The Lost Daughter

by Iris Cole

  “Where did you used to work?” one woman asked, shuffling closer to the patch of floorboard that served as Clary’s bed.

  Clary’s cheeks reddened. “I used to be… well, I still am a nurse. I worked at an orphanage of sorts in London, before I came here to look for… um… my family.” She paused shyly. “I tended to the babies, and the children, until they were old enough to leave us.”

  Another woman shrieked with glee. “Alwyn, ye sly fox, ye’ve only gone and got us our own physician—or as good as!” She hurried forward, dragging a painfully thin little girl. “Can ye take a look at me wee Charlotte. She’s complainin’ of pains in her legs, and she waddles everywhere we go like a duck. I have to haul her around, and I found her sleepin’ under the machines at the mill the other week. Her mouth’s been all sore, an’ all, and she can’t eat nothin’ but a bit of bread soaked in ale.”

  Clary could immediately tell what poor Charlotte’s ailment was, for she had seen it often enough in some of the older children who were brought into the Foundling Hospital, when their families could no longer afford to feed them well enough. Still, she knew she had to pretend to investigate, if only to find out the true extent of the little girl’s pain.

  “Does it hurt here?” Clary beckoned for the girl to come to her and pressed gently at the slightly deformed joints of her wrists and ankles.

  The girl sucked in a sharp, visibly uncomfortable breath. “It… doesn’t hurt… too much,” she lied.

  “Can I look into your mouth?” Clary waited for the girl to open her mouth wide, and observed the wreckage of decayed teeth, riddled with blackened cavities. It was no wonder the suffering child could not eat, and what she was eating was not doing her any good.

  Charlotte closed her mouth once Clary had finished looking, and the little girl stared at her would-be healer with fear in her eyes. “Am I… going to die?”

  The question broke Clary’s heart, for she knew it was a reasonable enough possibility in the mind of children who came from such poverty. So few made it through their first years, and even if they did, it was no assurance that they would survive into adulthood.

  “No, Charlotte, you’re not,” Clary said firmly, and looked to the girl’s mother. “Tell me, does she spend a lot of time inside, away from sunlight?”

  The girl’s mother frowned. “She’s under the machines most of the day, and there ain’t much sunlight comin’ in here, as ye can see.”

  “I think she has rickets, but it’s an ailment that can be remedied.” Clary took a breath. “You’ll need to make sure Charlotte gets out into the sunlight at least a few times a day, and I want you to replace the bread and ale with bread and milk, whilst her teeth are still sore. After that, if you can afford them, give her eggs ad fish, and some cabbage if you can get it. If you feed her that every day, she’ll recover in no time.”

  The girl’s mother looked as though she might cry. “Milk, eggs, fish, cabbage… I’ll do it, Miss Clary. I swear on me life, I’ll do what it takes to keep me wee Charlotte from sufferin’.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  And Charlotte’s mother—who went by the name of Sarah McLeod—did do everything within her power, as Clary came to see in the following weeks.

  Sarah continued to work at the mill each day, whilst giving her evenings to a different kind of work—the kind of work that Clary had refused to lower herself to. It saddened Clary, to see Sarah coming into the lodgings in the small hours of the morning, with her clothes torn, and her face marred by a fresh cut, or bruise, or graze, but there was untold strength in the tenacity of Sarah McLeod. Not once did she complain or give up. Instead, she used the extra money to buy the fish, the eggs, the cabbage, and the milk that Clary had prescribed for her only daughter.

  In turn, Charlotte grew in health and strength, owing it all to her mother’s sacrifice.

  But she was not the only one. As soon as news spread of the new arrival’s expertise, Clary found herself inundated with women, children, men, and elderly coming to find her, to ask what she could do for them.

  More often than not, Clary’s means of healing were limited, but as soon as she mentioned something that might help these poor souls, they found a way to attain it and bring it back to Clary. It could be sage oil, or some kind of herb, or a tincture from the apothecary, or a specific type of clay for a poultice, and the people of the tenements where she now lived would rally together to get it.

