‘You’re awake.’ The girl hopped up from her seat by the fire and went to Cat’s side.
‘Where am I?’ It hurt to speak, and her voice came out as rough as gravel. The girl offered her a glass of water before she answered.
‘Wallingham Hall.’
Cat sipped the water and felt it slide soothingly down her throat. ‘I don’t know it.’
The girl rested her backside on the foot of the bed. ‘Do you know your name?’ She spoke as if Cat was a child or an imbecile.
‘Cat … Catherine.’
‘Catherine,’ the girl whispered as if trying to imprint the name onto her mind. ‘Can you remember what happened to you?’
Cat looked to the window. There had been blue skies that day, a low sun which had made her eyes water, a pale moon still in the other half of the sky.
‘Well, I suppose it’ll come back to you soon enough.’
‘How long have I been here?’
‘Over a week.’
‘I’ve been sleeping?’
‘You had a fever. Didn’t know whether you’d pull through, tell the truth. But you woke up a couple of days ago, long enough for me to give you some broth. Seems you’re a strong one.’ It did not sound like a compliment.
Cat’s stomach moaned again. She pushed her arms into it, hoping she would make it be quiet. The girl stood and clasped her hands onto her hips.
‘I need to tell Master you’re awake. I’ll bring back some food.’
Cat tried to smile. She wanted the girl to warm to her – she needed to see a kind face right now – but she feared her smile came out more like a grimace. She was so tired! Her body had never felt so heavy. She rested her head against the pillow, her eyelids already wilting as the girl plodded towards the chamber door, when she realised she was wearing nothing but a nightgown. Fear made her sit up straight, and her head throbbed from the sudden motion.
‘Who put me in this?’
The girl stopped. ‘I did. I fixed you up under Master Tomkins’s orders. He saw to it that you were well cared for.’ Her lips twisted as she stared back at Cat, her gaze both blank and hostile at the same time.
‘Who is Master Tomkins?’
‘The man who saved your life.’
Cat swallowed and shied away from the girl’s irritation. ‘Where are my things?’
‘Your clothes have been washed and are drying. You know, it was a very brave thing that Master Tomkins–’
‘My case? I had a case with me.’
The girl pursed her lips, then said, begrudgingly, ‘Under the bed.’
‘Have you been in it?’
The girl held Cat’s gaze, jutted her chin into the air. ‘Master Tomkins would not allow it. Said we should treat you like a lady until we know who you really are.’
Cat shivered. Who you really are … She could not afford to make enemies here, so it seemed. Already, she had offended the maid. What was she thinking? She inhaled and forced the worry from her mind and a smile to her lips. ‘Your master is a kind man.’
‘He is. The kindest.’
‘I am sorry.’ She brushed her forehead with her fingertips. ‘You have taken such good care of me. I have had a shock, as you said. Please forgive my rudeness.’ Bracing herself, she looked up at the girl.
The maid dropped her chin, sniffed, fiddled with her apron. ‘Yes, well. It’s to be expected, I suppose.’
‘Would you mind telling me your name?’
The girl hesitated. ‘Nelly.’
‘Thank you, Nelly.’
‘Right.’ Nelly cleared her throat, turned to the door, and after a moment’s thought, left.
In an instant, Cat had thrown back the bed covers and had dived to the floor. Her case was where Nelly had said it would be, and Cat dragged it out, scraping it across the woollen rug. She unfastened the buckles and lifted the lid. The familiar smell of the town – tobacco, coal, and foul oil – filtered into the air and made her insides swirl.
She grabbed the wig of dark hair and searched the room. She would have liked to have burned it, but the smell would be too suspicious. She considered throwing it out of the window, but of course, someone would find it – it wasn’t like town here, where anything worth anything would be stolen in a second. She could do nothing but stuff it under her mattress and hope no one would find it before she had time to destroy it.
