bruises.

  Last night had been different. Mr Green had lifted her skirts before he belted her on her bare bottom. It was the first time he had done that, but then she had not stolen from him before. Lottie sighed and felt the sore spot on her thigh where the belt buckle had drawn blood. She looked down at her boots; somehow they did not seem quite so desirable as they had the day before. Oh, she had been wrong.

  Alf Green sat in the third pew from the front and gazed at the lay preacher in the pulpit. Noah, Freddie and Mattie sat beside him, all scrubbed shiny clean and wearing their best clothes. They sat with their hands clasped behind their backs as their father had ordered them to sit.

  ‘You will not show me up fidgeting,’ he said and glanced at Mattie. ‘Nor talking neither,’ he went on. He always said this just before coming to chapel.

  He was a canting hypocrite, just like those Pharisees in the Bible, Lottie thought to herself as she moved painfully around, clearing up after the boys before starting on the dinner. The meat was roasting in the oven and filling the house with the smell of beef when she got back downstairs. She mixed the Yorkshire pudding batter and scraped and peeled vegetables, and all the time she was battling against the longing to lie down and rest her aching body. But at last she had the vegetables boiling on the hob, the beef out of the oven and an enormous Yorkshire pudding in its place. She sat down on the rocking chair and fell asleep.

  It was the front door closing that woke Lottie. She jumped to her feet and groaned as pain shot through her legs and back. She leaned on the chair for support and closed her eyes.

  ‘What the heck is going on here?’ asked Alf as he came into the kitchen.

  ‘The pudding’s burning! By, it stinks!’ shouted Noah. Smoke poured out of the crack where the oven door didn’t quite fit against the black-leaded surround.

  In the end, the family sat down to a Sunday dinner with no pudding, something the boys complained of loudly.

  ‘Shut up, the lot of you,’ said Alf quietly. He cut into his beef and stuffed a bit into his mouth. ‘Get your dinner and away out to play. Lottie, sit down and eat your dinner.’

  Lottie gazed at him, startled. It was the first time he had even noticed whether she ate or not. She couldn’t understand why he had taken the disaster so calmly. Still, it was a relief. She wasn’t hungry but she forced the food down her. She had to eat if she was to carry on. She was determined not to let him see just how much he had hurt her. She had seen what happened to the orphans in the workhouse when they allowed a thrashing to cow them utterly. Usually they ended up at the very bottom of the heap, getting blamed for everything that went wrong. Not just by the Master and Matron, either, but by some of the inmates besides.

  Alf watched her cov
ertly. She was a scrap of a lass and not a real woman yet, but when he had thrashed her last night he had gone too far, he knew that. He wasn’t a bad man, he told himself. He had a right to chastise his servant, hadn’t he? Wasn’t it better than putting her out of the house? He was well aware that she was frightened of being sent back to the workhouse. She would be classed as an adult now and put to hard labour. Or worse, he could have had the law on her and then she would have ended up in a house of correction, or even Durham Gaol. He began to feel quite virtuous. He had acted as any master should.

  ‘You can keep the boots,’ he said.

  Lottie looked up, startled. She was wearing the boots; she had thrown away her old ones. ‘I can?’ she asked. She tried to thank him but the apology stuck in her throat.

  ‘I’ll take the money out of your wages,’ he said.

  ‘It was only sixpence,’ she mumbled.

  ‘What was that?’ He didn’t wait for her to repeat it, which was just as well for she had begun to tremble and her throat had closed up so that she was incapable of saying anything more. The boys were very quiet; they stared at their father. ‘You owe me ten shillings,’ he snarled. ‘Never mind the sixpence stake.’

  ‘Ten shillings! I’ll never pay that off. I’ll have no wages at all,’ said Lottie. She sat in misery.

  ‘You’ll be just like a Negro slave,’ Mattie said. ‘Only you’ll not be in chains.’ He had been learning about the iniquities of slavery in Sunday School and how the Americans had fought a war over it.

