The pressures and difficulties of the job were beginning to take their toll, which Ruby didn’t wonder at. The place was infested with vermin, suffered from defective drains, had moths in the cupboards and fleas in the beds. The sick room was generally fully occupied by sufferers of all manner of illness from diphtheria to scarlatina, chicken pox to consumption. Not to mention common diseases such as ringworm, eczema, impetigo and diarrhoea. The staff here did not have the nuns’ obsession with hygiene.
In a dormitory of fifty girls, they’d be lucky if there was more than half a dozen toothbrushes which they must share between them, and even fewer face flannels. No wonder infections spread. In comparison with the reformatory, Ignatius House seemed like a foretaste of heaven and, set against Miss Crombie, Sister Joseph an absolute angel. Ruby was desperate to get away, and to rescue Pearl too, at the very first opportunity.
‘You will at least give her due consideration? She’s a good worker and no trouble at all. I couldn’t come otherwise.’
‘That sounds very like an ultimatum.’ Again he regarded her with that dangerously assessing glint in his golden-brown eyes, and suddenly Ruby doubted she wished to go anywhere with this man, not simply because he refused to take Pearl but because he had an unsettling and disturbing effect upon her, and she didn’t know why. Nor did she quite trust him. Who did he think he was, eyeing her up and down and running his hands all over her? Having arrived at this conclusion, Ruby lifted her chin, smiled her most winning smile and blithely continued, ‘Besides all of that, I’d want twelve pounds a year, not ten, and the money to be paid direct to me.’
Miss Crombie gasped.
Barthram simply laughed, as if she had made a joke, showing teeth as even and white as Ruby’s own. Collecting up his hat and gloves, he turned from her and walked to the door. ‘I shall give your demands due consideration and return tomorrow with my answer. And perhaps you, Ruby McBride, would do well to reconsider your own situation. I doubt you are in a position to refuse any reasonable offer.’
‘Oh, indeed she is not, good sir. Indeed she is not!’ Miss Crombie echoed. ‘I shall speak to her directly about her lack of manners, you may be sure. Apologise at once for being a greedy girl, Ruby McBride. You really do not know when you are well off.’
Ruby remained mutinously silent.
‘Well? What is it to be?’
‘Good day to you, sir,’ Ruby said, and stalked past him, head held high, managing to quit the office before he did.
‘Oh, I shouldn’t have done it. I always lose me temper and go steaming off in some sort of paddy.’ She was sitting on her bed in the long dormitory. It was one of fifty identical iron bedsteads lining the room in four solid rows but this small amount of space represented Ruby’s sanctuary. She put her head in her hands and groaned. ‘If only I’d been more polite, he might’ve agreed. Oh, Pearl, I’ve blown my last chance. Yours as well. He’ll not have either of us now.’
‘Well, you should’ve thought of me for a change, instead of what you fancy.’
Ruby looked at Pearl and said nothing. She felt too tired to argue that everything she’d ever done had been in her sister’s best interest. Instead she said, ‘There’s bound to be someone else, someone who’ll take us both on. We’ll just have to be patient.’
‘For how long? We’ll be grey-haired and ancient before we get out on licence at this rate. I’ll never find a fella in here, never have a chance to get wed and have a bit of you-know-what.’
‘For goodness’ sake, Pearl, there are other considerations in life.’ Whatever the two girls had lacked in knowledge of the facts of life while at Ignatius House, had been more than made up for since, in the reformatory, thanks to the other girls. Pearl in particular was obsessed with the subject of sex.
‘I don’t want to die a virgin, our Ruby. I want to know what it’s like, how it feels to be loved by a chap. Don’t you?’ Indeed she did, and deep in her heart Ruby knew exactly which chap. But she’d no wish to think about Kit Jarvis just now, it only upset her.
‘Oh, I don’t know why I said what I did. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him - not exactly, anyway. He’s obviously a bit of a character, an eccentric, but not bad looking in his way. You couldn’t help but be fascinated by him, but there were something fishy about him. I couldn’t quite put me finger on what it was only he didn’t seem right. And he could hardly keep his hands off me, the cheeky beggar! Oh, hecky thump, no, I’m not sorry I refused to be his housemaid.’
