Pauper's Child

by Meg Hutchinson

‘Eh!’ Ada breathed again, ‘It couldn’t ’ave come at a better time.’

  It should not have come at all! The thought pushed itself to the front of Callista’s mind. There was no reason. Slipping the money back into the envelope she held it out.

  ‘Please thank Mrs Derry for her kindness but tell her I have no need of this.’

  ‘No need!’ Ada almost choked. ‘You needs that money like a drownin’ man needs a towline!’

  Flat and lifeless, Callista’s tone matched the feeling inside her. ‘I have no need of charity.’

  ‘That be bloody daft talk if ever I ’eard it!’ Ada snapped. ‘Charity it might be but it be given with a good ’eart an’ you should be grateful. The easiest way to starve in this world be to pretend you be rich when truth is you don’t ’ave two farthings to your name. Take what Providence ’as seen fit to send and thank the Lord for His bounty.’

  It seemed Callista had not heard the other woman’s outburst. Leaning a little forward she set the envelope in the young man’s hand then folded her own in her lap. ‘Please do as I ask,’ she said as his fingers closed over the envelope. ‘Return that to Mrs Derry. Tell her I could not accept her charity the day we met at the home of Mrs Ramsey and I cannot accept it now.’

  ‘Eh wench!’ Ada shook her head as the young man made a rapid exit. ‘I’ve seen money trickle away like water down a drain but I ain’t never seen it rush away in a torrent same as I seen now. I knows last night’s ’appening left you feelin’ fair flummoxed but to turn your back to five pounds! Why, it would feed you for many a day to say nothin’ o’ payin’ the rent. Do my ’eart good to see the face of Oswin Slade next time he comes a callin’.’

  The next time he comes calling! Fingernails biting savagely into her palms brought reality bursting fully into Callista’s mind. She had refused to think of that, refused to think of anything after what had happened but now, watching her neighbour leave, her brain was painfully alive. Oswin Slade would return to this house and he would do again what he had done last night.

  *

  Those eyes had watched her; pale, almost colourless they had held to her face and in them she had seen the gleam of pleasure, a sensual, almost hedonistic pleasure! Numb to all around her Callista remembered the night just past. Oswin Slade had relished his power of the moment, enjoyed watching her knowing she had no alternative but to ask his forgiveness, to plead they could still be married. Yes, he had enjoyed her discomfort and by its showing in his eyes had painted a graphic picture of what her life was to become.

  She had breathed deeply, trying to find that inner strength which would enable her to do what he expected and she dreaded and with that breath had come the words, silent unspoken words, yet they had filled her mind. With the sweep of an invisible wave, they had washed it clear and its ebbing had left those words: ‘Trust your own heart, go the way it leads.’

  They had given her the strength she needed. Alone in this room she had given her answer. ‘I will not marry you!’

  For a moment it felt like every trace of air had gone from the house, burned away by the heat of his anger, consumed by the passion of fury which twisted Oswin Slade’s face to an unrecognisable mask while breath had hissed like serpents behind his teeth.

  ‘So that is your choice,’ he had snarled. ‘Then this is mine!’

  So swiftly she had not seen it coming he had thrown the ledger aside and in the same move had grabbed her blouse, ripping it apart.

  ‘You don’t be the only wench wanting to marry Oswin Slade, and soon I’ll be in a position to choose among the best, but that don’t mean I won’t take my due from you. For months you’ve been promised to me, this has been promised to me!’

  His head had dropped and she had felt that mouth close over her breast, the wet tongue pulling at her nipple. It had felt like she was bound, fettered with ropes she could not see, and then the hands, those thick fingered hands, had grabbed the waistband of her skirts, wrenching it loose, tearing away petticoats to grasp at her bloomers.

  ‘You don’t make a fool of Oswin Slade and get away with it! Edwin Derry won’t be getting his rent but I’ll take my payment, there’ll be no reneging on that.’

  It was the sound of the button popping from the skirt, the ping of it falling onto the brick hearth, that one tiny sound ringing against the sluggish torpor closing her mind, that and not the snarling words had broken the hypnosis, smashing it to fragments, freeing the scream locked in her throat.

