by Ruthie Lewis
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Acknowledgements
Welcome to the world of Ruthie Lewis!
A letter from the Author
Recipe
Tales for Memory Lane
Memory Lane Club
Copyright
To Alice and Arthur and all the Holbrook relatives.
Hope you can forgive me mining our family history for plotlines.
Prologue
December, 1849
Waking with the familiar warm feel of her sister’s body next to hers gave Grace a few moments when she could pretend that nothing had changed and they were at home in Rotherhithe. The cold air in the workhouse dormitory was familiar too, as waking up in winter cold had been normal throughout Grace’s young life. It was the sharp smell of other bodies than Rosa’s that reminded her, even before she opened her eyes, that home was a long way away, and they would never be going back.
The girls quickly dressed in their thin woollen dresses and rushed to the dining hall. Grace sat shivering next to Rosa waiting for the meagre portion of porridge which, along with a bluish glass of skimmed milk, constituted breakfast. Usually the porridge was warm, but it was very seldom hot and always very thin. Many of the others in the hall tried to warm their hands over the bowls for a minute before starting to eat.
‘Now Gracie,’ said Rosa, ‘you remember that I will not be in lessons with you anymore from today? But you must pay attention to the teacher, and work hard and learn as much as you can.’
‘Yes, Rosa,’ replied Grace, her eyes beginning to fill with tears. ‘But couldn’t you ask them to stay on longer in the school? I shall miss you so much.’
Rosa smiled sadly. ‘No, now that I am ten they say I have no more need to go to school. I can read and write and do sums. I need to learn how to sew clothes for the workhouse. Maybe I will make your next dress, Gracie. Wouldn’t that be lovely?’ And she gave her little sister a quick hug.
‘Will I see you at dinner time, Rosa?’ asked Grace. ‘I want to see you before they take us to pick clothes.’ After the midday meal, the younger children were put to work picking old clothes in order to make rags that the workhouse could sell. The older children had a variety of other jobs, the lucky ones getting to work in the kitchen or the laundry. Half of Grace’s day was spent in the finger-shredding work, and after the first few weeks of bleeding and sore fingers her little hands had toughened up and looked like those of a much older person.
‘I don’t know whether we will be here at the same time or not. I want to do well at the sewing and learn as much as possible so that I can find a good job when I am older and can get us out of here.’ She gave Grace a kiss on the forehead. ‘So I will do just as I am told and hope that they think I am a good worker. If they say to stay I will stay, Grace, my dear. But don’t worry, I shall see you tonight. You know I shall always be here for you, Gracie.’
Grace gave her a rather watery smile and went to join all the younger children who were going up to the schoolroom on the top floor of the workhouse. Sara, one of the others, pinched Grace and said softly, ‘You better be nice to me today, or else. Did you bring some of your bread from last night’s tea?’
‘I’m sorry, Sara,’ said Grace, ‘there was no bread left at our table. I didn’t get any at all and there was none to keep. I tried, really I did.’
‘That’s what you say,’ hissed Sara, ‘but I don’t believe you. You are a greedy little pig and you stuffed your fat face with it. I can tell. You will pay for this.’
Sara was nine and ran an extortion racket among the younger children in the workhouse. Her technique was simple: do what I tell you to do, she demanded, or I will beat you. Beatings with a thick rattan cane were part of workhouse discipline, but Grace was always well-mannered and had so far avoided punishment. The first time Sara had struck her, the pain was so intense she had almost forgotten to cry.
Sara was particularly fond of preying on newcomers, either cowing them into submission or, when she spotted a like-minded urchin, gathering them to her to form part of her gang. She was careful and cunning. Sara never bothered anyone older, bigger or smarter than herself and was always sweetness and light to the workhouse staff who rewarded her with such small tokens of favour as were possible in this place. These included placing her at a table nearest the kitchen so she had the first choice of food, the best of shoes that were donated, and other small but significant things that eased the life of the staff’s favourites.
The bully kept well clear of Rosa, and her first act of terror was to make Grace swear on her mother’s grave not to tell Rosa about anything Sara did. She threatened to get Rosa moved out of Grace’s dormitory, to have her beaten up and all manner of other threats. Grace would do anything to keep Rosa safe, and to have her big sister by her side at night. Rosa was her only refuge. So, she kept quiet when Sara tormented her, pinching her and slapping her and shouting at her, knowing that if she tried to defend herself it would only make matters worse. Grace had never experienced bullying before, and she found Sara terrifying, even the sight of the older girl could make her shake and tremble.
Trying not to cry and make Sara despise her even more, Grace followed her tormentor up the three flights of stairs to the cold classroom on the top floor. Despite the cold, the room had little of the damp that permeated the lower floors and its high windows let in plenty of light. Grace made her way to her usual seat next to Nellie, a pale gingery-blonde child who sniffed a good deal, but was not unkind to Grace.
