Pauper's Child

by Meg Hutchinson

  ‘I could at least expect the cloth I gave the woman to be the cloth which was used but this…’ She ground a foot angrily into the silk. ‘This is not the material I supplied and as for the design it bears no resemblance to what I drew.’

  ‘But it does, Mrs Ramsey, the sketch you gave my mother is there with the wrapping; you can see the gown follows the design exactly.’ Callista’s protest was tinged with the worry beginning to trickle along her nerves. Emma Ramsey seemed bent upon refusing to accept the gown, but why? She had not found fault with any of the many she had commissioned from Ruth Sanford in the past.

  ‘It follows the design exactly.’ Emma Ramsey’s voice was scathing. ‘I have little doubt it does, but whose design – yours… your mother’s, whichever, it is certainly not mine!’

  Across the room the grey eyes of Sabine Derry gleamed as they met Callista’s but in the same moment the look was veiled as the woman spoke.

  ‘Obviously there has been some mistake. This gown must have been made for someone else and wrongly delivered to this house. We know, Emma dear, you are a woman of more refined taste, you cannot be held responsible if the finished garment is not what you designed, but this girl—’

  ‘Is obviously trying to foist her mother’s mistakes upon me!’

  Emma turned her glare upon Callista. ‘You take the silk I paid for, you take the design I myself drew and what happens? You exchange a costly cloth for cheap imitation, you find the design too complicated for your clumsy brain to follow and the result, this…’ She stamped her foot on the gown spilled at her feet, twisting her shoe into the shimmering fabric. ‘This disaster of a gown you try to pass off onto me. Well, my girl, in thinking you could succeed you have made an even greater mistake!’

  How could anyone behave as this woman was behaving? Callista stared at the foot twisting the lovely silk. She was naming her mother a thief and a liar. Suddenly she felt more angry than she had ever felt in her life but it was fire bound in ice. Head high, she regarded the face, the pink of embarrassment now a dull red.

  ‘Mrs Ramsey.’ She spoke quietly, each word having the timbre of breaking ice. ‘A moment ago you were spoken of as a woman of refined taste; with apologies to your visitor I have to tell you that is the biggest mistake of all. Taste is a quality you are sadly lacking.’

  Emma Ramsey’s darting eyes caught the veiled amusement on Sabine Derry’s mouth before the woman turned away. It was not a smile but a sneer, the woman would let the whole town know what had gone on in this room, they would all be sniggering.

  ‘What…!’ She gasped, hurling a look of pure despising at Callista, ‘What did you say?’

  She should have quailed before that look, lost her courage and run, but instead Callista stood firm. ‘I said how can you claim to be a woman of taste when you are so sadly lacking that quality.’

  ‘How dare you!’ Carmined lips thinned. ‘How dare you speak to me that way you… you filthy little guttersnipe!’

  ‘I dare because it is true.’ Callista felt her nerves sing but she answered with unshaking calm. ‘Not only do you have no concept of the quality contained in that gown, you have none regarding the quality of polite behaviour.’

  Slumping to the couch, her cheeks flaring their anger, Emma Ramsey caught her breath in a loud gasp, her mouth hanging slightly open as Callista went on.

  ‘In fact, Mrs Ramsey, any guttersnipe including myself would count themselves unfortunate indeed to possess manners the quality of your own; as for the gown I will inform my mother you find it unsuited to your… taste!’

  Letting the last word rest on a withering note she bent, snatching the gown from beneath the woman’s foot.

  ‘Wait, Miss Sanford.’ Emma’s visitor turned as Callista straightened. ‘Mrs Ramsey, I am sure, had no intention of speaking disparagingly of your mother or of yourself. She can have nothing but regard for a dressmaker whose services she has so regularly employed.’

  On the couch Emma Ramsey fumed silently. The sneer was there again; Sabine Derry was taking great pleasure in driving home the fact that while she had her gowns made by an a la mode house Emma Ramsey did not.

  ‘Emma.’ Sabine turned her smile to the woman on the couch. ‘You should not let your disappointment become anger. I am sure the woman did her best; pay her fee and have done.’

