Pauper's Gold

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘God be with you, my dears,’ she murmured, thankful that the youngsters couldn’t see the tears in her eyes.

  Four

  ‘Is . . . is that it? Is that the mill?’ Luke’s voice was suddenly scared. ‘It’s awfully big, isn’t it?’

  The four children stood in the pillared gateway and looked at the place where they’d come to live and work. There were three huge buildings. The biggest was rectangular and set with its back against a steep hill, its rows of numerous small-paned windows facing down the dale. Set at right angles to that was another oblong shape, and the third, a square building, stood at the end of the second one.

  ‘Look at those houses built on the hill behind it,’ Luke murmured. ‘You’d think they’d fall off, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I can hear water,’ Daniel murmured.

  Luke turned suddenly and darted across the road. ‘There’s a big pond here and a stream that goes under the road.’ He re-crossed the lane. ‘And it comes out here. Then it goes in front of the mill.’ He pointed to the bubbling brook. ‘And joins the river over there. On the far side of the mill. See?’

  They were all silent, staring about them. Jane, white-faced, cowered behind Hannah.

  ‘Come on,’ Hannah said briskly at last. ‘We’d better go and find this Mrs Bramwell.’ She smiled down at the younger girl and gave her cold hand a comforting squeeze. Jane dragged her feet, and glanced apprehensively over her shoulder. ‘I don’t like it,’ she whispered. ‘It’s so big. I want to go home. I want to go back to the workhouse.’

  ‘We can’t,’ Hannah said. ‘There’s no one to take us back. Besides, we’ve been sent here. At least let’s give it a try. It might be better than the workhouse.’

  ‘Anything’s got to be better—’ Luke began.

  ‘Than the workhouse,’ Daniel finished.

  They climbed the steep hill to the first row of houses perched just above the mill.

  ‘This end one looks like a school,’ Luke said excitedly. He grasped hold of the high window ledge and hauled himself up to peer in the window. ‘There’s boys and girls sitting at desks.’

  ‘At this time of night?’ Hannah stood on tiptoe, trying to see in, but she was too low down, and she had no intention of scrambling up the side of the rough wall and tearing her clean dress.

  ‘It’ll be after they’ve worked at the mill,’ Luke said. ‘There’s a boy asleep at his desk. Oh!’

  Suddenly, he let himself drop to the ground.

  ‘What? What is it?’

  Luke was laughing. ‘The master saw him sleeping and cracked his cane on the desk. The lad didn’t half jump. He thought he’d been shot.’

  ‘Do you think we’ll go to school?’ Jane asked quietly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Hannah said. ‘Maybe for a few hours a week.’ She sighed. ‘But what I do know is – we’ve been sent here to work.’

  They moved on, dragging their feet now that they had seen the other children. Suddenly, however strict school life might be under a cane-wielding teacher, they yearned to join those children instead of entering a new and frightening world. At least a classroom – even a different classroom with strange children – was a familiar world to them. There had been a schoolroom at the workhouse with a master for the boys and a school-marm for the girls. Of the four of them, only Jane couldn’t read or write. She’d been a sickly child, and her schooling, even in the workhouse, had been spasmodic.

  They knocked on the door of the white house, next door but one to the school, and waited. A girl, not much older than they were, opened it.

  ‘Come in, the missis is waiting for you.’

  They trooped after her, through the large kitchen and a hallway, and were shown into a small, stuffy room where a woman was sitting at a desk going through some papers.

  The girl bobbed a curtsy. ‘The new ones have arrived, Mrs Bramwell.’

  ‘Thank you, Mary.’

  The girl left the room, closing the door quietly behind her, leaving the four new arrivals standing nervously just inside the door. The woman didn’t even look up but continued to write notes at the edge of one of the sheets of paper. They waited for what seemed an age, until Jane tugged at Hannah’s hand and whispered urgently, ‘I need the privy, Hannah. I need it now.’

  ‘Hush,’ Hannah whispered. ‘You’ll have to wait.’

  ‘I can’t.’ Jane’s voice rose in a wail. ‘I’ll do it. Oh – oh, I am . . .’

  The woman looked up. ‘Take her out this minute. It’s out the back.’

  Hannah pulled open the door, dragging Jane with her. She rushed back the way they had come, startling the young girl, Mary, as they hurried through the kitchen. Hannah paused briefly. ‘Where is it? Where’s the privy?’

