by Livi Michael
I shrug.
‘It means, Joe, lad, that working people, the very people I want to reach, can't afford it. It's a tax on knowledge, Joe, lad – a war on words!’
His face is lit up now and he shakes the paper at me. ‘Whereas if I print it myself, in secret, on the poorest paper, and distribute it myself, I can sell it at just a penny a time. So that's what I do, all in secret. And that's why my greeting was a little… rough. Do you understand?’
I nod slowly, looking at the paper. There aren't any pictures. ‘Do you print stories?’ I ask suddenly and he looks surprised.
‘It's a newspaper, lad. Of course I print stories.’ He reads, ‘“Mr Owen on the Distribution of Property. Immediate Extension of the Suffrage.”’
‘I mean, like Jack the Giant-killer and such. Tom Hickathrift.’
He puts back his head and laughs suddenly, a short laugh, making me jump.
‘Nay, lad, not those kind of stories. Real stories. About anything that affects the working man.’
Not interesting ones, I'm thinking.
I drain the glass and remember Milly. ‘I'd best be getting back,’ I say, standing. He doesn't move.
‘Maybe she can tell you herself,’ he says, and my stomach lurches all over again. ‘Come back here tomorrow evening and I'll see what I can do. I'm not promising anything, mind.’
‘I don't know if I can come back tomorrow,’ I say, and there's another silence. I want, more than anything, to see her now. Before I lose heart.
Abel sighs, then stands. ‘Wait here,’ he says, and my heart leaps up all over again. ‘I'll be two minutes,' he says – and leaves me in the shop! Not that there's much worth pinching.
I put my hand out to one of the boxes, and snatch it back again, because it's shaking. She'll recognize me from the cab, I'm thinking, then I think that I don't care I want to know what's going on. How Mr M's involved, if at all. And to see her face again, up close.
Inside's much darker than out, because of the small window. I peer into the shadows of the yard, and sure enough I hear a noise. My stomach's hurting, worse than when I was sick. Abel pushes the gate open and I see a figure behind him, draped in a shawl. I stand back from the window, rubbing my sweating hands on my coat as the door opens.
‘Joe Sowerby,’ he says, ‘this is Nell Dawkins.’
The figure steps forward, pushing her shawl back, and a quantity of fair, curly hair falls out. My chest is so tight I can hardly breathe. She steps right up to me, gazing earnestly into my face, and I stare back. Everything about her's pale – pale hair, pale eyes, pale skin – like she's been washed and all the colours have run. She's got a square chin and a small, hooked nose. She looks nothing like me. Or Annie.
And I can see the same thought flickering in her eyes; yearning and disappointment. She shakes her head, the slightest motion. ‘No,’ she breathes. Then suddenly her look turns sharp. ‘But I do know you,’ she says, and my heart gives a leap then goes on falling. ‘You were the lad… with him!’ She stares at Abel and he looks back blankly. ‘He was in the cab with Mosley!’
On an impulse she tugs at my coat and it falls open, revealing all my finery. Light dawns on Abel's face, then swiftly darkens.
‘He's no workhouse child!’ says Nell, her voice turning shrill. ‘He's Mosley's spy!’
15
Nell
In the silence that follows I can count my heartbeats. Before I've got to three Abel's crossed the room and bolted the door. He turns, leaning against it with his arms folded. ‘You've got some explaining to do,’ he says.
As usual, when I need to, I can't say a thing.
‘What's there to explain?’ says Nell fiercely. ‘He's Mosley's boy!’
‘I'm not!’ I say.
‘Well, what were you doing with him then? In these clothes?’ She tugs at my waistcoat and I brush her hand away. ‘He'll report back to Mosley about the paper!’
‘No, I won't!’ This is like a nightmare, where I can't get out what I want to say. ‘It's not what you think!’
‘What is it then, lad?’ says Abel and his bony face is stern. ‘Speak up. We're listening.’
I've no choice but to tell them then. I sink down on to a chair and I tell them everything. The most complete story so far. It includes Annie, though not the bit about selling her, and life on the streets, even the thieving. Then the cholera, and being taken in by Mr Mosley. They're listening but I can't tell if they believe me or not.
