He thought back to the night Anny came into the world. Rachel had bled and bled and they all said she’d die, but she didn’t. No more babies after that, and just as well. In the hours he thought he’d lose his wife, he blamed himself for bringing her to this pass, for giving her a baby to bear and that bearing would kill her. When she recovered and the baby thrived, he thanked God for saving them both and wished to never have another child. They did not have relations for a year or more after. He missed it, he mourned it, but he was determined that she wouldn’t be put in danger again, ever again, his beloved Rachel. He thanked God again, for giving him Anny, for keeping Rachel alive. He would have liked a big brood, as he loved little children, babies most of all, their absolute innocence and complete reliance on him. He liked nothing more than to be relied upon. It was his lifeblood. He’d see an old man who lived alone in the town or a widower or a bachelor and shudder; to be alone, to be unwanted, unnecessary, unloved. He’d rather die. But one child it was to be and he was content. More than content! His girl, his Anny, was the sun and moon to him. He loved to watch her sleep when she was a baby, not that she slept much as she was always up and about wanting to learn the next new thing. These days he would sit by the fire of an evening and watch her writing away at the table, see the pencil she held moving in mysterious shapes across the paper, shapes that were beyond his mind and always would be. He liked nothing more than to listen to her talk, the way he could sense her mind racing and see her trip over her words to catch up with it. Rachel was much brighter than him, he’d always known that, but to think that they had created this little wonder, this clever girl with her words and her thoughts. And that hair, that deep red hair like leaves on the turn. His own had been pale and orangey when he was younger, deepening to a reddish-brown scored with grey nowadays, while his wife’s hair was the colour of tree bark. Together they had made this miracle, this beautiful, sparky girl, this child of his heart. His one child. He had only this one, singular vessel to pour all his fatherly affection into and it brimmed over with his love.
Now his one child was in danger, mortal danger. His wife would be floored by it, he was certain of that. It was his job to protect them both. What other point was there in a husband and father than that? His walk was coming to an end and his cottage was just along the way from here. How he wished he could slow down time and never reach it, never step over its threshold, never stand before his wife and tell her this darksome thing.
Chapter 14
Anny had dreamt of this. She had dreamt of entering the city of Shrewsbury, drinking it all in for the first time, seeing the pale stone of the walls and the coloured windows of the churches. She had imagined herself coming into the city by coach, gazing at the majestic buildings. The wheels of the coach barrelling along the streets, she would arrive at a busy square and the archway to the yard of a coaching inn, where she would alight and find her way to her lodgings; and recently, she had pictured an addition; later that day, after she had received her trunk and unpacked, there would come someone knocking upon the outer door and her landlady would call her down to greet her gentleman caller and there would be Jake, come to take her out to supper. She had pictured this, all of it, many times.
Now, she really was entering Shrewsbury for the first time, not in her imagination, but in full wakefulness, and nothing could have been further from her dreams. She was sitting on the back of a farmer’s cart pulled by a leisurely old nag, shoved up beside three other women, reeking of the lock-up they’d all been in for the night, where the walls seeped with mildew and the room stank of damp and piss and the odour of unwashed, desperate bodies. The constable sat opposite them on the cart, silent and stoic but watchful, not speaking a word to any of them. The other women had not spoken to her either. Two of these were very poor, filthy and dishevelled. One had been drunk in the lock-up the night before and was now moaning and groaning at every bump in the road. The other had been rouged like a Frenchwoman and slept almost the whole time, seeming unsurprised by the whole business. The third was a nursing mother, dressed more respectably, who cooed at her baby and nursed it or else wept silently, tears running down her face and snot pouring from her nose, which she wiped away from time to time, but who never talked, except whisperings to her child. Anny could not bring herself to speak to them either. She had existed in a state of pure terror since the moment she had awoken at the lock-up in Ironbridge the day before. She had fainted in the office and had not come round until she was incarcerated. She knew nothing of what had occurred in between. The thought of being out cold, her body not her own, was horrible.
