Sixpenny Girl

by Meg Hutchinson

  ‘Saran!’ His own shout ringing above the sound of hammer on iron he launched himself at the heavy figure. ‘If you be talkin’ of Saran . . . if you’ve hurt her . . . !’

  ‘Luke.’ Gideon’s curt voice mingled with one cracking with anger. ‘Luke, she is all right . . . Luke!’

  So this was Luke, Luke Hipton. Zadok’s brain cleared, leaving an unhindered path to memory. This was the lad Ensell had told him of, the one who had probably had a hand in the returning of that brooch to Salisbury. Oh yes, Ensell had told him all about that! A fortune . . . the brooch must have been worth thousands and it could have been his had it not been for this brat and a slut of a wench . . . a wench who had dared tell him she would destroy his life. He had waited his chance to take recompense for the losing of that brooch and right now he could begin with Hipton . . . and the girl? He could deal with her anytime, swat her as he would a fly.

  It was her fault. Gideon and Luke both sacked and it was her fault; if only she hadn’t gone to the works! Spirits which had drooped since it had happened drooped lower. Luke had tried to cheer her, vowing he was thinking of leaving the tube works, Minch had merely pushed him along a little. But that was all his words could have been, an attempt to restore her spirits, they could not possibly be the truth.

  Truth. She stared at her reflection in the mirror Luke had hung in her bedroom on one of those first few days they had come to live at Brook Cottage. Who was she to speak of truth when . . .

  Picking up her hairbrush she touched it to hair already brushed and plaited, then, impatient with herself, she replaced it.

  She had accused Luke of being untruthful, accused Gideon Newell of deceit! Luke had gone to the house he thought was that of Jairus Ensell’s grandmother but there had been no woman there, young or old . . . so Jairus, too, had lied.

  Crossing to the bed, she knelt, forcing her mind to concentrate on the prayers she never forgot to say, prayers asking eternal peace and rest for the souls of her mother and sister; but the moment that was done the thoughts she had banished came crowding in on her brain.

  Jairus had lied when saying he was searching for the Elwell children, had he lied also when saying he had searched for her own loved ones? And that day she had met him leaving the workhouse and he had said he was there to make a monthly donation, was that also lies? Had he in fact been there with the loathsome intention of taking young children to sell to the likes of Zadok Minch?

  Lying in the semi-darkness of her room she winced at the horror of it all. Now Jairus was dead and, dreadful as it seemed, she could feel no sorrow at all. The man she had been ready to marry, to give her life to . . . and she could not mourn for him.

  ‘that wouldn’t ’ave happened’

  The words leapt at her. Luke’s words, not Gideon’s. Luke might have intervened before the final moment, might have told the truth about Jairus and thus have prevented her marrying him, but not so Gideon.

  It was a pain so strong it was almost physical. Closing her eyes she tried to shut out all memory of the rest but like river water they kept on flowing. The boy’s stare had been more angry than she had ever known, their reproach brilliant. It seemed on reflection that he was censuring her, blaming her for something he felt she should have known; but what, what was the something she should know?

  ‘he might not ’ave told you cos of—’

  Luke’s words battered her mind, demanding they be let in, that they be understood.

  ‘he knows why he mightn’t’

  Wouldn’t they ever go away, the thoughts that had tormented every long hour of her day! What did it matter the reason he would not speak to her of Jairus Ensell’s activities? The fact was she was of so little importance to Gideon Newell he had been prepared to stand by and watch her throw her life away.

  She was of no importance to him! The breath which followed was short, almost a gasp which caught and held in her throat. He had no feeling for her at all except perhaps that of cold dislike.

  But it had not seemed like that when he had held her. His touch had been gentle yet strong; held against him she had felt safe, protected. It had been simply an act of kindness on his part, though, a comfort he would have extended to any woman in those circumstances. But with Jairus she had never felt as she had in those few brief moments. His touch had not aroused that deep disturbing tumult in her stomach.