  Yet, none were so driven by their determination than the mothers she had come to know and respect. They would sell, and had sold, the very clothes on their back if it meant their child could have something they needed to survive.

  There’s nothing so fierce as a mother who might lose her child…

  In a way, the selflessness of these mothers allowed Clary to see her own mother in a different light.

  Perhaps, her mother’s sacrifice had been giving her up to the Foundling Hospital, where she would be taken care of, and would prosper in a way that, maybe, her mother could not have provided.

  As payment for her services, the residents of the surrounding tenement lodgings gave her gin, or food, or any pennies they could spare.

  Though the money might have allowed her to go home sooner, the constant bombardment of misery and pain and ailments that could be so easily fixed if these people could only afford better food, or better housing, or blankets to keep them warm in the icy nights, made her seek solace in the gin instead.

  For it was truly the only way she could coax herself into slumbering, after spending a lengthy day at the mill, and an equally intense evening treating the masses on her doorstep.

  “Ye’re not lookin’ so well, me girl,” Alwyn said, one day, as the two women toiled away at the mill. They worked upon the vast looms which turned the raw cotton spun yarns and, from there, into sheets of fabric that would go on to be turned into myriad more things.

  Clary blinked in an exhausted, gin-infused stupor. “Hmm?”

  “I said, ye’re not lookin’ so well.” Alwyn frowned in deep concern. “If ye want, I can turn all the folks away tonight who come lookin’ for ye. I’ll tell ‘em ye’re not in good nick, and to come back another night. Ye’ve hardly stopped since ye got here, Clary. If ye’re not careful, ye’ll be the one droppin’ dead.”

  Clary shook her head and felt suddenly dizzy. “I can’t do that, Alwyn. If I don’t help them, no-one else is going to. And if I turn someone away tonight, and they’re dead when morning comes, I won’t be able to forgive myself.”

  She returned her concentration to the loom, but the clatter of machinery and the fast-moving shuttles that weaved the fine yarns together seemed to blur. Feeling strangely panicked, she tried to rake in steadying breaths, but the hot, dusty atmosphere made it impossible to draw a proper breath without it feeling as though her lungs were on fire.

  And as she looked down between the lines of yarn, she gasped as she saw two sets of wide, frightened eyes staring back up at her from beneath the machines. The child “scavengers” who risked their lives each day, cleaning the machinery whilst it was still running. She had seen plenty of them of an evening, being brought to her with fingers missing, and deep lacerations across their tiny, frail frames.

  She did her best to stitch them up and to cleanse the wounds with vinegar, but in the month that she had been here in Manchester, more of those children had succumbed to poisoned blood than she had managed to save.

  And yet, the mothers and fathers don’t blame me. Instead, they thank me for trying, and for doing all I could to keep their beloved children alive…

  Tears sprang to Clary’s eyes, as she staggered away from the machines, feeling desperately unwell.

  Alwyn caught her. “Right, I’m takin’ ye outside for a rest. If the overseer has aught to say about it, he can speak to me, and I’ll placate him.” She signalled to the nearest woman in the sign language of the mill workers. The woman nodded—for her son had recovered from two amputated fingers thanks to Clary’s makeshift surgery
—and moved into position to cover Clary and Alwyn’s part of the looms.

  Unsteady on her feet, Clary did not resist as Alwyn hauled her out of the unbearable din of the mill, and into the courtyard at the front. There, Alwyn urged Clary to sit down on one of the worn, dirty steps, before producing a secret jar of gin that she had stowed away in the pocket of her apron.

  She handed it to Clary. “Drink this ‘til ye feel less shaky.”

  “I’m beginning to think this is the problem,” Clary replied, though she took a long, grateful sip regardless.

  Alwyn shook her head. “That ain’t the problem. It’s ye runnin’ yerself ragged that’s the problem. Ye’re workin’ here all day, barely havin’ time to eat a crust of bread when ye get back to the lodgings, and tendin’ to everyone who comes to ye until ye’ve only a couple of hours to sleep until ye wake to do it all over again. It’s goin’ to kill ye, me girl, and I’m not havin’ ye die on me.”

  Clary sighed. “What am I doing here in the first place, Alwyn? I never intended to stay, and yet, I’ve been here for a month. It’s like… I forgot my purpose, so my purpose changed into healing as many people as possible.” Her breath hitched. “And, perhaps, my time is better served in that endeavour. I’m doing more good here than I could ever have done back home.”

  “What about Bill, eh? When he comes back for ye, do ye want him to see ye like this?” Alwyn gave her a pointed nudge, for Clary had told her all about the young man who had given her the second coin around her neck.

  Bill…

  Clary had not had a moment to think of him in weeks, but the second she heard his name spoken aloud, all of her intent and reason and determination came stampeding back into her mind.

  No, she did not want him to see her like this. Nor did she want to face him and tell him that she had not succeeded in finding her father. But, perhaps, he would consider her trials here a success, once she informed him of everything she had done instead, and all the lives that had been saved because of her.

  Don’t forget all those who died… Reality smacked her hard in the gut, for where there were triumphs, there were also failures. For many who begged for her help, she lacked the resources to do a single thing to aid them. She could only suggest tonics that might make them more comfortable in their final stretch upon this Earth.

  Clary knocked back another gulp of gin. “I should go to the docks,” she said firmly. “I should keep going there, every day, until Captain Dunbar sails in. At least, then, I’ll have done something for myself whilst I’ve been here. Even if it comes to naught, I’ll be able to tell Bill, and Dolly, that I tried.”

  “That’s more like it.” Alwyn smiled, though some worry lingered in her eyes. “Don’t lose sight of what ye came here to do, or this city will swallow ye up and spit ye out, ‘til ye really can’t remember what ye were doin’ here to begin with.”

  Clary stared down at the small ceramic jar in her hands. “I still don’t know how I’ll make it back to London, though.”

  “I told ye when we first met—I’ll help ye with that.” Alwyn paused. “I’m still tryin’ to figure it out, but I’ll not let ye stay here and end up like the rest of us. Ye’ve too much more to give to the world than bein’ tied to a loom all yer days.”

  Clary’s nerves evened out and the panic inside her chest subsided, chased away by the comforting embrace of the liquor. It might have made her feel somewhat woozy, and she often found herself making mistakes at the machines that could have cost her dearly, but she had learned in this last month that she could not live without her daily dose.

  Without it, she feared her vision might clear, and she would actually see the true, dismal depths of the destitution and misery that surrounded her. It was bad enough through the warped lens of the gin; she did not need to see the even starker reality, or it might crush her spirits beyond repair.

  For what’s the use in healing those who will be sick again in a week, a month, a year, or will come to me with parts of themselves missing, and plead to be saved, while blood bubbles from their lips, when there’s nothing I can do for them.

  “We should go back inside before the overseer comes,” she said sombrely, haunted by the ghosts of all those she had not been able to help. Though at least the gin kept the nightmares at bay.

  Alwyn held onto her and pulled her back down as she tried to leave. “Stay a moment longer. Gather yerself. He can wait.”

  “What makes you so sure he won’t turf us out without so much as a by your leave?” Clary frowned, but Alwyn merely chuckled and rubbed her ever-growing belly.

  “I have me ways, Clary.”

  Understanding dawned, though neither of them spoke of it. In the month since meeting one another, Clary had often wondered who the father of Alwyn’s child might be. Now, it seemed, she knew.

  Perhaps, she always had done, for the overseer gave Alwyn and those close to her privileges he did not give to others. This rest, for example.

  And Alwyn had clearly paid for that luxury, as so many women in this world did, with her body.

  Chapter Sixteen

  One month in Manchester swiftly became two and, as Clary ambled wearily into her third month in the city, she found herself once more at the docks.

  As promised to Alwyn, she had come here every day since she had almost keeled over at the mill, but there had, as of yet, been no sign of Captain Dunbar or his ship.