Next, she brought out the bottle of brown liquid. She held it close to her chest, unable to part with it. She should have tipped it out of the window, but the thought of losing it was too much. She shoved it between the mattress and the headboard, hoping the glass would not break.
From the bag’s snagged lining, she retrieved a bent, gold ring. She pressed it to her lips, felt a momentary rush of comfort, then reluctantly placed it back beside some shillings. She closed the bag and slid it under the bed. Once back between the sheets, she smoothed down her hair and the covers, closed her eyes, and waited for Nelly’s return.
She did not open her eyes when she heard the door click, but when the silence continued, she stopped pretending to be asleep. At the doorway, a man loomed. His thick chestnut hair was parted on one side, and coarse sideburns stretched from his ears to his mouth. He glared at her as he wrung his hands.
‘Catherine. Catherine what?’
Cat pulled the cover up to her chin, and the man lowered his gaze for a second. ‘Davies, sir.’
‘Catherine Davies from where?’
‘Birmingham. Master Tomkins, is it?’ She sat up a little higher in the bed, and he had to crane his neck so he could maintain eye contact. ‘I must thank you for saving my life. You are a brave man, sir.’
‘Nelly said you could not remember anything.’
She felt herself flush. The bed-pan by her feet was making her sweat. ‘Not all of it yet, but I remember you.’
His lips twitched upwards, then he shrugged. ‘It is what anyone would have done.’
‘No. Not anyone.’ In town, no one even saved a baby from the rubbish piles. Honestly, she was grateful. She would be with Mother now if it hadn’t been for him.
‘You are not … Irish?’
She frowned at the odd question, and he watched his toes twisting into the rug under his feet.
‘No, sir.’
His feet stilled. When his eyes returned to hers, they were less guarded – handsome eyes, she could not help but think.
‘I would prefer it if you called me Osborne.’
‘Osborne.’ She tested the sound of it – it came out between her lips like a long sigh.
‘Did you know the man who … hurt you? He said you were attacking him.’
A flash of steel, the taste of the water, a pale face rippling before her … she shook her head. ‘I can’t say if I was or wasn’t, sir. I can’t remember, but I don’t think myself capable of such a thing.’
‘Neither do I.’ He laughed suddenly, and it was so loud that it startled Cat. He did not seem to notice her nervousness. ‘People like him will say anything.’
‘Would you like to come in?’ She did not want to talk about the man who had tried to drown her – her chest was still too sore from the pain of it all. And really, it was silly for Osborne to stand there, half in and half out, allowing neither of them to get a good look at the other.
‘Are you …’ Osborne scratched his temple. ‘Are you well now? I believe you were very sick.’
‘I am well, thanks to your generous care.’ She nodded towards the chair, and for a moment it appeared that Osborne was considering it, but then he straightened up and rolled his shoulders back.
‘Birmingham, you said? It is a fair way from here. What were you doing at Wallingham?’
She opened her mouth, but she had not yet thought of the excuse she would give.
‘Forgive me,’ Osborne said, ‘you cannot remember. Do you know if you have family in town, someone I should inform as to your whereabouts?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You have no family, or you cannot remember
?’
‘I have no family in town, sir.’
‘Right.’ He considered this, his thumb picking at the latch on the doorframe. ‘Then I should like you to stay here until you are fully recovered.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It would be my pleasure to have you as my guest.’
‘You’re very kind, sir.’
He nodded and pulled his gaze off her and towards the flames as Nelly returned carrying a tray. Osborne stepped aside to let her through, and she curtseyed as she passed her Master, then smirked once her back was turned to him and her eyes were trained on Cat. She set a tray containing a shallow bowl of steaming beef broth and a slice of white bread on Cat’s lap. The saliva in Cat’s mouth ran thin as the scent of meat wafted up to her in sheaths of steam.
‘Anything else you’d like?’ Nelly said.
The girl bit her lips to hide her grin before she walked back towards Osborne. Cat picked up her spoon and hoped Osborne had not noticed.
