The Winter Orphan

Arthur nodded, giving no answer except to thank him for his time once more. He was angry, for he had seen nothing in the young woman’s features to suggest she was Romany and would not have cared if she was, but he would have thought by her speech that she was more likely to be of good family, although he supposed the clothes she wore might have belonged to the kind of woman the doctor had mentioned.

A knock at the door made Arthur turn to greet the plump woman who had arrived with a hot toddy and a glass of warmed milk.

‘I’m Sally, the landlord’s wife, and I thought you could do with something to warm you, sir,’ she said. ‘I brought the milk in case the young lady was feeling able to drink it.’

‘At the moment she sleeps,’ Arthur said. ‘I wonder if you could bring me up a cold supper – I do not feel able to leave her just yet.’

‘How would it be if I sat with her for a while, sir? You go down and my husband will bring you soup, bread and then cold meat and pickles – if that will suit?’

‘It sounds like a feast,’ Arthur said and smiled, for Sally had a kind face. ‘She woke once and I think she has recently lost a child.’

‘The poor girl,’ Sally said. ‘I know how that feels, for I lost one of my own – though I now have two strapping sons.’

‘I am glad to hear of your present happiness,’ Arthur said and drank some of his hot toddy. ‘I shall take this with me, Sally. Please watch this lady while I avail myself of your husband’s hospitality.’

It was an hour and a half before Arthur returned to the bedchamber. The landlord’s wife was bathing the young woman’s forehead and smiling as she tended her. Clearly, she had taken to her patient and was caring for her as she would one of her own.

‘Thank you for your kindness, Sally.’

‘It was a girl I lost, sir. She would have been just a little younger than this young lady if I am not mistaken, for she can be little more than eighteen.’

‘You think her gently born?’

‘Oh yes, sir. Her hands have known work but only in the past few months – and her skin is soft and white, her features gentle. I believe her to have been ill-treated, Mr Stoneham – there are marks of a beating on her back no more than a few months old.’

Arthur’s eyes narrowed in question. ‘You bathed her to ease her fever and discovered scars?’

‘Aye, sir, I did. Who would beat a young woman who was bearing a child? I do not understand such cruelty, for my John is a good man. What kind of a man could do such a thing?’

‘I fear there are many such,’ Arthur told her, frowning. ‘I daresay there is a sorry tale behind her appearance but she is not alone in her suffering; there are many more …’

Sally nodded but made no further comment. She took her tray and left the room, saying she would return later but he must ring for her if he needed her help. Arthur thanked her and sat in the armchair by the fire, stretching out his long legs and leaning his head against the winged back. He felt warm and he had dined well. The young woman seemed to be resting and he might as well sleep if he could; time enough when she woke to discover the mystery that had brought her to a lonely road for him to find on such a night. It could not be mere coincidence. This was meant to be and Arthur sensed that he was meant to find her.

CHAPTER 2

‘I had thought Mr Stoneham would have returned by now,’ Ruth Jones said when Hetty visited the kitchen at the refuge in the East End of London for fallen women where the pair both worked and lived. ‘You don’t think he would … you know, in his grief for the poor lady?’ Her distress showed in her eyes at the thought and Hetty was quick to reassure her.

Made warden of this spacious and comfortable home for unfortunate women, by a man she both admired and cared for, Hetty smiled. It had, she thought, once been the house of a wealthy merchant and had several good bedrooms, which enabled them to take in more women needing a place to call home.

‘No, Ruth, I do not think that Arthur Stoneham would take his own life, no matter how much he loved Katharine. He knows that too many people rely on him – besides, it is the coward’s way, and Arthur is no coward. You must not think such things. I daresay he has been delayed for some good reason and will return when he is ready.’

Ruth nodded and looked more cheerful. ‘Bless you, Miss Hetty, thank you for puttin’ my mind at ease. The master had seemed restless for a while and then, when Miss Ross agreed to wed him – well, I’d never seen him as happy. It was such a tragedy.’

