by Tania Crosse
‘Holy Mother of God, why won’t you let me help you?’
She whipped round, a kind of madness seizing her as she watched him standing in the middle of the road, getting as wet as she was, his hands raised in incomprehension. Her heart filled with loathing. Everyone had let her down: Emmanuel, Mr Trembath, but most of all Connor O’Mahoney. And all her bitterness focused on him as they faced each other in the pouring rain.
‘Cuz it’s all your fault, that’s why!’ she screamed at him. ‘Now go back and collect your precious lamp and leave me alone!’
She spun on her heel and broke into a run as she turned the corner and pounded up the hill towards Bannawell Street, blinding tears streaming down her cheeks. Back on West Street, Connor stood, arms hanging by his sides, oblivious to the rain and totally at a loss.
Tresca had never been to Vera’s home in Paddon’s Row. As she set out along Duke Street, a glacial wind struck through her shawl. But she was already so cold and miserable that she scarcely noticed. She had come to the end and her brain was numb.
The string of little shops on either side, once the source of delight – and the hope of employment – passed by unnoticed and anonymous. They were all busy, with Christmas being only three days away, but Tresca was oblivious to them since neither they nor all the wealthier households in the town had been able to offer the work which would have saved her and Emmanuel from the dire situation they now faced.
She ducked through the narrow passageway that brought her out into a little courtyard with quaint, rickety buildings on either side. One of them had a small sign in the window declaring it to be a dressmaker’s establishment, and Tresca went inside. The small front room was empty but for a couple of velvet-covered chairs and a little table where a lamp, turned low, cast eerie shadows on the walls. But the doorbell had alerted someone in the back room and a slim woman, herself smartly though simply dressed, appeared through the door.
‘Can I help you, madam?’ she asked pleasantly.
Madam? Tresca could have laughed. As if she had come to have some beautiful new gown created.
‘I’ve come to see Miss Miles, if she’m at home. I’m Tresca Ladycott.’
The woman’s face fell, though it was clear she tried not to let it show. ‘Oh, yes. Vera’s told me all about you. She’s up in her room. Do come through.’
Tresca followed her into what was evidently the work-cum-fitting room. Beyond it was a small, plainly furnished kitchen. Another door revealed a tiny, narrow staircase that led up to two rooms above. The woman knocked gently on one of the doors.
‘Vera, you has a visitor. Your friend Tresca.’
She left them to it, and Tresca stepped into a good-sized room. It was almost as spartan as her own, with bare floorboards, a plain washstand and a simple iron bedstead in one corner. The walls were painted white and were bare apart from a ‘Home, Sweet Home’ sampler over the tiny fireplace. But for all its puritanical sparseness, it appeared to Tresca like a haven of peace.
‘Tresca!’ Vera got up from the rustic chair by the fireside, and setting the bible she had been reading on the bed, she came forward with her hands outstretched in greeting. ‘What a lovely surprise! Welcome to my humble abode. Oh, you’re frozen!’ she declared as she took Tresca’s hands. ‘Where’s your coat and gloves? Oh, come and sit by the fire.’
Tresca obeyed meekly. Kneeling in front of the lively fire in the tiny grate, she could feel the heat penetrating her icy flesh. Vera knelt down beside her, her eyes deep with concern.
‘Is something wrong? You look so pale. Oh, my, it’s not your father, is it? Oh, good Lord, nothing’s happened to him, has it?’
Tresca could have died from shame. The moment had come to admit it. She took in a deep breath, lifting her eyes to the ceiling as she wrung her hands.
‘Not exactly. But . . . Oh, Vera. He were dismissed from work. About a month ago. He . . . he has a drink problem, you see. He’d been drinking at work, and Connor – Mr O’Mahoney, his foreman – sent him packing. And we’ve tried everything to find work, but there’s nothing. I’ve pawned everything we have, and there’s simply nort left. We’ve had no coal for I don’t know how long and we’ve been living on bread and water the last few days. And the rent’s due again tomorrow and there’s nort to pay it with. And . . . and I don’t want to end up like poor Bella.’