‘I don't believe you,’ says Nell when I've finished, and I drop my head on to my hand, for I've no way of proving any of it. ‘Why would he take you in? You come here, asking questions about me and Abel – you're his spy!’
‘NO!’ I say, too loudly.
Abel says, ‘Why do you think he took you in?’
‘I don't know,’ I say, rubbing my forehead. ‘He's got these… ideas about poor people and whether you can educate them or not. He says some kind of solution has to be found.’
Nell and Abel exchange a look. Then Abel says, ‘I believe you.’ He sifts through a bundle of papers, finally fishing one out. He holds it out to me. ‘What do you think this is, eh?’
I try to read the headline. ‘M-A-N-C-H-E-S-T-E-R T-H-E F-E-U–’
‘Feudal City,’ he finishes for me. ‘That's the main story we've been running for months now – about how Manchester's still run like a village, with a manorial lord. And you know who the lords of the manor are, don't you?’
I nod. ‘The Mosleys.’
‘Right. The Mosleys own Manchester – and what they say goes. Which was all right, maybe, in the Middle Ages, but not now we're a thriving industrial town! Why, there's a hundred thousand more workers living here since the start of this century, and they create the wealth of the whole nation – right here in Manchester! But do they have a say in how the place is run? No. The whole system's rotten and has to change. We need elected councillors. Parliamentary representation. But naturally enough the Mosleys don't want that.’
He pauses for breath, then sits on the table facing me.
‘The Mosleys are big on charity,’ he says quietly. ‘They're not all a bad lot. Sir Oswald Mosley, the actual lord, is the most philanthropic fellow I know. But they think if they throw charity at the poor it'll solve the problem. Because the poor are the biggest problem they've got. Prison and workhouses teeming, disease spreading like fire through the courts and alleys, and a crime rate second to none. The poor are swelling in numbers day by day, and that's the biggest proof there is that the old system's got to go. So the Mosleys and others like them are bent on finding other solutions to the problem.’
Different solutions have to be found, Mr M's voice says in my head. A single workable solution if possible.
‘What do you mean?’ I ask.
‘I mean,’ says Abel, ‘that if the children of the poor can be placed out of the parish, it takes a great strain off the workhouses and prisons. And the manorial lords.’
I don't know what to make of all this. My head's aching. And I'm late. ‘I'll have to go,’ I mutter, standing.
Immediately Abel moves in front of the doorway, blocking it.
‘Let me out!’ I yell at him, furious now.
‘Let him go, Abel,’ Nell says unexpectedly. ‘Let him go back to his master – and find out for himself what kind of man he is. No man at all but a monster! Trading in children and the lives of the poor! Let him find out what plans are laid for him!’
‘What are you talking about?’ I say rudely.
Abel says, ‘Mind your manners, lad.’
‘No, leave him,’ says Nell, and she sinks down, covering her face with her hands. ‘All this is talk. Talk!’ she bursts out suddenly. ‘How is it helping me find my babies? How do I know if I'll ever find them again?’
‘Shouldn't have left them then, should you?’ I shout, and Abel grips my shoulder and shakes me hard, crying, ‘Watch your tongue!’ but Nell's hands slide down her face and she looks at me with such horror in her eyes that al
l my anger melts away and I just feel bad.
‘He's right,’ she says to Abel. ‘I should never have left them. The Lord forgive me for that – but he won't; he never will!’
And she rocks herself on the chair, her terrible eyes staring.
Abel gives my shoulder a shove. ‘Perhaps you'll listen to her story before passing judgment,’ he says, very cold.
‘Let him go,’ says Nell.
‘No,’ says Abel. ‘He can hear the full story before going back. Then he can make up his own mind.’
