by Valerie Wood
‘Now then, how do I light a fire? I’ve never done one afore.’ She knelt by the hearth in the downstairs room. ‘I don’t want to waste this kindling. I think I need a bit o’ newspaper. I’d better go and ask Aunt Lizzie or Grace. They’ll know.’
She knocked on the door of the Sheppards’ room and, on opening the door, saw that unusually they had no fire, though it was laid ready. Lizzie Sheppard was in bed, Grace was crouched over a bucket, peeling potatoes, and Bob Sheppard was sitting by the unlit fire reading an old and torn newspaper.
‘Pecks have left,’ Ruby said gleefully. ‘They’ve gone back to ’country. I’m going to make a fire in their room so Ma and me can get warm.’
Bob Sheppard put down his paper. ‘Won’t ’rent man be coming to lock up?’
Ruby shook her head. ‘He doesn’t know they’ve gone. She said would I tell him she was sorry about ’arrears.’
Mr Sheppard tutted. ‘It’s not right. Folks should pay their debts.’
‘With what?’ His wife spoke from her bed. ‘Wi’ a dead porker? Poor folks never stood a chance. They’ll do better wi’ their own kind.’
‘That’s what Mrs Peck said,’ Ruby agreed. ‘But now I want to make a fire before anybody comes. Onny, I don’t know how and I don’t want to waste ’wood. Why haven’t you got a fire?’ she asked.
‘Saving fuel!’ Grace looked up, a knife poised in her hand. ‘We’ll light it later when we want to cook.’
‘Ah,’ Ruby said. ‘Yes, of course. Well, I want to be warm now. Will you help me, Grace?’
Grace took her cold red hands out of the bucket of water and dried them on a scrap of cloth, then shook them to get the circulation going.
‘Where did you get ’kindling from?’ she asked as they went back towards Ruby’s house. She’d begged a sheet of her father’s newspaper and a lucifer to light it, for Ruby had neither.
‘I went to ’river bank. As soon as Mrs Peck said they were going, I decided we’d move downstairs and have a fire. Just for today,’ she added earnestly. ‘We can’t stop. Can’t afford ’extra rent.’
Grace gave a sudden peal of laughter. ‘What?’ Ruby asked. ‘What’s funny?’
‘You!’ Grace said with a wide grin. ‘You can’t afford ’rent upstairs either. You said you hadn’t paid ’agent.’
‘No more I haven’t!’ Ruby said. ‘So why are you laughing? Oh!’ She too gave a grin. ‘I see! So we might as well stay downstairs which we can’t afford as stay upstairs which we can’t afford either!’
‘My da would have a fit if we couldn’t pay our rent.’ Grace blew on the blue and yellow flame that was curling around the newspaper and wood. ‘You heard him. He’s allus paid his debts. There, I think it’s caught.’
Ruby looked shamefaced. ‘Tell him it’s onny for today if he says owt.’
Grace nodded. ‘Well, you might just as well stay there until ’rent man comes. What’s ’use in leaving it empty?’
‘Will you help me downstairs with ’mattress then, Grace? It’ll be easier with ’two of us.’
They stepped between the legs of the Blake family, who were huddled on the landing, and went into the Robsons’ room. Bessie was lying on the mattress with the blanket and the old coats and rags on top of her, but she quickly rolled off and gathered them together on being told that there was a fire awaiting her downstairs.
‘Sorry, Mr Blake, Mrs Blake. Would you mind shifting for a minute while we move this mattress?’
The Blakes scrambled to their feet. ‘Is your room going to be empty then, Ruby?’ Mrs Blake asked. ‘Cos if so …’
‘Yes, you move in,’ Ruby said generously. ‘But if we get turned out then we’ll have to come back up.’
They slid the straw-filled mattress down the stairs, then stopped and giggled as it caught on the splintered treads halfway down and they couldn’t shift it. Mr Blake came down to help them and they manhandled it into the room.
Bessie was standing close to the fire with a huge beam on her face. ‘Oh, Ruby! What a clever lass. However did you manage it? A proper blaze!’ She put her hands towards the flame, and Mr Blake too came and opened his palms in front of it.
‘Thanks, Ruby,’ he said, before going back upstairs to move their few belongings off the landing and into the comfort of an empty room.