  Mary pointed. ‘Out the door and down the path to the left. It’s the—’

  Hannah waited to hear no more but hustled the unfortunate Jane out of the door and along the path. ‘There it is. Hurry up.’

  Moments later, Jane emerged from the wooden hut. She was calmer now, but tears ran down her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry, Hannah.’

  ‘Yes, well, you should’ve said you wanted to go before we went in.’

  Jane sniffed loudly. ‘Sorry.’

  Hannah took her hand and smiled down at her. The little girl was obviously weary from the journey and fearful of the strange place and people. They all were. ‘Come on, we’ll have to go back.’

  Mrs Bramwell was a tall, thin woman. In her early forties, she nevertheless looked old to the young children. She had a long, straight nose and grey eyes. Her mouth was small, with thin lips that rarely smiled. She was wearing a black dress with a white apron, and her hair was hidden beneath a white cotton bonnet tied beneath her chin, its white frill framing her face.

  When they entered the room once more, Hannah saw the telltale puddle on the polished wooden floor. Mrs Bramwell rose from her desk, and, standing before them with her hands folded in front of her, she scrutinized them slowly.

  ‘Well now, so you’re the four urchins Mr Goodbody’s chosen to send us this time.’ Her gaze rested upon Luke and Daniel and she sniffed. ‘Hmm. Boys, eh? And twins by the look of you. Mr Critchlow prefers girls. So much less trouble.’

  Luke dared to laugh out loud. ‘Her won’t be.’ He jerked his thumb towards Hannah. ‘Her’s as bad as any boy. Worse.’

  Mrs Bramwell’s glance swivelled to Hannah.

  ‘Well, we’ll see about that, young lady, won’t we?’

  Hannah bobbed a curtsy as she had seen this woman’s maid do. ‘I’ll be as good as gold here, ma’am. I promise.’

  Mrs Bramwell nodded. ‘You certainly will,’ she said firmly. Her words had an ominous ring. ‘Now,’ she went on briskly. ‘I expect you’re hungry after your journey.’ She paused and there was the briefest flicker of amusement as she added drily, ‘Or has the good Mrs Grundy been feeding you her stew and dumplings?’

  The four youngsters glanced at each other.

  Hannah’s honest gaze met the woman’s eyes. ‘Yes, ma’am. We stopped – just to ask the way – and she was very kind . . .’ Her voice trailed away. Had they done wrong? Were they all in trouble already?

  But the stern-faced woman was nodding. ‘It does you credit, girl, that you haven’t lied to me. For that, you’ll all still be given supper.’ She sniffed. ‘I doubt that skinflint Goodbody ever fed you properly. You’ll find Mr Critchlow – Mr Nathaniel Critchlow, that is – a fair man, a caring man, but in return he demands hard work and utter loyalty from all his employees, especially from his young apprentices.’

  The four youngsters stared at her, and then murmured in chorus, ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Very well then. Come along and I’ll show you where you’re to sleep.’

  As the four children began to troop out of the room, Mrs Bramwell pointed down at the floor. ‘You!’ She prodded Jane with a sharp finger. ‘When I’ve shown you the dormitory, you can fetch a bucket of water and a cloth from Mary and wash this floor.’

&nb
sp; ‘I’ll do it, ma’am,’ Hannah began. ‘Jane’s only little and she’s tired. She—’

  ‘Did I ask you to do it, girl?’

  ‘No, ma’am, but—’

  ‘Then you’ll oblige me by holding your tongue.’

  Jane began to cry, and Hannah faced the superintendent, her mouth a determined line. She was about to protest further, but she felt Luke tug on her arm and hiss, ‘Leave it, Hannah.’

  Mrs Bramwell led the way up the stairs, keys jangling from a chain around her waist. First she took them to the boys’ dormitory, where Luke and Daniel were shown the square wooden box-like bed, set on legs, with a straw palliasse and one blanket.

  ‘You sleep two to a bed. Clean clothes every Sunday and clean sheets once a month. You wear your best clothes for chapel service on Sunday morning, after which you come back here for your dinner. We haven’t got a chapel in the village, but a preacher comes to the schoolroom. In the afternoon, I teach the girls to sew, and the boys have more schooling. Unless, of course, there’s work to be done in the mill, cleaning machinery and such, that can only be done on a Sunday.’