  But the cry had barely left her lips before a heavy hand smashed against her temple.

  ‘Cry out again and it won’t be just your virginity I’ll take, it’ll be your pretty looks as well! Won’t be no more men you’ll dangle from your apron strings when that face of yours be scarred.’

  ‘Get away… get away from me!’

  Her hands pushing at his shoulders had brought another blow sharp and stinging across her mouth.

  ‘Oh no!’ Cunning and insidious the words had breathed into her face, a sly vulpine look creeping across his own as he knelt where she had fallen. ‘I’m not going away from you, Callista, I’m going to get closer, much, much closer; you will feel me inside you, feel me taking what is rightfully mine. But first we must make certain the cries you will try to make go unheard.’

  The smile spreading across his jowled face, he had snatched a neatly folded handkerchief – the flaunted hallmark of his being neither nailmaker, steel worker nor collier – and thrust it in her mouth, then had tied her hands above her head with the muffler taken from his neck. Standing up he had leered over her naked body, while thick fingers fumbled with his trousers.

  Sickness and loathing had flooded from her stomach, filling her mouth but finding no escape.

  ‘You are thinking how hateful.’ Erect flesh was exposed as clothing dropped to his ankles; he had laughed, a malevolent venomous rustle in the throat, the sound of malice. ‘But what does it matter how you feel or what I leave in your belly.’

  He had lowered himself onto her, forcing her legs apart, the pleasure gleaming in his pale eyes as bare flesh touched bare flesh.

  ‘Not to worry about my leavings…’

  He had felt the shudder of revulsion tremble along her limbs as he lay across her and again that coldblooded, ruthless laugh had scraped across his throat.

  ‘No, not to worry, the Workhouse will find a place for paupers and their bastards.’

  ‘The cemetery also finds a place for bastards!’

  It had been screamed, the anger of it filling the tiny room, bouncing from its walls, but the loudness of it was swallowed by Oswin Slade’s howl as an iron poker slammed across his bare buttocks. ‘That be where you be goin’, Slade…’ The poker had fallen again, catching his thighs as he rolled clear. ‘Supposin’ the church be disposed to tekin’ a bastard such as you be!’

  White with anger Ada Povey had brandished the poker, jabbing it into the man struggling to climb into his trousers then, as the door banged open, had flung her shawl over the girl sprawled at her feet.

  Callista closed her eyes, remembering.

  Ada’s husband had come running into the room shouting for his eldest son to ‘watch the door’. He had glanced once at her hands tied above her head then had grabbed Oswin, dragging him away.

  ‘They’ll learn the bugger! ’E’s made his bed but I guarantees it’ll be many a long day afore ’e lies comfortable in it.’ Temper bubbling, Ada had released her then helped her dress. ‘I never did trust that dirty little toe-rag, ’tis said a crooked stick throws a crooked shadow and Slade be twisted through an’ through.’ Cries from the yard had filtered into the room.

  Callista’s eyes opened, watching fingers writhing together as the emotions of the night before threatened to take over. Cries of anger and sharper ones speaking of pain; Oswin Slade had paid for his treatment of her but it would not end there. Ada had said her husband and son would teach him a lesson but Oswin Slade too, would want to teach; he would not forget what was done to him, he would return
and when he did Callista Sanford would be his pupil.

  *

  It was a strange sort of relationship that existed between that girl and the man who has spoken so peremptorily to her, ordering her to return home. He had called her his fiancée, he had claimed he had not struck her… that had been a downright lie but her being promised to him, had that also been a lie?

  Michael Farron watched the last of six narrow boats being loaded with steel plate bound for Southampton shipyards.

  ‘I do have business that needs my attention… to go with you to your home would mean missing an important appointment…’

  The words of a man to the woman he loved? A man mindful of his fiancée’s welfare, of her safety walking dark alleyways alone at night? Hardly! And the rest, the words which had followed telling her rather than asking if she understood?