  ‘Pay!’ Emma spluttered. ‘Pay for that rag, I’ll do no such thing!’

  Deeply red hair glistening in the overhead light, rouged cheeks a spot of reserved colour against a slightly pallid skin, Sabine Derry moved to pick up a small leather bag set aside on a chair. Opening it she drew out several coins, offering them to Callista with a smile.

  ‘Then you must allow me to pay, my dear; we cannot allow you to return home with nothing.’

  ‘No thank you,’ Callista answered, not looking at the coins glinting on the outstretched palm. ‘The work was not done for you, therefore no payment can be accepted from you.’

  Turning then to look at the woman who for so many years had gowns made by her mother, Callista laid the dress beside her on the couch.

  ‘As you well realise, Mrs Ramsey, but for reasons you refuse to acknowledge, this gown is made from the silk you supplied and the design adheres exactly to the specification you gave and the sketch you supplied, therefore it belongs to you. I wish you both good afternoon.’

  She had not waited for the housekeeper to be summoned to show her from the room. Reaction trembling in every vein, Callista hardly noticed the woman already standing beyond the door, face beaming as she looked at the shaking girl.

  Reaching the kitchen the woman laughed. ‘Eh, wench, I enjoyed that more’n a glass o’ stout. Done my heart good it has hearin’ you tell Emma Ramsey what you did. Ever since that there visitor of her’n took to callin’ her ways have got more fancy and highfalutin’ by the day; but you told her, wench, you told her good and proper. I only wish there had been more of her fancy friends in that room to have heard it!’

  Her father would not have approved. Callista felt the first wave of regret for her outburst. He would have told her rudeness in one’s self does not counteract rudeness in another. It was right, of course, but she had not given thought to right or wrong but only to her mother who had worked so long to make the gown that woman had walked on… a gown she now had no hope of getting paid for.

  ‘You take this along ’ome with you, I be sure your mother will find a use for it.’

  The housekeeper had bustled quickly about the roomy kitchen and now handed a basket across the large table. Half of her mind still locked upon the recent scene in the drawing room, Callista looked blankly at the round smiling face.

  ‘It be nothing but a cut of ham and a few bits and pieces but your mother…’

  ‘No thank you.’ Her mind suddenly together, Callista glanced at the basket. ‘It is a kindness on your part but my mother and I cannot accept what we have not earned.’

  There had been food in that basket. Walking back towards the town Callista gave way to mounting dejection. What had made her do it, what had made her refuse that food? Not common sense, that would have seen her grab the basket with both hands, but instead she had left it standing on the table.

  Pride! Tears pressed behind her eyes. Pride had been the spur… but pride would not feed her mother.

  3

  ‘The gown was stitched perfectly and the material was what Mrs Ramsey gave to you and she knew it, I could see by the look on her face she knew it. But it seemed she did not want the visitor to know who had made it, that must have been why she said the style was no longer in fashion, that the cloth was obviously cheap.’ Callista’s voice shook with feeling. ‘It… it was as if she didn’t care about me being humiliated; were it not that it would be letting anger cloud my judgement I might say she was a little afraid of what her visitor might have been thinking.’

  Ruth Sanford had sat staring into the ashes of the dead fire while her daughter related the encounter but with the last vehement words she looke
d up sharply, her tired eyes bright with more than the fevered cough which racked her thin chest with almost every breath.

  ‘This visitor.’ She coughed into the slip of cloth. ‘What… what did she look like?’

  ‘Mother, please, you really must go to bed. It’s far too cold for you—’

  ‘Later.’ Ruth interrupted her daughter’s concern. ‘I will go to bed soon, dear, but first tell me, what did Emma Ramsey’s visitor look like?’

  Taking the iron poker from the side of the fireplace Callista stirred the ashes, searching for any last glowing embers.

  ‘I didn’t get but one look at her face and by that time I was too angry to take note of her features, I can’t recall…’

  ‘Try, dear… try to remember.’

  What difference did it make what Emma Ramsey’s visitor had looked like? Her search for a few hot coals ending in failure Callista returned the poker to its accustomed position.