  Hannah was scandalized. ‘Don’t we get any free time?’

  ‘The devil finds work for idle hands. That’s Mr Critchlow’s motto. We live by it.’ A note of bitterness crept into the woman’s tone as she added, ‘We all do. Now, you girls follow me.’

  She led the way to a door, unlocked it, ushered the girls through it and then re-locked it.

  ‘Boys and girls are separated.’

  ‘Nothing new there, then,’ Hannah muttered.

  ‘What?’ Mrs Bramwell snapped.

  ‘Nothing, ma’am,’ Hannah said brightly.

  ‘Hm!’ Mrs Bramwell frowned doubtfully. She was going to have to watch this one, she was thinking. A mite too much to say for herself had Hannah Francis.

  ‘Here we are – this is your dormitory.’ They entered a long room containing beds, just like the boys’ room, but there were even more here. On each side of the long room was a row of ten truckle beds, set side by side, with scarcely an inch of space between them. There was even a row of five beds set end to end in the centre of the room. Twenty-five beds, Hannah counted. There was only one girl there, sitting on a bed at the far end of the room. She looked up apprehensively, and when she saw Mrs Bramwell she bit her lip.

  ‘What are you doing here, Hudson?’

  The girl ran her tongue nervously around her lips. ‘I didn’t feel well, ma’am. Mr – Mr Edmund said I could come home early.’

  Colour suffused Mrs Bramwell’s neck and crept up into her face. ‘I – see,’ she said tightly. She hesitated for a moment, then she moved towards the girl, leaving Hannah and Jane standing near the door.

  Mrs Bramwell spoke to her in tones so low that Hannah couldn’t hear what was said. Then she saw the girl shake her head, her eyes lowered.

  ‘Very well, then,’ Mrs Bramwell said on a sigh as she came back to Hannah and Jane. ‘Hudson will tell you anything you need to know.’ Drily, she added, ‘Since she’s here, she can make herself useful.’ She walked towards the door leading to the stairs, turning back only to point at Jane. ‘And don’t forget to mop my floor.’

  Jane gave a tearful hiccup.

  When the superintendent had left the room, Hudson came bouncing towards them, her hazel eyes sparkling, her wide mouth smiling a welcome. Her hair, a mousy colour, was none the less curly and shining with cleanliness. She was a pretty girl, Hannah decided, and probably two or three years older than they were, for already she had a womanly body that was still evident beneath the long skirt and shapeless white cotton smock. But she didn’t look ill, Hannah thought fleetingly, and couldn’t resist saying, ‘Are you feeling better?’

  The girl threw back her head and laughed aloud. ‘I wasn’t ill. Mr Edmund sent for me and then let me leave work early.’

  Hannah was curious. ‘Why did he do that?’

  Hudson stared at her for a moment and then grinned. ‘You ask too many questions for a young ’un. Don’t worry, he’ll not bother with you. Not for a few years, anyway. Mind you,’ the girl murmured thoughtfully, ‘you’re just the type Mr Edmund likes. You’ll be a beauty one day, an’ no mistake. Then you’ll have to watch out. Know what I mean?’

  Twelve-year-old Hannah wasn’t sure that she did. So far, her mother and grandmother had sheltered her, protected her. With the strict segregation of the sexes in the workhouse, the longest time she’d ever spent in the company of boys had been on the journey here with Luke and Daniel. But, not wishing to appear ignorant, she smiled and nodded.

  Briskly, Hudson changed the subject. ‘You can sleep over here,’ she went on, leading them to a bed next to hers. ‘You have to share. We all do.’ She paused and eyed them up and down.

  Nettled by the girl’s scrutiny, Hannah lifted her chin. ‘Will we do, then?’

  For a moment the girl looked startled. She put her head on one side and said offhandedly, ‘Yeah. You look all right.’ Then suddenly she grinned, and to Hannah’s surprise flung her arms around each of them in turn. ‘’Course you’ll do. We all get on well together.’ She pulled a wry face. ‘Most of the time, anyway. Case of having to, really, when we’re living and working so close. Still, we’re pretty well treated here – if we behave ourselves,’ she added with a note of caution. ‘What’s your names? Mine’s Nell. Nell Hudson. Put your things over there and we’d best go down for supper. The others’ll be coming from school in a minute.’