Ruby and her mother were there for three weeks before they were found out. Each time the rent man came, they pressed themselves into a corner on the window wall where he couldn’t see them as he peered through the glass, and would see only a low fire and a mattress on the floor. Mr Blake had managed to fix a wooden bolt on the door, and though the agent hammered and called, no-one answered.
But then he arrived early one morning when Ruby was on her knees lighting the fire, and her mother had gone to the privy and left the house door open.
‘Ruby!’ he said, coming into the room. ‘What are you doing here? Where’s Mrs Peck?’
‘She’s left, Mr Stevens.’ She rocked back onto her heels and looked up at him. He was a short shabby-looking man of middle years. ‘She said to say how sorry she was that they couldn’t pay ’arrears, and would you tell ’landlord. They’ve gone back home to ’country.’
‘Have they?’ He folded his arms in front of him and turned as Bessie came through the front door. On seeing the early-morning caller, she spun round and scuttled out again.
‘And you and your ma have moved in?’
‘Well, it seemed a pity not to use it when it was empty,’ Ruby confessed. She stood up. ‘I’ve never lived in a room that had a fire, Mr Stevens, and it’s lovely to be warm. I’ve been gathering wood from ’riverbank every day, but you’ve got to get there early or there’s none left.’
‘Are you not working?’
‘Three days,’ she said. ‘There’s onny enough money for food.’ She put her hand into her skirt pocket and brought out three pennies. ‘I work Monday, Friday and Saturday.’ She held out her hand. ‘You can tek this if you want. Today’s Wednesday, we’ll manage till Saturday when I get paid.’
He waved her hand away. ‘So your room’ll be empty, is it?’ His eyes stared into hers and she looked away and didn’t answer.
‘I’ll have to come back, you know that?’ His voice was quiet but not threatening. ‘And ’landlord might send ’bailiffs.’
‘Ha!’ She gave a grim laugh and gazed around the room. ‘There’s onny ’mattress and an old blanket left and I doubt they’d want them. They’ll be full o’ fleas.’
‘You and your ma could go to prison, Ruby. People do. Non-payment of debts.’
‘Where do you live, Mr Stevens?’ she asked.
He frowned. ‘In lodgings. Why?’
She sighed and pushed back a lock of hair. ‘I just wondered, that’s all. You’ve been coming here all this time and we don’t know owt about you.’
‘There’s nothing to know,’ he said, turning towards the door. ‘I get up in a morning, do this job, and go to bed at night. That’s my life.’ He nodded to her. ‘Bye, Ruby.’
It’s a rotten job, he thought, as he picked his way down the alley. Trying to extract money from people who haven’t got any, to give to people who have. He called in at his office and filled in a report to the effect that the Peck family had left the district owing arrears of rent, and that Mrs Robson and her daughter were no longer living in the upstairs room.
The house appeared to be empty, he wrote, and was in urgent need of repair before anyone else could safely live in it. Tiles were missing from the roof and the stairs were unsound. The house, he added, would probably be condemned if the Corporation Sanitary Committee should see its condition. He knew that they wouldn’t see it, for the owner had friends in many places.
He handed the report to the chief clerk and placed on his desk the leather bag which he used to collect the rent money. This morning it was empty as he hadn’t been any further than Middle Court. The chief clerk looked at him and frowned. ‘What’s this, Stevens?’ he said tersely. ‘You haven’t
finished!’
‘Yes, I have,’ he said, ‘I’ve finished for good,’ and walked out of the door.
‘Da!’ Grace put down the newspaper which she had been reading. ‘It says here that somebody has just been given some silver plate for their services to charity. So who paid for that?’
‘Corporation,’ he replied grimly. ‘They’ve plenty o’ money. Hull is a rich town, with poor people,’ he added.
‘So why don’t they give some of that money to the poor?’
Her father shrugged.
‘And who’s this Henry Vincent that they keep mentioning in ’newspaper?’
‘Vincent! His name’s allus cropping up. He’s a Radical – a Chartist. Came to Hull to speak, oh, eight or nine years ago.’
‘Speak about what?’
‘The poor. He said that Poor Law wasn’t working. I went to hear him,’ he continued. ‘Three thousand people were there on Dock Green and they all cheered him.’ He put his chin in his hands and sighed. ‘Fat lot of good it did anybody!’
‘But at least he was speaking for us, Da. He was speaking for ’poor when we can’t speak for ourselves.’
Her father looked up at her. ‘We can speak for ourselves,’ he claimed. ‘Trouble is, if we do then we’re branded as troublemakers. Vincent spoke up for women too,’ he added. ‘Said they should have a voice. Your ma agreed wi’ that!’
Grace gave a sigh. ‘Oh, I wish I could have heard him.’
‘There was another fellow there,’ her father reminisced. ‘I remember him even more than Vincent. He lived in ’lunatic ward at Hull workhouse. Word got around that he wasn’t mad but had been put there by ’authorities for speaking his mind. They made out that he was deluded so they locked him up! Anyway, somebody got him out for this meeting and put him on ’same platform as Vincent. Poor bloke! Samuel, that was his name, he could hardly talk to begin with, but when he did –’ He shook his head. ‘He warned us, told us of what was happening, said it wasn’t right that young bairns had to work long hours in factories, and poor folk were in ’workhouse through no fault of their own. He had an educated voice so he knew what he was talking about. We’re nothing, he said. Just sweepings in ’gutter. I’ll allus remember those words.’
He fell silent and Grace waited for him to continue. He cleared his throat but his voice was husky as he went on, ‘And he was right, that’s what we are. We’re of no account, Gracie. No account at all. We’re in this pit and we’ll never get out.’
Grace glanced around the room which was home and saw it as if for the first time. Bare walls, with here and there the bricks showing through where the plaster had fallen off. The earth floor made hard by their feet tramping on it. A stone slab for a hearth and a few pieces of wood and coal, waiting to be lit. Her mother, who was now back at work, kept the room clean with the aid of a besom, and always had, until recently, a pan of soup bubbling on the fire.
A pit, that was what her father called their home! She frowned. Daniel had called the court a sewer too. I must have had my eyes shut. But then, I’ve never had anything else. I’ve grown up accepting things as they are, just as Ruby has never had a room with a fire before. So, she pondered. Could we have something better? And what do we do to get it?
‘Do these people, these Radicals, still speak at Dock Green?’ she asked.
He got up from his chair, stretched and reached for his jacket and scarf. The room was getting cold. ‘Aye, most Sundays. There’s allus somebody spouting. Gets it off their chests I suppose, even if it doesn’t do any good.’
She gazed at him. He’d always been a good father, taking her out for walks when she was little whilst her mother got on with the washing or cleaning the house, and he always answered her questions, no matter how trivial.
‘I’d like to go, Da. To Dock Green! Will you come with me?’
CHAPTER TEN
‘Do you want to come, Ruby? I’m going to Dock Green with my da.’
‘For what?’ Ruby was crouched by the low fire with her shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her mother was sitting on the mattress with her arms across her chest and her hands tucked under her armpits. She was shivering and rocking, her head and shoulders moving backwards and forwards.
‘I’m going to listen to ’speakers.’
‘There’ll be nobody there. It’s raining – and it’s cold! No thanks, I’ll stop here by ’fire.’ She glanced at her mother. ‘Besides, I have to keep an eye on Ma,’ she said in a low voice. ‘She’d not had any loddy for a couple o’ days and I bought her some yesterday when I got my wages. She took it straight away instead of waiting till this morning and has been awake all night, jigging and dancing and talking all sorts of nonsense. Now she’s suffering for it.’
‘Oh I am suffering!’ Bessie heard Ruby’s last few words. ‘Nobody knows how I suffer. Such pain in me head and belly,’ she groaned. ‘Too much spirit in it. You should have got me raw Turkish, Ruby. That’s ’best you can buy.’
Ruby gave a snort. ‘We don’t have money for Turkish, Ma! It’s eight pounds a pound! When did you last have any of that?’ She turned to Grace, misery etching lines on her face. ‘I’m sick of this, Grace. I’m at my wits’ end.’
‘What’s your ma talking about?’ Grace frowned. ‘I thought ’laudanum made her feel better.’