  Truth! Her eyes opening slowly she stared into the moonlit shadows of her room but inner eyes watched different shadows. Slowly, like drifts of mist on a summer morning, they floated across her mind, thinning into long hazy fingers reluctant to part and when finally they melted her breath caught again in her throat. She had accused Gideon of deceit but was her own any less? It had been deception when she had told herself she loved Jairus Ensell, lies when saying to herself she was content to marry him. There had been no wild frenzy deep inside her whenever he smiled, whenever he took her in his arms.

  Who was she to speak of truth when – the thought came again and this time it spoke on – when truth said it was not Jairus Ensell’s arms she wanted to be in but those of Gideon Newell!

  33

  Lack of sleep had kept her listless all day. Her head aching, Saran closed the accounts ledger pushing it away from her across the kitchen table. So weary her legs screamed, she rose when sounds from the scullery told her Luke was home.

  He had said he had been thinking of leaving the tube works and she had not believed him, yet there had been none of the despondency she had witnessed in other people when losing their livelihood; in fact, it was the opposite, Luke was nothing if not cheerful. And what of Gideon Newell, was he so full of spirits? That was a question she could not answer for she had not seen him since that day he had stood against Zadok Minch, nor could she bring herself to enquire of him from Luke.

  ‘That be it, signed and sealed . . . the whole thing be done.’ Luke bounced into the kitchen, flinging his arms about her, swirling her around the table in a wild dance.

  ‘What is signed and sealed? Luke, put me down!’

  ‘The deal with John Adams.’ Planting a kiss on her cheek he set her on a chair, his hands on her arms, his eyes dancing with excitement.

  A deal . . . with John Adams, something else she had known nothing about! Saran’s head throbbed. Why the secrecy, did Luke no longer trust her as he once had, was he growing away from her? Of course it must happen . . . but so soon?

  ‘You sit there while I make us a cup of tea to celebrate.’

  His grin wide as the canal which ran past the cottage given over to the Elwells, he danced to the fireplace swinging the teapot about his head, but Saran felt none of his elation.

  ‘Luke,’ she asked quietly, ‘what is it we are to celebrate, and why could I not be told?’

  The flatness of her tone reaching through to him Luke set the teapot down. ‘It were me this time.’ He sat opposite, her hand in his. ‘It were not Gideon, he were against it but I told him it were my business.’

  ‘Gideon . . . does he have something to do with this?’

  Hair which fingers must have driven through several times during the day flopped over his forehead as Luke nodded.

  ‘He be three-quarters of Newell and Hipton.’

  Pride shone on the young face but a sudden snatch at her nerves kept Saran silent. What had Luke done . . . and what part had Gideon Newell played in it?

  ‘That be why I wouldn’t tell you, I knowed it would worry you.’ Luke had read the expression on her face. ‘But it were my money to chance, my life to live, and going into partnership with Gideon is the future I want.’

  He was defending himself, explaining himself to her. But why should he when what he said was right? Luke Hipton’s life belonged to none other than Luke Hipton.

  She looked at the hand holding hers, a hold that was so surely being broken and her heart twisted. Luke had never been a child and now the man she had many times seen just beneath the surface was finally breaking through. ‘Luke,’ she swallowed, the words an obs
tacle in her throat, ‘Luke, you do not need to explain, you are not tied to this house nor to me, if you have decided to leave—’

  ‘But I ain’t!’ Luke’s retort was swift. ‘It ain’t that at all, I don’t never want to part from you and even when I be of an age when it be indecent for me to live in this house I’ll find a place close by. It . . . it were the money. I thought that by not tellin’ you what I planned you wouldn’t have any worries if I lost it, though I’ve set some by against my keep.’

  ‘I don’t care about the money.’ Saran smiled. ‘It was yours to do with as you wish.’

  ‘And that were my wish.’ The returning excitement added fresh lustre to vivid eyes. ‘To have a place if not all my own, at least to own a part of it. Gideon gave me that when he agreed to me becoming his partner in the property he purchased from John Adams.’

  ‘But John Adams sold his property to Zadok Minch.’