For a long time no one says anything and Nell goes on rocking. Then she says, ‘I had a home once, and a family. My husband, Robert, he was a handloom weaver – but the big mills started replacing the handlooms and the weavers went down to two pence a day… two pence!’ She stares at me as I take that in. ‘And soon there was no work at all. Poor Bob went out every day looking. And one day he went out with others, breaking the machines that took their livelihoods, and he never came back. The police charged at them and hacked them down.’ She stares at us again, dry-eyed. ‘That same winter we lost the cottage. I couldn't pay the rent. So I took myself and the babies into a barn and waited for death – that was all I wanted. But the farmer found us and took us to the workhouse.’
Another silence. But she's not looking at either of us now, just staring ahead, her eyes full of darkness. ‘They split us up, me and the children. I could only see them through a grille in the door. But I watched them wasting away.’
She's crying now and the tears run freely down her cheeks.
‘Then one day I'm sent before the board. And who should be there but Mr Sheridan Mosley –’ she spits the name out, ‘himself. I didn't know him then. But he was the one who said a place had been found for me, in a big house, to work as maid. And I asked about the children but he said they had to stay where they were – the lord and lady didn't want dependants. And I cried and begged them, but all he'd say was that I'd been given a great opportunity, and if I worked hard and saved my wages I could come back for my children. So I did!’ she cries, looking at us. ‘I believed him and that's what I did. I worked myself to a bone and they kept not giving me wages, so I left that place and took piecework where I could - all the time heading back towards the workhouse, forty miles away! It took me the best part of a year to get back and when I did, you know what?’
She looks at us, nodding, and I feel like there's a knife twisted in my stomach.
‘They said my children had gone – long since, and they wouldn't say where. They said Mr Sheridan Mosley had found them a place. I should let them go, they said, and be grateful they were now useful members of society. And when I wouldn't go, they set the dogs on me.’
She holds out her arm and it's badly scarred.
‘So I followed that name,’ she says, nodding and rocking again. ‘It's a well-known one and I followed it all the way to Manchester. And I found his house but they wouldn't let me speak to him. So I waited for when he went out and he couldn't shake me off. I knew he recognized me but his eyes went blank and he said, “I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about.”’
She looks up then and her face is all twisted with crying. ‘I didn't give up,’ she says, ‘of course I didn't. I followed him everywhere, crying out after him in the streets. But when I went to his house he had the police on me, and finally I was sent to the New Bailey for four months. And it was there,’ she looks up again, her face softer this time, ‘that I met Abel. And he has helped me to find work and lodgings - and he puts their names in his paper. Sarah and Ned, see.’
Abel shows me the advertisement.
All this time I feel like there's a howling in my head that's not the wind, and it's not dogs either. Because Nell's story could be my mother's and Sarah and Ned's my own. Even as she said ‘handloom weaver’ I could see a wheel turning in a humble room, and hear a soft voice humming.
‘But why…? Why would he do such a thing?’ I burst out finally, and Abel shakes his head.
‘Who knows?’ he says. ‘Poverty's the worst problem in all the big towns. It's the biggest threat to the manorial lords – that the poor'll combine and grow strong and rise up together. And you've seen the state they're in now. So you'll know that it's too much for the coffers of any one family – even the Mosleys.’
He looks at me, his dark eyes glittering. ‘Slavery's over, so they say. But slavery was a profitable game. What happens to all the children of the poor that are placed out in mills and farms? They're not paid – they barely get food and keep – but maybe someone is. And they're not shipping slaves to America any more, but they ship the poor to Australia and Canada by the thousands. Who profits there? The least you can say is it gets rid of them – thousands of beggars who'd be stretching the poor rates, taking up space in the workhouses and gaols, and costing good money for rope to hang them with.’
My head feels like it's bursting. I hold it at the sides, trying to keep it all in. All I want to do is go home. Yet I have no home – only a bed that belongs to Sheridan Mosley.
I clench both my fists at the side of my head. ‘It's not true,’ I say. ‘I don't believe you.’
Neither of them say anything, and even in my own ears my words sound false. It is true – I know it. But I can't stand it.
‘Can I go now?’ I say, and Abel steps to one side, drawing the bolt.
‘Make your own mind up,’ he says. ‘Find out for yourself.’
I can't bear to look at him. Or her. Feels like a year's just passed in that room. I get up slowly, half expecting him to stop me. None of us speak, and I can hear him breathing as I pass. Still no one says anything. I push past all the boxes in the yard and tug open the gate. Then I start to run.