‘Except that he lives in a fine house and you’d be better fed than this,’ Pearl pointed out as they both sat contemplating a dish of watery soup that evening at supper.
Ruby took a mouthful, and screwed up her face in distaste. ‘It tastes funny. I think they’ve given us the washing-up water by mistake.’
Both sisters giggled, though not with any great sense of amusement for the meal was even worse than usual. The soup was followed by stringy stewing beef, more fat and gristle than lean meat, and tough as old leather, served with a couple of floury potatoes.
‘This meat’s raw,’ Ruby stoutly protested, making eyes turn in her direction. ‘We shouldn’t be given food like this.’
‘Aye, it’s rubbish, that’s what it is,’ a girl beside her agreed.
Miss Crombie, making her way down the length of the table, her unsteady progress indicating all too clearly how she had spent the rest of her afternoon, hiccupped gently. ‘`You should consider yourself lucky to have any food at all on your plates. If you gels weren’t shafely in the reformatory, being well taken care of, you’d be begging in the shtreets, eating pig shwill.’
‘Give this to the flaming pigs then,’ shouted another. ‘Tain’t fit for humans, that’s fer sure.’
A potato flew through the air and smashed on to the table, followed by another, and then another. One hit Miss Crombie smack in the middle of her flat chest and she squealed in dismay, pleading with them to be good girls and behave. When they took no notice, she picked up the dinner bell and began to ring it, loud and long. One girl shouted `Fire!’ and all the others roared with laughter.
`Stop it! Stop it! Please don’t be naughty. You know how it upsets me.’
Sadly, this only made everyone laugh all the more. There wasn’t a girl in the room who didn’t recognise the desperation in her tone of voice, the expression of sheer terror in the Superintendent’s bloodshot eyes. She might beg them to be good but Miss Crombie, as every girl present knew only too well, no longer had the power to make them.
Within seconds the dining room was in uproar. Food was flying everywhere, girls were jumping up and down on the benches, singing and dancing, yelling and screaming, and poor Miss Crombie and her staff were becoming ever more demented, running around ineffectually blowing whistles and clanging bells, achieving nothing very much at all. It was not surprising that, in view of their hunger, the girls’ good humour rapidly deteriorated and serious fighting broke out. Crockery and windows were broken before, finally, the riot was brought to an abrupt end by the arrival of the constabulary.
Chapter Eight
Several days later Ruby once more stood before Barthram Stobbs. Miss Crombie was not present on this occasion as she had handed in her resignation on the evening of the riot and departed, clutching her carpet bag, without spending another night in the place. Many of the girls had been brought before the Board of Guardians or, worse, the magistrates’ bench. Pearl and several other girls who had taken no direct part in the riot were nevertheless accused of provocation and ordered to spend three days in padded cells, meant to cool their hysteria. Pearl didn’t go quietly. She’d been dragged away screaming that it was all Ruby’s fault.
Ruby was utterly devastated. Of course it had been her fault. It had been she, yet again, who had made a fuss, a reckless complaint about the state of the food, and poor Pearl who had suffered in consequence.
The interview was this time conducted by the Chairman of the Governors himself, his bloodshot eyes entirely unforgiving, even
the pimple on his bulbous nose seeming to nod a warning that no protest would avail her. Barthram Stobbs’s offer had apparently changed and the Chairman was telling Ruby what a very fortunate young woman she was.
‘You are to be spared from sinking further into immoral depravity through the sanctity of holy matrimony.’
‘Holy ... ?’
‘Hold your tongue, girl! Haven’t you done enough damage already? We’ve lost Miss Crombie and must now find a new, less beneficent Superintendent to keep the girls in order.’ The Chairman sighed heavily as he glowered down upon her and Ruby would not have been in the least surprised to see fire breathed from those wide, hairy nostrils. Turning his back upon her, he addressed his next remarks directly to his visitor. ‘`Immorality is ever a problem with these reformatory girls. Along with disobedience, rudeness and impropriety. They are drawn from the lowest stratum of society and it is a well-nigh hopeless task to redeem them from those depths.’