  ‘Not all of it.’ Eyes like blue stars glittered their enthusiasm. ‘He didn’t sell that he built on Monway Field to Zadok Minch, he sold that to Gideon . . . and to me. The money I had saved together with that given by William Salisbury bought only a small share, but it’s a start, Saran, it’s a start and I mean to make it grow.’

  ‘That’s all very well, but what is it you intend to make grow, have you and Mr Newell decided to go into farming?’

  Catching the twinkle behind the tiredness Luke laughed then dropped a kiss on the hand he still held. ‘Smart, Miss Chandler, but wrong. Newell and Hipton are going to grow iron!’

  Luke was part-owner of an iron foundry. The ledger put away she set the table for supper, Luke’s whistle floating in from the scullery where he was washing his hands and face. And Gideon Newell was his partner. He had worked at the Coronet from being a boy, Luke had confided, and had saved every last penny he could so one day he could buy his dream, and that day had come when John Adams had agreed on a down payment to be followed by annual instalments until the whole were paid. What it amounted to was that Luke was in debt . . . and when the flush of excitement finally died away would he regret it?

  The queen had been crowned and thanks given to God, the country had rejoiced and sang but then it was over and once more the realities of life had fallen into place. It had left her exhausted, the extra bread-making for the workers of William Salisbury. She had been obliged to take on three more women in order to fulfil that request, finding each of them a place to stay with widows who had no other source of income. Then the coronation was over. But how could she send those women back to the hell she had taken them from, return the men taken on to give Ezekiel extra help with the brewing, or the young boy whose task was scrubbing the bread cart every evening? He had the cart almost as white as the linen cloth which covered the loaves. Remembering it now Saran saw the grin which greeted her each time the task was finished, the pride with which he took the pay she knew would go to help feed brothers and sisters. How could she take that away from him?

  ‘The way be not easy.’

  Harriet Dowen’s words, spoken so long ago, had crept into her mind as they often did. Over the many months since being forced from her home, seeing her mother and sister led away, bought like chattels in a market place, her own humiliation on that auction table, Enoch Jacobs offering her like so much meat, those words had proved ever more true.

  ‘the path which fate unrolls before you be pitted with grief and anguish, pocked with bitterness and misery’

  Those, too, had not been empty words. Had Harriet Dowen’s special sight shown that which she had not been told? Had that kind-hearted woman thought the horror of hearing her family were doomed to die beneath the lash of a sadistic whip too much for a young girl to bear? But she had borne the misery, and would to her life’s end. And the bitterness? Would that, too, live with her for ever?

  In the coach taking her to Birmingham, Saran now remembered the events of a year ago.

  ‘There you be, wench.’ Sat on a stone enjoying the June heat Ezekiel had smiled, one tooth sitting in lone splendour in his gums. ‘That there bread carries the scent of ’eaven.’

  Handing him his usual loaf she had rested on the stone beside him, her brown skirts spread about her feet.

  ‘Be you feelin’ poorly, wench?’ The old man had looked piercingly at her tired face.

  ‘I’m well enough, thank you, Ezekiel . . . just tired.’

  ‘No.’ He had shaken his grey head. ‘It be more’n just tired . . . you be fretted over summat. Tellin’ what it be might see the easing of it.’

  It was the tap which had released the spring of her emotions. Sat beside the man who had become a support as well as a friend, she had let it all pour out.

  ‘It be a great responsibility for one so young,’ Ezekiel had said when the flow slowed to a drip. ‘Bein’ nail master to every nailer in the town, tekin’ on folk to work at the brewin’ and the bread; but the Lord don’t place burdens He thinks be too ’eavy for the shoulders given the carrying of ’em.’

  It had been meant as comfort and she had smiled her gratitude, but words did not diminish the worries of paying those extra wages.