  ‘Shut your mouth!’ said his father. ‘If you’ve finished, get away out and play and leave me in peace.’

  The lads filed out, Noah pushing Mattie ahead of him. Alf rose from the table and went and sat in his chair by the fireside. He took the fire tongs and lifted a glowing coal from the fire and lit his pipe with it. He settled back in his chair and crossed his feet on the steel fender, ready for a nice quiet hour while he let his dinner digest.

  Lottie moved about the kitchen, clearing the table and fetching the tin dish to wash the plates and pans and the tray, which was used to drain the dishes. A slave, that was exactly what she was, she thought dismally.

  Alf watched her. She was showing signs of growing into a woman, he realized. There was a slight roundness about her behind and her waist was becoming defined. By, he had been without the comforts only a woman could give for too long. Laura had been no good to him that way since she first took badly. A man had his needs, oh aye, he did.

  Last night he had not meant to whip the lass so hard, no he had not. He thought once more about it. He had lost his temper, that was it. After all, it was his own hard-earned money, wasn’t it? Mebbe he should not have put money on a horse, he was a chapel-going man and gambling was frowned upon by the chapel. But he didn’t really gamble, no. He never joined the toss-penny schools down behind the slag heap. He wouldn’t even know how to play cards. Those things led a man to perdition. But he had put sixpence on a horse because it was trained by a man from Auckland way, practically a local man. A man had to have something to take his mind off his misfortunes, hadn’t he? He liked a little flutter and it didn’t hurt anyone.

  Last night, though, he had simply been very angry with Lottie. What was she but a workhouse slut? When he had lifted her skirt it had been so that he could really hurt her by hitting her on her bare skin. There was some satisfaction in seeing the red weals the belt made on the white skin. But he had found himself aroused in a way that had had nothing to do with his temper or anger. Oh aye, she was growing into a woman and he hadn’t had a woman in quite a while.

  Abruptly Alf got to his feet. He needed some fresh air; he felt hot and bothered. He pushed past Lottie’s slight body and grabbed his jacket from the hook behind the back door. It was his weekday jacket but it didn’t matter, no one who mattered would be about at this time of the day, they would all be inside digesting their Sunday dinners.

  ‘I’m away for a walk,’ he said as he opened the door. He did not look at Lottie, who was tipping hot water from the iron kettle into the washing-up dish. She paused and looked startled, but when the door closed behind him she was glad. The uncomfortable atmosphere that had arisen in the room as she moved around, all the time aware of his eyes on her, lightened.

  She grated soap into the water and added a handful of soda crystals and began to wash the dishes. Soon she had the kitchen tidied and the only sign of the dinner was the lingering smell of roast beef. Lottie went into the sitting room, the room where Laura Green had died, and sat down on a padded armchair, one of only two in the house. It was a large chair and she could tuck her feet up and pull her skirt down over them and lean her head into the slight delve made where the cushion was buttoned in the back. Within minutes she was asleep.

  The rest of that Sunday was uneventful. Until, that is, the three boys were in bed and asleep. Before that they had come in hungry for their tea and Lottie had made singing hinny scones and put out a pot of bramble jelly to spread on them. Mrs Bowron, from next door, had brought a jar in when she had made the jelly, for the lads had gathered the blackberries down by where the slag heap had spread out slightly into a meadow and bramble bushes had clambered over the tufty grass and bit of slag together. In spite of the poor ground, the berries were large and luscious and were a free treat the village looked forward to every year after the wild strawberries were long gone.

  Noah and Freddie were laughing and chatting about the game of quoits they had played despite the disapproval of the minister who had happened to be walking past the alley at the time.

  ‘My dad said we could,’ Noah had insisted.

  ‘I will have to have a word with your father,’ the minister had replied, before going on his way.

  ‘By, it was funny,’ said Noah, with a sidelong glance at his father. But Alf wasn’t even listening. He was watching Lottie and his face was quite red and strange-looking.