  It was early morning, before the sun had even risen, and a dense fog wisped across the irritated waters of the Bridgewater Canal. And though Clary had walked here upon her own two legs, she had only the vaguest recollection of making the journey. Having done the same trip on countless mornings like this one, she might have been dreaming, for all she knew.

  Indeed, with every dawn that arrived, it became harder and harder for her to awaken. After seeing her last patient at two or even three, or sometimes four o’clock in the morning, she found she needed larger and larger quantities of gin in order to coax her into sleep for those last precious hours before she had to wake up again.

  Truly, it was beginning to take a terrible toll. Already, she looked like a shell of the woman she had once been, and where there had once been healthy roundness, there was nothing but skin and bone.

  “Excuse me?” She stumbled up to the first sailor she found, her mind already hazy with her breakfast of half a jar of gin.

  The sailor smirked. “Are you lost, love?”

  “No, I’m looking for…” she paused to hiccough “… Captain Dunbar and his ship.”

  The sailor’s grin turned into a frown. “What are you wanting him for? Nothing good, by the looks of you.” He put a friendly hand on Clary’s shoulder. “Has he left you with a wain?”

  “Not at all!” Clary threw off the man’s hand, despising the way it felt to be touched, even in a friendly manner. She had not forgotten the assault in the London alleyway.

  Indeed, the only man she could stomach touching her, in any capacity, was the one man who was not here: dear, sweet Bill, who had sailed away, leaving her to the tormented life she now led.

  The sailor put up his hands in surrender. “All right, love. I didn’t mean to offend.” He sniffed. “If you’re wanting Captain Dunbar, you’ll find him down the way there. He sailed in this morning.”

  Clary’s body went rigid. “Pardon?”

  “Captain Dunbar. His ship came in this morning. Can’t miss it—The Four Winds. Biggest one on the docks today.” The sailor eyed her as though she might be half-crazed which, at that moment, was not too far from the truth.

  In all her journeys here, she had never actually expected to find the ship, nor the captain, she had been waiting for. The one she had come all this way, and given so much of herself, in the vain hope of meeting.

  She did not even thank the sailor as she hurried on down the docks, scouring the waiting ships for the one that bore the right name. Her eyes had been blurry before, but now they could see with a sharp clarity, spurred into being by the adrenaline n
ow rushing through her veins.

  After a couple of minutes, she found it. She did not even wait for permission as she ran along the wharf and up the gangplank, where she came to a nervous, breathless halt on the top deck. Some of the crew stared at her with the same wariness as the previous man, but she did not care. They could stare all she liked. Her ship had finally come in.

  “You shouldn’t be here, Miss.” One of the men clambered down the rigging and approached her with caution.

  She waved a hand at him. “I’ll be on my way soon enough. I just need a word with Captain Dunbar. I’m searching for my father, you see, and I think he used to be a member of the captain’s crew.”

  The sailor furrowed his brow. “Who’s the man? Maybe I know of him.”

  “Oh, I don’t know his name.” Clary immediately felt foolish. “I only know his initials—F.C.”

  The sailor shook his head. “Could be anyone, love.”

  “Maybe, but I’ve got reason to believe he knew Captain Dunbar.” She fumbled for the coins around her neck. “My father put markings on the back of this, and one of them points to your captain.”

  Just then, a tall, imposing man with oiled whiskers and slicked grey hair stalked across the deck, sending the other sailor scurrying back up the rigging.

  If Clary had been in her right mind, she might have been afraid, but the morning’s gin had managed to rid her of most of her sensibilities and inhibitions. Besides, she had waited for three months. She would not allow herself to be scared away before she had what she had come here for.

  “What are you doing on me ship, lass?” the tall man barked, his voice faintly accented.

  Clary squared her shoulders. “Are you Captain Dunbar?”

  “That depends. What do I get from you if I tell you that I am?” He sneered, while his men watched with apprehension.

  Clary echoed his smirk. “Either you tell me, or I ask one of the men at the Dock Office to point you out, and I’ll find my way straight back here.” She paused. “So, you can deal with me now, and I’ll be away again as soon as possible, or you can waste both of our valuable time with foolish games.”