‘Enough of this,’ she said and made the great effort it took to raise herself from the chair. She needed a walk, to blow away the cobwebs. She would take a turn down by the lake and return past the pet cemetery. What fun it would be to see the ghosts of her old dogs frolicking there today! But no: she must stop with these foolish thoughts. She would be firm with herself. She should turn her attention to worldly matters and ensure that the King family continued to prosper.
Chapter 6
‘You’re doing a fine job there, Anny,’ said Mrs Brotherton. She had kind, grey eyes that were always smiling, even when her mouth was set. ‘One day, you might work in a bigger office somewhere. Maybe even Shrewsbury, who knows!’ Anny looked up from her work and smiled back, then continued copying out the long list of ironworkers and their pay for that month. A job in Shrewsbury. Imagine that, actually living in the county town of Shrewsbury, looking out from your office window and seeing the town folk going to and fro, the coaches clattering over the cobbles, the bells of the churches chiming – that’s how she pictured it, anyhow. How marvellous that would be! That could never happen, not to an ironworker’s girl like her. Or could it?
Anny felt gratified. She was so glad that within only a few months she had moved up from a messenger and general runabout to a clerical assistant, and her pay had moved up too. She often thought of that first time she was invited in to the office itself. Mrs Brotherton had been ill and Mr Brotherton was huffing and puffing about the work that needed to be done. He had asked her to come in to the office so he could test her handwriting. She had never written with a pen before, so he gave her a pencil and asked her to copy out some lists of figures and names. She had sat at a small desk, focusing on forming her shapes beautifully on the page. Mr Brotherton had been delighted with her neat work and later that day had shown her how to use a pen. She took to it like a foal to standing, wobbly at first but determined and soon an expert. With Mrs Brotherton sick, Anny found herself buried in paper, ink and neatly copied-out ledgers, and within days Mr Brotherton wrote to her mother and requested that Anny be permitted to work for them full-time, and that her pay would increase to match her working hours, of course. Everyone was delighted with the arrangement.
Since then, Mr and Mrs Brotherton had taken Anny under their wing. They had no children of their own – ‘It was God’s manner of making us useful to other young’uns,’ said Mrs Brotherton – and they had adopted Anny, in a way. They even let her call them Mr B and Mrs B; as Mr B said, their name was a bit of a mouthful. They were teaching her the skills needed to administer an office such as this one: the papers and ink and pens and pencils and blotters and bills that were required to keep it all running smoothly. She wrote out letters and lists and requests and so forth for them. Her parents were proud as punch, of course, and sorely glad of the extra money coming in. It saved Anny from the drudgery of washing at home and also from a life in service, or worse, which might have been coming.
Her other option had been pit girl, full of back-breaking hours of picking out the ironstone from the clay on a waste tip and carrying it in a basket on her head to pile onto another great heap. The tedium of it, the endless, mindless nothingness. Worse still were the jobs that girls did down the mines, where rats and goblins lived. Those girls rarely saw the light of day and so many died young. Plenty of her friends did these jobs, and Anny wanted nothing to do with that. She loved her friends; she had grown up with them. But there was a difference between them now. Anny’s hands were softer and her face less ravaged by wind and weather and work, though her eyes and fingers often ached from the strain of too much writing in the dim light of the approaching winter. Her childhood playmates did not speak to her as much as they used to, sitting in huddles in their rare free moments and flirting with the local boys. That Peter Malone – her neighbour’s son who worked at the forge – was always giving her the eye, but most of the other boys and girls ignored her. She found Peter’s attention flattering and he was a nice-looking lad and easy to get along with. She liked the way he spoke, as he was quite clever with words sometimes, usually when he was teasing her. But she found that the things her local friends talked about did not interest her much these days and they seemed to sense it. She was still attached to them, for comfort mostly. Anny began to feel left out, even a little shunned.
She was contemplating this one cold night, warming herself by the hearth with her father, the room dimly lit by a single oil lamp.