  Lottie sat down at the table once she had served the others and poured a cup of tea for herself. Alf handed her the plate of singing hinnies and she took one, a bit surprised at his consideration. Maybe he was sorry he had hit her so hard? She turned her attention to the youngest, Mattie.

  ‘Don’t you want anything to eat?’ she asked him. Mattie was sitting there with a faraway look in his eyes. He looked a little pale.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ he said.

  ‘If you don’t want to eat, leave the table,’ his father said sharply.

  ‘I want me mam,’ said Mattie.

  ‘You can want as much as you like but she’s not coming back,’ snapped Alf. He was annoyed to be reminded of his dead wife.

  ‘Come on, pet,’ said Lottie. She forgot her own troubles as she saw the misery in his little face. ‘Your mam’s in heaven but she’s watching over you. Be a brave lad now. Eat a bit of bread and butter, then I’ll tell you a story when you are ready for bed.’

  ‘Don’t fill their heads with rubbish and lies mind,’ said Alf sharply. ‘It’s Sunday, tell them a Bible story.’

  Lottie nodded. ‘I will.’

  Soon the two youngest boys were in their nightshirts, with hands and faces washed and in their beds. Lottie sat in a chair by Mattie’s bedside and recounted the first Bible story that came into her tired mind, the story of the boy, Samuel.

  ‘My mam wouldn’t give me up to the temple,’ said Mattie. ‘My mam loved me.’

  ‘Aye, she did,’ Lottie agreed. ‘She still does.’ His eyes were closing and she bent over him and kissed him on the cheek. Poor little lad, she thought. Oh, she remembered her own mother dying. She went out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her. From the head of the stairs she could see the light where Alf Green was in the sitting room. By, she thought, she didn’t want to face him again the night. So she went up to her own small room and prepared herself for bed. It was early but goodness knows, she had to rise early too.

  Lottie woke slowly; her mind felt thick and woolly. At first she hovered between waking and sleeping. She was not su
re if it was a dream or real. But there was someone in bed with her and it was not Mattie. Mattie sometimes did climb into her bed when he woke during the night. He usually said nothing but huddled against her and seemed to draw comfort from her.

  Lottie opened her eyes. It was not black dark in the bedroom, for the curtains were thin and there was a full moon outside. It was not a dream, she realized as panic rose in her. There was a man in her bed and he had one arm around her, holding her still, and with his other hand he was pulling up her nightgown. For a moment she was too shocked to even struggle, then suddenly she was fighting him.

  ‘Get off me! Get off!’ she shrieked but his arm was like a steel band around her thin chest.

  ‘Shut up, shut up or I’ll belt you!’ the man said and it was Alf Green, of course it was. ‘Don’t you wake the lads, do you hear me?’

  ‘No! No! Get off me!’ she cried. She wriggled and fought but she couldn’t get away from him.

  ‘Lie still, you little brat, lie still,’ he snarled. ‘It will be the worse for you if you don’t.’ She felt his hardness against her bare skin and she screamed. Alf smacked her face hard and she knew then he would kill her if she fought him any more.

  Afterwards she lay on the bed, muscles she never knew she had throbbing and painful and adding to the bruises of the night before. She sobbed quietly as he too lay quiet, panting. After a moment he spoke.

  ‘You led me on, Lottie,’ he said. ‘Flaunting yourself in front of me, all day. You knew what you were up to, oh aye you did. You’re a born harlot, no doubt your mother was an’ all.’

  He got up from the bed and pulled on his trousers, which he had dropped on the floor by the bed. ‘You’d best keep quiet about this an’ all. If you don’t, you will be the one that folk will blame. If they believe you, that is. Nay, they won’t believe you any road. Think on about that.’ Alf went to the door of the room. ‘Don’t forget to call me for the fore shift,’ he said, speaking now as if nothing had happened. ‘I cannot afford to miss a shift, mind.’