For the next three hours Grace was happy, as happy as she could be in this place where she and Rosa had been flung after the terrible weeks of illness and death had left them orphans. Three hours of learning. Although she was only five years old, Grace loved to learn. She particularly loved the letters of the alphabet and how, when they were put together, they made words, almost like magic. Words, Grace knew, even in her five-year-old brain, were powerful things and she hungered to gain mastery over them. Secretly, when the teacher wasn’t paying attention to their part of the class, Grace would try out combinations of letters to make up her own words; Grace’s special words.
But Grace knew that the teacher did not approve of her making up her own words. The teacher was interested in neat handwriting to the exclusion of almost everything else. Poor Nellie was always being told off for messy letters, for she had never held a pencil or chalk until she came to the workhouse, and her first instinct to use the slate pencil in her left hand was violently dealt with in her first week in class. The bruises on her arms and fingers lasted for many days. Struggling to form letters, she looked at Grace’s quick writing in awe.
*
Midday meant the end of education for the workhouse children. Three hours of basic reading, writing and simple arithmetic was considered to be enough, why would orphans and abandoned children need more? Workhouse education was a pragmatic investment meant to create useful workers, and to the governors of the workhouse, the children were nothing but a potential workforce.
For Grace though, the period of work that followed the midday meal was a nightmare. She was not a physically strong child, and the w
orkhouse food had made her more frail still.
Rosa, she knew, was eager to work. Rosa was determined to learn a skill or a trade that would get her a job outside the workhouse and allow them to leave this hellish place where they had been confined since their parents and brothers died of cholera. But Grace herself could hardly imagine life outside the workhouse. Already, memories of her parents were beginning to fade. There was only Rosa, five years older than herself, her big sister and only protector. She would do whatever Rosa said, but she had no real hope for the future. Some of the adult inmates had passed their entire lives in the workhouse, never setting foot outside, never feeling the sun on their faces or the wind on their cheeks, and Grace was sure that this would happen to her.
*
As the children rattled down the stairs in their heavy, ill-fitting clogs and boots to the work room, Sara came up close behind Grace and hissed in her ear. ‘I haven’t forgotten you owe me one, you know.’ Then she shoved past Grace and out to the yard, going towards the laundry. Older and stronger than Grace and able to do more physical work, Sara had a job in the warm wash house, another mark of the favour shown to the young bully.
Grace and Nellie, along with many more of the smaller and weaker children, found their way to the picking room, and found a seat together. Nellie didn’t talk much, but she was a kind little person and would leave Grace to her work and not make a stream of complaints which were bound to bring the attention of the head picker down on them. As the afternoon wore on Nellie and Grace began to look forward to the evening meal, meagre though it would be, usually just a piece of bread and thin soup.
There was a small commotion at the door to the picking room, and then the head picker shouted, ‘Grace Perrow, get yourself over ’ere!’
Grace looked up in surprise, but she ran quickly to the door, fearing that something had happened to Rosa. It always seemed like something was happening to one of the children.
‘A treat for you, young Grace,’ said a thin, hard-faced woman. ‘You’ll have the rest of the day in the nice warm laundry. They are short of a hand or two and you’ve been picked. Goodness knows why,’ she said looking Grace up and down, ‘can’t see you’ll be much use heaving laundry about, but it ain’t up to me.’
Grace was surprised and a bit worried at this change. She gave Nellie a quick glance of enquiry, and then followed this strong-smelling and faintly steaming woman across the workhouse yard and into the thick, hot and noisy room. ‘ ’Ere you,’ shouted a stout red-skinned woman standing by a big copper boiling pot, ‘Come ’ere and get a wiggle on. There’s bags to do and we’re behind.’
The stout woman gave Grace a searching look. ‘Sara didn’t say you were such a titchy thing . . . well often the small ones are the nippiest. Here’s your hook, luv. Just reach into this bloody pot and sling the hook and clothes onto that pile for Big Sal to put through the mangle. An’ don’t you go anywheres near that mortal mangle. Pulling you out of there would muck up the day good and proper.’
Grace took the hook and gingerly prodded in the copper, bringing out a small wet article that she turned and added to Big Sal’s pile of work. The smell of lye soap caught in the back of her throat and made her eyes water. The copper was full of bubbling, boiling water and looked to Grace like a living monster. Grace was afraid of boiling water, having nearly been badly burned in her mother’s kitchen last year, but she was even more frightened of Big Sal who kept shouting at her to ‘get a flaming move on’. Now Sal shoved a wooden box towards Grace. ‘You’d better stand on this if you are going to be any use at all. We need all that laundry out, not just the bit on the top.’
Grace held on tight to the wooden top edge of the copper to reach as far down into the cauldron as she could. She used her sleeve to try and keep her hand from burning. Behind her she heard Sara’s voice.
‘How do you like your new job, lazy-bones? Time you did some proper work like the rest of us,’ and she slapped Grace hard on the back. Grace staggered and clutched again at the edge of the copper, trying to use her hook to regain her balance. She righted herself, frightened and resentful at the same time, and thought, Proper work? I’ll show her.
For the next half hour she worked like a demon, grabbing clothes and flinging them onto the pile like a little girl possessed. As the amount of laundry in the copper decreased, she had to lean further and further over the edge, her balance as she stood on the wooden box growing more and more precarious, but she was determined to drag out every single piece of laundry.