‘Ow bist, my wench?’ he said.
‘I’m thinking on the young’uns hereabouts. It’s as if they think that I think that I am better than them, but I dunna think that at all.’
‘It’s the price you pay for being a clever’un,’ he replied. ‘It separates the wheat from the chaff. You just need to get used to it. You are better’an them now. Simple as that.’
‘No, I’m not. I just do a different job, that’s all. Folk who do finer jobs than me are no better than me, are they?’
John Woodvine gazed into the fire, a slight smile about his tired eyes, tapping his clay pipe on his bottom lip thoughtfully. ‘You’re too clever by half for me, my lass,’ he said.
‘No, Father,’ she went on, a terrier with every argument. ‘You must agree. The Kings are no better than us, are they? For all their money and learning, they are . . .’ She thought of Margaret. ‘They are our equals.’ Then she thought of the brother. ‘Or indeed our inferiors, if you count Master Cyril.’
Her father looked up, frowning.
‘What do you know of him? Of Master Cyril?’
An image of Cyril’s hand thrusting up that poor servant girl’s skirts leapt into her mind. She felt queasy. She hated to think on it, but she did think on it often. It disturbed her and fascinated her in equal measure. Questions filled her mind: what was he doing up there? What did he want up there? She knew something of how babies came into the world, but didn’t think hands and fingers had much to do with it. Or violence. Or throwing someone up against a tree and whispering nasty things in their ear. She didn’t understand it, didn’t understand him, that boy who kicks dogs. He was rather handsome, for sure, those pretty blond curls. But his mouth was cruel and his eyes were frightening. She did not like to think of him at all.
‘Enough to know he is a bad’un.’
Her father sat upright and looked directly at her. ‘You’re right, my lass. You stay away from him. He is a bad’un, a rotten’un if truth be known. He made trouble for me at the furnace for no good reason.’
‘What trouble?’ asked Anny, worried.
‘It’s naught for you to worry about. It’s just I think he took against me that day, Anny. And I wouldna want you to be caught up in that, not with your prize post at the King office. Just do your best to stay clear of him. There’s a good wench.’
‘Oh, I will, Father. Dunna you fret about that.’ She stood up, stepped over to her father and put her arms around his neck, kissing his rough cheek. ‘I can look after myself, no danger.’
It played on her mind though. Sometimes, from her desk in the office, she could hear Cyril shouting at the stable men or the yelp of dogs in his path. She would lift her head and listen intently, but he would always pass on, to some mischief or other. Luckily, he had no interest in the estate office or anything clerical, and never appeared there. She felt safe from him in its wood-panelled interior, cosseted and looked after by her kindly bosses.
Until one October morning. Anny was at her desk, copying out a letter to an iron merchant from Birmingham. It gave her much pleasure that her words would be transported far and away to such exotic places as these great cities of the Midlands and beyond. One day she wondered if a letter by her hand might reach as far as London. Mr B was going through a pile of receipts, while Mrs B was out on an errand. The office had an air of quiet industry, just the rustle of Mr B’s papers and the scratch of her pen on paper, the tap of her nib on the glass rim of the inkpot. Outside, it was a blustery day where the wind swept up clouds of autumn leaves i
n the courtyard and threw them around like fiery confetti, some blowing in at the office door as it opened abruptly, and there stood Master Cyril.
Anny glanced at her boss, who lowered his eyebrows at the sight. Cyril looked both impatient and bored.
‘Brotherton,’ he said. ‘My father tells me I must get to know the business. He’s sent me here to start. You are to show me around, apprise me of certain particulars. It won’t take long. It all looks dull and easy for any man of letters.’
Cyril glanced about the office with disdain, until he noticed Anny, who immediately fell to writing again, afraid to look up, afraid to meet those cruel eyes and be any sort of object of curiosity for them.