  ‘Wench,’ Ezekiel’s hand had touched her arm, staying her as she made to stand. ‘I be an old man and not spritely as I once were but I sees things mebbe the young be too rushed to see. I’ve been on this earth many years and been witness to many changes yet I knows there be more still to come and that be good, for change be the fresh water which keeps the channels of life clear, without it the world sleeps and man stagnates. Try not to be afeared of life, wench, nor of the changes it brings. This Black Country of ours be small but it will grow, grow so all the world knows it. It will rise to stand tall; held on stanchions of iron, the arteries of its industries will reach beyond boundaries not yet dreamed of.’ He had looked at her then, and in those rheumy old eyes had gleamed a confidence which even now, more than a year later, she remembered with vivid clarity. He had patted her hand, the gnarled touch seeming to transfer a strength she had almost felt flow into her own body, and with it he had nodded. ‘Accept the challenge,’ he had said, ‘face the future, child, and rise you up with it.’

  As the coach drew to a halt a man sat opposite raised his tall hat, wishing her a polite good morning. So very different from that other ride to Birmingham!

  The brief stop over, the coach resumed its journey and Saran’s mind, lulled by the steady rhythm of horses’ hooves, continued her own journey along the road of memory.

  She had forgotten her tiredness, the old man’s enthusiasm had been invigorating. He had gone on to talk of the success the wheat wine had been with people celebrating the queen’s coronation and of the daily requests of hotel managers and tavern-keepers for more of the same.

  ‘You be lettin’ opportunity slip away.’ Ezekiel’s words were loud in her reverie. ‘That there wine could bring a fortune were it to reach further across the land.’

  ‘But I don’t want a fortune, I just want enough to pay my workers.’

  Staring out of the window Saran’s gaze saw nothing of the fields, their crops dotted with the brilliance of wild flowers, seeing instead the old man’s look as he shook his head slowly.

  ‘Think you only of a few when there be so many needs the lift of yer hand?’

  It had sounded almost like a reproach and she remembered the surprise and stab of hurt it had brought.

  ‘The nailing will be teken from folk, done by machines I already hears talk of when that day comes they be going to need new work and you can give it to them.’

  He had hushed the protest on her lips, talking softly of the ideas in his mind. They had been shrewd. No more selling of the ‘uisge’ by the barrel. He had used the term by which his forebears had known the strong drink brewed from wheat. ‘Put it in bottles of clear glass so the beauty of its colour shines through, place upon each a label elegant and distinctive, give the brew a name the little queen herself might have chosen so the high ones of the land, as well as those building their money from in
dustry, will be proud to serve it in their homes.’

  She could smile now that time was proving the old man right, but that same evening it had taken Luke’s support for Ezekiel’s proposals to reinvigorate her own. Luke . . . as always he had been so wonderful. They had sat for hours dreaming up fancy names, him laughing at some she suggested, flatly denying it be labelled just plain whisky. Ezekiel was right, he had declared, when she had tried to argue in favour of plainness. Fine feathers made birds which caught the eye, it must be the same with her whisky. It was then Gideon had come for the discussion he had arranged with Luke to talk of their own business.

  Her heart had quickened as it quickened now remembering the tall straightness of him, the ghost of a smile that had touched his strong mouth as he greeted her, but most of all she remembered his eyes. Guarded, cautious, yet with a wistfulness sheathed in a second, those grey eyes had held hers then looked away.

  ‘If, as Ezekiel says, the whisky will sell to gentlemen of wealth then they should be made to feel it is something is reserved solely for them. Why not label it so?’ He had returned his glance then, looking her straight in the eyes, saying quietly, ‘Even though hope can never be realised, men still hope the best is held in reserve, that it is for them alone.’

  ‘So what would you call it?’

  Luke had not seen that look in Gideon’s eyes, felt the lurch his quiet words had jolted in her stomach, but his question had been enough to break the moment.

  ‘What else?’ Gideon had smiled but it was not for her. ‘What else but Gentleman’s Reserve?’

  And so it had become. Bronzed gilt paper finely edged with a band of gold enclosed the elegantly scripted name:

  Gentleman’s Reserve . . . the spirit of character for gentlemen of character

  It had proved an astounding success, so much so that Ezekiel had allowed his property to be extended . . . property his death showed had been willed to her. And she had used it to fulfil that old man’s vision of the future. ‘Gentleman’s Reserve’ had been quickly followed by: