Street Child Read online

  ‘Be good,’ she murmured to them. She lifted the knocker.

  They heard rapid footsteps coming. Mrs Jarvis quickly bent down and kissed both the girls on the tops of their heads.

  ‘God bless you both,’ she said.

  Emily looked up at her, suddenly afraid. She was about to ask her mother what was happening when the door was opened by a large, floury woman in a white pinafore. She had the sleeves of her dress rolled up so her arms bulged out of them. Her hands and wrists were covered in dough and as she flung up her arms in greeting Jim could see that her elbows were red and powdery.

  ‘Annie Jarvis!’ the woman gasped. ‘I never thought to see you again!’ She hugged her, covering her with bits of dough. ‘You ain’t come looking for work, have you, after all this time? Judd’s going spare, she is, looking for a new cook. She’s got me at it, and my dough’s like a boulder – you could build cathedrals out of it, and they wouldn’t ever fall down! She’ll soon put me back on serving upstairs!’

  While she was talking she hauled Mrs Jarvis and the children into the kitchen and set stools for them round the stove, balancing herself on a high chair and scooping up more flour. She pushed aside the big mixing bowl and sat with her elbows on the table, beaming across at them, and then her smile changed. She reached over to Mrs Jarvis and put her hand on her forehead.

  ‘Hot!’ Her voice was soft with concern. ‘You’re so hot, Annie, and white as snow.’ She looked at the children, and at the bundles of clothes and belongings that they were still clutching. ‘You’ve been turned out, haven’t you?’

  Mrs Jarvis nodded.

  ‘You got anywhere?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you’re not fit for work. You know that? There’s no work left in you, Annie Jarvis.’

  A bell jangled over the door, and Rosie jumped up and ran to the stove.

  ‘Lord, that’s for the coffees, and I ain’t done them. Anyone comes down, and you duck under the table quick, mind,’ she said to the children. The bell rang again.

  ‘All right, all right,’ she shouted. ‘His lordship can wait five minutes, can’t he, while I talk to my friend here?’

  She glanced at Mrs Jarvis again, her face puckered in frowns. ‘My sister, as good as. No, he can’t wait. His lordship waits for nothing.’

  As she was talking she was ladling coffee and milk into jugs and setting them on a tray. She rubbed her floury hands on the pinafore, took it off and changed into a clean one, and as a quick afterthought she poured some of the coffee into a cup and edged it across the table towards Mrs Jarvis.

  ‘Go on,’ she urged. ‘Take it for all the good bread you’ve baked for him.’ She ran to the door with her tray rattling in her hand and paused to pull a face at the bell as it jangled again. ‘There’s only one home left to you now, Annie. It’s the House, ain’t it, heaven help you. The workhouse!’

  As soon as Rosie had left the kitchen and gone upstairs with her tray, Jim slid off his stool and ran to his mother. She sipped at her coffee, holding the cup with both hands.

  ‘We ain’t going to the workhouse, Ma?’ Emily asked her.

  The children had heard terrifying stories about workhouses. Old people spoke of them with fear and hate as if they were worse than hell on earth. They’d heard that people who went there sometimes had to stay for the rest of their lives. People died in there. Some people slept out in the streets and the fields rather than go to the workhouse. The two girls sat in silent dread each side of their mother.

  ‘Help Rosie out with her bread, Emily,’ Mrs Jarvis suggested, her voice steady now, and stronger. ‘It’d be a good turn that she’d appreciate, and his lordship would too!’

  Emily did as she was told. She washed her hands in the jug of water on the side and then poured some of the frothing yeast into the bowl of flour. A few minutes later Rosie came down. She put her finger to her lips and pointed up the stairs.

  ‘I’ve asked Judd to come!’ she mouthed.

  There was the rustle of a long skirt on the stairs, and the housekeeper came in, stern and brisk. Jim tried to slide under the table but she stopped him with her booted foot.

  She came straight to Mrs Jarvis and stood with her hands on her hips, looking down at her. ‘Rosie tells me you’re in a bad way, Annie Jarvis,’ she said. ‘And I must say, you look it.’

  ‘I haven’t come to make trouble, Judd,’ Mrs Jarvis said. ‘And I’m sorry if I’ve interrupted the work. I’ve only come to say goodbye to you and Rosie, because you’ve always been so kind to me.’