‘Yes, it was,’ Hetty agreed, though privately she had her doubts that Arthur would have found lasting happiness with Katharine Ross. No doubt Katharine had felt some tenderness towards Arthur, perhaps loved him in her gentle way – but not with the wholehearted passion he deserved. But perhaps Hetty was biased, because she loved him herself, loved him with a passion she knew matched his own capability for love, though she would never have stood in his way. She cared only that he found peace and happiness for he had surely suffered enough remorse for any man.

At that moment a knock came at the door and Ruth went to answer it. Hetty looked for her to return, hopeful of some news concerning Arthur. Instead she was followed by a young girl Hetty had come to know well in recent weeks; she had, no doubt, brought medicine for one of their ladies.

‘Here’s Eliza come with herbs for our Sarah’s cough …’ Ruth announced. ‘I asked her to step in and take a glass of milk and a biscuit.’

Hetty nodded her approval. Eliza worked and cared for the apothecary, taking her cures to those in need and sometimes visited them at Hetty’s behest, for her ladies had often suffered and needed medicines to help them overcome their ills. A young, pretty girl, Eliza had both compassion and courage, for she had survived the cruellest upbringing in the workhouse.

Hetty knew that Arthur believed Eliza was his child, born of a young country gentlewoman, long dead now, and through misfortune given to a workhouse where she had suffered terribly before being rescued.

‘I am happy to see you, Eliza dear. Come, sit with us and tell us how you are – and Miss Edith, too.’

Eliza smiled. ‘I am well, ma’am, though I fear Miss Edith is not as strong as she might be.’

‘I am sorry for that,’ Hetty said looking at her with sympathy. ‘You know you may come to us if you are worried or distressed and we shall do our best to help you. My door is always open to you, Eliza.’

Eliza smiled at her sweetly and in that smile, Hetty saw something of the man she admired, and in her heart had always loved. Arthur only needed to see that smile to know for sure that she was his daughter, but Hetty knew that for the moment his grief had made him blind to anything but his memories of Katharine and her loss. He worried what to do for Eliza for the best, because she loved Miss Edith and to take her from the woman who had given her a home might distress her, and yet he wanted her to have the life she deserved. Once he’d managed to set his grief aside, he would undoubtedly put his mind to ensuring Eliza’s future happiness.

‘Miss Edith told me to make sure that Sarah knows the dose is once every six hours, Miss Hetty,’ Eliza said. ‘She should not take more.’

‘We’ll look after her, don’t you worry …’ Ruth said and smiled at her. In the workhouse she had looked after Eliza as if she were her own child for she had none to love and truly cared for the girl.

Hetty knew it was on Ruth’s mind that she needed to tell Eliza the secret she’d kept all these years, to give her the diamond trinket she’d discovered pinned inside her shawl – placed there, Ruth had no doubt, by the mother who had been forced to give her up. However, she agreed with Hetty that she needed to ask Arthur Stoneham’s permission before she did so and in all the distress of the past weeks she had not dared to ask.

‘Has Mr Stoneham returned from the country?’ Eliza asked suddenly.

‘Not yet – did you wish to speak to him?’

Eliza hesitated and then nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am but it is not important. I know Mr Stoneham is a busy man. I only wished to ask if he had found any record of who brought me to the workhouse. He did say he would help me if I asked …’

‘Arthur will return soon I am sure and you may ask him then. He has spent the weeks since Katharine’s death, at Christmas, searching for her sister, but I fear too many years have passed for him to succeed. Only a little miracle would bring that to pass.’

‘Her death was very sad, ma’am. We were sorry to hear of it …’

Hetty sighed. It would take a miracle and a persistence few could muster to find someone who had disappeared all those years ago. No one but Arthur Stoneham would have attempted it. She had calmed Ruth’s fears, but she too wondered where Arthur was, for she had expected his return before this. His cousin, Matthew Soames, who was also his secretary, was taking care of business in Arthur’s absence, but Hetty felt it keenly. Arthur Stoneham was never far from her thoughts or her prayers these days. Yet she believed that if he had not returned from his search there must be a good reason for his tardiness.

Bella sat on the stairs, hugging her thin arms about her body as the tears trickled down her cheeks. She hated this place – and most of all she hated Mistress Brent. Mistress Brent was the warden in charge of the female section of the workhouse but her husband was the master. He ruled the house with a rod of iron and even his wife had been seen with black eyes after he’d beaten her. It was after he’d taken his wrath out on Mistress Brent that she vented her spite on the women and girls in her charge – but most of all on Bella.