‘Nelly and I shall leave you to your lunch, Miss Davies.’ His formality had returned. He gestured for Nelly to exit and was about to close the door when Cat stopped him.
‘Master Tomkins, would you tell me what happened to the man?’
‘You have nothing to worry about.’ He smiled softly, and his brown eyes met hers earnestly. ‘He cannot hurt you now. He is dead.’
Numbly, she nodded, and Osborne shut the door behind him. Then, the spoon fell from her hand and crashed into the broth. She pushed the tray away from her as a tear fell onto her cheek.
Chapter 3
November 1846. Birmingham.
The noise of the cutting machines jabbed into her skull. Relentless. An ocean of sound, of banging and clattering, of metal stomping into metal, of jaws gnashing, of small feet scurrying along the dusty floor. A pair of those little feet belonged to her. Hour after hour, she ran around scooping up linen circles and taking them to the table to be sorted. Her feet had long grown hard and calloused on the soles so that they didn’t feel the odd bits of stray metal clippings that pointed skywards, ready to impale.
By this time in the day, her eyes were sore and prickling, filled with strands of linen that floated in the air. Below her hips, the feeling had gone, and she scampered along without realising her legs were moving at all. There was an ache in her lower back that never left her, even in sleep, and her stomach had long stopped its moaning for food, knowing it would get none for a good while.
She rested her eyes on the blackness through the windowpanes. A yawn escaped her small mouth, and she wiped the itch from her eyelids.
As she stared, she felt something pressing on her … Mother’s gaze pierced through Cat’s semi-conscious state, and Cat jumped back to work, the fatigue pushed to the furthest corner of her mind. There was no time for resting. When she looked at her mother again, she received a smile.
After time was called for the day, and the machines were put to sleep, there came a rush of feet – a stampede of women and children jostling through the narrow alleyways of tables, eager to breathe in the night air. Her mother grabbed her by her sleeve and dragged her along, for it was the only way she would keep up and not get crushed in the waves of working women who needed to get home and get the tea on. They tumbled out of the factory, squashed together like the circles of metal and linen and pasteboard they had been cutting. Hemmed in either side by the brick walls of the factory, there was no time to slow, no time to stop to catch a breath, no time to slip on the slick cobblestones.
And then the crowd spilled into the streets. Cat no longer felt strange arms digging into her sides, no longer saw the dark wiggle of someone’s skirt an inch from her face. She was out in the open, and she was safe.
Her mother pulled her under a streetlamp, lowered her cap, and tightened her shawl. Mother did this every night, making sure Cat’s pale and pretty face was hidden, her slender body, which was shifting from a child’s towards a woman’s by the minute, was covered from prying, unwanted eyes. Then she took Cat’s hand and led her homewards.
Sometimes, Cat wondered what she would do if she didn’t have her mother to guide her. She still had not learnt the pattern of the back streets in the gloom, when nothing looked the same, when buildings all blended into one, when people were nothing more than shadows. She imagined roaming in the darkness for all eternity, shrinking from rats that ran out from the gutters, sliding on indistinguishable waste, avoiding clusters of dark clothes that lingered on street corners.
It always took longer to get home than she thought it would, but when they crashed through the door to find the familiar sight of the fire burning in the kitchen, her little sisters happily mending clothes, her brother watching over them with umbrage, she couldn’t help but smile. Lottie and Helen ran to her for an embrace, twisting their skinny arms around her legs in a fierce grip for such small children.
Mother set about fixing the tea. She cut seven slices of hard bread while Helen got the dripping from the cupboard and Cat poured each of them a cup of small beer.
That night there was one slice of bacon left, and Mother carefully laid it in a pan over the fire to cook in time for Father’s return home. Each of them took their place around the table and stared at their slice of bread, mouths watering, and waited.