‘Indeed, Master King. I’d be delighted to. Let me start with the accounts. We can go into my office and leave others to their business.’ He opened out his arms, gesturing defferentially towards his room, where the safe and the accounts were kept, where Mr Brotherton did much of his wages work and Anny rarely entered.
But Cyril was not moving and instead stood quite still. Anny felt as if the top of her head were burning. But she would not look up. If she stared long enough at the nib of her pen, at the ink that issued in loops and lines from it, then perhaps this intruder would vanish into thin air and order would be restored.
‘And who is this? Look at me, girl. You should get up when I enter and wish me good morning.’
She placed her pen in its stand, lifted her head and looked straight at him. She held his gaze while she stood up and performed a slow, slight dip of a curtsey.
Mr Brotherton cleared his throat and said, ‘This is Anny Woodvine, our clerical assistant.’
Anny said, ‘Good morning, sir.’ Cyril’s eyes had watched every movement, had peered about her body as if scrutinising an iron bar for flaws. Then he looked away. His cheeks were pink and he looked perturbed. Anny lowered her eyes and stared at the floor.
‘Well, come on then, man. For heaven’s sake, I can’t stand around here all day waiting for the likes of you.’ Cyril marched past Anny’s desk and into Mr B’s room. Anny wanted to glance at Mr B, see what he made of all this. But she kept her gaze low, not wanting to look at Cyril again. Mr B walked by her and said quietly, ‘You may carry on, Anny.’
The door was shut behind them and she sat, picked up her pen and dipped it in the ink, blotted it carefully, then went to write. But she could not concentrate, listening to the barking voice next door and Mr B’s conciliatory tone. She heard Cyril say, ‘Show me the safe. I want to see all the money my father earns. I want to see it piled up.’
‘Huh,’ Anny quietly scoffed to herself. It’s not your father earns all that money, she thought. It’s men like my father. And the Brothertons. And me!
Then Cyril was shouting. ‘How dare you! I am my father’s heir and will be your master one day. Open the safe this instant. And don’t forget to lock it afterwards. Any one of these workers on this estate would steal it as soon as look at it. That girl out there, for instance.’
What? The cheek of it! She heard Mr B say something about her, but his kind voice could not be clearly discerned through the door.
‘I’m sure you do,’ Cyril retorted. There was no problem hearing his strident tones. ‘Because you are soft on the lower classes, Brotherton, being so close to that station yourself. The thought that an office girl like that is trusted to open and close the safe is outrageous.’
He really was such a nasty piece of work. And how dare he suggest she was not to be trusted! She remembered the first time Mr B had shown her how to unlock the safe. There were two keys, one kept in a hidden drawer in a bureau in his office and the other in a similar secret drawer in Mrs B’s desk. She had felt a thrill, not because of the money, but because of the trust with which she felt imbued. She had experienced a true connection with the Messrs B that day and now Cyril King wanted to taint that. Mr B came out to fetch the other key from his wife’s desk, letting out a long, vexed sigh.
He collected the key and went back into his office and shut the door. It went very quiet in there. She assumed they were looking at the money. She imagined Cyril fingering it, worshipping it. Herself, she knew its value, how it meant the difference between surviving and dying for her people. But she did not love it for its sake alone. It was only a means to an end for her. But these rich, they coveted it, hoarded it. How the upper classes disgusted her. Except Peggy, of course. Peggy was different. Somehow she had come through the mill of her revolting family and emerged untarnished, pure somehow. A kind and loving person. A true friend. Nothing would ever come between them. But her brother was barking orders again and a chill went down her back, as if Jack Frost ran his fingers down her spine.