  After the final batch of steel had been lowered into position on the boat, Michael put his signature to an invoice before handing it to the bargee. Smiling to the man’s wife and children waiting to board he called his wish for an uneventful journey then turned, crossing the wharf to where several warehouses stood tall against the sky.

  The attitude of the man he had reprimanded that evening in Wednesbury market square had irritated him, the man’s caution striking the girl had infuriated him. It angered him still. He should have knocked the blackguard down, given him a beating he would not have forgotten in a hurry!

  But would that have prevented the memories which returned so often, would it have cleared his mind of the picture of a small heart shaped face, of eyes which looked at him like dark moons? Even more, would it have rid him of wanting to see the girl again?

  Alone in the small office he walked to an arch shaped window, staring down at the busy comings and goings of narrow boats in the canal basin discharging cargo or being reloaded in a hurried cycle which used every moment of daylight.

  His uncle had called him a fool and so he must be to still have the girl in his brain; but Phineas Westley was the bigger fool to see friendship where there was none. Maybe the girl Phineas spoke so highly of was not a prostitute but then nor was she in need of a father confessor. It was more likely she viewed Phineas Westley as her way to a comfortable life. And his uncle? Staring hard at the scene below Michael Farron saw nothing but a sad old face. It would be the age old story, the young woman taking the older man for everything he had while giving nothing but unhappiness in return.

  He had seen when talking to Phineas of speaking to the girl in Paget’s Passage, seen the interest in his eyes and, moments after, the anger harden that usually smiling mouth, glisten in those fine eyes.

  Phineas had been disappointed in his nephew’s behaviour. Turning from the window Michael walked to the desk set to one side of the compact room. But better that than be disappointed by that girl; it would not be so long healing the hurt Phineas felt now as one he would get from marrying…

  Marrying! Dropping to the leather chair drawn to the desk Michael Farron stared into space. Would he? Was the interest Phineas showed strong enough to have him marry the girl?

  His head falling backwards to touch the chair, Michael Farron’s eyes closed. He did not want the man he loved and honoured hurt… but should he marry Callista Sanford whose would be the deeper hurt: Phineas Westley’s or Michael Farron’s?

  *

  Oswin Slade would return. The thought had not left her mind all of last night. He would want revenge and it would be taken on her.

  ‘There be no need of you leavin’.’ Ada Povey looked up from wiping the nose of her youngest. ‘You sit you against the fire, this one be off to school and there’ll be no one to bother you.’

  The woman had been kindness itself, insisting she stay the night in her already overcrowded house, but staying longer could only be an addition to the problem. Every bone shrieking from the tension that had held them during the long hours of a sleepless night and even now refused to release them Callista rose, holding her torn clothing together with visibly shaking fingers.

  ‘I… She paused, searching for a reason to leave which would not hurt the woman’s feelings. ‘I need to mend my clothes.’

  Ada shook a head liberally threaded with grey. ‘Ar, I sees that. I’ll be in the workshop should you ’ave need o’ me though there be no fear o’ Oswin Slade settin’ foot inside of this ’ouse nor that of your own agen. My man told ’im that from now on he takes the rents while standin’ in the street and should it ’appen Slade go against that then he would be sat down to a nice bit o’ liver… his own, fried an’ dished up on a fancy plate!’

  It was meant to reassure, to bring a smile, but Callista could manage neither. Thanking Ada again, repeating she was feeling much better, she slipped from the house, halting at the door of the one she had shared with her mother. Ada’s husband might forbid Oswin Slade entry to this house but Ada’s husband could not be present every moment of the day… or every hour of the night!

  Forcing herself to go inside she stared about the living room. Ada had opened the curtains fully but the light the window admitted was barely enough to lift the shadows… shadows which as she stared at them seemed to take on the shape of a figure. It would always be there. Clenched lips stilled the sob hovering in her throat. Now a second nightmare was joined to that of her childhood and it would return to haunt her in the same way. Thought of it adding a shiver of dread to the fear already trembling in her fingers she opened her mother’s sewing box, pressing a hand to her mouth as she caught the sheen of a scrap of blue silk.

  Why had Emma Ramsey refused to accept that gown? Why deny as she had the quality of the stitching… the fact that both cloth and design were the ones she had given? Reaching for the fragment, Callista stared at it lying across her hand. Had she been influenced by the presence of her visitor, had she felt a gown made by a local woman would be deemed by her friend to be inferior to that bought from a city salon?

  For all or none of those reasons Emma Ramsey had not accepted the dress she had commissioned, nor had she paid for it. The other woman, though, had offered money… pity? Disgust at Emma Ramsey’s treatment of a girl so obviously in need of payment? There had been no call for her to feel either yet she had offered those coins. Why? And why had she herself not taken them? ‘They must take only that which they earned.’ Her father’s maxim learned in her early years whispered in Callista’s mind as she touched the scrap of silk with one finger. But always telling the truth had also been a principle of his teaching and now, standing in the cold empty room, she admitted a truth she had denied her mind. It was not simply the thought of accepting charity had prompted her to refuse those coins, it had been the look she had glimpsed in those grey eyes… a look which stayed beyond the perimeter of understanding, which would not step forward into recognition and which for some inexplicable reason aroused a feeling of wariness. But that caution had no basis in reality and she had pushed it away. Sabine Derry had shown her worth in offering yet a second helping hand, sending five pounds to a girl she did not know. The woman was as kind as was Ada Povey.

  Slipping the cloth into the pocket of her skirt, she took needle and thread. Sitting in the chair her mother had used, she sewed her tom clothing with neat, almost invisible stitches. She must thank the woman for her kindness; she must thank Sabine Derry.

  11

  It would be the talk of the whole town. Women would snigger as he passed, gossip behind his back while men would laugh in his face, call out their vulgar remarks, pass some facetious comment. He would be the object of derision, the source of everyone’s amusement!

  ‘Ar, ’twere along of Trowes Court, Povey kicked his arse forrim… they say it were Povey give ’im a right latherin’… belted ’im in the yard did Povey, give ’im a fair old pummellin’…’

  Phrases he knew would already be passing from mouth to mouth, covering Wednesbury with the speed of a racing pigeon, flitted through Oswin Slade’s head as he made his way to Hill House. He would be the butt of men’s jokes and sn
ide humour, a regular laughing stock and all because of that bitch!

  ‘Eh up, Slade, where d’ya get them black eyes… ’ave an argooment wi’ a tram did ya?’ Across the street several men returning from work watched Oswin hurrying past.

  ‘Weren’t no tram! Slade don’t be the sort to act rash… ’e just picks on women, they be more his barra.’

  ‘Reckon ya be right,’ another answered, ‘women be more his style when it comes to usin’ his fists, ain’t that right, Slade?’

  ‘Ar, well, watch ’ow you goes, mate,’ the first man called, his voice raised to follow the scurrying figure. ‘Ya might meet a five year old, give ya another belloilin’ would a babby.’

  Roars of laughter followed, smarting like the slash of a knife; Oswin compressed his bruised and swollen lips, flinching from the sting of them. They could laugh now, the whole bloody town could laugh, but Oswin Slade would laugh last. He would make them pay… every last one of them would regret having their fun at his expense… but that sow, Callista Sanford, would pay most of all! The thought, still raging as he was shown into the study of Hill House, burned higher as the eyes of Sabine Derry flicked over his face.

  ‘I see there is a deficit in the takings again this week, Mr Slade. Why is that?’

  What she really meant to ask was what had given him the appearance of having gone several rounds with a fairground pugilist, a bare knuckle fighter who knocked any man senseless for being daft enough to challenge him.

  ‘The tenant did not have money to pay.’

  ‘I see.’ Sabine Derry lifted her glance from the ledger he had handed across the pristine desk. ‘I did warn you—’

  ‘I… I’ve taken steps—’

  ‘Steps?’ Grey eyes glinting like ice chips, Sabine interrupted the interruption. She disliked Oswin Slade; disliked the thin sandy hair, the pale eyes almost colourless in the heavily jowled face; everything about the man was unappealing but the thing she relished least was the shrewd brain she knew lay within that unattractive head.