  ‘If we’ve been kind to you it’s because you’ve always done your work well, and that’s what matters,’ Judd sniffed. She looked over Emily’s shoulder as the girl dolloped her dough onto the table and pushed her hands into it to knead it. Rosie dodged behind her, her hands clasped together, her face anxious. It was as if Emily was performing some kind of magic, and they were afraid to break the spell, the way the three women watched her in silence.

  ‘Can cook, can you?’ Judd asked Emily at last.

  ‘She can cook as well as me,’ said Jim’s mother. ‘And she can scrub the floor for you, and run errands. She can sleep on the kitchen floor and take up no room.’

  ‘She wouldn’t need paying,’ Rosie said. ‘She’d be a saving, Judd.’

  Emily flattened and rolled the dough with the heel of her hand, stretching it out and folding it over time and time again, listening with every nerve in her body to what the women behind her were saying.

  ‘But I couldn’t do anything for the other girl,’ Judd said.

  ‘Judd, I’ve a sister who’s cook at Sunbury. She might give her a chance,’ Rosie said. She stood on the tips of her toes like a little girl, her hands clasped behind her back and her eyes pleading. ‘If you just let little Lizzie sleep down here with Emily till Sunday, and I can walk her over to Moll’s then.’

  ‘I don’t want to know they’re here, Rosie. If his lordship finds out, it’s every one of us for the workhouse. You know that, don’t you? I don’t know they’re here, these girls.’

  Judd swept out, her straight back and her firm stride telling them that she had never seen these girls in the kitchen. They listened to the swing of the door and for the clicking of her boots on the stairs to die away.

  ‘It’s the best I can do to help you, Annie,’ Rosie said. ‘I can’t do no more.’

  ‘It’s more than I expected,’ Mrs Jarvis said. ‘At least you’ve saved my girls from that place.’

  She stood up unsteadily. ‘We’d better go,’ she said to Jim. ‘It’s not fair to Rosie if we stay here any longer.’

  ‘I’ll leave you alone to say your goodbyes, then.’ said Rosie. She touched her friend quickly on the shoulder and went into the scullery, her face set in hurt, hard lines. They could hear her in there, banging pots around as if she was setting up an orchestra.

  Emily said nothing at all, and that was because she couldn’t. Her throat was tight with a band of pain. She couldn’t even look at her mother or at Jim, but hugged them quickly and went to sit down at the table, her head in her hands. Lizzie tried to follow her example, but as soon as Mrs Jarvis had put her hand on the door that led up to the street she burst out, ‘Take us with you, Ma. Don’t leave us here!’

  ‘I can’t,’ her mother said. She didn’t turn round to her. ‘Bless you. I can’t. This is best for you. God bless you, both of you.’

  She took Jim’s hand and bundled him quickly out of the door. Jim daren’t look at her. He daren’t listen to the sounds that she was making now that they were out into the day. He held his face up to the sky and let the snowflakes flutter against his cheeks to cool him. He had no idea what was going to happen to him or his mother, or whether he would ever see Emily and Lizzie again. He was more frightened than he had ever been in his life.

  4

  The Workhouse

  Jim and his mother walked for most of that day but they made very slow progress. They rested a bit near a statue of a man on a horse and after a
very short distance they had to stop again for Mrs Jarvis to scoop water from a fountain. And on they went, trudging and stopping, trudging and stopping, until Jim’s mother could go no further. She put her arms round Jim and pressed her head down on to his shoulder.

  ‘God help you, Jim,’ she said.

  It seemed to Jim that she was simply tired then of walking and that she decided to go to sleep, there on the pavement. He squatted down beside her, glad of a chance to rest, feeling dizzy and tired himself, and was aware of a worry of voices round him, like flies buzzing. Someone shook him and he opened his eyes.

  ‘Where d’you live?’ a voice said.

  Jim sat up. Already it was growing dark. There were people round him and some were kneeling by his mother, trying to lift her. ‘We used to live in a cottage,’ said Jim. ‘We had a cow and some hens.’