  Hannah introduced them both and then added, ‘Jane’s had a bit of an accident. Where can she rinse her underclothes out?’

  Nell pulled a face. ‘She can’t. She’ll have wear them until we get our clean clothes on Sunday.’ She smiled down at the little girl. ‘Don’t worry. They’ll soon dry. Come on, let’s get down to supper. I’m starving. Mind you, I’m always starving.’

  Jane tugged at Hannah’s arm and whispered, ‘What about her floor?’

  ‘Yes, yes, we’ll see Mary when we get downstairs.’

  ‘You’ll come with me, won’t you, Hannah?’ the little girl begged.

  Hannah sighed. It would likely get her into trouble, but she said, ‘Yes, ’course I will.’

  When Jane knocked timidly on the door of Mrs Bramwell’s room, with Hannah close on her heels carrying a bucket and floor cloth, there was no answer.

  ‘Go on,’ Hannah whispered. ‘Open it. Maybe she’s not there.’

  The girl opened the door and peeped inside. ‘No, she isn’t.’

  ‘Come on, quick then. Let’s do it before she comes back.’

  Jane opened the door wider and they crept into the room. Hannah dropped to her knees and began to mop the floor, wringing out the cloth in the bucket of hot water.

  ‘Do hurry,’ Jane urged, hopping from one foot to the other. ‘She might come back in a minute.’

  ‘There, that’s all done,’ Hannah said, throwing the cloth into the bucket. ‘Come on, let’s—’

  She was in the act of scrambling up when the door opened, and Hannah saw a pair of feet – surprisingly dainty feet in button boots – then the hem of a long black skirt. Up and up to the trim waist and gently rounded bosom. Then she was looking into Mrs Bramwell’s severe face.

  ‘So – you disobeyed me.’ Ethel Bramwell sighed. She and her husband were strict in their running of the apprentice house – they had to be – but they always tried to be just and fair. She didn’t want to punish this new girl so soon. She liked to give all the youngsters time to settle in, time to learn the rules. But this girl had deliberately flouted her direct instruction, and couldn’t be allowed to get away with it. If Ethel Bramwell or her husband Arthur relaxed their authority even for a moment, these unruly little tykes would take advantage, and mayhem would result.

  ‘You, child,’ she pointed at Jane. ‘Take that bucket back to Mary and get your supper.’

  Jane picked up the bucket and scuttled out of the room. As Hannah made to follow her, the superintendent put a heavy hand on h
er shoulder. ‘Not you. You and I, girl, need to have a little chat.’

  She shut the door and propelled Hannah to stand in the centre of the room. Then she sat down on a couch, spread her skirt, folded her hands in her lap and looked up at the girl.

  ‘What am I to do with you, miss?’

  Hannah smiled, her blue eyes sparkling with mischief. ‘Well, if I was still at the workhouse, I’d be given no supper.’

  Mrs Bramwell fought to keep a straight face. ‘Full of Mrs Grundy’s excellent stew, that would be no hardship, would it?’

  Hannah wrinkled her brow, giving the matter serious thought. ‘No, I don’t suppose it would. In that case, then, I’d be sent to the punishment room. D’you have one here?’

  ‘Indeed we do, miss. So, is that where you think I should send you?’

  Hannah gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘I suppose so, ma’am.’

  ‘Then you’ll spend the next hour in the punishment room whilst everyone else has their supper. It’ll give you a taste of what to expect in the future, should you choose to disobey me again.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Hannah said meekly.

  Mrs Bramwell rose from the couch, her keys jangling. For a moment she stood looking down at the girl. ‘Why did you do it, Francis?’

  As in the workhouse, Hannah realized that they would all be addressed by their surname. But, just as she always had, she refused to refer to her friends in such a way.

  ‘Jane’s ten, ma’am, but she’s small for her age an’ very shy and frightened. I was just trying to look after ’er. She’s got no mother or father.’

  ‘So, why does that make her different? You’re all orphans.’

  Hannah shook her head. ‘I’m not. I’ve got a mother. She—’

  Mrs Bramwell’s mouth dropped open. ‘You – you’ve got a mother?’ Hannah blinked. The superintendent made it sound as if it were another crime. ‘But – but you’re all supposed to be orphans. From the workhouse. Paupers.’

  Hannah smiled. ‘Oh, we’re from the workhouse, and we’re certainly paupers. But my mam’s still there.’