She had not slept at all that night and rued it now, as sleeping had proven impossible on the bumpy cart that had taken the best part of a day to travel the fifteen or so miles from Ironbridge to Shrewsbury. At least it was summer and at least it was not raining, though at some points on the road the sun had beaten down upon her face so harshly, she felt as if her skin was beginning to sizzle like bacon. She had pulled her cloak over her face but then felt suffocated by it. Walkers on the road and others in carts passing by had stared at her, some laughing, shaking their heads. One child threw a couple of stones in her direction and some men shouted at her and her fellow female felons, calling them hedge-creepers, then laughed raucously.
She watched all of this occur in a kind of stupefied horror, unable to process the nightmare that was truly happening to her. Her life of only a day before was gone, replaced by an existence in places and in company she had never considered, let alone imagined herself inhabiting. It was as if her tongue had seized up at the shock, that her brain had no frame of reference to compare this madness to and so had simply given up trying to respond to it. She was in shock, and could not fathom what had happened to ruin her life so quickly, so completely.
The cart passed over the sparkling Severn on a stately stone bridge, the river high, with here and there a tree emerging from it, the lower trunk submerged. They meandered on through a maze of streets, then climbed a long, slow hill past ancient, timber-framed buildings on each side. Anny looked up and saw the castle walls looming above them, rough-hewn and reddish, topped by grey battlements stark against the blue skies. The cart turned off the main roadway and took a track upwards further, the castle on her right, her constant stony companion until the cart came to a sudden halt. There before them was a gatehouse, a large, imposing structure of sandy-coloured stone, two bulging circular buildings on each side and an archway in the middle. The constable motioned at them to get down, still not deigning to speak actual words to them. The cart driver lit up a pipe and ignored them too. Anny looked around at him, unspeakably jealous that this man would be returning along the road to her home town, a place she wondered if she would ever set eyes on again. The constable was arguing with him about the fee, so many pence a mile from Ironbridge to bring the felons.
Then he grunted at the women to follow him. After no food or drink since a cup of water and a hunk of old bread in the lock-up that morning, Anny was unsteady on her feet and feared she might pass out. They were led towards the archway. The constable had words with the gatekeeper, who used two keys to unlock the tall, iron gates. She wondered if the gates had been produced with local iron. Had her grandfather’s hands fashioned the iron rails that would soon stand between her and the freedom of the streets? Above the gates sat an alcove inside which had been placed a bodiless statue, the grey face of a stern man looking downwards upon them as they passed under it. Despite the heat, the stone eyes frowning at her gave her a chill and she drew her cloak around her. The woman’s baby had awoken and was starting to fuss. Its small sobs soon reached a crescendo of wailing. This desperate sound accompanied them as they passed into the courtyard of Shrewsbury Prison. The gates were locked behind them.
The constable said to the gatekeeper, ‘This’un a vagrant. This’un assisting a murder. This’un theft. This’un with the nipper is debt. Here y’are.’
He handed over some papers from inside his coat and continued co
nversing gruffly with the gatekeeper. Anny stared at the woman who had been wearing rouge the night before, which had since rubbed off. She was accused of assisting a murder. A murder! Anny had spent all night in a cell and all day on a cart with a woman who had assisted a murderer. Her mind raced with scenarios of who this woman might have helped in murdering and the murderer she had helped. She did not look like a violent woman. She just looked very tired and very bored.
Her attention was drawn away by the rising voice of the gatekeeper, ‘Nay, she canna and you had no business bringing it here,’ the gatekeeper was saying, pointing at the mother. ‘It needs taking back to its own parish.’
‘She’s nursing it, you fool. If you think I’m taking a starving waif back on a day’s journey by cart, you’re half-soaked,’ said the constable, and with that, he demanded the gate be opened and he be allowed to leave.