  ‘You say you got only one look at her face?’

  Puzzled by her mother’s insistence, Callista turned. Why this interest, was it because the woman had advised Emma Ramsey to take delivery of the gown her mother had worked so hard making? If so, where was the use of it? The refusal was made now and nothing could be done to reverse it.

  ‘She had her back towards me almost all of the time I was in that drawing room but there was a moment…’ Callista paused as memory showed the face in perfect detail. ‘Just a quick moment. I told Mrs Ramsey she had no concept of good manners, the other woman turned to look at me, her face… her mouth smiled but her eyes… her eyes were veiled.’

  ‘And what… what else did you see?’

  She had not thought of it until now, the look which had been in that woman’s eyes, a look that, recalling it, seemed almost a sneer.

  ‘It… it’s difficult to describe,’ Callista answered. ‘The woman’s features were, so far as I remember, nothing extraordinary, except…’ She stopped short, seeing now what her temper had prevented her seeing at the time: the eyes, cold, unblinking lizard eyes!

  ‘Except?’ Pressing the cloth to her lips, Ruth Sanford watched her daughter closely.

  ‘Her face was… she… she was wearing rouge.’ Callista searched for words which would be fair as well as accurate; she would not let her anger of an hour ago colour her judgement now. ‘Her hair was deep copper-coloured and perfectly arranged, what I could see of it beneath a green feathered hat.’

  ‘Not her clothing, Callista… her face, tell me of her face.’

  Her mother had never questioned her so closely about anyone before. Callista’s puzzlement deepened. Had there been the slightest reason to think it she might say what she saw on her mother’s own face was fear.

  ‘She had quite sharp features, a narrow nose and wide brow gave a hardness, but most arresting were the eyes, they are what I remember most clearly; they were deep-set and their colour…’ She paused seeing again those piercing ice filled eyes. ‘Their colour was grey like a storm filled sky yet at the same time they blazed with… I might almost say with hostility; but that is ridiculous, you need to know a person before you can say that of them and the woman and I had never seen each other before.’

  ‘Her name… did the woman give her—’

  A spasm of coughing rising from deep within Ruth’s chest ended the question abruptly.

  ‘Mrs Derry… now that is the end of it! You have to go to bed… please, Mother!’

  She had tried to keep anxiety from her voice but the sight of crimson seeping into the cloth held to her mother’s lips defied Callista’s efforts. Helping her now up the narrow stairs to the small bedroom she felt the bones biting through the thin clothing. Although she would not admit to it her mother’s ‘cold on the chest’ was getting worse. She needed good food, daily nourishment, but how was that to be obtained when every means of employment was snatched away? Yet somehow she must get food and coal to keep her mother warm, without it she might…

  She would not think of that; could not think of it! Her mother’s breath a visible white film on the cold air of the sparsely furnished bedroom; Callista felt the fingers of finality clutch her heart. She must take the one option left to her.

  But even that could bring no relief before tomorrow. Callista stared at the pale face, the tired eyes closed in their circles of purple shadows, the fresh cloth already mottling with scarlet spots as it tried to stem the wet rattling cough. Tomorrow was not soon enough, her mother needed food and warmth now.

  Tucking the one blanket around the shivering shoulders, Callista kissed the moist brow then quietly left the room.

  *

  ‘Be your mother feelin’ better, wench?’

  ‘A little.’ Callista tried to smile. ‘I think once the winter is done she will recover fully.’

  Ruth Sanford would never recover. Opening the parcel placed on his counter Henry Glover kept his thoughts to himself. He had seen so many folk with coughs such as that woman suffered from, the gradual wasting of the body which no amount of medicine nor doctoring had effect on… no, Ruth Sanford would see no summer.