Her last words were blurted out on the brink of hysteria, and she turned to Vera’s horrified face, her eyes brimming with tears of despair. The spirit had finally died inside her and a brutal sob broke from her lungs.
Vera pursed her lips and a curtain of silence shrouded the room. ‘And there’s no one else you can turn to?’ she prompted at last.
‘No,’ Tresca answered, firm, defiant, empty.
Vera hesitated. ‘Oh dear. This sounds awful but there’s little I can do to help. As you see, I live very frugally myself. My allowance covers the rent and my day-to-day living, but it stretches no further than that. I’m sure Thirza wouldn’t mind you sharing my room, but neither of us could afford to feed you. And if my uncle were suddenly to put in an appearance as he sometimes does without warning, and found you living here, he’d likely cut off my allowance altogether. And it wouldn’t solve the problem of somewhere for your father to live.’
Her words cut into Tresca’s brain like shards of glass. But what else had she expected? She already knew that Vera led a simple life, doing charitable work among the poor with no reward for her efforts. But to have it placed so starkly before her when she had hoped so desperately that Vera could help her was crucifying. The tiny flicker of hope that had struggled to keep aflame inside her was finally extinguished.
‘There’s only one thing I can do for you,’ she realized Vera was saying, her voice low and cracked. ‘There’s a meeting of the Guardians tomorrow. I can have a word with the vicar. Get him to recommend your case to the Board. You . . . you were both born in Tavistock, weren’t you? Or in one of the parishes of the Union?’
Tresca slowly bowed her head. She knew what Vera meant, and the pain and misery tumbled down around her. The bleak, daunting edifice at the top of Bannawell Street, so cold and hostile. She had turned her head away on the few occasions she had walked past it, pitying the poor souls who were incarcerated within its heartless walls. And what was it Bella had said? That she would rather die then enter the ‘institution’? Her wish had been granted.
‘The master in charge is a good man. Mr Solloway his name is,’ Vera went on, trying to make her own voice lighter, although Tresca could tell it was false. ‘And Dr Greenwood, he keeps an eye on the . . . on everyone’s health matters. It usually falls to a far less senior physician, but he has such a care for the poor . . . Well, you know what I mean. So . . . so what do you think?’
Tresca could not meet her friend’s eyes. Her life had been crushed into a million pieces, but there was nothing else she could do. After all her efforts, the fight had finally gone out of her. And the spectre of Bella, who had died from poverty and neglect when all was said and done, haunted her day and night. Surely anything was better than that.
Slowly, she nodded her head, and beside her she heard Vera’s soft sigh. She realized that Vera had not dared to utter the word that was imprinted on both their minds in heavy, black letters: workhouse.
Twelve
They dragged themselves to the top of Bannawell Street, carrying the few possessions they still had. The air was solid with the cold that sliced cruelly through their thin clothes, since all their warmer ones had been pawned. Dry snowflakes swirled on the frozen ground like white dust, but it was too cold for it to settle, and Tresca reflected dispassionately that it was unlikely to be a white Christmas.
The long climb up the steep hill did little to warm them, and Emmanuel coughed as the frosted air rasped in his lungs. As for Tresca, she felt her heart had turned to stone. She had sworn to make it impenetrable, and if the tears that ran down her cheeks were turning to tiny icicles on her skin, then they weren’t t
ears at all but merely the result of the Arctic wind making her eyes water. A scraggy kitten, one of many feral cats that survived on the rubbish so often thrown into the gutter, tiptoed across the road, walking delicately to keep its paws off the icy surface as much as possible. Normally Tresca might have stopped to play with it for a minute or two, but today she ignored it, deliberately hardening her heart to all feeling.
And there it was, sitting at the top of the hill like a great vulture on its nest, waiting for its prey. The long, low building across the front with the great archway entrance was dwarfed by the three-storey soulless prison behind. Tresca realized that both she and Emmanuel had come to a halt, staring, every nerve stretched with tension. The moment had come. Their eyes met, and if Tresca had ever blamed her father, all the resentment fled at the anguish she read on his face now. He seemed slightly bent, suddenly old, and once more he coughed painfully. His fingers reached for hers, she returned his watery smile, and they walked up to the solid wooden gates hand in hand.