Barthram Stobbs said, ‘This girl has potential, I believe, and I am, as I have explained, in need of a wife. I really do not have the heart to seek more than a good housekeeper and helpmeet. My dear late wife was All to me, and without her I cannot imagine ever. . .’
He could hear the quiver of insincerity in his own voice, felt certain the dratted man could guess that this was all a lie, that he was no widower, never had had a wife, nor ever felt the need for one. But he did now. Dear God, he must have her. He meant to make Ruby McBride his own, one way or another, and if the price was matrimony, so be it. It was one he would happily pay.
The Chairman cleared his throat. ‘Quite, quite. I understand perfectly. I admire your Christian charity, sir, and trust you will not live to regret this amazing act of generosity.’
‘I’m sure I will not.’
‘The necessary arrangements have been made?’
‘Indeed they have. I collected the special licence this morning. We can be wed today, without fuss or delay.’
‘Very wise, I’m sure.’ The Chairman turned to Ruby, who was listening in a state of complete shock. ‘Well, there you have it, girl. Redemption offered to you at the eleventh hour.’
‘I’m not marrying him. I don’t even know the man.’
‘Watch that sharp tongue of yours, girl. You’ll have ample opportunity to get to know him.’
‘Never!’ Ruby’s defiant stance was not having at all the effect she had hoped for. Barthram Stobbs was clearly highly amused by her spluttering protests, and the Chairman showed not the least concern.
‘You are being given the opportunity to achieve respectability and security. Are you saying you would prefer to go to jail? If so the alternative is three months imprisonment for inciting a riot. Is that what you would prefer?’
Ruby fell silent, all rebellion draining from her at this awful prospect. She’d heard about the inside of the Bridewell, and once having suffered incarceration there, the slide into the gutter was generally unstoppable.
Taking her silence for agreement, the Chairman pulled out his watch to check the hour, as if to indicate that he was a busy man with better things to do with his time than listen to silly girls. He beamed upon her beneficently. ‘What’s more, you can now expect to be invited to take part in the annual treat on the first Monday of the New Year, to partake of tea and bun-loaf and to collect your ten shillings reward money in return for producing your wedding certificate. How very splendid! These moments of success are what make our reforming task worthwhile.’
‘Success? But I. . .’Ruby began.
‘Enough! You are, I repeat, a most fortunate young woman to be spared incarceration and would do well to show proper gratitude. Say thank you to Mr Stobbs for his generous offer, and to us for our efforts on your behalf.’
Silence.
‘Say it!’
Ruby pressed her lips together and glared mutinously at the floor.
The Chairman grunted his disapproval. ‘You see what we have to contend with? Complete obduracy. I wish you every success, sir, in your Christian endeavour. Every good wish.’ And the two men shook hands, thus acknowledging that the deal had been struck.
‘What’s this when it’s at home?’ Ruby stared in stunned disbelief at the sight which met her eyes. ‘This don’t look like no big fancy house. Pardon me if I’ve been struck blind, but I’d say there’s some mistake here.’
‘No mistake, Ruby.’
‘It’s no more than a scrubby old wash tub!’ This was, perhaps, an unfair description of the steam tug lying at anchor on a quiet stretch of the Duke of Bridgewater’s Canal. It gleamed with varnish, its wheelhouse encased in oak-grained planking, a funnel painted in high gloss black, and steam pipe and whistle plated with polished copper. Inscribed in shiny brass lettering on the side of the boat was its name: the Blackbird. Behind the tug, and obviously in tow, lay a pair of filthy barges, currently empty but stinking of household refuse, cotton waste and coal dust. In no way could the entire rig be taken for a house, nor to be in need of a housemaid.
‘Is this some kind of joke?’ Ruby asked. ‘Because it doesn’t tickle my funny bone one bit.’
‘You wanted to escape the reformatory and you have, so stop complaining, get on board and put the kettle on.’