  ‘Where d’you live now?’ It was a different voice, a bit sharper than the last one. Jim tried to remember the name of the street where they had rented a room in Mr Spink’s big house, and couldn’t. He couldn’t understand why his mother didn’t wake up. He looked round for his bundle and saw that his wooden horse had gone. He clutched Lizzie’s old boots.

  ‘You haven’t got nowhere?’ the same voice asked.

  Jim shook his head. Someone was doing something to his mother, rubbing her hands, it looked like, dabbing her face with her shawl. ‘Get them to the workhouse,’ someone said. ‘There’s nothing we can do for her.’

  ‘I’m not taking them there,’ another voice said. ‘Prison would be better than there. Tell them we caught the boy stealing, and let them put them both in prison.’

  ‘Someone stole my horse,’ Jim heard himself saying. He couldn’t keep his voice steady. ‘I didn’t steal anything.’

  ‘Give him his horse back,’ someone else said. ‘It’s all he’s got, ain’t it? A pair of boots what’s too big for him, and a wooden horse. Give it back.’ There was a burst of laughter and some children broke away from the group and ran off.

  The next minute there was a shouting from the far end of the street, and the people who had been crouching round Jim and his mother stood up and moved away. He heard other voices and looked up to see two policemen. ‘Get up!’ one of the policeman ordered. Jim struggled to his feet. ‘And you! Get up!’ the other one said to Jim’s mother. She lay quite still.

  The first policeman waved his hand and a boy with a cart ran up. Between them they lifted Jim’s mother onto it. Jim watched, afraid.

  ‘Take ’em to the workhouse,’ the policeman said. ‘Let them die in there, if they have to.’ The boy begun to run then, head down, skidding on the snowy road, weaving the cart in and out of the carriages, and Jim ran anxiously behind. They came at last to a massive stone building with iron railings round it. Weary people slouched there, begging for food. The boy stopped the cart outside the huge iron gates and pulled the bell. Jim could hear it clanging in the distance. At last the gates were pulled open by a porter who glared out at them, his lantern held up high.

  ‘Two more for you,’ said the boy. ‘One for the infirmary, one for school.’ The porter led them into a yard. There on the steps on each side of the main door stood a man and woman, as straight and thin and waxy-faced as a pair of church candles, staring down at them. The boy held out his hand and was given a small coin, and the master and matron bent down and lifted Jim’s mother off the cart and carried her into the house. The boy pushed his cart out and the porter clanged the gates shut.

  The matron poked her head sharply round the door.

  ‘Get in!’ she told Jim, and pulled him through. ‘You come and get scrubbed and cropped.’

  The doors groaned to. They were in a long corridor, gloomy with candle shadow. In front of them a man trudged with Jim’s mother across his shoulder.

  ‘Where’s Ma going?’ Jim asked, his voice echoing against the tiles like the whimpering of a tiny, scared animal.

  ‘Where’s she going? Infirmary, that’s where she’s going. Wants feeding and medicine, no doubt, and nothing to buy it with neither.’

  ‘Can I go with her?’

  ‘Go with her? A big strong boy like you? You can not! If you’re good, Mr Sissons might let you see her tomorrow. Good, mind! Know what good means?’ The matron closed her ice-cold hand over his and bent down towards him, her black bonnet crinkling. Her teeth were as black and twisted as the railings in the yard.

  She pulled Jim along the corridor and into a huge green room, where boys sat in silence, staring at each other and at the bare walls. They all watched Jim as he was led through the room and out into another yard.

  ‘Joseph!’ the matron called, and a bent man shuffled after her. His head hung below his shoulders like a stumpy bird’s. He helped her to strip off Jim’s clothes and to sluice him down with icy water from the pump. Then Jim was pulled into rough, itchy clothes, and his hair was tugged and jagged at with a blunt pair of scissors until his scalp felt as if it had been torn into pieces. He let it all happen to him. He was too frightened to resist. All he wanted was to be with his mother.

  He was led back into a huge hall and told to join the queue of silent boys there. They stood with their heads bowed and with bowls in their hands. There were hundreds and hundreds of people in the room, all sitting at long tables, all eating in silence. The only sound was the scraping of the knives and forks and the noise of chewing and gulping. All the benches faced the same way. Mr Sissons stood on a raised box at the end of the room, watching everyone as they waited for their food.