Emmanuel yanked on the bell pull and they heard its dull toll from somewhere inside. Tresca listened, the knot of apprehension tightening in her stomach as a heavy key turned. A door cut into one of the gates creaked open and a man, swathed in a heavy greatcoat, stuck his head out.
‘Yes?’ he barked.
Tresca saw her father swallow. ‘Emmanuel Ladycott,’ he barely whispered, ‘an’ my darter, Tresca.’
‘Yes. Us was expectin’ you.’
He jerked his head for them to come inside and they stepped across the threshold into a cold, empty world. Tresca shuddered as the door was locked behind them. It was like being buried alive.
‘Wait yere,’ they were ordered brusquely. And they did, silent and afraid.
‘Anither one for you, Mrs Solloway,’ they heard a distant voice. And then the man reappeared. ‘This way. No, not you, you girt idjit,’ he growled as Tresca went to step after her father. ‘Men and women is separate in yere.’
Tresca stood, frozen in time, as Emmanuel was pulled away. Her arm was dragged forward, their hands clinging, fingertips touching until the very last second.
‘Father!’ Her vision misted with unshed tears so that the last she saw of him as he was marched away was his blurred face. She was sure he mouthed the words I love you over his shoulder. And then he was gone, swallowed up through a door that was shut firmly behind him.
‘Now then, Tresca Ladycott, is it?’
She swiftly pressed the base of her thumbs against her eyes, and then wiped them on her skirt. She wasn’t going to let them see her tears. She set her jaw defiantly and turned round. The woman she found standing there was far less formidable than she had expected. Round and plump as an apple, she was clad in a thick, woollen cloak with a black cap tied beneath her chin. She reminded Tresca of a fat crow. The only obvious sign of authority was the massive bunch of keys that hung from her belt.
‘Bark’s worse than his bite, that one.’ She nodded so that the pleats on her cap flapped like a bird’s wings. ‘Be all right, your father will, if he does as he’s told. Now then, come this way. I’m the Matron, Mrs Solloway. I’ll take you through to the women’s probationary ward and get you ready for the doctor. You’re lucky he’s due to come later this morning. Only comes once a week unless we need him urgently in the infirmary. And not the most pleasant place, the probationary ward. Got an imbecile in at the minute, we have, waiting for Dr Greenwood’s assessment.’
Her words barely registered in Tresca’s brain as she followed her across the extensive square formed by the building. At least it would have been extensive if it weren’t divided into two by a high wall.
‘Exercise yards,’ Mrs Solloway explained, and then producing her bunch of keys she unlocked a door at the far side.
Dear God, it was just like a prison, Tresca thought miserably as she was led along a dark corridor. Or a morgue, silent as death itself. The only figures she saw in the distance were grey, floating like ghosts.
‘In here,’ the Matron instructed, and Tresca found herself in a large, high-ceilinged room with six iron bedsteads. The windows were tall, and high up in the bare walls so that you couldn’t see out even if you stood on a chair. There were no curtains and the small hearth was empty and lifeless. An old woman, dressed in a gown that might once have been white, was sitting on one of the beds, rocking herself back and forth, her long, grey wispy hair wild about her face.
‘Ah, Mrs Drake,’ Mrs Solloway addressed a woman sitting at the desk. ‘Take our new inmate along to the bath house and prepare her for the doctor. You can leave your little bundle here with me, Ladycott.’
Tresca obeyed, for what else was there to do? But she was determined not to let her fear show. The bath house smelt of damp and metal and the sharp, acrid odour of carbolic soap. Tresca stared at the row of tin baths propped against the wall and the army of large white enamel jugs standing to attention by a long sink with four taps coming off a rusty pipe. There was a huge boiler but it clearly wasn’t lit as the room was as cold as the winter’s day outside.
‘Sit on that stool, Ladycott,’ Mrs Drake commanded. ‘Take the shawl off your head. I’ll just get the scissors.’
‘Scissors?’
Alarm swept through Tresca’s body and she leapt up again, her heart trying to escape from her chest. But Mrs Drake nodded her head emphatically.
‘Can’t have hair as long and thick as yours in here. Lice, you see. Seems a pity to cut it off, mind, but we can sell it to the wig-maker and it’ll help pay for your keep.’
‘But I don’t have lice!’ Tresca protested, hands clamped protectively over her head in absolute horror.
‘You soon will have in here with that mane. Besides, it’s the rules.’
‘B–but what about the old woman just now? You hadn’t cut her hair off.’
‘Oh, we will, cheel, we will. Just as soon as I can get Mr Blake to hold her down for me. Now come along, let’s get it over with.’
Tresca gazed at the woman, her heart pounding. Good God, as if it wasn’t soul-destroying enough, now she had to submit to this appalling degradation as well. Perhaps Bella had been right, after all. Tresca wanted to lash out, but if she wanted a roof over her head and food in her belly over the next days and weeks, what choice did she have? A thin, anguished sound gurgled in her throat and she slowly lowered herself back on to the stool.
She stared at the wall ahead, unblinking, a study of composure. With each rasp of the scissor blades, a thread more of the spirit that had once been Tresca Ladycott was severed and fell to the floor with her silvery tawny hair. Within seconds, she was shorn like a sheep in springtime. And to add to the humiliation, Mrs Drake was retrieving the long, thick tresses and hanging them over her arm in admiration.
‘Should get a good price for this at the wig-maker’s,’ she said approvingly.
A spasm of pain twitched at Tresca’s face and her trembling hand travelled falteringly up to her head. Her fingers found a short cap of down. Not just chopped off on a level with her ears, but cropped almost to her scalp. Silent tears collected in her eyes, but she must not cry. Her heart closed into a hard knot somewhere deep inside her.
‘Right now, help me with one of the baths and we’ll put some water in it. Only cold today, mind. But you can be quick about it. Get your clothes off and I’ll take them for fumigating. Then they’ll be stored until you leave.’
‘And how will I leave?’ Tresca demanded with a momentary flash of her old spirit.
‘You can leave any time you wish. But I suggest you wait till someone comes for you. A relative or a friend. Or until someone comes wanting a girl for work. In service or the like.’
‘I’m a skilled dairymaid, but I’d do any work that’s on offer,’ Tresca informed her, her heart rising in reckless hope.
‘Just as well, as you’re going to have to work hard in here. So, give me your clothes and I’ll fetch you a uniform.’
Tresca felt as if her soul had caved in as she took off her
clothes and handed them to Mrs Drake. She cowered at her nakedness and stepped into the freezing water. Was her father suffering the same brutal indignity? She imagined so. Thank God Mrs Drake left her alone to bathe herself, and she scrubbed vigorously with the evil-smelling carbolic soap as if ridding herself of her shame. When the assistant returned, Tresca was wrapped, shivering, in a threadbare towel, her heart aching with emptiness.
‘Here, get these on and quick about it.’
Tresca glared back at her. ‘I’m going as fast as I can.’
‘And you’d better watch your tongue or you’ll be on the punishment diet before you even start.’
Punishment! Wasn’t this punishment enough? Tresca threw her a dark look before pulling on the itchy woollen drawers and shift, and long grey stockings. The dress that went over the top was a shapeless sack in broad, washed-out blue and grey vertical stripes. A band with a large ‘P’ for pauper was sewn on to the sleeve. She pushed her feet into a pair of hard and uncomfortable hobnailed boots that were several sizes too large, and the crowning glory was a plain and unflattering mob cap. But at least it hid her mown head.
‘The doctor’s waiting for you. Follow me.’
Tresca did as she was instructed, since what else could she do? She could have hung around Dr Greenwood’s neck when, a few minutes later, he gave her a warm, compassionate smile that eased her pain.
‘Tresca Ladycott?’ he asked. And then his forehead swooped into a frown. ‘Aren’t you the girl who came to me a couple of weeks ago, when your friend died in unfortunate circumstances?’
Tresca was surprised he had recognized her in the faceless uniform and with no hair. But she nodded, grief spearing beneath her ribs as she was reminded of Bella.
‘I was so sorry. If she’d been found earlier, I might have had a chance of saving her. Such a waste of life. And I’m sorry to find you in here, too.’