Ruby sighed. ‘It does for a bit, but ’loddy that you buy from ’grocer is mixed with spirit, so you can get drunk on it. And she didn’t take just a spoonful but drank it straight out of ’bottle!’
‘I’m sorry, Ruby,’ Grace said. ‘So you won’t come?’
Ruby shook her head. ‘No. You go, and see who’s putting ’world to rights.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘And if they’ve got any answers, send ’em to me!’
‘Poor Ruby.’ Grace told her father about Bessie as they walked down the road towards the town. ‘Do you think her ma will ever be cured of taking opium?’
Her father glanced down at her. ‘No, course she won’t. If she stops taking it she’ll see ’world as it really is and she won’t like it.’
‘It’s hard for Ruby, though. They could spend that loddy money on food.’
‘Aye, it’s hard on ’lass, I agree, but Bessie takes it to forget. Life seems better and brighter when you eat a grain of opium.’
She looked up in astonishment. ‘Does it? How do you know? Have you taken it, Da?’
He hunched down into his jacket so that his face was half hidden from her. ‘Aye, a few times in ’past, but not any more.’
‘So how did you stop?’ This was a revelation to her. She’d never seen either of her parents taking opium, not even when her mother had been in pain with her sprained back.
He lifted his head and stared straight ahead. ‘Your ma. She stopped me. Weaned me off it. It hadn’t got hold,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t dependent on it. Not like Bessie. It was too late for her.’ He seemed about to say something more, but then thought better of it and simply cleared his throat.
There were other people, mostly men, who were walking from the Market Place, down Castle Street and towards Dock Green. This was an open place where meetings were held, where Trinity House schoolboys played their games and where every October at the Hull Fair, the showmen put up their entertainment of swings and whirligigs, menageries and circuses. There too on the outer perimeter, the gypsies pitched their camps.
Today, though, it was quiet. The rain and cold had deterred the crowds from their Sunday walk and a chance of laughter and discussion with the speakers who stood on boxes and gave their opinion on the world as they saw it.
But there was one man who was exhorting everyone to repent, for the world was coming to an end. They heard his voice bellowing across the grassy area and they approached to listen. ‘It may be too late if you wait,’ he shouted. ‘Tomorrow will be too late! Today may be too late! Repent now of your sins.’
He looked down at Grace. ‘You, child! You might not think you have been sinful, but we sin from the moment we are born. Come!’ He held out h
is hand towards her. ‘Come. Repent now before it is too late!’
Grace stared up at him. ‘But I haven’t done anything,’ she called back, and her father glanced at her and grinned. ‘And anyway, I’m not a child. I’m a woman. I work for a living.’
A man standing on a small platform close by heard her, and shouted to the people who were standing near. ‘Isn’t this what I have been saying?’ He called to Grace. ‘Come here, child! How long have you been working?’ he asked as she drew near. ‘And what kind of work?’
‘I’m not a child,’ she repeated. ‘I’m sixteen and I’ve been working since I was nine at Hull Flax and Cotton Mill!’
‘Come up,’ he said, ‘so that everyone can hear you.’ The speaker put his hand out to her to step onto the platform, and, almost without thinking, she did so.
‘How did you feel, starting work so young?’
Grace pondered. Seven years. It seemed such a long time ago. ‘I remember that I missed my ma,’ she said. ‘And I was very tired at ’end of each day.’
‘What kind of work did you do that an adult couldn’t?’
‘Well, I could get into small places, like under ’machinery to get rid of ’dust, which a grown-up person couldn’t. You had to be very small to squash underneath.’ She gave a little shudder as she remembered the whirring of the machines above her.
‘And how long was your day?’ he pressed persuasively.
‘Oh, only eight hours,’ she said, sure of her facts. ‘Until I was thirteen, then I could work twelve. We were only allowed to work those hours. I think there’s a law. But I can work longer now.’ Her face dropped. ‘At least – I could, but we’ve been put on short time.’
‘Of course you have,’ he said triumphantly. ‘And do you know why?’ His gaze went from Grace to encompass the crowd below, which had grown considerably since Grace had come onto the platform. ‘I’ll tell you why.’ He raised his forefinger towards them. ‘This young woman – who is no longer a child – has been put on short time because children, such as she was just a few short years ago, can do the work cheaper!’