Ruby realised that not only had she been married against her will, to a complete stranger, but she’d also been hoodwinked into believing there would be a comfortable house at the end of the day. She’d hoped at least for some sort of respectability and security, as the Chairman of Governors had indicated. Now it would seem even that had been a trick.
Barthram Stobbs’s expression would have given weaker spirits pause for thought before tackling him head on about the situation, but Ruby stubbornly stood her ground. `You can’t get away with this. The Board of Guardians will want to know how I’m doing as your “good wife and helpmeet” in a proper house. not on a flippin’ boat.’
‘Then they’re going to be disappointed, as are you. And even if they come looking for you, which I doubt, they won’t be able to find you since I gave a false address. Your Miss Crombie should’ve paid less attention to her own personal comfort and more to her charges’. As for the Chairman, he was simply relieved to have another reformatory girl successfully placed and off his hands.’
Both facts undeniably true, Ruby silently conceded.
She tried a different approach. ‘Why did you do it? And why me?’
He was beginning to wonder the very same thing himself, beginning to doubt his own sanity. Perhaps that was the answer. She’d sent him mad with lust. Just to look at her standing on the docks, legs astride, hands at her slender waist and a delectable expression of pouting fury on her lovely face, told him all too clearly why he’d lost his reason. ‘Why not you? Most red blooded males would find you appealing, Ruby McBride, despite your sharp tongue.’
To her dismay, Ruby found herself blushing. ‘So that’s it. You think reformatory girls are easy meat, like most other chaps with mucky minds.’ She tossed back her hair and met his laughing eyes with defiance. ‘Well, if you think that putting a ring on my finger will get you a bit of what you fancy, you can think again. No one takes advantage of Ruby McBride, I can tell you that for nothing.’
‘I’m sure they don’t Ruby. I’m quite certain of it.’
‘So there’ll be no wedded bliss.’
‘Indeed I didn’t expect any.’
‘No wedding night!’ She felt the need to make her position clear.
He seemed not in the least put out by this declaration. ‘Matters of this sort have a way of resolving themselves in due course, I’ve always found.’
His words confused her. He sounded so calm, so in control, yet speaking in riddles so that his meaning wasn’t entirely clear. Was he saying that he agreed to leave her alone, or that she’d give in to his demands in the end? Ruby tried once more to make her own views on the matter plain. ‘I want no hanky-panky. None at all!’
He had the temerity to laugh. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. Hanky-pank
y, as you call it couldn’t be further from my mind.’
Now she was even more confused. ‘Then what’s on your mind? What is it you want me for?’
‘You’ll find out what your duties are Ruby, when I see fit to tell you.’
She watched in dawning disbelief as he calmly took off the white kid gloves, and after carefully tucking them into his pockets began to uncoil ropes and make ready to slip anchor.
‘I’m not getting involved in anything illegal.’ The tension between them at these words was palpable. It was as if she had issued a challenge.
He looked at her out of narrowed eyes. ‘Are you suggesting I’m a crook?’
‘You might well be, for all I know. What happened to your first wife, for instance? Was it really her heart what killed her, or was that a lie an’ all?’
For no reason she could fathom, he seemed to find this funny and laughed out loud, yet little humour showed in his eyes which were a strange, golden shade like rich brandy that matched the colour of his tousled hair. Unusual for a boatman, who were more commonly dark and swarthy. ‘I like a girl with spunk. You remind me very much of myself at your age. But yes, you’re absolutely right. That was a lie too.’ He did not explain in what respect and Ruby shivered on a frisson of fear as he leaned closer, dropping his voice to a low hiss. ‘You’re forgetting one thing - I’m in charge here, not you, so I’ll make the decisions. Right? I think you’ll find it to your advantage not to question me too closely Ruby McBride, nor to dispute my authority too strongly.’
Leaving her with her mouth hanging open and, for once, at a loss for words, he climbed aboard, strode the length of the two barges and began to check their towing hooks. Back on the tug, he opened the valve to start up the steam engine. Ruby stood rooted to the spot throughout the entire operation, having immense trouble accepting the reality of her situation since it was so totally unexpected. She felt as if she were living some sort of nightmare, one from which she kept vainly hoping she might wake.
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