  ‘We’ll all feel chirpier with the comin’ o’ fine weather,’ he answered, not meeting his customer’s eyes. ‘’Tis the cold o’ the wind gives everybody a touch o’ the miseries; I knows my rheumatics be achin’ summat awful.’ The parcel fully opened, he took out the dove grey jacket trimmed at the front and hem, neck and cuffs with a deeper grey band of soft fur with a line of amber cord hogging to either side. Watching it being shaken free of its folding, Callista wanted to snatch it back, to run with it back to her cupboard sized room and hang it away out of sight; this was the coat her father had bought for her, his very last gift before…

  ‘How much were you thinkin’ of asking for this?’

  ‘I… I thought perhaps five shillings.’

  ‘Phew, wench!’ The pawnbroker shook his head, the muddy light of a sputtering lamp failing to find any gleam among the grey hair. ‘Y’might as well ask for the moon, like I told your mother when her pledged her promise ring.’

  ‘My mother pawned her promise ring?’

  ‘Y’dain’t know, wench?’ Inspecting the coat closely he heard the surprise behind the girl’s question. ‘Brought it in more than a month since, pledged it for ten shillin’ and sixpence.’

  Her mother had pawned her ring, the ring given to her on her promise to become Jason Sanford’s wife, the one thing she had left of him.

  ‘Like I told her then I ’ave to tell you the same, times be bad and folk don’t ’ave the money to spare for to go buying rings nor jackets neither, not even ones so pretty as this be.’ Twisting the coat this way and that, squinting at the seams in the sickly light, he pursed his lips. ‘No, wench, times be bad. Should you not redeem your pledge…’ He sucked a thin bottom lip inwards holding it beneath yellowed teeth. ‘Mmm, should you not redeem it then I could be left with it on my ’ands, ain’t much call in these parts forra fur trimmed jacket.’ The head shook once more as the coat was laid back on the counter.

  He had to take it… Out of sight of the counter Callista’s fingers curled tight into her palms. This was the very last chance of getting a meal and a fire for her mother.

  ‘Please,’ she almost sobbed, ‘I… I have nothing else I could have brought.’

  Those were probably the truest words that had been spoken in this shop for many a bright day! Henry Glover looked again at the coat draped across his counter. It was good quality cloth, pure mohair if he were not mistaken, and the fur… that had come from no rabbit, the whole thing was soft, the very best, and even second-hand worth every penny he had no intention of paying. The only question was how had Jason Sanford, a man without tuppence to bless himself with, come by such an expensive item? But it was a question need not worry him; this certainly was a pledge would not be redeemed no matter how little he offered nor would it be put up for sale here in Wednesbury. No, this would go to Birmingham; sales there were more profitable.

  ‘I be takin’ a
risk lendin’ money on a jacket such as you’ve brought in.’ He lifted a corner of the cotton cloth the coat had been wrapped in. ‘And times don’t be suited…’

  ‘Four shillings! Please, Mr Glover, I need the money!’

  The wench was desperate. Henry Glover felt a twinge of pity but it was rapidly exterminated. A man couldn’t run a business like his on pity but try to cut too near the bone and the joint could be snatched from his table. Heeding his own caution he looked up, a smile showing dark patches at the base of yellow teeth.

  ‘I knows y’mother be in poor health so though it be goin’ against my best interest I’ll let you ’ave the four shillin’.’

  Writing name and number quickly on the white pawn ticket before his customer could change her mind he passed half to her with four silver coins, pinning the other half to the rewrapped parcel. Watching the thin figure draw a shawl about her shoulders then hurry from the shop Henry Glover glanced at the parcel still resting on his counter. This was one bundle that would not join the forest of others lining his shelves. Freeing the coat from its wrapping he held it to the fragile light, one finger stroking the soft fur. Yes, Brummajum was where he would sell this; there was many a whore in that town would be willing to trade a night’s takings for a jacket like this one.

  The smile still on his face, he carried it to the living room adjoining the back of the pawnshop.

  Yes, a night’s takings… and a free tumble for the man who sold it!

  Outside the dimly lit pawnbroker’s shop, Callista breathed deeply, the smoke and soot heavy in the air preferable to the dank smell of decaying woodwork and the odour of damp bundles emanating from the far side of that counter.

  Four shillings! She bit back the tears of disappointment. She had hoped for more but the risk of the man refusing to lend her any money at all had been too great for her to take.