  Jim was given a ladle of broth and a corner of bread.

  ‘I don’t want anything,’ he started to say, and was pushed along in the queue. He followed the boy in front of him and he sat on one of the benches. He glanced round him, trying to catch someone’s eye, but none of the boys looked at him. They all ate with their heads bowed down, staring into their bowls. The boy next to him sneaked his hand across and grabbed Jim’s bread. Jim ate his broth in silence.

  After the meal the man with the hanging head gave Jim a blanket and showed him a room full of shelves and long boxes where all the boys slept. He pointed to the box Jim was to sleep in. Jim climbed into it and found that he only just had enough room to turn over in it, small though he was. He tied Lizzie’s boots to his wrists in case anyone tried to steal them. The dormitory door was locked, and they lay in darkness.

  During the night an old woman prowled up and down the room with a candle in her hand, holding it up to each boy’s face as she passed. Jim could hear boys crying, stifling their sobs as she came and went, little puffs of sound that were hardly there at all. He lay with his eyes closed, the candle light burning red against his eyelids as she approached and stopped by him. He could hear her snuffly breath, and the creak of her boots. He hardly dared to breathe. He lay awake all night, thinking about Emily and Lizzie and worrying about his mother. He longed to see her again. If she was better maybe she could ask Mr Sissons to let them go.

  As soon as it was morning the door was unlocked. Old Marion’s place was taken by the bent man. He shouted at the boys to queue up in the yard for their wash.

  ‘I’ve already broken the ice for you,’ he told them. ‘So no thinking you can dodge it.’

  Jim ran after him. The man was so stooped that the top half of his body was curved down like a walking stick, and when Jim spoke to him he swung his head round to look at the boy’s feet.

  ‘Please, sir …’ Jim said.

  ‘I’m not sir,’ the man said. ‘I’m only doing my turn, like the rest of them. I’m only Joseph, not sir.’ He swung his head away from Jim’s feet and spat on the floor. ‘I hate sir, same as you.’

  ‘Please, Joseph, tell me where the infirmary is.’

  ‘Why should I tell you that?’ Joseph asked, his eyes fixed on Jim’s feet again.

  ‘Because my ma’s there, and I’ve been good,’ Jim said. ‘Mrs Sissons said if I was good I could go and see Ma in the infirmary today.’

  ‘So you was the boy as came
in last night, and your ma was brought on a cart?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jim. ‘Please tell me where the infirmary is.’

  Joseph made a little chewing noise. ‘Well, it’s upstairs,’ he said at last. He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand and tilted his head sideways, squinting round at Jim. ‘Only the message I was given by Mrs Sissons is, don’t bother taking the boy up there, because his ma …’ He stopped and shook his head and chewed again. ‘Your ma’s dead, son.’

  5

  Behind Bars

  Jim forced his fists deep in his pockets and turned his face away. There were boys all round him, shuffling out to the cold yard, and they blurred into smudges of grey. He screwed up his eyes against the terrible blinding white of the sky. He wouldn’t cry here. His lungs were bursting and he thought he would never be able to gasp for air again, but he couldn’t cry here. The only person he wanted to be with was Rosie. She would know what to do. She would tell Emily and Lizzie. But there was no chance of being with Rosie.

  ‘I want to go home,’ he said.

  Joseph swung his head and spat. ‘Home?’ he said. ‘What d’you mean, home? What’s this, if it ain’t home?’

  So, Jim thought, this is my home now, this huge building with iron bars at the window and iron railings outside. His parents must be Mr and Mrs Sissons, as thin and waxy-pale as candles. And if they were his parents then his brothers and sisters were the shambling, skinny boys who slept and sobbed in the same room as him, and the scrawny girls who seemed to have forgotten how to smile.

  ‘Can’t I see her, all the same?’

  Joseph shook his head. ‘She was took into the dead-house in the night, and put on the paupers’ cart before light, son. Speedy despatch, paupers get. No money for bells nor nothing like that, eh?’

  Jim went dumbly from room to room as he was told, from the sleeping-boxes to the yard, the refectory, the yard, and back to his box … It was like a slow dance, and the steps were always the same, repeated day after day after day.