Fishing with the hook in the boiling depths, she dragged up an enormous quantity of clothing. The weight made her arms and shoulders ache and she struggled to lift them. She gave another heave, but the weight was too great and she lost her balance. Her feet slid out from under her, and then she was falling towards the rim of the copper, her legs kicking in the air. She knew she should drop the hook and use her arms to regain her balance, but she could not bring herself to do so.
Steam blinded her. She screamed and in her own ears it seemed particularly loud and piercing. She screamed again, but to no avail. She lost her balance completely, and began to fall towards the boiling water.
Then all at once someone grabbed her lower legs and hauled her back. Flailing, she managed to shed some of the clothes from her hook. Released from the weight, the hook and the remaining clothes flew backwards over her head as she was dragged to safety. The hands holding her legs let go and she fell, stumbling off her box and collapsing on the floor. She landed on something soft and realised after a moment that she could see Rosa’s skirt under her. It was Rosa who had grabbed her, and it was Rosa who was underneath her now, crying out in pain.
Scrambling to her feet, Grace saw that the boiling hot clothes that had remained on the hook had hit Rosa and were still wrapped around her upper body. Grace grabbed the clothes and began to pull them free. They burned her hands but she didn’t care; she was desperate to get them off of Rosa. It was mere moments before Grace had removed the clothes but already she could see that Rosa’s arms were terribly burnt. Almost worse than the burns, Rosa had fallen with her leg underneath her and was struggling to get up, biting her lip to avoid crying out in pain again.
Finally Big Sal turned and saw what had happened. Moving swiftly, she pulled Rosa up with strong arms. ‘Can you walk, then?’
Rosa replied through gritted teeth, ‘My left leg. It hurts.’
‘Hmm.’ Accidents in the laundry were commonplace; Big Sal had seen almost everything during her years of service here. ‘Reckon you’ve twisted your ankle and all,’ she said. ‘And the skin on your arms looks dangerous red. Right you, hop along to the infirmary. Grace, go with her.’ She turned and began shouting at the other girls. ‘Don’t just stand there, get a flaming move on!’
*
Later that evening, Grace was allowed to go and see Rosa in the infirmary before bed. Her big sister was lying with her left leg raised and her right arm bandaged to the shoulder. Grace tiptoed to the side of the bed. ‘Rosa, Rosa, you are hurt, all because you saved me,’ she said in a soft voice. ‘I am so sorry, Rosa. Please don’t die’.
‘Gracie, dear Gracie,’ said Rosa, smiling through her pain. ‘I am not going to die. It only hurts a bit and I am nowhere near dying. I wouldn’t leave you on your own. I will always be with you, Gracie. Remember it’s me and you, together for always.’
Chapter 1
June, 1867
‘Oh, look, Grace! Who is that ever so handsome man?’
The young man, who was indeed a rather pleasing sight in grey frock coat and fawn trousers, looked around and saw the two young women. Realising he was the object of their attentions, he removed his top hat and bowed solemnly in their direction. Grace and Mela curtseyed and then turned away, hands over their mouths to cover their giggles. ‘He’s still watching us,’ murmured Grace. ‘I think he likes you, Mela.’
‘I think he is looking at you,’ said Mela Clare. She twirled her parasol and then reached up to adjust
a stray lock of her fair hair. ‘Oh, look. Now he is talking to Lady Ringrose. I wonder if he is one of that family? If so, he will make a very good catch for someone.’
‘I thought you vowed you would never marry,’ said Grace.
‘And so I did. But one can walk past a shop window and admire a fine gown without desiring to try it on.’
‘Mela! You are quite shocking,’ said Grace, laughing. ‘Come, let us go and find your mother, before you get into trouble.’
They linked arms and walked across the grass. Around them, the trees of Hyde Park glowed vivid green beneath a blue spring sky. Little groups of picnickers were scattered across the grass, eating cold chicken and pies. Two little girls in pretty dresses were playing with a ball. They looked like sisters. The younger was about five, Grace saw, the same age as she had been in the workhouse.
She was twenty-three now, and that terrible year in the workhouse was for the most part a distant memory, although sometimes she dreamed of it still. Only last night she had woken in a panic, remembering the laundry, the boiling water and heat and steam and fear. She had dreamed of slipping, falling towards the boiling water, and Rosa’s hand dragging her back, Rosa’s cries of pain as the hot fabric scalded her skin.
Grace had become convinced that she would be in the workhouse forever, working and enduring Sara’s bullying. They were rescued in the end by their Aunt Edith, their mother’s sister, who had combed every workhouse in London and finally found them in faraway Chelsea, where they had been taken after the cholera epidemic. Aunt Edith had secured their release and brought them to live with her at her home in Bermondsey, south of the Thames. She was a widow who worked in a factory that made clothing; her husband had been a soldier who had been killed far away in Afghanistan at a place called Gandamack. Her only son, Charlie, had run away to join one of the street gangs that infested that part of London, and had never been seen again. All the love she might have given her own family was poured out instead on Rosa and Grace, and her death, when Grace was fourteen, had broken Grace’s heart.