Bella had no idea why the mistress despised her and ill-used her so much more than the other children. A harsh, thin-faced woman, tall and skinny but very strong, when Mistress Brent gripped Bella’s arms, her fingers dug in so hard they bruised her and she had black and mauve marks all over them. The mistress had a long thin cane, which she used whenever she felt inclined, striking out at anyone she thought was being disobedient or impertinent. She made the children line up for everything – food, visits to church or the schoolroom, which was a privilege reserved only for those the mistress favoured, despite the law that said children must be educated between the ages of five to ten years. Bella had learned to write her name, but she could not read more than a few letters nor could she reckon numbers, even though some of the women inmates said that it was a disgrace she had been denied this right.

‘It’s the law that all the children should be taught their letters, numbers and to read, as well as sewing and other things and the child’s ripe to learn,’ they’d said amongst themselves, but no one dared to say it to the mistress’s face. All the women and girls obeyed their mistress almost by instinct, their spirits long subdued, and it was Bella alone who refused to march in time to her tune. She ran when she should walk and talked when she was ordered to be silent and took her punishment without tears. Something told Bella that, whatever she did, she would be beaten and ill-used and a fierce pride inside would not let her lie down and let the mistress wipe her feet on her.

Bella was good with a needle. Her eyes were sharp and her stitches were neat, and because of that she was given most of the mending to do. She was allowed to sit in the special room reserved for the seamstresses and help them in the afternoons, but in the mornings she was set tasks like scrubbing the floors or washing dishes. Yet she suspected that if her needlework had not been so neat, her life might have been harder. There were far worse jobs in the workhouse – the laundry, which was hot and damp and smelly; picking oakum, which made hands bleed, and slopping out the latrines. They stank, especially in summer, and they were cleared manually by the men, but children had to wash them down after the men had taken the stinking effluent away. Bella had been given that job once but since then she’d been fortunate enough to be sent to the sewing room.

Bella had learned about the woman who had given birth to a healthy child but was told it was dead while she sat quietly mending. The other women had gossiped about the young woman who had arrived earlier that bitter afternoon on the point of giving birth.

‘She does not know her own name nor whence she came,’ Florrie said as she cut the delicate pattern out of expensive silk. Florrie was the head seamstress and her work was so fine that word had spread to Lady Rowntree, whose family had founded the workhouse. Lady Rowntree had started by asking for some alterations and repairs, but then she had asked if Florrie could make some fine underwear for her daughter, Rosalie, who was soon to be wed. ‘I think a man betrayed poor Jane – for so the mistress said she should be called – and beat her and she lost her mind, poor wench.’

‘She would be better off if the babe dies at birth for she cannot care for it,’ Marta said as she paused in her own sewing. ‘In any case, I know the mistress and master sell the healthy ones – it has always been so, except in her case …’ The woman nodded her head at Bella. ‘Why do you think she kept her?’

‘Hush, Marta.’ Florrie shot a warning look at her friend. ‘If someone tells her what you say, they’ll shut you in the cellar and starve you.’

‘They can’t let me die,’ Marta said in a belligerent tone. ‘It’s not lawful – and Lady Rowntree would close this place down if she knew some of the things they do. It was she and her husband who endowed this place and they are still the guardians of it.’

‘I think he is too ill to care what happens here,’ Florrie said, shaking her head. ‘Her ladyship might – and Miss Rosalie would be shocked. She’s a lovely young lady, she is – and so grateful for our work. She told me that she has not seen better embroidery than ours, Marta.’

The chatter had turned to other things then, but Bella did not forget the woman who had lost her mind. When the poor lost woman had given birth, Bella had been sent to the sickroom with cloths and saw a healthy child born – but later she heard that Jane had been told it was dead and, in pity, stole a cup of milk and some soft bread from the kitchen and took it to her. The woman had looked so sad and ill and Bella had felt drawn to her. Poor Jane had wept and thanked her and her tears had remained in Bella’s memory.

Bella saw everything that went on in the workhouse. She was small and slight and no one took much notice of her – unless the mistress chanced to look her way when she felt inclined to punish someone. Bella had seen Jane’s babe carried from the workhouse one evening, two days after the birth, wrapped in a thick blanket. It could only have been Jane’s babe, for there were no others in the house, and she knew that the babes of young unmarried mothers were routinely sold to people willing to pay for them; fine ladies who longed for a child and could not bear them would pay well for a healthy babe, particularly a boy. If a family entered the workhouse and a woman gave birth, she would be allowed to keep her babe until the father took them out in the spring to find work. Only if the woman was alone and had no one to help her was the babe stolen from her.

Bella had felt so sorry for the woman they had named Jane. It was the reason she’d gone down to the yard the previous night and told Jane that her child lived and what she’d seen. She had tried to help her, but she’d been caught when she was returning to the dormitory and that was why she was sitting on the stairs now, awaiting the mistress’s summons. She knew she would be beaten and it would hurt, but she would try not to cry. Mistress Brent liked to see her cry and would just beat her all the harder.

‘Bella, come here!’ She rose and walked up the last few stairs to the woman waiting for her and her heart raced wildly. Mistress Brent was smiling and that meant trouble. She was looking forward to inflicting punishment. Bella was sure it made her happy to see others in pain and distress. ‘Come in, girl.’

Bella went into the dark room that the mistress called her office. There was a desk and a chair and a mahogany tallboy, in which she kept her cane, her papers and other things, but no pictures or ornaments or anything personal.

‘You stole from the kitchens last night. No, do not try to lie to me. It is the only reason you would be coming from the kitchens late at night – and, I’ll swear, it is not the first time,’ Mistress Brent said and glared at her. ‘You will be beaten and then you will go without supper. I despise thieves – and I have decided that I shall not keep you here. The gypsy threatened that I should be cursed if I sold you and swore she would come back for you – but she lied. I no longer believe in her or her curse.’

‘What gypsy?’ Bella looked at her fearfully, for it was the first she had heard of this curse. ‘I do not understand you.’

‘No, nor shall you – but know that you are scum, the child of a whore, and deserve all that you get. Your mother deserted you, left you to die in the snow on the church steps and then gave up her worthless life. You are cursed and I should have sold you years ago but I thought – well, now it is time.’ She shook her head as if shaking off something that haunted her, a flicker of something like fear in her eyes. ‘Yes, I shall keep you no more, for you have proved that you are a thankless wretch.’

Bella shivered, the terror mounting inside her. She had been beaten before and half-starved – but from the look in the mistress’s eyes there was worse in store for her.

Raising her head, she looked into the cold eyes that raked over her. ‘I do not care if you sell me – anywhere would be better than here!’

‘You think so, do you?’ Fire flashed in the mistress’s eyes. She was angry and Bella was suddenly frightened. She had spoken out of turn and defiance was always met with more punishment. ‘You may think you are ill-treated here, girl, but there are other places much worse and you will soon discover that you had a life of ease here within these walls.’

Bella kept her head high, but inside she was frozen with terror. What did the mistress intend to do with her?

‘It is time you knew the truth of who and what you are! Your mother was an impertinent bitch too,’ Mistress Brent said harshly. ‘She came here weeks before you were born but she was too proud to accept her lot and she defied me.’ A cruel smile touched her mouth. ‘She begged me to send you to her sister if she died but I refused and so she ran away. I know not how she lived, but she came back here, begging to be let in hours before she gave birth to you. I turned her away and she crawled off to die in the fields where she belonged. However, the vicar found you at his door and brought you to me, demanding that I take you in. She had wrapped you in her own wool shawl – far too good for one of her kind! – and so I knew you for her brat. I kept you here to let you learn humiliation, but it seems you are as defiant as the bitch that spawned you. So now you will learn to regret you defied me …’

Thin spittle had come from the mistress’s mouth as she ranted, trickling down her chin. Her eyes flashed with temper and her arm jerked back and forth as she lashed Bella’s back and shoulders.

‘The gypsy came one night. She threatened me with terrible things if I did not keep you and care for you, but she never came back.’ Mistress Brent’s arm arced once more, bringing down the cane across Bella’s shoulders. ‘She dared to threaten me – but I’ll not harbour a gypsy brat a moment longer!’

Bella set her teeth, refusing to cry out as the thin stick bit into the flesh on her legs and back. The tears would come later as she lay in her bed being tended by some of the women, but no – it seemed that this time she would not be given even that courtesy. She was to be sold to a new master.

‘Defy me to the end, would you? Well, you leave tonight. You will feel the pain as your wounds fester and the maggots eat your flesh, and then see if you do not feel like crawling back to beg my pardon,’ she said and laughed. ‘But do not bother, for I shall not admit you.’

Bella raised her head and looked at her. ‘You are a wicked evil woman. You lie and you steal people’s babies – and I hope you rot in Hell!’

Mistress Brent lashed out, striking her across the face twice. ‘Get downstairs! Someone will come for you soon.’ She thrust Bella from her room and pushed her so that she stumbled on the stairs outside, but managed to save herself from falling.

Bella’s face and legs stung and her back felt sore and tender as she walked slowly to the bottom of the stairs and made her way towards the hall. Florrie was waiting there and she looked at her with pity in her eyes.

‘Why did you do it, Bella? If you were hungry I would have given you some of my food.’

‘I took some food to Jane whose child they stole,’ Bella said as the tears coursed down her cheeks. ‘They lied to her and I told her the truth – the babe lives.’

‘Oh, Bella, no wonder the mistress picks on you,’ Florrie said sighing. ‘Let me bathe your legs and back.’

‘Mistress said I was to wait here until someone came.’

‘Well, they can ask for you. I’ll not let you go before I tend your hurts, child.’

‘I don’t want you to be in trouble …’

‘Oh, she dare not punish me for Lady Rowntree favours me and I could ask for a position in her house. I stayed here because of you, Bella, and my friends – but if she raised her hand to me I would leave.’

Bella let Florrie lead her to the kitchen where her hurts were tended and she was given a cup of milk and a piece of bread to eat. She had ceased crying when another woman came looking for her.

‘He’s come for the girl,’ she said. ‘You’d best hurry, Bella, or goodness knows what she’ll do – I think the devil has got into her today.’

Even the women chosen to help the mistress disliked her. Bella felt fear ripple through her, because she knew that wherever she was being sent must be much worse than this house. The trustee took hold of her arm, holding it firmly.

‘You have to go, Bella. She’s made up her mind to it and there’s no help for you here.’

‘Please, I don’t want to leave you …’

Bella looked back at Florrie imploringly but the woman gave a little shake of her head. ‘I’ve done all I can for you, child – may God be with you …’

Bella shook her head. Sometimes, she did not believe in God. How could there be a God when he let people like Mistress Brent rule their lives? People said they were lucky to live in the workhouse, because otherwise they might starve – but folk who said that knew nothing of the hardship and cruelty behind those impressive wrought-iron gates.

As she was taken into the hall, she saw a large man standing there, waiting. He had big arms and shoulders and untidy lank hair that hung about his shirt collar. His ruddy face was unshaven and there were black marks all over his skin. She could smell a sharp, metallic odour that seemed to emanate from him.

‘So this is the brat,’ he bellowed in a voice calculated to put fear into the stoutest of hearts. ‘She’ll not last five minutes – but I’ve been paid to take her so come on, brat. I’ve got no time to waste.’

Bella was given a little push towards him. Now the stink of him was much stronger and her stomach rebelled. The food she’d been given in the kitchen rose up her throat and splashed out of her mouth on to the floor, some of it landing on his boots.

‘Little pig!’ the man yelled and gave her a smack on the side of the head. ‘You’ll learn not to waste your food – and never to spill it on Karl Breck. I’m your master now, brat, and you’ll clean these boots as soon as we get back to the works.’

Bella found her arm taken in a grip of steel and she was propelled out of the house. A weary-looking horse and a wagon stood outside and Bella was unceremoniously tossed up into it, landing on a pile of old sacks. She felt the pain of her back and legs where she’d been beaten, but the tears that spilled now were because she feared for the future, not for what she had suffered at the mistress’s hands.