Two men approached them and the gatekeeper said, ‘Go with the turnkeys, then,’ and motioned them to walk through another archway into a courtyard. It was surrounded by two high walls on either side and before them the frontispiece to a long building, with arched windows along the breadth of it, all barred. She could hear shouts and calls from people behind the bars, the deeper voices of men coming from the left, the higher voices of women from the right. One turnkey took the murderer’s assistant, while the rest of them, including Anny, followed the other turnkey through a door, past an office with a brass plaque screwed to the closed door entitled ‘Keeper’.
‘You’ve missed supper,’ said the turnkey, not looking round at them. ‘Straight to the cell.’
They followed him round to the right, walking on through a maze of corridors, alive with the stink of many bodies and the grumblings, mutterings, chatter and yelling of women. Some shouted at them as they went past: ‘What did you bring us?’ and suchlike. One bright spark with a throaty voice called out, ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here!’ They walked on past small groups of cells arranged around a central area. Each group also had an open room that the guard pointed at and said, ‘Cells there, court there and that’s the day room.’ He hacked up a good load of phlegm and spat it out in a grey, jellied lump onto the ground and then said, ‘In the morning, follow the others. Wash outside, then breakfast. Surgeon’ll see you, give you the once-o’er. Matron’ll see you and give you your uniform. Set you to work. Your court is yours to keep tidy.’
They stopped at one of the courts and the turnkey said, ‘Debtors. You with young’un. You’re in there. Visitors you can have daily except Sundays. Regular visitors in the Visitor’s Room or your husband, if you have’un, in your cell. You’ll get a half-pint of wine. Not now. Tomorrow.’
The woman bowed her head onto her baby’s and went into her cell alone. The turnkey locked the door. Some cells were single, like that; others had three beds in. Anny prayed for a single. They walked on and stopped again. The turnkey said, ‘Here we are. Female Felons for Trial.’ He opened a cell door and inside were three beds and two women, who looked around. ‘You. Theft. In there.’
Anny walked in and the door clanked shut behind her. The sound of the key turning screwed her insides. She stood awkwardly on a grubby rag rug in the centre of the small space between the beds. The women were seated together on one bed, knees close together as if caught sharing secrets. They stared at her and Anny took a quick look around. There was a chamber pot in the corner filled to overflowing. Apart from that, the cell held only its beds and its inhabitants. And a high, small window, its view out of sight and reach; barred, of course.
‘Now then, Theft. What’s your real name?’
Anny looked at the women. Both wore the plain grey shapeless dress of the prison uniform. This one looked to be the same age as her mother, the other much younger, more like her age.
‘Anny.’
‘I’m Ellen, this is Jane. First time inside? You look like it is. You look as frightened as a mouse in cat country.’
Jane tittered at this.
‘Yes, first time.’
‘Sit down then. That’s your bed over there.’
Anny stepped over to the spare cot. It had a thin mattress on it, which as she sat down made the rustling sound of straw stuffing. She could feel the bedstead through it, hard and bony against her behind. Where had these iron bedframes been forged? She thought of her father and wanted to weep. Folded up at the end of the bed were two sheets and two blankets.
‘You look like a good wench,’ said Ellen. ‘But you’re mucky. You’ll need to scrub yourself right in the morning, or you won’t get your breakfast, mind.’
‘She has purty hair,’ said Jane in a small, high voice. Jane’s hand was resting on Ellen’s knee, like fond sisters. ‘Bonny colour.’
‘Thank you,’ said Anny. Jane smiled at her, a crooked, unsettling smile. Her hair was such a light yellow, it was almost white. Her pale eyes wandered a bit. Perhaps her thoughts, too.
‘Not married, lass?’ said Ellen. Her brown hair had grey streaks in it and there were dark pouches under her eyes and her cheeks and chin sagged. She looked directly at Anny without blinking. Anny was afraid of her but couldn’t explain why, as Ellen was talking kindly to her.