Her nib hovered above the page, as if stuck in time. Then a drop of ink splashed onto her neat letter and ruined it. She scolded herself and screwed up the paper, shoving it into her pocket, afraid of admitting the waste of it to her employer. She wanted to get out of the office and away from Cyril. Luckily she recalled that Mrs B had asked her to pop down to the village to collect some green ink. Mrs B always wrote out the work rota in different colours for the different parts of the ironworks. At a glance, one could see exactly which part of the business the paperwork pertained to. Anny loved learning these little tricks of the trade, though Mrs B said it was not a cost-effective way of doing things, but it was how Mrs King senior always did things, and she’d insisted on it continuing. Anny jumped up and grabbed her shawl and bonnet, opening and closing the door as soundlessly as she could, to evade being heard. Only once she had a mile between her and Cyril King did she feel she could relax once more. She hoped against hope that his visit had been a singular event and that he’d soon tire of his father’s directives. If I never see him again, she thought as she entered the stationer’s – her favourite shop in the town, full of delights, better than a sweet shop to her – it won’t be a minute too soon.
However, Anny was to hope in vain. Cyril made a point of attending the office regularly after that. Mostly, he would ignore her and bark a few things at Mr or Mrs B before disappearing again, but always she felt his eyes on her.
It wasn’t until some weeks later, when Mrs B was out of the office and Mr B was shut in his room with Mr Pritchard, that Anny found herself facing Cyril. She was sitting quietly at her desk when the door opened and Anny looked up to see Cyril step in. He gave a quick glance to the empty desk to one side and the closed door opposite, then smiled smugly and shut the door slowly behind him.
He turned and said brusquely, ‘Miss Woodvine.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said and then remembered to stand up and curtsey. He motioned to her to sit down, then looked at his hands as if he had no idea what to do with them. He clasped them and said once more, softer this time, ‘Miss Woodvine.’
Anny stared at him. Should she speak again?
He stepped over to her and hesitated, then awkwardly seated himself on the corner of her desk. Anny looked down from embarrassment, the sight of his thigh bulging towards her papers being just too much.
‘Tell me about your work. What is it you do all day?’
‘Clerical duties,’ she answered, her eyes on her desk.
‘I see, I see.’ She glanced up to see him stroking his chin, as if she had spoken of some matter of great import. ‘And you work with a pen and ink?’
She looked down again. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Different coloured inks, I see.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you assist Brotherton and his wife in . . . matters related to . . . clerical duties?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you have worked here for some months, Miss Woodvine.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Woodvine. Are you related? To the Woodvine at the furnace?’
Anny had felt the heat of discomfort from the nearness of Cyril on her desk. Now, she felt his fingers prying into her life and it sickened her. What was he about?
‘That is my father, sir.’
�
�Is he, indeed?’
Anny did not respond.
‘Look at me when I’m addressing you, girl,’ he snapped and she had to look up at those cruel blue eyes, hypnotic and revolting all at once. But he did not look at her with a mocking sneer, as she had seen him give others. When she looked up at him, his face softened and he seemed to be searching for something in hers. The intensity of that searching blue gaze was deeply disturbing to her and she could not bear it. She looked down again.
‘I did not mean . . .’ began Cyril, but then he paused and stuttered as he continued, ‘A pretty girl. You are. A very pretty girl. But you must, in your position, you see . . . You are . . . different from the other girls. I’ve never met a girl remotely like you. I am growing fond of you, Anny. Very fond.’
Anny could not believe her ears. The young master speaking so frankly to her, so softly. She had assumed he only wanted one thing from her, as with any other female subordinate he took a fancy to. But now? ‘Anyway,’ he went on swiftly, ignoring her lack of response to his declaration, ‘perhaps you would come and sit with me one time and talk to me? Or we could go for a walk together? In the woods.’
At that moment, Mr B and Pritchard appeared from the inner office and both stopped nervously at the sight of Cyril. He hopped up from Anny’s desk and bid good afternoon to all, swiftly leaving and slamming the door behind him. Mr B looked at Anny. She wanted to smile at him, but her eyes were wide with alarm. She’d not forgotten what happened to the last girl Cyril had taken into the woods. Whatever he said, Cyril King had a bad way with girls and it was always more force than fondness.
The Daughters of Ironbridge Page 6