Time passed slowly, but without a clock, the wait could have been anywhere from seconds to hours. They cradled their cups of beer, holding it to their lips and sipping so that it would last longer. Mother rested her elbows on the table and put her chin on her steepled fingers, fixing her gaze on the far wall. Lottie laid her cheek on the table and closed her eyes and was asleep before Mother could tell her to sit up straight. Michael scowled at Mother and his meal, kicking his feet into the floor until Mother finally allowed them to eat.
The meal was over in a few seconds. Cat’s beer washed down the lump of stale bread that had stuck in her throat, and as she ran her tongue over the roof of her mouth, she felt the gritty greasiness of beef dripping and longed, in vain, for more. Their next meal would not be until the sun was just about to rise.
Their eyelids drooped. Mother’s chin fell onto her chest, startling her awake until she did it again. The muffled noises from the houses all around them acted as lullabies until Michael started sniffing.
‘What’s wrong?’ Cat said, her voice thick with sleep.
‘I can smell burning.’
There was a moment of stillness as everyone breathed in, then panic.
Mother’s chair screeched along the floor as she flung herself towards the fire and gripped the panhandle. She screamed as the metal burnt her skin, then chucked the pan onto the table. It skidded across the surface. Michael lifted his arms just in time and jumped out of his seat. The pan came to a halt at the edge of the table, and all of them stared at the black, shrivelled thing that sizzled inside it.
Mother’s face was white. Lottie began to cry. Michael scowled again. Helen ran to Cat and buried her face in her skirt.
Then the door opened.
None of them moved as their drunken father clattered into the house. He was a big man. Too big. He had to bend his neck to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling. He clattered into the furniture, ruining the place which Michael and the girls had tidied earlier.
His eyes were half-closed as he made his way towards them and sank into his seat at the head of the table. Cat handed him a cup of beer before he could shout for it, and Mother scraped the last of the dripping onto his two slices of bread and placed it in front of him.
‘What’s that?’ Father pointed at the pan, frowning.
Mother picked it up by the handle as if she was going to do something with it, but stopped. Would she tell him the truth? The silence stretched as Father tried to identify the sight in his blurred mind.
‘Ma burnt your bacon,’ Michael said.
Cat glared at him, but he didn’t blush. He stepped behind Father, so he would avoid any blows that might now occur.
‘Sorry,’ Mother whispered, her lower lip trembling. She turned to h
ide her face, and the sound of her snivelling filled the silence.
Father stood up, pressing his fists into the table to steady himself. ‘Christ, woman!’ He wiped his wet mouth on his sleeve, then stumbled towards her.
The children scuttled away from him. Cat grabbed Helen and Lottie’s hands and dragged them towards the stairs, telling them to be quiet and to cover their ears and to get into bed quickly. Michael lingered on the stairs listening.
‘Michael! Come on.’
Michael stayed where he was, his face blank as Father erupted.
Cat was grateful that she could not see. Her father spat a barrage of abuse at her mother, the words just as painful as the final blow that landed on Mother’s cheek. The sound of the crack echoed through the house.
Silence.
A moment later, Father was stumbling towards the door. He didn’t see Cat and Michael on the stairs, their faces pressed through the gaps of the banister, or at least, he didn’t acknowledge them. He tugged the door open and disappeared into the darkness, retreating to his favourite beer house.
Cat tiptoed down the stairs to shut the door and shut the cold outside. She wished she could have locked it so that he would not be able to return later, but that was a silly and unchristian desire.
She lingered, wondering if she should go to her mother who she could hear sobbing in the kitchen, but decided against it. Mother was too proud to take sympathy from her daughter.
‘Bed,’ she said to Michael and shoved him when he refused to move.
‘Don’t touch me.’
She leaned into his face, an exact replica of their father’s. ‘You want Pa to find you here when he comes back?’
A flinch in the muscles around Michael’s eye told her she had won. He turned away from her and stomped up the last few steps. She followed behind him and slid into the bed beside Lottie who was crying. Cat stroked her sister’s blonde hair, the same shade and softness as her own, until they both fell asleep.
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