Anny shook her head. ‘I live with my parents in Ironbridge.’ She could not stop thinking of her father. Her mother too. What would they be thinking? They would be beside themselves. ‘They’ll likely visit tomorrow. See how I’m faring.’ Somehow she wanted to prove that she had support, she had others outside this hell who cared about her. That she was not alone in this place. But even one night’s wait here sickened her with fear. She thought she might start sobbing again, so bit her lip. She would not cry in front of these two.
‘What did you steal?’ said Ellen, those blank eyes unblinking.
‘I didn’t. I didn’t do it.’
Jane tittered again.
‘Of course you didna, lass. I didna write any threatening letters either, did I, Janey, eh?’
‘No, Nelly. No, you never did,’ said Jane, shaking her head violently from side to side, whereupon they both laughed and held onto each other, rocking back and forth. If they touch me, thought Anny, I shall scream.
Ellen stopped laughing and peered at Anny, looked her up and down. ‘Give me your hands.’
Anny did not want to. She hesitated.
‘Give me your hands, for God’s sake, girl. I dunna bite.’
‘Not hands, anyway,’ said Jane, mysteriously.
Anny could see no way round it. She held out her hands slowly, watching Ellen warily. Ellen took them roughly and rubbed them, turned them this way and that, then dropped them.
‘Office worker,’ she said, triumphantly.
‘Yes,’ said Anny.
‘I knew it. Not rough enough for hard work. Ink under your nails. We’ve got an educated miss here, not unlike myself, Jane. You mun mind your manners round this’un. I suppose you’ll be wanting a glass of wine, my lady.’
Anny remembered what the turnkey had said to the nursing mother. ‘Will we get ours tomorrow?’
‘Your what?’ said Ellen.
‘Our wine?’
Ellen and Jane looked round at each other and fell about laughing again. ‘Ooh, Lady Ann of Ironbridge is wanting her wine!’
Anny waited for the mockery to subside. ‘But the woman with the baby, he said to her . . .’
‘That’s just for debtors,’ snapped Ellen. ‘You’re a felon. You dunna get the same privileges.’
Jane piped up, ‘She’s a fine’un, like the last. They’ll make her monitor, now the other’un’s been sent yonder.’
Anny frowned and Ellen said, ‘Yes, they will, no doubt. She looks like the type who’d suck up to the turnkeys, this’un. Just like the last’un. Well, it did her no good, let me tell you, Lady Ann. She was Theft like you and she herself got transported for seven years, she did. Being the keeper’s pet did her no good at all, wunna do her no good either, out in Australia.’
Anny felt her head would explode. The effort was enorm
ous, of remaining vigilant of these two, of keeping her mouth closed on a scream, of stopping herself from running to the door and pounding upon it. Her head felt so heavy, so heavy. She let it drop into her hands and screwed her eyes shut. She would not cry, must not cry.
She heard Ellen sigh heavily. ‘Lie down and sleep,’ she said in a kinder voice.
Anny did so. Too exhausted to make the bed up with the sheets and blankets, she rested her head upon them and was out in less than a minute.
She woke in full darkness. It was a hot night, stifling in the tiny cell. She felt suffocated by the heat and the stench of the chamber pot and her two companions’ bodily emissions. Her mouth was so dry she thought she would gag. Oh, for a cup of cool water. She would give her life for it. She could not think of any other thing for several minutes, just water, water, water, a drink, a drink, a drink. To think of how busy her mind had been only a day and a half before, filled with girlish notions of love and kissing and a happy future. And now she would die for a sip of water. She listened to the other women breathing. The tears came then. She could not stop them. They flowed out of her eyes like the gush from a waterwheel, unstoppable, unending. She let them run into her mouth. At least they moistened her tongue a little, despite their saltiness. She pursed her lips to stop a sound escaping, but that betrayed her too and let out one small sob.
The Daughters of Ironbridge Page 15