The last thing I want to do is enter Mosley's house again. But there are things I have to know. And for Milly's sake I have to go back.
She's pitifully grateful to see me. ‘Oh, Master Nat!’ she says. ‘Oh, where have you been?’
But I'm in no mood to talk. I go upstairs, hardly caring if I'm seen, and all the house looks strange to me. I pull my clothes off and climb into bed and lie awake, staring, too many thoughts thundering through my head like trains.
16
Revenge
Then when I do sleep, I have this dream. I'm following Queenie – or is it Annie? – down this passageway, and I try to call out to her but my mouth makes no sound and I can't catch up to her because my legs won't move fast enough. The passage is deserted and full of mist. It's like moving through soup. She disappears ahead of me and suddenly I don't know where I am. Then there's this sound, a tap-tap-tap behind me, like water dripping, only sharper, clearer, and getting closer. My ears strain towards it and I know what it is – not water but the sound of a cane on the pavement. Tap-tap-tap drawing nearer, and I'm more afraid than I've ever been in my life. But my legs are like lead, going slower and slower while the man with the cane catches up.
With a great effort I wrench myself awake. I lie still, trembling and sweating. Everything that Abel and Nell told me hits me again with force, but it's different now. Instead of hundreds of thoughts chasing themselves like rats around my head, there's just one: I have to leave.
But I want to have it out with Sheridan Mosley.
This thought keeps me awake till morning light moves across my bedspread. Then, just as I close my eyes again, breakfast arrives. I pull myself into a sitting position, but I've hardly started when Miss C comes in.
‘My goodness,’ she says. ‘What kind of hour is this for breakfast?’
I glance at her darkly. ‘I couldn't sleep,’ I say.
She tuts and clicks. ‘I hope it was not your conscience keeping you awake?’
I ignore her, digging away at my egg.
‘Come now,’ she says. ‘Put away the tray.’
‘Can I eat my breakfast?’
‘An idle soul shall suffer hunger,’ she says. ‘A little fasting might help you to concentrate.’
She nods at Milly, who lifts the tra
y. Just in time I cram more toast into my mouth. Then she has me going over to the table just as I am, in my nightgown, because she's wasted enough time already, she says.
‘We'll begin with Proverbs,’ she says, and makes me copy out, The sluggard will not plough, therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing. Bible stuff – I've heard it all before in the workhouse. But when we get to, In all labour is there profit but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury, I can't help myself.
‘If that were true, you'd be on streets,’ I say.
Miss C looks like she can hardly believe her ears. ‘I beg your pardon,’ she says.
‘And so would a lot of other people,’ I mutter, thinking of all Mr M's friends.
Miss C couldn't look more shocked if the angel on the chamber pot had flown right up her nose. She turns very pink, then white, then a deep dark red. I watch with interest, but suddenly the ruler comes whistling down through the air, landing with a crack on the table, and I only just whisk my fingers out of the way in time.
‘Watchit!’ I say, and she splutters in rage.
‘How dare you!’ she says in a voice turned deep. ‘You will apologize at once!’
But I'm still annoyed about breakfast. ‘What for?’ I say. ‘It's true, innit?’ And suddenly I'm getting up, pushing back my chair. ‘I'd like to get dressed, if you don't mind,’ I say.
Miss C's mouth is so far open you could wedge a book in it. ‘I never – in all my – such – insolence!’ And she picks up the bell and rings it for all she's worth.
Quivel comes running. ‘Bring Mr Mosley at once,’ Miss C cries in a terrible voice, and Quivel flies off. Miss C follows her out on to the landing. ‘Mr Mosley!’ she calls over the banister, and I tug my breeches on quick.
My heart's racing now, for I've never in all my life answered back like that. He'll throw you back in the workhouse, I'm thinking, but I can't dwell on that now. I tug my nightgown off, keeping one eye on Miss C, who's still hanging over the balcony. I step back sharpish when I hear Mr M hurrying up the stairs. I'm for it now, I'm thinking.